(2) Holy Roman Empire / Germany: Military History and Notable Events (from 962 to 1806)

939 - Battle of Andernach (All Facts)

• Battle in which Otto the Great defeated Eberhard of Franconia and other rebellious dukes who rebelled against him

  • The rebellion began when the dukes resented Otto the Great’s ambitions to rule not just Saxony but all of Germany

  • Otto the Great’s approach upset Bavarians, Franconians, and even Saxons

  • Otto' the Great’s own brother Henry even joined in the rebellion against him

  • However, all these rivals and opposing forces were crushed

  • Otto did this to gather and unite the Saxons (Saxony), Franconians (Francia), and Bavarians (Bavaria) into one German Kingdom

955 - Battle of Lechfeld (All Facts)

• Battle in which Otto the Great and his German forces decisively defeated the Magyars and consolidated his nobles as a result

• Battle in which 50K Magyar troops besieged the city of Augsburg in Bavaria, but its bishop had held them off until Otto the Great arrived with only 10K German troops

• Battle in which Otto the Great’s mail-clad cavalry inflicted heavy losses on the lightly-protected Magyar army, which fled in disarray as its survivors limped back to their homeland

982 - Battle of Stilo (All Facts)

• Battle in which Otto II and the Germans and Holy Roman Empire were defeated by the Fatimid Caliphate, who had called a Holy War against the Germans to provoke the conflict

1003 - 1018 - German-Polish Wars (All Facts)

• Series of conflicts fought between Boleslaw and his namesake forces and kingdom and Henry II and his forces of the Holy Roman Empire

• Series of conflicts which ended with the Peace of Bautzen

1018 - Peace of Bautzen (All Facts)

• Treaty signed between Boleslaw of Poland and Henry II of Germany / the Holy Roman Empire which ended the German-Polish Wars of 1003

• Treaty in which Boleslaw of Poland consolidated his territorial gains from the War

1076 - 1122 - Investiture Controversy (All Facts)

• Conflict between the Church and the Holy Roman Empire over the ability to choose and install bishops, abbots of monasteries, and the Pope himself

  • Involved disputes between the Popes (religious leaders) and Holy Roman Emperors (secular leaders) and whether religious or secular leaders could appoint bishops and other ecclesiastical positions with the symbols of office

• A series of popes, beginning with Pope Gregory VII, sought to curb the power an authority of the Holy Roman Emperors, beginning with Henry IV, from being able to appoint bishops, abbots, and the Pope

• Conflict which began with the power struggle between Pope Gregory VII and Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV

• Conflict which ended with the Concordant of Worms, where the Church essentially achieved autonomy from secular authorities and was allowed to appoint bishops and other ecclesiastical positions with symbols of office

1083 - Siege of Rome (All Facts)

• Battle in which Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV conquered a part of the namesake city

1084 - Sack of Rome (All Facts)

• Event in which Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV came to the namesake city and besieged and conquered a part of it as part of a continued power struggle and waged attack on Pope Gregory VII after he had dealt with his rivals in Germany

  • However, Pope Gregory VII held out in the Castel Sant’Angelo until he was rescued by Robert Guiscard and the Normans

  • When he realized he was outnumbered by the Norman invaders, he fled from the namesake city and took his antipope Clement III, which he had initially installed there, with him

• Event which saw a pall of smoke cover the namesake city as thousands of bodies lie putrefied in the streets

1159 - 1160 - Siege of Crema (All Facts)

• Battle in which Frederick Barbarossa and the Holy Roman Empire attacked the namesake city, in which Barbarossa ordered

  • Prisoners, including children, to be tired to huge siege machines and hurled at the walls of the namesake city

  • The mass hanging of prisoners, only to see his own soldiers swinging from gallows

  • Child hostages to be brought to the front line

• Battle which ended the namesake city’s status as one of the many powerful independent Italian city-states at the time

  • When the namesake city opened its gates, its inhabitants watched as their city was razed to the ground

• Battle in which the namesake city’s inhabitants, shocked by the sight of the heads of decapitated prisoners being thrown around by Barbarossa’s troops, fiercely retaliated by tearing their prisoners literally limb from limb on the city walls

