King de Germanie (983-996), emperor of the Saint Worsens Roman Germanic (996-1002).

The son of Saxon Otton II and the Théophano Byzantine was born in June or July 980, was elected king of the Romans with Vérone in May 983 and was crowned king de Germanie in Aachen, in Christmas of the same year.

Its heritage to him was well quickly disputed by his/her cousin the duke of Bavaria Henri, but it profited from the support of the two widowed empresses, Adélaïde and Théophano, and of Capétienne Béatrice, duchess of Lorraine.

Otton III was definitively confirmed in his power at Easter 986. He accepted the sword in September 994, which gave him its political majority. He had profited from the teaching of Bernward, bishop of Hildesheim as of 993, and the Greek Jean Philagathos, which ensured to him a double formation in the line of the Empires Roman and Greek.

To the beginning of 996, it went to Rome, placed on the papal throne his Brunon cousin (Gregoire V) and was made crown by him emperor (May 21st, 996). In 999, it raised with sovereign pontificate the scientist Gerbert d' Aurillac under the name of Sylvestre II and developed with him a new theory of the imperial power, in the line of ancient alliance between the emperor Constantin and the Sylvestre pope Ist On the bubble which was used to him to seal its acts appeared the image of the aurea Roma (gold Rome). For Otton III, as at the time of Charlemagne, it was not then any more question but of “Restoration of the Roman Empire”. The coat constellated with the emperor, the sphere which it held in its hand, the choice of Gerbert d' Aurillac to be pope, all contributed to point out the ancient ostentation and symbols.

Otton III plunged in the history. He made examine famous “the Donation of Constantin”, text appeared at the end of VIIIe century and which established the division of the power on the world between the Constantin emperor and the pope Sylvestre Ier, and falseness recognized some. It made make excavations to find in Aix the tomb of Charlemagne. One still saw it as far as Poland and in Bohemia, where it created kings, imperial function par excellence. If this Christian emperor reigned truly only on the Germanic one and Italy, very whole Christendom knew its existence and considered it necessary for the order of the world. But the temporal sovereigns, the other kings, did not feel held with any reverence in its connection.

The Empire became the center of Christendom and accepted responsibility for a program missionary, which led it to Gniezno in Poland (1000). Otton made of Rome his capital, raised a palate on the Palatine Hill, restored ceremonies and Roman titles, revived the dignity of “Patrice”. But that which one called “the wonder of the world” because of his exceptional gifts was driven out of Rome by a popular rising and died prematurely of malaria, in Paterno, close to Viterbe, on on January 24th, 1002.