Imperial Constitution

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The Mainzer Landfriede on 1235

What do you do once you have condemned your eldest son and heir to life imprisonment? Exactly, you have a party, or more precisely you have two parties. But as always with Frederick II, these are not just knees-up for entertainment, but elaborately staged political events. The first is a wedding, the second a grand get-together of the whole realm and then there is a third, a funeral of a kind you would not have expected from our rational, seemingly agnostic hero. Lots to unpack as always…

Transcript

Hello and welcome to the history of the Germans: Episode 82 – The Constitution of the Realm

What do you do once you have condemned your eldest son and heir to life imprisonment? Exactly, you have a party, or more precisely you have two parties. But as always with Frederick II, these are not just knees-up for entertainment, but elaborately staged political events. The first is a wedding, the second a grand get-together of the whole realm and then there is a third, a funeral of a kind you would not have expected from our rational, seemingly agnostic hero. Lots to unpack as always…

Before we start just a reminder. The History of the Germans Podcast is advertising free thanks to the generous support from patrons. And you can become a patron too and enjoy exclusive bonus episodes and other privileges from the price of a latte per month. All you have to do is sign up at patreon.com/historyofthegermans or on my website historyofthegermans.com. You find all the links in the show notes. And thanks a lot to Oliver, Rachel and Weyland who have already signed up.

Last week we left Frederick sitting in judgement over his wayward son. This family rift was not based on a fundamental personality clash as had been the case with his namesake, Frederick II of Prussia, nor was it a case of unbridled ambition as it had been when Richard Lionheart and his brothers rose up against their father Henry II. This rift had been almost entirely political.

Henry (VII) in brackets believed that all the resources of the family, which meant basically the resources of Sicily, should be employed in rolling back the encroachment of royal power. He wanted to force the princes to disgorge the rights and privileges they had extracted from Philipp of Swabia and Otto IV during the recent civil wars.

Frederick’s priority was the exact opposite. Forcing the pope into a recognition of the emperor as his equal and as temporal ruler of Christendom was his great objective. And this objective could only be achieved by surrounding the papal lands on all sides. He already had the south where his kingdom of Sicily began just 100 miles from Rome. He also had a hold on Tuscany north-west of Rome. That left Lombardy, the North-eastern flank of the papal states.

Lombardy had only recently revived the Lombard League, the mighty association of Northern Italian cities that had broken the armies of the great Barbarossa. To bring Lombardy into submission required a huge military force and almost unlimited funds. The Lombards were rich, extremely warlike and their cities were well fortified. The latter is the expensive bit. Before the advent of canons, city walls could not be broken. To force entry required expensive siege towers and the stamina to starve out the population sometimes for years. You remember the sieges of tiny but fierce Crema and Alessandria, the city of straw? Frederick II needed to prepare for that and more.

And that meant he needed Sicily for the money and he needed the fierce warriors of Germany, “a land rich in soldiers” as Italian chroniclers had called it since the 10th century. By 1235 these German fighters were controlled by the princes, whether he liked it or not. A reconciliation with great imperial princes had to be made.

And that is where the aforementioned wedding comes in. Frederick’s second wife, Isabelle of Brienne, the queen of Jerusalem had died aged 16 when she gave birth to her son Konrad. This just for reference was not her first pregnancy. Since Isabella’s death in 1228 Frederick had negotiated various marriage alliance options but nothing had come of it. Now, in 1235 he was prepared to wed again. The bride he chose was another Isabelle, Isabelle Platagenent.

She was 21 years old and the sister of King Henry III of England. This marriage was a major shift in Hohenstaufen politics. Until now the Hohenstaufen tended to support the King of France in the perennial Anglo-French conflict. Meanwhile the House of Welf, their rivals had been closely related to the Angevin rulers of England. Otto IV had grown up at the English court and one of his major supporters were the merchants and citizens of Cologne who had close trading relations with the sceptred isle.   

The reason for this shift in alliances and hence the marriage was again all about Northern Italy.

Henry III had promised a dowry worth as much as 30,000 marks of silver as a contribution to the war chest, a sum significant enough, the rich king of England had to raise a special tax for it. But it is not all about money. The kingdom of France had by now stretched down south courtesy of the Albigensian crusade. That brought them uncomfortably close to the wealth of Italy. So it was quite handy that Henry III was preparing another campaign against the French to regain the lands of Anjou and Normandy, an effort that would keep the French busy.

The final and probably biggest benefit was that the marriage paved the way to a reconciliation between Welf and Hohenstaufen. As we have heard, the conflict between these two houses was not the dominant strain of domestic policy during the entire High Middle Ages. But it was a significant component, particularly these last 35 years. Though the Welf were much diminished in power, they still had some following, amongst it the city of Cologne, by now the richest, largest and most important city in Germany. To bring them into the fold, Frederick II had to address the Welf’s most painful grievance.

The mighty Welf, descendants of kings, whose family line goes back not just to Charlemagne but Odoacer and Attila the Hun, who lived in a palace in Braunschweig that rivals any imperial residence and who had been the most preeminent magnates in the empire and whose last head of house had been crowned emperor, these proud nobles had lost their status as imperial princes when Henry the Lion was stripped of his dukedoms of Bavaria and Saxony. The current head of the house of Welf was a simple noble, no duke, no landgrave, not even a meagre margrave. Nothing, just a free man with a lot of land.

In the status-ridden society of the 13th century that was a constant humiliating reminder of their fall. Frederick II was prepared to resolve that. A few months after the sumptuous wedding to Isabella in Worms he created a new duchy, the duchy of Brunswick.

The way this happened is somewhat revealing about the way vassalage worked in Germany. The current head of the house was Otto von Luneburg, called “the child” though he was now 31-years old. Otto had inherited the family possessions around Brunswick and Luneburg from his uncle, the Count Palatinate.

It is these lands that were now to be made into a separate duchy. A a duchy is by definition a fief of the emperor. In order to grant Otto these lands as a duchy, Otto first had to hand those lands over to the emperor. Legally it was a present, without recourse. Frederick then declared that: quote “Otto von Luneburg hath done us homage, and unmindful of all the hate and harassment that existed between our forefathers hath placed himself under our protection and at our service.” Unquote.

As a faithful imperial vassal Otto could expect to receive a fief that allowed him to fulfil his military obligations towards the empire. And so he received his lands back, plus Goslar and surroundings, not as his property, but as a fief, so technically a loan from the emperor. Since it was an imperial fief it could be elevated to a duchy, the duchy of Brunswick. So just to recap, Otto hands his privately owned lands to the emperor who makes them now royal lands that can be enfeoffed to that same man who previously owned them outright. This sounds like an awful deal for Otto, but it was not.

Yes, in principle the emperor could now enfeoff someone else with his lands. But that right had almost completely diminished. Already under Henry VI, the princes received the right to pass their lands by inheritance to distant family members and even to their son-in-laws. The recall of a fief was almost defunct, though we will see that Frederick and later emperors will still try.

Furthermore, Otto was now obliged to offer Frederick military support as an imperial vassal. But in return he was also entitled to imperial protection and support.

But the most important benefit however was the elevation to rank of imperial prince. That allows him to participate in imperial decision making and opens up all sorts of opportunities for consolidation and expansion of power, something that ends up for the house of Welf in a royal title.

So what about young Isabella, the one who made all this reconciliation possible? She was by all accounts an exceptionally beautiful woman, so beautiful indeed that people along her route into Germany constantly demanded to see her famous face. She received the most splendid welcome in Cologne, the city that was most keen on close relationships with England. Matthew Paris the English chronicler wrote that “Tens of thousands flocked to welcome her with flowers and palm branches and music. Riders on Spanish horses had performed with their lances the nuptial breaking of the staves, whilst ships which appeared to sail on dry land, but were drawn by horses concealed under silken coverings whilst the clerks of Colone played new airs on their instruments. The matrons seated on their balconies sang the praises of the empress’ beauty, when Isabella at their request laid aside hat and veil and showed her face”

Six weeks later the wedding was celebrated with all possible pomp and in the presence of a sea of bishops and a banner of knights. Frederick did not however stay with his bride on the wedding night. His astrologer had suggested the morning as more auspicious. Business over, he declared that Isabella was now with child and was sent to live behind closed doors in the royal palace of Palermo catered for by eunuchs and having an estimated five children. She was barely again seen in public and even her brother had to insist to be allowed to meet her.

The wedding took place in July 1235. A mere month later an even bigger gathering took place in Mainz. Frederick had called all the imperial princes to join him in one great assembly to confirm and swear upon a new constitution of the empire.

And they all came. The Archbishops of Mainz, Cologne, Trier, Salzburg, Besancon and Magdeburg. And amongst the bishops came those of Regensburg, Bamberg, Konstanz, Augsburg, Strassburg, Speyer, Basel, Hildesheim Osnabrück, Lüttich, Utrecht, Cambrai, Metz, Verdun, Naumburg, Merseburg, Passau, Eichstaedt and Freising. Then we had the great abbots of Murbach, Reichenau and Ellwangen, the dukes of Bavaria, Brabant, Saxony, Lothringia, Carinthia, the Landgrave of Thuringia, the Margraves of Baden, Meissen and Brandenburg and many, many more even I cannot be bothered to mention.  Everybody was there. It was almost a rerun of the great Pentecost assembly Barbarossa had held 50 years earlier.

But this time it was less about chivalric play and display, but about negotiations over the future shape of the empire and the upcoming campaign in Lombardy. The aforementioned reconciliation with the house of Welf took place here. The other great outcome of the event was the Mainzer Landfrieden, another public peace or more likely public truce that we have heard about since the reign of Henry III.

Gone are the days an emperor can simply order peace to be maintained, threatening anyone who were to pursue his demands by force of arms.

Feud is by now endemic in Germany. The logic is the same we talked about when we looked at the constitutions of Melfi. In the absence of a functioning judicial system of redress, society recognised feud as a viable way to resolve conflict. In the kingdom of Sicily, Frederick addressed the issue by establishing a complete system of appellate courts backed by central powers, a set of provisions intended to prevent and de-escalate conflict and a ban on privately held castles.

The idea to introduce the same in the empire was simply inconceivable. In the two great privileges, the one in favour of the bishops from 1220 and the more recent one in favour of the temporal princes, jurisdiction in princely territories had moved permanently from the imperial hands into princely hands. The process of passing laws in the Empire also involved the princes. Formally their role was purely advisory, but in practice any imperial Ukase issued without the bishops, dukes and margraves consent was not worth the parchment it was written on. And surely the princes would never consent to take down their castles. They would love to pass a law that ordered all their own vassals to take own their castles, but that is not something an emperor would be prepared to sign. So, the castles stay, all 20,000 of them. Even passing laws preventing the carrying of weapons or the provision that nobody can get out by saying that “the other guy started it” were seemingly not possible to get through.

But there were still 29 articles all sides could agree on. Some of those repeated the privileges granted in the documents from 1220 and 1232.

The new things were, that any feud had to be formally declared and that there would be a three-day cooling-off period before hostilities could begin. Further that certain acts of violence were prohibited upon sanction of instant imperial ban. These included setting things alight, in particular houses and castles.

And finally that before a feud could be formally declared, the parties have to go before a judge. Historians as I increasingly learn are not lawyers, and hence are keeping stum on what exactly this judge could decide and how a judgement could be enforced. I tried to read the original text but was no wiser. What is clear is that the parties have to get a judge’s decision, but either party is still able to initiate a feud if they do not like the outcome. So it seems the judge acts more as an arbitrator, attempting to diffuse the tension and arrive at a mutually acceptable solution. That is not a judgement as we would regard it today, but it was better than nothing.

In fact the establishment of a permanent imperial judge, even if he was just an arbitrator became the seed of what would later become the imperial courts that operated from 1495 to 1806 helping to maintain peace and order in the empire.

That does not sound very impressive for such an enormous gathering, the creation of a new duchy and a common peace with marginal improvements to the plague of feuds. But the most important purpose of this gathering was not to produce some formal agreement. Its significance lies more in the fact that it was the first opportunity for the princes and the emperor to operate the new constitution of the empire as it had been created by the privilege to the bishops in 1220 and the privilege to the princes in 1232.

We have discussed both before, but just as a recap. In these imperial charters, Frederick had passed most of the imperial rights first to the bishops and then to the other imperial princes. These included things like jurisdiction, the minting of coins, the building of castles, the establishment of tariff borders and posts etc. Any imperial prince would now have the right to exercise royal power within his territory.

The charters of 1220 and 1232 did in the eyes of many historians not really grant rights to these princes they did not have before. In all these endless wranglings with the royal authority at least since Henry IV’s forced trip to Canossa, the princes have continuously squeezed more and more concessions from the emperors. The civil wars after the death of Henry VI may have accelerated the process, but the direction had been set long before.

But importantly until 1220 and 1232, all the transfers of rights had been bilateral. I.e., every single right had been granted to an individual prince in an individual negotiation. Each prince would hence see his rights and privileges as the result of his own cunning or the dexterity of his ancestors.

The privileges of 1220 and 1232 were granted not to each individual prince, but to the bishops and to the temporal princes as a group. It formally created a distinction between imperial princes and mediated vassals. All imperial princes, irrespective whether they were bishops, abbots, dukes, landgraves, margraves or counts, all shared the same rank. They now exercised these rights not on the basis of some bilateral agreement, but because they were imperial princes. If you are an imperial prince you can for instance mint coins, if you are not, you cannot, unless the emperor or an imperial prince grants you the right. For instance the just created duke of Brunswick had exactly the same rights in his territory as the duke of Bavaria whose family had patiently gather them for over 200 years.

The definition of an imperial prince was that an individual had received a princely fief immediately from the emperor. That distinguishes them from the mediated nobles, i.e,. aristocrats who had received their fief from a territorial lord or even sometimes had no fief at all, just their own allodial, i.e., private lands.

This clarification of the rank of imperial prince had an immediate positive effect on the coherence of the empire. The princes feel reassured that their rights would not be taken away by a more assertive emperor. Because they are based on rank, the rights can only be removed by removing them from everyone of princely rank. Hence in any imperial attempt to roll back time, the princes would stand together.

It also meant that the princes were now integrated into the imperial project. The concept of the Honour of the Empire, that each prince was called upon to uphold, dates back to Barbarossa. Now it gains even more traction. The princes are the pillars of the empire, they have an obligation to support the emperor and provide the Reichsdienst, the service to the empire..

I have often wondered why in periods of almost completely diminished royal authority, say in the late 13th century none of the larger territories, say Bavaria, Austria, Saxony or Bohemia decided to throw off the yoke of imperial oversight. I doubt it was purely for reasons of language or cultural affinity. That for example did not stop the Swiss.

The princes, even the biggest ones, had seen some compelling benefits in this coordination mechanism where they were integrated in the decision-making process at the top level whilst free to act as they wished within their territory. 19th century historians often criticised Frederick’s charters of 1220 and 1232 as the nail in the coffin of any hope of early statehood for Germany. I would agree that these decisions cemented a development already under way that may, just may have been reversed. And I am convinced the territorialisation of Germany resulted in a significant slowing down of economic development. But we should not overlook the fact that the empire held together for another 571 years using broadly this framework.

Peter Wilson, Olaf B. Rader and others draw a parallel to Magna Carta which was granted around the same time. Like in Frederick’s privileges, the king of England is passing some fundamental royal rights to his nobles. The difference is though that in England the rights go to parliament, an institution the membership of which can change. That has allowed for a gradual development where through a change in the composition of the membership of parliament and the transfer of more rights to this institution, you could ultimately arrive at democracy.

In Germany the royal rights transferred not to an institution, but to individuals based on rank. These individuals change over time, in case of bishops through the regular election of new holders of the post and in case of the temporal princes through inheritance, elevation and division. But that is not the same as passing them on to an institution.

At least not yet. By 1495 the participation of princes and other holders of I,perils immediacy became instutiinalised in the Reichstag of the Holy Roman Empire. But the Reichstag despite over 300 years of existence did not become the nucleus of a democratic Germany. I have my views about why and how that happened, but if I have learned one thing over the last 82 episodes, it is to keep my mouth shut until I have properly researched the topic.

And as we are talking about mouth shut, these last episodes were a bit too long for what I promised. And I do not want to put out another 35 minute one. Hence, I will skip the bit about the reburial of Saint Elisabeth of Hungary or as the Germans call her Saint Elisabeth of Thuringia. It would have shone a light on one of the very, very few saints I do have genuine regard for, but ultimately, she did not have a major impact on history, as gentle, caring people rarely do. I will produce a Patreon episode about her, so if you still want to hear more, about Elisabeth and the much less caring and much less gentle Konrad von Marburg, just go over to Patreon, support the show and take a listen.

Otherwise, next week we will take a look at some of the most fascinating aspects of Frederick II, outside his political life. We will talk architecture, poetry, science and his true passion, the arte de venandi con avibus, the art of hunting with birds. I hope it will be a nice breather before the sound of clashing horses and ring of swords on armour dominate the rest of this season of the History of the Germans Podcast.

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The sad story of Henry (VII), son of the emperor and rebel

If you have only listened to the last 5 episodes or so, you may be wondering whether this is really the History of the Germans or whether you have accidentally stumbled into A History of Italy minus the eloquence and humour of Mike Corradi. So today we will leave the shores of the Mediterranean to travel up north, though not with a train of mules carrying gold and silver, camels, dromedaries, leopards and apes as Fredrick II did in 1235. The reason for that journey was nowhere near as joyous as the display of wealth and exotic animals suggests. It is a tale of a father and son relationship that went disastrously wrong…

But let me not spoil this amazing story for you yet.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to the History of the Germans: Episode 81 – The King in Brackets

If you have only listened to the last 5 episodes or so, you may be wondering whether this is really the History of the Germans or whether you have accidentally stumbled into A History of Italy minus the eloquence and humour of Mike Corradi. So today we will leave the shores of the Mediterranean to travel up north, though not with a train of mules carrying gold and silver, camels, dromedaries, leopards and apes as Fredrick II did in 1235. The reason for that journey was nowhere near as joyous as the display of wealth and exotic animals suggests. It is a tale of a father and son relationship that went disastrously wrong…

But let me not spoil this amazing story for you yet.

