He returned in time to win the influence of the great see of Rheims on behalf of the child heir of Otto II., who died at the end of 983, and to take part in the diplomacy which ended in the transfer of the West Frankish crown to Hugh the duke of the Franks. When Arnulf, of the very Karling house which had been dispossessed, became archbishop, and tried to hand over Rheims to his kindred, Gerbert, the steadfast supporter of the "Capetians," was made his successor. The election was of more than doubtful legality, and the politics, papal and imperial, of the time still further complicated the question: it was only settled by the transference of Gerbert, on the nomination of his old pupil, Otto III., to the see of Ravenna, From 998 he remained in Italy till his death. [Sidenote: and in Italy.] In 999 he became pope, and then he gave himself, heart and soul, to forward the great schemes, missionary, reforming, imperial, which were indeed as much his own as those of the enthusiastic genius of the young emperor. The old offices of the "republic" were revived and harmonised, as in the East, with the Christian character of the imperial power. Pope and emperor worked hand in hand for the conversion of the barbarians: it is said that it was Silvester who gave the kingship to the Hungarian Duke Stephen, as a son of the Christian Empire and the holy see of the imperial city. In the unquiet days of his papacy he was yet able to set an example of wisdom, counsel, godliness, charity, which formed an epoch in the regeneration of the Roman episcopate. Zealous, loyal, inspired by an overpowering sense of duty, {202} Silvester II. in a short time fulfilled a long time and left a mark on the history of the Middle Ages such as was made by but few even of its greatest men. [Sidenote: Pope Silvester II.] At his death in 1003 the age of reform had started on its way; and his was the light which had directed its beginnings. Thus in the West the end of the period shows the Empire and the papacy of one mind, eager for a spiritual reform in the Church, for Christian and missionary ideals in the State, not careful to delimit the provinces of Church and State, but eager rather for unity of action as well as sentiment in the cause of Christian extension and endeavour. [Sidenote: The end of the Dark Age.]