Emperor in 1046, Henry ruled as king and emperor until
his death in 1056, when he was succeeded by his young
son Henry IV (1050–1106).
Henry III’s assumption of full royal powers in 1039
was a smooth one, since the transition had been prepared
over a decade before by Henry’s elevation to cokingship
during his father’s lifetime and by his direct control of
the duchies of Bavaria and Swabia and the kingdom of
Burgundy. The addition of the southeastern duchy of
Carinthia to the regions under his direct rule in 1039
only enhanced his already strong political hold on the
southern portion of the German realm. He had also
arrived at the pinnacle of royal power after a careful
process of practical political and military training which
rendered him familiar with both the protocols of royal
justice and court business and the demands of military
campaigns and the battlefi eld: in short, with the busi-
ness of medieval rule. These experiences also prepared
him to begin building the vital networks of personal
connections with other magnates that enabled so much
of royal rule in medieval Germany.
Ecclesiastics, such as the historian Wipo and the
polymath Berno of Reichenau, ensured that Henry not
only received a basic literary education but also absorbed
the ideals of theocratic kingship and participated, to a
degree, in contemporary currents of religious revival
and reform.
Honored with the epithets spes imperii (hope of the
empire) and amicus pacis (friend of peace), Henry III
showed his commitment to the ideals of peace and jus-
tice early in his reign with his proclamation of public
peace and forgiveness of his opponents. At gatherings
in Constance (1043), Trier (Christmas 1043), Menfö in
Hungary (1044), and Rome (1046), Henry exhorted,
begged, and ordered his audiences to keep the peace
and to forsake revenge upon enemies by following
their king’s example. Despite Henry’s emphasis on and
general success in establishing peace within his king-
dom—a success which has led historians to consider his
reign the “high-point of early medieval imperial rule”
—his reign was not without both internal and external
political crises.
Internally, Henry’s aggressive assertion of royal
prerogatives and control met with particularly stiff local
resistance in Lotharingia and Saxony. In Saxony, Henry
exploited royal and imperial domains more intensively
than had his predecessors, established a new palace at
Goslar, and exercised tighter control over ecclesiastical
affairs in the region, all of which set him at odds with
the regional nobility and, especially, the noble family of
the Billungs. In contrast to the opposition of the Saxon
nobility, which simmered until the reign of Henry’s
son and only erupted in the Saxon War (1073–1089),
the nobility of Lotharingia presented Henry with a
formidable rival in the person of Godfried the Bearded,
Duke of Upper Lotharingia. After Henry had ignored
the duke’s legitimate claim to the duchy of Lower Lo-
tharingia, deprived Godfried of his rule, and engaged
in a program of ecclesiastical appointments designed to
contain or weaken Godfried’s power, the duke and his
allies revolted in 1044. Defeated in 1049, the duke took
refuge in Italy, where, in 1054, he married, without the
king’s approval, the heir to the margraviate of Tuscany,
Beatrix, the former wife of the most powerful ruler in
Italy, margrave Boniface. Fearing Godfried’s potential
control of both Lotharingia and northern Italy, Henry en-
tered Italy in 1055 and captured Beatrix and her daughter
Mathilda, while Godfried escaped north to Lotharingia.
He submitted to Henry in the following year.
Externally, Henry III was occupied by a series of
wars against the kings of Bohemia and Hungary. Taking
advantage of political disorder in Poland, King Vratislav
I of Bohemia (1034–1058) invaded Poland, thus chal-
lenging Henry’s overlordship of the German kingdom.
After a disastrous initial campaign in August of 1040,
Henry emerged victorious over the Bohemians in 1041
and compelled their king to pay tribute and recognize
German hegemony. Henry then responded to Hungar-
ian attacks upon the southern frontier with a series of
expeditions in 1042, 1043, and 1044, which resulted
in victory and the submission of Hungary to Germany
at Menfö. According to one scholar (Egon Boshof),
Henry’s aim was simple: the reduction of Germany’s
eastern neighbors from independent states to kingdoms
subordinate to German rule. Relations with Capetian
France in the West, though generally amicable, suffered
a setback in 1043–1046, when Henry’s marriage to
Agnes of Poitou increased anxieties about an alliance
between the German kingdom and Aquitaine and pro-
voked an abortive French invasion of Lotharingia.
Known for his largely successful attempts to expand
and enforce royal and imperial prerogatives within the
German kingdom, Henry III is perhaps most famous
for his zealous support of efforts to purify the clergy
and for his decisive action in reforming the Roman
papacy. Like his predecessors, Henry had used clerics
extensively both as administrative functionaries in his
Hofkapelle and as loyal agents who, once established
in bishoprics throughout Germany and Italy, enabled
him to strengthen the network of allies used to control
the empire’s territories. But, touched by the contempo-
rary ideals of a clergy free from the heretical taint of
simony (which came to be defi ned as the acquisition of
ecclesiastical offi ce through any form of recompense)
and sexual impurity, Henry vigorously forbade simo-
niacal elections, granted free elections to abbeys and
churches, and took measures to raise the moral caliber
of the clergy, efforts which brought him praise from
monastic reformers like Peter Damian.
His most famous acts, however, came in 1046 whenHENRY III