In little more than half a year Stephen found refuge from strife and turmoil in the tomb. The election of his successor, Gerard, Bishop of Florence, was the formal proclamation that the church was no longer subjected to the control of the secular authority. January 18th, 1058, saw the power of the emperor defied, and the gauntlet thrown for the quarrel which for three centuries was to plunge Central and Southern Europe in turmoil and bloodshed. Henry III. had labored conscientiously to rescue the papacy from the disgrace into which it had fallen. By removing it from the petty sphere of the counts of Tusculum and the barons of the Campagna, and by providing for it a series of highminded and energetic pontiffs, he had restored its forfeited position, and indeed had conferred upon it an amount of influence which it had never before possessed. His thorough disinterestedness and his labors for its improvement had disarmed all resistance to the exercise of his power, but when that power passed into the hands of an infant but five years old, it was natural that the church should seek to emancipate itself from subjection; and if almost the first use made of its new-found prerogatives was to crush the hand that had enabled it to obtain them, we must not tax with ingratitude those who were undoubtedly penetrated with the conviction that they were only vindicating the imprescriptible rights of the church, and that to them was confided the future of religion and civilization. * * * * *