The Historians' History of the World 07

Perhaps he feared that through the growing weakness of his father more of the royal power might be lost; perhaps his ambition could not wait for the time when the crown would fall to him, or he feared that another would be elected in his stead; at any rate in 1105 he rebelled. Most of the German princes were on his side. The exasperated father likewise prepared for combat, and a civil war more cruel than any former ones shattered the empire.

On the river Regen father and son stood face to face, the former still strong through the support of Leopold of Austria and the duke of Bohemia. Skirmishing went on for three days without anything decisive having occurred, and then young Henry won over Leopold of Austria by the promise to give him his sister Agnes, the widow of the great Staufen, in marriage. With him all deserted the aged emperor, and he stood alone as Louis the Pious had once stood on the Lügenfeld. But the kindly feeling which his predecessors, and especially he himself, had shown to the towns now bore plentiful fruit. Through the rights and liberties conferred upon them and increased by the emperors since Conrad II they had now become flourishing communities, and their numerous and well fortified residences bordered the great commercial waterway of the Rhine. They all declared themselves on the side of the aged emperor; luck seemed to desert his wicked son. Under the mask of hypocrisy he came to Coblenz, humbled himself before his father, and begged for forgiveness: the princes assembled in Mainz were to settle the last quarrel. The father forgave his son, and took him in his arms with tears; then unsuspectingly he rode with him to the appointed place of meeting. But the son with evil cunning decoyed him to the fortress of Böckelheim in Nahethale: the grating fell behind the emperor as he entered, and he found himself his son’s prisoner. The latter with his princes demanded his voluntary abdication and the surrendering of the crown jewels. Broken down by misfortune the old man had to accede to these requests. But new abuses and even danger of death threatened him; then he fled from the custody of his son, and the faithful towns again armed for his safety. The war began anew, and its issue was hard to foretell; then the news came from Lüttich that the emperor was dead (1106). Even in death the ban weighed upon him, for his coffin remained unburied for over five years in unconsecrated places; but the people loudly lamented the dearly loved ruler, who after the short errors of youth had been so long and heavily afflicted by misfortune. Certainly his last years did much, if the old chroniclers may be believed, to remove the stains of his early follies and crimes. He is represented as having, after his victory over Gregory VII, protected the poor against their oppressors, put down robbery, administered justice, and maintained the public peace.

HENRY V AND THE WAR OF INVESTITURES

[1106-1111 A.D.]

Henry V was now acknowledged throughout the empire. He owed his crown to the papal party and the princes, but no sooner was he in possession of the power for which he had striven than he showed that he had resolution enough to hold his own against all comers. Abroad he succeeded in restoring the dominion of the empire over Flanders and securing his western frontier; his campaigns on the eastern border, against Poland, Hungary, and Bohemia, were less fortunate. In the interior and in his relations to the princes he could effect little change in the conditions which had grown up under Henry IV. The fiefs, large and small, had long since become hereditary, the crown property had dwindled sadly; hardly any district was under the direct rule of the king. In case of war the latter summoned his great vassals, and they in their turn summoned their feudal retainers and “ministerials”—i.e., vassals; and these constituted the army of the empire. Thus feudalism had penetrated to the lowest ranks of the people, but the king was still regarded as the ruling head of the state; and a powerful monarch at the head of this body of many members could accomplish more than the other sovereigns of Europe, whose power in their own dominions was no less restricted by that of their great vassals.