Road to Canossa

It took place during the Investiture controversy and involved the Emperor seeking absolution and the revocation of his excommunication by the Pope who had been staying at the castle as the guest of Margravine Matilda of Tuscany.

According to contemporary sources, he was forced to supplicate on his knees, waiting for three days and nights before the castle gate while a blizzard raged, "one of the most dramatic moments of the Middle Ages".

When Gregory VII, acclaimed Pope by the people of Rome in 1073, attempted to enact reforms to the investiture process by his Dictatus papae decree, he was met by resistance from Henry IV.

[4] Gregory had also declared the oaths of allegiance sworn by the Princes null and void,[5] which turned out to be more dangerous to Henry's rule, as the development met the interests of several territorial rulers in the Empire.

[6][7] According to the chronicles by Lambert of Hersfeld, Henry, his wife Bertha of Savoy, and their young son Conrad risked their lives by crossing the Alpine crest in harsh mid-winter conditions.

According to Lambert of Hersfeld and first-hand accounts of the scene (letters written by both Gregory and Henry in the following years), the king waited by the gate for three full days.

[12] In 1728, when Gregory was canonized by Pope Benedict XIII, the papal decree caused offence among European monarchs and its publication was banned by Emperor Charles VI.

The incident first was perpetuated by the Austrian politician and poet Anton Alexander von Auersperg (Anastasius Grün) in an 1868 speech before the House of Lords on the implementation of civil marriage.

After German unification, Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, when his Pulpit Paragraph and the Jesuits Law sparked the so-called "Kulturkampf" with Pope Pius IX, assured his countrymen in a Reichstag speech that "We will not go to Canossa–neither in body nor in spirit!"

For example, Adolf Hitler used the expression to describe his meetings with Bavarian Minister President Heinrich Held after being released from Landsberg Prison in 1924, in his bid to have the ban on the Nazi Party lifted.

Henry at Canossa , history painting by Eduard Schwoiser [ de ] (1862)
Henry asks Matilda and Abbot Hugh of Cluny to intervene in the dispute, Vita Mathildis ( c. 1115 ).
Henry IV and his entourage at the gate, 19th century depiction
A 1583 image of Henry at Canossa, by English Protestant John Foxe . The print depicts Henry as a dignified ruler, contrasted with Gregory's contemptuous supporters and Gregory himself, identified as Antichrist , who is depicted in the wiles of Matilda.
Plaque with Bismarck's quote erected in 1877 at Harzburg Castle