The
latter, headed by Archbishop Frederick of Ravenna and the Marquess
CH.
latter, headed by Archbishop Frederick of Ravenna and the Marquess
CH.
Cambridge Medieval History - v3 - Germany and the Western Empire
(ed.
Julien Havet), no.
186.
CH. I.
## p. 214 (#260) ############################################
214
Failure and Death of Otto III
pierced. And above him was a tabernacle compact of brass and marble
exceedingly. Now when we were come in unto the tomb, we brake and
made straightway an opening in it. And when we entered into it, we
perceived a vehement savour. So we did worship forthwith to him with
bended thighs and knees; and straightway Otto the Emperor clad him
with white raiment, and pared his nails, and made good all that was
lacking about him. But none of his members had corrupted and fallen
away, except a little piece of the end of his nose, which he caused at
once to be restored with gold ; and he took from his mouth one tooth,
and built the tabernacle again and departed 1. ”
The Emperor's genuine aim was to unite the interests of Germany and
Italy. The appointments of his cousin Bruno (Gregory V) in 996 and of
Gerbert (Silvester II) in 999 to the papal chair were intended to advance
this end. But this policy in reality amounted to a neglect of Germany.
Since 996 he had spent only a few months on German soil. It is not
surprising, therefore, that he was regarded with distrust. The older
generation of German prelates had their grievance; they disliked his
close connexion with the Papacy, they had been ousted from their
former influential positions by foreigners and they resented it. Otto's
premature death alone prevented an open outbreak in Germany. He
himself realised that he had set his ambitions too high, that he had
sacrificed Germany without gaining any material compensation. • Are
you not my Romans? ” he is reported to have said in bitter reproach.
“For you I have left my country and my kindred. For love of you I
have abandoned my Saxons, and all the Germans, my own blood. . . I have
adopted you as sons, I have preferred you to all. For your sake I
I
have brought upon myself the envy and hatred of all. And now
you have cast out your father. You have encompassed my servants
with a cruel death, you have closed your gates against me. ” These
are the words of a disappointed man. He died in his twenty-second
year at Paterno on 24 January 1002 from an attack of the small-
pox. It was his wish that he should be buried in the Carolingian
capital. After fighting a way through the lines of the hostile Romans,
his followers succeeded in bringing his body safely to Aix-la-Chapelle,
where it was buried in the centre of the choir of the church of St Mary.
1 Chronicon Novaliciense ini. 32: the truth of this narrative has been much
controverted. The smaller details may have been invented, but the central facts
are probably historical and are in part supported by Thietmar (Chronicon iv. 46).
See an article by Professor Grauert, Historisches Jahrbuch, xiv. 302 f. At the same
time it must be admitted that the chronicler of Novalesa, although truthful, had
the inborn gift of romance.
## p. 215 (#261) ############################################
215
CHAPTER X.
THE EMPEROR HENRY II.
When Otto III, still a youth, expired at Paterno in January 1002, it
seemed as if the life work of his grandfather Otto the Great had been com-
pletely undone. Animosity pursued the Emperor even after death; for
only by hard fighting could his friends succeed in transporting his remains
through the plain of Lombardy for interment in Germany. The fate there-
fore, alike of the Western Empire and of the German kingdom upon which
it was based, depended far more than usual upon the qualities of the man
who might be called to occupy the vacant throne.
To this grave crisis there was added the misfortune of a disputed
succession. Otto III, the last descendant in the male line of Otto the
Great, had died unmarried; nor was there any one person naturally des-
tined to succeed him. Descent and election were the two factors by which
accession to the throne was legally determined; but the relative influence
of these varied according to circumstances. On the present occasion it
was election, in practice confined to the magnates, which was bound to
be preponderant. For though a candidate was forthcoming from the
royal house, he was met at once by powerful opponents. And his claim
in itself was not indisputable. The true representative of the Ottos was
the son of the late Emperor's only wedded sister Matilda, wife of Ezo,
son of Herman, Count Palatine in Lorraine. But this heir was a child,
and was the offspring of a marriage which had been deemed unequal.
Matilda's son therefore was now passed over in silence. There were also
two men who could assert some right to be accepted as head of the
Liudolfing house. The one was Otto, Duke of Carinthia, grandson (through
his mother Liutgard) of Otto the Great, and son of the famous Conrad,
once Duke of Lorraine, who had fallen gloriously at the Lechfeld. To his
great position Otto added the personal qualities of dignity and upright-
ness. He must have been at this time at least fifty years of age. The other
was a far younger man, Henry, Duke of Bavaria, son of Duke Henry "the
Wrangler," and grandson of that earlier Henry, the younger brother of
Otto the Great, who was the first of his family to rule in Bavaria. The
present duke therefore was the actual representative in the male line of
King Henry "the Fowler," the first of the Saxon kings. As it happened,
CH. X.
## p. 216 (#262) ############################################
216
Rival candidates
of
no rivalry arose between the two kinsmen. For when Henry expressed
his readiness to accept Otto as king, the latter declined to come forward
and, acknowledging Henry to be the fitter man, urged him to secure
election for himself.
But election also was legally necessary; and the magnates were not
disposed to let slip the present opportunity of choosing a king at their own
pleasure. When therefore the funeral train of the late Emperor reached
Augsburg on its way to Aix, Henry, anxious to assert his claim, first
took forcible possession of the imperial insignia, and then sought by
profuse promises to win over the attendant magnates for the support of
his cause, but he met with little success.
Already indeed a formidable rival had appeared. The chief men of
Saxony had met at Frohse, and there the Margrave Eckhard of Meissen
had revealed his purpose of gaining the throne. He was the foremost
warrior of his time; he had fought with distinction against the Saracens
in Italy, and at Rome in 998 it was he who had brought about the sur-
render of the castle of Sant' Angelo and the death of its defender
Crescentius. As Margrave of Meissen he had repelled the Wends, reduced
Bohemia to vassalage, and restrained the Polish duke Boleslav from
assailing the kingdom. Though not of royal descent, he was sprung
an ancient Thuringian stock, and was connected with the Billungs, the
new ducal house of Saxony. But a powerful enemy, the Margrave Liuthar
of the North Mark, now set himself to frustrate Eckhard's ambitious
design. Having secured a sworn promise from most of the Saxon mag-
nates to take no part in electing a king until a further conference, Liuthar
secretly visited the Duke of Bavaria, upon whom he urged the necessity
of sending an envoy to represent his interests at the postponed meeting.
And so skilfully did Henry's emissary, by means of lavish promises, work
upon the Saxon nobles when they met at Werla, that he won from them a
unanimous recognition of Henry's hereditary right to the throne and a
solemn pledge of service. Eckhard's haughty abstention from the meeting
had ruined his cause.
By this time a third competitor for the crown was in the field. This
was Herman II, Duke of Swabia. Timorous and retiring by nature, Her-
man had come forward at the suggestion of others. After the obsequies
of Otto III had been performed at Aix on 5 April, most of the magnates
there present had expressed their disinclination to accept Henry of Bavaria
as his successor. In the Duke of Swabia they saw a candidate more to their
liking; and certainly Herman's descent from a great Franconian house,
one member of which had formerly occupied the throne, and his position
as ruler of one of the chief races of Germany were plausible reasons for
his elevation. In reality it was his very gentleness of character that
reconimended him to his proposers, who might hope to find in him a
king to be obeyed or not as they pleased.
Through the Duke of Swabia Eckhard hoped to revenge himself upon
## p. 217 (#263) ############################################
Recognition of Henry II
217
Henry. But on his way to Duisburg, where Herman then was, he received
an intimation that he would not be admitted to the counsels of the
Swabian party. Returning homewards after this second rebuff, he was
waylaid at Pöhlde on the night of 30 April by four brothers who cherished
a private grudge against him, and was slain.
This tragic event removed a dangerous enemy from Henry's path, but
the contention with Duke Herman proved long and bitter. Henry could
count upon the magnates of Bavaria, of East Franconia, and of Saxony,
while Herman had the support only of those of Swabia and of West
Franconia. The Swabian faction, however, was resolute, and the Lor-
rainers were still doubtful. Archbishop Willigis of Mayence, the mainstay
of the last two Emperors, now stood for the principle of legitimate suc-
cession. At the beginning of June, Henry, with his Bavarian and
Franconian adherents, approached the Rhine at Worms, evaded Herman,
and entered Mayence. There his election followed; and on 7 June that
act was ratified by his solemn unction and coronation.
This success decided the wavering Dietrich, Duke of Upper Lorraine.
But the election had been carried through in haste by a few partisans of
the new king; and not only did the Duke of Swabia and his friends remain
defiant, but the nobles of Lower Lorraine still held aloof, while those of
Saxony took umbrage at their total exclusion from the proceedings at
Mayence. To force Herman to submission Henry turned southwards and
began to ravage Swabia. But the duke retaliated by assaulting and
sacking his own city of Strasbourg, whose bishop had declared for his
rival, and refused to be drawn into a decision by battle. Baffled in the
South, Henry proceeded to make sure of the rest of the kingdom. In
Thuringia, in July, he received full acknowledgment from Count William
of Weimar and the other chief men, and gratefully abolished the ancient
tribute of swine, due from the Thuringians to the crown. But from the
Saxon magnates Henry obtained a less easy recognition. There had
assembled to meet him at Merseburg on 23 July a great company of the
bishops and counts of Saxony, at whose head stood the Archbishops of
Bremen and Magdeburg with their Duke Bernard and the Margraves
Liuthar and Gero. Duke Boleslav of Poland also, fresh from an attack on
the mark of Meissen made after the death of Eckhard, presumed to appear
among them. These men, though they received the new king with defer-
ence, were not prepared to offer him an unconditional allegiance. They
stood upon their separate rights, and the next day, before any homage was
paid, Bernard came forward in their name and in that of the Saxon people
to assert their peculiar claims, and to demand of Henry how far he would
pledge himself to respect them. Henry replied by extolling the steadfast
loyalty of the Saxons to their kings; it was only with their approval that
he now came among them as king; and so far from infringing their law
he would be careful to observe it at all points, and would do his utmost
to fulfil their reasonable wishes. The speech satisfied the magnates; and
CH, X.
## p. 218 (#264) ############################################
218
Henry's earlier life
Duke Bernard taking the sacred lance in his hands, delivered it to the
king; their homage and oath of fealty then followed. From Merseburg
Henry hastened to Lower Lorraine. In the course of his journey he was
joined by his wife Kunigunda, whom he saw crowned queen at Paderborn
on 10 August by Archbishop Willigis. A fierce conflict, which broke out
between the king's Bavarian followers and the Saxon inhabitants of the
city, marred the rejoicings. In Lower Lorraine Henry found no ready
acceptance. Two bishops only received him; others hesitated to join
them; and Archbishop Heribert of Cologne, indulging a personal grudge,
purposely held aloof. At length the prelates concurred in choosing Henry
to be king, and after tendering him their oath of fealty, accompanied
him to Aix. There, on 8 September, the remaining Lorrainer magnates
joined in placing Henry on the coronation chair of his predecessors, and
in paying him homage. Nothing therefore was now wanting but the
submission of the Duke of Swabia. Herman, however, finding himself now
so far outmatched, was already prepared to yield. Through mediators he
besought the king's grace for himself and his adherents; and then on
1 October appeared in person before Henry at Bruchsal. On swearing
allegiance, Herman was suffered to retain both his duchy and his fiefs,
but was required to make good the damage he had caused to the city
of Strasbourg
Henry's title to reign, thus acknowledged in Germany, was also
accepted by peoples outside. The Venetians renewed with Henry the
treaty of friendship concluded with Otto II. In the vassal state of
Bohemia a revolution had lately set up a new ruler who at once sought
formal investiture at the hands of Henry. Lastly, from Italy, there came
letters and envoys of the imperialist party, urging Henry to intervene in
rebellious Lombardy.
