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Biography of Otto, IIIName: Otto, IIIBirth Date: 980 Death Date: 1002 Place of Birth: N/A Nationality: German Gender: Male Occupations: king, emperor Otto, III The medieval ruler Otto III (980-1002) was Holy Roman emperor from 996 to 1002 and German king from 983 to 1002. Well educated, brilliant, and filled with hopes of reviving some type of Roman Empire in the West, he died while still a young man.Otto III was the only son of Emperor Otto II and the Byzantine princess Theophano. He was three years of age when his father died, making him German king. Most of Otto's younger years were spent in Germany, where, after a period of difficulty with Duke Henry the Wrangler of Bavaria, his mother served capably as regent. After her death in 991, Otto's grandmother, the dowager empress Adelaide, became regent until, in 994, Otto himself came of age at 14.During Otto III's minority the empresses Theophano and Adelaide had been relatively successful in keeping peace within Germany itself and in preventing the French kings from annexing Lorraine, which they coveted; but they …showed first 150 words…
…showed last 150 words…not behave like a sacerdotal ruler. He also felt it important to allow the neighboring rulers of Denmark, Poland, Bohemia, and Hungary a large measure of freedom, control of their local churches, and loose association with his empire, thus conciliating them and helping to integrate their realms into one Western Christendom. Whatever plans Otto III may have had for the future, however, died with him in 1002, and a new and less exalted era ensued for Italy and Germany. Further Reading Indispensable to an understanding of Otto III are Geoffrey Barraclough, Origins of Modern Germany (1947; rev. ed. 1966), and Eleanor Duckett, Death and Life in the Tenth Century (1967). But they should be supplemented by accounts found in Francis Dvornik, The Making of Central and Eastern Europe (1949); Christopher Brooke, Europe in the Central Middle Ages, 962-1154 (1964); Romilly Jenkins, Byzantium: The Imperial Centuries, A.D. 610-1071 (1966); and Karl Morrison, Tradition and Authority in the Western Church, 300-1140 (1969). |