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A Source Book of Mediaeval History: Documents Illustrative of European Life and Institutions from the Germanic Invasions to the Renaissance
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Historical SummaryThe high ideal of papal supremacy over temporal sovereigns which Gregory cherished when he became pope in 1073, and which is set forth so forcibly in the Dictatus, was one whose validity no king or emperor gould be brought to recognize. It involved an attitude of inferiority and submissiveness which monarchs felt to be quite inconsistent with the complete independence which they Claimed in the management of the affairs of their respective states. Perhaps one may say that the theory in itself, as a mere expression of religious sentiment, was not especially obnoxious; many an earlier pope had proclaimed it in substance without doing the kings and emperors of Europe material injury. It was the firm determination and the aggressive effort of Gregory to reduce the theory to an actual working system that precipitated a conflict. The supreme test of Gregory’s ability to make the papal power felt in the measure that he thought it should be came early in the pontificate in the famous breach with Henry IV. of Germany. Henry at the time was not emperor in name, but only "king of the Romans," the imperial coronation not yet having taken place. For all practical purposes, however, he may be regarded as occupying the emperor’s position, since all that was lacking was the performance of a more or less perfunctory ceremony. Henry’s specific grievances against the Pope were that the latter had declared it a sin for an ecclesiastic to be invested with his office by a layman, though this was almost the universal practice in Germany, and that he had condemned five of the king’s councilors for simony, suspended the archbishop of Bremen, the bishops of Speyer and Strassburg, and two Lombard bishops, and deposed the bishop of Florence. Half of the land and wealth of Germany was in the hands of bishops and abbots who, if the Pope were to have his way, would be released from all practical dependence upon the king and so would be free to encourage and take part in the feudal revolts which Henry was exerting himself so vigorously to crush. June 8, 1075, on the banks of the Unstrutt, the king won a signal victory over the rebellious feudal lords, after which he felt strong enough to defy the authority of Gregory with impunity. He therefore continued to associate with the five condemned councilors and, in contempt of recent papal declarations against lay investiture, took it upon himself to appoint and invest a number of bishops and abbots, though always with extreme care that the right kind of men be selected. Pope Gregory was, of course, not the man to overlook such conduct and at once made vigorous protest. The letter given below was written in December, 1075, and is one of a considerable series which passed back and forth across the Alps prior to the breaking of the storm in 1076–1077. At this stage matters had not yet got beyond the possibility of compromise and reconciliation; in fact Gregory writes as much as anything else to get the king’s own statement regarding the reports of his conduct which had come to Rome. The tone of the letter is firm, it is true, but conciliatory. The thunder of subsequent epistles to the recreant Henry had not yet been brought into play.
World History 46. Letter of Gregory VII To Henry IV (December, 1075)
Source—Text in Michael Doeberl, Monumenta Germaniœ Historica Selecta (München, 1889), Vol. III., pp. 18–22. Adapted from translation in Oliver J. Thatcher and Edgar H. McNeal, Source Book for Mediœval History (New York, 1905), pp. 147–150.
Gregory, bishop, servant of the servants of God, to Henry, the king, greeting and apostolic benediction,—that is, if he be obedient to the apostolic see as is becoming in a Christian king:
Henry exhorted to confess his sins
It is with some hesitation that we have sent you our apostolic benediction, knowing that for all our acts as pope we must render an account to God, the severe judge. It is reported that you have willingly associated with men who have been excommunicated by decree of the Pope and sentence of a synod.1 If this be true, you are very well aware that you can receive the blessing neither of God nor of the Pope until you have driven them from you and have compelled them to do penance, and have also yourself sought absolution and forgiveness for your transgressions with due repentance and good works. Therefore we advise you that, if you realize your guilt in this matter, you immediately confess to some pious bishop, who shall absolve you with our permission, prescribing for you penance in proportion to the fault, and who shall faithfully report to us by letter, with your permission, the nature of the penance required.
The Pope’s claim to authority over temporal princes
We wonder, moreover, that you should continue to assure us by letter and messengers of your devotion and humility; that you should call yourself our son and the son of the holy mother Church, obedient in the faith, sincere in love, diligent in devotion; and that you should commend yourself to us with all zeal of love and reverence—whereas in fact you are constantly disobeying the canonical and apostolic decrees in important matters of the faith. . . . Since you confess yourself a son of the Church, you should treat with more honor the head of the Church, that is, St. Peter, the prince of the apostles. If you are one of the sheep of the Lord, you have been entrusted to him by divine authority, for Christ said to him: "Peter, feed my sheep" [John, xxi. 16]; and again: "And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of Heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven" [Matt., xvi. 19]. And since we, although an unworthy sinner, exercise his authority by divine will, the words which you address to us are in reality addressed directly to him. And although we read or hear only the words, he sees the heart from which the words proceed. Therefore your highness should be very careful that no insincerity be found in your words and messages to us; and that you show due reverence, not to us, indeed, but to omnipotent God, in those things which especially make for the advance of the Christian faith and the well-being of the Church. For our Lord said to the apostles and to their successors: "He that heareth you heareth me, and he that despiseth you despiseth me" [Luke, x. 16]. For no one will disregard our admonitions if he believes that the decrees of the Pope have the same authority as the words of the apostle himself.1 . . .
