This success
relieved
Otto from all immediate danger.
Cambridge Medieval History - v3 - Germany and the Western Empire
The lack of
military organisation and system of defence in Saxony was laid bare.
With fire and sword they overran the whole of the province: the people
fled before them and hid themselves in the forests: Henry, helpless and
unable to offer any resistance, shut himself up in the fortress of Werla
at the foot of the Harz mountains. By an amazing stroke of luck, a
Hungarian chief, apparently a person of considerable importance, fell
into Henry's hands. Ransom was refused : the king would only sur-
render his prize on condition that the invaders would withdraw from
Saxony and refrain from molesting him for a period of nine years; for
his part, he was prepared to pay a yearly tribute. The terms were
accepted, the Hungarian noble was given up, and for nine years Saxony
was rid of the aggressions of her formidable neighbour'.
The nine years Henry turned to good account. He was enabled to
carry out his schemes of defence undisturbed. The Saxons were un-
accustomed to town life; they lived still, like the Germans of Tacitus,
apart in scattered villages and hamlets; a royal fortress or a monastery,
the seat of a spiritual or secular prince, alone served as places of meeting
for social purposes or the transactions of business. Fortified towns were
all but unknown. Henry saw the necessity not only of strengthening
the existing fortresses but of building and fortifying towns. Merseburg
and Hersfeld, Goslar and Gandersheim were secured within wall and moat.
Quedlinburg and Pöhlde are lasting memorials of his constructive activity
and
prove him not unworthy of the name of “builder of cities” (Städte-
erbauer) given him by later writers. The town was to be the centre of
all economic and judicial, military and social activity, the position of
defence, the place of refuge in time of invasion; to promote the prosperity
of the towns it was ordained that all councils and social gatherings should
be held there and that no substantial or valuable buildings should be
erected outside the walls. The country conquered from the Wends Henry
divided into military fiefs which he granted out to his ministeriales.
They were formed into groups of nine tenants, one of whom lived in the
1 The truce appears to have extended only to Saxony and Thuringia, for in 926
we find the Hungarians invading Swabia and Lotharingia.
.
## p. 183 (#229) ############################################
Defensive Measures
183
a
city to maintain the walls and dwellings in good repair and to take
charge of a third of the total produce of the tenement to provide against
an emergency. The remaining eight worked in the fields, but in the
event of an attack withdrew to the city to defend it against the invader.
The establishment of a colony of robbers and bandits on the outskirts of
Merseburg is an interesting experiment. It was the condition of their
tenure that they should only employ their craft of larceny and plunder
against their Slavonic neighbours. In many of these reforms, it is thought,
Henry had the example of England before his eyes. England had been
alike defenceless and open to the attacks of the Danish invaders until
Alfred and his son Edward the Elder adopted measures which not only
checked their forward movement but even drove them back and kept
them within prescribed limits. In 929 Henry asked his English con-
temporary Aethelstan for an English princess for his son Otto. The
negotiations, which ended in Otto's marriage with Edith, brought
Henry into close touch with England and English policy, and it is not
difficult to believe that through this connexion he found the pattern on
which to model his plans for the defence of his kingdom'. The army no
less than the system of defence required radical reform. The heerbann,
corresponding to the Anglo-Saxon fyrd, composed of the freemen—a
class which in course of years had considerably diminished in numbers-
was untrained and difficult to mobilise. Being an infantry force, it was
moreover wholly inadequate to cope with the Hungarian horsemen.
Hence it was essential for the Saxons to learn to fight on horseback.
The ministeriales established on the Wendish marches became the nucleus
of the new army.
But Henry seems to have exacted knight service
whenever possible throughout Saxony and even in the heerbann, which
continued often to be summoned in times of national danger, the cavalry
element gradually became predominant.
Henry tested the mettle of his reorganised army in the campaigns
against the Slavs. These restless people dwelling in the forest and swamp
lands between the Elbe and the Oder had been intermittently at war with
the Germans since the time of Charles the Great. But the warfare had
been conducted by the Saxon nobles for private ends and with a view to
Lappenberg, 1. 365, and Giesebrecht, 1. 811, lay stress on the connexion. Cf.
the fortresses of Edward the Elder on the Danish border, and also the regulation
with respect to the towns. Giesebrecht, loc. cit. , restores from Widukind, 1. 35,
what he believes to be the words of a law of Henry I, ut concilia et omnes conventus
atque convivia in urbibus celebrentur. Similarly Edward had ordained “that all
marketing was to be done 'within port or market town. " Vide laws of King
Edward I, 1. Liebermann, Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen, 1. 139, Quod si quis extra
portum barganniet, ouerhyrnesse regis culpa sit. Again, Widukind's statement that
of every nine military tenants one should live in the city and the rest mind the fields
suggests Alfred's system of keeping one man in the host to every one in the country
(A. S. Chron. anno 894). Cf. the system of classing the household warriors in three
divisions, each of which served in rotation for a period of a month (Asser, ed.
Stevenson, c. 100).
a
CH. VIII.
## p. 184 (#230) ############################################
184
Campaigns against the Wends
enriching themselves by the plunder of their neighbours. Henry the
Fowler made the subjection of the Wends a matter of national concern.
Four years (928-932) were occupied in their conquest, but every enter-
prise Henry undertook was crowned with success'. First, in a campaign
against the Slavs of the Havel country in the depths of winter, he besieged
and captured the ice-bound city of Brandenburg and brought the tribe to
submission. Thence turning his energies against the Dalemintzi on the
lower Elbe, after a siege of twenty days he took by storm their city of
Jahna and planted the stronghold of Meissen as a base for further opera-
tions in that district. The subjection of Bohemia was a more serious
undertaking; for this campaign he sought the help of Duke Arnulf, and
for the first time Bavarian and Saxon marched together in the royal
army. Wenceslas, the reigning Duke of Bohemia, had entered upon
his inheritance at an early age and during a long minority his mother
Drahomina, a Lusatian by birth, acted as regent; it was her policy of
assisting the Wends in their wars against the Germans that brought
about the enmity of the German king. When however in 929 (? ) Henry
and Arnulf entered Bohemia, Wenceslas had assumed the government.
He had been brought up to the Christian faith by his grandmother
Saint Ludmilla, who by her influence over the young duke had earned
the hatred and jealousy of her daughter-in-law and at the latter's in-
stigation had suffered the death of a martyr. Wenceslas, whose pious
life and terrible end was to gain for him the reward of canonisation, was
prepared to make amends for the imprudent policy of his regent mother;
when therefore the German army approached Prague he promptly entered
into negotiations. He surrendered his lands, received them back as a
fief of the German crown, and agreed to pay a yearly tribute of six
hundred marks of silver and one hundred and twenty head of cattle.
But no sooner was peace restored than the Wends, chafing under the
German yoke, broke out into revolt? The Redarii were the first to take
up arms: they captured the town of Walsleben and massacred the in-
habitants. The success was the signal for a general rising. The Counts
Bernard and Thietmar, Henry's lieutenants in that district, took prompt
action, marched against the fortress of Lenzen on the right bank of
the Elbe, and, after fierce fighting, completely routed the enemy on
4 September 929. Many fell by the sword, many, in attempting flight,
were drowned in the neighbouring lakes. There were but few survivors
of that bloody encounter. Widukind reckons the enemy's losses at the
incredible figure of two hundred thousand. Yearly tribute and the
1 For the geography of the Slav campaigns see the Maps No. 26, a and b of
Professor Peisker issued with Vol. 11. of this work.
2 Widukind, 1. 36, sums up Henry's achievements against the Slavs before the
outbreak of the general revolt of 929 thus : Cumque vicinae gentes a rege Heinrico
factae essent tributariae, A podriti, Wilti, Hevelli, Dalamanci, Boemi, Redarii et par
esset. . . .
## p. 185 (#231) ############################################
Defeat of the Huithe Great
187
acceptance of Christianity was the price tErfurt" in his father's lifetime;
In 932 the Lusatians and in 934 the stress on the importance of a
subdued and made tributary. With t in August at Aix-la-Chapelle,
Wendish tribes is completed. Much stiihere the Archbishop Hildebert
had laid the foundation for the work of le assembled multitude of people
the conversion of the people on the easter to, the elect of God, the chosen
Even more important were the resuall the princes. If the election
This warfare was to prove the soundness ands. ” Immediately the whole
protection, the strength of his new towrew king with clamorous shouts.
organised army. Cavalry would meet cchbishop with the insignia of
with the Wends, horse against foot. In 9wn the enemies of Christ, the
an end. Henry refused the accustomed t, the sceptre and the staff by
no time; they swarmed into the West irubjects and to stretch out the
Italy, another France and Burgundy, andwidows and orphans. Finally
his audacious refusal of tribute. On thabishop of Mayence assisted by
the Dalemintzi, but instead of the expe. hem was led by a special stair
received with scorn and derision and were's where he could see and be
as a token of their contempt. In Thurir mass, the company adjourned
One army pushed on westward into Saxot the dukes officiated, Gilbert
initiative, fell on them, slew their leaders, aanconia as Steward, Herman
panic to die from hunger or cold, to be slBavaria as Marshal. It was
captivity. He then lost no time in cominas a public recognition of the
still overwhelmed by the fate of their com of the German monarchy.
at Riade (perhaps Rittburg on the Unstru be confined to the limits of
15 March 933. The seemingly impenetra his own hands he delegated
onslaught of the Saxon army, the camp vllung, a noble connected with
once feared and invincible army of the Mil house of Saxony. Another
land in panic and confusion. The Danesed, who is described as second
They had long pushed beyond the river Eiand on his death it passed to
the Great; they had encroached upon Holhe two men who, throughout
the coast of Frisia. In 934 Henry entereds not only kept the Wends in
venturing to risk a battle, sued for peacen a firm footing in the marches
of the old Eider boundary and the esved the king of a difficult task,
Schleswig.
ettention to his policy of cen-
Towards the end of his life Henry, lie royal influence, and later of
influence of his wife Matilda, became mororing the imperial title. But
in advancing the interests of the Christicony. Wichmann was jealous
serious churchman and there is evidence Herman, and by the selection
ecclesiastical power grew less intense in !
Erfurt in June 932 testifies to his intereto. . . Heinrico, omnis populus Fran-
favourite home of Quedlinburg he foundei a patre, filium eius Oddonem, elegit
· elected-at Fritzlar or Forchheim
1 The fact that he was, as far as we know,pelle for coronation; so Giesebrecht,
bishop count over his own city shows that he wa’erfassungsgeschichte, vi. 135, n. 3,
secular power of the ecclesiastical party. In 92{ake these words to refer to the
in his city.
to was designated as the successor,
a
CH. VIII.
## p. 186 (#232) ############################################
186
Death.
