The
sentiment in favour of the lawful ruler, now that he was restored to com-
munion, was immediately made evident.
sentiment in favour of the lawful ruler, now that he was restored to com-
munion, was immediately made evident.
Cambridge Medieval History - v5 - Contest of Empire and the Papacy
Count
Herman had recaptured Lüneburg and taken captive the royal
garrison; to effect their release the king on 15 August had to consent to
the surrender of Magnus; the castles were now closely besieged, and his
hold on Saxony was lost. But the day appointed for the Polish expedition
(22 August) was close at hand. The army was assembling, and he
determined to use it against the Saxons. He summoned the princes to
meet him at the village of Kappel near Hersfeld, to obtain their consent
to this change of plan. And now the fundamental insecurity of his
position was to be revealed to him. The princes debated, and finally
decided to postpone the expedition to October. They were determined to
make it clear that on their will was the king dependent, and the royal
authority suffered a blow more serious than defeat in battle. Henry had
to submit, and he retired to the Rhine district, conscious that the
initiative had passed from his hands. There he came to a wise decision.
Germany must for the time engage his whole attention; the challenge to
the Papacy must be postponed to a more favourable opportunity. He
wrote, accordingly, to the Pope a humble letter acknowledging his faults
and asking for absolution. The Pope, as anxious as Henry for peace,
welcomed this apparent repentance, and the breach was healed. This left
the king free to concentrate on Germany. Enlightened at last as to the
true state of affairs, he shewed remarkable judgment in appreciating the
factors that could be turned to his advantage, and great patience and skill
in so making use of them that he was able gradually to build up again
the shaken edifice of royal power.
He had, first of all, to endure further humiliation. The princes met
in October for the deferred expedition, but having obtained the upper
hand they were determined to maintain it; in place of an expedition they
1 A synod at Erfurt at the beginning of 1073 had just decided this question in
the archbishop's favour.
CH, III.
942
## p. 132 (#178) ############################################
132
Henry's humiliation. Help from the towns
instituted negotiations on their own account with the Saxons. Henry had
no choice but to acquiesce; he was sovereign in name only. But at this
crisis he found assistance in a new quarter. Coming to Worms, whose
bishop, Adalbert, was his constant foe for more than thirty years, he
met with an enthusiastic reception from the citizens, who expelled their
bishop on news of the king's approach. In return he granted them, on
18 January 1074, the first charter given directly to the citizens of a
town', and in the preamble he expressed his gratitude for the loyalty which
set so striking an example amid the disloyalty of all the magnates of the
kingdom. The action of Worms was contagious, and from this time he
was able to rely on the support of the Rhine towns, whatever the attitude
of the bishops. The serious rising of the trading classes at Cologne in
1074, on the occasion of the Easter fair, against Archbishop Anno, was
probably inspired by the example of Worms? The towns indeed had
everything to gain from royal favour. A strong central authority, able to
enforce peace and order throughout the kingdom, was a necessity if trade
was to flourish and expand, and from the king alone could the privileges
dear to the trading classes be obtained.
The king's circumstances were immediately improved, and he was
able, in spite of the aloofness of the leading nobles, to raise an army and
march north again; he was accompanied by a number of bishops, who in
view of the independent action of the towns found it to their interest to
render material support to the king once more. But he was not yet
strong enough to meet the Saxons in the field, and was forced to come to
terms with them, which were confirmed in an assembly at Gerstungen on
2 February 1074. The castles built by both sides during his reign were
to be destroyed, a general amnesty was to be proclaimed, and the Saxons
returned to his allegiance on condition that in matters concerning their
duchy the king should be advised by Saxons only. He had to pardon the
rebels, but the peace was a sign of recovered authority. The South
German dukes had no part in it, and did not readily forgive the Saxons 3
for thus depriving them of their control of the king's actions. Henry by
this peace divided his enemies in Germany.
The peace had an immediate result in the changed attitude of the
dukes, who were reconciled with Henry just after Easter, at the same
time that he made his formal reconciliation with the Pope. In the mean-
time, an outrage had occurred which he was able to turn to his own
advantage. In accordance with the peace terms at Gerstungen, the forti-
fications of Harzburg had been destroyed; but the church and other
ecclesiastical buildings remained intact. The local peasantry, indignant
1 See supra, pp. 119–120.
2 Lampert of Hersfeld, ed. Holder-Egger, SGUS, p. 187. In this case, as with
Adalbert at Worms, the loyalty of Anno was certainly suspect. It was his friends
and relatives who were primarily responsible for the Saxon revolt.
3 Bruno, cc. 31 and 44, ed. Wattenbach, SGUS, pp. 20, 29.
## p. 133 (#179) ############################################
Henry's victory on the Unstrut, 1075
133
that a stone of this obnoxious place should be left standing, took the law
into their own hands and violently demolished the sacred buildings, even
in their passion going so far as to scatter to the winds the bones of Henry's
son and brother who had died there in infancy. The Saxon nobles
protested that the crime was the work of a few ignorant peasants (though
indeed they took no steps to punish them), but Henry was determined to
fasten the guilt of it on the whole people, and proclaimed far and wide
that the Saxons had broken the peace. He was able to use this argument
with effect upon the South German princes, who were already irritated
against the Saxons on their own account. Before the year was out he had
succeeded in obtaining their agreement to an expedition against the
Saxons in the following spring.
Hungary had, meanwhile, occupied Henry's attention. The rivalry
between King Salomo, Henry's brother-in-law, and his cousin Géza had
resulted eventually in the success of Géza. Salomo with his wife took
refuge in Germany, placed his kingdom under Henry's overlordship, and
appealed to him for help. Henry led an expedition into Hungary in the
autumn, but without success, and imperial authority was not recovered.
The Pope tried to avail himself of the opportunity, giving his support to
Géza and declaring Salomo's deposition a judgment of God upon him for
handing over to the Empire a kingdom which was subject to St Peter.
But Géza, though he had sought papal aid while his position was still
insecure, was determined to be free of Pope and Emperor alike and to
break every link which bound Hungary to the West; and in the following
year he had himself crowned king with a crown which he received from
the Eastern Emperor, Michael VII.
The opening months of 1075 were occupied with preparations for the
reduction of Saxony. The Saxons in alarm endeavoured to appease the
king; they further claimed to be judged by a diet of all the nobles, and
appealed to the South German princes, trying to establish direct negotia-
tions with them as in 1073. Their efforts were wholly unavailing: the
king was determined to be revenged, the nobles could not forgive the
peace made without their concurrence. Henry issued his summons to the
host, which assembled at Bredingen on 8 June; never again was he to be
at the head of so powerful and representative an army. The Dukes of
Swabia, Bavaria, Carinthia, Upper and Lower Lorraine, and Bohemia
were all present with strong contingents, and all the other leading nobles,
lay and spiritual'. On 9 June, the day after the army had assembled, the
king by a forced march surprised the Saxons encamped by the river
Unstrut. Duke Rudolf, claiming the Swabian privilege of fighting in the
van of the royal host, led the charge, supported by Duke Welf with the
Bavarians. It was a battle of knights, and, when the superior numbers
of the king's army had finally decided the issue, the Saxon foot-soldiers
Except of course Archbishop Anno, who pleaded age and infirmity. He died
the following December.
CH, III.
## p. 134 (#180) ############################################
134
His challenge to the Pope
suffered severely. The losses indeed were heavy on both sides, but the
king won a decisive victory and advanced to the invasion of Saxony. Lack
of provisions caused him to disband his troops in July, and another ex-
pedition was arranged for October. On 22 October the army assembled
at Gerstungen, but this time the Dukes of Swabia, Bavaria, and Carinthia
were absent, on the insufficient plea of their losses in June. The king,
however, was strong enough without them, and was probably not sorry
to be independent of them. The Saxons had lost their cohesion; the
common soldiers in particular felt that they had been selfishly sacri-
ficed on the Unstrut. The nobles, therefore, made an unconditional
surrender, throwing themselves on the king's mercy. Contrary to expecta-
tion, but in accordance with his fixed determination, he treated them
with great severity: all the leaders, both laymen and ecclesiastics, were
imprisoned in different parts of Germany, entrusted to the custody of
South German nobles. Much of their territory was confiscated and given
to his supporters or added to the royal domain, and the building of the
castles was taken in hand once more. When the king disbanded his army
in November, he seemed to have won a complete triumph.
The situation was remarkably similar to that in 1072. The Saxon
rebels had been forced to an unconditional surrender and their leaders
were in captivity. Now, as then, the situation at Milan gave the oppor-
tunity to the king, at what seemed a particularly favourable moment, to
re-assert imperial authority in Italy by a direct challenge to the Pope.
The defeat of the Pataria and the election of Tedald by the suffragan
bishops of Milan had occurred earlier in the year, but Henry was then
perhaps contemplating imperial coronation, and even the victory on the
Unstrut had not achieved the submission of Saxony. When this was
certain, he invested Tedald with the archbishopric and sent the embassy
to Italy which was, probably designedly, responsible for the rupture with
the Pope. Once more his position in Germany seemed strong enough to
justify the recovery of the authority that had been lost in Italy. And
the moment seemed to be well-chosen, because he could count on the
enthusiastic support of the episcopate in Germany and in North Italy in
any venture against Gregory VII. But he had grievously miscalculated
the strength of the spiritual power and the greatness of his opponent,
and once more he had misunderstood, or foolishly disregarded, the real
feelings of the German princes. The absence of the three dukes from the
final campaign against the Saxons was ominous, and was certainly not
sufficiently accounted for by their plea of the losses they had suffered in
the June campaign. As before, it was the completeness of the royal
victory, and the arbitrary use that Henry made of it, that caused them to
stand aloof. Though their absence was at the time satisfactory to him,
he ought to have realised its import and that they too needed to be
mastered before he could take in hand the new task of Italy and the
Papacy.
## p. 135 (#181) ############################################
Henry's excommunication and its results
135
The king spent Christmas 1075 at Goslar, and the nobles there
present took an oath to accept his son Conrad, born in February 1074,
as his successor. Some measure of leniency was shewn in allowing the
exiled Saxon bishops to return to their sees pending trial, but of the
lay princes Count Otto of Nordheim alone received the king's clemency,
and he was even advanced to high office and power in his native land.
The king was still at Goslar at the beginning of January 1076 when the
papal embassy arrived with the verbal message threatening excommuni-
cation if the king refused obedience. This was as unexpected as it was
distasteful to the royal dignity. In an uncontrolled passion, which was
unusual with him, he summoned the Council of Worms that pronounced
Gregory's deposition, and dispatched to Piacenza and then to Rome the
messenger to the Lenten synod. Before the papal sentence at the synod
reached the king, the murder of Duke Godfrey of Lower Lorraine in
February had deprived him of one of his staunchest adherents, and of a
strong support of the Empire on its western frontier, where Robert the
Frisian, successful in Flanders, whose intrigues probably brought about
the murder of Godfrey, was a constant menace. Still confident in his own
position, Henry bestowed the duchy on his infant son Conrad, and
Godfrey's nephew and heir, Godfrey of Bouillon, had to be content with
the Mark of Antwerp.
