A History of Germany Part 13

In 981 Otto II. went to Italy. His mother, Adelheid, came to Pavia to meet him, and a complete reconciliation took place between them. Then he advanced to Rome, quieted the dissensions in the government of the city, and received as his guests Konrad, king of Burgundy, and Hugh Capet, destined to be the ancestor of a long line of French kings. At this time both the Byzantine Greeks and the Saracens were ravaging Southern Italy, and it was Otto II.'s duty, as Roman Emperor, to drive them from the land. The two bitterly hostile races became allies, in order to resist him, and the war was carried on fiercely until the summer of 982 without any result; then, on the 13th of July, on the coast of Calabria, the Imperial army was literally cut to pieces by the Saracens. The Emperor escaped capture by riding into the Mediterranean and swimming to a ship which lay near. When he was taken on board he found it to be a Greek vessel; but whether he was recognized or not (for the accounts vary), he prevailed upon the captain to set him ash.o.r.e at Rossano, where the Empress Theophania was awaiting his return from battle.

This was a severe blow, but it aroused the national spirit of Germany.

Otto II., having returned to Northern Italy, summoned a general Diet of the Empire to meet at Verona in the summer of 983. All the subject Dukes and Princes attended, even the kings of Burgundy and Bohemia. Here, for the first time, the Lombard Italians appeared on equal footing with the Saxons, Franks and Bavarians, acknowledged the authority of the Empire, and elected Otto II.'s son, another Otto, only three years old, as his successor. Preparations were made for a grand war against the Saracens and the Eastern Empire, but before they were completed Otto II. died, at the age of twenty-eight, in Rome. He was buried in St. Peter's.

[Sidenote: 991.]

The news of his death reached Aix-la-Chapelle at the very time when his infant son was crowned king as Otto III., in accordance with the decree of the Diet of Verona. A dispute now arose as to the guardianship of the child, between the widowed Empress Theophania and Henry II. of Bavaria, who at once returned from his exile in Holland. The latter aimed at usurping the Imperial throne, but he was incautious enough to betray his design too soon, and met with such opposition that he was lucky in being allowed to retain his former place as Duke of Bavaria. The Empress Theophania reigned in Germany in her son's name, while Adelheid, widow of Otto the Great, reigned in Italy. The former, however, had the a.s.sistance of Willigis, Archbishop of Mayence, a man of great wisdom and integrity. He was the son of a poor Saxon wheelwright, and chose for his coat-of-arms as an Archbishop, a wheel, with the words: "Willigis, forget not thine origin." When Theophania died, in 991, her place was taken by Otto III.'s grandmother, Adelheid, who chose the Dukes of Saxony, Suabia, Bavaria and Tuscany as her councillors.

During this time the Wends in Prussia again arose, and after a long and wasting war, in which the German settlements beyond the Elbe received little help from the Imperial government, the latter were either conquered or driven back. The relations between Germany and France were also actually those of war, although there were no open hostilities. The struggle for the throne of France, between Duke Charles, the last of the Carolingian line, and Hugh Capet, which ended in the triumph of the latter, broke the last link of blood and tradition connecting the two countries. They had been jealous relatives. .h.i.therto; now they became strangers, and it is not long until History records them as enemies.

[Sidenote: 996. OTTO III.'S CORONATION IN ROME.]

When Otto III. was sixteen years old, in 996, he took the Imperial government in his own hands. His education had been more Greek than German; he was ashamed of his Saxon blood, and named himself, in his edicts, "a Greek by birth and a Roman by right of rule." He was a strange, unsteady, fantastic character, whose only leading idea was to surround himself with the absurd ceremonies of the Byzantine Court, and to make Rome the capital of his Empire. His reign was a farce, compared with that of his grandfather, the great Otto, and yet it was the natural consequence of the latter's perverted ambition.

Otto III.'s first act was to march to Rome, in order to be crowned as Emperor by the Pope, John XV., in exchange for a.s.sisting him against Crescentius, a Roman n.o.ble who had usurped the civil government. But the Pope died before his arrival, and Otto thereupon appointed his own cousin, Bruno, a young man of twenty-four, who took the Papal chair as Gregory V. The new-made Pope, of course, crowned him as Roman Emperor, a few days afterward. The people, in those days, were accustomed to submit to any authority, spiritual or political, which was strong enough to support its own claims, but this bargain was a little too plain and barefaced; and Otto had hardly returned to Germany, before the Roman, Crescentius, drove away Gregory V. and set up a new Pope, of his own appointment.

