But
ecclesiastical matters also pressed ; at Christmas the formal embassy from
Rome came to speak of the vacant papal throne.
ecclesiastical matters also pressed ; at Christmas the formal embassy from
Rome came to speak of the vacant papal throne.
Cambridge Medieval History - v3 - Germany and the Western Empire
The
victory over Hungary seemed even more complete than the victory
over Bohemia; the difference in the duration of their effects was
partly due to a fundamental difference in the character of the two
vassal princes. While Břatislav, a strong man, held Bohemia firmly,
and, giving his fealty to Henry, gave with it the fealty of Bohemia ;
Peter, subservient and cringing to his benefactor, let Hungary slip
through his fingers. Within two years he was a blinded captive in his
twice-lost kingdom ; and Hungary, freed from him, was freed too from
vassalage.
This summer saw the gathering of the western clouds. Godfrey of
>
CH. XII.
## p. 286 (#332) ############################################
286
Rebellion of Godfrey
99
Lorraine had himself taken part in Henry's former Hungarian campaign,
but deeply disappointed by the outcome of the meeting at Nimeguen,
had held himself aloof in stubborn disobedience from this last expe-
dition. He now sent envoys to Henry, who declared himself ready
to forget the duke's contumacy should he at the eleventh hour con-
sent peaceably to the division of the duchies. · But Godfrey would
submit to no “wrong,” and having failed to move Henry, he began
actively and secretly to engage in treason. And here at once becomes
evident the peculiar danger to Germany of disaffection in Lorraine.
For Lorraine was, in truth, not German as the other German lands were
German; and the first ally made by Godfrey was “rex Carlingorum,”
Henry I of France. His other allies, the Burgundian nationalists of
the “Romance " party, were, like himself, of the oft disputed “Middle
Kingdom. ” In his own duchy he prepared for resistance by gaining
from his vassals an oath of unlimited fealty for the space of three years
to aid him against all men whatsoever.
As yet there had been no overt act of rebellion ; but Henry had been
given proof of Godfrey's plots, and in the autumn summoned him before
a great assembly of the princes in Lower Lorraine itself, at Aix-la-
Chapelle. Godfrey could have defied the king and disobeyed the sum-
mons; but to do so would have been to acknowledge his guilt. He
must have hoped that there was no evidence against him, or that the
princes would sympathise with him in his wrongs. He came, was con-
victed, and condemned to the loss of all the lands, including the duchy
of Upper Lorraine and the county of Verdun, which he held in fief
from the king. Godfrey now left Aix, and broke into fierce and open
rebellion. Arms were distributed to the cities and country people, cities
were garrisoned; and the duke fell with fire and sword upon all within
reach who were faithful to Henry.
So ended the year that had seen Hungary subdued. Henry, however,
did not yet foresee the stubborn nature of the danger that threatened
from Lorraine. He spent Christmas 1044 at Spires, “a place beloved
by him. ” It is true that he summoned the princes to consultation over
Godfrey's revolt. Yet, after the feast was over, it was only the forces
of the neighbourhood that he led against the “ tyrant” that threatened
them. Even these forces he could not maintain, because of the terrible
famine in the land. He succeeded, after a short siege and with the
help of siege-engines, in taking and razing Godfrey's castle at Bockel-
heim, near Kreuznach. The seizure of other castles was entrusted to
local nobles, while Henry himself, leaving sufficient men to protect his
people against Godfrey's raids, departed to Burgundy.
Here Godfrey's efforts had borne fruit in feuds which had broken out
in the preceding year between Imperialist and Nationalist partisans.
They ended in victory for the former, for Count Louis of Montbéliard
(who had married Henry's foster-sister) with a small force overcame
## p. 287 (#333) ############################################
Otto of Swabia and his family
287
Godfrey's ally Prince Raynald', who was uncle of Henry's queen and
son of Count Otto-William, the former head of the anti-German party.
When Henry now approached Burgundy, Raynald along with the chief
of his partisans, Count Gerald of Geneva, personally made submission to
him. Thus died out the last flicker during Henry's life of Burgundian
opposition to union with the Empire.
Henry took Burgundy on his way to Augsburg, where he arrived in
February 1045, and whither he had summoned the Lombard magnates
to discuss with them the affairs of Italy. He kept Easter at Goslar.
Here, not wishing to set out for the East without taking steps to pro-
tect the West from Godfrey, he handed over to Otto, Count Palatine
in Lower Lorraine, his mother's native duchy of Swabia, which he
himself had held since 1038.
Otto's mother had been the sister of Otto III. His family was wide-
spread and illustrious. His aunt Abbess Adelaide of Quedlinburg and
Gandersheim, and his brother Archbishop Herman of Cologne (who won
for that see the right to crown the king of the Romans at Aix) were
among Henry's truest friends. His sister, Richessa, had been daughter-
in-law of Boleslav the Mighty; his nephew, her son, was Casimir, Duke
of the Poles. Another nephew, Henry, succeeded Otto in the Palatinate,
and within a year was regarded by some as a fit successor to the Empire.
Yet another nephew was Kuno, whom the king first raised to the
Bavarian dukedom and afterwards disgraced. The youngest sister, Sophia,
about this time succeeded her aunt as Abbess of the important Abbey
of Gandersheim; a niece, Theophano, was Abbess of Essen.
Otto himself had been one of the chief of those in the disputed duchy
whose loyalty to Henry had drawn upon themselves the vengeance of
Godfrey at the beginning of the year. His appointment now to the
duchy of Swabia, so long left without a special guardian, and neigh-
bour to Lorraine, recalls the appointment, when trouble threatened
from the Magyars, of a duke to Bavaria, neighbour to Hungary. He
ruled his new duchy, to which he was a stranger, with success and satis-
faction to its people; not, however, for long, for within two years he
was dead.
One more step Henry took for the protection of the West from
Godfrey. For such (viewed in the double light of Henry's general policy
of strengthening the local defence against Godfrey rather than leading
the forces of the Empire against him, and of Godfrey's policy of winning
the neighbours of Lorraine to his cause) must be considered the grant in
this year of the March of Antwerp to Baldwin, son of Count Baldwin V
of Flanders. The grant of Antwerp, however, instead of attaching
Baldwin to the king's party, increased the power of a future ally of
Godfrey's.
i Count of four or five counties which afterwards were collectively named
Franche Comté. Cf. supra, p. 141.
CH. XII.
## p. 288 (#334) ############################################
288
Germany at peace
Having thus spent the early months of 1045, from Christmas onwards,
in local measures against Godfrey and his allies, Henry after a short visit
to Saxony prepared to spend Pentecost with Peter of Hungary. On
his
way he narrowly escaped death through the collapse of the floor of
a banqueting room, when his cousin Bishop Bruno of Würzburg was
killed. Henry, notwithstanding this calamity, arrived punctually in
Hungary, and on Whitsunday in Stühlweissenburg, in the banqueting-
hall of the palace, Peter surrendered the golden lance which was the
symbol of the sovereignty of Hungary. The kingdom was restored to
him for his lifetime, on his taking an oath of fidelity to Henry and to
his heirs. This was confirmed by an oath of fidelity in the very same
terms taken by the Hungarian nobles present. After the termination of
the banquet, Peter presented to Henry a great weight of gold, which the
king immediately distributed to those knights who had shared with
him in the great victory of the preceding year.
How far was this scene spontaneous, and how far prepared ? The oath
taken by the Hungarian nobles, without a dissentient, points to its
being prepared ; and if prepared, then most certainly not without the
co-operation, most probably on the initiative, of Henry. This is what
Wipo has in mind when he says that Henry, having first conquered
Hungary in a great and noble victory, later, with exceeding wisdom,
confirmed it to himself and his successors. But Henry's victory, on
which so much was grounded, was a success snatched by a brilliant
chance; it could furnish no stable foundations for foreign sovereignty
over a free nation.
More than ever Henry appeared as an all-conquering king; and in
the West even Godfrey “despairing of rebellion " determined to submit.
During July, either at Cologne or at Aix-la-Chapelle or at Maestricht,
he appeared humbly before the king, and in spite of his submission was
sent in captivity to Gibichenstein, the German “ Tower,” a castle-fortress
in the dreary land by Magdeburg beyond the Saale, very different from
his own homeland of Lorraine. “ And so the realm for a short time
had quiet and peace.
Godfrey was perhaps taken to his prison in the train of Henry him-
self. For while he had been schooling himself to the idea of peace, the
further Slavs, growing restive, had troubled the borders of these Saxon
marches on the Middle Elbe. Godfrey's submission perhaps decided
theirs; and when Henry with an armed force entered Saxony from
Lorraine, they too sent envoys, and promised the tribute which Conrad
had imposed on them.
Henry spent the peaceful late summer and early autumn of 1045 in
Saxony. For October he had summoned the princes of the Empire to a
colloquy at Tribur. The princes had begun to assemble, and Henry
himself had reached Frankfort, when he fell ill of one of those mysterious
and frequent illnesses which in the end proved fatal. As his weakness
79
## p. 289 (#335) ############################################
Attempt at settlement in the West
289
a
increased, the anxiety of the princes concerning the succession to the
Empire became manifest. Henry of Bavaria and Otto of Swabia, with
bishops and other nobles, met together and agreed, in the event of the
king's death, to elect as his successor Otto's nephew Henry, who had
followed Otto in the Lorraine palatinate, and was likewise a nephew of
the king's confidant, Archbishop Herman, and a grandson of Otto II.
The king recovered. Happily for the schemers, he was not a Tudor;
but the occurrence must have deepened his regret when the child
just at this time born to him proved to be another daughter. This
eldest daughter of Henry and Agnes, Matilda, died in her fifteenth
year as the bride of Rudolf of Swabia, the antagonist of her brother
Henry IV.
The year 1046 opened again, as so many before and after it, with
misery to the country people. In Saxony there was widespread disease
and death. Among others died the stout old Margrave Eckhard, who,
“wealthiest of margraves," made his kinsman the king his heir.
The king, after attending Eckhard's funeral, turned to the Nether-
lands, where Duke Godfrey's incapable younger brother, Gozelo Duke
of Lower Lorraine, was dead'; here too Count Dietrich (Theodoric) of
Holland was unlawfully laying hold on the land round Flushing, be-
longing to the vacant duchy.
At Utrecht, where he celebrated Easter, Henry prepared one of his
favourite river campaigns against Dietrich. Its success was complete,
both the lands and the count falling into Henry's hands. Flushing was
given in fief to the Bishop of Utrecht, and Henry, keeping Pentecost at
Aix-la-Chapelle, determined to settle once for all the affairs of Lorraine.
The means he used would appear to have been three: the concilia-
tion of Godfrey, the strengthening of the bishops, and the grant of Lower
Lorraine to a family powerful enough to hold it. At Aix Godfrey,
.
released from Gibichenstein, threw himself at Henry's feet, was “pitied,”
and restored to his dukedom of Upper Lorraine. This transformation
from landless captive to duke might have conciliated some; but
Henry did not know his man. Duke Godfrey's hereditary county of
Verdun was not restored, but granted to Richard, Bishop of the city.
Lower Lorraine was given to one of the hostile house of Luxemburg,
Frederick, brother of Duke Henry of Bavaria, whose uncle Dietrich
had long held the Lorraine bishopric of Metz.
At the same assembly there took place an event of importance for
the North and in the history of Henry's own house, viz. the investiture of
Adalbert, Provost of Halberstadt, with the Archbishopric of Bremen,
the northern metropolis, which held ecclesiastical jurisdiction, not only
in the coast district of German Saxony, but in all the Scandinavian
lands and over the Slavs of the Baltic.
For the evidence of Gozelo's death, rather than disgrace, see Steindorff, 1.
p. 293, note.
