Investiture

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Emperor Henry IV confronts the Pope Gregory VII

The rise of the papacy since 1046 is almost linear. The popes throw off the chokehold of the roman aristocracy, they take over leadership of the church reform movement from the emperors, and by the end of the pontificate of Alexander II the Holy See has become universal with kings hailing the pope and not the emperor as their overlord.

In 1073 Hildebrand, the eminence grise of the last 20 years ascends the throne of St. Peter. His view of the role of the papacy goes even further than his predecessors. We know this because he laid it out in one of the most remarkable documents of the middle ages, the Dictatus Papae.

This ever expanding role of the papacy had to collide at some point with the other universal power, the king and future emperor Henry IV. Letters are exchanged and words are spoken that set events in motion that will destroy them both……

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Hello and welcome to the History of the Germans – Episode 32: Hildebrand, Not Pope but False Monk.

Before we start, I want to let you know that there is something to celebrate. It is now almost exactly a year since I started working on the History of the Germans. The first episodes came out on January 14th and your response, dear listeners, far exceeded my expectations. Right now, more than 1500 of you tune in every week and download well over 3000 episodes. The podcast has reached 25,000 pretty much as I speak.

When I started, I said I would take the narrative all the way up to the year 1990. As you can imagine, that was one of those promises that were under the premise that it would ultimately make sense to do that. With that much interest amongst you, it makes a lot of sense and so the Podcast will become a permanent feature in my life, and hopefully in yours.

Podcasting as it happens is a lot of work. I spend roughly 2 to 2.5 full working days on each episode, spread across the week. Most of that is spent on research. For instance I draw on 6 books on the Salians, 3 books on the papacy and 4 books on medieval ages in general plus two contemporary chroniclers and the letters of Pope Gregory VII for this episode. Writing, recording and editing takes another 8-10 hours in total per week. I am not complaining – this is what I call fun. The only thing I do complain about is the endless building work outside my window that you may hear from time to time in the background.

At my current run-rate of 5 years per episode, I still have 183 episodes to go, including this one and the last episode will air on December 4, 2025. We will see whether my German urge for punctuality will prevail or whether 20 years of living in Britain had some impact on delivery against promises.

But in any event, it will be a long run. And I need to make this economically viable, if not for the sake of my sanity than for my marriage. Since I hate advertising breaks in podcasts I and I am terrible at pretending a mattrass or online course has changed my life, the only way to finance this endeavour is by relying on your generosity.

I have set up a Patreon page where you can become a supporter of the podcast by making a monthly contribution. As a patron you get, first and foremost, my heartfelt gratitude, plus access to occasional bonus episodes on German Art, architecture or whatever else comes to my head. You can become a Patron for £2/$3 a month, the cost of a cappuccino. Those of you who feel the History of the Germans Podcast is worth supporting and have the funds please go to my website historyofthegermans.com and you can find the link under support the show or go directly to patreon.com/historyofthegermans.

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Now let us get back to our story.

Last week we spent most of our time following one of the three strands of the story of the investiture controversy – the tension between expanding imperial central power and the magnates. In 1075 Henry IV. had managed to gain the upper hand in the conflict with the Saxons.  This came about, not because of a sudden emergence of support for the imperial idea, but because the magnates feared an uprising of the lower classes more than an overbearing ruler. We will leave our young king in the splendour of his achievement and catch up with events in Rome, following the second strand in our narrative, the rise of the papacy.

You may remember that the papacy’s fortune had begun improving with pope Leo IX (1049-1054). Over the following 20 years the papacy had grown even more in stature and when pope Alexander II died in 1073 the Holy See had reached a position that it never occupied before.

Firstly, the papacy had got out of the chokehold of the Roman aristocracy. We heard two episodes ago that the last attempt by the Theophylacts to put one of theirs on the throne of Saint Peter in 1059, had been foiled by an alliance of the reform-oriented cardinals under the leadership of Hildebrand and the support of Godfrey the Bearded.

Godfrey was called upon again in 1062/63 to help pope Alexander II gain access to the holy city that the local aristocrats held on behalf of Cadalus, the antipope installed by empress Agnes.

Godfrey the Bearded died in 1069 and was succeeded in his Italian possessions by his stepdaughter Mathilda of Tuscany. If Godfrey was a staunch supporter of the reform movement, Mathilda was even more committed. The papacy could call upon her almost as if she was a vassal of the church. Why she was so committed to the papacy in general and Hildebrand in particular has kept tongues wagging for centuries, but we should remember that she mostly continued her stepfather’s policies.

Having more or less unlimited recourse on the power of Tuscany was not the only military capability of the Holy See. During the fighting between the supporters of Alexander II and the antipope Cadalus the papacy created its own military capability. Pope Leo IX may well have been the first pope to lead an army into battle, but his army consisted entirely of troops of his supporters, not papal troops. The units Hildebrand created in 1062/63 were papal armies. His detractors would later claim that he had led these troops into war, sword in hand, which was in contravention of canon law.

The next stone on the papal chessboard were the Normans. As of 1073 they had been loyal vassals of the pope, helping out when needed. Otherwise, they had been busy conquering the rest of Southern Italy and the island of Sicily. In 1072 when Robert Guiscard and his next brother, Roger, another fruit of the inexhaustible loins of Tancred of Hauteville, entered Palermo, a city of 50,000 inhabitants, larger than Rome, London, Florence, Naples or Genoa and in Italy only surpassed by Milan in wealth and splendour. Under count and later king Roger of Sicily the island and its capital Palermo experienced a golden age. Roger, whose actual Norman forces may have numbered just a few hundred had to be a tolerant ruler who created a state where Muslim, Jewish, Orthodox Christian and Latin Christian communities lived in relative harmony, not something his feudal overlord the Pope much appreciated.

With the Normans not quite as reliable as the rulers of Tuscany, the Popes would not have minded an occasional imperial journey to Rome as a counterweight. In particular Alexander II offered an imperial coronation several times, but it never happened.

The popes, who a hundred years earlier served literally as the footstools of the Crescenti rulers of Rome have found a degree of political and military independence, never seen before.

In that context it is no surprise that the way a pope is chosen also changed.After the five popes between 1046 and 1058 been directly appointed by the emperor, the 1059 the Lateran Synod established that the pope should be elected by the Cardinals with some, not further defined involvement of the emperor. Imperial involvement in the subsequent elections dwindled to naught. And when empress Agnes tried to appoint her own pope, it ended with the schism of Cadalus, a massive loss of confidence in the imperial religious policy and her losing the regency. When the bishops meet at a synod in Mantua to bring the schism to an end, archbishop Anno of Cologne initially presided over proceedings as the representative of the emperor. But he was soon relegated to the back benches thanks to Hildebrand insisting that the emperor has no longer any say in the choice of who should be pope.

Bottom line 1: The papacy has become an independent political, not just spiritual entity with its own military capability.

What gave the papacy the next push up the ladder was that it assumed the leadership in the church reform movement.

The church reform had started as a grass roots movement. Pious monks, disgusted by the worldly mores of the rich and powerful abbeys had formed communities in remote places like Cluny, Gorze or Moyenmoutier. They wanted to live according to the rule of St. Benedict, focused on praying and doing good works for a reward in heaven. Their efforts were recognised by noble lords, the duke of Aquitaine amongst them, who wanted these holy monks to pray for their souls in the afterlife. So they gave donations to the monks or asked them to set up a new priory or monastery on their lands. In the next step, the emperors, namely Henry II and Henry III embraced the movement and began to roll out reform in the mighty imperial abbeys of Reichenau, Corvey, Fulda etc.

At the same time the urban and rural population who had little interaction with the monks on their remote abbeys, demanded that the priest who administered their sacraments to live up to his billing. That meant initially that the priest should have been chosen for merit, rather than for the amount of kickback he offered the local bishop. But more and more the laity was upset by the fact that most priests, canons and deacons were married or had congress with women. Celibacy had been an ideal and monks and bishops were expected to live celibate since the early times of the church. But ordinary priests were not. I understand that there is no watertight theological reason for celibacy in the clergy, and it is not required for priests in other Christian denominations. But in the first half of the 11th century the demand for a higher standard in pastoral care in Western Europe became associated with celibacy. My non-theological view is that if monks, the most effective communicators with divine, lived in celibacy, than being celibate clearly improved efficacy of the sacraments. And hence the city dwellers and peasants wanted access to the same quality of religious rites as the aristocrats who had their monks.

The education and moral standards of the priests was the responsibility of the bishops. Henry II and Henry III enthusiastically encouraged their bishops to improve the standards of their clergy.

By 1046 when Henry III deposed three popes at the council of Sutri, he was the undisputed leader of the church reform movement. He appointed competent bishops who raised the standards of the clergy and pushed through the reform of the monasteries. And finally, he appointed competent popes.

Leo IX and Victor II got the papacy involved in the work of church reform for the first time. They saw themselves as partners of the emperor in this great endeavour and focused on the parts of the world the emperor had difficulty to reach. In particular the French bishops came in for a drubbing. Simony was rife in France, since investiture of bishops was one of the few sources of income for the king.

The popes travelled endlessly; a level of touristic activity not seen again until Pope John Paul II’s popemobile tours. Leo IX for instance crossed the alps 6 times in the 5 years of his pontificate, holding synods in France, Germany and Italy. The same goes for his successor Victor II. Almost as important as the papal presence North of the Alps was the activity of papal legates, usually prominent cardinals like Pietro Damiano, the later popes Stephen IX, Nicolas II. Alexander II and Gregory Vi. The legates would call and preside over Synods, where again bishops were investigated and condemned for simony or other forms of corruption or misdemeanour. Legates would be sent even to adjudicate in major political issues, like the attempt of Henry IV. to get a divorce. 

Within a span of maybe 20 years, the papacy goes from being almost invisible in the debate over the most important issue of its day to being everywhere.

Even the intellectual epicentre of the church reform shifts. Was the theological underpinning of the reform movement initially devised by the abbots of Cluny, Gorze etc., it is now the college of cardinal and the annual synods in Rome that set the tone. St. Peter Damian, Humbert of Silva candida and others who came to Rome from all over Europe form a new centre that sets the dogma.

At the same time, the imperial leadership role diminishes under the regency of  empress Agnes. Rapacious bishops like Anno of Cologne and Adalbert of Hamburg-Bremen do not add much to the imperial reputation. That reputation completely crumbles when Agnes sides with the conservative forces, the Northern Italian bishops and the Roman Aristocracy, appointing the bishop Cadalus as antipope Honorius III. Even though Anno of Cologne reverses the policy, it is too late to keep the imperial power in the lead.

Some hope is pinned on young Henry IV to step into his father’s footsteps. But that crumbles quickly. Henry IV. is likely a religious man because everybody in the 11th century was. But he showed no particular enthusiasm for the cleaning up of the clergy. And there is even a question whether he could or should have done that, since his bishops, who he relied upon for soldiers and food, felt increasingly harassed by the pope and looked to the emperor for help, an emperor who until 1075 was extremely weak himself.

Bottom line 2: the papacy now leads the church reform movement

Not only has the papacy become a self-determining political organisation, and the leader of the largest popular movement of its time, it has also become universal.

Before 1046 the papacy operated predominantly in Italy and in relation to its neighbours, the emperor and the king of France. Yes, there would be interactions with far flung lands, like when king Canute came from rainy England or pope Sylvester II sent a crown for the coronation of the king of Hungary. But these actions were responsive, rather than proactive.

After 1046, the papacy got busy collecting oaths of fealty from kings and rulers all over Western Europe.

It started off with Pope Nicolas II enfeoffing the Normans Robert Guiscard as duke of Apulia and Richard of Aversa as duke of Capua. Moreover, the popes also granted these Normans the island of Sicily and the parts of Southern Italy still ruled by the Byzantines. That is a ballsy move on behalf of the pope, since it suggests the papacy was the feudal overlord of Southern Italy. Even the Constantine Donation, which we know and many people at the time knew was a fake, did not extend to Southern Italy and certainly not to Sicily. But where there is no plaintiff, there is no judge. The emperor in Constantinople, whose lands these had been before the Muslim and Norman conquest had no standing in Rome any more as the break between the Eastern and the Western church had become permanent in 1054. And the emperor Henry IV. who would be next in line with a claim, well he had other things on his mind.

In 1068 the king of Aragon in Spain came on pilgrimage to Rome and gave his kingdom in the hands of the pope to receive it back as a fief. As usual, he did this only in part out of piety. What he got in exchange was papal support that turned the kings’ wars with the Muslim Emirs into a sort of pre-crusade type endeavour.

One of the great political tools the papacy used were papal banners. These were to be carried into battle as signs that the apostles Peter and Paul were fighting on the side of the flagbearer. That was most valuable to those whose claims to their conquests were weakest. One of these pretenders was William the Conqueror, whose claim to the English throne was, how can I say that most politely, a stretch. Pope Alexander II, upon insistence of Hildebrand gave William the banner and his endorsement. William enjoyed a reputation as a supporter of Church reform, whilst the old regime in England was seen as simonistic and insufficiently focused on enforcing celibacy amongst the clergy.

