Otto was the Count of Verdun

Count of Verdun

The counts of Verdun, now in eastern France, were often during the Middle Ages rulers of Lorraine; the descendants of the early counts were also margraves in Tuscany and Latin rulers in the Latin East after the First Crusade....

 by inheritance and Duke of Lorraine by appointment of Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor

Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor

Otto I the Great , son of Henry I the Fowler and Matilda of Ringelheim, was Duke of Saxony, King of Germany, King of Italy, and "the first of the Germans to be called the emperor of Italy" according to Arnulf of Milan...

. He was the son of Count Ricwin and the count's first wife, who was probably a Liudolfing. Thus, he was related to Otto, which simultaneously explains his name and his appointment to such high office.

Sometime between 940 and 942, he was appointed duke and given the guardianship over Henry, the son of Gilbert, the first duke of Lorraine. He died not long after and only shortly before Henry his ward. He is sometimes numbered Otto I because another Otto

Otto, Duke of Lower Lorraine

Otto was the duke of Lower Lorraine from 993 until his death. He was the son of Charles, son of King Louis IV, and his first wife, a daughter of Robert de Vermandois, count of Meaux and Troyes....

 later ruled over Lower Lorraine

Lower Lorraine

The Duchy of Lower Lorraine or Lower Lotharingia , established in 959 was a stem duchy of the medieval German kingdom, which encompassed part of modern-day Belgium, the Netherlands, the northern part of the German Rhineland and a part of northern France east of the Schelde river.It was created out...

.

Sources

• Bernhardt, John W. Itinerant Kingship and Royal Monasteries in Early Medieval Germany, c. 936–1075. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993.