The Empress Theophanu, wife of Otto II and regent for her son Otto III, was by all accounts a woman skilled at maneuvering through the complicated world of Ottonian politics.Footnote ¹ When she died in 991 CE, around the age of thirty, she had accomplished much: after arriving in Italy from Constantinople in 972 at around the age of twelve, she became Otto II's queen and was crowned empress of the Western Empire.Footnote ² During her lifetime, she was among the wealthiest women in Europe and one of the continent's most powerful people. After her husband's death, she secured the succession of her son, Otto III, and actively ruled as regent, successfully navigating the dangerous political world of the Western Roman Empire. Her activities included building churches, placing her daughters in positions of power in key nunneries, issuing acts as imperator and imperatrix, receiving ambassadors, waging war and negotiating peace—essentially doing everything expected of a male emperor with the exception of personally engaging in battle.Footnote ³ Thietmar of Merseburg, writing around 1013, praises her rule as regent, stating that she held the kingdom for her son “in a manly fashion,” clearly intending this as a compliment.Footnote ⁴ And yet, after her death and the premature death of her son a few years later, Theophanu seems to disappear from the historical record. Despite the great number of contemporary sources in which she figured during her lifetime and immediately after her death, including charters and donations, letters, chronicles, and annals, we know almost nothing about her. The few sources that do mention her in the period following her death have little good to say about her. Why did this woman fall into disfavor?

Why should we think that this treatment of Theophanu was unusual? Very little is left to us regarding medieval women in general, so why should this specific case strike us as a unique problem? The answer lies in the treatment of the other Ottonian queens. Mathilda, Edith, and Adelheid, wives of the first two kings of the Ottonian dynasty, were all made saints. So, too, was Cunegunde, wife of the last Ottonian ruler, Henry II.Footnote ⁵ Other women related to the dynasty were canonized as well: Oda, the sister of Henry I, and Hathamoda, his aunt. The qualifications for sanctity were not articulated anywhere, but seem to have been comprised of various combinations of visible piety, the founding and building of religious institutions, the preservation of dynastic succession, and miracles. The miracles themselves were modest: for Mathilda, it seemed to have been a knack for having known in hindsight who would end up as king; for Edith, her prayers for divine intercession, which continually saved Otto I from danger; for Adelheid, divine help in escaping from Berengar II when he and his wife Willa were holding her prisoner. Theophanu was given divine guidance as well, according to Thietmar of Merseburg (975–1018 CE), who reported that she had had a dream in which St. Lawrence appeared and appealed to her to restore the bishopric at Merseburg, which, with Theophanu's encouragement, Otto III subsequently did after her death. Theophanu matched the qualifications for imperial sanctity as well as any of the other Ottonian women, perhaps even more so; why was this honor not conferred on her?Footnote ⁶

As the only Ottonian queen not made a saint, Theophanu was an exception to what, for the other queens and empresses, seems to have been the rule; her absence among the sainted is a puzzle that makes her well worth examining. In the tenth-century milieu in which she lived and died, the preservation of Theophanu's memory appears to have been negatively affected by three separate forces of Ottonian culture and politics. The first was precisely the problem to which Theophanu was supposed to have been the solution. Otto I had gone to great trouble to establish the legitimacy of his dynasty. The acquisition of a Byzantine princess for his son's bride was supposed to be the crowning triumph of this program, but instead it gave rise to two problems. First, Theophanu was not the right princess. Otto had specifically requested a porphyrogenita, a princess born to a reigning emperor: Anna, daughter of Romanos II and sister of Basil II.Footnote ⁷ Second, after Otto III died without an heir, the throne was acceded by someone from a different line of succession: Henry II was a Liudolfing, but not descended through the Ottos. If, indeed, Theophanu was intended to be the ultimate legitimization of a specific dynastic line descending from Otto the Great, the legitimization program of Henry II, from a different branch of the family tree, was unlikely to emphasize that fact.

The second force of Ottonian politics to which Theophanu's memory fell victim is related closely to the first: there was a general distrust of Greeks and eastern customs in the West. Even though she learned Latin and the vernacular languages quickly, and even though she governed successfully as western empress, Theophanu was always a foreigner.Footnote ⁸ The last force to which the preservation of Theophanu's memory fell prey was particular to the political environment of the Ottonian aristocracy: competing political ambitions with her mother-in-law. Saxon queens often found themselves demoted at the expense of a daughter-in-law when their husbands died and their sons succeeded to the throne. The previous queen might keep her title and exercise some power, but the scope of her influence was greatly curtailed. And the “old” queen might not actually be all that old, given the tendency of male Saxon aristocrats to die at a fairly young age.Footnote ⁹ Adelheid, the second wife of Otto I and Theophanu's mother-in-law, was probably in her late thirties when she became a widow; she lived into her sixties, outliving her son (Otto II), his wife (Theophanu), and her grandson (Otto III), the only people who might have had a vested interest in memorializing and perpetuating Theophanu's memory.