Then at Easter came the news of the Lenten synod and its decrees,
and both the strength of the spiritual power and the weakness of his own
position were speedily revealed to the king. The excommunication had
an immediate effect in alienating from him his lay subjects. The German
bishops, too, who had welcomed the deposition of the Pope, trembled
before the papal sentence and again hastily abandoned the cause of the
king. Accordingly his summons to diets at Worms and Mayence were
practically disregarded, and he was rapidly becoming isolated. His weak-
ness was the Saxon opportunity. The Saxon leaders were able to effect
their escape from captivity, or were deliberately released by the nobles to
whose custody they had been entrusted. Bishop Burchard took the lead
in a new revolt, and, Otto of Nordheim turning traitor once more, the
whole of East Saxony was in arms. Henry's one faithful ally, Duke
Vratislav of Bohemia, was driven from Meissen by Margrave Ekbert. The
victory of 1075 had been completely undone. And, finally, the dukes of
Upper Germany saw their opportunity and took it. Acting in unison
they had been able to make their intervention effective whether against
the king or against the Saxons. Satisfied with the Saxon defeat in June
1075, they had abstained from the further expedition in October, but the
king's ability to bring the Saxons to submission without their aid, and
his high-handed treatment of them when he had obtained the mastery,
must have already determined them to throw their weight into the
balance against him. The excommunication and its results gave them the
decisive voice in the government of the kingdom. Meeting at Ulm, they
CH, III.
## p. 136 (#182) ############################################
136
The Diet of Tribur
decided on a diet at Tribur, where the future of the kingdom was to be
debated and the royal authority made subservient to particularist interests.
To this diet the Saxon nobles were invited, and the grievances of 1074
were forgotten.
The diet met at Tribur on 16 October 1076. The Saxons came in
force, and the papal legates were present, to give spiritual sanction to the
triumph of the nobles. The king, to whom this assembly was in the highest
degree dangerous, arrived at Oppenheim on the other side of the Rhine
with an army. But his chief supporters deserted him to obtain absolution
from the papal legates, and he was abandoned to the tender mercies of
the diet. The Saxons advocated his deposition and the appointment of
a new king. For this revolutionary step the other princes were not yet
prepared. The choice of a successor would raise difficulties and jealousies
that might dissolve the harmony, and such an action would compromise
the high moral pose which they had adopted in their attitude against
Henry. The deliberations of the diet were complicated too by the ill-
feeling, with difficulty restrained, which still persisted between Saxons and
South Germans. But in one respect they were all of one mind: the king
must be humiliated, and the government of Germany must be subject to
the dictation of the princes. Towards the victory over the king, the papal
sentence first, the papal legates later, had largely contributed. The
nobles were anxious to retain the valuable papal support, and to represent
themselves as fighting for the cause of right against a wicked king. The
Papacy, therefore, must be given an important share in the fruits of
victory. So, first of all, the king was forced to publish his repentance and
his promise of obedience and amendment for the future—to do justice in
both the papal and the feudal sense. The diet then proceeded to make
two important decisions. Firstly, recognising the validity of the papal
sentence, they decreed that Henry would lose his kingdom if he failed to
obtain absolution within a year and a day of his excommunication
(22 February); secondly, recognising the papal claim to a principal share
in the final judgment, they invited the Pope to a council at Augsburg on
2 February 1077, where under his presidency the future of the kingdom
was to be decided.
This shews the lengths to which the nobles were prepared to
go
for
their own selfish interests to satisfy papal claims which in different
circumstances they were fully prepared to repudiate. It also shews that
the Pope held the key to the whole situation, a fact which he and Henry
alike were swift to recognise. If it promised the immediate realisation of
the Pope's highest ideals, it at the same time revealed to the king the
avenue of escape from his dangerous position. The conjunction of his
enemies in Germany meant the final ruin of his power; if he could obtain
absolution from the Pope in Italy, he not only removed opposition from
1 The regular period of grace, the period too within which a vacant office had to
be filled up. This treatment of the royal office by the nobles is significant.
## p. 137 (#183) ############################################
Canossa
137
that quarter for a time but also deprived the German nobles of their most
effective weapon against him. With this aim in view he made his escape
and his memorable journey over the Mont Cenis pass, finally arriving
in January 1077 outside the fortress of Canossa. Here by his humiliation
and outward penitence he was able to force the Pope to grant him absolu-
tion, and the purpose of his journey was achieved. Though the importance
of the royal humiliation has been grossly exaggerated, it is equally absurd
to proclaim the absolution at Canossa as a striking victory for the king.
He had been forced to accept the justice of the papal excommunication,
and consequently the right of the Pope to sit in judgment upon him) and
by this acceptance the relations of the two powers had been fundamentally
altered. The absolution was in a sense a recognition of the king's defeat;
on the other hand, it limited the extent of the defeat and prevented a
far worse calamity.
Yet, as far as Henry's enemies in Germany were concerned, it was a
real victory for the king, and they were staggered at the news. The
absolution of Henry they regarded as a betrayal of their cause, and they
expressed their indignation as strongly as they dared. They could not,
indeed, risk alienating the Pope, whose alliance was so necessary to them;
but they were not impressed by his optimistic view that the decision to
hold the council in Germany still held good. They did what they could,
however, to nullify the effect of the absolution. The story soon became
current among them that the absolution had been granted on certain
conditions which Henry immediately broke, so that it became void and
the king returned to his state of excommunication? The papal legates,
though not the Pope, gave encouragement to this view.
Their more immediate need, however, was to complete what had been
begun at Tribur, and, with papal co-operation if possible, to prevent the
restoration of Henry's authority in Germany and so to counteract the
disastrous effects of Canossa. A preliminary meeting at Ulm, in issuing
summons to a diet at Forchheim in Franconia, where the last of the
German Carolingians (Louis the Child) and the first of his successors
(Conrad I) had been elected, shewed that the Saxon proposals had been
1 Bruno, c. 90, SGUS, pp. 66-7, states this very definitely, and it confuses not only
his narrative but also his chronology. As the excommunication of 1076, according
to his view, prevailed throughout, he makes no mention of that of 1080, and places
together in 1076 the documents of both dates. Neither his editor in SGUS,
W. Wattenbach, nor K. Heidrich, who in Neu. Arch. Vol. xxx investigated the dating
of the numerous documents in Bruno, noted that this essential misunderstanding,
whether wilful or ignorant, of the facts of Canossa is responsible for his muddled
chronology. A complete revision of Bruno's chronology from this point of view is
badly needed. I should like to call attention to the possibility that Henry's letter
to the Romans (in Bruno, c. 66, and nowhere else) was written in 1080 and not in
1076. I cannot go into the whole question here, but two points may be mentioned :
(1) any manifesto (as that in c. 73) dealing with 1080 would have been dated by
him to 1076; (2) there is no evidence that Henry appealed to the Romans in 1076,
though he did so regularly in 1080 and following years.
CH. III.
## p. 138 (#184) ############################################
138
The election of Rudolf as anti-king
accepted. The diet met on 13 March and, in the presence and with the
approval of two papal legates, Duke Rudolf of Swabia, with all the
customary formalities of procedure, was designated and elected king.
This was a reactionary and indeed a revolutionary step, recalling the
anarchy of the later Carolingians. The electoral right of the nobles,
when it was not a mere formality, had been strictly limited in practice.
Ever since the Saxon kings had restored the monarchy, the hereditary
principle had been dominant; when there was no son to succeed, the king
had been chosen from a collateral branch of the royal family. Now the
electors usurped a plenary power—the power to depose the established
king and to exercise complete freedom of choice as to his successor.
Behind this lay the theory that the relation of king and nobles was one
of contract, and that an unlawful exercise of his power justified the breach
of their oath of fealty. The bishops at Worms in 1076 had taken this
line with regard to the Pope. It was a natural development of feudal
ideas, which were not, however, to prevail in the Church as they did in
the kingdom. There were other points of novelty in this election. In the
first place, the formal right of election, which was the prerogative of all
the princes, was here assumed by a small minority. This minority included,
indeed, the Archbishop of Mayence, whose right to the prima vox was
uncontested', numerous Saxon nobles, and the three South German dukes;
perhaps these latter, in anticipation of fourteenth-century conditions,
regarded themselves as adequate to represent their duchies. Secondly,
the presence of the papal legates was a recognition of the Pope's claim
to a share in the election. And, finally, the electors emphasised the con-
tractual nature of the royal office, and ensured the maintenance of their
own control, by imposing conditions on the king of their choice: Rudolf
had to renounce the hereditary right of his son and royal control of
episcopal elections, while he also made a promise of obedience to the
Pope. But the German princes at Forchheim got no advantage from
their triumphant particularism; the revolt gained no additional supporter
from the fact that its leader styled himself king. On the contrary, their
attempt to ride roughshod over tradition and legitimacy put Henry in
a strong position; the bishops (except in Saxony), the lesser nobility,
the peasantry, and above all the towns, preferred a single ruler, however
absolute, to a government dominated by the selfish interests of the princes.
All the more, then, had Rudolf and his party to depend on the
support of the Church. The Pope certainly recognised the electoral
rights of the princes, and accepted the election of Rudolf as a lawful
election. He did not, however, recognise their power to depose Henry;
this he regarded as a matter for his own decision, and in the meanwhile
spoke continually of two kings. Yet his legates had been quite decided
1 Cf. Wipo's account of the election of Conrad II (c. 2, SGUS, p. 14), and the
statement of Frederick Barbarossa (Otto et Rahewin, Gesta Friderici imperatoris, Bk.
III, c. 17, SGUS, p. 188).
## p. 139 (#185) ############################################
The division of Germany
139
in their support of Rudolf, and the rebels naturally inferred that the Pope
would abide by their decision'.
Meanwhile Henry had resumed his royal functions in Lombardy,
though he had to act with extreme caution. The Lombards resented his
refusal to take direct action against the Pope, and Milan, in opposition
to its archbishop, had reverted to the papal alliance; nor could he obtain
coronation at Pavia with the iron crown of Lombardy. He dared not,
moreover, alienate the Pope, while policy made it essential to prevent
the journey to Germany on which the Pope had set his heart. Then came
the news of the election at Forchheim, and he had to return at once to
Germany to counter the revolutionary government of the princes.
