Part I. German history in the High Middle Ages - Concepts, Explanations, Facts: 1. The three 'essentials' of history - space, time, and man; 2. Germany in the Europe of the high Middle Ages; Part II. 'Progress and Promise': The German Empire in the Mid Eleventh Century: 3. Social stratification and the structure of government in the Ottonian and Salian period; 4. Rex et sacerdos - the priestly kingship of Henry III (1039-56); 5. Strengths and weaknesses of Salian kingship; 6. Henry III as Roman patricius and the German popes; 7. The beginnings and aims of church reform; 8. The distance from the rest of Europe: France, England and the North; Part III. From Christus Domini to Antichrist: The King of Germany and the Investiture Contest: 9. The reign of Henry IV and its consequences; 10. The rise of the secular state and the priestly church; Part IV. Political Reorientation and Emergent Diversity: From Salian Imperial Church System to Staufer Kingship: 11. The results of the investiture contest; 12. 'The love of learning and the desire for God': church and spirituality in the age of Bernard of Clairvaux; 13. Lothar III: kingship without a future; 14. Conrad III: kingship without imperial glory; Part V. The Centre-Point of the German Middle Ages: Frederick Barbarossa and His Age: 15. The election of Frederick I and the policy of balance: Frederick and the Empire before the Alexandrine schism; 16. Empire and papacy in the struggle for supremacy; 17. New forms of government; 18. Henry VI and the shift in the Empire's centre of gravity; Bibliography; Index.