Part 2 — Chapter III. (These four articles abrogated by the four articles following them, 118-122.) Article 118. The Federal Constitution may at any time be amended. (continued 61)

C. J. Stillé, Studies in Mediæval History, chapter 3.

See, also, FRANKS: A. D. 768-814.

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GERMANY: A. D. 800. Charlemagne's restoration of the Roman Empire.

"Three hundred and twenty-four years had passed since the last Cæsar of the West resigned his power into the hands of the senate, and left to his Eastern brother the sole headship of the Roman world. To the latter Italy had from that time been nominally subject; but it was only during one brief interval, between the death of Totila the last Ostrogothic king and the descent of Alboin the first Lombard, that his power had been really effective. In the further provinces, Gaul, Spain, Britain, it was only a memory. But the idea of a Roman Empire as a necessary part of the world's order had not vanished: it had been admitted by those who seemed to be destroying it; it had been cherished by the Church; was still recalled by laws and customs; was dear to the subject populations, who fondly looked back to the days when slavery was at least mitigated by peace and order. … Both the extinction of the Western Empire in [A.D. 476] … and its revival in A. D. 800 have been very generally misunderstood in modern times. … When Odoacer compelled the abdication of Romulus Augustulus, he did not abolish the Western Empire as a separate power, but caused it to be reunited with or sink into the Eastern, so that from that time there was, as there had been before Diocletian, a single undivided Roman Empire. In A. D. 800 the very memory of the separate Western Empire, as it had stood from the death of Theodosius till Odoacer, had, so far as appears, been long since lost, and neither Leo nor Charles nor anyone among their advisers dreamt of reviving it. They, too, like their predecessors, held the Roman Empire to be one and indivisible, and proposed by the coronation of the Frankish king, not to proclaim a severance of the East and West, but to reverse the act of Constantine, and make Old Rome again the civil as well as the ecclesiastical capital of the Empire that bore her name. … Although therefore we must in practice speak during the next seven centuries (down till A. D. 1453, when Constantinople fell before the Mohammedan) of an Eastern and a Western Empire, the phrase is in strictness incorrect, and was one which either court ought to have repudiated. The Byzantines always did repudiate it; the Latins usually; although, yielding to facts, they sometimes condescended to employ it themselves. But their theory was always the same. Charles was held to be the legitimate successor, not of Romulus Augustulus, but of Basil, Heraclius, Justinian, Arcadius, and all the Eastern line. … North Italy and Rome ceased for ever to own the supremacy of Byzantium; and while the Eastern princes paid a shameful tribute to the Mussulman, the Frankish Emperor—as the recognised head of Christendom—received from the patriarch of Jerusalem the keys of the Holy Sepulchre and the banner of Calvary; the gift of the Sepulchre itself, says Eginhard, from Aaron king of the Persians [the Caliph Haroun el Rashid]. … Four centuries later, when Papacy and Empire had been forced into the mortal struggle by which the fate of both was decided, three distinct theories regarding the coronation of Charles will be found advocated by three different parties, all of them plausible, all of them to some extent misleading. The Swabian Emperors held the crown to have been won by their great predecessor as the prize of conquest, and drew the conclusion that the citizens and bishop of Rome had no rights as against themselves. The patriotic party among the Romans, appealing to the early history of the Empire, declared that by nothing but the voice of their senate and people could an Emperor be lawfully created, he being only their chief magistrate, the temporary depositary of their authority. The Popes pointed to the indisputable fact that Leo imposed the crown, and argued that as God's earthly vicar it was then his, and must always continue to be their right to give to whomsoever they would an office which was created to be the handmaid of their own. Of these three it was the last view that eventually prevailed."

J. Bryce, The Holy Roman Empire, chapter 4-5.

ALSO IN: J. I. Mombert, History of Charles the Great, chapter 14.

See, also, FRANKS: A. D. 768-814.

GERMANY: A. D. 805. Conquest of the Avars. Creation of the Austrian March.

See AVARS, and AUSTRIA: A. D. 805-1246.

GERMANY: A. D. 814-843. Division of the Empire of Charlemagne.

"There was a manifest conflict, during his later years, in the court, in the councils, in the mind of Charlemagne [who died in 814], between the King of the Franks and the Emperor of the West; between the dissociating, independent Teutonic principle, and the Roman principle of one code, one dominion, one sovereign. The Church, though Teutonic in descent, was Roman in the sentiment of unity. … That unity had been threatened by the proclaimed division of the realm between the sons of Charlemagne. The old Teutonic usage of equal distribution seemed doomed to prevail over the august unity of the Roman Empire. What may appear more extraordinary, the kingdom of Italy was the inferior appanage: it carried not with it the Empire, which was still to retain a certain supremacy; that was reserved for the Teutonic sovereign. It might seem as if this were but the continuation of the Lombard kingdom, which Charlemagne still held by the right of conquest. It was bestowed on Pepin; after his death entrusted to Bernhard, Pepin's illegitimate but only son. Wiser counsels prevailed. The two elder sons of Charlemagne died without issue; Louis the third son was summoned from his kingdom of Aquitaine, and solemnly crowned [813] at Aix-la-Chapelle, as successor to the whole Empire."

H. H. Milman, History of Latin Christianity, book 5, chapter 2 (volume 2).

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"Instead of being preoccupied with the care of keeping the empire united, Louis divided it in the year 817 by giving kingdoms to his three sons. The eldest, Lothaire, had Italy; Louis, Bavaria; Pepin, Aquitaine. A nephew of the emperor, Bernard, imagined himself wronged by this partition, and took up arms to hold Italy. Vanquished without striking a blow, he delivered himself up to his uncle, who caused his eyes to be put out. He expired under that torture. Louis reproached himself later for that cruel death, and to expiate it, subjected himself to a public penance. In 823, there was born to him a fourth son. To make him a sharer of his inheritance, the emperor, annulling in 829 the partition of 817, gave him Germany, thus depriving his elder sons of part of the inheritance previously assigned them. This provoked the resentment of those princes; they rose in rebellion against their father, and the rest of the reign of Louis was only a succession of impious contests with his turbulent sons. In 833, he deposed Pepin, and gave his kingdom of Aquitaine to his youngest born, Charles. Twice deposed himself, and twice restored, Louis only emerged from the cloister, for which he was so well fitted, to repeat the same faults. When Louis the Good-natured died in 840, it was not his cause only which he had lost through his weakness, but that of the empire. Those intestine quarrels presaged its dismemberment, which ere long happened. The sons of Louis, to serve their own ambition, had revived the national antipathies of the different races. Lothaire placed himself at the head of the Italians; Louis rallied the Germans round him, and Charles the Bald the Franks of Gaul, who were henceforward called Frenchmen. Those three peoples aspired to break up the union whose bond Charlemagne had imposed upon them, as the three brothers aspired to form each for himself a kingdom. The question was decided at the great battle of Fontanet, near Auxerre, in 841. Lothaire, who fought therein for the preservation of the empire and of his authority, was conquered. By the treaty of Verdun [843—see VERDUN, TREATY OF] it was decided that Louis should have Germany to the east of the Rhine; Charles, France to the west of the Scheld, the Meuse, the Saone, and the Rhone; finally, Lothaire, Italy, with the long range of country comprised between the Alps and the Cevennes, the Jura, the Saone, the Rhine, and the Meuse, which from his name was called Lotharingia. This designation is still to be traced in one of the recently French provinces, Lorraine."

S. Menzies, History of Europe from the Decadence of the Western Empire to the Reformation, chapter. 13.

GERMANY: A. D. 843. Accession of Louis II.

GERMANY: A. D. 843-962. Treaty of Verdun. Definite separation from France. The kingdom of the East Franks.

The partition of the empire of Charlemagne among his three grandsons, by the Treaty of Verdun, A. D. 843, gave to Charles the Bald a kingdom which nearly coincided with France, as afterwards existing under that name, "before its Burgundian and German annexations.

See VERDUN, TREATY OF; also, FRANKS: A. D. 814-962.

It also founded a kingdom which roughly answered to the later Germany before its great extension to the East at the expense of the Slavonic nations. And as the Western kingdom was formed by the addition of Aquitaine to the Western Francia, so the Eastern kingdom was formed by the addition of the Eastern Francia to Bavaria. Lewis of Bavaria [surnamed 'the German'] became king of a kingdom which we are tempted to call the kingdom of Germany. Still it would as yet be premature to speak of France at all, or even to speak of Germany, except in the geographical sense. The two kingdoms are severally the kingdoms of the Eastern and of the Western Franks. … The Kings had no special titles, and their dominions had no special names recognized in formal use. Every king who ruled over any part of the ancient Francia was a king of the Franks. … The Eastern part of the Frankish dominions, the lot of Lewis the German and his successors, is thus called the Eastern Kingdom, the Teutonic Kingdom. Its king is the King of the East-Franks, sometimes simply the King of the Eastern men, sometimes the King of Germany. … The title of King of Germany is often found in the ninth century as a description, but it was not a formal title. The Eastern king, like other kings, for the most part simply calls himself' Rex,' till the time came when his rank as King of Germany, or of the East-Franks, became simply a step towards the higher title of Emperor of the Romans. … This Eastern or German kingdom, as it came out of the division of 887 [after the deposition of Charles III., called Charles the Fat,. who came to the throne in 881, and who had, momentarily reunited all the Frankish crowns, except that of Burgundy], had, from north to south,. nearly the same extent as the Germany of later times. It stretched from the Alps to the Eider. Its southern boundaries were somewhat fluctuating. Verona and Aquileia are sometimes counted as a German march, and the boundary between, Germany and Burgundy, crossing the modern Switzerland, often changed. To the north-east the kingdom hardly stretched beyond the Elbe, except in the small Saxon land between the Elbe and the Eider [called 'Saxony beyond the Elbe'—modern Holstein]. The great extension of the German power over the Slavonic lands beyond the Elbe had hardly yet begun. To the southeast lay the two border-lands or marks; the Eastern Mark, which grew into the later duchy of, Oesterreich or the modern Austria, and to the south of it the mark of Kärnthen or Carinthia. But the main part of the kingdom consisted of the great duchies of Saxony, Eastern Francia, Alemannia, and Bavaria. Of these the two names of Saxony and Bavaria must be carefully marked as having widely different meanings from those which they bear on the modern map. Ancient Saxony lies, speaking roughly, between the Eider, the Elbe, and the Rhine, though it never actually touches the last-named river. To the south of Saxony lies the Eastern Francia, the centre and kernel of the German kingdom. The Main and the Neckar both join the Rhine within its borders. To the south of Francia lie Alemannia and Bavaria. This last, it must be remembered, borders on Italy, with Bötzen for its frontier town. Alemannia is the land in which both the Rhine and the Danube take their source; it stretches on both sides of the Bodensee or Lake of Constanz, with the Rætian Alps as its southern boundary. For several ages to come, there is no distinction, national or even provincial, between the lands north and south of the Bodensee."

