60 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1073-1085.
authority, offered the crown of Germany to Rudolf, Duke of Swabia, Henry's brother-in-law, but on two important conditions (which may be traced to the influence of the pope's legates), namely, that he should denounce a hereditary claim to the throne, and guarantee the freedom of ecclesias tical appointments. He was crowned March 26, at Mainz, by Archbishop Siegfried, but under bad omens : the conse crated oil ran short, the Gospel was read by a simoniacal deacon, the citizens raised a tumult, and Rudolf had to make his escape by night with Siegfried, who never returned. He found little support in Southern Germany, and went to Henry's enemies in Saxony.
Henry demanded from the pope the ban over the robber of his crown, but in vain. He refused him the promised safeconduct to Germany, acted as king, crossed the Alps, and defeated Rudolf in a battle at Melrichstadt in Franconia, Aug. 7, 1078, but was defeated by him near Miihlheim in Thuringia, Jan. 27, 1080, in a decisive battle, which Rudolf regarded as a divine decision, and which inclined the pope in his favor.
After long hesitation, Gregory, in a Synod of Rome, March 7, 1080, ventured upon the most extraordinary act even for a man in the highest position. Invoking the aid of St. Peter and St. Paul, he fulminated a second and severer ban against Henry and all his adherents, deprived him again of his king doms of Germany and Italy, forbade all the faithful to obey him, and bestowed the crown of Germany (not of Italy) on Rudolf. The address was at once a prayer, a narrative, and a judgment, and combined cool reflection with religious fervor. It rests on the conviction that the pope, as the representative of Peter and Paul, was clothed with supreme authority over the world as well as the Church.1
Gregory hazarded a prophecy, which was falsified by his-
1 See the extract in § 11, p. 32, and Latin text of the address in Mansi, Harduin, Jaffe", and Shailer Mathews, 51-54.
§ 17. RENEWAL OF THE CONFLICT. 61
tory, that before the day of St. Peter and St. Paul (June 29), Henry would either lose his life or his throne. After the close of the synod, he sent to Rudolf (instead of the iron crown of Charlemagne, which was in possession of Henry) a diadem with the characteristic inscription : —
*' Petra dedit Petro, Petrus diadema Rudolpho." 1
A reconciliation was now impossible. Henry replied to the papal ban by the election of an anti-pope. A council of about thirty German and Italian bishops met at Brixen in the Tyrol, June 26, 1080, and deposed Gregory on the frivolous charges of ambition, avarice, simony, sorcery, and the Berengarian heresy. Cardinal Hugo Candidus and twenty-seven bishops (of Brixen, Bamberg, Coire, Freisingen, Lausanne, etc.) signed the document. At the same time they elected the excommunicated Archbishop Wibert of Ra venna pope, under the name of Clement III. He was a man of talent, dignity, and unblemished character, but fell into the hands of simonists and the enemies of reform. Henry acknowledged him by the usual genuflexion, and promised to visit Rome in the following spring, that he might receive from him the imperial crown. Wibert returned to Ravenna with the papal insignia and great pomp.
This was the beginning of a double civil war between rival popes and rival kings, with all its horrors. Gregory counted on the Saxons in Germany, Countess Matilda in Northern Italy, and the Normans in Southern Italy.
Henry was defeated Oct. 15, 1080, on the banks of the Elster, near Naumburg ; but Rudolf was mortally wounded by Godfrey of Bouillon, the hero of Jerusalem, 2 and lost his right hand by another enemy. He died the same evening, exclaiming, as the story goes: " This is the hand with which I swore fidelity to my lord, King Henry." But, according
1 The Rock gave the crown to Peter and Peter gives it to Rudolf.
2 This fact is reported by Albericus of Trois-Fontaines, but doubted by Sybel (Gesch. des ersten Kreuzzugs, p. 218) and Hefele (V. 150, note).