Kaiserchronik

KAISERCHRONIK. - German historical poem of about 17,000 verses, composed around the middle of the 12th century; it narrates the history of the emperors from Julius Caesar to Conrad III of Swabia (1147); a reworking from the 13th century extends down to Rudolf of Habsburg (1276).

The author, identified by some with the prelate Konrad, poet of the Rolandslied on the French model, is unknown; he was certainly a high official at the court of Regensburg of the Duke of Bavaria Henry the Lion. The chronicle welcomes, alongside the historical notices, derived for the most part from Latin sources, many legends also from the German tradition and interweaves them with the lives of the emperors whose ideal model is the figure of Charlemagne. A religious sentiment pervades the work, tending to fuse the Christian ethos with the new ideal of culture and glorifies as "truth" in history and in fable everything that reveals the presence of divine law; it is also expressed in the aspiration to a Christian empire as a mystical community and union of spiritual and temporal power. The great prominence given to the deeds and interests of the papacy shows the interference that, after the Investiture Controversy, the Church had assumed in political life. A critical edition of the poem was edited by E. Schröder, in MGH, Deutsche Chroniken, I, pp. 1-441.

Alba Cori