well as the greed of the popes, and declared that the donation of Constantine was a pure fabrication (§ 87, 4). The emperor, however, had meanwhile thoroughly estranged his German subjects and the German clergy by his un-German temperament. The German princes denounced him as a traitor to the German empire. Soon all Italy, even the much fondled Rome, rose in open revolt. Only an early death A.D. 1002 saved the unhappy youth of twenty-two years of age from the most terrible humiliation. With him, too, the star of the pope’s fortunes went down. He died not long after in A.D. 1003, and left in the popular mind the reputation of a dealer in the black art, who owed his learning and the success of his hierarchical career to a compact with the devil. § 96.4. =From Henry II. to the Synod at Sutri, A.D. 1002-1046.=--After the death of Otto III., =Henry II.=, A.D. 1002-1024, previously duke of Bavaria, a great-grandson of Henry I. and as such the last scion of the Saxon line, obtained the German crown--a ruler who proved one of the ablest that ever occupied that throne. A bigoted pietist and under the power of the priests, although pious-hearted according to the spirit of the times and strongly attached to the church, and seeking in the bishops supports of the empire against the relaxing influence of the temporal princes, yet no other German emperor ruled over the church to the same extent that he did, and no one ventured so far as he did to impress strongly upon the church, by the most extensive appropriation of ecclesiastical property, especially of rich monasteries, that this was the shortest and surest way of bringing about a much needed reformation. Meanwhile in Rome, after the death of Otto III., Joannes Crescentius, the son of Crescentius II., who was beheaded by order of Otto, assumed the government, and set upon the chair of Peter creatures of his own, John XVII., XVIII., and Sergius IV. But as he and his last elected pope died soon after one another in A.D. 1012, the long subjected faction of the Tusculan counts, successors of Alberich, came to the front again, and chose as pope a scion of one of their own families, =Benedict VIII.=, A.D. 1012-1024. The anti-pope Gregory, chosen by the Crescentians, was obliged to retire from the field. He sought protection from Henry II. But this monarch came to an understanding with the incomparably nobler and abler Benedict, received from him for himself and his Queen Cunigunda, subsequently canonized by Innocent III., the imperial crown, in A.D. 1014, and continued ever after to maintain excellent relations with him. These two, the emperor and the pope, were on friendly terms with the monks of Clugny. They both acknowledged the need of a thorough reformation of the church, and both carried it out so far as this could be done by the influence and example of their own personal conduct, disposition, and character.