blood, were destined to prevent the formation of a strong kingdom like that of France.
Yet what was to prove a veritable German royalty sprang from the ducal Saxon house. Upon the failure of the German Carolingian branch in 911, Conrad, Duke of Franconia, was elected king, the Saxons and Suabians consenting. After struggling a few years, mainly against the power of the Saxon duke Henry, Conrad at his death in 918 pronounced in favour of his stronger rival. Thereupon Henry, called by later legend "The Fowler," became king, and having maintained his royal authority against recalcitrants, and fought successfully with Hungarians and Bohemians, he died in 936, naming his son Otto as his successor.
The latter's reign was to be a long and great one. He was consecrated at Aix-la-Chapelle in Charlemagne's basilica, thus at the outset showing what and whom he had in mind. Then and thereafter all manner of internal opposition had to be suppressed. His own competing brothers were, first of all, to be put down; and with them the Dukes of Bavaria, Franconia, and Lorraine, whom Otto conquered and replaced with men connected with him by ties of blood or marriage. Far to the West he made his power felt, settling affairs between Louis and Hugh the Great. Hungarians and Slavs attacked his realm in vain. New marks were established to hold them in check, and new bishoprics were founded, fonts of missionary Christianity and fortresses of defence.
Thereupon Otto looked southward, over the Alps. To say that Italy was sick with turmoil and corruption, and exposed to the attack of every foe, is to give but the negative and least interesting side. She held more of civilized life and of education than any northern land; she differed from the north in her politics and institutions. Feudalism did not fix itself widely there, although the Roman barons, who made and unmade popes, represented it; and in many regions, as later among the Normans in the south, there was to be a feudal land-holding nobility. But in Italy, it was the city, whether under civic or episcopal government, or in a despot's grip, that took the lead, and was to keep the life of the peninsula predominantly urban, as it had been in the Roman time.
