HENRY

HENRY, surnamed THE LION (1129-1195), Duke of Saxony and Bavaria, was the son of Henry the Proud, and the head of the Guelphs. After Bavaria, which had been taken from his father, was restored to him (1154) by the Emperor Frederick I., he became the most powerful noble in Germany, his possessions extending from the North Sea and the Baltic to the shores of the Adriatic. His great power and his ambitious designs roused against him a league of princes, ecclesiastical and temporal, in 1166; but Henry, with the emperor's countenance, was able to make head successfully against his enemies. Frederick I. at length grew alarmed, deprived Henry of his dominions and placed him under the ban of the empire in 1180. Nor was he fully reconciled to Frederick's successor, Henry VI., until about three years before his own death. Henry the Lion pursued an enlightened policy in ruling his dominions, in that he encouraged agriculture and trade; he fostered the commerce of Hamburg and Lübeck, and was the founder of Munich.