Conclusion

Summary

The conclusion draws upon the findings of all the chapters to argue that Barbarossa scholars had often studied more a construct of post-Kulturkampf Germany than the medieval emperor himself. Rather than a sacraliser of the state who teamed up with Reichskanzler Rainald of Dassel (a stand-in for Otto von Bismarck) in order to hammer the Papacy into submission, Frederick I was a ruler determined to restore the greatness of the Empire by many different means, including papal and Arab alliances. This has been overlooked because of the dearth of sources for the later part of his reign, and because of the profound misunderstanding of Frederick’s Aquensian projects. By dismantling the historiography in an archaeological way, Sulovsky restores the connections apparent in the sources, and makes it clear that the increasing Romanisation of the Empire had radical consequences for authority and its expressions, both for the pope and the emperor. Therefore, much of what was described as a deliberate sacralisation of the Empire in opposition to the Papac, was in fact its gradual Romanisation. This was not a project spearheaded by German court, but by the self-conscious Italians, who wanted a Roman emperor to represent them, and not a German king.