Against him stood a formidable row of descendants of
Conrad the Peaceful in the female line, two of whom, Ernest, Duke of
Swabia, whose mother, Queen Gisela, was the niece, and Odo, Count
of Blois, whose mother, Bertha, was the sister of Rodolph, aspired to the
inheritance.
Conrad the Peaceful in the female line, two of whom, Ernest, Duke of
Swabia, whose mother, Queen Gisela, was the niece, and Odo, Count
of Blois, whose mother, Bertha, was the sister of Rodolph, aspired to the
inheritance.
Cambridge Medieval History - v3 - Germany and the Western Empire
Bernard, Bishop of
Oldenburg (on the Baltic), sought but did not get Henry's help, and
then Thietmar, brother of the Billung Duke Bernard, revolted. After
he had been subdued, his brother the duke himself rebelled, but a siege
of his fortress Schalksburg on the Weser ended in a peace. Emperor and
duke joined in an expedition against the Wends, reduced the March to
order and restored the Christian prince Mistislav over the pagan Obotrites
(Obodritzi, or Abotrites). But though civil order was enforced to the
north, the Wends remained heathen.
Happily the rest of Germany was more peaceful. In Swabia alone
arose difficulty. Ernest, husband of Gisela, elder sister of the young Duke
Herman III, had been made duke, but after three years' rule he died in
the hunting field (31 May 1015). The Emperor gave the duchy to his
eldest son Ernest, and as he was under age his mother Gisela was to be
his guardian. But when she soon married Conrad of Franconia the
Emperor gave the duchy to Poppo of Trèves, the young duke's uncle.
Gisela's new husband, Conrad, afterwards Emperor, head of the house
which sprang from Conrad the Red and Liutgard, daughter of Otto the
Great, had already one grievance against the Emperor. He had seen in
1011 the duchy of Carinthia transferred from his own family to Adalbero
of Eppenstein. Now a second gr
Now a second grievance made him Henry's enemy.
He
had fought alongside Gerard of Alsace against Duke Godfrey: two years
later he waged war against Duke Adalbero. For this the Emperor
banished him, but the sentence was remitted and Conrad henceforth kept
the peace.
Henry's general policy was one of conciliation; as a commander in the
field he had never been fortunate, and therefore he preferred moral
to physical means. He had learnt this preference from his religion and
he well understood how greatly ecclesiastical order could help his realm.
In church reform, greatly needed at the time, he took ever more interest
as his life went on. One question indeed which came up at the synod of
Goslar in 1019 was a foreboding of trouble to come. Many secular priests,
serfs by birth, had married free women: it was asked whether their
children were free or unfree: the synod at Henry's suggestion declared
both mother and children unfree. This decision tended to throw discredit
CH, X.
## p. 250 (#296) ############################################
250
Benedict VIII in Germany
upon marriages which furthered the secularization of the Church. For
married clergy often sought to benefit their own families at the expense
of their churches. But on the side of reform Henry was greatly helped
by the monastic revival which, largely beginning from Cluny, had spread
widely in Lorraine. William, Abbot of St Benignus at Dijon, and
Richard, Abbot of St Vanne's near Verdun, were here his helpers.
William had been called in by the Bishop of Metz: Richard worked in
more than one Lorraine diocese. Outside their own order such monks
influenced the secular clergy and even the bishops. Simony and world-
liness were more widely reproved; Henry would gladly have seen such
a reformation spreading and with some such hope he asked the Pope
to visit Germany.
Benedict VIII was, it is true, more a man of action than a reformer.
He had faced worse foes than the Crescentii at Farfa, for the Saracens
under Mujāhid of Denia (in Spain) had (1015) conquered Sardinia and
were harrying the Tuscan coasts. He urged on the Pisans and Genoese
before their three days' victory at sea (June 1016): a battle which
brought the victorious allies into Sardinia. And he had (1016) made
use of Lombard rebels and Norman help to try and shake the Byzantine
hold upon Southern Italy. But rebels and Normans had suffered defeat
and the Byzantines held their own. Benedict might hopefully turn to
the Emperor for further help: when on Maundy Thursday (14 April
1020) he reached Henry's favourite Bamberg, he was the first Pope to
visit Germany for a century and a half. With him there came Melo,
leader of the Apulian rebels, and Rodolph, the Norman leader, who had
helped them. Melo was invested with the new title, Duke of Apulia,
and held the empty office for the remaining week of his life. Thus
Henry entered into the Italian schemes of Benedict. The Pope on his
side confirmed at Fulda the foundation of Bamberg, taking it under
special papal protection: Henry gave the Pope a privilege nearly
identical with that given by Otto the Great to John XII.
The second half of the year 1020 was spent in small campaigns,
including one against Baldwin in Flanders, where in August the Emperor
captured Ghent. The other was against Otto of Hammerstein, whom
we shall mention later. When Henry kept Easter in 1021 at Merseburg
he could look on a realm comparatively peaceful. His old opponent
Heribert of Cologne had died (16 March 1021) and was replaced by
Henry's friend and diplomatist, Pilgrim. Later (17 August) died Erkam-
bald of Mayence, and was succeeded by Aribo, a royal chaplain and a
relative of Pilgrim's. The three great sees were now all held by Bavarians.
In July a diet at Nimeguen decided on an expedition to Italy. There
the Byzantine forces had occupied part of the principality of Benevento,
drawing the Lombard princes to their side, and (June 1021) the Catapan
Basil seized the fortress on the Garigliano which the Pope had given to
Datto, an Apulian rebel. Thus Rome itself was threatened nearly. In
## p. 251 (#297) ############################################
Henry's third expedition to Italy
251
November 1021 Henry left Augsburg for Italy: early in December he
reached Verona, where Italian princes joined his Lorrainers, Swabians
and Bavarians: among them were the Bavarian Poppo, Patriarch of
Aquileia, and the distinguished Aribert, since 1018 Archbishop of Milan.
Leo of Vercelli of course was there, and if some lay magnates kept away
others made a welcome appearance. Christmas Henry spent at Ravenna
and in January moved southwards. Before he reached Benevento
Benedict joined him. The army marched in three divisions and the one
which Pilgrim of Cologne commanded met with brilliant successes, taking
Capua. Henry himself was delayed for three months by the fortress
of Troia, built with almost communal privileges by the Catapan in
1018 to guard the Byzantine province and strong enough to sur-
render on merely nominal terms. But sickness had assailed the Germans
and after visiting Home Henry came in July to Pavia. So far he had
made Rome safer and had subjugated the Lombard states. Then in a
synod at Pavia (1 August 1022) with Benedict's help he turned to
church reform. Clerical marriage, as common in Lombardy as in
Germany, was denounced. And the ever growing poverty of the Church
was also noted: lands had been alienated and married clerics were
trying to endow their families. As at Goslar it was decided that the
wives and children of unfree priests were also serfs, and could thus not
hold land. These ecclesiastical decrees, meant to be of general force
although passed in a scanty synod, the Emperor embodied in an im-
perial decree. Leo of Vercelli probably drafted alike the papal speech
and the imperial decree and he was the first bishop to enforce the
canons.
Then in the autumn of 1022 Henry returned to his kingdom. The
following Easter he sent Gerard of Cambray and Richard of St Vannes
to beg Robert of France to become his partner in church reform. The
two kings met (11 August) at Ivois just within Germany. It was agreed
to call an assembly at Pavia of both German and Italian bishops: the
assembly would thus represent the old Carolingian realm.
But now Germany was not ecclesiastically at peace either within itself
or with the Pope. Aribo of Mayence, on the death of his suffragan
Bernward of Hildesheim, had revived the old claim to authority over
Gandersheim. But Henry had taken sides with the new Bishop, Godehard
of Altaich, although his settlement left irritation behind. Aribo had
also a more important quarrel with Pope Benedict arising out of a marriage.
Count Otto of Hammerstein, a great noble of Franconia, had married
Irmingard, although they were related within the prohibited degrees.
Episcopal censure was disregarded: excommunication by a synod at
Nimeguen (March 1018), enforced by the Emperor and the Archbishop
of Mayence, only brought Otto to temporary submission. Two years later,
after rejoining Irmingard, he attacked in revenge the territory of Mayence.
At length his disregard of synod and of Emperor alike forced Henry to
CH, X
## p. 252 (#298) ############################################
252
Death of Henry
uphold the Church's law by the sword. But Otto's irregular marriage
a few years later raised even greater difficulties. For the present Henry
had shewn his ecclesiastical sympathies and his readiness to enforce the
Church's decisions even in a field where many rulers disregarded or dis-
liked them. A synod at Mayence in June 1023 separated the pair,
whereupon Irmingard appealed to Rome. This appeal was looked upon
by Aribo as an invasion of his metropolitan rights, and he persuaded a
provincial synod at Seligenstadt to take his view. Here were forbidden
all appeals to Rome made without episcopal leave, and also any papal
remission of guilt, unless the ordinary penance imposed locally had been
first performed. Henry sent the diplomatic Pilgrim of Cologne to explain
matters to Benedict, who nevertheless directed a fresh hearing of Irmin-
gard's case, and also significantly sent no pallium to Aribo. In reply the
Archbishop called his suffragans to meet at Höchst 13 May 1024; and
it was hoped through the Empress Kunigunda to draw thither bishops of
other provinces also: meanwhile all the suffragans of Mayence except
two signed a remonstrance to the Pope against the insult to their metro-
politan. But Benedict died (11 June 1024) before the matter was settled,
being succeeded by his brother Romanus, hitherto called Senator of all
the Romans by Benedict's appointment, who passed from layman to Pope
as John XIX within a day. The new Pope had no religious and few
ecclesiastical interests, and the matter of the marriage went no further.
Soon after Benedict Henry himself passed away. During 1024 he had
suffered from both illness and the weakness of advancing years ; on 13
July the end came. His body was fittingly laid to rest in his beloved
Bamberg, itself an expression of the religious zeal which was shewn so
strongly and so pathetically in his closing years. Religion and devotion
to the Church had always been a leading interest in his active life; as
death drew nearer it became an all-absorbing care. The title of Saint
which his people gave him fittingly expressed the feeling of his age. .
## p. 253 (#299) ############################################
253
CHAPTER XI.
THE EMPEROR CONRAD II.
With the death of Henry II the Saxon dynasty in the male line
became extinct; nevertheless under the Ottos the hereditary principle
had become so firmly rooted, the Teutonic theory of election so nearly
forgotten, that the descendants of Otto the Great in the female branch
were alone regarded as suitable successors to the Emperor Henry II. The
choice of the princes was practically limited to the two Conrads, the great-
grandsons of the first Otto's daughter Liutgard and Conrad of Lorraine.
