Tales of trickery and deceit: the election of Frederick Barbarossa (1152), historical memory and the culture of kingship in later Staufen Germany

¹ Abbreviations used in this paper: MGH: Monumenta Germaniae Historica; sep. ed.: SRG in usum scholarum separatim editi; SRG: Scriptores Rerum Germanicarum; SS: Scriptores [in folio].

 P.M. Holt, trans., The Memoirs of a Syrian Prince. Abu'l-Fidā, Sultan of Hamāh (672–732/1273–1331), Freiburger Islamstudien 9 (Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1983), 5–10.

² On the context of this mission, see Peter Thorau, The Lion of Egypt. Sultan Baybars I and the Near East in the Thirteenth Century, trans. P.M. Holt (Harlow: Longman, 1992), 120, 123. On Ibn Wāṣil, see Konrad Hirschler, ‘Social Contexts of Medieval Arabic Historical Writing: Court Scholars Versus Ideal/Withdrawn Scholars – Ibn Wāṣil and ‘AbÅ« Šāma’, in Egypt and Syria in the Fatimid, Ayyubid and Mamluk Eras, IV: Proceedings of the 9th and 10th International Colloquium Organized at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in May 2000 and May 2001, ed. Urbain Vermeulen and Jo Van Steenbergen, Orientalia Lovaniensia analecta 140 (Leuven: Peeters, 2005), 311–33.

³ Holt, trans., Memoirs of a Syrian Prince, 31–2. I am grateful to Angus Stewart for this reference.

⁴ A note on terminology: ‘trickster’ should not be understood in the modern colloquial sense of ‘deceiver’, but as encompassing a rather wider semantic field (commonly used in literary and folklore studies), perhaps more cumbersomely described as combining mastery of the artful ruse, a willingness and ability to exploit the credulous and the greedy, and a sometimes playful bending and breaking of rules (though playfulness does not rule out the possibility of serious harm). Consequently, the term has wider, frequently more positive, connotations than those conveyed by ‘deception’ or ‘deceiver’. For useful case studies, see Stelio Cro, ‘The Masks of the Trickster: a New Hero(ine) for a New Age’, Canadian Journal of Italian Studies 16 (1993): 1–31; Marcel Meulder, ‘David de Sassoun: un trickster dans une épopée indo-européenne’, Ollodagos 5 (1993): 273–81; Frederic Armory, ‘Three Profiles of the Trickster’, Arv: Scandinavian Yearbook of Folklore 44 (1989): 7–25; Paul Radin, The Trickster: a Study in American Indian Mythology (New York: Schocken, 1956); Richard Hillman, Shakespearean Subversions: the Trickster and the Play-Text (London: Routledge, 1992).

⁵ Hans L. Gottschalk, ‘Der Untergang der Hohenstaufen’, Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes 53 (1957): 267–82 (278–81).

⁶ Though Gabrieli did quote extensively from Ibn Wāṣil's memoirs: F. Gabrieli, Storici arabi delle Crociate (Turin: E. Einaudi, 1963), 265–9, 271–6. While the episode was not primarily concerned with crusading, Ibn Wāṣil contextualised the encounter with a glowing account of the Muslim colony at Lucera, and would thus have met Gabrieli's remit.

⁷ Ulrich Schmidt, Königswahl und Thronfolge im 12. Jahrhundert (Cologne: Böhlau, 1987), 127.

⁸ Schmidt, Königswahl, 128: Ê»legendenhaft und verworrenʼ.

⁹ Schmidt, Königswahl, 128, n. 26, citing Robert Holtzmann, ‘Die Wahl Friedrichs I. zum deutschen König’, Historische Vierteljahrschrift 1 (1898): 188–93 (191): a ‘Rattenkönig von Verwechslungen und Unmöglichkeiten’.

¹⁰ Stefanie Dick, ‘Die Königserhebung Friedrich Barbarossas im Spiegel der Quellen – Kritische Anmerkungen zu den “Gesta Friderici” Ottos von Freising’, Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte (Germanistische Abteilung) 121 (2004): 200–37 (236–7). I am grateful to Thomas Zotz for alerting me to this article.

¹¹ With the important exception of Knut Görich, Friedrich Barbarossa. Eine Biographie (Munich: C.H. Beck, 2011), 104–5.

¹² Léon Vanderkindere, ed., La chronique de Gislebert de Mons, Commission royale d'histoire, Receuil de textes pour servir a l'étude de l'histoire de Belgique (Brussels: Kiessling, P. Imbreghts, successeur, 1904), 92–4; translation: Gilbert of Mons, Chronicle of Hainaut, trans. Laura Napran (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2005), 54–5.

¹³ There have also been highly elaborate attempts to suggest a kernel of historical truth in Gislebert's account: Odilo Engels, ‘Beiträge zur Geschichte der Staufer im 12. Jahrhundert’, in idem, Stauferstudien. Beiträge zur Geschichte der Staufer im 12. Jahrhundert. 2nd edn. (Sigmaringen: Thorbecke, 1996), 32–115 (59), originally published in Deutsches Archiv für Erforschung des Mittelalters 27 (1971): 373–456.

