The Makers of Modern Rome, in Four Books

by Mrs. Oliphant

These last, and especially the town of Salerno, one of the cities la piu bella e piu deliziosa of Italy, says old Muratori, had been recently taken by Guiscard from their Prince Gisolfo, a protégé and friend of the Pope, who excepts them in the same cautious manner from the sanction given to Robert's other conquests. Gregory's act of investiture is altogether a very cautious document:

I Gregory, Pope, invest you Duke Robert, with all the lands given you by my predecessors of holy memory, Nicolas and Alexander. As for the lands of Salerno, Amalfi and a portion of the March of Fermo, held by you unjustly, I suffer it patiently for the present, having confidence in God and in your honesty, and that you will conduct yourself in future for the honour of God and St. Peter in such a manner as becomes you, and as I may tolerate, without risking your soul or mine.

It is not likely that Gregory hoped so much from Guiscard's probity as that he would give up that citta deliziosa, won by his bow and his spear. Nor was he then aware how his own name and all its associations would remain in Salerno, its chief distinction throughout all the ages to come.

The life of Gregory had never been one of peace or tranquillity. He had been a fighting man all his days, but during a great part of them a successful one: the years which remained to him, however, were one long course of agitations, of turmoil, and of revolution. In 1081 Henry, scarcely successful by arms, but confident in the great discouragement of the rival party through the death of Rudolf, crossed the Alps again, and after defeating Matilda, ravaging her duchy and driving her to the shelter of Canossa, marched upon Rome. Guibert of Ravenna, the Anti-Pope, accompanied him with many bishops and priests of his party. On his first appearance before Rome, the energy of Gregory, and his expectation of some such event, had for once inspired the city to resistance, so that the royal army got no further than the "fields of Nero," outside the walls of the Leonine city to the north of St. Peter's, by which side they had approached Rome. Henry had himself crowned emperor by his anti-pope in his tent, an act performed by the advice of his schismatic bishops, and to the great wonder, excitement, and interest of the surrounding people, overawed by that great title which he had not as yet ventured to assume. This futile coronation was indeed an act with which he amused himself periodically during the following years from time to time. But the heats of summer and the fever of Rome soon drove the invaders back. In 1082 Henry returned to the attack, but still in vain. In 1083 he was more successful, and seized that portion of Rome called the Leonine city, which included St. Peter's and the tombs of the Apostles, the great shrine which gave sanctity to the whole. The Pope, up to this time free, though continually threatened by his enemies, and still carrying on as best he could the universal affairs of the Church, was now forced to retire to St. Angelo. He was at this moment without defender or champion on any side. The brave Matilda, ever faithful, was shut up in impregnable Canossa. Guiscard, after having secured all that he wanted from Gregory, had gone off upon his own concerns, and was now struggling to make for himself a footing in Greece, indifferent to the Pope's danger. The Romans, after the brief interval of inspiration which gave them courage to make a stand for the Pope and the integrity of their city, had fallen back into their usual weakness, dazzled by Henry's title of Emperor, and cowed by the presence of his Germans at their gates. They had never had any spirit of resistance, and it was scarcely to be expected of a corrupt and fickle population, accustomed for ages to be the toys of circumstance, that they should begin a nobler career now. And there the Pope remained, shut up in that lonely stronghold, overlooking the noisy and busy streets which overflowed with foreign soldiers and the noise of arms, while in the Church of St. Peter close by, Guibert the mock Pope assembled a mock council to absolve the new Emperor from all the anathemas that had followed one another upon his head.

There was much discussion and debate in that strange assembly, in which every second man at least must have had in his secret heart a sense of sacrilege, over this subject. They did not apparently deny the legal weight of these anathemas, which they recognised as the root and origin of all the misfortunes that had followed; but they maintained a feeble contention that the proceedings of Gregory had been irregular, seeing that Henry had never had the opportunity of defending himself. Another of the pretensions attributed to the Roman Church by her enemies, and this time with truth, as it has indeed become part of her code—was, as appears, set up on this occasion for the first time, and by the schismatics. Gregory had forbidden the people to accept the sacraments from the hands of vicious or simoniacal priests. Guibert, called Clement III., and his fictitious council declared with many learned quotations that the sacraments in themselves were all in all, and the administrators nothing; and that though given by a drunkard, an adulterer, or a murderer, the rites of the Church were equally effectual. It was however still more strange that in this assembly, made up of schismatics, many of them guilty of these very practices, a timid remonstrance should have been made against the very sins which had separated them from the rest of the Church and which Gregory had spent his life in combating. The Pope had not been successful either in abolishing simony or in maintaining celibacy and continence among the clergy, but he had roused a universal public opinion, a sentiment stronger than himself, which found a place even in the mind of his antagonist and rival in arms.

