ABSTRACT
The two centuries between Otto the Great and Frederick Barbarossa witnessed the conversion of the German monarchy. Queen Edith's sister was apparently queen of Burgundy; King Lothar of France was Athelstan's great-nephew; the king of England was one of the most powerful of Athelstan's successors. Like his hero, Charlemagne, Otto was able to gather round him an astonishing proportion of the intellectual, artistic and spiritual leaders of the Europe of his day. On Otto's death the German princes, following the lead of the archbishop of Mainz, with whom lay the first voice in an election', chose Henry, duke of Bavaria, his cousin, to succeed him. The Saxon emperors had enjoyed the resources of enormous family estates as well as the domain of the crown. In Italy Conrad attempted to secure peace by forming marriage alliances with the local lay potentates. It was left as a damnosa hereditas to destroy the authority of Henry IV.