¹⁴ G. Waitz, ed., Chronicon rhythmicum Austriacum, MGH SS 25 (Hanover: MGH, 1888), 350–1. See also Georg Möser-Mersky, ‘Das österreichische “Chronicon Rhythmicum”’, Mitteilungen des Instituts für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung 73 (1965): 17–38.

¹⁵ At best, it may have echoed concepts of legitimation circulating at the Staufen court: success was a token of suitability. This was combined with an emphasis on imperial valour, strength and good fortune: Heinz Krieg, Herrscherdarstellung in der Stauferzeit. Friedrich Barbarossa im Spiegel seiner Urkunden und der staufischen Geschichtsschreibung (Ostfildern: Thorbecke, 2003), 57–69, 85–96, 304–7, 309–16.

¹⁶ Vanderkindere, ed., Chronique de Gislebert, 8, 85; Gislebert, Chronicle, trans. Napran, 6–7, 49–50.

¹⁷ Vanderkindere, ed., Chronique de Gislebert, 95–6; Gislebert, Chronicle, trans. Napran, 55.

¹⁸ See also, for similar datings: Vanderkindere, ed., Chronique de Gislebert, 86, 88, 91; Gislebert, Chronicle, trans. Napran, 50, 51, 53.

¹⁹ His account of the Alexandrine schism apart, Giselbert's attitude towards Frederick remained positive: Vanderkindere, ed., Chronique de Gislebert, 125–6; Gislebert, Chronicle, trans. Napran, 71–2. He had, after all, been instrumental in the count's efforts to reclaim the county of Namur: Vanderkindere, ed., Chronique de Gislebert, 150–2, 195–6, 197–9, 201–3, 207–9, 226–30; Gislebert, Chronicle, trans. Napran, 84–5, 107, 108–9, 110–11, 113–15, 123–5. It also seems that Gislebert only reported events relating to Barbarossa when he had eye-witnesses from Hainaut to call upon, as in the case of the 1184 Mainz diet (perhaps one of the most famous gatherings of the central Middle Ages): Vanderkindere, ed., Chronique de Gislebert, 153–63; Gislebert, Chronicle, trans. Napran, 86–90; Gerhard Lubich, ‘Das Kaiserliche, das Höfische und der Konsens auf dem Mainzer Hoffest (1184). Konstruktion, Inszenierung und Darstellung gesellschaftlichen Zusammenhalts am Ende des 12. Jahrhunderts’, in Staufisches Kaisertum im 12. Jahrhundert. Konzepte – Netzwerke – Politische Praxis, ed. Stefan Burkhardt and others (Regensburg: Schnell und Steiner, 2010), 277–93; Peter Moraw, ‘Die Hoffeste Kaiser Friedrich Barbarossas von 1184 und 1188’, in Das Fest. Eine Kulturgeschichte von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, ed. Ulrich Schultz (Munich: C.H. Beck, 1988), 70–91; Josef Fleckenstein, ‘Friedrich Barbarossa und das Rittertum. Zur Bedeutung der Mainzer Hoftage von 1184 und 1188’, in Festschrift Hermann Heimpel zum 70. Geburtstag, vol. 2 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1972), 1023–41; Michael Lindner, ‘Fest und Herrschaft unter Kaiser Friedrich Barbarossa’, in Kaiser Friedrich Barbarossa. Landesausbau – Aspekte seienr Politik – Wirkung, ed. Evamaria Engel and Bernhard Töpfer (Weimar: Hermann Böhlaus Nachfolger, 1994), 151–79. Even then, events were presented from a distinctly local perspective: the note of Frederick's death, for instance, merely headed a long list of nobles from Flanders and Hainaut who also died during the Third Crusade.

²⁰ Gislebert, Chronicle, trans. Napran, xxviii–xxix.

²¹ Waitz, ed., Chronicon rhythmicum Austriacum, 549.

²² Vanderkindere did not discuss borrowings from or the reception of Gislebert in later texts.

²³ Neither Gislebert nor the author of the Chronicon had much to say about matters eastern: the Chronicon mentioned the captivity of Richard the Lionheart, that of Louis IX and the Mongol invasions, but little else. Gislebert offered a condensed history of the Second Crusade (Vanderkindere, ed., Chronique de Gislebert, 37–45; Gislebert, Chronicle, trans. Napran, 22–30), mentioned the fall of Jerusalem in 1187 and the taking of the Cross (Vanderkindere, ed., Chronique de Gislebert, 199–204; Gislebert, Chronicle, trans. Napran, 109–13), as well as the exploits in Outremer and subsequent captivity of Richard Lionheart (Vanderkindere, ed., Chronique de Gislebert, 247–8, 270–1, 284–5; Gislebert, Chronicle, trans. Napran, 135–6, 149, 156). In all these, however, the narrative focus remained resolutely western: Saladin, for instance, was never mentioned. Similarly, while Frederick II's crusade influenced the politics surrounding the succession to Hamāh, there is no record of any direct link between the emperor and its rulers: Donald S. Richards, ‘The Crusade of Frederick II and the Hamah Succession: Extracts from the Chronicle of Ibn Abi al-Damm’, Bulletin d'Études Orientales 45 (1993): 183–200. In short, there is no evidence pointing to lines of patronage or exchange that would connect these accounts to Outremer or the Holy Land.

