A History of Germany Part 14

In the spring of 1039 he died suddenly at Utrecht, aged sixty, and was buried in the Cathedral at Speyer, which he had begun to build. He was a very shrewd and intelligent ruler, who planned better than he was able to perform. He certainly greatly increased the Imperial power during his life, by recognizing the hereditary rights of the smaller princes, and replacing the chief reigning Dukes, whenever circ.u.mstances rendered it possible, by members of his own family. As the selection of the bishops and archbishops remained in his hands, the clergy were of course his immediate dependents. It was their interest, as well as that of the common people among whom knowledge and the arts were beginning to take root, that peace should be preserved between the different German States, and this could only be done by making the Emperor's authority paramount. Nevertheless, Konrad II. was never popular: a historian of the times says "no one sighed when his sudden death was announced."

[Sidenote: 1039. HENRY III.]

His son, Henry III., already crowned King of Germany as a boy, now mounted the throne. He was twenty-three years old, distinguished for bodily as well as mental qualities, and was apparently far more competent to rule than many of his predecessors had been. Germany was quiet, and he encountered no opposition. The first five years of his reign brought him wars with Bohemia and Hungary, but in both, in spite of some reverses at the beginning, he was successful. Bohemia was reduced to obedience; a part of the Hungarian territory was annexed to Austria, and the king, Peter, as well as Duke Casimir of Poland, acknowledged themselves dependents of the German Empire. The Czar of Muscovy (as Russia was then called) offered Henry, after the death of Queen Gunhilde, a princess of his family as a wife; but he declined, and selected, instead, Agnes of Poitiers, sister of the Duke of Aquitaine.

But, although the condition of Germany, and, indeed, of the greater part of Europe, was now more settled and peaceful than it had been for a long time, the consequences of the previous wars and disturbances were very severely felt. The land had been visited both by pestilence and famine, and there was much suffering; there was also notorious corruption in the Church and in civil government; the demoralization of the Popes, followed by that of the Romans, and then of the Italians, had spread like an infection over all Christendom. When things seemed to be at their worst, a change for the better was inst.i.tuted in a most unexpected quarter and in a very singular manner.

[Sidenote: 1040.]

In the monastery of Cluny, in Burgundy, the monks, under the leadership of their Abbot, Odilo, determined to introduce a sterner, a more pious and Christian spirit into the life of the age. They began to preach what they called the _treuga Dei_, the "truce" or "peace of G.o.d," according to which, from every Wednesday evening until the next Monday morning, all feuds or fights were forbidden throughout the land. Several hundred monasteries in France and Burgundy joined the "Congregation of Cluny"; the Church accepted the idea of the "peace of G.o.d," and the worldly rulers were called upon to enforce it. Henry III. saw in this new movement an agent which might be used to his own advantage no less than for the general good, and he favored it as far as lay in his power. He summoned a Diet of the German princes, urged the measure upon them in an eloquent speech, and set the example by proclaiming a full and free pardon to all who had been his enemies. The change was too sudden to be acceptable to many of the princes, but they obeyed as far as convenient, and the German people, almost for the first time in their history, enjoyed a general peace and security.

The "Congregation of Cluny" preached also against the universal simony, by which all clerical dignities were bought and sold. Priests, abbots, bishops, and even in some cases, Popes, were accustomed to buy their appointment, and the power of the Church was thus often exercised by the most unworthy hands. Henry III. saw the necessity of a reform; he sought out the most pious, pure and intelligent priests, and made them abbots and bishops, refusing all payments or presents. He then undertook to raise the Papal power out of the deplorable condition into which it had fallen. There were then _three_ rival Popes in Rome, each of whom officially excommunicated and cursed the others and their followers.

