Meanwhile the German nation had become odious to the Italians. The rude

soldiery, insolent and addicted to intoxication, were engaged in frequent

disputes with the citizens, wherein the latter, as is usual in similar

cases, were exposed first to the summary vengeance of the troops and

afterwards to penal chastisement for sedition. In one of these tumults,

at the entry of Henry II in 1004, the city of Pavia was burned to the

ground, which inspired its inhabitants with a constant animosity against

that emperor. Upon his death in 1024, the Italians were disposed to

break once more their connection with Germany, which had elected as

sovereign Conrad, duke of Franconia. They offered their crown to Robert,

king of France, and to Guillaume, duke of Guienne; but neither of them

was imprudent enough to involve himself in the difficult and faithless

politics of Italy. It may surprise us that no candidate appeared from

among her native princes. But it had been the dexterous policy of the

Ottos to weaken the great Italian fiefs, which were still rather

considered as hereditary governments, than as absolute patrimonies, by

separating districts from their jurisdiction, under inferior marquises

and rural counts.

The bishops were incapable of becoming competitors, and generally

attached to the German party. The cities already possessed material

influence, but were disunited by mutual jealousies. Since ancient

prejudices, therefore, precluded a federate league of independent

principalities and republics for which perhaps the actual condition

of Italy unfitted her, Heribert, archbishop of Milan, accompanied by

some other chief men of Lombardy, repaired to Constance, and tended the

crown to Conrad, which he was already disposed to claim as a sort of

dependency upon Germany. It does not appear that either Conrad or his

successors were ever regularly elected to reign over Italy; but whether

this ceremony took place or not, we may certainly date from that time the

subjection of Italy to the Germanic body. It became an unquestionable

maxim that the votes of a few German princes conferred a right to the

sovereignty of a country which had never been conquered, and which

had never formally recognised this superiority. But it was an equally

fundamental rule that the elected king of Germany could not assume the

title of Roman emperor, until his coronation by the pope. The middle

appellation of King of the Romans was invented as a sort of approximation

to the imperial dignity. But it was not till the reign of Maximilian

that the actual coronation at Rome was dispensed with, and the title of

emperor taken immediately after the election.[h]

FOOTNOTES

[145] [But one must remember that the old chronicler who recorded this

fact did not see the battle.]

[146] [Though it would seem that some of these claimants preferred a

royal title to the imperial one. Cf. Otto I’s first Italian campaign.]

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

CHAPTER IX

THE FRANCONIAN, OR SALIAN, DYNASTY

[1024-1125 A.D.]

For the epoch of Henry II we have preserved to us the work of Bishop

Thietmar[b] & of Merseburg, which, starting from local and personal

points of view and showing the writer’s unwavering loyalty to the king,

to whom the bishop owed his position, at once discloses and elucidates

in a variety of communications the conditions obtaining in the interior

of Germany. Although not unbiassed where the king is concerned, it

is yet invaluable in respect of the details it affords; the internal

conditions of the empire are clearly mapped out before our eyes. On the

other hand, the tendencies which characterise the imperium of Henry II

are more or less obscured from view. The bishop, who must be regarded as

a contemporary chronicler, was already dead when they had taken definite

shape.

On the other hand, Wipo,[c] the biographer of Conrad II with whom the

line of the Salians commences, started entirely from the standpoint of

the imperium. He wrote a biography of Conrad after his death for the

instruction and edification of his son and successor, Henry III. The

aspirations of the Salic house in the direction of world-wide power

occupy the chief place in his work. The devolvement of the imperium

upon the Salic house was an event of great importance both in German

and universal history. Yet there is nothing so very unexpected and

extraordinary in the elevation of Conrad II.

The Salians represent one of the parties that had once, under Otto the

Great, risen up against him from the very lap of his own family. They

are descended, as we have already mentioned, from the marriage of one of

Otto’s daughters with the heroic Conrad the Red, the greatest warrior

of those times. His son Otto, count in Wormsgau, received Carinthia,

an appanage of Bavaria, in fief. He is the father of Bruno, whom Otto

III raised to the papal see, as also of Conrad, who on his father’s

death succeeded to the dukedom of Carinthia. This Conrad was married to

Matilde, a daughter of Hermann of Swabia. Of their union a son was born,

known under the name of Conrad the Younger.

[Sidenote: [1024 A.D.]]

Duke Conrad, father of the younger Conrad, had had an elder brother named

Henry, who possessed a count’s fief in Franconia. This Henry--who was

therefore to be considered the chief representative of the authority

of that house, and who, had he not died before his father, would have

inherited the dukedom--had married Adelheid, a sister of the powerful

Alsatian count of the house of Egisheim. The issue of this marriage was

Conrad II, to whom accordingly descended by right of inheritance the

claims of the Conrad dynasty. The right of succession of the elder Conrad

can hardly be questioned. For the prerogative of elder lines must be

upheld, if we will do justice to the constant change of families upon the

throne.[d]

After the decease of Henry II, it was evident to every friend of Germany

that the unity of the nation must be cemented without delay if all that

had been founded by Conrad I and Henry I was not to come wholly to

naught. The princes and the higher ranks of nobles would perhaps have

been well content to see the empire break up into its old condition of

disintegration; the clergy, on the other hand, had nothing to gain by

such a turn of fortune, and they consequently laboured with the utmost

zeal for the appointment of a capable head to the empire. As matters

stood the king could only be nominated by election, and on this occasion

the election had to be held with more freedom and more solemnity than

usual, because the choice was not limited to the children or descendants

of a deceased monarch. In the early days of the vacancy no candidates for

the highest office of the state presented themselves, and the question on

whom to bestow the crown was therefore long debated amongst the princes,

higher nobility, and bishops.

They finally resolved to call a solemn assembly of the people, and there

to let the public opinion of the nation decide upon Henry’s successor.

It is possible that the persons who were secretly managing this

business of the election had already a definite plan as to who was to

be king; but such a plan might nevertheless present difficulties in the

accomplishment, and for this reason each party tried to use the expedient

of a national assembly for the furtherance of its own particular object.

But to all appearance the public opinion of the nation occupied the

position of arbitrator between the various parties, and as such exercised

a stronger influence upon the election than might have been expected in

view of the condition of the empire at the time.

Of course, except for the bishops and clergy this national assembly was

entirely composed of the greater and lesser nobles and their followers,

for the towns had not yet arrived at such a height of prosperity as to

claim direct participation in the affairs of the empire. And, equally

of course, the subordinate bondman had no opinion to give, only the

gentry being qualified to vote. Hence the lesser nobility as a body

represented the public opinion of the nation, in contradistinction to the

sovereign princes; and it was they who were permitted to wield so great

an influence in state affairs in the matter of the solemn election to the

throne after the death of Henry II.

A NATIONAL ASSEMBLY

Henry’s death had taken place on the 13th of July, 1024, and on the 4th

of September in the same year those qualified to vote amongst all the

German races gathered together on the Rhine, between Mainz and Worms,

in the neighbourhood of the old “Königstuhl” (a stone structure in the

form of a chair, where the kings of Germany were proclaimed), to proceed

with all solemnity to the election of a new head of the empire. The

throng was considerable, and was distributed in accordance with the great

duchies of the empire; the Lorrainers taking up their quarters on the

left bank of the Rhine, the Saxons, Franconians, Swabians, and Bavarians

on the right. The princes and bishops naturally took the lead in the

election ceremonies, and they therefore met at Kamba, opposite Oppenheim.

There they conferred concerning the candidates for royalty who should

be proposed to the people--that is to say, to the aforesaid body of the

minor nobility. The opinions they expressed always came to the knowledge

of the popular assembly, so that the latter could exercise at least a

moral influence upon the principal electors by applause or dissent.

The conference lasted long, its fluctuations of opinion communicated

a certain amount of agitation to the great throng, the minds of men

were kept in suspense, and the solemn election became a scene of great

animation. At length the diversities of opinion resolved themselves into

an agreement that two men were worthiest to wear the crown, both of them

Franconian nobles, both bearing the name of Conrad, and both being the

sons of two brothers--grandsons of the famous Conrad the Red, son-in-law

of Otto I. In order to distinguish between the two, one was styled the

Elder and the other the Younger.

The election hung undecided between them for some time longer, till

the elder Conrad, calculating the effect such a step would have upon

the people, approached the younger with an amicable proposal that each

of them should do his best to prevent a quarrel over the election; and

to that end they should both undertake to yield sincere allegiance

to whichever should be nominated by a majority of the princes with

the assent of the people. When the younger Conrad had agreed to this,

the archbishop of Mainz solemnly proposed the elder Conrad as head

of the empire, setting forth his superior claims in a brief oration.

The proposition was strongly supported by a majority of the bishops,

and secured the assent of many of the princes; and when the empress

Kunigunde, the widow of Henry II, handed over the insignia of royalty

with all speed to Conrad the Elder, the assembly hailed him king of the

Germans, and the election was ratified by the solemn plaudits of the

nation. Conrad the Younger himself had given his vote for his cousin when

he saw the way the election was tending, and a quarrel was thus avoided.

The duke of Lorraine and the archbishop of Cologne both expressed their

dissatisfaction at the result of the election, but no more serious

consequences ensued; and Conrad the Elder was recognised by all parties

as king of the Germans, the second of that name. This circumstance

conduced greatly to the furtherance of the national interests of Germany,

as did the result of the election itself; for the new king was a man well

fitted to impart fresh strength and consequence to the empire.

Conrad II, it is true, was not animated by the noble spirit which leads

through pure patriotism to a self-denying devotion to public affairs;

on the contrary, he zealously pursued his own selfish ends, and was

often led astray by motives of mere self-interest. Nevertheless, as it

happened, his wishes coincided with the interests of the nation; for he

strove to enhance the power of his own house, and seeking to attain this

end by establishing a hereditary monarchy, he bent all his endeavours

to increasing the imperial authority and, as a natural consequence,

cementing national unity. Nor was he deficient in the qualities required

for at least approximate success in his schemes, though we miss in him

the nobler endowments for success, which advance openly to gain the

object they have in view, by the help of genius, force of character,

and inflexible will. But in place of these qualities he possessed a

political sagacity so keen and subtle that he could carry through the

most difficult schemes by covert measures. With this sagacity he combined

energy, courage, and skill in arms. Indeed for the greater part of his

life he had been engaged in military pursuits, but he nevertheless was

possessed of so remarkable an aptitude for politics, that, being as

clear-headed as he was adroit, he directed the affairs of the state with

altogether exceptional skill.

CONRAD II INCREASES HIS POWER

In the year 1024 a gifted and vigorous king had at length been elected;

to such a man a thorough reform of political conditions would certainly

appear an imperative necessity in view of the condition to which the

empire had been reduced. Conrad II had first to try to increase the

property of the crown before he could venture upon a struggle against

the usurpations of the nobles. This was not to be effected either easily

or speedily, and he therefore endeavoured in the first place to gain

time for confirming his power by friendly behaviour towards the great

nobles. For this reason, after his consort Gisela had also been crowned

at Cologne, he determined to begin by making a progress through Germany,

for the double purpose of securing general recognition and investigating

the condition of the crown lands of the head of the empire. He first went

to Aachen, where an assembly of the nobles of Lorraine had been convened.

The king’s most formidable enemies were the seigneurs of the higher

nobility; and in order to counterbalance them Conrad was obliged to rely

on the middle classes, represented at this time by the lesser nobles, the

commons not having yet attained a sufficient degree of power.

[Illustration: GERMAN WOMAN OF QUALITY OF THE TENTH CENTURY]

During his stay in Aachen, the king won the favour of the lesser nobility

by a very well calculated political measure. Most families of this class

had already fallen, by the spread of feudalism, into the position of

vassals to some great noble; and disputes frequently arose between them

and their feudal lords, because in certain cases the latter would not

allow the fief to be transmitted to the descendants of the vassal. Conrad

II, who was well aware of this state of things and eager for any means

of weakening the power of the great nobles, promulgated during his stay

in Aachen a decree to the effect that the descendants of a vassal were

entitled to succeed to the fief in perpetuity.

