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Discovering Computer Science
Chapman & Hall/CRC
Textbooks in Computing
Series Editors
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Pascal Hitzler, Markus Krötzsch, and Sebastian Rudolph, Foundations of Semantic Web Technologies
Henrik Bærbak Christensen, Flexible, Reliable Software: Using Patterns and Agile Development
John S. Conery, Explorations in Computing: An Introduction to Computer Science
Lisa C. Kaczmarczyk, Computers and Society: Computing for Good
Mark Johnson, A Concise Introduction to Programming in Python
Paul Anderson, Web 2.0 and Beyond: Principles and Technologies
Henry Walker, The Tao of Computing, Second Edition
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Mark Johnson, A Concise Introduction to Data Structures Using Java
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John S. Conery, Explorations in Computing: An Introduction to Computer Science and Python Programming
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Discovering Computer Science
Interdisciplinary Problems, Principles, and
Python Programming
Second Edition

Jessen Havill
Second edition published 2021
by CRC Press
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN

and by CRC Press

6000 Broken Sound Parkway NW, Suite 300, Boca Raton, FL 33487-2742

© 2021 Jessen Havill

The right of Jessen Havill to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections
77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any infor­
mation storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

For permission to photocopy or use material electronically from this work, access www.copyright.com or contact the
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Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for
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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Havill, Jessen, author.

Title: Discovering computer science : interdisciplinary problems,
principles, and Python programming / Jessen Havill.
Description: Second edition. | Boca Raton : CRC Press, 2021. | Series:
Chapman & Hall/CRC press textbooks in computing | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020030144 | ISBN 9780367472498 (paperback) | ISBN
9780367613358 (hardback) | ISBN 9781003037149 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Computer science--Textbooks. | Python (Computer program
language)--Textbooks.
Classification: LCC QA76 .H3735 2021 | DDC 005.13/3--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020030144

ISBN: 9780367613358 (hbk)

ISBN: 9780367472498 (pbk)
ISBN: 9781003037149 (ebk)

Typeset in Computer Modern font

by Cenveo Publisher Services
Contents

Preface xv

Acknowledgments xxiii

About the author xxv

Chapter 1 ∎ How to Solve It 1

1.1 UNDERSTAND THE PROBLEM 3
A first problem: computing reading level 4
Functional abstraction 5
1.2 DESIGN AN ALGORITHM 6
Take it from the top 7
Pseudocode 10
Implement from the bottom 14
1.3 WRITE A PROGRAM 23
Welcome to the circus 23
What’s in a name? 28
Interactive computing 31
Looking ahead 32
1.4 LOOK BACK 36
Testing 37
Algorithm efficiency 39
1.5 SUMMARY AND FURTHER DISCOVERY 45

Chapter 2 ∎ Visualizing Abstraction 49

2.1 DATA ABSTRACTION 51
Turtle graphics 53
2.2 DRAWING FLOWERS AND PLOTTING EARTHQUAKES 55
Iteration 57
Tangent 2.1 Defining colors 60

v
vi • Contents

Data visualization 62
2.3 FUNCTIONAL ABSTRACTION 66
Function parameters 69
2.4 PROGRAMMING IN STYLE 77
Program structure 78
Documentation 79
Tangent 2.2 Global variables 80
Self-documenting code 83
2.5 A RETURN TO FUNCTIONS 87
The math module 88
Writing functions with return values 89
Return vs. print 92
2.6 SCOPE AND NAMESPACES 97
Local namespaces 98
The global namespace 101
2.7 SUMMARY AND FURTHER DISCOVERY 105

Chapter 3 ∎ Inside a Computer 107

3.1 COMPUTERS ARE DUMB 108
Tangent 3.1 High performance computing 109
Machine language 111
Tangent 3.2 Byte code 112
3.2 EVERYTHING IS BITS 112
Bits are switches 112
Bits can represent anything 113
Tangent 3.3 Hexadecimal notation 114
Computing with bits 114
3.3 COMPUTER ARITHMETIC 118
Limited precision 118
Tangent 3.4 Floating point notation 120
Error propagation 120
Division 121
Complex numbers 122
*3.4 BINARY ARITHMETIC ***
More limited precision

*
Sections with *** in lieu of a page number are available on the book website.
 Contents • vii

Negative integers
Designing an adder
Implementing an adder
3.5 THE UNIVERSAL MACHINE 124
3.6 SUMMARY AND FURTHER DISCOVERY 126

Chapter 4 ∎ Growth and Decay 129

4.1 ACCUMULATORS 130
Managing a fishing pond 130
Measuring network value 136
Organizing a concert 139
4.2 DATA VISUALIZATION 150
4.3 CONDITIONAL ITERATION 155
When will the fish disappear? 155
When will your nest egg double? 157
*4.4 CONTINUOUS MODELS ***
Difference equations
Radiocarbon dating
Tradeoffs between accuracy and time
Simulating an epidemic
*4.5 NUMERICAL ANALYSIS ***
The harmonic series
Approximating π
Approximating square roots
4.6 SUMMING UP 161
Tangent 4.1 Triangular numbers 163
4.7 FURTHER DISCOVERY 164
*4.8 PROJECTS ***
4.1 Parasitic relationships
4.2 Financial calculators
4.3 Market penetration
4.4 Wolves and moose

Chapter 5 ∎ Forks in the Road 165

5.1 RANDOM WALKS 166
Tangent 5.1 Interval notation 167
One small step 167
viii • Contents

Monte Carlo simulation 171

*5.2 PSEUDORANDOM NUMBER GENERATORS ***
Implementation
Testing randomness
*5.3 SIMULATING PROBABILITY DISTRIBUTIONS ***
The central limit theorem
5.4 BACK TO BOOLEANS 180
Predicate functions 182
Short circuit evaluation 183
DeMorgan’s laws 184
Thinking inside the box 187
Many happy returns 192
5.5 DEFENSIVE PROGRAMMING 199
Checking parameters 199
Assertions 202
Unit testing 204
Tangent 5.2 Unit testing frameworks 205
Testing floats 207
Catching exceptions 207
5.6 GUESS MY NUMBER 210
Ending the game nicely 212
Friendly hints 213
A proper win/lose message 214
5.7 SUMMARY AND FURTHER DISCOVERY 219
*5.8 PROJECTS ***
5.1 The magic of polling
5.2 Escape!

Chapter 6 ∎ Text, Documents, and DNA 221

6.1 FIRST STEPS 222
Normalization 223
Tangent 6.1 Natural language processing 224
Tokenization 228
Creating your own module 232
Testing your module 233
6.2 TEXT DOCUMENTS 238
 Contents • ix

Reading from text files 239

Writing to text files 242
Reading from the web 243
6.3 ENCODING STRINGS 246
Computing checksums 246
Unicode 247
Tangent 6.2 Compressing text files 250
Indexing and slicing 251
6.4 A CONCORDANCE 256
Finding a word 257
A concordance entry 262
A complete concordance 263
6.5 WORD FREQUENCY TRENDS 266
Finding the frequency of a word 268
Getting the frequencies in slices 269
Plotting the frequencies 270
6.6 COMPARING TEXTS 272
Dot plots 274
*6.7 TIME COMPLEXITY ***
Best case vs. worst case
Asymptotic time complexity
*6.8 COMPUTATIONAL GENOMICS ***
A genomics primer
Basic DNA analysis
Transforming sequences
Comparing sequences
Reading sequence files
6.9 SUMMARY AND FURTHER DISCOVERY 281
*6.10 PROJECTS ***
6.1 Polarized politics
6.2 Finding genes

Chapter 7 ∎ Data Analysis 285

7.1 SUMMARY STATISTICS 286
Mean and variance 286
Minimum and maximum 288
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x • Contents

7.2 WRANGLING DATA 293

Smoothing data 294
A more efficient algorithm 295
Modifying lists in place 297
List operators and methods 302
*List comprehensions 305
Tangent 7.1 NumPy arrays 306
7.3 TALLYING FREQUENCIES 310
Word frequencies 310
Dictionaries 311
Tangent 7.2 Hash tables 315
Finding the most frequent word 315
Bigram frequencies 317
Tangent 7.3 Sentiment analysis 318
7.4 READING TABULAR DATA 325
Earthquakes 326
*7.5 DESIGNING EFFICIENT ALGORITHMS ***
Removing duplicates
A first algorithm
A more elegant algorithm
A more efficient algorithm
*7.6 LINEAR REGRESSION ***
*7.7 DATA CLUSTERING ***
Defining similarity
A simple example
Implementing k-means clustering
Locating bicycle safety programs
7.8 SUMMARY AND FURTHER DISCOVERY 333
Tangent 7.4 Privacy in the age of big data 334
*7.9 PROJECTS ***
7.1 Climate change
7.2 Does education influence unemployment?
7.3 Maximizing profit
7.4 Admissions
7.5 Preparing for a 100-year flood
7.6 Voting methods
 Contents • xi

7.7 Heuristics for traveling salespeople

Chapter 8 ∎ Flatland 335

8.1 TABULAR DATA 335
Reading a table of temperatures 336
Tangent 8.1 Pandas 339
8.2 THE GAME OF LIFE 342
Creating a grid 344
Initial configurations 345
Surveying the neighborhood 346
Performing one pass 347
Tangent 8.2 NumPy arrays in two dimensions 349
Updating the grid 349
8.3 DIGITAL IMAGES 353
Colors 353
Tangent 8.3 Additive vs. subtractive color models 354
Image filters 355
Tangent 8.4 Image storage and compression 356
Transforming images 358
8.4 SUMMARY AND FURTHER DISCOVERY 363
*8.5 PROJECTS ***
8.1 Modeling segregation
8.2 Modeling ferromagnetism
8.3 Growing dendrites
8.4 Simulating an epidemic

Chapter 9 ∎ Self-similarity and Recursion 365

9.1 FRACTALS 365
Trees 367
Snowflakes 369
9.2 RECURSION AND ITERATION 375
Solving a problem recursively 379
Palindromes 380
Guessing passwords 382
9.3 THE MYTHICAL TOWER OF HANOI 388
*Is the end of the world nigh? 390
9.4 RECURSIVE LINEAR SEARCH 392
xii • Contents

*Efficiency of recursive linear search 393

9.5 DIVIDE AND CONQUER 396
Buy low, sell high 397
Navigating a maze 400
*9.6 LINDENMAYER SYSTEMS ***
Formal grammars
L-systems
Implementing L-systems
9.7 SUMMARY AND FURTHER DISCOVERY 405
*9.8 PROJECTS ***
9.1 Lindenmayer’s beautiful plants
9.2 Gerrymandering
9.3 Percolation

Chapter 10 ∎ Organizing Data 407

10.1 BINARY SEARCH 408
Tangent 10.1 Databases 409
Efficiency of iterative binary search 412
A spelling checker 414
Recursive binary search 415
*Efficiency of recursive binary search 416
10.2 SELECTION SORT 418
Implementing selection sort 419
Efficiency of selection sort 422
Querying data 423
10.3 INSERTION SORT 427
Implementing insertion sort 428
Efficiency of insertion sort 430
10.4 EFFICIENT SORTING 433
Merge sort 433
Internal vs. external sorting 437
Efficiency of merge sort 437
*10.5 TRACTABLE AND INTRACTABLE ALGORITHMS ***
Hard problems
10.6 SUMMARY AND FURTHER DISCOVERY 441
*10.7 PROJECTS ***
 Contents • xiii

