Heart of Europe: A History of the Roman Empire (125 page)

1076

The Investiture Dispute deepened as Henry IV rallied loyal bishops to depose Pope Gregory, who retaliated by excommunicating the king and his supporters. The pope was backed in Italy by Matilda of Canossa, who had inherited the extensive Tuscan lands guarding access to papal territory from the north. Gregory opened contact with discontented German lords, who began contemplating deposing Henry.

1077

Henry pre-empted a coup by a dramatic winter crossing of the Alps to meet Gregory at Canossa, where the king compromised on some issues to secure a release from excommunication. The German malcontents pushed ahead regardless and elected Rudolf of Rheinfelden as the first German anti-king (March 1077). Gregory initially withheld recognition from Rudolf in the hope of pressurizing Henry to abandon royal claims to investiture.

1077–1106

The Investiture Wars. Henry and his German and Italian supporters waged a series of campaigns against two sets of opponents who only loosely cooperated against him. In Germany, Henry faced those who backed Rudolf of Rheinfelden and, after Rudolf’s defeat and death (1080), his successor as anti-king, Hermann of Salm. Although Salm eventually abandoned the struggle, Henry faced rebellions from his two sons, each of whom declared against him after he had named them his successor. Henry retained support in Germany, notably from the Staufer family, to whom he entrusted Swabia and Franconia in 1079 to guard access between Germany, Italy and Burgundy. In Italy, Henry fought the reform papacy under Gregory VII and his successors. Henry relied on pro-imperial Italian bishops, nobles and towns, and appointed his own popes, who only briefly controlled Rome. The reform papacy was backed strongly by Matilda of Tuscany, as well as the Normans, who used the confusion to consolidate their hold over southern Italy and Sicily. The conflict spawned numerous, more local struggles, because both sides appointed their own bishops to the same dioceses. This situation allowed many Italian and some German towns, already growing thanks to increasing population and economic activity, to bargain greater autonomy from royal and episcopal control.

1106–11

Henry V seized control of the German crown from his father, who died shortly afterwards. Henry restored royal authority throughout most of Germany and was crowned emperor by the reform papacy. Abandoned by the king, the rival papacy established by Henry IV soon collapsed. A military campaign in 1108 failed to reassert overlordship over Poland and Hungary, which had lapsed during the Investiture Dispute.

1111–22

Long negotiations between Henry V and the reform papacy and its supporters in Italy and Germany culminated in the Concordat of Worms (1122), whereby the emperor accepted canonical election of clergy, while the pope permitted imperial/royal investiture for bishops’ temporal jurisdiction and allowed the monarchy to retain considerable influence over appointments in the German bishoprics and imperial abbeys. This agreement ended the Investiture Dispute without resolving the underlying disagreement over the relationship between papal and imperial authority.

1120s

An increase in migration north and especially eastwards across the Elbe into Slav lands prompted a resumption of the Ottonian practice of naming marcher lords to control and extend the frontier, and to promote Christianization. New lords were named for Holstein (1110), Meissen (1123), Lusatia (1134) and Brandenburg (by 1157).

1125–37

The reign of Lothar III of Supplinburg and transition from Salian to Staufer rule. Henry V died childless, but the leading German lords and clergy rejected his nephew, Duke Frederick of Swabia, who headed the Staufer family, in favour of the seemingly more malleable Lothar, a count from Saxony.

1127–35

Civil war erupted as Staufer supporters proclaimed Frederick’s younger brother Conrad as anti-king after Lothar tried to deprive the Staufers of lands they had acquired under the Salians. Conrad crossed the Alps and was accepted as Italian king, but he failed to secure the important Tuscan lands, left without a clear ruler after Matilda’s death in 1115, and retired to Germany in 1130. Lothar wore down Staufer resistance from 1132, assisted by his coronation as emperor in 1133. Papal support was purchased by revising Tuscany’s status so that the emperor retained possession, but accepted it as a dependency of the pope. The Staufers accepted defeat in 1135, recognizing Lothar in return for retaining their principal possessions in Swabia, Alsace and eastern Franconia. Lothar had benefited from support from the Welf (Guelph) family based in Bavaria. The Welf duke of Bavaria was allowed to consolidate his hold over Austria and Carinthia, and to have his son (and Lothar’s son-in-law), Henry the Proud, be enfeoffed with Saxony and designated the future king.

