Otto the Great

Otto I (23 November 912 – 7 May 973), known as Otto the Great (German: Otto der Große Italian: Ottone il Grande) or Otto of Saxony (German: Otto von Sachsen Italian: Ottone di Sassonia), was East Frankish (German) king from 936 and Holy Roman Emperor from 962 until his death in 973. He was the eldest son of Henry the Fowler and Matilda of Ringelheim.

Otto inherited the Duchy of Saxony and the kingship of the Germans upon his father's death in 936. He continued his father's work of unifying all German tribes into a single kingdom and greatly expanded the king's powers at the expense of the aristocracy. Through strategic marriages and personal appointments, Otto installed members of his family in the kingdom's most important duchies. This reduced the various dukes, who had previously been co-equals with the king, to royal subjects under his authority. Otto transformed the church in Germany to strengthen royal authority and subjected its clergy to his personal control.

After putting down a brief civil war among the rebellious duchies, Otto defeated the Magyars at the Battle of Lechfeld in 955, thus ending the Hungarian invasions of Western Europe. The victory against the pagan Magyars earned Otto a reputation as a savior of Christendom and secured his hold over the kingdom. By 961, Otto had conquered the Kingdom of Italy. Following the example of Charlemagne's coronation as "Emperor of the Romans" in 800, Otto was crowned emperor in 962 by Pope John XII in Rome.

Otto's later years were marked by conflicts with the papacy and struggles to stabilize his rule over Italy. Reigning from Rome, Otto sought to improve relations with the Byzantine Empire, which opposed his claim to emperorship and his realm's further expansion to the south. To resolve this conflict, the Byzantine princess Theophanu married his son Otto II in April 972. Otto finally returned to Germany in August 972 and died at Memleben in May 973. Otto II succeeded him.

Otto has been consistently depicted in historiography through different eras as a successful ruler. He is also reputed to be a great military commander, especially on the strategic level – this also means that the empire this talent recreated was too vast for contemporary administrative structures and could only be governed as a confederacy. Modern historians, while not denying his strong character and his many fruitful initiatives, explore the emperor's capability as a consensus builder – a process that goes in parallel with greater recognition of the nature of consensus politics in medieval Europe (especially Western and Central parts) as well as different roles played by other actors in his time.

Historian David Bachrach notes the role of the bureaucracy and administration apparatus which the Ottonians inherited from the Carolingians and ultimately from the Ancient Romans, and which they developed greatly themselves: "It was the success of the Ottonians in molding the raw materials bequeathed to them into a formidable military machine that made possible the establishment of Germany as the preeminent kingdom in Europe from the tenth through the mid-thirteenth century." Bachrach highlights in particular the achievements of the first two Ottonian rulers, Henry I and Otto the Great in creating this situation. Their rules also marked the start of new, vigorous literary traditions. The patronage of Otto and his immediate successors facilitated a so-called "Ottonian Renaissance" of arts and architecture. As one of the most notable Holy Roman emperors, Otto's footprint in artistic depictions is also considerable.

Otto was born on 23 November 912, the oldest son of the Duke of Saxony, Henry the Fowler and his second wife Matilda, the daughter of Dietrich of Ringelheim, a Saxon count in Westphalia. Henry had previously married Hatheburg of Merseburg, also a daughter of a Saxon count, in 906, but this marriage was annulled, probably in 909 after she had given birth to Henry's first son and Otto's half-brother Thankmar. Otto had four full siblings: Hedwig, Gerberga, Henry and Bruno.

On 23 December 918, Conrad I, King of East Francia and Duke of Franconia, died. According to The Deeds of the Saxons (originally titled in Latin as Res gestae saxonicae sive annalium libri tres) by the Saxon chronicler Widukind of Corvey, Conrad persuaded his younger brother Eberhard of Franconia, the presumptive heir, to offer the crown of East Francia to Otto's father Henry. Although Conrad and Henry had been at odds with one another since 912, Henry had not openly opposed the king since 915. Furthermore, Conrad's repeated battles with German dukes, most recently with Arnulf, Duke of Bavaria, and Burchard II, Duke of Swabia, had weakened the position and resources of the Conradines. After several months of hesitation, Eberhard and the other Frankish and Saxon nobles elected Henry as king at the Imperial Diet of Fritzlar in May 919. For the first time, a Saxon instead of a Frank reigned over the kingdom.