Leo died in 1055, and Hildebrand was sent to ask Henry III. to choose a successor. Henry in turn died in 1056, and, as the Roman See was again vacant in the following year and the Romans were emboldened to choose their own Pope, Hildebrand was sent to conciliate the Empress Agnes. We must not exaggerate his influence at this time, but undoubtedly the new Pope, Stephen X., and his fanatical Cardinal, Peter Damiani—both monks of the reforming school,—regarded him as one of their most ardent lieutenants. Indeed from that time we trace the adoption at Rome of a policy which is clearly due to Hildebrand. The Papacy began to look to the Normans, who had conquered southern Italy, to save it from the overlordship of the German court, and to wage a stern war against simony and clerical incontinence. Hildebrand, who had a strange fascination for pious women, easily won the Empress Agnes, but she was surrounded or controlled by simoniacal prelates and nobles. Rome must once more change its suzerain, or its sword-bearer.
In the campaign for enforcing celibacy on the clergy the monastic reforming school provided fresh allies. There was in the city of Milan a young priest named Anselm of Baggio, who had studied under Lanfranc at Bec. This enthusiast for the new ideas began a notable campaign against clerical marriage, and, when his archbishop genially transferred him to the remote bishopric of Lucca, he left his gospel in charge of two other enthusiasts named Ariald and Landulph. It must be recollected that clerics did not at that time take any vow of chastity, and there were only a few disciplinary decrees of earlier Popes to curtail their liberty. Most of the priests of every country were legally married, though in some places the law of celibacy was enforced and they simply had mistresses. Against both wives and mistresses a furious campaign was now directed by the Patarenes.[201] The vilest names were showered on the unhappy wives and children: the priests, who said that they would rather desert their orders than their wives, were torn from the altars: the most lamentable excesses in the cause of virtue were committed in the churches. Hildebrand, and afterwards Damiani, were sent to enforce what is described as the "pacifying policy" of Rome, and we read that Milan approached the verge of civil war.
While Hildebrand was still inflaming the enthusiasts of the north, Stephen X. died, and the party opposed to the Puritans at Rome at once elected a Pope of their own school. The young subdeacon now plainly showed his character and masterfulness. He persuaded the virtuous archbishop of Florence to accept the title of Nicholas II., begged a small army from the Duke of Tuscany, entered Rome at the head of his soldiers, and swept "Benedict X." and his supporters out of the city. The cause of virtue was to be sustained, at whatever cost: the key-note of his life was sounded. We may also confidently see the action of Hildebrand in a very important decision of a Lateran synod held under Nicholas that year (1059). In future the choice of a Pope was to be confined to the cardinal-bishops, who would submit their decision to the cardinal-priests and deacons.[202] The rest of the clergy and the people were merely to signify their assent by acclamation, and the decree contains a vague expression of respect for "the rights of the Emperor." A sonorous anathema was laid on any who departed from this decree; and I may add at once that Hildebrand, who was probably its author, entirely ignored it in making the next Pope and in his own election. It was the first phase in the struggle with the Empire. The German court was distracted by the intrigues of rival prelates to secure the control of the Empress and her son, while the Papacy now had the support of the Norman Richard of Capua (whom Hildebrand induced to swear fealty to the Papacy), the troops of Tuscany, and the staves of the Patarenes. The German court replied by refusing to acknowledge Nicholas II.
Hildebrand rose to the rank of deacon, then of archdeacon: the straightest path to the Papacy. Had he willed, he could have become Pope in 1061, when Nicholas died, but the time was not ripe for his colossal design. The anti-Puritans now sought alliance with the German court against him, but he summoned a band of Normans and, with the aid of their spears, put Anselm of Lucca on the Papal throne: completely ignoring the decree of 1059. The anti-Puritans of Rome and Lombardy now united with the Imperialists, and Bishop Cadalus of Parma was made Anti-Pope. The war of words which followed was disdainfully left by Hildebrand to Damiani, who, in a page of almost indescribable invective, assures us that Cadalus was "the stench of the globe, the filth of the age, the shame of the universe," and that his episcopal supporters were better judges of pretty faces than of Papal candidates. The Imperialist Bishop Benzo of Albi, a genial Epicure who united an equal power of invective with a more polished culture, retorted heavily on the "vagabond monks" (Damiani and Hildebrand). At last it came to blows, and Hildebrand acted. Cadalus descended on Rome with German and Lombard troops: Hildebrand summoned the Normans, and a fierce battle was waged for the tiara under the very shadow of St. Peter's. Then Godfrey of Tuscany appeared on the scene with his army, and the decision was remitted to a synod at Augsburg. Hildebrand was content, for a revolution had occurred at the German court, and Damiani was sent to win the verdict at Augsburg by the ingenious expedient of being himself counsel for both sides.
