Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 10.djvu/501

Rh Otto 1. Trouble with France. SAXON EMPERoRs.] throughout north Germany. He was not content with merely making them places of defence, he decreed that they should be centres for the adminstration of justice, and that in them should be held all public festivities and ceremonies ; he also instituted town markets, and encouraged traders to take advantage of the opportunities provided for them. A strong check was thus imposed upon the tendency of freemen to become the vassals of great lords. This move- ment was made so powerful by the troubles of the epoch that, had no other current of inﬂuence set in, the entire class of freemen must soon have disappeared. As they now knew that they could in the last resort ﬁnd protection without looking to a superior, they had less temptation to give up their independence, and many of them settled in the towns, where they could be safe and free. Besides maintaining a manly spirit in the population, the towns rapidly added to their importance by the stimulus they gave to all kinds of industry and trade. Before his death, Henry obtainezl the promise of the nobles at a national assembly or diet in Erfurt to recognize his son Otto as his successor, and the promise was kept. Otto I. (936-973) began his reign under the most favour- able circumstances. He was twenty—four years of age, and to so high a pitch of honour had Henry raised the crown that, at the coronation festival, which was of unprecedented splendour, the dukes performed for the ﬁrst time the nominally menial oﬂices known as the arch offices of the German kingdom. These peaceful relations soon came to an end. It was Henry’s aim to establish the dukes in their rights, maintaining the royal authority rather by moral inﬂuence than by force. Otto, who was of haughty temper, despotic, and ambitious, seems early to have resolved that the dukes should act in the strictest sense as his vassals, or lose their dignities. At the time of his coronation Germany was virtually a federal state; he wished to transform it into a ﬁrm and compact monarchy. This policy speedily led to a formidable rebellion, headed by Thankmar, the king’s half-brother, a ﬁerce warrior, who fancied that he had a prior claim to the crown, and who had managed to secure a number of followers in Saxony. He was joined by the dukes of Franconia and Bavaria ,- and it was only by the aid of the duke of Swabia., whom the duke of Franconia had offended, that the rising was put down. A second rebellion, led by Otto’s brother Henry, was supported, among other nobles, by the dukes of Franeonia and Lorraine. Otto again triumphed, and derived immense advantages from his success. The duchy of Franconia he kept i11 his own hands, and be granted Lorraine to Conrad, an energetic and _honourable count, whom he still further attached by promising him his daughter to wife. Bavaria, on the death of its duke, was placed under Henry, who, having been pardoned, had become a. loyal subject and friend of his brother. The duchy of Swabia was also brought into Otto’s family by the marriage of his son Ludolf with the duke‘s daughter. By these means he made himself master of the kingdom, as none of his immediate predeces- sors had been. For the time, feudalism in truth meant that lands a11d offices were held on condition of service ; the king was the genuine ruler, not only of freemen but of the highest vassals in the nation. In the midst of his troubles at home Otto had brought fresh perplexities upon himself by intriguing in the West- Frankish kingdom against “ Louis d’Outremer.” Louis responded with unexpected vigour, giving the signal for the second rising against Otto by invading Alsace. He also asserted a claim to Lorraine. When peace had been restored in Germany, Otto penetrated far into France, and received the homage of “Hugh the Great,” his son-in-law; but he soon re- turned, and afterwards used his great inﬂuence in favour of Louis against his rebellious nobles. Much more important GERMANY 483 than Otto’s doings in France were his wars with his northern 936-95 and eastern neighbours. The duke of Bohemia, after a long struggle, was brought to submission. between the Elbe and the Oder the king was represented by Margrave Gero, one of his most important vassals, a warrior well ﬁtted for the rough work he had to do, loyal to his sovereign, but capable of any t1'eachery towards his enemies, and sometimes guilty of outrageous harshness. This remarkable man conquered most of the country north of Bohemia between the Oder and the Upper and Middle Elbe. Margrave Billung, who looked after the Abotrites at the Lower Elbe, was less fortunate, mainly because of the neighbourhood of the Danes, who, after the death of King Danes, Henry, often attacked the hated Germans. At last they made Billung prisoner, and Otto himself had to proceed against them. Their king did him homage, and he re- established the 1narcl1 of Schleswig, after which the mar- grave made rapid way among the Abotrites and Wends. Otto, having profound faith in the power of the church to reconcile conquered peoples to his rule, provided for the beneﬁt of the Danes the bishoprics of Schleswig, Bipen, and Aarhuus ; and among those which he established for the Slavs was the important bishopric of Brandenburg. In his later years he set up the archbishopric of Magdeburg, which took in the sees of Meissen, Zeitz, and Merseburg. Having secured peace in Germany, and begun the real Exped conquest of the border races, Otto was by far the greatest tion i1 sovereign in Europe ; and, had he and his successors refused Italy‘ to go beyond the limits within which he had hitherto acted, it is almost certain they would have established a united monarchy. But a decision to which Otto soon came deprived posterity of the results which might have sprung from the policy of his earlier years. About this time Adelaide, the young and beautiful widow of Lothair, son of King Hugh of Provence, having refused to marry the son of Berengar, king of Lombardy, was cast into prison and cruelly treated. She appealed to the mighty German sovereign, and the appeal not only touched his sympathies, but awoke an overmastering ambition, since the way was thus opened for a partial restoration of the Carolingian em- pire. At the head of a great force, accompanied by his son Ludolf and many of his chief nobles, he crossed the Alps in 951, and descended into Lombardy. He displaced Berengar, and was so fascinated by Queen Adelaide that within a few weeks he married her. Ludolf, who had received a promise of the German crown, saw his rights threatened by this marriage, and returned sullenly to Germany. He went to an old enemy of his father, the archbishop of Mainz, and the two plotted together against the king, who, hearing of their proceedings, hastily departed, leaving Duke Conrad of Lorraine to attend to Italy. Otto had already taken the title of king of Italy, and Duke Henry, who hoped to obtain a large addition to his duchy, joined Queen Adelaide in urging him to assert the claims of the old Frankish sovereigns. Conrad, however, soon appeared with the intelligence that he had restored the Italian king- dom to Berengar, although as a ﬁef of the German crown. This news being roughly received, Conrad took offence, and entered into the conspiracy of Ludolf and the arch- bishop. Otto, who did not suspect how deep were their designs, paid a visit to Mainz, and there was compelled to take certain solemn pledges which, after his escape, he repudiated. War then broke out, and the struggle was the (M1 In Lorraine, war. most serious in which he had been engaged. of which Otto made his brother Bruno, archbishop of Cologne, administrator, his cause was triumphant; but everywhere else dark clouds gathered over his head. Henry of Bavaria was deserted by his vassals; in Swabia, in Franconia, and even in Saxony, the native land of the king, his own duchy, the majority sided with the rebels. Among the Slavs slavs.