This week our story kicks off with the death of pope Gregory IX, nonagenarian impeccable foe of emperor Frederick II. Peace is in the air. Of the 11 cardinals getting together in the dilapidated Septizonium once built by emperor Septimus Severus, half wanted a more conciliatory vicar of Christ, but the other half did not. The very first papal conclave followed as the senator Matteo Orsini locks the cardinals up in horrible conditions. When finally one of them is chosen, he died just 17 days late...
Dec 22, 2022•32 min•Ep 88•Transcript available on Metacast “Out of the sea rises up the Beast, full of the names of blasphemy who, raging with the claws of the bear and the mouth of the lion and the limbs and likeness of the leopard, opens its mouth to blaspheme the Holy Name and ceases not to hurl its spears against the tabernacle of God and against the saints who dwell in heaven. With fangs and claws of iron it seeks to destroy everything and to trample the world to fragments beneath its feet. It has already prepared its rams to batter down the walls ...
Dec 15, 2022•34 min•Ep 87•Transcript available on Metacast Emperor Frederick II has knocked the Milanese for six at Cortenuova. Their war cart, symbol of communal freedom has been captured and taken into Cremona in triumph. The Lombard league that once defeated his grandfather Barbarossa is falling apart and pope Gregory IX is cowering in the Lateran Palace. What shall he do now? Negotiate peace or go for complete submission? This decision will seal his fate and that of his entire family… Website with transcripts and additional information is available ...
Dec 08, 2022•33 min•Ep 86•Transcript available on Metacast This week we are back to action stations. We resume our narrative in 1235 when Frederick II gathered his vassals in Mainz to implement his grand plan to regain the imperial rights in Northern Italy. He picks up where his grandfather Barbarossa and his father Henry VI had to leave things, trying again, but this time with the resources of Southern Italy behind him….and it’s déjà vu all over again. The music for the show is Flute Sonata in E-flat major, H.545 by Carl Phillip Emmanuel Bach (or some ...
Dec 01, 2022•32 min•Ep 85•Transcript available on Metacast This is a whole episode about a book, a book called "De Arte Veneri cum Avibus" the Art of Hunting with Birds. Hunting books are similar to books about fishing, riveting for those who do it, crushingly boring to those who do not. But this book is not about hunting in the same way as the The Old Man and the Sea is about fishing. But this book is not about hunting, it is about nature about the beginnings of science and the awakening of the critical mind. It is about someone who acts and thinks ver...
Nov 24, 2022•28 min•Ep 84•Transcript available on Metacast Near the town of Andria in Puglia rising from a rock that makes it visible for miles stands entirely on its own a stone structure we call the Castel del Monte. Its ground plan is unique, and like many other of the Emperor's buildings it was probably sketched by Frederick himself: a regular octagon of yellowish limestone; its smooth perfectly-fitting blocks showing no joins and producing the effect of a monolith : at each of the eight corners a squat octagonal tower the height of the wall; ...
Nov 17, 2022•33 min•Ep 83•Transcript available on Metacast What do you do once you have condemned your eldest son and heir to life imprisonment? Exactly, you have a party, or more precisely you have two parties. But as always with Frederick II, these are not just knees-up for entertainment, but elaborately staged political events. The first is a wedding, the second a grand get-together of the whole realm and then there is a third, a funeral of a kind you would not have expected from our rational, seemingly agnostic hero. Lots to unpack as always… The mu...
Nov 10, 2022•24 min•Ep 82•Transcript available on Metacast If you have only listened to the last 5 episodes or so, you may be wondering whether this is really the History of the Germans or whether you have accidentally stumbled into A History of Italy minus the eloquence and humour of Mike Corradi. So today we will leave the shores of the Mediterranean to travel up north, though not with a train of mules carrying gold and silver, camels, dromedaries, leopards and apes as Fredrick II did in 1235. The reason for that journey was nowhere near as joyous as ...
Nov 03, 2022•35 min•Ep 81•Transcript available on Metacast A medieval ruler that has a Muslim fighting force at his back and call and who negotiates Jerusalem out of the hands of the Sultan of Egypt is not what you expected when you began listening to the History of the Germans Podcast. I am afraid you aint seen nuttin yet! This week we come to what was long believed to be his masterpiece, the Constitutions of Melfi. Even if It isn’t the creation of a modern state in the 13th century as Kantorowicz had believed there is still something fundamentally dif...
Oct 27, 2022•35 min•Ep 80•Transcript available on Metacast This week we look in a bit more detail how Frederick II regained his beloved kingdom of Sicily. For 30 years after the death of the last Hauteville king in 1190 the institutions of that kingdom had been eroded, the crown estate squandered, and powerful local forces had been riding roughshod over the royal administration. Fredrick will bring this land back under his firm control. That is however not your usual return of the king story, because the way he does it is no longer typically medieval….....