The Wends, in Prussia, were giving trouble, and the Scandinavians and Danes ravaged all the northern coast of Germany; but the boy emperor, without giving a thought to his immediate duty, hastened back to Italy in 997, took Crescentius prisoner and beheaded him, barbarously mutilated the rival Pope, and reinstated Gregory V. When the latter died, in 999, Otto made his own teacher, Gerbert of Rheims, Pope, under the name of Sylvester II. In spite of the reverence of the common people for the Papal office, they always believed Pope Sylvester to be a magician, and in league with the Devil. He was the most learned man of his day, and in his knowledge of natural science was far in advance of his time; but such accomplishments were then very rare in Italy, and unheard of in a Pope. Otto III. remained three years longer in Italy, dividing his time between pompous festivals and visits to religious anchorites.

In the year 1000 he was recalled to Germany. His father's sister, Mathilde, who had governed the country as well as she was able, during his absence, was dead, and there were difficulties, not of a political nature (for to such he paid no attention), but in the organization of the Church, which he was anxious to settle. The Poles were converted to Christianity by this time, and their spiritual head was the Archbishop of Magdeburg; but now they demanded a separate and national diocese.

This Otto granted to their Duke, or king, Boleslaw, with such other independent rights, that the authority of the German Empire soon ceased to be acknowledged by the Poles. He made a pilgrimage to the tomb of St.

Adalbert of Prague, who was slain by the Prussian pagans, then visited Aix-la-Chapelle, where, following a half-delirious fancy, he descended into the vault where lay the body of Charlemagne, in the hope of hearing a voice, or receiving a sign, which might direct him how to restore the Roman Empire.

[Sidenote: 1001.]

The new Pope, Sylvester II., after Otto III.'s departure from Rome, found himself in as difficult a position as his predecessor, Gregory V.

He was also obliged to call the Emperor to his aid, and the latter returned to Italy in 1001. He established his Court in a palace on Mount Aventine, in Rome, and maintained his authority for a little while, in spite of a fierce popular revolt. Then, becoming restless, yet not knowing what to do, he wandered up and down Italy, paid a mysterious visit to Venice by night, and finally returned to Rome, to find the gates barred against him. He began a siege, but before anything was accomplished, he died in 1002, as was generally believed, of poison. The n.o.bles and the imperial guards who accompanied him took charge of his body, cut their way through a population in rebellion against his rule, and carried him over the Alps to Germany, where he was buried in Aix-la-Chapelle.

The next year Pope Sylvester II. died, and Rome fell into the hands of the Counts of Tusculum, who tried to make the Papacy a hereditary dignity in their family. One of them, a boy of seventeen, became Pope as John XVI., and during the following thirty years four other boys held the office of Head of the Christian Church, crowned Emperors, and blessed or excommunicated at their will. This was the end of the grand political and spiritual Empire which Charlemagne had planned, two centuries before--a fantastic, visionary youth as Emperor, and a weak, ignorant boy as Pope! The effect was the rapid demoralization of princes and people, and nothing but the genuine Christianity still existing among the latter, from whom the ranks of the priests were recruited, saved the greater part of Europe from a relapse into barbarism.

[Sidenote: 1002. HENRY II. ELECTED.]

At Otto III.'s death there were three claimants to the throne, belonging to the Saxon dynasty; but his nearest relative, Henry, third Duke of Bavaria, and great-grandson of king Henry I. the Fowler, was finally elected. Suabia, Saxony and Lorraine did not immediately acquiesce in the choice, but they soon found it expedient to submit. Henry's authority was thus established within Germany, but on its frontiers and in Italy, which was now considered a genuine part of "the Roman Empire,"

the usual troubles awaited him. He was a man of weak const.i.tution, and only average intellect, but well-meaning, conscientious, and probably as just as it was possible for him to be under the circ.u.mstances. His life, as Emperor, was "a battle and a march," but its heaviest burdens were inherited from his predecessors. He was obliged to correct twenty years of misrule, or rather _no rule_, and he courageously gave the remainder of his life to the task.

