I would like to start my presentation with three quotes. "Opposition is rubbish. Let the others do it - we want to govern." - "It is better not to govern than to govern wrongly." - "To serve God is to govern." Three quotes, three completely different statements. You probably know the first two. The first comes from an SPD leader in 2004, the other from an FDP leader in 2017. Despite their contrasting nature, these two political quotes have something in common: governing is something you can do or not do. Of course, it is also something that others are not as good at as you are, but in principle you have no right to do it - and certainly no divine mandate to do so.
Although the preamble to the Basic Law refers to a general responsibility before God, the passage does not refer to specific actions by the authorities in the present. The oath of the chancellors and ministers, insofar as it is still spoken with a religious formula, does contain a brief plea for God's assistance, but of course no vow to fulfil God's will. When we watched the only ceremonial coronation left in Europe at the beginning of May 2023, we were able to see numerous religious rites, such as the anointing of the ruler or the oath to be defenders of the faith. But, to put it banal: Charles III did not reign.
Let's be clear: anyone who speaks of a divine calling to govern in today's Europe is at best making a fool of themselves - even if things look different outside Europe, for example in parts of America (primarily among some Protestant fundamentalists there) or of course in several Islamic countries.
But now to the third quote, which you will recognise from the lecture announcement: "To serve God is to reign." I am grateful to the organising team for suggesting a title that I immediately agreed with. The subtitle is: "The concept of rule and the church policy of Emperor Henry III". Of course, "concept" and "policy" are only auxiliary terms. We must not fill them with modern content - for example, in the sense of a clear, more or less rational plan. Drawing up such a plan would have been pointless anyway. After all, a ruler in the 11th century had only limited options; he often reacted rather than acted. We will come back to this later. We could therefore also speak more generally of ideas of rule or action in the church, action with the church.
But there are difficulties there too: The ruler does not speak to us. There are virtually no personal testimonies. Henry III's letters have hardly survived. But we do have 409 documents, 385 of which are considered authentic. Of course, that's not exactly a lot for a 17-year reign. Converted, this means that we have an average of less than two surviving documents for every month of his reign.
But what is a deed anyway? A deed is a notarised legal document - in the Middle Ages as well as in the present day. So what is the difference to the present day? It is true that our legal transactions are still predominantly oral, for example when we buy groceries. But in the so-called High Middle Ages, i.e. the period between around 1000 and around 1250, it was the absolute exception for legal transactions to be set down in writing. Most transactions were symbolic, even extremely important legal acts such as the conferral of a dukedom. If a decision was nevertheless made to put a legal act in writing, there were good reasons for this, as it was expensive. Parchment was expensive, ink was expensive. And so it turned out that it was mainly ecclesiastical recipients who attached importance to gifts to them being secured in writing, i.e. communities that were not themselves able to defend their property with arms.
The king is usually far away, so the ruler's deed stands in for him. The message is that anyone who disputes this document is messing with the king. As I said, it is the king himself who speaks through the document. There was no imperial administration in the 11th century; there was only the ruler and his direct appointees. When a document is issued, it is done in a formalised language, at the time exclusively in Latin. But the formulaic language of documents was not entirely static. Many things are changeable, not just the actual legal content. One of the most variable parts of a document is the arenga, a kind of preface. The ruler uses it to justify his actions in general terms. Why do I protect churches? Why do I look after the weak? Or more generally: What is my task? Even in the Middle Ages, the king was not an actual monarch, i.e. not an autocrat in the literal sense - as I have already indicated. He had to represent, legitimise and justify his rule again and again, not least to those who also exercised rule alongside him.
But now, after the somewhat longer explanation, let's take a closer look at the motto of the previous day: "To serve God is to reign." In Latin: deo servire regnare est. You could also translate: "To serve God is to reign." This is an extract from a document from Henry III for the Bishop of Utrecht, issued in 1040. This document is not particularly important in itself; the Bishop of Utrecht is only given three estates here, not a county or anything similar. However, Utrecht and the episcopal church there were important because the remains of Henry's father, Conrad II, were buried there. The context of the words is as follows:
Honor nostri regni in hoc debet augendo florere, si iustis ac venerabilibus locis aliquid de nostris bonis videamur prebere, quia, sicut legitur, si deo servire regnare est, ergo nos esse regnaturos nullo modo ambigimus, si ęcclesiasticas res augendo honorare studuerimus.
