Emperor Henry IV was forgiven by the Pope Gregory VII and welcomed back into Catholic Church.
Henry IV had been suspended for usurping the Pope's power and delegating his own bishops. The event was a defining moment in the hundreds of years long battle among religious and royal leaders amid the Middle Ages, and the picture of Henry IV bowing before his profound adversary is one that artists and authors later deified in paint and writing. The event also illustrates the great power of the Roman Catholic Church at that time.