The reach of the papacy did not stop at England’s shore. In a few years pope Gregory will write letters of advice and admonishment to the great King of Ireland, the bishop of Carthage in North Africa and even the ruler of what is now Morocco.

In just 30 years the papacy’s ambition has grown from being the bishop of Rome to being the universal ruler of all Christendom. In doing so the papacy had simply stepped into a void that the emperors since Otto the great have left wide open.

In 972 when Otto the great died, he was the universal ruler of Christian Western Europe. Though technically he was not King of France or King of Burgundy, the rulers of these lands recognised him as the arbiter of their disputes and came to his assemblies. The same goes for the dukes of Poland and Bohemia. Hungary and Denmark were still mostly pagan, and England was a slaughterhouse of Viking invasions. In other words, there was a universal authority, and that was the emperor. His immediate successors, Otto II and Otto III tried to maintain that universal ambition. Otto III’s policy of a Renovatio Imperii was the most stringent expression of that idea.

But since Henry II’s reign from 1002-1024, imperial focus shifted towards expanding central authority within its own lands and its geographic zone of influence shrunk. France was on its own path since the Capetians had taken control. After Boleslav the Brave Poland could only be brought under imperial control for short periods. This goes even more for Hungary, now a Christian kingdom. Denmark and Norway were on a roll and did not recognise the emperor as their overlord. And let us not forget that Henry II waited 12 years before he went to Rome to be crowned. Konrad II and Henry III may have been quicker in going to Rome, but at that point the train had left the station. The empire was no longer universal.

A few years later, pope Gregory VII will write to the king of Hungary that if he took his kingdom as fief from the emperor, he would only be a regulus, a little king. The emperor is -said Gregory- no different from any other king who owes his rule to God and god’s representative on earth, the pope. The only way to true sovereignty was to receive the kingdom from the hand of the pope and swear fealty to him as the sole universal power in Christendom.

Now this is where we are on the 21st of April 1073, when Pope Alexander II died unexpectedly in the palace of the Lateran. The next day as the pope’s body is laid out in the basilica of the Lateran, the people call for Hildebrand to be made pope. As the funeral cortege winds through the city f Rome, the calls grow louder and louder. And when they reach the church of San Pietro in Vincoli, the place where Saint Peter was kept in chain before his martyrdom the masses sweep the archdeacon into the church and enthrone him there and then.

A few minor hitches in that process. First, Hildebrand despite 35 years of service to the papal court had not yet been ordained a priest, something that had to be done at double speed.. And second, the Papacy had just established  that the pope should be elected by the college of Cardinals not raised by public acclaim. That was conveniently forgotten in the melee outside SAN Pietro in Vincoli.

When Hildebrand is coming to, he finds himself on the papal throne. That cannot have been much of a surprise for the now roughly 55-year old. His position inside the church had grown and grown these last 20 years and his modest title belied his actual position. Peter Damian used to joke that some people came to Rome to meet the Lord Pope, but most went to see the pope’s lord, Hildebrand.

Hildebrand takes the papal name of Gregory VII, which must be the wickedest joke of the 11th century. The previous bearer of this papal name had been Gregory VI, the only pope ever proven to have actually paid cold hard cash to get the job, and Hildebrand’s first boss who he accompanied into exile. When Gregory VI had been the symbol of the corruption of the church, his pupil, Gregory VII will become synonymous with the fight against the buying and selling of holy offices.

I have complained many times before that we hardly ever find anything resembling a political manifesto from any of the emperors or popes that have so far featured on the podcast. Historians are forced to deduce their intentions from their actions, rather than measuring their actions against their intentions. Gregory VII is in this, as in so many other things, the great exception.

Gregory filed a register of letters and other documents he deemed important to the library of the Vatican. This register contains a very unusual note, known today as the Dictatus Papae. What its purpose was is unclear. It is not dated and was definitely not a letter. It was not made public during his lifetime. It may have been a note to structure a collection of canon law, Gregory wanted compiled. Or it was what it sounds and looks like, a political manifesto, outlining the fundamental concepts underpinning Gregory’s papacy.

It contains 27 statements of fact, or of facts as Gregory saw them, which I quote here in the translation by Ernest F. Henderson, 1919:

  1. That the Roman church was founded by God alone.
  2. That the Roman pontiff alone can with right be called universal.
  3. That he alone can depose or reinstate bishops.
  4. That, in a council his legate, even if a lower grade, is above all bishops, and can pass sentence of deposition against them.
  5. That the pope may depose the absent.
  6. That, among other things, we ought not to remain in the same house with those excommunicated by him.
  7. That for him alone is it lawful, according to the needs of the time, to make new laws, to assemble together new congregations, to make an abbey of a canonry; and, on the other hand, to divide a rich bishopric and unite the poor ones.
  8. That he alone may use the imperial insignia.
  9. That of the pope alone all princes shall kiss the feet.
  10. That his name alone shall be spoken in the churches.
  11. That this is the only name in the world.
  12. That it may be permitted to him to depose emperors.
  13. That he may be permitted to transfer bishops if need be.
  14. That he has power to ordain a clerk of any church he may wish.
  15. That he who is ordained by him may preside over another church, but may not hold a subordinate position; and that such a one may not receive a higher grade from any bishop.
  16. That no synod shall be called a general one without his order.
  17. That no chapter and no book shall be considered canonical without his authority.
  18. That a sentence passed by him may be retracted by no one; and that he himself, alone of all, may retract it.
  19. That he himself may be judged by no one.
  20. That no one shall dare to condemn one who appeals to the apostolic chair.
  21. That to the latter should be referred the more important cases of every church.
  22. That the Roman church has never erred; nor will it err to all eternity, the Scripture bearing witness.
  23. That the Roman pontiff, if he has been canonically ordained, is undoubtedly made a saint by the merits of St. Peter; St. Ennodius, bishop of Pavia, bearing witness, and many holy fathers agreeing with him. As is contained in the decrees of St. Symmachus the pope.
  24. That, by his command and consent, it may be lawful for subordinates to bring accusations.
  25. That he may depose and reinstate bishops without assembling a synod.
  26. That he who is not at peace with the Roman church shall not be considered catholic.
  27. That he may absolve subjects from their fealty to wicked men.

I will not get into the debate about what of these statements has already been canonical law before Gregory has put them on paper here or whether he had made them up entirely. Nor can I really give you a steer, which parts are derived from known fakes like the Constantine donation and the papal decretals and imperial laws made up by the so-called Pseudo Isidore in the 9th century.

What is certain is that a number of these statements have not been in use for a long time, should they have ever been church law, and they go directly against the way the world had been run for the last 100 years or so. Let us go through a few:

The pope may depose and reinstate bishops? Without a synod and even when the bishop is absent? So far deposing a bishop was a very rare occurrence and happened if at all at a synod convened by the emperor.

The pope can transfer bishops? Didn’t we hear that transferring a bishop was impossible because the bishop was married to his diocese and when Otto II wanted his advisor to be elevated to be archbishop of Magdeburg he had to suppress the bishopric of Merseburg with the well known consequence of a lost battle in Italy and a pagan uprising in the east?

That the kings have to kiss the feet of the pope and that he can depose emperors (note the plural), and that he can absolve his subjects from their oath of fealty. More on that story later.

And then, my favourite: that the Roman Church has never erred; nor will it err to eternity; that a canonically ordained pope is undoubtably made a saint. Check out your books on rhetoric, you may find that an orator using the word “undoubtedly” is usually riddled with doubt. 

In the end it does not matter whether these statements are canonical or not, what matters is that Gregory believed these maxims to be true and that it was his job to enforce them across the whole of Christendom. Whatever the cost.

And so, he got to work.

He sets out his stall in the synod of 1074 where he summarises the rules for the new reformed church as follows:

  1. Those who are guilty of the crime of fornication may not celebrate masses or minister at the altar in lesser orders. 
  2. Those who have been promoted by the simoniac heresy, that is, with the intervention of money, to any rank or office of holy orders may no longer exercise any ministry in holy church.
  3. No one of the clergy shall receive the investiture with a bishopric or abbey or church from the hand of an emperor or king or of any lay person, male or female.

One of his main tools to implement these new rules were open letters to his bishops. These he would send either say to “all the bishops of France” or an individual bishop, however in copies so that his whole clergy would see them. In the letters he would name and shame an individual bishop for refusing or being slack in the implementation of these rules.

It tended to be a four-step process. First, he would outline the new rules. In the next letter he would admonish the bishop for lack of progress. Then in the third he would become threatening, ordering the bishop to come to Rome and account for himself. Like this letter to bishop Otto of Constance quote:

“O the impudence! O the unparalleled insolence! that a bishop should despise the decrees of the apostolic see, should set at naught the precepts of the holy fathers, and in truth should impose upon his subjects from his lofty place and from his episcopal chair things contrary to these precepts and opposed to the Christian faith! We accordingly command you by apostolic authority to present yourself at our next council in the first week of Lent, to answer canonically respecting both this disobedience and contempt of the apostolic see, and all the charges that have been laid against you.”

And as a final move, Gregory would depose the bishop and tell his congregation the following (quote):

“Accordingly, as we have already said, by apostolic authority we charge all of you, both greater and lesser, who stand by God and St. Peter, that if he is determined to continue in his obduracy you should show him neither respect nor obedience. Nor need you think this a danger to your souls. For if, as we have often said already, he is determined to resist apostolic precepts, we so absolve you by St. Peter’s authority from every yoke of subjection to him that, even if any of you is bound to him by the obligation of an oath, for so long as he is a rebel against God and the apostolic see you are bound to pay him no fealty.” 

Gregory VII writes an enormous amount of letters, 387 of which are held in the papal registry alone. Thanks to a great visualisation by George Litchfield, we can see where they went. Most went to France in these first years. It is there where Gregory sees the biggest issues and the most obstinate bishops.

But Henry IV is also on his mind.

Already in 1073 he writes to his best mate, Mathilda of Tuscany as follows:

Quote “And as to the king: As you have learned from our former letters, it is our intention to send pious men to him, by whose admonitions and the help of God we may be able to bring him back to loyalty to his mother, the Holy Church of Rome, and give him detailed instructions as to the proper form of assuming the empire. But if, contrary to our hopes, he shall refuse to listen to us, we cannot and we ought not to turn aside from our mother, the Roman Church, which has cherished us and has often brought forth other children from the blood of her sons; so God protect us! And surely it is safer for us to resist him even unto death in defence of the truth and for our own welfare than to give way to his will by consenting to iniquity and so rush on to our own ruin.”

As far as linear history goes, this story of the ascent of the papacy is about as linear as it can get. Every step along the way the papacy gains in stature until it is now in the hands of a driven, almost fanatic pope hell bent on establishing his supremacy over the whole of the Roman world.

Whilst the king of France gets out of his way and the kings of Denmark, England, Hungary and Poland are either too weak or too far away to put up any resistance, the clash had to happen with the empire, and its still not crowned emperor in waiting, Henry IV.

From Henry’s perspective Gregory is very much off the reservation. Not being involved in papal elections is something that could irritate an imperial government, but it is certainly not the first time that the empire had let things in Rome slack a bit.

But a pope who runs round in Germany, admonishing and deposing bishops left right and centre. That is not on. And what is certainly not on is #3 of Gregory’s stated political objectives, that no laymen should be allowed to invest a bishop or abbot.

This would be the death nail in the Imperial Church system. The Imperial Church System is built on the idea that the king/emperor can appoint bishops and abbots, usually from his own chancery. In particular the emperor would invest the bishop or abbot into his worldly possessions, i.e., the lands and counties that had been granted to him by the emperors long ago. Thanks to that investiture the bishops in particular were obliged to provide the military and financial resources to support the regime. You may remember that already under emperor Otto II, 100 years earlier, nearly 2/3 of the imperial army in Italy was provided by the Imperial church. By now this number is in all likelihood even larger since church had received even more land and privileges from the intervening emperors.

I did say last episode that Henry IV had lost faith in the reliability of the Imperial Church system, which is not a surprise having watched Anno of Cologne plundering the imperial purse. But that does not mean he could afford to give up on it. His territorial power in Goslar was clearly no match for his enemies as we have seen. And reliance on his magnates was not really an option, since they did effectively what they wanted.

What is also noticeable is that this ban on lay investiture came a bit out of the blue. Yes, Humbert of Silva Candida had suggested it as far back as 1059 and it had sneaked into some papal decrees. But it had never been implemented. All the way into the 1070s did first Agnes and later Henry IV. invest bishops across the empire. All three of the last popes, including Gregory VII himself had been witnesses to imperial investitures during their time as papal legates to the imperial court, but none of them ever said a peep about it being uncanonical.  

