Holy Roman Empire (VIII): Henry IV
18. Henry IV
Heinrich IV (German: 11 November 1050 – 7 August 1106) or Heinrich IV, third King of the Roman people of the Salian Dynasty (reigned 1056–1105) and Roman Emperor (coronation in 1084). He was also Duke of Bavaria in Germany (known as Henry VIII, from 1055 onwards). Henry IV first promulgated "Peace of God" at the end of his reign (1103), which forbade private wars among princes. A fierce struggle broke out between him and Pope Gregory VII over the right to claim the bishop's right to do so.
Henry IV was the eldest son of the Roman Emperor Heinrich III, and his mother was Agnes of Poitou. His father, Heinrich III, in order to ensure that he could inherit the throne, summoned the princes to elect Henry IV, who was still a young child, as his heir in advance. On 17 July 1054, at the age of four, Henry IV was crowned king by Hermann II, Archbishop of Cologne, in Aachen, the capital of the empire. In 1055, he was elected Duke of Bavaria at the behest of his father. When Henry III died unexpectedly in 1056, Henry IV was only six years old. His widowed mother, Agnes of Poitou, regent for him. In 1062, Archbishop Anno II of Cologne kidnapped the young Henry IV and coerced Empress Agnes to hand over power. After Anno became the regent of the Empire, the dukes who stole the royal territory became powerful. Anno forced Henry IV to marry Bertha (of Turin), daughter of Otto I, Count of Savoy, in 1065. Henry IV publicly offered to divorce Bertha in 1069 without the Pope's permission. All this made Henry IV even more hostile to Anno. In 1070, Archbishop Adelbert of Bremen, who was closely related to Henry IV, took Anno's place.
Henry IV worked to strengthen the emperor's power within the empire. The reality, however, was that the German princes were powerful and reluctant to submit to any one monarch, and the Church became increasingly independent in the Cluny Reformation initiated by the Holy See. In 1073, Pope Alexander II died, and Hildebrand, at the age of fifty, became the highly regarded papal candidate and became the new Pope Gregory VII with the unanimous endorsement of the cardinals. As soon as he ascended the throne, he issued the famous Papal Decree, the purpose of which was that the Pope would never be wrong, and the clause "He may depose the Emperor" broke the line between secular and religious power, and the conflict between Henry IV and the Church became superficial. Henry IV's measures to consolidate the king's power in Saxony (building castles, sending royal guards) led to the Saxon Rebellion of 1073–1075, and he could not risk confronting both at the same time, and had to make some concessions and promise to support the reform of the church in suppressing the rebellion.
In June 1075, Henry IV defeated the Saxon revolt on the battlefield. At the end of 1075, Gregory VII warned Henry IV not to interfere in the determination and appointment of the position of Archbishop of Milan, or to be punished by expulsion from the Church. Henry IV insisted on controlling the right of all bishops in Germany and northern Italy and refused to allow the Archbishop of Milan, supported by the Pope, to take office, resulting in a fierce conflict with Pope Gregory VII.
Gregory VII, long the central figure of the reform of the Church, was determined to put the power of the Pope above that of the secular rulers. This led to an open conflict between the Emperor and the Pope, who took the form of a struggle for authority. On 24 January 1076, Henry IV convened a synod in Worms with 26 German and Northern Italian bishops, declaring Gregory VII a pseudo-monk and deposing Pope Gregory VII. However, few bishops responded to Henry IV, and the common people were deeply disturbed by the king's actions.
In retaliation, Gregory VII executed Henry IV on 22 February 1076: excommunication, dethronement, and exile of Henry IV. The excommunicated person does not receive the Pope's forgiveness within a year, and his subjects are required to swear an oath of allegiance to him. The fatal blow to Henry IV came from the Imperial princes, and in October 1076, at the Imperial Council in Treble, most of the princes stated that if Henry IV could not restore his canon within a year, they would no longer recognize his legitimacy. The Imperial Diet, to be held in Augsburg on 2 February 1077, invited the Pope to attend in person as adjudicator to witness the final decision of the princes. The people also refused to help the king; he had been expelled from the church.
Henry IV did not have enough troops to subdue all the rebellious princes. By 1077, it was clear that Henry IV would be stripped of his throne unless he regained his canon.
Gregory VII had set out to attend the Imperial Council in Augsburg, and when Gregory VII learned that Henry IV was approaching his garrison, he fled in a hurry to take refuge in Canossa Castle, the domain of Matilda, a Tuscan vassal who supported him. However, Henry IV's real strategy was to ask for the Pope's forgiveness. What followed was the famous "Canossa Confession": Henry IV stood barefoot for three days in the snow and ice outside the castle (barefoot, according to legend); from January 25 to January 27, pleading with the Pope for forgiveness for all his sins. Gregory VII, in a dilemma, knew that Henry IV could not keep his promise, but eventually abolished the excommunication. The Canossa affair meant the peak of power in the Papacy, but was also a successful tactic for Henry IV.
The Imperial Diet did not convene, and the princes who wanted Henry to step down still elected Rudolf of Rheinfelden, Duke of Swabia, as the opposing king, who was henry IV's brother-in-law, and the empire split into two factions and civil war broke out. The two sides struggled for nearly two years before Henry IV gradually took the initiative. Now that the excommunication had been abolished and the battlefield had been given an advantage, Henry IV sent a message to Gregory VII, who was far away in Rome, asking him to recognize himself as emperor and to excommunicate Rudolf. In a threatening tone, he would crown an opposing pope if the above two conditions could not be met.