Both were grandsons of Otto, Duke of Carinthia; the future emperor
through the eldest son Henry who died young, the other, known as Conrad
the Younger, through the third son, also named Conrad, who had suc-
ceeded his father in the duchy of Carinthia. This younger Conrad did
not inherit the dukedom, which was granted on his father's death in 1011
to Adalbero of Eppenstein, but he acquired nevertheless the greater part
of the family estates in Franconia. In wealth and territorial position he
was stronger than his elder cousin ; moreover, since he had adopted the
attitude of Henry II in matters of ecclesiastical politics, he could safely
rely on the support of the reforming party in the Church, which, par-
ticularly in Lorraine, carried considerable weight under the guidance of
Archbishop Pilgrim of Cologne. An orphan' with a meagre inheritance,
brought up by the famous canonist, Burchard of Worms, Conrad the
Elder had little to recommend him beyond seniority and personal cha-
racter. On late and unreliable authority it is asserted that the late
Emperor designated him as his successor? , and though it is reasonable to
suppose that Henry II should make some recommendation with regard to
the succession, it is at least remarkable that he should select a man whose
I His father died while he was still a child, and his mother married again and
took no further interest in the child of her first husband.
? Sigebert, Chron. MGHSS. vi. 356. Hugh of Flavigny, Chron. 11. 16, MGHSS. viii.
392. It is accepted as historical by Arndt, Die Wahl Konrads II, Diss. Göttingen,
1861, Maurenbrecher, Königswahlen, and others; Bresslau, from the silence of
contemporaries, and the unreliability of the evidence is led to the conclusion that
no such designation was made. (Jahrbücher, Konrad II, 1. p. 9 f. , also in Hirsch,
Jahrbücher, Heinrich II, 111. p. 356 f. ) Harttung, Studien zur Geschichte Konrads 11,
attempts to prove that the younger Conrad was designated by Henry II; but see
Bresslau, Jahrbücher, Excurs. 11. p. 342 f.
CH. .
## p. 254 (#300) ############################################
254
Election and coronation
a
views both in ecclesiastical and secular politics were diametrically opposed
to his own. Yet this very fact of his antagonism to the reforming move-
ment induced Aribo, Archbishop of Mayence, and the bulk of the episco-
pate, jealous and suspicious of the progress of Cluniac ideas in Germany,
to throw the whole weight of their influence in support of his candidature.
The election took place on the Rhine between Mayence and Worms' on
4 September 1024. Before it took place the elder Conrad had a meeting
with his cousin and apparently induced him to withdraw from the contest.
Conrad the Elder, left in undisputed possession of the field (for the
party of his late rival, the Lorrainers, rather than give him their votes,
had retired from the assembly), was elected unanimously, and received
from the hands of the widowed Empress Kunigunda, the royal insignia,
committed by her husband to her care. The election was a popular one.
Princes and people, spiritual and secular, thronged to Mayence to attend
the coronation festival. “If Charles the Great himself had been alive and
present,” writes Conrad's enthusiastic biographer”, “the rejoicing could
not have been exceeded. " The ceremony of coronation was performed
on 8 September by Aribo in the cathedral of Mayence and was followed
by the customary state banquet and by the taking of the oath of fealty
by the bishops, nobles, and even, we are told, by other freemen of dis-
tinction. One incident marred the general serenity of the proceedings;
Conrad's marriage in 1017 with Gisela, the widow successively of Bruno
of Brunswick and of Ernest II of Swabia, being within the prohibited
degrees, was not sanctioned by the Church. Aribo denied her the crown;
and it was only after an interval of some days that Archbishop Pilgrim
of Cologne, desirous of making his peace with the king he had opposed,
offered to perform the ceremony in his cathedral at Colognes.
The princes of Lorraine, among them Gozelo and Dietrich, the Dukes
of the lower and upper provinces, Reginar V, the powerful Count of
Hainault, and the greater number of the bishops, had, as we have seen,
resisted Conrad's election, and after the event had denied him recognition.
The bishops adopted this attitude on account of Conrad's lack of sym-
pathy with the movement of reform in the Church; when, however, their
1 The exact spot is generally said to be Kamba on the right bank of the river
near Oppenheim. Schädel (Die Königsstühle bei Mainz und die Wahl Konrads II,
Progr. Mayence, 1896) believes the place of election to have been on the left bank
near Lörzweiler. With Wipo (cap. 2) we can leave it “de vocabulo et situ loci
plenius dicere topographis. ” Anyhow "cis et citra Rhenum castra locabant. "
.
Wipo, loc. cit.
% Wipo, Script. Rer. Germ. ed. Bresslau, 1915. See also the editor's preface to
this edition. Wipo is the main authority for the reign; probably a Burgundian by
birth, he held the office of chaplain to the king, and was an eye-witness of many of
the events he records.
3 So Bresslau, 1. pp. 35-37, and Excurs. 11. p. 351, following the account of
Herman of Reichenau (1024, in Bresslau's ed. of Wipo, p. 94). Other authorities
accept the account of the Quedlinburg annals, that Gisela was subsequently crowned
by Aribo at the intercession of the princes (Aun. Qued. 1024, MGHSS, 111. 90).
>
9
## p. 255 (#301) ############################################
The royal progress
255
leader, the Archbishop of Cologne, made his peace with the king, and
when Odilo of Cluny, who had, it seems, been present at the election,
and had been the recipient of Conrad's first charter (a confirmation of
certain lands in Alsace to the Cluniac monastery of Payerne), exerted his
influence in Conrad's interest, the bishops were prevailed upon to make
their submission. Conrad was therefore able to make his royal progress
through Lorraine unhindered.
It was customary for a newly elected king to travel through his
kingdom, dispensing justice, settling disputes, ordering peace. Within
a year of his coronation (he was back in Mayence at the end of August
1025) Conrad had visited the more important towns of the five great
duchies of his kingdom. On his journey through Saxony two significant
events occurred; he received the recognition of the Saxon princes and gave
a decision against Aribo of Mayence, shewing thereby that he was not
to be swayed from the path of justice even in the interests of the foremost
prelate of Germany. Before Conrad's election the Saxon princes under
their Duke Bernard had assembled at Werla, and there decided on a
course of action similar to that which they had pursued on the occasion
of the election of Henry II in 1002. They had, it seems, absented
themselves from the electoral council, with the object of making their
acceptance of the result dependent upon conditions. They required the
king to acknowledge the peculiarly independent position, the ancient and
barbaric law, of the Saxons. They met him at Minden, where he
was keeping his Christmas court. Their condition was proposed and
accepted, and their homage, hitherto deferred, was duly performed to
their now recognised sovereign'.
Since the time of Otto III, the jurisdiction over the rich nunnery of
Gandersheim had been the cause of a fierce dispute between the bishops
of Hildesheim and the archbishops of Mayence. It had been one of the
reasons for the breach between Aribo and the late Emperor, who had in
1022 decided in favour of the Hildesheim claim. While Conrad remained
in Saxony the matter was brought up before him. The outlook was
ominous for Bishop Godehard; Conrad was not likely to give cause for a
quarrel with the powerful archbishop to whom he owed his crown, and
whom he had already favoured by conferring on him the archchancellor-
ship of Italy, in addition to the archchancellorship of Germany which
he had previously held. Moreover, the influential Abbess Sophia, the
daughter of the Emperor Otto II, was known to favour the claims of
Aribo. On the other hand, Conrad could not lightly reverse a decision
made by his predecessor only two years before, and he may also have felt
some resentment towards Aribo for the latter's refusal to crown his
queen.
Postponements and compromises were tried in vain. At last, in March
1 This interpretation of the rather confused evidence is Bresslau's, s. 12 and
n. 7. Cf. also his edition of Wipo, Script. Rer. Germ. 1915, p. 11, n. 1.
сн. XI,
## p. 256 (#302) ############################################
256
The Burgundian Question
1025, at a sparsely attended synod held at Grona, a provisional judgment
was given in favour of the Bishop of Hildesheim; the decision was con-
firmed two years later at a more representative gathering at Frankfort,
but it was not until 1030, a year before his death, that Aribo had a
meeting with his opponent at Merseburg, and finally renounced his claims
which, according to the biographer of Godehard, he confessed that he had
raised “partly in ignorance, partly out of malice. ”
The rebellion, which disturbed the opening years of the new reign,
is closely connected with the question of the Burgundian succession and
with the revolt in Lombardy. Rodolph III, the childless King of Bur-
gundy, had in 1016 recognised his nephew the Emperor Henry II as the
heir to his throne; he maintained however, and probably with justice,
that with the Emperor's death the compact became void. Conrad, on
the other hand, took a different view of the case; the cession, he argued,
was made not to the Emperor but to the Empire, to which he had been
duly elected.
Against him stood a formidable row of descendants of
Conrad the Peaceful in the female line, two of whom, Ernest, Duke of
Swabia, whose mother, Queen Gisela, was the niece, and Odo, Count
of Blois, whose mother, Bertha, was the sister of Rodolph, aspired to the
inheritance. To make his intentions clear Conrad, in June 1025, occupied
Basle which, though held by Henry II, actually lay within the confines
of the Burgundian kingdom. As his presence was needed elsewhere, he
left his wife Gisela, herself a niece of King Rodolph', to bring the Bur-
gundian question to a satisfactory issue. The success of her efforts is to
be seen in the Burgundian king's refusal to assist Ernest of Swabia in his
second revolt (1026), in his submissive attendance at the Emperor's
coronation at Rome (Easter 1027), and in his recognition, at Muttenz
near Basle, later in the same year, of Conrad's title to succeed to his
kingdom. Ernest, whose hopes in Burgundy were shattered by the
occupation of Basle, decided to oppose Conrad with arms.
. He allied
himself with Count Welf, with the still disaffected dukes of Lorraine,
and with Conrad the Younger who, having heard no more of the proffered
rewards by which his cousin had secured his withdrawal from the electoral
contest, had openly shewn his resentment at Augsburg in the previous
April
In France, Odo of Blois and Champagne was interested in the downfall
of Conrad; in Italy, the trend of events moved in the same direction.
There the Lombards, taking advantage of the death of Henry II, rose
1 This marriage connexion with the Burgundian house constituted, Poupardin
concludes, Conrad's title to be designated by Rodolph and to be chosen by the
Burgundian princes, but brought with it no actual right of succession. Cf. Pou-
pardin, Le Royaume de Bourgogne, p. 151.
2 Conrad the Younger stood in the same relation to Rodolph Ill as did Ernest;
his mother Matilda was Rodolph's niece. He appears, however, to have raised no
claim to the throne of Burgundy. Cf. Poupardin, loc. cit.
## p. 257 (#303) ############################################
Rebellion of Duke Ernest
257
in revolt against the imperial domination. The men of Pavia, mindful
of the recent destruction of their city at the hands of the late Em-
peror, burnt the royal palace; the north Italian princes, in defiance of
Conrad, offered their crown first to King Robert of France, then, on his
refusal, to William V, Duke of Aquitaine, who accepted it for his son.
The duke's only hope of success in the dangerous enterprise he had
undertaken lay in keeping Conrad engaged in his own kingdom. With
this object he set about organising the opposition in Lorraine, France,
and Burgundy; he met Robert of France and Odo of Champagne at
Tours, and the French king agreed to carry a campaign into Germany.
The combination, so formidable in appearance, dissolved into nothing.
Robert was prevented by the affairs of his own kingdom from taking the
field against Conrad; Odo, engaged in a fierce feud with Fulk of Anjou,
was powerless; William of Aquitaine on visiting Italy found the situation
there less favourable than he had been led to expect, and thereupon gave
up the project; the dukes of Lorraine, no longer able to count on foreign
aid, made their submission to the Emperor at Aix-la-Chapelle (Christ-
mas 1025). After the collapse of the alliance, continued resistance on
the part of Ernest was useless; at Augsburg early in the next year,
through the mediation of the queen, his mother, he was reconciled with
Conrad who, to keep him from further mischief, insisted on his accom-
panying him on the Italian campaign upon which he was about to
embark.
