GERMANY (part) GHADAMES
GERMERSHEIM GHAT
GERMISTON GHATS
GERMONIUS, ANASTASIUS GHAZALI
GERO GHAZI
GEROLSTEIN GHAZIABAD
GEROME, JEAN LEON GHAZIPUR
GERONA (province of Spain) GHAZNI
GERONA (town of Spain) GHEE
GEROUSIA GHEEL
GERRESHEIM GHENT
GERRHA GHETTO
GERRUS GHIBERTI, LORENZO
GERRY, ELBRIDGE GHICA
GERRYMANDER GHILZAI
GERS GHIRLANDAJO, DOMENICO
GERSON, JOHN GHIRLANDAJO, RIDOLFO
GERSONIDES GHOR
GERSOPPA, FALLS OF GHOST
GERSTACKER, FRIEDRICH GHOST DANCE
GERSTENBERG, WILHELM VON GIACOMETTI, PAOLO
GERUZEZ, NICOLAS EUGENE GIAMBELLI, FEDERIGO
GERVAIS, PAUL GIANNONE, PIETRO
GERVASE OF CANTERBURY GIANNUTRI
GERVASE OF TILBURY GIANT
GERVEX, HENRI GIANT'S CAUSEWAY
GERVINUS, GEORG GOTTFRIED GIANT'S KETTLE
GERYON GIAOUR
GESENIUS, FRIEDRICH WILHELM GIB, ADAM
GESNER, ABRAHAM GIBARA
GESNER, JOHANN MATTHIAS GIBBON, EDWARD
GESNER, KONRAD VON GIBBON
GESSNER, SOLOMON GIBBONS, GRINLING
GESSO GIBBONS, JAMES
GESTA ROMANORUM GIBBONS, ORLANDO
GETA, PUBLIUS SEPTIMIUS GIBBS, JOSIAH WILLARD
GETAE GIBBS, OLIVER WOLCOTT
GETHSEMANE GIBEON
GETTYSBURG GIBEONITES
GEULINCX, ARNOLD GIBRALTAR
GEUM GIBSON, CHARLES DANA
GEVELSBERG GIBSON, EDMUND
GEX GIBSON, JOHN
GEYSER GIBSON, THOMAS MILNER
GEZER GIBSON, WILLIAM HAMILTON
GFRORER, AUGUST FRIEDRICH
GERMANY (Continued from volume 11 slice 7).
Decay of the royal power.
Nothing could indicate more clearly than this fact how much of their old
power the German kings had lost. It was not past hope that even yet some
of their former splendour might be restored, and for a brief period
monarchy did again stand high. Still, its foundations were sapped.
Incessant war, both at home and in Italy, had deprived it of its force;
it had lost moral influence by humiliations, of which the scene at
Canossa was an extreme type. Steadily, with unwearied energy, letting no
opportunity escape, the princes had advanced towards independence, and
they might well look forward to such a bearing in regard to the kings as
the kings had formerly adopted in regard to them.
Conrad III.
Henry the Proud was confident that he would succeed Lothair, who had
died on his return from Italy in December 1137; but, by a hasty and
irregular election, Conrad of Hohenstaufen, duke of Franconia, was
chosen king in March 1138. Henry the Proud rebelled and was declared to
have forfeited his two duchies, Saxony and Bavaria, the former being
given to Albert the Bear, margrave of Brandenburg, and the latter to
Leopold IV., margrave of Austria. Henry defended his rights with vigour
and once again Germany was ravaged by war, for although he was unpopular
in Bavaria he was strongly supported by the Saxons, who, since the time
of Henry IV., had always been ready to join in an attack on the
monarchy, and he had little difficulty in driving Albert the Bear from
the land. However, in October 1139 Henry died suddenly, but his young
son, Henry the Lion, was recognized at once as duke of Saxony, while his
brother, Welf, upheld the fortunes of his house in Bavaria. The struggle
went on until May 1142, when peace was made at Frankfort. Saxony, with
the assent of Albert the Bear, was granted by Conrad to Henry the Lion,
and Bavaria was given to Henry Jasomirgott, who had just succeeded his
brother Leopold as margrave of Austria. But this was only a lull in the
civil strife, which was renewed after the king had made a successful
expedition into Bohemia. The princes clerical and lay were fighting
against each other, and the Bavarians were at war with the Hungarians,
who gained a great victory in 1146. Notwithstanding the many sources of
confusion Conrad was persuaded by the passionate eloquence of Bernard of
Clairvaux to take part in the second crusade; he left for the East in
1147 and returned to Germany in 1149, to find Welf again in arms and
Henry the Lion claiming Bavaria. The king had done nothing to stem the
rising tide of disorder when he died at Bamberg in February 1152. During
this reign the work of conquering and Germanizing the Slavonic tribes
east of the Elbe was seriously taken in hand under the lead of Albert
the Bear and Henry the Lion, and the foundation of the margraviate of
Brandenburg by Albert tended to make life and property more secure in
the north-east of Germany.
Frederick I. becomes king.
After Conrad's death Germany passed under the rule of one of the
greatest of her sovereigns, Frederick I., called Barbarossa, nephew of
the late king and son of Frederick, that duke of Swabia who had fought
along with Conrad against Henry the Proud. Frederick himself had also
been closely associated with Conrad, who advised the princes to choose
his nephew as his successor. This was done, and the new king was crowned
at Aix-la-Chapelle in March 1152. Allied through his mother to the Welfs
of Bavaria, and anxious to put an end to the unrest which dominated
Germany, especially to the strife between the families of Welf and
Hohenstaufen, Frederick began his reign by promising to secure for Henry
the Lion the duchy of Bavaria, and by appeasing Henry's uncle, Count
Welf, by making him duke of Spoleto and margrave of Tuscany. But the new
king had another, and perhaps a more potent, reason for wishing to see
peace restored in Germany. For his adventurous and imaginative spirit
Italy and the imperial title had an irresistible charm, and in 1154, two
years after he had ascended the throne, he crossed the Alps, being
crowned emperor at Rome in June 1155. After this event the best years of
his life were spent in Italy, where, in his long and obstinate struggle
with the Lombard cities and with Pope Alexander III., he chiefly
acquired his fame. Although on the emperor's side this struggle was
conducted mainly with German troops it falls properly under the history
of Italy. In that country the record of this reign is a blood-stained
page, while in the history of Germany, on the contrary, Frederick's name
is associated with a peaceful and prosperous period.
Bavaria and Saxony.
