archbishopric of Trier (Treves). Henry sought to dislodge them, but aided by their elder brother Henry, who had been made duke of Bavaria in 1004, they held their own in a desultory warfare in Lorraine. In 1009, however, the eldest of the three brothers was deprived of Bavaria, while Adalbero had in the previous year given up his claim to Trier, but Dietrich retained the bishopric of Metz. The Polish war had been renewed in 1007, but it was not until 1010 that the king was able to take a personal part in these campaigns. Meeting with indifferent success, he made peace with Boleslaus early in 1013, when the duke retained Lusatia, but did homage to Henry at Merseburg.
In 1013 the king made a second journey to Italy where two popes were contending for the papal chair, and meeting with no opposition was received with great honour at Rome. Having recognized Benedict VIII. as the rightful pope, he was crowned emperor on the 14th of February 1014, and soon returned to Germany laden with treasures from Italian cities. But the struggle with the Poles now broke out afresh, and in 1015 and 1017 the king, having obtained assistance from the heathen Liutici, led formidable armies against Boleslaus. During the campaign of 1017 he had as an ally the grand duke of Russia, but his troops suffered considerable loss, and on the 30th of January 1018 he made peace at Bautzen with Boleslaus, who again retained Lusatia. As early as 1006 Henry had concluded a succession treaty with his uncle Rudolph III., the childless king of Burgundy, or Arles; but when Rudolph desired to abdicate in 1016 Henry’s efforts to secure possession of the territory were foiled by the resistance of the nobles. In 1020 the emperor was visited at Bamberg by Pope Benedict, in response to whose entreaty for assistance against the Greeks of southern Italy he crossed the Alps in 1021 for the third and last time. With the aid of the Normans he captured many fortresses and seriously crippled the power of the Greeks, but was compelled by the ravages of pestilence among his troops to return to Germany in 1022. It was probably about this time that Henry gave Benedict the diploma which ratified the gifts made by his predecessors to the papacy. Spending his concluding years in disputes over church reform he died on the 13th of July 1024 at Grona near Göttingen, and was buried at Bamberg, where he had founded and richly endowed a bishopric.
Henry was an enthusiast for church reform, and under the influence of his friend Odilo, abbot of Cluny, sought to further the principles of the Cluniacs, and seconded the efforts of Benedict VIII. to prevent the marriage of the clergy and the sale of spiritual dignities. He was energetic and capable, but except in his relations with the church was not a strong ruler. But though devoted to the church and a strict observer of religious rites, he was by no means the slave of the clergy. He appointed bishops without the formality of an election, and attacked clerical privileges although he made clerics the representatives of the imperial power. He held numerous diets and issued frequent ordinances for peace, but feuds among the nobles were common, and the frontiers of the empire were insecure. Henry, who was the last emperor of the Saxon house, was the first to use the title “King of the Romans.” He died childless, and a tradition of the 12th century says he and his wife took vows of chastity. He was canonized in 1146 by Pope Eugenius III.
See Adalbold of Utrecht, Vita Heinrici II., Thietmar of Merseburg, Chronicon, both in the Monumenta Germaniae historica, Scriptores, Bände iii. and iv. (Hanover and Berlin, 1826 seq.); W. von Giesebrecht, Geschichte der deutschen Kaiserzeit (Leipzig, 1881–1890); S. Hirsch, continued by R. Usinger, H. Pabst and H. Bresslau, Jahrbücher des deutschen Reichs unter Kaiser Heinrich II. (Leipzig, 1874); A. Cohn, Kaiser Heinrich II. (Halle, 1867); H. Zeissberg, Die Kriege Kaiser Heinrichs II. mit Boleslaw I. von Polen (Vienna, 1868); and G. Matthaei, Die Klosterpolitik Kaiser Heinrichs II. (Göttingen, 1877).