It was a wise precaution, and Conrad would have been better advised
had he retained his ambitious stepson in his camp; instead he dispatched
him to Germany to suppress the disorders which had arisen there in his
absence. Welf, obdurate in his disobedience, had attacked and plundered
the lands and cities of Bruno, Bishop of Augsburg, the brother of the
Emperor Henry II, the guardian of the young King Henry III, and the
administrator of Germany during the king's absence in Italy. Ernest,
back among his old fellow-conspirators and acting, no doubt, on the advice
of his evil genius, Count Werner of Kiburg, instead of suppressing the
rebellious Welf, joined with him in rebellion? The second revolt of
.
Ernest was however as abortive as the first; he invaded Alsace, pene-
trated into Burgundy, but finding to his discomfiture, in Rodolph, not
an ally but an enemy, he was compelled to make a hasty retreat to
Zurich, whence he occupied himself in making plundering raids upon
the
rich abbeys of Reichenau and St Gall. Conrad's return soon ended the
affair. Ernest and Welf answered the imperial summons to Ulm (July
1027), not however as suppliants for the Emperor's mercy, but, supported
by an armed following, with the intention either of dictating their own
1 The attitude of the younger Conrad in this rebellion is ambiguous. Wipo, c. 19,
says of him “nec fidus imperatori, nec tamen multum noxius illi. ” His submission
and condemnation to a short term of imprisonment in 1027, mentioned by Wipo,
c. 21, proves his implication.
17
C. MED, H. VOL. III. CH. XI.
## p. 258 (#304) ############################################
258
Failure and death of Ernest
terms or, failing that, of fighting their way to safety. The duke had
miscalculated his resources; at an interview with his vassals he discovered
his mistake. They were prepared, they said, to follow him as their oath
required against any man except the Emperor; but loyalty to the
Emperor took precedence to loyalty to the duke. Ernest had no choice
but to throw himself on Conrad's mercy; he was deprived of his duchy
and imprisoned in the castle of Gibichenstein near Halle. Welf was
condemned to imprisonment, to make reparation to the Bishop of
Augsburg, and to the loss of a countship in the neighbourhood of
Brixen.
Ernest, after less than a year's captivity, was forgiven and reinstated
in his dukedom. But the course of events of 1026 was repeated in 1030.
Ordered by the Emperor to execute the ban against Count Werner, who
had persisted in rebellion, he disobeyed, and was, by the judgment of
the princes, once more deprived of his dukedom and placed under the
ban of the Empire (at Ingelheim, Easter 1030). After a vain attempt to
persuade Odo of Champagne to join him, he and Werner withdrew into
the Black Forest, where, making the strong castle of Falkenstein their
headquarters, they lived for a time the life of bandits. At last, in
August, the two rebels fell in a fierce encounter with the Emperor's
troops under Count Manegold.
The rebellions of Ernest, dictated not by any dissatisfaction at
Conrad's rule but rather by personal motives and rival ambitions, never
assumed dangerous proportions. The fact that even the nobility of
Swabia, with few exceptions, refused to follow their duke is significant
of the strength and popularity of Conrad's government. The loyalty of
Germany as a whole was never shaken. Duke Ernest, a little undeservedly
perhaps, has become the hero of legend and romance; he has often been
compared with Liudolf of Swabia, the popular and ambitious son of
Otto the Great. The parallel is scarcely a fair one; Liudolf rebelled
but once and with juster cause; and after his defeat, he lived loyally and
died fighting his father's battles in Italy. Ernest, though twice for-
given, lived and died a rebel.
In September 1032 Rodolph III ended a weak and inglorious reign.
Conrad had been solemnly recognised as heir by the late king at Muttenz
five years before and had been entrusted with the royal insignia, the crown
and the lance of St Maurice. Some of the Burgundian nobles had even
already taken the oath of allegiance to the German king; but the
majority both of the ecclesiastical and secular lords, especially in the
romance-speaking district of the south, stood opposed to him. His
powerful rival, Odo, Count of Blois and Champagne, had at first the
advantage, for Conrad at the critical moment was busily occupied with the
affairs of Poland, and when, after the submission of the Polish Duke Mesco,
he hastened to Strasbourg, he found a large part of Burgundy already in
the hands of the enemy (Christmas 1032). In spite of the severity of
## p. 259 (#305) ############################################
Acquisition of Burgundy
259
a
the weather, which was sufficiently remarkable to supply the theme of a
poem of a hundred stanzas from the pen of Wipo, the Emperor decided
to make a winter campaign into Burgundy. He marched on Basle and
proceeded to Payerne, where he was formally elected and crowned by his
partisans; but the indescribable sufferings of his troops from the cold
prevented his further progress, and he withdrew to Zurich.
In the spring, before resuming operations in Burgundy, he entered into
negotiations with the French King Henry I, which resulted in a meeting
of the two at Deville on the Meuse. What actually took place there is
not recorded, but it seems clear that an alliance against Odo was formed
between them. Again the affairs of Poland prevented Conrad from com-
pleting his task, and on his return thence he found that his adversary had
penetrated the German frontier and plundered the districts of Lorraine
in the neighbourhood of Toul. Conrad retaliated with a raid into Count
Odo's territory and brought him to submission; the latter renounced
his claims, agreed to evacuate the occupied districts, and to make
reparation for the damage caused by his incursion into Lorraine. The
matter was not however so easily settled; not only did Odo not evacuate
the occupied parts of Burgundy nor make satisfaction for the harm he
had perpetrated in Lorraine, but he even had the audacity to repeat his
performance in that country. Conrad determined on a decisive effort;
Burgundy was attacked on two sides. His Italian allies, Marquess
Boniface of Tuscany and Archbishop Aribert of Milan, under the
guidance of Count Humbert of Maurienne, led their troops across the
Great St Bernard, and following the Rhone Valley, made their junction
with the Emperor, operating from the north, at Geneva. Little re-
sistance was encountered by either army. At Geneva Conrad was again
solemnly recognised as king and received the submission of the greater
number of Odo's adherents. The town of Morat alone held out defiantly;
attacked by the German and Italian forces in conjunction, it was taken
by assault and demolished. With it were destroyed the last hopes of
Conrad's adversaries; they submitted, and Burgundy, furnishing the
Emperor with his fourth crown, became an undisputed and integral part
of the imperial dominions. If Burgundy was never a source of much
strength or financial profit to the Empire, its inclusion was by no means
without its value. Its geographical position as a barrier between France
and Italy, and as commanding the western passes of the Alps, made it an
acquisition of the first importance. In the last year of his reign Conrad
visited his new kingdom. A solemn and well-attended gathering of
ecclesiastical and secular nobles assembled at Soleure, and for three days
deliberated over the means of establishing peace and organised govern-
ment in a land, which for many a year had known nothing but lawlessness
and anarchy.
а
сн. х.
17-2
## p. 260 (#306) ############################################
260
Polish aggressions
The Eastern Frontier.
During the years 1030–1035 Conrad was chiefly occupied with the
restless state of the eastern frontier of his kingdom. It is a dreary story
of rebellion, ineffective campaigns, fratricidal wars. Poland, Hungary,
Bohemia, the Wendish lands to the north-east, demanded in turn the
Emperor's attention. Boleslav Chrobry had, during the previous reign,
been assiduously building up a strong position for himself in Poland ; in
the peace of Bautzen (1018) he had been the chief gainer at the expense
of the Empire; on the death of Henry II he had taken a further step
and boldly assumed the title of king. Conrad was neither strong enough
nor at liberty to deal at once with this presumptuous duke; but while at
Merseburg in February 1025, he took the wise precaution of securing the
loyalty of the neighbouring Slavonic tribes of the Lyutitzi and the
Obotrites.
In the summer Boleslav died ; his younger son Mesco, having suc-
cessfully driven his elder brother Otto Bezprim to Russia (or perhaps
Hungary), assumed the kingship and the policy of his father. By 1028
his aggressions had become intolerable. The eastern parts of Saxony were
raided and plundered; the bishopric of Zeitz suffered so severely that it
had to be removed to the better fortified Naumberg, a town of Eckhard
of Meissen, near the junction of the Unstrut and the Saale; the Lyutitzi,
helplessly at the mercy of the tyrannical Mesco, pleaded for German
assistance. Conrad assembled an army beyond the Elbe. But the cam-
paign was a complete failure: the troops were scattered and worn out by
long marches through forests and swamps; Bautzen was besieged, but not
captured; and the Emperor, despairing of making any headway, withdrew
to Saxony. The only success was achieved by Conrad's ally, Břatislav,
the son of the Duke of Bohemia, who managed to recover Moravia from
the Poles. The death of Thietmar, Margrave of the East Mark (January
1030), was the occasion for another and more serious incursion on the
part of the Polish prince, united this time with a band of disloyal Saxons.
In the region between the Elbe and the Saale a hundred villages are said
to have been destroyed by fire, more than 9000 men and women taken
into captivity. The enemy were only beaten off by the courage and
resource of Count Dietrich of Wettin.
Conrad was unable to take the matter in hand, for he was engaged in
a war with Stephen of Hungary. The relations between the latter country
and the Empire had been growing yearly more strained. Werner, Bishop
of Strasbourg, Conrad's ambassador to Constantinople in 1027, had been
denied a passage through Hungary, and was compelled to take the more
hazardous route by sea. The Bavarian nobles, no doubt, gave ample
provocation for this hostile attitude by their attempts to extend their
possessions across the Fischa, the boundary at that time between Germany
a
## p. 261 (#307) ############################################
Hungary; subjection of Poland
261
and Hungary. According to one account the actual cause for quarrel
arose through the Emperor's refusal to grant, at the request of King
Stephen, the dukedom of Bavaria to his son Henry (he was the nephew
of the Emperor Henry II, whose sister Gisela had married Stephen of
Hungary). In 1030 Conrad took the field against him; this, like the
Polish campaign, was a miserable disaster. Conrad did no more than
ravage the border country as far as the Raab, and retired with an army
imperilled by famine, while the Hungarians pursued the retreating Ger-
mans and captured Vienna, which celebrated city is now for the first time
mentioned under this name. Bratislav, who had gained the only success
in the Polish campaign of the previous year, was again conspicuous for his
services to the Empire; he defeated the Hungarians and devastated their
country as far as the town of Gran. The young King Henry, who as
Duke of Bavaria was closely concerned with the affairs of Hungary, was
entrusted with the settlement of the quarrel with King Stephen. By the
cession of a small tract of country lying between the Fischa and the
Leitha he secured, in the spring of 1031, peace and the restoration of
Vienna.
