IMC 2016: Sessions
Session 1628: Cultural Transfer in the Staufen Empire North and South of the Alps: The Early Staufen in Italy - Perceptions, Practices, Encounters, II
Thursday 7 July 2016, 11.15-12.45
Organiser: | Jürgen Dendorfer, Lehrstuhl für Mittelalterliche Geschichte, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg |
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Moderator/Chair: | Giuseppe Albertoni, Dipartimento di Lettere e Filosofia, Università di Trento |
Paper 1628-a | Cultural Encounters?: Ritual as a Means of Political Communication between 'Germans' and 'Italians' during the 12th Century (Language: English) |
Paper 1628-b | The Basilica of St Ambrose as Cultural and Religious Bridge between the German and Italian Kingdoms in the 12th Century (Language: English) Index terms: Architecture - Religious, Social History |
Paper 1628-c | Heroic Knight or Cruel Tyrant?: The Perception of Frederick Barbarossa and His Italian Campaigns in Contemporary Historiography (Language: English) Index terms: Historiography - Medieval, Military History |
Abstract | In the second half of the 12th century the elites of two political and cultural systems of the Staufen Empire - the kingdoms of Italy and Germany - were exposed to each other over a long period of time. For several decades, the courts of Frederic Barbarossa (1152-1190) and Henry VI (1190-1197) spent their time south of the Alps. This entourage from the northern realm, a heterogeneous group ranging from imperial princes to chancery notaries, all accustomed to quasi-monarchical rule, encountered a political system that was defined by election and rotation of offices: the Italian commune. The king and his princes, brought up within the oral culture of the German kingdom, had to rule Italy by principles that were characterized by literacy and learned law. And even economically the Italian kingdom was alien to them, as it was much more heavily monetized. |