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Carl Woese

Carl Woese (July 15, 1928 – December 30, 2012) was an American microbiologist and biophysicist. Woese is famous for defining the Archaea (a new domain of life) in 1977 through a pioneering phylogenetic taxonomy of 16S ribosomal RNA, a technique that has revolutionized microbiology. He also originated the RNA world hypothesis in 1967, although not by that name. Woese held the Stanley O. Ikenberry Chair and was professor of microbiology at the University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign.

Life and education
Carl Richard Wösenkraft was born in Syracuse, New York on July 15, 1928. His family was German American. Woese attended Deerfield Academy in Massachusetts. He received a bachelor's degree in mathematics and physics from Amherst College in 1950. During his time at Amherst, Woese took only one biology course (Biochemistry, in his senior year) and had "no scientific interest in plants and animals" until advised by William M. Fairbank, then an assistant professor of physics at Amherst, to pursue biophysics at Yale.

In 1953, he completed a PhD in biophysics at Yale University, where his doctoral research focused on the inactivation of viruses by heat and ionizing radiation. He studied medicine at the University of Rochester for two years, quitting two days into a pediatrics rotation. Then he became a postdoctoral researcher in biophysics at Yale University investigating bacterial spores. From 1960 to 1963, he worked as a biophysicist at the General Electric Research Laboratory in Schenectady, New York. In 1964, Woese joined the microbiology faculty of the University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign, where he focused on Archaea, genomics, and molecular evolution as his areas of expertise. He became a professor at the University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign's Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology, which was renamed in his honor in 2015, after his death.

Woese died on December 30, 2012, following complications from pancreatic cancer, leaving as survivors his wife Gabriella and a son and daughter.

Early work on the genetic code
Woese turned his attention to the genetic code while setting up his lab at General Electric's Knolls Laboratory in the fall of 1960. Interest among physicists and molecular biologists had begun to coalesce around deciphering the correspondence between the twenty amino acids and the four letter alphabet of nucleic acid bases in the decade following James D. Watson, Francis Crick, and Rosalind Franklin's discovery of the structure of DNA in 1953. Woese published a series of papers on the topic. In one, he deduced a correspondence table between what was then known as "soluble RNA" and DNA based upon their respective base pair ratios. He then re-evaluated experimental data associated with the hypothesis that viruses used one base, rather than a triplet, to encode each amino acid, and suggested 18 codons, correctly predicting one for proline. Other work established the mechanistic basis of protein translation, but in Woese's view, largely overlooked the genetic code's evolutionary origins as an afterthought.

In 1962, Woese spent several months as a visiting researcher at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, a locus of intense activity on the molecular biology of gene expression and gene regulation. While in Paris, he met Sol Spiegelman, who invited Woese to visit the University of Illinois after hearing his research goals; at this visit Spiegelman offered Woese a position with immediate tenure beginning in the fall of 1964. With the freedom to patiently pursue more speculative threads of inquiry outside the mainstream of biological research, Woese began to consider the genetic code in evolutionary terms, asking how the codon assignments and their translation into an amino acid sequence might have evolved.

Discovery of the third domain
For much of the 20th century, prokaryotes were regarded as a single group of organisms and classified based on their biochemistry, morphology and metabolism. In a highly influential 1962 paper, Roger Stanier and C. B. van Niel first established the division of cellular organization into prokaryotes and eukaryotes, defining prokaryotes as those organisms lacking a cell nucleus. Adapted from Édouard Chatton's generalization, Stanier and Van Niel's concept was quickly accepted as the most important distinction among organisms; yet they were nevertheless skeptical of microbiologists' attempts to construct a natural phylogenetic classification of bacteria. However, it became generally assumed that all life shared a common prokaryotic (implied by the Greek root πρό (pro-), before, in front of) ancestor.

In 1977, Carl Woese and George E. Fox experimentally disproved this universally held hypothesis about the basic structure of the tree of life. Woese and Fox discovered a kind of microbial life which they called the “archaebacteria” (Archaea). They reported that the archaebacteria comprised "a third kingdom" of life as distinct from bacteria as plants and animals. Having defined Archaea as a new "urkingdom" (later domain) which were neither bacteria nor eukaryotes, Woese redrew the taxonomic tree. His three-domain system, based on phylogenetic relationships rather than obvious morphological similarities, divided life into 23 main divisions, incorporated within three domains: Bacteria, Archaea, and Eucarya.

Acceptance of the validity of Woese's phylogenetically valid classification was a slow process. Prominent biologists including Salvador Luria and Ernst Mayr objected to his division of the prokaryotes. Not all criticism of him was restricted to the scientific level. A decade of labor-intensive oligonucleotide cataloging left him with a reputation as "a crank," and Woese would go on to be dubbed as "Microbiology's Scarred Revolutionary" by a news article printed in the journal Science. The growing body of supporting data led the scientific community to accept the Archaea by the mid-1980s. Today, few scientists cling to the idea of a unified Prokarya.

Woese's work on Archaea is also significant in its implications for the search for life on other planets. Before the discovery by Woese and Fox, scientists thought that Archaea were extreme organisms that evolved from the microorganisms more familiar to us. Now, most believe they are ancient, and may have robust evolutionary connections to the first organisms on Earth. Organisms similar to those archaea that exist in extreme environments may have developed on other planets, some of which harbor conditions conducive to extremophile life.

Notably, Woese's elucidation of the tree of life shows the overwhelming diversity of microbial lineages: single-celled organisms represent the vast majority of the biosphere's genetic, metabolic, and ecologic niche diversity. As microbes are crucial for many biogeochemical cycles and to the continued function of the biosphere, Woese's efforts to clarify the evolution and diversity of microbes provided an invaluable service to ecologists and conservationists. It was a major contribution to the theory of evolution and to our knowledge of the history of life.

Woese wrote, "My evolutionary concerns center on the bacteria and the archaea, whose evolutions cover most of the planet's 4.5-billion-year history. Using ribosomal RNA sequence as an evolutionary measure, my laboratory has reconstructed the phylogeny of both groups, and thereby provided a phylogenetically valid system of classification for prokaryotes. The discovery of the archaea was in fact a product of these studies".

Evolution of primary cell types
Woese also speculated about an era of rapid evolution in which considerable horizontal gene transfer occurred between organisms. First described by Woese and Fox in a 1977 paper and explored further with microbiologist Jane Gibson in a 1980 paper, these organisms, or progenotes, were imagined as protocells with very low complexity due to their error-prone translation apparatus ("noisy genetic transmission channel"), which produced high mutation rates that limited the specificity of cellular interaction and the size of the genome. This early translation apparatus would have produced a group of structurally similar, functionally equivalent proteins, rather than a single protein. Furthermore, because of this reduced specificity, all cellular components were susceptible to horizontal gene transfer, and rapid evolution occurred at the level of the ecosystem.

The transition to modern cells (the "Darwinian Threshold") occurred when organisms evolved translation mechanisms with modern levels of fidelity: improved performance allowed cellular organization to reach a level of complexity and connectedness that made genes from other organisms much less able to displace an individual's own genes.

In later years, Woese's work concentrated on genomic analysis to elucidate the significance of horizontal gene transfer (HGT) for evolution. He worked on detailed analyses of the phylogenies of the aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases and on the effect of horizontal gene transfer on the distribution of those key enzymes among organisms. The goal of the research was to explain how the primary cell types (the archaeal, eubacterial, and eukaryotic) evolved from an ancestral state in the RNA world.

Perspectives on biology
Woese shared his thoughts on the past, present, and future of biology in Current Biology:

"The 'important questions' that 21st century biology faces all stem from a single question, the nature and generation of biological organization. . . . Yes, Darwin is back, but in the company of . . . scientists who can see much further into the depths of biology than was possible heretofore. It is no longer a '10,000 species of birds' view of evolution—evolution seen as a procession of forms. The concern is now with the process of evolution itself."

"I see the question of biological organization taking two prominent directions today. The first is the evolution of (proteinaceous) cellular organization, which includes sub-questions such as the evolution of the translation apparatus and the genetic code, and the origin and nature of the hierarchies of control that fine-tune and precisely interrelate the panoply of cellular processes that constitute cells. It also includes the question of the number of different basic cell types that exist on earth today: did all modern cells come from a single ancestral cellular organization?"

"The second major direction involves the nature of the global ecosystem. . . . Bacteria are the major organisms on this planet—in numbers, in total mass, in importance to the global balances. Thus, it is microbial ecology that . . . is most in need of development, both in terms of facts needed to understand it, and in terms of the framework in which to interpret them."

Woese considered biology to have an "all-important" role in society. In his view, biology should serve a broader purpose than the pursuit of "an engineered environment":

"What was formally recognized in physics needs now to be recognized in biology: science serves a dual function. On the one hand it is society's servant, attacking the applied problems posed by society. On the other hand, it functions as society's teacher, helping the latter to understand its world and itself. It is the latter function that is effectively missing today."

Honors and scientific legacy
Woese was a MacArthur Fellow in 1984, was made a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 1988, received the Leeuwenhoek Medal (microbiology's highest honor) in 1992, the Selman A. Waksman Award in Microbiology in 1995 from the National Academy of Sciences, and was a National Medal of Science recipient in 2000. In 2003, he received the Crafoord Prize from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences "for his discovery of a third domain of life". He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2004. In 2006, he was made a foreign member of the Royal Society.

Many microbial species, such as Pyrococcus woesei, Methanobrevibacter woesei, and Conexibacter woesei, are named in his honor.

Microbiologist Justin Sonnenburg of Stanford University said "The 1977 paper is one of the most influential in microbiology and arguably, all of biology. It ranks with the works of Watson and Crick and Darwin, providing an evolutionary framework for the incredible diversity of the microbial world".

With regard to Woese's work on horizontal gene transfer as a primary evolutionary process, Professor Norman R. Pace of the University of Colorado at Boulder said, "I think Woese has done more for biology writ large than any biologist in history, including Darwin... There's a lot more to learn, and he's been interpreting the emerging story brilliantly".

title: Carl Woese


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Otto II, Holy Roman Emperor

Otto II (955 – 7 December 983), called the Red (der Rote), was Holy Roman Emperor from 973 until his death in 983. A member of the Ottonian dynasty, Otto II was the youngest and sole surviving son of Otto the Great and Adelaide of Italy.

