Henry II (6
May 973– 13 July
1024), called the Holy or
the Saint, was the fifth and last Holy Roman Emperor of the Ottonian dynasty, from his coronation in
Rome
in 1014 until his death a decade later. He
was crowned
King of Germany in 1002
and
King of Italy in 1004. He is the
only German king to have been
canonized.
He was the son of
Henry II,
Duke of Bavaria. As his father had rebelled against two
previous emperors, he was often in exile.
This led the younger
Henry to turn to the Church at an early age, first finding refuge
with the Bishop of Freising, and
later being educated at the cathedral school of Hildesheim
. He succeeded his father as
Duke of Bavaria in 995 as Henry IV.
Disputed succession
Henry was on his way to Rome to save his besieged cousin the
Emperor Otto III when
the emperor died in January 1002. Knowing that opposition to his
succession was strong, Henry quickly seized the royal insignia from
his dead cousin's companions.
Rival candidates for the throne — such as
Ezzo of Lotharingia, Eckard I of Meissen, and
Herman II of Swabia —
strongly contested Henry's succession, but with the aid of Willigis, Archbishop
of Mainz, he was able to secure his royal election and
coronation on June 7, 1002 in Mainz
, though it
would be a year before he was universally recognized.
Henry spent the next several years consolidating his political
power on his German borders. He waged a successful campaign against
Boleslaus I of Poland and then
moved into the
Kingdom of Italy to
confront
Arduin of Ivrea, who had
been elected King of Italy by a faction opposed to Henry. Arduin
had previously defeated a German army sent against him by Henry and
commanded by
Otto I of
Carinthia.
Now he tried to block the German king in the
Adige valley
, as he had previously done with Otto, but Henry
entered Italy at the Valsugana
. Arduin's vassals fled in disarray at
Henry's approach and their king was forced to return to the
March of Ivrea.
Henry occupied
Verona
and was crowned rex Italiae (King of
Italy) at Pavia
on May 15, 1004, by the Archbishop of Milan, Arnulf II, with the famous
Iron Crown.
War against Poland
After
bloodily suppressing a revolt of the citizens of Pavia, Henry
remained there until May 25, when, feeling
that Italy could be considered settled, he decided to return to
Germany through the Saint Gotthard Pass
. From Germany he launched a second campaign
against Boleslaus, allying with the pagan
Liutitians against the Christian Poles and waged
successful campaigns that culminated in a lasting compromise peace
with the Poles in 1018: Boleslaus was allowed to retain
Lusatia and
Meissen as
fiefs,
but had to give up
Bohemia, which
he had recently conquered.
Italian campaigns
Rebellion of Arduin

Henry II crowned Holy Roman
Emperor
Henry was called to Italy by the clergy for another campaign in
1013. Arduin had risen in revolt again.
At first he tried to
resist Henry from his palace in Ivrea
, but then
resigned to become a monk. Subsequently Henry went straight
to Rome, where
Pope Benedict VIII
crowned him Holy Roman Emperor on
February
14,
1014. He took his duties in Italy
seriously and appointed German officials to administer the country.
He returned in Germany in May.
Invasion of southern Italy
In 1020, the pope visited him at Bamberg and consecrated his new
cathedral there.
After settling some controversies with the
bishops of Mainz and Würzburg
, Pope Benedict VIII convinced him to return to
Italy for a third (and final) campaign to counter the growing power
of the Byzantine Empire in the
south, where the Lombard princes had
made submission to the Greeks. In 1022, he set out
down the Adriatic
coast for southern Italy commanding a large
force. He sent
Pilgrim, Archbishop of
Cologne, ahead with a slightly smaller army along the
Tyrrhenian littoral with the objective of
subjugating the
Principality of
Capua.
A third army, smaller still, under the
command of Poppo, Patriarch
of Aquileia, went through the Apennines
to join Henry in besieging the Byzantine fortress
of Troia
.
Pilgrim did capture
Pandulf IV of
Capua and extract oaths of allegiance from both Capua and the
Principality of Salerno, but
all three divisions failed to take Troia. Henry almost executed the
treacherous prince of Capua, but relented at the last moment at
Pilgrim's pleading and instead sent him off to Germany in chains
and appointed
Pandulf of Teano to
replace him as prince. Though his main objective had been missed,
Henry left the south in the knowledge that western imperial
authority still extended that far. On his return journey, he
attended a synod at Pavia where he advocated Church reform.
Ecclesiastical politics
Henry's most significant contributions as emperor came in the realm
of church-state relations and ecclesiastic administration within
the Empire. He supported the bishops against the monastic clergy
and aided them in establishing their temporal rule over broad
territories. He strongly enforced
clerical celibacy in order that the public
land and offices he granted the church would not be passed on to
heirs. This ensured that the bishops remained loyal to him, from
whom they received their power, and provided a powerful bulwark
against rebellious nobles and ambitious family members. Henry
founded the
Diocese of Bamberg,
which quickly became a center of scholarship and art, in
1007.
Henry had been working with the pope to call a
Church Council to confirm his new system of
politico-ecclesiastical control when he died suddenly in 1024,
leaving this work unfinished. Henry and his wife,
Cunigunde of Luxemburg, had no
children, reportedly because they had taken a mutual
vow of
chastity.
Veneration
Henry was
canonized in July, 1147 by
Pope Clement II; and his spouse,
Cunigunde, was canonized in
the year 1200, by
Pope Innocent
III. His relics were carried on campaigns against heretics in
the 1160's.
Henry is
buried in Bamberg
Cathedral
, which also has the tomb of Pope Clement II. He is the patron saint of the city of Basel
, Switzerland
, and of St Henry's Marist Brothers'
College in Durban
, South Africa.
Feast Day
Saint Henry's name, which does not appear in the
Tridentine Calendar, was inserted in
1631 in the Roman Calendar as a
commemoration within the celebration
of
Saint Anacletus on
13 July, the day of his death and the traditional
day for his celebration on a local level. In 1668, it was moved to
15 July for celebration as a Semidouble.
This rank was changed by
Pope Pius XII
in 1955 to that of Simple, and by
Pope
John XXIII in 1960 to that of Third-Class Feast. In 1969, it
was returned to its original date of
13 July
as a non-obligatory
Memorial.
Sources
Thietmar's Chronicle
Page of Thietmar's Chronicle
Between 1012 and 1018
Thietmar of
Merseburg wrote a
Chronicon, or
Chronicle, in
eight books, which deals with the period between 908 and 1018. For
the earlier part he used
Widukind's
Res gestae Saxonicae,
the
Annales Quedlinburgenses and other sources; the latter
part is the result of personal knowledge.
The chronicle is
nevertheless an excellent authority for the history of Saxony
during the
reigns of the emperors Otto
III and Henry II. No kind of information is excluded,
but the fullest details refer to the bishopric of Merseburg, and to
the wars against the
Wends and the
Poles.
References
Ancestry
Ancestors of Giselle of
Bavaria
See also
External links