Digital Continent Feast of Sts. Peter and Paul 2016 | Page 90

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Gregory VII recalled the unarguable
foundation upon which his actions stood. To
Bishop Hermann of Metz he wrote in August of
1076 about several examples of the exercise of
papal jurisdiction and authority, including that
of Pope Zachary who had deposed a king of the
Franks and released all his subjects from their
oaths of allegiance and also that St. Ambrose, after excommunicating Theodosius forbade him to
stand in the room of the priests within the church. He reminded the recipient of St. Gregory’s
excommunications of kings and dukes who opposed him and then declared them deprived of
their royal dignity.179 Dictatus papae, was not his own creation that he intended to push upon
Christendom but was in fact a succinct legal summary of the prominent rights of the papacy,
Roman-Latin in nature, emphasizing a hierarchy of society based on divine origin. They
challenged the Germanic society of loyalty and fidelity and were regarded as an attack on the
proprietary church system where devotion and trustworthiness was made visual by the practice
of lay investiture and signified the laity’s exercise of power over the clergy.180 This was perhaps
the greatest underlying factor that made the relationship with the German monarchy so unique
and difficult.
After the second excommunication of Henry and the election of the anti-pope Clement
III, Pope Gregory VII’s view of lay investiture crystallized as a crime of ambition and rebellion.
Unacceptable was the perception that the sacred could be transmitted via public ritual at the
179

Emerton, 103.

180

Ullman, 153.