Before we start, I will today not remind you that the History of the Germans is advertising free thanks to the generous support of my patrons. You probably know this by now. What you will also know is that very occasionally I highlight other history podcasts I enjoy, and I think you may enjoy too. One of those is Anglo Saxon England by Tom Kearns. Tom is a fully fledged academic with an Oxbridge background and a phd in Anglo-Saxon History. But do not let that stop you from listening. He is an excellent narrator who brings the stories to life and is the only one who made me finally understand how all these little English kingdoms all link up. If you like following the journey of a podcaster from the beginning, Tom is your man. He is on episode 28, so you can easily catch up. His podcast is called Anglo-Saxon England by Tom Kearns.

Anglo-Saxon England | Podcast on Spotify

Last week we took a possibly too detailed look at the Constitutions of Melfi, Frederick II’s great lawbook. I apologise if that was dragging on a bit, but I am a lawyer by training and I cannot help myself.

If law is not your thing and you have skipped after 10 minutes, here is the bit you need to remember. By 1231 Frederick II had made Sicily into a state where according to his enemy Pope Gregory IX “no man can raise a hand or a foot without Imperial consent”. He had brought peace and justice to his kingdom and was collecting taxes to fund his bureaucracy and armies.  In other words, his Kingdom of Sicily was as stable and as well managed as it could ever be. He now had the bandwidth to take charge of Imperial affairs. And the empire meant two things, Northern Italy and its Lombard league was one part, and the realm north of the Alps a second one. It is the latter he was most concerned with in the first half of this decade.

Frederick had left Germany in 1220 and for the last decade had left his eldest son and heir, Henry in charge. Henry had been elected and crowned as King of the Romans, the title an emperor acquired before imperial coronation in Rome.

Henry was born in 1211 in Sicily. His mother was Constance of Aragorn, the first wife of Frederick II. He was just a year old when he was crowed king of Sicily as had been requested by pope Innocent III. 5 years later, he is now just 6 years old, Frederick called him and his mother up to Germany.

We know nothing about the relationship between father and son in these four years from 1216 to 1220 the only significant amount of time they will ever spend together. His parents were probably not on brilliant terms. Frederick never had much regard for his wives. You may remember that previous emperors like Otto the Great, Otto II, Henry II and Konrad II granted their wives significant roles at court and describing them in their charters as “sharing in the imperial authority”. Barbarossa did not go that far but still recognised his wife Beatrix’s importance as an imperial prince and the mother of his children. Frederick II did take an almost oriental approach to his wives. Constance’s successors were often confined to the women’s quarters of the palace, rarely seen and certainly without any political influence. Constance had been a bit better off, probably because she was much older when she married 16-year-old Frederick and came with important political connections.

But that did not stop Frederick from maintaining liaisons with a string of women and fathering a whole brace of illegitimate children.  These children and mistresses lived at court which may have impinged on marital harmony. Whether that affected Henry, we do not know.

When his father finally set off for Italy in 1220, he left Henry behind to be brought up by imperial princes loyal to the Hohenstaufen cause. The first of those was bishop Engelbert of Cologne.  

How much time he spent educating young Henry is again unclear, nor what kind of emotional support he received Engelbert was a busy man. He was a member of the family of the counts of Berg whose main residence was confusingly called Schloss Burg, which translates as castle castle. If you have grown up near Dusseldorf as I have, chances are you have made a school trip to castle castle, which is another 19th century reconstruction of dubious accuracy.

 Engelbert was a typical member  of the 13th century imperial high aristocracy – well versed in weaponry, ambitious and not much interested in pastoral care.

He was pursuing a policy all of his fellow imperial princes were following at the time, something called territorialisation. What that meant is basically an extension of princely power not just horizontally by acquiring more territory but vertically, i.e., consolidating and deepening their influence. Engelbert systematically pulled in rights and privileges that had been held by vassals or Ministeriales and transferred the, into direct archepiscopal control. You remember in the 10th century it was common that multiple institutions would hold rights in the same territory. Say the count as a royal vassal would be in charge of justice, most of the land was held by another aristocrat as his private, allodial possession. The bridge and its tolls were owned by the bishop, whilst the monastery operated the mills. Coins in use may be from the royal mint or from a completely different prince. Equally a fourth one would have the right to claim tariffs for transport on the river whilst the local bishop would refuse to pay any taxes or tolls based again on royal privileges.  What the imperial princes have been doing these last 200 years and will continue to do over the next 500 is to consolidate all these individual rights and privileges until there is only one authority in each area.

That creates conflict. The local aristocrats were not happy being sucked underneath the control of an imperial prince. The same goes for the Ministeriales who by now barely remember their servile status and have become almost indistinguishable from knights and other non-princely aristocrats. And the other group unhappy with this were the cities. Though most of them had been founded by imperial princes, by the 13th century they were increasingly rubbing up against the tightening territorial powers. As the century progresses fee imperial cities emerge who, like imperial princes, are only subject to imperial vassalage and refute any interference by territorial lords. The city leagues are beginning to emerge, the most famous of which will be the Hanseatic League. For the major cities that had been the seat of a bishop, this creates an additional layer of conflict. We already heard about the City of Cologne occasionally pursuing its own political objectives that did not always match those of the archbishop. But for now the archbishop can still reside in Cologne, not yet chucked out to live in Bonn.

Engelbert as I said was in the midst of all this. His policy to consolidate power in the Rhineland as well as in the duchy of Westphalia was no different to what others were doing. But he had the advantage of being the guardian of the young king and regent of the kingdom.

When I said he operated no different to his peers, I mean he was happy to employ military might to get what he wanted. He fought two feuds with the duke of Limburg over his family’s inheritance. As was typical at the time, the bloody conflict did not end with the defeat of either party, but with ritual reconciliation and compromise. The duke of Limburg and the archbishop embraced, and an agreement was signed whereby the duke got an annual subsidy and the right to inherit after Engelbert’s death, but the family lands were Engelbert’s for now. The use of brute force in the pursuit of territorial or financial gain was common and as we see from this, had limited downside for the main protagonists. Once military capacity was spent, the parties almost always reconciled and if anything may lose a little bit of their possessions.

Risks may be manageable for the principals in the conflicts, but they weren‘t zero. Sometimes even a mighty Archbishop and regent of the empire can fall victim to the reckless and brutal politics of the age. In 1225 one of the Engelbert‘s vassals, the count of Isenburg had decided to kidnap the archbishop, presumably to force him to concede on some contested issue. He and his men ambushed the prelate when he was travelling between Soest and Cologne. But things went wrong when the archbishop refused to come along quietly. Engelbert was nearly six foot tall and well versed in the use of weapons. The count lost control of the situation and his Ministeriales cut down the archbishop. Later forensic analysis of his bones showed that he received more than 50 blows with sharp metal objects. That was sufficiently bad behaviour to bring about repercussions for the count who was caught and beheaded. Engelbert – as you would expect – became a saint, at least in Cologne.

Thus ended the first period of guardianship for young Henry.  

Henry was now 14 years old. At that age his father had taken personal responsibility of the kingdom of Sicily. Henry might have expected something similar, at least a transition towards personal rule with a less intrusive guardianship. But that was not forthcoming. Instead his father appointed Ludwig, duke of Bavaria as the new guardian and regent. You may remember him. He is the same Ludwig who did move across to the papal side in 1228 and ended up defeated by young Henry, only to die under mysterious circumstances 2 years later.

Henry was not happy about having another guardian, nor was he delighted when his father arranged for him to marry Margaret, a daughter of the duke of Austria who was seven years his senior.

When Henry’s minority formally ended in 1228, the relationship between father and son wasn’t off to a good start. It improved a bit when Henry defeated Ludwig of Bavaria in 1229 thereby significantly improving Frederick’s position vis-a-vis the pope. But things will get difficult soon.

I gave you all this rundown about Engelbert not just because it reminded me of a rain sodden afternoon in my childhood trotting up to Castle Castle with my schoolmates, at least one of whom I think listens to the podcast – Hi Ulf.

The reason we went through that is to show how Henry’s view of the political realities of his kingdom was shaped. Henry had grown up as a German prince, not just that but as the elected and crowned king of the Romans and future emperor. His tutors will have told him about the lives of all the Henries before him. Henry the Fowler who had brought the fragmented kingdom back together, Henry II who built a kingdom of god, Henry IV who fought and fought and fought against the princely overreach, Henry V who had concluded the concordat of Worms that had given him at least some influence on the bishops, a right lost since his father traded it for his election, and his grandfather Henry VI who had set off for Sicily hoping to gain the resources needed to force the German princes into submission.

And outside his window he sees first-hand what has become of the empire. Imperial princes were filching more and more of royal lands. The revenues of the king had dwindled as tolls, tariffs and mints had moved from the royal purse to the counts, dukes and bishops. No longer could a ruler call upon the knights of the realm to ride against his foes,, no, he had to ask the imperial princes to provide these forces. Most vassals only swore an oath to their territorial lord, not to the king any more.

Meanwhile in neighbouring France the king had first consolidated most of the former Angevin empire and was busy wiping out the counts of Toulouse in the south. In France every subject was swearing fealty to the king – except obviously in the lands the king of England still possessed.

Henry believed that it was in his job description to bring the kingdom back together, to consolidate royal powers and become a new Henry the Fowler or Barbarossa. He even had an idea how to do it.

He had natural allies, the cities, the lower nobility and the Ministeriales. All these people who were losing out in the drive towards territorialisation. The problem with these allies was that they were individually not very powerful. Henry had resources of his own, the duchy of Swabia and the family lands in Alsace and along the Main River all the way into Bohemia. After the fall of Henry the Lion, he was individually the most powerful of the territorial lords.

But that was not enough. He needed some allies, some bishops, some dukes, margraves, landgraves you name it.

Now these guys had zero incentive to sign up to a political program that was trying to roll back all the gains these guys had made since the death of Henry VI. In fact it was near suicidal to sign up for such a policy. Territorialisation was entirely binary. Either you and your clan became the territorial ruler or the subject of a territorial ruler. Any family that did not make it to imperial prince by 1250 disappeared from the frontline of German politics for good.

But the princes had an Achilles heel, money. Most of them were perennially broke. Being a territorial lord is expensive business. First up there is the need for bling. The princes would compete over who had the most splendid courts. In Marburg, Mainz, Cologne or Vienna an endless sequence of tournaments, feasts and festivals displayed the power and importance of the local lord. Knights would relish in the opportunities to display chivalric valour and courtly love. Men and women wore increasingly tight clothes, and the men in particular went on to display their shapely legs by cutting open their trouser legs. A well-formed quad muscle was the sixpack of the 13th century. And the girls were equally willing to display their assets in ever more daring garb.

And before you think medieval love was all platonic longing, playing the harp below a tower and dying in defence of the honour of a aiden, here are some verses from Walter von der Vogelweide:

Under the linden tree

on the heath,

where we shared a bed,

there you may find

beautiful to look at,

broken flowers and grass.

Near the forest in a vale,

tandaradei,

beautiful sang the nightingale.

I came to meet him

in that meadow,

there my beloved had come before me.

such I was received –

Oh Queen of Heavan! -,

that I would be blessed forever.

Did he kiss me? – Probably a thousand times and some!

Tandaradei,

look how red my mouth is!

If someone knew

He lay with me

God forbid! – for shame I’d die

What we did together,

I don’t want anyone to know

Except for him and me

and a little bird,

tandaradei –

but he won’t tell.

That frill was however not the biggest expense. That was the cost of acquisition of new territories, rights and privileges. Sometimes it was done by force which required the hiring of mercenaries or at least the cost of keeping the Ministeriales and vassals supplied. In other cases it was simple outright purchase.

On occasion, say a juice deal comes available or a rival invades your territory, money needed to be mobilised quickly. The only ones who could do that were money men from the Italian cities, from Bologna, Florence, Lucca or Asti. They had learned about money transfer during the crusades when princes and knights needed to have funds sent through from home. This infrastructure and experience with bills of exchange and pledges of lands and assets were now put to good use. The bankers offered ready access to money to any prince happy to pay extortionate interest and pledge their property. Lending to the spiritual lords, the bishops and abbots was particularly attractive. Under church law a priest could only borrow with the consent of the pope since the security was unalienable church land. Lenders would demand the papal authorisation and usually a commitment that the whole church would pay the debt and that in case of failure to pay the pope would automatically excommunicate the borrower. That made loans to bishops and archbishops cheaper, but at the same time the bishops and archbishops became more and more dependent upon the pope.

The counter to that rise in papal influence would have been imperial money. Sicily was enormously rich and with this money a king of the Romans could have bought himself enough bankrupt princes to roll back the tide.

That was the plan. Bring together the lower nobles, the cities and buy some imperial princes with Sicilian money and roll back the last 20 years of declining imperial authority.

That was a sound plan. Any emperor who had grown up North of the Alps, a Barbarossa or a Henry IV would have looked to implement such a plan. Form where they came from, it made sense.

But there is the problem with this plan though. Frederick II was the emperor, and he was not an emperor who had grown up in the German lands. He did not share this world view and had a different set of priorities.

When Frederick had first come to Germany in 1212, his main objective was to prevent any future attacks on his kingdom of Sicily. The crown as king of the Romans was in his eyes more of an insurance policy than a central tenet of his policy.

This perspective shifted after his coronation as emperor and the reorganisation of Sicily. With his position in Southern Italy now secured he could direct his ambition towards imperial matters. When he thought about empire, he did not see Otto the Great, Henry III and Barbarossa, he saw Caesar, Augustus, Trajan, and Constantine. In his view, the emperor is not just the ruler of three kingdoms, Germany, Italy and Burgundy, but the emperor is the monarch who rules over all the world and all the other monarchs, the reguli, the little kings.

There are two swords granted by god, the spiritual sword the one made of words and sacraments that is to be wielded by the pope and then there is the temporal sword, the one made from iron, to be gipped firmly by an emperor. This concept may be ancient and broadly in line with church doctrine. But by 1230 the popes had moved on from there to a notion that the spiritual power of the church stands above the temporal rule and that kings and emperors are to take orders from them.

If Frederick wanted to make his vision real, conflict with the papacy was inevitable. Frederick knew that. And he also knew that the key to this conflict lay in Italy, now that Sicily was his, in Northern Italy. The imperial hold on northern Italy had weakened since the days of Henry VI. Under his father the relationship between the empire and the Lombard League had been almost cordial. After all, Henry VI celebrated his marriage in Milan. But that is now 35 years ago. In the meantime, the Lombard cities had stopped paying the agreed imperial taxes and returned to their previous pastime of endless internecine warfare.

Internally the Italian cities were riven with factions, the Ghibellines and the Guelfs. The Ghibellines were socially members of the city aristocracy. Not the aristocracy of money, it w the land-owning aristocracy who in Italy lived inside the cities in their enormous noble towers. They were broadly supportive of the emperor. The Guelfs were recruited mostly from the emerging class of merchants and bankers. They were loyal to the pope, not for particular religious reasons, but because the church was not only rich but also a heavy user of the emerging banking industry. The papacy would play these factions by awarding their business to merchants in Guelf cities and withdrawing it from cities that had shifted back to the Ghibellines.

If Frederick wanted to control the pope, he needed to support the Ghibellines, politically, financially and, above all, militarily. Militarily he could count on his Sicilian army, but that was not enough. He needed reinforcements from the North. He needed the Imperial Princes. They were the only nes who could muster a few thousand knights to help his campaigns in Lombardy. The last thing he wanted was the princes to be tied up in a protracted struggle with his son. It simply was not the right time to fight for royal rights in Germany. Italy first, Germany second. As far as Frederick was concerned, Henry should put his ambitions on the back burner and work to support his father.

But neither of them seems to have comprehended the other’s position. They had not seen each other since Henry was 9 years old. He did not know him, did not know his friends or what he thought about the world.

And then there is the language issue. Henry spoke German not as his mother tongue in the formal sense of the word since his mother was Spanish, but it was the language he had used since adolescence, the language he operated in daily.  Frederick’s main language, the language he used in his poetry was Sicilian Italian. Formal letters between the two were likely in Latin if produced by their respective chancellors. One can assume that some things were simply lost in translation.

The imperial princes were quickly wizening up to the fact that father and son were at odds about strategy. So when Henry clamped down on their position, they simply wrote to Frederick, and he reversed his son’s decision.

This was humiliating for Henry who was after all a king, and not any odd king, but the king of the Romans and the future emperor. His authority was being eroded by his own father, a father who he believed simply did not understand the situation in Germany and what was needed to bring the empire back to its former glory. Meanwhile the father despaired of the son, who was unable to see the bigger picture, who could not get his head around the fact that Germany was only one part of the all-encompassing empire, and that the battlefield was Lombardy.

The next humiliation for Henry came when he tried to divorce his wife, the daughter of the Austrian duke in order to marry Agnes of Bohemia. His father denied him that because he needed Austria for his plans in Italy, whilst he had no use for Bohemia.

