Christianity in Conflict (529–1085)

Christianity in Conflict (529–1085)

St. Benedict (c. 480–543)

In the year 529, when the schools of wisdom in Athens were closed, Monte Cassino, the most famous monastery of Latin Christendom, was opened. The founder of this abbey, Benedict of Nursia, was born in the city of Spoleto in a family that apparently belonged to the declining Roman aristocracy. He was first sent to Rome for study, and there he was so shocked by the lewdness and dissipation of the people that, according to some chroniclers, when he fell in love with a maiden and lost her, he suffered a spiritual crisis. At the age of fifteen he fled to a remote spot eight kilometers from Subiaco in the Sabine hills; there, at the foot of a precipice, he took up residence in a cave and lived for several years like a hermit monk. Pope Gregory the Great in his Dialogues describes how Benedict courageously struggled to forget the woman he loved:

The tempter represented her image in his mind, and the servant of God was so inflamed with lust that he was almost overcome by the grip of pleasure and thought of leaving the cave. But suddenly, by the grace of God, he came to himself and realized that there were many bushes of thorns and nettles growing around. He stripped off his clothes and threw himself into the midst of those bushes, and rolled in the thorns so much that when he rose, all the flesh of his body was torn in a dreadful way. Thus, with the wounds of his body, he healed the wounds of his soul.

After Benedict had spent several years in that corner of solitude and become famous for his steadfastness, the monks of a nearby monastery came to him and earnestly begged him to accept the abbacy of their house. Benedict warned them that his discipline would be very strict. The monks insisted, and he went with them to the monastery. After a few months they were so weary of Benedict’s strict discipline that they put poison in his wine. Benedict again withdrew to solitude, but a group of young ascetics came to him, lived with him, and sought his guidance. Fathers brought their sons from the city of Rome to be educated in his presence. By the year 520 twelve small monasteries, each with twelve monks, had been established around his cave; when even some of these monks found his teachings and discipline too strict, Benedict with his most fervent followers turned to Monte Cassino, a hill 519.7 meters above sea level overlooking the old city of Cassino, sixty-five kilometers northwest of Capua. There Benedict destroyed a pagan temple, built a monastery (c. 529), and established the Benedictine Rule, which later became the guide and policy for most monasteries of the Western world.

The mistake of the monks of Italy and France was that they had imitated the Eastern style of seclusion and asceticism. The climate and active spirit of Western Europe made such asceticism very difficult for a monk to practice and caused many to abandon seclusion altogether. Benedict did not reproach the hermits and did not reject asceticism, but he believed that collective seclusion was far wiser than individual isolation. And in monasticism the goal should never be ostentation or rivalry; in all stages the administration of individuals should be under the supervision of the abbot or elder of the monastery, and asceticism should continue only to the extent that it does not harm the health of mind and body.

Until this time in the West, one who accepted life in a monastery was not required to give a promise or make a vow. Benedict realized that whoever wished to join the ranks of the monks should undergo a period of novitiate and through experience discover to what extent abstinence and discipline were expected of him, and only after this probationary period could the candidate promise. If the person emerged successfully from this test, he should bind himself in writing “to remain in the monastery, reform his behavior, and obey.” He decreed that when the candidate had made such a promise in the presence of a witness and signed the document, he himself should place his signature on the altar of the monastery during a magnificent ceremony, and from then on the monk should no longer be allowed to leave the monastery except with the permission of the abbot. Benedict also decreed that the abbot of the monastery should be chosen by the monks themselves from among their own number, and in all important matters they should consult with him, but the final decision should always be with the abbot, and all the monks should carry out his orders in silence and humility. It was also decided that the inhabitants of the monastery should have nothing of their own, “neither a book, nor a tablet, nor a pen—absolutely nothing ... and all things should belong to all individuals.” The previous dependence of the monk on the wealthy class or slaves should be completely ignored and forgotten:

The abbot should make no distinction among the monks. ... A free man should have no superiority over an individual who has risen from the slave class, unless there is another reasonable cause. For we, whether slave or free, are all one in Christ. ... God does not prefer the rich and influential over others.

Every monastery, to the extent of its financial ability, was required to give alms and charity to anyone who stretched out a hand in need: “All guests who knock on the door should be honored as if they were Christ himself.”

Every monk was required to work in the fields or workshops of the monastery, in the kitchen, in the cells of the abbey, and to engage in copying books. ... Eating nothing until noon, and during the days of fasting until sunset, was not permitted. From the middle of September until the feast of the Resurrection of Christ, the monks were allowed only one meal a day, and in the summer months, because of the length of the day, they had the right to eat two meals. Drinking wine was permitted, but no one was allowed to eat the meat of any quadruped. The hours of work or sleep were often interrupted by participation in collective prayer. Benedict, under the influence of the Easterners, divided the day according to the rules of the law for prayer into “certain hours.” The monks were required to rise at two o’clock after midnight, turn toward the prayer hall, and there engage in the recitation or reading of “nocturnal pieces,” that is, selections from the Holy Scriptures, prayers, and religious hymns. At dawn for “morning prayers” or “praise prayer,” at six o’clock in the morning for “the first prayer,” at nine o’clock in the morning for “the third prayer,” at noon for “the sixth prayer,” at three o’clock in the afternoon for “the ninth prayer,” at sunset for the evening prayer, and when going to bed for “the last prayer,” which was the end of the prayers. The time for sleep was usually when night fell. The monks almost never used lamp light. They slept in the same clothes they wore, and rarely bathed.

Benedict added some general counsels to these special rules for guiding Christians toward the perfection of the soul:

1) In the first stage the monk should love God with all his heart and with all his soul and strength. 2) Then he should cherish his neighbor as himself. 3) Then he should not commit murder of the soul. ... and avoid adultery, ... theft, ... greed, and false witness. ... 8) He should honor all men. ... 11) He should keep the body clean from impurity. ... 13) He should love fasting. 14) He should help the poor. 15) He should clothe the naked. 16) He should visit the sick. ... 30) He should not wound others, and if he is wounded himself he should be patient. ... 31) He should love his enemies. ... 53) He should not be fond of speaking much. ... 61) He should not wish to be called a saint ... but should be a saint himself. ... 71) After a quarrel, he should make peace before sunset, 72) and never despair of God’s mercy.