In the summer of 1046, Henry III. crossed the Alps with a magnificent retinue. The quarrels between the n.o.bles and the people, in the cities of Lombardy, were compromised at his approach, and he found order and submission everywhere. He called a Synod, which was held at Sutri, an old Etruscan town, 30 miles north of Rome, and there, with the consent of the Bishops, deposed all three of the Popes, appointing the Bishop of Bamberg to the vacant office. The latter took the Papal chair under the name of Clement II., and the very same day crowned Henry III. as Roman Emperor. To the Roman people this seemed no less a bargain than the case of Otto III., and they grew more than ever impatient of the rule of both Emperor and Pope. Their republican instincts, although repressed by a fierce and powerful n.o.bility, were kept alive by the examples of Venice and Milan, and they dreamed as ardently of a free Rome in the twelfth century as in the nineteenth.

[Sidenote: 1046. APPOINTMENT OF POPES.]

Up to this time the Roman clergy and people had taken part, so far as the mere forms were concerned, in the election of the Popes. They were now compelled (of course very unwillingly) to give up this ancient right, and allow the Emperor to choose the candidate, who was then sure to be elected by Bishops of Imperial appointment. In fact, during the nine remaining years of Henry III.'s reign, he selected three other Popes, Clement II. and his first two successors having all died suddenly, probably from poison, after very short reigns. But this was the end of absolute German authority and Roman submission: within thirty years the Christian world beheld a spectacle of a totally opposite character.

Henry III. visited Southern Italy, confirmed the Normans in their rule, as his father had done, and then returned to Germany. He had reached the climax of his power, and the very means he had taken to secure it now involved him in troubles which gradually weakened his influence in Germany. He was generous, but improvident and reckless: he bestowed princ.i.p.alities on personal friends, regardless of hereditary claims or the wishes of the people, and gave away large sums of money, which were raised by imposing hard terms upon the tenants of the crown-lands. A new war with Hungary, and the combined revolt of G.o.dfrey of Lorraine, Baldwin of Flanders and Dietrich of Holland against him, diminished his military resources; and even his success, at the end of four weary years, did not add to his renown. Leo IX., the third Pope of his appointment, was called upon to a.s.sist him by hurling the ban of the Church against the rebellious princes. He also called to his a.s.sistance Danish and English fleets which a.s.sailed Holland and Flanders, while he subdued G.o.dfrey of Lorraine. The latter soon afterwards married the widowed Countess Beatrix of Tuscany, and thus became ruler of nearly all Italy between the Po and the Tiber.

By the year 1051, all the German States except Saxony were governed by relatives or personal friends of the Emperor. In order to counteract the power of Bernhard, Duke of the Saxons, of whom he was jealous, he made another friend, Adalbert, Archbishop of Bremen, with authority over priests and churches in Northern Germany, Denmark, Scandinavia and even Iceland. He also built a stately palace at Goslar, at the foot of the Hartz Mountains, and made it as often as possible his residence, in order to watch the Saxons. Both these measures, however, increased his unpopularity with the German people.

[Sidenote: 1054.]

Leo IX., in 1054, marched against the Normans who were threatening the southern border of the Roman territory, but was defeated and taken prisoner. The victors treated him with all possible reverence, and he soon saw the policy of making friends of such a bold and warlike people.

A treaty of peace was concluded, wherein the Normans acknowledged themselves dependents of the Papal power: no notice was taken of the fact that they had already acknowledged that of the German-Roman Emperors. This event, and the increasing authority of his old enemy, G.o.dfrey, in Tuscany, led Henry III. to visit Italy again in 1055.

Although he held the Diet of Lombardy and a grand review on the Roncalian plains near Piacenza, he accomplished nothing by his journey: he did not even visit Rome. Leo IX. died the same year, and Henry appointed a new Pope, Victor II., who, like his predecessor, became an instrument in the hands of Hildebrand of Savona, a monk of Cluny, who was even then, although few suspected it, the real head and ruler of the Christian world.

