[367] The remainder of the charter consists of a series of imprecations of disaster and punishment upon all who at any time and in any way should undertake to interfere with the vested rights just granted. These imprecations were strictly typical of the mediaeval spirit-so much so that many of them came to be mere formulae, employed to give documents due solemnity, but without any especially direful designs on the part of the writer who used them. [368] Emerton, _Mediaeval Europe_, p. 458. [369] Bernard was the third son. [370] About sixty miles southeast of Troyes. [371] Citeaux (established by Odo, duke of Burgundy, in 1098) was near Dijon in Burgundy. [372] Stephen Harding, an Englishman, succeeded Alberic as abbot of Citeaux in 1113. [373] Chatillon was about twelve miles south of La Ferte. The latter was fifty miles southeast of Troyes and only half as far from Chaumont, despite the author's statement that, it lay midway between the two places. The Aube is an important tributary of the upper Seine. [374] The famous founder of the monastery of Monte Cassino and the compiler of the Benedictine Rule [see p. 83]. CHAPTER XVI. THE CONFLICT OVER INVESTITURE 45. Gregory VII.'s Conception of the Papal Authority Hildebrand, who as pope was known as Gregory VII., was born about the year 1025 in the vicinity of the little Tuscan town of Soana. His education was received in the rich monastery of Saint Mary on the Aventine, of which one of his uncles was abbot. At the age of twenty-five he became chaplain to Pope Gregory VI., after whose fall from power he sought seclusion in the monastery at Cluny. In 1049, however, he again appeared in Italy, this time in the role of companion to the new pontiff, Leo IX. In a few years he became sub-deacon and cardinal and was intrusted with the municipal affairs and financial interests of the Holy See. He served as papal legate in France and in 1057 was sent to Germany to obtain the consent of Empress Agnes to the hurried election of Stephen IX. While in these countries he became convinced that the evil conditions--simony, lay investiture, and non-celibacy of the clergy--which the Cluniacs were seeking to reform would never be materially improved by the temporal powers, and consequently that the only hope of betterment lay in the establishing of an absolute papal supremacy before which kings, and even emperors, should be compelled to bow in submission. In April, 1073, Hildebrand himself was made pope, nominally by the vote of the College of Cardinals, but really by the enthusiastic choice of the Roman populace. His whole training and experience had fitted him admirably for the place and had equipped him with the capacity to make of his office something more than had any of his predecessors. When he became pope it was with a very lofty ideal of what the papacy should be, and the surprising measure in which he was able to realize this