Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor
Henry IV was Holy Roman Emperor from 1084 to 1105, King of Germany from 1054 to 1105, and King of Italy and Burgundy from 1056 to 1105. A ruler of the Salian dynasty, he was the son of Emperor Henry III and Agnes of Poitou. After his father's death in 1056, his mother served as his guardian. She made grants to German aristocrats to secure their support. Unlike her late husband, she could not control the election of the popes, so the idea of the "liberty of the Church" strengthened during her rule. Taking advantage of her weakness, Archbishop Anno II of Cologne kidnapped Henry in 1062. He administered Germany until Henry came of age in 1065.
Henry endeavoured to recover the royal estates that had been lost during his minority. He employed low-ranking officials to carry out his new policies, causing discontent in Saxony and Thuringia. Henry crushed a riot in Saxony in 1069 and overcame the rebellion of the Saxon aristocrat Otto of Nordheim in 1071. The appointment of commoners to high office offended German aristocrats, many of whom withdrew from Henry's court. He insisted on his royal prerogative to appoint bishops and abbots, although the reformist clerics condemned this practice as simony. Pope Alexander II blamed Henry's advisors for his acts and excommunicated them in 1073. The following year, the Saxons rose up in open rebellion. Taking advantage of a quarrel between the Saxon aristocrats and peasantry, Henry forced the rebels into submission.
Henry adopted an active policy in Italy, alarming Pope Alexander II's successor, Gregory VII, who threatened him with excommunication for simony. Henry persuaded most of the German bishops to declare Gregory's election invalid in 1076. In response, Gregory excommunicated Henry and released his subjects from their allegiance. German aristocrats hostile to Henry called for Gregory to hold an assembly in Germany to hear Henry's case. To prevent the Pope from sitting in judgement on him, Henry went to Italy as far as Canossa to meet with Gregory. His penitential "Walk to Canossa" was a success and Gregory absolved him in 1077. Henry's German opponents ignored his absolution and elected an antiking, Rudolf of Rheinfelden. The Pope was initially neutral in the kings' conflict, enabling Henry to consolidate his position. Henry continued to appoint high-ranking clerics, for which Gregory again excommunicated him in 1080. Most German and northern Italian bishops remained loyal to Henry and they elected the antipope Clement III. Rudolf of Rheinfelden was killed in battle and his successor, Hermann of Salm, could only exert royal authority in Saxony. From 1081, Henry launched a series of military campaigns to Italy, and Clement III crowned him emperor in Rome in 1084.
Hermann of Salm died and Henry pacified Saxony in 1088. He launched an invasion against the Pope's principal Italian ally, Matilda of Tuscany, in 1089. Matilda allied with her father-in-law, Welf I of Bavaria, and Henry's rebellious son, Conrad II, and Henry was unable to return to Germany until he reconciled with Welf in 1096. After Clement III's death, Henry neither supported new antipopes nor made peace with Pope Paschal II. Henry proclaimed the first Reichsfriede which covered the whole territory of Germany in 1103. His younger son, Henry V, forced him to abdicate in 1105. He tried to regain his throne with the assistance of Lotharingian aristocrats, but became ill and died without receiving absolution from his excommunication. Henry's preeminent role in the Investiture Controversy, his "Walk to Canossa" and his family conflicts established his controversial reputation, with some regarding him as the stereotype of a tyrant, and others describing him as an exemplary monarch who protected the poor.
Background
Henry was the third ruler of the Salian dynasty, which governed Germany from 1024 to 1125 and exercised authority over Italy and Burgundy. With a strong claim to the title of Holy Roman Emperor, the German kings regarded themselves as the supreme leaders of Christendom and as entitled to influence papal elections in Rome. However, Roman aristocratic factions dominated the papacy, and their rivalries culminated in the schism of 1045 with three rival popes. To resolve the crisis, Henry's father, Emperor Henry III, convened the Synod of Sutri in 1046, which deposed the claimants and installed the German bishop Suidger of Bamberg as Pope Clement II.By virtue of his anointing with holy oil, Henry III conceived kingship as a priestly office. He regarded himself as "Vicar of Christ", entitled to govern Church and state alike. After receiving the hereditary title of patrician from the Romans, he held the right to cast the first vote at papal elections, thereby securing the appointment of German reform-minded popes. The third of these, Leo IX, prohibited simony—the sale of church offices—and promoted clerical celibacy. Yet imperial control over the Church conflicted with the reformist ideal of "liberty of the Church", a tension that culminated under Henry IV in the Investiture Controversy.
Germany, Italy and Burgundy consisted of semi-autonomous provinces governed by bishops, abbots, and dukes. Although kings sought to control these offices, they ultimately depended on the cooperation of the leading aristocracy. Towards the end of his reign Henry III came into conflict with several powerful dukes. He alienated Duke Bernard II of Saxony by supporting his rival, Archbishop Adalbert of Hamburg, and Godfrey the Bearded, Duke of Upper Lotharingia, married the wealthy Beatrice of Tuscany without imperial consent. The frequent royal presence in the royal domains in Saxony further increased local resentment, which later erupted into revolts under Henry IV.
