| Henry the Lion | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Depiction in theGospels of Henry the Lion | |
| Duke of Saxony | |
| Reign | 1142–1180 |
| Predecessor | Albert the Bear |
| Successor | Bernard III |
| Duke of Bavaria | |
| Reign | 1156–1180 |
| Predecessor | Henry XI |
| Successor | Otto I |
| Born | c. 1129 Ravensburg,Duchy of Swabia |
| Died | 6 August 1195(1195-08-06) (aged 65–66) Brunswick,Duchy of Saxony |
| Burial | |
| Spouse | |
| Issue | |
| House | Welf |
| Father | Henry X, Duke of Bavaria |
| Mother | Gertrude of Süpplingenburg |
Henry the Lion (German:Heinrich der Löwe; 1129/1131[1] – 6 August 1195[1]), also known asHenry III, Duke of Saxony (ruled 1142-1180) andHenry XII, Duke of Bavaria (ruled 1156-1180), was a member of theWelf dynasty.[2]
Henry was one of the most powerful German princes of his time. As the Duke of Saxony, Henry had had a decisive part in 1152 in his cousinFrederick Barbarossa's campaign for the throne. Because of this, in the following years, he was intensely promoted by Barbarossa. So, in 1156, he received the Dukedom ofBavaria. In North Germany, Henry could now build a kingly presence. He achieved this inBrunswick by building a new collegiate church,St Blaise, and, in the neighbouringDankwarderode Castle, he placed a statue of a lion, as a symbol of its place as the capital of his duchies. The aggressive building strategy of the Duke in Saxony and north of the Elbe supplanted the influence of the previous greats ofSaxony. Next, Henry repaid Barbarossa’s sponsorship by putting great effort into his service to the first Italian dynasty.[3]
In 1176, the rivalHohenstaufen dynasty succeeded in isolating him and eventually deprived him of his duchies of Bavaria and Saxony during the reign of EmperorFrederick Barbarossa and of Frederick's son and successorHenry VI. The agreement between Henry and Barbarossa encountered difficulties, when, in the face of a threatening situation, the Duke refused to undertake a war with the Emperor’s Lombardy states. After the death of Barbarossa, and the failure of the overall Italian political scene and the peace agreement of 1177 (due to campaigning by Pope Alexander III), Henry the Lion overthrew more Dukes, but had to go into exile in southern England.[3]
At the height of his reign, Henry ruled over a vast territory stretching from the coast of theNorth andBaltic seas to theAlps, and fromWestphalia toPomerania. Alongside Frederick Barbarossa, he was an important protagonist in the Staufen-Welf conflict, which had served as the main political force in the twelfth century.[3] Henry achieved this great power in part by his political and military acumen and in part through the legacies of his four grandparents. He is considered as one of the most important people of this early era.[3]
Henry the Lion came from theWelf Dynasty. Since the 1120s, there arose more documents in the history of this family, where there were different spellings. This meant the Welfs were the first noble family in the kingdom that we know the history of. The household records in theGenealogia Welforum, in which the Saxon Welf Origins and theHistoria Welforum are found, show a link before theCarolingians, and have a possible etymology of the name Welf, which may come from the Latin word catulus (Welpe in German).[4]
The ancestors of the Welfs begin in the eighth century at the time of the Carolingians. The rise of the family came completely from advantageous marriages. The WelfJudith was the second wife ofEmperor Louis the Pious, and brought the earliest influence of the Welfs to the history of theFrankish Kingdom. Her sister,Hemma, was married to Judith's stepson King Ludwig the German. This second marriage into the Carolingian royal family secured the rise of the Welfs in the Royal Circle. The fall of the Frankish Kingdom offered an opportunity for the family of theKings of Burgundy in 1032. After the death of Welf III in 1055 without an heir, the dynasty was thrown into an existential crisis. His sister, Cuniza, married theMargrave Azzo II of Este, changing the future of the dynasty.[4]
