The Italian states wanted to free themselves from the oppression of the HRE Empire, but their supporters had impure motives.

His Holiness the Holy See, who supported the independence of the Italian states, was to use the war to weaken the temporal power of the HRE Emperor himself, so as to wrest the HRE Empire's authority to appoint and confer the priesthood from the Emperor.

Since the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the bishopric authority has been in fact exercised by the secular lords, and the church has no nominal authority but no real power.

In addition, the emperor and the pope were actually indistinguishable from each other, but they were of a higher position, because the emperor had not only temporal power, but also spiritual and religious power.

Gain, the position of emperor was conferred by God, so he had reason to confer the priesthood on the person he wanted to appoint, which is why the emperor had the right to appoint bishops.

But the ambitious Cluni popes had to divide the ranks with the emperors, trying to take away the bishopric power from the emperor, take away all the emperor's religious power, and bring the emperor under the jurisdiction of the pope, so that the emperor could be cut off from the pope.

However, the Pope of Rome was originally just the patriarch of the diocese of Peter, but by luck he got a high position, and he wanted to peep into secular power, rule the whole of Europe, and override the emperor, how could the emperor and the ambitious kings agree, and this led to the struggle between the Holy Roman Empire and the Holy See that lasted for hundreds of years.

Later, all the ambitious emperors did not want to enter Rome and let the Pope bow his head, and the Kingdom of France even took the Pope into captivity in Paris and imprisoned him.

According to the appeal, the Pope of Rome supported the Italian states to resort to force for independence, and in order to weaken the imperial power and compete for the right to appoint bishops, the Pope of Rome did everything he could.

The focus of the contention between the Pope and the HRE Emperor was the right to appoint bishops, and at that time, there was a great economic interest in holding the right to appoint bishops, and like the officials of the ancient feudal Celestial Empire, there was a lot of oil and water to be made.

Often, the bishop or abbot of a place could make a lot of money by making huge ecclesiastical estates, including land and shops, banking and lending at high interest rates, accepting donations from believers, and engaging in various monopolistic business activities.

Therefore, if the secular lord controls the right to grant and appoint priests and the right to appoint bishops, he can make huge profits by selling clergy, and if the local lord is more black-hearted, he can take advantage of the vacancy of the local bishopric to seize the ecclesiastical property and a large amount of wealth, and seek huge economic benefits from it.

In addition, the right to appoint bishops was of great political interest, because important dioceses or monasteries not only had large areas of land and wealth, but also had great influence, and by appointing close associates and loyal people to this important position, secular lords could not only seek great economic benefits from it, but also strengthen their rule and consolidate their power.

In the Holy Roman Empire, the land, wealth, and influence of the Church were much larger than those of other states, and if the Emperor could successfully bring the land, wealth, and influence of the Church under his control, he would be able to defeat the Church and complete the centralization and integration of the kingdom in the HRE.

However, if the Holy See fully controlled the right to appoint bishops in the HRE Empire, and then control the church in Germany, the church that had gained a lot of land, wealth and influence would be able to sit back and see the right to appoint bishops in France, Spain, England, Poland and other countries in general.

This coincided with the emergence of a reform movement within the Church led by the Cluny monastery, one of the goals of which was to revoke the right to appoint bishops, allowing the Holy See to appoint clergy independently and without interference from the power of secular lords.

The Clunians have grown in strength as a result of their successive popes in recent decades, while one of their rivals, the Holy Roman Empire, has been in decline due to a crushing defeat at William in the last war.

Now, the powerful Emperor Henry III has died young, leaving only orphans and widows and a group of ambitious and unruly vassals to preside over the HRE Empire, which is an opportunity for Pope Victor II to see a golden opportunity for them.

Pope Victor II wanted to weaken the HRE Empire in order to seize the right to appoint bishops, break the boundaries between secular and religious power, and bring the emperor under the control of the pope, so that the pope could freely remove the emperor.

Compared with the dark minds of the Holy See, William was purer and simpler.

Although William also wanted to weaken the strength of the HRE Empire through the war of independence of the Italian states, he also did not want the Holy See to benefit from it, otherwise it would be William's turn to be unlucky when the HRE Emperor fell under the Pope's throne.

Keeping the HRE Empire as a target to attract the Holy See's firepower, William felt that it was very necessary, so he provided assistance to the Italian states on the one hand, and provided some help to the HRE Empire on the other, trying to achieve a balance between the two sides.

To be honest, it was very difficult to achieve this, so William retreated to the next best thing, trying to help the Italian states become independent without losing the HRE Empire.

As long as the Italian states and the Duke of Provence successfully became independent from the HRE Empire, William could conquer these weak principalities, city-states, and kingdoms one by one.

As for the possibility that the Italian states could unite into a single kingdom in this war, this is not possible, as the Lombard Duke Ezzo II as the leader of the alliance is very powerful, and the other princely city-states are also tribal.

Take Tuscany and the Duchy of Spoleto as an example, their territory and power are not inferior to Lombardy, and with William's support, it is not difficult to surpass the Duchy of Lombardy.

In addition, the princes of Verona and Carinthia, the dukes of Provence, the city-states of Pisa and Ancona were not weak, and their goal was to be independent and not go through war, how could they submit to Ezzo II of Lombardy?

At that time, Italy, which was shattered to pieces, lost the protection of the HRE Empire, and relied on the weak military strength of the Papal States alone, even with the addition of Sicily. Ottwell's support was unlikely to stop William and the Norman Knights from conquering.

When William had conquered Italy once and for all, and that was the time for him to march into Rome and invite the Pope to Paris, who would have organized him to do so? Is it the weakened HRE Empire, or Spain, which is allied with William by marriage, or the Scandinavian kingdoms that are no longer glorious?