Part I: the Intestiture Controversy, the Norman War and the Fraternal Rebellion.
It is 1076 and the Holy Roman Empire is in turmoil. Pope Gregory VII had announced in his Dictatus Papae that he alone, as Christ’s Vicar on Earth, had the power to dismiss an Emperor, and that he alone could remove prelates from their seats and move them from see to see. This directly contravened the rights of investiture, which stated that the Holy Roman Emperor, as God’s anointed secular king, could invest prelates with spiritual and secular power under his own initiative. This attack upon Imperial prerogatives led Henry to call for the dismissal of Pope Gregory, and had his Confessor made Bishop of Milan, knowing full well that Gregory had already appointed another monk as Bishop there.
The Investiture Controversy gave fresh impetus to the Saxon Revolt, which had wracked the Empire since 1075. Many aristocrats and churchmen backed the rebels, under their charismatic leader Rudolf von Rheinfeld, who was the Pope’s favoured candidate for the Imperial throne. Rudolf approached Bishop Siegfried of Mainz to crown him Emperor, and promised him great advancement under his foreseen reign. Siegfried, however, saw through Gregory’s plans. For centuries, his family had controlled the secular and spiritual power in Mainz-being both the Bishops and the Mayors. Siegfried knew that if Gregory was given the power to appoint his own Bishops, then he would trample on the rights of families such as his own, who had come to dominate the higher bands of the ecclesiarchy. In a letter which he circulated to all the Bishops of the Empire, he made it clear that the Emperor, who had little concern for Bishoprics and their rights, was the lesser of two evils in this case, and that backing Rudolf would lead to Gregory making himself a temporal as well as spiritual power in Christendom.
This denunciation of Rudolf and Gregory, coming from so senior a figure, switched the impetus from the rebels to Henry. The Emperor was a young and effervescent man who was often brash and arrogant. Because of this, he alienated many of the great lords and aristocrats, especially in Saxony and Bavaria. The young Emperor turned to Siegfried of Mainz and made the Bishop his Confessor. With this close link to the Emperor, Siegfried began to offer him his council. Thus from 1077 onwards, Henry adopted a policy that was radically different from that of his father and of his younger self. Having been defeated in battle by Rudolf, in which many of his loyal knights had been captured or deserted him, he sent letters under the Imperial Seal to the cities of the Empire, and to the Diocese, promising them additional rights of autonomy and the alleviation of taxes. He promised the status of Imperial City to dozens of the Empire’s foremost commercial centres; Baden, Aachen, Hamburg, Frankfurt, Strasbourg and many others. Under these terms, they would be freed from the vicissitude of their feudal lords, and gave them the power to levy their own taxes and their own armies. In return, they would pay a low rate of tax to the Imperial Treasury and contribute soldiers to his armies. In return, he would protect them from foreign molestation and guarantee the rights laid down in their Civic Charters.
While he did this, he also reassured the churchmen of the Empire who held political power-especially Siegfried of Mainz. He promised them their families’ hereditary rights and promised them that if they supported him he would guarantee their autonomy from Rome, and their feudal rights as landowners. These two assurances, known as the Imperial Endowments, immediately guaranteed Henry a vast swathe of new supporters and feudsmen.
By 1079 Henry had raised a new army, with 2,300 knights and 6,000 infantrymen. Rudolf, on the other hand, had 2,000 knights and 4,000 infantry. The main difference was in the quality of their infantry; Rudolf’s were conscripts; serfs taken from the fields by their liege lords and given rudimentary weapons to back up their masters. Henry’s on the other hand were mostly from the urban burgher class-they had furnished themselves with shields, swords, pikes and armour. Many of the wealthier Bishops had also furnished Henry with 1,000 non-noble horsemen; Bishop Siegfried himself provided 40 horsemen.
The next three years would be a war of attrition between Imperial and Saxon forces. Rudolf had a fine military mind, yet his tactics focused on charges done by heavily armed knights. These were countered by Henry’s infantry, many of whom were armed with crossbows, which could fire a hail of heavy iron bolts which could punch through armour and whittle away cavalry charges before the infantry engaged them with poleaxes and spears. The war ground on, with Henry gradually winning ground against Rudolf’s gradually diminishing forces. In 1082 the Bavarian nobility surrendered to Henry, and in a great show of magnanimity he pardoned the lesser knights and let them go back to their lands and enjoy the same rights as they had under his father. Duke Welf of Bavaria, however, formerly a supporter of Henry, was stripped of his title and the lands given to Frederick Hohenstaufen who ruled from Regensburg.