Things came to a head over the investiture of the archbishop of Milan. Milan had been internal turmoil since the days of the Valvassore uprising under Konrad II. It was the largest city in europe and the most economically advanced, which meant they were about 50 to 100 years ahead of their time when it came to social and political developments.

Since about 1057 the lower classes in Milan had demanded an improvement in the corrupt and licentious clergy of the city. Street gangs would harass clergymen they suspected of living with women or had acquired their office through the payment of bribes. Rioting became increasingly intense, and the rebels calling themselves the Pataria began to organise under the leadership of a member of the city nobility called Erlembald. Erlembald received a lot of support from the papacy, and even received a papal banner in his fight with the archbishop. This archbishop, Wido who had been exiled and was even at some point captured by the Pataria resigned in 1070, handing over the reigns of the archbishopric to his deputy, Godfrey. Godfrey travelled to the imperial court for his investiture, as had been the tradition with archbishops of Milan for centuries. Whilst Godfrey received ring and staff from Henry IV., the Pataria raised one of their own, Atto to be archbishop.  Atto received recognition from the pope and civil war in the city continued between the supporters of Atto and the papacy on one hand and Godfrey and the emperor on the other.

In one of his last acts, pope Alexander II, under guidance of the future Gregory VII, tried to put pressure on Henry IV by excommunicated some of his advisors.  That excommunication lingered without much effect whilst the situation in Milan changed in favour of the imperial side. The Pataria suffered the loss of its leader, Erlembald in the fighting and after the city had burned down, the imperial party took control. They asked Henry IV for a new archbishop, even though Godfrey was still around. Henry IV agreed to this demand and appointed Tedald, one of the members of his chancery to be archbishop of Milan.

This is where Gregory loses it. In December 1075 he writes a letter to Henry IV admonishing him for his decisions in Milan as well as for retaining his advisors who had been excommunicated 2 years before. The letter is a not very veiled threat to excommunicate the king.

We are in step 3 of the Gregorian deposition process. Like with the bishop Otto of Constance the process is, letter 1, information about the new rules, letter 2, call to implement, letter three, do it or else, and letter 4 deposition.

Henry IV sure had heard about this process. And he should know that Gregory was serious. For one, the letter was delivered by two papal legates who also brought a verbal message from the pope and were supposed to bring an account of the king’s informal response back to Rome.

And Gregory VII had form in excommunicating kings. He had threatened to excommunicate King Henry I of France unless he took action on simony and had actually excommunicated the Norman leader Robert Guiscard, not for any spiritual failures, but for attacking papal land.

Henry’s reaction to the first two letters had been to play for time since, as you may remember, he was in the midst of getting his proverbial handed to him by the Saxons in 1073 and 1074. But when the third letter arrived in 1075, Henry IV had just won his great victory against the Saxons. No way is he going to yield to this rudeness.

He called a synod of the German bishops in Worms for the 24th of January, a mere month after the receipt of the letter. Despite the winter weather 26 bishops come to the synod, including the cardinal Hugo the White, who had fallen out with Gregory. Hugo who came up from Rome tells the synod that Gregory has gone completely out of control.  He says the pope lives in the Lateran in sin with Mathilda of Tuscany a woman in her 20s who had been estranged from her husband and an acclaimed beauty . Moreover, at Christmas the prefect Censius, member of the Roman aristocracy had the pope apprehended, though Gregory managed to escape with the help of the populace.

It was the pope’s alleged hypocrisy that irritated the German bishops. These mighty prelates were tired of being harassed and harangued by the fanatic on the papal throne. No more did they want to be summoned to Rome to atone for things they believed were perfectly acceptable, like letting their canons get married or accepting financial obligations to the king upon investiture. And even more so if the pope himself failed to adhere to his own standards.

And so, Henry IV in agreement with his bishops writes back to Gregory on January 24th, 1076 as follows:

Quote: “Henry, king not by force, but by the grace of God, to Hildebrand, at present not pope, but false monk. S

You deserve such greeting for the disorder you created. There is no rank in the Church which you have not made to partake in shame instead of honour, in curse instead of blessing. For, to mention only a few, most important instances out of so many; you have dared to lay hands on the leaders of the holy Church, the Lord’s anointed – the archbishops, the bishops and priests; you have trampled them underfoot like slaves who do not know what their master is doing.; by crushing them have you  endeared yourself to the commonest of people; you have regarded them all as ignorant, but yourself as omniscient. This knowledge, however, you have used not for edification but for destruction, so that we are justified in believing that St. Gregory, whose name you have arrogated to yourself, prophesied about you when he said, “The pride of him who has power becomes the greater the number of those who are subject to him, and he thinks that he himself can do more than all.”

And indeed, we have endured all of this, being anxious to preserve the honour of the apostolic see; but you have understood our humility as fear, and therefore have not been afraid to rise up against the royal power given to us by God, daring to threaten to take it from us. As if we had received our kingdom from you! As if the kingdom and the dominion were in your hands and not in God’s!

And this, although our Lord Jesus Christ has called us to kingship, but has not called you to the priesthood. For you have ascended by the following steps. For by cunning, which the monastic profession abhors, have you obtained money; by money, favour; by the sword, the throne of peace. And from the throne of peace you have disturbed the peace by arming the subjects against those who rule over them; by teaching, that our bishops, called by God, are to be despised; by taken offices from priests and giving it laymen, by permitting them to depose or condemn those who had been  ordained as teachers by the laying on of the bishops’ hands.

And you even laid hand on me, who, though unworthy to be among the anointed, yet have been anointed to the kingdom; on me, who, as the tradition of the holy fathers teaches, may not be deposed for any crime unless, God forbid, I have departed from the faith, on me who is subject to the judgment of God alone.

The wisdom of the holy fathers even left Julian, the Apostate, not to be tried by themselves, but left it to God alone, to judge and depose him. For even the true pope, Peter, exclaims, “Fear God, honour the King.”

But you, who do not fear God, dishonour Him in me whom He has appointed. Therefore St. Paul, when he spared no angel of heaven if he had preached otherwise, did not exempt even you who teach otherwise on earth. For he says, “If anyone, neither I nor an angel from heaven, preaches any other gospel than that which was preached to you, he will be condemned. You then, condemned by this curse and by the judgment of all our bishops and by our own, descend and renounce the apostolic chair which you have usurped. Let another ascend the throne of St. Peter, who shall not exercise violence under the guise of religion, but shall teach the sound doctrine of St. Peter. I, Henry, king by the grace of God, say to you, together with all our bishops, descend, descend or be damned forever.”

end quote

Translation by myself

This is the theological equivalent of parking tanks of the Vatican lawn. Both sides are fighting for survival. Henry for his control of the Imperial church and hence the resources of the empire, Hildebrand for what he believes are the rights of the holy church and its leader, the bishop of Rome, and a bit about his own survival. I guess. In January 1076 a betting man would have put his money on the Panzerfahrer Heinrich who had the bishops and their resources on his side. But that will turn out a poor bet as we will see.

I know I wanted to get all the way to Canossa today, but that was not to be. This episode is already far too long. So, you will have to wait until next week. I hope you are going to join us again.

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Otto was born into a family of Saxon magnates with possessions in the Harz mountains. He was one of the most accomplished military and political leaders in Germany during the reign of Henry IV. The Empress Agnes made him duke of Bavaria in 1061 to lead a campaign into Hungary. A mere 12 months later he repaid her by becoming one of the leaders in the coup of Kaiserswerth. He and his co-conspirators abducted the 12-year old King Henry IV. Henry IV never forgave him for that.

In 1070 he was accused of having hired thugs to murder king Henry IV. Absent any proof, other than the word of the thug himself, King Henry IV. ordered a trial by combat. When Otto did not show, he was deposed as duke of Bavaria and lost all his possessions. He was captured and imprisoned for 2 years before the king released him. He returned some of his personal property back to him. The Saxon chroniclers claim that all of that was a plot by the king to depose Otto of Northeim.

Northeim’s revenge came when the Saxons had gathered in Hötensleben in 1073 to discuss what to do about the king’s encroachment on to their land and ancient freedoms. The king had built a string of castles, including the famous Harzburg (see previous post) in order to create a new royal territory.

Though the Saxons had been insulted by the king just weeks earlier and had been seething under the Salian rule for decades, outright rebellion is no easy decision. That is when Otto takes a stand and delivers a speech, which must be one of the first political speeches by someone not a king or pope ever recorded in Germany:

“The calamities and disgraces that our king has brought upon each one of you for a long time are great and unbearable, but what he still intends to do, if the Almighty God permits him, is even greater and more severe. Strong castles he has erected, as you know, numerous in places already firm by nature, and has placed in them a great multitude of his vassals, and abundantly provided with weapons of all kinds. These castles are not erected against the heathen, who have completely devastated our land where it borders theirs, but in the midst of our country, where no one ever thought of making war against him; he has fortified them with such great effort, and what they mean for this land some of you have already experienced, and if God’s mercy and your bravery do not intervene, you will soon all experience it.

They take your possessions by force and hide them in their castles; they abuse your wives and daughters for their pleasure when they please; they demand your servants and your cattle, and all that they like, for their service; yes, they even force you yourselves to bear every burden, however odious, on your free shoulders.

But when I imagine in my thoughts what is still waiting for us, then everything that you are now enduring still seems to me to be bearable. For when he will have built his castles in our whole country at his discretion and will have equipped them with armed warriors and all other necessities, then he will no longer plunder your possessions one by one, but he will snatch from you all that you possess with one blow, will give your goods to strangers, and will make you yourselves, you freeborn men, oblige unknown men as servants. And all this, you brave men, will you let it happen to you? Is it not better to fall in brave fight than to live a miserable and ignominious life, being made a shameful mockery by these people?

Even Serfs who are bought for money do not endure the unreasonable commands of their masters, and you, who were born free, should patiently endure servitude? 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. Awake, therefore, and preserve for your children the inheritance which your fathers have left you; beware lest through your carelessness or slothfulness you yourselves and your children become serfs of strangers”

(Rough translation based on W. Wattenbachs translation of Bruno’s Buch vom Sachsenkrieg)

Now before you go and think that here is the first outburst of German nationalism, I have to stop you there. When Northeim talks of “patria” or “fatherland” he talks about Saxony, not Germany. And when he talks about freedom, he is not talking about human rights, but ancestral privileges, the “Freedoms” as they will be later called.

The speech was successful, and the Saxons rebelled, a rebellion that was ultimately crushed in the first of many brutal battles of the ensuing 50 years of civil war. Success in this first battle encouraged young King Henry to take the fight to the papacy and its most formidable leader, Pope Gregory VII, a fight that neither side would win, but would leave Germany on a path towards a weaker centre controlled by the princes, a structure known as the Holy Roman Empire (again see previous post).

Otto was, despite his great oratory, a turncoat. Once the rebellion had failed, he joined the king and became his administrator in Saxony. In a twist of irony, he was put in charge of rebuilding all these castles he had railed against.

He changed sides again in 1078 and joined the anti-king Rudolf of Rheinfelden in his campaign against Henry IV. That was the last time he swapped sides. Even after Rudolf had lost and died, Otto remained in arms against the now emperor Henry IV. Otto of Northeim died in 1083.

Otto is a typical example of a magnate of the 11th century. He was not opposed to the dynasty as such or the king specifically. What he fought against was the rise of territorial kingship that would reduce the senior lords influence on imperial decision making. And in that, despite the regular setbacks, he was successful.

Otto’s speech features heavily in episode 31 of the History of the Germans Podcast that looks more closely at the conflict between Henry IV and his magnates. To listen for free on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcast, Podbean etc., follow this link: https://history-of-the-germans.captivate.fm/listen or go to my website www.historyofthegermans.com where you can also find ways to support the Podcast and Blog.

Picture: From Froissart’s Chronicles, so clearly not a depiction of Otto of Northeim, but the only picture of a medieval speech I could find.

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There are nearly 20,000 castles in Germany, some are famous for good reason like Trifels, Wartburg or the Hambacher Schloss. Some are historically irrelevant pastiches like Neuschwanstein or Schwerin. And very few are really important to the point of being almost protagonists by themselves. One of these few is the Harzburg.

Construction begun in 1065/1066 under King (later emperor) Henry IV. At that point Henry had been king for almost 10 years, though most of the time the government was in the hands of a regency council headed initially by his mother and later by the archbishop Anno of Cologne, a rapacious prelate who had abducted the king in a coup d’etat when he was just 12 years old.

In 1065 Henry is 15 years old and therefore mature enough to begin his personal rule. His personal rule was however still heavily constrained. How constrained can be explained by the following story told by Lambert of Hersfeld.

