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Edgar Allan Poe

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thehistorianshut
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Edgar Allan Poe (c. 1809-1849)

“They who dream by day are cognizant of may things which escape those who dream only by night.”

  • From Edgar Allan Poe’s “Eleonora” in Edgar Allan Poe: Complete Works (JKL Classics, 2017).

 

The Fatal Duel Between A Swedish Berserker And An Icelandic Viking-Poet

By
thehistorianshut
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According to the anonymous Icelandic author of the legend-filled Egil’s Saga, an opportunist berserker with the ominous name of Ljot the Pale crossed from his homeland in Sweden over to the kingdom of Norway sometime during the 10th century. Once in Norway, Jjot went about challenging wealthy Norwegians to duels, and after killing his opponents, as he always did, the Swedish warrior claimed each victim’s land and wealth as his rightful prize.

For much of his dueling career, Ljot the Pale would have likely been the most talented warrior in Norway—after all, he was a berserker, the most elite of the Scandinavian fighting men. The berserkers allegedly were religious warriors who had been bestowed with incredible fighting abilities by none other than the leader of the Norse pantheon of gods, Odin. Through religious meditation (and likely narcotics), they could reportedly achieve a state of unnatural strength and unimaginable pain tolerance. When these warriors went “berserk” their battle-frenzy apparently led the super-soldiers to gnaw at the edges of their shields—consequently, it is this action (as well as bearskin pelt garments) that is used in many visual depictions of berserkers. With such strength at his disposal, Ljot the Pale amassed considerable wealth by dueling the prominent men of Norway.

Around the middle of the 10th century, supposedly during the reign of King Hakon the Good (ruled roughly 934-960), Ljot the Pale decided it was about time he became a married man. According to the saga, the berserker set his sights on an unnamed Norwegian woman. Yet, when the Ljot proposed the marriage, the woman’s family firmly refused. The berserker did not take the rejection well—he immediately challenged the woman’s brother, a man named Fridgeir, to a duel.

As it happened, at the same time that this drama was taking place, a famous Viking-poet from Iceland, named Egil Skallagrimsson, arrived in Norway to lay claim to some land that belonged to his late father-in-law. He was a friend of Fridgeir’s family, so he stayed on their farm for part of his stay in Norway. In this way, the poet became entangled in the local events and ended up accompanying Fridgeir to the site of the duel.

The fighters met on Valdero Island, where a stone circle had been specially made to mark where the duel would take place. Once Egil Skallagrimsson laid eyes on the berserker, he immediately knew that the weak and inexperienced Fredgeir was hopelessly outmatched. Therefore, Egil decided to take Fredgeir’s place in the duel, so as to even the odds.

You may wonder why this poet thought he could put up a fight against a berserker. After all, by this point, Egil described himself as an “old bald-head” (Egil’s Saga, chapter 65). Nevertheless, Egil Skallagrimsson was no typical poet. He was not the kind of man who spent his days dreaming, with his thoughts in the clouds. Instead, he was a ruthless killer who had been going on Viking raids throughout northern Europe ever since he was a young teenager. In addition, he was reportedly one of the tallest and strongest men in all of Scandinavia. As a semi-mythical legend, he was also a supposed shape-shifter with berserker blood in his ancestry. If that was not enough embellishment for Egil’s larger-than-life character, the saga also claimed that he had a knack for magic. For sure, Egil was not the average literary artist.

Eager for combat, Egil entered the stone ring equipped with his trusty shield and two swords, named Adder and Slicer—the latter was the blade that the poet wielded in his hand; the other he left sheathed. Even though Egil was ready to fight, Ljot the Pale was still in the process of going “berserk.” Annoyed, the giant poet called out to his opponent in verse, beckoning him to battle. Finally, Ljot found his fighting spirit and he entered the arena howling and biting at his shield.

Egil launched the first strike of the duel, which was deflected by the berserker’s shield. Even so, the momentum was on Egil’s side and, impressively, the momentum would stay with the poet for the entire duel. With an onslaught of blows, Egil forced the berserker out of the stone circle. None of the slashes or jabs met their mark, but they were persistent enough to keep Ljot from making any attacks of his own. Eventually, after the duel had transitioned out from the arena and into a nearby field, Ljot asked for a short period of rest. Egil, interestingly enough, decided to humor the berserk and agreed to the proposal. During the break, however, Egil mocked his opponent with another stanza of highly critical poetry.

