ntroverted, a
policy conceived and attempted altogether in advance of the old times.
Intellect, both among the clergy and the laity, had undergone a great
development. But the peculiar character of the papal power is also
ascertained--that it is worldly, and the result of the policy of man.
The outrage on Hildebrand shows how that power had diminished at its
centre, but the victory over Henry that it maintained its strength at a
distance. Natural forces diminish as the distance increases; this
unnatural force displayed an opposite property.

[Sidenote: Culmination of the ecclesiastical power.] Gregory had carried
his point. He had not only beaten back the Northern attack, but had
established the supremacy of the ecclesiastical over the temporal power,
and that point, with inflexible resolution, he maintained, though in its
consequences it cost Germany a civil war. But, while he was thus
unyielding in his temporal policy, there is reason to suppose that he
was not without misgivings in his theological belief. In the war between
Henry and his rival Rodolph, Gregory was compelled by policy to be at
first neutral. He occupied himself with the Eucharistic controversy.
[Sidenote: Friendship of Hildebrand and Berengar.] This was at the time
that he was associated with Berengar, who lived with him for a year. Nor
did the pope think it unworthy of himself to put forth, in excuse of the
heretic, a vision, in which the Virgin Mary had asserted the orthodoxy
of Berengar; but, as his quarrel with King Henry went on to new
excommunications and depositions, a synod of bishops presumed to condemn
him as a partisan of Berengar and a necromancer. On the election of
Gilbert of Ravenna as antipope, Gregory, without hesitation, pushed his
principles to their consequences, denouncing kingship as a wicked and
diabolical usurpation, an infraction of the equal rights of man.
[Sidenote: The German contest resumed.] Hereupon Henry determined to
destroy him or to be destroyed; and descending again into Italy, A.D.
1081, for three successive years laid siege to Rome. In vain the amorous
Matilda, with more than the devotion of an ally, endeavoured to succour
her beleaguered friend. The city surrendered to Henry at Christmas, A.D.
1084. With his antipope he entered it, receiving from his hands the
imperial crown. The Norman allies of Hildebrand at last approached in
strength. The emperor was compelled to retreat. A feeble attempt to hold
the city was