It soon became clear that the spectacular act of penance at Canossa was not a final solution. Gregory of Canossa's letter to the princes of the empire foreshadowed the disaster to come. By cancelling the ban, the pope had removed from the hands of the anti-Salian opposition the instrument with which they intended to overthrow Henry IV or at least make him compliant. The lifting of the ban without consultation must have shaken the confidence of the Salian's opponents, especially the Saxons, in Gregory VII. No matter how often the pope emphasised in his letter that he was sticking to the Augsburg arbitration ruling, which had already been postponed several times, under his leadership and with the involvement of the princes of the realm, they felt betrayed by the events in Canossa.
The election of Rudolf of Rheinfelden
The southern German opposition therefore decided on a radical overthrow in Ulm in February 1077, bypassing the Pope: on 15 March, they elected a new king, the Swabian Duke Rudolf, in Forchheim, where Conrad I had presumably been placed on the throne in November 911 as the first non-Carolingian of the East Frankish-German Empire. Rudolf's election has been described as revolutionary (J. Laudage). And indeed, the elevation of a king rivalling Henry IV can be described as a fundamental and lasting, abrupt social change, to use a common definition of "revolution". Never before in East Frankish-German history had an adult ruler, who had been crowned for more than twenty years, had to defend himself against a rival candidate raised by the princes of the realm. Furthermore, both the Pope's approval and dynastic considerations had been disregarded.
Henry IV had also contributed to this new development by refusing the pope the contractually agreed escort in order to thwart the meeting in Augsburg. This move must have finally convinced the opposition princes of the realm that the improvement promised by Henry in Canossa was an empty promise and that a compromise with the king was no longer possible. A determined minority of the German princes therefore invited the pope to attend the election of a new king in Forchheim in mid-March instead of Augsburg as planned, immediately after Henry's ban was announced.
As Henry IV was still in northern Italy at this time, the anti-Salian party pressed for a quick decision. In his reply, Gregory VII defended himself by saying that the German princes had refused him the promised escort and had thus made Henry's penitential journey to Canossa possible in the first place. He was nevertheless unsure of the Salian's sincerity and would send two legates to Forchheim in his place. These envoys, Cardinal Deacon Bernhard and Abbot Bernhard of Saint-Victor in Marseille, were supposed to prevent a hasty election of the king if possible, or at least delay it. Both failed.
On 13 March 1077, only a few great men gathered in Forchheim in the presence of the legates, including Dukes Rudolf of Swabia, Welf of Bavaria, Berthold of Zähringen, Magnus Billung and Otto of Northeim on the Saxon side, Siegfried of Mainz, Gebhard of Salzburg, Werner of Magdeburg, Burchard of Halberstadt, Altmann of Passau, Adalbert of Worms and Adalbero of Würzburg from the episcopate, as well as possibly other bishops. The undoubtedly prominent electoral committee thus consisted of barely more than a dozen people who had already made an appearance at the negotiations in Trebur/Oppenheim in autumn 1076. While the prospect of Henry's improvement had prevented them from putting up an opposing candidate at that time, the anti-Salian party did not now want to
wait longer.
Before the actual election, the Forchheim Assembly declared the deposition of Henry IV by Gregory VII irrevocable in order to legitimise the elevation of a new king. It was emphasised that Rudolf only attained the royal dignity on the basis of personal suitability and the election of the princes, for which he had to make some serious concessions: he expressly renounced the right to regard the realm as his property (proprium) and to designate his son as his successor (ius hereditarium) in order to take account of the principle of free election in the future. This fulfilled one of the main demands of the secular electorate, but it is significant that the sources ignore Rudolf's relationship with the Salians. The king had to fulfil the ideals of church reform insofar as he had to observe the canonical election of bishops and the ban on simony.
The coronation of Rudolf
After the election of the king, the entourage of secular and ecclesiastical dignitaries travelled to Mainz for the coronation. However, the preparations for the coronation ceremony turned out to be more difficult than expected, as the anointing oil that was essential for the consecration of the ruler was apparently missing at first - contrary to church regulations, it was only consecrated on the day of the coronation. On Sunday Laetare, 26 March 1077, Siegfried of Mainz anointed and crowned Rudolf of Rheinfelden as king. On the same day, an uprising broke out among the Mainz citizenry, who were favourably disposed towards Henry IV, which put the newly crowned Rudolf to flight. When Henry learnt of Rudolf's uprising, he set off from Italy for the northern Alpine part of the empire. On his way, he took the opportunity to install a counter-duke in Carinthia. At the beginning of May, the Salian set foot on Bavarian soil. The pope continued to prefer the northern Italian countryside and the military protection of Matilda of Tuscany - he had evidently postponed his plans to travel north because of the scheduled meeting in Forchheim.
