Gero (archbishop of Cologne)

Gero originated from Saxony, probably a son of the Billung count Christian (d. 950), who ruled in the Eastphalian Nordthüringgau and Schwabengau as well as over the adjacent lands of Serimunt in the Marca Geronis.

According to the medieval chronicler Bishop Thietmar of Merseburg, he at first met with opposition from the Emperor Otto the Great.

[1] By 975 (probably in 971), this became a royal monastery and was moved (in 975) to Nienburg, a site in the founders' familial lands, where it would serve as a missionary base for work amongst the Polabian Slavs.

[2] In 974, Gero established the monastery of Gladbach at the site of a former church, which had been destroyed during the Hungarian incursions.

An excellent example of Ottonian art, it is today kept at the Darmstadt University of Technology and listed in UNESCO's Memory of the World Programme.