We know very little about the woman who became empress of the West. Details such as her date of birth and exact parentage are unknown. She does not appear in any Byzantine sources, and there is no mention of her marriage to Otto II in eastern documentation.Footnote ¹⁰ What we can surmise is that she was likely a Byzantine aristocrat, and a niece-by-marriage of the usurping emperor John Tzimiskes. Contemporary western sources do little to clarify the matter. Thietmar of Merseburg reports in his Chronicon that John Tzimiskes “sent across the sea to our emperor, not the desired maiden, but rather his niece, Theophanu.”Footnote ¹¹ Widukind of Corvey (ca. 925–after 973 CE) identifies Theophanu simply as a “girl,” without attempting to establish her family relationships.Footnote ¹² Numerous Germanic annals note Theophanu's arrival in the West in 972 without shedding any additional light on her parentage, while later chroniclers further confuse the relationship of Theophanu to the emperor.Footnote ¹³ Sigebert of Gembloux (ca. 1030–1112 CE) reports for the year 972 in his Chronica that Otto II wed the niece of John Tzimiskes, whereas his Vita Deoderici Episcopi Mettensis refers to her as Tzimiskes's daughter.Footnote ¹⁴ One study persuasively argues that Theophanu was likely the daughter of Constantine Skleros and Sophia Phokas. The latter was the niece of Nikephoros II Phokas, which would make Theophanu his great-niece.Footnote ¹⁵ That one of Theophanu's daughters was named Sophia lends support to this theory: Theophanu's first daughter was named Adelheid for her paternal grandmother; her second daughter was named Sophia, ostensibly for her maternal grandmother; her third daughter was named Mathilda for her paternal great-grandmother. A fourth daughter, whose name is unknown, died, but following this logic she would likely have been named for her maternal great-grandmother, Sophia's mother. This seems to be one of the more convincing arguments for Theophanu's parentage.Footnote ¹⁶ There is also speculation that she may have been the god-daughter of Theophano, who was first the wife of Romanos II and then the wife of Nikephoros Phokas. This would lend support to the argument that she was brought up in the palace.Footnote ¹⁷ Judith Herrin favors this view of Theophanu as having been groomed for a role in the imperial court at Constantinople, training which would have served her well when she was sent to be Otto II's bride.Footnote ¹⁸ Karl Leyser insists, however, that while Theophanu was no doubt a Byzantine aristocrat, it is unlikely that she had any experience of the imperial palace until after John Tzimiskes seized power in 969.Footnote ¹⁹

This speculation about Theophanu's origins—besides providing a scholarly puzzle with no definitive answer—is most important for emphasizing the potential problem she posed for Otto I. When his embassy returned from Constantinople in 972, there is every indication he was expecting a different princess to arrive. Negotiations had been carried on for five years for the woman he wanted for his son: Anna, porphyrogenita, daughter of Romanos II and sister of Basil II. Theophanu was sent instead.

Otto I and Nikephoros II Phokas had begun to negotiate for a porphyrogenita for Otto II in 967.Footnote ²⁰ The boldness of this attempt by Otto I can only be understood if one is aware of Byzantine policies regarding marriage alliances. In the tenth century, Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus noted in his De administrando imperio that marriages between Byzantine princesses and foreigners were to be prohibited.Footnote ²¹ The use of marriage as a vehicle to secure foreign dynastic alliances became more common from the end of the eleventh century through the twelfth century, but in the tenth century they were comparatively rare.Footnote ²² The only exceptions to this policy were based on need: in a 927 peace treaty with Bulgaria, Maria, Romanos I Lekapenos's granddaughter, was given to the Bulgarian czar as part of the agreement. In 989, Vladimir of Kiev received Anna, Basil II's sister, in return for military assistance.Footnote ²³ It is likely that Theophanu was sent to Otto I as a precautionary measure: a western ally could have potentially been useful in light of the combined threats the Byzantine Empire faced from the Rus and Fatimids.Footnote ²⁴

Theophanu's marriage to Otto II was the result of three separate sets of negotiations conducted by Otto I for a Byzantine princess. After the first embassy sent to the court of Nikephoros Phokas to propose a marriage alliance between Otto II and Anna was rebuffed in 967, the famous embassy of Liudprand of Cremona was sent to Constantinople in 968 to negotiate the marriage and end the hostilities that had arisen in the meantime between the eastern and western empires over conflicting interests in Italy. This mission also failed, and Otto I sent another embassy in 970–971 to try to broker a peace and work out a marriage agreement with the new emperor, John Tzimiskes.Footnote ²⁵ Tzimiskes sent Theophanu. Though she was not the porphyrogenita princess, she still stands out as one of the few formal alliances made via imperial (or imperially sanctioned) brides. But Byzantine expansionism in the tenth century had created the problem of hostile territories on multiple fronts, and this may have made a request for a princess seem more appealing, especially given the new balance of power in the West.Footnote ²⁶ The conflicting interests in Italy and the varying interactions with Slavs, Rus, and Normans would have given this alliance a strategic angle worthy of serious consideration. The marriage of Theophanu to Otto II potentially extended Byzantine influence from Italy into northern Europe, since she received extensive holdings across Europe—from the Netherlands to Italy—from Otto II as part of the marriage agreement.Footnote ²⁷ More important even than that potential reach, the new emperor John Tzimiskes may have been eager to quell hostilities on one front so he could focus on other issues in his newly acquired empire.

