contemplated, says the Saxon historian Widukind, a visit to Rome, not indeed to seek the imperial crown, for he had declined the honour of coronation even in Germany, but as a pilgrim. Acceptance of Christianity was often imposed by him as a condition of peace on his conquered foes. This was the case at the break-down of the Slav revolt in 928. In 931 (?) baptism was received by the prince of the Obotrites and perhaps by a Danish prince[1], in spite of the hostility of Gorm the Old, who devoted his life to the persecution of the Christians and to stamping out all remnants of Christianity from his dominions.
In the autumn of 935 at Bodfeld in the Harz Mountains, while engaged in a hunting expedition, Henry was struck down with paralysis. Anxious to see the succession decided in his lifetime, he summoned an assembly of nobles at Erfurt in the beginning of 936. Thankmar the eldest son was excluded on the ground that his mother Hatheburg, a Wend, was under a vow to take the veil when Henry sought to marry her; though Henry, the younger and favourite son of Queen Matilda, had claims on the ground that he was born after his father's accession to the German throne, Otto, the elder son, seemed the most fit to carry on the work his father had begun and was accepted as the successor by the assembled princes. At Memleben on 2 July, when nearly sixty years of age, Henry the Fowler succumbed to a second stroke and was buried in his own foundation, the Church of St Peter at Quedlinburg. The chroniclers of the period are unanimous in their praises of Henry's character and achievements. He was a just and farsighted statesman, a skilful and brave general: with foreigners and enemies he was stern and uncompromising, but to his own countrymen he was a lenient and benevolent ruler. He was a keen sportsman, a genial companion. In his own day Henry was recognised as the founder of a new realm. As Duke of Saxony, he was in a good position to inaugurate a new era, for the Saxons were in blood and in customs the purest Germans, the least touched by Frankish influence. It was the work of Henry that prepared the way for the more brilliant and the more permanent achievements of his son and successor.
OTTO I.
Otto came to the throne in the full vigour and idealism of youth (he was born in 912); he was possessed of a high sense of honour and justice, was stern and passionate, inspiring fear and admiration rather than love among his subjects; he was ambitious in his aspirations and anxious to make the royal power felt as a reality throughout Germany. The difference between father and son becomes immediately apparent in the matter of coronation. He had already been elected at an assembly
- ↑ See note 2, p. 202, in this chapter.
