The next year Pope Sylvester II. died, and Rome fell into the hands of the Counts of Tusculum, who tried to make the Papacy a hereditary dignity in their family. One of them, a boy of seventeen, became Pope as John XVI., and during the following thirty years four other boys held the office of Head of the Christian Church, crowned Emperors, and blessed or excommunicated at their will. This was the end of the grand political and spiritual Empire which Charlemagne had planned, two centuries before--a fantastic, visionary youth as Emperor, and a weak, ignorant boy as Pope! The effect was the rapid demoralization of princes and people, and nothing but the genuine Christianity still existing among the latter, from whom the ranks of the priests were recruited, saved the greater part of Europe from a relapse into barbarism. [Sidenote: 1002. HENRY II. ELECTED.] At Otto III.'s death there were three claimants to the throne, belonging to the Saxon dynasty; but his nearest relative, Henry, third Duke of Bavaria, and great-grandson of king Henry I. the Fowler, was finally elected. Suabia, Saxony and Lorraine did not immediately acquiesce in the choice, but they soon found it expedient to submit. Henry's authority was thus established within Germany, but on its frontiers and in Italy, which was now considered a genuine part of "the Roman Empire," the usual troubles awaited him. He was a man of weak constitution, and only average intellect, but well-meaning, conscientious, and probably as just as it was possible for him to be under the circumstances. His life, as Emperor, was "a battle and a march," but its heaviest burdens were inherited from his predecessors. He was obliged to correct twenty years of misrule, or rather _no rule_, and he courageously gave the remainder of his life to the task. The Polish Duke, Boleslaw, sought to unite Bohemia and all the Slavonic territory eastward of the Elbe, under his own sway. This brought him into direct collision with the claims of Germany, and the question was not settled until after three long and bloody wars. Finally, in 1018, a treaty was made between Henry II. and Boleslaw, by which Bohemia remained tributary to the German Empire, and the province of Meissen (in the present kingdom of Saxony) became an appanage of Poland. By this time the Wends had secured possession of Northern Prussia, between the Elbe and the Oder, thrown off the German rule, and returned to their ancient pagan faith.