This was a very drastic measure, and greatly increased the popularity

of the king. From Aachen Conrad proceeded to Saxony to dispose the

minds of the Saxons favourably to himself. There he was obliged to have

recourse to very different means. The Saxons were by this time accustomed

to the unity of the German state, but they were still apprehensive of

restrictions upon their national laws, and their first and most pressing

demand was for the confirmation of the same. These consisted of the harsh

regulations of serfdom which had come down from primitive times, the

strict prohibition of unequal marriages, etc., and thus redounded to the

advantage of the nobility alone.

[Sidenote: [1024-1026 A.D.]]

Conrad, however, could not afford to anger the great Saxon nobles, and

he therefore confirmed “the so cruel laws of the Saxons,” as Wipo[c]

phrases it. Having thus secured his recognition by the North Germans, he

next collected the tribute due from the border Slavs who were subjects

of the empire, that by this means he might provide himself with material

resources for carrying out his designs; and then proceeded by way of

Franconia to Bavaria and Swabia. On this progress Conrad established

himself firmly in the popular esteem, and by the time it was finished his

position seemed much stronger than before.

In Italy fresh troubles had arisen, for a party among the Lombards were

desirous of overthrowing the German supremacy, and wished to transfer

their allegiance to France for that purpose. On the other hand, Heribert,

archbishop of Milan, was well disposed towards the Germans, and therefore

journeyed to visit Conrad II, who was at that time in Constance, in

which place he had likewise resided during the first year of his reign.

The king received him very graciously, and lent a favourable ear to the

bishop’s request that he should make a military expedition into Italy.

An embassy from the opposition party, and from the city of Pavia in

particular, had also made its appearance at Constance, but was harshly

received by Conrad; and it is probable that he would at that time have

undertaken a campaign beyond the Alps if he had not been busy with

matters nearer home. The consummation of the national unity of the German

race was obviously an admirable means of enhancing the power of the

crown, but a considerable portion of German territory was still alienated

from the empire. Part of Switzerland on the German side of the Jura

belonged to Burgundy, which was ruled by an independent king.

A quarrel over the succession, to which we have previously referred, had

already taken place between this monarch and Henry II, and had resulted

in the conclusion of a treaty by which after the death of the childless

king Rudolf the succession to his dominions was assured to the head of

the German Empire.

When Henry was dead, however, the king of Burgundy tried to put a

different construction on the treaty, declaring that he had bestowed the

succession on Conrad’s predecessor merely as his sister’s son, and not as

king of the Germans. But Conrad II being bent, as Wipo[c] observes, on

the aggrandisement and not the diminution of the empire, forthwith took

up arms against Rudolf and occupied the city of Bâle, which at that time

belonged to Burgundy.

By this he incurred the violent enmity of Duke Ernst of Swabia, who was

the “natural” heir of Rudolf, and of Gisela by her first marriage, and

thus stepson to Conrad II; and as many German nobles secretly sided

with the duke, while at the same time a Slavonic prince, Boleslaw by

name, rebelled against the empire, and while the affairs of Italy seemed

imperatively to demand the king’s presence, the latter postponed the

acquisition of the rest of Burgundy to a more favourable opportunity.

He first marched to Saxony to reduce Boleslaw to submission; but the

Slavonic prince died before his arrival, and a civil war broke out

between his sons which exhausted the forces of both.

CONRAD IN ITALY AND GERMANY (1026-1039 A.D.)

[Sidenote: [1026-1030 A.D.]]

Putting off, therefore, the subjugation of the rebellious Slavs, Conrad

immediately set everything in readiness for his expedition into Italy. He

first convoked a diet at Augsburg, had his son Henry elected successor

to his throne, and yielding to his wife’s persuasions was reconciled

to his stepson, Duke Ernst of Swabia. This took place in 1026, and in

the same year the German army made its appearance in Italy. Pavia was

first invested, and repeated attempts were made to take it by storm;

but the brave citizens victoriously repulsed every assault, and Conrad

was reduced to great straits. This so enraged him that, goaded to fury,

he savagely devastated the surrounding country. The German king gained

little by these cruelties, and as in spite of his victory he suffered

great loss at the taking of Ravenna, he might have been compelled to

retreat ingloriously from Italy if his political astuteness had not come

to his aid. He succeeded in bringing the king of Burgundy, on whose

assistance the Lombards relied, over to his own side. Rudolf came to

Italy in person to be present at Conrad’s coronation as emperor, and the

courage of the inhabitants of the invaded country sank so low that even

Pavia surrendered, and Conrad was acknowledged king of Lombardy. He then

received the imperial crown at the hands of Pope John XIX, on the 26th

of March, 1027; and after making some provisions for the pacification of

Lombardy he hastened back to Germany, where in the meanwhile his presence

had become extremely necessary.

In spite of the show of reconciliation, Duke Ernst of Swabia was

meditating open rebellion. Conrad was well informed of the plans of

the conspirators, though the secret had been carefully guarded; and

therefore, after crossing the Alps, he proceeded with all haste to

Ratisbon to make preparations for subduing the threatened revolt.

Conrad’s plans on this occasion strikingly display his practical ability

and clear-sightedness. During his absence in Italy the ducal office had

become vacant in Bavaria by the death of Henry, and the king endeavoured

to procure it for his own family. In view of the encroachments of the

great nobles, who amassed vast wealth at the expense of the empire,

this would have profited him little unless he could increase the ducal

revenue at the same time. Consequently, having succeeded in getting his

ten-year-old son Henry appointed duke of Bavaria, Conrad instituted a

strict inquiry into the condition of the property of the empire in that

province, and restored to the crown much that had been usurped by bishops

and counts. By this measure the king really struck at the root of the

evil. Decrees could do little to cement the unity of the empire; what it

needed was to be provided with a material basis. And of this, the most

necessary element in the condition to which the empire had come was the

creation of a revenue which should make the head of the state independent

of the accidents of private fortune for the maintenance of his authority.

The kings commonly made the mistake of trying to gain the adherence or

friendship of the great nobles by presents made at the expense of the

property of the empire; and therefore Conrad II acted not only wisely but

honourably when, amidst the greatest dangers, he adopted the opposite

course; for it was nobler to perish than to reduce the office of head

of the state to a shadow, by purchasing the favour of the great nobles.

The salutary effect of his firmness was quickly manifest; for after he

had gained his object in Bavaria the king took vigorous measures to put

an end to the agitation in Swabia. For this purpose he promptly convened

a diet at Ulm to sit in judgment upon Duke Ernst in Alamannia. The duke

collected an army and marched against the king, but the firm attitude

of the latter had already made a great impression upon the nobles. Two

counts deserted the duke, others of the conspirators followed, and within

a short time Ernst’s forces were so diminished that he was obliged to

submit to the king’s mercy. Conrad had his stepson conveyed in custody to

the fortress of Giebichenstein near Halle, and then reduced the whole of

Swabia to allegiance to the head of the empire. These proceedings added

greatly to his reputation, open and secret foes now courted the king’s

favour, and by the fifth year of his reign Conrad II had materially

increased the authority of the empire.

[Sidenote: [1030-1032 A.D.]]

He now determined to take in hand the expedition against the Slavs, which

had been postponed on account of the urgency of Italian affairs; but

it proved abortive, and he was forced to return into Saxony with great

loss. A quarrel with the Hungarians arose at the same time, and Duke

Ernst renewed his attempt at rebellion. Conrad had recalled him from

Giebichenstein and offered to reinstate him in his duchy under certain

conditions; but the negotiations came to nothing, Ernst escaped from his

stepfather’s court and with his faithful adherent, Count von Kyburg,

essayed the fortune of war. Both were outlawed, and soon afterwards slain

in a fight in the Black Forest.[147]

Conrad’s safety was consequently assured in that quarter, and he

immediately invaded Hungary with an army. Here again he soon found it

preferable to restore peace by the methods of political sagacity rather

than by force of arms, and negotiations were therefore adroitly set on

foot and brought to a successful issue. Stephen, king of Hungary, sued

for peace and it was concluded on terms honourable to Germany. During the

duke of Swabia’s second revolt the Slavs, against whom Conrad’s arms had

proved so unfortunate, had invaded and ravaged Saxony and Thuringia.

[Illustration: A GERMAN WARRIOR]

Little could be done to oppose them, on account of the war with the

Hungarians, but as soon as that was ended the German king resolved to

exact satisfaction. Once more, however, he was desirous of courting

success by policy rather than by arms. Mieczyslaw, the son of Duke

Boleslaw, was involved in a war (as has already been stated) with his

brother Otto. Now, in Conrad’s unlucky campaign against Mieczyslaw,

Otto, who inclined to the side of the Germans, had been driven out of

the country. With him Conrad again entered into negotiations, and in

consequence Otto (who was also favoured by the Russians) appeared once

more in the district between the Elbe and the Oder, occupied by Slavonic

tribes, who even then were styled Poles. Conrad sent an army from Saxony

to support his protégé, and the civil war began afresh among the Poles.

Mieczyslaw was thus brought to a more yielding temper, and, although

Otto was slain soon after, he endeavoured to establish a permanent peace

with the king of Germany. A peace was actually brought about, the Polish

prince submitting to tribute and to give part of the country between the

Elbe and the Oder to the Germans.

[Sidenote: [1032-1036 A.D.]]

During the war and the negotiations with Mieczyslaw (in the year 1032)

King Rudolf of Burgundy died. Conrad II had long laid claim to the

succession, and as a certain count of Champagne, Eudes by name, opposed

his pretensions, he was obliged to turn his arms westwards after

concluding peace with the Poles. The count of Champagne had already

occupied Neuenburg (Neuchâtel) and Murten (Morat); but by the winter

of 1032 he had been forced into a somewhat disadvantageous position in

Switzerland, and when, in the year 1033, Conrad II invaded Champagne

itself to compel his rival to evacuate Burgundy, the latter submitted at

discretion and promised the king of the Germans that he would leave the

country, confirming his promise with a solemn oath. Conrad was obliged to

hurry back to Germany, as another Slavonic tribe on the Elbe, the Liutizi

this time, was disquieting Germany, and Othelric, duke of Bohemia, was

threatening rebellion. Othelric was deposed, and Conrad was on the point

of attacking the Liutizi when tidings came that Eudes of Champagne had

broken his word and was again endeavouring to acquire the sovereignty of

Burgundy. In the spring of 1034 the German king marched for the second

time through Bavaria and Swabia to Burgundy, while another army invaded

it at his command, crossing over the St. Bernard from Lombardy. From

this time forward Eudes could offer but a futile resistance. Conrad was

acknowledged king by the whole of Burgundy, and the country was solemnly

incorporated with the German Empire. Switzerland was thereby also brought

into complete union with the mother-country, and the full extent of

German nationality restored. Thereupon Conrad brought the Liutizi once

more into subjection to the empire, but in this war such cruelties were

perpetrated that he entailed upon himself the curses of the unhappy Slavs

and the reprobation of history.

Nevertheless his outward position was brilliant. Not only had he

considerably extended the borders of the empire, but he had exalted the

royal office to power and dignity. Tranquillity prevailed in the interior

of Germany; in Italy, on the contrary, a commotion arose more serious

than the disorders common in that country. There, as in Germany, the sway

of the great nobles was oppressive, but in Italy disaffection was rife

among the vassals, and they determined to resist the arrogant pretensions

of their lords, sword in hand. The storm broke out first in Milan, and

between that city and Lodi a great battle was fought which practically

left matters as they had been. The emperor allowed himself to be drawn

into the quarrel, and undertook a second military expedition to Italy in

the year 1036.

In Italy the emperor promulgated a famous edict on the subject of estates

in fee (_Edictum de beneficiis_), by which he directed that a vassal

should not be deprived of such an estate except for certain offences, and

then only by the sentence of the law pronounced by a court of his peers.

The appeal to the king or his deputy had a place in these legal

proceedings--another clear proof of the purpose of Conrad’s policy, which

aimed at weakening the power of the great nobles.

