The Salian period in German history lasted from 1024-1125. The Salian rulers derive their name from the Salian Franks, the tribe to which Clovis belonged; this name came in use only later in the Middle Ages.
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THE SALIAN EMPERORS
There have been four Salian Emperors: Conrad II 1024-1039, Henry III 1039-1056, Henry IV, 1056-1106, Henry V 1106-1125.
CONRAD II
Conrad II was elected as King of Germany, because his wife Gisela was a descendant of Charlemagne through her mother Gerberga. In 1017 Gisela gave him a son, Henry (III). In 1027 Conrad sought a Byzantine wife for him, perhaps in the utopian hope of uniting the eastern and western empires, but the plan came to nothing.
THE ITALIAN CONNEXION
Lombardy, or North Italy, was part of the Empire; the Kings of Germany were also Kings of Italy, but many German rulers had to fight to actually become King of Lombardy. They needed it as the stepping-stone to Rome, where they would be crowned as emperor. The problem was that the Germans needed Italy, but the Italians did not need them.
In 1026 Conrad II crossed the Alps and was crowned as King of Lombardy on March 28 in the San Ambrogio in Milan, not in Pavia, which was rebelling against him.
At the end of June 1026 the king was in Ravenna with a small body of his troops. There were incidents between the citizens and the German soldiers, and soon there was general fighting. There was embittered fighting in the narrow alleys, and even in the houses where the Germans were lodged. Desperately fighting, the soldiers hacked their way through the attacking crowds, until the king succeeded in putting an end to it.
On March 21, 1027 Conrad entered Rome. On March 26, Easter Day, he and his wife Gisela were crowned as emperor and empress by Pope John XIX in St.Peter’s. Imperial visits to Rome were often accompanied by bloodshed. A Roman and a German began to quarrel over a cow’s hide and soon there was general fighting. Romans and Germans fought each other furiously; the dead and wounded were numerous. In the end the Germans triumphed.
In 1036 Conrad had to go to Italy for the second time, because were was much unrest in Lombardy; the Source of the trouble was the mighty archbishop of Milan, Aribert. Conrad had him arrested and interned in Piacenza. He escaped in a classical fashion. One of his men laid himself in the episcopal bed and drew the blankets over his face. Aribert himself found a horse standing ready for him and fled to Milan, where he was joyfully received. The townspeople were steadfastly loyal to him. Conrad was unable to capture Milan.
The emperor celebrated Christmas 1037 in Parma. The German garrison was only small; the rest of the troops was billeted in the villages around Parma. The rebels’ plan was to exterminate the garrison and perhaps even to kill the emperor, or at least to take him prisoner. The revolt began on Christmas Eve and almost led to the destruction of the Germans in town. There was fierce hand-to-hand fighting in the narrow streets, with many fatal victims. At the moment that the victory of the citizens seemed certain, Conrad gave the order to set part of the town on fire. The troops outside understood the signal and, storming in, quelled the rebellion. The emperor then gave over the town to his troops for plundering it; it was almost entirely destroyed by fire. When morning came (of Christmas Day!), there was nothing to be seen but ruins and corpses. In order to set an example, Conrad had the walls put down.
BURGUNDY
German sovereigns were supposed to aggrandize the empire. Conrad II acquired Burgundy without greatly exerting himself. On September 6, 1032 King Rudolf III died childless; he had appointed Conrad as his successor. Yet count Odo II of Champagne disputed this and invaded Burgundy. In the severe winter of 1032/1033 Conrad entered Burgundy with his army and laid siege to Mürten. Old and young went about looking like greybeards because of the icicles hanging from their faces; in the morning they found their horses frozen with their hooves to the ground, so that the animals had to be hacked loose with axes. Later the city was captured. On August 1, 1034, Conrad II was solemnly crowned as King of Burgundy-Provence in St.Peter’s in Geneva.
THE SUCCESSION
Conrad II died in Utrecht on June 4, 1039. His son Henry succeeded him. Conrad was not the only German emperor to have died in the Netherlands, for Henry V also died in Utrecht, on May 23, 1125. The ex-Kaiser Wilhelm II, who lived in exile in the castle of Doorn (province of Utrecht), died there on June 4, 1941. His tomb is still to be seen in the castle garden. Conrad, however, was buried in Speyer.
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HENRY III
Henry III (1039-1056) was respected but feared. He was a man of giant build, with a black beard and a swarthy face, for which reason he was called `black Henry’. For the first time a succession took place without anybody contesting it. Henry was a widower, when he became king. It was only in 1043 that he married again; his second wife was a French girl, Agnes of Poitou, a daughter of the count of Aquitaine. It was feared that a French girl would introduce French morals – which means immorality, of course -, but instead she gave her husband seven children; the one surviving son was Henry (IV).
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THE IMPERIAL CROWN
It was only in 1046 that Henry III could travel to Rome in order to be crowned as emperor. On October 26 he was in Pavia. At that moment there were three Popes, and it was very difficult to decide who was the legitimate one. Henry, who, in contrast to his father, was decidedly reform-friendly followed, the example of Otto the Great by convening a synod. The assembled fathers were treated to a fire-and-brimstone speech by Henry, who reproached them their greed and cupidity; everything was now for sale in the Church, he said, from the office of Pope to that of doorkeeper. The stupefied bishops did not know what to answer.
On December 20 the king was in Sutri; a second synod was held there, which, under pressure by Henry, deposed all three Popes. Having entered Rome Henry convened a third synod which elected Henry’s friend Siudger, bishop of Bamberg, as Pope; this first German to become Pope assumed the name of Clement II (1046-1047). On Christmas Day 1046 he crowned Henry and Agnes as emperor and empress. By way of exception there were no riots in Rome (which was crammed with German soldiers).
Since Clement II died on October 9, 1047 (the only Pope to be buried in German soil) and his successor Damasus II in 1048 after a pontificate of twenty-four days (the shortest pontificate ever), Henry forced the election of Bruno, the bishop of Toul, who assumed the name of Leo IX (1049-1054). He entered Rome barefoot and in pilgrim’s dress.
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SOUTH ITALY
South Italy was still Byzantine territory. All the German rulers had considered as the natural complement of their possessions in Italy: they were Kings of Lombardy and the protectors of the Papal States in Middle Italy. However, in 1047 an ambitious Norman, Robert Guiscard, sailed from Normandy to Calabria and conquered this in an amazingly short time. This was the second Normand possession outside Scandinavia, Normandy being the first.
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Leo IX, who did not want these aggressive Normans so near Rome, attempted to stop them, but his German-Italian army was heavily defeated by them on June 18, 1053. The Pope was made a prisoner and interned in Benevento where he lived like a hermit, praying, fasting, and chastising himself. He slept on a carpet on the floor, wrapped in a hair shirt and with his head on a stone. When his health deteriorated, the Normans let him return to Rome, where he died on April 19, 1054. Henry III had done nothing to help him, because he had not proved to be the emperor’s man.
Leo’s successor was again a German, Gebhard, the bishop of Eichstätt, who assumed the name of Victor II (1055-1057).
Meanwhile the Normans went on conquering Byzantine Italy; they occupied all of Apulia and also the greater part of the Duchy of Benevento (with the exception of Benevento itself). They captured Capua in 1062; this city was the very last one to have a Lombard ruler; thus, with its fall, after five centuries the last remnant of Lombard rule disappeared in Italy. The only city that was neither German or papal or Norman or Lombard was Naples, formally Byzantine, but ruled since 840 by an indigenous dynasty. It fell to the Normans in 1139. Byzantine rule over Italy was now over, after four centuries. The majority of the population remained Greek-speaking, as a minority still does today.
HENRY’S DEATH
Henry III died in Bodfeld on October 5, 1056, only thirty-eight years old. Victor II, who happened to be visiting Germany, heard his confession. Henry III must have been the only one European ruler to have had a Pope at his deathbed. His son Henry IV was only six years old; he came under the regency of his mother, the Empress-Dowager Agnes of Poitou. Once adult, Henry would become one of the main figures in the Investiture Controversy (Investiturestreit).
