Europe in the Middle Ages

by Ierne L. Plunket

But besides fighting against foreign neighbours Otto had a continual struggle at home in order to reassert the authority of the crown over the great duchies such as Lotharingia and Bavaria. When he was able to do so he would replace the most turbulent of the dukes by members of his own family, or he would make gifts of large estates to bishops, hoping in this way to provide himself with loyal tenants-in-chief. In this, however, he was not successful, for he found the feudal bishops amongst his worst enemies; so that he turned at last for help to the new type of Churchman, bred by the Cluniac reform movement—men of learning and culture, monks in their religious observances, statesmen in their outlook. These were at one with him in his desire for a united Germany and a purer Church; but Otto was faced by a great problem when he wished to reform and control his bishops. How far were the German clergy under his jurisdiction? How far did they owe obedience only to Rome, as they claimed if he tried to exert his authority over them?

Charlemagne had been able to deal easily with such difficulties, for the Pope had been his ally, almost it might be said his vassal, and so they could have but one mind on Church matters. By the time of Otto the Great, however, German kings had long ceased to be emperors, and the imperial title, bandied about from one Italian prince to another, had become tarnished in the world’s eyes. Was it worth while, then, for a German king to regain this title in order to gain control over the See of St. Peter?

Students of history, able to test mediaeval policy by its ultimate results, will answer ‘No’, seeing that German kings would have done well to resist the will-of-the-wisp lure of the crowns of Lombardy and Rome; but to Otto the question of interference in Italy bore a very different aspect. Too great to be dazzled by the title of Emperor, too busy to invade Italy merely for the sake of forcing the Pope to become his ally, Otto found himself faced by the necessity of choosing whether he would make himself lord of the lands on the other side of the Alps or see one of his most powerful subjects, the Duke of Bavaria, do so instead.

The occasion of this choice was the murder of Count Lothair of Provence, one of the claimants to the throne of Italy. Lothair’s widow, Adelaide, a Burgundian princess, appealed to Germany to avenge her wrongs—a piece of knight-errantry with such prospects of profit that several of the German princes and notably the Duke of Bavaria, whose lands lay just to the north of the Alps, were only too willing to undertake it. In 951 Otto the Great, anticipating their ambitions, crossed the Alps with an army, rescued Adelaide from her husband’s murderer, married her himself, and was crowned King of Italy at Pavia.

Recalled to Germany by foreign invasions, he appeared again in Italy ten years later, and in February 962 was crowned Emperor by the Pope at Rome. His successors, dropping the title ‘King of Germany’, claimed henceforth to be ‘Kings of the Romans’ on their election and, after their coronation by the Pope, ‘Holy Roman Emperors’—temporal overlords of Christendom, as the Popes claimed to be spiritual viceroys.

This coronation of Otto the Great was a turning-point in the history of Germany, though at the time it caused little stir. To Otto himself it was merely the culminating success of his career, enabling him to undertake without interference the reform of the German Church that he had planned, and also to issue a charter that, while confirming the Popes in their temporal possessions, insisted that they should take an oath of allegiance to the Emperor before their consecration. By this measure the Papacy became in the eyes of Europe merely the chief see in the Emperor’s dominions; and under Otto’s immediate successors this supremacy was not seriously disputed by the Popes themselves. In some cases they were German nominees, ready to acknowledge the sceptre that secured their election; but, even where this was not the case, there was a general feeling that Rome had less to fear from the tyranny of Emperors beyond the Alps than from the encroachments of the petty lords of Italy.

The Dukes of Spoletum, Counts of Tuscany, and Barons of the Roman Campagna had no respect at all for the head of Christendom except as a pawn in their political moves. One of the most unscrupulous and dissolute families in the vicinity of Rome, the Crescentii, who claimed the title of Patrician, once granted by Eastern Emperors to Italian viceroys, secured the Papacy for three successive members of their house. Under the last of these, Benedict IX, a boy of twelve at the time of his election, vice and tyranny walked through the streets of Rome rampant and unashamed. The young Pope, described by a contemporary as ‘a captain of thieves and brigands’, did not scruple to crown his sins by selling his holy office in a moment of danger to another of his family. As his excesses had already led the people of Rome to set up an Anti-Pope, and as he himself withdrew his abdication very shortly, the disgraceful state of affairs culminated in three Popes, each denouncing one another, and each arming his followers for battle in the streets.

Synod of Sutri

The interference of the Emperor Henry III (a member of the Salian House of Saxony) was welcomed on all sides, and at the Synod of Sutri the rival Popes were all deposed and a German bishop, chosen by the Emperor, elected in their place.

Henry III has been described by a modern historian as ‘the strongest Prince that Europe had seen since Charlemagne’. Not only did he succeed in subduing the unruly Bohemians and Hungarians, but he also built Germany into the temporary semblance of a nation, mastering her baronage and purifying her Church. His influence over Italy was wholly for her good; but by the irony of fate his cousin Bruno, whom he nominated to the See of St. Peter under the name of Leo IX, was destined to lay the foundations of a Papacy independent of German control.