The translation from Latin reads:
"The honour of Our Kingship must blossom by increasing it, when We are seen to offer some of Our goods to righteous and worshipful places, for if, as it is written, to serve God is to reign, we doubt not that We shall reign if We endeavour to honour ecclesiastical things by increasing them."
Now we are dealing with a rather complicated language here. This is common in an arenga. Let's try to express it in more understandable language: The king's honour increases when he increases the church's possessions. Because that is service to God. He who serves God rules - or reigns. Henry thus undoubtedly proves himself to be a ruler.
Of course, the ruler did not write his documents himself. This was generally done by his chancery. We should not think of this chancellery as a fixed location, but as a small group of clergymen who accompanied the king on his constant travels. This document for Utrecht was drawn up by a highly educated notary who was probably of Italian descent. The words deo servire regnare est are a quotation from Gregory I, also known as Gregory the Great. He was Pope between 590 and 604 and is regarded as a Catholic saint, church father and Doctor of the Church. These words come from a "Mass for Peace" attributed to him. The context there reads in translation:
"God, author and lover of peace, to recognise you is to live, to serve you is to reign; protect us who pray to you from all attacks, so that we, trusting in your protection, need not fear enemy weapons."
It is clear that between antiquity and the early Middle Ages, the pope did not use the verb regnare - to rule, to reign - in the sense of an actual ruler. Rather, it seems to go in a different direction: Nothing can ultimately harm the truly faithful. Now we could talk about a misunderstanding that often occurs when individual sentences are taken out of context. Or are we even dealing with an intentional misuse of the quotation? But it is not as simple as that. In the Middle Ages, the words of authorities had multiple meanings, which supposedly only the sufficiently educated could recognise. You may be aware that medieval biblical exegesis was practised in this way. In this context, one speaks of the fourfold sense of Scripture. In my opinion, we are dealing with something similar here. Our notary would certainly not deny that the sentence refers to all believers. But at the same time, he considers it legitimate to refer to an actual ruler. After all, the ruler of this time is no ordinary believer, but has extraordinary responsibility for the welfare of the Church and all believers. Thus: If he fulfils this task appropriately, he is a true ruler. Of course, you could also turn the whole thing round: He is not a true ruler if he does not take sufficient care to serve God. And that means, not least, supporting the clergy in their pastoral duties. But this also requires earthly goods: churches must be built, clergy must be clothed and fed, the poor must be cared for.
Of course, this is not the whole truth, as the kings and emperors in the country that was once to be called Germany also associated donations to the church with - in a narrower sense - ruling interests: Bishops and abbots supported the king or emperor in many ways, and not just because it was expected of them. Bishops and abbots provided for the travelling court of the ruler, advised him at imperial assemblies and also provided warriors in the event of war. It was therefore in the interests of the ruler to have those people elevated to bishops and abbots from whom he expected a loyal following. But that is not all - we will come back to that. The fact that the king had the right to influence the selection of bishops and abbots and to appoint them (even if not to consecrate them) was still largely undisputed under Henry III. Henry III is regarded as the last ruler under whom regnum et sacerdotium - kingship and priesthood - still formed a symbiosis. He is also regarded as a reformer on the imperial throne.
Before we take a closer look at Henry III's concrete influence on the Church, let us consider some biographical aspects that are relevant to our topic.
Henry III: a 'learned' ruler
Henry III had the good fortune - or misfortune - to grow up as heir to the throne. He was probably seven years old when his father Conrad II was elected king in 1024, thus founding a new dynasty, that of the Salians. Henry's education was first-class, whereas we do not even know whether his father could read and write at all. Henry's education included two bishops (Brun of Augsburg and Egilbert of Freising), a monk from Italy and probably also the court clergyman, poet and historian Wipo. Even if, as mentioned, Henry III did not write his documents himself, he nevertheless understood them. His notary therefore wrote words in the Arenga with which Henry must at least have agreed.