The political milieu in which Theophanu found herself when she arrived in Europe was a world of shifting alliances: kingship in Saxony was anything but secure. According to two tenth-century chroniclers, Adalbert of Magdeburg and Widukind of Corvey, the Ottonian dynasty was born out of violent confrontations in and out of Saxony. When Conrad I died in 919, the Hungarians repeatedly devastated his lands, and, as Adalbert reports, “in the few years that he reigned, he was tired out by his many labors because the Bavarians, Alemans, and Saxons kept rebelling against him.”Footnote ²⁸ Instead of naming his brother Eberhard as his successor, Conrad I was able to convince the Saxon nobility to elect Henry, Duke of Saxony, a choice confirmed by the Franks, Alemans, Bavarians, and Thuringians as well. The reign of Henry was a violent one, too, despite his efforts in “training [people] to keep the peace.”Footnote ²⁹ These chronicles read as lists of battles and internal rebellions, with King Henry struggling to create alliances and stabilize his realm at home, while at the same time preventing invasions from without. When Henry died in 936, his son Otto I—Otto the Great—“was chosen as his successor with the consent of the leading men of the kingdom.”Footnote ³⁰ Otto was to find that the biggest, though not the only, threat to his claim to the throne was his brother Henry, Duke of Bavaria. It was in this climate that Otto needed to establish the legitimacy of his kingship and dynasty.

An examination of Ottonian political philosophy demonstrates how this program of legitimization combined the development of an idea of sacral kingship, on the one hand, with the conscious utilization of Byzantine images and motifs, on the other; both elements evolved over the course of the reigns of the three Ottos. Henry I, the first of the Ottonians, was an effective ruler, but did not manipulate images to project a specific idea about rule. Henry II, the last of the Ottonians, ably exploited the use of symbols, images, and public display instituted by his predecessors to substantiate his own legitimacy, but was building on what was by then past precedent. It was with the Ottos that the real change in a philosophy of rulership came about; while they clearly borrowed rituals and symbols from the later Carolingian rulers, partly out of an effort to establish their legitimacy by linking themselves to the old regime, their deliberate incorporation of Byzantinizing elements into their ruling image created something new. The Carolingians had portrayed themselves as heirs to the great Old Testament kings; the Ottonians ended up portraying themselves as the impersonators of Christ himself: christomimetai.Footnote ³¹

Karl Leyser sees the first efforts of the Ottonians to create a sense of sacrality as arising out of the milieu of internal feuds and external threats mentioned earlier, whether that meant “a more charismatic interpretation of divine grace or the renewal of West Frankish ecclesiastical traditions.”Footnote ³² The idea of sacral kingship took place over the course of the reign of the three Ottos, but it began with Otto I. The dramatic change in direction that Otto I took as his philosophy of rule, and Theophanu's place in it, is thus best understood when viewed against the backdrop of Henry I's reign. According to Widukind of Corvey, when Henry was brought the royal insignia and informed that he was king, following the death of Conrad I in 919, he was also offered unction and a formal coronation. Henry declined, ostensibly out of humility.Footnote ³³ What was key here was that being anointed and ritually crowned did not seem to matter with regard to his perceived authority, and it was not the ritual itself that conferred that authority. He had been nominated by the former king, accepted publicly by the nobility, and thus was the legitimate ruler. Widukind did not seem to find any fault with Henry for declining this ritual display, and indeed the assembly Henry addressed found this reason acceptable as well.Footnote ³⁴ Henry embodied the medieval political structures that consisted of networks of kin and close friends. These networks of reciprocal cooperative agreements had proved essential to rulers in Saxony from the mid-ninth century on, but Henry was especially adroit at constructing and manipulating networks of associates bound by personal loyalties in order to forge interior stability and exterior security.Footnote ³⁵

It was with the succession of Otto I (the Great) on the death of Henry I in 936 that changes in the idea of kingship first began, although there were still some aspects of continuity. For example, Widukind of Corvey, while providing a detailed description of Otto's coronation ceremony, nonetheless emphasized that it was not that ritual in itself that made him king; rather, he was king before the ceremony because the people had elected him.Footnote ³⁶ But there were changes, as well. As soon as he had established his succession to the throne against competing claimants, Otto deliberately began to avoid those cooperative bonds that had proved so crucial for his father's success.Footnote ³⁷ This marked the beginning of a policy that would be continued by his successors. After Otto I, German kings pointedly continued to avoid entering into any type of bonds with their magnates that might be interpreted as an amicitia, a bond of reciprocal obligations of friendship and loyalty.Footnote ³⁸ This created serious unrest for Otto early in his reign, for while he refused to enter into mutually binding alliances with his own magnates, he did enter into them with foreign kings and also with foreign magnates. At the same time, he was also trying to enforce increased royal demands on his lords. Dissatisfaction with these policies led to revolt by many of his nobles, who felt that these changes would be disadvantageous to their persons and their honor.Footnote ³⁹