The
sentiment in favour of the lawful ruler, now that he was restored to com-
munion, was immediately made evident. As before, the Rhine towns set
the example, beginning with a riot at Mayence where Rudolf was crowned
and anointed king by Archbishop Siegfried on 26 March. Rudolf was
compelled to abandon Mayence and make his way to Saxony, where alone
he could maintain himself as king. In Saxony, with few exceptions, the
lay and ecclesiastical nobles were on his side, and to Saxony was his
kingdom confined? Elsewhere the balance was predominantly in favour
of Henry, especially in the south-east. As Rudolf was still in the Rhine
district, Henry returned to Germany by way of Carinthia and Bavaria,
in both of which duchies he received an enthusiastic welcome. Carinthia,
where Duke Berthold had always been ignored, was wholly on his side;
on Bavaria he could also rely, except for the hostility of Margrave Liut-
pold of Austria and two important ecclesiastics, Archbishop Gebhard
of Salzburg and Bishop Altmann of Passau, who however could not
maintain themselves in their sees. On Duke Vratislav of Bohemia he
could count for loyal assistance, and though King Ladislas I of Hungary,
who married a daughter of Rudolf, was hostile, he gave no assistance to
Henry's opponents. Burgundy, in spite of Rudolf's possessions there,
was apparently solid for Henry, as were the Rhine towns. In Swabia the
position was more equal. The bishops and lesser nobles were mainly on
Henry's side, but Berthold and Welf had considerable power in their
ancestral domains, and the great reforming Abbot, William of Hirschau,
organised a strong ecclesiastical opposition which was to be continually
dangerous to Henry; his work was to be carried still further by one of
his monks, Gebhard, son of Duke Berthold, who as Bishop of Constance
and papal legate was more than anyone else responsible for the existence
and gradual increase of a strong papal party in South Germany. The
1 The Pope, though not endorsing, did not actually disown his legates' actions;
so, as Vita Heinrici imperatoris (c. 4, SGUS, pp. 17–18) says, his silence was taken
to give consent.
? Bruno (c. 121, SGUS, p. 93) speaks of “Saxoniae reguum. ” So too in the two
papal letters quoted in cc. 118 and 120 (ib. pp. 90, 92), Gregory addresses the princes
“in Teutonico atque in Saxonico regno commanentibus” and “Rodulfo omnibusque
secum in regno Saxonum commanentibus. ”
CH. III.
## p. 140 (#186) ############################################
140
Henry's successful diplomacy
struggle was thus in the main between Saxony and Thuringia under
Rudolf and the rest of Germany under Henry, though in Swabia Berthold
and Welf were able to maintain themselves and were supported, in spite
of the Pope's neutrality, by an advanced section of Church reformers.
Henry's first move after Rudolf's withdrawal was to raise a force of
Bavarian and Bohemian troops and invade Swabia, which suffered terribly
from the constant depredations of both sides, neither of which was able
to obtain complete mastery. At the end of May he held a diet at Ulm,
where the three rebel dukes of South Germany were formally deprived of
their duchies. Carinthia was given to Liutold of Eppenstein, head of the
most important family in the duchy. Bavaria and Swabia he retained for
the time in his own hands. But in 1079 he founded the fortunes of the
Hohenstaufen family by appointing to the duchy of Swabia the Swabian
Count of Staufen, Frederick, to whom he married his daughter Agnes? .
From him he obtained loyal support, and Rudolf vainly attempted to create
a counter-influence in the duchy by having his son Berthold proclaimed at
Ulm as duke, and by marrying his daughter Agnes to Berthold, son of
Duke Berthold (who had died at the end of 1078).
During these years Rudolf was bitterly disappointed in his expecta-
tion of a direct intervention of the Pope against Henry. The papal
legates were as emphatic as he could wish, both at Forchheim in March
and at Goslar in November 1077, when the Cardinal-deacon Bernard
united with Archbishop Siegfried in excommunicating Henry; but they
were not upheld by their master, who persisted in his neutrality. Henry,
during the same period, shewed himself in diplomacy to be far astuter
than his impetuous rival. He was successful in preventing a conference
of nobles on both sides, which Rudolf tried to arrange in 1078 in recol-
lection of the success of this policy in 1073. He contrived, moreover, to
prevent a coalition between the forces of Rudolf and his South German
allies, though he failed to defeat them separately as he had hoped. On
7 August 1078 he fought an indecisive battle with the troops of Rudolf
at Melrichstadt in Franconia, where, though his own losses were the
heavier, his enemy was forced to retire; and, on the same day, an army
of peasants, hastily recruited from Franconia, was decisively defeated on
the Neckar by Dukes Berthold and Welf. But Henry maintained himself
at Würzburg, and so prevented the threatened junction of the enemies'
forces. Above all he was successful in keeping the Pope neutral, while at
the same time disappointing Gregory's hopes of making his judgment
decisive between the two kings. He was not, however, on this account
any the more compliant with the ecclesiastical decrees. He continued to
appoint, as it was essential to him that he should appoint, and invest to
bishoprics and abbeys vacant by death or occupied by supporters of his
1 In these two appointments Henry abandoned the policy of appointing an outsider
as duke. He now needed powerful dukes who could be relied on to support him.
## p. 141 (#187) ############################################
The final breach with the Pope, 1080
141
opponent. Rudolf imitated his example, though he was careful to leave
episcopal elections free, and so, besides the rival kings in the kingdom
and dukes in the duchies, there were rival bishops in several sees. Germany
was devastated by civil war, in which the peasants, especially in Swabia,
suffered the greatest hardships, and the trading opportunities of the towns
were severely handicapped. The whole country sighed for peace and order,
and it was becoming increasingly evident to the majority that in Henry's
victory lay the best hope of this being attained.
So in 1080 he was able to carry the war into the enemy's country and
invade Saxony. The battle of Flarchheim in Thuringia (27 January) was
indecisive and Henry had to retire again to Bavaria ; but his diplomacy
was successful in detaching from Rudolf's cause the leaders of the Billung
family, Duke Magnus and his uncle Herman, and also Margrave Ek bert
of Meissen. And now the time had arrived when the Pope was to make
the fateful decision that was to prolong and embitter the struggle of
which Germany was already so weary. The moment seems to have been
chosen by Henry himself. His envoys to the Lenten synod of 1080 were
instructed no longer to appeal, but to threaten the Pope, and Henry had
doubtless foreseen the result. He could hardly expect a judgment in his
favour, but an adverse decision, while it would be welcomed by few,
would be regarded with indignation by the vast majority. He contrived
in fact to throw upon the Pope the odium of starting the new struggle.
The sentence of Gregory VII not only upset the hopes of peace; it also
outraged German sentiment in its claim to depose the king and to set up
a successor in his place. The German bishops of Henry's party met at
Bamberg (Easter) and renounced obedience to Gregory; a diet attended
by king, nobles, and bishops assembled at Mayence (Whitsun) and repeated
this renunciation ; and finally, in an assembly mainly of North Italian
bishops at Brixen' on 25 June, Gregory was declared deposed and Arch-
bishop Guibert of Ravenna, nominated by Henry, was elected to succeed
him. With his compliant anti-Pope, Henry could now entertain the
prospect, impossible in 1076, of leading an expedition into Italy to
establish his will by force.
But he could not leave Germany with Rudolf still powerful in Saxony,
and he hastened back from Brixen to settle the issue with his rival. In
the autumn he collected an army and marched through Thuringia to the
Elster; there, in the neighbourhood of Hohen-Mölsen, a battle was
fought, in which Henry was defeated. But this was more than compen-
1 The choice of Brixen is curious. One would expect to find the meeting-place of
an Italian assembly within the Italian kingdom, and the presence of the Italian chan-
cellor, Bishop Burchard of Lausanne, points in the same direction. But, though it
is always difficult to fix the exact frontier-line, it seems clear that Brixen was on the
German side. Perhaps, as Giesebrecht suggests (Geschichte der deutschen Kaiserzeit,
Vol. 1, p. 502), Brixen was chosen because of its isolation and security and the
undoubted loyalty of its bishop.
CH. III.
## p. 142 (#188) ############################################
142
Death of Rudolf. Herman of Salm as anti-king
sated by the mortal wound which Rudolf received, from the effects of which
he died on the following day. To many this appeared as the judgment
of God, not only on Rudolf but on the Pope as well. Though Henry was
stiil unable to win over Saxony by force or negotiations, his position was
sufficiently secure in Germany; now at last he could give his whole
attention to the decisive contest with the Pope. From the spring of 1081
to the summer of 1084 he was in Italy. He succeeded in defeating his
great aniversary, he established Guibert as Pope Clement III, and by him
was crowned Emperor in St Peter's. At Rome he seemed to hare realised
his ambition and to have raised himself to his father's height. But he was
forced to retire before the arrival of the Sormans, he could not overcome
the resistance of Countess Matilda, and his Pope did not receive the
recognition necessary to make him a useful tool. Imperial authority had
been revived in Italy, but not so effectively as he had contemplated.
In Germany, his enemies took advantage of his absence to elect a
Successor to Rudolf. The obvious candidate was Otto of Nordheim, whose
military skill had been conspicuous throughout. But, partly owing to
jealousy among the leaders, partly perhaps from the desire to obtain
western support, their choice fell on the Lotharingian Count Herman of
Salm, brother of Count Conrad of Luxemburg and nephew of Herman,
Count-Palatine of the Rhine. At any rate, he failed to win over his
powerful relatives, and his kingdom, like that of Rudolf, was confined to
Saxony. He had neither the ducal prestige nor the military prowess of his
predecessor, nor does he seem to have entered into relations with the
Pope; there was nothing to recommend this feeble rival of Henry.
Towards the end of 1082 he did indeed advance south into Swabia, and
the possibility of his leading an expedition into Italy caused Henry some
anxiety. But it came to nothing; the death of Margrave Cdo of the
North Mark in 1082 and in January 1083 of Otto of Nordheim, whose
sons were too young to play any part, deprived him of his chief military
support. On the news of Otto's death he hastily returned to Saxony, and
henceforward was of no account. So insignificant did he become that in
1088 he retired to his native Lorraine, and shortly afterwards was killed
in front of a castle he was besieging.
It was the Church party that formed the chief danger to Henry when
he returned to Germany in 1084. Archbishop Siegfried of Mayence had
died in February, but his authority in his province had long disappeared;
like the two anti-kings he had been forced since 1080 to remain in
Saxony. To succeed him Henry appointed Werner (Wezil) as archbishop
and arch-chancellor; in the latter office Siegfried had not been super-
seded-it was clearly a merely titular dignity, and the chancellor did the
real work. The organisation of a papal party was actively conducted by
the legate Otto, Cardinal-bishop of Ostia and afterwards Pope Urban II.
With the assistance of Abbot William of Hirschau he combined monastic
reform with opposition to Henry. The election of Gebhard as Bishop of
## p. 143 (#189) ############################################
Rival diets at Quedlinburg and Mayence
143
Constance in December was an important result of their joint efforts; for
Gebhard later succeeded Otto as permanent legate, and was probably
Henry's most dangerous enemy in Germany for the rest of his reign. In
the work of reform, not only did numerous Swabian monasteries adhere
to the rule of Hirschau, but the reform attracted laymen of the upper
classes who came in numbers to the monastery as conversi. From Swabia
Otto went on to Saxony. Here his influence was decisive against peace,
the desire for which led to a meeting of princes of both sides at Gerstun-
gen in January 1085. The Church party used the excommunication of
Henry and his supporters to prevent a reconciliation. In this the legate
was prominent, and still more so at a partisan synod held at Quedlinburg
just after Easter. The excommunication of the anti-Pope and his
adherents was a matter of common agreement, but Otto had the cause
of Church reform and reorganisation equally at heart. Decrees were
passed asserting the primacy of the Apostolic See and the supremacy of
papal jurisdiction ; others enforced Roman against local customs and
strengthened the central authority by creating uniformity; finally, a few
upheld the main principles of Church reform. It was at this point that
a cleavage of interests became manifest. The Saxon nobles, who had been
most zealous for Church reform when it was a useful weapon against
Henry IV, firmly resisted it when it meant the restoration by them of
churches and ecclesiastical property in their possession. Otto discovered
that the bishops supported their secular allies in this, and that political
interests in Saxony over-rode religious considerations.