Oct 20, 2022•27 min•Ep 79•Transcript available on Metacast This is a story I was looking forward to telling for quite some time. It has everything – crossed wires, stubbornness and vitriol as well as diplomacy, cultural awareness and stunning success. It is the story of the crusade of Frederick II, that has no parallel, for one because Frederick did undertake it whilst banned by the pope and further, because he brought Jerusalem back under Christian control for one last time, without a shot being fired. The latter had not been achieved since the Frist C...
Oct 06, 2022•46 min•Ep 78•Transcript available on Metacast This week we take a look at the reign of Frederick II in Germany from 1212 to 1220. Most of what he did was putting a nail in an actual coffin whilst also putting the metaphorical nail into the carcass of imperial rule in Germany. And was that such a bad thing? What happens when the emperor just hands out what is left of the royal demesne? Cathedrals go up, princes hold splendid courts and none of them think about disturbing the peace in Italy. If you are the king of Sicily, that is a near perfe...
Sep 29, 2022•30 min•Ep 77•Transcript available on Metacast This week we will go back 20 years and pick up the other strain of our history of the Hohenstaufen. The last three episodes we focused on events in Germany and the struggle between Philipp of Swabia and Otto IV. Today we take a closer look at the early years of Frederick II, before he came up to Germany and took over. Little is known but much has been written about the youth of emperor Frederick II, not only because it was exceedingly turbulent, but also because it forged a man who burst on the ...
Sep 22, 2022•24 min•Ep 76•Transcript available on Metacast Otto IV, scion of one of the oldest and most aristocratic families in the world had achieved what so many of his ancestors have craved, ruling the empire. This week we will follow him to his coronation and the sequence of errors that will leave him back home in Brunswick, alone and forgotten. At the same time his nemesis, the child of Pulle, the impoverished 15-year-old king of Sicily and son of emperor Henry VI, young Frederick II rises to the imperial crown on a wing and some very potent  ...
Sep 15, 2022•36 min•Ep 75•Transcript available on Metacast The kingdom is in turmoil. Two pretenders fight for supremacy. On the one side, Philipp of Swabia, son of the emperor Barbarossa, brother of Emperor Henry VI. and head of the House of Hohenstaufen. In the opposite corner stands Otto IV., son of Henry the Lion, protégé of king Richard the Lionheart and preferred candidate of pope Innocent III. protagonists are the imperial princes who play the two kings against each other for their personal gain, swearing fealty one day and breaking it the next. ...
Sep 08, 2022•32 min•Ep 74•Transcript available on Metacast This week we will see the reverse of 1046 when there was one emperor choosing between three popes. Today, we have one Pope, given the choice between three emperors. How could that happen? Last time we looked we had Henry VI. at the peak of his reign, being king of Sicily, having pushed through the inheritability of the imperial title and de-facto encircled the pope militarily. But now, just 2 years later the picture is reversed. There is a reason the wheel of fortune is one of the favourite subj...
Sep 01, 2022•31 min•Ep 73•Transcript available on Metacast This week we will watch Henry VI’s attempts to make the papacy comfortable with the fact that their neighbour to the south is now the same as their neighbour to the North. Pope Celestin may see it as encirclement by a family whose track record as sons of mother church had been to say it politely, a bit patchy. But Henry VI thinks there is a way to make this work. Let’s see… As always, this episode has a dedicated website with the transcript and maps, pictures and additional comments to read alon...
Aug 24, 2022•30 min•Ep 72•Transcript available on Metacast There is one story from the Middle Ages that most people know, the imprisonment and ransom of King Richard the Lionheart of England. The chivalric knight and hero of the Third Crusade is cowardly set upon by a gallery of villains, his brother, John Lackland, the King of France, Phillippe Auguste and the money grabbing emperor Henry VI, ably assisted by duke Leopold of Austria. We will look at this story from Henry VI. perspective which make Richard look a lot less compelling. And we throw in one...
Aug 14, 2022•28 min•Ep 71•Transcript available on Metacast When Barbarossa drowns in the river Saleph in 1190 the crown transfers to his eldest surviving son, Henry, known to History as Henry VI. This is the first time since the accession to personal rule of Emperor Henry III in 1039 that the imperial crown moves from father to grown up son without a glitch. In the previous 150 years, the passing of an emperor had been a dramatic event where all the cards were dealt anew. Just remember, Henry IV came to the throne as a child, Henry V by rebellion agains...
Aug 07, 2022•32 min•Ep 70•Transcript available on Metacast Way back when, in Episode 30 we identified three drivers of the Investiture Controversy. These were: the conflict between the emperor and the princes, the conflict of the emperor with the popes and the rise and rise of piety amongst the lay people. These last 38 episodes we did talk at length about the how the princes established their own territorial lordships against the imperial central power and man did we talk about the conflict between popes and emperors. But that third element...
