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Otto III, Holy Roman Emperor, also called miribilia mundi, despite his short life (he died in 1002, at age 21), is a historical figure who attracts considerable scholarly attention as well as inspires numerous artistic and popular depictions.[2]
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An intellectual emperor, even deemed a genius (although in older research, it was often pointed out that this genius leaned towards grandiose but unrealistic plans), Otto greatly developed the idea of empire with both novel and conventional conceptions during his reign.[3][4] His diplomatic activities coincided with and facilitated the Christianization and the spread of Latin culture in different parts of Europe.[5][6] His early death though made his reign "the tale of largely unrealized potential".[3][7][8] Controversies over the emperor, particularly his Renovation program, have remained hotly debated until this day. Lindsay Diggelmann notes that, "His brief life (980-1002) remains rather shadowy, even by the standards of medieval biography. Yet it has assumed an enormous importance in the history of German national consciousness, since many scholars have chosen to see Otto and his predecessors in the Saxon line as the founders of a German empire in the post-Carolingian period."[9]
Otto has a reputation of piety and association with contemporary saints and great intellectual figures, as well as romantic legends. The legend (now considered unlikely to be true) of the love between Otto and Stephania, the widow of Otto's relative and enemy Crescentius, as well as Otto's poisoning by her, is a particularly frequent subject of artistic depictions of the emperor.
Otto III and his reign have always been controversial. His nineteenth century critics, notably Wilhelm von Giesebrecht attacked him for failing in his duty towards his (German) nation and chasing after whimsical, unrealistic fantasies.[11][12]
With his work Kaiser, Rom und Renovatio (published for the first time in 1929), Percy Ernst Schramm is widely considered the first scholar who has succeeded in reversing the negative image attached to Otto: "Far from being an ineffective dreamer, Otto III re-emerged as a powerful designer of an empire based on a universalistic ideal." From this new perspective, instead of being manipulated by his former teacher Pope Sylvester II (Gerbert of Aurillac), Otto claimed a closer connection to Saint Peter than to the pope through the title servus apostolorum. Otto's version of the renovatio imperii Romanorum strengthened the emperor as defensor ecclesiae, who would subdue and convert barbarians to Christianity. Schramm's new perception faced an uphill battle at first.[13][14] In 1932, Albert Brackmann, although disagreeing with Schramm, presented Otto as a ruler who fitted squarely within the Carolingian-Ottonian traditions and praised "golden Rome" just to glorify and better safeguard the current Rome, and that his rejection of the Donation of Constantine and its legal claims, was only to check the curia's aspiration to power.[15]
Recently, Knut Görich has challenged Schramm's view. Görich argues that what Otto intended to renovate was not the old Empire, but the Roman church and the Papacy.[16][17]
Michel Parisse, reviewing Görich's work, notes that post-Schramm scholars are too focused on debunking the theories of their predecessors (with new theories quickly becoming considered as facts but having questionable facets of their own):[18][a]
Will we one day forget Schramm, whose tree hides the forest from those who are interested in Otto III? After M. Uhlirz, H. Ludat, H. Thomas, J. Fried, K. Görich, will someone decide to rewrite the history of Otto III, not to question the ideas of the predecessors, but to calmly give an account of a great reign, the government of a brilliant young emperor, a very great moment in the history of the Germanic empire, always sketched in the biographies of the princes, never presented as a whole?
Regarding English sources, in 2003, Gerd Althoff's Otto III was translated into English. The work also tries to steer away from older German nationalistic views of the emperor. Julie A. Hofmann praises the book for including a useful section of the historiography concerning Otto III and successfully showing why previous ideas about the emperor are flaws, but notes that it is less successful in "offering a more positive construction of events" by itself.[19]
As it stands, Otto III allows readers to grasp the historiographic shortcomings of the past and understand the more thorough and perhaps more objective reevaluations that Althoff rightly claims historians of the present can and should offer.
Herbert Schutz writes the following on Otto III's personality and rulership:[20]
Despite his short reign, he has left a more enigmatic and interesting self-image than other rulers [...] Otto III was fourteen, when he was girt with the sword and declared of age, and when, without much ado, he took the reins of power from his grandmother in 994. One Heribert, chancellor for Italy and future archbishop of Cologne, may have planted the idea of a coronation in Rome in the young emperor's mind. Already on that occasion, he decided on a journey to Rome to obtain the imperial crown, to find a Byzantine bride and to forge an intertwining link with Italy. He was an enthusiast, but not a military man. During his very short personal rule of only seven years, conquest ceded to diplomacy and alliances. It is noteworthy that his foreign policy achieved lasting successes. In his dealings, he revealed himself a man, who respected conventions, but who also struck out with innovative initiatives of his own. not backed by tradition.[...] The image-makers of the day, with some hagiographic intent to color him as the saint on the imperial throne, may have done their share to present him in this light. Had "his" star not shone brightly in the daylight? His rich gifts to individuals and the personal favor of personal proximity, engaging in intimate conversations and confidentiality, drew him closer to the great minds of his day, while it accumulated personal and political capital. A11 inordinate number of testimonials of praise followed his reign [...] His support of art and architecture was to leave a lasting heritage. Otto III could be moody and driven by a sense of his own exalted person, he was drawn to distant places rather than to those nearby. He thought and planned globally.[...] He was a charismatic and most assertive personality with a Classical education, of ascetic piety and the conviction of a divinely ordained imperial role. With the tutelage of Bemward of Hildesheim and John Philagathos, the devoted servant of Otto II, Theophanu had raised a pious, artistic intellectual, Who appreciated spirituality and the beauty of the arts and Greco-Roman culture in particular.
