that, in his last moments, his conduct had the approval of his conscience.1

Apparently vanquished, Gregory died triumphant. The great principle for which he struggled has been victorious. Bishops are independent of the secular power, and, as a consequence, the freedom of the Church is secure. The altar affords an asylum to those pursued by the violence of the throne. Taught by the lessons of Gregory, cities have gained the right of franchise, and in this way laid the foundations of the liberty of mankind. While freely admitting that the plans and actions of Gregory were sometimes extravagant, it is nevertheless true that they were always characterized by a certain elevation and grandeur, which challenge a respectful admiration, if not superior, at least equal, to that elicited by the victories of ancient Rome. To exalt Gregory and speak his praise, is in itself a commendation of the speaker's judgment and good sense, and the surest token that he is on the way to distinction and honor. Hence, the noblest characters of Gregory's age, and those most distinguished by eminent intellectual gifts in every age since, have fully appreciated his great worth, and expressed their admiration for him in terms which his life and conduct abundantly deserved.

Gregory was beatified in 1584 by his namesake, Gregory XIII., and placed upon the catalogue of the saints by Benedict XIII., in 1728.2

1 Paul Bernried (and the generality of chroniclers agree with him, almost word for word), Vita Greg. VII., c. 108: Adstantibus ei episcopis et cardinalibus eumque pro laboribus sanctae conversationis et doctrinae beatificantibus respondit: ego fratres mei dilectissimi nullos labores meos alicujus momenti facio, in hoc solummodo confidens, quod semper dilexi justitiam et odio habui iniquitatem, propterea morior in exilio.

2Cf. even the most vehement manifesto against Gregory, viz., ep. Theodorici, episc. Virdunens., in Martène et Durand, Thesaur. novus anecdot., T. I., p. 215. The ecclesiastical office says in praise of him: "Universam ecclesiam mirifice illustravit. Sicut sol effulsit in ecclesia Dei; libertati ecclesiae restituendae, extirpandis erroribus et corruptelis tanto studio incubuit, ut ex Apostolorum aetate nullus Pontificum fuisse tradatur qui majores pro ecclesia Dei labores molestiasque pertulerit, aut qui pro ejus libertate acrius pugnaverit. Vir vere sanctus, criminum vindex et acerrimus ecclesiae defensor — pluribus in vita et post mortem miraculis clarus."

§ 215. Victor III. (A. D. 1087)-Urban II. (A. D. 1088-1099.)

Victor III. Chron. monast. Cassin. (Muratori, Scriptt. rer. Ital., T. IV., p. 151), Mansi, T. XX., p. 630. The biographies of Pandulph. Pisan. and Bernard. Guidon. (Muratori, T. III., Pt. I., p. 351; Watterich, T. I., p. 549-571); from and according to the sources, Ruinart, in Mabillon et Ruinart, opp. posthum., Par. 1724, 4to. Cf. especially Bernoldus Constant., in Ussermann, Monumenta rer. Alem., etc., T. II. Pertz, T. VII., Pt. II. Urbani II. Epist. and Doc., in Mansi, T. XX., p. 642 sq. Harduin, T. VII., Pt. II., p. 1627 sq. Watterich, T. I., p. 571-620.

The influence exercised by Gregory on papal elections previously to his own elevation, was felt in the choice of those who succeeded him. When dying, he designated Desiderius, Abbot of Monte Cassino; Otho, Cardinal-bishop of Ostia; Hugo, Archbishop of Lyons, and Anselm, Bishop of Lucca, as persons worthy to be his successors. Of these, Desiderius was chosen, in spite of the efforts made to defeat him by the adherents of Henry and Guibert, who then formed a numerous and influential party at Rome. But it was only after the papal chair had remained vacant for two years, that the holy monk, yielding to the earnest prayer of the synod of Capua, and grieved at the deplorable condition of the Church, finally consented to quit his solitude and take upon him the burden of the papacy (May 9, A. D. 1087). Desiderius, as Pope, took the name of Victor III.

The principal event of this short pontificate was the holding of a synod of the bishops of Apulia and Calabria at Benevento, in which the antipope was again excommunicated, and secular investiture and traffic in ecclesiastical dignities forbidden under penalty of anathema.

Following the precedent of Gregory, Victor also designated the Cardinal-bishop of Ostia, by birth a Frenchman, as the person who, in his opinion, was most worthy to succeed him. For six months Otho refused to accept; but, at the end of this time, finding resistance useless, he consented, and became Pope under the name of Urban 11. (March 12, A. D. 1088). Immediately after his accession, Urban addressed a circular letter to the Catholic world, in which he said: "We purpose to tread faithfully in the footsteps of Gregory VII., our pre

decessor of glorious memory and a martyr to the cause of justice." He was as good as his word. In a letter addressed, a few months later, to Alphonso VI., King of Leon and Castile, he censured him for having taken upon himself to depose the Archbishop of Compostella. "Restore him to his see," wrote Urban," and then send him here, accompanied by your own deputies, that he may be judged according to the Should you refuse, We shall be obliged to employ harsher measures, such as are by no means agreeable to us. Urban was then (A. D. 1088) holding a synod at Melfi, in Apulia, for the purpose of providing measures for the reformation of the Church. Its decrees were published in the following year at Bari.

canons.

In the year 1090, the illustrious St. Bruno, at the request of the Pope, quitted his solitude among the mountains of Grenoble, to assist, by his learning, wisdom, and experience, his former disciple in governing the Church.