The Emperor discovered that a plot had been formed to a.s.sa.s.sinate him on his way to Germany. This danger over, he had an interview with king Henri of France, which became so violent that he challenged the latter to single combat. Henri avoided the issue by marching away during the following night. The Emperor retired to his palace at Goslar, in October, 1056, where he received a visit from Pope Victor II. He was broken in health and hopes, and the news of a defeat of his army by the Slavonians in Prussia is supposed to have hastened his end. He died during the month, not yet forty years old, leaving a boy of six as his successor.

[Sidenote: 1062. HENRY IV.]

The child, Henry IV., had already been crowned King of Germany, and his mother, the Empress Agnes, was chosen regent during his minority. The Bishop of Augsburg was her adviser, and her first acts were those of prudence and reconciliation. Peace was concluded with G.o.dfrey of Lorraine and Baldwin of Flanders, minor troubles in the States were quieted, and the Empire enjoyed the promise of peace. But the Empress, who was a woman of a weak, yielding nature, was soon led to make appointments which created fresh troubles. The reigning princes used the opportunity to make themselves more independent, and their mutual jealousy and hostility increased in proportion as they became stronger.

The n.o.bles and people of Rome renewed their attempt to have a share in the choice of a Pope; and, although the appointment was finally left to the Empress, the Pope of her selection, Nicholas II., instead of being subservient to the interests of the German Empire, allied himself with the Normans and with the republican party in the cities of Lombardy.

At home, the troubles of the Empress Agnes increased year by year. A conspiracy to murder the young Henry IV. was fortunately discovered; then a second, at the head of which was the Archbishop Hanno of Cologne, was formed to take him from his mother's care and give him into stronger hands. In 1062, when Henry IV. was twelve years old, Hanno visited the Empress at Kaiserswerth, on the Rhine. After a splendid banquet, he invited the young king to look at his vessel, which lay near the palace; but no sooner had the latter stepped upon the deck, than the conspirators seized their oars and pushed into the stream. Henry boldly sprang into the water; Count Ekbert of Brunswick sprang after him, and both, after nearly drowning in their struggle, were taken on board. The Empress stood on the sh.o.r.e, crying for help, and her people sought to intercept the vessel, but in vain: the plot was successful. A meeting of reigning princes, soon afterwards, appointed Archbishop Hanno guardian of the young king.

He was a hard, stern master, and Henry IV. became his enemy for life.

Within a year, Hanno was obliged to yield his place to Adalbert, Archbishop of Bremen, who was as much too indulgent as the former had been too rigid. The jealousy of the other priests and princes was now turned against Adalbert, and his position became so difficult that in 1065, when Henry IV. was only fifteen years old, he presented him to an Imperial Diet, held at Worms, and there invested him with the sword, the token of manhood. Thenceforth Henry reigned in his own name, although Adalbert's guardianship was not given up until a year later.

Then he was driven away by a union of the other Bishops and the reigning princes, and his rival, Hanno, was forced, as chief counsellor, upon the angry and unwilling king.

[Sidenote: 1066.]

The next year Henry was married to the Italian princess, Bertha, to whom his father had betrothed him as a child. Before three years had elapsed, he demanded to be divorced from her; but, although the Archbishop of Mayence and the Imperial Diet were persuaded to consent, the Pope, Alexander II., following the advice of his Chancellor, Hildebrand of Savona, refused his sanction. Henry finally decided to take back his wife, whose beauty, patience and forgiving nature compelled him to love her at last. About the same time, his father's enemy and his own, G.o.dfrey of Lorraine and Tuscany, died; another enemy, Otto, Duke of Bavaria, fell into his hands, and was deposed; and there only remained Magnus, Duke of the Saxons, who seemed hostile to his authority. The events of Henry's youth and the character of his education made him impatient and mistrustful: he inherited the pride and arbitrary will of his father and grandfather, without their prudence: he surrounded himself with wild and reckless princes of his own age, whose counsels too often influenced his policy.

