Otto III, Holy Roman Emperor

Otto III (980–1002), only son of Otto II and the Byzantine Theophanu, was crowned king at three in 983, ruling under the regency of his mother and grandmother.

Crowned emperor in Rome in 996, he installed his cousin as Pope Gregory V, the first German pope, and crushed a Roman revolt in 998. At Gniezno in 1000 he met Bolesław of Poland and backed Stephen I's coronation in Hungary, pursuing renewal of the Roman Empire. He died of fever near Rome in 1002, aged twenty-one and without an heir.