The nobles of the empire, the principal prelates who remained faithful to Rome, and the Papal legates, Siccard, Patriarch of Aquileia, and Altmann, Bishop of Passau, were assembled within the town in solemn council.  Scarcely, however, had their deliberations begun, before Otto of Nordheim, at the head of the flower of Saxony, appeared among them and declared himself in their favor.  Then former jealousies and wrongs were forgotten, and Otto and Welf and Rodolph, cordially embracing each other, devoted themselves to the execution of whatever enterprise the common cause might require.  Seven days were consumed by the council in the discussion of the diseases, the wants, and the dangers of the State.  In the meantime, Henry, apprised of the meeting, had hastened with his army to Oppenheim, and occupied the opposite side of the river.

When informed that his cruelty, his blasphemy, his perfidy were strongly exposed and unanimously condemned, and that he was denounced as a violator of law and propriety, false to the dignity of the Church, and faithless to the State, he implored the princes to accept his contrition, and offered to resign all but the insignia of royalty, with which he could not honorably part, and to give hostages for his future good behavior.  But the council replied that they knew his sincerity too well to desire another proof of it; and that a perfidy so deeply rooted as his must be incurable.  The messages of the monarch served only to inflame his opponents still more violently against him; and the princes, disgusted with his pretended submission, resolved to elect a new king, pass the Rhine, and attack the imperial troops.  Henry, driven to despair, concentrated his forces upon a single point, and prepared to give battle, determined to conquer or die.

But here, again, the peaceful spirit of the Church interfered to prevent a scene of carnage, by withholding the Apostolical suffrage from the nominee to the imperial dignity.  As in almost every battle chronicled by Froissart, the bishops at first passed from army to army, exhorting to peace, and studying to bring the point in dispute to an amicable adjustment, so at this moment the Papal legates and the bishops compelled the confederates to give the king to the end of the year to repent, if he complied with certain conditions, the observance of which was required for the peace and safety of Germany.  The two most important of these conditions were, to retire from public life, and to seek, in person, at Rome, the raising of the interdict.  It is impossible not to see in this arrangement the finger of Gregory, solicitous to avert bloodshed, and directed by his magnanimous and charitable repugnance to credit Henry’s utter depravity.