No Frank Emperor could be popular with the fierce, independent Saxons; but when it was rumored that Henry IV. had sought an alliance with the Danish king, Swen, against them,--when he called upon them, at the same time, to march against Poland,--their suspicions were aroused, and the whole population rose in opposition. To the number of 60,000, headed by Otto, the deposed Duke of Bavaria (who was a Saxon n.o.ble), they marched to the Harzburg, the Imperial castle near Goslar. Henry rejected their conditions: the castle was besieged, and he escaped with difficulty, accompanied only by a few followers. He endeavored to persuade the other German princes to support him, but they refused. They even entered into a conspiracy to dethrone him; the Bishops favored the plan, and his cause seemed nearly hopeless.

In this emergency the cities along the Rhine, which were very weary of priestly rule, and now saw a chance to strengthen themselves by a.s.sisting the Emperor, openly befriended him. They were able, however, to give him but little military support, and in February, 1074, he was compelled to conclude a treaty with the Saxons, which granted them almost everything they demanded, even to the demolition of the fortresses he had built on their territory. But, in the flush of victory, they also tore down the Imperial palace at Goslar, the Church, and the sepulchre wherein Henry III. was buried. This placed them in the wrong, and Henry IV. marched into Saxony with an immense army which he had called together for the purpose of invading Hungary. The Saxons armed themselves to resist, but they were attacked when unprepared, defeated after a terrible battle, and their land laid waste with fire and sword. Thus were again verified, a thousand years later, the words of Tiberius--that it was not necessary to attempt the conquest of the Germans, for, if let alone, they would destroy themselves.

[Sidenote: 1074. POPE GREGORY VII.]

The power of Henry IV. seemed now to be a.s.sured; but the lowest humiliation which ever befell a monarch was in store for him. The monk of Cluny, Hildebrand of Savona, who had inspired the policy of four Popes during twenty-four years, became Pope himself in 1073, under the name of Gregory VII. He was a man of iron will and inexhaustible energy, wise and far-seeing beyond any of his contemporaries, and unquestionably sincere in his aims. He remodelled the Papal office, gave it a new character and importance, and left his own indelible mark on the Church of Rome from that day to this. For the first five hundred years after Christ the Pope had been merely the Bishop of Rome; for the second five hundred years he had been the nominal head of the Church, but subordinate to the political rulers, and dependent upon them. Gregory VII. determined to make the office a spiritual power, above all other powers, with sole and final authority over the bishops, priests and other servants of the Church. It was to be a religious Empire, existing by Divine right, independent of the fate of nations or the will of kings.

He relied mainly upon two measures to accomplish this change,--the suppression of simony and the celibacy of the priesthood. He determined that the priests should belong wholly to the Church; that the human ties of wife and children should be denied to them. This measure had been proposed before, but never carried into effect, on account of the opposition of the married Bishops and priests; but the increase of the monastic orders and their greater influence at this time favored Gregory's design. Even after celibacy was proclaimed as a law of the Church, in 1074, it encountered the most violent opposition, and the law was not universally obeyed by the priests until two or three centuries later.

[Sidenote: 1075.]

In 1075, Gregory promulgated a law against simony, in which he not only prohibited the sale of all offices of the Church, but claimed that the Bishops could only receive the ring and crozier, the symbols of their authority, from the hands of the Pope. The same year, he sent messengers to Henry IV. calling upon him to enforce this law in Germany, under penalty of excommunication. The surprise and anger of the King may easily be imagined: it was a language which no Pope had ever before dared to use toward the Imperial power. Indeed, when we consider that Gregory at this time was quarrelling with the Normans, the Lombard cities and the king of France, and that a party in Rome was becoming hostile to his rule, the act seems almost that of a madman.

