The background is the early medieval legal system, based mainly on personal loyalty and privileges that could be conferred or withdrawn at any time.
As a result, when it was unclear where the delineation was in terms of responsibilities and areas of jurisdiction, so-called "armchair disputes" often arose over the seating order.
These rarely resulted in an agreement, because "conceding or giving in would have decided the dispute in favour of one or the other and ... so was out of the question," according to historian Gerd Althoff.
The Abbot of Fulda Abbey, Widerad, and the Bishop of Hildesheim, Hezilo, twice ended up arguing over who had the right to sit next to the Archbishop of Mainz in Goslar's Collegiate Church of St. Simon and Jude.
Knowing that Widerad would insist on the status he had been granted at Christmas, Hezilo had prepared for a fight, placing armed men in position behind the altar under the leadership of Egbert of Brunswick.
Lambert of Hersfeld describes the developing carnage, witnessed by the king, in his annals: In the middle of the chancel and to the chanting of monks, an affray breaks out: except now they fight not just with clubs, but with swords.
On God's altars victims are gruesomely slaughtered; everywhere rivers of blood run through the church, poured out not as formerly required by religious custom, but by hostile cruelty.
The Bishop of Hildesheim found an elevated position and urged his men, as if using a military bugle call, to fight bravely, and so that they are not deterred from using weapons by the sanctity of the place, he holds up before them the standard of his authority and his permission.
During the affray the king raises his voice loudly and implores the people to stop, appealing to his royal majesty, but he seems to preach to deaf ears.
Not insignificant was that Egbert, on the Hildesheim side, had excellent relations with the king: Henry and he shared a common grandmother, the Empress Gisela, and their fathers were half brothers.