No More Learning

Otto returned, but was content to drive Ardoin back and to entrust his
uprooting to the local magnates. The embers of the revolt against the
Romano-
Germanic Empire were left to glow. Otto's wishes at this time
seem to have turned to the reassertion of the claims of the Holy Roman
Empire in the south. Since Abu'l-ķāsim's death in his victory over
Otto II, the Saracen raids, although they inflicted misery on Calabria and
South Apulia, had not been in sufficient force to endanger the Byzantine
rule. The catapan Calocyrus Delphinas in 983-4 had subdued the
Apulian rebels ; nor did Otto III shew any disposition to intervene.
But the petty frontier states were a different matter. In 983 the
Salernitans had driven out Manso of Amalfi, and under their new prince
John II, a Lombard from Spoleto, remained henceforth neutral and
disregarded. Their neighbours, however, Capua, Benevento, Naples and
Gaeta, were more important for Otto. After a romantic pilgrimage to
the famous shrine of Monte Gargano, he sent in 999 the Capuan Ademar,
new-made Marquess of Spoleto, to Capua, where Laidulf was deposed
and Ademar made prince. At the same time Naples was seized, its
Duke John taken captive, and the Duke of Gaeta was bribed into
vassalage. These successes, which once more effectively enlarged the
Empire, did not last, for in 1000 the Capuans drove out Ademar,
substituting Landolf V of the old dynasty, and John of Naples recovered
his state and independence. A short campaign of Otto himself next
year against Benevento gained at most a formal submission from the
Lombard princes. The fact was that the Emperors could never devote
enough energy or men to the subjugation of the south, divergent as it
was in soil, in organisation, and in habits of life from the Frank-ruled,
feudalised and more fertile north.
At the time, indeed, Otto's throne was rocking under him. He
had offended the Romans by sparing revolted Tivoli, for which too
independent neighbour they nourished a passionate hatred ; nor were
their desires for their old autonomy and dislike of the Saxon stranger
diminished by his imperial masquerade. In February 1001 they broke
into revolt and blockaded Otto in his palace on the Aventine, at the
same time closing the gates against his troops who were encamped outside
the walls under his cousin, Duke Henry of Bavaria and Hugh of Tuscany.
After three days Otto prepared a desperate sortie, but at the same time
Hugh and Henry entered by treaty with the Romans. Once more they
swore fealty, and listened to the Emperor's reproaches, the best proof of


## p. 177 (#223) ############################################

Otto III's death
177
the strong illusion under which he laboured: “Are you my Romans? For
your sake I have left my country and my kindred. For love of you have
I abandoned my Saxons and all the Germans, my own blood. I have led
you to the most distant parts of the Empire, where your fathers, lords
of the world, never set foot, so as to spread your name and fame to the
ends of the earth? . " And the crowd half believed in the dream. They
dragged their leaders out and threw them before the Emperor. His
nobles were cooler, and under their persuasions he left the Eternal City,
where his escort still remained. It could not be concealed that he had
really been driven out by the rebels.
His case was nearly desperate. The German magnates were ready to
revolt against the dreamer. St Romuald counselled him to take the
cowl. Yet Otto, though a visionary, was resourceful and resolute. He
summoned fresh forces from Germany, where Henry of Bavaria kept the
princes loyal. He asked once more, and with success, for a Byzantine
bride. He vexed Rome whence his men were extracted, and prepared
for a siege. But his strength was exhausted. On 23 January 1002
he died at Paterno on the Tiber just as his reinforcements reached him.
All Italy was in confusion. The Germans were obliged to fight their
way northwards with the corpse. King Ardoin seized the Italian crown.
John Crescentius, son of Crescentius II, ruled Rome as patrician, and
Pope Sylvester, who had loyally followed his pupil, was content to return
thither despoiled of secular power and soon to die. Hugh of Tuscany
was already dead, to the joy of the ungrateful Otto. But the basis
of the Holy Roman Empire was still firm. Bishops and Marquesses as
a rule were faithful to the Saxon house. If Otto's dreams were over,
German supremacy, the fact, remained.
It was not only in the Lombard troubles under Otto III that signs
were apparent of the medieval evolution of Italy. His contemporary
and friend, Doge Pietro Orseolo II of Venice, was making a city-state
a first-rate power at sea. Within a few years Orseolo curbed and
appeased the feuds of the nobles, he effected a reconciliation with
Germany, he reinstated Venice in her favourable position in the Eastern
Empire, and contrived to keep on fair terms with the Muslim world.
In 2000 Venice made her first effort to dominate the upper Adriatic
and it was successful for the time. The Doge led a fleet to Dalmatia,
checking the Slav tribes and giving Venice a temporary protectorate
over the Roman towns of the coast. Byzantium was busied in war
nearer home and glad to rely on a powerful friend. She soon had
occasion for Venice's active help, for the Saracen raids grew once again
to dangerous dimensions. In 1002 the caid Şafī came from Sicily and
besieged Bari by land and sea. The catapan Gregory Trachaniotis was
1 Thangmar, Vita S. Bernwardi, c. 25. But these German accounts glose events.
Was the haling of the Roman leaders before Otto a mere piece of ceremonial, suitable
to a treaty with the Emperor?
C. MED. H. VOL. III. CH. VII.
12