Henry the Fowler
contemplated, says the Sax historian Widukind, a visit to Rome, not
indeed to seek the imperial own, for he had declined the honour of
coronation even in Germanyut as a pilgrim. Acceptance of Chris-
tianity was often imposed by
n as a condition of peace on his conquered
foes. This was the case at
ne break-down of the Slav revolt in 928.
In 931 (? ) baptism was reced by the prince of the Obotrites and
perhaps by a Danish prince'a spite of the hostility of Gorm the Old,
who devoted his life to the Fsecution of the Christians and to stamping
out all remnants of Christia,y from his dominions.
"
.
In the autumn of 935
Bodfeld in the Harz Mountains, while
engaged in a hunting exped on, Henry was struck down with paralysis
.
Anxious to see the successic decided in his lifetime, he summoned an
,
assembly of nobles at Erfurin the beginning of 936. Thankmar the
eldest son was excluded on
le ground that his mother Hatheburg, a
Wend, was under a vow to ke the veil when Henry sought to marry
her; though Henry, the younįe and favourite son of Queen Matilda, had
claims on the ground that he
vas born after his father's accession to the
German throne, Otto, the elr son, seemed the most fit to carry on the
,
work his father had begun nd was accepted as the successor by the
assembled princes. At Mereben on 2 July, when nearly sixty years of
age, Henry the Fowler succt bed to a second stroke and was buried in
his own foundation, the Circh of St Peter at Quedlinburg. The
chroniclers of the period a unanimous in their praises of Henry's
character and achievements. He was a just and farsighted statesman, a
skilful and brave general : Wh foreigners and enemies he was stern and
uncompromising, but to his wn countrymen he was a lenient and bene-
volent ruler
. He was a ke sportsman, a genial companion.
In his
own day Henry was recognis, as the founder of a new realm. As Duke
of Saxony, he was in a goo position to inaugurate a new era, for the
Saxons were in blood and
touched by Frankish influence It was the work of Henry that prepared
customs the purest Germans, the least
the
way for the more brillian and the more permanent achievements of
his son and successor.
1
OTTO I.
Otto came to the throne in the full vigour and idealism of youth
(he was born in 912): he wa
possessed of a high sense of honour and
justice, was stern and passionate, inspiring fear and admiration rather
than love among his subject: he was ambitious in his aspirations and
anxious to make the royal p'wer felt as a reality throughout Germany.
The difference between father and son becomes immediately apparent in
the matter of coronation. Is had already been elected at an assembly
1 See note :
, p. 202, in this chapter,
## p. 187 (#233) ############################################
Coronation of Otto the Great
187
of Saxon and Franconian princes held at Erfurt? in his father's lifetime;
but not content with this, he laid great stress on the importance of a
solemn ceremony which took place early in August at Aix-la-Chapelle,
the old Carolingian seat of residence. There the Archbishop Hildebert
of Mayence presented the young duke to the assembled multitude of people
with the words, “Behold, I bring to you Otto, the elect of God, the chosen
of our lord Henry, and now made king by all the princes. If the election
is pleasing to you, declare it by show of hands. ” Immediately the whole
people lifted their hands and hailed the new king with clamorous shouts.
He was invested at the hands of the Archbishop with the insignia of
royalty, the sword with which to strike down the enemies of Christ, the
bracelets and cloak, the emblems of peace, the sceptre and the staff by
which tokens he is inspired to chasten his subjects and to stretch out the
hand of mercy to the servants of God, to widows and orphans. Finally
he was anointed and crowned by the Archbishop of Mayence assisted by
Archbishop Wikfried of Cologne and by them was led by a special stair
to a throne set up between marble pillars where he could see and be
observed by all. After the celebration of mass, the company adjourned
to the palace for a state banquet at which the dukes officiated, Gilbert
of Lorraine as Chamberlain, Everard of Franconia as Steward, Herman
of Swabia as Cupbearer, and Arnulf of Bavaria as Marshal. It was
a festival of the highest significance; it was a public recognition of the
union of the German tribes, the foundation of the German monarchy.
The royal influence was no longer to be confined to the limits of
Saxony; while he retained the duchy in his own hands he delegated
many of the ducal functions to Hernan Billung, a noble connected with
the royal house and founder of the later ducal house of Saxony. Another
important post was granted to Count Siegfried, who is described as second
only to the king among the Saxon chiefs; and on his death it passed to
Count Gero. Herman and Gero were the two men who, throughout
the reign of Otto, by their untiring efforts not only kept the Wends in
check, but established German authority on a firm footing in the marches
between the Elbe and the Oder ; they relieved the king of a difficult task,
enabling him thereby to turn his whole attention to his policy of cen-
tralising the government, of extending the royal influence, and later of
adding Italy to his dominions and of restoring the imperial title. But
these appointments were unpopular in Saxony. Wichmann was jealous
of the advancement of his younger brother Herman, and by the selection
а
а
1 The passage in Widukind, 11. 1: Defuncto. . . Heinrico, omnis populus Fran-
corum atque Saxonum iam olim designatum regem a patre, filium eius Oddonem, elegit
sibi in principem, suggests that Otto was formally elected-at Fritzlar or Forchheim
it is conjectured— before proceeding to Aix-la-Chapelle for coronation; so Giesebrecht,
1. 241, and Köpke-Dümmler, 26. But Waitz, Verfassungsgeschichte, vi. 135, n. 3,
and Maurenbrecher, Königswahlen, 64, n. 3, take these words to refer to the
assembly at Erfurt before Henry's death when Otto was designated as the successor,
CH. VIII.
## p. 188 (#234) ############################################
188
Bavarian revolt. Risings in Franconia and Saxony
of Gero, Otto lost the support of his half-brother Thankmar, who in spite
of being barred from the throne had hitherto shown himself a loyal
subject. Being akin to Siegfried he had counted on succeeding to his
position and estates ; disappointed in this, he joined with Everard in
the rebellion of 938.
At the coronation festival at Aix-la-Chapelle the dukes had fully
recognised Otto as king and, no doubt with the idea that he would con-
tinue his father's policy, had done homage for their dukedoms. But no
sooner had Otto revealed his intentions than they were up in arms. The
trouble began in Bavaria. Arnulf died in July 937 and his sons refused
their homage. Two campaigns in 938 were necessary to restore the royal
authority. Berthold, Arnulf's brother, formerly Duke of Carinthia, was
set over the duchy, but with limited powers. Otto took to himself the
right of nominating to bishoprics and also, now or shortly after, set up
Arnulf, son of the late duke, as Count palatinel to safeguard the royal
interests in the duchy.
Between the two Bavarian campaigns Otto had been called away to
deal with a more serious rising in Franconia. Small raids had been
frequent on the borders of Saxony, raids in which Duke Everard had
been involved. In one of these Everard burnt the city of Hellmern and
slaughtered the inhabitants; the duke was fined and the abettors of the
crime were condemned to the indignity of carrying dogs through the
streets of Magdeburg. But the disturbance was not at an end: the delin-
quents were emboldened rather than deterred by the lenient treatment
they received from Otto at a diet held at Steele on the Ruhr in May,
and the petty warfare rose to the dimensions of civil war. Thankmar,
who, as we have seen, had his own reasons to be displeased with Otto's
rule, joined forces with Everard : together they captured Belecke on the
Möhne and with it the king's younger brother Henry. But a reaction
followed: the discontented Wichmann returned to loyalty and the in-
surrection in Saxony completely broke down : the fortress of Eresburg,
which Thankmar had taken, opened its gates at Otto’s approach.
Thankmar himself fled to the Church of St Peter where he was slain
at the altar, an act of sacrilege of which Otto was entirely innocent.
Everard was restored to favour after undergoing a short term of honour-
able imprisonment at Hildesheim ; but before making his peace he
1 His duties were to act as the king's representative in judicial matters, to take
charge of the royal fortresses and lands, and to be responsible for the revenues due
from Bavaria. The object was plainly to set up a counter authority against that of
the tribal duke. Arnulf was the leader of the opposition in Bavaria in 937–8, and
was banished as a punishment; his recall and appointment as Count Palatine is
characteristic of Otto's generous and lenient treatment of opponents. The Cont.
Reginonis, anno 938, the only authority for the Bavarian revolt, speaks of an Everard
as the leader of the rebellion, but Erben in Neues Archiv, xvi. conjectures on very
convincing grounds that the passage Everhardum Arnolfi filium should read Arnolfum
Arnolfi filium.
## p. 189 (#235) ############################################
The Rebellion of the Dukes in 939
189
entered into a secret compact with Henry by which they should, when the
opportunity offered, combine against Otto. The crown was to be Henry's
reward. Early in the year 939 everything was in readiness. The arrange-
ments were made at a gathering of malcontents at Saalfeld. Gilbert of
Lorraine had been drawn into the ranks of the disaffected dukes. All
the three leaders, Henry, Everard, and Gilbert, according to Liudprand,
Bishop of Cremona, had designs on the throne, trusting perhaps to the
fortunes of war to bring one or the other of them to the uppermost.
Hostilities broke out in Lorraine. Otto hastened to the scene of action,
while the enemy were advancing towards the Rhine near Xanten. The
paucity of boats enabled but a small portion of the royalist troops to
cross the river before their adversaries came in sight. While the king,
with the main body of his army, watched from the opposite bank, this
small detachment, perhaps no more than a hundred men, by strategy,
by cunning, and by a vigorous attack in front and rear, won a victory
on the field of Birthen. It was little short of a miracle, a miracle attri-
buted by the legend to the Holy Lance which Otto held in his hand.
This success relieved Otto from all immediate danger. The opposition
broke down in Saxony and Thuringia. Dortmund, one of Henry's for-
tresses, had submitted to the king as he marched towards the Rhine;
after the fight at Birthen, in which it was rumoured that Henry had
fallen, Merseburg and Scheidungen on the Unstrut alone held out. To
the former of these Henry fled after his defeat with but nine followers.
After a siege of two months the garrison capitulated and Henry was
granted a truce of thirty days to quit Saxony. By the beginning of
June the first campaign was over and, says the Saxon historian, “ there
was rest from civil war for a few days. "
The second campaign of the year 939 had a different and more
alarming aspect. It received the support of Louis IV (d'Outremer),
son of Charles the Simple, who on the death of Raoul of Burgundy
had been summoned from his place of refuge at the court of his uncle
King Aethelstan and set on the throne of France by Hugh the Great,
the powerful Count of Paris. The latter had expected to have things
his own way under a king of his own choosing, but soon found he was
mistaken. Louis had no intention of being a puppet in the hands of
the great duke and at once asserted his independence of action. Within
a year of his accession he had alienated from himself all the powerful
nobility of France. When, therefore, Louis, in the hope of attaching
Lorraine once more to the West Frankish dominions, joined forces with
Duke Gilbert, Otto found abundant assistance ready at hand among the
discontented feudatories of France. In September he actually entered
into some sort of compact with Louis' chief antagonists Hugh the Great,
Herbert, Count of Vermandois, William, Duke of Normandy, and Arnulf,
Count of Flanders. Henry, the king's brother, liberated from Merseburg,
hastened to join Gilbert in Lorraine. Otto, following in hot pursuit,
a
CH. VIII.
