1073:
The conflict between Henry and Gregory, between Emperor and Pope, expands across much of the Catholic world, as Pope Gregory calls together those who obey him to a Synod in Arles.
North of the Alps, Henry and his allies stabilize their control and eliminate the last pockets of resistance:
- In Delft, a pro-Gregory revolt had ousted the forces of pro-Henry Archbishop Wilhelm of Utrecht. Count Dirk V. of Holland comes to their aid, but then Duke Gottfried (Hunchback) rides in, defeats Dirk, crushes the revolt and restores Wilhelm.
- In Mainz, on the contrary, the city’s population forces archbishop Siegfried, who had taken Gregory’s position and crowned the counter-emperor Rudolf of Rheinfelden, to lay down his office and flee the city.
- In Bavaria, the pro-Gregory bishops of Passau and Salzburg are forced out and replaced by pro-Clement bishops appointed by Henry IV. After Duke Otto von Northeim’s death in the Italian campaign, Count Palatine Rapoto V. excels in these struggles and is elevated to the position of Duke of Bavaria by Henry.
- In Carinthia, Henry IV. himself intervenes in the fights between the forces of Luitold of Eppenstein and Count Ottakar of the Carantanian Mark on the imperial side and those of the anti-Henry Duke Berthold of Zähringen on the papal side. Berthold is foreign to these lands and easily defeated by the superior imperial forces. Henry captures and deposes him and creates Ottakar as the new Duke of Carinthia.
- In Constance, shielded by the forces of Bishop Siegfried, those who had supported Rudolf of Rheinfelden hold a council in which they elect Count Welf IV. of the Linzgau as new King. Siegfried crowns Welf, who is one of Henry’s most ardent enemies and fights, as the last scion of his house, for his inheritance, too, while Henry supports his uncle’s testament who had left the family’s possessions in the hands of the imperial monastery of Weingarten. Henry’s Swabian supporters, among them Friedrich (of the family who we would come to call “Staufen” IOTL) as well the duke of neighboring Upper Lotharingia, Dietrich, defeat this opposition and kill Welf IV. and force Siegfried to flee Constance. Far-reaching autonomy from the bishopric of Constance is awarded to the imperial monasteries of Reichenau, Weingarten and St. Gallen, who had supported the emperor against the bishop of Constance.
Elsewhere, though, supporters of Pope Gregory entrench themselves and celebrate partial victories, too: When Dietrich rides on South-Westwards into Burgundy to crush the Reformists there and then maybe ride on Southwards to capture the Reformists gathering in Arles, local forces supported by contingents of Zähringers and French knights led by Ebles II. of Roucy defeat him in the Battle of Orbe and force Dietrich to retreat.
At the Synod of Arles, Pope Gregory awards ducal honours over Apulia and Calabria to Robert de Mortain and excommunicates dozens of German counter-bishops and nobles supporting Henry. Of the ideas espoused by Gregory, his invectives against simony and lay investiture meet with some degree of general approvement, while his ideas about supreme papal authority over all Christian kingdoms and the foremost papal role in guaranteeing peace and God’s order are viewed rather skeptically e.g. by envoys of Alfonso VI., who has begun to style himself as “imperator totius Hispaniae”, and those of other European monarchs, too. In its stead, the nobility of imperial Burgundy put special emphasis on the inadmissibility of Henry’s divorce and remarriage, while Italian Reformers condemned the sack of Milan and stressed the need to condone and support communal efforts to protect upright true Christians from being harassed by tyrants. Such communalism is not shared at all e.g. by King Sancho Ramirez I. of Aragon, who is otherwise willing to fully submit to Pope Gregory’s authority and views the papal claim of suzerainty over all Iberian kingdoms as a potential check against Leonese hegemonial ambitions. Guy-Geoffrey, the powerful duke of Aquitaine and Gascogne, sent emissaries with the aim to negotiate a papal dispensation for his divorce and the recognition of his first (and any future) child with Hildegard of Burgundy. (That first child is a daughter. [1]) Guy-Geoffrey’s support for the Reform cause is conditional upon this papal concession, which Gregory finds difficult to stomach given the prominence of the controversy over Henry IV’s divorce. The Reformers’ camp, it became clear, was quite heterogeneous…
In Normandy, the supporters of Robert Curthose, who took the Pope’s side in this conflict, triumph over Montgommerie’s men, forcing the latter to flee across the Channel to England.
In Hungary, Geza leads a revolt of magnates, supported by Polish forces, against his brother, King Salamon. Salamon is forced to flee and seeks refuge with Emperor Henry, while Geza has himself crowned King of Hungary and swears obedience to Pope Gregory. Salamon, in turn, offers Henry the Hungarian crown of Saint Stephen as imperial fief if he manages to get him back his throne.