It is also important to remember that while divine unction may have conferred additional prestige, and perhaps even signified divine support, it still was not seen as an “essential legitimation of power” and did not yet represent the monarchy as an institution so much as the king's personal relationship with God.Footnote ⁴⁰ The successes of the king were seen as evidence of that divine support.Footnote ⁴¹ And it was just one of the many ways that the sacralization of the emperor began to take shape under Otto I. He began to reinterpret and practice the rites of the late Carolingian rulers, and to adopt consciously Byzantine motifs as the foundation for a specific kind of representation of his kingship, e.g., adopting a basileus's style for his representation on seals and coins.Footnote ⁴² In trying to legitimize a new and tenuous claim to imperial and dynastic authority, Otto I recognized the ability of symbols to create and perpetuate an image of power and stability. One of the symbols most important to this developing idea of sacrality was being crowned Roman Emperor by the pope.Footnote ⁴³

While we know a little about the rituals of Otto's kingship, few images of him survive, and nothing comparable to the luxe miniatures that portray his son and grandson. But the one image that reveals something about this developing idea of sacrality is an ivory of Otto presenting a tiny model of the cathedral of Magdeburg to Christ.Footnote ⁴⁴ The development of ruler sacrality is still nascent in this image—Otto is the smallest figure on the relief, and he is ushered along by St. Maurice, patron saint of his empire. Yet, it is a pictorial representation of piety and divine favor, and, moreover, of his power over and protection of his realm: St. Maurice was a warrior saint, also the patron saint of Magdeburg, the cathedral Otto had built and endowed as a way to help stabilize the frontier with the Slavs by maintaining both a military presence and a bishopric for the eastern Christian converts.Footnote ⁴⁵ The patron saint of the empire would thus be able to draw on the resources of heaven, in service to Otto's empire, via his shrine at Magdeburg.Footnote ⁴⁶ Otto is the smallest figure on this ivory plaque, but the plaque itself, featuring Otto with Christ, illustrates another key change in how the Saxons were thinking about kingship. Notwithstanding the Germanic idea of the king as primus inter pares that Henry I had so embraced and to which the nobles still clung, the Ottonian kings were consciously representing themselves as intercessors between heaven and earth through pictorial imagery, as well as through the introduction of royal unction and coronation.Footnote ⁴⁷ This philosophy of rulership, the physical portrayals of Ottonian ideas of imperium, and the comparison of the ruler with Christ all came directly from Byzantine ideals.Footnote ⁴⁸

In consciously adopting Byzantine motifs to express his authority, Otto I was laying the foundations for a specific kind of representation of his kingship.Footnote ⁴⁹ Jonathan Shepard argues that this choice of image might have been designed to impress people of status, and that the conscious use of the eastern style of imperial portrayals (crowned, facing the viewer, holding sacred symbols) by the Ottonians would have legitimized their rule despite their lack of “networks of scribes, agents, and enforcers” that the Carolingians had at their disposal.Footnote ⁵⁰ By using Byzantine motifs in art and architecture, Otto I was also following a trend begun by the Carolingians; this was not surprising, given that he was attempting to establish his dynastic legitimacy. Other evidence of a “Byzantinizing” influence in the Ottonian West included an interest in eastern saints. The monastic foundation for women at Quedlinburg, an important Ottonian institution, was founded in 936 by Mathilda, the widow of Henry the Fowler. Its first abbess was her granddaughter Mathilda, the daughter of Theophanu and Otto II. But Quedlinburg's patron saints are St. Dionysius and St. Servatius, both saints with eastern associations.Footnote ⁵¹ Theophanu is often credited with infusing eastern influences in religious and decorative objects upon her arrival in Europe. While it is true that Theophanu did honor eastern saints with some of her foundations, such as St. Pantaleon, these would seem to have been personal choices not out of line with contemporary Ottonian trends.Footnote ⁵²