While discord was thus beginning to make its appearance in Saxony,
Henry was establishing his hold more firmly in the rest of Germany. At
an imperial diet held at Easter 1085 at Mayence, the deposition of
Gregory VII and his supporters and the election of Guibert were con-
firmed, and the Peace of God was proclaimed. Already in 1081 Bishop
Henry of Liège had proclaimed the Peace in his diocese, and in 1083
Archbishop Sigewin of Cologne had done the same in his province.
Henry had ratified their action, and now extended it to the whole
kingdom. It was a sign, perhaps, of royal weakness that he could not by
his own authority enforce the maintenance of peace, but had recourse to
an expedient adopted in days of anarchy and royal impotence by the
Church in France and Burgundy. It was also an unfortunate moment to
choose in which to appeal to the sanction of the Church, when many of
his subjects regarded him and his followers as schismatics. But it seemed
for a time as if peace would result. Lorraine, which he visited in June,
was wholly loyal ; Henry confiscated the territory held there by Matilda,
and allotted it mainly to Godfrey of Bouillon and Bishop Dietrich of
Verdun. There followed a much greater triumph in July, when, taking
advantage of the divisions in Saxony to win over the lay nobles, he was
able for the first time for many years to enter the duchy in peace, and to
progress as far as Magdeburg.
CA. IIJ.
## p. 144 (#190) ############################################
}
144
The end of Saxon revolt
His success, however, was short-lived, and for this his failure to
appreciate the Saxon temper was responsible. Many bishops were still
hostile, especially the Archbishop of Magdeburg, and Henry proceeded
to appoint bishops of his own party to replace them. Nothing was more
calculated to cause a revulsion of feeling among the lay nobles than this
exercise of royal authority without their concurrence, and the introduction
of aliens into episcopal office in the duchy. Accordingly in September
Henry was forced to abandon Saxony once more. In the following year
(1086) Welf and his Swabian adherents were able to join forces with the
Saxons and to besiege the important town of Würzburg. Henry, hasten-
ing to its relief with an army mainly composed of peasants and levies from
the towns, was severely defeated at the battle of Pleichfeld on 11 August.
It was not the usual encounter of knights. The troops of Welf and of
the city of Magdeburg dismounted and fought on foot, with the cross as
their standard and encouraged by the prayers of the Archbishop of
Magdeburg? . As a result of the battle, Würzburg was captured and its
Bishop, Adalbero, was restored, though only temporarily, to his see. The
position of affairs, so favourable to Henry the previous year, seemed to
have been entirely reversed. But his enemies were not able to gain any
permanent advantage from their victory, or even to retain Würzburg for
long. Negotiations were resumed, to break down continually over the
impediment of Henry's excommunication and his recognition of the
anti-Pope. At last, in the summer of 1088, a renewal of discord in
Saxony caused a reaction in Henry's favour, and in a short time, for
good and all, the revolt in Saxony was ended.
The most powerful noble in Saxony at this time was Margrave Ekbert
of Meissen”. Of violent and audacious temper, like his father, he had
taken the lead in welcoming the king in Saxony in July 1085 and in
expelling him two months later. His Mark had previously been transferred
by Henry to Duke Vratislav of Bohemia, who received the title of king
in 1085; but Vratislav was unable to enter into possession of it. In 1087
Ekbert came to terms again with Henry, perhaps as the result of a
Bohemian invasion. But he immediately broke his word, having conceived
the bold scheme of getting himself appointed king in place of the helpless
Herman. This was too much for his jealous confederates. The bishops in
particular rejected his scheme, and the murder of Bishop Burchard of
Halberstadt, who had been in the forefront of every Saxon rising
against Henry, was believed to be Ekbert's revenge for his rebuff. The
ambition and violence of this noble were more dangerous than the royal
authority; the rest of Saxony hastened to make its peace with the
1 This battle is described in some detail by the chronicler Bernold (MGH, Script.
Vol. v, p. 445) who was himself present.
2 The Billung family, since their adhesion to Henry in 1080, seem to have taken
little part in public affairs. Duke Magnus remained loyal to Henry, and he is men-
tioned as present at the coronation of Henry's son Conrad as king in 1087.
## p. 145 (#191) ############################################
The climax of Henry's power, 1088-1090
145
Emperor', and, while safeguarding its own independence, recognised him
as king of Germany. The bishops indeed would not recognise Guibert;
they compromised by regarding Urban II as the rightful Pope, and at the
same time disregarding his excommunication of Henry. Ekbert was
isolated, and was condemned at a Saxon diet held at Quedlinburg in
1088; at Ratisbon in 1089 he was proscribed as a traitor, and on
Margrave Henry of the East Mark (Lusatia) was conferred the margravate
of Meissen. Ek bert remained defiant, and even posed as the champion of
the Church against Henry; at the end of 1088 he inflicted a severe defeat
on the king in front of his castle of Gleichen. But he was murdered
in 1090, and so all opposition in Saxony came to an end. His county of
Brunswick passed to his sister Gertrude, who married, as her second
husband, Henry the Fat, the son of Otto of Nordheim.
The
years
1088–1090 mark the climax of Henry's power in Germany.
Except for Margrave Ekbert, against whom he had the assistance of the
rest of Saxony, and the few Swabian counts that supported Welf, he was
universally recognised as king. The succession had been secured by the
coronation of his son Conrad as king in May 1087. The Church party
was dispirited and quiescent, and it lost its chief champion in Bavaria
with the death of Archbishop Gebhard of Salzburg in 1088. In Lorraine,
in 1089, Bishop Herman of Metz was reconciled with the king and
restored to his see, and the duchy of Lower Lorraine was conferred on
Godfrey of Bouillon. To the see of Cologne, vacant by the death of
Archbishop Sigewin, Henry appointed his chancellor Herman; and,
during his stay at Cologne for this purpose, he was married (his first wife,
Bertha, had died in 1087) to Praxedis (Adelaide), daughter of the Prince
of Kiev and widow of Margrave Henry of the North Mark. The marriage
was celebrated by Archbishop Hartwig of Magdeburg, with whom, in
spite of his prominent share in the king's defeat at Pleichfeld in 1086,
Henry was completely reconciled. The archbishop, however, refused to
recognise the anti-Pope, and this was the chief weakness in Henry's
position. It seems that on more than one occasion he could have come
to terms with the Church party and returned to communion, had he
consented to abandon Guibert. He was himself unwilling both to betray
so faithful a servant and to discard so useful a tool; while many
of his
chief supporters and advisers among the bishops, feeling that their own
fate was implicated in that of Guibert, influenced him in the same
direction. He might also have expected the ultimate success of his anti-
Pope. There was nothing to lead him to anticipate the fatal results to
himself of the election of Urban II as Pope in March 1088. Urban, like
his predecessor, had to live under Norman protection, and Guibert
remained securely in possession of Rome.
1 But it seems almost certain that he cannot have recovered full possession of the
royal domain. Probably the situation in Saxony was a return to the status quo of
C. MED. 2. VOL. V. CH. III.
10
1069.
## p. 146 (#192) ############################################
146
His disastrous expedition to Italy, 1090–1097
As in 1072 and 1075, the position in Germany appeared favourable
for the recovery of authority in Italy; and again a situation had arisen
vitally affecting imperial interests. In 1089, Countess Matilda of Tuscany,
now over forty years of age, devoting herself to furthering the political
advantage of the Papacy, had married the younger Welf, a lad of
seventeen. The elder Welf, having lost his Saxon allies, had turned his
ambitions to the south, and hoped for great things from this marriage.
His Italian inheritance adjoined the territories of Countess Matilda,
and he doubtless anticipated for himself a position in Italy such as Duke
Godfrey, the husband of Matilda's mother Beatrice, had held during the
minority of Henry IV. The Emperor came into Italy in April 1090 to
counteract the dangerous effects of this alliance, and at first met with
considerable success. But the papal party was rapidly gaining strength,
and unscrupulous in its methods worked among his family to effect his
ruin. The revolt of Conrad in 1093 under Matilda's influence, accompanied
by a league of Lombard cities against the Emperor, not only reduced
him to great straits but even cut off his retreat to Germany. The next
year another domestic blow was struck at the unfortunate Emperor. His
wife Praxedis, suspected of infidelity to her husband, escaped to take
refuge with Matilda and to spread gross charges against Henry. False
though they doubtless were, they were eagerly seized upon by his enemies,
and the Pope himself at the Council of Piacenza in 1095 listened to the
tale and pardoned the unwilling victim. Praxedis, her work done,
disappears from history; she seems to have returned to Russia and to
have died as a nun. Her husband, stunned with the shock of this double
treachery of wife and son, remained in isolation at Verona. But the
conflicting interests of Welf and the Papacy soon broke up the unnatural
marriage-alliance. Matilda separated from her second husband as she had
done from her first, and the elder Welf, who had no intention of merely
subserving papal interests, took his son back with him to Germany
in 1095. The next year he made his peace with the Emperor; the road
to Germany was opened again, and in the spring of 1097 Henry made
his way by the Brenner Pass into Bavaria.
The long absence of Henry in Italy had less effect than might have been
expected on his position in Germany. Saxony remained quiet, and the
government by non-interference was able to ensure the loyalty of the lay
nobles, among whom Henry the Fat, with Brunswick added to Nordheim
by his marriage with Gertrude, now held the leading place. In Lorraine
the Church party won a success in the adhesion of the Bishops of Metz,
Toul, and Verdun to the papal cause. Otherwise the only centre of dis-
turbance was Swabia. The government of Germany during Henry's
absence seems to have been entrusted to Duke Frederick of Swabia, in
conjunction with Henry, Count-Palatine of the Rhine, who died in
1095. In 1091 the death of Berthold, son of the anti-King Rudolf,
brought the house of Rheinfelden to an end. He was succeeded both in
## p. 147 (#193) ############################################
The First Crusade
147
his allodial territories and in his pretensions to the duchy of Swabia by
his brother-in-law Berthold of Zähringen, son of the former Duke of
Carinthia, a far more formidable rival to Duke Frederick. The successes
of Henry in Italy in 1091, combined with the death of Abbot William
of Hirschau, brought to the king's side many adherents in Swabia. But
the disasters of 1093 caused a reaction, and the papal party began
to revive under the lead of Bishop Gebhard of Constance, Berthold's
brother. An assembly held at Ulm declared the unity of Swabia under
the spiritual headship of Gebhard and the temporal headship of Berthold,
and a land-peace was proclaimed to last until Easter 1096, which Welf
with less success attempted to extend the next year to Bavaria and
Franconia. The Church party took the lead in this movement, and papal
overlordship was recognised by Berthold and Welf, who did homage to
Gebhard as the representative of the Pope.
