HENRY IN ITALY, GREGORY AND MATHILDA.

155

nents of Gregory, among the bishops and nobles, hoped to gain in the king a head to their party, and they were ready to do anything in his service. Gregory, being fully aware of the fickle-mindedness of the young king, felt uncertain whether such a reception would not produce a change in his disposition and his mode of procedure. In this uncertainty with regard to his own situation, he betook himself for a while to the castle of his enthusiastically devoted friend, the powerful Margravine Mathilda of Tuscany.*

But Henry, for the present, had no other object in view than to get himself absolved from the ban. Before him went

* The connection of the pope with this lady was certainly of the purest character; and so it appears in his correspondence with her. The enthusiastic devotedness of the most strict and pious persons of the age testifies in favour of Gregory. The accusations of his most violent enemies, who brought so many absurd charges against him, certainly cannot be regarded as trustworthy evidence. It was natural that they should avail themselves of this connection of Gregory, for the purpose of throwing suspicion on the character of this severe censor of the morals of the clergy with regard to this very point, and thereby to place his zeal for the laws of the celibacy of priests in an unfavourable point of light. That fierce opponent of the Hildebrandian party, bishop Waltram of Naumburg, intimates this suspicion against the pope, however, in such a way, that it is easy to see how little reason he himself had for regarding it as well-grounded. Apolog. 1. II. c. 36. Mathilda illa post octavum quoque annum, quo defunctus est Hildebrand familiaris ejus, defendit promptissime contra sedem apostolicam (Guibert's party) et contra imperatorem partem ipsius, qui propter frequens cum ea et familiare colloquium generavit plurimis scævæ suspicionis scandalum. Henry, bishop of Speier, expresses himself in stronger terms, in his invective against Gregory, Eccard. T. II. in the collection of letters of the Cod. Bamberg. ep. 162: Qui etiam quasi fœtore quodam gravissimi scandali totam ecclesiam replesti de convictu et cohabitatione alienæ mulieris familiariori, quam necesse sit. In qua re verecundia nostra magis quam causa laborat, quum hæc generalis querela unicuique personuerit, omnia judicia, omnia decreta per feminas in sede apostolica actitari, denique per feminas totum orbem ecclesiæ administrari. The impartial Lambert of Aschaffenburg remarks, concerning the relation of Mathilda to the pope: Tanquam patri vel domino sedulum exhibebat officium. He then refers to the misinterpretations put on this relation, which proceeded from the friends of Henry, and particularly from the opponents of the laws of celibacy among the clergy, and says of these: Sed apud omnes sanum aliquid sapientes luce clarius constabat, falsa esse, quæ dicebantur. Nam et papa tam eximie tamque apostolice vitam instituebat, ut nec minimam sinistri rumoris maculam conversationis ejus sublimitas admitteret et illa in urbe celeberrima atque in tanta obsequentium frequentia, obscœnum aliquid perpetrans latere nequaquam potuisset,

156

HENRY'S PENANCE AT CANOSSA.

the excommunicated bishops and nobles of Germany, in the habit of penitents, barefoot and in woollen garments, to beg absolution from the pope. The latter listened, it is true, to their petition, but he required of them such proofs of their repentance as would be calculated to leave a right lasting impression on men so inured to luxury. Each of the bishops was obliged to remain from morn to evening shut up in a solitary cell, in his penitential raiment, partaking only of the most meagre diet. Then he allowed them to come before him and gave them absolution, after mildly reproving them for their transgressions, and exhorting them to guard against such conduct for the future. When they took their leave of him, he strictly charged them to abstain from all fellowship with king Henry till he had become reconciled with the church; only for the purpose of exhorting him to repentance, they might be allowed to converse with him.

But Gregory proceeded more harshly with the young king himself. First he repelled the urgent entreaties of that prince, and the intercessions of Mathildis, of the abbot Hugo of Cluny (who was the king's godfather), and of many others who implored his compassion on the young monarch. He says himself, in his letter to the Germans :— "All were surprised at his unusual severity, and many imagined they perceived in it a tyrannical cruelty." He persisted in requiring that everything should be referred over to the trial which was to be instituted at the appointed convention in Germany. At length he yielded to the entreaties and intercessions poured in upon him, but required of king Henry still severer proofs of his repentance than he had demanded from those bishops. The king, after having laid aside all the insignia of his imperial rank, and clothed himself in the garb of a penitent, was admitted into the sacred inclosure of the castle of Canossa, where he waited fasting, during three days, in the rough winter at the commencement of the year 1077, till at length, on the fourth day, the pope admitted him to his presence. He gave him absolution under the condition that he should appear be

* Ut pro eo multis precibus et lacrimis intercedentibus, omnes quidem insolitam mentis nostræ duritiam mirarentur, nonnulli vero in nobis non apostolicæ severitatis gravitatem, sed quasi tyrannicæ feritatis crudelitatem esse clamarent.

GREGORY RECEIVES THE HOST.

