Raccagni, Gianluca

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     Edinburgh Research Explorer                                      Johannes Laudage, Friedrich Barbarossa (1152–1190): EineBiografie, ed. Lars Hageneier and Matthias SchrörCitation for published version:Raccagni, G 2010, 'Johannes Laudage, Friedrich Barbarossa (1152–1190): Eine Biografie, ed. LarsHageneier and Matthias Schrör' German Historical Institute London Bulletin, pp. 47-51.Link:Link to publication record in Edinburgh Research ExplorerDocument Version:Publisher's PDF, also known as Version of recordPublished In:German Historical Institute London BulletinPublisher Rights Statement:©Raccagni, G. (2010). Johannes Laudage, Friedrich Barbarossa (1152–1190): Eine Biografie, ed. LarsHageneier and Matthias Schrör. German Historical Institute London Bulletin, 47-51.General rightsCopyright for the publications made accessible via the Edinburgh Research Explorer is retained by the author(s)and / or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing these publications that users recognise andabide by the legal requirements associated with these rights.Take down policyThe University of Edinburgh has made every reasonable effort to ensure that Edinburgh Research Explorercontent complies with UK legislation. If you believe that the public display of this file breaches copyright pleasecontact openaccess@ed.ac.uk providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately andinvestigate your claim.Download date: 28. Apr. 2017Citation stylecopyrightRaccagni, Gianluca: review of: Johannes Laudage, FriedrichBarbarossa (1152-1190). Eine Biografie, Regensburg: Pustet, 2009,in: German Historical Institute London Bulletin, Vol. XXXII (2010),2, http://recensio.net/r/3d9667a62191ea25c4e8d73e9c2e7027First published: German Historical Institute London Bulletin, Vol.XXXII (2010), 2This article may be downloaded and/or used within the privatecopying exemption. Any further use without permission of the rightsowner shall be subject to legal licences (§§ 44a-63a UrhG / GermanCopyright Act).JOHANNES LAUDAGE, Friedrich Barbarossa (1152–1190): Eine Bio -grafie, ed. Lars Hageneier and Matthias Schrör (Regensburg: Pustet,2009), 383 pp. ISBN 978 3 7917 2167 5. €34.90 Frederick Barbarossa might not be the most famous medieval emper-or as the dust jacket of Laudage’s biography claims, but he certainlycontends for that title with Charlemagne and Barbarossa’s owngrandson, Frederick II. Indeed, his reign is one of the most studiedperiods in medieval history and he has been the subject of numerousbiographies in various languages, quite a few of which have beenpublished recently.1 The English reader, however, still relies onworks published forty years ago that by now are certainly outdated.2There are good reasons for Frederick’s enduring legacy and famethrough the centuries, since he was deeply involved in expanding theinfluence of the Holy Roman Empire, enjoyed a long and remarkablystable rule in Germany (relatively speaking), was engaged in amomentous struggle with the papacy and the Lombard city com-munes, and had extensive contacts with the other Christian rulers inEurope and the Mediterranean, not to mention the crusade that heundertook and during which he died. Frederick came very close tokilling the autonomy of the Italian city-states shortly after their birth,to re-establishing imperial control over the papacy, and to expandinghis hegemony in the Mediterranean as well. A recent series of con-ferences has also underlined the profound influence of his reign onthe development of public law.3 Therefore it would be good to havean updated biography of Frederick Barbarossa in English, one that471 e.g. Franco Cardini, Il Barbarossa: Vita, trionfi e illusioni di Federico I imperato-re (Milan, 1985), reprinted with bibliographical updates; S. Gasparri, FedericoBarbarossa (Florence, 1996); Ferdinand Opll, Friedrich Barbarossa (Darmstadt,1990), also reprinted with bibliographical updates; Pierre Racine, FrédéricBarberousse (1152–1190) (Paris, 2009). 