¹⁷⁴ Otho Friging. Chron. 1. 7, c. 8, 12.—Abb. Ursperg. Chron. p. 243.—Sigon. de Regno Italico. 1. 19.
¹⁷⁵ Sigeb. Gemblac. apud Stras, vol. 1, p. 866.—Otho Fris. Chron. 1. 7, c. 12.—Fleury’s eccles. Hist. vol. 66, n. 42.
“the hatred of the popes, has carried “them so far as to violate the laws of nature; they “have armed my son against me; this son, in con− “tempt of the fidelity he had sworn to me as my “subject, comes to invade my kingdom; and what “I would I could conceal, he has even practised “on my life.”
Escaped from prison, but plunged into extreme misery, the old emperor was reduced to solicit in a church, formerly built by his cures, a subaltern employment, which he did not obtain. He died; they disinterred him; Pascal II. would not allow an excommunicated corpse to repose in peace; five years, the remains of an emperor who had distinguished himself in sixty-six battles, remained without burial; the clergy of liege, who ventured to collect them, was punished for it by anathemas, and almost in our own days, a Jesuit named Longueval¹⁷⁶ has adjudged the fidelity and boldness of this clergy to have been inexcusable.
¹⁷⁶ Hist, of the Gall. Church, vol. 8, p. 187.
The best authenticated history has almost the air of a moral fiction, when after 1106, it represents Henry V. and Pascal occupied in avenging one upon the other, their common outrages on the rights and repose of Henry IV. Henry V. came to Rome, kissed the pope’s feet, and desired to be crowned emperor. Pascal deemed the conjuncture a favourable one for regaining a formal renunciation of the investitures, which he had just condemned in a council held at Troyes. But he had hardly mentioned this pretension, when he was arrested, carried off to the Sabine, and confined in a fortress. There such a terror seized the Holy Father, that he, with sixteen cardinals; signed a treaty, in which he secures to the emperor, the right of investiture, provided he mingles with it no simony; he did more, he bound himself never to excommunicate Henry V. and consented to the inhumation of Henry IV. To seal this compact on the faith of the most awful mysteries, a host is divided between the pope and the emperor: “As these are divided into two parts, said the pontiff, so may he be separated from the kingdom of Jesus Christ, who shall violate this treaty.” Such was the oath which Pascal took, and which he renewed after he had recovered his liberty.