GREGORY V1L GREGORY. 



ed as nn nr. lent defender of the Nic-ene creed, and 

 also for his eloquence, lie died in his native city, of 

 whirh he was bishop, some time after :i94. Editions 

 >f his works were published at Paris in 1573 and 

 iti '.<, and 1(315 and H138 (3 vols. folio). 



GREGORY VII. (Hildebrand). Tlie year and 

 the place of the birtli of this great pope are nncertain. 

 Some accounts say that he. was born at Sienna, others 

 lit Soana, in Tuscany; others still, at Rome. It is, 

 however, crrta in, that he lived at Home when a child, 

 :i nd -went to France when a young man, where he 

 became connected with the monastery at Cluny, and 

 returned to Rome in 1045. His history becomes 

 more known after the time of his return to the mona- 

 stery of Cluny, where Leo IX. saw him on his jour- 

 ney through France. He returned with this pope to 

 Rome, and from that time, although in the hack 

 ground, he played an important part ; and by the in- 

 fluence which great minds always exercise over ordi- 

 nary men, he directed the measures of Leo and seve- 

 ral following popes. On the death of Alexander II. 

 (1073), cardinal Hildebrand was raised to the papal 

 chair. He now laboured with the greatest energy 

 to accomplish those plans for which he had prepared 

 the way by the measures which the preceding popes 

 had adopted through his influence. It was the object 

 or' his ambition not only to place the whole ecclesiasti- 

 cal power in the hands of the pope, but to make the 

 church entirely independent of the temporal power. 

 He wished to found a theocracy, in which the pope, the 

 vicar of God, should be the sovereign ruler, in politi- 

 cal as well as ecclesiastical matters a bold idea, 

 which he probably conceived in consequence of the 

 wretched state of all civil authority. He therefore 

 prohibited the marriage of priests, and abolished lay 

 investiture, the only remaining source of the autho- 

 rity of princes over the clergy of their dominions. 

 In 1074, he issued his edicts against simony and the 

 marriage of priests, and, in 1075, an edict forbidding 

 the clergy, under penalty of forfeiting their offices, 

 from receiving the investiture of any ecclesiastical 

 dignity from the hands of a layman, and, at the same 

 time, forbidding the laity, under penalty of excom- 

 munication, to attempt the exercise of the investi- 

 ture of the clergy. The emperor Henry IV. refused 

 to obey this decree, and Gregory took advantage of 

 the discontent excited by the despotic character and 

 youthful levity of the emperor, among the people 

 and princes of Germany, to advance his own 

 purposes. In 1075, he deposed several German 

 bishops, who had bought their offices of the 

 emperor, and excommunicated five imperial coun- 

 sellors, who were concerned in this transaction ; and 

 when the emperor persisted in retaining the coun- 

 sellors, and supporting the bishops, the pope, in 1076, 

 issued a new decree, summoning the emperor before 

 a council at Rome, to defend himself against the 

 charges brought against him. Henry IV. then caus- 

 ed a sentence of deposition to be passed against the 

 .pope, by a council assembled at Worms. The pope, 

 in return, excommunicated the emperor, and released 

 all his subjects and vassals from their oath of alle- 

 giance. The emperor soon found all Upper Ger- 

 many in opposition to him, at the very moment that 

 the Saxons in Lower Germany renewed the war 

 against him ; and when the princes assembled at 

 Oppenheim, came to the determination of proceeding 

 to the election of another emperor, he yielded, almost 

 unconditionally ; he was obliged to consent to ac- 

 knowledge the pope, whom they were to invite into 

 the empire, as his judge, to abandon his excommuni- 

 cated counsellors, and to consider himself as suspend- 

 ed from the government. To prevent being deposed 

 by the pope, Henry IV. (q. v.) hastened to Italy, 

 where he submitted, at Canossa (1077), to a humili- 



ating penance, and received absolution. In therncnn 

 time, his friends again assembled round him. and ho 

 defeated his rival, Rodolph of Suabia. He then 

 caused the pope to be deposed by the council of 

 Brixen, and an anti-pope, Clement HI., to be elected 

 in 1080, after which he hastened to Rome, and placed 

 the new pope on the throne. Gregory now passed 

 three years as a prisoner in the castle of St Angelo, 

 but could never be induced to compromise the rights 

 of the church. He was finally liberated by Ko'brrt 

 Guiscard, a celebrated Norman prince, whom he had 

 made duke of Apulia ; but the Romans compelled 

 him to quit the city, because it liad been plundered 

 by the soldiers of Robert. Gregory then retir- 

 ed to Salerno, under the protection of the Nor- 

 man prince, where he died, in 1085. By the celi- 

 bacy (q. v.) of the clergy, Gregory aimed at increas- 

 ing their sanctity, and making them entirely inde- 

 pendent of family connexions. The same measure 

 prevented the possessions of the church from becom- 

 ing mere feudal dependencies on temporal princes, 

 which would have been the natural course, if the 

 clergy had become parents, and, of course, desirous 

 of transmitting the estates which they enjoyed to 

 their children. Matilda, countess of Tuscany, whom 

 he induced to bequeath her almost regal possession- 

 to the papal see, was his chief support. Most 1 ro 

 testant writers have accused him of insatiable ambi- 

 tion ; but the impartial historian, who considers in- 

 spirit of his whole life, studies his letters, and ob- 

 serves that his severity towards himself was as great 

 as towards others, will judge differently. Gregory 

 must be considered as a great spiritual conqueror, 

 who rendered the clergy independent of the temporal 

 power, and secured their safety amid the scenes of 

 violence with which Europe was filled ; thereby ren- 

 dering them capable of advancing the progress of 

 civilization, which was in great danger of being swal- 

 lowed up in barbarism. The papal power, which he 

 rendered independent of the imperial, was, forages, 

 the great bulwark of order amid the turbulence of 

 the semi-civilized people of Europe. In capacious- 

 ness and boldness of mind, he may be compared to 

 Napoleon. His system undoubtedly became unsuit- 

 able, like all other systems, to the wants of a more 

 advanced age ; and the good of mankind, in the pro- 

 gress of time, required that the temporal powers 

 should become again independent of the Roman 

 see. 



GREGORY, patriarch of the Eastern Greek 

 church, a victim of the fanatical policy of the, Porte, 

 was born in 1739, and educated in Dimitzana, a town 

 in Arcadia in the Morea. He studied in several mon- 

 asteries, finally on mount Athos (q. v.), lived as a her- 

 mit, was made archbishop at Smyrna, and, in 1795, 

 patriarch of Constantinople. When the French occu- 

 pied Egypt, in 1798, the Greeks were accused of 

 treating secretly with them, and the rabble demanded 

 the head of the patriarch, who, in fact, by his pas- 

 toral letters, dissuaded the Greeks from taking up 

 arms for the French. Selim III. himself declared 

 Gregory to be innocent, but banished him for secur- 

 ity to mount Athos. He was soon after restored to 

 his former dignity. But in 1806, when the progress 

 of the Russian arms, and the appearance of a Bri- 

 tish fleet before Constantinople, renewed the fury of 

 the Mussulmans against the Greeks, and the life of 

 the patriarch was threatened, although his exhorta- 

 tions had again prevented the Greeks from any hos- 

 tile movements, Selim banished him a second time to 

 mount Athos. After an interval, Gregory was a third 

 time appointed patriarch. The apostolic virtues of 

 love, charity, and humility, gained this prelate uni- 

 versal esteem ; he lived very simply, was strict with 

 regard to the morals of the G reek clergy, and spent 