>
C. MED. H. VOL. III. CH. XII.
19
## p. 290 (#336) ############################################
290
Adalbert of Bremen
Adalbert of Bremen had all virtues and all gifts, save that he was of
doubtful humility, humble only to the servants of God, to the poor and
to pilgrims, but by no means so to princes nor to bishops ; accusing
one bishop of luxury, another of avarice. Even as a young man he
had been haughty and overbearing in countenance and speech. His
father, Count Frederick, was of a stock of ancient nobility in Saxony
and Franconia. His mother Agnes, of the rising house of Weimar, had
been brought up at Quedlinburg, and valued learning. Adalbert quickly
rivalled, or more than rivalled, Archbishop Herman of Cologne in the
councils and confidence of the king. He made many an expedition
“with Caesar" into Hungary, Italy, Slavonia, and Flanders. He might
at Sutri have had from Henry the gift of the Papacy, but that he saw
greater possibilities in his northern see. His close connexion with the
king caused him to be regarded with suspicion, indeed as a royal spy,
by the great semi-loyal Duke of the North, the Saxon Bernard II. It
was Adalbert who moved the bishop's seat from Bremen to Hamburg,
“fertile mother of nations,” to recompense her long sorrows, exposed to
the assaults of Pagan Slavs.
But Henry was not only looking northwards. To this same congress
he summoned to judgment one of the three great Italian prelates,
Widger of Ravenna. He had, before his nomination by Henry to the
see, been a canon of Cologne, and although unconsecrated, "had for two
years inefficiently and cruelly wielded the episcopal staff. ” Wazo, the
stalwart Bishop of Liège, famous as an early canonist, was one of the
episcopal judges chosen, but without pronouncing on Widger's guilt,
he significantly denied the right of Germans to try an Italian bishop,
and protested against the royal usurpation of papal jurisdiction. This
trial is the first sign either of clash between royal and ecclesiastical claims,
or of Henry's preoccupation with Italy, where, while these things were
doing, church corruption and reform were waging a louder and louder
conflict. To Italy Henry was now to pass. Before doing so he once
more visited Saxony and the North. At Quedlinburg he invested his
little eight-year-old daughter Beatrice in place of the dead Abbess
Adelaide, and at Merseburg he held court in June, receiving the visits
and gifts of the princes of the North and East, Břatislav of Bohemia,
Casimir of Poland and Zemuzil of the Pomeranians.
By the festival of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin, 8 September
1046, he was at Augsburg, whither he had summoned bishops, lords,
and knights to follow him to Italy. The news of the sudden downfall
of Peter of Hungary grieved, but did not deter, him. Crossing the
Brenner Pass, he reviewed his army before the city of Verona.
When Henry came to Italy (1046), he came to a realm where among
the cities of Romagna and the hills of Tuscany a new age was coming
into life. He had not visited Italy since he had accompanied his father
in 1038, and now the state of things was greatly changed, while his own
## p. 291 (#337) ############################################
Henry, Emperor and Patrician
291
>
a
policy was different from his father's. Conrad had been at strife with
Aribert, the great Archbishop of Milan, but Henry before he left Germany
made at Ingelheim (1039), as the Milanese historian tells us, “a pact of
,
peace with the Archbishop, and was henceforth faithfully held in honour
by him. ” But in 1045, when peace between the populace and nobles of
Milan was hardly restored, Aribert died. Henry rejected the candidate
put forward by the nobles and chose Guido supported by the democracy.
Politics were intertwined with Church affairs, and Henry's dealings with
the Papacy were the beginning of that church reform, which gave Rome
a line of reforming German Popes and led to the Pontificate of Gregory
VII. The story of that progress will come before us later', and this side
,
of the history is therefore here left out. But it was the evil state of
Rome, where the Tusculan Benedict IX, the Crescentian Sylvester III,
and the reforming but simoniacal Gregory VI, had all lately contested
the papal throne and the situation was entangled, that chiefly called
Henry into Italy. By the end of October he was at Pavia, where he held
a synod and dispensed justice to the laymen. At Sutri (20 December
1046) he held a second synod, in which the papal situation was dealt with
and the papal throne itself left vacant. Two days later he entered Rome,
where a third synod was held. No Roman priest was fit, we are told, to
be made a Pope, and after Adalbert of Bremen refused Henry chose on
Christmas Eve the Saxon Suidger of Bamberg, who after “ was elected
by clergy and people,” and became Clement II.
On Christmas Day the new Pope was consecrated, and at once gave
the Imperial crown to Henry; Agnes was also crowned Empress at the
same time. Then too the Roman people made him “ Patrician”: the
symbol of the Patriciate, a plain gold circlet, he often wore, and the
office, of undoubted but disputed importance, gave the Emperor peculiar
power in Rome and the right to control every papal election, if not
to nominate the Pope himself. The new Patrician was henceforth
officially responsible for order in the city; so it was fitting that, a week
after his coronation, he was at Frascati, the headquarters of the Counts
of Tusculum, and that, before leaving for the South, he seized the fort-
resses of the Crescentii in the Campagna. At Christmas-tide Clement II
held his first synod at Rome, and it was significant of the new era in
church affairs that simoniacs were excommunicated, and those knowingly
ordained by simoniacs, although without themselves paying a price, sen-
tenced to a penance of forty days; a leniency favoured by Peter Damiani
as against those who would have had them deprived. After this the
Empress went northwards to Ravenna, while the Emperor along with the
Pope set out for the South.
1 In vol. v.
? This Patriciate was, in this view, a new departure; it goes back not to the
patriciate of Pepin and Charles the Great but to the patriciate of the Crescentii in
the days of Otto III.
CH. XII.
1942
## p. 292 (#338) ############################################
292
Germany and France
At Capua he was received by Guaimar, recognised by Conrad as
Prince of Salerno and also of Capua, from which city Paldolf (Pandulf)
IV had been driven out. But Henry restored Paldolf, “a wily and wicked
prince” formerly expelled for his insolence and evil deeds. Conrad had
also recognised Guaimar as overlord of the Norman Counts of Aversa and
of the Norman de Hautevilles in Calabria and Apulia. Now Ranulf of
Aversa and Drogo de Hauteville of Apulia, as they went plundering and
conquering from the Greeks, were recognised as holding directly from
Henry himself". So at Benevento the gates were shut in the Emperor's
face and he had to stay outside. Thence he went to join the Empress at
Ravenna: early in May he reached Verona and then left Italy. There was
trouble in the South, but otherwise he left Italy “in peace and obedience. ”
In the middle of May he was again home in Germany, which during his
eight months' absence had also been in quiet.
With Henry's return he steps upon a downward path: the greatness
of his reign is over ; troubles are incessant and sporadic; successes scanty
and small. During his absence Henry I of France, with the approval of
his great men and perhaps at the instigation of Godfrey of Lorraine,
made a move towards claiming and seizing the duchies of Lorraine.
When the unwonted calm was thus threatened, Wazo of Liège wrote to
the French king appealing to the ancient friendship between the realms
and urging the blame he would incur if, almost like a thief, he came
against unguarded lands. Henry I called his bishops to Rheims, reproached
them for letting a stranger advise him better than his native pastors,
and turned to a more fitting warfare along with William of Normandy
against the frequent rebel Geoffrey of Anjou. But in his duchy of
Upper Lorraine the pardoned Godfrey was nursing his wrongs : his
son, a hostage with Henry, was now dead, and he also heard that his
name had not been in the list of those with whom Henry at St Peter's
in Rome had declared himself reconciled. Godfrey found allies in the
Netherlands, Baldwin of Flanders, his son the Margrave of Antwerp,
Dietrich, Count of Holland, and Herman, Count of Mons, all united by
kinship and each smarting under some private wrong. Dietrich wished
to recover from the Bishop of Utrecht the land round Flushing; Godfrey
to recover the county of Verdun from its bishop. It was almost a war of
lay nobles against the bishops so useful to Henry in the kingdom. At
the moment Henry was busied in negotiations with Hungary and in
giving a new duke to Carinthia: this was Welf, son of the Swabian
Count Welf, and as his mother was sister to Henry of Bavaria, related
to the house of Luxemburg. Now too Henry filled up a group of
bishoprics. A Swabian, Humphrey, formerly Chancellor for Italy, went as
Archbishop to Ravenna; Guido, a relative of the Empress's, to Piacenza;
a royal chaplain, Dietrich (Theodoric), provost of Basle, to Verdun;
1 For the Norman history in detail see vol. v.
## p. 293 (#339) ############################################
Disorderly vassals
293
*
Herman, provost of Spires, to Strasbourg; another chaplain, Dietrich
(Theodoric), Chancellor of Germany, provost of Aix-la-Chapelle, to Con-
stance, where he had been a canon. Metz and Trèves, two sees important
for Lorraine, were vacant: to the one Henry appointed Adalbero, nephew
of the late bishop, to the other Henry, a royal chaplain and a Swabian.
Henry, now at Metz (July 1047), was thus busy with ecclesiastical
matters and the Hungarian negotiations, when he was forced to notice
the machinations of Godfrey. Adalbert of Bremen had become suspicious
of the Billung Duke Bernard, doubly related to both Godfrey and
Baldwin of Flanders. Much was at stake; so Henry quickly made terms
with Andrew of Hungary, summoned the army intended for use against
him to meet in September on the Lower Rhine, and then went north-
wards to visit Adalbert. Bernard had always dreaded Adalbert and now,
when the Emperor both visited him and enriched him with lands in
Frisia, formerly Godfrey's, his dread turned against Henry too. Thietmar,
Bernard's brother, was even accused by one of his own vassals, Arnold,
of a design to seize the Emperor, and killed in single combat; the feud
had begun. Henry's power was threatened, and the succession was causing
him further anxiety, so much so that his close friend Herman of Cologne
publicly prayed at Xanten, whither Henry had come, for the birth of an
heir (September 1047).
The Emperor had begun the campaign by a move towards Flushing,
but a disastrous attack from Hollanders, at home in the marshes, threw
his army into confusion, and then the rebels took the field. Their blows
were mostly aimed at the bishops, but one most tragic deed of damage
was the destruction of Charlemagne's palace at Nimeguen : Verdun they
sacked and burnt, even the churches perished. Wazo of Liège stood forth
to protect the poor and the churches ; Godfrey, excommunicated and
repentant, did public penance and magnificently restored the wrecked
cathedral. In his own city, too, Wazo stood a siege; with the cross in
his unarmed hand he led his citizens against the enemy, who soon made
terms.
On the return from the Flushing expedition Henry of Bavaria died :
after a vacancy of eighteen months his duchy was given to Kuno, nephew
of Herman of Cologne. Early in October 1047 Pope Clement II died.
Then in January 1018 Poppo, Abbot of Stablo, passed away, the chief
of monastic reformers in Germany, who had given other reforming
abbots to countless monasteries, including the famous houses of St Gall
and Hersfeld.
Against Godfrey Henry held himself, as formerly against Bohemia,
strangely inactive. To Upper Lorraine, Godfrey's “twice-forfeited
duchy," he nominated “a certain Adalbert,” and left him to fight his own
battles. Christmas 1047 Henry spent at Pöhlde, where he received envoys
from Rome seeking a new Pope; after consultation with his bishops and
nobles he “subrogated” the German Poppo of Brixen, and to this choice
CH. XIJ.
## p. 294 (#340) ############################################
294
Fresh troubles in Lorraine
the Romans agreed. Wazo of Liège, great canonist and stoutest of
bishops, had been asked for advice and had urged the restoration of
Gregory VI, now an exile in Germany, and, as he held, wrongly deposed.
This was one of Wazo's last acts, for on 8 July he died. And the new
Pope also died on 9 August 1048. At Ulm in January Henry held a
Swabian diet and nominated to the duchy, which had been left vacant
for four months, Otto of Schweinfurt, Margrave in the Nordgau, a
Babenberg by birth and possibly nephew to Henry's own mother Gisela.