Henry's succession was quickly secured. As there was an elective kingship in Germany, it was useful if the son was elevated to co-king during his father's lifetime, meaning that the ruler himself could exert a strong influence on the election process. And so Henry III was anointed king as early as 1028 - a rite that we have recently been able to observe in Westminster. Soon afterwards, Conrad II had a seal stamp made on which Emperor Conrad and King Henry were depicted together and the inscription read: HEINRICVS SPES IMPERII - Henry, Hope of the Empire. The hope was not misplaced - in 1039, Henry III was able to smoothly take over as sole successor. He was now king of three kingdoms, Germany, Burgundy and Italy, and also saw himself as the supreme feudal lord over Bohemia, Poland and even Hungary for a time; he also initially ruled directly over the two duchies of Swabia and Bavaria with Austria and Carinthia. The document in question was issued in the first year of his reign; its arenga can certainly be regarded as a main motto of his reign.
How does a pious ruler present himself?
Let us now look at highlights during Henry's reign in which his ideas of rule become particularly clear.
In the summer of 1044, Henry led his army against the Hungarians near today's border triangle of Austria, Hungary and Slovakia. After the victorious battle, something impressive happened. I quote from the annals of Niederaltaich, a monastery in Lower Bavaria. The German translation reads:
"Then Caesar, barefoot and with a woollen robe on his bare body, fell down before the life-giving wood of the holy cross. The people did the same with the princes, giving honour and glory to the one who had given them such a wonderful, such a bloodless victory. All forgave all those who had incurred a debt against them."
A similar spectacle is described a little later, after the king's return to Regensburg: "On this day, he only ate something after he had visited all the churches in the city barefoot and wearing a woollen robe and had covered the altars with a precious cloth." The barefoot ruler in a harsh robe - this scene initially seems reminiscent of Canossa 33 years later. But even if the symbolism of penance is similar, we are dealing with a completely different constellation in the case of Henry III. Henry III is the driver, his son later the driven. He himself orders the penance. What is behind this? The thanks to God is shown by emphasising his own unworthiness, his own sinfulness. Victory is not celebrated haughtily, but in humility. This in turn is a guarantee for the ruler's future successes. It is remarkable that the ruler and the people form a community of repentance. For even the pious ruler cannot rule successfully if his people act impiously.
An unpractised role: Henry III as 'pope maker'
Since 962, the 'German' kingship had been linked to the imperial throne. But as we know, this was not automatic: the king had to make his way to the Pope in Rome, and of course not alone or with a small entourage, but with an army, because he had to expect that he would first have to fight his way out in Italy.
Henry III set off on 8 September 1046. The day was chosen carefully. It was the feast day of the Nativity of Mary. And he made further provisions by issuing eight deeds of donation to the cathedral chapter of Speyer around this time. He also donated a valuable gospel to the cathedral. This is all connected, as Speyer Cathedral is consecrated to the Virgin Mary. This means that by choosing this date and making these donations, he placed his endeavour under the protection of Mary - apparently with success: he travelled unhindered to Pavia, the old Lombard capital. There, he once again did things that we would nowadays categorise as the responsibility of the high clergy: He ordered a synod to be held. According to one source, he even gave a fiery speech against the buying and selling of church offices. This practice, known as simony, was one of the biggest offences of the early church reform, alongside the marriage of priests.
A few words on the concept of reform. In the present day, reform means 'doing something differently', 'renewing something'. In the Middle Ages it also meant this, but with a completely different twist. This is because the thinking of the time was not usually about creating something new, but about restoring an old, supposedly better state, a state that had been perverted in the meantime. The benchmark for this is the church of the first centuries, the early church, above all the primitive church. Of course, the view of this church in the 11th century is largely a fiction. There was no obligation to remain celibate in the early church, nor did the Bishop of Rome hold a pre-eminent position.
Back to the Synod of Pavia: whether or not Henry gave this speech himself, the bishops present from Germany, Italy and Burgundy decided, it is said, that from then on all those who were found to have bought ecclesiastical offices should be deposed and excommunicated.
