Page:The history of medieval Europe.djvu/316

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270 THE HISTORY OF MEDIEVAL EUROPE Count Baldwin V (1036-1067) was successful in war against the Holy Roman Emperor whose palace he burned at Nym- wegen; he was guardian of young King Philip I of France; he helped his son-in-law, William of Normandy, to conquer England. His younger son, Robert, led the adventurous career characteristic of many feudal nobles. Before his father's ~, death he had made expeditions to Spain, Nor- 1 he career r r of a feudal way, and the Byzantine Empire, but without succeeding in carving out a lordship for himself in any of those distant lands. Then he married the widow of the Count of Holland, and, during the minority of her sons, defended that land well against the attacks of covetous barons and of the savage Frisian peasantry. Meanwhile his older brother, who had succeeded their father as Count of! Flanders and had married the heiress of the County of Hai- nault, died, leaving Flanders to his older son under Robert's protection and Hainault to his younger son under the mother's guardianship. She tried to seize both territories, thinking Robert too fully occupied in Holland to interfere, but he won everything away from her, though she called to her aid the Capetian king, the Duke of Normandy, the Bishop of Liege, and the Holy Roman Emperor. Having settled that matter, Robert made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land with other Flemish nobles. He remained two years in the East and struck up a friendship with the Byzantine emperor. A few years later he died peaceably at home. South of Flanders and east of Paris lay Champagne, where during the tenth century a considerable power had Champagne k een ^ u ^ U P D Y the union of the counties of Troyes and Meaux and by further acquisitions. When the holder of these counties died childless, Eudes II (995-1037), the Count of Blois and Chartres, places to the southwest of Paris, outstripped King Robert in the race for Champagne. He further augmented his territories at the expense of the Archbishop of Rheims and the Duke of Lorraine, but a coalition of King Robert and Emperor Henry II forced him to restore his conquests. But he was a