GERMANY 



3500 



GERMANY 



The small communities in which 

 the people lived were largely self- 

 governing. Defence, one of their 

 mam considerations, had to be pro- 

 vided for, and there was probably 

 some regular system of dividing the 

 arable lands among the villagers or 

 marksmen. In some way or other 

 they contributed to the revenues of 

 their chief or king ; they were liable 

 to be called upon to go and fight for 

 him, and collectively they were re- 

 sponsible for the peace in their vil- 

 lage. Force, tempered by custom, 

 was the law under which they lived. 



Division of Charlemagne's Empire 



Soon after the death of Charle- 

 magne, in 814, his great empire fell 

 to pieces, and in 843 a most impor- 

 tant arrangement was made be- 

 tween his grandsons. By a treaty 

 signed at Verdun, the empire was 

 divided, and that part which lay to 

 the east of the Rhine, together with 

 some smaller portions on the west, 

 was given to Louis. Later genera- 

 tions labelled Louis the German, 

 and although his kingdom was 

 known as East France, it was really 

 Germany, and he may fairly be 

 called the first German king. He 

 made Batisbon his capital, and 

 ruled over a good deal of what is 

 now Germany, while his people had 

 a vague idea that they formed a 

 distinct unit in Europe. In 870 an- 

 other arrangement between him 

 and his half-brother, Charles the 

 Bald, added much to his kingdom. 

 This gave to France and Germany 

 something like their present mutual 

 frontiers. 



Louis died in 876 and his king- 

 dom soon fell to pieces. His son 

 Charles the Fat inherited it as he 

 did most of France proper, but he 

 was unable to defend it from the 

 attacks of the Magyars, another 

 stream of invaders from the east, 

 who had been kept in awe by the 

 name and feats of Charlemagne. 

 He was troubled, too, by the 

 Northmen, or Danes, as the English 

 called them. At length the Ger- 

 mans, eager for security, deposed 

 him, choosing in his stead in 887 a 

 certain Arnulf, an illegitimate son 

 of an earlier king. Von Ranke de- 

 scribes this event, which took place 

 at Tribur in 887, as " the first inde- 

 pendent action of the German secu- 

 lar world." Arnulf, however, died a 

 few years later, leaving only a boy 

 to succeed him. 



At this time the misery of Ger- 

 many was extreme. Deep in the Ger- 

 man mind was the idea that they 

 had the right and the power to 

 choose their king, and to this old 

 expedient they now turned again. 

 The prelates naturally took the 

 lead, being educateid, rich, and in- 

 fluential, and, with some of the secu- 

 lar nobles, they fixed upon Conrad, 



a powerful man in Franconia, and 

 in 911 they chose him as king. 



By this" time feudalism, or some- 

 thing like it, had appeared in Ger- 

 many. Desiring protection, men 

 had promised, in return therefor, 

 their services to some powerful per- 

 son in the neighbourhood, thus 

 becoming his vassals. So appeared 

 the beginnings of a hierarchy at the 

 head of which was the king. Some 

 of the reforms introduced by 

 Charlemagne had been in the same 

 direction, but it was in the years 

 of disorder and danger that it made 

 the greatest progress. In the vari- 

 ous areas in which the people had 

 the same speech sympathies, there 

 was a tendency to look to one 

 powerful man to lead the move- 

 * ment for defence, and he became the 

 duke. Thus in Franconia, Bavaria, 

 Saxony, Swabia, and Lorraine 

 dukes appeared about this time, and 

 they were sometimes strong enough 

 to stand up to the king. They ruled 

 over the duchies as independent 

 kings, and this age is sometimes 

 known as that of the great duchies. 



About the same time, on the fron- 

 tiers of Germany margraves were 

 appointed to defend the borders or 

 marches, and they too had great 

 powers over the districts under 

 them. Both Austria and Branden- 

 burg, the parent of Prussia, were 

 originally mark districts. 



