Son of Blood by Jack Ludlow

Author:Jack Ludlow
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: General Fiction
ISBN: 9780749012533
Publisher: Allison & Busby
Published: 2012-05-28T04:00:00+00:00

Gregory was not in Rome but Tuscany, where he had gone so he could be close to confronting Emperor-elect Henry, who, in defiance of his instructions, had appointed as Bishop of Milan a married prelate of whom the reigning pontiff, with his insistence on celibacy, naturally disapproved. The new bishop was just as naturally beholden to the imperial right of clerical appointment while Tuscany was also a hotbed of simony, with offices being sold to the highest bidder so that the revenues of the Church could go to lining the pockets of the already wealthy, rather than being employed to carry out God’s work.

Aware that he lacked the military power to curb young Henry’s ambition, which naturally centred on his ancient rights, the Pope had alighted on the one measure he possessed to bring him into line. For the first time in the history of Western Christendom, on a February day, a pope pronounced excommunication on an elected King of the Germans. If this was an anathema that the likes of the Guiscard could live with, the effect on Henry was profound and even more so on his pious subjects. North of the Alps it was catastrophic, especially given many of his vassals were already in rebellion, but more so because the entire population over which he ruled were stout devotees of the Church of Rome and genuinely saw the Pope as God’s Vicar on Earth; none of his subjects could obey or even show respect to a ruler who was not in a state of grace.

If that applied to the low-born, it was just as effective with the German princes who elected their king, especially to those who were ambitious for change. In an October meeting they joined with the religiously disquieted and threatened to designate another in Henry’s place if he did not receive absolution. He was given a year and a day from the date of the excommunication to achieve this and a diet was called at Augsburg in February at which he must either appear before them forgiven or lose his crown.

For Henry there was no time to waste and notwithstanding the fact that it was midwinter he knew he must go to Gregory, where he would be required to abase himself, a necessity to keep his crown. With his wife and son in company he crossed the frozen Alps and eventually located the Pope at the fortress of Canossa, where Gregory was staying until the snows melted and the Brenner Pass cleared, at which time an escort would arrive to take him to the Augsburg Diet.

If Henry, holed up in an inn, suspected the Pope kept him waiting many days through a desire to make him suffer, he could not have been more mistaken. The last thing Gregory had expected was that the excommunicate would turn up on his temporary doorstep and he was at a loss as to how to respond. If Henry begged forgiveness then he could not in all conscience refuse him

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