[Sidenote: Lothair and the Normans of Sicily, 1136–7.]
Innocent had still much trouble with the Antipope, and his chief supporter, Roger of Sicily. He soon withdrew from Rome to Pisa, where, in 1134, he held a synod, which Bernard left Clairvaux to attend. But not even the animating presence of the saint could make Anacletus and Roger submit. Innocent was forced to continue at Pisa until, in 1136, Lothair crossed the Alps a second time to help him. On this occasion the Emperor came with an army, and St. Bernard’s fervid denunciations of the Norman tyrant, who alone upheld to any purpose the schismatic cause, gave the expedition the character of a crusade. Lothair performed exploits, said Otto of Freising, in Calabria and Apulia such as no Frankish king had done since the days of Charles the Great. He captured some of the chief Norman towns, such as Bari and Salerno, while the fleets of Pisa made precarious the communication between Calabria and Sicily. Roger, after striving in vain to bribe the Emperor into retreat, did not scruple to arm his Saracens against the two lords of the Christian world. He retreated into the mountains of Calabria, while the Pope and Emperor united in deposing him and conferring Apulia on Reginald, a prominent Norman baron of that region. But at the moment of victory Innocent and Lothair quarrelled. Both claimed to be the suzerains of Apulia, and both claimed the sole right of investing the new duke with his office. After a hot dispute, they agreed to hand over jointly to Reginald the banner, which was the symbol of his dignity; but before long Lothair hurried home, disgusted with his Papal ally, and leaving Anacletus again in possession of Rome. The fatigues of war and travel told upon him, and he died at a Tyrolese village on 4th December 1137, saved only by death from entering upon the footsteps of the Salian enemies of the Church.
[Sidenote: Election of Conrad III., 1138.]
Henry the Proud, Duke of Bavaria, aspired to succeed his father-in-law, having, besides large hereditary possessions, the duchies of Bavaria and Saxony, while his enjoyment of the heritage of Matilda gave him an equally important position in northern Italy and Tuscany. He boasted that his authority stretched from the North Sea to the Mediterranean. But the arrogance which gave him his nickname deprived him of personal popularity, and his extraordinary resources made his accession disliked by all who feared a strong monarchy, while the Church party, that had procured the election of Lothair, was now alienated from him. The result of all this was that the same circumstances that had led to Lothair’s being made king in 1125, resulted, in 1138, in the rejection of his son-in-law. Adalbero, Archbishop of Trier, a creature of Innocent II., played, in the vacancy of both Mainz and Cologne, the part which Adalbert of Mainz had so cleverly filled on the previous occasion. He summoned the electoral diet to meet in his own town of Coblenz. Though Saxony and Bavaria sent no representatives, the magnates of Swabia and Franconia gathered together at the appointed spot. Frederick, Duke of Swabia, was no longer a candidate, but, on 7th March, his younger brother, Conrad, the old enemy of Lothair, was chosen king.