There are other reasons to believe that Otto I was acting deliberately to “Byzantinize” the imperial image. Adelheid, his wife, was referred to as “co-imperator” for the first time in 968 in a diploma for Magdeburg. Given both the timing of the use of this term and the fact that, unlike Theophanu, Adelheid was never actually crowned empress, its use seems likely to have been part of a deliberate strategy.Footnote ⁵³ Krjnie Ciggaar has suggested that the sudden use of this title in 968 coincided with the second embassy sent to Byzantium to negotiate for a bride for Otto II, and that this title could have been designed to increase the prestige of the Ottonian court in the eyes of the Byzantine emperor, thus improving the chances of securing a Byzantine princess for Otto II.Footnote ⁵⁴ The same argument has been used to explain the crowning of Otto II as emperor at age twelve, in 967, after the first embassy had been sent: that the coronation was accelerated in order to present a partner of equal authority in the marriage negotiations.Footnote ⁵⁵ This lends support to the idea that the marriage of Otto II to Theophanu was part of a trend developed under Otto I and Otto II, which then continued under the rule of Theophanu as regent and, ultimately, under Otto III.Footnote ⁵⁶ In addition, to emphasize that imperial authority extended over both sides of the Alps, the archbishops Johannes of Ravenna and Willigis of Mainz presided together at the consecration and crowning of Otto III as emperor in 983. The close ties with the former Byzantine city of Ravenna, along with the collaboration between the Italian and German archbishops, continued throughout the reigns of Otto II and Otto III.Footnote ⁵⁷

All of these examples give credence to Rosamond McKitterick's proposal that Otto II's marriage to Theophanu was a culmination of the attraction of Byzantine culture to the West—the capstone of an Ottonian agenda, not the beginning of Byzantine influence as a result of her presence.Footnote ⁵⁸ This conscious adoption and adaption of Byzantine motifs were part of the evolution toward an idea of liturgical kingship, as well. The development of a philosophy of rule from the consensual kingship of Henry I to a ruler physically embodying the will of God was not yet present in the reign of Otto I, but was seemingly well formed in the minds of the Ottonians by the time his grandson was anointed emperor; in fact, the idea of a christomimetes crystallized in the reign of Otto III.Footnote ⁵⁹ It was the conscious program of “Byzantinization” by his father and grandfather, however—a program of which Theophanu was a critical component—that set the stage for this new conception of kingship.

In addition to the presence of the princess herself, the use of Byzantine motifs to help legitimize the Ottonian dynasty provided a theological boost to that effort. It is possible that the Ottonian court used these symbols as a kind of propaganda, distributing gifts to the nobility that were embellished with eastern motifs, which suggested that the Ottonians had a special relationship with the Virgin Mary.Footnote ⁶⁰ Theophanu's arrival in the West was used, then, to create a new biblical interpretation of the imperial marriage.Footnote ⁶¹ The ordo of Mainz of 961, a sort of “guide to liturgical king-making,” declared a special relationship between the Virgin Mary and the queen/empress, and offered the assurance that any progeny would “govern and protect the glory of the entire realm and the position of the holy Church of God.”Footnote ⁶² This expressed itself in distinct parallels drawn between the empress and the Virgin in Ottonian imagery—an Ottonian innovation, since even in Byzantium there did not seem to have been explicit comparisons between a childbearing empress and the Virgin.Footnote ⁶³ The marriage diploma (Heiratsurkunde) issued by Otto II in 972 contained themes concerning the sanctification of marriage, describing both Christ's attendance and endorsement of marriage at Cana, as well as explicit mention of the chastity and purity of the Virgin.Footnote ⁶⁴ Thus we have Theophanu's arrival in the West inspiring new ideas of a sacred royal family.Footnote ⁶⁵ This ideal was physically embodied in ruler representations such as the ivory plaque depicting the presentation of the Magdeburg cathedral mentioned earlier.Footnote ⁶⁶ This leads back to the central problem with Theophanu, who was the “wrong girl,” as Thietmar of Merseburg reports:

Why, then, would Otto I accept Theophanu instead of the hoped for purple-born princess? As Karl Leyser inimitably put it, “Ottonian emperorship, just because of its origins and bestowed by the hands of a louche pope from a family of erstwhile Greek clients, urgently needed authentication.”Footnote ⁶⁸ Theophanu's parentage mattered so much because the Byzantine bride was supposed to provide that authentication. Because she was not the desired porphyrogenita, she only partially fulfilled that requirement.Footnote ⁶⁹ Otto I wanted a princess and southern Italy as part of the dowry.Footnote ⁷⁰ In addition, a marriage between a porphyrogenita and Otto II would have constituted formal recognition of the title “Western Emperor” and of his dynasty, and potentially protected it against other claims to the throne. Because dynastic succession was not guaranteed, and because it relied to a large degree on the support and consent of an aristocracy spread across a broad geographic region, this marriage was an important step in demonstrating Ottonian power and influence. The marriage of Otto II to a Byzantine princess was to be the culmination of the process of legitimization, a process begun (and continued) through the writings of Ottonian histories, vitae, and the use of Byzantine and Eastern motifs in Ottonian images and arts, in such things as seals and illuminations. But to return the princess who had been sent, Theophanu, would have been to court diplomatic disaster. The best course of action for Otto—since, as part of the deal, he received the concessions in Italy he had requested (Capua, Benevento, and Salerno), as well as formal recognition of his title—was to incorporate Theophanu into his family with all honors, as if she had been the one he had wanted all along.Footnote ⁷¹ A Byzantine princess, even the wrong one, still advanced the Ottonian program of dynastic legitimization.