The grandfather of Henry the Lion, the BavarianDuke Henry the Black, marriedWulfhild, the eldest daughter of the Saxon DukeMagnus Billung andSophia, the daughter of the Hungarian King. Large tracts of land aroundLuneberg the center of power and the burial place of theHouse of Billung, now went to the Welfs. In 1123 a relative of the family,Bishop Conrad of Constance, was put forward for canonisation, and raised the reputation of the family. The WelfJudith, daughter of Henry the Black, married the Hohenstaufen DukeFrederick II, the father of Frederick Barbarossa. The candidacy of Frederick II as the successor to the ore rich lands of the late, childlessHenry V stayed unsponsored. Instead, the Saxon dukeLothar III was preferred. The usual sponsors of Henry the Black were split between him and Duke Lothar. Some of these sponsors were won over by Lothar marrying his only daughterGertrude to Henry's son, Henry the Proud. Gertrude’s mother wasRichenza, heiress of the Saxon territories ofNortheim and the properties of theBrunones, counts ofBrunswick. From this union came Henry the Lion.[4] He was born in Ravensburg.[2] From the Steterburger Chronik, he must have been born around 1129/1130. His baptism was around 1135/36, but this seems a long time to wait for a baptism. It is possible that the copyist made a transcription error, so Henry's birth could have been in 1133/35.[4]
Soon after, Henry the Proud gained a conglomeration of duchies, close to the size of a kingdom. At the end of the reign of his father in law Lothar, he ruled over the duchies of Bavaria and Saxony, and over theMarch of Tuscany in the Mathilda Guter, specifically the extensive lands inSwabia, Bavaria, Saxony andItaly. Henry's father died in 1139, aged 32, when Henry was still a child. KingConrad III had dispossessed Henry the Proud of his duchies in 1138 and 1139, handing Saxony toAlbert the Bear and Bavaria toLeopold of Austria. This was because Henry the Proud had been his rival for the Crown in 1138.
Henry the Lion did not relinquish his claims to his inheritance, and Conrad returned Saxony to him in 1142.[1] A participant in the 1147Wendish Crusade,[1] Henry also reacquired Bavaria by a decision of the new emperor,Frederick Barbarossa, in 1156. However, theEast Mark was not returned and became theDuchy of Austria.[1]
Henry was the founder ofMunich (1157)[1] andLübeck (1159);[1] he also founded and developed numerous other cities in Northern Germany and Bavaria, a.o.Augsburg,Hildesheim,Stade,Kassel,Güstrow,Lüneburg,Salzwedel,Schwerin andBrunswick. In Brunswick, his capital, he had abronze lion, his heraldic animal, erected in the courtyard of his castleDankwarderode in 1166—the first bronze statue north of theAlps. Later, he hadBrunswick Cathedral built close to the statue.
In 1147, Henry marriedClementia of Zähringen, thereby gaining her hereditary territories inSwabia. He divorced her in 1162, apparently under pressure from Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, who did not cherish Guelphish possessions in his home area and offered Henry several fortresses in Saxony in exchange. In 1168, Henry marriedMatilda (1156–1189), the daughter of KingHenry II of England and DuchessEleanor of Aquitaine, and sister of KingRichard I of England.[1]
Henry faithfully supported Emperor Frederick in his attempts to solidify his hold on the Imperial Crown and his repeated wars with the cities ofLombardy and the popes, several times turning the tide of battle in Frederick's favor with his Saxon knights. During Frederick's first invasion of northern Italy, Henry took part, among the others, in the victorious sieges ofCrema and Milan.
In 1172, Henry took a pilgrimage to Jerusalem (June–July), meeting with theKnights Templar andKnights Hospitaller,[5][a] and spending Easter of that year in Constantinople.[6] By December 1172, he was back in Bavaria[6] and, in 1174, he refused to aid Frederick in a renewed invasion of Lombardy because he was preoccupied with securing his own borders in the east. He did not consider these Italian adventures worth the effort, unless Barbarossa presented Henry with the Saxonimperial cityGoslar: a request Barbarossa refused.
