Chance had elevated the Staufer Friedrich to the throne: The son of King Konrad III was too young at his sudden death, and so the choice fell on the Duke of Swabia, who would go down in history as Emperor Barbarossa and significantly shape our image of the Middle Ages. But are we perhaps only admiring an illusion? Knut Görich, in his foundational biography, liberates the Staufer ruler from the web of legends and presents him both as a genius of compromise in dealing with the greats of the empire and as someone who was deeply concerned with preserving and enhancing his own rank and the honor of the empire in all his political and military actions. Thus, a nuanced portrait of a real medieval man emerges, distinctly different from all those projections.