News from the age of the Hohenstaufen: “Diligite iustitiam qui iudicatis terram”

• "Diligite iustitiam qui iudicatis terram": Überlegungen zu einer jüngst restaurierten Statuette eines thronenden Königs aus der Zeit der Staufer, in: Jahrbuch RGZM 2014, Teil 1, 61. Jahrgang, 307-376 (Mainz 2019).

The figurine once held a sword in its raised right hand. As the identical canon of poses and signs on the enthroned ruler on the seal of the imperial court of Emperor Frederick II from 1235/1236 suggests, the figure is also a symbol of regal justice. However, the seal was not the model for the figurine; if anything, the reverse, for the figure is older (last quarter of the twelfth century) and probably originates from south-west Germany, the home region of Albert von Roßwag, the first imperial judge of Frederick II, who may well have commissioned the seal on behalf of the emperor. The type of object to which the figure once belonged could not be determined. A fastening peg suggests that it was fixed to a horizontal element that was somewhat less thick than the fastening peg was long. However, since all its sides are carefully decorated, it was probably not placed in a niche. The figure is made of fire-gilded cast copper. Due to the unfavourable distribution of the mass, small casting errors occurred during the casting; the production of such figures was probably not part of the goldsmith's routine work. In terms of design, the goldsmith was primarily concerned with emphasising the core message. In doing so, he also very rationally resorted to the means of representational abbreviation in order to convey all the necessary information and at the same time limit the amount of craftsmanship involved, a fine example of “thinking like a craftsman”. With the inscription on his court seal (“Diligite iustitiam qui iudicatis terram"”), Emperor Frederick II demonstratively placed himself in the tradition of the biblical King Solomon, for it stands the beginning of the apocryphal book of “The Wisdom of Solomon”. Accordingly – and given the apparent youth of the sitter – an interpretation of the figure as representing Solomon suggests itself. However, this is a “Hohenstaufen Solomon” because, like the ruler on the later imperial seal, he raises the “gladius materialis” himself and not at the “beckoning of the Pope”, as the influential Cistercian abbot Bernard of Clairvaux had taught in the twelfth century. The figure thus represents the traditional interpretation of the doctrine of the “two swords” advocated by the Hohenstaufen rulers. After the end of the Hohenstaufen dynasty, the Roman-German rulers, beginning with King Rudolf of Habsburg, then held the sword horizontally across their laps on the seals of their courts, in a manner recalling the Bible of the Cistercian abbot Stephan Harding of Cîteaux from the first third of the twelfth century.