In the earlier part of the eleventh century, a deacon of Rome, named Hildebrand, formed the design of freeing the See of St. Peter from the subjection of the emperors, and at the same time of saving it from the disgraceful power of the populace. The time was favorable, for the Emperor, Henry IV., was a child, and the Pope, Stephen II., was ready to forward all Hildebrand’s views.
In the year 1059 was held the famous Lateran Council [Footnote: So called from being convoked in the Church at the Lateran gate, on the spot where St. John was miraculously preserved from the boiling oil.] of the Roman clergy, in which it was enacted, that no benefice should be received from the hands of any layman, but that all bishops should be chosen by the clergy of the diocese; and though they in many cases held part of the royal lands, they were by no means to receive investiture from the sovereign, nor to pay homage. The tokens of investiture were the pastoral staff, fashioned like a shepherd’s crook, and the ring by which the Bishop was wedded to his See, and these were to be no longer taken from the monarch’s hands. The choice of the popes was given to the seventy cardinal or principal clergy of the diocese, who were chiefly the ministers of the different parish churches, and in their hands it has remained ever since.
Hildebrand himself was elected Pope in 1073, and took the name of Gregory VII. He bore the brunt of the battle by which it was necessary to secure the privileges he had asserted for the clergy. Henry IV. of Germany was a violent man, and a furious struggle took place. The Emperor took it on himself to depose the Pope, the Pope at the same time sentenced the Emperor to abstain from the exercise of his power, and his subject; elected another prince in his stead.
At one time Gregory compelled Henry to come barefooted to implore absolution; at another, Henry besieged Rome, and Gregory was only rescued from him by the Normans of Apulia, and was obliged to leave Rome, and retire under their protection to Apulia, where he died in 1085, after having devoted his whole life to the fulfilment of his great project of making the powers of this world visibly submit themselves to the dominion of the Church.