Otto's practice was followed by Henry, who insisted on his right to nominate the bishops. He made no fresh grants of privilege of free election; he often qualified it by reserving the right of royal assent as at Hamburg, Hildesheim, Minden, Halberstadt, and Fulda, and sometimes he withheld it altogether as at Paderborn. His general practice is fairly illustrated by the case of Magdeburg, which fell vacant four times in the course of his reign. This church had not received from its founder, Otto the Great, the right of choosing its own pastor; and it was by gift of his son, in terms unusually solemn, that the privilege was conferred in 979. Yet Otto II made light of his own charter when, on the first vacancy of the see, he allowed his favourite, the crafty Bishop Gisiler of Merseburg, to supplant the canonically elected nominee. At Gisiler's death in January 1004, the clergy of Magdeburg forthwith unanimously elected their Provost Waltherd. But Henry was resolved that no Magdeburg cleric should occupy the see; and demanded the election of his own attached friend, the Bavarian Tagino. Neither the plea of right nor the humble entreaty of the electors was accepted by the king, whose insistence at length won the consent of Waltherd and his supporters to Tagino's promotion. Through their presence at his investiture by Henry they acquiesced in the reversal of their own previous act. Tagino died in June 1012. Again Henry intervened by sending an envoy, but this time to ask the electors to submit a candidate for his approval. The clergy and vassals of the see once more chose the same candidate, Waltherd, as archbishop. Only with great reluctance did Henry agree, and that upon condition of a fresh election being held in his presence, at which he himself proposed, and the electors concurred in, the nomination of the Provost. Within two months, however, Waltherd was snatched away by death. Next day, the Magdeburg clergy, still anxious to preserve their right, elected Thiedric, a youthful cleric, to the vacant see; and the day following repeated the act. Henry, greatly indignant at this proceeding, determined to enforce his will on the presumptuous Church. He made Thiedric a royal chaplain, and then, coming to Magdeburg, directed another meeting to be held for the election of Gero, one of his chaplains, whom he had designated for the archbishopric. The electors, with an express reservation of their right for the future, obeyed, and Gero was chosen. Yet this reservation appears to have been no hindrance to Henry when, in the last year of his reign, the see of Magdeburg was again vacated by the death of Gero, and he secured the succession of Hunfrid (Humphrey), another royal nominee.
To Henry, therefore, the right of election was useful for giving canonical sanction to a choice made by himself, and the utmost allowed to electors was to name a candidate; thus in course of time most of the German bishoprics were filled by his nominees. Yet Henry's bishops were men far from unworthy of their office. If few of them were learned, the lives of few gave occasion for reproach; if capable men of affairs rather