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Barbarossa's expedition into Lombardy ultimately ended in failure. He bitterly resented Henry for failing to support him. Taking advantage of the hostility of other German princes to Henry, who had successfully established a powerful state comprising Saxony, Bavaria and substantial territories in the north and east of Germany, Frederick had Henrytriedin absentia for insubordination by a court of bishops and princes in 1180.
Declaring that Imperial law overruled traditional German law, the court had Henry stripped of his lands and declared him an outlaw. Frederick then invaded Saxony with an Imperial army to bring Henry to his knees. Henry's allies deserted him, and he finally had to submit in November 1181 at anImperial Diet inErfurt. He was exiled from Germany in 1182 for three years, and stayed with his father-in-law inNormandy before being allowed back into Germany in 1185. AtWhitsun 1184, he visited theDiet of Pentecost in Mainz, probably as a mediator for his father-in-law Henry II. He was exiled again in 1188. His wife Matilda died in 1189.
WhenFrederick Barbarossa went on theCrusade of 1189, Henry returned to Saxony, mobilized an army of his faithful, and conquered the rich city ofBardowick as punishment for its disloyalty. Only the churches were left standing. Barbarossa's son, EmperorHenry VI, again defeated Duke Henry, but in 1194, with his end approaching, he made his peace with the Emperor, and returned to his much diminished lands around Brunswick, where he peacefully sponsored arts and architecture.
By his first wife,Clementia of Zähringen (divorced 1162),[7] daughter of DukeConrad I of Zähringen and Clemence of Namur, Henry had:[8]
By his second wife,Matilda (married 1168), daughter of KingHenry II of England and DuchessEleanor of Aquitaine:[10]
Three other children are listed, by some sources, as having belonged to Henry and Matilda:
By his lover, Ida von Blieskastel, he had a daughter, Matilda, who married LordHenry Borwin I of Mecklenburg.
TheHenry the Lion Bible is preserved in near-mint condition from the year 1170; it is located in theHerzog August Library inWolfenbüttel, a town in Lower Saxony.
Henry the Lion remains a popular figure to this day.[13] DuringWorld War I, anail man depicting Henry the Lion, calledEiserner Heinrich, was used in Brunswick to raise funds for the German war effort.
Nazipropaganda later declared Henry an antecessor of the Nazi'sLebensraum policy[14] and turned Brunswick Cathedral and Henry's tomb into a "National Place of Consecration".[15]
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Shortly after his death, Henry the Lion became the subject of afolktale, the so-calledHeinrichssage.[16] The tale was later also turned into theoperaEnrico Leone by Italian composerAgostino Steffani.[17] TheHeinrichssage details a fictional account of Henry'spilgrimage to theHoly Land. A popular part of the tale deals with theBrunswick Lion. According to legend, Henry witnessed a fight between a lion and adragon while on pilgrimage. He joins the lion in its fight and they slay the dragon. The faithful lion then accompanies Henry on his return home. After its master's death, the lion refuses all food and dies of grief on Henry's grave. The people of Brunswick then erect a statue in the lion's honour.[18][19][20] The legend of Henry the Lion also inspired the Czech tale of the knightBruncvík, which is depicted on acolumn onCharles Bridge inPrague.
The bookThe Pope's Rhinoceros (1996) byLawrence Norfolk opens with an allegory of a planned ransack by Henry's army of the monastery atUsedom where purportedly a treasure was kept. However, the night before the attack the poorly maintained monastery and its treasures crumble into the sea as the result of a storm, and henceforth constituting a loss to the military expedition.
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Henry the Lion Born: 1129/1131 Died: 1195 | ||
| Regnal titles | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Duke of Saxony 1142–1180 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Duke of Bavaria 1156–1180 | Succeeded by |
