In the idea which Henry conceived, the kingdom appeared almost as only an alliance of German stems under the leadership of a king jointly elected by them. And yet they were far from willingly recognising this leadership. Bavaria and Swabia had separated themselves from the kingdom for the moment: in the former Arnulf ruled, in the latter Burkhard, with wholly independent power; and Lorraine had been allied with the west-Frankish kingdom for years. Franconia and Saxony alone formed the kingdom at first; for the moment Henry’s power did not go beyond them. And although he as king was raised above Eberhard, still the latter as a duke stood practically on a level beside him. Just as Henry reserved for himself the full ducal power as he had always possessed it, so also in the Frankish lands it was preserved for Eberhard in the same way; the position which his family had won and established under Conrad’s rule was in no wise lessened. Never again did any disagreement break out between Henry and Eberhard; they remained allies until Henry’s death and the growing state was founded chiefly upon their accord. Henry’s thoughts, however, were not limited to Saxony and Franconia; from the very beginning they had been directed to the union of all the German tribes, and hence he made it his first business to bring all the stems which had once belonged to the east-Frankish kingdom to a recognition of his supremacy.
In the sixth year of his reign King Henry had accomplished the immense task of uniting all the German lands and tribes; he had succeeded in doing that for which King Conrad had striven so obstinately and yet so unsuccessfully. Not with haste and impatience, not with terror and the sound of arms, had he done it; but through a quiet, clear perception of the true position of things and that lauded pacific disposition which would not let him shed German blood against Germans for no purpose. Thus a bond of unity was woven around the German stems, which became more and more close in time and surrounded by which the Germans first came to a clear consciousness of their own nationality. The kingdom as it now stood appears almost like an alliance of states; but out of it grew quickly enough a powerful, united state under as strong a monarchy as those times could produce. Henry had reached the goal which the pope and bishops at the council of Altheim had set themselves and had not been able to reach—the unification of Germany; but he reached this goal by a wholly different road than the one those bishops had taken. Thus it was not they who laid the cornerstone of the German Empire, but the man who had refused to accept the crown from the hand of a priest.
Everything was accomplished almost in silence; a new order of things for centuries to come was established with ease—by magic, one feels inclined to say; endless confusion was seen to be solved in the simplest fashion. It was as when an unknown terror breaks upon a large number of people in the darkness of night—everything is thrown into a confusion which increases from moment to moment, until the sun shines out in the morning and its beams gild the fields: the confused masses then easily assort themselves, quiet returns, and the world beams again in clear sunshine. Henry’s clear spirit was the sun which turned the night of the German lands into day.
WARS AGAINST OUTER ENEMIES
[924 A.D.]
But of what use was all this building and creating if he could not succeed in enduringly protecting the empire against its outer enemies and above all against the Hungarians? However, in spite of the discouragement caused by repeated defeats, Henry did not lose faith in the strength of his people, and fortune favoured the courageous man. For it was fortune that led the Hungarians just at that time to spare the German lands of the hither Rhine for a longer space of time and to direct their attacks chiefly against Italy, the west-Frankish kingdom, and Lorraine. But in the year 924 they appeared again and turned towards Saxony. Everything whither they came was laid desolate. The castles and strongholds, the cloisters and churches, the dwellings of the poor peasants, were all reduced to ashes; old and young, men and women, were slaughtered; again by the clouds of smoke and the appearance of fire in the sky could the path be followed which was taken by the terrible enemy; again the people took refuge in the forests, on the tops of mountains, and in hidden caves. “It is better to be silent on this subject,” says Wittekind [the historian], “than to increase suffering by words.”
King Henry did not dare to meet the superior forces of the enemy in an open battle. He had learned to know what war with them meant at an early date, and he did not believe his army was able to face them. It is true that every free Saxon who had completed his thirteenth year was bound to service, and had to take up arms against an approaching enemy; the old military provisions of the Frankish kingdom were also in force according to the letter of the law, and according to them every free man who owned at least five hides of land had to serve personally in the militia, and the smaller landowners had to equip a fighter in common. But these provisions had fallen into disuse; hard times had decreased the number of freemen; the militia, seldom assembled, was formed of men knowing nothing of war.
Moreover, the Hungarians had to be met with cavalry, and although the Frankish feudal army consisted almost entirely of mounted knights, yet in Saxony cavalry service was still new and not widespread; the greatest part of the nobility here kept only poorly armed dependents who performed their military service on foot. Henry avoided a battle, therefore, and shut himself up with his faithful followers in his fortified castle Werla at the foot of the Harz, not far from Goslar. The favour of fortune again did not desert him. A prominent Hungarian was captured by the king’s men and brought before him. The captive stood in high favour with his people, and consequently ambassadors were sent at once to free him from the bonds of the enemy. Gold and silver were offered for him in large measure, but that was not what Henry sought. He wanted peace, only peace, and he even offered, if he should be granted a truce of nine years, not only to give back the captive but also to pay the Hungarians a yearly tribute. On these conditions the Hungarians, swearing to observe a truce of nine years, withdrew to their homes.
Larger fortified towns were at that time still unknown in Saxony and Thuringia; only on the banks of the Rhine and the Danube, and beyond these rivers where the Romans had once lived, were there on German soil populous towns with fortified walls and towers, which, however, since the expeditions of the Normans and the Hungarian wars, lay mostly in heaps and ruins. The Saxons according to ancient custom still lived in single houses standing alone in the midst of their fields and meadows, or else they assembled in open villages. Only here and there arose royal palaces and castles of the nobles, only here and there were the enclosed seats of bishops, priests, and monks, the first gathering-places of a more active intercourse. The boundaries were also poorly protected; the strongholds which Charlemagne had once laid out had been mostly destroyed in the wars against the Danes and Wends. The land thus, without being able to offer any resistance, lay open to the inroads of the enemy, which could not be checked in the interior either, on account of the scattered settlements. The first necessity, therefore, seemed to Henry to be to enlarge the existing forts and fortify them more strongly, to lay out new strongholds so as to be able to assemble larger forces in secure places. This was especially imperative on the frontiers in order to repulse the enemy on the very threshold.