Imperial Coronation

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Otto the Great is crowned emperor

The battle of the Lechfeld in 955 AD was Otto’s greatest achievement and the reason why history calls him Otto the Great, the only Holy Roman Emperor apart from Charlemagne to receive this accolade. He did beat the pagan Hungarians so comprehensively that they would never again threaten Western Europe again. Historical comparisons are always hard, but this success is on par with Scipio Africanus’ defeat of the Carthaginians, Aetius victory over the Huns in 451, Charles Martel’s repulsion of the Muslims at Poitiers and King John Sobieski’s relief of Vienna from the Ottoman siege in 1683. Had the Hungarians destroyed Otto’s army and created a permanent base in Augsburg, German and overall Western European history would likely have taken a very different turn.

Hello and welcome to the History of the Germans – Episode 7 – A New Caesar

The battle of the Lechfeld in 955 AD was Otto’s greatest achievement and the reason why history calls him Otto the Great, the only Holy Roman Emperor apart from Charlemagne to receive this accolade. He did beat the pagan Hungarians so comprehensively that they would never again threaten Western Europe again. Historical comparisons are always hard, but this success is on par with Scipio Africanus’ defeat of the Carthaginians, Aetius victory over the Huns in 451, Charles Martel’s repulsion of the Muslims at Poitiers and King John Sobieski’s relief of Vienna from the Ottoman siege in 1683. Had the Hungarians destroyed Otto’s army and created a permanent base in Augsburg, German and overall Western European history would likely have taken a very different turn.

The significance of events is often not clear to contemporaries, but in case of the Lechfeld it clearly was. Even if his soldiers have not hailed him Caesar on the battlefield as Widukind claimed, there was no doubt that from then on he was the reference point for all of the old empire of Charlemagne. On his return to Saxony Otto held a great assembly where emissaries from all over Europe, from the pope, the Byzantine emperor and the Caliph of Cordoba came to offer gifts of glass and ivory vessels, rugs, balsam, every kind of dye and they brought animals including lions, camels, apes and ostriches, never seen before so far north.

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As always with Otto, success in battle was further augmented by a heavy dose of luck. We talked about the close shave he had with the Abodrites last week, the consequence of which was a period of at least superficial calm on the North Eastern frontier. On the eastern frontier the murder and subjugation of Slavic people continued unabated, and was made a lot easier when Otto and Gero made Miesco, leader of the Poles a friend and ally. That squeezed the smaller Slavic tribes between two, or if we count in the Bohemians, three enemies on all sides.

In the North, the kingdom of Denmark was embarking on its inexorable rise when king Harald Bluetooth unified the tribes. Harald should be known to our British audience as father of Sweyn Forkbeard and grandfather of King Canute who ruled Denmark, Norway and England. In the 950s/960s Harald is understood to have converted to Christianity either as the result of a lost war or because of a miracle performed by a certain Poppo who carried a red hot iron bar over a distance without suffering any harm. I leave the choice to you, but to me probability of battle success seems higher than safe manhandling of scalding metal. In any event, Harald held the peace for the next 5 years or so and the archbishop of Hamburg-Bremen received ecclesiastical authority over the church in Scandinavia.

What Margrave Gero was to Otto in the East was his brother Brun in the West. You may vaguely remember that Otto managed to have his little brother Brun elevated to be archbishop of Cologne at the beginning of the war against Liudolf. And just before the end when Konrad the Red had bent the knee and lost his duchy of Lothringia, Brun also became duke of Lothringia, making him the first archduke in history. Brun was in all and every aspect the opposite of his brother Henry. Brun used his enormous resources and extraordinary I

ntellectual capabilities to grow and strengthen the kingdom rather than just himself. During Liudolf’s rebellion Brun had tried multiple times to reconcile father and son. And now that the civil war was over, he spent most of his time and effort on keeping the western front calm. Lothringia was a notoriously hard to manage duchy. Its counts and bishops were acutely aware that they could count on French support in case of a rebellion. Konrad the red never managed to bring the Lothringian nobles in line. His biggest opponents were the Reginars, the family of the old duke Gilbert. The Reginars rose up against Brun when he took over, but made the one fatal mistake of irritating the king of France at the same time.  They had no chance against the combined force of both Brun and the King of France, so scuttled back onto the caste they had come from. After that nobody challenged Brun and he created two new sub-duchies, Upper and Lower Lothringia and gave them to senior members of Lothringian families loyal to the Ottonians. And then luck struck double when both king Louis IV and his most important magnate Hugh Capet called Magnus died. Their respective sons were both 15 and their mothers were both sisters of Brun and Otto. That made Brun the de facto controller of the Kingdom of France.

What made Brun really significant for German history was his administrative reform. He created a ducal chapel attached to himself where young and promising clerics prepared important documents and deeds. It was the first Chancery. These young clerics once trained up and of proven loyalty to Brun would be positioned into the bishoprics of the archdiocese as a pillar of both the temporal and the spiritual control of the duchy. That system would later be taken on by Otto for the whole of the realm and we will talk about it in a lot more detail in a separate episode. For now just remember – Brun – smart guy who invented the chancellor.

