Pope Gregory Vii and Pope Innocent Iii: a Comparative Study

Throughout the central Middle Ages, Europe was characterized by the power struggle between the secular and the ecclesiastic. The question of rule by God or by man was one which arose with unwavering frequency among scholars, clergy, and nobility alike. The line which separated church and state was blurry at best, leading to the development of the Investiture Conflict in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and the attempts to undermine the heir to the throne in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Four men stand out among dozens in this effort to define the powers of the lay versus that of the spiritual: Emperor/kings Henry IV and John of England, and the popes who aggressively challenged their exertions of authority, Pope Gregory VII and Pope Innocent III, respectively. The years and conditions through which the worldly battled the holy for the command of the people differed, but the themes and events which emerged amidst the strife bore striking similarities. Alteration of names and faces had no effect on the emotive, and at times bitter, struggle between the two poles of authority; even time could not change the tenuous relationships between the papacy and the secular powers. Pope Gregory VII was born Hildebrand circa 1025 in Sovana, a small town in Tuscany. "At an early age, he was sent to Rome—where his uncle served as abbot of the convent of St. Mary on the Aventine—to receive an education." He followed Gregory VI into his exile to Germany, continuing his studies in Cologne before ultimately departing for Rome with Pope Leo IX. There, he enthusiastically pursued a clerical life, becoming a subdeacon and steward in the Roman Catholic Church, and later as a legate in France. Over the decades which followed, he garnered the support of the church through his conduction of negotiations regarding the successor of Leo IX. Pope Stephen X was elected under questionable circumstances, but died shortly after, leading to "the hasty elevation of Bishop