United States or Argentina ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
North of Bohemia, in the country lying between the Baltic, the Elbe, and the Oder, Otto had established a series of marks or border-lands in which he had built towns, introduced German colonists, and founded bishoprics which he had grouped round a new Metropolitan at Magdeburg. Here for nearly a century and a half the House of Billung did much to keep under the surging tide of paganism.
He stood true by the great Barbarossa, second of the Hohenstauffen, greatest of all the Kaisers; which was a luck for him, and perhaps a merit. He kept well with three Kaisers in his time. Had great quarrels with "Henry the Lion" about that "Billung" Saxon Heritage; Henry carrying off the better part of it from Albert.
He sent bishops to Ratzeburg and Mecklenburg across the Elbe. He encouraged Henry IV's schemes against the Saxons in order to diminish the power of the House of Billung, who were his rivals in that quarter. This dominion had been established under the protection of the Saxon dukes.
The Billung line of Saxon dukes had become extinct in 1106, and Henry V had given the ducal name to Lothair, who succeeded him as Emperor, and who as Duke aimed at building up a strong dominion in north-eastern Germany. As Emperor he took up the civilising role of Otto the Great and encouraged the Germanisation of the Slavs.
The actual work was done by his chief adviser Norbert, whom he had almost forced to become Archbishop of Magdeburg. He acted in conjunction with Albert the Bear, a descendant in the female line of the Billung dukes and Margrave of the Northmark, who himself founded bishoprics among his immediate neighbours the Wiltzes.
Being a man very swift and very sharp, at once nimble and strong, in the huge scramble that there then was, Uncle Billung dead without heirs, a SALIC line of emperors going or gone out, and a HOHENSTAUFFEN not yet come in, he made a rich game of it for himself; the rather as Lothar, the intermediate Kaiser, was his cousin, and there were other good cards which he played well.
Word Of The Day