Otto III (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Otto III Lindsay Diggelmann Althoff, Gerd , Otto III, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania State University Press, 2003; cloth; pp. x, 215; RRP US$45; ISBN 0271022329. Otto III, King of the Germans and Holy Roman Emperor, ascended the throne at the age of three and did not live to see his 22nd birthday. His brief life (980-1002) remains rather shadowy, even by the standards of medieval biography. Yet it has assumed an enormous importance in the history of German national consciousness, since many scholars have chosen to see Otto and his predecessors in the Saxon line as the founders of a German empire in the post-Carolingian period. Professor Althoff recognises the dangers in this approach and wishes to revisit Otto's life and reign by assessing them on their own terms, rather than viewing them through the prism of later German nationalism. Originally published in German in 1996, this is the first of Althoff's works to be translated into English. He is, however, responsible (along with Johannes Fried and Patrick J. Geary) for the stimulating edited collection Medieval Concepts of the Past: Memory, Ritual, Historiography (Cambridge University Press, 2002) which attempts to bridge the sizeable gap between German-speaking and English-speaking historians of the Middle Ages. That gap is all too apparent here: perhaps the only major frustration involved in reading Otto III is that the vast majority of endnotes and bibliographical entries refer to works in German, making further research difficult for those of an anglophone persuasion. Of course this is simply a consequence of the translation process, and it is a small price to pay for having the text itself available in English. With relatively little contemporary material available on which to base a narrative of Otto's life, Althoff moves beyond simple biography. Broader themes are present throughout, especially the nature of tenth-century kingship and the importance of ritual to many aspects of political activity. There is a strong and consistent emphasis on analysis of the sources, slim though they are. This may sound self-evident for any serious work of history, yet Althoff shows repeatedly how generations of scholars have moved beyond a careful reading of the sources to propagate theories that support much later political and cultural standpoints. When discussing the theories surrounding the purpose of Otto's journey to Gniezno in Poland (ostensibly made to visit the remains of the sainted Adalbert of Prague, [End Page 185] Otto's former advisor and confidant) Althoff concludes that 'the evidence we have available raises questions we cannot answer' (p. 96). The comment might stand as an epigraph for the entire book. Indeed, Althoff characterises his own approach as 'reductionist' (p. 51) in that his rigorous method forces him to puncture the inflated assumptions and misguided conclusions of earlier scholars, often without being able to offer a viable alternative reading. For this he makes no excuses, and if the picture we have of Otto III's career is necessarily deprived of some colour and controversy, one feels it is certainly more accurate than earlier versions. One of the most prominent axes being ground by earlier historians has been the idea of 'Roman renewal' (renovatio). At least since the efforts of Percy E. Schramm in the 1920s, scholars have sought to locate in Otto's reign an attempt to re-establish Rome as the head of a secular empire based on the classical model, aligned with but distinct from the parallel Christian Roman 'empire' under the leadership of the papacy. While Althoff is not the first to criticise this model, he is concerned to point out the anachronism of assigning such a detailed political programme to the late tenth century. Otto III certainly made several expeditions to Rome and interfered in papal politics in the time-honoured manner of his German predecessors. But this does not, in Althoff's view, constitute a formal policy of 'renewal'. Similarly, Althoff finds it difficult at best (and counter-productive at worst) to identify any firm and consistent policy or programme amid the activities of Otto's mother and grandmother during their periods of regency in his youth (pp. 40-1). Historians have constructed Otto's putative 'eastern...