Otto I went to great lengths to establish and legitimize his reign and dynastic succession, and to promote a connection between Theophanu and the Virgin to create an aura of saintliness and holiness around a living empress. It seems odd, then, that Theophanu was the only empress not to be sainted in this dynastic hierarchy—and even more so in light of the other critical way that the Ottonians tried to establish this legitimacy, namely through the sanctification of their women: Matilda, Edith, Adelheid, Cunegunde, Oda, and Hathamoda. But given that Henry II would ultimately gain the throne when Otto III died at the age of twenty, it was arguably not so strange after all. It was unlikely that he would have emphasized the divine and sanctified cast of the dynastic line established through the three Emperor Ottos: he was, after all, the third Henry to try to gain the imperial throne—and the first to acquire it. His grandfather was Otto I's brother, the same Duke Henry of Bavaria who had made repeated attempts to overthrow Otto I; his father was Henry the Wrangler, who had held the infant Otto III hostage while he tried to claim first the regency and then the crown for himself. It was painfully apparent—if one accepted Ottonian reasoning that the line that descended from Henry the Fowler through the Ottos was a blessed and divinely sanctioned dynastic line—that the line descending through the Henrys must be a lesser line. But because he was not, in fact, the only contender for the throne once Otto III had died, Henry demonstrated his own knack for self-promotion. By careful and deliberate utilization of a specific model of kingship, Henry gave his rule a “conceptual legitimization,” and he became the first German king to use the ordo of Mainz (mentioned earlier) to develop fully a claim to the throne based on two ideas: that paterna successio was satisfied by his standing as the closest male Liudolfing relative and as a direct descendant of Henry I; and that as such he held ius hereditarium, a hereditary right to kingship conferred by God.Footnote ⁷² This was decidedly not an office and sanctification conferred by descent from Otto the Great. Henry, though not a direct descendant, asserted through his own legitimizing program that his claim to the royal and imperial titles was superior to the claims of others who aspired to the throne in the wake of Otto III's death. He also asserted that his rulership was no less sacral than that of the Ottos.

The Ottonian program of legitimization, through its adoption of eastern motifs, was a bold move to incorporate and adapt recognizable symbols of power. At the same time, there was a general sense of unease with the East, and with Greeks in particular. The brief quote by Thietmar mentioned earlier—where he described the circumstances of John Tzimiskes's rise to power, which involved the murder of Nikephoros Phokas at the instigation of Phokas's wife, Empress Theophano, and Princess Theophanu's subsequent arrival in Italy—exemplifies this:

The portrayal of dangerous and duplicitous Greeks would have been a character type easily recognizable to western readers. Thietmar included other slights to the character of Greeks in general, e.g., referring to “the Greeks with their customary slyness.”Footnote ⁷⁴ Liudprand of Cremona's Legatio used “a mixture of grotesque caricature and belittlement” to disparage the Greeks, as did Otloh of St. Emmeram in his Liber Visionum.Footnote ⁷⁵ While Liudprand was largely responsible for perpetuating this image in tenth-century Ottonian circles, Thietmar and Liutprand were not alone in suggesting flaws in the Greek character; other medieval writers also used this ancient Latin literary motif. Notker Balbulus (ca. 840–912 CE), for example, cast the Greeks as a cunning and unreliable people throughout his stories in Gesta Karoli Magni Imperatoris.Footnote ⁷⁶ Even Isidore of Seville referred to the Greeks as frivolous and mendacious in his condemnation of the panegyric.Footnote ⁷⁷

Empress Theophanu was hounded by these stereotypes. Even after having fully immersed herself in the political and cultural milieu of the Ottonians, Theophanu nonetheless maintained elements of her Greek heritage throughout her life. She developed close relationships with Orthodox holy men and founders of monasteries in the southern, Greek-speaking parts of Italy.Footnote ⁷⁸ She buried Otto II in a sarcophagus with a porphyry marble slab, “in labro porphiretico,” a politically legitimizing gesture as well as one reflecting her eastern origins and her link to the Byzantine court.Footnote ⁷⁹ She made sure her son was raised to be conscious of Byzantine political and religious ideals, which can be seen in the work of Otto III and his tutor, Gerbert of Aurillac (later Pope Sylvester II).Footnote ⁸⁰ With regard to imparting an eastern influence on Ottonian politics, Otto III consciously tried to emulate both Charlemagne and Constantine I in his rule over the Western Roman Empire, and was identified, with Gerbert's encouragement, as “a man Greek by birth, Roman by empire,” who, “as if by hereditary right, seeks to recapture for himself the treasures of Greek and Roman wisdom.”Footnote ⁸¹ This conscious adoption and perpetuation of myth was no less evident in Gerbert's choice of a name when Otto III made him pope: Sylvester I and Constantine I were linked in the myth of the “Donation of Constantine,” by which Constantine I had supposedly ceded authority over Rome and the western empire to the pope, as well as in the late antique Life of St. Sylvester, which related the myth of Constantine's baptism by Sylvester I.Footnote ⁸²

