a warrior, he had the address to turn to his own advantage all the pretensions of the pope; and, in order to preserve the right of conferring ecclesiastical benefices, he declared the Sicilian princes to be perpetual and hereditary legates of the holy see.

ITALIAN REPUBLICS.-The origin of these republican states cannot now be precisely ascertained, but we may place them after A. D. 990. Of their history during this century little is known, except that they restored the Roman municipal government, which had never entirely ceased, and were engaged in continual hostilities. The rural nobility were soon brought into subjection, and their fortresses dismantled; the towns were wisely thrown open to all who chose to settle in them; and the military habits of the populace protected them against the violence of their enemies. But, from a desire of tyrannizing over their neighbours, they imitated the example of the ancient Greek republics, "with all its circumstances of inveterate hatred, unjust ambition, and atrocious retaliation, though with less consummate actors on the scene."

VENICE had subdued the Istrian pirates, A. D. 939; and conquered Dalmatia, in 1000, before any rivals to her commercial power had arisen in the cities of Genoa and Pisa, or any other marts were formed for the merchandise of the East and West. The democracy naturally lost its predominance in the augmented riches of the state; but lest the supreme power of the doge should be abused, he was reduced to a mere cipher by the annual election of councillors to superintend his conduct, 1002. In the contests against Robert the Norman, the Venetians took part with the Greeks, but were defeated, 1081. The crusades which occurred shortly after paved the way to their subsequent riches, insolence, and power.

GENOA AND PISA.-These two republics derive their origin from the anarchy that followed the deposition of Charles the Fat, in 888. To this year the Genoese assign the election of their first consuls, the creation of their senate, and the assemblies of the people, with all the ancient municipal forms recognised by Berenger II., in his charter of 958. Pisa adopted nearly the same institutions in the tenth century; and, like the other, directed all its energies to maritime commerce. The Saracens were the first enemies which these two cities had to contend with; Genoa was pillaged in 936, and Pisa in 1005.

GERMANY.

HENRY II. did not receive the crown of Germany in 1002, without opposition; but eventually his claims and authority were recognised in the whole of the duchies and by all the electors. The peace of the kingdom was, however, soon disturbed by the war in Franconia and on the eastern march. Italy was for a time estranged from Germany by the enemies of the Marquis of Ivrea; and the towns of Lombardy, divided between the partisans of Ardouin and Henry, were a prey to civil strife. In 1012, Henry's intervention was formally demanded; for the Romans, being formed into two parties in the election of a pontiff, each faction nominated its own candidate; one of whom, Benedict VIII., having been driven out of the city, came to Paderborn in great state, and entreated the assistance of the German monarch to establish him in his dignity. The urgent solicitations of the pope were seconded by

the complaints preferred by the Archbishop of Milan against Ardouin. In the campaign of 1014, Henry advanced to Rome, where he was crowned emperor. Returning across the Alps, and visiting Burgundy and Lorraine, he stopped at the monastery of Saint Vannes, near Verdun, where he was prevented from embracing a cloistered life only by the good sense and firmness of the superior.

HOUSE OF FRANCONIA.-CONRAD II., the Salic, descended from Otho the Great, was elected to fill the vacant throne, and with him began the line of Franconian emperors, A. D. 1024. To secure the crown in his family, he endeavoured to increase its influence by conferring various duchies and principalities on his relatives. His son, HENRY III., who succeeded him in 1039, was perhaps the most powerful and absolute of the German rulers. Having defeated the Hungarians, he obtained the cession of all the country between Kahlenberg and the Leitha; and when he had confirmed his power at home, he turned his attention to Italy, where three popes were urging their claims to the triple crown. None of them met with the approbation of the German king, and the Bishop of Bamberg was elected, with the title of Clement II. He also nominated the three successors, who honoured the tiara by their virtues, and commenced the reform of the clergy. Uniting the fief of Franconia to the imperial domain, he bestowed the forfeited duchy on his wife, Agnes, entirely laying aside the usual forms of popular concurrence which were deemed necessary to various acts of sovereignty.

HENRY IV. was only six years old when his father died in 1056. The care of his minority was assigned to his mother, from whom it was wrested by the Archbishop of Cologne. Under his new guardian he was allowed to indulge in all kinds of excess, and the Saxons, among whom he resided, soon grew weary of the expenses of the licentious court, and its attacks on their liberties.* To keep this warlike people within their bounds, he constructed a great number of castles in Saxony and Thuringia, compelling the inhabitants to raise with their own hands those fortresses whose garrisons were to be maintained at their expense. His proceedings at last excited a general revolt among them, which he soon quelled, but at a great cost of human life, 1075.

