Нации и этничность в гуманитарных науках. Этнические, протонациональные и национальные нарративы. Формирование и репрезентация - [14]
Otto’s view of world history is a complicated one. First of all, he conceives the Roman Empire as the last of the four empires as prophesized by Daniel, after whose end the world itself should end. The empire, however, migrated from one people to another for quite some time, having gone from the Romans to the Greeks, then to the Franks, who then lost it to the Langobards, who, in turn, lost it to the Franci Teutonici, the German Franks. During this migration the Roman Empire grew weak[39]. Both the Western, that is, Latin, Franks and the German Franks were descendants of the Trojans, who, upon escaping the burning city of lilium, split into two groups: while the future Romans followed Aeneas on his way to Latium, the future Franks went to Scythia and called themselves the Sicambri[40]. Interestingly, Otto describes the rise of the
Roman Empire as well as the history of the Franks[41]. In fact, the history of the impérium itself takes pride on the place in his History of the Two Cities, whose title refers to the Church and the Empire, which are called the civitas Dei and the civitas terrena, respectively[42]. Christ’s birth during the times of Augustus (27 BC-14 AD) was described by Otto as the will of God, who wanted to make Rome the seat of the Church[43].
To Otto, the key moment of world history was the reign of Constantine the Great (306–337), who Christianized the Roman Empire and united the civitas Dei and civitas terrena into the civitas permixta. However, Constantine moved the impérium to Constantinople and gave it to the Greeks. Whether Constantine gave the western part of the empire to Pope Sylvester I or not, Otto does not decide, but leaves it to the reader[44]. The fall of Rome is a dramatic episode in Otto’s chronicle, followed a row of tyrannies in Italy until Justinian’s reconquest of it for the Romans[45]. From then on the chronicle traces the history of the Franks until Charlemagne renovated the Roman Empire under the Franks, finally transferring it away from Constantinople[46]. It is at this precise point that the two Trojan lines, the Roman and the Frankish, finally converge. After the Carolingians lost control of the empire, Henry I (919–936) was elected king of Eastern Francia. For Otto of Freising this was the key moment in the history of his country, the Roman Empire, as it was disputed whether Henry I continued the regnum Francorum or started a regnum Teutonicorum. Otto solves the problem by stating that the regnum Teutonicorum, which held the impérium Romanům in his own day, was a part of the regnum Francorum. Finally, the impérium Romanům was conquered by Otto the Great from the Langobards in 962[47].
However, the problem of the Hohenstaufen Frankish ideology was that the Ottomans (919-1024) were a Saxon dynasty. In order to solve this problem, it was stated that Conrad II’s (1024–1038) wife, Gisela, was a descendant of Charlemagne, and therefore the throne ofGermany would return to the Franks under her descendants[48]. This version of history was the official one in the 1150s, when Otto of Freising started writing the Gesta Friderici I. imperatoris in 1156, and which his chaplain Rahewin continued up to 1160[49]. However, as this was a work of contemporary history, there are fewer ideological elements in it. Yet the main elements of the ideology are still present as both Otto and Rahewin invent Frederick Barbarossa’s speeches on his Italian campaigns. The speeches show several important elements of the identity of Barbarossa’s court:
l) they considered themselves Eastern Franks and Germans, 2) Charlemagne conquered the impérium from the Langobards for the West Franks, while Otto the Great conquered it again from the Langobards for the East Franks[50]. While the political character of Frederick’s speeches and his goal to reestablish imperial rule in Italy is obvious, his source of legitimacy, the legacy of the Franks, was fervently denied by the Senate of Rome, which claimed that only the city of Rome may bestow the impérium Romanům upon a person, and that not even the pope could do so[51]. The papacy and many Italian authors, however, believed that the impérium was the pope’s to give[52]. Even pro-Hohenstaufen authors such as Otto Mořena[53] and the anonymous author of the Carmen de gestis Friderici I. in Lombardia held this view[54]. Frederick and his court, on the other hand, had a different view: the emperor was crowned by God while the pope was merely the physical instance through which God operated[55], just like God anointed David through his agent, the prophet Samuel[56].
The question is: what was at stake for both Conrad III and Frederick I? While the first could not force his opposition in Germany to submit, Frederick had practically no opposition there except in the 1180s. What they had in common was the plan to restore imperial rule over Italy and conquer the Kingdom of Sicily while giving out as few concessions to the papacy and the Byzantine Empire as possible
