Gerhard Lubich, Heinrich V. Der Letzte Salierkaiser Freiburg im Breisgau: Theiss, 2024, 395, .13 ill.

Several of the events leading up to and during the reign of Henry V (1106–1125) have received considerable scholarly attention. These include the young Henry’s decision to rebel against his father Henry IV (1056–1106), the imprisonment by the German king of Pope Pascal II (1099–1118) in 1111, the Concordat of Worms (1122) that was negotiated with Pope Calixtus II (1119–1124), and the ill-fated invasion of the French kingdom in 1124. By contrast, the nearly two-decade reign of Henry V, itself, has been largely ignored by scholars. The general neglect of Henry’s reign is perhaps explainable by the fact that the edition of his charters by the Monumenta Germaniae Historica remains incomplete, the only ruler for whom this is true during the entirety of the early and high medieval periods. The absence of this completed edition is perhaps also a symptom of the lack of scholarly interest in this reign. The newly published study of Henry V’s reign by Gerhard Lubich, professor of medieval history at the University of Bochum, is therefore a welcome addition to the scholarship on the early-twelfth- century German kingdom and empire. Professor Lubich is uniquely qualified to undertake this task having been the author of numerous studies on the Salian and Staufen periods as well as a principal figure in the production of the Regesta Imperii volumes dealing with the Salian rulers.