Jul 28, 2022•27 min•Ep 69•Transcript available on Metacast This week we take a tour of how cities in Germany worked around 1200 with a brief detour to look at what happened later and how they differ from Italian and French cities. The music for the show is Flute Sonata in E-flat major, H.545 by Carl Phillip Emmanuel Bach (or some claim it as BWV 1031 Johann Sebastian Bach) performed and arranged by Michel Rondeau under Common Creative Licence 3.0 . As always: Homepage with maps, photos, transcripts and blog: www.historyofthegerma...
Jul 21, 2022•15 min•Ep 68•Transcript available on Metacast This is about the peasants, no kings, emperors, popes, bishops at all. Ok one brother of a duke at the end because I simply cannot help myself. But yes, peasants. What was the life of a peasant in Germany in around 1200 really like? How much do we actually know about their living conditions? Did it differ much from country to country? The correct answer to all of these is – we are not really sure. These sections of the podcast are always the hardest ones. Following some king or emperor around is...
Jul 14, 2022•25 min•Ep 67•Transcript available on Metacast We have just spent 15 episodes talking about the life and times of the actual Frederick Barbarossa. Exciting as his life was, his afterlife is almost as interesting. Don’t panic I will not go on for 15 episodes talking about the perception of the great emperor. Just give me 30 minutes and I promise it is worth it. As always, this episode has a dedicated website with the transcript and maps, pictures and additional comments to read along. It is to be found at https://historyofthegermans.com...
Jul 07, 2022•35 min•Ep 66•Transcript available on Metacast We had the great pleasure to interview Dr. Levi Roach, Prize-winning author and Associate Professor at the University of Exeter about his new book, The Empires of the Normans.. We have encountered the Normans many times in the History of the Germans. This is the chance to get the whole story. It is a tale of ambitious adventures and fierce freebooters, of fortunes made and fortunes lost. The Normans made their influence felt across all of western Europe and the Mediterranean, from the British Is...
Jun 30, 2022•58 min•Transcript available on Metacast This week, after 15 episodes we will finally leave the emperor Barbarossa behind, though it is almost impossible to ever get away from him. No other medieval ruler is still so present in the national psyche, not as the man he was but as the myth he was turned into. So today we say goodbye to the man and next time we will take a look at the myth.. As always, this episode has a dedicated website with the transcript and maps, pictures and additional comments to read along. It is to be found at ...
Jun 23, 2022•35 min•Ep 65•Transcript available on Metacast This week we will discuss how Barbarossa attempts to rebuild a new ideological underpinning of his role and how that leads to renewed conflict with the popes. But then one of the most devastating events of the Middle Ages solves all his issues and presents him with an opportunity to turn the mythmaking up to 11. As always, this episode has a dedicated website with the transcript and maps, pictures and additional comments to read along. It is to be found at Episode 64 - The Heirs of Troy • ...
Jun 16, 2022•29 min•Ep 64•Transcript available on Metacast Following the Peace of Venice and the Fall of Henry the Lion, our great emperor Barbarossa has reached the end of the road. Being a man of infinite resource and sagacity he climbs out of the hole, resets his political allegiances and recovers some of his previous standing. As always, this episode has a dedicated website with the transcript and maps, pictures and additional comments to read along. It is to be found at Episode 63 - Recovery • History of the Germans Podcast The music for the show i...
Jun 09, 2022•31 min•Ep 63•Transcript available on Metacast This episode deals with, guess what, the fall of Henry the Lion from his position as duke of Saxony and Bavaria. The interesting bit is not so much whether it happened, that is pretty obvious, but why it happened. When I learned about it in school, it was seen as the greatest moment of Barbarossa’s career, taking down the eternal rival of the Hohenstaufen family, but today, historians see it very differently. Follow along and make up your own mind. Talking about following along, there is an epis...
Jun 02, 2022•40 min•Ep 62•Transcript available on Metacast This week we will talk about the great peace conference in Venice where Barbarossa is finally reconciled with the papacy, the Lombards and the Sicilians.It is also the time he has to bend the knee before his implacable foe, Pope Alexander III in a grand ceremony before all of Europe. The music for the show is Flute Sonata in E-flat major, H.545 by Carl Phillip Emmanuel Bach (or some claim it as BWV 1031 Johann Sebastian Bach) performed and arranged by Michel Rondeau under Commo...
May 26, 2022•32 min•Ep 61•Transcript available on Metacast 1176 This week we talk about the next leg in this the fifth Italian campaign Barbarossa undertakes. It involves an aborted battle, attempts at peace, a mediation award, a refusal of support and the most significant battle of not just his reign but one that reverberates into the present day The music for the show is Flute Sonata in E-flat major, H.545 by Carl Phillip Emmanuel Bach (or some claim it as BWV 1031 Johann Sebastian Bach) performed and arranged by Michel Rondeau under ...
May 19, 2022•33 min•Ep 60•Transcript available on Metacast 
