Had Henry stood his ground as he might, for he would have had ample support from his people, it would have been a gain of centuries for Europe.. But the ban of excommunication, with its attendant horrors here, and still worse hereafter—it was more than he could bear. Affrighted, trembling, penitent, he crossed the Alps in dead of winter, crept to the castle of Canossa, near Parma, where Hildebrand had taken refuge; and there this successor to Charlemagne, this ruler of all Christendom, standing barefoot and clad in sackcloth shirt, humbly begged admittance. The Pope's triumph was complete. So he let him shiver for three days in cold and rain before he opened the gates and gave him forgiveness and the kiss of peace.
The Church had never scored so tremendous a victory. She was supreme over every earthly authority, and the hands on the face of time were set back for centuries. Let Guelph and Ghibelline storm and struggle as they might, there was no question of supremacy now between temporal and spiritual heads. All the lines of power, all the threads of human destiny led to Rome, and were found at last in the papal hand.
In the three centuries of its existence the empire had been ruled first by Frank, and then by Saxon emperors. But the eventful visit to Canossa led to a new dynasty, the Swabian. When that humiliated monarch, Henry IV., crossed the Alps in midwinter, when Europe's mightiest prince stood woolen-frocked and barefoot upon the snow for three days, humbly entreating forgiveness, there was one knight who attended him with marked fidelity. This was Frederick of Büren, and verily he had his reward! The Emperor created him Duke of Swabia, and bestowed upon him his daughter Agnes as his wife.
The Duke of Swabia then built himself a castle on a high plateau of land called Hohenstaufen. But this fortunate duke had also another great estate called Waiblingen. So he was Frederick of Hohenstaufen, and of Waiblingen as well. The last name had a very conspicuous destiny awaiting it.
The dukes of Bavaria had been a great power in Germany, ever since that first stormy Welf, who tried to put down the new-fangled system of land-tenure which we know as feudalism!
These Welfs were evidently not progressive; they seem in fact to have been the Tories of ancient Germany. And when Conrad, grandson of Frederick, the first Hohenstaufen, was elected King of Germany, there was a very stormy time. The people divided into two factions: the adherents of the new dynasty and the Emperor in the one, and the malcontents who were led by Welf, Duke of Bavaria, in the other. As hostility to the Emperor meant friendship with the Pope, this party of the Welfs was also that of the papal faction.
The tongue of the Italian could not master the two words Welf and Waiblingen; which, as they became fastened upon the two political factions in Italy, were changed to Guelph and Ghibelline.
The Waiblingen family long ago disappeared. But the ancient name of Welf is represented to-day by the gracious Queen of England.
The party of the Guelphs in Germany was that of disaffected dukes and nobles, who from personal or other reasons desired to embarrass the Emperor, even to the extent of an alliance with his enemy the Pope.
The Ghibellines expressed the anti-papal sentiment of the people, among whom there was a growing dread and hatred of Romish power, and the time was approaching when Teutonic patriotism would mean resistance to Italian priestcraft.