1128 Coronation of Conrad as king of Italy.
1130 Alliance of the anti-pope Anacletus and Roger II of Sicily against Lothair.
1132 Lothair goes to Italy against the alliance and Conrad. The latter retires.
1133 Coronation of Lothair as emperor by Innocent II. He receives the allodial possessions of Matilda as a fief from the pope.
1134 Albrecht the Bear conquers Brandenburg.
1135 Conrad and Frederick submit to the emperor.
1137 Siege of Salerno in campaign of Lothair and Innocent II against Roger. Roger driven from Italy. Death of Lothair on his way back to Germany. By this time the supreme power in Germany has been gradually transferred from the emperor to the diet, and the fiefs have been converted into hereditary dominions. End of the Franconian Dynasty.
We interrupt the story of the “Western Empire” or “Holy Roman Empire” at this point partly as a matter of convenience, partly because the empire has ceased to be Roman in any traditional sense of the word. In so far as it remains an empire, it has become essentially German. There is little unity of interest between the northern and the southern domains. Later emperors sometimes fail to come to Italy at all; sometimes come as invaders and conquerors rather than as recognised sovereigns. For a long time the German domains are by no means securely unified, and the Italian states are utterly inharmonious. The story of internecine strife in each of these domains, leading finally, after centuries of contention, to the development of the Italian kingdom and the Austrian and German empires of our own day, will be told in later volumes.