Henry of Bavaria, the fifth of his house to occupy the German throne,
is known in history as Henry II, both as King and Emperor. He was
born on 6 May 973, and had therefore lately completed his twenty-ninth
year when he was crowned at Mayence in June 1002. His early life had
been moulded by adversity. By the rebellion of his father, Duke Henry
“the Wrangler," he had been deprived of his home; and after some time
spent under the care of Abraham, Bishop of Freising, he had been sent, still
a child, to be brought up at Hildesheim. There he received his first
grounding in an education which made him in all ways a cultivated man,
well learned both in Holy Scripture and in ecclesiastical lore. He be-
came acquainted at the same time with the methods of church govern-
ment, as he was meant for the clerical career; but his father's restoration
in 985 brought him back to Bavaria. Further training under Bishop
Wolfgang of Ratisbon helped to form those decided ideas upon Church
and State which afterwards shaped his policy as king. Upon the death
of his father in August 995 Henry succeeded without question to the duchy
of Bavaria. The last exhortation of the repentant Wrangler to his son
а
## p. 219 (#265) ############################################
Character of Henry
219
a
had been to remain ever loyal to his king; and by that advice Henry
steadily walked during the next six years. Otto III had no more faithful
subject than his cousin of Bavaria, who twice accompanied him to Italy,
and on the second occasion was instrumental, with Marquess Hugh of
Tuscany, in saving him from the wrath of the Roman mob. Moreover,
when the German magnates were scheming to dethrone the absent
Emperor, Henry refused to take any part in their conspiracy. Until
Otto's premature death opened to him the prospect of succession, he
had been, as Duke of Bavaria, a just and vigorous ruler.
Of Henry's outward appearance nothing certain is known. Later tradi-
tion indeed gives him the attribute of “the Lame," and two varying legends
profess to account for the supposed infirmity. A real hindrance, however,
was the liability to severe attacks of a painful internal complaint; Henry
was in truth a sickly man, and his bodily weakness may have sometimes
interfered with his plans. His life and actions were regulated by a strict
conscientiousness and by a piety sober and restrained. The Christian faith
and its Founder, the saints and their sanctuaries, the German church and
its officers, were the objects of his reverence; he punctually attended,
and sometimes took part in, the ceremonies of the Church; he was the
determined foe of ecclesiastical abuses; and if he shared the prevailing
superstition in regard to relics, this was balanced by an ungrudging
liberality to the poor and a splendid munificence in the founding and
maintenance of religious institutions. With all this, Henry was no mere
devotee. He was sociable, and took pleasure in the ordinary amusements
of his day; he was not above playing a practical joke on a troublesome
bishop, and once even incurred rebuke for encouraging a brutal form of
sport. The chase was to him a welcome recreation. Henry was thus
utterly unlike Otto III. He loved his ancestral land of Saxony; the
glamour of Italy did not entice him away from his proper task as a German
king; nor did he entertain any visionary idea of universal dominion under
the form of a revived Roman Empire. The whole bent of his mind was
practical; his undertakings were limited in scope and were pursued with
caution. Prudence indeed was the quality by which he most impressed his
contemporaries. Yet he was not without the kingly ideals of his day. He
had a passion for law and order; and in his conception of the kingly office
a
he was the guardian of the realm against attack from without and against
disturbance within, the champion of the weak and the enemy of all wrong-
doers, the defender of the Church and the promoter of its spiritual work.
No king before him was more untiring in travel to dispense justice among
his people; no ruler could be more stern on occasion in executing judg-
ment on rebels and lawbreakers. In spite of his weak health he did not
shrink from taking his full share in the dangers and hardships of a cam-
paign. And with this courage there was joined a royal humanity which
could shew mercy to the vanquished. Alike in the limitation of his aims
and the steady persistency of his rule, he shewed no little resemblance
CH, X.
## p. 220 (#266) ############################################
220
General character of Henry's reign
to the earliest Henry of his race. In moral dignity, it may be safely said,
he excelled any monarch of the Saxon house.
The Empire presented a complication of difficulties such as only
patience and prudence could overcome. Nearly every province was
seething in unrest. Not only were the lay magnates, as ever, at feud
with their ecclesiastical neighbours, but each order was rent by quarrels
among its own members. Among the clergy of every degree, worldliness
and neglect of duty, avarice and loose living, were widely prevalent. It
was a heavy task, therefore, that Henry undertook, and he had now to
restore by his own efforts the sovereign power in face of men who had
hitherto been his equals.
In these adverse circumstances the new reign began, and by them its
course was set. The history of the reign is confused; but through it all
may be traced the king's unwavering purpose of bringing about a more
settled state of things. The large measure of success that he achieved
therein entitles Henry to a high place among the sovereigns of Germany;
but his zeal for the suppression of ecclesiastical abuses was felt over a
wider sphere, and has set him among the reformers of the Western Church.
And it is in the ecclesiastical policy that he pursued, combining as it did
the political system of Otto the Great with the reforming energy of
Henry the Third, and thus linking him with both those monarchs, that
the chief interest of his career is to be found.
The beginning of Henry's reign was marked by two grave losses to
the Empire; in the South, of the Lombard kingdom; in the East, of the
tributary duchy of Bohemia. The former event, indeed, had taken place
even before Henry had become a candidate for the throne. For within a
month of the death of Otto III Lombardy broke into open revolt; and
on 15 February 1002 Ardoin, Marquess of Ivrea, was elected King of the
Lombards and crowned in the basilica of St Michael at Pavia.
This new king was nearly related to, if he did not actually spring from,
the marquesses of Turin, and was connected also with the late royal
house of Ivrea, with whose hereditary March he had been invested about
twelve
years
since. His career as marquess had been a stormy one. During
a quarrel with Peter, Bishop of Vercelli, Ardoin had taken that city by
assault, and in the tumult the bishop was slain. Soon after, his violence
towards Warmund, the Bishop of his own city of Ivrea, had brought down
upon him a severe rebuke from Pope Gregory V. Through the influence
of Leo, Bishop of Vercelli, Ardoin was summoned to Rome in 999 to
answer for his alleged misdeeds. Yet, in spite of papal censure and
imperial forfeiture, he had kept fast hold both of his March and of
his possessions until the turn of fortune raised him to the Lombard
throne.
Ardoin may have been in truth little more than a rough soldier. Yet
he proved himself a skilful leader in war; and if his reign was unfortunate
1. See supra, Chap. VII, pp. 175-6.
## p. 221 (#267) ############################################
Revolt of Lombardy
221
a
it was not through any lack on his part of energy or courage. He cer-
tainly inspired his family and his friends with a devotion that shrank from
no sacrifice. To the lay magnates he was their champion against the
domination of the prelates, some few of whom also, free from German
sympathies, were on his side. But it was chiefly the smaller nobles, the
secundi milites or lesser vavassors, holding their lands at the will of episcopal
or secular overlords, and with nothing to hope for from a foreign sovereign,
who turned naturally to a native king whose domestic enemies were their
own. Beside them stood many of the secular clergy, equally impatient of
episcopal control; while lower down were the serfs, the voiceless tillers of
church lands, many of whom had obtained their freedom, but all of
whom it was now sought to reduce to perpetual bondage. In this endea-
vour the two bishops of Vercelli, Peter and Leo, had been especially
active; and it was the latter who, but a short while before, had drafted
the terrible decree of Otto III that no serf of the Church should ever be
allowed to issue from his servitude. And to Ardoin therefore these
freedmen and bondmen now looked as their only possible saviour.
The revolt, if primarily social, was so far national that it was directed
against those elements of authority which leaned on foreign support.
The German interest in Lombardy was still strong. Some prelates, the
Archbishop of Ravenna and the bishops of Modena, Verona, and Vercelli,
were openly hostile to Ardoin from the first; and in agreement with them
was the Marquess Tedald, holder of the five counties of Reggio, Modena,
Mantua, Brescia, and Ferrara, whose family had risen to eminence by
service to the Ottos. But the real soul of the opposition was Leo of
Vercelli, a German by birth, whose energetic character, strong intellect,
and immense acquirements made him a dangerous enemy. For he was
at once an accomplished man of letters, an able lawyer, and a practised
man of affairs. Worldly-minded, though zealous for good order in the
Church, he was ever eager to advance his material interests; and the
disappearance of the imperial system would mean his own utter ruin.
His whole energies, therefore, were bent to the overthrow of the national
king.
A progress through Lombardy secured Ardoin general acknowledg-
ment, and the administration went on without break. The hostile mag-
nates were helpless; while the rest, whatever their secret inclinations, gave
outward obedience to the monarch in possession. But Ardoin's insolent
bearing enraged his opponents, and so both sides looked abroad for help.
Ardoin sent an envoy to France to obtain a promise of armed support
from King Robert; Leo of Vercelli in person, backed by the prayers of
other Italian magnates, besought Henry, now recognised as king in
Germany, to intervene in Italy. Accordingly, Henry in December 1002
dispatched a moderate force under Duke Otto of Carinthia, in whose
hands was the March of Verona, to the aid of his Italian adherents.
The
latter, headed by Archbishop Frederick of Ravenna and the Marquess
CH. X.
## p. 222 (#268) ############################################
222
Boleslav of Poland
Tedald, were already on their way to join the duke, when Ardoin with
superior forces threw himself between the allies, occupied Verona, and
seized the mountain passes beyond. A few days later he made a surprise
attack upon the enemy in the valley of the Brenta, and routed them with
heavy loss. This victory for the time made Ardoin's authority secure.
Only a few weeks after Lombardy had thus asserted its independence,
Bohemia was severed from Germany. Boleslav Chrobry (the Mighty),
since succeeding his father Mesco as Duke of Poland in 992, had built up
a powerful Slav monarchy beyond the Elbe. The various tribes occupying
the plains watered by the Oder, the Warta, and the Vistula were united
under his rule; he was allied by marriage with the neighbouring princes
of Bohemia, Hungary, and Kiev; by the indulgence of the late Emperor
he had been relieved of the annual tribute due to the German crown.
