Shrewd Monk, Stubborn Emperor (Part IV)

In the previous installment, we ended with the ex-communication of Heinrich IV. However, to say Gregory VII only excommunicated Heinrich wouldn’t offer the full story. Gregory VII also excommunicated the two Italian archbishops who had renounced their obedience to the papacy. Thus, Gregory VII chipped away at the ecclesiastical support Heinrich IV had in northern Italy, something that was key in his struggle against the German monarch during the opening months of the Investiture Controversy.

Heinrich IV was in an untenable political and military situation, meaning he needed to act quickly and counter Gregory VII’s ex-communication. While ex-communication was a serious spiritual matter, with dire political, economic, and social consequences for someone like Heinrich IV, it wasn’t written in stone. That means Heinrich IV could seek redemption from the very pope who excommunicated him, allowing the German emperor to restore his standing within the Church, and, hopefully, in his kingdom.

What many don’t realize is that the priority of any bishop, including the pope, is the spiritual well-being of those under their supervision, including shrewd monarchs like Heinrich IV. The pope, after all, is a priest first before he is the leader of Christendom or even Rome, for that matter. That meant the pope could not refuse to allow Heinrich IV to seek redemption from his sentence of ex-communication, even if it wasn’t in the pope’s political interests to do so.

By the “summer of 1076 [CE], the king’s was the weakest faction [in Germany] by far.”[2] At a special council held in Oppenheim, Heinrich IV agreed that if he were still excommunicated by the following February, the German nobles could elect another king.[3] Thus, it seemed to Heinrich IV that he might very well lose everything if he did not act quickly to counter the stubborn monk, Hildebrand. During the winter of 1077 CE, Heinrich IV “with the queen, his two-year-old son Conrad, and a few companions […] secretly crossed the Alps [into Italy].”[4]

In Italy, Heinrich IV did what any ruler in trouble of losing his kingdom would, he begged for the pope’s forgiveness. Gregory VII at the time was waiting in Canossa, where he was supposed to be meeting with envoys sent from the German nobles, who were supposed to be arranging his safe passage into Germany.[5] Before the envoys made it to Gregory VII, Heinrich IV arrived at Canossa:

The importance of this act comes with Heinrich IV knowing full well that Gregory VII was a priest first, and, as such, he had to accept Heinrich’s actions as the actions of a penitent man, who wished to absolve himself of his sentence of ex-communication. The political actor who was Gregory VII didn’t likely believe Heinrich IV was a penitent, but, rather, a shrewd politician, who knew the boundaries of the pope’s actual authority in the corporeal world. To help sell his penitent persona, Heinrich IV dressed in an itchy hairshirt with ash in his hair, the garb of a penitent coming before a priest to ask for forgiveness. While Heinrich IV probably knew Gregory VII was reluctant to absolve the German king, the two knew the show had serious consequences. If Gregory VII refused to absolve Heinrich, he would have violated his sacred duties as a priest in offering a chance at forgiveness. Heinrich IV also knew there was a possibility that Gregory VII could see through his ploy, but he still used Gregory VII’s priestly obligations against him. Nevertheless, Lampert of Hersfeld, in his retelling of what happened at Canossa, shows the king himself gambled his future on the grace of Gregory VII:

With the absolution of Heinrich IV’s sentence of ex-communication, Gregory VII attached several harsh conditions on the absolution to ensure Heinrich would not return to his position as monarch immediately. These conditions were as follows: “On the day and at the place designated by the pope, he [would] promptly call a general council of the German princes and respond to any accusations they made with [Gregory VII] presiding as judge.”[8] Before the council was finished deciding Heinrich IV’s fate, he was not allowed to take up the crown. This clause in Gregory VII’s absolution of the German monarch was his way of ensuring Heinrich IV wouldn’t assume power, potentially giving the German nobles a chance to remove Heinrich IV, and, in the end, protect Gregory VII from retaliation. This action, so Gregory VII thought, would give him some power over what would happen next to his rival, Heinrich IV. The council that was supposed to decide Heinrich’s fate as the emperor fell through. One reason was the Pope’s inability to secure safe passage into German lands.

Heinrich IV’s political gamble paid off. “By his actions at Canossa, Henry was able to destroy the alliance between the papacy and the lay principalities [in Germany].”[9] This move then allowed Heinrich IV to head back into Germany, rallying support for his cause. “At an assembly in Forchheim […] [in] March 1077 [CE], a group of Saxon and South German princes elected as king of the Germans Rudolf, Duke of Swabia, on the assumption that Henry IV, who had borne the title of king since 1056 [CE], had irretrievably lost his royal authority” through ex-communication from the Church.[28] It is also known that “Gregory VII was represented by two legates who eventually agreed to the new election [and made] Rudolf […] swear an oath to permit free canonical Episcopal elections” if he were successful in defeating Heinrich IV.[10]

The election of Rudolf as the anti-king brought about the civil war in the Holy Roman Empire. By the end of the Battle of Elster, three years after Rudolf of Swabia’s election as anti-king, Rudolf died from his hand being cut off during battle. That same year, Heinrich IV was excommunicated (again) by Gregory VII. The reasons for this second ex-communication were simple. Gregor VII wanted the princes opposing Heinrich IV to be successful in their removal of him as the emperor. The stubborn monk believed the second ex-communication was enough to erode the tenuous support Heinrich IV was able to garner for his cause. However, Heinrich IV ignored the ex-communication, and even his followers appeared to ignore it as well. After the death of Rudolf of Swabia, the civil war in Germany was over, and opposition to Heinrich IV’s rule fell like a house of cards. With his power secure in Germany, Heinrich was able to shift his focus on the pesky Roman pontiff with grandiose ideas.

