Hi! I've written a thesis on a topic which is very very close to your question here, and a chapter of it details the sociopolitical history of the rise and fall of the Ottonian Empire from the 10th to the 12th Century. So if you don't mind. I'm going to give you far more historical background on the period than you ever asked for (I'm so sorry).

(This will be done without my usual lighthearted style, so, it gets dense)

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2.3 Otto I (936-973): Control over the Pope and Obtaining the Empire

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...while Otto was consolidating his rule, events were brewing in Italy that ultimately set the course for the next three generations of imperial policy. Berengar II had risen to power as King of Italy after overthrowing the lawful king and forcing his widow to flee from Italy, right into the arms of the widowed Otto I.^([1]) Here now was Otto’s legitimate claim to the throne of Italy thrust into his arms by an usurper, all the excuse a monarch could ask for to claim a large and rich territory. Otto marched south of the Alps in 951 to receive the homage of the Italian nobility and assume the Iron Crown of the Lombards. With control over the nobility established Otto I left Conrad the Red, Duke of Lorraine, as his regent. One year later Berengar knelt before Otto I and was then allowed to rule as king, though still a vassal to Otto I, until 961/2 when Otto once again ousted him from Italy and assumed the mantle of Roman Emperor in the West.^([2])

Otto I’s second intervention within Italy was not as simple as raising an army and marching south of the Alps. The Franco-Saxon nobility followed a precise set of laws and precedents backed by extensive documentation.^([3]) As such, Otto could not march south of the Alps and depose one of his own vassals just because the vassal was a bad ruler, so instead Otto marched south at the behest of Pope John XII who had offered him the crown of the Empire in return for protecting the Papacy. The situation then became quite delicate: because while the Pope desired a protector of the Papacy and the Karolingian Donations, which at that time were under imminent threat by Berengar II, Otto desired direct control over the Papacy and the Kingdom of Italy.^([4]) Here is a common theme throughout the history of Europe after the fall of the Western Empire: when kingdoms invited the Saxons into their lands to solve their military issues, the Saxons imposed their own rules and did not leave after they had been summoned. The original compact declared between Otto I and John XII, the Ottonianum, stated that Otto I would do his utmost to protect the independence of the Papacy and not infringe upon it; one year later, in 963, the compact was abruptly and significantly changed. The changes to the document stated that the Imperator Romanorum had, in essence, the power to appoint the Pope before he was elected and seated by the cardinals and the people of Rome.^([5]) This document is what would legitimize Ottonian control over the Papacy for the next 62 years and ultimately bring the reborn Western Empire into military and diplomatic contact with its ancient sibling.

Pope John XII was none too pleased by the revisions put in place by the Ottonianum, and by the actions of the Emperor in the year preceding the revisions. Otto took the fealty of several cities and fortresses within the bounds of the Karolingian Donations and quickly forgot the promises he had sworn to the Pope. The Pope in turn took to inciting the Byzantines, the Italian Lords, and the Magyars in an attempt to oust the overlord he had so recently put in place.^([6]) For his treachery, among other things, the Pope was deposed by the Emperor, the Ottonianum was revised, and Otto I installed a new Pope, Leo VIII. Soon after the Emperor left, however, John XII returned and forced the new Pope out of the See, which forced Otto to once again march south and bring the fractious city to heel. This cycle of deposition and imperial backlash established a trend for the remaining years of Otto’s rule, and he continued to fight to hold onto the Kingdom of Italy until his death in 973. He reigned for 37 years: 26 as King of the Franks, and 11 as Emperor of the Romans, and by his actions he had committed his line to intervention and bloodshed in Italy for the next 51 years.

