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2025. Sze. 25., Cs, 17:22:12 CEST

 Looking at a High Point of the Middle Ages: The Dictatus Papae of Saint
Gregory VII
by Roberto de Mattei
<https://www.returntoorder.org/author/roberto-de-mattei/> September 22, 2025
https://www.returntoorder.org/2025/09/looking-at-a-high-point-of-the-middle-ages-the-dictatus-papae-of-saint-gregory-vii/
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[image: Looking at a High Point of the Middle Ages: The Dictatus Papae of
Saint Gregory VII]
<https://www.returntoorder.org/2019/11/how-the-medieval-social-order-found-the-balance-between-the-local-and-the-global/>Looking
at a High Point of the Middle Ages: The Dictatus Papae of Saint Gregory VII

*The pontificate of Saint Gregory VII (1073-1085) (*born Hildebrand of
Soana) constitutes *one of the high points of the Christian Middle Ages
<https://www.returntoorder.org/2022/10/dispelling-errors-defending-the-church-how-lies-about-the-middle-ages-ultimately-target-the-church/>.
*The pinnacle of his pontificate is *the Dictatus Papae, a collection of
twenty-seven statements defining the pope’s prerogatives and his
relationship with temporal authority.*

In it, *Gregory proclaimed the pontiff’s superiority
<https://www.returntoorder.org/2025/08/sacrality-or-vulgarity/> over the
emperor in religious and moral matters*. He asserted for the Papacy the
role of the highest and most preeminent power on earth. This work was
likely written between 1075 and 1078, at the height of the bitter *conflict
with the German ruler Henry IV. *At the time, Henry was not yet Holy Roman
Emperor. Nonetheless, *he had already initiated the so-called investiture
controversy against the Church.*

*“The Roman Pontiff,” affirms St. Gregory VII, “is rightly called
universal.” *(n. 2*); “his title is unique in the world” (n. 11); “no one
can judge him” (n. 19); “the Roman Church has never erred" ** (n. 18) );
"nor will it ever err for all eternity, according to the testimony of the
Scriptures” (n. 22);  “no one can reform any statement he issues;
conversely, he can reform any statement issued by anyone else.”* furthermore*,
“it is licit for the pope to depose emperors” *(n. 12) and *“he can release
subjects from fidelity to the wicked”* (n. 27).

Theologically, *by appealing to his role as universal pastor, Gregory
rejects the assertion that the papal throne cannot excommunicate kings or
release their subjects from their bonds of fealty. *The doctrine of Saint
Gregory VII is *based on the words with which Our Lord invested Saint Peter
<https://www.returntoorder.org/2025/02/saint-peter-was-a-saint-not-a-tyrant/>—the
power to bind and loose both on earth and in Heaven*—and on various
passages from Gregory the Great and other writers. He questioned how it
could be possible to maintain that he who has the power to open and close
the gates of Heaven does not have the power to judge the things of this
world. *According to Gregory, Peter was constituted sovereign over the
world’s kingdoms. *To him, God subjected all the principalities and powers
of the earth, granting him the power to bind and loose in Heaven and on
earth. *Kings and emperors are not exempt from those divine and natural
laws to which all men are subject and the Church is the guardian.*

*During the synod of February 1076*, consistent with these claims, *Gregory
VII dismissed and excommunicated the German King Henry IV*. In the
process, *Gregory
also exempted **Henry’s **subjects from their oath of fealty*. *Henry’s
excommunication and deposition were renewed at the Roman Synod of 1080,*
when Gregory confirmed the election of Rudolph of Swabia as Emperor.