In an age full of war and chaos, doubt and confusion, the Benedictine monastery was considered a peaceful refuge. It gave shelter to farmers who had been driven from the land or whose homes had been destroyed, to scholars who longed to find a secure corner, and to men who were weary of the strife and tumult of life, and told them: “Give up your pride and freedom and find security and peace here.” It is no wonder that hundreds of similar monasteries sprang up throughout Europe, each independent of the others, all obeying only the orders of the pope, and in a roaring sea of individual independence they acted as islands of communal societies. Time proved that the Benedictine order and rules were the most enduring human inventions of the Middle Ages. Monte Cassino itself is a symbol of that endurance. The barbarian Lombards plundered it in 589; the Lombards retreated and the monks returned to their monastery. The Saracens destroyed it in 884; the monks rebuilt it, an earthquake ruined it in 1349, the monks set about rebuilding it again; the French armies plundered it in 1799. In 1944 shells and bombs of the Second World War leveled that monastery to the ground. Today (1948) the Benedictine monks are again engaged in building it with their own hands. According to the Latin proverb: Cut it down, it will bloom again.

Gregory the Great (c. 540–604)

While St. Benedict and his monks were busy with work and prayer in the peace and tranquility of Monte Cassino, the Gothic War (536–553) spread like a burning flame from north to south across Italy and left nothing but chaos and poverty wherever it spread. Urban economy fell into disorder. Political foundations collapsed; in Rome no material or worldly authority remained except for those imperial agents who had little support from unpaid soldiers who competed in distant regions. Because of the collapse of these material powers and the survival of the ecclesiastical organization, the remnant of the Church, even in the eyes of the emperors, was considered the means of saving the country. In 554 Justinian decreed by an edict that “the bishops and magnates of every province may choose suitable and capable persons who are able to administer the affairs of local government for the governorship of the provinces.” But Justinian’s corpse had not yet grown cold when northern Italy again fell into barbarism and Arianism, and both threatened the leadership and the entire ecclesiastical organization of the Church in Italy. The crisis that had arisen made the appearance of a powerful man necessary, and history once again confirmed the influence of genius.

Gregory was born in the city of Rome three years before the death of Benedict. He was born in the bosom of a family whose members were Roman senators of antiquity. Gregory spent his childhood in a beautiful palace on the Caelian Hill. When his father died, he inherited a vast fortune. Because of his belonging to an aristocratic family and his wealth, he rose rapidly through the ranks of political advancement, so that at the age of thirty-three he became mayor of Rome. But he had no interest in political affairs. After the one-year term of that office expired and the situation in Italy indicated to Gregory the imminent extinction of the world, he spent most of his property on building seven monasteries and distributed the rest as alms to the poor; he renounced all the interests peculiar to his class; he turned his palace into the monastery of St. Andrew, and he himself became the first monk of that abbey. Gregory subjected himself to the severest ascetic practices. He spent almost all this time eating raw fruits and vegetables, and fasted so much that when the holy Saturday arrived, on which day a Christian was more obligated than any other day to observe fasting, it apparently seemed that if he abstained from food for one more day, he would perish from hunger. Nevertheless, he always remembered that the three years he had spent in that monastery had been the happiest days of his life.

Pope Benedict I summoned Gregory from this environment of tranquility and appointed him “seventh deacon.” In 579 Pope Pelagius II sent him as his ambassador to the Byzantine imperial court in Constantinople. Amid the deceptions of diplomacy and the pomp of imperial palaces, he still lived like a monk in dress, food, and prayer. Nevertheless, during this period he gained fruitful experiences from worldly people and their deceptions.

In 586 he was summoned to Rome and appointed abbot of the monastery of St. Andrew. In 590 a bubonic plague swept through the city of Rome like a scythe. Pelagius himself contracted the disease and died. The bishops and the people of the city immediately elected Gregory as his successor. Gregory, who by no means wished to leave the monastery, wrote a letter to the Greek emperor asking him not to confirm this election. The mayor of Rome intercepted the letter, and when Gregory was preparing to flee, they arrested him and forcibly brought him to the church of St. Peter in Rome. There, as it is said, he was consecrated by another Gregory and raised to the papacy.

Now Gregory was a man of about fifty, with a large bald head, a dark complexion, a nose like an eagle’s beak, a thin and wheat-colored beard, fiery emotions, gentle speech, kingly purposes, and simple affections. Because of the many responsibilities and the sufferings he had always endured, his health was impaired, and he suffered from indigestion, Malta fever, and gout. In the papal palace too he lived in the same way as he had in the monastery, that is, he wore a coarse monastic robe and fed on the cheapest foods, and lived collectively with the priests and monks who were his assistants. Since he was naturally drawn to religious and royal matters, he could suddenly become soft and show a fatherly affection in his actions and speech. Once a wandering minstrel with an organ and a monkey came to the door of the papal palace. Gregory allowed the minstrel to enter and provided him with food and drink. Instead of spending the revenues of the Church on building new structures, he spent it on alms, giving gifts to religious institutions throughout the Christian world, and paying ransoms for the release of war prisoners. For every poor family in the city of Rome he set a monthly ration of wheat, wine, cheese, vegetables, oil, fish, meat, clothing, and a sum of money, and every day his agents brought cooked foods to the sick and the infirm. His letters to negligent clergy or political rulers have a very harsh tone, but whenever he addresses the poor and the helpless, they are like jewels of compassion; and among them are: a letter to a farmer who had seized the endowed lands of the Church; to a maiden who wishes to enter the ranks of the nuns; and to a woman from an aristocratic family who has become distressed by her sins. He believed that a priest is in reality a shepherd who is tasked with caring for his sheep, and a good pope is in every respect entitled to write a work containing advice for bishops (590); this guide book gradually became one of the classical works of Christianity. Although Gregory was always more infirm and older than his true age, nevertheless he spent all his time directing the ecclesiastical organization, managing the political affairs of the papal territory, supreme supervision of agricultural and military strategic matters, writing numerous treatises on theology, sinking into mystical ecstasies, and paying eager attention to performing a thousand small matters of life. He cleansed the pride of his position with the humility of faith, and in his first papal letter that still exists, he called himself “the servant of the servants of God”; after him, the greatest popes have accepted this noble phrase.

One of the characteristics of his pontificate was his insight into the economic affairs of the Church and the harsh reforms he implemented. He made strenuous efforts to prevent the trade in relics and the taking of concubines among the clergy. He re-established discipline in the monasteries of the Latin countries and regulated the relations between them and the pope and the priests who were appointed by secular authorities. He reformed the rite of the Mass and perhaps helped in the emergence of the “Gregorian” style of chanting in the Church. He prevented abuses in the papal estates, lent money to tenant farmers, and demanded no interest. But he collected the revenues belonging to the Church without delay, cleverly offered rent reductions to those Jews who had accepted Christianity, and accepted the hereditary lands of lords who had become frightened by his sermons on the imminent coming of the Day of Judgment for the Church. Meanwhile he faced the most capable rulers of his age in hand-to-hand political struggles; sometimes he prevailed over his opponent, and sometimes he was defeated, but ultimately when he closed his eyes to the world, the power and prestige of the papal institution and the “inheritance of Peter” (in other words, the papal territories in central Italy) had become far greater and more extensive. Gregory apparently accepted the sovereignty of the Eastern Roman Emperor, but in practice he generally ignored that emperor. When the Duke of Spoleto, while fighting against the representative of the Eastern Roman Emperor in Ravenna, threatened Rome, Gregory, without consulting the representative or the Eastern Roman Emperor himself, signed a peace treaty with the duke, and when the Lombards besieged Rome, he himself participated in the preparations for the defense of the city.

