GERMANY FROM THE EARLIEST PERIOD

SECOND PERIOD - THE MIDDLE AGES

 

PART X

THE FRANCONIAN, SALIC EMPERORS

 

CXXXIX. Conrad the Second

 

ON the death of Henry II, the last of the Ottos, a general assembly of the different nations belonging to the empire was convoked. They gathered from every quarter, and encamped in countless multitudes on the great plain between Worms and Mayence, on either side of the Rhine, (1024). The dukes appeared in person, their banners followed by the Markgrafs, Grafs, and minor nobles, besides an innumerable throng of vassals. With equal state came the archbishops, bishops, and abbots of the realm, with their haughty retainers; the broad land scarcely sufficed for the number of noble-born Germans, met for the purpose of electing a successor to their deceased monarch. On the right bank of the Rhine were stationed the Saxons under their duke, Bernhard, the Swabians under Duke Ernst, the Bavarians under Duke Henry, the Carinthians under Duke Adalbero, and the Bohemians under Duke Othelrich. On the left bank were seen the Franconians under Duke Conrad, the Upper Lothringians under Duke Frederick, and the Lower Lothringians under Duke Gottfried (Gozilo).

The house of Franconia, which, through the favour of Bishop Hatto, had first enriched itself during the Babenberg feud, and from which the emperor Conrad I descended, had fallen to the brave Conrad (who lost his life when opposing the Hungarians), by his marriage with a daughter of that emperor. The fidelity he had evinced toward the house of Saxony was repaid to his son Otto, who was created duke of Franconia and Carinthia, and both of whose grandsons now set up a claim to the imperial throne; Graf Conrad, the husband of Gisela, the younger in years, but the son of the elder brother, and moreover the one recommended by Henry II, when on his death-bed, as his successor, and the Duke Conrad, the elder in years, but the son of the younger son, and less distinguished for talent. The family of these two competitors for the crown was so illustrious that a still more ancient origin was, by way of flattery, ascribed to it, and it was deduced from the Merovingians, and named the Salic race.

The election of one of the Conrads was unanimously resolved upon by all the great vassals of the empire, and both of the competitors, on the declaration of this decision in their favour, magnanimously agreed, for the sake of the state, to yield submissively to the verdict about to be pronounced. The Graf, accordingly, held a private conference with the duke, and it was amicably stipulated between them that the excluded one should be the first to swear allegiance to his elected rival. The electors met, and the first vote, that of Aribo, archbishop of Mayence, was given in favour of Conrad the elder; all the bishops added their suffrages, and Conrad the younger was the first among the temporal lords who rose and gave his vote in favour of the Graf, who was with one joyous acclaim elected emperor by the rest of the vassal princes, and the new sovereign, seating himself at the side of his loyal-hearted cousin, was proclaimed emperor by the shouting multitude. Frederick of Lothringia and the archbishop of Cologne, the only malcontents, silently quitted the assembly. Their departure was perceived by the Duke Conrad, who, hurrying after them, led them, amicably back. How could they withstand the entreaties of a man who had just sacrificed his ambitious hopes for the weal of the state? Nor were the expectations of the nation in their elected monarch deceived; Conrad of Franconia was one of the noblest sovereigns who ever swayed the sceptre of Germany.

By his first decree, still preserved at Aix-la-Chapelle, he rendered the fiefs of the petty vassals (the lesser nobility) hereditary, a deeply calculated measure, by which he aimed at creating a counterpoise in the state to the great vassals. He visited the different provinces of the empire, in order to arrange its internal economy, everywhere dealing impartial justice. He was, however, speedily recalled by affairs relating to the Burgundian succession. King Rudolf having refused to fulfil the promise he had made to Henry, to the newly-elected sovereign, who was fully aware of the importance of reincorporating Burgundy with the empire. His persuasions, and those of Gisela, Conrad's wife and Rudolf's granddaughter, were at length successful, and the aged king renewed his plighted-word.

On the decease of Henry II the Italians asserted that the hereditary right of the emperors to Italy had expired, and offered the crown to Hugh, the son of Robert, king of France, Robert refused it, and a friendly interview took place between him and the emperor, on the little river Cher, at that time the boundary of the empire. The Italians next made choice of a son of William, duke of Aquitania, who, in reply, upbraided them for their treachery, so greatly did the French still fear to irritate the German emperor. Conrad crossed the Alps, AD 1026, and planted the banner of the empire in the valley of Ronceval, near Piacenza. Rainer, Markgraf of Tuscany, refusing to do homage, the emperor bestowed his lands upon Bonifacius, the lord of Mantua, Modena, Ferrara, and Reggio, who thus became the most powerful of the Italian princes. Pavia rebelled and was vainly besieged by Conrad, and riots, which were suppressed and punished, took place in Ravenna and Rome during his presence in those cities. A splendid court was held by him at Rome, where he and his wife Gisela were solemnly crowned. He was also visited here by two kings, Rudolf of Burgundy and Canute the Great, who had succeeded his father Swein on the thrones of Denmark and of England, and had conquered Norway. This powerful monarch had visited Rome in order to see the wonders of the South. He married his daughter, Cunihilda, to Henry, the son of Conrad, who became duke of Bavaria on the extinction of the house of Luxemburg. Canute held Schleswig in fee of the empire. After re-establishing peace in Lower Italy, Conrad extended the lands held by the Normans on condition of their protecting the frontier. He was shortly afterward recalled by a melancholy occurrence to the other side of the Alps.

The whole of Swabia was in an uproar. The Duke Ernst, as the elder son of Gisela by her first marriage, believed himself justified in claiming Burgundy as his inheritance, in opposition to his stepfather Conrad, although Rudolf, instead of bequeathing his kingdom to the Salic family, had merely reincorporated it with the empire. With him were united two Swabian Grafs of ancient race, Rudolf Welf, or Guelph, the hereditary enemy of the Salic family, and Werner of Kyburg.

During Conrad's absence in Italy, Ernst, Welf, and Werner attacked the adherents and invaded the lands of the Salic family, which they laid waste without opposition, and took possession of Solothurn. These events caused Conrad to hasten his return, and to convoke a great Diet at Ulm, at which Ernst appeared at the head of his armed Swabians. In vain did Gisela entreat him to submit, and to return to his allegiance. His rebellious spirit, however, was not shared by, his vassals, who, when the matter came to an issue, unanimously declared that the oath of allegiance which bound them to their duke in no wise released them from that which bound them to the emperor and to the state, and that, if the duke were at feud with the empire, it was their duty to aid the latter; and with one accord they abandoned their rebellious chieftains. Ernst, thus left at the mercy of his opponents, was arrested and imprisoned on a charge of high treason, in the fortress of Giebichenstein in Saxony. Welf was exiled. Werner of Kyburg, AD 1027, valiantly defended his castle for several months against the imperial troops, but finding it at length untenable, contrived to make his escape. Three years later, 1030, Conrad restored his stepson to liberty, and, in the presence of his mother Gisela, promised to replace him on the ducal throne of Swabia, on condition of his betraying the secret of Werner's retreat. "How can I betray my only true friend!" replied the unfortunate duke. In consequence of this refusal he was declared by his peers guilty of misprision of treason, placed out of the ban of the empire, and reduced to complete beggary. Driven to despair, he took refuge with his friend Werner in the Black Forest, where they led a robber's life, and were aided by Adalbert of Falkenstein, who gave them his castle for a stronghold, whence they laid the whole country under contribution. The Swabians, headed by Graf Mangold of Yeringen, besieged the fortress, surrounded the garrison during a sally, and, after an obstinate struggle in which Mangold fell, succeeded in cutting them to pieces. Hermann, Ernst's younger brother, succeeded him as duke of Swabia in 1307. The valour and wretched fate of Duke Ernst made a deep impression on the imagination of the people, and he became the hero of many a ballad. The em­peror was used to say of him, "Mad dogs never increase their race!"

Other cares, meanwhile, divided the attention of the emperor. Boleslaw had been succeeded on the throne of Poland by his son, Miseko, who again refused to take the oath of allegiance to the empire, and, invading Saxony, laid the country waste and carried off an immense number of women and maidens. The seat of the bishopric of Zeiz, which was most exposed to the inroads of the Poles, was, on that account, at this period removed to Naumburg. Conrad invaded Poland, vainly besieged Bautzen, and wandered fruitlessly in the vast unpeopled forests, AD 1039. In the following year, Miseko again invaded the empire and exercised unheard-of cruelties on the Elbe and Saal; his chief victims were the wives of the nobility and other ladies of high birth, whose only refuge was death. Othelrich of Bohemia, and also Stephan of Hungary, invaded the empire, but were successfully repulsed by Conrad, who also drove Adalbero out of Carinthia, and bestowed that dukedom on his cousin and noble-minded rival, Conrad, as his paternal inheritance. The fortress of Enns, on the Hungarian frontier, was intrusted to Graf Ottocar, who erected the fort of Steyer, in the country that afterward took thence the name of Steyermark, or Styria, AD 1031. Shortly after these occurrences, Miseko was deposed by the Poles, and, seeking protection from Othelrich, was treacherously seized by his host and delivered up to the emperor, who generously restored him to liberty, saying, will not buy an enemy from an enemy. The Poles again accepted him for their king, and, won over by the unexpected generosity with which he had been treated, he concluded a permanent peace with the emperor, AD 1084. Othelrich again rebelled, and was again induced to submission. His son, Brzetislaw, carried off the beautiful Jutta, a relation of the emperor, from a convent at Ratisbon, and made her his wife; an adventure that at first roused the emperor's displeasure, but which afterward produced a reconciliation.

About this time, Udo, the son of Mistevoi, was assassinated by the Saxons. His son, Gottschalk, who had been sent to a German monastery for his education, made his escape, and placing himself at the head of his people, bloodily revenged his father's death. But one day, when passing through the wasted country, he was struck with remorse for the misery he had caused, and voluntarily gave himself up to the Saxons, AD 1036. The emperor, convinced of his sincerity and of his anxiety for the confirmation of peace, restored him to liberty; upon which he attempted the conversion of the Slavi, and consequently drew down upon himself their bitterest hatred. While these events were passing, he became the son-in-law of Canute the Great, and the town and fortress of Ratzeburg in western Poland being yielded to the duke of Saxony, he acquired sufficient influence to found the bishoprics of Ratzeburg and Mecklenburg. The Liutizii, the head tribe of the Wilzi, in Pomerania, were alone refractory. It was finally agreed between them and the Saxons to leave the decision of their quarrel and the choice between their different religions to the issue of single combat. Victory sided with the pagan Liutizii; and when the Saxons, regardless of the stipulated terms, continued their system of oppression, their opponents cried shame upon the God of the Christians, and mutilated the figure on a crucifix. This sacrilegious act was speedily avenged by the enraged emperor, who laid their country waste with fire and sword, and mutilated the prisoners, but was unsuccessful in his attempt to penetrate as far as the coasts through their wild forests and deep morasses.

The death of Rudolf in 1032 was the signal for feudal strife in Burgundy; Odo, the French count of Champagne, the son of Gisela's elder sister, set up a claim to the throne in right of primogeniture, while Conrad claimed Burgundy, not as a family inheritance, but as a state lapsed to the crown, and caused himself to be crowned king of Burgundy at Geneva, AD 1033. The whole of the country lying to the south of Lothringia, along the Saone and the Rhone as far as the sea, belonged to the kingdom of Burgundy: viz., the dukedom of Lower Burgundy (Bourgogne), with its capital Dijon; the county of Upper Burgundy (Franche Comté, free county), with the free imperial city of Bisanz or Besançon; the county of Walsh-Wien (Vienne) or the Delphinat, so called on account of the surname of Delphin borne by its counts, with its capital Graswalde or Grenoble; the county of Savoy, formerly divided from Alemannia by the river Aar, and, at a later period, by the Reuss, when Humbert the White-handed, count of Savoy, extended his domains, and rendered himself almost an independent sovereign during the reign of the weak Rudolf of Burgundy further to the south, the county of Provence, with its capital Arles, whence the whole of Lower Burgundy received the name, of the Arelat. Besides these were the archbishopric of Walsch-Leyden (Lyons), and the bishoprics of Walsch-Aachen (Aix), Parantaise, Valence, Marseille, Avignon, Toulon, Chalons, Orense, Lausanne, Sion, etc. A campaign was carried on in the depth of winter by the emperor, and notwithstanding, as Wippo relates, the horses' hoofs were sometimes frozen into the ground, he laid the whole of Champagne waste.

The Italians, discontented with the despotic rule of the emperor, sought to strengthen their cause by an alliance with the rebellious Odo, to whom Heribert, archbishop of Milan, offered the throne of Lombardy. A second exped­tion into Italy, on the part of the emperor, was the immediate result. During his absence, Odo again invaded Lower Lothringia, but was completely routed in the battle of Bar-le-Duc, by the duke Gottfried (Gozilo), AD 1036. In Italy, the emperor had gained fresh adherents in the Valvasors or lower nobility, who were grievously oppressed by the spiritual and temporal lords, and rose, sword in hand, AD 1035, to claim the privileges granted by the emperor Conrad to the German vassals at Aix-la-Chapelle. It chanced that Heribert, archbishop of Milan, the most tyrannical of the petty princes of Italy, who, up to the present period, had been the most zealous partisan of the emperor, counted for that reason on his protection; but Conrad, faithful to his system of supporting the lower nobility against the great vassals, threw him, contrary to his expectation, into prison. In 1037, he gave the new feudal code to his Italian vassals, by which the estates of the petty vassals were rendered hereditary, the alienation of a fief by the feudal lord without the consent of the feoffee was forbidden, and the right of being judged by their peers, and of an appeal to the emperor in disputes between them and their lieges, was secured to the petty vassals. The concession of these privileges to the German nobility explains their adherence to his cause, particularly in the affair between him and Duke Ernst. His successors, nevertheless, were ignorant of the art of forming the minor nobility into one great mass, and they, consequently, remained uninfluenced by any common bond, under the rule of the great vassals, who gradually regained the power over them of, which they had been deprived by Conrad. The emperor lengthened his stay in Italy, in order to confirm his authority in that country. Parma rebelled, and was, by his order, almost entirely demolished. His most active adherent was the Markgraf Bonifacius, who had wedded Beatrix, the daughter of Frederich of Lothringia. He entertained the emperor sumptuously at Marengo and Vivinaja. Wine was drawn in buckets attached by silver chains from the fountains, etc. These festal scenes were interrupted by the breaking out of the plague, which carried off almost the whole of Conrad's army. Hermann of Swabia, Conrad, duke of Carinthia, the emperor's cousin, Cunihilda, the bride of Henry, the youthful heir to the crown, were among the victims, AD 1038.

The feuds carried on between the Grafs and the other great vassals in Burgundy now called the emperor into that country. Reinholdj count of Franche Comté, who was at enmity with him, was reduced to submission by Louis, count of Mumpelgart, the emperor's stanch adherent. The right of private warfare was upheld even more in France and Burgundy than in Germany, and the clergy alone possessed the power of checking the martial spirit that prevailed. An abbot of Clugny, at length, declared himself commissioned by Heaven to announce a universal and holy peace, which was to be kept weekly, from Wednesday evening until Monday morning, and again from Advent Sunday until the eighth day after Epiphany, from Septuagesima until the eighth day after Easter, under pain of excommunication. During these intervals, feuds were thus strictly prohibited. The truth of this pretended mission was gladly recognized by both the temporal and spiritual lords, first in France, AD 1027, in Burgundy, AD 1032, and on two separate occasions, in AD 1038 and 1041, by the emperor, by whom this holy and universal peace was passed into a law, the benefit of which was ere long felt throughout Germany. Conrad expired at Utrecht in 1039 during the solemnization of the Whitsuntide festival. He was interred at Spires, where in 1030 he had laid the foundation-stone of the cathedral. His son and successor, Henry, accompanied the funeral procession, and, while passing through the town, assisted in bearing the coffin.

 

CXL. Henry the Third

 

Educated by a father as intelligent as he was energetic and warlike, and by a mother whose noble intellect had been strengthened by misfortune, Henry early developed the qualities befitting a statesman and a soldier. The popes even were awed, and the power of the dukes completely reduced by this emperor, whose iron despotism surpassed that of any of his predecessors. Had his life been lengthened, the ducal dignity, so greatly had he succeeded in, depressing it, would probably have been entirely abolished,

He allowed the ducal throne of Swabia to remain for some time unoccupied, and finally bestowed it on Otto, Markgraf of Schweinfurt, in Eastern Franconia, a man of an inert disposition. The nomination of Welf, the son of Welf the elder, to the dukedom of Carinthia, conciliated the feudal animosity of that house. Welf died in 1055 without issue, and his family was continued, in default of heir male, by Welf, the son of his sister Cunigunda, who had espoused Azzo, an Italian Markgraf. The crown of Bavaria was presented by Henry to his wife, the empress Agnes. At that time Graf Berthold, a nephew of Radbot of Habsburg, distinguishing himself in the Breisgau, Henry promised him the reversion of the ducal crown of Swabia on the death of Otto. Bernhard of Saxony, although the only one who maintained his ancient independence, made himself respected by the emperor, who sought to diminish his power by creating a counterpoise to him in the neighbouring states, and accordingly made Thuringia independent, and nominated Louis the Bearded as her Landgraf. He also supported Adalbert, the talented archbishop of Bremen, who had twelve bishoprics under his jurisdiction, and, during his residence in Germany, always fixed his seat of government at Goslar, in the heart of Saxony, in order to keep that dukedom under his own eye. He also humbled the haughty and dreaded archbishop of Mayence, by giving precedence to the archbishop of Cologne, when solemnizing the coronation of his youthful heir.

The Bohemians were the first to rise in open warfare. Brzetislaw again attempted to regain his independence, in which he was supported by Severus, bishop of Prague. After a struggle that lasted for two years, he was finally reduced to submission, AD 1042, and compelled to swear fealty to the emperor on his bended knees at Ratisbon. His son Spignitew, on mounting the throne, immediately expelled all the Germans, even his own mother, Jutta, from Bohemia.

In the following year, the discontented Burgundians rose in open insurrection, but were again subdued by Henry, who, by his marriage with Agnes of Poitou, AD 1044, who was closely connected with the most powerful of the Burgundian families, at once settled all differences.

