Heinrich der Löwe

Henry the Lion was judged very controversially by his contemporaries and by posterity. The remark by the Holstein pastor Helmold von Bosau that the duke's campaigns in Slavenland never spoke of Christianity, but only of money, met those who praised Heinrich as a"real politician"in the sense of modern statehood. Always on the lookout for forerunners of national-liberal politics in the desolate, ultramontane landscape of the high medieval empire, they coincided strangely with the reservations of Hohenstaufen historians, who criticized the duke for his conflict with emperor and empire. Henry the Lion, through his refusal, bore the main blame for the defeat of the emperor against the Lombard cities allied with the pope.

softcover