¹ Die Kaiserchronik eines Regensburger Geistlichen, ed. Edward Schröder (1892; repr., Munich: Monumenta Germaniae Historica, 2002). This is the only critical edition of the chronicle to date; all references and citations are from it unless otherwise indicated. A select edition of the chronicle, based on Schröder's text and with an accompanying modern German translation, is Die Kaiserchronik. Eine Auswahl. Mittelhochdeutsch / Neuhochdeutsch, transl. Mathias Herweg (Stuttgart: Reclam, 2014); for a recent translation into modern English, again based on Schröder, see The Book of Emperors, transl. Henry A. Myers (Morgantown: West Virginia University Press, 2013).

² For basic orientation, see the survey article by Eberhard Nellmann, “‘Kaiserchronik,’” in Die deutsche Literatur des Mittelalters. Verfasserlexikon, vol. 4, ed. Kurt Ruh (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1983), 949–64.

³ The fundamental study of the sources of the Kaiserchronik is still Ernst Friedrich Ohly, Sage und Legende in der Kaiserchronik (1940; repr., Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1968).

⁴ András Vizkelety, “Eine lateinische Übersetzung der Kaiserchronik,” in Beiträge zur Überlieferung und Beschreibung deutscher Texte des Mittelalters. Referate der 8. Arbeitstagung österreichischer Handschriften-Bearbeiter vom 25.–28.11.1981 in Rief bei Salzburg, ed. Ingo Reiffenstein (Göppingen: Kümmerle, 1983), 25–40; idem, “Eine lateinische Prosabearbeitung der ‘Kaiserchronik,’” in Editionsberichte zur mittelalterlichen deutschen Literatur. Beiträge zur Bamberger Tagung “Methoden und Probleme der Edition mittelalterlicher deutscher Texte”. 26.-29. Juli 1991, ed. Anton Schwob (Göppingen: Kümmerle, 1994), 341–45.

⁵ Kleinschmidt, Erich, “Die lateinische Fassung von Wolframs ‘Willehalm’-Prolog und ihr Überlieferungswert,” Zeitschrift für deutsches Altertum 103, no. 2 (1974): 95–114Google Scholar; Hartmann von Aue, Gregorius. Der arme Heinrich. Iwein, ed. Volker Mertens (Frankfurt/Main: Deutscher Klassiker Verlag, 2004), 938–41; Sylvia Kohushölter, Die deutsche und lateinische Rezeption von Hartmanns von Aue “Gregorius” im Mittelalter (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2006).

⁶ A handlist of manuscripts is available in the database “Handschriftencensus. Eine Bestandsaufnahme der handschriftlichen Überlieferung deutschsprachiger Texte des Mittelalters” (http://www.handschriftencensus.de/werke/189).

⁷ On the differences between the recensions, see Jürgen Wolf, “Die Kaiserchronikfassungen A, B und C oder die Gleichzeitigkeit des Ungleichzeitigen,” in Interdisziplinäre Germanistik im Schnittpunkt der Kulturen, ed. Michael Szurawitzki and Michael M. Schmidt (Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2008), 91–108. Schröder edited the A recension alone, dismissing the B and C recensions as being “devoid of all interest for historians” and only worth consulting to the degree that they supported the editor in his attempt to establish the original text of A. See Schröder, Kaiserchronik, 26. Schröder's assessment, which reflected the methods and priorities of editorial philology at the end of the nineteenth century, has become increasingly untenable in light of the reorientation that has taken place in the theory and practice of text editing since the middle of the last century. Textual instability, variation, and recension are now considered fundamental aspects of a manuscript culture in which works were prone to mutation and transformation over time. This revaluation has led to calls for a critical edition of all three recensions of the Kaiserchronik; see Kurt Gärtner, “Die Kaiserchronik und ihre Bearbeitungen. Editionsdesiderate der Versepik des 13. Jahrhunderts,” in bickelwort und wildiu mære. Festschrift für Eberhard Nellmann zum 65. Geburtstag, ed. Dorothee Lindemann, Berndt Volkmann, and Klaus-Peter Wegera (Göppingen: Kümmerle, 1995), 366–79. Such an edition has been in progress since 2012 as part of the project “Kaiserchronik: Literature and History in the German Middle Ages,” which is sponsored by the U.K. Arts and Humanities Research Council and led by the authors of the present article. When complete, the new edition will present texts of the three recensions, each from a base manuscript, in synoptic format and with accompanying English translation, introduction, and commentary.