*In 1119, the Archbishop of Vienna, Guy of Burgundy, was elected Pope at
Cluny, taking the name Callixtus II (1119-1124). He invoked the teachings
of Gregory VII. On October 29-30 of the same year, a great synod took place
in Reims in the presence of more than 400 bishops. There, the pope renewed
the condemnation of Emperor Henry V, son of Henry IV. *As the pope
pronounced the words of excommunication, the four hundred bishops broke the
candles they held. *Later, the Concordat of Worms (1122) ended the
investiture controversy. *It recognized the Church’s direct universal
supremacy on the spiritual plane and its indirect power on the temporal
plane. *Callixtus II then held the Ninth Ecumenical Council in the Lateran
in March 1123. *It was also the first assembly of all bishops held in the
West. At it, *the new agreement between the Church and the Empire was
solemnly confirmed.*

*The eighth statement of the Dictatus Papae, according to which “Only the
pope can use the imperial insignia,” *has sparked controversy throughout
the centuries. Yet this statement *encapsulates the entire political
theology of the Middle Ages. The Church is not only the supreme spiritual
authority but also the source of imperial authority. The Church possesses
two means of coercion. The first is spiritual, ecclesiastical censures. The
second is material, the right to vis armata. This constitutes the
juridical-canonical foundation of the Crusades
<https://www.returntoorder.org/2024/07/its-time-to-abandon-the-populists-godless-crusades/>,
as proclaimed by the Roman Pontiffs in the name of this authority. This
thesis was later enunciated, among others, by Saint Bernard of Clairvaux *when,
in the treatise *De consideratione*, he reminds Pope Eugene III that both
swords—the spiritual and the material—belong to the pope and the Church. *This
relationship is depicted in the art of the period. The pope is always
depicted at the top, and the emperor stands one step below to his left.
Below the emperor are all the kings and sovereigns of the temporal sphere.
Then, gradually, the artist depicts all members of the Catholic hierarchy
who govern the spiritual sphere.*

*The power of excommunication and deposition of sovereigns, *which
transcends the Middle Ages, stems from this doctrine. *In 1535, Pope Paul
III declared King Henry VIII of England deprived of his kingdom. *On
February 25, *1570, Saint Pius V issued a declaration against Queen
Elizabeth Tudor in which, in the name of the powers conferred upon him, he
declared her guilty of heresy.* *She was subsequently excommunicated and
deprived of her supposed right to the English crown. *No oath of fidelity
bound her subjects to her any longer. Indeed, , they were forbidden to obey
her under penalty of excommunication.

In the fifth book on *De Romano Pontifice**, Saint Robert Bellarmine
explains that divine right does not give the pope direct temporal
jurisdiction. He does, however, possess extensive indirect jurisdiction. *The
Jesuit Doctor also bases this conclusion on the *Dictatus Papae* of Saint
Gregory VII. Two eminent twentieth-century jurists, Father Luigi Cappello
and Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani, considered this to be *the position of the
Magisterium of the Church as described in their manuals of Ecclesiastical
Public Law, which educated the clergy until recent times*. Cardinal Alfonso
Maria Stickler also confirmed it in his studies on the history of canon
law. The power to excommunicate and depose a prince derives from the *plenitudo
potestatis* of the Church, founded on its power to loose and bind.

Gregory VII’s Dictatus *Papae*, like other famous documents such as
Boniface VIII’s bull *Unam Sanctam and** Pius IX**’s Syllabus*, is an
essential text for understanding the Church’s thinking on the relationship
between the spiritual and temporal orders.

*Saint Gregory VII gave his name to the most profound reform of the Church
in the Middle Ages*. *His was a genuine spiritual and moral reform, also
founded on the fullness of power of the Vicar of Christ, the plenitudo
potestatis. Gregory VII would have liked to complete his spiritual reform
by calling a grand crusade against the infidels*. However, that task fell
to his successor (one of his disciples), Blessed Urban II, a Cluniac
Benedictine, who had the honor of proclaiming *it. The epic of the Crusades
was born from the spirit of Gregorian and Cluniac reform to the cry of “God
wills it.
<https://www.returntoorder.org/2020/07/how-blessed-isabel-of-france-shows-that-suffering-is-more-important-than-enjoying-life/>”
That most illustrious chapter of the Church’s history took place between
the eleventh and thirteenth centuries*.
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