The Polish Duke, Boleslaw, sought to unite Bohemia and all the Slavonic territory eastward of the Elbe, under his own sway. This brought him into direct collision with the claims of Germany, and the question was not settled until after three long and b.l.o.o.d.y wars. Finally, in 1018, a treaty was made between Henry II. and Boleslaw, by which Bohemia remained tributary to the German Empire, and the province of Meissen (in the present kingdom of Saxony) became an appanage of Poland. By this time the Wends had secured possession of Northern Prussia, between the Elbe and the Oder, thrown off the German rule, and returned to their ancient pagan faith.

In Italy, Arduin of Ivrea succeeded in inciting the Lombards to revolt, and proclaimed himself king of an independent Italian nation. Henry II.

crossed the Alps in 1006, and took Pavia, the inhabitants of which city rose against him. In the struggle which followed, it was burned to the ground. After his return to Germany Arduin recovered his influence and power, became practically king, and pressed the Pope, Benedict VIII., so hard, that the latter went personally to Henry II. (as Leo III. had gone to Charlemagne) and implored his a.s.sistance. In the autumn of 1013, Henry went with the Pope to Italy, entered Pavia without resistance, restored the Papal authority in Rome, and was crowned Emperor in February, 1014. He returned immediately afterwards to Germany; and Italy, after Arduin's death, the following year, remained comparatively quiet.

[Sidenote: 1018.]

Even before the wars with Poland came to an end, in 1018, other troubles broke out in the west. There were disturbances along the frontier in Flanders, rebellions in Luxemburg and Lorraine, and finally a quarrel with Burgundy, the king of which, Rudolf III., was Henry II.'s uncle, and had chosen him as his heir. This inheritance gave Germany the eastern part of France, nearly to the Mediterranean, and the greater portion of Switzerland. But the Burgundian n.o.bles refused to be thus transferred, and did not give their consent until after Henry's armies had twice invaded their country.

Finally, in 1020, when there was temporary peace throughout the Empire, the Cathedral at Bamberg, which the Emperor had taken great pride in building, was consecrated with splendid ceremonies. The pope came across the Alps to be present, and he employed the opportunity to persuade Henry to return to Italy, and free the southern part of the peninsula from the Byzantine Greeks, who had advanced as far as Capua and threatened Rome. The Emperor consented: in 1021 he marched into Southern Italy with a large army, expelled the Greeks from the greater portion of their conquered territory, and then, having lost his best troops by pestilence, returned home. He there continued to travel to and fro, settling difficulties and observing the condition of the people. After long struggles, the power of the Empire seemed to be again secured; but when he began to strengthen it by the arts of peace, his own strength was exhausted. He died near Gottingen, in the summer of 1024, and was buried in the Cathedral of Bamberg. With him expired the dynasty of the Saxon Emperors, less pitifully, however, than either the Merovingian or Carolingian line.

When Otto the Great, towards the close of his reign, neglected Germany and occupied himself with establishing his dominion in Italy, he prepared the way for the rapid decline of the Imperial power at home, in the hands of his successors. The reigning Dukes, Counts, and even the petty feudal lords, no longer watched and held subordinate, soon became practically independent: except in Friesland, Saxony and the Alps, the people had no voice in political matters; and thus the growth of a general national sentiment, such as had been fostered by Charlemagne and Henry I., was again destroyed. In proportion as the smaller States were governed as if they were separate lands, their populations became separated in feeling and interest. Henry II. tried to be an Emperor of _Germany_: he visited Italy rather on account of what he believed to be the duties of his office than from natural inclination to reign there; but he was not able to restore the same authority at home, as Otto the Great had exercised.

[Sidenote: 1024. END OF HENRY II.'S REIGN.]

Henry II. was a pious man, and favored the Roman Church in all practicable ways. He made numerous and rich grants of land to churches and monasteries, but always with the reservation of his own rights, as sovereign. After his death he was made a Saint, by order of the Pope, but he failed to live, either as Saint or Emperor, in the traditions of the people.