Conrad, relieved of danger from Hungary, was at liberty to cope effec-
tively with the troublesome Duke of Poland. Allied with Mesco's banished
brother Otto, Conrad organised a combined attack; while he advanced
from the west, Otto Bezprim and his protector Yarosláv, Prince of Kiev,
were to attack from the east. Mesco, thus threatened from two sides, soon
gave way and agreed to the terms stipulated by the Emperor. He was
required to surrender the border territory which his father had acquired
by the treaty of Bautzen (1018), the prisoners and booty captured in the
raids
upon Saxony, and also the Upper and Lower Lausitz which were
attached respectively to the Meissen and the East Marks. Poland was
thus once more confined within the limits of the old duchy as it was
before the ascendancy of Boleslav Chrobry. The attack of Bezprim had
not synchronised with that of the German troops; it took place after
this peace had been concluded. He too, however, was successful; he drove
Mesco from the throne, of which he himself took possession, and, by
recognising the overlordship of the Emperor, was himself recognised as
the lawful duke of Poland. His reign, characterised by the most brutal
savagery, was cut short in the next year (1032) by assassination, engineered
in part by the enemies he had made in his own circle, in part by the in-
trigues of the brother he had expelled. Mesco promptly returned from
Bohemia, where he had taken refuge with Duke Udalrich. In spite of his
apparent willingness to enter into friendly relations with the Emperor,
we hear of a renewed outbreak of war before the end of the
But
Conrad was anxious to rid himself of the vexatious business and to be
free to make good his claim to the Burgundian crown. He therefore
received the duke's submission at Merseburg (1033), and allowed him to
retain his dukedom, subject to his feudal superiority and reduced in extent
year.
CH. AI.
## p. 262 (#308) ############################################
262
War with Bohemia and the Wends
by a strip of territory on the western frontier, which was annexed to the
East Mark. The power of Poland was crushed. On Mesco's death in 1034
the country relapsed into an almost chronic state of civil war in which
Conrad, wearied with Polish affairs, was careful not to involve himself.
In the meanwhile difficulties had been growing up in the neighbouring
country of Bohemia. Udalrich, for some years past, had shewn insubor-
dination to his feudal lord: in 1031 he had refused his help for the Polish
campaign; summoned to the diet of Merseburg (July 1033) to answer for
his conduct, he had defiantly remained absent. Conrad was too busily
engaged with Odo, his rival to the Burgundian throne, to deal himself
with his disobedient vassal. He entrusted the task, therefore, to his son
Henry, now a promising youth of sixteen years; his confidence was not
misplaced, for a single campaign in the summer brought the duke to
subjection! At a court held at Werben he was condemned, banished,
and deprived of his lands. His brother, the old Duke Jaromir, was dragged
from his prison at Utrecht, where he had languished for more than twenty
years, to be set again over the duchy of Bohemia. The arrangement was,
however, not a permanent one; Udalrich was pardoned at Ratisbon (April
1034), but not content with the partial restoration of his duchy, he seized
and blinded his hapless brother. His misdeeds brought a speedy retribu-
tion; he died the same year, choked or perhaps poisoned while eating his
dinner. Jaromir was disinclined a third time to undertake the title and
duties which had brought him only misfortune; at his wish Břatislav,
who had on the whole deserved well of Conrad, received the dukedom as
a fief of the Empire.
Further north, a feud had broken out between the Saxons and the
Wendish tribe, the Lyutitzi, whićh gave rise to mutual incursions and
plundering. At the request of both parties, the Emperor permitted the
issue to be determined by the judgment of God in the form of a duel.
Unluckily, the Christian champion fell wounded to the sword of the
pagan; the decision was accepted by the Emperor, and the Wends, so
elated by their success, would have forthwith attacked their Saxon oppo-
nents, had not they been constrained by oath to keep the peace and been
menaced by the establishment at Werben of a fortress strongly garrisoned
by a body of Saxon knights. But the peace was soon broken, the fortress
soon captured; and two expeditions across the Elbe (1035 and 1036)
were necessary before the Lyutitzi were reduced to obedience. In the first
Conrad was seldom able to bring the enemy to an open fight; they re-
treated before him into the impenetrable swamps and forests, while the
Germans burnt their cities, devastated their lands. We have a picture
a
1 For an examination into the confused chronology of these events and of the
conflicting passage in the Annales Allahenses see Bresslau, Jahrbücher 11. Excurs. iii.
p. 484 f. , and Bretholz, Geschichte Böhmens und Mährens (1912), p. 127. Seydel,
Studien zur Kritik Wipos, Dissertation, Berlin, 1898, places these events a year later,
1034.
## p. 263 (#309) ############################################
Alliance with Denmark
263
from Wipo of the Emperor standing oftentime thigh-deep in the morass,
fighting himself and encouraging his men to battle. The punishment,
meted out to the prisoners captured in this exploit, leaves an indelible
stain on the otherwise upright character of the Emperor. In their heathen
fanaticism they had sacrilegiously mutilated the figure of Christ on a
crucifix; Conrad avenged the outrage in like fashion. Drawn up
before
the cross they had dishonoured, their eyes put out, their hands and feet
hacked off, they were left to die miserably. The second attack, of which
the details are not recorded, appears to have been decisive; the Wends
submitted, and had to pay the penalty for their revolt at the price of an
increased tribute.
The wisdom of Conrad's diplomacy is perhaps most evident in his
relations with his powerful northern neighbour Knut, King of England,
Denmark, and, in 1030, Norway. Had Conrad permitted the hostility
which had existed under his predecessor to continue, he would have found
in Knut a formidable opponent always ready to disturb the stability of
the imperial authority on the north-eastern border of Germany. His
policy towards Poland, Bohemia, and more especially the Wendish country
across the Elbe, could scarcely have met with so large a measure of success.
The rulers of Poland and Denmark were closely related; both countries
were at enmity with Germany; an alliance between them seemed natural
and inevitable. Thus Conrad lost no time in bringing about, through
the mediation of Unwan, Archbishop of Bremen, friendly relations with
Knut (1025). This alliance was drawn closer some ten years later by the
marriage of their children, Henry and Gunnhild, and by the cession to the
Danish king of the March and the town of Schleswig. Though the German
frontier was thereby brought back to the Eider, the gain outweighed the
loss. Knut was zealous for the advancement of the Christian religion; he
kept in close touch with the metropolitans of Bremen, Unwan and his
successors, and promoted their efforts towards the conversion of the
heathen. From Gerinany he drew churchmen to fill high positions in his
English kingdom, as for instance Duduco, Bishop of Wells, and Wichmann,
Abbot of Ramsey! Unfortunately, this powerful and useful ally of the
Empire survived the treaty of 1035 but a few months: he died in Novem-
ber of the same year, and the Danish ascendancy soon crumbled away
under the rule of his successors.
Italy under Conrad 11.
We have already noticed how the death of the Emperor Henry II
had been the signal in Italy for a general revolt against the imperial
authority; for this movement, which found its expression in the burning
of the royal palace at Pavia and in the offer of the Lombard crown to a
1 Cf. Freeman, Norman Conquest, 11. App. note L. p. 598 f.
H. XI.
## p. 264 (#310) ############################################
264
Imperial coronation
French prince, the great noble families of north Italy, the Otbertines,
the Aleramids, the Marquesses of Tuscany and of Turin, were mainly
responsible. On the other hand the bishops under Aribert, the powerful
Archbishop of Milan, stood by Conrad; indeed Aribert with several
other bishops, presenting himself before the new king at Constance
(June 1025), assured hiin of his loyalty, of his willingness to crown him
king of Italy, and of the warm reception that awaited him when he
should set foot across the Alps; other Italian lords appeared a little
later at Zurich to perform their homage. Encouraged by these mani-
festations of loyalty and by the collapse of the attempt of the lay
aristocracy to raise a French prince to the throne, Conrad made his
plans for an Italian expedition in the ensuing spring. By the route
through the Brenner and Verona, in March he reached Milan, where,
since Pavia, the old Lombard capital and place of coronation, was still
in revolt, he was crowned by Aribert in the cathedral of St Ambrose.
The Pavese, fearful of the result of their boldness, had sought pardon
from Conrad at Constance, but their refusal to rebuild the palace they
had destroyed prevented a reconciliation. Conrad punished them by a
wholesale devastation of the surrounding country, and leaving part of
his army to complete the subjection of the rebellious city, he passed
eastward through Piacenza and Cremona to Ravenna; here his stay was
marked by a scene of the wildest uproar. The citizens rose against the
German soldiers with the hope that by force of numbers they might
succeed in driving them from the town. Their hope was vain; the
imperial troops soon gained the upper hand, and Conrad descended from
his bedchamber to stop the slaughter of the defeated and defenceless
burghers. The incident, related by Wipo, of the German knight who
lost his leg in the riot is characteristic of the king's generosity; he ordered
the leather gaiters of the wounded warrior to be filled with coin by way
of compensation for the loss of his limb.
The heat of the Italian summer drove Conrad northward, to pass
some two months in the cooler and more healthy atmosphere of the
Alpine valleys. The autumn and winter were spent in reducing to sub-
mission the powerful houses of the north-west and of Tuscany. This
accomplished, Conrad could proceed unhindered to Rome. The corona-
tion of Conrad and his wife Gisela at the hands of Pope John XIX took
place on Easter Day (26 March 1027) at St Peter's in the presence of two
kings, Knut and Rodolph, and a vast gathering of German and Italian
princes and bishops. Seldom during the early middle ages was an im-
perial or papal election altogether free from riot and bloodshed. Conrad's
was no exception. A trivial dispute over an oxhide converted a brilliant
and festive scene into a tumultuous street-fight between the Romans
and the foreigners. A synod was held shortly after at the Lateran, in
which two disputes were brought up for decision: the one, a question of
precedence between the archbishops of Milan and Ravenna, was settled
## p. 265 (#311) ############################################
Italian politics
265
in favour of the former; in the other, the long-standing quarrel between
the patriarchs of Aquileia and Grado, the former triumphed; the see of
Grado was made subject to the Patriarch of Aquileia, and the Venetians
were thereby deprived of their ecclesiastical independence.
In South Italy, Conrad accepted the existing state of things without
involving himself further in the complexity of Greek and Lombard
politics; he contented himself merely with the homage of the princes of
Capua, Benevento, and Salerno. By the summer he was once again in
Germany. In a little more than a year the Emperor had succeeded in
winning the obedience of the north, the recognition of the south, of
Italy, a position with which he might reasonably rest satisfied. An
interval of ten years divides the two expeditions of Conrad across the
Alps, and the second was made at the request of the Italians themselves.
But he had motives of his own for intervention in the affairs of Italy in
1036; his policy had been to strengthen German influence in two ways:
first by the appointment of German clergy to vacant Italian bishoprics,
and secondly by encouraging the intermarriage of the German and
Italian princely houses; so Gebhard of Eichstedt received the arch-
bishopric of Ravenna, while the majority of the suffragan sees in the
province of Aquileia and not a few in Tuscany were filled with Germans.
The success of the latter policy is exemplified by the marriages of Azzo of
the Otbertine family with the Welfic heiress Kunigunda, of Herman of
Swabia with Adelaide of the house of Turin, of Boniface of Tuscany
with Beatrix, the daughter of Duke Frederick of Upper Lorraine. Such
a policy ran counter to the ambition of the Archbishop of Milan, who
for his part strove to exercise an overlordship in Lombardy, and, it was
said, “disposed of the whole kingdom at his nod. ” Such a man must
be suppressed if Conrad was to maintain his authority in Italy.
