GERMANY 



2475 



GERMANY 



neglected Germany itself. The nobles were 

 prompt to take advantage of this state of 

 affairs, drawing more and more power into 

 their hands. However, in 1024, a strong king, 

 Conrad II, came to the throne, and for a time 

 asserted the royal rights. He also conquered 



ME&TERRANEAN SEAm 



UNDER FREDERICK I, BARBAROSSA 



1 Holland 

 2 Westphalia 

 3 Saxony 

 4 Pomerania 

 5 Brabant 

 6 Lorraine 

 7 Franconia 

 8 Brandenburg 

 9 Bohemia 



10 Moravia 



1 1 Burgundy 



1 2 Wabia 



13 Bavaria 



14 Austria 



15 Carinthia 



16 Styria 



17 Aries 



18 Provence 



19 Lombardy 



20 Aquilia 



21 Tuscany 



22 Ancona 



23 Patrimony of Saint 



Peter 



24 Corsica 

 25 Sardinia 



Burgundy for Germany and reduced the Polish 

 kingdom, which had grown to a dangerous 

 strength on the eastern frontier, to the rank 

 of a vassal dukedom. 



Conflict with the Papacy. Henry III, Con- 

 rad's son, who came to the throne in 1039, was 

 a worthy successor of his father, and the great 

 nobles ceased their aggressions for the time. 

 But another conflict was beginning a conflict 

 which colors much of the history of medieval 

 Germany; for the Pope, whose privilege it 



was to crown the Holy Roman emperors, felt 

 that thereby he gained the right to interfere 

 in imperial affairs, while the emperors, as they 

 became stronger, resented such interference. 

 It so happened that a strong Pope, Gregory 

 VII, and a weak emperor, Henry IV (1056- 

 1106), were ruling at the same time, and Greg- 

 ory was able to rob Henry of some of his 

 prerogatives and to force him to do penance 

 in the guise of a beggar (see HENRY IV, Ger- 

 many). Under Henry V (1106-1125) and Lo- 

 thair (1125-1137) the imperial power dimin- 

 ished, so it became in reality but a shadow. 



The Famous Hohenstaujens. In 1138 there 

 came to the imperial throne a new dynasty, the 

 Hohenstaufens, the early part of whose ruling 

 period was the most glorious in the history of 

 medieval Germany. These emperors had a 

 definite purpose they were determined to 

 make good Germany's hold on Italy, and to 

 wrest from the Pope his temporal powers. 

 Religion was a dominating force through all 

 this time, for this was the period of the Cru- 

 sades (which see). Frederick I, the beloved 

 Frederick Barbarossa (1152-1190) about whose 

 name legends still hover, was the greatest of 

 the Hohenstaufen emperors, and had he not 

 met his death while on a Crusade he might 

 have strengthened permanently the imperial 

 power. As it was, his successors were for the 

 most part men of little ability, and in the 

 end their powers^-were so encroached upon by 

 the Papacy and by the great nobles that when 

 the dynasty came to an end in 1254 the titles 

 of German king and Holy Roman emperor 

 were but empty honors. 



During this period significant changes had 

 taken place in Germany. Manners and cus- 

 toms had become more refined; women had 

 begun to be looked upon with more respect; 

 the songs and tales of the Minnesingers (which 

 see) had acquired wide popularity; magnifi- 

 cent cathedrals had risen under the influence 

 of the religious enthusiasm generated by the 

 Crusades, and the cities had acquired a degree 

 of freedom and of prominence unknown before. 



Another Rise and Fall. For about twenty 

 years after the death of the last Hohenstaufen, 

 anarchy prevailed in Germany. The electors 

 offered the crown to the highest bidder, but of 

 all the rival rulers none acquired any real 

 power. Finally, in 1273, the electors picked out 

 a man whom they thought weak enough not to 

 interfere with their sovereign rights Rudolph 

 of Hapsburg; and thus that celebrated family 

 came to the throne of Germany. Rudolph 



