Making the Holy Roman Empire Holy
Frederick Barbarossa, Saint Charlemagne and the sacrum imperium

An in-depth exploration of Frederick Barbarossa and the origins of the term 'Holy Roman Empire'.

Vedran Sulovsky (Author)

9781009203487, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 23 May 2024

398 pages, 40 b/w illus. 3 maps
23.4 x 15.9 x 2.6 cm, 0.71 kg

'An essential contribution to our understanding of the Empire at a time when it was about to enter a long and slow decline. … While traditional German historiography has focused on the problematic relationship between the Empire and the papacy, the author considerably broadens the scope of investigation by including the rich and multicultural world of the imperial court, its political and cultural influences, and in particular those of the Roman world. A fine, scholarly, and systematic work.' David Brégaint, Le Moyen Age

How did the Holy Roman Empire (sacrum imperium) become Holy? In this innovative book, Vedran Sulovsky explores the reign of Frederick Barbarossa (1152–1190), offering a new analysis of the key documents, artworks, and contemporary scholarship used to celebrate and commemorate the imperial regime, especially in the imperial coronation site and Charlemagne's mausoleum, the Marienkirche in Aachen. By dismantling the Kulturkampf-inspired view of the history of the Holy Roman Empire – which was supposedly desacralised in the Investiture Controversy, and then resacralised by Barbarossa and the Reichskanzler Rainald of Dassel – Sulovsky, using new evidence, reveals the personal relations between various courtiers which led to the rise of the new, holy name of the Empire. Annals, chronicles, charters, forgeries, letters, liturgical texts and objects, relics, insignia, seals, architecture and rituals have all been exploited by Sulovsky to piece together a mosaic that shows the true roots of sacrum imperium.

Introduction
1. Sacrum imperium: Lombard Influence and the Sacralisation of the State in the mid-Twelfth Century (1125–1167)
2. Sacrum imperium II: The Barometer of Lombard Influence at Court (1167–1190)
3. The Cult of Charlemagne from His Death to the Accession of Frederick Barbarossa (814–1152)
4. The Canonisation of Charlemagne in 1165
5. The Barbarossaleuchter: Imperial Monument and Pious Donation
6. The Reliquary Shrine of Saint Charlemagne: The High Point of the Sacrum imperium?
Conclusion.

Subject Areas: European history [HBJD]