10.1 Creating a searchable database

10.2 Binary search trees

Chapter 11 ∎ Networks 443

11.1 MODELING WITH GRAPHS 444
Making friends 446
11.2 SHORTEST PATHS 451
Breadth-first search 451
Finding the actual paths 455
11.3 IT’S A SMALL WORLD. . . 458
Small world networks 458
Clustering coefficients 459
Scale-free networks 461
11.4 RANDOM GRAPHS 464
11.5 SUMMARY AND FURTHER DISCOVERY 467
*11.6 PROJECTS ***
11.1 Diffusion of ideas and influence
11.2 Slowing an epidemic
11.3 The Oracle of Bacon

Chapter 12 ∎ Object-oriented Design 469

12.1 SIMULATING AN EPIDEMIC 470
Object design 471
Person class 472
Augmenting the Person class 477
World class 479
The simulation 481
12.2 OPERATORS AND POLYMORPHISM 486
Designing a Pair ADT 487
Pair class 488
Arithmetic methods 489
Special methods 491
Comparison operators 493
Indexing 494
*12.3 A FLOCKING SIMULATION ***
The World
Boids
xiv • Contents

*12.4 A STACK ADT ***

Stack class
Reversing a string
Converting numbers to other bases
*12.5 A DICTIONARY ADT ***
Hash tables
Implementing a hash table
Indexing
ADTs vs. data structures
12.6 SUMMARY AND FURTHER DISCOVERY 499
*12.7 PROJECTS ***
12.1 Tracking GPS coordinates
12.2 Economic mobility
12.3 Slime mold aggregation
12.4 Boids in space

Bibliography 501

Appendix A ∎ Python Library Reference ***

Appendix B ∎ Selected Exercise Solutions ***

Index 505
Preface

I nthree
my view, an introductory computer science course should strive to accomplish
things. First, it should demonstrate to students how computing has become
a powerful mode of inquiry, and a vehicle of discovery, in a wide variety of disciplines.
This orientation is also inviting to students of the natural and social sciences, and the
humanities, who increasingly benefit from an introduction to computational thinking,
beyond the limited “black box” recipes often found in manuals and “Computing
for X” books. Second, the course should engage students in computational problem
solving, and lead them to discover the power of abstraction, efficiency, and data
organization in the design of their solutions. Third, the course should teach students
how to implement their solutions as computer programs. In learning how to program,
students more deeply learn the core principles, and experience the thrill of seeing
their solutions come to life.
Unlike most introductory computer science textbooks, which are organized around
programming language constructs, I deliberately lead with interdisciplinary problems
and techniques. This orientation is more interesting to a more diverse audience, and
more accurately reflects the role of programming in problem solving and discovery.
A computational discovery does not, of course, originate in a programming language
feature in search of an application. Rather, it starts with a compelling problem which
is modeled and solved algorithmically, by leveraging abstraction and prior experience
with similar problems. Only then is the solution implemented as a program.
Like most introductory computer science textbooks, I introduce programming skills
in an incremental fashion, and include many opportunities for students to practice
them. The topics in this book are arranged to ease students into computational
thinking, and encourage them to incrementally build on prior knowledge. Each
chapter focuses on a general class of problems that is tackled by new algorithmic
techniques and programming language features. My hope is that students will leave
the course, not only with strong programming skills, but with a set of problem
solving strategies and simulation techniques that they can apply in their future work,
whether or not they take another computer science course.
I use Python to introduce computer programming for two reasons. First, Python’s
intuitive syntax allows students to focus on interesting problems and powerful
principles, without unnecessary distractions. Learning how to think algorithmically
is hard enough without also having to struggle with a non-intuitive syntax. Second,
the expressiveness of Python (in particular, low-overhead lists and dictionaries)
expands tremendously the range of accessible problems in the introductory course.

xv
xvi • Preface

Teaching with Python over the last fifteen years has been a revelation; introductory
computer science has become fun again.

Changes in the second edition

In this comprehensive, cover-to-cover update, some sections were entirely rewritten
while others saw only minor revisions. Here are the highlights:

Problem solving The new first chapter, How to Solve It, sets the stage by focusing on
Polya’s elegant four-step problem solving process, adapted to a computational frame­
work. I introduce informal pseudocode, functional decomposition, hand-execution
with informal trace tables, and testing, practices that are now carried on throughout
the book. The introduction to Python (formally Chapter 2) is integrated into this
framework. Chapter 7, Designing Programs, from the first edition has been elimi­
nated, with that material spread out more naturally among Chapters 1, 5, and 6 in
the second edition.
Chapter 2, Visualizing Abstraction (based on the previous Chapter 3), elaborates on
the themes in Chapter 1, and their implementations in Python, introducing turtle
graphics, functions, and loops. The new Chapter 3, Inside a Computer (based on
the previous Sections 1.4 and 2.5), takes students on a brief excursion into the simple
principles underlying how computers work.

Online materials To reduce the size of the printed book, we have moved some
sections and all of the projects online. These sections are marked in the table of
contents with ***. Online materials are still indexed in the main book for convenience.

Exercises I’ve added exercises to most sections, bringing the total to about 750.
Solutions to exercises marked with an asterisk are available online for both students
and self-learners.

Digital humanities The interdisciplinary problems in the first edition were focused
primarily in the natural and social sciences. In this edition, especially in Chapters 1,
6, and 7, we have added new material on text analysis techniques commonly used in
the “digital humanities.”

Object-oriented design Chapter 12 begins with a new section to introduce object-

oriented design in a more concrete way through the development of an agent-based
simulation of a viral epidemic. The following sections flesh out more details on how
to implement polymorphic operators and collection classes.
 Preface • xvii

Book website
Online materials for this book are available at

https://www.discoveringCS.net.
Here you will find

• additional “optional” sections, marked with an asterisk in the main text,

• over thirty interdisciplinary programming projects,
• solutions to selected exercises,
• programs and data files referenced in the text, exercises, and projects, and
• pointers for further exploration and links to additional documentation.

To students
Active learning Learning how to solve computational problems and implement
them as computer programs requires daily practice. Like an athlete, you will get
out of shape and fall behind quickly if you skip it. There are no shortcuts. Your
instructor is there to help, but he or she cannot do the work for you.
With this in mind, it is important that you type in and try the examples throughout
the text, and then go beyond them. Be curious! There are numbered “Reflection”
questions throughout the book that ask you to stop and think about, or apply,
something that you just read. Often, the question is answered in the book immediately
thereafter, so that you can check your understanding, but peeking ahead will rob
you of an important opportunity.

Further discovery There are many opportunities to delve into topics more deeply.
“Tangent” boxes scattered throughout the text briefly introduce related, but more
technical or applied, topics. For the most part, these are not strictly required to
understand what comes next, but I encourage you to read them anyway. In the
“Summary and Further Discovery” section of each chapter, you can find both a
high-level summary of the chapter and additional pointers to explore chapter topics
in more depth.

Exercises and projects At the end of most sections are several programming exercises
that ask you to further apply concepts from that section. Often, the exercises assume
that you have already worked through all of the examples in that section. Solutions
to the starred exercises are available on the book website. There are also more
involved projects available on the book website that challenge you to solve a variety
of interdisciplinary problems.

No prerequisites The book assumes no prior knowledge of computer science. How­

ever, it does assume a modest comfort with high school algebra. In optional sections,
xviii • Preface

trigonometry is occasionally mentioned, as is the idea of convergence to a limit, but

these are not relevant to understanding the main topics in the book.

Have fun! Programming and problem solving should be a fun, creative activity. I
hope that this book sparks your curiosity and love of learning, and that you enjoy
the journey as much as I have enjoyed writing this book.

To instructors
This book is appropriate for a traditional CS1 course for majors, a CS0 course for
non-majors (at a slower pace and omitting more material), or a targeted introductory
computing course for students in the natural sciences, social sciences, or humanities.
The approach is gentle and holistic, introducing programming concepts in the context
of interdisciplinary problems. We start with problem-solving, featuring pseudocode
and hand-execution with trace tables, and carry these techniques forward, especially
in the first half of the book.

Problem focus Most chapters begin with an interesting problem, and new concepts
and programming techniques are introduced in the context of solving it. As new
techniques are introduced, students are frequently challenged to re-solve old problems
in different ways. They are also encouraged to reuse their previous functions as
components in later programs.

Reflection questions, exercises, and projects “Reflection” questions are embedded

in every section to encourage active reading. These may also be assigned as “reading
questions” before class. The end-of-section exercises are appropriate for regular home­
work, and some more complex ones may form the basis of longer-term assignments.
The book website also hosts a few dozen interdisciplinary projects that students may
work on independently or in pairs over a longer time frame. I believe that projects
like these are crucial for students to develop both problem solving skills and an
appreciation for the many fascinating applications of computer science.

Additional instructor resources All of the reflection questions and exercises are
available to instructors as Jupyter notebooks. Solutions to all exercises and projects
are also available. Please visit the publisher’s website to request access.

Python coverage This book is not intended to be a Python manual. Some features
of the language were intentionally omitted because they would have muddled the core
problem solving focus or are not commonly found in other languages that students
may see in future CS courses (e.g., simultaneous swap, chained comparisons, zip,
enumerate in for loops).

Topic coverage There is more in this book than can be covered in a single semester,
giving instructors the opportunity to tailor the content to their particular situation
 Preface • xix

Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4

Chapter 1
Visualizing Inside a Growth and
How to Solve It
Abstraction Computer Decay

Chapter 6
Chapter 7 Chapter 5
Text, Documents,
Data Analysis Forks in the Road
and DNA

Chapter 9
Chapter 8 Chapter 10
Self-similarity and
Flatland Organizing Data
Recursion

Chapter 12
Chapter 11
Object-oriented
Networks
Design

Figure 1 An overview of chapter dependencies.

and interests. As illustrated in Figure 1, Chapters 1–7 form the core of the book, and
should be covered sequentially. The remaining chapters can be covered, partially or
entirely, at your discretion, although I would expect that most instructors will cover
at least parts of Chapters 8–10, and 12 if the course covers object-oriented design.
Chapter 11 introduces social network graphs and small-world and scale-free networks
as additional powerful applications of dictionaries, and may come any time after
Chapter 7. Sections marked with an asterisk are optional, in the sense that they are
not assumed for future sections in that chapter. When exercises and projects depend
on optional sections, they are also marked with an asterisk, and the dependency is
stated at the beginning of the project.

Chapter outlines The following tables provide brief overviews of what is available
in each chapter. Each table’s three columns, reflecting the three parts of the book’s
subtitle, provide three lenses through which to view the chapter.

