This great Hohenstaufen threw his lion-like weight into the controversy concerning Papal and Imperial supremacy. He spurned the pretensions of the Pope and his encroachments upon secular authority. He claimed that his office was from God--not from the Pope; and that it was not a whit less sacred than his rival's. To which the Pope replied: "Who was the Frank before Pope Zacharias befriended Pepin? and what is the Teutonic King now, till consecrated by papal hands? What he gives, can he not withdraw?" But the Imperial power never reached such height as under this imperious, commanding Teuton; who exists now as a half-mythic hero, honored in picture, statue, song, and legend throughout Germany. His reign was a splendid fight against the two antagonists which were finally to be fatal to the Empire--Italian nationality and the Papacy. The knighthood established by his Saxon predecessor, in 930, had during the Crusades expanded into great orders of chivalry throughout Europe. Frederick Barbarossa fostered and brought the chivalry of Germany to great splendor. He also brought to an end the long and destructive feud between the Welfs and the Waiblingers, pacifying the former by bestowing upon them the territory of Brunswick; to which fact England owes her present Queen, who is a daughter of the house of Brunswick. For many centuries the people believed the legend that their hero had not died in Palestine; but they pointed to the mouth of a great cavern on the frowning heights of the Kyfhäuser mountain, where he was said to be surrounded by his knights in an enchanted sleep; waiting the hour when he should awaken and descend with his Crusaders, to bring back a golden age of peace and unity to Germany! CHAPTER VI. There are three conditions in national life of which all nations more or less partake. One is where the elements combine with a tendency toward organic development; another, where these elements fall apart with a tendency toward disintegration; and still another, where all processes, constructive and destructive, are arrested as in a crystal. The United States, the Ottoman Empire, and China illustrate these three conditions to-day. The Teuton, who had been such a powerful element in renovating other European nations, had thus far seemed incapable of consolidating his own national life when left to himself. The tendency was steadily toward disintegration rather than growth. This was not alone because the strength of the Teutonic kingdom was wasted in pursuit of that glittering toy bestowed by the Pope; but on account of internal strifes and rivalries which employed the hostile schemes of the Roman Pontiff for their own ends and purposes. The rivalry with the Pope, in itself a destructive element, was made still more destructive when it was thus used by disaffected dukes as a means of annoying and circumventing Emperors whom they disliked.