²⁴ Nor does there seem to me much of a parallel in vernacular literature. Searches of various motif-indices yielded no results (I am grateful to Chris Young for his help in this matter).

²⁵ Schmidt, Königswahl, 44–52.

²⁶ Schmidt, Königswahl, 60–2. On Conrad's kingship, see also Wolfgang Giese, ‘Das Gegenkönigtum Konrads III. 1127–1135’, Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte (Germanistische Abteilung) 95 (1978): 202–20.

²⁷ Orderic Vitalis, The Ecclesiastical History of Orderic Vitalis. Vol. 6, Books 11, 12 and 13, ed. and trans. Marjorie Chibnall (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978), 360–5.

²⁸ G.H. Pertz, ed., Narratio de electione Lotharii, MGH SRG 12 (Hanover: MGH, 1856), 510–11. See also Ulrich Nonn, ‘Geblütsrecht, Wahlrecht, Königswahl: die Wahl Lothars von Supplinburg 1125’, Geschichte in Wissenschaft und Unterricht 44 (1993): 146–57.

²⁹ Björn Weiler, ‘The Rex renitens and the Medieval Ideal of Kingship, c.900–c.1250’, Viator 31 (2000): 1–42.

³⁰ G.H. Pertz, ed., Annales Stadenses, MGH SRG 16 (Hanover: MGH, 1859), 322.

³¹ For the background: Ferdinand Opll, Friedrich Barbarossa (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1990) 201–24; Johannes Laudage, Alexander III. und Friedrich Barbarossa (Cologne: Böhlau, 1997), passim; Görich, Friedrich Barbarossa, 319–20, 393–440.

³² F. Barlow, ed., The Letters of Arnulf of Lisieux, Camden, 3rd series 61 (London: Royal Historical Society, 1939), nos. 28–9. See also the account by Boso in his history of the twelfth-century popes: L. Duchesne, ed., Le Liber pontificalis, vol. 2 (Paris: E. Thurin, 1892), 397–9. An English translation is available in G.M. Ellis, trans., Boso's Life of Pope Alexander III (Oxford: Blackwell, 1973), 43–5.

³³ Another possible source may have been the election of 1138, though narrative traditions remain quite distinct. When Lothar III died in December 1137, he left no male heir. The resulting election involved an unprecedented degree of trickery (Schmidt, Königswahl, 77–85), the most detailed account of which can be found in Otto of Freising's Chronica, written in the 1140s: the princes agreed to hold an assembly to elect a king at Mainz at Pentecost (22 May) 1138. However, a group of electors, afraid that Duke Henry, Lothar III's son-in-law, the most powerful among them, would prevail, called a meeting to Koblenz instead a few months earlier, where they chose Conrad, brother of the duke of Swabia and erstwhile anti-king to Lothar III. They then brought Conrad to Aachen, where he was crowned on 7 March (Otto of Freising and Rahewin, Gesta Friderici I imperatoris, ed. Georg Waitz and Bernhard von Simson, MGH SRG sep. ed. 46, 3rd edn. [Hanover and Leipzig: MGH, 1912], 343–4). For further sources, see Walter Böhme, ed., Die deutsche Königserhebung im 10.–12. Jahrhundert. 2 vols. (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1970), 2: nos. 47–73.

³⁴ The motif reflects political realities: assemblies were contentious affairs, but they also were a means of displaying wealth and power. The size of one's entourage, in turn, was a means both of securing the ability to influence the outcome of an assembly and to display secular might and worldly standing. See Timothy Reuter, ‘Assembly Politics in Western Europe from the Eighth Century to the Twelfth’, in idem, Medieval Polities and Modern Mentalities, ed. Janet L. Nelson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 193–216, originally published in Peter Linehan and Janet Nelson, eds., The Medieval World (London: Routledge, 2001), 432–50; J.R. Maddicott, The Origins of the English Parliament 924–1327 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 18–41, 67–97.

³⁵ This may reflect later developments – Innocent III's involvement in the double election of 1198, the deposition of Frederick II by Innocent IV at the council of Lyons in 1245 and the subsequent appointment of Henry Raspe and Richard of Cornwall as anti-kings, or the dispute after 1257 between Alfonso X of Castile and Richard of Cornwall as to who should be crowned emperor. See Jane E. Sayers, Innocent III. Leader of Europe, 1198–1216 (Harlow: Longman, 1994), 82–7; Edward Peters, The Shadow King. Rex inutilis in Medieval Law and Literature, 751–1327 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1970), 135–69; Björn Weiler, ‘Image and Reality in Richard of Cornwall's German Career’, English Historical Review 113 (1998): 1111–42 (1115–21).

