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Rh built a castle by the river whence he levied tolls on sea-bound craft. On the bishop's complaint Henry ordered the count to desist and make amends; when he disobeyed, Duke Godfrey and the Bishop (Adalbold) were commissioned to enforce order. But their expedition miscarried; Godfrey was wounded and taken prisoner. Yet the prisoner interceded at court for his captor and peace with friendship was restored.

Saxony was disturbed like Lorraine, but chiefly by private quarrels, especially between lay magnates and bishops. In a diet at Allstedt (January 1017) Henry attempted a pacification. But a rising of the half-heathen Wends brought slaughter on the Christian priests and their congregations, with destruction of the churches. Bernard, Bishop of Oldenburg (on the Baltic), sought but did not get Henry's help, and then Thietmar, brother of the Billung Duke Bernard, revolted. After he had been subdued, his brother the duke himself rebelled, but a siege of his fortress Schalksburg on the Weser ended in a peace. Emperor and duke joined in an expedition against the Wends, reduced the March to order and restored the Christian prince Mistislav over the pagan Obotrites (Obodritzi, or Abotrites). But though civil order was enforced to the north, the Wends remained heathen.

Happily the rest of Germany was more peaceful. In Swabia alone arose difficulty. Ernest, husband of Gisela, elder sister of the young Duke Herman III, had been made duke, but after three years' rule he died in the hunting field (31 May 1015). The Emperor gave the duchy to his eldest son Ernest, and as he was under age his mother Gisela was to be his guardian. But when she soon married Conrad of Franconia the Emperor gave the duchy to Poppo of Trèves, the young duke's uncle. Gisela's new husband, Conrad, afterwards Emperor, head of the house which sprang from Conrad the Red and Liutgard, daughter of Otto the Great, had already one grievance against the Emperor. He had seen in 1011 the duchy of Carinthia transferred from his own family to Adalbero of Eppenstein. Now a second grievance made him Henry's enemy. He had fought alongside Gerard of Alsace against Duke Godfrey: two years later he waged war against Duke Adalbero. For this the Emperor banished him, but the sentence was remitted and Conrad henceforth kept the peace.

Henry's general policy was one of conciliation; as a commander in the field he had never been fortunate, and therefore he preferred moral to physical means. He had learnt this preference from his religion and he well understood how greatly ecclesiastical order could help his realm. In church reform, greatly needed at the time, he took ever more interest as his life went on. One question indeed which came up at the synod of Goslar in 1019 was a foreboding of trouble to come. Many secular priests, serfs by birth, had married free women: it was asked whether their children were free or unfree: the synod at Henry's suggestion declared both mother and children unfree. This decision tended to throw discredit