1 How to Solve It
Sample problems Principles Programming
● reading level ● problems, input/output ● int, float, str types
● counting syllables, words ● functional abstraction ● arithmetic
● sphere volume ● functional decomposition ● assignment

● digital music ● top-down design ● variable names

● search engines ● bottom-up implementation ● calling built-in functions

● GPS devices ● algorithms and programs ● using strings

● phone trees ● pseudocode ● string operators

● wind chill ● names as references ● print and input

● compounding interest ● trace tables

● Mad Libs ● constant- vs. linear-time
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2 Visualizing Abstraction

Sample problems Principles Programming

● visualizing earthquakes ● using abstract data types ● using classes and objects
● drawing flowers ● creating functional ● turtle module
● random walks abstractions ● for loops (range and lists)
● ideal gas ● functional decomposition ● using and writing functions
● groundwater flow ● bottom-up implementation ● return vs. print

● demand functions ● turtle graphics ● namespaces and scope

● reading level ● trace tables with loops ● docstrings and comments
● self-documenting code
● program structure

3 Inside a Computer

Principles Programming
● computer organization ● int and float types
● machine language ● arithmetic errors
● binary representations ● true vs. floor division
● computer arithmetic
● finite precision, error propagation
● Boolean logic, truth tables, logic gates

● Turing machines, finite state machines

4 Growth and Decay

Sample problems Principles Programming

● population models ● accumulators ● for loops, range
● network value ● list accumulators ● format strings
● demand and profit ● data visualization ● matplotlib.pyplot

● loans and investing ● conditional iteration ● appending to lists

● bacterial growth ● classes of growth ● while loops
● radiocarbon dating ● continuous models
● epidemics (SIR, SIS) ● accuracy vs. time
● diffusion models ● numerical approximation

5 Forks in the Road

Sample problems Principles Programming
● random walks ● random number generators ● random module
● Monte Carlo simulation ● simulating probabilities ● if/elif/else
● guessing games ● flag variables ● comparison operators
● polling and ● using distributions ● Boolean operators

sampling ● DeMorgan’s laws ● short circuit evaluation

● particle escape ● defensive programming ● predicate functions

● pre- and post-conditions ● assert, isinstance

● unit testing ● catching exceptions

● histograms
● while loops
 Preface • xxi

6 Text, Documents, and DNA

Sample problems Principles Programming
● text analysis ● functional decomposition ● str class and methods
● word frequency trends ● unit testing ● iterating over strings, lists
● checksums ● ASCII, Unicode ● indexing and slicing

● concordances ● linear-time algorithms ● iterating over indices

● dot plots, plagiarism ● time complexity ● creating a module
● congressional votes ● linear search ● text files and the web
● genomics ● string accumulators ● break
● nested loops

7 Data Analysis

Sample problems Principles Programming

● word, bigram frequencies ● histograms ● list class
● smoothing data ● hash tables ● indexing and slicing
● 100-year floods ● tabular data files ● list operators and methods
● traveling salesman ● efficient algorithm design ● reading CSV files
● meteorite sites ● linear regression ● modifying lists in place
● zebra migration ● k-means clustering ● list parameters
● tumor diagnosis ● heuristics ● tuples
● supply and demand ● list comprehensions
● voting methods ● dictionaries

8 Flatland
Sample problems Principles Programming
● earthquake data ● 2-D data ● lists of lists
● Game of Life ● cellular automata ● nested loops
● image filters ● digital images ● 2-D data in a dictionary

● racial segregation ● color models

● ferromagnetism
● dendrites
● epidemics
● tumor growth

9 Self-similarity and Recursion

Sample problems Principles Programming

● fractals ● self-similarity ● writing recursive functions
● cracking passwords ● recursion ● divide and conquer
● Tower of Hanoi ● linear search ● backtracking
● maximizing profit ● recurrence relations
● navigating a maze ● divide and conquer

● Lindenmayer systems ● depth-first search

● gerrymandering ● grammars
● percolation
xxii • Preface

10 Organizing Data

Sample problems Principles Programming

● spell check ● binary search ● nested loops
● querying data sets ● quadratic-time sorting ● writing recursive functions
● parallel lists
● merge sort
● recurrence relations

● intractability, P=NP?

11 Networks
Sample problems Principles Programming
● social media, web graphs ● graphs ● dictionaries
● diffusion of ideas ● adjacency list, matrix
● epidemics ● breadth-first search

● Oracle of Bacon ● queues

● shortest paths
● depth-first search
● small-world networks
● scale-free networks

● uniform random graphs

12 Object-oriented Design

Sample problems Principles Programming

● epidemic simulation ● abstract data types ● object-oriented design
● data sets ● encapsulation ● writing classes
● genomic sequences ● polymorphism ● special methods

● rational numbers ● data structures ● overriding operators

● flocking behavior ● stacks ● modules
● slime mold aggregation ● hash tables
● agent-based simulation
● swarm intelligence

Software assumptions
To follow along in this book and complete the exercises, you will need to have
installed Python 3.6 or later on your computer, and have access to IDLE or another
programming environment. The book also assumes that you have installed the
matplotlib.pyplot and numpy modules. The easiest way to get this software is to
install the free open source Anaconda distribution from http://www.anaconda.com.

Errata
While I (and my students) have ferreted out many errors, readers will inevitably find
more. You can find an up-to-date list of errata on the book website. If you find an error
in the text or have another suggestion, please let me know at havill@denison.edu.
Acknowledgments

In addition to those who provided their support and expertise for the first edition,
I wish to thank Janet Davis (Whitman College), Jim Deverick (The College of
William and Mary), David Goodwin (Denison University), and Ashwin Lall (Denison
University) for their valuable feedback on drafts of the second edition.
I would also like to thank Dee Ghiloni, Mary Lucas-Miller, and Tony Silveira for
their steadfast support, Mike Brady and my Data Analytics colleagues for reminding
me how much fun it can be to learn new things, and the Book Group for reminding
me to not take life too seriously. A Bowen Fellowship awarded by Denison University
gave me the time needed to complete this project.
Finally, my family has once again provided me with seemingly infinite patience and
love during this intensive period of writing. I am an extraordinarily lucky husband
and father.

