KAISERCHRONIK. - German historical poem of ca. 17,000 verses, composed around the middle of the 12th century;
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 Regensburg court of Duke Henry the Lion of Bavaria. Alongside historical information, derived mostly from Latin sources, the chronicle embraces many legends, including those of the German tradition, and weaves them into 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 glorifying as "truth" in history and fable everything that reveals the presence of divine law; it also expresses itself in the aspiration for a Christian empire as a mystical community and union of spiritual and temporal power. The great prominence given to the facts and interests of the papacy shows the interference that the Church, after the Investiture Contest, had assumed in political life. A critical edition of the poem was edited by E. Schröder, in MGH, Deutsche Chroniken, I, pp. 1-441.