His works were for the most part composed during his many official journeys. In light of his duties he was familiar with the highest levels of authority in both circles and collected historical material, in his own words, for over forty years as notary and chaplain to the Emperor Frederick. His writings sought to combine the goals of education, primarily through example, and entertainment. He was the first Latin writer to set history gleaned from documentary sources alongside reports of events he himself had witnessed and legends and fables from narrative sources, mingling different types of texts and sacred and secular history. Godfrey's first historical work, the
Speculum regum (Latin:
Mirror of Kings)
, was completed in 1183 and dedicated the young king
Henry VI, whom Godfrey probably taught. The work consists of two books of verse, preceded by a prose prologue, tracing two lines of genealogy which converge in the figure of Charlemagne to justify Henry VI as heir to the throne and reconcile the Romans and Germans. Godfrey revised this work a few years later into the
Memoria seculorum, or
Liber memorialis, also dedicated to Henry VI, which professes to record the history of the world from the creation until 1185 when it was completed. It is written partly in prose and partly in verse. This work was revised once more in 1187 as
Pantheon, or
Liber universalis with various changes and additions, including the incorporation of material from
Otto of Freising's
Chronica. Godfrey continued to revise the text over the following years, dedicating subsequent recensions to Pope Urban III and Pope Gregory VIII. The
Pantheon was widely read and enormously influential on later medieval writers of histories, including
Adam of Usk and
Ptolemy of Lucca. The
Pantheon was first printed in 1559, and extracts from it are published by
L. A. Muratori in the
Rerum Italicarum scriptores, tome vii (Milan, 1725). Other minor works appeared alongside the
Pantheon, including the
Gesta Friderici I (Latin:
The Deeds of Frederick I) and the
Gesta Heinrici VI (Latin:
The Deeds of Henry VI). The
Gesta Friderici I relates events in the emperor's career from 1155 to 1180. Concerned mainly with affairs in Italy, the poem tells of the sieges of
Milan, of Frederick's flight to
Pavia in 1167, of the treaty with
Pope Alexander III at
Venice, and of other stirring episodes with which the author was intimately acquainted, and many of which he had witnessed. This metrical account of the achievements of Barbarossa, though not free from confusion, contains some valuable information. The
Gesta Heinrici VI is a shorter poem. Although often attributed to Godfrey, his authorship of the verses in iambic septameters is subject to debate. Another minor work is the
Denominatio regnorum imperio subiectorum (Latin:
A Description of the Kingdoms Subject to the Empire), a topographic description of the areas and town belonging to the Holy Roman Empire in the time of Frederick I, which only exists in a single manuscript.
Editions Much of Godfrey's work can be found in
Monumenta Germaniae historica, vol. 22 (Hanover, 1872).The
Gesta Friderici I et Heinrici VI is published separately with an introduction by
G. Waitz (Hanover, 1872).[https://books.google.com/books?id=RMc83606NBIC ==Notes==