2.4 Otto II (967-983): Enforcing the Imperial Claim

Otto II was crowned co-emperor of the Western Roman Empire in 967 in Rome, and in 972 he married Theophano, who was the niece of the reigning Byzantine Emperor John I Tzimisces. This marriage is seen by several historians, both primary and secondary, as recognition of the Kingdom of East Francia as the Western Roman Empire by the Byzantine Empire.^([7]) His reign began as had those of all his predecessors, with rebellion. Specifically, his cousin Henry, Duke of Bavaria, who desired above all things to take control of the neighboring duchy of Swabia, was prevented from forming such a power bloc by Otto II. This political maneuvering led to a short-lived rebellion in 976-7 by Henry of Bavaria. Henry was stripped of his duchy and exiled from the Kingdom and later imprisoned by Otto II. Two other nobles, also named Henry, rose in revolt shortly after and were just as quickly crushed. War over Lorraine then followed with the King of West Francia in 978 and lasted for two years. After these hiccoughs in his early reign Otto II turned his gaze southward to Rome and Byzantine Italy, where he held court in that venerable imperial capital and officially adopted the title Imperator Romanorum Augustus.^([8]) The timing of his adoption of this title is no accident, because with this imperial moniker Otto II justified his claim over the entirety of the Italian peninsula rather than just the Kingdom of Italy.

Otto II’s early dealings in Italy were much the same as his father’s before him: he marched south to reinstate the imperially appointed Pope, assume the Iron Crown of Lombardy, and ensure continued dominion over the peninsula. From here, however, his tale diverges. Using his title as the Roman Emperor in the West, Otto II marched further south with two goals in mind; to oust the Byzantines and Muslims from southern Italy and to gain recognition from the latest Byzantine emperor, Basil II. This campaign to solidify the glory of his dynasty and his claim to the Empire ended in disaster however. In July 982 Otto II met the Emir of Sicily in battle, and in that battle the Emir fell alongside much of the German nobility and the prestige of the Emperor. Otto II escaped with his life and rode north to organize another expedition into southern Italy, and to have his son elected King by an assembly of nobles at Verona in 983.^([9]) Soon after the election of his son, Otto II died of malaria having ruled for only ten years and left his three-year-old child on the throne in the hands of his mother and grandmother, Adelaide of Italy and Theophano.

Upon Otto II’s death the rapid shift from explosive expansion during his father’s reign to stagnation became apparent. In 983, shortly before the death of Otto II, the Danes had overleapt the fortifications at Jutland, and the Slavic tributaries to the east rose in a great revolt against their Christian overlords. As this regency period began the cracks in the foundation of the kingdom became clear, as the stability put in place by Otto I’s long and fruitful reign eroded under pressure of the bloody combat in Italy and the reactionary movements against Christianity amongst the Slavic tributaries.^([10])

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2.5 Otto III (983-1002): Regency, Imperial Ambitions, and Early Death

The actual reign of Otto III began eleven years after his father’s death, but the regency of Adelaide and Theophano is not to be neglected as they reigned during a key period in the lifetime of the Kingdom of East Francia. Upon the death of Otto II, Duke Henry “the Quarrelsome” of Bavaria, the same Henry who had revolted in 976, was released from his imprisonment and quickly made a play for the Kingdom. Henry took custody of the young Otto as his closest living male relative and managed to do so unopposed as Otto III’s mother and grandmother were in Italy at the time. Henry rushed to make alliances and to present himself as King rather than young Otto III, but by his own actions he formed the core of the resistance that would demolish his claims to the throne and install Otto III and his mother as king and regent respectively, though only after the Empress-Regent and the nobility agreed to restore to him the Duchy of Bavaria and the honors he had lost upon his imprisonment.^([11])

From there the regency truly began in 985 and lasted, mostly in peace, until Otto III reached the age of majority in 994. In the West Theophano maintained a policy of careful watchfulness and a willingness to use force to compel mediation rather than to prosecute war to protect the boundaries of the Kingdom. In the East her policy was far more proactive, with several large campaigns being waged beyond the Elbe in order to break the fighting ability of the neighboring Slavic dukes. Her policy in Italy was much the same as the three monarchs who preceded her, retaining control over Rome and Frankish Italy, which she managed to do peacefully.^([12]) Theophano died in 991, and for the remaining three years Adelaide, Otto III’s grandmother, stood in as regent.

