In 994 AD, Otto III of Germany came to the throne at the age of 14, 11 years after the death of his father. Finally of age to rule, Otto was able to begin his dream of reuniting and ruling over a rejuvenated Roman Empire. After having been brought up in arena in which the apocalypse and the Book of Revelation were common subjects. Also obsessed with the rule of Charlemagne as the greatest leader in the Western world, he set out to find his vision. For the previous 50 years a battle had ensued between the Roman nobleman and German emperors over who should sit as the Pope. In 996, Otto marched into Rome with his army and named his cousin Bruno the next Pope, who took the name of Gregory V. Meanwhile in Rheims, a man by the name of Gerbert of Aurillac was the archbishop of the See. Over time, confusion reigned supreme in Rheims as the local officials refused to recognize Gerbert’s legitimacy and even made an attempt to have him excommunicated. In search of support, Gerbert traveled to Rome to meet with Pope Gregory. While on this trip, the King of France passed away and passed along the reigns to his son Robert, once a student of Gerbert. This caused Gerbert great pain as the king was his friend and also that Robert had incestuous leanings in his love for his cousin. Because of this, Gerbert condemned him but was unable to change the situation or amend it so far from France, his home country that he would never return to again. At this point, Gerbert met Otto in Pavia where they began a relationship of mutual admiration and respect. They began a relationship or tutor and mentor in which Gerbert passed along his knowledge of Arabic astronomy, Egyptian mathematics and the Greek classics. Otto asked that Gerbert accompany him back to Germany to take care of his affairs to the north, and in his absence the Roman noblemen usurped Gregory as Pope and placed John Philagathos, a Greek, in his place. Gregory fled to Pavia and pleaded for help from Otto, but Otto was unable to help as he was fighting a small Slavic rebellion. When he could finally return to Rome, Otto marched into the city with his army, Gerbert and Gregory. He immediately imposed swift justice upon the conspirators, exiling and punishing the now ex-Pope John and executing the ringleader of the noblemen. The presence of Otto’s army in Rome assured popular support of his decisions, but fire was dwelling underneath the citizens of Rome. At this point Otto and Gerbert grew excited at the prospect of realizing Otto’s dream of uniting the continent from the Black Sea to the Atlantic under a theocracy headed by Otto. The basic idea was that the world was on the verge of reaching its apogee at the time of the year 1000. In February of 999, Gerbert replaced the recently deceased Gregory as Pope, taking the name of Sylvester II. This was a highly symbolic move, as the first Sylvester reigned over the Catholic Church as Pope during the Roman reign of Constantine, in which they created a powerful theocracy across the majority of the continent. Shortly thereafter, Sylvester gave himself the title of Universal Pope, although Gerbert, never explicitly considered himself to be the last Vicar of Christ. Otto, on the other hand, by the end of 999 believed himself to be the ruler of the Kingdom of God on Earth and oversaw the conversion of many Nordic and Eastern European countries to Christianity. Returning again to Germany at the end of 999, Gerbert’s obsession with Charlemagne and his rule hit its zenith as he ordered his remains to be found. Upon the opening of Charlemagne’s tomb on the feast of Pentecost, Otto arranged the corpse and proceeded to clean up any article that had moved out of place over the nearly 200 years since his burial. After removing a cross from around the dead man’s neck and a tooth from his mouth, Otto had him reburied. The symbolic nature of this event, the emperor of the year 1000 giving tribute to that of 6000, with Otto dreaming of establishing a reign mirroring that of Charlemagne. However, this event was not given much notice as the Church did not want to recognize nor publicize the event for what is was, as they were still concerned with creating an apocalyptic fervor. In February of 1001, a revolt took place in Rome against Otto which ended in his being kicked out of the city after an impassioned plea to the people. His dream was falling apart and this was only exacerbated by the fact that there existed a common belief that once the Roman Empire had fully fallen, the reign of the Antichrist was not far behind. Believing in this theory (and legitimizing it with his actions), Otto renounced all of his titles and decided to travel to Rome as a simple monk. However, before he could complete his goal, he died in 1002. Before the end of the year, Sylvester had also passed away, effectively ending the dreams of Otto and Sylvester.