Whilst Henry’s relationship with his father is gradually deteriorating, his position vis-à-vis the princes is collapsing. In 1230 he granted wide ranging autonomy to the cities, in particular to elect their city council without having to seek permission from the bishop or secular territorial lord and to form city leagues. In January 1231 at a royal assembly the princes came together and issued a verdict, rendering Henry’s previous grant null and void. They banned the cities from forming associations and made the members of the city councils dependent upon prior approval of the lord.

That verdict was then written up and issued by the royal chancellery as as if it had come from henry himself. Henry was seemingly unable to prevent this from happening, though I could not find a detailed explanation why and how.

Emboldened by their success, in May 1231 the princes did the same thing again, but now went for the whole gambit. Once again, they made Henry (VII) issue a royal charter, a charter that transfers all remaining regalia, i.e., the right to issue coins, to demand tariffs and tolls, to hold court, to build castles or to found new cities to the princes. The ecclesiastical princes already enjoyed such rights thanks to Frederick’s golden bull from 1220.

And it may be true that most of the temporal princes held similar rights before on the basis of individual privileges, but with this decision, every imperial prince automatically enjoys what is essentially freedom from imperial interference. the emperor recedes from direct ruler to a mediated ruler who acts through the imperial princes. For Henry this was a political catastrophe, and he blamed his father’s reluctance to support him for it.

For December 1131 Frederick calls an imperial assembly in Ravenna, inviting all his vassals in Italy, Burgundy and Germany to come together. Only a few princes show up since Verona had closed the Brenner pass. But what infuriated Frederick II most was that his son did not come, indeed did not even make an effort to come down.

Frederick has to set a new date for the royal assembly, this time in Aquilea, much closer to Germany. He makes it abundantly clear that he expects his son to put in an appearance.

Henry cannot hold out any longer and indeed shows up in Northern Italy. There he is subjected to more humiliation. He is not allowed to enter the city of Aquilea before he has publicly asked his father for forgiveness and after swearing total obedience to him. Frederick renews the ordinance from 1231 that granted the territorial princes the freedom to do as they liked within their territory. Henry has to swear to treat the princes as “lights and protectors of the empire” and “apples of the emperor’s eye”. To round it all up, he makes Henry write to the pope that if he should in any way disrespect his fathers’ wishes, the pope was to automatically excommunicate him.

Henry is 20-years-old. What do you think a 20-yearold does after treatment like that? Exactly.  “apples of my fathers eye – you got it coming”.

Henry goes back to Germany, tears up all the ordinances he did not like, grants the citizens of Worms the right to form a city council and to enter into leagues of cities if they so wished.

Bang, automatic excommunication. In turn Henry goes into outright rebellion. He has some friends amongst the bishops, a smattering of princes some cities and members of the lower nobility join him. Not exactly the greatest of rebellions, but not nothing. He treats it as a feud, as a message to his father that his treatment is unacceptable. At no point was he realistically able to overthrow his father.

When his father does not yield to what he believes are his rightful demands, he has to up the ante. He thrusts a knife into the heart of his father’s policies; he forms an alliance with the Lombard League.

That is it. In 1235 Frederick II comes to Germany to sort this out. Did he take an army to subdue his rebellious son? No. As the chronicler said, “he progressed with the utmost pomp, many chariots followed him laden with gold and silver, with byssus and with purple, with gems and costly vessels. He had with him camels, dromedaries, apes and leopards, with Saracens and dark-skinned Ethiopians skilled in arts of many kinds, who served as guards for his money and his treasure”.

He had barely crossed into Bavaria before the German princes flocked to his banner. Whether they were in awe of the display of his menagerie and the exotic attendants or more likely the lure of gold and silver, they hoped would replenish their empty coffres, we leave to history.

Suffice to say Henry’s rebellion collapsed within days and he had to sue for his father’s forgiveness. Being brought up in the German society of the 13th century, he expected his father to sternly reprimand him and then make him undergo a ritual submission. But once that is done he will be left in peace and position afterwards, right? That is how conflict resolution was done in the German lands ever since time immemorial. You remember Otto the great not just forgiving his brother Henry two rebellions and an assassination attempt but making him duke of Bavaria. Even Konrad II, the most warlike of emperors forgave his son Henry III his disobedience.

Henry attempted to throw himself at his father’s feet at the Pfalz in Wimpfen. But he he was not let into the imperial presence. Instead he was carried along to Worms as a prisoner. There in Worms, after a few days in confinement he was finally led into the audience hall. Now he threw himself on the floor crying and begging for forgiveness for his sins.  His father did not move a muscle. He left his son lying there. Second stretched into minutes. The German nobles watched in bewilderment. The normal process was for the emperor to allow his son to rise again. But no.  Finally some of the princes could not stand it any longer that their king was still prostrate and intervened on his behalf.  After even more delay his father finally gave him the order to stand up. Henry again begged forgiveness, promised to give up all his possessions and renounce the crown for now and for ever.

Another, final misunderstanding. In Southern Italy there was only one resolution for high treason, death. Henry’s alliance with the Lombard League, that was high treason. And Frederick was a Sicilian who will apply Sicilian justice.

The verdict was High Treason. Only Henry’s renunciation of the crown saved his life. Frederick was prepared to commute his sentence from death to life imprisonment. Henry was brought to Sicily, first to a castle near Melfi, 6 years later he was moved to Nicastro. There he fell ill with disease probably leprosy. In 1242 during another transfer Henry rode his horse over a cliff. He was 30 years of age. He was buried in the church of Cosenza in a marble sarcophagus, clad in a shroud of gold and silver into which eagles’ feathers were woven. A Franciscan preached the final sermon and chose as his text: And Abraham stretched forth his hand and took the knife to slay his son”.

Frederick mourned his son’s death. In the letter ordering the details of the funeral he wrote: quote “The pity of a tender father must yield to the judgement of the stern judge; we mourn the doom of our first-born. Nature bids flow the flood of tears, but they are checked by the pain of injury and the inflexibility of justice” end quote.

Did he have a choice to forgive his son? One would have thought so given other examples where forgiveness had worked. But for that Frederick would have had to understand and trust his son, and his son would have had to grasp his father’s strategy. But they did not. And now one of them is dead. So dead, he is almost written out of history. Numerically he would have been Henry VII, but there is another Henry VII in the early 14th century. So this Henry is known as Henry der Klammersiebte, Henry VII (in brackets), a name most appropriate for his position, bracketed in between the imperial princes and his father, his ambition and his inability to communicate it.

Next week we will talk a bit more about the impact this privilege to the princes had on the constitution of the Holy Roman empire. Plus Frederick issues some more laws, makes an interesting verdict and marries an English Rose that he will send into his harem to wither away like her predecessors. I hope you will join us again.

Before I go, let me thank all of you who are supporting the show, in particular the Patrons who have kindly signed up on patreon.com/historyofthegermans. It is thanks to you this show does not have to do advertising for matrasses or as I recently heard energy supplements and pension plans. If Patreon isn’t for you, another way to help the show is sharing the podcast directly or boosting its recognition on social media. If you share, comment or retweet a post from the History of the Germans it is more likely to be seen by others, hence bringing in more listeners. My most active places are Twitter @germanshistory and my Facebook page History of the Germans Podcast. As always, all the links are in the show notes.   

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Frederick II in Germany and the Sanctification of Charlemagne

This week we take a look at the reign of Frederick II in Germany from 1212 to 1220. Most of what he did was putting a nail in an actual coffin whilst also putting the metaphorical nail into the carcass of imperial rule in Germany.

And was that such a bad thing? What happens when the emperor just hands out what is left of the royal demesne? Cathedrals go up, princes hold splendid courts and none of them think about disturbing the peace in Italy. If you are the king of Sicily, that is a near perfect result.

And if you are the pope, even more so, in particular when Frederick II throws in a brand-new crusade and swears on all that is holy that he would never pursue a link-up between Sicily and the empire.

Everybody happy? Let’s see..

Transcript

Hello and welcome to the History of the Germans: Episode 77 – The Nail in the Coffin

This week we take a look at the reign of Frederick II in Germany from 1212 to 1220. Most of what he did was putting a nail in an actual coffin whilst also putting the metaphorical nail into the carcass of imperial rule in Germany.

And was that such a bad thing? What happens when the emperor just hands out what is left of the royal demesne? Cathedrals go up, princes hold splendid courts and none of them think about disturbing the peace in Italy. If you are the king of Sicily, that is a near perfect result.

And if you are the pope, even more so, in particular when Frederick II throws in a brand-new crusade and swears on all that is holy that he would never pursue a link-up between Sicily and the empire.

Everybody happy? Let’s see..

Before we start just a reminder. The History of the Germans Podcast is advertising free thanks to the generous support from patrons. And you can become a patron too and enjoy exclusive bonus episodes and other privileges from the price of a latte per month. All you have to do is sign up at patreon.com/historyofthegermans or on my website historyofthegermans.com. You find all the links in the show notes. And thanks a lot to Sharon, q and John who have already signed up.

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Let’s start and end this episode with Frederick II’s relationship with the papacy, something we will probably have to do in most upcoming episodes as well, so brace yourselves.

Frederick’s trip to Germany had been sponsored financially and politically by his godfather, pope Innocent III. And once Frederick had settled down north of the Alps, had been elected and gone through his first coronation, it was payback time. Payback happened in the shape of the Golden Bull of Eger. A golden bull is not a grown-up version of the Golden calf the Israelites danced around. It refers to a decree that had received a special status thanks to the use of a golden seal, a bulla aurea. These golden bulls were rare and usually reserved for the most important decisions. The most famous of those was the Golden bull of 1356 that set forth the constitution of the Holy Roman Empire, namely the institution of the 7 electors.

Golden Bull of 1356

In short, in 1213 Frederick II issued a decree that was to be of utmost importance. It consisted of three main commitments. First that the crown gives up the right to the spolia, i.e., the right to receive the income from any bishopric that happened to be vacant after the incumbent’s death. Second, Frederick II gives up his rights to decide contested episcopal elections, and finally he recognises the pope’s right to central Italy, specifically to the March of Ancona and the duchy of Spoleto. That is pretty much the end of the concordat of Worms. The church in Germany is now fully independent of the emperor. All its resources can now be used as the bishops wish. All the generous donations in lands and rights that the Ottonian emperors had made in the hope these would remain at their disposal are lost to the crown for good.

In 1216 when his rule is fully established Frederick was made to swear to these concessions again and had to get the imperial princes themselves to swear to them as well. And he had to agree to another condition. He had to abandon the crown of Sicily in favour of his son Henry, so as to ensure that there would not be a union between the Holy Roman Empire and Sicily, a union that would encircle the papal states.

“Recuperation”of the Papal States under Innicent III

We all know by now know what an oath is worth in 1216. At no point did Frederick II contemplate to put down the crown of Sicily. Southern Italy is his home. Even though he now styles himself all Swabian grandson of Barbarossa, in truth, the only reason he came up to Germany in first place was to protect Sicily from imperial invasions.

He comes up with a cunning plan to outmanoeuvre the pope. If he cannot be king of Sicily and emperor at the same time, well, let us see whether my son Henry can. Whilst he solemnly reaffirms all these commitments about not being king of Sicily anymore, he negotiates with the princes about electing young Henry as king of the Romans. And in December 1216 young Henry and Frederick’s wife, Constance of Aragon arrive in Nurnberg and by 1220 young Henry is elected and crowned.

One reason Frederick gets away with such blatant disregard for his godfather is that he died, quite unexpectedly, in 1216. Innocent III had been a young man by papal standards when he was elected, just 37 years old. He died on July 16th, 1216 of a recurring malaria in Perugia. Sometimes the great defence mechanism of the papacy takes one of its own..  

Earlier that year he had presided over the 4th Lateran council, which must count as the absolute high point of medieval papal authority. Present were 400 bishops and archbishops from all corners of the Christian world. Even the patriarchs of Constantinople, Jerusalem, Antioch and Alexandria had come. 800 abbots and priors as well as delegates of the emperors, both our Frederick as well as the now Latin emperor of Constantinople, the kings of England, France, Aragon, Hungary, Cyprus and Jerusalem. Remember that in 1204 the fourth crusade had taken Constantinople and placed a French nobleman onto the throne of the Basileus.

Innocent III at the 4th Lateran Council (19th century engraving)

The council promulgated 71 decrees covering a remarkable wide field. The doctrine of transubstantiation was defined in the very first of them. Number 13 forbade the formation of new religious orders, though the Dominicans were approved at the same council, the 18th abolished the use of boiling water and red-hot irons in trials by ordeal; the 21st insisted on confession and communion for all Catholics at least once a year at easter; the 31st banned illegitimate sons of clergy taking over their father’s churches. The last segments were directed against the Jews. No Christian was to have commerce with Jewish usurers; both Jews and Muslims had to wear distinctive dress, nor were they allowed to be seen in public during Holy Week.

But at least he did not call for their expulsion or destruction. That was reserved to heretics, namely the Albigensian or Cathars of Southwest France. The 4th Lateran Council granted any knight who would be prepared to undertake the tough job of slaughtering peasants a free ticket to paradise.

The overarching theme of the council was however the recapture of the holy sites in Palestine. The crusader states still clung on to the coastline but despite several attempts, including the huge third crusade, Jerusalem was still in Muslim hands. After the catastrophe that was the 4th crusade, pope Innocent III did even contemplate to take a crusader army to Outre Mer himself. As the true emperor that he saw himself, that was a natural conclusion. A date for the crusade was set for 1217 and a special tax was levied on all bishops and cardinals to fund the expedition. That project collapsed with the death of Innocent III.

Though Innocent III was probably the most powerful medieval pope, his remains did not get treated with the respect they deserved. The night after his death, the house he had died in was raided and his body stolen. It was found the next morning, stripped naked in the street, rapidly decomposing in the heat. The citizens of Perugia buried him hastily in their cathedral. It is said that his bones ended up being mixed up with those of Urban IV and Martin IV in a box that was kept in the sacristy. In the 19th century Leo XIII ordered that the bones should be brought to Rome to be buried in a splendid tomb in St. John Lateran. A priest was dispatched to pick them up. Innocent III came back to Rome by train in a simple suitcase.

Tomb of Innocent III

“Brief and empty is the deceptive glory of this world” is what Jacques de Vitry said when he saw the popes naked body in the street.

Innocent III’s successor was Honorius III, a much older man and, as it happens, a former tutor of Frederick in his very early years. We will get back to Honorius towards the end of the episode when he will perform the imperial coronation in Rome.

The pope is as we know by now only one of the trifecta of horrors an emperor has to deal with. The other two are the princes and the Italian communes. We get to the communes in one of the next episodes, so today it is only imperial princes.

The way Frederick dealt with them was a combination of exalted ritual and plain bribery. Bribery was the way Philipp and Otto IV had competed for the crown and Frederick just continued the process. Other than Philipp he had never seen a different model of how to manage the Holy Roman Empire and none of the princes would have told him otherwise. And there is also the question whether there was a road back to the governance in the first years of Barbarossa’s reign. The idea that an emperor could rally his princes behind him with the promise of the riches of Italy had died from dysentery before the walls of Rome in 1167. Even Frederick’s grandfather had replaced a policy of centralising royal power with a policy to strengthen the territorial power of the Hohenstaufen family.

But Fredericks level of generosity was unprecedented, in particular given his rival, Otto IV was utterly defeated and by 1218 also utterly dead. Even poor Walter von der Vogelweide, the itinerant Minnesaenger finally gets his fief that allows him to live in relative comfort.

The most generous donation though goes to the bishops. In 1220 he agrees to the Confoederatio cum principibus ecclesiasticis. A very long word for the total abandonment of even the last remaining vestiges of royal power in ecclesiastical lands. He hands over the right to mint coins and raise duties on the rivers.  These are the most financially valuable rights. The right to mint coins does not just involve the ability to physically stamp coins, but it also includes the right to determine which coins are legal tender. And that can be really lucrative. The tradition was to declare certain coins invalid as of a particular day and require the inhabitants of the territory to swap them for either a smaller number or inferior coins. The prince or king would then pocket the difference. This may help filling the pockets of the bishop but had devastating impact on the economy. Constant devaluation or replacement of the currency created uncertainty and made transactions riskier. In England the kings did not resort to such policies. The English pound remained fairly stable throughout the Middle Ages despite occasional royal bankruptcies, one of the many reasons for England surpasses Germany in terms of prosperity during this period.

See the lands held by the church before teh reformation shown here in pink

Granting the right to levy duties on river and road transport was even more devastating for the German economy. The rhine river is the natural link between Northern and Southern Europe. It is navigable from Rotterdam to Basel. From there it is 400 km to Milan across alpine passes or 250 km overland to Chalons where one can pick up the Rhone River and sail down to Marseille. It is the natural transport artery of Europe. Today transport volume on the Rhine, Main, Mosel and Neckar is 6 times that of all French navigable rivers. Nevertheless, by the 15th century the cities from Reims to Lyon matched or exceeded the economic power of the German cities along the Rhine. And that had a lot to do with the ability of all sorts of princes with access to the river to demand duties. On top of that came the Stapelrecht, the right to demand that any passing merchant had to offer his wares at market in the town he passed. The Rhine was still a great way to transport things from North to South, but it had to fight with one arm tied behind its back.

You cannot blame all that on Frederick II whose room to manoeuvre was limited and who may not fully understand the economic implications.  Though his grandfather did at some point cut down to duty posts along the Rhine and Main River to facilitate trade. So maybe he could have understood that in part. In his beloved Sicily we will see him deploying much more beneficial policies. Detractors may claim he simply did not care.

Generosity towards the princes was one part of Fredrick’s governance model. The other was the power of rituals. We have already seen how Barbarossa had tried to wow his contemporaries with the imperial diet of Pentecost 1184 and how Philipp of Swabia used splendid feasts as a way to bring wavering princes over to his side.

