Frederick I, known as Barbarossa (Red Beard), was crowned Holy Roman Emperor in Rome in June 1155 after a reign as German king from 1152. His long reign sought to reassert imperial authority in Italy, leading to repeated military campaigns and prolonged conflict with the Lombard League and the papacy. Barbarossa was a significant cultural patron who supported the Minnesänger tradition in Germany, and his court attracted poets and scholars. His drowning while on the Third Crusade in 1190 became the subject of legend, with popular belief holding that he slept beneath a mountain waiting to be called forth when Germany needed him.

Barbarossa's court helped foster the early Minnesang tradition — German courtly love lyric influenced by the Provençal troubadours — giving impetus to poets like Der von Kürenberg and Dietmar von Aist. The emperor's legend of sleeping under a mountain (originally attributed to him, later shifted to Charlemagne and then Frederick II) became one of the most potent of German mythic poems, informing Romantic nationalism and eventually Heine's poetry. His Italian campaigns inspired Latin panegyric verse from court poets celebrating imperial ambition.