Henry the Lion
Henry the Lion | |
---|---|
Otto I | |
Born | c. 1129 Ravensburg |
Died | 6 August 1195 Brunswick | (aged 65–66)
Burial | |
Spouse | |
Issue | |
Henry X, Duke of Bavaria | |
Mother | Gertrude of Süpplingenburg |
Henry the Lion (
Henry was one of the most powerful German princes of his time, until the rival
At the height of his reign, Henry ruled over a vast territory stretching from the coast of the North and Baltic seas to the Alps, and from Westphalia to Pomerania. Henry achieved this great power in part by his political and military acumen and in part through the legacies of his four grandparents.
Family background
Born in
Henry's father died in 1139, aged 32, when Henry was still a child. King Conrad III had dispossessed Henry the Proud of his duchies in 1138 and 1139, handing Saxony to Albert the Bear and Bavaria to Leopold of Austria. This was because Henry the Proud had been his rival for the Crown in 1138.[1]
Rule
Henry the Lion did not relinquish his claims to his inheritance, and Conrad returned Saxony to him in 1142.[1] A participant in the 1147 Wendish Crusade,[1] Henry also reacquired Bavaria by a decision of the new emperor, Frederick Barbarossa, in 1156. However, the East Mark was not returned and became the Duchy of Austria.[1]
Henry was the founder of
In 1147, Henry married Clementia of Zähringen, thereby gaining her hereditary territories in Swabia. He divorced her in 1162, apparently under pressure from Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, who did not cherish Guelphish possessions in his home area and offered Henry several fortresses in Saxony in exchange. In 1168, Henry married Matilda (1156–1189), the daughter of King Henry II of England and Duchess Eleanor of Aquitaine, and sister of King Richard I of England.[1]
Henry faithfully supported Emperor Frederick in his attempts to solidify his hold on the Imperial Crown and his repeated wars with the cities of Lombardy and the popes, several times turning the tide of battle in Frederick's favor with his Saxon knights. During Frederick's first invasion of northern Italy, Henry took part, among the others, in the victorious sieges of Crema and Milan.
In 1172, Henry took a pilgrimage to Jerusalem (June–July), meeting with the Knights Templar and Knights Hospitaller,[3][a] and spending Easter of that year in Constantinople.[4] By December 1172, he was back in Bavaria[4] and, in 1174, he refused to aid Frederick in a renewed invasion of Lombardy because he was preoccupied with securing his own borders in the east. He did not consider these Italian adventures worth the effort, unless Barbarossa presented Henry with the Saxon imperial city Goslar: a request Barbarossa refused.
Fall
Barbarossa's expedition into Lombardy ultimately ended in failure. He bitterly resented Henry for failing to support him. Taking advantage of the hostility of other German princes to Henry, who had successfully established a powerful and contiguous state comprising Saxony, Bavaria and substantial territories in the north and east of Germany, Frederick had Henry tried in absentia for insubordination by a court of bishops and princes in 1180.
Declaring that Imperial law overruled traditional German law, the court had Henry stripped of his lands and declared him an outlaw. Frederick then invaded Saxony with an Imperial army to bring Henry to his knees. Henry's allies deserted him, and he finally had to submit in November 1181 at an Imperial Diet in Erfurt. He was exiled from Germany in 1182 for three years, and stayed with his father-in-law in Normandy before being allowed back into Germany in 1185. At Whitsun 1184, he visited the Diet of Pentecost in Mainz, probably as a mediator for his father-in-law Henry II. He was exiled again in 1188. His wife Matilda died in 1189.
When
Children
By his first wife,
- Frederick IV of Swabia and then King Canute VI of Denmark.
- Richenza (c. 1157 – 1167)[7]
- Henry, who died young
By his second wife, Matilda (married 1168), daughter of King Henry II of England and Duchess Eleanor of Aquitaine:[8]
- Enguerrand III of Coucy.
- Henry V, Count Palatine of the Rhine (c. 1173 – 1227)[8]
- Lothar (c. 1174 – 1190)
- Otto IV, Holy Roman Emperor and Duke of Swabia (c. 1175 – 1218)[8]
- William of Winchester, Lord of Lüneburg (1184–1213)[10]
Three other children are listed, by some sources, as having belonged to Henry and Matilda:
- Eleanor (born 1178); died young
- Ingibiorg (born 1180); died young
- Son (b. & d. 1182)
By his lover, Ida von Blieskastel, he had a daughter, Matilda, who married Lord
Legacy
The Henry the Lion Bible is preserved in near-mint condition from the year 1170; it is located in the Herzog August Library in Wolfenbüttel, a town in Lower Saxony.