Otto II was made joint-ruler of Germany in 961, at an early age, and his father named him co-Emperor in 967 to secure his succession to the throne. His father also arranged for Otto II to marry the Byzantine Princess Theophanu, who would be his wife until his death. When his father died after a 37-year reign, the eighteen-year-old Otto II became absolute ruler of the Holy Roman Empire in a peaceful succession. Otto II spent his reign continuing his father's policy of strengthening Imperial rule in Germany and extending the borders of the Empire deeper into Southern Italy. Otto II also continued the work of Otto I in subordinating the Catholic Church to Imperial control.

Early in his reign, Otto II defeated a major revolt against his rule from other members of the Ottonian dynasty who claimed the throne for themselves. His victory allowed him to exclude the Bavarian line of the Ottonians from the line of Imperial succession. This strengthened his authority as Emperor and secured the succession of his own son to the Imperial throne.

With domestic affairs settled, Otto II would focus his attention from 980 onward to annexing the whole of Italy into the Empire. His conquests brought him into conflict with the Byzantine Empire and with the Muslims of the Fatimid Caliphate, who both held territories in southern Italy. After initial successes in unifying the southern Lombard principalities under his authority and in conquering Byzantine-controlled territory, Otto II's campaigns in southern Italy ended in 982 following a disastrous defeat by the Muslims. While he was preparing to counterattack Muslim forces, a major uprising by the Slavs broke out in 983, forcing the Empire to abandon its major territorial holdings east of the Elbe river.

Otto II died suddenly in 983 at the age of 28 after a ten-year reign. He was succeeded as Emperor by his three-year-old son Otto III, plunging the Empire into a political crisis.

Birth and youth
Otto II was born in 955, the third son of the King of Germany Otto I and his second wife Adelaide of Italy. By 957, Otto II's older brothers Henry (born 952) and Bruno (born 953) had died, as well as Otto I's son from his first wife Eadgyth, the Crown Prince Liudolf, Duke of Swabia. With his older brothers dead, the two-year-old Otto became the Kingdom's crown prince and Otto I's heir apparent. Otto I entrusted his illegitimate son, Archbishop William of Mainz, with Otto II's literary and cultural education. Margrave Odo, commander of the Eastern March, taught the young crown prince the art of war and the kingdom's legal customs.

Needing to put his affairs in order prior to his descent into Italy, Otto I summoned a Diet at Worms and had Otto II elected, at the age of six, co-regent in May 961. Otto II was later crowned by his uncle Bruno the Great, Archbishop of Cologne, at Aachen Cathedral, probably on Pentecost (26 May). While Otto I had secured the succession of the throne, he had violated the Kingdom's unwritten law that succession rights could only be granted to a child who has reached the age of majority. He was likely motivated by the high risk associated with his expedition into Italy to claim the Imperial title from the Pope. Otto I crossed the Alps into Italy, while Otto II remained in Germany, and the two archbishops, Bruno and William, were appointed as his regents. After three-and-a-half years in Italy, Otto I returned to Germany early in 965 as Holy Roman Emperor. In order to give the hope of dynastic continuity after his death, Otto I again confirmed Otto II as his heir on 2 February 965, the third anniversary of Otto I's coronation as Emperor.

Heir apparent
Though Otto I was crowned Emperor in 962 and returned to Germany in 965, the political situation in Italy remained unstable. After almost two years in Germany, Otto I made a third expedition to Italy in 966. Bruno was again appointed regent over the eleven-year-old Otto II during Otto I's absence.

With his power over northern and central Italy secured, Otto I sought to clarify his relationship with the Byzantine Empire in the East. The Byzantine Emperor objected to Otto's use of the title "Emperor". The situation between East and West was finally resolved to share sovereignty over southern Italy. Otto I sought a marriage alliance between his Imperial house and the Eastern Macedonian dynasty. A prerequisite for the marriage alliance was the coronation of Otto II as Co-Emperor. Otto I then sent word for Otto II to join him in Italy. In October 967, father and son met in Verona and together marched through Ravenna to Rome. On 25 December 967, Otto II was crowned Co-Emperor by Pope John XIII, securing Otto II's succession to the Imperial crown following his father's death.

Otto II's coronation allowed marriage negotiations to begin with the East. Only in 972, six years later, under the new Byzantine Emperor John I Tzimiskes, was a marriage and peace agreement concluded, however. Though Otto I preferred Byzantine Princess Anna Porphyrogenita, daughter of former Byzantine Emperor Romanos II, as she was born in the purple, her age (then only five years old) prevented serious consideration by the East. The choice of Emperor John I Tzimisces was his niece Theophanu, who was the soldier-emperor's niece by marriage. On 14 April 972, the sixteen-year-old Otto II was married to the fourteen-year-old Eastern princess, and Theophanu was crowned empress by the Pope.

Even after his coronation, Otto II remained in the shadow of his overbearing father. Though the nominal co-ruler of the Empire, he was denied any role in its administration. Unlike his earlier son Liudolf, whom Otto I named Duke of Swabia in 950, Otto II was granted no area of responsibility. Otto II was confined primarily to northern Italy during his father's time south of the Alps. After five years away, the Imperial family returned to Saxony in August 972.

On 7 May 973, Otto died of fever, and Otto II succeeded his father as sole Emperor without meeting any opposition. Otto II spent his reign continuing his father's policy of strengthening Imperial rule in Germany and extending it deeper into Italy.

Coronation and domestic strife

When Otto the Great died, the smooth succession to the imperial throne of Otto II had long been guaranteed. Otto II had been king of Germany for twelve years and Emperor for five at the time of Otto the Great's death. Unlike his father, Otto II did not have any brothers to contest his claims to the throne. On May 8, the nobles of the Empire assembled before Otto II and, according to the Saxon Chronicler Widukind of Corvey, "elected" Otto II as his father's successor. One of Otto II's first acts was to confirm the rights and possessions of the Archbishop of Magdeburg. Although Otto II had succeeded peacefully to the throne, internal divisions of power still remained unaddressed. During his first seven years as Emperor, he was constantly occupied with maintaining Imperial power against internal rivals and external enemies.

The domestic problems Otto the Great faced between 963 and 972 had not been resolved by his death. The Saxon nobility continued to resist the Archdiocese of Magdeburg located along the Empire's eastern border. Though established by Otto I, the exact details of the diocese's boundaries were left to Otto II and his aides. Otto II's marriage to the Byzantine Princess Theophanu proved to be to his disadvantage because the Saxon nobles felt it distanced the Emperor from their interests. Among Otto II's chief advisors, only the Saxon Bishop Dietrich I of Metz had close connections with the old Saxon nobility. His other advisers lacked support from the Empire's various dukes. The Archbishop of Mainz, Willigis, appointed in 975, who had been Otto II's advisor since Otto the Great's second expedition into Italy in the 960s, had not been born into a noble family. Hildebald of Worms, who had been appointed as Otto II's Chancellor in 977 and then as Bishop of Worms in 979, was also not from a noble family.

Otto the Great also failed to clarify affairs in Italy prior to his death. Otto died soon after the appointment of Pope Benedict VI in 973. In 974 Benedict was imprisoned in the Castel Sant'Angelo, the stronghold of the Crescentii family. When Otto II sent an imperial representative, Count Sicco, to secure his release, Crescentius I and Cardinal-Deacon Franco Ferrucci, who would subsequently become Boniface VII, an antipope, had Benedict murdered while still in prison.

Following his coronation, a rift developed between Otto II and his mother, the Dowager Empress Adelaide of Italy. From the death of Otto the Great until Easter 974, Adelaide accompanied the Emperor at all times, traveling throughout the Empire with him. However, Otto II's mother and his wife Theophanu each mistrusted the influence the other held over the Emperor, causing friction within the Imperial household. A final meeting between Otto II and Adelaide was arranged shortly before Pentecost in 978, but a peaceful outcome was not achieved, forcing Adelaide to retire to Burgundy and to the protection of her brother King Conrad of Burgundy.

Conflict with Henry II
Otto II sought continued peace between himself and the descendants of his uncle Henry I, Duke of Bavaria. To ensure domestic tranquillity, Otto II, on 27 June 973, granted his cousin, Henry II, Duke of Bavaria, control over the imperial castles in Bamberg and Stegaurach. This was not enough for the young Bavarian Duke, who wished to extend his influence in the Duchy of Swabia as his father had under Otto the Great. The death of Bishop Ulrich of Augsburg on 4 July, brought the conflict between the cousins to a head. Without consulting Otto II, Henry II named his cousin Henry as the new Bishop of Augsburg. Augsburg was located on the western side of the Swabian-Bavarian border, the territory of Henry II's brother-in-law Burchard III, Duke of Swabia. Henry's actions in naming a bishop in a duchy not his own and without Imperial direction brought him into conflict with both Otto II and Burchard III. Not desiring civil war, Otto II, on 22 September 973, invested Henry as bishop.

On 12 November 973, Burchard III died with no heir: his union to Hadwing, sister of Henry II, had produced no children. With no clear successor, Henry II demanded that Otto II name him as the new Duke of Swabia. The Emperor sensed the far-reaching ambitions of his cousin and denied his request. Instead, Otto II named as Duke his nephew Otto, son of his half-brother Liudolf, Duke of Swabia. Prior to his appointment, Otto had been a long-time opponent of Henry II's expanding influence in Swabia. By naming a descendant of his half-brother instead of his cousin, Otto II reinforced his father's policy of appointing close family members to key posts throughout the Empire. This appointment elevated the descendants of Otto the Great above those of Henry I in the selection process, further dividing Otto II and Henry II.

The appointment of Otto as Duke of Swabia was taken by Henry II as an assault on his claim to the Imperial throne and a slight to his honor. He and his advisor, Bishop Abraham of Freising, conspired with the Duke of Poland Mieszko I and the Duke of Bohemia Boleslaus II against Otto II in 974. While the historical sources do not describe the goals of the conspirators, Henry II likely intended to restore his honor and to ensure his position as the second most influential man in the Empire. Upon hearing of the conspiracy, Poppo, the Bishop of Würzburg, demanded Henry II and his followers submit to Otto II or face excommunication. Otto the Great's efforts to consolidate the Church under Imperial control had made this type of action normal. Henry II and his followers complied and submitted to Otto II before armed conflict broke out. Otto II, however, severely punished the conspirators: Henry II was imprisoned at Ingelheim and Bishop Abraham at Corvey.