Frederick turbocharged these events by leveraging potent symbols to legitimise his regime. The first of these elaborate ceremonies took place in 1213, so before the battle of Bouvines and Frederick’s rise to undisputed power.

He had the remains of his uncle Philipp who had been murdered and quickly buried in Bamberg dug up and laid to rest in the cathedral of Speyer. Speyer was the St. Denis of Germany, the place where the emperors had been buried. Once the greatest and most splendid church building in Western Europe, next to Cluny it was the German Metropolis as a chronicler called it.

Remember that the family of Barbarossa never called themselves the Hohenstaufen. They saw themselves as descendants of the Henrys of Waiblingen, the dynasty we call the Salians. Hence the Salien burial place in Speyer, built by Konrad II and Henry IV was their family mausoleum. That was true even though until 1213 no Hohenstaufen rulers had been buried in Speyer. Frederick Barbarossa’s remains had been lost in Palestine. Henry VI was buried in Palermo and Konrad III, well Konrad III nobody talks about. He was also in Bamberg in a long-forgotten corner. But the women of the family were buried in Speyer. Beatrice, the wife of Barbarossa and grandmother of Frederick was there as well as her daughter Agnes.

By staging a great reburial of the murdered Hohenstaufen king, his uncle, in the burial ground of the old emperors, Frederick II establishes a link between himself and the splendour of the empire of old. He, the child of Puglia is lifted to the true heir of the kingdom. Not quite the same as the revelation of Aragorn of Gondor, but the same idea. The true king is back.

The next big set piece is linked to the coronation. You may remember that his first coronation in Mainz was a bit haphazard. In 1215, after Otto IV had lost the battle of Bouvines, this was to be remedied. Aachen had been firmly within the territory controlled by Otto IV. But when Frederick II took an army up north along the Rhine, the Welf allies came across one by one, even Otto’s father-in-law, the duke of Brabant. The city of Aachen opened its gates and Frederick entered in all his splendour.

What followed was the full medieval coronation ceremony inside Charlemagne’s palatine chapel. That chapel not only held the fabled throne of Charlemagne that Frederick ascended, but it was also lit by the enormous Barbarossa Chandelier, made from gilded copper, 4.2m in diameter and hanging off a 27 metre chain that symbolised the new Jerusalem.

But that is not the only relic that Barbarossa had left behind. In 1165 Barbarossa had arranged for his antipope to elevate Charlemagne to be a saint. The Holy Roman Empire still lacked a saint. The Hungarians had Saint Stephen, the Norwegians Saint Olaf, the English had Edward the Confessor. Charlemagne was to become a symbol of the divinity, holiness of the empire, independent from papal authority. No surprise then that the official church never acknowledged the sainthood of Charlemagne.

As part of the sanctification of Charlemagne Barbarossa had his grave opened and his bones put into a temporary casket. Ever since then the debate raged about how to properly honour the greatest of all the emperors. Finally, Otto IV had commissioned the metalworkers of Maastricht and Aachen to create a splendid, golden shrine, almost as large and as splendid as the three kings’ reliquary in Cologne. By the time it was finished, Bouvines had happened, and Aachen had fallen to Frederick.  

Two days after his coronation and on the first anniversary of the battle of Bouvines, Frederick had the remains of Charlemagne solemnly translated into its final resting place. Once the lid had been put over the casket, the king took off his royal mantle, mounted the scaffold together with the Master of Works and personally nailed the coffin shut.

With this, almost intimate act, he declared not just his veneration of the saint, but also his personal, familial connection. He is the pious son who gives rest to his great, great, great grandfather, reaffirming his membership to the everlasting imperial dynasty that traces back to Julius Caesar and ultimately ancient Troy.

We may grin at this ham-fisted historical fabrication, but the medieval world swallowed it hook line and sinker. There were over 100 locations across the empire where Charlemagne was venerated as a saint.

The shrine is obviously more than worth travelling to Aachen for. What I find fascinating is the iconography. First on the front we see Charlemagne enthroned flanked by two smaller figures of pope Leo III and the archbishop of Reims, i.e., the emperor is bigger than the pope.

Then on the sides where you would normally find apostles or prophets, we have depiction of emperors and kings. Chronologically we have Louis the Pious, Lothair, Charles the Fat, one unknown emperor, Zwentibold King of Lothringia, Henry the Fowler, Otto I to III, Henry II, Henry III, Henry IV, Henry V, Henry VI, Otto IV and Frederick II. There are some surprising absences. No Louis the German who founded East Francia. Instead, we have Lothair and Zwentibold, rulers of Lotharingia of which Aachen was a part. This is not a German shrine then. The next absence is Conrad II, probably an oversight. Conrad III because nobody liked him. Lothar III, grandfather of Otto IV is an odd absence. But the most confusing omission is Barbarossa himself. Why is he not there when Otto IV is? Given Frederick II himself is on, the piece must have been reworked in the months before Frederick had entered Aachen. So why not remodel Otto IV into Barbarossa? If all this is about the everlasting Staufer dynasty, why having the interloper there? It is a mystery.

The Karlschrein is one of the absolute highpoints in European medieval goldsmith art, together with the shrine of Mary also in Aachen and the slightly older three kings reliquary in Cologne. In these years following the battle of Bouvines, Europe experiences a period of incredible artistic flourishing. We already talked about the troubadours and Minnesaenger whose most productive period is between 1190 and 1230. Many of the great medieval epics were written down and finalised in this period. Parzival, Tristan and Isolde, The Nibelung, Dietrich von Bern and one of my favourites, the story of duke Ernst – do you remember it from episode 23?

In architecture we are transitioning from the Romanesque to gothic. The first gothic church had been St. Denis near Paris that was begun under the abbot Suger in 1135. In 1207 the cathedral of Magdeburg, the great church erected by Otto the Great had burned down. Its replacement was the first German gothic church. It was followed shortly after by the cathedrals of Bamberg and Naumburg. Where German artists and craftsmen excelled was in the sculptures decorating these new gothic cathedrals. There is the statue of St. Maurice in Magdeburg, the first realistic depiction of an African man since Roman times. The great figures of the founders of Naumburg cathedral which includes the gorgeous Uta von Ballenstedt and, the greatest of them all, the intriguing Bamberg Horseman, the first monumental equestrian statue since antiquity, depicting, well we do not know who. Some say it is Frederick II, but it could equally have been Henry II, Imre of Hungary or a saint, if not the messiah.

The funding for these great works came at least in part from the incredibly generous donations Frederick had to do to keep the imperial princes on side.

By 1220 Frederick feels he had spent enough time and money in Germany, 8 years overall. The realm north of the alps is at peace. His legitimacy is recognised by all. All the generosity had also allowed him to have his son Henry elected and consecrated as king.

The next, inevitable step is the coronation as emperor in Rome. And that required the agreement of the pope. As I said, this episode begins and ends with the relationship between pope and emperor.

Innocent III had died in 1216. His successor, Honorius III was a much more conciliatory man. He was much older and more of an administrator than a visionary. That does not mean he lacked political objectives, but other than Innocent, he lacked the ambition to achieve all of them at once.

Honorius III cared about one thing, regaining Jerusalem. For that objective he was willing to overlook many a thing.

In 1215, at his coronation in Aachen Frederick did not only ascend the throne of Charlemagne and nailed his coffin shut, he also emulated him a third time, by taking the cross. The notion of what constitutes a crusade had gradually shifted from the liberation of the Holy Sepulchre to a more general Holy war on Muslims and pagans. As a consequence Charlemagne’s brutal raid on the pagan Saxons was recast as a crusade, a crusade even before crusades were a thing..

Hence when Frederick took the cross in 1215, he did that to elevate his standing as future emperor, as a descendant and follower of Charlemagne, not as a faithful son of the church. That is why Innocent III largely ignored it and called his own crusade at the 4th Lateran Council, a crusade he planned to lead himself without material involvement of the emperor.

Honorius III, as I said, was less ambitious. He embraced Frederick’s commitment to take the cross. It is probably also in this context that Honorius accepted the election of little Henry as king of the Romans alongside his title as king of Sicily. He must have realised that this would mean a de facto union between the Holy Roman Empire and the Kingdom of Sicily, in other words, the encirclement of the states of the Church.

Pope Honorius III (by Giottto)

When Frederick arrives before the Porta Collina on November 22, 1220 he promises again that he would never seek a union between the empire and Sicily and only them is he admitted to the Holy city. From there he rides in procession behind the prelates and cardinals of Rome to old St. Peter. He enters the Atrium, a space that, like Old St. peter itself, no longer exists. In there stood on one side the enormous sarcophagus of Otto II also now relocated and replaced. On the other is St. Maria dei Turri, rebuilt after his grandfather had so sacrilegiously destroyed the predecessor church. Here he swears all the oaths of fealty and obedience to the pope his predecessors had sworn before him. Upon entering the basilica itself he is made a canon of St. Peter, in other word he is now a priest, able to administer sacraments.

He is anointed by Hugolino, the cardinal bishop of Ostia who had also anointed Otto IV just 11 years earlier. Hugolino was a nephew of Innocent III and will later become pope Gregory IX.

The climax of the ceremony comes when Frederick receives the imperial robes, the orb, the sceptre and the crown from the pope himself at the altar of St. Peter. Amongst the great imperial garments are now the wonderful items brought across from Palermo. The imperial coronation mantle, the imperial socks and the even more over the top imperial gloves. I will put pictures of all of these and the sculptures I mentioned before on to the episode webpage. The link is in the show notes.

After that the pope celebrates mass at which the emperor – having taken his clothes off again – assists him as if he was a junior priest.

At last Frederick again pledges to take the cross and receives the crusaders robes from the cardinal bishop of Ostia.

Leaving St. Peter the pope mounts his horse, again helped by the emperor who holds his stirrups. Frederick then performs the service of Strator and leads the Pope’s horse over an unknown distance.

My god has this changed from the days of Otto the Great. The emperor is made to bow and assist and kneel and reaffirm the supremacy of the pope so often, it almost looks as if the pope is crowned, not the emperor. Remember the fallout between Barbarossa and the pope over the strator service? That feels a long time ago.

In the Middle Ages, these ceremonies were supposed to mean an awful lot. It used to be that the displayed reality became truth through its performance. An emperor leading the pope’s horse like a groom became a servant of the pope.

But we are also coming to the end of the true medieval period, which means that oaths and rituals are still performed and intended to convey reality, the truth is that oaths are broken, and rituals do not protect from political realities.

What nobody knows and probably nobody even imagines is to be possible is that this is the last imperial coronation performed by a pope in Rome for the next 150 years.  

Next week we will see what Frederick does with his newly acquired imperial crown and crusading pledge. Suffice to say that oaths will be broken, political necessities will overturn ritually confirmed relationships. But that is not all. Frederick will set out on crusade despite being excommunicated, will be successful without a shot being fired and still….well, I hope you will join us again.

Before I go, let me thank all of you who are supporting the show, in particular the Patrons who have kindly signed up on patreon.com/historyofthegermans. It is thanks to you this show does not have to do advertising for matrasses or as I recently heard energy supplements and pension plans. If Patreon isn’t for you, another way to help the show is sharing the podcast directly or boosting its recognition on social media. If you share, comment or retweet a post from the History of the Germans it is more likely to be seen by others, hence bringing in more listeners. My most active places are Twitter @germanshistory and my Facebook page History of the Germans Podcast. As always, all the links are in the show notes.   

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The Civil War between Philipp of Swabia and Otto IV

The kingdom is in turmoil. Two pretenders fight for supremacy. On the one side, Philipp of Swabia, son of the emperor Barbarossa, brother of Emperor Henry VI. and head of the House of Hohenstaufen. In the opposite corner stands Otto IV., son of Henry the Lion, protégé of king Richard the Lionheart and preferred candidate of pope Innocent III. But the main protagonists are the imperial princes who play the two kings against each other for their personal gain, swearing fealty one day and breaking it the next. It only ends with murder most foul.

History of the Germans
History of the Germans

A narrative history of the German people from the Middle Ages to Reunification in 1991. Episodes are 25-35 min long and drop on Thursday mornings.
“A great many things keep happening, some good, some bad”. Gregory of Tours (539-594)

HotGPod is now entering its 9th season. So far we have covered:

Ottonian Emperors (# 1- 21)
– Henry the Fowler (#1)
– Otto I (#2-8)
– Otto II (#9-11)
– Otto II (#11-14)
– Henry II (#15-17)
– Germany in 1000 (#18-21)

Salian Emperors(#22-42)
– Konrad II (#22- 25)
– Henry III (#26-29)
– Henry IV/Canossa (#30-39)
– Henry V (#40-42)
– Concordat of Worms (#42)

Early Hohenstaufen (#43-69)
– Lothar III (#43-46)
– Konrad III (#47-49)
– Frederick Barbarossa (#50-69)

Late Hohenstaufen (#70-94)
– Henry VI (#70-72)
– Philipp of Swabia (#73-74)
– Otto IV (#74-75)
– Frederick II (#75-90)
– Epilogue (#91-94)

Eastern Expansion (#95-108)

The Hanseatic League (#109-127)

The Teutonic Knights (#128-137)

The Interregnum and the early Habsburgs (#138 ff
– Rudolf von Habsburg (#139-141)
– Adolf von Nassau (#142)
– Albrecht von Habsburg (#143)
– Heinrich VII (#144-148)
– Ludwig the Bavarian (#149-153)
– Karl IV (#154-163)
The Reformation before the Reformation
– Wenceslaus the Lazy (#165)
– The Western Schism (#166/167)
– The Ottomans (#168)
– Sigismund (#169-#184
The Empire in the 15th Century
– Mainz & Hessen #186
– Printing #187-#188
– Universities #190
– Wittelsbachs #189, #196-#199
– Baden, Wuerrtemberg, Augsburg, Fugger (#191-195)
– Maps & Arms (#201-#202)
The Fall and Rise of the House of Habsburg
– Early habsburgs (#203-#207)
– Albrecht II (#208)
-Freidrich III (#209-

Ep. 74: Otto IV (1198-1215) – The War that Broke the Empire
byDirk Hoffmann-Becking
Ep. 74: Otto IV (1198-1215) – The War that Broke the Empire

Transcript

Hello and welcome to the History of the Germans: Episode 74 – A Breaking of Oaths

The kingdom is in turmoil. Two pretenders fight for supremacy. On the one side, Philipp of Swabia, son of the emperor Barbarossa, brother of Emperor Henry VI. and head of the House of Hohenstaufen. In the opposite corner stands Otto IV., son of Henry the Lion, protégé of king Richard the Lionheart and preferred candidate of pope Innocent III. But the main protagonists are the imperial princes who play the two kings against each other for their personal gain, swearing fealty one day and breaking it the next. It only ends with murder most foul.

Before we start just a reminder. The History of the Germans Podcast is advertising free thanks to the generous support from patrons. And you can become a patron too and enjoy exclusive bonus episodes and other privileges from the price of a latte per month. All you have to do is sign up at patreon.com/historyofthegermans or on my website historyofthegermans.com. You find all the links in the show notes. And thanks a lot to Josh, Oliver, and Alexandre who have already signed up.

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Here we are, in the midst of a civil war. Well, as we will see it isn’t the kind of civil war where two determined sides relentlessly go at each other. It is much more a very prolonged negotiation amongst the princes, interspersed with great festivities, papal bulls and the occasional military campaign that usually stalls before the walls of a mighty city,.

Let us recap the starting position of our two contenders.

There is Otto IV., whose main sponsor is his uncle, king Richard the Lionheart. Richard is enormously rich thanks to the tax income from England and his extensive domains in France.

Richard’s main objective was to get back at the Hohenstaufen who had imprisoned and ransomed him on his return from the crusades. He was also very fond of his nephew and there may be a long-term option that Otto would support him in his struggle with the king of France, Philippe Auguste.

Otto’s second supporter is archbishop Adolf of Cologne. Adolf was less of a supporter of Otto than an opponent of the Hohenstaufen. Why he took so strongly against them is a bit lost in the mist of time. He stood as a candidate for the archbishopric of Cologne against a Hohenstaufen candidate, but he did get through and was invested by Henry VI. He had also opposed Henry VI.’th proposal to turn the empire into an inheritable monarchy, but so had many others. He did not want to elect little Frederick II. but relented in the end and had promised to crown the child. So, all in he wasn’t a friend but not a sworn enemy. In fact, there would have been a good reason for Adolf to oppose a candidature of a Welf prince who would want the old Saxon duchy back, which included Westphalia, the bit that Cologne had received after the fall of Henry the Lion. It looks a bit as if Adolf had accidentally become the focal point of anti-Hohenstaufen sentiment thanks to his lukewarm, but consistent opposition.

The third set of supporters of Otto were the merchants of Cologne, who probably pushed their archbishop over to his side. The merchants were most interested in trading privileges in England. These were extremely valuable as English wool was the raw material that Florentine weavers turned into the most desirable cloth in Europe. And Cologne sat on the Rhine the great traffic artery that sat between these two economic centres. This the time when the great cities of Flanders, Ghent, Bruges and Ypres were vying for that same trade.

These are his core supporters, The English, the archbishop of Cologne and the citizens of Cologne.

Otto’s second layer of supporters were first up his brother, Henry, The Count Palatinate. Henry was the older brother and had inherited the majority of his fathers’ possessions in line with the principles of primogeniture. Otto had only received a brace of castles from Henry the Lion’s vast lands and had to make his own way in life, which was already a bit of a sore point in their relationship. We had met this Henry before. He was the son of Henry the Lion who had deserted his emperor’s army before Naples in 1192, had spread rumours Henry VI. had died and had suggested the princes that they elect him instead.