This was followed by disturbances in Hungary. Stephan the Holy having died without issue, Gisela, his German queen, placed his nephew, Peter, on the throne. The crimes of this monarch, and the favour in which the Germans were held at court, gave rise to a popular tumult. Peter was deposed, and Aba was elected king in his stead. A battle took place between him and the emperor at Menfew, AD 1044. The Germans had already been put to flight, when a storm of wind suddenly arose, and whirling the sand of the plain into the faces of the pursuing Hungarians, caused such con­fusion that the Germans rallied and gained the victory. Peter was replaced upon his throne at Sthulweissenburg, and Aba was assassinated. The Hungarians again revolted on Henry's departure, deprived Peter of sight, and raised Andreas to the throne. This induced a second expedition into Hungary on the part of the emperor, whose army was surrounded, when in a dangerous position, by the enemy, and, after suffering dreadfully from famine, was finally enabled, by the dexterity of his manoeuvres, to retreat across the frontier, with the loss of all the sick, whom he was compelled to abandon, and who were cut to pieces by the enraged peasantry. He returned as head of a more numerous army, and although he recognized Andreas as king of Hungary, compelled him to do him homage, and to accept the Bavarian constitution, by which Hungary was, as at the present day, divided into comitate or counties. The country between the Calenberg on the Danube, in the vicinity of Vienna, and the Leitha, was also permanently severed from Hungary, and united to the mere of Austria.

The greatest confusion, caused, on the present occasion, by a schism or disunion of the church under several contemporary popes, reigned, meanwhile, in Italy. Benedict IX, who had given way to the most unbridled license, was op­posed by an antipope, Sylvester VII. Benedict, becoming enamoured of a beautiful girl of high birth, abdicated the pontifical chair, in the hope of obtaining her in marriage, but, being disappointed in his purpose, retook his dignity and remained pope, although he had sold his right to the triple crown to a third pope, Gregory VI. These three heads of the church reigned simultaneously in Rome; Benedict in the Lateran, Gregory in the Vatican, and Sylvester in St. Maria Maggiore. In order to terminate this scandal, the emperor visited Rome, AD 1046, and held a great ecclesiastical convocation at Sutri, by which he caused the three popes to be deposed, and a German, Suidger of Meyendorf, bishop of Bamberg, to be placed in the pontifical chair, under the name of Clement II. All the imperial prerogatives, by the exercise of this, right of election on the part of the emperor, received fresh confirmation!  Henry afterward visited Apulia, and extended the Norman fief, held by the twelve brave sons of Tancred, one of  whom, named Drogo, who in 1039 had defeated a numerous body of Grecian troops, he created duke of Apulia. The revolt of the Lombards against the new rulers of Lower Italy was the immediate result, and Drogo was murdered. His brothers, Hunifrid and Guiscard, nevertheless, maintained their authority in Apulia, and Raimund, a descendant of the earlier Norman settlers, was equally successful in Aversa.

Henry returned to Germany with the three popes in his train. Their German successor, Clement II, died in1049, probably from poison, and another German, Poppo, bishop of Brixen, who was sent by the emperor to replace him as Pope Damasus II, did not survive his elevation to the pontifical chair three weeks. The emperor next elected one of his own relatives, Bruno of Dachsburg, bishop of Tull, as his successor, who, under the name of Leo IX, distinguished himself by the force of his intellect, and by his comprehensive plans for the reformation of the church, in which he was zealously aided by a young man named Hildebrand, the son of a blacksmith of Siena, who had accompanied Gregory VI to Germany, and whom the new pope, attracted by his high talents, had taken into his service. It has been asserted that Leo was merely a tool in the hands of this monk; this could not be: the actions of Leo originated in himself, and instead of owing his fame to Hildebrand, the contrary was the fact—it was he who first raised Hildebrand from obscurity. The principal evil in the church, besides the irregular election of the popes in Rome herself, was the simony carried on throughout the provinces. Each ecclesiastical dignity, from the highest to the lowest, had its price, and, consequently, fell into the most unworthy hands; bribery and corruption everywhere prevailed. In order to put a stop to these evils, Leo, besides rendering them liable by law to the severest punishments, visited the different countries for the purpose of strictly and personally investigating the conduct of the clergy. The awestruck French clergy yielded implicitly to his commands at a council convoked by him at Rheims. He met alone with opposition from his own countrymen at another held by him at Mayence; and a year later, when he again hastened northward, in order to promote peace between the Hungarians, who had already embraced Christianity, and the Germans, he was mocked in the German camp. Was the emperor jealous of the interference of a pope on whose head he had himself placed the tiara? Heavily was Germany destined to atone for her disrespect toward a German pope! Not long after this Leo fell at variance with Robert Guiscard, on account of his having laid the papal dominions waste; seven hundred Swabians, the pope's bodyguard, were slain at Civetella, and the pope quitted the burning city and gave himself up to the Normans, who fell weeping at his feet, (AD1053). This excellent pope expired in the following year. He was canonized by the church, and became the guardian saint of the city of Benevento. On his demise, Hildebrand hastened to Germany, in order to entreat the emperor to elect a successor. His choice fell upon Gebhard, Graf of Calw, bishop of Eichstadt, Pope Victor II, who, at a council held at Florence, promised the world that he would continue the reform commenced by Leo.

A petty war for the succession to the dukedom had, in the meantime, broken out in Lothringia. Dietrich, the son of Frederich, duke of Upper Lothringia, died without issue in 1043. The succession was claimed by Gottfried the Bearded, duke of Lower Lothringia, who, on the donation of the dukedom by the emperor to Adalbert, an Alsatian count, took up arms against him and slew him in battle. Gerhard, Adalbert's nephew, was upon this appointed to succeed him by the emperor, who defeated the contumacious duke, but, struck with admiration of the valour with which he had defended himself, pardoned his aggression, and sent him to Italy to watch over his interests in that  country. Gottfried's allies, Baldwin V of Flanders, and Dietrich IV of Holland, who were necessarily sacrificed by this arrangement, contrived to make head against the emperor during the summer months behind their morasses, but were speedily reduced to submission on the setting in of winter, AD 1048, when the rivers and canals were frozen over. Baldwin, notwithstanding his having burned down the imperial town of Nimwegen, was freely pardoned, and permitted to hold Ghent, the Ottogau, Elsterland, Allost, Wars, and Southern Seeland, in fee of the empire. This country was henceforth distinguished as Imperial Flanders from the rest of Flanders, which was a French fief. The emperor hoped, by this clemency, to attach these powerful frontier Grafs to the empire, and to increase the distaste felt by the German Flemings toward their foreign rulers. His system was unfortunately unheeded by his successors on the imperial throne, by whom the Flemings were rarely supported against France. Dietrich of Holland fell, AD 1049, in a senseless and sanguinary feud with Cologne, which proved equally fatal to Florens I, his brother and successor. It is remarkable to what an early date the disunion in the German Netherlands may be traced.

Gottfried of Lower Lothringia, unmindful of the clemency with which he had been treated, proved faithless to his trust in Italy, where he joined the malcontents, and after wedding Beatrix, the widow of Bonifacius, made use of the influence and wealth bestowed upon her family by the emperor against their common benefactor. Henry, consequently, recrossed the Alps, and after defeating the refractory duke, and taking Beatrix prisoner, returned with her to Germany, where his presence was again required by the renewed pretensions of Henry, king of France, upon Burgundy and Lothringia. His departure was instantly turned to advantage by Gottfried, and his son, Gottfried the younger, who regained their influence in Italy. During an interview between Henry and the French monarch at Ivois, in 1056, the former threw down his glove in token of challenge: it was refused by the French king, who took refuge within his own dominions.

Another and more dangerous enemy now attacked the empire. The Liutizii, notwithstanding the valiant defense made against them by Bernhard of Saxony, William of Brandenburg, son of the elder Bernhard, and Gottschalk, the Christian prince of the Obotrites, succeeded in gaining the upper hand. William fell in a battle near Prizlawa. All the Christians taken prisoners on this occasion being drowned, the Saxon princes, in reprisal, compelled their Slavian prisoners to throw themselves into the river.

During the same year, Germany was visited by earthquakes, plague, and famine, the forerunners of a still worse evil, the death of the emperor, who fell sick and expired at Bothfeld, in the Harz Mountains, in the vigour of life, AD1056. He left the empire in the hands of the empress Agnes, and of his son Henry, a child five years of age. Thus the management of affairs that demanded the utmost energy and sagacity devolved upon a woman and an infant.

A number of monks, who devoted their lives and talents more to the promotion of learning and to the welfare of the state, than to upholding the hierarchical schemes of the pope, had been invited over by Henry from the British Isles, and had founded numerous Scotch monasteries. Agnes, Henry's learned empress, and his chancellor and historian Wippo, also greatly assisted him in carrying his plans for the reformation of the Roman priesthood into effect. Agnes was regent of the empire during her son's minority. She was a virtuous, pious woman, with a mind highly cultivated indeed, but totally deficient in the energy befitting her station, the possession of which would have rendered her the heroine, instead of the victim, of her times. Gentleness, love, persuasion, and the most disinterested sacrifice of herself, were the means by which she sought to rule the wild and daring spirits of the age. Well aware of the impossibility of bearing despotic sway, like her deceased husband, over the distant and extensive provinces of the empire, without the intermediate aid of dukes, and, moreover, anxious to convert the enmity of those whose pretensions had been neglected into friend­ship, she raised one after the other, the bitterest enemies of her family, to the vacant ducal thrones. Another aim of her short-sighted policy was by means of the dukes to keep the haughty archbishops in check. Rudolf, the insolent Graf of Rheinfelden, by whom her daughter Matilda had been violated, received not only pardon for his crime, but also Swabia and Burgundy in fee of the empire. The turbulent Swabian nobles, ever at feud with one another, required a master. A Graf of Hohenzollern is at this period, AD 1058, for the first time mentioned in history as an actor in one of these feuds. In order to satisfy the just pretensions of Graf Berthold, Agnes bestowed upon him the dukedom of Carinthia, and the county of Verona in Italy, in 1060; besides which he possessed the Breisgau. His descendants received the surname of the Zahringer, from Zehring, a province above Judenburg. She also bestowed Bavaria on Otto, the brave Graf of Nordheim, and restored Lothringia to the son of her hereditary enemy Gottfried, Gottfried the Hunchback, a noble-minded man, who was afterward almost the only one who served the Salic family with fidelity. Besides Lothringia, he also possessed the extensive Tuscan margraviate in right of his wife Matilda, the daughter of his own stepmother Beatrix.

The Frieslanders again figure in history during this period. Bernhard of Saxony, and Adalbert, archbishop of Bremen, enraged at the insubordination of these brave peasants, who resisted their attempted imposition of a tax, marched at the head of a numerous army into their country, but were completely put to the rout, and the camp of the nobles was sacked by the victors, AD1060. Henry, the pious bishop of Augsburg, and Guibert, the talented archbishop of Ravenna, were the empress's counsellors. The mildness of her government, however, did not shield her character from the imputations which the opponents to the imperial throne cast upon her and her counsellors in order to hasten their downfall.

 

CXLI. Ecclesiastical Government of the Empire

 

Victor II died in 1057, and the Italians placed the tiara on the head of Stephen IX, the brother of Gottfried the Humchback, who also expired in the following year. Their choice next fell upon Benedict X. This election caused deep displeasure to Hildebrand, who still continued his endeavours to raise the church to her former level by means of the empire. He therefore earnestly petitioned the empress to nominate another pope, and Gerhard of Burgundy, bishop of Florence, was accordingly sent by her to fill the pontifical chair.

This pope entered into Hildebrand's views for the aggrandizement of the church. The time had arrived for the popedom to rise again from her impotent obscurity, and for the realization of the gigantic idea of universal ecclesiastical rule; so intense was the devotional feeling of the times that the church merely required an energetic head, and the empire a weak ruler, for the temporal power of the latter to pass into the hands of the former. This head appeared in the person of the monk Hildebrand, at a time when the imperial sceptre was swayed by a child. The character and virtues of Hildebrand fitted him for the hero of the church and of his age. His irreproachable life and morals, his entire renunciation of all worldly pleasures, rendered him universally venerated. His mind, formed in monastic seclusion, was firm and strong, and, inspired by his deep devotional feelings, he cherished a lofty view of the destinies of the world. Early recommended to the notice of the great and powerful by the superiority of his talents, he was an adept in transacting worldly affairs, had been actively engaged in promoting the interests of the church, and, during his residence in Germany, had taken a just and comprehensive view of the state of Christendom. Worldly knowledge, pliability, and even dissimulation—unholy means for the attainment of a design, the offspring of a pure and lofty mind—were his chief characteristics, in common with the rest of his countrymen. His surpassing eloquence, another of his numerous gifts, did not equal in effect the indomitable sternness which empowered him singly to enter the lists against the whole world. Even during his lifetime, his numerous enemies, created as much by the earnestness of his zealous endeavours as by the harshness with which circumstances often compelled him to act, attempted to lower his fame; and in later times, the despotic rule usurped by a church whose power was due to him has caused him to be reproached as the originator of crimes which, in the purity of his zeal for the reformation of the church, and through her of the reformation and improvement of the universe, he could not have foreseen.

His great work commenced under Nicolas II, whose approbation was the more readily secured, on account of its having originated with the German popes, and on account of the necessity of preserving peace and order, the continuation of which was at this period endangered by the minority of the emperor. Two men, his steady coadjutors, Petrus Damiani, whose religious zeal and strict morality rendered him the idol of monks and devotees, and Lanfranc, the celebrated theologian, his equal in learning, must also not remain unnoticed.

Two important acts passed by a council at Rome in 1059 were the first-fruits of Hildebrand's long-planned endeavours. By the former, the election of the pope was declared for the future to be independent of the emperor, and to be solely dependent on the votes of the cardinals, or ecclesiastics of the highest rank, whose dignity arose from the number of chapters or canonships attached to their sees. By the latter, the pope was declared, like the emperor, lord paramount over the feudatories in his dominions, and the Normans were accordingly solemnly declared feudatories of the pontifical chair, and freed from their allegiance to the emperor. The independent spirit of Robert Guiscard of Apulia, and of his brother Roger of Sicily, caused them willingly to league with the pope in freeing themselves from the shackles imposed upon them by the emperor. The Greeks, Arabs, and Lombards in Lower Italy were also at that period reduced by them to submission. It is worthy of remark that Nicolas carefully avoided any interference with heretics, in order not to be hindered in his more important operations for the aggrandizement of the church. Berengar, a canon of Tours, although compelled to abjure his heretical doctrine against transubstantiation, that is, against the belief that the wine and bread made use of in the sacrament was the real body and blood of Christ, was treated with great lenity.

Nicolas II died in1061. The election of Alexander II by the cardinals roused Agnes to a sense of her infringed dignity, and declaring the election null and void without her consent, she caused Honorius II to be elected pope by the German bishops at Basle.

One of the most distinguished men of that period was Anno, archbishop of Cologne (a Graf of Pfullingen), a man of an ambitious mind and stern temper, more fitted to bear the sceptre or the sword than the crosier. The precedence given to him by Henry III over the haughty archbishop of Mayence had only served to inflame his ambition, and, insatiated by the power he possessed, he even grasped at the regency of the empire. He has for that reason been unjustly accused of attempting to separate the German church from that of Rome; the accordance of his views with those of Hildebrand clearly demonstrate the contrary. It is true that he filled several important bishoprics with his adherents. His brother Wezilo (Werner) was created archbishop of Magdeburg; his grandson Cuno (Conrad), archbishop of Treves, and his other grandson, Bucco (Burkhard), bishop of Halberstadt. The adherence of these prelates, however, merely contributed to his temporal power. His principal object, the only one worthy of his powers, but for the attainment of which he had recourse to ignoble and barbarous means, was to snatch the helm from the powerless hand of the weak woman who guided the state. The life of the youthful emperor had been already attempted. Otto, the brother of William of Brandenburg, had been passed over in the succession, and Udo, Graf of Stade, had been created Markgraf in his stead. An insurrection ensued. Numbers of the Saxons, to whom Henry III had made himself obnoxious, entered into a conspiracy with Otto, whom they intended to raise to the throne, against the emperor's life. A duel that took place between Otto and Ekbert, Graf of Brunswick, a zealous partisan of the imperial family, in which both combatants fell, crushed the hopes of the Saxon conspirators, AD 1057. Anno pursued a safer and more certain plan. He hated Agnes and the bishop of Augsburg, and viewed her govemment with contempt. His project of ruling the empire in the name of the youthful monarch was shared by Otto of Nordheim, the greatest general, and by Ekbert, Markgraf of Meissen, the most valiant knight of the age, who were moreover by their Saxon blood the hereditary foes of the reigning dynasty. These three men formed a plot to gain possession of the person of the emperor. The empress and her son were invited by them to pass the Easter festival at Kaiserswerth in 1062. After the banquet, under pretense of showing the child a fine boat, he was taken to the Rhine, put on board a vessel, and taken away. The courageous boy no sooner perceived the intention of his conductors to separate him from his mother than he sprang into the water, but was instantly followed by Ekbert, who overtook and bore him back to the vessel. The entreaties of the unfortunate empress for the restoration of her child were unheeded by the treacherous vassals, who, although pursued for some distance on both sides of the river by the country people, succeeded in reaching Cologne with their prisoner. The brokenhearted mother resigned the regency and retired to an Italian convent. Her counsellor, Henry, bishop of Augsburg, was tortured to death.

In order to place his undertaking under more favourable colors. Anno caused a decree to be passed by the assembled vassals of the empire, empowering the bishop within whose diocese the young emperor resided to act as regent of the state; a title he instantly assumed on account of the enforced residence of his prisoner at Cologne. He caused him to be strictly educated, compelling him to learn Latin like a chorister, and to undergo the severest discipline.

The dispute between Honorius II and Alexander II called Anno, as regent of the empire, into Italy; in this character he, at first, strongly opposed Hildebrand, but the interests of the church ere long reconciled their differences; Anno also rejected the pope nominated by the empress, lent his countenance to the one elected by the cardinals, and Alexander retained the tiara.