E. A. Freeman, Historical Geography of Europe, chapter 6, section 1.

ALSO IN: Sir F. Palgrave, History of Normandy and England, volumes 1-2.

On the indefiniteness of the name of the Germanic kingdom in this period,

See FRANCE: 9TH CENTURY.

GERMANY: A. D. 881. Accession of Charles III. (called The Fat), afterwards King of all the Franks and Emperor.

GERMANY: A. D. 888. Accession of Arnulf, afterwards Emperor.

GERMANY: A. D. 899. Accession of Louis III. (called The Child).

GERMANY: A. D. 911. Election of Conrad I.

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GERMANY: A. D. 911-936. Conrad the Franconian and Henry the Fowler. Beginning of the Saxon line. Hungarian invasion. The building of towns.

In 911, on the death of Louis, surnamed the Child, the German or East-Frank branch of the dynasty of Charlemagne had become extinct. "There remained indeed Charles the Simple, acknowledged as king in some parts of France, but rejected in others, and possessing no personal claims to respect. The Germans therefore wisely determined to chose a sovereign from among themselves. They were at this time divided into five nations, each under its own duke, and distinguished by difference of laws, as well as of origin; the Franks, whose territory, comprising Franconia and the modern Palatinate, was considered as the cradle of the empire, and who seem to have arrogated some superiority over the rest, the Suabians, the Bavarians, the Saxons … and the Lorrainers, who occupied the left bank of the Rhine as far as its termination. The choice of these nations in their general assembly fell upon Conrad, duke of Franconia, according to some writers, or at least a man of high rank, and descended through females from Charlemagne. Conrad dying without male issue, the crown of Germany was bestowed [A. D. 919] upon Henry the Fowler, duke of Saxony, ancestor of the three Othos, who followed him in direct succession. To Henry, and to the first Otho [A. D. 936-973], Germany was more indebted than to any sovereign since Charlemagne."

H. Hallam, The Middle Ages, chapter 5.

"In 924, the Hungarians, who were as much dreaded as the angel of destruction, re-appeared. They came from the grassy plains of Hungary, mounted on small and ugly, but strong horses, and swept along the Danube like a hailstorm. Wherever they came they set fire to farms, hamlets, and towns, and killed all living creatures or carried them off. And often they bound their prisoners to the tails of their horses, and dragged them along till they died from the dreadful torture. Their very figures inspired disgust and terror, for their faces were brown, and disfigured by scars to absolute hideousness; their heads were shaven, and brutal ferocity and rapacity shone out of their deep-set eyes. And though the Germans fought bravely, these enemies always overmatched them, because they appeared now here, now there, on their fleet horses, and fell upon isolated districts before they were expected or could be stopped. … When on a sudden the terrible cry, 'The Hungarians are coming, the Hungarians are coming,' resounded through the land, all fled who could, as if the wild legions of hell were marching through Saxony and Thuringia. King Henry, however, would not fly, but encountered them in combat, like a true knight. Yet he lost the battle, either because he was ill, or because his soldiers were too few, and unaccustomed to the enemy's mode of fighting, which enabled them to conquer while they were fleeing. Henry was obliged to shut himself up in the royal palace of Werla, near Goslar, which he bravely defended. The Hungarians stormed it again and again, but they could not scale the walls; while Henry's men by a daring sally took a Hungarian chieftain prisoner, which so terrified the besiegers that they concluded a truce for nine years on condition that their chief should be released, and that Henry should engage to pay a yearly tribute. Henry submitted to the dishonourable sacrifice that he might husband his strength for better times. … How important it was to have fortified places which could not be stormed by cavalry, and therefore afforded a safe refuge to the neighbouring peasantry, Henry recognised in 929, when the Hungarians marched through Bavaria and Suabia to Lorraine, plundered the time-honoured monastery of St. Gall, and burnt the suburbs of Constance, but could not take the fortified town itself. Henry, accordingly, published an order throughout the land, that at suitable places large fortresses should be built, in which every ninth man from the neighbouring district must take garrison duty. Certainly living in towns was contrary to the customs of the North Germans, and here and there there was much resistance; but they soon recognised the wisdom of the royal order, and worked night and day with such diligence that there soon arose throughout the land towns with stately towers and strong walls, behind whose battlements the armed burghers defiantly awaited the Hungarians. Hamburg was then fortified, Itzehoe built, the walls of Magdeburg, Halle, and Erfurt extended, for these towns had stood since the time of Charlemagne. Quedlinburg, Merseburg, Meissen, Wittenberg, Goslar, Soest, Nordhausen, Duderstadt, Gronau, Pölde, were rebuilt, and many others of which the old chroniclers say nothing. Those who dwelt in the cities were called burghers, and in order that they might not be idle they began to practise many kinds of industry, and to barter their goods with the peasants. The emperor encouraged the building of towns, and granted emancipation to every slave who repaired to a town, allowed the towns to hold fairs and markets, granted to them the right of coining money and levying taxes, and gave them many landed estates and forests. Under such encouragement town life rapidly developed, and the emperor, in his disputes with the lawless nobility, always received loyal support from his disciplined burghers. After a few centuries the towns, which had now generally become republics, under the name of 'free imperial towns,' became the seats of the perfection of European trade, science, and culture. … These incalculable benefits are due to Henry's order to build towns."

A. W. Grübe, Heroes of History and Legend, chapter 8.

At the expiration of the nine years truce, the Hungarians resumed their attacks, and were defeated by Henry in two bloody battles.

GERMANY: A. D. 936-973. Restoration of the Roman Empire by Otho I. called the Great.

"Otho the Great, son and successor of Henry I., added the kingdom of Italy to the conquests of his father, and procured also the Imperial dignity for himself, and his successors in Germany. Italy had become a distinct kingdom since the revolution, which happened (888) at the death of the Emperor Charles the Fat. Ten princes in succession occupied the throne during the space of seventy-three years. Several of these princes, such as Guy, Lambert, Arnulf, Louis of Burgundy, and Berenger I., were invested with the Imperial dignity. Berenger I., having been assassinated (924), this latter dignity ceased entirely, and the city of Rome was even dismembered from the kingdom of Italy. The sovereignty of that city was seized by the famous Marozia, widow of a nobleman named Alberic. She raised her son to the pontificate by the title of John XI.; and the better to establish her dominion, she espoused Hugo King of Italy (932), who became, in consequence of this marriage, master of Rome. But Alberic, another son of Marozia, soon stirred up the people against this aspiring princess and her husband Hugo. {1440} Having driven Hugo from the throne, and shut up his mother in prison, he assumed to himself the sovereign authority, under the title of Patrician of the Romans. At his death (954) he transmitted the sovereignty to his son Octavian, who, though only nineteen years of age, caused himself to be elected pope, by the title of John XII. This epoch was one most disastrous for Italy. The weakness of the government excited factions among the nobility, gave birth to anarchy, and fresh opportunity for the depredations of the Hungarians and Arabs, who, at this period, were the scourge of Italy, which they ravaged with impunity. Pavia, the capital of the kingdom, was taken, and burnt by the Hungarians. These troubles increased on the accession of Berenger II. (950), grandson of Berenger I. That prince associated his son Adelbert with him in the royal dignity; and the public voice accused them of having caused the death of King Lothaire, son and successor of Hugo. Lothaire left a young widow, named Adelaide, daughter of Rodolph II., King of Burgundy and Italy. To avoid the importunities of Berenger II., who wished to compel her to marry his son Adelbert, this princess called in the King of Germany to her aid. Otho complied with the solicitations of the distressed queen; and, on this occasion, undertook his first expedition into Italy (951). The city of Pavia, and several other places, having fallen into his hands, he made himself be proclaimed King of Italy, and married the young queen, his protégée. Berenger and his son, being driven for shelter to their strongholds, had recourse to negociation. They succeeded in obtaining for themselves a confirmation of the royal title of Italy, on condition of doing homage for it to the King of Germany. … It appears that it was not without the regret, and even contrary to the wish of Adelaide, that Otho agreed to enter into terms of accommodation with Berenger. … Afterwards; however, he lent a favourable ear to the complaints which Pope John XII. and some Italian noblemen had addressed to him against Berenger and his son; and took occasion, on their account, to conduct a new army into Italy (961). Berenger, too feeble to oppose him, retired a second time within his fortifications. Otho marched from Pavia to Milan, and there made himself be crowned King of Italy; from thence he passed to Rome, about the commencement of the following year. Pope John XII., who had himself invited him, and again implored his protection against Berenger, gave him, at first, a very brilliant reception; and revived the Imperial dignity in his favour, which had been dormant for thirty-eight years. It was on the 2d of February, 962, that the Pope consecrated and crowned him Emperor; but he had soon cause to repent of this proceeding. Otho, immediately after his coronation at Rome, undertook the siege of St. Leon, a fortress in Umbria, where Berenger and his queen had taken refuge. While engaged in the siege, he received frequent intimations from Rome, of the misconduct and immoralities of the Pope. The remonstrances which he thought it his duty to make on this subject, offended the young pontiff, who resolved, in consequence, to break off union with the Emperor. Hurried on by the impetuosity of his character, he entered into a negociation with Adelbert; and even persuaded him to come to Rome, in order to concert with him measures of defence. On the first news of this event, Otho put himself at the head of a large detachment, with which he marched directly to Rome. The Pope, however, did not think it advisable to wait his approach, but fled with the King, his new ally. Otho, on arriving at the capital, exacted a solemn oath from the clergy and the people, that henceforth they would elect no pope without his counsel, and that of the Emperor and his successors. Having then assembled a council, he caused Pope John XII. to be deposed; and Leo VIII. was elected in his place. This latter Pontiff was maintained in the papacy, in spite of all the efforts which his adversary made to regain it. Berenger II., after having sustained a long siege at St. Leon, fell at length (964) into the hands of the conqueror, who sent him into exile at Bamberg, and compelled his son, Adelbert, to take refuge in the court of Constantinople. All Italy, to the extent of the ancient kingdom of the Lombards, fell under the dominion of the Germans; only a few maritime towns in Lower Italy, with the greater part of Apulia and Calabria, still remained in the power of the Greeks. This kingdom, together with the Imperial dignity, Otho transmitted to his successors on the throne of Germany. From this time the Germans held it to be an inviolable principle, that as the Imperial dignity was strictly united with the royalty of Italy, kings elected by the German nation should, at the same time, in virtue of that election, become Kings of Italy and Emperors. The practice of this triple coronation, viz., of Germany, Italy, and Rome, continued for many centuries; and from Otho the Great, till Maximilian I. (1508), no king of Germany took the title of Emperor, until after he had been formally crowned by the Pope."

