Hugh of Remiremont

Ebles is probably a relative of Sancho Ramírez, King of Aragon, both descending from the Dukes of Aquitaine.

Sancho Garcés IV, the ruler of Navarre, and his neighbor, Ahmad al-Muqtadir, the ruler of Zaragoza, conclude an alliance by treaty on May 25 against the planned crusade.

For reasons unknown, the crusade never takes place, or at least leaves no record of its accomplishments, which must in any case have been meager.

According to one historian, the crusade may have been frustrated by Gerald of Ostia, Papal legate, Cardinal and Cluniac, as part of the efforts of the Abbey of Cluny to support the Kingdom of León–Castile in its rivalry with the Kingdom of Aragon.

The Papacy under Alexander and Gregory has supported the Aragones, and at least some of Alfonso VI of Castile's actions in 1073 can be seen as a response to the projected crusade.

The appointment of Gerald, a former grand prior of Cluny, and the archdeacon Raimbald as legates in Spain may have been intended originally by Alexander II to appease Alfonso VI or his predecessor, Sancho II, by assuring them that their claims on the parias of Zaragoza (which, along with allied Navarre, felt threatened by the crusade) were not in jeopardy.

Upon becoming Pope, however, Gregory had removed Gerald from this position and instated Hugh Candidus, a veteran of the crusade of Barbastro and a friend of the king of Aragon.

The reprimands of the Pope, couched as they are in such an unprecedented form, infuriate Henry and his court, and their answer is the hastily convened national council in Worms, Germany (the synod of Worms), which meets on January 24, 1076.

In the higher ranks of the German clergy Gregory has 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 are well received by the assembly, which commits itself to the resolution that Gregory has forfeited the papacy.

In one document full of accusations, the bishops renounce their allegiance to Gregory.

In another, Henry pronounces him deposed, and the Romans are required to choose a new pope.

The council sends two bishops to Italy, and they procure a similar act of deposition from the Lombard bishops at the synod of Piacenza.

Roland of Parma informs the pope of these decisions, and he is fortunate enough to gain an opportunity for speech in the synod, which had just assembled in the Lateran Basilica, to deliver his message here announcing the dethronement.

For the moment the members are frightened, but soon such a storm of indignation is aroused that it is only due to the moderation of Gregory himself that the envoy is not murdered.

On the following day, Pope Gregory pronounces a sentence of excommunication against Henry IV with all due solemnity, divests him of his royal dignity and absolves his subjects from the oaths they had sworn to him.

The act of excommunicating a king is incredibly bold, but not without precedent.

Pope Zachary had brought significant challenges to rulers of his era a full two hundred years earlier, in a move Thomas Hobbes will famously call "one of the greatest abuses of the papacy in the history of the Church".

This sentence purports to eject a ruler from the Church and to strip him of his crown.

Whether it will produce this effect, or will be an idle threat, depends not so much on Gregory as on Henry's subjects, and, above all, on the German princes.

Contemporary evidence suggests that the excommunication of Henry makes a profound impression both in Germany and Italy.