of deposition against Gregory, on a charge of simony, murder, and atheism.

Gregory was far from being disheartened by the emperor's violence; he assembled a council at Rome, solemnly excommunicated Henry, absolved his subjects in Germany and Italy from their oath of allegiance, deposed several prelates in Germany, France, and Lombardy, and published a series of papal constitutions, in which the claims of the Roman pontiffs to supremacy over all the sovereigns of the earth were asserted in the plainest terms.

The most important of these resolutions, which form the basis of the political system of popery, were

That the Roman pontiff alone can be called universal.

That he alone has a right to depose bishops.

That his legates have a right to preside over all bishops assembled in a general council.

That the pope can depose absent prelates.

That he alone has a right to use imperial ornaments.

That princes are bound to kiss his feet, and his only.

That he has a right to depose emperors.

That no synod or council summoned without his commission can be called general.

That no book can be called canonical without his authority.

That his sentence can be annulled by none, but that he may annul the decrees of all.

That the Roman church has been, is, and will continue, infallible. That whoever dissents from the Romish church ceases to be a catholic Christian.

And, that subjects may be absolved from their allegiance to wicked princes.

Some cautious prelates advised Gregory not to be too hasty in excommunicating his sovereign; to their remonstrances he made the following memorable reply: "When Christ trusted his flock to St. Peter, saying, 'Feed my sheep,' did he except kings? Or when he gave him the power to bind and loose, did he withdraw any one from his visitation? He, therefore, who says that he can not be bound by the bonds of the church, must confess that he can not be absolved by it; and he who denies that doctrine, separates himself from Christ and his church."

Both parties now prepared for war, but all the advantages were on the side of Gregory At the very commencement of the struggle, Gobbo, the most vigorous supporter of the emperor, died, and his widow, the countess Matilda, placed all her resources at the disposal of the pontiff. So completely, indeed, did this princess devote herself to support the interests of Gregory, that their mutual attachment was suspected of having transgressed the limits of innocence. The duke of Dalmatia, gratified by the title of king, and the Norman monarch of Sicily, proffered aid to the pontiff; even the Mohammedan emperor of Morocco courted his favor, and presented him with the liberty of the Christian slaves in his dominions.

Henry, on the contrary, knew not where to look for support; in every quarter of his dominions monks and friars preached against their

sovereign, and the prelates by whom he had been supported the Saxon nobles eagerly embraced a religious pretext to renew their insurrection; the dukes of Suabia and Carinthia demanded a change of dynasty; even the prelates who had been most zealous in urging Henry forward, terrified by threats of excommunication, abandoned his cause. A diet was assembled at Tribur, attended by two papal legates, in which it was resolved that Henry should be deposed, unless within a limited period he presented himself before the pope and obtained absolution.

The prelates and nobles of Lombardy alone maintained their courage, and boldly retorted the excommunications of Gregory. Animated by the hope of obtaining their efficient aid, Henry resolved to cross the Alps instead of waiting for Gregory's arrival in Germany. The hardships which the unfortunate monarch underwent during this journey, in the depth of a severe winter-the dangers to which he was exposed from the active malice of his enemies-the sight of the sufferings of his queen and child, who could only travel by being enclosed in the hides of oxen, and thus dragged through the Alpine passes-would have broken a sterner spirit than Henry's. He entered Lombardy completely disheartened, and, though joined by considerable forces, he thought only of conciliating his powerful enemy by submission. Having obtained a conference with the countess Matilda, Henry prevailed upon her to intercede for him with the pope; and her intercession, supported by the principal nobles of Italy, induced Gregory to grant an interview to his sovereign.

On the 21st of January, 1077, Henry proceeded to Canosa, where the pope resided, and was forced to submit to the greatest indignities tha were ever heaped upon imperial majesty. At the first barrier, he was compelled to dismiss his attendants; when he reached the second, he was obliged to lay aside his imperial robes, and assume the habit of a penitent. For three entire days he was forced to stand barefooted and fasting, from morning till night, in the outer court of the castle, during one of the severest winters that had ever been known in northern Italy, imploring pardon of his transgressions from God and the pope. He was at length admitted into the presence of the haughty pontiff, and, after all his submissions, obtained, not the removal, but the suspension of the excommunication.