For background, Henry IV had travelled to the Imperial Pfalz of Trebur to confront his barons who are intending to dismiss one of Henry’s allies from his council. According to the chronicler, the king stayed not in his own royal palace at Trebur, but in a nearby village that belonged to the abbey of Hersfeld. It seems there was nothing there to feed the royal party and the peasants refused to hand over the goods. A bloody fight between the royal soldiers and the local population ensued. In the fight either a lowly peasant or -shame of shames- a dancing girl, felled the commander of the royal bodyguard, count Werner. Werner was brought before the king. And whilst he lay on the ground in mortal agony, the bishops present refused the dying man the last rites, until he handed back an estate he had received from the king but which the abbot of Hersfeld claimed was his.

All this happened in front of the king. His man was lying there, and the churchmen refused him the last sacraments until some money issue was settled. And not just any money issue, but the reversal of a donation the king had made himself. And why was his man lying there? Because the abbey of Hersfeld had refused to feed the royal troops, something they were obliged to as an imperial abbey. Nothing shows more clearly the powerlessness of the young king, and nothing explains better his deep-seated animosity to his magnates.

No chronicler says it, but my sense is that it is right after the meeting in Trebur when Henry IV. decides that enough is enough. No longer can an emperor rely on oaths of fealty from his dukes and counts, nor can he rely on the support from the Imperial Church as his father had been able to. A new form of royal administration is required.

Henry IV. begins his major castle building project around Goslar. His father had already begun the process of creating a coherent royal territory around the silver mines in the Harz mountains. This is a different concept to the 10th century imperial duchies which were administrated through assemblies and vows of fealty. Not here. These royal lands around Goslar will be administrated by Ministeriales, unfree men trained in war and administration. Mighty castles are built on the tops of mountains and, instead of enfeoffing it to loyal men of noble descent, he manned it with his Ministeriales. He put the management of the royal territory not into the hands of a count as would have been the case 50 years earlier but appoints a governor (Prefectus) who could be hired and fired at will.

The largest and most important of these new castles was the Harzburg, not far from the imperial residence in Goslar. Harzburg was not only one of the largest castles built in the 11th century, rivalling Fulk of Anjou’s mighty constructions, it was also designed as an imperial residence and administrative centre. Nothing indicates more clearly the change of times than the fact that the emperors are leaving their indefensible palaces on the plains like Ingelheim and Frankfurt and move behind 10-metre-high walls on mountaintops.

The Harzburg contained an imperial palace as well as a monastery. Henry IV had his brother Konrad who had died very young as well as his first son buried in this richly decorated chapel. He also transferred the imperial regalia, i.e., the imperial crown, the Holy Lance etc. onto the Harzburg.

In the summer of 1073, the Saxon had enough of Henry’s castles. Led by Otto of Northeim they rebelled, and besieged the Harzburg. The Saxons set up camp on an opposite hill and sent their demands to the king. He was to dismantle all his castles in Saxony and dismiss his false councillors. The Harzburg was almost impregnable, so the Saxons blockaded the castle’s food supplies whilst throwing large stones down on the fortifications from a new structure built on the hill opposite.

Henry IV realised his situation was precarious unless he could raise an army to relieve the Harzburg. He fled the castle under cover of darkness, allegedly via the sewage system. He set up camp in Worms but failed to convince his magnates, in particular the dukes of Bavaria, Swabia and Carinthia to support his endeavour.

On February 2nd, 1074, he had to sign the peace of Gerstungen, which cannot be described as anything but a complete capitulation. In a near full assembly of the great bishops and princes of the realm, Henry IV. conceded the demolition of all his castles, dismissed his councillors and gave full amnesty to all the rebels.

Henry IV. withdrew the garrison of the Harzburg and immediately the Saxons stormed in. The Saxon troops it is important to note were not just aristocratic knights but comprised a lot of free peasants. These guys were the first through the gate and began the demolition work. In the peace agreement it was specifically stated that the demolition of the Harzburg should be gentle, respecting the imperial chapel on the site. Well, that did not happen. The Saxon commanders could not stop their enraged mob who tore down the chapel, stole the relics and horror of horrors pulled the remains of the Salian princes buried there out of their coffins and threw them in the ditch like vile garbage.

This profound insult to the honour not just of Henry IV. but the realm as a whole led to one of these sudden mood swings that will punctuate the story of the Investiture Controversy.

The Saxon nobles apologised immediately and promised a thorough investigation and harsh punishment for the perpetrators. But that was not enough. The mighty princes, who did not treat their peasants any different to the way Henry IV. had treated the neighbours of the Harzburg suddenly realised that these Saxon armies contained an unsettlingly large contingent of villeins. And in 1073/1074 there had already been uprisings in major cities, namely Worms and Cologne where the bishops had to run for their lives. Our old friend Anno of Cologne was one of them. He only managed to get out because one of his supporters had just put a door into the city walls near his house. This “hole of Anno” can still be seen in Cologne.

Given the choice between supporting a potentially overbearing emperor or the rabble-rousing Saxons, many of the Southern dukes, namely Rudolf of Rheinfelden took the side of Henry IV. Henry IV. could finally muster his army to bring the Saxons to heel. The two sides met at the Unstrut river on June 9, 1075.

What ensued was one of the bloodiest and most painful battles of the 11th century. Though in principle it was Saxons against the rest of the kingdom, in reality many families were split. Fathers were fighting sons; brothers were killing each other in the melee.

The unity of the kingdom created at the battle of Riade against the Hungarians in 934 was trampled into the dust on that early summer’s day.

Henry IV. prevailed in the brutal fighting. After the battle his troops were let loose across Saxony, murdering and pillaging as if they were in enemy lands. On October 25th, 1075, the Saxon barons conceded an unconditional surrender.

After a decade of humiliation and defeat, Henry IV. had finally regained the position his father and grandfather had held. The magnates of the land recognised him as his overlord and the Saxons, who had plotted to kill him since he was a child were utterly defeated. Finally, he should now be able to go to Rome and take what had been his since birth, the imperial crown.

That is not what is going to happen. Within a mere 18 months Henry IV. will find himself kneeling barefoot in the snow outside the inner gate of the castle of Canossa utterly friendless and about to lose his crown.

If you want to hear how this story continues into one of the great turning points of the Middle Ages, check out the History of the Germans Podcast available on this website: http://www.historyofthegermans.com or on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Overcast, Podbean etc.

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The nobles rebel against “the imperial tyrant”

In 1065 king Henry IV begins his personal rule. After 9 years of regency imperial power is much diminished. Under the rule of Anno of Cologne and Adalbert of Hamburg-Bremen prelates and lords are raiding the imperial purse. When the barons force the young king to dismiss his main adviser, he realises that the previous model of kingship no longer works. He cannot rely on the oaths of fealty sworn by his counts and dukes, nor can he put faith in the Imperial Church System his predecessors could draw on.

The royal lands around the rich silver mines of Goslar are the nucleus for his new, territorial power base. Mighty castles on the tops of mountains project royal power, a governor, rather than a count heads his administration, and most of the castles’ garrison and administrators are ministeriales, unfree men trained in war.

This new policy clashes with the Saxons, the stem that already stood in opposition to Henry’s father and plotted to murder him when he was a child. In 1073 Otto of Northeim delivers his famous speech that turned disaffection into outright rebellion. In 18 months, Henry IV’s Saxon War will become a rollercoaster hurtling from unconditional surrender to triumph – but is the triumph going to last?

Hello and welcome to the History of the Germans – Episode 31 The (second) Saxon War

I think I have to apologise for last weeks oversized episode. I am trying to keep the length to 25-30 minutes with a tolerance up to 35 minutes. 43 minutes was definitely too long. The problem came about because we reached one of these moments of high drama when the three strands of the Investiture Controversy come together. The struggle between imperial power and the magnates, the popular movement demanding church reform and the expanding role and conception of the papacy.

Today’s job should be a touch easier because we will predominantly focus on the first of these three, the escalating tensions between the young king Henry IV. and his Saxon barons. I say should, because it is not that simple.

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One of the problems are the sources. Up until now most of the sources, be it Widukind, Liudprand of Cremona, Thietmar of Merseburg, Wipo, Hermann of Reichenau etc were usually supportive of the emperors but not excessively biased. Some had to be taken with a grain of salt as they skipped bits or put their favourite ruler into a better light. But they did not as a rule make things up. The chroniclers we have for the second half of the 11th century are different. Since the controversy between emperor and pope goes to the heart of people’s identity and beliefs, there is no neutral or semi neutral observer.

The main sources, namely Bruno who wrote the Book of the Saxon Wars and Lambert of Hersfeld whose annals provide a detailed account of Henry IV. reign are both heavily biased against the emperor. And when I say biased, I really mean biased. Bruno in particular accuses Henry IV. of all sorts of all sorts of treachery and licentiousness up to the rape of nuns, incest with his sister and premeditated murder. Henry IV. much less effective PR machine retaliates with accusations of papal love affairs with Matilda of Tuscany etc.

As for the protagonists themselves we have a register of 387 letters and notes written by pope Gregory VII between 1073 and 1084, whilst we have just 8 letters from Henry IV, and it can be assumed that whilst Gregory likely dictated them himself whilst Henry’s are the work of his chancery.

With almost all the sources painting a negative picture of Henry IV. and a big black hole where his own PR machine should be left historians with a serious dilemma. It is hard to dismiss the accusations entirely, since one of the consistent demands of Henry IV.’s enemies was for him to be subjected to an enquiry into his “crimes”. They would not have done that if he had had been whiter than white. But how much of that are we to believe? And if we do not believe it, what was he like instead?

In the 19th century German historians tried to dismiss the notion of Henry IV. as a debauched and incompetent ruler. Modern historians like Gerd Althoff have concluded that there was something, even to Bruno’s accusations and attribute at least some of the difficulties in his reign to his personality. Stefan Weinfurter highlights the unwillingness of Henry IV. to adhere to the traditional methods of imperial rule and conflict resolution as a major contributing factor to his failures.

Well, I will try to stay as close to the current consensus as I can, but with the sources as they are, I am likely to fall for my own biases as we go through this story. Apologies in advance. All angry comments please DM me, if you like what you hear, feel free to put it on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc.

With this let’s get into the story.

Henry IV. had begun his personal rule in 1065 after he had been declared an adult at the ripe old age of 15. But as was the case with Otto III 70 years earlier, the transition to personal rule was not like flicking a switch. It was a gradual process whereby the dominant figures during the regency are gradually phased out and new advisors are phased in.

As we heard last week, imperial power had been receding under the regency of Agnes of Poitou. But once Anno of Cologne had abducted the young king and created a new government, things became nearly anarchic. Archbishop Anno of Cologne and his co-conspirators could not retain control unchallenged. They had to concede a role to their archenemy, Archbishop Adalbert of Hamburg-Bremen. That does not stop regular conspiracies aimed at removing Anno and/or Adalbert. It seems that all that the magnates cared about was to expand their personal power as quickly as possible, presumably thinking that once the king would get a handle on the levers of state, the party would be over.

We have little evidence about the rapaciousness of the secular lords, but there are some juicy stories about our two archbishops. Our friend Anno was accused of putting his family members into the plum bishoprics all across the country, and indeed one of his brothers became archbishop of Magdeburg, a cousin became bishop of Halberstadt and another was earmarked to become archbishop of Trier. That latter one did not make it though. The people of Trier were sufficiently irritated about not having any say in the matter who their bishop should be that they captured the pretender upon arrival and had him thrown down from the highest cliff.

Adalbert was no better. He tried to take over some of the most storied and richest imperial monasteries like Malmedi and Kornelimuenster. When he tried to take over Lorsch, south of Frankfurt, he had to contend with a bunch of very angry monks. They, quite understandably, argued that they cannot see any reason why the church of Hamburg, 550km north would be a suitable spiritual overlord.

With the government split right down the middle, imperial policy effectively seized to function. After the debacle of the papal schism that Agnes had created, a journey to Rome and a lavish coronation would have been paramount to restore imperial prestige. As part of the settlement of the schism, pope Alexander II was happy to crown young Henry IV. He might also have hoped to entice the emperor into a campaign against the Normans who had become a little too full of themselves after helping to end the schism.

Equally the Northern Italian bishops wanted their king to come and sort out the Pataria uprisings in Milan and other cities. I mentioned this popular movement last week. The citizens of Milan and elsewhere had requested a clean-up of their diocese where literally all priests had paid for their offices and the canons lived in luxury with their wives and children. When the archbishop refused he was thrown out and lacked the military resources to get back in. What did not help the bishop was that the Pataria enjoyed the support of at least parts of the papal administration.

Basically, it was high time to go down to Rome. Twice did the imperial army muster in Augsburg, and twice did they ultimately decide not to go. Squabbling amongst the magnates was the main reason.