It was not until 31 May that the Pope reacted to the latest developments in the empire. Gregory instructed his two legates to ask "the two kings Henry and Rudolf" (utrumque regem) for free passage for his journey across the Alps. He then wanted to find out, with the advice of all godly men, which side had the greater right to rule. The Diet of Augsburg, which was originally intended to decide on Henry's kingship, had - after Gregory's idea and some waiting - become a court of arbitration over the two rival kings. It was never to take place. After Canossa, Gregory VII's intervention was not sought by either Henry's or Rudolf's party. No one in the empire wanted to see the pope north of the Alps, no one deigned to grant him the escort he longed for. In the summer of 1077, Gregory VII also realised this and returned to Rome, which he had left for the north in January with great expectations.
The outbreak of civil war
Meanwhile, developments in the regnum Teutonicum took their course even without papal influence. Siegfried of Mainz and Adalbero of Würzburg excommunicated Henry IV one after the other. The reason given by Siegfried to emphasise his ability to act is revealing: "This man [Henry IV] comes from the Mainz district", and as a Christian he was therefore subject to the punitive power of the Archbishop of Mainz. However, the banns had no major effect, and Gregory VII did not comment on them either. In any case, Rudolf's election had created an ominous situation in which the majority of the greats adopted a wait-and-see attitude, while the supporters of the rival kings took up arms. Even after the outbreak of civil war, Gregory VII initially maintained strict neutrality and adhered to the increasingly unrealistic plan of a papal court of arbitration. It was only when the Normans threatened to conquer Rome that Gregory's stance changed. By forging a closer alliance with Henry IV, the pope hoped to secure the Salian's military protection. Henry, in turn, hoped that a rapprochement would lead to Gregory VII's separation from his opponents in the empire.
Messengers from both kings appeared at the Lenten Synod in 1079, although Henry IV's envoys merely referred to the imminent arrival of a higher authorised representative, while Rudolf's representatives demanded the immediate banishment of the Salian. Gregory VII finally took an oath from Henry's envoys that representatives of the Salian would be with him by Ascension Day (2 May) and would then travel to the empire with Gregory's legates. Henry was then to be "obedient in everything" to these papal envoys. They did appear at two princes' congresses in Fritzlar and Würzburg to negotiate the issue of the double kings, but the Roman legates achieved nothing there. A diplomatic solution was no longer an option for Henry IV, who turned to Saxony with his army. His military superiority had strengthened his hopes of being able to get rid of the opposition without papal support, especially as Rudolf, who was in favour of church reform, only had the support of a minority of the imperial princes.
The Battle of Mellrichstadt
The first major battle between the knightly armies of the two kings took place on 7 August 1078 on the Grafenberg near Mellrichstadt. In order to prevent a union of Swabian and Saxon troops under Rudolf's leadership, Henry IV had moved his army to Lower Franconia at the foot of the Rhön. The contingents met there. While the Salian had mainly faced peasant armies in the Saxon War, armoured horsemen faced each other in Mellrichstadt. According to Berthold von Reichenau, both opponents sought a decision and actively intervened in the fighting. The confrontation between the armies of knights degenerated into a cruel slashing and stabbing that inflicted heavy losses on Henry IV's troops in particular, although the figure of 30 nobiles and around 5,000 minores killed cited by Berthold is certainly exaggerated. Bruno's book on the Saxon War names several counts, including Diepold II of Vohburg, as casualties on the side of Henry IV.
Bruno also describes the circumstances of Archbishop Werner of Magdeburg's death: "Both sides fought bravely, indeed mercilessly. On both sides, the fighting was sometimes like this, sometimes like that; some fled, others fled; our own were captured, but released again; the enemies were massacred. On our side, the first to flee were those who should never have joined the fight, namely the two bishops who shared the name but not - if I may say so - the fate. Both were called Werner. For the Magdeburg bishop was seized by the peasants of the region and miserably murdered, while the Merseburg bishop returned home, albeit plundered and naked [...]. Since they were spiritually educated and could sing psalms better than command armed troops in war, they fled at the first sight of the fighting, whereupon such a large crowd followed them that the king [Rudolf] already thought that the whole army had fled".
