ABSTRACT
The old German state was based on the support of the church; the imperial power, the temporal rule in Italy could not exist without the benevolent support and loyalty of the Pope. Monarch and church fell out shortly after 1070 and fought each other with extreme bitterness for nearly fifty years. The church was a worldly power and property and was handled accordingly. There could be no better guarantee of the German Emperor’s mastery of Rome. The reform of the Roman Church had been embarked on under German Popes, but the largest share in it had been taken by French monks. The reformed party in Germany refused to recognize him; the church persisted inexorably in its anathema. The German church became “free”; that is, it liberated itself from the influence of the crown, to fall the more thoroughly into the power of Rome.