With all and everything now consolidated in the East, North and West, Otto can now realise his true ambition – go to Rome to be crowned emperor. Let’s get everybody up to speed with what happened in Italy after Otto and Adelheid had to leave the beautiful South in 952 to deal with the renegade Liudolf.

You may remember that Berengar the previous king of Italy and tormentor of Adelheid had submitted to Otto at the end of 952. Otto accepted his oath of fealty and allowed him to remain as a client king. Who knows whether Otto thought that oath was worth anything, but given the humiliating circumstances under which it was given, there was a good chance Berengar did not feel bound by it at all. To no-one’s surprise, when between 952 and 955 Otto was busy with family issues, Hungarians and Slavs, Berengar went back to the capital of Italy in Pavia, took control of the kingdom, including the provinces of Verona and Aquileia that had gone to Henry of Bavaria, and began filling key positions like the bishopric of Milan with his appointees.

Otto did not appreciate that and sent an army down to Italy as soon as he had some breathing space. Guess who was leading this army? Yes, it is obvious. The best person to hand an army to, only two years after his rebellion, is his beloved son Liudolf. The 10th century never fails to surprise!

Liudolf managed to enter Pavia and put Berengar back in his box. That box was one of Berengar’s impenetrable castles around the northern Italian lakes.  But on his way back, Liudolf died, probably of Malaria. He was buried in the monastery of St. Albans in Mainz, not in the imperial mausoleum his father was building in Magdeburg and where his mother was buried. His gravestone said, “For me, Luidolf, the world was not enough, but now my dust has to content with this small pit” It seems dad had not completely forgiven him. After Liudolf’s death Otto’s two-year old son, also called Otto, becomes the new heir apparent.

Liudolf’s invasion of Italy had not solved the situation in the South. Berengar had re-entered Pavia as soon as the last of Liudolf’s soldiers had turned the corner towards the alpine passes. After that failed expedition Otto let things slip in Italy. That might have had something to do with a severe illness he suffered around that time and/or he may have tried to completely take control of the Slavic areas in conjunction with the Poles. Berengar on his part believed that Otto would not come back and felt even strong enough to attack the pope and occupy Ravenna in 961.

In 961 Papal power was in a sad state. The papacy had become hostage to two Roman aristocratic clans, the Crescenti and the Theophylacts. These guys were in the habit of putting popes on thrones and toppling them right afterwards at vast rate of knots. In the early 900s they managed to go through no less than 6 popes in seven years, very few of whom died in their beds.

By 911 Mariucca, the daughter of the count of Tusculum had become the head of the Theophylacts clan. As common with powerful women of the time, she was described as “a shameless strumpet who was the sole monarch of Rome and ruled it like a man.” There might however be some truth in that slur as she managed to be the mistress of Pope Sergius III, murderess of Pope John X, mother of Pope John the XI, grandmother of Pope John the XII and ancestor to a further 4 popes. In between she got married three times, the last time to Hugh of Provence and Italy who you may remember from one of the last episodes. Their marriage was the only marriage ceremony in history conducted by a pope, who also happened to be her son. However, her reign did not last forever.

Her son Albaric, half-brother of that self same pope John XI instigated a rebellion that pushed Hugh of Provence out and his mother Mariucca disappeared into a jail never to be heard of again.

Pope John the XI became Albaric’s personal footstool. Albaric reigned Rome for the next 20 years appointing and dismissing popes at will. When he died in 954, he made the leading Romans swear on the bones of the apostles that they would make his son named Octavian pope upon the death of the current incumbent. Surprisingly, that is what they did. The fact that young Octavian was just 18 years old and utterly unsuited to be vicar of Christ seems to have been neither here nor there. To quote from Gibbon:

“we read with some surprise that the worthy grandson of Mariucca lived in public adultery with the matrons of Rome; that the Lateran palace was turned into a school for prostitution; and that his rapes of virgins and widows had deterred the female pilgrims from visiting the shrine of St. Peter” As some sort of mini Heliogabalus he gambled away the fortune of the curia and enjoyed, even promoted chaos wherever he could.

 This worthy follower of Saint Peter who took the name John XII for ecclesiastical purposes lost control of the holy city after a failed expedition against the Lombard dukes south of Rome. Berengar saw his weakness and pounced. In fear of his life Pope John sent envoys to Otto asking for help against Berengar’s incursions into his lands. In exchange he offered the only thing he had to offer, the imperial crown.

Everything was now in place. Otto not only had his back covered in Germany, he was in all but name emperor in the same way as Charlemagne had been emperor. This gap between image and reality had to be closed. Berengar’s constant returns to power have become an embarrassment and the pope was inviting him. And then there was his wife Adelheid, formerly queen of Italy and formerly prisoner of Berengar asking for revenge. Time to get going.