Such harsh treatment sank deep into Henry's mind; and his hostility to Gregory was exasperated by the pontiff accepting a grant of the countess Matilda's possessions for the use of the church, which would legally revert to the empire after her decease. The reproaches of the Lombards also induced him to repent of his degradation, and he renewed the war by a dishonorable and ineffectual attempt to arrest Gregory and Matilda. In the meantime the discontented nobles of Germany had assembled a diet at Fercheim, deposed their sovereign, and elected Rodolph, duke of Suabia, to the empire. This proceeding greatly embarrassed the pope; he dared not declare against Henry, who was powerful in Italy, and if he abandoned Rodolph, he would ruin his own party in Germany. He resolved to preserve a neutrality in the contest, and in the meantime he directed his attention to the internal state of the church, which had for some time been distracted by the controversy respecting he eucharist.

It is not easy to determine by whom the doctrine of transubstantiation was first broached: Selden very justly says, "This opinion is only rhetoric turned into logic," and it is easy to see how the spiritual presence of our Savior in the holy communion might, in a dark and ignorant age, be represented as an actual change of the consecrated elements into his material substance. We are not concerned with the theological errors of this doctrine; our subject only requires us to notice the political purposes to which it was applied. No article of faith was better calcuĴated to exalt the power of the priesthood; it represented them as daily working a miracle equally stupendous and mysterious; true, its nature was incomprehensible, but this circumstance, instead of exciting a suspicion of its absurdity, only increased the reverence with which it was regarded. We must not then be surprised at the zeal that the Romish priesthood has ever manifested in defending an opinion which has so materially strengthened its influence. The confessor to the queen of Spain is said to have rebuked the opposition of a nobleman, by saying, "You should respect the man who every day has your God in his hands and your queen at his feet." In this brief sentence, the purpose of the doctrine is distinctly stated; it conferred political power, and was therefore to be defended at all hazards. But common sense frequently revolted at a doctrine contracted by sight, feeling, and taste; in the eleventh century it was ably exposed by Berengarius, a priest of Tours, who assailed it at once with ridicule and with argument. But in his eightieth year, Berengarius was prevailed upon by Gregory to renounce his former opinions, and transubstantiation was generally received as an article of faith.

A victory obtained by Rodolph induced Gregory to depart from his cautious policy; he excommunicated Henry, and sent a crown of gold to his rival. The indignant emperor summoned a council in the mountains of the Tyrol, pronounced Gregory's deposition, and proclaimed Gilbert, archbishop of Ravenna, pope, by the name of Clement III. Gregory immediately made peace with the Normans, and, supported by them and the Countess Matilda, he bade his enemies defiance. But in the meantime, Rodolph was defeated and slain, the discontented Germans were forced to submit to the imperial authority and Henry, at the head of a victorious army, crossed the Alps. The Norman dukes, engaged in war with the Greek emperors, neglected their ally, and the forces of the countess Matilda were unable to cope with the imperialists. Twice was Henry driven from before the walls of Rome; but the third time he gained an entrance, by a lavish distribution of bribes, and procured the solemn installation of Clement. The emperor's departure left his partisans exposed to the vengeance of Gregory; the pontiff returned at the head of a Norman army, and gave the city to be pillaged by his barbarous auxiliaries. Having reduced Rome almost to a mass of ruins, Gregory retired to Salerno, where he was seized with a mortal disease. He died unconquered, repeating with his latest breath the excommunications which he had hurled against Henry, the antipope, and their adherents. He viewed his own conduct in the struggle with complacency, and frequently boasted of the goodness of his cause. "I have loved righteousness and hated iniquity," he exclaimed, "and it is therefore I die an evila "

Gregory may be regarded as the great founder of the political system of popery; and therefore, while he is extolled by some historians as a saint, others have described him as a disgrace to humanity. But the character of this remarkable man was formed by his age, and developed by the circumstances that surrounded him. He was the representative both of popery and democracy, principles apparently inconsistent, but which in ancient and modern times have frequently been found in close alliance. With the sanctity of the church he shielded the people; with the strength of the people he gave stability to the church. In the course of his long career as the secret and as the acknowledged ruler of the papacy, he displayed unquestionable abilities of the highest order; his pretensions to ascetic piety gained him the enthusiastic admiration of the multitude; the soldiers regarded him as a brave warrior and successful general; the higher ranks of the clergy yielded in the council to his fervid eloquence and political skill. His very faults became elements of his success: he was severe, vindictive, and inexorable: he knew not what it was to forgive; none of his enemies could elude the patient search and the incessant vigilance with which he pursued those against whom he treasured wrath. It was his custom to witness the execution of those whose death he decreed; and it was awful to contemplate the serenity of his countenance and the placidity of his manners while he presided over tortures and massacres. It can not, therefore, be a matter of wonder that the power of such a man should have swept over Christendom like a torrent, and hurried everything into the vortex of his new and gigantic institutions.