Herman had recaptured Lüneburg and taken captive the royal
garrison; to effect their release the king on 15 August had to consent to
the surrender of Magnus; the castles were now closely besieged, and his
hold on Saxony was lost. But the day appointed for the Polish expedition
(22 August) was close at hand. The army was assembling, and he
determined to use it against the Saxons. He summoned the princes to
meet him at the village of Kappel near Hersfeld, to obtain their consent
to this change of plan. And now the fundamental insecurity of his
position was to be revealed to him. The princes debated, and finally
decided to postpone the expedition to October. They were determined to
make it clear that on their will was the king dependent, and the royal
authority suffered a blow more serious than defeat in battle. Henry had
to submit, and he retired to the Rhine district, conscious that the
initiative had passed from his hands. There he came to a wise decision.
Germany must for the time engage his whole attention; the challenge to
the Papacy must be postponed to a more favourable opportunity. He
wrote, accordingly, to the Pope a humble letter acknowledging his faults
and asking for absolution. The Pope, as anxious as Henry for peace,
welcomed this apparent repentance, and the breach was healed. This left
the king free to concentrate on Germany. Enlightened at last as to the
true state of affairs, he shewed remarkable judgment in appreciating the
factors that could be turned to his advantage, and great patience and skill
in so making use of them that he was able gradually to build up again
the shaken edifice of royal power.
He had, first of all, to endure further humiliation. The princes met
in October for the deferred expedition, but having obtained the upper
hand they were determined to maintain it; in place of an expedition they
1 A synod at Erfurt at the beginning of 1073 had just decided this question in
the archbishop's favour.
CH, III.
942
## p. 132 (#178) ############################################
132
Henry's humiliation. Help from the towns
instituted negotiations on their own account with the Saxons. Henry had
no choice but to acquiesce; he was sovereign in name only. But at this
crisis he found assistance in a new quarter. Coming to Worms, whose
bishop, Adalbert, was his constant foe for more than thirty years, he
met with an enthusiastic reception from the citizens, who expelled their
bishop on news of the king's approach. In return he granted them, on
18 January 1074, the first charter given directly to the citizens of a
town', and in the preamble he expressed his gratitude for the loyalty which
set so striking an example amid the disloyalty of all the magnates of the
kingdom. The action of Worms was contagious, and from this time he
was able to rely on the support of the Rhine towns, whatever the attitude
of the bishops. The serious rising of the trading classes at Cologne in
1074, on the occasion of the Easter fair, against Archbishop Anno, was
probably inspired by the example of Worms? The towns indeed had
everything to gain from royal favour. A strong central authority, able to
enforce peace and order throughout the kingdom, was a necessity if trade
was to flourish and expand, and from the king alone could the privileges
dear to the trading classes be obtained.
The king's circumstances were immediately improved, and he was
able, in spite of the aloofness of the leading nobles, to raise an army and
march north again; he was accompanied by a number of bishops, who in
view of the independent action of the towns found it to their interest to
render material support to the king once more. But he was not yet
strong enough to meet the Saxons in the field, and was forced to come to
terms with them, which were confirmed in an assembly at Gerstungen on
2 February 1074. The castles built by both sides during his reign were
to be destroyed, a general amnesty was to be proclaimed, and the Saxons
returned to his allegiance on condition that in matters concerning their
duchy the king should be advised by Saxons only. He had to pardon the
rebels, but the peace was a sign of recovered authority. The South
German dukes had no part in it, and did not readily forgive the Saxons 3
for thus depriving them of their control of the king's actions. Henry by
this peace divided his enemies in Germany.
The peace had an immediate result in the changed attitude of the
dukes, who were reconciled with Henry just after Easter, at the same
time that he made his formal reconciliation with the Pope. In the mean-
time, an outrage had occurred which he was able to turn to his own
advantage. In accordance with the peace terms at Gerstungen, the forti-
fications of Harzburg had been destroyed; but the church and other
ecclesiastical buildings remained intact. The local peasantry, indignant
1 See supra, pp. 119–120.
2 Lampert of Hersfeld, ed. Holder-Egger, SGUS, p. 187. In this case, as with
Adalbert at Worms, the loyalty of Anno was certainly suspect. It was his friends
and relatives who were primarily responsible for the Saxon revolt.
3 Bruno, cc. 31 and 44, ed. Wattenbach, SGUS, pp. 20, 29.
## p. 133 (#179) ############################################
Henry's victory on the Unstrut, 1075
133
that a stone of this obnoxious place should be left standing, took the law
into their own hands and violently demolished the sacred buildings, even
in their passion going so far as to scatter to the winds the bones of Henry's
son and brother who had died there in infancy. The Saxon nobles
protested that the crime was the work of a few ignorant peasants (though
indeed they took no steps to punish them), but Henry was determined to
fasten the guilt of it on the whole people, and proclaimed far and wide
that the Saxons had broken the peace. He was able to use this argument
with effect upon the South German princes, who were already irritated
against the Saxons on their own account. Before the year was out he had
succeeded in obtaining their agreement to an expedition against the
Saxons in the following spring.
Hungary had, meanwhile, occupied Henry's attention. The rivalry
between King Salomo, Henry's brother-in-law, and his cousin Géza had
resulted eventually in the success of Géza. Salomo with his wife took
refuge in Germany, placed his kingdom under Henry's overlordship, and
appealed to him for help. Henry led an expedition into Hungary in the
autumn, but without success, and imperial authority was not recovered.
The Pope tried to avail himself of the opportunity, giving his support to
Géza and declaring Salomo's deposition a judgment of God upon him for
handing over to the Empire a kingdom which was subject to St Peter.
But Géza, though he had sought papal aid while his position was still
insecure, was determined to be free of Pope and Emperor alike and to
break every link which bound Hungary to the West; and in the following
year he had himself crowned king with a crown which he received from
the Eastern Emperor, Michael VII.
The opening months of 1075 were occupied with preparations for the
reduction of Saxony. The Saxons in alarm endeavoured to appease the
king; they further claimed to be judged by a diet of all the nobles, and
appealed to the South German princes, trying to establish direct negotia-
tions with them as in 1073. Their efforts were wholly unavailing: the
king was determined to be revenged, the nobles could not forgive the
peace made without their concurrence. Henry issued his summons to the
host, which assembled at Bredingen on 8 June; never again was he to be
at the head of so powerful and representative an army. The Dukes of
Swabia, Bavaria, Carinthia, Upper and Lower Lorraine, and Bohemia
were all present with strong contingents, and all the other leading nobles,
lay and spiritual'. On 9 June, the day after the army had assembled, the
king by a forced march surprised the Saxons encamped by the river
Unstrut. Duke Rudolf, claiming the Swabian privilege of fighting in the
van of the royal host, led the charge, supported by Duke Welf with the
Bavarians. It was a battle of knights, and, when the superior numbers
of the king's army had finally decided the issue, the Saxon foot-soldiers
Except of course Archbishop Anno, who pleaded age and infirmity. He died
the following December.
CH, III.
## p. 134 (#180) ############################################
134
His challenge to the Pope
suffered severely. The losses indeed were heavy on both sides, but the
king won a decisive victory and advanced to the invasion of Saxony. Lack
of provisions caused him to disband his troops in July, and another ex-
pedition was arranged for October. On 22 October the army assembled
at Gerstungen, but this time the Dukes of Swabia, Bavaria, and Carinthia
were absent, on the insufficient plea of their losses in June. The king,
however, was strong enough without them, and was probably not sorry
to be independent of them. The Saxons had lost their cohesion; the
common soldiers in particular felt that they had been selfishly sacri-
ficed on the Unstrut. The nobles, therefore, made an unconditional
surrender, throwing themselves on the king's mercy. Contrary to expecta-
tion, but in accordance with his fixed determination, he treated them
with great severity: all the leaders, both laymen and ecclesiastics, were
imprisoned in different parts of Germany, entrusted to the custody of
South German nobles. Much of their territory was confiscated and given
to his supporters or added to the royal domain, and the building of the
castles was taken in hand once more. When the king disbanded his army
in November, he seemed to have won a complete triumph.
The situation was remarkably similar to that in 1072. The Saxon
rebels had been forced to an unconditional surrender and their leaders
were in captivity. Now, as then, the situation at Milan gave the oppor-
tunity to the king, at what seemed a particularly favourable moment, to
re-assert imperial authority in Italy by a direct challenge to the Pope.
The defeat of the Pataria and the election of Tedald by the suffragan
bishops of Milan had occurred earlier in the year, but Henry was then
perhaps contemplating imperial coronation, and even the victory on the
Unstrut had not achieved the submission of Saxony. When this was
certain, he invested Tedald with the archbishopric and sent the embassy
to Italy which was, probably designedly, responsible for the rupture with
the Pope. Once more his position in Germany seemed strong enough to
justify the recovery of the authority that had been lost in Italy. And
the moment seemed to be well-chosen, because he could count on the
enthusiastic support of the episcopate in Germany and in North Italy in
any venture against Gregory VII. But he had grievously miscalculated
the strength of the spiritual power and the greatness of his opponent,
and once more he had misunderstood, or foolishly disregarded, the real
feelings of the German princes. The absence of the three dukes from the
final campaign against the Saxons was ominous, and was certainly not
sufficiently accounted for by their plea of the losses they had suffered in
the June campaign. As before, it was the completeness of the royal
victory, and the arbitrary use that Henry made of it, that caused them to
stand aloof. Though their absence was at the time satisfactory to him,
he ought to have realised its import and that they too needed to be
mastered before he could take in hand the new task of Italy and the
Papacy.
## p. 135 (#181) ############################################
Henry's excommunication and its results
135
The king spent Christmas 1075 at Goslar, and the nobles there
present took an oath to accept his son Conrad, born in February 1074,
as his successor. Some measure of leniency was shewn in allowing the
exiled Saxon bishops to return to their sees pending trial, but of the
lay princes Count Otto of Nordheim alone received the king's clemency,
and he was even advanced to high office and power in his native land.
The king was still at Goslar at the beginning of January 1076 when the
papal embassy arrived with the verbal message threatening excommuni-
cation if the king refused obedience. This was as unexpected as it was
distasteful to the royal dignity. In an uncontrolled passion, which was
unusual with him, he summoned the Council of Worms that pronounced
Gregory's deposition, and dispatched to Piacenza and then to Rome the
messenger to the Lenten synod. Before the papal sentence at the synod
reached the king, the murder of Duke Godfrey of Lower Lorraine in
February had deprived him of one of his staunchest adherents, and of a
strong support of the Empire on its western frontier, where Robert the
Frisian, successful in Flanders, whose intrigues probably brought about
the murder of Godfrey, was a constant menace. Still confident in his own
position, Henry bestowed the duchy on his infant son Conrad, and
Godfrey's nephew and heir, Godfrey of Bouillon, had to be content with
the Mark of Antwerp.
