Word: canossa
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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During the Middle Ages, the political strength of Popes ebbed and flowed with the tides of growing nationalism, but there was never a serious challenge to their position as head of the church. The Emperor Henry IV knelt penitentially in the snows of Canossa before Pope Gregory VII; France's King Philip the Fair, a few centuries later, made a virtual prisoner of Boniface VIII. Both monarchs acknowledged alike that the Roman pontiff was their spiritual overlord. Popes seldom made major church decisions apart from consultation with general councils, which assumed special importance in preserving unity during the Great...
...Emperor usually ending up on top. Monarchs customarily appointed bishops in the Middle Ages; when Pope Gregory VII told Emperor Henry IV to stop doing it and was refused, he excommunicated Henry, and had the warming pleasure of keeping the penitent Emperor waiting barefoot in the snow at Canossa for three days before letting him in for forgiveness. But Gregory's fun was soon over. Henry exiled him in 1084, and the back-and-forth went...