C. W. Koch, The Revolutions of Europe, period 3.

"At the first glance it would seem as if the relation in which Otho now stood to the pope was the same as that occupied by Charlemagne; on a closer inspection, however; we find a wide difference. Charlemagne's connexion with the see of Rome was produced by mutual need; it was the result of long epochs of political combination embracing the development of various nations; their mutual understanding rested on an internal necessity, before which all opposing views and interests gave way. The sovereignty of Otho the Great, on the contrary, rested on a principle fundamentally opposed to the encroachment of spiritual influences. The alliance was momentary; the disruption of it inevitable. But when, soon after, the same pope who had invoked his aid, John XII., placed himself at the head of a rebellious faction, Otho was compelled to cause him to be formally deposed, and to crush the faction that supported him by repeated, exertions of force, before he could obtain perfect obedience; he was obliged to raise to the papal chair a pope on whose co-operation he could rely. The popes have often asserted that they transferred the empire to the Germans; and if they confined this assertion to the Carolingian race, they are not entirely wrong. The coronation of Charlemagne was the result of their free determination. But if they allude to the German emperors, properly so called, the contrary of their statement is just as true; not only Carlmann and Otho the Great, but their successors, constantly had to conquer the imperial throne, and to defend it, when conquered, sword in hand. {1441} It has been said that the Germans would have done more wisely if they had not meddled with the empire; or, at least, if they had first worked out their own internal political institutions, and then, with matured minds, taken part in the general affairs of Europe. But the things of this world are not wont to develop themselves so methodically. A nation is often compelled by circumstances to increase its territorial extent, before its internal growth is completed. For was it of slight importance to its inward progress that Germany thus remained in unbroken connexion with Italy?—the depository of all that remained of ancient civilisation, the source whence all the forms of Christianity had been derived. The mind of Germany has always unfolded itself by contact with the spirit of antiquity, and of the nations of Roman origin. … The German imperial government revived the civilising and Christianising tendencies which had distinguished the reigns of Charles Martell and Charlemagne. Otho the Great, in following the course marked out by his illustrious predecessors, gave it a fresh national importance by planting German colonies in Slavonian countries simultaneously with the diffusion of Christianity. He Germanised as well as converted the population he had subdued. He confirmed his father's conquests on the Saale and the Elbe, by the establishment of the bishoprics of Meissen and Osterland. After having conquered the tribes on the other side the Elbe in those long and perilous campaigns where he commanded in person, he established there, too, three bishoprics, which for a time gave an extraordinary impulse to the progress of conversion. … And even where the project of Germanising the population was out of the question, the supremacy of the German name was firmly and actively maintained. In Bohemia and Poland bishoprics were erected under German metropolitans; from Hamburg Christianity found its way into the north; missionaries from Passau traversed Hungary, nor is it improbable that the influence of these vast and sublime efforts extended even to Russia. The German empire was the centre of the conquering religion; as itself advanced, it extended the ecclesiastico-military State of which the Church was an integral part; it was the chief representative of the unity of western Christendom, and hence arose the necessity under which it lay of acquiring a decided ascendancy over the papacy. This secular and Germanic principle long retained the predominancy it had triumphantly acquired. … How magnificent was the position now occupied by the German nation, represented in the persons of the mightiest princes of Europe and united under their sceptre; at the head of an advancing civilisation, and of the whole of western Christendom; in the fullness of youthful aspiring strength! We must here however remark and confess, that Germany did not wholly understand her position, nor fulfil her mission. Above all, she did not succeed in giving complete reality to the idea of a western empire, such as appeared about to be established under Otho I. Independent and often hostile, though Christian powers arose through all the borders of Germany; in Hungary and in Poland, in the northern as well as in the southern possessions of the Normans; England and France were snatched again from German influence. Spain laughed at the German claims to a universal supremacy; her kings thought themselves emperors; even the enterprises nearest home—those across the Elbe—were for a time stationary or retrograde. If we seek for the causes of these unfavourable results, we need only turn our eyes on the internal condition of the empire, where we find an incessant and tempestuous struggle of all the forces of the nation. Unfortunately the establishment of a fixed rule of succession to the imperial crown was continually prevented by events."

L. Ranke, History of the Reformation in Germany, introduction.

See, also, ITALY: A. D. 961-1039; and ROMAN EMPIRE, THE HOLY.

GERMANY: A. D. 955. Great defeat and repulse of the Hungarians by Otho I.

See HUNGARIANS: A. D. 934-955.

GERMANY: A. D. 973-1122. End of the Saxon line. Election of the Franconians. Reformation of the Papacy. Contest of Henry IV. with the Head of the Church. The question of Investitures.

"Otho II. had a short and troubled reign, 973-983 A. D., having to repress the Slavi, the Danes, the Greeks of Lower Italy, and to defend Lorraine against the French. He died at Rome in his twenty-eighth year. 983 A. D. Otho III. (aged three years) succeeded under the regency of his mother, Theophania (a Greek princess), who had to contend with the rebellious nobles, the Slavi, the Poles, the Bohemians, and with France, which desired to conquer Lorraine. This able lady died 991 A. D. Otho III. made three expeditions into Italy, and in 998 A. D. put down the republic of Rome, which had been created by the patrician Crescentius. The resistance of Crescentius had been pardoned the preceding year, but on this occasion he was publicly beheaded on the battlements of Rome, in view of the army and of the people. In 999 A. D. Otho placed his tutor Gerbert in the papal chair as Sylvester II. The tutor and the emperor were in advance of their age. The former had gleaned from Saracen translations from the Greek, as well as from Latin literature, and was master of the science of the day. It is supposed that they had planned to remove the seat of empire to Rome—a project which, had he lived, he would not have been able to carry out, for the centre of political power had long moved northward: he died at the early age of twenty-two, 1002 A. D. Henry II. (the Holy), Duke of Bavaria, was elected emperor, and had to battle, like his predecessors, with rebellious nobles, with the Poles, and Bohemians, and the Slavi. He was thrice in Italy, and died 1024 A. D. 'Perhaps, with the single exception of St. Louis IX., there was no other prince of the middle ages so uniformly swayed by justice.' Conrad II. (the Salic) of Franconia was elected emperor in a diet in the plains between Mentz and Worms, near Oppenheim, which was attended by princes, nobles, and 50,000 people altogether. His reign was remarkable for the justice and mercy which he always kept in view. The kingdom of Aries and Burgundy was united to the empire, 1033 A. D. He checked the Poles, the Hungarians, and the Lombards, and gave Schleswiek to Denmark as a fief. In 1037 A. D. he granted to the lower vassals of the empire the hereditary succession to their offices and estates, and so extended the privileges of the great nobles, as to make them almost independent of the crown. Henry III. succeeded, 1039 A. D., and established the imperial power with a high hand."

W. B. Boyce, Introduction to the Study of History, pages 230-231.

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"Henry III. was, as sovereign, able, upright, and resolute; and his early death—for his reign was cut short by disasters that preyed upon his health—is one of the calamities of history. The cause of the Roman Court he judged with vigor and good sense. His strong hand, more than any man's, dragged the Church out of the slough it had fallen into [see ROME: A. D. 962-1057]. … A few years before, in 1033, a child ten years old, son of one of the noble houses, had been put on the papal throne, under the name of Benedict IX.; and was restored to it by force of arms, five years later, when he had grown into a lewd, violent, and wilful boy of fifteen. At the age of twenty-one he was weary of the struggle, and sold out, for a large sum of money paid down, to a rich purchaser,—first plundering the papal treasury of all the funds he could lay his hands on. His successor, Gregory VI., naturally complained of his hard bargain, which was made harder by another claimant (Sylvester III.), elected by a different party; while no law that could possibly be quoted or invented would make valid the purchase and sale of the spiritual sovereignty of the world, which in theory the Papacy still was. Gregory appears to have been a respectable and even conscientious magistrate, by the standard of that evil time. But his open purchase of the dignity not only gave a shock to whatever right feeling there was left, but it made the extraordinary dilemma and scandal of three popes at once,—a knot which the German king, now Emperor, was called in to cut. … The worthless Benedict was dismissed, as having betrayed his charge. The impotent Sylvester was not recognized at all. The respectable Gregory was duly convinced of his deep guilt of Simony,—because he had 'thought that the gift of God could be purchased with money,'—and was suffered as a penitent to end his days in peace. A fourth, a German ecclesiastic, who was clean of all these intrigues, was set in the chair of Peter, where he reigned righteously for two years under the name of Clement II."

