The birth of Otto the Great on 23rd November 912. He was the second child and eldest son of Henry, Duke of Saxony and his second wife, Matilda of Ringelheim. Otto’s elder sister, Hedwige (ca 910 – ?) would marry the West Frankish duke Hugh the Great and become the mother of Hugh Capet, while his younger sister, Gerberga (ca 913 – 984) would marry, as her second husband, the West Frankish king Louis IV. Otto had two younger brothers, Henry (ca 920 – 955) future Duke of Bavaria, Bruno (925 – 965) future Archbishop of Cologne. In addition, Otto had an older half-brother, Thankmar (908 – 938), from an earlier marriage of Henry’s. Otto, though a duke’s son, was not born royal so the fact that he became a king, was crowned emperor and ended his life as unquestionably one of the most powerful figures of 10th-century Europe was something that could not have been foreseen at his birth.
In 918, when Otto was about six, Conrad I, King of the East Franks died, and recommended that Henry, Duke of Saxony, should be his successor. In May 919, Henry was acclaimed king by an assembly of Frankish and Saxon magnates at Fritzler, in modern Hesse. (Though Henry was a Saxon, he did have Frankish ancestry through his paternal grandmother, Oda). At the king-making ceremony, Conrad’s brother and heir Eberhard submitted to Henry becoming his “friend” and vassal; at the same ceremony, Heriger, Archbishop of Mainz, offered to anoint Henry but he refused. This refusal has been much debated but can be seen as a gesture from Henry to the four dukes of Franconia, Bavaria, Lotharingia and Suabia that he regarded himself as “primus inter pares” (first among equals) and was not claiming to be other than they were despite his new royal title.
As is usually the case in the early medieval era, little is known of Otto’s childhood though presumably the fact that his father had become a king must have had an effect on him, if only by changing his perception of himself from that of a potential heir to a dukedom to seeing himself as a future monarch; the attitude of those around him are would almost certainlh have changed. Otto would have been trained as a warrior but what other formal education he received, if any, is not known. However, Otto’s mother, Matilda, spent her youth at the Abbey of Herford, where her grandmother and namesake Matilda was Abbess, so she may have arranged for her children to receive an education in literacy also. By the time he was seventeen, Otto was taking part in military campaigns with his father, mainly against the neighbouring Slavs and especially the Magyars, then a major threat.
In 929 Otto’s first child, a son called William was born to a captive Slav woman whose name is unknown. William would later become the Archbishop of Mainz. In 930, Otto married Ædgyt, or Edith, daughter of Edward the Elder, King of Wessex and sister of King Athelstan. They went on to have two children, a son, Liudolf, born in 930 in and a daughter, Liutgarde, born 931.
In July 936 Henry died, nominating Otto as his successor. In August of that year, Otto travelled to Aachen, Charlemagne’s old capital, where he was crowned. The coronation of Otto is described in detail in the Res Gestae Saxonicae or Deeds of the Saxons by the chronicler Widukind of Corvey (ca 925 –?) [i]:
“When Otto arrived there (Aachen) the dukes and leading counts who had gathered in the courtyard of the Basilica, placed their new leader on a throne (Charlemagne’s) …….. (they) offered him their hands, swore loyalty to him, promised their support against all his enemies and thus made him King……… While the dukes were doing this, the highest priest (Hildebert, Archbishop of Mainz) along with clerics of every rank and the entire people undertook a procession within the Basilica in honour of the new King. As the King was walking the Archbishop met him and touched the King’s right hand with his own left hand ……. the Archbishop was carrying his staff in his right hand ……. and he was adorned with his alb, stole and chasuble…… He then turned to the people who were standing all around …………. and said ‘Behold I bring you Otto, the elect of God, who long ago was designated by Henry (his father) ……….. and who now has been made King by all of the leaders. If this election pleases you, show it by raising your right arms to heaven’.
“In response, the entire people raised their right arms to heaven and cried out with a great shout for the new leader to have good fortune. Then the Archbishop walked behind the altar, on which the royal insignia had been placed, along with the king who was wearing a tunic in the Frankish style. The insignia were a sword with a belt, a cloak with clasps, a staff with a sceptre and the crown……. Hildebert (Archbishop) then went to the altar, picked up the sword and belt, turned to the King and said ‘Take this sword with which you shall defeat all the enemies of Christ, barbarians and evil Christians. All of the power of the entire Empire of the Franks has been granted to you by divine authority so that there shall be true peace for all Christians’. “Then taking up the cloak with clasps, Hildebert placed it on Otto saying ‘You are reminded by these horns pointing towards the ground [ii] of the zealous faith with which you should burn, and of the peace which you should maintain up to the end of our life’. Then Hildebert picked up the sceptre and staff and said ‘You are warned by these symbols that it is your responsibility to restrain your subjects with paternal discipline. You should offer a hand of mercy first to the servants of God, to widows and to orphans. The oil of compassion should never be missing from your head so that you will be crowned both in the present and in the future with the eternal prize’.