The brief respite did not last long. Eventually, Egil became impatient and demanded that the fight resume. Just like in the previous bout, Egil immediately had the overwhelming advantage—with a mighty blow, Egil stripped Ljot of his shield. While the berserker was still disoriented from the impact, Egil cut downward with a savage blow. His sword, Slicer, lived up to its name; the blade cut cleanly through the berserker’s thigh, delivering a wound that would prove fatal. In the end, Egil refused to accept any reward from Fridgeir as payment for his victory in the duel, claiming (in another poetic stanza) that the fun he had while fighting Ljot was reward enough. Yet, it was not too much of a financial sacrifice on the poet’s part, for Egil Skallagrimsson was more than happy to seize all of the fallen berserker’s wealth and property as fair winnings.

Written by C. Keith Hansley.

Picture attribution: (berserker from a medieval Swedish helmet plate and Norse god of poetry (Bragi) by Carl Wahlbom (1810–1858), in front of more berserks by Luis Moe, all [Public Domain] via Creative Commons).

Sources:

  • Egil’s Saga (recorded c. 13th century possibly by Snorri Sturluson), translated by Bernard Scudder. New York: Penguin Classics, 2004 edition.

Geoffrey Chaucer

By
thehistorianshut
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Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1342-1400)

“He who accepts his poverty unhurt
I’d say is rich although he lacked a shirt,
But truly poor are they who whine and fret
And covet what they cannot hope to get.
And he that, having nothing, covets not,
Is rich, though you may think he is a sot.”

  • From The Canterbury Tales (The Wife of Bath’s Tale) by Geoffrey Chaucer, translated to modern English by Nevill Coghill (Penguin Classics, 2003).

 

The Spectacularly Underwhelming Invasion of The Thracian King Sitalces Into Macedonia During the Peloponnesian War

By
thehistorianshut
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In the winter of 429 BCE, King Sitalces of the Odrysian Empire in Thrace launched a campaign against his western neighbors of Macedonia and Chalcidice. At the time, Sitalces was an ally of Athens, and was consequently on the Athenian side of the Peloponnesian War. The Chalcidians, however, had sided with the Peloponnesians, led by Sparta. The kingdom of Macedonia, as usual, was trying to navigate precariously with both sides of the war. King Perdiccas of Macedonia had voiced support for Athens at the beginning of the conflict (on the urging of King Sitalces), but had shown little desire to support the Athenian war effort ever since becoming their ally. In fact, the historian, Thucydides, wrote that Perdiccas lent the Peloponnesians 1,000 Macedonian soldiers for a failed attack on Athenian-aligned Acarnania that occurred earlier in 429 BCE, but his troops arrived too late to be of any help. Therefore, King Sitalces’ winter invasion served as both an attack against an Athenian enemy and a punitive mission against a terrible Athenian ally.

Around the time of the Peloponnesian War (431-404 BCE), the Odrysian Empire in Thrace was considered one the most powerful entities known to the Greek world. Thucydides, an Athenian, even claimed that Sitalces’ kingdom was more wealthy and prosperous than the Athenian Empire. Also, in sheer military might, Thucydides estimated that the Thracians could have only been outmatched by the combined power of the populous Scythian tribes.

King Sitalces summoned a large force from several regions of his empire. Out of his heartland in Thrace, he called up a force of cavalry. From the Getae tribe near Scythia, he recruited mounted archers. Bands of sword-wielding infantrymen poured into his army from the Dii and other tribes near Mount Rhodope. Even more infantry joined the Thracian king from the Agrianian and Paeonian tribes. In the end, Thucydides estimated (with a likely dose of exaggeration) that King Sitalces set out on his winter invasion with around 150,000 men. One-third of the army was made up of cavalry, while the rest consisted of infantry. Even though the Thracian king had mustered a formidable military, the strength of Sitalces’ army was mainly due to sheer numbers—training and discipline were apparently lacking.