Thus the usurper timidly attacked with arguments either insignificant or morally dangerous the acts of the Pope—yet timidly echoed his doctrine: with the air throughout all of a pretender alarmed by the mere vicinity of an unfortunate but rightful monarch. Guibert had been bold enough before; he had the air now of a furtive intruder trembling lest in every chance sound he might hear the step of the true master returning to his desecrated house.

The next event in this curious struggle is more extraordinary still. Henry himself, it is evident, must have been struck with the feeble character of this unauthorised assembly, notwithstanding that the new Pope was of his own making and the council held under his auspices; or perhaps he hoped to gain something by an appearance of candour and impartiality though so late in the day. At all events he proposed, immediately after the close of the fictitious council, to the citizens and officials who still held the other portions of the city, in the name of Gregory—to withdraw his troops, to leave all roads to Rome free, and to submit his cause to another council presided over by Gregory and to which, as in ordinary cases, all the higher ranks of the clergy should be invited. It is impossible to conceive a more extraordinary contradiction of all that had gone before. The proposal, however, strange as it seems, was accepted and carried out. In November, 1083, this assembly was called together. Henry withdrew with his army towards Lombardy, the peaceful roads were all reopened, and bishops and abbots from all parts of Christendom hastened, no doubt trembling, yet excited, to Rome. Henry, notwithstanding his liberality of kind offers, exercised a considerable supervision over these travellers, for we hear that he stopped the deputies whom the German princes had sent to represent them, and also many distinguished prelates, two of whom had been specially attached to his mother Agnes, along with one of the legates of the Pope. The attempt to pack the assembly, or at least to weed it of its most remarkable members in this way was not, however, successful, and a large number of ecclesiastics were got together notwithstanding all the perils of the journey.

The meeting was a melancholy one, overshadowed by the hopelessness of a position in which all the right was on one side and all the power on the other. After three days' deliberation, which came to nothing, the Pope addressed—it was for the last time in Rome—his faithful counsellors. "He spoke with the tongue of an angel rather than of a man," bidding them to be firm and patient, to hold fast to the faith, and to quit themselves like men, however dark might be the days on which they had fallen. The entire convocation broke forth into tears as the old man concluded.

But Gregory would not be moved to any clemency towards his persecutor. He yielded so far as not to repeat his anathema against him, excommunicating only those who by force or stratagem had turned back and detained any who were on their way to the Council. But he would not consent to crown Henry as emperor, which—notwithstanding his previous coronation in his tent by Guibert, and a still earlier one, it is said, at Brixen immediately after the appointment of the anti-pope—was what the rebellious monarch still desired; nor would he yield to the apparent compulsion of circumstances and make peace, without repentance on the part of Henry. No circumstances could coerce such a man. The fruitless council lasted but three days, and separated without making any change in the situation. The Romans, roused again perhaps by the brief snatch of freedom they had thus seemed to have, rose against Henry's garrison and regained possession of the Leonine city which he had held: and thus every particular of the struggle was begun and repeated over again.

This extraordinary attempt, after all that had happened—after the council in which Henry had deposed Gregory, the council in St. Peter's itself, held by the anti-pope, and all the abuse he had poured upon "the monk Hildebrand," as he had again and again styled the Pope—by permitting an assembly in which the insulted pontiff should be restored to all his authority and honours, to move Gregory to accept and crown him, is one of the most wonderful things in history. But the attempt was the last he ever made, as it was the most futile. After the one flash of energy with which Rome renewed the struggle, and another period of renewed attacks and withdrawals, Henry became master of the city, though never of the castle of St. Angelo where Gregory sat indomitable, relaxing not a jot of his determination and strong as ever in his refusal to withdraw, unless after full repentance, his curse from Henry. Various castles and fortified places continued to be held in the name of the Pope, both within and without the walls of the city: which fact throws a curious light upon its existing aspect: but these remnants of defence had little power to restrain the conqueror and his great army.