"The Gate of Penance."

The arched gateway in the mouldering wall of the castle of Canossa, Italy, is still pointed out to tourists as "the gate of penance." It was there that Henry IV., Emperor of Germany, sat for three days and three nights, shivering and wailing under penance imposed by Pope Gregory VII.

The great monk Hildebrand, who had during four pontificates moulded the policy of the Church of Rome, came to the papal throne himself, in 1073, with the title Gregory VII. He was one of the greatest geniuses of his age, and the new order of things which he established throughout Christendom has been felt for more than eight hundred years.

In the early centuries, the Bishop of Rome neither possessed nor claimed any special preeminence over other bishops in the Christian world. But from the sixth to the eleventh centuries his power increased, until the Pope of Rome was the nominal head of Christendom. Up to this time, however, his office was subordinate, in secular matters, to the kings and the emperors of Europe. It was Gregory VII. who conceived the idea of raising the papal power above all earthly potentates.

His scheme was to establish a colossal religious empire, to which the kingdoms of the earth should do obeisance. His first act was to ordain the celibacy of the clergy (q.v.); every priest should belong wholly to the Church, and should know no other title of earthly kinship or affection. In 1074 the law of celibacy was proclaimed as a fundamental principle of the Roman Church. His next act was a proclamation to the effect that henceforth bishops should receive their insignia of office (the ring and the crosier) only from the hands of the Pope, princes having heretofore made the presentation. This brought Gregory into direct conflict with Henry IV. of Germany. In the contests which followed, called "the war of investiture," the Emperor deposed the Pope, and the Pope in retaliation excommunicated the Emperor, absolving his subjects from their allegiance to him. The Emperor at first made light of his sentence, but when he found that his vassals and princes were deserting him, and that he would be forced to abdicate unless the Pope's ban were removed, he submitted. Accompanied by his faithful consort and his eldest son, he hastened, under the grievous difficulties of mid-winter, to Italy. The Pope had sought refuge with the Empress Matilda in her castle at Canossa, in the Apennines. Thither the Emperor resorted, and for three days and nights, in January of 1077, he was compelled to stand at the castle gate, exposed to the inclemency of the weather, barefooted and clothed only in the haircloth of a penitent, until the pontiff consented to remove the ban of excommunication.