another council, and prohibited, under the terrible penalty of excommunication,—­for that was his mighty weapon,—­the investiture of bishoprics and abbacies at the hands of laymen:  only he himself should give to ecclesiastics the ring and the crozier,—­the badges of spiritual authority.  And he equally threatened with eternal fire any bishop or abbot who should receive his dignity from the hand of a prince.

This decree was especially aimed against the Emperor of Germany, to whom, as liege lord, the Pope himself owed fealty and obedience.  Henry IV. was one of the mightiest monarchs of the Franconian dynasty,—­a great warrior and a great man, beloved by his subjects and feared by the princes of Europe.  But he, as well as Gregory, was resolved to maintain the rights of his predecessors.  He also perceived the importance of the approaching contest.  And what a contest!  The spiritual and temporal powers were now to be arrayed against each other in a fierce antagonism.  The apparent object of contention changed.  It was not merely simony; it was as to who should be the supreme master of Germany and Italy, the emperor or the pope.  To whom, in the eyes of contemporaries, would victory incline,—­to the son of a carpenter, speaking in the name of the Church, and holding in his hands the consecrated weapon of excommunication; or the most powerful monarch of his age, armed with the secular sword, and seeking to restore the dignity of Roman emperors?  The Pope is supported by the monks, the inferior clergy, and the vast spiritual powers universally supposed to be delegated to him by Christ, as the successor of Saint Peter; the Emperor is supported by large feudal armies, and all the prestige of the successors of Charlemagne.  If the Pope appeals to an ancient custom of the Church, the Emperor appeals to a general feudal custom which required bishops and abbots to pay their homage to him for the temporalities of their Sees.  The Pope has the canons of the Church on his side; the Emperor the laws of feudalism,—­and both the canons of the Church and feudal principles are binding obligations.  Hitherto they have not clashed.  But now feudalism, very generally established, and papal absolutism, rapidly culminating, are to meet in angry collision.  Shall the kings of the earth prevail, assisted by feudal armies and outward grandeur, and sustained by such powerful sentiments as loyalty and chivalry; or shall a priest, speaking in the name of God Almighty, and appealing to the future fears of men?

What conflict grander and more sublime than this, in the whole history of society?  What conflict proved more momentous in its results?