He regretted every minute he spent on worldly affairs and apologized to the congregations that gathered to hear his sermons that, because of the distraction of his mind due to material preoccupations, he did not have the power to deliver sufficiently consoling sermons. During the few years of peace, Gregory found the opportunity to devote himself with great enthusiasm to spreading Christianity in Europe. He subdued the rebellious bishops of Lombardy, revived orthodox Catholic beliefs in Africa again, accepted Spain’s request, which until then had followed Arianism, to submit to Catholic principles, and with forty monks conquered England for Christendom. While he was abbot of the monastery of St. Andrew and had seen with his own eyes in the slave markets of Rome several English captives being sold as slaves, he made his decision, and according to the words of Bede the patriotic English bishop and historian, Gregory was amazed at their white skin, pleasant appearance, and very beautiful hair, and when he looked at them for a few moments, he asked, according to the famous saying, from which region or land that group had been bought. He was told that they came from Britain and that the appearance of the inhabitants there was such. And when he asked again whether the people of that island were Christians ... he heard the answer that they were pagans. Then that good man said: “It is a pity that such beautiful and handsome people should follow the devil, and that people who have such a splendid and shining appearance should have a mind devoid of spiritual grace.” Then he inquired about the name of that people. They replied that they were called Angles. Then he said: “Truly a good name has been given to them. For they have the faces of angels, and it is fitting that such people should be the successors of the angels of heaven.”

According to this story (which is much more interesting than it is believable), Gregory asks Pope Pelagius II for permission to go to England with a group of Christian missionaries, and the pope also agrees to such a plan; but when Gregory intends to depart, a locust falls on a page of the Holy Scriptures that he is reading. Upon seeing the locust he cries out: “Locusta! (locust) This event means that you should not move from your place.” [Because locusta in Latin means that.] And for this reason he refrains from moving toward England. After Gregory is appointed to the papacy, he has not yet forgotten England. In 596 he sent a delegation under the supervision of Augustine, the deputy abbot of the monastery of St. Andrew, to Britain. This group, upon reaching Gaul, heard such horrifying stories from the Franks about the savagery of the Saxons that they were forced to return. The monks were told that “those angels are wild beasts that prefer killing to eating, are thirsty for human blood, and love Christian blood more than anyone else’s.” Augustine returned to the city of Rome with such reports, but Gregory rebuked and encouraged him and sent him again toward England to work, with peace and tranquility, in the course of two years what the Roman Empire had done, albeit temporarily, through ninety years of war.

Gregory was not a philosopher and theologian like St. Augustine, nor a master of style like that elegant man Jerome; but his writings so profoundly influenced and explained the thoughts of medieval people that Augustine and Jerome appear in comparison with him as two classical writers. The popular religious books that remain from him were so full of nonsense that one suspects that a prominent administrator like him really believed what he wrote or simply wrote these words because he thought they would be useful to simple and sinful people. The biography he wrote of Benedict is the most pleasing of these books. This biography is a beautiful account in praise and veneration of Benedict in which the author never thinks of critically separating truth from legend. The best literary legacy he left is the eight hundred letters that flowed from Gregory’s own pen. Through these letters the reader perceives the various emotions and states of this changeable man, for the writer unconsciously draws an unadorned picture of the thoughts and conditions of his time. His book of Dialogues was greatly loved by the people, for in the course of its lines the most astonishing stories of divine inspirations, prophecies, and miracles of the saints of Italy are mentioned as history. By reading this book the reader learns how huge rocks move by the power of prayer, how a saint can make himself invisible, how poisons become ineffective by the sign of the cross, how food is miraculously provided and abundant, how the sick are healed, and how the dead come back to life. Throughout all these conversations the power of the relics belonging to the saints and apostles is evident, but nothing was more astonishing than the chains with which the hands and feet of Paul and Peter, the two great apostles of Christ, were believed to have been bound. Gregory cherished these chains with great respect and sent shavings from them as gifts to his friends; in one case he sent some to a person who suffered from eye pain and wrote to him: “Let them constantly rub some of these shavings into your eye, for many miracles have occurred from this gift.” The Christianity of the masses had seized the mind or pen of that great pope.

His deeper investigations into theology resulted in a book called Magna Moralia, a six-volume commentary on the Book of Job; in this Gregory accepts every line of the story of Job as real history, but at the same time seeks a symbolic or allegorical meaning in every sentence, and finally concludes that all the theology of Augustine is contained in Job himself. In his view the Holy Scriptures are in every respect the word of God and in themselves a complete collection of wisdom and beauty. No one should waste his time or corrupt his morals by reading the classical works of paganism. Nevertheless, the Holy Scriptures are sometimes obscure and complex and often their phrases are expressed in language suitable for the common people or in pictorial expressions, and it is necessary for experienced minds to interpret them carefully. Since the Church is the guardian of the sacred tradition, it is therefore the only authority that can correctly interpret the Holy Scriptures. Individual reason is a weak and divisive tool that is not made to confront truths beyond the human, and “when the thinking faculty attempts to know the conditions of things that are beyond its powers, then it even loses what it has understood.” God is beyond our understanding. We can only say what God is not, not what He is. “Almost everything that has been said about God, for the very reason that it has been spoken, is not worthy of His essence.” For this reason Gregory apparently makes no effort to prove the existence of God, but claims that by contemplating the human soul, one can discover that this is an indication of the divine essence. Is the soul not the vital force and guide of the body? Gregory says: “In our own time ... many have often seen souls separated from bodies.” The misfortune of man is that his nature is corrupted by original sin and inclines him to corruption, and this fundamental spiritual defect is transmitted from father and mother to child through the act of reproduction. If man is left to himself, sin piles upon sin and he truly deserves eternal damnation. Hell is not a meaningless name, but an endless abyss in the underworld that has been created from the beginning of the world, and a fire that never subsides; it is physical and yet it can burn both soul and body; it is eternal and yet it never destroys the damned or diminishes their sensitivity to pain. And to every moment of pain is added the terror of pain awaiting, the fear of seeing the punishments of loved ones who have also fallen into eternal damnation, and the despair that man will never be saved from this torment or enjoy the blessing of annihilation. Later Gregory took a milder tone, developed Augustine’s doctrines about purgatory where the dead spend a period to atone for their forgiven sins. Also Gregory, like Augustine, reminded those whom he had frightened with the torment of the hereafter of the gift of God’s grace and encouraged them with the intercession of the saints, the fruits of Christ’s sacrifice, and the mysteriously salvific effect of the religious rites that are available to all repentant Christians.