Even though Henry IV had nominally become the effective sole ruler of the kingdom in 1065, he was shown in 1066 that his power was for naught when his magnates gang up on him. The one thing that changed upon Henry’s maturity was that power shifted away from Anno of Cologne to Adalbert of Hamburg-Bremen. Adalbert had no difficulty in convincing the king that Anno did not have any interest in his well-being. As we heard before, Henry IV. never forgave Anno the hijacking in Kaiserswerth. One of the few things that most historians agree is that this event caused a massive trauma in Henry IV. Having been held at sword point by his barons aboard the vessel was one thing but watching his own mother failing to come to his aid, even siding with Anno over time must have created a sense of abandonment. And most of his resentment was directed at the architect of the coup, Anno of Cologne. Based on the mantra that my enemies are my friends, Adalbert became Henry IV. Go-to person.

The anti-Henry propaganda machine accused Adalbert of spoiling the child-king, telling him that he could do whatever he desired, as long as he manages to get absolution on his deathbed. According to the super biased chronicler Bruno, Henry IV maintained 2-3 mistresses at any time and had ordered all the pretty girls to be brought to him, if necessary, by force.

I would not doubt that a sixteen-year-old with no parental supervision would indulge himself in bad behaviour. And I can also see that Adalbert would not admonish the young king too severely for transgressions since he was his only political asset.

However, I doubt it needed all that for Henry IV. to support Adalbert against the hated archbishop Anno of Cologne. Adalbert had been a close associate of his father and was supporting a strong central imperial power. Anno and his associates represented the powers that wanted to expand the baronial prerogatives at the expense of the empire.

In 1066 it came to a showdown in Trebur. There the magnates had come together in one of these now regular conspiracies and decided to put an ultimatum to the young king: Either he gives up on archbishop Adalbert, or he will be deposed as king.

Henry IV. and some of his followers raced to Trebur to confront the princes. To give you an idea how precarious the position of the king already was, let me tell you the story about what happened the day before that meeting. This is the story as it was told by Lampert of Hersfeld, the other main chronicler and opponent of the Salian policies. 

According to him, the king stayed not in his own royal palace at Trebur, but in a nearby village that belonged to the abbey of Hersfeld. It seems there was nothing there to feed the royal party and the peasants refused to hand over the goods. A bloody fight between the royal soldiers and the local population ensued. In the fight either a peasant or -shame of shames- a dancing girl felled the count Werner who commanded the royal bodyguard. Werner was brought before the king. And whilst he lay on the ground in mortal agony, the bishops present refused the dying man the last rites, until he handed back an estate he had received from the king but which the abbot of Hersfeld claimed was his.

All this happened in front of the king. His man was lying there, and the churchmen refused him the last sacraments until some money issue was settled. And not just any money issue, but the reversal of a donation the king had made himself. And why was his man lying there. Because the abbey of Hersfeld had refused to feed the royal troops, something they were obliged to as an imperial abbey. Nothing shows more clearly the powerlessness of the young king and nothing explains better his deep-seated animosity to his magnates.

Not much has to be said about the fate of Adalbert of Bremen. A king who cannot feed his men and protect his wounded soldiers cannot decide who should be his main advisor. Adalbert was to go, or more precisely to run back to Hamburg protected by the few soldiers the impecunious king could spare.

A few weeks later Henry IV falls severely ill. So severely ill the doctors give him up and the magnates begin discussion about who should succeed the king. But he recovers and by Pentecost he is back in health.

No chronicler says it, but my sense is that it is right after the meeting in Trebur and his recovery when Henry IV. decides that enough is enough. No longer can an emperor rely on oaths of fealty from his dukes and counts, nor can he rely on the support from the Imperial Church as his father had been able to. A new form of royal administration is required.

It is around now, 1066 that Henry IV. begins his major castle building project around Goslar. His father had already begun the process of creating a coherent royal territory around the silver mines in the Harz mountains. This is a different concept to the 10th century imperial duchies which were administrated through assemblies and vows of fealty.  Not here. These royal lands around Goslar will be administrated by Ministeriales, unfree men trained in war and administration. Mighty castles are built on the tops of mountains and, instead of enfeoffing it to loyal men of noble descent, he manned it with his Ministeriales. He put the administration of the royal territory not into the hands of a count as would have been the case 50 years earlier but appoints a governor (Prefectus) who could be hired and fired at will.

The largest and most important of these new castles was the Harzburg, not far from the imperial residence in Goslar. Harzburg was not only one of the largest castles built in the 11th century, rivalling Fulk of Anjou’s mighty constructions, it was also designed as an imperial residence and administrative centre. Nothing indicates more clearly the change of times than the fact that the emperors are leaving their indefensible palaces on the plains and move behind 10-metre-high walls on mountaintops. The Harzburg contained an imperial palace as well as a monastery. Henry IV had his brother Konrad who had died very young as well as his first son buried in this richly decorated chapel. He also transferred the imperial regalia, i.e., the imperial crown, the Holy Lance etc. onto the Harzburg. 

The Harzburg was designed by one of Henry IV. closest confidants, a man that would be by his side for a long time, bishop Benno of Osnabrück. Benno came from a family of Ministeriales, i.e., was not a free man. He joined the clergy and got an education in Strasburg and Reichenau before joining the career path through the imperial chancery.  He was made bishop of Osnabrück in 1068. He was a smart and effective administrator and, above all, a gifted architect. He not only built the Harzburg and other castles, but he was also the architect of the final remodelling of the astounding Speyer Cathedral. He was also a brutal taskmaster who had labourers beaten if they failed to work hard enough.

Back to the castles. They were designed to project royal power. But they were nothing new, not even in Saxony. The nobles of Saxony had engaged in the construction of mountaintop castles decades before Henry IV. started his building program. As I said before, the construction of castles is a clear indicator of deteriorating central power. And since the last years of Henry III and then even more under the regency, central power had declined and castles have risen in unison. And you may have noticed that the names of people have changed. Otto of Northeim, Rudolf of Rheinfelden are all named after their main possessions, aka their castles. Up until then major aristocrats were referenced by their ancestry, the Ezzone Konrad or the Konradiner Eberhard etc. If that was not distinctive enough, they were named after their title, margrave Ekkehard of Meissen, duke Godfrey the Bearded.  Some made it even easier, by calling themselves just Welf I, II, II or IV. But from now on, aristocrats are referred to first and foremost by the name of their main castle, rather than their family or title. What this castle-building also means is that the model of peace by edict of Henry III had ended, making the life of the peasants in the empire just  that little bit harder.

Whilst the walls of the Harzburg and other fortifications are going up, the empire is shaken by a sequence of scandals that further undermine the imperial reputation.

The first one is entirely of Henry IV. making and concerns his marriage. Long ago, when Henry IV. was a child, his father had engaged him to marry Bertha, daughter of the Count of Savoy. That seems a rather odd choice, since as future emperor he should get married to a byzantine princess or absent that, at least the daughter of a king, not a mere count. Bertha’s family had however one key asset, which will become important as we go further, and that was the alpine pass of Mont Cenis. This pass, south of Mont Blanc was of major strategic importance as the connecting road between France and Italy. As the empire already controlled all other Alpine passes, Mont Cenis was the missing link that made sure no other power could get into Italy. In principle the emperor should not need the Count of Savoy for that since Mont Cenis was in Burgundy and Henry was already king of Burgundy. But Burgundy was a kingdom very much in principle, in practice Mont Cenis was held by the count of Savoy. And the count’s price for the pass was to become grandpa of an emperor.   

To make sure Bertha was at least brought up to an imperial standard, she was delivered aged 6 to the imperial court where she grew up in the household of Henry’s mother, the empress Agnes of Poitou.

In 1066, shortly after Adalbert had been sent packing and the king had recovered from his illness it was deemed time for Henry IV to finally marry little Bertha as had been agreed all these years ago.

By 1069 Henry IV. wants a divorce. At the Reichstag in Worms he stands up and declares that he simply “does not think he and his wife are a good match”.  He says that he is simply tired of pretending that the relationship was ok., when it was not. He does not accuse her of anything, that would warrant a divorce. But he, be it by fate or divine order, cannot be in a marital relationship with her. He therefore asks for the grace of God to be released from these chains. He hopes that she would find a happier life in another marriage and if needed, he would swear that the marriage had never been consummated.

This strikes me as a very modern grounds for a divorce. The fact that two people just simply are not meant to be together. But an 11th century royal marriage is not an agreement between two adults looking for fulfilment and happiness. It is a political contract, and that meant, liking each other is not a requirement. The pope sends Peter Damian up to Germany to explain these simple facts to the young king and he accepts the verdict. Henry and Bertha will from then on have a strong relationship where she will stand by him even in the most challenging moments and be more loyal than his own mother was. The couple had 5 children.

Step back. What was that. Henry IV. asks for a divorce because he does not think a relationship is possible and wants her to be happy with someone else. And then -when forced- fulfils the marriage and things turn out ok.

I am going out on a limb here, but it seems as if the most obvious point is completely overlooked by most historians Bertha and Henry have grown up together since they were five. They have grown up in a super tense environment where empress Agnes was clearly out of her depth most of the time. His older sisters have been sent away to become abbesses or have died early. It is not impossible that Henry and Berth felt more like siblings than marital partners. That would explain his insistence on her being blameless and his wish that she would be happy with someone else. It would also explain why the couple could maintain a relationship of trust and friendship despite his attempt at divorce.

That was scandal number one. Now for the second one which involves the recently appointed duke Otto of Northeim. Otto was a Saxon noble of the highest rank. He was put in as duke of Bavaria by Agnes in 1061, which is an odd choice to start with.

As we have heard before the Saxon nobles had been on a roll with attempts at the life of the Salians. The brother of the duke of Saxony may have tried to murder Emperor Henry III in 1048 and in 1057 the Saxon nobles conspired to have Henny IV. killed, a child of 7 at the time. There is no indication that Otto of Northeim was involved, but it is unlikely the Saxons kept him in the dark. The attempt on Henry’s life was foiled as allies of the king encountered the Saxon contingent by chance outside the royal palace and killed them.

Northeim then appears again as a co-conspirator in the coup at Kaiserswerth, something that cannot have endeared him to Henry IV.

In 1069 a mysterious event happens. At a stay on one of Otto of Northeim’s estates, one of Henry’s Ministeriales is ambushed and killed. Things are being investigated, but nothing comes of it. Since life is cheap and Ministeriales are still serfs, nobody ascribes much significance to that event.

In 1070, a certain Enigo, a thug of ill repute, claims publicly that Otto of Northeim had tried to hire him to murder the king. Otto of Northeim strenuously denies the claim. In classic 11th century fashion, when it is one man’s word against another’s, the resolution has to be through trial by combat. Otto of Northeim initially accepts the ruling but does then not appear on the set dates in Goslar to fight for his honour. Under the circumstances Otto could demand a judgement in default, which the Saxon nobles assembled as the jury granted. Otto of Northeim was stripped of the duchy of Bavaria, all other fiefs and of his allodial possessions. Northeim is also declared an outlaw.

According to the chronicler Bruno, this was all a plot by Henry IV. to strip Northeim of his possessions. Bruno even alleges that Northeim would have been killed on the king’s orders even if he had won the trial by combat. I find in particular the latter hard to believe. The trial would have taken place in full view of the Saxon nobles and if Henry would have wanted to pull a stunt like this, his reputation would have suffered immeasurable damage. That in combination with the string of assassination attempts by Saxon nobles and the mysterious death of his Ministeriales the year before makes it likely that there was something to this allegation.

Guilty or not, Otto finds support from other Saxon nobles, including from Magnus, son of the duke of Saxony in his fight with the king. But he failed to bring the whole of the duchy behind him and had to submit to the emperor after a year of fighting. Henry IV. imprisons him and Magnus. Otto of Northeim is released in 1072 and some of his inherited lands are returned to him, minus the chunk henry wanted to keep. Magnus, who after his father’s death had become the duke of Saxony, is kept longer, presumably as insurance against another Saxon uprising.

After Northeim’s fall, the duchy of Bavaria had been given to Welf IV upon recommendation of Rudolf of Rheinfelden, the powerful duke of Swabia. Over the years Rheinfelden and the duke of Carinthia, Berthold of Zaehringen had mended their relationship that had been strained when Rheinfelden was made duke of Swabia, a role Zaehringen thought was his. That now created a major political block in the south where Rheinfelden could rely on support from both the duke of Carinthia and his old friend Welf IV the newly appointed duke of Bavaria.

In 1072 Henry IV. accused Rheinfelden and his two dukes of a conspiracy against him. The three dukes, he claims, have tried to assassinate him and make Rheinfelden king. Lampert and Bruno, as one would expect, declare that this was again a plot by the king to bring down another of his magnates. Egon Boshof brings up a theory that blames Henry’s concerns down to the reform of the monastery of St. Blasien, which affected imperial prerogatives.

Again, who knows what went on. Maybe Henry Iv. looked at the comparatively easy win over Otto of Northeim and thought, hey this is a brilliant tool to break the power of his magnates. Or Rheinfelden looked at the events in Saxony and thought to himself, time to strike now before this king gets ever more powerful. Or it was indeed a misunderstanding over the indeed gorgeous monastery of St. Blasien.

