ordination as a priest, and he was consecrated a bishop and enthroned as pope on 29 June (the Feast of St. Peter's Chair). In the decree of election, those who had chosen him as Bishop of Rome proclaimed Gregory VII "a devout man, a man mighty in human and divine knowledge, a distinguished lover of equity and justice, a man firm in adversity and temperate in prosperity, a man, according to the saying of the Apostle, of good behavior, blameless, modest, sober, chaste, given to hospitality, and one that ruleth well his own house; a man from his childhood generously brought up in the bosom of this Mother Church, and for the merit of his life already raised to the archidiaconal dignity". "We choose then", they said to the people, "our Archdeacon Hildebrand to be pope and successor to the Apostle, and to bear henceforward and forever the name of Gregory" (22 April 1073). Gregory VII's first attempts in foreign policy were towards a reconciliation with the Normans of Robert Guiscard; in the end the two parties did not meet. After a failed call for a crusade to the princes of northern Europe, and after obtaining the support of other Norman princes such as Landulf VI of Benevento and Richard I of Capua, Gregory VII was able to excommunicate Robert in 1074. In the same year Gregory VII summoned a council in the Lateran palace, which condemned simony and confirmed celibacy for the Church's clergy. These decrees were further stressed, under menace of excommunication, the next year (24–28 February). In particular, Gregory decreed in this second council that only the Pope could appoint or depose bishops or move them from see to see, an act which was later to cause the Investiture Controversy. Start of conflict with the Emperor The main focus of the ecclesiastico-political projects of Gregory VII is to be found in his relationship with the Holy Roman Empire. Since the death of Holy Roman Emperor Henry III, the strength of the German monarchy had been seriously weakened, and his son Henry IV had to contend with great internal difficulties. This state of affairs was of material assistance to Gregory VII. His advantage was further enhanced by the fact that in 1073 Henry IV was only twenty-three years of age. In the two years following the election of Gregory VII, Henry was forced by the Saxon Rebellion to