“Otto was then anointed with holy oil, and crowned with the golden diadem by Archbishops Hildebert and Wigfried (of Cologne). When the entire legal consecration was done, Otto was led…. to the throne to which he ascended by a winding stair…… (so that) Otto could see everyone and could, himself, be seen by all those who were in attendance.
“After the …… mass had been solemnly celebrated, the King went down to the palace, and took his place at the marble table, ornate with its royal panoply, where he sat with the bishops and all the people. The dukes served. Duke Gislebert (of Lotharingia and first husband of Otto’s sister, Gerberga) … obtained all the supplies. Eberhard (Duke of Franconia) [iii] looked after the table. Hermann the Frank (Duke of Swabia) served as cup-bearer. Arnulf (Duke of Bavaria) was responsible for overseeing the horses and choosing the place to make camp……. After these festivities, the King honoured each of the princes with an appropriate gift according to his royal munificence, and then dismissed the great crowd filled completely with joy” [iii].
From Widukind’s description it is clear that Otto already had a different attitude to kingship from that of his father. Unlike his father he was crowned and anointed with holy oil, and invested by an Archbishop with the regalia; at the great banquet following the coronation by being served by the four dukes he was underlining his difference from them, that he was not just another duke, and demonstrating his kingly status or at the very least claiming overlordship.
However, Otto’s accession to the throne was not quite as easy as Widukind’s account indicates. For example, Otto’s brother, Henry, is not mentioned as being present and may have been detained in Saxony. In fact, their mother, Matilda, is said to have been in favour of Henry and not Otto succeeding their father on the grounds that Henry had been born after their father had become King, unlike Otto. It also was not easy for the twenty-four year old Otto to consolidate his position, for example some of the neighbouring peoples including the Bohemians and Elbe Slavs refused to pay tribute; in addition, he was involved in several conflicts between the years 937 – 941 involving some of the dukes who had participated in his coronation as well as revolts by his brothers Thankmar and Henry.
That Otto would become as successful as he did and that he would in time become the most powerful ruler in Western Europe and the first non-Carolingian emperor is something that could not have been foreseen. The Ottonians are a fascinating (to me anyway) dynasty with many achievements. The methods used by Otto in running the empire, his use of the Church as an instrument of government, the missions to the local Slavs and Magyars, the ritualised aspects of the “iter” in which he travelled around the kingdom to dispense justice on the local nobility, the discovery of the silver mines at Goslar, the achievements of the so-called Ottonian renaissance are just part of the dynasty’s story. There is Otto’s involvement in the affairs of West Francia and Burgundy, as well as the Papacy and Italy; for example, the protection of the rights of his young nephew, Hugh Capet, his sister’s Hedwige’s son, was something that would have far reaching effects. Ottonian art is another major achievement of the era.
On Otto’s coronation day, the challenges ahead of him may not have been foremost in his mind as he, hopefully, enjoyed the celebratory feast in Aachen, Charlemagne’s old capital.
(Interesting note: some readers may have noticed the emergence into history of the names Henry and Matilda – names that would go on to have long and indeed continuing careers of their own. Henry the Fowler, Otto the Great’s father, was named for his maternal grandfather, Henry of Franconia, the earliest Henry I know of; Matilda, Henry the Fowler’s queen, was named after her grandmother, the abbess of Herford. The original name was probably Mechthildis or Mechtilde, eventually Latinised to Matilda, in time becoming Mahaut and then Maud).
HG1
[i]: Widukind, pp 61 – 64.
[ii]: Widukind, p 64, note 12, the clasps on the cloak were made in the shape of downward pointing horns.
[iii]: Eberhard was the younger brother of Conrad I, Otto’s father’s predecessor as King.
Background:-
Deeds of the Saxons, by Widukind of Corvey. Trans Bernard S. Bachrach &, David Bachrach, Catholic Univ of America, Washington, D.C., 2014.
The Chronicon of Thietmar of Merseburg (2001). Trans David A. Warner. Manchester Univ Press, 2001.
The ‘Annals’ of Flodoard of Reims, (919-966). Trans by Bernard S. Bachrach and Steven Fanning, University of Toronto Press, 2004.
Germany in the Early Middle Ages by Timothy Reuter, Longman, London, 1991.
The German Aristocracy: From the Ninth to the Early Twelfth Century, by Karl Leyser. Past and Present (1968) 41.
