His papal policy was a continuation of that of his father. When the papal usurper Boniface VII. imprisoned and strangled Pope John XIII. and then fled with the Church treasures to Constantinople (974), young Otto set Benedict VII. on the chair of St. Peter and assured him a quiet reign for nine years. Upon the Pope's death (983) the youthful Emperor elevated the Bishop of Pavia to the papal throne as John XIV. When Otto II. died at the premature age of twenty-eight in Verona after "a short and troubled reign,"[402:1] Boniface VII. returned from the East to Rome, murdered the Pope, and reassumed the papal tiara unresisted. The usurper died in eleven months, however, and then the cowardly Romans avenged themselves on his dead body.[402:2]
Otto II. left behind him a son of three and a very active widow. The young heir to the honours and burdens of the German crown and to the imperial throne likewise had his mind filled with the glorious history of Greece and the Eastern Empire by his Grecian mother. John the Greek inspired within him a love for the classics. Bernard, a German monk, gave him a monastic education which showed itself during the remainder of his life. Gerbert, a Clugniac monk, the greatest scholar of his day, taught him history, literature, rhetoric, and science, and fired him with a holy, ascetic zeal to become a great, just Christian Emperor.
During Otto III.'s minority (983-996) the government was wielded by his mother Theophano (984-991) and his grandmother Adelaid (991-996). At the age of
sixteen the last of the Ottomans, half Saxon and half Greek, the plaything of women, scholars, and monks, the pious young dreamer of a world Empire, started for Rome to be crowned Emperor (996). His father had had him elected king at Verona in 983 and coronated at Aachen. On his way now to the Eternal City, accompanied by a coterie of German nobles and churchmen, he stopped at Pavia to receive the homage of the Lombard princes. At Ravenna a messenger from the Roman clergy, senate, and people announced the death of Pope John XV. and asked Otto to name a successor—a very significant fact. The young ruler appointed his cousin and court chaplain, Bruno, who became the first German Pope. Bruno was only twenty-four, but noted for his piety, austere morals, and fiery temper. He hastened to Rome and was installed with great joy as Gregory V. "The news that a scion of the imperial house, a man of holiness, of wisdom and virtue, is placed upon the chair of Peter," wrote Abbo of Fleury to a friend, "is news more precious than gold and costly stones."[403:1] This was the first instance where a northerner, a German, was elevated to the See of St. Peter. A few weeks after the papal coronation Otto entered Rome and received the imperial crown from the youthful Pontiff. He held a council to settle Church affairs and called a diet of civil authorities to settle the government and then returned to Germany.
Within a year, however, a rebellion in Rome against Gregory V. recalled Otto III. (997). The Pope had fled to Pavia, called a council, and excommunicated the leader of the insurrection, Crescentius. An anti-Pope
had been elected, John XVI., formerly the Emperor's teacher and a court favourite. Otto reached Rome with a large army, caught the fleeing papal usurper, deposed him, put out his eyes, cut off his nose and ears, and sent him through the streets of Rome on an ass. Crescentius was beheaded, and with him a dozen conspirators.[404:1] Gregory V. was restored to his dignity only to die within a year (999). As his successor Otto chose Gerbert, his old teacher, who became Sylvester II., the idealist and reformer.[404:2]
Otto III. was occupied a great deal with dreams about a world Empire. He inherited from his mother the ambition to rule the East and from his father the right to rule the West. His teachers inspired him with a desire to become the Christian Emperor of the world with the Pope as his chief assistant, and coloured his whole career by giving him a monastic view of life. He made frequent visits to sacred shrines where he remained weeks at a time. In Rome he built his palace purposely beside a monastery. The idea of a holy crusade to Jerusalem was in his mind. He felt called upon to reform the Papacy, which he enriched by large grants and strengthened by privileges, and he selected most of his chief officials from the churchmen. He called himself the "servant of Jesus Christ" and the "servant of the Apostle."
After having taken Rome and appointed two Popes, Otto attempted to put his imperial fancies into practice. Rome was made his permanent residence and capital from which to rule the world as "Emperor of the Romans." On the Aventine a great palace was built—a thing not even thought of by Charles the Great.
The ceremonies of the Byzantine court were introduced—a long retinue of servants, an imperial guard, and a very formal etiquette. The young ruler refused to eat with his nobles and loved to sit proudly on a gaudy throne arrayed in costly purple while his servants meekly satisfied every whim. He likewise aped the Roman Emperors in magnifying the office of patrician and city prefect, by calling himself "Consul" and by thinking of reviving the senate. Dreaming of conquests beyond the seas, he appointed a naval prefect. Germany and Italy were united under one chancellor and each ruled with troops from the other. Germany,[405:1] Lombardy, Greece, Naples, and the rest of the world were to be reduced to subject provinces of the restored Empire. To receive the sacred sanction of his most renowned predecessor, Charles the Great, for these mighty ideas, Otto III. opened his tomb in the cathedral at Aachen in the year 1000 and from the body of the powerful Teuton carried away holy relics.[405:2]
Early in 1000 the turbulent Romans broke out in a fresh rebellion and the world Empire was destroyed about as easily as a child's house of blocks. Besieged for three days in his palace, Otto at last addressed the discontented mob in these words: