[1052-1055 A.D.]
The Peace of Tribur was finally ratified, and Henry had once more time to devote his energies to the internal affairs of the empire. Down to the year 1055 he worked hard at consolidating the legal system and developing the resources of the nation. Fresh disorders in Italy called him thither. Matters beyond the Alps had been in dire confusion for many years, for Pope Leo IX became involved in a war with the Normans in 1053 and was actually taken prisoner by them. In addition, Gottfried, the deposed duke of Lorraine, who had been reconciled to the emperor in 1050 by the good offices of Leo IX and had then accompanied the pope to Italy, had there married the widow of Marquis Bonifazio of Tuscany and taken possession of her former husband’s dominions. Henry III feared that Gottfried would stir up rebellion in Italy, and this circumstance seemed also to render the emperor’s presence in that country imperative. He had therefore long meditated another expedition across the Alps, but disaffections that arose in Germany itself and various isolated attempts on the part of some refractory nobles decided him not to quit the country.
In the year 1054 Pope Leo died and the Romans again sent an embassy to request the emperor to nominate a new pope. This he at first modestly declined to do; but, yielding nevertheless to their reiterated entreaties, he designated Bishop Gebhard of Eichstädt, his kinsman and friend, as the successor of Leo IX. Gebhard was unanimously accepted in this capacity, and assumed the papal dignity under the title of Victor II, amidst the acclaims of the people. Thus Henry III for the fourth time disposed of the papal office, and for the fourth time conferred it on a German. At the nomination of Victor II Hildebrand himself, the influential counsellor of Leo IX, was with the embassy which besought the emperor to designate the next pope, which proves how little intention Hildebrand had of opposing the will of Henry III. Like the emperor he earnestly desired reform, and showed by this step that he had no fear of undue encroachments on the part of the latter upon the privileges of the church. Thus even the strongest natures in a manner attest their reverence for the great emperor’s character.
German Noble of the Eleventh Century in Court Dress
After the appointment of Pope Victor II, the king of Germany felt himself bound to afford him the protection of his imperial authority, and in the year 1055 he started for Italy, almost at the same time as the pope. In May of that year he appeared on the plains of Roncaglia; and there the princes and feudal vassals of Italy likewise appeared, to offer the homage of sincere reverence to the king of Germany, together with their oaths of allegiance. Pope Victor II convened a synod at Florence, where, in the emperor’s presence, the laws against simony and other edicts of a reformatory tendency were either re-enacted or amplified. An inquiry was then held into the conduct of Gottfried, sometime duke of Lorraine, which ended in the acquittal of the defendant—not, so the old chronicler expressly states, because his innocence was proved, but because his judges feared that if driven to desperation he would make himself the leader of the Normans in lower Italy. His wife Beatrice was carried off to Germany by Henry III, who defended his arbitrary action in this respect by saying that Beatrice had disposed of her hand without his consent, and had moreover bestowed it upon an enemy of her country. Towards the end of the year 1055 the emperor recrossed the Alps. Several nobles were already cherishing schemes of revolt, for a conspiracy had been formed against him under the leadership of Bishop Gebhard of Ratisbon; and Gottfried, assisted by Count Baldwin, once more made his appearance in Lorraine. The schemes of the malcontents were again frustrated by Henry’s firmness; Gebhard was brought to trial and committed to prison, and both Gottfried and Baldwin were defeated in the open field.
On this occasion the emperor met the king of France at Jovi to settle various affairs of state, and here again the vigour and heroic temper of Henry III were strikingly displayed. For the French king asserted that the German Empire had unlawfully taken possession of Lorraine, whereupon Henry offered to prove the falsity of the assertion by single combat. The king of France was only too well aware of the German emperor’s superiority, and fled secretly by night across the border.h
THE TRUCE OF GOD
[1035-1056 A.D.]
The times were rude, manners were no less so. Ceaseless wars, the feuds of the nobles, acts of violence of every kind, combined with hunger and pestilence to bring unspeakable misery upon the nations. According to the opinions of the time, the papacy should have been a strong helper in the midst of these calamities, but Rome was the seat of the worst disorders of all and most of the popes neither deserved nor commanded respect. At length the miseries of the age aroused—first in the monastery of Cluny in Burgundian France—an austere and devout religious spirit which at first found expression, according to the fashion of the times, in penitential exercises and monkish discipline, but presently ripened into vast projects of reform.
Hence came, in particular, the recommendation of the “truce of God” (Treuga Dei), and hence it spread over Burgundy and France. This was an attempt to insure certain days of peace and quiet in that iron age; it ordained that no feud should be fought out between Wednesday evening and early Monday morning, and the church sanctioned this institution. So strong was the influence of the example set by Cluny (Clugny) that in a little while all the numerous monasteries in France and Burgundy joined the “congregation of Cluny,” and a sombre earnestness took possession of the best men of the time.
So it was with Henry III. In the midst of the corruptions of the age he saw no salvation except through the most drastic measures, and felt that he, as the emperor, had a special call to be the deliverer of the people. He himself set a good example; he appointed none but earnest and worthy men to bishoprics, and that without taking money or presents from them; by act and admonition he laboured incessantly for peace and conciliation. He looked upon his imperial rank as a sacred office, instituted for the improvement of Christendom, and never set the crown upon his head without previous confession and penance, which last he even had inflicted upon himself with scourges. But the more he humbled himself the more urgent did he feel was the call to raise up the church by the mighty hand of the first of earthly sovereigns.
SORROWS OF HENRY’S LAST YEARS
[1045-1056 A.D.]
The day of Sutri was the culminating point of the emperor’s life; from that time forward until he died he was engaged in an incessant struggle with adverse circumstances. The Hungarians, after overthrowing King Peter and putting out his eyes, had shaken off the yoke of the empire, and Henry’s frequent expeditions against the rebels led to no good result. Furthermore, before these events occurred, that same Gozelo of Lorraine to whom Conrad II had been so deeply indebted and upon whom he had bestowed the whole of Lorraine, had died, and Henry III conferred Upper Lorraine alone as a fief upon his son Gottfried the Bearded. Gottfried rebelled, and, as we have seen, won the hand of Beatrice of Tuscany, the widow of Bonifazio; and thus by marriage this enemy of the emperor had become the most powerful prince in Italy.
Momentous changes were also taking place in lower Italy. The Normans had there founded a dominion which began to menace the borders of the states of the church. Leo IX, like his predecessor a German by birth, went to war with them, and took the field in person after the custom of German bishops. He had been defeated and taken prisoner at the battle of Civitate, not far from Monte Gargano. But the Normans, as crafty as they were devout, treated the successor of St. Peter with profound veneration, and Leo made his peace with them, outwardly at least, and repealed the sentence of excommunication pronounced upon them. After Leo’s death, Hildebrand, who directed the policy of the papal see, realised the value of the friendship thus gained; and seeing that the Normans were anxious to establish a legitimate claim to their conquests in lower Italy and Sicily, he induced them to accept their lands in fee from St. Peter, after which they became loyal vassals of the pope. This circumstance, together with the rise of Gottfried’s power, obliged the emperor to undertake a fresh expedition to Rome. In the matter of the Normans, Henry could achieve nothing, for affairs in Germany had obliged him to return thither with all speed.