1167 - Battle of Tusculum (All Facts)

• Battle in which Frederick Barbarossa and his Holy Roman forces defeated the Romans and papal forces and captured the Vatican

• Battle in which 10K knights and mercenaries set out in two columns to fiercely defeat the Romans and papal forces

• Battle after which antipope Paschal III was enthroned

• However, the Holy Roman army was soon decimated by malaria and 2,000 of Frederick Barbarossa’s knights were believed to have died as a result

• Battle after which Barbarossa submitted to Pope Alexander III and papal authority and kissed his feet in symbolism of his acceptance of that papal authority as thousands watched him do so in St. Mark’s Square

1176 - Battle of Legnano (All Facts)

• Battle in which Frederick Barbarossa and his forces were defeated by the Lombard League over control of Lombardy in modern-day Italy

• Battle whose terms of peace was completed between Frederick Barbarossa and Pope Alexander III at Agnani

• Battle after which Frederick Barbarossa acknowledged Pope Alexander III as the one and only true pontiff

  • Barbarossa finally succumbed to papal authority and accepted Pope Alexander III after he had kissed the feet of the pope as thousands watched him do so in St. Mark’s square

1183 - Peace of Constance (All Facts)

• Peace treaty which ended conflict between Frederick Barbarossa and the Holy Roman Empire and the Lombard League

1189 - 1192 - Third Crusade (All Facts)

• Crusade organized by Frederick Barbarossa of the Holy Roman after it was declared by Pope Gregory VIII

• Crusade whose troops were assembled by Frederick Barbarossa of the Holy Roman Empire along with Philip Augustus of France and Henry II of England

• Crusade in which Frederick Barbarossa and his Holy Roman forces left the Dardanelles straits only to be constantly harried by Turkish tribesmen and whom suffered badly from hunger and intense heat

• Crusade in which Frederick Barbarossa of the Holy Roman Empire died, and upon his death, his forces, demoralized, turned back

• Crusade which thus failed

1217 - 1221 - The Fifth Crusade (All Facts)

• Crusade called by Pope Innocent III

• Crusade in which Al-Kamil offered to surrender Palestine to the Crusaders if they gave them back control of the Port of Damietta in Egypt

  • Crusade in which the Crusaders were trapped in the marshes of the Nile River Delta and were forced to buy retreat by conceding the Port of Damietta

1229 - Treaty of Jaffa (All Facts)

• Treaty signed between Frederick II of the Holy Roman Empire and Al-Kamil of the Ayyubid Sultanate which ended the Sixth Crusade

• Treaty in which Frederick II of the Holy Roman Empire forced Al-Kamil of the Ayyubid Sultanate to concede Bethlehem, Nazareth, and a corridor of Jerusalem to the Crusaders / Holy Roman Empire; effectively making Jerusalem and nearby territories under the control of Frederick II and the Holy Roman Empire

1246 - Battle of Nidda (All Facts)

• Battle in which Henry Raspe and his forces with the help of Pope Innocent IV and his forces defeated Conrad IV, the rightful heir to the throne and son of Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II

1298 - Battle of Gollheim (All Facts)

• Battle in which Albert of Habsburg and his forces defeated Adolf of Nassau and his forces, thus allowing Albert of Habsburg to succeed Adolf of Nassau as King of Germany

1349 - Erfurt Massacre (All Facts)

• Large-scale massacre of Jews encouraged by and associated with the activities of the Flagellants / Flagellant Brethren

  • Many Jewish survivors of the massacre fled to Poland

1356 - Diet of Nuremberg (All Facts)

• Diet under which the Golden Bull of Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV was issued

1370 - Treaty of Stralsund (All Facts)

• Peace Treaty between the Hanseatic League and the Kingdom of Denmark which ended the Danish-Hanseatic War

• Peace Treaty between the Hanseatic League and the Kingdom of Denmark which gave the Hanseatic League of German towns trading privileges with and in the Kingdom of Denmark

1474 - Treaty of Utrecht (All Facts)

• Treaty which gave the Hanseatic League generous trading privileges within England