Anyway, this time Henry IV. does not succeed in deposing Rheinfelden or the other two dukes. In 1073 they sign some sort of “let’s forget about all that and be friends again” agreement.

That came just in time, because events are now accelerating.

In the summer of 1073, the Saxon had enough of Henry’s castles. What had fuelled the flames was that Henry, cash strapped as he was, did not pay the Ministeriales who manned the castles. The Ministeriales hence forced the local peasants to bring food to them, and if they failed to do so, would see their villages burned and wives and daughters raped. At least that is the story told by the biased chroniclers Bruno and Lambert. It may also be that the villages belonging to the castles were obliged to bring the produce by law and custom, as was the case with the castles the mighty Saxon lords had built. The only difference was that the soldiers manning Henry’s castles weren’t Saxons, but from elsewhere, possibly Swabia.

In June of 1073 the magnates of Saxony, including the bishops of Magdeburg, Halberstadt, Hildesheim, as well as Hermann Billung, uncle of the incarcerated duke Magnus of Saxony and Otto of Northeim appear before the emperor in Goslar demanding an audience to discuss the castle building program.

Henry IV. does not grant an audience. In fact, he leaves the Saxon magnates stand outside the castle whilst he is playing dice with is mates inside. This is often seen as an unnecessary insult that justifies the upcoming rebellion and put Henry IV. in the wrong. On the other hand, imperial dignity required that the king would not yield to such explicit demands. Henry IV. remembered what happened when he rushed to Trebur in 1066 when the princes met to discuss the fate of Archbishop Adalbert, an experience he was not too keen to repeat. Henry also had been assembling an army for a campaign against Poland, which he believed he could use to suppress any Saxon uprising.

The Saxon magnates are now infuriated to the max. A month later they meet at Hoetensleben for an assembly. There Otto of Northeim gives his famous speech, which I will try to translate here. Thanks, by the way to deepl.com whose free translation service has become a lifesaver for this podcast. Here is Otto of Northeim:

“The calamities and disgraces that our king has brought upon each one of you for a long time are great and unbearable, but what he still intends to do, if the Almighty God permits him, is even greater and more severe. Strong castles he has erected, as you know, numerous in places already firm by nature, and has placed in them a great multitude of his vassals, and abundantly provided with weapons of all kinds. These castles are not erected against the heathen, who have completely devastated our land where it borders theirs, but in the midst of our country, where no one ever thought of making war against him; he has fortified them with such great effort, and what they mean for this land some of you have already experienced, and if God’s mercy and your bravery do not intervene, you will soon all experience it. They take your possessions by force and hide them in their castles; they abuse your wives and daughters for their pleasure when they please; they demand your servants and your cattle, and all that they like, for their service; yes, they even force you yourselves to bear every burden, however odious, on your free shoulders. But when I imagine in my thoughts what is still waiting for us, then everything that you are now enduring still seems to me to be bearable. For when he will have built his castles in our whole country at his discretion and will have equipped them with armed warriors and all other necessities, then he will no longer plunder your possessions one by one, but he will snatch from you all that you possess with one blow, will give your goods to strangers, and will make you yourselves, you freeborn men, oblige unknown men as servants. And all this, you brave men, will you let it happen to you? Is it not better to fall in brave fight than to live a miserable and ignominious life, being made a shameful mockery by these people.

Even Serfs who are bought for money do not endure the unreasonable commands of their masters, and you, who were born free, should patiently endure servitude? 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. Awake, therefore, and preserve for your children the inheritance which your fathers have left you; beware lest through your carelessness or slothfulness you yourselves and your children become serfs of strangers” (end quote)

Now before you go and think that here is the first outburst of genuine German nationalism, I have to stop you there. When Northeim talks of “patria” or “fatherland” he talks about Saxony, not Germany. And when he talks about freedom, he is not talking about human rights, but ancestral privileges, the Freedoms as they will be later called.

But rousing the speech is nevertheless and the Saxons raise an army and head towards the Harzburg, where Henry IV. had gone to hold out while his agents bring over the army initially meant for the Poland campaign to defeat these obnoxious Saxons once and for all. The Saxons set up camp on an opposite hill and sent their demands to the king. He was to dismantle all his castles in Saxony and dismiss his false councillors.

The Harzburg was almost impregnable, so the Saxons blockaded the castle’s food supplies whilst throwing large stones down on the fortifications from a new structure built on the opposite hill.

Henry’s hope of support from the army readied for the war in Poland was quickly dashed. The mighty princes shared many of the views Otto of Northeim had articulated in his speech. They could see that if Henry were to prevail in Saxony, he would proceed to build similar castles in Bavaria, Swabia and anywhere else in the country. Rudolf of Rheinfelden and the two Southern dukes also had not forgotten that Henry had tried to nail them just a year earlier. So, the princes withdrew their troops. Some magnates led by the archbishop of Mainz even began negotiations with Otto of Northeim, allegedly offering him the crown.

Henry IV. fled the Harzburg and set up camp in Worms. There he managed to gather some bishops for an attempt to make a military move on Saxony, but his support was far too weak.

On February 2nd, 1074 he signed the peace of Gerstungen, which cannot be described as anything but a complete capitulation. In a near full assembly of the great bishops and princes of the realm, Henry IV. conceded the demolition of all his castles, dismissed his councillors and gave full amnesty to all the rebels.

Henry IV. withdrew the garrison of the Harzburg and immediately the Saxons stormed in. The Saxon troops it is important to note were not just aristocratic knights but comprised a lot of free or half free peasants. These guys were the first through the gate and began the demolition work. In the peace agreement it was specifically stated that the demolition of the Harzburg should be gentle, respecting the imperial chapel on the site. Well, that did not happen. The Saxon commanders could not stop their enraged mob who tore down the chapel, stole the relics and horror of horrors pulled the remains of the Salian princes buried there out of their coffins and threw them in the ditch like vile garbage.

This profound insult to the honour not just of Henry IV. but the realm as a whole led to one of these sudden mood swings that will punctuate the story of the Investiture Controversy.

The Saxon nobles apologised immediately and promised a thorough investigation and harsh punishment for the perpetrators. But that was not enough. The mighty princes, who did not treat their peasants any different to the way henry IV. had the neighbours of the Harzburg suddenly realised that these Saxon armies contained an unsettlingly large contingent of free peasants. And in 1073/1074 there had already been uprisings in major cities, namely worms and Cologne where the bishops had to run for their lives. Our old friend Anno of Cologne was one of them. He only managed to get out because one of his supporters had just put a door into the city walls near his house. This “hole of Anno” can still be seen in Cologne.

Given the choice between supporting a potentially overbearing emperor or a rabble-rousing Saxon, many of the Southern dukes, namely Rudolf of Rheinfelden took the side of Henry IV. Henry IV. could finally muster his army to bring the Saxons to heel. The two sides met at the Unstrut river on June 9, 1075.

What ensued was one of the bloodiest and painful battles of the 11th century. Though in principle it was Saxons against the rest of the kingdom, in reality many families were split. Fathers were fighting sons; brothers were killing each other in the melee. The unity of the kingdom created at the battle king Henry the Fowler had fought against the Hungarians nearby in 934 was trampled into the dust on that early summers day.

Henry IV. prevailed in the brutal fighting. After the battle his troops were let loose across Saxony, murdering and pillaging wherever they went. On October 25th, 1075 the Saxon barons conceded an unconditional surrender.

After a decade of humiliation and defeat, Henry IV. had finally regained the position his father and grandfather had held. The magnates of the land recognised him as his overlord and the Saxons, who had plotted to kill him since he was a child were utterly defeated. Finally, he should now be able to go to Rome and take what had been his since birth, the imperial crown.

That is not what is going to happen. Next week we will find out how it comes that within a mere 18 months Henry IV. will find himself utterly friendless about to lose it all kneeling barefoot in the snow outside the inner gate of the castle of Canossa. I hope you will join us again.

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And another protagonist in the Investiture Controversy

Godfrey the Bearded is one of those figures of History who despite his significant influence over crucial events has fallen through the cracks because he did not fit into a national narrative in either Germany, France or Italy.
Godfrey was the son of Gozelo, duke of Upper and Lower Lothringia. Emperor Konrad II had put Gozelo in charge of the two duchies of Lothringia since he needed a strong defender of the French border, particular against the mighty counts of Blois-Champagne. Konrad II died in 1039 and his son Henry III changed the strategic outlook. The threat from France had receded, which removed the rationale to create such a powerful vassal in the west. When Gozolo died in 1044, Henry III split the two duchies up again between Godfrey, who received Upper Lothringia, and his brother.
Godfrey felt wronged by this decision and began feuding against the emperor. Though Godfrey had to concede defeat several times and lost the duchy of Upper Lothringia, he retained huge support amongst the Lothringian nobles. Henry III could never really gain control of Lothringia. The ambitious counts of Flanders were the main beneficiaries of the power vacuum his wars with Godfrey created. The counts of Flanders put together a territory that after many iterations ended up as the country of Belgium.
During his conflict with the emperor Godfrey made a great political move. He married Beatrix, widow of Count Boniface of Tuscany. That gave him control of a broad stretch of land across central Italy, from Mantua to Florence. Sometime later he would also acquire the duchy of Spoleto, giving him control over access to Rome and hence the papacy.
In 1056, Godfrey’s archenemy, emperor Henry III died. The crown went to his 6-year-old son Henry IV and his mother, Agnes of Poitou.
This event was not just significant for Godfrey who would gain the duchy of Lower Lothringia under the new regime, but even more for the papacy.
The elevation of pope Leo IX in 1046 had kickstarted the reform of the papacy, which was part of a broader church reform movement. Church reform focused on ending Simony, the practice of buying and selling holy offices and curbing the licentiousness of priests, including the marriage of clerics. The papacy itself was being reorganised. Leo IX created the college of Cardinals and began to proactively get involved in church policy across western Europe, either personally or through papal legates. This is the beginning of the universal papacy we know today.
The papal reform had initially been sponsored by emperor Henry III. Henry III freed the papacy from the chokehold of the Roman aristocracy. The great Roman families had dominated the papacy until 1046, appointing and dismissing popes at will.
After emperor Henry III had died the reform party was concerned that once the current pope, Victor II, died, the Roman aristocracy would come back. They turned to Godfrey as the only power in Italy that could offer protection during the regency.
It is hence no surprise that the reform-minded bishops elected Godfrey’s brother as pope Stephen IX within two days of receiving note of Pope Victor II’s death. Stephen IX lasted only 8 months, hence the issue came up again in March 1058. This time the Roman Aristocracy were quicker and elected one of their own as Pope Benedict X before the reform-minded party managed to elect someone.
The reform leaders, including the future pope Gregory VII fled to Godfrey’s capital of Florence. There they elected the local bishop as pope Nicolas II. Godfrey provided the muscle that brought Nicolas II into Rome and on to the throne of St. Peter.
Pope Nicholas II presided over the synod of 1059 where the process for papal election was first established. Instead of imperial appointment or acclamation by the people of Rome, the pope was to be elected by the Cardinal Bishops, a process that still takes place today.
Thanks to Godfrey’s support the papacy could hold its own against the Roman aristocracy and, at the same time free itself from the imperial dominance. Two papal elections later, pope Gregory VII will excommunicate Emperor (at the time only king) Henry IV which will lead to the famous scene of the most powerful ruler in Europe kneeling in the snow before the pope in the castle of Canossa. Godfrey will be dead by then, but his stepdaughter, Mathilda of Tuscany, whose castle Canossa was, will play another key role in the story of the Investiture Controversy.
All this is still to come on the History of the Germans Podcast, though we are getting close. If you want to catch up, check out the Episodes 26-30 where we go through the reign of emperor Henry III and the regency of his wife Agnes of Poitou. The podcast is – as always – available on my website www.historyofthegermans.com and links to Apple, Spotify etc. are here: https://history-of-the-germans.captivate.fm/listen

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In this series of posts I will highlight some key protagonists in the Investiture Controversy, in part to make it easier to follow the podcast where we run into a bewildering array of personalities, locations and events. The bios will also be placed on a specific page on the website once I get to grips with the recent updates in Wordpress.

