Bamberg, Conques, and the Hohenstaufen dynasty : a model of transregional dynamics

Bamberg Cathedral, completed in the thirteenth century, was an apex of so-called late Romanesque art in the German territories of the empire. While the existence of models in Spain or France has been suspected since the 1920s, the degree of transregional influence has remained an open debate. Contributing to this debate, I suggest that Bamberg's late Romanesque decoration and iconography had their models on a specific portion of the Way of St James, with Conques as its culmination. A small subset of these decorative elements are systematically associated with buildings that were under the direct influence of the Hohenstaufen dynasty, highlighting how the dynasty and Conques formed a complex institutional network that was driven by the pilgrimage of St James and that had a major influence on buildings in Bamberg, Sélestat and several other sites with a Hohenstaufen connection, possibly including Cluny and the Cistercians.