Not only the high clergy, but also the two kings sought their salvation in flight. While Rudolf retreated to Saxony, Henry IV fled to Würzburg, pursued by Otto of Northeim's troops. Although Rudolf claimed victory for himself, the Battle of Mellrichstadt did not yet bring a decision.
The Battle of Flarchheim
At the end of 1079, Henry IV marched through Swabia plundering and pillaging, but soon turned his attention to his actual opponent and moved from southern Germany to Saxony. Rudolf opposed him, leading to a second major battle on 27 January 1080 at Flarchheim near Mühlhausen in Thuringia. Once again, armoured riders formed the bulk of both armies. Henry IV had received short-term reinforcements from Duke Vratislav's Bohemian troops. The most important source for the course of the battle is once again the Reichenau monk Berthold, a supporter of Rudolf of Swabia. The latter had wanted to decide the battle in his favour with a ruse and therefore positioned his troops on and behind a hill at the foot of which there was a narrow but deep stream. As soon as Henry's troops had crossed the stream and climbed the hill, the Saxon knights under the leadership of Otto von Northeim were to strike in a flash from above to prevent the enemy from taking up an organised position. But the plan failed. Henry IV and his followers recognised the danger, bypassed the position and attacked Otto's troops in their rear. A heavy snowstorm set in during the battle, making it impossible to proceed in an organised manner and leading to a similar slaughter as at Mellrichstadt. Only when darkness fell did the bloodshed come to an end.
In military terms, the Battle of Flarchheim did not bring a decision either, although Henry's troop losses are said to have been far higher. The Salian himself is said to have fled through the forest with a small retinue immediately after the fighting began, as the plundering of his camp had deprived him of the supplies he needed for a winter campaign. The remnants of his defeated army gathered at Wartburg Castle, but were put to flight by the pursuing Saxon horsemen and left behind a large part of their "belongings, horses, weapons, gold and silver crockery, pepper and other spices, cloaks and precious clothes", including the things that the Patriarch Henry of Aquileia and other princes had with them. As Henry had left the battlefield prematurely, Rudolf, who had remained there until the end, was able to claim victory for himself.
However, the Bohemian duke captured Rudolf's golden royal lance, which was supposed to secure its owner the status of invincibility and the favour of God. In the meantime, several Saxon greats had sided with Henry IV, so that Rudolf was only able to hold on to Saxony with difficulty. However, as the Salian was unable to gain any advantages from this second military conflict, he contacted Gregory VII in the hope of obtaining a papal declaration in his favour. In this context, Archbishop Liemar of Hamburg-Bremen and Bishop Rupert of Bamberg were sent as messengers to Rome to persuade Gregory VII to make a fundamental statement at the Lenten Synod in March 1080. Bonizo of Sutri, whose testimony is not beyond all doubt, reports that the king had his envoys inform him that he would obey the pope on condition that the pope would in return banish Rudolf without judicial investigation (absque iudicio). Otherwise, he would appoint a new pope to replace Gregory.
The renewed excommunication of Henry IV.
Gregory VII reacted in a similar way to 1076: he not only renewed the ban on investiture, but also made its violation punishable by excommunication. The Pope now declared that Henry IV had not been reinstated as king at Canossa, but had merely been released from the ban. In the period that followed, the Salian had thwarted the papal endeavours to reach an arbitration award out of "arrogance, disobedience and falsehood" and contrary to his sworn obligation. On these grounds, Gregory VII decreed the renewed excommunication of Henry IV at the Lenten Synod of 1080 and stripped him of his royal dignity over Germany and Italy. He also released all his subjects from the oath of allegiance. On the other hand, the pope attested humility, obedience and sincerity to Rudolf, the "king chosen by the Germans", declared him the rightful ruler of the regnum Teutonicum - he did not say a word about a claim to rule Italy - and assured Rudolf's followers remission of all sins.