During the absence of Anno, Henry had fallen into other hands, and the ambitious primate of Cologne, at a later period, merely guided the affairs of state at two short and different times. The city of Cologne, meanwhile, fully occupied his attention. In 1063, or, according to other accounts, later, a violent feud sprang up between him and the merchants, affording an example of the struggle between rival interests, which speedily broke out in several other episcopal cities. Anno's servants insolently took possession of a merchantman that lay close inshore, heavily laden, and after lightening it of its cargo, laid an embargo upon it as a pleasure-boat for the archbishop. The son of the merchant to whom the vessel belonged hastened with his men to the spot, and compelled the archbishop's servants to retire. Anno ordered peace to be preserved, but harshly refused to pass judgment on the offenders; the people of Cologne, well aware of his despotic temper, resolved to oppose violence by violence, and rising en masse, stormed the episcopal palace, which they utterly destroyed, and laid siege to the church of St. Peter, within whose walls the archbishop had taken refuge. Anno escaped by night, assembled a numerous army, and shortly appeared before the gates of Cologne. The citizens, already struck with remorse for their daring, and unable to contend on equal terms with their old master, now sued for mercy, and Anno, who, with his customary sternness, reserved judgment for himself, was permitted to enter the town. The merchants justly fearing his anger, six hundred of their number left the city during the night, carrying with them all their movable goods. The son of the merchant whose opposition to his tyranny had given rise to the tumult, fell into the hands of the archbishop, who caused him and his adherents to be deprived of sight.

Anno greatly improved the city of Cologne, and adorned it with churches. He was canonized after his death, and a song in his praise, one of the best examples of the versification of the Middle Ages, is still extant: the extreme tenderness and pathos of this poem strikingly contrast with the real character of its hero, whose stern inflexibility seems to have imparted a similar character to Cologne, perceptible even in her glorious attempt for the reformation of the church.

During the absence of Anno in Italy, Henry had fallen into the hands of Adalbert, archbishop of Bremen, Anno's rival for the regency, to which the favour with which he had been beheld by Henry III, and the decree passed by Anno, furnished him with a title; independently of this, he regarded himself as the most polished and learned man of the times, as the only one capable of ruling the empire and of rearing the monarch. A lineal descendant of the noble house of Wettin of Slavonia, handsome and dignified in person, learned and witty, he regarded the gloomy sternness of Anno and the coarse manners of the nobles with the contempt natural to a man of refined taste and high birth, and by the gentleness of his treatment ere long caused the youthful monarch to rejoice at his good fortune in having fallen into his custody. Henry was, however, entirely corrupted by his new guardian. The sudden change from the severity with which he had been treated by Anno, to the unlimited liberty he enjoyed under Adalbert's roof, was of itself pernicious. The gravity and study to which he had been inured were now suddenly exchanged for the thoughtless gayety of a licentious court, where affairs of state were treated as lightly as a jest. The most unbridled simony was practiced by the archbishop, who thus sought to fill the most important benefices with his partisans, and by means of a new toy, or the caresses of beautiful courtesans, or a fresh amusement, the invention of the ready brain of his favourite, the handsome Graf Werner, he easily obtained the letters, signatures, and donations requisite for the success of his plans. The worst result of the influence gained by Adalbert over the mind of the young monarch was the contempt with which he studiously inspired him for the dukes, and more especially for the stupid German people, to whom Adalbert imagined himself to be so superior, as well as a dislike of the Saxons, which he only too speedily imbibed. During the reign of Henry III the Saxons and the archbishop had been at feud, and it was therefore of consequence to him to have the monarch on his side, and Henry thus unwittingly acquired an antipathy as unbecoming to him when emperor as it in the sequel proved dangerous.

In 1063, Henry accompanied Adalbert in a campaign against Hungary, where Bela, after rebelling against and assassinating Andreas, had expelled his son Salomo, the affianced bridegroom of Jutta, the emperor's sister. Adalbert restored Salomo to the Hungarian throne, on condition of his holding it in fee of the empire, and bestowed upon him the hand of Henry's sister. Hildebrand's anger was greatly roused by this proceeding; Hungary, according to him, being a papal fief. During the same year, Henry beheld at Goslar the struggle for precedence in church during divine service, between the bishop of Hildesheim and the abbot of Fulda, on which occasion several men lost their lives, so lawless were, at that period, the manners of the clergy, who were equally unchecked by both Adalbert and Anno, the former of whom cherished an ambitious hope of elevating the see of Bremen to the patriarchate of the North, and, in the name of the emperor, of rendering the temporal lords submissive to his authority, an attempt which drew upon him universal hatred.

In 1065, Henry was solemnly declared capable of bearing arms. Scarcely was his sword girded on than he drew it jestingly upon Anno, who was present; an action at once indicative of dislike and levity.

 

CXLII. Henry the Fourth

 

Henry IV, ever accompanied by Adalbert and Werner, held his imperial court with his habitual splendour near Goslar, at the Harzburg. The Saxons were treated with the utmost scorn. The country people in the vicinity were oppressed with taxes and enforced labour, and the dislike with which the Saxons were viewed by the monarch ere long became as unbearable to them as his licentious habits, which were, with reason, a scandal and a shame to the whole empire. His mistresses were seen in public adorned with gold and precious stones, taken from the consecrated vessels of the churches, etc. The jealousy with which the vassals of the empire beheld Adalbert was, nevertheless, the chief motive of the conspiracy. Anno again suddenly intermeddled with state affairs, and convoking a general assembly at Tribur, cited Henry to appear before it. On his refusal, the conspirators surrounded the palace, and seized his person; Adalbert narrowly escaped being taken prisoner, and remained for three years in concealment, while the Saxons laid his lands waste. Werner was slain. The courtiers were dispersed, and Henry was compelled to abjure his mode of life, and to wed Bertha, the daughter of the Italian Markgraf of Susa, to whom he had some time earlier been affianced; a noble-spirited woman who alone wanted beauty in order easily to supplant the mistresses of the young emperor, who returned with her in extreme displeasure to Goslar, AD1066.

Anno was again at the head of affairs, but the whole empire still presented a scene of anarchy; the temporal and spiritual lords disputed the possession of feudal territories, and offices of church and state. Cuno, archbishop of Treves, who owed his elevation to the intrigues of Anno, was precipitated down a mountain by the enraged citizens. The dissensions that prevailed throughout the empire, and the free-booting expeditions of the Saxon chiefs into the archbishopric of Bremen, induced a fresh insurrection among the northern Slavi, and the heathen party, headed by Plasso, Gottschalk's brother-in-law, extirpated Christianity. The vain attempts of Ordulf, the son of Bernhard, and, after his death, those of his son Magnus, to oppose the inroads of the Slavi, merely added to the misery of the Saxons, and imbittered their hatred of their inactive and licentious emperor. Hamburg and Mecklenburg were destroyed by the pagans, who sacrificed John, bishop of Mecklenburg, to their deities, stoned St Ansverus, the abbot of Ratzeburg, and twenty-eight monks, to death, assassinated the noble Gottschalk at Lenzen, at the foot of the altar, and turned his Danish wife out naked. Plasso was murdered by his own followers in 1066, but Cruco, prince of the Rugii, who succeeded him in his dominions, attained to considerable power, being entirely unmolested by the Saxons, whose attention was fully occupied by their contests with the emperor.

In this year important changes took place in the North. Canute the Great, king of Denmark, Norway, and England, had espoused Emma, the princess of Normandy, the widow of Ethelred and mother of Edmund Ironside, the last of the Anglo-Saxon dynasty. She became the mother of Hardicanute, who, on the death of Canute, AD 1036, succeeded to the thrones of Denmark and Norway; Harold Harefoot, the son of Canute by a former marriage, inheriting that of Britain. On the death of these princes, AD 1041, a general revolution took place, and Denmark alone remained in the possession of a nephew of Canute the Great, Suen Estridsen, whose daughter, Siritha, wedded Gottschalk, the pious prince of the Obotrites. Harald Haardrade (the Hard), a half-brother of Magnus the Good, was raised to the throne of Norway. The youth of this soldier of fortune had been spent in search of adventure; he had commanded the Waringers at Constantinople, had served with great gallantry against the Turks and the Servii, had refused the hand of Zoe, the Greek empress, for which he had been thrown into prison, whence he escaped, married Elisifa, the daughter of Jaroslaw, the Russian czar, and finally returned to the North, to mount the throne of Norway, where his brother Magnus had already made terms with Hardicanute. The throne of England was occupied by Edward the Confessor, a son of Ethelred and of Emma, who was, consequently, half-brother to Hardicanute, whose birth excited in his breast such unnatural hatred toward his mother that he openly accused her of having a bishop for her paramour, and condemned her to undergo the ordeal by fire. She was accordingly compelled to pass over nine red-hot plowshares. Edward was childless. His brother, Edmund Ironside, had left two sons, who had been sent by Canute into Denmark, whence they had escaped to Hungary, where they had been kindly received by the king, Salomo. One of these sons, Edward, had several children born to him in Hungary, among whom was Edgar Atheling, the last scion of the ancient Anglo-Saxon dynasty. Edgar was invited by his great-uncle, Edward the Confessor, to England, but proving incapable of governing, Harold, the son of Goodwin, a powerful Anglo-Saxon noble, was raised to the throne, and Edgar, on the death of Edward the Confessor, sought the protection of William, duke of Normandy, his maternal relative. Harald Haardrade, of Norway, meanwhile took advantage of the disturbances in England to attempt the conquest of that country. Toste, the brother of Harold the Saxon, had, through envy of his brother's accession to the crown, joined Harald Haardrade, who landed in England at the head of a powerful army, and a bloody engagement took place between him and the English near Stamford, in which both Harald Haardrade and Toste were slain, and the Norwegian army was almost annihilated. The losses of the English were also so considerable in this engagement that William of Normandy took advantage of their weakness to make a descent upon England under pretext of reinstating Edgar, but, in reality, with the intention of taking possession of the country for himself.

The, independent spirit of the Anglo-Saxon clergy had been long beheld with uneasiness by the pope, who, in the hope of increasing his influence in England, greatly favoured the Norman expedition. The emperor also permitted the duke to raise soldiers within his states, and crowds of Ger­mans flocked beneath his standard. He also promised to make an inroad into France, in the event of an attack upon Normandy during the absence of her duke, by the king of that country, whom William greatly feared. Thus arose the first treaty between England and Germany against France.—William sailed for England at the head of a gallant and numerous army, and was opposed by Harold with more courage than prudence. The celebrated battle of Hastings, AD 1066, in which Harold, after an obstinate struggle, was defeated and slain, decided the fate of England. William, with a perfidy equalling that of Harold, consigned the claims of Edgar to oblivion, placed the English crown on his own head, and, after either expelling or assassinating the Anglo-Saxon nobility, replaced them by those among his own followers who had distinguished themselves in the field, among whom were adventurers from almost every nation in Europe. The feudal system, introduced by William the Conqueror and his new nobility, replaced the ancient Anglo-Saxon Germanic commonwealth; the Anglo-Saxon language also became intermixed with numerous French words, which the Normans had learned from their neighbours.

The imbecile Edgar did homage in person to the new sovereign. His sister, Margaret, acted with greater spirit, and, with a vast number of followers, emigrated into Scotland, where she was well received by the king, Malcolm, the son of Duncan, who was murdered by Macbeth. Malcolm made her his queen, and the Saxon tongue and customs introduced by her followers were partially adopted by the wild and hardy Scots. Margaret was canonized. Her daughter, Matilda, wedded the son of her enemy, Henry I of England, and from her descends, in an unbroken line on the female side, the present queen of England, while from Margaret, upward, the race of the ancient Anglo-Saxon kings is, by the old chroniclers, carried as far back as Odin.

While the North was thus convulsed, the imperial court presented a continued scene of petty dissension. The emperor, still influenced by the prejudices of his youth, was alternately swayed by conflicting passions, but at length, notwithstanding the opposition of Anno and Bertha, recalled Adalbert to court in1069. The fidelity and patience of the wretched empress merely contributed to increase the dislike manifested toward her by her husband, and to strengthen his resolution to free himself from the tie that bound him to her. Siegfried, archbishop of Mayence, offered to assist him in procuring a divorce, on condition of receiving in return the tithes of Thuringia, to which he had laid claim, and which had been hitherto steadily refused by the Thuringians; and Henry made a public declaration at a diet held at Worms, of his unconquerable aversion to his unoffending life, from whom he demanded a separation on the plea of the marriage having remained unconsummated. His plan being frustrated by the arrival of Damiani, the pope's legate, in Germany, whose eloquence even impressed his versatile mind, he attempted to gain his end by still more unjustifiable means, by exposing Bertha to the seductions of his courtiers. He caused the most beautiful women and maidens to be carried from their homes, and imprisoned within his palace, while he surrounded the empress with the companions of his profligacy, to the handsomest of whom he promised large sums of money if successful in insnaring Bertha, who, nevertheless, escaped their wiles, and a chronicler of the times relates that she and her maidens on one occasion, when the emperor and his wicked companion were listening to their conversation in the dusk of the evening, suddenly attacked and beat them with rods; an incident that seems to have instantly given her a place in Henry's affection, and which is far from improbable, for, despite his deep depravity, his heart was made of far too soft materials not to be eventually touched by her invincible fidelity; Bertha bore him several children, and shared his subsequent misfortunes.

Henry belonged to that class of men whom sanguine, lively, generous dispositions render truly amiable, when uninfluenced by misguided passion, but who, unfitted by nature, are ever unsuccessful when required to govern themselves or others. The actions of such men, dependent upon the impulse or caprice of the moment, must necessarily be indifferently good or bad. Impatient of calm thought, or cool judgment, their impetuous nature renders them incapable of following the dictates of their reason or of their conscience. Dispositions of this kind are rarely understood, and are usually attributed to want of character, and yet those who at one moment condemn them for the crimes induced by the abuse of their weaknesses, are, in the next, struck with admiration at traits of the most extraordinary magnanimity, if not of real heroism; royal qualities, indeed, but still unfit for the throne, where justice and equanimity should reign, and where the sudden change in the sovereign from good to bad, and vice versa, is more to be feared than if he remained true to his vices. That the character of Henry IV was a compound of sensuality, insolence, levity, choler, malice, revenge, treachery, and mean cowardice, strangely intermingled with real piety, generosity, the most devoted affection, the noblest sympathy, bold resolve, and heroic bravery, may be clearly traced, when the insolence of fortune, total abandonment in misfortune, the wickedness or the success of his enemies, roused his evil passions, or when, swayed by remorse for his own crimes, by the consciousness of possessing nobler and better qualities, by com­passion for the sufferings of his enemies, or of those whom he had ill-treated, and by the fidelity of his friends, he suddenly inclined to virtue.

The dangerous and extreme severity with which he treated the dukes appears to have arisen more from his youthful propensity, the love of displaying his power, than from the lessons of Adalbert, or his father’s example; and this was evidently strengthened by a desire of avenging his abduction from Kaiserswerth and his imprisonment at Tribur, which, as a monarch, and in the consciousness of his guilt, he ought to have consigned to oblivion. Urged by his hatred of the Saxons, he treated the duke Magnus and the Margraves, as well as the bishops who adhered to Anno's party, with the greatest scorn, imposed heavy taxes on the people, encouraged the Wendi in their attacks upon the country, as thereby doing him service, entered into a secret alliance with the Danes under pretense of securing himself against an inroad of the Saxons, and continually threatened to render Thuringia dependent on the archbishopric of Mayence. The Saxons, impatient of being thus treated like a conquered nation, rested their hopes upon Otto of Nordheim, duke of Bavaria, who was suddenly accused, by a man named Egino, of having hired him to assassinate Henry, whose knavery at that time was so well known as to induce a suspicion of his having himself fabricated the plot. The matter was adjudged to be decided by single combat, but Otto, justly fearing treachery, absented himself, upon which Henry declared him guilty, placed him out of the ban of the empire, and taking possession of his dukedom of Bavaria, gave it in fee to the Welf. This Welf, who had been educated in Italy, and was a master in Italian wiles, was the most ignoble of the princes of those times, and proved as great a scandal to Henry's choice as he was ungrateful to him for his favours. With genuine cowardice, ever joining the stronger party, he had the meanness to send back his bride, the daughter of Otto, in disgrace to her father, who went into Saxony, and confederating with Magnus, raised a rebellion. Both were, however, under pretext of arranging terms of peace, seized, and Magnus was thrown into prison. Otto was allowed to remain at liberty by the emperor, either from a feeling of the injustice with which he had treated him or from a political motive.

The death of Adalbert, which, fortunately for the empire, took place during this, year, once more threw the reins of government for a short period into the hands of Anno. Henry, emboldened by his late success, now attempted to reduce the rest of the dukes to submission. His first attack was made upon the weakest, Berthold, whom he deprived of the dukedom of Carinthia, in order to bestow it upon Ludolf, the son of the former duke. Rudolf of Swabia was protected from a similar fate by his superior power, and by his being doubly and closely connected with the emperor by his marriage with Matilda, after whose death he had espoused the sister of Bertha; Agnes, who had purposely quitted Italy for Germany, was enabled to bring about a reconciliation between the contending relations.

Great disturbances also broke out in Flanders. The count, Balduin VI, died in 1071, leaving his widow, Richilda, with two infant sons, Arnulf and Balduin. Richilda governed in the name of the former, but, rendering herself hated by her tyranny, she was abandoned by her subjects, who transferred their allegiance to Robert the Friscian, her husband's brother. Richilda now implored the aid of her feudal liege, Philip I of France, who accordingly entered Flanders at the head of a numerous army, but was completely routed at Castel (Cassel) by Robert, who was backed by the whole of the German population. Richilda was taken prisoner, and her unfortunate son was put to death. Robert, while too hotly pursuing the retreating French, falling into their hands, Gottfried, bishop of Paris, intervened between the contending parties, and peace was concluded. Robert was restored to liberty, and received the ducal crown of Flanders. Richilda was also set at liberty, and Hennegau was bestowed upon her second son, Balduin, AD 1073. A second attempt on her part to regain possession of Flanders proved abortive, and her party suffered a bloody defeat at Brogneroy.