⁸ These continuations are included as appendices in Schröder, Kaiserchronik, 393–416.

⁹ See Thomas Klein, “Ermittlung, Darstellung und Deutung von Verbreitungstypen in der Handschriftenüberlieferung mittelhochdeutscher Epik,” in Deutsche Handschriften 1100–1400. Oxforder Kolloquium 1985, ed. Volker Honemann and Nigel F. Palmer (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1988), 114–20, 128–30; Kurt Gärtner, “Grundlinien einer literarischen Sprachgeschichte des deutschen Mittelalters,” in Sprachgeschichte. Ein Handbuch zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und ihrer Erforschung, vol. 4, ed. Werner Besch, Anne Betten, Oskar Reichmann, and Stefan Sonderegger, (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2004), 3028–29.

¹⁰ Gabrielle M. Spiegel, Romancing the Past: The Rise of Vernacular Prose Historiography in Thirteenth-Century France (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993).

¹¹ See, e.g., Historiography in the Middle Ages, ed. Deborah Mauskopf Deliyannis (Leiden: Brill, 2003).

¹² On the Tarquin episode, which is mainly an account of the rape of Lucretia based on Ovid's Fasti, see Mohr, Wolfgang, “Lucretia in der ‘Kaiserchronik,’” Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Geistesgeschichte 26, no. 4 (1952): 433–46CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Claus Riessner, “Die Stadt Viterbo und die Almenia-Totila-Episode in der Kaiserchronik,” in Miscellanea di studi in onore di Bonaventura Tecchi, ed. Paolo Chiarini (Rome: Edizioni dell'Anteo, 1969), 57–66; Shaw, Frank, “Ovid in der Kaiserchronik,” Zeitschrift für deutsche Philologie 88, no. 3 (1969): 378–89Google Scholar; Ingrid Bennewitz, “Lukretia, oder: Über die literarischen Projektionen von der Macht der Männer und der Ohnmacht der Frauen. Darstellung und Bewertung von Vergewaltigung in der Kaiserchronik und im Ritter von Thurn,” in Der frauwen buoch. Versuche zu einer feministischen Mediävistik, ed. Ingrid Bennewitz (Göppingen: Kümmerle, 1989), 113–34; Wintgens, Teresa, “Was geschah mit Lucretia? Ein Irrtum des B-Redaktors der ‘Kaiserchronik,’” Zeitschrift für deutsches Altertum 142, no. 1 (2013): 33–44Google Scholar.

¹³ For the episode and its sources, see Hans Fromm, “Die Disputation in der Faustinianlegende der Kaiserchronik. Zum literarischen Dialog im 12. Jahurhundert,” in Deutsche Literatur und Sprache von 1050–1200. Festschrift für Ursula Hennig zum 65. Geburtstag, ed. Annegret Fiebig and Hans-Jochen Schiewer (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1995), 51–69.

¹⁴ See Siegfried Jäger, Studien zur Komposition der Crescentia der Kaiserchronik, des Vorauer und Straßburger Alexander und Herzog Ernst B (Ph.D. diss., University of Bonn, 1967); Karen Baasch, Die Crescentialegende in der deutschen Dichtung des Mittelalters (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1968); Bornholdt, Claudia, “Tricked into the Tower: The Crescentia Tower Episode of the Kaiserchronik as Proto-Märe,” Journal of English and Germanic Philology 99, no. 3 (2000): 395–411Google Scholar.

¹⁵ See Monika Winterling, “Zur Darstellung Heinrichs V. und Lothars III. in der deutschen Kaiserchronik des 12. Jahrhunderts,” in Grafen, Herzöge, Könige. Der Aufstieg der frühen Staufer und das Reich (1079–1152), ed. Hubertus Seibert and Jürgen Dendorfer (Ostfildern: Thorbecke, 2005), 397–408; Monika Pohl, Untersuchungen zur Darstellung mittelalterlicher Herrscher in der deutschen Kaiserchronik des 12. Jahrhunderts (Ph.D. diss., University of Munich, 2004). The treatment of German history in the Kaiserchronik is the subject of ongoing research by Johanna Dale as part of the Cambridge editorial project (see n. 7 above).