In 994 at the age of fourteen, Otto III began to issue charters on his own, though still closely monitored by his grandmother. By 995 he seems to have obtained full independence. Upon his true accession to the throne Otto III became embroiled in ecclesiastical affairs in addition to the affairs of the layman. While working to make peace between his fractious bishops, Otto III sent an embassy to the Byzantine Empire in search of a bride, which nearly succeeded.^([13]) He also sent an emissary to Rome to smooth the way for his imperial coronation. Otto III then marched south to Pavia to reaffirm the fidelity of the Italian lords and then to Ravenna where he appointed the next Pope, in accordance with the policy set down by Otto I, and thus reaffirmed royal control over the See of St. Peter, which had been lost during the period of the regency, as well as to fully assert that he was king in Italy.^([14]) From there he rode south to Rome and received the imperial crown from the hands of the Pope, who he had recently appointed, on May 21, 996.^([15]) Soon after Otto III marched back to Francia in order to administer the kingdom he had so recently begun to rule in his own right.

Just a year later Otto III once more marched to Italy to reassert imperial control over the Papacy and the Eternal City. Shortly after he had left the previous year the Romans had ousted the imperially-appointed Pope and installed their own anti-Pope, a Greek from Theophano’s administration who had been given authority over Rome some years earlier. The Emperor once again marched through Italy showing the imperial flag and receiving homage from the Italian nobility. In February 998 Otto III peacefully entered the city of Rome as the anti-Pope, John XVI and his chief supporter, Crescentius, fled the city or holed up in Castel Sant’ Angelo, respectively. The Imperial Army eventually caught and mutilated both of them, with Crescentius being executed and the anti-Pope being publicly humiliated, thus reasserting the unquestionable dominance of Otto III over the Papacy and over Rome.^([16])

With control over Rome and the Papacy firmly established, Otto III set to work constructing an imperial palace in that ancient city and soon after he began to seal documents with a seal that read Renovatio Imperii Romanorum. While no document outlining any sort of policy to adopt the style of rule of the ancient Western Empire is extant, both primary and secondary sources push for the idea that Otto III was making a concerted attempt to revive the idea of the old Empire.^([17]) This new imperial seal, in conjunction with the new imperial seat at Rome, only added to the imperial recognition from the East in the form of the marriage betrothal between Otto III and Zoe Porphyrogenita, daughter of Constantine VIII of the Macedonian Dynasty.^([18])

However, whatever grand plans the youth had in mind are lost to history, as he died in January 1002. He had been marching south to put down a rebellion in Italy when disease suddenly overtook him.^([19]) His reign was to be the last time that the Empire in the West held its capitol in the ancient city of Rome, and his death was followed by a slow decline of imperial authority in Italy with an Italian noble being elected king and a new Pope taking the See soon after his death. Matters in this regard were not helped by his successor, Henry II, son of Henry the Quarrelsome, who focused much more on the Kingdom of the Franks rather than the Empire of the Romans. Otto III had reigned in his own right for only six years.

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2.6 Henry II (1002-1024): The Decline of the Roman Empire

Henry II had been riding south of the Alps to reinforce the army of Otto III at the time of the Emperor’s death, and as he rode north with the body of the Emperor his reign began like all his predecessors, with rebellion, athough, unlike his predecessors there was no open warfare, but rather an extended period of political maneuvering. Also unlike his predecessors, Henry was not crowned at Aachen, but rather at Mainz.^([20]) The Italians raised their own king just as the German nobility disputed his succession to the throne, and the Kingdom of Poland began to press the eastern frontier with renewed force.^([21]) Henry II spent his early reign handling the Polish and the Frankish nobility, as the Italian King became a nonentity without much fight. After briefly marching south he received the Iron Crown of Lombardy much like his predecessors; however, this expedition to Italy was the last time that he marched south of the Alps for ten years. Only at the bequest of a Pope, who had certainly not been put in place by East Francia, did he march south to take control of Rome and receive the Crown of the Empire.^([22])

The Pope had only taken the extreme measure of summoning the King of the Franks and promising him the Empire because he had been unseated by Roman politics and thus needed imperial assistance to regain control over the See.^([23]) After riding south and reinstating the Pope and obtaining the imperial crown, Henry II just as quickly rode back north to resume his rule over the Germanic portion of his Kingdom and was only forced to return seven years later by the expansion of Byzantine hegemony over southern Italy and the threat posed to the city of Rome. As he once again rode south, he reissued the Ottonianum,^([24]) which had a twofold purpose: to restate imperial control over Rome, and to enforce the idea that the coming war against the Byzantines was entirely legal. Interestingly he did not reissue this document at the beginning of his reign like the kings/emperors before him but rather only when it had become absolutely necessary to justify marching south of the Alps. Once again however, as soon as nominal control over the peninsula was established, the Emperor returned north. There he ruled for three more years until his death in 1024, Henry II ruled for twelve years as king and for ten years as king and emperor.25