Henry, meanwhile, excited the hatred of the Saxons by his insolence and tyranny. The country was kept in awe by the strongly fortified Harzburg, and by numerous minor fortresses, garrisoned, with Franks, and Swabians, who were supported by the pillage of the neighbouring villages. A synod, held by the emperor at Erfurt, in which he imposed the tithes demanded by the archbishop of Mayence on Thuringia, effectually imbittered the minds of the Saxon bishops against him, and, in 1073, a conspiracy, planned by Otto of Nordheim, was entered into by the Saxons. The chiefs in thig conspiracy were Graf Hermann, the brother of the captive Duke Magnus, Udo von Stade, Margrave of Brandenburg, Egbert, Margrave of Meissen, and Dedo, Margrave of the Lausitz, the two sons of the Ekbert who had formerly seized the person of the monarch, Louis, Landgrave of Thuringia, the son of Louis the Bearded, Frederick, the Pfalzgraf of Saxony, the Grafs of Holstein, Waldeck, Supliaburg, and numerous others. Among the spiritual lords were, Wezilo, of Magdeburg, Bucco, of Halberstadt, whose pursuits were rather those of a warrior than of a bishop, Anno's nephew and Henry's most violent opponent, and Benno of Meissen, a peaceful missionary, a planter of the fruit-tree and the vine, besides all the other Saxon bishops, with the exception of those of Bremen, Zeiz, and Osnabruck, who sided with the emperor, and were consequently expelled from the country. Adela, the wife of the Margrave Dedo, an ambitious and rancorous woman, was also ceaseless in her endeavours to incite the Saxons, whose complaints against their emperor, although just in the outset, were purposely exaggerated.

The object of the conspiracy of the princes, instead of being the relief of the people, merely aimed at securing their own independence; a project that was, however, defeated by the reciprocal jealousy between the rulers of Northern and Southern Germany. The Saxon league at first laid its complaints before Henry at Goslar, in the form of a petition for redress, and the noble-spirited Otto of Nordheim offered to be imprisoned in the place of his brother Magnus, on condition of his being restored to his dukedom. The deputation, after being allowed to remain during a whole day in the anteroom, was at length scornfully dismissed by Henry. The Saxons, provoked to violence by this conduct, were still more excited by Otto of Nordheim, who loudly called upon them to revenge the insult, and suddenly assembling to the number of sixty thousand, they besieged the emperor in the Harzburg. Overcome by fear, Henry sought safety by secret flight, in which he was assisted by Berthold of Zahringen, who accidentally happened to be present. The Harzburg was taken by the Saxons, who, nevertheless, did not venture to destroy it; several other forts also fell into their hands; the rest were gallantly defended by the imperial garrisons. Magnus was set at liberty in exchange for seventy Swabians, who were captured in a fort by his brother Hermann; a circumstance that gave rise to the Saxon proverb, "One Saxon is worth seventy Swabians."

Henry fled to Hersfleld, where, finding the Upper Germans, whom he had shortly before summoned for the purpose of invading Poland, assembled, he resolved to make head with them against the Saxons, and called a meeting at Gerstungen, in which, although the Upper German princes declared their unwillingness to enter into a contest with Saxony, the, Saxon party attempted to work upon the passions of Rudolf of Swabia, by means of a person named Regingar, whom they caused to make the false assertion of his having been hired by the emperor to assassinate him. Ulric of Cosheim, Henry's true and valiant adherent, challenged the accuser to single combat, which never took place, Regingar being deprived of his senses before the day appointed for the trial. The princes, meanwhile, withdrew their allegiance from Henry, who, seeing himself universally abandoned, took refuge in Worms, where the brave citizens, jealous of their new privileges, had, at that period, just followed the example of their Cologne neighbours, by expelling from their city Adalbero, their bishop, a man of inordinate corpulence. The emperor was received with every demonstration of delight, the cities, as well as the free peasantry, supporting him against the pretensions of the princes and minor nobility; and had Henry understood how to make use of the means thus voluntarily put into his power, the victory would have easily been his: but ignorant of the strength of his new adherents, and influenced by an undue fear of that of the dukes, his cowardly behaviour ere long cooled the zeal of the citizens. He again suddenly appeared in the assembly of the Upper German princes at Oppenheim, and throwing himself at their feet, at length drew from them a lukewarm promise of assistance against the Saxons. His troops, however, refusing to attack the enemy on the Werra, he was compelled to sign a treaty of peace at Goslar, in which he granted all the demands of the Saxons. The tithes were abolished; every fortress, even that of the Harz, which Henry vainly entreated might be spared, was razed to the ground. The Saxons had even the barbarity to drag the remains of a brother and of a son of the emperor from the grave, in order to bestow upon them every mark of indignity, AD 1073; an act of sacrilege so revolting to the feelings of the times that every prince of the empire, those of the Rhine country, and of Upper Germany, nay, even the Bohemians, joined in a crusade against them, and Henry quickly found himself at the head of an immense army. The contempt with which the Saxons treated their brother nations, and the petty hatred that had ever subsisted between the Upper and Lower Germans, greatly contributed to the universal exasperation. The Saxons, fearing the event, offered to yield to any terms, even to the reconstruction of the Harzburg; but Henry, inspirited by revenge, had sworn their ruin, and suddenly attacked them near Langensalza, on the Unstrutt. A bloody battle ensued, which was decided by the valour of the Swabians, under Rudolf. The Saxon nobles turned their horses and fled; the infantry, deprived of every means of escape, were cut down by thousands, and thus, while the Saxon peasants alone suffered, numbers of the nobility in the imperial army fell on this occasion; among others, Ernst of Babenberg, Margrave of Austria. The ancient privilege of the Swabians to head the imperial army was again confinned to them on the field of battle.

Rudolf, Welf, and Berthold, after this, fearing the rising power of the emperor, withdrew; but notwithstanding the consequent diminution of his forces, Henry succeeded in reducing the Saxons (who had become a prey to internal dissension, the peasantry being unable to forget the late dastardly conduct of the nobility, and who were, moreover, threatened by the Danes and Wends) to submission, AD 1076. They laid down their arms at Spira, in Thuringia; all the princes gave themselves up, and were thrown into prison, with the exception of Otto of Nordheim, who, although Henry's bitterest enemy, had ever been viewed by him with more admiration than dislike. He was nominated duke of Saxony.

 

CXLIII. Gregory the Seventh

 

Alexander II died in 1073, and Hildebrand, now advanced in years, deemed it necessary, for the success of his plans, to place the tiara on his own brows, under the name of Gregory VII. The Saxon war favoured his projects. At first he sought to gain Henry's friendship, and Agnes offered to use her influence in his favour, but he quickly perceived how little dependence could be placed on the caprices of that monarch, and resolved to act in future for himself alone.

This pope evinced the most extraordinary degree of activity. Although unsuccessful in Germany, he rendered the papal authority respected throughout Spain, France, and Hungary. He then proceeded to carry out his favourite projects for the reformation of the church, by punishing simony, encouraging morality, and depriving the laity of the right of interference in spiritual matters. For this purpose he published two edicts, which will ever be memorable on account of their influence not only on the ensuing century, but also on our own times.

His next step was to decree the celibacy of all the clergy. Up to this period, AD 1074, the monks had practiced celibacy, the bishops and priests having wives and children. Piety, and the renunciation of worldly joys, had arrived at such a pitch of enthusiasm that chastity seemed to have become a necessary quality in a priest, more especially since the introduction of the worship of the Madonna, whose supposed eternal virginity presented an idea of purity and sanctity which swayed Christian minds the more powerfully on account of the contrast it presented to the tenets of the Mahometan religion, founded alone on license and sensual gratification. The sufferings of Christ and those of the martyrs were eternally cited as proofs that the highest aim of the Christian was to suffer and to practice self-denial; the priests were, consequently, expected to set the first and highest example. They were (during their earthly pilgrimage) to personate the saints and the holy angels. By this means Gregory also hoped to strengthen the unity of the church. As long as the bishops were allowed to marry, their families took hereditary possession of the bishoprics, and sought, like the nobility, to render themselves alike independent of both pope and emperor. Celibacy at once controlled the ambition of the clergy, and dissolving every tie between them, their country, and their kindred, rendered them the servants of the pope and of the church, and formed them into a class distinct from the rest of mankind; but Gregory falsely reckoned when founding this great institution. He expected too much from human nature. Celibacy is at variance with laws both human and divine, and nature vindicated herself by broken vows, hypocrisy, and dark and secret crimes. The priests, particularly those in Germany, strongly opposed this decree, and when Siegfried of Mayence proposed the measure in an assembly of the German bishops at Erfurt, it was opposed with such violence that his life was in danger. Altmann, bishop of Passau, Gregory's most zealous partisan, was expelled by his own chapter. Gregory upon this raised a popular feeling against the uxorious clergy, by placing them under excommunication, and by forbidding the people to attend mass. His policy proved successful. It was in vain that Otto, bishop of Constance, and Ulrich, of Ratisbon, justified the marriage of the clergy, by the citation of passages from the Epistles of St. Paul, and from other parts of the Bible; it was in vain that they appealed to the laws of nature; the priest, in the opinion of the people, was to be as free from earthly taint as an angel of light; and natural affection was denounced by them as a culpable and sensual weakness. The German clergy were, before long, compelled to obey the decree of their superior.

A second decree of equal importance followed. The pope forbade the election of the bishops by the laity, and by thus rendering the possession of benefices no longer dependent on the caprice of the monarch and his courtiers, effectually prevented simony. This decree further declared the church independent of the state, and the extensive lands, which, up to this period, bad been held as feofs of the crown through, the monarch's right of election, the property of the church. The clergy alone were invested with the power of electing the bishops, who were confirmed by the pope, the temporal sovereign being without a voice in the matter.

Gregory also confirmed without delay the interdiction formerly pronounced against the doctrines of Rantram and of Berengar of Tours, and laid down as an eternal truth, that the body and blood of Christ were really present in the sacramental bread and wine, and that the priest alone—in fact, every priest indifferently, whether personally worthy or unworthy—was enabled, merely by virtue of his office, to transform the host into the real body of the Saviour (transubstantiation). Moreover, in order to place the church, now powerful and independent, under one head, Gregory bestowed upon himself, and all future popes, unlimited authority over the councils, and declared every assembly of the clergy invalid unless convoked by the pope. Like Charlemagne, who,  when he had firmly rooted his power, governed his extensive territory by means of Sendgrafs, Gregory dispatched his legates, who, acting in his name, were infallible like him, to the various European courts. He declared, "the pope is through God and instead of God on earth, therefore all powers, whether temporal or spiritual, are subject to him. The pope is the sun, the emperor the moon that shines with borrowed light."

The Saxons had not failed to lay their complaints against their sovereign before the pope, and Henry, by thoughtlessly complaining to him of his rebellious subjects, gave him an opportunity of setting himself up as umpire. Gregory, well aware of the weak nature of the emperor and of his own power, treated him without reserve, and openly accusing him of simony, haughtily commanded him to come in person to Rome, and excommunicated those among the bishops who had been guilty of a similar crime. Henry, unacquainted with Gregory's character, took the matter lightly, and held a convocation of the German bishops at Worms,  AD 1076, by which Gregory was deposed. This called forth a still more decisive step on the part of the bold pontiff, who placed the emperor under an interdict, released his subjects from their oath of allegiance, and declared him deprived of his dignity. Henry at first treated the acts of the proud monk with scorn, but was quickly struck with terror on perceiving their instantaneous effect. With the exception of the inhabitants of the cities, whose commercial habits, and the free peasantry, whose ancient Germanic constitution, had ever been opposed to papacy, Henry was deserted to a man by his subjects, who avoided him as one infected with the plague. The Saxons, led by Otto of Fordheim, instantly flew to arms. The foreign garrisons were driven out of the country. Several of the imprisoned princes escaped. The remainder, after a touching appeal from Henry for peace and aid, were restored to liberty: but his evil hour had at length arrived; all his enemies, even Welf, who owed him such a debt of gratitude, found an excuse for their treason, their revenge, or their rapacity, in the papal interdict, and Henry, abandoned by all, was, notwithstanding his earnest entreaties, declared, in a diet held at Oppenheim, deprived of his dignity, until he had freed himself from the interdict, and the pope was invited to visit Augsburg during the following year, in order to settle the affairs of Germany. The election of Rudolf in Henry's stead was next attempted, and in order to render it impossible for the unfortunate emperor to free himself from the interdict, he was assigned a close residence at Spires, and deprived of any mode of communication with Italy. In this desperate situation he found that his only chance of safety lay in being beforehand with the rebellious princes, by escaping to Italy, and imploring the pope at any price to raise the interdict; and he accordingly secretly set off with that intent, accompanied by Bertha, his infant son, and a solitary knight, who, it is not known upon what grounds, is said by the Swabian chronicler, Crusius, to have been Frederick of Buren, the ancestor of the Hohenstaufen family. The winter of this year, 1076, happened to be colder than had been known within the memory of man, and the Rhine remained frozen over from St. Martin's day until the April of 1077. It was in this dreadful weather, about Christmas time, that the imperial pilgrims, each moment dreading discovery from Rudolf's spies, crossed the pathless Alps, and reached Vevey on the Lake of Geneva in safety. Here they were forcibly detained by Bertha's mother and by her brother Amadeus, Graf of Savoy, from whom they purchased a free passage by the cession of five Burgundian bishoprics. They crossed the St. Bernard during the depth of winter, and Bertha, whom neither danger nor distress could separate from her husband, was drawn over the ice seated on an ox-hide, while the most Christian emperor climbed like a chamois hunter along the rocky, dangerous paths.

On entering Lombardy he was unexpectedly met by numbers of the Italian princes and bishops, by whom he was deferentially greeted as emperor. Those among the Italians who had at that time fallen under the papal interdict, particularly the bishops of Milan and Ravenna, joined Henry, and exhorted him to place himself at their head for the purpose of dethroning the pope; but, still influenced by his awe of the German princes, the dispirited emperor refused, and resolved to remain faithful to his original intention of imploring Gregory's pardon. The pope, who happened at this moment to be on his way to Augsburg, was not a little alarmed on receiving the news of Henry's arrival in Italy, and for the better security of his person threw himself into the fortress of Oanossa, whose gates were opened to him by his ally, the Countess Matilda, who shortly before had become a widow. Gottfried the Hunchback, Henry's most faithful adherent, was secretly assassinated, and Gregory, on account of his intimacy with Matilda, who bestowed her wealth on the church, was accused by his enemies of the crime. The accusation of an improper intercourse between him and Matilda is, there is no doubt, false; Gregory's natural inclinations rendered him no admirer of the sex, nor could any temptation have induced him to cast the slightest stain on his sacred character. Superstitious zeal and piety bound Matilda to his cause, and he fully appreciated the value of so powerful an adherent.

Henry now entreated Matilda to intercede in his behalf, and Gregory, at first surprised at his penitence when backed by a body of armed partisans, quickly understood his position, and assumed the greatest severity, commanding him to come alone and as a penitent to Canossa. Henry obeyed, and was allowed to enter the castle. The gates closed behind him, and for three days and three nights he remained bareheaded and barefoot, without food, exposed in a woolen garment to the severe cold, between the double walls of the fort, until the pope, moved by the earnest supplications of those around him, especially by those of Matilda, called him into his presence, and released him from the interdict, on condition of his leaving to him the final settlement of affairs in Germany, and of not resuming the title of emperor until permission was granted so to do. A solemn mass was then performed, and Gregory, taking the holy wafer into his hands, broke it in half, saying, "If the crimes of which you accused me at Worms be true, may the host that I now eat cause me instantly to die." He then swallowed it, and turning to the emperor, said, "Now eat the other half, and make a similar protestation of your innocence of the charges I make against you." Henry refused, and after undergoing every species of humiliation was dismissed by the triumphant pope.

The Italians, indignant at his weak and cowardly conduct, now openly deserted him. Unable to endure their scorn, he resolved to break the oath he had just taken, and shut up Gregory so closely in the castle of Canossa as effectually to put a stop to his further progress to Augsburg or his return to Rome; at the same time the interdicted bishops' and Henry's partisans among the German laity, among whom Eberhard, Graf of Nellenburg, may be chiefly distinguished, flocked beneath his standard.

 

CXLIV. The Papal Kings

 

The German princes, meanwhile, vainly awaited the arrival of the pope. At length came the news of Henry's unexpected re-establishment, and Rudolf, yielding at once to the press of circumstances, and to his ambition, threw off his allegiance, and caused himself to be proclaimed emperor at Mayence, where he was crowned by the archbishop. The citizens of Mayence, Henry's partisans, viewed the ceremony for some time in enforced silence, but a quarrel breaking out during the tournament that followed, a general rise took place, and, after a desperate affray between them and the Swabian troops, Rudolf was compelled to quit the city; he then proceeded to Worms, with the intention of securing himself within the fort, but found the city gates closed against him. This was the prelude to a general struggle throughout Germany between his party and that of Henry, which was rendered the more desperate by the refusal of the interdicted bishops of Henry's party to cede their bishoprics to the bishops who had been nominated to supersede them by Gregory. Henry found numerous adherents in the moun­tains, and although Welf had seized the passes, and laid the country of the Grisons, where the emperor's party was upheld by Dietmar, bishop of Chur, waste, Sieghart, the patriarch of Aglar (Aquileia), opened Carniola to him; Marquardt, the son of the lately expelled duke, Adalbero, drove Berthold of Zahringen out of Carinthia. Henry also found an ally in Wratislaw of Bohemia, and received great accessions to his party from Welf's numerous enemies among the Bavarian nobility. On reaching Ulm, he held a public court, and put Rudolf and his adherents out of the ban of the empire.

The whole of Germany was divided into two parties, that of the emperor and that of St. Peter, which gave rise to the great division in the German nation which, at a later period, attained such melancholy celebrity as the strife between the Welfs and the Waiblinger, or Guelphs and Ghibellines. Swabia, where the people fluctuated between the duke and the emperor, was in uproar. The nobility and the bishops favoured both sides; the cities and free cantons all pronounced in favour of the emperor. In Augsburg, Mathias Corsang preached against, and Geroch in favour of the pope; the latter was driven by the citizens out of the town. Wurzburg made a desperate defense against Rudolf, and twelve thousand peasants from the cantons swelled the ranks of the imperial army. Franconia, AD1078, was laid waste, and became the seat of war. A pitched battle was fought between the contending parties near Melrichstadt, in which the victory remained undecided, one wing of the imperial army, commanded by Henry, routing the enemy, while the same part was performed on the other side by Rudolf's Saxon adherents, headed by Otto of Nordheim. Siegfried of Mayence, the wicked bishop of Worms, and the papal legate, fell into Henry's hands; Wezilo of Magdeburg was killed during his flight. The brave Eberhard of Nellenburg and the Swabian peasants, were, on the other hand, cut to pieces by the Saxons; a dreadful fate awaited every peasant who was taken prisoner by the nobles, who had resolved, at whatever price, to crush these dangerous defenders of liberty.