Lorraine remained to be dealt with. In mid-October the two Henries,
of France and Germany, met near Metz: France might easily have
succoured Godfrey who, spreading “slaughter of men and devastation of
fields, the greatest imaginable,” had slain his new rival Adalbert.
But
ecclesiastical matters also pressed ; at Christmas the formal embassy from
Rome came to speak of the vacant papal throne. They asked for Halinard,
Archbishop of Lyons and formerly at Dijon. This prelate, a strict re-
former, had refused Lyons in 1041, and asked again to take it later he
refused unless he need swear no fealty to Henry. Most German bishops
disliked this innovation, but Henry, on the advice of Bruno of Toul,
Dietrich of Metz and Wazo of Liège, consented. While archbishop,
Halinard had been much in Rome, where he was greatly beloved. But
he hesitated long to take new and greater responsibilities, and in the
end Bruno of Toul became Pope, and as Leo IX began a new epoch in
the Western Church? .
To Upper Lorraine Henry had given a new duke, Gerard of
Chatenois, who, himself of Lorraine, was brother or uncle of the slain
Duke Adalbert and related to Henry and also to the Luxemburgers,
while his wife was a Carolingian: he was also founder of a dynasty which
ruled Lorraine until 1755. The Bishops of Liège, Utrecht and Metz,
together with some lay nobles, had been preparing the way for a larger
expedition. In the cold winter of 1048–1049, favoured by the lengthy
frost, they defeated and slew Count Dietrich, whose brother Florence
followed him in Holland. Then came a greater stroke and in this, too,
bishops helped, for Adalbert of Bremen was Henry's right hand. He had
already dexterously won over the Billungs; but an even greater triumph
was the treaty he had brought about with Svein of Norway and Denmark,
who had succeeded Magnus in 1047. Svein was in sympathy with the
Empire because of his missionary zeal, and now he brought to its aid
his sea-power as his fleet appeared off the Netherland coast. England too,
which was friendly since Kunigunda's marriage to Henry and had also
seen Flanders under Baldwin become a refuge for its malcontents, kept
more distant guard ; Edward the Confessor “lay at Sandwich with a
multitude of ships until that Caesar had of Baldwin all that he would. ”
Thus Baldwin was unable to "aet-burste on waetere. ” Another kind of
aid was given when Leo IX excommunicated Godfrey and Baldwin at
1 See vol. v.
## p. 295 (#341) ############################################
Birth of Henry IV
295
a
Cologne, where Pope and Emperor kept the feast of St Peter and St Paul
(29 June). Godfrey was smitten with fear and, leaving Baldwin in the
lurch, surrendered. His life was left him, but liberty and lands he forfeited,
“for he merited no mercy because of his cruel deeds. ” He had claimed two
duchies and governed one: he was now for the second time a landless
captive. Then, when Henry systematically ravaged Baldwin's lands, he
too gave in, came to terms and gave hostages for his faith. So the deso-
lating war was over and there was again, for a short time, peace within
the Empire.
Thus the Emperor was free to watch with friendly eye the reforming
work of the German Pope as he held a synod at Rheims (3 October
1049). Here appeared not only French bishops in goodly numbers but
also English because of the friendliness of Edward with Henry; as the
synod was to be “Gallic” there also came to it the prelates of Trèves,
Metz, Verdun, Besançon and Lyons. A fortnight later Leo held a German
synod at Mayence, attended by a throng of bishops and abbots from all
parts of the kingdom. This inner peace Henry secured by outward guard :
he urged the Bavarian princes and nobles to watch the Danube ; he
brought Casimir of Poland to a sworn friendship. Thus he could better
face the threatening Hungarian war. Grievous sickness had again attacked
him when the birth of an heir gave him a new and dynastic interest in
the future.
The young Henry was born on 11 November 1050, at Goslar, the
scene of so many events in his life. “ In the autumn of this year,
says the annalist of Altaich, “the Empress bore a son," and Herman of
Reichenau adds “at last. ” Even before his baptism all the bishops and
princes near at hand promised him faith and obedience. At Easter the
infant prince was baptised at Cologne and Hugh of Cluny, who was
again to be his sponsor at Canossa, was specially summoned to be his
sponsor now. In this year Henry completed his work at Goslar, which
"from a little mill and hunting-box he made into so great a city. ”
Besides the great new palace he built a church, and set up there canons
regular to carry on its work. Two bishops, Benno of Osnabrück and
Azelin of Hildesheim, were placed over the work of the new foundation,
and soon for ardour in learning and strictness in discipline Goslar had no
equal in the province.
After the royal baptism Henry with greater hope for his realm had
started on the Hungarian campaign. But the king, Andrew, partly
withstood and partly eluded him : the German army could only burn
and ravage whole districts until hunger forced their return. Soon after,
Adalbert of Austria made a compact with Andrew and peace ensued.
Lower Lorraine still called for Henry's care. Count Lambert of
Louvain first gave trouble, and then Richeldis, heiress of Hainault and
widow of Herman of Mons, by a marriage with Baldwin's son, the
Margrave Baldwin of Antwerp, roused Henry's fear and local strife.
CH. XII.
## p. 296 (#342) ############################################
296
Hungary; Bavaria
Needed on the Hungarian frontier, Henry took a risky but generous step:
he restored to Godfrey of Lorraine a former fief of his in the diocese of
Cologne and set him to guard the peace against Baldwin. From this
summer of 1051 until his marriage with Beatrice of Tuscany in 1054
Godfrey was outwardly an obedient vassal.
The earlier part of 1052 was marked mainly by ecclesiastical cares
and appointments, and then by another Hungarian expedition. The
siege of Pressburg was begun, when Andrew induced Leo IX to act the
mediator, for which purpose the Pope came to Ratisbon. Andrew had
promised the Pope to give all satisfaction and tribute, but when Henry
had raised the siege he withdrew the promise. Leo, in just anger,
excommunicated him, but Henry could not renew the campaign, which
was his last against Hungary. He had other matters, and notably the
Norman danger in Italy, to talk over with the Pope. From January 1052
to February 1053 Leo was in Germany: Henry sent off an army to help
him in his Italian wars and then quickly recalled it. Leo had to set out
with a motley band of his own raising, some sent by their lords, some
criminals, some adventurers, and most of them Swabians like himself.
Events were moving towards the deposition of Kuno of Bavaria: since
Christmas 1052 he and Gebhard, Bishop of Ratisbon, had been at daggers
drawn. The enemies, thus breaking the peace, were summoned to Merse-
burg at Easter 1053; there Kuno for his violence against Gebhard and
dealing unjust judgements among the people” was deposed by the
sentence of some of the princes. ” He took his punishment badly, and
“
on returning to the South he, like Godfrey, began to “stir up cruel strife,"
sparing neither imperialists nor his own late duchy. Bavaria was visited,
too, by a famine so sore that peasants fled the country and whole villages
were left deserted, and in those days both great men and lesser men of
the realm, murmuring more and more against the Emperor, were saying
each to the other that, from the path of justice, peace, divine fear and
virtue of all kind, on which in the beginning he had set out and in which
from day to day he should have progressed, he had gradually turned
aside to avarice and a certain carelessness; and had grown to be less than
himself. "
But if the diet at Merseburg saw Kuno turned to an enemy it also
saw Svein of Denmark made a friend. In the North, Adalbert's parvula
Bremen had become almost instar Romae. Adalbert's chance lay in the
haphazard fashion of the conversion of the Scandinavian nations to
Christianity. Before the days of Knut, Bremen had been the missionary
centre for the North, although it had not wrought its work as carefully
as did the English missionaries under Knut. As Denmark grew more
coherently Christian, Bremen began to lose control, and its loss of eccle-
siastical prestige meant a loss of political influence to Germany: whether
the Danish bishops were consecrated at Rome or even at Bremen they were
autonomous. The older alliance between Conrad II and Knut had brought
## p. 297 (#343) ############################################
Bremen and the North
297
tranquillity to the North in the earlier part of Henry's reign, and in
1049 Svein had sent his fleet to help Henry in the Flemish war. But
between 1049 and 1052 the alliance was strained by Adalbert's assertion
of his ecclesiastical authority. In 1049 Adalbert had obtained a bull
from Leo IX recognising the authority of Bremen over the Scandinavian
lands and the Baltic Slavs up to the Peene. Anxious for peace, at first
Svein had acquiesced, but when Adalbert reprimanded him for his moral
laxity and his marriage with his kinswoman Gunnhild, he threatened war.
Yet prudence or maybe religious scruples won the day. Gunnhild was
sent home to Sweden and king and bishop made friends (1052). Thus
Svein was ready to renew the ancient friendship as useful to Henry
against Baldwin as it was to Svein against Harold Hardrada.
In 1052, a papal brief of Leo IX gave Adalbert wider and more
definite power to the farthest North and West: Iceland, Greenland, the
Orkneys, the Finns, Swedes, Danes and Norwegians, the Baltic Slavs
from the Egdor to the Peene, all were definitely put under the ecclesi-
astical headship of Bremen, as were, indeed, inclusively, all the nations of
the North. The Slavs under Godescalc "looked to Hamburg (Bremen) as
to a mother”: Denmark was submissive: Sweden, at first reluctant, was
brought round by a change of kings in 1056: Norway fell in later. It is
true that Svein made proposals, approved by Leo IX, for a Danish
archbishopric, which would issue in a national Danish church. Adal-
bert failed to carry out his large scheme of a Northern Patriarchate for
Hamburg-Bremen, for which, had he been able to count twelve suffra-
gans, he could have pleaded the sanction of the Pseudo-Isidore. Yet
even so he was himself papal legate in the North, and the greatness of
Hamburg-Bremen under him is a feature of German history under
Henry III.
Early in 1053 at Tribur an assembly of princes elected the young
Henry king and promised him obedience on his father's death, but con-
ditionally, however, on his making a just ruler. Thither too came envoys
from Hungary, peace with which was doubly welcome because of trouble
raised by the ex-Duke Kuno in Bavaria and Carinthia. King Andrew,
indeed, would have become a tributary vassal pledged to military service
everywhere save in Italy, had not Kuno dissuaded him. Rebellions in
Bavaria and Carinthia, intensified by Hungarian help, kept Henry busy
for some months. But the duchy of Bavaria was formally given to the
young king under the vigorous guardianship of Gebhard, Bishop of
Eichstedt. In Carinthia some quiet was gained by the appointment of
Adalbero of Eppenstein (son of the former Duke Adalbero deposed
by Conrad II, and cousin to the Emperor) to the bishopric of Bamberg,
vacant through Hartwich's death. Early in 1054 Henry went north-
wards to Merseburg for Easter and then to Quedlinburg; Casimir of
Poland was threatening trouble, but was pacified by the gift of Silesia,
now taken from Břatislav, always a faithful ally.
CH. XII.
## p. 298 (#344) ############################################
298
Death of Leo IX
From Italy had come the news of the Norman victory over Leo IX
at Civitate (18 June 1053) which left the Pope an honoured captive in
Norman hands; then, when he was eagerly looking for help from the
Emperors of both East and West, he died, having reached Rome. Henry,
influenced by Gebhard of Eichstedt, had been slow to help the great Pope.