For political reasons the emperor had forgiven him and for completely incomprehensible reasons, the aristocratic society of the 12th century completely overlooked this truly un-chivalric behaviour.

Two more things about Henry. He had become Count Palatinate by seducing and secretly marrying Agnes, sole child of Conrad, half -brother of Barbarossa. Henry VI. had to accept the valid marriage and even enfeoffed the Welf with the Palatinate. And final point, Henry was the initial choice of Richard the Lionheart to be candidate for kingship. The only reason this did not happen was that Henry had been on crusade in the Holy Land when the decision was made. Another sore point in the brotherly relationship.

Another member of this second layer of support was Henry, duke of Brabant. The duchy of Brabant encompassed most of eastern Belgium including Brussels and Antwerp and was in immediate neighbour of the archbishop of Cologne. The duke’s interest lay mainly in the large amount of English money he was offered for his help and a marital alliance whereby Otto was to marry his daughter Maria.

There are some others in this category like Bishop Konrad of Strasbourg who had a long-lasting feud with Philipp’s irascible brother and hence hated all Hohenstaufens and the duke of Limburg and his son, who initially fought for Philipp but were brought into the Otto camp early on in the process.

So, if you look on a map, Otto’s zone of control was in the lower Rhine around Cologne and Brabant, and upriver in the Palatinate as well as the family lands of the House of Welf around Brunswick.

On the other side was Philipp of Swabia.

He too has an inner and an outer circle. But that is where the similarity ends.

Philipps inner circle are the royal Hohenstaufen institutions such as they exist. At its heart sits the duchy of Swabia and the extensive Hohenstaufen possessions that stretch from the border with Bohemia in the east through sways of Franconia, including Nurnberg and Rothenburg to the outskirts of Frankfurt and then southwards through Swabia and Alsace. Part 2 is the royal domain, which comprises a large number of castles dotted across mostly the southern part of Germany, but at this point also include Goslar in Saxony with its great silver mines.

These territories come the imperial and the family Ministeriales. These had already risen to prominence in the last decades of Barbarossa, but now took up key position under Henry VI. and  Philipp. Men like Markward of Annweiler and Heinrich von Kalden who had served in Italy and Sicily. But also Kuno von Munzenberg, a mega ministeriale who owned dozens of castles and even minted his own coins, Eberhard von Tanne, seneschal of the emperors was another one. Ministeriales were at least theoretically, unfree men who had been trained in the use of knightly weapons. By the end of the 12th century, they have become a permanent feature of the medieval German society. Some of them were extremely rich and would even ascend to princely rank, but the vast majority were not much better off than their neighbours in the village. They were much more loyal than the aristocratic vassals, but not absolutely loyal. Even ministeriales are known to betray their lords.

Beyond this fairly compact powerbase, Philipp could count on a few natural allies. There are Bernhard of Anhalt, duke of Saxony, Ludwig, duke of Bavaria and the margrave of Meissen. These men had been the direct beneficiaries of the fall of Henry the Lion and hence could not expect anything good from Henry the Lion’s son. Other southern dukes like the Babenberger in Austria as well as the Zaehringer in Burgundy were linked either by family ties or financial gain.

Beyond that was the wide world of the undecided. Two of those became crucial, Ottokar duke of Bohemia and the landgrave Hermann of Thuringia.

Ottokar’s main interest was the title of king, which Philipp granted him generously at the very start of his reign. Landgrave Hermann was most interested in expanding his territory at the expense of what had remained of the royal domain in Saxony. Basically, these two were available to the highest bidder.

And then we have the foreigners. We already talked about the role the king of England played. But then we have the King of France, Philippe Auguste who was a natural ally of Philipp, because the enemy of my enemy is my friend. And the King of Denmark also gets involved. He wanted the lands of Adolf of Holstein, in the very north of the country. Because Adolf sided with Philip, Denmark sided with Otto.

So that is our chessboard. Otto has English money, Cologne, Brabant and his brother and the Danes. Philipp has French support, his own lands, the royal domain and support from most of Southern Germany.

Next question, what are the weapons.

Sounds like a stupid question but isn’t. Sure, there is military might. Armies are raised and sent against the opponents. But there were no decisive battles or even many battles at all. The two kings will face each other only once and that is very much at the end of the conflict. Mostly what these armies do is go down into their opponents’ territories, burn the fields and make some attempt at besieging the cities but never succeeding. I could take you through the back and forth of the military fortunes, but the detail is excessively dull.

Broadly speaking the fighting breaks down into four main theatres of war.

The surroundings of Strasbourg get devastated by Philipp in an attempt to move bishop Konrad into his camp. That is successful at least temporarily.

The other is Holstein, which is invaded by the Danes. They chuck out count Adolf who had to retire and Holstein remained Danish for 25 years. This one went to Otto.

The third theatre of war was the lower Rhine and specifically the surroundings of Cologne. Philipp would bring up an army, devastate the surrounding lands, but the walls of Cologne usually held firm and Philipp had to go back, either because winter was coming or because he was called into that other key battleground, Saxony, specifically Brunswick, capital of Otto IV. and Goslar, the loyal imperial city. Neither Brunswick nor Goslar could be taken by their respective besiegers.

With Saxony the big undecided piece, the Landgrave of Thuringia whose lands were just south and east of there, became the lynchpin. Both Philipp and Otto courted him, and he exploited the situation to the max. In total Hermann changed sides 5 times throughout the 5 years of the main conflict. He would declare for Otto when Philipp was otherwise engaged, capture a few royal castles and cities and when Philipp shows up, he would swap sides and revert to being a loyal imperial vassal in exchange for keeping these castles and cities. Three rounds of that and the Landgraves were properly rich.

But the military was only one side of the battle. The other was public relations. Philipp went on a massive spending spree, inviting all his followers and the undecideds to splendid royal assemblies. We can name 630 individuals who have come to his court, though in reality it would have been a lot more. He staged 28 of those, often outside his direct zone of influence.  

And for those he put on a great show. He would appear wearing the true imperial crown, by now believed to be the crown of Charlemagne, as well as the Holy Lance and all the imperial regalia. His wife the gorgeous and exotic Irene would parade next to her husband in her byzantine finery. And after the official ceremonies it was party time.

The court of Philipp of Schwaben was one of the first in Germany to sponsor the Minnesaenger, the German version of the Troubadours. Minnesaenger would write mostly songs about courtly love, but also romances like the Parzival of Hartmann von Aue or Tristan and Isolde by Godfrey of Strasburg. Minnesaenger would not only write of love and chivalric quests, they can do politics too. The most famous of them was Walter von der Vogelweide, and that is the one Philipp attracts to his court.

And Walter delivers. He writes several poems to praise Philipp and to diss his enemies. One of those is about the most splendid royal assembly in Magdeburg over Christmas 1199. I will read it to you, though be warned, my skills in Middle high German are non-existant:

Ez gienc eines tages, als unser hêrre wart geborn

von einer maget, die er im ze muoter hât erkorn,

ze Megdeburc der künic Philippes schône.


da gienc eins keisers bruoder und eins keisers kint

in einer wât, swie doch die namen drîge sint,

er truoc des rîches zepter und die krône.

Er trât vil lîse, im was niht gâch,

im sleich ein hôhgeborne küniginne nâch,

rôse âne dorn, ein tûbe sunder gallen.

diu zuht was niener anderswâ,

die Düringe und die Sahsen dienten alsô dâ,

daz ez den wîsen müeste wol gevallen.

Roughly translated it says something like that:

On that day, when our Lord was born of a virgin whom he chose to be his mother, there walked in Magdeburg King Philip, glorious to behold. There walked an emperor’s brother and an emperor’s son in one robe, although they are three persons; he carried the real sceptre and the real crown. He walked along very slowly in complete tranquillity. After him walked a high-born queen, rose without thorn, dove without gall. The decency of the whole world was united there. The Thuringians and the Saxons performed their court duties there in such a manner that even the most discerning could be highly satisfied.

These events and the sponsorship of poets in the midst of war had previously been seen as wasteful spending, but it was probably worth a lot more than a battalion of knights. If you were one of the undecided princes in the civil war that could not be won militarily, where would you tend to go, to the one who keeps his purse closed tight and seems to have no friends, or the one where everybody goes and who wines and dines you?

Apart from great festivities, the other element of soft power were marriage alliances. Otto had the advantage of being himself available, a trump card he used to tie the duke of Barbant to his cause. Philipp was already married but four daughters to offer. These were put in play at various points to different German magnates, and at some point even to a papal nephew.

As for money Philipp can match the English funds thanks to the treasures his brother had sent up from Sicily, the 150 mules worn down by the weight of gold and precious stones. But Otto is no slouch either. We know a little less about the splendour of his court since he did not pay the right poets, but when English money was still flowing, he sure must have put on great performances.

And that gets us to the other theatre of this conflict, the one that did not involve any Germans. And that is the first hundred years war between England and France. That is ongoing and will be ongoing for most of the Middle Ages. And it is also where some military events do have a decisive impact on German affairs.

The first happened in March 1199 below the walls of the small and barely defended castle of Chalus-Chabrol near Limoges, central France. Richard had attacked the castle as part of a pointless feud with the viscount of Limoges. In the fighting a bolt from a cross bow hit the king’s shoulder. The wound turned gangrene and a month later, Richard, Coeur de Lion was dead, not before forgiving the crossbowman who had shot him – chivalric knight to the last.

Richard’s brother and successor, John lackland had much less interest in German affairs or fondness for his nephew. The great supply of cash from England dwindled and when John made peace with Philippe Auguste in 1204 it ceased altogether.

In the absence of English money, Otto became more and more dependent upon support from pope Innocent III. As I mentioned last week, Innocent took his sweet time with taking a decision. When he did, in 1201, he came down very much on Otto’s side. He had negotiated with Philipp as well and as guardian of young Frederick had at some point contemplated pushing his wards claim.

Innocent’s main interest in the conflict was to protect and expand the papal territories. In the aftermath of the death of Henry VI. almost all of Italy had risen up against the imperial administrators.

I did say last week that Philipp had stood at the empty crib in the castle of Folignano where little Frederick was supposed to have been. That I admit was a bit of artistic license. Philipp never made it to Folignano. His journey ended in Montefiascone, north of Rome as local lords encouraged by the news of Henry VI.’s death besieged him. Philipp had to hack his way home through Northern Italy, barely making it. In this context I just want to say that I indeed used a bit of I feel not very foul language and some of you found it unnecessary. I personally saw it as a good way to express the distress I think Philipp may have felt at that moment. But I understand that some of you prefer it if I refrain from such terms and I will do my best to stick to it. Though note that German is a language of prolific and inventive swearwords and where the use of them is evidenced or used in literature, I will use it.

Going back to Italy. In the chaos after the death of the emperor, pope Innocent managed to get hold of key positions, including the duchy of Spoleto, the mark of Ancona, the pentapolis around Ravenna, parts of Emilia Romagna and again, the lands of Matilda. Protecting those from imperial power became one of his key political objectives. Hence Innocent support for Otto was made conditional upon recognition of the papal gains and a solemn promise never to seek the Sicilian crown. Philipp had not been prepared to make such concessions.

On the face of it papal support did not produce much. In particular the German bishops remained loyal to Philipp. They write to the pope stating that it is their prerogative to elect the emperor and that his holiness should stay out of the discussion.

Only one bishop was affected by papal support for Otto IV. and the subsequent excommunication of Philipp, and that was his own chancellor, Konrad von Querfurth. Konrad had been a Hohenstaufen loyalist, former chancellor of Henry VI. and had played a major role in the conquest of Sicily and the crusade. His change of allegiance from Philipp to Otto was less for reasons of the afterlife but was bought with the bishopric of Wuerzburg, something the chancellor very much desired.

The defection of Konrad was a major blow both militarily and politically. It potentially opened a new theatre of war, now much closer to the Hohenstaufen homelands. But Philipp got lucky. Konrad had got himself in trouble in his new post. He had levied a tax on his Ministeriales and they weren’t happy about it. One of them, Bodo of Ravensburg killed the episcopal administrator who was collecting the tax. Konrad then pursued Bodo for murder to which Bodo responded by killing the bishop himself. That solved this problem.

But the papal support had one great advantage. Ever since Gregory VII. the papacy had declared its right to release people from their solemn oaths. The concept that oaths are inviolate are at the heart of the political system of the Middle Ages. Vassalage is the exchange of vows, one to support the lord and the other to protect the vassal.

You may remember the speech that Otto von Northeim made in 1073 gathering support for an uprising against emperor Henry IV. There he had to go to extreme lengths to justify why he was no longer bound by his oath. Here is what he said after having first listed Henry’s innumerable crimes against the freedom of the Saxons:

Quote: “Perhaps you, as Christians, are afraid to violate the oath with which you have paid homage to the king. Indeed, to the king you have sworn. As long as he was a king to me and acted royally, I also kept the oath I swore to him freely and faithfully; but after he ceased to be a king, the one to whom I had to keep loyalty was no longer there. So not against the king, but against the unjust robber of my freedom; not against the fatherland, but for the fatherland, and for freedom, which no good man surrenders other than with his life at the same time, I take up arms, and I demand of you that you also take them up. “ end quote

130 years later the Landgrave of Thuringia and King Ottokar of Bohemia will swear individual detailed oaths to Philipp to support him. The oaths are made over important relics and the princes pre-agree to the most severe temporal and spiritual punishments in case of a breach of this oath. Hostages are exchanged to ensure compliance and in the case of Ottokar, he marries a daughter of Philipp. But the ink is barely dry on the document and both of these change side, not for the greater good of the realm or to escape unbearable servitude, but for short term territorial gains. And they are not afraid of any punishment since the pope immediately releases them from their oath.

This devaluation of solemn oaths is another element in the shift in political and social culture, away from the ideals of the Middle Ages. Just as the troubadours and Minnesaenger celebrate the ideals of chivalry, the reality becomes more and more Machiavellian.

This change of sides by Thuringia and Bohemia in 1203 coincides with Danish conquest of Holstein and puts Philipp under enormous pressure. His campaign against Thuringia fails and he finds himself besieged inside the city of Erfurt. At the end of 1203, Philipp flees from Erfurt and Otto IV. writes triumphantly to pope Innocent III that he expects to have Philipp defeated by the end of next year.

In 1204 Philipp makes a last desperate attempt and goes straight for Otto’s headquarters, the city of Brunswick. And that is where Otto makes his fatal mistake. Brunswick was initially owned by Otto’s older brother, Henry, the Count Palatinate. Otto had taken it over since in it lay the great palace of Dankwarderode, the magnificent construction of their father, Henry the Lion that rivalled any imperial palace. The loss of Brunswick was the last straw for Henry. He had already seen his own principality, the Palatinate, being occupied by Philipp’s troops. And now after all the pain he had experienced in the service of his younger brother, he, the eldest son, was now to give up his family inheritance. Henry snapped and switched sides, joining Philipp.

And then archbishop Adolf of Cologne, the one guy who had kicked off the conflict also switched to Philipp. He may have worried about the overbearing nature of the young Welf who might still hanker after Westphalia or it was a more prosaic donation of 5000 mark of silver that changed his mind.

This is also the time English money stops coming.

Only the city of Cologne is still with Otto.

In 1205 Philipp can eventually heal the defects in his initial coronation. He is crowned again, this time in the right place, the palatine chapel in Aachen, by the correct Archbishop, Adolf of Cologne.

From there it should have only been a question of time before Otto finally gives up. There are two more battles between Otto and the citizens of Cologne on one side and Philipp and his superior troops on the other. Otto loses both of them and is even gets injured in one of them.

Heinrich von Kalden, the great leader of Philipp’s armies finally arranges for the two kings to meet to resolve their differences. Philipp offers Otto great terms. Otto was to marry Philipp’s daughter, become duke of Swabia and King of Burgundy if he gives up the claim on the imperial crown. But Otto refuses. Even when pope Innocent III urges him to accept, he still refuses.

All the parties can agree to is a truce. But the route ahead is now clear. Otto’s claim is defunct. His support is gone. Cologne had opened its doors to Philipp. Philipp is gathering a large army to dislodge him from his last remaining positions around Brunswick. His future is bleak, he will either have to go into exile or end his days on one of his father’s castles, alone and friendless.

On June 21st, 1208, Philipp is celebrating the marriage of his niece, the daughter of his brother Otto of Burgundy to the duke of Andechs-Meran in Bamberg. It is again, a splendid occasion. Many of the imperial princes have come, and the groom’s brother, the bishop of Bamberg had celebrated a great wedding in the marvellous cathedral the current bishop was constructing over the ruins of Henry II’s House of God.

At the end of the church service Philipp retires to the cooler rooms inside the episcopal palace. There he had asked his physician to bleed him. He was alone with just his chancellor and his Lord High Stewart, Henry of Waldburg. At the ninth hour, Otto von Wittelsbach, the count palatinate of Bavaria enters the royal chambre alone. Philipp welcomes him and even as Otto unsheathes his sword, the king still believes that all Otto wants to do is display his skills with the blade as he had often done before.

But not today. “This will not be a game for you today” the count screams and cuts straight through the royal jugular. The High Stewart tries to intervene but is struck down. Otto and his men can flee. 

Philipp of Swabia is dead. The first royal assassination since Merovingian times and one of only two in the Holy Roman empire.

And in this power vacuum steps, his opponent, Otto IV. as the anointed king. Almost immediately all imperial princes recognise Otto IV. as the rightful king and heir.

Philipp’s wife, the majestic and tragic Queen Irene flees to Swabia, to a monastery close to the family seat of the Hohenstaufen.  There she dies 2 months later in childbirth.