³⁶ Görich, Friedrich Barbarossa, 105.

³⁷ Schmidt, Königswahl, passim; Bernd Kannowski, ‘The Impact of Lineage and Family Connections on Succession in Medieval Germany's Elective Kingdom’, in Making and Breaking the Rules: Succession in Medieval Europe, c.1000 – c.1600. Établir et abolir les norms: la succession dans l'Europe médiévale, vers 1000 – vers 1600, ed. Frédérique Lachaud and Michael Penman (Turnhout: Brepols, 2008), 13–22; Björn Weiler, ‘Suitability and Right: Imperial Succession and the Norms of Politics in Early Staufen Germany’, in Making and Breaking the Rules, ed. Lachaud and Penman, 71–86.

³⁸ Schmidt, Königswahl, 77–85.

³⁹ Heinrich Appelt and others, eds., Diplomata Friderici I, MGH Diplomata 4, Diplomata regum et imperatorum Germaniae, 10. 5 vols. (Hanover: Hahn, 1975–90), 1: no. 2.

⁴⁰ Otto of Freising and Rahewin, Gesta Frederici seu rectius Cronica, ed. Franz-Josef Schmale, trans. Adolf Schmidt (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft) 1965), 284–7, ii. 2. On Frederick, Görich, Friedrich Barbarossa, 95–7, 137–41; Jan Paul Niederkorn, ‘Friedrich von Rothenburg und die Königswahl von 1152’, in Von Schwaben bis Jerusalem. Facetten staufischer Geschichte, ed. Sönke Lorenz and Ulrich Schmidt (Sigmaringen: Thorbecke, 1995), 51–60; Gerd Althoff, ‘Friedrich von Rothenburg. Ãœberlegungen zu einem übergegangenen Königssohn’, in Festschrift für Eduard Hlawitschka zum 65. Geburtstag, ed. Karl Schnith and Roland Pauler (Kallmünz Opf: Lassleben, 1993), 307–16; Thomas Zotz, ‘Friedrich Barbarossa und Herzog Friedrich (IV.) von Schwaben. Staufisches Königtum und schwäbisches Herzogtum um die Mitte des 12. Jahrhunderts’, in Mediaevalia Augiensia. Forschungen zur Geschichte des Mittelalters, ed. Jürgen Petersohn (Stuttgart: Thorbecke, 2001), 285–306.

⁴¹ G. Waitz, ed., Chronica regia Coloniensis, MGH SRG sep. ed. 18 (Hanover: MGH, 1880), 88–9. See also the sources assembled in Böhme, ed., Die deutsche Königserhebung, 2: nos. 79–111.

⁴² Althoff, ‘Friedrich von Rothenburg’, 307; Zotz, ‘Friedrich Barbarossa und Herzog Friedrich (IV.)’, 285–7.

⁴³ See, for instance, Franz-Reiner Erkens, ‘“… more Grecorum conregnantem instituere vultis?” Zur Legitimation der Regentschaft Heinrichs des Zänkers im Thronstreit von 984’, Frühmittelalterliche Studien 27 (1993): 273–89; Theo Kölzer, ‘Das Königtum Minderjähriger im fränkisch-deutschen Mittelalter. Eine Skizze’, Historische Zeitschrift 251 (1990): 291–323.

⁴⁴ Paul of Bernried, ‘Vita Gregorii VII’, in Pontificum Romanorum qui fuerunt inde ab exeunte saeculo IX usque ad finem saeculi XIII vitae: ab aequalibus consriptae, quas ex Archivi Pontificii, Bibliothecae Vaticanae aliarumque codicibus adiectis suis cuique et annalibus et documentis gravioribus, ed. Johann M. Watterich. 2 vols. (Leipzig: Wilhelm Engelmann, 1862), 1: 529–32.

⁴⁵ Görich, Friedrich Barbarossa, 95–7.

⁴⁶ Werner Goez, ‘Von Bamberg nach Frankfurt und Aachen. Barbarossas Weg zur Königskrone’, Jahrbuch für fränkische Landesforschung 52 (1992): 61–72.

⁴⁷ Dick, ‘Die Königserhebung’, 210–19.

⁴⁸ G.H. Pertz, ed., Hugonis et Honorii Continuationes Weingartenses, MGH SS 21 (Hanover: MGH, 1869), 474.

⁴⁹ Another example of this kind of rather short text is provided by the Chronicon Saxonum ampliata, which took events up to the 1270s, but drew on earlier sources. It offered a genealogy of Saxon dukes, interspersed with short accounts of successive kings. Among these was a short note that Barbarossa had disinherited his cousin Henry. G. Waitz, ed., Chronicon Saxonum ampliata, MGH SS 25 (Hanover: MGH, 1880), 474 (though the Chronicon goes on to report that Henry VI's wife Constance of Sicily was 60 by the time they married, and 71 when she gave birth to Frederick II).