¹⁶ In the context of German vernacular narratives, see Historisches und fiktionales Erzählen im Mittelalter, ed. Fritz Peter Knapp and Manuela Niesner (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 2002); Elisabeth Lienert, Die “historische” Dietrichepik. Untersuchungen zu “Dietrichs Flucht”, “Rabenschlacht” und “Alpharts Tod” (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2010), 231–54.

¹⁷ On the Vorau codex, see Kurt Gärtner, “Vorauer Hs. 276,” in Verfasserlexikon, vol. 10 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1999), 516–21. On Prague, NK, Cod. XXIII G 43, see Hartmut Beckers, “Handschriften mittelalterlicher deutscher Literatur aus der ehemaligen Schloßbibliothek Blankenheim,” in Die Manderscheider. Eine Eifeler Adelsfamilie. Herrschaft – Wirtschaft – Kultur. Katalog zur Ausstellung Blankenheim, Gildehaus (4.5.-29.6.1990) und Manderscheid, Kurhaus (16.8.-11.11.1990) (Cologne: Rheinland-Verlag, 1990), 66–67, 72. On Vienna, ÖNB, Cod. 2779, see Hermann Menhardt, Verzeichnis der altdeutschen literarischen Handschriften der Österreichischen Nationalbibliothek, vol. 1 (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1960), 287–93. On Heidelberg, UB, cpg 154, see Karin Zimmermann, Die Codices Palatini germanici in der Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg (Cod. Pal. Germ. 1–181) (Wiesbaden: Reichert, 2003), 335–37.

¹⁸ On these manuscripts, see Jürgen Wolf, Die Sächsische Weltchronik im Spiegel ihrer Handschriften. Überlieferung, Textentwicklung, Rezeption (Munich: Fink, 1997), 105–10. For the Sächsische Weltchronik and, in particular, its relationship to the Kaiserchronik, see Hubert Herkommer, Überlieferungsgeschichte der Sächsischen Weltchronik. Ein Beitrag zur deutschen Geschichtschreibung des Mittelalters (Munich: Beck, 1972); Michael Menzel, Die Sächsische Weltchronik. Quellen und Stoffauswahl (Sigmaringen: Thorbecke, 1985); Dagmar Neuendorff, “Vom erlösten Heidenkönig zum Christenverfolger. Zur Kaiserchronik und ihrer Integration in die Sächsische Weltchronik,” in Fiebig and Schiewer, Deutsche Literatur und Sprache, 181–98.

¹⁹ See Wilhelm von Heydt, Die historischen Handschriften der königlichen öffentlichen Bibliothek zu Stuttgart, vol. 1, Die Handschriften in Folio (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1891), 185–87.

²⁰ For the secondary literature up to the beginning of the 1980s, see Nellmann, “‘Kaiserchronik.’” For narratological approaches since then, see Karl Stackmann, “Dietrich von Bern in der Kaiserchronik. Struktur als Anweisung zur Deutung,” in Idee – Gestalt – Geschichte. Festschrift Klaus von See, ed. Gerd Wolfgang Weber (Odense: Odense University Press, 1988), 138–42; Neudeck, Otto, “Karl der Große – der beste aller werltkunige. Zur Verbindung von exegetischen Deutungsmustern und heldenepischem Erzählen in der Kaiserchronik,” in Germanisch-Romanische Monatsschrift 53, no. 3 (2003): 273–94Google Scholar; Lieb, Ludger and Müller, Stephan, “Situationen literarischen Erzählens. Systematische Skizzen am Beispiel von Kaiserchronik und Konrad Flecks Flore und Blanscheflur,” Wolfram-Studien 18 (2004): 33–57Google Scholar; Wolf, Jürgen, “Narrative Historisierungsstrategien in Heldenepos und Chronik vorgestellt am Beispiel von Kaiserchronik und Klage,” Wolfram-Studien 18 (2004): 323–46Google Scholar; Petersen, Christoph, “Zeit, Vorzeit und die Narrativierung von Geschichte in der ‘Kaiserchronik,’” Zeitschrift für deutsche Philologie 126, no. 3 (2007): 321–53Google Scholar; Armin Schulz, “Fremde Kohärenz. Narrative Verknüpfungsformen im Nibelungenlied und in der Kaiserchronik,” in Historische Narratologie – mediävistische Perspektiven, ed. Harald Haferland, Matthias Meyer, and Carmen Stange (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2010), 339–60; Alistair Matthews, The Kaiserchronik. A Medieval Narrative (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012).

