Page:A general history for colleges and high schools (Myers, 1890).djvu/564

502, the circumstances tending to keep the several states or communities apart were stronger than those operating to draw them together, so that for a thousand years after Charlemagne we find them constituting hardly anything more than a very loose confederation, the members of which were constantly struggling among themselves for supremacy, or were engaged in private wars with the neighboring nations.

That which more than all else operated to prevent Germany from becoming a powerful, closely-knit nation, was the adoption by the German rulers of an unfortunate policy respecting a worldempire. This matter will be explained in the following paragraphs.

Renewal of the Roman Empire by Otto the Great (962).—When the dominions of Charlemagne were divided among his three grandsons (see p. 408), the Imperial title was given to Lothair, to whom fell Italy and the Rhine-land. The title, however, meant scarcely anything, carrying with it little or no real authority. Thus matters ran on for more than a century, the empty honor of the title sometimes being enjoyed by the kings of Italy, and again by those of Germany.

But with the accession of the second of the Saxon line, Otto I., who was crowned king at Aachen in 936, there appeared among the princes of Europe a second Charlemagne. He was easily first among them all. Besides being king of Germany, he became, through interference on request in the affairs of Italy, king of that country also. Furthermore, he wrested large tracts of land from the Slavonians, and forced the Danes, Poles, and Hungarians to acknowledge his suzerainty. Thus favored by fortune, he