The promise that Bavaria should be granted to Henry the Lion was not
easily fulfilled, as Henry Jasomirgott refused to give up the duchy. At
last, however, in 1156, after his return from his first expedition to
Italy, Frederick reconciled the latter prince by making Austria into a
duchy with certain special privileges, an important step in the process
by which that country became the centre of a powerful state. Henry
Jasomirgott then renounced Bavaria, and Henry the Lion became its duke.
It was, however, in his other duchy of Saxony that the latter duke's
most important work was done. Although he often gave offence by his
haughty and aggressive disposition, few German princes have earned so
thoroughly the goodwill of posterity. Since the death of Otto the Great
the Slavonic lands to the east of the Elbe had been very imperfectly
held in subjection by the Germans. Devoting himself to the conquest of
the lands lying along the shore of the Baltic, Henry succeeded as no one
before him had ever done. But he was not only a conqueror. He built
towns and encouraged those which already existed; he founded and
restored bishoprics in his new territories; and between the Elbe and the
Oder he planted bodies of industrious colonists. While he was thus at
work a similar task was being performed to the south-east of Saxony by
Albert the Bear, the first margrave of Brandenburg, who, by his
energetic rule was preparing this country for its great destinies.
Frederick in Poland and Germany.
Early in his reign, by settling a dispute over the crown of Denmark,
Frederick brought the king of that country once more into the position
of a German vassal. Having spent the year 1156 in settling the Bavarian
question and in enforcing order in the Rhineland and elsewhere, the
emperor marched into Poland in 1157, compelled its ruler, Boleslaus IV.,
to do the homage which he had previously refused to perform, and in
return for services rendered during the campaign and for promises of
future aid, raised the duke of Bohemia to the rank of a king, a change
which in no way affected his duties to the German crown, but which gave
him a certain precedence over other vassal princes. The king of Hungary,
too, although no attempt was made to subdue him, became a useful ally.
Thus the fame of Germany in the neighbouring countries, which had been
nearly destroyed during the confusion of Henry IV.'s reign, was to a
large extent restored. Frederick asserted his authority in Burgundy or,
as it was sometimes called, Franche Comte. In Germany itself internal
order was established by a strict appliance of the existing laws against
those who broke the peace, fresh orders for its observance were issued,
and in Frederick the robber nobles found a most implacable enemy. The
cities, too, flourished during this reign. The emperor attached them to
himself by granting to many of them the very liberties which, by a
strained interpretation of his imperial rights, he withheld from the
cities of Lombardy. Yet, notwithstanding his policy, in these directions
the German nobles appear to have been enthusiastically devoted to
Frederick. Time after time they followed him to Italy, enduring serious
losses and hardships in order that he might enforce claims which were of
no advantage to them, and which, previously, had been a curse to their
nation. Their loyalty is well illustrated by the famous scene at
Besancon in October 1157. During a meeting of the diet a papal legate
read a letter from Pope Adrian IV., which seemed to imply that the
Empire was a papal fief. Indignant murmurs rose from the assembled
nobles, and the life of the legate was only saved from their fury by the
intervention of the emperor himself. The secret of Frederick's great
popularity was partly the national pride excited by his foreign
achievements, partly the ascendance over other minds which his genius
gave him, and partly the conviction that while he would forego none of
his rights he would demand from his vassals nothing more than was
sanctioned by the laws of the Empire.
Frederick and Alexander III.
Having suppressed a rising at Mainz Frederick set out in the autumn of
1163 for Italy, which country was now distracted by a papal schism. This
incident was bound to affect German politics. After the death of Adrian
IV. in 1159 the imperial party put forward an anti-pope, Victor IV.,
against Alexander III., who had been canonically elected. The emperor
made stupendous efforts to secure for Victor and then for his successor,
Paschal III., recognition by the sovereigns of Europe, but in vain; and
almost the only support which the anti-pope received came from the
German clergy. In May 1165 Frederick held a diet at Wurzburg, where the
princes lay and clerical swore to be faithful to Paschal and never to
recognize Alexander. But Alexander soon found partisans among the German
clergy, hitherto the most loyal of the emperor's friends; and Frederick
retaliated by driving the offending prelates from their sees, a
proceeding which tended to disturb the peace of the land. Then in August
1167, in the midst of the struggle in Italy, came the pestilence which
destroyed the imperial army in Rome, and drove the emperor as a fugitive
across the Alps. After this humiliation Frederick remained for six years
in Germany. He was fully occupied in restoring order in Saxony, in the
diocese of Salzburg and elsewhere; in adding to his hereditary lands; in
negotiating for a better understanding with France and England; and in
reminding the vassal states, Hungary, Poland and Bohemia, of their
duties towards the Empire. The success with which he carried out this
work shows clearly that, in Germany at least, the disaster at Rome had
not seriously affected his prestige. Again in Italy in 1174 the contest
with the Papacy was abruptly ended by Frederick's overwhelming defeat at
Legnano in May 1176, and by the treaty of Venice made about a year later
with Alexander III.
Frederick and Henry the Lion.
In the later years of his reign the emperor's chief enemy was Henry the
Lion. Rendered arrogant by success and confident that his interests were
in northern, and not in southern Europe, the Saxon duke refused to
assist Frederick in the campaign which ended so disastrously at Legnano.
Ascribing his defeat to Henry's defection, Frederick returned to Germany
full of anger against the Saxon duke and firmly resolved to punish him.
The immediate cause of Henry's downfall, however, was not his failure to
appear in Italy, but his refusal to restore some lands to the bishop of
Halberstadt, and it was on this charge that he was summoned before the
diet. Three times he refused to appear, and early in 1180 sentence was
pronounced against him; he was condemned to lose all his lands and to go
into banishment. For some time he resisted, but at length the emperor in
person marched against him and he was forced to submit; the only favour
he could secure when peace was made at Erfurt in November 1181 was
permission to retain Brunswick and Luneburg, which have remained in the
possession of his descendants until our own day. Bavaria was granted to
Otto of Wittelsbach, but it lost some of its importance because Styria
was taken from it and made into a separate duchy. The extensive duchy of
Saxony was completely dismembered. The name was taken by the small
portion of the former duchy which was given to Bernard, son of Albert
the Bear, the founder of a new Saxon line, and the extensive western
part was added to the archbishopric of Cologne. The chief prelates of
Saxony and many of the late duke's most important feudatories were made
virtually independent of all control save that of the crown. Frederick's
object in thus breaking up the two greatest duchies in his kingdom was
doubtless to strengthen the imperial authority. But in reality he made
it certain that the princes would one day shake off the imperial power
altogether; for it was perhaps more difficult for the sovereign to
contend with scores of petty nobles than with two or three great
princes.
Frederick and Philip of Heinsberg.
