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Otto I (born 954, died 31 October or 1 November 982) was the
Duke of Swabia The Dukes of Swabia were the rulers of the Duchy of Swabia during the Middle Ages. Swabia was one of the five stem duchies of the medieval German kingdom, and its dukes were thus among the most powerful magnates of Germany. The most notable family ...
from 973 and
Duke of Bavaria The following is a list of rulers during the history of Bavaria. Bavaria was ruled by several dukes and Monarch, kings, partitioned and reunited, under several dynasties. Since 1949, Bavaria has been a democratic States of Germany, state in th ...
from 976. He was a member of the Ottonian dynasty, the only son of Duke Liudolf of Swabia and his wife Ida, and thus a grandson of the Emperor
Otto I Otto I (23 November 912 – 7 May 973), traditionally known as Otto the Great (german: Otto der Große, it, Ottone il Grande), was East Frankish king from 936 and Holy Roman Emperor from 962 until his death in 973. He was the oldest son of He ...
and his Anglo-Saxon wife
Eadgyth Edith of England, also spelt Eadgyth or Ædgyth ( ang, Ēadgȳð, german: Edgitha; 910 – 946), a member of the House of Wessex, was a German queen from 936, by her marriage to King Otto I. Life Edith was born to the reigning English king Edw ...
. His sister Mathilde was the abbess of
Essen Abbey Essen Abbey (''Stift Essen'') was a community of secular canonesses for women of high nobility that formed the nucleus of modern-day Essen, Germany. It was founded about 845 by the Saxon Altfrid (died 874), later Bishop of Hildesheim and saint ...
. Otto was only three years old when his father died in 957. He was raised at the court of his grandfather, Otto I, who seems to have adopted him and raised him alongside his own son, the future Emperor
Otto II Otto II (955 – 7 December 983), called the Red (''der Rote''), was Holy Roman Emperor from 973 until his death in 983. A member of the Ottonian dynasty, Otto II was the youngest and sole surviving son of Otto the Great and Adelaide of Italy ...
, born late in 955. The latter regarded him as both "nephew and brother" (''nepos ac frater''). When the childless Duke Burchard III of Swabia died in 973, Otto II transferred the Swabian duchy to his nineteen-year-old nephew and brother, whose father had been Burchard's predecessor. The elder Otto became a close confidante of his younger sovereign. In 976 the imprisoned Duke Henry the Wrangler of Bavaria was formally dismissed from office for rebellion. In his place the emperor appointed Otto of Swabia, who became the first ruler of two duchies in medieval Germany. The Duchy of Carinthia and the March of the Nordgau were also taken from Henry, but were not bestowed on Otto, thus their history is separate from that of Bavaria from this point on. In 977, while the emperor was campaigning elsewhere, Otto helped crush the revolt of the Three Henries—the deposed duke of Bavaria, Bishop Henry I of Augsburg and Duke Henry I of Carinthia—by successfully besieging the leaders in Passau. The army of Bavarians that was ambushed by
Boleslaus I of Bohemia Boleslaus I ( cs, Boleslav I. Ukrutný) (915 – 972), a member of the Přemyslid dynasty, was ruler ('' kníže'', "duke") of the Duchy of Bohemia from 935 to his death. He is notorious for the murder of his elder brother Wenceslaus, through w ...
near Plzeň while on its way to join the emperor at this time may have been sent by Duke Otto. In 980 Otto accompanied the emperor on his south Italian campaign, fighting both the Byzantines and the Sicilian Arabs. He survived the defeat near Crotone on 13/14 July 982 and a subsequent ambush by an Arab force. Assigned to take the news of the campaign back to Germany, he died ''en route'', of wounds received in battle, either 31 October or 1 November, at
Lucca Lucca ( , ) is a city and ''comune'' in Tuscany, Central Italy, on the Serchio River, in a fertile plain near the Ligurian Sea. The city has a population of about 89,000, while its province has a population of 383,957. Lucca is known as one ...
. His father had also died south of the Alps. His family brought his body back and had it buried in the collegiate church of Saints Peter and Alexander at
Aschaffenburg Aschaffenburg (; South Franconian: ''Aschebersch'') is a town in northwest Bavaria, Germany. The town of Aschaffenburg is not part of the district of Aschaffenburg, but is its administrative seat. Aschaffenburg belonged to the Archbishopric ...
, which Otto had generously endowed. His death is noted in the contemporary Abingdon version of the ''
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle The ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'' is a collection of annals in Old English, chronicling the history of the Anglo-Saxons. The original manuscript of the ''Chronicle'' was created late in the 9th century, probably in Wessex, during the reign of Alf ...
'': "And then, as he went home, his
he emperor's He or HE may refer to: Language * He (pronoun), an English pronoun * He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ * He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets * He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' ...
brother's son, who was called Otto, died; and he was the son of the aetheling Liudolf, and this Liudolf was son of Otto the Elder and King Edward's daughter". Otto's sister Mathilde endowed a precious ''
crux gemmata A ''crux gemmata'' (Latin for jewelled cross) is a form of cross typical of Early Christian and Early Medieval art, where the cross, or at least its front side, is principally decorated with jewels. In an actual cross, rather than a painted image ...
'' (jewelled cross), the
Cross of Otto and Mathilde The Cross of Otto and Mathilde, Otto-Mathilda Cross, or First Cross of Mathilde (German: ) is a medieval ''crux gemmata'' (jewelled cross) processional cross in the Essen Cathedral Treasury. It was created in the late tenth century and was used on ...
, which is kept in the Essen Cathedral Treasury; the siblings are pictured on it. Otto never married and left no children.


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* * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Otto I, Duke Of Swabia And Bavaria 954 births 982 deaths 10th-century dukes of Bavaria Ottonian dynasty Dukes of Swabia Military personnel killed in action