Conquering Italy and particularly Rome was a hazardous undertaking. Apart from the risks of battle, the much bigger danger was disease. Malaria had been present in Italy since at least the 3rd century and remained endemic until 1949. In 1882 when they did the first health survey for Italy they estimated that about 2 million out of 30 million Italians had malaria and 15-20,000 died of it every year. AT a mortality rate of 710 per million it was higher than the UK COVID mortality today. In the 10th century it must have been a lot worse given nobody knew about Quinine, hygiene or had any  other medical expertise . The worst affected area was the coast of the Tyrrhenian sea between Florence and Naples with Rome the by far most dangerous city amongst the large Italian centres. In the 1880s the province of Rome accounted for 1/6th of malaria deaths in the country. The cause of malaria was that water that came down from the Apennines could not drain into the Mediterranean. It created stagnant pools all over the Maremma in Tuscany and the Pontine Marches south of Rome where Mosquitos could breed. Malaria had a devastating effect on these areas where nearly 2 million hectares of land remained uncultivated until they were drained in the 1930s. Malaria tends to be a predominantly rural but Rome in the 10th century had large, flooded areas which were an ideal breeding ground for the carriers

What all this means is that going down to Rome in the 10th century meant you took a big gamble with malaria, in particular when you got stuck there over the summer. It is not a coincidence that Charlemagne get crowned at Christmas. The combination of malaria risk and alpine snowfall meant that the traditional progress of the Holy Roman emperors to Rome had a set seasonality. They crossed the alps in the summer and then waited in the North of the country until it was safe to go down to Rome, which was typically no earlier than October/November. Once in Rome, the coronation was done quite quickly and the emperor made sure they were either home or at least in one of the more mountainous areas by March.  And Ottos trip, which established the tradition was following that self-same pattern.

In May 961 he held a royal assembly in Worms and organised the reign for his absence. His now 6-year-old son was not only elected, but a week later also crowned king as Otto II in Aachen by all three main archbishops with all the pomp and circumstance that befits his new rank. Crowning a king whilst there was still a king alive was common in Byzantium but it was a real novelty in the Carolingian realm. This again has to be seen in light of the risks of a trip to Rome. in case Otto would have died, little Otto II would have a better chance of survival if he was anointed with the holy chrism. Being anointed had elevated the kid into the realm of a ruler by the grace of God. Taking him down was a sin against God. On the other hand, had he just been elected but not crowned, deposing him was just disregard of the wishes of an old and now dead man.

Anointed little Ott II might have been, but that does not mean he could run a kingdom. He was left behind under the tutelage of his uncle, archbishop William of Mainz, who became regent.

In August 961 Otto mustered his troops and marched across the Brenner and down to Pavia. As before Berengar disappeared down to Ivrea as soon as he saw the first German soldier come over the passes. The Italian magnates, some of whom may indeed have hated Berengar’s increasingly autocratic government opened the doors to their strongholds, as they had done 10 years earlier.

Italy was now wide open but by Christmas Otto is still in Pavia. Negotiations with the Pope seem to have been dragging on. Only After the Pope has been reassured of Otto’s and his successor’s support against Berengar can Otto enter the holy city on January 31st 962. Then or two days later the 23-year old pope crowned Otto and Adelheid in St. Peter.

After 26 years of incessant fighting against obstinate relatives, boasting French, duplicitous Italians, resourceful Slavs and nimble Hungarian horsemen, king Otto I becomes emperor Otto I, successor to Charlemagne. 

This being first and foremost a business deal, the pope and emperor then issued a document called the Ottonianum. In this document the emperor acknowledges all the territorial claims of the church based on the forgery that was the Constantine donation, the donation of Pippin and some claims based on who knows what over large chunks of Southern Italy and Sicily. In exchange the pope confirmed the “Constitutio Romana” of 824 which stipulates that the selection of the pope is subject to imperial approval. That is clear as mud, since on the one hand it says the pope owns pretty much most of central and Southern Italy, whilst at the same time he has to be loyal to the emperor as his sort of overlord. It also does not help that the document claims to confirm existing arrangements, some of which were just fakes.

Otto stayed just 2 weeks in Rome and then got on with the tiresome business of bringing down Berengar. First, he subjected Hubert of Tuscany, a powerful count based in Lucca and supporter of Berengar. Then he started to smoke out Berengar’s family. They had split up, each defending a different stronghold. Berengar himself defends the castle of Montefeltro in Emilia Romagna. Berengar’s son Adalbert held out in a castle on the shore of Lago Maggiore and his brother Wido on an island in lake Como. His wife Willa chose the most picturesque place to fight for her life, on the island St. Giulio in the middle of the Lago di Orta.

Willa’s stronghold falls after 2 months of siege, though she is allowed to leave and joins her husband in Montefeltro. In May Otto begins the siege of Montefeltro. To say Montefeltro is a tough one is the understatement of the 10th century. You can take a look at it on the History of the Germans podcast page on Facebook and you can see how difficult it must have been.