King Sitalces gathered his forces at Doberus, and once the troops were in position, he marched his men through mountainous terrain into lower Macedonia. Despite the alleged poor quality of his troops, Sitalces’ army did quite well. They caught the Macedonians off guard, causing Perdiccas to pull his men further back into Macedonia to regroup. In the meantime, he sent small bands of Macedonian cavalry to harass the Thracians, but he even had to call off these raids, because the horsemen were all too often surrounded and defeated by Sitalces’ horde of men. The Thracians were so confident when they saw the Macedonians withdrawing, that they split off a section of their army to march southward against the lands of the Chalcidians and even the Bottiaeans, another Peloponnesian ally. Just as had happened in Macedonia, the Chalcidians and Bottiaeans were forced to retreat further into their territories as the Thracians sacked towns and ravaged the countryside.

After about a month, King Sitalces had occupied and pillaged large swaths of Macedonia, Chalcidice and Bottiaea. Nevertheless, he had overextended himself, and, from the beginning, his military logistics had been lackluster. The king supposedly had 150,000 mouths to feed, and his horses and pack animals, too, required food and water. After a short campaign lasting only thirty days, King Sitalces simply ran out of supplies.

During this invasion, King Perdiccas of Macedonia had been allegedly keeping up a secret correspondence with Sitalces’ son, Seuthes. When the Thracians faced their food shortage after their month of mayhem, Seuthes urgently suggested to his father that the invasion needed to be ended and the soldiers should return home. In an underwhelming end to the Thracian winter invasion of 429, Sitalces agreed to his son’s advice and retreated back to his kingdom after only thirty days of fighting. Sometime later, King Perdiccas of Macedonia arranged for his daughter, Stratonice, to marry Seuthes as a reward for his service and accepted the Thracian as his son-in-law.

Written by C. Keith Hansley.

Picture Attribution: (4th-century paintings of Macedonian soldiers from the tomb of Agios Athanasios in Greece, [Public Domain] via Creative Commons).

Sources:

  • History of the Peloponnesian War (Book II) by Thucydides, translated by Rex Warner and introduced by M. I. Finley. New York: Penguin Classics, 1972.

Egil Skallagrimsson

By
thehistorianshut
-

 

Egil Skallagrimsson (10th century semi-legendary Viking Poet from Iceland)

“With its chisel of snow, the headwind,
scourge of the mast, mightily
hones its file by the prow
on the path that my sea-bull treads.
In gusts of wind, that chillful
destroyer of timber planes down
the planks before the head
of my sea-king’s swan.”

  • Egil’s Saga (chapter 58), recorded c. 13th century possibly by Snorri Sturluson, translated by Bernard Scudder. New York: Penguin Classics, 2004 edition.

 

The Secret Funeral Procession Of The First Qin Emperor of China

By
thehistorianshut
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The conqueror of the warring states in ancient China, Qin Shi Huang Di (often abbreviated to Shihuangdi, or simply First Emperor), died in 210 BCE. According to Sima Qian (c. 145-90 BCE), the First Emperor supposedly fell ill while traveling through his empire in pursuit of herbs that he thought would make him immortal. Whether or not this was true, or if he was simply on tour, the emperor did indeed die away from the Qin capital city of Xianyang. The First Emperor reportedly breathed his last at the Ping Terrace in either Shaqiu or Sand Hill. Li Si, the chancellor at the time, rightly feared that if word of the emperor’s death leaked out, then regions throughout the empire might be tempted to rebel. Therefore, the chancellor decided it was best to pretend that the emperor had never died, at least until the party had returned to Xianyang.

Prior to his death, the First Emperor had been notoriously reclusive in his final years, limiting his personal contact to a small number of select officials. As a result, the chancellor was apparently able to keep knowledge of the emperor’s death suppressed to all except a privileged few. One of these men was the emperor’s son, Prince Huhai. The prince’s friend and mentor, Zhao Gao was also brought in on the secret. The only other people who knew of the emperor’s death were five or six senior eunuchs in the royal entourage.

