Privilegium Ottonianum
The pact Otto I issued for the Roman church in February 962, shortly after his coronation. It confirms the papal territories and requires that a pope-elect make a promise before the emperor’s envoys before he is consecrated.
Read the text at dmgh.de ↗Abridged English translation (Thatcher and McNeal, Source Book for Mediaeval History, no. 54) ↗
The document is in two parts. The first confirms to St Peter and to John XII the city and duchy of Rome and a long list of territories, renewing the grants of Pippin and Charlemagne. The second reserves the power of the emperor, his son and his successors, and renews an older arrangement: the clergy and nobility of Rome are to swear that papal elections will be canonical, and the one elected is not to be consecrated until he has made a promise in the presence of the emperor’s envoys.
The closing clause dates it to 13 February 962, in the fifth indiction, and it is witnessed by German and Italian bishops, abbots and counts. Used in Otto I Is Crowned Emperor.
Cited in
- February AD 962, firm date