For a while either party rested. Berthold of Zahringen died of grief in 1078, for the losses he had suffered in this battle, into which he had been driven against his will. His son, Berthold, favoured Rudolf, whose daughter, Agnes, he married. Rudolf was, nevertheless, superseded in the dukedom of Swabia by Frederick of Hohenstaufen, a Swabian noble, who had given striking proofs of fidelity to the emperor, and by whom he was further raised by the gift of his daughter Agnes in marriage. Frederick's name was von Buren, until the building of the castle of Staufen (on which the whole glory of the German empire was destined to rest), at the outlet of the Swabian Alp.

Gregory, greatly disconcerted by this turn in affairs, temporized, in order to see on which side victory would declare herself. The Saxons, irritated by this conduct, and, moreover, incited by Gebhard, archbishop of Salzburg, who had been deposed by Henry, addressed three letters to him, which received the nickname of "the cock-crowing, being intended, like the voice of St. Peter's cock, to move his successor to remorse. A whole year passed in fruitless negotiations. In the winter of 1080, Henry again attacked Rudolf, and a second engagement took place near Fladenheim in Thuringia, in which the invincible Otto of Nordheim again proved victorious. This success decided Gregory in Rudolf's favour, and he not only confirmed him in the title he had usurped, but, as the genuine crown jewels of Charlemagne, and of Otto the Great, were in Henry's possession, also presented him with a new diadem, for which he was to hold the empire as a papal fief: the inscription it bore ran thus, "Petra dedit Petro, Petrus diadema Rudolpho." He then again solemnly excommunicated Henry, who, on the other hand, convoked a German concilium at Brixen, by which Gregory was for a second time deposed, and the archbishop of Ravenna was nominated in his stead, as Pope Clement III, A.D. 1080.

During the same year, Henry invaded Saxony, burned Erfurt, and a third engagement took place near Grona on the Elster, in the great plain lying between Merseburg and Leipzig, famous for the victory gained by Henry the Fowler over the Hungarians, and, at a later period, the scene of many a hard-fought battle. Otto of Nordheim was again victorious; Rudolf was mortally wounded, and in the struggle was deprived of his right hand by Gottfried, a cousin of Gottfried the Hunchback, whom he succeeded in the dukedom of Lower Lothringia; he afterward acquired great celebrity under the name of Bouillon, his maternal inheritance. When dying, Rudolf exclaimed as he looked at his mutilated limb, "This is the hand by which I swore allegiance to Henry." He was buried with regal honours at Merseburg. On the capture of this city shortly after by Henry, he was advised to destroy his tomb, to which he replied, "Would to God that all my enemies were as splendidly entombed."

The death of Rudolf left his party without a leader, and rendered their late victory useless. Henry gained dayly fresh adherents, and was ere long enabled to leave the conduct of the war in Germany to Frederick of Hohenstaufen, and to visit Italy in person, for the purpose of humbling his old antagonist, Gregory. He quickly crossed the Alps, overthrew Matilda's party near Parma, and pushed on to Rome, to which he laid siege for three years without success; at length, Wiprecht von Groitsch, a Saxon knight, mounted the walls and took the city by storm, AD 1083. Gregory, who had shut himself within the castle of St. Angelo, secretly escaped to Salerno, where he was joyfully received by the Normans. Henry, meanwhile, placed Clement III in the papal chair, and, after being solemnly crowned emperor, returned to Germany. Gregory instantly returned to Rome at the head of the wild Normans, who took the city, and, deaf to his remonstrances, began the work of pillage. The Romans, rendered desperate, collected in vast multitudes, drove the enemy beyond the walls, and compelled the pope again to seek shelter in Salerno, where he died in 1085. His last words were worthy of his life: "Because I have loved justice," exclaimed he, "and punished injustice, I die an exile!"

In Germany the Saxons had proclaimed Hermann of Luxemburg their king, at Eisleben. He received the nick­name of "the garlic king," on account of the quantity of garlic that grew around Eisleben. He was a man of mean intellect, and completely subservient to Welf, Berthold von Zahringen, and Leopold of Austria. Otto von Nordheim was killed by a fall from his horse. Welf was beaten by Frederick of Swabia at Hochstadt, and Leopold of Austria and Altmann, bishop of Passau, by Wratislaw of Bohemia at Mauerberg. The free peasantry of Friesland, headed by the archbishop of Bremen, fought on Henry's side; they were put to the rout and cut to pieces by the Saxon Count von Mansfeld, and the nobles again betrayed the hatred they bore them by leaving their dead bodies unburied on the field.

In 1085, the emperor returned from his Italian expedition, and, after several fruitless attempts at negotiation, again invaded Saxony, and rapidly reduced his opponents, the newly elected king, Hermann, Hartwig, the new archbishop of Magdeburg, and his oldest and bitterest enemy, Bucco, to submission. The two latter fled into Denmark, and, on Henry's departure from Saxony, instantly returned thither to plot anew against him. In 1086, Hermann marched upon Wurzburg, in the design of uniting his forces with those of Welf in Upper Saxony, but being beaten at Pleichfeld by the emperor, 1087, he resigned his crown from a conviction of the inutility of opposition. He was despised even by his own menials. He was shortly afterward accidentally killed by a woman, when storming his own castle by night, in order to test the vigilance of his men.

The rebellious Saxons, who were still headed by Ekbert von Meissen, and by Bucco, bishop of Halberstadt, proclaimed the former king. After the death of the brave Otto von Nordheim, Ekbert, the powerful governor of the Slavian frontier, the descendant of the house of Wettin whose wealth and power were founded on rapine and oppression, was Henry's most dangerous opponent; nor did he present a solitary instance of the boundless ambition of the Slavian Markgrafs, whose absolute sovereignty over their enslaved subjects caused them insolently to grasp at the imperial crown. But his attempt proved vain; Welf, actuated by jealousy, abandoned him in order to win for himself a kingdom in the south of Italy. He married his youthful son to the aged Countess Matilda, in the hope of annexing her possessions in Lombardy to Bavaria. On the death of Gregory, his party elected Victor III, and, on his death, Urban II, pope. Clement III was expelled; Gregory's plans were carried out; and the emperor was continually excommunicated. Henry suffered a fresh defeat at the castle of Gleichen in Thuringia, notwithstanding which fortune favoured him. Bucco was surprised and assassinated by the citizens of Goslar, and Ekbert was killed by the servants of the Princess Matilda (Henry's sister, the abbess of Quedlinberg, a woman of great power and influence), who discovered him in a mill. Berthold, the son of Rudolf, also died, and Welf, discontented with the Countess Matilda, who had bestowed her rich possessions on the pope, entreat­ing for peace, the empire once more tasted its blessings, AD 1093. The contending parties retained their former possessions, Welf remaining duke of Bavaria, Magnus, duke of Saxony, Frederick von Staufen, duke of Swabia, Berthold von Zahringen, duke of Upper Alemannia, or Switzerland, Ludolf, duke of Carinthia, Gottfried de Bouillon, duke of Lower Lothringia, while the Margrave Udo retained Brandenburg, the Margrave Leopold, Austria, and the Landgrave Louis, Thuringia. Hermann, a nephew of Berthold von Zahringen, was nominated to the Margraviate of Baden, and the important march of Meissen was bestowed upon the gallant Wiprecht von Groitsch, who was, moreover, confirmed in the possession of the Lausitz, which he had seized with the aid of Bohemia. Wratislaw of Bohemia was raised to the dignity of king, and his brother Conrad was created Margrave of Moravia.

Boleslaw of Poland also took the title of king, and made the important acquisition of Pomerania. Cruco, prince of the Rugii, after besieging Buthue (the son of the unfortunate Gottschalk, who had attempted the restoration of the kingdom of the Obotrites), in Plon, and causing him to be murdered, fell himself by the hand of Buthue's brother, the Christian Henry. Cruco's beautiful wifa, Slavina, who was deeply enamoured of the youthful Henry, entered into the plot, and Cruco was deprived of his head at the banquet table, by a single stroke of his adversary's sword, AD 1105. The pagan Slavi united and made a determined resistance against Henry on the one side, who, as the vassal of the Saxon duke Magnus, received his aid, and against the Poles on the other. Henry gained a decisive victory at Smilow, and another at the mouth of the Trave, in 1106. Pomerania was annexed to Poland.—In Denmark, Sueno the Pious had been succeeded by his son, Canute the Holy, who preserved peace with Germany. His opposition to the pretenders to the imperial crown, and his severity toward his subjects, caused them to revolt. He was besieged and assassinated in a church, whither he had fled for refuge, AD 1086. He was succeeded by his brother Olaf, and, in 1095, by his second brother, Erich Evegod. Charles, the son of Canute, fled into Germany, and was created Count of Flanders. His virtues caused him, at a later period, to share his father's fate. He was murdered by his faithless vassals. Canute and Charles were canonized as martyrs.

All opposition had now ceased within the empire; the pope, Urban II, alone proved refractory, and Henry, ina order to punish his insolence, once more appeared in Italy. Matilda's army was speedily vanquished, and Clement III reinstated in his dignity. Henry then returned to Germany, leaving his son Conrad at the head of affairs in Italy. This young man was incited to rebel against his parent by the Countess Matilda, the ex-pope Urban, and Roger of Sicily, who bestowed upon him the hand of his daughter, Iolanta. Love, ambition, the dread of being excommunicated, and of forfeiting the imperial crown by fidelity to his father, led to this rash and guilty determination, and, in 1095, he caused himself to be solemnly crowned at Milan. His father, after vainly attempting to win him from his purpose, disinherited him, and he was constrained to limit his ambition to Italy, where he was at the mercy of his adherents, who acted solely with a view to their own aggrandizement. The consciousness of his weakness and his remorse for his guilty conduct brought him early to the grave, AD 1101.

 

CXLV. The Crusades

 

It was about this period that an immense movement, caused by the agitation of men's minds, took place throughout Europe, and produced a second and enormous migration. Fired by religious enthusiasm, countless multitudes collected from various parts of Europe, in order to combat the infidels, and in these crusades the spirit of the Middle Ages stood fully developed, freed from the petty feuds that marked the times.

As early as the reign of the Ottos, pilgrimages to the holy sepulchre at Jerusalem had become frequent; a black garment, a long staff, a broad-brimmed hat ornamented with the mussel shells found on the coasts of Palestine, and a rosary from Jerusalem, formed the garb worn by the pilgrims. The Arabs, the possessors of the holy city, respected these peaceable wayfarers, and granted them permission to build churches and a hospital in honor of John the Baptist. The Arabian empire was, at that period, on the brink of destruction, and the caliphate was divided. The Omayyads reigned in Spain, the Fatimits in Egypt, and the Abassids at Bagdad; the two last dynasties had already fallen beneath the rule of the Turks, who had at first served under them as mercenary troops, whose sultans acted in the same capacity to the caliph as the majordomo to the kings of France. The great affluence of Christian pilgrims roused the jealousy of the Jews, who until now had monopolized the whole of Eastern commerce, which they feared might gradually pass into the hands of the Christians. The suspicion of their having persuaded Hakim, the caliph of Egypt, to destroy the church erected over the holy sepulchre, and to expel all the Christians from Jerusalem in 1010, occasioned a general persecution of the Jews in France. Daher, the son of Hakim, restoring matters to their former state, and insuring the safety of the pilgrims and the freedom of commerce, the holy sepulchre became an object of still deeper interest, and the number of pilgrims greatly increased. St. Colomabanus, a Scotch pilgrim, being hanged in company with two robbers, at Stockerau in Austria, the tree on which he hung began to blossom, and the people, recognizing him by that sign as a man of God, carried him to Molk and treated his remains with the greatest honour. The fame of this pilgrim was henceforward reflected upon all who bore the staff, and before long not only the commonalty, but princes also became humble wanderers. Robert of Normandy was the first who visited Palestine, in 1033. He was followed by Litbert, bishop of Kamerich, in 1054, and by St. Helena of Sweden, in 1060. The first great expedition was undertaken, AD 1064, by Siegfried, archbishop of Mayence, and the bishops of Bamberg, Ratisbon, and Utrecht, at the head of seven thousand pilgrims, of whom two thousand alone returned. Their path was surrounded with danger. On one occasion they were attacked by a body of twelve thousand Arabs, one of whose sheiks came into the house in which the bishops had taken refuge, and attempted to molest them, upon which Gunther, the gigantic bishop of Bamberg, felled him to the ground with one blow. The Christians, after a valiant defense, were at length rescued from their perilous situation by a tribe of friendly Arabs. Gunther died while on his return to Germany. Altmann performed the pilgrimage on foot, before his elevation to the bishopric of Passau, and Robert the Friscian also, in order to do penance for his sins, in 1082.

On the advance of the Turks upon Jerusalem, of which they took possession, a dreadful persecution commenced, in 1086, which roused the whole of Europe. Rage and consternation filled every bosom, and one idea, that of invading the Holy Land, and of freeing the sepulchre from pollution by dint of arms, pervaded all classes. The spirit infused into the church by Gregory VII was one great motive of this general enthusiasm, while the example of the Spaniards influenced the whole body of Christian chivalry. The valiant descendants of the Visigoths had, since the commencement of the eighth century, been engaged in ceaseless warfare with the Moors, at first in defense of their liberty and their religion, and at a later period for the recovery of Spain. It was exactly at this conjuncture that Henry, count of Burgundy, the son-in-law of Alfonso, king of Leon, the most powerful of the petty Christian monarchs in Spain, conquered Portugal. The appearance of a remarkable French pilgrim, Peter of Amiens, named the Hermit, however, chiefly contributed to hasten the event. On his return from Palestine with a petition from the persecuted patriarch of Jerusalem, he asserted that he had also been commissioned by Christ himself to save the holy sepulchre. Attired in his travel-soiled pilgrim's garb, and mounted on an ass, having in one hand the letter, in the other a crucifix, he passed through France and Italy, summoning with enthusiastic eloquence, people of every class and of every nation to unite against the infidels. Multitudes obeyed. Urban II placed himself, as pope, at the head of the faithful, and, not venturing to appear in Germany, convoked a great meeting of the clergy, first at Piacenza in Italy, and afterward at Clermont in France, where he addressed the people in a broad green field, graphically depicturing the sufferings of the church in the East, the desecration of the sacred precincts, the temple converted into a Turkish stable, the holy sepulchre of the Saviour defiled by dogs, his followers scorned, tortured, and slain; and concluded by divulging the command from heaven to revenge the cruelties practiced by the infidels, and to rescue the sanctuary. Scarcely had he ceased, than a deafening shout of "It is the will of God! it is the will of God!" arose from the innumerable throng, and numbers dedicated themselves to the service of Christ, in sign of which they wore a red cross on one shoulder.

The lower classes, who in France were suffering from a famine, occasioned by the failure of the crops for several successive years, and who, moreover, may have beheld, in this general arming in honour of God, a means of escaping from the tyranny of the nobility, were first seized by the spirit of religious enthusiasm; and shortly afterward, if not at the same time, every serf who volunteered to serve in the Holy Land was declared free and capable of bearing arms. The first armament, consisting of fifteen thousand men, marched, under the guidance of the knight Walther de Perejo, and his nephew, Walther Sensavehor, or Havenought (who had spent the whole of his fortune on the expedition), from the north of France, AD 1096, and solemnized Easter festival at Cologne; on reaching Hungary, disputes arose concerning their supplies, and they were almost entirely cut to pieces in Bulgaria. The elder Walther died; the younger reached Constantinople with, the remnant of his followers.

Peter the Hermit followed with forty thousand men, among whom were several Germans, took Semlin by storm, forced his way through the Bulgarians, was attacked and beaten by them at Nissa, and, after losing ten thousand men, appeared before the gates of Constantinople with the remainder of the pilgrims, bearing green palm branches in their hands.

The spirit of religious fanaticism, the seeds of which had been so zealously sown by Peter the Hermit, spread, meanwhile, throughout Germany. Signs were beheld in the heavens, and it was currently reported that Charlemagne had risen from his grave, in order to place himself at the head of the crusaders. Gottschalk, a priest from the Pfalz, marched with fifteen thousand men into Hungary, and, after laying the country waste, had the stupidity to allow himself to be persuaded by Kolmany, the Hungarian king, to deliver up his arms, on condition of receiving a free passage, which was no sooner complied with than the faithless Hungarians attacked and cut to pieces the whole of the defenseless Germans, at Meszburg (Mosony?). This expedition was succeeded by another of still greater magnitude, which, proceeding from France, passed through Germany, like the rude Lawine, gaining strength and volume on its course. Without a leader to guide its movements, this senseless multitude followed in the direction taken by a goose and a goat which were driven in advance. William, surnamed the Carpenter, a French knight, was the only person of any note among the number; but when the Germans began to join them, Volkmar the priest, and the Count Emicho von Leiningen, who was influenced by remorse for the sins of his youth, placed themselves at the head of this fresh body of crusaders, who, acting on the notion that the infidels dwelling in Europe should be exterminated before those in Asia should be attacked, murdered twelve thousand Jews. In Treves, many of these unfortunate men, driven to despair, laid violent hands on their children and on themselves, and multitudes embraced Christianity, from which they lapsed the moment the peril had passed! Two hundred Jews fled from Cologne and took refuge in boats; they were overtaken and slain. In Mayence, the archbishop, Rudhart, took them under his protection, and gave them the great hall of his castle for an asylum; the pilgrims, nevertheless, forced their way in, and murdered seven hundred of them in the archbishop's presence. At Spires the Jews valiantly defended themselves. At Worms they all committed suicide. At Magdeburg the archbishop, Ruprecht, amused himself by attacking them during the celebration of the feast of tabernacles, and by seizing their property. The pilgrim band, which is said to have consisted of two hundred thousand souls, chiefly women, priests, and unarmed rabble, advanced into Hungary, but suddenly, while engaged in the siege of Meszburg, was, without any known cause, seized with a panic, put to the rout, and almost entirely cut to pieces. Emicho fled, covered with shame, to his native country. But, notwithstanding this disaster, part of the pilgrims reached Constantinople by other roads through Italy.

