GREGORY VIM 



3694 



GREGORY X 



Henry's answer was to summon a 

 meeting of his supporters at a great 

 council held at Worms, January, 

 1076. Defending the emperor 

 against the charges laid against 

 him, they proceeded to depose the 

 pope himself, this decision being 

 announced to Gregory by letter in 

 which the emperor addresses the 

 pope as " Hilde brand, no longer 

 Apostolic but a false monk." 



Gregory responded by excom- 

 municating the emperor at a synod 

 in Lent (1076), deposing him and 

 absolving his subjects from their 

 allegiance. Henry, finding himself 

 gradually abandoned by his par- 

 tisans and faced with the possi- 

 bility of the election of another em- 

 peror, felt compelled to submit, 

 and hurried to Italy. The story of 

 his three days' humiliation in the 

 snow outside the walls of the castle 

 of Canossa is well known. 



Yet the triumph of Hilde brand 

 was more apparent than real ; at 

 the price of an outward show of 

 mortification Henry was able to 

 obtain all he desired. He again in- 

 curred excommunication in 1080, 

 but the death of one enemy, Rudolf 

 of Swabia, elected by the German 

 princes at the council of Augsburg 

 in 1077 to succeed him, enabled 

 him at last to concentrate all his 

 forces on his greater enemy the 

 pope. Having set up an an ti- pope 

 in the person of the excommuni- 

 cated archbishop of Ravenna, who 

 took the name of Clement III, he 

 marched on Rome, where on 

 March 21, 1084, he caused himself 

 to be crowned by the pseudo-pope. 

 Meanwhile Gregory, obliged vO 

 leave Rome, took refuge first at 

 Monte Cassino, the great Benedic- 

 tine monastery, and then at 

 Salerno, where he died May 25, 

 1085. One of his last acts was to 

 release from sentence of excom- 

 munication all his enemies except 

 Henry and the anti-pope. Gregory 

 VII was canonised by Paul Vin 1606. 

 See Hildebrand and his Times, 

 W. R. W. Stephens, 1898; Life 

 and Times of Hildebrand, Pope 

 Gregory VII, A. H. Mathew, 1910. 

 Gregory VIII (d. 1187). Pope 

 in 1187. His name was Alberto di 

 Morra, and he became a monk 

 early in life. In 1155 he was made 

 a cardinal, and in 1172 papal chan- 

 cellor. In the same year he was 

 one of the two legates sent to Eng- 

 land by the pope to inquire into the 

 circumstances attending the mur- 

 der of Thomas Becket, and from 

 him Henry II subsequently re- 

 ceived absolution. His short pon- 

 tificate, Oct.-Dec.,, .1187, was 

 marked by steps for a reconcilia- 

 tion with the emperor Frederick I 

 in order to present a united front to 

 the Moslems under Saladin. He 



died at Pisa, Dec. 17, 1187, whither 

 he had gone with the object of 

 making peace between the two* 

 rival seaports of Pisa and Genoa, 

 on whom depended the naval and 

 transport operations of the pro- 

 jected crusade. 



Gregory IX (c. 1145-1241). 

 Pope 1227-41. Born at Anagni in 

 the Campagna district, his name 

 was Ugolino, 

 C o n t e d e 

 Segni. Under 

 his relative, 

 Pope Innocent 

 III (1198- 

 1216), he was 

 made a car- 

 dinal 1206, and 

 in 1207-9 was 

 Gregory IX, legate on im- 



Pope, 1227-41 portant diplo- 

 matic missions to Germany. By 

 Pope Honorius III he was created 

 plenipotentiary legate for Lom- 

 bardy and was deputed to preach a 

 new crusade to the Holy Land. 

 Ugolino ascended the papal throne 

 March 19, 1227, on the death of 

 Honorius, and three days later sum- 

 moned the emperor Frederick II, 

 who had taken the cross on his 

 coronation in 1220, to the fulfilment 

 of his vow. This was the beginning 

 of a struggle between the papacy 

 and the empire, which lasted the 

 whole of Gregory's pontificate, and 

 only ended with the death of 

 Frederick in 1250. 



