Their monetary resources were limited to (i) what was left of the royal estate from Carolingian times, (II) the tributes and plunder from recent conquests and (iii) their personal assets. The Ottonian rulers were not able to raise any taxes, zero, nada, zilch. It would not have come to my mind or the mind of Otto II either, had he not married the lovely Theophanu, the not quite a niece of the Byzantine emperor. Let’s start with a very obvious thing, a thing so obvious I have completely forgotten to mention it in the last 10 episodes. Otto the Great has consumed all the luck ever allocated to his family, leaving none at all for his unfortunate son and grandson.īefore we wade through all the misfortune that befalls our new emperor it may be time to take stock of the state of this empire in 973. If you are one of those people that believe the universe is in some sort of balance, that makes sense. Within the next 10 years Otto will manage to make and lose war on all frontiers – not I believe because of incompetence, but mainly because he was simply unlucky. In the North, the king of Denmark had been defeated 10 years ago and had accepted both Christianity and the Ottonians as his overlord, the rulers of Bohemia and Poland in the East have sworn allegiance to the emperor as recently as the previous year.īut as we will see, even the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry! In the West, the king of France was Otto’s cousin, married to his stepsister and had sworn fealty to his father. In the South, the Byzantine empire had made peace with the two Ottos and sent an imperial bride. The frontiers in all directions were calm. And, crucially, there were no contesting claims from any full or half-brothers. The people spontaneously hailed him emperor again at the funeral of his father. Otto II had been crowned German king as long ago as 961 and was made co-emperor in 967. In his last waking moments, Otto the Great could look at his succession plan and feel confident that his son would not have to face as much uncertainty as he did in the first 10 years of his reign. Last episode we buried emperor Otto the Great under a simple stone slab in the cathedral of Magdeburg. Hello and welcome to the History of the Germans: Episode 9 – A Matter of Habit.
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