xxiii
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ancient influence. The death of the Archbishop of Bremen in 1072
unloosed the last link that connected the new reign with the old
traditions.
The Saxon Revolt, Henry IV.’s reign now really began. A
1073–1075. thorough Swabian, his favourite ministers
were Swabians of no high degree, and he had no faith in the goodwill
or loyalty of the men of the north. He had kept vacant the Saxon
dukedom. On every hill-top of Saxony and Thuringia he built strong
castles, whose lawless garrisons plundered and outraged the
peasantry. There was ever fierce ill-will between northern and
southern Germany during the Middle Ages. The policy of the
southern Emperor soon filled the north with anger, and the Saxon
nobles prepared for armed resistance. In 1073 Henry fitted out an
expedition, whose professed destination was against the Poles. It was
believed in Saxony that his real object was to subdue the Saxons and
hand them over to the Swabians. Accordingly in the summer of 1073
a general Saxon revolt broke out, headed by the natural leaders of
Saxony both in Church and State, including the Archbishop of
Magdeburg, the deposed Duke Otto of Bavaria, and the fierce
Margrave Dedi, already an unsuccessful rebel. The insurgents
demanded the instant demolition of the castles, the dismissal of
Henry’s evil counsellors, and the restitution of their lands that he
had violently seized. On receiving no answer they shut up Henry in
the strong castle of Harzburg, whence he escaped with the utmost
difficulty to the friendly cloister of Hersfeld. In the course of the
summer the rebels destroyed many of the new castles. The levies
summoned for the Polish campaign refused to turn their arms
against the Saxons, and Henry saw himself powerless amidst the
general falling away. A meeting at Gerstungen, where Henry’s friends
strove to mediate with the rebels, led to a suggestion that the king
should be deposed. Only at Worms and in the Swabian cities did
Henry receive any real support. He gathered together a small army
and strove to fight a winter campaign against the Saxons, but failed
so completely that he was forced to accept their terms. However,
hostilities were renewed in 1075, when Henry won a considerable
victory at Hohenburg on the Unstrut, and forced the Saxons to make
an unconditional submission. Otto of Nordheim, the Archbishop of
Magdeburg, and the other leaders were imprisoned. On the ruins of
Saxon liberty Henry now aspired to build up a despotism.
Election of Gregory Hildebrand was now Pope. During the
VII. 1073. funeral service of Alexander II. at St. John’s
in the Lateran, a great shout arose from the multitude in the church
that Hildebrand should be their bishop. The cardinal, Hugh the
White, addressed the assembly. ‘You know, brethren,’ he said, ‘how,
since the time of Leo IX., Hildebrand has exalted the Roman Church,
and freed our city. We cannot find a better Pope than he. Indeed, we
cannot find his equal. Let us then elect him, who, having been
ordained in our church, is known to us all, and thoroughly approved
by us.’ There was the great shout in answer: ‘Saint Peter has chosen
Hildebrand to be Pope!’ Despite his resistance, Hildebrand was
dragged to the church of St. Peter ad Vincula, and immediately
enthroned. The cardinals had no mind to upset this irregular
election, strangely contrary though it was to the provisions of
Nicholas II. The German bishops, alarmed at Hildebrand’s reputation
for severity, urged the king to quash the appointment, but Henry
contented himself with sending to Rome to inquire into the
circumstances of the election. Hildebrand showed great moderation,
and actually postponed his consecration until Henry’s consent had
been obtained. This Henry had no wish to withhold. On 29th June
1073 Hildebrand was hallowed bishop. By assuming the name of
Gregory VII., he proclaimed to the world the invalidity of the
deposition of his old master at the Synod of Sutri.
His character and The wonderful self-control which the new
policy. Pope had shown so long did not desert him
in his new position. Physically, there was little to denote the mighty
mind within his puny body. He was of low stature, shortlegged and
corpulent. He spoke with a stammer, and his dull complexion was
only lighted up by his glittering eyes. He was not a man of much
learning or originality, and contributed little towards the theory of
the papal or sacerdotal power. But he was one of the greatest
practical men of the Middle Ages; and his single-minded wish to do
what was right betokened a dignity of moral nature that was rare
indeed in the eleventh century. His power over men’s minds was
enormous, even to their own despite. The fierce and fanatical Peter
Damiani called him his ‘holy Satan.’ ‘Thy will,’ said he, ‘has ever been
a command to me—evil but lawful. Would that I had always served
God and St. Peter as faithfully as I have served thee.’ Even as
archdeacon he assumed so great a state, and lived in such constant
intercourse with the world, that monastic zealots like Damiani were
scandalised, and some moderns have questioned (though
groundlessly) whether he was ever a professed monk at all.
Profoundly convinced of the truth of the Cluniac doctrines, he
showed a fierce and almost unscrupulous statecraft in realising them
that filled even Cluny with alarm. His ideal was to reform the world
by establishing a sort of universal monarchy for the Papacy. He saw
all round him that kings and princes were powerless for good, but
mighty for evil. He saw churchmen living greedy and corrupt lives for
want of higher direction and control. Looking at a world distraught
by feudal anarchy, his ambition was to restore the ‘peace of God,’
civilisation, and order, by submitting the Church to the Papacy, and
the world to the Church. ‘Human pride,’ he wrote, ‘has created the
power of kings; God’s mercy has created the power of bishops. The
Pope is the master of Emperors. He is rendered holy by the merits of
his predecessor, St. Peter. The Roman Church has never erred, and
Holy Scripture proves that it never can err. To resist it is to resist
God.’ For the next twelve years he strove with all his might to make
his power felt throughout Christendom. Sometimes his enthusiasm
caused him to advance claims that even his best friends would not
admit, as when William the Conqueror was constrained to repudiate
the Holy See’s claims of feudal sovereignty over England, which,
after similar pretensions had been recognised by the Normans in
Sicily, Gregory and his successors were prone to assert whenever
opportunity offered. The remotest parts of Europe felt the weight of
his influence. But the intense conviction of the righteousness of his
aims, that made compromise seem to him treason to the truth, did
something to detract from the success of his statecraft. He was too
absolute, too rigid, too obstinate, too extreme to play his part with
entire advantage to himself and his cause. Yet with all his defects
there is no grander figure in history.
Gregory realised the magnitude of his task, but he never shrank
from it. ‘I would that you knew,’ wrote he to the Abbot of Cluny, ‘the
anguish that assails my soul. The Church of the East has gone astray
from the Catholic faith. If I look to the west, the north, or the south, I
find but few bishops whose appointments and whose lives are in
accordance with the laws of the Church, or who govern God’s people
through love and not through worldly ambition. Among princes I
know not one who sets the honour of God before his own, or justice
before gain. If I did not hope that I could be of use to the Church, I
would not remain at Rome a day.’ From the very first he was beset on
every side with difficulties. Even the alliance with the Normans was
uncertain. Robert Guiscard, with his brother Roger, waged war
against Gregory’s faithful vassal, Richard of Capua; and Robert, who
threatened the papal possession of Benevento, went so far that he
incurred excommunication. Philip of France, ‘the worst of the tyrants
who enslaved the Church,’ had to be threatened with interdict. A
project to unite the Eastern with the Western Church broke down
lamentably. A contest with Henry IV. soon became inevitable. But
Gregory abated nothing of his high claims. In February 1075 he held
a synod at Rome, at which severe decrees against simony and the
The Synod of 1075, marriage of clerks were issued. The practice
and the attack on of lay investiture, by which secular princes
Simony and Lay were wont to grant bishoprics and abbeys
Investiture.
by the conferring of spiritual symbols such
as the ring and staff, had long been regarded by the Cluniacs as the
most glaring of temporal aggressions against the spiritual power.
This practice was now sternly forbidden. ‘If any one,’ declared the
synod, ‘henceforth receive from the hand of any lay person a
bishopric or abbey, let him not be considered as abbot or bishop, and
let the favour of St. Peter and the gate of the Church be forbidden to
him. If an emperor, a king, a duke, a count, or any other lay person
presume to give investiture of any ecclesiastical dignity, let him be
excommunicated.’ This decree gave the signal for the great
Investiture Contest, and for the greater struggle of Papacy and
Empire that convulsed Europe, save during occasional breaks, for the
next two centuries.
Up to the issue of the decree as to investitures, the relation
between Gregory and Henry IV. had not been unfriendly. Henry had
admitted that he had not always respected the rights of the Church,
but had promised amendment for the future. But to give up
The beginnings of investitures would have been to change the
the Investiture whole imperial system of government. He
Contest, 1075. was now freed, by his victory at Hohenburg,
from the Saxon revolt. The German bishops, afraid of the Pope’s
strictness, encouraged his resistance, and even in Italy he had many
partisans. The Patarini were driven out of Milan, and Henry scrupled
not to invest a new archbishop with the see of St. Ambrose. Even at
Rome, Gregory barely escaped assassination while celebrating mass.
In January 1076 Henry summoned a German council to Worms.
Council at Worms, Strange and incredible crimes were freely
1076. attributed to the Pope, and the majority of
the German bishops pronounced him deposed. Henry himself wrote
in strange terms to the Pope: ‘Henry, king not by usurpation but by
God’s grace, to Hildebrand, henceforth no pope but false monk,—
Christ has called us to our kingdom, while He has never called thee
to the priesthood. Thou hast attacked me, a consecrated king, who
cannot be judged but by God Himself. Condemned by our bishops
and by ourselves, come down from the place that thou hast usurped.
Let the see of St. Peter be held by another, who will not seek to cover
violence under the cloak of religion, and who will teach the
wholesome doctrine of St. Peter. I, Henry, king by the grace of God,
with all of my bishops, say unto thee—“Come down, come down.”’
Vatican Synod, In February 1076 Gregory held a great
1076. synod in the Vatican, at which the Empress
Agnes was present, with a great multitude of Italian and French
bishops. A clerk from Parma named Roland delivered the king’s
letter to the Pope before the council. There was a great tumult, and
Roland would have atoned for his boldness with his life but for the
Pope’s personal intervention. Henry was now formally
excommunicated and deposed. ‘Blessed Peter,’ declared Gregory,
‘thou and the Mother of God and all the saints are witness that the
Roman Church has called upon me to govern it in my own despite.
As thy representative I have received from God the power to bind
and to loose in Heaven and on earth. For the honour and security of
thy Church, in the Name of God Almighty, I prohibit Henry the king,
son of Henry the Emperor, who has risen with unheard-of pride
against thy Church, from ruling Germany and Italy. I release all
Christians from the oaths of fealty they may have taken to him, and I
order that no one shall obey him.’
Weakness of War was thus declared between Pope and
Henry’s position in king. Though the position of both parties
Germany. was sufficiently precarious, Henry was at
the moment in the worst position for carrying on an internecine
combat. He could count very little on the support of his German
subjects. Those who most feared the Pope were the self-seekers and
the simoniacs, whose energy was small and whose loyalty less. The
saints and the zealots were all against him. The Saxons profited by
his embarrassments to renew their revolt, and soon chased his
garrisons out of their land. The secular nobles, who saw in his policy
the beginnings of an attempt at despotism, held aloof from his court.
It was to no purpose that Henry answered the anathemas of Gregory
with denunciations equally unmeasured, and complained that
Gregory had striven to unite in his hands both the spiritual and the
temporal swords, that God had kept asunder. Hermann, Bishop of
Metz, the Pope’s legate in Germany, ably united the forces against
him. At last, the nobles and bishops of Germany gathered together
on 16th October 1076 at Tribur, where the papal legates were treated
with marked deference, though Henry took up his quarters at
Oppenheim, on the other bank of the Rhine, afraid to trust himself
Diet of Tribur, amidst his disaffected subjects. Henry soon
1076. saw that he had no alternative but
submission. The magnates were so suspicious of him that it needed
the personal intercession of Hugh, Abbot of Cluny, to prevail upon
them to make terms with him at all. Finally a provisional agreement
