After a short campaign in the following year Otto seems to have
patched up some kind of a truce, and restored order sufficient to permit
him to leave Germany, and fulfil his cherished wish of visiting Italy.
patched up some kind of a truce, and restored order sufficient to permit
him to leave Germany, and fulfil his cherished wish of visiting Italy.
Cambridge Medieval History - v3 - Germany and the Western Empire
While he was absent in Italy, his son William and
his mother Matilda had died (March 968): soon after his return he lost
his trusted and loyal servant Herman. He himself did not survive much
longer. He died at Memleben, the little town in the Harz Mountains
which had also witnessed the death of his father, on 7 May 973, in his
sixty-first year. His body was taken to Magdeburg and buried in the
cathedral he had built.
The Saxon historian, Widukind, sums up the achievements of his life
in the voice of popular opinion : "The people, saying many things in
“
his praise, recalled to mind that he had ruled his subjects with paternal
piety, he had liberated them from their enemies, had conquered with his
arms the proud Avars, Saracens, Danes, and Slavs; he had brought Italy
under his yoke ; he had destroyed the temples of his heathen neighbours
and set up churches and priests in their place. ” All this he had accom-
plished. If he had failed in his attempt to centralise the government of
Germany, his failure was due to the inevitable progress towards feudalism
and the too deeply rooted tribal traditions. If in this direction his
empire fell short of its model, the empire of Charles the Great, in an-
other direction it was conspicuously in advance of it. His work, in the
extension of German influence and civilisation and in the progress of
Christianity towards the north and east of his dominions, was of per-
manent value, and stood as the firm basis of future expansion and future
development.
one margrave, (2) the East march or March of Lausitz under two margraves, and
(3) the Thuringian march, later the March of Meissen, under three margraves.
CH. VIII.
## p. 204 (#250) ############################################
204
CHAPTER IX.
OTTO II AND OTTO III.
The stability of the Saxon dynasty is shewn in a marked degree by
the way in which son succeeded father almost without question until the
direct line breaks off for lack of an heir with Otto III. Otto II, who was
born towards the end of 955, had been elected and twice crowned (at
Aix-la-Chapelle in May 961 and at Rome on Christmas Day 967) during
his father's lifetime. When Otto the Great died in 973, he was universally
accepted as his successor. It was not that there was no opposition, but the
people of Germany as a whole were satisfied with the ruling family and,
in cases of rebellion, were prepared to give their support to the hereditary
sovereign. This fact is proved not only in the frequent Bavarian revolts
in the reign of Otto II, but also and more remarkably in the attempt of
the Duke of Bavaria to wrest the crown from its rightful possessor,
the infant Otto III. Otto the Red is described by the chronicler
Thietmar as being possessed of fine physical powers ; and though at
first, through lack of experience, he shunned wise counsel, chastened by
troubles he set a rein upon himself and lived nobly for the rest of his
days.
During the first seven years of his reign his energies were directed
towards Bavaria and Lorraine. Bavaria enjoyed a position of greater
independence than any of the other duchies. Its traditions were more
deeply rooted; the influence of the old ducal family was stronger. It
had ties closely binding it with the other southern duchy, Swabia.
Burchard, Duke of Swabia, had died the year of Otto's accession and
the new king filled the vacancy by appointing Otto, the son of his half
brother Liudolf, former Duke of Swabia. Duke Burchard's widow,
Hedwig, was the daughter of Judith, the widow of Henry I of Bavaria,
who was always anxious to advance the interests of her family. She and
her son Henry, the ruling Duke of Bavaria, resented the favour shewn to
Otto, son of Liudolf, and broke into open revolt. In the first struggles
we may see an arrangement of parties which remained unchanged
throughout the reign. On the one side stand the sons of the children
of Otto the Great by his first marriage with Edith, both named Otto,
the one just elected to the duchy of Swabia, the other shortly after
appointed Duke of Carinthia; to this party the Emperor first turned
## p. 205 (#251) ############################################
Bavarian revolts
205
for support. The Bavarian family, Duke Henry and his cousin Henry,
son of Duke Berthold, were the leaders of the opposite faction. Later,
it was openly favoured by the Empress Adelaide the queen-mother, who
had a somewhat natural aversion to the sons of her stepchildren, for it
was these men who had headed the revolt against her husband in 955
just after and largely in consequence of her marriage? . In the first rebel-
lion in Bavaria Henry's ambition seems to have aspired to the throne.
It was the more serious as he was allied with Boleslav, Duke of the
Bohemians, and with Mesco, Duke of the Poles. The plot was however
discovered in time; Henry and his chief adviser, Abraham, Bishop of
Freising, were summoned under pain of the ban to appear before the
Emperor and were imprisoned, Henry at Ingelheim, Bishop Abraham
at Corvey; Judith, who was also deeply involved in the conspiracy,
entered a convent at Ratisbon.
It was not until the autumn of 975 that Otto was able to take the
field against Boleslav of Bohemia to punish him for his share in the
Bavarian revolt. In the interval he had been called away to deal with a
dangerous incursion of the Danes under Harold Bluetooth who, having
crossed the frontier wall, was ravaging the country beyond the Elbe.
Otto hurriedly collected an army, marched against the invaders, and
drove them back to the wall. He could not pursue his success further
for a formidable army of Norwegians under Jarl Hákon blocked his way.
But his object was achieved. Harold opened negotiations offering all his
treasure; this Otto declined and withdrew to collect a larger army, but
when Harold offered not only treasure, but also a tribute and his son as
a hostage, his terms were accepted. To strengthen the frontier Otto
established a new fortress on the east coast of Schleswig.
Before two years had elapsed, Henry, who well merited his name
“the Wrangler," had escaped from his imprisonment at Ingelheim and
again broke into revolt. Two brothers, Berthold and Liutpold, of the
house of Babenberg, hurriedly mustered the local levies and held him
in check until, at the approach of Otto himself, the rebellious duke fled
I A table will make the relationships clear:
Henry the Fowler
Arnulf,
Berthold,
Edith=Otto I=Adelaide Henry, Duke of Bavaria Duke of
1
a
Duke of
Bavaria
Otto II=Theophano Bavaria Judith
Henry
Liudolf Liut- Otto III
gard=Conrad,
Otto,
Duke of
Duke of
Lorraine
Swabia
and
Bavaria Otto, Duke of Carinthia
Burchard,=Hedwig
Duke of
Swabia
Henry,
Duke of
(the Wrangler), Carinthia
Duke of
Bavaria
Henry II, Duke
of Bavaria and
later Emperor
H. .
## p. 206 (#252) ############################################
206
The War of the Three Henries
to Bohemia. At an assembly of princes held at Ratisbon in July 976
Henry was deprived of his duchy, which was granted to Otto of Swabia.
For the first time the two duchies were united under one ruler ; but the
Bavaria granted to Duke Otto was not the same Bavaria as Duke Henry
had formerly held. Several important changes diminished it in extent
and in power; first, Carinthia with the March of Verona was completely
severed and formed into a separate duchy which was conferred on Henry,
called the younger, son of the old Duke Berthold of Bavaria; secondly,
the two brothers, Berthold and Liutpold, were rewarded for their fidelity
to the imperial cause. Berthold was made more independent, the
Nordgau of Bavaria being formed into a new margravate on the Bohe-
mian frontier, while Liutpold was established on a firmer footing on the
East March, which we now know as Austria, where. his descendants
flourished first as margraves and later as dukes down to the thirteenth
century. Certain ecclesiastical changes were made at the same time.
The Church in Bavaria was freed from the control of the duke and
became directly dependent on the king ; large grants were made to the
bishops of Salzburg and Passau ; and the bishopric of Prague, founded
the previous year, was attached to the province of Mayence, thus freeing
the ecclesiastical centre in Bohemia from any Bavarian influence.
Boleslav of Bohemia had been a principal accessory to the Bavarian
revolts; the campaign of 975 had been without result, so in 977 Otto
again took the field against him. Though he himself was successful,
.
his nephew, Duke Otto, in command of an army of Bavarians, met
with a disaster. One evening his men were peacefully bathing in the
river near Pilsen, when they were surprised by a body of Bohemians
who slew many of them and captured much booty. Eventually, how-
ever, Boleslav was brought to submission and did homage to the
Emperor at Magdeburg (Easter 978). A year later a successful cam-
paign compelled Mesco, Duke of the Poles, to submit to the imperial
authority. But while the Emperor was engaged in the punitive expedi-
tion in Bohemia, a fresh conspiracy of an alarming nature was set on
foot in Bavaria. Henry of Carinthia, and Henry, Bishop of Augsburg,
allied themselves with Henry, the deposed Duke of Bavaria. Even the
Church wavered in its loyalty. Nevertheless, in the “War of the Three
Henries” as it was called, Otto was entirely successful. Accompanied
by Duke Otto he advanced against the rebels, whom he found in
possession of Passau. By means of a bridge of boats he closely invested
the town and soon brought it to surrender (September 977). At the Easter
Court (978) held at Magdeburg judgment was given against the
conspirators. The two dukes were sentenced to banishment, and Henry
of Carinthia also suffered the loss of his recently acquired duchy, which
was conferred upon Otto the son of Conrad of Lorraine. The Bishop
of Augsburg was delivered over to the custody of the Abbot of Werden
where he remained till, on the intervention of Duke Otto and the clergy
a
>
## p. 207 (#253) ############################################
Otto II and Lorraine
207
of his diocese, he was granted his liberty (July). The repeated rebellions
in Bavaria occasioned a marked change in the character of the duchy.
Its traditions, its independent position, its ruling family were crushed.
Henceforth Bavaria like the other duchies takes its place in the national
system of Otto the Great. It was also in consequence of the new
appointments in Bavaria and of the elevation of the two Ottos to the
ducal dignity that the Empress Adelaide who had, in the first years of
the reign, exercised considerable influence over her son, now withdrew
from court to her native Burgundy. Her place of influence in Otto's
councils was afterwards taken by the Empress Theophano.
Lorraine had from the beginning of the reign been a source of
trouble to Otto. The lower province, after the death of Duke Godfrey
in Italy, had fallen under the direct government of the king. In January
974 Reginar and Lambert (Lantbert), the sons of the banished Count
Reginar of Hainault, had attempted to regain their father's possessions
and fortified Boussu on the river Haine. Otto advanced into Lorraine,
burnt the stronghold, and captured the garrison ; but he allowed the
brothers to escape. Two years later they reappeared in alliance with
Charles, the brother of Lothair, King of France, and Otto, son of the
Count of Vermandois. The revolt was, however, suppressed by Godfrey,
whom the Emperor had set over the cour ty of Hainault. The next
year the troublesome sons of Reginar were reinstated in their paternal
inheritance of Hainault, and their ally in the recent rebellion, Charles,
the brother of the King of France, was invested with the duchy of
Lower Lorraine.