The good treatment of the Bavarian knights prompted many hundreds of knights to desert Rudolf, and by 1083 he had only 1,000 knights to call upon. The Emperor, sensing an opportunity to end the rebellion one and for all, attacked Rudolf when he was home in Swabia. The battle of Luzsgaben saw the Saxon Revolt finally extinguished. Rudolf was struck by a crossbow bolt in the heart and died thirteen agonising hours later in his own camp, while his army collapsed. Many members of the upper aristocracy were captured, and Henry stripped them of their lands and titles and had them all hanged as traitors. The lesser knights were pardoned, yet were warned that the Emperor would not be so forgiving the next time. Henry then went about dishing out new titles to his supporters. The martial aristocracy quieted, Henry then turned his attention to Rome.
Pope Gregory, frustrated by his attempts to destroy the young Emperor, finally came to terms with the Emperor. In 1085 Henry’s special envoy to Rome, Siegfried of Mainz, negotiated a settlement which suited the Emperor well enough. Gregory guaranteed him the Right of Investiture within the Empire and its feudal dominions, yet claimed the exclusive right to appoint prelates outside the Empire. He also lifted the excommunication which lay on Henry’s brow. In return, Henry accepted not to acknowledge any anti-Pope and recognised the Holy See’s temporal powers in Latium, Umbria and Romagna.
No sooner had peace been made between the Papacy and the Empire, however, had Gregory begun to make alliances with hostile powers in order to try and get his plans back on track. He turned to the latest comers to the Italian peninsula-the Normans of Sicily. He offered Roger of Sicily the crown of Italy and an indulgence to remit all of his sins in return for defeating the Emperor and assuring Papal supremacy. Roger, who had so far focused on the Eastern Empire through campaigning in Greece, was encouraged by these promises, and rallied his knights to his banner at Benevento while gathering contingents from across his lands; Saracen archers, burghers from the cities of Naples and hundreds of Norman knights. He also engaged the services of hundreds of mercenaries-North African cavalry and Dalmatian infantry. This disparate army was unified under his personal leadership, and marched north in the Spring of 1088. They reached Rome and the Pope rode out to meet them, crowning Roger King of Italy and the Lombards in St Peter’s on Easter Sunday. Roger then began the long march north, his intention being to take Milan, and make this old Roman city his new power base against which to secure his flank and build his new Italian kingdom.
When the Emperor heard of the coronation, he flew into a rage, and ordered his knights assemble at Innsbruck. He also mobilised the Imperial Cities’ militias and standing forces. He assembled 1,100 knights and 7,000 infantry by Summer. Time was of the essence, and the advent of winter forced him to march south across the Alps before snow closed the passes to him, and thus leave Italy at the mercy of the Normans. He managed to cross the mountains with what forces he had, however some 600 knights and 2,000 infantry had yet to arrive. He left his eldest son Conrad in Innsbruck to marshal these forces and then lead them south next Spring. He led the Imperial forces south of the Alps to Milan, where he garrisoned them and prepared to defend against the Normans. In the meanwhile, he sent word to the maritime cities of Venice and Genoa, demanding that they send him soldiers, or in lieu of that, gold, to help his defence of the Empire. The Doge of Venice, however, Domenico Selvo, sought to steer a course between that of the Normans and the Empire. He had suffered defeats at the hands of the Normans at Corfu and in the Adriatic, yet he did not want to see a resurgent Empire on his doorstep. He therefore sent gold to the Emperor with word that if he wished soldiers, galleys and more gold then he would have to acknowledge Venice as a vassal of the Eastern Empire, not of the West, and that he would make no infringements on the sovereignty of his Imperial opposite’s vassal.
