c. 1079–1268Holy Roman Empire (Duchy of Swabia, Germany, Italy, Sicily, Kingdom of Jerusalem)

House of Hohenstaufen

The House of Hohenstaufen — also called the Staufer — originated in Swabia when Frederick of Büren was granted the Duchy of Swabia as Frederick I by Emperor Henry IV in 1079 and constructed Hohenstaufen Castle in the Swabian Jura, giving the dynasty its name. From 1138, the family supplied seven kings and emperors of the Holy Roman Empire, reaching its greatest territorial extent under Frederick I Barbarossa and Frederick II in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The dynasty's religious character was marked by perpetual tension with the papacy: its rulers clashed repeatedly with successive popes over questions of imperial supremacy, yet also led or sponsored major crusading ventures, including Barbarossa's fatal participation in the Third Crusade and Frederick II's diplomatically unprecedented recovery of Jerusalem in 1229. Imperial heirs were typically educated in the Latin curriculum of grammar, law, and theology, and were expected to embody the dual role of secular defender of Christendom and protector of the Church, even when those obligations brought them into open conflict with Rome. The dynasty's direct male line ended in 1268 with the execution of the young Conradin at Naples, closing one of the most formative chapters in medieval Christian rulership.

20 texts in the archive↗ Wikipedia

House of Hohenstaufen20 texts

iThe Line

House of Hohenstaufenr. 1138–1152

Conrad III of Germany

r. 1138–1152

The first Hohenstaufen king, he took the cross and led German forces on the Second Crusade (1147–1149), reflecting the dynasty's early identification with crusading as a Christian duty.

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House of Hohenstaufenr. 1155–1190

Frederick I (Barbarossa)

r. 1155–1190

Took the cross for the Third Crusade in his old age and died in the river Saleph in 1190 while leading his army toward the Holy Land; his reign saw the empire first formally styled 'Holy,' reflecting his self-understanding as the secular head of Latin Christendom.

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House of Hohenstaufenr. 1191–1197

Henry VI, Holy Roman Emperor

r. 1191–1197

A patron of learning and poetry educated in Latin and canon law, he relied heavily on senior churchmen as political counsellors and planned a crusade that his early death at thirty-two prevented him from joining.

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House of Hohenstaufenr. 1198–1208

Philip of Swabia

r. 1198–1208

Originally destined for the clergy and given an ecclesiastical education before the deaths of his brothers drew him into secular rule; his early formation in church life shaped his later reliance on episcopal supporters during a decade of civil war.

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House of Hohenstaufenr. 1220–1250

Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

r. 1220–1250

Despite four excommunications, he crowned himself King of Jerusalem in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in 1229 after recovering the city through diplomacy; he also founded the University of Naples (1224), the first university established by a secular ruler in Europe, as part of his patronage of learning within a Christian framework.

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House of Hohenstaufenr. 1250–1254

Conrad IV of Germany

r. 1250–1254

The last Hohenstaufen to hold the German kingship, he struggled to preserve his inheritance against papal-backed rivals until his death from malaria at twenty-five, leaving the dynasty's fortunes entirely unresolved.

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House of Hohenstaufen1252–1268 (claimant)

Conradin

1252–1268 (claimant)

The last direct male heir of the house, he was publicly executed at Naples at sixteen; medieval tradition recorded that he commended his soul to God before the blow fell, and he was widely mourned as a martyr figure by Ghibelline supporters across Italy.

