Salian dynasty
The Salian dynasty or Salic dynasty was a dynasty in the High Middle Ages. The dynasty provided four kings of Germany, all of whom went on to be crowned Holy Roman emperors.
After the death of the last Ottonian emperor in 1024, the Kingdom of Germany and later the entire Holy Roman Empire passed to Conrad II, a Salian. He was followed by three more Salian rulers: Henry III, Henry IV, and Henry V. They established their monarchy as a major European power. The Salian dynasty developed a permanent administrative system based on a class of public officials answerable to the crown.
Origins and name
Modern historians suppose that the Salians descended from the Widonids, a prominent noble kindred emerging in the 7th century. Their estates were located at the confluence of rivers Moselle and Saar and they supported the Carolingians. The Widonids' eastward expansion towards the river Rhine started after they founded Hornbach Abbey in the Bliesgau around 750. Hornbach remained their proprietary monastery and royal grants to the abbey established their presence in the Wormsgau. As time passed, several branches split off the Widonids. The late 9th-century Holy Roman Emperor Guy of Spoleto descended from one of these branches, the Lambertines. The Salians' forefathers remained in Rhenish Franconia.Wipo of Burgundy, the biographer of the first Salian monarch, Emperor Conrad II, described Conrad's father and uncle as "distinguished noble lords from Rhenish Franconia" around 1044, but without calling them Salians. Wipo added that Conrad's mother, Adelaide of Metz, was "supposedly descended from the ancient royal house of Troy". The statement made a connection between Conrad and the royal Merovingians who had claimed a Trojan ancestry for themselves.
Historian Stefan Weinfurter proposes that the putative relationship between the Salians and the Merovingians gave rise to the family name, because the Salian Franks had been the most renowned Frankish group. Their memory was preserved through a Frankish law code, known as the Salic law. Peter H. Wilson states the Salians received their name due to their origins amongst the Franks living along the Rhine in western Franconia, a region "distinguished through its use of Salic law". A less likely etymology links the appellation to the old German word sal, proposing that the name can be traced to the Salian monarchs' well-documented inclination towards hierarchical structures.
The term reges salici was most probably coined early in the 12th century. A list of monarchs and archbishops from Mainz, which was completed around 1139–40, is the first extant document to contain it. Bishop Otto of Freising, a maternal descendant of the Salian monarchs, also used the term in his Chronicle or History of the Two Cities in the middle of the 12th century. In a narrow sense, only the four German monarchs who ruled from 1024 to 1125 could be called Salians, but the same appellation has already been expanded to their ancestors by modern historians. An earlier name of the family, appearing in 982, was the Wormsers, due to their main holdings being in the Diocese of Worms.
All male members of the family who were destined to a secular career were named Conrad or Henry. Emperor Conrad II's grandfather, Otto of Worms, established this tradition in the late 10th century. He named his eldest son, Henry of Worms, after his maternal great-grandfather, King Henry the Fowler; and he gave the name of his father, Conrad the Red, to one of his younger sons, Conrad of Carinthia. Conrad the Red was most probably named for King Conrad I of Germany.
Early Salians
Werner
, who held estates in the Nahegau, Speyergau and Wormsgau early in the 10th century, is the Salian monarchs' first certainly identified ancestor. His family links to the Widonids cannot be securely established, but his patrimonial lands and his close relationship with the Hornbach Abbey provide indirect evidence of his Widonid ancestry. He married a kinswoman, most probably a sister, of King Conrad I of Germany. This marriage alliance with the Conradines introduced Conrad as a leading name in his family.Conrad the Red
Werner's son, Conrad the Red, inherited his father Franconian estates. His family links with the Conradines facilitated his acquisition of large portions of their domains after King Otto I of Germany crushed their revolt in 939. The Conradines lost their preeminent position in Franconia and Conrad the Red emerged as Otto I's principal supporter in the region. He was awarded with the Duchy of Lotharingia in 944 or 945 and he married the King's daughter, Luidgard, in 947.The marriage forged a link between the royal Ottonian dynasty and the Salians. He lost Lotharingia after he joined a revolt against his father-in-law in 953 or 954. He died fighting against the invading Magyars in the Battle of Lechfeld in 955. The contemporaneous Widukind of Corvey praised him for his bravery. He was buried in the Worms Cathedral, although mainly bishops and kings had so far been buried in cathedrals.
