1025, at a sparsely attended synod held at Grona, a provisional judgment was given in favour of the Bishop of Hildesheim; the decision was confirmed two years later at a more representative gathering at Frankfort, but it was not until 1030, a year before his death, that Aribo had a meeting with his opponent at Merseburg, and finally renounced his claims which, according to the biographer of Godehard, he confessed that he had raised "partly in ignorance, partly out of malice."
The rebellion, which disturbed the opening years of the new reign, is closely connected with the question of the Burgundian succession and with the revolt in Lombardy. Rodolph III, the childless King of Burgundy, had in 1016 recognised his nephew the Emperor Henry II as the heir to his throne; he maintained however, and probably with justice, that with the Emperor's death the compact became void. Conrad, on the other hand, took a different view of the case; the cession, he argued, was made not to the Emperor but to the Empire, to which he had been duly elected. Against him stood a formidable row of descendants of Conrad the Peaceful in the female line, two of whom, Ernest, Duke of Swabia, whose mother, Queen Gisela, was the niece, and Odo, Count of Blois, whose mother, Bertha, was the sister of Rodolph, aspired to the inheritance. To make his intentions clear Conrad, in June 1025, occupied Basle which, though held by Henry II, actually lay within the confines of the Burgundian kingdom. As his presence was needed elsewhere, he left his wife Gisela, herself a niece of King Rodolph[1], to bring the Burgundian question to a satisfactory issue. The success of her efforts is to be seen in the Burgundian king's refusal to assist Ernest of Swabia in his second revolt (1026), in his submissive attendance at the Emperor's coronation at Rome (Easter 1027), and in his recognition, at Muttenz near Basle, later in the same year, of Conrad's title to succeed to his kingdom. Ernest, whose hopes in Burgundy were shattered by the occupation of Basle, decided to oppose Conrad with arms. He allied himself with Count Welf, with the still disaffected dukes of Lorraine, and with Conrad the Younger who, having heard no more of the proffered rewards by which his cousin had secured his withdrawal from the electoral contest, had openly shewn his resentment at Augsburg in the previous April[2].
In France, Odo of Blois and Champagne was interested in the downfall of Conrad; in Italy, the trend of events moved in the same direction. There the Lombards, taking advantage of the death of Henry II, rose
- ↑ This marriage connexion with the Burgundian house constituted, Poupardin concludes, Conrad's title to be designated by Rodolph and to be chosen by the Burgundian princes, but brought with it no actual right of succession. Cf. Poupardin, Le Royaume de Bourgogne, p. 151.
- ↑ Conrad the Younger stood in the same relation to Rodolph III as did Ernest; his mother Matilda was Rodolph's niece. He appears, however, to have raised no claim to the throne of Burgundy. Cf. Poupardin, loc. cit.