But he was to make one more expedition to Italy, not because of Norman
successes but because of a new move by his inveterate enemy, Godfrey of
Lorraine. The exiled duke had married Beatrice, like himself from
Upper Lorraine, foster sister of Henry, and widow of the late Marquess
Boniface of Tuscany, whose lands she held. On the side of Flanders the
two Baldwins were in rebellion and attacking episcopal territories, and so,
after having the young Henry crowned at Aix-la-Chapelle (July 17), the
Emperor went to Maestricht. John of Arras had long coveted the
castle of Cambray, but was kept out by the bishops, first Gerard and
then Liutpert. When Liutpert had gone to Rheims for consecration, John
seized the city, ejected the canons, and made himself at home in the
bishop's palace. On his return Liutpert found himself shut out not
only from his bed but from his city. But Baldwin of Flanders led him
.
home in triumph, and the angry John of Arras turned to the Emperor
for help. He offered to lead Henry to Flanders itself, if the Emperor
would induce Liutpert, a prelate of his own appointment, to recognise
him as holder of the castle of Cambrai. This was the reason why
Henry now took the offensive against Baldwin. He invaded Flanders,
systematically ravaging it bit by bit; he got as far as Lille, and there the
city forced him to halt; siege and hunger made the citizens capitulate
and so the Emperor could go home “with glory” as we are told, but with
little solid gain. John of Arras, despite Henry's appeal to the bishop,
did not gain his longed-for castle. To the South-East there were still
Hungarian raids in Carinthia, and in Bavaria Kuno was still ravaging.
But the men of Austria (under their old Margrave Adalbert of Babenberg
until his death in May 1055) successfully withstood him. Earlier in the
year died Břatislav, who had, according to one account, regained Silesia
from Casimir of Poland.
Christmas was spent by Henry at Goslar; a little later at Ratisbon
in another diet, Gebhard of Eichstedt consented to become Pope, although
earlier, when an embassy from Rome had asked for a Pontiff, he had
refused. His words “to Caesar” were significant. “Lo, my whole self,
body and soul, I devote to St Peter; and though I know myself unworthy
the holiness of such a seat, yet I obey your command: but, on this con-
dition, that you also render to St Peter those things which rightfully are
his. ” At the same diet Henry invested Spitignev, son of Bratislav, formerly
a hostage at his court, with Bohemia, and received his homage. Then he
passed to Italy and by Easter was at Mantua.
In North Italy the Emperor tried to introduce order by holding many
royal courts, including one at Roncaglia (afterwards so famous), and
CH, XII.
## p. 299 (#345) ############################################
End of reign
299
by sending special missi to places needing them. His enemy Godfrey
had fled before a rising of the “plebs,” and had naturally gone to join
Baldwin of Flanders. Late in May Henry was at Florence, where, along
with Pope Victor II, he held a synod. Here too he met Beatrice and her
daughter the Countess Matilda. For her marriage to a public enemy
she
was led captive to Germany, and with her went Matilda. Boniface, her
son and heir to Tuscany, “feared to come to Henry” and a few days later
died. On his way homewards at Zurich, Henry betrothed his son Henry
IV to Bertha, daughter of Otto of Savoy and of Adelaide, Countess of
Turin, and widow of Herman of Swabia, brother to the Emperor.
In Germany Henry had to suppress a conspiracy in which Gebhard
of Ratisbon, Kuno, Welf and others were probably concerned : according
to other accounts it was their knights and not the princes themselves
who conspired. But Kuno died of plague, and Welf after deserting his
comrades also died. In Flanders Baldwin, now joined by Godfrey, was
besieging Antwerp, but was defeated. Death was now removing friends
as well as foes, and the loss of Herman of Cologne (February 1055)
was a real blow to the Emperor. His successor was Anno, a man not of
noble birth, a pupil at Bamberg and Provost at Goslar. At Ivois (May
1056) the Emperor met for the third time his namesake of France, and
the matter of Lorraine made the meeting a stormy one, so much so that
Henry of France challenged Henry of Germany to single combat. On
this the Emperor withdrew in the dead of night. But in Germany itself
the disaffected were returning to obedience; not only those who had con-
spired but Godfrey himself made submission. On the North-East the
Lyutitzi were again in arms, and even as Henry was turning northwards
against them a great defeat on the Havel and Elbe had made the
matter serious, the more so as the Margrave William had been slain. To
disaster was added famine, and when all this had to be faced Henry was
smitten with illness. Hastily he tried to ensure peace for his son : he
compensated all whom he had wronged: he set free Beatrice and Matilda :
all those at his court confirmed his son's succession and the boy was com-
mended to the special protection of the Pope, who was at the death-bed.
Then 5 October 1056 Henry died: “with him," said men afterwards, “died
order and justice. ” His heart was taken to its real and fitting home in
Goslar, while his body rested beside Conrad's at Spires.
The East and North-East throughout Henry's reign had called forth
his full energy, and their story is in very large part the story of two
men-the Slav Duke Godescalc and the Bohemian Duke Bratislav.
The Bohemian duke was the illegitimate son of Duke Udalrich. When
still quite young, “most beautiful of youths and boldest of heroes,”
he had shewn energy in his reconquest of Moravia from the Poles, and
romance in his carrying off the Countess Judith, sister of the Franco-
nian Margrave Otto the White of Schweinfurt, of royal blood.
CH. XII.
## p. 300 (#346) ############################################
300
Břatislav of Bohemia
Břatislav, fresh from his Moravian conquests, had fallen in love with
the reported beauty of Judith “fairer than all other maidens beneath
the sun,” whose good father and excellent mother had confided her to
the convent at Zuinprod (Schweinfurt), “to learn the Psalter. ” Bratislav,
desiring her as bride, preferred action to asking; for “ he reflected on
the innate arrogance of the Teutons, and on the swollen pride with which
they ever despise the Slav people and the Slav tongue. ” So he carried
her off by night, on horseback ; and, lest the Germans should wreak
vengeance on Bohemia, took her to Moravia.
Břatislav could be as unswervingly faithful as he was audacious and
vigorous. His friendship or enmity meant everything to Henry in
Bohemia, much elsewhere. Yet, since he was naturally a man of strong
ambitions, it was not friendship that he offered.
He had begun his career as the ally of Conrad (against the Poles);
and had held Moravia under the joint overlordship of his father and the
Emperor. But on his succession to Bohemia in 1037, his horizon was
bright with promise. Poland had fallen from aggressive strength into
disunion and civil war; the German rulers were absent in Italy. Břa-
tislav saw his opportunity to take vengeance on Poland for old wrongs,
and to ensure Bohemia's permanent freedom from the Empire.
In unhappy Poland, Mesco, son of Boleslav the Mighty, had died
in 1034, leaving a boy, Casimir, under the guardianship of his German
mother, Richessa. While Mesco lived divisions had been fomented
and Poland at last partitioned by the Emperor Conrad. Now, first
the duchess, and later on her son, when a man, were forced to fly
before the violence of the Polish nobles—the duke (says the Polish
Chronicle), lest he should avenge his mother's injuries. Casimir wandered
through Russia and Hungary, and finally reached Richessa in Germany.
Meanwhile Poland was given over to chaos. « Those were lords who
should be slaves ” says the same chronicle, "and those slaves who should
be lords. ” Women were raped, bishops and priests stoned to death.
Upon the distracted country fell all its neighbours, including “those
three most ferocious of peoples, the Lithuanians, Pomeranians and
Prussians. ”
Břatislav seized his chance. Sending the war-signal round Bohemia,
he fell “ like a sudden storm” upon Poland " widowed of her prince. ”
In the South, he took and burnt Cracow, rilling her of her ancient
and precious treasures. Up to the North he raged, razing towns and
villages, carrying off Poles by hundreds into slavery. He finally ended
his career of conquest and slaughter by solemnly transferring, from their
Polish shrine at Gnesen to Prague, the bones of the martyred apostle,
Adalbert.
While these things were happening Henry became Emperor. In the
very year of his accession he prepared an expedition against Bohemia,
which did not mature. Herman of Reichenau tells of envoys who came
## p. 301 (#347) ############################################
Bohemian wars
301
to Henry, in the midst of his preparations for war, bringing with them
Břatislav's son as a hostage ; and of a promise made by Bratislav that he
himself would soon come to pay homage. This might well, for the time,
seem sufficient.
It was in the year 1040 that the first important expedition was
launched against Bohemia. Břatislav's intentions were by this time quite
clear; for he had, in the interval, not only demanded from Rome the
erection of Prague into an archbishopric, a step which meant the severing
of the ecclesiastical dependence of Bohemia upon Germany, but had also
formed an alliance with Peter, the new King of Hungary, who had
signalised the event by winter raids over the German frontiers.
The wrongs of Poland and of Casimir, and the danger to Germany,
were reasons amply justifying Henry's interventions. Preliminary nego-
tiations probably consisted in Henry's ultimatum demanding reparation
to Poland, and the payment of the regular tribute to Germany. On
Bratislav's refusal, the expedition was launched, but failed (August, 1040).
Henry, humiliated for the moment, was not defeated. He “kept his
grief deep in his heart,” and the Bohemian overtures were rejected, as
we have seen. Even before this refusal, the Bohemians and their ally,
Peter of Hungary, were already raiding the frontier.
In 1041 the German forces, which were “ very great," advanced
more cautiously, and Henry, breaking his way into the country in the rear
of its defending armies, found the country-side living as in the midst of
peace. It was in August. For six weeks the German forces lived at ease, the
rich land supplying them plentifully with corn and cattle. Then, burning
and destroying all that was left, and devastating far and wide, “with the
exception of two provinces which they left to their humbled foes,” the
armies towards the end of September moved to the trysting-place above
Prague. Meanwhile Austrian knights, under the leadership of the young
Babenberger prince, Leopold, made a successful inroad from the South.
Břatislav, unable to protect his land, made ineffectual overtures.
Then he was deserted by his own people. The Archbishop of Prague,
Severus, had been appointed by Udalrich in reward for his skill in catering
for the ducal table. This traitor now led a general desertion. The
Bohemians promised Henry to deliver their duke bound into his hands.
Břatislav perforce made an unqualified surrender. He renounced the
royal title, so offensive to German ears ; he promised full restitution to
Poland ; he gave his duchy into Henry's hands. In pledge of his faith he
sent as hostages his own son Spitignev and the sons of five great
Bohemian nobles. These, if Břatislav failed, Henry might put “to any
death he pleased. ” Henry at last accepted his submission.
Břatislav himself built a way back to Bavaria for the booty-laden
invaders; and a fortnight later he himself appeared at Ratisbon, and
there before the king and assembled princes and many of his own
chieftains, “barefooted, more humiliated now than formerly he had been
CH, XII.
## p. 302 (#348) ############################################
302
Bratislav submits
exalted,” offered homage to Henry. His duchy was restored to him, with
half the tribute remitted; he was moreover confirmed in the possession
of Silesia, seized from the Poles, and then actually in his hands. His
own splendid war-horse which Břatislav offered to Henry, with its saddle
“completely and marvellously wrought in gold and silver," was given, in
the duke's presence, to Leopold of Austria, the hero of the expedition.
Once having sworn fealty, Břatislav maintained it loyally until the
close of his life; and his advice on military matters was of great
service to Henry. The re-grant of Breslau and the Silesian towns to
Poland in 1054 was, however, a great strain even on his loyalty; and in
spite of Henry's award, he recovered the lost cities for a time from
Casimir, by force of arms, in the following year. Thence he would have
proceeded to Hungary, but on his way he died. His successor, Spitignev,
although his succession was ratified by Henry, plunged into a riot of
animosity against everything German, expelling from Bohemian soil
every
man and woman of the hated nation, rich, poor and pilgrim.
Duke Casimir of Poland played throughout a less prominent part
than his vigorous neighbour. Affairs at home kept him fully occupied ;
while his close early connexion with Germany, and the memory of the
partition of Poland by Conrad, would further deter him from any
thought of imitating his father Mesco, who, like Boleslav, had claimed
the title of King.
Of his part in events between 1039 and 1041 we know little. With
500 horse, he went to Poland, where he was “gladly received"; he
slowly recovered his land from foreigners; and finally (1047) overcame the
last and greatest of the independent Polish chiefs, Meczlav of Masovia.