## p. 190 (#236) ############################################
190
The collapse of the Rebellion
found them garrisoned in the castle of Chèvremont near Liège; he laid
siege to the fortress, but was compelled to relinquish it, for Louis was
making headway in the neighbourhood of Verdun, where several bishops
(perhaps those of Metz, Verdun, and Toul) had submitted themselves
to his authority. Otto set out against him, and drove him back to his
capital at Laon.
At this point in the campaign the scheming Duke of Franconia
openly joined in the revolt. Otto besieged him in the strong fortress
of Breisach on the Rhine. An attempt was made to come to terms:
Frederick, Archbishop of Mayence, was employed to negotiate with
Everard, but he went beyond his powers, conceding more than the king
was prepared to yield and Otto refused to ratify the treaty. The effect
was to throw the Archbishop into the ranks of the insurgents. He fled
privily by night to Metz where he expected to fall in with Henry and
Gilbert; but the latter had already started to join forces with Everard :
whether Henry accompanied the dukes on the fatal expedition to the
Rhine is uncertain ; more probably, making Metz his headquarters, he
remained behind to organise resistance in Lorraine. Everard and Gilbert
made a plundering raid and returned westward, intending to recross the
Rhine at Andernach. Part of their army had already crossed the river
and the dukes were quietly eating their dinner before crossing themselves,
when a body of Franconian troops led by Udo and Conrad Kurzpold,
Franconian counts, whose lands had especially suffered from the raid,
came up with them. Both the dukes fell in the fight that ensued.
Everard was slain by the sword, Gilbert was drowned : according to
one account he got into a boat already overloaded with fugitives and
the boat capsized; according to another he leapt with his horse into the
river and so met his end. By a mere stroke of luck the two leaders of
the rebellion were disposed of in a skirmish hardly worthy of the name
of battle at a moment when Otto's cause seemed desperate, and when,
says Widukind, “there seemed no hope of his retaining rule over the
Saxons, so widespread was the rebellion. ”
The effect was instantaneous. Breisach capitulated: Lorraine was
.
restored to order. Of the remaining leaders, Frederick, after being
refused admittance into his own town of Mayence, was captured and
punished by a short term of imprisonment; Henry, on hearing the news
which deprived him of all hopes of the crown, fled to his old stronghold
of Chèvremont but found the gates closed against him; he made his
way to France, but finding his cause to be hopelessly lost, yielded him-
self up to his brother's mercy. Otto with his habitual generosity and
magnanimity forgave him everything and took him again into his favour.
The royal authority was now firmly established. Henry made one more
attempt to overthrow his brother, but it was too late and the con-
spiracy of 941 collapsed without recourse to arms. The intention had
been to assassinate the king at the Easter festival at Quedlinburg: it
## p. 191 (#237) ############################################
Changes in the administration of the Duchies
191
reached the ears of Otto who proceeded as usual to the feast but with
a strong guard, and there seized and executed the whole gang of con-
spirators. Henry fled, was captured and imprisoned at Ingelheim, but
before the end of the year received the king's pardon. The un-
scrupulous Archbishop of Mayence was also implicated but cleared
himself of guilt by receiving the sacrament in public.
The civil wars involved extensive changes in the government of the
duchies. During the years which followed the restoration of order, Otto
inaugurated and gradually established the policy of attaching the duke-
doms more closely to himself by granting them to members of his own
family. The administration of Lorraine was in 931 entrusted to a
certain Otto, son of Ricwin, and on his death in 944 the duchy was
conferred upon Conrad the Red, a nephew of King Conrad I, who in
947 was married to Otto's daughter Liutgard. Franconia', after the
death of Everard at the fight of Andernach, the king retained in his
own hands. When Duke Berthold died in 947 his duchy of Bavaria
passed to the king's own brother Henry, who, after the failure of his
last attempt to win the throne in 941, had become one of the loyalest
of Otto's subjects and who was already akin to the Bavarian ducal
house through his marriage in 938(? ) with Judith, the daughter of
the old duke Arnulf. Lastly, on the death of Duke Herman in 949,
Swabia was given to Otto's son Liudolf, who married Ida, the daughter
of the late duke. By these arrangements the ancient supremacy of the
Franconian tribe was for ever crushed; but in the southern duchies the
order of things remained unchanged, for while granting the dukedoms
to his own kinsmen, he maintained the traditions and customs of the
tribal duchies by giving the new dukes in marriage to the daughters
of the old ducal houses.
In the meanwhile the eastern neighbours of Germany had taken full
advantage of the intestine troubles which filled the opening years of the
new reign. In the midst of the ducal rebellion of 939 Widukind
deplores the numerous enemies that beset his native Saxony, “Slavs
from the east, Franks from the south, Lorrainers from the west, and
from the north Danes and more Slavs"; he might have added Hun-
garians from the south-east, for their barbaric hordes swept into
Thuringia and Saxony in 937 and 938. They were beaten back and
never again ventured into Saxon territory. On the Wendish border
there had been ceaseless activity. Fortunately for Otto, the frontier
1 According to von Winterfeld, Neues Archiv, xxvIII. pp. 510 f. , on the authority of
a passage in Hrotsvit, Gesta Oddonis, 450 ff. , Otto did not retain the administration of
Franconia in his hands but granted it at this time to his son Liudolf-a boy of eleven
years old—who, if this conjecture is correct, would in 949 be Duke of Franconia and
Swabia. The evidence however is insufficient to justify this conclusion. For the
theory that certain parts of Franconia round the Upper Main and Bamberg were
granted to Berthold of Bavaria, see Giesebrecht, Kaiserzeit, 1. 816 f.
CH. VIII.
## p. 192 (#238) ############################################
192
War on the Eastern Frontier
!
1
11
3
11
command was in capable hands; Herman Billung and Gero repressed
the risings with a firm hand and even extended German influence further
eastward. The death of Henry the Fowler had been the first signal for
insurrection, in which the Redari seem to have taken the leading part.
Henry they had learnt to fear, but Otto was untried and had yet to
prove his strength. He hastened back from his coronation at Aix-la-
Chapelle and suppressed the rising. The Wends were held in check till
the year 939 when Germany was in the throes of civil war, when the
total subversion of the royal authority seemed inevitable, and an un-
rivalled opportunity of throwing off the German yoke presented itself.
They made repeated inroads which were beaten off by Gero, and even
the king himself, it appears, found time on more than one occasion to
enter into the border conflict. In Bohemia, Boleslav, who had in 936
gained the throne by murdering his brother Wenceslas at the gates of
the church of Alt-Bunzlau, asserted his independence; and though
temporarily checked by a force of Saxons and Thuringians sent against
him in 938, he continued to be a source of danger and disturbance till
Otto in 950 made an expedition in person to Bohemia and was recog-
nised as overlord. The results, however, of the frontier fighting were
on the whole satisfactory. Partly by his own efforts, partly by his keen
insight into character which enabled him to select the right men for
the work, Otto made progress, extended the German sway as far as the
Oder, and prepared the way for the next stage in his Eastern policy,
the consolidation of his conquests and the conversion of the conquered
peoples to the Christian religion. The newly acquired territory was
divided into two marches under the control of Herman and Gero.
The tribute and rents accruing from these sources were appropriated to
the maintenance of the frontier garrisons, to the establishinent of colonies,
and to the endowment of churches. In 948, probably on the occasion
of the visit of the papal legate Marinus, Bishop of Bomarzo, to Germany,
bishoprics were founded at Brandenburg and Havelberg in the province
of Mayence, and at Ripen, Aarhus and Schleswig in the metropolitan
diocese of Bremen for the organisation of further missionary work.
On the western frontier, also, the state of affairs was troublesome.
The possession of Lorraine was by no means entirely a source of strength
to the German monarchy. Owing to its position between the East and
West Frankish dominions it involved the German king in the everlasting
turmoil which characterised the history of France in the tenth century.
Moreover Lorraine was always firmly attached to the Carolingian tra-
dition, and there was always a party ready to support the Caroling kings
in their attempts to win back the province for the Western Kingdom.
There Louis IV was engaged in an incessant struggle to hold his own
against a strong coalition of feudal nobles under the leadership of the
all-powerful Count of Paris. During the decade 940-950 Otto was
busily engaged beyond the Rhine. He lent his aid first to one side,
## p. 193 (#239) ############################################
Otto's intervention in French affairs
193
then to the other', mediated between them and compelled both parties
to realise the weight of his power, the wide scope of his authority, the
value of his mediation. In the summer of 940 he entered France to
punish Louis for his interference in Lorraine and drove him into Bur-
gundy: but the expedition had daunted neither the spirit nor the
enterprise of Louis, who, as soon as Otto was back in Germany, again
set out for Lorraine. Otto once more turned westward, but as it was late
in the year the kings effected a truce and parted without fighting. For
two years Louis was pursued by his relentless adversaries; at last,
however, in 942, possibly as a result of the visit of the legate of Pope
Stephen VIII who commanded the princes to recognise Louis as their
king on pain of excommunication, a solemn assembly took place and a
general peace was concluded at a place uncertain but conjectured to be
Visé? on the Meuse, a few miles north of Liège. A similar obscurity
exists with regard to the terms, but it is clear that Louis on his side
engaged to desist from interfering in the affairs of Lorraine, while Otto
for his part agreed to refrain from assisting the French lords against
their king.
This settlement was but transitory, and two years later Otto was
again drawn into the affairs of the Western Kingdom. But the position
was altered : two of Louis' dangerous opponents, William of Normandy
and Herbert of Vermandois, were now dead; for a moment the king and
the Count of Paris were on terms of friendship. Then a trivial difference
and an accident brought about another change, and Louis was a prisoner
in the hands of his powerful feudatory. This was in 944. Hugh, with
his valuable prisoner in safe keeping at Laon, sought an interview with
Otto. The latter, however, perhaps anxious to abide by the compact of
942, perhaps from a genuine feeling of pity for the luckless king, declined
to accept Hugh's overtures and espoused the royal cause. ' The menace
of Otto's displeasure saved Louis: after nearly a year's confinement, he
was liberated, but only at the heavy price of losing his one sure strong-
hold, the fortress of Laon. Louis was free, but without shelter, almost
without friends. Gerberga, his queen, made a pressing appeal to her
brother. Otto's French campaign in the late summer of 946 met with
very limited success. Laon, Rheims, and Senlis were all in turn besieged,
but Rheims alone was captured. The two kings then made a plundering
raid into Normandy; they even, according to one account, laid siege to
Rouen. But in this enterprise they were alike unsuccessful, and Otto
made his way back to Germany.
a
1 Both the antagonists had equal claims, on the ground of kinship, to Otto's
friendship; each had married a sister of Otto, Hugh the Great married Hedwig and
Louis IV Gerberga, widow of Gilbert of Lorraine.
