Henry the Fowler

Born into the Saxon Liudolfing line around 876, Henry inherited the duchy in 912 and immediately launched a rebellion against King Conrad I over Thuringian lands. They reconciled in 915, and Conrad — dying three years later — named Henry his successor, seeing him as the only man who could hold the fracturing kingdom together. Elected king in 919, Henry subdued rebellious dukes in Bavaria and Swabia, then took Lotharingia as a vassal in 925. He built fortifications and mobile cavalry across Germany, routed the Magyars at the Battle of Riade in 933, crushed the Slavs at Lenzen in 929, forced Boh…