The Papal Monarchy by William Barry

Author:William Barry
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Jovian Press

NORMANS, CRUSADES INVESTITURES (1076-1123)

~

IT IS THE YEAR 1083. From his snow-penance Henry had taken an undying hatred to Hilterbrand. Though absolved, he had not been able to prevent the election of an Anti-emperor, Rudolph of Saubia, whom let not the careless reader confound with Rudolph of Haspburg two centuries later. War was raging, with devastation on a grand scale and bloodshed less than we might imagine, but a horrible mixture of civil and religious broils. Rudolph was nearly finished, and Gregory’s new thunderbolts against the Franconian Emperor did not help the Suabian, to whom he perhaps sent a crown fro St. Peter. At Mayence and Brixen the Pope was deposed. Guibert, Italian Chancellor, Archbishop of Ravenna, usurped his place and for a long twenty years fought and wandered as Clemet III. No serious historians believes the calumnies which were spread abroad against Gregory. That he was true Pope every one knew. But in the battle of the Elster, while Henry suffered a reverse at the hands of the Saxons, Rudolph was killed. In the spring of 1081 Henry crossed the Alps, encamped Linder the walls of Rome, and began a siege that lasted amid fevers, alarms, and desultory fighting some three years off and on. Accident at length gave him the Leonine City, but Gregory was secure in St. Angelo. Negotiations led to no result. The Emperor pressed on the siege; at Christmas, thanks to bribery, the Romans opened their gates. Henry held the Lateran as well as St. Peter’s. His Antipope was consecrated, himself crowned on Easter Day, 1083, by Clement. Canossa might seem to be revenged.

Now came Desiderius, Abbot of Monte Cassino, like the messenger in a Greek tragedy, to announce that Robert Guiscard was approaching with six thousand knights and thirty thousand foot. Henry could not stay to meet him. Taking hostages and breaking down some of the walls, he fled towards Città Castellana. Three days afterwards, up marched the motley but formidable host, not only Normans but Saracens, all freebooters, on fire with lust of plunder and excitement. They carried the gate of San Lorenzo; they released the Pope and conducted him to the Lateran. But in two days the Roman populace broke upon the barbarians as they were feasting, and attempted a massacre. Into these narrow streets the Normans urged their cavalry; it was a fight from house to house, and the natives were getting the advantage, when Guiscard uttered the ominous word “Fire!” Instantly, from Lateran to Capitol, over the regions which Nero had once seen in conflagration, the flames rose up. Houses of wood; churches and temples of marble, were consumed under a red cloud of night. Inhabited Rome, Palatine, Esquiline, Quirinal took fire, blazed up, and was laid in ashes to an accompaniment of murder, rape, robbery, and all the unspeakable pollutions which heathen Saracen, and scarcely less heathen Norman, now brought on the Capital of the Christian World. From that day the region of Monti—the Hills— has been a desolation. When the people began to build again they moved down into the Field of Mars.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.