was patched up, upon conditions excessively humiliating to Henry.
Humiliation of The barons refused to obey him until he had
Henry. obtained absolution from the Pope, who,
moreover, had promised to go to Germany in person and hold a
council in the succeeding February. Pending this, Henry was to
remain at Speyer without kingly revenue, power, or dignity, and still
shut off by his excommunication from the offices of the Church. If
Henry could not satisfy the Pope in February, he was to be regarded
as deposed.
Abandoned by Germany, Henry abode some two months at
Speyer, gloomily anticipating the certain ruin to his cause that would
follow the Pope’s appearance in a German council. He realised that
he could do nothing unless he reconciled himself to Gregory; and,
hearing good news of his prospects in northern Italy, thought that his
best course was to betake himself over the Alps, where the Pope
might well prove less rigorous, if he found him at the head of a
formidable band of Italian partisans. It was a winter of extraordinary
severity, but any risks were better than inglorious inaction at Speyer.
Henry’s winter Accordingly Henry broke his compact with
journey through his nobles, and towards the end of
Burgundy and December secretly set out on his journey
Lombardy, 1076– southward. He was accompanied by Bertha
77.
and his little son, but only one German
noble was included among his scanty following. He traversed
Burgundy, and kept his miserable Christmas feast at Besançon.
Thence crossing the Mont Cenis at the risk of his life, he appeared
early in the new year amidst his Lombard partisans at Pavia. But
though urged to take up arms, Henry feared the risks of a new and
doubtful struggle. Germany could only be won back by submission.
He resolved to seek out the Pope and throw himself on his mercy.
Gregory was then some fifteen miles south of Reggio, at an
impregnable mountain stronghold belonging to the Countess
Matilda, called Canossa, which crowned one of the northern spurs of
the Apennines, and overlooked the great plain. He had sought the
Canossa, Jan. protection of its walls as a safe refuge
1077. against the threatened Lombard attack
which Henry, it was believed, had come over the Alps to arrange. The
Countess Matilda and Hugh of Cluny, Henry’s godfather, were with
the Pope, and many of the simoniac bishops of Germany had already
gone to Canossa and won absolution by submission. On 21st January
1077 Henry left his wife and followers at Reggio, and climbed the
steep snow-clad road that led to the mountain fastness. Gregory
refused to receive him, but he had interviews with Matilda and his
godfather in a chapel at the foot of the castle-rock, and induced them
to intercede with the Pope on his behalf. Gregory would hear of
nothing but complete and unconditional submission. ‘If he be truly
penitent, let him surrender his crown and insignia of royalty into our
hands, and confess himself unworthy of the name and honour of
king.’ But the pressure of the countess and abbot at last prevailed
upon him to be content with abject contrition without actual
abandonment of his royal state. For three days Henry waited in the
snow outside the inner gate of the castle-yard, barefoot, fasting, and
in the garb of a penitent. On the fourth day the Pope consented to
admit him into his presence. With the cry ‘Holy father, spare me!’ the
king threw himself at the Pope’s feet. Gregory raised him up,
absolved him, entertained him at his table, and sent him away with
much good advice and his blessing. But the terms of Henry’s
reconciliation were sufficiently hard. He was to promise to submit
himself to the judgment of the German magnates, presided over by
the Pope, with respect to the long catalogue of charges brought
against him. Until that was done he was to abstain from the royal
insignia and the royal functions. He was to be prepared to accept or
retain his crown according to the judgment of the Pope as to his guilt
or innocence. He was, if proved innocent, to obey the Pope in all
things pertaining to the Church. If he broke any of these conditions,
another king was to be forthwith elected.
Results of Canossa. The humiliation of Henry at Canossa is so
dramatic and so famous an event that it is
hard to realise that it was but an incident in the midst of a long
struggle. It settled nothing, and profited neither Henry nor Gregory.
Gregory found that his harshness had to some extent alienated that
public opinion on which the Papacy depended almost entirely for its
influence. Henry found that his submission had not won over his
German enemies, but had thoroughly disgusted the anti-papal party
in northern Italy, upon which alone he could count for armed
support. The Lombards now talked of deposing the cowardly
monarch in favour of his little son. But the future course of events
rested after all upon the action of the German nobles, who held their
Diet of Forchheim, Diet at Forchheim in March 1077. To this
March 1077. assembly Henry was not even invited; and
for the present he preferred remaining in Italy. The Pope also did not
appear in person, but was represented by two legates. The old
charges against Henry were brought up once more, and the legates
expressed their wonder that the patient Germans had submitted so
long to be ruled by such a monster. Without giving Henry the least
opportunity of refuting the accusations, it was determined to proceed
at once to the choice of a new king. The suffrages of the magnates fell
Rudolf of Swabia, on Duke Rudolf of Swabia. Before his
Anti-Cæsar. appointment, Rudolf was compelled to
renounce all hereditary claim to the throne on behalf of his heirs, and
to allow freedom of election to all bishoprics. He was then crowned
at Mainz by Archbishop Siegfried.
The news of Rudolf’s election at once brought Henry back over the
Alps. He soon found that he now had devoted partisans in the land
that had rejected him when he was under the ban of the Pope. He
was warmly welcomed in Bavaria, in Burgundy, and especially in the
great towns of the Rhineland, always faithful to the imperial cause.
Civil war between Rudolf’s own duchy of Swabia rejected its
Rudolf and Henry, duke in favour of the prince who had ever
1077–1080. loved the Swabians. Rebel Saxony was alone
strongly on Rudolf’s side. Even the Pope could not make up his mind
to ratify the action of his legates and accept Rudolf as king. For more
than two years civil war raged between Rudolf and Henry. It was
substantially a continuation of the Saxon revolt. At last, in January
1080, a decisive battle was fought at Flarchheim on the banks of the
Unstrut, in which Henry was utterly defeated. During all this time
Battle of Gregory had contented himself with offers
Flarchheim, 1080. of arbitration. Though Henry practised lay
investiture as freely as ever, it was not until after his defeat that the
Pope once more declared himself against him. Yielding to the
indignant remonstrances of Rudolf and the Saxons, he convoked a
synod at Rome in March 1080, where he renewed Henry’s
excommunication, and again deprived him of his kingdoms of
Renewed Germany and Italy. ‘Act so,’ said Gregory to
excommunication the assembled prelates, ‘that the world shall
and deposition of know that ye who have power to bind and to
Henry, March
loose in heaven, can grant or withhold
1080.
kingdoms, principalities, and other
possessions according to each man’s merits. And if you are fit to
judge in things spiritual, ought ye not to be deemed competent to
judge in things temporal?’ Rudolf was now recognised as king, and
another universal prohibition of lay investitures was issued.
Gregory boasted that, before the next feast of SS. Peter and Paul,
Henry would have lost his throne and his life. But each fresh
aggression of the Pope increased his rival’s power. Henry now
showed an energy and vigour that contrasted strangely with his
spiritless action three years before. Both in Germany and Italy he
found himself supported by partisans as enthusiastic as those of the
Pope. The bishops of Germany declared for him, and the old foes of
the Pope in Italy took courage to continue the contest. In June Henry
Guibert of Ravenna met at Brixen the German and Italian
elected Antipope, bishops who adhered to his side. This
June 1080. assembly declared Gregory deposed and
excommunicate, and elected Guibert, Archbishop of Ravenna as his
successor.
 The new Antipope had in his youth served Henry III., and, as
chancellor of Italy, had striven to uphold the imperial authority
during Henry IV.’s minority. He had once been on friendly terms with
Gregory, but had quarrelled with him, and had for some time been
the soul of the imperialist party in north Italy. He was of high birth,
unblemished character, great abilities, and long experience. He
assumed the title of Clement III., and at once returned to Ravenna to
push matters to extremities against Gregory. The rash violence of the
Pope had been answered with equal violence by his enemies. There
were two Popes and two Emperors. The sword alone could decide
between them.
Battle on the Elster, Fortune favoured Henry and Clement
and death of both in Germany and Italy. On 15th October
Rudolf, 15th 1080 a great battle was fought on the banks
October 1080.
of the Elster, not far from the later
battlefields of Lützen. The fierce assault of Otto of Nordheim
changed what threatened to be a Saxon defeat into a brilliant victory
for the northern army. But Rudolf of Swabia was slain, and the
victorious Saxons wasted their opportunity while they quarrelled as
to his successor. It was nearly a year before they could agree upon
Hermann of Hermann of Luxemburg as their new king.
Luxemburg, Anti- Before this the back of the revolt had been
Cæsar. broken, and Henry, secure of Germany, had
once more gone to Italy. Crossing the Brenner in March 1081, he
went on progress through the Lombard cities, and abode with Pope
Clement at Ravenna. Thence he set out for Rome, meeting little
resistance on his way save from the Countess Matilda. The Normans
Henry’s visit to of Naples, on whose help Gregory had
Italy, 1081. counted, made no effort to protect their
suzerain. In May Henry celebrated the Whitsun feast outside the
walls of Rome.
Gregory did not lose his courage even with the enemy at his gate.
The Romans were faithful to him, and Henry, who saw no chance of
besieging the great city successfully, was forced to retreat northwards
War between by the feverish heat of summer. He retired
Henry and Gregory, to Lombardy, where his position was
1081–1084. unassailable. Next year he was back again
before the walls of Rome, but the occupation of Tivoli was his
greatest success. In 1083 a third attack gave him possession of the
Leonine city, but even in this extremity Gregory would listen to no
talk of conciliation. ‘Let the king lay down his crown and make
atonement to the Church,’ was his answer to those who besought him
to come to terms. In the early months of 1084 Henry invaded Apulia
and kept in check the Normans, who at last were making a show of
helping the Pope. In March he appeared for the fourth time before
Rome. This time the Romans opened their gates, and Gregory was
Coronation of closely besieged in the castle of St. Angelo.
Henry by Guibert, A synod was hastily summoned, which
1084. renewed his deposition and
excommunication. On Palm Sunday, 1084, Guibert was enthroned,
and on Easter Day he crowned Henry Emperor at St. Peter’s.
The Normans come Gregory sent from the castle of St. Angelo
to Gregory’s help, an urgent appeal for help to Robert
1084. Guiscard. During the troubles of the last few
years, Robert’s obligations to his suzerain had weighed very lightly
upon him, but Henry’s invasion of Apulia and the certain ruin of the
Normans in Naples if the Pope succumbed, at last brought him to
decided action. Hastily abandoning his Greek campaign, Robert
crossed over to Italy, and in May advanced to the walls of Rome with
a large and motley army, in which the Saracens of Sicily were a
prominent element. Henry, who had no force sufficient to resist,
quitted Rome, and soon crossed the Alps. The Romans tried in vain
to defend their city from the Normans. After a four days’ siege
Sack of Rome. treason opened the gates. Rome was
ruthlessly sacked, whole quarters were
burned down, hideous massacres and outrages were perpetrated,
and thousands of Romans were sold as slaves. The Normans then
marched home. Gregory could not remain in the desolate city, and
followed them to Salerno. The Antipope kept his Christmas amid the
ruins of Rome, but soon abandoned the city for his old home at
Ravenna. Gregory now fell sick at Salerno. The few faithful cardinals
strove to console him by dwelling on the great work which he had
Death of Gregory in accomplished. ‘I set no store by what I have
exile, 1085. done,’ was his answer. ‘One thing only fills
me with hope. I have always loved the law of God and hated iniquity.
Therefore I die in exile.’ He passed away on 25th May 1085. Less
than two months afterwards, Robert Guiscard died at Corfu.
 For a year after Gregory’s death, the Papacy remained vacant. At
last, in May 1086, the cardinals, profiting by the Antipope’s return to
Ravenna, met at Rome and forced the Papacy on the unwilling
Desiderius, Abbot of Monte Casino. The new Pope (who assumed the
name of Victor III.), was a close friend of Gregory’s and strongly
Victor III., 1086– attached to his ideals. But he was too old
1087. and too weak to take up Hildebrand’s task,
and three days after his election he strove to avoid the troublesome
dignity by flight to Monte Casino. Next year he was with difficulty