Through Otto also he had secured from Pope Sylvester II the eccle-
siastical independence of his country, with the establishment of Gnesen
as a metropolitan see. Only in his vassalage to the Empire was there left
any sign of political subjection. Now Boleslav saw an opportunity for
enlarging his dominion in the West and achieving full independence. He
overran the whole of the East Mark, or Mark of Gero, as far as the Elbe;
then, turning southwards, he seized the towns of Bautzen and Strehla,
and with the aid of its Slavonic inhabitants gained possession of the city
of Meissen itself. Pushing westwards, he occupied the mark of Meissen as
far as the White Elster, securing it with Polish garrisons. He had thus
mastered all the territory known later as the Upper and Lower Lausitz, and
the Elbe had here ceased to be a German river. Then Boleslav appeared
at the diet of Merseburg to make sure of his conquest. But his offer to
Henry of a large sum for the retention of Meissen was rejected: and
Gunzelin, brother of the late Eckhard and half-brother of Boleslav, was
invested by the king with the mark of Meissen, while Boleslav himself
was allowed to keep only the districts to the east of the Black Elster.
Thenceforth the Polish duke became Henry's determined foe. He
found support at once in German disaffection. The Babenberg Henry of
Schweinfurt, Margrave of the Nordgau, hitherto a staunch adherent of the
king, claimed investiture with the duchy of Bavaria as the promised reward
for his aid in the succession contest. Incensed by the king's hesitation in
granting the request, the margrave now made common cause with Boleslav,
whose own wrath was further inflamed by an assault made upon
himself
and his followers, though without the privity of the king, on their depar-
ture from Merseburg.
And the opportunity soon came to Boleslav for revenge. In Bohemia
there had ruled for the last three years, as a tributary of the German
crown, his cousin and namesake, Duke Boleslav the Red, a tyrant whose
jealousy had sent his half-brothers, Jaromir and Udalrich, with their
mother, into exile, and whose cruelty now impelled his subjects to drive
him out and to set up his kinsman Vladivoi as duke. While Vladivoi, to
## p. 223 (#269) ############################################
Bohemia; the Babenbergs
223
secure himself, took investiture from King Henry, the dispossessed prince
sought refuge in Poland. But when Vladivoi's own vices brought his rule
to an end early in 1003 and the Bohemians recalled Jaromir and Udalrich,
the Polish duke intervened by force, drove the two princes a second time
into banishment, and reinstated Boleslav the Red. It was not long before
the ferocious vengeance which the restored duke took upon his enemies
constrained the Bohemians in terror to implore protection from Boleslav
of Poland. Seizing the desired occasion, Boleslav craftily enticed his
kinsman into his power, caused him to be blinded, and then, hastening
to Prague, secured his own acceptance as duke by the Bohemians. The act
was an insolent defiance of Henry's authority; but the king, controlling
his indignation, sent envoys to Boleslav offering recognition if the duke
would acknowledge himself his vassal. Boleslav, however, haughtily re-
jected the proposal, and for the time Bohemia was lost to the German
crown.
Nothing, indeed, could be done as yet for its recovery because of
serious trouble in Germany itself. Already, early in the year, Henry had
had to suppress disaffection in Lorraine with a strong hand; and now he
learnt that the Margrave Henry, secretly aided by the Polish duke, was
in open revolt in the Nordgau. From Bavaria the king took vigorous
action against the rebel. But the margrave found two unexpected allies
in his cousin Ernest of Babenberg and the king's own brother Bruno.
Between King Henry and these three men a petty war was waged during
the autumn of 1003, of which the Nordgau, the wide district lying north
of the Danube between Bohemia and East Franconia, was the scene.
Here the Babenbergs were firmly established; but the king's energy soon
forced the margrave to forsake his strongholds for lurking places in the
country-side. The operations culminated in the siege of Creussen, a forti-
fied town near the sources of the Main, which was valiantly held against
the royal forces by Bucco, the brother of the margrave, while the latter
himself harassed the besiegers from outside. A surprise attack on his
camp drove the margrave into flight, scattered his followers, and delivered
Ernest a prisoner into the hands of the king. Thereupon Bucco sur-
rendered Creussen. Boleslav endeavoured first to seduce Gunzelin into
betraying Meissen to him, and on his refusal laid waste an entire
gau
west of the Elbe. But this diversion brought no relief to the duke's
confederates. The margrave gave up further resistance, and, accompanied
by Bruno and other rebels, sought safety with Boleslav. Though hostili-
ties were renewed early in 1004 by a fierce attack by Boleslav upon
Bavaria, replied to by Henry with an incursion into the Upper Lausitz,
which was frustrated by a change of weather, the confederacy was soon
after dissolved. Impelled by remorse, the two German nobles sought
forgiveness of the king; Bruno through his brother-in-law King Stephen
of Hungary, Margrave Henry of Schweinfurt through powerful friends
at home. The margrave suffered imprisonment for some months, but both
CH. X.
## p. 224 (#270) ############################################
224
Henry's first expedition to Italy
1
he and his adherents were spared the forfeiture of their lands. Bruno
also was pardoned, and having later been ordained, became his brother's
chancellor and eventually Bishop of Augsburg.
With the failure of this domestic revolt Henry was free for action
abroad. The recovery of Italy and of Bohemia were equally urgent tasks;
but the entreaties of certain Lombard magnates, including a special
emissary from the Marquess Tedald and the faithful Leo of Vercelli, pre-
vailed; and Henry, leaving the Saxons and Bavarians to hold Boleslav in
check, started from Augsburg late in March at the head of an expedi-
tionary force composed of Lorrainers, Franks, and Swabians, and after
severe toil reached Trent on Palm Sunday, 9 April. In the face of this
grave peril King Ardoin sent forward to secure the passes, while he
himself gathered troops and took post as before in the plain of Verona.
Henry thus found his advance checked along the Adige, and turning
eastwards into the valley of the Brenta, seized a pass from the Val
Sugana by surprise, and pitched camp on the left bank of the river.
There he celebrated Easter (16 April). At the critical moment Ardoin
had been deserted by most of the Italian leaders, and he had then no
choice but to retreat hurriedly to the West. Henry entered Verona, and
advanced thence by Brescia and Bergamo to Pavia, being joined at each
stage of his march by successive groups of Italian magnates, of whom
the Archbishops of Milan and Ravenna, and the Marquess Tedald, were
'the chief. At Pavia, on Sunday, 14 May 1004, he was elected King of
the Lombards, and crowned in St Michael's the following day.
Henry had thus attained his object with surprising ease; and the
ceremony he had just gone through, omitted as superfluous by his Saxon
predecessors, was the formal annulment of Ardoin's coronation within
the same walls two years before. The same afternoon a quarrel on slight
cause arose between the Pavese and the Germans, and the citizens, rushing
to arms, attacked the palace. Most of the German troops were quartered
outside; but the royal partisans within the city rallied to Henry's side, and
the assault on the palace was repelled. A furious conflict then ensued; and,
as night fell, the royalists for their own protection fired the neighbouring
buildings. The troops outside, attracted by the conflagration, stormed
the walls in the face of a stiff resistance. The Pavese were now over-
powered; numbers were cut down in the streets; and such as continued
to fight from the housetops were destroyed along with their dwellings by
fire. The slaughter was stopped by Henry's command, but not before
many hundreds of the citizens had perished and a great part of their city
had been consumed. The survivors were admitted to grace, and either in
person or by hostages swore fealty to the king.
The fate of Pavia struck terror throughout Northern Italy. All
thought of further resistance was crushed, except in the remote West,
where Ardoin in his Alpine castle of Sparone was holding out manfully
against a besieging force of Germans. The Lombards generally now made
## p. 225 (#271) ############################################
Recovery of Bohemia
225
their submission to Henry, who a few days later, at Pontelungo near Pavia,
held a general diet for the settlement of the kingdom. But the king's
mind was already made up to leave Italy; and he started at the beginning
of June on his way to Germany. After receiving, as his last act on Italian
soil, the proffer of their fealty from certain Tuscan delegates, he reached
Swabia by the middle of the month.
The expedition had in fact failed. For in spite of his coronation, of
the homage of the magnates, and of the forced submission of most of
the Lombards, Henry had not ventured beyond Lombardy; and even
there he left behind him an unsubdued rival and a disaffected people.
The horror of the burning of Pavia sank deep into the hearts of the
Lombards, for whom he had destroyed the hope of settled order under
their native king without giving them a stable government of his own.
And for himself the sole advantage he had secured was the renewed asser-
tion of the German claim to the crown of Lombardy.
Want of time was the cause of this meagre result; for Henry could
not remain long enough in Italy to effect its settlement without neglecting
the peril which menaced Germany from the East. It was necessary before
everything to oust Boleslav from Bohemia. Henry gathered an army at
Merseburg in the middle of August. The men of Saxony, East Franconia,
and Bavaria, who had been exempted from the Italian expedition, were
now called upon to serve against their nearest enemy. By gathering
boats on the middle Elbe, as though for a direct invasion of Poland, the
king hoped to mask his real intention of entering Bohemia from the
North. But the flooding of the rivers hindered his movements and gave
Boleslav time to prepare his defence. In spite, however, of resistance by
the Polish archers, Henry forced his way over the Erzgebirge (Miriquidui),
where he was joined by Jaromir, the exiled duke. On the arrival of the
Bavarian contingent, which had been delayed, Henry sent forward Jaromir
and his Bohemians, with some picked German troops, in order to surprise
Boleslav in Prague. Boleslav, however, received timely warning to make
his escape. He attempted no further defence, and Jaromir forthwith occu-
pied Prague, where, amid general rejoicing, he was once more enthroned
as duke. Henry soon after reached Prague, and solemnly invested Jaromir.
In less than a month from the time he set out Henry had made so sure
of Bohemia that not only could he send the Bavarians home, but could
claim the help of Jaromir for the recovery from Boleslav of the Upper
Lausitz. The task proved difficult through the stubborn defence of
Bautzen by its Polish garrison; but the surrender of the town at length
released the king and his wearied troops from the toils of war.
The recovery of Bohemia closed the earliest stage of Henry's career,
a space of nearly three years, during which he had made good his claim
to the German throne, and had first tried his strength upon the tasks
that lay before him. No striking events, indeed, mark off the reign into
definite periods, its course being one of slow and often interrupted accom-
C. MED. H. VOL. III. CH. X,
15
## p. 226 (#272) ############################################
226
Polish hostilities
plishment; yet the three Italian expeditions, made at long intervals, form
convenient milestones for recording its progress. Nearly ten years were
to elapse before he should again cross the Alps. The interval was occu-
pied by an unceasing struggle in which Henry was able by sheer tenacity
to win some success.
The enmity of the Polish duke was a constant menace. Though
hostilities with Boleslav were not continuous, yet three actual wars were
waged. The campaigns themselves present little of military interest.