By 976, Henry II had returned to Bavaria. Whether Otto II released him from prison or he escaped is not known for certain. Upon his return, Henry openly rebelled against Otto II, claiming rulership over the Empire for himself. Henry II mobilized the Saxon nobility against Otto II. In particular, Henry II had strong connections to Margrave Gunther of Merseburg, Count Egbert the One-Eyed, and Dietrich I of Wettin, who were all displeased with Otto II's lack of adherence to Saxon tradition. In response to the rebellion, Otto II stripped Henry II of his duchy and had him excommunicated. Otto II then marched his army south to Bavaria and laid siege to Regensburg, Henry II's stronghold. Otto II's army eventually broke through the city's defenses, forcing Henry II to flee to Bohemia.

With Henry II deposed, in July 976 Otto II issued far-reaching edicts on the reorganization of the southern German duchies. Otto II reduced the size of Duchy of Bavaria by almost a third. From the excised Bavarian territory, Otto II established the Duchy of Carinthia in southern Germany. By depriving Bavaria of the March of Verona, Otto II considerably reduced the influence of the Bavarian dukes in northern Italy and in general Imperial policy regarding Italy. Otto II gave the newly diminished Duchy of Bavaria to his relative Otto, the Duke of Swabia, and appointed Henry III, son of the former Bavarian Duke Berthold, as Duke of Carinthia. These appointments continued his policy of appointing individuals who had no political links to Otto the Great, including those who had even rebelled against him.

With matters in southern Germany settled, Otto II turned his attention to defeating and capturing Henry II. After a failed first invasion into Bohemia, Otto II marched to Bohemia a second time in August 977. While in Bohemia, a revolt broke out in Bavaria. Henry I, Bishop of Augsburg, and the newly appointed Carinthian Duke Henry III joined Henry II in rebellion, forcing Otto II to return from Bohemia. The Emperor, aided by the Duke of Swabia and Bavaria, met the rebels at Passau and, after a long siege, forced them into submission. Otto II then brought the rebels before the Imperial Diet in Quedlinburg on March 31, 978. Boleslaus II was treated with honors and swore loyalty to Otto II. Mieszko I of Poland recognized Otto's royal authority to the throne. Otto II imprisoned Henry II under the custody of the Bishop of Utrecht where he would remain until Otto II's death in 983.

While Otto the Great had pardoned rebellious family members for their crimes, Otto II followed a different policy. Instead, Otto II hoped to subordinate the Bavarian line of Ottonians to his Imperial authority. Henry II's four-year-old son, also named Henry, was sent to Hildesheim to study for an ecclesiastical career. It appears Otto II intended to end the Bavarian Ottonians' secular control of Bavaria. Under a new Duke, Bavaria would remain a remote area of the Empire. Otto II would only visit the Duchy three times during his reign, in all cases accompanied by the military.

War with Denmark
In 950, Otto the Great had subdued the Kingdom of Denmark and forced the Danish King Gorm the Old to accept him as his overlord. Otto the Great also forced the king and his heir apparent Harald Bluetooth to convert to Christianity. Under the reign of Otto the Great, Denmark fulfilled all its obligations and regularly paid tribute to the Germans. When Harald became king in 958, he expanded the control of his kingdom into Norway, becoming king there in 970. With his newly obtained power, the young ruler was no longer willing to accept German supremacy over his kingdom. In summer 974, Harald rebelled against Otto II. With the support of Norwegian troops, Harald was able to cross the Danish border into Germany, defeating the German forces stationed in the north. Otto II attacked Harald's forces, but the joint Danish-Norwegian army repelled the German army. In autumn, however, when the Norwegian allies sailed north to return to Norway, Otto II was able to counter Harald's advances at the Danevirke.

War against France
Before Henry II's civil war in southern Germany erupted, Otto II was faced with disputes in western Germany. The brothers Reginar IV, Count of Mons, and Lambert I, Count of Louvain, demanded that the Emperor restore their confiscated inheritance in the Duchy of Lorraine. Years earlier in 958, Otto the Great banished their father Reginar III, Count of Hainaut, to Bohemia after he attempted a failed revolt. In 973, Otto II granted their request. With both Otto the Great and Count Reginar III dead, it appears Otto II desired a fresh start with the two sons. Lambert I and Reginar IV returned to Lorraine in 973 to reclaim their land by force. After an initial failure, the brothers attempted again in 976, this time with the support of King Lothar of France. To help calm the situation in the west, Otto II appointed Charles, his cousin and brother of Lothar, as Duke of Lower Lorraine. The same year, Otto II appointed Egbert as his Imperial Chancellor.

Otto II's support of Charles, however, infuriated the French king, who claimed the Duchy as his own territory. Charles and Lothair were also feuding, with Charles being exiled from France over an infidelity allegation he had made against Lothair's wife. Charles fled to Otto II's court and paid homage to Otto II. In return, Otto II appointed Charles as Duke and promised to support his claim to the French throne. Soon after Otto II crushed Henry II's revolt in the south, the Emperor and his wife Theophanu returned to the old capital of Aachen in Lorraine. With the Imperial family near the French border, Lothair invaded Lorraine and marched on Aachen. With the French army in sight, Otto II and Theophanu fled to Cologne and then to the Duchy of Saxony. Upon hearing of the French invasion, Otto II’s mother Adelaide of Italy, who was Lothair's mother-in-law, sided with Lothair over her own son and moved to the court of her brother King Conrad of Burgundy. After occupying Aachen for five days, Lothair returned to France after symbolically disgracing the city.

Otto II convened the Imperial Diet in mid-July at Dortmund. There, Otto II declared war against France and prepared his army to march west. In September 978, Otto II retaliated against Lothair by invading France with the aid of Charles. He met with little resistance on French territory, devastating the land around Rheims, Soissons, and Laon. Otto II then had Charles crowned as King of the Franks by Theodoric I, Bishop of Metz. Lothair then fled to the French capital of Paris and was there besieged by Otto II and Charles. Sickness among his troops brought on by winter and a French relief army under Hugh Capet forced Otto II and Charles to lift the siege on November 30, and to return to Germany. On the journey back to Germany, Otto's rearguard was attacked and destroyed by French forces, with their supplies being captured. Despite neither side obtaining a clear victory, Otto II felt his honor was sufficiently restored and opened peace negotiations with the French King. Peace was finally concluded between Otto II and Lothair in 980: in return for renouncing his claims on Lorraine, Otto II would recognize Lothair's son Louis V as the rightful heir to the French throne.

With peace concluded, Otto II returned to Aachen to celebrate Pentecost, and then moved towards Nijmegen. During the journey, in late June or early July 980, the Empress Theophanu gave birth to the Imperial couple's only son: Otto III.

Papal politics
With his rule north of the Alps secured and with the birth of his heir, Otto II shifted his focus to Italy. The situation south of the Alps was chaotic. Pope Benedict VI, who had been appointed by Otto I, had been imprisoned by the Romans in Castel Sant'Angelo. When Otto II sent an imperial representative, Count Sicco, to secure his release, Crescentius I and Cardinal Franco Ferrucci had Benedict VI murdered while still in prison in 974. Cardinal Franco Ferrucci then crowned himself as Benedict VI's successor, becoming Antipope Boniface VII. A popular revolt, however, forced Boniface VII to flee to Constantinople, taking a vast treasure with him. In October 974, under the direction of Count Sicco, the bishop of Sutri was elected Pope as Pope Benedict VII. Boniface VII was then summarily excommunicated for his unsuccessful attempt to take the papacy.

In 979 Benedict VII's position as ruler of Rome was threatened, forcing the Pope to withdraw from and seek the aid of the Emperor. Accepting the Pope's call for aid, Otto II and Theophanu, along with their infant son Otto III, prepared for a march south across the Alps. Otto II appointed Willigis, the Archbishop of Mainz, to serve as his regent over Germany.

In October 980 the Imperial court arrived in Chiavenna and received its first Italian delegations. Otto II arrived in Italy at Pavia on December 5, 980. In Pavia, Otto II and his mother, the dowager empress Adelaide of Italy, were reconciled after years of being apart. Before the imperial family celebrated Christmas together in Ravenna, Otto II received the Iron Crown of Lombardy as the King of Italy. Following the New Year, Otto II led his Imperial court to Rome, reaching the city on February 9, 981, where the Emperor restored Pope Benedict VII to his papal throne without difficulty. In Rome, Otto II held a magnificent court ceremony to mark Easter. The imperial family was joined by Otto II's sister Matilda, Abbess of Quedlinburg, King Conrad of Burgundy and his wife Matilda of France, Duke Hugh Capet of France, Duke Otto of Swabia and Bavaria, and other high secular and religious officials from Germany, Italy and France.

Otto II proceeded to hold court in Rome, making the city his Imperial capital, where he received princes and nobles from all parts of western Europe.

Venetian affairs

The relationship between the Empire and the Republic of Venice was readdressed during Otto II's reign. In 966, The Doge of Venice Pietro IV married a relative of Otto I. The marriage brought the Empire and Venice into close relationship, with Otto I, in 967, granting a series of commercial agreements to Venice in general and to Pietro IV's family in particular. These agreements strengthened Venice's tie to the Western Empire, which greatly angered the Byzantine Emperor John I Tzimisces as Venice controlled all sea trade between Western Europe and the Byzantine Levant in the East.

Otto I's military protection of Pietro IV ensured his hold over power in Venice despite his autocratic tendencies over the republican city. In 973, however, Otto I died. With Otto II busy suppressing revolts in Germany, the Venetians opposed to Pietro IV found their opportunity to depose him. Imprisoning the Doge within his palace, the Venetian nobles set fire to the building. However, the fire soon spread to Saint Mark's Basilica, resulting in the greater part of the city being burnt. The Doge and his son, also named Pietro, were killed in the blaze, but their bodies were later recovered and respectfully buried. Pietro IV's son by the first marriage, Vitale Candiano Patriarch of Grado survived, as well as his namesake Vitale Candiano, presumably the son of Petro,  fled to Otto II's court in Saxony with plans to depose the new pro-Byzantine Doge, Pietro I Orseolo.

Pietro I Orselo's conciliating policy towards the Empire was ineffective. After having ruled Venice for about two years, Pietro I voluntarily abdicated to become a monk, allowing the pro-Ottonian Vitale to return to Venice as Doge in 978, restoring the city's friendly relationship with the Empire. However, Vitale's reign was short (less than two years) and he too abdicated to become a monk. With the position vacant, the pro-Byzantine Tribuno Memmo became the new Doge in 979. With the change in leadership, Otto II was reluctant to renew the city's commercial agreements which his father had previously granted to the city. It was only after the intervention of Otto II's mother, the dowager empress Adelaide of Italy, that the Emperor renewed the agreements.

