DIFFERENT IMPRESSIONS MADE BY THE BAN.

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wish to disturb thereby the relation subsisting between the emperor and his subjects. He had rendered to God the things that are God's, and to Cesar the things that were Cesar's. Even towards Valentinian the Second and his mother Justina, Ambrose had never, in all the disputes with them, taken any such liberties. His reasoning is not so strong with regard to the other example, of pope Zacharias. He says, the pope did not by any means depose Childeric, nor absolve his subjects from their oath of allegiance to him; for Childeric merely bore the name of king, without possessing the kingly power. Of the latter, therefore, he did not need to be deprived.

Yet the ban pronounced by the pope produced a great effect in Germany, which was increased by the prevailing dissatisfaction with Henry's government. The bishop Udo of Triers, after his return from Rome, avoided all intercourse with the spiritual and secular counsellors of the emperor, who had been excommunicated by the pope. He declared that, by holding fellowship with the excommunicated king, one became involved in the same condition; that only at his special request, permission had been granted him by the pope, of conversing with the king; yet even to him the communion of prayer and of the Lord's table, with that monarch, had been forbidden. By the example and the representations of Udo, many were induced to draw away from the king. But the men of the other party sought, by the arguments above mentioned, to confirm the king in his resistance to the pope; they maintained that an arbitrary, unjust ban, ought not to be feared; that, in such a case, religion was only employed as a pretext to cover private passions, and private ends. They called upon him to use the sword, which God had intrusted to him as the legitimate sovereign for the punishment of evil doers, against the enemies of the empire. Such language found a ready ear on the part of the king. He was inclined already to bid defiance to the papal ban, and to threaten with his kingly authority those who sided with the pope's party. But as the number of those who went over to that party was constantly increasing, and he wanted power to carry his threats into execution, he suddenly adopted quite another tone. He sought to bend the minds of his opponents by negotiations; but this also proved fruitless; and they were already on the point of proceeding to the extremest measures.

In the year 1076, the Suabian and Saxon princes assembled at Tribur. Before this assembly appeared, as papal legates, the patriarch Sighard of Aquileia, and the bishop Altmann of Passau, a man eminently distinguished for his strict piety. And here we may notice how

'See Waltram Naumburgens. de unitate eccles. et imperii, L. i, p. 66. Sed ipse quoque sanctus Ambrosius ecclesiam non divisit, sed ea, quae Caesaris sunt, Caesari et quae Dei, Deo reddenda esse docuit, qui Theodosium ecclesiastica coercuit disciplina, etc. Ecce illa excommunicatio quam utilis erat ecclesiae pariter atque ipsi imperatori Theodosio, quae nunc prodendi

schismatis ponitur exemplo, quo separentur principes, vel milites reipublicae ab imperatoris sui consortio simul et obsequio!

Lib. i, p. 17. Quandoquidem ille Hilderichus nihil omnino regiae potestatis vel dignitatis habuisse describatur, atque ideo comprobatur, quod non fuerit dominus aliquorum sive rector, quoniam rex a regendo dicitur.

112

DECISION AT TRIBUR.

HENRY'S JOURNEY TO ROME.

large a party stood up for the pope from among those who felt a serious regard for religion. Several laymen, who had renounced important stations and great wealth for the purpose of devoting themselves to a strictly ascetic life, now appeared publicly as advocates of the papal principles. These refused to hold communion with any one who maintained familiar intercourse with king Henry after his excommunication, till each had personally obtained absolution from bishop Altmann, the prelate empowered by the pope to bestow it. After a deliberation of seven days, it was resolved to proceed to the election of a new king. Henry, after a variety of fruitless negotiations with the opposite party, among whom partly the political, partly the religious interest predominated, determined to give way. An agreement was entered into, to the effect that the pope should be invited to visit Augsburg on the festival of the purification of Mary; there, in a numerous assembly of the princes, all accusations against the king should be presented, and then, after the pope had heard what both parties had to say, the decision should be left with him. If the king, by any fault of his own, remained excommunicated a year, he should be considered forever incapable of holding the government. In the mean time, he should abstain from all intercourse with the excommunicated, and live in Speier, as a private man. Henry the Fourth agreed to all the conditions proposed to him, severe as they were; and as everything was now depending on his being absolved from the papal ban, in order that he might be able to negotiate on equal footing with the princes, so he determined to pay a visit to the pope himself in Italy, before the latter could come to Germany. He was willing to risk everything to obtain absolution.