Otto of Worms
Conrad the Red's son, Otto of Worms, found favour with his maternal grandfather, King Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor from 962. Still a minor, Otto of Worms was mentioned as a count in the Nahegau in 956. He also seized Wormsgau, Speyergau, Niddagau, Elsenzgau, Kraichgau and Pfinzgau, thus uniting almost all lands between the rivers Rhine and Neckar by the time Otto I died in 973. The parentage of his wife, Judith, is uncertain: she may have been related either to Arnulf, Duke of Bavaria, to Count Henry of Arlon, or to Burchard, Margrave in the Eastern Marches.Otto I's son and successor, Emperor Otto II, was worried about the concentration of lands in his nephew's hands in Franconia. The Emperor appointed Otto of Worms to administer the faraway Duchy of Carinthia and March of Verona in 978. The Emperor persuaded Otto to cede his right to administer justice in Worms, and also parts of his revenues in the town, to the local bishop. Otto was persuaded to renounce Carinthia and Verona, but he was lavishly compensated with a large forest in Wasgau, the royal palace at Kaiserslautern and the proprietary rights over Weissenburg Abbey.
He could also preserve the title of duke, thus becoming the first duke to bear the title without ruling a duchy in Germany. Otto was the cousin of Otto III, Holy Roman Emperor, thus he had a strong claim to the throne after the Emperor's death, but he concluded an agreement with the Ottonian candidate, Henry of Bavaria in 1002. Henry restored Carinthia to Otto in 1002 and he ruled the duchy until his death in 1004.
Dukes and bishops
Henry of Worms
Henry was Otto of Worms's eldest son. His wife, Adelaide, was born into a prominent Lotharingian family, being the daughter of Richard, Count of Metz. Their son, Conrad, would be the first Salian monarch, but Henry could not transfer his seniority rights to his son, because he predeceased his father most probably in 990 or 991.Conrad of Carinthia
After Henry of Worms' premature death, his seniority rights shifted to his younger brother, Conrad, enabling him to inherit the major part of the patrimonial lands from his father. Conrad married Matilda, a daughter of Herman II, Duke of Swabia, most probably in 1002. Two years later, he succeeded his father as Duke of Carinthia—the duchy passed from father to son for the first time on this occasion. His rule in Carinthia is poorly documented and he died in 1011.Pope Gregory V
Bruno—the future Pope Gregory V—was a younger son of Otto of Worms. His father's cousin, Otto III, placed him on the papal throne in 996, ignoring the provisions of his own Diploma Ottonianum on papal elections. Bruno, who was the first German pope, assumed his papal name in memory of Pope Gregory the Great. He crowned Otto III emperor on the Feast of the Ascension in the same year. The Roman aristocrat Crescentius the Younger expelled him from Rome, but the Emperor crushed the revolt and restored the papal throne to Gregory V. The Pope died at the age of twenty-six or twenty-seven in 999.William of Strasbourg
William was Otto of Worms' youngest son. After serving in the royal court as archchaplain to Queen Gisella, William was made bishop of Strasbourg in 1028 or 1029. The see of Strasbourg was one of the wealthiest German bishoprics. His tenure was almost uneventful and he died in 1046 or 1047.Conrad the Younger
Conrad, the elder son of Duke Conrad I of Carinthia and Matilda of Swabia, was born between 1002 and 1005. He was underage when his father died in 1011. He inherited his father's patrimonial lands, but Emperor Henry II made Adalbero of Eppelstein the new duke of Carinthia. After Emperor Henry II died in 1024, both Conrad and his cousin, Conrad the Elder, laid claim to the throne and Conrad the Elder was elected the new monarch.Imperial Salians
Conrad II
Conrad the Elder was the sole son of Henry of Worms. After his father's premature death, he was placed under the guardianship of Bishop Burchard of Worms. He married Gisela of Swabia in 1016. Both her father Herman II, Duke of Swabia and her mother Gerberga of Burgundy descended from Charlemagne. She was twice widowed. Gisela's first husband Brun I, Count of Brunswick had been a candidate to the imperial throne along with her father and the winning Henry II. Her second husband Ernest succeeded her childless brother Herman III as duke of Swabia.Conrad the Elder was elected king of Germany against his cousin Conrad the Younger on 4 September 1024. Four days later, he was crowned in the Mainz Cathedral by Archbishop Aribo. On learning of Henry II the citizens of the Italian city Pavia demolished the local royal palace claiming that during the interregnum no king could own the palace. In his response to the rebels, Conrad emphasized that "Even if the king died, the kingdom remaind, just as the ship whose steersman falls remains". A group of Lombard aristocrats offered the throne first to Robert II of France or his eldest son, Hugh Magnus, then to William V, Duke of Aquitaine, but the Lombard bishops and most aristocrats supported Conrad's claim to rule.
After crushing a revolt by his stepson Ernest II, Duke of Swabia and Conrad the Younger in Germany, Conrad marched to Italy. He was crowned king of the Lombards in Milan by Archbishop Aribert probably on 25th March 1026. Resistance against his rule was quickly crushed. He reached Rome where he was crowned Holy Roman Emperor by Pope John XIX on 26th March 1027.