imperial coronation in 1111 in order to secure his recognition of the royal right to invest bishops. The resultant excommunication gave ample cloak to those who meditated revolt on other grounds, notably Lothar of Süpplingenburg whom Henry had appointed Duke of Saxony and the Rhenish archbishops whom Henry had alienated by the grant of some of their lands to his supporters. Resistance thus continued after the princes had forced Henry to reach a settlement with the papacy in the Concordat of Worms in 1122 and for most of the reigns of his successors, Lothar of Süpplingenburg ( 112537) and the Staufen Conrad III ( 1138-52). Conrad and his brother, Frederick of Swabia, were thus in opposition to Lothar for much of his reign, while Lothar in turn built up links with the duke of Bavaria, Henry the Proud, his son-inlaw and prospective heir to both Saxony and the crown. When Lothar died these hopes were thwarted since the magnates had little to gain from assenting to the election of the immensely powerful Henry and very much more to gain, largely at Henry's expense, from supporting Conrad instead. On this basis Leopold of Austria and then his half-brother Henry Jasomirgott were granted Bavaria while Saxony was granted to Albert the Bear. An attempted compromise by marriage failed with the death of the essential partner ( Henry the Proud's widow) in 1143, and matters were made worse by the subventions with which Roger II of Sicily and Geza II of Hungary provided the opposition in order to forestall Conrad's intervention against themselves. When Conrad was succeeded by his nephew, Frederick Barbarossa, duke of Swabia, it was an open question whether the polarization of interests and rivalries within the German magnates could ever be resolved.

Barbarossa ( 1152-90) was the greatest of German kings since the days of Henry III, but like him he mortgaged Germany's future to achieve that greatness. His first task was to settle the rivalries and territorial disputes which had developed over the past century. Henry the Proud's son, Henry the Lion, was restored to the duchy of Saxony at the expense of Albert the Bear, and in due course built up a highly formidable lordship there. Before long he was also appointed to

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