Now nothing seemed to stand in the way of Henry's coronation in Rome. Just a few days later, the king met with Pope Gregory VI in Piacenza, not far from Pavia. We know nothing about any disagreements at this meeting. They travelled on together towards Rome. However, it was probably only a few days' journey from the Eternal City when Henry learnt of disturbing accusations: Gregory VI himself was said to have received his papacy in return for a monetary payment. However, the background is not so clear. Let's let the annalist from Niederaltaich have his say again:
There were, it says, "three popes, all three of whom were still alive at that time. For the first of them, who had left the papal see because of an illicit marriage he had contracted, had withdrawn voluntarily rather than being forced out by any hostile force. So the Romans conspired among themselves and put another in his place, even though he was still alive. The first, however, sold his rule to a third party for a sum of money, because, driven by anger, he did not favour the one put in his place."
I hardly think that the quote could help to clarify things, rather the opposite - the whole thing seems a bit confused; apparently the monk who wrote it didn't know exactly either. But with the help of other sources, we can reconstruct to some extent what happened:
The first pope came from the most powerful Roman noble family at the time, the Tusculans; he called himself Benedict IX. After twelve years of his pontificate, there was an uprising against him in 1044. A member of a rival Roman noble family, the Crescentians, was elevated to the position of antipope; he called himself Silvester III. It is difficult to say whether there were any misdemeanours of a sexual nature behind the revolt, but in retrospect, other sources also leave little room for criticism of Benedict IX.
However, Silvester III was only able to remain on the papal throne for a few weeks, after which he was expelled without abdicating. Benedict IX was able to return - apparently his family really did have the 'most divisions'. After just a few weeks, however, he decided to resign from office - incidentally, one of three actual voluntary resignations in papal history, if we do not count so-called antipopes. Benedict's successor was his godfather, who called himself Gregory VI. This was a year and a half before Henry's arrival in Italy. So far, so good, because Gregory VI was apparently initially regarded as an impeccable choice, even in the eyes of church reformers.
After this recourse, we turn back to the end of 1046: on his way to Rome, Henry heard that Gregory VI had paid his predecessor Benedict a redemption sum before he retired to his estates. This raised the accusation of the purchase of an office, i.e. simony, which the church reformers were fighting against in agreement with Henry himself. Now haste was of the essence, as Christmas was scheduled as the coronation day. A new synod was needed. It took place in Sutri, about two days' march from Rome, just five days before Christmas. The contemporary chronicler Hermann the Lame writes:
"And while everything was proceeding happily, he [Henry III - D. J.] held another synod in Sutri just before Christmas, examined the matter of the unjust popes more closely and removed the pastoral staff from Pope Gratian [Gregory VI's birth name - D. J.], who was convicted. Then, with the consent of all, both Romans and others, he elected Bishop Swidger, who was the second bishop after the first Bishop Eberhard to lead the Bamberg Church in the 6th year, as the supreme bishop of the Roman Church, although he strongly resisted; and so they entered the city itself around Christmas Eve before the Feast of the Nativity of the Lord. [...] On the feast of the Lord's birth itself, the aforementioned Swidger, a Saxon by origin, was consecrated as the 151st pope for the apostolic see according to custom and called by the exalted name of Clement II. On the same day, he raised King Henry and his wife Agnes to the rank of emperor by consecration."
Again, we do not know whether this is exactly what happened. Once again, no synodal minutes have survived. Other, quite credible sources state that Pope Gregory VI himself presided over the Synod of Sutri. It also remains unclear to what extent the pope ultimately realised his guilt and 'voluntarily' vacated his seat. What is certain, however, is that without Henry's pressure, such a synod with this result would not have come about in the first place, and certainly not one of Henry's confidants would have been elected as the new pope. However, this did not happen in Sutri, as Herman the Lame claimed, but only in Rome.
What actual influence did Henry III exert? Here, too, there are contradictory reports. However, the fact that he would have pursued a long-term plan and pushed it through against the resistance of those present is hardly assumed, at least in the present day. However, the election of a German, or more precisely a Saxon, as pope had long-term consequences. Incidentally, his choice of name already indicates a programme: The first bearer of the name was regarded as a disciple of St Peter and thus as a representative of an early, supposedly pure papacy.