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iiWhat they prayed from

Oratio01

Penitential Psalms and Litany of Saints (as compiled in Ottonian royal use)

Psalmi poenitentiales cum litania sanctorum

The seven Penitential Psalms (Psalms 6, 32, 38, 51, 102, 130, 143) combined with the Litany of Saints form the core private prayer structure documented directly in the Prayerbook of Otto III (BSB Clm 30111), where Archbishop Bernward of Hildesheim employed them in the young emperor's spiritual formation. This pairing — penitential self-examination before God followed by intercession from the whole company of heaven — was used by Christian teachers as early as Origen and Augustine, ordered for Lenten use by Pope Innocent III, and embedded in the Use of Sarum and successive Books of Common Prayer. Its place in the weekly devotional rhythm of the Salian and Hohenstaufen courts via their breviary traditions makes it the single most broadly transmitted prayer form in this dataset, extending across all dynasties and centuries. The sequence remains structurally unchanged in the Roman Rite today.

ancient composition; Ottonian royal form c. 984Latin·Ottonian · Salian +1Confirmed

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Horæ02

Laudes Regiae (Christus vincit, Christus regnat, Christus imperat)

Laudes Regiae

The Laudes Regiae are liturgical acclamations in the form of a litany, characteristically opening with the tricolon 'Christus vincit, Christus regnat, Christus imperat,' chanted at the coronation of emperors and on major feast days throughout the Ottonian, Salian, and Hohenstaufen courts. Ernst Kantorowicz's foundational 1946 study documented their use as the defining act of sacred imperial acclamation, showing how the chant interweaves royal acclaim with petitions to saints to locate earthly rulers within a cosmic divine order. The earliest notated sources survive from tenth-century Ottonian manuscripts, though the formula likely predates 800 in its Frankish antecedents, and the form was continuously adapted across each imperial dynasty. Because the chant was performed in cathedral and court contexts with an assembled congregation, it occupied a semi-public register between private liturgy and civic ceremony.

from c. 796; Ottonian court versions 10th c.Latin·Ottonian · Salian +1Confirmed

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Oratio03

Pontificale Romano-Germanicum (Romano-Germanic Pontifical)

Pontificale Romano-Germanicum

The Pontificale Romano-Germanicum is a collection of 258 Latin ordines compiled at St. Alban's Abbey in Mainz under Archbishop William of Mainz — illegitimate son of Otto I — in the 950s–960s, and represents the canonical liturgical handbook of the Ottonian church. It contains coronation prayers, ordination rites, anointing formulas, blessing prayers, and rites for the entire ecclesiastical year, and was commissioned by Otto I to unify liturgy across the empire. The compilation shaped the devotional formation of every bishop, priest, and emperor from the Ottonian through the Hohenstaufen periods, and its coronation prayer — invoking God as the one who raises the servant to the height of the realm — became the foundational ritual text consecrating each new emperor. Its influence on the Roman Pontifical and subsequent Western ordination rites is direct and traceable.

c. 950–961Latin·Ottonian · Salian +1Confirmed

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Oratio04

Liuthar Gospels (Aachen Cathedral Gospels of Otto III)

Liuthar-Evangeliar (Aachener Domschatz)

The Liuthar Gospels, preserved in the Aachen Cathedral Treasury, were gifted to the royal collegiate church of Aachen around the year 1000 and served as the coronation Gospel book on which Holy Roman Emperors swore their oath from the Ottonian period through at least the Hohenstaufen era (coronations at Aachen continued until 1531). A dedicatory inscription in Leonine hexameter records the gift from the monk Liuthar, and the manuscript's iconography uniquely surrounds Otto III with an aureola normally reserved for Christ, expressing the theology of theocratic kingship. The book was used liturgically during the Mass and in ordination ceremonies by the canons of Aachen, and it received UNESCO Memory of the World status in 2003. Classified correctly as an Evangeliary, not a Book of Hours.

c. 998–1001Latin·Ottonian · Salian +1Confirmed

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Oratio05

De gradibus humilitatis et superbiae (On the Steps of Humility and Pride)

De gradibus humilitatis et superbiae

Bernard's first major work, a commentary on Chapter 7 of the Rule of Saint Benedict, was the standard entry text for Cistercian formation across all houses. It describes twelve steps of pride (ascending) and twelve of humility (descending). University of Missouri Special Collections holds a medieval manuscript fragment; the text was standard novitiate reading in every Cistercian house patronized by Capetian, Plantagenet, and Hohenstaufen families. Noble oblates and heirs educated at or near Cistercian houses would have encountered this text as the primary formation manual.