⁵⁰ John Kinnamos, Deeds of John and Manuel Comnenus, trans. Charles M. Brand (New York: Columbia University Press, 1976), 72–3. On Kinnamos, see Sergios P. Laitsos, ‘Zum Bild der Deutschen im Geschichtswerk des Ioannes Kinnamos zur Zeit des Zweiten Kreuzzugs’, in Roma, magistra mundi. Itineraria culturae medievalis. Mélanges offerts au Père L.E. Boyle à l'occasion de son 75e anniversaire, ed. Jacqueline Hamesse. 3 vols. (Louvain-La-Neuve: Fédération Internationale des Instituts d'Études Médiévales, 1998), 3: 215–26.

⁵¹ Though a number of texts, while critical of Barbarossa, also remained fairly elliptical: G.H. Pertz, ed., Auctarium Vindobonense, MGH SS 9 (Hanover: MGH, 1851), 723 (‘Fridericus de Stouf per astuciam et magnam violenciam ad electionem imperii Romani apud Magunciam pervenit’); Gervase of Tilbury, Otia imperialia. Recreation for an Emperor, ed. and trans. S.E. Banks and J.W. Binns (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 458–9: Barbarossa succeeded Conrad, ‘his succession secured more by his own efforts than by the election of the Germans’ (‘plus ad hoc operante strenuitate sua quam electione Teutonicorum’).

⁵² G. Waitz, ed., Chronicon Sancti Clementis Mettense, MGH SS 24 (Hanover: MGH, 1879), 501.

⁵³ G. Waitz, ed., Balduini Ninovensis Chronicon, MGH SS 25 (Hanover: MGH, 1880), 533: ‘“Gratias”, inquit, “vobis, quod in electione concordastis, tamen si alium elegissetis, me socium haberet, si duos, tertius essem, si sex, septimus.” Quod licet arroganter dixisse videatur, tamen modeste et civiliter tractavit imperium.’

⁵⁴ G. Waitz, ed., Chronicon universale anonymi Laudunensis, MGH SS 26 (Hanover: MGH, 1882), 443–4 : ‘… accepta corona imperiali, quam maior pars principum nepoti suo Henrico duci Saxonum dare ordinaverat, proprio capiti inposuit, dicens, se magis idoneum esse quam omnes alii. Sicque seipsum elegit et nepotem suum ducem Saxonum corona frustravit.’

⁵⁵ Waitz, ed., Chronicon universale anonymi Laudunensis, 444–51.

⁵⁶ G.H. Pertz, ed., Gesta episcoporum Halberstadensium, MGH SS 23 (Hanover: MGH, 1874), 107.

⁵⁷ Edward Schröder, ed., Die Kaiserchronik eines Regensburger Geistlichen und ihre Fortsetzungen, MGH Deutsche Chroniken 1 (Hanover: MGH, 1895), 397.

⁵⁸ Edward Schröder, ed., Kaiserchronik, 397–8.

⁵⁹ G.H. Pertz, ed., Chronicon Albrici monachi Trium Fontium, MGH SS 23 (Hanover: MGH, 1874), 841.

⁶⁰ Pertz, ed., Chronicon Albrici, 844. There is little indication that Alberic held a particularly hostile view of Frederick: he does not, for instance, blame the Alexandrine schism on Barbarossa. See, however, Pertz, ed., Chronicon Albrici, 848, when the emperor is trying to find a new anti-pope. Alberic could be much more explicit in condemning rulers: he reported rumours that Eustace, the son of King Stephen of England, had been beaten to death by St Edmund because he had depopulated his lands – a not-so-veiled reference to the civil war in England over the succession to Henry I, that had pitched Stephen against his cousin, Henry's daughter Matilda (Pertz, ed., Chronicon Albrici, 842).

⁶¹ Waitz, ed., Chronicon Saxonum ampliata, 474. See, however, the Metz chronicle: while distinctly local in outlook and annalistic in structure, the most detailed coverage, short as it may be, was still given to Frederick Barbarossa: Waitz, ed., Chronicon Sancti Clementi Mettense, 502. See also the Chronica regia Coloniensis: Norbert Breuer, Geschichtsbild und politische Vorstellungswelt in der Kölner Königschronik sowie der ‘Chronica S. Pantaleonis’ (Düsseldorf-Gerresheim: Aug. Tönges, 1966), 82–5.

⁶² Oswald Holder-Egger and Bernhard von Simson, eds., Burchardi Praepositi Urspergensis Chronicon, MGH SRG sep. ed. 16 (Hanover and Leipzig: MGH, 1916), 20, 22; Matthias Becher, Freiherr-vom-Stein-Gedächtnisausgabe, ed., Quellen zur Geschichte der Welfen und die Chronik Burchards von Ursberg (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2007), 73–7.

⁶³ Philipp Jaffé, ed., Wibaldi Epistolae, in Monumenta Corbeiensia, Bibliotheca rerum Germanicarum, ed. Philipp Jaffé. 6 vols. (Berlin: Weidmann, 1864–73), 3: no. 410.