prevailed upon to return to Rome to receive the tiara. But the
partisans of the Emperor and of the Countess Matilda fought fiercely
for the possession of Rome, and Victor again retreated to his
monastery, where death ended his troubles three days after his
return (16th September 1087). Next time the cardinals fixed upon a
Pope of sterner stuff. Driven from Rome by the Antipope, they made
their election at Terracina on 12th March 1088. Their choice fell
upon the son of a baron of Champagne named Odo, who had lived
long at Cluny as monk and sub-prior, and then served the Roman
Urban II., 1088– Court as cardinal-bishop of Ostia. Urban II.
1099. (this was the title he took) was a man of
ability and force of character, as ardent as Hildebrand for the Cluniac
ideals, but more careful of his means of enforcing them than the
uncompromising Gregory. He made closer his alliance with the
Normans, and, thanks to the help of Duke Roger, Robert Guiscard’s
son and successor, was able to return to Rome and remain there for
some months. But the troops of the Antipope still held the castle of
St. Angelo, and Urban soon found it prudent to retire. He mainly
spent the first years of his pontificate in southern Italy under Roger’s
protection.
Meanwhile, papalists and imperialists fought hard in northern
Italy. Germany was now tolerably quiet, and Henry could now devote
his chief energies to Italy, which he revisited in 1090. But Urban
Henry revisits Italy, united the German with the Italian
1090. opposition to the Emperor by bringing
about a politic marriage between the Countess Matilda and the
young son of Welf or Guelf, Duke of Bavaria, the Emperor’s most
powerful adversary in Germany. Despite this combination, Henry’s
Italian campaigns between 1090 and 1092 were extraordinarily
successful. Matilda’s dominions in the plain country were overrun,
and her towns and castles captured. But she held her own in her
strongholds in the Apennines, rejected all compromise, and prepared
to fight to the last. Henry met his first check when he was driven
back in disgrace from an attempted siege of Canossa.
Conrad of The papalists were much encouraged by
Franconia, Anti- Henry’s defeat. Soon after they persuaded
Cæsar, 1093. his son Conrad, a weak and headstrong
youth, to rise in revolt against his father. Half Lombardy fell away
from father to son. Before the year was out, Conrad received the Iron
Crown at Milan, and Urban ventured back to Rome. Worse was to
follow. Henry’s second wife, Praxedis of Russia (Bertha had died in
1087), escaped from the prison to which her husband had consigned
her, and taking refuge with the Countess Matilda, gave to the world a
story of wrongs and outrages that destroyed the last shreds of the
Emperor’s reputation. In high glee at the progress of his cause,
Urban set out on a lengthened progress that reminds us of the
Urban’s Councils at memorable tours of Leo IX. After a long stay
Piacenza and in Tuscany, he crossed the Apennines early
Clermont, 1095. in 1095, and held a great synod at Piacenza,
at which the laws against simony and married clerks were renewed,
while the Empress publicly declared her charges against Henry, and
ambassadors from the Eastern Emperor pleaded for help, against the
growing power of the Seljukian Turks. In the summer Urban crossed
the Alps, and remained for more than a year in France and
Burgundy, being everywhere received with extraordinary reverence.
In November 1095 he held a largely attended synod at Clermont in
Auvergne. Not content with his quarrel with the Emperor, he here
fulminated excommunication against Philip I. of France, on account
of his adultery with Bertrada, Countess of Anjou. But the famous
work of the Council of Clermont was the proclamation of the First
The proclamation Crusade. Nothing shows more clearly the
of the First Crusade, strength and nature of the papal power than
1095. that this greatest result of the universal
monarchy of the Church should have been brought about at a time
when all the chief kings of Europe were open enemies of the Papacy.
Henry IV. was an old foe, Philip of France had been deliberately
attacked, and William Rufus of England was indifferent or hostile.
But in the eleventh century the power of even the strongest kings
counted for very little. What made the success of Urban’s endeavour
was the appeal to the swarm of small feudal chieftains, who really
governed Europe, and to the fierce and undisciplined enthusiasm of
the common people, with whom the ultimate strength of the Church
really lay.
Urban’s return to Flushed with his success at Clermont,
Italy, 1096. Urban recrossed the Alps in September
1096. Bands of Crusaders, hastening to the East, mingled with the
papal train as he again traversed northern Italy. Rome itself now
opened its gates to the homeless lord of the Church. In 1097 Henry
Henry abandons IV. abandoned Italy in despair. He restored
Italy, 1097. the elder Welf to the Bavarian duchy, and
easily persuaded the younger Welf to quit his elderly bride, and
resume his allegiance to the Emperor. Conrad was deprived of the
succession, and his younger brother Henry crowned king at Aachen
on taking an oath that he would not presume to exercise royal power
while his father was alive.
Urban II. in Urban was now triumphant, save that his
southern Italy, Norman allies were once more giving him
1098. trouble, and the castle of St. Angelo was still
held for the Antipope. He accordingly again visited southern Italy,
and won over Count Roger of Sicily, by conceding the famous
privilege to Roger and his heirs that no papal legate should be sent
into their lands without their consent, but that the lords of Sicily
should themselves act as legates within their dominions. In October
Synod at Bari. 1098 the Pope held a synod at Bari, restored
to Catholicism by the Norman conquest in
1071. There, with a view to facilitating the Crusade, the great point of
difference between the Eastern and Western Churches—the
Procession of the Holy Ghost—was debated at length. Among the
prelates attending the council was Anselm of Canterbury, exiled for
upholding against William Rufus the principles which Urban had
asserted against the Emperor and the King of France. Urban, who
had been politic enough not to raise up a third great king against him
by supporting Anselm, atoned for past neglect by the deference he
now showed to the ‘Pope of the second world.’ As the council broke
up, the good news came that the castle of St. Angelo had at last been
captured. Urban returned to Rome and devoted himself to the work
of the Crusade. On 29th July 1099 he died suddenly. It was his glory
that the struggle of Pope and Emperor, which had absorbed all the
energies of Gregory VII., sank during his pontificate into a second
Death of Urban II., place. Though he abandoned no claim that
1099. Gregory had made, he had the good fortune
to be able to put himself at the head of crusading Europe, while his
opponent shrank into powerless contempt. Next year the Antipope
followed Urban to the grave. With Clement, the schism as a real force
died. Three short-lived Antipopes pretended to carry on his
succession until the death of the Emperor, but no one took them
seriously. With the flight of the last pretender in 1106, formal
ecclesiastical unity was again restored.
Driven out of Italy by his rebel son, Henry IV. found Germany
equally indisposed to obey him. Both north and south of the Alps, the
real gainers in the long struggle had been the feudal chieftains, and
Germany, like Italy, was ceasing to be a single state at all. In 1101 the
Death of Conrad, rebellious Conrad died at Florence, bitterly
1101. regretting his treason. Henry’s main object
now was to restore peace to Germany, and to effect a reconciliation
Paschal II., 1099– with the Church. But the new Pope, Paschal
1118. II. (Rainerius of Bieda, near Viterbo, elected
August 1099), renewed his excommunication, and was as unbending
as his predecessors. Before long Paschal was able to extend his
intrigues into Germany, and in 1104 the young King Henry raised the
Saxons in revolt against his father, and was recognised as king by the
Revolt of the young Pope. But the Emperor had no spirit left for
King Henry, 1104. a fresh contest. At Coblenz he threw himself
at his son’s feet, begging only that his own child should not be the
instrument of God’s vengeance on his sins. The young king asked for
forgiveness, and promised to give up his claims when his father was
reconciled with the Church. The Emperor trustfully disbanded his
soldiers, and was promptly shut up in prison by his twice-perjured
son. On 31st December 1105 he formally abdicated at Ingelheim, and
abjectly confessed his offences against the Church. He was told that
absolution could only come from the Pope in person, and that it was
a boon that he was allowed his personal freedom. He fled from
Ingelheim to Cologne, where the goodwill of the citizens showed him
that he still had friends. From Cologne he went to Aachen, and from
thence to Liége, whose bishop, Otbert, supported him. The Duke of
Lorraine declared himself for him, and help was expected from
Philip of France and Robert of Flanders. Henry now declared that his
abdication was forced on him, but offered any terms, compatible
with the possession of the throne, to get absolution from the Pope.
Death of Henry IV. But on 7th August 1106 he died at Liége,
1106. before the real struggle between him and
his son was renewed. The enmity of the Church grudged rest even to
his dead body. The Bishop of Speyer refused to allow the corpse of
the excommunicate to repose beside his ancestors in the stately
church which he himself had built, and for five years it lay in an
unconsecrated chapel.
Henry V., 1106– On 5th January 1106 Henry V. was
1125. crowned for the second time at Mainz. The
first months of his reign were disturbed by his father’s attempt to
regain power. When he was at last undisputed King of Germany, he
found that his cold-blooded treachery had profited him very little.
The Investiture Contest was still unsettled. Between 1103 and 1107
Anselm of Canterbury, restored to his see by William Rufus’ death,
had been carrying on a counterpart of the contest with Henry I. of
England. But the personal animosities which had embittered the
continental struggle were absent, and the dispute did not, as abroad,
involve the larger questions of the whole relations of Church and
State. It was easy, therefore, to settle it by a satisfactory compromise.
Yet at the very moment when Henry had agreed to lay aside
investiture with ring and staff, the envoys of Henry V. were informing
Paschal that their master proposed to insist upon his traditional
rights in the matter. The result was that the continental strife was
renewed with all its old bitterness.
For two years Henry was engaged in wars against Hungary and
Bohemia. In 1110 he resolved to visit Italy to receive the imperial
crown, and to re-establish the old rights of the Empire. Besides a
numerous army, he took with him ‘men of letters able to give reasons
to all comers’ for his acts, among whom was an Irish or Welsh monk
named David, who wrote, at his command, a popular account of how
the king had gone to Rome to extract a blessing from the Pope, as
Jacob had extorted the angel’s blessing.[7] He found Italy too divided
to offer effectual resistance. The Countess Matilda was old, and
Paschal was no great statesman like Gregory or Urban. Early in 1111
the king’s army approached Rome. The Pope, finding that neither the
 Henry’s Roman Romans nor the Normans would help him,
journey. Paschal sent to Sutri to make terms. Even in his
renounces the supreme distress he would not give up
Temporalities of the
freedom of elections or abate his hostility to
Church, 1111.
lay investitures; but he offered that if the
king would accept those cardinal conditions he would renounce for
the Church all its feudal and secular property. It was a bold or rash
attempt to save the spiritual rights of the Church by abandoning its
temporalities, lands, and jurisdictions. Henry naturally accepted an
offer which put the whole landed estates of the Church at his
disposal, and reduced churchmen to live on tithes and offerings—
their spiritual sources of revenue. Only the temporalities of the
Roman see were to be excepted from this sweeping surrender.
Tumult at Henry’s On Sunday, 12th February, St. Peter’s
Coronation. church was crowded to witness the
hallowing of the Emperor by the Pope. Before the ceremony began
the compact was read, and the Pope renounced in the plainest
language all intervention in secular affairs, as incompatible with the
spiritual character of the clergy. A violent tumult at once arose.
German and Italian bishops united to protest vigorously against the
light-heartedness with which the Pope gave away their property and
jurisdictions, while carefully safeguarding his own. The congregation
dissolved into a brawling throng. The clergy were maltreated, and the
sacred vessels stolen. The coronation was impossible. The king laid
violent hands on Pope and cardinals, and the mob in the streets
murdered any Germans whom they happened to come across. After
three days of wild turmoil, Henry quitted the city, taking his
prisoners with him. After a short captivity, Paschal stooped to obtain
his liberty by allowing Henry to exercise investitures and appoint
bishops at his will. ‘For the peace and liberty of the Church,’ was his
halting excuse, ‘I am compelled to do what I would never have done
to save my own life.’ In return Henry promised to be a faithful son of
the Church. On 13th April Paschal crowned Henry with maimed rites
