Germany (Lonely Planet, 6th Edition) - Andrea Schulte-Peevers [11]
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Hildesheim was a centre of power in the Ottonian period (900–1050). Bishop Bernward raised young Otto III (r 983–1002) and graced the town with treasures to befit a new Rome, such as his famous Bernwardstüren in the Hildesheimer Dom.
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A power struggle between pope and Kaiser, who also had to contend with the local princes or clergy-cum-princes, was behind many of the upheavals in the early Middle Ages. In the Investiture Conflict under the reign of the Salian Heinrich IV (r 1056–1106), the pope cracked down on the practice of simony (selling religious pardons and relics). Heinrich, excommunicated and contrite, stood barefoot in the snow for three days in Canossa in Italy begging forgiveness. He was absolved, but the Reich was convulsed by a 20-year civil war on the issue, which was finally resolved in a treaty signed in the Rhineland-Palatinate town of Worms in 1122. The graves of Heinrich and other Salian monarchs can today be found in the spectacular cathedral in nearby Speyer.
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The use of the title Kaiser was a direct legacy of Roman times (the German word Kaiser meaning ‘emperor’ is derived from ‘Caesar’).
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Under Friedrich I Barbarossa (r 1152–90), Aachen assumed the role of Reich capital and was granted its rights of liberty in 1165, the year Charlemagne was canonised. Meanwhile, Heinrich der Löwe (Henry the Lion), a Welf with an eye for Saxony and Bavaria, extended influence eastwards in campaigns to Germanise and convert the Slavs who populated much of today’s eastern Germany. A Slavic minority, the Sorbs, can still be found in the Spreewald region of eastern Germany today. Heinrich, who was very well connected – his second, English wife Mathilde was Richard the Lionheart’s sister – founded not only Braunschweig (p635; where his grave is today), but Munich, Lübeck and Lüneburg, too. At the height of his reign, his domain stretched from the north and Baltic coasts to the Alps, and from Westphalia to Pomerania (in Poland).
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ROMAN LEGIONS
For many years, Mount Grotenburg near Detmold in North Rhine–Westphalia was thought to be the scene of the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest, but no one can really say for sure where it happened. The most likely candidate is Kalkriese, north of Osnabrück in Lower Saxony, where in the 1990s archaeologists found face helmets, breast shields, bone deposits and other grisly battle remains. Today the site is a museum and park (www.kalkriese-varusschlacht.de).
In AD 1 the Romans started building what is today central Europe’s largest archaeological site – a wall running 568km from Koblenz on the Rhine to Regensburg on the Danube. Some 900 watchtowers and 60 forts studded this frontier line, dubbed Der Limes (The Limes). The 800km-long Deutsche Limes-Strasse (German Limes Road) cycling route runs between Regensburg in the south and Bad Hönningen in the north (near Koblenz), largely tracing the tower- and fortress-studded fortification. See www.limesstrasse.de for more about the Limes and routes along the wall. Another 280km-long cycling route links Detmold with Xanten (where there’s an archaeological park), taking cyclists past various Roman remains and monuments.
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The Reich gained territory to the east and in Italy, but soon fell apart because of early deaths, squabbling between Welf and Hohenstaufen pretenders to the throne and the election of a king and pope-backed anti-king. At this time kings were being elected by Kurfürsten (prince-electors) but crowned Kaiser by the pope – a system that made an unwilling lackey out of a Kaiser. In 1245 the Reich plunged into an era called the Great Interregnum, or the Terrible Time, when Pope Innocent IV annulled his own Kaiser, the Reich was flush with kings, and central authority collapsed into a political heap.
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Heinrich IV’s Gang nach Canossa is now a German expression to describe doing penance – ‘to go to Canossa’.
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Although the central