The Man, The Myth, The Legend

Occasionally, the historical narrative will dabble in fairytales, usually at the intersection of knowable facts and unknowable mystery. Those stories are important not because they’re factual, but because they’re part of a nation’s story about itself.

The story of Frederick Barbarossa, the man who made Germany great again, is just this kind of historical narrative. (READ MORE: The Mother of Invention)

Barbarossa was crowned Holy Roman Emperor in 1152 because he was the most obvious pick for the job — not necessarily because he was the best man. But as sometimes happens with monarchs, it was a lucky pick.

The red-bearded German was not just stereotypically charismatic and quick-tempered, he was also a brilliant political and military strategist — gifts that mattered in the complex political landscape of medieval Europe.

Germany, at the time a scattered collection of semi-autonomous states ruled by petty lords with a penchant for quarrels involving pikes, was just a minor headache compared to Europe at large. The Concordat of Worms had effectively ended the Investiture Controversy the year Barbarossa was born and had left imperial power weakened in Europe.

But Barbarossa wasn’t the kind of man who makes a weak emperor and had every intention of building out the Holy Roman Empire as he saw fit — an intention that put him at odds with the Pope. He earned his name, Barbarossa (red beard), not from his German subjects (who loved him) but from the Italians he campaigned against while building his empire.

The threats to a European Holy Roman Empire weren’t limited to warring lords and the occasionally unfavorable pontiffs. The empire — the embodiment of Christendom — was also threatened by Muslim forces in the Middle East who threatened to overwhelm Constantinople and cross into Eastern Europe. (READ MORE: The Time Prison Was an Effective Campaign Strategy)

Barbarossa, with his charismatic attitude and his brilliant military instincts, was the obvious choice to lead a crusade, and he was eager to do it. But, he never quite made it to Constantinople. The story goes that Barbarossa stopped to take a drink from the Saleph river in Armenia and slipped and drowned under the weight of his armor on June 10, 1190.

There are enough holes in the story that even historians don’t quite believe it. (How does a man who spent his entire life in armor just slip and drown? It seems unlikely at best.) Neither did Germans at the time. They were never quite sure that Barbarossa had died. (READ MORE: Where Are All the Airships?)

Instead, the legend goes, that Barbarossa sits half asleep in a castle somewhere, his famous red beard growing through a crack in the table in front of him. Now and then he opens his eyes to ask a boy to check if the ravens are still winging their path around the castle’s turrets. When the antichrist comes and the end of the world is nearly on us, the ravens will leave and Barbarossa will rise from his slumber.

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