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Richard of Cornwall (1209-1272), son of the 'evil' King John and younger brother of King Henry III, is the only Englishman ever to have ruled as 'King of the Romans': in effect as King of Germany and claimant to the throne of the Holy Roman Empire. Intimately involved in the politics and warfare not just of England and Germany but of France and the crusader states, Richard is one of the forgotten giants of medieval Europe. His story can only properly be told through collaboration between experts on both sides of the English Channel. In 2020, therefore, a collaborative project was established, recruiting Professor Jörg Peltzer of the University of Heidelberg as a British Academy Global Professor, attached to UEA on a five-year basis. Working in close collaboration with UEA's Professor Nicholas Vincent, and in a historic partnership between UEA, Heidelberg, the British Academy and the Monumenta Germaniae Historica in Munich, Peltzer's project includes both a new life of Richard (the first such scholarly biography in nearly 80 years), and an edition (by Vincent) of Richard's more than 200 surviving letters and charters, themselves scattered across archives from California to Prague. Working with Dr Adrian Jobson, himself attached to UEA's project (to 2024) as research associate, Peltzer and Vincent have also undertaken an edition of a book of charters (the 'Cartulary' today in the National Archives at Kew) revealing the circumstances in which the Duchy of Cornwall estate, still central to the finances of the British royal family, was first assembled. Since 2020, many significant discoveries have been made. The true extent and nature of Richard's rule in Germany has for the first time been established. Many new letters have surfaced, most recently a significant 'peace' settlement from the turmoil of the English civil war of 1264-5, found in 2025, more or less by chance in the archives at Dijon. UEA's collaboration with the Monumenta, itself one of the world's great research institutes, re-establishes an Anglo-German connection last operative in the 1830s, when the Monumenta was initially funded by the kings of Hanover, themselves, of course (to 1837), also kings of England. As in so many other fields, UEA thus continues to make history on a truly international stage.
Images: Richard's coat of arms (as painted by the English chronicler Matthew Paris); 'The seal of the town of Oppenheim (modelled on Richard's great seal as King of the Romans) (from the archives of Oppenheim); and a smaller seal (previously unknown, surviving in the records of the Cornwall Record Office (Kresen Kernow) in Redruth.
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