Otto III (980 – 23 January 1002) was the fourth ruler of the Saxon or Ottonian dynasty of the Holy Roman Empire. He was elected king of Germany in 983 on the death of his father Otto II.
Otto was born in Kessel, near Goch, in what is now North Rhine-Westphalia.
He was acclaimed King of Germany in Verona in June 983, at the age of three, and crowned in Aachen on 25 December the same year. His father had died four days before the ceremony, but the ...
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Otto III (980 – 23 January 1002) was the fourth ruler of the Saxon or Ottonian dynasty of the Holy Roman Empire. He was elected king of Germany in 983 on the death of his father Otto II.
Otto was born in Kessel, near Goch, in what is now North Rhine-Westphalia.
He was acclaimed King of Germany in Verona in June 983, at the age of three, and crowned in Aachen on 25 December the same year. His father had died four days before the ceremony, but the news did not reach Germany until after the coronation.
In early 984 Henry the Quarrelsome, who had been deposed as Duke of Bavaria by Otto II, seized Otto and claimed the regency as a member of the reigning house. To further his object he made an alliance with Lothair of France. Willigis, Archbishop of Mainz, the leader of Otto's party, induced Henry to release the imprisoned king, for which his Duchy of Bavaria was restored. Otto was thus returned to his mother, the Byzantine princess Theophanu, who served as regent thenceforth. She abandoned...
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