One century after Charlemagne, the kingship of Germany ceased to be
hereditary. The great nobles, or vassals as they were called, elected
the King, who was crowned at Aix. And then, after the Pope had crowned
him at Rome (but not until then), he was also King of Italy and Emperor
of the Holy Roman Empire.
The condition of Germany was at this time very disordered. There were
jealousies and conflicts between the various states composing it and
incessant incursions from those troublesome neighbors, the Magyars or
Hungarians, the Turanian people on their southeast border. This latter
led to an important phase in the development of Germany. Henry I.,
father of King Otto the Great, in 924 offered these Hungarians a large
yearly tribute if they would cease to annoy his country. For nine
years the tribute was paid. The Germans in the meantime were busily
engaged in building fortresses on their frontier, and walled cities
throughout the land. These were called _burgs_, and were placed under
the command of counts, who were called _Burgraves_.
So, in the tenth year, when the Hungarians insolently demanded their
tribute, Henry threw a dead dog at their messengers' feet, and told
them that was his tribute in the future.
The Hungarians in a fury poured into Germany. But--lo! instead of
collections of helpless villages lying at their mercy, there were
walled towns which defied all their efforts to capture, and after some
futile attempts the Hungarians troubled Germany no more.
Another important development of this period was an eventful one for
Europe. There was a large class of young men, younger sons of nobles,
for whom there was no suitable classification. They were proud and by
necessity were idle.
This same Saxon King Henry invited these young men to serve the empire
in a new and peculiar way. They must be men of honor and truth; they
must be devoted and loyal to the Holy Roman Empire; never have injured
a weak woman nor run away in battle; they must be gentle and courteous
and brave, and faithful to the Church.
The men who could take these oaths and make these pledges were called
knights, or _Knechts_, servants of the King. Thus was created the
order of knighthood, which quickly spread over Europe.
The great Charlemagne, in accepting the crown of the Holy Roman Empire
in 800, unconsciously inflicted a deep injury upon the future Germany.
That glittering bauble, the crown of the Caesars, was very costly, and
retarded the development of Germany for centuries.
That country needed all her resources and energies at home, to solidify
and develop a great nation during its formative period.
Instead of that, for seven hundred years the ambitions of the Kings of
Germany were diverted from what should have been their first care--the
unity and prosperity of their own nation; and were chasing a
phantom--the re-establishment of the great old empire, with Rome as its
heart and center.
Another mistake made by Charlemagne was far-reaching in its
consequences.
He little suspected the nature and the latent power existing in that
spiritual kingdom with which he formed so close an alliance. He feared
not the Church, but the ambitious and scheming nobles. So, in order to
create a friendly bulwark about the throne, he made some of the
archbishops and bishops secular princes, and bestowed upon them
dominions over which they might reign as sovereigns.
The Church, which had not been growing any too spiritual since it was
adopted by Rome, was more and more secularized when it had Primates
ravenous for wealth and power.
The Pope and Emperor, instead of close allies as Charlemagne had
intended, had finally become jealous and angry rivals. In the open
warfare which in time developed two political parties came into
being--the Guelphs and the Ghibellines, which represented the adherents
of the Pope and the Emperor.
It was a part of the settled policy of the Popes to stir up strife in
Italy, and thus, by compelling the Emperor to pour his revenues and his
energies into that land, to weaken and undermine him at home.
For the first five hundred years of its existence the Church had been
governed by the bishops of Rome. In the next five hundred years these
bishops had grown into Popes, who were the spiritual heads of
Christendom. As the Church was entering upon its third
five-hundred-year lease in the year 1073, the miter was worn by the
fiery monk, Hildebrand, who had become Gregory VII. This man resolved
to establish the supremacy of the Church over the secular arm of the
government. As a weak Emperor wore the Imperial crown, the time was
favorable for claiming a religious empire existing by divine right, and
superior to the will of kings and emperors.
In the conflict which followed Henry IV. deposed the Pope--this
creature of his own appointing, who would override the authority of the
power which had created him! And as a counter-move the Pope
excommunicated the Emperor.
Had Henry stood his ground as he might, for he would have had ample
support from his people, it would have been a gain of centuries for
Europe.. But the ban of excommunication, with its attendant horrors
here, and still worse hereafter--it was more than he could bear.
Affrighted, trembling, penitent, he crossed the Alps in dead of winter,
crept to the castle of Canossa, near Parma, where Hildebrand had taken
refuge; and there this successor to Charlemagne, this ruler of all
Christendom, standing barefoot and clad in sackcloth shirt, humbly
begged admittance. The Pope's triumph was complete. So he let him
shiver for three days in cold and rain before he opened the gates and
gave him forgiveness and the kiss of peace.
The Church had never scored so tremendous a victory. She was supreme
over every earthly authority, and the hands on the face of time were
set back for centuries. Let Guelph and Ghibelline storm and struggle
as they might, there was no question of supremacy now between temporal
and spiritual heads. All the lines of power, all the threads of human
destiny led to Rome, and were found at last in the papal hand.
