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Rh control. The result was a general revival of monastic discipline, and a serious curtailment of the resources of the greater abbeys.

The lesser royal monasteries, from whose lands new fiefs could not be granted, needed the king's special protection to keep their independence. Henry had no use for feeble institutions, and subjected seventeen of them to various sees or greater abbeys. If they were not abolished altogether, they were generally transformed into small canonries, while part of their property fell to the bishop.

Henry proclaimed his belief in the episcopal system by the foundation of the see of Bamberg. Near the eastern border of Franconia dwelt a population almost entirely Wendish. Left behind in the general retreat of their kinsfolk before the Franks, these Slavonic tribesmen still kept their own language and customs and much of their original paganism. Baptised by compulsion, they neglected all Christian observances, while the bishops of Würzburg, to whose diocese they belonged, paid little heed to them. Close by them was the little town of Bamberg, dear to Henry from his boyhood. It was a favourite home with him and his wife, and he resolved to make it the seat of a bishopric. The scheme required the assent of the Bishops of Würzburg and Eichstedt. But Megingaud (Meingaud) of Eichstedt flatly refused to agree, and Henry of Würzburg, though a devoted subject, was an ambitious man, and demanded, in addition to territorial compensation, the elevation of Würzburg to metropolitan rank. After a synod at Mayence (May 1007), at which Bishop Henry was present, had given its solemn approval, envoys were sent to the Pope to secure ratification. By bull issued in June John XVIII confirmed the erection of the see of Bamberg, which was to be subject only to the authority of the Papacy. Würzburg, however, was not made an archbishopric, and Bishop Henry thought himself betrayed. At a synod at Frankfort (1 November 1007) there assembled five German archbishops with twenty-two suffragans, five Burgundian prelates including two archbishops, two Italian bishops, and, lastly, the primate of Hungary. Willigis of Mayence presided, but Henry of Würzburg held aloof. The king, prostrating himself before the bishops, set forth his high purpose for the Church, reminding them of the consent already given by the Bishop of Würzburg. Bishop Henry's chaplain replied that his master could not allow any injury to his church. But the absence of the bishop had displeased many of his colleagues, while the agreement he had made was on record. Thus, finally, the foundation of the see of Bamberg was unanimously confirmed, and the king nominated as its first bishop his kinsman the Chancellor Everard, who received consecration the same day.

Henry's intention to make God his heir was amply fulfilled; he had already endowed Bamberg with his lands in the Radenzgau and the Volkfeld, and he lavished wealth on the new see. Thus Bamberg was among the best endowed of German bishoprics, and the comital jurisdiction, given by Henry to some other sees, can hardly have been with-