Whilst Otto and his army are sitting outside Montefeltro he gets wind of some quite unusual goings on in Rome. We will probably never find out what really happened, but let’s start with the report by Liudprand of Cremona. According to him John XII had returned to his favourite pastime – wooing the opposite sex, may it be fine ladies who are thin as reeds from dieting or everyday buxom wrenches. Otto felt he had to share some of his views on loose morals in the hope of bringing the young pope back to the straight and narrow. The pope responded by sending a delegation to Otto saying that thanks to his stern words he had now changed his habits and was a reformed man. And by the way did he know anything about the whereabouts of two disloyal clerics, a bishop Leo and a cardinal deacon John who have gone missing. To which Otto said that, yes he was glad of his change and no he had not seen neither Leo nor John. However, he had been told they were arrested at Capua carrying letters asking the emperor in Constantinople, the Zsar of the Bulgars and the Hungarians for help against himself, his fatherly friend and emperor. That allegation, he said, would have been absolutely preposterous, had it not been for the pope’s seal and signature on all the letters. A few more delegations went back and forth exchanging suggestions of mutual treachery until John came out in the open and admitted Adalbert, son of Berengar to Rome.

Now Liutprand is an extremely amusing but utterly biased witness. He hated Berengar, who he had served before as his advisor and ambassador. Berengar had sent him to Constantinople on a mission to get recognition for the usurpation of the kingdom. However, Berengar had forgotten to give him a present for the Vasilev. Berengar then had to buy a nice set of two eunuchs at his own expense to give to the ruler of the Eastern empire. Liutprand never forgave him for that and he joined Otto’s court. Otto made him bishop of Cremona and his advisors on Italian matters. He was close to events and must have known what really happened, but that does not mean he would tell us.

If we strip Liutprand down to the bones of the story, what happened is that John did turn against Otto and allied himself with Berengar and his family. The political logic for such a move is quite obvious. As long as Otto was just the useful idiot who stopped Berengar from invading the papal lands, all was good. John probably thought that Otto would have to return after a year be it for fear of the disease or because of unrest in Germany. That was what happened in 952. But when Otto settled down to besiege Montefeltro and Adelheid began building a pro-Ottonian party amongst the counts and bishops of Italy, John realised that Otto intended to stay for good. Now that is not what he had bargained for. An emperor of a combined Italo-German Reich meant no more fun and games for little John and his ladies. Whether he did look for additional help from pagan raiders outside Italy is ultimately not relevant, though I guess Berengar himself had been doing that already.

All this took place in the heat of summer so Otto could not go down to Rome and set John strait, plus he still hoped he could wear Berengar down. By October Montefeltro still held out and Otto had to ease the siege, take a part of his army and go to Rome.

The Romans may not have been as loyal to John as he had hoped because they opened the gates as soon as the army arrived. Pope John XII and Adalbert fled to Tivoli in the hills above Rome. Otto called a synod of bishops led by Liudprand of Cremona to judge the bishop of Rome. They subpoena the pope to come to the synod and defend himself against the accusation of murder, false testimony, sacrilegious incest, drinking of devilish love potions and worshipping of pagan gods. For some reason John as disinclined to come down from his hilltop fortress, so the synod deposed him in absentia.

Otto then chose some papal bureaucrat who was not even a priest to be the new pope, Leo VIII. The tame synod elevated him to the papal throne in early December after some high-speed ordination. Leo VIII confirmed under oath that he recognised the emperor’s right to choose the pope.

Nothing shows the utter weakness of the papacy at this point more clearly than Otto simply deposing one pope and randomly choosing another. That is something he would have never dared to do with say archbishop Friedrich of Mainz who was more than a pain in the backside for 20 years but was never deposed.

Good news came hard and fast. Montefeltro fell a few days after Christmas. Berengar and Willa were captured, sent to Germany and put into a monastery where Berengar died 3 years later. Willa became a nun. Berengar’s son Adalbert had fled to Corsica and the pope John XII who had escaped from Tivoli was hiding out somewhere. By the end of the year 963 Otto felt that all what needed to be done had been done and sent most of his army home.

Bad mistake. As soon as the last German soldier had turned the corner onto the alpine passes, pope John XII crept out from under the stone he had been hiding and instigated an uprising in Rome. Pope Leo VIII managed to get away by a hares breath. Other members of the Ottonian party were not so lucky. One of them lost his tongue, nose and two fingers, another lost his right hand. John then set up his own synod that deposed pope Leo VIII and excommunicated all the bishops who had participated in the previous synod.

Otto was obliged to strike back immediately, but for that he needed an army, I mean the army he had just sent home.

He waited 3 months for his vassals in Germany to send new troops. Once they had arrived, he marched on Rome. Halfway there he was told that the 26year old pope had died of a stroke, possibly whilst engaged in unseemly activity with a young lady. That is one way of solving the problem.

Though the Romans still opposed Otto’s choice of pope, Leo VIII, they ultimately conceded, and Otto entered the city.  He stayed a few weeks and once he was confident everything would stay calm from now on, returned home in triumph.

He held a great imperial diet in Cologne where the entire family got together. There were Otto’s siblings, Brun archbishop of Cologne and duke of Lothringia, his sister Gerberga, together with her son, king Lothar of France, King Konrad of Upper Burgundy, brother of Queen Adelheid and Otto’s godson, young Henry of Bavaria, son of Otto’s brother as well as Otto’s own children, King Otto II and last but not least, Otto’s 70 year old mother Mathilda, abbess of Quedlinburg who had lived a life of prayer and philanthropy those last 30 years and was now fully reconciled with her son.

