Bur- Iundy. Henry I II. FRANCONIAN EMr>ERoRs.] in marriage for his son Henry Canute’s daughter; and in return he ceded to Denmark the march of Schleswig. The I)anes thus became the friends of the Germans, and were of service to them in keeping down the Vends. Vit-h Hungary, Conrad waged war, but not successfully, for, although a statesman, he appears to have been no great general. He was more fortunate in Poland ; Boleslaus having died, the Poles plunged into a furious civil war, and he was able to turn their disunion to his own advan- tage. Moreover, a youthful hero, Breteslaus, an illegiti- mate son of the duke of Bohemia, having carried away from a convent a young German lady, a powerful noble’s daughter, whom he passionately loved, and who had un- bounded influence over hin1, was induced to place his sword at the disposal of Conrad, and by a single raid he drove the Poles fron1 Lusatia. Lusatia and Bohemia were thus restored to Germany, and the Polish ruler, who now claimed no higher title than_duke_, did homage to Conrad for his lands. In Italy Conrad was ill received, for although as emperor and Lombard king he was its lawful sovereign, the Germans were still looked upon as intruders, and by force alone they could maintain their rights. The event which at the time threw most lustre on his reign was his acquisition of the kingdom of Burgundy or Arles. It was bequeathed to him by Rudolf III., whose niece Gisela was Conrad’s wife. In 1032 he was crowned, and was at once recognized by the German-speaking population. The others resisted, but in two years all opposition had been overcome, a11d he re- ceived in Geneva the homage of the leading southern nobles. This beautiful kingdom was full of prosperous cities, and its possession seemed to add incalculably to the power of the German kings; but in the end it proved an occasion of humiliation rather than of strength. Henry III. (1039-56), who had been crowned, while his father was alive, king of Burgundy as well as of Germany, had none of the rudeness and reckless impulsiveness which marred Conrad’s great qualities; but he had the same decisive judgment, far-reaching ambition, and irresistible will. In the later years of Conrad, Breteslaus, the young Bohemian prince who had served him so well in Lusatia, having succeeded his father as duke of Bohemia, waged war in his own interest against the disunited Poles, and easily brought their whole state into subjection. As he showed signs of wishing to become an independent sovereign, Henry invaded his territory, and so completely overcame him that he appeared before the king in Ilatisbon, barefooted and in a penitent’s garb. Henry treated him generously, and was rewarded by receiving to the end of his reign the ser- vice of a loyal vassal ; and the young king also gained the good-will of the Poles by placing over them their lawful prince, Casimir, who willingly did homage for his land. The king of Denmark, too, acknowledged Henry as his feudal lord. Moreover, by several campaigns in Hungary, forced upon him by the violence of its king, Samuel, son- in-law of Stephen I., Henry brought that country for the first time, b11t only temporarily, into the position of a fief of the German crown. In Germany itself he acquired, during the first ten years of his reign, an authority which had been unknown since the days of Otto I. His bitter enemy, Duke Gottfried of Upper Lorraine, who conspired against him time after time, and found powerful allies in certain Burgundiau nobles and in the counts of Flanders and of Holland, was beaten down; and he was able to dis- pense against the most powerful princes the laws of the kingdom, and to force them to maintain the public peace. Under this severe and beneficent rule Germany enjoyed a period of internal quiet such as she had probably never before experienced. But even Henry could not permanently divert from its course the central political tendency of the GERMANY 487 age. duchies under his direct authority, and thus to create a monarchy which should have but one head, sullenly awaited their opportunity; and it came when, _in 1052.’, after a ten months’ siege of Presburg, he was obliged to retreat precipitately from Hungary. The influence of his great fame was shaken, and from this time he had to contend against warlike nobles. On one occasion he found out, only through the death-bed repentance of a rebel, that he was the object of a widespread conspiracy, which, had he remained in ignorance, would inevitably have succeeded. Even the mediate nobles, who had stood loyally by Conrad, were not his friends; for his wars made serious demands upon them, and his administration of justice was often stricter in regard to their class than they quite approved. Although at the time of his death he was still one of the most powerful sovereigns who ever reigned in Germany, he was obliged to adopt a conciliatory policy, even Duke Gottfried, after all his oflences, being established in his duchy. At the beginning of Henry’s reign the church all over The Simony in its basest Pap-“CY Europe was in a deplorable condition. forms was almost universally practised, and morality among the clergy was at its lowest ebb. The papacy, too, had sunk into a degraded state, its authority being annihilated, not only by the character of successive popes, but by the fact that there were at the same time three claimants of the Roman see. These evils were regarded with sorrow by Henry, who was a man of sincere and rigorous piety. Associating himself with the reforming movement which proceeded from Cluny, he not only commanded and pleaded with his prelates to put an end to abuses, but resolved to strike the evil at its root by stern exercise of his imperial rights. In 1046 he entered Home at the head of an army which had secured for him in northern Italy such respect as had been given to noGerman ruler since Charles the Great, and summarily deposed the three popes whose contentions had caused scandal throughout Christendom. He then raised to the papal see the bishop of Bamberg as Clement II., who crowned him emperor; and after Clement, when death made fresh appointments necessary, three other German popes, Damasus II., Leo IX., and Victor II. Under these popes a new era began for the church and for the papacy. Behind the two latter was the stern, unfaltering, high- minded Hildebrand, who, as their adviser, silently prepared the way for his own memorable term of rule. In thus reforming the papacy, Henry III. fulfilled what was regarded as the noblest duty of his imperial office; but he also sharpened a weapon whose keen edge was first tried against his son. The last years of Henry III. form a turning-point in German history. Great kings and emperors came after him; but none of them possessed the direct, absolute authority which he freely wielded ; even in the case of the strongest, the forms of feudalism more and more interposed themselves between the monarch and the nation, and at last royal authority virtually altogether disappeared. The process was hastened by the unfortunate fact that Henry III. was;succeeded by a child. The infant king, Henry IV. H0111‘? (1056-1106), was at first in charge of his mother, the IV' empress Agnes, a lady of excellent qualities, but too gentle for a position which demanded the exercise of stem virtues. Her rule was jealously watched by Anne, arch- bishop of Cologne, a rigid churchman of imposing per- sonality, cold to the ordinary interests of the world, but passionately devoted to his order. Discontented by the predominant influence of the bishop of Augsburg at court, he managed, by a clever trick, to get possession of the king and the insignia of royalty. Agnes, knowing his power, and deserted by her friends, retired from the regency ;
The princes, convinced that his aim was to bring the 1024-56