Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 11.djvu/188

Rh  1em

 GREGORYII., undefined, from or  to, succeeded, his  being variously dated May 19, , and March 21,. Having, it is said, bought off the for thirty  of, he used the tranquillity thus obtained for vigorous  effort in , and for strengthening the  authority in the es of  and. By, he prepared the way for a long series of revolts and civil wars, which tended greatly to the establishment of the temporal power of the s. He died in , and subsequently attained the honour of , February 13th being the day consecrated to his memory in the Martyrology.

 GREGORYIII., undefined, from to, a  by birth, succeeded  in March. His, like that of , was disturbed by the , in which he vainly invoked the intervention of. During his reign also it was that in, on whom he conferred the ,  in , and  in  carried on their most successful  labours. He died 29th November, and was succeeded by ZachariasI.

 GREGORY IV., from to, was chosen to succeed  in , on which occasion he recognized the  of the   in the most unequivocal manner. His name is chiefly associated with the quarrels between and, in which he espoused the cause of the former, for whom, in the Campus Mendacii, as it is usually called , he secured by his treachery a temporary advantage. The institution of the of  is usually attributed to this. He died 25,, and was succeeded by

 GREGORY V., from to, a grandson of the , succeeded  when only twenty-four s of age, and until the  of   had a rival in the person of the  , whom the people of  in revolt against the will of the youthful  , Gregory's cousin, had chosen. The most memorable acts of his were those arising out of the  of the , , who was ultimately brought to submission by the rigorous infliction of a sentence of. He died suddenly, and not without suspicion of, 18th. His successor was

 GREGORY VI., from to, who as Johannes Gratianus had earned a high reputation for learning and probity, succeeded, having bought off the s  and  In a  held by the   at , in , he was accused of , and his  was found to have been informal. This led to his degradation, and was followed by his withdrawal into, where he died in the following. He was succeeded by

 GREGORY VII.,, one of the greatest of the , was born about  at  or , a small  in , where his father, Bonic or Bonizon, is said to have followed the. His own name, Hildebrand or Hellebrand, is suggestive of a extraction; but of his remoter ancestry nothing is recorded. His youth was passed at in the  of  on the, where a relative was at that time ; here the   (afterwards ) was one of his s, and the youthful scholar early attracted the attention of such visitors as  of  and  of. There is some reason to believe that, after passing his in, Hildebrand removed for some s to the , at that time under the charge of the ; but all the earlier s of his life are involved in considerable obscurity. In he became one of the s of the newly , , whom he shortly afterwards accompanied into his  ; and on the death of , some two s later, he retired to , where his learning and sanctity made a deep impression, and where, according to some accounts, he was ultimately promoted to the office of. As a of  he appears to have oftener than once visited the   for the transaction of  business; and in  he is said in a very special way to have come under the notice of,  of , then on his way to  to take possession of the  of , which he occupied for some s under the title of  It was at Hildebrand's instance that , who had been nominated by  merely, consented to refrain from assuming the  , and to present himself to the  in the  of a simple , until he should have been  in a more regular manner. The ascendency which Hildebrand had thus acquired over he never afterwards lost; in  he became , and in following s he was entrusted with various missions of great importance, taking also a prominent part in the important s of  and , as well as in those of. On the death of in  the  had signified a desire that the  should succeed him; this honour and responsibility however Hildebrand declined; but he was one of three s who went to  to consult with  about the choice of a successor. The negotiations, which lasted eleven s, ultimately issued in the of  of, a relative of , who up to that time had followed a distinctly antipapal policy, but who, immediately after his reception and  at  as  (13th  ), became as entirely a tool in the hand of Hildebrand as  had been. It was during that Hildebrand, as, attended the  s held for the purpose of repressing the  of. On the of, Hildebrand was again sent to  to defend the choice before the  ; in this mission, which was ultimately successful, several s were spent. Again, in, he succeeded in defeating the hostile party of and in securing the  for ; and once more, in , he successfully laboured for the election of  to the 