Whichever side took the offensive, the operations had generally the
character of an extensive foray, in which few pitched battles were fought,
and decisive results were rarely attained. Boleslav, after losing Bohemia,
possessed no chief city the capture of which would have meant his ruin;
and thus final victory was only possible for Henry by the seizure or de-
struction of Boleslav himself. The duke in turn, however successful he
might be in the field, could not seriously endanger the German kingdom,
though he might enlarge his border at German expense. This he sought
to achieve in the region of the middle Elbe. The territory lying to the
east of that river, the northern portion of which constituted the East
Mark and the southern belonged to the Mark of Meissen, was the usual
scene of contention and the prize waiting on its decision. Not without
difficulty indeed was Boleslav prevented from winning a foothold on the
west of the Elbe. In Henry's absence the jealousies of the Saxon leaders,
upon whom lay the duty of defence, hindered united action. Some of
them had become secret partisans of Boleslav; some were lukewarm in their
service of the king. Especially those ecclesiastical magnates who felt real
zeal for the Church were reluctant opponents of a prince who enjoyed the
favour of the Roman See, and who had done much to further the cause of
Christianity among his own people. A strange act of policy on the part of
Henry increased their repugnance to serve against Boleslav. For during the
Easter season of 1003 he had received at Quedlinburg envoys of the Redari
and of the Lyutitzi, heathen Wendish tribes dwelling in the North Mark
and had made a compact with them. None of the Wends had been more
stubborn in resistance to the German domination, which they had long
ago shaken off; with it had gone their compulsory Christianity. Fear of
a fresh subjection and forcible conversion by the sword of Boleslav drove
them to negotiate with Henry, to whom they could offer protection on
his north-eastern frontier and active help in the field against the Polish
duke. These advantages he secured by allowing them to retain their
practical independence and still to hold to their heathen religion. The
treaty did in fact prove of no small value. Yet this alliance of a Christian
king with pagan tribesmen against another Christian prince gave deep
offence to many of his subjects; and German warriors saw with impatience
the idols of their Wendish associates borne as standards on the march to
overcome a foe who held the same true faith as themselves.
Henry was not satisfied merely to regain Bohemia and to stand on the
## p. 227 (#273) ############################################
Troubles on the West
227
a
defensive against Polish attack. He aimed at recovering the whole of
the lost territory between the Elbe and the Oder, once conquered and
Christianised by Otto the Great. After suppressing early in 1005 a rising
of the Frisians Henry summoned a general levy at Leitzkau, half-way
between Magdeburg and Zerbst, on the farther side of the Elbe; and
thence, in the middle of August, the king led his army forward through
the East Mark, where he was joined by the Bavarians under their new
Duke, Henry of Luxemburg, and by the Bohemians under Duke Jaromir.
But the troops, delayed by false guides who entangled them in the marshes
about the Spree, were harassed by ambushed attacks of the enemy. Just
before the Oder was reached, the Lyutitzi, headed by their heathen images,
attached themselves to the royal host. On pitching camp by the Bobra
(Bober) near its junction with the Oder, Henry found Boleslav stationed
in strong force at Crossen. The discovery of a ford enabled the king to
send over part of his troops, whose appearance drove Boleslav into hasty
retreat. The march was continued to within two miles of the city of
Posen. But the German army was wearied, and now halted to collect
supplies. Its want of vigilance, however, while it was scattered in foraging
parties, allowed it to be taken unawares and defeated with heavy loss.
This reverse, though not the crushing disaster represented by Polish
tradition, disposed Henry to accept an offer made by Boleslav to come
to terms. Envoys, with the Archbishop of Magdeburg at their head, were
sent to Posen to negotiate with the duke; and a peace, the conditions of
which are unknown, was established. The treaty, in any case, was hardly
flattering to German pride, for at the utmost Henry can have won from
Boleslav no more than a recognition of his authority in the Upper and
the Lower Lausitz, and a renunciation of the duke's claim to Bohemia.
During the interval of uneasy peace that followed, Henry's attention
was claimed on his western frontier. The Frisian coast was being harried
by piratical Northmen; Valenciennes had been seized by the count of
Flanders; the kingdom of Burgundy was in a state of turmoil. In Bur-
gundy King Rodolph III, the last male of his house, was struggling vainly
to uphold the royal authority against a defiant nobility. To Henry, the
son of Rodolph's sister Gisela and his nearest heir, the present unsettle-
ment, which imperilled his chance of succeeding to his uncle's crown, was
a matter of serious concern. In 1006, therefore, he made his hand felt
in Burgundy. The extent of his intervention is unknown; but the fact is
clear that he now took possession of the city of Basle. This step, how-
ever brought about, was never reversed; and the sequel shewed it as the
earliest in a series by which the independence of the Burgundian kingdom
was destroyed.
The incursions of the Northmen, this year and the next, into Frisia
were left to the local counts to deal with. It was otherwise when the
ambitious Count Baldwin IV of Flanders, one of the mightiest vassals of
the West Frankish crown, into whose hands had already fallen the castle
CH. X.
15–2
## p. 228 (#274) ############################################
228
War in Flanders: loss of Lausitz
up by Otto the Great at Ghent, presumed to violate German territory
east of the Scheldt and take forcible possession of the town of Valenciennes.
Henry, whose repeated demands for his withdrawal had been ignored by
the count, in June 1006 sought a meeting with Baldwin's overlord, King
Robert, the result of which was a joint expedition of the two monarchs
in September for the recovery of the town'. But the undertaking, though
supported by Duke Richard of Normandy, the lifelong foe of the house
of Flanders, came to naught; and Henry, to retrieve the failure, in the
summer of 1007 led a great host to the Scheldt, crossed it, and then
proceeded to lay waste the country. At Ghent, upon the supplication of
,
the brethren of St Bavo's, he stayed his hand; but by this time Baldwin
was ready to treat. His humble submission soon after, with the surrender
of Valenciennes, won for him full forgiveness from the king. He swore
peace; and also took an oath of fealty to Henry, by which, as it seems,
he became his vassal for the royal castle at Ghent. Two years later, to
secure his help against disaffection in Lorraine, Henry granted Baldwin
in fief Valenciennes, to which the island of Walcheren was afterwards
added. In thus accepting vassalage to the German crown, Baldwin won
for the counts of Flanders their first footing beyond the Scheldt.
But while engaged upon this successful enterprise in the West, Henry
had been overtaken by disaster on his Eastern frontier. Since the Polish
campaign of 1005, he had been at pains to keep the Wends true to their
compact, but, in the spring of 1007, he was visited at Ratisbon by a triple
embassy from the Lyutitzi, from a considerable town in their neighbour-
hood, and from Duke Jaromir of Bohemia, which came to denounce the
assiduous efforts of the Duke of Poland, by bribes and promises, to seduce
them from their allegiance. They declared that, if Henry should remain
any longer at peace with Boleslav, he must not count on further service
from them. The king, then preparing for the invasion of Flanders, con-
sented, on the advice of the princes, to a renewal of war against Poland.
The issue was unfortunate; for the Saxons, the proper guardians of the
Elbe and of the Marches beyond, proved utterly wanting. In the absence
of the king, Boleslav invaded the Marches in force, wasting a wide district
east of Magdeburg, and carrying away captive the inhabitants of Zerbst.
The Saxon levies slowly gathered to repel him, and, with Archbishop
Tagino of Magdeburg in supreme command, sullenly followed the duke as
he returned home. But at Jüterbogk, long before the Oder had been
reached, the heart of their leaders failed them, and their retreat enabled
the Polish prince to reoccupy the eastern half of the Lower Lausitz, and
soon after to secure possession once more of the Upper Lausitz. He had
thus regained all the German territory that he had previously held and
lost; he had established himself firmly on the west of the Oder; and from
the ground thus gained no subsequent efforts of Henry availed to expel
him.
1 Cf. supra, Chap. v, p. 106.
## p. 229 (#275) ############################################
Crystallisation of fiefs
229
In another sphere of activity, this same year of mingled success and
disaster brought Henry, before its close, a peculiar triumph. This was
the establishment, on 1 November 1007, of the new see of Bamberg.
The completion of this cherished scheme was at once the fruit of
Henry's religious zeal and the witness to his supremacy over the German
Church. Nevertheless, it was just his claim to such supremacy in a par-
ticular case that involved him soon after in a bitter domestic quarrel,
which ran its unhappy course for several years, and, combined with other
troubles at home, effectually hindered further action abroad. At this
point, then, it is necessary to explain Henry's ecclesiastical policy, upon
which his whole system of government was based.
In right of the Crown, Henry had small material means at command
to enforce his authority. The obedience due to him as their chosen and
anointed king might be readily acknowledged by all his subjects, but was
just as readily withheld when it conflicted with private interest. Especially
was this the case with the higher nobility. The counts, though still in
theory royal officials and responsible to the sovereign for the maintenance
of public order in their several districts, had become in fact hereditary
territorial magnates, whose offices, like their fiefs and their family estates,
usually passed from father to son in regular succession. The privilege of
“immunity” which many enjoyed, and the feudal relation now generally
subsisting between them and their tenants, still further strengthened
their position. These petty potentates however, who should have been
the upholders of law, were too often its worst transgressors. Their greed
for landed wealth urged them into perpetual feuds with one another or
with their ecclesiastical neighbours, while the abuse of their seignorial
rights made them the oppressors of the classes below them. In these evil
tendencies they had been encouraged by the lax administration of the
last two reigns. Yet even more were the greater lay magnates, the dukes
and margraves, disposed to regard themselves as hereditary princes. The
dukes, in spite of past efforts to reduce their pretensions, were the recog-
nised chiefs of the separate races which made up the German nation, and,
like Herman of Swabia, were generally too strong, even in defeat, to be
displaced without risk. The margraves, holding an office less venerable, had
also won, by effective service on the frontiers, a firm position in the State.
Though dukes and margraves alike required investiture by the king, it
was rarely that a son was not preferred to his father's place. The control
of men so firmly established in power and dignity could be no easy task;
yet it now depended upon the vindication of the royal authority whether
the nation should preserve its political cohesion, or be split up, like the
adjacent kingdoms on the West, into a loose aggregation of almost in-
dependent principalities under a nominal sovereign.
It was the second Henry who by his energy postponed for two gene-
rations the process of disintegration which set in under Henry IV. To
restore the rule of law was his prime object. In the decay, however,
CH. X.
## p. 230 (#276) ############################################
230
Lessening resources of the Crown
of local justice, the Royal, or Palatine, Court, over which the king
presided in person, was the only tribunal where redress could be sought
against a powerful adversary, or whither appeal could be made from
decisions in the inferior courts. Henry knew, as his biographer tells us,
that the region left unvisited by the king was most often filled with the
complaints and groans of the poor, and he did his utmost, by incessant
journeys through the land, to bring justice within reach of all his subjects.
In many cases he punished with severity high-born disturbers of the
peace. Yet the conditions were now such that the Crown was not
strong enough of itself to compel obedience to the law. To make his
will prevail, alike in judicial administration and in large measures of
policy, he had to secure the co-operation of the magnates assembled in
general or provincial diets. At these meetings, which became more
frequent under him than under his predecessors, he was generally able, by
his fixity of purpose and his skilful address, to win consent to his designs.
Even so, however, he was largely dependent for their accomplishment upon
such material aid as the good will of the nobles might afford him. There
existed no standing army. The national levy could still be summoned by
royal command for the defence of the realm; but the only permanent
force at the disposal of the king consisted of unfree retainers (ministeriales)
drawn from the crown lands or from his patrimonial estates. But they
were insufficient for making expeditions abroad or for preserving order at
home; and it was upon the feudal contingents furnished by the magnates
that the monarch had to rely in the last resort.
Furthermore the royal revenues had for years been in steady decline.
The immense crown estates, the villae on which Charles the Great had
bestowed such care, had been broken up and largely dissipated by the
later Carolingians, partly through the granting of fiefs to reward their
supporters, partly though their lavish endowment of churches and monas-
teries. And in similar fashion the peculiar royal rights of coinage, tolls,
and markets, with others of the same kind, all extremely profitable, had
been also freely alienated to laymen and ecclesiastics.
