Saint Henry II

Henry was born on May 6, 973, the son of Henry, Duke of Bavaria, and Gisela of Burgundy. In 995 he became Duke of Bavaria; in 1002, when Otto III died without heirs, he was elected king of the East Franks, then king of Italy, and in 1014 emperor. He was the last of the Ottonian dynasty. He married Cunigunde of Luxembourg, who is also a saint: they are one of the very rare couples in which husband and wife have both been raised to the altars. They had no children, and the chronicler Rodulfus Glaber writes that Henry refused to repudiate her for it, even though he could have. As emperor he did what emperors did — wars in Italy, in Poland, against rebels — and at the same time something not all of them did: he firmly supported the reform of the Church, backed Cluny, founded and endowed dioceses and monasteries. His own creation was the bishopric of Bamberg, which he established in 1007 and filled with treasures: the cathedral there holds his tomb and Cunigunde’s, carved by Tilman Riemenschneider. For years he suffered from a painful illness — probably of the kidneys or the hip — that forced him to travel by litter. He died at Grone, near Göttingen, on July 13, 1024. Eugene III proclaimed him a saint in 1146. If your name is Henry, today is your name day.