When Henry heard of this he was prone to reject it outright, yet Siegfried of Mainz stayed his course, and made him accept the Doge’s letter, yet the Imperial response also contained a reminder that Venice’s territory was of the sea, not of the land, and that the Western Emperor claimed all of the Marquisate of Verona as its territory. Doge Domenico assented to this, however grudgingly-he had no desire to see a strong Imperial state on the mainland opposite the city, yet he realised he had to play with the hand dealt to him. He therefore ordered the Venetian navy mobilised, and while the Normans were focused on a land campaign in Italy, the Venetians cut them off from their garrisons in Greece. In the meanwhile, the Venetians allied with the Komnenids in Constantinople, and the Eastern Emperor fought the Normans in Greece and beat them, retaking Durazzo in 1089. In the process, the Venetians helped themselves to Corfu and several other islands, as well as a good deal of the coastline of Epirus.
The Spring of 1089 was a trying time for the still young Emperor Henry, for Roger Borsa, the Norman King, captured much of Tuscany and Piacenza. The Imperial army marched south to confront him, however, and they joined in battle outside Pisa. The result was a crushing Imperial victory, as Henry used the tactics which had won him his throne to great effect. The Norman knights made repeated charges against the entrenched Imperial position ,atop a low hill, yet volleys of crossbow bolts and a spirited defence by a wall of pikemen drove them off, and the Imperial knights then overran them and their followers, crushing them and routing them at the second charge. Roger himself escaped the battle, yet his powerful feudal clients broke away from him. They took themselves and their men back south, where they carved out their own estates while there was a state of anarchy. Roger, the man who could have been king, was left destitute and attempted to flee to Sicily. He was murdered by his own entourage, however, and his body handed over to Emperor Henry, who buried it in a pauper’s grave.
The defeat of Roger made Pope Gregory quake, as he found that there were no armies between himself and the Emperor. None of his Bulls could be made to sting the Emperor himself, who bore down on Rome with a fury not seen since its sack by the Goths centuries ago. Gregory would, however, succeed in tripping the Emperor, yet not directly. His son, Conrad, was still in Innsbruck, awaiting reinforcements which were arriving late from Bohemia. The Pope’s plight, however, struck him as an opportunity, and he announced himself the new Emperor, deposing his father, and being crowned by his own priest in the church of Innsbruck. His forces swore allegiance to him, as did many more knights who had not been called to serve in Italy. Soon he had a huge force, which he planned to use to lock his father in Italy, and thereby help himself to the German lands. His younger brother Henry, who was in Prague at the time of his brother’s rebellion, lent his support to his brother, knowing that he had no child, and that if Conrad were to die, he would be Emperor. he also knew that Conrad was a heavy drinker and a glutton-not likely to live as long as his lean and almost ascetic father, or at least easier to poison.
The Fraternal Rebellion, as Chroniclers called it, was therefore anything but fraternal. The Emperor was bereft by the loss of his sons, and he stopped his army outside Anagni for a week while his consulted his supporters, especially Frederick Hohenstaufen, whom he trusted like a brother. For several days it looked possible that the knights would rebel against the Emperor and declare his Conrad, yet it was Frederick who swayed them into supporting Henry (the elder). With the army behind him, Henry was able to consider what to do about Conrad. He was only a few miles from Rome, and he knew that he could take the city with relative ease. He therefore made the fateful decision to forget Germany and march on Rome.
Pope Gregory was left little option but than to ride out to meet the Emperor and to surrender. Henry refused to meet him on the road, bur rather in a stately home which the Emperor had taken over. The Pope was forced to walk from Rome to this house, where he handed over the keys to the city, and asked for leniency. The Emperor treated the Pope with utter contempt, and forced him to resign the Papacy. The College of Cardinals was convened, and with the Emperor watching on, Gregory, an old man shattered in both body and spirit, laid down his tokens of office, and then left the hall. Many Cardinals expressed sympathy for the deposed Pope, yet not so much that they refused to vote in the next conclave. Here, they elected Pope Benedict XI as the new leader of Christendom. His election was upheld by the secular lords of Europe, who took their cue from the Emperor, who kissed the Holy Ring and was forgiven for all his sins. While this happened, Pope Gregory quietly died of bowel cancer.
