Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 10.djvu/502

Rh 484 (‘rEltM.»NY [HISTORY 35-973. It is cxtreinely reiii.irk-al-le that the ll10'em0!)t acquired so P There are signs that during Otto’s reign they began to have ‘feat of agyars. 'tto rowned inp -r ir. onnc.'- HI of erman y 'ith the in pire. quickly this force and volume. The explanation, according to some liistoriaiis, is that the people looked forward‘ with alarm LU the union of Germany with Italy and the empire. There were still traditions of the hardships inflicted upon the common folk by the vast expeditions of Charles the Great, and it is supposed that they aiiti— cip.ite.l like evils in the event of his empire being once more set up. Whether or not this be the true explanation, the power of Otto was shaken to its foundations. At last he was saved by the presence of an immense external p-.-ril. The Magyars were as usual stimulated to action by the disunioii of their enemies; and Conrad and Liidolf were guilty of the fatal crime and blunder of inviting their cryoperation. This baseness disgusted the Germans, many of whom fell away from the enterprise, and rallied to the head and protector of the nation. In a very short time Conrad and the archbishop of )1-ainz submitted; and al- though Ludolf held out a little longer, he too broke down and entreated to be pardoned. The archbishop was ordered to be closely conﬁned in a monastery, and soon afterwards died. Lorraine was given to Bruno; but Conrad, its former duke, although thus punished, was not disgraced, for Otto had urgent need of his services in the war with the Magyars. The great battle against them was fought in 955 at the Leclifeld, near Augsburg. in such numbers, and there w-as a strong feeling on both siles that it was to be finally settled whether the work of King IIeiiry should be completed or wholly overthrown. After a ﬁerce and obstinate fight, in which Conrad with many other nobles fell, the question was decided in favour of Germany and of Europe; the .Iagyars were even more thoroughly scoiirged than in the battles in which Otto’s father had given them their first real check. The deliver- ance of Germany was complete, and from this time, notwith- standiiig certain wild raids towards the east, the Magyars began to settle in the laiid they still occupy, and to adapt themselves to the conditions of civilized life. Entreated by Pope John .'{II., who needed a helper against King Berengar, Otto went a second time to Italy, in 962 ; and on this occasion he received from the pope the imperial crown. He did not return to Germany for more than two years; and in 966 he was again in Italy, where he remained six years, exercising to the full his imperial rights in regard to the papacy, but occupied mainly in an attempt to make himself master of the southern as well as of the northern half of the peninsula. By far the most important act of Otto’s eventful life was his assnniption of the Lombard and the imperial crowns. His successors so steadily followed his example that the sovereign crowned at Aix-la—Cliape1le claimed as his right to he afterwards crowned in Milan and in Rome. Thus grew up the Holy Roman empire, that strange state which, directly descending, through the empire of Charles the Great, from the empire of the Caesars, contained so many elements foreign to ancient life. We are here concerned with it only in so far as it affected Germany. Germany itself never until our own day became an empire. It is true that at last the Holy Roman empire was as a matter of fact conﬁned to Germany; but in theory it was something quite different. Like France, Germany was a kingdom, but it differed from France in this, that its king was also king in Italy and Roman emperor. As the latter title made him nominally the secular lord of the world, it might have been expected to excite the pride of his ( iCl‘lll.1l'1 snhjer-ts; and doubtless, after a time, they did learn to think highly of themselves as the imperial race. Bill‘. the evidence tends to show that at ﬁrst they had no wish for this honour, and would have much preferred had their ruler limited himself strictly to his own people. They had never before appeared : a distinct consciousness of national life, their use of the word “ deiitscli ” to indicate the whole people being one of these symptoms. Their common sufferings, struggles, and triumphs, however, account far more readily for this_feeling than the supposition that they were ‘elated by their king undertaking obligations which took him for years together from his native land. So solemn were the associations with the imperial title that, after acqniriiig it, Otto pro- bably looked for more intimate obedience from his subjects. ' They were willing enough to admit its abstract claims; but in the world of feudalism there was a multitude of estab- lished customs and rights which rudely conflicted with them, and in action, remote and abstract considerations gave way before concrete and present realities. Instead of streiigtlieii- ing the allegiance of the Germans towards their sovereign, the imperial title was the means of steadily undermining it. To the connexion of their kingdom with the empire they owe the fact that for centuries they were the most divided of European nations, and that they have only now begun to create a genuinely united state. France was niade up of a number of loosely connected lands, each with its own lord, when Gerinany, under Otto, was to a large extent moved by a single will, well organized, and strong. But the attention of the I“reiich kings was concentrated on their immediate interests, and in course of time they brought their unruly vassals to order. The German kings, as emperors, had duties which often took them away for long periods from Germany. This alone would have shaken their authority, for, during their absence, the great vassals seized rights which it was afterwards difficult to recover. But the emperors were not merely absent, they had to engage in struggles in which they exhausted the energies necessary to enforce obedience at home; and, in order to ohtaiii help, they were sometimes glad to concede advantages to which, under other conditions, they would have teiiaciously clung. Moreover, the greatest of all their struggles was with the papacy; so that a power outside theirkiiigdoin,bnt exercising immense influence within it, was in the end always prepared to weaken them by exciting dissensioii among their people. Thus the imperial crown was the most fatal gift that could have been offered to the German kings ; apparently giving them all things, it deprived them of nearly everything. And in doing this, it inflicted on many generations incalcul- able and needless suffering. By the policy of his later years Otto did much to prepare Iiici-t-mo the way for the process of disiiitegratioii which he rendered 0‘ 110W‘-* inevitable by restoring the empire. “'ith the kingdom divided into ﬁve great ducliies, the sovereign could always have inaintained at least so much unity as King Henry secured; and, as the experience of Otto himself showed, tlierewould have been chances of much greater centralization. Yet he threw away this advantage. Lorraine was divided into two ducliies, Upper Lorraine and Lower Lorraine. In each duchy of the kingdom he appointed a palsgrave, whose duty was to maintain royal rights; and after Margrave Gero died, his territory was divided into several marches, and placed under six inargraves, each with the same powers as Gero, and having extensive lands. Otto gave up the practice of retaining the dnchies either in his oivii hziiids or in those of relatives. Even Saxony, his native duchy, and the chief source of his strength, was given to Ell-argrave Billung, whose family long afterwards kept it. vassals of the crown ranked as princes——Otto, especially after he became emperor and looked upon liiuiself as the protector of the church, immensely increased the importance of the prelates. They received great gifts of land, were endowed with jurisdiction in criminal as well as civil cases, and obtained several other valuable sovereign rights. The As a set—off The to the power of the princes—foi' the reigning immediate °l'“"“"