c. 1119–1125Latin·Capetian · Plantagenet +2Court-typical

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Oratio06

De Institutione Novitiorum (On the Instruction of Novices)

De institutione novitiorum

Probably written after 1125, this is Hugh's practical manual for the formation of religious novices, providing guidance on gesture, speech, posture, and interior discipline as expressions of the spiritual life. It was described by later scholars as 'the most representative book of disciplina in the High Middle Ages' and was widely copied throughout Western Europe among Benedictines, Cistercians, Augustinians, and Carthusians, including in German-speaking regions that formed the Hohenstaufen religious environment. Its treatment of outward comportment as a mirror of interior conversion made it a standard text in any serious programme of religious formation for clergy serving noble and imperial households.

after c. 1125Latin·HohenstaufenCourt-typical

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Contemplatio07

De Arca Noe Morali et Mystica (On the Moral and Mystical Ark of Noah)

De arca Noe morali; De arca Noe mystica

Two companion treatises composed c. 1125–1130 by Hugh of Saint Victor, structuring the contemplative ascent through an elaborate diagrammatic image of Noah's Ark overlaid on salvation history. The De arca Noe morali addresses moral formation and affective preparation for contemplation; the De arca Noe mystica (Libellus de formatione arche) provides a visual-theological diagram intended to be drawn, taught, and meditated upon. Together they constituted a standard curriculum for advanced spiritual formation in 12th-century cathedral schools and monasteries across the German-speaking world, making them directly relevant to the Hohenstaufen court's religious formation networks.

c. 1125–1130Latin·HohenstaufenCourt-typical

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Oratio08

Didascalicon de Studio Legendi (On the Study of Reading)

Didascalicon de studio legendi

Composed c. late 1120s–1130s, the Didascalicon is the preeminent 12th-century manual on the art of reading and study for spiritual formation, celebrating classical and sacred learning as a unified path from created beauty back to the Creator. Hugh describes a four-stage ascent — study, meditation, prayer, performance — that shaped the pedagogical method of every major 12th-century cathedral school in France and Germany. As the most influential educational treatise of the era, it served as the theoretical foundation for the formation of clergy, chaplains, and educated nobles at courts directly connected to Parisian intellectual networks, including those of the Hohenstaufen and Plantagenet circles.

c. late 1120s–1130sLatin·Hohenstaufen · PlantagenetCourt-typical

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Oratio09

De diligendo Deo (On Loving God)

De diligendo Deo

Bernard of Clairvaux's treatise setting out four ascending degrees of love for God, dedicated to Haimeric, Cardinal Chancellor of the Roman Church and among the most powerful ecclesiastical figures of the 12th century. Composed between approximately 1132 and 1135, it was the first work in the Latin West to make the love of God its single explicit subject. Bernard's connections to the French royal court were direct — Louis VII, Queen Eleanor, and the princes of France prostrated themselves before him during Crusade preaching — and the text's elegant theological structure made it a model for lay noble reading. An anonymous French vernacular translation existed already by the late 12th century.

c. 1132–1135Latin·House of Blois-Champagne · Capetian France +4Likely

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Oratio10

Sermones super Cantica Canticorum (Sermons on the Song of Songs)

Sermones super Cantica Canticorum

Bernard's eighty-six sermons on the Song of Songs, begun c. 1135 and left unfinished at his death in 1153, represent the summit of 12th-century mystical exegesis and became one of the most widely copied Latin texts of the medieval period. While addressed formally to his monks at Clairvaux, the sermons were circulated and read far beyond the cloister: Bernard was the central spiritual authority for royal and aristocratic Europe alike, and the courts of France, England, and the Empire received and debated his writings. The sermons teach the soul's ascent to union with the divine Bridegroom through humility, self-knowledge, and love, using the language of bridal mysticism in a way that resonated as much with court culture as with monastic life.

