Henry III was a church reformer in the old mold: he had ensured the well-being of the church by appointing excellent prelates. When he died in 1056, he left his six-year-old son, Henry IV, as his heir. Excerpt 1 is a sympathetic account of the young king, whose minority gave many powerful groups in Germany a chance to exploit him. When he turned fifteen and was therefore no longer legally a minor, Henry freed himself from their grasp and began to restore royal power. This meant, in part, asserting his right to appoint bishops and archbishops, as he did in 1075 to the sees of Milan, Fermo, and Spoleto. In Excerpt 2, Gregory VII scolds Henry for these appointments and demands that he heed the pope, or rather St. Peter, in whose place the pope stands. In Gregory’s view, Henry was disobeying God. Henry’s response to Gregory’s scolding letter is in Excerpt 3: there he portrays himself as the ordained of God and calls on Gregory to resign the papacy. Gregory reacted to this letter by excommunicating Henry, declaring him no longer king, and releasing all his subjects from their obedience to him. Suddenly Henry found himself nearly abandoned. To regain his position, he needed Gregory to lift the excommunication. In January 1077, Henry stood barefoot in the snow at Canossa, acting as a penitent. Excerpt 4 describes that moment.

1. Anonymous Account of Henry’s Minority

A biographer of Henry IV wrote this account shortly after the emperor’s death in 1106. By then, the Investiture Conflict had raged for decades, and most people had taken sides. This biographer was on Henry’s side.

But since immature age inspires too little fear, and while awe languishes, audacity increases, the boyish years of the king excited in many the spirit of crime. Therefore everyone strove to become equal to the one greater than him, or even greater, and the might of many increased through crime; nor was there any fear of the law, which had little authority under the young boy-king.

And so that they could do everything with more license, they first robbed of her child the mother [Empress Agnes, wife of Henry III] whose mature wisdom and grave habits they feared, pleading that it was dishonorable for the kingdom to be administered by a woman (although one may read of many queens who administered kingdoms with manly wisdom). But after the boy-king, once drawn away from the bosom of his mother, came into the hands of the princes to be raised, whatever they prescribed for him to do, he did like the boy he was. Whomever they wished, he exalted; whomever they wished, he set down; so that they may rightly be said not to have ministered to their king so much as to have given orders to him. When they dealt with the affairs of the kingdom, they took counsel not so much for the affairs of the kingdom as for their own; and in everything they did, it was their primary concern to put their own advantage above everything else. . . .

But when [at the age of fifteen] he passed into that measure of age and mind in which he could discern what was honorable, what shameful, what useful, and what was not, he reconsidered what he had done while led by the suggestion of the princes and condemned many things which he had done. And, having become his own judge, he changed those of his acts which were to be changed. He also prohibited wars, violence, and rapine; he strove to recall peace and justice, which had been expelled to restore neglected laws, and to check the license of crime.

Source: “The Life of the Emperor Henry IV” in Imperial Lives and Letters of the Eleventh Century, trans. Theodor E. Mommsen and Karl F. Morrison (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000), 106.

2. Gregory VII Admonishes Henry (1075)

Gregory had written letters to Henry before 1075, but this was the first one that scolded him. The issue was Henry’s attempt to appoint prelates to three Italian sees (the seat, jurisdiction, or office of a bishop). Gregory complained that Henry’s candidates were unknown and inappropriate. He did not yet object to royal investiture.

We marvel exceedingly that you have sent us so many devoted letters and displayed such humility by the spoken words of your legates . . . and yet in action showing yourself most bitterly hostile to the canons and apostolic decrees in those duties especially required by loyalty to the Church. Not to mention other cases, the way you have observed your promises in the Milan affair, made through your mother and through bishops, our colleagues, whom we sent to you, and what your intentions were in making them is evident to all. And now, heaping wounds upon wounds, you have handed over the sees of Fermo and Spoleto—if indeed a church may be given over by any human power—to persons entirely unknown to us, whereas it is not lawful to consecrate anyone except after probation and with due knowledge.

