Saxony and celebrated Palm Sunday in Magdeburg. At the same ceremony the previous year, Margrave Hermann Billung, Otto's trusted lieutenant and personal administrator over Saxony during his years in Italy, had been received like a king by Archbishop Adalbert of Magdeburg – a gesture of protest against the Emperor's prolonged absence from Germany. Celebrating Easter with a great assembly in Quedlinburg, Emperor Otto was the most powerful man in Europe. According to Thietmar of Merseburg, Otto received "the dukes Miesco [of Poland] and Boleslav [of Bohemia], and legates from the Greeks [Byzantium], the Beneventans [Rome], Magyars, Bulgars, Danes and Slavs". Ambassadors from England and Al-Andalus arrived later the same year. To mark the Rogation Days, Otto travelled to his palace at Memleben, the place where his father had died 37 years earlier. While there, Otto became seriously ill with fever and, after receiving his last sacraments, died on 7 May 973 at the age of 60. The transition of power to his seventeen-year-old son Otto II was seamless. On 8 May 973, the lords of the Empire confirmed Otto II as their new ruler. Otto II arranged for a magnificent thirty-day funeral, in which his father was buried beside his first wife Eadgyth in Magdeburg Cathedral. Family and children Although never Emperor, Otto's father Henry I the Fowler is considered the founder of the Ottonian dynasty. In relation to the other members of his dynasty, Otto I was the son of Henry I, father of Otto II, grandfather of Otto III, and great-uncle to Henry II. The Ottonians would rule Germany (later the Holy Roman Empire) for over a century from 919 until 1024. Otto had two wives and at least seven children, one of which was illegitimate. With an unidentified Slavic woman: William (929 – 2 March 968) – Archbishop of Mainz from 17 December 954 until death With Eadgyth of England, daughter of King Edward the Elder: Liudolf (930 – 6 September 957) – Duke of Swabia from 950 to 954, Otto's expected successor from 947 until death Liutgarde (932–953) – married Conrad, Duke of Lorraine, in 947 With Adelaide of Italy, daughter of King Rudolf II of Burgundy: Henry (952–954) Bruno (probably 954–957) Matilda (954–999) – Abbess of Quedlinburg from 966 until death Otto II (955 – 7 December 983) – Holy Roman Emperor from 973 until death Legacy Ottonian Renaissance A limited renaissance of the arts