The reign of Henry II is notable within the context of this narrative for several reasons. First, his reign is a drastic departure from the imperial policy of the rest of his dynasty, and second his is also the last reign of an Ottonian Emperor. From this point forward, Italy became increasingly independent from Germany and the Pope slipped from the grasp of the empire forever, a situation which lead to the Investiture Controversy and the struggles of the later Salian Dynasty and its own successors from the 11th century onward. Here too ends meaningful contact with the Eastern Roman Empire, no longer would the bloodlines of their emperors intermingle.

2.7 Conrad II (1024-1039): The Church in a Firm Hand

Conrad’s reign began like all his predecessors, with rebellion. He was crowned King of the Germans in 1024 and immediately thereafter adopted the title Rex Romanorum.^([26]) He was elected by a meeting of the princes of the Empire after the death of Henry II, but was not recognized by the princes of Italy who did not view the King of Germany as also being the king of Italy, which forced him to march south in 1026 with a massive show of force and bring the neglected Kingdom to heel, there he put the city of Pavia to siege and received the Iron Crown of the Lombards from the Bishop of Milan. One year later, he received the crown of the Empire and fully come into his own as both Rex and Imperator Romanorum. Under his reign Imperial control of the Church was formalized. Where before Emperors such as Otto I could hand out bishoprics at their leisure, now there seems to have been a formal period of lobbying and bribery which preceded the appointment of any bishop by the Emperor of the Romans. This was a practice the Church viewed as simony, or the sale of church offices, and would become the core issue that would result in the ultimate emancipation of the Church from the Empire.^([27]) The Church was so firmly in imperial hands, in fact, that there was no Diploma issued with regard to free election within the Church during the reign of Conrad II and his successor that did not also contain a clause which reserved the rights of the monarch to appoint any imperial bishop.^([28])

The Roman imperial character of Conrad II’s reign can be most succinctly displayed in his royal seal, which read, “Roma caput mundi tenet orbis frena rotundi” or in English, “Rome the head of the world holds the reins of the earth’s round orb.”[^(29]) Over the course of his reign Conrad II reasserted imperial control over Southern Italy, tamped down the Polish, ensured that the Church in Italy did not escape from beneath the imperial thumb, and brought the trading state of Venice that much closer to imperial domination. Two years after bringing Italy to heel, Conrad II passed away in 1039 and was immediately succeeded by his son Henry III, whom he had confirmed as his successor immediately after he had been crowned Emperor in 1027. Conrad II “The Salic” ruled for three years as King of the Romans and for twelve years as King and Emperor.^([30])

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2.8 Henry III (1039-1056): A Final Show of Power

At the time of his accession to the throne as sole monarch over the Kingdom of East Francia, Henry III had already been Rex Romanorum for eleven years after his father had had him confirmed as King of the Germans at Aachen in 1028. He spent much of his early reign settling the long running imperial dispute with Hungary and Bohemia, not marching south to receive the Empire until 1046. Here indeed is perhaps the zenith of imperial control over the Western Church: when Henry III marched south in 1046, the Papacy was in a state of civil war. John XIX had been succeeded by Benedict IX, a man famed for his low character. The people of Rome ousted this corrupt priest and installed a new Pope by the name of Sylvester III. This new Pope was quickly removed upon the return of Benedict IX to Rome, who once again took the Papal seat; however, upon seeing that his position was untenable Benedict IX sold the See to Gregory VI. Gregory VI was the reigning Pope when Henry III arrived in Italy to settle the matter. At the council of Sutri, the not-yet-Emperor sat in judgment over the three Papal candidates, all of whom had been lawfully elected and consecrated, and declared that none of them were fit to hold the See and appointed Clement II, formerly the bishop of Bamburg, to act as the Vicar of Christ, and from that Pope he received the Empire. ^([31])

Henry III is remembered as “The Pious” most notably because of his reforming attitude toward the Church and his distaste for the practice of simony, so much so that he gave up the simoniacal practices of his predecessors.^([32]) It is under him that the Church gained the reformist momentum needed for Gregory VII to execute his many reforms that would free the Papacy from the hands of the Emperor Henry IV. Henry III was a strong emperor who solidified and centralized the Empire and left a strong state for his three-year-old son, Henry IV, to inherit. Upon his death Henry III had ruled alone as Rex Romanorum for seven years and as Rex and Imperator for ten years. His death traditionally marks the end of the Early Middle Ages^([33]) and here too his death marks the end of an era.

