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Legacy
It might appear that Gregory was less successful as pope than he had been as a papal adviser, for, in the course of his bitter conflict with Emperor Henry IV, he was defeated. Apart from the court of Matilda of Tuscany, where his legend lived on, Gregory was soon forgotten, and he was not canonized until 1606. The history of the papacy and of the church, however, was profoundly influenced by him. His staunch advocacy of clerical celibacy and repudiation of simony reshaped the church and helped establish the ideals of the reformers as the standard for the church. Moreover, papal primacy cannot be imagined without Gregory. In his lifetime he attempted to translate his own religious experience with its mystical core into historical reality. Concepts that he grasped intuitively were elaborated on legally and theoretically in the 12th and 13th centuries and resulted in what is known as the papal monarchy.
The Haunting Sea
In his dreams... Richard was always someplace else, and many of those dreams took place around the sea. As far back as he could remember he had listened to the sea; to the sound of it mingling with the wind in the needles of the big trees. The wind which never stopped blowing, even when one left the shore behind and crossed the fields. It was the sound which cradled his childhood. He could hear it now as he listened to the plight of Eleanor, deep inside him; he knew it would come with him wherever he would go: The tireless lingering sound of the waves breaking in the distance on an island, then coming to die on the banks of the sea. As a child he dreamt that a day would not go by that he didn’t go to the sea; not a night when he didn’t wake up with his sheets wet from sweat, sitting up on his small cot stretching to see the tide from the shine of the moon, anxious and full of a desire he didn’t understand. The sea like an old playmate…a girl with windblown hair beckoning to him gleefully and then plunging into the blackness.
Richard thought of the sea as human, and in the dark all senses were alert, the better to hear her arrival, the better to receive her. The giant waves leaping one over another, sending its nutrient filled froth into the sand, like sperm into a womb or tumbling into the lagoon; the noise made the air and the earth vibrate like a boiler. I heard her, she moved and she breathed.
When the moon was full, he slid out of bed without a sound, careful not to make the worm-eaten floor creak. But he knew she wasn’t asleep; he knew her eyes were open in the dark and that she was holding her breath. He scaled the window ledge and pushed at the wooden shutters in the dream, and then he was outside, in the night. The garden was bathed in white moonlight; it shone on the top of the trees, swaying noisily in the wind, and he could make out the dark masses of rhododendrons and hibiscus. With a beating heart he walked down the lane which went toward the hills, where the fallow land began.
A large tree which Eleanor called the tree of good and evil, stood very close to the crumbling wall; he climbed onto its highest branches so that he could see the sea over the treetops and the expansive waving of the crops back and forth in unison with the wind…its own conductor. Tonight, the moon rolled between the clouds, throwing out splinters of light. Then suddenly over the foliage, he saw it: a giant black slab alight with shining, sparkling dots. Did he really see it, even in the dream, did he really hear it? The sea was inside his head, and when he closed his eyes, he saw and heard it best, clearly perceiving each wave as it crashed onto the reef and then came together again to unfurl on the shore.
He clung to the branches for a long time until his arms grew numb. The wind from the sea blew over the trees and the top of the crops waving to him, and the moon shone on the leaves. Sometimes in the dreams he stayed there until dawn, listening and wondering of what he might become; perhaps a captain steering the mighty sails, or even a seaman hoisting them. At the other end of the garden the big house was dark, closed in on itself like an abandoned wreck. The wind made the loose shingles bang and the framework creak. This, too, was the sound of the sea, as was the groaning of the tree trunk like a giant timber straining against the sails in a never ending or winning battle with the wind. He would not admit it to Eleanor but he was afraid to be alone in the tree, but he still did not wish to return to the room and he resisted the chill, the fear and the fatigue which made his head heavy.
It was not really fear; it was more like standing on the edge of an abyss or a deep canyon…and staring down, heart beating so hard that it echoed painfully in the nape of his neck. And yet he knew he had to stay…and if he did, at least he would learn something of great worth…and he would have faced his fear. It was impossible for him to go back to the room as long as the tide was rising. He had to stay, clinging to the tree branches, waiting for the moon to glide across the sky. Just before dawn when the sky became gray, he would go back and slide under the sheet. Eleanor would sigh because she had not slept either during all the time he was gone. But she never questioned him in the dream. She merely looked at Richard, as she did now, with questioning eyes, and then he was sorry he’d gone out to hear the sea.
In The Tower
He held her in his arms, noticing that the fragrance which he had remembered was changed, and she too as he looked into her eyes.
“What secret?” he repeated.
“It was wrong of me to send for you,” her eyes filling as she continued.
“Richard, there are so many events…you can’t imagine…it is personally denigrating and I just could not allow you to hear speculation…lies and gossip.” Her voice trailed and she pushed from his embrace.
“Eleanor, I,” he started.
“Please, if I do not get it out now…I may never…I have been a prisoner, ever since…you know…ever since…Richard, dear heart, please sit.” She pointed and he complied.
“Please have some wine, as I tell you everything. I’ll have some as well.” She sipped and looked to him sadly.
“My father is dead!”
Richard rose and reached for her as she motioned for the chair.
“This isn’t easy, you know my devotion…it was at Compostella six weeks ago.
Richard set down the silver goblet…and poured again.
“My love!” He stammered…as he winced from the emotion and the thoughts of the good man and began to whisper words of consolation…words which did not come easy from a man who wasn’t verbal as a rule…an now it was as though his tongue was fixed.
Eleanor, moved to his side and placed a hand on his broad shoulder. He was comforted by the gesture and she continued.
“I knew, as well as he of your fondness and devotion to him…and you must know the feeling was mutual…and Richard, I have been chocking back the grief, no time or emotions for it at this time. Perhaps in a few years I will weep for weeks and thrown myself into the sea of my tears.” She brushed at her gown to compose.
“I did not send for you to share only this news…there is so much more…and perhaps so little which is relevant, and certainly time evades us.” She stared at the barred door and Richard began to stand, thinking that she was asking him to leave.
She motioned to the chair once again and hurried on…”Let me tell you first about how the news came to me and maybe you’ll have a better understanding why I called for you…why I am so frightened for you. You remember when my father went to Spain
