History of Western Philosophy - Bertrand Russell [236]
At the death of Nicholas II in 1061, Henry IV being now of age, there was a dispute between him and the cardinals as to the succession to the papacy. The Emperor had not accepted the election decree, and was not prepared to forgo his rights in the election of the Pope. The dispute lasted for three years, but in the end the cardinals' choice prevailed, without a definite trial of strength between Emperor and curia. What turned the scale was the obvious merit of the cardinals' Pope, who was a man combining virtue with experience, and a former pupil of Lanfranc (afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury). The death of this Pope, Alexander II, in 1073, was followed by the election of Hildebrand (Gregory VII).
Gregory VII (1073–85) is one of the most eminent of the Popes. He had long been prominent, and had great influence on papal policy. It was owing to him that Pope Alexander II blessed William the Conqueror's English enterprise; he favoured the Normans both in Italy and in the North. He had been a protégé of Gregory VI, who bought the papacy in order to combat simony; after the deposition of this Pope, Hildebrand passed two years in exile. Most of the rest of his life was spent in Rome. He was not a learned man, but was inspired largely by St Augustine, whose doctrines he learnt at second-hand from his hero Gregory the Great. After he became Pope, he believed himself the mouthpiece of St Peter. This gave him a degree of self-confidence which, on a mundane calculation, was not justified. He admitted that the Emperor's authority was also of divine origin: at first, he compared Pope and Emperor to two eyes; later, when quarrelling with the Emperor, to the sun and moon—the Pope, of course being the sun. The Pope must be supreme in morals, and must therefore have the right to depose the Emperor if the Emperor was immoral. And nothing could be more immoral than resisting the Pope. All this he genuinely and profoundly believed.
Gregory VII did more than any previous Pope to enforce clerical celibacy. In Germany the clergy objected, and on this ground as well as others were inclined to side with the Emperor. The laity, however, everywhere preferred their priests celibate. Gregory stirred up riots of the laity against married priests and their wives, in which both often suffered brutal ill-treatment. He called on the laity not to attend mass when celebrated by a recalcitrant priest. He decreed that the sacraments of married clergy were invalid, and that such clergy must not enter churches. All this roused clerical opposition and lay support; even in Rome, where Popes had usually gone in danger of their lives, he was popular with the people.
In Gregory's time began the great dispute concerning 'investitures'. When a bishop was consecrated, he was invested with a ring and staff as symbols of his office. These had been given by Emperor or king (according to the locality), as the bishop's feudal overlord. Gregory insisted that they should be given by the Pope. The dispute was part of the work of detaching the ecclesiastical from the feudal hierarchy. It lasted a long time, but in the end the papacy was completely victorious.
The quarrel which led to Canossa began over the archbishopric of Milan. In 1075 the Emperor, with the concurrence of the suffragans, appointed an archbishop; the Pope considered this an infringement of his prerogative, and threatened the Emperor with excommunication and deposition. The Emperor retaliated by summoning a council of bishops at Worms, where the bishops renounced their allegiance to the Pope. They wrote him a letter accusing him of adultery and perjury, and (worse than either) ill-treatment of bishops. The Emperor also wrote him a letter, claiming to be above all earthly judgment. The Emperor and his bishops pronounced Gregory deposed; Gregory excommunicated the Emperor and his bishops, and pronounced them deposed. Thus the stage was set.
In the first act, victory went to the Pope. The Saxons, who had before rebelled