Ulric Manfred, born in Turin, was the son of Manfred I, from whom he has inherited a vast march centered on Turin (1000), which had been created from the lands of Arduin Glaber.

By a charter dated July 31, 1001, the Emperor Otto III confirms his possessions and grants him several privileges.

This grant is requested by Hugonis marchionis, probably Hugh the Great, margrave of Tuscany.

Otto III, after summoning his army in late 1001, had headed south to Rome to ensure his rule over the city.

During the travel south, however, the emperor suffers a sudden and severe fever.

Shortly before the Bavarian troops arrive at Otto’s headquarters near Viterbo, the emperor dies in a castle near Civita Castellana on January 24, 1002.

He is twenty-one years old and had reigned as an independent ruler for just under six years, having nominally reigned for nearly nineteen years.

The princess Zoe, second daughter of Emperor Constantine VIII, had just disembarked in Puglia on her way to marry him.

Otto III's death has been attributed to various causes.

Medieval sources speak of malaria, which he had caught in the unhealthy marshes that surrounded Ravenna.

Following his death, the Roman people suggest that Stefania, the widow of Crescentius II, had made Otto III fall in love with her and then poisoned him.

The Emperor's body is carried back to Germany by his soldiers, as his route is lined with Italians who hurled abuses at his remains.

He will be buried in Aachen Cathedral alongside the body of Charlemagne.

Without an Emperor on the throne, Italy begins to break away from German control.

The Lombard Margrave of Ivrea Arduin, an opponent of the Ottonian dynasty, is on February 15, 1002, elected King of Italy in Pavia.

Arduin had succeeded to the northern Italian Margravate of Ivrea in 990 on dubious grounds and been excommunicated for the murder of the Bishop of Vercelli in 997.

Although opposed by Italian bishops, he gains the support of the lay nobles and is "elected by the Lombards in Pavia and is called 'caesar' by all", according to the chronicler Arnulf of Milan.

He makes the rounds of the kingdom with the Archbishop of Milan publicly at his side, while Henry II is acclaimed King of the Germans.

The territorial magnates profess to favor him but secretly favor Henry, according to Arnulf, and his enemies in the church side with the new emperor.

Henry sends Otto of Worms, newly restored as Duke of Carinthia and now made count of Verona, to face Arduin, who is successful in the pitched battle of Fabrica: "he slaughtered many and put the rest to flight outside the boundaries of the kingdom".

Ulric Manfred, immediately upon his succession, had begun to consolidate his power vis-à-vis Arduin of the March of Ivrea on one hand and the Holy Roman Emperor Henry II on the other.

Henry II, responding to calls for aid from Italian bishops, leads an invasion into Italy against Arduin in 1004, gathering his troops at Augsburg and marching through the Brenner Pass to Trento in Italy.

After initial military successes, much of the Italian clergy and some noble families swear allegiance to Henry II, including Arbishop Arnulf II of Milan.

Archbishop Arnulf, joining Henry II in Bergamo, crowns him as King of Italy on May 14, 1004, in Pavia.

Unlike his predecessors, Henry II will wear two crowns (one for Germany and one for Italy) from this date instead of a common crown for both realms.

The following night, the inhabitants of Pavia revolt against the rule of Henry II, who II order his troops to massacre the population in response.

The city is nearly destroyed.

After receiving the homage of the remaining Italian nobles, Henry II returns to Germany in the early summer of 1004 without first traveling to Rome to claim the Imperial crown.

This is most likely due to opposition from Pope John XVIII.

Henry II will not return to Italy for a decade, leaving the kingdom to govern itself.

Henry II returns to Germany to take military action against the rebellious Duke Boleslaw I of Poland.

This frees Arduin to attack the bishops who had backed the German invaders.

Pope John XVIII has occupied his time with details of ecclesiastical administration, authorizing a new see at Bamberg to serve as a base for missionary activity among the Slavs, a concern of Henry II's, and adjudicating a squabble between the abbot of Fleury and the bishops of Sens and Orléans.

During his whole pontificate he has allegedly been subordinate to the Crescentii clan leader who controls Rome.

The period is disturbed by the conflicts between the Ottonian Emperor and Arduin of Ivrea, who has styled himself King of Italy.

Rome is wracked with bouts of plague, and Saracens operating freely out of Sardinia ravage the Tyrrhenian coasts.

Ultimately he abdicates and, according to one catalog of Popes, retires to a monastery, where he dies shortly afterwards.

His successor, Pietro Boccapecora, the son of a shoemaker, had risen quickly through the church ranks to become Bishop of Albano in 1004; he assumes the regnal name of Sergius IV.

Henry II, King of Germany from 1003, is called to Italy by the clergy for another campaign in 1013, against Arduin of Ivrea, who has having risen in revolt again.

The son of Dado, Count of Pombia, Arduin had succeeded to the northern Italian Margraviate of Ivrea in 990 on dubious grounds, and had been excommunicated for the murder of the Bishop of Vercelli in 997.

He had been made King of Italy after the death of Otto III in 1002, while in Germany Henry II had been acclaimed king.

Arduin seizes Vercelli (west of Milan) and …

…lays siege to Novara and …