GENEALOGY OF HENRY THE LION

passing of generations. Kings had to bind men to them through providing them with some form of reward, and the process was continual since the bond so created was unlikely to survive the death of either partner, and might well come to an acrimonious end before. Henry the Lion himself provides a good illustration of this. The marriage to Matilda pictured in his Gospels had been contracted as part of an alliance between Frederick Barbarossa and Henry II of England; but later it provided for a safe refuge with the English king when Henry the Lion and his family broke with Frederick and were driven from Germany. A great noble's position depended, as did a king's, upon his relations with other men, his neighbours and vassals, and these too were volatile. The great estates at Henry's disposal had been secured and extended by a ruthless trespass upon the rights of others, and had been maintained largely because Frederick had turned a deaf ear to complaints. When it suited him to do so, he listened to those complaints, deprived Henry of his duchies, and thereby gave his enemies full licence to recover their own by force.

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