The truce of God: A tale of the eleventh century

by George H. Miles

"But is it not almost folly to trust the royal hypocrite to whom Suabia pays so heavy a tribute? I wish that when his infant majesty fell in the Rhine, there had been no Count Ecbert nigh to rescue him!"

"Is it not rather an exalted charity, of which you have no conception, and a Christian forgiveness which puts to shame your last ungenerous wish?"

"I can have no sympathy or pity for him who has loaded with insult a princess alike distinguished for beauty and virtue."

"You mean the queen, his wife. But tell me, when he endeavored to procure a divorce from Bertha, who prevented the criminal separation? Was it the boasted chivalry of Suabia? No! Peter Damian, the Pope's legate, alone opposed the angry monarch, and told him, in the presence of all his courtiers, that 'his designs were disgraceful to a king—still more disgraceful to a Christian; that he should blush to commit a crime he would punish in another; and that, unless he renounced his iniquitous project, he would incur the denunciation of the Church and the severity of the holy canons.' The result was the reconcilement of Henry with Bertha, in Saxony. And though Alexander was Pope, Peter received his instructions from Hildebrand. But there is a wide difference between your hostility to Henry of Austria and the resistance of Gregory VII to his encroachments: your motives all flow from human considerations, and seek a human revenge; his, on the contrary, proceed from the knowledge of his duty, to God, and breathe forgiveness: you seek the king's destruction and your own aggrandizement—Gregory, the king's welfare, and the independence and prosperity of the Christian Church."

We will no longer continue a conversation which, to be intelligible to all, would require a more intimate acquaintance with the history of the times than can be obtained from the books in free circulation among us. Though Gregory VII has been reproached by all Protestants, and by some Catholics, with an undue assumption of temporal power, and an unnecessary severity against Henry IV of Austria, it is certain that, in his own day, he was charged by many of his own friends, particularly, in Saxony and Suabia, with too tender a regard for a monarch who violated his most solemn engagements the moment he fancied he could do so with impunity, and whose court, already openly profligate, threatened to present the appearance of an Eastern seraglio. A hasty glance at the prominent facts of the dispute will leave us in doubt whether to admire most the dignified and Christian forbearance of the Pope while a hope of saving his adversary remained, or the unwavering resolution he displayed, even to death in exile, when convinced that mercy to the king would be injustice to God.

No sooner had Gregory assumed the tiara, than he addressed letters to different persons, in which he assured them of his earnest desire to unite with Henry in upholding the honor of the Church and the imperial dignity; to accomplish which he would embrace the first opportunity of sending legates to Henry, to acquaint the king with his views. But, while proferring his love, he declared that, if Henry should venture to offer God insult instead of honor, he would not fail in his duty to the Divine Head of the Church through fear of offending man. So, in a letter to Rodolph, Duke of Suabia, who at that time was known to be secretly hostile to the king, Gregory declared that he entertained no ill feeling whatever for Henry, but simply desired to do his duty.

There were two evils which Gregory was resolved to extirpate: lay investitures, and the incontinence of the clergy. When the power of appointing to benefices was usurped by the civil power, the emperor was sure to fill the highest places in his gift with creatures of his own. The inevitable result of this was to create two classes of prelates—one of lay, the other of ecclesial investiture. Its ultimate effect was to render the Church completely depend upon the State, and to change and corrupt its very source with the varying vices of libertine despots. It was found (and how could it be otherwise?) that the protégés of the emperor studied only how to please him; and that, in serving the State and the prince, they became indifferent to the Church. Selected to serve a particular purpose, or chosen in consideration of a valuable donation, the lay nominee had been sure to fulfil the object for which he was elevated, or to indulge the avarice or ambition which had craved the appointment. It was in attempting to remedy this fatal innovation that Gregory found himself repeatedly thwarted by Henry; and yet he had been censured by those who lament the worldliness of a portion of the medieval clergy, for striking at the root of the evil.

After repeated provocation, the arm of the Pope is uplifted to strike; but Henry, awed by his menaces, and by an insurrection in Saxony, hastens to avert the blow by an unreserved submission and the fairest promises. He confesses, not only to have meddled in ecclesiastical matters, but to have unjustly stripped churches of their pastors—to have sold them to unworthy subjects guilty of simony, whose very ordination was questionable—and implores the Pope to begin the reform with the Cathedral of Milan, which is in schism by his fault.

Gregory pardons him; and, in 1074, holds his first council at Rome against simony and the incontinence of the clergy. It was in this year that Henry, already pressed by the Saxons and Thuringians, found himself threatened by Salomon, King of Hungary. In this emergency, he has recourse to Gregory, who, by an eloquent letter, calms the indignant Hungarian.

With the year following, the campaign against Saxony begins. This brave but turbulent people had risen against the towns in possession of Henry, and burned the magnificent Cathedral at Hartzburg. Here again the Pope secured to the king the powerful assistance of Rodolph, Duke of Suabia, in conjunction with whom the royal army obtains a decisive victory at Hohenburg. But once in security and crowned with success, the graceless monarch forgets his submission, and exclaims, "It does not befit a hero, who has vanquished a warlike people, struggling in defence of what they hold most sacred, to bow humbly down before a priest, whose only weapon is his tongue!" Faithless to his recorded vow in the hour of danger, he nominates Henry, canon of Verdun, to fill the see vacated by the Bishop of Liège; and, soon after, calls to the see of Milan, Theobald, his own chaplain, in place of the murdered Herlembaud. Thus repeatedly deceived, Gregory must strike at last, or sacrifice the independence of the Church of God to human weakness.