Reign of Otto the Great 



Conrad's successor was Henry 

 the Fowler, the first ruler of the 

 Saxon house that supplied Ger- 

 many with kings until 1024. He was 

 chiefly concerned in looking after 

 Saxony, and left the rulers of the 

 other duchies very much to them- 

 selves, but there was a change 

 when his son, Otto the Great, be- 

 came king. A great man, inheriting 

 certain advantages from his father, 

 he was in reality the ruler of all 

 Germany. It was one of the recur- 

 ring periods when the barbarians 

 were harassing the land, but 

 Saxony was already safe, and it 

 was near Augsburg, in S. Germany, 

 that he won his great victory over 

 the Magyars. All the duchies 

 passed into his hands, or those of 

 his nominees, and for once Germany 

 had a king to whom there was no 

 possible rival. In 962 he conferred 

 a questionable benefit on the 

 country by securing for himself 

 the title and dignity . of Roman 

 emperor. He revived the empire of 

 Charlemagne, and made Italy, and 

 not Germany, the centre of interest 

 for his successors. Otto II, and 

 then Otto III, followed. Each left 

 the Germans very much to them- 

 selves ; in 1000, like the rest of 

 Christendom, they believed the 

 end of the world to be at hand. 



In 1024 Henry II, the last ruler 



of the Saxon house, died, and the 

 electors chose as their king a 

 Franconian, called Conrad. He, 

 like Henry the Fowler, was the 

 first of a line, which endured until 

 1125. The chief event of this cen- 

 tury was the struggle over investi- 

 tures, that culminated in the 

 appearance of Henry IV before 

 Gregory VII, at Canossa, and ended 

 in the concordat of Worms. The 

 main importance of this contest, 

 as far as Germany was concerned, 

 was rather in the stimulus it gave 

 to civil war and disorder. The 

 pope found eager supporters in all 

 those who disliked the rule or 

 person of Henry IV. The Saxons 

 were especially aroused against 

 him, and there was a good deal of 

 fighting in that duchy. 



In 1138 there appeared as a 

 candidate for the throne, vacant 

 by the death of Lothair, Conrad of 

 Hohenstaufen. He was elected, 

 although not unanimously, for 

 there was a rival candidate who 

 was strong enough to take up arms, 

 but in the end he prevailed, and 

 his house ruled Germany until 

 1254. Conrad himself was a man 

 of no great parts, but it was other- 

 wise with his successors, Frederick 

 I, and Frederick II. 



Under the Hohenstaufen, the 

 condition of Germany became very 

 bad. It was fairly peaceful during 

 the reign of Frederick I, who real- 

 ized, as Otto the Great had done, 

 that a king's first duty was to pro- 

 tect his people. He, however, spent 

 German lives and German money 

 freely in Italy, and the end of his 

 reign was marked by the rebellion 

 of hia powerful vassal, Henry the 

 Lion, of Saxony. Frederick was 

 still strong enough to drive Henry 

 into exile, and to break up his 

 great duchy, which had been the 

 foremost obstacle to a real royal 

 authority since about 1124. Henry 

 VI and Frederick II cared less for 

 Germany. 



Hobenstaufen and Wei's 



When Henry died, in 1197, there 

 was a struggle for the vacant 

 throne, the opposing parties each 

 choosing a king, and then taking 

 up arms on his behalf. They were 

 the Hohenstaufen and the Welfs, 

 and the two kings, Philip from the 

 former, and Otto from the latter, 

 fought without a real decision for 

 sixteen years. There was a chance 

 of peace when Otto IV was crushed 

 in 1214, but the ambition of Fred- 

 erick II renewed the unrest. The 

 quarrel with the pope gave the 

 king's enemies in Germany a 

 powerful weapon of offence, while 

 the faction leaders also made good 

 use, from their own point of view, 

 of the enmity between Frederick 

 and his son. 



