United States or Antigua and Barbuda ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
At last Innocent had reluctant recourse to Count Walter of Brienne, the French husband of Tancred's daughter Albina, and now a claimant for the hereditary fiefs of Tancred, Lecce, and Taranto, from which, despite Henry VI's promise, he had long been driven. For almost the first time in Italian history, Frenchmen were thus called in to drive out the Germans.
The greater princes, who remained at home, besides establishing peace in their dominions by giving occupation abroad to the inquietude and martial disposition of their subjects, took the opportunity of annexing to their crown many considerable fiefs, either by purchase, or by the extinction of heirs.
They were given as fiefs to Rudolph's son Albert; and Carinthia to Albert's son-in-law, the Count of Tyrol. This was the foundation of the power of the house of Hapsburg. Rudolph strove with partial success to recover the crown lands, and did what he could to put a stop to private war and to robbery. Numerous strongholds of robbers he razed to the ground.
The father of Charles found himself stronger than his king, possessor not only of Burgundy, but of many other fiefs from Germany as well as France, and lord of the Netherlands as well. Charles was thus the last of those great, overgrown vassals so characteristic of feudal times. Like Hugh Capet in France, like William the Conqueror in England, he hoped to establish himself as an independent king.
The houses of Savoy and Montferrat rose into importance in his reign. To Verona were intrusted the passes between Germany and Italy. The Princes of Este at Ferrara held the keys of the Po, while the family of Canossa accumulated fiefs that stretched from Mantua across the plain of Lombardy, over the Apennines to Lucca, and southward to Spoleto.
It was the Restoration that overthrew the Tokugawa Shogunate, which reigned supreme for over two centuries and a half. It was the Restoration that brought us face to face with the Occidentals. It was the Restoration that pulled the demigods of the Feudal lords down to the level of the commoners. It was the Restoration that deprived the samurai of their fiefs and reduced them to penury.
'My poor Countess, she said, 'she has been sorely used, and has suffered much. It is a piteous thing when our little imperial fiefs go to the spindle side! 'What are her lands? asked Malcolm. 'Hainault, Holland, and Zealand, replied the lady. 'Her father was Count of Hainault, her mother the sister of the last Duke of Burgundy him that was slain on the bridge of Montereau.
The restitution to Udalrich of Halberstadt of his bishopric, a restitution that had been provided for in the treaty of Venice, gave the signal for the conflict. Henry the Lion refused to restore certain fiefs which, as Udalrich asserted, belonged to the Halberstadt Church. Archbishop Philip of Cologne and others came forward with similar claims.
Thus he promised to the Landgrave of Hesse, the abbacies of Paderborn, Corvey, Munster, and Fulda; to Duke Bernard of Weimar, the Franconian Bishoprics; to the Duke of Wirtemberg, the Ecclesiastical domains, and the Austrian counties lying within his territories, all under the title of fiefs of Sweden.
Generally, fiefs reverted to the emperor and remained within his custody for five years were held in probate, as it were before the lawful heirs were allowed to enter into possession of their property.
Word Of The Day