General History for Colleges and High Schools

by P. V. N. Myers

The most noted ruler of the line was Frederick I. (1152-1190), better known as Frederick Barbarossa, from his red beard. He gave Germany a good and strong government, and gained a sure place in the affections of the German people, who came to regard him as the representative of the sentiment of German nationality. When news of his death was brought back from the East,—it will be recalled that he took part in the Third Crusade, and lost his life in Asia Minor (see p. 445),—they refused to believe that he was dead, and, as time passed, a tradition arose which told how he slept in a cavern beneath one of his castles on a mountain- top, and how, when the ravens should cease to circle about the hill, he would appear, to make the German people a nation united and strong.

Frederick Barbarossa was followed by his son Henry VI. (1190-1197), who, by marriage, had acquired a claim to the kingdom of Sicily.[Footnote: The Hohenstaufen held the kingdom until 1265, when the Pope gave it as a fief to Charles I. of Anjou (brother of Louis IX. of France), who beheaded the rightful heir, the ill-starred boy Conradin, the last of the Hohenstaufen race (1268). Charles' oppressive rule led to a revolt of his island subjects, and to the great massacre known as the Sicilian Vespers (1282). All of the hated race of Frenchmen were either killed or driven out of the island.] Almost all his time and resources were spent in reducing that remote realm to a state of proper subjection to his authority. By thus leading the emperors to neglect their German subjects and interests, this southern kingdom proved a fatal dower to the Suabian house.

By the close of the Hohenstaufen period, Germany was divided into two hundred and seventy-six virtually independent states, the princes and nobles having taken advantage of the prolonged absences of the emperors, or their troubles with the Popes, to free themselves almost completely from the control of the crown. There was really no longer either a German kingdom or a Roman empire.

CATHEDRAL-BUILDING.—The age of the Hohenstaufen was the age of the Crusades, which is to say that it was the age of religious faith. The most striking expression of the spirit of the period, if we except the Holy Wars, is to be found in the sacred architecture of the time. The style of architecture first employed was the Romanesque, characterized by the rounded arch and the dome; but towards the close of the twelfth century this was superseded by the Gothic, distinguished by the pointed arch, the tower or the slender spire, and rich ornamentation.

The enthusiasm for church-building was universal throughout Europe; yet nowhere did it find nobler or more sustained expression than in Germany. Among the most noted of the German cathedrals are the one at Strasburg, begun in the eleventh century, and that at Cologne, commenced in 1248, but not wholly finished until our own day (in 1880).

RISE OF THE SWISS REPUBLIC.—The most noteworthy matters in German history during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, are the struggles between the Swiss and the dukes of Austria; the religious movement of the Hussites; and the growing power of the House of Austria.

From early in the eleventh century, the country now known as Switzerland was a part of the Holy Roman Empire; but its liberty-loving people never acknowledged any man as their master, save the German emperor, to whom they yielded a merely nominal obedience. The dukes of Austria, princes of the empire, laid claim to a certain authority over them, and tried to make themselves masters in Switzerland. This led to a memorable struggle between the dukes and the brave mountaineers. To the early part of the contest belongs the legend of William Tell, which historical criticism now pronounces a myth, with nothing but the revolt as the nucleus of fact.

In 1315, at the noted battle of Morgarten Pass, the Austrians suffered a severe defeat at the hands of the Swiss patriots. Later in the same century, the Austrians sustained another defeat on the memorable field of Sempach (1386). It was here, tradition says, that Arnold of Winkelried broke the ranks of the Austrians, by collecting in his arms as many of their lances as he could, and, as they pierced his breast, bearing them with him to the ground, exclaiming, "Comrades, I will open a road for you."

Shortly after the battle of Sempach, the Eidgenossen, or Confederates, as the Swiss were at this time called, gained another victory over the Austrians at Wafels (1388), which placed on a firm basis the growing power of the League.

THE HUSSITES.—About the beginning of the fifteenth century, the doctrines of the English reformer, Wycliffe (see p. 490) began to spread in Bohemia. The chief of the new sect was John Huss, a professor of the University of Prague. The doctrines of the reformer were condemned by the great Council of Constance, and Huss himself, having been delivered over into the hands of the civil authorities for punishment, was burned at the stake (1415). The following year Jerome of Prague, another reformer, was likewise burned.