## p. 178 (#224) ############################################

178
Revival and permanent division of Italy
rescued by Venice. Orseolo II arrived with his fleet, revictualled the
town, and fought a three days' battle with the Muslims. In the end,
,
worsted on both elements, they retreated by night. They still wasted
Calabria and the whole west coast of Italy, yet here too they received
a severe check in a naval battle near Reggio in 1006, in which the feet
of the Tuscan trading town of Pisa played the decisive part. Thus,
even before the Holy Roman Empire reached its apogee, the future
city-states of North Italy had made their first entry into international
politics.
In the security of the frontiers, in the rebirth of civic life, in the
resettlement of the country-side, in the renewal of intercourse and
commerce, the success of the Ottonian rule was manifest. Nor were
the omens inauspicious in the Church. During the wretched times of
anarchy a demoralisation, analogous to that of which the career of King
Hugh bears witness among the magnates, had invaded cathedral and
cloister. The Papacy could be the bone of contention for lawless nobles;
a great abbey, like Farfa, could be a nest of murder and luxury in the
mid tenth century. Now at any rate, in the north under Alberic and
the Ottos, in the Byzantine south, an improvement, slow and chequered
as it might be, had set in. But in one aim the Ottos had failed, the
extension of the Regnum Italicim over all Italy. Sardinia, which vegetated
apart ruled by her native “judges” under an all but forgotten Byzantine
suzerainty, might be disregarded; but the separation of the south of the
peninsula from the north left the Holy Roman Empire imperfect. It
was a case where geographical and climatic influences interacted on
historical events and made them, so to say, their accomplices in moulding
the future. South Italy as a whole was always a more barren land than
the north, more sunburnt, less well-watered, a land of pasture rather
than of agriculture or of intense cultivation, a land of great estates and
sparse inhabitants. Long separated from the main Lombard kingdom
by Roman territory, and protected by their mountain defiles, the
Lombards of Benevento had fallen apart from their northern kinsmen.
Charlemagne had not subdued them; Eastern Rome, by direct conquest
and through her client sea-ports, had exercised a potent influence upon
them; the Saracens held Sicily. Throughout the two centuries from 800
to 1000 the schism of the two halves of Italy, which Nature had half
prescribed, steadily widened. Even what they had most in common, the
tendency to autonomous city-states, took different embodiment and met
a different destiny. The Norman Conquest only concluded and intensified
a probable evolution.
a


