Hildebrand did not assume his title until he had re- ceived the approbation of the emperor Henry IV, to whom he dispatched messengers for the purpose. The emperor, pleased with this act of deference, readily confirmed his election, and Hildebrand assumed the name of Gregory VII. The great object of Gregory's ambition was, as he expressed himself in a letter to Hugo, abbot of Clunj', to eff'ect a total reform of the Church in the points already named, as having em- ployed his energies under the preceding popes. Greg- ory determined to remove the root of many of the ex- isting evils by taking away from the secular princes the right which the}' assumed of disposing of the sees within their dominions. He aimed at nothing less than a concentration of all the ecclesiastical power of the world in the hands of the pope ; and his whole reign was a struggle to secure this supreme dominion, which included, in his ideas, the absolute subordina- tion of the temporal powers of the world to the spiritual power — that is, to the pope. The emperor Henry IV, licentious, ambitious, and at war with his revolted vas- sals, and therefore continually in want of money, was one of the most culpable in respect of simonj'. He disposed of sees and benefices in favor of vicious or in- capable men, and the l)ishops of German}' readily en- tered into his views of making the Church a sort of feudal dependant on the imperial will. Gregory be- gan by admonishing Henr}' ; he sent legates to Ger- many, but to little purpose. His next step was to as- semble a council at Kome in 1074, which anathema- tized persons guilty of simony, and ordered the depo- sition of those priests who lived in concubinage, under which name, however, were also included those who lived in a state of matrimony, and it was decreed also that no one should be admitted to holy orders unless he made a vow of celibacy. This last regulation cre- ated great excitement, especially at Milan, where tlie custom of priests Ijeing married was still prevalent, as in the Eastern Church. " Gregory summoned another council at Kome in 1075, in which, for the first time, kings and other lay princes were forbidden, under pain of excommunication, from giving the investiture of sees and abbeys by conferring the ring and the cro- sier. This was the beginning of the quarrel about the investiture which distracted Europe for many years after, and which may here require some explanation. In the early ages of the Christian Church, it would ap- pear that the body of the clergy, or presbyters of a town or district, together with the municipal council or notables, elected their bishop or chief pastor, and the Christian emperors did not interfere with the choice except in the case of the great patriarchal sees, such as Kome and Constantinople, the candidate to which, after being elected by the clergy and people, was re- quired to wait for the imperial confirmation. The Gothic kings of Italy followed the same system, as well as the exarchs of Ravenna after them, in the name of the Byzantine emperors. At Rome, and probably in the rest of Italy also, the laity participated in the election of their bishops till the 10th century ; in the East they appear to have been excluded from it sooner. Charlemagne is said by some to have intro- duced the custom of putting the ring and crosier into the hands of new-elected bishops, while he required fi-om them the oath of fealty to himself. There seems no doubt at least that the custom was prevalent under his successors of the Carlovingian dynasty. The rea-
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Hon of this was, that the churches having been richly enilovved by various sovereigns with lands and other temporalities, the incumbents were considered in the light of feudal tenants. By thus keeping at their own disposal the temporalities of the sees, the sovereigns came gradually to appoint the bishops, either by di- rect nomination, or by recommending a candidate to the electors. Gregory, making no distinction between spiritualities and temporalities, considered the investi- ture as a spiritual act, insisting that the crosier was eml)leniatic of the spiritual authority of bishops over their flocks, and the ring was the symbol of their mys- tical marriage with the Church ; although Sarpi ob- serves, in his Treatise upon Benefices, there was another ceremony, namely, the consecration of the bishop elect by imposition of hands by the metropolitan, which was the real spiritual investiture. But Gregoiy's object was to take away from la3-men all ecclesiastical patron- age, and to make the Church, with all its temporalities, independent of the state. He would not admit of any symbols of allegiance to the state ; and he contended that the estates of sees had become inseparably con- nected with the spiritual office, and could na longer be distinguished ; and j'et he himself had waited for the confirmation of the emperor before he was consecrated. See Investiture. The emperor Henr}' IV paid no regard to Gregoiy's councils and their decrees, and lie continued to nominate not only to German, but also Italian bishoprics. Among others, he appointed a cer- tain Tedaldo archbishop of Milan, in opposition to Azzo, a mere youth, who had been consecrated by Grcgorj^'s legate. But the qnaiTel of the investiture, which had opened the breach between tlie pope and the emperor, was lost sight of in tlie more extraordinary discussions which followed between them. Gregory had been for some time tampering with Henry's disaffected vassals of Saxony, Thuringia, and otiier countries, and he now publicly summoned the emperor to Rome to vindicate himself from the charges preferred by his subjects against him. This was a further and most imwar- rantable stretch of that temporal supremacy over kings and principalities wliich the see of Eome had already begun to assume. Henry, indignant at this assump- tion of power, assembled a diet of the empire at Worms, at whicli many bishops and abbots were present, and which, upon various charges preferred against Grego- ry, deposed him, and dispatched a messenger to Rome to signify this decision to the Roman clergy, request- ing them to send a mission to the emperor for a new pope. Upon this, Gregorj', in a council assembled at the Lateran Palace in 1076, solemnly excommunicated Henry, and in the name of St. Peter, prince of the apostles, declared him ipso facto deposed from the thrones of Gernianj' and Italj', and liis subjects re- leased from their oath of allegiance. Gregory, ob- serves Platina, in his Lives of the Popes, was the first who assumed the right of deposing the emperors, whose vassals he and his predecessors had been considered till then, and who had even exercised the power of de- posing several popes for illegal election or abuse of their authority. This bold act of Gregory produced for a time the effect which he had calculated upon. Most of Henry's subjects, already ripe for rebellion, readil}' availed themselves of the papal sanction, and a diet was assembled to elect a new emperor. Henrj', however, obtained a delay, and, the matter being re- ferred to the pope, he set off for Italy in the winter of 1077, and, passing the Alps of Susa, met Gregory at the castle of Canossa, near Keggio, in Lombardy, which belonged to the countess Mathilda, a great friend and supporter of the pope. Gregorj- would not see Henry at first, but insisted upon his laj'ing aside all the insig- nia of roj'alty, and appearing in the garb of a penitent in a coarse woollen garment and barefooted. In this plight Henrj' remained for throe days, from morning till sunset, in an outer court of the castle, in very severe weather. On the fourth day he was admitted into