Charles, however, entertained no fraternal feelings for his brother;
indeed, Otto's object in granting him the duchy seems to have been
a desire to gain an ally in the all too probable event of his coming
to blows with the King of France. This appointment, therefore, together
with the slight shewn to the Empress Adelaide, whose daughter Emma
by her first marriage with Lothar of Italy was now Queen of France,
provided ample pretext for Lothair to try to regain Lorraine for the
West Frankish crown. So long as a Caroling occupied the Western
• throne, there was a party in Lorraine realy to transfer their allegi-
ance to him.
With so large an army that “their erect spears ap-
peared more like a grove of trees than arms," Lothair marched against
Aix-la-Chapelle. When news of the French advance was brought to
Otto he refused to believe it possible. Convinced of the truth only
when the enemy were at the very gates of the town, he and his wife were
compelled to make a hasty retreat to Cologne, leaving the old Carolingian
capital in the hands of the enemy. Lothair sacked the palace and
reversed the position of the brazen eagle set up on its summit by Charles
the Great? He then returned to his own dominions. Otto did not
1 According to Richer 111. 71, the eagle was set up by Charles the Great facing
the west, signifying that the Emperor was lord of the West Franks as well as the
>
CH, x.
## p. 208 (#254) ############################################
208
Revolt of the Slavs
permit this extraordinary piece of audacity to remain long unpunished.
With a large army he crossed the frontier in October, while the French
king retreated before him to Etampes. Otto sacked the royal manor of
Attigny, passed unchecked through Rheims and Soissons, plundered the
palace of Compiègne and eventually appeared on the heights of Mont-
martre above Paris. But as a fresh army was mustering to resist him,
he contented himself with ravaging the country round and then withdrew
to Germany. The French army harassed the rear of the retreating
army and even fought a slight engagement on the banks of the Aisne.
In the next year Lothair involved himself in a local dispute in Flanders,
but finally sought an interview with the Emperor at Margut on the
Chiers (980), where he agreed to abandon all claim to Lorraine.
During the first seven years of his reign Otto had been fairly successful.
He had settled the troubles with which he was confronted in Bavaria at
the outset of his reign; he had maintained his position in Lorraine in
the face of repeated rebellions and attempts of Lothair to recover it for
the West Frankish crown; he had subdued the Danes, the Bohemians,
and the Poles. Under his rule the work of conversion of the heathen
races on the eastern frontier made rapid progress. Bishoprics were
established for Bohemia at Prague, for Moravia at Olmütz and for
Denmark at Odense on the island of Fyn. Even the Hungarians, in
spite of intermittent warfare in which Liutpold succeeded in extending
the East March as far as the Wienerwald, were inclined to be on better
terms with Germany and permitted Bishop Pilgrim of Passau to pursue
his missionary labours among the heathen Magyars.
The affairs of Germany were at last sufficiently settled to justify the
Emperor's absence in Italy. In November 980 he crossed the Alps
accompanied by his wife, his infant son (Otto III was born in July 980),
and his nephew Otto of Swabia.
The disastrous end of Otto's Italian campaign of 980-9831 led to
revolts all along the German frontier, accompanied by a heathen
reaction. Duke Bernard of Saxony on his way to the diet of Verona
(983) was summoned back by the news that Svein who had deposed his
father, Harold Bluetooth, had overrun the Danish March. The Lusa-
tians broke into rebellion, destroyed the churches of Havelberg and
Brandenburg and put many Christians to the sword. Hamburg was
plundered and burnt by the Obotrites, Zeitz by an army of Bohemians.
The faith of Christ and St Peter, says Thietmar, was forsaken for
the worship of demons. A combined movement of the Saxon princes
East Franks, and King Lothair turned it to the S. E. indicating that the West Frankish
king was lord over Germany. But Thietmar 11. 8 says the opposite. “It was the
custom of all who possessed this place to turn it (the eagle) towards their country";
that is, if it pointed east it indicated that the German king was lord of Aix-la-
Chapelle.
1 Vide supra, pp. 168–70.
## p. 209 (#255) ############################################
Accession of Otto III
209
under the Margrave Dietrich, the Archbishop of Magdeburg and the
Bishop of Halberstadt succeeded in checking the advance in a battle
fought at Belkesheim, just west of the Elbe, but they failed to re-
establish German influence or Christianity among the heathen tribes.
The work of Otto the Great, carried on so successfully in the earlier
years of his son's reign, received a blow from which it did not recover
for more than a century.
It only remains to notice the complete reversal of German policy
which is marked by the diet held at Verona in June 983. The death of
Otto, Duke of Swabia and Bavaria, at Lucca on his way back to Germany
necessitated a new arrangement for the southern duchies. His death,
combined with the disasters in Germany and Italy, involved the ruin of
the party represented by the descendants of Otto the Great's first
marriage, the two Duke Ottos, and the ascendancy of what we may call
the Adelaide party. The Emperor was not strong enough to stand
against the powerful influences of his mother. Not only did he make
her regent in Italy, but further he deposed Otto of Carinthia from his
duchy which, reunited with Bavaria, he gave to Henry the Younger.
The unfortunate Otto was therefore kept from his duchy through no
fault of his own, until Otto III, taking advantage of another vacancy in
995, reinstated him in his former dignity. Swabia was granted to
Conrad of the Franconian family. At the same diet the infant son of
the Emperor was chosen as the successor to the throne.
Misfortune and the Italian climate combined to ruin the Emperor's
health. After a short illness he died at Rome on 7 December 983 in
his twenty-eighth year and was buried in the church of St Peter.
Otto III, then three years old, was being crowned at the Christmas
festival at Aix-la-Chapelle when news arrived of his father's death at
Rome. The question of the regency at once arose. It would, according
to German practice, fall to Henry the Wrangler, the deposed and im-
prisoned Duke of Bavaria, but Byzantine custom favoured the Empress
Mother and it was not likely that Theophano would allow her claim to
be lightly passed over. Henry, who was immediately set at liberty by
the Bishop of Utrecht, took prompt action. Moreover, it soon became
evident that he was aiming not at the regency but at the crown. He
hurried to Cologne and before his opponents had time to consider the
situation, he had taken the young Otto out of the hands of Archbishop
Willigis of Mayence. Though he won the support of the powerful
Archbishops of Cologne, Trèves and Magdeburg and the Bishop of Metz,
yet a strong party in Lorraine collected to withstand him. The strength
of this party lay in the influential family of Godfrey, the Count of
Hainault and Verdun. His son Adalbero was Bishop of Verdun, his
brother, also Adalbero, was Archbishop of Rheims. With the arch-
bishop worked the most remarkable man of the tenth century, Gerbert
of Aurillac. In 983 Otto II had made him abbot of the Lombard
C. JED, H. VOL. III, CHIX.
14
## p. 210 (#256) ############################################
210
The Regency
.
monastery of Bobbio, but disgusted at the lack of discipline of the
monks, he had just returned to resume his former work of Scholasticus
at the cathedral school of Rheims. From his correspondence for these
years we can gather how indefatigably he laboured in the interests of
the
young
Otto.
The situation was rendered more complex by the unexpected appear-
ance of Lothair as a candidate for the regency. Perhaps his real motive
was to induce Henry to give up Lorraine in return for the abandon-
ment of his claim, which, being upheld by the Lotharingian aristocracy,
by his brother Charles, and by Hugh Capet, was sufficiently formidable
to cause alarm. Soon he actually made this proposal to Henry and
entered into a secret compact with him, by which he agreed to support
the duke's claim to the throne in return for the duchy. The Lotharin-
gian nobles, alienated by the altered circumstances, at once prepared to
resist Lothair's attempt to occupy the duchy. Verdun fell before the
French attack (March 984) and Godfrey, who bravely defended it, was
captured. The stout resistance of Godfrey's sons, Herman and Adalbero,
prevented Lothair from making further progress, and the hostility of
Hugh Capet made it necessary for him to turn his attention to his own
kingdom. With the departure of the King of France, the centre of
action shifted to the east. In Saxony Henry's efforts met with no
success. Though he had himself proclaimed king by his supporters at
the Easter festival at Quedlinburg, where he received oaths of fealty from
the princes of the Bohemians, Poles and Obotrites, he was formally
renounced by an assembly of Saxon princes. Loyal to the representative
of the Saxon dynasty, they even prepared to resist the usurper with arms.
Failing to reconcile them, though succeeding in staving off a war by a
truce, Henry withdrew to his old duchy of Bavaria, where he found
himself firmly withstood by his cousin Henry the Younger.
Lothair had made no headway in Lorraine. The loyalty of the
Saxons and the energy of Conrad of Swabia and Willigis of Mayence,
the leaders of Otto's party, prevented Henry from gaining ground in the
other duchies; he was in no position to attempt to win the crown by
force of arms. Driven by pressure of circumstances he submitted his
claim to a diet of German princes. The assembly which met at Bürstadt
near Worms decided unanimously in favour of the young Otto. Henry
engaged to deliver the boy to the care of his mother and grandmother
at a diet to be held at Rara (perhaps Rohr, near Meiningen) on 29 June.
In the interval Henry, supported by Boleslav, prince of the Bohemians,
tried his fortunes in Thuringia but with similar lack of success. At
the diet of Rara, on the guarantee that he would be compensated
with Bavaria, Henry handed over the young king to the charge of
Theophano and Adelaide, who had been summoned from Italy. Henry
the Younger made some show of resistance at being ousted from his
duchy of Bavaria, but a final pacification took place early in the year
a
a
## p. 211 (#257) ############################################
War on the Eastern Frontier
211
985 at Frankfort. Henry was re-established in Bavaria and his cousin
was forced to content himself with Carinthia and the March of Verona,
now again formed into a separate duchy. At first Theophano and
Adelaide acted as joint regents, but the influence of the former soon
became predominant. In the administration of the kingdom she was
assisted by Willigis, Archbishop of Mayence, who took charge of affairs
in Germany during her absence in Italy in 989. The minority fell at a
critical time. The death of King Lothair of France in 986, followed a
year later by the death of his son, Louis V, without an heir, plunged
France into a civil war, during which the opposing parties of Hugh
Capet and Charles of Lower Lorraine, the representative of the Caro-
lingian house, each sought to win the help of the regents of Germany.
Theophano succeeded in maintaining a neutral attitude ; but the dynastic
question was no sooner settled in favour of Hugh, than another hot
dispute broke out as the result of the decision of the synod held at the
monastery of St Basle de Verzy near Rheims (June 991). The Arch-
bishop Arnulf of Rheims, the natural son of Lothair, was deposed from
his see and Gerbert was appointed in his place. Germany was again
called
upon to play a part in the affairs of France. A synod of German
bishops held at Ingelheim in 994 declared against the decisions of
St Basle. The controversy dragged on until 998, when Otto solved
the problem by making Gerbert Archbishop of Ravenna, thus leaving
Rheims in undisputed possession of Arnulf.