[Sidenote: [1035-1039 A.D.]]

On the other hand there are many evidences to show how greatly the royal

authority had increased. For one thing, Conrad deposed Duke Adalbert of

Carinthia from his high office in 1035, because he had not borne himself

worthily in the Lombard disturbances; and Italy itself witnessed a deed

wholly without precedent, for Archbishop Heribert of Milan, a powerful

prince and highly respected dignitary of the church, who occupied almost

the first place after the pope, was arrested for disloyalty by the German

king.

Heribert saved himself from imprisonment by flight, and Conrad, whom

he then openly defied, could hardly take any effective action against

him; nevertheless the occurrence produced a profound impression. After

two years’ absence from home the king returned to Germany, where he

occupied himself principally with the affairs of Burgundy, and ultimately

delegated the government of that country to his son Henry. In the year

1038 he proceeded to North Germany and there endeavoured to consolidate

the empire by paving the way for settled legal order. In the year 1039 he

fell sick at Utrecht, and died at that place on the 3rd of July in the

same year.

THE ACCESSION OF HENRY III (1039 A.D.)

[Sidenote: [1039-1043 A.D.]]

Among the merits of Conrad II, a high place must be given to the care

he bestowed upon the education of his son and successor. Henry III

was adorned with all the qualities which constitute the basis of true

greatness; for not only did his admirable intellectual endowments render

him capable of acquiring skill as a statesman and a commander, but his

firmness and courage provided him with means of applying what he learned

to practical affairs. With acute intelligence and energy he combined a

high degree of moral earnestness, manifested in honourable endeavours

after improvement; and as the natural bias of his mind inclined him

strongly to benevolence and justice, nothing but a wise education was

needed to make Henry one of the noblest of his race.[148]

Fortunately the development of his character was well cared for. His

mother, Gisela, a woman of strong intellect and great nobility of soul,

highly educated for her time, had a beneficent influence on him in

childhood, and when the boy had thriven and grown strong under her care

he was transferred altogether to the charge of the learned bishop Bruno

of Augsburg, who initiated his pupil, by years of systematic teaching,

into all the knowledge of the age. Then followed instruction in political

affairs from Bishop Eigelbert of Freisingen, by which Henry profited so

greatly that from his nineteenth year onwards his father was able to

employ him in such matters. At the same time, he was thoroughly trained

in all knightly accomplishments, and early sent into the field.

The twenty-two-year-old king saw clearly the path he had to follow.

Even in his father’s lifetime he had realised where the strength and

the weakness of the empire lay; where he should continue to act in his

father’s spirit, and where he must strike out on a totally different

path. Henry III, like his predecessor, desired the aggrandisement of his

own house; like him he endeavoured to make the royal dignity hereditary

in his family, but he scorned to stoop to unworthy means. Being convinced

that his endeavours were conducive to the interests of the nation rather

than subversive of them, he felt his conscience clear and thought

himself justified in carrying out his designs by honourable methods. He

was thus constrained to avoid much in which Conrad II would have indulged

himself, and the first token of this difference was Henry’s firm resolve

to raise the standard of public morals by steadfastly refusing to accept

gifts in return for ecclesiastical preferment.

HENRY’S EFFORTS FOR PEACE

Even during the lifetime of Conrad II, Bretislaw, duke of Bohemia, a son

of Othelric, had invaded Poland and perpetrated hideous ravages in the

country. The German king--either appealed to by the inhabitants in their

distress, or apprehensive for his own sake of the spread of the power of

Bohemia--despatched two armies in the year 1039 to attack Bretislaw in

Bohemia itself, an enterprise which ended in disaster to the Germans. In

order to restore his impaired credit, Henry was obliged to undertake a

fresh expedition against the Bohemian duke in the following year. This

he conducted with great energy, himself leading one of the two armies he

had equipped. This time victory waited upon the German arms, Prague was

invested and Bretislaw compelled to submit. The latter vowed allegiance

and fealty to the head of the German Empire, undertook to pay tribute,

and gave hostages as a guarantee of his good faith. For all that Henry

was not yet free to devote his energies to the domestic affairs of the

empire, for disturbances began to be rife in Burgundy and fresh dangers

loomed in the Hungarian quarter. Peter, king of Hungary, had been driven

out of his country, and appealed for assistance to Henry at Ratisbon;

Ovo, the new king, pursued him with an army and the enemies plundered

freely in Bavaria.

In consequence Henry marched to Hungary with an army in August, 1042, to

demand satisfaction for the outrage. He advanced victoriously through

the country, took several fortified towns, and received the oath of

allegiance or fealty from the inhabitants; but he could not induce

them to take back their banished king. He therefore installed another

sovereign and returned at once to Germany. In the winter immediately

following (1042) he hurried to Burgundy, where he tranquillised the

country by his firm and clement administration of justice. Thus he

quickly reduced the refractory nobles to obedience; but on the other

hand fresh troubles arose in Hungary, where the people drove out the new

sovereign whom Henry had installed as soon as the latter had withdrawn

from the country. Ovo made repeated incursions into Bavaria and laid

waste the country on both sides of the Danube. The German king, who was

consequently constrained to undertake a second campaign against the

Hungarians, soon put an end to the evil, and compelled the enemy not only

to make reparation but to give ampler security for his good behaviour in

future.

[Sidenote: [1043-1046 A.D.]]

Then at length Henry resolved to devote all his attention to internal

politics. One of the greatest evils of the times was the abuse of the

right of self-help, which gave birth to a rude system of government

by force under which the nation was lapsing into savagery. The weaker

suffered under the heaviest oppressions, and the wise king was therefore

deeply concerned to remedy first of all this aspect of public affairs.

To pave the way for the establishment of a system of law he convened

a diet of the empire at Constance, when he returned from his second

Hungarian campaign. This took place in the year 1043, and many temporal

lords, as well as bishops, appeared at it. Henry III was always present

at its deliberations; he fired all who were there by his own enthusiasm

for peace and justice, and brought them to a unanimous decision that

thenceforth legal order should be maintained in Germany. The king

issued a decree to this effect with the sanction of the diet, and thus

established a peace hitherto unknown in the country. To ensure a result

so happy Henry had set a noble example by magnanimously pardoning all his

enemies.

From Constance, Henry proceeded to Goslar, where in the winter of 1043

he was visited by embassies from several nations desirous of testifying

their respect for the head of the German Empire. So great was the

esteem in which he was held that a Russian embassy solemnly offered the

young king, who was already a widower, the hand of the czar’s daughter.

Henry, however, haughtily rejected any such alliance, and the Russians

departed sorrowfully from his court. In the same year the king married

Agnes, daughter of the count of Poitiers, and at this ceremony one of

the admirable traits of his character was clearly shown. Great distress

prevailed in the land in consequence of the failure of the crops and

an outbreak of cattle-plague; and instead of admitting jugglers and

musicians to his nuptial festivities and bestowing rich presents upon

them, he distributed the money among the poor, to alleviate their

distress. Other events soon occurred to augment the troubles of the time,

for the Hungarians a third time broke their oath of allegiance, while

symptoms of rebellion declared themselves in Lorraine, Duke Gottfried

trying to seize for his own the portion of the country which his father,

with the king’s consent, had assigned to Gozelo, his second son. Under

these circumstances Henry had only a small force to employ against the

Hungarians, but once more his daring and courage compensated for the

paucity of material resources.

Ovo offered battle at the head of an immense army. The German king had

not yet collected all his troops, many of them having been delayed by

the way. Nevertheless Henry boldly crossed the Raab under the eyes of

the Hungarians, made a furious onslaught on the enemy’s lines with his

handful of troops, and won a victory as complete as it was brilliant.

As a result of this success Peter was reinstated as king and received

the crown of Hungary as a fief of the German Empire. After these great

achievements Henry swiftly turned his arms against the rebel duke

Gottfried of Lorraine. The struggle did not long hang in the balance;

Gottfried soon realised the king’s superior power, submitted, and was

punished with incarceration in the fortress of Giebichenstein. Thus by a

solemn act of justice the emperor of the Germans ratified the political

principle that the dukes were responsible officers of the state. To

confirm by practice the royal prerogative of nominating such officers,

the dukedom of Swabia was conferred on Count Otto of the Rhenish

palatinate in the year 1045; and in 1046 Frederick, brother of the duke

of Bavaria, was installed in Upper Lorraine, in place of Gozelo. In

the same spirit Henry guarded against usurpations on the part of other

great nobles. Thus, in the year 1046, he punished Margrave Dietrich of

Vlärdingen in Holland, for having taken wrongful possession of what was

not his own.

THE PAPACY SUBORDINATED TO HENRY

[Sidenote: [1046-1047 A.D.]]

The affairs of Italy next attracted the attention of the German king.

There the utmost disorder had crept, not only into political affairs,

but also into those of the church. Ecclesiastical preferment was openly

bought and sold, church dignitaries strove among themselves for power

by intrigues of every sort, while, to crown all, three popes were

quarrelling for the authority of supreme pontiff. Scenes of this kind

confirmed Henry in his determination to inaugurate a reformation of the

church. He therefore made preparations to proceed to Italy forthwith,

but before starting he released Duke Gottfried from his captivity at

Giebichenstein, and magnanimously reinstated him in his high office. He

then crossed the Alps with a vast army in the autumn of 1046. On his

arrival in Italy he found a council of bishops who had assembled at his

command at Sutri to decide first of all the scandalous dispute between

pope and rival popes. The king of Germany refused to tolerate any one of

the antagonists, but required that they should all three be deposed. By

the mingled energy and wisdom of his conduct he succeeded in carrying his

point, and a German prelate, Bishop Suidger of Bamberg, was appointed

head of the church at his wish. Suidger assumed the title of Clement II,

and Henry received the imperial crown from his hand in St. Peter’s church

at Rome, in the year 1047. One important step had now been taken towards

the accomplishment of the king’s great designs, and having seen the new

pope firmly established in his office, Henry III returned that same year

to Germany.

There the beneficial results of the Diet of Constance were gratifyingly

evident, for such order prevailed throughout the country “as no man ever

experienced before.” Margrave Dietrich of Vlärdingen had indeed attempted

to avail himself of the king’s absence to renew his arrogant pretensions,

and Duke Gottfried of Lorraine still nourished thoughts of sedition; the

two had even formed a secret confederacy against the emperor, together

with Count Baldwin of Flanders. But they had but short-lived successes;

Henry III promptly deposed the rebellious duke from his office, and

deprived him of all authority. Dietrich lost not only his dominions, but

his life into the bargain, and the whole of his territory was brought

under the emperor’s sway. The credit of the imperial authority was

completely restored.

[Illustration: GERMAN WARRIOR OF THE ELEVENTH CENTURY]

Meanwhile the king displayed the most commendable vigour in the conduct

of domestic politics. During the disturbances in Lorraine and Holland,

which he left to his great officers to quell, he had been making progress

through all parts of Germany and had despatched important affairs of

state at various places. Everywhere the king’s keen glance watched over

the course of justice, and the interior of Germany attained a notable

degree of prosperity and contentment. This we can perceive from the fact

that the cities were rising by degrees to the position of an independent

element in the state. In the wars against Gottfried of Lorraine and

Dietrich of Vlärdingen, the citizens, admonished by the bishops, often

took up arms themselves in defence of their cities, which is evidence

not only of the advance which those communities had made both in wealth

and population, but also of the political importance they had acquired.

It is worthy of note, also, that even then the cities were on the side of

imperial authority against rebellious counts and dukes.

[Sidenote: [1047-1048 A.D.]]

Henry III was now strong enough to carry through the long-contemplated

reformation of the church. In the press of business which had occupied

him he had never lost sight of ecclesiastical affairs; on the contrary,

he had steadily made preparations with a view to his purpose in this

respect, displaying a vigour which commands admiration. The pope had

previously claimed the right to nominate the emperor; the third Henry,

on the contrary, exercised a decisive influence over the election of

the pope, and it became almost customary that this office should be

conferred by the king of Germany. The elevation of Clement II to the

papacy had taken place by Henry’s desire; Clement died nine months after,

and the king of Germany nominated the bishop of Brixen as his successor.