THE INVESTITURE
The German Church had come under the sway of the temporal ruler that it had become a Reichskirche: bishops ands abbots were the king’s nominees and his most devoted vassals. The rulers preferred them above their secular vassals, because their offices were not hereditary. Henry III had introduced the `investiture’, by presenting the prelates with the ring and the crozier, the symbols of their secular and spiritual power. Many bishops and abbots were also secular rulers of territories indeed. Henry III doubtless viewed the Holy See as just another German bishopric. It seemed as though the duality of Church and State had been overcome and that the two had fused into each other.
THE ABBEY OF CLUNY
The Benedictine abbey of Cluny was situated to the north-east of Mâcon, to the west of the river Saône, the frontier of France with the German Empire; the abbey was, in consequence, beyond the reach of the German Emperors. It was founded on September 11, 910, by Duke William III of Aquitaine, who had ceded all his rights to the monks themselves. The abbey was, therefore, self-governing and fell solely and directly under the protection of the Holy See. The bishops of Mâcon in whose diocese the abbey stood claimed to have a say in the abbey’s affairs, but in 998 Pope Gregory V severed all links between the abbey and the bishop. That the abbey was entirely autonomous proved to be of paramount importance for the future of the Church.
The abbey and its community existed until 1790. On November 2, 1789 the revolutionary government of France confiscated all the property of the Benedictine Order; a year later the monks left their abbey. The abbey buildings were sold to developers, who, in the course of the following years, demolished a great part of them, for instance, the great abbey church; only the southern transept still stands. That part of the complex which survived the revolutionary fury, about 10 %, has been carefully restored. A good picture how the abbey looked in its great days can be found on Internet via www.google.com, search: cluny abbey, and click on: Abbaye de Cluny and 3D.
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The foundation charter of the abbey, 911, can be found on the Internet, via www.google.com, search: cluny abbey, and click on Medieval Source Book.
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THE ABBOTS
Over a period of two centuries the abbey had no more than six abbots. They were all saintly men, intent on reform, but also capable managers:
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THE CONGREGATION OF CLUNY
During the tenth century the Cluny abbey had no more than a hundred monks, but towards the end of the century it began to grow rapidly. In 1100 there were three hundred of them and in 1150 four hundred. The fame of the abbey spread all around, so that many Benedictine abbeys affiliated themselves with Cluny; in this way the `congregation of Cluny’ came into being. It comprised several hundreds of priories and abbeys; in 1400 some six hundred convents belonged to the congregation, so that the ideas and ideals of reform became widely spread.
THE THREE PARTS OF THE REFORM MOVEMENT
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THE AIMS OF THE RFEORM MOVEMENT
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THE PAPAL ELECTION
Until then Popes were chosen by the clergy and the people of Rome, which left the aristocratic factions and the emperors much room to manipulate them. Making use of the minority of Henry IV, Pope Nicholas II (1058-1061) decreed in 1059 that a Pope henceforward would be elected by the college of cardinals. To the emperor only a right of consent was left, which did not amount to much. This was the first great success of the reform movement. The first Pope to be chosen under the new regime (which is still operating) was the reform-minded Alexander II (1061-1073).
HENRY IV
Henry IV, son of Henry III, was born in 1050 and was still a minor, when his father died in 1056. In 1065, when he was fourteen years old, he was declared to have become of age. Soon his reputation was that of a profligate.
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SAXONY
Henry IV possessed a number of heavily garrisoned castles in Saxony and Thuringia; these garrisons behaved as if they were in enemy country. A rebellion broke out in Saxony, which led to an armed expedition by royal forces against the rebels. These being too weak, Henry IV ha to give in and conclude peace (2.XI.1074). All his castles in Saxony and Thuringia had to be demolished, with the exception of the mighty Harzburg, where the tombs of the Salian royal family were. However, its walls had to be pulled down.
