ated by Otho I., whom the Lombard nobles
summoned into Italy in 951. When he reappeared in 961, he was crowned
Emperor at Rome, and assumed the title of the King of Italy. Thus the
Regno was merged in the Empire, and Pavia ceased to be a capital.
Henceforth the two great potentates in the peninsula were an unarmed
Pontiff and an absent Emperor. The subsequent history of the Italians
shows how they succeeded in reducing both these powers to the condition
of principles, maintaining the pontifical and imperial ideas, but
repelling the practical authority of either potentate. Otho created new
marches and gave them to men of German origin. The houses of Savoy and
Montferrat rose into importance in his reign. To Verona were intrusted
the passes between Germany and Italy. The Princes of Este at Ferrara
held the keys of the Po, while the family of Canossa accumulated fiefs
that stretched from Mantua across the plain of Lombardy, over the
Apennines to Lucca, and southward to Spoleto. Thus the ancient Italy of
Lombards and Franks was superseded by a new Italy of German feudalism,
owing allegiance to a suzerain whose interests detained him in the
provinces beyond the Alps. At the same time the organization of the
Church was fortified. The Bishops were placed on an equality with the
Counts in the chief cities, and Viscounts were created to represent
their civil jurisdiction. It is difficult to exaggerate the importance
of Otho's concessions to the Bishops. During the preceding period of
Frankish rule about one third of the soil of Italy had been yielded to
the Church, which had the right of freeing its vassals from military
service; and since the ecclesiastical sees were founded upon ancient
sites of Roman civilization, without regard to the military centers of
the barbarian kingdoms, the new privileges of the Bishops accrued to the
benefit of the indigenous population. Milan, for example, down-trodden
by Pavia, still remained the major See of Lombardy. Aquileia, though a
desert, had her patriarch, while Cividale, established as a fortress to
coerce the neighboring Roman towns, was ecclesiastically but a village.
At this epoch a third power emerged in Italy. Berengar had given the
cities permission to inclose themselves with walls in order to repel the
invasions of the Huns.[1] Otho respected their right of self-defense,
and from the date of his coronation the history of the free burghs
begins in Italy. It is at first closely connect