Principles of western civilisation

272 WESTERN CIVILISATION CHAP.

closed circle of an ideal which could only bring the world back again to the ruling principle of an era beyond which it had for ever advanced, does not for a moment obscure the greatness of the concept which shines through the whole controversy. But the development proceeds in history towards its inevitable climax. Notwithstanding the great amount of support received by the representative of the civil power from a section of the Church, it was impossible for the Emperor to escape the inherent consequences of the position in which the world was involved ; and, within a short time from the opening of the controversy, Henry IV. was a penitent to the Pope at Canossa, begging absolution from the ban of the spiritual power.

From this point forward events rise rapidly towards the crisis of the Middle Ages. As the conflict widens, its tendency is ever in one direction. The compromise of the Concordat of Worms in 1122, nearly fifty years after the opening of the controversy, only thinly veiled the triumph of the popes in establishing the supremacy of the forces represented by the spiritual authority. “Tt was manifest,” says Hallam, “ that the See of Rome had conquered.”? But the full meaning of what was taking place cannot be compressed into such a formula. In Germany, Italy, France, and England the larger question from which the dispute itself proceeded continued to be the deepest issue beneath the surface of political life. When the peace of Venice brought the controversy for the time being to an end in 1177, the supremacy of the spiritual

\ View of the State of Europe during the Middle Ages, by Henry Hallam,

c. Vil.