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CHAP. V

A. D. 1002-1125

tiations with the Romans

Divided between three fortified camps, Rome thus became once more the battlefield of the three parties which had so often convulsed it with their hostilities. Negotiations were, Henry's nego- however, soon undertaken by representatives of the Romans, the Pope, and King Henry, resulting in a treaty in which the Pope promised to call a synod in the following November; while Henry took an oath not to hinder the free assembling of the bishops who were to decide the questions in dispute. In a secret article, the Romans bound themselves, within a fixed period, to procure the imperial crown from Gregory, if he should still be alive and at Rome; if not, to choose another pope who would confer the honor.

Having thus entrapped the Romans, Henry now withdrew from Rome with the greater part of his army, leaving only a small guard to secure his return when the stipulated period had elapsed.

In due time Gregory convoked the promised synod; but he naturally invited only those bishops whom he had not previously placed under the ban. The King, foreseeing that he would be condemned by an assembly composed exclusively of the Pope's adherents, now violated his oath, and prevented the journey of the bishops to Rome. When, therefore, the few bishops who were able to attend met in November, Gregory, deeply aroused, pronounced excommunication upon all who had hindered the free movements of his bishops, but no further action was taken.

Returning to Rome, to enforce the secret promise of the Romans, Henry found them exasperated with his perfidy. He had, however, the advantage of holding in his power the hostages whom they had permitted him to retain as a pledge of their good faith, and demanded the execution of their agreement. After a vain endeavor to evade their contract, by declaring that they had only promised the conferring of the crown, but without the papal consecration, which they knew would be refused, the Romans, fearing another siege, wavering in their loyalty to the Pope, and induced by the royal largesses of gold, invited Henry to enter the city, raise

his antipope, Clement III, to the Papacy, and receive his coronation.

CHAP. V

A. D. 1002-1125

tion and tri

umph of

Gregory VII was sorely crushed by the defection of the Romans, but bravely resolved to hold out to the bitter end. The coronaThe King entered the city on March 21, 1084, while Gregory retreated once more to the strongly fortified Castle of St. Henry IV Angelo, and his friends to other strongholds on the Palatine, Mount Coelius, the island of the Tiber, and the Capitol. A parliament of the Romans was convoked, and Gregory was invited to come forth from his retreat, with the declaration that, if he did not comply, Clement III would be recognized as pope. Gregory steadfastly held his ground, and Clement III was installed in the Lateran palace. On Easter Sunday, March 31, 1084, after some resistance by the adherents of Gregory, Henry was crowned by Clement III in St. Peter's Church. While the new emperor attempted to restore order in the city, the new pope, under his protection, surrounded himself with a new college of cardinals and named new papal officers. The German king had not only obtained the imperial crown against the opposition of the Pope, he had created and installed a new head of the Church Universal who was obedient to his will.

The

But the work of force was not yet complete. next task was to dislodge the adherents of Gregory from their strongholds. The Septizonium of Severus had been converted into a fortress by the monks, and Rusticus, a nephew of Gregory VII, held possession with a band of the faithful; but its walls were pierced and its splendid columns overthrown with battering machines, leaving this magnificent monument of antiquity in ruins. The bridges held by the followers of Gregory were soon captured; and the Capitol," where the numerous and powerful family of the Corsi had their palaces, was stormed, after which their houses were demolished and burned.

Only the great mausoleum where Gregory had taken refuge The deliverwith his closest friends now remained to dispute Henry's ance of Gregmastery of Rome. Here, defiant as a lion in his lair, the

ory VII

CHAP. V

A. D.

1002-1125

The death of
Gregory VII

resolute pontiff sent up his prayers for deliverance. A hurrying monk bore to Robert Guiscard a vigorous appeal to come at once to the Pope's rescue. No argument was necessary, for the triumph of Henry meant the attempt to expel the Normans from Italy. Early in May, at the head of six thousand horsemen and thirty thousand foot soldiers, Guiscard approached Rome, and his march was soon known by both Pope and Emperor. Henry quailed before the approaching storm. Calling a parliament of the Romans, he explained that important business required his attention in Lombardy, exhorted the city to resistance, promised an early return, and, accompanied by Clement III, on May 21, abandoning Rome to its fate, marched northward to Germany.

Three days later the Norman army, with a large contingent of Saracens, encamped before the walls of Rome, and soon entered the city. Resistance was offered, but it was unavailing. Gregory VII, emerging from his prison fortress to embrace his deliverer, beheld the city plunged in a baptism of blood and devastation. A last effort of the imperial party only maddened the invaders and provoked their rapine. Abandoned by the Emperor, Rome was now rifled by the Normans and Saracens. If Gregory, as reported by certain historians, did by his interposition save the city from complete destruction, he did not preserve it from a terrible retribution of fire and sword.