As if nothing had happened, the Qin officials placed the emperor’s body in a royal carriage and headed for the city of Xianyang in a calm and normal manner. No information regarding the health of the monarch was sent out and no calls for mourning were issued—they wanted the rest of China to think that the emperor was still alive. While they were on the road, the eunuchs and officials who were in the know delivered meals to the carriage, as well as documents and orders that needed the emperor’s approval. Once inside, they would dispose of the plates and forge the documents to look as if the emperor was still actively running the empire.

After multiple hot days on the road, as could be expected, the body of the First Emperor began to smell. This unpleasant odor became especially worrisome for Li Si and his accomplices when the party was traveling from Jingxing to Jiuyuan. After musing over possible solutions, the officials came up with an ingenious plan. They went into the carriage with the body and, after a convincing amount of time, they emerged from the vehicle with an imperial edict. The emperor, it seemed, suddenly had a craving for fish and directed all of his attendants to load their carts with heaps of dried fish. Thus, masked by the fumes of dehydrated seafood, the emperor’s body was successfully smuggled back to the capital in Xianyang.

Sometime while Prince Huhai, Li Si and Zhao Gao were orchestrating the secret movements of the emperor’s body, they also began to expand their conspiracy to encompass the succession of imperial rule. Shortly before the First Emperor had died, he had given a written statement to Zhao Gao, stating that Prince Huhai’s brother, Prince Fusu, would succeed to the throne upon the First Emperor’s death. Nevertheless, Zhao Gao, Li Si and especially Prince Huhai did not agree with the First Emperor’s decision, so they altered the emperor’s statement in favor of Huhai. They also cruelly sent a fake message to Prince Fusu, stating that the emperor believed him to be a traitor and that he should commit suicide for his crimes.

When the entourage arrived at Xianyang, the secret was finally revealed and the First Emperor was pronounced to have died. His body was entombed in a magnificent compound at Mt. Li that included replicas of palaces, officials, soldiers (the Terracotta Army) and livestock, among other things. The elaborate tomb even contained rivers of mercury that were constructed to look like they were constantly flowing. According to Sima Qian, Prince Huhai (who had now assumed the title of Second Emperor) had many of his father’s concubines killed and entombed with the deceased emperor. The craftsmen who had worked on the tomb were also allegedly locked away to die inside their creation. Although the validity of Sima Qian’s account of the tomb has been called into question, modern archaeologists have indeed found several ancient mass graves situated around the burial complex of the First Emperor.

Written by C. Keith Hansley.

Picture Attribution: (Carriage from the Ming Dynasty Departure Herald, from the Jiajing reign period in China (1522-1566 AD), [Public Domain] via Creative Commons).

Sources:

Thucydides

By
thehistorianshut
-

 

Thucydides (c. 460-400 BCE)

“Even the mistakes which we made before are now a factor on our side, since we shall be able to learn from them.”

  • History of the Peloponnesian War (Book II, section 87) by Thucydides, translated by Rex Warner (Penguin Classics, 1972).

 

The Wrathful Tale Of Amestris, Wife Of The Persian King Xerxes

By
thehistorianshut
-

 

Although Xerxes I (r. 486-465 BCE) is mainly remembered for his massive invasion of Greece, his reign continued for around fourteen more years after his Greek ambitions were crushed at the Battle of Plataea in 479 BCE. This later period of his life, after Xerxes withdrew from Greece and returned to the heartland of his empire, remains a fairly undefined part of the king’s reign. What we do know about Xerxes’ final years is that he began to focus a great deal of his empire’s resources on construction projects. Nevertheless, he eventually started to lose the support of several key governing satraps and advisors, ultimately leading to a violent end for the king.

Herodotus, one of the main sources on Xerxes’ life, lightly glossed over a few of the events that supposedly occurred in the Achaemenid Empire during the years after the Persian King of Kings returned home from Greece. By far, the most dramatic of these episodes (located in The Histories, Book IX) was a story about how one of Xerxes’ affairs led to the extermination of nearly all of his brother’s family. This story, which will be told shortly, is considered to be largely a fiction created by the father of history, Herodotus (490-425/420 BCE). Yet, many historians believe the core elements of the story were likely based on factual events.