It would have been becoming to you, since you confess yourself to be a son of the Church, to give more respectful attention to the master of the Church, that is, to Peter, prince of the Apostles. To him, if you are of the Lord’s flock, you have been committed for your pasture, since Christ said to him: “Peter, feed my sheep” (John 21:17), and again: “To thee are given the keys of Heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in Heaven and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in Heaven” (Matt. 16:19). Now, while we, unworthy sinner that we are, stand in his place of power, still whatever you send to us, whether in writing or by word of mouth, he [Peter] himself receives, and while we read what is written or hear the voice of those who speak, he discerns with subtle insight from what spirit the message comes.

Source: The Correspondence of Pope Gregory VII, trans. Ephraim Emerton (New York: W. W. Norton, 1969), 87.

3. Henry’s Response to Gregory’s Admonition (early 1076)

A meeting called by Henry and attended by nobles and bishops in Germany produced two documents in response to Gregory’s scolding letter: a harsh retort meant to be circulated in Germany as propaganda for Henry, and a gentler version to be sent to Gregory himself. Both called on Gregory to step down as pope. The harsh letter, part of which is printed here, makes clear Henry’s exalted view of his own role in the church.

Henry, King not by usurpation, but by the pious ordination of God, to Hildebrand, now not Pope, but false monk:

You have deserved such a salutation as this because of the confusion you have wrought; for you left untouched no order of the Church which you could make a sharer of confusion instead of honor, of malediction instead of benediction.

For to discuss a few outstanding points among many: Not only have you dared to touch the rectors of the holy Church—the archbishops, the bishops, and the priests, anointed of the Lord as they are—but you have trodden them under foot like slaves who know not what their lord may do. . . .

And we, indeed, bore with all these abuses, since we were eager to preserve the honor of the Apostolic See. But you construed our humility as fear, and so you were emboldened to rise up even against the royal power itself, granted to us by God. You dared to threaten to take the kingship away from us—as though we had received the kingship from you, as though kingship and empire were in your hand and not in the hand of God.

Our Lord, Jesus Christ, has called us to kingship, but has not called you to the priesthood.

Source: Imperial Lives and Letters of the Eleventh Century, trans. Theodor E. Mommsen and Karl F. Morrison (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000), 150.

4. Lampert of Hersfeld Describes Henry at Canossa (c. 1077)

Lampert of Hersfeld was a German monk whose monastery, Hersfeld, supported Henry. However, in his Annales, from which this excerpt is taken, Lampert emphasizes how weak the king had become as he awaited the pope’s absolution at Canossa.

Leaving Speyer a few days before Christmas with his wife and infant son, the journey [to Canossa] was begun. That noble man [Henry IV] left the realm accompanied by not a soul from Germany save one notable neither for his lineage nor his wealth. Since he needed resources for so long a journey, Henry sought aid from many men he had often benefited when his kingdom was intact. There were very few, however, who relieved his necessity to any extent, moved either by memory of past favors or by the present spectacle of human events. And thus the king descended suddenly from the height of glory and greatest wealth to such distress and calamity! . . .

Henry came [to the walls of Canossa], as he was ordered to, and since that castle had been enclosed by a triple wall, having been received within the space of the second wall, his band of retainers having been left outside, his regalia laid aside, displaying nothing pertaining to the kingship, showing no ceremony, with bare feet and fasting from morning until vespers, he waited for the decision of the Roman Pontiff. He did this a second day, and then a third. On the fourth day, finally having been admitted into the pope’s presence, after many opinions were voiced on each side, he was finally absolved from the excommunication under these conditions: that on the day and at the place designated by the pope, he promptly call a general council of the German princes . . . [and there] it would be decided according to ecclesiastical law whether Henry should retain the realm.

Source: Maureen C. Miller, ed., Power and the Holy in the Age of the Investiture Conflict: A Brief History with Documents (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2005), 91–97.

Questions to Consider