This pope, who took the name of Damasus II, died a few weeks after his

arrival at Rome; and Henry again filled the vacancy in the apostolic

see, this time elevating a relative of his own, Bishop Bruno of Toul, to

the position of head of the church. The manner in which the chroniclers

speak of these important proceedings is remarkable. With them there is

no longer any question of the right of the king of Germany to nominate

the pope; they mention it as a matter that calls for no explanation.

“Poppo, bishop of Brixen,” says Hermann,[f] “was chosen pope by the

emperor and sent to Rome, where he was received with great honour.” The

same thing is said of the nomination of the bishop of Toul. Lambert of

Aschaffenburg,[g] who confirms this testimony, adds that on the death

of the pope the Romans always sent an embassy to the king of Germany to

request him to nominate a new supreme pontiff. Such a state of things was

wholly without precedent, and by means of it Henry exalted, more highly

than any of his predecessors, the power of the empire.

In the completion of the reformation of the church in the year 1050, one

of the emperor’s chief aims was fulfilled. The effect of the measure on

the country was most salutary, morals were purified and a higher standard

of seriousness and industry prevailed. The system of law and order was

consolidated by the subjugation of the great nobles. But it was not only

the dukes and counts whom Henry kept within bounds; he inflicted sharp

chastisement on members of the lesser nobility also, by confiscating

their property or by other methods, if they committed any act of wanton

injustice. By this means he imposed a strong restraint upon the abuse

of self-help, and the towns throve and increased so rapidly that they

presently began to take direct part in the affairs of the empire.

For several years Henry’s relations with foreign countries were friendly;

but this peace was disturbed from 1051 onwards by the joint attempt of

the Poles and Hungarians to shake off German dominion. The Hungarians

invaded the empire, and in the year 1051 the emperor took the field

against them in person. He advanced into Hungary itself with a great

force; and though obliged to withdraw by inclement weather, his retreat

was marked by valiant feats of arms on the part of the German army. In

the following year, 1052, a second expedition was undertaken against

Hungary. Henry III invested Pressburg, but at the intercession of Pope

Leo IX he raised the siege and returned to Germany. But a genuine peace

could not be brought about merely by the mediation of the pontiff; the

enmity continued.

[Sidenote: [1052-1055 A.D.]]

The Peace of Tribur was finally ratified, and Henry had once more time

to devote his energies to the internal affairs of the empire. Down to

the year 1055 he worked hard at consolidating the legal system and

developing the resources of the nation. Fresh disorders in Italy called

him thither. Matters beyond the Alps had been in dire confusion for many

years, for Pope Leo IX became involved in a war with the Normans in

1053 and was actually taken prisoner by them. In addition, Gottfried,

the deposed duke of Lorraine, who had been reconciled to the emperor in

1050 by the good offices of Leo IX and had then accompanied the pope to

Italy, had there married the widow of Marquis Bonifazio of Tuscany and

taken possession of her former husband’s dominions. Henry III feared

that Gottfried would stir up rebellion in Italy, and this circumstance

seemed also to render the emperor’s presence in that country imperative.

He had therefore long meditated another expedition across the Alps, but

disaffections that arose in Germany itself and various isolated attempts

on the part of some refractory nobles decided him not to quit the country.

In the year 1054 Pope Leo died and the Romans again sent an embassy

to request the emperor to nominate a new pope. This he at first

modestly declined to do; but, yielding nevertheless to their reiterated

entreaties, he designated Bishop Gebhard of Eichstädt, his kinsman and

friend, as the successor of Leo IX. Gebhard was unanimously accepted in

this capacity, and assumed the papal dignity under the title of Victor

II, amidst the acclaims of the people. Thus Henry III for the fourth

time disposed of the papal office, and for the fourth time conferred

it on a German. At the nomination of Victor II Hildebrand himself, the

influential counsellor of Leo IX, was with the embassy which besought the

emperor to designate the next pope, which proves how little intention

Hildebrand had of opposing the will of Henry III. Like the emperor he

earnestly desired reform, and showed by this step that he had no fear

of undue encroachments on the part of the latter upon the privileges of

the church. Thus even the strongest natures in a manner attest their

reverence for the great emperor’s character.

[Illustration: GERMAN NOBLE OF THE ELEVENTH CENTURY IN COURT DRESS]

After the appointment of Pope Victor II, the king of Germany felt himself

bound to afford him the protection of his imperial authority, and in the

year 1055 he started for Italy, almost at the same time as the pope.

In May of that year he appeared on the plains of Roncaglia; and there

the princes and feudal vassals of Italy likewise appeared, to offer

the homage of sincere reverence to the king of Germany, together with

their oaths of allegiance. Pope Victor II convened a synod at Florence,

where, in the emperor’s presence, the laws against simony and other

edicts of a reformatory tendency were either re-enacted or amplified.

An inquiry was then held into the conduct of Gottfried, sometime duke

of Lorraine, which ended in the acquittal of the defendant--not, so the

old chronicler expressly states, because his innocence was proved, but

because his judges feared that if driven to desperation he would make

himself the leader of the Normans in lower Italy. His wife Beatrice

was carried off to Germany by Henry III, who defended his arbitrary

action in this respect by saying that Beatrice had disposed of her hand

without his consent, and had moreover bestowed it upon an enemy of her

country. Towards the end of the year 1055 the emperor recrossed the

Alps. Several nobles were already cherishing schemes of revolt, for a

conspiracy had been formed against him under the leadership of Bishop

Gebhard of Ratisbon; and Gottfried, assisted by Count Baldwin, once more

made his appearance in Lorraine. The schemes of the malcontents were

again frustrated by Henry’s firmness; Gebhard was brought to trial and

committed to prison, and both Gottfried and Baldwin were defeated in the

open field.

On this occasion the emperor met the king of France at Jovi to settle

various affairs of state, and here again the vigour and heroic temper of

Henry III were strikingly displayed. For the French king asserted that

the German Empire had unlawfully taken possession of Lorraine, whereupon

Henry offered to prove the falsity of the assertion by single combat.

The king of France was only too well aware of the German emperor’s

superiority, and fled secretly by night across the border.[h]

THE TRUCE OF GOD

[Sidenote: [1035-1056 A.D.]]

The times were rude, manners were no less so. Ceaseless wars, the feuds

of the nobles, acts of violence of every kind, combined with hunger and

pestilence to bring unspeakable misery upon the nations. According to the

opinions of the time, the papacy should have been a strong helper in the

midst of these calamities, but Rome was the seat of the worst disorders

of all and most of the popes neither deserved nor commanded respect.

At length the miseries of the age aroused--first in the monastery of

Cluny in Burgundian France--an austere and devout religious spirit which

at first found expression, according to the fashion of the times, in

penitential exercises and monkish discipline, but presently ripened into

vast projects of reform.

Hence came, in particular, the recommendation of the “truce of God”

(_Treuga Dei_), and hence it spread over Burgundy and France. This was

an attempt to insure certain days of peace and quiet in that iron age;

it ordained that no feud should be fought out between Wednesday evening

and early Monday morning, and the church sanctioned this institution. So

strong was the influence of the example set by Cluny (Clugny) that in a

little while all the numerous monasteries in France and Burgundy joined

the “congregation of Cluny,” and a sombre earnestness took possession of

the best men of the time.

So it was with Henry III. In the midst of the corruptions of the age he

saw no salvation except through the most drastic measures, and felt that

he, as the emperor, had a special call to be the deliverer of the people.

He himself set a good example; he appointed none but earnest and worthy

men to bishoprics, and that without taking money or presents from them;

by act and admonition he laboured incessantly for peace and conciliation.

He looked upon his imperial rank as a sacred office, instituted for the

improvement of Christendom, and never set the crown upon his head without

previous confession and penance, which last he even had inflicted upon

himself with scourges. But the more he humbled himself the more urgent

did he feel was the call to raise up the church by the mighty hand of the

first of earthly sovereigns.

SORROWS OF HENRY’S LAST YEARS

[Sidenote: [1045-1056 A.D.]]

The day of Sutri was the culminating point of the emperor’s life; from

that time forward until he died he was engaged in an incessant struggle

with adverse circumstances. The Hungarians, after overthrowing King Peter

and putting out his eyes, had shaken off the yoke of the empire, and

Henry’s frequent expeditions against the rebels led to no good result.

Furthermore, before these events occurred, that same Gozelo of Lorraine

to whom Conrad II had been so deeply indebted and upon whom he had

bestowed the whole of Lorraine, had died, and Henry III conferred Upper

Lorraine alone as a fief upon his son Gottfried the Bearded. Gottfried

rebelled, and, as we have seen, won the hand of Beatrice of Tuscany, the

widow of Bonifazio; and thus by marriage this enemy of the emperor had

become the most powerful prince in Italy.

Momentous changes were also taking place in lower Italy. The Normans

had there founded a dominion which began to menace the borders of the

states of the church. Leo IX, like his predecessor a German by birth,

went to war with them, and took the field in person after the custom of

German bishops. He had been defeated and taken prisoner at the battle of

Civitate, not far from Monte Gargano. But the Normans, as crafty as they

were devout, treated the successor of St. Peter with profound veneration,

and Leo made his peace with them, outwardly at least, and repealed the

sentence of excommunication pronounced upon them. After Leo’s death,

Hildebrand, who directed the policy of the papal see, realised the value

of the friendship thus gained; and seeing that the Normans were anxious

to establish a legitimate claim to their conquests in lower Italy and

Sicily, he induced them to accept their lands in fee from St. Peter,

after which they became loyal vassals of the pope. This circumstance,

together with the rise of Gottfried’s power, obliged the emperor to

undertake a fresh expedition to Rome. In the matter of the Normans, Henry

could achieve nothing, for affairs in Germany had obliged him to return

thither with all speed.

Disaffection was rife among the nobles throughout the empire, for

Henry, like his father, had endeavoured to secure the dukedoms for his

own family, or to confer them on men of no consequence who should be

dependent upon himself. The Saxons, whose ancient pride could ill brook

the rule of a Franconian, bore him the bitterest ill-will of all, and, of

the Saxons, the ducal house of Billing most keenly resented the wrongs

which, like many other great Saxon families, it believed it had suffered

at the hands of the emperor and his friends. The expenses of the court,

which the emperor usually held at Goslar to keep the Saxons in check,

also weighed heavily upon the province. The nobility were in a ferment

throughout the empire; the emperor held them down with iron hand, but

his position was in truth even such as one of his faithful councillors

and friends saw in a dream: “The emperor stood before his throne, sword

in hand, and cried with a terrible countenance that he would yet smite

down all his enemies.” But he was snatched from the empire in the flower

of his age, when its need of a strong ruler was sorest. The pope was on

a visit to him, and his nobles were gathered about him in his palace

at Bodfeld in the Harz, where he had gone for a few days to enjoy

the pleasures of the chase. There he was met by the news of a defeat

inflicted on Saxon levies by the Wend tribes at Prizlava, in the angle

between the upper Havel and the Elbe. The evil tidings were soon followed

by the death of the great monarch, and his empire was left to a child six

years old, helpless in the face of the evil days to come.

HENRY IV (1056-1106 A.D.)

[Sidenote: [1056-1066 A.D.]]

The first two emperors of the house of Franconia had drawn in the

reins of government so tightly that the German princes seemed to have

fallen once more upon the times of Charles and Otto the Great. But the

old intractability which prevented complete union was still active in

the German races, and this instinct was now reinforced by the private

interest of the great nobles who found the authority of the empire

irksome when too vigorously wielded, and whose sovereign privileges

had been greatly reduced under Conrad II and Henry III. The moment was

therefore propitious to all who hated a strong and united empire, for

a child king now succeeded the strongest and sternest ruler the empire

had ever known. The empress Agnes was to undertake the regency for the

youthful monarch, Henry IV, as Theophano had done for Otto III. She did

so with Bishop Henry of Augsburg for her adviser. But envy, selfishness,

and perfidy were already at work undermining the power of the crown.