J. H. Allen, Christian History in its Three Great Periods: Second period, pages 57-58.

"With the popes of Henry's appointment a new and most powerful force rose to the control of the papacy—a strong and earnest movement for reformation which had arisen outside the circle of papal influence during the darkest days of its degradation, indeed, and entirely independent of the empire. This had started from the monastery of Cluny, founded in 910, in eastern France, as a reformation of the monastic life, but it involved gradually ideas of a wider reformation throughout the whole church. Two great sins of the time, as it regarded them, were especially attacked, the marriage of priests and simony, or the purchase of ecclesiastical preferment for money, including also appointments to church offices by temporal rulers. … The earnest spirit of Henry III. was not out of sympathy with the demand for a real reformation, and with the third pope of his appointment, Leo IX., in 1048, the ideas of Cluny obtained the direction of affairs. … One apparently insignificant act of Leo's had important consequences. He brought back with him to Rome the monk Hildebrand. He had been brought up in a monastery in Rome in the strictest ideas of Cluny, had been a supporter of Gregory VI., one of the three rival popes deposed by Henry, who, notwithstanding his outright purchase of the papacy, represented the new reform demand, and had gone with him into exile on his deposition. It does not appear that he exercised any decisive influence during the reign of Leo IX., but so great was his ability and such the power of his personality that very soon he became the directing spirit in the papal policy, though his influence over the papacy before his own pontificate was not so great nor so constant as it has sometimes been said to have been. So long as Henry lived the balance of power was decidedly in favor of the emperor, but in 1056 happened that disastrous event, which occurred so many times at critical points of imperial history, from Arnulf to Henry VI., the premature death of the emperor. His son, Henry IV., was only six years old at his father's death, and a minority followed just in the crisis of time needed to enable the feudal princes of Germany to recover and strengthen their independence against the central government, and to give free hands to the papacy to carry out its plans for throwing off the imperial control. Never again did an emperor occupy, in respect either to Germany or the papacy, the vantage-ground on which Henry III. had stood. … The triumph of the reform movement and of its ecclesiastical theory is especially connected with the name of Hildebrand, or Gregory VII., as he called himself when pope, and was very largely, if not entirely, due to his indomitable spirit and iron will, which would yield to no persuasion or threats or actual force. He is one of the most interesting personalities of history. … The three chief points which the reform party attempted to gain were the independence of the church from all outside control in the election of the pope, the celibacy of the clergy, and the abolition of simony or the purchase of ecclesiastical preferment. The foundation for the first of these was laid under Nicholas II. by assigning the selection of the pope to the college of cardinals in Rome, though it was only after some considerable time that this reform was fully secured. The second point, the celibacy of the clergy, had long been demanded by the church, but the requirement had not been strictly enforced, and in many parts of Europe married clergy were the rule. … As interpreted by the reformers, the third of their demands, the suppression of simony, was as great a step in advance and as revolutionary as the first. Technically, simony was the sin of securing an ecclesiastical office by bribery, named from the incident recorded in the eighth chapter of the Acts concerning Simon Magus. But at this time the desire for the complete independence of the church had given to it a new and wider meaning which made it include all appointment to positions in the church by laymen, including kings and the emperor. … According to the conception of the public law the bishop was an officer of the state. He had, in the great majority of cases, political duties to perform as important as his ecclesiastical duties. The lands which formed the endowment of his office had always been considered as being, still more directly than any other feudal land, the property of the state. … {1443} It was a matter of vital importance whether officers exercising such important functions and controlling so large a part of its area—probably everywhere as much as one-third of the territory—should be selected by the state or by some foreign power beyond its reach and having its own peculiar interests to seek. But this question of lay investiture was as vitally important for the church as for the state. … It was as necessary to the centralization and independence of the church that it should choose these officers as that it should elect the head of all—the pope. This was not a question for Germany alone. Every northern state had to face the same difficulty. … The struggle was so much more bitter and obstinate with the emperor than with any other sovereign because of the close relation of the two powers one to another, and because the whole question of their relative rights was bound up with it. It was an act of rebellion on the part of the papacy against the sovereign, who had controlled it with almost absolute power for a century, and it was rising into an equal, or even superior, place beside the emperor of what was practically a new power, a rival for his imperial position. … It was absolutely impossible that a conflict with these new claims should be avoided as soon as Henry IV. arrived at an age to take the government into his own hands and attempted to exercise his imperial rights as he understood them."

G. B. Adams, Civilization During the Middle Ages, chapter 10.

"At Gregory's accession, he [Henry] was a young man of twenty-three. His violence had already driven a whole district into rebellion. … The Pope sided with the insurgents. He summoned the young king to his judgment-seat at Rome; threatened at his refusal to 'cut him off as a rotten limb'; and passed on him the awful sentence of excommunication. The double terror of rebellion at home and the Church's curse at length broke down the passionate pride of Henry. Humbled and helpless, he crossed the Alps in midwinter, groping among the bleak precipices and ice-fields,—the peasants passing him in a rude sledge of hide down those dreadful slopes,—and went to beg absolution of Gregory at the mountain castle of Canossa. History has few scenes more dramatic than that which shows the proud, irascible, crest-fallen young sovereign confronted with the fiery, little, indomitable old man. To quote Gregory's own words:—'Here he came with few attendants, and for three days before the gate—his royal apparel laid aside, barefoot, clad in wool, and weeping abundantly—he never ceased to implore the aid and comfort of apostolic mercy, till all there present were moved with pity and compassion; insomuch that, interceding for him with many prayers and tears they all wondered at my strange severity, and some even cried out that it was not so much the severe dignity of an apostle as the cruel wrath of a tyrant. Overcome at length by the urgency of his appeal and the entreaties of all present, I relaxed the bond of anathema, and received him to the favor of communion and the bosom of our holy Mother the Church.' It was a truce which one party did not mean nor the other hope to keep. It was policy, not real terror or conviction, that had led Henry to humble himself before the Pope. It was policy, not contrition or compassion, that had led Gregory (against his better judgment, it is said) to accept his Sovereign's penance. In the war of policy, the man of the world prevailed. Freed of the Church's curse, he quickly won back the strength he had lost. He overthrew in battle the rival whom Gregory upheld. He swept his rebellious lands with sword and flame. He carried his victorious army to Rome, and was there crowned Emperor by a rival Pope [1084]. Gregory himself was only saved by his ferocious allies, Norman and Saracen, at cost of the devastation of half the capital,—that broad belt of ruin which still covers the half mile between the Coliseum and the Lateran gate. Then, hardly rescued from the popular wrath, he went away to die, defeated and heart-broken, at Salerno, with the almost despairing words on his lips: 'I have loved righteousness and hated iniquity, and therefore I die in exile!' But 'a spirit hath not flesh or bones,' as a body hath, and so it will not stay mangled and bruised. The victory lay, after all, with the combatant who could appeal to fanaticism as well as force."

J. H. Allen, Christian History in its Three Great Periods: second period, pages 69-72.

"Meanwhile, the Saxons had recognized Hermann of Luxemburg as their King, but in 1087 he resigned the crown: and another claimant, Eckbert, Margrave of Meissen, was murdered. The Saxons were now thoroughly' weary of strife, and as years and bitter experience had softened the character of Henry, they were the more willing to return to their allegiance. Peace was therefore, for a time, restored in Germany. The Papacy did not forgive Henry. He was excommunicated several times, and in 1091 his son Conrad was excited to rebel against him. In 1104 a more serious rebellion was headed by the Emperor's second son Henry, who had been crowned King, on promising not to seize the government during his father's lifetime, in 1099. The Emperor was treated very cruelly, and had to sign his own abdication at Ingelheim in 1105. A last effort was made on his behalf by the Duke of Lotharingia; but worn out by his sorrows and struggles, Henry died in August, 1106. His body lay in a stone coffin in an unconsecrated chapel at Speyer for five years. Not till 1111, when the sentence of excommunication was removed, was it properly buried. Henry V. was not so obedient to the Church as the Papal party had hoped. He stoutly maintained the very point which had brought so much trouble on his father. The right of investiture, he declared, had always belonged to his predecessors, and he was not to give up what they had handed on to him. In 1110 he went to Rome, accompanied by a large army. Next year Pope Paschal II. was forced to crown him Emperor: but as soon as the Germans had crossed the Alps again Paschal renewed all his old demands. The struggle soon spread to Germany. The Emperor was excommunicated; and the discontented princes, as eager as ever to break the royal power, sided with the Pope against him. Peace was not restored till 1122, when Calixtus II. was Pope. In that year, in a Diet held at Worms, both parties agreed to a compromise, called the Concordat of Worms."

J. Sime, History of Germany, chapter 8.

{1444}

"The long-desired reconciliation was effected in the form of the following concordat. The emperor renounced the right of investiture with the ring and crosier, and conceded that all bishoprics of the empire should be filled by canonical election and free consecration; the election of the German bishops (not of the Italian and Burgundian) should be held in presence of the emperor; the bishops elect should receive investiture, but only of their fiefs and regalia, by the sceptre in Germany before, in Italy and in Burgundy after, their consecration; for these grants they should promise fidelity to the emperor; contested elections should be decided by the emperor in favour of him who should be considered by the provincial synod to possess the better right. Finally he should restore to the Roman Church all the possessions and regalia of St. Peter. This convention secured to the Church many things, and above all, the freedom of ecclesiastical elections. Hitherto, the different Churches had been compelled to give their consent to elections that had been made by the king; but now the king was pledged to consent to the elections made by the Churches; and although these elections took place in his presence, he could not refuse his consent and investiture without violating the treaty, in which he had promised that for the future elections should be according to the canons. This, and the great difference, that the king, when he gave the ring and crosier, invested the bishop elect with his chief dignity, namely, his bishopric, but now granted him by investiture with the sceptre, only the accessories, namely the regalia, was felt by Lothaire, the successor of Henry, when he required of pope Innocent II. the restoration of the right of investiture. Upon one important point, the homage which was to be sworn to the king, the concordat was silent. By not speaking of it, Calixtus seemed to tolerate it, and the Roman see therefore permitted it, although it had been prohibited by Urban and Paschal. It is certain that Calixtus was as fully convinced as his predecessors, that the condition of vassals, to which bishops and abbots were reduced by their oath of homage, could hardly be reconciled with the nature and dignity of the episcopacy, or with the freedom of the Church, but he perhaps foresaw, that by insisting too strongly upon its discontinuance, he might awaken again the unholy war, and without any hopes of benefit, inflict many evils upon the Church. Sometime later Adrian endeavoured to free the Italian bishops from the homage, instead of which, the emperor was to be content with an oath of fidelity: but Frederick I. would not renounce the homage unless they resigned the regalia. The greatest concession made by the papal see in this concordat, was, that by its silence it appeared to have admitted the former pretensions of the emperors to take a part in the election of the Roman pontiff. … In the following year the concordat was ratified in the great council of three hundred bishops, the ninth general council of the Church, which was convened by Calixtus in Rome."