CH. I.
## p. 214 (#260) ############################################
214
Failure and Death of Otto III
pierced. And above him was a tabernacle compact of brass and marble
exceedingly. Now when we were come in unto the tomb, we brake and
made straightway an opening in it. And when we entered into it, we
perceived a vehement savour. So we did worship forthwith to him with
bended thighs and knees; and straightway Otto the Emperor clad him
with white raiment, and pared his nails, and made good all that was
lacking about him. But none of his members had corrupted and fallen
away, except a little piece of the end of his nose, which he caused at
once to be restored with gold ; and he took from his mouth one tooth,
and built the tabernacle again and departed 1. ”
The Emperor's genuine aim was to unite the interests of Germany and
Italy. The appointments of his cousin Bruno (Gregory V) in 996 and of
Gerbert (Silvester II) in 999 to the papal chair were intended to advance
this end. But this policy in reality amounted to a neglect of Germany.
Since 996 he had spent only a few months on German soil. It is not
surprising, therefore, that he was regarded with distrust. The older
generation of German prelates had their grievance; they disliked his
close connexion with the Papacy, they had been ousted from their
former influential positions by foreigners and they resented it. Otto's
premature death alone prevented an open outbreak in Germany. He
himself realised that he had set his ambitions too high, that he had
sacrificed Germany without gaining any material compensation. • Are
you not my Romans? ” he is reported to have said in bitter reproach.
“For you I have left my country and my kindred. For love of you I
have abandoned my Saxons, and all the Germans, my own blood. . . I have
adopted you as sons, I have preferred you to all. For your sake I
I
have brought upon myself the envy and hatred of all. And now
you have cast out your father. You have encompassed my servants
with a cruel death, you have closed your gates against me. ” These
are the words of a disappointed man. He died in his twenty-second
year at Paterno on 24 January 1002 from an attack of the small-
pox. It was his wish that he should be buried in the Carolingian
capital. After fighting a way through the lines of the hostile Romans,
his followers succeeded in bringing his body safely to Aix-la-Chapelle,
where it was buried in the centre of the choir of the church of St Mary.
1 Chronicon Novaliciense ini. 32: the truth of this narrative has been much
controverted. The smaller details may have been invented, but the central facts
are probably historical and are in part supported by Thietmar (Chronicon iv. 46).
See an article by Professor Grauert, Historisches Jahrbuch, xiv. 302 f. At the same
time it must be admitted that the chronicler of Novalesa, although truthful, had
the inborn gift of romance.
## p. 215 (#261) ############################################
215
CHAPTER X.
THE EMPEROR HENRY II.
When Otto III, still a youth, expired at Paterno in January 1002, it
seemed as if the life work of his grandfather Otto the Great had been com-
pletely undone. Animosity pursued the Emperor even after death; for
only by hard fighting could his friends succeed in transporting his remains
through the plain of Lombardy for interment in Germany. The fate there-
fore, alike of the Western Empire and of the German kingdom upon which
it was based, depended far more than usual upon the qualities of the man
who might be called to occupy the vacant throne.
To this grave crisis there was added the misfortune of a disputed
succession. Otto III, the last descendant in the male line of Otto the
Great, had died unmarried; nor was there any one person naturally des-
tined to succeed him. Descent and election were the two factors by which
accession to the throne was legally determined; but the relative influence
of these varied according to circumstances. On the present occasion it
was election, in practice confined to the magnates, which was bound to
be preponderant. For though a candidate was forthcoming from the
royal house, he was met at once by powerful opponents. And his claim
in itself was not indisputable. The true representative of the Ottos was
the son of the late Emperor's only wedded sister Matilda, wife of Ezo,
son of Herman, Count Palatine in Lorraine. But this heir was a child,
and was the offspring of a marriage which had been deemed unequal.
Matilda's son therefore was now passed over in silence. There were also
two men who could assert some right to be accepted as head of the
Liudolfing house. The one was Otto, Duke of Carinthia, grandson (through
his mother Liutgard) of Otto the Great, and son of the famous Conrad,
once Duke of Lorraine, who had fallen gloriously at the Lechfeld. To his
great position Otto added the personal qualities of dignity and upright-
ness. He must have been at this time at least fifty years of age. The other
was a far younger man, Henry, Duke of Bavaria, son of Duke Henry "the
Wrangler," and grandson of that earlier Henry, the younger brother of
Otto the Great, who was the first of his family to rule in Bavaria. The
present duke therefore was the actual representative in the male line of
King Henry "the Fowler," the first of the Saxon kings. As it happened,
CH. X.
## p. 216 (#262) ############################################
216
Rival candidates
of
no rivalry arose between the two kinsmen. For when Henry expressed
his readiness to accept Otto as king, the latter declined to come forward
and, acknowledging Henry to be the fitter man, urged him to secure
election for himself.
But election also was legally necessary; and the magnates were not
disposed to let slip the present opportunity of choosing a king at their own
pleasure. When therefore the funeral train of the late Emperor reached
Augsburg on its way to Aix, Henry, anxious to assert his claim, first
took forcible possession of the imperial insignia, and then sought by
profuse promises to win over the attendant magnates for the support of
his cause, but he met with little success.
Already indeed a formidable rival had appeared. The chief men of
Saxony had met at Frohse, and there the Margrave Eckhard of Meissen
had revealed his purpose of gaining the throne. He was the foremost
warrior of his time; he had fought with distinction against the Saracens
in Italy, and at Rome in 998 it was he who had brought about the sur-
render of the castle of Sant' Angelo and the death of its defender
Crescentius. As Margrave of Meissen he had repelled the Wends, reduced
Bohemia to vassalage, and restrained the Polish duke Boleslav from
assailing the kingdom. Though not of royal descent, he was sprung
an ancient Thuringian stock, and was connected with the Billungs, the
new ducal house of Saxony. But a powerful enemy, the Margrave Liuthar
of the North Mark, now set himself to frustrate Eckhard's ambitious
design. Having secured a sworn promise from most of the Saxon mag-
nates to take no part in electing a king until a further conference, Liuthar
secretly visited the Duke of Bavaria, upon whom he urged the necessity
of sending an envoy to represent his interests at the postponed meeting.
And so skilfully did Henry's emissary, by means of lavish promises, work
upon the Saxon nobles when they met at Werla, that he won from them a
unanimous recognition of Henry's hereditary right to the throne and a
solemn pledge of service. Eckhard's haughty abstention from the meeting
had ruined his cause.
By this time a third competitor for the crown was in the field. This
was Herman II, Duke of Swabia. Timorous and retiring by nature, Her-
man had come forward at the suggestion of others. After the obsequies
of Otto III had been performed at Aix on 5 April, most of the magnates
there present had expressed their disinclination to accept Henry of Bavaria
as his successor. In the Duke of Swabia they saw a candidate more to their
liking; and certainly Herman's descent from a great Franconian house,
one member of which had formerly occupied the throne, and his position
as ruler of one of the chief races of Germany were plausible reasons for
his elevation. In reality it was his very gentleness of character that
reconimended him to his proposers, who might hope to find in him a
king to be obeyed or not as they pleased.
Through the Duke of Swabia Eckhard hoped to revenge himself upon
## p. 217 (#263) ############################################
Recognition of Henry II
217
Henry. But on his way to Duisburg, where Herman then was, he received
an intimation that he would not be admitted to the counsels of the
Swabian party. Returning homewards after this second rebuff, he was
waylaid at Pöhlde on the night of 30 April by four brothers who cherished
a private grudge against him, and was slain.
This tragic event removed a dangerous enemy from Henry's path, but
the contention with Duke Herman proved long and bitter. Henry could
count upon the magnates of Bavaria, of East Franconia, and of Saxony,
while Herman had the support only of those of Swabia and of West
Franconia. The Swabian faction, however, was resolute, and the Lor-
rainers were still doubtful. Archbishop Willigis of Mayence, the mainstay
of the last two Emperors, now stood for the principle of legitimate suc-
cession. At the beginning of June, Henry, with his Bavarian and
Franconian adherents, approached the Rhine at Worms, evaded Herman,
and entered Mayence. There his election followed; and on 7 June that
act was ratified by his solemn unction and coronation.
This success decided the wavering Dietrich, Duke of Upper Lorraine.
But the election had been carried through in haste by a few partisans of
the new king; and not only did the Duke of Swabia and his friends remain
defiant, but the nobles of Lower Lorraine still held aloof, while those of
Saxony took umbrage at their total exclusion from the proceedings at
Mayence. To force Herman to submission Henry turned southwards and
began to ravage Swabia. But the duke retaliated by assaulting and
sacking his own city of Strasbourg, whose bishop had declared for his
rival, and refused to be drawn into a decision by battle. Baffled in the
South, Henry proceeded to make sure of the rest of the kingdom. In
Thuringia, in July, he received full acknowledgment from Count William
of Weimar and the other chief men, and gratefully abolished the ancient
tribute of swine, due from the Thuringians to the crown. But from the
Saxon magnates Henry obtained a less easy recognition. There had
assembled to meet him at Merseburg on 23 July a great company of the
bishops and counts of Saxony, at whose head stood the Archbishops of
Bremen and Magdeburg with their Duke Bernard and the Margraves
Liuthar and Gero. Duke Boleslav of Poland also, fresh from an attack on
the mark of Meissen made after the death of Eckhard, presumed to appear
among them. These men, though they received the new king with defer-
ence, were not prepared to offer him an unconditional allegiance. They
stood upon their separate rights, and the next day, before any homage was
paid, Bernard came forward in their name and in that of the Saxon people
to assert their peculiar claims, and to demand of Henry how far he would
pledge himself to respect them. Henry replied by extolling the steadfast
loyalty of the Saxons to their kings; it was only with their approval that
he now came among them as king; and so far from infringing their law
he would be careful to observe it at all points, and would do his utmost
to fulfil their reasonable wishes. The speech satisfied the magnates; and
CH, X.
## p. 218 (#264) ############################################
218
Henry's earlier life
Duke Bernard taking the sacred lance in his hands, delivered it to the
king; their homage and oath of fealty then followed. From Merseburg
Henry hastened to Lower Lorraine. In the course of his journey he was
joined by his wife Kunigunda, whom he saw crowned queen at Paderborn
on 10 August by Archbishop Willigis. A fierce conflict, which broke out
between the king's Bavarian followers and the Saxon inhabitants of the
city, marred the rejoicings. In Lower Lorraine Henry found no ready
acceptance. Two bishops only received him; others hesitated to join
them; and Archbishop Heribert of Cologne, indulging a personal grudge,
purposely held aloof. At length the prelates concurred in choosing Henry
to be king, and after tendering him their oath of fealty, accompanied
him to Aix. There, on 8 September, the remaining Lorrainer magnates
joined in placing Henry on the coronation chair of his predecessors, and
in paying him homage. Nothing therefore was now wanting but the
submission of the Duke of Swabia. Herman, however, finding himself now
so far outmatched, was already prepared to yield. Through mediators he
besought the king's grace for himself and his adherents; and then on
1 October appeared in person before Henry at Bruchsal. On swearing
allegiance, Herman was suffered to retain both his duchy and his fiefs,
but was required to make good the damage he had caused to the city
of Strasbourg
Henry's title to reign, thus acknowledged in Germany, was also
accepted by peoples outside. The Venetians renewed with Henry the
treaty of friendship concluded with Otto II. In the vassal state of
Bohemia a revolution had lately set up a new ruler who at once sought
formal investiture at the hands of Henry. Lastly, from Italy, there came
letters and envoys of the imperialist party, urging Henry to intervene in
rebellious Lombardy.