The way was now rapidly prepared for the Pontificate of Hildebrand. Godfrey of Tuscany died, and his pious widow Beatrice and still more impressionable daughter Mathilda were prepared to put their last soldier at his disposal. The Patarenes were reinforced by the knight Herlembald (whose lady-love had been seduced by a priest), and were dragging the married priests from their churches and destroying their homes in many parts of north Italy. At Florence the monks of Vallombrosa lent their fiery aid, even against the troops, and one of their number passed unscathed through the ordeal of fire before an immense concourse of people. In the south Robert Guiscard was expelling the last remnants of the Saracens and founding a powerful Norman kingdom. All these forces marched under banners blessed and presented by the Pope. One banner advanced by the side of the ferocious Herlembald: one shone at the head of the Norman troops in Calabria: one was seen in the ranks of William of Normandy when he made his successful raid upon England.[203]
Alexander closed his short and earnest Pontificate on April 21, 1073. Hildebrand, in his capacity of archdeacon, took stringent measures for the preservation of order, or the coercion of the Imperialist faction; yet, when the voice of the people demanded that he should be Pope, his troops made no effort to secure an election according to the decree of 1059. He was conducting the funeral service over the remains of Alexander, on April 22d, when the cry, "Hildebrand bishop," was raised. He protested, but Cardinal Hugh Candidus, one of the most versatile clerical politicians of the time and afterwards the Pope's deadly enemy, stood forth and insisted that the cry was just. Hildebrand was seized and conducted, almost carried, to the church of St. Peter in Chains, where he was enthroned, as he afterwards wrote to Abbot Didier,[204] by "popular tumult." It is not certain, but is entirely probable, that he sought the imperial ratification. We may conclude that he did this, since, when he was consecrated on June 30th, the Empress Agnes and the imperial representative in Italy were present.
In the letters which Gregory issued to his friends throughout Europe immediately after his election he observes that the strain and anxiety have made him ill. We can well believe that when the hour arrived for him to mount the throne of Peter, instead of standing behind it, he felt a grave foreboding. No man had ever yet ascended that throne with so portentous an idea of its prestige and responsibility, and no Pope had ever confronted a more disordered Christendom. There had been good men at the Lateran for thirty years, yet in the eyes of Hildebrand they must have seemed idle, timid, and ineffective. A Pope must wear out his body and lay down his life in the struggle with triumphant evil: must smite king or prelate or peasant without a moment's hesitation: must use every weapon that the times afforded—excommunication or imprecation, the spear of the Norman or the sword of the Dane, the staff of the ignorant fanatic or the tender devotion of woman. "The Blessed Peter on earth," as Hildebrand called himself, had a right to implicit obedience from every man on earth, on temporal no less than on spiritual matters. Kings were of less consequence than the meanest priests. If kings and dukes resisted his grand plan of making the whole of Christendom "pure and obedient," why not make their kingdoms and duchies fiefs of the Holy See, to be bestowed on virtuous men? Why not make Europe the United States of the Church, governed despotically by the one man on earth who was "inspired by God"? If anathemas failed, there were swords enough in Europe to carry out his plan. That, literally, was the vision which filled the feverish imagination of Gregory VII. when he looked down from his throne over the world.
It was the dream of a soldier-monk, unchecked by understanding of men or accurate knowledge of history. Such reformers as Cardinal Damiani and Abbot Didier resented Gregory's aims and procedure: they were most appreciated by women like the Countess Mathilda. Hildebrand is said to have been a learned man, but we have cause to take with reserve mediæval compliments of this kind. He knew the Bible well, and was steeped in the congenial atmosphere of the Old Testament. He knew Church-history and law well: as they were told at the Lateran. Döllinger has shown that his principal lieutenants in the work of reform—Bishop Anselm of Lucca (a second Anselm), Bishop Bonitho, and Cardinal Deusdedit—were unscrupulous in their use of historical and canonical documents, and that Gregory relied on these as well as on the older forgeries.[205] I am, however, chiefly concerned with the limitations of his knowledge, and will observe only that his letters, written in robust and inelegant Latin, give no indication of culture beyond this close acquaintance with very dubious history and law. The Arab civilization had by this time enkindled some intellectual life in Europe: men were not far from the age of Abélard. But in this new speculative life Gregory had no share. If we find him, with apparent liberality, acquitting Bérenger in 1049 and 1079, we must ascribe it rather to incapacity and disinclination for speculative matters.
This restriction and inaccuracy of culture strengthened Gregory in his peculiar ideal, and it was much the same with his poor judgment of character, which brought many a disaster on him. Probably men like Hildebrand and Damiani enjoyed a physical debility in regard to sex-life, and sincerely failed to realize that the abolition of clerical marriage would inevitably lead to worse evils. The ideal they worked for—the establishment of a spiritual army dead to every human affection, and therefore incorruptible—was magnificent but impossible. Similarly, in the campaign against simony, Gregory never realized the roots of the evil. Bishops were politicians, the supporters or thwarters of the counsels of princes; intellectual culture was, in fact, almost confined to bishops and abbots, and their advice was (apart from their wealth, their troops, and their feudal duties) needed as much as that of unlettered soldiers. Hence princes had a real and deep interest in their appointment. The intrigue for political power at that very time of the great prelates of Germany was notorious. If Gregory had at least confined his strictures to simony in the strict sense, he might have had some prospect of success, for his cause was obviously just. But by his attack on "investiture"[206] he would take away from princes the control of some of their most powerful, and often most mischievous, vassals.