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Pope Gregory VII

Also called: Hildebrand

Pope (1073–1085) who banned simony and clerical marriage and fought lay investiture of clergy in the Investiture Controversy

Born Hildebrand to a modest family in Tuscany, he led reform under several popes before his own election in 1073. In the Dictatus Papae of about 1075 he asserted that the pope alone could depose emperors and could be judged by no one. After Canossa he clashed with Henry IV again and was driven from Rome, and the Norman army that came to rescue him sacked the city, turning the Romans against him. He is said to have declared, “I have loved justice and hated iniquity; therefore I die in exile.”

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1 related event

  1. 1
    1077Walk to Canossaleader

    Excommunicated in a dispute with Pope Gregory VII over the right to appoint clergy (investiture), Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV begged forgiveness at the castle of Canossa in January 1077.

People who appear alongside

  • Henry IV1050 – 1106

    Holy Roman Emperor who, excommunicated in the investiture dispute with Pope Gregory VII, begged forgiveness at Canossa in 1077

Themes this person appears in

  • Medieval Europe and ByzantiumAD 476 – 1077

    From the fall of Rome in the West to Canossa — the feudal West built by the Franks and the papacy, Byzantium as heir of Rome, and a church divided east and west

  • Late Medieval Europe and the Renaissance1077 – 1517

    From Canossa to the eve of the Reformation — papal power at its height and in decline, towns and parliaments, royal power growing through the Hundred Years’ War and the Black Death, and the Renaissance and printing