ENDNOTES  page 349

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Franconian Emperors: *

After the death of Henry II (the last Saxon emperor) in 1024, Conrad II was elected King of Germany & then Emperor.  He was followed by: Henry III, Henry IV & Henry V, who established their monarchy as a major European power.  In1028 Conrad II had his son Henry III elected & anointed king of Germany; he promoted the concept of sacred kingship & successfully cowed the duchies into submission although in S Germany & Lorraine he faced stubborn opposition.  The Salians owed their success to an alliance with the Church, a policy begun by Otto I, which gave them financial support necessary to subdue rebellious dukes as well as an administrative network headed by clerics & bishops.  Henry III ended the papal schism, ending papal dependency on Roman nobility & laid the basis for its universal applicability.  However this alliance broke down during the Investiture Contest (1075-1122) initiated by Pope Gregory VII, who demanded Henry IV renounce his rights over the Church.  He forbade Church officials (bishops) from supporting the Emperor & attacked sacral monarchy (divine right); he was supported by the German nobility.  This struggle, pitting the Emperor against Pope resulted in a war that split the Empire from 1077 to 1122 when Henry V agreed to the Concordat of Worms.  By this he surrendered to papal demands.  The pope would appoint bishops although the German king had the right to veto.  Imperial control of Italy was forfeit & the imperial crown became dependent on the political support of aristocratic factions.  Increased local autonomy allowed feudalism to become more widespread as freemen sought protection by swearing allegiance (fealty) to a lord.  Powerful local rulers, having thereby acquired extensive lands & large military retinues, assumed the administration in these lands & organized them around an increasing number of castles.  The most powerful of these local rulers came to be called princes rather than dukes.

 

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Hohenstaufen Emperors: *

In 1125 Henry V (last Salian king) died without heir.  A disputed succession arose.  The Saxon duke Lothair of Supplinburg won the election against Frederick (a Staufer).  A civil war erupted between the 2 but in 1134 Frederick submitted.  In 1137 Lothair died & Conrad III (brother of Frederick) was elected.  The powerful Welf duke, Henry the Proud (son-in-law & heir of Lothair) who had been passed over in the election, now refused to acknowledge Conrad & was stripped of his territories.  In 1147 Conrad joined King Louis VII in the 2nd Crusade (which failed). 

 

When Duke Frederick II died (1147) he was succeeded by his son, Duke Frederick III & when King Conrad III died (1152) without heir, Frederick III succeeded him as King & Emperor Frederick I, Barbarossa.  He is considered greatest of the medieval emperor, ruling 1155-90; he was hugely ambitions, a brilliant organizer who possessed great battlefield acumen & political perspicacity.  He re-established the Corpus Juris Civilis (the Roman rule of law) to counterbalance papal power which had dominated the German states since 1122.  In an attempt to widen his economic base he decided to seek new finances in rich Italy.  Only with such resources could he restore royal power.  However decades of warfare in Italy yielded little. The Papacy and the Lombard League (the rich city-states of N. Italy) united against him.  Led by the skilful Pope Alexander III, the alliance suffered many defeats but ultimately denied Frederick victory.  Frederick returned to Germany. He had vanquished one notable opponent, his Welf cousin, Duke Henry the Lion of Saxony & Bavaria in 1180, but his hopes of restoring the power of the monarchy seemed unlikely.  During his long absence in Italy the German princes had waxed in strength & began colonization Slavic lands.  Many Germans settled in the east attracted by reduced taxes & manorial duties.  Frederick died in 1190 in Asia Minor while leading an army in the Third Crusade.

 

Henry VI (1165-97), son of Barbarossa, was elected king in 1169 & Emperor 1191.  In 1186 he acquired rights to the crown of Sicily with his marriage to Constance of Sicily (daughter of the Norman king Roger II of Sicily).  This led to the conquest of Sicily in 1194.  Next he set his eyes of the unification of Italy under the Empire, but was opposed by Rome.  He threatened to invade the Byzantine Empire after 1194 & was paid off with a ransom.  He incorporated Cyprus & Cilicia into the empire while compelling Tunis & Tripolitania to pay tribute.  His plans to turn the imperial title into a hereditary monarchy were thwarted by resistance from the German prince-electors.  In 1195 he pledged to go on crusade but first had to crush a revolt in Sicily (1197).  That same year he set sail for the Holy Land only to die of illness.