HENRY III. (1017–1056), surnamed the “Black,” Roman
emperor, only son of the emperor Conrad II., and Gisela, widow
of Ernest I., duke of Swabia, was born on the 28th of October
1017, designated as his father’s successor in 1026, and crowned
German king at Aix-la-Chapelle by Pilgrim, archbishop of
Cologne, on the 14th of April 1028. In 1027 he was appointed
duke of Bavaria, and his early years were mainly spent in this
country, where he received an excellent education under the
care of Bruno, bishop of Augsburg and, afterwards, of Egilbert,
bishop of Freising. He soon began to take part in the business
of the empire. In 1032 he took part in a campaign in Burgundy;
in 1033 led an expedition against Ulalrich, prince of the
Bohemians; and in June 1036 was married at Nijmwegen to
Gunhilda, afterwards called Kunigunde, daughter of Canute,
king of Denmark and England. In 1038 he followed his father
to Italy, and in the same year the emperor formally handed
over to him the kingdom of Burgundy, or Arles, and appointed
him duke of Swabia. In spite of the honours which Conrad
heaped upon Henry the relations between father and son were
not uniformly friendly, as Henry disapproved of the emperor’s
harsh treatment of some of his allies and adherents. When
Conrad died in June 1039, Henry became sole ruler of the
empire, and his authority was at once recognized in all parts
of his dominions. Three of the duchies were under his direct
rule, no rival appeared to contest his claim, and the outlying
parts of the empire, as well as Germany, were practically free
from disorder. This peaceful state of affairs was, however,
soon broken by the ambition of Bretislaus, prince of the
Bohemians, who revived the idea of an independent Slavonic
state, and conquered various Polish towns. Henry took up arms,
and having suffered two defeats in 1040 renewed the struggle
with a stronger force in the following year, when he compelled
Bretislaus to sue for peace and to do homage for Bohemia at
Regensburg. In 1042 he received the homage of the Burgundians
and his attention was then turned to the Hungarians, who had
driven out their king Peter, and set up in his stead one Aba
Samuel, or Ovo, who attacked the eastern border of Bavaria.
In 1043 and the two following years Henry crushed the Hungarians, restored Peter, and brought Hungary completely under the power of the German king. In 1038 Queen Kunigunde had died in Italy, and in 1043 the king was married at Ingelheim to Agnes, daughter of William V., duke of Guienne, a union which drew him much nearer to the reforming party in the church. In 1044 Gothelon (Gozelo), duke of Lorraine, died, and some disturbance arose over Henry’s refusal to grant the whole of the duchy to his son Godfrey, called the Bearded. Godfrey took up arms, but after a short imprisonment was released and confirmed in the possession of Upper Lorraine in 1046 which, however, he failed to secure. About this time Henry was invited to Italy where three popes were contending for power, and crossing the Alps with a large army he marched to Rome. Councils held at Sutri and at Rome having declared the popes deposed, the king secured the election of Suidger, bishop of Bamberg, who took the name of Clement II., and by this pontiff Henry was crowned as emperor on the 25th of December 1046. He was immediately recognized by the Romans as Patricius, an office which carried with it at this time the right to appoint the pope. Supreme in church and state alike, ruler of Germany, Italy and Burgundy, overlord of Hungary and Bohemia, Henry occupied a commanding position, and this time may be regarded as marking the apogee of the power of the Roman empire of the Germans. The emperor assisted Pope Clement in his efforts to banish simony. He made a victorious progress in southern Italy, where he restored Pandulph IV. to the principality of Capua, and asserted his authority over the Normans in Apulia and Aversa. Returning to Germany in 1047 he appointed two popes, Damasus II. and Leo IX., in quick succession, and turned to face a threatening combination in the west of the empire, where Godfrey of Lorraine was again in revolt, and with the help of Baldwin V., count of Flanders and Dirk IV., count of Holland, who had previously caused trouble to Henry, was ravaging the lands of the emperor’s representatives in Lorraine. Assisted by the kings of England and Denmark, Henry succeeded with some difficulty in bringing the rebels to submission in 1050. Godfrey was deposed; but Baldwin soon found an opportunity for a further revolt, which an expedition undertaken by the emperor in 1054 was unable to crush.