Peasants of the vicinity stormed the castle, no longer protected by its walls, destroyed the buildings and also the chapel; they dispersed the bones of those who rested in the tombs and set the chapel on fire. This was the revenge of the population on this hated symbol of Salian power.
Henry reopened the hostilities and was this time victorious (1075).
GREGORY VII
On April 22, 1073, Gregory VII was elected as Pope (his own name was Hildebrand), 1073-1085. Petrus Damiani called him `the holy devil’. He was the most important and forceful of the reform Popes of this period.
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THE EXCOMMUNICATION OF HENRY IV
With regard to the Church, Henry IV acted arbitrarily. He appointed an archbishop for Milan and bishops for Fermo and Spoleto with notifying the Pope. Gregory also accused him of keeping company with excommunicated persons. In a letter, dated December 8, 1075, the Pope threatened to excommunicate him, if he did not mend his ways. Henry reacted by stating that the Pope had been illegally elected and should not be acknowledged as Pope.
On February 27, 1076, Gregory excommunicated Henry IV. “I deny to King Henry, who with unheard-of pride has risen up against the Church, the government of the whole kingdom of Germany and Italy. I absolve all Christians from the bond of any oath that they have made or shall make to him; and I forbid anyone to serve him as king. Finally, because he has disdained to show the obedience of a true Christian … I bind him with excommunication.”
Excommunication does not mean that a person is expelled from the Church; this is impossible, because baptism, which make someone a member of the Church, remains always valid. It means that the excommunicated one may no longer receive the sacraments; he will be readmitted the community of the faithful, if he or she does penance.
THE INVESTITURE CONTEST
What was at issue in the Investiture Contest, or Controversy, was not the person of Henry IV or that of any other king, but the question of who would appoint bishops and abbots, the Pope or the king.
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HENRY’S REACTION
At Easter 1076 the king was at Utrecht (NL); its bishop William was one of his staunchest supporters. The news from Rome arrived there in the evening of Holy Saturday, March 26, and had the effect of an exploding bomb. During the evening and night there were excited deliberations. The court’s frame of mind was very much anti-Gregory, or Hildebrand, as they preferred to call him; no qualification was bad enough for him: crook, heretic, murderer, and even adulterer; all these terms of abuse were heard. It was deemed unforgivable that Gregory had dared to excommunicate the bearer of the royal dignity; he should be punished in the same way as he had meant to punish the king, namely, by excommunication. The assembly finally decided that `Hildebrand’ was no longer Pope. Bishop William was particularly instrumental in this. It was resolved that this news would be broken to the faithful the next morning during the Easter solemnity. This had to be very carefully orchestrated in order to prevent them from turning against the king.
Bishop Pilo of Toul was appointed for the task to communicate the night’s decision to the congregation, because he was known to be a pliable man. However, fearing the reaction of the populace and taking fright at what he had done, he fled Utrecht, when it was still dark, accompanied by bishop Theoderic of Verdun and other high clerics. This sudden departure caused the beginning of the Easter High Mass to be delayed. After some deliberation bishop William of Utrecht, who was a powerful orator, declared himself ready to make the decision known. Henry entered the church – it was the still existing St.Peter’s – in his magnificent royal robes, in order to show that the papal condemnation did not interest him in the least. The Mass began, with William officiating; after the Gospel was read, he went to the lectern and told the congregation that Rome had excommunicated the king but that this was totally devoid of validity. He continued with the statement that the bishops, present in Utrecht, had on their part excommunicated `Hildebrand’, because he was a perjurer, an adulterer, and a false Pope. He was not short of being abusive. The effect was not what William hoped for. The audience was terrorized, the more so because on that same day the church was truck by lighting and went up in flames, together with the mansion of the king, next to it.
THE CROSSING OF THE ALPS
In spite of Henry’s high-handed reaction, his position was weak. The greater part of the German episcopate did not support him, whereas the nobility and the people turned away from this excommunicated man. Pope Gregory was thinking of a successor to him. Therefore, Henry decided to seek reconciliation with the Pope, before it was too late. Making haste, he crossed the Alps in December 1076, although the winter was exceptionally severe. He went with a party of fifty persons, among them the queen, Bertha of Turin, and his three-year old son Conrad.