As the regency for his son began, the Papacy pulled farther and farther away from the Empire, issuing bulls that declared that the Emperor could neither sit in judgement of the Vicar of Christ and nor could he appoint him, Henry IV’s regent could not prevent this and by the time that Henry IV reached the age of majority the Papacy was for all intents and purposes independent from the Empire.

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3.2 The Investiture Controversy

Henry IV lost control over Italy in all but name during the Investiture Controversy. This conflict had at its heart two ideas, the implicit idea behind priest-kingship that a monarch could sit in judgement of the Pope (as seen in the actions of Henry III) and the imperial system of using the church and church lands as the main administrative apparatus of the Empire. During the Ottonian and Salian periods what set a king apart from the nobility around him and what made him worthy to rule was that he was anointed, and with this came the Germanic idea of sacral kingship. In the East the Emperor could sit in judgement over the various Patriarchs because they were, in some way, legally part of the state. This idea combined naturally with the ideology laid out in the Eusebian Creed, formulated by Constantine’s biographer Eusebios, which stated that the Emperor was God’s governor on earth.^([1]) As a result we get with the view that imperial dominance over the ecclesiastical sphere is unquestionable. This does not imply that imperial supremacy went consistently unchallenged by the Church in the East, but it did mean that no civil war broke out as a direct result.^([2]) In the West there was no such legal and ideological precedent; indeed due to the nature and location of the Papacy imperial presence was only intermittently felt by the administration in the Vatican, which meant that, unlike elsewhere in the Empire, the idea of Papal independence was never fully quashed. Instead Western rulers used the older Karolingian idea of sacral kingship, which held a very similar position to the Eusebian Creed in the East. However, sacral kingship had no legal backing in the West, nor did it have the weight or the force of Constantine I behind it.^([3])

The nature of, for lack of a better term, East Francian Feudalism was this: the king or emperor would appoint a suitable noble to rule over a royal territory, so that in theory every time a territorial duke died he would be replaced by someone who owed his loyalty to the monarch rather than to the territory itself. This was not the case in reality, more often than not territorial administration would follow the family of its traditional rules in a primogeniture fashion, so that while the king retained the right to appoint dukes the appointment was rather a confirmation of inheritance than an appointment. The Church, however, had an entirely different method of succession, under Church law the bishopric reverted, under the idea of sacral kingship, directly to the king, and there was no chance of “dynastic succession” festering within church lands. Because of this, kings entrusted more and more of the administration of the Empire to bishops and abbots rather than the traditional nobility. This arrangement was all well and good so long as the Papacy remained under the imperial thumb but Pope Nicholas II (1059-1061) issued a Papal Bull in 1059 which reformed the style of Papal election and with this reform took away the rights of the Roman Emperor to confirm or deny the Pope. Fortunately for the Papacy and unfortunately for the future administration of the Empire this Bull was issued during the regency period between Henry III and Henry IV, and the empress-regent did not effectively oppose it. This bull was followed by a period of growth in Papal ideology which ultimately concluded that the Karolingian idea of sacral kingship did not make a king part of the clergy, and more importantly, it did not give the Emperor the right to sit in judgement of the Popes like Henry III had so recently done.

