The Story of William Clito

When William the Conqueror died, he had already made his wishes clear about the division of his lands. His older son, Robert Curthose, became Duke of Normandy, a large and prosperous province on the continent. A younger son, William Rufus, became king of England. A third surviving son, Henry, was left with nothing, but when Rufus died suddenly Henry raced to take the kingdom, becoming Henry I.

So the older son got a duchy and the younger son a kingdom. In 1106, King Henry I conquered Normandy from Robert. Robert Curthose had a son, William Clito, who pressed a claim to Normandy after his father died, but Henry wanted to give Normandy to his own son, William Adelin.

King Louis VI of France and William Clito were opposed to Henry's assertion of authority over Normandy. Battles and alliances took place over a few years with Henry always coming out on top. William Clito spent some time flying "under the radar." Then something happened that gave him a chance to re-assert his claim.

William Adelin died in the White Ship tragedy.

Henry had no more male heirs. Worse, William Adelin was supposed to marry Matilda, the daughter of Fulk V of Anjou, and Fulk wanted the dowry back (several castles and towns between Normandy and Anjou). Henry wouldn't give up those places, and so Fulk married another daughter, Sibylla of Anjou, to a young man who was 18, popular, and had recent experience in military campaigns—none other than William Clito. The two were married in 1123.

Henry strongly objected to this, and wrote to Pope Calixtus II to complain that William and Sibylla were too closely related for the marriage to be appropriate, due to the laws of consanguinity. Calixtus annulled the marriage, an action which was objected to by the bride's father until Calixtus excommunicated him and placed Anjou under interdict.

This is the event that I mentioned in yesterday's post: that the papal legate was allowed into England by Henry later after eight legates were refused as a quid pro quo because the papacy had done Henry the favor of annulling the marriage.

The marriage was done, but Clito was not. Tomorrow I'll tell you what happened and about his death some years later. The illustration is his seal when Louis made him Count of Flanders.

Honorius and Conflicts, Part 3

After making a deal with Roger II of Sicily, Pope Honorius II turned his attention back to focusing on monasteries he felt were too powerful and independent. The abbot of Monte Cassino had been dealt with, but there was another abbot who was acting up improperly, Pons of Melgueil.

Pons (c.1075 - 1126) was the seventh abbot of  Cluny, but had been ousted in 1122. Pons had been a mediator at the Concordat of Worms that resolved the Investiture Controversy. While abbot, he had continued the building of the great abbey church of Cluny. This became "Cluny III" (pictured) and was the largest Christian church for the next 200 years.

During the Investiture Controversy, when Holy Roman Emperor Henry V marched on Rome in 1118, Pope Gelasius II fled Rome and found safety at Cluny. While there, he (supposedly) declared that he should be succeeded as pope by either Archbishop Guy of Vienne or Pons. Guy of Vienne became Pope Calixtus II, and was followed by Honorius.

Pons may have been bothered by having papal ambitions that went nowhere. In 1122 his monks at Cluny charged him with extravagance. The Archbishop of Lyon and the Bishop of Mâcon had also complained about him spending money too lavishly. Calixtus summoned him to Rome, where he resigned as abbot and made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. In 1123 he was back in Italy and started a small monastery of his own.

He then decided to reclaim his position as abbot of Cluny. He managed to gather some mercenaries and marched to Cluny in 1125 where he pushed out Abbot Hugh II of Cluny. He occupied the monastery and melted down some of the treasures there to pay his mercenaries, who remained in the area, harassing the monks and nearby villagers.

Honorius heard what was happening and sent a papal legate to excommunicate Pons and order him to Rome. Pons was deposed by Honorius in 1126 and put in prison where he died. At Cluny he was succeeded by Peter the Venerable.

Then Bernard of Clairvaux wrote to Honorius, asking him to get involved in a dispute between Louis VI of France and the French bishops. Honorius was all too glad to get involved, but that's a story for tomorrow.

Triglav and Otto and Hermann

Yesterday's post on the Zbruch Idol mentioned that one interpretation of it is that it represents Triglav, the three-headed god of the pre-Christian Slavs. His tri-partite appearance is thought to refer to Earth, Sky/Heaven, and Underworld. Ironically, the most we know about this pagan presence is from Christian biographies of the man sent to eliminate it.

