Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume VIII.djvu/258

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244 GREGORY raoas evils of simony and unchastity, and to emancipate the church from the interference of the temporal power* He wrote to the countess Beatrice and her daughter Matilda to hold no communion with the simoniacal bishops of Tuscany. The emperor, who made no scruple or secret of selling ecclesiastical livings to the highest bidder, both in Germany and Italy, had thus twice disposed of the see of Milan. Gregory deposed the archbishop as an ex- ample to offenders, and held a council in Rome, in which it was made a law that all persons guilty of simony should be ipso facto excom- municated as incapable of exercising ecclesias- tical jurisdiction, and disqualified for holding any benefice whatever. It was furthermore decreed that all married and unchaste priests should be degraded from their office. This legislation produced great excitement through- out Germany, where an attempt to enforce it well nigh cost the archbishop of Mentz his life. It brought the pope into direct collision with the emperor, who traded in benefices. Henry had been summoned to Rome to answer for his tyrannical and licentious conduct ; he laughed at the summons, and derided the legates whom Gregory repeatedly sent to bring him to a sense of his wrong doing. In 1075 Cencius, prefect of Rome, had been excommunicated, with several of his abettors, for various crimes. On Christmas eve, while the pope was cele- brating midnight mass at Sta. Maria Maggiore, Cencius rushed into the church with a body of armed men, who dragged Gregory from the altar, wounded him in the neck, and hurried him off to a prison. This outrage was at- tributed by some to the emperor's instigation. The only reply Henry made to the papal sum- mons was to assemble a council at Worms in 1076, which passed a sentence of excommuni- cation against Gregory. Henry informed him of this in a letter addressed "to the false monk Hildebrand," which the imperial messenger handed to the pope at Rome in the midst of the solemn session of the council. A sentence of excommunication was fulminated against the emperor, whose crown was declared forfeited. Saxony and Thuringia had already been driven into open rebellion by the conduct of Henry ; on reception of the tidings from Rome, a ma- jority of the princes of the empire and several bishops met near Mentz, and, after vainly summoning Henry to appear and make satis- faction, they elected in his stead Rudolph, duke of Swabia. Abandoned by his adhe- rents, Henry was compelled to sue for pardon, crossed the Alps, and presented himself before the pope, who had taken refuge in the castle of Canossa. Whatever truth there may be in the relations of those who assert that the pon- tiff kept the suppliant emperor three whole days in the court of the castle, clad in a single garment and shivering in the cold of January, we may well believe that he treated him with severity. Absolved from excommunication, Henry returned, fought his enemies, and re- gained his crown by the death of Rudolph. The pope in absolving him had not reinstated him in his imperial rank ; hence the resistance he met with on his return to Germany, and hence, too, the animosity with which from that moment he pursued Gregory to the death. In 1081 he crossed once more into Lombardy, and assembled a council, which deposed and excommunicated the pope, and elected in his stead Guibert, archbishop of Ravenna, with whom Henry advanced toward Rome, but withdrew at the approach of Robert Guiscard and his Normans. He returned the next year with no better success, but on his third at- tempt was admitted into Rome by the treachery of some of the citizens. The pope fled to the fortress of Sant' Angelo, and Guibert was en- throned as Clement III. ; but Robert hastened by forced marches to the relief of Gregory, and Henry with his antipope withdrew from Rome. The Tuscan forces were victorious in Lombardy over Gregory's enemies, but his health was hopelessly broken. Robert, his deliverer, was unwilling to allow him in his enfeebled state to remain within reach of his persecutors, and persuaded him to rest for a while in Monte Casino, and then to take up his abode temporarily in Salerno, where he died repeating the words, Dilexi justitiam et odim iniquitatem, propterea, morior in exilio ("I have loved righteousness and hated wicked- ness, therefore do I die in exile "). These words may still be read on his tomb in the church of St. Matthew in Salerno. There is a collection of his letters in the Bollandists' Acta Sanctorum. See also his epistles in Migne's Patrologie, vol. cxlviii. ; his life by the Ger- man Protestant Voigt; and the posthumous work of Villemain, Histoire de Oregoire VII. (2 vols. 8vo, Paris, 1873 ; English translation by Brockley, London, 1874). VIII. Alberto dc Mora, succeeded Urban III., Oct. 21, 1187, died Dec. 17 of the same year. He is not to be con- founded with the antipope Bourdin, who as- sumed the name of Gregory VIII. IX. I'golino, succeeded Honorius III. in 1227, died in Rome, Aug. 21, 1241. He is remarkable chiefly for his protracted struggle with the emperor Fred- erick II. (See FREDERICK II. of Germany.) X. Tebaldo Visconti, born in Piacenza about 1209, died in Arezzo, Jan. 10, 1276. He be- came successively canon of Lyons, archdea- con of Lige, and cardinal. He was papal le- gate in Palestine, when, after an interregnum of three years, he was elected pope Sept. 1, 1271. He opened the second general council of Lyons in 1274, made vain endeavors to rouse Christian princes to succor Palestine, ef- fected a temporary reunion of the Greek and Latin churches, and was the first to enact a stringent law for the holding of conclaves. (See CONCLAVE.) Gregory X. was beatified in 1713. XI. Pierre Roger, born in Lower Limou- sin in 1329, elected pope in 1370 (the last Frenchman who has occupied the pontifical chair), died March 27, 1378. To him belongs