Gregory VII (born Hildebrand of Sovana, c. 1015–1085) served as bishop of Rome from 1073 until his death in exile at Salerno, and gave his name to the Gregorian Reform — the eleventh-century movement to free the church from lay investiture, clerical marriage, and the buying and selling of ecclesiastical offices. Before his pontificate he had served successive reforming popes as archdeacon and chief advisor at the Roman court, helping to shape the papal-election decree of 1059 and the Patarine alliance at Milan. His Lent synods of 1074 and 1075 promulgated the foundational legislation against simony and Nicolaitism, and his confrontation with Henry IV over the appointment of bishops produced the Investiture Controversy and the famous penance at Canossa (1077). The Dictatus papae, preserved in his Registrum at II, 55a, sets out twenty-seven terse propositions on papal supremacy, including the deposition of simoniac bishops.
The Register of Pope Gregory VII
Das Register Gregors VII.
Gregory VII to the People of Lodi
Gregorius VII Laudensis ecclesie filiis
In this letter of 3 March 1075, Gregory VII writes to the people of Lodi to applaud their zeal against simony and clerical incontinence and to urge them to support their bishop Opizo in extirpating these "pests" from their church. Issued within days of the 1075 Lent Synod (Reg. II.52a), the letter expressly invokes the synodal program: no one is to serve at the altar over the relics of St. Bassianus in the cathedral if he has entered the church by purchase, is a fornicator, or is a pursuer of base gain. Apostolic blessing is promised to those who cooperate with Opizo, apostolic curse to those who oppose him.
Protocol of the Roman Lent Synod of 1076
Protocollum synodi Romanae anni MLXXVI
The protocol of the Roman Lent Synod of 14–20 February 1076, preserved in Gregory VII's Register as III.10a. The synod is the climactic event of the early Investiture Controversy: it suspended Archbishop Siegfried of Mainz and the German bishops who had renounced obedience to Rome, excommunicated the Lombard bishops, deposed and excommunicated a series of transalpine bishops (including Hermann of Vienne "pro simonia, periuriis, sacrilegio, et apostasia…"), and finally suspended and excommunicated King Henry IV himself in a formal address to St. Peter ("Beate Petre, apostolorum princeps…"). The record contains the first use of the noun simonia in Gregory's Register and provides the canonical text of Henry IV's excommunication — the act that precipitated the king's penance at Canossa in January 1077. The synod is dated anno MLXXV in the manuscript, following the Pisan/Florentine calendar style in which the year began on 25 March; modern reckoning places it in 1076 (indiction XIV).