A number of Italians had also set off for the same place by sea; the republics of Pisa, Genoa and Venice favouring the crusade from motives of commercial advantage, as well as from piety; and thus by degrees an army of one hundred thousand pilgrims collected beneath the walls of Constantinople, under the banner of Peter the Hermit. The emperor Alexius, weary of supplying their wants, sent them over to Asia, where Peter intended to have awaited the arrival of the great body of knights, which was to have quickly followed on his track; but the French, impatient for war, and greedy of booty, made predatory incursions on their own account into the Turkish territory; and the Germans, animated by their example, pillaged the country and garrisoned the fort of Xerigordon, where they were ere long surrounded by the Turks, to whom they were betrayed by their leader, Reinold, and three thousand of them slain. The French and Italian pilgrims were also cut to pieces, with the exception of three thousand, who made such a valiant defense in an ancient fort that the Greeks spared their lives at Peter's earnest request. Peter escaped, but Walther Sensavehor was slain.

This unsuccessful attempt of the lower orders among the people was succeeded by a much more brilliant armament, composed of chivalry, and led by princes. Godfred, duke of Lower Lothringia (Brabant), surnamed Bouillon, from his castle of that name, the ancient ally of the emperor, Henry IV, and the successful antagonist of Rudolf, the pretender to the crown, raised a body of ten thousand horse and seventy thousand infantry. He was accompanied by his brothers, Eustace and Baldwin, his cousin, Baldwin de Bourg, Count Baldwin von Hennegau, etc.; besides being joined by Count Robert of Flanders, the son of the Friscian, afterward known as Robert of Jerusalem; Hugh de Vermandois, the brother of Philip, king of France; Robert Shortshank, duke of Normandy, the son of William the Conqueror; and the aged one-eyed. Count Raimund of Toulouse. The Netherlanders under Godfred marched in excellent order and unmolested through Hungary, while the French took the route through Italy, AD1096. The latter were joined en route by the fair-haired Bohemund, the son of Robert Guiscard, a man of gigantic stature, and by his cousin Tancred, the most warlike among the Normans of their times. Ademar, the venerable bishop of Puy, accompanied them as legate from the holy see. The French went by sea, and consequently were the first to reach Greece, where Hugh de Vermandois no sooner landed than he was seized and thrown into prison by the emperor Alexius, who only restored him to liberty on condition of his doing homage to him as his liege lord. Alexius, filled with inquietude for the safety of his own empire, left no means untried to effectuate the conquest of the Holy Land in his own name, in order to reduce it to its former state of dependence as a province of the ancient eastern empire. Godfred, on his arrival, learned with rage and astonishment that the brother of the French monarch had taken the oath of allegiance to the Greek emperor; but quickly perceiving the necessity of gaining him as an ally, he submitted to the same ceremony, and his example was followed by all the other princes. Godfred was in return adopted by the emperor as Caesar; that is, as his son. The whole of the crusaders (whose numbers, said to have amounted to six hundred thousand men, are probably exaggerated) crossed over to Asia, and found the country around Nicaea covered with the yet unburied remains of their unfortunate predecessors. Nicaea was taken by storm with considerable loss, and given up to the Greeks. Here the Normans separated from the main body, and taking a line to the left, again divided, in order the more conveniently to procure supplies; in this condition they were attacked by the Turks, and with great difficulty rescued by Godfred. Desert tracts, and burning wastes, destructive alike to the warriors and their steeds, now obstructed the advance of the crusaders. The path was strewn with the dying and the dead. Numbers of the pilgrims turned back in despair. Godfred was dreadfully torn by a bear, from whose claws he bravely rescued one of the unarmed pilgrims. His brother Baldwin, who had been joined by a number of Dutch, Friscians, and Flemish pirates, who for eight years had infested the Mediterranean, marched in advance of the main army, and took the important town of Edessa, where he was met by a procession of Armenian Christians, bearing crosses and banners, who, filled with astonishment at his prowess, sank on their knees before him. The main body mean while reached the celebrated city of Antioch, of which, thirteen years before, the Greek emperor had been deprived, and which still retained its ancient splendour. Its walls long resisted the untaught valour of the warriors of the West, three hundred thousand of whom are said to have laid siege to it. Hunger and pestilence, however, gradually diminished their number, and, in the beginning of 1098, seven hundred horses were all that remained within the Christian camp. These were mounted by seven hundred knights, who attacked and overcame a body of the enemy's cavalry, twenty-five thousand strong, and captured one thousand horses. Godfred continued to fight in advance, and is said, on one occasion, to have cut a Turk so completely in half with a downward stroke that, while one half of his body fell to the ground, the other was borne away by his horse. The Mahometans made great preparations in order to raise the siege of Antioch. The means of retreating upon Constantinople were cut off, and the Danish prince Sven and his bride Fiorina, the daughter of Duke Eudo of Burgundy, with one thousand five hundred Danish knights, were cut to pieces. The great sultan of Bagdad levied the whole force of the Mahometan East, and dispatched his vizier, Kerbugha, at the head of an immense army, to the relief of Antioch, but, before his arrival, the city was betrayed to the Christians, in the June of 1098. The pilgrims were now in their turn suddenly besieged by Kerbugha, whose troops covered the whole country, and rendered it impossible for them to bring supplies into the already famished city. The distress soon became unbearable; and numbers of the pilgrims secretly let themselves down by ropes from the city walls, and fled to the sea-shore, spreading a report that the city was already lost, and inducing the captains of the Genoese ships, the last hope of the crusaders, to return home; upon which the emperor Alexius, who was marching to their relief, in order to take possession of Antioch in his own name, also turned back. The situation of Godfred and the pilgrims now appeared desperate, hunger daily thinned their numbers, and the survivors wandered up and down the city, wan, weak, and spiritless; but, just when they were driven to the last extremity, a priest of Provence, one Peter Barthelemy, announced that the apostle Andrew had appeared to him, and revealed the spot in Antioch where the real holy lance, with which Christ had been pierced when hanging on the cross, lay buried; that they were to seek for it and to bear it before them to victory. The rusted head of a lance was found in the place indicated, and the confidence of the pilgrims once more returned. Peter the Hermit went into Kerbugha's camp and threatened him with destruction, unless he instantly embraced Christianity. Kerbugha treated him as a mad man, and being, in his contempt of the pilgrims, willing to spare unnecessary bloodshed, resolved, instead of storming the city, to continue the blockade. While he was carelessly engaged in a game of chess, the crusaders planted a black banner on the highest tower in Antioch, and marched in procession out of the gates, headed by the bishop Ademar, bearing on high the holy lance. They advanced in battle array singing hymns, and attacked the Turks with such fury that half of the besiegers were already put to the rout before their comrades became aware of their peril. The starving Christians took the immense camp, killed one hundred thousand of the enemy, flung themselves upon their Turkish horses, and pursued the fugitives to a considerable distance. After a public thanksgiving, Bohemund was created Prince of Antioch, and it was declared to the emperor Alexius that no further conquests should be made in his name, unless he speedily afforded them the promised aid. Hugh of France was sent with this message as ambassador to Constantinople; but instead of returning to the camp, proceeded to France, being discontented with the treatment he had received from the rest of the crusaders, by whom he was held in slight esteem. The second ambassador, Baldwin, count of Hennegau, was attacked near Nicaea by the Turks, and all traces of him were lost.

The Mahometans, terrified at this unexpected disaster, no longer opposed the advance of the pilgrims, who were joyfully greeted by the Syrian Christians; and the Arabian emirs, who until now had groaned beneath the Turkish yoke, offered to enter into a friendly alliance with them. But dissension broke out among the pilgrims themselves. Raimund of Toulouse envied Bohemund the possession of Antioch, and now, rather ungratefully it must be owned, Peter Barthelemy was accused of having invented the fable of the holy lance (which was now said to be a common bit of iron), in order to answer the exigency of the moment. Peter, in order to prove his innocence and the authenticity of the weapon, underwent the ordeal by fire; with the lance in his hand, he ran between two flaming piles of wood, and, although he came forth again alive, died shortly of the effects. A strong re-enforcement, among which were Alain Fergent, duke of Brittany, and Edgar Atheling, the last scion of the Anglo-Saxon dynasty, here joined the crusaders; a remarkable coincidence, Robert, the son of William the Conqueror, the destroyer of the Saxon race, being in the same camp and fighting in the same cause. The caliph of Egypt sent costly gifts to the crusaders, with an offer of permitting the free exercise of the Christian religion in Jerusalem. He would gladly, with the aid of the crusaders, have driven the dreaded Turks out of Syria; but the crusaders had now almost reached the termination of their long and wearisome pilgrimage, and the conquest and actual possession of the holy sepulchre were regarded by them as indispensable duties. The emir of Tripoli again took up arms and was defeated. The hermits and the ancient Christians descended from Mount Lebanon to welcome the pilgrims. Nicopolis was at length reached, and as everyone was anxious to be the first to behold Jerusalem on the following morning, they continued their march during the whole night. It so happened that an eclipse of the moon took place during this night, which caused great joy among the pilgrims, who beheld in it an omen of the fall of the Mahometan empire (whose emblem is the crescent moon). At break of day on the 10th of June, 1099, they reached the heights of Emaus, and suddenly beheld the holy city, the long-wished-for object of their toil, and with one accord sinking on their knees, they kissed the sacred soil, which they only ventured to tread barefoot.

The greatest difficulties had still to be overcome. The number of the crusaders had diminished to one thousand five hundred horse and twenty thousand foot; the country around Jerusalem was an arid waste; the city was strongly garrisoned, and the harbour of Joppa, where a Genoese fleet had just landed troops, was strictly blockaded by the Egyptians. All communication with the sea was consequently cut off; the Genoese, however, abandoned their ships and advanced as far as Jerusalem, where their skill and handicraft materially assisted the knights in their rough attempts at scaling the walls. They manufactured different machines, particularly high towers, consisting of several stories, mounted on wheels, which were pushed close to the walls upon which the warriors were to mount. Most of these machines were destroyed by the inextinguishable "Greek fire." The pilgrims, in their enthusiasm, now recalled the fate of Jericho, and, ranged in solemn procession, chanting hymns, marched around the city, from whose walls they were, meanwhile, treated with every mark of indignity by the garrison. Peter the Hermit preached on the Mount of Olives, and the city had sustained a two days' storm, when a knight, clad in white armour, was beheld standing on the Mount of Olives, like an angel of God, encouraging them to battle in his cause.

The general enthusiasm now rose to fury, and two brethren, Ludolf and Engelbert, closely followed by Duke Godfred, were the first to mount the battlements; and the pilgrims rushing into the city, a deadly struggle took place in the streets, in which seventy thousand of the Mahometans were slain. The Jews were burned alive in their synagogue; no quarter was given. Every infidel, of whatever nation, age, or sex, was mercilessly killed. In the midst of this disorder, Godfred, in penitential garb and with unsandaled feet, threw himself on his knees before the holy sepulchre, and the rest of the crusaders, imitating his example, threw away their blood-stained weapons, and chanting penitential hymns, marched in procession through streams of blood to the grave of the Saviour of mankind. Jerusalem was taken on the 15th of July, 1099.

The joy of united Christendom at this glorious liberation of the holy sepulchre was still further increased by the discovery of the wooden cross on which Christ had suffered. This cross owed its first discovery to St. Helena, the mother of Constantine the Great; it was afterward concealed during times of danger, and ultimately again lost. Godfred, the faithful hero of the church, was unanimously proclaimed king of Jerusalem; but, although he accepted the dignity, he refused to wear the golden diadem that was offered to him, saying, "that it was not for him to wear a crown of gold in the place where the Christ had worn one of thorns." His brother Baldwin became prince of Edessa. His other brother, Eustace, returned to Lothringia. Bohemund was already prince of Antioch; Tancred became count of Galilee. Raimund of Toulouse, who coveted the possession of Antioch, remained in Palestine, and aided the emperor Alexius in his attempts to undermine the power of the rest of the crusaders. Robert of Normandy returned home, and, falling into the hands of his faithless brother, Henry, ended his days in prison. Robert the Friscian also returned to his native country, but, while engaged in a feud, fell from his horse and was trodden to death. Tola, the wife of Baldwin von Hennegau, who had disappeared, made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and, after wandering in fruitless search of him over the half of Asia, reached her home in safety.

After giving laws, known as the ordonnances of the sepulchre, to his new kingdom, Godfred marched against his nearest and most threatening opponent, the caliph of Egypt, whom, although his superior in numbers, he defeated near Ascalon, which, but for the treachery of Raimund, would also have fallen into bis hands. The city of Arsuf, on the sea-shore, was shortly afterward taken, and he received a fresh re-enforcement of twenty thousand Italians, who were led thither by Dagobert, archbishop of Pisa, who was probably secretly commissioned by the pope, as he was nominated patriarch of Jerusalem, and before long asserted the supremacy of the church over the throne. Bohemund, too weak to cope with his antagonists in Antioch, and betrayed by Raimund and the Greeks, was imprisoned by the sultan of Iconium; and, shortly after these events, Godfred expired in 1100. He was succeeded on the throne of Jerusalem by his brother Baldwin, who resigned Edessa to his cousin Baldwin de Bourg. The patriarch wished to place Bohemund, who had just been captured by the sultan of Iconium, on the throne, and Baldwin, opposed by intestinal factions and beset by the Turks, with difficulty retained the sceptre in his grasp. The glowing descriptions of the pilgrims who had returned from the Holy Land during the previous year to Germany and France, and the sacred relics they bore, had again roused the enthusiasm of the people to such a pitch that fresh crusades on a still more extensive scale, having for aim the extirpation of Islamism from the earth, were undertaken. Bagdad, the Turkish capital, was marked as the first object of attack.  

The first great armament consisted of Lombards under Anselmo, archbishop of Milam, of French under Stephen of Blois, and of a little troop of Germans under Conrad, who is mentioned by the historians of the times as master of the horse (stabularius) to the emperor, Henry IV. This army reached Asia Minor in safety, and was joined by Raimund of Toulouse, who hoped by their aid to get possession of Antioch, which was defended by Tancred in the name of the imprisoned Bohemund; but Anselmo, impatient to carry out his plans for the reduction of Bagdad and the destruction of the Turkish empire, incautiously led his army, amounting to two hundred and sixty thousand men, into the burning deserts and amid the pathless mountains, where their footsteps were dogged by all the Mahometan princes of Asia Minor, who suddenly, when their numbers and strength were reduced by the heat and by famine, fell upon and cut them to pieces. Raimund, who had been nobly rescued from the Turks by Conrad, fled the moment he beheld his benefactor in danger. His example was followed by the Lombards and the French, who, in order to hinder pursuit, left their camp and women unprotected and at the mercy of the Turks, who thus added upward of a thousand females to their harems.—A second French crusade, under William, count of Nevers, consisting of fifteen thousand men, and an incredible number of women, followed on their footsteps, and, falling into a Turkish ambuscade, shared a similar fate. William of Nevers escaped and returned half-naked to Antioch.—A third and still more numerous body of French followed, commanded by Hugh, the king's brother, who was anxious to retrieve the dishonour of his former flight, and by William of Poitou, duke of Aquitania, a celebrated troubadour (Minnesinger) and defender of the sex, who drew in his train immense numbers of women of every rank. This crusade was joined on its passage through Germany by Reinhold, duke of Burgundy, the old Duke Welf of Bavaria, Dietrich (Thiemo), archbishop of Salzburg, the Margravine Ida of Austria, and numerous other Germans, among whom were many noble-born dames and maidens in the Margravine's suite.

This immense but helpless multitude reached Asia Minor, suffered the same hardships as their predecessors, and when about to rush into the river Halys, in order to assuage their thirst, was suddenly assailed by a shower of arrows; a dreadful confusion ensued, which terminated in flight. William of Poitou, the poet and defender of the sex, fled timidly away and abandoned his fair followers to their fate, while Hugh of France fought gallantly until wounded in the knee by an arrow. He escaped only to die of his wound. The archbishop, Thiemo, was taken prisoner and tortured to death for refusing to embrace Islamism. Welf and Reinhold of Burgundy escaped, and the poor Margravine Ida and her women, abandoned by all their knights, were captured by the Turks. It is said that Ida afterward espoused a Turkish prince, and became the mother of the celebrated Zengis, the terror of Christendom, AD 1101.—Reinhold of Burgundy died of a pestilence, and the aged Welf expired at Cyprus on his way home. The rest of the crusaders collected under the standard of Raimund of Toulouse, and took the city of Tortosa, where Raimund fixed himself. Conrad was almost the only one among the pilgrims who reached Jerusalem and fulfilled his vow. Thus disastrously terminated this great expedition, intended for the destruction and conquest of Asia.

