Matilda of Tuscany

Pope Victor meets the Emperor at Florence in June 1055 and holds a council, which reinforces Pope Leo IX's condemnation of clerical marriage, simony, and the loss of the church's properties.

Henry arrests Beatrice for marrying a traitor, together with her daughter Matilda, who is later to be such an enemy of Henry's son and successor.

The young Frederick of Tuscany, son of Beatrice, refuses to come to Florence and dies within days.

The margraviate passes to his sister Matilda.

Godfrey, once in Germany again, makes his final peace, and Henry goes to the northeast to deal with a Slav uprising after the death of William of Meissen.

He falls ill on the way and takes to bed.

He frees Beatrice and Matilda and has those with him swear allegiance to the young Henry, whom he commends the pope, present.

Henry, not yet forty, dies on October 5 at Bodfeld, the imperial hunting lodge in the Harz Mountains.

His heart goes to Goslar, his body to Speyer, to lie next to his father's in the family vault in the cathedral of Speyer.

He has been one of the most powerful of the Holy Roman Emperors: his authority as king in Burgundy, Germany, and Italy had only rarely been questioned, his power over the church is at the root of what the reformers had sponsored will later fight against in his son, and his achievement in binding to the empire her tributaries is clear.

Nevertheless, his reign is often pronounced a failure in that he apparently left problems far beyond the capacities of his successors to handle.

The Investiture Controversy is largely the result of his church politics, though his popemaking had given the Roman diocese to the reform party.

He had united all the great duchies save Saxony to himself at one point or another but gave them all away.

His most enduring and concrete monument may be the impressive palace (kaiserpfalz) at Goslar.

Pope Victor had been summoned in 1056 to the Emperor's side, and had been with Henry III when he died at Bodfeld in the Harz on October 5 of that year.

As guardian of Henry III's infant son Henry and adviser of the Empress Agnes, Henry IV's mother and regent, Victor II now wields enormous power, which he uses to maintain peace throughout the empire and to strengthen the papacy against the aggressions of the barons.

He dies shortly after his return to Italy, at Arezzo, on July 28, 1057.

Victor II's retinue wishes to bring his remains to the cathedral at Eichstätt for burial.

Before they reach the city, however, the remains are seized by some citizens of Ravenna and buried here in the Church of Santa Maria Rotonda, the burial place of Theodoric the Great.

Henry IV, having seen much of the royal demesne seized by nobles during the regency of his mother, Agnes, is determined to regain these alienated estates and to provide a firm territorial base for his rulership over north central Germany.

As episcopal power has grown dominant during his minority, Henry attempts to choose bishops he can control.

He expels from the Crown Council in 1066 Adalbert of Hamburg-Bremen, who has profited from his position for personal enrichment.

Henry also adopts urgent military measures against the Slav pagans, who have recently invaded Germany and besieged Hamburg.

Henry marries Bertha of Savoy/Turin, daughter of Otto, Count of Savoy, to whom he had been betrothed in 1055, in June of the following year.

In 1066 also, at the request of the Pope, he assembles an army to fight the Italo-Normans of southern Italy.

Henry's troops reach Augsburg when he receives news that Godfrey of Tuscany, husband of the powerful Matilda of Canossa, marchioness of Tuscany, had already attacked the Normans.

The expedition is therefore halted.

Henry, his offices declared vacant and all his all feudal vassals released from their oaths of fealty, is rapidly losing popular support, and the situation has become extremely critical for the king.

As a result of the agitation, which is zealously fostered by the papal legate Bishop Altmann of Passau, the princes meet in October at Trebur to elect a new German ruler.

Henry, who is stationed at Oppenheim on the left bank of the Rhine, is only saved from the loss of his throne by the failure of the assembled princes to agree on the question of his successor.

Their dissension, however, merely induces them to postpone the verdict.

Henry, they declare, must make reparation to Gregory and pledge himself to obedience; and they decide that, if, on the anniversary of his excommunication, he still lies under the ban, the throne should be considered vacant.

At the same time, they decide to invite Gregory to Augsburg to decide the conflict.

These arrangements show Henry the course to be pursued.