Agnes was the daughter of duke William V of Aquitaine and Agnes of Burgundy. She married emperor Henry III in 1043. The marriage was entirely political, giving Henry III links to the powerful Angevin counts and solidified his position in Burgundy.
The couple had five children, three daughters and two sons, one of whom survived and became emperor Henry IV.
Henry IV was born in 1050 and was hence just 6 years old when Henry III died. Agnes assumed the regency for her son. To say it right away, Agnes of Poitou was no Theophanu and certainly no Adelheid. That is not to say she was terribly incompetent; she just was not absolutely brilliant. And given the situation, absolutely brilliant was the baseline for a successful reign.
After decades of centralisation of power under the previous three emperors time was ripe for a backlash by the mighty barons. Tensions had been mounting in the last years of Henry III, but now the magnates openly demanded a return to the previous system where the king/emperor was more of a “First amongst Equals”. Agnes was unable to hold back the tide, had to enfeoff major nobles with strategically important duchies and was unable to stop feuding amongst the castellans, counts and even bishops. Central power was quickly dissipating.
Her downfall came when the cardinals in Rome elected Pope Alexander II without requesting imperial permission before. Insisting on the ancestral right of the emperors to appoint or at least confirm the pope, Agnes supported an antipope, Honorius III. Honorius was the candidate of the anti-reform party, which comprised the Roman aristocracy and Northern Italian bishops. This party wanted to dial back the clock to a time when the pope was just the bishop of Rome that the city’s rulers literally used as a footstool. And they hoped for a reversal of the tighter rules on clerical marriage and simony, the buying and selling of holy offices.
This was a terrible PR move. Creating a papal schism was bad enough, but the imperial government was backing the bad guys. They pushed against the drive to clean the church from corruption and licentiousness.
And in this one fell swoop Agnes destroyed the reputation of the empire as champion of reform that Henry III and his predecessors worked so hard for.
When Agnes realised what she had done, she froze. Her entire background was in the church reform movement. Her grandfather had founded the abbey of Cluny after all. She took to her bed, pulled the duvet over her face and left all government activity to her advisers.
Her situation had become completely untenable. In 1062 the German magnates, led by archbishop Anno of Cologne staged a coup, abducting the young King Henry IV at Kaiserswerth (check out tomorrow’s post).
Agnes conceded after Kaiserswerth. She no longer led the regency and in 1065 moved to Rome to atone for her sins and in particular her role in creating the schism. She died in 1077 and is buried in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome

The podcast is – as always – available on my website. Links to Apple, Spotify etc. are here: https://history-of-the-germans.captivate.fm/listen

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The Council of Sutri in 1046

In 1046 Henry III finally has time to go to Rome and claim the imperial crown. All he wants is get in, get crowned and get out before the Malaria season. He encounters a problem when he finds out that the current pope Gregory VI has bought the papacy for cold hard cash, a sin that could invalidate his coronation. Henry III gets involved, deposes all three competing popes and inadvertently starts a chain of events that ends in what Norman Cantor calls “the first of the three world revolutions”.

History of the Germans Podcast is available on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts and all major podcasting platforms. Alternatively go to my website historyofthegermans

Transcript

Hello and welcome to the History of the Germans – Episode 28 – 3 Popes with one Stone

In today’s episode we will witness the very beginnings of what Norman Cantor described as the first of the tree world revolutions. We are laying the foundations to that moment Tom Holland compares to the crossing of the Rubicon or the storming of the Bastille. An event that shaped Western Europe into its own specific narrative that let it to get ahead of civilisations far older and far more sophisticated than its own. History would call this the Gregorian Reform, though it starts well before pope Gregory VII and Gregory VII was by no means its intellectual leader.

And like all great revolutions it starts with something the significance of which is overlooked by contemporaries.. Remember Louis XVI diary entry for the 14th of July 1789 “rien”, nothing.

Well in the case of the Gregorian reform it starts not with a nothing, but with something we have seen many times before in the History of the Germans podcast, a standard imperial expedition to Rome to acquire the imperial crown.

Henry III’s intention was in all likelihood to cruise down to Rome, get crowned during the now traditional winter months and be back across the alps before the malaria season starts in spring. That is what his father Konrad II and his predecessor Henry II had done. Neither of these had had any interest in getting embroiled in Roman affairs. They all remembered Otto III and how that had ended.

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In October 1046 Henry III arrives in the capital of the Lombards, Pavia where he holds a synod. He could travel with just his bodyguard. The last 7 years he had made good decisions as regards Italy. It started with his mediation in the Milanese uprising we had discussed in Episode 26. He appointed sensible bishops who supported the reform of the church, and where he had made a mistake, reversed decisions based on advice. The Italians were glad to see him and regarded him as a good, if mainly absent overlord.

In November he meets the current pope, Gregory VI in Piacenza to hammer out the details of the upcoming coronation. Things are fine and both pope and emperor treat each other with the respect their offices afford.

Sometime after this meeting Henry III has concerns. The more he hears about the way Gregory VI has been elevated to the throne of St. Peter, the more he wonders whether his coronation would be valid.

To understand his concerns as well as the background to our much bigger story, I need to bring you up to speed with the history of the papacy since the death of Otto III.

The last time we have seriously talked about Rome was in the last years of Otto III, the young emperor who dreamt of a Renovation of the Roman Empire with its actual capital in the actual city of Rome. Otto III had appointed 2 popes, first Gregory V, one of his close relatives and then his tutor and spiritual counsellor Gregory of Aurilhac, who took the name of Sylvester II.

Gregory V and Sylvester II had tried to clean up the papacy, which for hundreds of years had been a plaything of the Roman gangster aristocrats and had failed to project any spiritual leadership outside the Contado of the city of Rome. Sylvester II tried to bring the two-sword theory into practice. On this general theory the Pope yields the spiritual power and the emperor the secular power. Pope and Emperor are to work in unison at spreading the word of Christ and preparing the people for the coming of the antichrist. He worked tirelessly at improving the moral and educational standards of the clergy, papal administration and ecclesiastical authority.

But Sylvester II only lasted a year after Otto III had died in 1002.

As soon as Otto III had left Rome in 1001 John Crescentius took control of the holy city. John Crescentius was the son of Crescentius II, the man Otto III had executed on the roof of the Castel Sant Angelo and whose body was hung upside down from the gallows of Monte Mario. Unsurprisingly John Crescentius did not like the Germans very much.

Like other secular rulers of the city of Rome before him he appointed a string of tame popes, John XVII, John XVIII and Sergius V, who did as far as I can see pretty much nothing of note. The only thing they did was refusing to crown emperors which is why Henry II took his time to become emperor.

John Crescentius died in 1012 probably of natural causes. With his death the Crescenti rule of Rome ended. They were replaced by the other leading family of Rome, the Theophylacts. We met them before. They had graced papal history with such impeccable spiritual leaders like the Senatrix Mariucca and the debauched child Pope John XII.

The intervening years in the wilderness had turned the Theophylacts into battle-hardened warriors. To avoid the whole Malaki of having to find a suitable prelate to be pet pope, count Gregory of Tusculum decides to do the job himself. He gets ordained as priest and elevated to the see of St. Peter on the same day as Pope Benedict VIII.

Benedict VIII was a competent administrator and soldier. He mended the relationship with the empire and crowned Henry II in 1014. He even travelled to Bamberg to consecrate Henry II’s magnificent new cathedral.

When Benedict VIII died his brother had to pick up the job. Another same day ordination, election and elevation takes place. This Tusculum count took the name of John XIX. Things continued pretty much as before. John XIX crowns Konrad II in one of the most splendid and best attended coronations of the Middle Ages. He does however pursue a more independent policy from the empire.

In 1032 the next count of Tusculum ascends the throne, Benedict IX, a nephew of John XIX and Benedict VIII. He was quite young, probably 18 or 20 when he became the leader of Christianity. There are some chroniclers who claim he was only 12 when he was elevated, indulged in rape and murder and even displayed homosexual tendencies, though all that is likely imperial propaganda. But even 20 is not really an age when one should become pope. It is likely that his personal conduct fell somewhat short of the moral demands the office is usually associated with. Be that as it may, the emperors did not care as long as Benedict IX pursued a generally imperial friendly policy. HE even joined Konrad II during his campaign in Southern Italy in 1038.

Things get complicated for him in 1044. A “new aristocracy” in Rome is emerging that challenges the traditional mafia oligarchy that had ruled the city since the 9th century. The upstarts throw Benedict IX out and bring in a new pope, Sylvester III. By 1045 Benedict IX is back. For reasons that are somewhat unclear he decides that the papacy is not really for him, and he sells it to a gentleman called John Gratian. That sale is not propaganda, that actually happened.

John Gratian takes the title of Gregory VI and it is this pope our friend Henry III encounters in November 1046 in Piacenza.

News trickle through that Gregory VI has paid to become pope, which constitute the sin of Simony. That causes a serious problem for Henry III. If Gregory VI had indeed acquired the papacy in such a crass manner, then what is any of the sacraments worth he will be conducting. Could he, Henry III be taking part in a sinful act if he had himself crowned by a pope whose foul act condemns him to eternal hellfire.

He is now on theologically thin ice. And to say it in German “Wenn ich nicht mehr weiter weiss, gruende ich einen Arbeitskreis” which loosely translates as “if I am at a loss, I will found a taskforce”. That task force was the Council of Sutri in December 1046. For that he convened the main churchmen of Italy as well as the German church leaders who had accompanied him on his journey.

The assembled bishops easily dismissed antipope Sylvester III as uncanonical. When Gregory VI admitted to have bought the papacy in order to bring an end to the travesty that was the papacy of Benedict IX, that made this question easy. And Benedict IX did not even show up. Henry III in one fell swoop deposed all three popes.

He now needed a new one. And this time it had to be a proper churchman who cleans up the mess the papacy has become. Henry III knew a lot of proper churchmen, all of whom were members of the German Imperial church. He first asked Adalbert archbishop of Bremen/Hamburg and eternal scorn of the Saxons but he refused. Bishop Suitger of Bamberg was more amenable and is made Pope Clement II on the spot.

Clement II crowns Henry III and sends him back on his way home to avoid the Malaria. Clement II stays behind and dies of the disease within 10 months. The next volunteer was Poppo, bishop of Brixen, who as Damasus II lasts just 30 days before being taken down by the disease. In 1048 Henry appoints his cousin, Bruno, bishop of Toul to become pope as Leo IX.

Leo IX lasts almost 5 years. These five years are a crucial time for the papacy and ultimately European history.

The first smart thing Leo IX does is to make his acceptance of the papal crown dependent upon the consent of the Romans. That may not be quite a free election as such given Leo arrives with a contingent of imperial soldiers, but he shows the Romans respect which they appreciate. He is also coming back to a city of Rome that has changed. The Crescenti have died out and the counts of Tusculum are on the run. The whole place is looking for a new equilibrium.

The new thing is that the pope is now appearing on the international stage. Leo IX will undertake three major journeys to Germany in his 5-year reign, travel extensively across Italy and will hold a total of 12 synods. The key topics of his synods were simony, the purchasing of holy offices and the marriage of clergy.

Until Leo IX these gatherings of German or Italian bishops were usually presided over by the king or emperor. Now the pope takes a more hands-on role in managing the church. He begins a fundamental reform of the church infrastructure. That includes introducing the college of cardinals as an administrative body. Up until then the cardinal was just a honorific given to priests of the major basilicas of Rome. Now they get directly involved in the management of the global church. Leo paves the way to solve theological disputes using the new techniques of logic and dialectic that would ultimately become the scholastic method which will dominate European thinking in the high Middle Ages. The objective here is not just to make management as usual more effective, no, Leo IX is driving fundamental change and reform.

To understand the significance of Leo IX we have to see his actions in the context of some major changes happening in the early 11th century.

The 11th century is not short of momentous change. For one, there is a dramatic rise in economic activity brought about by climate change, improved agricultural methods and the replacement of slavery with feudal obligations. The agricultural surplus allows for the creation of markets, trade and cities. People as a whole are wealthier. They are climbing up Maslow’s pyramid having much higher security of food and shelter than 150 years ago. That drives the demand for peace, as defined as the absence of violence we discussed last episode. In areas where such security is provided, self-actualisation becomes a more and more significant desire.

In the 11th century being the person, you always wanted to be did not involve yoga, veganism or podcasting. What people wanted to do is live the right life so that they would be chosen at the day of judgement. And the day of judgement was imminent as a 1000 years had passed since the passion of Christ.

We have encountered these extreme forms of piety amongst lay men already in the personalities of Otto III and Henry II. As the century progresses, more and more often just ordinary people feel the need to follow Christ’s example without becoming priests or monks They spend long time in religious devotion, give money or their labour to the church, help the poor and in extremis embark on self-flagellation or wearing of hair shirts. Going on arduous pilgrimages to Rome or Jerusalem is no longer something only churchmen and holy hermits do, in 1034 Robert, duke of Normandy leaves his worldly possessions to his 8-year-old bastard son and goes on pilgrimage to Jerusalem where he dies. In 1096 ordinary people follow Pope Urban’s call for a crusade and set off on foot to Jerusalem, crossing Germany and the Balkans before being sent to their certain death by the Byzantine emperor.

This rise in lay piety scared the church no end. How can the church maintain their moral authority in society when the flock lives more saintly lives than the vicars sent to lead them in prayer. At the same time the laymen ask how effective prayer by a bent prelate could be.

We have been talking about church reform several times before. Led by the Abbey of Cluny and the reform monasteries inside the empire the church had responded. Since the time of Henry II monasteries were regularly reviewed as to their adherence to the rules of Saint Benedict.

