§ 18. Death of Gregory VII.
§ 18. Death of Gregory VII.
Gregory was again in possession of the Lateran, but he left the scene of melancholy desolation, accompanied by Guiscard and a few cardinals and Roman nobles. He went first to Monte Cassino and then to Salerno. The descent from Canossa to Salerno was truly a via dolorosa. But the old pope, broken in body, was unbroken in spirit.
He renewed the ban against Henry and the anti-pope at the close of 1084, and sent a letter to the faithful in Germany, stating that the words of the Psalmist, Quare fremuerunt gentes (Ps. 2:1, 2), were fulfilled, that the kings of the earth have rebelled against Christ and his apostle Peter to destroy the Christian religion, but could not seduce those who trusted in God. He called upon them to come to the rescue of the Church if they wished to gain the remission of sins and eternal salvation. This is his last written document.
His mind remained clear and firm to the end. He recommended Cardinal Desiderius of Monte Cassino (Victor III.) as his successor, and next to him Otto, bishop of Ostia (Urban II.). He absolved all his enemies, except Henry and Wibert. "the usurper of the apostolic see."84 He died, May 25, 1085, with the words which best express the meaning of his public life and character: "I have loved righteousness and hated iniquity; therefore I die in exile."85 "Nay," said one of the bishops, "in exile thou canst not die, who, as the vicar of Christ and his Apostles, hast received all the nations for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession" (Ps. 2:8).
Robert Guiscard, his protector, died a few weeks afterwards (July 17, 1085).
The body of Gregory, clad in the pontifical vestments, was buried in the church of St. Matthew at Salerno, which he had consecrated shortly before. A plain stone marked his grave till John of Procida—although a zealous Ghibelline—erected a sumptuous chapel over it.86 His name was inserted in the Calendar on the 25th of May, 1584, by Gregory XIII., without a formal canonization; Paul V. ordered a festival, in 1609, for the new saint; and Benedict XIII., in 1728, ordered its general observance. The emperor of Germany, the king of France, and other sovereigns opposed the celebration; but if ever a pope deserved canonization for devotion to the papal theocracy, it was Hildebrand. The eighth centenary of his death was celebrated in the Roman Church, May 25, 1885.
Gregory was, in his own time, and has been since, the subject both of the highest praise and of the severest censure. Modern historians agree in giving him credit for the honesty and courage of his convictions, and concede the purity and loftiness of his motives and aims. He is the typical representative of papal absolutism in the Middle Ages in conflict with imperial absolutism. He combined personal integrity, consummate statesmanship, and monastic contempt of the world. He lived and moved in the idea of the Old Testament theocracy, and had no conception of the free spirit of the gospel. He was a man of blood and iron, an austere monk, inaccessible to feelings of tenderness, when acting in his official capacity as the head of the Roman hierarchy; yet he showed singular liberality in his treatment of Berengar, and protested against the use of torture. His piety was absorbed in devotion to the hierarchy, to St. Peter, and to the Virgin Mary. He was unscrupulous in the choice of means for his end, and approved of civil war for the triumph of the Roman Church.
The lofty principles he espoused he was willing to stake his life upon. No pope has ever used the term "righteousness" more frequently than he used it. No pope has ever employed the figure of warfare to describe the conflict he was engaged in more frequently than he employed it.87 No man was ever more convinced of the soundness of his cause. He found his authority in the Scriptures and freely used them to convince others, quoting certain passages again and again, such as 1 Sam. 15:23, which is found quoted in his writings nineteen times.88 He found in Matt. 16: 18 the certain warrant for the papal supremacy and excepted no person from the jurisdiction of Peter’s successors.89 As an advocate of papal absolutism and as a moral reformer he has left an abiding impress upon the thought and the practice of Roman Christendom. Even where we are farthest from sharing his views, we may admire the man of fearless courage and moral conviction.
His spirit still moves in the curia, which adheres to the theocratic theory, without the ability of carrying it into practice. The papal Syllabus of 1864 denies that "the Roman pontiffs have exceeded the limits of their power" (§ V. 23), and asserts the superiority of the Church over the State "in litigated questions of jurisdiction" (§ VI. 54). The politico-ecclesiastical encyclicals of Leo XIII. (Immortale Dei, Nov. 1, 1885, and Libertas praestantissimum naturae donum, June 20, 1888) reasserted substantially, though moderately and cautiously, the Gregorian theory of Church and State.