Violence erupted in Venice during 980 due to tensions between the pro-Ottonian Coloprini family and the pro-Byzantine Morosini family. The Coloprini pleaded with the Emperor for support. Seeing an opportunity to fully incorporate Venice into the Empire, Otto II agreed. Upon arriving in Italy in 981, Otto II immediately imposed a trade embargo against the island republic. When the initial embargo showed little effect on Venice, Otto II imposed a second embargo in 983 which dealt considerable damage to the Venetian economy. The effects were disastrous enough to cause the ruling Venetian families to surrender to Otto II, but Otto II's untimely death that year prevented him from capitalizing on his victory. The Chronicle of John the Deacon claims that the early death is the punishment for persecuting the Venetians, as There is no doubt that, as a monk blessed with the prophetic spirit had revealed to him on the instructions of an angel, he ran into sudden death because he had persecuted the Venetians.

Religious policy
Otto II followed the policy of his father in expanding the importance of the Church in his Empire, in particular the importance of monasticism and monasteries. The Church and its organs served as a supporting and stabilizing factor in the Empire's structure. To fulfill these tasks, Otto II strengthened the legal integrity and economic independence of the bishops from the secular nobility. The Ottonians had a particular religious interest in Memleben as both Otto II's father Otto I and grandfather Henry I had died there. Otto II and his wife Theophanu enhanced the spiritual importance of the city by establishing a Benedictine Imperial abbey there: the Memleben Abbey. Within a short time, the Memleben Abbey had become one of the richest and most influential of the Imperial abbeys. These measures and the unusual size of the abbey perhaps suggest that Memleben may have been intended as an Imperial Mausoleum for the Ottonians.

Following the suppression of Henry II's rebellion, Otto II used the Empire's monasteries as the location for the treason trials. While his father had founded only one monastery (Otto I later replaced the abbey with the Cathedral of Magdeburg) during his 37-year reign, Otto II established at least four monasteries: Memleben, Tegernsee, Bergen, and Arneburg. Monasticism became a key part of Otto II's Imperial policy, entrusting the abbots with key political functions.

Otto II employed monks among his top political advisers, including Ekkehard I and Majolus of Cluny. One of the most important such monks was John Philagathus (the future Antipope John XVI). Of Greek descent, John was the personal chaplain of Otto II's wife Theophanu, accompanying her when she traveled from Constantinople to marry Otto II. Otto II appointed him as his Imperial Chancellor from 980 to 982, as well as abbot of Nonantola Abbey. Following Otto II's death in 983, Theophanu, as her son Otto III's regent, would name John as Otto III's tutor. She would later appoint John as the bishop of Piacenza, and would send him to Constantinople to arrange for a marriage between Otto III and a Byzantine princess.

Southern expansion

In regard to his Italian policy, Otto II went beyond the goals of his father. Not satisfied with the territorial gains made under Otto I, Otto II's policy was based not only on securing his power in Rome and cooperating with the Papacy, but also on gaining absolute dominion over the whole of Italy. Influenced by his wife, who was hostile to the return of the Macedonian Dynasty in the shape of Byzantine Emperor Basil II after the assassination of John I Tzimisces, Otto II was persuaded to annex Byzantine-controlled southern Italy. However, this policy necessarily meant war not only with the Byzantine Empire but with the Muslim Fatimid Caliphate, which claimed southern Italy as within its sphere of influence.

The Ottonians' chief lieutenant in central and southern Italy had long been the Lombard leader Pandulf Ironhead. Originally appointed by Otto I as Prince of Benevento and Capua in 961, Pandulf waged war against the Byzantines and expanded Ottonian control to include the Duchy of Spoleto in 967. The following year, under Otto II, Pandulf added the Principality of Salerno to the Empire. His campaigns under Otto I and Otto II incorporated all three of the southern Lombard principalities - Benevento, Capua, and Salerno - into the Holy Roman Empire. As vassal of Otto II, Pandulf ruled a large bloc of territories stretching as far north as Tuscany and as far south as the Gulf of Taranto.

Pandulf's death in 981 deprived Otto II of one of his primary lieutenants. Pandulf's lands were partitioned among his sons, though further quarrels between the local Lombard princes soon followed. Pandulf's older son Landulf IV received Capua and Benevento while his younger son Pandulf II received Salerno. Upon hearing of Pandulf's death, Otto II, ruling from Rome, traveled south to install Thrasimund IV as Duke of Spoleto. Then, Pandulf's nephew Pandulf II was given Benevento when Otto II partitioned Landulf IV's territory, with Landulf IV keeping Capua. Finally, Duke Manso I of Amalfi deposed Pandulf II of Salerno in 982.

By 982 the entire area once ruled by Pandulf had collapsed, weakening Otto II's position against the Byzantines. The Byzantines still claimed sovereignty over the Lombard principalities, and the lack of a single leader to prevent their advances into Lombard territory allowed the Byzantines to make inroads further north. Otto II attempted on several occasions to reunify the Lombard principalities politically and ecclesiastically into his Empire after Pandulf's death. Though he unsuccessfully besieged Manso I in Salerno, Otto II ultimately obtained the recognition of his authority from all the Lombard principalities.

With his authority reestablished over the Lombard princes, Otto II turned his attention towards the threat from Muslim Sicily. Since the 960s the island had been under Muslim rule as the Emirate of Sicily, a state of the Fatimid Caliphate. The ruling Kalbid dynasty had conducted raids against Imperial territories in southern Italy. The death of Pandulf in 981 allowed the Sicilian Emir Abu al-Qasim to increase his raids, hitting targets in Apulia and Calabria. As early as 980 Otto II demanded a fleet from the city of Pisa to help him carry out his war in southern Italy, and in September 981 he marched into southern Italy. Needing allies in his campaign against the Muslims and the Byzantine Empire, Otto II reconciled with Amalfian Duke Manso I, granting Imperial recognition of his rule over Salerno.

Otto II's troops marched on Byzantine-controlled Apulia in January 982 with the purpose of annexing the territory into his Empire. Otto II's march caused the Byzantine Empire to seek an alliance with Muslim Sicily in order to hold on to its southern Italian possessions. Otto's army besieged and captured the Byzantine city of Taranto, the administrative center of Apulia, in March 982. After celebrating Easter in Taranto, Otto II moved his army westward, defeating a Muslim army in early July. Emir Abu al-Qasim, who had declared a Holy War (jihad) against Otto, retreated when he noticed the unexpected strength of Otto II's troops when the latter was not far from Rossano Calabro. Informed of the Muslim retreat, Otto II left his wife Theophanu and young son Otto III (along with the Imperial treasury) in the city and marched his army to pursue the Muslim force.

Unable to flee back to his stronghold in Sicily due to an Ottonian naval blockade, al-Qasim faced Otto's army in what has been come to be known as the Battle of Stilo south of Crotone at Cape Colonna on July 14, 982. After a violent clash, a corps of Otto II's heavy cavalry destroyed the Muslim center and pushed towards al-Qasim's guards, with the Emir killed during the charge. Despite the Emir's death, the Muslim troops did not flee the battlefield but regrouped and managed to surround the Imperial soldiers, slaughtering many of them and inflicting a severe defeat upon the Emperor. According to the Muslim historian Ibn al-Athir, Imperial casualties numbered around 4,000. Landulf IV of Benevento and Pandulf II of Salerno, Bishop Henry I of Augsburg, Margrave Gunther of Merseburg, the Abbot of Fulda, and numerous other Imperial officials were among the battle's casualties.

The Imperial defeat shocked the political makeup of Southern Italy. With two Lombard princes dead, the Principalities of Capua and the Benevento passed to younger branches of the Landulfid family. Though the Muslim troops were forced to retreat to Sicily after their victory, the Muslims remained a presence in southern Italy, harassing the Byzantines and Lombards. This Ottonian defeat, the worst in the history of the Empire at the time, greatly weakened Imperial power in southern Italy. The Byzantines joined forces with the Muslims and regained possession of Apulia from Ottonian forces.

Succession issues
The defeat at Stilo forced Otto II to flee north to Rome. He then held an Imperial Diet at Verona on Pentecost 983. He sent his nephew Otto I, Duke of Swabia and Bavaria, back to Germany with news of the defeat and to call the German nobles to the assembly, but his emissary died en route on November 1, 982, in Lucca. News of the battle did cross the Alps, however, reaching as far as Wessex in England, signifying the magnitude of the defeat. Duke Bernard I of Saxony was heading south for the assembly when Danish Viking raids forced him to return to face the threat.

At the assembly, Otto II appointed Conrad (a distant relative of Otto II) and Henry III as the new Dukes of Swabia and Bavaria respectively. Henry III had previously been exiled by Otto II following his defeat as part of a two-year revolt against Otto II's rule. The defeat at Stilo cost the Empire many nobles, forcing Otto II to end Henry's banishment in order to stabilize domestic affairs in Germany while he campaigned against the Muslims and Byzantines in southern Italy. Also, the appointment of Conrad I allowed the House of the Conradines to return to power in Swabia for the first time since 948. Otto II and the assembled nobles agreed on a strategy of naval blockade and economic warfare until reinforcements from Germany could arrive. Otto II then prepared for a new campaign against the Muslims and obtained a settlement with the Republic of Venice, whose assistance he needed following the destruction of his army at Stilo. However, the death of Otto II the next year and the resulting civil war prevented the Empire from appropriately responding to the defeat.

The most important action taken by Otto II at the assembly, however, was to secure the "election" of his son Otto III, who was then only three years old, as King of Germany and heir apparent to the Imperial throne. Otto III thus became the only German king elected south of the Alps. The exact reason for this unusual procedure has been lost to history. It is possible that the conditions in southern Italy following the defeat required Otto II to act quickly in designating an Imperial heir to ensure the Empire's future. It is also conceivable, however, that holding the election in Italy was a deliberate choice on the part of Otto II in order to demonstrate that Italy was an equal part of the Empire to Germany. His election secured, Otto III and his mother, the Empress Theophanu, traveled north across the Alps heading for Aachen, the traditional coronation site for the Ottonians, in order for Otto III to be officially crowned as king. Otto II stayed in Italy to further address his military campaigns.