2 The most recent biographies of Frederick in English are Peter Munz, Freder -ick Barbarossa: A Study in Medieval Politics (London, 1969) and Marcel Pacaut,Freder ick Barbarossa, trans. A. J. Pomerans (London, 1970).3 For the influence of Frederick’s reign on the development of public law seeGerhard Dilcher and Diego Quaglioni (eds.), Gli inizi del diritto pubblico. L’etàdi Federico Barbarossa: legislazione e scienza del diritto. Die Anfänge desÖffentlichen Rechts: Gesetzgebung im Zeitalter Friedrich Barbarossas und dasGelehrte Recht (Bologna, 2007); eid. (eds.), Gli inizi del diritto pubblico. ii. Daalso showcases and sums up the most recent research, since this hasadopted new approaches and immensely furthered our understand-ing of Frederick’s life and world. This could perhaps be achieved bytranslating one of the biographies published recently.Laudage was in a very good position to write a biography ofFrederick Barbarossa, having worked on his reign, and in particular,his relations with his main opponent, Pope Alexander III, for hisHabilitationsschrift, which was published as a monograph more thana decade ago.4 However, in order to evaluate Laudage’s biography ofBarbarossa it is necessary to keep in mind two issues, namely, that itwas aimed at a wider audience than a purely academic one, and,above all, that it was unfinished when Laudage died in a traffic acci-dent at the beginning of 2008. As the work was at a very advancedstage, it was decided to publish it with the help of Lars Hageneier andMatthias Schrör, with all the difficulties that such a task implies.Laudage’s death brought to a premature end a distinguished careerwhose research interests went far beyond the reign of Barbarossa. It ispossible to make a good guess at how Laudage intended his biogra-phy of Barbarossa to be by looking at his biography of Emperor Ottothe Great, because the two works share the same publisher and theirapproach seems to have been similar.5 This suggests that the workwas meant to be without footnotes in order to make it more appealingto a wider public. However, the death of the author prevented theinclusion of the extensive commentary (more than thirty pages long)that is to be found in his book on Otto the Great and constitutes partof its appeal. The map provided at the beginning of the volume underreview is also the wrong one, because it does not portray the politicalgeography of Europe and of the Mediterranean in the twelfth centuryas it claims, but instead that created by the Fourth Crusade. If thisdoes not make an enormous difference for continental Europe, it doesfor the By zan tine Empire, whose emperor, Manuel Komnenos, wasone of the main opponents of Frederick Barbarossa, not to mentionthat Frederick himself crossed the Byzantine lands to die in Anatolia48Book ReviewsFederico I a Federico II. Die Anfänge des Öffentlichen Rechts: Von Friedrich Barba -rossa zu Friedrich II (Bologna, 2009). In English, Kenneth Pennington, ThePrince and the Law 1200–1600: Sovereignty and Rights in the Western LegalTradition (Berkeley, 1993).4 Johannes Laudage, Alexander III. und Friedrich Barbarossa (Cologne, 1997).5 Id., Otto der Grosse (912–973): Eine Biographie (Regensburg, 2001).during his fatal crusade. The last thirteen years of Frederick’s reign arealso examined quite briskly, but it should be kept in mind that, asalready noted by the late Timothy Reuter, this is quite a common fea-ture of works on Frederick Barbarossa because primary sources, suchas the Gesta Friderici, written by Frederick’s uncle, Otto of Freising, aswell as Frederick’s successes, are clustered in the first half of thereign.6Yet the main problem of the unfinished manuscript was certainlythe fact that Laudage had still to write the section concerning theperiod between the late 1160s and 1178, almost a quarter of Fred er -ick’s reign. While the decision not to fill the gap is perhaps under-standable, this means that there is a ten-year void in the coverage ofthe book between chapters six and seven. This is not a trivial matterbecause what is missing is a decisive decade in Frederick’s life, cor-responding to the campaign in Italy that decided the conflict with theLombard League and the papacy, sealing the fate of the Holy RomanEmpire in Italy. In fact, this decade includes Frederick’s defeat at theBattle of Legnano in 1176 by the army gathered by the LombardLeague, which crippled any hope that Frederick had of prevailingover the Lombard cities by military force. As recently underlined byPaolo Grillo, the Battle of Legnano is also of great