Henry supported reform, and reform in turn supported the empire. Some historians have portrayed his actions, particularly his interventions in papal elections, as inimical to the interests of the empire, but they too often overlook this point. By emphasizing Henry’s piety and his attachment to reform, these historians have de-emphasized the political aspects of his policy. Actually, there was a concurrence between his goals and the desires of the reformers. When Henry arrived in Rome in 1046, he found the papacy in disarray. In the continuing competition among leading Roman families for control of the papacy, the Tusculan faction had elected the corrupt Benedict IX (1032–44), but the Romans drove him from the city and replaced him with the candidate of the Crescentians, Sylvester III (1045). Benedict regained the papacy in 1045, but he sold the office to a supporter of reform, John Gratian, who was then elected as Gregory VI (1045–46). Henry therefore faced an uncertain situation just when he was seeking imperial coronation. The synods of Sutri and Rome resolved the difficulty by deposing the three previous claimants. At the behest of Henry, the bishop of Bamberg was elected as Clement II (1046–47). The new pope immediately proceeded to Henry’s coronation on Christmas Day, 1046. The Carolingian precedent—Charlemagne’s coronation also took place on Christmas Day—could hardly have been lost on his audience.
Henry III took Gregory VI back to Germany with him, aiming in this way to prevent a resurgence of internal conflict in Rome. But death soon overtook Clement, and Benedict IX again reclaimed the papacy. Henry ordered Boniface of Tuscany to drive Benedict from Rome once again and had the German Damasus II (1048) installed as pope, but Damasus died within a month. Again Henry intervened, securing the election of Bruno of Toul, who took the name Leo IX (1049–54). Leo combined strong attachment to the imperial cause with dedication to the cause of reform. Profoundly influenced by the monastic centres of reform in Germany and Burgundy, he turned especially to them for collaborators in the work of rebuilding the battered prestige of the Roman church. He brought to Rome men like the theologian Frederick of Lorraine, Hugo Candidus, and Humbert of Moyenmoutier, who became cardinal-bishop of Silva Candida, a Roman suburban diocese. The deacon Hildebrand, who had accompanied Gregory VI to Germany as his secretary, also returned to Rome and joined the papal entourage. Under Leo’s leadership the ancient body of cardinals was transformed into an effective instrument for administration of the church and promotion of reform. Leo held synods in northern Europe and Italy aimed at stirring local commitment for the program of the reformers. That program was chiefly directed at freeing churches from lay control, especially by the appointment of unworthy candidates to ecclesiastical office through simony (i.e., the practice of buying church offices), and at forbidding the pervasive practice of clerical marriage and concubinage, which threatened the substance of the church. Leo’s efforts drew their inspiration from the monastic reform movement, which had already succeeded in regaining control of many monastic properties and preventing their further alienation not only at the hands of the laity but also at those of other ecclesiastics. Although couched in moral terms, the program of the reformers served eminently practical ends. The papacy and the Normans
Having arrived in southern Italy in small groups just prior to 1020, perhaps in part as petitioners at the court of Pope Benedict VIII and in part as pilgrims returning from the Holy Land, Normans joined Lombard rebels in their effort to throw off Byzantine rule in Bari. Although this proved a failure, Norman mercenaries continued to enlist in the armies of various southern Italian rulers. In 1030 Sergius, duke of Naples, granted the county of Aversa to the Norman Rainulf in return for his support against Pandulf of Capua. Rainulf was able to add Gaeta to his holdings, and his nephew, Count Richard, who had succeeded to Aversa in 1047, added the principality of Capua. The next wave of Normans, led by the sons of a lesser Norman landholder, Tancred of Hauteville, undertook a full-scale effort to conquer the south. Robert Guiscard, Tancred’s fourth son, assumed a commanding role in southern Italian affairs.
Leo, who remained committed to the imperial ideal, opposed the Normans because he felt that they threatened not only Rome and the papacy but also the interests of the German emperor and relations between East and West. The continued expansion of the Normans in southern Italy and their aggressive assertion of titles—William de Hauteville (William Iron Arm), for example, assumed the title of count of Puglia—influenced Leo to forge an alliance of papal, imperial, and Byzantine forces. With himself in the company of imperial troops but without awaiting the arrival of promised help from the Byzantines, he met the Normans at Civitate on June 16, 1053. The ensuing defeat was a deep humiliation for Leo, though the Normans treated him with respect. The forced peace profoundly disturbed the balance that he had sought in Italy.
His policy also received a serious setback from the conflict that arose in Constantinople between his legates (Humbert of Silva Candida, Frederick of Lorraine, and Peter, archbishop of Amalfi) and the Eastern patriarch, Michael Cerularius. Scholars differ on the reasons for this conflict, but it arose at least in part from the clash between the papal policies of Latinization of the churches in southern Italy and the claims of Constantinople to jurisdiction in that region. Scholars have often viewed the mutual excommunications launched by the legates and the patriarch in 1054, after the death of Leo, as the beginning of the schism between the Eastern and Western churches; however, that view probably overstates the significance of these events. More particularly, the breach with Constantinople closed the door on the approach taken by Leo IX and led to a major shift in papal policy in favour of the Normans.
Leo’s successor, Pope Victor II (1055–57), formerly the bishop of Eichstätt (Bavaria), the fourth pope chosen under the aegis of Henry III, tried to follow in the footsteps of his predecessor. But the death of Henry in 1056 and the failure of Leo’s policies in southern Italy limited his role. The Normans continued to strengthen their position in southern Italy. Victor II thus was constrained not only by the failed mission to Byzantium but also by the threat from the south. Moreover, on Henry III’s death, the empire came to his six-year-old son, Henry IV (1056–1106), with his mother, Agnes of Poitou, as the regent. Although the succession to the throne was not in doubt, the inevitable intrigues surrounding the regency deprived the papacy of imperial support. When Victor died in 1057, a party of the reformers moved to take advantage of this vacuum. They acted quickly to elect Frederick of Lorraine as pope, under the name Stephen IX (or X; 1057–58), without any effort to consult the regency.
Stephen, who had succeeded to the papacy while abbot of Montecassino, summoned Peter Damian from the monastery of Fonte Avellana to become cardinal-bishop of Ostia. The election of a pope whose brother had been a rebel against the regency suggests that the strong ties that had bound the reform movement to the empire had been somewhat weakened. At the same time, the position of the reformers in Rome was also weakened. When Stephen died in 1058, the Roman nobles supported the election of Bishop John of Velletri as Benedict X (antipope 1058–59), thereby attempting a return to the pro-aristocratic and pro-Roman policies of Benedict VIII and Benedict IX. These circumstances forced the reformers to seek support from the empress Agnes. Their candidate, the Burgundian bishop of Florence, Gerard, was installed on the papal throne as Pope Nicholas II (1059–61).