Page:Readings in European History Vol 1.djvu/284

248 Readings in European History In the year 931 of the Incarnation King Henry induced the king of the Abotrites and the king of the Danes to be- come Christians. In the same year the king was invited to Franconia by Eberhard and others, Franconian counts and bishops, and was honored by each of them, in his house or in his see, with banquets and gifts as befitted a king. In the year 932 of the Incarnation the Hungarians destroyed many towns in eastern Franconia and Alemannia with fire and sword. They then crossed the Rhine near Worms, wasted Gaul as far as the sea, and then returned by way of Italy. In the year 934 of the Incarnation King Henry overcame the Hungarians in a great battle and took many of them prisoners. In the same year he attacked the Slavs, who are called Bucranes, conquered them, and made them tributary. The church of St. Maximin was blown down in a storm. Through the king's favor the right of election was given back to the monks; Hugo, who had been prior, was chosen abbot, and the monks who did not live according to the rule were driven out. 1 In the year 935 of the Incarnation King Henry suffered from a stroke. In the year 936 of the Incarnation a number of bishops of Thuringia held a synod at Erfurt. King Henry, who had diligently promoted peace and steadily pursued the heathen, reached his life's end on the 2d of July, after he had won many a brave victory and pushed out the bounds of his realm in every direction. His son Otto was chosen his successor by a unanimous vote of all the great of the realm. The annals of the reign of Henry I are fragmentary and gloomy, but we have much fuller accounts of Otto's difficulties and his manner of surmounting them. Among the historians of his time Widukind, a monk of Corvei, holds a high place. 1 These statements relate to the writer's own monastery at Treves.