The immediate situation, however, which precipitated the Emperor's
expedition was due to the feud which had arisen between the smaller
and greater tenants, the valvassores and the capitanei; while the here-
ditary principle was in practice secured to the latter, it was denied by
them to the former.
Oldenburg (on the Baltic), sought but did not get Henry's help, and
then Thietmar, brother of the Billung Duke Bernard, revolted. After
he had been subdued, his brother the duke himself rebelled, but a siege
of his fortress Schalksburg on the Weser ended in a peace. Emperor and
duke joined in an expedition against the Wends, reduced the March to
order and restored the Christian prince Mistislav over the pagan Obotrites
(Obodritzi, or Abotrites). But though civil order was enforced to the
north, the Wends remained heathen.
Happily the rest of Germany was more peaceful. In Swabia alone
arose difficulty. Ernest, husband of Gisela, elder sister of the young Duke
Herman III, had been made duke, but after three years' rule he died in
the hunting field (31 May 1015). The Emperor gave the duchy to his
eldest son Ernest, and as he was under age his mother Gisela was to be
his guardian. But when she soon married Conrad of Franconia the
Emperor gave the duchy to Poppo of Trèves, the young duke's uncle.
Gisela's new husband, Conrad, afterwards Emperor, head of the house
which sprang from Conrad the Red and Liutgard, daughter of Otto the
Great, had already one grievance against the Emperor. He had seen in
1011 the duchy of Carinthia transferred from his own family to Adalbero
of Eppenstein. Now a second gr
Now a second grievance made him Henry's enemy.
He
had fought alongside Gerard of Alsace against Duke Godfrey: two years
later he waged war against Duke Adalbero. For this the Emperor
banished him, but the sentence was remitted and Conrad henceforth kept
the peace.
Henry's general policy was one of conciliation; as a commander in the
field he had never been fortunate, and therefore he preferred moral
to physical means. He had learnt this preference from his religion and
he well understood how greatly ecclesiastical order could help his realm.
In church reform, greatly needed at the time, he took ever more interest
as his life went on. One question indeed which came up at the synod of
Goslar in 1019 was a foreboding of trouble to come. Many secular priests,
serfs by birth, had married free women: it was asked whether their
children were free or unfree: the synod at Henry's suggestion declared
both mother and children unfree. This decision tended to throw discredit
CH, X.
## p. 250 (#296) ############################################
250
Benedict VIII in Germany
upon marriages which furthered the secularization of the Church. For
married clergy often sought to benefit their own families at the expense
of their churches. But on the side of reform Henry was greatly helped
by the monastic revival which, largely beginning from Cluny, had spread
widely in Lorraine. William, Abbot of St Benignus at Dijon, and
Richard, Abbot of St Vanne's near Verdun, were here his helpers.
William had been called in by the Bishop of Metz: Richard worked in
more than one Lorraine diocese. Outside their own order such monks
influenced the secular clergy and even the bishops. Simony and world-
liness were more widely reproved; Henry would gladly have seen such
a reformation spreading and with some such hope he asked the Pope
to visit Germany.
Benedict VIII was, it is true, more a man of action than a reformer.
He had faced worse foes than the Crescentii at Farfa, for the Saracens
under Mujāhid of Denia (in Spain) had (1015) conquered Sardinia and
were harrying the Tuscan coasts. He urged on the Pisans and Genoese
before their three days' victory at sea (June 1016): a battle which
brought the victorious allies into Sardinia. And he had (1016) made
use of Lombard rebels and Norman help to try and shake the Byzantine
hold upon Southern Italy. But rebels and Normans had suffered defeat
and the Byzantines held their own. Benedict might hopefully turn to
the Emperor for further help: when on Maundy Thursday (14 April
1020) he reached Henry's favourite Bamberg, he was the first Pope to
visit Germany for a century and a half. With him there came Melo,
leader of the Apulian rebels, and Rodolph, the Norman leader, who had
helped them. Melo was invested with the new title, Duke of Apulia,
and held the empty office for the remaining week of his life. Thus
Henry entered into the Italian schemes of Benedict. The Pope on his
side confirmed at Fulda the foundation of Bamberg, taking it under
special papal protection: Henry gave the Pope a privilege nearly
identical with that given by Otto the Great to John XII.
The second half of the year 1020 was spent in small campaigns,
including one against Baldwin in Flanders, where in August the Emperor
captured Ghent. The other was against Otto of Hammerstein, whom
we shall mention later. When Henry kept Easter in 1021 at Merseburg
he could look on a realm comparatively peaceful. His old opponent
Heribert of Cologne had died (16 March 1021) and was replaced by
Henry's friend and diplomatist, Pilgrim. Later (17 August) died Erkam-
bald of Mayence, and was succeeded by Aribo, a royal chaplain and a
relative of Pilgrim's. The three great sees were now all held by Bavarians.
In July a diet at Nimeguen decided on an expedition to Italy. There
the Byzantine forces had occupied part of the principality of Benevento,
drawing the Lombard princes to their side, and (June 1021) the Catapan
Basil seized the fortress on the Garigliano which the Pope had given to
Datto, an Apulian rebel. Thus Rome itself was threatened nearly. In
## p. 251 (#297) ############################################
Henry's third expedition to Italy
251
November 1021 Henry left Augsburg for Italy: early in December he
reached Verona, where Italian princes joined his Lorrainers, Swabians
and Bavarians: among them were the Bavarian Poppo, Patriarch of
Aquileia, and the distinguished Aribert, since 1018 Archbishop of Milan.
Leo of Vercelli of course was there, and if some lay magnates kept away
others made a welcome appearance. Christmas Henry spent at Ravenna
and in January moved southwards. Before he reached Benevento
Benedict joined him. The army marched in three divisions and the one
which Pilgrim of Cologne commanded met with brilliant successes, taking
Capua. Henry himself was delayed for three months by the fortress
of Troia, built with almost communal privileges by the Catapan in
1018 to guard the Byzantine province and strong enough to sur-
render on merely nominal terms. But sickness had assailed the Germans
and after visiting Home Henry came in July to Pavia. So far he had
made Rome safer and had subjugated the Lombard states. Then in a
synod at Pavia (1 August 1022) with Benedict's help he turned to
church reform. Clerical marriage, as common in Lombardy as in
Germany, was denounced. And the ever growing poverty of the Church
was also noted: lands had been alienated and married clerics were
trying to endow their families. As at Goslar it was decided that the
wives and children of unfree priests were also serfs, and could thus not
hold land. These ecclesiastical decrees, meant to be of general force
although passed in a scanty synod, the Emperor embodied in an im-
perial decree. Leo of Vercelli probably drafted alike the papal speech
and the imperial decree and he was the first bishop to enforce the
canons.
Then in the autumn of 1022 Henry returned to his kingdom. The
following Easter he sent Gerard of Cambray and Richard of St Vannes
to beg Robert of France to become his partner in church reform. The
two kings met (11 August) at Ivois just within Germany. It was agreed
to call an assembly at Pavia of both German and Italian bishops: the
assembly would thus represent the old Carolingian realm.
But now Germany was not ecclesiastically at peace either within itself
or with the Pope. Aribo of Mayence, on the death of his suffragan
Bernward of Hildesheim, had revived the old claim to authority over
Gandersheim. But Henry had taken sides with the new Bishop, Godehard
of Altaich, although his settlement left irritation behind. Aribo had
also a more important quarrel with Pope Benedict arising out of a marriage.
Count Otto of Hammerstein, a great noble of Franconia, had married
Irmingard, although they were related within the prohibited degrees.
Episcopal censure was disregarded: excommunication by a synod at
Nimeguen (March 1018), enforced by the Emperor and the Archbishop
of Mayence, only brought Otto to temporary submission. Two years later,
after rejoining Irmingard, he attacked in revenge the territory of Mayence.
At length his disregard of synod and of Emperor alike forced Henry to
CH, X
## p. 252 (#298) ############################################
252
Death of Henry
uphold the Church's law by the sword. But Otto's irregular marriage
a few years later raised even greater difficulties. For the present Henry
had shewn his ecclesiastical sympathies and his readiness to enforce the
Church's decisions even in a field where many rulers disregarded or dis-
liked them. A synod at Mayence in June 1023 separated the pair,
whereupon Irmingard appealed to Rome. This appeal was looked upon
by Aribo as an invasion of his metropolitan rights, and he persuaded a
provincial synod at Seligenstadt to take his view. Here were forbidden
all appeals to Rome made without episcopal leave, and also any papal
remission of guilt, unless the ordinary penance imposed locally had been
first performed. Henry sent the diplomatic Pilgrim of Cologne to explain
matters to Benedict, who nevertheless directed a fresh hearing of Irmin-
gard's case, and also significantly sent no pallium to Aribo. In reply the
Archbishop called his suffragans to meet at Höchst 13 May 1024; and
it was hoped through the Empress Kunigunda to draw thither bishops of
other provinces also: meanwhile all the suffragans of Mayence except
two signed a remonstrance to the Pope against the insult to their metro-
politan. But Benedict died (11 June 1024) before the matter was settled,
being succeeded by his brother Romanus, hitherto called Senator of all
the Romans by Benedict's appointment, who passed from layman to Pope
as John XIX within a day. The new Pope had no religious and few
ecclesiastical interests, and the matter of the marriage went no further.
Soon after Benedict Henry himself passed away. During 1024 he had
suffered from both illness and the weakness of advancing years ; on 13
July the end came. His body was fittingly laid to rest in his beloved
Bamberg, itself an expression of the religious zeal which was shewn so
strongly and so pathetically in his closing years. Religion and devotion
to the Church had always been a leading interest in his active life; as
death drew nearer it became an all-absorbing care. The title of Saint
which his people gave him fittingly expressed the feeling of his age. .
## p. 253 (#299) ############################################
253
CHAPTER XI.
THE EMPEROR CONRAD II.
With the death of Henry II the Saxon dynasty in the male line
became extinct; nevertheless under the Ottos the hereditary principle
had become so firmly rooted, the Teutonic theory of election so nearly
forgotten, that the descendants of Otto the Great in the female branch
were alone regarded as suitable successors to the Emperor Henry II. The
choice of the princes was practically limited to the two Conrads, the great-
grandsons of the first Otto's daughter Liutgard and Conrad of Lorraine.
Both were grandsons of Otto, Duke of Carinthia; the future emperor
through the eldest son Henry who died young, the other, known as Conrad
the Younger, through the third son, also named Conrad, who had suc-
ceeded his father in the duchy of Carinthia. This younger Conrad did
not inherit the dukedom, which was granted on his father's death in 1011
to Adalbero of Eppenstein, but he acquired nevertheless the greater part
of the family estates in Franconia. In wealth and territorial position he
was stronger than his elder cousin ; moreover, since he had adopted the
attitude of Henry II in matters of ecclesiastical politics, he could safely
rely on the support of the reforming party in the Church, which, par-
ticularly in Lorraine, carried considerable weight under the guidance of
Archbishop Pilgrim of Cologne. An orphan' with a meagre inheritance,
brought up by the famous canonist, Burchard of Worms, Conrad the
Elder had little to recommend him beyond seniority and personal cha-
racter. On late and unreliable authority it is asserted that the late
Emperor designated him as his successor? , and though it is reasonable to
suppose that Henry II should make some recommendation with regard to
the succession, it is at least remarkable that he should select a man whose
I His father died while he was still a child, and his mother married again and
took no further interest in the child of her first husband.