INVESTITURE.-Henry's adversary was the celebrated Gregory VII., who desired to free the church from the temporal authority of laymen; that is, to deprive all princes of the power of investing bishops with the ring and crosier, the symbols by which the pope himself conferred the spiritual authority. Gregory's first attack was violent. In a council held in the Lateran Palace, it was declared that no laics should confer ecclesiastical benefices, or clerks should receive them from a layman, under pain of excommunication. This decree was carried to Henry by four legates, charged with the removal of this annoyance throughout the German church. The king, then occupied with the Saxon war, at first promised them his aid; but when the insurgents submitted, he forgot his pledge, of which the pope reminded him in a threatening manner. The irritated monarch assembled at Worms the great nobles and prelates of his kingdom, who pronounced Gregory's deposition, 1076. The reply

*On the occasion of a quarrel between Henry, and Otho, duke of Bavaria, the latterwas deposed, and the duchy conferred on Otho's son-in-law, Welf or Guelph, from whom descended the Brunswick line, now occupying the British throne.

of the Papal See was the excommunication of the king, accompanied by an act depriving him of his regal dignity, and absolving his subjects from their oaths of allegiance.

The German aristocracy, oppressed by Henry III., and the Saxons, vanquished by his son, ran to arms, as much to avenge their private injuries, as to enforce the papal encroachments. The rebel chiefs, at whose head were Rodolph of Swabia, and Guelph of Bavaria, met at Tribur, suspended the emperor from his functions, and threatened to depose him, if he did not procure the retractation of the Romish anathemas. Henry yielded to the storm, and visited Italy, where he became reconciled to the pope, on certain humiliating conditions, 1077. But he had submitted only to gain time, and being encouraged by the fidelity of his Lombard vassals, he broke the treaty to which he had given his assent, and marched against the rebellious Germans, who had already elected Rodolph of Swabia to the throne. The decisive victory of Wolksheim in Thuringia, 1080, was fatal to Rodolph, who perished by the lance of Godfrey of Bouillon, afterwards so distinguished in the First Crusade. In Italy, also, Henry was triumphant; and at the same time, the death of Pope Gregory in exile, 1085, relieved him from much disquietude. But he did not long enjoy the fruits of his victory, and his latter days were clouded with increasing misfortunes. First, he had to contend against a new competitor; afterwards against his own son Conrad; while the confessions of his wife Bertha added to his domestic afflictions. But he continued, in despite of all these miseries, to struggle with firmness, and by his courage effaced at least his earlier faults. When Conrad died, his brother Henry appeared in arms against their father, who was forced to flee before his rebellious child. So great was his distress, that he begged the humble post of reader in a church which he himself had founded, and was refused. Laying himself down on the steps, he died of hunger in 1106, and his body was left without sepulture, as being that of an excommunicated person.*

FRANCONIAN DYNASTY.

13. CONRAD II., the Salic, duke of Franconia, elected emp. 1024, m. Gisela,
granddaughter of Conrad d. of Bourges, herself of Swabian origin.

14. HENRY III,, the Black, emp, 1039,
m. 1. Gunegunda, d. of Canute the Great;
2. Agnes of Poitou, afterwards regent.

15. HENRY IV. emp. 1056,
m. 1. Bertha of Ivrea;
2. Adelaide of Russia.

Conrad rebels m. Matilda of Sicily.

Matilda m. Rodolph,
d. of Swabia; elected
emp. and killed in 1080.

Two daughters.

Sophia

m. 1. Solomon, k. of Hungary, 2. Ladislaus, k. of Poland.

17. LOTHAIRE II., son of Gerhard of Supplinbourg,

Adelaide

m. Boleslas III. k. of Poland.

d. of Saxony, 1106, emp. 1125, †1137; m. Richenza, heiress of Henry the Fat,

d. of Saxony, and last descendant of Henry the Fowler.

* Other accounts state that Henry died at Liege in extreme want. On one occasion he was compelled to sell his books to purchase bread; and shortly before his death he forwarded his sword to his son with the brief message: "Si mihi plus dimisses, plus tibi misissem."