The party crossed the Alps on the Mount Cenis pass, not the easiest one with its height of two thousand meters. It was icy cold; the mountain peaks disappeared into the snow-laden clouds. Nothing but snow and ice was to be seen. The frozen paths were so slippery that one careless step could be fatal. Experienced local guides assisted the party to reach the col. There seemed to be no going farther; the road downward was one ice-floor. Yet there was no return either. The men began to descend; some lost their footing and slid down quite a long way, thanking God that they did not fall into a ravine; others lent on the shoulders of the guides. For the queen and her ladies, the descent was a totally impossible task; they were placed on cow’s hides, which were drawn by the guides. A special problem was formed by the horses; some of them were hauled down with their legs tied together. Only a few animals reached the valley without injuries. It was a nightmare for all concerned, but miraculously there seem to have been no human casualties. Once in North Italy, the party could recover at the court of Henry’s mother-in-law, countess Adelaide of Turin.
CANOSSA
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On Wednesday January 7, 1077, he removed his royal garments and donned a simple woollen dress, as worn by a penitent. Although it was bitterly cold, he walked barefoot to the gate of the castle, only to find it closed. After having waited some time, he returned to Bianello, but came back the next day in the same condition. Yet the doors did not open. Once again he came on Friday, but although he was in tears and humbly asked the Pope’s mercy, the doors were shut and remained shut. Inside the castle, however, Gregory was under very heavy pressure. All his advisers, abbot Hugh of Cluny, countess Adelaide, countess Matilda, and others, moved by the wretched spectacle, beseeched him to be merciful. On the morning of Saturday 10, 1077, the doors swung open; the penitent king, chilled to the bones, was ushered in and brought to the castle chapel. The Pope, who did not want to be deceived, knowing Henry’s unreliable character, was now convinced, or rather persuaded by his entourage, of Henry’s sincerity. He was pardoned and received back into the bosom of the Church. Gregory exchanged the kiss of peace with him. Tears flowed copiously; it must have been a moving scene, indeed. The Pope celebrated Mass and admitted Henry to the sacraments. After the ceremonies in the chapel, the Pope and the king dined together; the meal was concluded with Gregory giving Henry his blessing.
This scene is re-enacted in Canossa annually on the first Sunday of September in a pageant. Find www.google.com → Canossa → Commune di Canossa → Storia e territorio → Percorsi turistici → Castello di Canossa (with photo of the remains of the castle) → Reevocazione storica canossana (with pictures) (all in Italian).
GREGORY VII’S BASIC POSITION
The struggle between Pope Gregory VII and the Emperor Henry IV was not only a combat between the German Empire and the Roman Catholic Church, but even more between political power and religion. “The deepest springs of Gregory’s thought and action are not be found in any politician’s urge to wield power and to humble his adversaries, nor in any abuse of priestly power by seeking dominion over the souls of others, and above all, of kings and the lay orders of society.”(Cowdrey). Yet this essentially religious outlook was also his weakness. His outlook was basically monastic: he was a monk and one of the vows he had made was that of obedience, unconditional obedience to superiors, to abbots, that is. Gregory found that all Christians, whether priests and laypeople, should obey him, the supreme pastor, unconditionally. He thought, so to speak, of the Christian world as one big monastery. “Gregory did not reckon with men as they actually are”(Carl Erdmann); “Gregory did not grasp the complexities of political life.” (Cowdrey).
In 1085 the South Italian Normans occupied and plundered Rome; Gregory fled to Salerno where he died on May 9, 1085. His last words were: “I have loved righteousness and hated iniquity; therefore, I die in exile.” It is often thought that his last words were spoken with great bitterness, but Cowdrey interprets them differently. “Gregory saw in his exile at Salerno the blessedness that Christ promised to those who suffer persecution for righteousness.”
