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Updated: June 2, 2025
Amidst this agitation of Western Christendom, in 1076, two years after Pope Gregory VII. had proclaimed his approaching expedition to the Holy Land, news arrived in Europe to the effect that the most barbarous of Asiatics and of Mussulmans, the Turks, after having first served and then ruled the khalifs of Persia, and afterwards conquered the greater part of the Persian empire, had hurled themselves upon the Greek empire, invaded Asia Minor, Syria, and Palestine, and lately taken Jerusalem, where they practised against the Christians, old inhabitants or foreign visitors, priests and worshippers, dreadful cruelties and intolerable exactions, worse than those of the Persian or Egyptian khalifs.
By this rapid enumeration of events it will be seen how the power and honours of the House of Canossa, including Tuscany, Spoleto, and the fairest portions of Lombardy, had devolved upon a single woman of the age of thirty at the moment when the fierce quarrel between Pope and Emperor began in the year 1076.
It is worthy of note that Christians were not molested at Jerusalem until after the Seljouk Turks wrested the Holy City from the moribund Arabian Caliphate in 1076: their persecution and the desecration of sacred places by the Turks brought about the first Crusade in 1096. Again it was the Ottoman Turks who stormed Constantinople and turned St. Sophia into a mosque.
Early disagreements with Gregory had culminated in his excommunication. The German nobles abandoned his cause; and Henry found it expedient to summon a council in Augsburg for the settlement of matters in dispute between the Empire and the Papacy. Gregory expressed his willingness to attend this council, and set forth from Rome accompanied by the Countess Matilda in December 1076.
In the massive bronze doors of the chapel, that were made at Constantinople in 1076 for a rich citizen of Amalfi, metal rings are inserted; these, like a true pilgrim, you must clash furiously, to call the attention of the Powers within to your visit; and on issuing, you must once more knock as hard as you can, in order that the consummation of your act of worship may be duly reported: judging by the noise made, the deity must be very hard of hearing.
Now, Playfair places the Ionic migration in the year 1044 B.C., Gillies in 1055, and the Abbé Barthelemy in 1076.
"The aged Hildebrand," in the words of Stephen, "was holding a council in the second week of Lent, 1076, beneath the sculptured roof of the Vatican, arrayed in the rich and mystic vestments of pontifical dominion, and the papal choir were chanting those immortal anthems which had come down from blessed saints and martyrs, when the messenger of the Emperor presented himself before the assembled hierarchy of Rome, and with insolent demeanor and abrupt speech delivered the sentence of the German council."
Robert the Frison, not satisfied with having beaten the king of France and the bishop of Liege, reinstated in 1076 the grandson of Thierry of Holland in the possessions which had been forced from him by the duke of Lower Lorraine, in the name of the emperor and the bishop of Utrecht; so that it was this valiant chieftain, who, above all others, is entitled to the praise of having successfully opposed the system of foreign domination on all the principal points of the country.
Then, amid the acclamations of the Roman people, Gregory proceeded to complete the interrupted solemnities at Santa Maria Maggiore. The war between Henry and the Pope continued. Henry summoned a synod at Worms in January, 1076, which decreed the deposition of the Pope.
The city has seen many changes since its first notoriety as the capital of the France of Clovis, and one feels how much has happened in the quiet deserted streets of the old town, where almost every corner is picturesque. The fine ruins of St. Jean des Vignes faced us as we drove along the broad boulevard. A façade and two beautiful towers with a cloister is all that remains of a fine old abbey begun in 1076. It is now an arsenal. One can not always get in, but the porter made no difficulty for us, and we wandered about in the court-yard and cloister. The towers looked beautifully grey and soft against the bright blue sky, and the view over Soissons, with all its churches and old houses, was charming. It seems that Thomas
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