Henry IV. called a Synod, which met at Worms. The Bishops, at his request, unanimously declared that Gregory VII. was deposed from the Papacy, and a message was sent to the people at Rome, ordering them to drive him from the city. But, just at that time, Gregory had put down a conspiracy of the n.o.bles to a.s.sa.s.sinate him, by calling the people to his aid, and he was temporarily popular with the latter. He answered Henry IV. with the ban of excommunication,--which would have been harmless enough, but for the deep-seated discontent of the Germans with the king's rule. The Saxons, whom he had treated with the greatest harshness and indignity since their subjection, immediately found a pretext to throw off their allegiance: the other German States showed a cold and mistrustful temper, and their princes failed to come together when Henry called a National Diet. In the meantime the amba.s.sadors of Gregory were busy, and the petty courts were filled with secret intrigues for dethroning the king and electing a new one.

[Sidenote: 1077. THE HUMILIATION AT CANOSSA.]

In October, 1076, finally, a Convention of princes was held on the Rhine, near Mayence. Henry was not allowed to be present, but he sent messengers, offering to yield to their demands if they would only guard the dignity of the crown. The princes rejected all his offers, and finally adjourned to meet in Augsburg early in 1077, when the Pope was asked to be present. As soon as Henry IV. learned that Gregory had accepted the invitation, he was seized with a panic as unkingly as his former violence. Accompanied only by a small retinue, he hastened to Burgundy, crossed Mont Cenis in the dead of winter, encountering many sufferings and dangers on the way, and entered Italy with the single intention of meeting Pope Gregory and persuading him to remove the ban of the Church.

At the news of his arrival in Lombardy, the Bishops and n.o.bles from all the cities flocked to his support, and demanded only that he should lead them against the Pope. The movement was so threatening that Gregory himself, already on his way to Germany, halted, and retired for a time to the Castle of Canossa (in the Apennines, not far from Parma), which belonged to his devoted friend, the Countess Matilda of Tuscany. Victory was a.s.sured to Henry, if he had but grasped it; but he seems to have possessed no courage except when inspired by hate. He neglected the offered help, went to Canossa, and, presenting himself before the gate barefoot and clad only in a shirt of sackcloth, he asked to be admitted and pardoned as a repentant sinner. Gregory, so unexpectedly triumphant, prolonged for three whole days the satisfaction which he enjoyed in the king's humiliation: for three days the latter waited at the gate in snow and rain, before he was received. Then, after promising to obey the Pope, he received the kiss of peace, and the two took communion together in the castle-chapel! This was the first great victory of the Papal power: Gregory VII. paid dearly for it, but it was an event which could not be erased from History. It has fed the pride and supported the claims of the Roman Church, from that day to this.

Gregory had dared to excommunicate Henry, because of the political conspirators against the latter; but he had not considered that his pardon would change those conspirators into enemies. The indignant Lombards turned their backs on Henry, the Bishops rejected the Pope's offer to release them from the ban, and the strife became more fierce and relentless than ever. In the meantime the German princes, encouraged by the Pope, proclaimed Rudolf of Suabia King in Henry's place. The latter, now at last supported by the Lombards, hastened back to Germany.

A terrible war ensued, which lasted for more than two years, and was characterized by the most shocking barbarities on both sides. Gregory a second time excommunicated the king, but without the slightest political effect. The war terminated in 1080 by the death of Rudolf in battle, and Henry's authority became gradually established throughout the land.

[Sidenote: 1084.]

His first movement, now, was against the Pope. He crossed the Alps with a large army, was crowned King of Lombardy, and then marched towards Rome. Gregory's only friend was the Countess Matilda of Tuscany, who resisted Henry's advance until the cities of Pisa and Lucca espoused his cause. Then he laid siege to Rome, and a long war began, during which the ancient city suffered more than it had endured for centuries. The end of the struggle was a devastation worse than that inflicted by Geiserich. When Henry finally gained possession of the city, and the Pope was besieged in the castle of St. Angelo, the latter released Robert Guiscard, chief of the Normans in Southern Italy, from the ban of excommunication which he had p.r.o.nounced against him, and called him to his aid. A Norman army, numbering 36,000 men, mostly Saracens, approached Rome, and Henry was compelled to retreat. The Pope was released, but his allies burned all the city between the Lateran and the Coliseum, slaughtered thousands of the inhabitants, carried away thousands as slaves, and left a desert of blood and ruin behind them.

