Showing posts with label HREmperor Henry V. Show all posts
Showing posts with label HREmperor Henry V. Show all posts

Monday, October 10, 2022

Empress Matilda

The previous post discussed how Stephen of Blois seized the throne of England in 1135 upon the death of King Henry I, despite having sworn an oath of loyalty to Henry's daughter, Matilda. Coincidentally, usurpation was how Henry gained the throne, too.

Matilda did not take well to Stephen's usurpation. She was not, after all, an idle daughter waiting for her moment to shine: by this time, she was Empress Matilda by virtue of marriage to Holy Roman Emperor Henry V (shown above in a 12th century chronicle). (And who would believe it? Henry V tried to usurp the throne from his father, Henry IV.)

Henry V had died 10 years prior to the current crisis, but Matilda retained the title Empress. Her father recalled her to Normandy and arranged marriage to Geoffrey of Anjou to protect his southern border. (Blois was also on the southern border of Normandy; perhaps if he had arranged a different marriage...?) From here she could make plans to assume the English throne, kicking off a period called The Anarchy.

Stephen's reign was not without trouble. Not everyone approved of him personally, or of his seizing of the throne after pledging loyalty to Henry's daughter. In 1139 she left Geoffrey to conquer Normandy while she crossed the English Channel to take the throne from Stephen. She and her half-brother Robert of Gloucester visited her step-mother Adeliza, which caused Stephen to react. Afterward, she and Robert, with support from her uncle, King David I of Scotland, raised an army and captured Stephen at the Battle of Lincoln in 1141.

The next step was to be crowned at Westminster, but the people of London were against her and prevented it. She was never considered a Queen, not even for a moment. Her title in royal listings is Domina Anglorum, "Lady of the English." Stephen's supporters captured Robert, and Matilda agreed to exchange him for Stephen.

Although she had control over much of south-west England, Matilda returned to Normandy in 1148 (now under her husband's control), leaving her eldest son to continue the war. Other factors were at play: she was living in a castle that she took from the bishop of Salisbury; Pope Eugene III threatened her with excommunication if she did not return it.

The war became a stalemate, and the stalemate become the 1153 Treaty of Wallingford (or Westminster, or Winchester: all three are used), formally ending The Anarchy and agreeing that Matilda's son would become king upon Stephen's death, which obligingly happened a year later. Henry became King Henry II of England, starting the Angevin Empire.

I'd like to talk about the impact of the Angevin Empire next, but if you want more detail on The Anarchy you can check out posts from 10 years ago: Parts One, Two, and Three, along with this.)

Tuesday, August 12, 2014

The Investiture Controversy

The Concordat of Worms that
ended the Investiture Controversy
There was a recent mention that Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV was best known for the Investiture Controversy. Investiture was the act of conferring on someone honors or titles. In this case, the controversy was over who had authority to name clergy, the king of the country in which the bishop would preside, or the pope?

Obviously, kings would like to choose the people who would manage ecclesiastical courts, and stock the positions with those loyal to the throne. The pope (and other clergy) would much rather have the Church decide on these positions and not owe any particular loyalty to secular governments.

The concern of the secular authority was based on the fact that a bishopric carried with it a grant of land, and the secular lords wanted to make sure those lands were still under some kind of control. A bishop named by the pope would not necessarily be loyal to the local lord.

Pope Gregory tried to reform some church practices, including bringing the power of investiture completely under the papacy. For a long time, Germany was in the position of ratifying popes, but when Henry IV first became king of the Germans in 1056, he was only six years old, and so the Gregorian reformers acted fast to wrest the power of the papacy away from German control. The Church created the College of Cardinals as the body authorized to elect a new pope.

In 1075, Gregory declared that the sole universal power in the world was the pope's; secular power only applied to local concerns. He also declared that the pope alone had power to appoint or depose clergy, and the pope had power to depose an emperor.

Henry opposed this, and continued to appoint clergy, but the pope excommunicated him. If his nobles had stayed loyal, the outcome might have been different, but much of the aristocracy turned on him, forcing him to make the Walk to Canossa. Even the resolution at Canossa did not stop the battle between popes and emperors.

In 1122, a "final" resolution was made with an agreement between Henry V and Pope Calixtus II. Called "The Concordat of Worms" (because the meeting took place near Worms), it gave the German kings the power to grant or withhold secular power (lands, titles) to clergy, but not to make them clergy.

