Henry V, Holy Roman Emperor

Henry IV (left) and son Henry V (right).

Henry V (8 November 1086 – 23 May 1125) was King of Germany (from 1098-1125) and Holy Roman Emperor (from 1106-25), the fourth and last ruler of the Salian dynasty. Henry's reign coincided with the final phase of the great Investiture Controversy, which had pitted pope against emperor. By the settlement of the Concordat of Worms, he surrendered to the demands of the second generation of Gregorian reformers.

First Italian expedition

The main interest of Henry's reign was the settling of the controversy over lay investiture, which had caused a serious dispute during the previous reign. The papal party who had supported Henry in his resistance to his father hoped he would assent to the papal decrees, which had been renewed by Paschal II at the synod of Guastalla in 1106. The king, however, continued to invest the bishops, but wished the pope to hold a council in Germany to settle the question. After some hesitation, Paschal preferred France to Germany, and, after holding a council at Troyes, renewed his prohibition of lay investiture. The matter slumbered until 1110, when, negotiations between king and pope having failed, Paschal renewed his decrees and Henry invaded Italy with a large army.

The strength of his forces helped him to secure general recognition in Lombardy, and at Sutri he concluded an arrangement with Paschal by which he renounced the rite of investiture in return for a promise of coronation, and the restoration to the Empire of all Christendom, which had been in the hands of the German state and church since the time of Charlemagne. It was a treaty impossible to execute, and Henry, whose consent to it is said to have been conditional on its acceptance by the princes and bishops of Germany, probably foresaw that it would occasion a breach between the German clergy and the pope. Having entered Rome and sworn the usual oaths, the king presented himself at St Peter's Basilica on 12 February 1111 for his coronation and the ratification of the treaty. The words commanding the clergy to restore the fiefs of the crown to Henry were read amid a tumult of indignation, whereupon the pope refused to crown the king, who in return declined to hand over his renunciation of the right of investiture. Paschal, along with sixteen cardinals, was seized by Henry's soldiers and, in the general disorder which followed, an attempt to liberate the pontiff was thwarted in a struggle during which the king himself was wounded. A Norman army sent by Prince Robert I of Capua to rescue the papists was turned back by the imperialist count of Tusculum, Ptolemy I.

Seal of Henry V.

Return to Germany

Henry left Rome carrying the pope with him; and Paschal's failure to obtain assistance drew from him a confirmation of the king's right of investiture and a promise to crown him emperor. The coronation ceremony accordingly took place on 13 April, after which the emperor returned to Germany, where he sought to strengthen his power by granting privileges to the inhabitants of the region of the upper Rhine.

In 1112, Lothair of Supplinburg, Duke of Saxony, rose in arms against Henry, but was easily quelled. In 1113, however, a quarrel over the succession to the counties of Weimar and Orlamünde gave occasion for a fresh outbreak on the part of Lothair, whose troops were defeated at the Battle of Warnstadt, though the duke was later pardoned.

Having been married at Mainz on 7 January 1114 to Matilda, daughter of Henry I of England, the emperor was confronted with a further rising, initiated by the citizens of Cologne, who were soon joined by the Saxons and others. Henry failed to take Cologne, his forces were defeated at the Battle of Welfesholz (11 February 1115), and complications in Italy compelled him to leave Germany to the care of Frederick II of Hohenstaufen, Duke of Swabia, and his brother Conrad, afterwards the German king Conrad III.

Second Italian expedition

After the departure of Henry from Rome in 1111 a council had declared the privilege of lay investiture, which had been extorted from Paschal, to be invalid. Guido, Archbishop of Vienne excommunicated the emperor, calling upon the pope to ratify this sentence. Paschal, however, refused to take so extreme a step; and the quarrel entered upon a new stage in 1115 when Matilda of Tuscany, died leaving her vast estates to the papacy. Crossing the Alps in 1116, Henry won the support of town and noble by granting privileges to the one and giving presents to the other. But the papist Jordan, Archbishop of Milan, excommunicated him at San Tecla. He took possession of Matilda's lands, and was gladly received in Rome. By this time Paschal had withdrawn his consent to lay investiture and the excommunication had been published in Rome; but the pope was compelled to flee from the city. Some of the cardinals withstood the emperor, but by means of bribes he broke down the opposition, and was crowned a second time by Burdinas, Archbishop of Braga.

Meanwhile the defeat at Welfesholz had given heart to Henry's enemies; many of his supporters, especially among the bishops, fell away; the excommunication was published at Cologne, and the pope, with the assistance of the Normans, began to make war. In January 1118, Paschal died and was succeeded by Gelasius II. The emperor immediately returned from northern Italy to Rome. But as the new pope escaped from the city, Henry, despairing of making a treaty, secured the election of the Antipope Gregory VIII, who was left in possession of Rome when the emperor returned across the Alps that same year.

Concordat of Worms

Grave of Henry V in the cathedral of Speyer.

After the second Italian expedition, the opposition in Germany was gradually crushed and a general peace declared at Tribur, while the desire for a settlement of the investiture dispute was growing. Negotiations, begun at Würzburg, were continued at Worms, where the new pope, Callistus II, was represented by Cardinal Lambert, Bishop of Ostia.

In the Concordat of Worms, signed in September 1122, Henry renounced the right of investiture with ring and crozier, recognized the freedom of election of the clergy, and promised to restore all church property. The pope agreed to allow elections to take place in presence of the imperial envoys, and the investiture with the sceptre to be granted by the emperor as a symbol that the estates of the church were held under the crown. Henry, who had been solemnly excommunicated at Reims by Callistus in October 1119, was received again into the communion of the church, after he had abandoned his nominee, Gregory, to defeat and banishment.

The emperor's concluding years were occupied with a campaign in Holland, and with a quarrel over the succession to the margraviate of Meissen, two disputes in which his enemies were aided by Lothair of Saxony. In 1124, he led an expedition against Louis VI of France, turned his arms against the citizens of Worms, and on 23 May 1125 died at Utrecht and was buried at Speyer. His heart and bowels are buried at the Cathedral of Saint Martin, Utrecht. Having no legitimate children, he left his possessions to his nephew, Frederick II of Swabia, and on his death the line of Franconian, or Salian, emperors became extinct. Henry and Matilda had no surviving children, though Hermann of Tournai mentions a child who died soon after birth. Henry's illegitimate daughter Bertha married Ptolemy II of Tusculum, son of the first Ptolemy, in 1117.

Ancestors

See also

• Kings of Germany family tree. He was related to every other king of Germany.
• Concordat of Worms
• First Council of the Lateran

Sources

• Gwatkin, H.M., Whitney, J.P. (ed) et al. The Cambridge Medieval History: Volume III. Cambridge University Press, 1926.
• Norwich, John Julius. The Normans in the South 1016-1130. Longmans: London, 1967.
• This article incorporates text from the public-domain Catholic Encyclopedia of 1913.
• This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.

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