It is imperative under any circumstances and at any price to secure his absolution from Gregory before the period named, otherwise he can scarcely foil his opponents in their intention to pursue their attack against him and justify their measures by an appeal to his excommunication.

At first he attempts to attain his ends by an embassy, but when Gregory rejects his overtures he takes the celebrated step of going to Italy in person.

Gregory VII has already left Rome and had intimated to the German princes that he would expect their escort for his journey on January 8 to Mantua.

But this escort has not appeared when he receives the news of the Henry's arrival.

Henry, who has traveled through Burgundy, has been greeted with enthusiasm by the Lombards, but resists the temptation to employ force against Gregory.

He chooses the unexpected course of forcing Gregory to grant him absolution by doing penance before him at Canossa, where he has taken refuge.

The Walk to Canossa soon becomes legendary.

The reconciliation is only effected after prolonged negotiations and definite pledges on the part of Henry, and it is with reluctance that Gregory at length gives way, considering the political implications.

If Gregory grants absolution, the diet of princes in Augsburg in which he might reasonably hope to act as arbitrator will either become useless, or, if it meets at all, will change completely in character.

It is impossible, however, to deny the insincere but shrewd penitent reentrance into the Church, and Gregory's religious obligations override his political interests.

The removal of the ban does not imply a genuine reconciliation, and no basis is gained for a settlement of the main question that divides Henry and Gregory: that of investiture.

A new conflict is inevitable from the very fact that Henry considers the sentence of deposition repealed along with that of excommunication.

Gregory, on the other hand, is intent on reserving his freedom of action and gives no hint on the subject at Canossa.

Rudolf, the son of Count (Graf) Kuno of Rheinfelden, is first mentioned in a 1048 deed issued by the Salian emperor Henry III as a count in the Swabian Sisgau on the High Rhine (in present-day Northwestern Switzerland), an estate then held by the Prince-Bishopric of Basel.

Rudolf's family has large possessions up to Sankt Blasien Abbey in the Black Forest and down to the Aargau beyond the border with the Kingdom of Burgundy.

He probably is related to King Rudolph II of Burgundy (d. 937), the Dukes of Lorraine and the Ottonian dynasty.

When Duke Otto III of Swabia died without male heirs in 1057, Empress Agnes, consort of late Henry III, had appointed him Swabian duke and administrator of Burgundy.

In rivalry with the Zähringen count Berthold, Rudolf, according to Frutolf of Michelsberg, had taken advantage of the minority of Agnes' son Henry IV, elected King of the Romans, by kidnapping his sister Matilda.

Rudolf had demanded, and received, Matilda's hand in marriage (1059).

In 1061, Berthold had received the Duchy of Carinthia instead.

When Matilda died in 1060, Rudolf had subsequently, in 1066, married Adelaide of Savoy, a daughter of Count Otto of Savoy and Adelaide of Susa.

When Adelaide's sister Bertha of Savoy married Henry IV in 1066, Rudolf had become brother-in-law to the king twice over.

During Agnes' regency, the Princes of the Holy Roman Empire had further strengthened their position against the Imperial authority.

In the 1062 Coup of Kaiserswerth, several princes led by Archbishop Anno II of Cologne had even abducted the minor king to enforce the surrender of the Imperial Regalia.

When Henry came of age in 1065, he had continued the policies of his father against the reluctant Saxon nobility, sparking the Saxon Rebellion in 1073.

While other princes like the Carinthian duke Berthold of Zähringen or Duke Welf of Bavaria distanced themselves, Rudolf had supported Henry's campaigns in Thuringia, when he had been a primary force in the 1075 Battle of Langensalza against the insurgents.

However, after the joint victory, Rudolf had become estranged to the king and rumors spread that he is involved in adversarial conspiracies.

Empress Agnes repeatedly has to arbitrate between the parties.

Finally, when the Investiture Controversy broke out and King Henry was excommunicated by Pope Gregory VII in February 1076, Duke Rudolf had met with Berthold, Welf and several other princes in Trebur in order to decide on a course of action and to arrange a new election.

Henry, observing the proceedings from his camp in Oppenheim on the other side of the Rhine, had had to face a massive loss of support among the German nobles and realized that he had to achieve the lifting of his ban.