With the Papacy silenced, the Emperor washed his hands of Rome and marched north as quickly as he could. He rushed to Milan, and reached it by the beginning of Winter, thus forestalling an invasion of Italy from the north, although Conrad had no intention of doing so. He was amassing support within German and the northern Empire, intending to crush his father with superior numbers once the Alpine passes were cleared. In February of 1090, however, there was problem. Conrad’s wife gave birth to a healthy baby son, whom they named Godfrey. This moment of joy was not, however, shared by the anti-King’s brother Henry, who saw his chances with rebellion dashed. If Conrad were victorious, he would pass the crown to his son who would then cast his uncle aside. If Henry wanted power, he would have to switch sides. If Conrad were killed, then he would be the only heir to the throne, and thus assured a place in the Imperial order.
In Spring 1090, therefore, Henry raised his own standard in Bavaria in support of his father the Emperor Henry IV. There had been little concerted opposition to Conrad’s coup, yet once the Imperial sibling expressed his support for the deposed father, the Imperial banner flying in Augsburg attracted many loyal knights who had fled from Conrad’s supporters. Henry’s own supporters were numerous, for he was bold and brave, if secretly cunning. He therefore attracted many men to join him, and Conrad was faced with the possibility of a pincer movement-of being trapped in the Alps between an army from the south and one from the east catching him in their pincers.
The Emperor was greatly relieved when he heard of Henry’s change of heart, yet he was warned by his erstwhile friend Frederick Hohenstaufen not to be too trusting of his son, who had shown his duplicitousness. The Emperor would hear nothing of this, however, and marched his army north back into the mountains. His advance gave Conrad two choices: retreat north and continue the fight or surrender. He knew that if he continued the fight and lost, he would doubtless be killed, for he knew that his brother would poison their father’s ear against him. However, if he surrendered he might remain in the line of succession and thus might one day become Emperor. It was with a heavy heart and a furrowed brow that he submitted to his father’s forces; to add insult to injury, it was the knights of Frederick Hohenstaufen who accompanied him to the Emperor, Hohenstaufen being one of Conrad’s rivals at court for his father’s affection.
The people who would decide Conrad’s fate were the Emperor, his younger son Henry the Lesser, Bishop Siegfried of Mainz and Frederick Hohenstaufen. The Emperor was inclined to punish his son and to remove him from the succession, yet not to disown him. Henry the Lesser, however, reminded his father that there could be only one Emperor, and that if the succession passed to another (i.e. himself) then Conrad would start a war of succession which would divide the Emperor yet further. Frederick Hohenstaufen was inclined to support Henry the Lesser, whom he considered less bellicose. While deliberations wore on, he married the Emperor’s daughter, and thus cemented a claim to the Imperial throne. If he could remove Conrad then Henry, who was not even married yet alone with child, might just pass the throne to a Hohenstaufen-not him, Frederick himself was too old to hope for further advancement, but his son, perhaps. Meanwhile, there was Bishop Siegfried, who wanted to maintain the Imperial line at all costs, for the sake of stability. He wanted Conrad to inherit the Empire in its entirety, and to disown Henry the Lesser, whom he saw through easily as a manipulator and a plotter. While these four men acted out their parts, Conrad slowly rotted in a dungeon, drinking himself to death.
The Emperor summoned Conrad to him three months after his interment, and informed him that he would never inherit the Imperial throne; this prerogative would pass to his younger sibling. However, he would be left alive and would be allowed to hold land, which would be returned to him in full. He was in effect banished from the Imperial court, for his lands were in Lorraine and the Emperor spent most of his time in either Bavaria or Franconia. This judgement was not enough for Henry the Lesser, who wanted to see his brother dead, so as to assure his own succession. He sent his agents to Conrad’s court where they put poison in his wine. When he drank it, however, he vomited and was thus saved. When the assassins found out about this, hey waited for him to fall asleep and then, posing as servants, took him to his chamber, where they butchered him.
Suspicion immediately fell upon Henry, yet he denied all involvement in the affair. In 1091 Bishop Siegfried died and was replaced as Bishop of Mainz by Bishop Wurhard, and as Imperial Confessor by Prior Remegias of Wiesbaden monastery, a man recommended most highly by the dying Siegfried. The death of the old Bishop came as a great blow to the Emperor yet as a relief to his son Henry, who mourned publicly yet celebrated privately. It seemed that his way to the Imperial throne was open-all he had to do was wait for his father to die.
