General Notes

Source: Weis, Frederick Lewis, Ancestral Roots, Seventh Edition,Genealogical Publishing Co., Baltimore, [1992], 147-19.

Otto I (Holy Roman Empire), called Otto the Great (912-73), Holy Romanemperor (962-73), king of Germany (936-73), the son of the German kingHenry I. After subduing an uprising of nobles incited by his brother,Otto consolidated his kingdom by granting duchies to faithful relativesand followers. In 951 he marched to Italy to assist Adelaide, the widowedqueen of Lombardy, against Berengar II, who had usurped the kingdom.

Otto defeated Berengar and married Adelaide, thereby becoming ruler ofnorthern Italy. When he returned to Germany, he again crushed a rebellionof nobles led by his son Liudolf and halted a Hungarian invasion in 955.In 962 he was crowned Holy Roman emperor. In 963 he deposed Pope John XIIand had Leo VIII elected in his stead. Otto sought to make the churchsubordinate to the authority of the empire but assisted in spreadingChristianity throughout his domain.

He negotiated unsuccessfully with the Byzantine emperor Nicephorus IIPhocas for an alliance between the Byzantine and Holy Roman empires, butwas able to arrange a marriage between his son Otto II and Theophano,daughter of the Byzantine emperor Romanus II.

Microsoft (R) Encarta.

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Otto I, byname OTTO THE GREAT, German OTTO DER GROSSE (b. Nov. 23,912--d.May 7, 973, Memleben, Thuringia), duke of Saxony (as Otto II, 936-961),German king (from 936), and Holy Roman emperor (962-973), whoconsolidated the German Reich by his suppression of rebellious vassalsand his decisive victory over the Hungarians. His use of the church as astabilizing influence created a secure empire and stimulated a culturalrenaissance. Early years. Otto was the son of the future king Henry I, ofthe Liudolfing, or Saxon, dynasty, and his second wife, Matilda. Littleis known of his early years, but he probably shared in some of hisfather's campaigns. He married Edith, daughter of the English king Edwardthe Elder, in 930; she obtained as her dowry the flourishing town ofMagdeburg. Nominated by Henry as his successor, Otto was elected king bythe German dukes at Aachen on Aug. 7, 936, a month after Henry's death,and crowned by the archbishops of Mainz and Cologne. While Henry I hadcontrolled his vassal dukes only with difficulty, the new king firmlyasserted his suzerainty over them. This led immediately to war,especially with Eberhard of Franconia and his namesake, Eberhard ofBavaria, who were joined by discontented Saxon nobles under theleadership of Otto's half-brother Thankmar. Thankmar was defeated andkilled, the Franconian Eberhard submitted to the King, and Eberhard ofBavaria was deposed and outlawed. In 939, however, Otto's younger brotherHenry revolted; he was joined by Eberhard of Franconia and by Giselbertof Lotharingia and supported by the French king Louis IV. Otto was againvictorious: Eberhard fell in battle, Giselbert was drowned in flight, andHenry submitted to his brother. Nevertheless, in 941 Henry joined aconspiracy to murder the King. This was discovered in time, and, whereasthe other conspirators were punished, Henry was again forgiven.Thenceforward he remained faithful to his brother and, in 947, was giventhe dukedom of Bavaria. The other German dukedoms were likewise bestowedon relatives of Otto. Foreign conquests. Despite these internaldifficulties, Otto found time to strengthen and to extend the frontiersof the kingdom. In the east the margraves Gero and Hermann Billung weresuccessful against the Slavs, and their gains were consolidated by thefounding of the Monastery of St. Maurice in Magdeburg, in 937, and of twobishoprics, in 948. In the north, three bishoprics (followed in 968 by afourth) were founded to extend the Christian mission in Denmark. Otto'sfirst campaign in Bohemia was, however, a failure, and it was not until950 that the Bohemian prince Boleslav I was forced to submit and to paytribute. Having thus strengthened his own position, Otto could not onlyresist France's claims to Lorraine (Lotharingia) but also act as mediatorin France's internal troubles. Similarly, he extended his influence intoBurgundy. Moreover, when the Burgundian princess Adelaide, the widowedqueen of Italy whom the margrave Berengar of Ivrea had taken prisoner,appealed to him for help, Otto marched into Italy in 951, assumed thetitle of king of the Lombards, and married Adelaide himself, his firstwife having died in 946. In 952 Berengar did homage to him as his vassalfor the kingdom of Italy. Otto had to break off his first Italiancampaign because of a revolt in Germany, where Liudolf, his son by Edith,had risen against him with the aid of several magnates. Otto foundhimself compelled to withdraw to Saxony; but the position of the rebelsbegan to deteriorate when the Magyars invaded Germany in 954, for therebels could now be accused of complicity with the enemies of the Reich.After prolonged fighting, Liudolf had to submit in 955. This made itpossible for Otto to defeat the Magyars decisively in the Battle of theLechfeld, near Augsburg, in August 955; they never invaded Germany again.In the same year Otto and the margrave Gero also won a victory over theSlavs. A further series of campaigns led, by 960, to the subjection ofthe Slavs between the middle Elbe and the middle Oder. The archbishopricof Magdeburg was founded in 968 with three suffragan bishoprics. EvenMieszko of Poland paid tribute to the German king. Coronation as emperor.In May 961 Otto procured the election and coronation of the six-year-oldOtto II, his elder son by Adelaide, as German king. Then he went for asecond time to Italy on the appeal of Pope John XII, who was hard pressedby Berengar of Ivrea. Arriving in Rome on Feb. 2, 962, Otto was crownedemperor, and 11 days later a treaty, known as the Privilegium Ottonianum,was concluded, to regulate relations between emperor and pope. Thisconfirmed and extended the temporal power of the papacy, but it is amatter of controversy whether the proviso enabling the emperor to ratifypapal elections was included in the original version of the treaty oradded in December 963, when Otto deposed John XII for treating withBerengar and set up Leo VIII as pope. Berengar was captured and taken toGermany, and in 964 a revolt of the Romans against Leo VIII wassuppressed. When Leo VIII died in 965, the Emperor chose John XIII forpope, but John was expelled by the Romans. Otto, therefore, marched for athird time to Italy, where he stayed from 966 to 972. He subdued Rome andeven advanced into the Byzantine south of Italy. Prolonged negotiationswith Byzantium resulted in the marriage of Otto II to the Byzantineprincess Theophano, in 972. Having returned to Germany, the Emperor helda great assembly of his court at Quedlinburg on March 23, 973. He died inMemleben several weeks later and was buried in Magdeburg at the side ofhis first wife. Assessment. Otto I's achievement rests mainly on hisconsolidation of the Reich. He deliberately made use of the bishops tostrengthen his rule and thus created that 'Ottonian church system of theReich' that was to provide a stable and long-lasting framework forGermany. By his victorious campaigns, he gave Germany peace and securityfrom foreign attack, and the preeminent position that he won as rulergave him a sort of hegemony in Europe. His Italian policy and theacquisition of the imperial crown constituted a link with the oldCarolingian tradition and was to prove a great responsibility for theGerman people in the future. All areas under Otto's rule prospered, andthe resultant flowering of culture has been called the Ottonianrenaissance. [Encyclopaedia Britannica CD '97]