? See Lauer, Les Annales de Flodoard, p. 85, n. 5, and Louis d'Outremer, p. 83,
n. 3. Vouziers on the Aisne has also been conjectured. Cf. Giesebrecht, Kaiserzeit,
C. MED. H. VOL. III. CH. VIII.
13
P. 274.
## p. 194 (#240) ############################################
194
Situation in Italy in 950
The year 947 was occupied by a series of fruitless assemblies called
together to decide a dispute over the archbishopric of Rheims. The
two parties in France had each its candidate for the see, and the party
uppermost unscrupulously imposed the man of its choice upon the
diocese. These transactions, vain as they were, are not without their
importance, for they led up to the solemn synod held at Ingelheim on
7 June 948. The legate of Pope Agapetus II, Bishop Marinus of
Bomarzo, presided over it. It was an assembly of the highest significance:
it was the first occasion since the accession of the Saxon dynasty, since
the synod of Hohen Altheim in 916, that a papal legate had appeared
in Germany. It was attended by more than thirty bishops, and the two
kings Louis and Otto were present in person. The business was not
restricted to the Rheims dispute. The discussion on the political question
at issue resulted in a canon being passed against attacks on the royal
power and a declaration that Hugh should make his submission under
pain of excommunication. The dispute over the see of Rheims was
decided in favour of Artaud, the candidate of the royal party; his rival
Hugh, son of Herbert of Vermandois, was excommunicated. Hugh the
Great held the decrees of the synod at defiance; he was excommunicated
at the Synod of Trèves (September 948); he continued in his obduracy
and carried on hostilities against Louis and his allies Otto and Conrad
of Lorraine till 950, when, at a meeting held on the banks of the Marne,
he made his submission, restored Laon, and, by his homage, recognised
Louis as his lord.
The affairs of France were no sooner settled on a satisfactory basis
than a turn of events in Italy provided the occasion for Otto's first
expedition across the Alps. The occasion was the death of King Lothar,
leaving his widow Adelaide with a title to the Italian throne in her own
right, defenceless and soon to be a prisoner in the hands of Berengar,
Marquess of Ivrea, who was himself crowned King of Italy at Pavia
on 15 December 950. The old connexion between Germany and Italy
founded on the Empire of Charles the Great, though it had ceased to
be a reality since the death of the Emperor Arnulf in 899, is recalled to
memory by many minor incidents in the dark years of the first half of
the tenth century. The dukes of Swabia and Bavaria were frequently
drawn into the Italian struggles ; Berengar of Ivrea, fleeing from the
murderous designs of his rival Hugh of Arles, had crossed the Alps,
taken refuge in Swabia, and even commended himself to Otto (941), an
act which perhaps gave Otto the right to expect an acknowledgment of
overlordship from Berengar when the latter ascended the Italian throne
in 950. With the opposite faction Otto was also brought into close
connexion through Conrad of Burgundy, who had spent his youth at
the German court and whose sister Adelaide had married Hugh's son
Lothar.
The arrangements for the Italian expedition were settled at the
## p. 195 (#241) ############################################
Liudolf's disaffection
195
Easter festival held at Aix-la-Chapelle 30 March 951. Otto formed his
plans in close consultation with his brother Henry, now his most trusted
adviser, whose brilliant campaigns against the Hungarians, resulting in
the acquisition of the march of Aquileia, gave additional weight to his
councils. Liudolf, on the other hand, was apparently not taken into the
king's confidence: indignant at his exclusion, jealous of his uncle,
impetuous and anxious to make a name for himself on his own account,
he determined to anticipate his father. He rapidly crossed the Alps
with a small army of Swabians ; but his expedition was a complete
failure and before long he returned to sow the seeds of rebellion, the
news of which recalled Otto, who had assumed the title of King of the
Lombards at Pavia and taken Adelaide as his wife, in haste to Germany.
It was not only disappointment at his failure in Italy that led Liudolf
to rebel against his father. Otto's second marriage was not likely to be
to his son's advantage; it would lead to a new circle at the court in
which he would take but a secondary place; he might even look to being
a
ousted from the succession by the offspring of this new alliance-an
event which in fact occurred, for it was Adelaide's son, Otto, who was
designated as the successor to the total disregard of the claims of his
nephew and namesake, the son of Liudolf. The plans for the rebellion
were formed at a Christmas gathering held at Saalfeld; the place is
significant, for it was there that Henry had divulged to his friends his
designs against Otto in 939. Among the conspirators was Frederick,
Archbishop of Mayence, whose implication in the previous rebellions of
939 and 941 was more than suspected. He had been employed as Otto's
envoy to the court of Pope Agapetus and the failure of his mission may
have led to a rupture with Otto.
The news of this ominous assembly was the immediate cause of Otto's
return to Germany. He crossed the Alps in February 952 and by
Easter was again in Saxony. Conrad, Duke of Lorraine, was left behind
in Italy to complete the overthrow of Berengar. But instead of pursuing
the advantage which Otto had already gained, he made terms with
Berengar and returned with him to Germany to obtain the king's rati-
fication of his arrangements. They found the court at Magdeburg.
Otto was, however, far from satisfied: he had counted on the complete
subversion of Berengar. For three days the latter was not permitted to
approach the royal presence and even then, through the counsel of Duke
Henry, he was “barely granted his life and a safe return to his country. ”
The final settlement with regard to Italy was postponed to a meeting to
be held at Augsburg. On 7 August the diet met in the spacious
Lechfeld which extended to the south of the city. Franks, Saxons,
Swabians, Bavarians, Lombards, and even ambassadors from the Byzantine
court attended the gathering, to which a contemporary annalist assigns
the imposing Frankish title of Conventus publicus. There Berengar and
his son Adalbert took the oath of homage and fealty and, by the solemn
CH. VIII.
13_2
## p. 196 (#242) ############################################
196
Liudolf's rebellion
>
handing over of the golden sceptre, received back the kingdom of Lombardy
as a fief of the German crown. But Duke Henry had his reward for his
consistent loyalty at Berengar's expense: the marches of Aquileia and
Verona were added to the Bavarian dukedom.
Up to this point there had been no overt act of rebellion on the part
of the conspirators. Liudolf and the Archbishop of Mayence had been
present at the Augsburg diet; indeed the latter had taken a leading
part in the ecclesiastical business transacted there. But as the rebellion
matured, the causes of discontent increased. The marked displeasure of
Otto at Conrad's management of the affairs of Italy had driven the
Duke of Lorraine into the ranks of the malcontents. The appointment
of the king's brother Bruno to the post of archchancellor of Italy was an
additional grievance to Archbishop Frederick, who had counted upon
that dignified sinecure for himself. Whereas Henry had gained by the
settlement at Augsburg, Liudolf had received no share in the spoils.
Possibly the birth of a child to Adelaide, a boy named Henry who died
in infancy, at the end of the year 952, was the decisive event, which
determined the outbreak of hostilities.
Otto appears to have been blind to the dangers which surrounded
him. It was only while journeying to Ingelheim on his return from Alsace,
whither he had gone to visit his wife's relations, that he realised the
critical state of affairs. Judging it imprudent to keep the Easter festival,
as he had purposed, at so isolated a place as Ingelheim, he turned aside
to Mayence; but Mayence proved no less dangerous. He found the gates
of the city closed against him and in an unseemly manner he was kept
waiting until the Archbishop, who was absent from the city performing
his Lenten devotions in retreat, returned to grant him admittance.
Liudolf and Conrad also appeared on the scene, and the king was caught
in a trap. The conspirators made haste to clear themselves of having
any designs against their sovereign ; but they acknowledged that it had
been their intention to waylay Henry in the event of his coming to
Ingelheim for the Easter festival. Even towards the king their attitude
was not so peaceable as they had affirmed; by duress they extorted from
him some sort of treaty, of which the terms are unrecorded, but the nature
may be fairly conjectured. It was no doubt as advantageous to Liudolf
as it was detrimental to the interests of Duke Henry. Liudolf was
assured of the succession and possibly was even to have an immediate
share in the government. Otto was glad to escape at any price.
Nevertheless, once safe in Saxony he did not scruple to revoke the treaty.
He summoned Liudolf and Conrad to appear before him and ordered
them either to hand over their confederates or else to receive the
punishment due for their offence. A diet for the discussion of their
case was to meet at Fritzlar. The dukes did not present themselves at
the diet; they were deprived of their dukedoms, and hostilities began in
earnest.
## p. 197 (#243) ############################################
Widespread disaffection
197
In this rebellion, it is remarkable that the duchies invariably sided
against their dukes. The Lorrainers, under the leadership of Adalbero;
Bishop of Metz, and Reginar, Count of Hainault, weře, almost to a
man, loyal to the king and therefore in opposition to their duke, Conrad ;
whereas in Bavaria the king and his brother Henry met with their bitterest
and most dangerous opponents. At first Conrad sought to recover
his position in Lorraine ; but on the banks of the Meuse, in a desperate
battle lasting from noon to sunset, he was defeated, quitted his duchy,
and betook himself to Mayence, which henceforth became the headquarters
of the insurgents. With an army of Saxons reinforced on the march by
troops from Lorraine and Franconia, Otto invested the city. He was
soon joined by Henry with his Bavarians. For nearly two months the
royal army tried in vain to capture the stronghold of the rebels ; every
device of siege warfare was employed but all to no account; engines were
no sooner brought up to the walls than they were destroyed or burnt;
assaults were made upon the gates only to be beaten off with loss by the
defenders. At last, wearied by lack of success, Otto made overtures for
an armistice and sent his cousin Ekbert as an hostage. But the nego-
tiations came to nothing, and the king's ambassador was won over to the
side of the enemy. For Otto the situation was desperate. The defection
had spread to Saxony and to Bavaria ; in the latter duchy Arnulf, the
Count palatine, put himself at the head of a tribal revolt against the
rule of Duke Henry. This was perhaps the most serious phase in the
rebellion. The Bavarians, led by their duke to assist in the siege of
Mayence, went over in a body to the enemy. Leaving the defence of the
city in the charge of Conrad, Liudolf hastened with the Bavarian deserters
to Ratisbon, seized and plundered the city, and drove Henry's family and
adherents from the country. In September Otto abandoned the siege of
Mayence with the object of attempting to secure Ratisbon, but in this
enterprise he was also doomed to failure. Shortly before Christmas,
almost at the end of his resources, he withdrew to Saxony.
Owing to the firm rule of Herman, the insurrection in Saxony had
broken down, and Lorraine also remained loyal ; but the greater part of
Franconia and practically the whole of Swabia and Bavaria had taken up
arms against him. So widespread was the disaffection that it has been
sometimes regarded as an expression of a national resistance against
Otto's imperial policy, as though the interests of Germany were prejudiced
by his acquisition of the Italian thronel. It is, however, more in ac-
cordance with the facts to attribute the civil war rather to tribal than
national causes : the separate tribes were rebelling against the authority
.
military organisation and system of defence in Saxony was laid bare.
