and thoughts of a former age. They were the last monuments of civilized
antiquity, the last of a noble race, which, after a long period of
degeneracy, became extinct in them."







II. 1.

_Boundaries and Devolution of the German Empire during the Saxon
Dynasty._

911-1024.


We have mentioned that, on the death of Lewis, the son of Arnhold, the
empire descended to Henry I. in the right of his mother. From him, it
devolved through Otho, surnamed the Great, Otho II., and Otho III., to
Henry II. the last emperor of the Saxon line.

In this period of the German history, the attention of the reader is
particularly directed to two circumstances,--the principal states, of
which Germany was composed, the cradles, as they may be called, of the
present electorates, and the erection of the principal cities and
monasteries in Germany.

[Sidenote: II. 2. State of Literature during the Saxon Dynasty.]