while two of his subjects and kinsmen contended over the spoils of
Italy. He collected an army and followed hard on the footsteps of
Liutolf. Berengar fled, the Dukes made peace with their suzerain, and
Otto was free to dispose of the Italian kingdom (951).

It is possible that, if the opportunity had been forthcoming, he would
at once have proceeded to Rome for an imperial coronation. But the Pope,
who alone could make an Emperor, was the nominee of a Roman faction,
headed by the ambitious Alberic the Senator who aspired to build up a
secular lordship on the basis of the Papal patrimony. Otto was not
invited to visit Rome. After some hesitation he decided, instead of
himself assuming the unprofitable duties of an Italian King, to restore
Berengar on condition of a renewal of homage. Perhaps the arrangement
was intended to be temporary. Otto was still menaced by conspiracies in
Germany; and Berengar might serve to guard Italy against ambitious
Dukes, until the hands of his overlord were free for Italian adventures.
Later events justify some such hypothesis. Within a few years the chief
difficulties of Otto were removed. A great ducal rising collapsed; the
Hungarians were so decisively beaten at the Lechfeld (955) that they
ceased to trouble Germany; death relieved Otto of his most dangerous
rivals, Archbishop Frederic of Mainz and his own son, Duke Liutolf.
Then, in 960, arrived the long-delayed call from Rome. John XII, a
dissipated youth of twenty-two, the son of Alberic (died 954) but devoid
of his father's ability, invoked the aid of Germany to protect the
temporal possessions against Berengar. Otto required no second summons.
Descending upon Italy, he expelled his vassal, assumed the Italian crown
at Pavia (961) and then repaired to Rome. Here in 962 he was crowned by
the Pope as lord of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. For good
or for evil the prerogative of Charles the Great was inseparably united
to the German monarchy.