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This chapter first discusses Frederick's deteriorating relationship with Pope Adrian IV. In June 1158, Frederick and Adrian's representatives had smoothed over the confrontation that occurred over the pope's use of the word beneficium in the letter Cardinal Roland had delivered at Besançon; but the fundamental question about the proper relationship between the emperor and the pope remained unresolved. Other unresolved issues include the ownership of the Matildine Lands; legatine exactions and papal jurisdiction over the Church in the Empire; Frederick's assertion that all regalian rights in Italy, including in the Patrimony and Rome itself, were derived from the crown; and Adrian's alliance in 1156 with the Normans. The remainder of the chapter covers the papal election of September 1159; the Council of Pavia; and Frederick's claim to world dominion.

This chapter examines the magnates' involvement in the fall of Henry the Lion by focusing on family relationships in general and sibling relationships in particular within the German upper aristocracy of the early Staufen period. From the mid-1150s to the late 1170s, Duke Henry the Lion of Saxony and Bavaria was the most powerful magnate in the German kingdom. In the years around 1180, however, he fell from his perch atop the princely hierarchy when Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa, his first cousin, stripped him of his duchies and other imperial fiefs. This chapter first considers the relationship between Frederick and Henry within the broader context of the twelfth-century histories of the nine lineages of the Staufen period. It then analyzes why the bond between Frederick and Henry as cousins ultimately proved to be an unreliable foundation for both of their positions in the German kingdom. It argues that the cooperative bonds operating within several leading fraternal groups influenced Frederick's decision to strip Henry of his fiefs.

This chapter first discusses the crowning of Frederick Barbarossa as king of the Romans in Aachen on 9 March 1152. The most striking thing about Frederick's election and coronation is the rapidity with which they occurred. In fact, no king was elevated to the throne so quickly after the death of his predecessor in the entire history of the East Frankish-German kingdom between 911 and 1254. The chapter then describes subsequent events such as Frederick's notification of Pope Eugenius of his accession; the election of Archbishop Wichmann of Magdeburg; Henry the Lion's vice-regency; Frederick's relations with Duke Berthold IV of Zédieresishringen; and his issuance of a Landfriede, or peace ordinance, addressed to all the “bishops, dukes, counts, margraves, [and] rectors” in the German kingdom.

This chapter details events following Frederick's return to Germany in September 1155. Frederick returned to a kingdom in disarray, with practically the entire transalpine realm being torn by uprisings and thrown into confusion by fire and sword and open warfare. If Barbarossa was going to punish Milan for its defiance, let alone bring Lombardy under his direct control and invade the Norman kingdom, he required a much larger army than the 1,800 knights he had taken with him to Italy in 1154. To procure the necessary manpower, Frederick needed to restore order in Germany and to conciliate his uncle Henry Jasomirgott and Vladislav of Bohemia, who had met in his absence with the Saxon enemies of his cousin Henry the Lion. He also needed to provide for his brother and his cousin Frederick IV of Swabia, who had attained their majority and were potential claimants to the throne, and to marry again to ensure the continuity of his branch of the Staufer dynasty. These new arrangements would remain in place until the annihilation of Frederick's army in 1167 gave him the opportunity to become more personally involved in German affairs.

This epilogue first explains the reaction to Frederick's death. The initial reaction to the news of his death was mixed. It was the drowning that was inexplicable. Frederick had not died in a battle against the infidel or in the Holy Land, but while swimming or taking a bath. Worst of all, he had died without confessing his sins or receiving the viaticum. To allay misgivings about his salvation, some chroniclers changed the story of Frederick's drowning so the dying emperor had a chance to repent. The chapter then describes how in the later Middle Ages, Frederick's grandson, Frederick II, became the subject of apocalyptic imaginings about a returning last emperor ready to punish and/or purify a corrupt Church. This is followed by discussions of the Romantic rediscovery of Frederick; the Wilhelmine appropriation of Barbarossa; linking of Barbarossa to the Führer and German hopes of regaining the country's lost eastern lands; and debates over Barbarossa's policies after World War II.

