The Forge of Christendom (52 page)

The baptism of Vladimir, the prince of Kiev, was a momentous marker of the influence of Constantinople on the Rus warlords of the Wild East. Stupefied by the wealth and beauty of Miklagard, “the Great City,” many found themselves torn between the desire to emulate its sophistication and an ambition to loot it. (Bridgeman Art Library)

Olaf Haraldsson: brutal, domineering—and the patron saint of the Northmen. (Werner Forman Archive)

Harold Goodwinsson publicly pledges loyalty to his rival for the throne of England, Duke William of Normandy. Although the swearing of oaths was regarded by good Christians as a fearsome thing, Harold had a reputation for taking the matter less seriously, perhaps, than he might have done. (akg-images/Erich Lessing)

It was the death of Harold that doomed the English cause in the wake of Hastings—for it left William effectively unopposed as king. Exactly how Harold died is unclear. The famous image in the Bayeux Tapestry, which appears to show him with an arrow in the eye, was almost certainly re-stitched at some point in the eighteenth century. The original, to judge from an engraving of the Tapestry published in 1733, showed not an arrow, but a spear. (akg-images/Erich Lessing)

Five years after Hastings, a no less decisive battle was fought at the opposite end of Christendom. The defeat of a Byzantine emperor and his army at Manzikert left the Asian heartlands of the empire open to the scything incursions of Turkish cavalry. Towns that had been Roman for more than a thousand years were soon being lost to Constantinople for good. (Werner Forman Archive)

Henry IV, King of the German Reich and—from 1084—Emperor of the West. “Such were the turns of his fortune,” as one admirer put it, “that it would be impossible for me to describe them, and for you to read about them, without tears.” (akg-images)

In the great struggle between Emperor and Pope, Henry IV might pose as a Caesar— but Gregory VII reigned as the heir of a saint. Not just any saint, either: for Rome’s first bishop had been none other than Saint Peter, the “rock” on which the Church had been built. “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven,” Christ had told him, “and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” Here was a fearsome authority—and one that Gregory had not the slightest hesitation in claiming as his own. (Werner Forman Archive)

A papal throne in the Lateran. It is said that when Gregory pronounced his sentence of excommunication against Henry, his throne miraculously cracked in two. (Vatican Museum)

A view of the Rhine and the town of Tribur, as seen from the hill of Oppenheim. Back in the autumn of 1076, the great river constituted the dividing line between Henry and a menacing assembly of German princes, summoned to Tribur to debate their king’s possible deposition. It was Henry’s determination to keep hold of his crown, even at the cost of accepting mortifying peace terms, which set in motion the events that would lead him to Canossa. (Author photo)

A contrite Henry IV begs his godfather, Abbot Hugh of Cluny, and his second-cousin, the Countess Matilda, to intercede on his behalf with Gregory VII at Canossa. The illustration is from a biography of Matilda. Had it been from a biography of Henry, the scene would no doubt have been given a somewhat different spin. (Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana)