Читать книгу The Empire and the Papacy, 918-1273. Investiture Contest, Crusades & The Famous Conflicts онлайн

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Otto I. was a little over twenty years of age when he ascended the throne. While his father had shunned the consecration of the Church, his first care was to procure a pompous coronation at Aachen. As strong a statesman and as bold a warrior as his father, the new king was so fully penetrated with the sense of his divine mission, and so filled with high ideals of kingcraft, that it was impossible for him to endure the limitations to his sway, in which Henry had quietly acquiesced. Duke Eberhard of Franconia was the first to resent the pretensions of the young king. He felt that he was the author of the sway of the Saxon house, and resolved to exercise over his nation the same authority that he had wielded without question in the days of King Henry. Meanwhile, the death of Duke Arnulf of Bavaria gave Otto an opportunity of manifesting his power to the south. ¹⁴ He roughly deposed Arnulf’s eldest son, Eberhard, who had refused to perform him homage, and made his younger brother Berthold duke, but only on condition that the right of nominating to the Bavarian bishoprics, which had been wrung from the weakness of Henry, should now be restored to the crown. Moreover, he set up another brother, Arnulf, as Count Palatine, to act as a sort of overseer over the new duke. But while Franconia and Bavaria were thus deeply offended, Otto’s own Saxons were filled with discontent at his policy. They resented Otto’s desire to reign as king over all Germany, as likely to impair the dominant claims of the ruling Saxon race. They complained that he had favoured the Franks more than the Saxons, and the sluggish nobles of the interior parts of Saxony were disgusted that Otto had overlooked their claims on his attention in favour of Hermann Billung and Gero, to whom he had intrusted the care of his old duchy along with the government of the Wendish marches. Thankmar, the bastard elder brother, Henry, the younger brother who boasted that he was the son of a reigning king, were both angry at being passed over, and put themselves at the head of the Saxon malcontents. In 938, a revolt broke out in the north. The faithfulness of Hermann Billung limited its extent, and the death of Thankmar seemed likely to put an end to the trouble. But Henry now allied himself with Duke Eberhard of Franconia; and Duke Giselbert of Lotharingia, Otto’s brother-in-law, joined the combination. A bloody civil war was now fought in Westphalia and the Lower Rhineland. The army of Otto was taken at a disadvantage at Birthen, near Xanten; but the pious king threw himself on his knees, and begged God to protect his followers, and a victory little short of miraculous followed his prayer. However, the rebels soon won back a strong position, and the bishops, headed by Archbishop Frederick of Mainz, intrigued with them in the belief that Otto’s term of power was at an end. But the king won a second unexpected triumph at Andernach, and the Dukes of Franconia and Lotharingia perished in the pursuit. Henry fled to Louis, king of the West Franks, whose only concern, however, was to win back Lotharingia from the eastern kingdom. At last Henry returned and made his submission to his brother; but before long he joined with the Archbishop of Mainz in a plot to murder the king. This nefarious design was equally unsuccessful, and Henry, under the influence of his pious mother, sought for the forgiveness of his injured brother. At the Christmas feast of 941 a reconciliation was effected. The troubles for the season were over. The reorganisation of the duchies.