This chapter details events in the life of Frederick Barbarossa before and after he became king. These include his childhood; his feud in 1146 with Duke Conrad of Zähringen; his tense relations with his father and Conrad III in the mid-1140s; his marriage to and subsequent divorce from Adela of Vohburg; and the Second Crusade, which brought to a head the problems that would confront Frederick on his accession in 1152: the return of Bavaria to Henry the Lion; the intertwined relations with Byzantium, the Normans in Sicily, the papacy, Hungary, and the Roman commune; and the imperial prerogatives of the German king prior to his coronation in Rome.

This chapter discusses Frederick's first Italian campaign. The morning after Frederick's coronation, 10 March 1152, the princes had decided not to undertake Conrad's planned Italian expedition to obtain the imperial crown, the Romzug, until Pope Eugenius invited Frederick to come. However, they changed their minds after hearing about conditions in imperial Italy, in particular the dangerous further radicalization of the Roman commune. The chapter details how Frederick's failure to suppress the Roman commune and to attack the Norman kingdom, along with his conveyance of Apulia to the Byzantines, convinced Pope Adrian and Cardinal Roland that Frederick had violated the Treaty of Constance. They concluded that an alliance with the victorious William, the Treaty of Benevento of June 1156, in which the Norman king acknowledged his status as a papal vassal, was preferable to an accommodation with an emperor who had loudly asserted his prerogatives in his dealings with the Lombards and the pope.

This chapter first discusses Frederick's paternal “Staufer” ancestry. It argues that while Frederick is remembered as the greatest of the Staufer monarchs, he seemingly knew little about his paternal ancestry and/or was ashamed of his grandfather's relatively modest origins—and he was never identified in his lifetime as a Staufer. The designation of the lineage as the Staufer is, in fact, a convenient scholarly convention, but it is anachronistic since key members of the lineage, including Barbarossa, were never called as such. The remainder of the chapter focuses on Duke Frederick II and the Welfs, Germany's most aristocratic family.

This chapter details events following Frederick's successful second Italian campaign. Frederick left Italy in late August 1162 confident after his victory that he would be able to persuade Louis VII at St. Jean-de-Losne, on the border between their realms in Burgundy, to recognize Victor IV as the rightful pontiff. The aborted meeting turned, instead, into a major diplomatic defeat; and Frederick spent the next five years shuttling back and forth between Germany and Italy in a fruitless pursuit of Alexander III, by both military and diplomatic means, that ended with the annihilation of his army. The discussions cover the punishment of Mainz for the murder of Archbishop Arnold on 24 June 1160; the third Italian campaign; the imperial administration's tyrannical rule during Frederick's absence from Italy between 1164 and 1166; the election of Cardinal Guido of Crema as Paschal III in 1164; the Würzburg assembly of 1165; the canonization of Charlemagne; the fourth Italian campaign; and the epidemic that struck the army and city of Rome after a torrential downpour in the early afternoon of 2 August 1167.

This chapter details events following Frederick's arrival in Basel on 15 March 1168, which marked his longest continuous stay in Germany during his reign. He returned to Italy via Basel in September 1174. Less is known about these six and a half years than any other period after Frederick's accession in 1152, and there is less information, in general, about the last twenty-two years of his reign than the first fifteen. The diminution of his influence and the decline of interest in his activities are evident in the Regesta Imperii, the chronological ordering of all references to Frederick in narrative sources, letters, and charters. The discussions cover the election of Frederick's son Henry as king; the diplomatic ramifications of Henry VI's election; the election of Adalbert, son of Frederick's Babenberg aunt, Gertrude, and King Vladislav II of Bohemia as archbishop of Salzburg; Frederick's interventions in Bohemia; his expansion of the Reich's and the Staufer's dynastic holdings in Germany; his promotion of economic development; and his urban policy in Germany.

This chapter details events surrounding Frederick's fifth Italian campaign. Frederick is believed to have undertaken the campaign at the instigation of Margrave William of Montferrat and Pavia. Possibly, as Archbishop Romuald of Salerno thought, the emperor hoped to avenge the injuries that the Lombards had caused him. The discussions cover the failed siege of Alessandria; the aborted peace of Montebello; Henry the Lion's alleged denial of his cousin the emperor's request for the military assistance; Frederick's defeat at Legnano on 29 May 1176; the consuls of Cremona's issuance of a revised mediation award in an attempt to resolve the conflict; the preliminary peace of Anagni; the peace of Venice; Frederick's public humiliation in Venice; the crowning of Frederick as king of Burgundy in Arles on 30 July 1178; the temporary return of the papacy to Rome; and the Peace of Constance of 25 June 1183.

