Eleventh-century Germany - The Swabian Chronicles (Hardcover)

Three of the most important chronicles of eleventh-century Germany were composed in the diocese of Constance in the south-western duchy of Swabia. In the abbey of Reichenau the great polymath Herman 'the Lame' composed a chronicle that contains the most detailed account of the reign of Emperor Henry III (1039-56). His pupil and biographer, Berthold of Reichenau continued his master's work, composing a rigorous extant account of the years 1076-1079 in Germany. Bernold, a member of the cathedral clergy of Constance, then a monk of St Blasien and of Schaffhausen, continued the work of Herman and Berthold in an extant account of the years 1080-1100 in Germany. Herman, writing in a monastery loyal to its royal protector, had begun his chronicle with a confident belief in the divinely ordained kingship of Henry III, but this enthusiasm had waned by the time of his death (1054), giving way to an interest in the newly reformed papacy.This interest intensified in Berthold's work, which by the 1070s was characterised by vitriolic denunciations of King Henry IV (1056-1106) and a staunch defence of Pope Gregory VII (1073-85). Writing in the new context of the reformed monasteries of south-western Germany, Bernold of St Blasien preached total obedience to the Gregorian papacy. "The Swabian Chronicles" reveal how between 1049 and 1100 the centripetal attraction of the reform papacy became the dominant fact of intellectual life in German reformed monastic circles. They are an indispensable resource to the student of the changing loyalties and the conflicts of eleventh-century Germany.