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Otto III, still a youth, expired at Paterno in January 1002, it seemed as if the life work of his grandfather Otto the Great had been completely undone. Animosity pursued the Emperor even after death; for only by hard fighting could his friends succeed in transporting his remains through the plain of Lombardy for interment in Germany. The fate therefore, alike of the Western Empire and of the German kingdom upon which it was based, depended far more than usual upon the qualities of the man who might be called to occupy the vacant throne.

To this grave crisis there was added the misfortune of a disputed succession. Otto III, the last descendant in the male line of Otto the Great, had died unmarried; nor was there any one person naturally destined to succeed him. Descent and election were the two factors by which accession to the throne was legally determined; but the relative influence of these varied according to circumstances. On the present occasion it was election, in practice confined to the magnates, which was bound to be preponderant. For though a candidate was forthcoming from the royal house, he was met at once by powerful opponents. And his claim in itself was not indisputable. The true representative of the Ottos was the son of the late Emperor's only wedded sister Matilda, wife of Ezo, son of Herman, Count Palatine in Lorraine. But this heir was a child, and was the offspring of a marriage which had been deemed unequal. Matilda's son therefore was now passed over in silence. There were also two men who could assert some right to be accepted as head of the Liudolfing house. The one was Otto, Duke of Carinthia, grandson (through his mother Liutgard) of Otto the Great, and son of the famous Conrad, once Duke of Lorraine, who had fallen gloriously at the Lechfeld. To his great position Otto added the personal qualities of dignity and uprightness. He must have been at this time at least fifty years of age. The other was a far younger man, Henry, Duke of Bavaria, son of Duke Henry "the Wrangler," and grandson of that earlier Henry, the younger brother of Otto the Great, who was the first of his family to rule in Bavaria. The present duke therefore was the actual representative in the male line of King Henry "the Fowler," the first of the Saxon kings. As it happened,