It is 1076 and the Holy Roman Empire is in turmoil. Pope Gregory VII had announced in his Dictatus Papae that he alone, as Christ’s Vicar on Earth, had the power to dismiss an Emperor, and that he alone could remove prelates from their seats and move them from see to see. This directly contravened the rights of investiture, which stated that the Holy Roman Emperor, as God’s anointed secular king, could invest prelates with spiritual and secular power under his own initiative. This attack upon Imperial prerogatives led Henry to call for the dismissal of Pope Gregory, and had his Confessor made Bishop of Milan, knowing full well that Gregory had already appointed another monk as Bishop there.
The Investiture Controversy gave fresh impetus to the Saxon Revolt, which had wracked the Empire since 1075. Many aristocrats and churchmen backed the rebels, under their charismatic leader Rudolf von Rheinfeld, who was the Pope’s favoured candidate for the Imperial throne. Rudolf approached Bishop Siegfried of Mainz to crown him Emperor, and promised him great advancement under his foreseen reign. Siegfried, however, saw through Gregory’s plans. For centuries, his family had controlled the secular and spiritual power in Mainz-being both the Bishops and the Mayors. Siegfried knew that if Gregory was given the power to appoint his own Bishops, then he would trample on the rights of families such as his own, who had come to dominate the higher bands of the ecclesiarchy. In a letter which he circulated to all the Bishops of the Empire, he made it clear that the Emperor, who had little concern for Bishoprics and their rights, was the lesser of two evils in this case, and that backing Rudolf would lead to Gregory making himself a temporal as well as spiritual power in Christendom.
This denunciation of Rudolf and Gregory, coming from so senior a figure, switched the impetus from the rebels to Henry. The Emperor was a young and effervescent man who was often brash and arrogant. Because of this, he alienated many of the great lords and aristocrats, especially in Saxony and Bavaria. The young Emperor turned to Siegfried of Mainz and made the Bishop his Confessor. With this close link to the Emperor, Siegfried began to offer him his council. Thus from 1077 onwards, Henry adopted a policy that was radically different from that of his father and of his younger self. Having been defeated in battle by Rudolf, in which many of his loyal knights had been captured or deserted him, he sent letters under the Imperial Seal to the cities of the Empire, and to the Diocese, promising them additional rights of autonomy and the alleviation of taxes. He promised the status of Imperial City to dozens of the Empire’s foremost commercial centres; Baden, Aachen, Hamburg, Frankfurt, Strasbourg and many others. Under these terms, they would be freed from the vicissitude of their feudal lords, and gave them the power to levy their own taxes and their own armies. In return, they would pay a low rate of tax to the Imperial Treasury and contribute soldiers to his armies. In return, he would protect them from foreign molestation and guarantee the rights laid down in their Civic Charters.
While he did this, he also reassured the churchmen of the Empire who held political power-especially Siegfried of Mainz. He promised them their families’ hereditary rights and promised them that if they supported him he would guarantee their autonomy from Rome, and their feudal rights as landowners. These two assurances, known as the Imperial Endowments, immediately guaranteed Henry a vast swathe of new supporters and feudsmen.
By 1079 Henry had raised a new army, with 2,300 knights and 6,000 infantrymen. Rudolf, on the other hand, had 2,000 knights and 4,000 infantry. The main difference was in the quality of their infantry; Rudolf’s were conscripts; serfs taken from the fields by their liege lords and given rudimentary weapons to back up their masters. Henry’s on the other hand were mostly from the urban burgher class-they had furnished themselves with shields, swords, pikes and armour. Many of the wealthier Bishops had also furnished Henry with 1,000 non-noble horsemen; Bishop Siegfried himself provided 40 horsemen.
The next three years would be a war of attrition between Imperial and Saxon forces. Rudolf had a fine military mind, yet his tactics focused on charges done by heavily armed knights. These were countered by Henry’s infantry, many of whom were armed with crossbows, which could fire a hail of heavy iron bolts which could punch through armour and whittle away cavalry charges before the infantry engaged them with poleaxes and spears. The war ground on, with Henry gradually winning ground against Rudolf’s gradually diminishing forces. In 1082 the Bavarian nobility surrendered to Henry, and in a great show of magnanimity he pardoned the lesser knights and let them go back to their lands and enjoy the same rights as they had under his father. Duke Welf of Bavaria, however, formerly a supporter of Henry, was stripped of his title and the lands given to Frederick Hohenstaufen who ruled from Regensburg.
