St Gregory VII

St Gregory VII (c. 1020-1085), pope (1073-1085), one of the great reformers of the medieval Church. He asserted the primacy of the Church over secular powers and led the papal party in the first phase of its conflict with the Holy Roman Empire.

Born Hildebrand into a family of modest means in Tuscany, he was sent to Rome for his education. After he was ordained a cleric, he attracted the attention of Pope Gregory VI, who chose him as his chaplain. Eventually considered the most influential person in Rome, he enjoyed the confidence of all the popes who reigned after the death of Gregory VI and before his own elevation to the papacy in 1073.

During these years the popes were engaged in a vigorous campaign to reform the Church. It is indicative of Gregory's importance both before and after his election that this enterprise is now known as the Gregorian Reform. With its emphasis on the reform of the higher clergy, the movement inevitably brought the papacy into conflict with secular rulers, who claimed the right to appoint the higher Church officials in their countries, because they preferred bishops and abbots who, regardless of their moral qualities, would strengthen imperial finances and political power.

Gregory was elected pope by acclamation in Rome on April 22, 1073. Relations with Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV of Germany were already strained under Gregory's predecessor, and the new pope's vigorous measures in the Roman Synod of 1075 to eliminate simony (the sale of clerical office) and to promote clerical celibacy increased the tension. In particular, the synod forbade lay investiture, the right claimed by emperors and kings to confer upon prelates the symbols of their spiritual authority. Henry responded to these and other actions of Gregory by declaring him deposed; the pope countered by excommunicating the emperor. This marked the outbreak of the Investiture Controversy, the papal-imperial struggle for authority over appointments in the Church.

Gregory and Henry were temporarily reconciled in 1077, when Henry did penance outside the castle at Canossa and begged the pope's forgiveness. The conflict soon erupted again, however, renewing a civil war in Germany provoked by a rival who wanted to replace Henry on the throne. Henry eventually led his army into Rome, when the populace finally turned against Gregory and forced him to leave the looted city with his allies. Gregory died shortly thereafter in Salerno on May 25, 1085.

The pontificate of Gregory VII was one of the most tumultuous and controversial in history. His single-minded pursuit of his ideas won him loyal admirers and implacable enemies. Seemingly untenable at the time of his death, his reforms gradually gained wide acceptance in a moderated form. Without doubt Gregory laid the foundation for a morally regenerated Church, for a sharper distinction in the Church between the roles of the clergy and those of the laity, and for a greater centralization of authority in the papacy. His actions against Henry IV weakened the German monarchy and were perhaps partly responsible for Germany's retarded political development in the Middle Ages, as well as for its antipathy to the papacy. Gregory was canonized in 1606; his feast day is May 25.