He had secured the greater part of his inheritance; it remained to
recover Silesia, seized by Bratislav in 1039 and confirmed to the Bohemian
duke by Henry.
victory over Hungary seemed even more complete than the victory
over Bohemia; the difference in the duration of their effects was
partly due to a fundamental difference in the character of the two
vassal princes. While Břatislav, a strong man, held Bohemia firmly,
and, giving his fealty to Henry, gave with it the fealty of Bohemia ;
Peter, subservient and cringing to his benefactor, let Hungary slip
through his fingers. Within two years he was a blinded captive in his
twice-lost kingdom ; and Hungary, freed from him, was freed too from
vassalage.
This summer saw the gathering of the western clouds. Godfrey of
>
CH. XII.
## p. 286 (#332) ############################################
286
Rebellion of Godfrey
99
Lorraine had himself taken part in Henry's former Hungarian campaign,
but deeply disappointed by the outcome of the meeting at Nimeguen,
had held himself aloof in stubborn disobedience from this last expe-
dition. He now sent envoys to Henry, who declared himself ready
to forget the duke's contumacy should he at the eleventh hour con-
sent peaceably to the division of the duchies. · But Godfrey would
submit to no “wrong,” and having failed to move Henry, he began
actively and secretly to engage in treason. And here at once becomes
evident the peculiar danger to Germany of disaffection in Lorraine.
For Lorraine was, in truth, not German as the other German lands were
German; and the first ally made by Godfrey was “rex Carlingorum,”
Henry I of France. His other allies, the Burgundian nationalists of
the “Romance " party, were, like himself, of the oft disputed “Middle
Kingdom. ” In his own duchy he prepared for resistance by gaining
from his vassals an oath of unlimited fealty for the space of three years
to aid him against all men whatsoever.
As yet there had been no overt act of rebellion ; but Henry had been
given proof of Godfrey's plots, and in the autumn summoned him before
a great assembly of the princes in Lower Lorraine itself, at Aix-la-
Chapelle. Godfrey could have defied the king and disobeyed the sum-
mons; but to do so would have been to acknowledge his guilt. He
must have hoped that there was no evidence against him, or that the
princes would sympathise with him in his wrongs. He came, was con-
victed, and condemned to the loss of all the lands, including the duchy
of Upper Lorraine and the county of Verdun, which he held in fief
from the king. Godfrey now left Aix, and broke into fierce and open
rebellion. Arms were distributed to the cities and country people, cities
were garrisoned; and the duke fell with fire and sword upon all within
reach who were faithful to Henry.
So ended the year that had seen Hungary subdued. Henry, however,
did not yet foresee the stubborn nature of the danger that threatened
from Lorraine. He spent Christmas 1044 at Spires, “a place beloved
by him. ” It is true that he summoned the princes to consultation over
Godfrey's revolt. Yet, after the feast was over, it was only the forces
of the neighbourhood that he led against the “ tyrant” that threatened
them. Even these forces he could not maintain, because of the terrible
famine in the land. He succeeded, after a short siege and with the
help of siege-engines, in taking and razing Godfrey's castle at Bockel-
heim, near Kreuznach. The seizure of other castles was entrusted to
local nobles, while Henry himself, leaving sufficient men to protect his
people against Godfrey's raids, departed to Burgundy.
Here Godfrey's efforts had borne fruit in feuds which had broken out
in the preceding year between Imperialist and Nationalist partisans.
They ended in victory for the former, for Count Louis of Montbéliard
(who had married Henry's foster-sister) with a small force overcame
## p. 287 (#333) ############################################
Otto of Swabia and his family
287
Godfrey's ally Prince Raynald', who was uncle of Henry's queen and
son of Count Otto-William, the former head of the anti-German party.
When Henry now approached Burgundy, Raynald along with the chief
of his partisans, Count Gerald of Geneva, personally made submission to
him. Thus died out the last flicker during Henry's life of Burgundian
opposition to union with the Empire.
Henry took Burgundy on his way to Augsburg, where he arrived in
February 1045, and whither he had summoned the Lombard magnates
to discuss with them the affairs of Italy. He kept Easter at Goslar.
Here, not wishing to set out for the East without taking steps to pro-
tect the West from Godfrey, he handed over to Otto, Count Palatine
in Lower Lorraine, his mother's native duchy of Swabia, which he
himself had held since 1038.
Otto's mother had been the sister of Otto III. His family was wide-
spread and illustrious. His aunt Abbess Adelaide of Quedlinburg and
Gandersheim, and his brother Archbishop Herman of Cologne (who won
for that see the right to crown the king of the Romans at Aix) were
among Henry's truest friends. His sister, Richessa, had been daughter-
in-law of Boleslav the Mighty; his nephew, her son, was Casimir, Duke
of the Poles. Another nephew, Henry, succeeded Otto in the Palatinate,
and within a year was regarded by some as a fit successor to the Empire.
Yet another nephew was Kuno, whom the king first raised to the
Bavarian dukedom and afterwards disgraced. The youngest sister, Sophia,
about this time succeeded her aunt as Abbess of the important Abbey
of Gandersheim; a niece, Theophano, was Abbess of Essen.
Otto himself had been one of the chief of those in the disputed duchy
whose loyalty to Henry had drawn upon themselves the vengeance of
Godfrey at the beginning of the year. His appointment now to the
duchy of Swabia, so long left without a special guardian, and neigh-
bour to Lorraine, recalls the appointment, when trouble threatened
from the Magyars, of a duke to Bavaria, neighbour to Hungary. He
ruled his new duchy, to which he was a stranger, with success and satis-
faction to its people; not, however, for long, for within two years he
was dead.
One more step Henry took for the protection of the West from
Godfrey. For such (viewed in the double light of Henry's general policy
of strengthening the local defence against Godfrey rather than leading
the forces of the Empire against him, and of Godfrey's policy of winning
the neighbours of Lorraine to his cause) must be considered the grant in
this year of the March of Antwerp to Baldwin, son of Count Baldwin V
of Flanders. The grant of Antwerp, however, instead of attaching
Baldwin to the king's party, increased the power of a future ally of
Godfrey's.
i Count of four or five counties which afterwards were collectively named
Franche Comté. Cf. supra, p. 141.
CH. XII.
## p. 288 (#334) ############################################
288
Germany at peace
Having thus spent the early months of 1045, from Christmas onwards,
in local measures against Godfrey and his allies, Henry after a short visit
to Saxony prepared to spend Pentecost with Peter of Hungary. On
his
way he narrowly escaped death through the collapse of the floor of
a banqueting room, when his cousin Bishop Bruno of Würzburg was
killed. Henry, notwithstanding this calamity, arrived punctually in
Hungary, and on Whitsunday in Stühlweissenburg, in the banqueting-
hall of the palace, Peter surrendered the golden lance which was the
symbol of the sovereignty of Hungary. The kingdom was restored to
him for his lifetime, on his taking an oath of fidelity to Henry and to
his heirs. This was confirmed by an oath of fidelity in the very same
terms taken by the Hungarian nobles present. After the termination of
the banquet, Peter presented to Henry a great weight of gold, which the
king immediately distributed to those knights who had shared with
him in the great victory of the preceding year.
How far was this scene spontaneous, and how far prepared ? The oath
taken by the Hungarian nobles, without a dissentient, points to its
being prepared ; and if prepared, then most certainly not without the
co-operation, most probably on the initiative, of Henry. This is what
Wipo has in mind when he says that Henry, having first conquered
Hungary in a great and noble victory, later, with exceeding wisdom,
confirmed it to himself and his successors. But Henry's victory, on
which so much was grounded, was a success snatched by a brilliant
chance; it could furnish no stable foundations for foreign sovereignty
over a free nation.
More than ever Henry appeared as an all-conquering king; and in
the West even Godfrey “despairing of rebellion " determined to submit.
During July, either at Cologne or at Aix-la-Chapelle or at Maestricht,
he appeared humbly before the king, and in spite of his submission was
sent in captivity to Gibichenstein, the German “ Tower,” a castle-fortress
in the dreary land by Magdeburg beyond the Saale, very different from
his own homeland of Lorraine. “ And so the realm for a short time
had quiet and peace.
Godfrey was perhaps taken to his prison in the train of Henry him-
self. For while he had been schooling himself to the idea of peace, the
further Slavs, growing restive, had troubled the borders of these Saxon
marches on the Middle Elbe. Godfrey's submission perhaps decided
theirs; and when Henry with an armed force entered Saxony from
Lorraine, they too sent envoys, and promised the tribute which Conrad
had imposed on them.
Henry spent the peaceful late summer and early autumn of 1045 in
Saxony. For October he had summoned the princes of the Empire to a
colloquy at Tribur. The princes had begun to assemble, and Henry
himself had reached Frankfort, when he fell ill of one of those mysterious
and frequent illnesses which in the end proved fatal. As his weakness
79
## p. 289 (#335) ############################################
Attempt at settlement in the West
289
a
increased, the anxiety of the princes concerning the succession to the
Empire became manifest. Henry of Bavaria and Otto of Swabia, with
bishops and other nobles, met together and agreed, in the event of the
king's death, to elect as his successor Otto's nephew Henry, who had
followed Otto in the Lorraine palatinate, and was likewise a nephew of
the king's confidant, Archbishop Herman, and a grandson of Otto II.
The king recovered. Happily for the schemers, he was not a Tudor;
but the occurrence must have deepened his regret when the child
just at this time born to him proved to be another daughter. This
eldest daughter of Henry and Agnes, Matilda, died in her fifteenth
year as the bride of Rudolf of Swabia, the antagonist of her brother
Henry IV.
The year 1046 opened again, as so many before and after it, with
misery to the country people. In Saxony there was widespread disease
and death. Among others died the stout old Margrave Eckhard, who,
“wealthiest of margraves," made his kinsman the king his heir.
The king, after attending Eckhard's funeral, turned to the Nether-
lands, where Duke Godfrey's incapable younger brother, Gozelo Duke
of Lower Lorraine, was dead'; here too Count Dietrich (Theodoric) of
Holland was unlawfully laying hold on the land round Flushing, be-
longing to the vacant duchy.
At Utrecht, where he celebrated Easter, Henry prepared one of his
favourite river campaigns against Dietrich. Its success was complete,
both the lands and the count falling into Henry's hands. Flushing was
given in fief to the Bishop of Utrecht, and Henry, keeping Pentecost at
Aix-la-Chapelle, determined to settle once for all the affairs of Lorraine.
The means he used would appear to have been three: the concilia-
tion of Godfrey, the strengthening of the bishops, and the grant of Lower
Lorraine to a family powerful enough to hold it. At Aix Godfrey,
.
released from Gibichenstein, threw himself at Henry's feet, was “pitied,”
and restored to his dukedom of Upper Lorraine. This transformation
from landless captive to duke might have conciliated some; but
Henry did not know his man. Duke Godfrey's hereditary county of
Verdun was not restored, but granted to Richard, Bishop of the city.
Lower Lorraine was given to one of the hostile house of Luxemburg,
Frederick, brother of Duke Henry of Bavaria, whose uncle Dietrich
had long held the Lorraine bishopric of Metz.
At the same assembly there took place an event of importance for
the North and in the history of Henry's own house, viz. the investiture of
Adalbert, Provost of Halberstadt, with the Archbishopric of Bremen,
the northern metropolis, which held ecclesiastical jurisdiction, not only
in the coast district of German Saxony, but in all the Scandinavian
lands and over the Slavs of the Baltic.
For the evidence of Gozelo's death, rather than disgrace, see Steindorff, 1.
p. 293, note.