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DEATH OF HENRY IV: THE MYTHICAL KING
In 1080 Gregory VII excommunicated Henry IV for the second time. He was still excommunicated, when he died in Liège on January 5, 1106. He was much revered by the common people, by the poor and humble. His body first lay in state in the cathedral, but since the king had died excommunicated, his corpse was not allowed to remain there; it was transferred to an unconsecrated chapel on a hill outside the walls and provisionally buried there. An anonymous monk stayed in the chapel, singing psalms day and night. Then the envoys of King Henry V, the successor, came in order to bring the body to Speyer. However, when the convoy passed through Liège, people took it from them and brought it to the cathedral.
A Requiem could not be sung for the banned emperor, but poor simple priests said numerous Masses for him during the night. All that time commoners with swords stood ready around the bier to prevent the body from being transferred elsewhere. Meanwhile, the terrified canons of the cathedral were hiding themselves from the fury of the populace. People touched the bier, because they thought this would bring them luck. Others gathered earth from Henry’s grave on the hill and spread it over their fields and through their houses, because it was blessed. The corpse had lain on a bed of grain; if the peasants mixed it with other grain, they believed their harvest would be exceptionally fruitful.
Finally, on August 25, some devoted servants of the deceased ruler brought his corpse to Speyer in a stone sarcophaghus, where they arrived on September 3. The sarcophagus was taken into St.Mary’s cathedral, but the bishop forbade the singing of a Requiem. He too had the body transferred to an unconsecrated chapel. This caused unrest in the town. Yet the bishop stood his ground, and the sarcophagus remained in the chapel for five years, where it was visited by countless people, as if it were a place of pilgrimage. It was only in 1111 that the internment in the cathedral could took place.
All this proves that the Königsmythus, the royal myth, was alive as ever. Notions of a king, of a king’s touch, even of a dead king’s body bringing luck, reach back thousands and thousands of years, to ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. The Church might have condemned Henry IV, the dukes might have fought him, his sons might have rebelled against him, but the people remained steadfastly true to him. To them, he was the ideally `just king’, after the image of David. The Pope was a sacred person, nobody denied this, but the king was also sacred, in his own right.
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HENRY V
Henry IV was succeeded by his son Henry V (1106-1125).
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THE IMPERIAL CROWN
Henry V departed to Italy at the end of 1110; he went with a large army. The question of the investiture still not being resolved, negotiations between the king and Pope Paschal II (1099-1118) were begun. Henry did not intend to cede only an inch; he considered the investiture as an inalienable right of the German crown. Paschal was just as firmly resolved that bishops and abbots should not wield secular power. They must restitute to the king all the goods and rights the German kings had presented the Church with. On Sunday February 12, 1111, the king and his army reached Rome. He was received with great honour by the clergy and people of Rome. There were banners and crosses, flowers were thrown, and palms were waived. Yet, while Henry and his retinue were led through the streets to St.Peter’s, there were already, behind the crowds, some fisticuffs between German soldiers and Romans. In the portico of the church Pope Paschal II, surrounded by cardinals and bishops, stood ready to receive him; incense rose in clouds, the schola cantorum did its very best. Henry knelt and kissed the Pope’s feet; then they embraced and kissed one another three times.
The king then solemnly confirmed the privileges of the Roman Church, just as all his predecessors had done. When he had done this, the Pope declared that he was worthy of the imperial dignity, took him by the hand and led him into the church, to two seats where they sat down next to one another. Henry began by openly declaring that he renounced the right of investiture – a major concession on his part, but he wanted above all the imperial crown. Next Paschal took the floor and began to read a statement that contained nothing new. He said that the bishops and abbots of the empire had become public servants; they were overwhelmed with temporal affairs and even had to wage war. No prelate could be ordained without having received the king’s investiture, which was utterly wrong. For this reason his predecessors Gregory VII and Urban II had condemned the custom of the investiture. Henceforward, prelates who accepted the investiture would be excommunicated. Paschal ordered all bishops and abbots to restitute all the goods and rights they had received out of the ruler’s hands, and he forbade to henceforward to accept such presents. Bishops had nothing else to do than care for the spiritual welfare of their flocks.
