rdoned him. Then, amid the acclamations
of the Roman people, Gregory proceeded to complete the interrupted
solemnities at Santa Maria Maggiore.

The war between Henry and the Pope continued. Henry summoned a synod at
Worms in January, 1076, which decreed the deposition of the Pope. The
envoy charged to convey this sentence appeared in the council chamber of
the Lateran in February, before an assembly consisting of the mightiest
in the land, whom the Pope had summoned to sit in judgment on Henry.
With flashing eyes and in a voice of thunder he directed the Pope to
descend from the chair of St. Peter. Cries of indignation rang through
the hall, and a hundred swords were seen leaping from their scabbards to
inflict vengeance on the daring intruder. The Pope, with difficulty,
stilled the angry tumult. Then, rising with calm dignity, amid the
breathless silence of the assembled multitude, he uttered that dread
anathema which "shuts paradise and opens hell," and absolved the
subjects of Henry from their allegiance.

The inhabitants of Europe were struck dumb with amazement when they
witnessed this exercise of papal prerogative. They thought that the
powerful arm of Henry would have been raised to smite down the audacious
Hildebrand. The Pope, however, well knew that Henry had by his excesses
alienated from himself the affections of his subjects. The sentence gave
a pretext to many of his nobility to withdraw from their allegiance.
Awed by spiritual terrors, his attendants fell away from him as if he
had been smitten by a leprosy. An assembly was now summoned at Trebur,
in obedience to a requisition from the Pope, at which it was decreed
that, if the Emperor continued excommunicate on the 23d of February,
1077, his crown should be given to another. The theory of the Holy Roman
Empire had thus become a practical reality. The vassal of Otho had
reduced the successor of Otho to vassalage. A great pope had wrung from
the superstition and reverence of mankind a spiritual empire, which, it
was hoped, would extend its sway to earth's remotest boundaries.

ARTAUD DE MONTOR

Gregory made it an invariable rule to act at the outset with gentleness.
"No one," says he, "reaches the highest rank at a single spring; great
edifices rise gradually." Certain of his strength, he chose to employ
conciliation. He especially sought to convince Henry, but the excesses
in which that prince wallowed were so abominable that his subjects in
all pa