With fire and sword they overran the whole of the province: the people
fled before them and hid themselves in the forests: Henry, helpless and
unable to offer any resistance, shut himself up in the fortress of Werla
at the foot of the Harz mountains. By an amazing stroke of luck, a
Hungarian chief, apparently a person of considerable importance, fell
into Henry's hands. Ransom was refused : the king would only sur-
render his prize on condition that the invaders would withdraw from
Saxony and refrain from molesting him for a period of nine years; for
his part, he was prepared to pay a yearly tribute. The terms were
accepted, the Hungarian noble was given up, and for nine years Saxony
was rid of the aggressions of her formidable neighbour'.
The nine years Henry turned to good account. He was enabled to
carry out his schemes of defence undisturbed. The Saxons were un-
accustomed to town life; they lived still, like the Germans of Tacitus,
apart in scattered villages and hamlets; a royal fortress or a monastery,
the seat of a spiritual or secular prince, alone served as places of meeting
for social purposes or the transactions of business. Fortified towns were
all but unknown. Henry saw the necessity not only of strengthening
the existing fortresses but of building and fortifying towns. Merseburg
and Hersfeld, Goslar and Gandersheim were secured within wall and moat.
Quedlinburg and Pöhlde are lasting memorials of his constructive activity
and
prove him not unworthy of the name of “builder of cities” (Städte-
erbauer) given him by later writers. The town was to be the centre of
all economic and judicial, military and social activity, the position of
defence, the place of refuge in time of invasion; to promote the prosperity
of the towns it was ordained that all councils and social gatherings should
be held there and that no substantial or valuable buildings should be
erected outside the walls. The country conquered from the Wends Henry
divided into military fiefs which he granted out to his ministeriales.
They were formed into groups of nine tenants, one of whom lived in the
1 The truce appears to have extended only to Saxony and Thuringia, for in 926
we find the Hungarians invading Swabia and Lotharingia.
.
## p. 183 (#229) ############################################
Defensive Measures
183
a
city to maintain the walls and dwellings in good repair and to take
charge of a third of the total produce of the tenement to provide against
an emergency. The remaining eight worked in the fields, but in the
event of an attack withdrew to the city to defend it against the invader.
The establishment of a colony of robbers and bandits on the outskirts of
Merseburg is an interesting experiment. It was the condition of their
tenure that they should only employ their craft of larceny and plunder
against their Slavonic neighbours. In many of these reforms, it is thought,
Henry had the example of England before his eyes. England had been
alike defenceless and open to the attacks of the Danish invaders until
Alfred and his son Edward the Elder adopted measures which not only
checked their forward movement but even drove them back and kept
them within prescribed limits. In 929 Henry asked his English con-
temporary Aethelstan for an English princess for his son Otto. The
negotiations, which ended in Otto's marriage with Edith, brought
Henry into close touch with England and English policy, and it is not
difficult to believe that through this connexion he found the pattern on
which to model his plans for the defence of his kingdom'. The army no
less than the system of defence required radical reform. The heerbann,
corresponding to the Anglo-Saxon fyrd, composed of the freemen—a
class which in course of years had considerably diminished in numbers-
was untrained and difficult to mobilise. Being an infantry force, it was
moreover wholly inadequate to cope with the Hungarian horsemen.
Hence it was essential for the Saxons to learn to fight on horseback.
The ministeriales established on the Wendish marches became the nucleus
of the new army.
But Henry seems to have exacted knight service
whenever possible throughout Saxony and even in the heerbann, which
continued often to be summoned in times of national danger, the cavalry
element gradually became predominant.
Henry tested the mettle of his reorganised army in the campaigns
against the Slavs. These restless people dwelling in the forest and swamp
lands between the Elbe and the Oder had been intermittently at war with
the Germans since the time of Charles the Great. But the warfare had
been conducted by the Saxon nobles for private ends and with a view to
Lappenberg, 1. 365, and Giesebrecht, 1. 811, lay stress on the connexion. Cf.
the fortresses of Edward the Elder on the Danish border, and also the regulation
with respect to the towns. Giesebrecht, loc. cit. , restores from Widukind, 1. 35,
what he believes to be the words of a law of Henry I, ut concilia et omnes conventus
atque convivia in urbibus celebrentur. Similarly Edward had ordained “that all
marketing was to be done 'within port or market town. " Vide laws of King
Edward I, 1. Liebermann, Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen, 1. 139, Quod si quis extra
portum barganniet, ouerhyrnesse regis culpa sit. Again, Widukind's statement that
of every nine military tenants one should live in the city and the rest mind the fields
suggests Alfred's system of keeping one man in the host to every one in the country
(A. S. Chron. anno 894). Cf. the system of classing the household warriors in three
divisions, each of which served in rotation for a period of a month (Asser, ed.
Stevenson, c. 100).
a
CH. VIII.
## p. 184 (#230) ############################################
184
Campaigns against the Wends
enriching themselves by the plunder of their neighbours. Henry the
Fowler made the subjection of the Wends a matter of national concern.
Four years (928-932) were occupied in their conquest, but every enter-
prise Henry undertook was crowned with success'. First, in a campaign
against the Slavs of the Havel country in the depths of winter, he besieged
and captured the ice-bound city of Brandenburg and brought the tribe to
submission. Thence turning his energies against the Dalemintzi on the
lower Elbe, after a siege of twenty days he took by storm their city of
Jahna and planted the stronghold of Meissen as a base for further opera-
tions in that district. The subjection of Bohemia was a more serious
undertaking; for this campaign he sought the help of Duke Arnulf, and
for the first time Bavarian and Saxon marched together in the royal
army. Wenceslas, the reigning Duke of Bohemia, had entered upon
his inheritance at an early age and during a long minority his mother
Drahomina, a Lusatian by birth, acted as regent; it was her policy of
assisting the Wends in their wars against the Germans that brought
about the enmity of the German king. When however in 929 (? ) Henry
and Arnulf entered Bohemia, Wenceslas had assumed the government.
He had been brought up to the Christian faith by his grandmother
Saint Ludmilla, who by her influence over the young duke had earned
the hatred and jealousy of her daughter-in-law and at the latter's in-
stigation had suffered the death of a martyr. Wenceslas, whose pious
life and terrible end was to gain for him the reward of canonisation, was
prepared to make amends for the imprudent policy of his regent mother;
when therefore the German army approached Prague he promptly entered
into negotiations. He surrendered his lands, received them back as a
fief of the German crown, and agreed to pay a yearly tribute of six
hundred marks of silver and one hundred and twenty head of cattle.
But no sooner was peace restored than the Wends, chafing under the
German yoke, broke out into revolt? The Redarii were the first to take
up arms: they captured the town of Walsleben and massacred the in-
habitants. The success was the signal for a general rising. The Counts
Bernard and Thietmar, Henry's lieutenants in that district, took prompt
action, marched against the fortress of Lenzen on the right bank of
the Elbe, and, after fierce fighting, completely routed the enemy on
4 September 929. Many fell by the sword, many, in attempting flight,
were drowned in the neighbouring lakes. There were but few survivors
of that bloody encounter. Widukind reckons the enemy's losses at the
incredible figure of two hundred thousand. Yearly tribute and the
1 For the geography of the Slav campaigns see the Maps No. 26, a and b of
Professor Peisker issued with Vol. 11. of this work.
2 Widukind, 1. 36, sums up Henry's achievements against the Slavs before the
outbreak of the general revolt of 929 thus : Cumque vicinae gentes a rege Heinrico
factae essent tributariae, A podriti, Wilti, Hevelli, Dalamanci, Boemi, Redarii et par
esset. . . .
## p. 185 (#231) ############################################
Defeat of the Huithe Great
187
acceptance of Christianity was the price tErfurt" in his father's lifetime;
In 932 the Lusatians and in 934 the stress on the importance of a
subdued and made tributary. With t in August at Aix-la-Chapelle,
Wendish tribes is completed. Much stiihere the Archbishop Hildebert
had laid the foundation for the work of le assembled multitude of people
the conversion of the people on the easter to, the elect of God, the chosen
Even more important were the resuall the princes. If the election
This warfare was to prove the soundness ands. ” Immediately the whole
protection, the strength of his new towrew king with clamorous shouts.
organised army. Cavalry would meet cchbishop with the insignia of
with the Wends, horse against foot. In 9wn the enemies of Christ, the
an end. Henry refused the accustomed t, the sceptre and the staff by
no time; they swarmed into the West irubjects and to stretch out the
Italy, another France and Burgundy, andwidows and orphans. Finally
his audacious refusal of tribute. On thabishop of Mayence assisted by
the Dalemintzi, but instead of the expe. hem was led by a special stair
received with scorn and derision and were's where he could see and be
as a token of their contempt. In Thurir mass, the company adjourned
One army pushed on westward into Saxot the dukes officiated, Gilbert
initiative, fell on them, slew their leaders, aanconia as Steward, Herman
panic to die from hunger or cold, to be slBavaria as Marshal. It was
captivity. He then lost no time in cominas a public recognition of the
still overwhelmed by the fate of their com of the German monarchy.
at Riade (perhaps Rittburg on the Unstru be confined to the limits of
15 March 933. The seemingly impenetra his own hands he delegated
onslaught of the Saxon army, the camp vllung, a noble connected with
once feared and invincible army of the Mil house of Saxony. Another
land in panic and confusion. The Danesed, who is described as second
They had long pushed beyond the river Eiand on his death it passed to
the Great; they had encroached upon Holhe two men who, throughout
the coast of Frisia. In 934 Henry entereds not only kept the Wends in
venturing to risk a battle, sued for peacen a firm footing in the marches
of the old Eider boundary and the esved the king of a difficult task,
Schleswig.
ettention to his policy of cen-
Towards the end of his life Henry, lie royal influence, and later of
influence of his wife Matilda, became mororing the imperial title. But
in advancing the interests of the Christicony. Wichmann was jealous
serious churchman and there is evidence Herman, and by the selection
ecclesiastical power grew less intense in !
Erfurt in June 932 testifies to his intereto. . . Heinrico, omnis populus Fran-
favourite home of Quedlinburg he foundei a patre, filium eius Oddonem, elegit
· elected-at Fritzlar or Forchheim
1 The fact that he was, as far as we know,pelle for coronation; so Giesebrecht,
bishop count over his own city shows that he wa’erfassungsgeschichte, vi. 135, n. 3,
secular power of the ecclesiastical party. In 92{ake these words to refer to the
in his city.
to was designated as the successor,
a
CH. VIII.
## p. 186 (#232) ############################################
186
Death.
Henry the Fowler
contemplated, says the Sax historian Widukind, a visit to Rome, not
indeed to seek the imperial own, for he had declined the honour of
coronation even in Germanyut as a pilgrim. Acceptance of Chris-
tianity was often imposed by
n as a condition of peace on his conquered
foes. This was the case at
ne break-down of the Slav revolt in 928.