During the lecture of this statement the tension among the audience grew steadily. The prelates at first listened in stony silence; when the Pope came to the statement that they must relinquish their goods and rights, a tumult arose, such as St.Peter’s had never witnessed before. The venerable vaults rang with their shouts and protests so that the Pope could hardly be understood. The prelates who were present saw themselves all of a sudden robbed of their incomes, their privileges and the special position they occupied in the political fabric of the empire. The king left his seat and went, accompanied by a number of bishops and secular lords to an aisle, where a discussion took place. This lasted long, and Paschal sent some persons to the group around the king to ask them to reach a conclusion. Then excited opponents surrounded the Pope’s seat and began accusing him of acting very wrongly.
Henry could forget his coronation. In St.Peter’s itself adherents and opponents of the Pope came to blows; soon blood also flowed in the streets of the town. From the side of the cardinals it was suggested to crown the king that very night, in spite of everything, and discuss all other questions later. Angrily the court refused. The situation was indeed hopeless; there was fighting on the very steps of the church, with the Romans assaulting the Germans, so that there were victims even fatal ones. Since the king was still in the church, several soldiers who guarded the entrance were killed. All that time the Pope and his entourage, who were also still inside, were guarded by armed soldiers.
Some prelates, adherents of Paschal, managed to escape and his themselves in the town. Others were not so lucky; they were surrounded by German soldiery and robbed of their priestly dress, some even of their underwear, while several were arrested. Once it was completely dark, Henry had the Pope and the cardinals who were still with him, transferred to a hospice in the vicinity, where they were placed under custody. Everywhere in the town there were tumultus, dolor et gemitus.
Underestimating the danger, on the next morning, Monday the 13th, Henry wanted to cross the Tiber and enter the city proper. He and his men, small in number, were met on the bridge by a large body of armed Romans. A formal battle ensued. The citizens drove the Germans back through the narrow alleys of the Leonine city. Fighting desperately, the king fell wounded from his horse and barely escaped his pursuers. The pavement was strewn with German corpses that fell a prey to Roman rapacity. Meanwhile, reinforcements arrived from the German camp outside the walls; on a new horse the wounded king led the counter-attack. Now the Romans were pressed back; their losses were heavy, especially on the Tiber bridge. However, the Castle of Sant’Angelo was in Roman hands; from there a rain of arrows and javelins was showered on the Germans, who once again beat the retreat. The night came and made an end of the fighting, leaving both sides licking their wounds. Judging his situation hopeless, Henry withdrew from Rome in the night of 15 to 16 February.
After protracted negotiations between the Pope and the king, the coronation could at last take place on April 13, 1111 in St.Peter’s. It was a rather dreary affair. Henry’s army had occupied the Leonine City (to the west of the Tiber), but Rome’s gates remained closed to him; he never set foot in the town. Armed soldiers surrounded the church in order to prevent all trouble. It was the first imperial coronation from which clergy and people of Rome were absent. Probably on that same day Henry and his army began to withdraw to Germany.
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THE CONCORDAT OF WORMS
As might be expected, the Investiture Controversy ended with a compromise, since the long conflict had worn itself out. Pope Calixtus II (1119-1124) sent an embassy to Germany, where it negotiated with Henry V and his staff. On September 22, 1122, the Concordat of Worms was concluded. It was a great triumph for the ecclesiastical reform party that Henry V renounced for himself and his successors the right of investiture: he might no longer appoint bishops and abbots and invest them with ring and crozier. This means that the king was no longer the acting head of the Reichskirche. However, bishops and abbots were not restricted to their spiritual tasks; the king was still allowed to present the sceptre to them, so that many prelates remained secular lords.
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THE END OF THE SALIAN HOUSE
Henry V died, only thirty-nine years old, on May 23, 1125 in Utrecht. He left no male offspring, so that with his death the Salian House came to its end.