Saint Gregory VII summary

Learn about Saint Gregory VII’s conflict with Emperor Henry IV in the Investiture Controversy

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Pope Gregory VII, after his expulsion from Rome, laying a ban of excommunication on the clergy “together with the raging king” (Henry IV of Germany), drawing from the 12th-century chronicle of Otto of Freising; in the library of the University of Jena, Germany.

Saint Gregory VII, orig. Hildebrand, (born 1020, near Soana, Papal States—died May 25, 1085, Salerno, Principality of Salerno; canonized 1606; feast day May 25), Pope (1073–85). Educated in a monastery in Rome where his uncle was abbot, he rose to become a cardinal and archdeacon of Rome and was finally chosen pope in 1073. One of the great medieval reformers, Gregory attacked simony and clerical marriage and insisted that his papal legates had authority over local bishops. He is remembered chiefly for his conflict with Emperor Henry IV in the Investiture Controversy. Gregory’s excommunication of the emperor gave rise to a bitter quarrel that ended when Henry begged for forgiveness in a memorable scene at Canossa, Italy, in 1077. A renewed quarrel led Gregory to excommunicate the emperor again in 1080, and Henry’s forces took Rome in 1084. Gregory was rescued by Robert Guiscard, but the devastation of Rome forced the pope to withdraw to Salerno, where he died.

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