Frederick Barbarossa (1122 – 1190), also known as Frederick I, was the Holy Roman Emperor from 1155 until his death in 1190. In German, he was known as Kaiser Rotbart, which in English means "Emperor Redbeard". Historians consider him among the Holy Roman Empire's greatest medieval emperors. He combined qualities that made him appear almost superhuman to his contemporaries: his longevity, his ambition, his extraordinary skills at organization, his battlefield acumen, and his political perspicacity. The original author was Otto of Freising (1111 - 1158) was a German churchman of the Cistercian order and chronicled at least two texts (including this one) which carry valuable information on the political history of his own time. He was the bishop of Freising from 1138. Otto participated in the Second Crusade; he lived through the journey and reached Jerusalem, and later returned to Bavaria in the late 1140s, living for another decade back in Europe. Otto’s mother, the daughter of Emperor Henry IV, was also the grandmother of Barbarossa making Otto his uncle. 

This translation of the book Gesta Friderici I Imperatoris (Deeds of Emperor Frederick) – the first in English - took almost 24 years. The translator was Charles Christopher Mierow (1883–1961), Professor of Biography on the Ambrose White Vernon Foundation, Carleton College. He had a Princeton Ph.D. in classical languages and literature.