Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor

Henry IV (1050–1106) was the Salian emperor at the centre of the Investiture Controversy. Succeeding his father Henry III at five in 1056, he clashed with Pope Gregory VII over the appointment of bishops. Excommunicated in 1076, he did penance barefoot at Canossa in January 1077, but the German princes raised rival kings against him.

In 1080 he installed the antipope Clement III, who crowned him emperor in Rome in 1084, only to be forced to abdicate in 1105 by his son Henry V. He died at Liège on 7 August 1106.