Godfrey of Viterbo and his Readers

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Charles IV
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Frederick Barbarossa
germaniae
Gesta Friderici
Godfrey's Pantheon
Godfrey's Works
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Godfrey’s Pantheon
Godfrey’s Works
historica
Hohenstaufen Court
Hohenstaufen Dynasty
Hohenstaufen Rulers
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John III
Late Medieval Poland
Luxembourg Dynasty
monumenta
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Peter III
Peter IV
Polish Readers
Pope Alexander III
regum
sibylla
speculum
Speculum Historiale
Speculum Regum
Thirteenth Century Italy
tiburtina
Translatio Imperii
Twelfth Century Intellectuals
Universal Chronicle
Viterbo's Pantheon
Viterbo’s Pantheon
von
work

Product details

  • ISBN 9780367880347
  • Weight: 453g
  • Dimensions: 156 x 234mm
  • Publication Date: 12 Dec 2019
  • Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd
  • Publication City/Country: GB
  • Product Form: Paperback
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This collection provides a systematic survey of the wide readership the works of Godfrey of Viterbo enjoyed in the late Middle Ages. In the last years of the twelfth century this chronicler and imperial notary wrote a series of historical collections that gained considerable and lasting popularity: between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries, his works were copied in elaborate manuscripts in almost all of Latin Europe. This wide distribution is particularly surprising for an author like Godfrey whom modern historians have never credited with any importance at all, as they considered his works chaotic and historically unreliable. Yet Godfrey was certainly one of the most daring historiographers of his time. In his works, the lineage of the Hohenstaufen emperors Frederick Barbarossa and Henry VI is traced directly to Charlemagne and Augustus, to the kings of Troy and of the Old Testament, and to Jupiter and everyone who, in his view, wielded imperial power in the past. Godfrey was a herald of the new political ideas the Hohenstaufen developed after the years of defeat against the papacy and the Italian communes, but also a universal chronicler whose interests reached far beyond the political issues of his day. Bringing together a group of specialists on manuscripts and historical writing in late medieval England, Spain, Italy, Germany, Bohemia and Poland, this volume aims to revive Godfrey’s reputation by demonstrating how his works were understood by medieval readers.

Thomas Foerster studied at Heidelberg University where he was awarded his PhD in 2008 and has since worked in different postdoctoral positions in Norway, France, and since 2013 at the Norwegian Institute in Rome, Italy. He is author of Conquest and Political Culture: Hohenstaufen Sicily and Capetian Normandy, c.1185-1215 (forthcoming) and Vergleich und Identität: Selbst- und Fremddeutung im Norden des hochmittelalterlichen Europa (2009).