Ranke, in his last years, wrote of Gregory:90 "His hierarchical system rests upon the endeavor to make the clergical order the basis of all human existence. This makes intelligible its two characteristic and fundamental principles, the command of celibacy and the prohibition of lay investiture. By the first it was intended to build up out of the lower clergy a body isolated from all the personal and family relationships of human society. By the second it was intended to insure the higher clergy against all interference from the civil power. The great hierarch thought out well the platform on which he placed himself. He met a demand of the age to see in the priest, as it were, a being belonging to a higher order. All that he says betrays dignity, force, and logical connection .... His activity, which left nothing untouched, was of a very human sort, while at the same time it embraced religious ideals. The hierarchical principle constituted his real life."
Gregorovius, who carries on a sustained comparison between Gregory and Napoleon, praises Gregory’s genius and moral vigor. He says:91 "Gregory was the heir of the ancient aims of the papacy. But his unexampled genius as ruler and statesman is his own, and no one either in ancient Rome or in modern times has ever reached to his revolutionary daring .... His dying words reveal the fundamental basis of his character, which was great and manly. To this grand spirit, a character almost without an equal, belongs a place among the rulers of the earth, men who have moved the world by a violent yet salutary influence. The religious element, however, raises him to a far higher sphere than that to which secular monarchs belong. Beside Gregory, Napoleon sinks to an utter poverty of ideas."
Let us hope that Gregory felt in his heart some of that Christian love and meekness whose commendation closes one of his letters to Hermann, archbishop of Metz,92 the most drastic expression of papal absolutism he ever made. He wrote: "If the virtue of love be neglected, no matter what good anyone may do, he will wholly lack the fruit of salvation. To do these things in humility and to love God and our neighbor as we ought, this presupposes the mercy of him who said, Learn of me, for I am meek and lowly of heart. Whosoever humbly follows him shall pass from the kingdom of submission which passes away, to the kingdom of true liberty which abides forever."
The earliest account is given by Gregory himself in two letters written April 24, 1073, and a third written April 26 to Wibert of Ravenna (Reg., I. 1-3). It is confirmed by Bonizo. Gregory frequently referred to his election as having been against his will. (See Mirbt, Wahl, etc., pp. 2, 42.) The anti-Gregorian party made the slanderous accusation that he secured his office by force and bribery, but not till the struggle between him and Henry IV. had begun. The subject is thoroughly discussed by Mirbt in his Wahl Gregors VII. p. 56. In his later work, Die Publizistik, p. 582, he again pronounces Gregory’s own account as "the most credible."
The clauses, "the husband of one wife," as well as "having his children in subjection," are omitted in the quotation from Paul’s letter to Timothy. They would be fatal to the papal theory of clerical celibacy. See the Latin text in the Acta Sanctorum for May 25, Tom. VI. 117, from the "Acta Romae 10 Kalend. Maji." The cardinals concluded the declaration with the questions: "Placet vobis? Placet. Vultis eum? Volumus. Laudatis eum? Laudamus."
From Bonizo’s account it would seem that the cardinals gave him that name; but they probably ascertained his wishes beforehand, or anticipated them. Wattenbach (p. 130) regards the assumption of the name Gregory as an open insult to the empire and the Synod of Sutri, where Henry III. had deposed three popes, including Gregory VI.
This is Mirbt’s view. The anti-Gregorian writers, reflecting the policy of Henry IV., insisted that Gregory had not received the royal assent. The imperial theory was laid down at Brixen, 1080, that any one assuming to be pope without such assent, was an apostate, si quis sine assensu romani principis papari praesumeret, non papa sed apostata ab omnibus haberetur. See Mirbt, Die Wahl, etc., pp. 29-38.
Jaffé, Mon. Greg. (1885), pp. 9 sqq.
Abridged from Ep., II. 49; Jaffé, p. 163; Migne, 148, 400
Reg., I. 70.
Pope Leo XIII., in his encyclical concerning the Christian constitution of States (Immortale Dei, Nov. 1, 1885), defends the mediaeval theory of Church and State, and refers to the authority of St. Augustine, as having in his De Civitate Dei clearly set forth the true principles on this subject for all time to come. See Schaff’s edition of St. Augustine’s Works, pref. to vol. II. (New York, 1887). Comp. also Reuter, Augustinische Studien (Gotha, 1887), pp. 106-152, and Mirbt., l.c., who has industriously collected the quotations from Augustine by the friends and opponents of Gregory VII.
The influence of Augustine’s theory upon Wyclif, Hus, and the Reformers is shown in this Church History, vol. VI. 522 sqq.
Gregory again and again expressed his feeling of personal unworthiness in such expressions as cui licet indigni et nolentes praesidemus, Reg., I. 18, 70, etc.; Migne, 300, 344, etc.
