Translator's Note...................................................................................................vii Preface to the German Edition.......................................................................................ix Preface to the English Edition......................................................................................xi INTRODUCTION The Modern Assessment of Otto III................................................................................1 Royal Rule and the Idea of the State at the End of the Tenth Century.............................................16 Central Questions and the Problem of Sources.....................................................................23 Chapter 1 A CHILD ON THE THRONE Henry the Quarrelsome and the Disturbances over the Succession...................................................29 The Regency of the Empresses.....................................................................................40 Chapter 2 THE BEGINNING OF INDEPENDENT RULE The First Independent Decisions..................................................................................52 The First Italian Expedition.....................................................................................59 The Encounters with Gerbert and Adalbert.........................................................................65 Chapter 3 THE "REVENGE EXPEDITION" TO ROME AND THE BEGINNING OF THE "ROMAN RENEWAL" The Fight Against Crescentius and the Antipope...................................................................72 Otto III's "Idea of Roman Renewal" in Older and Newer Scholarship................................................81 Chapter 4 THE JOURNEY TO GNIEZNO Preconceptions and Preparations..................................................................................90 The Journey......................................................................................................97 From Gniezno to Aachen...........................................................................................103 Chapter 5 THE LAST EXPEDITION TO ROME "Government Business" on the Way.................................................................................108 The Gandersheim Conflict.........................................................................................112 The "Ingratitude" of the Romans..................................................................................118 The Death of Otto III............................................................................................126 Chapter 6 BUILDING BLOCKS FOR AN ASSESSMENT OF OTTO III: OBSERVATIONS, INSIGHTS, OPEN QUESTIONS Demonstrative Ritual Behaviors...................................................................................132 "Friends" of Otto III and His Interaction with Them..............................................................140 Dealing with the Heritage........................................................................................146 Abbreviations.......................................................................................................149 Notes...............................................................................................................151 Bibliography........................................................................................................185 Index...............................................................................................................209
Henry the Quarrelsome and the Disturbances over the Succession Otto's reign certainly began inauspiciously. When the three-year-old was consecrated king at Aachen on Christmas Day, 983, Emperor Otto II, his father, had already been dead for three weeks. But nobody in Aachen knew that yet. The news of the senior Otto's death arrived shortly after the coronation ceremonies and "brought the festivity to an end." The situation was now critical in many respects. One issue was fundamental-the kingship of minors placed the medieval ruling bond under an almost intolerable strain. Contemporaries knew they should fear fulfillment of the Bible's lament "Woe to the land whose king is a child and whose princes feast in the morning." But the actual situation for Otto III involved an even more disturbing circumstance: the last years of his father's reign had been unfortunate also.
In July 982 the German army had suffered a devastating defeat at the hands of the Saracens at Crotone in southern Italy. More great nobles, both secular and spiritual, had fallen on the battlefield at Crotone than at any time since the Magyar invasions at the beginning of the century. In fact, the emperor himself only escaped to a ship under conditions filled with adventure. One year later the Slavs east of the Elbe staged an uprising. They destroyed the bishoprics of Brandenburg and Havelberg, and thus at a single blow wrecked the hitherto successful Ottonian missionary policy. The true importance of these reversals for the makers of political decisions is very difficult to assess. Only Thietmar of Merseburg discusses the matter, reporting that "all our princes came sorrowfully together after receiving the evil tidings [from Italy] and unanimously demanded to see him [Otto II] again." This report by a later chronicler suggests that the magnates wanted to influence policies after Crotone. But we cannot say what these nobles hoped to accomplish. All we know is that they met with the emperor at a great assembly in Verona. Certainly scholars have assumed that Emperor Otto II hurried to Mainz to prepare for this assembly and while there discussed the possible consequences of the predicament in which he found himself. Available evidence cannot support this assumption, however. According to the sources, the assembly of Verona set about appointing new dukes for Bavaria and Swabia, but its main business was to elect Otto III as coruler with his father. The proceedings were unusual: this was the only royal election ever held south of the Alps. The sources give no reason for this departure from custom. Conceivably, time was running short for arranging matters in south Italy. Possibly, too, the choice of venue aimed to enhance the importance of a part of the Ottonian empire that Otto I had won only after 951: Italy.
Whatever the reason for the election, immediately thereafter the new three-year-old king, who until that time had lived in Italy with his parents, departed for the north. His goal was Aachen, the Ottonians' traditional coronation site, where he would receive royal consecration. The report that not only Archbishop Willigis of Mainz but Archbishop Johannes of Ravenna performed the ceremony is striking in this context. This report, too, suggests a concerted effort to include representatives from the Italian part of the empire in ceremonial acts, and in that way a tendency to integrate the various regions under imperial control. These, however, remained only isolated occurrences.