Weakness in discipline usually meant (i) priests and monks living in relationships or even got married, (ii) the sin of Simony, i.e., the buying of selling of holy offices, which usually led to (iii) laziness, greed and incompetence.

If weaknesses in discipline are discovered, the abbot would be replaced, and things were put right.

The chronicler Hermann of Reichenau, himself a monk at that famous monastery describes the process as follows:

Quote: “In Reichenau on the death of Abbot Werner the brethren elected the monk henry. King Henry (that is Henry II), loathed his arrogance -although he had received money from him. Henry was hostile to the brethren, who had been subject of accusations in his presence. Against their will he appointed to rule them a certain Immo. Abbot of Gorze, a harsh man who at the time also held Prum. Some of the brethren, therefore, left that place on their own accord and some of them were severely afflicted by him with fasts, scourges and exile. Thus the noble monastery suffered for its sins a heavy loss in great men, books and church treasures..” unquote.

Two years later “King Henry, after hearing at last of the cruelty of Immo, removed him and appointed Bern, a learned and pious man….he was joyfully received and gathered the scattered brethren together again.”

This little story tells us not just about the effort going into the church reform but also the degree of success. Leaving aside the hypocrisy that Henry II had taken money from the abbot elect. But bringing Immo in and accepting a loss in the economic viability of a monastery as important as Reichenau was a considerable financial effort on Henry II’s part. However, it seems the measures did not achieve their ultimate goal as Immo had to be removed. The new Abbot presumably had to scale down standards to entice the brethren to return.

Such ultimately half-hearted efforts failed to cut the mustard with the increasingly pious laymen. They were looking for more and for better.

In the 1030s the next iteration of church reform, call it Church Reform 2.0 took hold. This next generation of reformers had little in common with the grand abbots of Cluny. They revived the ancient tradition of hermits and holy men who had thrived in the Eastern Roman Empire since the 5th century.  

According to Norman Cantor Ascetics came back in fashion in Western Europe during the 11th century because now people had enough to eat. Before that everyone was going hungry, making it hard to differentiate between a poor man and a saint.

We have met some of these hermits already, unsurprisingly in the company of Otto III the epitome of lay piety amongst early medieval rulers. There was St. NIlus who accused the emperor of overreach when he had Crescentius II cut to pieces and pope John XVII mutilated and humiliated. Another was St. Romuald who founded his own ascetic order. His motto was: Sit in your cell as in paradise. Put the whole world behind you and forget it. Watch your thoughts like a good fisherman watching for fish. The path you must follow is in the Psalms — never leave it.

From this purely eremitic tradition the community of Vallombrosa near Florence emerged. Their aim was to combine the ascetic, eremitic lifestyle with life in the community, preaching the gospel and doing good works. The rules were much stricter than the traditional Benedictine rule and involved vows of silence, seclusion and poverty.

It is out of these communities and spiritual tradition that two of the four most important Gregorian reformers come.

The first one is St. Peter Damian or Pietro Damiano.  He was born an orphan of a noble but impoverished family. He was badly mistreated in his early youth before being taken in by a cousin who was a priest. Once his intelligence is noticed, he is sent to study theology and canon law at the cathedral schools of Ravenna and Parma. In Parma he becomes a lecturer at the age of 25. 

He joins the hermitage of Fonte Avellano where he becomes prior in 1043. He will remain in this role until the end of his life. Pietro Damiano embraces the life of an ascetic hermit enthusiastically and subjects himself to extreme forms of devotion and penitence, including regular flagellation up to a point where he is near death.

But the solitary life of an hermit is not really for him. His true passion is to meet people, preach on street corners and squares, reaching out to the Common man.. In between excessive religious exercises and itinerant preaching he gets involved in the controversies that shake the church in his time. He has a habit of sending out treatises analysing and judging ecclesiastical decisions.

How smart or well informed they are, is a bit doubtful since he constantly declares individuals as the harbingers of a golden age, which includes the debauched Pope benedict IX and the simonistic Gregory VI, two issues he is particularly opposed to. 

His pet hates were Simony and Homosexuality.

Simony probably needs a bit of explanation. It is named after Simon the Sorcerer who makes an appearance in the deeds of the Apostles, chapter 8 verse 9 to 25. A sorcerer, as we all know is a wizard without a hat. Simon was -according to the account – a very successful sorcerer with a large followership in Samaria. When he saw the apostle Philip preach, he became a believer, was baptised and began to follow him around amazed by all the great signs and miracles Philip performed. At one point they were joined by Peter and John who could bring down the Holy Spirit by placing their hands on the heads of the believers.

Simon was mightily impressed by that and offered Peter and John money to learn this skill. He said that they should give him this ability so that everyone on whom he lays his hands may receive the holy spirit.

Peter was not happy and answered: ““May your money perish with you, because you thought you could buy the gift of God with money! You have no part or share in this ministry, because your heart is not right before God. Repent of this wickedness and pray to the Lord in the hope that he may forgive you for having such a thought in your heart. For I see that you are full of bitterness and captive to sin.”

The interesting point about simony is that it is not a sin of bad intention but a sin of bad means. Simon the sorcerer is not ill disposed to the church. Au contraire, he wants to  do good, spread the gospel and bring the Holy Spirit to the believers. His sin is that he wants to buy the skills needed, which shows that his heart is not right. Hence when Gregory VI tried to justify his payment to Benedict IX with the argument that it was all for the good of the church, the argument does not cut it. He may have the right intention but uses the wrong means. We will find out how important that distinction is.

Pietro Damiano wrote a long work on Simony and how to define it and what its consequences are. The important question is what constitutes the “offer of money”. In the case of Gregory VI it is quite obvious, I pay you X to become pope. But what about the usual payments a new bishop or Abbot has to pay to his new liege lord? What about the abbot or bishop’s feudal obligations to the king? And then there is the question, are the sacraments performed by a simonistic priest still valid? Is a priest ordained by a simonistic bishop properly ordained, and if not, are his sacraments invalid as a fruit of the poison tree? Pietro Damiano writes three books on this subject, generally taking a somewhat pragmatic view.

Where he is not pragmatic at all is on licentiousness. His argument was -not unreasonably – that a priest or bishop engaging in every kind of immorality undermines the authority of the church and would bring down the wrath of the pious laity on them. He is particularly concerned about sexual relationships between priests and adolescent boys that were often covered up by their superiors – plus ca change. And then he is a full on rabid homophobe promising fire and brimstone to men loving men. Just when you thought, maybe the guy is not so bad, that thing comes out.

The other thought leader of the Gregorian reforms who appears in the 1040s is Humbert, usually called da Silva Candida after the church whose priest he was in Rome. He was a lot more dogmatic and radical than Pietro Damiano. In particular he believed that all sacraments of simonistic priests were invalid, including the acts of priests ordained by a simonistic priest. He also firmly believed in a very wide definition of simony that included any involvement of the emperor in the election of bishops or abbots.

I guess you get an idea of what is going on here. The church is under pressure to improve its image. Reform has been ongoing for a long time, but the outcome is underwhelming against the backdrop of growing lay piety. That creates room for new and revolutionary ideas about monastic life, priestly conduct and ultimately the roles of temporal and spiritual power.

And Pope Leo IX, cousin of emperor Henry III, member of the imperial church jumps right on to that bandwagon. Actually, the emperor himself is massively in favour of the early reform.

For Leo IX, Henry III, the mighty abbot of Cluny and even Pietro Damiano, there is no question whatsoever who should ultimately lead the reform effort, the emperor. After 200 years of papal agony and irrelevance, there simply cannot be anyone else who has the moral and physical assets to push through major change.

Ever since Otto the Great the world had operated in what Norman Cantor called the early medieval equilibrium. The world and the Church are one and the same. The rule of the world is in principle divided between the spiritual and the temporal, the pope and the emperor. But they are just two sides of the same coin. The emperor brings not just peace and justice, he also promotes Christianity to far-flung pagan lands and looks after the spiritual well-being of his people. Him getting involved in theological debates or church reform is not meddling, but part of the job. The pope should in principle do the same, but in all protagonists’ lifetime to date never did any of it. Henry III was simply happy that his cousin was shouldering some of the work.

A papacy that actually does something is new. Being present, living a moral life and caring about the spiritual well-being of the people dramatically improves the standing of the papacy. That is why Leo IX is so important. His change in papal standing creates an alternative that simply did not exist before. If the realm of the spiritual is managed well, there is less justification for an emperor to be involved. If we have a well run church, why do we have a theocratic ruler who claims to be the vicar of Christ on earth? After Leo IX the direct involvement of the emperor in church affairs is no longer the natural state of affairs. The two sides of the medal are drifting apart.

The other component that allows the two sides to drift apart is even less obvious to Leo IX and even more unexpected. The Normans.

I told you in episode 25 that the Normans will appear in the narrative and that they matter, like a lot. The Normans I talk about are not exactly the ones you probably think about right now. I am talking about the Sicilian Normans.

We are in the year 1048 now, 18 years before William the Conqueror sets sail for the English coast.  Normandy is the most tightly run state in western Europe outside the empire. Like in the empire central power is able to maintain order, prevent the construction of castles and stop the nobles from feuding. That is great for peasants but not great for the second, third, fourth and fifth sons of the Norman knightly class.

One outlet for their ambition had been to take service as a mercenary in Southern Italy. Southern Italy was a perennial mess where Lombard dukes, Byzantine viceroys, independent cities and the emir of Sicily are tied up in near incessant fighting. The Normans, the superheroes of the 11th century, show up from 999 onwards and everyone wants them in their army. Initially they work for cold hard cash, but as that is scarce, accept land and fiefs as payment. Konrad II for the first time enfeoffs a Norman lord with the county of Aversa in the 1030s.

From there it goes bang, bang, bang. Ranulf of Aversa takes over the much bigger Capua. Then the 7 Hauteville brothers arrive. They were the sons of a Norman nobleman, Tancred of Hauteville. The first to come to prominence was William, called Iron hand. The name came about when he decapitated the emir of Sicily with just one stroke of his sword. He becomes count of Puglia in 1042 after taking it from the Byzantines. William and his brother Drogo then attacked Calabria. William died in 1046 and was succeeded by Drogo who was murdered by a local mercenary. On whose orders, nobody knows. But there were still a lot of Hauteville brothers left. The next count of Apulia was Humbert. Humbert picks up Bari and by now, large parts of Southern Italy is in the hands of various Norman lords, with the Hauteville family the most powerful.

The rise of the Normans concerns Leo IX a lot. The last couple of hundred years the papacy’s neighbours to the south were the Lombard princes of Benevento, Capua and Spoleto. These guys may be well armed but spent most of the time fighting each other or the Byzantines or the Emir of Sicily, leaving the pope well alone. Projecting the development of the last 15 years forward Leo IX concluded that soon the Byzantines and Lombards would be gone, and he would look down the barrel of a heavily armed force of Scandinavian giants.

In 1053 he decided to act. Leo IX raised an army amongst the Lombards and Northern Italians supported by a small contingent of imperial troops. Near the town of Civitate in Puglia, the papal army meets the Norman forces led by Humbert of Hauteville and another Hauteville brother Robert Guiscard (“The Cunning”). The Normans were outnumbered and undersupplied. The situation was so dire that Humbert asked for a truce which Leo IX refused. When the two sides met the Normans did however win quite unexpectedly. The Norman troops displayed the discipline and cohesion needed to hold the line, something the motley crew of Papal allies lacked. Only the Imperial troops in the centre fought all the way to the end but were ultimately defeated. Pope Leo IX was captured and brought to Benevento, which the Normans quickly annexed.

Leo IX was held for nearly a year and treated with all the honours of his office. He finally made an agreement with Humphrey and Robert Guiscard, the contents of which are not known.

One man in Leo IX’s company direct observed these developments and drew his own conclusions, Hildebrand Cardinal priest of the Basilica of St. Paul outside ethe Walls. He realised the Normans were not only a military force that could counterbalance any emperor’s troops in Italy but also that they craved acceptance by the Holy See. Even before Hildebrand ascended the papal throne as Gregory VII did he forge an alliance with Robert Guiscard which made the latter king of Sicily and the former the most powerful Pope the world had ever seen.

We will spend a lot of time talking about Gregory VII in the upcoming episodes, so there will be a lot of opportunity to dive into his background, worldview and deeds as we go along. The only thing to point out here is a grandiose twist of Irony. Gregory VII whose great reform objective was to end Simony started his career in the chancery of pope Gregory VI, the one and only pope who definitely bought the papacy for cold hard cash. Hildebrand followed Gregory VI into exile in Cologne, never officially renounced him and even chose his papal name after his old simonistic boss.

Next week we will go back to Germany and look at the remaining years of Henry III’s reign, where we will find the other strains of history that inevitably drag the Salian regime onto the frozen field outside the castle of Canossa.  I hope to see you then.