During the tenth and eleventh centuries in Germany, the Ottonian and Salian monarchs drew much of their political and economic support from the royal churches of their realm. In fact, during the Ottonian period royal churches increasingly became the most important economic bases for the accommodation of the royal presence in the realm, as well as the venues for the liturgical representation of sacral kingship. One can see this particularly well in the numerous royal palaces that these kings gave fully or in part to ecclesiastical institutions. For instance, Otto I founded St Maurice and later the archbishopric at Magdeburg on his Pfalz at Magdeburg, and the archbishopric later acquired the monastery and a large part of the palace complex at Pöhlde, where the Ottonians traditionally celebrated Christmas. The monastery of canons that Queen Mathilda had founded at Pöhlde became a proprietary Benedictine monastery when Magdeburg acquired it in 981. The royal convent of Quedlinburg was established on a former royal residence and later was granted the former Pfalz of Walbeck as well as revenues and holdings at the hunting palace at Siptenfelde. Gandersheim, originally a Liudolfmg family convent, received the royal residence at Dahlum, the convent founded by Sophie at Eschwege and its extensive holdings there, and a curtis at the hunting palace of Bodfeld with forest and hunting rights. The royal Pfalz at Nordhausen was granted to Queen Mathilda, who founded her favourite convent of canonesses there.