Page:Select historical documents of the Middle Ages.djvu/396

376 Furthermore thou hast filled the whole church, as it were, with the ill odour of a most grave charge concerning the too familiar living together and cohabitation with a strange woman. By which thing our sense of shame suffers more than our cause, although this general complaint has resounded every where: that all the decrees of the apostolic see have been set in motion by women—in a word, that through this new senate of women the whole circle of the church is administered. For no amount of complaining suffices concerning the injuries and insults against bishops whom thou most unworthily dost call sons of harlots and the like. Since, therefore, thy accession has been inaugurated by such perjuries; since, through the abuse of thy innovations, the church of God is in danger through so severe a storm; and since thou has defiled thy life and conversation with such manifold infamy: we renounce the obedience which we never promised to thee, nor shall we in future at all observe it. And since, as thou did'st publicly proclaim, not one of us has been to thee thus far a bishop, so also shalt thou henceforth be pope for none of us.  7. ''First Deposition and Banning of Henry IV. by Gregory VII., February'' 22, 1076.

O St. Peter, chief of the apostles, incline to us, I beg, thy holy ears, and hear me thy servant whom thou hast nourished from infancy, and whom, until this day, thou hast freed from the hand of the wicked, who have hated and do hate me for my faithfulness to thee. Thou, and my mistress the mother of God, and thy brother St. Paul are witnesses for me among all the saints that thy holy Roman church drew me to its helm against my will; that I had no thought of ascending thy chair through force, and that; I would rather have ended my life as a pilgrim than, by secular means, to have seized thy throne for the sake of earthly glory. And therefore I believe it to be through thy grace and not through my own deeds that it has pleased and does please thee that the Christian people, who have been especially committed to thee, should obey me. And especially to me, as thy representative and by 