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Otto I or Otto the Great was born on November 23rd 912 to Henry the Fowler, Duke of Saxony, and his wife Matilda in Wallhausen, East Francia(Modern-day Germany). Otto was one of four children. Not much is known about his early life until the year 929. In the year 929 Otto was serving as a military commander defending the German Kingdom's borders against raids by Slavic tribes from the east. In 930 Otto's father Henry sent Otto to England to have an arranged marriage for Otto with an Anglo-Saxon noblewoman named Eadgyth to strengthen alliances with the Anglo-Saxons. On July 2nd 936 Henry passed away and on August 7th Otto was crowned King of the Germans. In 937 Eberhard the Duke of Saxony revolted against Otto's rule and Otto was forced to invade his province and by 938 put down the rebellion. Another rebellion occurred in 938 which Otto quickly put down. By 940 Otto had managed to fully stabilize his kingdom.
Over the next ten years from 941 on Otto began consolidating his power and reforming the government. In 951 political turmoil broke out in Northern Italy causing Otto's son Liudolf to invade Lombardy to take advantage of it. Liudolf's army did not preform well and eventually Otto raised an army to rescue his son's army from disasters. By September 23rd Otto's army subdued all of Northern Italy and Otto now possessed most of Charlemagne's territory. Otto then made Berengar II who was King of Italy, his vassal. On Christmas of 951 Otto's son Liudolf began a revolt against his father over the Italian campaign. Otto managed to put down the rebellion in 954. In late 954 the Magyars(Hungarians) sensing the German Kingdom's weakness from the civil war invaded and began sacking German cities. On August 12th 955 Otto and the German Army defeated the Magyars at the Battle of Lechfeld and drove the Magyars out of German lands. While Otto was fighting the Magyars, the Slavs invaded the Northern German lands. Otto then defeated the Slavs at the Battle of Recknitz on October 16th of 955 and drove them out. The victories against the Magyars and Slavs helped stabilize Otto's kingdom as well.
In 957 Berengar II rebelled against Otto and in response Otto launched a military expedition into Northern Italy. In 960 Berengar's army attacked the Papal States and Pope John XII asked Otto for aid against Berengar. By 961 Otto had conquered Northern Italy and this time incorporated it into his kingdom. On January 31st 962 Otto traveled to Rome and was given a ceremony and crowned King of the Romans or Holy Roman Emperor by Pope John XII, transforming the German Kingdom back into the Holy Roman Empire created by Charlemagne. Latter in the 960's Otto brought most of the duchies of Central Italy under his sphere of influence, however this ended up angering the Byzantine Empire, as they being the true inheritors of the Roman Empire believed, Italy and Rome should be under their control(this tension would also eventually cause the Catholic and Orthodox Churches to split many decades later in the Great Schism). On May 7th 973 Otto the Great, passed away at the age of 60 having re-founded the Holy Roman Empire which would last until the early 1800's.
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@ValeOfShadows > as they being the true inheritors of the Roman Empire believed, Italy and Rome should be under their control(this tension would also eventually cause the Catholic and Orthodox Churches to split many decades later in the Great Schism).
Thank you for recognizing that the Eastern Roman Empire was still the Roman Empire - that detail gets lost in a lot of summaries on the subject !
The *other* cause of the Great East/West Schism was internal to the Western Church - wherein a small but focused consortium of power-hungry clerics and monks seized upon certain “innovative” distortions present in Blessed Augustine’s treatment of Original Sin - wherein he argued we inherited not merely the Sin of Adam, but *also* his Guilt. This justified to them a reworking of the Traditional Church Hierarchy, that long-story short, caused Papal Supremacy to emerge.
The only reason I mention it is because the political situation likely would not, on its own, have caused the Schism. But the combination of simultaneous political and spiritual divisions sufficed to wedge The West out from the rest of Christendom.
In any event, excellent overview; thanks again !
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@KingOfWhiteAmerica @ValeOfShadows empire of the Greeks, never Romans.
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@MK2boogaloo @ValeOfShadows Well I don’t know that I’d go *that* far; they still thought of and called themselves “Romans” - even to the point that the Ottomans called them the “Sultanate of Rûm” after having conquered them.
Terms like “Byzantine Empire” are a modern innovation, popularized by the likes of the historian Gibbon; and similarly with tacking “Eastern - “ in front of it. They didn’t bother.
But yeah the spiritual disunion was largely to blame; and honestly it was largely the Eastern’s fault for having fallen so hard into Iconoclasm. Freaked the Western out, understandably so. But things had technically been set right in the Seventh Ecumenical Council - though it took a while for that to really get established.
ValeOfShadows
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