Otto I (912?973), king of Germany and emperor. Known as "Otto the Great," he was the true founder of royal power in Germany and was responsible for forging a lasting link between royal power and the bishops and abbots, thus laying the foundations for what was to become the Holy Roman Empire. By that token he committed himself and successive kings to the assumption of responsibility as well as lordship over the papacy and Rome. An indefatigable warrior, Otto also proved to be a farsighted administrator. During his reign, Germany experienced a cultural growth frequently referred to as the Ottonian Renaissance.
The second of the Saxon line of German kings, he was the son of the German King Henry I. Though German kingship was elective and not hereditary, he was designated by his father as his successor. He was married to Edgitha, daughter of the Anglo-Saxon King Edward the Elder, in 929. His father died in 936, and in the same year Otto was elected king of Germany by the dukes and crowned in Aix-la-Chapelle.
Consolidation of Power
From the very beginning of his reign Otto had to face rebellions of his own Saxon nobles: first in 936, again in 939 when the rebels were joined by his own brother Henry, and a third time in 941 when Henry conspired to murder him. Otto emerged victorious from all these challenges and used his growing power to transfer most of the duchies of Germany to members of his own family.
Otto proved to be a skillful politician, using his dynastic opportunities to the full. He was determined to be, as king, more than one of the dukes of tribal lands. He thus set a royal course in Germany that shaped the monarchy and distinguished it for all times from the feudal monarchies of France and England. He found an able assistant in his younger brother Bruno, who was first arch-chaplain, then chancellor, and after 953 archbishop of Cologne (Köln). Bruno also became duke of Lorraine.
Otto completed the fusion of secular and spiritual power that dated from Charlemagne, by treating episcopal sees as fiefs. His feudal bishops gave him more tangible support than his lay vassals. In the Italian campaign of 981 his son could muster 1,504 knights sent by bishops and abbots against only 600 from lay vassals.
The Outward Thrust
At the same time, Otto was responsible for promoting the expansion of German settlers and conquerors into the lands of the Slavs east of the Elbe River. In lending military support to enterprises against the Slavs, Otto laid the foundations for the future expansion of Germany to the Oder-Neisse line and beyond. As part of the thrust to the east a new monastery was founded in Magdeburg in 937, and in 948 the bishoprics of Havelberg and Brandenburg were established. Between 950 and 968 similar advances were made in the north at the expense of the Bohemians. To the west he made good his claims to Lorraine, and he extended his influence into Burgundy on the southwest.
In 951, in response to an appeal for help by Adelaide, a Burgundian princess who was the widow of the Italian King Lothair II, Otto invaded Lombardy and was crowned king of the Lombards. He freed Adelaide, who had been held prisoner by the ambitious Berengar of Ivrea, and since his first wife had died, he married Adelaide, thereafter conquering her enemies.
Lord of Germany
He soon faced another rebellion in Germany and had to seek refuge in his native land of Saxony. His fortunes took a turn for the better when a horde of Magyars invaded Germany. Otto rose to the challenge and rallied support against the invaders, for in resisting foreign invaders he could prove that kingship was more than a dignity, that it was in fact a military necessity. He first defeated the rebels and then inflicted a decisive defeat on the Magyars in the Battle of the Lechfeld near Augsburg in August 955. The victory proved epoch making since it ended the Magyar raids into German lands that had been going on for over one hundred years.
Nothing demonstrates Otto's nimble statesmanship better than his preparation and organization of the campaign. Conrad, one of the dukes who earlier in Otto's reign has rebelled against the king, had forfeited his duchy as punishment. But he was won over by Otto to play a leading and decisive role in the battle, in which he fought bravely and lost his life.
Further successful campaigns against the Slavs followed. In 968, to consolidate his conquests in the east and his connections with the church, Otto founded the archbishopric of Magdeburg. The city had long been favored by Otto, and the new archbishopric proved a powerful addition to the three old archbishoprics of Cologne, Trier, and Mainz. His most lasting success in linking the church to the crown was achieved by the development of the royal chapel, which became a training ground for future bishops. Otto never hesitated to appoint those trained by the chapel to episcopal sees, thus assimilating bishoprics to royal fiefs.
Arbiter of the Papacy
In 961, Otto responded to another summons to Italy, this time by Pope John XII. On his arrival in Rome in February 962, he was crowned emperor, and he issued the famous Privilegium Ottonianum, which linked papacy and empire. Otto reconfirmed the temporal power of the popes first confirmed by Charlemagne, but unlike Charlemagne, in so doing he made the popes the feudal vassals of the emperor.
By 963, John XII had become disloyal to Otto and was deposed. Otto, in the face of opposition by the Romans, placed a nominee of his own, Leo VIII, on the papal throne. Roman opposition, however, continued after Leo's death in 965, and Otto had to march to Italy for a third time in 966 in order to place yet another of his candidates, John XIII, on the papal throne. He prolonged his sojourn and campaigned successfully on Byzantine territory in southern Italy. In 972 an accommodation with Byzantium was sealed by the marriage of Otto's son, the future Otto II, to Theophano, a Byzantine princess.
The earlier success in Lombardy together with his assumption of full responsibility for the papacy linked the German monarchy fatefully to Italy. For Otto these links were conceived in feudal and ecclestiastical terms. But they proved burdensome for Germany in later centuries.
In his own age, however, triumphant and successful as lord of Germany and arbiter of the papacy, Otto returned to Germany where he held a splendid curia in Quedlinburg, near his beloved Magdeburg, on March 23, 973. He died on May 7, 973, and was buried in Magdeburg Cathedral.
Munz, Peter. "Otto I (912?973)." Encyclopedia Americana. Grolier Online, 2014. Web. 9 Nov. 2014.