62 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1073-1085.
to another report, he said, when he heard of the victory of his troops : "Now I suffer willingly what the Lord has decreed for me." His body with the severed hand was de posited in the cathedral at Merseburg.1
Rudolf's death turned his victory into a defeat. It was regarded in that age as a judgment of God against him and the anti-pope. His friends could not agree upon a successor till the following summer, when they elected Count Hermann of Luxemburg, who proved incompetent. In the spring of 1081 Henry crossed the Alps with a small army to depose Gregory, whose absolution he had sought a few years before as a penitent at Canossa. He was welcomed in Lombardy, defeated the troops of Matilda, and appeared at the gates of Rome before Pentecost, May 21. Gregory, surrounded by danger, stood firm as a rock and refused every compromise. At his last Lenten synod (end of February, 1081) he had renewed his anathemas, and suspended those bishops who disobeyed the summons. Nothing else is known of this synod but sentences of punishment. In his letter of March 15, 1081, to Hermann, bishop of Metz, he justified his con duct towards Henry, and on April 8 he warned the Vene tians against any communication with him and his adherents. " I am not afraid," he said, " of the threats of the wicked, and would rather sacrifice my life than consent to evil."
Henry, not being permitted by the Romans to enter their city, as he had hoped, and not being prepared for a siege, spent the summer in Upper Italy, but returned to Rome in Lent, 1082, and again with a larger force at Easter, 1083, and conquered the city and the Church of St. Peter in June. Gregory was intrenched in the Castle of St. Angelo, and fulminated anew his anathema upon Henry and his followers (June 24). Henry answered by causing Wibert to be en throned in St. Peter's (June 28), but soon left Rome with Wibert (July 1), promising to return. He had probably 1 For a good description of the battle, see Giesebrecht, III. 516 sqq.
§ 17. RENEWAL OF THE CONFLICT. 63
come to a secret understanding with the Roman nobility to effect a peaceful compromise with Gregory; but the pope was inexorable. In the spring of 1084 Henry returned and called a synod, which deposed and excommunicated Gregory. Wibert was consecrated on Palm Sunday as Pope Clement III., in the Lateran, by two excommunicated bishops of Modena and Arezzo (instead of the bishops of Ostia, Albano, and Porto). Henry and his wife, Bertha, received from him the imperial crown in St. Peter's at Easter, March 31» 1084. He left Rome with Wibert (May 21), leaving the defence of the city in the hands of the Romans. He never returned.
In the meantime Gregory called to his aid the Norman chief, Robert Guiscard, or Wiscard. This bold adventurer approached from the south with a motley force of Normans, Lombards, Apulians, and Saracens, amounting to thirty thou sand foot and six thousand horse, arrived in Rome, May 27, 1084, liberated the pope, and entered with him the Lateran. He now began such a pillage and slaughter as even the bar barians had not committed. Half the city was reduced to ruins ; many churches were demolished, others turned into forts ; women and maidens, even nuns, were outraged, and several thousand citizens sold into slavery. The survivors cursed the pope and his deliverer. In the words of a con temporary, the cruelty of the Normans gained more hearts for the emperor than a hundred thousand pieces of gold. Rome was a ghost of her former self. When Hildebert of Tours visited her more than ten years later, he saw only ruins of her greatness.1 This was, indeed, a fearful judg ment, but very different from the one which Gregory a few years before had invoked upon Henry.
Many confused reports were circulated about the fate of Gregory VII. His faithful friend, the Countess of Tuscany,
1 Hildebert's poem, lamenting the ruins of Rome, is found in Migne, 171, 1441 sq.