Beyond the empire, Henry compelled Duke Bretislav I of Bohemia and King Peter of Hungary to swear fealty, but lost influence in Hungary after Peter's deposition in 1046. Dynastic conflicts there prompted further German interventions. In 1047 Henry asserted authority over the Norman princes of southern Italy, but increasingly relied on the papacy to represent imperial interests.
Early life
Born on 11 November 1050, Henry was the son of Emperor Henry III by his second wife, Agnes of Poitou. Henry was most likely born in his father's palace at Goslar. Henry III had fathered four daughters, but his subjects were convinced only a male heir could secure peace. Henry was first named for his grandfather, Emperor Conrad II, but his godfather, Abbot Hugh of Cluny, convinced the Emperor to give his name to his heir. While celebrating Christmas 1050 at Pöhlde in Saxony, Henry III designated his infant son as his successor.Archbishop Hermann baptised Henry in Cologne on Easter Sunday 1051. In November, the Emperor held an assembly at Tribur. The German princes who attended the meeting elected the one-year-old king. They stipulated they would acknowledge him as his father's successor only if he acted as a "just ruler" during his father's lifetime. Historian Ian S. Robinson supposes the princes actually wanted to persuade Henry III to change his methods of government since the child king had no role in state administration. At Christmas 1052, the Emperor made Henry the duke of Bavaria.
Archbishop Hermann crowned Henry King of Germany in Aachen on 17 July 1054. On this occasion, the Emperor probably granted Bavaria to Henry's two-year-old younger brother, Conrad. When Conrad died in 1055, the Emperor gave Bavaria to Empress Agnes. He betrothed Henry to Bertha of Savoy in late 1055. Her parents, Adelaide, Margravine of Turin, and Otto, Count of Savoy, controlled north-western Italy.
Henry III fell seriously ill in late September 1056. Already dying, he commended his son to the protection of Pope Victor II, who had come from Italy to Germany to seek the Emperor's protection against the Normans of southern Italy. Henry III died on 5 October 1056.
King under guardianship
Agnes's regency
At the age of six Henry became sole ruler of the empire and was crowned at Aachen with papal support, while his mother Agnes served as regent and guardian. She supervised his education with the royal ministerialis, Cuno. Agnes secured aristocratic loyalty through grants, reconciled with Godfrey the Bearded, and appointed Conrad of the Ezzonid family, an opponent of her late husband, as Duke of Carinthia. She paid little attention to Burgundy and Italy, entrusting Burgundy to the aristocrat Rudolf of Rheinfelden after appointing him Duke of Swabia.In Saxony, Otto of Nordmark, a former exile, attempted a coup against royal authority; the loyalist Bruno II of Brunswick killed Otto but was himself mortally wounded. Henry retained his father's Roman title of patrician, but in Rome the principle of the "liberty of the Church" became increasingly dominant, and Godfrey the Bearded's brother was elected Pope Stephen IX without royal intervention. After Godfrey seized Spoleto and Fermo in Italy, rumours of his imperial ambitions with papal support spread, but Stephen IX died unexpectedly on 29 March 1058.
The Roman aristocracy installed Giovanni, Cardinal-Bishop of Velletri, as pope without consulting the German court. His election was contested, and the cardinals supported Bishop Gerard of Florence. After consulting the princes, Henry designated Gerard as pope in June 1058.. It secured the succession of Andrew's five-year-old son Solomon over Béla, Andrew's brother, and arranged Solomon's betrothal to Henry's sister Judith. Gerard was installed as Pope Nicholas II in December 1058. He and Godfrey the Bearded expelled Giovanni of Velletri from Rome. Advised by the monk Hildebrand, Nicholas issued the decree In nomine Domini, granting the cardinals the right to elect popes while confirming unspecified imperial prerogatives. At the same time reformers such as Cardinal Humbert of Silva Candida challenged the rulers' right to invest bishops and abbots.
Pope Nicholas invested two Norman rulers, Robert Guiscard and Richard I of Capua, with southern Italian duchies in 1059. In return, the Normans swore fealty to Nicholas and promised to support him against his enemies. Although the duchies were imperial fiefs, Nicholas's action did not necessarily trespass on imperial rights, because the popes had acted as the emperors' representatives in southern Italy for a decade. However, the Pope's treaty with the Normans forged their lasting alliance.
In 1060, after Agnes's uncoordinated intervention failed, Andrew I of Hungary was overthrown by Béla, with Polish support. Andrew soon died of his wounds, and his family fled to Germany. The German frontier duchies were then reinforced: Agnes granted Bavaria to the Saxon Otto of Nordheim and replaced Duke Conrad of Carinthia with Berthold of Zähringen in early 1061.
Relations with the papacy deteriorated for unknown reasons, and after Nicholas II's death the reformers elected his successor, Alexander II, without royal consent on 30 September 1061, although Roman aristocrats had dispatched an embassy to Henry asking him to name his candidate. In response Henry convened a synod at Basel, which elected Cadalus, Bishop of Parma, as Antipope Honorius II on 28 October. The papal schism divided the German clergy: some prelates, such as Archbishop Adalbert of Hamburg, supported Honorius II, while others, including Archbishop Anno II of Cologne, recognised Alexander II.