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304 In 1050, following raid and counter-raid, Henry "grieving that Hungary, which formerly, by the plain judgment of God, had owned his sway, was now by most wicked men snatched from him," called the Bavarian princes together at Nuremberg, which ancient city now for the first time appears in history. The defence of the frontiers was urged upon them, and next year the Emperor himself invaded Hungary with an army gathered from all his duchies and tributary peoples. Disregarding Andrew's offer, he entered Hungary by the Danube, but when he had to leave his boats he was entangled in the marshes and fighting had small result. The Altaich annalist dismisses the campaign as "difficult and very troublesome."

Shortly afterwards, however, Andrew seems to have made some sort of agreement, but in 1052 Henry had again to make an expedition, though "of no glory and no utility to the realm." Pressburg was besieged for two months before it fell. Then once more came an agreement, made this time by the Pope's mediation. It was only of short duration: Kuno, the exiled Duke of Bavaria, was in arms against Henry and urged Andrew to war. Carinthia was invaded (1054) and the Hungarians returned rejoicing with much booty. The Bavarians themselves forced Kuno into quietness: Henry was busy in Flanders. Thus, inconclusively, ends the story of his relations with Hungary: German supremacy, in fact, could not be maintained.

The darkness in which the great king died was a shadow cast from the fierce and pagan lands beyond the Elbe and the Oder.

The Slavs of the North-East were a welter of fierce peoples, whose hands were of old against all Christians, Dane, German or Pole. Here and there a precarious Christianity had made some slight inroad; but, in general, attempts at subjugation had bred a savage hatred for the name of Christian.

The task of Christian civilisation, formerly belonging to the German kings, was now taken up by Pole and Dane as rivals, in a day of able rulers and of nations welded together by their new faith. Boleslav the Mighty of Poland, an enthusiastic apostle of Christianity, had subdued the Pomeranians and Prussians. After his death his nephew, Knut of Denmark, made his power felt along the Baltic as far as, and including, Pomerania. This extension of his sway was rendered easier by the alliance with Conrad in 1025 and resulted in ten years' peace. But 1035, the year of Knut's death, saw a general disturbance and one of the most savage of recorded Slav incursions.

Among the many Wendish tribes it is necessary to distinguish between the Slavs on the Baltic beyond the Lower Elbe, Obotrites and others, and the inland Slavs beyond the Middle Elbe, the Lyutitzi. The former were more accessible to both Germans and Danes, and as they