? Sigebert, Chron. MGHSS. vi. 356. Hugh of Flavigny, Chron. 11. 16, MGHSS. viii.
392. It is accepted as historical by Arndt, Die Wahl Konrads II, Diss. Göttingen,
1861, Maurenbrecher, Königswahlen, and others; Bresslau, from the silence of
contemporaries, and the unreliability of the evidence is led to the conclusion that
no such designation was made. (Jahrbücher, Konrad II, 1. p. 9 f. , also in Hirsch,
Jahrbücher, Heinrich II, 111. p. 356 f. ) Harttung, Studien zur Geschichte Konrads 11,
attempts to prove that the younger Conrad was designated by Henry II; but see
Bresslau, Jahrbücher, Excurs. 11. p. 342 f.
CH. .
## p. 254 (#300) ############################################
254
Election and coronation
a
views both in ecclesiastical and secular politics were diametrically opposed
to his own. Yet this very fact of his antagonism to the reforming move-
ment induced Aribo, Archbishop of Mayence, and the bulk of the episco-
pate, jealous and suspicious of the progress of Cluniac ideas in Germany,
to throw the whole weight of their influence in support of his candidature.
The election took place on the Rhine between Mayence and Worms' on
4 September 1024. Before it took place the elder Conrad had a meeting
with his cousin and apparently induced him to withdraw from the contest.
Conrad the Elder, left in undisputed possession of the field (for the
party of his late rival, the Lorrainers, rather than give him their votes,
had retired from the assembly), was elected unanimously, and received
from the hands of the widowed Empress Kunigunda, the royal insignia,
committed by her husband to her care. The election was a popular one.
Princes and people, spiritual and secular, thronged to Mayence to attend
the coronation festival. “If Charles the Great himself had been alive and
present,” writes Conrad's enthusiastic biographer”, “the rejoicing could
not have been exceeded. " The ceremony of coronation was performed
on 8 September by Aribo in the cathedral of Mayence and was followed
by the customary state banquet and by the taking of the oath of fealty
by the bishops, nobles, and even, we are told, by other freemen of dis-
tinction. One incident marred the general serenity of the proceedings;
Conrad's marriage in 1017 with Gisela, the widow successively of Bruno
of Brunswick and of Ernest II of Swabia, being within the prohibited
degrees, was not sanctioned by the Church. Aribo denied her the crown;
and it was only after an interval of some days that Archbishop Pilgrim
of Cologne, desirous of making his peace with the king he had opposed,
offered to perform the ceremony in his cathedral at Colognes.
The princes of Lorraine, among them Gozelo and Dietrich, the Dukes
of the lower and upper provinces, Reginar V, the powerful Count of
Hainault, and the greater number of the bishops, had, as we have seen,
resisted Conrad's election, and after the event had denied him recognition.
The bishops adopted this attitude on account of Conrad's lack of sym-
pathy with the movement of reform in the Church; when, however, their
1 The exact spot is generally said to be Kamba on the right bank of the river
near Oppenheim. Schädel (Die Königsstühle bei Mainz und die Wahl Konrads II,
Progr. Mayence, 1896) believes the place of election to have been on the left bank
near Lörzweiler. With Wipo (cap. 2) we can leave it “de vocabulo et situ loci
plenius dicere topographis. ” Anyhow "cis et citra Rhenum castra locabant. "
.
Wipo, loc. cit.
% Wipo, Script. Rer. Germ. ed. Bresslau, 1915. See also the editor's preface to
this edition. Wipo is the main authority for the reign; probably a Burgundian by
birth, he held the office of chaplain to the king, and was an eye-witness of many of
the events he records.
3 So Bresslau, 1. pp. 35-37, and Excurs. 11. p. 351, following the account of
Herman of Reichenau (1024, in Bresslau's ed. of Wipo, p. 94). Other authorities
accept the account of the Quedlinburg annals, that Gisela was subsequently crowned
by Aribo at the intercession of the princes (Aun. Qued. 1024, MGHSS, 111. 90).
>
9
## p. 255 (#301) ############################################
The royal progress
255
leader, the Archbishop of Cologne, made his peace with the king, and
when Odilo of Cluny, who had, it seems, been present at the election,
and had been the recipient of Conrad's first charter (a confirmation of
certain lands in Alsace to the Cluniac monastery of Payerne), exerted his
influence in Conrad's interest, the bishops were prevailed upon to make
their submission. Conrad was therefore able to make his royal progress
through Lorraine unhindered.
It was customary for a newly elected king to travel through his
kingdom, dispensing justice, settling disputes, ordering peace. Within
a year of his coronation (he was back in Mayence at the end of August
1025) Conrad had visited the more important towns of the five great
duchies of his kingdom. On his journey through Saxony two significant
events occurred; he received the recognition of the Saxon princes and gave
a decision against Aribo of Mayence, shewing thereby that he was not
to be swayed from the path of justice even in the interests of the foremost
prelate of Germany. Before Conrad's election the Saxon princes under
their Duke Bernard had assembled at Werla, and there decided on a
course of action similar to that which they had pursued on the occasion
of the election of Henry II in 1002. They had, it seems, absented
themselves from the electoral council, with the object of making their
acceptance of the result dependent upon conditions. They required the
king to acknowledge the peculiarly independent position, the ancient and
barbaric law, of the Saxons. They met him at Minden, where he
was keeping his Christmas court. Their condition was proposed and
accepted, and their homage, hitherto deferred, was duly performed to
their now recognised sovereign'.
Since the time of Otto III, the jurisdiction over the rich nunnery of
Gandersheim had been the cause of a fierce dispute between the bishops
of Hildesheim and the archbishops of Mayence. It had been one of the
reasons for the breach between Aribo and the late Emperor, who had in
1022 decided in favour of the Hildesheim claim. While Conrad remained
in Saxony the matter was brought up before him. The outlook was
ominous for Bishop Godehard; Conrad was not likely to give cause for a
quarrel with the powerful archbishop to whom he owed his crown, and
whom he had already favoured by conferring on him the archchancellor-
ship of Italy, in addition to the archchancellorship of Germany which
he had previously held. Moreover, the influential Abbess Sophia, the
daughter of the Emperor Otto II, was known to favour the claims of
Aribo. On the other hand, Conrad could not lightly reverse a decision
made by his predecessor only two years before, and he may also have felt
some resentment towards Aribo for the latter's refusal to crown his
queen.
Postponements and compromises were tried in vain. At last, in March
1 This interpretation of the rather confused evidence is Bresslau's, s. 12 and
n. 7. Cf. also his edition of Wipo, Script. Rer. Germ. 1915, p. 11, n. 1.
сн. XI,
## p. 256 (#302) ############################################
256
The Burgundian Question
1025, at a sparsely attended synod held at Grona, a provisional judgment
was given in favour of the Bishop of Hildesheim; the decision was con-
firmed two years later at a more representative gathering at Frankfort,
but it was not until 1030, a year before his death, that Aribo had a
meeting with his opponent at Merseburg, and finally renounced his claims
which, according to the biographer of Godehard, he confessed that he had
raised “partly in ignorance, partly out of malice. ”
The rebellion, which disturbed the opening years of the new reign,
is closely connected with the question of the Burgundian succession and
with the revolt in Lombardy. Rodolph III, the childless King of Bur-
gundy, had in 1016 recognised his nephew the Emperor Henry II as the
heir to his throne; he maintained however, and probably with justice,
that with the Emperor's death the compact became void. Conrad, on
the other hand, took a different view of the case; the cession, he argued,
was made not to the Emperor but to the Empire, to which he had been
duly elected.
Against him stood a formidable row of descendants of
Conrad the Peaceful in the female line, two of whom, Ernest, Duke of
Swabia, whose mother, Queen Gisela, was the niece, and Odo, Count
of Blois, whose mother, Bertha, was the sister of Rodolph, aspired to the
inheritance. To make his intentions clear Conrad, in June 1025, occupied
Basle which, though held by Henry II, actually lay within the confines
of the Burgundian kingdom. As his presence was needed elsewhere, he
left his wife Gisela, herself a niece of King Rodolph', to bring the Bur-
gundian question to a satisfactory issue. The success of her efforts is to
be seen in the Burgundian king's refusal to assist Ernest of Swabia in his
second revolt (1026), in his submissive attendance at the Emperor's
coronation at Rome (Easter 1027), and in his recognition, at Muttenz
near Basle, later in the same year, of Conrad's title to succeed to his
kingdom. Ernest, whose hopes in Burgundy were shattered by the
occupation of Basle, decided to oppose Conrad with arms.
. He allied
himself with Count Welf, with the still disaffected dukes of Lorraine,
and with Conrad the Younger who, having heard no more of the proffered
rewards by which his cousin had secured his withdrawal from the electoral
contest, had openly shewn his resentment at Augsburg in the previous
April
In France, Odo of Blois and Champagne was interested in the downfall
of Conrad; in Italy, the trend of events moved in the same direction.
There the Lombards, taking advantage of the death of Henry II, rose
1 This marriage connexion with the Burgundian house constituted, Poupardin
concludes, Conrad's title to be designated by Rodolph and to be chosen by the
Burgundian princes, but brought with it no actual right of succession. Cf. Pou-
pardin, Le Royaume de Bourgogne, p. 151.
2 Conrad the Younger stood in the same relation to Rodolph Ill as did Ernest;
his mother Matilda was Rodolph's niece. He appears, however, to have raised no
claim to the throne of Burgundy. Cf. Poupardin, loc. cit.
## p. 257 (#303) ############################################
Rebellion of Duke Ernest
257
in revolt against the imperial domination. The men of Pavia, mindful
of the recent destruction of their city at the hands of the late Em-
peror, burnt the royal palace; the north Italian princes, in defiance of
Conrad, offered their crown first to King Robert of France, then, on his
refusal, to William V, Duke of Aquitaine, who accepted it for his son.
The duke's only hope of success in the dangerous enterprise he had
undertaken lay in keeping Conrad engaged in his own kingdom. With
this object he set about organising the opposition in Lorraine, France,
and Burgundy; he met Robert of France and Odo of Champagne at
Tours, and the French king agreed to carry a campaign into Germany.
The combination, so formidable in appearance, dissolved into nothing.
Robert was prevented by the affairs of his own kingdom from taking the
field against Conrad; Odo, engaged in a fierce feud with Fulk of Anjou,
was powerless; William of Aquitaine on visiting Italy found the situation
there less favourable than he had been led to expect, and thereupon gave
up the project; the dukes of Lorraine, no longer able to count on foreign
aid, made their submission to the Emperor at Aix-la-Chapelle (Christ-
mas 1025). After the collapse of the alliance, continued resistance on
the part of Ernest was useless; at Augsburg early in the next year,
through the mediation of the queen, his mother, he was reconciled with
Conrad who, to keep him from further mischief, insisted on his accom-
panying him on the Italian campaign upon which he was about to
embark.