In 931 (? ) baptism was reced by the prince of the Obotrites and
perhaps by a Danish prince'a spite of the hostility of Gorm the Old,
who devoted his life to the Fsecution of the Christians and to stamping
out all remnants of Christia,y from his dominions.
"
.
In the autumn of 935
Bodfeld in the Harz Mountains, while
engaged in a hunting exped on, Henry was struck down with paralysis
.
Anxious to see the successic decided in his lifetime, he summoned an
,
assembly of nobles at Erfurin the beginning of 936. Thankmar the
eldest son was excluded on
le ground that his mother Hatheburg, a
Wend, was under a vow to ke the veil when Henry sought to marry
her; though Henry, the younįe and favourite son of Queen Matilda, had
claims on the ground that he
vas born after his father's accession to the
German throne, Otto, the elr son, seemed the most fit to carry on the
,
work his father had begun nd was accepted as the successor by the
assembled princes. At Mereben on 2 July, when nearly sixty years of
age, Henry the Fowler succt bed to a second stroke and was buried in
his own foundation, the Circh of St Peter at Quedlinburg. The
chroniclers of the period a unanimous in their praises of Henry's
character and achievements. He was a just and farsighted statesman, a
skilful and brave general : Wh foreigners and enemies he was stern and
uncompromising, but to his wn countrymen he was a lenient and bene-
volent ruler
. He was a ke sportsman, a genial companion.
In his
own day Henry was recognis, as the founder of a new realm. As Duke
of Saxony, he was in a goo position to inaugurate a new era, for the
Saxons were in blood and
touched by Frankish influence It was the work of Henry that prepared
customs the purest Germans, the least
the
way for the more brillian and the more permanent achievements of
his son and successor.
1
OTTO I.
Otto came to the throne in the full vigour and idealism of youth
(he was born in 912): he wa
possessed of a high sense of honour and
justice, was stern and passionate, inspiring fear and admiration rather
than love among his subject: he was ambitious in his aspirations and
anxious to make the royal p'wer felt as a reality throughout Germany.
The difference between father and son becomes immediately apparent in
the matter of coronation. Is had already been elected at an assembly
1 See note :
, p. 202, in this chapter,
## p. 187 (#233) ############################################
Coronation of Otto the Great
187
of Saxon and Franconian princes held at Erfurt? in his father's lifetime;
but not content with this, he laid great stress on the importance of a
solemn ceremony which took place early in August at Aix-la-Chapelle,
the old Carolingian seat of residence. There the Archbishop Hildebert
of Mayence presented the young duke to the assembled multitude of people
with the words, “Behold, I bring to you Otto, the elect of God, the chosen
of our lord Henry, and now made king by all the princes. If the election
is pleasing to you, declare it by show of hands. ” Immediately the whole
people lifted their hands and hailed the new king with clamorous shouts.
He was invested at the hands of the Archbishop with the insignia of
royalty, the sword with which to strike down the enemies of Christ, the
bracelets and cloak, the emblems of peace, the sceptre and the staff by
which tokens he is inspired to chasten his subjects and to stretch out the
hand of mercy to the servants of God, to widows and orphans. Finally
he was anointed and crowned by the Archbishop of Mayence assisted by
Archbishop Wikfried of Cologne and by them was led by a special stair
to a throne set up between marble pillars where he could see and be
observed by all. After the celebration of mass, the company adjourned
to the palace for a state banquet at which the dukes officiated, Gilbert
of Lorraine as Chamberlain, Everard of Franconia as Steward, Herman
of Swabia as Cupbearer, and Arnulf of Bavaria as Marshal. It was
a festival of the highest significance; it was a public recognition of the
union of the German tribes, the foundation of the German monarchy.
The royal influence was no longer to be confined to the limits of
Saxony; while he retained the duchy in his own hands he delegated
many of the ducal functions to Hernan Billung, a noble connected with
the royal house and founder of the later ducal house of Saxony. Another
important post was granted to Count Siegfried, who is described as second
only to the king among the Saxon chiefs; and on his death it passed to
Count Gero. Herman and Gero were the two men who, throughout
the reign of Otto, by their untiring efforts not only kept the Wends in
check, but established German authority on a firm footing in the marches
between the Elbe and the Oder ; they relieved the king of a difficult task,
enabling him thereby to turn his whole attention to his policy of cen-
tralising the government, of extending the royal influence, and later of
adding Italy to his dominions and of restoring the imperial title. But
these appointments were unpopular in Saxony. Wichmann was jealous
of the advancement of his younger brother Herman, and by the selection
а
а
1 The passage in Widukind, 11. 1: Defuncto. . . Heinrico, omnis populus Fran-
corum atque Saxonum iam olim designatum regem a patre, filium eius Oddonem, elegit
sibi in principem, suggests that Otto was formally elected-at Fritzlar or Forchheim
it is conjectured— before proceeding to Aix-la-Chapelle for coronation; so Giesebrecht,
1. 241, and Köpke-Dümmler, 26. But Waitz, Verfassungsgeschichte, vi. 135, n. 3,
and Maurenbrecher, Königswahlen, 64, n. 3, take these words to refer to the
assembly at Erfurt before Henry's death when Otto was designated as the successor,
CH. VIII.
## p. 188 (#234) ############################################
188
Bavarian revolt. Risings in Franconia and Saxony
of Gero, Otto lost the support of his half-brother Thankmar, who in spite
of being barred from the throne had hitherto shown himself a loyal
subject. Being akin to Siegfried he had counted on succeeding to his
position and estates ; disappointed in this, he joined with Everard in
the rebellion of 938.
At the coronation festival at Aix-la-Chapelle the dukes had fully
recognised Otto as king and, no doubt with the idea that he would con-
tinue his father's policy, had done homage for their dukedoms. But no
sooner had Otto revealed his intentions than they were up in arms. The
trouble began in Bavaria. Arnulf died in July 937 and his sons refused
their homage. Two campaigns in 938 were necessary to restore the royal
authority. Berthold, Arnulf's brother, formerly Duke of Carinthia, was
set over the duchy, but with limited powers. Otto took to himself the
right of nominating to bishoprics and also, now or shortly after, set up
Arnulf, son of the late duke, as Count palatinel to safeguard the royal
interests in the duchy.
Between the two Bavarian campaigns Otto had been called away to
deal with a more serious rising in Franconia. Small raids had been
frequent on the borders of Saxony, raids in which Duke Everard had
been involved. In one of these Everard burnt the city of Hellmern and
slaughtered the inhabitants; the duke was fined and the abettors of the
crime were condemned to the indignity of carrying dogs through the
streets of Magdeburg. But the disturbance was not at an end: the delin-
quents were emboldened rather than deterred by the lenient treatment
they received from Otto at a diet held at Steele on the Ruhr in May,
and the petty warfare rose to the dimensions of civil war. Thankmar,
who, as we have seen, had his own reasons to be displeased with Otto's
rule, joined forces with Everard : together they captured Belecke on the
Möhne and with it the king's younger brother Henry. But a reaction
followed: the discontented Wichmann returned to loyalty and the in-
surrection in Saxony completely broke down : the fortress of Eresburg,
which Thankmar had taken, opened its gates at Otto’s approach.
Thankmar himself fled to the Church of St Peter where he was slain
at the altar, an act of sacrilege of which Otto was entirely innocent.
Everard was restored to favour after undergoing a short term of honour-
able imprisonment at Hildesheim ; but before making his peace he
1 His duties were to act as the king's representative in judicial matters, to take
charge of the royal fortresses and lands, and to be responsible for the revenues due
from Bavaria. The object was plainly to set up a counter authority against that of
the tribal duke. Arnulf was the leader of the opposition in Bavaria in 937–8, and
was banished as a punishment; his recall and appointment as Count Palatine is
characteristic of Otto's generous and lenient treatment of opponents. The Cont.
Reginonis, anno 938, the only authority for the Bavarian revolt, speaks of an Everard
as the leader of the rebellion, but Erben in Neues Archiv, xvi. conjectures on very
convincing grounds that the passage Everhardum Arnolfi filium should read Arnolfum
Arnolfi filium.
## p. 189 (#235) ############################################
The Rebellion of the Dukes in 939
189
entered into a secret compact with Henry by which they should, when the
opportunity offered, combine against Otto. The crown was to be Henry's
reward. Early in the year 939 everything was in readiness. The arrange-
ments were made at a gathering of malcontents at Saalfeld. Gilbert of
Lorraine had been drawn into the ranks of the disaffected dukes. All
the three leaders, Henry, Everard, and Gilbert, according to Liudprand,
Bishop of Cremona, had designs on the throne, trusting perhaps to the
fortunes of war to bring one or the other of them to the uppermost.
Hostilities broke out in Lorraine. Otto hastened to the scene of action,
while the enemy were advancing towards the Rhine near Xanten. The
paucity of boats enabled but a small portion of the royalist troops to
cross the river before their adversaries came in sight. While the king,
with the main body of his army, watched from the opposite bank, this
small detachment, perhaps no more than a hundred men, by strategy,
by cunning, and by a vigorous attack in front and rear, won a victory
on the field of Birthen. It was little short of a miracle, a miracle attri-
buted by the legend to the Holy Lance which Otto held in his hand.
This success relieved Otto from all immediate danger. The opposition
broke down in Saxony and Thuringia. Dortmund, one of Henry's for-
tresses, had submitted to the king as he marched towards the Rhine;
after the fight at Birthen, in which it was rumoured that Henry had
fallen, Merseburg and Scheidungen on the Unstrut alone held out. To
the former of these Henry fled after his defeat with but nine followers.
After a siege of two months the garrison capitulated and Henry was
granted a truce of thirty days to quit Saxony. By the beginning of
June the first campaign was over and, says the Saxon historian, “ there
was rest from civil war for a few days. "
The second campaign of the year 939 had a different and more
alarming aspect. It received the support of Louis IV (d'Outremer),
son of Charles the Simple, who on the death of Raoul of Burgundy
had been summoned from his place of refuge at the court of his uncle
King Aethelstan and set on the throne of France by Hugh the Great,
the powerful Count of Paris. The latter had expected to have things
his own way under a king of his own choosing, but soon found he was
mistaken. Louis had no intention of being a puppet in the hands of
the great duke and at once asserted his independence of action. Within
a year of his accession he had alienated from himself all the powerful
nobility of France. When, therefore, Louis, in the hope of attaching
Lorraine once more to the West Frankish dominions, joined forces with
Duke Gilbert, Otto found abundant assistance ready at hand among the
discontented feudatories of France. In September he actually entered
into some sort of compact with Louis' chief antagonists Hugh the Great,
Herbert, Count of Vermandois, William, Duke of Normandy, and Arnulf,
Count of Flanders. Henry, the king's brother, liberated from Merseburg,
hastened to join Gilbert in Lorraine. Otto, following in hot pursuit,
a
CH. VIII.