Less serious than the struggle with Henry the Lion was Frederick's
struggle with Philip of Heinsberg, archbishop of Cologne (d. 1191), on
whom he had just conferred a great part of Saxony. When the emperor went
to Italy in 1184 he left the government of Germany to his son Henry,
afterwards the emperor Henry VI., who had been crowned German king in
1169. On all sides, but especially in the north-west, Henry was faced
with incipient revolution, and while he was combating this the quarrel
between Frederick and the Papacy broke out again in Italy. At this
juncture Philip of Cologne united the German and the Italian
oppositions. Several princes rallied to his standard and foreign powers
promised aid, but although very formidable in appearance the combination
had no vestige of popular support. The greater part of the German clergy
again proved their loyalty to Frederick, who hurried to Germany only to
see the opposition vanish before him. In March 1188 Philip of Cologne
submitted at Mainz.
Frederick's death.
Germany was now at peace. With the accession of Gregory VIII. pope and
emperor were reconciled, and by the marriage of his son Henry with
Constance, daughter of Roger I., king of Sicily, the emperor had reason
to hope that the Empire would soon include Naples and Sicily. Resolving
that the sunset of his life should be even more splendid than its dawn
he decided to go on crusade, and in 1189 he started with a great army
for the Holy Land. When the news reached Germany that he had been
drowned, an event which took place in Cilicia in June 1190, men felt
that evil days were coming upon the country, for the elements of discord
would no longer be controlled by the strong hand of the great emperor.
Henry VI.
Evil days did not, however, come in the time of Henry VI., who, although
without his father's greatness, had some of his determination and
energy, and was at least his equal in ambition. Having in 1190 reduced
Henry the Lion once more to submission, the new king set out to take
possession of his Sicilian kingdom, being on the way crowned emperor at
Rome. At the end of 1191 he returned to Germany, where he was soon faced
by two serious risings. The first of these centred round the restless
and unruly Welfs; after a time these insurgents were joined by their
former enemies, the rulers of Saxony, of Thuringia and of Meissen, who
were angered by Henry's conduct. The Welfs also gained the assistance of
Canute VI., king of Denmark. Equally dangerous was a rebellion in the
Lower Rhineland, where the emperor made many foes by appointing,
regardless of their fitness, his own candidates to vacant bishoprics. At
Liege this led to serious complications; and when Bishop Albert, who had
been chosen against Henry's wish, was murdered at Reims in November
1192, the emperor was openly accused of having instigated the crime. At
once the rulers of Brabant, of Limburg and of Flanders, with the
archbishops of Cologne and Trier, were in arms. In the east of Germany
Ottakar I. of Bohemia joined the circle of Henry's enemies, and the
southern duchies, Bavaria, Swabia and Austria, were too much occupied
with internal quarrels to send help to the harassed emperor. But
formidable as were these risings they were crushed, although not
entirely by force of arms. In 1193 Richard I. of England passed as a
prisoner into Henry's keeping, and with rare skill the emperor used him
as a means of compelling his enemies to come to terms. Henry the Lion
was the last to submit. He made his peace in 1194, when his son Henry
was promised the succession to the Rhenish Palatinate. Returning from
another visit to Sicily, the emperor was now so powerful that, in
pursuance of his plan for making himself the head of a great world
monarchy, he put forward the suggestion that the imperial crown should
be declared hereditary in his family. This proposal aroused much
opposition, but Henry persisted with it; he promised important
concessions to the princes, many of whom were induced to consent, and
but for his sudden death, which occurred in Sicily in September 1197, it
is probable that he would have attained his end.
Philip of Swabia and Otto of Brunswick.
Great as was Henry's authority many of the princes, chief among them
being Adolph, archbishop of Cologne (d. 1220), refused to recognize his
son, Frederick, who had been chosen king of the Romans in 1196. This
attitude was possibly owing to the fact that Frederick was young and
inexperienced; it was, however, more probably due to a revival of the
fear that the German princes would be entangled in Italian politics. For
a time Adolph and his friends, who were mainly princes of the Rhineland,
sought in vain for a new king. While they were thus employed the
friends of the house of Hohenstaufen, convinced that Frederick's
kingship was not possible, chose the late emperor's brother, Philip,
duke of Swabia, to fill the vacant throne; soon afterwards the enemies
of the house found a candidate in the person of Henry the Lion's son,
Otto of Brunswick, who was also chosen German king. Thus the struggle
between Welf and Hohenstaufen was renewed and civil war broke out at
once. Philip's supporters were the nobles of southern and eastern
Germany, while a few cities in the west owned his authority; Otto's
friends were found mainly in the north and the north-west of the
country. The number of available warriors was increased by the return of
many crusaders, among them being the famous soldier, Henry von Kalden,
who was mainly responsible for the success of Philip's cause in 1199. If
Germany had been unconnected with the Papacy, or even if the Papacy had
been as weak as in the days of Henry VI., the issue of the strife would
almost certainly have been an early victory for Philip. A majority of
the princes were on his side and the French king Philip Augustus was his
ally, while his personal character commanded general respect. Otto,
whose chief supporter outside Germany was his uncle Richard I. of
England, on the other hand was a harsh and violent man. But
unfortunately for Germany the papal chair at this time was occupied by
Innocent III., a pope who emulated Hildebrand in ambition and in
statesmanship. At first vacillating, but by no means indifferent,
Innocent was spurred to action when a number of princes met at Spires in
May 1200, declared Philip to be the lawful king, and denied the right of
the pope to interfere. He was also annoyed by Philip's attitude with
regard to a vacancy in the archbishopric of Cologne, and in March 1201
he declared definitely for Otto. The efforts of the pope helped to
rekindle the expiring flames of war, and for a year or two success
completely deserted Philip. He lost the support of Ottakar of Bohemia
and of Hermann I., landgrave of Thuringia; he was driven from North
Germany into Swabia and Otto's triumph seemed assured. From 1204
onwards, however, fortune again veered round, and Philip's prospects
began to improve. Deserted by Ottakar and even by Adolph of Cologne and
his own brother Henry, count palatine of the Rhine, Otto was forced to
take refuge in Brunswick, his last line of defence, and was only saved
by Philip's murder, which occurred at Bamberg in June 1208. A feature of
this struggle was the reckless way in which the rival kings gave away
the property of the crown in order to gain adherents, thus enriching the
princes and weakening the central government.
Otto IV. becomes sole king.
Otto was now again chosen German king, and to aid and mark the general
reconciliation he was betrothed to the murdered king's daughter Beatrix.