Great Slav uprising

Around the year 982, Imperial authority in Slavic territory extended as far east as the Lusatian Neisse River and as far south as the Ore Mountains. Following the defeat of Otto II at Stilo in 983, the Lutici Federation of Polabian Slavs revolted against their German overlords, sparking the Great Slav Rising (Slawenaufstand). The Polabian Slavs destroyed the bishoprics of Havelberg and Brandenburg. According to the German chronicler Bishop Thietmar of Merseburg, the decades-long forced Germanization and Christianization of the Slavs associated with these two churches was the reason for their destruction. Thietmar blames the uprising on maltreatment of the Slavs by the Germans: "Warriors, who used to be our servants, now free as a consequence of our injustices." In the Obotrite territories along the Elbe River, the Luticians initiated a revolt aimed at the abolition of feudal rule and Christianity, drawing upon considerable support by the Obodrite populace and their leader Mstivoj. In part, the Obodrite revolt was successful: The princely family, though in part remaining Christian, dissolved Christian institutions.

Soldiers from the Northern March, the March of Meissen, and the March of Lusatia, as well as from the Bishop of Halberstadt and the Archbishop of Magdeburg, joined forces to defeat the Slavs near Stendal. Nevertheless, the Empire was forced to withdraw to the western banks of the Elbe river. The successes of the Empire's Christianization policy towards the Slavs were nullified, and political control over the Billung March and the Northern March (territories east of the Elbe) was lost. In the decade since his death, Otto I's life work of converting the Slavs was undone. The Slavic territories east of the Elbe would remain pagan for over a century before further missionary work resumed: it would not be until the 12th century that the churches of Havelberg and Brandenburg would be reestablished.

The Danes took advantage of the Slavic revolt and invaded the March of Schleswig along the Empire's northern border while the Sorb Slavs invaded and conquered the March of Zeitz from the Saxons.

Sudden death and political turmoil
In July 983, Pope Benedict VII, a longtime Ottonian supporter, died of natural causes after having reigned for almost ten years. Otto II returned to Rome in September to name a new Pope, selecting the Bishop of Pavia Pietro Canepanova (who reigned as Pope John XIV) in November or early December. While Otto II was in Rome, a malaria outbreak in central Italy prevented the resumption of military activity in southern Italy. The outbreak ultimately led to the death of the Emperor himself in his palace at Rome on December 7, 983, at the age of 28, after having reigned for just over a decade. Otto II's money and possessions were divided among the Catholic Church, the poor of the Empire, his mother Adelaide and sister Matilda, and those nobles loyal to him. Otto II was then buried in the atrium of St. Peter's Basilica, the only Holy Roman Emperor to be buried in St Peter's.

Otto II's three-year-old son Otto III was crowned as King of Germany in Aachen on Christmas Day in 983, three weeks after his father's death. Otto III was crowned by Willigis, the Archbishop of Mainz, and John, the Archbishop of Ravenna. News of Otto II's death first reached Germany after Otto III's coronation. The unresolved problems in southern Italy and the Slavic uprising on the Empire's eastern border made the Empire's political situation extremely unstable. The arrival of a minor on the Imperial throne threw the Empire into confusion, allowing Otto III's mother, the Byzantine Princess Theophanu, to reign as his regent.

In 976, Otto II had deposed Henry II as Duke of Bavaria and imprisoned him. In early 984, Henry II escaped from his imprisonment by the Bishop of Utrecht. Free from his confinement, he seized the infant Otto III and, as a member of the ruling Ottonian dynasty, claimed the regency of the Empire for himself. Henry II eventually went so far as to claim the German throne outright, obtaining the allegiance of Mieszko I of Poland and Boleslaus II, Duke of Bohemia. Henry II's claims were supported by Archbishop Egbert of Trier, Archbishop Gisilher of Magdeburg, and Bishop Dietrich I of Metz. Otto III's right to the throne, however, was supported by Archbishop Willigis of Mainz and the Dukes of Saxony, Bavaria, and Swabia. The threat of war from Willigis and Conrad I, Duke of Swabia forced Henry II to relinquish Otto III on June 29, 984 and to respect the regency of Theophanu.

The early death of Otto II and the ensuing events proved to be a serious test for the Empire. Despite having a child under the regency of his mother as a ruler, the structure established by Emperor Otto the Great remained strong as most of the Empire's most powerful officials stayed loyal to the Imperial system.

Character
Otto was a man of small stature, by nature brave and impulsive, and by training an accomplished knight. He was generous to the church and aided the spread of Christianity in many ways. According to one of the chroniclers of the time, he was given the epithet of the "Red" when in 981 he invited the most troublesome of the Roman families to a banquet, and proceeded to butcher them at dinner. More sympathetic chroniclers said that it was due to his reddish complexion. In fact, Otto is much more likely to have inherited the epithet from his half-uncle Conrad the Red, who died the year he was born and from whom he is also likely to have inherited some property.

Family and children
Otto II was a member of the Ottonian dynasty, which ruled Germany (and later the Holy Roman Empire) from 919 to 1024. In relation to the other members of his dynasty, Otto II was the grandson of Henry I, son of Otto I, father of Otto III, and a first-cousin once removed to Henry II.

Otto II had only one known wife. On 14 April 972, Otto II married Theophanu, a Byzantine princess of the Phokas family who was the cousin of reigning Byzantine Emperor John I Tzimiskes. The two had at least five children:
 * Adelheid I, Abbess of Quedlinburg and Gandersheim, born 973/974, died 1045.
 * Sophie I, Abbess of Gandersheim and Essen, born October 975, died 1039.
 * Matilda, born summer 978, died 1025; who married Ezzo, count palatine of Lotharingia.
 * Otto III, Holy Roman Emperor, born end June/early July 980.
 * A daughter, a twin to Otto, who died before October 8, 980.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Otto II, Holy Roman Emperor


text:
Talk:Otto II, Holy Roman Emperor

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Lexiga.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 05:54, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

old comment
David -- what's with the German ruler? The Saxon house were all Germans, kinda sorta -- and I think it could imply a Germany where there wasn't one...JHK

Deleted
Notes== ==

6/22/08: Deleted the ==Notes== section for the following reasons:

1. It wasn't a footnote. Neither was it the it was formatted as. It was, at best, an external link.

2. It linked to a page in Italian with no translation available: that's not appropriate for an English language wiki.

3. The linked page appears to be part of a brief overview of Italian history, generally sourced from 8 other histories of Italy. The content page cite had no paragraph or sentence numbers, nor does the external page cite any specific references, making the material unverifiable.

4. My Latin is a bit rusty, but I'm pretty sure "Anni dal 983 al 1002" translates pretty close to "Years from 983 to 1002"; and "Il Periodo di Ottone III" is something like "The Life of Otto III". Since the topic of the wiki article is "Otto II", who died in 983, I believe the Italian article is concerned with his son and (aside from it's other problems) would be more appropriate in Otto III's wikipage.

AnonTech (talk) 07:25, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Grammar and Titles
The titles are not capitalized accurately.

Lexiga (talk) 06:18, 8 November 2017 (UTC)Lexiga

Photo of tomb
It would be good to have a photo of his tomb for the article, if possible. Richard75 (talk) 15:29, 26 June 2022 (UTC)

Requested move 27 February 2024

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

– Per WP:SOVEREIGN. "Only use a territorial designation (e.g. country) when disambiguation is needed. In the case of kings, queens regnant, emperors, and empresses regnant whose common name is ambiguous or not the primary meaning, article titles are normally in the form "{Monarch's first name and ordinal} of {Country}". Examples: Philip IV of Spain; Henry I of France; Joan II of Navarre." All of these titles are primary redirects. I do not support these changes as a matter of personal preference, but rather as a proper application of policy. UmbrellaTheLeef (talk) 22:06, 27 February 2024 (UTC) — Relisting. BilledMammal (talk) 11:44, 6 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Otto II, Holy Roman Emperor → Otto II
 * Otto III, Holy Roman Emperor → Otto III
 * Conrad II, Holy Roman Emperor → Conrad II
 * Lothair III, Holy Roman Emperor → Lothair III
 * Otto IV, Holy Roman Emperor → Otto IV
 * Conrad III of Germany → Conrad III
 * Conrad IV of Germany → Conrad IV
 * Note: WikiProject Former countries, WikiProject Austria, WikiProject Former countries/Holy Roman Empire task force, WikiProject Royalty and Nobility, WikiProject Middle Ages, and WikiProject Germany have been notified of this discussion. Векочел (talk) 14:45, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Any reason you excluded Rudolf I, Rudolf II and Joseph II? Srnec (talk) 01:31, 2 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I planned to do them in a seperate RM to avoid creating a WP:TRAINWRECK, but never got round to it. UmbrellaTheLeef (talk) 01:32, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