Henry the Lion remains a popular figure to this day.[11] During World War I, a nail man depicting Henry the Lion, called Eiserner Heinrich, was used in Brunswick to raise funds for the German war effort.
Nazi propaganda later declared Henry an antecessor of the Nazi's Lebensraum policy[12] and turned Brunswick Cathedral and Henry's tomb into a "National Place of Consecration".[13]
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Henry the Lion on the coat of arms of Schwerin
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Order of Henry the Lion, order of merit of the Duchy of Brunswick (awarded from 1834 to 1918)
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Henry the Lion's Fountain (1874), Brunswick
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Eiserner Heinrich (1915), Braunschweigisches Landesmuseum, Brunswick
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Henry the Lion Monument in Schwerin
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Henry the Lion Monument in Schwerin
Folklore and fiction
Shortly after his death, Henry the Lion became the subject of a
The book The Pope's Rhinoceros (1996) by Lawrence Norfolk opens with an allegory of a planned ransack by Henry's army of the monastery at Usedom where purportedly a treasure was kept. However, the night before the attack the poorly maintained monastery and its treasures crumble into the sea as the result of a storm, and henceforth constituting a loss to the military expedition.
Notes
- Tarsus, the sultan embraced and kissed the German duke, reminding him that they were blood cousins ('amplexans et deosculans eum, dicens, eum consanguineum suum esse'). When the duke asked for details of this relationship, Kilij Arslan II informed him that 'a noble lady from the land of Germans married a king of Russia who had a daughter by her; this daughter's daughter arrived to our land, and I descend from her.'
References
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Emmerson 2013, p. 320.
- ^ Jordan, Karl H.E. "Henry III, duke of Bavaria and Saxony". Encyclopaedia Britannica. Retrieved 22 March 2023.
- ISBN 9780299091446.
- ^ ISBN 9781135131449.
- ^ Previté-Orton 1912, p. 329 note 3.
- ^ Lyon 2013, p. 249.
- ^ a b Loud 2019, p. 94.
- ^ a b c Nicholson 2001, p. 129.
- ISBN 9780801869129.
- ^ Lyon 2013, p. 245.
- ^ Heine, Matthias (31 May 2008). "Barbarossas Staatsfeind Nummer eins". Die Welt (in German). Retrieved 9 May 2013.
- ^ "Heinrich der Löwe". Vernetztes Gedächtnis (in German). Retrieved 9 May 2013.
- ^ "About the Cathedral". Braunschweiger Dom. Archived from the original on 23 January 2018. Retrieved 9 May 2013.
- ^ Brothers Grimm. "Heinrich der Löwe" [Henry the Lion – The Brothers' Grimm version]. Deutsche Sagen (in German). Projekt Gutenberg-DE. Retrieved 10 May 2013.
- ^ "Enrico Leone (Heinrich der Löwe)". Klassica (in German). Retrieved 9 May 2013.
- JSTOR 1769130
- ^ Jäckel, Dirk (2006), Der Herrscher als Löwe: Ursprung und Gebrauch eines politischen Symbols im Früh- und Hochmittelalter (in German), Cologne / Weimar: Böhlau Verlag, pp. 163–164
- ^ Pollach, Günter (2011), Kaleidoskop der Mächtigen: Randglossen zu überlieferten Mythen und Episoden der Geschichte (in German), pp. 64–67
Sources
- Emmerson, Richard K. (2013). Key Figures in Medieval Europe: An Encyclopedia. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-136-77518-5.
- Loud, Graham A. (2019). The Chronicle of Arnold of Lübeck. Routledge.
- ISBN 978-0-8014-5130-0.
- ISBN 90-04-12014-9.
- Previté-Orton, C. W. (1912). The Early History of the House of Savoy: 1000–1233. Cambridge University Press. p. 329 note 3.
- Heinrich der Löwe und seine Zeit. Katalog der Ausstellung. Vol. Bd. 2. Braunschweig. 1995.
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Further reading
- Jordan, Karl (1986). Henry the Lion. A Biography. Clarendon Press. ISBN 0-19-821969-5.
External links
- Henry the Lion on Encyclopedia.com
- Henry the Lion. The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition
- The fall of Henry the Lion (from Germany) – Encyclopædia Britannica
- Deposition of Henry the Lion. (from Frederick I) – Encyclopædia Britannica
- MSN Encarta – Multimedia – Henry the Lion (Archived 2009-10-31)
- Charter given by Henry to monastery Volkenroda, 31.1.1174. Photograph taken from the collections of the Marburg Universityshowing Henry's seal.