This controversy did not exactly begin (or end) with Henry IV and Pope Gregory VII. The debate between papal and secular authority to confer titles was confused on Christmas Day 800 when Pope Leo III placed the crown of the Holy Roman Emperors on his head during Mass. This raised the question whether the pope had the authority to pick an emperor or king. And the Concordat did not exactly resolve the issue everywhere: just between Germany and the pope. England and the papacy also butted heads over this, which we will look at tomorrow.

Thursday, August 7, 2014

Fathers & Sons in the HRE

Henry IV (center), with his sons Henry V & Conrad
Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV is best known for the Investiture Controversy and the Walk to Canossa, when he did penance so that Pope Gregory VII would lift an excommunication.

Henry was excommunicated again in 1084; however, this time he wasn't so penitent. He marched into Rome, deposed Gregory, and appointed his own pope, Clement III. The College of Cardinals had another idea, however, declared Clement III an "anti-pope," and appointed their own pope, Pope Urban II. Urban supported Gregory VII's ideas and opposed Henry, as did Pope Paschal II who followed him in 1099.

Henry was prepared to oppose the popes, but a further betrayal created worse trouble for him. His son, Henry (1086 - 1125; later Holy Roman Emperor Henry V). Sons in line for the throne often make designs on that throne before their predecessor departs by his own choice, and young Henry decided that his father's excommunication was good grounds for staging a rebellion.

In 1104, young Henry decided it was time to stand up and depose Henry IV. The Church was willing (naturally) to support the son against the father who had proven to be no friend to the papacy. Henry IV had been trying to maintain order in the Empire, and did not want a war. He agreed to a meeting to try to achieve a peaceful resolution; the meeting, however, was a ruse, and he was captured by his son's forces. Imprisoned in Böckelheim Castle in southwestern Germany, he was forced to renounce his creation of Pope Clement and to admit that he was unjustly hostile to Pope Gregory.

Henry IV was German, however, and Germany itself was not keen on having their king deposed and imprisoned by a teenager who then declared himself Holy Roman Emperor Henry V. In 1106, forces loyal to Henry IV opposed his son and the pope and freed Henry IV from his prison. Henry Senior started making alliances with other nations for support. Early in 1106, he defeated his son's forces, but he succumbed to an illness of several days and died on 7 August.

Because he was still excommunicated, his body was placed by order of the papal legate into an unconsecrated chapel until the excommunication was lifted in summer of 1111.

Henry V did become Holy Roman Emperor in his own right from 1111 until 1125

Friday, November 9, 2012

The Anarchy, Part 1 (of 3)

When the White Ship sank in 1120, drowning King Henry I's son and heir, William Adelin, England was in crisis. Henry decided that his daughter, Empress Matilda (1102-1167), should inherit the throne. She was called "Empress" because she had been betrothed as a child to the Holy Roman Emperor, Henry V; they were married in 1114. She had actually spent some years as Henry's regent in Italy, gaining some political and administrative experience.

That came later, however. Her father, King Henry I, had about 20 illegitimate children, but none of them would have been acceptable as king, so he tried to gain himself a legitimate heir to replace William by marrying again in 1121 (to Adeliza of Louvain), but no male heir was forthcoming. Henry V died in 1125, and Henry I summoned his daughter from Germany—awkward for her, since she had essentially become a German, having grown up there since childhood, learned the language, and ruled its people. Still, she had not produced an heir for Henry V, and so that dynasty ended and the throne went to someone who had no use for the widow of his predecessor. Matilda spent a year in Normandy, becoming re-acquainted with her father, and in 1126 went to England.

Even though Henry had his Court swear oaths to accept her status, however, not everyone was pleased with the choice. King Louis VI of France suggested William Clito, Henry's eldest illegitimate son, in order to create conflict in the English court. Through a sudden and advantageous marriage, Louis managed to make Clito's status more important and potentially more disruptive to Henry's plans.

Then, in 1135, Henry I died. Matilda was in Anjou with her new husband, Geoffrey of Anjou—too far from England to take control of the situation. Her cousin, Stephen of Blois, rushed to seize the Crown, breaking—along with a majority of barons—the oath he had sworn years earlier. His action started a period of civil war that lasted for almost 20 years.

[to be continued]