A few days previous to Christmas, in the unusually cold winter of 1076-77, he crossed the Alps with his wife and little son, attended only by one individual, of no rank. Meantime, the ambassadors of the German princes had come to the pope, and, in compliance with their invitation, the latter set out on his journey, expecting to reach Augsburg at the appointed time, on the 2d of February, 1077;1 although his friends advised him not to undertake this journey, probably because they feared the power of Gregory's enemies in Italy. It had been agreed upon, that, at a particular point of time, delegates from the princes should meet him on the borders of Italy for the purpose of escorting him to Augsburg. Twenty days before the time appointed, the pope set out on his journey. Meanwhile came also the messengers of king Henry, through whom the latter promised him every satisfaction and amendment, and urgently begged for absolution. Gregory, however, would not meddle with the matter; he only loaded him with severe reproaches for his transgressions.2

1 It is evident from the words of Gregory himself in his letter to the Germans, Mansi xx, f. 386, that this was the reason of his undertaking the journey to Lombardy. The account given by Domnizo in his life of Mathilda, at the beginning of the second book, is false therefore;

namely, that Gregory came to Lombardy at the request of the latter, who stood forth as mediator between the king and the pope.

Gregory himself says: Acriter eum de suis excessibus per omnes, qui intercurrebant, nunctos redarguimus.

HENRY IN ITALY.

GREGORY AND MATHILDA.

113

If, viewing the matter in the light of the pope's rigidly consistent system, we might perhaps approve of Gregory's conduct towards the insolent Henry, yet we cannot fail to miss in his conduct towards the humbled man, that spirit of love which proceeds from a pure gospel; we perceive in it nothing but the stiff firmness of a self-will, which, spurning all human feelings, goes straight onward to the mark on which it has once fixed.

The promised escort from Germany found it impossible, on account of the many difficulties they met with, to make their appearance at the time appointed; and Gregory's journey to Germany was hindered by various circumstances. Meanwhile Henry arrived in Italy, and the reception he there met with, stood in melancholy contrast with his actual situation. A large party exulted at his appearance: the numerous opponents of Gregory, among the bishops and nobles, hoped to gain in the king a head to their party; and they were ready to do anything in his service. Gregory, being fully aware of the ficklemindedness of the young king, felt uncertain whether such a reception would not produce a change in his disposition, and his mode of procedure. In this uncertainty with regard to his own situation, he betook himself for a while to the castle of his enthusiastically devoted friend, the powerful Margravine Mathilda of Tuscany.1

But Henry, for the present, had no other object in view than to get himself absolved from the ban. Before him, went the excommunicated bishops and nobles of Germany, in the habit of penitents, barefoot and in woollen garments, to beg absolution from the pope. The latter listened,

The connection of the pope with this lady was certainly of the purest character; and so it appears in his correspondence with her. The enthusiastic devotedness of the most strict and pious persons of the age testifies in favor of Gregory. The accusations of his most violent enemies, who brought so many absurd charges against him. certainly cannot be regarded as trustworthy evidence. It was natural, that they should avail themselves of this connection of Gregory, for the purpose of throwing suspicion on the character of this severe censor of the morals of the clergy with regard to this very point, and thereby to place his zeal for the laws of the celibacy of priests in an unfavorable point of light. That fierce opponent of the Hildebrandian party, bishop Waltram of Naumburg, intimates this suspicion against the pope, how ever, in such a way, that it is easy to see how little reason he himself had for regarding it as well-grounded. Apolog. 1. ii, c. 36. Mathilda illa post octavum quoque annum, quo defunctus est Hildebrand familiaris ejus, defendit promptissime contra sedem apostolicam (Guibert's party) et contra imperatorem partem ipsius, qui propter frequens cum ea et familiare colloquium generavit plurimis scaevae suspicionis scandalum. Henry, bishop of Speier, expresses

himself in stronger terms in his invective against Gregory, Eccard. t. ii, in the collection of letters of the Cod. Bamberg. ep. 162: Qui etiam quasi foetore quodam gravissimi scandali totam ecclesiam replesti de convictu et cohabitatione alienae mulieris familiariori, quam necesse sit. In qua re verecundia nostra magis quam causa laborat, quum haec generalis querela unicuique personuerit, omnia judicia, omnia decreta per feminas in sede apostolica actitari, denique per feminas totum orbem ecclesiae administrari. The impartial Lambert of Aschaffenburg remarks concerning the relation of Mathilda to the pope: Tanquam patri vel domino sedulum exhibebat officium. He then refers to the misinterpretations put on this relation, which proceeded from the friends of Henry, and particularly from the opponents of the laws of celibacy among the clergy, and says of these: Sed apud omnes sanum aliquid sapientes luce clarius constabat, falsa esse, quae dicebantur. Nam et papa tam eximie tamque apostolice vitam instituebat, ut nec mini

mam sinistri rumoris maculam conversationis ejus sublimitas admitteret et illa in urbe celeberrima atque in tanta obsequentium frequentia, obscoenum aliquid perpetrans latere nequaquam potuisset.

114

HENRY'S PENANCE AT CANOSSA.

it is true, to their petition; but he required of them such proofs of their repentance, as would be calculated to leave a right lasting impression on men so inured to luxury. Each of the bishops was obliged to remain from morn to evening shut up in a solitary cell, in his penitential raiment, partaking only of the most meagre diet. Then he allowed them to come before him and gave them absolution, after mildly reproving them for their transgressions, and exhorting them to guard against such conduct for the future. When they took their leave of him, he strictly charged them to abstain from all fellowship with king Henry, till he had become reconciled with the church; only for the purpose of exhorting him to repentance, they might be allowed to converse with him.

