So this gets to two longer term trends that were going on in Europe, especially Italy, at this point. The power of the nobility in Europe at this time was starting to increase and the power of the emperors and kings in Italy had been on the wane for nearly half a century before Berengar, the last emperor before Otto I was crowned emperor, died. His reign as emperor was rather ignominious and the weakening of royal power in Italy was only accelerated under his reign.

Regardless of his prowess in life, or lack thereof, upon his death there were no powers in Italy that could lay claim to the same amount of power that the emperors had enjoyed and the merry go round of new dynasties and powerful families in Northern Italy continued nearly unabated.

The temporal power of the Carolingians were a long way in the past by the time of Berengar's ascent to the throne, and nor was the Papacy interested in doling out the coronation as emperor for nothing. Berengar for example was only crowned emperor following his support for military campaigns in southern Italy that helped secure Southern Italy from the Arab/Sicilian attacks that were chipping away at the Christian land owners in the area. The Papacy did not hand out the imperial coronation for no reason and following the political chaos of the Magyar invasions, the death of Berengar, and the collapse of many of the dynasties such as the Carolingians, there were no large scale powers worth negotiating the imperial honors with. This situation did not change until the rise of the Saxon dynasty about 40 years later, it was only then that there was a powerful enough European king that the Papacy could deal with or was interested in dealing with.

Indeed it took quite a bit from Otto to manage being crowned emperor. It was only after he seized Italy, fought off the Magyars, won a civil war against his son, and fought against a rebellion in Italy (that threatened the Papacy) that Otto was also afforded an imperial coronation. The reluctance of the Papacy to invest more rulers with imperial authority should be viewed as a tool of power politics in the early Medieval world, it was simply a card that they could play when needed, and could withhold when they needed to.