the eastward of the Scheldt. And, in fact, the emperor, as the
only means of disuniting his two powerful vassals, felt himself
obliged to cede Valenciennes and the islands of Zealand to Baldwin.
The imperial power thus lost ground at every struggle.

Amid the confusion of these events, a power well calculated to
rival or even supplant that of the fierce counts was growing
up. Many circumstances were combined to extend and consolidate
the episcopal sway. It is true that the bishops of Tournay had no
temporal authority since the period of their city being ruined by
the Normans. But those of Liege and Utrecht, and more particularly
the latter, had accumulated immense possessions; and their power
being inalienable, they had nothing to fear from the caprices
of sovereign favor, which so often ruined the families of the
aristocracy. Those bishops, who were warriors and huntsmen rather
than ecclesiastics, possessed, however, in addition to the lance
and the sword, the terrible artillery of excommunication and
anathema, which they thundered forth without mercy against every
laic opponent; and when they had, by conquest or treachery, acquired
new dominions and additional store of wealth, they could not
portion it among their children, like the nobles, but it devolved
to their successors, who thus became more and more powerful,
and gained by degrees an authority almost royal, like that of
the ecclesiastical elector of Germany.

Whenever the emperor warred against his lay vassals, he was sure
of assistance from the bishops, because they were at all times
jealous of the power of the counts, and had much less to gain
from an alliance with them than with the imperial despots on
whose donations they throve, and who repaid their efforts by new
privileges and extended possessions. So that when the monarch,
at length, lost the superiority in his contests with the counts,
little was wanting to make his authority be merged altogether in
the overgrown power of these churchmen. Nevertheless, a first
effort of the bishop of Liege to seize on the rights of the count
of Louvain in 1013 met with a signal defeat, in a battle which
took place at the little village of Stongarde. And five years
later, the count of the Friesland marshes (_comes_Frisonum_
_Morsatenorum_) gave a still more severe lesson to the bishop
of Utrecht. This last merits a more particular mention from the
nature of the quarrel and the importance of its results.

CH