The death of Otto II created a precarious situation. In Italy there were rebellions against Ottonian officials. Matters soon became even more complicated in the empire north of the Alps. There, Duke Henry the Quarrelsome of Bavaria, a first cousin of Otto II, again emerged as a political force. His relationship to the imperial house was already greatly strained. As a member of the Bavarian branch of the Ottonians, Henry had been involved in several armed rebellions against Emperor Otto II in the years after 974. At first he had been pardoned. After a second rebellion, though, Henry lost his duchy and was imprisoned in the custody of Bishop Folcmar of Utrecht. This imprisonment, which had already lasted an unusually long time by tenth-century standards, ended abruptly with the death of the emperor who had ordered it. In the same way that treaties of this time were only valid inter vivos and lapsed with the death of the treaty signatories, so too had Henry the Quarrelsome been not a "state prisoner" but the personal prisoner of the emperor. Naturally, he received his freedom again when Otto II died. There is hardly a better example of how underdeveloped "transpersonal state representations" still were in this period.
In point of fact, Henry was not simply released. He immediately claimed a role in political events. He did so by demanding that Otto III, at that time staying in Cologne in the care of Archbishop Warin, be handed over to him. Apparently this was in accord with the law of propinquity as it was understood at that time. Apparently there was no opposition to this move, because Henry could claim his rights as Otto's nearest male relative. Moreover, the dominae imperiales, the young king's grandmother, mother, and aunt, were still in Italy and by all appearances were in no hurry to return. According to the sources, almost everyone believed that Henry was only seeking the guardianship of the young king. Henry's behavior and actions, however, soon taught them otherwise.
As a matter of fact, Henry took action in a very characteristic way. Henry immediately made an agreement with King Lothar of France through emissaries and hurriedly arranged a meeting in Breisach, to conclude a friendship alliance with Lothar there. To assure Carolingian support, Henry supposedly even planned to turn the disputed province of Lotharingia over to the French king. A letter authored by Gerbert in the name of Adalbero of Rheims to Bishop Notger of Liège is essential for assessing Henry's actions. In this letter Gerbert warns Notger against King Lothar, who was on his way to Breisach, and against Henry the Quarrelsome, whom he designates as an enemy of the state. The letter can be dated to the end of January 984 and thus shows that by this time the Quarrelsome's activities had already gone beyond mere guardianship and were considered dangerous. However, we also learn through several reports and references among Gerbert's collected letters that the West Frankish king Lothar announced his own right to assume Otto's guardianship. Indeed, Lothar could also call upon the law of propinquity, because he was related to Otto III in the same degree as was Henry the Quarrelsome. This claim perhaps even explains why Henry made a surprising change in direction. Henry did not turn up at the agreed-upon meeting in Breisach, despite his oath to do so. King Lothar consequently used the conflict over the German throne as a pretext to attack Lotharingia. This was part of a long tradition of West Frankish/French efforts to recover the region. Because of resistance by the Lotharingian nobles, this effort had no lasting success.
Henry the Quarrelsome apparently made no arrangements at all to keep this meeting with the French king. The Saxon chronicler Thietmar gives a full and detailed report that Henry traveled directly from Cologne, where he had taken possession of the young Otto, to Saxony by way of Corvey. It is not possible to say what motives lay behind this apparently abrupt change of mind. One thing is clear, however: in Saxony Henry the Quarrelsome did not hide his true aims under the mask of guardianship for long. Instead, his actions there quite openly aimed at usurping the throne. It is impossible to say whether he intended to set himself in Otto III's place or to establish some sort of joint rule. Before he had even reached Saxony, however, something occurred that significantly worsened Henry's prospects. In Corvey, two Saxon counts, Dietrich and Siegbert, came to him barefooted and begged his pardon. In other words, they underwent a ritual of submission, for which there was a well-established tradition. Henry, however, refused them his forgiveness, after which these counts "sought with all their strength to entice their relatives and friends from the duke's service." We know neither the reason for the discord between Henry and the counts nor Henry's reason for refusing to forgive them. Still, we can assert from numerous similar incidents: clemency is always near to the scepter.
Kings of the tenth century never missed an opportunity to provide clear visible proof of their clementia, public events at which opponents prostrated themselves before the ruler and begged for forgiveness. On the contrary. Public submission was a ritual commonly used in conflict resolution. As a rule, all the particulars were settled beforehand, and the ceremony thus had the character of a staged production, through which public conflict was concluded. Henry the Quarrelsome had not heeded these rules of the game. Possibly he did not want to accept a fait accompli by the counts without reaching a previous agreement; perhaps he felt too deep a bitterness to forgive them. In either case, though, Henry the Quarrelsome's refusal injured him in Saxony as the dismayed counts' understandable reaction shows. From then on they worked against Henry in every way possible. Not surprisingly, a little later they are also numbered among those opponents of Henry who began to form themselves into a party in support of Otto III. As in the case of the Breisach meeting, Henry's conduct is incomprehensible. A politically experienced man must have known the consequences of refusing a deditio, of not accepting a proffered submission. In this way he had demonstrated his unwillingness or incapacity for practicing clementia, one of the most important kingly virtues. Unfortunately, we almost never have evidence to explain what motivated Henry's behavior.