J. J. I. Döllinger, History of the Church, volume 3, pages 345-347.

See, also, PAPACY: A. D. 1056-1122; CANOSSA; ROME: A. D. 1081-1084; and SAXONY: A. D. 1073-1075.

ALSO IN: A. F. Villemain, Life of Gregory VII., book 2.

Comte C. F. Montalembert, The Monks of the West, book 19.

H. H. Milman, History of Latin Christianity, books 6-8.

W. R. W. Stephens, Hildebrand and His Times.

E. F. Henderson, Select Historical Documents of the Middle Ages, book 4.

GERMANY: A. D. 1101. Disastrous Crusade under Duke Welf of Bavaria.

See CRUSADES: A. D. 1101-1102.

GERMANY: A. D. 1125. Election of Lothaire II., King, afterwards Emperor.

GERMANY: A. D. 1125-1152. The rise of the College of Electors.

The election of Lothaire II., in 1125, when a great assembly of nobles and church dignitaries was convened at Mentz, and when certain of the chiefs made a selection of candidates to be voted for, has been regarded by some historians—Hallam, Comyn and Dunham, for example—as indicating the origin of the German electoral college. They have held that a right of "pretaxation," or preliminary choice, was gradually acquired by certain princes, which grew into the finally settled electoral right. But this view is now looked upon as more than questionable, and is not supported by the best authorities. "The phrase electoral princes (electores principes) first occurs in the Privilegium majus Austriacum, which dates from 1156, but it does not appear what princes were intended, and the accounts extant of the elections of the rival kings, Philip and Otho (IV.) in 1198, show beyond question that the right of election was not then limited to a few princes. The election of Frederick II. (1213) is only described by the authorities in general terms. They inform us that many princes took part in the proceedings. The following brief passage concerning the royal elections occurs in the Auctor Vetus de Beneficiis: 'When the king elected by the Germans goes to Rome to be 'consecrated (the) six princes who first cast their votes for him shall by rights accompany him that the justice of his election may be evident to the Pope.' The Sachsenspiegel Lehurecht substantially copies this sentence, but designates as the six princes: 'the Bishop of Mentz and of Treves and of Cologne, and the Palsgrave of the Rhine, the Duke of Saxony, and the Margrave of Brandenburg.' The Sachsenspiegel of Landrecht is still more explicit: 'In voting for Emperor, the first shall be the Bishop of Mentz; the second, the (Bishop) of Treves; the third, the (Bishop) of Cologne. The first of the laymen to vote is the Palsgrave of the Rhine, the steward of the Empire; the second, the Duke of Saxony, the marshal; the third, the Margrave of Brandenburg, the chamberlain. The butler of the Empire (is) the King of Bohemia. He has no vote because he is not German.' The obvious inference is that these three temporal princes voted before the rest because they were respectively the steward, marshal, and chamberlain. In the chronicle of Albert of Stade, the inference is given as fact in these words: 'The Palsgrave votes because he is steward, the Duke of Saxony because (he is) marshal, and the Margrave of Brandenburg, because (he is) chamberlain.' The mere fact that the right of casting the first six votes attached to six particular princes implies that their votes greatly outweighed those of their fellow-princes, and this is well known to have been the case in all the elections held in the thirteenth century subsequent to that of Frederick II. Only two others were associated with them in the double election of Richard of Cornwall and Alphonso of Castile (1256), namely, the King of Bohemia and the Duke of Bavaria. The whole number of participants was therefore eight, yet Urban IV., in a letter written March 31, 1263, to Richard of Cornwall, mentions the King of Bohemia alone as associated with them, and incidentally states that the 'princes having a voice' in the royal elections were 'seven in number.' It seems as if this must have been the statement of an idea rather than of a fact, although a college of seven electors was a recognized institution ten years later, as the circumstances attending the election of Rudolph of Hapsburg, demonstrate."

S. E. Turner, A Sketch of the Germanic Constitution, chapter 4.

{1445}

The Mark of Brandenburg was raised to the rank of an Electorate in 1356—not in 1152 as erroneously stated by Carlyle. The Margraf then became Kurfürst—"one of the Seven who have a right … to choose, to 'kieren' the Romish Kaiser; and who are therefore called Kur Princes, Kurfürste, or Electors. … Fürst (prince) I suppose is equivalent originally to our noun of number, 'First.' The old verb 'kieren' (participle 'erkoren' still in use, not to mention 'Val-kyr' and other instances) is essentially the same word as our 'choose,' being written 'kiesen' as well as 'kieren.' Nay, say the etymologists, it is also written 'Küssen ('to kiss,'—to choose with such emphasis!), and is not likely to fall obsolete in that form.—The other Six Electoral Dignitaries, who grew to Eight by degrees, and may be worth noting once by the readers of this book, are:

1. Three Ecclesiastical, Mainz, Cöln, Trier (Mentz, Cologne, Treves), Archbishops all. …

2. Three Secular, Sachsen, Pfalz, Böhmen (Saxony, Palatinate, Bohemia); of which the last, Böhmen, since it fell from being a kingdom in itself, to being a Province of Austria, is not very vocal in the Diets.

These Six, with Brandenburg, are the Seven Kurfürsts in old time; Septemvirs of the Country, so to speak. But now Pfalz, in the Thirty-Years War (under our Prince Rupert's Father, whom the Germans call the 'Winter-King'), got abrogated, put to the ban, so far as an indignant Kaiser could; and the vote and Kur of Pfalz was given to his Cousin of Baiern (Bavaria),—so far as an indignant Kaiser could.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1621-1623.

However, at the Peace of Westphalia (1648) it was found incompetent to any Kaiser to abrogate Pfalz or the like of Pfalz, a Kurfürst of the Empire. So, after jargon inconceivable, it was settled, that Pfalz must be reinstated, though with territories much clipped, and at the bottom of the list, not the top as formerly; and that Baiern, who could not stand to be balked after twenty-years possession, must be made Eighth Elector.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1648.

The Ninth, we saw (Year 1692), was Gentleman Ernst of Hanover.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1648-1705.

There never was any Tenth."

T. Carlyle, Frederick the Great, book 2, chapter 4.

"All the rules and requisites of the election were settled by Charles the Fourth in the Golden Bull [A. D. 1356—see below: A. D. 1347-1493], thenceforward a fundamental law of the Empire."

J. Bryce, The Holy Roman Empire, chapter 14.

GERMANY: A. D. 1138-1268. The house of Suabia, or the Hohenstaufen. Its struggles in Germany and Italy, and its end. The Factions of the Guelfs and Ghibellines. Frederick Barbarossa and Frederick the Second.

On the death of Henry V., in 1125, the male line of the house of Franconia became extinct. Frederick, duke of Suabia, and his brother Conrad, duke of the Franks, were grandchildren of Henry IV. on their mother's side, and, inheriting the patrimonial estates, were plainly the heirs of the crown, if the crown was to be recognized as hereditary and dynastic. But jealousy of their house and a desire to reassert the elective dependence of the imperial office prevailed against their claims and their ambition. At an election which was denounced as irregular, the choice fell upon Lothaire of Saxony. The old imperial family was not only set aside, but its bitterest enemies were raised over it. The consequences were a feud and a struggle which grew and widened into the long-lasting, far-reaching, historical conflict of Guelfs and Ghibellines.

See GUELFS AND GHIBELLINES; also, SAXONY: DISSOLUTION OF THE OLD DUCHY.

The Saxon emperor Lothaire found his strongest support in the great Wölf, Welf, or Guelf nobleman, Henry the Proud, duke of Bavaria, to whom he (Lothaire) now gave his daughter in marriage, together with the dukedom of Saxony, and whom he intended to make his successor on the imperial throne. But the scheme failed. On Lothaire's death, in 1138, the partisans of the Suabian family carried the election of Conrad (the Crusader—see CRUSADES: A. D. 1147-1149), and the dynasty most commonly called Hohenstaufen rose to power. It took the name of Hohenstaufen from its original family seat on the lofty hill of Staufen, in Suabia, overlooking the valley of the Rems. Its party, in the wars and factions of the time, received the name of the Waiblingen, from the birth-place of the Suabian duke Frederick—the little town of Waiblingen in Franconia. Under the tongue of the Italians, when these party names and war-cries were carried across the Alps, Waiblingen became Ghibelline and Welf became Guelf. During the first half century of the reign of the Hohenstaufen, the history of Germany is the history, for the most part, of the strife in which the Guelf dukes, Henry the Proud and Henry the Lion, are the central figures, and which ended in the breaking up of the old powerful duchy of Saxony. But Italy was the great historical field of the energies and the ambitions of the Hohenstaufen emperors. There, Frederick Barbarossa (Frederick Red beard, as the Italians called him), the second of the line, and Frederick II., his adventurous grandson, fought their long, losing battle with the popes and with the city-republics of Lombardy and Tuscany.

