56 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1073-1085.
The king made the promise, and two bishops and several nobles, in his behalf, swore upon sacred relics that he would keep it. Hugo, being a monk, could not swear, but pledged his word before the all-seeing God. Hugo, the bishops, nobles, and the Countess Matilda and Adelheid signed the written agreement, which still exists.
After these preliminaries, the inner gate was opened. The king, in the prime of life, the heir of many crowned monarchs, and a man of tall and noble presence, threw himself at the feet of the gray-haired pope, a man of low origin and of small and unimpressive stature, who by his word had dis armed an empire. He burst into tears, and cried " Spare me, holy father, spare me ! " The company were moved to tears ; even the iron pope showed signs of tender compassion. He heard the confession of Henry, raised him up, gave him absolution and his apostolic blessing, conducted him to the chapel, and sealed the reconciliation by the celebration of the sacrifice of the mass.
Some chroniclers add the following incident, which has often been repeated, but is very improbable. Gregory, before partaking of the sacrament, called upon God to strike him dead if he were guilty of the crimes charged on him, and, after eating one-half of the consecrated wafer unharmed, he offered the other half to Henry, requesting him to submit to the same awful ordeal ; but the king declined it, and referred the whole question to the decision of a general council.1
only into the communion of the Church, without reinstating him in his reign (losum ei communionem redidi, non tamen in regno . . . instauravi} , and without binding the faithful to their oath of allegiance, reserving this to fu ture decision. Jaffe", p. 402 ; Hefele, V. 96. The same view he expresses in the sentence of the second excommunication. In view of these facts it is strange that Giesebrecht (III. 403) should discredit the report of Lambert, and hold that Henry regained with the absolution also the royal prerogatives. 1 This story, first told by Lambert of Hersfeld, who in the main sided with Gregory against Henry, is discredited by Giesebrecht, III. 401 ; Ranke, VII. 284 ; Mirbt, 194-199 ; and the Catholic historians, Dbllinger and Hefele
§ 16. CANOSSA. 57
After mass, the pope entertained the king courteously at dinner and dismissed him with some fatherly warnings and counsels, and with his renewed apostolic blessing.
Henry gained his object, but at the sacrifice of his royal dignity. He confessed by his act of humiliation that the pope had a right to depose a king and heir of the imperial crown, and to absolve subjects from the oath of allegiance. The head of the State acknowledged the temporal supremacy of the Church. Canossa marks the deepest humiliation of the State and the highest exaltation of the Church, — we mean the political papal Church of Rome, not the spiritual Church of Christ, who wore a crown of thorns in this world and who prayed on the cross for his murderers.
Gregory acted on the occasion in the sole interest of the hierarchy. His own friends, as we learn from his official account to the Germans, deemed his conduct to be " tyranni cal cruelty, rather than apostolic severity." He saw in Henry the embodiment of the secular power in opposition to the ecclesiastical power, and he achieved a signal triumph, but only for a short time. He overshot his mark, and was at last expelled from Rome by the very man against whom he had closed the gate.
His relation to Matilda was political and ecclesiastical. The charge of his enemies that he entertained carnal inti macy with her is monstrous and incredible, considering his advanced age and unrelenting war against priestly concubi nage.1 The countess was the most powerful princess in
(V. 98), reject it as a fable. The pope had no need to protest his innocence, and had referred the charges against the king to a German tribunal ; the king had previously promised him to appear before this tribunal ; his present pur pose was simply to get rid of the interdict, so as to be free to act. By declining the ordeal he would have confessed his guilt and justified the pope, and super seded the action of the German tribunal. On the historical value of Lambert's Annales, see Giesebrecht, III. 1030-1032, and Wattenbach, Deutschlands, Geschichtsquellen, II. 87 sqq. Gregorovius repeats the story as authentic.
1 Lambert refutes this slander (M. #., V. 257), and the best modern historians, Protestant as well as Catholic, reject it. See Neander, Ranke