Canossa (pronounced kuh-nos-uh
or kah-naws-sah (Italian))
(1) A province in Northern Italy (and a name used in other
places and not to be confused with the proper noun Canosa).
(2) As Canossa Castle (now a ruin), near Reggio
nell'Emili, the scene in 1077 of the penance of Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV of before
Pope Gregory VII (the “Walk to Canossa”).
(3) In idiomatic use, for a person to humble themselves.
Circa 940: The castle was built around 940 by a princely family
of Lombardy at the summit of a hill overlooking the region. As well as the family’s seat, the castle
incorporated a convent, a Benedictine monastery and the church of
Sant'Apollonio. Reflecting the practice
of military architecture in the Middle Ages, the central structure was
protested by there, progressively more fortified stone walls and, prior to the
development of modern artillery, was close to impregnable under conventional
assault, vulnerable only to a protracted siege.
Going to Canossa
The coronation of Christmas Day, 800 when Charlemagne
(747-814, Emperor of the Carolingian Empire (and retrospectively regarded first
Holy Roman Emperor)), was crowned Emperor was an event which turned out to be
one of the most significant of the Middle Ages, the consequences unfolding in Europe over a thousand years, some of which are visible still today. One aspect of the coronation at the Basilica
of Saint Peter in Rome which Charlemagne almost immediately realized as a
mistake was that the crown was placed on his head by Leo III (circa 750-816;
pope 795-816, described by one historian as “one of the shiftiest” popes and one
accused of perjury & adultery) with the words “To Charles, the most pious Augustus, crowned by God, the great and
peace-giving Emperor, life and victory.”
The squabble for primacy between the “vicar of Christ on earth” and the
earthly rulers wasn’t new but this didn’t help their cause. In 1804, at Notre Dame de Paris, snatching
the crown from the hands of Pope Pius VII (1742–1823; pope 1800-1823), Napoleon
Bonaparte (1769–1821, Emperor of the French 1804-1814 & 1815) did not repeat
the error.
One famous round in that squabble was Henry IV’s Walk to Canossa (also called the Road to Canossa or the Humiliation of Canossa. It describes the ritualistic submission in 1077 of the Holy Roman Emperor, Henry IV (1050–1106; King of Germany 1054-1105, Holy Roman Emperor 1084-1105) to Pope Gregory VII (circa 1015–1085; pope 1073-1085) at Canossa Castle, the climax of what came to be called the investiture controversy. Popes and emperors had for generations argued about the precedence of ecclesiastical or secular authority but Gregory had attempted further to assert the authority of Rome by claiming an exclusivity of right to "invest" bishops, abbots and other clergy, a dispute with modern echoes. Despite attempts at mediation, the conflict grew, pope and emperor both appointing bishops, not recognized by each-other and eventually, the battle evolved into each side gathering bishops and organizing the numbers to excommunicate the other. Given the communications of the age it was something of a slow-motion war of words but eventually (though not without the odd close scrape), Gregory prevailed and the excommunicated Henry lost the numbers, clerical and secular. To seek his throne, he would have to capitulate, apologize and beg forgiveness.
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Accordingly, in what was said to be the coldest winter in
almost forty years, Henry and his party made the trek to Canossa where the pope
was staying, a journey made longer, more difficult and colder still by having to
“go the long way round” because passage through the more convenient (and safer)
alpine passes, controlled by forces aligned with the pope, was denied. The journey took more than three months, the
party reaching Canossa Castle on 25 January 1077. There, the pope ordered he be refused entry,
the suspicion of historians being that some message was passed to the visitors
suggesting the gates might be opened were the emperor for three days to display
“sufficient penance”. According to
legend, Henry (and perhaps some of his entourage including his wife) for the
three days donned the simple robe of a monk, fasted and walked barefoot in the snow.
Fist bump: Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV before Pope Gregory VII (1875), woodcut after a drawing by Friedrich Hottenroth (1840-1917).
