GROWTH OF THE MEDIEVAL CHURCH 287
- outhern Italy. What part he had in the decree of 1059
egulating papal elections is doubtful. This decree and the xeaty with the Normans produced a breach between the mperial court and Pope Nicholas. On his death there were
- wo rival popes; one, whom Hildebrand supported, was
Alexander II, elected by the method prescribed in the ilecree of 1059; the other was nominated by the imperial
- ourt. But at this point the great nobles of Germany de-
Drived the empress of the regency, and Anno, Archbishop ,:>f Cologne, held a synod at Mantua which decided the disputed election in favor of Alexander II. During this pontificate of nine years Hildebrand was undoubtedly, next co the pope himself, the leading figure at the papal court, and in 1073, when Alexander was being buried in the Lateran, the people tumultuously shouted for Hildebrand jas his successor and forcibly placed him upon the vacant throne as Pope Gregory VII, without paying any heed to ■the election decree of 1059. Gregory VII was determined to enforce strictly the decrees against marriage of the clergy, simony, and lay investiture, which his predecessors had already Policies of promulgated. He also regarded the pope as Gregory VII entrusted by God with supreme oversight and control of all human society; he believed himself to be above kings, land empowered to issue orders to them and to punish them
- if they did not obey. He thought the State a worldly in-
stitution built up by sinful men who often were violent and unjust, whereas the Church was a divine foundation. Consequently the pope should correct erring or incompe- tent monarchs. Gregory was not content to try to free the Church from the control of feudal lords; he also attempted to bring various European states into feudal subjection to the Papacy. Corsica and Sardinia he regarded as his fiefs; the Norman ruler of southern Italy had become the vassal of the pope in 1059; an d Gregory endeavored to make the rulers of Spain, England, Hungary, and Denmark his vas- sals. This illustrates how universal were feudal conceptions, that even a pope who tried to free the Church from feudalism
