Symbolic gestures of Otto III and their timeless message

Before Easter in the year of our Lord 1000, which fell on March 31, God's people throughout Europe lived in deep fear. Repentant lords looked more kindly upon the peasants, and frightened peasants and plebs shared their possessions more generously with the beggars and wandering beggars. Everyone tried to cleanse their souls before the Lord's Day, which was to come 1000 years after the birth of the Savior.