²¹ Whether one or more authors were involved in the composition of the chronicle, and for how many years, remain open questions; see Joachim Bumke, Mäzene im Mittelalter. Die Gönner und Auftraggeber der höfischen Literatur in Deutschland, 1150–1300 (Munich: Beck, 1979), 79–80. We generally refer in this article to “the author” of the Kaiserchronik in the singular, especially when discussing a particular recension or passage; this is purely in order to avoid the repetition of cumbrous formulas such as “the author or authors,” however, and should not be understood as prejudging one way or the other the issue of single-versus-multiple authorship.

²² On Faustinian and Crescentia, see n. 13 and n. 14 above. On Silvester, see L. Peter Johnson, “Silvester und Anfortas,” in Studien zur frühmittelhochdeutschen Literatur, ed. L. Peter Johnson, Hans-Hugo Steinhoff, and Roy A. Wisbey (Berlin: Erich Schmidt, 1974), 344–57; Vera Milde, “Christlich-jüdischer Disput in der Silvesterlegende der Kaiserchronik,” in Juden in der deutschen Literatur des Mittelalters. Religiöse Konzepte, Feindbilder, Rechtfertigungen, ed. Ursula Schulze (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 2002), 13–34; Christiane Witthöft, “Zwischen Wahrheitssuche und Wunderglauben. Die christlich-jüdische Disputation der Silvesterlegende in der Kaiserchronik,” in Disputatio 1200–1800. Form, Funktion und Wirkung eines Leitmediums, ed. Marion Gindhart (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2010), 291–310.

²³ Ohly was not entirely original in his interpretation: he was building on the view of his supervisor, Julius Schwietering, who had already asserted that the Kaiserchronik was imbued with an Augustinian conception of history; see Julius Schwietering, Die deutsche Dichtung des Mittelalters (Potsdam: Athenaion, 1932), 95.

²⁴ Gisela Vollmann-Profe, Wiederbeginn volkssprachiger Schriftlichkeit im hohen Mittelalter (1050/60–1160/70) (Königstein: Athenäum, 1986), 91; Walter Haug, Literaturtheorie im deutschen Mittelalter von den Anfängen bis zum Ende des 13. Jahrhunderts, 2nd ed. (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1992), 67.

²⁵ Neudeck, “Karl der Große,” 287; Petersen, “Zeit,” 351–52.

²⁶ Christoph Pretzer is conducting a complete critical assessment of the relevance of salvation historical paradigms to the Kaiserchronik as part of his doctoral research in the framework of the Cambridge editorial project (see n. 7 above).

²⁷ G. W. Trompf, Early Christian Historiography: Narratives of Retributive Justice (London: Continuum, 2000).

²⁸ Augustine, De civitate Dei, ed. Bernhard Dombart and Alfons Kalb (Turnhout: Brepols, 1955), 4.3: “pro rerum ordine ac temporum occulto nobis, notissimo sibi.” English translation from The City of God against the Pagans, ed. R.W. Dyson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998). See Trompf, Early Christian Historiography, 255–82.

²⁹ For these writers, see Trompf, Early Christian Historiography, 284–322.

³⁰ Ohly, Sage und Legende, 238.

³¹ Ibid., 26–29, 234–47.

³² See esp. Heinz Gerhard Jantsch, Studien zum Symbolischen in frühmittelhochdeutscher Literatur (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1959), 203–26; Peter Jentzmik, Zu Möglichkeiten und Grenzen typologischer Exegese in mittelalterlicher Predigt und Dichtung (Göppingen: Kümmerle, 1973), 222–53.

³³ Ohly, Sage und Legende, 19–20; cf. John of Salisbury, Policraticus, ed. Miguel Angel Ladero (Madrid: Nacional, 1984), 8.19.

³⁴ Augustine, De civitate Dei, 1.8–1.9.

³⁵ Dieter Kartschoke, Geschichte der deutschen Literatur im frühen Mittelalter (Munich: dtv, 1990), 356.

³⁶ Recension B has an abbreviated version of the same prologue, with the statement about good and bad popes and kings; Recension C replaces the prologue with an entirely new one, which praises the power of the Holy Trinity before introducing the subject matter of the chronicle with the words: “Here begins a long discourse on how the Roman Empire began; how it will end no one can rightly know (Sich hebt ain lange rede hie / Wie roemisch riche an gie. / Wie aber es sich enden sol / Daz mach niman wizzen wol)”; text of C cited from Vienna, ÖNB, Cod. 12487.