The civil war is over. One question remains, why did Otto von Wittelsbach kill his king?

The contemporaries ascribed the murder to injured honour. Otto von Wittelsbach had been promised a daughter of King Philipp in marriage. This offer was made shortly after the king had to flee from Erfurt when his chips were down, and he needed Otto’s support. But when things had improved, Philipp cancels the marriage agreement and offers the girl to someone else.

Is that indeed what happened? A recent essay claimed that the act was part of a wider conspiracy that included the groom, the duke of Andechs, his brother, the bishop of Bamberg and the duke of Bavaria. All these men were loosely related as members of the wider house of Wittelsbach and had their power base in what we now see as Bavaria. It was suspicious that both the duke of Andechs and his brother, the bishop fled immediately after the murder.

But this theory is widely dismissed, in part because the evidence it was based on was badly put together. And further it is very unclear what benefit these protagonists would have drawn from killing Philipp. As things stood the conflict between Welf and Waiblingen was a honeypot for the magnates. As long as it continued, they could demand money, titles, marriages and privileges in exchange for their continued loyalty. Killing one of them would bring back tighter, more centralised royal power.

But if Otto acted alone, what does that mean. Was he simply a particularly prickly man who could not control himself. Or was he acting within the context of the honour code of the times.

German historians of the period have recently focused more and more on honour as a broader social concept. They conclude that the concept of honour, i.e., the loss or gain of reputation within the aristocratic class is crucial to maintaining political and economic positions. A lord who cannot defend his honour risks losing his vassals and subsequently his military and financial resources.

I am not qualified to really give an opinion on that. But I notice that broken marriage agreements are quite common as alliances are shifting back and forth. We have already talked about the devaluation of oaths and the machiavellisation of society. Hold that against the one isolated case of royal assassination and my money is on Otto being exceptionally prickly or has indeed suffered a massive humiliation by Philipp.

Otto never got to explain his actions. Heinrich von Kalden, most feared of the Hohenstaufen Ministeriales, hunted him down, and in a barn somewhere in Bavaria cut off his head and threw it into a river.

Next week we will see how Otto IV. the only Welf on the imperial throne will fare. Let is find out what is left of the royal infrastructure and income after 10 years of handouts to imperial princes? And most crucially, will his alliance with Innocent III hold against the political train tracks of the empire?

Before I go, let me thank all of you who are supporting the show, in particular the Patrons who have kindly signed up on patreon.com/historyofthegermans. It is thanks to you this show does not have to do advertising for matrasses or as I recently heard energy supplements and pension plans. If Patreon isn’t for you, another way to help the show is sharing the podcast directly or boosting its recognition on social media. If you share, comment or retweet a post from the History of the Germans it is more likely to be seen by others, hence bringing in more listeners. My most active places are Twitter @germanshistory and my Facebook page History of the Germans Podcast. As always, all the links are in the show notes.   

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Electing a most unlikely successor to Henry II

Our history of the Hanse has come to an end, not with a bang but with a whimper. Of the things that have remained we have already talked a lot, the ideal of the honourable Hanseatic merchant, the cultural and political links to Scandinavia and the stories. The stories of the famous pirates, Klaus Störtebecker and Hans Benecke, the heroics of the wars fought with Denmark and the antics of Jurgen Wullenwever.

But there is something that reminds us of the days when traders speaking low German fed Europe fish, beer and grain. And that are the cultural achievements, the town halls, weighing houses and stores that became symbols of civic pride, the artists whose works adorn churches and palaces across the Baltic sea and last but not least the brick churches that shaped the way these cities still appear..…let’s have a look.

As the economic boom of the middle-ages gains pace people begin to think beyond their next meal and a roof over their head for the night They call for an end to the constant violence creating the peace movement that emerges in France and encompasses the whole of Europe. That movement is closely intertwined with the crusades, which begin in 1095 not least as a means to channel military restlessness away from the domestic peasants to the foreign lands.

Once the physiological needs of food, water, warmth and rest are covered and some degree of safety is provided, more and more people move up Maslow’s pyramid looking for belonging, love, status, knowledge, aesthetic beauty, self-actualisation and ultimately transcendence. In the 11th century the afterlife becomes the dominating concern of everyone from the mightiest aristocrat to the lowliest peasant. Therefore, priests and clergy are held to ever higher standards to ensure the effectiveness of prayer and worship in providing access to heaven. The idea that even after your death prayers by those still alive could improve your status in Purgatory drives generous donation to monasteries in exchange for their eternal prayers. It kick-starts frantic construction activity during which the great Romanesque cathedrals of Speyer, Mainz, and Worms rise up.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to Season 2 of the History of the Germans – The Salians. I am really excited because this is the big one, the bit of German medieval history you really need to know about.

We start with Episode 22: Konrad II – who would have thought?

It has been a while since we stopped the narrative and so we should best start with a bit of context.

We are in the year 1024 and this season will cover almost exactly a century, until the end of the Salian dynasty in 1125. This is a period of quite fundamental change, not just in the Empire but in Europe more generally.

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As the economic boom of the middle-ages gains pace people begin to think beyond their next meal and a roof over their head for the night They call for an end to the constant violence creating the peace movement that emerges in France and encompasses the whole of Europe. That movement is closely intertwined with the crusades, which begin in 1095 not least as a means to channel military restlessness away from the domestic peasants to the foreign lands.

Once the physiological needs of food, water, warmth and rest are covered and some degree of safety is provided, more and more people move up Maslow’s pyramid looking for belonging, love, status, knowledge, aesthetic beauty, self-actualisation and ultimately transcendence. In the 11th century the afterlife becomes the dominating concern of everyone from the mightiest aristocrat to the lowliest peasant. Therefore, priests and clergy are held to ever higher standards to ensure the effectiveness of prayer and worship in providing access to heaven. The idea that even after your death prayers by those still alive could improve your status in Purgatory drives generous donation to monasteries in exchange for their eternal prayers. It kick-starts frantic construction activity during which the great Romanesque cathedrals of Speyer, Mainz, and Worms rise up.

At the same time increased wealth allow the secular powers to expand their military capabilities.  Stone castles sitting atop unassailable hills begin to replace manor houses and motte and bailey castles. The size of armies gradually increases, and the armoured riders of the Carolingian and Ottonian period gradually turn into actual knights.

And finally, new political entities emerge that either did not exist before or had been insignificant players on the international stage.

The most famous of such new entities to emerge is Norman England. They invade in 1066, less than halfway through the Salian period and establish a powerful entity that begins to project power beyond its own borders. England had hitherto been insignificant on an international stage, if you exclude the brief rule of King Canute.

But that is not the only state the Normans created. In this same period, a small group of pilgrims/mercenaries from Normandy managed to play the three powers in Southern Italy, the Byzantines, the Muslims and the Lombard dukes against each other until they themselves had conquered all the territories of their former employers and forced the pope to accept them as kings of Sicily.

This is also during this time of the first and only really successful crusade that created the Kingdom of Jerusalem and other crusader states. The Crusade movement was however not limited to the Near East. The kingdoms of Portugal, Lean, Castile, Aragon and Navarre conquered more than half of the Iberian Peninsula from the various Muslim kingdoms.

We have already seen the new kingdoms of Poland and Hungary appearing on the map during the 10th century. As we will see in this narrative, these polities will gain coherence and identity distinct from the empire. And another power comes into contact with western Europe, Russia, or more precisely the rulers of Kiev who forge political and marriage alliances with their neighbours.

Whilst new coherent political entities emerge around them, the French kings reach the low-point of their power under Henry I (1031-1061) when they barely control more than Paris and its surroundings. His weakness meant that not only his powerful vassals did as they liked but also smaller noblemen could become robber barons who plundered and murdered anyone crossing their land. The kingdom was sinking into chaos. His successors, Louis VI and Louis VII managed to drag the monarchy out of the hole and patiently expanded and pacified their territory so that by the end of the Salian period they were well on their way to face up against the Angevin empire in the 2 sets of 100 years wars with England.

The other key shift is in social order. The rise in economic activity gives birth to a merchant class based in the cities. That trend is most pronounced in Italy, but it also happens everywhere else in Europe. In Italy the city populations continue to clash with the bishops who often rule the city and the magnates who control the countryside. The rise of urban freedoms in Italy provides inspiration for cities north of the alps to chuck out their bishops and seek political self-determination.

If you take the 10,000 feet view of what has happened here, the striking thing is the absence of a central power. A central power that could organise the crusades, conquer Spain, provide law and order in France and clean up Southern Italy.

In 1024, when emperor Henry II, the last of the Ottonians passed away, such a central power existed. The German kingdom, by the standards of the times was a well-ordered political entity with a monarch who could command considerable resources, mainly through his control of church lands and military resources.

The question why Henry II’s successors did not consolidate Europe under their rule and why Europe today has this great diversity of languages, culture and history within a territory half the size of Canada is the story of these 100 years between 1024 and 1125, the hundred years of Salian rule.

Without further ado, let’s get started.

On July 13th, 1024 Emperor Henry II succumbed to his long-standing health issues. Henry II had no children. He did not even have nephews. In fact there was nobody at all in the male line to continue his, the Ottonian dynasty.

And worse, he did not make any plans for his succession. As a deeply pious man who saw his job in turning the empire into a “House of God”. In that logic, if the House would please the lord, the lord would select a worthy successor, and if he did not, then it is not worth saving in the first place.

That view may have been quite saintly but must have scared the hell out of everyone else. Previous transitions of power even where the new ruler had been designated by his predecessor had caused huge uncertainty. The civil wars of 936, 955, 982 and 1002 cannot have been forgotten.

The chronicler Wipo described the situation as follows:

Quote: “After the emperor’s passing the state orphaned by the loss of its father began to sway. All well-meaning men were gripped by fear though wicked men were hoping for the destruction of the realm. (and further) Since the emperor had died without offspring the magnates strived to become the first or if that fails the closest to the first, using force rather than wisdom” Unquote

The situation did not tip into civil war for two reasons.

First, a date for an election was set quickly for early September, just six weeks after the Henry II’s death which is about as fast as anyone can organise anything in the 11th century.

And second, control of the empire during that time of transition lay in the hands of empress Kunigunde. Kunigunde had been closely involved in all imperial affairs during her husband’s reign and was well respected. She, together with her extended and powerful family manage the empire during these tense times as smoothly as these things can be done.

On September 4th, 1024, representatives of the Swabians, Bavarians, Franconians and Lotharingians meet in Kamba, a now lost location on the left bank of the Rhine to elect a new king. That is four of the five great stems of the East Francian kingdom. Only the Saxons stayed at home, though they did hold a meeting amongst themselves to discuss the succession.

These four stems now proceeded to elect a new king. The question on everyone’s lips was now, how are we to elect a new king? What are the criteria?

One concept would be descendance from a previous emperor. In 1024 there was literally nobody who descended from a previous king in the male line, which is quite an achievement given women were expected to produce children to the point of total exhaustion or death. Part of the problem had been that the Ottonians consistently turned their offspring into bishops and abbesses, clearly disregarding the urge to prolong the dynasty. The second issue was that younger brothers had a habit of rebelling, which is why the childless Henry II forced his only brother to become a bishop!

It is not even clear whether blood alone would have been enough. The concept of primogeniture was comparatively new and only been introduced by King Henry the Fowler in 935 and not yet widely recognised. Henry II had claimed the throne based on being the closest descendant in the male line of king Henry I, but that was by no means acknowledged by everyone. He ultimately had to capture the throne in a coup, bypassing election.

In terms of blood relations, the closest were the two sons of the Count palatinate Ezzo who had married Otto III sister. Next up from there may be the son of the king of Hungary, whose mother was a sister of Henry II. And then you had the descendants of Konrad the Red who was married to one of Otto the great’s sisters. But given that the ultimate winner of this contest barely mentioned his  relation to the Ottonians, we can be confident that this was not the most relevant criteria.

But that does not mean any Tom, Dick or Harry could become emperor. Lineage is important. A future king must have pedigree and ideally a pedigree that goes bock to Charlemagne or even the Merovingians, who, as we all know, are descendants of a sea monster. That narrows it down to maybe about 500-1000 individuals in total.

But that does not really answer the question. How do they choose amongst these 500-1000 individuals of great ancestry?

Well, there are some general requirements for kingship like being a religious and moral person willing to defend the church, being willing to uphold the law and in particular the privileges of the elite, being merciful and being successful in battle.

These criteria are far too vague to whittle this down to a more manageable shortlist.

Ultimately it came down to politics. The winner of the contest was the one whose selection would please more than anyone else whilst irritating the smallest possible number. He, and I may have forgotten to mention it, it could only ever be a “he”, had to be powerful enough to be an effective ruler, but not so powerful that he would frustrate the other nobles’ ambitions. He had to have connections into most stems, but not be dominant in any of them.

Hence the election itself was not a voting process as we would recognise it, but a negotiation marathon that ended with one unanimous acclamation at the end. Wipo describes how the magnates camped along both shores of the rhine in tent villages organised by stems. They would then negotiate in secret gatherings and envoys were constantly going from tent to tent.

Over several days of negotiations that list was whittled down to two cousins, both called Konrad.

They were both descendants of Konrad the Red. You may remember him, he was the son-in-law of Otto the Great who became duke of Lothringia, then fell out with the emperor and joined Liudolf’s rebellion and, after bending the knee, fought valiantly in the battle on the Lechfeld where he died.

Konrad the Red’s direct ancestors are a bit of a muddle, but the family claims direct descendance from the great Clovis, king of all the Franks and founder of the Merovingian dynasty (we met him in part 2 of the Prologue). That is pretty much as good a lineage as one could possibly have. Clovis was believed to have been a Salian Frank, i.e., a member of the subtribe of the Franks that originated from the area around Worms. You may recognise the name from the so-called Salic or Salian law, a Frankish law code compiled by Clovis. We know the Salic law today as shorthand for excluding women from the inheritance of titles or monarchic roles. It was a lot more than that, but let’s not deviate too much.

Anyway, Clovis was a Salian and Konrad the Red’s family, being descendants of Clovis and holders of the lands where the Salian Franks had originated became known as “the Salians”.

The Salians had benefitted from the demise of the dukes of Franconia in 938 and created a coherent power base around the city of Worms, about 70 km south of Frankfurt. This was probably one of the first territorial entities where a magnate consolidated the lands and rights around a specific area into one coherent entity. Up until now aristocrats would often have lands and rights spread across the kingdom, they would hold the office of duke or count in one place, whilst their private lands are in a different part of the country. This Salian territory was different and thanks to being geographically connected and its rights and privileges going fairly deep, a lot more powerful than its optical size indicates. The Salians also worked hard to keep the territory together and -other than their peers – did not divide it between male descendants – there was only ever one descendant who would inherit all. The Salians also held the office of the duke of Carinthia from time to time, though they put little effort into this post a long way away from their personal possessions.

The two members of the Salians that made the shortlist, Konrad the Younger and Konrad the Elder were cousins. Konrad the elder’s father had died when he was quite young so that the control of the Salian territory moved from his branch of the family to the father of Konrad the younger and ultimately with Konrad the Younger himself. Konrad the Younger was the rich and powerful one.

Konrad the elder on the other hand was effectively disinherited except for some middling county he had received as a consolation prize. But he was not completely without means. He had rescued his finances by marrying Gisela, daughter of duke Herman of Swabia and widow of Ernst, duke of Swabia. Gisela had the guardianship for her son Ernst II which meant she controlled the duchy of Swabia.

The elder Konrad did hence fit the other two key criteria:

  1. he was well connected in Franconia where he came from, in Swabia through his wife, in Carinthia through his Grandfather and in Lothringia through his great grandfather -Tick
  2. but in none of these duchies did he have a controlling position – another tick in the box.

And then there was the clincher that made Konrad the elder look really attractive to the electors – Konrad was the diametrical opposite of Henry II.

Henry II had been an exceptionally well-read individual who was brought up to become a cleric. He preferred the company of bishops and monks over that of his secular vassals. Moreover, his interest in theology had led him to pursue a rigorous definition of incest that invalidated almost all marriages amongst the upper nobility and cause untold misery for many couples. Konrad II on the other hand had been trained to become a fighter, not a preacher, so never learned to read or write and was unlikely to disappear down a doctrinal rabbit hole.

Henry II was a sickly individual suffering from various ailment including rather painful gallstones. Konrad II on the other hand must have been one of the tallest and physically most powerful men of his time. He was nearly 2.0m tall, had broad shoulders and was known to have ridden for 100 miles without stopping. To put that into perspective, at a time when the average height was about 1.69m. Charlemagne who was described as “of lofty stature was a lot shorter at between 1.8 and 1.9m tall.

Henry II could draw on the resources of the well organised and rich duchy of Bavaria when he ascended the throne, making him less dependent upon his lords for vassalage. Konrad II had no material resources in his own right. His access to the resources of Swabia was indirect and temporary until Ernst II reached maturity.

And finally, Henry II had no children, whilst Konrad II already had a son at the time of the election.

For the German lords who regarded Henry II as a tyrant not being like Henry II was a massive plus point.

Konrad’s opposition to Henry II was well known. He had fought in several rebellions against Henry II and only reconciled with the emperor a few years before 1024.

One argument that stood against the elder Konrad was that because of that disinheritance thing, the younger Konrad was technically the head of the Salian family, making it hard to elect his minor cousin without the younger Konrad’s acceptance.

That is where the winning Konrad’s skill in negotiation comes to the fore. By some means not recorded he convinced the younger Konrad to agree that if either of them would be elected, the other would not contest the election. That was not the cleverest thing to do for the younger Konrad who had the resources to mount a serious threat in case of an election of the elder Konrad, whilst the elder Konrad could not realistically hope to unseat the younger Konrad. When the two Konrad’s sealed their agreement with a kiss in front of the magnates realised they could go with their preferred option, and the majority went for the elder Konrad as king Konrad II.