By supporting and befriending Orthodox monasteries and ecclesiasts in Italy, patronizing eastern saints, and ensuring that her son was well versed in Orthodox customs and educated in Greek, Theophanu maintained her Byzantine identity and passed along an appreciation of that heritage to her son. At the same time, these actions meant the persistence of visible reminders of her foreignness and, especially, her Greekness, a trait that was noted by both admirers and detractors. Thietmar of Merseburg, who presented one of the most positive portrayals of Theophanu, credited her with rising above her gender and her origins: “Although of the fragile sex, her modesty, conviction, and manner of life were outstanding, which is rare in Greece.”Footnote ⁸³ The Annales Einsidlenses, while not exceptional in noting the death of the empress, was unusual in spelling her name in Greek letters in the text: “Obiit ΘEΩΦANOY imperatrix.”Footnote ⁸⁴ The insertion of that Greek text into an otherwise all-Latin document called specific attention to Theophanu's foreignness. Odilo of Cluny, in his Epitaph of Adelheid, never mentioned Theophanu by name, instead using the derogatory “illa imperatrix Graeca.” Not just “that empress,” but “that Greek empress.”Footnote ⁸⁵ Alpert of Metz, when referring to Theophanu, referred to her as “an unpleasant, talkative woman,” criticizing her duplicitousness when she extolled the virtues of the Greeks, her husband's enemies, after they had defeated Otto II at Calabria.Footnote ⁸⁶ Alpert qualified his comments by noting, “erat enim de Graecia” (“for she was from Greece”), as if that in itself was an explanation for such scandalous behavior. Peter Damian, in castigating John Philagathos, the Greek anti-pope, accused him of having had an affair with Theophanu.Footnote ⁸⁷ The most damaging attack on Theophanu's character, however, came more than half a century after her death. A German nun reported to Otloh of St. Emmeram, who recorded it in his Liber visionem, that the empress had appeared to her in a dream, begging the nun to pray for her and admitting that she (Theophanu) deserved eternal damnation for having introduced her extravagant eastern styles of dress and ornamentation to the West.Footnote ⁸⁸

The one thing all of these stories suggested was a fear of change and a deeply held suspicion of the East. They offer evidence of how breaks with Germanic custom or tradition were met with resistance: revolts broke out under Otto I when he tried to reassert royal prerogative and avoid amicitia agreements with his magnates, for example, and Otto III's insistence on feasting apart from his men was met with grumbling from the nobility.Footnote ⁸⁹ The Ottonians had embarked on a conscious mission to create a specific culture in their efforts to legitimize their rule, a culture that incorporated and adapted eastern motifs, but at the same time, as suggested by these examples, a culture that was not automatically accepted by Otto's subjects. New ways of displaying images on royal seals and new motifs in manuscript illuminations were not as threatening as an actual person, an outsider whose arrival and very presence not only embodied change but was, in fact, also one of the instruments of that change.

Theophanu's political influence, distinct from her role as the empress wife of Otto II, is suggested by the sheer number of documents that remain from her regency, either authored by or referring to her. For example, when Otto II's half-sister Emma, queen of the Franks, was removed from the regency of her own son and held captive, it was clear from letters she wrote that she felt her best hope of being freed was through the intercession of Theophanu on her behalf.Footnote ⁹⁰ That Theophanu had supporters for her role as regent for her young son can be seen in a letter written by Gerbert of Aurillac to an Ottonian lady at court soon after Henry the Wrangler had assumed control.Footnote ⁹¹ Given that Otto III was only three years old at the time and that it was clear that any regency would be a long one, the considerable support that Theophanu enjoyed suggested that she had earned the respect and trust of many church leaders and members of the aristocracy—especially in light of the political instability resulting from the tenuous hold that minor kings often had on power and loyalties. Theophanu would have been an easy target for detractors: not just by being foreign, but also by actively embodying and promoting evidence of that foreignness while representing and deploying very real political power.Footnote ⁹²

The final and most personal reason that Theophanu's memory (and any chance at sainthood) was not preserved by the successors to the Ottonian dynasty was because Adelheid, Otto I's second wife and the mother of Otto II, did not always get along well with her daughter-in-law. This personal conflict manifested itself in competing political agendas. The daughter of one king of Italy and the widow of another, Adelheid was a strong person who could help legitimize anyone who felt he had a claim to the Italian throne. Politics among the aristocratic and royal families of Germany, France, and Italy were essentially family politics, which led to some difficulties regarding alliances. Adelheid's relationships with Liudolf, Otto I's son by Edith, and Duke Henry of Bavaria, Otto's brother, complicated her relationship with Theophanu. Liudolf had actively tried to prevent her marriage to Otto I, while Duke Henry had helped to insure that her marriage to Otto took place.Footnote ⁹³ Adelheid thus held a grudge against Liudolf but maintained friendly relations with Duke Henry. In addition, Henry was family: Adelheid's niece Gisela was the wife of Henry the Wrangler, Duke Henry's son. But relations between Otto II and Henry the Wrangler were souring because the latter persisted in engaging in military activities and alliances that bordered on treason, resulting in his becoming a personal prisoner of the emperor.Footnote ⁹⁴ As a result, when Theophanu married into the family, loyalty to her husband meant enmity toward Henry the Wrangler, a situation that strained relations at court, as well as with Adelheid.Footnote ⁹⁵ Adelheid's influence in court politics was also waning, which was made evident by her sponsorship and mention in imperial charters: her involvement in sponsoring charters declined after 974, whereas Theophanu's correspondingly rose.Footnote ⁹⁶ Ultimately, in 978, Adelheid was forced to leave the imperial court and go back to Italy. She was eventually reconciled with her son, but not without having first created stress in the family relationship.