Iran

(Possible Xerxes I of Persia, from Hadish Palace at Persepolis. [Public Domain] via Creative Commons)

According to the tale, Xerxes fell hopelessly in love, or at least in lust, with an unnamed woman in the city of Sardis. The king, mind you, was at this point already a wedded man married to a woman named Amestris. Nevertheless, he sent this new woman in Sardis numerous messages and propositions of his admiration and desire, all of which she politely declined. Frustrated, the king pondered over all the ways he could use his power to compel the woman to consent to his wants, but he quickly pushed those dangerous thoughts out of his mind. After all, the woman he desired was none other than the wife of his dear brother, Masistes.

Xerxes finally decided that Masistes’ wife only needed more time and close proximity before she caved in to his desires. Therefore, Xerxes arranged for his son, Darius, to be married to Masistes’ daughter, Artaÿnte, hoping that the union would allow him to grow closer to his brother’s wife. In the end, Masistes agreed to the marriage, so Xerxes brought Artaÿnte to the city of Susa, where his son, Darius, was living.

Unfortunately, Xerxes’ love for Masistes’ wife was apparently a fickle emotion. Soon after he reached Susa, Xerxes found that he was drawn to Artaÿnte far more than he had ever been with her mother. Once again, Xerxes began to send messages of his affection to the woman he desired, who, this time, happened to be the newly-wedded wife of his own son. Artaÿnte, unlike her mother, decided to accept the king’s affection.

Like many lovers, Xerxes eventually wanted to express his appreciation for Artaÿnte by giving her a gift. And, as a king, he could afford extraordinarily pricey gifts. In fact, he went to see Artaÿnte and promised that he would obtain for her anything that she desired. When she asked if he was telling the truth, the king assented, declaring she could have treasures, a city, even a personal army. She only needed to ask for it. As Artaÿnte pondered the possibilities, her eyes fell on the illustrious robe that Xerxes was wearing. It was a beautifully woven piece, sporting all sorts of pleasing colors derived from expensive dyes. In the end she proclaimed that the gift she wanted was Xerxes’ robe. The king, startled by her decision, tried to steer her back to his other grand offers—unlimited gold and sprawling estates, he suggested, would be much better than a robe. Nevertheless, Artaÿnte’s mind was made up and Xerxes had promised to give her what she desired.

When Xerxes left his lover, leaving behind his robe, he must have felt that his affair was doomed. The robe that he had just given away was not just any piece of clothing. No, it was a hand-sewn gift made personally for the king by his wife, Amestris. It was an especially precious gift, for noble Achaemenid women rarely, if ever, personally worked cloth. With a growing sense of horror, the king knew the robe would be easily recognized in the city and word would inevitably trickle back to Amestris about her husband’s infidelity. As it turned out, Xerxes’ fears were well founded, for his wife did indeed learn about the affair. Yet, she was in no hurry as she cautiously plotted her revenge and waited for the opportune moment to strike. Interestingly, Amestris did not hold Artaÿnte solely responsible for the affair. Instead she apparently believed her daughter-in-law’s action derived from a lack of proper upbringing. Therefore, Amestris directed her wrath against Artaÿnte’s mother, the earlier mentioned wife of Masistes.

Young woman spinning and servant holding a fan. Fragment of a relief known as "The spinner". Bitumen mastic, Neo-Elamite period (8th century B.C.–middle of the 6th century B.C.). Found in Susa. [Public Domain] via Creative Commons.jpg

(Young woman spinning and servant holding a fan. Fragment of a relief known as “The spinner”. Bitumen mastic, Neo-Elamite period (8th century B.C.–middle of the 6th century B.C.). Found in Susa. [Public Domain] via Creative Commons.)

Xerxes was unaware of his wife’s plot all the way up until the day of his next birthday. Amestris had kept her knowledge of the affair hidden from him for a very specific purpose. At the Royal Supper on the king’s birthday, there was supposedly a tradition where the king gave away gifts to his subjects. Therefore, Amestris requested a very specific present on that day—the right to do whatever she wished with the wife of Masistes. Xerxes was caught off guard by his wife’s request, and, just as happened with Artaÿnte, he found he could not refuse.

