High Middle Ages · Europe · Politics

1133

Lothair III crowned Emperor

1133

The Saxon king, escorted into Rome through back streets by Bernard of Clairvaux because Anacletus held St. Peter's, was crowned Holy Roman Emperor at the Lateran. The compromise ceremony carried a cost: Lothair had to do homage to Pope Innocent for the former lands of Matilda of Tuscany. The humiliation was depicted in a painting at the Lateran that infuriated later emperors, who saw it as proof of papal arrogance.