Nearly all the princes acknowledged him, and as pope and king were at
peace, Germany enjoyed a period of comparative quiet. This however, did
not last long. Having secured his coronation at Rome in October 1209,
Otto repudiated the many pledges he had made to Innocent and began to
act in defiance of the papal wishes. To punish him the pope put forward
his own ward, Henry VI.'s son Frederick, who was living in Sicily, as a
rival king. While Otto was warring in Italy a number of influential
princes met at Nuremberg, at the instigation of Innocent and of his ally
Philip Augustus of France, and invited Frederick to come to Germany.
Otto then left Italy hurriedly, but he was quickly followed by his young
rival, who in the warfare which had already broken out proved himself a
formidable opponent. Seeking to mend his failing fortunes, the Welf went
to France to support his ally, the English king John, against Philip
Augustus, and at the battle of Bouvines (July 27, 1214) memorable in the
history alike of Germany, of England and of France, his fate was sealed,
although until his death in May 1218 he maintained a desultory warfare
against Frederick.
Frederick II.
Frederick II. was, if not the strongest, certainly the most brilliant of
German kings. With the medieval passion for adventure he combined the
intellectual culture and freedom of a modern gentleman. A lover of
poetry, of art and of science, he was also a great statesman; he knew
how to adapt his policy to changing circumstances and how to move men by
appealing at one time to their selfishness and weakness and at another
time to the nobler qualities of human nature. For outward splendour his
position was never surpassed, and before he died he possessed six
crowns, those of the Empire, Germany, Sicily, Lombardy, Burgundy and
Jerusalem. But Germany profited neither by his gifts nor by his
prestige. After Bouvines he purchased the assistance of Valdemar II.,
king of Denmark, by ceding to him a large stretch of land along the
Baltic coast; and, promising to go on crusade, he secured his coronation
at Aix-la-Chapelle in July 1215. Then being generally recognized as king
he was able to do something to quell disturbances in various parts of
the country, and, in April 1220, to bring about the election of his
young son Henry as king of the Romans. But for this favour he had been
compelled to pay a high price. Seven years before, at Eger in July 1213,
he had made extensive concessions to the church, undertaking to take no
part in episcopal elections, thus surrendering the advantages gained by
the concordat of Worms, and to allow to German bishops the right of
appeal to Rome. Proceeding a step farther in the same direction, he now
promised to erect no new toll-centre, or mint, on the lands of the
spiritual princes, and to allow no towns to be built thereon. Thus the
prelates possessed nearly all the rights of sovereigns, and regarded the
pope in Italy and not the king in Germany as their head, a state of
affairs which was fatal to the unity, nay, even to the existence of the
Empire.
Germany in Frederick's absence.
Having made peace with Henry, count palatine of the Rhine and brother of
Otto IV., and settled a dispute about the lands of the extinct family of
Zahringen in the south-west of the country, Frederick left Germany in
August 1220; engaged in his bitter contest with the Papacy and the
Lombard cities, in ruling Sicily, and, after several real or imaginary
delays, in fulfilling his crusading vow, he did not return to it for
fifteen years. During this period he was represented by his son Henry,
in whose name the government of Germany was carried on by the regent
Engelbert, archbishop of Cologne. While Engelbert lived the country was
in a fairly peaceable condition, although, thanks to the emperor's
concessions, the spiritual princes were predominant, and all possible
means were taken to check the growth of the towns, whose interests and
aspirations were not favourable to this state of affairs. There was,
moreover, a struggle between Valdemar of Denmark and some neighbouring
German nobles. But after Engelbert's murder (November 1225) there was a
change for the worse, and the only success which can be placed to the
credit of the German arms during the next few years was the regaining of
the lands ceded to Denmark in 1215, lands which included the cities of
Hamburg and Lubeck. Under the rule of the new regent, Louis I., duke of
Bavaria, confusion reigned supreme, and civil war prevailed in nearly
every part of the country.
Rebellion of King Henry.
After the treaty of San Germano, which was made with Pope Gregory in
1230, and the consequent lull in the struggle with the Papacy, Frederick
was able to devote some little attention to Germany, and in 1231 he
sanctioned the great Privilege of Worms. This was a reward to the
princes for their efforts in bringing about the peace, and an extension
of the concessions made in 1220. The princes, now for the first time
referred to officially as _domini terrae_, were given full rights of
jurisdiction over their lands and all the inferior officers of justice
were made subservient to them. Practically they became independent
sovereigns, and to make their victory more complete serious restraints
were laid upon the freedom of the towns. Before this date King Henry had
begun to take a personal part in the government and was already involved
in a quarrel with Otto II., duke of Bavaria. He disliked the Privilege
of Worms and, favouring the towns against the princes, his policy was
diametrically opposed to that of the emperor; however, in 1232 he went
to Italy and promised to obey his father's commands. But in 1234, at a
time of great and increasing disorder in Germany, he rebelled; he
appealed publicly to the princes for support, gained some followers,
especially in his own duchy of Swabia, and made an alliance with the
Lombard cities. Confident of his strength Frederick entered Germany with
a few attendants in the middle of 1235, and his presence had the
anticipated effect of quelling the insurrection; Henry was sent a
prisoner to Italy and disappeared from history. Then, in August 1235,
amid surroundings of great splendour, the emperor held a diet at Mainz,
which was attended by a large number of princes. This diet is very
important in the legal history of Germany, because here was issued that
great "land peace" (_Landfrieden_) which became the model for all
subsequent enactments of the kind. By it private war was declared
unlawful, except in cases where justice could not be obtained; a chief
justiciar was appointed for the Empire; all tolls and mints erected
since the death of Henry VI. were to be removed; and other provisions
dealt with the maintenance of order.
Frederick in Germany.
In 1236, during another short stay in Germany, Frederick in person led
the imperial army against Frederick II., duke of Austria, who had defied
and overcome his representatives; having taken possession of Vienna and
the Austrian duchies he there secured the election of his son Conrad,
who had already succeeded his brother as duke of Swabia, as king of the
Romans (May 1237). But in spite of these imposing displays of power the
princes looked with suspicion upon an emperor who was almost a stranger
to their country and who was believed to be a renegade from their faith,
and soon after Frederick's return to Italy the gulf between him and his
German subjects was widened by his indifference to a great danger which
threatened them. This came from the Mongols who ravaged the eastern
frontiers of the country, but the peril was warded off by the efforts of
Henry II., duke of Silesia, who lost his life in a fight against these
foes near Liegnitz in April 1241, and of Wenceslaus I., king of Bohemia.
Frederick and the pope.
