Germany, Wibald of Corvey, informed of his healthy state (de statu
incolumitatis nostre), and Conrad’s son Henry promised to pass on to
Wibald news of the emperor’s state whenever he received a letter.^78
Reporting in 1160 on his crushing of his Lombard enemies Frederick
told the patriarch of Aquileia that by the grace of God he was in a good
state, because health, life, and prosperity crowded in on him and his
family. If anything else was reported of him, the patriarch should know
that ‘it was not the gospel truth they preached’; equally false was the
diminishing of the state of Pope Victor.^79
The emperor’s state could be understood in more abstract and ‘con-
stitutional’ terms. Back from crusade, Conrad distinguished between
‘the state of our office and the state of our person’ (honoris nostre status
ac nostre persone), when he gave thanks to the pope for their preserva-
tion and for the peace and tranquillity of the kingdom which he found
on his return.^80 Frederick granted property to the church of Merseburg
at the request of the Margrave Dietrich von der Lausitz, who had
laboured assiduously ‘for the state of the imperial crown’. And in 1163
he described Rainald of Dassel, his arch-chancellor in Italy as restoring
imperial rights in Tuscany to their original integrity and ‘reforming the
commonwealth, under the rule of our peace, to its ancient state in which
the imperial prerogative is supreme [sub nostre tranquillitatis imperio
in antiquum eminentis sue prerogative statum imperialis res publica
reformatur]’.^81
Under Frederick I the Landfriedebecame a form of legislation which
declared both the emperor’s state and the rights and duties of the other
estates which made up the realm. In the spring of 1152 the new ‘king of
the Romans’ sent messengers to inform Pope Eugenius of his coronation
at Aachen, of his undertaking there to give ‘law and peace’ to the whole
people which God had committed to his charge, and of his measures to
preserve ‘the state of the church and kingdom’. In the summer of the
same year, anxious that the laws, divine and human, might remain in
full vigour, churches be preserved from harm, and every person keep
safe his right (ius suum conservare), Frederick decreed a great peace that
should hold in every part of the kingdom, its provisions set out in detail.
For one who killed within the peace the penalty was death, and for one
who wounded the loss of a hand, unless they could prove they had acted
in self-defence (cc. 1, 3). For common assault the victim must be com-
pensated and a fine paid to the judge: twenty pounds if there was beat-
ing with sticks and hair-pulling, five pounds if only punches and verbal
German Landfrieden 91(^78) Ibid.353. 29 , 386–7.
(^79) Friderici I Diplomata, 1158–1167, 139, 140–1; cf. Friderici I Diplomata, 1181–1190,
303.
(^80) Conradi III [etc.] Diplomata, 528.
(^81) Friderici I Diplomata, 1158–67, 187, 290.