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| 928 |
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| Saxon expedition across the frozen Havel River against the Wends: Branibor (Brandenburg) stormed; the Wends driven up the Elbe; creation of the marks of Branibor, Meissen, and (later) Lusatia as guardians of the middle Elbe. | 1 |
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| 933 |
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| Henry ended the Magyar truce with his victory at Riade on the Unstrut River, the first great defeat of the Magyars. Occupation of the land between the Schlei and the Eider (Charlemagne's Dane Mark), and erection of the mark of Schleswig, guardian of the Elbe mouth; the Danish king was made tributary and forced to receive Christian missionaries. Henry had prepared the way for his son, whose election was a formality, the succession becoming virtually hereditary. | 2 |
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| 936–73 |
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| King Otto I (the Great). Otto was crowned and anointed at Aachen, Charlemagne's capital; his coronation banquet revived the Carolingian coronation banquet (of Roman origin), at which the duke of Franconia served ceremonially as steward, the duke of Swabia as cup bearer, the duke of Lorraine as chamberlain, and the duke of Bavaria as marshal. | 3 |
| Otto vigorously asserted royal authority (a three-year war reduced the dukes of Bavaria, Franconia, Lorraine, and Saxony). He followed the policy of keeping the great duchies (except Saxony) in his own hands or those of his family. | 4 |
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| 951–52 |
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| Otto's first expedition to Italy to keep the passes through the mountains open. Marriage to Adelheid and assumption of the crown of Italy; the pope refused him imperial coronation; Berengar of Ivrea, forced into vassalage, ceded the marks of Verona, Friuli, Istria (the keys to the passes) to Otto's brother Henry, duke of Bavaria. | 5 |
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| 953 |
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| Revolt of Otto's son (Ludolf, duke of Swabia), his son-in-law Conrad (duke of Lorraine), and others (suppressed, 955). | 6 |
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| 955 |
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| Battle of Lechfeld, a plain near Augsburg in southwest Germany, drained by the Lech River. Otto, with an army recruited from all the duchies, ended the Magyar menance with a great victory. Defeat of the Wends on the Recknitz River. Reestablishment and colonization with Bavarians of Charlemagne's East Mark (Austria). | 7 |
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| 968 |
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| The bishoprics established among the Slavs (e.g., Brandenburg, Merseburg, Meissen, Zeitz) were consolidated under the new archbishopric of Magdeburg. German bishoprics were everywhere filled with bishops loyal to the monarchy, marking the alliance of the king and the Church against aristocratic lay opposition. | 8 |
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| 961–64 |
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| Otto's second expedition to Italy on the appeal of Pope John XII for protection. Assumption of the crown of Italy at Pavia. | 9 |
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| 962 |
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| Imperial coronation by the pope: Revival of the Roman Empire in the West. Otto put a temporary end to feudal anarchy in Rome, deposed one pope and nominated another, and compelled the pope to recognize the emperor's right to approve or reject papal elections. | 10 |
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| 966–72 |
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| Otto's third expedition to Italy: deposition of one pope, restoration of another; nomination of a new pope; punishment of the Romans. Imperial coronation (967) of the future Otto II and assertion of suzerainty over Capua and Benevento (967). | 11 |
| Otto, with the able assistance of his brother Bruno, archbishop of Cologne, began a cultural revival (the so-called Ottonian Renaissance) in the manner of Charlemagne; late in life, he learned to read, but not to speak, Latin; Bruno knew Greek. The cosmopolitan court literary circle included Irish and English monks and learned Greeks and Italians, notably Liutprand of Cremona(History of the Deeds of Otto, a major source on the reign, and Narrative of an Embassy to Constantinople, basic for studying East-West relations). Great literary activity of the monasteries: Widukind of Corvey (Res Gestae Saxonicae); Roswitha, the nun of Gandersheim, author of theCarmen de Gestis Ottonis and of learned Latin comedies in a bowdlerized Terentine style, celebrating saintly virginity; the vernacular Heliand (9th century), a Christian epic; Ekkekard of St. Gall's Waltherius, inspired by German legends. | 12 |
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| 973–83 |
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| Otto II. The revolt of Henry the Wrangler, duke of Bavaria, in alliance with Boleslav of Bohemia and others, required five years to put down; Henry was banished (978). Repulsion of a Danish incursion. | 13 |
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| 978 |
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| Lothair, king of the West Franks, invaded Lorraine but was forced to abandon his claims by Otto's invasion of France (980). | 14 |
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