The new excommunication had precisely the opposite effect from the first one. Henry's friends increased rather than decreased. The German clergy were again aroused, and they again deposed "this same most brazen Hildebrand." Henry's rival fell in battle, and Henry, accompanied by an anti-pope, betook himself to Italy with the double purpose of putting his pope on the throne and winning the imperial crown. Gregory held out for no less than two years, but at last Rome fell into Henry's hands and Gregory withdrew and soon died. His last words were, "I have loved justice and hated iniquity, therefore I die an exile," and the fair-minded historical student will not question their truth.[116]
Henry IV's further troubles.
The death of Gregory did not put an end to Henry's difficulties. He spent the remaining twenty years of his life in trying to maintain his rights as king of Germany and Italy against his rebellious subjects on both sides of the Alps. In Germany his chief enemies were the Saxons and his discontented vassals. In Italy the pope was now actively engaged as a temporal ruler, in building up a little state of his own. He was, moreover, always ready to encourage the Lombard cities—which were growing more and more powerful and less and less willing to submit to the rule of a German—in their opposition to the emperor.
Rebellion at home and in Italy.
Treason of Henry's sons.
Death of Henry IV, 1106.
A combination of his Italian enemies called Henry again to Italy in 1090, although he was forced to leave Germany but half subdued. He was seriously defeated by the Italians; and the Lombard cities embraced the opportunity to form their first union against their foreign king. In 1093 Milan, Cremona, Lodi, and Piacenza joined in an offensive and defensive alliance for their own protection. After seven years of hopeless lingering in Italy, Henry returned sadly across the Alps, leaving the peninsula in the hands of his enemies. But he found no peace at home. His discontented German vassals induced his son, whom he had had crowned as his successor, to revolt against his father. Thereupon followed more civil war, more treason, and a miserable abdication. In 1106 death put an end to perhaps the saddest reign that history records.
Henry V, 1106–1125.
The achievement of the reign of Henry IV's son, Henry V, which chiefly interests us was the adjustment of the question of investitures. Pope Paschal II, while willing to recognize those bishops already chosen by the king, provided they were good men, proposed that thereafter Gregory's decrees against lay investiture should be carried out. The clergy should no longer do homage and lay their hands, consecrated to the service of the altar, in the blood-stained hands of the nobles. Henry V, on the other hand, declared that unless the clergy took the oath of fealty the bishops would not be given the lands, towns, castles, tolls, and privileges attached to the bishoprics.