In the spring of 1026, Konrad went to Italy. Pavia shut her gates against him, but those of Milan were opened, and the Lombard Bishops and nobles came to offer him homage. He was crowned with the iron crown, and during the course of the year, all the cities in Northern Italy—even Pavia, which promised to rebuild the Imperial palace—acknowledged his sway. In March, 1027, he went to Rome and was crowned Emperor by the Pope, John XIX., one of the young Counts of Tusculum, who had succeeded to the Papacy as a boy of twelve! King Canute and Rudolf of Burgundy were present at the ceremony, and Konrad betrothed his son Henry to the Danish princess Gunhilde, daughter of the former.
1027. KONRAD II.'S VISIT TO ITALY.
After the coronation, the Emperor paid a rapid visit to Southern Italy, where the Normans had secured a foothold ten years before, and, by defending the country against the Greeks and Saracens, were rapidly making themselves its rulers. He found it easier to accept them as vassals than to drive them out, but in so doing he added a new and turbulent element to those which already distracted Italy. However, there was now external quiet, at least, and he went back to Germany.
Here his step-son, Ernest II. of Suabia, who claimed the crown of Burgundy, had already risen in rebellion against him. He was not supported even by his own people, and the Emperor imprisoned him in a strong fortress until the Empress Gisela, by her prayers, procured his liberation. Konrad offered to give him back his Dukedom, provided he would capture and deliver up his intimate friend, Count Werner of Kyburg, who was supposed to exercise an evil influence over him. Ernest refused, sought his friend, and the two after living for some time as outlaws in the Black Forest, at last fell in a conflict with the Imperial troops. The sympathies of the people were turned to the young Duke by his hard fate and tragic death, and during the Middle Ages the narrative poem of "Ernest of Suabia" was sung everywhere throughout Germany.
Konrad II. next undertook a campaign against Poland, which was wholly unsuccessful: he was driven back to the Elbe with great losses. Before he could renew the war, he was called upon to assist Count Albert of Austria (as the Bavarian "East-Mark" along the Danube must henceforth be called) in a war against Stephen, the first Christian king of Hungary. The result was a treaty of peace, which left him free to march once more against Poland and reconquer the provinces which Henry II. had granted to Boleslaw. The remaining task of his reign, the attachment of Burgundy to the German Empire, was also accomplished without any great difficulty. King Rudolf, before his death in 1032, sent his crown and sceptre to Konrad II., in fulfilment of a promise made when they met at Rome, six years before. Although Count Odo of Champagne, Rudolf's nearest relative, disputed the succession, and all southern Burgundy espoused his cause, he was unable to resist the Emperor. The latter was crowned King of Burgundy at Payerne, in Switzerland, and two years later received the homage of nearly all the clergy and nobles of the country in Lyons.
1037.
At that time Burgundy comprised the whole valley of the Rhone, from its cradle in the Alps to the Mediterranean, the half of Switzerland, the cities of Dijon and Besançon and the territory surrounding them. All this now became, and for some centuries remained, a part of the German Empire. Its relation to the latter, however, resembled that of the Lombard Kingdom in Italy: its subjection was acknowledged, it was obliged to furnish troops in special emergencies, but it preserved its own institutions and laws, and repelled any closer political union. The continual intercourse of its people with those of France slowly obliterated the original differences between them, and increased the hostility of the Burgundians to the German sway. But the rulers of that day were not wise enough to see very far in advance, and the sovereignty of Burgundy was temporarily a gain to the German power.
Early in 1037 Konrad was called again to Italy by complaints of the despotic rule of the local governors, especially of the Archbishop Heribert of Milan. This prelate resisted his authority, incited the people of Milan to support his pretensions, and became, in a short time, the leader of a serious revolt. The Emperor deposed him, prevailed upon the Pope, Benedict IX., to place him under the ban of the Church, and besieged Milan with all his forces; but in vain. The Bishop defied both Emperor and Pope; the city was too strongly fortified to be taken, and out of this resistance grew the idea of independence which was afterwards developed in the Italian Republics, until the latter weakened, wasted, and finally destroyed the authority of the German (or "Roman") Emperors in Italy. Konrad was obliged to return home without having conquered Archbishop Heribert and the Milanese.
In the spring of 1039 he died suddenly at Utrecht, aged sixty, and was buried in the Cathedral at Speyer, which he had begun to build. He was a very shrewd and intelligent ruler, who planned better than he was able to perform. He certainly greatly increased the Imperial power during his life, by recognizing the hereditary rights of the smaller princes, and replacing the chief reigning Dukes, whenever circumstances rendered it possible, by members of his own family. As the selection of the bishops and archbishops remained in his hands, the clergy were of course his immediate dependents. It was their interest, as well as that of the common people among whom knowledge and the arts were beginning to take root, that peace should be preserved between the different German States, and this could only be done by making the Emperor's authority paramount. Nevertheless, Konrad II. was never popular: a historian of the times says "no one sighed when his sudden death was announced."
1039. HENRY III.