On 28 January, the pope ordered the castle gates opened and it’s said Henry supplicated himself on his knees before the pope and begged forgiveness. Clearly impressed (or at least satisfied), Gregory granted absolution and revoked the act of excommunication, that evening offering the emperor communion in the chapel of Sant'Apollonio. All’s well that ends well then, the pope lingering for a few months before returning to Rome with his authority confirmed and Henry headed home, soon to extract what vengeance he could. Almost immediately the alpine pilgrimage was regarded as a humiliation for Henry but even some medieval scholars would soon create a revisionist history, arguing the emperor’s strategy was a masterstroke, gaining much which was important and sacrificing little. Modern historians tend not to be convinced by the “stoops to conquer” school, regarding it a humiliation still and the phrase "going to Canossa" endures as a reference to an act of penance or submission.
Whether Canossa was much on the mind of President Joe
Biden (b 1942; US president since 2021) as he flew to Saudi Arabia hasn’t been
revealed but at least Air Force One is comfortable and he certainly didn’t need
to go the “long way round”, his 747 granted a direct flight path from Tel Aviv
to Jeddah, a presidential first and something long thought unimaginable. Interestingly, according to the president, as
recently as June 2022, also unimaginable was him meeting with Saudi Arabia’s de-facto
leader Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud (b 1985 and referred to colloquially as MBS). “I’m
not going to meet with MBS” Mr Biden had last month assured the press. “I’m
going to an international meeting, and he’s going to be part of it.” That might seem a fine distinction but in the
language of diplomacy, a not unreasonable one.
However, the world has changed since the 2020
presidential campaign in which Mr Biden vowed to make the Saudi government “pay the price and make them in fact the
pariah that they are”, his stridency a reaction to the murder and
dismemberment in Saudi’s Istanbul consulate of Washington Post journalist (and
Saudi citizen) Jamal Khashoggi (1958-2018) by agents of the Saudi state. On advice from the US intelligence community,
Mr Biden in 2020 made clear he held MBS personally responsible for Khashoggi’s death
although doubts have by some been expressed, their thinking that MBS may well
have authorized “an extraction” but not “an execution” and the unfortunate
consequences were a product either of misunderstandings as the message
proceeded down the line or the allocation of a specialized task to specialists
in another field. MBS has always denied
ordering the killing of Mr Khashoggi, answering with an emphatic “Absolutely not” when asked directly by
the US press. “This was a heinous crime” he said in an interview, adding that he
took “…full responsibility as a leader in
Saudi Arabia, especially since it was committed by individuals working for the
Saudi government.” The taking of
responsibility for acts committed by others, including those of which one has
no knowledge, is the essence of the Westminster system of ministerial
responsibility although a more nuanced expression of the concept which extended
to a “collective responsibility” was later developed by Albert Speer (1905-1980)
during the first Nuremberg trial (1945-1946).
The Saudi government had initially denied any involvement in the matter
although later it would admit the death was an accident which happened when an intelligence
team was attempting to extradite (in Turkish law presumably a kidnapping) the
journalist, against his will, to Saudi Arabia.
Fist bump: President Biden meets Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud, Jeddah, July 2022.
But the world has changed and to mark that, Mr Biden and MBS met, a friendly fist bump a photo opportunity for the gathered press pack, the entrance to the Al Salman Palace a good backdrop. According to Mr Biden, MBS “…basically said that he was not personally responsible” for the killing of Khashoggi and “I indicated that I thought he was.” What’s done is done and can’t be undone so, the discussion of human rights complete, the president and crown prince then got down to the substantive matter of oil and how helpful it would be if the kingdom could pump more of it from their fields, the unchallenging idea being that if supply could be made to exceed demand (which is already the case so presumably what Mr Biden would prefer is a glut), then the price would fall, this eventually being reflected in the cost of a gallon of gas in the US, hopefully in good time for the US mid-term congressional elections in November.
Industry analysts have cast doubt on whether the Saudis have the additional extractive and distributional capacity greatly to affect the price of oil which has anyway recently declined in response to concerns about a global economic slowdown although jitters remain, the oil futures market reacting hourly to news of COVID lockdowns and hints about monetary policy from those central banks which matter. It’s thought MBS is unlikely to have done more than agree to act in unison with whatever increase in supply the Organization of Oil Producing Countries (OPEC) may undertake to implement when it (actually the expanded OPEC+) meets in August. Still, August is a couple of months before the mid-terms so there’s that but these are troubled times, few anxious to predict what the economy or geopolitics will look like by then, any more than there's a model precisely to measure the effects of what the US Treasury still insist will be the next round of sanctions on Russian oil & gas. Like the OPEC+ meeting, these are due in August.
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