Coup in Kaiserswerth
The coup d'etat of Kaiserswerth in 1062 was an unprecedented action by a group of imperial princes under the leadership of Archbishop Anno II of Cologne against Empress Agnes, who reigned for her underage son King Heinrich IV, and the subregent, Bishop Heinrich von Augsburg . Through the kidnapping of the young king and the fulfilled demand for the handover of the imperial insignia , the group gained control of the government.
The kidnapping of the king
At the beginning of April 1062, Heinrich IV. Stayed with his mother in the Kaiserswerth palace (today a district of Düsseldorf). There both met with Archbishop Anno II of Cologne. After a common feast, Anno invited the eleven-year-old boy to visit a magnificent ship that he had moored on the Rhine. The chronicler Lampert von Hersfeld describes what Heinrich experienced when he entered the ship as follows:
“But no sooner had he entered the ship than the accomplices employed by the archbishop surrounded him, the oarsmen quickly lift themselves up, throw themselves into the oars with all their might and drive the ship into the middle of the stream with lightning speed. The king, stunned by these unexpected events and indecisive, thought nothing more than that he was being violated and wanted to be murdered, and threw himself headlong into the river, and he would have drowned in the torrential waters had it not been for Count Ekbert in spite of the endangered person jumped after the great danger in which he was going, and had he not saved him from sinking with great difficulty and brought him back to the ship. "
Anno then led the king to Cologne and blackmailed Empress Agnes into surrendering the imperial insignia. Thus state power was in the hands of the rebels, to whom in addition to Anno and Count Ekbert von Braunschweig and others mentioned by Lampert . a. also Otto of Nordheim and the archbishops Adalbert of Bremen and Siegfried I of Mainz belonged.
The motives of the kidnappers
The motives for the act are still not adequately identified, especially since the sources for this event are extremely contradictory. The opinion of contemporary reporters is divided.
Lampert's report still seems relatively objective when he writes that the kidnappers, and especially Anno, sought “to remove the son from his mother's influence and to get the administration of the empire into their hands.” Lampert dares not speculate about them Motives of the conspirators. Although he cites the possibility that Anno “acted out of political ambition”, he admits that he could also have acted for the good of the Reich.
The judgment of Vita Heinrici, however, is clearly subjective and becomes more understandable if one assumes that the author must have been very close to the royal family. Here, the motive for the act u. a. the fear of "maturity, wisdom and strict morals" called Agnes'. The official reason was that it was not proper for the empire to be ruled by a woman, which the author, Adalbold von Utrecht, resolutely contradicts. It is even claimed here that the young king was only kidnapped in order to be able to develop one's own power undisturbed.
Bruno more or less even blames Heinrich himself for his own kidnapping: the young Heinrich hardly listened to the mother's admonitions, "inflated by royal arrogance". Anno had him brought up "with all due care" after the kidnapping. Bruno does not only deny Agnes a complete assertiveness, i. That is, that Bruno considers them too weak (whether only to take care of the right upbringing of the young king or also for the reign is an open question), but also praises Anno for his approach. The criticism of Heinrich IV himself can probably be explained by the fact that Bruno did not conform to Heinrich's later policy and saw Heinrich's negative character traits from an early age. It is obvious that he was not on Agnes' side politically either.
Although the sources apparently do not report anything reliable about the motives of the kidnappers, research today assumes that both the striving to gain power (especially in the Anno of Cologne) but also concern about the neglect and the upbringing of Henry IV were decisive for the act were. Likewise, the uprising was directed against the subregent Heinrich von Augsburg , appointed by Empress Agnes , who was accused of having an “awkward and presumptuous way of running government business”. In addition, the empress and the bishop could soon “not escape the suspicion of indecent love, because it was generally rumored that such a confidential relationship did not develop without immoral intercourse”, according to the chronicler Lampert von Hersfeld.
The consequences of the coup
Anno von Köln had to justify his deed on a court day in the summer of 1062 , but initially retained government power in his hands. Even if the young king sat on the throne, Anno directed the fate of the empire from this point on. He felt mainly politically connected to the church reform party and achieved the most important political achievement, the dissolution of the Pope's schism between Alexander II and Honorius II in favor of the former. Anno, however, found no access to Heinrich, unlike Archbishop Adalbert von Bremen. The two archbishops soon became bitter opponents, as the Bremen archbishop had very quickly established a familiar relationship with the young king and increasingly undermined Anno's position. In the end, Adalbert too had personal interests in mind and strictly pursued a policy of "gain" to his archbishopric.
Heinrich von Augsburg was deprived of government power after the coup, as was Empress Agnes. Nevertheless, she was still required to remain in the empire, as she was the head of the Salian house until Henry IV came of age . Only by remaining in the kingdom was she able to maintain the claim to rule in the kingdom for her son. Against this background, Lampert's report that Agnes had given up her decision to go to the monastery at the urging of her advisors, receives a concrete legal background and thus gains authenticity. It was only when Henry IV came of age on March 29, 1065 through the ceremonial guiding of the sword , that Agnes was able to give in to her long-cherished wish for a life in the monastery. Before that, however, she was able to prevent her son from taking action against the hated Anno, as he planned to do immediately after his sword defeat.
With the sword leadership, the power of government returned to the hands of the rightful ruler. The almost three-year term of the transitional government came to an end, even if Adalbert von Bremen remained Heinrich's most important advisor until he had to dismiss him as an advisor at the order of the prince in January 1066 after a court day in Trebur .
swell
- Bruno von Merseburg: Brunonis Saxonicum bellum. Bruno's Saxon War. Newly translated by Franz-Josef Schmale . In: Sources on the history of Emperor Heinrich IV. The letters of Heinrich IV., The song of the Sachsenkrieg, Bruno's Sachsenkrieg (= selected sources on German history in the Middle Ages. Freiherr vom Stein commemorative edition. 12, ISSN 0067-0650 ). 2nd, unchanged edition. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 1968, pp. 191–405.
- The life of Emperor Heinrich IV. Newly translated by Irene Schmale-Ott . Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 1963. (= Selected sources on German history in the Middle Ages, Freiherr vom Stein memorial edition; 12)
- Lampert von Hersfeld: Annalen (= selected sources on the German history of the Middle Ages. Freiherr vom Stein-Gedächtnisausgabe. 13). Newly translated by Adolf Schmidt. Explained by Wolfgang Dietrich Fritz. Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 1957.
literature
- Egon Boshof : The Salier (= Kohlhammer Urban pocket books. 387). 5th updated edition. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2008, ISBN 978-3-17-020183-5 .
- Mechthild Black-Veldtrup : Empress Agnes (1043-1077). Source-critical studies (= Münster historical research. Vol. 7). Böhlau, Cologne et al. 1995, ISBN 3-412-02695-6 (also: Münster, Universität, Dissertation, 1993).
- Hans K. Schulze : Hegemonic Empire. Ottonen and Salier. Siedler, Berlin 1991, ISBN 3-88680-307-4 .
- Tilman Struve : Lampert von Hersfeld, the royal robbery of Kaiserswerth in 1062 and the culture of remembrance of the 19th century. In: Archives for cultural history . Vol. 88, No. 2, 2006, pp. 251-278.