Still more serious was the general state of unrest on the Eastern
frontier. During the years 985-987 there was continual fighting against
the Wends and Bohemians. With the help of Mesco, Duke of the
Poles, Meissen was recovered for the Margrave Eckhard. When in 990
a war broke out between the Poles and Bohemians Theophano supported
Mesco while Boleslav was allied with the Lusatians. The Bohemians,
fearing to engage with the Germans, treated for peace. The Saxons
acted as mediators but barely escaped destruction through the treachery
of the barbarians. It was Boleslav, and not their ally Mesco, who
enabled the Saxon army to escape in safety to Magdeburg. On 15 June
991 Theophano died. Adelaide, who now returned from Italy and
undertook the regency, had neither the energy nor the statesmanlike
qualities of the younger Empress, and the weakness of her rule soon
became apparent in the frontier warfare. Brandenburg in 991 became
the centre of operations. The young king captured it with the help of
Mesco, but no sooner was his back turned than it was reconquered for
the Lusatians by a Saxon named Kiso. Otto renewed the attack in the
following year with the help of Henry of Bavaria and Boleslav of
Bohemia ; Boleslav, who had succeeded his father Mesco as prince of the
Poles, being threatened with a war with the Russians, was unable to
accompany the king in person but sent troops to his assistance. But not
till the spring of 993 was the fortress recovered, and then not by the
CH, Tx.
14-2
## p. 212 (#258) ############################################
212
Ambitions of Otto III
ineffectual efforts of his motley army, but by the same means as it was
lost, the treachery of Kiso. His faithless conduct brought on an attack
of the Lusatians; they fell upon and scattered an army sent to Kiso's
support under the Margrave Eckhard of Meissen. However, when the
king took the field himself they were quickly dispersed. A brief notice
of the Quedlinburg annalist informs us of a general rising of the Wends:
“All the Slavs except the Sorbs revolted from the Saxons" (994).
After a short campaign in the following year Otto seems to have
patched up some kind of a truce, and restored order sufficient to permit
him to leave Germany, and fulfil his cherished wish of visiting Italy.
Unfortunately the disturbances were not confined to the eastern
frontier. In 991 the Northmen, taking advantage of the internal
weakness of Germany, renewed their piratical descents on the Frisian
coast. In 994 they actually sailed up the river Elbe and carried their
devastations into Saxony. In an engagement fought at Stade a small
band of Saxons was defeated and their leaders were captured. While
the Saxon chiefs lay bound hand and foot on the ships, the Northmen
ravaged the country at will. Of the captives, some were ransomed, the
Margrave Siegfried effected his escape by making his capturers intoxi-
cated, the remainder, after shameful mutilation, were cast, more dead
than alive, upon the shore. The pirates renewed their inroads in the
next year, but the defensive measures taken by Bishop Bernward of
Hildesheim successfully checked their aggressions.
Our brief summary of the events of the frontier campaigns illustrates
the difficulties of the situation in Germany; it shews how fatal and how
lasting had been the effects of Otto II's Italian policy, how unwise the
high imperial aims of Otto III. Fortunately for the regents the southern
duchies had given no trouble since the baffled attempt of Henry the
Wrangler to obtain the crown for himself. Changes however had taken
place in their administration. On the death of Henry the Younger in
989 Carinthia and the March of Verona had been re-attached to the
duchy of Bavaria. But when Henry the Wrangler died in 995, they did
not pass with Bavaria to his son Henry, afterwards the Emperor Henry II,
but were restored to Otto, the son of Conrad the Red'.
Otto's first object was to visit Italy. He had taken the government
into his own hands in 994 when he was fourteen years of age, but owing
to the unsettled state of Germany it was not until 996 that he was able
to achieve his purpose. It was after his return from his first expedition
across the Alps that he began to develop that ambitious and somewhat
fantastic policy, for which perhaps he has been too severely censured. It
must be remembered that from his earliest boyhood he had come under
the influence of foreigners. The blame must rest equally on all those
who had charge of his education. His mother, the Empress Theophano,
and his tutor John, Abbot of the monastery of Nonantula, a Calabrian by
1 According to some authorities Otto was not restored to his duchy till 1002.
## p. 213 (#259) ############################################
Visit to the tomb of Charlemagne
213
>
birth, had taught him Latin and Greek, taught him to despise “Saxon
rusticity” and to prefer “our Greek subtility? . " They had also made
him familiar with the elaborate ceremonial of the Byzantine court. His
intimacy with Gerbert, when he was still at an impressionable age, had
moulded him into the ideals of the Roman Empire.
He was now in 996 Holy Roman Emperor, and the title had for
him a greater meaning than for his predecessors. The legend on one
of his seals, i renovatio imperii Romanorum,” shews clearly that he
realised that he was making a change in the imperial position. The
change is most apparent in the ordering of the institution where the
business of the Empire was transacted, the imperial chancery. Otto the
Great had not revived the system which had prevailed under the Caro-
lingians of treating Italy as a part of the Empire under the same
administrative machinery. He had established a separate chancery for
Italy. Germany and Italy were to be two distinct governments under one
ruler. When a vacancy occurred in 994 in the chancellorship of Italy,
Otto had appointed his chaplain Heribert. On the death of the German
chancellor, Hildibald of Worms, in 998, Heribert was placed at the
head of the German chancery also. Otto had departed from the system
established by his grandfather and, working on a definite plan, he returned
to the Carolingian tradition of a combined chancery for the whole
Empire. The two titular heads, the arch-chancellors of Germany and
Italy, remained, but their offices were sinecures ; the business of the
Empire was done by a single chancellor in a single chancery. Equally
significant is Otto's choice of counsellors. He completely emancipated
himself from the control of those men who had conducted the administra-
tion during his minority. Willigis of Mayence, Hildibald of Worms,
were replaced by an entirely new body of men. With the exception
of the chancellor Heribert, who was appointed Archbishop of Cologne
in 999, the men who exercised the most influence at court were foreigners.
Gerbert of Aurillac, Marquess Hugh of Tuscany, Peter, Bishop of Como,
the arch-chancellor of Italy, form the Emperor's intimate circle of
advisers.
The reverential, though perhaps over inquisitive, visit of the Emperor
to the tomb of Charles the Great at Aix-la-Chapelle in the year 1000 is
symbolic of his attitude and policy. The famous story of the opening of
the tomb is recorded by the chronicler of the monastery of Novalesa in
Lombardy, who, though writing more than half a century later, gives
his information on the authority of Otto, Count of Lomello, who is said
to have been present on the occasion. “We entered in," he said, “unto
Charles. He was not lying down, as is the manner with the bodies of
other dead men, but sat on a certain chair as though he lived. He was
crowned with a golden crown, and held a sceptre in his hands, the same
being covered with gloves, through which the nails had grown and
1 Gerbert, Epist. (ed. Julien Havet), no. 186.
CH. I.
## p. 214 (#260) ############################################
214
Failure and Death of Otto III
pierced. And above him was a tabernacle compact of brass and marble
exceedingly. Now when we were come in unto the tomb, we brake and
made straightway an opening in it. And when we entered into it, we
perceived a vehement savour. So we did worship forthwith to him with
bended thighs and knees; and straightway Otto the Emperor clad him
with white raiment, and pared his nails, and made good all that was
lacking about him. But none of his members had corrupted and fallen
away, except a little piece of the end of his nose, which he caused at
once to be restored with gold ; and he took from his mouth one tooth,
and built the tabernacle again and departed 1. ”
The Emperor's genuine aim was to unite the interests of Germany and
Italy. The appointments of his cousin Bruno (Gregory V) in 996 and of
Gerbert (Silvester II) in 999 to the papal chair were intended to advance
this end. But this policy in reality amounted to a neglect of Germany.
Since 996 he had spent only a few months on German soil. It is not
surprising, therefore, that he was regarded with distrust. The older
generation of German prelates had their grievance; they disliked his
close connexion with the Papacy, they had been ousted from their
former influential positions by foreigners and they resented it. Otto's
premature death alone prevented an open outbreak in Germany. He
himself realised that he had set his ambitions too high, that he had
sacrificed Germany without gaining any material compensation. • Are
you not my Romans? ” he is reported to have said in bitter reproach.
“For you I have left my country and my kindred. For love of you I
have abandoned my Saxons, and all the Germans, my own blood. . . I have
adopted you as sons, I have preferred you to all. For your sake I
I
have brought upon myself the envy and hatred of all. And now
you have cast out your father. You have encompassed my servants
with a cruel death, you have closed your gates against me. ” These
are the words of a disappointed man. He died in his twenty-second
year at Paterno on 24 January 1002 from an attack of the small-
pox. It was his wish that he should be buried in the Carolingian
capital. After fighting a way through the lines of the hostile Romans,
his followers succeeded in bringing his body safely to Aix-la-Chapelle,
where it was buried in the centre of the choir of the church of St Mary.
1 Chronicon Novaliciense ini. 32: the truth of this narrative has been much
controverted. The smaller details may have been invented, but the central facts
are probably historical and are in part supported by Thietmar (Chronicon iv. 46).
See an article by Professor Grauert, Historisches Jahrbuch, xiv. 302 f. At the same
time it must be admitted that the chronicler of Novalesa, although truthful, had
the inborn gift of romance.
## p. 215 (#261) ############################################
215
CHAPTER X.
THE EMPEROR HENRY II.
When Otto III, still a youth, expired at Paterno in January 1002, it
seemed as if the life work of his grandfather Otto the Great had been com-
pletely undone. Animosity pursued the Emperor even after death; for
only by hard fighting could his friends succeed in transporting his remains
through the plain of Lombardy for interment in Germany. The fate there-
fore, alike of the Western Empire and of the German kingdom upon which
it was based, depended far more than usual upon the qualities of the man
who might be called to occupy the vacant throne.
To this grave crisis there was added the misfortune of a disputed
succession. Otto III, the last descendant in the male line of Otto the
Great, had died unmarried; nor was there any one person naturally des-
tined to succeed him. Descent and election were the two factors by which
accession to the throne was legally determined; but the relative influence
of these varied according to circumstances. On the present occasion it
was election, in practice confined to the magnates, which was bound to
be preponderant. For though a candidate was forthcoming from the
royal house, he was met at once by powerful opponents. And his claim
in itself was not indisputable. The true representative of the Ottos was
the son of the late Emperor's only wedded sister Matilda, wife of Ezo,
son of Herman, Count Palatine in Lorraine. But this heir was a child,
and was the offspring of a marriage which had been deemed unequal.
Matilda's son therefore was now passed over in silence. There were also
two men who could assert some right to be accepted as head of the
Liudolfing house. The one was Otto, Duke of Carinthia, grandson (through
his mother Liutgard) of Otto the Great, and son of the famous Conrad,
once Duke of Lorraine, who had fallen gloriously at the Lechfeld. To his
great position Otto added the personal qualities of dignity and upright-
ness. He must have been at this time at least fifty years of age. The other
was a far younger man, Henry, Duke of Bavaria, son of Duke Henry "the
Wrangler," and grandson of that earlier Henry, the younger brother of
Otto the Great, who was the first of his family to rule in Bavaria. The
present duke therefore was the actual representative in the male line of
King Henry "the Fowler," the first of the Saxon kings. As it happened,
CH. X.
