540 Otto I the Great
Fowler (r. 919–936) and of Saint Matilda (d. 968). Otto
married in 929 an Anglo-Saxon princess named Edith
(d. 936) and was chosen by his father to be his sole heir.
That choice went against the custom of dividing the king-
dom among all the surviving legitimate sons.
In 936 Otto was crowned at AACHEN. He sought a
more centralized government than that of his father, one
closer to that of the Carolingians. To accomplish that, he
had to tame the rulers of the great territorial states of
Germany. He succeeded in taking over the administration
of FRANCONIAand Saxony and appointed princes of his
royal house in SWABIA, BAVARIA, and Lotharingia, but
restricted their prerogatives to imperial representation.
Otto overcame several revolts by his relatives, including
his half brother in 938, his brother in 939 and 941, his
son-in-law, and his eldest son in 952–954.
RELATIONS WITH THE CHURCHHe developed a close association with the church during
these crises. As a consecrated king, he made the church
an organ of his government. He further made massive
gifts of property and public rights to bishops and abbots.
He also protected them against the encroachments of the
LAITY. He kept close control over appointments to ecclesi-
astical posts and used his royal chapel as a nursery for
loyal and competent clerical administrators. It was started
and run by his younger brother, BRUNO, who later
became the archbishop of COLOGNEin 955, the duke of
Lotharingia, and a saint.CONQUESTS AND EMPIRE
Outside Germany, Otto acquired a protectorate over the
kingdom of BURGUNDYin 937. In western Francia, he
arbitrated between the rival lines of Carolingians and
Robertians or CAPETIANS, to whom he had links through
marriage. He managed the conquest of ITA LYin 951 and
married ADELAIDE, a descendant of CHARLEMAGNEand the
widow of King Lothair of Italy (r. 947–50). In 955 he won
a great victory at LECHFELDover the MAGYARSor HUNGAR-
IANS, who then had to end their raids into central Europe.
Otto was essentially proclaimed emperor anew by the
army after that victory. In a second Italian expedition in
961, he completed the annexation of the peninsula and
went to ROME, where he was consecrated as emperor on
February 2, 962, by the notoriously degenerate Pope
John XII (r. 955–964). The pope promptly changed his
support as soon as he could to Otto’s great rival in Italy,
King Berengar II (r. 950–963). Otto deposed the pope
and forced Berengar into exile. He negotiated successfully
with the Byzantines, who were unhappy with his activi-
ties in Italy and his consecration as emperor. He was able
to negotiate the marriage of his son and successor, Otto II
(r. 973–983), to the Greek princess THEOPHANO. Near the
end of his reign, he established the archdiocese of Magde-
burg in 968 as a province and frontier region bordering
the lands of the SLAVS. He had ambitions for further con-
quest to the east, into what became POLANDand RUSSIA.
But these plans came to little at the time. Otto died on
May 7, 973, and was buried at Magdeburg. Much admired
and feared, he was the first great German imperial ruler
and has been called the true creator of the German HOLY
ROMANEMPIRE. He was also a great patron of the arts,
creator of what has been called the Ottonian Renaissance.
See alsoLIUTPRAND OFCREMONA; OTTONIAN ART.
Further reading: Thietmar of Mersburg, Ottonian
Germany: The Chronicle of Thietmar of Mersburg,trans.
David A. Warner (Manchester: Manchester University
Press, 2001); Boyd H. Hill, The Rise of the First Reich:
Germany in the Tenth Century(New York: Wiley, 1969);
Karl J. Leyser, Rule and Conflict in an Early Medieval Soci-
ety: Ottonian Saxony(London: Edward Arnold, 1979),
9–47, 143–156; Eckhard Müller-Mertens, “The Ottonians
as Kings and Emperors,” in The New Cambridge Medieval
History,Vol. 3. c. 900–c. 1024,ed. Timothy Reuter (Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 233–266.Christ enthroned with the family of Emperor Otto I at his feet,
Ottonian ivory plaque from a Lombard workshop (10th cen-
tury), Castello Sforzesco, Milan, Italy (Scala / Art Resource)