1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Henry VII. (Roman emperor)

HENRY VII. (c. 1269–1313), Roman emperor, son of Henry III., count of Luxemburg, was knighted by Philip IV., king of France, and passed his early days under French influences, while the French language was his mother-tongue. His father was killed in battle in 1288, and Henry ruled his tiny inheritance with justice and prudence, but came into collision with the citizens of Trier over a question of tolls. In 1292 he married Margaret (d. 1311), daughter of John I., duke of Brabant, and after the death of the German king, Albert I., he was elected to the vacant throne on the 27th of November 1308. Recognized at once by the German princes and by Pope Clement V., the aspirations of the new king turned to Italy, where he hoped by restoring the imperial authority to prepare the way for the conquest of the Holy Land. Meanwhile he strove to secure his position in Germany. The Rhenish archbishops were pacified by the restoration of the Rhine tolls, negotiations were begun with Philip IV., king of France, and with Robert, king of Naples, and the Habsburgs were confirmed in their possessions. At this time Bohemia was ruled by Henry V., duke of Carinthia, but the terrible disorder which prevailed induced some of the Bohemians to offer the crown, together with the hand of Elizabeth, daughter of the late king Wenceslas II., to John, the son of the German king. Henry accepted the offer, and in August 1310 John was invested with Bohemia and his marriage was celebrated. Before John’s coronation at Prague, however, in February 1311, Henry had crossed the Alps. His hopes of reuniting Germany and Italy and of restoring the empire of the Hohenstaufen were flattered by an appeal from the Ghibellines to come to their assistance, and by the fact that many Italians, sharing the sentiments expressed by Dante in his De Monarchia, looked eagerly for a restoration of the imperial authority. In October 1310 he reached Turin where, on receiving the homage of the Lombard cities, he declared that he favoured neither Guelphs nor Ghibellines, but only sought to impose peace. Having entered Milan he placed the Lombard crown upon his head on the 6th of January 1311. But trouble soon showed itself. His poverty compelled him to exact money from the citizens; the peaceful professions of the Guelphs were insincere, and Robert, king of Naples, watched his progress with suspicion. Florence was fortified against him, and the mutual hatred of Guelph and Ghibelline was easily renewed. Risings took place in various places and, after the capture of Brescia, Henry marched to Rome only to find the city in the hands of the Guelphs and the troops of King Robert. Some street fighting ensued, and the king, unable to obtain possession of St Peter’s, was crowned emperor on the 29th of June 1312 in the church of St John Lateran by some cardinals who declared they only acted under compulsion. Failing to subdue Florence, the emperor from his headquarters at Pisa prepared to attack Robert of Naples, for which purpose he had allied himself with Frederick III., king of Sicily. But Clement, anxious to protect Robert, threatened Henry with excommunication. Undeterred by the threat the emperor collected fresh forces, made an alliance with the Venetians, and set out for Naples. On the march he was, however, taken ill, and died at Buonconvento near Siena on the 24th of August 1313, and was buried at Pisa. His death was attributed, probably without reason, to poison given him by a Dominican friar in the sacramental wine. Henry is described by his contemporary Albertino Mussato, in the Historia Augusta, as a handsome man, of well-proportioned figure, with reddish hair and arched eyebrows, but disfigured by a squint. He adds, among other details, that he was slow and laconic in his speech, magnanimous and devout, but impatient of any compacts with his subjects, loathing the mention of the Guelph and Ghibelline factions, and insisting on the absolute authority of the Empire over all (cuncta absoluto complectens Imperio). He was, however, a lover of justice, and as a knight both bold and skilful. He was hailed by Dante as the deliverer of Italy, and in the Paradiso the poet reserved for him a place marked by a crown.

The contemporary documents for the life and reign of Henry VII. are very numerous. Many of them are found in the Rerum Italicarum scriptores, edited by L. A. Muratori (Milan, 1723–1751), others in Fontes rerum Germanicarum, edited by J. F. Böhmer (Stuttgart, 1843–1868), and in Die Geschichtsschreiber der deutschen Vorzeit, Bände 79 and 80 (Leipzig, 1884). The following modern works may also be consulted: Acta Henrici VII. imperatoris Romanorum, edited by G. Dönniges (Berlin, 1839); F. Bonaini, Acta Henrici VII. Romanorum imperatoris (Florence, 1877); T. Lindner, Deutsche Geschichte unter den Habsburgern und Luxemburgern (Stuttgart, 1888–1893); J. Heidemann, “Die Königswahl Heinrichs von Luxemburg,” in the Forschungen zur deutschen Geschichte, Band xi. (Göttingen, 1862–1886); B. Thomas, Zur Königswahl des Grafen Heinrich von Luxemburg (Strassburg, 1875); D. König, Kritische Erörterungen zu einigen italienischen Quellen für die Geschichte des Römerzuges Königs Heinrich VII. (Göttingen, 1874); K. Wenck, Clemens V. und Heinrich VII. (Halle, 1882); F. W. Barthold, Der Römerzug König Heinrichs von Lützelburg (Königsberg, 1830–1831); R. Pöhlmann, Der Römerzug König Heinrichs VII. und die Politik der Curie (Nuremberg, 1875); W. Dönniges, Kritik der Quellen für die Geschichte Heinrichs VII. des Luxemburgers (Berlin, 1841), and G. Sommerfeldt, Die Romfahrt Kaiser Heinrichs VII. (Königsberg, 1888).