Pope Gregory agrees to meet with the princes at Augsburg in February 1077.

Already in January, Henry had hastened to see the pope on his way to the Empire from Rome.

Duke Rudolf attempted to have the Alpine passes closed, nevertheless the king through wintry weather made his Walk to Canossa, where Gregory, fearing an armed attack by Henry's forces, had found refuge with Matilda of Tuscany.

By doing penance, Henry has managed to achieve absolution, buying time at the price of his reputation and secular authority.

The rebels continue with their plans.

Rudolf is elected antiking on March 15, 1077, at the Kaiserpfalz in Forchheim, where already Louis the Child and Conrad I of Germany had been crowned.

The first antiking in the history of the Empire, he promises to respect the investiture solely according to canon law as well as the concept of the elective monarchy.

Further claims raised by the princes are rejected as simony by the attendant papal legates.

Rudolf is supported by the Archbishops of Mainz, Salzburg and Magdeburg as well as by the Dukes of Carinthia and Bavaria, the Saxon rebel Otto of Nordheim and possibly also by Duke Magnus of Saxony.

He proceeds to Mainz, where on May 25 he is crowned by Archbishop Siegfried I, but soon after is forced to flee to Saxony, when the Mainz citizenry revolts.

This presents a problem, since the Saxon duchy is cut off from his Swabian homelands by the king's Salian territory.

Moreover the pope avoids to take sides and adopted a waiting attitude.

Rudolf is accused of greed, treason and usurpation by Henry's liensmen, while his own support crumbles.

Rudolf gives Swabia to his son Berthold and attempts to rectify his situation by stalking Henry's forces near Würzburg, but to little effect.

Meanwhile, he is deprived of Swabia by the Hoftag diet at Ulm in May, and the king gives the duchy to Frederick, the son of Frederick von Büren, Count in the Riesgau and Swabian Count Palatine, with Hildegard of Egisheim-Dagsburg, a niece of Pope Leo IX, or a daughter of the Ezzonid Duke Otto II of Swabia.

Frederick is the first Hohenstaufen ruler.

Henry wages a successful campaign in Bavaria in 1078, while Pope Gregory refuses to excommunicate Rudolf.

The Battle of Mellrichstadt on August 7 proves indecisive: Henry's army meets the army of Rudolf's Saxon allies before they can meet up with the Swabians.

In the confusion, one Saxon force including the bishop of Merseburg and Rudolf flee as soon as the armies meet.

They are harassed by the local people of the district while they flee home.

Elsewhere, the Saxons under Otto of Nordheim and Frederick of Sommerschenburg best their opponents and chase them in the direction of Würzburg.

On his return, he finds another army occupying the field.

When his scouts do not return, he assumes it is the enemy and returns home, not knowing that it is a Saxon contingent.

Though the opposition forces under Otto of Nordheim are victorious, the troops of Berthold and Welf are stuck in a peasants' revolt.

The excommunication of Henry IV had simply been a pretext for the opposition of the rebellious German nobles, who had not only persisted in their policy after his absolution, but had taken the more decided step of setting up a rival ruler in the person of Duke Rudolf of Swabia at Forchheim in March 1077.

The papal legates present at the election had observed the appearance of neutrality, and Gregory himself has sought to maintain this attitude during the subsequent years.

His task is made easier in that the two parties are of fairly equal strength, each trying to gain the upper hand by getting the pope on their side, but the result of his noncommittal policy is that he has largely lost the confidence of both parties.

Finally, he decides for Rudolf of Swabia after his victory at the Battle of Flarchheim on January 27, 1080.

Under pressure from the Saxons, and misinformed as to the significance of this battle, Gregory abandons his waiting policy and again pronounces the excommunication and deposition of King Henry at the Lenten Synod of March 7, 1080, but the papal censure now proves a very different thing from the one four years before.

It is widely felt to be an injustice, and people begin to ask whether an excommunication pronounced on frivolous ground is entitled to respect.

Although the anti-Hohenstaufen Welf faction gains Pope Gregory’s support in 1080, most German nobles back Henry and form the Waiblingen party (named for a primary castle of Henry’s Hohenstaufen family).

To make matters worse, Rudolf dies on October 16 of the same year.