Henry III, Duke of Bavaria

Henry III (940 – 5 October 989), called the Younger, only surviving son of Duke Berthold of Bavaria, was the first Duke of Carinthia from 976 to 978, Duke of Bavaria from 983 to 985 and again Duke of Carinthia from 985 to 989.

Life

Henry the Younger was a scion of the Bavarian Luitpolding ducal family, who were loyal supporters of the royal Ottonian dynasty descending from Saxony. However, as he was still a minor upon his father's death in 947, the German king Otto I gave the Bavarian duchy to his younger brother Henry I. As Henry I about 937 had married Judith, a daughter of the former Bavarian duke Arnulf the Bad, the uncle of Henry the Younger, he could raise claims to the ducal title.

After he became of age, Henry III waited patiently, though it seemd that Bavaria was ultimately lost for the Luitpoldings, when upon the death of Duke Henry I in 955 he was succeeded by his four-year-old son Henry II the Wrangler. Not before Emperor Otto's death in 973, the tables began to turn: the Ottonian duke Henry II, not satisfied with Bavaria, raised claims to the Duchy of Swabia upon the death of his brother-in-law Duke Burchard III, trading on the difficulties of the new emperor, his cousin Otto II, to establish his rule. His demands were denied, when Emperor Otto II enfeoffed his nephew Otto I with Swabia.

In the following revolt within the Ottonian dynasty, Otto II marched against Regensburg, where Duke Henry the Wrangler was deposed in 976. The Luitpolding Henry the Younger finally gained some compensation, when the emperor severed Carinthia from Bavaria and Henry III was enfeoffed with the newly established duchy, the lands which had formed the Bavarian March of Carinthia, together with the March of Verona. His father Berthold had already received the title of a Carinthian duke by King Henry I of Germany in 927. The scaled-down Bavarian duchy passed to the Ottonian duke Otto I of Swabia, while Leopold of Babenberg was vested with the March of Austria.

In 978 however, Henry the Younger himself was banned, probably because he now had joined the rebellion against the emperor in the War of the Three Henries, instigated by his predecessor Henry the Wrangler and Bishop Henry I of Augsburg. Together with the forces of Duke Boleslaus II of Bohemia they occupied the Bavarian town of Passau, but were defeated by the emperor's troops. At the Easter Reichstag of Magdeburg, Otto II deposed Henry the Younger and enfeoffed his Salian nephew Otto of Worms with the Carinthian duchy. All Southern German duchies — Swabia, Bavaria and Carinthia — then were held by the emperor's relatives.

Enfeebled by his defeat against the Sicilian Kalbids at the 982 Battle of Stilo, Emperor Otto II upon the death of Duke Otto I of Swabia and Bavaria recalled Henry the Younger from banishment in 983 and instated him as Bavarian duke at the Reichstag of Verona. Nevertheless his rule remained contested by Henry the Wrangler and after the emperor died in the same year, Dowager Empress Theophanu on behalf of the succession of her minor son Otto III finally reconciled with him in 985. Henry III had to renounce Bavaria in favour of the Wrangler and again was given Carinthia instead, which Otto of Worms was forced to cede to him.

When Henry III died without issue in 989, he was the last male Luitpolding. He was succeeded in Carinthia and Verona by Henry the Wrangler, who thereby once again united the Bavarian and Carinthian estates under his rule. Henry III was buried at Niederaltaich Abbey.