Around the thousandth year of the Christian era, the church was in perilously bad shape.  In addition to the corrupt practice of selling indulgences for sins, the sale of purported holy relics had also spread like a toxic algae bloom—to the point where jokes would be made that if all the pieces of wood that were claimed to be fragments of Jesus’ cross were brought together, a large ship would be needed to carry them.
 
Conditions were made worse by the Germanic custom of vesting important elements of spiritual leadership in military and political rulers.  (It was an idea that can sound good even today, when among the official titles of a monarch is Defender of the Faith.) This odd admixture gave the Holy Roman Emperor (who in actuality was neither holy, Roman, nor an emperor) the right to appoint Milan’s archbishop—a position that also made his designee the de facto Count of Milan.  (Archbishops of Milan had a long history of fighting wars on behalf of the emperor.)

On top of all this, the papacy itself had become debased—perhaps most memorably by the likes of Benedict IX.  This “eminence” had essentially inherited the holy office, then agreed to sell it to his godfather, but later reneged on the deal.  After that, when the Holy Roman Emperor stepped into the mess and named a German to replace Benedict, the new pope promptly died, enabling Benedict to retake the papal palace by military force.