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 GROWTH OF THE MEDIEVAL CHURCH 285 and political rulers; and it was repulsive to ecclesiastical sensibilities that the blood-stained hands of some lord, who I was a terror to all his peasants and neighbors, and who had perhaps ill-treated and divorced several wives, should be- I stow the emblems of spiritual functions upon a successor of the blessed apostles, or upon the head of a community vowed to perpetual chastity. Yet for a time the Holy Roman Emperors assisted in the reform of the Church. Henry II, called the Saint, did much ! to improve the monasteries and cooperated on The emper- ! several occasions with the pope, who in 1018 held church "* a council at Pavia which forbade the marriage reform of the clergy. The next emperor, Conrad II, was absorbed in politics and gave the Church little thought. Meanwhile the Papacy fell again under the control of a powerful Ro- man family, and Henry III (1 039-1 056) found it in much i the same predicament as in the time of Otto the Great. i Again a mere youth had been made pope, one chronicler I says at the age of twelve; and his pontificate, according to ! the gossip of the time, was a worse orgy than that of any of the spoiled boys among the Roman emperors. Presently ! Henry III interfered, deposed all three popes, and nomi- nated a good German bishop to the Papacy. Henry was a pious ruler, earnestly desirous of church reform, and held a synod at Mainz, at which the pope was present, and which condemned simony. Through the remainder of his reign Henry IN saw to it that fit men occupied the papal see. But when he died his son was but a child, and was still only fifteen Growth of when he was declared of age in 1065. In the pendence 6 meantime, in iosq, Pope Nicholas II had decreed d H rin s the ' yjyi ^ minority of that henceforth the pope should be elected by Henry IV the cardinals, certain clergy connected with the churches in Rome. This is essentially the method of election followed to-day, and, although many of the cardinals reside in other countries, they still hold nominal positions in the city churches of Rome. This took the election of the pope out
 * there were three claimants to the Papacy. At this point