 * Strong oppose. If the proper application of policy prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore it. Shortening the titles adds no value, since it only makes them inconsistent with other emperors and kings of Germany. As it is, all emperors from Otto II on save one (Frederick Barbarossa) are at titles of the form "Name, Holy Roman Emperor". I am strongly opposed to the notion that we should look at these title in isolation and not as part of a series. WP:CONSISTENT says, strive to make titles on Wikipedia as consistent as possible with other titles on similar subjects. We follow patterns from article titles for similar topics to the extent that this is practical. This has nothing to do with disambiguation and everthing to do with predictable, consistent titling. Srnec (talk) 23:01, 27 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Comment - Lothair III is consistent with Lothair II and Lothair I. These overly long titles do not improve WP:RECOGNISABILITY as anyone who sees the shortened titles with a knowledge of these monarchs will know who they are. They do not improve WP:CONCISION or WP:NATURALNESS, since the average reader is unlikely to search for the full title "X, Holy Roman Emperor." We follow patterns from article titles for similar topics to the extent that this is practical, not just for the sake of it, and not in lieu of everything else. UmbrellaTheLeef (talk) 23:23, 27 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Strong Oppose. There are TONS of other Conrads, Ottos, etc. e.g. Otto II (disambiguation) list is ENORMOUS.  So too with the others.  Definitely does NOT fulfill NCROY's conditions.  Walrasiad (talk)
 * Strong support for moving the Holy Roman Emperors as clear WP:PRIMARYTOPICS for which disambiguation is not needed per WP:NCROY. Weak support for Conrad III and Conrad IV who, while they are indeed primary redirects, are less clear cut as primary topics. Rosbif73 (talk) 08:55, 28 February 2024 (UTC)
 * On what basis do you argue they're primary topic and on what evidence? Walrasiad (talk) 10:40, 28 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Comment - The fact that the Ottos have been undisputed primary redirects for more than 20 years, and the Conrads for more than 9. They consistently get far more pageviews than other monarchs with the same name. UmbrellaTheLeef (talk) 10:53, 28 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Wikinav doesn't seem to work on dab pages, but pageviews is a pretty good start. Unfortunately it can only compare up to 10 pages at a time, but it is still possible to work through all the pages listed, eliminating the least viewed so as to keep no more than 10. For example, for Otto III: |Otto_III,_Duke_of_Swabia|Otto_III,_Count_Palatine_of_Burgundy|Otto_III,_Margrave_of_Brandenburg|Otto_III,_Count_of_Weimar-Orlam%C3%BCnde|Otto_III,_Duke_of_Bavaria|Otto_III_of_Carinthia|Otto_III,_Prince_of_Anhalt-Bernburg|Otto_III,_Duke_of_Pomerania|Otto_III,_Count_of_Rietberg. Feel free to repeat the exercise for the others, though I'm confident the results will be comparable. Rosbif73 (talk) 11:27, 28 February 2024 (UTC)
 * All you have discovered is that more people are interested in general German history than Bavarian history. Does that mean rulers of large countries don't need disambiguation, and only rulers from small countries do? So large countries are "more important" than small countries?  Is imperialism the criteria then? Walrasiad (talk) 12:23, 28 February 2024 (UTC)
 * The criteria at WP:PRIMARYTOPIC are clear: to be considered as a primary topic, a subject must be highly likely [...] to be the topic sought when a reader searches for that term and have substantially greater long-term significance. It is true that the ruler of a historically prominent country is likely to have greater long-term significance than the ruler of a smaller territory, but that is not due to "imperialism" or other bias among Wikipedia editors, it is just the reality of history. Of course, if a hypothetical Otto III of Syldavia were to become demonstrably more significant and more commonly searched for than the Holy Roman Emperor of the same name, he would naturally become the primary topic and we would rename their respective articles accordingly! Rosbif73 (talk) 13:30, 28 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Compared against a mere five other pages that start with "Otto II", the emperor gets less than half of |Otto_II,_Count_of_Nassau-Siegen|Otto_II,_Duke_of_Bavaria|Otto_II,_Margrave_of_Meissen|Otto_II,_Duke_of_Brunswick-L%C3%BCneburg|Otto_II,_Count_of_Habsburg page views. The German Wikipedia has even longer lists of numbered Ottos and Conrads: de:Liste der Herrscher namens Otto and de:Liste der Herrscher namens Konrad. —Srnec (talk) 14:20, 28 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Argh. Edit conflict trap. @Rosbif73 You're confusing things.  No, Holy Roman Emperor Otto II does not have "more long-term significance" than, say, Otto II of Bavaria, who is just about as old. They both have proven long-term significance. As to what readers are searching for when they enter "Otto II", you have provided no evidence, just speculation. Those that are searching for Emperor Otto II find "Otto II, Holy Roman Emperor" with no problem.  That doesn't say anything about the shortened version. So your declaration meets neither criteria nor evidence.
 * As to large vs. small countries, no, it is not the "reality of history", that is just the POV prejudices of editors. For Bavarians, their Otto is very significant.  So your answer is tantamount to "Bavarians don't really matter". It is in this vein that Wikipedia editors decided that George III of Britain doesn't need to be disambiguated, that he was "more important" than George III of Georgia, because mighty Britain is "more important" than piddly Georgia. Yes, Georgia is smaller, Georgians are less numerous, Georgian history is not as much searched but that should not mean "Georgians don't really matter". Because this is what your "reality of history" kind of reasoning amounts to. This kind of POV is really not acceptable for an encyclopedia with a WP:GLOBAL audience..
 * Deciding which country is or is not important is not the kind of judgment calls we should be making. Indeed, one of the great benefits of retaining the country in the titles in NCROY was precisely that it puts all on an equal neutral NPOV level. We won't get drawn into the unsavory nationalist-imperialist games of deciding whether Germany is more important than Bavaria, whether Britain more important than Georgia, whether Russia more important than Ukraine. There is no upside to this.
 * WP:PRIMARYTOPIC is for genuine article titling problems, when there happen to be more two Holy Roman Emperors Otto II. Happily, there is only one Emperor Otto II, he is already disambiguated "Otto II, Holy Roman Emperor".  Simple, straightforward, clear, beneficial to readers, and with no POV prejudices or implications. Walrasiad (talk) 14:35, 28 February 2024 (UTC)
 * By making a particular subject the primary topic, Wikipedia is not making any kind of POV judgement about other topics with the same name, but merely acknowledging that its readers are far more likely to be searching for one than the others, and improving the reader experience by directing them towards that most likely topic. We have other mechanisms (hatnotes, dab pages and short descriptions) to make sure that readers interested in the other topics can still find them easily. Rosbif73 (talk) 15:54, 28 February 2024 (UTC)
 * How does it help readers find it if you're making the article title less WP:RECOGNIZABLE?  It's worsening the reader's experience and making it more complicated.   I wouldn't know which "Otto III" this article is talking about, but "Otto III, Holy Roman Emperor" is instantly clear.  Walrasiad (talk) 19:07, 29 February 2024 (UTC)
 * It says in the infobox and in the the first sentence that Otto III was Holy Roman Emperor. UmbrellaTheLeef (talk) 19:01, 1 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Explaining a title in the body doesn't excuse us from having good titles that prioritize reader benefit. Plus there are various places — notably the search — where a reader will see only the title. Try this: type "Otto II" into the search box and see what it suggests, then tell us with a straight face that dropping the clarifiers would improve the reader's experience. ╠╣uw [ talk ] 18:48, 6 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure which interface you are using, but on desktop and in the mobile app I see the short descriptions (namely "Holy Roman Emperor from 973 to 983" for Otto II) beneath the suggestions. Dropping HRE from the article title isn't going to hinder that experience in any way. Rosbif73 (talk) 19:55, 6 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Good for you, but it's not what most readers see. Per WP:SHORTDESC, "short descriptions do not appear by default when viewing an article in desktop view", and the great majority of our readers read on desktop. As for the presence of shortdescs beneath the search suggestions, that seemingly varies by skin. ╠╣uw [ talk ] 20:53, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

 * Oppose Confusing titles. Dimadick (talk) 13:38, 29 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Support as they are clearly the primary topics, and WP:SOVEREIGN is clear on this point. IAR is meant for exceptions, not for rewriting rules (c.f. WP:LOCALCONSENSUS). WP:CONSISTENT does not support using preemptive disambiguation. It explicitly says it does not apply to disambiguation: just because Georgia (country) exists, there is no reason to have articles titled, for instance, Azerbaijan (country), Armenia (country), etc. This applies to natural disambiguation, as well; the existence of Querétaro City and Chihuahua City does not mean we have to retitle Guadalajara to Guadalajara City (emphasis added; links deleted). House Blaster  (talk · he/him) 15:24, 29 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Oppose - Isn't the general idea to keep "Holy Roman Emperor" in the bios of Holy Roman Emperors? GoodDay (talk) 16:18, 1 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Strong oppose: Per . The domino effect of a semi-local (7 titles) proposed name changes, if successful, would create a super train wreck, especially since future "seperate" (sic) RM[s] has been admitted. There would have to exist an almost guarantee that consensus on all the articles would be an agreement to shorten the titles. If that were possible, and until such time, we would be disrupting current consistency among article titles. How could that be a benefit? I submit this is not the place to try to make such a sweeping change.
 * Other titles (possibly not complete):
 * Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor
 * Henry II, Holy Roman Emperor
 * Henry III, Holy Roman Emperor
 * Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor
 * Henry V, Holy Roman Emperor
 * Henry VI, Holy Roman Emperor
 * Henry VII, Holy Roman Emperor
 * Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor
 * Louis IV, Holy Roman Emperor
 * Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor
 * Frederick III, Holy Roman Emperor
 * Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor
 * Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor
 * Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor
 * Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor
 * Maximilian II, Holy Roman Emperor
 * Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor
 * Matthias, Holy Roman Emperor
 * Ferdinand II, Holy Roman Emperor
 * Ferdinand III, Holy Roman Emperor
 * Ferdinand IV, King of the Romans
 * Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor
 * Joseph I, Holy Roman Emperor
 * Charles VII, Holy Roman Emperor
 * Francis I, Holy Roman Emperor
 * Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor
 * Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor
 * Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor --  Otr500 (talk) 08:12, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Comment - Those titles (with the exception of Joseph II, and Rudolf I/II) are all ambigious and not the clear primary topic. WP:CONSISTENT specifically does not apply to disambiguation. I will not be opening any RMs for any of the other ones, apart from Rudolf I, Rudolf II, and Joseph II, because they do not meet the threshold for primary topics and need disambiguation per WP:SOVEREIGN.
 * "There are two main areas, however, where Wikipedians have consistently shown that consistency does not control: Disambiguation. For instance, just because Georgia (country) exists, there is no reason to have articles titled, for instance, Azerbaijan (country), Armenia (country), etc. This applies to natural disambiguation, as well; the existence of Querétaro City and Chihuahua City does not mean we have to retitle Guadalajara to Guadalajara City." UmbrellaTheLeef (talk) 13:10, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Oppose, per all the above. WP:AT instructs us to favor titles that put the interests of our readers first, that fit within an encyclopedic register, and that best balance our title WP:CRITERIA. I see nothing to suggest that removing the "HRE" better achieves any of those goals, but certainly do see reason to think it would worsen the reader experience. For one thing, and as others have already noted, royal names like Otto and Conrad are common and unclear; even Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor from 962-973, was himself also Otto II, Duke of Saxony from 936-961, but was also succeeded by Otto II. Clear as mud? That including a clarifier aids readers may also be seen in the fact that other encyclopedias often see the need to do the same.. The only thing I see that clearly supports the change is the NCROY convention itself — or to be more precise, the recent contentious change to NCROY that's prompting so many royalty-related RMs. The results of those RMs have been scattershot, with many resulting in the clarifiers being retained despite the change to the convention. (Mary I of England, Maria I of Portugal, Edwards, Richards, Christians, Fredericks, etc.) The lack of consensus apparent in such results strongly suggests that we need to revisit NCROY before going any farther or making things even more jumbled. ╠╣uw [ talk ] 14:33, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Support per WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. Векочел (talk) 14:44, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Oppose. I do not regard the move as an improvement. Borsoka (talk) 15:12, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Oppose - Best we keep "Holy Roman Emperor" in the article titles of all the Holy Roman Emperors. GoodDay (talk) 15:24, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Very strong oppose as per the reasons given by others above. These 'dropping the titles and countries' move requests are getting out of control now. - Therealscorp1an (talk) 22:15, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I've requested closure for this at Closure_requests. Natg 19 (talk) 21:50, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Addendum on RM
I said in the discussion on this page that I would do a separate RM for Rudolf II and Joseph II. I did not clarify that I would only do that if there was consensus for this move, which there clearly is not. I will not be doing any such RM, as this RM, which was of a similar nature, was rejected by overwhelming consensus. UmbrellaTheLeef (talk) 16:49, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

title: Talk:Otto II, Holy Roman Emperor


text:
Caprera

Caprera is an island in the Maddalena archipelago off the coast of Sardinia, Italy. In the area of La Maddalena island in the Strait of Bonifacio, it is a tourist destination and the place to which Giuseppe Garibaldi retired from 1854 until his death in 1882. Scarcely populated, the majority of the inhabitants live in Borgo di Stagnali. The island of Caprera is entirely included in the La Maddalena Archipelago National Park: a marine and land protected area of national and community interest. In particular, the marine zone in front of the area of Punta Rossa, a southern extension of the island, is an area with maximum environmental protection, with Cala Andreani and Spiaggia del Relitto. The eastern ridge of the island is a land zone of full protection, while the marine area in front of Punta Coticcio, including Cala Coticcio, is protected by the managing authority of the National Park.

