under the ban, and Saxony was given to Albert the Bear, afterwards margrave of Brandenburg. War broke out in Saxony and Bavaria, but was cut short by Henry’s sudden death at Quedlinburg on the 20th of October 1139. He was buried at Königslutter. Henry was a man of great ability, and his early death alone prevented him from playing an important part in German history. Conrad the Priest, the author of the Rolandslied, was in Henry’s service, and probably wrote this poem at the request of the duchess, Gertrude.
See S. Riezler, Geschichte Bayerns, Band i. (Gotha, 1878); W. Bernhardi, Lothar von Supplinburg (Leipzig, 1879); W. von Giesebrecht, Geschichte der deutschen Kaiserzeit, Band iv. (Brunswick, 1877).
HENRY (1129–1195), surnamed the “Lion,” duke of Saxony
and Bavaria, only son of Henry the Proud, duke of Saxony and
Bavaria, and Gertrude, daughter of the emperor Lothair the
Saxon, was born at Ravensburg, and was a member of the family
of Welf. In 1138 the German king Conrad III. had sought to
deprive Henry the Proud of his duchies, and when the duke died
in the following year the interests of his young son were
maintained in Saxony by his mother, and his grandmother
Richenza, widow of Lothair, and in Bavaria by his uncle, Count
Welf VI. This struggle ended in May 1142 when Henry was
invested as duke of Saxony at Frankfort, and Bavaria was given
to Henry II., Jasomirgott, margrave of Austria, who married
his mother Gertrude. In 1147 he married Clementia, daughter
of Conrad, duke of Zähringen (d. 1152), and began to take an
active part in administering his dukedom and extending its
area. He engaged in a successful expedition against the Abotrites,
or Obotrites, in 1147, and won a considerable tract of land
beyond the Elbe, in which were re-established the bishoprics of
Mecklenburg,[1] Oldenburg[2] and Ratzeburg. Hartwig, archbishop
of Bremen, wished these sees to be under his authority,
but Henry contested this claim, and won the right to invest
these bishops himself, a privilege afterwards confirmed by the
emperor Frederick I. Henry, meanwhile, had not forgotten
Bavaria. In 1147 he made a formal claim on this duchy, and
in 1151 sought to take possession, but failing to obtain the aid
of his uncle Welf, did not effect his purpose. The situation was
changed in his favour when Frederick I., who was anxious to
count the duke among his supporters, succeeded Conrad as
German king in February 1152. Frederick was unable at first to
persuade Henry Jasomirgott to abandon Bavaria, but in June
1154 he recognized the claim of Henry the Lion, who accompanied
him on his first Italian campaign and distinguished
himself in suppressing a rising at Rome, Henry’s formal investiture
as duke of Bavaria taking place in September 1156
on the emperor’s return to Germany. Henry soon returned to
Saxony, where he found full scope for his untiring energy.
Adolph II., count of Holstein, was compelled to cede Lübeck
to him in 1158; campaigns in 1163 and 1164 beat down further
resistance of the Abotrites; and Saxon garrisons were established
in the conquered lands. The duke was aided in this work
by the alliance of Valdemar I., king of Denmark, and, it is said,
by engines of war brought from Italy. During these years he
had also helped Frederick I. in his expedition of 1157 against
the Poles, and in July 1159 had gone to his assistance in Italy,
where he remained for about two years.
The vigorous measures taken by Henry to increase his power aroused considerable opposition. In 1166 a coalition was formed against him at Merseburg under the leadership of Albert the Bear, margrave of Brandenburg, and Archbishop Hartwig. Neither side met with much success in the desultory warfare that ensued, and Frederick made peace between the combatants at Würzburg in June 1168. Having obtained a divorce from his first wife in 1162, Henry was married at Minden in February 1168 to Matilda (1156–1189), daughter of Henry II., king of England, and was soon afterwards sent by the emperor Frederick I. on an embassy to the kings of England and France. A war with Valdemar of Denmark, caused by a quarrel over the booty obtained from the conquest of Rügen, engaged Henry’s activity until June 1171, when, in pursuance of a treaty which restored peace, Henry’s daughter, Gertrude, married the Danish prince, Canute. Henry, whose position was now very strong, made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem in 1172, was received with great respect by the eastern emperor Manuel Comnenus at Constantinople, and returned to Saxony in 1173.
A variety of reasons were leading to a rupture in the harmonious relations between Frederick and Henry, whose increasing power could not escape the emperor’s notice, and who showed little inclination to sacrifice his interests in Germany in order to help the imperial cause in Italy. He was not pleased when he heard that his uncle, Welf, had bequeathed his Italian and Swabian lands to the emperor, and the crisis came after Frederick’s check before Alessandria in 1175. The emperor appealed personally to Henry for help in February, or March 1176, but Henry made no move in response, and his defection contributed in some measure to the emperor’s defeat at Legnano. The peace of Venice provided for the restoration of Ulalrich to his see of Halberstadt. Henry, however, refused to give up the lands which he had seized belonging to the bishopric, and this conduct provoked a war in which Ulalrich was soon joined by Philip, archbishop of Cologne. No attack on Henry appears to have been contemplated by Frederick to whom both parties carried their complaints, and a day was fixed for the settlement of the dispute at Worms. But neither then, nor on two further occasions, did Henry appear to answer the charges preferred against him; accordingly in January 1180 he was placed under the imperial ban at Würzburg, and was declared deprived of all his lands.
Meanwhile the war with Ulalrich continued, but after his victory at Weissensee Henry’s allies began to fall away, and his cause to decline. When Frederick took the field in June 1181 the struggle was soon over. Henry sought for peace, and the conditions were settled at Erfurt in November 1181, when he was granted the counties of Lüneburg and Brunswick, but was banished under oath not to return without the emperor’s permission. In July 1182 he went to his father-in-law’s court in Normandy, and afterwards to England, returning to Germany with Frederick’s permission in 1185. He was soon regarded once more as a menace to the peace of Germany, and of the three alternatives presented to him by the emperor in 1188 he rejected the idea of making a formal renunciation of his claim, or of participating in the crusade, and chose exile, going again to England in 1189. In October of the same year, however, he returned to Saxony, excusing himself by asserting that his lands had not been defended according to the emperor’s promise. He found many allies, took Lübeck, and soon almost the whole of Saxony was in his power. King Henry VI. was obliged to take the field against him, after which the duke’s cause declined, and in July 1190 a peace was arranged at Fulda, by which he retained Brunswick and Lüneburg, received half the revenues of Lübeck, and gave two of his sons as hostages. Still hoping to regain his former position, he took advantage of a league against Henry VI. in 1193 to engage in a further revolt; but the captivity of his brother-in-law Richard I., king of England, led to a reconciliation. Henry passed his later years mainly at his castle of Brunswick, where he died on the 6th of August 1195, and was buried in the church of St Blasius which he had founded in the town. He had by his first wife a son and a daughter, and by his second wife five sons and a daughter. One of his sons was Otto, afterwards the emperor Otto IV., and another was Henry (d. 1227) count palatine of the Rhine.
Henry was a man of great ambition, and won his surname of “Lion” by his personal bravery. His influence on the fortunes of Saxony and northern Germany was very considerable. He planted Flemish and Dutch settlers in the land between the Elbe and the Oder, fostered the growth and trade of Lübeck, and in other ways encouraged trade and agriculture. He sought to spread Christianity by introducing the Cistercians, founding bishoprics, and building churches and monasteries. In 1874 a colossal statue was erected to his memory at Brunswick.
