As the excuse for the rebellion was the necessity of restoring the empire to the communion of Rome, one of the first measures of the conspirators was the convocation of a council to be held at Nordhausen, May 29, 1105, and one of the objects specified for its action was the expulsion of all married priests.[575] The council was duly held, and duly performed its work of condemning the heresy which permitted benefices to be occupied and sacred functions exercised by those who were involved in the ties of matrimony.[576] Pope Paschal II. was not remiss in his share of the ceremony, by which he was to receive the fruits of his treacherous intrigues. The following year a great council was held at Guastalla, where, after interminable discussions as to the propriety of receiving without re-ordination those who had compromised themselves or who had been ordained by schismatics, he admitted into the fold all the repentant ecclesiastics of the party of Henry IV.[577] The text of the canon granting this boon to the imperialist clergy bears striking testimony to the completeness of the separation which had existed between the Teutonic and the Roman churches in stating that throughout the empire scarce any Catholic ecclesiastics were to be found.[578] It scarcely needed the declaration which Paschal made in 1107 at the synod of Troyes, condemning married priests to degradation and deprivation,[579] to show that the doctrines of Damiani and Hildebrand were thenceforth to be the law of the empire. The question thus was definitely settled in prohibiting the priests of Germany from marrying or from retaining the wives whom they had taken previous to ordination. It was settled, indeed, in the rolls of parchment which recorded the decrees of councils and the trading bargains of pope and kaiser, yet the perennial struggle continued, and the parchment roll for yet awhile was powerless before the passions of man, who did not cease to be man because his crown was shaven and his shoulders wore cope and stole.