U. Balzani, The Popes and the Hohenstaufen.

Frederick Barbarossa, elected Emperor in 1152, passed into Italy in 1154. "He came there on the invitation of the Pope, of the Prince of Capua, and of the towns which had been subjected to the ambition of Milan. He marched at the head of his German feudatories, a splendid and imposing array. His first object was to crush the power of Milan, and to exalt that of Pavia, the head of a rival league. Nothing could stand against him. At Viterbo he was compelled to hold the stirrup of the Pope, and in return for this submission he received the crown from the Pontiff's hands in the Basilica of St. Peter. He returned northwards by the valley of the Tiber, dismissed his army at Ancona, and with difficulty escaped safely into Bavaria. His passage left little that was solid and durable behind it. He had effected nothing against the King of Naples. His friendship with the Pope was illusory and short-lived. The dissensions of the North, which had been hushed for a moment by his presence, broke out again as soon as his back was turned. He had, however, received the crown of Charles the Great from the hands of the successor of St. Peter. But Frederick was not a man to brook easily the miscarriage of his designs. In 1158 he collected another army at Ulm. Brescia was quickly subdued; Lodi, which had been destroyed by the Milanese, was rebuilt, and Milan itself was reduced to terms. {1446} This peace lasted but for a short time; Milan revolted, and was placed under the ban of the Empire. The fate of Cremona taught the Milanese what they had to expect from the clemency of the Emperor. After a desultory warfare, regular siege was laid to the town. On March 1, 1162, Milan, reduced by famine, surrendered at discretion, and a fortnight later all the inhabitants were ordered to leave the town. The circuit of the walls was partitioned out among the most pitiless enemies of its former greatness, and the inhabitants of Lodi, of Cremona, of Pavia, of Novara, and of Como were encouraged to wreak their vengeance on their defeated rival. For six days the imperial army laboured to overturn the walls and public buildings, and when the Emperor left for Pavia, on Palm Sunday 1162, not a fiftieth part of the city was standing. This terrible vengeance produced a violent reaction. The homeless fugitives were received by their ancient enemies, and local jealousies were merged in common hatred of the common foe. Frederick had already been excommunicated by Pope Alexander III. as the supporter of his rival Victor. Verona undertook to be the public vindicator of discontent. Five years after the destruction of Milan the Lombard league numbered fifteen towns amongst its members. Venice, Verona, Vicenza, Treviso, Ferrara, Brescia, Bergamo, Cremona, Milan, Lodi, Piacenza, Parma, Modena, and Bologna. The confederation solemnly engaged to expel the Emperor from Italy. The towns on the frontier of Piedmont asked and obtained admission to the league, and to mark the dawn of freedom a new town was founded on the low marshy ground which is drained by the Bormida and the Tanaro, and which afterwards witnessed the victory of Marengo. It was named by its founders Alessandria, in honour of the Pope, who had vindicated their independence of the Empire. … The Lombard league had unfortunately a very imperfect constitution. It had no common treasure, no uniform rules for the apportionment of contributions; it existed solely for the purposes of defence against the external foe. The time was not yet come when self-sacrifice and self-abnegation could lay the foundations of a united Italy. Frederick spent six years in preparing vengeance. In 1174 he laid siege to the new Alexandria, but did not succeed in taking it. A severe struggle took place two years later. In 1176 a new army arrived from Germany, and on May 29 Frederick Barbarossa was entirely defeated at Legnano. In 1876 the seventh hundred anniversary of the battle was celebrated on the spot where it was gained, and it is still regarded as the birthday of Italian freedom."

O. Browning, Guelphs and Ghibellines, chapter 1.

See, also, ITALY: A. D. 1154-1162 to 1174-1183.

"The end was that the Emperor had to make peace with both the Pope and the cities, and in 1183 the rights of the cities were acknowledged in a treaty or law of the Empire, passed at Constanz or Constance in Swabia. In the last years of his reign, Frederick went on the third Crusade, and died on the way.

See CRUSADES: A. D. 1188-1192.

Frederick was succeeded by his son Henry the Sixth, who had already been chosen King, and who in the next year, 1191, was crowned Emperor. The chief event of his reign was the conquest of the Kingdom of Sicily, which he claimed in right of his wife Constance, the daughter of the first King William. He died in 1197, leaving his son Frederick a young child, who had already been chosen King in Germany, and who succeeded as hereditary King in Sicily. The Norman Kingdom of Sicily thus came to an end, except so far as it was continued through Frederick, who was descended from the Norman Kings through his mother. On the death of the Emperor Henry, the election of young Frederick seems to have been quite forgotten, and the crown was disputed between his uncle Philip of Swabia and Otto of Saxony. He was son of Henry the Lion, who had been Duke of Saxony and Bavaria, but who had lost the more part of his dominions in the time of Frederick Barbarossa. Otto's mother was Matilda, daughter of Henry the Second of England. … Both Kings were crowned, and, after the death of Philip, Otto was crowned Emperor in 1209. But presently young Frederick was again chosen, and in 1220 he was crowned Emperor, and reigned thirty years till his death in 1250. This Frederick the Second, who joined together so many crowns, was called the Wonder of the World. And he well deserved the name, for perhaps no King that ever reigned had greater natural gifts, and in thought and learning he was far above the age in which he lived. In his own kingdom of Sicily he could do pretty much as he pleased, and it flourished wonderfully in his time. But in Germany and Italy he had constantly to struggle against enemies of all kinds. In Germany he had to win the support of the Princes by granting them privileges which did much to undermine the royal power, and on the other hand he showed no favour to the rising power of the cities. In Italy he had endless strivings with one Pope after another, with Innocent the Third; Honorius the Third, Gregory the Ninth, and Innocent the Fourth; as well as with the Guelfic cities, which withstood him much as they had withstood his grandfather. He was more than once excommunicated by the Popes, and in 1245 Pope Innocent the Fourth held a Council at Lyons, in which he professed to depose the Emperor. More than one King was chosen in opposition to him in Germany, just as had been done in the time of Henry the Fourth, and there were civil wars all his time, both in Germany and in Italy, while a great part of the Kingdom of Burgundy was beginning to slip away from the Empire altogether."

E. A. Freeman, General Sketch of European History, chapter 11.

"It is probable that there never lived a human being endowed with greater natural gifts, or whose natural gifts were, according to the means afforded him by his age, more sedulously cultivated, than the last Emperor of the House of Swabia. There seems to be no aspect of human nature which was not developed to the highest degree in his person. In versatility of gifts, in what we may call manysidedness of character, he appears as a sort of mediæval Alkibiadês, while he was undoubtedly far removed from Alkibiadês' utter lack of principle or steadiness of any kind. Warrior, statesman, lawgiver, scholar, there was nothing in the compass of the political or intellectual world of his age which he failed to grasp. In an age of change, when, in every corner of Europe and civilized Asia, old kingdoms, nations, systems, were falling and new ones rising, Frederick was emphatically the man of change, the author of things new and unheard of—he was stupor mundi et immutator mirabilis. {1447} A suspected heretic, a suspected Mahometan, he was the subject of all kinds of absurd and self-contradictory charges; but the charges mark real features in the character of the man. He was something unlike any other Emperor or any other man. … Of all men, Frederick the Second might have been expected to be the founder of something, the beginner of some new era, political or intellectual. He was a man to whom some great institution might well have looked back as its creator, to whom some large body of men, some sect or party or nation, might well have looked back as their prophet or founder or deliverer. But the most gifted of the sons of men has left behind him no such memory, while men whose gifts cannot bear a comparison with his are reverenced as founders by grateful nations, churches, political and philosophical parties. Frederick in fact founded nothing, and he sowed the seeds of the destruction of many things. His great charters to the spiritual and temporal princes of Germany dealt the death-blow to the Imperial power, while he, to say the least, looked coldly on the rising power of the cities and on those commercial Leagues which were in his time the best element of German political life. In fact, in whatever aspect we look at Frederick the Second, we find him, not the first, but the last, of every series to which he belongs. An English writer [Capgrave], two hundred years after his time, had the penetration to see that he was really the last Emperor. He was the last Prince in whose style the Imperial titles do not seem a mockery; he was the last under whose rule the three Imperial kingdoms retained any practical connexion with one another and with the ancient capital of all. … He was not only the last Emperor of the whole Empire; he might almost be called the last King of its several Kingdoms. After his time Burgundy vanishes as a kingdom. … Italy too, after Frederick, vanishes as a kingdom; any later exercise of the royal authority in Italy was something which came and went wholly by fits and starts. … Germany did not utterly vanish, or utterly split in pieces, like the sister kingdoms; but after Frederick came the Great Interregnum, and after the Great Interregnum the royal power in Germany never was what it had been before. In his hereditary Kingdom of Sicily he was not absolutely the last of his dynasty, for his son Manfred ruled prosperously and gloriously for some years after his death. But it is none the less clear that from Frederick's time the Sicilian Kingdom was doomed. … Still more conspicuously than all was Frederick the last Christian King of Jerusalem, the last baptized man who really ruled the Holy Land or wore a crown in the Holy City. … In the world of elegant letters Frederick has some claim to be looked on as the founder of that modern Italian language and literature which first assumed a distinctive shape at his Sicilian court. But in the wider field of political history Frederick appears nowhere as a creator, but rather everywhere as an involuntary destroyer. … Under Frederick the Empire and everything connected with it seems to crumble and decay while preserving its external splendour. As soon as its brilliant possessor is gone, it at once falls asunder. It is a significant fact that one who in mere genius, in mere accomplishments, was surely the greatest prince who ever wore a crown, a prince who held the greatest place on earth, and who was concerned during a long reign in some of the greatest transactions of one of the greatest ages, seems never, even from his own flatterers, to have received that title of Great which has been so lavishly bestowed on far smaller men. … Many causes combined to produce this singular result, that a man of the extraordinary genius of Frederick, and possessed of every advantage of birth, office, and opportunity, should have had so little direct effect upon the world. It is not enough to attribute his failure to the many and great faults of his moral character. Doubtless they were one cause among others. But a man who influences future ages is not necessarily a good man. … The weak side in the brilliant career of Frederick is one which seems to have been partly inherent in his character, and partly the result of the circumstances in which he found himself. Capable of every part, and in fact playing every part by turns, he had no single definite object, pursued honestly and steadfastly, throughout his whole life. With all his powers, with all his brilliancy, his course throughout life seems to have been in a manner determined for him by others. He was ever drifting into wars, into schemes of policy, which seem to be hardly ever of his own choosing. He was the mightiest and most dangerous adversary that the Papacy ever had. But he does not seem to have withstood the Papacy from any personal choice, or as the voluntary champion of any opposing principle. He became the enemy of the Papacy, he planned schemes which involved the utter overthrow of Papacy, yet he did so simply because he found that no Pope would ever let him alone. … The most really successful feature in Frederick's career, his acquisition of Jerusalem [see CRUSADES: A. D. 1216-1229], is not only a mere episode in his life, but it is something that was absolutely forced upon him against his will. … With other Crusaders the Holy War was, in some cases, the main business of their lives; in all cases it was something seriously undertaken as a matter either of policy or of religious duty. But the Crusade of the man who actually did recover the Holy City is simply a grotesque episode in his life. Excommunicated for not going, excommunicated again for going, excommunicated again for coming back, threatened on every side, he still went, and he succeeded. What others had failed to win by arms, he contrived to win by address, and all that came of his success was that it was made the ground of fresh accusations against him. … For a man to influence his age, he must in some sort belong to his age. He should be above it, before it, but he should not be foreign to it. … But Frederick belongs to no age; intellectually he is above his own age, above every age; morally it can hardly be denied that he was below his age; but in nothing was he of his age."

