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Rh State, and in the pilgrimage and penance dear to his unbalanced character, when Pope Gregory died in February 999. True to his imperial policy, the Emperor selected another non-Roman, Gerbert of Aurillac, the first French, as Gregory had been the first German Pope. Gerbert, now Sylvester II, was the most learned man of his age, so learned that legend made him a magician. Bred in the Aquitanian abbey of Aurillac, he knew both Spain and Italy, but the best of his life had been spent at the metropolitan city of Rheims. There he was renowned as a teacher and had taken eager part in the events which led to the substitution of Hugh Capet for the Carolingian dynasty of France. His reward had been his elevation to the see of Rheims, but this being consequent on the deposition of his predecessor had brought him into collision with the Papacy, and in 997 he gave up the attempt to maintain himself. He had, however, a sure refuge. For long he had stood in close relations to the Saxon Emperors. Known to Otto the Great, he had been given the famous abbey of Bobbio in 982 by Otto II, although the indiscreet zeal he displayed led to his retreat to Rheims again on his patron's death. None the less he had worked in France in the interests of Otto III in the troublous times of the latter's infancy, and as his hold on Rheims grew weaker he had attached himself in 995 to Otto's court. There he speedily became the favoured tutor of the boy Emperor, partly sharing, partly humouring and partly inspiring the visionary schemes of his pupil, In 998 he became again an archbishop, this time of Ravenna, whence he was called to fill the papal chair.

Sylvester II was far too practical a statesman to share in all the dreams of Otto, yet even he seems to have thought of a renovated Roman Empire, very different from the workaday creation of Otto the Great, of an Empire as wide as Charlemagne's which should be truly ecumenic, and no longer an appendage to the German monarchy. Otto's schemes were far stranger, the offspring of his wayward and perfervid nature. Half Greek, half Saxon in birth and training, bred by Theophano and Philagathus and under northern prelates and nobles as well, he not only blended the traditions of Charlemagne's lay theocracy with those of the ancient Roman Empire seen through a long Byzantine perspective, but he also oscillated between the ambitious energy of an aspiring monarch and the ascetic renunciation of a fervent monk. The contradiction, not unexampled at the time, was glaring in an unripe boy, whose head was turned by his dignity and his power. He had his ascetic mentors who fired his enthusiasms, St Adalbert of Prague, St Romuald of Ravenna, St Nilus of Calabria. As the fit seized him he went on pilgrimage or withdrew for austerities to hermitage or monastery. This visionary ruler lacked neither ability nor a policy, however fantastic his aims might be. He believed most fully in his theocracy. He was the ruler of Church and State. The Popes were his lieutenants in ecclesiastical matters. As time went on he emphasised his position by strange titles;