The emperor's attitude with regard to the Mongol invasion is explained
by events in Italy where Frederick was engaged in a new and, if
possible, a more virulent struggle with the Lombard cities and with
Gregory IX. As usual, the course of politics in Germany, which at this
time was ruled by King Conrad and by the regent Siegfried, archbishop of
Mainz (d. 1249), was influenced by this quarrel. Frederick of Austria
had allied himself with Wenceslaus of Bohemia, and spurred on by the
papal emissary had tried to set up a rival king; but both the Danish and
the French princes who were asked to accept this thankless position
declined the invitation, and Frederick and Wenceslaus made their peace,
the former receiving back his duchies. After the defeat of the Mongols,
however, there was again the danger of a rebellion based upon a union
between the princes and the pope. Siegfried of Mainz deserted his
master, and visiting Germany in 1242 Frederick found it necessary to
purchase the support of the towns by a grant of extensive privileges;
but, although this had the desired effect, Conrad could make but little
headway against the increasing number of his enemies. At last the Papacy
found an anti-king. Having declared Frederick deposed at the council of
Lyons in 1245, Gregory's successor, Innocent IV., induced a number of
princes to choose as their king the landgrave of Thuringia, Henry Raspe,
who had served as regent of Germany. This happened in May 1246, and the
conduct of the struggle against the _Pfaffenkonig_, as Henry was called,
was left to Conrad, who was aided by the Bavarians, until February 1247,
when the anti-king died. The papal party then elected William II., count
of Holland, as Henry Raspe's successor, and during the state of anarchy
which now prevailed in Germany the emperor died in Italy in December
1250.
Conrad IV.
Upon his father's death Conrad IV. was acknowledged by many as king in
Germany, but in 1251 he went to Italy, where he was fully occupied in
fighting against the enemies of his house until his death in May 1254.
The struggle to maintain the position of the Hohenstaufen in Italy was
continued after this event; but in October 1268, by the execution of
Conrad's son Conradin, the family became extinct.
The interregnum.
After Conrad's death William of Holland received a certain allegiance,
especially in the north of the country, and was recognized by the
Rhenish cities which had just formed a league for mutual protection, a
league which for a short time gave promise of great strength and
usefulness. In January 1256, however, William was killed, and in the
following year there was a double election for the German crown,
Alphonso X., king of Castile, a grandson of Philip of Swabia, and
Richard, earl of Cornwall, brother of the English king Henry III., being
each chosen by parties of electors. Richard was crowned in May 1257, but
the majority of his subjects were probably ignorant of his very name;
Alphonso did not even visit the country over which he claimed to rule.
The Teutonic Order in Prussia.
During the reign of Frederick II. Prussia was conquered for Christianity
and civilization by the knights of the Teutonic Order, who here built up
the state which was later, in association with Brandenburg, deeply to
influence the course of history. This work was begun in 1230. Knights
eager to win fame by engaging in the war against the heathen Prussians
flocked hither from all lands; towns, Konigsberg, Thorn, Kulm and
others, were founded; and in alliance with the Brothers of the Sword,
the order was soon pressing farther eastwards. Courland and Livonia were
brought into subjection, and into these lands also Christian
institutions were introduced and German settlers brought the arts of
peace.
Period of Hohenstaufen dynasty.
The age of the Hohenstaufen emperors is, in many respects, the most
interesting in the medieval history of Germany. It was a period of great
men and great ideas, of dramatic contrasts of character and opinion--on
the one side a broad humanitarianism combined with a gay enjoyment of
the world, on the other side an almost superhuman spirituality which
sought its ideal in the rejection of all that the world could give. It
saw the new-birth of poetry and of art; it witnessed the rise of the
friars. The contest between Empire and Papacy was more than a mere
struggle for supremacy between two world-powers; it was a war to the
death between two fundamentally opposite conceptions of life, which in
many respects anticipated and prepared the way for the Renaissance and
the Reformation. The emperor Frederick II. himself stands out as the
type of the one tendency; Innocent III., Francis of Assisi and Dominic,
in their various degrees, are types of the other. Frederick himself, of
course, was Italian rather than German, akin to the despots of the
Renaissance in his many-sided culture, his tolerant scepticism and his
policy of "cruelty well applied." The culture of which he was the
supreme representative, that of Italy and of Provence, took a more
serious shade when it penetrated into Germany. The German _Minnesinger_
and romance-writers, whose golden age corresponded with that of the
Hohenstaufen, were not content only to sing the joy of life or the
chivalrous virtues of courage, courtesy and reverence for women; they in
some sort anticipated the underlying ideas of the Reformation by
championing the claims of the German nation against the papal monarchy
and pure religion, as they conceived it, against the arrogance and
corruption of the clergy. In them the medieval lay point of view became
articulate, finding perhaps its most remarkable expression in the ideas
of religious toleration proclaimed by Walther von der Vogelweide and
Wolfram von Eschenbach. In Germany, as elsewhere, the victory of the
Papacy was the victory of obscurantism. German culture, after a short
revival, perished once more amid the smoke of the fires kindled by
Conrad of Marburg and his fellow inquisitors.
In architecture, as in literature, this period was also one of great
achievement in Germany. Of the noble palaces which it produced the
castle of the Wartburg (q.v.) remains a perfect specimen, while the many
magnificent churches dating from this time that still survive, prove the
taste, wealth and piety of the burghers. For the science of government,
too, much was done, partly by the introduction from Italy of the study
of Roman law, partly by the collection of native customs in the
_Sachsenspiegel_ compiled by Eike von Repgow early in the 13th century,
and the less valuable _Deutschenspiegel_ and _Schwabenspiegel_.
Altogether, Germany has seen no more fascinating epoch, none more full
of life, movement and colour.
Political character of Germany settled.
Yet it was in this age that the German nation utterly lost its political
strength. Even after Lothair the Saxon, a line of sovereigns rigidly
confining themselves to their own kingdom might have mastered the many
influences which were making for disunion. But the Hohenstaufen family,
like their Saxon and Franconian predecessors, would be content with
nothing short of universal dominion; and thus the crown which had once
been significant of power and splendour gradually sank into contempt.
Under the strong rule of Frederick Barbarossa and his son this process
was temporarily stopped, but only to advance more rapidly when they were
gone. During the confusion of the civil war carried on by Otto IV. and
Philip, the princes, being subject to hardly any check, freely obtained
crown lands and crown rights, and the mischief was too extensive to be
undone by Frederick II. In 1220, in order to secure the adhesion of the
church to his son Henry, he formally confirmed the spiritual princes in
their usurpations; eleven years later at Worms still more extensive
advantages were granted to the princes, both spiritual and secular, and
these formal concessions formed the lawful basis of the independence of
the princely class. Such authority as the emperor reserved for himself
he could exercise but feebly from a distant land in which his energies
were otherwise occupied. His immediate successors can hardly be said to
have exercised any authority whatever; and they lost hold of the border
countries which had hitherto been dependent upon or connected with
Germany. Thenceforth Denmark and Poland rendered no homage to the German
crown, and Burgundy was gradually absorbed by France.