1130

Pope Anacletus II raised Norman Sicily to a kingdom under nominal papal suzerainty.

1131

Thuringia was detached from Saxony as a separate landgraviate.

STAUFERS, 1138–1250

1138

The Staufers rallied German lords who felt Lothar’s designation of Henry the Proud threatened their role in choosing a king. The former anti-king was now accepted as Conrad III and promptly sequestrated Bavaria and Saxony. An immediate Welf response was thwarted by the death of Henry the Proud (1139), leaving his ten-year-old son, Henry the Lion, as head of the family. Conrad continued the methods developed under the Salians of seeking a consensus amongst leading lords, provided this did not compromise royal authority. Saxony and Bavaria were returned to Henry the Lion by 1147 as part of a general settlement intended to pacify Germany. However, Conrad also signalled new directions by accepting a growth in the numbers and autonomy of the leading secular lords, notably promoting the influence of the Babenberg family holding Austria.

1147

Start of the Wendish, or Northern, Crusade.

1147–8

Conrad III led a contingent from the Empire in the Second Crusade, but failed to capture Damascus or establish a workable relationship with Byzantium, despite their common hostility to the Normans in the Mediterranean.

1152–90

The reign of Frederick I ‘Barbarossa’, nephew of Conrad III and cousin to Henry the Lion. Frederick greatly expanded and accelerated his predecessor’s policies, partly in response to rapid demographic growth and new legal concepts, and partly as a deliberate strategy to rebalance governance in the Empire. The number of senior secular lords was deliberately increased by elevating counties and marcher lordships to ducal status (Austria 1156, Würzburg 1168), and by recognizing Slav chiefdoms as imperial fiefs (Mecklenburg and Pomerania). Other lordships were created by detaching land from existing duchies. The duke of Bohemia, the most powerful Slav lord, accepted definitive incorporation in the Empire in return for his own royal title and considerable autonomy (1158). Meanwhile, the emperor and secular lords promoted urban development by granting charters to new towns (e.g. Freiburg 1120, Lübeck 1143, Leipzig 1161, Brunswick 1166) and extending the autonomy of existing ones (e.g. Deventer, Speyer and Worms).

1154–86

Frederick made seven attempts to extend these policies to Italy, which no German king had visited since 1137. He adapted to the changing conditions in Italy where civic emancipation from episcopal and lordly control was further advanced than in Germany, and where a resurgent papacy controlled the central lands, while the Normans, now recognized as kings, ruled the south (Naples) and Sicily. The emergence of the Normans as a third force in Italian politics altered the previous pattern of papal-imperial relations. Strong popes sought enhanced influence by playing the Empire and Normans off against each other, but circumstances often changed quickly, and weak popes (of which there were several) were compelled to make concessions to one in order to escape a dangerous dependency on the other. Fear of the Normans prompted a pro-imperial policy that saw Frederick crowned emperor in 1155.

Frederick used the opportunity to reorganize imperial rule in the old royal heartlands of northern Italy. The most controversial issue was the control of royal and imperial rights known as regalia. New ideas had emerged in the wake of the Investiture Dispute, which defined regalia more clearly as legal entitlements to material benefits like cash, labour and free accommodation, as well as rights to fortify settlements and appoint officials. Frederick asserted an exclusive monopoly of such rights at an assembly at Roncaglia (1158), and demanded the return of those he considered had been usurped by lords and communities over the last decades. However, he had no intention of exercising these rights directly, and was prepared to devolve them to lords and cities in return for cooperation and (from the cities) cash taxes. Implementation depended on local circumstances, since many cities saw advantages in cooperating, not least if their political and economic rivals currently opposed the emperor.

