All opposition to the irresistible power of the emperor had now ceased—the whole of upper and central Italy lay in silent submission at his feet. His first step was the imposition of a new form of government upon Lombardy. He replaced the great dukes, with the exception of his ally Pandolf, by numerous petty markgrafs, the majority of whom were Germans by birth. He also settled a considerable number of Germans in the different cities, and thus created a party favourable to the imperial cause that counterpoised the rebellious spirit of the Lombards and Romans. Pandolf of Benevento, surnamed Ironhead, and the petty duke, Gisulf of Salerno, whose imbecility rendered him ever inconstant to his allies, defended the frontiers of upper and central Italy against the Greeks, who still retained possession of lower Italy, and the Saracens, who had already settled in Sicily. Otto and his empress, Adelheid, visited Pandolf (968 A.D.) who entertained them with great magnificence.

During his residence at Benevento, Otto undertook the conquest of lower Italy. Bari, the strongly fortified Grecian metropolis, offering a valiant and successful resistance, he had recourse to his favourite policy, and despatched his confidant, Liutprand, the celebrated historian, to the court of Nicephorus, the Grecian emperor, in order to demand the hand of the beautiful princess Theophano, daughter to Romanus the late emperor, for his son Otto II, probably in the hope of receiving Italy as her dowry. His suit being contemptuously refused, Otto undertook a second campaign during the following year, and chose with great judgment his line of march along the Alps that separate lower Italy into two parts, and thus command Apulia to the east and Calabria to the west. Having thus opened a path, he returned the same way, leaving the conquest of the low country to Pandolf, who having the misfortune to be taken prisoner before Bovino, and to be sent to Constantinople, the Greeks, under the patrician Eugenius, crossed the frontier, laid waste the country in the neighbourhood of Capua and Benevento, and treated the inhabitants with great cruelty. Otto, who was at that juncture in upper Italy, sent the grafs Gunther and Siegfried to oppose them; a splendid victory was gained, and the victors, animated by a spirit of revenge, deprived the Greek prisoners of their right hands, noses, and ears. In 970, the Sicilian Saracens invaded the country, but were defeated at Chiaramonte by Graf Gunther. At this time, the emperor Joannes, who after the assassination of Nicephorus had ascended the throne of Greece, restored Pandolf Ironhead to liberty, concluded peace with Otto, and consented to the alliance of Otto II with the beautiful Theophano, who was escorted from Constantinople by the archbishop Gero of Cologne, Bruno’s successor, at the head of a numerous body of retainers.

[972-973 A.D.]

She was received in the palace of Pandolf at Benevento by the emperor and the youthful bridegroom. Her extraordinary beauty attracted universal admiration. The marriage ceremony was celebrated with great magnificence at Rome (972 A.D.). This princess created an important change in the manners of Germany by the introduction of Grecian customs, which gradually spreading downwards from the court, where her influence was first felt, affected the general habits of the people by the alterations introduced in the monastic academies. The German court adopted much of the pomp and etiquette of that of Greece. The number of retainers increased with increasing luxury, and the plain manners of the true-hearted German were exchanged for the finesse and adulation of the courtier. The emperor also adopted the Grecian title of “sacred majesty” (sacra majestas). Lower Italy remained in the hands of the Greeks.[d]

COMPARISON OF HENRY THE FOWLER AND OTTO WITH CHARLEMAGNE

The feeling of his unassailable position may have cheered the emperor on the journey to his own palatinate and church, at Memleben on the Unstrut, where the river, peaceful and calm on the surface but flowing strongly in its depths, winds its way out of the valley through the neighbouring mountains, which have still kept the name they bore in the days of antiquity. It is supposed to have been an ancient Germanic burial-place. He arrived there on the 6th of May, 973. It has rather been supposed that he came there with a foreboding of death. But death hovered over him. On the 7th he still kept the hours for prayer, not without interruption for rest and for “offering his hand to the poor,” as the chronicle says.

He seemed cheerful at table. Whilst he was listening to the singing of the Gospel at vespers, he was seized by the horror of death. Overcome by heat and weakness, he was placed on a seat, received the Communion, and died without any previous illness or death struggle. Thus the man who might have been considered as the ruler of all the western world, unexpectedly suffered the fate of mortals. The fullness of an inexhaustible vigour accompanied him to the end of his life, when it was suddenly conquered. He was only sixty-one years of age when he expired; his father had died at about the same age, in the same place, after a most active life.

Let us, even at the danger of repetition, add a few remarks concerning the position in the world of these two great men.

They had been preceded by Pepin and Charles the Great, likewise father and son, through whose succession and co-operation the West received its definite form. That which the father had planned, the son carried out with circumspect politics and the fortune of arms; under his long and peaceful administration the Western Empire was formed. The relations were not quite the same between Henry and Otto. Of Henry nothing is to be found from which one can conclude that his plans were the foundations of his son’s actions. But succeeding each other under altered circumstances, they obtained the greatest success. To them is due the fact that the Carlovingian kingdom was sustained. Father and son worked together to banish the most dangerous enemies by which Germany was at any time attacked. Through Otto, Italy again became closely united with the empire, and western France kept in peaceful relation to it. The western world, its power and civilisation, depended on the union of the three great lands.

[973 A.D.]