medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
On Wednesday, October 14, 2009, at 1:18 am, George R. Hoelzeman wrote:
> I seem to recall that toward the end of WWII a certian Austrian was
> telling his close friends that Barbarossa would arise from his slumber
> to lead Germany to
> victory . . . quite an achievement for a medieval monarch to become
> the mythological basis for so much modern madness.
>
> Not something I'd put on my resume', but it is something. Other than
> Arthur of Camelot, have any other medieval monarchs had their lives .
> . . "celebrated" .
> . . in the manner of Barbarossa?
Absolutely. Well before Barbarossa his grandson Frederick II (d. 1250) was widely held (as was also Arthur) to be living under Mt. Etna, from which he would venture forth to do ill or to do good depending on how one viewed him. This started shortly after F.'s death and precedes the association of either emperor with the Kyffhäuser. Biographies of F. usually say something about this. For a more detailed examination of the early anti-Friderician manifestations of this belief, see Robert E. Lerner, “Frederick II, Alive, Aloft, and Allayed, in Franciscan-Joachite Eschatology,” in Werner Verbeke, Daniel Verhelst, and Andries Welkenhuysen, eds., _The Use and Abuse of Eschatology in the Middle Ages_, Mediaevalia Lovaniensia, ser. 1, no. 15 (Leuven/Louvain: Leuven University Press, 1988), pp. 359-84.
Best,
John Dillon
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