The result was a complex four-way struggle between the emperor, papacy, Normans and an increasingly autonomous group of cities that combined as the Lombard League (1167). The papacy was split from 1159 with rival pro-Norman and pro-imperial popes, prompting Frederick to emphasize the Holy Roman aspects of the Empire and its ideological mission. Measures included Charlemagne’s canonization by the pro-imperial papacy (1165). Frederick also astutely manipulated rivalries between the Italian cities, capturing many and destroying their castles. However, his enemies proved too numerous for the forces at his disposal, especially once the pro-Norman papacy cooperated with the Lombard League.

1177

Frederick broke the hostile alliance by abandoning the pro-imperial papacy and ending the schism. A compromise with the Lombard League in 1183 was followed three years later by the marriage of Frederick’s 19-year-old son Henry to the 30-year-old Constanza, heiress to the Norman kingdom. Frederick continued to face opposition from individual north Italian cities, while he and the papacy still disagreed over their respective rights in Tuscany.

1178–80

The rebellion of Henry the Lion, who had alienated many Saxon lords during Frederick’s absence in Italy. Henry was forced to flee to England. Western Saxony was detached as a new duchy of Westphalia, which was given to the archbishop of Cologne, who had been steadily amassing lands on the Lower Rhine since the later eleventh century. Ducal Saxony contracted eastwards, and lost its influence over the new march lordships that were being established north of the Elbe in former Slav territory. Meanwhile Styria was detached from Bavaria as a new duchy. The rest of Bavaria was given as a duchy to the Wittelsbach family, which now joined the ranks of the senior lords. The outcome consolidated the trend since Frederick’s accession towards a new, more obviously feudal relationship between the monarch and the lords, who now held their duchies and counties more clearly as hereditary fiefs. However, Frederick’s deliberate policy of breaking up the remaining large duchies and distributing the new ones to different families reduced the likelihood of any single lord amassing lands as substantial as those previously held by the Guelphs.

1189–90

Frederick embarked on the Third Crusade (1189–92), launched in response to the Saracen victory over Christian forces at Hattin (1187), which led to the Muslim conquest of Jerusalem. Frederick’s decision also reflected his desire to sustain a working relationship with the papacy.

1190–97

Henry VI succeeded his father, Frederick I ‘Barbarossa’, who died during the Third Crusade. Henry successfully neutralized opposition to his accession in Germany and obtained a fortune extorted from the English King Richard I ‘the Lionheart’, who had conspired with Staufer enemies and was captured as he returned from the crusades in 1192. Richard was released in February 1194, having placed his kingdom (nominally) as a vassal of the Empire. The ransom financed Henry’s successful invasion of Sicily in December 1194. Sicily was formally joined to the Empire and Henry began steps towards a more hereditary form of succession for all his kingdoms. The annexation of Sicily transformed the strategic balance in Italy, leaving the papacy alone to face a much more powerful emperor who now insisted that papal possessions were imperial fiefs. Henry VI died unexpectedly at 31 amidst preparations for a new crusade and before his plans for his succession had received universal acceptance.

1198–1208

A double election and civil war. Henry VI had died leaving a very young son, Frederick II. Although Frederick had already been accepted in 1196 as the future German king, Staufer supporters decided instead in 1198 to back Henry’s uncle, Philip of Swabia. Staufer opponents elected Henry the Lion’s son as Otto IV, signalling a revival of Welf family fortunes, but entailing civil war for the Empire. Pope Innocent III seized the opportunity to reassert papal independence by proclaiming himself adjudicator and deciding in favour of Otto IV, who appeared less threatening than the Staufers. Philip was excommunicated. Meanwhile, Innocent dropped the earlier papal opposition to Staufer rule in Sicily in return for guardianship of the young Frederick II after 1198. Otto confirmed this by accepting papal overlordship over Sicily and disputed areas on the mainland like Tuscany. Many lords considered these concessions were damaging the Empire and defected to Philip, whose forces had largely defeated Otto’s remaining supporters by 1206. A settlement in Philip’s favour with papal support looked likely when he was unexpectedly murdered in a private quarrel in 1208.

1202

Pope Innocent III issued the decretal
Venerabilem
articulating the theory that his predecessor Leo III had ‘translated’ the ancient Roman imperial title from Byzantium to the ‘Germans’ in the person of Charlemagne in 800 (
translatio imperii
).