Hello and welcome to the history of the Germans, Episode 11, Woe to the Land that

is governed by a child. Last week, we watched the unlucky Otto II stumble through his

ten years of imperial rule, suffering defeat and loss of the eastern parts of Saxony

to the Slavs. Otto II died on December 7, 983 in Rome of malaria. And whilst Otto

lay on his deathbed, his three-year-old son Otto, was travelling a thousand miles north to

Aachen for his coronation as king.

Otto had been elected king a couple of months earlier in Verona by both the German and the

Italian nobles. When Otto reached Aachen on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day 983, he's crowned

king by both the Archbishop of Mainz and the Archbishop

of Ravana, the respective leading churchmen of Germany in Italy.

It all looks as if we finally have a ruler of a joint German and Italian Reich.

But not so.

All this happened 16 days after his father had died, though nobody knew that during the ceremony.

Literally, on the same day, the messengers arrived with news that Otto II had died in

Rome.

You can almost imagine the writers banging on the church doors while inside the crown is

put on the toddler's head. As we will see,

that was extremely lucky for young Otto, now King Otto III. Having been anointed and consecrated

properly, has moved him from the realm of mere mortals into a higher level of human being, a ruler

that has been chosen by God.

How much that matters we will see.

Otto II had been just 28 years old when he died.

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