But Gregory proceeded more harshly with the young king himself. First, he repelled the urgent entreaties of that prince, and the intercessions of Mathildis, of the abbot Hugo of Cluny who was the king's god-father, and of many others, who implored his compassion on the young monarch. He says himself, in his letter to the Germans: "All were surprised at his unusual severity, and many imagined they perceived in it a tyrannical cruelty." He persisted in requiring that everything should be referred over to the trial which was to be instituted at the appointed convention in Germany. At length, he yielded to the entreaties and intercessions poured in upon him, but required of king Henry still severer proofs of his repentance than he had demanded from those bishops. The king, after having laid aside all the insignia of his imperial rank, and clothed himself in the garb of a penitent, was admitted into the sacred inclosure of the castle of Canossa, where he waited fasting, during three days, in the rough winter at the commencement of the year 1077, till at length, on the fourth day, the pope admitted him to his presence. He gave him absolution under the condition, that he should appear before the proposed general assembly in Germany, where the pope would listen to the accusations of his adversaries, and to what he had to say in defence of himself, and give his decision accordingly. Till then, he should utterly renounce the government, and, if he obtained it again, bind himself to support the pope in everything requisite for the maintenance of the ecclesiastical laws. If he failed to observe this condition, he should again fall under the ban. And the abbot Hugo of Cluny, and several persons present, of the spiritual and secular orders, pledged themselves that the king would fulfil the conditions of the compact. The pope then celebrated the mass in the presence of the king and of a numerous multitude. When he had consecrated the host, he observed, while taking a portion of it, that he had been

Ut pro eo multis precibus et lacrimis intercedentibus, omnes quidem insolitam mentis nostrae duritiam mirarentur, nonnulli vero in nobis non apostolicae severitatis gravitatem, sed quasi tyrannicae feritatis crudelitatem esse clamarent.

In his letter to the Germans, Gregory appeals also to the fact that everything was

still undecided; that he was bound by no obligation to the king; adhuc totius negotii causa suspensa est. Sciatis nos non aliter regi obligatos esse, nisi quod puro sermone sicut nobis mos est ea diximus, quibus eum ad salutem et honorem suum aut cum jus titia aut cum misericordia sine nostrae aut illius animae periculo adjuvare possimus.

GREGORY RECEIVES THE HOST. HENRY'S PROMISES.

115

accused by his enemies in Germany of many offences. True, he could bring forward many witnesses of his innocence. But he chose rather to appeal to the testimony of God than to that of man; and for the purpose of refuting, in the shortest way, all those charges, he here called on God himself to witness his innocence, while he now took, in averring it, the body of the Lord. Let Almighty God now declare him free, if he was innocent, or cause the partaking of the body of Christ to prove his immediate destruction, if he was guilty. Gregory regarded this, like his contemporaries, as a judgment of God; and such an appeal to the divine decision by a miracle was in perfect harmony with his whole mode of thinking. With the greatest composure he partook of the holy supper, which to him-since, according to his own religious conviction, this was really subjecting himself to a judgment of God-would have been impossible, if in his conscience he had felt that he was guilty. In very deed, therefore, it was the testimony of a tranquil conscience, and on the assembled multitude (to whom this appeared as such a triumph of innocence as if the voice of God had spoken directly from heaven) it must have made a most powerful impression: With a loud shout of approbation it was accepted by the whole assembly; and praise to the God who had so glorified innocence, rung out from every mouth. When the shouts of the multitude had somewhat abated, the pope turned with the remainder of the host to the young king, and invited him to attest his innocence of all the charges brought against him from Germany, by doing the same. Then there would be no occasion for the trial which it had been proposed to hold in Germany; for all human judicatories were liable to error; and then he himself would, from that moment, stand forth as Henry's defender. But Henry was neither sufficiently sure of his own innocence nor sufficiently hardened against religious impressions, to subject himself, uncertain of the result, to such an ordeal. He turned pale at the proposal, whispered with his attendants, sought evasions, and finally requested the pope to leave everything to be decided by the trial to be had in Germany. He pledged himself, by oath, to refer the settlement of the disputes in Germany to the pope's decision, and to insure his safety, so far as it depended on himself, in his journey to Germany. At the close of the service, Gregory invited him to a repast, conversed with him in a friendly manner, and then dismissed him with serious admonitions.

The question here arises, whether the pope was perfectly sincere in effecting this reconciliation with king Henry? The enemies of Gregory charge him with having persecuted him from the beginning, on a calculated plan of bringing about his utter ruin, and of using everything as a means to accomplish this end. If Henry obeyed, and refrained entirely from exercising his kingly authority till that assembly could meet in Germany, then he would, by that very act, render himself contemptible; while the power of the anti-emperor, about whose election men were already busying themselves, would become

So bishop Waltram of Naumburg, in his Work De unitate ecclesiae et imperii, 1. i, c. vi.