set up by Otto the Great at Ghent, presumed to violate German territory east of the Scheldt and take forcible possession of the town of Valenciennes. Henry, whose repeated demands for his withdrawal had been ignored by the count, in June 1006 sought a meeting with Baldwin's overlord, King Robert, the result of which was a joint expedition of the two monarchs in September for the recovery of the town[1]. But the undertaking, though supported by Duke Richard of Normandy, the lifelong foe of the house of Flanders, came to naught; and Henry, to retrieve the failure, in the summer of 1007 led a great host to the Scheldt, crossed it, and then proceeded to lay waste the country. At Ghent, upon the supplication of the brethren of St Bavo's, he stayed his hand; but by this time Baldwin was ready to treat. His humble submission soon after, with the surrender of Valenciennes, won for him full forgiveness from the king. He swore peace; and also took an oath of fealty to Henry, by which, as it seems, he became his vassal for the royal castle at Ghent. Two years later, to secure his help against disaffection in Lorraine, Henry granted Baldwin in fief Valenciennes, to which the island of Walcheren was afterwards added. In thus accepting vassalage to the German crown, Baldwin won for the counts of Flanders their first footing beyond the Scheldt.
But while engaged upon this successful enterprise in the West, Henry had been overtaken by disaster on his Eastern frontier. Since the Polish campaign of 1005, he had been at pains to keep the Wends true to their compact, but, in the spring of 1007, he was visited at Ratisbon by a triple embassy from the Lyutitzi, from a considerable town in their neighbourhood, and from Duke Jaromir of Bohemia, which came to denounce the assiduous efforts of the Duke of Poland, by bribes and promises, to seduce them from their allegiance. They declared that, if Henry should remain any longer at peace with Boleslav, he must not count on further service from them. The king, then preparing for the invasion of Flanders, consented, on the advice of the princes, to a renewal of war against Poland. The issue was unfortunate; for the Saxons, the proper guardians of the Elbe and of the Marches beyond, proved utterly wanting. In the absence of the king, Boleslav invaded the Marches in force, wasting a wide district east of Magdeburg, and carrying away captive the inhabitants of Zerbst. The Saxon levies slowly gathered to repel him, and, with Archbishop Tagino of Magdeburg in supreme command, sullenly followed the duke as he returned home. But at Jüterbogk, long before the Oder had been reached, the heart of their leaders failed them, and their retreat enabled the Polish prince to reoccupy the eastern half of the Lower Lausitz, and soon after to secure possession once more of the Upper Lausitz. He had thus regained all the German territory that he had previously held and lost; he had established himself firmly on the west of the Oder; and from the ground thus gained no subsequent efforts of Henry availed to expel him.
- ↑ Cf. supra, Chap. v, p. 106.
