one against the countries or provinces adjoining Austria. For the rest, in order that this our imperial decree may, for all ages, remain valid and unshaken, we have ordered the present charter to be written and to be sealed with the impress of our seal, suitable witnesses to be called in whose names are as follows: Pilgrim, patriarch of Aquileija, etc. etc.
VIII.
THE GELNHAUSEN CHARTER. APRIL 13 1180 A.D.
(Doeberl, iv. p. 264.)
In the name of the holy and indivisible Trinity. Frederick, by favour of the divine mercy, august emperor of the Romans. Since human memory is short and does not suffice for a crowd of things, the authority of those who preceded our age, the divine emperors and kings, has decreed that those things were to be written down which the progress of fleeting time generally removes from the knowledge of men.
A. Wherefore let the generality of the present as well as the future subjects of our empire know, that Henry the former duke of Bavaria and Westphalia, for the reason that he gravely oppressed the liberty of the churches of God and of the nobles of the empire, occupying their possessions and diminishing their rights,—on account of the urgent complaints of the princes and of very many nobles, inasmuch as being summoned he scorned to present himself before our majesty: did, both for this contumacy and for scorning the Swabian princes of his rank, incur the sentence of our proscription. Then, as he did not desist from raging against the churches of God and the rights and liberties of the princes and nobles, being cited by a lawful triple edict, according to feudal law, before our presence, as well to answer for the injury to the princes as for the repeated contempt shown to us, and, chiefly, for the evident crime of high treason:—for the reason that he absented himself and sent no one to respond