After the death of Clement II less than a year later, Henry intervened even more clearly in the succession arrangements. It was determined directly at the royal court, specifically in Pöhlde am Harz, where the travelling king was at the end of 1047. The majority of sources report that Henry III "appointed" the pope - in Latin assignavit. Others write that he had previously consulted bishops, while still others claim that he had followed the requests of an envoy from Rome. The result was that a bishop from the northern Alpine region of the empire was once again appointed pope, namely Bishop Poppo of Brixen in today's South Tyrol. He had to be escorted to Rome accompanied by an army. Benedict IX - remember, the pope who had once been expelled and had voluntarily renounced his papacy in return for a redemption payment on another occasion - was tired of his retirement and had himself appointed pope once again. He was unable to do anything against the army, so Poppo was finally seated on the chair of St Peter in Rome. He gave himself the name Damasus II - after a pope of the 4th century who had already strongly emphasised the primacy of the Roman episcopal see. However, no more than three official acts of this pope have come down to us. This is hardly surprising, as he died after less than a month in midsummer 1048, perhaps from malaria.
And once again a Roman delegation travelled to Henry III. Although the Roman envoys were allowed to have a say this time too (who actually appointed them?), Henry then pushed through a distant relative, Bishop Bruno of Toul, an Alsatian. The involvement of the Romans apparently only consisted of them acclaiming him on his arrival in Rome, i.e. confirming his election by acclamation or applause. Leo IX - as he called himself after the self-confident late antique Pope Leo the Great - was pontiff long enough to have a profound impact. In five years (1049-1054), he set decisive accents and can therefore be considered the first actual reform pope. However, this is the subject of Klaus Herbers' article and will not be discussed in detail here. Only two aspects should be mentioned: it is said that the new pope only agreed to his appointment on the condition that it would be repeated in Rome by the clergy and the people. Did he want to protect himself against criticism? Or was this already the first 'cutting of the cord' of the reforming papacy from the empire? Whatever the case, the relationship between Henry III and Leo IX was largely amicable. The emperor and pope held a synod in Mainz just a few months after the latter took office. They had - at least according to one of the surviving sources - jointly called for it, so that in addition to at least 40 bishops, numerous abbots, lower clerics and laymen probably also attended. No minutes have been preserved here either, but we know from other sources that it was again about simony and "abominable priestly marriages".
We learn from a papal document that Henry entrusted the newly built collegiate church in his palace of Goslar to the ownership and protection of the Roman Church, i.e. the papacy. At the same time, he, the emperor, reserved the right to appoint the provost there. It is revealing that Leo IX apparently had no problem with this.
It should be mentioned that Henry III once again had the opportunity to de facto appoint a pope himself, namely Bishop Gebhard of Eichstätt, presumably a Swabian. He had previously been an important advisor to Henry III and was appointed pope by him in Mainz. The sources contradict each other as to the extent to which the delegation from Rome was able to exert its own will. With this pope, who called himself Victor II from 1055, we can draw an interim conclusion:
There is no doubt that Henry III initiated a turning point in papal history in 1046. He installed - in effect - popes who were outside the city-Roman disputes. This gave them room for manoeuvre as reformers. It is always problematic to speculate about personal motives after a millennium. But there is little doubt that Henry III was not only interested in selecting popes who were loyal to him, but also in appointing pious men with impeccable reputations. One of them, Leo IX, is regarded as a Catholic saint. The fact that the reforming papacy would turn against the German king himself just two decades later was of course not yet foreseeable at the time. Would things have developed differently if Henry had lived longer? Possibly. But it is not the task of historians to ask what would have been, but what was.