Baldwin I of Jerusalem was now thrown upon his own resources, AD. 1103. A battle took place between him and the Egyptians, near Rama, in which he was defeated, and the noble-hearted Gerhard d'Avesnes, who had so courageously resigned himself to a martyr's fate, lost his life. The king and the remainder of his army took refuge in  Rama, where they could not long maintain themselves. Baldwin was saved by a grateful Arab, an emir, whose wife had fallen into Baldwin's hands, and, being taken in labour on the march, had been treated with the greatest care and kindness. The rest were either slain or taken prisoners. Conrad, who had prepared for his return home, could not refrain from joining the expedition against Rama; when that city was taken by the Arabs, he performed such prodigies of valour that the infidels, struck with wonder and admiration, offered him their hands in token of peace. He was most honourably treated, and finally restored to liberty. The Egyptians did not follow up the advantage they had gained; fresh misfortunes were, however, in store for the Christians; a fleet, brought by the troubadour, William of Poitou, was shattered by a storm, and Baldwin was dangerously wounded with a lance by a Moorish spy. A quarrel broke out between Bohemund, who had escaped from prison, and the Greeks, who wanted the possession of Antioch; causing a report of his death to be spread, he had himself borne in a coffin through the Grecian fleet that was on the watch, and collected a great army in the West for the conquest of the Grecian empire, in reality the only means of securing that of the Holy Land, but wasting his time and strength before Durazzo, a town he was unable to carry, his army disbanded, and he died broken-hearted, in his native city of Tarentum, AD 1105. The enterprising citizens of Genoa and Pisa, who, with the view of getting the whole of the trade of the East in their hands, had assisted the crusaders in the conquest of the maritime cities of Syria (anciently those of Phoenicia), were far more active and successful. In 1104, the Genoese already possessed the important town of Accon (Ptolemais). The siege of Tripolis, which had been commenced by Raimund of Toulouse, lasted for nearly ten years. In 1105, Raimund was besieged by the Turks in his castle on the Pilgrim's Mountain, and was suffocated by the smoke of the burning houses. His son, Bertrand, swore to revenge his fate, and, assisted by the Genoese and Pisanese, laid siege to Tripolis, which finally fell into their hands in 1110; and an enormous library contained in this city was barbarously burned by the victors. In the same year Sidon also fell. In this siege the crusaders were assisted by Sigmund Jorsalafar (Jerusalemfahrer, the traveler to Jerusalem), a youth of seventeen, of remarkable beauty, great-grandson of Harald Haardrade (who fell at Stamford), at the head of ten thousand gigantic Norwegians, armed with battle-axes—The Christians suffered repeated defeats in the interior of the country. The Turks of Bagdad now rose up against them, as the Egyptians had formerly done. Bohemund had scarcely escaped from prison, when Baldwin of Edessa was taken prisoner. Tancred defended Antioch and Edessa with wonderful perseverance and bravery. He died in 1112; on his death-bed he placed the hand of his wife, Cecilia, a daughter of the French king, in that of the youthful Pontius, who had succeeded his father Bertrand in the government of Tripolis. The following year Baldwin suffered a fresh defeat, but was rescued by Roger of Sicily, who governed Antioch in the name of the youthful Bohemund, the son of Bohemund I. Peace, only interrupted by slight disturbances, endured for a while. Baldwin I died in 1118, and was succeeded by Baldwin de Bourg, his cousin, formerly prince of Edessa, who had not long before been restored to liberty. In 1119, Roger fell, opposing the Turks; in 1123, Baldwin II was again imprisoned by the Turks; in 1124, a great Venetian fleet arrived, and seized the beautiful harbour and city of Tyre, which the Venetians coveted on account of its commercial advantages. Bohemund II fell in battle. Baldwin regained his liberty upon certain conditions, but was no sooner free than he broke his oath, and was ceaselessly engaged in petty warfare until his death, in 1131. During his reign, two orders of knighthood were formed in Jerusalem; the Hospitalers of St. John, who at first merely devoted themselves to the care of the sick, and the knights of Solomon's Temple, or Templars, who were bound by the vow of celibacy, exercised a spiritual office, and devoted themselves to unceasing warfare against the infidels, in which they were afterward imitated by the knights of St. John. Both of these orders were filled by Italian knights, the Germans taking but little part in them. Unfortunately for the Holy Land, by far the greater part of the foreign settlers were French, the Germans merely making a crusade thither, and returning to their native country.

The crusades were not without influence in Europe; the power of the pope, the earthly representative of the God before whom all the kings and nations of the West bent in humble adoration, and that of the church founded by Gregory VII, were rendered absolute by their means; while the church was enriched by the immense wealth of those who fell in the East: still, the change they gradually wrought, by the introduction of new plants and animals, new modes of dress, luxuries and manners, the novel and surprising tenets and writings of the Greeks and Arabs, tended so greatly to enlarge and enlighten the ideas of the western nations, as, at a later period, to endanger the authority assumed by the popes.

 

CXLVI. Henry the Fifth

 

THE dispute between Henry IV and the pope meanwhile continued, and a sentence of excommunication was again pronounced against him by Pasqual II, who had succeeded Urban on the pontifical throne. Henry declared war against Robert of Flanders, on account of his adherence to the papal party, which had the majority of the nation on its side, but was at length driven to seek a reconciliation with the pope, whose favor he attempted to propitiate, by setting on foot another crusade, which, however, did not take place.

Far behind the times in which he lived, and which required a much more energetic leader, Henry’s high position was but the means of accumulating disgrace and misery on his head. In 1104, Henry, his youngest and most beloved son, followed Conrad’s example, and rebelled against him. This young man inherited the strong and manly intellect of his grandfather, Henry III, and his later deeds prove that he pursued a noble aim, the restoration of the imperial authority; but the means whereby he sought to insure success, and the heartlessness with which he removed the first obstacle in his path, his old gray-headed father, reflect eternal shame on his memory. His rebellion was countenanced by the pope, and he was joined by all the princes, who were either animated by their ancient enmity toward Henry, or by a hope of gaining something by a change of masters. The duke Frederick, Henry’s most devoted adherent, expired, in 1105, at the moment when his assistance was most needed; he left two sons, minors, Frederick and Conrad, and Prince Henry gained Swabia by wedding Frederick’s widow, his own sister, to Leopold, Margrave of Austria, who united with Bohemia in favor of his cause. Wratislaw, the emperor’s ally, was dead. His son, Brzetislaw II, was assassinated by the Wrssowez, who, notwithstanding the endeavors of Borzivoi II, Wratislaw’s brother, and of the brave Wiprecht von Groitsch, succeeded in placing a relation, named Suatopluk, a friend of Prince Henry, on the throne of Bohemia.

The touching appeals of the emperor to his son being disregarded, he put himself at the head of his troops and marched against him. The cities remained faithful to their allegiance, and closed their gates against the rebellious prince, with the exception of Nuremberg, which was betrayed to him by the Jews, and almost entirely destroyed. Both armies met not far from Ratisbon, and the emperor, discovering that he was betrayed by his own followers, fled, perhaps too hastily, in the sorrow of his heart. He had still numerous adherents in the Rhine country, and his son, finding force unavailing, attempted by cunning to oblige him voluntarily to abdicate the throne, and proposed a conference at Coblentz. The emperor came; but struck to the heart at the sight of his ungrateful child, flung himself at his feet, exclaiming, “My son, my son, if I am to be punished by God for my sins, at least stain not thine honor, for it is unseemly in a son to sit in judgment over his father’s sins.” The prince, with assumed remorse, entreated his forgiveness, and, under pretense of accompanying him to the diet at Mayence, found means to separate him from his attendants, and to shut him up at Bingen, where he was required by the archbishops of Mayence and of Cologne, and the bishop of Worms, to give up the crown jewels. The aged emperor, finding his entreaties vain, placed the jewels worn by Charlemagne on his own person, and, appearing in state before the bishops, defied them to touch the ornaments worn by the ruler of the world. The bishops quickly recovered from their astonishment at this unexpected scene, and, after depriving him of the jewels by force, adorned the person of his son with them at Mayence. Henry, nevertheless, had not yet abdicated. This was required by the diet. The emperor was desirous of visiting Mayence, but his son, rightly fearing lest he might be rescued by the citizens, merely permitted him to advance as far as Ingelheim, whither he and the dukes also repaired, and, by means of violent threats, which caused him to throw himself in despair at the feet of his unnatural son, he was compelled to sign his abdication. Henry V. was instantly proclaimed emperor, and his father, who still remained under the interdict, was condemned to pass the remainder of his days at Ingelheim.

The cities of the Upper Rhine, firm in their allegiance to their ancient master, meanwhile revolted, and Henry V, who had marched to attack them, suffered a complete defeat before Ruffach in Alsace. This success emboldened his father to seek at least a more secure asylum, and, for that purpose, he entreated Gebhard, bishop of Spires, whose cathedral he had formerly richly endowed, to grant him a prebendaryship, in order that he might die in peace. The meek request of the excommunicated and fallen monarch was scornfully refused, and he was at length compelled to sell his boots in order to procure the means of subsistence. He afterward escaped into Lothringia, where his old friends, the citizens of Cologne, Bishop Albert of Liege, and Henry, count of Limburg, who, on the demise of Godfred of Bouillon, had become duke of Lower Lothringia, offered him a refuge. Henry V. invaded Lothringia, but was defeated on the Maas. During his subsequent unsuccessful siege of Cologne, the emperor expired at Liege, after solemnly pardon­ing his son, in token of which he sent to him his sword and his ring. He was buried by Bishop Albert in an island, in 1106, and an aged pilgrim from Jerusalem watched for several years over his tomb. In 1111, he was freed from the interdict, and solemnly interred at Spires at the side of his faithful Bertha. His favorite saying was, “Men have much and various knowledge, but no one is thoroughly acquainted with himself.” Henry’s old enemy, Magnus, the last of the Billung family, also died in 1106, leaving two daughters, Eilika, who married Otto, count of Ballenstadt, and bore Albrecht the Bear, and Wulfhilda, who married Henry the Black, brother to the Welf, and bore Henry the Proud. The emperor, in order to divide the power of the Saxons, bestowed the ducal dignity formerly borne by the Billungs on Lothar, count of Supplinburg, his former partisan. Lothar married Nixa, the daughter of Henry the Fat, count of Nordheim, who in 1106 was defeated by the Friscians, when attempting to subdue them. Henry also established peace, and partitioned the government in Lothringia; Henry von Limburg was created duke, and Godfred von Lowen, the emperor's favorite, was raised to the ducal throne of Brabant.

Henry V next attempted to establish his authority on a firmer footing in the Slavian East. The Wrssowez, who made common cause with Poland, and planned a Slavian reaction against Germany, had become intolerable to Suatopluk, whom they narrowly watched; and he, it may be by Henry’s advice, caused the whole of that family, one alone excepted, to be exterminated, to the number of one thousand. He then united with the emperor against Poland, and laid siege to Glogau, but, being assassinated in the emperor’s tent by the last of the murdered Wrssowez, all the Bohemians instantly quitted the camp. The emperor was afterward defeated by Boleslaw of Poland, on the ground now occupied by the town of Hundsfeld, which derived its appellation from the dogs that fed on the unburied bodies (1109). Wiprecht von Groitsch interposed, and peace was agreed to on condition of his brother-in-law Borzivoi being made king of Bohemia. He may possibly have not been altogether innocent of Suatopluk’s assassination. When his son, Wiprecht the younger, entered Prague in company with Borzivoi, the emperor ordered them to be seized, and compelled Wiprecht the elder to ransom his son’s life by the cession of the Lausitz, which he bestowed upon Hoyer von Mansfeld, his gallant commander-in-chief. Bohemia fell to Borzivoi’s brother, Wladislaw, who appears to have betrayed him, and to have paid a large sum to the emperor.—Leopold of Austria, filled with remorse for his infidelity to the late emperor, sought to atone for his guilt by the erection of several monasteries, among others that on the Leopoldberg near Vienna. The church, fully sensible of his worth, canonized him. He left three sons, Leopold, Henry Sammirgott, and Otto, bishop of Freysingen, the celebrated historian.

The vigor of Henry’s government ere long estranged from him his late papal partisans; the Roman hierarchy, by making use of him as a tool in their designs against his father, had, as it were, morally annihilated him, and could not brook his elevation. The pope, Pasqual II, was weak, and in the hands of a fanatical party, headed by Guido de Vienne, archbishop of Lyons, who, without asking his permission, caused the emperor to be excommunicated by a synod held at Vienne, on account of his refusal to cede his right of investiture (1112). The emperor, without noticing the proceedings of this synod, marched to Rome and left the settlement of the matter to his chancellor, Adalbert, who proposed the strictest division between the power of the state and that of the church; the state never to intermeddle with ecclesiastical affairs, and the church to remain unpossessed of lands and worldly wealth. A wise, but impracticable counsel, for, as might clearly have been foreseen, the church would never voluntarily surrender her possessions. The emperor at length cut the matter short by seizing the person of the pope and compelling him to disclaim the right of investiture. Guido de Vienne raved, and scarcely had the emperor withdrawn from Rome than the pope declared the transaction void, the terms having been forced upon him, and Adalbert, to whom the emperor had promised the archbishopric of Mayence, fearing the pope’s refusal to confirm him in his dignity, and, moreover, foreseeing that the church would prove victorious, went over to Guido’s party, for which he was rewarded by the pope with a cardinal’s hat and the supreme direction over the whole of the German clergy.

A party, inimical to the emperor, was, at the same time, formed in Saxony. The Pfalzgraf Siegfried, a relation of Lothar, who had been deprived of his dignity by the emperor on an accusation of treason, claimed the rich inheritance of the counts of Orlamund, whose family had become extinct. By the concurrence of Lothar, the young Henry von Stade, whose heritage had been sold by the emperor to his guardian Frederick, had also been reinstated, and the assistance of the Saxons against the Bohemians and the Poles had been extremely lukewarm. Lothar, who had been declared by the emperor out of the ban of the empire, now found himself backed by almost the whole of Northern Germany, more particularly by Wiprecht the elder and Louis of Thuringia, and by the great ecclesiastical party, at whose head stood Adalbert, the emperor’s ungrateful chancellor. His capture by the emperor, which shortly afterward took place, deprived the confederates of their leader, and the emperor, suddenly entering Saxony, surprised his opponents near Warnstadt. Hoyer’s impetuous charge bore all before it. Siegfried was slain, and Wiprecht the elder was taken prisoner, 1113. After re-establishing peace throughout the North, Henry solemnized his marriage with Matilda, the daughter of Henry I. of England, with great splendor, at Mayence, in 1114. It was here that Lothar and Louis of Thuringia, barefoot and in beggarly attire, threw themselves at his feet and begged for mercy. Louis was thrown into prison. Henry’s unrelenting severity, his open suppression of the power of the great vassals of the empire, and his assumption of despotic rule, raised a fresh conspiracy, at the head of which appeared Frederick, archbishop of Cologne. This city was vainly besieged by the emperor, who was defeated before the gates, and Berthold III of Zahringen was taken prisoner. This signal success infused fresh spirit into the Saxons, while the emperor, with his usual decision, declared the whole of Saxony out of the ban of the empire, created Count Hoyer von Mansfeld duke of Saxony in place of Lothar, and marched in person with his whole force against the rebels. Hoyer, too impatient to grasp the ducal coronet, ventured singly too far in advance, and was killed in sight of both armies, by Wiprecht von Groitsch the younger, in the battle of Welfisholz in the county of Mansfeld. The loss of this commander threw the imperial army into confusion, and the victorious Saxons left the bodies of their fallen opponents unburied on the field, as being under the interdict of the church. The emperor wandered in his flight among the Harz Mountains. On the same day Otto von Ballenstadt gained a victory at Kothen over the rebellious Wends (1115), and the Saxons once more gained the palm of glory.

This disastrous day was fatal to every hope that had been entertained for the preservation of the integrity of the state by the emperor, and inflicted an almost deadly blow on the nation, which saw itself henceforward doomed to disunion and exposed to foreign (papal and French) influence. Blinded by the provincial hatred between the Saxons and the Franks, the nation showed no inclination to favor the rise of the imperial power, and seemed insensible to the manner in which their honor and their most sacred interests were betrayed to the foreigner.

It was exactly at this period that the celebrated Countess Matilda expired in Italy, and bequeathed her rich possessions to the church. Henry’s late defeat by the Saxons, and the renewed interdict laid upon him by the pope, rendered the preservation of this important territory to the state a task of no common difficulty; but, with his usual fertility in resources, he dispatched a nobleman, Dietrich von der Aare, by whom he had formerly been beaten before Cologne, but who had afterward become his friend, to negotiate with Lothar, and to represent to him that they must all inevitably become slaves to the pope unless they united for the preservation of their temporal rights. At the same time, he set the imprisoned princes at liberty. But scarcely was Adalbert of Mayence free, than, glowing with revenge, he contrived to work upon Lothar, frustrated Henry’s attempts at reconciliation, and opened an assembly of the princes at Cologne without the emperor. Even the emperor’s embassador, Erlung, bishop of Wurzburg, went over to Adalbert’s party. Upon this, the emperor abandoned Northern Germany for a while, and intrusting Southern Germany to the guardianship of the brave Hohenstaufen, hastened into Italy. Frederick the Old, the first of the Hohenstaufen who bore the title of Duke of Swabia, had left two sons, Frederick the One-eyed, who succeeded him in Swabia, and Conrad, who, on Erlung’s defection, was created duke of Franconia.—The policy pursued by Henry V. in Italy was noted for prudence; he everywhere favored the cities whose love of independence caused them to dread the supremacy of the pope, should he succeed in gaining possession of the lands of the Countess Matilda. He consequently met with a favorable reception at Venice, and even found a strong party in his favor in Rome, headed by the count of Tusculum, to whom he gave his illegitimate daughter, Bertha, in marriage, and by the Frangipani, a family then coming into note. Pasqual was compelled to flee; and the imperial crown was placed on Henry’s head by a Portuguese archbishop, who chanced to be in Rome, the only prelate who could be found to perform that ceremony (1116). The principal aim for which Henry had visited Italy, that of taking possession of the lands of the Countess Matilda in the name of the empire, was, however, gained, and he prolonged his stay in that country in order to keep a watch upon Rome. On the death of Pasqual in 1118, he nominated Gregory VIII, to whom the Romans opposed another pope, Gelasius II, whom they had previously elected. This pope was treated with great violence, and expelled by the Frangipani; he expired in the following year. The papal party then placed Guido de Vienne, the emperor’s most formidable antagonist, on the pontifical throne, under the name of Calixtus II (1119). This pope instantly renewed the alliance with the Saxons and Adalbert, and openly opposed the emperor.

In Germany, the Hohenstaufen, notwithstanding their endeavors to keep the field for the emperor, had been alone successful on the Rhine. The troops of Adalbert were defeated by them under the walls of Mayence, and their commander, Emicho von Leiningen, was slain. The citizens of Mayence rebelled against Adalbert, who caused numbers of them to be executed. The Saxons marched to the assistance of Aschaffenburg, his usual residence, and besieged Limburg, which was, however, relieved by Frederick of Swabia, who continued to retain the superiority on the Rhine. The same fortune did not befriend the imperial party in Northern Germany. Frederick von Putelendorf, whom Henry had created Pfalzgraf of Saxony, was compelled to make terms with the rebels at Naumburg, and the great and imperial castle on the Kyffhauser was burned down.—Adalbert, emboldened by the admonitions of Calixtus II, again excommunicated Henry at a council held at Cologne, and the project of electing a new emperor was being discussed, when Henry V returned, called a diet at Tribur, and, for the last time, attempted to negotiate terms of peace with the rebellious party. The pope also came to Rheims, on an intimate and secret understanding with the French king, Louis VI, who loaded him with flattery. The emperor, closely pressed by his enemies, found himself compelled to resign the right of investiture, but scarcely was the matter concluded with the pope than a still greater concession was required, the pope pretending to include in the right of investiture, or the right of being the sole elector of the bishops, also that of the impropriation of church lands, and of the royal dues, which until now had been in the gift of the crown. The cession of these rights being steadily refused by the indignant emperor, the treaty was again broken off, and Calixtus II, after once more excommunicating him, visited the king of France at Paris, and proceeded thence in triumph to Rome, whence he expelled the unfortunate Gregory VIII, whom he shortly afterward took prisoner at Sutri, and caused to be exposed to public derision, mounted on the back of a camel.