E. A. Freeman, The Emperor Frederick the Second (Historical Essays, volume 1, Essay 10).

For an account of Frederick's brilliant Sicilian court, and of some of the distinguishing features of his reign in Southern Italy, as well as of the end of his family, in the tragical deaths of his son Manfred and his grandson Conradin (1268).

See ITALY: A. D. 1183-1250.

ALSO IN: T. L. Kington, History of Frederick the Second.

J. Bryce, The Holy Roman Empire, chapters 10-13.

H. H. Milman, History of Latin Christianity, book 8, chapter 7, and book 9.

{1448}

GERMANY: A. D. 1142-1152. Creation of the Electorate of Brandenburg.

See BRANDENBURG: A. D. 1142-1152.

GERMANY: A. D. 1156. The Margravate of Austria created a Duchy.

See AUSTRIA: A. D. 805-1246.

GERMANY: A. D. 1180-1214. Bavaria and the Palatinate of the Rhine acquired by the house of Wittelsbach.

See BAVARIA: A. D. 1180-1356.

GERMANY: A. D. 1196-1197. The Fourth Crusade.

See CRUSADES: A. D. 1196-1197.

GERMANY: 13th Century. The rise of the Hanseatic League.

See HANSA TOWNS.

GERMANY: 13th Century. Cause of the multiplication of petty principalities and states.

"While the duchies and counties of Germany retained their original character of offices or governments, they were of course, even though considered as hereditary, not subject to partition among children. When they acquired the nature of fiefs, it was still consonant to the principles of a feudal tenure that the eldest son should inherit according to the law of primogeniture; an inferior provision or appanage, at most, being reserved for the younger children. The law of England favoured the eldest exclusively; that of France gave him great advantages. But in Germany a different rule began to prevail about the thirteenth century. An equal partition of the inheritance, without the least regard to priority of birth, was the general law of its principalities. Sometimes this was effected by undivided possession, or tenancy in common; the brothers residing together, and reigning jointly. This tended to preserve the integrity of dominion; but as it was frequently incommodious, a more usual practice was to divide the territory. From such partitions are derived those numerous independent principalities of the same house, many of which still subsist in Germany. In 1589 there were eight reigning princes of the Palatine family; and fourteen, in 1675, of that of Saxony. Originally these partitions were in general absolute and without reversion; but, as their effect in weakening families became evident, a practice was introduced of making compacts of reciprocal succession, by which a fief was prevented from escheating to the empire, until all the male posterity of the first feudatory should be extinct. Thus, while the German empire survived, all the princes of Hesse or of Saxony had reciprocal contingencies of succession, or what our lawyers call cross-remainders, to each other's dominions. A different system was gradually adopted. By the Golden Bull of Charles IV. the electoral territory, that is, the particular district to which the electoral suffrage was inseparably attached, became incapable of partition, and was to descend to the eldest son. In the 15th century the present house of Brandenburg set the first example of establishing primogeniture by law; the principalities of Anspach and Bayreuth were dismembered from it for the benefit of younger branches; but it was declared that all the other dominions of the family should for the future belong exclusively to the reigning elector. This politic measure was adopted in several other families; but, even in the 16th century, the prejudice was not removed, and some German princes denounced curses on their posterity, if they should introduce the impious custom of primogeniture. … Weakened by these subdivisions, the principalities of Germany in the 14th and 15th centuries shrink to a more and more diminutive size in the scale of nations."

H. Hallam, The Middle Ages, chapter 5 (volume 2).

See, also, CITIES, IMPERIAL AND FREE, OF GERMANY.

GERMANY: A. D. 1212. The Children's Crusade.

See CRUSADES: A. D. 1212.

GERMANY: A. D. 1231-1315. Relations of the Swiss Forest Cantons to the Empire and to the House of Austria.

See SWITZERLAND: THE THREE FOREST CANTONS.

GERMANY: A. D. 1250-1272. Degradation of the Holy Roman Empire. The Great Interregnum. Anarchy and disorder universal. Election of Rudolf of Hapsburg.

"With Frederick [the Second] fell the Empire. From the ruin that overwhelmed the greatest of its houses it emerged, living indeed, and destined to a long life, but so shattered, crippled, and degraded, that it could never more be to Europe and to Germany what it once had been. … The German kingdom broke down beneath the weight of the Roman Empire. To be universal sovereign Germany had sacrificed her own political existence. The necessity which their projects in Italy and disputes with the Pope laid the Emperors under of purchasing by concessions the support of their own princes, the ease with which in their absence the magnates could usurp, the difficulty which the monarch returning found in resuming the privileges of his crown, the temptation to revolt and set up pretenders to the throne which the Holy See held out, these were the causes whose steady action laid the foundation of that territorial independence which rose into a stable fabric at the era of the Great Interregnum. Frederick II. had, by two Pragmatic Sanctions, A. D. 1220 and 1232, granted, or rather confirmed, rights already customary, such as to give the bishops and nobles legal sovereignty in their own towns and territories, except when the Emperor should be present; and thus his direct jurisdiction became restricted to his narrowed domain, and to the cities immediately dependent on the crown. With so much less to do, an Emperor became altogether a less necessary personage; and hence the seven magnates of the realm, now by law or custom sole electors, were in no haste to fill up the place of Conrad IV., whom the supporters of his father Frederick had acknowledged. William of Holland [A. D. 1254] was in the field, but rejected by the Swabian party: on his death a new election was called for, and at last set on foot. The archbishop of Cologne advised his brethren to choose some one rich enough to support the dignity, not strong enough to be feared by the electors: both requisites met in the Plantagenet Richard, earl of Cornwall, brother of the English Henry III. He received three, eventually four votes, came to Germany, and was crowned at Aachen [A. D. 1256]. But three of the electors, finding that his bribe to them was lower than to the others, seceded in disgust, and chose Alfonso X. of Castile, who, shrewder than his competitor, continued to watch the stars at Toledo, enjoying the splendours of his title while troubling himself about it no further than to issue now and then a proclamation. Meantime the condition of Germany was frightful. The new Didius Julianus, the chosen of princes baser than the prætorians whom they copied, had neither the character nor the outward power and resources to make himself respected. Every floodgate of anarchy was opened: prelates and barons extended their domains by war: robber-knights infested the highways and the rivers: the misery of the weak, the tyranny and violence of the strong, were such as had not been seen for centuries. {1449} Things were even worse than under the Saxon and Franconian Emperors; for the petty nobles who had then been in some measure controlled by their dukes were now, after the extinction of the great houses, left without any feudal superior. Only in the cities was shelter or peace to be found. Those of the Rhine had already leagued themselves for mutual defence, and maintained a struggle in the interests of commerce and order against universal brigandage. At last, when Richard had been some time dead, it was felt that such things could not go on for ever: with no public law, and no courts of justice, an Emperor, the embodiment of legal government, was the only resource. The Pope himself, having now sufficiently improved the weakness of his enemy, found the disorganization of Germany beginning to tell upon his revenues, and threatened that if the electors did not appoint an Emperor, he would. Thus urged, they chose, in 1272 [1273?], Rudolf, count of Hapsburg, founder of the house of Austria. From this point there begins a new era. We have seen the Roman Empire revived in A. D. 800, by a prince whose vast dominions gave ground to his claim of universal monarchy; again erected, in A. D. 962, on the narrower but firmer basis of the German kingdom. We have seen Otto the Great and his successors during the three following centuries, a line of monarchs of unrivalled vigour and abilities, strain every nerve to make good the pretensions of their office against the rebels in Italy and the ecclesiastical power. Those efforts had now failed signally and hopelessly. Each successive Emperor had entered the strife with resources scantier than his predecessors, each had been more decisively vanquished by the Pope, the cities, and the princes. The Roman Empire might, and, so far as its practical utility was concerned, ought now to have been suffered to expire; nor could it have ended more gloriously than with the last of the Hohenstaufen. That it did not so expire, but lived on 600 years more, till it became a piece of antiquarianism hardly more venerable than ridiculous—till, as Voltaire said, all that could be said about it was that it was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire—was owing partly indeed to the belief, still unshaken, that it was a necessary part of the world's order, yet chiefly to its connection, which was by this time indissoluble, with the German kingdom. The Germans had confounded the two characters of their sovereign so long, and had grown so fond of the style and pretensions of a dignity whose possession appeared to exalt them above the other peoples of Europe, that it was now too late for them to separate the local from the universal monarch. If a German king was to be maintained at all, he must be Roman Emperor; and a German king there must still be. … That head, however, was no longer what he had been. The relative position of Germany and France was now exactly the reverse of that which they had occupied two centuries earlier. Rudolf was as conspicuously a weaker sovereign than Philip III. of France, as the Franconian Emperor Henry III. had been stronger than the Capetian Philip I. In every other state of Europe the tendency of events had been to centralize the administration and increase the power of the monarch, even in England not to diminish it: in Germany alone had political union become weaker, and the independence of the princes more confirmed."