⁶⁴ German chroniclers did not dwell on the reasons for Conrad's bid, and simply stated that he had acted either with the support or at the behest of his brother. Schmidt, Königswahl, 61–2. On Frederick, see Hansmartin Schwarzmaier, ‘Pater imperatoris. Herzog Friedrich von Schwaben, der gescheiterte König’, in Mediaevalia Augiensia, ed. Petersohn, 247–84.

⁶⁵ Graham A. Loud, ‘Some Reflections on the Failure of the Second Crusade’, Crusades 4 (2005), 1–14 (4–5).

⁶⁶ Zotz, ‘Friedrich Barbarossa und Herzog Friedrich (IV.)’, 285–306.

⁶⁷ Holder-Egger and von Simson, eds., Burchardi … Chronicon, 20.

⁶⁸ G.H. Pertz, ed., Continuatio Cremifanensis, MGH SS 9 (Hanover: MGH, 1851), 545; G.H. Pertz, ed., Annales Babenbergenses, MGH SS 10 (Hanover: MGH, 1852), 4; G.H. Pertz, ed., Annales Magdeburgenses, MGH SS 16 (Hanover: MGH, 1859), 191; G.H. Pertz, ed., Annales S. Pauli Virdunensis, MGH SS 16 (Hanover: MGH, 1859), 501; G.H. Pertz, ed., Annales Bruniwalerenses, MGH SS 16 (Hanover: MGH, 1859), 727–8; G.H. Pertz, ed., Chronicon S. Michaelis Luneburgensis, MGH SS 23 (Hanover: MGH, 1874), 396.

⁶⁹ Certainly, silence did not necessarily preclude partisanship: the chronicle of St Michael's at Lüneburg, for instance, maligned Barbarossa because he disinherited Henry the Lion, who had raised him to the imperial dignity, thus repaying good with evil: Pertz, ed., Chronicon S. Michaeli Luneburgensis, 396.

⁷⁰ Peter Schmid and Heinrich Wanderwitz, eds., Die Geburt Österreichs: 850 Jahre Privilegium minus (Regensburg: Schnell und Steiner, 2007); Heinrich Appelt, Privilegium minus. Das staufische Kaisertum und die Babenberger in Österreich (Vienna: Böhlau, 1973). Important exceptions were Frederick II's wars against Duke Frederick of Austria in 1236, and the attempt, in 1244, to marry one of the emperor's daughters to the duke's heirs, and to elevate the duchy to a kingdom: Friedrich Hausmann, ‘Kaiser Friedrich II. und Österreich’, in Probleme um Friedrich II., ed. Josef Fleckenstein (Sigmaringen: J. Thorbecke, 1974), 225–308; Heinz Dopsch, Karl Brunner, and Maximilian Weltin, Österreichische Geschichte 1122–1278. Die Länder und das Reich. Der Ostalpenraum im Hochmittelalter (Vienna: Ueberreuter, 1999), 189–94; Hartmut Steinbach, Die Reichsgewalt und Niederdeutschland in nachstaufischer Zeit (1247–1308) (Stuttgart: E. Klett, 1968).

⁷¹ For contemporary perceptions of Barbarossa abroad, see Odilo Engels, Ê»Friedrich Barbarossa im Urteil seiner Zeitgenossenʼ, in idem, Stauferstudien, 225–46, originally published as ‘Federico Barbarossa nel giudizio dei suoi contemparenei’, Annali dell'Istituto storico italo-germanico 10 (1982): 45–81. At best, Gervase of Tilbury's statement that Frederick gained the throne more by force of his own might than the election of the princes (n. 51, above) could be read as an indication that news had spread, but then Gervase was writing for the candidate depriving Barbarossa's grandson of the throne.

⁷² Among later observers, much greater room was in fact given to Henry V and Conrad III: W. Stubbs, ed., Chronica Magistri Rogeri de Houedene, Rolls Series 51, 4 vols. (London: Longman, 1868–71), 1: 181; Giraldus Cambrensis, De Principis Instructione Liber, ed. George F. Warner, in Giraldi Cambrensis Opera, eds. J.S. Brewer, J.F. Dimock and G.F. Warner, Rolls Series 21, 8 vols. (London: Longman and others, 1861–91), 8: 216 (the marriage between Henry the Lion and an English princess); 8: 240–1, 263, 267–72 (the crusade); 8: 281 (death); Theodore M. Andersson and Kari Ellen Gade, trans., Morkinskinna: the Earliest Icelandic Chronicle of the Norwegian Kings (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2000), 321; Wincenty Kadlubek, Bishop of Cracow, Magistri Vincentii dicti Kadlubek Chronica Polonorum, ed. Marian Plezia (Kraków: NakÅ‚. Polskiej Akademii UmiejÄ™tnoÅ›ci, 1994), 152, 177; Matthew Paris, Chronica Majora, ed. H.R. Luard, Rolls Series 57, 7 vols. (London: HMSO, 1872–83), 2: 190 (Barbarossa was elected); 2: 210 (he was crowned emperor, and the hand of St James was restored to Reading; on which see also Karl Leyser, ‘Frederick Barbarossa, Henry II and the hand of St. James’, English Historical Review 90 (1975): 481–506; Sybille Schröder, Macht und Gabe. Materielle Kultur am Hof Heinrichs II. Von England (Husum: Matthiesen, 2004), 471–8); it is perhaps worth noting that this was a later insertion by Matthew, not a passage copied from his source, Ralph of Diss); 2: 215 (Diss, Barbarossa backed Octavian, the kings of England and France, Alexander III); 2: 227 (not in Diss, Barbarossa appoints a new anti-pope after Octavian's death); 2: 299 (Diss, an imperial embassy visits London); 2: 318 (Diss, Henry the Lion, having been exiled by the emperor, arrives in London); 2: 330 (Howeden, Barbarossa sets out on crusade); 2: 331–4 (the alleged correspondence between Barbarossa and Saladin, also found in numerous other sources); 2: 364–5 (Diss, death of Frederick Barbarossa). See also 2: 153, 300 (legends of Henry V and Conrad III).

