Yet, instead of seeking to deprive bishops and abbots of wealth and troops and political influence, Hildebrand wanted them to have more. He encouraged Anselm of Lucca to lead the Tuscan troops; he proposed in person to lead the Christian armies against the Turks. Throughout life he called for more men and more money, and he never hesitated an instant to set swords flying if he could gain his religious aim by that means. He was as warlike as a full-blooded Norman. Bishop Mathew calls him "truculent," and reminds us how, before he became Pope, Abbot Didier wanted to punish an abbot, who had gouged out the eyes of some of his monks for their sins, but Hildebrand protected the man and afterwards made him a bishop. Didier and Damiani were equally shocked at his political activity. He scorned the distinction between spiritual and temporal things--except when he was endeavouring to keep laymen in their proper place--and argued repeatedly that, if a Pope had supreme power in matters of religion, he very clearly had it in the less important concerns of earth: if a Pope could open and close the gates of heaven, he could most assuredly open and close the gates of earthly kingdoms. He went so far as to say that "all worldly things, be they honours, empires, kingdoms, principalities, or duchies," he could bestow on whomsoever he wished.[207] On this ground he, as we shall see, grasped the flimsiest pretexts for claiming a kingdom as a fief of the Roman See, relying often on forged or perverted texts, and he quite clearly aimed at bringing all the countries in Christendom under the feudal lordship of the Papacy, to be bestowed for "obedience" and withdrawn for "disobedience" at the will of the Pope. I do not admit that he was ambitious, even ambitious for his See. He believed that this sacerdocracy was willed by God and was the only means of maintaining religion and morality in Europe. But there were human aspects of these questions which Gregory ignored, and his bitter and numerous opponents retorted that he was a fool or a fanatic.
This ideal did not merely grow in Gregory's mind in the heat of his combats. It is seen in his earliest letters. Before he was consecrated he wrote to remind "the Princes of Spain" that that country belonged to the Roman See; that the Popes had never abandoned their right to it, even when it was held by the Moors: and that the kings who were now wresting it from the Moors held their kingdoms "on behalf of St. Peter" (_ex parte S. Petri_) and on condition that they rendered feudal military service when summoned to do so.[208] A few weeks later he wrote to Duke Godfrey, referring to Henry IV.: "If he returns hatred for love, and shows contempt for Almighty God for the honour conferred on him, the imprecation which runs, 'Cursed is he that refraineth his sword from blood,' will not, with God's help, fall on _us_."[209] In June he told Beatrice and Mathilda that he would resist the King, if necessary, "to the shedding of blood."[210] In the same month he compelled Landulph of Benevento and Richard of Capua to swear fealty to the Roman See. In November he told Lanfranc, the greatest prelate of England, that he was astounded at his "audacity" (_frons_) in neglecting Papal orders.[211] In December he wrote to a French bishop that if King Philip did not amend his ways he would smite the French people with "the sword of a general anathema" and they would "refuse to obey him further."[212] A remarkable record for the first nine months of his Pontificate.