Gregory VII. did not dare to remain in Rome after their departure: he accompanied them to Salerno, and there died in exile, in 1085.

Henry IV. immediately appointed a new Pope, Clement III., by whom he was crowned Emperor in St. Peter's. After Gregory's death, the Normans and the French selected another Pope, Urban II., and until both died, fifteen years afterwards, they and their partisans never ceased fighting. The Emperor Henry, however, who returned to Germany immediately alter his coronation, took little part in this quarrel. The last twenty years of his reign were full of trouble and misfortune. His eldest son, Konrad, who had lived mostly in Lombardy, was in 1092 persuaded to claim the crown of Italy, was acknowledged by the hostile Pope, and allied himself with his father's enemies. For a time he was very successful, but the movement gradually failed, and he ended his days in prison, in 1101.

[Sidenote: 1105. TREACHERY OF HENRY IV.'S SON.]

Henry's hopes were now turned to his younger son, Henry, who was of a cold, calculating, treacherous disposition. The political and religious foes of the Emperor were still actively scheming for his overthrow, and they succeeded in making the young Henry their instrument, as they had made his brother Konrad. During the long struggles of his reign, the Emperor's strongest and most faithful supporter had been Frederick of Hohenstaufen, a Suabian count, to whom he had given his daughter in marriage, and whom he finally made Duke of Suabia. The latter died in 1104, and most of the German princes, with the young Henry at their head, arose in rebellion. For nearly a year, the country was again desolated by a furious civil war; but the cities along the Rhine, which were rapidly increasing in wealth and population, took the Emperor's side, as before, and enabled him to keep the field against his son. At last, in December, 1105, their armies lay face to face, near the river Moselle, and an interview took place between the two. Father and son embraced each other; tears were shed, repentance offered and pardon given; then both set out together for Mayence, where it was agreed that a National Diet should settle all difficulties.

On the way, however, the treacherous son persuaded his father to rest in the Castle of Bockelheim, there instantly shut the gates upon him and held him prisoner until he compelled him to abdicate. But, after the act, the Emperor succeeded in making his escape: the people rallied to his support, and he was still unconquered when death came to end his many troubles, in Liege, in August, 1106. He was perhaps the most signally unfortunate of all the German Emperors. The errors of his education, the follies and pa.s.sions of his youth, the one fatal weakness of his manhood, were gradually corrected by experience; but he could not undo their consequences. After he had become comparatively wise and energetic, the internal dissensions of Germany, and the conflict between the Roman Church and the Imperial power, had grown too strong to be suppressed by his hand. When he might have done right, he lacked either the knowledge or the will; when he finally tried to do right, he had lost the power.

[Sidenote: 1099.]

During the latter years of his reign occurred a great historical event, the consequences of which were most important to Europe, though not immediately so to Germany. Peter the Hermit preached a Crusade to the Holy Land for the purpose of conquering Jerusalem from the Saracens.

The "Congregation of Cluny" had prepared the way for this movement: one of the two Popes, Urban II., encouraged it, and finally G.o.dfrey of Bouillon (of the Ducal family of Lorraine) put himself at its head. The soldiers of this, the First Crusade, came chiefly from France, Burgundy and Italy. Although many of them pa.s.sed through Germany on their way to the East, they made few recruits among the people; but the success of the undertaking, the capture of Jerusalem by G.o.dfrey in 1099, and the religious enthusiasm which it created, tended greatly to strengthen the Papal power, and also that faction in the Church which was hostile to Henry IV.

CHAPTER XVI.

END OF THE FRANK DYNASTY, AND RISE OF THE HOHENSTAUFENS.

(1106--1152.)