“We have chosen our teacher, Lord Sylvester, as Pope, and ordained and created him by the grace of God.” The Emperor Otto III wrote these words in the year 1001 in a document for Pope Sylvester II, the famous Gerbert von Aurillac. It is not known that Gerbert protested against this remarkable formulation, and he accepted harsh words of reproof, also contained in this document, for the “carelessness and ignorance” of his predecessors. The latest of these predecessors on the chair of St. Peter had been Gregory V, a cousin of the emperor; and it had already become clear in his day what conclusions Otto drew from his views. When a Spanish bishop was to be removed, the emperor headed the synod which handled the matter together with the pope, and signed the document that Gregory released on this occasion. He ruled the church together with the popes, or through the popes, and was not the only one to do this.