Frederick I, nicknamed Barbarossa, was one of the most notable Holy Roman emperors, who left a considerable political and cultural legacy, especially in Germany and Italy. Thus, he has been the subjects of many studies as well as works of art. Due to his popularity and notoriety, in the 19th and early 20th centuries, he was instrumentalized as a political symbol by many movements and regimes: the Risorgimento, the Wilhelmine government in Germany (especially under Emperor Wilhelm I), and the National Socialist movement. Today, when a tradition-establishing form of commemoration for the emperor is no longer necessary, scholars like Kurt Görich call for neutrality and warn against the instrumentalization of the historical person in the other way. Modern historians generally reject nationalist myths, while portraying the emperor as an influential ruler who suffered many setbacks but often managed to recover. He reestablished in Germany, enhanced the imperial position, but also made mistakes when trying to assert his authority over North Italian communes, leading to a prolonged struggle. After being humbled in the Battle of Legnano, he changed his policies and attained a better working relationship with the Italian communes. His successful diplomatic efforts together with a developing circumstance also opened new possibilities for the imperial position, notably through the marriage of his son Henry VI with Constance of Sicily. Different studies explore different aspects of his personality, with recent German scholarship emphasizing the emperor's relationship with the chivalrous-courtly culture of the time.
Legends and anecdotes
After the 1162 conquest of the city of Milan in 1162, the remains of the Three Kings were sent to Cologne. Today, the Cologne Cathedral houses them and they are still venerated. As the popular emperor died without confessing (in the medieval time, a sudden death was considered a punishment from God), various myths were born to help the people cope with this situation. Some chroniclers thus changed the story so that the emperor could repent before dying. The most famous Barbarossa legend is the Kyffhäuser legend. The legend says he is not dead, but asleep with his knights in a cave in the Kyffhäuser mountains in Thuringia or Mount Untersberg at the border between Bavaria, Germany, and Salzburg, Austria, and that when the ravens cease to fly around the mountain he will awake and restore Germany to a Golden Age. According to the story, his red beard has grown through the table at which he sits. His eyes are half closed in sleep, but now and then he raises his hand and sends a boy out to see if the ravens have stopped flying. A similar story, set in Sicily, was earlier attested about his grandson, Frederick II.Kantorowicz, Frederick II; last chapter To garner political support the German Empire built atop the Kyffhäuser the Kyffhäuser Monument, which declared Kaiser Wilhelm I the reincarnation of Frederick; the 1896 dedication occurred on 18 June, the day of Frederick's coronation. According to Freed, the Prussians were not particularly passionate about the Barbarossa mania in the beginning though (Barbarossa had mainly been a symbol for the Southern princes, who wanted to send a message that they wanted to participate in the affairs of the central government as in the time of the emperor). They only started promoting the legend actively in 1871 (the year Wilhelm I became German emperor).
In medieval Europe, the Golden Legend became refined by Jacobus de Voragine. This was a popularized interpretation of the Biblical end of the world. It consisted of three things: (1) terrible natural disasters; (2) the arrival of the Antichrist; (3) the establishment of a good king to combat the Antichrist. These millennial fables were common and freely traded by the populations on Continental Europe. End-time accounts had been around for thousands of years, but entered the Christian tradition with the writings of the Apostle Peter.
The legend has been read as prophecy from the beginning, as seen in the Italian collection Sibyla Eritrea, the Sächsische Weltchronik (1260), Salimbene di Adam's Cronica (1280). Barbarossa appears in a Messianic form, not just a new but also the final type of ruler – emperor of peace, who is associated with the latter days. In later centuries, German propaganda played into the exaggerated fables believed by the common people by characterizing Frederick Barbarossa and Frederick II as personification of the "good king". Other figures like Martin Luther, Frederick II the Great of Prussia and Bismarck also became associated with the cult of the national leader, which would later be mobilized by national socialists.
Another legend states that when Barbarossa was in the process of seizing Milan in 1158, his wife, the Empress Beatrice, was taken captive by the enraged Milanese and forced to ride through the city on a donkey in a humiliating manner. Some sources of this legend indicate that Barbarossa implemented his revenge for this insult by forcing the magistrates of the city to remove a fig from the anus of a donkey using only their teeth. Another source states that Barbarossa took his wrath upon every able-bodied man in the city, and that it was not a fig they were forced to hold in their mouth, but excrement from the donkey. To add to this debasement, they were made to announce, "Ecco la fica" (meaning "behold the fig"), with the feces still in their mouths. It used to be said that the insulting gesture (called fico), of holding one's fist with the thumb in between the middle and forefinger came by its origin from this event. This legend is mentioned in Gargantua and Pantagruel (sixteenth century). During the Risorgimento in Italy, Frederick became the symbolic barbarian, foreign oppressor who were defeated by heroes of a national independence movement respresented by the Lombard League. This interpretation later had influence on Italian historiography. Various stories arose – an example is the one by Cesare Cantù, who recounted that Frederick sent back Milanese people whose hands he had cut off or without their eyes. According to Cardini, until this day, some schoolbooks in Italy still describe Frederick Barbarossa as a National Socialist avant-la-lettre. In Italy, unlike in Germany, Barbarossa as a legendary character remains ambivalent. There are different, even contrasting accounts of his deeds. He inspires strong emotions. While in Milan, Tortona and Asti, the cities that were destroyed by Frederick Barbarossa, still see him as the foreign oppressor, he is seen in favorable light in Como, Pavia and Lodi (it was Lodi's complaint to Barbarossa about Milan's bullying that brought him to Italy) – the latter group sees him as "an ancient supporter of their own cities' traditions". In Brienno, he even has a holy image. For Spoleto, dark and light legends are mixed to produce a "beloved enemy" (amato nemico).