The art of choosing a bishop
There remains the aspect of the episcopal appointments - later, under Henry III's son and grandson, the main point of contention in the church reform. This, too, was hardly foreseeable under Henry III. But is there a common pattern for the elevation of bishops or - generally somewhat less important - abbots or abbesses? Firstly, in many cases we do not even know how the succession was organised. In other cases, the sources only say: Henry appointed a cleric X as bishop or a monk Y as abbot. The process is rarely described in more detail. Different patterns become visible:
First pattern: Henry imposes a candidate against local resistance. This is apparently what happened in Milan and Cologne. According to one source, Henry disregarded the will of the Milanese nobility and clergy in 1045 and did not select one of their own as bishop. Only fear of the king or bribery had persuaded them to accept the nominee. But caution is advised here: Our source, the Milanese Arnulf, wrote three decades after the events and was one of those who defended the independence of the Milanese against attempts at interference from outside, whether by popes or emperors. The second example is Cologne: we are told that in 1056 a delegation arrived at Henry in Koblenz to ask for a worthy successor after the death of the old archbishop. Henry decided in favour of Anno, his court chaplain of many years, and presented him with the crosier and bishop's ring. After his arrival in Cologne, however, Anno was greeted with a kind of dog barking and people shouted at him: "Who is this and who has made him prince and judge over us?" Here the source is even more problematic - it is a saint's vita, written half a century after the events. Anno is portrayed as a kind of Moses who has to assert himself against a stubborn people.
Second pattern: negotiation. In 1042, the episcopal see of Eichstätt was to be reoccupied. The events are described as follows: Henry's relative, the Bishop of Regensburg, advised him to appoint the Provost of Regensburg Cathedral. Heinrich almost did so, but then he learnt that he was a priest's son. Heinrich refused to accept this. However, in order not to offend his relative, he allowed him to make another suggestion. He in turn advised him to meet a Swabian called Gebhard, who was also a Regensburg cathedral cleric. Heinrich set eyes on him and realised: "Isn't this man too young? Other bishops who were consulted also found this problematic. Finally, the canonised Archbishop Bardo of Mainz stood up and said: "Lord, it is good if you give him this power, because one day you will give him even greater power." Henry then decided in favour of Gebhard. The report comes from a bishop's chronicle from Eichstätt, written around three and a half decades later. This passage is undoubtedly coloured by legend. But it is certainly not entirely fictitious. It must at least seem logical to the readership that the king first consults others in detail before making a decision. But what is the point of the prophecy described by the Archbishop of Mainz? - Gebhard of Eichstätt was none other than the later Pope Victor II.
Third example: Henry only gave his consent after the election had taken place. In Liège, the provost of the cathedral, Wazo, was elected bishop in 1042 by the clergy and the people, as is proper under canon law. This is according to a contemporary Liège bishop's chronicle. He went to Henry III to obtain his confirmation. Henry hesitated, especially as some of those around him remarked that an election without the king's prior consent was unseemly and that Wazo had never served as a clergyman at court. On the advice of two bishops, he nevertheless gave his subsequent consent and invested Wazo with a bishop's ring and crosier.
Fourth pattern: Henry simply overruled an election (although this probably happened rarely). According to a monastery chronicle, this was the case in Ebersmünster in Alsace, where he appointed a trusted goldsmith instead of the chosen one. However, it remains unclear whether we can trust this much later tradition.
Let's leave it at that. One thing remains to be said: Of course, it was in Henry's interest to make people he knew and trusted bishops or abbots. However, he generally had to take local circumstances into consideration. He could not simply 'rule through' in terms of church policy. Furthermore, Henry mainly endeavoured to push through or accept suitable candidates. These were by no means always eager advocates of church reform, but at least mostly those who took their office seriously.
Praise and admonition for the ruler
We began with one aspect of Henry III's understanding of his reign. After a long excursion into the realm of the king and emperor's actual actions and reforms, I would like to return there in conclusion. There are other concepts of rule that were transferred to Henry III. In 1041, the court chaplain Wipo presented the king with a small writing called Tetralogus, a mixture of praise of the ruler and admonition of the ruler. In it, he is not afraid to refer to Henry as "second after Christ". Elsewhere in the work it says: "You are the head of the world, your head is the ruler of Olympus." Or: "The world has no doubt that you rule it as second only to the Lord of Heaven." You could dismiss this as pure flattery from a courtier, but that would be too easy. In his most famous work, the description of the deeds of Conrad II, he describes the coronation of Henry's father in 1024, during which the Archbishop of Mainz is said to have preached:
"You have risen to the highest dignity, you are a representative of Christ. Whoever does not follow him is not a true ruler. On this royal throne you must think of the imperishable honours."