While Germany was thus insulted by the pope and his French ally, the Germans continued senselessly to dispute, and the emperor was alone upheld in this great national affair by the citizens of the towns, which would have found themselves entirely deprived of the protection of the crown, had all the church property, which included the episcopal cities, become papal fiefs. Cologne and Munster were, at that period, the most zealous supporters of the rights of the state against the church, and of those of Germany against Rome. Cologne opened her gates to the emperor; Munster expelled her bishop, but was in consequence besieged and burned by the Saxon princes, 1121. The only one among the princes who returned to his allegiance to the emperor was Wiprecht von Groitsch the elder; but when the emperor, in 1122, stood before Mayence, and the Saxons marched against him to Adalbert’s relief, they became ashamed of the opprobrium with which they were viewed by the nation, and with which their names would be handed down to posterity; and the emperor, on his side, being urged by the fear of utter destruction, if fortune again favored the Saxons, it was resolved that each party should send twelve representatives to Wurzburg, there to negotiate terms of peace; and at length, notwithstanding the opposition of Adalbert, a reconciliation was accomplished. The emperor, at the same time, made terms with the pope, to whom, by the treaty of Worms, he conceded the impropriation of church property, with the exception of the royal dues, a point of great importance for the cities and townships. He was now for the first time freed from the interdict, 1122.

Disputes, nevertheless, appeared interminable. Gundebald, bishop of Utrecht, plotted against the emperor’s life, and on Henry’s attempting to seize Utrecht, in order to punish the traitor, he was again opposed by Lothar, who also aided young Henry von Eilenburg in the conquest of Meissen, and in the expulsion of Wiprecht the elder, whom the Bohemians sought to aid; but Lothar, shut up between the two, deceived both, and forced them to retreat. On the other side, Adalbert was propitiated by the Thuringian tithes, which were granted to him by the emperor, but which he never received, the people rising en masse against him.

War now broke out between England and France, and the death of Prince William, the emperor’s brother-in-law, the only son of Henry I, who was drowned when crossing the Channel, placed the emperor next in succession to the throne of England. When called upon to support England against France, he left no means untried to persuade the German princes to aid in carrying out the great idea of a union between Germany and England; but in vain, the faithless vassals merely beholding the decrease of their individual importance in the increasing power of the state and that of the crown, which it was ever their aim to weaken, if not completely to annihilate, in order to raise themselves in the fallen state, like mushrooms on the overthrown oak. It was in vain that the emperor bestowed the Lausitz, on the demise of Wiprecht the elder, on Albrecht von Brandenburg, the Bear, and Meissen on Conrad, the cousin of the deceased Henry von Eilenburg. He was not supported. His attempt to raise funds for the prosecution of the foreign war by the imposition of a general contribu­tion toward the exigencies of the empire was treated with contempt; and he expired, in the prime of life, with the bitter consciousness of the defeat of all the schemes for the sake of which he had acted so criminally toward his parent. A bad son, but a great emperor, whom misfortune might destroy, but could not bend. He left no issue, and bequeathed the whole of his inheritance to the faithful Hohenstaufen.

 

CXLVII. Lothar the Third

 

The third great dynasty of the emperors of Germany had terminated with the life of this last scion of the Salic race, and the nations over which he had reigned again collected in countless thousands, as on the previous occasion of the election of Conrad, on the shores of the Rhine, between Mayence and Worms. The encampment was arranged in the form of a cross, each of the four nations being placed in its natural position, the Saxons to the northeast, the Franks to the northwest, the Bavarians to the southeast, and the Swabians to the southwest. Each nation elected ten princes, who in their turn elected one, and to these four was intrusted the election of a monarch. The choice of the Saxons fell upon Lothar, duke of Supplinburg; while the Franks elected Charles, count of Flanders; the Bavarians, Leopold, Margrave of Austria; and the Swabians, Frederick, duke of Hohenstaufen. Adalbert of Mayence was president of the diet, and naturally was in favor of Lothar, the ancient ally of the pope. The Hohenstaufen were deceived, and the interest of the Welfs was secured by the marriage of Gertrude, Lothar’s daughter, with Henry the Proud of Bavaria, the son of Henry the Black.

Lothar, in order to get rid of the Hohenstaufen, his most dangerous rivals, instantly laid claim to the possessions of the Salic family as fiefs of the empire, and demanded their cession from Frederick, although he had himself, at an earlier period, defended the hereditary right of the princes against the feudal right of the emperor, in the case of the lands pertaining to the families of Orlamund and Stade. On Frederick’s refusing to comply, he was put out of the ban of the empire. He long defended the town of Nuremberg against the united forces of Lothar and of the Welfs. The siege was raised by his brother Conrad on his return from a crusade, which he had vowed to join during an eclipse of the moon, which filled him with superstitious dread. The Hohenstaufen, supported by the faithful Swabians, courageously maintained their inheritance during several years, and the Upper Rhine country was again laid desolate by the feuds between her native princes. Conrad, a noble-spirited man in the vigor of life, formed the bold resolution of seeking aid from the Salic party in Italy, and, on crossing the Alps, received the crown of Lombardy; but the over-preponderating influence of the pope, Honorius II, who favored the Welfs, quickly compelled him to retrace his steps. The bloody feud was, meanwhile, carried on with unabated vigor. Frederick was forced to take refuge in the cities in 1128, which, notwithstanding the extraordinary bravery displayed in their defense, fell, one after the other, into the hands of his opponent. Agnes, his second wife, defended Spires with such skill and perseverance against Lothar that he allowed her to retire unmolested. With unflinching valor Conrad defended himself in Hohenstaufen, and afterward in Rotweil. Frederick was surprised by the Welfs during the night at Zwiefalten, where he took refuge upon the tower of the burning church. Lothar, in order to flatter the pope, bestowed the dignity of duke of Franconia on the bishop of Wurzburg. Among those who were put out of the ban of the empire was Reinhold, count of Burgundy, the faithful ally of the Saliers and Staufen.

The power of the Hohenstaufen was now humbled, and Lothar, delivered from apprehension on that score, visited Rome, where, since the demise of Honorius II, two popes, Anacletus II and Innocent II, disputed the possession of the tiara. Lothar paid homage to the latter as pope, and, in return, demanded from him the immediate cession of the lands of the Countess Matilda; but the remembrance of his former zeal as a papal partisan in opposition to the emperor deprived him of the power of braving the church, now the crown was placed on his own brow; and the dread of sharing the fate of his predecessor, who had vainly attempted to free himself from papal interference, compelled him to consent to the humiliating condition of holding them as a papal fee. The ceremony of swearing fealty was painted by order of the pope, who wrote beneath the picture these words: “Rex homo fit Papae.” As Lothar had no male heir, he bestowed the lands on his son-in-law, Henry the Proud of Bavaria.

On Lothar’s return from Italy after the completion of this project, which materially added to his wealth and power, Frederick von Hohenstaufen entreated for pardon, which was granted to him at Bamberg in 1134, the delinquent humbly kneeling at his feet. Conrad also was shortly afterward persuaded to follow his example by St. Bernhard, the abbot of Clairvaux, who preached to the temporal princes unity and peace, in the hope of ^uniting them in another crusade against the infidels in the East.—Lothar now turned his attention to the long-neglected affairs of the North. In Denmark, St. Canute, the son of Erich Evegod, had been deprived of his throne and life by his cousin Magnus, whom Lothar now attacked, compelled to sue for peace, and to do him homage. It was during the performance of this cere­mony that the sword of state was for the first time borne before the emperor. Sobieslaw of Bohemia also took the oath of fealty, in order to secure peace.

Adela, the widow of Canute, a daughter of Robert the Friscian, fled with her little son, Charles, to her relations in Flanders. Her father had died in 1093, and his son, Robert of Jerusalem, who had accompanied the first crusade to the Holy Land, and had supported the pope against Henry IV, was killed in a petty feud, in which he aided the French monarch, by a fall from his horse (1111). He was succeeded by his son, Baldwin with the ax (Boudewyn Apkin), who always bore a battle-ax, and was distinguished for his love of justice and order. He made himself greatly feared by Henry, king of England, who had unjustly usurped the duchy of Normandy, whence he had expelled his nephew. During Henry’s stay at Rouen, he subjected him to every species of annoyance. He died of a badly-healed wound in 1119. Being without issue, he named as his successor his friend and cousin, Charles the Good, the exiled son of St. Canute of Denmark. Charles rendered himself greatly beloved by the people by his piety and benevolence, and by his support of the low-born and of the poor against the oppressions of the nobility and of the rich. During a great famine in 1126, he acted nobly, but with rigid severity. He daily distributed with his own hands several thousand loaves to the poor, and on discovering the excessive extortion practiced in the sale of corn by a powerful family at Brugges, whose chief representatives were the provost Bretulf and his nephew Burkhard, he ordered their great magazines to be thrown open: this proceeding drew upon him the hatred of this great and influential family, and although he treated them with the greatest lenity, and even, when they took up arms against him, forgave them, he was attacked at Brugges, when engaged in giving alms, by Burkhard, who, advancing toward him disguised as a beggar and backed by several other conspirators, deprived him with one blow of the arm which he extended toward him with a gift. He died of the wound in 1127. He was canonized by the church. His murder was fearfully revenged by the people. Burkhard, who had fled in the disguise of a monk, was discovered and put to the rack, and several of the other conspirators were mutilated, and cast headlong from towers. The degree of power gained by the commonalty in Flanders dates from this period, and Charles appears as the first citizen prince who took part with the people against the aristocracy. He left no issue. Baldwin von Hennegau, whose family had formerly been deprived of Flanders by Robert the Friscian, now sought to regain possession of that country; but the king of France, its feudal lord, deeming it more politic to bestow it upon William, duke of Normandy (who had been expelled from his duchy by his uncle, Henry I of England), in the hope of his being able to regain Normandy, and to do him good service against England, to which he unwillingly saw Normandy annexed, he was refused. Baldwin, who, moreover, ravaged Flanders and had burned a hundred people alive in a church at Oudenarde, was supported in his claim by the valiant Count William von Ypern, Count Godfred von Lowen, and by the English, who, on the invasion of the country by the king of France and William of Normandy, retired. William quickly made himself unpopular by the imposition of heavy taxes with the view of raising funds for the conquest of Normandy, and, it may be, also for that of England. Lille, St. Omer, and Ghent revolted, and the flame of sedition rapidly spread throughout the whole country, and, as in the days of Richilda, the national animosity of the Germans against their French liege broke out with redoubled violence. The German party, at whose head in former days stood Robert the Friscian, was now led by Dietrich, count of Alsace, whose mother, Gertrude, being daughter to Robert the Friscian, gave him a right, equal to that formerly possessed by Charles the Good, against the French. Dietrich came into the country with merely three followers, but the people flocked around him in such numbers that he quickly found himself at the head of an army. Louis, king of France, marching to the assistance of the Normans, Dietrich was compelled to take refuge in Allost, where he was besieged by William. The death of this prince, who was shot in 1128, dissipated the hopes of the French monarch, who contented himself with receiving the homage of Dietrich, whom he acknowledged as duke of Flanders. Dietrich pursued a system similar to that of Charles the Good, only on wider principles, and rendered himself universally beloved. During his long reign of forty years, he laid the groundwork of the popular rights and privileges which, at a later period, rendered the Dutch so justly celebrated. It was to him that the cities were indebted for their Keuren, or charters, which brought in their train commerce and art, and rendered Flanders the most flourishing of the German states. Dietrich visited the Holy Land four times, as much for the sake of entering into commercial relations with the East as for the purpose of combating the infidels and of wedding Sibylla, the daughter of Fulco, king of Jerusalem; and Flanders was, in consequence of her relation with the East, for which she was in the commencement indebted to Dietrich, and which long endured, the first Western state that introduced the arts and manufactures of Greece and of the Orient into Germany. During Dietrich’s absence in the Holy Land, Baldwin von Hennegau again invaded Flanders, but was repulsed by Sibylla, a.d. 1149. Dietrich revenged this aggression in the following year by overrunning his territory, but, after gaining a bloody victory, peace was secured by the alliance of his daughter Margaretha with Baldwin, the son of his opponent. He was, some time after this occurrence, once more compelled to take up arms in defense of free trade against his restless neighbor, Count Florens III of Holland, whom he defeated, took prisoner, and compelled to sign a commercial treaty.

In 1136, Lothar revisited Italy, in order to curb the insolence of Roger, who, besides inheriting the whole of the territory held by the Normans, had taken the title of king of Apulia and Sicily. One of the petty lords of the country blocking up the mountain pass, Lothar stormed his rocky fastness, and put the garrison to the sword. The plan of this campaign was to avoid the siege of the large cities, and to march directly against Roger. The emperor and Conrad von Hohenstaufen, who, in his right as duke of Swabia, bore the banner of the empire, turned to the left, Henry the Proud to the right, and, marching on both shores of the sea, reunited their forces at Benevento. Amalfi, where the Pandects (laws of ancient Rome) were discovered among the booty, was taken, but Salerno, Roger’s seat of government, and Naples, which was still under that of Greece, were vainly besieged, and the German soldiery, weary of the protracted campaign, their term of service having expired, became impatient to return home, and even conspired against the life of the pope, Innocent II, whom they regarded as the only obstacle against the conclusion of peace. Lothar’s sickness also conduced to hasten his return to Germany, which he was fated never again to behold, being overtaken by death at Breitenwang, in the Oberinnthal, where the low peasant’s hut in which he expired may still be seen by the traveler. He was buried at Konigslutter, a town in Brunswick that owed its rise to him. He also built Kaiserslautern on the Rhine, so named owing to that circumstance (1137).

Lothar’s policy in regard to the great vassals of the crown was as little worthy of an emperor as his condescension to the pope. In order to secure the succession to the ducal throne of Saxony to his son-in-law, the duke of Bavaria, he passed a law to the effect that fiefs rendered vacant by the extinction of the family by whom they were held, should, for the future, instead of lapsing to the crown, fall to the next of kin. The gain was entirely on the side of the aris­tocracy. The house of Zahringen, which, after the degrada­tion of the Hohenstaufen, came into note in the South, gave a duke, Conrad, to Burgundy. A Count Ulrich von Ortenburg was created duke of Carinthia, where the perpetual change of dukes had afforded an opportunity to the petty counts of asserting their independence. Around the fortress of Steyer, which had been erected by a Count Ottocar, during the reign of Conrad I, the frontier of Steyer or Styria had gradually formed; around Cilly, where a family of Thuringian counts, connected with that of Weimar and Orlamund, had settled, spread the Windian frontier; around the fortress of Crain, that of Carniola; around Gortz (Gorice, Goritzia) the county of the same name. The Babenbergers still flourished in Austria. The most powerful of that family was Henry the Proud, the Welf, who, besides Bavaria, held the lands of the Countess Matilda, and, on the demise of the emperor, inherited Saxony. The house of Wurtemberg also, at this period, owed its rise to the favor of the Hohenstaufen. The Slavian frontiers had acquired still greater importance, and were united under two noble houses, that of Ballenstadt (the present house of Anhalt) and that of Wettin (the present house of Saxony). The house of Ballenstadt was also named that of the Ascanier, from Esico, their ancestor, in the tenth century, or from Ascharia (Aschersleben), their place of execution. The ancient, but now far more extensive, frontier of Gero was then exclusively known as the march of Brandenburg, which, after the extinction of the noble house of Stade (whose last descendant, Count Rudolf, inherited the county of Stade, but was killed in 1145, during an insurrection of the free peasantry in Ditmarchen), was bestowed upon Count Conrad von Plotzke, who, dying in 1133, without issue, the mere was granted by Lothar to Albrecht, Count von Ballenstadt, his relative, surnamed the Handsome, or the Bear, on account of his wild valor. Meissen remained in the possession of Conrad von Wettin. The broad lands to the east were thus united under two chiefs (1136), in whose immediate neighborhood was Louis, Landgrave of Thuringia and Hesse, on whom the emperor bestowed, in 1130, Thuringia in fee, independent of Saxony, to which she had been, for a considerable period, annexed, as a subordinate county.

The Wends, at this period, still retained their freedom, Henry, the Christian prince of the Obotrites, having merely exacted tribute from them during his expedition to the island of Rugen. They were, moreover, still pagans. Henry’s sons striving for the sovereignty, and being both deprived of life, Lothar gave the Obotritan crown in fee to Canute the Dane, whose fall was greatly contributed to by Adolf, count of Holstein, of the house of Schauenburg, who aimed at independence, and (justly) refused to countenance Danish influence in Germany. Przibizlaw, a son of Buthue, Gottschalk’s brother and Henry’s uncle, seized the country in the vicinity of Lubeck, and Niclot, another Wend, took possession of Mecklenburg, where his descendants reign at the present day. In Pomerania, Wratislaw, who had been taken prisoner in his youth and baptized by the Saxons,  headed the people against the Poles. From him descended the future dukes of Pomerania. After a long struggle, he submitted to Boleslaw of Poland, and the whole of Pome­rania was Christianized.

Peter Wlast, the Dane, the possessor of immense treasures who became the minister of Boleslaw, the aged and valiant king of Poland, settled at this period in Silesia, where he was the first who introduced German arts, and civilization. He built a castle on the Zobtenberg, which stands in isolated grandeur in the midst of the apparently interminable plain, and several churches. He retained his office under Wladislaw, the son and successor of Boleslaw, but having, by an inconsiderate speech, drawn upon himself the enmity of Agnes, Wladislaw’s German wife, the daughter of Leopold of Austria, he was by her order suddenly seized and deprived of his tongue and his eyesight, while solemnizing the marriage of his daughter with a Serbian prince.