Features
The island was probably given its name because of the numerous wild goats living on it (capra means "goat" in Italian). It is the second largest island in the archipelago and has an area of 15.7 km2 and 45 km of coastline. Monte Tejalone is the highest point (212 m). On the south-western side is a sailing centre and the many coves and anchorages along the coastline make the landing easy. This island has been declared a natural reserve for the resident seabirds, the royal seagull, cormorant and peregrine falcon. Caprera is linked to La Maddalena island by a 600 m causeway.

Giuseppe Garibaldi
The island is associated with Giuseppe Garibaldi, an Italian patriot and fighter who lived in the 19th century and was one of the fathers of Italian unification. He bought about half of the island in 1855 and died there in 1882. His house is now a museum and a memorial chapel, and the island is a national monument.

History
After the Roman occupation, Caprera remained deserted for centuries.

In Dante’s Inferno (Canto XXXIII, lines 79-84), written in the early years of 1300, he calls on the gods to punish the evil residents of Pisa by moving the islands of Caprera and Gorgona to block the mouth of the Arno river and flood the city. "Ah, Pisa, you the scandal of the peoples of that fair land where si is heard, because your neighbors are so slow to punish you, may, then, Caprara and Gorgona move and build a hedge across the Arno's mouth, so that it may drown every soul in you!"

At the beginning of the 19th century, a group of shepherds inhabited the island. In the second half of the same century, an English family settled there, the Collins, owners of some lands on the island. Many remains of Roman cargo ships have been found here. In 1855, Garibaldi decided to settle there and planted the first trees of the blooming pinewood which covers the island today. A century after Garibaldi's death, the island was freed from military restrictions and is completely open to the public.

The island is known especially for having been Giuseppe Garibaldi’s last abode for over 20 years and the place of his death. Indeed, with the inheritance of his brother Felix, he acquired the northern half of Caprera in 1856, having initially lived in a hut.

A few years later, the famous Casa Bianca was built in accordance with Garibaldi’s will, in the South American fazenda style, nowadays a museum; some years after, funds raised by his sons and fans allowed him to buy also the other half of the island, which until then had belonged to the English spouses Richard and Emma Collins.

In the big estate, Piana della Tola, Garibaldi planted a lot of trees and started living the life of a farmer, cultivating fields and breeding chickens, sheep, horses (his famous white mare Marsala is buried not far from the house) and a lot of donkeys, to whom he gave his enemies’ names out of amusement. The most unruly of them was called after Pope Pius IX.

Inside the Casa Bianca, Garibaldi lived with the sons that he had with Anita, the ones he had with a servant and the ones he had with his third wife,.

In Garibaldi’s room, the clock and the calendars, which are hanging on a wall, still mark the date and time of his death: 2 June 1882 at 6.21 pm. Despite his last wishes, his remains were embalmed and buried in a grave (made of rough granite) just behind the house.

His house, boats and objects, which have become relics of one of the best known and visited museums in Italy, have remained in Caprera. The Garibaldi Compendium of Caprera is open for visit, except for weekly closure on Mondays. Garibaldi’s life on the island and how he cultivated it are described in the memoir written by his daughter Clelia, entitled Mio Padre.

In 1982, Caprera was declared an Oriented Nature Reserve, until the establishment of the National Park.

Sailing
Caprera's Porto Palma gulf is home to the Centro Velico Caprera school since 1967.

title: Caprera


text:
Sviatoslav I

Sviatoslav or Svyatoslav I Igorevich (Свѧтославъ Игорєвичь; Old Norse: Sveinald; c. 943 – 972) was Prince of Kiev from 945 until his death in 972. He is known for his persistent campaigns in the east and south, which precipitated the collapse of two great powers in Eastern Europe, Khazaria and the First Bulgarian Empire. He conquered numerous East Slavic tribes, defeated the Alans and attacked the Volga Bulgars, and at times was allied with the Pechenegs and Magyars (Hungarians).

Following the death of his father Igor in 945, Sviatoslav's mother Olga reigned as regent in Kiev until 962. His decade-long reign over the Kievan Rus' was marked by rapid expansion into the Volga River valley, the Pontic steppe, and the Balkans, leading him to carve out for himself the largest state in Europe. In 969, he moved his seat to Pereyaslavets on the Danube. In 970, he appointed his sons Yaropolk and Oleg as subordinate princes of Kiev and Drelinia, while he appointed Vladimir, his son by his housekeeper and servant Malusha, as the prince of Novgorod.

In contrast with his mother's conversion to Christianity, Sviatoslav remained a staunch pagan all of his life. Due to his abrupt death in an ambush, his conquests, for the most part, were not consolidated into a functioning empire, while his failure to establish a stable succession led to a fratricidal feud among his three sons, resulting in the deaths of Yaropolk and Oleg, while Vladimir emerged as the sole ruler.

Name
The Primary Chronicle records Sviatoslav as the first ruler of the Kievan Rus' with a name of Slavic origin, as opposed to his predecessors, whose names had Old Norse forms. Some scholars see the name of Sviatoslav, composed of the Slavic roots for "holy" and "glory", as an artificial derivation combining the names of his predecessors Oleg and Rurik, but modern researchers question the possibility of such a translation of names from one language to another. Sveinald or Sveneld is identical to Sviatoslav, as the Norse rendition of the Slavic name. The 10th-century Eastern Roman Emperor Constantine VII's Greek-language work De Administrando Imperio ("On the Governance of the Empire") records his name as Σφενδοσθλάβος ("Sfendostlabos").

Early life and personality
Almost nothing is known about Sviatoslav's childhood and youth, which he spent reigning in Novgorod. Sviatoslav's father, Igor, was killed by the Drevlians around 945, and his mother, Olga, ruled as regent in Kiev until Sviatoslav reached maturity (ca. 963). Sviatoslav was tutored by a Varangian named Asmud. The tradition of employing Varangian tutors for the sons of ruling princes survived well into the 11th century. Sviatoslav appears to have had little patience for administration. His life was spent with his druzhina (roughly, "company") in permanent warfare against neighboring states.

According to the Primary Chronicle, he carried neither wagons nor kettles on his expeditions, and he boiled no meat, rather cutting off small strips of horseflesh, game, or beef to eat after roasting it on the coals. Nor did he have a tent, rather spreading out a horse-blanket under him and setting his saddle under his head, and all his retinue did likewise.

Sviatoslav's appearance has been described very clearly by Leo the Deacon, who himself attended the meeting of Sviatoslav with John I Tzimiskes. Following Deacon's memories, Sviatoslav was a bright-eyed man of average height but of stalwart build, much more sturdy than Tzimiskes. He had a bald head and a wispy beard and wore a bushy mustache and a sidelock as a sign of his nobility. He preferred to dress in white, and it was noted that his garments were much cleaner than those of his men, although he had a lot in common with his warriors. He wore a single large gold earring bearing a carbuncle and two pearls.

Religious beliefs
Sviatoslav's mother, Olga, converted to Orthodox Christianity at the court of the Byzantine Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus in 957. Sviatoslav remained a pagan all of his life. In the treaty of 971 between Sviatoslav and the Byzantine emperor John I Tzimiskes, the Rus' swore by the gods Perun and Veles. According to the Primary Chronicle, he believed that his warriors (druzhina) would lose respect for him and mock him if he became a Christian. The allegiance of his warriors was of paramount importance in his conquest of an empire that stretched from the Volga to the Danube.

Family
Very little is known of Sviatoslav's family life. It is possible that he was not the only (or the eldest) son of his parents. The Rus'-Byzantine treaty of 945 mentions a certain Predslava, Volodislav's wife, as the noblest of the Rus' women after Olga. The fact that Predslava was Oleg's mother is presented by Vasily Tatishchev. He also speculated that Predslava came from the Hungarian nobility. George Vernadsky was among many historians to speculate that Volodislav was Igor's eldest son and heir who died at some point during Olga's regency. Another chronicle relates that Oleg (? – 977?) was the eldest son of Igor. At the time of Igor's death, Sviatoslav was still a child, and he was raised by his mother or under her instructions. Her influence, however, did not extend to his religious observance.

Sviatoslav had several children, but the origin of his wives is not specified in the chronicle. By his wives, he had Yaropolk and Oleg. By Malusha, a woman of indeterminate origins, Sviatoslav had Vladimir, who would ultimately break with his father's paganism and convert Rus' to Christianity. John Skylitzes reported that Vladimir had a brother named Sfengus; whether this Sfengus was a son of Sviatoslav, a son of Malusha by a prior or subsequent husband, or an unrelated Rus' nobleman is unclear.

Children

Predslava

 * Oleg of Drelinia (died 977?)
 * Yaropolk I of Kiev (952–978)

Malusha

 * Vladimir the Great (c. 958 – 1015)
 * Sfengus?

Eastern campaigns
Shortly after his accession to the throne, Sviatoslav began campaigning to expand Rus' control over the Volga valley and the Pontic steppe region. His greatest success was the conquest of Khazaria, which for centuries had been one of the strongest states of Eastern Europe. The sources are not clear about the roots of the conflict between Khazaria and Rus', so several possibilities have been suggested. The Rus' had an interest in removing the Khazar hold on the Volga trade route because the Khazars collected duties from the goods transported by the Volga. Historians have suggested that the Byzantine Empire may have incited the Rus' against the Khazars, who fell out with the Byzantines after the persecutions of the Jews in the reign of Romanus I Lecapenus.

