Beginning with his second Italian expedition in 1036, he changed his strategy and managed to win the support of the valvassores (lesser nobles) and the military elite, who challenged the power of the bishops.

The origins of the Salian dynasty can be traced back to Count Werner V of Worms, a Frankish nobleman from the Duchy of Franconia to the east of the Rhine.

Otto of Worms loyally served the new Emperor and received the March of Verona in 955, as the actual Duchy of Carinthia was given to Henry IV of Bavaria.

Archbishop Pilgrim of Cologne saw the situation as an opportunity to restore his relationship with the king, after refusing to support Conrad's election, and he crowned Gisela queen on 21 September 1024.

After visiting Cologne Conrad stopped at Aachen, where he, as a successor of the empire's founder Charlemagne, announced that he would continue the tradition of claiming East Francia.

Conrad then entered Burgundy in order to renew the royal claim, that, in 1016, Emperor Henry II had forced the childless Burgundian King Rudolph III to name him as his heir.

Though Otto III had once eased tensions among the warring parties by declaring that both bishops would be entitled to anoint the Abbess and her sisters, the conflict still lingered.

In June 1025, bishops from Northern Italy, led by Archbishop Aribert of Milan, crossed the Alps in order to pay homage to Conrad.

The Lombard cities wanted to elect a king from the ranks of their own magnates, and when this motion failed, they tried to invite a prince from Aquitaine or other French realms.

[27][28] When the news of Henry's death spread, the citizens of Pavia revolted and destroyed the local imperial palace of the Ostrogothic king Theodoric the Great, built during the 5th century.

[31] On 26 March 1027, Pope John XIX crowned Conrad and his wife Gisela as emperor and empress, respectively, in Old Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome.

[32] The event lasted seven days and was attended by Conrad's son and heir Henry; Cnut the Great, King of England, Denmark and Norway; Rudolph III of Burgundy and around 70 senior clerics, including the Archbishops of Cologne, Mainz, Trier, Magdeburg, Salzburg, Milan and Ravenna.

Subsequently, Conrad left Rome and toured south to receive homage from the Southern Italian principalities of Capua and Salerno and the Duchy of Benevento.

[33] After his coronation, Conrad issued decrees reorganising the monasteries and dioceses of Italy, with the explicit objective of bringing the Patriarchate of Venice under imperial control (see the Schism of the Three Chapters).

He made the unprecedented decision of choosing his 10-year-old son Henry, ignoring several suitable candidates who held valid claims to the fief.

Even the dowager empress Cunigunde of Luxembourg was required to report to Conrad, who even claimed that Cunegonde's wittum (money and property she had inherited from her deceased husband Emperor Henry II) belonged to him.

These dubious claims to property and the excessive promotion of imperial authority over ducal and clerical affairs throughout Bavaria caused, unsurprisingly, new tension between him and the German aristocracy.

Within a few months, both Ernest and Werner, who had retreated to Falkenstein Castle, south of modern Schramberg in the Black Forest, were killed in a battle against a contingent of the Bishop of Constance.

[37] Control of the southern duchies allowed Conrad to continue the process begun under the Ottonian dynasty, centralizing the Emperor's authority over the Empire at the expense of the regional dukes.

When Archbishop Aribo of Mainz, Primate of Germany, died in 1031, Conrad considered both Abbot Bardo of Hersfeld Abbey and the renowned theologian Wazo of Liège, then serving as the dean of the cathedral chapter for the Bishop of Liege.

However, Bolesław then seized the opportunity presented by Henry's death in 1024 and the subsequent interregnum to consolidate his own power, crowning himself King on Easter, 25 April 1025.

Bolesław was thus the first Polish king, as his predecessors only held the ducal title of the political entity, called Civitas Schinesghe at the time, that had only a few decades ago revealed itself to the world and the Holy See in Rome.

In preparation for his own invasion of Poland, Conrad developed a closer relationship with King Cnut of England and Denmark (whose kingdom lay beyond the Empire's northern border).

Conrad responded by allying with Yaroslav the Wise, Grand Prince of Kiev, who captured Red Ruthenia, on Poland's eastern border.

Conrad's wife, Empress Gisela of Swabia, interceded on Mieszko's behalf and requested he be freed from imprisonment in Bohemia and allowed to regain the Polish throne.

His absence raised the ire of the Emperor; Conrad, busy with securing his succession to the Burgundian throne, charged his son Duke Henry of Bavaria with punishing the recalcitrant Bohemian.

[68][69] Conrad's biographer Wipo of Burgundy recorded that the Bavarians incited skirmishes along the common Imperial-Hungarian border in 1029, causing a rapid deterioration in relations between the two countries.

Conrad departed to address the problem with his stepson Ernest II, the deposed Duke of Swabia, leaving matters in Hungary to his son Henry.

(Most of the former Kingdom of Burgundy/Arles was incorporated into France piecemeal over the next centuries, but "King of Burgundy" remained one of the Holy Roman Emperor's subsidiary titles until the dissolution of the Empire in 1806.)

[11] On 14 January 1040, Conrad II's heir Henry issued a charter, in which he announced his official designation as Rex romanorum ("King of the Romans"), thus effectively elevating the traditional Frankish kingship to Imperial authority.