Conrad II summary

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Conrad II, (born c. 990—died June 4, 1039, Utrecht, Ger.), German king (1024–39) and emperor (1027–39), founder of the Salian (or Franconian) dynasty. In 1016 he married a duchess to whom he was distantly related, and the emperor Henry II used the marriage as a pretext to have him exiled. The two men were later reconciled, and Conrad was crowned king of Germany in 1024. A rebellion of German nobles and princes of Lombardy collapsed (1025), and Conrad was made successively king of Italy (1026) and emperor (1027). He instituted legislative reforms, issuing a new set of feudal constitutions for Lombardy. His son Henry was elected king in 1028 and became his chief counselor. Conrad defeated Poland (1028), regaining lands lost earlier. He inherited Burgundy (1034) and resolved dissensions among the great princes in Italy (1038).

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Emperor, title designating the sovereign of an empire, conferred originally on rulers of the ancient Roman Empire and on various later European rulers, though the term is also applied descriptively to some non-European monarchs. In republican Rome (c. 509–27 bce), imperator denoted a victorious

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Holy Roman Empire, the varying complex of lands in western and central Europe ruled by the Holy Roman emperor, a title held first by Frankish and then by German kings for 10 centuries. The Holy Roman Empire existed from 800 to 1806. For histories of the territories governed at various times by the

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Germany, country of north-central Europe, traversing the continent’s main physical divisions, from the outer ranges of the Alps northward across the varied landscape of the Central German Uplands and then across the North German Plain. One of Europe’s largest countries, Germany encompasses a wide