Shining Signs of Wonders

The Nuremberg town physician Hartmann Schedel shows the family trees of the holy imperial couple on two pages of his World Chronicle. He honours the Christian ruler as someone who is "shining with signs of wonders" after his death.

When emperor Otto III died childless, Henry was entitled to his inheritance, as both of them descended from Otto the Great (center).

Emperor Karl the Great is prominently highlighted on Kunigunde's side of the family tree.

When Henry returned from a journey, he heard rumours that Kunigunde had been unfaithful to him with a knight. She purged herself of guilt by offering a judgement from God: She walked unharmed with her bare feet over 15 red-hot ploughshares.

A coloured woodcut shows the trial of virtue, which took place in the presence of the emperor, bishop and court on Bamberg Cathedral Square.

This collection of saints' lives that was published before Stettfelder's biography contains short vitae of Henry and Kunigunde. It was created in Nuremberg in the 14th century and was circulated widely.

A woodcut in Kunigunde's legend shows her on the building site of St Stephen's Abbey, which she founded. Each craftsman was allowed to take coins from the bowl in front of her, but only as many as he had earned for his days' work.

The emperor suffered from kidney stones and endured his illness with exemplary patience.

During a pilgrimage to the monastery of Montecassino in Italy, Henry was overcome by doubts as to whether its founder, St Benedict, was really buried there. Thereupon the saint appeared to him in a dream, a knife in his hand.

When the emperor awoke in the morning, he was holding a kidney stone in his hand, but was physically unharmed. St Benedict had liberated him from his chronic suffering.

Henry's recovery from the stone disease was not permanent: The illness is said to have kept striking him down until his death. It was probably also the cause of his death at the age of about 50.

When the emperor was dying in Grona near Göttingen in the summer of 1024, he is said to have bid a solemn farewell to the rulers of the empire. He commissioned Kunigunde's relatives to provide for the empress, whose widow's estate they had donated to the diocese of Bamberg.

Henry praised Kunigunde as a "chaste and pious virgin" and "faithful aid". The legend thus propagated the belief in the imperial couple's chaste marriage, which played an important role in Henry's canonisation in 1146.

The legend of the soul being weighed by the archangel Michael also served as justification for the emperor's canonisation. Whilst a devil tries to pull down one of the weighing pans, St Lawrence throws a chalice into the pan containing Henry's pious deeds.

The emperor's soul is symbolised by a naked kneeling figure. Lawrence was the patron saint of Merseburg Cathedral, which Henry helped to rebuild and at whose consecration in 1021 he was present.

The presentation began with Emperor Henry's banner and the Ottonian imperial cloaks. The relics are illustrated with small woodcuts.

Despite the rather coarse depiction, Henry's riding cloak is clearly recognisable.

The Carmelite Joseph à Virgine Maria published illustrations of the imperial tomb around 1720.

Simultaneously, the Jesuit Jean Baptiste Du Sollier included detailed depictions of the tomb in one of his works. He was president of the Society of Bollandists, which aimed to publish every known legend of every saint: The endeavour took 300 years.

Riemenschneider added a total of five reliefs to the high tomb, depicting scenes from the legends of Henry and Kunigunde.

Three scenes from the legend of Henry:
- Death
- Weighing of the soul
- Healing from the stone illness

Two scenes from the Kunigunde legend:
- Trial of the ploughshares
- Distribution of wages to builders of the cathedral

The narrow side at the head of the sculptures remained empty: Presumably this side was not visible because it was connected to the altar of Kunigunde in front of St George's Choir. Two bronze inscription plaques were placed there in 1649.

Around 1900, the tomb stood in the centre of the nave (as depicted in the image). Since 1971 it has been positioned at the eastern end of the nave between the stairs to St George's Choir.

These include the book of pericopes of Henry II, which had to be delivered to Munich in the process of secularisation in 1803.

These copies of Graff's drawings were published in print 100 years later by Heinrich Joachim Jaeck, director of the Royal Library, which was founded in 1803 - the present-day State Library Bamberg.

The publication made scholarly research into the handwritten manuscripts possible.

When Franz Ludwig von Erthal was consecrated prince-bishop of Bamberg in 1779, six gospel books with precious bindings made of gold and gemstones were placed on the altar under the large cross, alongside the relics of the saints' heads and the imperial crowns.

During secularisation, the crowns and the most valuable books were transferred to Munich.

The preface to the publication to mark the 900th anniversary emphasises Henry's services to the diocese and the city of Bamberg: Henry is described as the ‘new founder and upholder of the German Empire’, who asserted himself against the princes and defended the Empire.

The medieval emperor thus served as a ‘living example of the fact that a truly Catholic worldview and national-German sentiments are not contradictory’.

The anniversary was celebrated with a series of festive events: Special trains brought the believers to Bamberg. A festival play written by the teacher Eduard Diener was performed in the Alte Hofhaltung. A celebratory medal, postcards and a newspaper were produced.

The Pope and numerous bishops sent letters of greeting. The imperial crowns, certificates and medieval codices that had been taken to Munich were on display in the chapter house.