HENRY VII. (1211–1242), German king, son of the emperor Frederick II. and his first wife Constance, daughter of Alphonso II., king of Aragon, was crowned king of Sicily in 1212 and made duke of Swabia in 1216. Pope Innocent III. had favoured his coronation as king of Sicily in the hope that the union of this island with the Empire would be dissolved, and had obtained a promise from Frederick to this effect. In spite of this, however, Henry was chosen king of the Romans, or German king, at Frankfort in April 1220, and crowned at Aix-la-Chapelle on the 8th of May 1222 by his guardian Engelbert, archbishop of Cologne. He appears to have spent most of his youth in Germany, and on the 18th of November 1225 was married at Nuremberg to Margaret (d. 1267), daughter of Leopold VI., duke of Austria. Henry’s marriage was the occasion of some difference of opinion, as Engelbert wished him to marry an English princess, and the name of a Bohemian princess was also mentioned in this connexion, but Frederick insisted upon the union with Margaret. The murder of Engelbert in 1225 was followed by an increase of disorder in Germany in which Henry soon began to participate, and in 1227 he took part in a quarrel which had arisen on the death of Henry V., the childless count palatine of the Rhine. About this time the relations between Frederick and his son began to be somewhat strained. The emperor had favoured the Austrian marriage because Margaret’s brother, Duke Frederick II., was childless; but Henry took up a hostile attitude towards his brother-in-law and wished to put away his wife and marry Agnes, daughter of Wenceslaus I., king of Bohemia. Other causes of trouble probably existed, for in 1231 Henry not only refused to appear at the diet at Ravenna, but opposed the privileges granted by Frederick to the princes at Worms. In 1232, however, he submitted to his father, promising to adopt the emperor’s policy and to obey his commands. He did not long keep his word and was soon engaged in thwarting Frederick’s wishes in several directions, until in 1233 he took the decisive step of issuing a manifesto to the princes, and the following year raised the standard of revolt at Boppard. He obtained very little support in Germany, however, while the suspicion that he favoured heresy deprived him of encouragement from the pope. On the other hand, he succeeded in forming an alliance with the Lombards in December 1234, but his few supporters fell away when the emperor reached Germany in 1235, and, after a vain attack on Worms, Henry submitted and was kept for some time as a prisoner in Germany, though his formal deposition as German king was not considered necessary, as he had broken the oath taken in 1232. He was soon removed to San Felice in Apulia, and afterwards to Martirano in Calabria, where he died, probably by his own hand, on the 12th of February 1242, and was buried at Cosenza. He left two sons, Frederick and Henry, both of whom died in Italy about 1251.

See J. Rohden, Der Sturz Heinrichs VII. (Göttingen, 1883); F. W. Schirrmacher, Die letzten Hohenstaufen (Göttingen, 1871), and E. Winkelmann, Kaiser Friedrich II. (Leipzig, 1889).

HENRY RASPE (c. 1202–1247), German king and landgrave of Thuringia, was the second surviving son of Hermann I., landgrave of Thuringia, and Sophia, daughter of Otto I., duke of Bavaria. When his brother the landgrave Louis IV. died in Italy in September 1227, Henry seized the government of Thuringia and expelled his brother’s widow, St Elizabeth of Hungary, and her son Hermann. With some trouble Henry made good his position, although his nephew Hermann II. was nominally the landgrave, and was declared of age in 1237. Henry, who governed with a zealous regard for his own interests, remained loyal to the emperor Frederick II. during his quarrel with the Lombards and the revolt of his son Henry. In 1236 he accompanied the emperor on a campaign against Frederick II., duke of Austria, and took part in the election of his son Conrad as German king at Vienna in 1237. He appears, however, to have become somewhat estranged from Frederick after this