ked the
emperor to confirm his election, as had been usual, he was resolved that
such a thing should never again be asked of an emperor by any pope in
the time to come.

PART III.

One way in which Gregory tried to increase his power was by forcing the
clergy to live unmarried, or, if they were married already, to put away
their wives. This was a thing which had not been required either in the
New Testament or by the Church in early times. But by degrees a notion
had grown up that single life was holier than married life; and many
canons (or laws of the Church) had been made against the marriage of the
clergy. But Gregory carried this further than any one before him,
because he saw that to make the clergy different from other men, and to
cut them off from wife and children and the usual connexions of family,
was a way to unite them more closely into a body by themselves. He saw
that it would bind them more firmly to Rome; that it would teach them to
look to the pope, rather than to their national sovereign, as their
chief; and that he might count on such clergy as sure tools, ready to be
at the pope's service in any quarrel with princes. He therefore sent out
his orders, forbidding the marriage of the clergy, and he set the people
against their spiritual pastors by telling them to have nothing to do
with the married clergy, and not to receive the sacraments of the Church
from them. The effects of these commands were terrible: the married
clergy were insulted in all possible ways, many of them were driven by
violence from their parishes, and their unfortunate wives were made
objects of scorn for all mankind. So great and scandalous were the
disorders which arose, that many persons, in disgust at the evils which
distracted the Church, and at the fury with which parties fought within
it, forsook it and joined some of the sects which were always on the
outlook for converts from it.

Another thing on which Gregory set his heart, as a means of increasing
the power of the popes, was to do away with what was called
_Investiture_. This was the name of the form by which princes gave
bishops possession of the estates and other property belonging to their
sees. The custom had been that princes should put the pastoral staff
into the hands of a new bishop, and should place a ring on one of his
fingers; but now fault was found with these acts, because the staff
meant that the bishop had the charge of his people as a shepherd has