Page:The history of medieval Europe.djvu/334

 286 THE HISTORY OF MEDIEVAL EUROPE of the hands of the Roman mob and influential families, but also out of the control of the emperor. A number of decrees forbidding the clergy to receive investiture from laymen were also issued at about this time. During this period, moreover, a man was rising step by step toward the highest power in the Church, in whose breast burned with the fierceness of intense conviction those ideals of eccle- siastical purity and supremacy which have been already outlined. Hildebrand, born in Tuscany about 1025 of poor peas- ants, was educated at the Lateran school; was nourished Career of from his infancy, as he himself more than once Hildebrand said, by the Apostle Peter; and spent his entire life in the papal service. He accompanied the simoniacal pope, Gregory VI, when the latter was deposed by Henry III and exiled to Germany, and he returned to Rome with Pope Leo IX, who in 1050 made him a sub- deacon and cardinal. Three years later he was sent to France as a papal legate and became acquainted with the Abbot of Cluny, but it is certain that he never became a Cluniac monk and doubtful if he was a monk at all. On Leo's death he went from France to Germany, where Henry III appointed a German bishop as Pope Victor II. When both this pope and the emperor soon after died, the Romans chose a new pope without consulting young Henry IV or his mother, the regent. This new pope sent Hildebrand back to Germany again as one of two legates to I announce his election, and, when he too died within a year, before his death he forbade the Romans to elect his suc- cessor until Hildebrand should return. They, however, elected another pope without waiting for Hildebrand. But when Hildebrand did return, he disregarded their action and at Siena secured the election of Nicholas II. It is uncertain whether in this Hildebrand was executing instruc- tions from the empress; at any rate, it shows his increasing prominence in church affairs. He now became a deacon and then an archdeacon, and was entrusted with the making of a treaty with the Normans, who had by this time occupied