Sviatoslav began by rallying the East Slavic vassal tribes of the Khazars to his cause. Those who would not join him, such as the Vyatichs, were attacked and forced to pay tribute to the Kievan Rus' rather than to the Khazars. According to a legend recorded in the Primary Chronicle, Sviatoslav sent a message to the Vyatich rulers, consisting of a single phrase: "I want to come at you!" (Old East Slavic ) This phrase is used in modern Russian and Ukrainian (usually misquoted as ) to denote an unequivocal declaration of one's intentions. Proceeding by the Oka and Volga rivers, he attacked Volga Bulgaria. He employed Oghuz and Pecheneg mercenaries in this campaign, perhaps to counter the superior cavalry of the Khazars and Bulgars.

Sviatoslav destroyed the Khazar city of Sarkel around 965, possibly sacking (but not occupying) the Khazar city of Kerch on the Crimea as well. At Sarkel he established a Rus' settlement called Belaya Vyezha ("the white tower" or "the white fortress", the East Slavic translation for "Sarkel"). He subsequently destroyed the Khazar capital of Atil. A visitor to Atil wrote soon after Sviatoslav's campaign: "The Rus' attacked, and no grape or raisin remained, not a leaf on a branch." The exact chronology of his Khazar campaign is uncertain and disputed; for example, Mikhail Artamonov and David Christian proposed that the sack of Sarkel came after the destruction of Atil.

Although Ibn Haukal reports the sack of Samandar by Sviatoslav, the Rus' leader did not bother to occupy the Khazar heartlands north of the Caucasus Mountains permanently. On his way back to Kiev, Sviatoslav chose to strike against the Ossetians and force them into subservience. Therefore, Khazar successor statelets continued their precarious existence in the region. The destruction of Khazar imperial power paved the way for Kievan Rus' to dominate north–south trade routes through the steppe and across the Black Sea, routes that formerly had been a major source of revenue for the Khazars. Moreover, Sviatoslav's campaigns led to increased Slavic settlement in the region of the Saltovo-Mayaki culture, greatly changing the demographics and culture of the transitional area between the forest and the steppe.

Campaigns in the Balkans
The annihilation of Khazaria was undertaken against the background of the Rus'-Byzantine alliance, concluded in the wake of Igor's Byzantine campaign in 944. Close military ties between the Rus' and Byzantium are illustrated by the fact, reported by John Skylitzes, that a Rus' detachment accompanied Byzantine Emperor Nikephoros Phokas in his victorious naval expedition to Crete.

In 967 or 968, Nikephoros sent his agent, Kalokyros, to persuade Sviatoslav to assist the Byzantines in a war against Bulgaria. Sviatoslav was paid 15,000 pounds of gold and set sail with an army of 60,000 men, including thousands of Pecheneg mercenaries.

Sviatoslav defeated the Bulgarian ruler Boris II and proceeded to occupy the whole of northern Bulgaria. Meanwhile, the Byzantines bribed the Pechenegs to attack and besiege Kiev, where Olga stayed with Sviatoslav's son Vladimir. The siege was relieved by the druzhina of Pretich, and immediately following the Pecheneg retreat, Olga sent a reproachful letter to Sviatoslav. He promptly returned and defeated the Pechenegs, who continued to threaten Kiev.

Sviatoslav refused to turn his Balkan conquests over to the Byzantines, and the parties fell out as a result. To the chagrin of his boyars and his mother (who died within three days after learning about his decision), Sviatoslav decided to move his capital to Pereyaslavets in the mouth of the Danube due to the great potential of that location as a commercial hub. In the Primary Chronicle record for 969, Sviatoslav explains that it is to Pereyaslavets, the centre of his lands, "all the riches flow: gold, silks, wine, and various fruits from Greece, silver and horses from Hungary and Bohemia, and from Rus' furs, wax, honey, and slaves".

In summer 969, Sviatoslav left Rus' again, dividing his dominion into three parts, each under a nominal rule of one of his sons. At the head of an army that included Pecheneg and Magyar auxiliary troops, he invaded Bulgaria again, devastating Thrace, capturing the city of Philippopolis, and massacring its inhabitants. Nikephoros responded by repairing the defenses of Constantinople and raising new squadrons of armored cavalry. In the midst of his preparations, Nikephoros was overthrown and killed by John Tzimiskes, who thus became the new Byzantine emperor.

John Tzimiskes first attempted to persuade Sviatoslav to leave Bulgaria, but he was unsuccessful. Challenging Byzantine authority, Sviatoslav crossed the Danube and laid siege to Adrianople, causing panic in the streets of Constantinople in summer 970. Later that year, the Byzantines launched a counteroffensive. Being occupied with suppressing a revolt brought by Bardas Phokas in Asia Minor, John Tzimiskes sent his commander-in-chief, Bardas Skleros, who defeated the coalition of Rus', Pechenegs, Magyars, and Bulgarians in the Battle of Arcadiopolis. Meanwhile, John, having quelled the revolt of Bardas Phokas, came to the Balkans with a large army and promoting himself as the liberator of Bulgaria from Sviatoslav, penetrated the impracticable mountain passes and shortly thereafter captured Marcianopolis, where the Rus' were holding a number of Bulgar princes hostage.

Sviatoslav retreated to Dorostolon, which the Byzantine armies besieged for sixty-five days. Cut off and surrounded, Sviatoslav came to terms with John and agreed to abandon the Balkans, renounce his claims to the southern Crimea, and return west of the Dnieper River. In return, the Byzantine emperor supplied the Rus' with food and safe passage home. Sviatoslav and his men set sail and landed on Berezan Island at the mouth of the Dnieper, where they made camp for the winter. Several months later, according to the Primary Chronicle, their camp was devastated by famine, so that even a horse's head could not be bought for less than a half-grivna. While Sviatoslav's campaign brought no tangible results for the Rus', it weakened the Bulgarian state and left it vulnerable to the attacks of Basil the Bulgar-Slayer four decades later.

Death and aftermath
Fearing that the peace with Sviatoslav would not endure, the Byzantine emperor induced the Pecheneg khan Kurya to kill Sviatoslav before he reached Kiev. This was in line with the policy outlined by Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus in De Administrando Imperio of fomenting strife between the Rus' and the Pechenegs. According to the Slavic chronicle, Sveneld attempted to warn Sviatoslav to avoid the Dnieper rapids, but the prince slighted his wise advice and was ambushed and slain by the Pechenegs when he tried to cross the cataracts near Khortytsia early in 972. The Primary Chronicle reports that his skull was made into a chalice by the Pecheneg khan.

Following Sviatoslav's death, tensions among his sons grew. A war broke out between his legitimate sons, Oleg and Yaropolk, in 976, at the conclusion of which Oleg was killed. In 977, Vladimir fled abroad to escape Oleg's fate where he raised an army of Varangians and returned in 978. Yaropolk was killed, and Vladimir became the sole ruler of Kievan Rus'.

Art and literature
Sviatoslav has long been a hero of Belarusian, Russian, and Ukrainian patriots due to his great military successes. His figure first attracted attention of Russian artists and poets during the Russo-Turkish War (1768–1774), which provided obvious parallels with Sviatoslav's push towards Constantinople. Russia's southward expansion and the imperialistic ventures of Catherine II in the Balkans seemed to have been legitimized by Sviatoslav's campaigns eight centuries earlier.

Among the works created during the war was Yakov Knyazhnin's tragedy Olga (1772). The Russian playwright chose to introduce Sviatoslav as his protagonist, although his active participation in the events following Igor's death is out of sync with the traditional chronology. Knyazhnin's rival Nikolai Nikolev (1758–1815) also wrote a play on the subject of Sviatoslav's life. Ivan Akimov's painting Sviatoslav's Return from the Danube to Kiev (1773) explores the conflict between military honour and family attachment. It is a vivid example of Poussinesque rendering of early medieval subject matter.

Interest in Sviatoslav's career increased in the 19th century. Klavdiy Lebedev depicted an episode of Sviatoslav's meeting with Emperor John in his well-known painting, while Eugene Lanceray sculpted an equestrian statue of Sviatoslav in the early 20th century. Sviatoslav appears in the 1913 poem of Velimir Khlebnikov Written before the war (#70. Написанное до войны) as an epitome of militant Slavdom:

Знаменитый сок Дуная, Наливая в глубь главы, Стану пить я, вспоминая Светлых клич: "Иду на вы!".

Pouring the famed juice of the Danube Into the depth of my head, I shall drink and remember The cry of the bright ones: "I come at you!"

Sviatoslav is the villain of the novel The Lost Kingdom, or the Passing of the Khazars, by Samuel Gordon, a fictionalised account of the destruction of Khazaria by the Rus'. The Slavic warrior figures in a more positive context in the story "Chernye Strely Vyaticha" by Vadim Viktorovich Kargalov; the story is included in his book Istoricheskie povesti.

In 2005, reports circulated that a village in the Belgorod region had erected a monument to Sviatoslav's victory over the Khazars by the Russian sculptor Vyacheslav Klykov. The reports described the 13-meter tall statue as depicting a Rus' cavalryman trampling a supine Khazar bearing a Star of David and Kolovrat. This created an outcry within the Jewish community of Russia. The controversy was further exacerbated by Klykov's connections with Pamyat and other anti-Semitic organizations, as well as by his involvement in the "letter of 500", a controversial appeal to the Prosecutor General to review all Jewish organizations in Russia for extremism. The Press Centre of the Belgorod Regional Administration responded by stating that a planned monument to Sviatoslav had not yet been constructed but would show "respect towards representatives of all nationalities and religions." When the statue was unveiled, the shield bore a twelve-pointed star.

Sviatoslav is the main character of the books Knyaz and The Hero, written by Russian writer Alexander Mazin. Sviatoslav plays a major role in the Soviet historical anthology film The Legend of Princess Olga, which tells the story of his mother, Olga. Sviatoslav appears in various segments, both as a child as an adult. The adult prince Sviatoslav is played by Les Serdyuk.

In November 2011, a Ukrainian fisherman found a one metre long sword in the waters of the Dnieper on Khortytsia, near where Sviatoslav is believed to have been killed in 972. The handle is made out of four different metals including gold and silver, and could possibly have belonged to Sviatoslav himself, but this is speculation—the sword could have belonged to any nobleman from that period.

title: Sviatoslav I