³⁷ Jerome, Commentatorium in Danielem, ed. François Glorie (Turnhout: Brepols, 1964), 837–50.

³⁸ The passage is based on the exegesis of Daniel's dream in a late eleventh-century vernacular life of Archbishop (and subsequently Saint) Anno II of Cologne (d. 1075); cf. Das Annolied, ed. Eberhard Nellmann (Stuttgart: Reclam, 1975), lines 179–262. The question of the relationship between the Kaiserchronik and the Annolied was reopened by Stephan Müller, Vom Annolied zur Kaiserchronik. Zu Text- und Forschungsgeschichte einer verlorenen deutschen Reimchronik (Heidelberg: Winter, 1999).

³⁹ On these see Ohly, Sage und Legende, 45–50, and esp. Annegret Fiebig, “vier tier wilde,” who points out that the exegesis of the dream was not fixed in the twelfth century but rather fluid and variable.

⁴⁰ Jerome, Commentatorium in Danielem, 838–44.

⁴¹ Recension B preserves this periodization, whereas C omits the heathen prehistory entirely and begins the chronicle of events with Romulus and Remus.

⁴² The fact that Recension C omits entirely the dream and its interpretation further indicates how little the scheme was embedded in the narrative structure of the chronicle.

⁴³ Orosius is one of the sources for the chronicle's account of Caligula; see Ohly, Sage und Legende, 66–74.

⁴⁴ Orosius, Historiarum adversum paganos libri VII, ed. Karl Zangemeister (Leipzig: Teubner, 1889), 2.2.1. English translation by A.T. Fear, Seven Books of History against the Pagans (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2010); Otto of Freising, Chronicon sive historia de duobus civitatibus, ed. Adolf Hofmeister (Hanover and Leipzig: Hahn, 1912), 2.27. English translation by Charles Christopher Mierow, The Two Cities: A Chronicle of Universal History to the Year 1146 A.D., by Otto, Bishop of Freising (1928; repr., New York: Columbia University Press, 2002).

⁴⁵ Otto of Freising, Chronicon, 3–5. On Otto's treatment of the translatio, see now esp. J.G.A. Pocock, Barbarism and Religion, vol. 3, The First Decline and Fall (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 98–126.

⁴⁶ In Ovid's version of the story, Collatinus is named for his town of origin, Collatia, near Rome; cf. Fastorum libri sex, ed. E.H. Alton, D.E.W. Wormell, and E. Courtney (Leipzig: Teubner, 1978), 2.733. For the literature on the Tarquin-Lucretia episode, see n. 12 above.

⁴⁷ A notable exception to the scholarly consensus is Annegret Fiebig, who describes the dream in the Kaiserchronik as “an image, … nothing more (ein Bild, … mehr nicht)”; see Fiebig, “vier tier wilde,” 38.

⁴⁸ On this interruption and the possible reasons for it, see D.H. Green, Medieval Listening and Reading: The Primary Reception of German Literature 800–1300 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 270–72; Wolfgang Haubrichs, Die Anfänge. Versuche volkssprachiger Schriftlichkeit im frühen Mittelalter (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1995), 364–65.

⁴⁹ The most important recent literary histories of the early MHG period are Vollmann-Profe, Wiederbeginn, and Kartschoke, Geschichte. For the Blütezeit, see Joachim Bumke, Geschichte der deutschen Literatur im hohen Mittelalter (Munich: dtv, 1990); Helmut de Boor, Die höfische Literatur. Vorbereitung, Blüte, Ausklang 1170–1250, 11th ed. (Munich: Beck, 1991); L. Peter Johnson, Die höfische Literatur der Blütezeit (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1999).

⁵⁰ For examples of the epithet vorhöfisch applied to works composed either before the courtly Blütezeit or during it—but deemed to display “archaic” features—see de Boor, Die höfische Literatur, 6, 19, 24, 35, 54, 123, 125, 142, 181, 184, 191, 192, 248, 249, 382. Vortheoretisch is the term used by Christoph Huber in his review of Walter Haug's Literaturtheorie im deutschen Mittelalter in Anzeiger für deutsches Altertum 99, no. 2 (1988): 60–68Google Scholar.