Then at Easter came the news of the Lenten synod and its decrees,
and both the strength of the spiritual power and the weakness of his own
position were speedily revealed to the king. The excommunication had
an immediate effect in alienating from him his lay subjects. The German
bishops, too, who had welcomed the deposition of the Pope, trembled
before the papal sentence and again hastily abandoned the cause of the
king. Accordingly his summons to diets at Worms and Mayence were
practically disregarded, and he was rapidly becoming isolated. His weak-
ness was the Saxon opportunity. The Saxon leaders were able to effect
their escape from captivity, or were deliberately released by the nobles to
whose custody they had been entrusted. Bishop Burchard took the lead
in a new revolt, and, Otto of Nordheim turning traitor once more, the
whole of East Saxony was in arms. Henry's one faithful ally, Duke
Vratislav of Bohemia, was driven from Meissen by Margrave Ekbert. The
victory of 1075 had been completely undone. And, finally, the dukes of
Upper Germany saw their opportunity and took it. Acting in unison
they had been able to make their intervention effective whether against
the king or against the Saxons. Satisfied with the Saxon defeat in June
1075, they had abstained from the further expedition in October, but the
king's ability to bring the Saxons to submission without their aid, and
his high-handed treatment of them when he had obtained the mastery,
must have already determined them to throw their weight into the
balance against him. The excommunication and its results gave them the
decisive voice in the government of the kingdom. Meeting at Ulm, they
CH, III.
## p. 136 (#182) ############################################
136
The Diet of Tribur
decided on a diet at Tribur, where the future of the kingdom was to be
debated and the royal authority made subservient to particularist interests.
To this diet the Saxon nobles were invited, and the grievances of 1074
were forgotten.
The diet met at Tribur on 16 October 1076. The Saxons came in
force, and the papal legates were present, to give spiritual sanction to the
triumph of the nobles. The king, to whom this assembly was in the highest
degree dangerous, arrived at Oppenheim on the other side of the Rhine
with an army. But his chief supporters deserted him to obtain absolution
from the papal legates, and he was abandoned to the tender mercies of
the diet. The Saxons advocated his deposition and the appointment of
a new king. For this revolutionary step the other princes were not yet
prepared. The choice of a successor would raise difficulties and jealousies
that might dissolve the harmony, and such an action would compromise
the high moral pose which they had adopted in their attitude against
Henry. The deliberations of the diet were complicated too by the ill-
feeling, with difficulty restrained, which still persisted between Saxons and
South Germans. But in one respect they were all of one mind: the king
must be humiliated, and the government of Germany must be subject to
the dictation of the princes. Towards the victory over the king, the papal
sentence first, the papal legates later, had largely contributed. The
nobles were anxious to retain the valuable papal support, and to represent
themselves as fighting for the cause of right against a wicked king. The
Papacy, therefore, must be given an important share in the fruits of
victory. So, first of all, the king was forced to publish his repentance and
his promise of obedience and amendment for the future—to do justice in
both the papal and the feudal sense. The diet then proceeded to make
two important decisions. Firstly, recognising the validity of the papal
sentence, they decreed that Henry would lose his kingdom if he failed to
obtain absolution within a year and a day of his excommunication
(22 February); secondly, recognising the papal claim to a principal share
in the final judgment, they invited the Pope to a council at Augsburg on
2 February 1077, where under his presidency the future of the kingdom
was to be decided.
This shews the lengths to which the nobles were prepared to
go
for
their own selfish interests to satisfy papal claims which in different
circumstances they were fully prepared to repudiate. It also shews that
the Pope held the key to the whole situation, a fact which he and Henry
alike were swift to recognise. If it promised the immediate realisation of
the Pope's highest ideals, it at the same time revealed to the king the
avenue of escape from his dangerous position. The conjunction of his
enemies in Germany meant the final ruin of his power; if he could obtain
absolution from the Pope in Italy, he not only removed opposition from
1 The regular period of grace, the period too within which a vacant office had to
be filled up. This treatment of the royal office by the nobles is significant.
## p. 137 (#183) ############################################
Canossa
137
that quarter for a time but also deprived the German nobles of their most
effective weapon against him. With this aim in view he made his escape
and his memorable journey over the Mont Cenis pass, finally arriving
in January 1077 outside the fortress of Canossa. Here by his humiliation
and outward penitence he was able to force the Pope to grant him absolu-
tion, and the purpose of his journey was achieved. Though the importance
of the royal humiliation has been grossly exaggerated, it is equally absurd
to proclaim the absolution at Canossa as a striking victory for the king.
He had been forced to accept the justice of the papal excommunication,
and consequently the right of the Pope to sit in judgment upon him) and
by this acceptance the relations of the two powers had been fundamentally
altered. The absolution was in a sense a recognition of the king's defeat;
on the other hand, it limited the extent of the defeat and prevented a
far worse calamity.
Yet, as far as Henry's enemies in Germany were concerned, it was a
real victory for the king, and they were staggered at the news. The
absolution of Henry they regarded as a betrayal of their cause, and they
expressed their indignation as strongly as they dared. They could not,
indeed, risk alienating the Pope, whose alliance was so necessary to them;
but they were not impressed by his optimistic view that the decision to
hold the council in Germany still held good. They did what they could,
however, to nullify the effect of the absolution. The story soon became
current among them that the absolution had been granted on certain
conditions which Henry immediately broke, so that it became void and
the king returned to his state of excommunication? The papal legates,
though not the Pope, gave encouragement to this view.
Their more immediate need, however, was to complete what had been
begun at Tribur, and, with papal co-operation if possible, to prevent the
restoration of Henry's authority in Germany and so to counteract the
disastrous effects of Canossa. A preliminary meeting at Ulm, in issuing
summons to a diet at Forchheim in Franconia, where the last of the
German Carolingians (Louis the Child) and the first of his successors
(Conrad I) had been elected, shewed that the Saxon proposals had been
1 Bruno, c. 90, SGUS, pp. 66-7, states this very definitely, and it confuses not only
his narrative but also his chronology. As the excommunication of 1076, according
to his view, prevailed throughout, he makes no mention of that of 1080, and places
together in 1076 the documents of both dates. Neither his editor in SGUS,
W. Wattenbach, nor K. Heidrich, who in Neu. Arch. Vol. xxx investigated the dating
of the numerous documents in Bruno, noted that this essential misunderstanding,
whether wilful or ignorant, of the facts of Canossa is responsible for his muddled
chronology. A complete revision of Bruno's chronology from this point of view is
badly needed. I should like to call attention to the possibility that Henry's letter
to the Romans (in Bruno, c. 66, and nowhere else) was written in 1080 and not in
1076. I cannot go into the whole question here, but two points may be mentioned :
(1) any manifesto (as that in c. 73) dealing with 1080 would have been dated by
him to 1076; (2) there is no evidence that Henry appealed to the Romans in 1076,
though he did so regularly in 1080 and following years.
CH. III.
## p. 138 (#184) ############################################
138
The election of Rudolf as anti-king
accepted. The diet met on 13 March and, in the presence and with the
approval of two papal legates, Duke Rudolf of Swabia, with all the
customary formalities of procedure, was designated and elected king.
This was a reactionary and indeed a revolutionary step, recalling the
anarchy of the later Carolingians. The electoral right of the nobles,
when it was not a mere formality, had been strictly limited in practice.
Ever since the Saxon kings had restored the monarchy, the hereditary
principle had been dominant; when there was no son to succeed, the king
had been chosen from a collateral branch of the royal family. Now the
electors usurped a plenary power—the power to depose the established
king and to exercise complete freedom of choice as to his successor.
Behind this lay the theory that the relation of king and nobles was one
of contract, and that an unlawful exercise of his power justified the breach
of their oath of fealty. The bishops at Worms in 1076 had taken this
line with regard to the Pope. It was a natural development of feudal
ideas, which were not, however, to prevail in the Church as they did in
the kingdom. There were other points of novelty in this election. In the
first place, the formal right of election, which was the prerogative of all
the princes, was here assumed by a small minority. This minority included,
indeed, the Archbishop of Mayence, whose right to the prima vox was
uncontested', numerous Saxon nobles, and the three South German dukes;
perhaps these latter, in anticipation of fourteenth-century conditions,
regarded themselves as adequate to represent their duchies. Secondly,
the presence of the papal legates was a recognition of the Pope's claim
to a share in the election. And, finally, the electors emphasised the con-
tractual nature of the royal office, and ensured the maintenance of their
own control, by imposing conditions on the king of their choice: Rudolf
had to renounce the hereditary right of his son and royal control of
episcopal elections, while he also made a promise of obedience to the
Pope. But the German princes at Forchheim got no advantage from
their triumphant particularism; the revolt gained no additional supporter
from the fact that its leader styled himself king. On the contrary, their
attempt to ride roughshod over tradition and legitimacy put Henry in
a strong position; the bishops (except in Saxony), the lesser nobility,
the peasantry, and above all the towns, preferred a single ruler, however
absolute, to a government dominated by the selfish interests of the princes.
All the more, then, had Rudolf and his party to depend on the
support of the Church. The Pope certainly recognised the electoral
rights of the princes, and accepted the election of Rudolf as a lawful
election. He did not, however, recognise their power to depose Henry;
this he regarded as a matter for his own decision, and in the meanwhile
spoke continually of two kings. Yet his legates had been quite decided
1 Cf. Wipo's account of the election of Conrad II (c. 2, SGUS, p. 14), and the
statement of Frederick Barbarossa (Otto et Rahewin, Gesta Friderici imperatoris, Bk.
III, c. 17, SGUS, p. 188).
## p. 139 (#185) ############################################
The division of Germany
139
in their support of Rudolf, and the rebels naturally inferred that the Pope
would abide by their decision'.
Meanwhile Henry had resumed his royal functions in Lombardy,
though he had to act with extreme caution. The Lombards resented his
refusal to take direct action against the Pope, and Milan, in opposition
to its archbishop, had reverted to the papal alliance; nor could he obtain
coronation at Pavia with the iron crown of Lombardy. He dared not,
moreover, alienate the Pope, while policy made it essential to prevent
the journey to Germany on which the Pope had set his heart. Then came
the news of the election at Forchheim, and he had to return at once to
Germany to counter the revolutionary government of the princes.