Under the first Franconian monarchs times and manners had been rude and

hard, but now all restraint was flung aside and every consideration of

right and fealty seemed to have departed from the empire.

Troubles presently began to ferment; here and there in Saxony a rumour

ran of attempts on the young king’s life. Agnes was soon forced to make

large concessions in order to gain friends, who proved untrustworthy

after all. A Saxon noble, Otto, of the family of Nordheim, a race akin

to the Billings, whose hereditary seat lay close to the modern town of

Göttingen, received from the empress the duchy of Bavaria, which Henry

III had acquired for his own house. Rudolf von Rheinfelden, a Burgundian

noble, worked his way into the empress’ good graces, and received the

duchy of Swabia together with the hand of the daughter of the empress.

The duchy of Carinthia was given to Berthold, a Zähringian. If only

the empress could have purchased fidelity by these concessions! But

not one of these men was trustworthy; and the moving spirit of all the

plots which aimed at wresting the sovereign power from the empress

and bestowing it on the nobles of the empire, was Archbishop Hanno of

Cologne, a man of low origin, but ambitious, harsh, crafty, and cunning,

although outwardly wearing the semblance of the sanctity of the cloister.

It was natural that the power of the empire should decline abroad--in

Italy, in Hungary, and over the Wends; and the fact was laid to the

charge of the empress, together with the accusation that she was bringing

up her son too effeminately. In brief a criminal project was maturing in

Hanno’s heart as in the hearts of the princes, his allies. The empress

was then at Kaiserwerth on the Rhine with her twelve-year-old son, when

Hanno appeared at her court, and after a festive banquet invited the

young king to take an excursion on the Rhine in his beautiful boat.

The boy embarked unsuspectingly with Hanno, together with some of the

conspirators: the bishop’s serfs plied their oars and the boat was

quickly under way. The lamentations of the young king’s mother pursued

him from her balcony; the people followed on the banks, cursing the

robbers; and the boy himself, alarmed and fearing the worst, jumped

into the river, from which he was rescued with difficulty. But the plot

had succeeded and Hanno, who now had the young king in his own hands,

succeeded, by the help of the nobles, in assuming the reins of power at

the head of the bishops.

Matters were not thereby mended in the empire. The empress soon retired

from the world and ended her days in Italy, occupied in works of piety.

Under Hanno’s administration any man who pleased laid hands on the royal

demesnes; and a few years later the young king was an eye-witness of

mortal combat in the cathedral at Goslar, where brawling ecclesiastics

fought for temporal honours in the very sanctuary.

Such an education sowed the seeds of mistrust, bitterness, and hatred in

the heart of the young ruler, and as soon as he was able he threw himself

into the arms of a different guide, Archbishop Adalbert of Bremen. The

latter, no less ambitious than Hanno, and even prouder, sought to exalt

his famous metropolitan see, whence missions still went forth across

the North Sea and the Baltic, to the position of the patriarchate of

the north. Formerly the friend of Henry III, he now sought to win the

friendship of the youthful Henry IV. When Henry attained the age of

sixteen he declared him of age, according to German law, by girding him

with the sword, but for some years he continued to direct his unripe

youth. In his endeavours Adalbert frequently incurred the displeasure

of the Saxon nobles. Their intentions, as a matter of fact, were evil,

and it was against them that he fostered the young king’s suspicions.

Meanwhile the latter began to grow up to independent manhood. Of the

authority, property, and prerogatives of his predecessors, he found

but little left; all his efforts were directed to their recovery, and

in pursuit of this end he manifested the iron will of his forefathers.

Their hot blood flowed also in his veins, inciting him to occasional

arbitrary acts, and above all to excesses which were magnified by the

slanderous tongues of his enemies. He first sought to subdue Saxony. The

means he employed for the purpose were such as the Normans had adopted

in lower Italy; he erected strongholds in commanding situations in the

land. From these centres, however, many acts of violence were perpetrated

in the surrounding country, and he thus aroused the wrath, not only of

individual nobles, but of the whole Saxon race.

But Henry did more than this to compass the fall of the enemies who

had ruled for so long. About this time a man arose to accuse Otto of

Nordenheim, duke of Bavaria, of having conspired against the king’s life,

and offered to prove the charge by ordeal. Henry deposed the duke, laid

him under the ban of the empire, together with Magnus of Saxony, of the

house of Billing, and presently threw the latter into the dungeon of the

Harzburg. He seemed bent upon completely abolishing the duchy of Saxony;

but Bavaria he gave to a member of the ancient Swabian dynasty, Welf by

name. Meanwhile Adalbert had died, after having seen all his plans go

to wreck; for the Wends east of the Elbe, among whom he had hoped to

establish his suffragan bishoprics by the help of Godschalk, one of their

own chiefs, had rebelled, and extirpated Christianity for the time and

for long afterwards, within their borders.

[Sidenote: [1066-1075 A.D.]]

Henry IV had begun his reign with vigour. This circumstance only hastened

the formation of conspiracies against him among the nobles throughout the

empire. In Saxony, the whole nation was in a ferment--clergy, nobles, and

commons. All complained of intolerable oppression, exercised from Henry’s

strongholds. At the head of the league now formed stood Otto of Nordheim.

In South Germany, Rudolf of Swabia was in accord with him; Welf and Hanno

were equally aware of the plot. The pope, too, influenced by Hildebrand,

now cardinal subdeacon, also began to take an interest in German affairs;

he zealously opposed his ecclesiastical authority to the evil desires of

King Henry, who wished for a divorce from Bertha, his noble wife; and he

also sought to intervene as mediator at the request of the Saxons.

Meanwhile the whole empire was on the verge of rebellion. In the year

1073 the Saxons rose as one man, and marched in a body sixty thousand

strong to Harzburg near Goslar, a castle on a lofty height, commanding

a wide view of the surrounding country, which the king had made into

a stately royal residence. Henry, after useless negotiations, barely

escaped by flight. When he tried to gather the princes of the empire

around him, none appeared; nay, the idea of deserting him altogether and

electing another emperor was openly mooted. At this crisis the towns

alone proved true to Henry from the outset; and whilst these negotiations

were pending, he lay sick to death in the loyal city of Worms. But he

had scarcely recovered before he met and defeated the foreign foe in

Hungary; and then with restless activity he turned to affairs at home. He

still had some friends; the archbishop of Mainz, the dukes of Lorraine

and Bohemia, and Welf of Bavaria came over on his side; and finally even

Rudolf, who shortly before had laid the most treasonable plots against

him, thought it advisable to make a fresh display of devotion. Concord

between the South German princes and Saxons was at an end, and Henry

skilfully made use of their dissensions.

In the wantonness of victory the Saxons had destroyed the Harzburg; they

had even burned a church and desecrated graves; the archbishop of Mainz

excommunicated them for the sacrilege; and in the summer of 1075 Henry IV

marched against them, with such a splendid array as few emperors before

him had led, in spite of their proffers of atonement and submission.

Henry could have brought the matter to a peaceful issue, much to his own

advantage and that of his people. But his soul thirsted for vengeance;

he surprised the Saxons and their Thuringian allies at Hohenburg in the

meadows on the Unstrut, not far from Langensalza. His army ranged in the

same order as that of Otto the Great at the battle of the Lech, gained a

sanguinary victory (1075). But German had fought against German, and on

the evening of the battle loud lamentations broke forth in the royal army

for the fallen, many of whom had been slain by the hands of their own

kin. Nevertheless Henry was now master of Saxony and lord of all Germany;

he seemed to have established his throne firmly once more. So he would

have done, in all likelihood, had he not imprudently involved himself in

a much more serious quarrel.

QUARREL BETWEEN HENRY IV AND GREGORY VII

[Sidenote: [1075 A.D.]]

We know how, amidst the indescribable barbarism, misery, and violence

of the eleventh century, a reformation of morals, though in a gloomy

monastic form, had proceeded from the convent of Cluny; and how the

emperor Henry III himself had endeavoured to promote it. Through

Hildebrand this reformation was transferred to Rome, to the court of the

popes, who for nearly two centuries had been oblivious of the vocation

ascribed to them by the faith of the age. As long as Henry III was alive,

the Romans on whom the election still depended had, by Hildebrand’s

advice, allowed the emperor to designate the popes. During the minority

of Henry IV, the election was for the first time committed to the college

of cardinals; and in 1075 Hildebrand was elected pope under the title of

Gregory VII.

This great and gifted man immediately proceeded to carry his own ideas

into practice. He would have the church thenceforth free from all

temporal authority, that of the emperor included. He therefore issued an

edict, which had already been suggested in earlier counsels but never

carried out, prescribing the celibacy of the clergy. Unhampered by wife,

child, and earthly cares, the clergy were in future to feel themselves

merely members of a powerful ecclesiastical community, receiving orders

from Rome, from the successor of St. Peter, the vicegerent of God and

Christ upon earth. This edict, deeply as it touched the life of the

nation, might seem to affect the emperor but slightly; yet a second

struck at the roots of his power. Henceforth neither the emperor nor any

temporal sovereign was to appoint bishops; in the phraseology of the time

the investiture--_i.e._, the conferring of the ring and crosier, the

symbols of episcopal office--was no longer to be in the hands of laymen.

The cathedral chapter, that is to say the college of clergy attached to

each cathedral, was to make the election, the pope to confirm it; no gift

nor purchase was to be made on elevation to the sacred office, otherwise

the candidate was guilty of simony, as the offence was styled, by a

reference to Acts, viii, 18.

This edict was a heavy blow to the German monarchs, for since the reign

of Henry II they had sought and found support among the bishops against

the increasing power of the nobles. The estates of the church formed a

considerable portion of the imperial territory; the monarch disposed of

them and of their revenues if he appointed bishops, as he had always done

up to this time. Many of Henry IV’s appointments had been made, not with

his father’s strict regard for clerical fitness, but for his own profit

and to meet the needs of the moment. Some of these bishops had paid money

to Henry’s counsellors for their appointment, and for this, in 1075,

Gregory VII put them as well as the counsellors under the ban, demanding

of the king to depose them, and threatening him with the punishment

of the church if he refused. Long had Henry watched unwillingly the

encroachments of the pope; after the victory over the Saxons had restored

his power in the empire, he attempted, following the example of his

father, to depose Gregory--without reflecting how much weaker his power

was than his father’s, and how much nobler and greater was the mind of

Gregory VII than were those of the previous popes. At Worms in 1076

he held a synod of German bishops, who neither by their worthy living

nor their education could be called mirrors of the church. By them on

a trumped-up accusation he had Gregory VII deposed. Gregory replied

with the ban in 1076. This was the first time a pope had attempted this

measure against a German king. And Henry was soon to realise what a ban,

which at that time loosed all bonds of feudal obedience, signified.

It was the signal for the princes, who jealously saw the royal power

restored, to desert him. In the autumn of the same year they held a diet

at Tribur on the old election field, and sent word to the king that if

in a year and a day he was not free from the ban, they could no longer

consider him their lord.

Henry saw himself deserted by all; he heard that Gregory VII was

already on the way to Germany to adjudge his cause. He resolved on a

reconciliation with the pope as the best way out of his troubles. He

started in the severe winter, when the rivers were almost frozen in their

beds, and crossed the snow-covered Alps, not as his predecessors with

a formidable army, but as a penitent, accompanied by his noble-minded

wife, a few faithful servants, and those placed under the ban with him.

In Lombardy, in which a strong opposition prevailed against Gregory’s

innovations, he had been offered means of resistance, but he rejected

them, and hastened to Canossa, the fortress of the powerful Countess

Matilda of Tuscany, a daughter of that Beatrice who had once caused

Henry III such anxiety. She was as devoted to Gregory VII as to an

ecclesiastical father, and now offered him her castle. Henry did not come

as an assailant, but as a supplicant.[i]

So picturesque and important was this pilgrimage that it has fallen

into proverb, and “going to Canossa” is a metaphor of humiliation.