It was a wise precaution, and Conrad would have been better advised
had he retained his ambitious stepson in his camp; instead he dispatched
him to Germany to suppress the disorders which had arisen there in his
absence. Welf, obdurate in his disobedience, had attacked and plundered
the lands and cities of Bruno, Bishop of Augsburg, the brother of the
Emperor Henry II, the guardian of the young King Henry III, and the
administrator of Germany during the king's absence in Italy. Ernest,
back among his old fellow-conspirators and acting, no doubt, on the advice
of his evil genius, Count Werner of Kiburg, instead of suppressing the
rebellious Welf, joined with him in rebellion? The second revolt of
.
Ernest was however as abortive as the first; he invaded Alsace, pene-
trated into Burgundy, but finding to his discomfiture, in Rodolph, not
an ally but an enemy, he was compelled to make a hasty retreat to
Zurich, whence he occupied himself in making plundering raids upon
the
rich abbeys of Reichenau and St Gall. Conrad's return soon ended the
affair. Ernest and Welf answered the imperial summons to Ulm (July
1027), not however as suppliants for the Emperor's mercy, but, supported
by an armed following, with the intention either of dictating their own
1 The attitude of the younger Conrad in this rebellion is ambiguous. Wipo, c. 19,
says of him “nec fidus imperatori, nec tamen multum noxius illi. ” His submission
and condemnation to a short term of imprisonment in 1027, mentioned by Wipo,
c. 21, proves his implication.
17
C. MED, H. VOL. III. CH. XI.
## p. 258 (#304) ############################################
258
Failure and death of Ernest
terms or, failing that, of fighting their way to safety. The duke had
miscalculated his resources; at an interview with his vassals he discovered
his mistake. They were prepared, they said, to follow him as their oath
required against any man except the Emperor; but loyalty to the
Emperor took precedence to loyalty to the duke. Ernest had no choice
but to throw himself on Conrad's mercy; he was deprived of his duchy
and imprisoned in the castle of Gibichenstein near Halle. Welf was
condemned to imprisonment, to make reparation to the Bishop of
Augsburg, and to the loss of a countship in the neighbourhood of
Brixen.
Ernest, after less than a year's captivity, was forgiven and reinstated
in his dukedom. But the course of events of 1026 was repeated in 1030.
Ordered by the Emperor to execute the ban against Count Werner, who
had persisted in rebellion, he disobeyed, and was, by the judgment of
the princes, once more deprived of his dukedom and placed under the
ban of the Empire (at Ingelheim, Easter 1030). After a vain attempt to
persuade Odo of Champagne to join him, he and Werner withdrew into
the Black Forest, where, making the strong castle of Falkenstein their
headquarters, they lived for a time the life of bandits. At last, in
August, the two rebels fell in a fierce encounter with the Emperor's
troops under Count Manegold.
The rebellions of Ernest, dictated not by any dissatisfaction at
Conrad's rule but rather by personal motives and rival ambitions, never
assumed dangerous proportions. The fact that even the nobility of
Swabia, with few exceptions, refused to follow their duke is significant
of the strength and popularity of Conrad's government. The loyalty of
Germany as a whole was never shaken. Duke Ernest, a little undeservedly
perhaps, has become the hero of legend and romance; he has often been
compared with Liudolf of Swabia, the popular and ambitious son of
Otto the Great. The parallel is scarcely a fair one; Liudolf rebelled
but once and with juster cause; and after his defeat, he lived loyally and
died fighting his father's battles in Italy. Ernest, though twice for-
given, lived and died a rebel.
In September 1032 Rodolph III ended a weak and inglorious reign.
Conrad had been solemnly recognised as heir by the late king at Muttenz
five years before and had been entrusted with the royal insignia, the crown
and the lance of St Maurice. Some of the Burgundian nobles had even
already taken the oath of allegiance to the German king; but the
majority both of the ecclesiastical and secular lords, especially in the
romance-speaking district of the south, stood opposed to him. His
powerful rival, Odo, Count of Blois and Champagne, had at first the
advantage, for Conrad at the critical moment was busily occupied with the
affairs of Poland, and when, after the submission of the Polish Duke Mesco,
he hastened to Strasbourg, he found a large part of Burgundy already in
the hands of the enemy (Christmas 1032). In spite of the severity of
## p. 259 (#305) ############################################
Acquisition of Burgundy
259
a
the weather, which was sufficiently remarkable to supply the theme of a
poem of a hundred stanzas from the pen of Wipo, the Emperor decided
to make a winter campaign into Burgundy. He marched on Basle and
proceeded to Payerne, where he was formally elected and crowned by his
partisans; but the indescribable sufferings of his troops from the cold
prevented his further progress, and he withdrew to Zurich.
In the spring, before resuming operations in Burgundy, he entered into
negotiations with the French King Henry I, which resulted in a meeting
of the two at Deville on the Meuse. What actually took place there is
not recorded, but it seems clear that an alliance against Odo was formed
between them. Again the affairs of Poland prevented Conrad from com-
pleting his task, and on his return thence he found that his adversary had
penetrated the German frontier and plundered the districts of Lorraine
in the neighbourhood of Toul. Conrad retaliated with a raid into Count
Odo's territory and brought him to submission; the latter renounced
his claims, agreed to evacuate the occupied districts, and to make
reparation for the damage caused by his incursion into Lorraine. The
matter was not however so easily settled; not only did Odo not evacuate
the occupied parts of Burgundy nor make satisfaction for the harm he
had perpetrated in Lorraine, but he even had the audacity to repeat his
performance in that country. Conrad determined on a decisive effort;
Burgundy was attacked on two sides. His Italian allies, Marquess
Boniface of Tuscany and Archbishop Aribert of Milan, under the
guidance of Count Humbert of Maurienne, led their troops across the
Great St Bernard, and following the Rhone Valley, made their junction
with the Emperor, operating from the north, at Geneva. Little re-
sistance was encountered by either army. At Geneva Conrad was again
solemnly recognised as king and received the submission of the greater
number of Odo's adherents. The town of Morat alone held out defiantly;
attacked by the German and Italian forces in conjunction, it was taken
by assault and demolished. With it were destroyed the last hopes of
Conrad's adversaries; they submitted, and Burgundy, furnishing the
Emperor with his fourth crown, became an undisputed and integral part
of the imperial dominions. If Burgundy was never a source of much
strength or financial profit to the Empire, its inclusion was by no means
without its value. Its geographical position as a barrier between France
and Italy, and as commanding the western passes of the Alps, made it an
acquisition of the first importance. In the last year of his reign Conrad
visited his new kingdom. A solemn and well-attended gathering of
ecclesiastical and secular nobles assembled at Soleure, and for three days
deliberated over the means of establishing peace and organised govern-
ment in a land, which for many a year had known nothing but lawlessness
and anarchy.
а
сн. х.
17-2
## p. 260 (#306) ############################################
260
Polish aggressions
The Eastern Frontier.
During the years 1030–1035 Conrad was chiefly occupied with the
restless state of the eastern frontier of his kingdom. It is a dreary story
of rebellion, ineffective campaigns, fratricidal wars. Poland, Hungary,
Bohemia, the Wendish lands to the north-east, demanded in turn the
Emperor's attention. Boleslav Chrobry had, during the previous reign,
been assiduously building up a strong position for himself in Poland ; in
the peace of Bautzen (1018) he had been the chief gainer at the expense
of the Empire; on the death of Henry II he had taken a further step
and boldly assumed the title of king. Conrad was neither strong enough
nor at liberty to deal at once with this presumptuous duke; but while at
Merseburg in February 1025, he took the wise precaution of securing the
loyalty of the neighbouring Slavonic tribes of the Lyutitzi and the
Obotrites.
In the summer Boleslav died ; his younger son Mesco, having suc-
cessfully driven his elder brother Otto Bezprim to Russia (or perhaps
Hungary), assumed the kingship and the policy of his father. By 1028
his aggressions had become intolerable. The eastern parts of Saxony were
raided and plundered; the bishopric of Zeitz suffered so severely that it
had to be removed to the better fortified Naumberg, a town of Eckhard
of Meissen, near the junction of the Unstrut and the Saale; the Lyutitzi,
helplessly at the mercy of the tyrannical Mesco, pleaded for German
assistance. Conrad assembled an army beyond the Elbe. But the cam-
paign was a complete failure: the troops were scattered and worn out by
long marches through forests and swamps; Bautzen was besieged, but not
captured; and the Emperor, despairing of making any headway, withdrew
to Saxony. The only success was achieved by Conrad's ally, Břatislav,
the son of the Duke of Bohemia, who managed to recover Moravia from
the Poles. The death of Thietmar, Margrave of the East Mark (January
1030), was the occasion for another and more serious incursion on the
part of the Polish prince, united this time with a band of disloyal Saxons.
In the region between the Elbe and the Saale a hundred villages are said
to have been destroyed by fire, more than 9000 men and women taken
into captivity. The enemy were only beaten off by the courage and
resource of Count Dietrich of Wettin.
Conrad was unable to take the matter in hand, for he was engaged in
a war with Stephen of Hungary. The relations between the latter country
and the Empire had been growing yearly more strained. Werner, Bishop
of Strasbourg, Conrad's ambassador to Constantinople in 1027, had been
denied a passage through Hungary, and was compelled to take the more
hazardous route by sea. The Bavarian nobles, no doubt, gave ample
provocation for this hostile attitude by their attempts to extend their
possessions across the Fischa, the boundary at that time between Germany
a
## p. 261 (#307) ############################################
Hungary; subjection of Poland
261
and Hungary. According to one account the actual cause for quarrel
arose through the Emperor's refusal to grant, at the request of King
Stephen, the dukedom of Bavaria to his son Henry (he was the nephew
of the Emperor Henry II, whose sister Gisela had married Stephen of
Hungary). In 1030 Conrad took the field against him; this, like the
Polish campaign, was a miserable disaster. Conrad did no more than
ravage the border country as far as the Raab, and retired with an army
imperilled by famine, while the Hungarians pursued the retreating Ger-
mans and captured Vienna, which celebrated city is now for the first time
mentioned under this name. Bratislav, who had gained the only success
in the Polish campaign of the previous year, was again conspicuous for his
services to the Empire; he defeated the Hungarians and devastated their
country as far as the town of Gran. The young King Henry, who as
Duke of Bavaria was closely concerned with the affairs of Hungary, was
entrusted with the settlement of the quarrel with King Stephen. By the
cession of a small tract of country lying between the Fischa and the
Leitha he secured, in the spring of 1031, peace and the restoration of
Vienna.