## p. 190 (#236) ############################################
190
The collapse of the Rebellion
found them garrisoned in the castle of Chèvremont near Liège; he laid
siege to the fortress, but was compelled to relinquish it, for Louis was
making headway in the neighbourhood of Verdun, where several bishops
(perhaps those of Metz, Verdun, and Toul) had submitted themselves
to his authority. Otto set out against him, and drove him back to his
capital at Laon.
At this point in the campaign the scheming Duke of Franconia
openly joined in the revolt. Otto besieged him in the strong fortress
of Breisach on the Rhine. An attempt was made to come to terms:
Frederick, Archbishop of Mayence, was employed to negotiate with
Everard, but he went beyond his powers, conceding more than the king
was prepared to yield and Otto refused to ratify the treaty. The effect
was to throw the Archbishop into the ranks of the insurgents. He fled
privily by night to Metz where he expected to fall in with Henry and
Gilbert; but the latter had already started to join forces with Everard :
whether Henry accompanied the dukes on the fatal expedition to the
Rhine is uncertain ; more probably, making Metz his headquarters, he
remained behind to organise resistance in Lorraine. Everard and Gilbert
made a plundering raid and returned westward, intending to recross the
Rhine at Andernach. Part of their army had already crossed the river
and the dukes were quietly eating their dinner before crossing themselves,
when a body of Franconian troops led by Udo and Conrad Kurzpold,
Franconian counts, whose lands had especially suffered from the raid,
came up with them. Both the dukes fell in the fight that ensued.
Everard was slain by the sword, Gilbert was drowned : according to
one account he got into a boat already overloaded with fugitives and
the boat capsized; according to another he leapt with his horse into the
river and so met his end. By a mere stroke of luck the two leaders of
the rebellion were disposed of in a skirmish hardly worthy of the name
of battle at a moment when Otto's cause seemed desperate, and when,
says Widukind, “there seemed no hope of his retaining rule over the
Saxons, so widespread was the rebellion. ”
The effect was instantaneous. Breisach capitulated: Lorraine was
.
restored to order. Of the remaining leaders, Frederick, after being
refused admittance into his own town of Mayence, was captured and
punished by a short term of imprisonment; Henry, on hearing the news
which deprived him of all hopes of the crown, fled to his old stronghold
of Chèvremont but found the gates closed against him; he made his
way to France, but finding his cause to be hopelessly lost, yielded him-
self up to his brother's mercy. Otto with his habitual generosity and
magnanimity forgave him everything and took him again into his favour.
The royal authority was now firmly established. Henry made one more
attempt to overthrow his brother, but it was too late and the con-
spiracy of 941 collapsed without recourse to arms. The intention had
been to assassinate the king at the Easter festival at Quedlinburg: it
## p. 191 (#237) ############################################
Changes in the administration of the Duchies
191
reached the ears of Otto who proceeded as usual to the feast but with
a strong guard, and there seized and executed the whole gang of con-
spirators. Henry fled, was captured and imprisoned at Ingelheim, but
before the end of the year received the king's pardon. The un-
scrupulous Archbishop of Mayence was also implicated but cleared
himself of guilt by receiving the sacrament in public.
The civil wars involved extensive changes in the government of the
duchies. During the years which followed the restoration of order, Otto
inaugurated and gradually established the policy of attaching the duke-
doms more closely to himself by granting them to members of his own
family. The administration of Lorraine was in 931 entrusted to a
certain Otto, son of Ricwin, and on his death in 944 the duchy was
conferred upon Conrad the Red, a nephew of King Conrad I, who in
947 was married to Otto's daughter Liutgard. Franconia', after the
death of Everard at the fight of Andernach, the king retained in his
own hands. When Duke Berthold died in 947 his duchy of Bavaria
passed to the king's own brother Henry, who, after the failure of his
last attempt to win the throne in 941, had become one of the loyalest
of Otto's subjects and who was already akin to the Bavarian ducal
house through his marriage in 938(? ) with Judith, the daughter of
the old duke Arnulf. Lastly, on the death of Duke Herman in 949,
Swabia was given to Otto's son Liudolf, who married Ida, the daughter
of the late duke. By these arrangements the ancient supremacy of the
Franconian tribe was for ever crushed; but in the southern duchies the
order of things remained unchanged, for while granting the dukedoms
to his own kinsmen, he maintained the traditions and customs of the
tribal duchies by giving the new dukes in marriage to the daughters
of the old ducal houses.
In the meanwhile the eastern neighbours of Germany had taken full
advantage of the intestine troubles which filled the opening years of the
new reign. In the midst of the ducal rebellion of 939 Widukind
deplores the numerous enemies that beset his native Saxony, “Slavs
from the east, Franks from the south, Lorrainers from the west, and
from the north Danes and more Slavs"; he might have added Hun-
garians from the south-east, for their barbaric hordes swept into
Thuringia and Saxony in 937 and 938. They were beaten back and
never again ventured into Saxon territory. On the Wendish border
there had been ceaseless activity. Fortunately for Otto, the frontier
1 According to von Winterfeld, Neues Archiv, xxvIII. pp. 510 f. , on the authority of
a passage in Hrotsvit, Gesta Oddonis, 450 ff. , Otto did not retain the administration of
Franconia in his hands but granted it at this time to his son Liudolf-a boy of eleven
years old—who, if this conjecture is correct, would in 949 be Duke of Franconia and
Swabia. The evidence however is insufficient to justify this conclusion. For the
theory that certain parts of Franconia round the Upper Main and Bamberg were
granted to Berthold of Bavaria, see Giesebrecht, Kaiserzeit, 1. 816 f.
CH. VIII.
## p. 192 (#238) ############################################
192
War on the Eastern Frontier
!
1
11
3
11
command was in capable hands; Herman Billung and Gero repressed
the risings with a firm hand and even extended German influence further
eastward. The death of Henry the Fowler had been the first signal for
insurrection, in which the Redari seem to have taken the leading part.
Henry they had learnt to fear, but Otto was untried and had yet to
prove his strength. He hastened back from his coronation at Aix-la-
Chapelle and suppressed the rising. The Wends were held in check till
the year 939 when Germany was in the throes of civil war, when the
total subversion of the royal authority seemed inevitable, and an un-
rivalled opportunity of throwing off the German yoke presented itself.
They made repeated inroads which were beaten off by Gero, and even
the king himself, it appears, found time on more than one occasion to
enter into the border conflict. In Bohemia, Boleslav, who had in 936
gained the throne by murdering his brother Wenceslas at the gates of
the church of Alt-Bunzlau, asserted his independence; and though
temporarily checked by a force of Saxons and Thuringians sent against
him in 938, he continued to be a source of danger and disturbance till
Otto in 950 made an expedition in person to Bohemia and was recog-
nised as overlord. The results, however, of the frontier fighting were
on the whole satisfactory. Partly by his own efforts, partly by his keen
insight into character which enabled him to select the right men for
the work, Otto made progress, extended the German sway as far as the
Oder, and prepared the way for the next stage in his Eastern policy,
the consolidation of his conquests and the conversion of the conquered
peoples to the Christian religion. The newly acquired territory was
divided into two marches under the control of Herman and Gero.
The tribute and rents accruing from these sources were appropriated to
the maintenance of the frontier garrisons, to the establishinent of colonies,
and to the endowment of churches. In 948, probably on the occasion
of the visit of the papal legate Marinus, Bishop of Bomarzo, to Germany,
bishoprics were founded at Brandenburg and Havelberg in the province
of Mayence, and at Ripen, Aarhus and Schleswig in the metropolitan
diocese of Bremen for the organisation of further missionary work.
On the western frontier, also, the state of affairs was troublesome.
The possession of Lorraine was by no means entirely a source of strength
to the German monarchy. Owing to its position between the East and
West Frankish dominions it involved the German king in the everlasting
turmoil which characterised the history of France in the tenth century.
Moreover Lorraine was always firmly attached to the Carolingian tra-
dition, and there was always a party ready to support the Caroling kings
in their attempts to win back the province for the Western Kingdom.
There Louis IV was engaged in an incessant struggle to hold his own
against a strong coalition of feudal nobles under the leadership of the
all-powerful Count of Paris. During the decade 940-950 Otto was
busily engaged beyond the Rhine. He lent his aid first to one side,
## p. 193 (#239) ############################################
Otto's intervention in French affairs
193
then to the other', mediated between them and compelled both parties
to realise the weight of his power, the wide scope of his authority, the
value of his mediation. In the summer of 940 he entered France to
punish Louis for his interference in Lorraine and drove him into Bur-
gundy: but the expedition had daunted neither the spirit nor the
enterprise of Louis, who, as soon as Otto was back in Germany, again
set out for Lorraine. Otto once more turned westward, but as it was late
in the year the kings effected a truce and parted without fighting. For
two years Louis was pursued by his relentless adversaries; at last,
however, in 942, possibly as a result of the visit of the legate of Pope
Stephen VIII who commanded the princes to recognise Louis as their
king on pain of excommunication, a solemn assembly took place and a
general peace was concluded at a place uncertain but conjectured to be
Visé? on the Meuse, a few miles north of Liège. A similar obscurity
exists with regard to the terms, but it is clear that Louis on his side
engaged to desist from interfering in the affairs of Lorraine, while Otto
for his part agreed to refrain from assisting the French lords against
their king.
This settlement was but transitory, and two years later Otto was
again drawn into the affairs of the Western Kingdom. But the position
was altered : two of Louis' dangerous opponents, William of Normandy
and Herbert of Vermandois, were now dead; for a moment the king and
the Count of Paris were on terms of friendship. Then a trivial difference
and an accident brought about another change, and Louis was a prisoner
in the hands of his powerful feudatory. This was in 944. Hugh, with
his valuable prisoner in safe keeping at Laon, sought an interview with
Otto. The latter, however, perhaps anxious to abide by the compact of
942, perhaps from a genuine feeling of pity for the luckless king, declined
to accept Hugh's overtures and espoused the royal cause. ' The menace
of Otto's displeasure saved Louis: after nearly a year's confinement, he
was liberated, but only at the heavy price of losing his one sure strong-
hold, the fortress of Laon. Louis was free, but without shelter, almost
without friends. Gerberga, his queen, made a pressing appeal to her
brother. Otto's French campaign in the late summer of 946 met with
very limited success. Laon, Rheims, and Senlis were all in turn besieged,
but Rheims alone was captured. The two kings then made a plundering
raid into Normandy; they even, according to one account, laid siege to
Rouen. But in this enterprise they were alike unsuccessful, and Otto
made his way back to Germany.
a
1 Both the antagonists had equal claims, on the ground of kinship, to Otto's
friendship; each had married a sister of Otto, Hugh the Great married Hedwig and
Louis IV Gerberga, widow of Gilbert of Lorraine.