## p. 179 (#225) ############################################

179
CHAPTER VIII.
GERMANY: HENRY I AND OTTO THE GREAT.
“The future of the realm," Conrad is said to have declared with his
dying words, “lies with the Saxons," and he bade his brother Everard
to bear the royal insignia to Henry, the Saxon Duke, as the one man
capable of restoring the glory of the German name. The union of
Frank and Saxon had given the throne to Conrad on the death of Louis
the Child; the same alliance was responsible for the ascendancy of the
Saxon dynasty in 919. Everard carried out the last injunctions of the
late king, waived his own claim, and caused Henry the Saxon to assume
the royal dignity. The election was a purely secular function ; for,
either from a genuine feeling of his unworthiness or from his dislike
of the higher clergy and their secular influence, a dislike which he un-
doubtedly possessed in the earlier years of his reign, he dispensed with
the solemn ceremonials of anointing and coronation offered him by
Archbishop Heriger of Mayence. It took place at Fritzlar on the borders
of Franconia and Saxony in May 919.
The position of Henry the Fowlerº was a difficult one. As king he
was scarcely more powerful than he was as duke. Saxon and Franconian
princes had been present at the election, but there is little reason to
believe that the princes of the southern duchies were present or that
they acquiesced in the result. Everard, Duke of Franconia, had been
chiefly instrumental in raising Henry to the throne, but he had previously
been an inveterate enemy to the Saxon house, and his loyalty was only
purchased at the price of almost complete independence in his own duke-
dom. The new king did not at first aspire very high. He had no
scheme of governing the whole realm, as the Carolings before him, from
one centre through his own officials. He had no choice but to allow the
tribes to manage their own affairs according to their own customs and
their own traditions. Even his modest ambition to be regarded as the
head of a confederate Germany was not yet accepted. Bavaria and
· Henry's Carolingian descent (he was the great-grandson of Louis the Pious)
did not influence the election. He was chosen purely on his own merits.
2 This name
“Auceps ” is first given him by the Annalista Saxo in the middle
of the twelfth century. Ann. Sax. M. G. SS. vi. 594.
CH, vul.
12-2


## p. 180 (#226) ############################################

180
Submission of Swabia and Bavaria
1
1
1
Swabia were outside his sphere of authority. Burchard, “no duke, but
tyrant, despoiler and ravager of the land” (his unscrupulous disposal
of church property had given him a bad reputation among monastic
writers) was ruling in Swabia. He had just rid himself of the aggressions
of Rodolph II, King of Upper (Jurane) Burgundy, who had attempted
to add Swabia to his dominions, by defeating him at Winterthur! . At
the news of Henry's approach, for it is uncertain whether the king
actually entered Swabia, he surrendered unconditionally. Henry allowed
him to retain his dukedom, only reserving to himself the right of ap-
pointing to bishoprics and the royal domain lying within the limits of
the duchy.
Bavaria offered a more difficult task. Arnulf “ the Bad,” though,
like Burchard, he had gained the ill-will of the clergy owing to his habit
of appropriating the revenue and property of the Church, was exceedingly
popular with the secular nobles. He had been urged, not against his
will, to put forward a claim to the throne of Germany, and was only
prevented by the antagonism of the clergy from making an immediate
attempt to win this end. According to one account Henry was obliged
to make two campaigns before he was able to bring Arnulf to terms.
However that may be, in 921 he approached Ratisbon (Regensburg),
perhaps, as Widukind records, he actually besieged the town; and, by
granting particularly favourable conditions, obtained Arnulf's submission.
The duke retained the coveted right of appointing to bishoprics within
his duchy, a privilege confined to Bavaria alone; in other ways also
Bavaria secured a larger measure of independence than was enjoyed by
any other German tribe. Almost sovereign powers were given to its
duke. Arnulf struck coins, directed his own foreign policy, and dated
documents according to the year of his reign.
Henry was not satisfied with the limits prescribed by the Treaty of
Verdun; he aimed at the inclusion of Lorraine in the German realm. It
was not an easy matter and was only accomplished by untiring patience
and by taking advantage of opportunities offered by the ceaseless dis-
turbances in the Western Kingdom. Gilbert (Giselbert), the reigning
duke, a versatile and unscrupulous man, sought and obtained the help
of the German king when his dominions were overrun by the West
Franks. He was reinstated and remained on friendly terms with Henry
until, in 920, hostilities broke out between the Eastern and Western
Kingdoms. Charles the Simple pushed his way into Germany as far
as Pfeddersheim near Worms, but retired on hearing that Henry was
arming against him. Gilbert, at this juncture, threw off his allegiance
1 Rodolph, however, partially gained his object. For either on the occasion of his
marriage with Burchard's daughter Bertha, or more probably after Burchard's death,
at the Council held at Worms in November 926, he added a strip of territory lying
to the east of the river Aar, but the extent of which is uncertain, to his dominions
in return for the gift to Henry the Fowler of the much coveted Holy Lance. See
R. L. Poole, The Supposed Origin of Burgundia Minor, EHR, xxx. 51, 1915.


