he high office became so bad that
they were felt as a disgrace throughout all Christendom; and in 1046 the
German emperor Henry III took upon himself to depose three fiercely
contending Romans, each claiming to be pope. He appointed in their stead
a candidate of his own, not a dweller in the city at all, but a German.
Henry, therefore, must have considered the duties of the pope as bishop
of the Romans to be far less important than his duties as head of the
Church outside of Rome.[18]

[Footnote 18: See _Henry III Deposes the Popes_.]

So necessary had this interference by the Emperor become that it was
everywhere approved. Yet as he continued to appoint pope after pope,
churchmen realized that in the hands of an evil emperor this method of
securing their head might prove quite as dangerous and unsatisfactory as
the former one. So the Church took the matter in hand and declared that
a conclave of its own highest officials should thereafter choose the man
who was to lead them.

Under this surely more suitable arrangement, the papal office rose at
once in dignity. It was held for a time by true leaders, earnest
prelates of the highest worth and ability. We have said that the rank of
the bishop of Rome as head of the Church had never been seriously
questioned among the Teutons; but now the popes asserted a political
authority as well. They regarded themselves, theoretically, as supreme
heads of the entire Christian world. They claimed and even partly
exercised the right to create and depose kings and emperors. To such a
supremacy as this, however, the Teutons were still too rude and warlike
to submit. Much is made of the fact that the Emperor Henry IV was
compelled to come as a suppliant to Pope Gregory at Canossa, 1077.[19]
But this submission was only forced on him by quarrels with his barons,
who welcomed the Pope as a chance ally. It proved the power of feudalism
rather than that of religion. Still we may trace here the beginnings of
a later day when spirit was really to dominate bodily force, when ideas
should prove stronger than swords.

[Footnote 19: See _Triumphs of Hildebrand_.]

THE FIRST CRUSADE

Under these aroused and able popes, the Western world was stirred to the
first widespread religious enthusiasm since the ancient days of
persecution. Jerusalem, long in the hands of a tolerant sect of Saracens
who welcomed the coming of Christian worshippers as a source of revenue,
was captured in 1075 by anoth