⁷³ Saxo Grammaticus, Gesta Danorum, ed. Karsten Friis-Jensen, trans. Peter Zeeberg. 2 vols. (Copenhagen: Danske Sprog- og Litteraturselskab, 2005), 1: 184: xiv, 8.1; Thomas Foerster, Vergleich und Identität. Selbst- und Fremddeutung im Norden des hochmittelalterlichen Europas (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2009), 120–44.

⁷⁴ Friedrich Kempf, ed., Regestum Innocentii III papae super negotio Romani imperii (Rome: Pontificia Università Gregoriana, 1947), nos. 33, 62.

⁷⁵ Kempf, ed., Regestum Innocentii, nos. 3, 5, 8, 9, 18, 29.

⁷⁶ Of course, that Conrad III was also described as a usurper (because of his ill-fated challenge to Lothar III: Kempf, ed., Regestum Innocentii, nos. 18, 62) may have made it difficult to malign Frederick for usurping a usurper's inheritance.

⁷⁷ The events of 1152 were not the only ones to trigger such efforts. A comparable set of tales surrounds the falling out between Duke Henry the Lion of Saxony and Frederick Barbarossa. A key episode in this context was the so-called meeting at Chiavenna, when Barbarossa was said to have begged Henry on his knees for support against the Lombards, only to have his requests denied. It was this encounter, in turn, that was said to have triggered the duke's demise. The first to report this tale was Gislebert of Mons (Vanderkindere, ed., Chronique de Gislebert, 94; Gislebert, Chronicle, trans. Napran, 54–5), writing about a generation after the event. The encounter at Chiavenna was elaborated on with increasing detail in the thirteenth century, with accounts roughly following the pattern outlined here: those supportive of Frederick Barbarossa painted Henry's arrogance in ever more lurid colours, while those taking a positive view of the duke blamed Frederick for his excessive demands. Similarly, the later an account was penned, the more elaborate its narrative. For an outline of the reports, see Joachim Ehlers, Heinrich der Löwe: eine Biographie (Munich: Siedler, 2008), 220–7. Current scholarship is sceptical as to whether the meeting in fact took place. Görich, Friedrich Barbarossa, 461–2, 483–5, has convincingly suggested that these accounts constituted an attempt to explain the apparent suddenness of the Lion's fall. Considering the extent to which Henry had previously been able to count on the emperor's backing, his disgrace had to be triggered by an especially outrageous act. Again, as in the case of 1152, we will probably never know what actually happened. Nevertheless, the narrative strategies employed by later observers and the means with which they sought to explain events for which they had at best fragmentary information, follow a familiar pattern. It is thus safe to assume that we are dealing with general parameters for the writing of history.

⁷⁸ On shifts in historical writing, see John O. Ward, ‘The Monastic Historiographical Impulse c.1000–c.1260. A Re-assessment’, in Historia. The Concept and Genres in the Middle Ages, ed. Tumoas M.S. Lehtonen and Päivi Mehtonen (Helsinki: Societas Scientiarum Fennica, 2000), 71–100; idem, ‘“Decline” and “New Management” in Medieval Historiography During the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries (and Beyond)’, Parergon new series, 19 (2002): 19–75. On the role of fiction, see Monika Otter, ‘Functions of Fiction in Historical Writing’, in Writing Medieval History, ed. Nancy F. Partner (London: Hodder Arnold, 2005), 109–32.

⁷⁹ Judith A. Green, Henry I. King of England and Duke of Normandy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 39–44; William M. Aird, Robert Curthose. Duke of Normandy (c.1050–1134) (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2008), 191–243.

⁸⁰ See, for instance, Walter Map, De Nugis Curialium. Courtiers' Trifles, ed. and trans. M.R. James, revised by C.N.L. Brooke and R.A.B. Mynors (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983), 470–3, 484–5, v. 6. Intriguingly Map, describing Henry as a king who, despite his irregular succession, proved to be a good ruler, prefigures the much later Baldwin of Ninove (above, n. 53).

