come to amicable terms with him at any cost. Consequently, in May 1074 he did penance at Nuremberg—in the presence of the papal legates—to atone for his continued friendship with the members of his council who had been banned by Gregory, took an oath of obedience, and promised his support in the work of reforming the Church. This attitude, however, which at first won him the confidence of the pope, was abandoned as soon as he defeated the Saxons at the First Battle of Langensalza on 9 June 1075 (also called the Battle of Homburg or Battle of Hohenburg). Henry then tried to reassert his rights as the sovereign of northern Italy without delay. He sent Count Eberhard to Lombardy to combat the Patarenes; nominated the cleric Tedald to the archbishopric of Milan, thus settling a prolonged and contentious question; and finally tried to establish relations with the Norman duke Robert Guiscard. Gregory VII replied with a rough letter, dated 8 December 1075, in which, among other charges, he accused Henry of breaching his word and with his continued support of excommunicated councillors. At the same time, he sent a verbal message suggesting that the enormous crimes which would be laid to his account rendered him liable, not only to the ban of the Church, but to the deprivation of his crown. Gregory did this at a time when he himself was confronted by a reckless opponent in the person of Cencio I Frangipane, who on Christmas night surprised him in church and carried him off as a prisoner, though on the following day Gregory was released. Pope and emperor depose each other The reprimands of the Pope, couched as they were in such an unprecedented form, infuriated Henry and his court, and their answer was the hastily convened national council in Worms, Germany (the synod of Worms), which met on 24 January 1076. In the higher ranks of the German clergy Gregory had many enemies, and a Roman cardinal, Hugo Candidus, once on intimate terms with him but now his opponent, had hurried to Germany for the occasion. All the accusations with regard to Gregory that Candidus could come up with were well received by the assembly, which committed itself to the resolution that Gregory had forfeited the papacy. In one document full of accusations, the bishops renounced their allegiance to Gregory. In another, Henry pronounced him deposed, and