The good treatment of the Bavarian knights prompted many hundreds of knights to desert Rudolf, and by 1083 he had only 1,000 knights to call upon. The Emperor, sensing an opportunity to end the rebellion one and for all, attacked Rudolf when he was home in Swabia. The battle of Luzsgaben saw the Saxon Revolt finally extinguished. Rudolf was struck by a crossbow bolt in the heart and died thirteen agonising hours later in his own camp, while his army collapsed. Many members of the upper aristocracy were captured, and Henry stripped them of their lands and titles and had them all hanged as traitors. The lesser knights were pardoned, yet were warned that the Emperor would not be so forgiving the next time. Henry then went about dishing out new titles to his supporters. The martial aristocracy quieted, Henry then turned his attention to Rome.
Pope Gregory, frustrated by his attempts to destroy the young Emperor, finally came to terms with the Emperor. In 1085 Henry’s special envoy to Rome, Siegfried of Mainz, negotiated a settlement which suited the Emperor well enough. Gregory guaranteed him the Right of Investiture within the Empire and its feudal dominions, yet claimed the exclusive right to appoint prelates outside the Empire. He also lifted the excommunication which lay on Henry’s brow. In return, Henry accepted not to acknowledge any anti-Pope and recognised the Holy See’s temporal powers in Latium, Umbria and Romagna.
No sooner had peace been made between the Papacy and the Empire, however, had Gregory begun to make alliances with hostile powers in order to try and get his plans back on track. He turned to the latest comers to the Italian peninsula-the Normans of Sicily. He offered Roger of Sicily the crown of Italy and an indulgence to remit all of his sins in return for defeating the Emperor and assuring Papal supremacy. Roger, who had so far focused on the Eastern Empire through campaigning in Greece, was encouraged by these promises, and rallied his knights to his banner at Benevento while gathering contingents from across his lands; Saracen archers, burghers from the cities of Naples and hundreds of Norman knights. He also engaged the services of hundreds of mercenaries-North African cavalry and Dalmatian infantry. This disparate army was unified under his personal leadership, and marched north in the Spring of 1088. They reached Rome and the Pope rode out to meet them, crowning Roger King of Italy and the Lombards in St Peter’s on Easter Sunday. Roger then began the long march north, his intention being to take Milan, and make this old Roman city his new power base against which to secure his flank and build his new Italian kingdom.
When the Emperor heard of the coronation, he flew into a rage, and ordered his knights assemble at Innsbruck. He also mobilised the Imperial Cities’ militias and standing forces. He assembled 1,100 knights and 7,000 infantry by Summer. Time was of the essence, and the advent of winter forced him to march south across the Alps before snow closed the passes to him, and thus leave Italy at the mercy of the Normans. He managed to cross the mountains with what forces he had, however some 600 knights and 2,000 infantry had yet to arrive. He left his eldest son Conrad in Innsbruck to marshal these forces and then lead them south next Spring. He led the Imperial forces south of the Alps to Milan, where he garrisoned them and prepared to defend against the Normans. In the meanwhile, he sent word to the maritime cities of Venice and Genoa, demanding that they send him soldiers, or in lieu of that, gold, to help his defence of the Empire. The Doge of Venice, however, Domenico Selvo, sought to steer a course between that of the Normans and the Empire. He had suffered defeats at the hands of the Normans at Corfu and in the Adriatic, yet he did not want to see a resurgent Empire on his doorstep. He therefore sent gold to the Emperor with word that if he wished soldiers, galleys and more gold then he would have to acknowledge Venice as a vassal of the Eastern Empire, not of the West, and that he would make no infringements on the sovereignty of his Imperial opposite’s vassal.
