Otto I of Germany

“ Otto was now again chosen German king, and to aid and mark the general reconciliation he was betrothed to the murdered king’s daughter Beatrix. Nearly all the princes acknowledged him, and as pope and king were at Otto IV. becomes sole king. peace, Germany enjoyed a period of comparative quiet. ”

“ The restoration of the West Franks to the Empire was attempted. Burgundy became a vassal kingdom. [399:3] The Danes, Slavs, and Magyars were held in subjugation. An effort was made by Otto to extend his sway over southern Italy.
Like Charles the Great, Otto gave considerable attention to education. Germany, at that time being on the frontier, was inferior in culture to Italy, Spain, France, and England. Otto, who knew the Frankish and Slavic dialects, attempted to learn Latin late in life. He attracted a number of educated men and celebrated wits to his court such as Widukind, the historian ”

“ Consequences to Germany of the Revival of the Empire.— The scheme of Otto respecting a world-empire was a grand one, but, as had been demonstrated by the failure of the attempt of Charlemagne, was an utterly impracticable idea. It was simply a dream, and never became anything more than a ghostly shadow. Yet the pursuit of this phantom by the German kings resulted in the most woeful consequences to Germany. Trying to grasp too much, these rulers seized nothing at all. Attempting to be emperors of the world, they failed to become even kings of Germany. ”

“ Henceforth father and son were joint rulers. Otto had done his best to make both German kingdom and Roman Empire hereditary.
Otto’s imperial position, 962–973. 34The last years of Otto’s reign were full of triumph. Secure in the obedience of the Church, he ruled both Germany and Italy with an ever-increasing authority. The Magdeburg archbishopric received new suffragans in the sees of Zeiz, Meissen, and Merseburg. A new era of peace and prosperity dawned. The German dukes were afraid to resist so mighty a power. ”

“ Duke Henry, therefore, profited most by the Italian campaign, and this excited the jealousy of Ludolf and Konrad, who began to conspire both against him, and against Otto's authority. The trouble increased until it became an open rebellion, which convulsed Germany for nearly four years. If Otto had been personally popular, it might have been soon suppressed; but the petty princes and the people inclined to one side or the other, according to the prospects of [Pg 126] success, and the Empire, finally, seemed on the point of falling to pieces. ”

“ In 937 he was entrusted by the German king Otto, afterwards the emperor Otto the Great, with the defence of the eastern frontier of Saxony against the Wends and other Slavonic tribes; a duty which he discharged with such ability and success that in a few years he extended the Saxon frontier almost to the Oder, and gained the chief credit for the suppression of a rising of the conquered peoples in a great victory on the 16th of October 955. ”

“ But while Franconia and Bavaria were thus deeply offended, Otto’s own Saxons were filled with discontent at his policy. They resented Otto’s desire to reign as king over all Germany, as likely to impair the dominant claims of the ruling Saxon race. They complained that he had favoured the Franks more than the Saxons, and the sluggish nobles of the interior parts of Saxony were disgusted that Otto had overlooked their claims on his attention in favour of Hermann Billung and Gero, to whom he had intrusted the care of his old duchy along with the government of the Wendish marches. ”

“ As soon as Otto discovered the fact, he collected an army and hastened to the Rhine. He had crossed the river with only a small part of his troops, the remainder being still encamped upon the eastern bank, when Giselbert and Henry suddenly appeared with a great force. Otto at first gave himself up for lost, but determined at least to fall gallantly, he and his followers fought with such desperation that they won a signal victory. Giselbert retreated to Lorraine, whither Otto was prevented from following him by new troubles among the Saxons and the subject Wends between the Elbe and Oder. ”

“ Much more important than Otto’s doings in France were his wars with his northern and eastern neighbours. The duke of Bohemia, after a long struggle, was brought to submission in 950. Among the Slavs between the Elbe and the Oder the king was represented by Margrave Gero, a warrior well fitted for the rough work he had to do, loyal to his sovereign, but capable of any treachery towards his enemies, who conquered much of the country north of Bohemia between the Oder and the upper and middle Elbe. ”

