Hello and welcome to the history of the Germans, Episode 28, Three Popes with one stone.

Now in today's episode, we will witness the very beginnings of what Norman Cantor described as the first of the three world revolutions.

We are laying the foundations to that moment that Tom Holland compares to the crossing

of the Rubicon or the storming of the Bastille.

An event that shaped Western Europe into its own specific narrative, then let it to get ahead

of civilizations far older and far more sophisticated than its own.

History would call this the Gregorian reform, though it starts well before Pope Gregory the 7th, and Gregory the 7th was by no means its

intellectual leader. And, like many great revolutions, it starts with something, the significance

of which is overlooked by contemporaries.

Remember that Louis XVI's diary entry for the 14th of July 1789 reads as

Réin, nothing.

Well, in the case of the Gregorian reform, it starts with something that would be hard to overlook

completely, but with something we have seen many times before

in the history of the Germans podcast. It is a standard expedition to Rome to acquire the imperial

crown. Henry III's intention was in all likelihood to cruise down to Rome, get crowned

during the now traditional winter months, and be back across the Alps before

the malaria season starts. That is what his father Conrad II and his predecessor Henry

II had done. Neither of these had any interest in getting embroiled in Roman affairs. They all

remembered Otto III and how that had ended.

In October 1046, Henry III arrives in the capital of the Lombards, Pavia, where he holds

a synod.

He could travel with just his bodyguard.

...