Otto the great – King of Germany 936 – 973 and Emperor of the Romans from 962 – 973 – had two wives. The first was Eadgyth of Wessex, the second Adelheid of Italy. The point of this post is not to look at their lives. Firstly because there are far more scholarly articles on them and secondly because I have already told their stories in The Saxon Marriage and God’s Maidservant! What I have often pondered while writing these books was which woman was most significant, both to Otto himself and to history.

As to which one was most significant to Otto, there can be no answer. They entered his life at two very different points and the man who married Adelheid must have been a very different one from the man – boy? – who married Eadgyth. Yet all the evidence is that they were happy marriages and he enjoyed a close bond with them both.

In history, on the face of it, there can be no comparison. Adelheid was one of the most influential women of her age. She wielded considerable influence in Otto’s reign, helping and advising her husband as he moved throughout his realm. She remained influential in the early years of the reign of Otto II. Too influential for some people! And she was a key figure in securing the succession of Otto III and ruled as regent for him after the death of his mother until he came of age.

Eadgyth, on the other hand, is a more shadowy figure with less known about her. She does not appear to have influenced Otto in political matters and never wielded power herself. Her main importance to Ottonian history seems to have lain in the prestige the marriage brought to Otto. He was of an upstart Saxon dynasty, but she had a much more impressive pedigree. Today, her grandfather, Alfred the Great would be the best known of her ancestors, but in the 10th century, they were more interested in an ancestry which could boast the early Wessex kings and Saint Oswald. Such a family tree boosted Otto’s position, making the German nobility more willing to accept him as their sole king.

But was that the limit of Eadgyth’s influence? Looking back at Otto’s reign from the 21st century it is easy to focus on the triumphs – his glorious victory at Lechfeld and the imperial title. It is hard to remember that at one point these triumphs were in the future and there was simply a young king, trying to maintain control over his rebellious nobles and no doubt wondering if he would still be the king or even alive in a years time.

Otto is described in the records as a restless and vocal sleeper, a detail which gives us a glimpse into his character. Yes, an overactive mind, but perhaps also a man with fears and regrets to haunt him. And who would have been beside him on those dark nights, offering comfort and support, giving the young Otto the strength to keep going?

There are two problems with this. Firstly, history is evidence-based and we have no idea what words might have passed between Otto and Eadgyth during those difficult nights or what impact they had on him. The second is more disturbing. Even if we did know, would that increase Eadgyth’s position in history? Care has become devalued in our society. If you don’t believe me, simply pop down to your local care home and see how little those people who provide such a vital service are paid. See how easy it is for governments to cut funding to health and welfare. There is almost a belief that no one should ever really need care and those who do – refugees, the disabled, the homeless, the mentally ill – are all too easily demonised by our society. It would seem laughable to us that Eadgyth could be at all significant to history simply by caring.

Yet all of us in our lives can identify moments where someone who cared has made a difference – perhaps to a day, perhaps to a year, perhaps to our whole lives. Was Otto really so different?

We shall never know whether Eadgyth in her own way was as influential in the reign of Otto as Adelheid and the man who could have told us died over a thousand years ago. But did he leave us one clue? Like many medieval kings, Otto prepared his burial place in advance. Where did he wish to lie? Beside his empress, the woman who welcomed him back after his victory at Lechfeld, the one who he was married to for more than two decades? No, he lay beside Eadgyth, the woman who had died more than a quarter of a century before him, the one who knew him first not as a king, but as a boy of 17.

Perhaps this was Otto’s way of saying, “This woman was very important to me. I never forgot it and nor should anyone else.”

The Saxon Marriage

God’s Maidservant