157

fore the proposed general assembly in Germany, where the pope would listen to the accusations of his adversaries, and to what he had to say in defence of himself, and give his decision accordingly. Till then he should utterly renounce the government, and, if he obtained it again, bind himself to support the pope in everything requisite for the maintenance of the ecclesiastical laws. If he failed to observe this condition, he should again fall under the ban.* And the abbot Hugo of Cluny,

and several persons present, of the spiritual and secular orders, pledged themselves that the king would fulfil the conditions of the compact. The pope then celebrated the mass in the presence of the king and of a numerous multitude. When he had consecrated the host, he observed, while taking a portion of it, that he had been accused by his enemies in Germany of many offences. True, he could bring forward many witnesses of his innocence, but he chose rather to appeal to the testimony of God than to that of man; and for the purpose of refuting, in the shortest way, all those charges, he here called on God himself to witness his innocence, while he now took, in averring it, the body of the Lord. Let Almighty God now declare him free, if he was innocent, or cause the partaking of the body of Christ to prove his immediate destruction, if he was guilty. Gregory regarded this, like his contemporaries, as a judgment of God; and such an appeal to the divine decision by a miracle was in perfect harmony with his whole mode of thinking. With the greatest composure he partook of the holy supper, which to him-since, according to his own religious conviction, this was really subjecting himself to a judgment of God-would have been impossible, if in his conscience he had felt that he was guilty. In very deed, therefore, it was the testimony of a tranquil conscience, and on the assembled multitude (to whom this appeared as such a triumph of innocence as if the voice of God had spoken directly from heaven) it must have made a most powerful impression. With a loud shout of approbation it was accepted

* In his letter to the Germans, Gregory appeals also to the fact that everything was still undecided; that he was bound by no obligation to the king: adhuc totius negotii causa suspensa est. Sciatis nos non aliter regi obligatos esse, nisi quod puro sermone sicut nobis mos est ea diximus, quibus eum ad salutem et honorem suum aut cum justitia aut cum misericordia sine nostræ aut illius animæ periculo adjuvare possimus.

158

HENRY'S PROMISES.

SINCERITY OF

by the whole assembly; and praise to the God, who had so glorified innocence, rung out from every mouth. When the shouts of the multitude had somewhat abated, the pope turned with the remainder of the host to the young king, and invited him to attest his innocence of all the charges brought against him from Germany, by doing the same. Then there would be no occasion for the trial which it had been proposed to hold in Germany, for all human judicatories were liable to error, and then he himself would, from that moment, stand forth as Henry's defender. But Henry was neither sufficiently sure of his own innocence, nor sufficiently hardened against religious impressions, to subject himself, uncertain of the result, to such an ordeal. He turned pale at the proposal, whispered with his attendants, sought evasions, and finally requested the pope to leave everything to be decided by the trial to be had in Germany. He pledged himself, by oath, to refer the settlement of the disputes in Germany to the pope's decision, and to insure his safety, so far as it depended on himself, inhis journey to Germany. At the close of the service, Gregory invited him to a repast, conversed with him in a friendly manner, and then dismissed him with serious admonitions.

The question here arises, whether the pope was perfectly sincere in effecting this reconciliation with king Henry. The enemies of Gregory charge him with having persecuted him from the beginning, on a calculated plan of bringing about his utter ruin, and of using everything as a means to accomplish this end. If Henry obeyed, and refrained entirely from exercising his kingly authority till that assembly could meet in Germany, then he would, by that very act, render himself contemptible; while the power of the anti-emperor, about whose election men were already busying themselves, would become more and more confirmed; or if he did not fulfil the condition, an opportunity would be given the pope to accuse him of violating the agreement, and again to pronounce the ban upon him. In what light would Gregory, with this finespun plan of revenge, requiring him to turn the most sacred acts into a means of deception, have to be regarded? If, after having granted king Henry absolution, he had still been able

So bishop Waltram of Naumburg, in his work De unitate ecclesiæ et imperii, L. I. c. vi.

66

GREGORY'S RECONCILIATION WITH HENRY.

159

to say to the enemies of that monarch, who were dissatisfied with this step, as he is represented to have said in a letter, that they should give themselves no trouble about what he had done, he was only going to send them back Henry loaded with deeper guilt," what diabolical malice and hypocrisy ! Well might Waltram of Naumburg say, "He dismissed him in peace, but peace such as Judas pretended, not such as Christ bestowed." With perfect justice might he exclaim, in view of such an act of duplicity, "This is not acting like a successor of Peter; this is not feeding Christ's sheep, to send one away loaded with still heavier guilt, and one too who repented of his fault; this was not acting like a priest of our Lord, who himself says in the gospel, that in heaven there is more joy over one sinner that repenteth, than over ninety and nine just men that need no repentance."

But we are listening to the words of a passionate antagonist. The language of party-passion, on either side, is to be heard with distrust. Who could penetrate into Gregory's heart, so as to be sure of the disposition in which he acted? The reasoning from an actual result to a deliberate purpose is always most unsafe. Even though Gregory had said what is laid to his charge, or something like it, still a great deal depends on the question, in what connection he said it, and whether with some condition or in an unconditioned manner. The dignity and self-respect which Gregory ever exhibits in his public communications, render it extremely unlikely that he would suffer himself to be hurried by passion to utter words so much in contradiction with those qualities. In granting king Henry absolution, Gregory assuredly said nothing to him which could have been designed to deceive him; he gave him plainly enough to understand that all was depending on his future behaviour: he even persisted in declaring that the whole matter

* Ne sitis solliciti, quoniam culpabiliorem eum reddo vobis. + Concerning Henry: Dimissus est in pace, qualem scilicet pacem Judas simulavit; non qualem Christus reliquit.

His words: Certe culpabiliorem facere aliquem, præcipue autem regem, quem præcipit Petrus apostolus honorificare, hoc non est oves Christi pascere. Culpabiliorem, inquam, facere, præcipue eum, quem pœniteat culpabilem existere, hoc non est, sacerdotem Domini esse, cum ipse in evangelio Dominus dicat, gaudium fieri in cœlo super uno peccatore pœnitentiam agente, quam super nonaginta novem justis, qui non indigent pœnitentia.