The student of the history of the Romish church is aware that during
the first five centuries after Christ the pope was vested with little,
if any, other powers or dignities than those which pertained to him
as Bishop of Rome. His subsequent claim to unlimited spiritual and
political sway was then unthought of, much less anywhere advanced.
Even for another five centuries he is only the nominal head of the
church, who is subordinate to the political potentates and dependent
upon them for protection and support in his office. But in the year
1073 succeeded one Gregory VII., to the tiara, who proposed to erect
a spiritual empire which should be wholly absolved from dependency
on kings and princes. His pontificate was one continuous struggle
for the success of his undertaking. Of powerful will, great energy
and shrewdness and with set purpose his administration wrought great
change in the papal office and the relations of the church to European
society. His chief measures by which he sought to compass his design
were the celibacy of the priesthood and the suppression of the then
prevalent custom of simony. The latter bore especially hard on the
German Emperor, much of whose strength lay in the power to appoint the
bishops and to levy assessments upon them when the royal exchequer
was in need. In the year 1075 Gregory proclaimed his law against the
custom, forbidding the sale of all offices of the church, and declaring
that none but the pope might appoint bishops or confer the symbols
of their authority. With an audacity unheard of, and a determination
little anticipated, he sent word to Henry IV., of Germany, demanding
the enforcement of the rule throughout his dominion under penalty of
excommunication. The issue was a joint one, and a crisis inevitable.
No pope had ever assumed such an attitude or used such language to a
German Emperor. Henry was not disposed and resolved not to submit.
So far as a formal disposition of the difficulty was concerned the
case was an easy one. He called the bishops together in a synod
which met at Worms. They proceeded with unanimity to declare Gregory
deposed from his papal office and sent word of their action to Rome.
The pope, who had used every artifice to gain popularity with the
people, was prepared for the contest and answered back with the ban
of excommunication. The emperor might have been able to carry on the
struggle with some hope of success had he been in favor with his own
subjects. But he had alienated the Saxons by his harsh treatment of
them and the indignities heaped upon them; and others of his states
looked upon him with suspicion. Pitted against the ablest foe in
Europe, he found himself without the sympathy and aid of those to whom
alone he could look for help. Meanwhile Gregory was sending his agents
to all the courts of Europe and employing every intrigue to effect the
emperor’s dethronement. In 1076 a convention of princes was called to
meet near Mayence, Henry not being permitted to be present. So heavy
had the papal excommunication fallen by this time that the emperor
sent messengers to this convention offering to submit to their demands
if they would only spare his crown. Gregory was inexorable, and they
adjourned without any reconciliations being effected, to meet in a few
months at Augsburg. Henry now realized the might of the hand that for
centuries had been silently gathering the reins of spiritual power,
only to grasp at last the political supremacy as well. With the burden
of excommunication ready to crush out his imperial scepter he sued for
pardon at any price. The pope had retired for a time to the castle of
Canossa, not far from Parma. Thither went the Franconian Emperor of
Germany to implore the papal forgiveness. He presented himself before
the gate barefoot, clad in a shirt of sack-cloth, and prayed that he
might be received and forgiven as a penitent sinner. But Gregory chose
to prolong the satisfaction he had in witnessing his penitence. So
throughout the whole day, without food, in snow and rain, he stood
begging the pope to receive him. In the same condition and without
avail, he stood the second and the third day. Not until the morning of
the fourth day did the pope admit him, and then his pardon was granted
on conditions which made his crown, for the time, a dependency of the
Bishop of Rome.
But the struggle of the German rulers with popedom was not ended at
Canossa. Henry himself renewed it a few years later with far better
results to his side. The spirit of protestantism was ever alive in some
form in Germany, and, as we have said, was prophetic of him who should
rise in the fifteenth century and dare to protest against the claim of
spiritual supremacy by the autocrat of Rome. From that time till now it
has been a by-phrase with German princes in their conflicts with the
church that they “will not go to Canossa.”