## p. 216 (#262) ############################################
216
Rival candidates
of
no rivalry arose between the two kinsmen. For when Henry expressed
his readiness to accept Otto as king, the latter declined to come forward
and, acknowledging Henry to be the fitter man, urged him to secure
election for himself.
But election also was legally necessary; and the magnates were not
disposed to let slip the present opportunity of choosing a king at their own
pleasure. When therefore the funeral train of the late Emperor reached
Augsburg on its way to Aix, Henry, anxious to assert his claim, first
took forcible possession of the imperial insignia, and then sought by
profuse promises to win over the attendant magnates for the support of
his cause, but he met with little success.
Already indeed a formidable rival had appeared. The chief men of
Saxony had met at Frohse, and there the Margrave Eckhard of Meissen
had revealed his purpose of gaining the throne. He was the foremost
warrior of his time; he had fought with distinction against the Saracens
in Italy, and at Rome in 998 it was he who had brought about the sur-
render of the castle of Sant' Angelo and the death of its defender
Crescentius. As Margrave of Meissen he had repelled the Wends, reduced
Bohemia to vassalage, and restrained the Polish duke Boleslav from
assailing the kingdom. Though not of royal descent, he was sprung
an ancient Thuringian stock, and was connected with the Billungs, the
new ducal house of Saxony. But a powerful enemy, the Margrave Liuthar
of the North Mark, now set himself to frustrate Eckhard's ambitious
design. Having secured a sworn promise from most of the Saxon mag-
nates to take no part in electing a king until a further conference, Liuthar
secretly visited the Duke of Bavaria, upon whom he urged the necessity
of sending an envoy to represent his interests at the postponed meeting.
And so skilfully did Henry's emissary, by means of lavish promises, work
upon the Saxon nobles when they met at Werla, that he won from them a
unanimous recognition of Henry's hereditary right to the throne and a
solemn pledge of service. Eckhard's haughty abstention from the meeting
had ruined his cause.
By this time a third competitor for the crown was in the field. This
was Herman II, Duke of Swabia. Timorous and retiring by nature, Her-
man had come forward at the suggestion of others. After the obsequies
of Otto III had been performed at Aix on 5 April, most of the magnates
there present had expressed their disinclination to accept Henry of Bavaria
as his successor. In the Duke of Swabia they saw a candidate more to their
liking; and certainly Herman's descent from a great Franconian house,
one member of which had formerly occupied the throne, and his position
as ruler of one of the chief races of Germany were plausible reasons for
his elevation. In reality it was his very gentleness of character that
reconimended him to his proposers, who might hope to find in him a
king to be obeyed or not as they pleased.
Through the Duke of Swabia Eckhard hoped to revenge himself upon
## p. 217 (#263) ############################################
Recognition of Henry II
217
Henry. But on his way to Duisburg, where Herman then was, he received
an intimation that he would not be admitted to the counsels of the
Swabian party. Returning homewards after this second rebuff, he was
waylaid at Pöhlde on the night of 30 April by four brothers who cherished
a private grudge against him, and was slain.
This tragic event removed a dangerous enemy from Henry's path, but
the contention with Duke Herman proved long and bitter. Henry could
count upon the magnates of Bavaria, of East Franconia, and of Saxony,
while Herman had the support only of those of Swabia and of West
Franconia. The Swabian faction, however, was resolute, and the Lor-
rainers were still doubtful. Archbishop Willigis of Mayence, the mainstay
of the last two Emperors, now stood for the principle of legitimate suc-
cession. At the beginning of June, Henry, with his Bavarian and
Franconian adherents, approached the Rhine at Worms, evaded Herman,
and entered Mayence. There his election followed; and on 7 June that
act was ratified by his solemn unction and coronation.
This success decided the wavering Dietrich, Duke of Upper Lorraine.
But the election had been carried through in haste by a few partisans of
the new king; and not only did the Duke of Swabia and his friends remain
defiant, but the nobles of Lower Lorraine still held aloof, while those of
Saxony took umbrage at their total exclusion from the proceedings at
Mayence. To force Herman to submission Henry turned southwards and
began to ravage Swabia. But the duke retaliated by assaulting and
sacking his own city of Strasbourg, whose bishop had declared for his
rival, and refused to be drawn into a decision by battle. Baffled in the
South, Henry proceeded to make sure of the rest of the kingdom. In
Thuringia, in July, he received full acknowledgment from Count William
of Weimar and the other chief men, and gratefully abolished the ancient
tribute of swine, due from the Thuringians to the crown. But from the
Saxon magnates Henry obtained a less easy recognition. There had
assembled to meet him at Merseburg on 23 July a great company of the
bishops and counts of Saxony, at whose head stood the Archbishops of
Bremen and Magdeburg with their Duke Bernard and the Margraves
Liuthar and Gero. Duke Boleslav of Poland also, fresh from an attack on
the mark of Meissen made after the death of Eckhard, presumed to appear
among them. These men, though they received the new king with defer-
ence, were not prepared to offer him an unconditional allegiance. They
stood upon their separate rights, and the next day, before any homage was
paid, Bernard came forward in their name and in that of the Saxon people
to assert their peculiar claims, and to demand of Henry how far he would
pledge himself to respect them. Henry replied by extolling the steadfast
loyalty of the Saxons to their kings; it was only with their approval that
he now came among them as king; and so far from infringing their law
he would be careful to observe it at all points, and would do his utmost
to fulfil their reasonable wishes. The speech satisfied the magnates; and
CH, X.
## p. 218 (#264) ############################################
218
Henry's earlier life
Duke Bernard taking the sacred lance in his hands, delivered it to the
king; their homage and oath of fealty then followed. From Merseburg
Henry hastened to Lower Lorraine. In the course of his journey he was
joined by his wife Kunigunda, whom he saw crowned queen at Paderborn
on 10 August by Archbishop Willigis. A fierce conflict, which broke out
between the king's Bavarian followers and the Saxon inhabitants of the
city, marred the rejoicings. In Lower Lorraine Henry found no ready
acceptance. Two bishops only received him; others hesitated to join
them; and Archbishop Heribert of Cologne, indulging a personal grudge,
purposely held aloof. At length the prelates concurred in choosing Henry
to be king, and after tendering him their oath of fealty, accompanied
him to Aix. There, on 8 September, the remaining Lorrainer magnates
joined in placing Henry on the coronation chair of his predecessors, and
in paying him homage. Nothing therefore was now wanting but the
submission of the Duke of Swabia. Herman, however, finding himself now
so far outmatched, was already prepared to yield. Through mediators he
besought the king's grace for himself and his adherents; and then on
1 October appeared in person before Henry at Bruchsal. On swearing
allegiance, Herman was suffered to retain both his duchy and his fiefs,
but was required to make good the damage he had caused to the city
of Strasbourg
Henry's title to reign, thus acknowledged in Germany, was also
accepted by peoples outside. The Venetians renewed with Henry the
treaty of friendship concluded with Otto II. In the vassal state of
Bohemia a revolution had lately set up a new ruler who at once sought
formal investiture at the hands of Henry. Lastly, from Italy, there came
letters and envoys of the imperialist party, urging Henry to intervene in
rebellious Lombardy.
Henry of Bavaria, the fifth of his house to occupy the German throne,
is known in history as Henry II, both as King and Emperor. He was
born on 6 May 973, and had therefore lately completed his twenty-ninth
year when he was crowned at Mayence in June 1002. His early life had
been moulded by adversity. By the rebellion of his father, Duke Henry
“the Wrangler," he had been deprived of his home; and after some time
spent under the care of Abraham, Bishop of Freising, he had been sent, still
a child, to be brought up at Hildesheim. There he received his first
grounding in an education which made him in all ways a cultivated man,
well learned both in Holy Scripture and in ecclesiastical lore. He be-
came acquainted at the same time with the methods of church govern-
ment, as he was meant for the clerical career; but his father's restoration
in 985 brought him back to Bavaria. Further training under Bishop
Wolfgang of Ratisbon helped to form those decided ideas upon Church
and State which afterwards shaped his policy as king. Upon the death
of his father in August 995 Henry succeeded without question to the duchy
of Bavaria. The last exhortation of the repentant Wrangler to his son
а
## p. 219 (#265) ############################################
Character of Henry
219
a
had been to remain ever loyal to his king; and by that advice Henry
steadily walked during the next six years. Otto III had no more faithful
subject than his cousin of Bavaria, who twice accompanied him to Italy,
and on the second occasion was instrumental, with Marquess Hugh of
Tuscany, in saving him from the wrath of the Roman mob. Moreover,
when the German magnates were scheming to dethrone the absent
Emperor, Henry refused to take any part in their conspiracy. Until
Otto's premature death opened to him the prospect of succession, he
had been, as Duke of Bavaria, a just and vigorous ruler.
Of Henry's outward appearance nothing certain is known. Later tradi-
tion indeed gives him the attribute of “the Lame," and two varying legends
profess to account for the supposed infirmity. A real hindrance, however,
was the liability to severe attacks of a painful internal complaint; Henry
was in truth a sickly man, and his bodily weakness may have sometimes
interfered with his plans. His life and actions were regulated by a strict
conscientiousness and by a piety sober and restrained. The Christian faith
and its Founder, the saints and their sanctuaries, the German church and
its officers, were the objects of his reverence; he punctually attended,
and sometimes took part in, the ceremonies of the Church; he was the
determined foe of ecclesiastical abuses; and if he shared the prevailing
superstition in regard to relics, this was balanced by an ungrudging
liberality to the poor and a splendid munificence in the founding and
maintenance of religious institutions. With all this, Henry was no mere
devotee. He was sociable, and took pleasure in the ordinary amusements
of his day; he was not above playing a practical joke on a troublesome
bishop, and once even incurred rebuke for encouraging a brutal form of
sport. The chase was to him a welcome recreation. Henry was thus
utterly unlike Otto III. He loved his ancestral land of Saxony; the
glamour of Italy did not entice him away from his proper task as a German
king; nor did he entertain any visionary idea of universal dominion under
the form of a revived Roman Empire. The whole bent of his mind was
practical; his undertakings were limited in scope and were pursued with
caution. Prudence indeed was the quality by which he most impressed his
contemporaries. Yet he was not without the kingly ideals of his day. He
had a passion for law and order; and in his conception of the kingly office
a
he was the guardian of the realm against attack from without and against
disturbance within, the champion of the weak and the enemy of all wrong-
doers, the defender of the Church and the promoter of its spiritual work.
No king before him was more untiring in travel to dispense justice among
his people; no ruler could be more stern on occasion in executing judg-
ment on rebels and lawbreakers. In spite of his weak health he did not
shrink from taking his full share in the dangers and hardships of a cam-
paign. And with this courage there was joined a royal humanity which
could shew mercy to the vanquished. Alike in the limitation of his aims
and the steady persistency of his rule, he shewed no little resemblance
CH, X.