Classes of the population.
The country was not now divided into a few duchies which, with skilful
management, might still in times of emergency have been made to act
together. The age of the great duchies was past. As we have seen,
Bavaria was shorn of extensive lands, over which new dukes were placed,
and the duchy of Saxony was altogether broken up. Swabia and Franconia
ceased to have dukes, and Lorraine gave place to the duchy of Brabant
and other smaller states. Thus there were archbishops, bishops, abbots,
dukes, margraves, landgraves, counts--forming together a large
body--each of whom claimed to have no superior save the emperor, whose
authority they and their predecessors had slowly destroyed. All
immediate nobles were not princes; but even petty knights or barons, who
possessed little more than the rude towers from which they descended
upon passing travellers, if their only lord was the emperor, recognized
no law save their own will. Another independent element of the state was
composed of the imperial cities. So long as the emperor really reigned,
they enjoyed only such liberties as they could wring from him, or as he
voluntarily conferred. But when the sovereign's power decayed, the
imperial cities were really free republics, governing themselves
according to their own ideas of law and justice (see COMMUNE). Besides
the imperial cities, and the princes and other immediate nobles, there
were the mediate nobles, the men who held land in fief of the highest
classes of the aristocracy, and who, in virtue of this feudal relation,
looked down upon the allodial proprietors or freemen, and upon the
burghers. There were also mediate towns, acknowledging the supremacy of
some lord other than the sovereign. Beneath all these, forming the mass
of the agricultural population, were the peasantry and the serfs, the
latter attached to the land, the former ground down by heavy taxes.
There was another class, large and increasing in number, which was drawn
from various sections of society. This was composed of men who, being
without land, attached themselves to the emperor or to some powerful
noble; they performed services, generally of a military nature, for
their lord, and were called _Dienstmannen_ (_ministeriales_). They were
often transformed into "free knights" by the grant of a fief, and the
class ultimately became absorbed in that of the knights.
The electors.
The period from the death of Conrad IV. to the election of Rudolph of
Habsburg in 1273 is generally called the Great Interregnum, and it was
used by the princes to extend their territories and to increase their
authority. On several occasions it had seemed as if the German crown
would become hereditary, but it had been kept elective by a variety of
causes, among them being the jealousy of the Papacy and the growing
strength of the aristocracy. In theory the election of each king needed
the sanction of the whole of the immediate nobles, but in practice the
right to choose the king had passed into the hands of a small but
varying number of the leading princes. During the 13th century several
attempts were made to enumerate these princes, and at the contested
election of 1257 seven of them took part. This was the real beginning of
the electoral college whose members at this time were the archbishops of
Mainz, Cologne and Trier, the duke of Saxony, the duke of Bavaria, who
was also count palatine of the Rhine, the margrave of Brandenburg and
the king of Bohemia. After this event the electors became a distinct
element in the state. They were important because they could maintain
the impotence of the crown to check disorder by imposing conditions upon
candidates for the throne, and by taking care that no prince powerful
enough to be dangerous to themselves should be elected to this position.
Divisions of the princely lands.
Until the time of the interregnum the territories of a prince were rarely
divided among his descendants, the reason being that, although the
private fiefs of the nobles were hereditary, their offices--margrave,
count and the like--were in theory at the disposal of the king. There was
now a tendency to set this principle aside. Otto II., duke of Bavaria, a
member of the Wittelsbach family, had become by marriage ruler of the
Rhenish Palatinate, and after his death these extensive lands were ruled
in common by his two sons; but in 1255 a formal division took place and
the powerful family of Wittelsbach was divided into two branches. About
the same time the small duchy of Saxony was divided into two duchies,
those of Wittenberg and Lauenburg, the former to the south and the latter
to the north of the great mark of Brandenburg, and there were similar
divisions in the less important states. It was thus practically settled
that the offices and territories, as well as the private fiefs, of the
princes were hereditary, to be disposed of by them at their pleasure.
This being thoroughly established it would have been hard, perhaps
impossible, even for a sovereign of the greatest genius, to reassert in
anything like its full extent the royal authority. The process of
division and subdivision which steadily went on broke up Germany into a
bewildering multitude of principalities; but as a rule the members of
each princely house held together against common enemies, and ultimately
they learned to arrange by private treaties that no territory should pass
from the family while a single representative survived.
The cities.
The consolidation of the power of the princes was contemporary with the
rise of the cities into new importance. Several of them, especially
Mainz, Worms and Spires, had received valuable rights from the kings and
other lords; they were becoming self-governing and to some extent
independent communities and an important and growing element in the
state. The increase of trade and a system of taxation provided the
governing body with funds, which were used to fortify the city and in
other ways to make life and property more secure. The destruction of
imperial authority compelled them to organize their resources, so as to
be at all times prepared against ambitious neighbours. They began to
form leagues which the greatest princes and combinations of princes
could not afford to despise. Of these leagues the chief at this time was
the Rhenish Confederation, which has been already mentioned. Great
importance was also acquired by the Hanseatic League, which had
originated during the interregnum in a treaty of alliance between Lubeck
and Hamburg. It ultimately included more than eighty cities and became
one of the greatest commercial powers in Europe (see HANSEATIC LEAGUE).
Rudolph of Habsburg.
A political system which allowed the princes to do as they pleased was
very much to their liking, and if they had followed their own impulse it
is possible that they would never have placed a king over their country.
But the pope intervened. He found from his troubles in Italy and from
his diminished revenues from Germany that it would be still convenient
to have in the latter country a sovereign who, like some of his
predecessors, would be the protector of the church. Therefore, after the
death of Richard of Cornwall in April 1272, Pope Gregory X., ignoring
the absent Alphonso of Castile, told the electors that if they did not
choose a king he himself would appoint one. The threat was effective. In
September 1273 the electors met and raised to the throne a Swabian
noble, Rudolph, count of Habsburg, who proved to possess more energy
than they had imagined possible. For some time before this event the
most powerful prince in Germany had been Ottakar II., king of Bohemia,
who by marriage and conquest had obtained large territories outside his
native kingdom, including the duchy of Austria and other possessions of
the extinct family of Babenberg. Having himself cherished some hopes of
receiving the German crown Ottakar refused to do homage to the new
sovereign; after a time war broke out between them, and in August 1278
in a battle at Durnkrut on the March Ottakar was defeated and slain, his
lands, save Bohemia, passing into the possession of the victor. Rudolph
had been able to give his whole attention to this enterprise owing to
the good understanding which had been reached between himself and the
pope, to whom he had promised to allow a free hand in Italy.