In Saxony, Henry's position was at first so strong that he could seek out the most important places in the region and use ecclesiastical festivals to present himself as would-be king: he celebrated Palm Sunday in Magdeburg and Easter in Quedlinburg, following royal custom. Already in Magdeburg he began negotiations with the attendant princes, with the goal of convincing them to recognize his kingship. The majority of the magnates, however, countered this demand with the pretense that they needed first to obtain the consent of their current king-the young Otto. The form this permission might have taken is unclear. Would it have been through the child himself or his guardian? Apparently the nobles involved were playing for time and working against Henry the Quarrelsome's plans, as Henry himself immediately recognized. His public indignatio, his displeasure at the way some Saxons were hanging back, motivated these nobles to withdraw from Magdeburg and to discuss in secret meetings possible measures against Henry.
Up to this point, Henry the Quarrelsome's supporters still dominated the public scene. At the Easter festivities in Quedlinburg they publicly greeted Henry as king and honored him through ecclesiastical laudes, the formal songs of praise addressed to a ruler. Many of those present at Quedlinburg paid him homage, and "swore their support to him as king and lord." In this regard Thietmar particularly singles out Dukes Mieszko of Poland and Boleslav of Bohemia, as well as the Abodrite prince Mistui. Mistui's presence at Quedlinburg is especially surprising because only the year before he had attacked and destroyed Hamburg during the Slav rebellion. That a long list of bishops was ready to support Henry's candidacy also demonstrates the dominance of Henry's supporters at this time. Among them was Archbishop Giselher of Magdeburg, whose activities during this Easter week are unknown.
We are better informed about the reaction of Henry the Quarrelsome's opponents. After leaving Quedlinburg they met at Asselburg, and agreed to resist Henry's attempt to seize the kingship by forming a compact, a coniuratio. It is important to note that this form of compact by oath was a common way in which the Saxon nobility dealt with political issues from the tenth century on. The nobles involved met in urbes or civitates, that is in fortified places, and effected their political agreement with an oath obliging those swearing to act toward a common goal. This coniuratio thus offered a particularly effective political coalition against enemies-including the Ottonian or Salian kings. Thietmar names the most prominent participants in the Asselburg meeting: Duke Bernhard of Saxony, Margrave Dietrich from the northern march, Ekkehard (the later margrave of Meissen), Counts Bio and Esiko of Merseburg, Bernward (the later bishop of Hildesheim, whom Thietmar designated at Asselburg as "count and cleric"), along with a whole series of further Saxon counts. The milites of Saint Martin (the vassals of the archdiocese of Mainz) were also present. Aside from these men, no representatives of spiritual institutions are named. Henry the Quarrelsome immediately recognized the danger of this sworn association. As soon as he learned of the coniuratio, he moved with a strong military force from Quedlinburg to Werla, either to disperse his opponents or to reach a peaceful agreement with them. The conduct Thietmar reports is typical of the age: brewing conflicts evoked a characteristic mix of threatening military gesture and offers to negotiate. It was typical to confront an opponent with strong military force and to threaten him with armed might; at the same time, however, a leader would send a negotiator to attempt a peaceful settlement of the conflict. Bishop Folcmar of Utrecht undertook this task for Henry. However, he could not convince Henry's enemies to submit; he only won their agreement to meet in the future for a peace conference at Seesen.
As had happened when he negotiated with the West Frankish king, Henry
the Quarrelsome did not consider himself bound by such arrangements made
on his behalf; he immediately set out for Bavaria instead. There all the bishops
and some of the counts accepted him very quickly. Then he continued
his journey toward Franconia. His behavior is probably best interpreted as a
conscious policy not to resist opposition by individuals and groups of enemies,
but rather to win as many supporters as possible as quickly as possible.
His aim was to force his opponents into a position of weakness. His Saxon
opponents used Henry's failure to appear to their own advantage: they
attacked and destroyed Alaburg, in the process freeing Otto III's sister Adelheid,
who was living there. Then they returned joyfully to their homes with
the princess and a large amount of booty.
Continues...
Excerpted from Otto III by GERD ALTHOFF Copyright © 1996 by Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt. Excerpted by permission.
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