J. Bryce, The Holy Roman Empire, chapter 13.

See, also, ITALY: A. D. 1250-1520.

GERMANY: A. D. 1273-1308. The first Hapsburg kings of the Romans, Rodolph and Albert.

The choice made (A. D. 1273) by the German Electors of Rodolph of Hapsburg for King of the Romans (see AUSTRIA: A. D. 1246-1282), was duly approved and confirmed by Pope Gregory X., who silenced, by his spiritual admonitions, the rival claims of King Alfonso of Castile. But Rodolph, to secure this papal confirmation of his title, found it necessary to promise, through his ambassadors, a renewal of the Capitulation of Otho IV., respecting the temporalities of the Pope. This he repeated in person, on meeting the Pope at Lausanne, in 1275, On that occasion, "an agreement was entered into which afterwards ratified to the Church the long disputed gift of Charlemagne, comprising Ravenna, Æmilia, Bobbio, Cesena, Forumpopoli, Forli, Faenza, Imola, Bologna, Ferrara, Comacchio, Adria, Rimini, Urbino, Monteferetro, and the territory of Bagno. Rodolph also bound himself to protect the privileges of the Church, and to maintain the freedom of Episcopal elections, and the right of appeal in all ecclesiastical causes; and having stipulated for receiving the imperial crown in Rome he promised to undertake an expedition to the holy land. If Rodolph were sincere in these last engagements, the disturbed state of his German dominions afforded him an apology for their present non-fulfilment: but there is good reason for believing that he never intended to visit either Rome or Palestine; and his indifference to Italy has even been the theme of panegyric with his admirers. The repeated and mortifying reverses of the two Frederics were before his eyes; there was little to excite his sympathy with the Italians; and though Lombardy seemed ready to acknowledge his supremacy, the Tuscan cities evinced aspirations after independence." During the early years of Rodolph's reign he was employed in establishing his authority, as against the contumacy of Ottocar, King of Bohemia, and the Duke of Bavaria.

See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1246-1282.

Meantime, Gregory X. and three short-lived successors in the papal office passed away, and Nicholas III. had come to it (1277). That vigorous pontiff called Rodolph to account for not having yet surrendered the states of the Church in due form, and whispered a hint of excommunication and interdict. "Rodolph was too prudent to disregard this admonition: he evaded the projected crusade and journey to Rome; but he took care to send thither an emissary, who in his name surrendered to the Pope the territory already agreed on. … During his entire reign Rodolph maintained his indifference towards Italy." His views "were rather directed to the wilds of Hungary and Germany than to the delicious regions of the south. … He compelled Philip, Count of Savoy, to surrender Morat, Payerne, and Guminen, which had been usurped from the Empire. By a successful expedition across the Jura, he brought back to obedience Otho IV. Count of Burgundy; and forced him to renounce the allegiance he had proffered to Philip III. King of France. … He crushed an insurrection headed by an impostor, who had persuaded the infatuated multitude to believe that he was the Emperor Frederic II. {1450} And he freed his dominions from rapine and desolation by the destruction of several castles, whose owners infested the country with their predatory incursions." Before his death, in 1291, Rodolph "grew anxious to secure to his son Albert the succession to the throne, and his nomination by the Electors ere the grave closed upon himself. … But all his entreaties were unavailing; he was coldly reminded that he himself was still the 'King,' and that the Empire was too poor to support two kings. Rodolph might now repent his neglect to assume the imperial crown: but the character of Albert seems to have been the real obstacle to his elevation. With many of the great qualities of his father, this prince was deficient in his milder virtues; and his personal bravery and perseverance were tainted with pride, haughtiness; and avarice." On Rodolph's death, the Electors chose for his successor Adolphus, Count of Nassau, a choice of which they soon found reason to repent. By taking pay from Edward I. of England, for an alliance with the latter against the King of France, and by attempts to enforce a purchased claim upon the Landgraviate of Thuringia, Adolphus brought himself into contempt, and in 1298 he was solemnly deposed by the Electors, who now conferred the kingship upon Albert of Austria whom they had rejected six years before. "The deposed sovereign was, however, strongly supported; and he promptly collected his adherents, and marched at the head of a vast army against Albert, who was not unprepared for his reception. A great battle took place at Gelheim, near Worms; and, after a bloody contest, the troops of Adolphus were entirely defeated," and he himself was slain. But Albert, now unopposed in Germany, found his title disputed at Rome. Boniface VIII., the most arrogant of all popes, refused to acknowledge the validity of his election, and drove him into a close alliance with the Pope's implacable and finally triumphant enemy, Philip IV. of France (see PAPACY: A. D. 1294-1348). He was soon at enmity, moreover, with a majority of the Electors who had given the crown to him, and they, stimulated by the Pope, were preparing to depose him, as they had deposed Adolphus. But Albert's energy broke up their plans. He humbled their leader, the Archbishop-Elector of Mentz, and the rest became submissive. The Pope now came to terms with him, and invited him to Rome to receive the imperial crown; also offering to him the crown of France, if he would take it from the head of the excommunicated Philip; but while these proposals were under discussion, Boniface suffered humiliations at the hands of the French king which caused his death. During most of his reign, Albert was busy with undertakings of ambition and rapacity which had no success. He attempted to seize the counties of Holland, Zealand, and Friesland, as fiefs reverting to the crown, on the death of John, Count of Holland, in 1299. He claimed the Bohemian crown in 1306, when Wenceslaus V., the young king, was assassinated, and invaded the country; but only to be beaten back. He was defeated at Lucka, in 1308, when attempting to grasp the inheritance of the Landgrave of Thuringia—under the very transaction which had chiefly caused his predecessor Adolphus to be deposed, and he himself invested with the Roman crown. Finally, he was in hostilities with the Swiss Forest Cantons, and was leading his forces against them, in May, 1308, when he was assassinated by several nobles, including his cousin John, whose enmity he had incurred.

Sir R. Comyn, History of the Western Empire, chapters 14-17 (volume 1).

ALSO IN; W. Coxe, History of the House of Austria, chapter 5 (volume 1).

GERMANY: A. D. 1282. Acquisition of the duchy of Austria by the House of Hapsburg.

See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1246-1282.

GERMANY: A. D. 1308-1313. The reign of Henry of Luxemburg.

The king (subsequently crowned emperor) chosen to succeed Albert was Count Henry of Luxemburg, an able and excellent prince. The new sovereign was crowned as Henry VII. "Henry did not make the extension of his private domains his object, yet favoring fortune brought it to him in the largest measure. Since the death of Wenzel III., the succession to the throne of Bohemia had been a subject of constant struggles. A very small party was in favor of Austria; but the chief power was in the hands of Henry of Carinthia, husband of Anna, Wenzel's eldest daughter. But he was hated by the people, whose hopes turned more and more to Elizabeth, a younger daughter of Wenzel; though she was kept in close confinement by Henry, who was about to marry her, it was supposed, below her rank. She escaped, fled to the emperor, and implored his aid. He gave her in marriage to his young son John, sending him to Bohemia in charge of Peter Aichspalter; to take possession of the kingdom. He did so, and it remained for more than a century in the Luxemburg family. This King John of Bohemia was a man of mark. His life was spent in the ceaseless pursuit of adventure—from tournament to tournament, from war to war, from one enterprise to another. We meet him now in Avignon, and now in Paris; then on the Rhine, in Prussia, Poland, or Hungary, and then prosecuting large plans in Italy, but hardly ever in his own kingdom. Yet his restless activity accomplished very little, apart from some important acquisitions in Silesia. Henry then gave attention to the public peace; came to an understanding with Leopold and Frederick, the proud sons of Albert, and put under the ban Everard of Wirtemberg, long a fomenter of disturbances, sending against him a strong imperial army. … At the Diet of Spires, in September, 1309, it was cheerfully resolved to carry out Henry's cherished plan of reviving the traditional dignity of the Roman emperors by an expedition to the Eternal City. Henry expected thus to renew the authority of his title at home, as well as in Italy, where, in the traditional view, the imperial crown was as important and as necessary as in Germany. Every thing here had gone to confusion and ruin since the Hohenstaufens had succumbed to the bitter hostility of the popes. The contending parties still called themselves Guelphs and Ghibellines, though they retained little of the original characteristics attached to these names. A formal embassy, with Matteo Visconti at its head, invited Henry to Milan; and the parties every where anticipated his coming with hope. The great Florentine poet, Dante, hailed him as a saviour for distracted Italy. Thus, with the pope's approval, he crossed the Alps in the autumn of 1310, attended by a splendid escort of princes of the empire. {1451} The news of his approach excited general wonder and expectation, and his reception at Milan in December was like a triumph. He was crowned King of Lombardy without opposition. But when, in the true imperial spirit, he announced that he had come to serve the nation, and not one or another party, and proved his sincerity by treating both parties alike, all whose selfish hopes were deceived conspired against him. Brescia endured a frightful siege for four months, showing that the national hatred of German rule still survived. At length a union of all his adversaries was formed under King Robert of Naples, the grandson of Charles of Anjou, who put Conradin to death. Meanwhile Henry VII. went to Rome, May 1312, and received the crown of the Cæsars from four cardinals, plenipotentiaries of the pope, in the church of St. John Lateran, south of the Tiber, St. Peter's being occupied by the Neapolitan troops. But many of his German soldiers left him, and he retired, with a small army, to Pisa, after an unsuccessful effort to take Florence. From the faithful city of Pisa he proclaimed King Robert under the ban, and, in concert with Frederick of Sicily, prepared for war by land and sea. But the pope, now a mere tool of the King of France, commanded an armistice; and when Henry, in an independent spirit, hesitated to obey, Clement V. pronounced the ban of the Church against him. It never reached the emperor, who died suddenly in the monastery of Buon-Convento: poisoned, as the German annalists assert, by a Dominican monk, in the sacramental cup, August 24, 1313. He was buried at Pisa. Meanwhile his army in Bohemia had been completely successful in establishing King John on the throne."