Otto III (Paperback, New edition)

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 productof his civilization.