Henry of Bavaria, the fifth of his house to occupy the German throne,
is known in history as Henry II, both as King and Emperor. He was
born on 6 May 973, and had therefore lately completed his twenty-ninth
year when he was crowned at Mayence in June 1002. His early life had
been moulded by adversity. By the rebellion of his father, Duke Henry
“the Wrangler," he had been deprived of his home; and after some time
spent under the care of Abraham, Bishop of Freising, he had been sent, still
a child, to be brought up at Hildesheim. There he received his first
grounding in an education which made him in all ways a cultivated man,
well learned both in Holy Scripture and in ecclesiastical lore. He be-
came acquainted at the same time with the methods of church govern-
ment, as he was meant for the clerical career; but his father's restoration
in 985 brought him back to Bavaria. Further training under Bishop
Wolfgang of Ratisbon helped to form those decided ideas upon Church
and State which afterwards shaped his policy as king. Upon the death
of his father in August 995 Henry succeeded without question to the duchy
of Bavaria. The last exhortation of the repentant Wrangler to his son
а
## p. 219 (#265) ############################################
Character of Henry
219
a
had been to remain ever loyal to his king; and by that advice Henry
steadily walked during the next six years. Otto III had no more faithful
subject than his cousin of Bavaria, who twice accompanied him to Italy,
and on the second occasion was instrumental, with Marquess Hugh of
Tuscany, in saving him from the wrath of the Roman mob. Moreover,
when the German magnates were scheming to dethrone the absent
Emperor, Henry refused to take any part in their conspiracy. Until
Otto's premature death opened to him the prospect of succession, he
had been, as Duke of Bavaria, a just and vigorous ruler.
Of Henry's outward appearance nothing certain is known. Later tradi-
tion indeed gives him the attribute of “the Lame," and two varying legends
profess to account for the supposed infirmity. A real hindrance, however,
was the liability to severe attacks of a painful internal complaint; Henry
was in truth a sickly man, and his bodily weakness may have sometimes
interfered with his plans. His life and actions were regulated by a strict
conscientiousness and by a piety sober and restrained. The Christian faith
and its Founder, the saints and their sanctuaries, the German church and
its officers, were the objects of his reverence; he punctually attended,
and sometimes took part in, the ceremonies of the Church; he was the
determined foe of ecclesiastical abuses; and if he shared the prevailing
superstition in regard to relics, this was balanced by an ungrudging
liberality to the poor and a splendid munificence in the founding and
maintenance of religious institutions. With all this, Henry was no mere
devotee. He was sociable, and took pleasure in the ordinary amusements
of his day; he was not above playing a practical joke on a troublesome
bishop, and once even incurred rebuke for encouraging a brutal form of
sport. The chase was to him a welcome recreation. Henry was thus
utterly unlike Otto III. He loved his ancestral land of Saxony; the
glamour of Italy did not entice him away from his proper task as a German
king; nor did he entertain any visionary idea of universal dominion under
the form of a revived Roman Empire. The whole bent of his mind was
practical; his undertakings were limited in scope and were pursued with
caution. Prudence indeed was the quality by which he most impressed his
contemporaries. Yet he was not without the kingly ideals of his day. He
had a passion for law and order; and in his conception of the kingly office
a
he was the guardian of the realm against attack from without and against
disturbance within, the champion of the weak and the enemy of all wrong-
doers, the defender of the Church and the promoter of its spiritual work.
No king before him was more untiring in travel to dispense justice among
his people; no ruler could be more stern on occasion in executing judg-
ment on rebels and lawbreakers. In spite of his weak health he did not
shrink from taking his full share in the dangers and hardships of a cam-
paign. And with this courage there was joined a royal humanity which
could shew mercy to the vanquished. Alike in the limitation of his aims
and the steady persistency of his rule, he shewed no little resemblance
CH, X.
## p. 220 (#266) ############################################
220
General character of Henry's reign
to the earliest Henry of his race. In moral dignity, it may be safely said,
he excelled any monarch of the Saxon house.
The Empire presented a complication of difficulties such as only
patience and prudence could overcome. Nearly every province was
seething in unrest. Not only were the lay magnates, as ever, at feud
with their ecclesiastical neighbours, but each order was rent by quarrels
among its own members. Among the clergy of every degree, worldliness
and neglect of duty, avarice and loose living, were widely prevalent. It
was a heavy task, therefore, that Henry undertook, and he had now to
restore by his own efforts the sovereign power in face of men who had
hitherto been his equals.
In these adverse circumstances the new reign began, and by them its
course was set. The history of the reign is confused; but through it all
may be traced the king's unwavering purpose of bringing about a more
settled state of things. The large measure of success that he achieved
therein entitles Henry to a high place among the sovereigns of Germany;
but his zeal for the suppression of ecclesiastical abuses was felt over a
wider sphere, and has set him among the reformers of the Western Church.
And it is in the ecclesiastical policy that he pursued, combining as it did
the political system of Otto the Great with the reforming energy of
Henry the Third, and thus linking him with both those monarchs, that
the chief interest of his career is to be found.
The beginning of Henry's reign was marked by two grave losses to
the Empire; in the South, of the Lombard kingdom; in the East, of the
tributary duchy of Bohemia. The former event, indeed, had taken place
even before Henry had become a candidate for the throne. For within a
month of the death of Otto III Lombardy broke into open revolt; and
on 15 February 1002 Ardoin, Marquess of Ivrea, was elected King of the
Lombards and crowned in the basilica of St Michael at Pavia.
This new king was nearly related to, if he did not actually spring from,
the marquesses of Turin, and was connected also with the late royal
house of Ivrea, with whose hereditary March he had been invested about
twelve
years
since. His career as marquess had been a stormy one. During
a quarrel with Peter, Bishop of Vercelli, Ardoin had taken that city by
assault, and in the tumult the bishop was slain. Soon after, his violence
towards Warmund, the Bishop of his own city of Ivrea, had brought down
upon him a severe rebuke from Pope Gregory V. Through the influence
of Leo, Bishop of Vercelli, Ardoin was summoned to Rome in 999 to
answer for his alleged misdeeds. Yet, in spite of papal censure and
imperial forfeiture, he had kept fast hold both of his March and of
his possessions until the turn of fortune raised him to the Lombard
throne.
Ardoin may have been in truth little more than a rough soldier. Yet
he proved himself a skilful leader in war; and if his reign was unfortunate
1. See supra, Chap. VII, pp. 175-6.
## p. 221 (#267) ############################################
Revolt of Lombardy
221
a
it was not through any lack on his part of energy or courage. He cer-
tainly inspired his family and his friends with a devotion that shrank from
no sacrifice. To the lay magnates he was their champion against the
domination of the prelates, some few of whom also, free from German
sympathies, were on his side. But it was chiefly the smaller nobles, the
secundi milites or lesser vavassors, holding their lands at the will of episcopal
or secular overlords, and with nothing to hope for from a foreign sovereign,
who turned naturally to a native king whose domestic enemies were their
own. Beside them stood many of the secular clergy, equally impatient of
episcopal control; while lower down were the serfs, the voiceless tillers of
church lands, many of whom had obtained their freedom, but all of
whom it was now sought to reduce to perpetual bondage. In this endea-
vour the two bishops of Vercelli, Peter and Leo, had been especially
active; and it was the latter who, but a short while before, had drafted
the terrible decree of Otto III that no serf of the Church should ever be
allowed to issue from his servitude. And to Ardoin therefore these
freedmen and bondmen now looked as their only possible saviour.
The revolt, if primarily social, was so far national that it was directed
against those elements of authority which leaned on foreign support.
The German interest in Lombardy was still strong. Some prelates, the
Archbishop of Ravenna and the bishops of Modena, Verona, and Vercelli,
were openly hostile to Ardoin from the first; and in agreement with them
was the Marquess Tedald, holder of the five counties of Reggio, Modena,
Mantua, Brescia, and Ferrara, whose family had risen to eminence by
service to the Ottos. But the real soul of the opposition was Leo of
Vercelli, a German by birth, whose energetic character, strong intellect,
and immense acquirements made him a dangerous enemy. For he was
at once an accomplished man of letters, an able lawyer, and a practised
man of affairs. Worldly-minded, though zealous for good order in the
Church, he was ever eager to advance his material interests; and the
disappearance of the imperial system would mean his own utter ruin.
His whole energies, therefore, were bent to the overthrow of the national
king.
A progress through Lombardy secured Ardoin general acknowledg-
ment, and the administration went on without break. The hostile mag-
nates were helpless; while the rest, whatever their secret inclinations, gave
outward obedience to the monarch in possession. But Ardoin's insolent
bearing enraged his opponents, and so both sides looked abroad for help.
Ardoin sent an envoy to France to obtain a promise of armed support
from King Robert; Leo of Vercelli in person, backed by the prayers of
other Italian magnates, besought Henry, now recognised as king in
Germany, to intervene in Italy. Accordingly, Henry in December 1002
dispatched a moderate force under Duke Otto of Carinthia, in whose
hands was the March of Verona, to the aid of his Italian adherents.
The
latter, headed by Archbishop Frederick of Ravenna and the Marquess
CH. X.
## p. 222 (#268) ############################################
222
Boleslav of Poland
Tedald, were already on their way to join the duke, when Ardoin with
superior forces threw himself between the allies, occupied Verona, and
seized the mountain passes beyond. A few days later he made a surprise
attack upon the enemy in the valley of the Brenta, and routed them with
heavy loss. This victory for the time made Ardoin's authority secure.
Only a few weeks after Lombardy had thus asserted its independence,
Bohemia was severed from Germany. Boleslav Chrobry (the Mighty),
since succeeding his father Mesco as Duke of Poland in 992, had built up
a powerful Slav monarchy beyond the Elbe. The various tribes occupying
the plains watered by the Oder, the Warta, and the Vistula were united
under his rule; he was allied by marriage with the neighbouring princes
of Bohemia, Hungary, and Kiev; by the indulgence of the late Emperor
he had been relieved of the annual tribute due to the German crown.
Through Otto also he had secured from Pope Sylvester II the eccle-
siastical independence of his country, with the establishment of Gnesen
as a metropolitan see. Only in his vassalage to the Empire was there left
any sign of political subjection. Now Boleslav saw an opportunity for
enlarging his dominion in the West and achieving full independence. He
overran the whole of the East Mark, or Mark of Gero, as far as the Elbe;
then, turning southwards, he seized the towns of Bautzen and Strehla,
and with the aid of its Slavonic inhabitants gained possession of the city
of Meissen itself. Pushing westwards, he occupied the mark of Meissen as
far as the White Elster, securing it with Polish garrisons. He had thus
mastered all the territory known later as the Upper and Lower Lausitz, and
the Elbe had here ceased to be a German river. Then Boleslav appeared
at the diet of Merseburg to make sure of his conquest. But his offer to
Henry of a large sum for the retention of Meissen was rejected: and
Gunzelin, brother of the late Eckhard and half-brother of Boleslav, was
invested by the king with the mark of Meissen, while Boleslav himself
was allowed to keep only the districts to the east of the Black Elster.
