Death of Henry IV

August 7, 1106

Excommunicated, stripped, and abandoned, the old emperor died at Liege after a last desperate flight. His unburied corpse lay in an unconsecrated stone coffin for five years while his victorious son quarreled with the pope about whether a penitent could have a grave. When he was finally interred in the Speyer Cathedral crypt alongside his ancestors, the ceremony was quiet, attended by none of the grandeur that had once surrounded him.