In Sweden, Hakon the Red, who announces his support for Pope Gregory by sending envoys to Arles, attacks Anund Gardske, defeats him and establishes control over Svealand, too.
In England, the archbishops have called together a synod to sort out the lingering tensions and accusations. The Synod of Oxford is a cautious victory of the Reform side, supported by Gyrth and the Mercians and the majority of the clergy. Stigand is compelled to step down as Archbishop of Canterbury and make way for Mannig, a Reformer from Glastonbury Abbey. [2] The victory is cautious because England’s Reform clergy does not openly position itself in the fight between the rivalling popes and emperors. It merely re-states the established procedures for the selection of bishops (by the cathedral chapters) and also mentions, by analogy, the rules laid down by the 1059 papal bull
In nomine Domini for the election of popes by the conclave.
King Sancho Ramirez I. of Aragon attacks the Taifa of Zaragoza with the support of more a thousand Normans. [3] The Muslim ruler of Zaragoza, Ahmad al-Muqtadir, has forged a protective alliance with King Sancho of Navarra because his erstwhile overlord, Alfonso VI., was busy farther West. While the attack on Zaragoza is aborted inconclusively, Sancho Ramirez and his Normans turn against the Navarran and defeat him. Alfonso VI. opportunistically joins in the Navarra-bashing, recapturing lands which his father had lost to Navarra.
On the Balkans, the revolt gains amplour while at the same time cracks open up among its constituents. After their victory at Skoupoi, the core group of leaders branched out. While Normans led by Richard de Clare rode North and secured Naissus from its Byzantine-loyal defenders, and Georgi Vojetch rode North-Eastwards into Paristrion to unite his forces with those of Nestor, the Byzantine katepan who had switched sides and joined a local rebellion, Tsar Peter III. and his general Petrilo moved Southwards to gather more forces there for the assault on Constantinople. The Byzantine Caesar John Doukas decides it’s best to decapitate the revolt, and moves with an army commanded by Michael Saronites against Peter’s and Petrilo’s forces. They engage each other in the Battle of Kastoria, where internal divisions among the rebels contribute to their defeat; Tsar Peter III. is delivered to the Byzantines by some rebels who did not appreciate Peter’s leadership. [4] When Vojtech hears of Peter’s defeat, he moves South with new rebel forces and clashes with the imperial army in Makedonia. In the course of this battle, which goes better for the rebels, Caesar John Doukas is deserted by his own troops and captured by Vojtech. An exchange against Peter III. is impossible because the latter had been tortured to death by his Byzantine captors. Vojtech forbids his men to do the same to Doukas, though. Instead, Vojtech undertakes long negotiations with his prisoner, after which he has his troops acclaim John Doukas as the new Byzantine Emperor. [5]
The Seljuk Sultan Malik Shah defeats his rival Qavurt and then goes on to conquer Jerusalem from the Fatimids. He orders Omar Hajjam to build an observatory and establish a new astronomic calendar. While their sultan is busy elsewhere, Turkic bands continue to pour into Anatolia, raiding and burning villages and churches. They encounter the most dogged resistance by the Normans in Central Anatolia, whose commander Roussel de Bailleul declares himself monarch of a state independent from the Byzantine Empire. [6]
[as per OTL:]
Izaiaslav, who had been deposed by the Veche of Kiev and only returned with Polish help, is finally ousted by his brothers Sviatoslav and Vsevolod. Kiev’s veche acknowledges Sviatoslav as the new Prince.
[1] IOTL, his firstborn is William IX., “the first troubadour”.
[2] Don’t look him up, I made him up.
[3] IOTL, Sancho Ramirez was aided by French proto-crusaders led by Ebles de Roucy who ITTL meddles in Burgundy instead.
[4] This kind of divisions was the downfall of OTL’s revolt. Here, more Normans give it more amplour, so the show is not over, see the next sentences.
[5] Georgi Vojtech was apparently a strategic and humble guy – he had successfully kicked off a revolt, and then handed over the reigns to someone with a more aristocratic pedigree. And John Doukas was indeed proclaimed emperor by rebel troops who had just defeated him IOTL – only that IOTL this happened on the Asiatic side, and it was Roussel de Bailleul who made this move.
[6] This last paragraph is mostly OTL, only IOTL, this rebellion sparked a response by John Doukas who allied with the Seljuq leader Qutalmish in order to remove Roussel – and got captured by Roussel and then declared emperor, see above. ITTL, John Doukas is… temporarily unavailable.
