3048480 - Davis Moebus Tree

Name Prefix:<NPFX> Emperor
Name Suffix:<NSFX> I, Of The Holy Roman Empire "Le Grand
King Otto I (the Great). Otto was crowned and anointed at Aachen,
Charlemagne's capital; his coronation banquet revived the Carolingian
coronation banquet (of Roman origin), at which the duke of Franconia
served ceremonially as steward, the duke of Swabia as cup bearer, the
duke of Lorraine as chamberlain, and the duke of Bavaria as marshal.

Otto vigorously asserted royal authority (a three-year war reduced the
dukes of Bavaria, Franconia, Lorraine, and Saxony). He followed the
policy of keeping the great duchies (except Saxony) in his own hands or
those of his family.

951-52: Otto's first expedition to Italy to keep the passes through the
mountains open. Marriage to Adelheid and assumption of the crown of
Italy; the pope refused him imperial coronation; Berengar of Ivrea,
forced into vassalage, ceded the marks of Verona, Friuli, Istria (the
keys to the passes) to Otto's brother Henry, duke of Bavaria.

953: Revolt of Otto's son (Ludolf, duke of Swabia), his son-in-law
Conrad (duke of Lorraine), and others (suppressed, 955).

955: Battle of Lechfeld, a plain near Augsburg in southwest Germany,
drained by the Lech River. Otto, with an army recruited from all the
duchies, ended the Magyar menance with a great victory. Defeat of the
Wends on the Recknitz River. Reestablishment and colonization with
Bavarians of Charlemagne's East Mark (Austria). Emperor Otto I
decisively defeated the raiding Hungarians. From this time on, the
Hungarians began to settle down and establish a frontier.

961-964: Otto's second expedition to Italy on the appeal of Pope John
XII for protection. Assumption of the crown of Italy at Pavia

962: Imperial coronation by the pope: Revival of the Roman Empire in the
West. Otto put a temporary end to feudal anarchy in Rome, deposed one
pope and nominated another, and compelled the pope to recognize the
emperor's right to approve or reject papal elections.

Otto's coronation at Pavia as king of Italy and his coronation by the
pope as Roman emperor, marked the revival of the Roman Empire. Otto
confirmed his predecessors' grants in the Patrimonium Petri (probably
with additions), but carefully reserved the imperial right to sanction
papal elections and treated the pope like a German bishop (i.e., subject
to the state). Otto also exacted a promise from the Romans not to elect a
pope without imperial consent. He established a precedent by calling a
synod at Rome that deposed (963) Pope John XII for various crimes, and
selected a (lay) successor, Leo VIII (963-64). This synod opened a period
of about a hundred years when the papacy was dominated by the German
emperors and by the counts of Tusculum, vassals of the emperors, who had
the title of patricius in Rome. In the same period, the bishops in the
west lost the position they had won in the 9th century and became
increasingly dependent on the kings and feudal nobility, and increasingly
secular in outlook. The homage of Pandolf I for Capua and Benevento (967)
and his investiture with the duchy of Spoleto mark the beginning of the
long imperial effort to include southern Italy in the empire.

Otto I, Roman emperor in the west, claimed suzerainty over the Lombards
in southern Italy, initiating a period of friction with Constantinople,
which was only temporarily broken by the marriage of Otto II and the
Byzantine princess Theophano (972).

966-972: Otto's third expedition to Italy: deposition of one pope,
restoration of another; nomination of a new pope; punishment of the
Romans. Imperial coronation (967) of the future Otto II and assertion of
suzerainty over Capua and Benevento (967).

Otto, with the able assistance of his brother Bruno, archbishop of
Cologne, began a cultural revival (the so-called Ottonian Renaissance) in
the manner of Charlemagne; late in life, he learned to read, but not to
speak, Latin; Bruno