Otto was not just king of East Francia/Germany, but also the patriarch of the whole Frankish empire, the true successor of Charlemagne.  That is what he set out to do when he had taken Charlemagne’s throne in Aachen at his coronation in 936, and 28 years later he had achieved it.

The other thing he achieved is giving the country he ruled its own name. You may remember that Julius Caesar had invented the Germans, but that is not the name by which Germans refer to themselves. We call ourselves Deutsche. And that name was again not one we gave ourselves, but one given to us by the Italians.

Before Otto’s expedition to Rome the Italians referred to the German soldiers who came down from time to time to burn their huts in the name of this or that pretender to the Italian throne by their stem names, i.e., Swabians or Bavarians mainly. When Otto came down with an army consisting of armed men from all different stems, that nomenclature had become too complicated.

That is when they remembered the Teutones, a possibly Germanic people though some historians believe they were celts. The Teutones had entered Northern Italy in 105 BC and inflicted severe defeats on the Roman legions. Only after Gaius Marius was put in charge did the Romans over a period of four years gain the upper hand. To achieve victory Marius changed the legions from a force of free citizens into a paid army loyal only to their commanders. He forced through his re-election as consul five times, creating precedents for Sulla, Caesar and Augustus. The Romans sacrificed their mos mairoum, their ancient and holy safeguards of the Republic because they were so terrified of the Furor Teutonicus, the Teutonic Fury that was their mad, merciless, berserk rage in battle.

After Otto’s army had brought 3 years of devastation across Italy, learned men dug up Their ancient foes and attached the name of the Teutones to these German soldiers. They liked it and Teutones became Teutsch and then Deutsch and Deutschland.

That is an appropriately cheerful note to end this episode. Next week we keep going on with Otto, who comes back to Italy with even more Teutones. That is what happens if one does not clean up properly. Adalbert, son of Berengar was still roaming free, the Romans were still unruly and his son, Otto the II needed an imperial crown and an imperial bride. 

I hope to see you then.

I also want to mention that I have a Facebook page called History of the Germans Podcast where I post occasional pictures, maps and short stories that did not fit in the podcast itself. You can also leave comments and questions for me to ponder. If you like that sort of stuff, check it out.

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Pope Paschal II offers to hand back all imperial fiefs which causes havoc

Hello and welcome to the History of the Germans: Episode 40 – Henry V’s Cunning Plan

In this episode we will see whether young Henry V will do any better at ending the conflict between Pope and Emperor, featuring one of the most audacious political moves seen in this conflict.

Before we start a 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 Ralf, Mehmet and Glenn who have already signed up.

Last week e followed our antihero Henry IV to his last and final betrayal when his youngest son, King Henry V rose up against him, like his elder brother Konrad had done. Henry V prevailed and the old emperor Henry IV died in 1106 still hoping against all the odds to return to the throne.

The king is dead, long live the king!

Who is that new king, Henry, fifth of his name?

In 1105 Henry V was 21 years of age. He was born in 1086, in one of the very few years of comparative quite in his father’s reign. But just 4 years later did the emperor go down to Italy where he would stay for 7 years, most of which spent in impotent rage against the pope, the countess Matilda, the German princes and his son Konrad. We do not know whether young Henry was with his father during this time or whether he stayed behind in Germany, and if so where and with whom..

All his formative years were spent in some form of limbo where he saw the ruler of the Reich being put under the yoke by his powerful vassals. In all likelihood Henry V did believe that it wasn’t easy to become king and even harder to remain king.

With that in mind we may have to retell the story of the end of Henry IV again. You see, last time you heard it from the point of view of the broken old emperor being subjected to yet another round of treachery, lies and deceit.

But now, let’s take a look at these events from the viewpoint of young King Henry V.

For him the year 1105 had become decision time. His father was old, so his last days were nigh.

At the same time the old man had been unable to reconcile with the pope, which meant that his rule was fragile and his succession even more so. Henry V’s worst-case scenario was that his father would suddenly die, and the Gregorian party would then propose their own candidate as king. All Henry V could rely upon was that he had been formally elected, anointed, and crowned in 1099 and that all the magnates had sworn fealty to him. But what is that worth? His own father was elected, anointed and crowned when the magnates deposed him in 1076. All it needs is a Gregorian pope to excommunicate him, and all that frankincense and Myrrh would fade into nothingness. As far as Henry V was concerned, his father needed to reconcile with the pope pronto or the new king’s reign would start with a civil war. 

After the murder of count Sighard and the subsequent Bavarian uprising that reconciliation would not happen for a long, long time. Pope Paschalis’ policy is reinvigorated, and he can again see the opportunity of maybe, maybe unseating Henry IV after all. If he was unwilling to compromise when Henry IV was well established, on what basis would he do it now?

Well, there was one way Henry IV could achieve a reconciliation with the pope, and that was by giving up all the investiture rights, the last remaining open issue between pope and emperor. But that would also mean that the empire would be finished. No investiture means no control over bishops, which means no call on episcopal military, which means no central power.

That would be the worst of all worlds for Henry V, a contested succession to an empire that was barely worth of its name.

