CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2015
| Author | Sulovsky, Vedran |
|---|---|
| Title | Holy, Roman, Frankish: A Sketch of the Political Iconography of Frederick Barbarossa |
| Summary | The political iconography of Frederick Barbarossa has been the subject of innumerable debates since the rise of German romantic nationalism in the wake of the French revolution. I will examine the elements Barbarossa uses in a political context, thereby determining their purpose and their models. In the study of material sources, special focus will be placed on the growth of the cult of Saint Charlemagne in Aachen, which will be interpreted as an imitation of the cult of Constantine the Great in Byzantium. The motifs used in the Aachen objects will be compared to the motifs of courtly poetry and histories of the period, thereby attempting to demonstrate that the cult came into being slowly, its pinnacle being the reliquary shrine of Saint Charlemagne, where a dynastic principle replaced the elective one for the first time since 1125. Frederick took part in the second crusade, where he came to know Manuel Komnenos’ ideology of renovation as well as the traditional Byzantine ideology of a holy empire. He also learned of Louis VII’s support of the cult of St. Denis and the imitation of an earlier Frankish expedition to Jerusalem, whereby Louis became renowned as a saintly ruler. It is these two ideologies that Frederick was emulating from the beginning of his reign. The turning points of Frederick’s programme were his royal coronation in 1152, the plague in Rome in 1167 and the fall of Jerusalem in 1187. During the first period, Frederick was presenting himself as the elected king who would unite the Hohenstaufen and the Welf parties. After 1167, when his cousin Frederick of Rothenburg died, the importance of a dynastic principle grew as Frederick’s son Henry became his father’s only possible heir. When Jerusalem fell in 1187, Frederick’s self-representation was slightly remodelled as he was now stepping into the role of God’s banner bearer while retaining the former elements of his ideology. |
| Supervisor | Ziemann, Daniel |
| Department | Medieval Studies MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2015/sulovsky_vedran.pdf |
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