Henry IV
1050 – 1106 · 56 years · Goslar · Europe
Reign: 1056 – 1105 (Holy Roman Empire & Austria)
Excommunicated by Pope Gregory VII in the Investiture Controversy, he stood penitent for three days outside Canossa castle in January 1077. He later took Rome and installed an antipope, but was overthrown by his own son Henry V in 1105.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 11th century
Portrait: Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Contemporaries around the world
Europe
- William the Conqueror — Duke of Normandy, King of England, 22 years older
- Edward the Confessor — pious king who built Westminster Abbey, 47 years older
- Philip I — son of Anne of Kiev, excommunicated for bigamy, 2 years younger
- William II Rufus — the Conqueror's son, killed by an arrow while hunting in the New Forest, 6 years younger
- Henry I Beauclerc — law-giving king who created the Exchequer and the Charter of Liberties, 18 years younger
- Lothair III — Saxon duke elected by the princes in preference to the Staufer, 25 years younger
Eastern Europe & Russia
- Vladimir II Monomakh — Grand Prince of Kiev, 3 years younger
- Sviatopolk II — prince of Kiev, participant in the Congress of Liubech, born the same year
- Nestor the Chronicler — monk and chronicler, 6 years younger
- Vsevolod I — prince of Kiev, father of Vladimir Monomakh, 20 years older
- Mstislav the Great — last ruler of a united Kievan Rus, 26 years younger
- Iziaslav I — prince of Kiev twice driven from his capital, 26 years older
Middle East
- Omar Khayyam — poet, mathematician, astronomer, 2 years older
- Al-Ghazali — Islamic theologian and philosopher, 8 years younger
- Anna Komnene — Byzantine princess and historian, 33 years younger
Asia
- Shen Kuo — polymath, 19 years older
- Li Qingzhao — Song dynasty poet, 34 years younger
The world in their lifetime
- 1054 East–West Schism — aged 4, Middle East
- 1054 Supernova SN 1054 — aged 4, Asia
- 1066 Battle of Hastings — aged 16, Europe
- 1066 Halley's Comet over England — aged 16, Europe
- c. 1070 The Almoravids found Marrakesh — aged 20, Africa
- 1077 Walk to Canossa — aged 27, Europe
- c. 1088 University of Bologna — aged 38, Europe
- 1099 Crusaders capture Jerusalem — aged 49, Middle East