The nobles, or large land-owners, for their common defence against the exercise of the Imperial power, united under the rule of Counts or Dukes, by whom the former division of the population into separate tribes or nations was continued. The Emperors, also, found this division convenient, but they always claimed the right to set aside the smaller rulers, or to change the boundaries of their states for reasons of policy. Charles the Silly, of the Carolingian line, reigned in France in 911, and was therefore, according to the family compact, the heir to Ludwig the Child. Moreover, the Pope, Stephen IV., had threatened with the curse of the Church all those who should give allegiance to an Emperor who was not of Carolingian blood. Nevertheless, the German princes and nobles were now independent enough to defy both tradition and Papal authority. They held a Diet at Forchheim, and decided to elect their own king. They would have chosen Otto, Duke of the Saxons,--a man of great valor, prudence and nobility of character--but he felt himself to be too old for the duties of the royal office, and he asked the Diet to confer it on Konrad, Duke of the Franks. The latter was then almost unanimously chosen, and immediately crowned by Archbishop Hatto of Mayence. Konrad was a brave, gay, generous monarch, who soon rose into high favor with the people. His difficulty lay in the jealousy of other princes, who tried to strengthen themselves by restricting his authority. He first lost the greater part of Lorraine, and then, on attempting to divide Thuringia and Saxony, which were united under Henry, the son of Duke Otto, his army was literally cut to pieces. A Saxon song of victory, written at the time, says, "The lower world was too small to receive the throngs of the enemies slain." [Sidenote: 917.] Arnulf of Bavaria and the Counts Berthold and Erchanger of Suabia defeated the Hungarians in a great battle near the river Inn, in 913, and felt themselves strong enough to defy Konrad. He succeeded in defeating and deposing them; but Arnulf fled to the Hungarians and incited them to a new invasion of Germany. They came in two bodies, one of which marched through Bavaria and Suabia to the Rhine, the other through Thuringia and Saxony to Bremen, plundering, burning and slaying on their way. The condition of the Empire became so desperate that Konrad appealed for assistance to the Pope, who ordered an Episcopal Synod to be held in 917, but not much was done by the Bishops except to insist upon the payment of tithes to the Church. Then Konrad, wounded in repelling a new invasion of the Hungarians, looked forward to death as a release from his trouble. Feeling his end approaching, he summoned his brother Eberhard, gave him the royal crown and sceptre, and bade him carry them to Duke Henry of Saxony, the enemy of his throne, declaring that the latter was the only man with power and intelligence enough to rule Germany.