Hildebrand was the son of a poor carpenter of Soano, and had been trained in the ascetic monachism of Cluny. Gifted by nature with rare sagacity, unbending will, and indomitable spirit, imbued with the principles of the False Decretals, and firmly believing in the wildest pretensions of ecclesiastical supremacy, he had conceived a scheme of hierarchical autocracy, which he regarded not only as the imprescriptible right of the church, but also as the perfection of human institutions. To the realization of this ideal he devoted his life with a fiery zeal and unshaken purpose that shrank from no obstacles, and to it he was ready to sacrifice not only the men who stood in his path, but also the immutable principles of truth and justice. All considerations were as dross compared with the one object, and his own well-being and life were ventured as recklessly as the peace of the world. Such a man could comprehend the full importance of the rule of celibacy, not alone as essential to the ascetic purity of the church, but as necessary to the theocratic structure which he proposed to elevate on the ruins of kingdoms and empires. The priest must be a man set apart from his fellows, consecrated to the one holy purpose, reverenced by the world as a being superior to human passions and frailties, devoted, soul and body, to the interests of the church, and distracted by no temporal cares and anxieties foreign to the welfare of the great corporation of which he was a member. We have seen the strenuous efforts which, for a quarter of a century, successive pontiffs had unceasingly made to accomplish this reform, and we have also seen how fruitlessly those efforts were expended on the passive or active resistance of the priesthood. When Hildebrand took the reins into his vigorous grasp, the change at once became manifest, and the zeal of his predecessors appears lukewarm by comparison. He had had ample leisure to note how inefficient was the ordinary machinery to accomplish the result, and he hesitated not to call to his assistance external powers; to give to the secular princes authority over ecclesiastics at which enthusiastic churchmen stood aghast, and to risk apparently the most precious immunities of the church to secure the result. The end proved his wisdom, for the power delegated to the laity for a special object was readily recalled, after it had served its purpose, and the rebellious clerks were subdued and rendered fit instruments in the lapse of time for humiliating their temporary masters. In one respect, however, Hildebrand’s policy proved a blunder. The faithful readily submitted to the restoration of clerical immunity, but the idea that ecclesiastics forfeited their privileges by sin became a favorite one with almost all heretics, as we shall see hereafter in the case of the Albigenses, Waldenses, Wickliffites, and Hussites, costing the church many a desperate struggle.