The influence of the royal House of De Hauteville was extended, magnified, perpetuated, by the imperial House of Hohenstaufen. The traditions of the Arab, inherited by the Norman, were transmitted to and became the inspiration of the German. The genius of Frederick II. impressed itself indelibly upon the entire Teutonic race. It must not be forgotten that the most formidable revolt against Papal tyranny and corruption broke out in Saxony. The new German Empire owes largely its commanding position in Europe and its exalted rank in the scale of civilization to the talents, the energy, and the transcendent wisdom of the greatest monarch of mediæval times. The fierce struggle between the Papacy and the Empire for universal rule began with the ascendency of the House of Hohenstaufen, in the beginning of the twelfth century. The princes of that House, eminent for valor and diplomacy, early displayed a spirit of insubordination towards the Holy See which augured ill for the political supremacy which had begun to be the leading object of its ambition. The Papal power, not yet consolidated, nor even fully defined, was unable to successfully oppose to the encroachments of the haughty German sovereigns those measures which afterwards proved so effective against the recalcitrant monarchs of Europe in the settlement of disputes involving its doctrines and its authority. The chaotic state of European politics made it impossible for the Pope to enlist the aid of any potentate able to withstand the tyrants of the North, whose ambition aimed at the absorption of St. Peter’s patrimony, as their insolence had already menaced the independence of his throne. Diplomatic negotiation had proved of no avail. The once formidable weapon of excommunication was treated with contempt. No other resource remained. The influence of the Empire attained its maximum during the reign of Henry VI.; and the Pope, surrounded on every side by powerful and determined enemies, seemed about to be degraded to the rank of an imperial vassal, when the sudden death of the Emperor, and the election of one of the greatest of the Supreme Pontiffs ever raised to the chair of the Holy See, reversed the political and ecclesiastical conditions, to all appearances firmly established, and upon whose maintenance so much depended, and opened the way for a train of calamities unequalled in their atrocious character by any acts of tyranny that have ever stifled independent thought or retarded the progress of human civilization.