⁸¹ Henry, Archdeacon of Huntingdon, Historia Anglorum, ed. and trans. Diana Greenway (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), 442–3: vii.18; William of Malmesbury, Gesta regum Anglorum: the History of the English Kings, ed. and trans. R.A.B. Mynors, continued by R.N. Thomson and M. Winterbottom. 2 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998–9) 1: 702–3: iv.389; Hanna Krause, ed., Radulfus Niger – Chronica: eine englische Weltchronik des 12. Jahrhunderts (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1985), 260–1: iv.1.

⁸² Matthew Paris, Chronica Majora, ed. Luard, 5: 601–3; Matthew Paris, Historia Anglorum, ed. Frederick Madden, Rolls Series 44, 3 vols. (London: Longmans, Green, Reader and Dyer, 1866–9), 1: 149–50. It goes without saying, of course, that the idea of Robert as potential ruler of Jerusalem was mostly limited to Anglo-Norman texts. See, for instance, Petrus Tudebodus, Historia de Hierosolymitano itinere, ed. J.H. Hill and L.L. Hill, Documents relatifs à l'histoire des croisades 12 (Paris: Librairie Orientaliste Paul Geuthner, 1977), 142; English translation: Peter Tudebode, Historia de Hieroslymitano itinere, trans. J.H. Hill and L.L. Hill (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1974); Raymond d'Aguilers, Le ‘Liber’ de Raymond d'Aguilers, ed. J.H. Hill and L.L. Hill, Documents relatifs à l'histoire des croisades 9 (Paris: Librairie Orientaliste Paul Geuthner, 1969), 152.

⁸³ Alan Cooper, ‘“The Feet of Those That Bark Shall Be Cut Off.” Timorous Historians and the Personality of Henry I’, Anglo-Norman Studies 23 (2001): 47–67.

⁸⁴ G.H. Pertz, ed., Hermanni Annales, MGH SS 17 (Hanover: MGH, 1861), 382, possibly echoing Godfrey of Viterbo (‘natus ex clarissima proienie Karulorum’): G.H. Pertz, ed., Pantheon, MGH SS 22 (Hanover: MGH, 1872), 264.

⁸⁵ Though it is worth noting, perhaps in a parallel with Frederick Barbarossa and Frederick of Rothenburg, that at one stage Richard of Cornwall had promised to safeguard Conradin's rights in Swabia: Ludwig Weiland, ed., Constitutiones et acta publica imperatorum et regum. Vol. 2, 1198–1272, MGH Legum Sectio 4 (Hanover: MGH, 1896), nos. 379–80.

⁸⁶ Waitz, ed., Chronicon universale anonymi Laudunensis, 453.

⁸⁷ Waitz, ed., Chronicon S. Clementi Mettense, 502.

⁸⁸ Björn Weiler, Kingship, Rebellion and Political Culture: England and Germany, c.1215–c.1250 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), 39–75.

⁸⁹ G.H. Pertz, ed., Notae historicae Sangallenses, MGH SS 1 (Hanover: MGH, 1826), 71; Ludwig Weiland, ‘Sieben Kaiserurkunden’, Forschungen zur deutschen Geschichte 18 (1878): 204–10 (210); Helmut Maurer, ‘Die Anfänge der Stadt Tiengen und das politische Kräftespiel am Hochrhein um die Mitte des 13 Jahrhunderts’, Alemannisches Jahrbuch 1964–5 (141): 119–58.

⁹⁰ Tilman Struve, ‘Die falschen Friedriche und die Friedenssehnsucht des Volkes im späten Mittelalter’, in Fälschungen im Mittelalter. Internationaler Kongreß der Monumenta Germaniae Historica München, 16.–19. September 1986, vol. 1 (Hanover: Hahn, 1988), 317–37.

⁹¹ FrantiÅ¡ek Graus, ‘Premisl Otakar II. – sein Ruhm und sein Nachleben. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der politischen Propaganda und Chronistik’, Mitteilungen des Instituts für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung 79 (1971): 57–108.

⁹² Björn Weiler, Henry III of England and the Staufen Empire, 1216–1272 (Woodbridge: Royal Historical Society/Boydell Press, 2006), 182–91.

⁹³ Dick, ‘Die Königserhebung’, 235–7.

⁹⁴ Helmut Beumann, ‘Die Historiographie des Mittelalters als Quelle für die Ideengeschichte des Königtums’, Historische Zeitschrift 180 (1955): 449–88; FrantiÅ¡ek Graus, ‘Die Herrschersagen des Mittelalters als Geschichtsquelle’, in Ausgewählte Aufsätze von FrantiÅ¡ek Graus (1959–1989), ed. Hans-Jörg Gilomen, Peter Moraw and Rainer C. Schwinges (Stuttgart: J. Thorbecke, 2002), 3–27.

⁹⁵ Otto's willingness to criticise the emperor should not, however, be underestimated: Heinz Krieg, ‘Im Spannungsfeld zwischen christlichen und adligen Normvorstellungen. Zur Beurteilung Friedrich Barbarossas in stauferzeitlicher Historiographie’, Frühmittelalterliche Studien 41 (2007): 447–66.