FRANCE.

In 1022, ROBERT shared the regal power with Hugh, his eldest son, who was soon driven to revolt by the harshness of his mother Constance, who required from him, as king, the same implicit obedience which he had given when a child. Robert vanquished and pardoned the rebel. On the demise of Hugh, soon afterwards, the king elevated his third son Henry in his stead. Constance, however, preferred the youngest, named Robert, and, by her ungracious behaviour, drove Henry, as she had be fore compelled his brother, to revolt. But the youthful prince was far from seconding his mother's projects, and in fact united with his brother against her tyranny. They returned to their duty a short time before the death of their father, which took place at Melun, in the sixty-first year of his age, and the thirty-fifth of his government, 1031.

During this reign the Church began to take measures against the heretics, who appeared in great numbers; some of whom pretended to change the doc trines, others to reform the manners, but all were persecuted alike. In a council assembled at Orleans, a multitude of these unfortunate persons were condemned to the flames. King Robert and his queen were present at their execution; when Constance remarking among the victims an ecclesiastic who had been her own confessor, thrust out one of his eyes with an iron ród.

Robert's devotion and goodness, the chief qualities that can be praised in him, were not very elevated. His principal occupation was founding churches, chanting with the priests, and correcting the liturgies. Yet this piety, however erroneously directed, was accompanied by an ardent charity that should ever consecrate the memory of this king. The poor were his friends; every day he fed three hundred, sometimes a thousand; on Holy Thursday, kneeling and in sackcloth, he washed their feet, and served them.

HENRY I., 1031, was scarcely seated on the throne before Robert, his brother, was urged to assert his claims to the crown; but the king being triumphant, the other was contented to accept the duchy of Burgundy, which his descendants possessed until 1361. Another, but far less successful war, occupied the remainder of his reign. The Duke of Normandy, Robert the Devil, by whose aid Henry had been maintained on the throne, having died in 1035, while returning from a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, left William the Bastard, afterwards the conqueror of England, to succeed him. The French king took advantage of the minority of the young prince to weaken his power; but no sooner had William reached man's estate, than he attacked his enemy and defeated him in three battles, 1054.

PHILIP I. succeeded his father in 1060, and commenced the longest reign which occurs in the French annals. His personal acts must be carefully separated from those which so highly characterized the chivalry of France during this period. He distinguished himself in several wars, but in his private life indulged in vices that drew upon him the censures of the church and the contempt of his subjects. He trafficked in holy matters, selling to the highest bidder the vacant benefices and sees. Gregory VII. menaced him with an interdict, but the pontiff's severity was exhausted in his German quarrel. He was afterwards successively excommunicated by two popes, at the councils of Autun and Clermont, on account of his divorce, but was eventually restored by the council of

Paris, held in 1104. The latter years of Philip's reign were passed in all the excitement of the First Crusade. He died in Ĭ108.

THE ALMORAVIDES.-Moorish Spain presented in every quarter the appearance of anarchy and dismemberment, at the very period when its existence was threatened by two formidable enemies: on the one side by Alphonso V., who, after uniting Galicia to the kingdoms of Leon and Castile, took possession of Toledo, Madrid, and Guadalaxara; on the other, by African tribes bent on a war of extermination.

About the middle of the eleventh century, there appeared in Africa, beyond Mount Atlas, in the deserts of ancient Gætulia, two tribes of Arab origin, known by the appellations of Gudala and Lamtuna. When these were converted to Islamism, they assumed the name of Murabitins or Almoravides—that is, men of God. Excited by the enthusiasm of their new faith, they crossed the mountains; when the Arabs of the desert, uniting with the new people, founded the city of Morocco. Yussuf was its first emir, and being summoned by Mohammed, sovereign of Cordova, made three expeditions into Spain; and, on learning the feebleness of all the petty kings, resolved to subject them to his power. In 1094, he succeeded in putting an end to all the Mohammedan states in the peninsula; but soon felt himself incapable of appropriating their territories as he had intended. It is true, however, he gained a few advantages over the Christians, and ravaged Catalonia after a terrible battle, in which, it is said, 30,000 men were slain.

CHRISTIAN SPAIN.-With the death of Bermudes III., in 1037, the dynasty of the Kings of Leon expired, and this ancient sovereignty was united to Castile in the person of Ferdinand of Navarre, son of that