HIST 107 Introduction to Medieval History Lecture 18 Contrasting Styles The German Emperors and St Louis Main Questions 1 What were the most significant features of rulership in Germany in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries 2 Likewise what were the most significant features of French royal government culminating in the reign of Louis IX St Louis 1226 70 Preliminary Remarks Various strands from previous lectures converge on this subject Recall Treaty of Verdun 843 eastern and western portions of the Carolingian empire are awarded to two of Louis the Pious s sons with the middle to a third These units are the nearest thing we have to the formal birth of France and Germany as separate political entities With hindsight we know that France and Germany will develop in different ways but for a long time after 843 there was continuing ambiguity about their status Which for example was the real heir to the Carolingian empire Could they ever be reunited From the lecture on lordship recall that it is in France that the two stage process of government breakdown between the ninth and twelfth centuries is most evident First the kingdom decomposes into regional units run by princes then these units are subject to pressure from below in the shape of castle lords However by the later twelfth century the French kings the Capetian dynasty are succeeding in subduing the castle lords in their area of regional strength around Paris and are taking on the larger regional princes around the kingdom The struggle against the Angevins see previous lecture is the culmination of this process Much of northern France is taken from King John of England by Philip Augustus 1180 1223 in 1202 4 and the battle of Bouvines puts the seal on the French king s dominance Meanwhile it is the German kings who have fashioned themselves as direct successors of the title and prestige of Charlemagne In 962 the German king Otto I revives the imperial title which was slipping into abeyance From now on only kings of Germany will lay claim to be called emperor We need to ask what happens next in Germany to bring us up to the time of Philip Augustus and Bouvines So the first question is A How does the institution of kingship develop in Germany followed by B What was distinctive about the Capetian monarchy and its ideology 1 A How does the institution of kingship develop in Germany We can start by looking ahead to the modern era then working backwards NB This is not always good historical technique but in this case it is useful for getting to the heart of the major problem of medieval German history Germany not unified as a single state until 1870s Whereas France and England achieved political cohesion during the Middle Ages So what went wrong in the German case Is this a problem Yes because academic history as now studied was invented in Germany in the 19th century period dominated by nationalistic ideals German historians puzzled by their country s failure Answer medieval Germany diverted onto a distinctive path Sonderweg Why Because the German kings were too obsessed with the imperial title this encouraged them to waste resources in Italy pursuing their dreams and took them away from the sort of hands on rule kings in England and France exercised There is a lot in this argument that does not hold up Cf England government grows largely because kings are often absent Why should England and France be the benchmarks anyway medieval Germany very active culturally and economically so what s the problem But some sense of a Sonderweg still hangs over discussion of medieval Germany And it is true that in the long run royal government does not develop along the sorts of lines seen in England and France and Spain too Why is this Short answer German kings never develop concentrated resources economic human ideological that first the English then the French kings acquire Not wrong just a different sort of trajectory In 10th century Germany of Otto I divided into half a dozen large regional units stems used to be thought stems e g Bavaria Saxony Thuringia very old tribal units scholars now think they were more recent creations but either way the stems are the basic building blocks of the German kingdom each ruled by dukes not unlike princes controlling regions in France the kings themselves are dukes of one of the stems Otto I duke of Saxony 2 so Germany exists as long as the kings give stems reasons to join in the team How can this be done war after all war is a great national unifier Otto I leads defence against the Magyars huge victory at Lechfeld 955 but war is not a permanently available political instrument and the kings don t usually take the lead in the best available theatre of war the eastern frontier against pagan Slavs better long term solution king distributes power and lands to the elites gets political loyalty in return system fine as long as there are resources to distribute arch exponent of this approach Frederick I Barbarossa 1152 90 use titles and lands to win the support of networks of aristocratic families not unlike the old Carolingian Reichsadel e g 1150s dispute over succession to duchy of Bavaria answer split it into two duchies creating new entity of Austria in the process Barbarossa rides his luck 1167 big German army besieging Rome outbreak of malaria decimates aristocratic contingents when back in Germany Barbarossa has more lands and titles to award Indications that this system has benefits in terms of royal prestige graphic illustration royal court at Besan on 1157 representatives from pope Hadrian IV seem to belittle Barbarossa s status as emperor probably deliberately part of long standing dispute over the nature of the imperial title nobles around Barbarossa get furious with the papal legates nearly violent i e by slighting Barbarossa the legates are slighting them also powerful level of identification with king as political leader See Rosenwein Reading pp 374 8 another illustration Barbarossa assembles huge army to take part in the Third Crusade the crusade triggered by the loss of Jerusalem to Saladin in 1187 100 000 maybe single largest crusade force ever put together but Barbarossa drowns in river in modern Turkey en route 1190 army disintegrates without his presence to hold it together But in the longer run this system of rewards cannot be sustained the German kings do to a large extent allow Italy to consume a large part of their available energies and resources 3 Why The imperial title requires