His reign.
Rudolph has often been called the restorer of the German kingdom, but he
has little real claim to this honourable title. He marched once or twice
against law-breakers, but in all the German duchies there were frequent
disturbances which he did very little to check. In his later years he
made some attempts to maintain the public peace, and he distinguished
himself by the vigour with which he punished robber barons in Thuringia;
he also won back some of the crown lands and dues which had been stolen
during the interregnum. But he made no essential change in the condition
of Germany. There seemed to be only one way in which a king could hope
to overcome the arrogance of the princes, and that was to encourage the
towns by forming with them a close and enduring alliance. Rudolph,
however, almost invariably favoured the princes and not the towns. The
latter had a class of burgher called _Pfahlburger_, men who lived in the
open country outside the _Pfahle_, or palisades of the town, but who
could claim the protection of the municipal authorities. By becoming
_Pfahlburger_ men were able of escape from the tyranny of the large
landholders, and consequently the princes strongly opposed the right of
the towns to receive them. Not only did the king take the part of the
princes in this important struggle, but he harassed the towns by
subjecting them to severe imposts, a proceeding which led to several
risings. About this time the princes were gaining influence in another
direction. Their assent to all important acts of state, especially to
grants of crown property, was now regarded as necessary and was conveyed
by means of _Willebriefe_; henceforward they were not merely the
advisers of the king, they were rather partners with him in the business
of government.
The Habsburg family.
Rudolph had all the sympathies and prejudices of the noble class, and
the supreme object of his life was not to increase the power of the
state but to add to the greatness of his own family, a policy which was
perhaps justified by the condition of the German kingdom, the ruler of
which had practically no strength save that which he derived from his
hereditary lands. In this he was very successful. Four years after the
fall of Ottakar he obtained from the princes a tardy and reluctant
assent to the granting of Austria, Styria and Carniola to his own sons,
Rudolph and Albert. In 1286 Carinthia was given to Meinhard, count of
Tirol, on condition that when his male line became extinct it should
pass to the Habsburgs. Thus Rudolph made himself memorable as the real
founder of the house of Habsburg.
Adolph of Nassau.
It was in vain that Rudolph sought to obtain the succession to the crown
for one of his sons; the electors would not take a step which might
endanger their own rights, and nearly a year after the king's death in
July 1291 they chose Adolph, count of Nassau, and not Rudolph's
surviving son Albert, as their sovereign. Adolph, an insignificant
prince, having been obliged to reward his supporters richly, wished to
follow the lines laid down by his predecessor and to secure an extensive
territory for his family. Meissen, which he claimed as a vacant fief of
the Empire, and Thuringia, which he bought from the landgrave Albert
II., seemed to offer a favourable field for this undertaking, and he
spent a large part of his short reign in a futile attempt to carry out
his plan. In his foreign policy Adolph allied himself with Edward I. of
England against Philip IV. of France, but after declaring war on France
in August 1294 he did nothing to assist his ally. At home he relieved
the cities of some of their burdens and upheld them in the quarrel about
the _Pfahlburger_; and he sought to isolate Albert of Habsburg, who was
treating with Philip of France. But many of the princes were disgusted
with him and, led by Albert of Habsburg, Gerhard, archbishop of Mainz,
and Wenceslaus II., king of Bohemia, they decided to overthrow him, and
at Mainz in June 1298 he was declared deposed. He resisted the sentence,
but Albert, who had been chosen his successor, marched against him, and
in July 1298, at Gollheim near Worms, Adolph was defeated and killed.
Albert I.
After Adolph's death Albert was again chosen German king, and was
crowned at Aix-la-Chapelle in August 1298. Like his father Rudolph, the
new king made it the principal object of his reign to increase the power
of his house, but he failed in his attempts to add Bohemia and Thuringia
to the hereditary lands of the Habsburgs, and he was equally
unsuccessful in his endeavour to seize the countries of Holland and
Zealand as vacant fiefs of the Empire. In other directions, however, he
was more fortunate. He recovered some of the lost crown lands and sought
to abolish new and unauthorized tolls on the Rhine; he encouraged the
towns and took measures to repress private wars; he befriended the serfs
and protected the persecuted Jews. For a time Albert allied himself with
Philip IV. of France against Pope Boniface VIII., who had refused to
recognize him as king, but in 1303 he made peace with the pope, a step
which enabled him to turn his attention to Bohemia and Thuringia. The
greatest danger which he had to face during his reign came from a league
which was formed against him in 1300 by the four Rhenish electors--the
three archbishops and the count palatine of the Rhine--who disliked his
foreign policy and resented his action with regard to the tolls. Albert,
however, supported by the towns, was victorious; and the revolting
electors soon made their peace.
Henry VII.
After Albert's murder, which took place in May 1308, Henry, count of
Luxemburg, a brother of Baldwin (1285-1354), the powerful archbishop of
Trier, became king as Henry VII. Although fortunate enough to obtain for
his son John the crown of Bohemia, the aggrandizement of his family was
not the main object of this remarkable sovereign, the last German king
of the old, ambitious type. It was the memory of the Empire which
stirred his blood; from the beginning of his reign he looked forward to
securing the Lombard and the imperial crowns. His purpose to cross the
Alps at the head of a great force was hailed with delight by the
Ghibellines, whose aspirations found utterance in Dante's noble prose,
but his life was too short for him to fulfil the hopes of his friends.
Having restored the Rhine tolls to the Rhenish archbishops and made his
peace with the Habsburgs, Henry went to Italy in the autumn of 1310,
not, however, with a large army, and remained in the peninsula until his
death in August 1313. As in former times the effect of the connexion of
Germany with Italy was altogether mischievous, because to expedite his
Italian journey the king had added to the great privileges of the
princes and had repressed the energies of the towns.
Louis the Bavarian and Frederick of Austria.
After Henry's death the electors, again fearing lest the German crown
should become hereditary, refused to choose the late king's young son,
John of Bohemia, as their ruler, although the candidature of this prince
was supported by the powerful archbishops Baldwin of Trier and Peter of
Mainz. They failed, in fact, to agree upon any one candidate, and after
a long delay there was a double election for the throne. This took place
in October 1314, when the larger party chose Louis IV., duke of Upper
Bavaria, while the smaller party gave their votes to Frederick the Fair,
duke of Austria, a son of King Albert I. Although related to each other,
Louis and Frederick had come to blows before this event; they
represented two rival houses, those of Wittelsbach and Habsburg, and the
election only served to feed the flame of their antagonism. A second
time war broke out between them. The struggle, marked by numerous raids,
sieges and skirmishes, lasted for nine years, being practically ended by
Frederick's decisive defeat at Muhldorf in September 1322. The
vanquished king remained in captivity until 1325, when, during the
contest between the Empire and the Papacy, Louis came to terms with him.
