by A. G. NOORANI
“What exactly happened is shrouded in legend, but supposedly Henry arrived in the depths of winter, barefoot and in a pilgrim’s hair shirt, only to be kept waiting by Gregory for three days. When he was finally admitted to the castle on January 28, 1077, the emperor knelt before the Pope and begged forgiveness. He was absolved and the two most powerful figures in Christendom then shared the Mass.”
The reconciliation was short-lived. After being excommunicated a second time Henry crossed the Alps with his army and replaced Gregory with an “antipope” of his own. But the events themselves matter less than the myth that grew up around Canossa. During Chancellor Otto von Bismarck’s struggle to rein in the Catholic church, he famously declared in the Reichstag on May 14, 1872: “We will not go to Canossa, neither in body nor in spirit.” The phrase “to go to Canossa” entered the language as a synonym for craven surrender, almost the equivalent of “Munich”. To many Indians Z.A. Bhutto’s arrival in Simla in June 1972 was a case of “going to Canossa”. They discovered before long that he had pulled off a deal to his advantage.
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