The emperor apparently com- 

 plied with the summons, sailed 

 from Brindisi in Sept., and re- 

 turned in three days. The pope, 

 distrusting his sincerity, launched 

 on him sentence of excommunica- 

 tion, Sept ; 27, 1227, but he could 

 not prevail on the princes and 

 bishops of Germany generally to 

 acquiesce in the sentence which re- 

 leased them from their oath of 

 allegiance to Frederick, and the 

 publication of the ban in S. Peter's, 

 Rome, so excited the Ghibellines 

 that the pope fled from the city to 

 avoid the violence of the mob. 



The emperor, disregarding the 

 sentence, continued his crusade, 

 and wrote from Jerusalem, March 

 17, 1229, to announce the success 

 of the expedition ; the Holy City 

 was once more in Christian hands, 

 and Frederick crowned himself in 

 the church of the Holy Sepulchre. 

 His triumph seemed complete, but 

 his position was intolerable. He 

 abruptly left Syria and returned to 

 Europe to find his opponent a fugi- 

 tive at Perugia. 



Gregory returned to Rome in 

 Feb., 1230, and a peace between 

 the two belligerents was concluded 

 in July. But athwart the Hohen- 

 staufen dream of universal domi- 

 nation lay the papacy, represented 



by a figure as indomitable as 

 Frederick himself, and trouble soon 

 broke out. For a time the struggle 

 was maintained by the Lombard 

 League, which Gregory joined on 

 the avowal of the emperor's inten- 

 tion to extend his empire over 

 almost the whole of Italy, including 

 the papal states. On March 20, 

 T.239, Gregory again excommuni- 

 cated Frederick, and later gave 

 orders for a general council to 

 assemble at Rome at Easter, 1241. 

 But .Frederick, who had defeated 

 the league at Cortenuova, 1237, 

 continued his progress in spite of a 

 reverse before Brescia the following 

 year, and effectually prevented the 

 meeting by threats and violence. 

 Advancing with his army, he was 

 already within sight of Rome when 

 news arrived that his opponent had 

 died on Aug. 22, 1241. 



In contrast with this struggle is 

 Gregory's attitude towards the 

 Mendicant Orders, whose rise is the 

 prominent religious feature of the 

 period. He was appointed Pro- 

 tector of the Friars Minor in 1220 

 at the special request of S. Francis, 

 whom he canonised in 1228 ; and 

 he was the friend and patron of S. 

 Dominic. The pope sought in the 

 Friars, as well as in the older orders, 

 instruments for the conversion of 

 the heathen in the remoter parts of 

 Europe, in Asia, and in Africa. He 

 made unsuccessful attempts to 

 induce the Eastern Church to re- 

 turn to the unity of Christendom. 



Gregory's special legislation, 

 which withdrew heresy cases from 

 secular jurisdiction and brought 

 them before special tribunals on 

 which members of the new re- 

 ligious Orders, and more particu- 

 larly Dominicans, were appointed 

 to sit, dates the medieval Inquisi- 

 tion as a creation of his pontificate. 



Gregory X (1210-76). Pope 

 1271-76. Born at Piacenza, his 

 name was Teobaldo di Visconti. 

 He was elected pope Sept. 1, 1271, 

 after a vacancy of nearly three 

 years in the Holy See following the 

 death of Clement IV. Gregory was 

 not a cardinal, nor even a priest, 

 when the choice of the cardinals 

 at Viterbo fell upon him, and he 

 was engaged at the time in an ex- 

 pedition to the Holy Land.^ '.Or- 

 dained priest six days after his 

 entry into Rome, March 13, he was 

 consecrated pope, March 27, 1272. 

 Gregory's aims were peace for 

 Europe, the reform of the Church, 

 and the reunion of Christendom 

 by the abolition of the Eastern 

 Schism. In the cause of peace he 

 endeavoured to reconcile the war- 

 ing factions of Guelph and Ghibel- 

 line ; he persuaded the German 

 electors to choose a new emperor 

 on the death (1272) of Richard of 