The military and ideological conflict that sprang from these papal reforms is known today as the Investiture Controversy, or the Investiture Contest. The Investiture Controversy itself was, from the point of view of the Church, a purge of simony and a righteous war for the liberty of the papacy from the corrupt clutches of the Empire. From the imperial point of view, it was a disaster. The Emperor was excommunicated and declared deposed and spent the rest of his reign at war with alternately with the papacy and its supporters, who happened to be the better part of his empire. The Investiture Controversy marks a shift in imperial control of the Church and of Italy, with effective territorial control remaining north of the Alps, and sporadic control of Italy remaining to future emperors, which firmly marks the shifts of the empire from an “imperial” entity to a firmly Germanic one. The Controversy also marks the end of any imperial control over the Roman Catholic church, which demanded a dramatic shift in imperial administration over the course of the next century. The Investiture Controversy itself was settled by his successor with a compromise between Emperor and Pope, but the fact remains that the fundamental character of the Empire had shifted away from the Empire created by Otto I and upheld by his descendants and in turn their successors to something entirely new. No longer would the Empire control the Papacy, nor would it have firm control over the Kingdom of Italy, it would instead politically fragment over the course of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. After this controversy the Germanic Empire was no longer Holy, nor was it Roman, and over the course of the following centuries it would continue to devolve into something less than a kingdom, let alone an empire.

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Excerpt Notes;

[1] Steven Runciman, The Byzantine Theocracy: The Weil Lectures, Cincinatti. Cambridge University Press, 2004, 30.

[2] Civil wars did break out as an indirect result of this idea during the Iconoclastic period.

[3] Joseph Canning, A history of medieval political thought, 49.

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Notes & Citations;

[1] Evan A. Gatti. “In a Space Between: Warmund of Ivrea and the Problem of (Italian) Ottonian Art.” Peregrinations: Journal of Medieval Art and Architecture 3, no. 1 (2011): 20-21.

[2] Robert Buckley Comyn, The History of the Western Empire, 99-103.

[3] David Bachrach, “Exercise of royal power in early medieval Europe: the case of Otto the Great 936– 73.” Early Medieval Europe 17, no. 4 (2009): 400.

[4] Walter Ullmann, “The Origins of the Ottonianum” Cambridge Historical Journal 11, no. 1 (1953): 120-124.

[5] Ibid., 120-123, 128.

[6] Ibid., 123.

[7] Robert Buckley Comyn, The History of the Western Empire, 115; Timothy Reuter, Germany in the early Middles ages, 174; Widukind, The Deeds of the Saxons, 135, 145-148.

[8] Timothy Reuter, Germany in the Early Middle Ages, 176.

[9] Ibid., 177.

[10] Gerd Althoff, Otto III, Translated by Phyllis Jestice, Penn State Press, 2010, 29.

[11] Ibid., 37.

[12] Gerd Althoff, Otto III, 43-51.

[13] John Julius Norwich, Byzantium: The Apogee, Penguin Books, 1991, 253-259. 254, “when he [the ambassador] returned to Rome [from Constantinople] he took with him Byzantine ambassadors to negotiate the details with Otto [III] in person…unfortunately Otto had left some weeks before…[Crescentius] seized the ambassadors…and threw them into prison….”.

[14] Gerd Althoff, Otto III, 59-60.

[15] David Warner, "Ottonian Germany: The Chronicon of Thietmar of Merseburg", Manchester University Press, (2013) III, 171.

[16] Gerd Althoff, Otto III, 73-75.

[17] See; Gerd Althoff Otto III 86-89; David Warner, the Chronicon of Thietmar, IV 187.

[18] John Julius Norwich, Byzantium: The Apogee. Penguin Books, 1991.

[19] David Warner, The Chronicon of Thietmar, 187.

[20] Timothy Reuter, Germany in the Middle Ages, 187.

[21] David Warner, The Chronicon of Thietmar, 206-211.

[22] Robert Buckley Comyn, The History of the Western Empire, 130.

[23] Ibid., 129-131.

[24] Walter Ullmann, “The Origins of the Ottonianum” 128.

[25] See; David Warner, The Chronicon of Thietmar, 306; Comyn, The History of the Western Empire, 138.

[26] Walter Ullmann, The Growth of Papal government in the Middle Ages, Bradford and Dickens, 1966, 250.

[27] Timothy Reuter, Germany in the Early Middle Ages, 197.

[28] Ibid., 212.

[29] Joseph Canning, A history of medieval political thought: 300–1450, Routledge, 2002, 77.

[30] Robert Buckley Comyn, The history of the Western empire, 135-141.

[31] Robert Buckley Comyn, The History of the Western Empire, 140-143.

[32] Timothy Reuter, Germany in the Early Middle Ages, 197.

[33] Timothy Reuter, Germany in the Early Middle Ages, 1-4.