The Historians' History of the World 07

The influence of Hatto and the consent of Otto placed Conrad, duke of Franconia, on the imperial throne. Sprung from a newly arisen family, a mere creature of the bishop, his nobility as a feudal lord only dating from the period of the Babenberg feud, he was regarded by the church as a pliable tool, and by the dukes as little to be feared. His weakness was quickly demonstrated by his inability to retain the rich allods of the Carlovingian dynasty as heir to the imperial crown, and his being constrained to share them with the rest of the dukes; he was, nevertheless, more fully sensible of the dignity and of the duties of his station than those to whom he owed his election probably expected. His first step was to recall Regingar of Lorraine, who was oppressed by France, to his allegiance as vassal of the empire.

[912-917 A.D.]

Otto died in 912, and his son Henry, a high-spirited youth, who had greatly distinguished himself against the Slavs, erelong quarrelled with the aged bishop Hatto. According to the legendary account, the bishop sent him a golden chain, so skilfully contrived as to strangle its wearer. The truth is, that the ancient family feud between the house of Conrad and that of Otto, which was connected with the Babenbergers, again broke out, and that the emperor attempted again to separate Thuringia, which Otto had governed since the death of Burkhard, from Saxony, in order to hinder the over-preponderance of that ducal house. Hatto, it is probable, counselled this step, as a considerable portion of Thuringia belonged to the diocese of Mainz, and a collision between him and the duke was therefore unavoidable. Henry flew to arms, and expelled the adherents of the bishop from Thuringia, which forced the emperor to take the field in the name of the empire against his haughty vassal.

This highly unfortunate civil war was a signal for a fresh irruption of the Slavs and Hungarians. During this year the Bohemians and Sorbs also made an inroad into Thuringia and Bavaria, and in 913 the Hungarians advanced as far as Swabia, but being surprised near Ötting by the Bavarians under Arnulf, who on this occasion bloodily avenged his father’s death, and by the Swabians under the Kammerboten, Erchanger and Berthold, they were all, with the exception of thirty of their number, cut to pieces. Arnulf subsequently embraced a contrary line of policy, married the daughter of Geisa, king of Hungary, and entered into a confederacy with the Hungarian and the Swabian Kammerboten, for the purpose of founding an independent state in the south of Germany, where he had already strengthened himself by the appointment of several markgrafs, Rudiger of Pechlarn in Austria, Rathold in Carinthia, and Barthold in the Tyrol. He then instigated all the enemies of the empire simultaneously to attack the Franks and Saxons, at that crisis at war with each other (915 A.D.), and whilst the Danes under Gorm the Old, and the Abodriti (Obotrites), destroyed Hamburg, immense hordes of Hungarians, Bohemians, and Sorbs laid the country waste as far as Bremen.

The emperor was, meanwhile, engaged with the Saxons. On one occasion Henry narrowly escaped being taken prisoner, being merely saved by the stratagem of his faithful servant, Thiatmar, who caused the emperor to retreat by falsely announcing to him the arrival of a body of auxiliaries. At length a pitched battle was fought near Merseburg between Henry and Eberhard (915 A.D.), the emperor’s brother, in which the Franks were defeated, and the superiority of the Saxons remained, henceforward, unquestioned for more than a century. The emperor was forced to negotiate with the victor, whom he induced to protect the northern frontiers of the empire whilst he applied himself in person to the re-establishment of order in the south.

[917-919 A.D.]