CHAPTER II.
GREGORY VII, 1073-1085. See literature in § 3.
§ 10. Hildebrand elected Pope. His Views on the Situation.
ALEXANDER II. died April 21, 1073, and was buried in the basilica of St. John in Lateran on the following day. The city, usually so turbulent after the death of a pope, was tranquil. Hildebrand ordered a three days' fast with litanies and prayers for the dead, after which the cardinals were to proceed to an election. Before the funeral service was closed, the people shouted, " Hildebrand shall be pope!" He attempted to ascend the pulpit and to quiet the crowd, but Cardinal Hugo Candidus anticipated him, and declared: " Men and brethren, ye know how since the days of Leo IX. Hildebrand has exalted the holy Roman Church, and defended the freedom of our city. And as we cannot find for the papacy a better man, or even one that is his equal, let us elect him, a clergyman of our Church, well known and thoroughly approved amongst us." The cardinals and clergy exclaimed in the usual formula, "St. Peter elects Gregory (Hildebrand) pope."1
This tumultuary election was at once legalized by the cardinals. He was carried by the people as in triumph to the church of S. Petrus ad Vincula, clothed with the pur-
1 The earliest account is given by Gregory himself in two letters written April 24, 1073, and a third written April 26 to Wibert of Ravenna (Reg., I. 1-3). It is confirmed by Bonizo. Gregory frequently referred to his election
§ 10. HILDEiUlAND ELECTED POPE. 25
pie robe and tiara, and declared elected, as " a man eminent in piety and learning, a lover of equity and justice, firm in adversity, temperate in prosperity, according to the apostolic precept (1 Tim. 3 : 2), ; without reproach . . . temperate, soberminded, chaste, given to hospitality, ruling his house well ' . . . already well brought up and educated in the bosom of this mother Church, for his merits advanced to the office of archdeacon, whom now and henceforth we will to be called Gregory, Pope, and Apostolic Primate." l
It was eminently proper that the man who for nearly a quarter of a century had been the power behind the throne, should at last be pope in name as well as in fact. He might have attained the dignity long before, if he had desired it. He was then about sixty years old, when busy men begin to long for rest. He chose the name Gregory in memory of his departed friend whom he had accompanied as chaplain into exile, and as a protest against the interference of the empire in the affairs of the Church.2 He did not ask the previous confirmation of the emperor, but he informed him of his elec tion, and delayed his consecration long enough to receive the consent of Henry IV., who in the meantime had become
as having been against his will. (See Mirbt, Wahl, etc., pp. 2, 42.) The anti-Gregorian party made the slanderous accusation that he secured his office by force and bribery, but not till the struggle between him and Henry IV. had begun. The subject is thoroughly discussed by Mirbt in his Wahl Gregors VII. p. 56. In his later work, Die, Publizistik, p. 582, he again pronounces Gregory's own account as " the most credible."
!The clauses, "the husband of one wife," as well as " having his children in subjection," are omitted in the quotation from Paul's letter to Timothy. They would be fatal to the papal theory of clerical celibacy. See the Latin text in the Acta Sanctorum for May 25, Tom. VI. 117, from the "Acta Romse 10 Kalend. Maji." The cardinals concluded the declaration with the ques tions : " Placet vobis ? Placet. Vultis eum f Volumus. Laudatis eum ? Laudamus."
2 From Bonizo's account it would seem that the cardinals gave him that name ; but they probably ascertained his wishes beforehand, or anticipated them. Wattenbach (p. 130) regards the assumption of the name Gregory as an open insult to the empire and the Synod of Sutri, where Henry III. had deposed three popes, including Gregory VI.