Book contents
- Making the Holy Roman Empire Holy
- Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought Fourth Series
- Making the Holy Roman Empire Holy
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Tables
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Sacrum imperium: Lombard Influence and the Sacralisation of the State in the mid-Twelfth Century (1125–1167)
- 2 Sacrum imperium II: The Barometer of Lombard Influence at Court (1167–1190 and Beyond)
- 3 The Cult of Charlemagne from His Death to the Accession of Frederick Barbarossa (814–1152)
- 4 The Canonisation of Charlemagne in 1165
- 5 The Barbarossaleuchter: Imperial Monument and Pious Donation
- 6 The Reliquary Shrine of Saint Charlemagne: The High Point of the Sacrum imperium?
- Conclusion
- Appendix The Decorative Imagery of the Karlsschrein
- Bibliography
- Index
Introduction
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 May 2024
- Making the Holy Roman Empire Holy
- Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought Fourth Series
- Making the Holy Roman Empire Holy
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Tables
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Sacrum imperium: Lombard Influence and the Sacralisation of the State in the mid-Twelfth Century (1125–1167)
- 2 Sacrum imperium II: The Barometer of Lombard Influence at Court (1167–1190 and Beyond)
- 3 The Cult of Charlemagne from His Death to the Accession of Frederick Barbarossa (814–1152)
- 4 The Canonisation of Charlemagne in 1165
- 5 The Barbarossaleuchter: Imperial Monument and Pious Donation
- 6 The Reliquary Shrine of Saint Charlemagne: The High Point of the Sacrum imperium?
- Conclusion
- Appendix The Decorative Imagery of the Karlsschrein
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
The introduction explains the state of the scholarship regarding the sanctity of the state, starting with what is commonly believed. Sulovsky then traces the argument back to its intellectual roots, in the process showing that it is based on false premises that had more to do with the clash of Catholic and Protestant worldviews than with any medieval reality per se. The introduction of the phrase sacrum imperium, the translation of the Three Kings and the canonisation of Saint Charlemagne constituting a triad of sacralising acts is traced to Heinrich Appelt, the senior diplomatist who edited Frederick I’s diplomata. However, as Sulovsky shows, Appelt drew heavily upon Friedrich Heer, whose magnum opus Die Tragödie des Heiligen Reiches deeply influenced many scholars, though he is only reluctantly cited by them. Heer’s work is then shown to be a Catholic response to the Kulturkampf-dominated Prussian school, which formulated the original idea of the sacralisation of the state in 1910, but based on eighteenth-century German Protestant interpretations of imperial history. Thus, the introduction demonstrates that much of our knowledge rests on the presuppositions and axioms of a bygone ideological struggle.
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- Making the Holy Roman Empire HolyFrederick Barbarossa, Saint Charlemagne and the <i>sacrum imperium</i>, pp. 1 - 19Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2024