[936-938 A.D.]
In the summer of 936 the leading men of the secular and clerical ranks assembled at Aachen to elect a king. Times had changed decidedly since the year 619, when Henry I received the crown. At his election only the Frankish duke Eberhard with his vassals and the archbishop Heriger of Mainz had appeared, besides the Saxon nobility. The whole kingdom took part in Otto’s election; all the German dukes, the archbishops, and probably a great many other high clerical and secular dignitaries proceeded to Aachen. The Saxon lords who had already decided in favour of Otto accompanied him thither; as he approached, those who had already gathered in the city went out to meet him and brought him back in a triumphal procession. The election took place in the celebrated palace of Charlemagne. Between the castle and the court chapel (the beautiful church of the Virgin) was an open colonnade through which the great emperor had often passed on his way to church. In this place the secular lords chose Otto for their king; he seated himself here and at once caused them to bring him their homage; they placed their hands in his and swore to support him against the enemy. Otto then, in company with the princes, proceeded to the church of the Virgin, the much admired chapel of Charlemagne, which was built in the form of an octagon, in part from antique marble columns. Since the ground space would accommodate only a limited number of persons, a great many had mounted to the circular gallery-like passages above, in order to view the festive proceedings from there. There had been a quarrel among the archbishops at first as to which of them should crown the new ruler; finally it was agreed that this honour should fall to Hildebert of Mainz on account of the peculiar dignity of his person. The archbishop conducted Otto into the middle of the chapel and then turned to the audience: “See,” he said, “I lead before you the new king, who has been selected by God, appointed by King Henry, and now chosen by all the princes, if this choice pleases you, so manifest it by raising the right hand.” Thereupon the congregation raised their right hands and showed their assent by a loud cry of acclamation. The archbishop then led the new king to the altar upon which were the insignia of kingly office—the sword with the girdle, the purple robe, the bracelets, the staff, the sceptre, and the crown. He then turned to Otto and presented him with the insignia of power, together with many pious admonitions. “Receive this sword,” said he, “in order with it to drive out all the enemies of Christ, the heathen, and all bad Christians, since God has given thee dominion over the Frankish realm in order to make of it a sure refuge for Christendom.” After Otto had received the other royal insignia, accompanied with similar pious expressions, the archbishop of Mainz anointed him, being assisted by the archbishop Wikfried of Cologne, put the crown on his head, and conducted him to the throne, which was placed between the marble columns of the church of the Virgin. When the service was concluded the new king proceeded with the secular and clerical lords to the banquet which had been prepared in the palace of Charles the Great. The four dukes of the kingdom, Giselbert of Lorraine, Eberhard of Franconia, Hermann of Swabia, and Arnulf of Bavaria, had charge of the coronation festivities; they also waited on the king personally at the banquet as vassals were accustomed to wait on their feudal lord on especially ceremonious occasions.[b]
It was no empty formality when the princes who had once recognised his father as their feudal lord now rendered him the same service which they received from their dependents. Kingship already meant something more than mere leadership of the Saxon dukes, and Otto was just the man to assume the right which only one king had ever possessed in German territory. If Henry seems almost more Saxon prince than king of the Germans, Otto on the other hand, although he called himself also king of the Franks, was from the very beginning of his reign king of the Germans in the most complete sense of the word.[c]
THE OVERTHROW OF THE STEM DUCHIES
[938-953 A.D.]
A revival of the Carlovingian conception of sovereignty can at once be discerned in the mind of the young king. The coronation itself offered an opportunity for this to appear. The duke of Bavaria had not come to do him homage; Otto deposed him and set up, beside the duchy of Bavaria, a count palatine to watch that the interests of the king should never suffer from the independence of the great vassal. It was the beginning of a policy radically different from that of Henry, who had left almost complete autonomy to the different nations and their dukes. From now on till the time of Bismarck the main story of German history is the struggle of the kings for a centralised government, and the frustration of their efforts by the local magnates who represented the tribes and nations of the earliest days.
The story of Otto’s wars against these great dukes is too long and too intricate to tell in detail here. Suffice it to say that every duke in the kingdom was in rebellion at one time and another. Even the Saxons turned against them, and aided the rebellion of his elder but bastard brother Thankmar and his younger brother Henry, who was the eldest born of the children of Henry I after he was king. At first Otto was beaten, but in a victory at Andernach (Birten) the dukes of Franconia and Lorraine were slain, and the young Henry was forced to submit (939).
Then the great plan of Otto was realised. The power of the king was to be secured by setting up members of his own family in place of the stem dukes, whom the people had hitherto looked up to as sprung from the old race of heroes, and the only hereditary lords of the Germans. Franconia he kept for himself; Bavaria was given to the penitent brother Henry; Swabia was held by his eldest son, Ludolf; his son-in-law Conrad was put over Lorraine. But they were no longer the old independent sovereigns. The scattered estates of the king that spread throughout the different duchies offered the chance for a system of counts palatine who, like the missi dominici of Charlemagne, were to be the agents of royalty and centralisation, and to watch with jealous eye the actions of their neighbours, even if they were of the royal line. It was evident that another Charles was at the helm, but a second civil war had to be fought before the royal prerogatives were assured. Nothing shows more clearly the real tendencies of German history towards local liberty rather than imperial unity than the fact that the new dukes, the king’s own kin, were soon leading the forces of their respective nations against Otto. But the rebels quarrelled among themselves, and an invasion of the Hungarians forced them to join in a common national defence. Otto, however, had learned that he could never rely upon the dukes, whoever they were. Traditions of local independence and tribal, or as they viewed it “national” interests, overcame all ties of blood or duty. Counts palatine were not strong enough to act as a sufficient check. They must be backed up by some other force, or the unity of the monarchy was doomed. The only available ally was the church, and with the same deep political purpose at heart Otto posed as the protector of the church and its reformer. His protection meant the exaltation of ecclesiastical lords to a plane equal to or above that of the lay lords; his reformation meant the placing of his brother, the learned Bruno, over the archiepiscopate of Cologne (953), and his son William in the place of the perfidious Frederick, the archbishop of Mainz, who had connived at a plan for Otto’s assassination.
THE TENTH CENTURY RENAISSANCE
These appointments were eminently just, no more attractive or saintly character appears in German history than that of Bruno, who as chancellor and as prelate carried out reforms that brought intellectual awakening with religious revival. Fostered by him, rare literature again began to be produced; the night of the dark age was passing, and Bruno, carrying his library with him in his travels, and studying Greek with the Scotchman Israel, is like an Erasmus of the tenth century. His work was that of a reformer and teacher.[a]