Page:The Normans in European History.djvu/219

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
THE NORMANS IN THE SOUTH
205

failed to bend the Norman to his will. Fearing a combination with his bitterest enemy, the Emperor Henry IV, he finally made peace with Guiscard, and in the renewal of fealty and investiture which followed, the recent conquests of the Normans were expressly excepted. No great time elapsed before the Pope was forced to make a desperate appeal for Norman aid. After repeated attempts Henry IV got control of Rome, shut up Gregory in the Castle of Sant' Angelo, and installed another Pope in his place, who crowned Henry emperor in St. Peter's. Then, in May, 1084, Guiscard's army came. The emperor made what might be called 'a strategic retreat' to the north, the siege of Sant' Angelo was raised, and Rome was given over to butchery and pillage by the Normans and their Saracen troops. Fire followed the sword, till the greater part of the city had been burned. Ancient remains and Christian churches such as San Clemente were ruined by the flames, and quarters like the Cælian Hill have never recovered from the destruction. The monuments of ancient Rome suffered more from the Normans than from the Vandals. Unable to maintain himself in Rome without a protector, Gregory accompanied his Norman allies southward as far as Salerno, now a Norman city, where he died the following year, protesting to the last that he died in exile because he had "loved justice and hated iniquity." The year 1085 also saw the end of Robert Guiscard. Sought as an ally alike by the emperors of