relevance for thehistory of warfare, not only because of its magnitude, but alsobecause infantry-based civic militias prevailed against the cavalry-based imperial army at a period when warfare was dominated by ar -is to cratic heavy cavalry.7 Laudage’s biography of Emperor Frederickresumes after the Peace of Venice of 1177, which brought a final set-tlement with Alexander III, along with truces with the King of Sicilyand the Lombard League that paved the way for the final settlementwith the League six years later at the Peace of Constance. Indeed, thePeace of Venice was also a great international congress, as testified bythe large number of participants from northern Italy as well as fromGermany and various other kingdoms, including Sicily and England.There is no doubt that given his past expertise Laudage would havecovered these momentous events more than appropriately. 49Friedrich Barbarossa6 Timothy Reuter, ‘Mandate, Privilege, Court Judgement: Techniques ofRulership in the Age of Frederick Barbarossa’, in id., Medieval Polities andModern Mentalities, ed. Janet Nelson (Cambridge, 2006), 430.7 Paolo Grillo, Legnano 1176: Una battaglia per la libertà (Rome-Bari, 2010).As the work stands, the eight chapters, many of which are assign -ed catchy titles, are organized mainly chronologically. The first threedeal respectively with Frederick’s early life and rise to the throne, hiscoronation journey to Rome, the early years of the reign and the im -perial Diet of Roncaglia in 1158, where Frederick unfolded whatproved to be a doomed attempt to enhance imperial control overItaly by claiming a series of royal rights (regalia). The English transla-tion of the title of this chapter about the Diet of Roncaglia reads ‘Italy,or the Illusion of Reason’. In chapter four a thematic approach is pre-ferred, examining the issues of chivalric culture, the imperial curia,economy and finance, and then rule and social praxis. The last fourchapters are chronologically ordered again. The chapter ‘The TurningPoint of his Life’ concerns the apex of Frederick’s rule in Italy from thedestruction of Milan in 1162, when he attempted to introduce a stableapparatus of government, to the disastrous conquest of Rome in 1167,after which the newly established apparatus crumbled in the Po Valleyunder the blows of the Lombard League. The chapter ‘Phoenix fromthe Ashes’ deals with Frederick’s re-consolidation of his rule in Ger -many after his Italian setbacks before the new Italian campaign, which,as mentioned, is unfortunately missing. The last years of Frederick’sreign are then examined, including the quarrel with Henry the Lion,the agreement with the Lombard League at the Peace of Constance in1183, and the taking of the cross at Mainz in 1188. The title of the lastchapter is self-explanatory: ‘Crusade and Death.’ This is followed by aconclusion that attempts to weigh up Frederick’s experience, followedby a chronology of the most relevant events, an extensive bibliogra-phy, and an index.Overall, Laudage put a great deal of effort into placing Frederickwithin the knightly culture of his time, often availing himself of thelatest historiography, but his biography focuses mainly on Frederick’srule rather than on his life. It is not a particularly innovative work, butit shows that if Laudage had been able to finish it, the book wouldhave succeeded both in appealing to the general educated public andin being useful to the academic community, as was the case withLaudage’s previous book on Otto the Great. This in itself would havebeen no small achievement.850Book Reviews8 A review of Laudage’s Otto der Grosse may be found at <http://hsozkult.geschichte.hu-berlin.de/rezensionen/MA-2002-019>, accessed 30 July 2010.GIANLUCA RACCAGNI is a Teaching Fellow in the School of His -tory, Classics and Archaeology at the University of Edinburgh. He isconducting research on the medieval Italian Leagues (twelfth to six-teenth centuries), focusing on the Lombard, Guelf, Ghibelline, andItalian leagues. He is the author of The Lombard League, 1164–1225(forthcoming 2010) and is working on a mongoraph on the secondLombard League.51Friedrich Barbarossa

Johannes Laudage, Friedrich Barbarossa (1152–1190): Eine Biografie, ed. Lars Hageneier and Matthias Schrör

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