## p. 220 (#266) ############################################
220
General character of Henry's reign
to the earliest Henry of his race. In moral dignity, it may be safely said,
he excelled any monarch of the Saxon house.
his mother Matilda had died (March 968): soon after his return he lost
his trusted and loyal servant Herman. He himself did not survive much
longer. He died at Memleben, the little town in the Harz Mountains
which had also witnessed the death of his father, on 7 May 973, in his
sixty-first year. His body was taken to Magdeburg and buried in the
cathedral he had built.
The Saxon historian, Widukind, sums up the achievements of his life
in the voice of popular opinion : "The people, saying many things in
“
his praise, recalled to mind that he had ruled his subjects with paternal
piety, he had liberated them from their enemies, had conquered with his
arms the proud Avars, Saracens, Danes, and Slavs; he had brought Italy
under his yoke ; he had destroyed the temples of his heathen neighbours
and set up churches and priests in their place. ” All this he had accom-
plished. If he had failed in his attempt to centralise the government of
Germany, his failure was due to the inevitable progress towards feudalism
and the too deeply rooted tribal traditions. If in this direction his
empire fell short of its model, the empire of Charles the Great, in an-
other direction it was conspicuously in advance of it. His work, in the
extension of German influence and civilisation and in the progress of
Christianity towards the north and east of his dominions, was of per-
manent value, and stood as the firm basis of future expansion and future
development.
one margrave, (2) the East march or March of Lausitz under two margraves, and
(3) the Thuringian march, later the March of Meissen, under three margraves.
CH. VIII.
## p. 204 (#250) ############################################
204
CHAPTER IX.
OTTO II AND OTTO III.
The stability of the Saxon dynasty is shewn in a marked degree by
the way in which son succeeded father almost without question until the
direct line breaks off for lack of an heir with Otto III. Otto II, who was
born towards the end of 955, had been elected and twice crowned (at
Aix-la-Chapelle in May 961 and at Rome on Christmas Day 967) during
his father's lifetime. When Otto the Great died in 973, he was universally
accepted as his successor. It was not that there was no opposition, but the
people of Germany as a whole were satisfied with the ruling family and,
in cases of rebellion, were prepared to give their support to the hereditary
sovereign. This fact is proved not only in the frequent Bavarian revolts
in the reign of Otto II, but also and more remarkably in the attempt of
the Duke of Bavaria to wrest the crown from its rightful possessor,
the infant Otto III. Otto the Red is described by the chronicler
Thietmar as being possessed of fine physical powers ; and though at
first, through lack of experience, he shunned wise counsel, chastened by
troubles he set a rein upon himself and lived nobly for the rest of his
days.
During the first seven years of his reign his energies were directed
towards Bavaria and Lorraine. Bavaria enjoyed a position of greater
independence than any of the other duchies. Its traditions were more
deeply rooted; the influence of the old ducal family was stronger. It
had ties closely binding it with the other southern duchy, Swabia.
Burchard, Duke of Swabia, had died the year of Otto's accession and
the new king filled the vacancy by appointing Otto, the son of his half
brother Liudolf, former Duke of Swabia. Duke Burchard's widow,
Hedwig, was the daughter of Judith, the widow of Henry I of Bavaria,
who was always anxious to advance the interests of her family. She and
her son Henry, the ruling Duke of Bavaria, resented the favour shewn to
Otto, son of Liudolf, and broke into open revolt. In the first struggles
we may see an arrangement of parties which remained unchanged
throughout the reign. On the one side stand the sons of the children
of Otto the Great by his first marriage with Edith, both named Otto,
the one just elected to the duchy of Swabia, the other shortly after
appointed Duke of Carinthia; to this party the Emperor first turned
## p. 205 (#251) ############################################
Bavarian revolts
205
for support. The Bavarian family, Duke Henry and his cousin Henry,
son of Duke Berthold, were the leaders of the opposite faction. Later,
it was openly favoured by the Empress Adelaide the queen-mother, who
had a somewhat natural aversion to the sons of her stepchildren, for it
was these men who had headed the revolt against her husband in 955
just after and largely in consequence of her marriage? . In the first rebel-
lion in Bavaria Henry's ambition seems to have aspired to the throne.
It was the more serious as he was allied with Boleslav, Duke of the
Bohemians, and with Mesco, Duke of the Poles. The plot was however
discovered in time; Henry and his chief adviser, Abraham, Bishop of
Freising, were summoned under pain of the ban to appear before the
Emperor and were imprisoned, Henry at Ingelheim, Bishop Abraham
at Corvey; Judith, who was also deeply involved in the conspiracy,
entered a convent at Ratisbon.
It was not until the autumn of 975 that Otto was able to take the
field against Boleslav of Bohemia to punish him for his share in the
Bavarian revolt. In the interval he had been called away to deal with a
dangerous incursion of the Danes under Harold Bluetooth who, having
crossed the frontier wall, was ravaging the country beyond the Elbe.
Otto hurriedly collected an army, marched against the invaders, and
drove them back to the wall. He could not pursue his success further
for a formidable army of Norwegians under Jarl Hákon blocked his way.
But his object was achieved. Harold opened negotiations offering all his
treasure; this Otto declined and withdrew to collect a larger army, but
when Harold offered not only treasure, but also a tribute and his son as
a hostage, his terms were accepted. To strengthen the frontier Otto
established a new fortress on the east coast of Schleswig.
Before two years had elapsed, Henry, who well merited his name
“the Wrangler," had escaped from his imprisonment at Ingelheim and
again broke into revolt. Two brothers, Berthold and Liutpold, of the
house of Babenberg, hurriedly mustered the local levies and held him
in check until, at the approach of Otto himself, the rebellious duke fled
I A table will make the relationships clear:
Henry the Fowler
Arnulf,
Berthold,
Edith=Otto I=Adelaide Henry, Duke of Bavaria Duke of
1
a
Duke of
Bavaria
Otto II=Theophano Bavaria Judith
Henry
Liudolf Liut- Otto III
gard=Conrad,
Otto,
Duke of
Duke of
Lorraine
Swabia
and
Bavaria Otto, Duke of Carinthia
Burchard,=Hedwig
Duke of
Swabia
Henry,
Duke of
(the Wrangler), Carinthia
Duke of
Bavaria
Henry II, Duke
of Bavaria and
later Emperor
H. .
## p. 206 (#252) ############################################
206
The War of the Three Henries
to Bohemia. At an assembly of princes held at Ratisbon in July 976
Henry was deprived of his duchy, which was granted to Otto of Swabia.
For the first time the two duchies were united under one ruler ; but the
Bavaria granted to Duke Otto was not the same Bavaria as Duke Henry
had formerly held. Several important changes diminished it in extent
and in power; first, Carinthia with the March of Verona was completely
severed and formed into a separate duchy which was conferred on Henry,
called the younger, son of the old Duke Berthold of Bavaria; secondly,
the two brothers, Berthold and Liutpold, were rewarded for their fidelity
to the imperial cause. Berthold was made more independent, the
Nordgau of Bavaria being formed into a new margravate on the Bohe-
mian frontier, while Liutpold was established on a firmer footing on the
East March, which we now know as Austria, where. his descendants
flourished first as margraves and later as dukes down to the thirteenth
century. Certain ecclesiastical changes were made at the same time.
The Church in Bavaria was freed from the control of the duke and
became directly dependent on the king ; large grants were made to the
bishops of Salzburg and Passau ; and the bishopric of Prague, founded
the previous year, was attached to the province of Mayence, thus freeing
the ecclesiastical centre in Bohemia from any Bavarian influence.
Boleslav of Bohemia had been a principal accessory to the Bavarian
revolts; the campaign of 975 had been without result, so in 977 Otto
again took the field against him. Though he himself was successful,
.
his nephew, Duke Otto, in command of an army of Bavarians, met
with a disaster. One evening his men were peacefully bathing in the
river near Pilsen, when they were surprised by a body of Bohemians
who slew many of them and captured much booty. Eventually, how-
ever, Boleslav was brought to submission and did homage to the
Emperor at Magdeburg (Easter 978). A year later a successful cam-
paign compelled Mesco, Duke of the Poles, to submit to the imperial
authority. But while the Emperor was engaged in the punitive expedi-
tion in Bohemia, a fresh conspiracy of an alarming nature was set on
foot in Bavaria. Henry of Carinthia, and Henry, Bishop of Augsburg,
allied themselves with Henry, the deposed Duke of Bavaria. Even the
Church wavered in its loyalty. Nevertheless, in the “War of the Three
Henries” as it was called, Otto was entirely successful. Accompanied
by Duke Otto he advanced against the rebels, whom he found in
possession of Passau. By means of a bridge of boats he closely invested
the town and soon brought it to surrender (September 977). At the Easter
Court (978) held at Magdeburg judgment was given against the
conspirators. The two dukes were sentenced to banishment, and Henry
of Carinthia also suffered the loss of his recently acquired duchy, which
was conferred upon Otto the son of Conrad of Lorraine. The Bishop
of Augsburg was delivered over to the custody of the Abbot of Werden
where he remained till, on the intervention of Duke Otto and the clergy
a
>
## p. 207 (#253) ############################################
Otto II and Lorraine
207
of his diocese, he was granted his liberty (July). The repeated rebellions
in Bavaria occasioned a marked change in the character of the duchy.
Its traditions, its independent position, its ruling family were crushed.
Henceforth Bavaria like the other duchies takes its place in the national
system of Otto the Great. It was also in consequence of the new
appointments in Bavaria and of the elevation of the two Ottos to the
ducal dignity that the Empress Adelaide who had, in the first years of
the reign, exercised considerable influence over her son, now withdrew
from court to her native Burgundy. Her place of influence in Otto's
councils was afterwards taken by the Empress Theophano.
Lorraine had from the beginning of the reign been a source of
trouble to Otto. The lower province, after the death of Duke Godfrey
in Italy, had fallen under the direct government of the king. In January
974 Reginar and Lambert (Lantbert), the sons of the banished Count
Reginar of Hainault, had attempted to regain their father's possessions
and fortified Boussu on the river Haine. Otto advanced into Lorraine,
burnt the stronghold, and captured the garrison ; but he allowed the
brothers to escape. Two years later they reappeared in alliance with
Charles, the brother of Lothair, King of France, and Otto, son of the
Count of Vermandois. The revolt was, however, suppressed by Godfrey,
whom the Emperor had set over the cour ty of Hainault. The next
year the troublesome sons of Reginar were reinstated in their paternal
inheritance of Hainault, and their ally in the recent rebellion, Charles,
the brother of the King of France, was invested with the duchy of
Lower Lorraine.
Charles, however, entertained no fraternal feelings for his brother;
indeed, Otto's object in granting him the duchy seems to have been
a desire to gain an ally in the all too probable event of his coming
to blows with the King of France. This appointment, therefore, together
with the slight shewn to the Empress Adelaide, whose daughter Emma
by her first marriage with Lothar of Italy was now Queen of France,
provided ample pretext for Lothair to try to regain Lorraine for the
West Frankish crown. So long as a Caroling occupied the Western
• throne, there was a party in Lorraine realy to transfer their allegi-
ance to him.