Thenceforth the Polish duke became Henry's determined foe. He
found support at once in German disaffection. The Babenberg Henry of
Schweinfurt, Margrave of the Nordgau, hitherto a staunch adherent of the
king, claimed investiture with the duchy of Bavaria as the promised reward
for his aid in the succession contest. Incensed by the king's hesitation in
granting the request, the margrave now made common cause with Boleslav,
whose own wrath was further inflamed by an assault made upon
himself
and his followers, though without the privity of the king, on their depar-
ture from Merseburg.
And the opportunity soon came to Boleslav for revenge. In Bohemia
there had ruled for the last three years, as a tributary of the German
crown, his cousin and namesake, Duke Boleslav the Red, a tyrant whose
jealousy had sent his half-brothers, Jaromir and Udalrich, with their
mother, into exile, and whose cruelty now impelled his subjects to drive
him out and to set up his kinsman Vladivoi as duke. While Vladivoi, to
## p. 223 (#269) ############################################
Bohemia; the Babenbergs
223
secure himself, took investiture from King Henry, the dispossessed prince
sought refuge in Poland. But when Vladivoi's own vices brought his rule
to an end early in 1003 and the Bohemians recalled Jaromir and Udalrich,
the Polish duke intervened by force, drove the two princes a second time
into banishment, and reinstated Boleslav the Red. It was not long before
the ferocious vengeance which the restored duke took upon his enemies
constrained the Bohemians in terror to implore protection from Boleslav
of Poland. Seizing the desired occasion, Boleslav craftily enticed his
kinsman into his power, caused him to be blinded, and then, hastening
to Prague, secured his own acceptance as duke by the Bohemians. The act
was an insolent defiance of Henry's authority; but the king, controlling
his indignation, sent envoys to Boleslav offering recognition if the duke
would acknowledge himself his vassal. Boleslav, however, haughtily re-
jected the proposal, and for the time Bohemia was lost to the German
crown.
Nothing, indeed, could be done as yet for its recovery because of
serious trouble in Germany itself. Already, early in the year, Henry had
had to suppress disaffection in Lorraine with a strong hand; and now he
learnt that the Margrave Henry, secretly aided by the Polish duke, was
in open revolt in the Nordgau. From Bavaria the king took vigorous
action against the rebel. But the margrave found two unexpected allies
in his cousin Ernest of Babenberg and the king's own brother Bruno.
Between King Henry and these three men a petty war was waged during
the autumn of 1003, of which the Nordgau, the wide district lying north
of the Danube between Bohemia and East Franconia, was the scene.
Here the Babenbergs were firmly established; but the king's energy soon
forced the margrave to forsake his strongholds for lurking places in the
country-side. The operations culminated in the siege of Creussen, a forti-
fied town near the sources of the Main, which was valiantly held against
the royal forces by Bucco, the brother of the margrave, while the latter
himself harassed the besiegers from outside. A surprise attack on his
camp drove the margrave into flight, scattered his followers, and delivered
Ernest a prisoner into the hands of the king. Thereupon Bucco sur-
rendered Creussen. Boleslav endeavoured first to seduce Gunzelin into
betraying Meissen to him, and on his refusal laid waste an entire
gau
west of the Elbe. But this diversion brought no relief to the duke's
confederates. The margrave gave up further resistance, and, accompanied
by Bruno and other rebels, sought safety with Boleslav. Though hostili-
ties were renewed early in 1004 by a fierce attack by Boleslav upon
Bavaria, replied to by Henry with an incursion into the Upper Lausitz,
which was frustrated by a change of weather, the confederacy was soon
after dissolved. Impelled by remorse, the two German nobles sought
forgiveness of the king; Bruno through his brother-in-law King Stephen
of Hungary, Margrave Henry of Schweinfurt through powerful friends
at home. The margrave suffered imprisonment for some months, but both
CH. X.
## p. 224 (#270) ############################################
224
Henry's first expedition to Italy
1
he and his adherents were spared the forfeiture of their lands. Bruno
also was pardoned, and having later been ordained, became his brother's
chancellor and eventually Bishop of Augsburg.
With the failure of this domestic revolt Henry was free for action
abroad. The recovery of Italy and of Bohemia were equally urgent tasks;
but the entreaties of certain Lombard magnates, including a special
emissary from the Marquess Tedald and the faithful Leo of Vercelli, pre-
vailed; and Henry, leaving the Saxons and Bavarians to hold Boleslav in
check, started from Augsburg late in March at the head of an expedi-
tionary force composed of Lorrainers, Franks, and Swabians, and after
severe toil reached Trent on Palm Sunday, 9 April. In the face of this
grave peril King Ardoin sent forward to secure the passes, while he
himself gathered troops and took post as before in the plain of Verona.
Henry thus found his advance checked along the Adige, and turning
eastwards into the valley of the Brenta, seized a pass from the Val
Sugana by surprise, and pitched camp on the left bank of the river.
There he celebrated Easter (16 April). At the critical moment Ardoin
had been deserted by most of the Italian leaders, and he had then no
choice but to retreat hurriedly to the West. Henry entered Verona, and
advanced thence by Brescia and Bergamo to Pavia, being joined at each
stage of his march by successive groups of Italian magnates, of whom
the Archbishops of Milan and Ravenna, and the Marquess Tedald, were
'the chief. At Pavia, on Sunday, 14 May 1004, he was elected King of
the Lombards, and crowned in St Michael's the following day.
Henry had thus attained his object with surprising ease; and the
ceremony he had just gone through, omitted as superfluous by his Saxon
predecessors, was the formal annulment of Ardoin's coronation within
the same walls two years before. The same afternoon a quarrel on slight
cause arose between the Pavese and the Germans, and the citizens, rushing
to arms, attacked the palace. Most of the German troops were quartered
outside; but the royal partisans within the city rallied to Henry's side, and
the assault on the palace was repelled. A furious conflict then ensued; and,
as night fell, the royalists for their own protection fired the neighbouring
buildings. The troops outside, attracted by the conflagration, stormed
the walls in the face of a stiff resistance. The Pavese were now over-
powered; numbers were cut down in the streets; and such as continued
to fight from the housetops were destroyed along with their dwellings by
fire. The slaughter was stopped by Henry's command, but not before
many hundreds of the citizens had perished and a great part of their city
had been consumed. The survivors were admitted to grace, and either in
person or by hostages swore fealty to the king.
The fate of Pavia struck terror throughout Northern Italy. All
thought of further resistance was crushed, except in the remote West,
where Ardoin in his Alpine castle of Sparone was holding out manfully
against a besieging force of Germans. The Lombards generally now made
## p. 225 (#271) ############################################
Recovery of Bohemia
225
their submission to Henry, who a few days later, at Pontelungo near Pavia,
held a general diet for the settlement of the kingdom. But the king's
mind was already made up to leave Italy; and he started at the beginning
of June on his way to Germany. After receiving, as his last act on Italian
soil, the proffer of their fealty from certain Tuscan delegates, he reached
Swabia by the middle of the month.
The expedition had in fact failed. For in spite of his coronation, of
the homage of the magnates, and of the forced submission of most of
the Lombards, Henry had not ventured beyond Lombardy; and even
there he left behind him an unsubdued rival and a disaffected people.
The horror of the burning of Pavia sank deep into the hearts of the
Lombards, for whom he had destroyed the hope of settled order under
their native king without giving them a stable government of his own.
And for himself the sole advantage he had secured was the renewed asser-
tion of the German claim to the crown of Lombardy.
Want of time was the cause of this meagre result; for Henry could
not remain long enough in Italy to effect its settlement without neglecting
the peril which menaced Germany from the East. It was necessary before
everything to oust Boleslav from Bohemia. Henry gathered an army at
Merseburg in the middle of August. The men of Saxony, East Franconia,
and Bavaria, who had been exempted from the Italian expedition, were
now called upon to serve against their nearest enemy. By gathering
boats on the middle Elbe, as though for a direct invasion of Poland, the
king hoped to mask his real intention of entering Bohemia from the
North. But the flooding of the rivers hindered his movements and gave
Boleslav time to prepare his defence. In spite, however, of resistance by
the Polish archers, Henry forced his way over the Erzgebirge (Miriquidui),
where he was joined by Jaromir, the exiled duke. On the arrival of the
Bavarian contingent, which had been delayed, Henry sent forward Jaromir
and his Bohemians, with some picked German troops, in order to surprise
Boleslav in Prague. Boleslav, however, received timely warning to make
his escape. He attempted no further defence, and Jaromir forthwith occu-
pied Prague, where, amid general rejoicing, he was once more enthroned
as duke. Henry soon after reached Prague, and solemnly invested Jaromir.
In less than a month from the time he set out Henry had made so sure
of Bohemia that not only could he send the Bavarians home, but could
claim the help of Jaromir for the recovery from Boleslav of the Upper
Lausitz. The task proved difficult through the stubborn defence of
Bautzen by its Polish garrison; but the surrender of the town at length
released the king and his wearied troops from the toils of war.
The recovery of Bohemia closed the earliest stage of Henry's career,
a space of nearly three years, during which he had made good his claim
to the German throne, and had first tried his strength upon the tasks
that lay before him. No striking events, indeed, mark off the reign into
definite periods, its course being one of slow and often interrupted accom-
C. MED. H. VOL. III. CH. X,
15
## p. 226 (#272) ############################################
226
Polish hostilities
plishment; yet the three Italian expeditions, made at long intervals, form
convenient milestones for recording its progress. Nearly ten years were
to elapse before he should again cross the Alps. The interval was occu-
pied by an unceasing struggle in which Henry was able by sheer tenacity
to win some success.
The enmity of the Polish duke was a constant menace. Though
hostilities with Boleslav were not continuous, yet three actual wars were
waged. The campaigns themselves present little of military interest.
