HENRY (1 1 195 ), surnamed the "Lion," duke of Saxony and Bavaria, only son of Henry the Proud, duke of Saxony and Bavaria, and Gertrude, daughter of the emperor Lothair the Saxon, was born at Ravensburg, and was a member of the family 9f Welf. In May 1142 Henry was invested as duke of Saxony at Frankfort, and Bavaria was given to Henry II., Jasomirgott, margrave of Austria, who married his mother. In 1147 Henry married Clementia, daughter of Conrad, duke of Zahringen (d. 1152). He made an expedition against the Abotrites, or Obotrites, in 1147, and won much land beyond the Elbe, in which were re established the bishoprics of Mecklenburg, Oldenburg and Ratze burg. Henry maintained, against Hartwig archbishop of Bremen, his right to invest these bishops, a privilege afterwards confirmed by the emperor Frederick I. In 1147 he made a formal claim on the duchy of Bavaria, and in r 151 made an unsuccessful attempt to take possession. The situation was changed in his favour when Frederick I. succeeded Conrad as German king in 1152. In 1154 he recognized the claim of Henry, who accompanied him on his first Italian campaign and suppressed a rising at Rome. Henry's formal investiture as duke of Bavaria took place in 1156. Two years later, Adolph II., count of Holstein, was compelled to cede Lubeck to him; campaigns in 1163 and 1164 broke the resistance of the Abotrites; and Saxon garrisons were established in the conquered lands. He had also helped Frederick I. in his expedition of 11 S 7 against the Poles, and in 1159 had gone to his assistance in Italy.
In 1166 a coalition was formed against Henry at Merseburg under the leadership of Albert the Bear, margrave of Branden burg, and Archbishop Hartwig. After indecisive fighting Frederick intervened, and made peace in 1168. Having obtained a divorce from his first wife in 1162, Henry was married in 1168 to Matilda (1156-89), daughter of Henry II. of England, and was soon afterwards sent by the emperor Frederick I. on an embassy to England and France. A war with Valdemar of Denmark, caused by a quarrel over the booty from the conquest of Riigen, lasted until 1171, when, in pursuance of a peace treaty Henry's daughter, Gertrude, married the Danish prince, Canute. During his pilgrimage to Jerusalem in 1172, Henry was received with great respect by the eastern emperor Manuel Comnenus at Con stantinople.
A variety of reasons were leading to a rupture between Fred erick and Henry, who showed little inclination to sacrifice his interests in Germany to help the imperial cause in Italy. He was displeased when his uncle, Welf, bequeathed his Italian and Swabian lands to the emperor, and the crisis came after Fred erick's check before Alessandria in 1175. Henry declined to help the emperor in 1176, and though the peace of Venice provided for the restoration of Ulalrich to his see of Halberstadt, Henry refused to give up the lands which he had seized belonging to the bishopric. This provoked a war in which Ulalrich was joined by Philip, archbishop of Cologne. The dispute was to be settled at Worms, but Henry's failure to appear to answer the charges preferred against him, led to his being placed under the imperial ban at Wiirzburg in 1180, and deprived of his lands.
Meanwhile the war with Ulalrich continued, but after his victory at Weissensee Henry's cause began to decline. When Frederick took the field in 118r, Henry sought peace. He was granted the counties of Luneburg and Brunswick, but was ban ished under oath not to return without the emperor's permission. He went to Normandy, and afterwards to England, returning to Germany with Frederick's permission in 1185. He was soon regarded once more as a menace to peace, and of the three alter natives offered by the emperor in 1188 he rejected the idea of making a formal renunciation of his claim, or of participating in the crusade, and chose exile, going again to England in 1189. A few months later, he returned to Saxony, asserting that his lands had not been defended according to the emperor's promise. He found many allies, won Lubeck, and soon almost the whole of Saxony was in his power. King Henry VI. took the field against him, and in 1190 a peace was arranged at Fulda, by which he retained Brunswick and Luneburg, received half the revenues of Lubeck, and gave two of his sons as hostages. In 1193 he revolted against Henry VI., but the captivity of his brother-in-law Richard I., king of England, led to a reconciliation. Henry passed his later years in intellectual and artistic pursuits at Brunswick, where he died on Aug. 6, 1195. One of his sons was Otto, afterwards the emperor Otto IV., and another' was Henry (d. 1227) count palatine of the Rhine.
Henry won his surname of "Lion" by his intrepidity. His influence on the fortunes of Saxony and northern Germany was considerable. He colonized the whole of northern Germany down to the Elbe; he founded numerous towns in Germany and sought to spread Christianity by introducing the Cistercians, founding bishoprics, and building churches and monasteries. Lane Poole, in the Cambridge Medieval History says of him, "He ruled an imperium in imperio, but he did not abuse his privileged position; his rule for the 20 years which followed the settlement of Ratisbon was beneficial to Germany, if it was detrimental to the interests of individual princes. Henry threw himself with all his energy into the work of German expansion, the promotion of commercial enterprise, the development of municipal life." The authorities for the life of Henry the Lion are those dealing with the reign of the emperor Frederick I., and the early years of his son King Henry VI. The chief modern works are G. Prutz, Heinrich der Lowe (Leipzig, 1866) ; M. Philippson, Geschichte Heinricjis des Lowen (Leipzig, 1867, 2nd ed. 1918) ; and L. Wei land, Das sdclisische Herzogthum enter Lothar and Heinrich dem Lowen (Greifswald 1866) ; F. Guterbock, Der Prozess Heinricjis des Lowen (1909) ; A. L. Poole, Henry the Lion (1912) and E. Gronen, Die Machtpolitik H. des Lowen (1919).