The contrast between Henry IV’s beggar-like penance and the manner in

which his forefathers went into Italy and the manner in which the popes

received them, is vivid enough to merit a liberal quotation from the

old historian Lambert von Hersfeld,[g] a contemporary of the event he

describes.[a]

“GOING TO CANOSSA”: A CONTEMPORARY ACCOUNT

[Sidenote: [1075-1077 A.D.]]

Henry IV arrived as he had been ordered, and the castle being surrounded

by three walls, he was received in the circuit of the second wall, which

went round the castle, the whole of his followers remaining outside, and

there, having put down the ensigns of his dignity as a king, and without

any ornaments, having no longer any magnificent wearing apparel, he stood

with bare feet, fasting from morning until evening, awaiting the sentence

of the Roman pope. Thus he spent his second, yea, his third day! Only on

the fourth day was he led before him, and after much talking to and fro,

delivered from the ban under the following conditions:

[Illustration: HENRY IV

(Based on the effigy on his tomb)]

(1) That he should be present at any day or place the pope should decide

upon and, all the princes having been assembled for a general meeting,

find his way there to reply to the charges which were to be brought

against him; the pope meanwhile, if so it pleased him, sitting on the

judgment-seat, to decide the matter. After this sentence he was to keep

the empire, were he able to dispel the accusations, or he was to lose

it without anger, if, after having been convicted, he should be judged

according to the laws of the church unworthy of royal honours. But

whether he kept the realm or lost it, he never on any account or at any

time should take revenge on any human being for this humiliation.

(2) Till the day, however, when his affair should be settled by lawful

instigation, he must not use any apparel of kingly splendour, nor token

of kingly dignity, undertake nothing bearing upon the organisation of the

state, ordinarily his right, nor decide anything which ought to be valid.

(3) Except calling in the taxes indispensable for the keep of himself and

his own people, he was to use no kingly or public moneys. As to all those

who had sworn allegiance to him, they were to be free and relieved of

the thraldom of the oath and of the duty to keep true to him before God

and man.

(4) He must keep forever aloof from Ruotbert, bishop of Bamberg,

Andalrich von Cosheim, and the others by whose counsels he had destroyed

himself as well as his empire, and never again admit them into his

intimate companionship.

(5) Should he, after contestation of the accusations, remain at the

head of the empire, newly strengthened and powerful, he must always

be submissive to the pope and obey his command, and be on his side to

improve everything against the laws of the church, which in his realm

had taken root in consequence of bad habits, yea, do all in his power to

reach that goal.

(6) Finally, should he in the future act against one of these points,

the deliverance from the ban which had been so ardently longed for would

be considered as null and void, yea, he would be regarded as convicted

and having confessed, and no further hearing would be granted to him to

declare his innocence. As to the princes of the empire being permitted

to join their votes and so elect another king, they might do so without

being further examined, and were relieved from all duties of allegiance.

The king accepted these conditions with joy and with the most solemn

assurances promised to fulfil them. However, there was little confidence

felt in his word, therefore the abbot of Cloniaca, who declined to take

the oath on account of his priestly vows, pledged his troth before the

eyes of the all-seeing God; the bishop of Zeits, the bishop of Vercelli,

the markgraf Azzo and the other princes took oath, putting their hands

on the bones of the saints, which were presented to them, that the king

would not be led away from his purpose, neither through any trouble, nor

through the change of events.

Thus having been made free from excommunication the pope said a high mass

calling the king with the rest of the assistants. After having offered

the sacrifice of the sacrament, he said to the crowd which was numerous

around the altar, whilst holding in his hand the body of Christ--the

sacred bread: “Not long ago I have received writings from you and your

followers, wherein you accused me of ascending the apostolic chair by the

heresy of simony, and that before receiving my episcopate and after its

reception I have soiled my life with some other crimes; which according

to the statutes of the canon forbid me to approach the holy sacraments.

By the word of many witnesses, worthy ones beyond a doubt, I might refute

the accusations; I speak of witnesses who know my whole life to the very

fullest from my early youth. I also speak of those who have advanced my

nomination to the holy see. You must not believe though that I depend

upon human rather than upon divine testimony; to free each and all from

this error, and that in the very shortest time, the sacrament, of which I

am about to partake, shall be to me to-day a touchstone of my innocence.

May the all-powerful God by his decree speak me either free from even the

suspicion of the crime I am accused of, or make me die a sudden death if

I am guilty.”

These words and others he spoke, such solemn usage being customary, and

called upon the Lord to support him, he being the most just of judges

and the protector of innocence; then he partook of the sacrament. Having

partaken of it with the greatest calm, and the multitude having raised

a shout to the honour of God, which was at the same time a homage to

innocence, he turned, after silence was restored, towards the king,

saying:

“Do now, my son, if it pleases you, what you have seen me do. The princes

of Germany trouble us every day with their complaints; they put upon

your shoulders a great load of terrible crimes, on account of which they

deem that you should be kept away, and this up to your very end, not

only from all direction of public affairs, but also from frequenting the

church, and that you should be held aloof from all intercourse in civil

life. They also ask most pressingly that a day may be appointed and

audience given for a full canonical investigation of the accusations they

are going to bring forward against you. You yourself know best that human

judgment is generally deceptive, and that in public lawsuits often the

false instead of the true is accepted, things being wrongly expounded;

one likes to listen to the speeches of eloquent men, speeches rich by

natural gifts, by the richness and charm of expressions, one likes to

listen to untruths garbed with the beauty of words--and you know, too,

that truth unassisted by eloquence is not considered. In order to better

your condition, have you not in your misfortunes most ardently asked the

protection of the chair of the apostle? In that case do now what I advise

you to do. If you know that you are innocent, and are cognisant that

your good name is treacherously attacked, deliver the church of God from

scandal and yourself from the doubtful issue of the long strife in the

shortest way possible, and partake of the part of the body of the Lord

that yet remains. You will thus prove your innocence by the testimony of

God and will shut every mouth that speaks wrongly against you. Men in

the future and those knowing the real state of things, will be the most

ardent defenders of your innocence; the princes will reconcile themselves

with you, the empire will be given back, and all storms of war which have

troubled the realm for so long a time, will be quieted forever.”

Thereupon the king, dazed by the unexpected turn of the whole affair,

began to waver, to cast about for expedients, to take counsel with his

familiars away from the crowd, and full of fear to consider what he must

do and how to escape the necessity of so awful a trial. Having gained

courage, he began to give the pope as a pretext the absence of the

princes, of those princes at least who had shown him unswerving fidelity

during his misfortunes; and without whose counsels he could not act; in

the absence of his accusers, moreover, as he said, any proof of innocence

which he might furnish as to his justification, before the few who were

present, would be useless and without avail before the incredulous.

Consequently he urgently asked the pope to keep the matter unchanged for

the general assembly and a public hearing, that he might openly refute

his accusers; and thus test the accusations as well as the accusers, who

should previously have been examined according to the laws of the church.

Under these conditions alone recognised by the princes of the empire to

be fair and just would he be able to exculpate himself.

The pope willingly granted him this request; after accomplishment of

the holy offices he invited the king for breakfast, then dismissed him

in the kindest manner possible, after having carefully told him all he

had to mind, and sent him with his blessing back to his own people, who

had remained outside of the castle. He had sent the bishop Eppa of Zeits

outside, to release those from the ban who had held communication with

the king whilst he had been excommunicated, and this out of kindness, so

that he might not soil the just acquired communication with the church.[g]

The wearer of the imperial crown could no more claim to be the highest

power on earth, created by and answerable to God alone. Gregory had

extorted the recognition of the absolute superiority of the spiritual

dominion; proclaiming that to the pope, as God’s vicar, all mankind are

subject and all rulers responsible.[j]

HENRY’S STRUGGLE TO REGAIN POWER (1077-1090 A.D.)

[Sidenote: [1077-1085 A.D.]]

Thus the king was freed from the ban, but whilst he was still in

Italy, the German princes elected another king, Rudolf of Swabia, his

brother-in-law, whom the towns immediately rejected. The pope wished to

decide which of the two deserved to be king. At this Henry’s courage

awoke and he took up arms. He was again put under the ban, but he

continued to fight with exhaustless energy in Germany. The whole land was

devastated and much blood was shed. Fortune wavered for a long time from

one side to the other and most of the nobles wavered with it. But Henry

found a true support in the young Frederick of Hohenstaufen, a Swabian

noble, who first brought fame to his house and to whom Henry later gave

his daughter in marriage, investing him at the same time with the duchy

of Swabia. Bohemia, whose duke he soon invested with the title of king,

was faithful to him in the fight. In 1080 Rudolf fell in a battle which

bid fair to end victoriously for him at Merseburg, slain it is said

by the hand of the young Godfrey de Bouillon, the son of the duke of

Lorraine who was later to gain still greater honours.

[Illustration: A GERMAN KNIGHT OF THE TWELFTH CENTURY

(From an effigy)]

Henry had by this time so far regained his power that he could raise up

an anti-pope, and undertake a Roman campaign against Gregory VII. He

pressed the latter hard in Rome, but with iron resolution Gregory refused

to enter into treaty with the banned. Just when his need was greatest,

the Normans who hastened up under their king Robert Guiscard (the son of

Tancred de Hauteville) saved him from imprisonment. He died a fugitive

amongst them at Salerno (1085) without removing the ban from Henry,

and with the consciousness of being a martyr. His indomitable spirit,

his high ideas of the papacy, descended to his successor. Henry IV had

remained outwardly the victor; he received the imperial crown from the

hand of his pope, and was held in respect in Germany for a decade. But

various misfortunes shattered his family, and mutual mistrust destroyed

the relations between him and the princes; still the cup of misfortune

destined for him had not yet been emptied.

[Sidenote: [1085-1099 A.D.]]

The religious enthusiasm which had originated in Cluny and been carried

by Hildebrand and his followers into the church, soon found an extremely

visible aim; western Christianity rose up to free the Holy Sepulchre

from the infidels. Many thousands took up the cross in response to the

preaching of the hermit Peter of Amiens and the exhortations of Pope

Urban II. The agitation seized Germany and also lower Lorraine, passing

by, singularly enough, without leaving any trace, the mass of the

people and the emperor Henry IV; it was almost with astonishment that

the unrestrained swarms of the hermit were seen passing through Germany,

and next giving vent to their wild religious zeal by murdering the Jews.

Then came the regular crusaders’ army under Godfrey de Bouillon, a German

imperial prince, who in 1099 really conquered the Holy Sepulchre, and

whose brother won the royal crown of Jerusalem.[i]

Though the death of Gregory VII delivered the emperor from his most

dangerous enemy, he found himself compelled to struggle with a rival

in the empire, who had been raised by the adherents of the deceased

Rudolf. Whilst Henry was busied in besieging Rome, Hermann of Luxemburg

received the crown of Germany, and was supported by the Saxon princes, by

Welf, duke of Bavaria, and by some of the states of Swabia. The utmost

distraction prevailed throughout Germany; and the bishops distinguished

themselves by the zeal with which they animated the contending parties.

Whilst some, under the influence of the papal legate, upheld the

excommunication of Henry, others declared Pope Gregory’s proceedings

utterly illegal and void, and recognised the anti-pope Clement III as the

true head of the church.

Against the Saxons the arms of the emperor were in the first place

turned; but amongst these rebels great discord prevailed; and the

anti-cæsar Hermann incurred the censures of the church for contracting a

marriage within the prohibited degrees. Many of the Saxons voluntarily

returned to their allegiance; and Henry succeeded in mastering the

remainder, though not without a severe struggle and a sanguinary defeat

at Pleichfeld. Hermann of Luxemburg, now fallen into general contempt,

obtained permission from Henry to retire to his patrimony in Lorraine;

and perished soon afterwards in a mock attack on one of his own castles

(1088).

In the midst of this confusion the emperor had still sufficient authority

to dispose of two crowns. Out of gratitude to his faithful ally,

Wratislaw, duke of Bohemia, he conferred on him the royal title, and

caused him to be crowned king at Prague by the archbishop of Trèves. And

at Aachen, Conrad, eldest son of Henry, was anointed king of Germany by

the archbishop of Cologne in the year 1087.

