St. Altmann of Passau was renowned for his piety and the strictness of his religious observance. When the canon of 1074 reached him, he assembled his clergy, read it to them, and adjured them to pay to it the respect which was requisite. His eloquence was wasted; the clerks openly refused obedience, and defended themselves by immemorial custom, and by the fact that none of their predecessors had been called upon to endure so severe and unnatural a regulation. Finding the occasion unpropitious, the pious Altmann dissembled; he assured his clergy that he was perfectly willing to indulge them if the papal mandate would permit it, and with this he dismissed them. He allowed the matter to lie in abeyance until the high feast of St. Stephen, the patron saint of the church, which was always attended by the magnates of the diocese. Then, without giving warning of his intentions, he suddenly mounted the pulpit, read to the assembled clergy and laity the letters of the pope, and threatened exemplary punishment for disobedience. Though thus taken at advantage and by surprise, the clerks were not disposed to submit. A terrible tumult at once arose, and the crafty saint would have been torn to pieces had it not been for the strenuous interference of the nobles, aided, as his biographer assures us, by the assistance of God. The clergy continued their resistance, and when, not long after, the empire and papacy became involved in internecine strife, they sought the protection of Henry IV., who marched upon Passau, and drove out St. Altmann and his faction. How unbending was this opposition, and how successfully it was maintained, is manifest from the fact that when St. Altmann at length returned to his diocese as papal legate, about the year 1081, even Gregory felt it necessary to use policy rather than force, and instructed him to yield to the pressure of the evil times, and to reserve the strict enforcement of the reform for a more fortunate period.[542] The political question had thus, for the moment, overshadowed the religious one.