c. 1135–1153 (86 sermons, left unfinished)Latin·House of Blois-Champagne · Capetian France +5Likely

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Oratio11

Liber ad milites templi de laude novae militiae (In Praise of the New Knighthood)

Liber ad milites templi de laude novae militiae

Written in response to a request from Hugues de Payns, the first Grand Master of the Knights Templar, this treatise justified the novel calling of the warrior-monk and circulated widely among crusading nobility of France, England, and the Empire. King Conrad III and his nephew Frederick Barbarossa received the crusading cross from Bernard's own hand in 1146; the text therefore shaped the formation of noble crusaders who were simultaneously the most committed Cistercian patrons of the 12th century. It includes a meditation on the holy places of Jerusalem intended for private devotional reading.

c. 1129–1136Latin·Capetian · Plantagenet +2Likely

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Oratio12

Soliloquium de Arrha Animae (Soliloquy on the Betrothal-Gift of the Soul)

Soliloquium de arrha animae

Written c. 1138–1140 by Hugh of Saint Victor (d. 1141) — a Saxon nobleman (son of Baron Conrad of Blankenburg) who came from the same German-speaking noble milieu that would later define the Hohenstaufen imperial circle — this soliloquy presents a dialogue between the reasoning soul and God's love, using the image of an arrha (betrothal pledge) to express divine-human intimacy. Over 300 manuscripts survive, demonstrating exceptional circulation across monastic and cathedral communities throughout France, Germany, and England throughout the 12th–15th centuries. Hugh's Saxon noble origin and the text's immense popularity make use in both Hohenstaufen and Plantagenet court chapels very plausible.

c. 1138–1140Latin·Hohenstaufen · PlantagenetCourt-typical

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Speculum13

De consideratione (On Consideration)

De consideratione ad Eugenium papam

Five books of spiritual and pastoral counsel addressed personally to Pope Eugenius III, himself a Cistercian monk trained under Bernard, written between 1148 and 1152. It functions simultaneously as a mirror for the supreme ruler and as a manual of contemplative self-examination, warning against the tyranny of busyness and calling the highest officeholder back to inner recollection. A manuscript copy dated c. 1465 survives at the University of Chicago; the work was widely read by reform-minded clergy and rulers who circulated it as a model for Christian governance. Bernard addressed it directly to a head of state with whom he had a personal, documented formation relationship.

c. 1148–1152Latin·Capetian · Plantagenet +2Confirmed

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Contemplatio14

Scivias (Know the Ways of the Lord)

Scivias Domini

Hildegard's first and most celebrated visionary work, composed c. 1141–1151, presents twenty-six visions on creation, redemption, and the Church in three books dictated to her scribe Volmar. Sections were read aloud to Pope Eugenius III at the Synod of Trier (November 1147 – February 1148) at the urging of Bernard of Clairvaux, receiving papal approval for publication. Frederick Barbarossa granted the Rupertsberg monastery an imperial charter of protection on 18 April 1163 (MGH, DDF.I 2/10:274-275), directly linking Scivias and Hildegard's wider prophetic ministry to the Hohenstaufen imperial orbit. The illuminated Rupertsberg Codex was almost certainly produced under Hildegard's direct supervision.

c. 1141–1151Latin·HohenstaufenConfirmed

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Oratio15

Ordo Virtutum (Order of the Virtues)

Ordo Virtutum

A sacred music drama composed c. 1151, almost certainly performed by Hildegard's nuns at the dedication of the Rupertsberg church (1152); it is the earliest surviving morality play and the only medieval musical drama preserved with both text and music. The eighty-two melodies dramatise the Soul (Anima) torn between sixteen personified Virtues and the Devil (Diabolus, the sole spoken rather than sung part), presenting moral formation as a cosmic struggle. It survives in the Wiesbaden Riesenkodex (c. 1180–90) and belongs wholly to the liturgical and formational life of Hildegard's house under Hohenstaufen imperial protection.

