HENRY
229
HENRY
of Milan uncanonical. In general it soon became
apparent that Henry was resolved to make religious
ideas once more tlie determining factors in the art of
government. This renewed triumph of religious
ideas was straightway demonstrated at the sjmod of
Constance in 1043. There the liing, clad in the gar-
ment of the penitent, preached the peace of God to
the awe-struck masses from the high pulpit. Hence-
Seal of Henry III
" Heinricus D[eli Gr[ati]a Romanor[um] Imp[e]r[ator]
Aug[ustus] "
From a document dated 17 July, lOoI, in the State
archives at Berlin
forth this serious Cluniac spirit was predominant in all the imperial entourage. Minstrels and tumblers vanished from the court. The king was still more confirmed in his austere conception of life by his second wife, Agnes of Poitou, daughter of the Duke of Aquitaine, who likewise had been brought up according to the ideas of Cluny. (Henrj-'s first wife, the Danish princess Gunhild, died in 10.38.) This attitude of the king towards the world accounts for the leniency and indulgence that characterized his domestic and foreign policy and it determined abso- lutely his conduct in ecclesiastical politics. At the beginning of his reign it looked as if the imperial authority were still increasing. In the East, success attended his arms. The aggressive Slavic policy of Duke Bretislaw of Bohemia was checked in 1041. After that, Bohemia was for a long time a support of the German king. Hungary also became a tributary vassal. It is due to these successes that Henry's reign is so generally considered the zenith of German history. Not altogether correctly. His leniency and indulgence fostered an opposition, especially in the interior, which he was destined never completely to overcome. This decline of his commanding position within the empire took place while the king was trj'ing to discharge the supreme duties of his high office as priest-king.
Henry's ideal was the purity of the Church. Only a church that was immaculate might and could be a true helpmeet to him in the kingship. He himself was never party to any act of simony. But as pre- sumptive priest-king, he held inflexibly to the right of investiture. As such he also presided over the synods: as such he also passed sentence in eccle- siastical affairs. He did not realize that tliis involved a striking contradiction. The Church, pure and morally regenerate in the spirit of the reform party, could not fail to resist imperial domination. This error on the part of the king resulted in the rapid rise of the papacy and the slow decline of the imperial
power in its fight for its old ecclesiastical privileges.
In the first period of Henry's reign, Rome saw the
schism of three popes: Benedict IX, Sylvester III,
and Gregory VI. Although of spotless character,
Gregory had bought the tiara from the unprinci-
pled Benedict. Perhaps he had recourse to simony
as an expedient to secure the supremacy of the reform
party, perhaps also merely in order to get the scan-
dalous Benedict out of the way. Henry, however,
would consent to accept the emperor's cro^\Ti only
from hands that were pure, while those of the dc facto
Pope Gregory seemed to him tainted with simony.
k\\ three popes were repudiated by the Synod of Sutri
on 20 December, 1046. This sjTiod revealed Henry's
attitude towards the canon law. He knew that ac-
cording to this law no one can sit in judgment on a
pope. Therefore the pope was not deposed by that
synod, which, on the contrary, demanded that the
pope himself pronounce the judgment. He went
into exile in Cologne, accompanied by Hildebrand,
who was soon to reveal the power of the papacy.
The German popes, supported by the power of the
German emperors, were now able to elevate their
holy office above the partisan strife of the turbulent
factions of the Roman nobility, and above the des-
perate moral barbarism of the age. Under Suidger
of Bamberg, who called himself Clement II, Henry
still asserted his claim to the right of the Roman
patriciate, that of control over the nominations to
the papal throne. But under Leo IX the emanci-
pation of the papacy from the imperial authority
already began to manifest itself.
Freed at last from the narrow local Roman policy, the universal point of view once more dictated the conduct of the Roman pontiffs. Immediately a great wave of reform also set in, directed first and foremost against simony and the marriage of priests. The restless and ubiquitous energy of Leo was also turned against the overweening assertions of inde- pendence on the part of the episcopal potentates on both sides of the Alps. At the same time, however, the same pope pointed the way to his successors, even for their temporal policy in Italy. He was the first to demonstrate the importance of Southern Italy to the papal policy. Of course his own plans in that part of the country were WTecked by the Normans.
Henry's ecclesiastical policy, therefore, had not only helped the reform party to victor}' but also led to the triumph of the idea of the supremacy of the Church, which was inseparably connected with it. The pre- paratory scenes of the great drama of the following epoch were over. At the same time new forces sprang up in Germany: the cities and the petty lay noljility. Marked disaffection prevailed, especially among the latter. Of course Henry was still quite strong enough to subdue these rising powers. But for how long? It was already extremely ominous
Sign of Henry III
" Signum domni Heiiirici tertii + resis invictissimi "
From a docuinent dated 18 Jan., 1040, in the State archives
at Berlin
that Henry did not retain in his own hands the escheated Duchies of Bavaria, Swabia, and Carinthia. His failure to do so must needs bring its revenge, for the new dukes were unrelialjle men. The dissatis- faction was especially clamorous in Saxony. Here the people took offence at the relations between the emperor and the strenuous Archbishop of Bremen, who sought to create a great northern patriarchate, but also strove to build up a strong temporal foim- dation for his bishopric.
