Otto the Child, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg
| Otto the Child | |
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Otto the Child is enfeoffed with Brunswick-Lüneburg by Emperor Frederick II, Lüneburg Sachsenspiegel, 1448
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| Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg | |
| Reign | 1235–1252 |
| Predecessor | none |
| Successor |
Albert the Tall John |
| Spouse(s) | Matilda of Brandenburg |
| Issue | |
| Noble family | House of Welf |
| Father | William of Winchester |
| Mother | Helena of Denmark |
| Born | 1204 |
| Died | 9 June 1252 Lüneburg |
Otto I of Brunswick-Lüneburg (about 1204 – 9 June 1252), a member of the House of Welf, was the first duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg from 1235 until his death. He is called Otto the Child to distinguish him from his uncle, Emperor Otto IV.
Otto was born around 1204 as the only son of William of Winchester and his wife Helena, a daughter of King Valdemar I of Denmark. His father was the youngest son of Henry the Lion, the former Duke of Saxony who had been deposed by the Hohenstaufen emperor Frederick Barbarossa in 1180. By an 1202 agreement with his brothers Count Palatine Henry V and King Otto IV, William had received the Welfs' allodial properties in Saxony around Lüneburg.
Otto was still a minor, when he inherited his father's estates in 1213. As in 1212 his uncle Henry V had renounced the County Palatine of the Rhine in favour of his sole male heir Henry VI the Younger, whose early death in 1214 may be said to have opened to his cousin Otto a more splendid succession than what belonged to the very circumscribed patrimony of his father. However, his uncle Henry V hesitated between a desire to aggrandize his own children (daughters) and a sense of what was due to the male representative of his name and family, and Otto at first reaped little advantage from these enlarged prospects.
At last, in 1223, Henry V executed a deed, by which he appointed his nephew his successor in all that remained of the allodial domains of the duchies of Saxony and Bavaria, and also in the private fiefs which he held as an individual in other parts of the empire. These states, however, constituted so small a portion of the former wealth of his illustrious house, that we should have thought there was scarcely a pretext for either envy or alarm in the breast of his enemy, yet when the Emperor, Frederick II, was made acquainted with the intentions of the Count Palatine, he began to intrigue with his daughters. That he might have a pretense for depriving Otto of the succession at his uncle's death, he purchased from Irmgard, the Margravine of Baden and Agnes, the Duchess of Bavaria their claims as the only issue of the Duke of Saxony; and no sooner was the death of Henry announced, than the King of the Romans was dispatched with an imperial force to take possession of the city and territory of Brunswick. But Otto had been regularly acknowledged by the states as their legitimate sovereign and had been received as such by the city and principality. They therefore joined him heartily in repelling this invasion, and the king and his array were compelled to retire, without being able to effect the object which the emperor had in view.
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