A member of the
Elder House of Welf, Conrad was the son of King
Rudolph II, the first ruler over the
united kingdom of
Upper and
Lower Burgundy since 933, and his consort
Bertha, a daughter of Duke
Burchard II of Swabia. Some sources call him
Conrad III, since he was the third Conrad in his family: his great-grandfather was Duke
Conrad II, whose father was Count
Conrad I. Conrad succeeded his father as King of Burgundy in 937, with his future brother-in-law, the German king
Otto I (later
Holy Roman Emperor), exercising the regency during Conrad's
minority reign. Under Otto's regency, Conrad began a close collaboration with the Germanic kings. Burgundy also gained a central role in Otto I's Italian policy due to the
Great Saint Bernard Pass. Conrad extended Burgundy's control over important monasteries, including
Lure Abbey,
Payerne Priory,
Romainmôtier Priory and
Moutier-Grandval Abbey. According to the chronicler
Ekkehard IV, in a story that is probably apocryphal, when Conrad learned that both the
Magyars and the
Saracens of
Fraxinetum were marching against him, he sent envoys to both armies warning them of the other. The envoys offered Burgundian aid to each invader against the other and then informed them of the other's whereabouts. When the Magyars and Saracens
met, the Burgundians held back and only attacked when the opposing forces were spent. In this way, both invading armies were destroyed and the captives sold into slavery. Conrad died on 19 October 993 and was buried at the Abbey of Saint-André-le-Bas,
Vienne. ==Marriage and children==