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166 in the Abruzzi, were wholly given over to their bishops, and the immunities on episcopal lands steadily grew, so that they too were in process of being excised from the counties in which they lay. The work was slowly done by Otto and his successors both in Italy and Germany, but there was no countering tendency. The functions granted were either those of the hereditary counts or those which the kings had been unable to perform. By transference of these to the churchmen Otto and his heirs recovered control of much local government by seeming to give it away, and secured faithful, powerful adherents selected for capacity. Their monarchy came to rest, especially in Italy, on their control of the Church; all the more essential to them therefore became the subjection or the firm alliance of the Papacy.

Scarcely had Otto left Italy when the death of his nominee, Pope Leo VIII, early in 965 endangered his new Empire. The Romans with a show of duty sent an embassy to beg for the exile Benedict as Pope, and Adalbert appeared in Lombardy to raise a revolt. Duke Burchard of Swabia, indeed, defeated Adalbert, and the Romans elected the Bishop of Narni as Pope John XIII at the Emperor's command, but, though John was of Alberic's kindred, the mere fact that he represented German domination enabled rival nobles to raise the populace and drive him into exile. He was not restored till in 966 the news of Otto's descent into Italy with an army provoked a reaction. Punishment was dealt out to the rebels, severer for the Roman enemies of the Pope than for the Lombard rebels against Otto. John XIII's exile seems to have occasioned fresh schemes of the Emperor. Paldolf I Ironhead of Capua-Benevento, with whom the Pope had found an asylum, appeared in Rome in January 967 and was there invested by Otto with the march of Spoleto, at the same time becoming Otto's vassal for his native principality. Otto thus created a central Italian vassal of the first rank, and enlarged his Empire. One motive, no doubt, was the wish to give peace and security to the Spoletan march; but the main purpose was clearly to begin the annexation of South Italy to the Regnum Italicum. This design, which was in pursuance of old Carolingian claims, was bound to find resistance in the Eastern Empire. The Byzantines looked on Otto's imperial title as a barbaric impertinence: they considered Capua-Benevento as part of the Longobardic theme; and they were determined to maintain their dominion in Italy.

The Eastern Roman Emperors were always handicapped in their dealings in Italy; their province there was too important to be let go, too remote to be the object of their chief energies. The fall of King Hugh had been followed by outbreaks in Apulia, and at the same time the Saracen raids became a grave danger when the Fātimite Caliph Manṣūr once again recovered the revolted colony of Sicily in 947. Calabria was overrun by his troops; even Naples was besieged: and, although in 956 the patrician Marianus Argyrus restored Byzantine authority over subjects