Perhaps Gregory’s theology was a reflection of his physical weakness and also the terrifying chaos of the era in which he lived. In 599 he wrote: “For eleven months I have rarely been able to leave my bed. Gout and painful anxieties so torment me that ... every day I long for death to free my soul.” In 600 he wrote: “For two years I have been bedridden and so in pain that even during the feast I can hardly stand for three hours to participate in the Mass. Every day I am on the threshold of death, and every day I am driven away from it.” And in 610 he wrote: “It has been a long time since I have been able to leave my bed. With great eagerness I await death.” And finally in 604 his suffering came to an end.

Gregory dominated the end of the sixth century, just as Justinian’s supremacy was established at the beginning of this century, and his influence on religion in this historical age was so great that no one except Muhammad, the Prophet of Islam, surpassed him. He was neither a scholar nor a skilled theologian, but because of his simplicity he influenced the people of the age far more deeply than Augustine, who with interesting humility had followed in his footsteps. In terms of thought he was the first medieval man in every sense. While he was busy administering a scattered empire, his thoughts were only directed to the corruption of human nature, the temptations of devils present everywhere, and the imminent resurrection. He spread with full authority that terrifying religion that was destined to darken human thoughts for centuries; he accepted all the miracles of popular legends and all the magical effects of the relics, statues, and commands of the saints; he lived in a world that was the playground of angels, devils, sorcerers, and spirits; any belief in the existence of a rational order in the universe had vanished from his mind. In such a world there was no place for science and only one terrifying faith remained. The next seven centuries were forced to accept this theology, and the great scholastic philosophers were compelled with great effort to adapt it to rational standards. Such was the wisdom that provided the gloomy outlook of Dante’s Divine Comedy.

But this superstitious and credulous man who had been physically crushed by a terrifying asceticism was, in practice and will, an ancient Roman who never gave up his purposes, was strict in judgment, far-sighted, practical, and a lover of discipline and law. He established a law for monasticism, just as Benedict had brought rules for it; he firmly established the non-spiritual powers of the papal institution, freed it from the bondage of the supremacy of the Eastern Roman Emperor, and performed the duties of the spiritual caliph of Rome with such wisdom and honesty that from then on, throughout the turbulent centuries, people always considered the papal institution a refuge for themselves. His successors gratefully numbered Gregory among the saints of the religion and posterity, out of admiration, gave him the title Gregory the Great.

The Political Affairs of the Papacy (604–867)

Those who succeeded Gregory found it difficult to equal him in piety or power. Most of them accepted the superiority of the Eastern Roman Emperor or his representatives in the soil of Italy, and every effort they made to oppose the emperor often led to their own humiliation. Emperor Heraclius, after securing his realm from the harm of invaders, sought to achieve unity by attempting to reconcile the Eastern Christian world (where the Church and people believed in the unity of Christ’s nature) and the original Christians of the West who believed in the duality of Jesus. Heraclius’ declaration under the name of “Ecthesis” (638) sought, through the doctrine of the unity of Christ’s will, to establish harmony between the two distinct Christian worlds. Pope Honorius I agreed with this doctrine and added that the issue of one or two wills “is not a matter of great importance and I leave it to the theologians.” But the theologians of the West rejected the pope’s acceptance. When Emperor Constans II issued a declaration in favor of the doctrine of the unity of Christ’s will (648), Pope Martin I rejected it. Constans ordered his representative, the governor of Ravenna, to seize the pope and bring him to Constantinople. The pope, who refused to submit, was exiled to the Crimea and died there (655). The Sixth Ecumenical Council, which met in Constantinople in 680, condemned the doctrine of the unity of Christ’s will and posthumously condemned Pope Honorius as “a supporter of heretics.” The Eastern Roman Church, enlightened by the Muslim conquest of Coptic Syria and Egypt, agreed with this decision, and thus for a short time peace was established between the theologians of the East and the West.

But the repeated humiliation of the papal institution by the Eastern Roman Emperors, the weakening of the Byzantine Empire due to the expansion of Muslim influence in Asia, Africa, and Spain, the Muslim domination of the Mediterranean, and the inability of Constantinople or Ravenna to protect the papal territories of Italy from the invasions of the Lombards—all caused the popes to turn away from the declining Byzantine Empire and seek help from the rising Franks. Pope Stephen II (752–757), who feared that the conquest of Rome by the Lombards would turn the papal institution into a local bishopric under the rule of the Lombard kings, stretched out a helping hand to the Eastern Roman Emperor, but Byzantium provided him with no help. The pope was forced to take an action that had far-reaching political consequences, that is, he sought refuge with the Franks. Pepin the Short came to his aid; he defeated the Lombards and by issuing a decree known as the “Donation of Pepin” expanded his territory by granting all of central Italy to the pope (756); in this way the foundations of the non-spiritual powers of the popes were strengthened. This brilliant papal policy reached such a point that Leo III with his own hand placed the crown on Charlemagne’s head (800). From then on no one in the West was recognized as emperor unless the pope had anointed him. In this way the bishopric of Gregory I, which had been distressed by the attacks of various peoples, became one of the most powerful forces in Europe. When Charlemagne died (814), the domination that the Frankish government had over the Church changed; step by step the clergy of France made the kings of that land obedient to them; and while Charlemagne’s empire was disintegrating, the power and influence of the Church was increasing.

At the beginning it was the assembly of bishops that took full advantage of the weakness and conflicts of the kings of France and Germany. In Germany the archbishops, who had allied with the kings, became feudal lords over lands, bishops, and priests and only gave verbal obedience to the popes. Apparently the hostility of the German bishops who were angry at this tyranny of the archbishops caused the creation of the “False Decrees.” The purpose of this collection of decrees, which later became the cause of strengthening the papal position, was first to record the right of the bishops to appeal to the popes against the decrees issued by the metropolitans. We have no information about the history or origin of these decrees. Perhaps they were collected in the city of Mainz in 842. The author was a French priest who called himself Isidorus Mercator. The collection of these documents was a clever act. This collection, in addition to a mass of authentic decrees issued by religious councils or popes, also included decrees and letters that were attributed to the popes—from Clement I (91–100) to Melchiades (311–314). These old documents had been included in the collection to prove that, according to the oldest traditions and practices of the Church, without the counsel and consent of the pope no bishop can be deposed from his position, no religious council has the right to convene, and the clergy have no right to make decisions on any important matter. Based on these evidences, even the early popes of the period of the spread of Christianity considered themselves the successors of Christ on earth and claimed absolute and universal powers. According to the same argument, the donation of the “Donation of Pepin” was nothing but the return of stolen property that belonged to its lawful owner, the pope himself. According to the same evidences, it seemed that the denial of the suzerainty of the Byzantine Emperor by the pope and placing the crown on the head of a Frankish king was in fact the exercise of an ancient right that the founder of the Eastern Roman Empire had granted to the pope and which had long remained in obscurity. Unfortunately many of the inauthentic documents quoted phrases from the translation of the Holy Scriptures by St. Jerome, while that esteemed translator had come into existence twenty-six years after the death of Melchiades. The falsity of these documents could have been revealed to any skilled investigator, but it must be remembered that during the ninth and tenth centuries the work of investigation was very poor. The fact that most of the claims attributed to the early bishops of Rome in these forged documents had been repeated by one or two later popes was enough to silence the critics. For eight centuries the popes took the authenticity of these documents for granted and cited them to strengthen their policies.1

