A letter written to Gunther of Eichstadt from Chancellor Otto von Kassel in 1190

Gunther,

You have done well in the Diet, my Chancellorship would not be possible without you serving as my liaison. I hope you have passed on my call for more nobles to come to Outremer. Even when the Crusade ends, the Reich must remain here in the Holy Land. The Church will need us as their protector from the infidel. The Papacy reigns supreme in spiritual matters, but they will need our assistance in their temporal defence.

That is how the special relationship between Empire and Church began you see. Pope Leo needed a protector from the Lombards, Charlemagne assisted him, and so was made Emperor, putting him above all the other sovereigns of Europe. This balance held for many years, but as the threat receded, the Papacy sought more temporal power, secure in their support from the other Catholic nations of Europe. Soon enough, as the Empire weakened and the Church gained in strength, we lost our role as the protector. Other nations vied for it, and the Church began interfering in the succession of the Reich and picking away at our lands in Italy. The delicate balance between the two fell apart, as the Popes would not keep to their proper sphere.

This led to the investiture crisis. The Papacy tried to become a Kingdom of Earth as well as Heaven. As we had once helped choose the Pope, they tried to choose the Emperor. Kaiser Heinrich, to his credit, sought to restore the old balance, to return the Popes to the spiritual realm. Unfortunately he did so with brute force, and I was young, prideful and greedy enough to help. Our long night under interdiction showed me the error of my ways. Yes, we did eventually reconcile but how could we make sure this would never happen again? There had to be a different, more subtle way to restore the balance. Yet if we gave them territories in Europe, they would always have the other Catholic realms to call upon. Our role as protector in return for primacy among the nations would never be guaranteed.

So we come to the Holy Land. We will give the Pope Jerusalem, and we ourselves will take the rest of Palestine and the Levant. We will be the protectors again, the shield against the Saracen, first among the Catholic nations, first in the favor of God and Church. And there will be no one else for the Popes to turn to for protection, no one else to play us off against, for we are the only Catholic presence in this heathen land. The balance will be restored, and so it will stay. The Popes will pray, we will fight and all will be well under Heaven.

Give my best to your lovely wife,

Otto