The
sentiment in favour of the lawful ruler, now that he was restored to com-
munion, was immediately made evident. As before, the Rhine towns set
the example, beginning with a riot at Mayence where Rudolf was crowned
and anointed king by Archbishop Siegfried on 26 March. Rudolf was
compelled to abandon Mayence and make his way to Saxony, where alone
he could maintain himself as king. In Saxony, with few exceptions, the
lay and ecclesiastical nobles were on his side, and to Saxony was his
kingdom confined? Elsewhere the balance was predominantly in favour
of Henry, especially in the south-east. As Rudolf was still in the Rhine
district, Henry returned to Germany by way of Carinthia and Bavaria,
in both of which duchies he received an enthusiastic welcome. Carinthia,
where Duke Berthold had always been ignored, was wholly on his side;
on Bavaria he could also rely, except for the hostility of Margrave Liut-
pold of Austria and two important ecclesiastics, Archbishop Gebhard
of Salzburg and Bishop Altmann of Passau, who however could not
maintain themselves in their sees. On Duke Vratislav of Bohemia he
could count for loyal assistance, and though King Ladislas I of Hungary,
who married a daughter of Rudolf, was hostile, he gave no assistance to
Henry's opponents. Burgundy, in spite of Rudolf's possessions there,
was apparently solid for Henry, as were the Rhine towns. In Swabia the
position was more equal. The bishops and lesser nobles were mainly on
Henry's side, but Berthold and Welf had considerable power in their
ancestral domains, and the great reforming Abbot, William of Hirschau,
organised a strong ecclesiastical opposition which was to be continually
dangerous to Henry; his work was to be carried still further by one of
his monks, Gebhard, son of Duke Berthold, who as Bishop of Constance
and papal legate was more than anyone else responsible for the existence
and gradual increase of a strong papal party in South Germany. The
1 The Pope, though not endorsing, did not actually disown his legates' actions;
so, as Vita Heinrici imperatoris (c. 4, SGUS, pp. 17–18) says, his silence was taken
to give consent.
? Bruno (c. 121, SGUS, p. 93) speaks of “Saxoniae reguum. ” So too in the two
papal letters quoted in cc. 118 and 120 (ib. pp. 90, 92), Gregory addresses the princes
“in Teutonico atque in Saxonico regno commanentibus” and “Rodulfo omnibusque
secum in regno Saxonum commanentibus. ”
CH. III.
## p. 140 (#186) ############################################
140
Henry's successful diplomacy
struggle was thus in the main between Saxony and Thuringia under
Rudolf and the rest of Germany under Henry, though in Swabia Berthold
and Welf were able to maintain themselves and were supported, in spite
of the Pope's neutrality, by an advanced section of Church reformers.
Henry's first move after Rudolf's withdrawal was to raise a force of
Bavarian and Bohemian troops and invade Swabia, which suffered terribly
from the constant depredations of both sides, neither of which was able
to obtain complete mastery. At the end of May he held a diet at Ulm,
where the three rebel dukes of South Germany were formally deprived of
their duchies. Carinthia was given to Liutold of Eppenstein, head of the
most important family in the duchy. Bavaria and Swabia he retained for
the time in his own hands. But in 1079 he founded the fortunes of the
Hohenstaufen family by appointing to the duchy of Swabia the Swabian
Count of Staufen, Frederick, to whom he married his daughter Agnes? .
From him he obtained loyal support, and Rudolf vainly attempted to create
a counter-influence in the duchy by having his son Berthold proclaimed at
Ulm as duke, and by marrying his daughter Agnes to Berthold, son of
Duke Berthold (who had died at the end of 1078).
During these years Rudolf was bitterly disappointed in his expecta-
tion of a direct intervention of the Pope against Henry. The papal
legates were as emphatic as he could wish, both at Forchheim in March
and at Goslar in November 1077, when the Cardinal-deacon Bernard
united with Archbishop Siegfried in excommunicating Henry; but they
were not upheld by their master, who persisted in his neutrality. Henry,
during the same period, shewed himself in diplomacy to be far astuter
than his impetuous rival. He was successful in preventing a conference
of nobles on both sides, which Rudolf tried to arrange in 1078 in recol-
lection of the success of this policy in 1073. He contrived, moreover, to
prevent a coalition between the forces of Rudolf and his South German
allies, though he failed to defeat them separately as he had hoped. On
7 August 1078 he fought an indecisive battle with the troops of Rudolf
at Melrichstadt in Franconia, where, though his own losses were the
heavier, his enemy was forced to retire; and, on the same day, an army
of peasants, hastily recruited from Franconia, was decisively defeated on
the Neckar by Dukes Berthold and Welf. But Henry maintained himself
at Würzburg, and so prevented the threatened junction of the enemies'
forces. Above all he was successful in keeping the Pope neutral, while at
the same time disappointing Gregory's hopes of making his judgment
decisive between the two kings. He was not, however, on this account
any the more compliant with the ecclesiastical decrees. He continued to
appoint, as it was essential to him that he should appoint, and invest to
bishoprics and abbeys vacant by death or occupied by supporters of his
1 In these two appointments Henry abandoned the policy of appointing an outsider
as duke. He now needed powerful dukes who could be relied on to support him.
## p. 141 (#187) ############################################
The final breach with the Pope, 1080
141
opponent. Rudolf imitated his example, though he was careful to leave
episcopal elections free, and so, besides the rival kings in the kingdom
and dukes in the duchies, there were rival bishops in several sees. Germany
was devastated by civil war, in which the peasants, especially in Swabia,
suffered the greatest hardships, and the trading opportunities of the towns
were severely handicapped. The whole country sighed for peace and order,
and it was becoming increasingly evident to the majority that in Henry's
victory lay the best hope of this being attained.
So in 1080 he was able to carry the war into the enemy's country and
invade Saxony. The battle of Flarchheim in Thuringia (27 January) was
indecisive and Henry had to retire again to Bavaria ; but his diplomacy
was successful in detaching from Rudolf's cause the leaders of the Billung
family, Duke Magnus and his uncle Herman, and also Margrave Ek bert
of Meissen. And now the time had arrived when the Pope was to make
the fateful decision that was to prolong and embitter the struggle of
which Germany was already so weary. The moment seems to have been
chosen by Henry himself. His envoys to the Lenten synod of 1080 were
instructed no longer to appeal, but to threaten the Pope, and Henry had
doubtless foreseen the result. He could hardly expect a judgment in his
favour, but an adverse decision, while it would be welcomed by few,
would be regarded with indignation by the vast majority. He contrived
in fact to throw upon the Pope the odium of starting the new struggle.
The sentence of Gregory VII not only upset the hopes of peace; it also
outraged German sentiment in its claim to depose the king and to set up
a successor in his place. The German bishops of Henry's party met at
Bamberg (Easter) and renounced obedience to Gregory; a diet attended
by king, nobles, and bishops assembled at Mayence (Whitsun) and repeated
this renunciation ; and finally, in an assembly mainly of North Italian
bishops at Brixen' on 25 June, Gregory was declared deposed and Arch-
bishop Guibert of Ravenna, nominated by Henry, was elected to succeed
him. With his compliant anti-Pope, Henry could now entertain the
prospect, impossible in 1076, of leading an expedition into Italy to
establish his will by force.
But he could not leave Germany with Rudolf still powerful in Saxony,
and he hastened back from Brixen to settle the issue with his rival. In
the autumn he collected an army and marched through Thuringia to the
Elster; there, in the neighbourhood of Hohen-Mölsen, a battle was
fought, in which Henry was defeated. But this was more than compen-
1 The choice of Brixen is curious. One would expect to find the meeting-place of
an Italian assembly within the Italian kingdom, and the presence of the Italian chan-
cellor, Bishop Burchard of Lausanne, points in the same direction. But, though it
is always difficult to fix the exact frontier-line, it seems clear that Brixen was on the
German side. Perhaps, as Giesebrecht suggests (Geschichte der deutschen Kaiserzeit,
Vol. 1, p. 502), Brixen was chosen because of its isolation and security and the
undoubted loyalty of its bishop.
CH. III.
## p. 142 (#188) ############################################
142
Death of Rudolf. Herman of Salm as anti-king
sated by the mortal wound which Rudolf received, from the effects of which
he died on the following day. To many this appeared as the judgment
of God, not only on Rudolf but on the Pope as well. Though Henry was
stiil unable to win over Saxony by force or negotiations, his position was
sufficiently secure in Germany; now at last he could give his whole
attention to the decisive contest with the Pope. From the spring of 1081
to the summer of 1084 he was in Italy. He succeeded in defeating his
great aniversary, he established Guibert as Pope Clement III, and by him
was crowned Emperor in St Peter's. At Rome he seemed to hare realised
his ambition and to have raised himself to his father's height. But he was
forced to retire before the arrival of the Sormans, he could not overcome
the resistance of Countess Matilda, and his Pope did not receive the
recognition necessary to make him a useful tool. Imperial authority had
been revived in Italy, but not so effectively as he had contemplated.
In Germany, his enemies took advantage of his absence to elect a
Successor to Rudolf. The obvious candidate was Otto of Nordheim, whose
military skill had been conspicuous throughout. But, partly owing to
jealousy among the leaders, partly perhaps from the desire to obtain
western support, their choice fell on the Lotharingian Count Herman of
Salm, brother of Count Conrad of Luxemburg and nephew of Herman,
Count-Palatine of the Rhine. At any rate, he failed to win over his
powerful relatives, and his kingdom, like that of Rudolf, was confined to
Saxony. He had neither the ducal prestige nor the military prowess of his
predecessor, nor does he seem to have entered into relations with the
Pope; there was nothing to recommend this feeble rival of Henry.
Towards the end of 1082 he did indeed advance south into Swabia, and
the possibility of his leading an expedition into Italy caused Henry some
anxiety. But it came to nothing; the death of Margrave Cdo of the
North Mark in 1082 and in January 1083 of Otto of Nordheim, whose
sons were too young to play any part, deprived him of his chief military
support. On the news of Otto's death he hastily returned to Saxony, and
henceforward was of no account. So insignificant did he become that in
1088 he retired to his native Lorraine, and shortly afterwards was killed
in front of a castle he was besieging.
It was the Church party that formed the chief danger to Henry when
he returned to Germany in 1084. Archbishop Siegfried of Mayence had
died in February, but his authority in his province had long disappeared;
like the two anti-kings he had been forced since 1080 to remain in
Saxony. To succeed him Henry appointed Werner (Wezil) as archbishop
and arch-chancellor; in the latter office Siegfried had not been super-
seded-it was clearly a merely titular dignity, and the chancellor did the
real work. The organisation of a papal party was actively conducted by
the legate Otto, Cardinal-bishop of Ostia and afterwards Pope Urban II.
With the assistance of Abbot William of Hirschau he combined monastic
reform with opposition to Henry. The election of Gebhard as Bishop of
## p. 143 (#189) ############################################
Rival diets at Quedlinburg and Mayence
143
Constance in December was an important result of their joint efforts; for
Gebhard later succeeded Otto as permanent legate, and was probably
Henry's most dangerous enemy in Germany for the rest of his reign. In
the work of reform, not only did numerous Swabian monasteries adhere
to the rule of Hirschau, but the reform attracted laymen of the upper
classes who came in numbers to the monastery as conversi. From Swabia
Otto went on to Saxony. Here his influence was decisive against peace,
the desire for which led to a meeting of princes of both sides at Gerstun-
gen in January 1085. The Church party used the excommunication of
Henry and his supporters to prevent a reconciliation. In this the legate
was prominent, and still more so at a partisan synod held at Quedlinburg
just after Easter. The excommunication of the anti-Pope and his
adherents was a matter of common agreement, but Otto had the cause
of Church reform and reorganisation equally at heart. Decrees were
passed asserting the primacy of the Apostolic See and the supremacy of
papal jurisdiction ; others enforced Roman against local customs and
strengthened the central authority by creating uniformity; finally, a few
upheld the main principles of Church reform. It was at this point that
a cleavage of interests became manifest. The Saxon nobles, who had been
most zealous for Church reform when it was a useful weapon against
Henry IV, firmly resisted it when it meant the restoration by them of
churches and ecclesiastical property in their possession. Otto discovered
that the bishops supported their secular allies in this, and that political
interests in Saxony over-rode religious considerations.
