A History of Germany in the Middle Ages by Henderson Ernest F

Author:Henderson, Ernest F. [Henderson, Ernest F.]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Overture Publishing
Published: 2017-03-06T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER XV: THE RISE OF THE HOHENSTAUFENS.

THE history of the Hohenstaufen rule in Germany, that history which shows the culmination and then the temporary fall of the mediaeval empire, would have begun with the year 1125, instead of fourteen years later, had it not been for the efforts, not to say intrigues, of Archbishop Adalbert of Mayence.

The chief candidate on the death of Henry V., and the man whom that king had designated as his successor, was his nephew Frederick, Duke of Swabia, son of that Hohenstaufen to whom Henry IV. had given the duchy just mentioned in 1079. Frederick was the nearest of kin to the emperor who had just passed away, and, together with his brother Conrad, heir to the private Salian possessions. He had married the daughter of Henry of Bavaria, leader of the Guelphs, and seemed best fitted to reconcile the differences which had already begun to grow up between that house and his own. But he had led the anti-papal party under Henry V., and it was feared that a continuation of the old Salian policy of antagonism to Rome might bring about the ruin of the Church.

Adalbert of Mayence, on whom it devolved to call together the electoral assembly, succeeded in influencing a number of princes, and in excluding the elements that were likely to oppose his plans. He then put through the election, which took place in somewhat tumultuous fashion, of Lothar of Suplinburg, Duke of Saxony, a man who had been noted in his own duchy as a just ruler and a careful administrator.

Three candidates, Frederick, Lothar, and Leopold of Austria, had been designated as eligible to the throne by a committee of forty, which had been chosen from the four stems. Lothar and Leopold had each promised to submit to the result of the voting, even though a third should be elected. The same demand was made of Frederick, but in a slightly different form. He was asked to consider himself as not having been designated, in order that the election might be an entirely free one. Adalbert had intended to place him in a dilemma, and he succeeded. Frederick asked for time to consider the proposition, and withdrew from the assembly to consult with his friends. But his action was represented to the princes as an attempt at asserting a hereditary right to the throne, and it was this claim of heredity that these same princes were bound to oppose. To show its baselessness in the present case, they gave the throne to Lothar.

There was one powerful prince, Duke Henry, surnamed the Black, of Bavaria, the father-in-law of Frederick of Hohenstaufen, whose voice had not yet been heard in the matter, and who had not been present at the election. Should Bavaria unite with Swabia against him, Lothar’s position would be anything but secure. But a bribe was thought of, which proved sufficiently desirable to induce Henry to go over to the rival camp.

Lothar, at this time sixty years old,

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