The winter was one of the coldest that Germany had ever known, the Rhine remaining frozen from St. Martin’s day of 1076 to April, 1077.  About Christmas of this severe winter the fugitives reached the snow-covered Alps, having so far escaped the agents of their enemies, and crossed the mountains by the St. Bernard pass, the difficulty of the journey being so great that the empress had to be slid down the precipitous paths by ropes in the hands of guides, she being wrapped in an ox-hide for protection.

Italy was at length reached, after the greatest dangers and hardships had been surmounted.  Here Henry, much to his surprise, found prevailing a very different spirit from that which he had left behind him.  The nobles, who cordially hated Gregory, and the bishops, many of whom were under interdict, hailed his coming with joy, with the belief “that the emperor was coming to humiliate the haughty pope by the power of the sword.”  He might soon have had an army at his back, but that he was too thoroughly downcast to think of anything but conciliation, and to the disgust of the Italians insisted on humiliating himself before the powerful pontiff.

Gregory was little less alarmed than the emperor on learning of Henry’s sudden arrival in Italy.  He was then on his way to Augsburg, and, in doubt as to the intentions of his enemy, took hasty refuge in the castle of Canossa, then held by the Countess Matilda, recently a widow, and the most powerful and influential princess in Italy.

But the alarmed pope was astonished and gratified when he learned that the emperor, instead of intending an armed assault upon him, had applied to the Countess Matilda, asking her to intercede in his behalf with the pontiff.  Gregory’s acute mind quickly perceived the position in which Henry stood, and, with great severity, he at first refused to speak of a reconciliation, but referred all to the diet; then, on renewed entreaties, he consented to receive Henry at Canossa, if he would come alone, and as a penitent.  The castle was surrounded with three walls, within the second of which Henry was admitted, his attendants being left without.  He had laid aside every badge of royalty, being clothed in penitential dress and barefoot, and fasting and praying from morning to evening.  For a second and even a third day was he thus kept, and not until the fourth day, moved at length by the solicitations of Matilda and those about him, did Gregory grant permission for Henry to enter his presence.  An interview now took place, in which the pope consented to release the penitent emperor from the interdict.  One of the conditions of this release was he should leave to Gregory the settlement of affairs in Germany, and to give up all exercise of his imperial power until he should be granted permission to exercise it again.

This agreement was followed by a solemn mass, after which Gregory spoke to the following effect:  As regarded the crimes of which Henry had accused him, he could easily bring evidence in disproof of the charges made, but he would invoke the judgment of God alone.  “May the body of Jesus Christ, which I am about to receive,” he said, “be the witness of my innocence.  I beseech the Almighty thus to dispel all suspicions, if I am innocent; to strike me dead on the spot, if guilty.”