and little ceremony at St. Peter’s. Canossa was at last revenged.
Henry returned in triumph over the Alps, and solemnly interred his
father’s remains in holy ground at Speyer.
Triumph of Henry Henry’s triumph made a deep impression
over Paschal. on Europe. The blundering Pope had
betrayed the temporal possessions of the clergy, and the necessary
bulwarks of the freedom of the spiritual power. The event showed
that there were practical limits even to papal infallibility. Paschal was
as powerless to retreat from the position of Hildebrand, as he had
been to renounce the lands of all prelates but himself. The clergy
would not accept the papal decision. In France a movement to
declare the Pope a heretic was only stayed by the canonist Ivo of
Chartres declaring that the Pope, having acted under compulsion,
was not bound to keep his promise. The Italians gladly accepted this
Paschal repudiates way out of the difficulty. Paschal solemnly
his concessions. repudiated his compact. ‘I accept,’ he
declared, ‘the decrees of my master, Pope Gregory, and of Urban of
blessed memory; that which they have applauded I applaud, that
which they have granted I grant, that which they have condemned I
condemn.’
Even in Germany Henry found that he had gained nothing by his
degradation of the Pope. The air was thick with plots and
conspiracies. His most trusted councillors became leaders of treason.
Conspiracies Adalbert, Archbishop of Mainz, his chief
against Henry in minister, formed a plot against him and was
Germany. imprisoned. The Saxons rose once more in
revolt under their new Duke Lothair of Supplinburg. Friesland
refused to pay tribute. Cologne rose under its Archbishop, and Henry
found that he was quite unable to besiege it successfully. The nobles
who attended his wedding with Matilda of England at Mainz,
profited by the meeting to weave new plots. Next year the citizens of
Mainz shut up the Emperor in his palace while he was holding a Diet,
and forced him to release their Archbishop.
Death of the Affairs in Italy were even more gloomy.
Countess Matilda, In 1115 the Countess Matilda died, leaving
1115, and of Paschal all her vast possessions to the Holy See. If
II., 1118.
this will had been carried out, Paschal
would have become the greatest temporal power in Italy. Henry
therefore crossed the Alps in 1116, anxious, if not to save Matilda’s
allodial lands, to take possession of the fiefs of the Empire which she
had held. In 1117 Henry occupied Rome and crowned his young
English wife Matilda. Even in his exile Paschal had not learnt the
lesson of firmness. He died early in 1118, before he had even
definitely made up his mind to excommunicate Henry.
Gelasius II. (1118– The new Pope, John of Gaeta, a monk of
1119). Monte Casino, who took the name of
Gelasius II., was forced to flee from Rome as the Emperor was
entering it. Henry now took the decisive step of appointing a Pope of
his own. Burdinus, Archbishop of Braga, was in some fashion chosen
by a few cardinals, and took the name of Gregory VIII. Gelasius at
The Antipope once excommunicated both Antipope and
Burdinus. Emperor. He soon managed to get back to
Rome, whence, however, he was again expelled by the malignity of
local faction rather than the influence of the Emperor. He now
betook himself to Marseilles by sea, and, after a triumphant progress
through Provence and Burgundy, held a synod at Vienne. On his way
thence to Cluny he was smitten with pleurisy, reaching the
monastery with difficulty, and dying there on 18th January 1119.
Guy, the high-born Archbishop of Vienne, was chosen somewhat
irregularly by the cardinals who had followed Gelasius to Cluny. He
had long been conspicuous as one of the ablest upholders of
Hildebrandine ideas in the dark days of Paschal II. The son of
Calixtus II. (1119– William the Great, Count of imperial
1124). Burgundy (Franche-Comté), he was the
kinsman of half the sovereigns of Europe. He was, moreover, a
secular (the first Pope not a monk since Alexander II.), and
accustomed to diplomacy and statecraft. He resolved to make an
effort to heal the investiture strife, and with that object summoned a
Negotiations for a council to meet at Reims. Henry himself
settlement. was tired of the struggle. He practically
dropped his Antipope, and gave a patient hearing to the agents of the
Pope, who came to meet him at Strasburg. These were Hugh, Abbot
of Cluny, and the famous theologian, William of Champeaux, now
Bishop of Châlons. The two divines pointed out to Henry that the
King of France, who did not employ investiture, had as complete a
hold over his bishops as the Emperor, and that his father-in-law,
Henry of England, who had yielded the point, was still lord over his
feudal vassals, whether clerks or laymen. For the first time perhaps,
the subject was discussed between the two parties in a reasonable
and conciliatory spirit. Before the king and the divines parted, it was
clear that a compromise on the lines of the English settlement was
quite practicable.
Council of Reims, On 20th October 1119, Calixtus II. opened
1119. his council at Reims. Louis VI. of France,
who had married the Pope’s niece, was present, and the gathering of
prelates was much more representative than usual. Next day the
Pope went to Mouzon, a castle of the Archbishop of Reims, hoping to
meet the Emperor. But their agents haggled about details, and
mutual suspicion threatened to break off all chance of agreement.
Breakdown of the Deeply mortified, and without having seen
negotiations. the Emperor, Calixtus went back to the
council, where the old decrees against simoniacs and married clerks
were renewed, and where a canon forbidding laymen to invest a clerk
with a bishopric or abbey was passed. But this canon marked a
limitation of the Pope’s claim. While Hildebrand had absolutely
forbidden all lay investiture, Calixtus was content to limit the
prohibition to the investiture with the spiritual office. Yet, before the
council separated, the excommunication of Emperor and Antipope
was solemnly renewed. An agreement seemed to be further off than
ever.
Triumph of Calixtus No Pope ever stood in a stronger position
in Italy, 1120. than Calixtus when in February 1120 he at
last crossed the Alps. He was received with open arms by the
Romans, and with more than ordinary loyalty by the Normans of the
south. The Antipope fled before him, and was soon reduced to pitiful
straits in his last refuge at Sutri. At last he was captured,
contemptuously paraded through the Roman streets, and conveyed
to prison, until, after peace had been restored to the Church, he was
released to end his life obscurely in a monastery.
Negotiations The Emperor saw that he had been too
renewed, 1121. suspicious at Mouzon, and again wished to
retire with dignity from a conflict in which his prospects of complete
triumph had long utterly vanished. Things were now going better in
Germany. In 1121 a Diet was held at Würzburg, at which Henry made
peace with Adalbert of Mainz and the Saxon rebels. It was agreed to
refer the investiture question to a German council under the Pope’s
presidency, and direct negotiations with Rome were renewed. The
Pope’s words were now exceedingly conciliatory. ‘The Church,’ he
said, ‘is not covetous of royal splendour. Let her enjoy what belonged
to Christ, and let the Emperor enjoy what belonged to the Empire.’
Concordat of On 8th September 1122 the council met at
Worms, 1122. Worms. Calixtus, after some hesitation, did
not attend himself, but sent Lambert, Bishop of Ostia, as his legate.
Lambert was a citizen of Bologna, who had been archdeacon of his
native town, and had learnt from its rival schools of Canonists and
Civilians [see pp. 217–220] the principles involved in both sides of
the controversy. He soon turned his knowledge and skill to good
account. The council lasted little more than a week. The Emperor at
first stood out for his rights, but was soon persuaded to accept a
compromise such as had been suggested previously at Strasburg. On
23rd September the final Concordat of Worms was ratified, which
put an end to the investiture strife. Two short documents, of three
weighty sentences each, embodied the simple conditions that it had
cost fifty years of contest to arrive at. ‘I, Henry,’ thus ran the imperial
diploma, ‘for the love of God, the holy Roman Church, and of the
lord Pope Calixtus, and for the salvation of my soul, abandon to God,
the holy Apostles Peter and Paul, and to the holy Catholic Church all
investiture by the ring and the staff, and I grant that in all the
churches of my Empire there be freedom of election and free
consecration. I will restore all the possessions and jurisdictions of St.
Peter, which have been taken away since the beginning of this
quarrel. I will give true peace to the lord Pope Calixtus and to the
holy Roman Church, and I will faithfully help the holy Roman
Church, whenever she invokes my aid.’ The papal diploma was even
shorter. ‘I, Calixtus, the bishop,’ said the Pope, ‘grant to Henry,
Emperor of the Romans, that the elections of bishops and abbots in
the kingdom of Germany shall take place in thy presence without
simony or violence, so that if any discord arise, thou mayst grant thy
approbation and support to the most worthy candidate, after the
counsel of the metropolitan and his suffragans. Let the prelate-elect
receive from thee by thy sceptre the property and the immunities of
his office, and let him fulfil the obligations to thee arising from these.
In other parts of the Empire let the prelate receive his regalia six
months after his consecration, and fulfil the duties arising from
them. I grant true peace to thee and all who have been of thy party
during the times of discord.’[8]
Character of the Less clear in its conditions than the
compromise. English settlement, the Concordat of
Worms led to substantially the same result. The Emperor gave up the
form of investiture, and public opinion approved of the temporal lord
no longer trenching on the domain of the spirituality by conferring
symbols of spiritual jurisdiction. But the Emperor might maintain
that, if he gave up the shadow, he retained the substance. The
Henries had not consciously striven for mere forms, but because they
saw no other method of retaining their hold over the prelates than
through these forms. The Pope’s concessions pointed out a way to
attain this end in a way less offensive to the current sentiment of the
time. As bishops and abbots, spiritual men could not be dependent
on a secular ruler. As holder of fiefs and immunities, the clerical lord
had no more right to withdraw himself from his lord’s authority than
the lay baron. By distinguishing between these two aspects of the
prelate’s position, the Concordat strove to give Cæsar what was
Cæsar’s and God what was God’s. The investiture question was never
raised again. But in its broader aspect the investiture question was
only the pretext by reason of which Pope and Emperor contended for
the lordship of the world, and sought respectively to trench upon the
sphere of the other. The Concordat of Worms afforded but a short
breathing-space in that controversy between the world-Church and
the world-State—between the highest embodiments of the spiritual
and secular swords—that was still to endure for the rest of the
Middle Ages. Contemporary opinion, unapt to distinguish between
shadow and substance, ascribed to the Papacy a victory even more
Practical triumph complete than that which it really won.
of the Church. After all, it was the Emperor who had to
yield in the obvious question in dispute. The Pope’s concessions were
less clear, and less definite. The age looked upon the Concordat as a
signal triumph for the Roman Church. Henceforth the ideals of
Hildebrand became part of the commonplaces of European thought.
Death of Calixtus Neither Henry nor Calixtus long survived
II., 1124. the Concordat of Worms. Calixtus died at
Rome in December 1124, having previously held a council in the
Lateran, where the Concordat was confirmed, and a vast series of
canons drawn up to facilitate the establishment of the new order of
things. He strove also to restore peace and prosperity in Rome,
which had long lain desolate and ruinous as the result of constant
tumults. Short as was his reign, it could yet be said of him that in his
days there was such peace in Rome that neither citizen nor sojourner
had need to carry arms for his protection. He had not only made the
Papacy dominate the western world; it even ruled, if but for a time,
the turbulent city that so often rejected and maltreated the priest
whom all the rest of the world revered.
Last failures and Henry V.’s end was less happy. The war
death of Henry V., had taught him that the real ruler of
1125. Germany was not himself but the feudal
aristocracy. He planned, in conjunction with his English father-in-
law, an aggressive attack on Louis VI. of France, but he utterly failed
to persuade his barons to abandon their domestic feuds for foreign
warfare. He fought one purposeless campaign as the ally of England.
In May 1125 he died on his way back, at Utrecht, saddened,
disappointed, and worn out before his time. He is one of the most
unattractive of mediæval Emperors. Cold-blooded, greedy,
treacherous, violent, ambitious, and despotic, he reaped no reward
from his treasons, and failed in every great enterprise he undertook.
Yet despite his constant misfortunes, the strong, hard character of
the last Salian Emperor did something to keep up the waning
fortunes of the Empire, and the unity of the German kingdom.
 CHAPTER VII
THE EASTERN EMPIRE AND THE
SELJUKIAN TURKS (912–1095)[9]