With so large an army that “their erect spears ap-
peared more like a grove of trees than arms," Lothair marched against
Aix-la-Chapelle. When news of the French advance was brought to
Otto he refused to believe it possible. Convinced of the truth only
when the enemy were at the very gates of the town, he and his wife were
compelled to make a hasty retreat to Cologne, leaving the old Carolingian
capital in the hands of the enemy. Lothair sacked the palace and
reversed the position of the brazen eagle set up on its summit by Charles
the Great? He then returned to his own dominions. Otto did not
1 According to Richer 111. 71, the eagle was set up by Charles the Great facing
the west, signifying that the Emperor was lord of the West Franks as well as the
>
CH, x.
## p. 208 (#254) ############################################
208
Revolt of the Slavs
permit this extraordinary piece of audacity to remain long unpunished.
With a large army he crossed the frontier in October, while the French
king retreated before him to Etampes. Otto sacked the royal manor of
Attigny, passed unchecked through Rheims and Soissons, plundered the
palace of Compiègne and eventually appeared on the heights of Mont-
martre above Paris. But as a fresh army was mustering to resist him,
he contented himself with ravaging the country round and then withdrew
to Germany. The French army harassed the rear of the retreating
army and even fought a slight engagement on the banks of the Aisne.
In the next year Lothair involved himself in a local dispute in Flanders,
but finally sought an interview with the Emperor at Margut on the
Chiers (980), where he agreed to abandon all claim to Lorraine.
During the first seven years of his reign Otto had been fairly successful.
He had settled the troubles with which he was confronted in Bavaria at
the outset of his reign; he had maintained his position in Lorraine in
the face of repeated rebellions and attempts of Lothair to recover it for
the West Frankish crown; he had subdued the Danes, the Bohemians,
and the Poles. Under his rule the work of conversion of the heathen
races on the eastern frontier made rapid progress. Bishoprics were
established for Bohemia at Prague, for Moravia at Olmütz and for
Denmark at Odense on the island of Fyn. Even the Hungarians, in
spite of intermittent warfare in which Liutpold succeeded in extending
the East March as far as the Wienerwald, were inclined to be on better
terms with Germany and permitted Bishop Pilgrim of Passau to pursue
his missionary labours among the heathen Magyars.
The affairs of Germany were at last sufficiently settled to justify the
Emperor's absence in Italy. In November 980 he crossed the Alps
accompanied by his wife, his infant son (Otto III was born in July 980),
and his nephew Otto of Swabia.
The disastrous end of Otto's Italian campaign of 980-9831 led to
revolts all along the German frontier, accompanied by a heathen
reaction. Duke Bernard of Saxony on his way to the diet of Verona
(983) was summoned back by the news that Svein who had deposed his
father, Harold Bluetooth, had overrun the Danish March. The Lusa-
tians broke into rebellion, destroyed the churches of Havelberg and
Brandenburg and put many Christians to the sword. Hamburg was
plundered and burnt by the Obotrites, Zeitz by an army of Bohemians.
The faith of Christ and St Peter, says Thietmar, was forsaken for
the worship of demons. A combined movement of the Saxon princes
East Franks, and King Lothair turned it to the S. E. indicating that the West Frankish
king was lord over Germany. But Thietmar 11. 8 says the opposite. “It was the
custom of all who possessed this place to turn it (the eagle) towards their country";
that is, if it pointed east it indicated that the German king was lord of Aix-la-
Chapelle.
1 Vide supra, pp. 168–70.
## p. 209 (#255) ############################################
Accession of Otto III
209
under the Margrave Dietrich, the Archbishop of Magdeburg and the
Bishop of Halberstadt succeeded in checking the advance in a battle
fought at Belkesheim, just west of the Elbe, but they failed to re-
establish German influence or Christianity among the heathen tribes.
The work of Otto the Great, carried on so successfully in the earlier
years of his son's reign, received a blow from which it did not recover
for more than a century.
It only remains to notice the complete reversal of German policy
which is marked by the diet held at Verona in June 983. The death of
Otto, Duke of Swabia and Bavaria, at Lucca on his way back to Germany
necessitated a new arrangement for the southern duchies. His death,
combined with the disasters in Germany and Italy, involved the ruin of
the party represented by the descendants of Otto the Great's first
marriage, the two Duke Ottos, and the ascendancy of what we may call
the Adelaide party. The Emperor was not strong enough to stand
against the powerful influences of his mother. Not only did he make
her regent in Italy, but further he deposed Otto of Carinthia from his
duchy which, reunited with Bavaria, he gave to Henry the Younger.
The unfortunate Otto was therefore kept from his duchy through no
fault of his own, until Otto III, taking advantage of another vacancy in
995, reinstated him in his former dignity. Swabia was granted to
Conrad of the Franconian family. At the same diet the infant son of
the Emperor was chosen as the successor to the throne.
Misfortune and the Italian climate combined to ruin the Emperor's
health. After a short illness he died at Rome on 7 December 983 in
his twenty-eighth year and was buried in the church of St Peter.
Otto III, then three years old, was being crowned at the Christmas
festival at Aix-la-Chapelle when news arrived of his father's death at
Rome. The question of the regency at once arose. It would, according
to German practice, fall to Henry the Wrangler, the deposed and im-
prisoned Duke of Bavaria, but Byzantine custom favoured the Empress
Mother and it was not likely that Theophano would allow her claim to
be lightly passed over. Henry, who was immediately set at liberty by
the Bishop of Utrecht, took prompt action. Moreover, it soon became
evident that he was aiming not at the regency but at the crown. He
hurried to Cologne and before his opponents had time to consider the
situation, he had taken the young Otto out of the hands of Archbishop
Willigis of Mayence. Though he won the support of the powerful
Archbishops of Cologne, Trèves and Magdeburg and the Bishop of Metz,
yet a strong party in Lorraine collected to withstand him. The strength
of this party lay in the influential family of Godfrey, the Count of
Hainault and Verdun. His son Adalbero was Bishop of Verdun, his
brother, also Adalbero, was Archbishop of Rheims. With the arch-
bishop worked the most remarkable man of the tenth century, Gerbert
of Aurillac. In 983 Otto II had made him abbot of the Lombard
C. JED, H. VOL. III, CHIX.
14
## p. 210 (#256) ############################################
210
The Regency
.
monastery of Bobbio, but disgusted at the lack of discipline of the
monks, he had just returned to resume his former work of Scholasticus
at the cathedral school of Rheims. From his correspondence for these
years we can gather how indefatigably he laboured in the interests of
the
young
Otto.
The situation was rendered more complex by the unexpected appear-
ance of Lothair as a candidate for the regency. Perhaps his real motive
was to induce Henry to give up Lorraine in return for the abandon-
ment of his claim, which, being upheld by the Lotharingian aristocracy,
by his brother Charles, and by Hugh Capet, was sufficiently formidable
to cause alarm. Soon he actually made this proposal to Henry and
entered into a secret compact with him, by which he agreed to support
the duke's claim to the throne in return for the duchy. The Lotharin-
gian nobles, alienated by the altered circumstances, at once prepared to
resist Lothair's attempt to occupy the duchy. Verdun fell before the
French attack (March 984) and Godfrey, who bravely defended it, was
captured. The stout resistance of Godfrey's sons, Herman and Adalbero,
prevented Lothair from making further progress, and the hostility of
Hugh Capet made it necessary for him to turn his attention to his own
kingdom. With the departure of the King of France, the centre of
action shifted to the east. In Saxony Henry's efforts met with no
success. Though he had himself proclaimed king by his supporters at
the Easter festival at Quedlinburg, where he received oaths of fealty from
the princes of the Bohemians, Poles and Obotrites, he was formally
renounced by an assembly of Saxon princes. Loyal to the representative
of the Saxon dynasty, they even prepared to resist the usurper with arms.
Failing to reconcile them, though succeeding in staving off a war by a
truce, Henry withdrew to his old duchy of Bavaria, where he found
himself firmly withstood by his cousin Henry the Younger.
Lothair had made no headway in Lorraine. The loyalty of the
Saxons and the energy of Conrad of Swabia and Willigis of Mayence,
the leaders of Otto's party, prevented Henry from gaining ground in the
other duchies; he was in no position to attempt to win the crown by
force of arms. Driven by pressure of circumstances he submitted his
claim to a diet of German princes. The assembly which met at Bürstadt
near Worms decided unanimously in favour of the young Otto. Henry
engaged to deliver the boy to the care of his mother and grandmother
at a diet to be held at Rara (perhaps Rohr, near Meiningen) on 29 June.
In the interval Henry, supported by Boleslav, prince of the Bohemians,
tried his fortunes in Thuringia but with similar lack of success. At
the diet of Rara, on the guarantee that he would be compensated
with Bavaria, Henry handed over the young king to the charge of
Theophano and Adelaide, who had been summoned from Italy. Henry
the Younger made some show of resistance at being ousted from his
duchy of Bavaria, but a final pacification took place early in the year
a
a
## p. 211 (#257) ############################################
War on the Eastern Frontier
211
985 at Frankfort. Henry was re-established in Bavaria and his cousin
was forced to content himself with Carinthia and the March of Verona,
now again formed into a separate duchy. At first Theophano and
Adelaide acted as joint regents, but the influence of the former soon
became predominant. In the administration of the kingdom she was
assisted by Willigis, Archbishop of Mayence, who took charge of affairs
in Germany during her absence in Italy in 989. The minority fell at a
critical time. The death of King Lothair of France in 986, followed a
year later by the death of his son, Louis V, without an heir, plunged
France into a civil war, during which the opposing parties of Hugh
Capet and Charles of Lower Lorraine, the representative of the Caro-
lingian house, each sought to win the help of the regents of Germany.
Theophano succeeded in maintaining a neutral attitude ; but the dynastic
question was no sooner settled in favour of Hugh, than another hot
dispute broke out as the result of the decision of the synod held at the
monastery of St Basle de Verzy near Rheims (June 991). The Arch-
bishop Arnulf of Rheims, the natural son of Lothair, was deposed from
his see and Gerbert was appointed in his place. Germany was again
called
upon to play a part in the affairs of France. A synod of German
bishops held at Ingelheim in 994 declared against the decisions of
St Basle. The controversy dragged on until 998, when Otto solved
the problem by making Gerbert Archbishop of Ravenna, thus leaving
Rheims in undisputed possession of Arnulf.