Now this is my interpretation based on the fundamental differences in character, resources and political position between Henry II and Konrad II. Many historians have very different views stressing continuity between Henry II and Konrad II. That view is based on the fact that Konrad II received strong support from ecclesiastical lords, first and foremost from archbishop Aribo of Mainz who had been a close associate of Henry II and heavily involved in his policy to prosecute secular lords for marrying close relatives.

We will probably never know exactly what motivated the electors in this, the first free election of a German king. There were likely lots of side-deals and promises, some of which will not be kept as many protagonists will find out shortly.

Once it was clear the pendulum would swing in favour of the elder Konrad, the archbishop of Cologne and the duke of Lothringia left the meeting at Kamba. As I said before, this is not an election that comes out with a 60/40 result. The result had to be 100% as it reflected gods will. Dissenters had to leave the assembly, which is what they did.

They had no hope in electing someone else, since the alternative candidate, Konrad the Younger had voted for his cousin. All they wanted was more privileges from the emperor in exchange for their vote. And that is what they got, thanks to some very odd behaviour of the archbishop of Mainz.

Following the election, the assembly proceeded to crown the new emperor in Mainz. As you all know, you need two things for a viable coronation, the imperial insignia and the correct archbishop. The former was procured quickly as the previous empress Kunigunde recognised the election and handed the insignia, including the Holy Lance over to the archbishop of Mainz. Aribo of Mainz was also the correct archbishop as the pope had awarded the right to crown the German king to the church of Mainz.

So, on September 8th, four days after election Konrad is crowned and anointed in the cathedral at Mainz. Who is not crowned and not anointed at the same time is the new empress, Gisela. There are endless speculation why Aribo refused to crown Gisela. The leading theory is that Aribo had refused it on the grounds that Konrad and Gisela were both descendants of Henry I and hence too closely related. That is a possible reason since Aribo was a fervent adherent of the theory that the bible prohibits marriages between relatives in the 7th degree. However, the archbishop would have known about that issue before the election he had just supported. Supporters of this theory therefore conclude that Konrad must have promised to annul the marriage immediately after the coronation, which he clearly did not do. The other theories assume some issue with one of Gisela’s previous marriages or her mother’s marriage, but run into the same problem.

Bottom line is that Aribo refused. Konrad need to get crowned asap because -as we know – being crowned transforms a human being into a representative of Christ on earth, which makes it a lot less likely to be deposed and killed. However, he would not accept the refusal to crown his wife.

The archbishop of Cologne had a lot less scruples about the imperial marriage and offered to crown Gisela. Konrad jumped at the opportunity and -in exchange- supported the bishops request to the pope to become entrusted with royal coronations from here on out. As Aribo found himself on the wrong side with the pope, the privilege was duly transferred to Cologne, so that from now on the correct archbishop is the archbishop of Cologne. That being said, some kings will be crowned by Mainz claiming the elder privilege, whilst sometime anti-kings have receive the blessing from Cologne and still end up not counting as correctly crowned. It’s complicated.

He may be elected, and he may be crowned, but he is not yet truly king. He may have bought the archbishop of Cologne with the right to crown kings in the future, but the two Lothringian dukes, Gozolo and Frederick remained in opposition. Equally the Saxons have not formally given homage. 

Konrad has to undertake a royal progress across his lands to secure support from all his nobles. It is a similar progress we have seen Henry II undertake after his coronation in 1002 and it will become a tradition for future kings and emperors.

The initial route is through Lothringia, where he did not encounter actual resistance, but still did not receive homage from the two dukes. They will come around, but not yet.

The next important staging post is the abbey of Vreden where Konrad is greeted by the abbesses Sophie of Gandersheim and Adelheid of Quedlinburg, the two sisters of Oto III. These are the standard bearers of the Ottonian and thereby the Saxon line. Their involvement in the election of Henry II had already been crucial. And again, by receiving and recognising Konrad as king, the Saxon nobles are compelled to accept him as king. And the Saxons did offer him homage a few weeks later at a great gathering in Minden at Christmas 1024. And, like Henry II, Konrad had to confirm the Saxon’s special rights and freedoms they trace back to the time of Otto the Great. These Saxon exceptionals will become the bane of the Salian regime and contribute to its downfall 50 years later.

Konrad moves on to Regensburg where he confirms his control of Bavaria, a duchy that had supported his election anyway. That does not stop him from moving several monasteries from ducal into direct royal control, in other words, nicking the duke’s assets.

In Spring 1025 we find him deep in the southwest in Konstanz where he received the homage of his Italian subjects, including the archbishop of Milan. During the previous year several players, namely the duke of Aquitaine and the king of France have checked out the situation in Italy considering putting themselves or one of their sons on the throne of Italy.  The discussions with the Italian magnates had convinced these pretenders not to push for it, at least for now.

Konrad may have felt re-assured that the Italians did not go into rebellion and elected someone else as their king, but that is not the same as being in control of the Italian kingdom.

The citizens of Pavia had used the period between Henry II’s death and Konrad’s election to burn down the royal palace in the centre of the city. This palace went back to the time of Theodoric the Great in the 5th century, if not further. It had been the centre of royal administration in Italy for centuries. The reason they burned it down is not hard to fathom. You may remember that Henry II’s troops had burned down the city and massacred its population in 1004 after the king had been attacked inside that same palace by an angry mob. Once he was dead, it was payback time.

When the citizens of Pavia appeared at Konstanz to justify themselves, they argued that they only burned the palace after Henry II was dead and hence did not insult the king or damage any living man’s property. Konrad response is quite remarkable: I know that you have not destroyed the palace of the king, as you had no king at the time. But you cannot deny that you have destroyed a royal palace. Even when the king passes, the kingdom remains like the ship remains even if the helmsman perishes. It was a public building, not a private home. It belonged to someone else, not yourselves. You have hence trespassed on another’s land and are hence subject to royal justice.”

This is a huge shift in perception of kingship. Under the Carolingian rulers, the kingdom was a private property, in the same way as a farm or a horse was a private property. The same Salian inheritance rules that require partition amongst the male heirs applied to it.Henry the Fowler already altered the legal status of the kingdom by making Otto the great his sole heir. But the idea that the sate could be distinct from the person of the ruler had not permeated by 983. Otto II had his cousin Henry the Quarrelsome incarcerated as a traitor. However, when Otto II died, he was immediately released, as he was only a traitor against the person of the king, not against the “state” (in inverted commas).

What Konrad says here is that he sees the kingdom as something that is bigger and separate from the person of the ruler, that it has its own rights that are unaffected by the fate of the person wearing the crown. This more modern notion of the state will be one of the foundations of Salians’ understanding of their role as kings and emperors. They may not always be consistent in this, but the prevailing logic is that they are acting on behalf of the state, the res publica as it is now sometimes called, not on behalf of themselves.

Apart from these exciting constitutional shifts, the discussions in Konstanz yielded a more practical outcome. Italy is restless and imperial power is not recognised.  Konrad needed to go down to Italy and get crowned emperor in Rome.

Other than his predecessor, Konrad went straight down to Italy in spring 1026, basically as soon as the last bit of Lothringian and Swabian opposition had caved, mainly out of exhaustion and lack of support.

In Italy he could rely on support from Aribert, the archbishop of Milan, a small number of friendly bishops and the Margrave Bonifaz of Canossa. Pretty much everyone else was opposed to imperial power. The aristocratic opposition led by the margrave of Tuscany could not build up the courage to elect their own king, they had not even the guts to call in a foreign leader as new king. But they remained in a passive aggressive opposition to Konrad, sitting on their castles sulking. Urban populations were more outspoken as we have seen with Pavia. Konrad besieged but Pavia held out until 1027 thereby slowing the royal progress down considerably.

There were even more urban riots during Konrad’s progress, most violently in Ravenna, another city hosting a major royal palace.

At this point Konrad did nothing much about the situation instead of awarding many a rights and privileges to his allies, namely the archbishop of Milan. The most significant move was transferring Tuscany to his ally Bonifaz of Canossa who now controlled a straight band of lands across central Italy, north of Rome ranging from Ferrara through Mantua, Modena, Reggio, Brescia all the way across through Tuscany.

In March 1027 he finally enters Rome and over Easter Pope John XIX crowns him and his wife Gisela as emperor and empress. As always in these tumultuous days there are violent riots in Rome that cost many lives. People fight over which archbishop leads the emperor to the church gate and even as trivial a matter as a cowhide.

Leaving this aside, it was still one of the most glamorous coronations of the Middle Ages. Two crowned kings were in attendance, Rudolf III of Burgundy and -drumroll- king Canute. Yes, this king Canute. You may have come across him in English history as the king who tried to command the waves. This story is about as misleading as King Alfred and the burned bread. Canute is a truly astounding character who created a Nordic empire comprising Denmark, Norway, parts of Sweden, the southern side of the Baltic coast and obviously England. He had come down to Rome not for the coronation per se but on pilgrimage. He used to mix business and devotion to meet and honour the brand-new emperor. Apparently the two got on well and forged an alliance that included a marriage between Konrad’s son Henry and Canute’s daughter.

This was quite a journey. Within a mere three years a mid-ranking aristocrat with nothing more than an impressive physique and impeccable lineage managed to rise first to king and now to emperor. And it is not just the titles he collected he also gained a modicum of control over this empire he took over from a very distant cousin.

In hindsight the election of 1024 is was a crucial step on the way that will make the empire an elective monarchy whilst France and Britain evolve into hereditary monarchies.

At this point in history most elevations to kingship still retained an elective element. That came from the ancient Germanic tradition of raising the most capable warrior to be lead the tribe as its king. That tradition had long been watered down, starting by limiting the set of potential electors from “all sword-carrying men” to the aristocratic elite.

In France and England the kings kept designating their sons to become kings and negotiate terms with the electors until such time that elections had become foregone conclusions and were eventually replaced by pure declarations of homage.

That did not work in the empire where Otto III, Henry II and later Henry V died childless requiring a decision about succession by the magnates. Elections were hence not always foregone conclusions, though we have seen and will see emperors pushing through the election of their sons. But with all the breaks, magnates could insist on an election every time. Whether the electoral principle helped or hurt the development of the empire is another one of these open questions you may want to keep in the back of your mind as we go through the medieval emperors.

But let’s go back to Konrad II. His trials and tribulations are not over though. Whilst he is trying to get to grips with the bewildering situation in Italy, his stepson, Ernst II of Swabia returned to his homeland and began a more serious rebellion. A rebellion that would turn into a great legend of friendship, a mother’s broken heart and adventure in foreign lands. At the same time, the Polish ruler Boleslav the Brave had crowned himself king, disregarding Konrad’s prerogatives. When Boleslav died, his son Mieszko II did the same, bringing down the wrath of the emperor. And, most importantly there is the acquisition of Burgundy. Burgundy had been associated to the empire and its kings had often given homage to emperors, but it was never formally integrated into the empire. Its king, Rudolf III was now very old and had no male heirs, opening up the route for an almighty inheritance dispute. All this and more in next few episodes.

I hope to see you then.

And by the way, the History of the Germans Podcast is advertising free thanks to generous donations from our Patrons. If you too should you feel like supporting the show and get hold of some bonus episodes, sign up on Patreon. The links are in the show notes or on my website at historyofthegermans.com.

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The Imperial Church System

Last week we discussed the economy and infrastructure of Germany in the year 1000 and looked at the first two social states of the Middle Ages, the Laboratores, those who toil and the Bellatores, those who fight. Today we will look at the third and highest-ranking group, the Oratores, those who pray. And then we will discuss the role of the king-emperor in the Ottonian realm, the institutions, if there are any and how they differ from other polities of the time.

But first let’s talk about the Oratores. This is the most heterogenous group ranging from the simple country parson to major European political operators.

Hello and welcome to the History of the Germans: Episode 16 – Germany in the year 1000 (part 2)

Last week we discussed the economy and infrastructure of Germany in the year 1000 and looked at the first two social states of the Middle Ages, the Laboratores, those who toil and the Bellatores, those who fight. Today we will look at the third and highest-ranking group, the Oratores, those who pray. And then we will discuss the role of the king-emperor in the Ottonian realm, the institutions, if there are any and how they differ from other polities of the time.

But first let’s talk about the Oratores. This is the most heterogenous group ranging from the simple country parson to major European political operators.

At the lowest level you have the village priest. As always in this time period we have little consistent data on how many priests there were, whether there were places of worship in most villages, how the priest was paid etc. But best guess is there weren’t many priests and in the outlying villages the priest would show up once a month or even only once a year to do the major sacraments like baptisms and marriages. The training of the priests should have happened predominantly in the cathedral schools that were attached to a cathedral. These were often very prestigious institutions. Quite regularly the bishop himself would do some of the instructing. We for instance know that Gerbert of Aurillac went to Rheims to run the cathedral school and would later become an archbishop and finally pope.

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What I am unclear about is the social setup for the pupils at the cathedral school. Some of them are the sons of the highest aristocracy, for instance the future emperor Henry II was taught at the cathedral school of Hildesheim. I am struggling with the idea that he would have rubbed shoulders with a gifted peasant’s son who was destined to become the village priest. The schools were also small with about 100 pupils at any given time, some of whom sons of local rulers who would not become priests at all. Therefore, most priests in the villages most likely have never been close to a cathedral school in their life but have started out as the apprentice of an established priest. They were supposed to be literate and knowledgeable about liturgy, but there are regular complaints about illiterate priests.

Parish priests would often, if not regularly have families. There were regular complaints about priests living with their consorts amongst the more zealous religious figures. However, nobody really cared as long as the priest’s offspring would not be able to inherit. If they would have been able to inherit, that would have been a major problem. If the vicar’s son would become the vicar, it would have created a parallel aristocracy alongside the secular one, and that was a no no.

The other large group of religious people were the monks and nuns. Western monasticism started in the 6th century with Benedict of Nursia who established the Benedictine rule. The Benedictine rule asked monks to do two things, “ora”, i.e. pray and “labora”, i.e., manual work. The rule also encouraged reading as part of the praying bit and production of books as part of the labour bit. Under Charlemagne in the 9th century the Benedictine rule became the basic guide for most monasteries in Europe. By 1000 there were still some Greek-style monasteries around as well as actual hermits, but we find less and less of those in the following centuries.

By the 10th century some monasteries had grown to be large operations. For instance, Corvey where our old friend Widukind was based, had over 300 monks at its peak. Add to that their lay servants, the monastery itself had a population rivalling many cities at the time. The monasteries were rich, mainly thanks to generous donations by high aristocrats, who often would end their days as monks in the monasteries to atone for their sins. A great example is Gernrode founded by the genocidal Margrave Gero in a likely futile attempt to be forgiven for his sins. High aristocrats would often designate their daughters to become abbesses of the “family” abbey, which meant giving their dowry to the abbey. The sisters of Otto II and Otto III with one exemption would all become abbesses, one of the reasons the dynasty disappeared so comprehensively and abbeys like Quedlinburg, Gandersheim and Essen became so fabulously rich. Check out the treasury of the abbey of Essen on the internet and be amazed.

One common feature of German churches and abbeys was that they were often so-called “Eigenkirchen” or proprietary churches.”. That means the church or abbey was fully owned by a layman, usually the founder of the church. Fully owned meant that the church was treated like any other property that could be bought, sold, inherited or given as a present. The patron would appoint the priest without having to ask the local bishop and – most importantly – would take 2/3 of the Tithe and a big chunk of all other income. Basically, creating one of these Eigenkirchen was a highly profitable investment, which puts these pious donations into perspective. The reason the church did tolerate this until the middle of the 11th century with little murmuring was that the bishops themselves did not have the money to build all the churches needed as the population gradually adopted Christianity.

This concept survived at least to a degree until the 19th century. In some Jane Austin novels, you sometimes have the lord giving the plum vicarage to a family friend – no bishop involved. The difference is that in Germany in the year 1000 these Eigenkirchen could be huge. They include the so-called royal abbeys like the already mentioned Corvey, Fulda and Lorsch. With their right to collect the tithe, these churches became de facto tax collectors for the king. Not only that, but they were also required to send soldiers. When emperor Otto II asked for replacement troops from Germany in 982, about a fifth of the contingent was demanded from abbots.

The great abbeys were also centres for the arts. In particular the abbey of Reichenau on an island in lake Constance became the predominant centre for the production of illuminated manuscripts. Reichenau is where the most celebrated illuminator, an anonymous monk that art historians called the Gregory Master worked. He illuminated amongst others on the Codex Egberti, examples of his work you may have seen in my Instagram and Facebook feeds. But there were many more illuminators in Reichenau as well as in Trier, Fulda, Regensburg and Echternach.

The most famous and storied abbeys of the time, Corvey, Fulda and Reichenau had been founded in the 8th or sometimes 9th century and by the late 10th and early 11th century were mainly focused on estate management and cultural output, not so much on manual labour as Benedikt of Nursia had demanded.

In the 10th century a new “reform” movement took hold in western monasticism. Reform is nothing new in so far that monasteries always had a tendency to become lax in the adherence to strict rules as money and patronage flows in. What makes the “reform” monasticism in the 10th and 11th century different is its streamlined organisation headed by the monastery of Cluny. Cluny had been created as small foundation by a duke of Aquitaine in 910 in a remote corner of Burgundy. IN an act of unusual generosity, the duke did not make it one of his proprietary churches but made it answerable only to the pope, which in 910 meant to nobody as the popes in Rome were mere playthings of the formidable Mariucca, Senatrix of Rome.

