Page:The history of medieval Europe.djvu/339

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GROWTH OF THE MEDIEVAL CHURCH 291 crowned emperor by the anti-pope. Robert Guiscard, the Norman ruler of southern Italy and the pope's vassal, but who had done nothing to help him during the two-year siege of the city, now at last appeared to relieve Gregory, who was still holding out in the Castle of Sant' Angelo, formerly the tomb of the great Roman emperor, Hadrian. Henry had returned to Germany, but it was only by treach- ery that the Norman gained admission to the city. A sack 'followed, which was possibly more destructive of property land life than that of Alaric in 410 or that of the Vandals in |455; many of the people were slaughtered and the greater part of the city was burned. Naturally the Romans became more alienated from Gregory than before. He deemed it prudent to leave the city with his Norman allies and died the next year at Salerno, asserting with his last breath, '? I have loved justice and hated iniquity; therefore I die in exile." But the manner of his death was not unfitting for one who had resorted to such violent methods. The end of Henry was no happier, though he seemed for the moment to have triumphed and lived for a score of lyears longer. Gregory's successors renewed his Settlement , . * . t_ of the in- excommumcation ; his anti-popes soon became V estiture

powerless; he lost control of Italy, and his sons question

jrebelled against him in Germany. Despite this, Henry V, jon succeeding his father, pursued the same policy in regard •to the question of investiture. In mi he marched upon JRome and secured from Pope Paschal II the remarkably jfair proposal that the bishops and abbots should give up their secular power and their estates, and that the emperor should renounce the right of investiture. This proposal 1 proved, however, too idealistic and revolutionary to be I tolerated by the bishops and abbots in question or by the German princes generally. Instead, it was finally agreed by ,the Concordat of Worms in 1122 that nowhere should the (clergy any longer receive the symbols of their spiritual I functions from the hands of secular rulers; but that in Germany ecclesiastical elections should take place in the royal presence and that the bishop, before he could be con-