In the three centuries of its existence the empire had been ruled first
by Frank, and then by Saxon emperors. But the eventful visit to
Canossa led to a new dynasty, the Swabian. When that humiliated
monarch, Henry IV., crossed the Alps in midwinter, when Europe's
mightiest prince stood woolen-frocked and barefoot upon the snow for
three days, humbly entreating forgiveness, there was one knight who
attended him with marked fidelity. This was Frederick of Bueren, and
verily he had his reward! The Emperor created him Duke of Swabia, and
bestowed upon him his daughter Agnes as his wife.
The Duke of Swabia then built himself a castle on a high plateau of
land called Hohenstaufen. But this fortunate duke had also another
great estate called Waiblingen. So he was Frederick of Hohenstaufen,
and of Waiblingen as well. The last name had a very conspicuous
destiny awaiting it.
The dukes of Bavaria had been a great power in Germany, ever since that
first stormy Welf, who tried to put down the new-fangled system of
land-tenure which we know as feudalism!
These Welfs were evidently not progressive; they seem in fact to have
been the Tories of ancient Germany. And when Conrad, grandson of
Frederick, the first Hohenstaufen, was elected King of Germany, there
was a very stormy time. The people divided into two factions: the
adherents of the new dynasty and the Emperor in the one, and the
malcontents who were led by Welf, Duke of Bavaria, in the other. As
hostility to the Emperor meant friendship with the Pope, this party of
the Welfs was also that of the papal faction.
The tongue of the Italian could not master the two words Welf and
Waiblingen; which, as they became fastened upon the two political
factions in Italy, were changed to Guelph and Ghibelline.
The Waiblingen family long ago disappeared. But the ancient name of
Welf is represented to-day by the gracious Queen of England.
The party of the Guelphs in Germany was that of disaffected dukes and
nobles, who from personal or other reasons desired to embarrass the
Emperor, even to the extent of an alliance with his enemy the Pope.
The Ghibellines expressed the anti-papal sentiment of the people, among
whom there was a growing dread and hatred of Romish power, and the time
was approaching when Teutonic patriotism would mean resistance to
Italian priestcraft.
While this antagonism was developing, the most stupendous event in all
history was taking place in Europe. The Christian conscience--more
sensitive than it is to-day--had been roused to a frenzy of indignation
by Mahomedan outrages in the Holy Land. That first "European Concert"
had been formed to drive the Mahomedan out of the land, where a concert
of Europe is striving to keep him undisturbed to-day!
This time of a great religious war was not favorable for an anti-papal
policy in Germany. Conrad allowed himself to be swept into the
current. He headed a great Crusade in the year 1147.
Not one tithe of his vast host ever reached the Holy Land. They melted
like the dew before disease, starvation, and the sword of the Moslems
in Asia Minor.
When the despondent Conrad returned to Germany he brought back one
lasting memorial of his ill-fated Crusade. He had seen at
Constantinople, on the Imperial standard of the Byzantine Emperor, a
double-headed eagle. This representation of a double empire he
determined to adopt for the emblem of his own, and hence it is that it
exists to-day on the Austrian standard, and upon the coins of Germany
and Austria.
It was well for Germany that, while she was thus torn and distracted by
contending political factions, and while her life blood was being
drained into Italy, Frederick I., or Barbarossa (1152), came to hold
the reins of government as they had not been held since Charlemagne.
This great Hohenstaufen threw his lion-like weight into the controversy
concerning Papal and Imperial supremacy. He spurned the pretensions of
the Pope and his encroachments upon secular authority.
He claimed that his office was from God--not from the Pope; and that it
was not a whit less sacred than his rival's. To which the Pope
replied: "Who was the Frank before Pope Zacharias befriended Pepin? and
what is the Teutonic King now, till consecrated by papal hands? What
he gives, can he not withdraw?"
But the Imperial power never reached such height as under this
imperious, commanding Teuton; who exists now as a half-mythic hero,
honored in picture, statue, song, and legend throughout Germany. His
reign was a splendid fight against the two antagonists which were
finally to be fatal to the Empire--Italian nationality and the Papacy.
The knighthood established by his Saxon predecessor, in 930, had during
the Crusades expanded into great orders of chivalry throughout Europe.
Frederick Barbarossa fostered and brought the chivalry of Germany to
great splendor.
He also brought to an end the long and destructive feud between the
Welfs and the Waiblingers, pacifying the former by bestowing upon them
the territory of Brunswick; to which fact England owes her present
Queen, who is a daughter of the house of Brunswick.
For many centuries the people believed the legend that their hero had
not died in Palestine; but they pointed to the mouth of a great cavern
on the frowning heights of the Kyfhaeuser mountain, where he was said to
be surrounded by his knights in an enchanted sleep; waiting the hour
when he should awaken and descend with his Crusaders, to bring back a
golden age of peace and unity to Germany!