After Amestris’ wish was granted, Xerxes immediately arranged a meeting with Masistes and tried to warn him of the impending danger. Yet, the king delivered this warning in a way that you might not have expected. When Masistes arrived, curious about what his brother Xerxes wanted to talk about, the king frantically tried to convince Masistes to abandon his wife. Xerxes even offered him one of his daughters as incentive. Masistes balked at the idea, and after a coarse exchange of words, stormed off to return to his wife. Little did he know that Amestris would get to her first.

As Herodotus told it, while Xerxes and Masistes were arguing, Amestris had called together a select group of soldiers from the king’s personal guard. With the king’s authority behind her words, Amestris ordered the soldiers to hunt down Masistes’ wife and carry out a number of gruesome acts. Herodotus wrote, “Amestris sent for the soldiers of the royal bodyguard and had Masistes’ wife horribly mutilated. Her breasts, nose, ears, and lips were cut off and thrown to the dogs; then her tongue was torn out and, in this dreadful condition, she was sent home” (The Histories, 9.112). When Masistes returned to his dwelling, he found his wife in the aforementioned state—mutilated, but miraculously still alive (at least for the moment). When he finally recovered from his shock, Masistes immediately gathered his sons and set out for Bactria, where he was the governing satrap, in hopes of launching a rebellion.

While Xerxes likely sympathized with his brother’s motivation, the rebellion was a different matter. When the king learned that Masistes had silently left the city, he sent an army in pursuit. The wronged fugitives never made it back to the safety of their domain. Instead, they were intercepted on the road by Xerxes’ troops and Masistes, his sons and any guards that happened to be present were all mercilessly executed. So ends the tale of how Xerxes’ lusts supposedly led to the destruction of his brother’s family, except for Artaÿnte and any other unknown children.

Again, it should be mentioned that most of the dramatic story narrated above was probably a creation of Herodotus’ own imagination. Yet, as with a great deal of folklore and mythology, it would not be surprising if there was a grain of historical truth underneath all of the literary embellishment.

Whether or not the above tale was true, Xerxes’ own fate would turn deadly in 465 BCE. Around that year, a faction led by Artabanus, one of Xerxes’ main lieutenants, organized the assassinations of both the king and his son, Darius. Months later, Artaxerxes I (a son of Xerxes and brother of Darius) killed Artabanus and became the next King of Kings of the Achaemenid Empire.

Written by C. Keith Hansley.

Top Picture attribution: (Cropped young woman spinning and a servant holding a fan from a fragment of a relief known as “The spinner”. Bitumen mastic, Neo-Elamite period (roughly 8th – 6th century BCE). Found in Susa. [Public Domain] via Creative Commons).

Sources:

Thomas à Kempis

By
thehistorianshut
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Thomas à Kempis (c. 1380-1471)

“Happy and wise is he who endeavors to be during his life as he wishes to be found at his death.”

  • From The Imitation of Christ by Thomas à Kempis translated by L. Sherley-Price (Penguin, 1972).

Holy Roman Emperor Vs. Holy Roman Father—Henry IV Against The Popes

By
thehistorianshut
-

 

Henry IV (c. 1050-1106), an emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, lived quite an extraordinarily chaotic life in the Middle Ages. Although he was ruler the Holy Roman Empire for most of his reign, he had a dismal relationship with the spiritual leaders of Catholic Christendom, the popes. Even so, the Christian religion played an extremely prominent role in Henry’s life.

Henry IV became the ruler of the Germany-centered Holy Roman Empire in 1056, upon the death of his father, Henry III. As the child-emperor was too young to rule, his mother, Empress Agnes, served as the regent ruler, with helpful aid and advice from Pope Victor II. Unfortunately, the helpful pope only lived until 1057, and after his death, the empress had no luck acquiring competent and loyal advisors. For the next few years, Empress Agnes allowed the regional rulers of the empire to dramatically strengthen themselves against the crown. It would have been an odd childhood experience for Henry IV—the young ruler was even kidnapped in 1062 by the archbishop of Cologne, a man named Anno, who consequently replaced Empress Agnes as regent. The empress was not injured in the change of power, but she did retire to a convent soon after the event.