This chapter discusses events surrounding the Third Crusade. It covers the political situation in southeastern Europe in 1189 that was a potential threat to the success of the crusade; assembly of crusaders in Regensburg around 1 May 1189; Frederick's arrival at Esztergom, the seat of the Hungarian metropolitan, on 4 June; the crusaders' trek across the Balkans; Frederick's conflict with Isaac II Angelos; and Frederick's death by drowning on 10 June 1190. The body was brought to Seleucia and embalmed. It was then transported 56 miles eastwards on the old Roman coastal road, to Tarsus, the home of the Apostle Paul, where the crusaders arrived around 17 June. Duke Frederick, who succeeded his father as leader of the crusade, took the remainder of the army and possibly his father's body overland and reached Antioch in early July. There, the flesh was boiled from the bones of Frederick Barbarossa and buried in a sarcophagus to the left of the altar in the cathedral of St. Peter.

This chapter first describes Frederick's reign on horseback. The Empire in the twelfth century covered an area of approximately 310,000 to 345,000 square miles. Between his election in March 1152 and his departure on the Third Crusade in May 1189, the outer limits of Frederick's travels were Lübeck on the Baltic, Albano, south of Rome, Mouzon on the Meuse, and Krzyszkowo near Poznańin western Poland. There was nothing unusual about Frederick's peregrinations. For centuries, medieval monarchs traveled to hunt at a favorite lodge, to worship at a shrine, and, above all, to see and to be seen. The remainder of the chapter discusses the major assemblies held during Frederick's reign; the Tafelgüterverzeichnis or list of the king's income from manors; and the workings of royal government.

This chapter explains the role of Charlemagne in Hohenstaufen Roman renovatio, the period during which propagandists for the emperor employed a variety of expressions of his universal authority. Specifically, it studies four specific works: Deeds of Frederick Barbarossa, Play of Antichrist, Hillin of Trier letters, and the letter of Prester John. These works address the Hohenstaufen inheritance of the Roman Empire. They reveal how the discourse of dominium mundi continued to be constructed, as it had been for centuries, based on the sometimes awkward melding of the classical ideal of peaceful surrender and the violent end time scenario described in the sibylline tradition.

This chapter describes Lombardy before the Lombard League. The first section cites the different definitions attached to the term ‘Lombardy’. The multiple definitions attached to it could easily create misunderstanding. In order to avoid this, the Po Valley as a whole was sometimes defined as tota Langobardia (whole Lombardy). Primary sources, including some documentary ones produced by the League itself, often simply define the latter as ‘Lombard League’ or ‘the Lombards’. The second section describes the fortunes of the Kingdom of Italy and the rise of the city communes. The last section describes the revival of the imperial authority under Frederick Barbarossa.

This chapter discusses events that occurred after July 1183, when Frederick swore to adhere to the Peace of Constance. It covers Frederick's efforts to settle the remaining differences between the Church and Empire; his alliance with Milan; the further deterioration of Frederick's already badly strained relations with the papacy following the death of Lucius III on 25 November 1185; Frederick's devastation of the contado of Cremona in the spring of 1186 and siege of the recently built Cremonese fortification of Castel Manfredi; conflict between Frederick and Urban III; his conflict with Archbishop Philip of Cologne; and preparations for the Third Crusade.

This chapter discusses events surrounding Frederick's second Italian campaign. The goal of this campaign was to punish Milan for its repeated acts of defiance: the destruction of Frederick's seal, the failure to supply him with adequate provisions, its subjugation of Como and Lodi, and its support of Tortona. The emperor also sought to stop Milan's hegemonic aspirations in Lombardy, reassert imperial authority in Italy, and create a territorial lordship under his own control after he had turned over most of the Staufer's German domains to his brother, Conrad, and cousin, Frederick of Rothenburg. The discussions cover the first siege of Milan; Milan's first capitulation; the Roncaglia assembly of 1158; renewal of the conflict with Milan; and the siege of Crema.