The calamity which had befallen Rome involved the exile of Gregory VII, now hated by the Romans as the cause of | their misfortunes, and he followed his liberator to Salerno. There, on May 25, 1085, he ended his career, which he summed up in the words, "I have always loved justice and hated iniquity, therefore I die in exile." Personally, a humble-minded and self-sacrificing man, the cause to which he had consecrated his existence and the conception he entertained of his high office filled him with a spirit of more than imperial arrogance; but it was not his personal egoism that spoke in his large pretensions for the Papacy; it was to him the majesty of divine law, uttered in the name of

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righteousness by the lips of Heaven's high priest. By virtue of his absolute devotion to a great cause, which he identified with the reformation of human society, not less than by his heroic character, he will always stand out as one of the great figures of history.

CHAP. V

A. D. 1002-1125

of Gregory's

But the attention of Gregory was not confined to his rela-, The extent sof tions with Henry, whom he treated merely as a rebellious. pretensions German king. He claimed in distinct terms all Christian countries as the rightful possessions of St. Peter. He was in frequent correspondence with all the monarchs of Europe, and his legates were sent wherever the interests of the Papacy seemed to demand their presence. The Count of Roncy, in Spain, having recognized his vassalage to the Pope, in April, 1073, Gregory wrote to the nobles who went to seek their fortunes there, that Spain had always belonged to St. Peter, and forbade them to make conquests from the Arabs without recognizing the rights of the Holy See.

In France, the conduct of Philip I, who insisted upon his rights of investiture, gave great anxiety to Gregory, who denounced him as a "rapacious wolf," and threatened him with excommunication. Philip, on his side, accused the Pope of wishing to strip him of his bishoprics, which he regarded as a part of his royal property.

In England, William the Conqueror had been strongly supported by Hildebrand at the time of the conquest; and, having become pope, Gregory demanded, not merely as a token of gratitude, but in the name of St. Peter, an act of solemn submission to the Apostolic See. William gladly accepted alliance with the Papacy, and paid the “Peter's pence" assessed upon his kingdom, but steadily declined to become a formal vassal of the Pope.

In Eastern Europe, Gregory made similar demands, and with more success. In 1074, he laid claim to Hungary, supporting his position by the earlier vassalage of St. Stephen. Dalmatia was detached from its dependence upon the Greek Empire by the efforts of his legates, and the Croatian king, Zvonimir, in 1076, vowed submission to the Pope. In Poland,

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CHAP. V

A. D. 1002-1125

The breadth of Gregory's policy

The fall of
Henry IV

and even in Russia, he made his authority felt, excommunicating the Polish king, Boleslav II, for the murder of a bishop, and granting to Isiaslav, pretender to the throne of Kiev, the right to rule in the name of St. Peter.

The plans of Gregory were as broad as his pretensions. As early as 1074, he not only contemplated the rescue of Constantinople from the assaults of the Saracens, which Sylvester II had once suggested, but announced to Henry IV, before his rupture with him, that he was ready to aid the Greeks in attempting to deliver the Holy Sepulchre from the hands of the Infidel,- a project soon to take practical shape in the Crusades and to become an important element of papal policy. Although these premonitions of world-wide enterprise may have been, as some historians have considered them, mere fugitive ideas, they display the comprehensive character of Gregory's thought. His wish to effect a reconciliation with the Eastern Empire, and to sustain it in its struggle with the Saracens, reveals a breadth of statesmanship possessed by no contemporary; and if this idea could, at that time, have been carried into execution, it would have deeply affected the history of the world.

Although the life of Gregory VII ended in exile and disaster, Henry was not long triumphant. While his antipopes had little influence, the keen statesmanship of Pope Urban II, pursuing the policy of Gregory, slowly wove about the unhappy emperor the web of ultimate defeat. Constantly unsettled in Germany by the influence of the papal legates, in Italy his authority was rendered wholly ineffectual. By promoting a marriage between the Countess Matilda and the young son of Henry's most powerful enemy, Welf, Duke of Bavaria, Urban struck an effective blow at the imperial prestige.

Forced by this move to make a campaign in Italy when all his energies were needed in Germany, Henry, although at first successful in the field, was defeated at Canossa, the scene of his former humiliation, and driven across the

Po by the army of the Countess, while a strong Welf oppo

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