THE RULING POWER IN ITALY: THE HOUSE OF FRANCONIA FROM CONRAD II TO HENRY III

The kingdom of Italy, extending from the Alps to its unsettled borders with the papal states, suffered its most serious crisis during the transition from the imperial house of the Saxons to that of the Salians in 1024, when the capital itself, Pavia, rose, destroyed the royal palace and scattered the officials in charge of the central administration. At that point the throne was vacant and the great lords of Italy divided over the problem of the succession. The subordination of the Italian to the German crown was not yet a peacefully accepted fact and some of the major powers sought their own candidate in France. But the bishops of northern Italy, remembering the disagreements over inheritance which had arisen between the church and the laity and the resulting violence, chose a different way. Under the guidance of the archbishop of Milan, Aribert of Antimiano and the bishop of Vercelli, Leo, they offered the crown to the king who had just been elected in Germany, Conrad II of the house of Franconia.

In 1026, Conrad came down into Italy through the Brenner pass with a considerable army and was welcomed at Milan by Aribert. He besieged Pavia and set about reducing the nobles reluctant to recognize him. In 1027, he created Boniface of Canossa, already powerful through his estates, castles and titles of count in various regions of the Po valley, marquess in Tuscany. He had himself crowned emperor in Rome by Pope John XIX, of the family of the counts of Tusculum. From him he also obtained recognition of the ecclesiastical jurisdiction over the Lagoon of Venice claimed by the patriarch of Aquileia, Poppo of Carinthia, to the detriment of the patriarchate of Grado and Venetian autonomy.