Henry IX (c. 1075 – 13 December 1126), also known as Henry the Black (German: Heinrich der Schwarze), was a member of the House of Welf and Duke of Bavaria from 1120 until his death.
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Life and reign
Henry was the second son of Duke Welf I of Bavaria (died 1101) from his marriage with Judith, daughter of Count Baldwin IV of Flanders. As a young man, he administered the family's Este property south of the Alps.
Through his marriage to Wulfhilde, daughter of Duke Magnus of Saxony, about 1095, he acquired part of the Billung estates around Lüneburg (the nucleus of the later Welf duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg). He aspired to succeed his father-in-law as Saxon duke when Magnus died without male heirs in 1106, but was denied as the new king Henry V enfeoffed his follower Count Lothair of Supplinburg.
Duke Henry nevertheless upheld close relations with the ruling Salian dynasty. In 1116, he joined Emperor Henry V's second Italian campaign to seize the estates of late Margravine Matilda of Tuscany. He succeeded his elder brother Welf II as Bavarian duke, when the latter died childless in 1120. Henry was also instrumental in bringing about the 1122 Concordat of Worms, ending the long-lasting Investiture Controversy between Pope and Emperor.
In the early 1120s, Henry commissioned the Genealogia Welforum, a family history in Latin, composed at Weingarten Abbey. He may have been prompted by the canonization of Bishop Conrad of Constance in 1123. Conrad was a Welf and his canonization stimulated Henry's interest in his ancestors. At the same time, Henry made an inventory of his family's tombs.