When Henry IV became old enough to rule by himself in 1065, he shed himself of the regents and other influencers, but found himself in charge of an unstable realm. Nevertheless, he quickly asserted his rule and soon the relationship between the monarch and his vassals began to strain. He announced that he wanted to divorce his wife of three years and also launched building projects at the expense of his vassals in the Harz Mountains. Unfortunately, the emperor’s desire for a divorce caused outrage among the religious circles, and his construction projects in the Harz Mountains set the region of Saxony on a course toward rebellion.

Henry IV was eventually talked out of pursuing divorce, but the threat of a Saxon uprising persisted. Despite, or possibly because of, the arrest of Duke Magnus of Saxony, the Saxons rebelled in 1073, beginning the first of many military challenges to the rule of Henry IV. The rebels were initially successful. In 1074, they had Henry IV momentarily ready to concede to their demands, but he was able to come back and crush the rebellion in 1075.

While Henry IV was dealing with the Saxons, he was also negotiating with Pope Gregory VII over who should become archbishop of Milan. The Pope and the emperor had separate nominees for the position. While Henry IV had been preoccupied with the Saxon rebellion, he had seemed willing to follow the Pope’s lead on the nomination. After the rebellion was defeated, however, Henry IV defied the Pope’s wishes and named a chaplain from the German court as the archbishop of Milan.

The fiasco over the archbishop of Milan caused an ongoing feud between Henry IV and Pope Gregory VII. In response to Henry’s decision in Milan, the Pope excommunicated the emperor from the Catholic Church in 1076 and revoked Henry’s divine right to rule, basically giving the regional nobility of the Holy Roman Empire a religious reason to rebel against their king.

The pope’s ploy worked—regions of the empire became so hostile to Henry IV that he was forced to sneak through the Alps to meet with Pope Gregory VII at Canossa, within the realm of Mathilda of Tuscany. There, in 1077, Henry IV put on a grand display of humble penitence for Pope Gregory VII, reportedly even including the wearing of sackcloth clothing. Whatever happened at Canossa, it was convincing enough that Pope Gregory readmitted Henry IV to the Catholic Church and restored his divine right to rule.

With the pope’s forgiveness, Henry IV won back the support of many of his countrymen. Even so, plots were already in motion and factions began to coalesce behind their own claimants to the throne. The most important of these rebels was Rudolf, the Duke of Swabia, who fought against Henry IV for around three years. Pope Gregory VII eventually decided to give official support to Rudolf in 1080, when he once again excommunicated Henry IV and voided his right to rule. Unfortunately for Pope Gregory VII, he backed the wrong faction—Rudolf died in battle before the end of the year.

Henry IV did not forgive the papacy for its meddling. He convened his own religious synod, where he denounced Pope Gregory VII and set up a man named Guibert, the archbishop of Ravenna, as a rival pope. Once Henry IV had contained the rebellions in his own empire, he turned his forces against Rome, where he sieged the city unsuccessfully in 1081 and 1082, but finally forced his way into the city in 1084. In Rome, Henry’s anti-pope, Guibert, took the name Clement III and attempted to replace the exiled Pope Gregory VII as the head of the Catholic Church. Henry also took advantage of the occasion to officially receive the lofty title of Holy Roman Emperor, which had until then been withheld from him by the pope.

Even though the anti-pope, Clement III, was residing in Rome, the legitimate line of popes was still maneuvering behind the scenes to undermine Henry IV. Pope Urban II (r. 1088-1099) incited and supported leagues and rebellions against Henry IV, managing to even turn the emperor’s sons (Conrad and Henry V) against their father.

Understandably, Henry IV tried to calm relations, both with his vassals and the Catholic Church. He tried to enforce peace between feuding lords and hoped to gain a pardon from the Church in exchange for going on crusade. His son, however, decided it was time to break away from his controversial father—Henry V rebelled in 1104 and successfully forced his father to abdicate in 1105. Nevertheless, the stubborn Henry IV somehow escaped, raised an army and defeated his son in battle, shortly before dying suddenly in 1106.

Written by C. Keith Hansley.

Top picture: (Emperor Henry IV (by John Foxe, c. 1563) and Pope Gregory VII (printed 1891), both [Public Domain] via Creative Commons).

Sources:

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