born c. 876 died July 2, 936, Memleben, Saxony [now in Germany]
German king and founder of the Saxon dynasty (918–1024) who strengthened the East Frankish, or German, army, encouraged the growth of towns, brought Lotharingia (Lorraine) back under German control (925), and secured German borders against pagan incursions.
The son of Otto the Illustrious, the Liudolfing duke of Saxony, Henry became duke at his father’s death (912). His first marriage, to Hatheburg, daughter of Erwin, count of Merseburg, was declared invalid because she had become a nun after her first husband’s death. He married Matilda, daughter of Dietrich, count of Westphalia, in 909; their eldest son would rule as the Holy Roman emperor Otto I the Great (936–973).
Although at war (912–915) with Conrad I of Franconia (German king, 903–918) over title to lands in Thuringia, Henry received Conrad’s deathbed designation as heir to the throne. He was elected king of Germany (May 919) by nobles of Saxony and Franconia, two of the four most influential duchies; the other two important duchies, Swabia and Bavaria, did not recognize him as king.
Henry considered Germany a confederation of duchies rather than a nation. Having complete authority in Saxony and nominal sovereignty in Franconia, he sought to bring the duchies of Swabia and Bavaria into the confederation. After forcing the submission of Burchard, duke of Swabia (919), he allowed the duke to retain control over the civil administration of the duchy. On the basis of an election by Bavarian and East Frankish nobles (919), Arnulf, duke of Bavaria, also claimed the German throne. In 921, after two military campaigns, the king forced Arnulf to submit and relinquish his claim to the throne, though the duke retained complete internal control of Bavaria.
Henry defeated Giselbert, king of Lotharingia, in 925, and that region, which had become independent of Germany in 910, was brought back under German control. Giselbert, who was recognized as duke of Lotharingia, married the king’s daughter Gerberga in 928.
When the Magyars, barbarian warriors from Hungary, invaded Germany in 924, Henry agreed to pay tribute to them and return a captured Magyar chief in exchange for a nine-year (924–933) cession of raids on German territory. During these years the king built fortified towns and trained the cavalry force he used to defeat various Slavic tribes; he conquered the Havelli at Brandenburg and the Daleminzi at Meissen in 928 and suppressed a rebellion in Bohemia in 929. The king refused to pay more tribute when the nine-year truce ended in 933. He used his seasoned cavalry to destroy the Magyars, who had resumed their raids, at Riade on March 15, 933, and ended their threat to the German countryside. The king’s last campaign, an invasion of Denmark (934), added the territory of Schleswig to the German state.
The story that Henry received the surname Fowler because he was laying bird snares when informed of his election as king is probably a myth.
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Chartered in 1185 by Henry I, duke of Brabant, who had a hunting lodge nearby (hence the name, meaning “the duke’s wood”), it was an important medieval wool centre and became a bishopric in 1559. The town saw many sieges owing to its strategic position on the Catholic-Protestant line of division; it was unsuccessfully assaulted by Maurice of Nassau (1601, 1603) during the Dutch...
...of Henry VI (1197) found the two powerful factions—the Ghibellines and Guelfs—on opposite sides; in the Low Countries, a game of political chance developed, in which the duke of Brabant (Henry I) played an important role, alternately supporting both parties. The French king, Philip Augustus, and his opponent, King John of England, both interfered in the conflict, which polarized into...
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...of Thuringia. Upon the death in 1247 of the last landgrave of Thuringia, Henry Raspe, Hesse was acquired by his niece, Sophia, the wife of Henry II of Brabant. Sophia gave the territory to her son, Henry I the Child (died 1308). He founded the Brabant dynasty of Hesse and was raised to the rank of a prince of the Holy Roman Empire in 1292.
youngest and ablest of William I the Conqueror’s sons, who as king of England (1100–35) strengthened the crown’s executive powers and, like his father, also ruled Normandy (from 1106).
Henry was crowned at Westminster on Aug. 5, 1100, three days after his brother, King William II, William the Conqueror’s second son, had been killed in a hunting accident. Duke Robert Curthose, the eldest of the three brothers, who by Norman custom had succeeded to his father’s inheritance in Normandy, was returning from the First Crusade and could not assert his own claim to the English throne until the following year. The succession was precarious, however, because a number of wealthy Anglo-Norman barons supported Duke Robert, and Henry moved quickly to gain all the backing he could. He issued an ingenious Charter of Liberties, which purported to end capricious taxes, confiscations of church revenues, and other abuses of his predecessor. By his marriage with Matilda, a Scottish princess of the old Anglo-Saxon royal line, he established the foundations for peaceable relations with the Scots and support from the English. And he recalled St. Anselm, the scholarly archbishop of Canterbury whom his brother, William II, had banished.
When Robert Curthose finally invaded England in 1101, several of the greatest barons defected to him. But Henry, supported by a number of his barons, most of the Anglo-Saxons, and St. Anselm, worked out an amicable settlement with the invaders. Robert relinquished his claim to England, receiving in return...
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Albert’s oldest son was killed in a duel. His second son, Henry I (1572–1622), succeeded his uncle Pierre as bishop of Paris. His third son, Philippe-Emmanuel (b. 1581, Limoges—d. June 29, 1662, Joigny), Marquis de Belle-Isle, Count de Joigny, and Baron de Montmirail, was an outstanding military commander. After his great success in the naval battle of La Rochelle (Oct. 26, 1622),...
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...IV (the Great; Theobald II of Champagne, 1125–52), who was a formidable rival of Kings Louis VI and Louis VII. The main lands were divided under his sons Theobald V (1152–91) and Henry (1152–81), themselves prestigious lords; and the Champagne of Henry the Liberal was among the richest, best organized, and most cultured French lands of its day.
