Side by side with the heroic figures of Henry I. (919-936), who refounded the shattered empire, and his still greater son, Otto I., who rebuilt it, we find spirited princesses, some of them, like Adelheid of Burgundy, foreigners, with great zeal for culture, who brought an appreciation of refinement and art to the German court. Otto the Great's son and grandson added the Byzantine culture to the Roman-Carlovingian substratum. The women of the tenth century played a remarkably active part in politics and literature. Mathilda and Editha, the pious wives of the first two Saxon emperors, powerfully affected the civilization of their time. The reigns of Otto II. and Otto III. bear most decided traces of the influence of two royal women, Adelheid and Theophano, who exercised a strong influence upon the political and intellectual life of the century. The period of the Ottos marks the climax of an early renaissance as distinguished from the great classical movement so called five centuries later. In art, this renaissance is expressed by churches and palaces built after late Roman and Byzantine models, partly even with the materials of those times; in literature, the renaissance blossoms in classical studies, Latin historiography and poetry. Indeed, Tietmar of Merseburg, the famous chronicler of the Saxon emperors, could well say: "Proud like Lebanon's cedars the Empire towered, a terror to all nations far and wide;" and again: "Highly blessed was the world when Otto wielded the sceptre."