ilst on
the one hand he eschewed the vanities of life around him, on the other he
never sank into the self-effacement of a hermit. His acknowledged purity
and zeal soon won for him from the laity a respect mingled with awe,
whilst his natural talents, his indomitable will, and his genuine piety in
course of time brought all Churchmen who had any regard for their holy
office to fix their hopes upon this Clugniac monk, now a Cardinal. For
some years before his actual election to the Papal throne in 1079,
Hildebrand had begun to exercise an immense control over the councils of
the Church, and he was personally responsible for the epoch-making
resolution under Nicholas II., which declared that the choice of a new
Pontiff was vested in the College of Cardinals alone. His own election,
under the terms of this new and drastic arrangement, became the signal for
the fierce struggles, equally of the battlefield and the council-chamber,
that were destined to distract Italy for generations to come. For, as
might have been expected, the Emperor Henry IV., King of the Romans, was
not long in protesting against so decided an infringement of his secular
claims. From the synods of Worms and Piacenza came the Imperial decree of
deposition against Gregory, which was addressed by "Henry, not by
usurpation but by God's holy ordination, King, to Hildebrand, no longer
Pope, but false monk." Gregory, strong alike in virtue and in resolve, and
aided by the might of the Countess Matilda of Tuscany and of Robert
Guiscard, answered by pronouncing a solemn anathema upon his secular
adversary. In awe-struck silence the Council of the Lateran listened to
the Pope's final excommunication of the King, and of all those who dared
to associate themselves with him. "I absolve," said Gregory, "all
Christians from the oaths which they have taken or may take to him; and I
decree that no one shall obey him as king; for it is fitting that he, who
has endeavoured to diminish the honour of the Church, should himself lose
that honour which he seems to have." We all know the final act of that
terrible unequal struggle, the duel of brute force against spiritual
terrors in a rude age of violence and superstition, which took place in
the courtyard of the Castle of Canossa, the Countess Matilda's fortress in
the Apennines.

"On a dreary winter morning, with the ground deep in snow, the King, the
heir of a long line of Emperors, was permitted to enter within the two
out