40 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1073-1085.
connection of priests with women, however legitimate, as sinful and shameful concubinage. Not contented with synodical legislation, he sent letters and legates into all countries with instructions to enforce the decrees. A synod in Rome, March, 1074, opened the war. It deposed the priests who had bought their dignity or benefices, prohibited all future sacerdotal marriage, required married priests to dismiss their wives or cease to read mass, and commanded the laity not to attend their services. The same decrees had been passed under Nicolas II. and Alexander II., but were not enforced. The forbidding of the laity to attend mass said by a married priest, was a most dangerous, despotic measure, which had no precedent in antiquity. In an encyc lical of 1079 addressed to the whole realm of Italy and Ger many, Gregory used these violent words, " If there are presby ters, deacons, or sub-deacons who are guilty of the crime of fornication (that is, living with women as their wives), we forbid them, in the name of God Almighty and by the authority of St. Peter, entrance into the churches, introitum ecclesice, until they repent and rectify their conduct."
These decrees caused a storm of opposition. Many clergy men in Germany, as Lambert of Hersfeld reports, denounced Gregory as a madman and heretic : he had forgotten the words of Christ, Matt. 19 : 11, and of the Apostle, 1 Cor. 7 : 9 ; he wanted to compel men to live like angels, and, by doing violence to the law of nature, he opened the door to indis criminate licentiousness. They would rather give up their calling than their wives, and tauntingly asked him to look out for angels who might take their place. The bishops were placed in a most embarrassing position. Some, like Otto of Constance, sympathized with the married clergy ; and he went so far as to bid his clergy marry.1 Others, like
lln a letter to Sicardus, abp. of Aquileja, Jan. 24, 1074, Gregory com plained of princes who treated the Church as a servant-maid, quasi viletn anciUam, etc. Reg., I. 42 ; Migne, 148, 322.
§ 13. THE ENFORCEMENT OF SACERDOTAL CELIBACY. 41
St. Altmann of Passau, were enthusiasts for sacerdotal celi bacy. Others, like Siegfrid of Mainz, took a double attitude.1 Archbishop Anno of Cologne agreed with the Hildebrandian principle, but deemed it impracticable or inopportune. When the bishops lacked in zeal, Gregory stirred up the laity against the simoniacal and concubinary priests. He exhorted a certain Count Albert (October, 1074) to persist in enforcing the papal orders, and commanded Duke Rudolf of Swabia and Duke Bertolf of Carinthia, January, 1075, to prevent by force, if necessary, the rebellious priests from officiating, no matter what the bishops might say who had taken no steps to punish the guilty. He thus openly encouraged rebellion of the laity against the clergy, contrary to his fundamental principle of the absolute rule of the hierarchy. He acted on the maxim that the end sanctifies the means. Bishop Theodoric of Verdun, who at first sided in the main with Gregory, but was afterwards forced into the ranks of his opponents, openly reproached him for these most extraordinary measures as dangerous to the peace of the Church, to the safety of the clerical order, and even to the Christian faith. Bishop Henry of Spires denounced him as having destroyed the episcopal authority, and subjected the Church to the mad ness of the people. When the bishops, at the Diet of Worms, deposed him, January, 1076, one of the reasons assigned was his surrender of the Church to the laity.
But the princes who were opposed to Henry IV. and de posed him at Tribur (1076), professed great zeal for the Roman Church and moral reform. They were stigmatized with the Milanese name of Patarini. Even Henry IV., though he tacitly protected the simoniacal and concubinary clergy and received their aid, never ventured openly to defend them ; and the anti-pope Clement III., whom he elected 1080, expressed with almost Hildebrandian severity
1 Gregory, Beg., II. 29, III. 4, commanded him to root out " clerical for nication."