HENRY III.

HENRY III., emperor of Germany, only son of the Emperor Conrad II., was born on 28th October 1017, elected king of the Germans in 1026, Duke of Bavaria in 1027, Duke of Swabia in 1038, and succeeded his father as emperor in 1039. A man of stern though pious disposition, he resolutely maintained the imperial prerogatives of power, and encouraged the efforts of the Cluniac monks to reform the ecclesiastical system of Europe. Having summoned a council at Sutri in 1046, he put an end to the scandalous intrigues of the rival popes, Benedict IX., Sylvester III., and Gregory IV., by deposing all three and securing the election of Clement II. in their stead. In 1042 he compelled the Duke of Bohemia to acknowledge himself a vassal of the empire. The outcome of repeated campaigns in Hungary was the establishment of the supremacy of the empire over that kingdom in 1044. Henry also stretched his authority over the Norman conquerors of Apulia and Calabria. He died suddenly at Bodfeld, in the Harz country, on 5th October 1056. He was a zealous promoter of learning and the arts, especially music. He founded numerous monastic schools, over which he placed learned monks of Brittany, and built several churches, including the cathedrals of Worms, Mainz, and Spire, in the last of which he was buried. See Steindorff, Jahrbücher des Deutschen Reichs unter Heinrich III. (1874-81).