⁵¹ For surveys of these various genres and text-types, see the relevant sections in Vollmann-Profe, Wiederbeginn, and Kartschoke, Geschichte; also see Rolf Grimminger, Poetik des frühen Minnesangs (Munich: Beck, 1969); Dieter Kartschoke, Altdeutsche Bibeldichtung (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1975); Achim Masser, Bibel- und Legendenepik des deutschen Mittelalters (Berlin: Schmidt, 1976); Markus Stock, Kombinationssinn. Narrative Strukturexperimente im “Straßburger Alexander,” im “Herzog Ernst B,” und im “König Rother” (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 2002); Sarah Bowden, Bridal-Quest Epics in Medieval Germany: A Revisionary Approach (London: MHRA, 2012). If the inclusion of the Nibelungenlied seems surprising, then we must simply point to the long-standing consensus in the scholarship that it made the crucial jump from oral tradition to literary form around 1150; see Joachim Heinzle, Das Nibelungenlied. Eine Einführung (Frankfurt/Main: Fischer, 1994), 27–46. This fact is always acknowledged, yet its implications for literary history are seldom pursued.

⁵² Rodney Thompson, “The Place of Germany in the Twelfth-Century Renaissance,” in Manuscripts and Monastic Culture. Reform and Renewal in Twelfth-Century Germany, ed. Alison I. Beach (Turnhout: Brepols, 2007), 19–42 (quote on p. 27). The statistics on which Thompson draws are from Woledge, Brian and Short, Ian, “Liste provisoire de manuscrits du XIIe siècle contentants de textes en langue française,” Romania 102, no. 1 (1981): 1–17CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ruth J. Dean, Anglo-Norman Literature: A Guide to Texts and Manuscripts (London: Anglo-Norman Text Society, 1999); Ernst Hellgardt, “Die deutschsprachigen Handschriften im 11. und 12. Jahrhundert. Bestand und Charakteristik im chronologischen Abriss,” in Honemann and Palmer, Deutsche Handschriften, 35–81.

⁵³ Die frühmittelhochdeutsche Wiener Genesis, ed. Kathryn Smits (Berlin: Schmidt, 1972); Die altdeutsche Exodus, ed. Edgar Papp (Munich: Fink, 1969). For the French tradition, see Grundriss der romanischen Literaturen des Mittelalters, vol. 6, La littérature didactique, allégorique et satirique, ed. Hans Robert Jauss, part 1 (Heidelberg: Winter, 1968), 25–31, 48–57; part 2 (Heidelberg: Winter, 1970), 54–67, 81–96.

⁵⁴ See Kartschoke, Geschichte, 258–63, 367–87; Vollmann-Profe, Wiederbeginn, 190–93.

⁵⁵ Timothy Reuter, “Past, Present and No Future in the Regnum Teutonicum,” in The Perception of the Past in Twelfth-Century Europe, ed. Paul Magdalino (London: Hambledon, 1992), 19. This paragraph is based on his argument.

⁵⁶ See Robert L. Benson, “Political Renovation: Two Models from Antiquity,” in Renaissance and Renewal in the Twelfth Century, ed. Robert L. Benson and Giles Constable (Oxford: Clarendon, 1982), 339–86.

⁵⁷ See Nancy F. Partner, Serious Entertainments: The Writing of History in Twelfth-Century England (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977), 2–3.

⁵⁸ Reuter, “Past, Present and No Future,” 17.

⁵⁹ Ohly, Sage und Legende, 170.

⁶⁰ The literature on Geoffrey is extensive. For a discussion in the context of the rise of literary fiction in Germany, see D.H. Green, The Beginnings of Medieval Romance: Fact and Fiction, 1150–1220 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 160–75.

⁶¹ The Historia Regum Britannie of Geoffrey of Monmouth, vol. 4, Dissemination and Reception in the Later Middle Ages, ed. Julia C. Crick (Cambridge: Brewer, 1991), 8–9.

⁶² Geoffrey of Monmouth, The History of the Kings of Britain: An Edition and Translation of “De gestis Britonum” (“Historia regum Britanniae”), ed. Michael D. Reeve, transl. Neil Wright (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2007), chaps. 143–76.

⁶³ Andrew Lynch, “Imperial Arthur: Home and Away,” in The Cambridge Companion to the Arthurian Legend, ed. Elizabeth Archibald and Ad Putter (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 173, 175, 176. In the same volume, see also Ad Putter, “The Twelfth-Century Arthur,” 36–51.