By a happy coincidence, the “False Decrees” were published shortly before the election of one of the most prominent figures in papal history. Nicholas I (858–867) had received very extensive teachings in canon law and ecclesiastical traditions and before attaining his high position had learned the secrets of the work through assisting several popes. In terms of willpower, he was equal to the two Gregorys the Great (I and VII), and in terms of the extent of his claims and success he far surpassed them. The basis of his claim was a matter that all Christians had accepted—that Jesus, the Son of God, had made Peter the first guardian of his religion and had placed the foundation of the Church upon it, and the bishops of Rome had inherited their powers directly from St. Peter. Nicholas logically concluded from this simple argument that the pope, as the representative of God on earth, should have the right of suzerainty over all Christians of the world, at least in matters related to faith and morals, whether they be kings of countries or ordinary subjects. Nicholas developed this simple argument with full eloquence, and no one in the Latin Christian world dared to deny it. Kings and archbishops only hoped that he would not take this claim so seriously.

But they were soon disappointed. When Lothair, king of Lorraine, attempted to divorce his queen Theutberga and marry Waldrada, his concubine, the high clergy of his country agreed to this (862). Theutberga sought refuge with Nicholas, and the pope sent several representatives to Mainz to investigate the details of the matter. Lothair bribed the pope’s envoys to confirm the divorce. The two archbishops of Trier and Cologne brought this decision before the pope. Nicholas, who learned of Lothair’s trick, excommunicated the two archbishops and ordered Lothair to dismiss his concubine and accept his wife. Lothair refused and marched with an army toward the city of Rome. Nicholas barricaded himself in the church of St. Peter in Rome for forty-eight hours and engaged in fasting and prayer. Lothair lost heart and courage and bowed his head in submission before the pope’s decrees.

Hincmar, archbishop of Reims, who after the pope himself was the greatest chief priest of Latin Europe, deposed a bishop named Rathrad; he also sought refuge with Pope Nicholas (863). Nicholas, after investigating the case, ordered that Rathrad be reappointed to his position; and when Hincmar showed hesitation, the pope threatened that if his decree was disobeyed, he would order the suspension of prayer ceremonies in all the churches of the province of Reims. Hincmar, who was very angry at this development, was forced to obey. Nicholas in his letters to kings and also to the archbishops of the countries always adopted a tone as if he had supreme supervision over all of them, and only Photius of Constantinople dared to deny such a claim. Subsequent developments showed that in almost every case the pope had taken the side of justice; his strong defense of moral principles in an age immersed in corruption was like a lamp and a secure fortress for the bewildered people. When he closed his eyes to the world, the power of the papal institution and the “inheritance of Peter” (in other words, the papal territories in central Italy) had become far more accepted by the people.

The Triumph of Christianity over Europe (529–1054)

The most important event in the religious history of these centuries was not the conflict between the Latin and Greek Churches, but the emergence of Islam, which challenged Christianity both in the East and in the West. Christianity had not yet consolidated its conquests among the pagan empire and its domination over heretics when suddenly the followers of a faith that mocked both the theology and morals of Christianity rose with such fervor and ease to separate the Christian provinces that it caused terror and fear. Because of the tolerance of the Muslims in the regions of Antioch, Jerusalem, and Alexandria, the patriarchs still remained in their religious positions; but the glory of Christianity had departed from these regions; and the Christianity that remained in these areas acquired a heretical and national character. Armenia, Syria, and Egypt, without regard to Rome or Constantinople, had each established a hierarchy for their own Church. Greece did not fall from the hand of Christendom; there the monks triumphed over the philosophers, and the great monastery of the Holy Lavra, which was founded in 961 on the top of Mount Athos, rivaled the Parthenon, which was now a Christian church, in splendor. The Greek Church gained strength and pride from the revival of the power and wealth of the Byzantine government; it made Russia, Bulgaria, and Serbia subject to the Eastern religious rites; and it opposed more than ever the claims of a humiliated and impoverished papal institution to the absolute spiritual rule of all Christians of the world. In the eyes of the Greeks of this age, the Germans, Franks, and Anglo-Saxons of the contemporary West were wild, rough, and illiterate masses ruled by a group of corrupt and worldly bishops. The pope’s act of denying the Byzantine Emperor, preferring the Frankish kings, usurping the territory of the emperor’s representative in Ravenna, placing the crown on the head of a Roman emperor who was a rival to Byzantium, and the popes’ encroachment on Greek Italy—these were political events that were distressing and caused the separation of Eastern and Western Christianity, not the minor religious differences that existed between the two Churches.

In 1043 Michael Cerularius was appointed to the patriarchate of Constantinople. He was a man of noble birth, with extensive knowledge, a sharp mind, and an unyielding will. Although he was a monk, he had risen to the patriarchate through political ranks, not through ecclesiastical channels. He had previously been one of the chief ministers of the empire, and if the patriarchate involved obedience to the spiritual authority of Rome, he would never have accepted such a position. In 1053 he published a Latin treatise by a Greek monk. The contents of this treatise were a severe criticism of the Roman Church and said that Rome, contrary to the practice of the apostles and religious tradition, forces priests to celibacy, uses unleavened bread in the ceremonies of the Eucharistic rite, and adds the word “Son” to the Nicene Creed. In the same year Cerularius closed all the churches in Constantinople that performed religious rites according to the Roman custom and excommunicated all the priests who insisted on following this custom. Leo, who at this time was at the height of papal power, sent a letter to Cerularius and demanded that the patriarch recognize the superiority of the popes, and also noted that whoever refuses this recognition will be considered “among the heretics, a member of the secret assembly of schismatics, and followers of the synagogue of Satan.” Leo, after his anger subsided a little, sent envoys to Constantinople to negotiate with the emperor and the patriarch about the differences that caused the separation between the two branches of Christianity. The emperor warmly welcomed the pope’s envoys, but Cerularius did not consider them qualified to discuss the disputed issues. In the month of April 1054 Leo died, and the papal throne remained vacant for a year. In the month of July the envoys arbitrarily wrote a decree excommunicating Cerularius and placed it on the altar of the church of Hagia Sophia. Michael called all the representatives of the Eastern Christian world to an assembly. In this council the clergy recounted all the complaints of the Greek Church against the Roman Church, including the shaving of beards, and officially condemned the decree of the pope’s envoys and “all individuals who helped to write it, whether they recommended it or even prayed about it.” In this way the schism between East and West was complete.

