But he needed to be fit, otherwise it would not answer,--otherwise it might be worse for him! There were great labors in the Empire too, as well as on the Sclavic frontier of it: brave men fighting against anarchy (actually set in pitched fight against it, and not always strong enough),--toiling sore, according to their faculty, to pull the innumerable crooked things straight. Some agreed well with the Pope,--as Henry II., who founded Bamberg Bishopric, and much else of the like; [Kohler, pp. 102-104. See, for instance, <italic> Description de la Table d'Aute1 en or fin, donnee a la Cathedrale de Bale, par l'Empereur Henri II. en 1019 <end italic>
(Porentruy, 1838).] "a sore saint for the crown," as was said of David I., his Scotch congener, by a descendant. Others disagreed very much indeed;--Henry IV.'s scene at Canossa, with Pope Hildebrand and the pious Countess (year 1077, Kaiser of the Holy Roman Empire waiting, three days, in the snow, to kiss the foot of excommunicative Hildebrand), has impressed itself on all memories!
Poor Henry rallied out of that abasement, and dealt a stroke or two on Hildebrand; but fell still lower before long, his very Son going against him; and came almost to actual want of bread, had not the Bishop of Liege been good to him. Nay, after death, he lay four years waiting vainly even for burial,--but indeed cared little about that.
Certainly this Son of his, Kaiser Henry V., does not shine in filial piety: but probably the poor lad himself was hard bested.
He also came to die, A.D. 1125, still little over forty, and was the last of the Frankish Kaisers. He "left the REICHS-INSIGNIEN[Crown, Sceptre and Coronation gear] to his Widow and young Friedrich of Hohenstauffen," a sister's son of his,--hoping the said Friedrich might, partly by that help, follow as Kaiser.
Which Friedrich could not do; being wheedled, both the Widow and he, out of their insignia, under false pretences, and otherwise left in the lurch. Not Friedrich, but one Lothar, a stirring man who had grown potent in the Saxon countries, was elected Kaiser.
In the end, after waiting till Lothar was done, Friedrich's race did succeed, and with brilliancy,--Kaiser Barbarossa being that same Friedrich's son. In regard to which dim complicacies, take this Excerpt from the imbroglio of Manuscripts, before they go into the fire:--"By no means to be forgotten that the Widow we here speak of, Kaiser Henry V.'s Widow, who brought no heir to Henry V., was our English Henry Beauclerc's daughter,--granddaughter therefore of William Conqueror,--the same who, having (in 1127, the second year of her widowhood) married Godefroi Count of Anjou, produced our Henry II. and our Plantagenets; and thereby, through her victorious Controversies with King Stephen (that noble peer whose breeches stood him so cheap), became very celebrated as 'the Empress Maud,' in our old History-Books. Mathildis, Dowager of Kaiser Henry V., to whom he gave his Reichs-Insignia at dying:
she is the 'Empress Maud' of English Books; and relates herself in this manner to the Hohenstauffen Dynasty, and intricate German vicissitudes. Be thankful for any hook whatever on which to hang half an acre of thrums in fixed position, out of your way;the smallest flint-spark, in a world all black and unrememberable, will be welcome."--And so we return to Brandenburg and the "ASCANIEN and BALLENSTADT"series of Markgraves.
Chapter IV.
ALBERT THE BEAR.
This Ascanien, happily, has nothing to do with Brute of Troy or the pious AEneas's son; it is simply the name of a most ancient Castle (etymology unknown to me, ruins still dimly traceable) on the north slope of the Hartz Mountains; short way from Aschersleben,--the Castle and Town of Aschersleben are, so to speak, a second edition of Ascanien. Ballenstadt is still older;Ballenstadt was of age in Charlemagne's time; and is still a respectable little Town in that upland range of country.
The kindred, called GRAFS and ultimately HERZOGS (Dukes) of "Ascanien and Ballenstadt," are very famous in old German History, especially down from this date. Some reckon that they had intermittently been Markgrafs, in their region, long before this;which is conceivable enough: at all events it is very plain they did now attain the Office in SALZWEDEL (straightway shifting it to Brandenburg); and held it continuously, it and much else that lay adjacent, for centuries, in a highly conspicuous manner.
In Brandenburg they lasted for about two hundred years; in their Saxon dignities, the younger branch of them did not die out (and give place to the Wettins that now are) for five hundred. Nay they have still their representatives on the Earth: Leopold of Anhalt-Dessau, celebrated "Old Dessauer," come of the junior branches, is lineal head of the kin in Friedrich Wilhelm's time (while our little Fritzchen lies asleep in his cradle at Berlin); and a certain Prince of Anhalt-Zerbst, Colonel in the Prussian Army, authentic PRINCE, but with purse much shorter than pedigree, will have a Daughter by and by, who will go to Russia, and become almost too conspicuous, as Catharine II., there!--"Brandenburg now as afterwards," says one of my old Papers, "was officially reckoned SAXON; part of the big Duchy of Saxony;where certain famed BILLUNGS, lineage of an old 'Count Billung'