Vicarius Christi - Vicar of Christ - a title that today we associate solely with the Pope! This work was also dedicated to Henry III, who was seven years old at the time of his father's coronation. Whether these words were spoken at his father's coronation in the same or a similar way is uncertain, but it is of no importance to us here whether they were put into the mouth of the Archbishop of Wipo or whether he merely considered it important not to let them fall into oblivion. They are certainly double-edged words: Anyone who is the Vicar of Christ must also prove himself worthy of this exalted role, i.e. follow Christ - as a believer, as a righteous ruler. Otherwise he is not a true ruler; we remember Arenga mentioned at the beginning. And more important than reigning on earth is the salvation of the soul, referred to here as imperishable honour. God will demand an account of whether the ruler has fulfilled his task - far more so than from other believers with less responsibility. In our context, however, the following is also noteworthy: After Henry III, as far as I know, no one ever thought of calling the Roman-German king or emperor the vicar of Christ.
Now we are dealing here with external attributions. But did Heinrich also see himself in this way? Let's try to approach this question further.
Getting a picture of the emperor
We can gain an additional insight into the understanding of rulership at the time of Henry III by looking at depictions of rulers in manuscripts. There are quite a few of these relating to Henry III and his wife Agnes of Poitou. I have chosen one that I think is somewhat less well known than other images of rulers.
It comes from the so-called Codex Caesareus. This is an evangeliary, a manuscript containing the four Gospels. It was commissioned by Henry III himself around the year 1050 and was executed in Echternach in what is now Luxembourg. There was an important Benedictine monastery there, which in turn was known for its writing workshop. Several masterpieces of book illumination were also created here in the High Middle Ages; these are also referred to as magnificent manuscripts. The Gospels were intended as a gift from Henry III to the newly built collegiate church near the Palatinate of Goslar. The Gospels were kept there until the Thirty Years' War, when they were taken to Sweden and are now in Uppsala. Such manuscripts usually begin with miniatures of the donors, so-called dedicatory images. On one leaf, for example, we see Henry III presenting the Gospels to the two apostles Simon and Judah. This is because the collegiate church was dedicated to Simon and Judah. As is usual with such donor paintings, the donor is depicted as small and humble in relation to the recipients, even though he is a ruler. The inscription at the top reads: "Emperor Henry raises the walls of Goslar" - meaning that he raised them by founding the collegiate church.
More interesting for us, however, is the miniature shown here opposite. In the centre we see Christ as the ruler of the world; his feet rest on the cosmos, in the centre the globe. At the edge are the symbols of the four evangelists: eagle = John, bull = Luke, man = Matthew, lion = Mark. To the right of Christ we see Henry III with an eagle sceptre, to the left his wife Agnes of Poitou with a lily sceptre. No one else is depicted, only the imperial couple with Christ. Christ's hand rests on the couple, whereby we are certainly dealing with a deliberately ambiguous gesture, namely coronation and blessing. The following words appear at the top: PER ME REGNANTES VIVANT HEINRICVS ET AGNES - "Through me they reign, Henry and Agnes, they shall live." The words may sound familiar to some, as they are written in a similar way on the imperial crown: PER MES REGES REGNANT - "by me kings reign", a biblical quotation from the so-called Proverbs of Solomon (Book of Proverbs). In the upper mandorla around Christ is the inscription: CAELVM CAELI D(omi)NO - "Heaven belongs to the Lord of Heaven." In the lower mandorla we find the words "FILIIS HOMINVM TERRAM AUTEM DED(it) - "But the earth he gave to the sons of men." - Both are a related quotation from the Psalms. The heavenly and earthly spheres are clearly separated by word and representation. But they are not impenetrable. The heads of the imperial couple protrude into the heavenly sphere. This imagery wants to say: the ruler is a mere human being, but a human being who has a special relationship with the divine. Even if he has been crowned by the visible hand of the Pope, he is ultimately a direct appointee of God. And who could deny someone appointed by God the right to intervene in ecclesiastical matters, for the good of the Church, of course? This type of presentation is not unique. There is a similar coronation painting of his predecessor, Henry II, from the beginning of the century from the Regensburg Sacramentary, which can be found today in the Bavarian State Library, or a coronation painting of Otto III from around 1000, which even shows the ruler himself in a mandorla (Liuthar Gospels in the Aachen Cathedral Treasury).