c. 1151Latin·HohenstaufenConfirmed

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Speculum16

Epistolae: Letters to Frederick Barbarossa and Henry II of England

Epistolae

Hildegard's surviving correspondence (c. 390 letters) includes direct prophetic and spiritual admonition to Frederick Barbarossa from 1153 — warning him against misrule and schismatic papal appointments — and a separate letter to Henry II of England (dated 1154–1170) cautioning him not to follow personal will over justice. Frederick responded positively, inviting her to court for prophecies and later confirming their fulfilment. The Columbia Epistolae project and Oxford University Press three-volume edition (Baird and Ehrman) document these exchanges with full scholarly apparatus.

c. 1153–1170Latin·Hohenstaufen · PlantagenetConfirmed

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Horæ17

Symphonia Armonie Celestium Revelationum (Symphony of the Harmony of Celestial Revelations)

Symphonia armonie celestium revelationum

A collection of seventy-seven liturgical chants (antiphons, hymns, sequences, responsories) with original texts and melodies composed by Hildegard for use in her Rupertsberg community's divine office. The Dendermonde Codex (Belgium, St.-Pieters-&-Paulusabdij Cod. 9, c. 1174/75) was made under Hildegard's supervision and gifted to the Cistercian monks of Villers in Brabant, while the Riesenkodex (Wiesbaden, Hessische Landesbibliothek Hs. 2, c. 1180–85) is the comprehensive surviving collection. The chants were sung in the monastic liturgy of the Rupertsberg house, which operated under imperial protection from Frederick Barbarossa.

c. 1140s–1170sLatin·HohenstaufenConfirmed

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Contemplatio18

Liber Vitae Meritorum (Book of the Rewards of Life)

Liber Vitae Meritorum

Hildegard's second major visionary work, composed 1158–1163, consists of six visionary sequences presenting thirty-five dialogues between vices and virtues — each vice given a seductive speech countered by its opposing virtue — with extensive treatment of purgatory, repentance, and restored union with God. It was composed at Rupertsberg during the peak of Hildegard's correspondence with Frederick Barbarossa and circulated within imperial German monastic networks. No single ownership record ties it to a named court member, but its composition period coincides exactly with Hohenstaufen patronage of Rupertsberg.

c. 1158–1163Latin·HohenstaufenLikely

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Contemplatio19

Liber Divinorum Operum (Book of Divine Works)

Liber divinorum operum

Hildegard's third and final major visionary work, composed c. 1163–1173/74, presents ten visions in three parts inspired by the Prologue of John's Gospel, exploring the relationship between the cosmos, the human person, and the divine Word. It was completed and first copied (the Ghent manuscript) in 1174, during the period when the Rupertsberg monastery continued to operate under the Hohenstaufen imperial protection charter granted by Frederick Barbarossa in 1163. An illuminated version was produced in the early 13th century for distribution. No single named Hohenstaufen court ownership record survives, but the text belongs to the same Rupertsberg corpus as Scivias.

c. 1163–1173Latin·HohenstaufenLikely

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Horæ20

Psalter of Frederick II (Riccardiana Psalter)

Psalterium Friderici II (Biblioteca Riccardiana, Cod. Ricc. 323)

This Byzantine-inflected illuminated psalter was commissioned by Emperor Frederick II as a lavish wedding gift for his third wife, Isabella of England, whom he married in 1235, and was intended to accompany her in daily prayer. Its origin is actively debated: some scholars assign production to a scriptorium at Acri in Calabria, others to a workshop within the territory of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, and no consensus has been reached. The manuscript blends the colour palette of Byzantine illumination with the plastic figure rendering of the Italian school, decorated with a monumental full-page Nativity initial and eight large miniatures from the life of Christ. That the psalms formed the core of royal private devotion even under the theologically heterodox Frederick II testifies to the psalter's inescapable centrality in medieval Christian life. The manuscript is now held at the Biblioteca Riccardiana, Florence.

c. 1235–1237Latin·HohenstaufenLikely

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