The Macedonian Dynasty—Constantine VII. and his Co-regents—

Condition of the Eastern Empire in the Tenth Century—The
Conversion of the Slavs—Break-up of the Mohammedan East—
Period of Conquest and Glory—Nicephorus Phocas and John
Zimisces—The Russian War—Basil II. and the Bulgarian War—
Decline of the Macedonian House—Zoe and Theodora—
Cærularius and the Schism of East and West—Rise of the
Seljukians—Contrast of Turks and Arabs—Decline of the Eastern
Empire—Manzikert—Alexius Comnenus and his House—The last
phase of the Eastern Empire.

Situated on the borderland that divided two civilisations, the

unchanging Eastern Empire represented the East to the Latins and
the West to the Arabs and Turks. During the first half of the tenth
century there was a strange contrast between the East Roman state
Contrast between and the rest of the world. In the West the
the Eastern Empire Empire of Charles the Great had fallen, and
and the rest of the few could yet see that a new order was
world.
gradually evolving out of the chaos into
which the world seemed plunged. In the East the Caliphate had
ceased to represent the political unity of Islam. A process of strife
and disintegration had broken up the Mohammedan no less than the
Latin world. Between these two seething and troubled regions, the
Empire of Constantinople lived on its quiet, self-contained,
stationary, orderly life. No vital dangers from without threatened its
existence. Catholics and Mohammedans were alike too busy with
their own affairs to make serious attacks upon its boundaries. The
long-lived dynasty of the Macedonians continued to rule over a state
that had little history. The inglorious calm bore witness to a standard
of civilisation, order, and prosperity that, with all its faults, could be
found nowhere else in the world.
The Macedonian Basil the Macedonian had founded, in
dynasty. 867, the ruling house, which was to reign at
Constantinople for a hundred and ninety years. The long reign of his
weak and pedantic son, Leo VI., the Philosopher (886–912), had
attested the care and stability with which Basil had laid the
foundations of the new dynasty. Under Leo’s son Constantine VII.,
Porphyrogenitus (912–959), the same quietude that had marked
Constantine VII., Leo’s time continued with hardly a break. A
912–959. boy of seven when he was called to the
throne, Constantine VII. showed, as he grew up, such lack of firmness
and practical wisdom that his whole reign has been described as a
long minority. Co-regents did most of the work of governing. For the
first year his uncle, Alexander, Leo VI.’s brother, acted as joint-
emperor. For seven years after his death (913–919) a commission of
regency ruled, not too successfully, in the name of the little Emperor.
Severe defeats from Simeon, king of the Bulgarians, made this rule
unpopular. The grand admiral Romanus Lecapenus now became
successively the prime minister, the father-in-law, the colleague, the
Romanus I., 919– master of Constantine. In December 919
945. Romanus, already Cæsar, was crowned
joint-emperor with his son-in-law, and for twenty-five years he
practically ruled the state as he would. Though aged, weak, and
incompetent, Romanus managed to protect himself from numerous
court conspiracies, and hoped to secure the permanence of his
influence by associating three of his sons as colleagues in the Empire,
and procuring for another the patriarchate of Constantinople. But
the quarrels of sons and father gave the friends of Constantine a
chance of removing them all. The sons of Romanus drove their father
into a monastery. The outraged public opinion of the capital involved
the sons in the same fate. In 945, when already nearly forty years old,
Constantine VII. became Emperor in fact as well as in name.
Sole rule of Constantine was a shy, nervous, studious
Constantine VII., man, who had amused himself, during his
945–959. long exclusion from power, by dabbling in
nearly every science and art. He painted pictures, composed music,
designed churches, and wrote books on such different subjects as
agriculture, veterinary science, history, geography, tactics, politics,
and court etiquette. Weak and hesitating though he was, his good
nature, amiability, love of justice and moderation made him a
Condition of the respectable ruler for quiet times. Under him
Empire in the tenth the consolidation of the imperial despotism,
century. under the hereditary rule of the Basilian
house, was completed. The suppression of the legislative power of
the senate, and the destruction of the old municipal system by Leo
the Philosopher, had removed the last barriers to the autocracy of the
Emperor. This despotism the well-drilled administrators carried out
so well on the traditional lines, that it was no great matter that the
Emperor himself was a bookish recluse. The Basilica, the revised
code of law in Greek, now assumed its final form, and with the
change which its introduction involved in the language of the law
courts and statutes, the Latin tongue ceased to have any practical
utility to the East Romans. The works of Constantine give us a
picture of the Empire of his time. In his longest book he dwells with
loving care on the elaborate and pompous court etiquette which
environed the majesty of the Emperor, and struck awe into the hearts
of the barbarians. In a more summary manner he wrote ‘On the
administration of the Empire,’ and ‘On the Themes’ into which it was
divided. In the latter book he described not merely the actual
Empire, but districts like Sicily and Crete, which had long fallen into
the hands of the Saracen, or, like the interior provinces of the Balkan
peninsula, had been absorbed by Slavs and Bulgarians.
Asia Minor. Asia Minor was now the chief stronghold
of the Eastern Empire. The population had
been recruited by Christian refugees from the Mohammedan lands
farther east, and had therefore become more decidedly Oriental, but
it was strenuous, industrious, and warlike. The whole of the
peninsula was included in the Empire, save the south-eastern district
of Cilicia between the Taurus and the sea. But the loss of Tarsus was
more than compensated for by the inclusion of a larger portion of
western Armenia within the Empire, by reason of the Armenians,
despite their obstinate adherence to the Monophysite heresy, seeing
in incorporation with the Empire their only chance of salvation from
The Balkan Islam. In the Balkan peninsula the districts
Peninsula. actually ruled by the Emperor were much
less extensive. The western and central parts were still ‘Slavonia,’ and
even the Peloponnesus was largely peopled by Slavonic tribes, at best
tributary, and often practically independent. But the settlement of
the Magyars in Pannonia (895) had pushed the Bulgarians more to
the south, and now not only were the lands between Danube and
Rhodope Bulgarian, but this nation encroached largely on the Slavs
The Bulgarians. in the lands south of the Balkans. The result
left little for the Romans save long strips of
coast territory. Nowhere in Europe did their power penetrate far
inland. Adrianople was at best the border town of the Greeks. A few
miles inland from Thessalonica the Bulgarian rule began. The
Bulgarians separated the theme of Hellas, which included Thessaly
and the lands south down to Attica, from the themes of Nicopolis and
Dyrrhachium that crept along the coast of Epirus. Scattered scraps of
islands and coastlands in Dalmatia almost connected the Empire
with its Venetian dependency. The theme of Cherson included the
south coast of the Crimea, but this outpost of Greek civilisation was
hardly more directly ruled from Constantinople than Venice itself.
The lesser islands were still Greek, but Cyprus alone of the great
islands remained under the Empire, and that was soon lost. In south
Italy. Italy there only remained the misnamed
theme of Lombardy, including the heel of
the boot, of which the capital was Bari, and the theme of Calabria,
cut off from its neighbour province by the Lombard princes of
Salerno, who held the low-lying grounds at the head of the Gulf of
Taranto. Such a widely scattered dominion was hard to rule and
harder to defend. But each theme was under the government of a
strategos, who subordinated the civil to the military administration.
A large standing army of mercenaries—largely Norsemen—well
drilled and equipped, enabled the Greeks to cultivate their fields and
carry on their commerce in peace. The trade between east and west
was still entirely in Greek hands. Even an exhaustive fiscal system
could not cut off these sources of wealth. But if the Greek Emperors
taxed unwisely and unmercifully, they helped commerce by
upholding the integrity of the coinage. The gold Byzants of the
Emperors were the common medium of exchange among merchants,
and, amidst all the vicissitudes of palace revolutions, were never
seriously depreciated in value. The manufactures of Greece still
Constantinople. commanded the markets. Constantinople
was still the greatest city in the world, and
excited the astonishment of all the barbarians who visited it. Its
administration, poor-law system, and philanthropic organisations
anticipated much that we are apt to regard as exclusively modern.
Liutprand, the Lombard bishop, has left a record of the profound
impression made on him by its wonders. Even in the twelfth century,
when its splendours were somewhat decayed, it was still unique. The
Franks of the Fourth Crusade could not believe that there was so rich
a city, until they saw its high walls and strong towers, gorgeous
palaces, lofty churches, and vast extent. Though Thessalonica was
also a famous place of trade, the interests of the capital were
becoming so great as to absorb unduly those of the provinces. This
was partly counteracted by the growth of a great landholding
aristocracy, which approached the character of the feudal noblesse of
the west, save that it never attained any political influence over the
Letters and Arts. centralised despotism of the Basileus. Nor
were the arts and literature forgotten.
Constantine VII.’s example was followed by a crowd of men of letters,
and the labour of compilers like Suidas have preserved for us much
of what we know of more ancient times. A new school of romance
writers showed more original genius. Painting, architecture, and all
the arts wonderfully revived.
The Conversion of Constantinople now became again a
the Slavs. source of civilisation to ruder peoples. The
Servians and other Slavs called upon its help to protect them from
the terrible Simeon of Bulgaria. In the ninth century, Methodius and
Cyril had converted the Southern Slavs to Orthodox Christianity. In
the tenth, Greek missions, radiating from the great monasteries on
Mount Athos, secured the Christianising of Bulgaria. In the next
century, the distant Russians received their faith from the same
source. Thus Slavonic Europe became for the most part Orthodox
rather than Catholic. Never was the influence of Constantinople
more widely felt than in carrying out this great work.
The restful if inglorious age of Leo the Philosopher and
Constantine Porphyrogenitus gave the Greek Empire time to recruit
its energies for the more stirring times of their successors. From 959
to 1025 a period of conquest and military glory followed upon the
quiet times that we have described. Before the change came over the
spirit of the Eastern Empire, the best chances of aggression in west
and north had slipped unnoticed away. During the reigns of Leo and
Constantine, the Saxon kings of the Germans were building up a
great state in Germany and Italy, and before long the growing
material prosperity of Italy was to raise up commercial rivals who
ultimately tapped the very springs of Byzantine trading supremacy.
The consolidated and Christianised states of the barbarians on the
north were less likely to send out bands of conquerors and
marauders, but were harder to conquer than their heathen and
savage fathers. But the east was sinking into worse confusion than
ever. The old political and religious unity of Islam was a thing of the
past. What spirit now remained to the Mohammedan world was to be
found in North Africa under the Fatimite Caliphs of Cairoan, or in
Spain under the Ommeyad Caliphs of Cordova. While these rebels
Changes in the and schismatics still showed some
Mohammedan remnants of the old conquering energy of
East. Islam, the orthodox Abbasside Caliphs of
Bagdad were sunk in indolence and decay. Their provinces
successively revolted. The Bowides, sons of a Persian fisherman,
captured Bagdad in 945, and ruled Persia and lower Mesopotamia
for more than a century as the Emirs-ul-Omra of the puppets that
they still allowed to pretend to act as successors of the Prophet. In
Egypt and southern Syria, the Ikshidites, a Turkish dynasty, now
established themselves. But the only Mohammedan power that now
actually met the Eastern Empire on its south-eastern frontier was
that of the Hamdanides, who about 930 occupied northern
Mesopotamia and afterwards conquered northern Syria and Cilicia.
This dynasty split into two and was represented by the Ameers of
Aleppo and Mosul. The new Mohammedan states were all the
precarious creations of adventurers’ swords, and were generally at
war with each other.
Romanus II., 959– The divisions of the east gave the
963. Emperors at Constantinople the
opportunity which their predecessors had neglected in the west.
Under the son and successor of Constantine VII., Romanus II. (959–
963), the work of reconquest began. Crete since the ninth century
had been occupied by Spanish Moors, and had been the centre of
piratical attacks on Greek commerce, that had threatened the
prosperity of the islands of the Ægean and the regularity of the food-
Conquest of Crete. supply of the capital. Even Leo and
Constantine had made feeble efforts to
subdue the corsairs, but their expeditions against Crete had been
utter failures. In 960 Romanus II. sent Nicephorus Phocas with a
strong force to atone for the blunders of his predecessors. Within a
year the capture of the Saracen stronghold of Chandax brought about
the complete conquest of the island. The Saracens were enslaved or
expelled, and missionary monks soon succeeded in winning back the
Greek population to the faith of their fathers, which many had been
forced to reject for the religion of their conquerors. Nicephorus
followed up this great triumph by attacking the Hamdanid Ameer of
Aleppo. He crossed the Taurus into Cilicia, and in another spirited
campaign restored many strong places to the Empire.
Basil II., 963–1025, In 963 Romanus II. was cut off
and Constantine prematurely, leaving his young widow
VIII., 963–1028. Theophano to act as regent for the two
infant sons, Basil II. (963–1025) and Constantine VIII. (963–1028)
who now became joint-emperors. But the triumphs of Nicephorus
Phocas had won him such a position that in a few months he
associated himself with them in the Empire and married their
mother Theophano. By this ingenious combination of hereditary
succession with the rule of the successful soldier, the quiet