Historiography
In 2010, Professor Gianluca Raccagni of the University of Edinburgh summarized the current knowledge on Frederick's rule as the following: There are good reasons for Frederick’s enduring legacy and fame through the centuries, since he was deeply involved in expanding the influence of the Holy Roman Empire, enjoyed a long and remarkably stable rule in Germany (relatively speaking), was engaged in a momentous struggle with the papacy and the Lombard city communes, and had extensive contacts with the other Christian rulers in Europe and the Mediterranean, not to mention the crusade that he undertook and during which he died. Frederick came very close to killing the autonomy of the Italian city-states shortly after their birth, to re-establishing imperial control over the papacy, and to expanding his hegemony in the Mediterranean as well. A recent series of conferences has also underlined the profound influence of his reign on the development of public law.
Otto of Freising, Frederick's uncle, wrote an account of his reign entitled Gesta Friderici I imperatoris (Deeds of the Emperor Frederick). Otto's other major work, the Chronica sive Historia de duabus civitatibus (Chronicle or History of the Two Cities) had been an exposition of the Civitas Dei (The City of God) of St. Augustine of Hippo, full of Augustinian negativity concerning the nature of the world and history. His work on Frederick is of opposite tone, being an optimistic portrayal of the glorious potentials of imperial authority. Otto died after finishing the first two books, leaving the last two to Rahewin, his provost. Rahewin's text is in places heavily dependent on classical precedent.
According to John Freed, until the end of the nineteenth century, even scholars in Germany had to rely on a semi-popular history to get a general overview of Frederick's reign. There were two occasions a substantial effort was made to create a comprehensive biography for the emperor and both ended with the main author's death. The first was the work of Henry Simonsfeld, who died in 1913 and his book, never completed, ends with Otto of Freising's death in 1158. The other notable contribution is the two volumes about Frederick in Wilhelm von Giesebrecht’s Geschichte der Deutschen Kaiserzeit (1855–88). Giesebrecht died in 1889 and thus his student Bernhard von Simson was the one who completed the work in 1895. This later became the scholarly standard work on the emperor's life. Giesebrecht presents Barbarossa's era as a high point of German history. Freed opines that this work was meant to arouse patriotism.
In 1975, Frederick's charters were published. This and the postwar abandonment of the Kyffhäuser myth have led to the publications of several new biographies. The notable recent authorities among German-speaking historians include Ferdinand Opll, Johannes Laudage (who died in an accident in 2008 so could not write the section on the 1170s). and Knut Görich.
Bernd Schütte credits Ferdinand Oppl with raising the research of Frederick I to a new and resilient level, with contributions both through studies and bibliographical additions (Oppl is both a researcher and an archiver). Opll's Friedrich Barbarossa presents the emperor as a pragmatic leader with a capacity of adaptation and recovery after defeat. Jean-Yves Mariotte highly praises the works but adds that more clarity on the subjects of the imperial function or the financial aspect of the monarchy might widen the perspective.
Knut Görich's works on Frederick include Friedrich Barbarossa: Eine Biographie and Die Ehre Friedrich Barbarossas: Kommunikation, Konflikt und politisches Handeln im 12. Jahrhundert, in which he extensively discusses Frederick's attachment to the concept of honor imperii, which was tied to not only his self-understanding as a ruler, but also rights and duties, and also subject to balancing acts with what was politically possible. Görich does not see the 1177 Peace of Venice as a defeat for Frederick but a return to consensus, which later helped make room for maneuvre. Graham Loud agrees with Görich that the concept and language of honour permeated Frederick's reign but sometimes, they might have masked complex realities. Loud also notes Görich credibly shows Frederick as a man of ambition, calculation and skills – one of those was "an ability to satisfy and to recompense those who were not necessarily within his inner circle". On the other hand, Loud opines that Görich mentions Frederick's rule north of the Alps too little. Contrary to Laudage, Görich questions whether traditional researchers have overemphasized the intentional side of Frederick's politics and instead highlights his capability of moderating consensus politics and the will to trial new modes of rulership.