⁶⁴ Wace's Roman de Brut: A History of the British, ed. and transl. Judith Weiss, 2nd ed. (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 2002), xvii. For a review of recent scholarship on twelfth-century British history writing and its emphasis on empire, see Rollo, David, “The Legacy of Geoffrey of Monmouth: Some Studies on Medieval Insular History and Fiction,” Exemplaria 27, no. 3 (2015): 262–69CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁶⁵ Ohly, Sage und Legende, 15–16.

⁶⁶ On Godfrey of Viterbo, see Weber, Lauren J., “The Historical Importance of Godfrey of Viterbo,” Viator: Medieval and Renaissance Studies 25, no. 2 (1994): 153–95CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Maria E. Dorninger, Godfrey von Viterbo. Ein Autor in der Umgebung der frühen Staufer (Stuttgart: H.-D. Heinz, 1997); Thomas Foerster, ed., Godfrey of Viterbo and His Readers: Imperial Tradition and Universal History in Late Medieval Europe (Farnham: Ashgate, 2015).

⁶⁷ John Burrow, A History of Histories: Epics, Chronicles, Romances and Inquiries from Herodotus and Thucydides to the Twentieth Century (London: Allen Lane, 2007), 236.

⁶⁸ For the transmission of Geoffrey of Monmouth, see The Historia Regum Britannie of Geoffrey of Monmouth, vol. 3, A Summary Catalogue of the Manuscripts, ed. Julia C. Crick (Cambridge: Brewer, 1989); vol. 4, Dissemination and Reception, ed. Crick, 216–17.

⁶⁹ See Kai Hering, “Godfrey of Viterbo: Historical Writing and Imperial Legitimacy at the Early Hohenstaufen Court,” in Foerster, Godfrey of Viterbo and His Readers, 47–66.

⁷⁰ See Marjorie Chibnall, The Empress Matilda: Queen Consort, Queen Mother, and Lady of the English (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991).

⁷¹ Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 373. See Leyser, Karl, “Frederick Barbarossa, Henry II and the Hand of St James,” The English Historical Review 90, no. 356 (1975): 481–506CrossRefGoogle Scholar. We are grateful to Marcus Bull for drawing our attention to this possible connection.

⁷² For a summary of the wider scholarship on the work and manuscript, see Dale, Johanna, “Imperial Self-Representation and the Manipulation of History in Twelfth-Century Germany: Cambridge, Corpus Christi College MS 373,” German History 29, no. 4 (2011): 557–83CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁷³ Pfaffe Konrad, Das Rolandslied, ed. Dieter Kartschoke (Stuttgart: Reclam, 1993), lines 9074–75; cf. Johnson, Die höfische Literatur, 96.

⁷⁴ For references to further literature, see Wolf, Buch und Text, 215–16.

⁷⁵ On German identity in the later Middle Ages, see Len Scales, The Shaping of German Identity: Authority and Crisis, 1245–1414 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012).

⁷⁶ See n. 7 above.

⁷⁷ For these authors and chronicles, see Wolfgang Walliczek, “Rudolf von Ems,” in Verfasserlexikon, vol. 8 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1992), 322–45; Norbert H. Ott, ‘Christherre-Chronik,’ in Verfasserlexikon, vol. 1 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1978), 1213–17; Karl-Ernst Geith, “Jans Enikel,” in Verfasserlexikon, vol. 2 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1980), 565–69; also see R. Graeme Dunphy, History as Literature: German World Chronicles of the Thirteenth Century in Verse (Kalamazoo, MI: Western Michigan University, 2003); Ralf Plate, Die Überlieferung der “Christherre-Chronik” (Wiesbaden: Reichert, 2005).

⁷⁸ On Heinrich von München, see Studien zur “Weltchronik” Heinrichs von München, ed. Horst Brunner, Johannes Rettelbach, and Dorothea Klein, 3 vols. (Wiesbaden: Reichert, 1998); also see Frank Shaw, “Die Kaiserchronik-Rezeption in der Weltchronik Heinrichs von München,” in Lindemann, Volkmann, and Wegera, bickelwort und wildiu mære, 380–92; Kurt Gärtner, “Die Kaiserchronik als Quelle der Weltchronik Heinrichs von München,” in Die “Kaiserchronik”. Interdisziplinäre Studien zu einem buoch gehaizzen cronica. Festgabe für Wolfgang Haubrichs zum 70. Geburtstag, ed. Nine Miedema (forthcoming).