Dictatus Papae, Migne, 148, 407 sq.; Mirbt, Quellen, p. 113. Comp: the note of Gieseler, II. B. 7 (Germ. ed.). I quote a few: 12. Quod illi liceat imperatores deponere. 22. Quod Romana Ecclesia numquam erravit, nec in perpetuum, Scriptura testante, errabit. 26. Quod catholicus non habeatur, qui non concordat Ecclesiae Romanae. 27. Quod a fidelitate iniquorum subjectos potest absolvere
See Mirbt, Publizistik, 572-579.
Letter of May 8, 1080, to William of England. Jaffé, 419 sq.; Migne, 148, 569. Gregory also compared the priesthood to gold and royalty to lead, Reg., IV. 2.
In a letter to Bishop Hermann of Metz, March 15, 1081 (Reg., VIII. 21). "Quis nesciat reges et duces ab illis habuisse principium, qui, Deum ignorantes, superbia, rapinis, perfidia, homicidiis, postremo universis pene sceleribus, mundi principe Diabolo videlicet agitante, super pares scilicet homines, dominari caeca cupidine etintolerabili presumptione affectaverunt," St. Augustine likewise combines the two views of the origin of the State, and calls it both a divine ordinance and a "grande latrocinium," an enslavement of men in consequence of sin. See Reuter,August. Studien, l.c., 135 sq. The letter to Hermann is also given in Mirbt, Quellen, 105-112.
Petrum dominus Jesus Christus, rex gloriae, principem super regna mundi constituit, Reg., I. 63; Migne, 148, 339.
Reg., I. 29, VII. 10; Migne, 148, 312, 584.
Reg., I. 7; Migne, 289.
Reg., I. 64; Migne, 339.
Reg., II. 5, 18, 32.
Lupus rapax, etc.
Reg., II. 51, 75; Migne, 403, 426.
Reg., II. 73, 74; Migne, 423 sq.
Regnum Hungariae sanctae Romanae ecclesiae proprium est a rege Stephano beato Petri olim cum omni jure et potestate sua oblatum et devote traditum, Reg., II. 13; Migne, 373.
Reg., I. 18; Migne, 300.
Reg., I. 70, VII. 23; Migne, 345, 565 sqq., etc.
"Hubert, your legate in your behalf has bade me to do fealty to you and your successors, and to think better in the matter of the money which my predecessors were wont to send to the Roman Church. The one point I agreed to, the other I did not agree to. Fealty I refused to do, nor will I do it, nor do I find that my predecessors did it to your predecessors." The letter of William the Conqueror to Gregory, written after 1076, the date being uncertain. See Gee and Hardy, Documents of Eng. Ch. Hist., p. 57. The efforts of Gregory to secure William’s support in his controversy with Henry IV. failed. Reg., VI. 30, VII. 1; Migne, 535, 545.
See Mirbt, p. 278.
Mirbt, Publizistik, 259, says that there was no such thing as a general observance of celibacy in Western Europe.
Kirchengesch., 339.
Kirchengesch., 271. It will be remembered that in Spain, in the eighth century, King Witiza formally abolished the law of clerical celibacy.
So Bonizo of Sutri ad amicum, lib. V.
So Damiani. See Mirbt, 248.
Gregory, Reg., II. 10.
Incontinentes sacerdotes et levitae ... sacerdotes concubinati.
Reg., II. 30.
In a letter to Sicardus, abp. of Aquileja, Jan. 24, 1074, Gregory complained of princes who treated the Church as a servant-maid, quasi vilem ancillam, etc. Reg., I. 42; Migne, 148, 322.
Gregory, Reg., II. 29, III. 4, commanded him to root out "clerical fornication."
Hauck, III. 780 sq.; Mirbt, Publizistik, 269 sqq.; Hefele, V. 30 sqq.
Lea, p. 309.
importabilia ideoque irrationabilia.
1 Lea, p. 341.
investitura per baculum et annulum.
Humbert’s work, adversus simoniacos, is giveninlibelli de lite and Migne, vol. 153. Wido of Arezzo and Damiani expressed the same views. See Mirbt, Publizistik, 463-471. Of those who received lay investiture it began to be said "that they entered not in by the door,"non per ostium intraverant.
ut per laicos nullo modo quilibet clericus aut presbyter obtineat ecclesiam nec gratis nec pretio, Mansi, XIX. 898.
This statement is based upon the authority of Arnulf of Milan. The decree itself is lost. See Mirbt, Publizistik, 492. Arnulf says, papa ... palam interdicit regi jus deinde habere aliquod in dandis episcopatibus omnesque laicas personas ab investituris ecclesiarum summovet.
