The history of the decline and fall of the Roman empire . iet, and solicited his daily bread from the rebels, by 888 contempt his life and liberty had been spared. According tothe measure of their force, the governors, the bishops, and thelords usurped the fragments of the falling empire; and somepreference was shewn to the female or illegitimate blood ofCharlemagne. Of the greater part the title and possessionwere alike doubtful, and the merit was adequate to the con-tracted scale of their dominions. Those who could appear withan army at the gates of Rome were crowned emperors in th
The history of the decline and fall of the Roman empire . iet, and solicited his daily bread from the rebels, by 888 contempt his life and liberty had been spared. According tothe measure of their force, the governors, the bishops, and thelords usurped the fragments of the falling empire; and somepreference was shewn to the female or illegitimate blood ofCharlemagne. Of the greater part the title and possessionwere alike doubtful, and the merit was adequate to the con-tracted scale of their dominions. Those who could appear withan army at the gates of Rome were crowned emperors in theVatican; but their modesty was more frequently satisfied withthe appellation of kings of Italy; and the whole term ofseventy-four years may be deemed a vacancy, from the abdi-[otto] cation of Charles the Fat to the establishment of Otho theFirst. Otho ^2* was of the noble race of the dukes of Saxony; and, 12* He was the son [leg. grandson] ol Otho, the son of Ludolph, in whosefavour the duchy of Saxony had been instituted, 858. Buotgerus, the bio-. Chap. XLIX] OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 313 if he truly descended from Witikind, the adversary and P^ose-otho^^lyte of Charlemagne, the posterity of a vanquished people was ^^1^™^°^exalted to reign over their conquerors. His father Henry the ^^^^^^^^^°-Fowler was elected, by the suffrage of the nation, to save and western « ^ empire, institute the kingdom of Germany. Its limits ^^^ were enlarged ^^^^^^Hjon every side by his son, the first and greatest of the portion of Gaul to the west of the Rhine, along the banks ofthe Meuse and the Moselle, was assigned to the Germans, bywhose blood and language it has been tinged since the time ofCaesar and Tacitus. Between the Rhine, the Rhone, and theAlps, the successors of Otho acquired a vain supremacy over thebroken kingdoms of Burgundy and Arles.^^^ In the north,Christianity was propagated by the sword of Otho, the conquerorand apostle of the Slavic nations of the Elbe and Oder;
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