Henry had no trouble with the Hungarians, whose great king, St. Stephen, the founder of the settled Magyar state, was his brother-in-law and friend. But it was among his chief cares to uphold the old Saxon supremacy over the Slavs, which Otto III. had generously or fantastically neglected. Poland was now a formidable state, and its Duke Boleslav, who had become a terror to the marks before the death of Otto, aspired to build up a strong Slavonic power, and drive back the Germans over the Elbe. It was no longer the frontier warfare of the days after Otto the Great’s victories. It was rather a stern fight between two vigorous nations, in which Henry only won the upper hand after long and costly efforts. Even at the last he was forced to hand over the mark of Lausitz to the Poles, to be held as a fief of the German kingdom. Henry’s laborious policy, his shrinking from great efforts, and his fixed resolve to concentrate himself on little objects within his reach, stand in the strongest contrast to the vast ambitions of his predecessor. Yet, in his slow and determined way, Henry brought back the German kingdom to a more national policy, and did much to restore the havoc wrought by Otto’s vain pursuits of impossible ideals. As a German king, he was in no wise a failure, though he raised the monarchy to no new heights of power. Henry’s success in Germany was closely connected with his failure in Italy. Under his cautious rule the plans of Otto III. were quickly lost sight of. On the death of Sylvester II., the Papacy fell back into its old dependence on the local nobles. At first a third Crescentius, son of Otto III.’s victim, assumed his father’s title of Patrician, ruled Rome at his pleasure, and nominated two puppet Popes in succession. But a stronger power arose, that of the Counts of Tusculum. Before long a series of Tusculan Popes, set up by the goodwill of these powerful lords, again degraded the Papacy, and threatened to deprive it of the obedience and respect of Europe. [Sidenote: Henry II. and Italy.] It was the same in the secular as in the spiritual sphere. Before the German succession had been settled, Ardoin, Marquis of Ivrea, had got himself elected King of Italy, and held his own for many years against the partisans of Henry reinforced by German armies. In 1004 Henry went over the Alps, and submitted to be elected and crowned king at Pavia, though the Ottos had borne the Italian crown without condescending to go through such formalities. Despite this Ardoin long maintained himself. At last, in 1013, Henry went down to Italy again, and on 14th February 1014 received the imperial diadem from Pope Benedict VIII. But no striking result followed this renewal of the Empire. Benedict, who was a zealous partisan of the Count of Tusculum, now sought, by advocacy of the Cluniac ideas, to maintain himself against an Antipope of the faction of Crescentius. In 1020 Benedict visited Germany to consecrate