Gregory VII (Hildebrand) (1073–1085)

The period of chaos and weakness that intervened between the pontificate of Leo IX and Hildebrand, one of the most powerful popes in Church history, was a great calamity for Christendom.

Hildebrand is a German name that indicates the existence of a German lineage. Contemporaries of Gregory distorted this name into Helbrand, which means “pure flame.” He was born in the village of Sovana in the marshy lands of Tuscany in a poor family (c. 1023). Hildebrand studied in the monastery of Santa Maria on the Aventine Hill in the city of Rome and joined the Benedictine order. In 1046, when Pope Gregory VI was deposed from his position and exiled to Germany, Hildebrand, under the name of his private priest, accompanied him; in that year in Cologne he gained extensive information about Germany that was useful in his later struggles with Emperor Henry IV. Shortly after his return to Rome, Pope Leo IX appointed him cardinal and, in addition to entrusting him with the supervision of the administrative affairs of the papal territories, made him his special envoy to France. This remarkable promotion shows well that that twenty-five-year-old youth had gained great fame for his competence in political affairs and diplomatic skill. Popes Victor II (1055–1057) and his successor Stephen IX (1057–1058) also appointed Hildebrand to high positions. In 1059 it was largely because of Hildebrand’s influence that Nicholas II reached the papacy, and in return he made that monk, who had not yet become one of the priests of the Church and whose existence he considered extremely valuable, chancellor of the papal court.

At his encouragement, Nicholas and the Lateran Synod in 1057, by issuing a decree, transferred the election of the pope himself to the College of Cardinals. With this clever masterpiece, Hildebrand sought to save the papal institution from the grip of the Roman nobility and the German emperors. This young ecclesiastical statesman, not yet having ascended the papal throne, had begun to determine and establish a policy that had very great effects. In order to preserve the papal territory against the domination of the German emperors, he ignored the terrifying invasions of the Normans in southern Italy and, in return for obtaining a commitment for military support, recognized their possessions and showed agreement with their ambitions. In 1073 Hildebrand, after having served eight popes for twenty-five years, was elected to the papacy. Hildebrand resisted, for he preferred to continue his rule without ascending the papal throne; but the cardinals, priests, and people raised their voices that “the will of St. Peter has decided that Hildebrand should be pope!” and for this reason they appointed him to the priesthood, then consecrated and called him pope, and Hildebrand took for himself the glorious name Gregory.

He was a man of small stature, with a simple face, sharp eyes, a proud soul, and a strong will, confident of truth and sure of victory. Four major goals were the source of his inspiration: to complete the reforms that Leo had begun for the morals of the clergy; to give the popes the right to appoint bishops; to unite all Europe under the banner of one Church and a republic under the pope himself; and finally to lead a Christian army to the East to recapture Jerusalem from the Turks. In early 1074 he sent letters to the counts of Burgundy and Savoy and also to Emperor Henry IV and asked them for funds and soldiers for the crusade that he intended to lead himself to the East. The pope’s request had no effect on the counts, and Henry IV’s situation was too unstable for him to think of a crusade.

The Lateran Synod of 1059, under the leadership of Nicholas II and Hildebrand, had excommunicated every priest who had a wife or concubine and forbidden Christians from participating in any Mass celebrated under the supervision of such priests. Many of the bishops of Lombardy, because they disliked disrupting the families of their priests, refused to implement these decrees, and the high clergy of Tuscany considered the marriage of priests both morally and legally in accordance with the laws of the religion. In this way the decrees of the synod were not practical, and since the heretical preachers with great zeal used the issue that “sinful” priests had no right to perform the sacred rites, the pope’s request to the people of the Church was necessarily withdrawn. When Hildebrand, under the name of Gregory VII, reached the papacy (1073), with an unyielding determination he set about solving this problem. In 1074 a synod renewed the decrees issued in 1059. Gregory sent these decrees to all the bishops of Europe and ordered them to publish and implement them; and he forgave the people who followed the disobedient priests. The reaction to these decrees was again severe. Many priests declared that they preferred to abandon their profession rather than dismiss their wives. Some of them disapproved of these decrees because they claimed that their implementation was tantamount to imposing unreasonable demands on human nature and predicted that their enforcement would cause a hidden chaos in sexual relations. Otto, bishop of Constance, openly supported the married priests who performed duties under his supervision. Gregory excommunicated him and forgave the sin of his followers, which was obedience to him. In 1075 Gregory resorted to another action and ordered the dukes of Swabia and Carinthia and other princes that, if necessary, they should resort to force to prevent the rebellious priests from performing their religious duties. Some of the German princes implemented the pope’s decrees, and many priests who were unwilling to abandon their wives were deprived of the administration of their diocese. It was destined that Gregory would pass from the world without achieving victory; Urban II, Paschal II, and Calixtus II confirmed his decrees and implemented them. The Fourth Lateran Council (1215), which met under the presidency of Innocent III, for the last time condemned the marriage of the clergy, and this custom gradually became obsolete.

Solving the problem of the appointment of clergy by secular authorities seemed easier than the issue of the marriage of priests. Just as the kings and popes believed, if it was certain that Christ had founded the Church, then naturally the appointment of clergy was an act that should be done by the bishops and abbots, not under the supervision of secular authorities. Moreover, it was certainly shameful that a king not only had the right to choose bishops but could also grant them the episcopal staff and ring, which were considered sacred signs of spiritual powers (as was customary in Germany). But from the kings’ point of view the opposite was also true. Most bishops and abbots of Germany admitted that they had received their lands, revenues, and secular responsibilities from the king himself. According to feudal laws, it was just and appropriate that these chief priests—or at least the bishops—should be indebted to the king because of their position and obey him in ecclesiastical matters, just as they had unhesitatingly obeyed the orders of Constantine and Charlemagne. If it was to be that this group should be freed from the bondage of obedience and allegiance to the king of Germany, half of the lands of Germany (which until then had been granted to bishops and monasteries) would naturally go out of the sphere of government supervision and as a result their allegiance to the government and the usual services they performed for the country would disappear. The German bishops, and many of the Lombard bishops who were of German origin and had been appointed by the German emperor, fell under the suspicion that Gregory had set about ending their relative autonomy in religious matters and wanted to make them completely obedient to the Roman ecclesiastical sphere. Gregory had no objection to the continuation of the feudal obligations of the bishops toward the king of Germany, but he did not want the lands that had been donated by the king to the bishops to be returned to the German crown, for according to Church laws, Church property was inalienable. Gregory’s opposition was from the point of view that he said the appointment of laymen had been the main cause of most of the buying and selling of ecclesiastical offices, worldliness, and disregard for moral principles that was seen among the German and French bishops. He felt that the bishops should be under the supervision of the papal institution, otherwise the Western Church would become, just like the East, a slave to the government.

