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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
Moderator/Chair:Giuseppe Albertoni, Dipartimento di Lettere e Filosofia, Università di Trento
Paper 1628-aCultural Encounters?: Ritual as a Means of Political Communication between 'Germans' and 'Italians' during the 12th Century
(Language: English)
Christoph Dartmann, Historisches Seminar, Universität Hamburg
Paper 1628-bThe Basilica of St Ambrose as Cultural and Religious Bridge between the German and Italian Kingdoms in the 12th Century
(Language: English)
Maria Pia Alberzoni, Dipartimento di Storia, Archeologia e Storia dell'arte, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milano
Index terms: Architecture - Religious, Social History
Paper 1628-cHeroic Knight or Cruel Tyrant?: The Perception of Frederick Barbarossa and His Italian Campaigns in Contemporary Historiography
(Language: English)
Thilo Tress, Lehrstuhl für Mittelalterliche Geschichte, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg
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.
The two sessions seek to explore the cultural transfer that was taking place at, and was facilitated by, the Staufen court through the key concepts of 'perception','practices', and 'encounters'.