A synod assembled at Rome, and called on Henry III. to put an end to the crisis. In 1046 he crossed the Alps, and held a Church Council at Pavia, in which he issued an edict condemning simony. [Sidenote: Synod of Sutri, 1046.] In December 1046 he held another synod at Sutri, near Rome, where two of the three claimants to the Papacy were deposed. The third claimant was deposed in a third synod held in Rome itself. Suidgar, Bishop of Bamberg, was chosen Pope through Henry’s influence, and enthroned on Christmas Day as Clement II., conferring on the same day the imperial crown on Henry and Agnes. Accompanied by Clement, the Emperor made a progress through southern Italy, which he reduced to submission. Grave troubles on the Lower Rhine now brought Henry back to Germany; yet even in his absence his influence remained supreme in Italy. Clement II. died in 1048; but a whole succession of German Popes, the nominees of the Emperor, were now accepted by the Romans with hardly a murmur. The first of these—Damasus II., formerly Poppo, Bishop of Brixen, died after a few weeks’ reign. His successor, the Emperor’s kinsman, Bruno of Toul, took the name of Leo IX. (1048–1054). Short as was his pontificate, the result of his work was epoch-making in several directions. During the reign of his successor, Victor II. (1054–1057), Henry III. paid his second and last visit to Italy, the results of which we will speak of later. No sooner was he over the Alps than a rebellion broke out in Bavaria that necessitated his immediate return. The presence of the Emperor soon extinguished the revolt, but the rising taught Henry the insecurity of his position, and he now sought to conciliate his foes.
In the summer of 1056 Henry held his court at Goslar, where he was visited by Victor II.; but in September he fell sick, and had only time to take further measures to secure his son’s succession, when death overtook him, on 5th October, in the thirty-ninth year of his age. Under him the mediæval Empire attained its apogee. Germany was now almost a nation; Italy a submissive dependency; the Papacy had been reformed, and the Church purified. A child of six years old was now called to the throne, whose burden had been almost too heavy for his father. With the accession of Henry IV. the decline of the Empire begins.