Still more serious was the general state of unrest on the Eastern
frontier. During the years 985-987 there was continual fighting against
the Wends and Bohemians. With the help of Mesco, Duke of the
Poles, Meissen was recovered for the Margrave Eckhard. When in 990
a war broke out between the Poles and Bohemians Theophano supported
Mesco while Boleslav was allied with the Lusatians. The Bohemians,
fearing to engage with the Germans, treated for peace. The Saxons
acted as mediators but barely escaped destruction through the treachery
of the barbarians. It was Boleslav, and not their ally Mesco, who
enabled the Saxon army to escape in safety to Magdeburg. On 15 June
991 Theophano died. Adelaide, who now returned from Italy and
undertook the regency, had neither the energy nor the statesmanlike
qualities of the younger Empress, and the weakness of her rule soon
became apparent in the frontier warfare. Brandenburg in 991 became
the centre of operations. The young king captured it with the help of
Mesco, but no sooner was his back turned than it was reconquered for
the Lusatians by a Saxon named Kiso. Otto renewed the attack in the
following year with the help of Henry of Bavaria and Boleslav of
Bohemia ; Boleslav, who had succeeded his father Mesco as prince of the
Poles, being threatened with a war with the Russians, was unable to
accompany the king in person but sent troops to his assistance. But not
till the spring of 993 was the fortress recovered, and then not by the
CH, Tx.
14-2
## p. 212 (#258) ############################################
212
Ambitions of Otto III
ineffectual efforts of his motley army, but by the same means as it was
lost, the treachery of Kiso. His faithless conduct brought on an attack
of the Lusatians; they fell upon and scattered an army sent to Kiso's
support under the Margrave Eckhard of Meissen. However, when the
king took the field himself they were quickly dispersed. A brief notice
of the Quedlinburg annalist informs us of a general rising of the Wends:
“All the Slavs except the Sorbs revolted from the Saxons" (994).
After a short campaign in the following year Otto seems to have
patched up some kind of a truce, and restored order sufficient to permit
him to leave Germany, and fulfil his cherished wish of visiting Italy.
Unfortunately the disturbances were not confined to the eastern
frontier. In 991 the Northmen, taking advantage of the internal
weakness of Germany, renewed their piratical descents on the Frisian
coast. In 994 they actually sailed up the river Elbe and carried their
devastations into Saxony. In an engagement fought at Stade a small
band of Saxons was defeated and their leaders were captured. While
the Saxon chiefs lay bound hand and foot on the ships, the Northmen
ravaged the country at will. Of the captives, some were ransomed, the
Margrave Siegfried effected his escape by making his capturers intoxi-
cated, the remainder, after shameful mutilation, were cast, more dead
than alive, upon the shore. The pirates renewed their inroads in the
next year, but the defensive measures taken by Bishop Bernward of
Hildesheim successfully checked their aggressions.
Our brief summary of the events of the frontier campaigns illustrates
the difficulties of the situation in Germany; it shews how fatal and how
lasting had been the effects of Otto II's Italian policy, how unwise the
high imperial aims of Otto III. Fortunately for the regents the southern
duchies had given no trouble since the baffled attempt of Henry the
Wrangler to obtain the crown for himself. Changes however had taken
place in their administration. On the death of Henry the Younger in
989 Carinthia and the March of Verona had been re-attached to the
duchy of Bavaria. But when Henry the Wrangler died in 995, they did
not pass with Bavaria to his son Henry, afterwards the Emperor Henry II,
but were restored to Otto, the son of Conrad the Red'.
Otto's first object was to visit Italy. He had taken the government
into his own hands in 994 when he was fourteen years of age, but owing
to the unsettled state of Germany it was not until 996 that he was able
to achieve his purpose. It was after his return from his first expedition
across the Alps that he began to develop that ambitious and somewhat
fantastic policy, for which perhaps he has been too severely censured. It
must be remembered that from his earliest boyhood he had come under
the influence of foreigners. The blame must rest equally on all those
who had charge of his education. His mother, the Empress Theophano,
and his tutor John, Abbot of the monastery of Nonantula, a Calabrian by
1 According to some authorities Otto was not restored to his duchy till 1002.
## p. 213 (#259) ############################################
Visit to the tomb of Charlemagne
213
>
birth, had taught him Latin and Greek, taught him to despise “Saxon
rusticity” and to prefer “our Greek subtility? . " They had also made
him familiar with the elaborate ceremonial of the Byzantine court. His
intimacy with Gerbert, when he was still at an impressionable age, had
moulded him into the ideals of the Roman Empire.
He was now in 996 Holy Roman Emperor, and the title had for
him a greater meaning than for his predecessors. The legend on one
of his seals, i renovatio imperii Romanorum,” shews clearly that he
realised that he was making a change in the imperial position. The
change is most apparent in the ordering of the institution where the
business of the Empire was transacted, the imperial chancery. Otto the
Great had not revived the system which had prevailed under the Caro-
lingians of treating Italy as a part of the Empire under the same
administrative machinery. He had established a separate chancery for
Italy. Germany and Italy were to be two distinct governments under one
ruler. When a vacancy occurred in 994 in the chancellorship of Italy,
Otto had appointed his chaplain Heribert. On the death of the German
chancellor, Hildibald of Worms, in 998, Heribert was placed at the
head of the German chancery also. Otto had departed from the system
established by his grandfather and, working on a definite plan, he returned
to the Carolingian tradition of a combined chancery for the whole
Empire. The two titular heads, the arch-chancellors of Germany and
Italy, remained, but their offices were sinecures ; the business of the
Empire was done by a single chancellor in a single chancery. Equally
significant is Otto's choice of counsellors. He completely emancipated
himself from the control of those men who had conducted the administra-
tion during his minority. Willigis of Mayence, Hildibald of Worms,
were replaced by an entirely new body of men. With the exception
of the chancellor Heribert, who was appointed Archbishop of Cologne
in 999, the men who exercised the most influence at court were foreigners.
Gerbert of Aurillac, Marquess Hugh of Tuscany, Peter, Bishop of Como,
the arch-chancellor of Italy, form the Emperor's intimate circle of
advisers.
The reverential, though perhaps over inquisitive, visit of the Emperor
to the tomb of Charles the Great at Aix-la-Chapelle in the year 1000 is
symbolic of his attitude and policy. The famous story of the opening of
the tomb is recorded by the chronicler of the monastery of Novalesa in
Lombardy, who, though writing more than half a century later, gives
his information on the authority of Otto, Count of Lomello, who is said
to have been present on the occasion. “We entered in," he said, “unto
Charles. He was not lying down, as is the manner with the bodies of
other dead men, but sat on a certain chair as though he lived. He was
crowned with a golden crown, and held a sceptre in his hands, the same
being covered with gloves, through which the nails had grown and
1 Gerbert, Epist. (ed. Julien Havet), no. 186.
CH. I.
## p. 214 (#260) ############################################
214
Failure and Death of Otto III
pierced. And above him was a tabernacle compact of brass and marble
exceedingly. Now when we were come in unto the tomb, we brake and
made straightway an opening in it. And when we entered into it, we
perceived a vehement savour. So we did worship forthwith to him with
bended thighs and knees; and straightway Otto the Emperor clad him
with white raiment, and pared his nails, and made good all that was
lacking about him. But none of his members had corrupted and fallen
away, except a little piece of the end of his nose, which he caused at
once to be restored with gold ; and he took from his mouth one tooth,
and built the tabernacle again and departed 1. ”
The Emperor's genuine aim was to unite the interests of Germany and
Italy. The appointments of his cousin Bruno (Gregory V) in 996 and of
Gerbert (Silvester II) in 999 to the papal chair were intended to advance
this end. But this policy in reality amounted to a neglect of Germany.
Since 996 he had spent only a few months on German soil. It is not
surprising, therefore, that he was regarded with distrust. The older
generation of German prelates had their grievance; they disliked his
close connexion with the Papacy, they had been ousted from their
former influential positions by foreigners and they resented it. Otto's
premature death alone prevented an open outbreak in Germany. He
himself realised that he had set his ambitions too high, that he had
sacrificed Germany without gaining any material compensation. • Are
you not my Romans? ” he is reported to have said in bitter reproach.
“For you I have left my country and my kindred. For love of you I
have abandoned my Saxons, and all the Germans, my own blood. . . I have
adopted you as sons, I have preferred you to all. For your sake I
I
have brought upon myself the envy and hatred of all. And now
you have cast out your father. You have encompassed my servants
with a cruel death, you have closed your gates against me. ” These
are the words of a disappointed man. He died in his twenty-second
year at Paterno on 24 January 1002 from an attack of the small-
pox. It was his wish that he should be buried in the Carolingian
capital. After fighting a way through the lines of the hostile Romans,
his followers succeeded in bringing his body safely to Aix-la-Chapelle,
where it was buried in the centre of the choir of the church of St Mary.
1 Chronicon Novaliciense ini. 32: the truth of this narrative has been much
controverted. The smaller details may have been invented, but the central facts
are probably historical and are in part supported by Thietmar (Chronicon iv. 46).
See an article by Professor Grauert, Historisches Jahrbuch, xiv. 302 f. At the same
time it must be admitted that the chronicler of Novalesa, although truthful, had
the inborn gift of romance.
## p. 215 (#261) ############################################
215
CHAPTER X.
THE EMPEROR HENRY II.
When Otto III, still a youth, expired at Paterno in January 1002, it
seemed as if the life work of his grandfather Otto the Great had been com-
pletely undone. Animosity pursued the Emperor even after death; for
only by hard fighting could his friends succeed in transporting his remains
through the plain of Lombardy for interment in Germany. The fate there-
fore, alike of the Western Empire and of the German kingdom upon which
it was based, depended far more than usual upon the qualities of the man
who might be called to occupy the vacant throne.
To this grave crisis there was added the misfortune of a disputed
succession. Otto III, the last descendant in the male line of Otto the
Great, had died unmarried; nor was there any one person naturally des-
tined to succeed him. Descent and election were the two factors by which
accession to the throne was legally determined; but the relative influence
of these varied according to circumstances. On the present occasion it
was election, in practice confined to the magnates, which was bound to
be preponderant. For though a candidate was forthcoming from the
royal house, he was met at once by powerful opponents. And his claim
in itself was not indisputable. The true representative of the Ottos was
the son of the late Emperor's only wedded sister Matilda, wife of Ezo,
son of Herman, Count Palatine in Lorraine. But this heir was a child,
and was the offspring of a marriage which had been deemed unequal.
Matilda's son therefore was now passed over in silence. There were also
two men who could assert some right to be accepted as head of the
Liudolfing house. The one was Otto, Duke of Carinthia, grandson (through
his mother Liutgard) of Otto the Great, and son of the famous Conrad,
once Duke of Lorraine, who had fallen gloriously at the Lechfeld. To his
great position Otto added the personal qualities of dignity and upright-
ness. He must have been at this time at least fifty years of age. The other
was a far younger man, Henry, Duke of Bavaria, son of Duke Henry "the
Wrangler," and grandson of that earlier Henry, the younger brother of
Otto the Great, who was the first of his family to rule in Bavaria. The
present duke therefore was the actual representative in the male line of
King Henry "the Fowler," the first of the Saxon kings. As it happened,
CH. X.