>
C. MED. H. VOL. III. CH. XII.
19
## p. 290 (#336) ############################################
290
Adalbert of Bremen
Adalbert of Bremen had all virtues and all gifts, save that he was of
doubtful humility, humble only to the servants of God, to the poor and
to pilgrims, but by no means so to princes nor to bishops ; accusing
one bishop of luxury, another of avarice. Even as a young man he
had been haughty and overbearing in countenance and speech. His
father, Count Frederick, was of a stock of ancient nobility in Saxony
and Franconia. His mother Agnes, of the rising house of Weimar, had
been brought up at Quedlinburg, and valued learning. Adalbert quickly
rivalled, or more than rivalled, Archbishop Herman of Cologne in the
councils and confidence of the king. He made many an expedition
“with Caesar" into Hungary, Italy, Slavonia, and Flanders. He might
at Sutri have had from Henry the gift of the Papacy, but that he saw
greater possibilities in his northern see. His close connexion with the
king caused him to be regarded with suspicion, indeed as a royal spy,
by the great semi-loyal Duke of the North, the Saxon Bernard II. It
was Adalbert who moved the bishop's seat from Bremen to Hamburg,
“fertile mother of nations,” to recompense her long sorrows, exposed to
the assaults of Pagan Slavs.
But Henry was not only looking northwards. To this same congress
he summoned to judgment one of the three great Italian prelates,
Widger of Ravenna. He had, before his nomination by Henry to the
see, been a canon of Cologne, and although unconsecrated, "had for two
years inefficiently and cruelly wielded the episcopal staff. ” Wazo, the
stalwart Bishop of Liège, famous as an early canonist, was one of the
episcopal judges chosen, but without pronouncing on Widger's guilt,
he significantly denied the right of Germans to try an Italian bishop,
and protested against the royal usurpation of papal jurisdiction. This
trial is the first sign either of clash between royal and ecclesiastical claims,
or of Henry's preoccupation with Italy, where, while these things were
doing, church corruption and reform were waging a louder and louder
conflict. To Italy Henry was now to pass. Before doing so he once
more visited Saxony and the North. At Quedlinburg he invested his
little eight-year-old daughter Beatrice in place of the dead Abbess
Adelaide, and at Merseburg he held court in June, receiving the visits
and gifts of the princes of the North and East, Břatislav of Bohemia,
Casimir of Poland and Zemuzil of the Pomeranians.
By the festival of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin, 8 September
1046, he was at Augsburg, whither he had summoned bishops, lords,
and knights to follow him to Italy. The news of the sudden downfall
of Peter of Hungary grieved, but did not deter, him. Crossing the
Brenner Pass, he reviewed his army before the city of Verona.
When Henry came to Italy (1046), he came to a realm where among
the cities of Romagna and the hills of Tuscany a new age was coming
into life. He had not visited Italy since he had accompanied his father
in 1038, and now the state of things was greatly changed, while his own
## p. 291 (#337) ############################################
Henry, Emperor and Patrician
291
>
a
policy was different from his father's. Conrad had been at strife with
Aribert, the great Archbishop of Milan, but Henry before he left Germany
made at Ingelheim (1039), as the Milanese historian tells us, “a pact of
,
peace with the Archbishop, and was henceforth faithfully held in honour
by him. ” But in 1045, when peace between the populace and nobles of
Milan was hardly restored, Aribert died. Henry rejected the candidate
put forward by the nobles and chose Guido supported by the democracy.
Politics were intertwined with Church affairs, and Henry's dealings with
the Papacy were the beginning of that church reform, which gave Rome
a line of reforming German Popes and led to the Pontificate of Gregory
VII. The story of that progress will come before us later', and this side
,
of the history is therefore here left out. But it was the evil state of
Rome, where the Tusculan Benedict IX, the Crescentian Sylvester III,
and the reforming but simoniacal Gregory VI, had all lately contested
the papal throne and the situation was entangled, that chiefly called
Henry into Italy. By the end of October he was at Pavia, where he held
a synod and dispensed justice to the laymen. At Sutri (20 December
1046) he held a second synod, in which the papal situation was dealt with
and the papal throne itself left vacant. Two days later he entered Rome,
where a third synod was held. No Roman priest was fit, we are told, to
be made a Pope, and after Adalbert of Bremen refused Henry chose on
Christmas Eve the Saxon Suidger of Bamberg, who after “ was elected
by clergy and people,” and became Clement II.
On Christmas Day the new Pope was consecrated, and at once gave
the Imperial crown to Henry; Agnes was also crowned Empress at the
same time. Then too the Roman people made him “ Patrician”: the
symbol of the Patriciate, a plain gold circlet, he often wore, and the
office, of undoubted but disputed importance, gave the Emperor peculiar
power in Rome and the right to control every papal election, if not
to nominate the Pope himself. The new Patrician was henceforth
officially responsible for order in the city; so it was fitting that, a week
after his coronation, he was at Frascati, the headquarters of the Counts
of Tusculum, and that, before leaving for the South, he seized the fort-
resses of the Crescentii in the Campagna. At Christmas-tide Clement II
held his first synod at Rome, and it was significant of the new era in
church affairs that simoniacs were excommunicated, and those knowingly
ordained by simoniacs, although without themselves paying a price, sen-
tenced to a penance of forty days; a leniency favoured by Peter Damiani
as against those who would have had them deprived. After this the
Empress went northwards to Ravenna, while the Emperor along with the
Pope set out for the South.
1 In vol. v.
? This Patriciate was, in this view, a new departure; it goes back not to the
patriciate of Pepin and Charles the Great but to the patriciate of the Crescentii in
the days of Otto III.
CH. XII.
1942
## p. 292 (#338) ############################################
292
Germany and France
At Capua he was received by Guaimar, recognised by Conrad as
Prince of Salerno and also of Capua, from which city Paldolf (Pandulf)
IV had been driven out. But Henry restored Paldolf, “a wily and wicked
prince” formerly expelled for his insolence and evil deeds. Conrad had
also recognised Guaimar as overlord of the Norman Counts of Aversa and
of the Norman de Hautevilles in Calabria and Apulia. Now Ranulf of
Aversa and Drogo de Hauteville of Apulia, as they went plundering and
conquering from the Greeks, were recognised as holding directly from
Henry himself". So at Benevento the gates were shut in the Emperor's
face and he had to stay outside. Thence he went to join the Empress at
Ravenna: early in May he reached Verona and then left Italy. There was
trouble in the South, but otherwise he left Italy “in peace and obedience. ”
In the middle of May he was again home in Germany, which during his
eight months' absence had also been in quiet.
With Henry's return he steps upon a downward path: the greatness
of his reign is over ; troubles are incessant and sporadic; successes scanty
and small. During his absence Henry I of France, with the approval of
his great men and perhaps at the instigation of Godfrey of Lorraine,
made a move towards claiming and seizing the duchies of Lorraine.
When the unwonted calm was thus threatened, Wazo of Liège wrote to
the French king appealing to the ancient friendship between the realms
and urging the blame he would incur if, almost like a thief, he came
against unguarded lands. Henry I called his bishops to Rheims, reproached
them for letting a stranger advise him better than his native pastors,
and turned to a more fitting warfare along with William of Normandy
against the frequent rebel Geoffrey of Anjou. But in his duchy of
Upper Lorraine the pardoned Godfrey was nursing his wrongs : his
son, a hostage with Henry, was now dead, and he also heard that his
name had not been in the list of those with whom Henry at St Peter's
in Rome had declared himself reconciled. Godfrey found allies in the
Netherlands, Baldwin of Flanders, his son the Margrave of Antwerp,
Dietrich, Count of Holland, and Herman, Count of Mons, all united by
kinship and each smarting under some private wrong. Dietrich wished
to recover from the Bishop of Utrecht the land round Flushing; Godfrey
to recover the county of Verdun from its bishop. It was almost a war of
lay nobles against the bishops so useful to Henry in the kingdom. At
the moment Henry was busied in negotiations with Hungary and in
giving a new duke to Carinthia: this was Welf, son of the Swabian
Count Welf, and as his mother was sister to Henry of Bavaria, related
to the house of Luxemburg. Now too Henry filled up a group of
bishoprics. A Swabian, Humphrey, formerly Chancellor for Italy, went as
Archbishop to Ravenna; Guido, a relative of the Empress's, to Piacenza;
a royal chaplain, Dietrich (Theodoric), provost of Basle, to Verdun;
1 For the Norman history in detail see vol. v.
## p. 293 (#339) ############################################
Disorderly vassals
293
*
Herman, provost of Spires, to Strasbourg; another chaplain, Dietrich
(Theodoric), Chancellor of Germany, provost of Aix-la-Chapelle, to Con-
stance, where he had been a canon. Metz and Trèves, two sees important
for Lorraine, were vacant: to the one Henry appointed Adalbero, nephew
of the late bishop, to the other Henry, a royal chaplain and a Swabian.
Henry, now at Metz (July 1047), was thus busy with ecclesiastical
matters and the Hungarian negotiations, when he was forced to notice
the machinations of Godfrey. Adalbert of Bremen had become suspicious
of the Billung Duke Bernard, doubly related to both Godfrey and
Baldwin of Flanders. Much was at stake; so Henry quickly made terms
with Andrew of Hungary, summoned the army intended for use against
him to meet in September on the Lower Rhine, and then went north-
wards to visit Adalbert. Bernard had always dreaded Adalbert and now,
when the Emperor both visited him and enriched him with lands in
Frisia, formerly Godfrey's, his dread turned against Henry too. Thietmar,
Bernard's brother, was even accused by one of his own vassals, Arnold,
of a design to seize the Emperor, and killed in single combat; the feud
had begun. Henry's power was threatened, and the succession was causing
him further anxiety, so much so that his close friend Herman of Cologne
publicly prayed at Xanten, whither Henry had come, for the birth of an
heir (September 1047).
The Emperor had begun the campaign by a move towards Flushing,
but a disastrous attack from Hollanders, at home in the marshes, threw
his army into confusion, and then the rebels took the field. Their blows
were mostly aimed at the bishops, but one most tragic deed of damage
was the destruction of Charlemagne's palace at Nimeguen : Verdun they
sacked and burnt, even the churches perished. Wazo of Liège stood forth
to protect the poor and the churches ; Godfrey, excommunicated and
repentant, did public penance and magnificently restored the wrecked
cathedral. In his own city, too, Wazo stood a siege; with the cross in
his unarmed hand he led his citizens against the enemy, who soon made
terms.
On the return from the Flushing expedition Henry of Bavaria died :
after a vacancy of eighteen months his duchy was given to Kuno, nephew
of Herman of Cologne. Early in October 1047 Pope Clement II died.
Then in January 1018 Poppo, Abbot of Stablo, passed away, the chief
of monastic reformers in Germany, who had given other reforming
abbots to countless monasteries, including the famous houses of St Gall
and Hersfeld.
Against Godfrey Henry held himself, as formerly against Bohemia,
strangely inactive. To Upper Lorraine, Godfrey's “twice-forfeited
duchy," he nominated “a certain Adalbert,” and left him to fight his own
battles. Christmas 1047 Henry spent at Pöhlde, where he received envoys
from Rome seeking a new Pope; after consultation with his bishops and
nobles he “subrogated” the German Poppo of Brixen, and to this choice
CH. XIJ.
## p. 294 (#340) ############################################
294
Fresh troubles in Lorraine
the Romans agreed. Wazo of Liège, great canonist and stoutest of
bishops, had been asked for advice and had urged the restoration of
Gregory VI, now an exile in Germany, and, as he held, wrongly deposed.
This was one of Wazo's last acts, for on 8 July he died. And the new
Pope also died on 9 August 1048. At Ulm in January Henry held a
Swabian diet and nominated to the duchy, which had been left vacant
for four months, Otto of Schweinfurt, Margrave in the Nordgau, a
Babenberg by birth and possibly nephew to Henry's own mother Gisela.