It may be that Bonizo's account is correct and that Henry IV issued an ultimatum to the pope; it may be that the balance of power, which seemed to favour Rudolf after the battles of Mellrichstadt and Flarchheim, prompted the pope to take this step. In any case, Gregory VII was openly contradicting himself when he deprived Henry IV of his kingship, which he did not want to have restored in Canossa in 1077. Nevertheless, in contrast to 1076, this time Gregory VII's confession was unambiguous and left Henry IV no way out and no possibility of reconciliation.
After three years of hesitation and manoeuvring, Gregory VII had declared himself in favour of Rudolf of Rheinfelden's claim to the throne and banned Henry. Of course, the pope had thus thrown overboard his prayerfully formulated intention to preside over a court of arbitration and his "claim to unrestricted power of disposal over all earthly dignities and riches", which had already "convinced contemporaries least of all Gregory's postulates" (R. Schieffer). The rivalry between the two kings with their own supporters, which shook the empire, caused the anonymous Augsburg annalist to exclaim in 1079: "O wretched state of the empire! As a comic poet puts it: 'We are all doubled', there are double popes, double bishops, double kings, double dukes!"
The solution to the oath of allegiance
The controversy that arose in journalism shows that Gregory's autocratic understanding of office went too far even for some of his supporters. As in 1076, the cancellation of the oath associated with Henry's ban also caused massive misgivings: observant commentators argued that by cancelling the oaths, Gregory VII had placed his own ideas of morality and obedience above the right of the king conferred by God and confirmed by the oath of allegiance. The Old and New Testaments, on the other hand, clearly state that an oath must also be honoured against evil and godless people. An oathbreaker was therefore acting sinfully despite papal authorisation. The head of the cathedral school in Trier, Wenrich, who wrote on behalf of the Bishop of Verdun, put it this way in a letter to the Pope: "Whether we like it or not, we will be released [from the oath]. The solution is not asked for, but offered; it is rejected and forced upon us against our will. But every conscientious observer knows that what one is so easily released from is of little value".
As you can see, Gregory VII met with well-founded resistance. To make matters worse, the pope added to the ban against Henry IV, renewed on Easter Sunday at the tomb of St Peter, that Henry would either be dead or deposed by 1 August 1080 at the latest, the feast of the Chain of Peter. If this prophecy did not materialise, he no longer wanted to be pope.
The Synod of Brixen 1080
If Gregory VII had hoped to break the political stalemate between the two kings with this bold step, he was mistaken. The second banishment of Henry was far less effective than the first. Ultimately, it is unlikely to have surprised either supporters or opponents of the Salian. Henry succeeded in persuading the majority of the northern Alpine episcopate to once again renounce obedience to the pope, which was to be followed by a joint declaration of rejection with the northern Italian bishops. To this end, on 25 June 1080, in the presence of Henry IV, 30 bishops, enriched by the presence of the inevitable papal opponent Hugo Candidus, gathered in the southernmost part of Bavaria for a synod in Brixen, whose resolutions were even more drastic than those passed four years earlier in Worms.
Although the pope was given the option of voluntarily relinquishing the cathedra Petri, if he refused, he would be forced to do so by military means if necessary. An alternative, "better" pope was also elected in Brixen. However, this decision was not made public; only a document of Henry IV for the church of Ravenna dated 26 June 1080 refers to the archbishop there, Wibert, as the elected apostolicus summae sedis. Wibert never used this title himself and only assumed the papal name Clement III on the occasion of his enthronement in Rome in 1084.
The death of Rudolf of Swabia
After his return from Brixen, Henry IV sought a final decision in the battle against Rudolf of Swabia. Although he still had the support of the southern German dukes, his sphere of power remained limited. He only seems to have moved freely in central and eastern Saxony in 1080. Henry IV, on the other hand, was supported by the majority of the German bishops and ruled large parts of the northern Alpine empire. The fact that he was in full possession of his powers even after 1 August - contrary to Gregory VII's exuberant postulation - further strengthened his authority. Henry initially wanted to turn his attention to Rudolf in order to put the situation in Italy in order following his success over his rival, who was now recognised by Gregory, i.e. to drive Gregory VII out of office and elevate Wibert of Ravenna as the new pope. While Henry and his army travelled to Saxony, the bishops of northern Italy did not remain idle. In order to prepare for the Salian's planned move to Rome, Lombard units attacked the troops of Margravine Matilda of Tuscany, who - as in previous years - saw herself as Gregory VII's military shield.
