But these propitious events were more than countervailed by the rebellion of his own son, Conrad, whose unnatural ambition tempted him to this fatal step. Seduced by the blandishments of Matilda and the pope, he was crowned king of Italy at Milan, with the promise of the imperial dignity on condition of his yielding the great question of investitures. Fortunately the contagion was confined to Italy; and, on his return to Germany, Henry IV found no marks of disaffection. The assembled states maintained their fidelity, declared Conrad to have forfeited the crown, and elected in his stead Henry, second son of the emperor, who swore to respect his father’s authority, and abstain from interfering in the government. The services of the imperial partisans were liberally rewarded, and to Welf VI were restored the duchy of Bavaria and other states which he had forfeited by his former rebellion. The guilty Conrad soon found his visions of dominion entirely dissipated. Discouraged by the fidelity of the Germans to the emperor the supporters of the young prince fell rapidly away, and he died deserted and despised at Florence, not without suspicion of poison (1101).
Henry IV now again announced his intention of visiting Italy, in the hope of effecting a reconciliation between the empire and the popedom. But his schemes were at once frustrated by a new rebellion. Neither regarding the oath he had solemnly sworn, nor admonished by the example of his brother’s fall, Henry, second son of the emperor, impatient of the long reign of his father, appeared in arms against him. The rebellious prince found a warm supporter in Pope Paschal II, who succeeded Urban II in 1099, and in a council held in Rome solemnly renewed the censures which his predecessor Gregory had thundered against Henry. No pretension of the see of Rome was more odious than the right it assumed to absolve men from oaths deliberately taken; and the new pope taught the prince to believe that the excommunication of his father completely freed him from all obligation. In the bitterness of his heart the afflicted Henry attempted to recall his son to a sense of duty by the most gentle and touching exhortations; but these mild efforts were entirely lost upon the prince, who resolutely declared his determination to avoid all intercourse with a man excommunicated.k
END OF HENRY IV
[1101-1106 A.D.]
Perhaps he feared that through the growing weakness of his father more of the royal power might be lost; perhaps his ambition could not wait for the time when the crown would fall to him, or he feared that another would be elected in his stead; at any rate in 1105 he rebelled. Most of the German princes were on his side. The exasperated father likewise prepared for combat, and a civil war more cruel than any former ones shattered the empire.
On the river Regen father and son stood face to face, the former still strong through the support of Leopold of Austria and the duke of Bohemia. Skirmishing went on for three days without anything decisive having occurred, and then young Henry won over Leopold of Austria by the promise to give him his sister Agnes, the widow of the great Staufen, in marriage. With him all deserted the aged emperor, and he stood alone as Louis the Pious had once stood on the Lügenfeld. But the kindly feeling which his predecessors, and especially he himself, had shown to the towns now bore plentiful fruit. Through the rights and liberties conferred upon them and increased by the emperors since Conrad II they had now become flourishing communities, and their numerous and well fortified residences bordered the great commercial waterway of the Rhine. They all declared themselves on the side of the aged emperor; luck seemed to desert his wicked son. Under the mask of hypocrisy he came to Coblenz, humbled himself before his father, and begged for forgiveness: the princes assembled in Mainz were to settle the last quarrel. The father forgave his son, and took him in his arms with tears; then unsuspectingly he rode with him to the appointed place of meeting. But the son with evil cunning decoyed him to the fortress of Böckelheim in Nahethale: the grating fell behind the emperor as he entered, and he found himself his son’s prisoner. The latter with his princes demanded his voluntary abdication and the surrendering of the crown jewels. Broken down by misfortune the old man had to accede to these requests. But new abuses and even danger of death threatened him; then he fled from the custody of his son, and the faithful towns again armed for his safety. The war began anew, and its issue was hard to foretell; then the news came from Lüttich that the emperor was dead (1106). Even in death the ban weighed upon him, for his coffin remained unburied for over five years in unconsecrated places; but the people loudly lamented the dearly loved ruler, who after the short errors of youth had been so long and heavily afflicted by misfortune. Certainly his last years did much, if the old chroniclers may be believed, to remove the stains of his early follies and crimes. He is represented as having, after his victory over Gregory VII, protected the poor against their oppressors, put down robbery, administered justice, and maintained the public peace.
HENRY V AND THE WAR OF INVESTITURES
[1106-1111 A.D.]
Henry V was now acknowledged throughout the empire. He owed his crown to the papal party and the princes, but no sooner was he in possession of the power for which he had striven than he showed that he had resolution enough to hold his own against all comers. Abroad he succeeded in restoring the dominion of the empire over Flanders and securing his western frontier; his campaigns on the eastern border, against Poland, Hungary, and Bohemia, were less fortunate. In the interior and in his relations to the princes he could effect little change in the conditions which had grown up under Henry IV. The fiefs, large and small, had long since become hereditary, the crown property had dwindled sadly; hardly any district was under the direct rule of the king. In case of war the latter summoned his great vassals, and they in their turn summoned their feudal retainers and “ministerials”—i.e., vassals; and these constituted the army of the empire. Thus feudalism had penetrated to the lowest ranks of the people, but the king was still regarded as the ruling head of the state; and a powerful monarch at the head of this body of many members could accomplish more than the other sovereigns of Europe, whose power in their own dominions was no less restricted by that of their great vassals.
Devoid of heart and conscience though he might be, Henry V was by no means deficient in the prudence and capacity for government which had characterised his forefathers. He possessed resolution and boldness; but he was hasty and precipitate, and often frustrated his own great purposes by acts of arbitrary violence. The papal party soon realised that they had mistaken his character; for he contested the papal right of investiture even more resolutely than his father had done, and as early as 1110 he undertook a brilliant expedition to Rome in connection with the matter. When he reached Lombardy and held a diet of the empire on the plains of Roncaglia near Piacenza, the Italian cities (with the exception of Milan and Pavia), which had risen more rapidly than those of Germany and to a height of prosperity even greater, acknowledged his supremacy and the countess Matilda did him homage as her feudal lord. In the year 1111 he arrived at Rome.
[1111-1122 A.D.]