When Henry heard of this he was prone to reject it outright, yet Siegfried of Mainz stayed his course, and made him accept the Doge’s letter, yet the Imperial response also contained a reminder that Venice’s territory was of the sea, not of the land, and that the Western Emperor claimed all of the Marquisate of Verona as its territory. Doge Domenico assented to this, however grudgingly-he had no desire to see a strong Imperial state on the mainland opposite the city, yet he realised he had to play with the hand dealt to him. He therefore ordered the Venetian navy mobilised, and while the Normans were focused on a land campaign in Italy, the Venetians cut them off from their garrisons in Greece. In the meanwhile, the Venetians allied with the Komnenids in Constantinople, and the Eastern Emperor fought the Normans in Greece and beat them, retaking Durazzo in 1089. In the process, the Venetians helped themselves to Corfu and several other islands, as well as a good deal of the coastline of Epirus.
The Spring of 1089 was a trying time for the still young Emperor Henry, for Roger Borsa, the Norman King, captured much of Tuscany and Piacenza. The Imperial army marched south to confront him, however, and they joined in battle outside Pisa. The result was a crushing Imperial victory, as Henry used the tactics which had won him his throne to great effect. The Norman knights made repeated charges against the entrenched Imperial position ,atop a low hill, yet volleys of crossbow bolts and a spirited defence by a wall of pikemen drove them off, and the Imperial knights then overran them and their followers, crushing them and routing them at the second charge. Roger himself escaped the battle, yet his powerful feudal clients broke away from him. They took themselves and their men back south, where they carved out their own estates while there was a state of anarchy. Roger, the man who could have been king, was left destitute and attempted to flee to Sicily. He was murdered by his own entourage, however, and his body handed over to Emperor Henry, who buried it in a pauper’s grave.
The defeat of Roger made Pope Gregory quake, as he found that there were no armies between himself and the Emperor. None of his Bulls could be made to sting the Emperor himself, who bore down on Rome with a fury not seen since its sack by the Goths centuries ago. Gregory would, however, succeed in tripping the Emperor, yet not directly. His son, Conrad, was still in Innsbruck, awaiting reinforcements which were arriving late from Bohemia. The Pope’s plight, however, struck him as an opportunity, and he announced himself the new Emperor, deposing his father, and being crowned by his own priest in the church of Innsbruck. His forces swore allegiance to him, as did many more knights who had not been called to serve in Italy. Soon he had a huge force, which he planned to use to lock his father in Italy, and thereby help himself to the German lands. His younger brother Henry, who was in Prague at the time of his brother’s rebellion, lent his support to his brother, knowing that he had no child, and that if Conrad were to die, he would be Emperor. he also knew that Conrad was a heavy drinker and a glutton-not likely to live as long as his lean and almost ascetic father, or at least easier to poison.
The Fraternal Rebellion, as Chroniclers called it, was therefore anything but fraternal. The Emperor was bereft by the loss of his sons, and he stopped his army outside Anagni for a week while his consulted his supporters, especially Frederick Hohenstaufen, whom he trusted like a brother. For several days it looked possible that the knights would rebel against the Emperor and declare his Conrad, yet it was Frederick who swayed them into supporting Henry (the elder). With the army behind him, Henry was able to consider what to do about Conrad. He was only a few miles from Rome, and he knew that he could take the city with relative ease. He therefore made the fateful decision to forget Germany and march on Rome.
Pope Gregory was left little option but than to ride out to meet the Emperor and to surrender. Henry refused to meet him on the road, bur rather in a stately home which the Emperor had taken over. The Pope was forced to walk from Rome to this house, where he handed over the keys to the city, and asked for leniency. The Emperor treated the Pope with utter contempt, and forced him to resign the Papacy. The College of Cardinals was convened, and with the Emperor watching on, Gregory, an old man shattered in both body and spirit, laid down his tokens of office, and then left the hall. Many Cardinals expressed sympathy for the deposed Pope, yet not so much that they refused to vote in the next conclave. Here, they elected Pope Benedict XI as the new leader of Christendom. His election was upheld by the secular lords of Europe, who took their cue from the Emperor, who kissed the Holy Ring and was forgiven for all his sins. While this happened, Pope Gregory quietly died of bowel cancer.
