GREGORY VII., HILDEBRAND, son of a carpenter; born in Soano, Tuscany, about 1020. He was the friend and counsellor of Leo IX. and the four succeeding Popes, and on the death of Alexander II. was elected to succeed him in 1073. He ob tained confirmation in his election from the Emperor Henry IV., and immediately applied himself zealously to reform sim ony and the licentiousness of the clergy. In his view, however, marriage, no less than concubinage, was a sin in them. He menaced the emperor and the King of France, the latter without effect. In 1074 he assembled a council, by which it was forbidden the prelates to receive investiture of a layman; and this was the first step in the quarrel with the em peror, which lasted so many years. Henry, disregarding the papal authority, was summoned to Rome; but he held a diet at Worms, and pronounced the depo sition of the Pope. To this Gregory
replied by procuring the deposition of the emperor and the election of an other, Rudolph of Suabia. Henry now promised submission; and in the early winter of 1077 went with his wife and child to Italy. The Pope was at the cas tle of Canossa, and there, after keeping the penitent Emperor of Germany three days waiting at the gate, he received him and gave him absolution. The terms im posed on him were intolerable, and he soon broke them, made war on Rudolph, and defeated him, set up a rival Pope in Guibert, Archbishop of Ravenna, with the title of Clement III., and after sev eral unsuccessful attempts entered Rome in 1084, had himself crowned emperor by his own Pope, and besieged Gregory in San Angelo. The Pope was delivered by Guiscard, and retiring to Salerno, died there May 25, 1085.