Ep. 8: Otto the Great (936-973) - An Imperial Bride
History of the Germans from the Middle Ages to Reunification
Dirk Hoffmann-Becking
4.9 • 552 Ratings
🗓️ 4 March 2021
⏱️ 23 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Otto's final desire is to be recognised as a fellow emperor by the Basileus in Constantinople. When the Byzantines refuse him the purple-born princess Anna he wages war. The new emperor, John Tzimiskis comes up with a better solution and sends across the most glamorous figure of German medieval history - Theophanu Skleraina...
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to the history of the Germans. |
| 0:07.0 | Episode 8, the Imperial Bride. |
| 0:11.0 | This week we finally say goodbye to Emperor Otto the Great after seven episodes. |
| 0:17.0 | I hope you agree he was worth it. |
| 0:19.0 | When we last saw him, he was celebrating the end of his successful campaign in Italy with |
| 0:24.2 | the great assembly at Cologne. |
| 0:26.9 | This great gathering in 965 was even more of a confirmation of his role as successor |
| 0:31.6 | to the great Charlemagne than the coronation itself. |
| 0:35.7 | The assembled rulers of Western Europe did not just show up for the party. |
| 0:39.3 | They recognized him as emperor, as a ruler above mere kings, and that included Lota, the young |
| 0:46.3 | king of France. |
| 0:49.3 | After three years in Italy, what he now needs is to stay around with his German subjects and give them a bit of TLC. |
| 0:57.0 | Early medieval monarchs were not supposed to be away for so long. |
| 1:01.0 | Because there is no real bureaucracy of any kind, all decisions, deliberations and orders are best done face to face. |
| 1:08.0 | It is management by walking around. |
| 1:12.0 | Since Carolingian times, the court had followed a largely consistent itinerary going from |
| 1:16.1 | one royal palace called a Pfalz to the next. |
| 1:20.1 | So for instance, the Ottonian emperors would regularly celebrate Easter in Quedlinburg and |
| 1:24.5 | Christmas in Frankfurt and call regularly at Fritzla, Memlebe, |
| 1:28.3 | in Magdeburg, Inglehem, Worms and Aachen, to name a few. |
| 1:32.3 | That constant travel is in part necessary because no single location could feed the hundreds, |
| 1:37.3 | if not thousands, of people that made up the entourage of the king. |
... |
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