The-papacy-its-history-dogmas-genius-and-prospects-wylie

78 PROGRESS OF ECCLESIASTICAL SUPREMACY.and other vassalsat Worms, he procured a sentence deposingGregory from the popedom. He mistook the manand the times.Gregory, receiving the tidings with derision,assembled a council in the Lateran palace, and solemnly excommunicatedHenry, annulled his right to the kingdomsof Germany and Italy, and absolved his subjects fromtheir allegiance. Henry""s recklessness was succeeded bypanic. He felt that the spell of the pontifical curse wasupon him ;that his nobles, and bishops, and subjects, werefleeing from him or conspiring against him ;and in prostrationof spirit he resolved to beg in person the clemency ofthe Pope. He crossed the Alps in the depth of winter, and,arriving at the gates of the castle of Canossa, where thePope was residing at the time, shut up with his firm adherentand reputed paramour the Countess ISIatilda, hestood, during three days, exposed to the rigours of theseason, with hisfeet bare, his head uncovered, and a pieceof coarse woollen cloth thrown over his person, and forminghis' only covering. On the fourth day he obtained anaudience of the pontiff;and though the lordly Gregory waspleased to absolve him from the excommunication, hestraitly charged him not to resume his royal rank andfunctions till the meeting of the Congress which had beenappointed to try him.* But the pontiff" was humbled in histurn. Henry rebelling a second time, a furious war brokeout between the monarch and the pontiff'. The armies ofthe Emperor passed the Alps, besieged Rome, and Gregory,being obliged to flee, ended his days in exile at Salerno, bequeathingas a legacy to his successors the conflict in whichhe had been engaged, and to Europe the wars and tumultsinto which his ambition had plunged it.-f** Du Pin, Eccles. Hist. vol. ii. p. 212-216 : Dunham's Europe in theMiddle Ages, vol. i. p. 158.t The extensive gap in the city of Rome, extending from the Lateranto the Coliseum, formerly covered with ruins, but now witii vineyards,remains a monument of the war of investitures.