The first efforts of Otto towards the conciliation and subjection of the clergy were surprisingly successful. He next formed a scheme of withdrawing eastern Saxony and the Wendish march from obedience to the Archbishop of Mainz, and setting up a new Archbishop of Magdeburg as metropolitan of these regions. It was a well-designed device to give further unity to those warlike and loyal regions upon which Otto’s power was ultimately based. But his own son, Archbishop William, violently opposed a scheme which deprived the see of Mainz of the obedience of many of its suffragans. William’s representations to Rome induced the Pope to take no steps to carry out Otto’s plan. The king was deeply incensed, but the check taught him a lesson. He learnt that after all, the German Church was not self-contained or self-sufficing. Over the German Church ruled the Roman Pope. He could only ensure the obedience of the German Church by securing the submission or the co-operation of the head of the Christian world. So long as the Pope was outside his power, Otto’s dream of dominating Germany through churchmen seemed likely to end in a rude awakening. To complete this aspect of his policy required vigorous intervention in Italy. The condition of Italy had long been one of deplorable anarchy. After the death of the Emperor Berengar in 924 had put an end to the best chance of setting up a national Italian kingdom, things went from bad to worse. The Saracens, having plundered its coasts, settled down in its southern regions side by side with the scanty remnants of the Byzantine power. Thus all southern Italy was withdrawn altogether from the sphere of western influence. But in the centre and north things were far worse. The inroads of the barbarians were but recently over, and had left their mark behind in poverty, famine, pestilence and disorder. Great monasteries like Subiaco and Farfa were in ruins. The Hungarians had penetrated to the heart of central Italy. The Saracens from their stronghold of Freinet, amidst the ‘mountains of the Moors’ of the western Riviera, had devastated Provence, and had held possession of the passes of the Alps. [Sidenote: State of Italy, 924–950.] If the growth of feudalism, with its permanent military system and its strong castles, had already repelled the barbarians, the price paid for deliverance was the cutting up of sovereignty among a multitude of petty territorial lords. The rising tide of feudal anarchy had almost overwhelmed the city civilisation which had been, since Roman times, the special feature of Italian life. A swarm of greedy feudal counts and marquises struggled against each other for power, and a series of phantom Emperors reduced to an absurdity the once all-powerful name of Cæsar. There was still a nominal Italian or Lombard king, who claimed the suzerainty over all northern and central Italy. But in their zeal for local freedom, the Italians had encouraged quarrels for the supreme power. ‘The Italians,’