[Sidenote: The Saxon Duchy and Lothair of Supplinburg.]
Saxony was still almost as vividly contrasted to the rest of Germany as in the days when it gave Henry the Fowler and Otto the Great to save the kingdom, that the last degenerate Frankish rulers had brought to the verge of ruin. Despite many defeats and constant attacks, it was as free, restless, strong and warlike as ever. In the later years of Henry V.’s reign a new and vigorous duke had restored and reorganised its fighting power. Lothair of Supplinburg was the son of that Count Gerhard who had fallen in battle against Henry IV. on the banks of the Unstrut. By his marriage with Richenza, niece of Egbert of Meissen, and granddaughter of Otto of Nordheim, he had acquired the Saxon duchy, which under his hands had lost nothing of its ancient character. While the Dukes of Swabia had yielded the jurisdiction of the south to the Dukes of Zähringen, while Franconia was hopelessly split between rival houses, Lorraine divided between upper and lower Lorraine, and the Margraves of the East Mark, who had already the power and were soon to have the title of Dukes of Austria, had cut deep into the integrity of the Bavarian duchy, while in all the duchies alike a swarm of counts and barons had absorbed most of the effective attributes of sovereignty, Saxony alone maintained its unity and independence. Whatever the encroachments of the feudal principle, the Saxon duke still headed and represented a nation proudly conscious of its greatness and fiercely resentful of all southern influence. Lothair had grown old in long and doubtful struggles against Henry V., and the Emperor had never ventured to deprive his unruly subject of his duchy. The Duke had found his position much strengthened, since the setting-up of a Danish archbishopric at Lund in 1104 had barred the prospects of the Archbishop of Bremen obtaining that northern patriarchate that Adalbert had of old desired, and had in consequence destroyed the importance of the chief ecclesiastical makeweight to his authority. He was no servile friend of the hierarchy, but, after the Saxon fashion, he wished well to the Church, as the best check upon the power of the imperialistic south. Long experience had made him cautious, moderate, and politic. He was the strongest noble in Germany.