Whichever side took the offensive, the operations had generally the
character of an extensive foray, in which few pitched battles were fought,
and decisive results were rarely attained. Boleslav, after losing Bohemia,
possessed no chief city the capture of which would have meant his ruin;
and thus final victory was only possible for Henry by the seizure or de-
struction of Boleslav himself. The duke in turn, however successful he
might be in the field, could not seriously endanger the German kingdom,
though he might enlarge his border at German expense. This he sought
to achieve in the region of the middle Elbe. The territory lying to the
east of that river, the northern portion of which constituted the East
Mark and the southern belonged to the Mark of Meissen, was the usual
scene of contention and the prize waiting on its decision. Not without
difficulty indeed was Boleslav prevented from winning a foothold on the
west of the Elbe. In Henry's absence the jealousies of the Saxon leaders,
upon whom lay the duty of defence, hindered united action. Some of
them had become secret partisans of Boleslav; some were lukewarm in their
service of the king. Especially those ecclesiastical magnates who felt real
zeal for the Church were reluctant opponents of a prince who enjoyed the
favour of the Roman See, and who had done much to further the cause of
Christianity among his own people. A strange act of policy on the part of
Henry increased their repugnance to serve against Boleslav. For during the
Easter season of 1003 he had received at Quedlinburg envoys of the Redari
and of the Lyutitzi, heathen Wendish tribes dwelling in the North Mark
and had made a compact with them. None of the Wends had been more
stubborn in resistance to the German domination, which they had long
ago shaken off; with it had gone their compulsory Christianity. Fear of
a fresh subjection and forcible conversion by the sword of Boleslav drove
them to negotiate with Henry, to whom they could offer protection on
his north-eastern frontier and active help in the field against the Polish
duke. These advantages he secured by allowing them to retain their
practical independence and still to hold to their heathen religion. The
treaty did in fact prove of no small value. Yet this alliance of a Christian
king with pagan tribesmen against another Christian prince gave deep
offence to many of his subjects; and German warriors saw with impatience
the idols of their Wendish associates borne as standards on the march to
overcome a foe who held the same true faith as themselves.
Henry was not satisfied merely to regain Bohemia and to stand on the
## p. 227 (#273) ############################################
Troubles on the West
227
a
defensive against Polish attack. He aimed at recovering the whole of
the lost territory between the Elbe and the Oder, once conquered and
Christianised by Otto the Great. After suppressing early in 1005 a rising
of the Frisians Henry summoned a general levy at Leitzkau, half-way
between Magdeburg and Zerbst, on the farther side of the Elbe; and
thence, in the middle of August, the king led his army forward through
the East Mark, where he was joined by the Bavarians under their new
Duke, Henry of Luxemburg, and by the Bohemians under Duke Jaromir.
But the troops, delayed by false guides who entangled them in the marshes
about the Spree, were harassed by ambushed attacks of the enemy. Just
before the Oder was reached, the Lyutitzi, headed by their heathen images,
attached themselves to the royal host. On pitching camp by the Bobra
(Bober) near its junction with the Oder, Henry found Boleslav stationed
in strong force at Crossen. The discovery of a ford enabled the king to
send over part of his troops, whose appearance drove Boleslav into hasty
retreat. The march was continued to within two miles of the city of
Posen. But the German army was wearied, and now halted to collect
supplies. Its want of vigilance, however, while it was scattered in foraging
parties, allowed it to be taken unawares and defeated with heavy loss.
This reverse, though not the crushing disaster represented by Polish
tradition, disposed Henry to accept an offer made by Boleslav to come
to terms. Envoys, with the Archbishop of Magdeburg at their head, were
sent to Posen to negotiate with the duke; and a peace, the conditions of
which are unknown, was established. The treaty, in any case, was hardly
flattering to German pride, for at the utmost Henry can have won from
Boleslav no more than a recognition of his authority in the Upper and
the Lower Lausitz, and a renunciation of the duke's claim to Bohemia.
During the interval of uneasy peace that followed, Henry's attention
was claimed on his western frontier. The Frisian coast was being harried
by piratical Northmen; Valenciennes had been seized by the count of
Flanders; the kingdom of Burgundy was in a state of turmoil. In Bur-
gundy King Rodolph III, the last male of his house, was struggling vainly
to uphold the royal authority against a defiant nobility. To Henry, the
son of Rodolph's sister Gisela and his nearest heir, the present unsettle-
ment, which imperilled his chance of succeeding to his uncle's crown, was
a matter of serious concern. In 1006, therefore, he made his hand felt
in Burgundy. The extent of his intervention is unknown; but the fact is
clear that he now took possession of the city of Basle. This step, how-
ever brought about, was never reversed; and the sequel shewed it as the
earliest in a series by which the independence of the Burgundian kingdom
was destroyed.
The incursions of the Northmen, this year and the next, into Frisia
were left to the local counts to deal with. It was otherwise when the
ambitious Count Baldwin IV of Flanders, one of the mightiest vassals of
the West Frankish crown, into whose hands had already fallen the castle
CH. X.
15–2
## p. 228 (#274) ############################################
228
War in Flanders: loss of Lausitz
up by Otto the Great at Ghent, presumed to violate German territory
east of the Scheldt and take forcible possession of the town of Valenciennes.
Henry, whose repeated demands for his withdrawal had been ignored by
the count, in June 1006 sought a meeting with Baldwin's overlord, King
Robert, the result of which was a joint expedition of the two monarchs
in September for the recovery of the town'. But the undertaking, though
supported by Duke Richard of Normandy, the lifelong foe of the house
of Flanders, came to naught; and Henry, to retrieve the failure, in the
summer of 1007 led a great host to the Scheldt, crossed it, and then
proceeded to lay waste the country. At Ghent, upon the supplication of
,
the brethren of St Bavo's, he stayed his hand; but by this time Baldwin
was ready to treat. His humble submission soon after, with the surrender
of Valenciennes, won for him full forgiveness from the king. He swore
peace; and also took an oath of fealty to Henry, by which, as it seems,
he became his vassal for the royal castle at Ghent. Two years later, to
secure his help against disaffection in Lorraine, Henry granted Baldwin
in fief Valenciennes, to which the island of Walcheren was afterwards
added. In thus accepting vassalage to the German crown, Baldwin won
for the counts of Flanders their first footing beyond the Scheldt.
But while engaged upon this successful enterprise in the West, Henry
had been overtaken by disaster on his Eastern frontier. Since the Polish
campaign of 1005, he had been at pains to keep the Wends true to their
compact, but, in the spring of 1007, he was visited at Ratisbon by a triple
embassy from the Lyutitzi, from a considerable town in their neighbour-
hood, and from Duke Jaromir of Bohemia, which came to denounce the
assiduous efforts of the Duke of Poland, by bribes and promises, to seduce
them from their allegiance. They declared that, if Henry should remain
any longer at peace with Boleslav, he must not count on further service
from them. The king, then preparing for the invasion of Flanders, con-
sented, on the advice of the princes, to a renewal of war against Poland.
The issue was unfortunate; for the Saxons, the proper guardians of the
Elbe and of the Marches beyond, proved utterly wanting. In the absence
of the king, Boleslav invaded the Marches in force, wasting a wide district
east of Magdeburg, and carrying away captive the inhabitants of Zerbst.
The Saxon levies slowly gathered to repel him, and, with Archbishop
Tagino of Magdeburg in supreme command, sullenly followed the duke as
he returned home. But at Jüterbogk, long before the Oder had been
reached, the heart of their leaders failed them, and their retreat enabled
the Polish prince to reoccupy the eastern half of the Lower Lausitz, and
soon after to secure possession once more of the Upper Lausitz. He had
thus regained all the German territory that he had previously held and
lost; he had established himself firmly on the west of the Oder; and from
the ground thus gained no subsequent efforts of Henry availed to expel
him.
1 Cf. supra, Chap. v, p. 106.
## p. 229 (#275) ############################################
Crystallisation of fiefs
229
In another sphere of activity, this same year of mingled success and
disaster brought Henry, before its close, a peculiar triumph. This was
the establishment, on 1 November 1007, of the new see of Bamberg.
The completion of this cherished scheme was at once the fruit of
Henry's religious zeal and the witness to his supremacy over the German
Church. Nevertheless, it was just his claim to such supremacy in a par-
ticular case that involved him soon after in a bitter domestic quarrel,
which ran its unhappy course for several years, and, combined with other
troubles at home, effectually hindered further action abroad. At this
point, then, it is necessary to explain Henry's ecclesiastical policy, upon
which his whole system of government was based.
In right of the Crown, Henry had small material means at command
to enforce his authority. The obedience due to him as their chosen and
anointed king might be readily acknowledged by all his subjects, but was
just as readily withheld when it conflicted with private interest. Especially
was this the case with the higher nobility. The counts, though still in
theory royal officials and responsible to the sovereign for the maintenance
of public order in their several districts, had become in fact hereditary
territorial magnates, whose offices, like their fiefs and their family estates,
usually passed from father to son in regular succession. The privilege of
“immunity” which many enjoyed, and the feudal relation now generally
subsisting between them and their tenants, still further strengthened
their position. These petty potentates however, who should have been
the upholders of law, were too often its worst transgressors. Their greed
for landed wealth urged them into perpetual feuds with one another or
with their ecclesiastical neighbours, while the abuse of their seignorial
rights made them the oppressors of the classes below them. In these evil
tendencies they had been encouraged by the lax administration of the
last two reigns. Yet even more were the greater lay magnates, the dukes
and margraves, disposed to regard themselves as hereditary princes. The
dukes, in spite of past efforts to reduce their pretensions, were the recog-
nised chiefs of the separate races which made up the German nation, and,
like Herman of Swabia, were generally too strong, even in defeat, to be
displaced without risk. The margraves, holding an office less venerable, had
also won, by effective service on the frontiers, a firm position in the State.
Though dukes and margraves alike required investiture by the king, it
was rarely that a son was not preferred to his father's place. The control
of men so firmly established in power and dignity could be no easy task;
yet it now depended upon the vindication of the royal authority whether
the nation should preserve its political cohesion, or be split up, like the
adjacent kingdoms on the West, into a loose aggregation of almost in-
dependent principalities under a nominal sovereign.
It was the second Henry who by his energy postponed for two gene-
rations the process of disintegration which set in under Henry IV. To
restore the rule of law was his prime object. In the decay, however,
CH. X.
## p. 230 (#276) ############################################
230
Lessening resources of the Crown
of local justice, the Royal, or Palatine, Court, over which the king
presided in person, was the only tribunal where redress could be sought
against a powerful adversary, or whither appeal could be made from
decisions in the inferior courts. Henry knew, as his biographer tells us,
that the region left unvisited by the king was most often filled with the
complaints and groans of the poor, and he did his utmost, by incessant
journeys through the land, to bring justice within reach of all his subjects.
In many cases he punished with severity high-born disturbers of the
peace. Yet the conditions were now such that the Crown was not
strong enough of itself to compel obedience to the law. To make his
will prevail, alike in judicial administration and in large measures of
policy, he had to secure the co-operation of the magnates assembled in
general or provincial diets. At these meetings, which became more
frequent under him than under his predecessors, he was generally able, by
his fixity of purpose and his skilful address, to win consent to his designs.
Even so, however, he was largely dependent for their accomplishment upon
such material aid as the good will of the nobles might afford him. There
existed no standing army. The national levy could still be summoned by
royal command for the defence of the realm; but the only permanent
force at the disposal of the king consisted of unfree retainers (ministeriales)
drawn from the crown lands or from his patrimonial estates. But they
were insufficient for making expeditions abroad or for preserving order at
home; and it was upon the feudal contingents furnished by the magnates
that the monarch had to rely in the last resort.
Furthermore the royal revenues had for years been in steady decline.
The immense crown estates, the villae on which Charles the Great had
bestowed such care, had been broken up and largely dissipated by the
later Carolingians, partly through the granting of fiefs to reward their
supporters, partly though their lavish endowment of churches and monas-
teries. And in similar fashion the peculiar royal rights of coinage, tolls,
and markets, with others of the same kind, all extremely profitable, had
been also freely alienated to laymen and ecclesiastics.
