Otto's own life and court were on a far loftier plane than was true of Charles, yet Charles was both the greater warrior and the greater statesman. The Roman Empire of Charles after one hundred and fifty years was revised as the Holy Roman Empire of Otto. The latter was substantially as well as technically the continuation of the former. Otto I., before making his journey to Rome in 961, had his son Otto II. crowned King of Germany at Aachen.[401:1] Six years later (967) he was coronated at Rome as Emperor. He was educated by Ekkehard of St. Gall, the court chaplain, in literature, history, and science, and by Count Huodo in knightly accomplishments. For the age his moral character was exceptionally high and he possessed refined, scholarly tastes. In 971 he married Theophano, a royal princess of the Eastern Empire.[401:2] When Otto I. died in 973 in the Saxon monastery at Memleben, Otto II., at the age of eighteen, became sole king and Emperor for ten years. Otto II. continued his father's domestic policy of breaking down the power of the German dukes. In foreign affairs he subdued the rebellious Danes (974), held the Bohemians in check, invaded France and took Lorraine (978), subjected Poland to German rule (979), and attempted to drive the Greeks and Saracens out of southern Italy; but his early death prevented the fulfilling of his threat to reunite Sicily with the Empire. His papal policy was a continuation of that of his father. When the papal usurper Boniface VII. imprisoned and strangled Pope John XIII. and then fled with the Church treasures to Constantinople (974), young Otto set Benedict VII. on the chair of St. Peter and assured him a quiet reign for nine years. Upon the Pope's death (983) the youthful Emperor elevated the Bishop of Pavia to the papal throne as John XIV. When Otto II. died at the premature age of twenty-eight in Verona after "a short and troubled reign,"[402:1] Boniface VII. returned from the East to Rome, murdered the Pope, and reassumed the papal tiara unresisted. The usurper died in eleven months, however, and then the cowardly Romans avenged themselves on his dead body.[402:2] Otto II. left behind him a son of three and a very active widow. The young heir to the honours and burdens of the German crown and to the imperial throne likewise had his mind filled with the glorious history of Greece and the Eastern Empire by his Grecian mother. John the Greek inspired within him a love for the classics. Bernard, a German monk, gave him a monastic education which showed itself during the remainder of his life. Gerbert, a Clugniac monk, the greatest scholar of his day, taught him history, literature, rhetoric, and science, and fired him with a holy, ascetic zeal to become a great, just Christian Emperor.