Since his father had rebelled against two previous emperors, the younger Henry spent long periods of time in exile, where he turned to Christianity at an early age, first finding refuge with the Bishop of Freising and later during his education at the cathedral school in Hildesheim.

[4] A series of conflicts with the Polish Duke Bolesław I, who had already conquered a number of countries surrounding him, required Henry II's full attention and years of political and military maneuvering.

The Emperor himself ensured the younger Henry received an ecclesiastical education in order that by becoming a religious official he would be prevented from participating in the Imperial government.

Rival candidates for the throne, including Count Ezzo of Lotharingia, Margrave Eckard I of Meissen, and Duke Herman II of Swabia, strongly contested Henry's right to succeed Otto III.

With neither the symbols of imperial authority, the crown jewels, nor the cooperation of Heribert, Henry was unable to convince the nobles attending Otto III's funeral procession to elect him as king.

This allowed Arduin's enemies in the Church, led by Archbishop Frederick of Ravenna, to side with the German King Henry II as the rightful ruler of Italy.

[16] After receiving the homage of the remaining Italian nobles, Henry returned to Germany in the early summer of 1004 without first traveling to Rome to claim the Imperial crown.

At the same time, Jaromir (the younger brother of the deposed Bohemian Duke Boleslaus III) invaded Bohemia with German military support.

[18] During the next part of the offensive, Henry II retook Meissen and, in summer 1005, his army advanced deep into Poland, suffering significant losses along the way.

In 1007, Henry II denounced the Peace of Poznań, resulting in Bolesław I's attack on the Archbishopric of Magdeburg as well as his re-occupation of the marches of Lusatia and Meissen, including the city of Bautzen.

Upon assuming the chair of St. Peter, however, Benedict VIII was forced to flee Rome by Gregory VI, an antipope, whom John Crescentius installed as the new head of the Catholic Church.

[6] Then, under the presidency of the Emperor and Pope, a synod was held in Rome, appointing five bishops, issuing decrees against simony and promoting chastity within the clergy, and ordering the restitution of Church property.

Henry II himself commanded the center army, supported by allied Slavic tribes, and moved from Magdeburg to cross the Oder river into Poland.

As the Imperial army crossed the Oder river and marched across Poland, Henry II's forces killed or captured several thousand Poles, including women and children.

The Imperial army retreated from Poland to Merseburg in order to address the assault without making any permanent territorial gains east of the Oder River.

[25] The Polish duke was able to keep the contested marches of Lusatia and Meissen on purely nominal terms of vassalage, with Bolesław I recognizing Henry II as his feudal lord.

[26] Henry II also promised to support Bolesław I in the Polish ruler's expedition to Kiev to ensure his son-in-law, Sviatopolk, claimed the Kievan throne.

While in Byzantine territory, Otto II encountered a large Muslim army brought into the region by Abu al-Qasim, Emir of Sicily, and was soundly defeated in the ensuing battle of Stilo on 14 July 982.

The Byzantine Empire struck back in 1018 under Catepan of Italy Basil Boioannes, delivering a devastating defeat to the joint Lombard-Norman force at the Battle of Cannae.

Meeting Henry II in Bamberg, the Pope was accompanied by a large number of Italian secular and ecclesiastical leaders, including Melus.

After settling some controversies with the bishops of Mainz and Würzburg, the Pope convinced Henry II to return to Italy for a third campaign to counter the growing power of the Byzantine Empire.

A third army, smaller still, under the command of Patriarch Poppo of Aquileia went through the Apennines to join Henry II in besieging the Byzantine fortress of Troia.

He was absent from the Italian peninsula for over a decade between his expulsion of Margrave Arduin of Ivrea in 1004 and his return in 1014 to claim the imperial title, allowing the kingdom to mostly govern itself.

[33][34] The Ottonian dynasty's traditional policy of investing celibate clerics in the secular governance of the empire – the Imperial Church System – reached its climax under Henry II.

Introduced by Emperor Otto I, the Ottonians appointed and integrated the higher clergy into the imperial administration, seeking to establish a non-hereditary counter-balance to the fiercely independent and powerful German Stem duchies.

[36] A key element of this policy was to grant land and bestow the title of Prince of the Empire (Reichsfürst) to appointed bishops and abbots at the expense of the secular nobility.

He granted numerous and lavish donations of imperial regalia and land to the monasteries and dioceses of the Empire; in fact, no other Holy Roman sovereign was named as often in the memorial records.

The chronicler Thietmar of Merseburg states that the cooperation of Henry II and the bishops of the empire was more intense than any other ruler of the Middle Ages, as the dividing lines between secular and ecclesiastical affairs were blurred beyond recognition.

It was also decided that Eberhard, Henry II's Imperial Chancellor, would be ordained by Willigis, the Archbishop of Mainz and Primate of Germany, to head the new Diocese.

This caused a sharp rise in conflict with the secular nobility, which forced Henry II to reinforce the position the clergy enjoyed in the governance of the Empire.