"Si quis deinceps episcopatum vel abbatiam de manu alicujus laicae personae susceperit, nullatenus inter Episcopos vel Abbates habeatur ...Si quis Imperatorum, Regum, Ducum, Marchionum, Comitum, vel quilibet saecularium potestatum aut personarum investituram episcopatus vel alicujus ecclesiasticae dignitatis dare praesumserit, ejusdem sententiae vinculo se adstrictum sciat." Pagi, Crit. ad ann. 1075, No. 2; Watterich, I. 365; Hefele, V. 47; Reg., VI. 5.
"Descende, descende." Bruno, De bello Saxonico, in Pertz, VII. 352 sq. There are several variations of the letter of Henry, but the tone of imperious defiance and violence is the same.
Bernried, Vita Greg., c. 68 sq. (in Migne, 148, p. 74); Jaffé, 223;Mirbt, Quellen, 100; Hefele, V. 70 sqq.
The papal sentence against Henry made a profound impression upon Western Europe. Bonizo says, universus noster romanus orbis contemruit, postquam de banno regis ad aures personuit vulgi. See Mirbt, 139.
The excommunication of Henry in 1076 and again in 1080 called forth a controversial literature of some proportions, Mirbt, Publizistik, 134-239, as did Gregory’s attitude towards simony and clerical celibacy. The anti-Gregorians took the ground that the excommunication was unjust and even called in question the pope’s right to excommunicate a king. Gregory’s letters make reference to these objections. Writing to Hermann of Metz, Reg., IV. 2, Gregory said that there were some who openly declared that a king should not be excommunicated, regem non oportet excommunicari. Gregory justified his act on the ground of the king’s companionship with excommunicated persons, his refusal to offer repentance for crimes, and the rupture of the unity of the Church which resulted from the king’s course, Reg., IV. 1, etc. The Council of Tribur, Oct. 16, 1076, discussed the questions whether a pope might excommunicate a king and whether Gregory had acted justly in excommunicating Henry. It answered both questions in the affirmative. A hundred years after the event, Otto of Freising, Gesta Friderici, I., speaks of the sentence as unheard of before, quo numquam ante haec tempora hujusmodi sententiam in principem romanum promulgatam cognoverat.
Reg IV. 2; Migne, 148, 455.
The castle was destroyed by the inhabitants of Reggio in 1255. The site affords a magnificent view of the Apennines towards the south, and of the plain of the Po towards the north, and the cities of Parma, Reggio, and Modena. An excursion from Reggio to Canossa and back can be made in eight hours. For Gregory’s own account of the meeting, see Reg., IV. 2, in Migne, 148, 465, and Mirbt, Quellen, 101. See also Hauck, III. 792 sqq.
"Illic," says Berthold (Monum. Germ. SS., V. 289)."laneis indutus, nudis pedibus, frigorosus, usque in diem tertium foris extra castellum cum suis hospitabatur." During the night the king was under shelter. See Hefele, V. 94 sq.
The last point is omitted by Berthold, but expressly mentioned by Lambert of Hersfeld, and confirmed by Gregory, who says in his account of the Canossa event to the German prelates and princes, that he received Henry only into the communion of the Church, without reinstating him in his reign (losum ei communionem redidi, non tamen in regno ... instauravi), and without binding the faithful to their oath of allegiance, reserving this to future decision. Jaffé, p. 402; Hefele, V. 96. The same view he expresses in the sentence of the second excommunication. In view of these facts it is strange that Giesebrecht (III. 403) should discredit the report of Lambert, and hold that Henry regained with the absolution also the royal prerogatives.
This story, first told by Lambert of Hersfeld, who in the main sided with Gregory against Henry, is discredited by Giesebrecht, III. 401; Ranke, VII. 284; Mirbt, 194-199; and the Catholic historians, Döllinger and Hefele(V. 98), reject it as a fable. The pope had no need to protest his innocence, and had referred the charges against the king to a German tribunal; the king had previously promised him to appear before this tribunal; his present purpose was simply to get rid of the interdict, so as to be free to act. By declining the ordeal he would have confessed his guilt and justified the pope, and superseded the action of the German tribunal. On the historical value of Lambert’s Annales, see Giesebrecht, III. 1030-1032, and Wattenbach, Deutschlands, Geschichtsquellen, II. 87 sqq. Gregorovius repeats the story as authentic.