Frederick acknowledged his rival, and later the suggestion was put
forward that they should rule Germany jointly, but this arrangement
aroused much opposition and it came to nothing. Frederick returned into
an honourable captivity and died in January 1330.
Causes of the success of Louis.
The success of Louis in his war with Frederick was to some extent due to
the imperial cities, which supported him from the first. Not only did
they pay high taxes, but they made splendid voluntary contributions,
thus enabling the sovereign of their choice to continue the fight. But
Louis was perhaps still more indebted for his victory to the memorable
conflict between the Swiss and the Habsburgs, the defeat of Leopold of
Austria at Morgarten in 1315 striking a heavy blow at his position. Thus
this struggle for freedom, although belonging properly to the history of
Switzerland, exercised much influence on the course of German history.
Louis IV. and the pope.
Had Louis been wise and prudent, it would have been fairly easy for him
to attain a strong position after his victory at Muhldorf. But he threw
away his advantages. He offended John of Bohemia, who had aided him at
Muhldorf, thus converting a useful friend into a formidable foe, and his
other actions were hardly more judicious. John was probably alarmed at
the increase in the power of the German king, and about the same time a
similar fear had begun to possess Pope John XXII. and Charles IV. of
France. About 1323 Louis had secured the mark of Brandenburg for his son
Louis, and he was eager to aggrandize his family in other directions. It
was just at the time when he had estranged John of Bohemia that the pope
made his decisive move. Asserting that the German crown could only be
worn by one who had received the papal approbation he called upon Louis
to lay it down; the answer was an indignant refusal, and in 1324 the
king was declared deposed and excommunicate. Thus the ancient struggle
between the Papacy and the Empire was renewed, a struggle in which the
pen, wielded by Marsiglio of Padua, William of Occam, John of Jandun and
others, played an important part, and in which the new ideas in religion
and politics worked steadily against the arrogant papal claim. The pope
and his French ally, Charles IV., whom it was proposed to seat upon the
German throne, had completely misread the signs of the times, and their
schemes met with very little favour in Germany. No longer had the
princes as in former years any reason to dread the designs of an
ambitious king; the destinies of the kingdom were in their own hands and
they would not permit them to be controlled by an alien power. Such was
the attitude of most of the temporal princes, and many spiritual princes
took the same view. As for the electors, they had the strongest possible
motive for resisting the papal claim, because if this were once admitted
they would quickly lose their growing importance in the state. Lastly,
the cities which had stood behind the Empire in the most difficult
crises of its contest with Rome were not likely to desert it now.
Louis in Italy.
Thus encouraged, or rather driven forward, by the national sentiment
Louis continued to assert the independence of the crown against the
pope. In 1327 he marched into Italy, where he had powerful and numerous
friends in the Ghibelline party, the Visconti family and others; in
January 1328 he was crowned emperor at Rome, and after this event he
declared Pope John deposed and raised Peter of Corvara to the papal
chair as Nicholas V. The concluding stages of this expedition were not
favourable to the new emperor, but his humiliation was only slight and
it did not appreciably affect the conditions of the controversy.
Louis in Germany.
For a short time after the emperor's return to Germany there was peace.
But this was soon broken by a dispute over the succession to the duchy
of Carinthia and the county of Tirol, then ruled by Henry V., who was
without sons, and whose daughter, Margaret Maultasch, was married to
John Henry, margrave of Moravia, a son of John of Bohemia. Upon these
lands the three great families in Germany, those of Wittelsbach, of
Habsburg and of Luxemburg, were already casting covetous eyes;
Carinthia, moreover, was claimed by the Habsburgs in virtue of an
arrangement made in 1286. Thus a struggle between the Luxemburgs and the
Habsburgs appeared certain, and Louis, anxious to secure for his house a
share of the spoil, hesitated for a time between these rivals. In 1335
Duke Henry died and the emperor adjudged his lands to the Habsburgs;
wars broke out, and the result was that John Henry secured Tirol while
the other contending family added Carinthia to its Austrian possessions.
The pope and the electors.
During this time Louis had been negotiating continually with Pope John
and with his successor Benedict XII. to regain the favour of the church,
and so to secure a free hand for his designs in Germany. But the pope
was not equally complaisant, and in 1337 the emperor allied himself with
Edward III. of England against Philip VI. of France, whom he regarded as
primarily responsible for the unyielding attitude of the Papacy. This
move was very popular in Germany, and the papal party received a further
rebuff in July 1338 when the electors met at Rense and declared that in
no possible manner could they allow any control over, or limitation of,
their electoral rights. As a sequel to this declaration the diet,
meeting at Frankfort a month later, asserted that the imperial power
proceeded from God alone and that the individual chosen by a majority of
the electors to occupy this high station needed no confirmation from the
pope, or from any one else, to make his election valid. Contrary
opinions they denounced as _pestifera dogmata_.
Louis and the Luxemburgs.
But in spite of this support Louis threw away his advantages; he
abandoned Edward III. in 1341, although this step did not win for him,
as he desired, the goodwill of the pope, and he was soon involved in a
more serious struggle with John of Bohemia and the Luxemburgs. With his
Bohemian followers John Henry had made himself very unpopular in Tirol,
where his wife soon counted herself among his enemies, and in 1341 he
was driven from the land, while Margaret announced her intention of
repudiating him and marrying the emperor's son Louis, margrave of
Brandenburg. The emperor himself entered heartily into this scheme for
increasing the power of his family; he declared the marriage with John
Henry void, and bestowed upon his son and his bride Margaret not only
Tirol, but also Carinthia, now in the hands of the Habsburgs. Nothing
more was needed to unite together all the emperor's foes, including Pope
Clement VI., who, like his predecessors, had rejected the advances of
Louis; but in 1345, before the gathering storm broke, the emperor took
possession of the counties of Holland, Zealand and Friesland, which had
been left without a ruler by the death of his brother-in-law, Count
William IV. By this time John of Bohemia and his allies had completed
their plans. In July 1346 five of the electors met, and, having declared
Louis deposed, they raised John's son Charles, margrave of Moravia, to
the German throne. For a time no serious steps were taken against Louis,
but after King John had met his death at Crecy Charles, who succeeded
him as king of Bohemia, began to make vigorous preparations for war, and
only the sudden death of the emperor (October 1347) saved Germany from
civil strife.