Besides the rebellious Saxons the emperor was compelled to take arms

against his cousin-german, Eckbert, markgraf of Thuringia, who now

aspired to the imperial dignity. Another competitor was also in the

field, Ludolf, duke of Carinthia. But these rival claims were without

difficulty silenced. Eckbert was surprised and slain in a mill near

Brunswick, by the vassals of Adelaide, abbess of Quedlinburg, the

emperor’s sister; and Ludolf died about the same period without striking

a blow.

HENRY AND CONRAD

[Sidenote: [1087-1101 A.D.]]

Peace being thus restored in Germany, Henry made haste to revisit Italy,

where he hoped to reap advantage from the death of his arch-foe, Pope

Gregory VII. After the short pontificate of Victor III, Urban II was

raised to the papacy; and, as he seemed resolved to tread in the steps

of Gregory, he received the cordial support of the countess Matilda.

That princess had entered into a second marriage with Welf, son of Welf

VI, duke of Bavaria, a union which ranged one of the most formidable of

the German nobles against the fortunes of Henry. After laying waste the

estates of Matilda in Lorraine the emperor arrived in Lombardy, besieged

and took Mantua, and received considerable encouragement by the rupture

of Welf with the countess, and the desertion of the father and son from

the papal cause.

But these propitious events were more than countervailed by the rebellion

of his own son, Conrad, whose unnatural ambition tempted him to this

fatal step. Seduced by the blandishments of Matilda and the pope, he

was crowned king of Italy at Milan, with the promise of the imperial

dignity on condition of his yielding the great question of investitures.

Fortunately the contagion was confined to Italy; and, on his return to

Germany, Henry IV found no marks of disaffection. The assembled states

maintained their fidelity, declared Conrad to have forfeited the crown,

and elected in his stead Henry, second son of the emperor, who swore

to respect his father’s authority, and abstain from interfering in

the government. The services of the imperial partisans were liberally

rewarded, and to Welf VI were restored the duchy of Bavaria and other

states which he had forfeited by his former rebellion. The guilty Conrad

soon found his visions of dominion entirely dissipated. Discouraged by

the fidelity of the Germans to the emperor the supporters of the young

prince fell rapidly away, and he died deserted and despised at Florence,

not without suspicion of poison (1101).

Henry IV now again announced his intention of visiting Italy, in the hope

of effecting a reconciliation between the empire and the popedom. But his

schemes were at once frustrated by a new rebellion. Neither regarding

the oath he had solemnly sworn, nor admonished by the example of his

brother’s fall, Henry, second son of the emperor, impatient of the long

reign of his father, appeared in arms against him. The rebellious prince

found a warm supporter in Pope Paschal II, who succeeded Urban II in

1099, and in a council held in Rome solemnly renewed the censures which

his predecessor Gregory had thundered against Henry. No pretension of the

see of Rome was more odious than the right it assumed to absolve men from

oaths deliberately taken; and the new pope taught the prince to believe

that the excommunication of his father completely freed him from all

obligation. In the bitterness of his heart the afflicted Henry attempted

to recall his son to a sense of duty by the most gentle and touching

exhortations; but these mild efforts were entirely lost upon the prince,

who resolutely declared his determination to avoid all intercourse with a

man excommunicated.[k]

END OF HENRY IV

[Sidenote: [1101-1106 A.D.]]

Perhaps he feared that through the growing weakness of his father more

of the royal power might be lost; perhaps his ambition could not wait

for the time when the crown would fall to him, or he feared that another

would be elected in his stead; at any rate in 1105 he rebelled. Most of

the German princes were on his side. The exasperated father likewise

prepared for combat, and a civil war more cruel than any former ones

shattered the empire.

On the river Regen father and son stood face to face, the former still

strong through the support of Leopold of Austria and the duke of

Bohemia. Skirmishing went on for three days without anything decisive

having occurred, and then young Henry won over Leopold of Austria by the

promise to give him his sister Agnes, the widow of the great Staufen, in

marriage. With him all deserted the aged emperor, and he stood alone as

Louis the Pious had once stood on the Lügenfeld. But the kindly feeling

which his predecessors, and especially he himself, had shown to the towns

now bore plentiful fruit. Through the rights and liberties conferred upon

them and increased by the emperors since Conrad II they had now become

flourishing communities, and their numerous and well fortified residences

bordered the great commercial waterway of the Rhine. They all declared

themselves on the side of the aged emperor; luck seemed to desert his

wicked son. Under the mask of hypocrisy he came to Coblenz, humbled

himself before his father, and begged for forgiveness: the princes

assembled in Mainz were to settle the last quarrel. The father forgave

his son, and took him in his arms with tears; then unsuspectingly he rode

with him to the appointed place of meeting. But the son with evil cunning

decoyed him to the fortress of Böckelheim in Nahethale: the grating

fell behind the emperor as he entered, and he found himself his son’s

prisoner. The latter with his princes demanded his voluntary abdication

and the surrendering of the crown jewels. Broken down by misfortune the

old man had to accede to these requests. But new abuses and even danger

of death threatened him; then he fled from the custody of his son, and

the faithful towns again armed for his safety. The war began anew, and

its issue was hard to foretell; then the news came from Lüttich that

the emperor was dead (1106). Even in death the ban weighed upon him,

for his coffin remained unburied for over five years in unconsecrated

places; but the people loudly lamented the dearly loved ruler, who after

the short errors of youth had been so long and heavily afflicted by

misfortune. Certainly his last years did much, if the old chroniclers may

be believed, to remove the stains of his early follies and crimes. He is

represented as having, after his victory over Gregory VII, protected the

poor against their oppressors, put down robbery, administered justice,

and maintained the public peace.

HENRY V AND THE WAR OF INVESTITURES

[Sidenote: [1106-1111 A.D.]]

Henry V was now acknowledged throughout the empire. He owed his crown to

the papal party and the princes, but no sooner was he in possession of

the power for which he had striven than he showed that he had resolution

enough to hold his own against all comers. Abroad he succeeded in

restoring the dominion of the empire over Flanders and securing his

western frontier; his campaigns on the eastern border, against Poland,

Hungary, and Bohemia, were less fortunate. In the interior and in his

relations to the princes he could effect little change in the conditions

which had grown up under Henry IV. The fiefs, large and small, had long

since become hereditary, the crown property had dwindled sadly; hardly

any district was under the direct rule of the king. In case of war the

latter summoned his great vassals, and they in their turn summoned

their feudal retainers and “ministerials”--_i.e._, vassals; and these

constituted the army of the empire. Thus feudalism had penetrated to the

lowest ranks of the people, but the king was still regarded as the ruling

head of the state; and a powerful monarch at the head of this body of

many members could accomplish more than the other sovereigns of Europe,

whose power in their own dominions was no less restricted by that of

their great vassals.

Devoid of heart and conscience though he might be, Henry V was by no

means deficient in the prudence and capacity for government which had

characterised his forefathers. He possessed resolution and boldness;

but he was hasty and precipitate, and often frustrated his own great

purposes by acts of arbitrary violence. The papal party soon realised

that they had mistaken his character; for he contested the papal right of

investiture even more resolutely than his father had done, and as early

as 1110 he undertook a brilliant expedition to Rome in connection with

the matter. When he reached Lombardy and held a diet of the empire on the

plains of Roncaglia near Piacenza, the Italian cities (with the exception

of Milan and Pavia), which had risen more rapidly than those of Germany

and to a height of prosperity even greater, acknowledged his supremacy

and the countess Matilda did him homage as her feudal lord. In the year

1111 he arrived at Rome.

[Sidenote: [1111-1122 A.D.]]

The quarrel with Pope Paschal II had broken out afresh over the question

of his coronation and the investiture, but at length the disputants came

to an agreement to the effect that the emperor should renounce the right

of investiture and that the pope should prevail upon the lords spiritual

to resign all temporal dominion in the empire. The pope then led the king

to St. Peter’s, according to ancient usage, amidst hymns of praise and

great rejoicings. Henry, however, had already surrounded the cathedral by

Germans. When the bishops refused the renunciation required of them, and

the emperor consequently demanded full rights of investiture, the pope

was in doubt as to whether he should proceed with the coronation under

these circumstances. One of Henry’s retinue cried impatiently: “What need

of so many words? It is the will of my lord the king to be crowned as

Charlemagne was!”

From that moment the pope and his cardinals were prisoners. Henry carried

the former off with him, in spite of a furious tumult at Rome, through

which he and his knights cut their way with the sword. But the spirit of

Gregory VII lived on in the church; when the pope, his spirit broken by

confinement, granted the king the right of investing bishops and abbots,

and actually crowned Henry after his release from prison, the cardinals

and the French clergy excommunicated the emperor and continued the

conflict with their ghostly weapons. Meanwhile Henry V had returned to

Germany, where fortune still smiled upon him; for at Warnstedt, to the

north of the Harz, his general Hoyer von Mansfeld defeated the Saxon and

Thuringian nobles, with Ludwig der Springer, “the jumper,” and Wiprecht

von Groitzsch among them, who had risen in revolt against the imperial

house with their old stubborn defiance (1113).

The emperor, who had just concluded a brilliant marriage with Matilda of

England, was now at the height of his power; but he nevertheless did not

succeed in permanently establishing the royal authority in North Germany,

where the Saxons in particular were constantly striving to secure a

more independent position. When Henry was on an expedition against the

Frisians, the city of Cologne rebelled, and the princes of the lower

Rhine entered into alliance with it. Henry’s good fortune deserted him

before its walls; and his enemies lifted their heads on all sides. By

his action in imprisoning Count Ludwig of Thuringia he had incurred the

violent resentment of the Saxon and Thuringian nobles. They arose afresh

in rebellion, and this time they defeated the emperor at Welfesholze near

Mansfeld in the Harz (1115). The whole of North Germany and almost the

whole of the German church fell away from him; in South Germany, on the

contrary, his nephew, Friedrich von Staufen, duke of Swabia, remained

loyal to the imperial cause, as did Bavaria under Welf.

Henry himself had gone to Italy again (1116-1118), another cause of

quarrel having been added to the War of Investiture, which still dragged

on. Countess Matilda was dead, and had bequeathed all her lands and goods

to the holy see. A great part of the land, however, was held as a fief

of the empire, and should therefore have reverted to the king on her

death without issue; and Henry further laid claim to her _allodium_, or

property, on the ground of near kinship. While he was in Italy Paschal II

died.

In the person of his next successor but one, the papal throne was

occupied, for the first time since the reign of Hildebrand, by a pope

who had not been a monk. This was Guido of Vienne, a Burgundian of high

rank and a kinsman of Henry’s, who took the name of Calixtus II. The

elevation of this prudent and far-sighted man offered the emperor the

prospect of reconciliation, although the new pope had hitherto been the

leader of his opponents among the cardinals; and negotiations were set

on foot. Calixtus went to France, which country, striving upwards with

fresh vigour ever since the Crusades, became the zealous champion of the

papacy. For a long time the negotiations led to no result; a personal

interview between the pope and the emperor was projected, but the

distrust of years and the memory of the capture of Paschal II prevented

it from taking place. Calixtus retained the upper hand in Italy, Henry

in Germany. But in spite of many successes on either side, both were

inclined to moderate their demands. The German princes assumed the office

of mediators, and after fifty years of strife the investiture quarrel was

settled by the Concordat of Worms in 1122.

[Sidenote: [1122-1125 A.D.]]

The king resigned the investiture with ring and crosier, but obtained the

privilege that the election of bishops should take place in his presence

or in that of his representative, and that--in Germany at least--they

should receive the territory appertaining to their sees in fief from the

imperial crown before they were consecrated. Thus the emperor had secured

much; but the papacy, on the other hand, had acquired a considerable

influence in imperial affairs, and the loyalty of the bishops, which had

been the strongest pillar of the throne, began to waver. Henry died at

Nimeguen (1125) without issue; and the people, who had never loved him,

saw in his childlessness the retribution for the war with his father, and

his transgression of his duty as a son.