With the Papacy silenced, the Emperor washed his hands of Rome and marched north as quickly as he could. He rushed to Milan, and reached it by the beginning of Winter, thus forestalling an invasion of Italy from the north, although Conrad had no intention of doing so. He was amassing support within German and the northern Empire, intending to crush his father with superior numbers once the Alpine passes were cleared. In February of 1090, however, there was problem. Conrad’s wife gave birth to a healthy baby son, whom they named Godfrey. This moment of joy was not, however, shared by the anti-King’s brother Henry, who saw his chances with rebellion dashed. If Conrad were victorious, he would pass the crown to his son who would then cast his uncle aside. If Henry wanted power, he would have to switch sides. If Conrad were killed, then he would be the only heir to the throne, and thus assured a place in the Imperial order.
In Spring 1090, therefore, Henry raised his own standard in Bavaria in support of his father the Emperor Henry IV. There had been little concerted opposition to Conrad’s coup, yet once the Imperial sibling expressed his support for the deposed father, the Imperial banner flying in Augsburg attracted many loyal knights who had fled from Conrad’s supporters. Henry’s own supporters were numerous, for he was bold and brave, if secretly cunning. He therefore attracted many men to join him, and Conrad was faced with the possibility of a pincer movement-of being trapped in the Alps between an army from the south and one from the east catching him in their pincers.
The Emperor was greatly relieved when he heard of Henry’s change of heart, yet he was warned by his erstwhile friend Frederick Hohenstaufen not to be too trusting of his son, who had shown his duplicitousness. The Emperor would hear nothing of this, however, and marched his army north back into the mountains. His advance gave Conrad two choices: retreat north and continue the fight or surrender. He knew that if he continued the fight and lost, he would doubtless be killed, for he knew that his brother would poison their father’s ear against him. However, if he surrendered he might remain in the line of succession and thus might one day become Emperor. It was with a heavy heart and a furrowed brow that he submitted to his father’s forces; to add insult to injury, it was the knights of Frederick Hohenstaufen who accompanied him to the Emperor, Hohenstaufen being one of Conrad’s rivals at court for his father’s affection.
The people who would decide Conrad’s fate were the Emperor, his younger son Henry the Lesser, Bishop Siegfried of Mainz and Frederick Hohenstaufen. The Emperor was inclined to punish his son and to remove him from the succession, yet not to disown him. Henry the Lesser, however, reminded his father that there could be only one Emperor, and that if the succession passed to another (i.e. himself) then Conrad would start a war of succession which would divide the Emperor yet further. Frederick Hohenstaufen was inclined to support Henry the Lesser, whom he considered less bellicose. While deliberations wore on, he married the Emperor’s daughter, and thus cemented a claim to the Imperial throne. If he could remove Conrad then Henry, who was not even married yet alone with child, might just pass the throne to a Hohenstaufen-not him, Frederick himself was too old to hope for further advancement, but his son, perhaps. Meanwhile, there was Bishop Siegfried, who wanted to maintain the Imperial line at all costs, for the sake of stability. He wanted Conrad to inherit the Empire in its entirety, and to disown Henry the Lesser, whom he saw through easily as a manipulator and a plotter. While these four men acted out their parts, Conrad slowly rotted in a dungeon, drinking himself to death.
The Emperor summoned Conrad to him three months after his interment, and informed him that he would never inherit the Imperial throne; this prerogative would pass to his younger sibling. However, he would be left alive and would be allowed to hold land, which would be returned to him in full. He was in effect banished from the Imperial court, for his lands were in Lorraine and the Emperor spent most of his time in either Bavaria or Franconia. This judgement was not enough for Henry the Lesser, who wanted to see his brother dead, so as to assure his own succession. He sent his agents to Conrad’s court where they put poison in his wine. When he drank it, however, he vomited and was thus saved. When the assassins found out about this, hey waited for him to fall asleep and then, posing as servants, took him to his chamber, where they butchered him.
Suspicion immediately fell upon Henry, yet he denied all involvement in the affair. In 1091 Bishop Siegfried died and was replaced as Bishop of Mainz by Bishop Wurhard, and as Imperial Confessor by Prior Remegias of Wiesbaden monastery, a man recommended most highly by the dying Siegfried. The death of the old Bishop came as a great blow to the Emperor yet as a relief to his son Henry, who mourned publicly yet celebrated privately. It seemed that his way to the Imperial throne was open-all he had to do was wait for his father to die.