The only way to avoid that outcome was to take over right now, put himself at the head of the Gregorian party and take a stab at reconciling with the pope. He made his point quite clear in a speech before the Magnates where he said that “he wasn’t fighting against his father, but on behalf his father’s realm”. The realm had become something that was truly detached from the person of the emperor, a concept first put out by Konrad II almost a 100 years earlier. The individual emperor had to protect the realm, even if it meant acting against his filial duties.

In light of that I simply do not understand why some historians accuse Henry V of ruthless ambition. Yes, the way he lured his father into the prison of Boeckelheim may not have been cricket, but there he stood and he could do no other.

And if we look at the end result, from the perspective of the empire, the situation improved massively under Henry V.

The empire recognizes Pope Paschalis II, Urban II’s successor. The schism is over. Each bishopric now has only one bishop so that no priest has to worry any more whether he was canonically appointed and no parishioner has to ask whether the baptism, marriage or last rites were valid. The pope has endorsed and absolved the king, meaning everyone can fulfil the oath to the king without opposing the church. And so the magnates recognize Henry V as their king and future emperor. A major civil war has been avoided. The country is at peace.

And, for the next 4 years the magnates remain supportive of the young king. The king listens to their council and makes a number of sensible decisions. One of which related to the succession to the duke of Saxony. Saxony, as you may remember had been a hereditary duchy for some time and its ducal family, the Billungs had ruled (in inverted commas) the duchy since the time of Otto the Great. The dukes were not massively powerful given that some of the Saxon counts ruled territories large enough to be dukedoms in their own right. The last of the Billung Dukes, Magnus had died in 1106. He had two daughters, who were each married to one of these extremely powerful Saxon counts.

If Henry had granted to duchy to either of these counts, the other would have contested the election and Saxony would have descended into civil war. To avoid that, Henry chose a compromise candidate, Lothar of Supplinburg. Lothar was related to all the major families in Saxony and even some of the Bavarian and Lothringian magnates. But he did not have much of a powerbase himself. That made him a popular candidate with all concerned. Remember the name, Lothar of Supplinburg, because, as we will find out in a few episodes, all concerned does not include the King Henry V and his heirs.

Apart from the Saxon succession the other key imperial job was to keep an eye and occasionally throw a lance at the restless neighbours, namely the still irritating counts of Flanders, dukes of lower Lothringia and assorted other potentates in the West. As for the east, the pattern that emerges is that both Poland and Hungary drift out of the influence of the empire. Poland is increasingly looking even further east to Russia and the Baltic seaboard rather than getting involved in imperial affairs. Hungary is expanding south. Its king became king of Croatia as well in 1102. Along with this southward focus, Hungary moved closer to Constantinople taking a neutral if not sometimes hostile stance towards the empire. Henry V tried to assert his increasingly theoretical suzerainty by supporting a pretender to the crown of Hungary, as Henry III had done before. But like him, the policy ultimately failed and Hungary will remain outside the empire.

In Bohemia, i.e., what is today the Czech Republic, it is the opposite. The dukes of Bohemia were roped even further into the empire as they were looking for support in their eternal internal family feuds. In 1114 the then duke of Bohemia confirmed his vassal status to the emperor by accepting one of the Erzaemter, or arch-offices of the realm. He became the Arch Cupbearer to the emperor. For the next few thousand imperial pints, Bohemia will be an integral part of the empire.

With the country at peace and the borders more or less calm, there remained only one really big issue to be resolved, and that was the conflict over the investiture of bishops.

Henry V had managed to gain papal support for his rebellion without having to renounce royal investiture. His smart move was not to negotiate with Paschalis beforehand. Hence the Pope was as surprised about events as everyone else. When Henry V asked to be absolved from the oath to his father, there was no time for the two sides discuss investiture. Paschalis had to choose to either refuse absolution and the rebellion would have collapsed, leaving him to continue negotiating with the intractable Henry IV, or to grant the absolution without conditions and see what happens next. He chose option 2.

And that meant once Henry V ascended the throne, he continued to select and invest bishops with ring and staff as his father, grandfather and great-grandfather had done.

The pope on the other hand kept insisting on the total ban of royal investiture, including a ban on churchmen given the oath of vassalage to the king. The problem was intractable and though both sides tried to remain civil and no excommunication was yet forthcoming, tensions are mounting.

Whilst Paschalis and Henry V are gradually falling out, there is some movement in the debate about investiture outside the empire.

Let us not forget that the right to invest bishops and abbots is a topic not just in the empire, but all across Europe. The King of France and the King of England are also at loggerheads with the papacy over this question. The King of France needs investiture mainly because otherwise he would be pretty much bankrupt. The King of England has more money but had been relying on the church in England and Normandie for his financial and military resources in the same way as the emperors have done in Germany.

As a consequence, there were similar struggles in France and England between supporters of the Gregorian reform and the kings. In England it was the fight between Anselm, archbishop of Canterbury and the kings William Rufus and Henry I.