It is not surprising that these other examples exist, as Henry III was part of an older tradition of a strongly sacred concept of rule. What is remarkable, however, is that there were no more such depictions after Henry III.
However, we should not prematurely regard such depictions as direct expressions of imperial self-image. Even if they commissioned such manuscripts, this does not necessarily mean that they had a direct influence on the artistic realisation. Such coronation images could just as easily be seen as an expression of the ideas in the clerical environment of the ruler - or even only in the executing monastery itself. Were they also pictorial exhortations to the ruler, sketches of how the emperor should see himself?
First cracks in the 'system'
As an epilogue, so to speak, I would like to talk about the beginnings of criticism during Henry's lifetime or immediately afterwards. In 1047/48, presumably in Burgundy, a treatise by an unnamed cleric was written on the legitimate
- or more precisely: unlawful - installation and deposition of popes (De ordinando pontifice). In it, he castigates Henry III's interference with fierce words; it was presumptuous to judge the Roman See. He even goes so far as to say: "But he who is the head must not be beaten by the tail [...]"; also, "the emperors are subject to the bishops". These are downright revolutionary words (especially as the author recommends that all the bishops of Christendom elect a pope), even if they were hardly disseminated at the time (only a single manuscript has survived).
Also interesting is a passage from a report on the deeds of the bishops of Liège, probably written very soon after Henry's end. We have already heard about Bishop Wazo, whose election Henry III had to accept. Wazo later criticised Henry's interference in the papal election with fundamental criticism:
"The emperor, however, who was known to be such a man that he sought to gain power over the bishops in an extremely worldly - not to say ruthless - manner, said: 'But I am anointed in the same way with holy oil, and I am therefore given authority above all others. Conversely, the bishop, heated by his zeal for truth and the fervour of righteousness, thought he had to briefly instruct the other with words of the same kind. He said: 'This consecration of yours is different and far different from the priestly consecration, which you claim for yourselves, because you have been anointed by them to kill, but we have been anointed by the command of God to make alive; from this the conclusion follows: how much more life is stronger than death, the better our consecration is without doubt than yours' [...]."
According to this account, the king invokes his anointing as ruler in order to legitimise his authority in the church as well. Wazo did not accept this: The consecration of a ruler had nothing to do with the consecration of a bishop; to rely on it was presumption. We today can understand this to some extent - for us it is self-evident that a secular power should keep out of ecclesiastical affairs as far as possible. But around the middle of the 11th century, such ideas were revolutionary. We are less able to understand the bishops' self-confidence. It is implicitly stated that the reverse need not apply at all. Pope Gregory VII later brought such a sense of superiority to perfection.
We will not find out to what extent this passage is stylised, whether Wazo actually dared to contradict his worldly master so harshly. But we can see one thing: The fuse had been lit on the far-reaching sacral understanding of rule.
Conclusion
Theocratic ideas of rule undoubtedly existed in Henry III's circle. However, the target audience for these ideas was limited; ultimately, we cannot know to what extent the king or emperor himself adopted them to such an extent. Above all, however, his rule was not an actual theocracy. The ruler was not a priest-king. He did not administer sacraments, and the administration of justice was not based directly on the Bible. I would argue that Christianity is not suitable for theocratic attempts anyway, especially since the New Testament lacks specific legislation. If such attempts were made, they were of a brief nature (such as Savonarola's regime in Florence or the Anabaptist kingdom in Münster). But it remains to be said: Sacerdotium and Regnum, priesthood and kingship, spiritual power and ruling authority, formed a symbiosis under Henry III - certainly stronger than before due to the longer-term grip on the papacy. However, despite all of Henry's support for reform, the first opposition to the way in which he proceeded did not fail to materialise.