The year following Rudolf of Swabia’s death, Heinrich IV launched an expeditionary force and marched into Italy, very similar to how his father, Heinrich III, a hero of the Church, had in 1047 CE. Instead of marching on Italy for the sake of the Church, Heinrich IV was looking to secure himself politically against the intrusions of Gregory VII. When Heinrich IV seized Rome, Gregory VII’s political support mostly vanished in the city (and elsewhere). Not giving up, Gregory VII retreated into the impenetrable fortress of San Angelo, where he waited for his Norman allies in southern Italy to liberate him.

With Gregory VII out of his way, Heinrich IV had his candidate elected to the papacy, taking the name, Clement III. Soon after Clement III’s consecration, he held Heinrich IV’s imperial coronation.[30] In 1084 CE, Gregory’s Norman allies finally came to his rescue, but the Normans laid waste to Rome, destroying any support Gregory VII still had in the city. Later, Gregory VII died in exile in the Norman city of Salerno in 1085 CE. His last words sum up his views of his time as pope: “I have loved justice and I hate iniquity [injustice], therefore I die in exile.”[11]

The coronation of Heinrich IV, the election of Clement III, and the exile and death of Gregory VII were the end of the Investiture Controversy, for the time being. The conflict arose again, with new popes taking on lay investiture and what they saw as corrupting influences within the Church. The Investiture Controversy between the papacy and the German emperors didn’t end until the passage of the Concordat of Worms in 1122 CE, but, even then, the controversy didn’t end to the satisfaction of popes, who wished to assert the papacy’s supremacy over matters of the Church. Canossa would later become a rallying call for conservative German politicians, usually staunch nationalists, who saw the pope’s attempt to cow a German monarch as a reason to never allow that to happen ever again. The Walk to Canossa is a brilliant case study in matters of politics and religion during the late eleventh century. The Investiture Controversy in England and France would be dealt with separately by future popes, and, again, not to the satisfaction of the original Gregorian reformers. The ascendancy of papal supremacy over matters of the Church was never realized. The control exerted by the papacy over the Church came much (much) later, and, even then, never to the lofty satisfaction of popes like Gregory VII. While the pope today is more than the bishop of Rome, the papacy still struggles to maintain its position within the Church as the leader of the faith.

What makes this event so important is its consequences. After a good deal of going back and forth, the conflict, a rather intense one full of civil wars, betrayals, excommunication, political savviness, and, later, the tossing out of Gregory VII from Rome, the Investiture Controversy ended, with no real resolution concerning who was truly supreme. The defeat of the papacy under Gregory VII also shows the fallacy of papal supremacy and the failure of medieval theocracy. More successful theocratic tendencies tend to be closer to the modern era than the medieval. Instead of backsliding, maybe we’re heading into a new direction, one fueled by xenophobia, Christian nationalism, and resurgent right-wing political movements and ideals, seeking to bring certain aspects of the Church and State together into something less democratic, less spiritual, and more like modern authoritarianism.

What I’ve found is a good indicator of why we need to be more cognizant of conflating modern movements with historical events. While it may seem like chicken—color, taste, texture—it is far from it. While Solomon’s adage, Nothing new under the sun, might seem true, even here, I think it would be a mistake to say as much. Solomon, while wise, didn’t have the eight-ball or oracle telling him how things might change, even with the baggage of history. History, the study of humanity’s different stories, is a battleground for the present, something to be used to justify certain behaviors, ideals, and ideologies. Both the left and the right use history as a weapon. It is our job to untangle the Gordian knot, so we can look underneath and see what is going on.

Trump’s past actions might be objectionable, but they are an indicator of something larger going on within the U.S. and abroad: Politicians seeking to justify their cozy and problematic relationships, all the while eroding basic freedoms, gaslighting us, and robbing nations of their wealth and collective sanity, building nightmares and claiming they’re meant to save us from something out beyond our borders and within our walls. We don’t need medieval history to help us understand the gravity of our newfound realities.

REFERENCES:

1.      Passage translated in Ernest F. Henderson, Select Historical Documents of the Middle Ages, (London: George Bell and Sons, 1910), pp. 366–367.

2.      Blumenthal, The Investiture Controversy, 121.

3.      Tellenbach, The Church in Western Europe, 241.

4.      Blumenthal, The Investiture Controversy, 122.

5.      Snyder, Louis L., editor, Documents of German History (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutger University Press, 1958), 33.

6.      Snyder, Documents of German History, 33–34.

7.      Miller, ­Power and the Holy in the Age of the Investiture Conflict: A Brief History with Documents, (Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2005), 91–97.

8.      Miller, Power and the Holy, 97.

9.      Kurt Aland, From the Beginnings to the Threshold of the Reformation, vol. 1 of A History of Christianity, trans. James L. Schaaf, (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1985), 302.

10.  I.S. Robinson, “Pope Gregory VII, the princes and the Pactum 1077–1080,” The English Historical Review 94 (1979), 721.

11.  Blumenthal, The Investiture Controversy, 124.

12.  Robinson, The Papacy, 412.

13.  Miller, Power and the Holy, 115.