SECTION VI.-The War of Investitures.

FROM A. D. 1086 To A. D. 1152.

HENRY gained only a brief respite by the death of his formidable and inveterate antagonist. Victor III. was elected by the cardinals, and during his brief reign he gained several advantages over the imperial party. He was succeeded by Urban II., the friend and pupil of Gregory, who commenced his pontificate by sending an encyclical letter to the Christian churches, declaring his resolution to adhere to the political system of his deceased master. Supported by the Normans, Urban entered Rome, and assembled a council of one hundred and fifteen bishops, in which the emperor, the antipope, and their adherents, were solemnly excommunicated. At the same time he negotiated a marriage between Guelph, son of the duke of Bavaria, a distinguished supporter of the papal cause in Germany, and the countess Matilda. From this union, the present dukes of Brunswick and Lunenburgh, and the reigning family of England, trace their descent. Henry marched into Italy, and though vigorously opposed by Guelph, gained several important advantages; but the papal intrigues raised enemies against him in the bosom of his family; his eldest son Conrad rebelled, and was crowned king of Italy by Urban. This revolt compelled Henry to abandon his recent acquisitions, and retire toward the Alps.

A council was summoned to meet at Placentia, and so large a number of bishops assembled, that no church could contain them, and they were forced to deliberate in the open air. Most of Gregory's decrees

were re-enacted; but, in addition to the affair of investitures, the attention of the council was directed to the rapid progress of the Mohammedans in the east, and the dangers that threatened the empire of Constantinople (A. D. 1095). The tales of the persecutions to which the Christian pilgrims were exposed by the ferocious Turks, who had become masters of the Holy Land, had excited general indignation throughout Europe. Peter the Hermit, a wild fanatic, preached everywhere the necessity of rescuing the faithful from the infidel Saracens, as he ignorantly called the Turks, and such a flame was kindled by his exertions, that a decree was issued by the council of Clermont, authorizing the first crusade; and at the same time the king of France, in whose dominions the council met, was excommunicated, and could only obtain absolution by humiliating submissions.

The general insanity diffused through Europe by the preaching of the first crusade, the multitudes that abandoned their homes to follow Walter the Pennyless or Godescald the Fanatic, the massacres of the Jews, the sufferings and exploits of the disciplined adventurers that marched under the banners of Godfrey, will form the subject of the next section; it is enough here to say that the general fanaticism proved of essential service to the papal cause, and that the partisans of Henry suffered severely from the fury of the crusaders in their passage through Italy.

Paschal ÍI. was the successor of Urban, and, like him, steadfastly pursued the policy of Gregory; he easily triumphed over the antipope, who died of a broken heart, and he urged a second general crusade, which the reverses of the Christians in the Holy Land rendered necessary. To consolidate the papal structure, he assembled a council at Rome, and procured the enactment of a new oath, to be taken by all ranks of the clergy. By this oath they abjured all heresy, they promised implicit obedience to the pope and his successors, to affirm what the holy and universal church confirms, and to condemn what she condemns (A. D. 1104). Soon after, the old emperor, Henry, was treacherously arrested by his own son Henry V., and deprived of his imperial dignity: he subsequently escaped, but before hostilities made any progress, he died of a broken heart. The bishop of Liege honorably interred the body of his unfortunate sovereign, but papal enmity pursued Henry beyond the grave; the benevolent prelate was excommunicatel, and could only obtain absolution by disinterring the corpse.

Though Henry V. owed his throne to papal influence, he would not yield the imperial right to granting investitures, and his example was followed by the kings of England and France. The form in which monarchs gave investiture by bestowing a pastoral ring and staff, was regarded by the popes as an interference with their spiritual jurisdiction, and when the form was altered, they gave no further trouble to the English and French monarchs, but, in their disputes with the em perors, they not only forbade ecclesiastics to receive investiture from laymen, but even to take an oath of allegiance to them.

The fifth Henry proved a more formidable enemy to the papacy than his father; he led an army into Italy, made Paschal prisoner, compelled bim to perform the ceremony of his coronation, and to issue a bull securing the right of investiture to the emperor and his successors.

But