Bavaria, Henry Jasomirgott being compensated with the grant of Austria on terms which gave him effective autonomy within his lands, and exemption from military service, save on its frontiers. For his part Frederick had to build up his power in Burgundy, Swabia, and southern Saxony, though this eventually brought him into conflict with Henry the Lion since it blocked his own claims there. At the same time he sought to recover the imperial rights in Italy. The time was reasonably propitious; in the treaty of Constance ( 1153), Pope Eugenius III had engaged his assistance against the Commune of Rome, while in the south it remained to be seen whether the kingdom of Sicily would survive the anticipated death of Roger II. At the same time the imperial rights in Italy promised substantial revenues, could they be secured, and there were also lands, mostly assigned to Henry the Lion's uncle, Well VI, until he sold them to Barbarossa. Prospects were thus favourable in Italy; at the same time intervention there represented almost the only sphere in which Barbarossa could build up his power and gain alternative sources of wealth and patronage without disturbing the fragile settlement which he had established between his magnates.

In the event, Barbarossa faced years of hard and very expensive campaigning before the Peace of Constance assured him most of what he had sought. The effects of the campaign in Germany had been somewhat ambivalent. The archbishops of Mainz and Cologne, his leading generals in Italy, had largely dissipated the resources of their sees in the endeavour, others had used his need for troops to make ever more pressing demands upon the crown. Chief among these was Henry the Lion, who at last began to aspire towards a royal position and sought the vestigial royal estates in Saxony to round off his territories. When Frederick refused to agree, Henry in turn denied him troops which were very much needed at the height of the Lombard campaign ( 1176). Four years later Barbarossa took advantage of the hostility which Henry had aroused in Saxony to deprive him of his duchies, and Henry was indeed driven from his lands, which passed to a number of magnates, the archbishop of Cologne, Albert the Bear's son, and the

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