This time, Henry's and Rudolf's armies met on 15 October 1080 near Hohenmölsen, not far from the White Elster. In the hope of divine assistance, the Salian had made a donation to Speyer Cathedral the previous day, which initially failed to have the desired effect. Although Henry's troops were defeated on the battlefield, the defeat turned into a victory when Rudolf of Rheinfelden died a day later as a result of a wound sustained in battle. His right hand, with which he had once sworn allegiance to Henry IV, had been cut off during the battle. The chronicler Frutolf von Michelsberg reports: "But it is said that he [King Rudolf], lying on his deathbed and looking at his severed right hand, spoke with a deep sigh to the bishops who happened to be present: "Behold, this is the hand with which I have sworn allegiance to my lord Henry; behold, I now depart from his kingdom and from this life; see, you who have placed me on his throne, whether, following your advice, you have led me in the right way."
It does not take much imagination to picture how Henry IV's supporters exploited the circumstances of his death and the demoralising effect it had on his opponents in the empire and Gregory VII. No military success, no papal arbitration, but the unexpected death of Rudolf ended the three-year conflict between the kings in the empire.
The second counter-king Hermann von Salm
The opposition of the princes was slow to recover from this blow. It was not until 6 August 1081 that a new counter-king, Hermann of Salm, was elected in Ochsenfurt, whom Siegfried of Mainz crowned and anointed in Goslar on 26 December. Hermann was described as a "dwarf on the shoulders of a dead giant", a "galleon figure" or "puppet" (J. Laudage) in the hands of Henry IV's enemies. And perhaps he was indeed an embarrassing candidate and the lowest common denominator that Henry IV's opponents could agree on. Swabian and Saxon nobles in particular, led by Welf IV and Otto von Northeim, supported Hermann's kingship. Although the new king came from the influential and wealthy House of Luxembourg and resided most of the time in Goslar, the favourite palace of Henry III and Henry IV, Hermann, who was elevated for dynastic reasons, hardly ever seems to have actually ruled: Only two charters issued by him have survived.
Hermann's death and the end of the princely opposition
Like his predecessor Rudolf, Hermann also managed to achieve considerable military successes and put Henry IV's army to flight at Höchstädt in 1081 and at Pleichfeld near Würzburg in 1086. However, the balance of power shifted more and more in Henry's favour. By 1085, the Salian, who was crowned emperor on Easter Sunday 1084, had reconquered most of the empire, including Carinthia, northern Swabia and finally almost all of Saxony, the majority of whose greats now sided with him.
Hermann sought refuge at the Danish court, but returned to the kingdom in 1088, perhaps after declaring his renunciation of kingship. He died on 28 September 1088 near Cochem on the Moselle. The Vita Heinrici IV describes the circumstances of his death with a spiteful undertone: "The common people [...] installed Hermann as their new king, who also died [like Rudolf] in a strange way [...]. One day on the road he had the silly idea of attacking a castle they were travelling to, apparently with hostile intent, to find out how bold and brave the defenders were [...]. They found the gate unlocked and unguarded and stormed in. Some of the garrison took up arms and faced them manfully, others cowardly hid in corners; but a woman - a woman only in gender, but not in courage - who had retreated to a tower, threw a millstone at the king's head, and so he died at the hands of a woman, so that his death would be all the more humiliating. But to cover up this disgrace, they turned the woman into a man in their story.
Hermann's death also signalled the end of the opposition of the princes. While it had brought Henry IV to the brink of defeat after 1077 and contributed to the papal approval of Rudolf of Rheinfelden - albeit too late - there was nothing left of it in 1088. Only the revolutionary break with the principle of dynastic succession was to have a lasting effect and give the imperial princes decisive rights of co-determination and a claim to a balance of interests in future. In terms of day-to-day politics, however, the opposition of the princes only countered Henry's claim to power with the old idea of sacral kingship, embellished with a few reform ideals. Instead, the anti-Salian party was supported by determined personalities such as Otto of Northeim, Rudolf of Rheinfelden, Welf IV and Berthold of Zähringen.
As we know, it is sometimes seemingly mundane things that decide the outcome of major conflicts. Without ever having achieved a complete military victory, Henry IV outlived all his opponents in an empire that was exhausted and internally torn after years of civil war.
