Sophia I, Abbess of Gandersheim
Sophia I, a member of the royal Ottonian dynasty, was Abbess of Gandersheim from 1002, and from 1011 also Abbess of Essen. The daughter of Emperor Otto II and his consort Theophanu, she was an important kingmaker in medieval Germany.
Adelaide of Quedlinburg and Sophia of Gandersheim, by Lucas Cranach (1546)
The Ottonian dynasty was a Saxon dynasty of German monarchs (919–1024), named after three of its kings and Holy Roman Emperors named Otto, especially its first Emperor Otto I. It is also known as the Saxon dynasty after the family's origin in the German stem duchy of Saxony. The family itself is also sometimes known as the Liudolfings, after its earliest known member Count Liudolf and one of its most common given names. The Ottonian rulers were successors of the Germanic king Conrad I, who was the only Germanic king to rule in East Francia after the Carolingian dynasty and before this dynasty.
Depiction of the Ottonian family tree in a 13th-century manuscript of the Chronica Sancti Pantaleonis. The founder of the dynasty Liudolf, Duke of Saxony is at the top center.
Gandersheim Abbey Church
Former collegiate church of St. Servatius in Quedlinburg, founded in 936 by King Otto I, at the request of his mother Queen Matilda, in honor of her late husband, Otto's father, King Henry the Fowler, and as his memorial
Detail from the monument to Emperor Henry II, built over his tomb in Bamberg Cathedral more than 350 years after his death