There is more concrete evidence, even if of a gossipy nature, of a strained relationship between Theophanu and Adelheid: in his Epitaph of Adelheid, Odilo of Cluny never mentioned Theophanu by name, referring to her instead as “that Greek woman” (illa Graeca).Footnote ⁹⁷ He goes on to say cattily:

There are obvious problems with taking reported speech at face value, but, at the very least, it seems likely that some tension existed between these women in the imperial household—tensions that outsiders were not unaware of. Unfortunately for Theophanu, the record that remained was that of her mother-in-law's point of view, a view that clearly did not soften with time.Footnote ⁹⁹

Although Theophanu and Adelheid were both politically astute enough to recognize when it was best to join forces (as they did when trying to extricate the young Otto III from the clutches of Henry the Wrangler), their political interests and circles varied widely and, at times, were in direct opposition to each other. Merseburg was a case in point. Theophanu favored the restoration of the bishopric at Merseburg, and was said to have had a dream in which St. Lawrence appeared to her and urged her to do so. She, in turn, left this obligation to Otto III to fulfill “for the eternal salvation of his father's soul.”Footnote ¹⁰⁰ After Theophanu's death, Otto III, likely under the guidance of Adelheid, participated in a public ritual during which he laid a golden staff on the altar of St. Stephen to consecrate a cathedral at Halberstadt, an act that was a public promise not to reestablish the bishopric at Merseburg. Once he became of age, however, he did indeed reestablish the bishopric, in accordance with his mother's wishes.Footnote ¹⁰¹ This demonstrated two very different positions with regard to whether a bishopric at Merseburg should exist, and one can assume that this was not the only difference of opinion between these two women. Furthermore, the continuing influence that Theophanu exerted upon her son even after her death must have been vexing for Adelheid. When Otto III died at the age of twenty, it was unlikely that Adelheid would have taken any pains in service of the memory of “illa Graeca,” the woman who had caused such tension and discord in her life.

When combined with elements common to Saxon culture—such as xenophobia and aristocratic widows competing for power with the wives of their sons—the Ottonian program for legitimizing their dynastic claim to German and imperial rule created a situation for Theophanu that, in the absence of a strong succession and long period of rule by her son, made any chance for commemoration of her memory highly unlikely after her death. With the rise to power of Henry II, it was perhaps inevitable that the very efforts made by her husband and father-in-law to ensure her reception as a jewel in their court, as co-imperator, and as an influential and powerful person in her own right, would also ensure that her memory was forgotten. The sanctity of one Ottonian empress, Theophanu, the Western Empress from the East, was sacrificed to the complex political and cultural environment in which she moved with such skill. Ottonian history was often written by, for, or at the insistence of women, much of it produced by Ottonian nunneries.Footnote ¹⁰² Two of the most powerful women in Europe after Theophanu died were her sister-in-law Mathilda, Abbess of Quedlinburg, and her mother-in-law, Adelheid; the family tensions that existed at the time made the possibility of a vita or history being written for her extremely small. If Otto III had lived, Theophanu may have been remembered—or remembered differently.

There is one final point worth noting: Theophanu had continued the Ottonian program of legitimization, and she and her son had gone to great lengths to try to acquire a porphyrogenita princess from Byzantium for his bride. Their efforts met with success: the girl sent was most likely Zoë, a daughter of Emperor Constantine VIII and a true porphyrogenita. The Ottonian dream of achieving legitimization and recognition of their rule through a purple-born princess had finally been realized. But the girl had barely arrived in Europe before sailing back to Byzantium. Otto III had died, and with him any chance Theophanu might have had of sanctification and remembrance.

Sanctification was an important political strategy for the Ottonian emperors, and understanding how and when it was deployed has important ramifications for our understanding of medieval power structures. A consideration of Empress Theophanu, the Byzantine princess solicited as a bride for Otto II and the only Ottonian queen or empress who was not sanctified, provides insights into the importance of sanctification as one of the many strategems employed by rulers in the complex tenth-century political world in which she moved. Her situation elucidates how the sanctification of Ottonian women was a powerful legitimizing strategy for the dynasty, and how closely sanctity and historical memory were intertwined in Ottonian culture.