Abuses in the Church to be corrected
Now in the synod held at the apostolic seat to which the divine will has called us (at which some of your subjects also were present) we, seeing that the Christian religion had been weakened by many attacks and that the chief and proper motive, that of saving souls, had for a long time been neglected and slighted, were alarmed at the evident danger of the destruction of the flock of the Lord, and had recourse to the decrees and the doctrine of the holy fathers. We decreed nothing new, nothing of our invention; but we decided that the error should be abandoned and the single primitive rule of ecclesiastical discipline and the familiar way of the saints should be again sought out and followed.2 For we know that no other door to salvation and eternal life lies open to the sheep of Christ than that which was pointed out by Him who said: "I am the door: by me if any man enter in he shall be saved, and find pasture" [John, x. 9]; and this, we learn from the gospels and from the sacred writings, was preached by the apostles and observed by the holy fathers. And we have decided that this decree—which some, placing human above divine honor, have called an unendurable weight and an immense burden, but which we call by its proper name, that is, the truth and light necessary to salvation—is to be received and observed not only by you and your subjects, but also by all princes and peoples of the earth who confess and worship Christ; for it is greatly desired by us, and would be most fitting to you, that as you are greater than others in glory, in honor, and in virtue, so you should be more distinguished in devotion to Christ.
Gregory disposed to treat Henry fairly
Nevertheless, that this decree may not seem to you beyond measure grievous and unjust, we have commanded you by your faithful ambassadors to send to us the wisest and most pious men whom you can find in your kingdom, so that if they can show or instruct us in any way how we can temper the sentence promulgated by the holy fathers without offense to the eternal King or danger to our souls, we may consider their advice. But, even if we had not warned you in so friendly a manner, it would have been only right on your part, before you violated the apostolic decrees, to ask justice of us in a reasonable manner in any matter in which we had injured or affected your honor. But from what you have since done and decreed it is evident how little you care for our warnings, or for the observance of justice.
Henry’s obligation to serve and obey the papacy
But since we hope that, while the long-suffering patience of God still invites you to repent, you may become wiser and your heart may be turned to obey the commands of God, we warn you with fatherly love that, knowing the rule of Christ to be over you, you should consider how dangerous it is to place your honor above His, and that you should not interfere with the liberty of the Church which He has deigned to join to Himself by heavenly union, but rather with faithful devotion you should offer your assistance to the increasing of this liberty to omnipotent God and St. Peter, through whom also your glory may be enhanced. You ought to recognize what you undoubtedly owe to them for giving you victory over your enemies,1 that as they have gladdened you with great prosperity, so they should see that you are thereby rendered more devout. And in order that the fear of God, in whose hands is all power and all rule, may affect your heart more than these our warnings, you should recall what happened to Saul, when, after winning the victory which he gained by the will of the prophet, he glorified himself in his triumph and did not obey the warnings of the prophet, and how God reproved him; and, on the other hand, what grace King David acquired by reason of his humility, as well as his other virtues.
1 It did not occur until 1084. Henry had inherited the office at the death of his father, Henry III., in 1056.
2 The sin of simony comprised the employment of any corrupt means to obtain appointment or election to an ecclesiastical office. For the origin of the term see the incident recorded in Acts, viii. 18–24. The five councilors had been condemned by a synod at Rome in February, 1075.
1 The five condemned councilors.
1 This portion of the letter comprises a clear assertion of the "Petrine Supremacy," i. e., the theory that Peter, as the first bishop of Rome transmitted his superiority over all other bishops to his successors in the Roman see, who in due time came to constitute the line of popes [see p. 78].
2 This refers to a decree of a Roman synod in 1074 against simony and the marriage of the clergy.
1 In the battle on the Unstrutt, June 8, 1075.
Contents:
Chicago: "Letter of Gregory VII To Henry IV (December, 1075)," A Source Book of Mediaeval History: Documents Illustrative of European Life and Institutions from the Germanic Invasions to the Renaissance in A Source Book of Mediaeval History: Documents Illustrative of European Life and Institutions from the Germanic Invasions to the Renaissance, ed. Frederic Austin Ogg (1878-1951) (New York: American Book Company, 1908), 264–269. Original Sources, accessed November 25, 2024, http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=Q3KABZWP3GYI4BG.
MLA: . "Letter of Gregory VII To Henry IV (December, 1075)." A Source Book of Mediaeval History: Documents Illustrative of European Life and Institutions from the Germanic Invasions to the Renaissance, in A Source Book of Mediaeval History: Documents Illustrative of European Life and Institutions from the Germanic Invasions to the Renaissance, edited by Frederic Austin Ogg (1878-1951), New York, American Book Company, 1908, pp. 264–269. Original Sources. 25 Nov. 2024. http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=Q3KABZWP3GYI4BG.
Harvard: , 'Letter of Gregory VII To Henry IV (December, 1075)' in A Source Book of Mediaeval History: Documents Illustrative of European Life and Institutions from the Germanic Invasions to the Renaissance. cited in 1908, A Source Book of Mediaeval History: Documents Illustrative of European Life and Institutions from the Germanic Invasions to the Renaissance, ed. , American Book Company, New York, pp.264–269. Original Sources, retrieved 25 November 2024, from http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=Q3KABZWP3GYI4BG.
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