Otto's (and Sylvester's) work in spreading Christianity and coopting a new group of nations (Slavic) into the framework of Europe, with their empire functioning, as some remark, as a "Byzantine-like presidency over a family of nations, centred on pope and emperor in Rome", has proved a lasting achievement.[21][22][23][24] The historian Ekkehard Eickhoff, himself also a diplomat, approves the reputation of the young ruler as a genius and linking his work in building a European peace order with the need for European unification today.[25][26]
Franke remarks that, during his short rule, he had not demonstrated a coherent military strategy, which allowed Boleslaw II of Bohemia and Lothair of France to launch campaigns into Meissen and Lotharingia. He focused on Italian campaigns and had achieved little concrete success. In the north, Slavic federations overran marches and bishoprics, leaving only Meissen and Lausitz east of the river of Elbe. An invasion into Saxony in 987 was only repulsed with Polish aid, and Henry the Quarrelsome was responsible for keeping Hungarians at bay.[27] Althoff remarks that while several (immense) campaigns during Otto's minority (with or without the king's participation – he began to personally participate in military campaigns at age six, in 986) were successful, a strategy of reconquest or improving former defensive positions was unclear. The 991 campaign that took Brandenburg seemed to be for the purpose of revenge for the 983 defeat. The 998 expedition to Rome, after which Johannes Philagathos and Crescentius the Younger were treated brutally (contrary to the medieval ideal of a merciful monarch and clementia), also seemed to be for revenge.[28] In Italy, he could rely upon the service of Count Hunerik or Unruoch (around 950–1010) of Teisterbant, an excellent commander who had received military education under the reign of Otto I. The 998 campaign was notable for the use of sophisticated siege engines and equipments. Bachrach opines that these were responsible for the successful siege of Sant' Angelo while Althoff claims that even with these machines, admittedly impressive technically and put under the direction of Margrave Ekkehard of Meissen, the rapidnesss of success seemed to be related to a complicated chain of events involving Crescentius's personal interaction with Otto III.[29][30][31] Benjamin Arnold opines that Otto III seemed to want to shift the focus of the Empire from the military, as it had been under his grandfather and father, to the ideological. Apparently in his earnest devotion, he thought that power had been bestowed on him for the purpose of expanding the Christian faith and preventing the world from imminent destruction.[32]
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A well known depiction of this legend is the fresco created by Alfred Rethel in 1847.[34][35] Wilhelm von Kaulbach produced a fresco depicting Otto III in the Tomb of Charlemagne (now destroyed; an illustration that imitates this work can be seen in the work Die Gartenlaube (1863) though.).[36]
There is a modern theory (created by Heribert Illig, born 1947) that Otto III, Sylvester II and Constantine VII of Byzantine were the ones who invented the entire Carolingian period and thus Charlemagne, but it is generally rejected by scholars.[37]
The Vienna Coronation Gospels is traditionally believed to be found by Otto III in Charlemagne's grave.[38] The so-called Sabre of Charlemagne is also traditionally regarded as having been discovered in this occasion.[39]
The legend has received multiple depictions in literature and arts, including the 1866 five-act tragedy Stefania (written in verse) by Domenico Galati Fiorentini (1846–1901);[40] Sem Benelli's play Le nozze dei centauri ("The Marriage of the Centaurs", 1915 ), in which Otto (as a Christian) and Stefania (as a pagan woman) personify the Christian – pagan conflict;[41] the 1902 dramatic work Kaiser Otto III. by Heinrich Welzhofer;[42] Nathan Gallizier's 1907 novel The sorceress of Rome;[43] Hegedüs Géza's novella Szent Szilveszter éjszakája (Saint Sylvester's Eve, 1963), in which Gerbert was teacher to both Otto and Stephania, who loved Otto but poisoned him anyway;[44] William Wetmore Story's five-act tragedy Stephania;[45] Michael Field's 1892 Stephania.[46][47]
No verses have I ever made,
Nor ever notice to them paid
While, then ,I have them now in mind,
And in them lively solace find,
As many men as live in Gaul,
So many songs I'll send for all!
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Italian visual arts tend to depict the relationship between Otto III and contemporary Saints, as seen in the works of the following artists:
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There are several Polish depictions of Otto III together with Boleslaw the Brave.
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In 2002, on the 1000th commemoration of his death, a square in Kessel (Otto was born near Kessel) was named after him and commemoration boards about his life have been set up there.[115][116]
On 12 March 2000, the presidents of Germany, Poland, Lithuania, Hungary and Slovakia came to Gniezno to mark the 1000th anniversary of the meeting between Otto III and Boleslaw Chrobry in Gniezno.[117]
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