Lorraine remained to be dealt with. In mid-October the two Henries,
of France and Germany, met near Metz: France might easily have
succoured Godfrey who, spreading “slaughter of men and devastation of
fields, the greatest imaginable,” had slain his new rival Adalbert.
But
ecclesiastical matters also pressed ; at Christmas the formal embassy from
Rome came to speak of the vacant papal throne. They asked for Halinard,
Archbishop of Lyons and formerly at Dijon. This prelate, a strict re-
former, had refused Lyons in 1041, and asked again to take it later he
refused unless he need swear no fealty to Henry. Most German bishops
disliked this innovation, but Henry, on the advice of Bruno of Toul,
Dietrich of Metz and Wazo of Liège, consented. While archbishop,
Halinard had been much in Rome, where he was greatly beloved. But
he hesitated long to take new and greater responsibilities, and in the
end Bruno of Toul became Pope, and as Leo IX began a new epoch in
the Western Church? .
To Upper Lorraine Henry had given a new duke, Gerard of
Chatenois, who, himself of Lorraine, was brother or uncle of the slain
Duke Adalbert and related to Henry and also to the Luxemburgers,
while his wife was a Carolingian: he was also founder of a dynasty which
ruled Lorraine until 1755. The Bishops of Liège, Utrecht and Metz,
together with some lay nobles, had been preparing the way for a larger
expedition. In the cold winter of 1048–1049, favoured by the lengthy
frost, they defeated and slew Count Dietrich, whose brother Florence
followed him in Holland. Then came a greater stroke and in this, too,
bishops helped, for Adalbert of Bremen was Henry's right hand. He had
already dexterously won over the Billungs; but an even greater triumph
was the treaty he had brought about with Svein of Norway and Denmark,
who had succeeded Magnus in 1047. Svein was in sympathy with the
Empire because of his missionary zeal, and now he brought to its aid
his sea-power as his fleet appeared off the Netherland coast. England too,
which was friendly since Kunigunda's marriage to Henry and had also
seen Flanders under Baldwin become a refuge for its malcontents, kept
more distant guard ; Edward the Confessor “lay at Sandwich with a
multitude of ships until that Caesar had of Baldwin all that he would. ”
Thus Baldwin was unable to "aet-burste on waetere. ” Another kind of
aid was given when Leo IX excommunicated Godfrey and Baldwin at
1 See vol. v.
## p. 295 (#341) ############################################
Birth of Henry IV
295
a
Cologne, where Pope and Emperor kept the feast of St Peter and St Paul
(29 June). Godfrey was smitten with fear and, leaving Baldwin in the
lurch, surrendered. His life was left him, but liberty and lands he forfeited,
“for he merited no mercy because of his cruel deeds. ” He had claimed two
duchies and governed one: he was now for the second time a landless
captive. Then, when Henry systematically ravaged Baldwin's lands, he
too gave in, came to terms and gave hostages for his faith. So the deso-
lating war was over and there was again, for a short time, peace within
the Empire.
Thus the Emperor was free to watch with friendly eye the reforming
work of the German Pope as he held a synod at Rheims (3 October
1049). Here appeared not only French bishops in goodly numbers but
also English because of the friendliness of Edward with Henry; as the
synod was to be “Gallic” there also came to it the prelates of Trèves,
Metz, Verdun, Besançon and Lyons. A fortnight later Leo held a German
synod at Mayence, attended by a throng of bishops and abbots from all
parts of the kingdom. This inner peace Henry secured by outward guard :
he urged the Bavarian princes and nobles to watch the Danube ; he
brought Casimir of Poland to a sworn friendship. Thus he could better
face the threatening Hungarian war. Grievous sickness had again attacked
him when the birth of an heir gave him a new and dynastic interest in
the future.
The young Henry was born on 11 November 1050, at Goslar, the
scene of so many events in his life. “ In the autumn of this year,
says the annalist of Altaich, “the Empress bore a son," and Herman of
Reichenau adds “at last. ” Even before his baptism all the bishops and
princes near at hand promised him faith and obedience. At Easter the
infant prince was baptised at Cologne and Hugh of Cluny, who was
again to be his sponsor at Canossa, was specially summoned to be his
sponsor now. In this year Henry completed his work at Goslar, which
"from a little mill and hunting-box he made into so great a city. ”
Besides the great new palace he built a church, and set up there canons
regular to carry on its work. Two bishops, Benno of Osnabrück and
Azelin of Hildesheim, were placed over the work of the new foundation,
and soon for ardour in learning and strictness in discipline Goslar had no
equal in the province.
After the royal baptism Henry with greater hope for his realm had
started on the Hungarian campaign. But the king, Andrew, partly
withstood and partly eluded him : the German army could only burn
and ravage whole districts until hunger forced their return. Soon after,
Adalbert of Austria made a compact with Andrew and peace ensued.
Lower Lorraine still called for Henry's care. Count Lambert of
Louvain first gave trouble, and then Richeldis, heiress of Hainault and
widow of Herman of Mons, by a marriage with Baldwin's son, the
Margrave Baldwin of Antwerp, roused Henry's fear and local strife.
CH. XII.
## p. 296 (#342) ############################################
296
Hungary; Bavaria
Needed on the Hungarian frontier, Henry took a risky but generous step:
he restored to Godfrey of Lorraine a former fief of his in the diocese of
Cologne and set him to guard the peace against Baldwin. From this
summer of 1051 until his marriage with Beatrice of Tuscany in 1054
Godfrey was outwardly an obedient vassal.
The earlier part of 1052 was marked mainly by ecclesiastical cares
and appointments, and then by another Hungarian expedition. The
siege of Pressburg was begun, when Andrew induced Leo IX to act the
mediator, for which purpose the Pope came to Ratisbon. Andrew had
promised the Pope to give all satisfaction and tribute, but when Henry
had raised the siege he withdrew the promise. Leo, in just anger,
excommunicated him, but Henry could not renew the campaign, which
was his last against Hungary. He had other matters, and notably the
Norman danger in Italy, to talk over with the Pope. From January 1052
to February 1053 Leo was in Germany: Henry sent off an army to help
him in his Italian wars and then quickly recalled it. Leo had to set out
with a motley band of his own raising, some sent by their lords, some
criminals, some adventurers, and most of them Swabians like himself.
Events were moving towards the deposition of Kuno of Bavaria: since
Christmas 1052 he and Gebhard, Bishop of Ratisbon, had been at daggers
drawn. The enemies, thus breaking the peace, were summoned to Merse-
burg at Easter 1053; there Kuno for his violence against Gebhard and
dealing unjust judgements among the people” was deposed by the
sentence of some of the princes. ” He took his punishment badly, and
“
on returning to the South he, like Godfrey, began to “stir up cruel strife,"
sparing neither imperialists nor his own late duchy. Bavaria was visited,
too, by a famine so sore that peasants fled the country and whole villages
were left deserted, and in those days both great men and lesser men of
the realm, murmuring more and more against the Emperor, were saying
each to the other that, from the path of justice, peace, divine fear and
virtue of all kind, on which in the beginning he had set out and in which
from day to day he should have progressed, he had gradually turned
aside to avarice and a certain carelessness; and had grown to be less than
himself. "
But if the diet at Merseburg saw Kuno turned to an enemy it also
saw Svein of Denmark made a friend. In the North, Adalbert's parvula
Bremen had become almost instar Romae. Adalbert's chance lay in the
haphazard fashion of the conversion of the Scandinavian nations to
Christianity. Before the days of Knut, Bremen had been the missionary
centre for the North, although it had not wrought its work as carefully
as did the English missionaries under Knut. As Denmark grew more
coherently Christian, Bremen began to lose control, and its loss of eccle-
siastical prestige meant a loss of political influence to Germany: whether
the Danish bishops were consecrated at Rome or even at Bremen they were
autonomous. The older alliance between Conrad II and Knut had brought
## p. 297 (#343) ############################################
Bremen and the North
297
tranquillity to the North in the earlier part of Henry's reign, and in
1049 Svein had sent his fleet to help Henry in the Flemish war. But
between 1049 and 1052 the alliance was strained by Adalbert's assertion
of his ecclesiastical authority. In 1049 Adalbert had obtained a bull
from Leo IX recognising the authority of Bremen over the Scandinavian
lands and the Baltic Slavs up to the Peene. Anxious for peace, at first
Svein had acquiesced, but when Adalbert reprimanded him for his moral
laxity and his marriage with his kinswoman Gunnhild, he threatened war.
Yet prudence or maybe religious scruples won the day. Gunnhild was
sent home to Sweden and king and bishop made friends (1052). Thus
Svein was ready to renew the ancient friendship as useful to Henry
against Baldwin as it was to Svein against Harold Hardrada.
In 1052, a papal brief of Leo IX gave Adalbert wider and more
definite power to the farthest North and West: Iceland, Greenland, the
Orkneys, the Finns, Swedes, Danes and Norwegians, the Baltic Slavs
from the Egdor to the Peene, all were definitely put under the ecclesi-
astical headship of Bremen, as were, indeed, inclusively, all the nations of
the North. The Slavs under Godescalc "looked to Hamburg (Bremen) as
to a mother”: Denmark was submissive: Sweden, at first reluctant, was
brought round by a change of kings in 1056: Norway fell in later. It is
true that Svein made proposals, approved by Leo IX, for a Danish
archbishopric, which would issue in a national Danish church. Adal-
bert failed to carry out his large scheme of a Northern Patriarchate for
Hamburg-Bremen, for which, had he been able to count twelve suffra-
gans, he could have pleaded the sanction of the Pseudo-Isidore. Yet
even so he was himself papal legate in the North, and the greatness of
Hamburg-Bremen under him is a feature of German history under
Henry III.
Early in 1053 at Tribur an assembly of princes elected the young
Henry king and promised him obedience on his father's death, but con-
ditionally, however, on his making a just ruler. Thither too came envoys
from Hungary, peace with which was doubly welcome because of trouble
raised by the ex-Duke Kuno in Bavaria and Carinthia. King Andrew,
indeed, would have become a tributary vassal pledged to military service
everywhere save in Italy, had not Kuno dissuaded him. Rebellions in
Bavaria and Carinthia, intensified by Hungarian help, kept Henry busy
for some months. But the duchy of Bavaria was formally given to the
young king under the vigorous guardianship of Gebhard, Bishop of
Eichstedt. In Carinthia some quiet was gained by the appointment of
Adalbero of Eppenstein (son of the former Duke Adalbero deposed
by Conrad II, and cousin to the Emperor) to the bishopric of Bamberg,
vacant through Hartwich's death. Early in 1054 Henry went north-
wards to Merseburg for Easter and then to Quedlinburg; Casimir of
Poland was threatening trouble, but was pacified by the gift of Silesia,
now taken from Břatislav, always a faithful ally.
CH. XII.
## p. 298 (#344) ############################################
298
Death of Leo IX
From Italy had come the news of the Norman victory over Leo IX
at Civitate (18 June 1053) which left the Pope an honoured captive in
Norman hands; then, when he was eagerly looking for help from the
Emperors of both East and West, he died, having reached Rome. Henry,
influenced by Gebhard of Eichstedt, had been slow to help the great Pope.
