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Otto III
232 pages | 7 illustrations | 6 x 9 | 2003
Cloth edition is not available
ISBN 978-0-271-02401-1 | paper: $28.00 sh
"Althoff's careful attention to the sources (quoted extensively in the translation with full Latin citations) and his insights regarding the ritualistic and demonstrative behavior of the early Middle Ages mark this as a book that demands the attention of scholars and students alike and one that should have an English translation."
—John W. Bernhardt, on the German edition in Speculum
Otto III (980-1002) was one of the most powerful rulers in Europe in the late tenth century. He is also one of the most enigmatic. The son of the German emperor Otto II and the Greek princess Theophanu, he came to the throne at the age of three and was only twenty-one years old at the time of his death. Nonetheless, his reign had a lasting impact on both Germany and Italy for generations. In this book, Gerd Althoff provides a much-needed biography of this fascinating figure. In the process, he uses Otto's life to explain how in practice early medieval kingship worked.
At the heart of Otto's short career lay three expeditions to Italy and his efforts to solidify a German Reich that controlled the territory on both sides of the Alps. Most writers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries understood Otto, for good or ill, as an idealist and an individualist. Althoff's great contribution is to make sense of Otto III against the backdrop of his own time, depicting Otto as a ruler challenged and limited both by his ancestry and by the political customs of his time.
Publication of Otto III marks an impressive debut in English for one of Germany's leading medieval historians. Throughout his career, Althoff has been especially interested in conflicts between kings and aristocrats as a means of understanding the fluid exercise of power. What emerges in this book is a tantalizing picture of rule by symbolic act and word, by consensus of the nobles, by behind-the-scenes negotiations, and through public rituals to cement agreements. The final result is a vivid portrait of a medieval monarchy that is neither absolute nor based on long-term policies. Instead we see a ruler who is truly a product of his civilization.
Gerd Althoff is Professor of History at the University of Münster. He has written numerous works on tenth-century Germany, including, most recently, the book Die Ottonen (2000), which examines kingship more generally in the Ottonian dynasty. This is his first book to be translated into English.
Phyllis G. Jestice is Assistant Professor of Medieval History at the University of Southern Mississippi and the author of Wayward Monks and the Religious Revolution of the Eleventh Century (1997).
Contents
Translator’s Note
Preface to the German Edition
Preface to the English Edition
Introduction
The Modern Assessment of Otto III
Royal Rule and the Idea of the State at the End of the Tenth Century
Central Questions and the Problem of Sources
1 A Child on the Throne
Henry the Quarrelsome and the Disturbances over the Succession
The Regency of the Empresses
2 The Beginning of Independent Rule
The First Independent Decisions
The First Italian Expedition
The Encounters with Gerbert and Adalbert
3 The "Revenge Expedition" to Rome and the Beginning
of the "Roman Renewal"
The Fight Against Crescentius and the Antipope
Otto III’s "Idea of Roman Renewal" in Older and
Newer Scholarship
4 The Journey to Gniezno
Preconceptions and Preparations
The Journey
From Gniezno to Aachen
5 The Last Expedition to Rome
"Government Business" on the Way
The Gandersheim Conflict
The "Ingratitude" of the Romans
The Death of Otto III
6 Building Blocks for an Assessment of Otto III: Observations,
Insights, Open Questions
Demonstrative Ritual Behaviors
"Friends" of Otto III and His Interaction with Them
Dealing with the Heritage
Abbreviations
Notes
Bibliography