In France the king had so many issues with the papacy, the issue was outsourced to his bishops. It culminated in the debate over the succession to the bishoprics of Sens and Beauvais. Maybe because the less intense royal involvement, France was the first to reach a breakthrough. The great canonical jurist Ivo of Chartres came up with the concept that royal investiture had nothing to do with the spiritual role of the bishop. All it did was to grant the bishop lands and rights from the king in exchange for the oath of fealty as regards his obligations as a vassal. Otherwise the bishop remained free in his role as a spiritual leader. That was gradually accepted and ended up in a modus operandi where the king would not hand over the symbols of the bishop’s spiritual role, i.e., the ring and the crozier, but the bishop would swear him the oath of fealty – and presumably pay for taking on the fiefs.

In England the struggle also involved the exchange of many a learned treatise, one of which even claimed the opposite of the Gregorian doctrine, i.e., that the king is by his anointment put atop of the church. After a lot of to and fro in 1107 the King of England and the Pope agreed the concordat of Westminster. That sets out that -as in France- the spiritual investiture was a purely church affair but that the new prelate was to make an oath of fealty to the king as regards his fiefs. The royal rights however go further than in France. The king had the right to be present at the election of a bishop or abbot and, in case of disagreement, has the casting vote. In that arrangement the king remained pretty much in charge of his church.

Whilst France and England reach an agreement, the negotiations between Paschalis and Henry V are not going so well. In a first round in November 1106, both sides remained stubborn, and Paschalis reaffirmed the complete ban on Royal Investiture.

A delegation of German bishops and even a number of temporal lords with impeccable Gregorian leanings meet with representatives of Pope Paschalis in May 1107, but again negotiations run into the ground.

Whilst he refuses any compromise with the German side, Pope Paschalis goes to France and celebrates a solemn mass with king Phillip I and his son Louis VI in the church of Saint Denis. That puts the seal on that unofficial agreement over investiture and some other issues relating to the sexual incontinence French monarchs are so famous for. The church of Saint Denis is of huge significance as it is the same church where Pope Stephen II had crowned Pippin the Short and his son, the future emperor Charlemagne. The implication of this ceremony is straightforward, the pope wants the kings of France to take over the role of leader of Christendom from that evil tyrant from across the Meuse River, our friend King Henry V.

The journeys of Pope Urban II had already laid the foundations for this alliance between the French Monarchy and the Papacy, that the events of Saint Denis made public and for all to see. Over the next centuries the Capetian kings will use this papal endorsement to forge a coherent kingdom out of a hotchpotch of lands and rights around Paris. This support culminates a hundred years later in the Albigensian crusade where the pope promised a free ticket to heaven for anyone helping to bring the South of France under royal control. The French monarchs rewarded such support another century later with the installation of the papacy in Avignon under the watchful eye of a French garrison across the Rhone. I digress.

Back to year 1107. As the pope moves closer to the French and agrees the concordat with the King of England, he remains unmoved to the pleas of king Henry V. By now the German side realizes that the full investiture with ring and staff is no longer to be retained. In treatises presumably sponsored by the court, German writers begin to differentiate very clearly between the spiritual role and the secular role of the bishop, suggesting solutions along the lines of what had been agreed with France and England.

But again, the German delegations are rebuffed by Pope Paschalis II.

There is now only one thing to do. The king and the pope have to meet and thrash out their differences. But before he sets off, Henry V lays the foundation for another axis of European politics that lasted more or less until the First World war. He gets engaged to Matilda, daughter of King Henry I of England. She was at the time just 8 years old and the only surviving child of the Norman king. English History knows her as the Empress Matilda, adversary of King Stephen in the Anarchy and mother of King Henry II, the first of the Plantagenet kings of England.

This marriage was -as all other medieval marriages a political one. As the papacy aligned itself with France, Henry was looking for a counterweight, and who could be better than the King of England who was also duke of Normandy and hence in perennial squabbles with his southern neighbour. Henry also provided 10,000 pounds of silver as a dowry which was surely welcome. The slight problem was that the bride was only 8 years old and hence the marriage could not be consumed. Therefore, the happy couple could only get engaged. Now, the King of England was not prepared to hand over this kind of money for a mere engagement. So, instead of getting married, little Matilda is crowned queen in Mainz. Matilda will spend the next few years being educated by German bishops until Henry marries her when she turned 11, one hopes the consummation was still delayed by a few years after that.

His pockets refilled, Henry V sets off for Rome in the summer of 1110 and as usual spends the winter in Lombardy. He signs a standstill agreement with the Countess Matilda, who is still there, holding the keys to Rome. In February 1111 Henry V arrives at the gates of the eternal city.

The timing could not have been worse for Paschalis II. Like his predecessors he relied on the support of the Normans and the Countess Matilda in his squabbles with the emperor. Matilda had already decided to stand aside this time. And in a terrible twist of fate for the pope, the two leaders of the Normans, Roger of Apulia and Bohemond of Antioch died right around this time. Their future leader, Count Roger II of Sicily was a child. So, there was no hope for Norman support.

What to do now?

At this point Paschalis II comes up with a plan, to say it in the words of inimitable baldrick, a plan so cunning you can put a tail on it and call it a weasel.