## p. 181 (#227) ############################################

Conquest of Lorraine
181
war.
to Henry and assisted Charles in the campaign of the following year.
Fighting was however averted : on 7 November 921 the two kings met
in a boat anchored in the middle of the Rhine at Bonn. There a
treaty was concluded : Henry was formally recognised as king of the East
Franks, but Lorraine remained dependent on the Western Kingdom.
During the next years France was immersed in the throes of civil
First Robert, the younger son of Robert the Strong, and on his
death his son-in-law, Raoul (Rudolf), Duke of Burgundy, was set up as
rival king to the helpless Caroling, Charles the Simple, who spent most
of the remainder of his life in close captivity at Péronne. In the midst of
this anarchy Henry sought his opportunity to wrest Lorraine from the
Western Kingdom. Twice in the year 923 he crossed the Rhine. In the
spring he met Robert and entered into some compact of friendship with
him, probably at Jülich on the Roer; later in the year, at the call of
Duke Gilbert, who had again changed sides, he entered Lorraine with
an army, captured a large part of the country, and was only checked by
the appearance of Raoul (Robert had been killed at Soissons in the
previous June) with considerable forces. No battle took place, but an
armistice was arranged to last until October of the next year and the
eastern part of Lorraine was left in Henry's possession. The state of
affairs in Lorraine was less favourable to Henry when in 925 he once
more crossed the Rhine. Raoul had won a large measure of recognition
among the inhabitants and Gilbert, always to be found on what appeared
to be the winning side, had come to terms with him. Henry however
met with surprisingly little opposition on his way. He besieged Gilbert
at Zülpich, captured the town, and soon made himself master of a large
portion of the land. Gilbert had no choice but to accept the overlord-
ship of the Saxon king. He was reinstated and was attached more
closely to Henry's interests in 928 by receiving his daughter Gerberga
in marriage. Raoul bowed to the inevitable: henceforward Lorraine
was an integral part of the East Frankish dominion.
In the first six years of his reign Henry had achieved much. He
had succeeded in making his authority recognised in the southern duchies
and added Lorraine to his kingdom. Content with this recognition he
did not seek to interfere further in the affairs of the duchies. It was
his policy throughont to leave the administration in the hands of the
dukes. Bavaria, as far as we know, he never so much as revisited : Swabia
was less isolated, for after the death of Burchard, Herman, a cousin of
the Franconian Everard, married his widow and succeeded to the duke-
dom. The family connexion inevitably brought Swabia into closer
relations with the central power.
Henry's own activities were confined almost entirely to Saxony and
Thuringia. The weakness of his predecessors had encouraged the au-
dacity of the restless and barbarous neighbours to the north and east
of Germany. The Danes ravaged the coast of Frisia: the Wends,
CH. VIII.


## p. 182 (#228) ############################################

182
Hungarian Invasion of Saxony
inhabiting the land between the Elbe and the Oder, engaged the Saxon
nobles in a ceaseless and devastating border warfare: since the accession
of Louis the Child a new and still greater peril hung over Germany in
the violent inroads of the Magyars. These barbarians lived for war alone.
Though they were addicted to bunting and fishing, they chiefly relied for
their subsistence on the spoils of their victories. Their appearance, made
more grotesque and sinister by artificial means, their outlandish war-cries,
their dashing onslaught, and their ruthless cruelty combined to strike
terror upon those they encountered. Their unrivalled skill in archery
and horsemanship gave them a reputation of invincibility. For the early
years of Henry's reign the Hungarians had remained quiet, but in 924
they once more poured westward into Germany and Italy. 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.