The Book of Emperors: A Translation of the Middle High German Kaiserchronik

LIII. Henry IV

368 LIII Henry IV Henry IV (r. 1056–1106) is one of the better-remembered German emperors, in considerable part because he personified secular claims against the reform attempts of Gregory VII, particularly in the dispute over whether kings or emperors could appoint bishops in the “Investiture Controversy.” The historical Henry IV became German king at the age of six; his mother, Agnes, served as his regent until 1062, when Archbishop Anno of Cologne—the subject of the Annolied—kidnapped him and made himself regent. The powerful Archbishop Adalbert of Hamburg and Bremen, who also oversaw Scandinavian church affairs for the papacy, at first supported Anno, but then competed with him. Anno’s value system was rather ascetic, Adalbert’s more worldly, and contemporary clerics saw Adalbert’s victory over Anno as Henry’s main advisor—when the later began ruling in his own right in 1065—as the cause of Henry’s turn toward ways of the flesh. Henry IV attempted to do what he could to consolidate his power, which necessarily brought him into conflict with the feudal lords of his realm, who were naturally distrustful of imperial power, which could only lessen their own. In his conflicts with them and with the papacy, much of his support came from bishops he and his father had appointed—and who consequently opposed any exclusive investiture right by the papacy. Support also came from townspeople, who—as often elsewhere in Europe—preferred kings who might give them local charters of liberties, to the feudal nobility who were more grudging with regard for townspeople’s modest freedoms. Henry’s conflict with Gregory VII led him to persuade many of the German bishops to renounce their obedience to the pope in Henry IV 369 1076. A month later, Gregory excommunicated Henry. When Henry ’s secular vassals sided with the pope, he felt forced to submit to Gregory at Canossa. His German princes nonetheless elected Rudolf of Swabia as counter-king. Henry defeated him in 1080 and declared Gregory deposed, after which he appointed the counterpope Clement III. It took him three years of military efforts to gain entrance to Rome, but in 1084, he did so, and Clement crowned him emperor. In later years Henry had to fight his older son, Conrad , who had been crowned as joint king in 1087, and then his younger son, the future Emperor Henry V, who had been crowned in 1098 as joint king. In 1105, young Henry defeated his father and forced him to promise to abdicate, but Henry IV escaped, rallied his followers, and was attempting to reassert his authority when he died of natural causes the following year. For our author, Henry’s reign should be remembered not so much for the interminable power struggles it featured as for the opening of the Crusades. His account of Godfrey of Boullion, who led the First Crusade and became the first ruler of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, is typical of contemporary accounts, which had the streets of Jerusalem flowing with blood. He was probably relying on oral accounts he had heard as a younger man. Godfrey ’s virtues as a ruler in single-mindedly serving the triumph of the Cross contrast with Henry’s vices in one of the author’s many “mirrors of princes.” The author draws on the Würzburg Chronicle for his introductory words about the Saxons fighting the Liutzen, that confederation of pagan Slavs to the northeast of Saxony resolutely hostile to church and Empire, and Ekkehard of Aura’s World Chronicle. He may have used a Guelph history that told how one Marquess Ida of Austria went on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, where she was taken prisoner and eventually became the mother of Zangi (“Sangwin” or Imad-al-Din, 1084–1146). Our author calls Henry IV’s mother “Agnes” correctly, but gives her the title “Duchess of Bavaria” as a matter of pure fiction. Then, by calling Zangi’s 370 Chapter Fifty-three supposed mother both “Agnes” and “Duchess of Bavaria,” the author appears to conflate her with Henry IV’s mother, Agnes (but of Poitou, not Bavaria, as our author has it). In the unfinished final chapter of the Book of Emperors—this time more or less as in real history—Zangi slaughters crusaders and clerics in Edessa; it is the first Crusader kingdom to be re-conquered by Muslims, setting off the Second...