Conrad, relieved of danger from Hungary, was at liberty to cope effec-
tively with the troublesome Duke of Poland. Allied with Mesco's banished
brother Otto, Conrad organised a combined attack; while he advanced
from the west, Otto Bezprim and his protector Yarosláv, Prince of Kiev,
were to attack from the east. Mesco, thus threatened from two sides, soon
gave way and agreed to the terms stipulated by the Emperor. He was
required to surrender the border territory which his father had acquired
by the treaty of Bautzen (1018), the prisoners and booty captured in the
raids
upon Saxony, and also the Upper and Lower Lausitz which were
attached respectively to the Meissen and the East Marks. Poland was
thus once more confined within the limits of the old duchy as it was
before the ascendancy of Boleslav Chrobry. The attack of Bezprim had
not synchronised with that of the German troops; it took place after
this peace had been concluded. He too, however, was successful; he drove
Mesco from the throne, of which he himself took possession, and, by
recognising the overlordship of the Emperor, was himself recognised as
the lawful duke of Poland. His reign, characterised by the most brutal
savagery, was cut short in the next year (1032) by assassination, engineered
in part by the enemies he had made in his own circle, in part by the in-
trigues of the brother he had expelled. Mesco promptly returned from
Bohemia, where he had taken refuge with Duke Udalrich. In spite of his
apparent willingness to enter into friendly relations with the Emperor,
we hear of a renewed outbreak of war before the end of the
But
Conrad was anxious to rid himself of the vexatious business and to be
free to make good his claim to the Burgundian crown. He therefore
received the duke's submission at Merseburg (1033), and allowed him to
retain his dukedom, subject to his feudal superiority and reduced in extent
year.
CH. AI.
## p. 262 (#308) ############################################
262
War with Bohemia and the Wends
by a strip of territory on the western frontier, which was annexed to the
East Mark. The power of Poland was crushed. On Mesco's death in 1034
the country relapsed into an almost chronic state of civil war in which
Conrad, wearied with Polish affairs, was careful not to involve himself.
In the meanwhile difficulties had been growing up in the neighbouring
country of Bohemia. Udalrich, for some years past, had shewn insubor-
dination to his feudal lord: in 1031 he had refused his help for the Polish
campaign; summoned to the diet of Merseburg (July 1033) to answer for
his conduct, he had defiantly remained absent. Conrad was too busily
engaged with Odo, his rival to the Burgundian throne, to deal himself
with his disobedient vassal. He entrusted the task, therefore, to his son
Henry, now a promising youth of sixteen years; his confidence was not
misplaced, for a single campaign in the summer brought the duke to
subjection! At a court held at Werben he was condemned, banished,
and deprived of his lands. His brother, the old Duke Jaromir, was dragged
from his prison at Utrecht, where he had languished for more than twenty
years, to be set again over the duchy of Bohemia. The arrangement was,
however, not a permanent one; Udalrich was pardoned at Ratisbon (April
1034), but not content with the partial restoration of his duchy, he seized
and blinded his hapless brother. His misdeeds brought a speedy retribu-
tion; he died the same year, choked or perhaps poisoned while eating his
dinner. Jaromir was disinclined a third time to undertake the title and
duties which had brought him only misfortune; at his wish Břatislav,
who had on the whole deserved well of Conrad, received the dukedom as
a fief of the Empire.
Further north, a feud had broken out between the Saxons and the
Wendish tribe, the Lyutitzi, whićh gave rise to mutual incursions and
plundering. At the request of both parties, the Emperor permitted the
issue to be determined by the judgment of God in the form of a duel.
Unluckily, the Christian champion fell wounded to the sword of the
pagan; the decision was accepted by the Emperor, and the Wends, so
elated by their success, would have forthwith attacked their Saxon oppo-
nents, had not they been constrained by oath to keep the peace and been
menaced by the establishment at Werben of a fortress strongly garrisoned
by a body of Saxon knights. But the peace was soon broken, the fortress
soon captured; and two expeditions across the Elbe (1035 and 1036)
were necessary before the Lyutitzi were reduced to obedience. In the first
Conrad was seldom able to bring the enemy to an open fight; they re-
treated before him into the impenetrable swamps and forests, while the
Germans burnt their cities, devastated their lands. We have a picture
a
1 For an examination into the confused chronology of these events and of the
conflicting passage in the Annales Allahenses see Bresslau, Jahrbücher 11. Excurs. iii.
p. 484 f. , and Bretholz, Geschichte Böhmens und Mährens (1912), p. 127. Seydel,
Studien zur Kritik Wipos, Dissertation, Berlin, 1898, places these events a year later,
1034.
## p. 263 (#309) ############################################
Alliance with Denmark
263
from Wipo of the Emperor standing oftentime thigh-deep in the morass,
fighting himself and encouraging his men to battle. The punishment,
meted out to the prisoners captured in this exploit, leaves an indelible
stain on the otherwise upright character of the Emperor. In their heathen
fanaticism they had sacrilegiously mutilated the figure of Christ on a
crucifix; Conrad avenged the outrage in like fashion. Drawn up
before
the cross they had dishonoured, their eyes put out, their hands and feet
hacked off, they were left to die miserably. The second attack, of which
the details are not recorded, appears to have been decisive; the Wends
submitted, and had to pay the penalty for their revolt at the price of an
increased tribute.
The wisdom of Conrad's diplomacy is perhaps most evident in his
relations with his powerful northern neighbour Knut, King of England,
Denmark, and, in 1030, Norway. Had Conrad permitted the hostility
which had existed under his predecessor to continue, he would have found
in Knut a formidable opponent always ready to disturb the stability of
the imperial authority on the north-eastern border of Germany. His
policy towards Poland, Bohemia, and more especially the Wendish country
across the Elbe, could scarcely have met with so large a measure of success.
The rulers of Poland and Denmark were closely related; both countries
were at enmity with Germany; an alliance between them seemed natural
and inevitable. Thus Conrad lost no time in bringing about, through
the mediation of Unwan, Archbishop of Bremen, friendly relations with
Knut (1025). This alliance was drawn closer some ten years later by the
marriage of their children, Henry and Gunnhild, and by the cession to the
Danish king of the March and the town of Schleswig. Though the German
frontier was thereby brought back to the Eider, the gain outweighed the
loss. Knut was zealous for the advancement of the Christian religion; he
kept in close touch with the metropolitans of Bremen, Unwan and his
successors, and promoted their efforts towards the conversion of the
heathen. From Gerinany he drew churchmen to fill high positions in his
English kingdom, as for instance Duduco, Bishop of Wells, and Wichmann,
Abbot of Ramsey! Unfortunately, this powerful and useful ally of the
Empire survived the treaty of 1035 but a few months: he died in Novem-
ber of the same year, and the Danish ascendancy soon crumbled away
under the rule of his successors.
Italy under Conrad 11.
We have already noticed how the death of the Emperor Henry II
had been the signal in Italy for a general revolt against the imperial
authority; for this movement, which found its expression in the burning
of the royal palace at Pavia and in the offer of the Lombard crown to a
1 Cf. Freeman, Norman Conquest, 11. App. note L. p. 598 f.
H. XI.
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264
Imperial coronation
French prince, the great noble families of north Italy, the Otbertines,
the Aleramids, the Marquesses of Tuscany and of Turin, were mainly
responsible. On the other hand the bishops under Aribert, the powerful
Archbishop of Milan, stood by Conrad; indeed Aribert with several
other bishops, presenting himself before the new king at Constance
(June 1025), assured hiin of his loyalty, of his willingness to crown him
king of Italy, and of the warm reception that awaited him when he
should set foot across the Alps; other Italian lords appeared a little
later at Zurich to perform their homage. Encouraged by these mani-
festations of loyalty and by the collapse of the attempt of the lay
aristocracy to raise a French prince to the throne, Conrad made his
plans for an Italian expedition in the ensuing spring. By the route
through the Brenner and Verona, in March he reached Milan, where,
since Pavia, the old Lombard capital and place of coronation, was still
in revolt, he was crowned by Aribert in the cathedral of St Ambrose.
The Pavese, fearful of the result of their boldness, had sought pardon
from Conrad at Constance, but their refusal to rebuild the palace they
had destroyed prevented a reconciliation. Conrad punished them by a
wholesale devastation of the surrounding country, and leaving part of
his army to complete the subjection of the rebellious city, he passed
eastward through Piacenza and Cremona to Ravenna; here his stay was
marked by a scene of the wildest uproar. The citizens rose against the
German soldiers with the hope that by force of numbers they might
succeed in driving them from the town. Their hope was vain; the
imperial troops soon gained the upper hand, and Conrad descended from
his bedchamber to stop the slaughter of the defeated and defenceless
burghers. The incident, related by Wipo, of the German knight who
lost his leg in the riot is characteristic of the king's generosity; he ordered
the leather gaiters of the wounded warrior to be filled with coin by way
of compensation for the loss of his limb.
The heat of the Italian summer drove Conrad northward, to pass
some two months in the cooler and more healthy atmosphere of the
Alpine valleys. The autumn and winter were spent in reducing to sub-
mission the powerful houses of the north-west and of Tuscany. This
accomplished, Conrad could proceed unhindered to Rome. The corona-
tion of Conrad and his wife Gisela at the hands of Pope John XIX took
place on Easter Day (26 March 1027) at St Peter's in the presence of two
kings, Knut and Rodolph, and a vast gathering of German and Italian
princes and bishops. Seldom during the early middle ages was an im-
perial or papal election altogether free from riot and bloodshed. Conrad's
was no exception. A trivial dispute over an oxhide converted a brilliant
and festive scene into a tumultuous street-fight between the Romans
and the foreigners. A synod was held shortly after at the Lateran, in
which two disputes were brought up for decision: the one, a question of
precedence between the archbishops of Milan and Ravenna, was settled
## p. 265 (#311) ############################################
Italian politics
265
in favour of the former; in the other, the long-standing quarrel between
the patriarchs of Aquileia and Grado, the former triumphed; the see of
Grado was made subject to the Patriarch of Aquileia, and the Venetians
were thereby deprived of their ecclesiastical independence.
In South Italy, Conrad accepted the existing state of things without
involving himself further in the complexity of Greek and Lombard
politics; he contented himself merely with the homage of the princes of
Capua, Benevento, and Salerno. By the summer he was once again in
Germany. In a little more than a year the Emperor had succeeded in
winning the obedience of the north, the recognition of the south, of
Italy, a position with which he might reasonably rest satisfied. An
interval of ten years divides the two expeditions of Conrad across the
Alps, and the second was made at the request of the Italians themselves.
But he had motives of his own for intervention in the affairs of Italy in
1036; his policy had been to strengthen German influence in two ways:
first by the appointment of German clergy to vacant Italian bishoprics,
and secondly by encouraging the intermarriage of the German and
Italian princely houses; so Gebhard of Eichstedt received the arch-
bishopric of Ravenna, while the majority of the suffragan sees in the
province of Aquileia and not a few in Tuscany were filled with Germans.
The success of the latter policy is exemplified by the marriages of Azzo of
the Otbertine family with the Welfic heiress Kunigunda, of Herman of
Swabia with Adelaide of the house of Turin, of Boniface of Tuscany
with Beatrix, the daughter of Duke Frederick of Upper Lorraine. Such
a policy ran counter to the ambition of the Archbishop of Milan, who
for his part strove to exercise an overlordship in Lombardy, and, it was
said, “disposed of the whole kingdom at his nod. ” Such a man must
be suppressed if Conrad was to maintain his authority in Italy.
The immediate situation, however, which precipitated the Emperor's
expedition was due to the feud which had arisen between the smaller
and greater tenants, the valvassores and the capitanei; while the here-
ditary principle was in practice secured to the latter, it was denied by
them to the former.
