and outside the kingdom gave them support and bonds which might make them unmanageable, and when Ekkehard was murdered the result was a war between Henry and Boleslav which lasted much of his reign. As for the archbishop, he was faced with demotion from his see, which had absorbed his previous bishopric; kings could appoint trusted and capable men to bishoprics but the competing claims of rival churches might still bring them out against the crown. Henry spent much of his reign ( 1002-24) in Germany, but it is unlikely that this represented a conscious reaction against the policies of his predecessor rather than a simple and very necessary attempt to close up the fissures which had opened when Otto had died. Extensive grants of comital rights which he made to the Church, particularly in Saxony, show his desire to secure a reliable basis of support.

The accession of Conrad II ( 1024-39) marked the first of the major dynastic changes in the history of the German monarchy, for Henry II died without heir. Such changes could weaken the monarchy; in time princes would learn to give or withhold their support in return for lands and rights, and crown lands and rights were readily lost when the king's power basis shifted to the regions in which he already held lands. At the same time the changes could also provide strength; Conrad was not pre-empted by any earlier marriages in seeking a Danish bride for his son and heir, Henry III ( 1039-56), though Henry himself later came under criticism for his subsequent marriage to Agnes of Poitou, an important match which helped to secure his hold over the kingdom of Burgundy, taken into the German kingdom on the childless death of King Rudolf in 1032. Conrad II and Henry III followed their predecessors' examples in taking advantage of succession disputes in all three of the eastern states to insist upon their overlordship, and in attempting to make their rule in northern Italy, at least, a reality. In order to safeguard their position in Germany they resorted to two dangerous expedients; the first, successfully employed by Conrad against a rebellion by Duke Ernst of Swabia, was to detach his vassals from him by offering them secure tenure and inheritance of their lands, the second,

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