In 1080, Gregory VII recognized that the situation had changed and immediately made a decision: to punish Henry IV again and to recognize Rudolf as king. In October 1080, Rudolf was killed on the battlefield, and the rival princes were leaderless. Henry, who had reached the age of independence, finally had the opportunity to avenge Canossa's humiliation, he marched south, the German army besieged Rome three times, Gregory VII organized the soldiers of the Papal States to resist to the death, until 1083, Henry occupied the Vatican Castle, and gradually swallowed up other Roman towns. In 1084, after the conquest of Rome, some of the cardinals defected to the Germans, and Henry IV again declared the pope deposed and appointed Clement III as pope, where he was crowned.
Gregory VII abandoned the city and fled south to the castle of Sant'Angelo, where he appealed to Robert Giscal, the Norman chieftain who was entrenched in Sicily. The Pope's new allies, these tough Normans, rushed to Rome from southern Italy and drove the German army out of the city. The last barbarians in Europe were disrespected and looted the city of Rome after their victory, provoking discontent among the townspeople, including the pope who had led the wolf into the house, who had lost the support of the Romans. Gregory VII had no choice but to leave Rome, fled to southern Italy under the protection of Norman soldiers, and died in exile in 1085.
Henry IV soon faced a new rebellion. Following the alliance of Pope Victor III with the Imperial princes, Henry IV invaded Italy again, but failed to win. After reconciling with Welf I of the Welf family, he was able to return to Germany from Italy. In 1093, his eldest son, Conrad, rebelled. At the instigation of the princes, his youngest son, Heinrich, was tempted to take his place. In 1105, the plot was successful, and the crown prince overthrew his father and became the new king, Heinrich V. Henry IV was imprisoned by his son, but later managed to escape and recruit an army loyal to him in Liège. But just as he was preparing to regain the throne, Henry IV died suddenly.
The new Pope Pascal II ordered that no funeral be held for Henry IV. But the people of Liège, in defiance of the Pope's orders, solemnly buried their emperor. Although he was expelled from the church during his lifetime, the poor priests prayed for his soul, and the church of Liège where his coffin was parked was guarded by ordinary soldiers and armed civilians. Before he died, he forgave all his enemies, including his son who betrayed him.
19. Henry V
Henry V (German: Heinrich V, 1081 – 23 May 1125) was the fourth and last King of the Roman people of the Salian Dynasty (reigned 1105–1125) and Roman Emperor (coronation in 1111). The reign of Henry V coincided with the end of the controversy over the power of the bishops, the emperor gradually fell behind in the long confrontation with the Pope, and with the signing of the Wolfs Religious Agreement, the ecclesiastical power completely overwhelmed the secular monarchy.
(1) The road to power
Henry V was the second son of the Roman Emperor Henry IV and Bertha of Savoy of Turin. On 6 January 1099, Henry V was crowned Co-King by his father in Aachen to replace his brother Conrad II of Italy, who had previously been deposed by the rebellion. Although Henry V swore not to interfere in the affairs of the Empire during his father's lifetime, Henry V, seduced and instigated by Henry IV's political enemies, took part in a rebellion against his father in 1104. Pope Pascal II revoked Henry V's oath of allegiance to his father, and in January 1105 Henry V was proclaimed opposing king by Henry IV's opponents in Mainz. Although Henry V's faction was initially inferior, Henry IV was soon defeated, imprisoned, and subsequently died. Henry V became the undisputed monarch, order was re-established in Germany, Cologne was heavily fined, and the former opponent, Aubrecht II, Count of Flanders, asked Henry V for forgiveness.
In 1107, Henry V launched a war against the Duchy of Bohemia and succeeded in freeing Duke Bozhvoy II, while summoning Swatopoluk, who had overthrown Bozhvoy II, and negotiating bozhvoy II as the godfather of Swatopoluk's son, Swatopoluk, who would be Duke of Bohemia. In 1108, Henry V launched a war against King Carloman of Hungary. Caught between Poland and Bohemia, Henry V had to abandon the war with Hungary. Henry V soon invaded Poland, declaring that the emperor had the right to tax Poland. However, he was defeated by the Polish Duke Bolesław III in places such as Głógów and Leslav. In 1110, Henry V surrendered to Vladislav I, Duke of Bohemia.
(2) The struggle for the right of bishops to resign
Although the Pope was one of the main proponents of Henry V's usurpation of the throne, Henry V did not soften any way in the struggle for power. When Pope Pascal II refused to crown him, he marched into Rome (1110), imprisoning the Pope and most of the cardinals. The Pope temporarily gave in, but soon withdrew all the concessions he had made to Henry V. In 1116, Henry V invaded Italy for the second time, driving Pascal II out of Rome (1117). When Pascal II died, he installed a rival Pope, Gregory VIII. In 1122, Henry V finally reached a compromise with the new Pope Gallie II, and the dispute over the right to syria was basically resolved in the Agreement of religions in Worms, and Elius VIII was deposed.
Henry V married Matilda, daughter of King Henry I of England, in 1114. They failed to give birth to any children, and the Salian dynasty ended.
20. Lothair II
Lothar II (1075 – 3 December 1137) was king of the Roman people (reigned 1125–1137) and Roman Emperor (coronation in 1133). He was also Count of Sopplingburg and Duke of Saxony (from 1106 onwards) in Germany. His dynasty is sometimes referred to as the Supringborg Dynasty.
He participated in the rebellion of the imperial princes against Emperor Henry IV (1088), and later led the princes against Emperor Henry V (1112–1115).
Lothair II was succeeded by the princes after the death of Henry V. He was later elected with the support of Pope Honorius II. He sent an army to Italy in 1132 to support Pope Innocent II against the rival Pope Clay II. The latter was then crowned. In 1136 he re-entered Italy to resist the Normans.
Some Soviet historians listed the emperor as Lothair III. They took Lothair II of Lorraine as his predecessor.