## p. 216 (#262) ############################################
216
Rival candidates
of
no rivalry arose between the two kinsmen. For when Henry expressed
his readiness to accept Otto as king, the latter declined to come forward
and, acknowledging Henry to be the fitter man, urged him to secure
election for himself.
But election also was legally necessary; and the magnates were not
disposed to let slip the present opportunity of choosing a king at their own
pleasure. When therefore the funeral train of the late Emperor reached
Augsburg on its way to Aix, Henry, anxious to assert his claim, first
took forcible possession of the imperial insignia, and then sought by
profuse promises to win over the attendant magnates for the support of
his cause, but he met with little success.
Already indeed a formidable rival had appeared. The chief men of
Saxony had met at Frohse, and there the Margrave Eckhard of Meissen
had revealed his purpose of gaining the throne. He was the foremost
warrior of his time; he had fought with distinction against the Saracens
in Italy, and at Rome in 998 it was he who had brought about the sur-
render of the castle of Sant' Angelo and the death of its defender
Crescentius. As Margrave of Meissen he had repelled the Wends, reduced
Bohemia to vassalage, and restrained the Polish duke Boleslav from
assailing the kingdom. Though not of royal descent, he was sprung
an ancient Thuringian stock, and was connected with the Billungs, the
new ducal house of Saxony. But a powerful enemy, the Margrave Liuthar
of the North Mark, now set himself to frustrate Eckhard's ambitious
design. Having secured a sworn promise from most of the Saxon mag-
nates to take no part in electing a king until a further conference, Liuthar
secretly visited the Duke of Bavaria, upon whom he urged the necessity
of sending an envoy to represent his interests at the postponed meeting.
And so skilfully did Henry's emissary, by means of lavish promises, work
upon the Saxon nobles when they met at Werla, that he won from them a
unanimous recognition of Henry's hereditary right to the throne and a
solemn pledge of service. Eckhard's haughty abstention from the meeting
had ruined his cause.
By this time a third competitor for the crown was in the field. This
was Herman II, Duke of Swabia. Timorous and retiring by nature, Her-
man had come forward at the suggestion of others. After the obsequies
of Otto III had been performed at Aix on 5 April, most of the magnates
there present had expressed their disinclination to accept Henry of Bavaria
as his successor. In the Duke of Swabia they saw a candidate more to their
liking; and certainly Herman's descent from a great Franconian house,
one member of which had formerly occupied the throne, and his position
as ruler of one of the chief races of Germany were plausible reasons for
his elevation. In reality it was his very gentleness of character that
reconimended him to his proposers, who might hope to find in him a
king to be obeyed or not as they pleased.
Through the Duke of Swabia Eckhard hoped to revenge himself upon
## p. 217 (#263) ############################################
Recognition of Henry II
217
Henry. But on his way to Duisburg, where Herman then was, he received
an intimation that he would not be admitted to the counsels of the
Swabian party. Returning homewards after this second rebuff, he was
waylaid at Pöhlde on the night of 30 April by four brothers who cherished
a private grudge against him, and was slain.
This tragic event removed a dangerous enemy from Henry's path, but
the contention with Duke Herman proved long and bitter. Henry could
count upon the magnates of Bavaria, of East Franconia, and of Saxony,
while Herman had the support only of those of Swabia and of West
Franconia. The Swabian faction, however, was resolute, and the Lor-
rainers were still doubtful. Archbishop Willigis of Mayence, the mainstay
of the last two Emperors, now stood for the principle of legitimate suc-
cession. At the beginning of June, Henry, with his Bavarian and
Franconian adherents, approached the Rhine at Worms, evaded Herman,
and entered Mayence. There his election followed; and on 7 June that
act was ratified by his solemn unction and coronation.
This success decided the wavering Dietrich, Duke of Upper Lorraine.
But the election had been carried through in haste by a few partisans of
the new king; and not only did the Duke of Swabia and his friends remain
defiant, but the nobles of Lower Lorraine still held aloof, while those of
Saxony took umbrage at their total exclusion from the proceedings at
Mayence. To force Herman to submission Henry turned southwards and
began to ravage Swabia. But the duke retaliated by assaulting and
sacking his own city of Strasbourg, whose bishop had declared for his
rival, and refused to be drawn into a decision by battle. Baffled in the
South, Henry proceeded to make sure of the rest of the kingdom. In
Thuringia, in July, he received full acknowledgment from Count William
of Weimar and the other chief men, and gratefully abolished the ancient
tribute of swine, due from the Thuringians to the crown. But from the
Saxon magnates Henry obtained a less easy recognition. There had
assembled to meet him at Merseburg on 23 July a great company of the
bishops and counts of Saxony, at whose head stood the Archbishops of
Bremen and Magdeburg with their Duke Bernard and the Margraves
Liuthar and Gero. Duke Boleslav of Poland also, fresh from an attack on
the mark of Meissen made after the death of Eckhard, presumed to appear
among them. These men, though they received the new king with defer-
ence, were not prepared to offer him an unconditional allegiance. They
stood upon their separate rights, and the next day, before any homage was
paid, Bernard came forward in their name and in that of the Saxon people
to assert their peculiar claims, and to demand of Henry how far he would
pledge himself to respect them. Henry replied by extolling the steadfast
loyalty of the Saxons to their kings; it was only with their approval that
he now came among them as king; and so far from infringing their law
he would be careful to observe it at all points, and would do his utmost
to fulfil their reasonable wishes. The speech satisfied the magnates; and
CH, X.
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218
Henry's earlier life
Duke Bernard taking the sacred lance in his hands, delivered it to the
king; their homage and oath of fealty then followed. From Merseburg
Henry hastened to Lower Lorraine. In the course of his journey he was
joined by his wife Kunigunda, whom he saw crowned queen at Paderborn
on 10 August by Archbishop Willigis. A fierce conflict, which broke out
between the king's Bavarian followers and the Saxon inhabitants of the
city, marred the rejoicings. In Lower Lorraine Henry found no ready
acceptance. Two bishops only received him; others hesitated to join
them; and Archbishop Heribert of Cologne, indulging a personal grudge,
purposely held aloof. At length the prelates concurred in choosing Henry
to be king, and after tendering him their oath of fealty, accompanied
him to Aix. There, on 8 September, the remaining Lorrainer magnates
joined in placing Henry on the coronation chair of his predecessors, and
in paying him homage. Nothing therefore was now wanting but the
submission of the Duke of Swabia. Herman, however, finding himself now
so far outmatched, was already prepared to yield. Through mediators he
besought the king's grace for himself and his adherents; and then on
1 October appeared in person before Henry at Bruchsal. On swearing
allegiance, Herman was suffered to retain both his duchy and his fiefs,
but was required to make good the damage he had caused to the city
of Strasbourg
Henry's title to reign, thus acknowledged in Germany, was also
accepted by peoples outside. The Venetians renewed with Henry the
treaty of friendship concluded with Otto II. In the vassal state of
Bohemia a revolution had lately set up a new ruler who at once sought
formal investiture at the hands of Henry. Lastly, from Italy, there came
letters and envoys of the imperialist party, urging Henry to intervene in
rebellious Lombardy.
Henry of Bavaria, the fifth of his house to occupy the German throne,
is known in history as Henry II, both as King and Emperor. He was
born on 6 May 973, and had therefore lately completed his twenty-ninth
year when he was crowned at Mayence in June 1002. His early life had
been moulded by adversity. By the rebellion of his father, Duke Henry
“the Wrangler," he had been deprived of his home; and after some time
spent under the care of Abraham, Bishop of Freising, he had been sent, still
a child, to be brought up at Hildesheim. There he received his first
grounding in an education which made him in all ways a cultivated man,
well learned both in Holy Scripture and in ecclesiastical lore. He be-
came acquainted at the same time with the methods of church govern-
ment, as he was meant for the clerical career; but his father's restoration
in 985 brought him back to Bavaria. Further training under Bishop
Wolfgang of Ratisbon helped to form those decided ideas upon Church
and State which afterwards shaped his policy as king. Upon the death
of his father in August 995 Henry succeeded without question to the duchy
of Bavaria. The last exhortation of the repentant Wrangler to his son
а
## p. 219 (#265) ############################################
Character of Henry
219
a
had been to remain ever loyal to his king; and by that advice Henry
steadily walked during the next six years. Otto III had no more faithful
subject than his cousin of Bavaria, who twice accompanied him to Italy,
and on the second occasion was instrumental, with Marquess Hugh of
Tuscany, in saving him from the wrath of the Roman mob. Moreover,
when the German magnates were scheming to dethrone the absent
Emperor, Henry refused to take any part in their conspiracy. Until
Otto's premature death opened to him the prospect of succession, he
had been, as Duke of Bavaria, a just and vigorous ruler.
Of Henry's outward appearance nothing certain is known. Later tradi-
tion indeed gives him the attribute of “the Lame," and two varying legends
profess to account for the supposed infirmity. A real hindrance, however,
was the liability to severe attacks of a painful internal complaint; Henry
was in truth a sickly man, and his bodily weakness may have sometimes
interfered with his plans. His life and actions were regulated by a strict
conscientiousness and by a piety sober and restrained. The Christian faith
and its Founder, the saints and their sanctuaries, the German church and
its officers, were the objects of his reverence; he punctually attended,
and sometimes took part in, the ceremonies of the Church; he was the
determined foe of ecclesiastical abuses; and if he shared the prevailing
superstition in regard to relics, this was balanced by an ungrudging
liberality to the poor and a splendid munificence in the founding and
maintenance of religious institutions. With all this, Henry was no mere
devotee. He was sociable, and took pleasure in the ordinary amusements
of his day; he was not above playing a practical joke on a troublesome
bishop, and once even incurred rebuke for encouraging a brutal form of
sport. The chase was to him a welcome recreation. Henry was thus
utterly unlike Otto III. He loved his ancestral land of Saxony; the
glamour of Italy did not entice him away from his proper task as a German
king; nor did he entertain any visionary idea of universal dominion under
the form of a revived Roman Empire. The whole bent of his mind was
practical; his undertakings were limited in scope and were pursued with
caution. Prudence indeed was the quality by which he most impressed his
contemporaries. Yet he was not without the kingly ideals of his day. He
had a passion for law and order; and in his conception of the kingly office
a
he was the guardian of the realm against attack from without and against
disturbance within, the champion of the weak and the enemy of all wrong-
doers, the defender of the Church and the promoter of its spiritual work.
No king before him was more untiring in travel to dispense justice among
his people; no ruler could be more stern on occasion in executing judg-
ment on rebels and lawbreakers. In spite of his weak health he did not
shrink from taking his full share in the dangers and hardships of a cam-
paign. And with this courage there was joined a royal humanity which
could shew mercy to the vanquished. Alike in the limitation of his aims
and the steady persistency of his rule, he shewed no little resemblance
CH, X.
## p. 220 (#266) ############################################
220
General character of Henry's reign
to the earliest Henry of his race. In moral dignity, it may be safely said,
he excelled any monarch of the Saxon house.