Here is version one of how this plan came about: Pope Paschalis is a true Gregorian reformer who cares little about worldly politics, but a lot about the wellbeing of the holy mother church. And as he contemplates how to solve the problem of lay interference in the appointment of bishops, he has an idea. The king does not want the right of investiture because he wants to control the pastoral role of his bishops or abbots. He needs investiture because he needs access to the church’s financial and military resources. So, what about the church handing back all these counties, market rights, mints, mills and farms to the king in exchange for the king to completely withdraw from any interference with the bishops? Isn’t that the best solution? The church is free from royal interference and the king has no longer any need to interfere. Brilliant!

And so, he makes exactly that proposal to Henry V as the king approaches Rome. Henry V must have been dumbfounded by such an unimaginably generous offer. There are no statistics, but the typical estimate is that the church owned 1/3rd of all the land in western Europe and probably even more in Germany given the incessant transfer of land and titles to the bishops under the Imperial Church system. A generous offer indeed.

His advisors and even the king himself has doubts about the feasibility of this plan. How will the royal court administrate these enormous estates? Can you recruit enough Ministeriales to manage it? What about the bishops’ and abbots’ reactions?

But Henry V takes the offer. An agreement is signed and on February 12th he enters Rome for his coronation. He greets the pope on the steps of Saint Peter and kisses the Holy Father’s feet. As is the tradition, he swears to be the protector and defender of the holy church in all ways he could be of help. Paschalis then welcomes him as the son of the church and guides him into the forecourt of the old church of St. Peter.

The next part of the coronation was the scrutinium, an assessment of the fitness of the candidate to become emperor. It is here that Henry V formally renounces the right to invest the bishops. That is followed by the reading of the papal charter whereby the pope orders the bishops and abbots to hand back all the lands they own, every county, castle, farm and mill apart from those they had received as donations from private individuals.

And the result of this plan that was to please everyone was, was total mayhem.

The clergymen present had not been advised of the arrangements beforehand. In fact the whole treaty had been negotiated in secret between the king’s advisors and a small number of the pope’s confidants. These mighty bishops and abbots were not at all keen to give up their lands. Nor were the secular lords pleased with the outcome. Many of them held fiefs from the church, which they assumed would be lost to some ruddy Ministeriales under this arrangement.

Shouts went up, swords were drawn, crucifixes hurled and Rome broke out into rioting. The coronation had to be suspended. The parties tried to negotiate in the middle of the chaos. Henry insisted on the coronation and, since the pope was unable to hold up his side of the bargain demanded acceptance of his right of investiture. No agreement could be reached and by nightfall the still only King Henry V took the pope and his cardinals along into his army camp.

King and Pope left the city of Rome and set up camp at Ponte Mammolo just outside the walls. For 2 moth the pope and his cardinals refused to agree to Henry’s demands until they finally caved on April 12th. The pope and his cardinals issued a privilege to Henry V that allowed him to invest his bishops with both ring and staff – basically allowing him to run the imperial church exactly as his ancestors had been able to. Furthermore, he swore an oath to never bother the king again about investiture and to never excommunicate him. In exchange the king released his prisoners and swore allegiance to the pope and the holy church. And there was a side deal whereby Paschalis II released the old emperor Henry IV from his excommunication which meant he could finally be buried in his cathedral in Speyer.

All that was sealed off with the coronation of the Emperor Henry V which finally took place on April 13th. In May the freshly minted emperor set off home. And on the way home he scored another victory. He convinced the childless countess Matilda to name the emperor himself as the heir to her enormous wealth. How that happened, I have no idea. She had previously promised her lands to the seat of St. Peter.

All this looks like Henry V had achieved a complete triumph. He has been crowned emperor, the investiture controversy is resolved in such a way that all the imperial rights are protected, he is safe from any excommunication or papal interference and, to top it off, the empire gets hold of Matilda’s lands. 

Brilliant, eh!

No, not really. The agreement with the pope was so blatantly brought about by force, it was easily renounced. That happened as early as 1112 at a synod in Rome. The document was now called the “Pravileg”, the depraved privilege. Without waiting for any papal authorization several Gregorian bishops excommunicated Henry V, a process that was repeated multiple time throughout the rest of his reign.

As for the inheritance of Matilda, the competing claims of pope and emperor were added to the long list of their differences.

But the most severe impact was on his own vassals. When Henry V agreed to have his bishops and many of his magnates stripped of their possessions, the spectre of an overbearing Salian emperor returned. The great lords had believed Henry V had become one of them, had understood that all the title provided was a role as the First amongst Equals listening to his magnates’ advice in all his endeavours and bound to protect their rights and privileges. But with the acceptance of Paschalis’ offer he revealed himself as a man in the mould of his father and all his predecessors. A man who wanted to consolidate central power, push down the princes into mere royal subjects and rule as a Roman emperor, not as a Germanic king.

As the emperor’s perception changed and the excommunications began to reign down, Henry V’s reign begins to more and more resemble the reign of his father. Maybe that was the true motive behind Paschalis plan all along. He was as cunning as a weasel after all. Next week we will see how henry V handles this next turn of the wheel of fortune. I hope to see you then.

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