Otto I, Count of Burgundy

Upon the death of his mother in 1184, his father granted him the Burgundian county, elevating him to the rank of a Count palatine (Freigraf). Haughty Otto however soon entered into several feuds: not only with the Anscarid lords of Auxonne and Mâcon, who claimed late Beatrice's heritage, but also with the Counts of Montbéliard, the French Odo III, Duke of Burgundy and Berthold V, Duke of Zähringen. In the course of negotiations in 1195, he killed Count Amadeus of Montbèliard with his own hands,[3] followed by the assassination of Alsatian Count Ulric of Ferrette in 1197[3] and the execution of a brother of Konrad von Hüneburg, Bishop of Strasbourg, in 1198.

Otto's coat of arms (right), Georg Rüxner c. 1530, 17th century reprint

When Henry IV, Count of Luxembourg died without male heirs in 1196, his county escheated to the Emperor and Henry VI enfeoffed his brother Otto. Theobald I, Count of Bar, who had married Ermesinde, daughter of late Count Henry IV, negotiated the renunciation of Luxembourg with Otto the next year.

Meanwhile, Count Palatine Otto's regional conflicts had become a severe threat to the power politics of his Hohenstaufen relatives. After Philip of Swabia had been elected King of the Romans in 1198, rivaling with the Welf duke Otto of Brunswick, he tried to settle the numerous quarrels picked by his brother. In 1200 Otto was assassinated at Besançon, his death came in useful to many political actors.

Otto was buried at St Stephen's Cathedral, today the site of the Citadel of Besançon.

Otto had married Margaret, daughter of Theobald V, Count of Blois, in 1192.[4] After her husband's death her brother-in-law King Philip enfeoffed her with the Burgundian county, as regent for her minor daughter Joanna I. Upon Joanna's death in 1205, Otto's second daughter, Beatrice II, became countess and Philip had her marry Otto I, Duke of Merania.[5]

• Allemand-Gay, Marie-Thérèse (1988). Le pouvoir des comtes de Bourgogne au XIIIe siècle (in French). 368. Annales Litteraires de l'Universite de Besancon.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Bouchard, Constance Brittain (1987). Sword, Miter, and Cloister: Nobility and the Church in Burgundy, 980-1198. Cornell University Press.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Bumke, Joachim (1991). Courtly Culture: Literature and Society in the High Middle Ages. Translated by Dunlap, Thomas. University of California Press.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Gislebertus of Mons (2005). Chronicle of Hainaut. Translated by Napran, Laura. Boydell Press.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Sturner, Wolfgang (1992). Friedrich II:Teil 1 Die Konigscheffschaft in Sizilien un Deutschland 1194-1220 (in German). Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)