The New International Encyclopædia/Henry IV. (emperor)

​HENRY IV. (1050–1106). Holy Roman Emperor from 1056 to 1106. He was the son of Henry III., and was born November 11, 1050. He had been crowned in 1054, and although only six years old at his father’s death, was recognized at once as King of Germany, Italy, and Burgundy, his mother, Agnes of Poitou, ruling in his name. Henry III. had exercised great power over the Church and had greatly strengthened the Papacy; in Germany he had held the nobles in subjugation against their will. Now both the Church and the nobles seized the opportunity to achieve their independence. The brother of Godfrey of Lorraine (see Henry III.) was elected Pope as Stephen IX., and Godfrey was made Imperial vicar in Italy. Agnes was not strong enough to rule effectively. She was forced to cede Lorraine to Godfrey, and to bestow upon the most powerful of the nobles the three great southern duchies of Swabia, Bavaria, and Carinthia, thus undoing the work of Conrad II. (q.v.). Her authority was not recognized in Italy. Even the bishops in Germany, who had been the chief instruments of her husband, deserted her. In 1062 Anno, Archbishop of Cologne, seized Henry by treachery and governed in his ​name. Under Anno’s regency the German authority was reëstablished over Hungary. The Archbishop, however, was greatly disliked by Henry, and was forced to make way for the Archbishop Adalbert of Bremen, who became the young King’s tutor, and in 1065 caused him to be declared of age. Henry had been brought up very badly. He had ability, but an ungovernable temper; he was brave, but a poor general; he was surrounded by flatterers, and at first gave himself up almost entirely to pleasure. Germany soon sank into a state of feudal anarchy. The Slavs revolted and devastated the northeastern parts of the Empire, while the Danes held the Baltic coast. Henry attempted to reëstablish his authority by degrading the independent dukes in the south, by imprisoning the Duke of Saxony, and by erecting many fortresses in his duchy. The Saxons revolted in 1073, instigated in large measure by their bishops, and Henry barely escaped from their hands. The nobles in the north aided him against Saxony, and in June, 1075, he won a great victory on the Unstrut which temporarily crushed the rebellion; for the first time he seemed to be really powerful.

But the greatest danger came to a head just at this time. After the death of Henry III. the Papacy had gradually freed itself from Imperial control. In 1059 a decree had been enacted which gave the election of the Pope to the college of cardinals, and during the period of disorder in Germany the Church, under the guidance of Hildebrand, had gained steadily in power. In 1073 Hildebrand was elected Pope as Gregory VII. (q.v.), and proceeded with greater energy to carry out the policy of ecclesiastical and Papal supremacy with which he had been identified so closely under the two preceding popes. In 1075 a synod at Rome passed a decree against lay investiture, threatening secular princes who should presume to confer abbacies or bishoprics on priests with excommunication. The bishops and abbots in the Empire held great possessions and were great territorial lords. If Henry could not control their appointment, a large part of his resources and power would be taken from him and a large section of the Empire would become independent. As long as the bishops and abbots continued to hold their temporal possessions as feudal lords, it was absolutely necessary to the King to have them under his control. On the other hand, the Church was determined to appoint its own officials. When Henry therefore appointed an archbishop for Milan, Gregory sent legates to demand that he should obey the decree against lay investiture, charging him at the same time with simony and oppression of the clergy. Henry, however, was elated by his great victory over the Saxons, and in no mood to temporize, as he had done previously. He retorted by convoking a German council at Worms, January 24, 1076, which deposed the Pope. The Pope in return excommunicated Henry, decreed his deposition, and released his subjects from their oath of allegiance. All of Henry’s enemies seized this opportunity to revolt, and proposed to elect a new king, and the most that Henry could obtain was a respite. He was deprived of all authority, and if not absolved within a year was to be deposed.

The Pope seemed to be entirely triumphant, and Henry doomed to degradation; but there was one weak point in Gregory’s position which afforded Henry a chance of redeeming his fortunes. As a Christian priest the Pope was bound to pardon a penitent who sought absolution; when, therefore, Gregory, who had promised to take no action without the consent of the German nobles, with whom he was to hold a council, set out for Germany, Henry hurried to Italy to meet him. The Lombards, who were hostile to the Pope, welcomed the Emperor eagerly, and he soon had an army at his command. Gregory took refuge in the strong castle of Canossa, belonging to Countess Matilda of Tuscany. Henry, however, had not come to fight, but to seek absolution. For three days (January 25–27, 1077) he begged admission to Canossa as a penitent, waiting barefooted at the gate of the courtyard of the castle; and finally Gregory had to yield and to grant the desired absolution. Canossa was the deepest possible humiliation for Henry, but his act had won for him a diplomatic victory. He had prevented the meeting between Gregory and the nobles, and had placed the latter in the position of rebels, if they persisted in their hostility.

Many of them did persist, and elected an anti-king in the person of Rudolph, Duke of Swabia; but Henry now had many partisans. Civil war raged throughout Germany, and every part of the country except Saxony was divided into two parties. Gregory VII. hesitated, but finally in 1080 recognized the anti-king, and excommunicated Henry once more. Rudolph, however, was killed soon after, and his death was accepted as a judgment of God. An antipope, Clement III., was elected by the Imperial Party, and in 1084 Henry captured the city of Rome and installed the antipope, who gave him the Imperial crown; but in the same year the Emperor, who had been besieging Gregory VII. in Sant’ Angelo, was driven from Rome by Robert Guiscard (q.v.). Gregory VII. died soon after in exile. The strife went on in Germany, where Henry had to contend against two other anti-kings—Hermann of Luxemburg, who died in 1087, and the Margrave of Meissen, whose death occurred in 1089. Supported by Godfrey of Bouillon (q.v.) and Frederick of Swabia, the ancestor of the Hohenstaufen, Henry was on the whole successfully asserting himself, when his eldest son, Conrad, joined the Emperor’s enemies. For a time this weakened the Emperor, but he gradually won the support of the great nobles, all of whom were weary of the strife. Conrad was deposed from his position as heir to the throne, and died in 1101, and Henry, the second son of the Emperor, was declared heir. Henry’s difficulties, however, were not over. The Pope, Paschal II., renewed the excommunication against Henry. His second son was induced to rebel, and the Emperor was made prisoner December, 1105, and forced to abdicate. He died soon after, August 7, 1106, while preparing to make war upon his son. As he died excommunicated, his body remained unburied for five years. During the latter part of his life especially, he was very popular with the people, who mourned his loss. Consult: Meyer von Knonau, Jahrbücher des deutschen Reichs unter Heinrich IV. und Heinrich V. (Leipzig, 1890–94); Floto, Heinrich IV. und sein Zeitalter (Stuttgart, 1855–57); Giesebrecht, Geschichte der deutschen Kaiserzeit, vol. iii. (5th ed., Leipzig, 1890); also the authorities referred to under Gregory VII. See Investiture.