While discord was thus beginning to make its appearance in Saxony,
Henry was establishing his hold more firmly in the rest of Germany. At
an imperial diet held at Easter 1085 at Mayence, the deposition of
Gregory VII and his supporters and the election of Guibert were con-
firmed, and the Peace of God was proclaimed. Already in 1081 Bishop
Henry of Liège had proclaimed the Peace in his diocese, and in 1083
Archbishop Sigewin of Cologne had done the same in his province.
Henry had ratified their action, and now extended it to the whole
kingdom. It was a sign, perhaps, of royal weakness that he could not by
his own authority enforce the maintenance of peace, but had recourse to
an expedient adopted in days of anarchy and royal impotence by the
Church in France and Burgundy. It was also an unfortunate moment to
choose in which to appeal to the sanction of the Church, when many of
his subjects regarded him and his followers as schismatics. But it seemed
for a time as if peace would result. Lorraine, which he visited in June,
was wholly loyal ; Henry confiscated the territory held there by Matilda,
and allotted it mainly to Godfrey of Bouillon and Bishop Dietrich of
Verdun. There followed a much greater triumph in July, when, taking
advantage of the divisions in Saxony to win over the lay nobles, he was
able for the first time for many years to enter the duchy in peace, and to
progress as far as Magdeburg.
CA. IIJ.
## p. 144 (#190) ############################################
}
144
The end of Saxon revolt
His success, however, was short-lived, and for this his failure to
appreciate the Saxon temper was responsible. Many bishops were still
hostile, especially the Archbishop of Magdeburg, and Henry proceeded
to appoint bishops of his own party to replace them. Nothing was more
calculated to cause a revulsion of feeling among the lay nobles than this
exercise of royal authority without their concurrence, and the introduction
of aliens into episcopal office in the duchy. Accordingly in September
Henry was forced to abandon Saxony once more. In the following year
(1086) Welf and his Swabian adherents were able to join forces with the
Saxons and to besiege the important town of Würzburg. Henry, hasten-
ing to its relief with an army mainly composed of peasants and levies from
the towns, was severely defeated at the battle of Pleichfeld on 11 August.
It was not the usual encounter of knights. The troops of Welf and of
the city of Magdeburg dismounted and fought on foot, with the cross as
their standard and encouraged by the prayers of the Archbishop of
Magdeburg? . As a result of the battle, Würzburg was captured and its
Bishop, Adalbero, was restored, though only temporarily, to his see. The
position of affairs, so favourable to Henry the previous year, seemed to
have been entirely reversed. But his enemies were not able to gain any
permanent advantage from their victory, or even to retain Würzburg for
long. Negotiations were resumed, to break down continually over the
impediment of Henry's excommunication and his recognition of the
anti-Pope. At last, in the summer of 1088, a renewal of discord in
Saxony caused a reaction in Henry's favour, and in a short time, for
good and all, the revolt in Saxony was ended.
The most powerful noble in Saxony at this time was Margrave Ekbert
of Meissen”. Of violent and audacious temper, like his father, he had
taken the lead in welcoming the king in Saxony in July 1085 and in
expelling him two months later. His Mark had previously been transferred
by Henry to Duke Vratislav of Bohemia, who received the title of king
in 1085; but Vratislav was unable to enter into possession of it. In 1087
Ekbert came to terms again with Henry, perhaps as the result of a
Bohemian invasion. But he immediately broke his word, having conceived
the bold scheme of getting himself appointed king in place of the helpless
Herman. This was too much for his jealous confederates. The bishops in
particular rejected his scheme, and the murder of Bishop Burchard of
Halberstadt, who had been in the forefront of every Saxon rising
against Henry, was believed to be Ekbert's revenge for his rebuff. The
ambition and violence of this noble were more dangerous than the royal
authority; the rest of Saxony hastened to make its peace with the
1 This battle is described in some detail by the chronicler Bernold (MGH, Script.
Vol. v, p. 445) who was himself present.
2 The Billung family, since their adhesion to Henry in 1080, seem to have taken
little part in public affairs. Duke Magnus remained loyal to Henry, and he is men-
tioned as present at the coronation of Henry's son Conrad as king in 1087.
## p. 145 (#191) ############################################
The climax of Henry's power, 1088-1090
145
Emperor', and, while safeguarding its own independence, recognised him
as king of Germany. The bishops indeed would not recognise Guibert;
they compromised by regarding Urban II as the rightful Pope, and at the
same time disregarding his excommunication of Henry. Ekbert was
isolated, and was condemned at a Saxon diet held at Quedlinburg in
1088; at Ratisbon in 1089 he was proscribed as a traitor, and on
Margrave Henry of the East Mark (Lusatia) was conferred the margravate
of Meissen. Ek bert remained defiant, and even posed as the champion of
the Church against Henry; at the end of 1088 he inflicted a severe defeat
on the king in front of his castle of Gleichen. But he was murdered
in 1090, and so all opposition in Saxony came to an end. His county of
Brunswick passed to his sister Gertrude, who married, as her second
husband, Henry the Fat, the son of Otto of Nordheim.
The
years
1088–1090 mark the climax of Henry's power in Germany.
Except for Margrave Ekbert, against whom he had the assistance of the
rest of Saxony, and the few Swabian counts that supported Welf, he was
universally recognised as king. The succession had been secured by the
coronation of his son Conrad as king in May 1087. The Church party
was dispirited and quiescent, and it lost its chief champion in Bavaria
with the death of Archbishop Gebhard of Salzburg in 1088. In Lorraine,
in 1089, Bishop Herman of Metz was reconciled with the king and
restored to his see, and the duchy of Lower Lorraine was conferred on
Godfrey of Bouillon. To the see of Cologne, vacant by the death of
Archbishop Sigewin, Henry appointed his chancellor Herman; and,
during his stay at Cologne for this purpose, he was married (his first wife,
Bertha, had died in 1087) to Praxedis (Adelaide), daughter of the Prince
of Kiev and widow of Margrave Henry of the North Mark. The marriage
was celebrated by Archbishop Hartwig of Magdeburg, with whom, in
spite of his prominent share in the king's defeat at Pleichfeld in 1086,
Henry was completely reconciled. The archbishop, however, refused to
recognise the anti-Pope, and this was the chief weakness in Henry's
position. It seems that on more than one occasion he could have come
to terms with the Church party and returned to communion, had he
consented to abandon Guibert. He was himself unwilling both to betray
so faithful a servant and to discard so useful a tool; while many
of his
chief supporters and advisers among the bishops, feeling that their own
fate was implicated in that of Guibert, influenced him in the same
direction. He might also have expected the ultimate success of his anti-
Pope. There was nothing to lead him to anticipate the fatal results to
himself of the election of Urban II as Pope in March 1088. Urban, like
his predecessor, had to live under Norman protection, and Guibert
remained securely in possession of Rome.
1 But it seems almost certain that he cannot have recovered full possession of the
royal domain. Probably the situation in Saxony was a return to the status quo of
C. MED. 2. VOL. V. CH. III.
10
1069.
## p. 146 (#192) ############################################
146
His disastrous expedition to Italy, 1090–1097
As in 1072 and 1075, the position in Germany appeared favourable
for the recovery of authority in Italy; and again a situation had arisen
vitally affecting imperial interests. In 1089, Countess Matilda of Tuscany,
now over forty years of age, devoting herself to furthering the political
advantage of the Papacy, had married the younger Welf, a lad of
seventeen. The elder Welf, having lost his Saxon allies, had turned his
ambitions to the south, and hoped for great things from this marriage.
His Italian inheritance adjoined the territories of Countess Matilda,
and he doubtless anticipated for himself a position in Italy such as Duke
Godfrey, the husband of Matilda's mother Beatrice, had held during the
minority of Henry IV. The Emperor came into Italy in April 1090 to
counteract the dangerous effects of this alliance, and at first met with
considerable success. But the papal party was rapidly gaining strength,
and unscrupulous in its methods worked among his family to effect his
ruin. The revolt of Conrad in 1093 under Matilda's influence, accompanied
by a league of Lombard cities against the Emperor, not only reduced
him to great straits but even cut off his retreat to Germany. The next
year another domestic blow was struck at the unfortunate Emperor. His
wife Praxedis, suspected of infidelity to her husband, escaped to take
refuge with Matilda and to spread gross charges against Henry. False
though they doubtless were, they were eagerly seized upon by his enemies,
and the Pope himself at the Council of Piacenza in 1095 listened to the
tale and pardoned the unwilling victim. Praxedis, her work done,
disappears from history; she seems to have returned to Russia and to
have died as a nun. Her husband, stunned with the shock of this double
treachery of wife and son, remained in isolation at Verona. But the
conflicting interests of Welf and the Papacy soon broke up the unnatural
marriage-alliance. Matilda separated from her second husband as she had
done from her first, and the elder Welf, who had no intention of merely
subserving papal interests, took his son back with him to Germany
in 1095. The next year he made his peace with the Emperor; the road
to Germany was opened again, and in the spring of 1097 Henry made
his way by the Brenner Pass into Bavaria.
The long absence of Henry in Italy had less effect than might have been
expected on his position in Germany. Saxony remained quiet, and the
government by non-interference was able to ensure the loyalty of the lay
nobles, among whom Henry the Fat, with Brunswick added to Nordheim
by his marriage with Gertrude, now held the leading place. In Lorraine
the Church party won a success in the adhesion of the Bishops of Metz,
Toul, and Verdun to the papal cause. Otherwise the only centre of dis-
turbance was Swabia. The government of Germany during Henry's
absence seems to have been entrusted to Duke Frederick of Swabia, in
conjunction with Henry, Count-Palatine of the Rhine, who died in
1095. In 1091 the death of Berthold, son of the anti-King Rudolf,
brought the house of Rheinfelden to an end. He was succeeded both in
## p. 147 (#193) ############################################
The First Crusade
147
his allodial territories and in his pretensions to the duchy of Swabia by
his brother-in-law Berthold of Zähringen, son of the former Duke of
Carinthia, a far more formidable rival to Duke Frederick. The successes
of Henry in Italy in 1091, combined with the death of Abbot William
of Hirschau, brought to the king's side many adherents in Swabia. But
the disasters of 1093 caused a reaction, and the papal party began
to revive under the lead of Bishop Gebhard of Constance, Berthold's
brother. An assembly held at Ulm declared the unity of Swabia under
the spiritual headship of Gebhard and the temporal headship of Berthold,
and a land-peace was proclaimed to last until Easter 1096, which Welf
with less success attempted to extend the next year to Bavaria and
Franconia. The Church party took the lead in this movement, and papal
overlordship was recognised by Berthold and Welf, who did homage to
Gebhard as the representative of the Pope.