From the hands of Henry II the Franconian dynasty received a

re-consolidated empire, although the great fiefs within it had already

become hereditary. The first princes of the line, Conrad II and Henry

III, who in greatness were second to none of the emperors of Germany, had

so strengthened the royal power that both were able to cherish the dream

of an empire such as Otto the Great’s had been. Their power passed to a

child, and the nobles broke away from the curb all the sooner that it had

been drawn over-tight. At the same time the church entered the field as a

fresh power, wielding forces that were better organised and more deeply

rooted in the popular mind than those of the empire, and armed with

resources more efficacious than the sword.

Henry V, whose character offered so many points open to attack,

succumbed in the conflict with these two forces. Towards the end of

the eleventh century all fiefs had become hereditary, and bishoprics

were no longer unconditionally at the emperor’s disposal; and he was

therefore constrained to rely upon his dynastic possessions and his moral

ascendency. In manners and education the Germany of the eleventh century

lagged behind the awakening intellectual life of the Romance nations. The

great effects of the Crusades had to become manifest before the crowning

glory of the Middle Ages could extend to that country.[i]

With the death of Henry V the Franconian dynasty came to an end. The

change of dynasty furnishes us a convenient place to pause in our

narrative of the development of the Western Empire. We have seen that

the centre of influence has long since shifted to the North, and that

the Western Empire, though Roman in name, is essentially German in fact.

Several important emperors are to come upon the scene in the next two or

three centuries, and such men as Frederick Barbarossa and Frederick II

will make Italy the field of some of their most prominent activities.

Nevertheless, these emperors are German and the records of their lives

are a component part of the history of the German Empire. We shall

again take up the story of the German Empire in a later volume with the

accession of the Hohenstaufens. Now for a time we are to turn back to the

East, to witness the development of a wonderful oriental civilisation.[a]

FOOTNOTES

[147] [As C. T. Lewis[e] notes: “The people took sides in their legends

and songs with the unfortunate youth who had fought for his inheritance

against a severe stepfather, and compared his fate with that of the

equally unfortunate Ludolf, son of Otto the Great. Indeed, legend merged

the two stories into one, and thus arose the song of Ernst of Swabia,

which was long sung in the Middle Ages and represents the two friends

as finally going to the East upon a crusade and meeting with manifold

adventures.”]

[148] [Bryce[j] says: “Under Henry III the empire attained the meridian

of its power. At home Otto the Great’s prerogative had not stood so

high.”]

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

BRIEF REFERENCE-LIST OF AUTHORITIES BY CHAPTERS

[The letter [a] is reserved for Editorial Matter.]

CHAPTER I. ODOACER TO THE TRIUMPH OF NARSES

[b] JOHN B. BURY, _A History of the Later Roman Empire_.

[c] THOMAS HODGKIN, _Italy and her Invaders_.

[d] EDWARD GIBBON, _The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman

Empire_.

[e] AMMIANUS MARCELLINUS, _Rerum gestarum, Libri XXXI_.

[f] MALCHUS PHILADELPHUS, _Βυζανταικά_.

[g] EVAGRIUS OF EPIPHANEIA, _Ἱστορία ἐκκλησιάστικα_.

[h] JORDANES (JORNANDES), _De Getarum origine et rebus gestis_.

[i] MAGNUS AURELIUS CASSIODORUS, _Libri XII De Rebus Gestis Gothorum_.

[j] PROCOPIUS, _Ἱστορίαι_ (_de bello Gothica_).

[k] ANONYMOUS, _Valesian Fragment_.

[l] THOMAS HODGKIN, article on “Theodoric” in the Ninth Edition of the

_Encyclopædia Britannica_.

[m] AGATHIAS, _Ἀγαθίου Σχολαστικοῦ Μυριναίου Ἱστορίων_ E.

[n] HENRY BRADLEY, article in _The Academy_, May 15th, 1886.

CHAPTER II. LOMBARD INVASION TO LIUTPRAND’S DEATH

[b] THOMAS HODGKIN, _Italy and her Invaders_.

[c] CAIUS VELLEIUS PATERCULUS, _Compendium of the History of Rome_

(translated from the Latin by J. S. Watson).

[d] STRABO, _Γεωγραφικά_.

[e] FRIEDRICH MÜLLER, _Grundriss der Sprachwissenschaft_.

[f] CORNELIUS TACITUS, _Annales_.

[g] CORNELIUS TACITUS, _Germania_.

[h] PETRUS PATRICIUS, _Ἱστορίαι_.

[i] COCCEIANUS DION-CASSIUS, _Ῥωμαϊκὴ ἱστορία_.

[j] _Origo gentis Longobardorum_.

[k] FRIEDRICH BLUHME, _Die Gens Langobardorum_.

[l] ERNST WILHELM FÖRSTEMANN, _Geschichte des deutschen Sprachstamms_.

[m] PROCOPIUS, _op. cit._

[n] R. PALLMANN, _Geschichte der Völkerwanderung_.

[o] CLAUDIUS PTOLEMÆUS, _Γεωγραφικὴ ὑφήγησις_.

[p] PAULUS DIACONUS, _Historia Langobardorum_.

[q] EINHARD (EGINHARD), _Annales Francorum_.

[r] JULIUS LIPPERT, _Die Religionen der europäischen Kulturvölker_.

[s] C. SOLLIUS APOLLINARIS SIDONIUS, _Epistolarum Libri IX_.

[t] MAGNUS AURELIUS CASSIODORUS, _op. cit._

[u] LUDWIG SCHMIDT, _Zur Geschichte der Langobarden_.

[v] ISIDORUS HISPALENSIS, _Chronicon_.

[w] EDWARD GIBBON, _op. cit._

[x] GEORG WEBER, _Weltgeschichte_.

[y] WILHELM MARTENS, _Politische Geschichte des Langobardenreiches unter

König Liutprand_.

[z] ANASTASIUS, _Liber Pontificalis_ (Lives of Gregory II and Zacharias).

[aa] FERDINAND GREGOROVIUS, _Geschichte der Stadt Rom im Mittelalter_.

[bb] FRIEDRICH C. SCHLOSSER, _Geschichte der bilderstürmenden Kaiser des

öströmischen Reichs_.

CHAPTER III. THE FRANKS TO THE TIME OF CHARLES MARTEL

[b] CORNELIUS TACITUS, _op. cit._

[c] The Augustan History, VOPISCUS, _In Aureliano_.

[d] EDWARD GIBBON, _op. cit._

[e] JACOB GRIMM, _Geschichte der deutschen Sprache_.

[f] JOHANN CHRISTOPH ADELUNG, _Versuch eines vollständigen

grammatisch-kritischen Wörterbuchs der Hoch-Teutschen Mundart_.

[g] PANEGYRICI VETERES (including Eumenius and Nazarius on “Constantine”).

[h] AMMIANUS MARCELLINUS, _op. cit._

[i] JORDANES (JORNANDES), _op. cit._

[j] FLAVIUS CLAUDIUS JULIANUS, _Imperator, Orationes_.

[k] EUTROPIUS, _Breviarium Historiæ Romanæ_.

[l] LIBANIUS, _Λόγοι_ (_Orations_).

[m] PROSPER AQUITANICUS, _Chronicon_.

[n] ANONYMOUS, _Gesta Francorum_, or _Liber Historiæ Francorum_.

[o] GREGORY OF TOURS, _Historia Francorum_.

[p] FREDEGARIUS SCHOLASTICU, _Chronicle_.

[q] WALTER C. PERRY, _The Franks from their First Appearance in History

to the Death of King Pepin_.

[r] THOMAS HODGKIN, _op. cit._

[s] S. ASTLEY DUNHAM, _History of Europe in the Middle Ages_.

[t] ANNALES METTENSES.

[u] EINHARD (EGINHARD), _Vita Caroli Magni_.

[v] PAULUS DIACONUS, _op. cit._

[w] HENRI MARTIN, _Histoire de France_.

[x] STRABO, _op. cit._

[y] ERCHANBERTUS, _Breviarium Regum Francorum_.

CHAPTER IV. CHARLES MARTEL TO CHARLEMAGNE

[b] WALTER C. PERRY, _op. cit._

[c] ANNALES METTENSES, _op. cit._

[d] FRETEGARIUS SCHOLASTICUS, _op. cit._

[e] THOMAS HODGKIN, _op. cit._

[f] PAULUS DIACONUS, _op. cit._

[g] CHRONICLE OF MOISSIAC.

[h] EINHARD (EGINHARD), _Annales Francorum_.

[i] ANASTASIUS, _op. cit._

[k] OELSNER, _Zur Chronologie der Italienischen Ereignisse_ (in his

_Jahrbücher des Fränkischen Reiches unter König Pippin_).

[l] SIGURD ABEL, _Der Untergang des Langobardenreiches in Italien_.

[m] EINHARD (EGINHARD), _Vita Caroli Magni_.

[n] CODEX CAROLINUS (Letters of the Popes to Frankish Kings).

CHAPTER V. CHARLEMAGNE

[b] EINHARD (EGINHARD), _op. cit._

[c] FRIEDRICH WILHELM BENJAMIN VON GIESEBRECHT, _Geschichte der deutschen

Kaiserzeit_.

[d] MONK OF SAINT GALL, _De Carolo Magno_.

[e] J. Y. SHEPPARD, _The Fall of Rome and the Rise of New Nationalities_.

CHAPTER VI. CHARLEMAGNE’S SUCCESSORS TO THE TREATY OF VERDUN

[b] VICTOR DURUY, _Histoire du Moyen Âge_.

[c] LEOPOLD VON RANKE, _Weltgeschichte_.

[d] AGOBARDUS, _Works_ (edited by Baluze).

[e] JOHANN G. A. WIRTH, _Geschichte der deutschen Staaten_.

[f] M. E. THALHEIMER, _Mediæval and Modern History_.

CHAPTER VII. THE BIRTH OF GERMAN NATIONALITY

[b] FRIEDRICH WILHELM BENJAMIN VON GIESEBRECHT, _op. cit._

[c] ANNALES FULDENSES.

[d] HEINRICH GERDES, _Geschichte des Deutschen Volkes_.

[e] WOLFGANG MENZEL, _History of Germany from the Earliest Period to the

Present Time_ (translated from the German by G. Horrocks).

[f] WITTEKIND, _Res gestæ Saxonicæ_.

CHAPTER VIII. OTTO THE GREAT AND HIS SUCCESSORS

[b] H. GERDES, _op. cit._

[c] FRIEDRICH WILHELM BENJAMIN VON GIESEBRECHT, _op. cit._

[d] W. MENZEL, _op. cit._

[e] L. VON RANKE, _op. cit._

[f] JAMES SIME, article on “Germany” in the Ninth Edition of the

_Encyclopædia Britannica_.

[g] R. COMYN, _op. cit._

[h] HENRY HALLAM, _The View of the State of Europe during the Middle

Ages_.

CHAPTER IX. THE FRANCONIAN, OR SALIAN, DYNASTY

[b] THIETMAR OF MERSEBURG, _Chronicon_.

[c] WIPO, _Gesta Chuonradi II imperatoris_.

[d] LEOPOLD VON RANKE, _op. cit._

[e] CHARLTON T. LEWIS, _A History of Germany_.

[f] HERMANN VON REICHENAU, _Chronicon_.

[g] LAMBERT VON HERSFELD (or ASCHAFFENBURG), _Annales_.

[h] JOHANN G. A. WIRTH, _op. cit._

[i] DAVID MÜLLER, _Geschichte des deutschen Volkes_.

[j] JAMES BRYCE, _op. cit._

[k] ROBERT COMYN, _op. cit._

[A further list of works on the Later Roman Empire in the West will be

found in the _General Bibliographies of Rome, of Italy, and of Germany_,

Vols. VI, IX, and XIV, respectively.]

[Illustration: MAP OF THE EMPIRE OF CHARLEMAGNE.

BORMAY & CO.]