“ Otto would brook no assertion of ecclesiastical independence, such as had of old so often set bounds to the empire of the Carolings. He desired to attach the Church to the State by chains of steel; but he carefully gilded the chains, and the German clergy, who were neither strong theologians nor sticklers for ecclesiastical propriety, entered as a body into that dependence on the throne which was to last for the best part of a century, and which was in fact the indispensable condition of the power of the Saxon kings in Germany. ”

“ In his anxiety to obtain possession of southern Italy, Otto I. had secured as a wife for his son and successor Theophano, daughter of the East Roman emperor, Romanus II., the ruler of much of southern Italy. Otto II., Otto and France. having all his father’s ambition with much of his strength and haughtiness, longed to get away from Germany and to claim these remoter districts. But he was detained for some time owing to the sudden invasion of Lower Lorraine by Lothair, king of France, in 978. ”

“ By the policy of his later years Otto did much to prepare the way for the process of disintegration which he rendered inevitable by restoring the Empire. With the kingdom divided into five great duchies, the sovereign could Otto and the duchies. always have maintained at least so much unity as Henry the Fowler secured; and, as the experience of Otto himself showed, there would have been chances of much greater centralization. Yet he threw away this advantage. Lorraine was divided into two duchies, Upper Lorraine and Lower Lorraine. ”

“ His son, Count Otto VI., who succeeded his father in 1155, accompanied the German king, Frederick I., to Italy in 1154, where he distinguished himself by his courage, and later rendered valuable assistance to Frederick in Germany. When Henry the Lion, duke of Saxony and Bavaria, was placed under the imperial ban in 1180, Otto's services were rewarded by the investiture of the dukedom of Bavaria at Altenburg. Since the time of Otto I. Bavaria has been ruled by the Wittelsbachs. ”

“ Having secured his coronation at Rome in October 1209, Otto repudiated the many pledges he had made to Innocent and began to act in defiance of the papal wishes. To punish him the pope put forward his own ward, Henry VI.’s son Frederick, who was living in Sicily, as a rival king. While Otto was warring in Italy a number of influential princes met at Nuremberg, at the instigation of Innocent and of his ally Philip Augustus of France, and invited Frederick to come to Germany. ”

“ The inheritor of his father’s great work, the husband of the heiress of Sicily, Henry had visions of a power which was not limited to Germany and northern Italy. He dreamt of an Empire as universal as the Empire imagined by Otto III. Like Otto, he strove to make Italy rather than Germany the centre of his power. Like Otto also, he reigned too short a time to carry out his ideals. But, unlike Otto, he strove to 305realise his ambitions in a thoroughly practical and masterly way. In his reign of eight years he had only one failure. ”

“ And that is what the faithful man truly did. In the following year the king really set out on his journey to Rome, and Adaldag went with him. Otto set up a stern tribunal in Rome, deposed the godless Pope John, and made good Leo Pope. Five years Otto spent in Italy, and wherever he came he wrought righteousness and judgment, punished the wicked and relieved the innocent and oppressed; being such a prince as Germany has had few. In the year 962 Otto was solemnly crowned kaiser by Leo at Rome, and thus acknowledged as the earthly head of the whole Christian world. ”

“ The German princes were determined to have no child again, as their hereditary Emperor; but only one son of Frederick Barbarossa still lived,—Philip of Suabia. The bitter hostility between Welf and Waiblinger still existed, and although Philip was chosen by a Diet held in Thuringia, the opposite party, secretly assisted by the Pope and by Richard of the Lion-heart, of England (who had certainly no reason to be friendly to the Hohenstaufens!) met at Aix-la-Chapelle, and elected Otto, son of Henry the Lion. ”