After exhorting, through his legates, all the princes of Christendom to unite in defense of the oppressed Church, Urban set out for Rome. But being unable, owing to the power of Henry and the antipope Clement III., in Upper and Central Italy, to make his solemn entrance into the city, he took up his residence on the island in the Tiber, and so destitute was he of resources from legitimate channels, that he was forced to depend on the charity of the faithful for subsistence. Mathilda alone remained loyal to the Pope and the Church. Urban hoped to strengthen his power by an alliance which he brought about between this princess and Guelf II., the second son of the Duke of Bavaria; but in this he was unsuccessful. Guelf, learning that Mathilda had, for the good of her soul, long since willed her extensive possessions to the Holy See, at once separated from her.1

1

1 The deed of donation, after the vita Mathildis a Donizone scripta (in Baron. ad a. 1102, nr. 20; Muratori, Scriptt., T. V., p. 384): In nomine st. et individuae Trinitatis ego Mathildis, Dei gratia comitissa, pro remediis animae meae et parentum meorum dedi et obtuli ecclesiae sancti Petri per interventum Domini Gregor. VII. omnia bona mea, jure proprietario, tam quae tunc habueram, quam ea, quae in antea acquisitura eram, sive jure successionis omnia, sicut dictum est, per manum Domini Greg. VII. Romanae ecclesiae dedi et tradidi, et char

While religious and civil wars were spreading devastation everywhere in Germany, men of all conditions, sickened with the sight of so much bloodshed, fled from the angry strife of the world and sought quiet and peace of soul in the solitude of the cloister. While devoting their lives and their fortunes to the service of the religious orders, and living according to monastic rule, they still retained their secular dress. Urban II. approved this quasi-religious life as "laudable and worthy of encouragement, and as having its exemplar and sanction in the manner of life of the early Christians."1

In order the better to establish the legitimate authority of the papacy in Germany, Urban II. sent thither, as his legates, Altman, Bishop of Passau, and Gebhard, Bishop of Constance.2 IIe further prescribed three degrees of censure, which should be incurred by King Henry and Guibert according to the degree of their guilt, and by those who gave them evil counsel, by simoniacal ecclesiastics, and by all who should influence well-disposed persons against the Church.

Scarcely had reconciliation between IIenry and Herman been brought about by the latter's resignation of his pretensions to the crown, than IIenry led his armies, for a third time, across the Alps (A. D. 1090), and fought with varying

tulam inde fieri rogavi. Sed quia chartula nusquam apparet et timeo, ne donatio et oblatio mea in dubium revocetur: ideo ego, quae supra, Comitissa Mathildis, iterum a praesenti die dono et offero eidem Rom. ecclesiae per manum Bernardi Cardinalis et Legati ejusd. Rom. eccl. sicut in illo tempore dedi per manum Dom. Greg. omnia bona mea, etc. The recently published appendix ad Ph. L. Dionysii opus de Vaticanis cryptis-auctoribus in Rom. Archigymn. professoribus Sarti et Settelenis, Rom. 1844–proves, by monumental documents, the authenticity of this deed of gift.

1 Bernold of Constance illustrates this by what he says of two Suabian monasteries: Eo tempore duo Teutonicorum monasteria cum suis cellulis regularibus disciplinis instituta egregia pollebant, quippe coenobium St. Blasii in nigra silva et St. Aurelii, quod Hirsaugia dicitur. Ad quae monasteria mirabilis multitudo nobilium et prudentium virorum hac tempestate in brevi confugit, et depositis armis evangelicam perfectionem sub regulari disciplina exsequi proposuit, tanto inquam numero, ut ipsa monasteriorum aedificia necessario ampliarint, eo quod non aliter in eis locum commanendi haberent. Cf. ad a. 1091 (Ussermann, T. II., p. 148).

2Cf. †Zell, Gebhard of Zähringen, Bishop of Constance (Freiburg Diocesan Archives, Vol. I., p. 305-104).

VOL. II-33

fortune against the forces of Mathilda; and Guibert, who but a short time before had been expelled the city by the inhabitants, again gained possession of Rome. But Henry's star was now on the decline, and he soon forfeited whatever of personal respect the people still entertained for him. His eldest son, Conrad, a worthy, pious, and generally esteemed prince, who had been crowned at Aix-la-Chapelle in 1087, now deserted the cause of his licentious father, and was crowned King of Italy, at Monza, by Anselm, Archbishop of Milan, lately a partisan of Henry's, but who had now gone over to the party of the Pope.

1

Henry was shortly after deserted by his second wife, Praxedes, a Russian princess. This lady confessed, publicly, at the synods of Constance (Holy Week, A. D. 1094) and of Piacenza (A. D. 1095), the shameful excesses of her degraded husband and the cruelties to which he subjected her. The latter of these synods, though held in the stronghold of Guibert's party, was attended by four hundred ecclesiastics and thirty thousand laymen, and enacted rigorous decrees against incontinent and simoniacal priests. The Council of Clermont (November, A. D. 1095), at which there were present two hundred and eighteen bishops and abbots and a vast multitude of laymen of every rank and condition, protested in the most energetic terms against bishops taking the homagium, or oath of fealty, to either king or feudal lord. It was argued that the homagium was dangerous to the liberties of the Church, inasmuch as the bishops were placed by it in a condition of absolute dependence on the feudal lord, and bound to render him service under all circumstances. If they objected to the performance of these feudal duties from even religious motives, their refusal would be regarded as a violation of the homagium, and viewed in the light of a felony. Hence both bishops and priests were forbidden to take the feudal oath of fidelity to either king or other layman.2

It was the object of the council to sunder relations in every

1 Bernold. Constantiensis ad an. 1095.

2 Synod. Clarom., can. 17: Ne episcopus vel sacerdos regi vel alicui laico in manibus ligium fidelitatis faciat. (Mansi, T. XX., p. 817; Harduin, T. VI., Pt.