I 58. SUKVEY OF THE HISTORY OF THE EMPIRE. 257 OTIIO THE GREAT.
In the opening chapter of the history of the empire we find it under the control of a master-mind and in friendly alliance with the papacy. Under the weak successors of Charlemagne it dwindled down to a merely nominal existence. But it revived again in Otho I. or the Great (936-973), of the Saxon dynasty, lie was master of the pope and defender of the Iloman church, and left everywhere the impress of an heroic character, inferior only to that of Charles. Under Henry III. (1039-1056), when the papacy sank lowest, the empire again proved a reforming power. He deposed three rival popes, and elected a worthy successor. But as the papacy rose from its degradation, it over awed the empire.
HENRY IV. AND GREGORY VII.
Under Henry IV. (1056-1106) and Gregory VII. (1073-1085) the two powers came into the sharpest conflict concerning the right of investiture, or the supreme control in the election of bishops and abbots. The papacy achieved a moral triumph over the empire at Canossa, when the mightiest prince kneeled as a peni tent at the feet of the proud successor of Peter (1077); but Henry recovered his manhood and his power, set up an antipope, and Gregory died in exile at Salerno, yet without yielding an inch of his principles and pretensions. The conflict lasted fifty years, and ended with the Concordat of Worms (Sept. 23, 1122), which was a compromise, but with a limitation of the imperial prerogative : the pope secured the right to invest the bishops with the ring and crozicr, but the new bishop before his consecration was to receive his temporal estates as a fief of the crown by the touch of the emperor's sceptre.
THE HOUSE OF HOHENSTAUFEN.
Under the Swabian emperors of the house of Hohenstaufen (1138-1254) the Roman empire reached its highest power in connection with the Crusades, in the palmy days of medieval
258 FOUKTH PEEIOD. A. D. 590-1049.
chivalry, poetry and song. They excelled in personal greatness and renown the Saxon and the Salic emperors, but were too much concerned with Italian affairs for the good of Germany. Frederick Barbarossa (Redbeard), during his long reign (1152- 1190), was a worthy successor of Charlemagne and Otho the Great. He subdued Northern Italy, quarrelled with pope Alexander III., enthroned two rival popes (Paschal III., and after his death Calixtus III.), but ultimately submitted to Alex ander, fell at his feet at Venice, and was embraced by the pope with tears of joy and the kiss of peace (1177). He died at the head of an army of crusaders, while attempting to cross the Cydnus in Cilicia (June 10, 1190), and entered upon his long enchanted sleep in Kyff hauser till his spirit reappeared to estab lish a new German empire in 1871.1
Under Innocent III. (1198-1216) the papacy reached the acme of its power, and maintained it till the time of Boniface VIII. (1294-1303). Emperor Frederick II. (1215-1250), Barbarossa's grandson, was equal to the best of his predecessors in genius and energy, superior to them in culture, but more an Italian than a German, and a skeptic on the subject of religion. He reconquered Jerusalem in the fifth crusade, but cared little for the church, and was put under the ban by pope Gregory IX., who denounced him as a heretic and blasphemer, and compared
1 Friedrich Riickert has reproduced this significant German legend in a poem beginning :
" Der alte Barbarossa,
Der Kaiser Friederich,
Im unterird'schen Schlosse
Halt er verzaubert sich.
Er ist niemals gestorben,
Er lebt darin noch jetzt ; Er hat im Schloss verborgen
Zum Schlaf sich hingesetzt.
Er hat hinabgenommen
Des Reiches Herrlichkeit, Und wird einst wiederkommen
Mit ihr zu seiner Zeit," etc.
2 58. SURVEY OF THE HISTORY OF THE EMPIRE. 259
him to the Apocalyptic beast from the abyss.1 The news of his sudden death was hailed by pope Innocent IV. with the excla mation : " Let the heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad." His death was the collapse of the house of Hohenstaufen, and for a time also of the Roman empire. His sou and successor Con rad IV. ruled but a few years, and his grandson Conradin, a bright and innocent youth of sixteen, was opposed by the pope, and beheaded at Naples in sight of his hereditary kingdom (October 29, 1268).
Italy was at once the paradise and the grave of German ambition.