“ In 973 Burchard II., duke of Swabia, died, and the new emperor refused to give this duchy to Henry, further irritating this duke by bestowing it upon his enemy, Otto, a grandson of the emperor Otto I. Having collected allies Henry rebelled, and in 976 the emperor himself marched against him and drove him into Bohemia. Bavaria was taken from him and given to Otto of Swabia, but it was deprived of some of its importance. ”

“ To the connection of their kingdom with the empire they owe the fact that for centuries they were the most divided of European nations. France was made up of a number of loosely connected lands, each with its own lord, when Germany, under Otto, was to a large extent moved by a single will, well organised, and strong. But the attention of the French kings was concentrated on their immediate interests, and in course of time they brought their unruly vassals to order. The German kings, as emperors, had duties which often took them away for long periods from Germany. ”

“ This was captured in 949 by the emperor Otto I. and was occupied by an imperial burgrave for some fifty years, after which it was retaken by the counts of Flanders. Under their protection, and favoured by its site, the city rapidly grew in wealth and population, the zenith of its power and prosperity being reached between the 13th and 15th centuries, when it was the emporium of the trade of Germany and the Low Countries, the centre of a great cloth industry, and could put some 20,000 armed citizens into the field. ”

“ Although still called "Roman" in official documents, the term is henceforth an empty form, and even the word "Empire" loses much of its former significance. The Italian Republics were now practically independent, and the various dukedoms, bishoprics, principalities and countships, into which Germany was divided, were fast rendering it difficult to effect any unity of feeling or action among the people. The Empire which Charlemagne designed, which Otto the Great nearly established, and which Barbarossa might have founded, but for the fatal ambition of governing Italy, had become impossible. ”

“ Lombardy was soon brought to order, and the rebellious nobles banished to Germany. As Otto approached Rome, the people restored the Pope he had appointed, whom they had in the meantime deposed: they were also compelled to [Pg 128] give up the leaders of the revolt, who were tried and executed. Otto claimed the right of appointing the Civil Governor of Rome, who should rule in his name. He gave back to the Pope the territory which the latter had received from Pippin the Short, two hundred years before, but nearly all of which had been taken from the Church by the Lombards. ”

“ Otto of Brunswick and Philip of Hohenstaufen, a brother of Henry VI. The civil war which ensued in Germany between these rival claimants gave Innocent III. his opportunity. Both claimants appealed to the Pope, but Otto was the more submissive. The Pope assumed the function of arbiter and issued a famous bull favouring Otto. [550:5] [551] Otto promised on oath protection of the possessions and rights of the Roman Church, and obedience and homage such as pious Emperors had formerly shown towards the Chair of Peter (1201) . ”

“ Accompanied by his brother Henry of Bavaria, his son Ludolf of Suabia, and his son-in-law Konrad of Lorraine, with their troops, Otto crossed the Alps, defeated Berengar, took possession of Verona, Pavia, Milan and other cities of Northern Italy, and assumed the title of king of Lombardy. He then applied for Adelheid's hand, which was not refused, and the two were married with great pomp at Pavia. ”

“ About the same time, his father's enemy and his own, Godfrey of Lorraine and Tuscany, died; another enemy, Otto, Duke of Bavaria, fell into his hands, and was deposed; and there only remained Magnus, Duke of the Saxons, who seemed hostile to his authority. The events of Henry's youth and the character of his education made him impatient and mistrustful: he inherited the pride and arbitrary will of his father and grandfather, without their prudence: he surrounded himself with wild and reckless princes of his own age, whose counsels too often influenced his policy. ”

“ Fortunately, however, he was singularly open to conviction, 870 and Otto von Bismarck, though not yet in office, was already in his confidence. Bismarck realized that, in the struggle with Austria which he foresaw, Prussia could only be weakened were she to take up an attitude of opposition to the prevailing Liberal sentiment, and that to tamper with the constitution would not only be inexpedient, but useless, since special measures could always be resorted to, to meet special circumstances. The interests of Prussia, he urged, had been too often sacrificed to abstract ideas. ”