But he was to make one more expedition to Italy, not because of Norman
successes but because of a new move by his inveterate enemy, Godfrey of
Lorraine. The exiled duke had married Beatrice, like himself from
Upper Lorraine, foster sister of Henry, and widow of the late Marquess
Boniface of Tuscany, whose lands she held. On the side of Flanders the
two Baldwins were in rebellion and attacking episcopal territories, and so,
after having the young Henry crowned at Aix-la-Chapelle (July 17), the
Emperor went to Maestricht. John of Arras had long coveted the
castle of Cambray, but was kept out by the bishops, first Gerard and
then Liutpert. When Liutpert had gone to Rheims for consecration, John
seized the city, ejected the canons, and made himself at home in the
bishop's palace. On his return Liutpert found himself shut out not
only from his bed but from his city. But Baldwin of Flanders led him
.
home in triumph, and the angry John of Arras turned to the Emperor
for help. He offered to lead Henry to Flanders itself, if the Emperor
would induce Liutpert, a prelate of his own appointment, to recognise
him as holder of the castle of Cambrai. This was the reason why
Henry now took the offensive against Baldwin. He invaded Flanders,
systematically ravaging it bit by bit; he got as far as Lille, and there the
city forced him to halt; siege and hunger made the citizens capitulate
and so the Emperor could go home “with glory” as we are told, but with
little solid gain. John of Arras, despite Henry's appeal to the bishop,
did not gain his longed-for castle. To the South-East there were still
Hungarian raids in Carinthia, and in Bavaria Kuno was still ravaging.
But the men of Austria (under their old Margrave Adalbert of Babenberg
until his death in May 1055) successfully withstood him. Earlier in the
year died Břatislav, who had, according to one account, regained Silesia
from Casimir of Poland.
Christmas was spent by Henry at Goslar; a little later at Ratisbon
in another diet, Gebhard of Eichstedt consented to become Pope, although
earlier, when an embassy from Rome had asked for a Pontiff, he had
refused. His words “to Caesar” were significant. “Lo, my whole self,
body and soul, I devote to St Peter; and though I know myself unworthy
the holiness of such a seat, yet I obey your command: but, on this con-
dition, that you also render to St Peter those things which rightfully are
his. ” At the same diet Henry invested Spitignev, son of Bratislav, formerly
a hostage at his court, with Bohemia, and received his homage. Then he
passed to Italy and by Easter was at Mantua.
In North Italy the Emperor tried to introduce order by holding many
royal courts, including one at Roncaglia (afterwards so famous), and
CH, XII.
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299
by sending special missi to places needing them. His enemy Godfrey
had fled before a rising of the “plebs,” and had naturally gone to join
Baldwin of Flanders. Late in May Henry was at Florence, where, along
with Pope Victor II, he held a synod. Here too he met Beatrice and her
daughter the Countess Matilda. For her marriage to a public enemy
she
was led captive to Germany, and with her went Matilda. Boniface, her
son and heir to Tuscany, “feared to come to Henry” and a few days later
died. On his way homewards at Zurich, Henry betrothed his son Henry
IV to Bertha, daughter of Otto of Savoy and of Adelaide, Countess of
Turin, and widow of Herman of Swabia, brother to the Emperor.
In Germany Henry had to suppress a conspiracy in which Gebhard
of Ratisbon, Kuno, Welf and others were probably concerned : according
to other accounts it was their knights and not the princes themselves
who conspired. But Kuno died of plague, and Welf after deserting his
comrades also died. In Flanders Baldwin, now joined by Godfrey, was
besieging Antwerp, but was defeated. Death was now removing friends
as well as foes, and the loss of Herman of Cologne (February 1055)
was a real blow to the Emperor. His successor was Anno, a man not of
noble birth, a pupil at Bamberg and Provost at Goslar. At Ivois (May
1056) the Emperor met for the third time his namesake of France, and
the matter of Lorraine made the meeting a stormy one, so much so that
Henry of France challenged Henry of Germany to single combat. On
this the Emperor withdrew in the dead of night. But in Germany itself
the disaffected were returning to obedience; not only those who had con-
spired but Godfrey himself made submission. On the North-East the
Lyutitzi were again in arms, and even as Henry was turning northwards
against them a great defeat on the Havel and Elbe had made the
matter serious, the more so as the Margrave William had been slain. To
disaster was added famine, and when all this had to be faced Henry was
smitten with illness. Hastily he tried to ensure peace for his son : he
compensated all whom he had wronged: he set free Beatrice and Matilda :
all those at his court confirmed his son's succession and the boy was com-
mended to the special protection of the Pope, who was at the death-bed.
Then 5 October 1056 Henry died: “with him," said men afterwards, “died
order and justice. ” His heart was taken to its real and fitting home in
Goslar, while his body rested beside Conrad's at Spires.
The East and North-East throughout Henry's reign had called forth
his full energy, and their story is in very large part the story of two
men-the Slav Duke Godescalc and the Bohemian Duke Bratislav.
The Bohemian duke was the illegitimate son of Duke Udalrich. When
still quite young, “most beautiful of youths and boldest of heroes,”
he had shewn energy in his reconquest of Moravia from the Poles, and
romance in his carrying off the Countess Judith, sister of the Franco-
nian Margrave Otto the White of Schweinfurt, of royal blood.
CH. XII.
## p. 300 (#346) ############################################
300
Břatislav of Bohemia
Břatislav, fresh from his Moravian conquests, had fallen in love with
the reported beauty of Judith “fairer than all other maidens beneath
the sun,” whose good father and excellent mother had confided her to
the convent at Zuinprod (Schweinfurt), “to learn the Psalter. ” Bratislav,
desiring her as bride, preferred action to asking; for “ he reflected on
the innate arrogance of the Teutons, and on the swollen pride with which
they ever despise the Slav people and the Slav tongue. ” So he carried
her off by night, on horseback ; and, lest the Germans should wreak
vengeance on Bohemia, took her to Moravia.
Břatislav could be as unswervingly faithful as he was audacious and
vigorous. His friendship or enmity meant everything to Henry in
Bohemia, much elsewhere. Yet, since he was naturally a man of strong
ambitions, it was not friendship that he offered.
He had begun his career as the ally of Conrad (against the Poles);
and had held Moravia under the joint overlordship of his father and the
Emperor. But on his succession to Bohemia in 1037, his horizon was
bright with promise. Poland had fallen from aggressive strength into
disunion and civil war; the German rulers were absent in Italy. Břa-
tislav saw his opportunity to take vengeance on Poland for old wrongs,
and to ensure Bohemia's permanent freedom from the Empire.
In unhappy Poland, Mesco, son of Boleslav the Mighty, had died
in 1034, leaving a boy, Casimir, under the guardianship of his German
mother, Richessa. While Mesco lived divisions had been fomented
and Poland at last partitioned by the Emperor Conrad. Now, first
the duchess, and later on her son, when a man, were forced to fly
before the violence of the Polish nobles—the duke (says the Polish
Chronicle), lest he should avenge his mother's injuries. Casimir wandered
through Russia and Hungary, and finally reached Richessa in Germany.
Meanwhile Poland was given over to chaos. « Those were lords who
should be slaves ” says the same chronicle, "and those slaves who should
be lords. ” Women were raped, bishops and priests stoned to death.
Upon the distracted country fell all its neighbours, including “those
three most ferocious of peoples, the Lithuanians, Pomeranians and
Prussians. ”
Břatislav seized his chance. Sending the war-signal round Bohemia,
he fell “ like a sudden storm” upon Poland " widowed of her prince. ”
In the South, he took and burnt Cracow, rilling her of her ancient
and precious treasures. Up to the North he raged, razing towns and
villages, carrying off Poles by hundreds into slavery. He finally ended
his career of conquest and slaughter by solemnly transferring, from their
Polish shrine at Gnesen to Prague, the bones of the martyred apostle,
Adalbert.
While these things were happening Henry became Emperor. In the
very year of his accession he prepared an expedition against Bohemia,
which did not mature. Herman of Reichenau tells of envoys who came
## p. 301 (#347) ############################################
Bohemian wars
301
to Henry, in the midst of his preparations for war, bringing with them
Břatislav's son as a hostage ; and of a promise made by Bratislav that he
himself would soon come to pay homage. This might well, for the time,
seem sufficient.
It was in the year 1040 that the first important expedition was
launched against Bohemia. Břatislav's intentions were by this time quite
clear; for he had, in the interval, not only demanded from Rome the
erection of Prague into an archbishopric, a step which meant the severing
of the ecclesiastical dependence of Bohemia upon Germany, but had also
formed an alliance with Peter, the new King of Hungary, who had
signalised the event by winter raids over the German frontiers.
The wrongs of Poland and of Casimir, and the danger to Germany,
were reasons amply justifying Henry's interventions. Preliminary nego-
tiations probably consisted in Henry's ultimatum demanding reparation
to Poland, and the payment of the regular tribute to Germany. On
Bratislav's refusal, the expedition was launched, but failed (August, 1040).
Henry, humiliated for the moment, was not defeated. He “kept his
grief deep in his heart,” and the Bohemian overtures were rejected, as
we have seen. Even before this refusal, the Bohemians and their ally,
Peter of Hungary, were already raiding the frontier.
In 1041 the German forces, which were “ very great," advanced
more cautiously, and Henry, breaking his way into the country in the rear
of its defending armies, found the country-side living as in the midst of
peace. It was in August. For six weeks the German forces lived at ease, the
rich land supplying them plentifully with corn and cattle. Then, burning
and destroying all that was left, and devastating far and wide, “with the
exception of two provinces which they left to their humbled foes,” the
armies towards the end of September moved to the trysting-place above
Prague. Meanwhile Austrian knights, under the leadership of the young
Babenberger prince, Leopold, made a successful inroad from the South.
Břatislav, unable to protect his land, made ineffectual overtures.
Then he was deserted by his own people. The Archbishop of Prague,
Severus, had been appointed by Udalrich in reward for his skill in catering
for the ducal table. This traitor now led a general desertion. The
Bohemians promised Henry to deliver their duke bound into his hands.
Břatislav perforce made an unqualified surrender. He renounced the
royal title, so offensive to German ears ; he promised full restitution to
Poland ; he gave his duchy into Henry's hands. In pledge of his faith he
sent as hostages his own son Spitignev and the sons of five great
Bohemian nobles. These, if Břatislav failed, Henry might put “to any
death he pleased. ” Henry at last accepted his submission.
Břatislav himself built a way back to Bavaria for the booty-laden
invaders; and a fortnight later he himself appeared at Ratisbon, and
there before the king and assembled princes and many of his own
chieftains, “barefooted, more humiliated now than formerly he had been
CH, XII.
## p. 302 (#348) ############################################
302
Bratislav submits
exalted,” offered homage to Henry. His duchy was restored to him, with
half the tribute remitted; he was moreover confirmed in the possession
of Silesia, seized from the Poles, and then actually in his hands. His
own splendid war-horse which Břatislav offered to Henry, with its saddle
“completely and marvellously wrought in gold and silver," was given, in
the duke's presence, to Leopold of Austria, the hero of the expedition.
Once having sworn fealty, Břatislav maintained it loyally until the
close of his life; and his advice on military matters was of great
service to Henry. The re-grant of Breslau and the Silesian towns to
Poland in 1054 was, however, a great strain even on his loyalty; and in
spite of Henry's award, he recovered the lost cities for a time from
Casimir, by force of arms, in the following year. Thence he would have
proceeded to Hungary, but on his way he died. His successor, Spitignev,
although his succession was ratified by Henry, plunged into a riot of
animosity against everything German, expelling from Bohemian soil
every
man and woman of the hated nation, rich, poor and pilgrim.
Duke Casimir of Poland played throughout a less prominent part
than his vigorous neighbour. Affairs at home kept him fully occupied ;
while his close early connexion with Germany, and the memory of the
partition of Poland by Conrad, would further deter him from any
thought of imitating his father Mesco, who, like Boleslav, had claimed
the title of King.
Of his part in events between 1039 and 1041 we know little. With
500 horse, he went to Poland, where he was “gladly received"; he
slowly recovered his land from foreigners; and finally (1047) overcame the
last and greatest of the independent Polish chiefs, Meczlav of Masovia.
He had secured the greater part of his inheritance; it remained to
recover Silesia, seized by Bratislav in 1039 and confirmed to the Bohemian
duke by Henry.