CHAPTER XV.

THE FRANK EMPERORS, TO THE DEATH OF HENRY IV.

(1024--1106.)

Konrad II. elected Emperor. --Movements against him. --Journey to Italy. --Revolt of Ernest of Suabia. --Burgundy attached to the Empire. --Siege of Milan. --Konrad's Death. --Henry III. succeeds.

--Temporary Peace. --Corruptions in the Church. --The "Truce of G.o.d." --Henry III.'s Coronation in Rome. --Rival Popes. --New Troubles in Germany. --Second Visit to Italy. --Return and Death.

--Henry IV.'s Childhood. --His Capture. --Archbishops Hanno and Adalbert. --Henry IV. begins to reign. --Revolt and Slaughter of the Saxons. --Pope Gregory VII. --His Character and Policy. --Henry IV. excommunicated. --Movement against him. --He goes to Italy.

--His Humiliation at Canossa. --War with Rudolf of Suabia. --Henry IV. besieges Rome. --Death of Gregory VII. --Rebellions of Henry IV.'s Sons. --His Capture, Abdication and Death. --The First Crusade.

[Sidenote: 1024.]

On the 4th of September, 1024, the German n.o.bles, clergy and people came together on the banks of the Rhine, near Mayence, to elect a new Emperor. There were fifty or sixty thousand persons in all, forming two great camps: on the western bank of the river were the Lorrainese and the Rhine-Franks, on the eastern bank the Saxons, Suabians, Bavarians and German-Franks. There were two prominent candidates for the throne, but neither of them belonged to the established reigning houses, the members of which seemed to be so jealous of one another that they mutually destroyed their own chances. The two who were brought forward were cousins, both named Konrad, and both great-grandsons of Duke Konrad, Otto the Great's son-in-law, who fell so gallantly in the great battle with the Hungarians, in 955.

For five days the claims of the two were canva.s.sed by the electors. The elder Konrad had married Gisela, the widow of Duke Ernest of Suabia, which gave him a somewhat higher place among the princes; and therefore after the cousins had agreed that either would accept the other's election as valid and final, the votes turned to his side. The people, who were present merely as spectators (for they had now no longer any part in the election), hailed the new monarch with shouts of joy, and he was immediately crowned king of Germany in the Cathedral of Mayence.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GERMANY under the Saxon and Frank Emperors.

Twelfth Century]

[Sidenote: 1024.]

Konrad--who was Konrad II. in the list of German Emperors--had no subjects of his own to support him, like his Saxon predecessors: his authority rested upon his own experience, ability and knowledge of statesmanship. But his queen, Gisela, was a woman of unusual intelligence and energy, and she faithfully a.s.sisted him in his duties.

He was a man of stately and commanding appearance, and seemed so well fitted for his new dignity that when he made the usual journey through Germany, neither Dukes nor people hesitated to give him their allegiance. Even the n.o.bles of Lorraine, who were dissatisfied with his election, found it prudent to yield without serious opposition.

The death of Henry II., nevertheless, was the signal for three threatening movements against the Empire. In Italy the Lombards rose, and, in their hatred of what they now considered to be a foreign rule (quite forgetting their own German origin), they razed to the ground the Imperial palace at Pavia: in Burgundy, king Rudolf declared that he would resist Konrad's claim to the sovereignty of the country, which, being himself childless, he had promised to Henry II.; and in Poland, Boleslaw, who now called himself king, declared that his former treaties with Germany were no longer binding upon him. But Konrad II. was favored by fortune. The Polish king died, and the power which he had built up--for his kingdom, like that of the Goths, reached from the Baltic to the Danube, from the Elbe to Central Russia--was again shattered by the quarrels of his sons. In Burgundy, Duke Rudolf was without heirs, and finally found himself compelled to recognize the German sovereign as his successor. With Canute, who was then king of Denmark and England, Konrad II. made a treaty of peace and friendship, restoring Schleswig to the Danish crown, and re-adopting the river Eider as the boundary.

