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Historiography

Scholarly evaluations of Frederick began in the nineteenth century, but have been hampered by the unfortunate deaths of key researchers who did not have the chance to complete their works (such as Henry Simonsfeld who died in 1913, Wilhelm von Giesebrecht who died in 1889 and Johannes Laudage who died in an accident in 2008). Nevertheless, the two volumes about Frederick (that focus on his relationship with the Welfs and the Papacy) in Wilhelm von Giesebrecht 's Geschichte der Deutschen Kaiserzeit (1855–88), completed by his student Bernhard von Simson in 1895, later became the scholarly standard work on the emperor's life.

In 1975, Frederick's charters were published. This and the postwar abandonment of the Kyffhäuser myth have led to the publications of several new biographies. The notable recent authorities among German-speaking historians include Ferdinand Opll, Johannes Laudage, and Knut Görich. Opll's Friedrich Barbarossa (1990) presents the emperor as a pragmatic leader with a capacity of adaptation and recovery after defeat. Laudage investigates the important role of the concept of honour in Frederick's decisions while explaining the far-reaching visions of the emperor and his advisers, while Görich (who also emphasizes the honour, or honor imperii factor) questions whether traditional researchers have overemphasized the intentional side of Frederick's politics and instead highlights his flexibility and consensus-building capability as a leader.

In Italy, the scholarly attention towards Frederick's person and his reign is also considerable, with notable contributions including Franco Cardini's sympathetic 1985 biography or the 1982 work Federico Barbarossa nel dibattito storiografico in Italia e in Germania, edited by Manselli and Riedmann, considered by Schumann to be a definite synthesis of non-nationally oriented historiography approaches (combining German and Italian research results) of the last forty years.