Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 6 (1897).djvu/226

 204 THE DECLINE AND FALL Besieges Home. A.D. lOSl-1084 ; A.D. 1084, March 21, 24, 31 Flics liefore Kcbert; May other ; and each had seated a rival on the temporal or spiritual throne of his antagonist. After the defeat and death of his Swabian rebel, Henry descended into Italy, to assume the Im- perial crown, and to drive from the Vatican the tyrant of the church.'*^- But the Roman people adhered to the cause of Gregory : their resolution was fortified by supplies of men and money from Apulia ; and the city was thrice ineffectually besieged by the king of Germany. In the fourth year he corrupted, as it is said, with Byzantine gold the nobles of Rome whose estates and castles had been ruined by the war. The gates, the bridges, and fifty hostages were delivered into his hands : the antipope, Clement the Third, was consecrated in the Lateran : the grateful pontiff crowned his protector in the Vatican ; and the emperor Henry fixed his residence in the Capitol, as the lawful successor of Augustus and Charlemagne. The ruins of the Septizonium were still defended by the nephew of Gregory : the pope himself was invested in the castle of St. Angelo ; and his last hope was in the courage and fidelity of his Norman vassal. Their friendship had been interrupted by some reciprocal injuries and complaints ; but, on this pressing occasion, Guiscard was urged by the obliga- tion of his oath, by his interest, more potent than oaths, by the love of fame, and his enmity to the two emperors. Unfurling the holy banner, he resolved to fly to the relief of the prince of the apostles : the most numerous of his armies, six thousand horse and thirty thousand foot, was instantly assembled ; and his march from Salerno to Rome was animated by the public applause and the promise of the divine tavour. Henry, invincible in sixty-six battles, trembled at his approach ; recollected some indispensable affairs that required his presence in Lombardy ; credible to a modern reader. He will, as usual, find some instruction in Le Clerc (Vie de Hildebrand, Bibliot. ancienne et moderne, torn, viii.) and much anmsement in Bayle (Dictionnaire Critique, Gri!goire VII.). That pope was undoubtedly a great man, a second Athanasius, in a more fortunate age of the church. May I presume to add that the portrait of Athanasius is one of the passages of my history (vol. ii. p. 361 sgq.), with which I am the least dissatisfied? [The present centiu-y has produced an enormous Hildebrandine literature. The pioneer work was that of Johannes Voigt in 1815 ; Hildebrand als Papst Gregor VII. und sein Zeitalter. The Protestant author represented Gregory in the light of a reformer. Voigt 's work led to an English monograph by J. W. Bowden : The Life and Pontificate of Gregory VII. 1840. Sporer's study in 7 vols, appeared 20 years later (Papst Grcgorius VII. und sein Zeitalter, 1859-61).] i''-Anna, with the rancour of a Greek schismatic, calls him ["] KOTa-nzvaTo'; o5to? IlttTra? (1. i. p. 32 [c. 13]), a pope, or priest, worthy to be spit upon ; and accuses him of scourging, shaving, perhaps of castrating, the ambassadors of Henry (p. 31, 33). But this outrage is improbable and doubtful (see the sensible preface of Cousin).