Otto of Bamberg was sent by Pope Calixtus II to preach in Pomerania, on the southern shore of the Baltic Sea (between Poland and Germany). He reached the area in August 1124. Opposition drove him out of his first attempts, but he made contact with Duke Bolesław III of Lesser Poland, who was a Roman Catholic. Bolesław gave him assurances of safety and support.

In the town of Szczecin there were two temples to Triglav. One housed a black horse with a gold- and silver-plated saddle. The horse was used for prophecy. Spears were placed on the ground and the horse encouraged to walk through them. If the horse did not step on any spears, good fortune would follow in whatever the undertaking was for the immediate future.

Otto had the temples destroyed, himself destroying a wooden statue of Triglav. From another temple, however, the pagan priests took the statue of Triglav away to keep it safe. They gave it to a widow on a small farm to keep it safe, and she wrapped it in a blanket and hid it in a tree with only a small hole in the trunk through which offerings could be given.

Otto's assistant, Hermann (who later succeeded Otto as bishop of Bamberg), hearing that there was a Triglav idol available for worship, decided to find and eliminate it. He disguised himself as a mundane Slav and went searching. Finding the farm and the widow, he claimed he had been saved from the jaws of the sea and wished to give thanks to Triglav. The widow told him:

If you have been sent by him, I have here the altar which contains our god, enclosed in the hole made in an oak. You may not see him nor touch him, but rather, prostrating yourself before the trunk, take note from a prudent distance of the small hole where you must place the sacrifice you wish to make. And after offering it, once the orifice is reverently closed, go and, if you value your life, do not reveal this conversation to anybody. [Ebo, Life of Saint Otto, Bishop of Bamberg]

Hermann goes to the tree and casts a silver coin through the hole, but retrieves it and spits in the hole. He realizes that there is no easy way to get the statue out, so he looks around and sees the saddle associated with Triglav hanging on a wall. He takes the saddle as proof that he found Triglav.

Later, the decision is made by tribal chiefs to abandon the old gods and embrace Christianity. Triglav is not attested in any records outside of the stories of Otto. There are a few instances of the name in the area, however. The illustration above is of Triglav in a palace in Trzygłów, a version of the name Triglav. There is a Triglav mountain in Slovenia. The legends have led to three-headed statues placed here and there.

Otto was lucky that Duke Bolesław III was around. In fact, Duke Bolesław III was lucky that Duke Bolesław III was around. He came close to not being born. I'll tell you more about him next time.

Ragusa to Dubrovnik

The modern city of Dubrovnik began as a town called Ragusa, founded by Romans fleeing war. From its start in the 7th century, it developed into a forward-looking community as well as an important port city on the eastern Adriatic coast.

King Stjepan I of Croatia gave a grant of land that extended Ragusa's rule 16km north along the coast. The region was covered in the Holm Oak, which is significant for two reasons. Holm Oaks can grow close to 100 feet tall, making it suitable for large construction projects like community structures and ship-building.

The second significant point is in the Croatian word for the Holm Oak: dubrava. This evolved into the name of the city, and Ragusa in the late Renaissance became increasingly known as Dubrovnik.

Dubrovnik was no ordinary medieval city. Roman architectural knowledge enabled them to fortify the city that would allow them to withstand long sieges by Arabs in the early days of the city's development. During war between Byzantines and Normans, when Venice started expanding its authority over the region, the annoyed Ragusans fought for more and more independence from other distant powers. When Pope Calixtus II elevated their bishop's diocese to an archbishopric in 1120, they gained more autonomy in the region.

In 1358, Dubrovnik finally freed itself from Venetian rule when war between Venice and Hungary-Croatia forced Venice to relinquish influence over its possessions in Dalmatia. A few years later, Venice tried to get revenge by forbidding its boats from trading with Dubrovnik and other Dalmatian ports. This merely prompted Dubrovnik to seek trade elsewhere, building even larger ships that could manage longer voyages along the wider Mediterranean routes. In 1365 Dubrovnik negotiated a trade deal with the Ottomans, since they were now sailing to Egypt and the Levant. Dubrovnik even grew strong enough to start expanding its territory, annexing some islands in southern Dalmatia. In the 1500s, Dubrovnik was trading with India and even the Americas.

One of their impressive achievements was a very early one: resisting an Arab siege for 15 months. Next time I'll tell you about the Siege of Ragusa, and how it might have ended the Republic of Ragusa and the growth of Dubrovnik when it was still in its youth.

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.