The Undeservedly Obscure Dead

Empress Theophanu (Θεοφανώ--"Likeness of God" if my Greek doesn't fail me). Wife of Otto II, Holy Roman Emperor and neice of Emperor John I Tzimisces, Byzantine Emperor. Born in 960 and died in 991. After her husband died in 983, she ruled as Empress Regent until her death, when her mother in law Adelaide of Italy took over (Theophanu's son, Otto III, was still too young to rule).

Otto I wanted a Byzantine princess for his son, the Emperor to be. All three Ottos were of the Saxonian dynasty, the first non-Frankish Emperors of the Holy Roman Empire. The Franks by now had France to themselves leaving Germany and Central Europe and Lombardy to make up the rest of the Empire on their own. Otto II successfully brought Bohemia and Poland under the HRE's sway. The HRE of course was emphatically not the successor to the Roman Empire. The Byzantine Empire, though, was. And the HRE knew it.

Otto was trying to tie the HRE to the real Roman Empire (which was, at the time, still a powerful ally to have--it wouldn't hurt having some sort of claim on the throne in Constantinople too, which is why John I sent a neice, not a daughter). See the Roman Empire didn't fall in the 5th Century, just the Latin West, but the Greek East staid around until the Ottoman Turks conquered Constantinople in 1453. Better infrastructure, better armies, and more sustainable agriculture made the East strong enough to fend off the Goths and Vandals, who descendent on Gaul and Italy. The Byzantines didn't call themselves the "Byzantine Empire", they called themselves Βασιλεία Ρωμαίων (Basileia Romaion), Roman Empire, because they were. And they were civilized.

Which all brings me to the point of naming Theophanu the newest Undeservedly Obscure Dead Person. See, she reintriduced the fork to the West. More importantly, she was ridiculed when she showed up at Otto's court and did things like bathe everyday, eat with a fork, and read. Nobody else (well, some of the clergy) did those things. The Eastern Roman Empire still did, and kept it alive. When Venetian and Genoese traders started bringing Arabic manuscripts of the classics back to the West and sparking the Renassiance, where do you think the Arabs got them? From Byzantine lands conquered by the Muslim Caliphate as the Roman Empire began it's final decline in the East after the reign of Basil II and the Commenian Emperors.
This is an object lesson in Western douchebaggery.

When Otto II welcomed his bride he was King of Germany, Prince of Saxons and Heir to the Throne of the Holy Roman Empire. But he couldn't read, he didn't wash himself, at all, and had never in his life used a utensil to eat his meat. The west were so many barbarians, the empire centered at Constantinople ruled over Greeks, Slavs, Arabs, North Africa, and Sicily; the Holy Roman Empire was a political compromise with nothing but some feudal arrangments holding warring principalities together sort of. The Carolingians (and the Saxonians, like Otto) wanted the imprimatur of Rome, so the Popes gave them the Holy Roman part and the Germans gave them the Empire (allowing Popes to crown the emporers and lending military support to the Papal Territories), though the two would have their fair share on conflicts over the centuries.

The prejudice lives down the centuries, so that even now we say that because the West fell to barbarians, they are the successors of Rome, we don't pay attention to the fact that the Empire lived on in today's Turkey. That might make those people civilized. But thankfully we had Constaninople and we had Theophanu, to civilize us descendants of barbarians. So we salute you, Theophanu, and we thank you for the literacy I used to write this, the shower I took this morning, and the fork I used on my salad tonight.