Lambert refutes this slander (M. G., V. 257), and the best modern historians. Protestant as well as Catholic, reject it. See Neander, Ranke. (VII. 280), and Hefele (V. 67 sq.). Ranke says: "Solche Verhältnisse giebt es ja zwischen Individuen beiderlei Geschlechtes, die sich nur auf geistigem Boden entwickeln, in welchen ohne sinnliche Annäherung die tiefste innere Vereinigung der Gesinnungen und Ueberzeugungen besteht. Die Markgräfin glaubte an die Wahrhaftigkeit und den geistigen Beruf des Papstes, und der Papst andererseits bedurfte ihrer Hülfe."
Purg., XXVIII. 40, XXXII. 92; XXXII. 28, 82, XXXIII. 119, 121.
Mirbt,Publizistik, 181-200, seeks to make out that Henry’s act at Canossa was regarded by his age as an act of humility and not of humiliation. The contemporary writers speak of it as an act of unheard of and wonderful humility, "mira inaudita humilitas, officium humilitatis." In view of the profound reverence for the Church which prevailed it may be taken as certain that the people looked upon it as an act of humble piety. But for Henry it was a different thing. As Mirbt agrees, the king was not moved by deep religious concern but by a desire to hold on to his crown. For him Canossa was a humiliation and before the bar of historic judgment the act wherein the State prostrated itself at the feet of the pope must be regarded as a humiliation. For other instances of princely submission to the pope, see Mirbt, p. 198, note.
See the extract in §11, p. 32, and Latin text of the address in Mansi, Harduin, Jaffé, and Shailer Mathews, 51-54.
The Rock gave the crown to Peter and Peter gives it to Rudolf.
This fact is reported by Albericus of Trois-Fontaines, but doubted by Sybel (Gesch. des ersten Kreuzzugs, p. 218) and Hefele (V. 150, note).
For a good description of the battle, see Giesebrecht, III. 516 sqq.
Hildebert’s poem, lamenting the ruins of Rome, is found in Migne, 171, 1441 sq.
84 "Praeter Henricum regem dictum omnes absolvo et benedico, quicumque me hanc habere specialem potestatem in vocem apostolorum Petri et Pauli credunt indubitanter." Paulus Bernriedensis, Vita Greg., c. 12; Baronius, Ann. XVII. 566.
85 "Dilexi justitiam et odi iniquitatem; propterea morior in exilio." The first two sentences are from Ps. 46:8; the last is put instead of "propterea unxit te Deus." His enemies spread the false report that he repented of the controversy which he had excited. Mon. Germ. Script., VIII. 470; Baxmann, II. 424 sqq.
86 His monument, erected in 1578 in the cathedral of Salerno, bears the Inscription: "Gregorius VII. Soanensis, P.O. M., Ecclesiae libertatis vindex acerrimus, assertor constantissimus, qui dum Romani Pontificis auctoritatem adversus Henrici perfidiam strenue tueretur, Salernae sancte decubuit. Anno Domini 1085, oct. Cal. Jun." Hefele, V. 184; Gregorovius, Die Grabmäler der Päpste, p. 49; Giesebrecht, III. 578. Rome, which has so many papal monuments, has none for Gregory VII., except an inscription on a stone In S. Prudentiana, where he is called "Vir benedictus, moribus ecclesiam renovavit." See Gregorovius, IV. 246.
87 Hauck, III. 754 sqq.
88 In a single letter to Hermann of Metz, Reg., IV. 2, Gregory quotes at least nine passages of Scripture.
89 Ubi Deus Petro principaliter dedit potestatem ligandi et solvendi in terra et in caelo, nullum excepit, nihil ab ejus potestate subtraxit. Reg., IV. 2; Migne, 148, 456.
90 Weltgesch. VII. 34 sqq.
91 Hist. of City of Rome, IV. 256. Of Canossa this author had said, IV. 207: "The weaponless victory of the monk Gregory has more claim on the admiration of the world than all the victories of an Alexander, a Caesar, and a Napoleon." Like other Protestant German historians he has no sympathy with Gregory’s papal scheme of papal absolutism, but most of the German Church historians, as Mirbt and Hauck, are inclined to magnify the courage and manly vigor of Henry, as well as the justice of his cause, and to underestimate or question the moral quality of Gregory in his conflict with the emperor, and the immediate results of the event at Canossa. Hauck, III. 805, omits a detailed description of that remarkable scene with the remark that it was so well known to Germans as not to need retelling. He pronounces the estimate usually put upon Gregory’s intellectual gifts as too high, and declares that the title "Great" is properly associated with the name of the first Gregory and not with the seventh pope of that name. Hildebrand had convictions enough, but lacked in native force, p. 832 sq.
92 Dated March 15, 1081, Reg., VIII. 21; Mirbt, Quellen, 105-112; Migne, 148, 594-604.