Behind this historical conflict was the question of whether the papal institution should be the cause of unity and rule over Europe or the German Empire. The German emperors claimed that their power had also been granted by God and was necessary for social order. Had not the Apostle Paul said: “The powers that exist have been ordained by God.” Had not the popes themselves admitted that the German kings were the heirs of the Roman Empire? Just as Gregory was the symbol of the unity and order of the entire Christian world, they too were the symbol of a part of that world. Long before the beginning of the reforms, the German emperors secretly opposed the golden caravan that was sent as reward and alms to the treasury of the Apostle Peter from Germany and Italy. Now the pope’s policy in their view was an action from Latin Rome to revive its ancient supervision over a country that Italy mockingly called the land of the Teutonic barbarians of the north. The German emperors freely confessed to the superiority of the Church in religious matters but considered a similar superiority in non-religious or secular matters the inherent right of the government. In Gregory’s view this was a confused duality. He believed that spiritual considerations should prevail over material issues, just as the sun dominates us; the government should follow the Church in all matters related to religion, culture, morals, justice, or ecclesiastical organization—in other words, the city of man should obey the “city of God.” Had not the kings of France and the emperors of the Holy Roman Empire, by accepting anointing and consecration from the popes or archbishops, implicitly admitted that spiritual power is the source and ruler of worldly kingship? Since the Church was considered a divine foundation, it was fitting that it should have universal powers. The pope, as the vicar of God, had the right and duty to depose bad kings and confirm or accept a ruler who had been chosen by the people or the requirements of the time. Gregory, in a fiery letter addressed to Herman, bishop of Metz, asked: “Who does not know that kings and princes are descended from those same godless ones who are immersed in pride, oppression, treason, and in fact almost immersed in every kind of crime ... and with unbearable arrogance and unrestrained lust claim to rule over their peers—that is, ordinary people?” With a view to the political conflicts, chaos, and wars of Europe, Gregory had become convinced that the only way to escape from this ancient calamity was a world order in which the different countries would each surrender a part of their sovereignty, which they hold dear, and recognize the pope, according to feudal custom, as the lord of their lords and the chancellor of a global or at least European Christian republic.

The first step on the way to achieving this was to free the papal institution from the bondage of German supervision. The second action was to make all bishops followers of the pope, to the extent that the local bishop in every region should be elected by the priests and the people themselves, under the attention of a bishop who has been appointed by the pope or the metropolitan, and this election should only be valid when it has been confirmed by the archbishop or the pope himself. Gregory began this important matter with a letter to the bishop of Chalon (1073) and in this message threatened to excommunicate Philip Augustus, king of France, for selling episcopal offices. In 1074 he sent an open letter to the bishops of France and asked them to openly condemn the crimes of the king of France and, if Philip was not willing to make religious reforms, to suspend all prayer ceremonies in the churches of the kingdom. Nevertheless, the appointment of bishops by secular authorities continued in France, but the French bishops exercised caution and left this problem to be resolved in Germany.

In February 1075 a synod composed of Italian bishops in Rome, under the leadership of Gregory, issued decrees against the buying and selling of ecclesiastical offices, the marriage of priests, and the appointment of bishops by lay authorities. Gregory hastily excommunicated five of the bishops who were Henry IV’s counselors for the crime of buying and selling ecclesiastical offices. He deposed the bishop of Pavia and Turin and removed the bishop of Piacenza and ordered Herman, bishop of Bamberg, to appear before him in Rome and prove his innocence from the charge of buying and selling ecclesiastical offices. When Herman attempted to bribe the papal court, Gregory without compromise removed him from his position. Then he politely asked Henry to appoint a suitable person as the successor to the bishop of Bamberg. The German emperor not only appointed one of his court favorites to this position but also, without waiting for the pope’s acceptance, granted him the episcopal staff and ring. This act of course had no conflict with the current customs, but it was openly a rebellion against the decrees of the Roman synod. Moreover, Henry, as if he wanted to show his opposition to Gregory’s wishes more clearly, appointed bishops for the ecclesiastical regions of Milan, Fermo, and Spoleto—that is, precisely the areas that were under the pope’s command—and continued to include the excommunicated counselors in his favors.

In December 1075 Gregory sent a letter of rebuke to Henry and instructed his envoys to inform him orally that if he continued to ignore the decrees of the synod, the pope would excommunicate him. Henry summoned the German bishops to a council in Worms (January 24, 1076); twenty-four obeyed his command, but some abstained from attending that council. In the presence of this assembly of bishops, a Roman cardinal named Hugh accused Gregory of lust, tyranny and sorcery, obtaining the papal position through bribery, and resorting to force and reminded the bishops that, according to a several-hundred-year-old custom, the election of any pope should be with the consent of the German emperor, and Gregory had not previously sought the opinion of the German emperor. Henry, who in the meantime had gained courage by suppressing the Saxon rebellion, declared his intention to depose the pope. All the bishops who were present signed the decree of deposition, and a council of Lombard bishops in Piacenza also agreed with this matter. Henry sent the decree with the title “A decree from Henry, who has kingship by divine command not by usurpation, addressed to Hildebrand who is a deceitful monk not a pope” to Gregory. The message reached Gregory during the meeting of the synod in Rome (February 21, 1076). The one hundred and ten bishops who had come from all of Italy and Gaul wanted to kill the emperor’s envoy, but Gregory prevented them from such an act. This synod excommunicated the bishops who had signed the Worms decree, and the pope prescribed the triple punishment of excommunication, curse, and deposition for the emperor and freed his subjects from the oath of obedience to their crowned head (February 22, 1076). Henry, in retaliation, induced the bishop of Utrecht to curse Gregory “the falsely sworn monk” from the pulpit of the cathedral during the sermon. All the people of Europe were astonished and terrified that the emperor had deposed the pope himself, and their astonishment increased when they saw that the pope had also deposed the emperor, and a bishop had opened his tongue in cursing the pope. Religious feelings prevailed over national feelings, and the majority of the people quickly abandoned support for the emperor. Saxony rose in rebellion again, and when Henry summoned the bishops and nobles of his realm to councils in Worms and Mainz, almost no one answered his call; on the contrary the German nobles, who saw this dispute as a good excuse to strengthen their feudal powers against the king, met at Tribur (October 16, 1076) and confirmed the pope’s excommunication against the emperor and declared that if Henry did not seek forgiveness from the pope by February 22, 1077, they would appoint a successor to his throne. At Tribur it was agreed between the German nobles and the pope’s envoys that a religious council under the presidency of the pope would be held in Augsburg on February 22, 1077 to resolve the conflicts between the Church and the government.

