The Saxon Kings. When the last Carolingian died without an heir, the Franks and Saxons elected Conrad, duke of Franconia, their king; he proved incompetent. After his death in 918 they chose the Saxon duke Henry I, the Fowler, a sober, practical soldier, who made peace with a rival king chosen by the Bavarians, defeated Magyars and Slavs, and regained Lorraine. Otto I, the Great.  At Henry's death in 936, the princes elected his son Otto I, who combined extraordinary forcefulness, dignity, and military prowess with great diplomatic skill and genuine religious faith. Determined to create a strong centralized monarchy, Otto gave the duchies to his relatives and then broke them up into nonhereditary fiefs granted to bishops and abbots. By nominating these churchmen and subjecting them to the royal court, he ensured their loyalty. This Ottonian system of government through alliance with the German state church was carried much further by his successors. Otto also had to defend his realm from outside pressures. In the west he strengthened his hold on Lorraine and gained influence over Bourgogne (Arles). In the north and east he defeated the Danes and Slavs, and he permanently broke the power of the Magyars at the Battle of the Lechfeld in 955. Otto established the archbishopric of Magdeburg (968) and other sees as centers of civilization in the conquered lands. Germans settled these regions. Wanting to emulate Charlemagne as the divinely sanctioned emperor of Christendom, Otto began the disastrous policy of German entanglement in Italy. The temptation was the greater because Italy was a rich land and a scene of feudal disorder and Saracen invasions. When Adelaide, widowed queen of the Lombards, asked Otto for help against her captor, Berengar, king of Italy, Otto invaded Italy in 951, married her, and took her dead husband's title. The papacy at this time was struggling to hold its land against encroaching nobles from the north and Byzantine Greeks and Saracens from the south. When Pope John XII appealed to Otto for aid against Berengar, Otto invaded Italy a second time, defeated Berengar, and was crowned emperor by the pope in 962. By a treaty called the Ottonian Privilege, Otto guaranteed the pope's claim to papal lands, and all future papal candidates had to swear fealty to the emperor. Later Saxon Kings.  Otto's successors in the 10th and 11th centuries continued his German and Italian policies as best they could. Otto II established the Eastern March (Austria) under the Babenbergs as a military outpost but was defeated by the Saracens in his efforts to secure southern Italy. The pious Otto III supported the Benedictine reform movement originating in Cluny, Bourgogne, which encouraged a more austere, disciplined life. The childless Henry II, gentle and devout, also encouraged the Cluniac movement and sent out missionaries from his court in the new bishopric of Bamberg. Early Medieval Society.  German kings had no fixed capital, but traveled unceasingly about their realm. They had no income beyond that from their family lands and gifts from churchmen. Feudalism was the rule. The great lords, theoretically vassals of the king, in fact usurped royal rights to build castles and administer justice. The vast majority of common people lived on country manors belonging to nobles or churchmen. The few cities, such as Trier and Cologne, were chiefly Roman foundations or imperial fortifications. There, merchants, artisans, and uprooted peasants settled as free citizens under the authority of a prince. The cities also sheltered Jews, who were not allowed to hold land. The clergy, which included many nobles, spread the faith, provided education, and carried on the functions of government. Monasteries such as Reichenau, Regensburg, Fulda, Echternach, and Saint Gall became centers of scholarship. Monks wrote Latin works (such as the Walthariuslied, based on a German legend) and translated biblical and other Christian texts into Old High German. Their illuminated manuscripts with flat, dignified images imitated the art of classical antiquity and Byzantium. Churches, notably Saint Michael at Hildesheim and the cathedrals of Mainz, Speyer, and Worms, were massive, stone-vaulted basilicas with towers and small, round-arched windows. Their walls were adorned with painted murals and expressive sculpture in wood and bronze. High Middle Ages.  In the 12th and 13th centuries Germany and Italy were rent by rivalry between two princely families. The Hohenstaufen, or Waiblingen, of Swabia, known as Ghibellines in Italy, held the German and imperial crowns. The Welfs of Bavaria and Saxony, known as Guelphs in Italy, were allied with the papacy. Henry V died childless in 1125. The princes, avoiding the principle of heredity, passed over his nephews, Frederick and Conrad Hohenstaufen, to choose Lothair, duke of Saxony. As emperor, Lothair II revived German efforts to convert and dominate the east. To assert his authority in Italy, he made two expeditions supporting the pope, who crowned him in 1133. In Germany he fought a civil war with the Hohenstaufen princes, who refused to accept him as emperor. The Hohenstaufen Kings.  At Lothair's death the princes avoided his powerful Welf son-in-law and heir, Henry the Proud, lord of Bavaria and Saxony. Instead, they chose Conrad Hohenstaufen. Civil war erupted again, this time between the weak but charming Conrad III and the Welf dukes Henry the Proud and his son Henry the Lion. It continued while Conrad led the ill-fated Second Crusade and was paralleled by the Guelph-Ghibelline conflict in Italy. The struggle in Germany was temporarily resolved at Conrad's death by the election of his nephew Frederick, a Hohenstaufen born of a Welf mother.