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knot which Leo and Henry still held in brotherly hands should be cut, it was necessary only that men should rise like Peter Damien of Ra- venna, who spread his hermit-like message of penitence during this and succeeding pontificates, or like Hildebrand, the subdeacon, whom the Pope had brought to Rome from Germany after Gregory's death and had entrusted with the task of putting the chaotic Papal finances in order.
Leo displayed his pastoral staff to the north, but to the south he also laid bare his sword. He crossed the Alps three times, rode tirelessly from synod to synod, and let the peoples realize that he wished to be a Pope for all men, and always a kind and energetic Pope. His jour- neys, the ecclesiastical feasts he inaugurated, and his monastic visita- tions, had the far-reaching impressive effect that he loved to evoke. But around the corners of the streets through which he rode in tri- umph there were also those who muttered dissatisfaction. Possibly there were even more of them in France than in Germany. There were bishops and archbishops, jealous of his personal and official power and aware that the ancient structure of the Imperial Church was be- ginning to totter. The stubbornness of the German bishops, above all that of their leader, Gebhard of Eichstatt, was also directed at the Papal policy in southern Italy, which they thought made Imperial moneys serve an alien purpose. Leo requested German troops to op- pose the growing power of the Normans, and to stop their inroads into ecclesiastical territory. The Emperor assented, but was then in- duced by Gebhard and his faction to withdraw the offer. Only a small company of volunteers accompanied the Pope southward. And so he daringly staked everything on his own army and in 1053 suffered a devastating defeat at Civitate, where the Italians fled before the first onslaught of the enemy and the small German force, though they fought like so many lions, bowed to superior numbers. After months in Norman captivity spent in weeping for his dead, giving alms to the poor and praying during whole nights while lying on a pallet with his head against a stone, Leo also lived to witness the collapse of his Oriental policy. After a long process of estrangement and deepening hostility, the almost inevitable end came with the Schism of 1054. Leo came back to Rome a sick and humbled man, and died there in 1054. He was the most significant of the German Popes and found
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