Henry, who had been defeated in this dispute and was almost alone, isolated himself in Speyer and, since he was sure that the diet would approve the proposal for his deposition, sent envoys to Rome to the pope and sent a message that he was ready to go there to seek forgiveness. Gregory replied that since he would soon move to Augsburg he could not receive Henry in Rome. The pope, while traveling toward Germany, was a guest in Mantua of his friend and supporter Matilda, Countess of Tuscany. Here he was informed that Henry had entered Italy. Gregory, fearing that Henry might be busy preparing an army among the anti-papal people of Lombardy, barricaded himself in Matilda’s strong castle at Canossa, which was located near Reggio Emilia on top of one of the high peaks of the Apennine Mountains. On January 25, 1077, that is, at the height of one of the harshest winters that Italy had rarely remembered, Henry came to visit him. Gregory in a report to the German princes writes about this:

Henry personally came to Canossa ... and only a few of his retinue were with him. ... He stood at the gate of the castle, barefoot and in ragged woolen clothes, trembling, asking us for forgiveness and pardon. He repeated this act for three consecutive days, to the extent that all our entourage, seeing his miserable state, were moved to pity and with tearful eyes and praying tongues interceded for him. ... Finally we lifted the excommunication from him and again accepted him into the bosom of the holy mother Church.

All this hesitation in forgiving Henry was not due to Gregory’s hard-heartedness. He had agreed not to enter into peace with Henry without consulting the German princes, and moreover he knew that if Henry raised the banner of rebellion again after forgiveness, a second excommunication would no longer have the effect of the first and might receive less support from the German nobility. On the other hand, if Gregory did not forgive Henry, it would be difficult for the Christian world to understand why the “vicar of Christ” should not forgive such a humble penitent. This event was a spiritual victory for Gregory, but for Henry it was a cunning political victory, for by this act he had automatically regained the crown. Gregory returned from Canossa to Rome and two years later devoted himself to approving religious laws, most of which aimed at imposing celibacy on the clergy. Nevertheless, the German princes elected Rudolf, Duke of Swabia, to the kingship of Germany (1077) and it seemed that Henry’s tricks had had no effect. But now that Henry had freed himself from the pope’s excommunication, he again saw the people who were not pleased with the nobles united with him. A new army was prepared to defend him, and for two years the rival kings, in the course of a civil war, turned Germany into blood and soil. Gregory, after a long period of hesitation, supported Rudolf, excommunicated Henry for the second time, forbade Christians from serving in his retinue, and agreed to forgive the sin of all individuals who would come under Rudolf’s banner (March 1080).

Henry repeated exactly the previous actions, that is, he formed a council of nobles and bishops loyal to him in Mainz; and this council deposed Gregory from the papacy. Another council composed of German and northern Italian bishops in Brixen confirmed the decree of deposition, elected the archbishop of Ravenna, Guibert, as pope, and appointed Henry to implement the issued decrees. Two armies faced each other on the banks of the Saale River in Saxony (October 15, 1080). Henry was defeated, but Rudolf was killed in this battle. While the rebellious nobles were divided over the appointment of a successor to Rudolf, Henry entered the soil of Italy and, without encountering any resistance, passed through Lombardy; while passing through that region, he prepared another army and besieged the city of Rome. Gregory sought help from the brave Norman adventurer Robert Guiscard, but Robert was miles away from Rome. The pope sought refuge with William I, who had agreed to and helped his invasion of the soil of England, but William was not sincerely pleased that Henry should face defeat in this dispute. The people of the city of Rome bravely defended the pope, but Henry was able to capture a large part of Rome, including the church of St. Peter; Gregory fled to the fortress of Sant’Angelo for fear of his life. At Henry’s command, a synod met in the Lateran Palace and deposed and excommunicated Gregory and, according to Church rites, elected Guibert as pope under the name of Clement III (March 24, 1084). A week after this introduction, Clement with his own hand placed the imperial crown on Henry’s head. For a year Henry was the master of Rome.

But in 1085 Robert Guiscard, who had abandoned his struggles against the Byzantine Empire, set out for Rome at the head of an army of 36,000. Henry lacked the numbers and equipment to confront such forces and therefore fled to Germany. Robert entered Rome, freed Gregory, plundered the city and turned half of it into ruins, and took Gregory to Monte Cassino, for the people of Rome had become so angry at the behavior of the Normans that the pope, that is, the ally of the Normans, no longer saw Rome as a safe place to live. Clement, who now saw the papacy as certain for himself, returned. Gregory went to Salerno. There he formed another synod and excommunicated Henry again. And then he was spiritually and physically exhausted. Before his death he said: “I have loved righteousness and always hated injustice—to this end I die in exile.” Gregory at this time was no more than sixty-two years old, but the spiritual exhaustion caused by the hard struggles had weakened him, and the apparent defeat at the hands of a man whose sins he had forgiven at Canossa had left no will to live in his heart. On May 25, 1085 he died in that same Salerno.

Perhaps Gregory loved righteousness too imperiously and had hated injustice with an excessively zealous fervor. Giving the right to the enemy is a privilege reserved for a philosopher, but it is forbidden to a man of action. A century later Innocent III fulfilled most of Gregory’s long-cherished dream of uniting the world under the banner of the “vicar of Christ”; but Innocent was a wiser statesman and had a milder spirit, and for this reason he succeeded in his work. Nevertheless, it must be known that Innocent’s victory was made possible by Gregory’s defeat. Hildebrand grasped more than he had the power to hold, yet for ten years he raised the papal institution to such a height of power and influence as had never been seen before; he waged an uncompromising struggle against the marriage of the clergy, and trained priests for his successors whose absolute loyalty immensely strengthened the foundations of the Church. His struggle against the buying and selling of ecclesiastical offices and the appointment of bishops by secular governments was slow to bear fruit, but ultimately his theory prevailed, and the bishops of the Church willingly became instruments for carrying out the purposes of the institution. The use he made of sending papal envoys to foreign countries was certainly a means of expanding the influence of the popes in every region and sphere of the Christian countries. Thanks to his own initiative, from then on the election of popes was freed from the domination of kings, and soon the Church amazingly saw a group of powerful men successively ruling its destinies, and ten years after Gregory’s death, the kings and nobles of the world recognized Urban II as the European leader whose life was a combination of Christianity, feudalism, chivalry, and imperialism—that is, the mixture that we interpret as the Crusades.