A medieval “Chronicle of Emperors” for the twenty-first century

From  University of Cambridge: 

Originally written in about 1150, the Kaiserchronik is a huge, 17,000-line verse chronicle, which recounts the exploits of German kings and rulers. It was the first document of its kind in a language other than Latin. Complete revisions appeared in about 1200 and 1250, and the work continued to be copied in manuscripts down to the end of the sixteenth century. 

The document itself did for the German-speaking peoples of medieval Europe what Geoffrey of Monmouth, who lived at roughly the same time, did for the people of the British Isles. Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain placed “the British” in the context of a foundation myth linked to Troy, Rome and Arthurian legend. Similarly, the Kaiserchronik attempted to present the German peoples as natural successors to Rome itself, shoe-horning them into a history which takes in the foundation of Rome and the achievements of Julius Caesar.

see also 

@ University of Cambridge

@ University of Cambridge - Kaiserchronik Project

@ OUP - The Kaiserchronik

@ ACLS - The Book of the Emperors: A Translation of the Middle High German Kaiserchronik