The Historians' History of the World 07

The bishops were incapable of becoming competitors, and generally attached to the German party. The cities already possessed material influence, but were disunited by mutual jealousies. Since ancient prejudices, therefore, precluded a federate league of independent principalities and republics for which perhaps the actual condition of Italy unfitted her, Heribert, archbishop of Milan, accompanied by some other chief men of Lombardy, repaired to Constance, and tended the crown to Conrad, which he was already disposed to claim as a sort of dependency upon Germany. It does not appear that either Conrad or his successors were ever regularly elected to reign over Italy; but whether this ceremony took place or not, we may certainly date from that time the subjection of Italy to the Germanic body. It became an unquestionable maxim that the votes of a few German princes conferred a right to the sovereignty of a country which had never been conquered, and which had never formally recognised this superiority. But it was an equally fundamental rule that the elected king of Germany could not assume the title of Roman emperor, until his coronation by the pope. The middle appellation of King of the Romans was invented as a sort of approximation to the imperial dignity. But it was not till the reign of Maximilian that the actual coronation at Rome was dispensed with, and the title of emperor taken immediately after the election.h

FOOTNOTES

[145] [But one must remember that the old chronicler who recorded this fact did not see the battle.]

[146] [Though it would seem that some of these claimants preferred a royal title to the imperial one. Cf. Otto I’s first Italian campaign.]

CHAPTER IX

THE FRANCONIAN, OR SALIAN, DYNASTY

[1024-1125 A.D.]

For the epoch of Henry II we have preserved to us the work of Bishop Thietmarb & of Merseburg, which, starting from local and personal points of view and showing the writer’s unwavering loyalty to the king, to whom the bishop owed his position, at once discloses and elucidates in a variety of communications the conditions obtaining in the interior of Germany. Although not unbiassed where the king is concerned, it is yet invaluable in respect of the details it affords; the internal conditions of the empire are clearly mapped out before our eyes. On the other hand, the tendencies which characterise the imperium of Henry II are more or less obscured from view. The bishop, who must be regarded as a contemporary chronicler, was already dead when they had taken definite shape.

On the other hand, Wipo,c the biographer of Conrad II with whom the line of the Salians commences, started entirely from the standpoint of the imperium. He wrote a biography of Conrad after his death for the instruction and edification of his son and successor, Henry III. The aspirations of the Salic house in the direction of world-wide power occupy the chief place in his work. The devolvement of the imperium upon the Salic house was an event of great importance both in German and universal history. Yet there is nothing so very unexpected and extraordinary in the elevation of Conrad II.

The Salians represent one of the parties that had once, under Otto the Great, risen up against him from the very lap of his own family. They are descended, as we have already mentioned, from the marriage of one of Otto’s daughters with the heroic Conrad the Red, the greatest warrior of those times. His son Otto, count in Wormsgau, received Carinthia, an appanage of Bavaria, in fief. He is the father of Bruno, whom Otto III raised to the papal see, as also of Conrad, who on his father’s death succeeded to the dukedom of Carinthia. This Conrad was married to Matilde, a daughter of Hermann of Swabia. Of their union a son was born, known under the name of Conrad the Younger.

[1024 A.D.]

Duke Conrad, father of the younger Conrad, had had an elder brother named Henry, who possessed a count’s fief in Franconia. This Henry—who was therefore to be considered the chief representative of the authority of that house, and who, had he not died before his father, would have inherited the dukedom—had married Adelheid, a sister of the powerful Alsatian count of the house of Egisheim. The issue of this marriage was Conrad II, to whom accordingly descended by right of inheritance the claims of the Conrad dynasty. The right of succession of the elder Conrad can hardly be questioned. For the prerogative of elder lines must be upheld, if we will do justice to the constant change of families upon the throne.d