CONRAD II. (c. 99o—io39), Roman emperor, son of Henry, count of Spires, and a descendant of Emperor Otto the Great. He was a member of the Conradine house, counts of Franconia, and he founded the Salian or Franconian imperial dynasty. After a contest with a younger member of his family, and in the face of much opposition on the part of the Polish and Burgundian kings and the duke of 'Swabia, Conrad was finally crowned at Rome on March 26, io27. He did much to establish the imperial authority in Italy (he had been crowned with the Iron Crown of Lombardy in 1026) and might have done more if he had not had to face con tinual revolts among the German princes. He was very successful in crushing these outbreaks, and he left Germany far stronger and greater in territory than he found it. He sought to establish the hereditary principle in Italy, and in a lesser degree in Germany, and to unite the two countries by marriage ties; his ecclesiastical policy was firm and autocratic, and he substituted Justinian's Code in Lombardy for the old Lombard laws. He died at Utrecht on June 4, 1039, and was buried in the cathedral he had begun to build at Spires.
See Wipo, Gesta Chuonradi II. imperatoris, Herimann of Reichenau, Chronicon, Annales Sangallenses majores, Annales Hildisheimenses, all in the Monumenta Germaniae historica. Scriptores (Hanover and Berlin, 1826-92). An edition of Wipo, together with parts of the Chronicon and the Annales Sangallenses, edited by H. Bresslau, was published at Hanover in 1878.
H. Bresslau, Jahrbficher des deutschen Reichs unter Konrad II. (Leipzig, 1879-84) ; H. Bresslau, Die Kanzlei Kaiser Konrads II. (Berlin, 1869) ; W. Arndt, Die Wahl Conrad II. (Gottingen, 1861) ; J. von Pflugk-Harttung, Untersuchungen zur Geschichte Kaiser Kon rads II. (Stuttgart, 189o) ; M. Pfenninger, Die kirchliche Pollak Kaiser Konrads II. (Halle, 188o) ; M. Pfenninger, Kaiser Konrads II. Bezie hungen zu Aribo von Mainz Pilgrim von !Coln, und Aribert von Mailand (Breslau, 1891) ; O. Bliimcke, Burgund unter Rudolf III. und der Heimfall der burgundischen Krone an Kaiser Konrad II. (Greifs wald, 1869).