Otto III, Holy Roman Emperor
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Otto III in a medieval manuscript |
Otto III (
980 –
January 23,
1002,
Paterno,
Italy) was the fourth ruler of the Saxon or
Ottonian dynasty. He was elected king of Germany in
983 on the death of his father (
Holy Roman Emperor Otto II).
Shortly after his coronation,
Henry II, deposed
Duke of
Bavaria, seized him in an attempt to procure the regency, but in May
984 he was forced to return Otto to his mother, the Byzantine princess
Theophanu, who served as regent until her death in
991. Otto II's mother,
Adelaide of Italy, then served together with
Willigis,
archbishop of Mainz, as regent until Otto III reached his majority in
994.
Otto attempted to revive the glory and power of ancient
Rome with himself at the head of a theocratic state. In
996, he came to the aid of
Pope John XV at the pope's request to put down the rebellion of a Roman nobleman named
Crescentius II. He was declared King of
Lombardy at
Pavia, but failed to reach Rome before the Pope died. Once in Rome, he engineered the election of his cousin Bruno of Carinthia as Pope
Gregory V, the first German pope, and the new pontiff crowned Otto emperor on
May 21, 996, in
Rome. Here his main advisors were two of the main characters of this age, his tutor Gerbert of Aurillac and the bishop
Adalbert of Prague. Together with these two visionary men, influenced by the Roman ruins and perhaps by his Byzantine mother, Otto devised a dream of restoration of a universal Empire formed by the union of the Papacy, Byzantium and Rome. He also introduced some court customs in Greek.
However, as soon as Otto had left Rome one year later, the city magnate
Crescentius II deposed Gregory and installed
John XVI as pope. Otto returned to
Italy and retook the city in
998: Crescentius was executed in the
Castel Sant'Angelo, the antipope mutilated and blinded, and Gregory reinstated.
Otto made Rome the administrative center of his empire and revived elaborate Roman customs and
Byzantine court ceremonies. He took the titles "the servant of
Jesus Christ," "the servant of the
apostles," and "emperor of the world." When Gregory V mysteriously died in
999, Otto arranged for Gerbert to be elected pope as
Sylvester II. The use of this papal name was not casual: it recalled the first
pope of this name, who had allegedly created the "Christian empire" together with
Constantine the Great. Otto therefore was to be seen as the ideal successor to Constantine in the task of reunifying the Roman Empire.
Between
998 and
1000 Otto, being a fervent Christian, made several pilgrimages. He travelled to the
Gargano Peninsula in Southern Italy and to
Gaeta, where he met
Saint Nilus the Younger, then a highly venerated religious figure. Later he left Italy, taking the pro-Byzantine
Duke of Naples,
John IV, captive with him, for the tomb of Adalbert of Prague (who in the meantime had been martyred by the pagan
Prussians) at
Gniezno, and during the meeting with
Bolesław I the Brave in
Congress of Gniezno he founded the archbishopric of
Poland. In Eastern Europe Otto and his entourage strengthened relationships with the
Polish Duchy and with
Stephen of Hungary, who had requested and been granted a crown by Sylvester.
Another model to whom Otto strongly aspired was
Charlemagne: in the year
1000 he visited his tomb in
Aachen, removing relics from it. He had also carried back parts of the body of Adalbert, which he placed in a splendid new church he had built in the
Isola Tiberina in Rome, now
San Bartolomeo all'Isola (Otto also added the skin of
Saint Bartholomew to the relics housed there).
A minor rebellion by the town of
Tibur (Tivoli) in
1001 ended up as his undoing. He retook the town, but spared the inhabitants, which angered the people of Rome, as Tibur was a rival they wanted destroyed. This led to a rebellion in February of the Roman people, headed by Gregory Count of
Tusculum; Otto was besieged in his palace and then driven from the city. He withdrew to
Ravenna to do penance in the monastery of
Sant'Apollinare in Classe. After having summoned his army, Otto headed southwards to reconquer Rome, but died in the castle of
Paterno on
January 23,
1002. A Byzantine princess had just disembarked in
Puglia, on her way to marry him.
Otto's death has been attributed to various causes; ancient sources speak of malaria, which he had caught in the unhealthy marshes that surrounded Ravenna. The Romans suggested instead that Stefania, the widow of Crescentius, had made him fall in love with her and then poisoned him. Otto's body was carried back to Germany by his loyal soldiers, and buried in
Aachen together with that of
Charlemagne. His tomb, however, has been lost.
Henry succeeded him as king of Germany (and later as emperor) as
Henry II.