 

Frederick II (1194-1250) had a long minority & his election was contested.  Only in 1220 was he recognized & crowned Emperor by the Pope.  He spent little time in Germany, more time campaigning in France, Italy, Sicily & on Crusade.  After failing to appear in the 5th Crusade he led the 6th Crusade (1228-29) & signed a truce with the Muslims to regain Jerusalem.  Although ostensibly a success, Frederick’s diplomacy with Rome & the local Crusaders was a terrible failure.  And while on Crusade his position in Germany was attacked.  His son Henry had provoked the German princes & lords who reacted with a statue severely curtailing Imperial power in Germany.  Frederick returned & submitted.  With Germany peaceful again he raised an army & invaded Lombardy (1237); papal negotiations failed.  Imperil armies roamed N Italy aided by Ghibelline forces.  In 1239 Pope Gregory excommunicated Frederick (again!).  Twice Frederick prepared to seize Rome, only to be distracted by papal incited rebellions in the south.  In 1241 Gregory died.  The election of Innocent IV (1243) initially pleased the Emperor but by 1245 relations had broken down.  Stiff resistance from Rome (more excommunications & depositions) slowed down Frederick but by 1247 he had stabilized Italy while Innocent failed to gain support from the French king.  However Imperial fortunes were derailed at the battle of Parma (1248) when Guelp elements & forces defeated an Imperial siege, seized imperial treasure & wrecked Imperial prestige.  Many Italian cities revolted & Imperial domination waned.  A papal invasion of Sicily in 1250 was crushed but Frederick remained on the defence, ill and unable to participate in battle.  That year he died.

 

With his death the Hohenstaufen position was challenged but not lost.  Conrad IV would succeed Frederick as King of the Germans & Sicily but like his father faced revolt & risings across & Sicily; he failed to settle with Rome.  His premature death in 1254 began the Interregnum (1254-73), a period during which no single ruler gained control of Germany.

 

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the great Hohenstaufen and the great Welf: *

Welf & Hohenstaufen were already enemies.  In the Imperial election of 1137, the Welf Henry the Proud, was ignored; subsequently he refused to recognized Conrad III.  For this insubordination he lost Saxony & Bavaria.  His son, Henry the Lion, never relinquished claims to these lands; in 1142 Conrad returned Saxony to him & in 1156 Barbarossa returned Bavaria.  Henry reciprocated by ceding territories in Swabia (which came from his wife (Clementia of Zähringen) to Barbarossa in 1162.  Henry also faithfully supported Barbarossa in his attempts to solidify his hold on the Imperial Crown & his repeated wars in Italy.  During Frederick's first invasion, Henry took part in the victorious sieges of Crema and Milan.  During his 5th & final invasion of Italy their relations went sour.  Barbarossa erred in dismissing his army thinking his negotiations were successful.  When it transpired this was a mistake he had to turn to his Lords, whom he met at Chiavenn, Lomdardy in 1176.  He requested reinforcements to continue his campaign.  Henry the Lion was preoccupied with securing his own borders in the East & did not consider the Italian adventures worth the effort.  He requested, in exchange for military aid, the Saxon imperial city Goslar.  Barbarossa refused.  The expedition into Lombardy ended in failure, one bitterly resented by Barbarossa.  In 1180 the Emperor had Henry III tried in absentia for insubordination by a court of bishops and princes.  In 1189 with Barbarossa on Crusade, Henry had a chance to return.  He mobilized an army & conquered the rich city of Bardowick as punishment.  However Barbarossa's son, Emperor Henry VI, again defeated the Duke; in 1194 Henry made his peace with the Emperor & retired to Brunswick.

 

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Great Migrations: *

The migrants comprised war bands or tribes of 10,000 to 20,000 people;in the course of 100 years they numbered not more than 750,000 in total, compared to an average 40 million population of the Roman Empire.  The first migrations of peoples were made by Germanic tribes such as the Goths (including the Visigoths and the Ostrogoths), the Vandals, the Anglo-Saxons, the Lombards, the Suebi, the Frisii, the Jutes, the Burgundians, the Alemanni, the Scirii and the Franks; they were later pushed westward by the Huns, the Avars, the Slavs and the Bulgars.

SEE MAP