? See Lauer, Les Annales de Flodoard, p. 85, n. 5, and Louis d'Outremer, p. 83,
n. 3. Vouziers on the Aisne has also been conjectured. Cf. Giesebrecht, Kaiserzeit,
C. MED. H. VOL. III. CH. VIII.
13
P. 274.
## p. 194 (#240) ############################################
194
Situation in Italy in 950
The year 947 was occupied by a series of fruitless assemblies called
together to decide a dispute over the archbishopric of Rheims. The
two parties in France had each its candidate for the see, and the party
uppermost unscrupulously imposed the man of its choice upon the
diocese. These transactions, vain as they were, are not without their
importance, for they led up to the solemn synod held at Ingelheim on
7 June 948. The legate of Pope Agapetus II, Bishop Marinus of
Bomarzo, presided over it. It was an assembly of the highest significance:
it was the first occasion since the accession of the Saxon dynasty, since
the synod of Hohen Altheim in 916, that a papal legate had appeared
in Germany. It was attended by more than thirty bishops, and the two
kings Louis and Otto were present in person. The business was not
restricted to the Rheims dispute. The discussion on the political question
at issue resulted in a canon being passed against attacks on the royal
power and a declaration that Hugh should make his submission under
pain of excommunication. The dispute over the see of Rheims was
decided in favour of Artaud, the candidate of the royal party; his rival
Hugh, son of Herbert of Vermandois, was excommunicated. Hugh the
Great held the decrees of the synod at defiance; he was excommunicated
at the Synod of Trèves (September 948); he continued in his obduracy
and carried on hostilities against Louis and his allies Otto and Conrad
of Lorraine till 950, when, at a meeting held on the banks of the Marne,
he made his submission, restored Laon, and, by his homage, recognised
Louis as his lord.
The affairs of France were no sooner settled on a satisfactory basis
than a turn of events in Italy provided the occasion for Otto's first
expedition across the Alps. The occasion was the death of King Lothar,
leaving his widow Adelaide with a title to the Italian throne in her own
right, defenceless and soon to be a prisoner in the hands of Berengar,
Marquess of Ivrea, who was himself crowned King of Italy at Pavia
on 15 December 950. The old connexion between Germany and Italy
founded on the Empire of Charles the Great, though it had ceased to
be a reality since the death of the Emperor Arnulf in 899, is recalled to
memory by many minor incidents in the dark years of the first half of
the tenth century. The dukes of Swabia and Bavaria were frequently
drawn into the Italian struggles ; Berengar of Ivrea, fleeing from the
murderous designs of his rival Hugh of Arles, had crossed the Alps,
taken refuge in Swabia, and even commended himself to Otto (941), an
act which perhaps gave Otto the right to expect an acknowledgment of
overlordship from Berengar when the latter ascended the Italian throne
in 950. With the opposite faction Otto was also brought into close
connexion through Conrad of Burgundy, who had spent his youth at
the German court and whose sister Adelaide had married Hugh's son
Lothar.
The arrangements for the Italian expedition were settled at the
## p. 195 (#241) ############################################
Liudolf's disaffection
195
Easter festival held at Aix-la-Chapelle 30 March 951. Otto formed his
plans in close consultation with his brother Henry, now his most trusted
adviser, whose brilliant campaigns against the Hungarians, resulting in
the acquisition of the march of Aquileia, gave additional weight to his
councils. Liudolf, on the other hand, was apparently not taken into the
king's confidence: indignant at his exclusion, jealous of his uncle,
impetuous and anxious to make a name for himself on his own account,
he determined to anticipate his father. He rapidly crossed the Alps
with a small army of Swabians ; but his expedition was a complete
failure and before long he returned to sow the seeds of rebellion, the
news of which recalled Otto, who had assumed the title of King of the
Lombards at Pavia and taken Adelaide as his wife, in haste to Germany.
It was not only disappointment at his failure in Italy that led Liudolf
to rebel against his father. Otto's second marriage was not likely to be
to his son's advantage; it would lead to a new circle at the court in
which he would take but a secondary place; he might even look to being
a
ousted from the succession by the offspring of this new alliance-an
event which in fact occurred, for it was Adelaide's son, Otto, who was
designated as the successor to the total disregard of the claims of his
nephew and namesake, the son of Liudolf. The plans for the rebellion
were formed at a Christmas gathering held at Saalfeld; the place is
significant, for it was there that Henry had divulged to his friends his
designs against Otto in 939. Among the conspirators was Frederick,
Archbishop of Mayence, whose implication in the previous rebellions of
939 and 941 was more than suspected. He had been employed as Otto's
envoy to the court of Pope Agapetus and the failure of his mission may
have led to a rupture with Otto.
The news of this ominous assembly was the immediate cause of Otto's
return to Germany. He crossed the Alps in February 952 and by
Easter was again in Saxony. Conrad, Duke of Lorraine, was left behind
in Italy to complete the overthrow of Berengar. But instead of pursuing
the advantage which Otto had already gained, he made terms with
Berengar and returned with him to Germany to obtain the king's rati-
fication of his arrangements. They found the court at Magdeburg.
Otto was, however, far from satisfied: he had counted on the complete
subversion of Berengar. For three days the latter was not permitted to
approach the royal presence and even then, through the counsel of Duke
Henry, he was “barely granted his life and a safe return to his country. ”
The final settlement with regard to Italy was postponed to a meeting to
be held at Augsburg. On 7 August the diet met in the spacious
Lechfeld which extended to the south of the city. Franks, Saxons,
Swabians, Bavarians, Lombards, and even ambassadors from the Byzantine
court attended the gathering, to which a contemporary annalist assigns
the imposing Frankish title of Conventus publicus. There Berengar and
his son Adalbert took the oath of homage and fealty and, by the solemn
CH. VIII.
13_2
## p. 196 (#242) ############################################
196
Liudolf's rebellion
>
handing over of the golden sceptre, received back the kingdom of Lombardy
as a fief of the German crown. But Duke Henry had his reward for his
consistent loyalty at Berengar's expense: the marches of Aquileia and
Verona were added to the Bavarian dukedom.
Up to this point there had been no overt act of rebellion on the part
of the conspirators. Liudolf and the Archbishop of Mayence had been
present at the Augsburg diet; indeed the latter had taken a leading
part in the ecclesiastical business transacted there. But as the rebellion
matured, the causes of discontent increased. The marked displeasure of
Otto at Conrad's management of the affairs of Italy had driven the
Duke of Lorraine into the ranks of the malcontents. The appointment
of the king's brother Bruno to the post of archchancellor of Italy was an
additional grievance to Archbishop Frederick, who had counted upon
that dignified sinecure for himself. Whereas Henry had gained by the
settlement at Augsburg, Liudolf had received no share in the spoils.
Possibly the birth of a child to Adelaide, a boy named Henry who died
in infancy, at the end of the year 952, was the decisive event, which
determined the outbreak of hostilities.
Otto appears to have been blind to the dangers which surrounded
him. It was only while journeying to Ingelheim on his return from Alsace,
whither he had gone to visit his wife's relations, that he realised the
critical state of affairs. Judging it imprudent to keep the Easter festival,
as he had purposed, at so isolated a place as Ingelheim, he turned aside
to Mayence; but Mayence proved no less dangerous. He found the gates
of the city closed against him and in an unseemly manner he was kept
waiting until the Archbishop, who was absent from the city performing
his Lenten devotions in retreat, returned to grant him admittance.
Liudolf and Conrad also appeared on the scene, and the king was caught
in a trap. The conspirators made haste to clear themselves of having
any designs against their sovereign ; but they acknowledged that it had
been their intention to waylay Henry in the event of his coming to
Ingelheim for the Easter festival. Even towards the king their attitude
was not so peaceable as they had affirmed; by duress they extorted from
him some sort of treaty, of which the terms are unrecorded, but the nature
may be fairly conjectured. It was no doubt as advantageous to Liudolf
as it was detrimental to the interests of Duke Henry. Liudolf was
assured of the succession and possibly was even to have an immediate
share in the government. Otto was glad to escape at any price.
Nevertheless, once safe in Saxony he did not scruple to revoke the treaty.
He summoned Liudolf and Conrad to appear before him and ordered
them either to hand over their confederates or else to receive the
punishment due for their offence. A diet for the discussion of their
case was to meet at Fritzlar. The dukes did not present themselves at
the diet; they were deprived of their dukedoms, and hostilities began in
earnest.
## p. 197 (#243) ############################################
Widespread disaffection
197
In this rebellion, it is remarkable that the duchies invariably sided
against their dukes. The Lorrainers, under the leadership of Adalbero;
Bishop of Metz, and Reginar, Count of Hainault, weře, almost to a
man, loyal to the king and therefore in opposition to their duke, Conrad ;
whereas in Bavaria the king and his brother Henry met with their bitterest
and most dangerous opponents. At first Conrad sought to recover
his position in Lorraine ; but on the banks of the Meuse, in a desperate
battle lasting from noon to sunset, he was defeated, quitted his duchy,
and betook himself to Mayence, which henceforth became the headquarters
of the insurgents. With an army of Saxons reinforced on the march by
troops from Lorraine and Franconia, Otto invested the city. He was
soon joined by Henry with his Bavarians. For nearly two months the
royal army tried in vain to capture the stronghold of the rebels ; every
device of siege warfare was employed but all to no account; engines were
no sooner brought up to the walls than they were destroyed or burnt;
assaults were made upon the gates only to be beaten off with loss by the
defenders. At last, wearied by lack of success, Otto made overtures for
an armistice and sent his cousin Ekbert as an hostage. But the nego-
tiations came to nothing, and the king's ambassador was won over to the
side of the enemy. For Otto the situation was desperate. The defection
had spread to Saxony and to Bavaria ; in the latter duchy Arnulf, the
Count palatine, put himself at the head of a tribal revolt against the
rule of Duke Henry. This was perhaps the most serious phase in the
rebellion. The Bavarians, led by their duke to assist in the siege of
Mayence, went over in a body to the enemy. Leaving the defence of the
city in the charge of Conrad, Liudolf hastened with the Bavarian deserters
to Ratisbon, seized and plundered the city, and drove Henry's family and
adherents from the country. In September Otto abandoned the siege of
Mayence with the object of attempting to secure Ratisbon, but in this
enterprise he was also doomed to failure. Shortly before Christmas,
almost at the end of his resources, he withdrew to Saxony.
Owing to the firm rule of Herman, the insurrection in Saxony had
broken down, and Lorraine also remained loyal ; but the greater part of
Franconia and practically the whole of Swabia and Bavaria had taken up
arms against him. So widespread was the disaffection that it has been
sometimes regarded as an expression of a national resistance against
Otto's imperial policy, as though the interests of Germany were prejudiced
by his acquisition of the Italian thronel. It is, however, more in ac-
cordance with the facts to attribute the civil war rather to tribal than
national causes : the separate tribes were rebelling against the authority
.