Cluny’s first abbot, Odo, enforced strict adherence to the Benedictine rule and established a particularly beautiful form of liturgy which made the monastery attractive to donations from lay lords. So far, so normal. What makes Cluny special is that Odo went out to reform other monasteries as some sort of ecclesiastical mister fix-it. In exchange for his services, these reformed monasteries would then become subordinates of Cluny, which means they are removed from the direct control of their local bishops and counts. As their fame spreads, monks of Cluny were invited to found new monasteries all across Europe, including the monastery of Selz which empress Adelheid had founded and where she ended her days.

Cluny managed to expand until it had as many as 300 daughter monasteries all across Europe. Its alumni were holding major bishoprics and finally the papacy. The abbot of Cluny had become a major political player in Europe, often seen close to popes and emperors. Abbot Odilo of Cluny was a close associate of Emperor Otto III who made large donations to Cluny. There were other centres of monastic reform around that time like Gorze in Lothringia and St. Maximin near Trier, but they did not create a tight knit network and were ultimately sucked into the holy vortex of Cluny.  We will see how far the power of Cluny reaches when we get into the Salian emperors.

Whilst monks were supposed to pray in solitude for the souls of the people, or at least their major donors, the bishops were supposed to be active in the lay world. Their job was the administration of the diocese and to train and lead the parish priests. In the Ottonian empire this spiritual role was playing very much second fiddle to the political ambitions of their occupants.

There were 6 archbishoprics in the German part of the realm, Trier, Mainz, Cologne, Salzburg, Hamburg and Magdeburg. Mainz was the oldest and most prestigious archbishopric in Germany – not quite as dominant as Canterbury in England but the primate church of the land. You have heard about the archbishops of Mainz in our narrative already, first the arch-conspirator Friedrich of Mainz who was supporting the uprisings against Otto the Great, then Otto’s son William who was nowhere near as obedient as his dad had hoped for and now Willigis of Mainz, kingmaker of the Ottonians. Willigis stands as he was the son of a free peasant and not a high aristocrat like most of the bishops of the time.

Next down the pecking order was the archbishop of Cologne, who had the advantage of Aachen, the coronation church, to be in his diocese. Again, the occupants of the seat like for instance Brun, the brother of Otto the Great was a major political player on a European level.

A number of the most eminent bishops in the 10th century like Willigis and Brun but also Ulrich of Augsburg had been made saints pretty shortly after their deaths, even though their spiritual leadership often left something to be desired.

As we have gone through the narrative of the last 80 odd years you may have noticed that the entourages of our king emperor had subtly shifted. Henry the Fowler spent most his time with his fellow dukes and other secular leaders. That is still true for Otto the Great but becomes less so with Otto II who relies more on the advice of his friend Giselher, archbishop of Magdeburg, then his German nobles. By the time of Otto III, we find mostly churchmen in his inner circles. Some of these are holy men like Adalbert of Prague, Nilus and Franco of Worms, but mostly they are powerful bishops like Heribert of Cologne and Bernward of Hildesheim.

The bishops have become immensely powerful on the back of royal donations. In particular after 955 the bishoprics were increasingly awarded secular lordships. That could take the form of Brun, archbishop of Cologne becoming duke of Lothringia, a position that ended with his death. but as time went by, whole counties were permanently awarded to bishoprics or abbeys. This created the famous German Prince-Bishops and Prince-Abbots. The concept behind it was that the formerly purely administrative role of count had gradually become an inherited position. Therefore, the king had lost control over the day-to-day management of the counties and he was looking at ways to get it back. Usually when counties became vacant because the incumbent had died without issue, they had to be re-distributed to members of the major aristocratic families, at least that was the situation after 955. Confiscating them for the crown no longer worked. There was a way out of the dilemma though. If the county would be awarded to a diocese or an abbey as a pious act, the local aristocrats had a hard time arguing that they should get it instead of the holy church.

A bishopric has the great advantage that it cannot be inherited, in part because the bishop has no legitimate offspring. Moreover, a bishop is elected to his spiritual role by the congregation, usually represented by the cathedral clergy. For the bishop to then get hold of the lands, rights and treasures of the bishopric, i.e., the money, he needs to be invested by the king. A bishop without money is no use to no-one so the king was increasingly deciding who would be bishop and the clergy just rubber stamped the choice. There were cases where the clergy had chosen a new bishop and the king refused, proposed a new candidate and the clergy then appointed that one. So, every time a new bishop is elected the king can ask for allegiance or concessions or whatever else he needs at that point. Basically the county is now under royal control.

There is another specifically German quirk, which is the so-called advocacy. Advocacy solves the problem that a priest is not allowed to bear arms, which is unhelpful when he is effectively commanding the military levy of the county he had just received as a donation. To get around that problem, the bishop or abbot could appoint a layman to be in charge of the soldiers and the other administrative duties that come with his worldly possessions. That layman is the advocate. Now smart move here is for the king to make himself or one of his confidants the advocate of the bishop or abbot and hey presto, the assets of the diocese are now under the direct control of the king. In some cases the control could be even tighter, if the abbey or bishopric was an Eigenkirche or proprietary church, at which point the king would also collect all the income himself.

Another control mechanism over the church were the synods, meetings of the bishops. These were usually called to debate church issues, either for a specific region, the whole of the kingdom or the whole of Christendom. During the Ottonian period, the king or emperor would regularly preside over the local synods, and during Otto III he would even preside over a global synod in Rome, albeit shared with the Pope. 

This sounds very neat and to a large degree this Ottonian/Salian imperial church system is the source of the dominance of the German emperors in this time period. Based on the one document we have about the composition of the Ottonian army, 70% of its soldiers came from bishops and abbots.

But it is not entirely straightforward either. The emperor cannot just choose anyone to be bishop or abbot willy, nilly, but has to take the expectations of his nobles and magnates into account. You remember when Otto the Great at the height of his might still could not freely choose who he wanted to be archbishop of Magdeburg.

As always with the Middle Ages, central power is fragile, built on mutual personal obligations and consent of the ruled has to be reaffirmed regularly by meeting and greeting the nobles, pretend to hear what they have to say, kiss their children or stand godparent etc, etc pp. Failure to do so has serious consequences.

Last but not least, at the top of the ecclesiastical tree should be the pope. But in the 10th century that is simply a joke. With the exception of the popes that Otto III installed, the vicars of Christ in the Ottonian period are at best the punchbags of the local Roman aristocracy or depraved murderers and adulterers. Their moral authority is so weak that Ottonian emperors dismiss and appoint popes at will, something they would not ever dare to do with their own bishops and archbishops. On the flipside, when the emperor gets a papal bull that allows him to establish an archbishopric in Magdeburg against the wishes of the archbishop of Mainz, he does not even use it, knowing full well it is not worth the rather expensive vellum it is written on.

In effect there is a vacuum at the top of Christendom, that cries out to be filled.

Well, not a complete vacuum, there is also the emperor. But what is an emperor, in particular at the turn of the millennium?

Having been crowned emperor made no difference even to Charlemagne or Otto the Great as it comes to the number of soldiers, landed estates or piles of gold he controls. That is different to the crown of Italy which comes with clearly defined rights and obligations. The imperial crown is just an ambition. What that ambition is and how it may be achieved differs fundamentally from emperor to emperor.

Before we go into the imperial ambitions, we first need to take a look at the assets and tools the Ottonians have at their disposal. In other words, we need to look at what kind of “state” (in inverted commas) they ran.

Let’s start with Henry the Fowler. Henry the Fowler relied mainly on his personal demesne, the duchy of Saxony and the power of his personality. There was technically a royal demesne left over from Carolingian times, but what that was worth is more than unclear. For instance, the royal palace at Regensburg, which was the favourite seat of Charlemagne’s son, Louis the Pious, had firmly gone into possession of the Bavarian dukes. Even Aachen was lost to the French and Ingelheim was only part of the Royal estate because the Franconian duke allowed it.

As we transition from Henry the Fowler to Otto the Great, royal power strengthens. Henry the fowler had already gained the right to invest bishops and abbots in most duchies and Otto the Great added more royal domains, mainly by confiscating Franconia. Some possessions in Lothringia were also added to the royal demesne, including Aachen. Between 919 and 955 Henry and Otto the Great placed their close relatives, brothers, sons and sons-in-law as dukes so that by 955 all duchies were in the hands of just one family. That however backfired as the rebellion of Liudolf exposed the level of disaffection amongst the major aristocratic clans who were left out of the plum jobs.

After 955 the Ottonians gradually relinquished direct control of the duchies and the important marches to pacify the aristocratic clans. Whilst they gave up secular power, they build out their control over the church. As mentioned before the emperors handed more and more land and rights to the church, not necessarily for piety, but as a way to create an administrative infrastructure that they could control. The increasing reliance on the church is quite visible in the royal itineraries, which after 955 included more and more stays at the seats of bishops, where they would hold royal assemblies as well as synods. 

By the 980s – as we said before, 70% of the Ottonian army was supplied by the German church, not by the German nobles.

The big financial boost to the imperial coffers came from the silver mines in Goslar that remained the largest silver deposits in Western europe for the next 100 years.

What the emperors lacked and will continue to lack is tax-raising powers. By the year 1000, the only states that had tax raising powers were the emperor in Constantinople, the Muslim states in Spain and Sicily and England. The reason for Constantinople and the Muslims to have taxation is easily explained by the inheritance from the Romans. England is a different matter. England’s king Ethelred the Unready was an ineffectual ruler who could not fight back Viking invasions. His solution was to pay the Vikings the famous danegeld, essentially a bribe for them to go away. That had the entirely predictable effect that the Danes came back every year to ask for more. To raise the funds, king Ethelred had to tax his people. It was either that or being raped and pillaged by the Vikings, so people paid. Once the Danes were themselves in charge, they still collected the Danegeld as a regular tax so that over time the English became used to being taxed. That tax income made the kings of England some of the richest medieval rulers who could punch well above their weight in the hundred years war.

The German emperors were unfortunately too successful against their invaders, namely the Hungarians, so that they never got into a situation where they could justify asking all their subjects for taxes. There were some taxes in Germany in the 10th century though, the Tithe, the 1/10th of the income you had to give to the church. Through the system of Eigenkirchen and Advocacy, the king could get a share in the tithe, so that in some weird indirect way he had some tax revenues.

There is the justifiable question why the German emperors did not introduce taxes when they were at the height of their powers in the 10th century. Establishing taxation requires two things, a bureaucracy that reaches down to the individual taxpayer to assess the level of tax to be paid and a means to enforce the tax dues, in extremes by military power. And that is why we have a catch 22, without tax income already you cannot afford the bureaucracy and the standing army required to collect the taxes. What you need is either an existing infrastructure or an extraneous event like the Viking invasion or in the case of France the 100 years’ war that justifies raising taxes.

But at the turn of the millennium, the German emperor was the most powerful ruler in Western Europe, despite his lack of tax income, because he could draw on the resources of the church. Again, not without restrictions, but in principle, yes.

The only other polity in Western Europe that had similar control over the church was the Duchy or Normandy. The dukes in Normandy had gradually assumed control of the abbeys and the bishopric of Rouen, having turned them into proprietary churches. The Normans however managed to get one step further. They used the soldiers the church provided them with and subdued their local lords. They tore down their castles and, if they were still not yielding, had them expropriated. Therefore, when William the Conqueror arrives in Britain in 1066, he comes as the head of the most coherent medieval polities that is entirely at his command. And the combination of the streamlined Norman political system and the English population’s willingness to pay taxes is the secret sauce of English power in the Middle Ages. Just keep this bit in mind when we are talking about the next 100 years of German history.

So, to recap, the emperor has some legal rights over the church resources, his own private lands and the silver mines in Goslar.

These are the assets, but how does the software work. What are the processes and institutions that the emperor uses to run the country?

In terms of royal institutions, there is only one, the chancellery. I guess I mentioned before that the chancellery was an invention of archbishop Brun, the brother of Otto the Great. The chancellery was originally just the place where the royal scribes would produce the royal or imperial charters. Under Brun and later Otto the Great, they turned into something more significant. The Chancellor became the chief advisor to the king and his de facto chief administrator. He would organise and sometimes adjudicate court cases and send out the missii, royal envoys who would be sent to enforce the royal orders. Apart from the immediate role, the chancellery was also the training ground for future bishops. If you were a young aristocrat with ambitions to become a church leader, the imperial or royal chancellery was the place to be. As the emperor had the ultimate say on who would become bishop, being close to him and making yourself useful in his service gave you the ticket to great power and riches. From the emperor’s perspective, he gets the chance to evaluate potential candidates and choose those he can hope to be loyal.

Historians of the 19th century had concluded that this was a coherent and streamlined system where the emperor would end up commanding a squad of fully obedient bishops who had been his PAs before. That has been successfully challenged by modern historians and it is now generally believed that the king would have to take the big aristocratic clans into account when appointing his bishops. That meant they were generally loyal and more loyal than they would have been without the stint I the Chancellery, but they are not at his beck and call.

By the late Ottonian period we would usually have two chancellors, a chancellor for Germany and a chancellor for Italy. But beyond the Missii, the administration did not go any deeper. Any order or request needed to be implemented by the local powers, be it a bishop, abbot or count.

Otto III tried to expand the administration and appointed all sorts of roles mimicking the court in Constantinople. But absent an infrastructure below these titles, they were just empty shells. You remember the chief admiral with no ships?

To achieve their compliance, the emperors would hold assemblies and synods. The difference between the two is that a synod is in principle only for churchmen to discuss church issues whilst an assembly would be mainly for the secular rulers, though the bishops and abbots would be there in their function as secular rulers. Again, when we look into the detail, the distinctions are fluid, and you find assemblies discussing church matters and synods being attended by laymen discussing secular matters.

The purpose of these gatherings was to gain approval for the imperial policy. The king-emperor rules by the consent of his people, because he does not have the funds to maintain a standing army and an administration that reaches all the way down to the individual peasant.

And that is most visible when it comes to the question how you become king. We are still in a transition period between the Germanic kingdoms of the dark ages and the high Middle Ages. In the Germanic kingdoms, the king was usually elected, based on military prowess, i.e., whoever promised the most plunder becomes king. Being a member of the aristocracy and even being related to the previous king mattered but was not the main consideration. As the kingdoms became more stable, hereditary monarchies became more prevalent. The Merovingians were mostly hereditary with the added quirk of being ginger and still in possession of a full head of hair to be king. When we get to the Carolingians, it looks on the outside like a hereditary system, but the exact rankings of various claimants to the throne had not been established, in particular there was the horizontal succession from brother to brother competing with the vertical succession from father to son. And then there were all sorts of questions about the female line and illegitimate sons that in the end, the king was often elected.

As the kingdom of Germany emerges, the situation does not fundamentally change. Henry the Fowler is elected, though only by about half the kingdom. He does get the consent of the rest later.

We do not know whether Otto the Great was formally elected, but he was acclaimed by the nobles before his coronation, which suggests an election of some sort had taken place, possibly at a time when Henry the Fowler was still alive. Otto II and Otto III were both formally elected, but under the watchful eye of the then reigning emperor, making it more of a formality than an actual election.

A way to describe this is as a hereditary elective monarchy, where the reigning emperor can force through the election of his offspring, but if the situation arises where the emperor dies before his successor is elected, election is the correct way to choose the next ruler. And that election would then be free in so far as the closest blood relative does not necessarily have to become the next ruler.

Apart from inheritance and election, consecration by the church is the third source of imperial legitimacy. The coronation rite is in many aspects similar to the consecration of a bishop. The king is anointed with the holy chrism like a bishop, and he swears an oath to defend the church.

With the popes being so weak, the position of the Ottonian emperors was even higher than a bishop. The emperor could see himself as the leader of Christendom and head of the church above the pope. Under Otto III we reach a first peak of this theocratic notion of kingship. Otto III behaves more like a spiritual than a secular leader, more like a future saint than an emperor.

Such an elevated status also meant that rebellion against the emperor was not undertaken lightly. In particular if the king had enjoyed signs of divine favour, as Otto the Great had in the battles of Birten and Andernach. Henry the Quarrelsome would have had Otto III killed, had he not been consecrated almost at the last minute. The Saxon nobles who turned against Henry the Quarrelsome did so largely because they feared divine retribution if they had broken their oath to the anointed king.

For the act of consecration to be valid, it had to be performed by the right people and with the right pieces of kit. You needed the archbishop of Mainz, the Holy Lance as the most valuable of the imperial regalia, but also the imperial crown, sceptre, coat and a whole long list of other accoutrements.

To sum up, you ideally need to meet three requirements to become emperor, direct male descendance from the previous incumbent, election by the majority of the magnates, and valid consecration with the correct regalia. Btw, France under the Capetins had a similar system. But the French kings were blessed with more powerful loins and produced male heirs in such a consistent manner, that a free election never happened and at some point, the French simply forgot that they could elect their king – until 1789.

In Germany by 1002, these key requirements still need to be fulfilled.  And this is where we are. Otto III had no children and no successor has been elected during his lifetime. There is no direct male descendant apart from Henry of Bavaria, who can trace his line back to Henry the Fowler, 80 years earlier. A new king will need to be elected. Will it be Henry, or will others stake a claim? Who will Heribert of Cologne give the Holy Lance to, the one he had sneakily sent ahead from Rome as soon as Otto III had breathed his last? Can you be king without meeting all three requirements?

All will be revealed next week. I hope you enjoyed this episode and will listen in again next week and in the meantime, do not hesitate to share, comment or give feedback and encouragement. You can do that on social media, on my Facebook, Twitter, refit or Instagram under History of the Germans Podcast, or on the review section of Apple, Podbean or any other platforms

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