In the spring of 1026, Konrad went to Italy. Pavia shut her gates against him, but those of Milan were opened, and the Lombard Bishops and n.o.bles came to offer him homage. He was crowned with the iron crown, and during the course of the year, all the cities in Northern Italy--even Pavia, which promised to rebuild the Imperial palace--acknowledged his sway. In March, 1027, he went to Rome and was crowned Emperor by the Pope, John XIX., one of the young Counts of Tusculum, who had succeeded to the Papacy as a boy of twelve! King Canute and Rudolf of Burgundy were present at the ceremony, and Konrad betrothed his son Henry to the Danish princess Gunhilde, daughter of the former.

[Sidenote: 1027. KONRAD II.'S VISIT TO ITALY.]

After the coronation, the Emperor paid a rapid visit to Southern Italy, where the Normans had secured a foothold ten years before, and, by defending the country against the Greeks and Saracens, were rapidly making themselves its rulers. He found it easier to accept them as va.s.sals than to drive them out, but in so doing he added a new and turbulent element to those which already distracted Italy. However, there was now external quiet, at least, and he went back to Germany.

Here his step-son, Ernest II. of Suabia, who claimed the crown of Burgundy, had already risen in rebellion against him. He was not supported even by his own people, and the Emperor imprisoned him in a strong fortress until the Empress Gisela, by her prayers, procured his liberation. Konrad offered to give him back his Dukedom, provided he would capture and deliver up his intimate friend, Count Werner of Kyburg, who was supposed to exercise an evil influence over him. Ernest refused, sought his friend, and the two after living for some time as outlaws in the Black Forest, at last fell in a conflict with the Imperial troops. The sympathies of the people were turned to the young Duke by his hard fate and tragic death, and during the Middle Ages the narrative poem of "Ernest of Suabia" was sung everywhere throughout Germany.

Konrad II. next undertook a campaign against Poland, which was wholly unsuccessful: he was driven back to the Elbe with great losses. Before he could renew the war, he was called upon to a.s.sist Count Albert of Austria (as the Bavarian "East-Mark" along the Danube must henceforth be called) in a war against Stephen, the first Christian king of Hungary.

The result was a treaty of peace, which left him free to march once more against Poland and reconquer the provinces which Henry II. had granted to Boleslaw. The remaining task of his reign, the attachment of Burgundy to the German Empire, was also accomplished without any great difficulty. King Rudolf, before his death in 1032, sent his crown and sceptre to Konrad II., in fulfilment of a promise made when they met at Rome, six years before. Although Count Odo of Champagne, Rudolf's nearest relative, disputed the succession, and all southern Burgundy espoused his cause, he was unable to resist the Emperor. The latter was crowned King of Burgundy at Payerne, in Switzerland, and two years later received the homage of nearly all the clergy and n.o.bles of the country in Lyons.

[Sidenote: 1037.]

At that time Burgundy comprised the whole valley of the Rhone, from its cradle in the Alps to the Mediterranean, the half of Switzerland, the cities of Dijon and Besancon and the territory surrounding them. All this now became, and for some centuries remained, a part of the German Empire. Its relation to the latter, however, resembled that of the Lombard Kingdom in Italy: its subjection was acknowledged, it was obliged to furnish troops in special emergencies, but it preserved its own inst.i.tutions and laws, and repelled any closer political union. The continual intercourse of its people with those of France slowly obliterated the original differences between them, and increased the hostility of the Burgundians to the German sway. But the rulers of that day were not wise enough to see very far in advance, and the sovereignty of Burgundy was temporarily a gain to the German power.

Early in 1037 Konrad was called again to Italy by complaints of the despotic rule of the local governors, especially of the Archbishop Heribert of Milan. This prelate resisted his authority, incited the people of Milan to support his pretensions, and became, in a short time, the leader of a serious revolt. The Emperor deposed him, prevailed upon the Pope, Benedict IX., to place him under the ban of the Church, and besieged Milan with all his forces; but in vain. The Bishop defied both Emperor and Pope; the city was too strongly fortified to be taken, and out of this resistance grew the idea of independence which was afterwards developed in the Italian Republics, until the latter weakened, wasted, and finally destroyed the authority of the German (or "Roman") Emperors in Italy. Konrad was obliged to return home without having conquered Archbishop Heribert and the Milanese.