jats:titleAbstract</jats:title>jats:pDespite its broad transmission and its influence on vernacular chronicle writing in the German Middle Ages, the jats:italicKaiserchronik</jats:italic> has not received the attention from historians that it deserves. This article describes some of the ideological, historical, and literary contexts that shaped the original composition of the chronicle in the middle of the twelfth century: Christian salvation history, the revival of interest in the Roman past, the consolidation of a vernacular literature of knowledge, and the emergence of a practice of writing history as “serious entertainment” by authors such as Geoffrey of Monmouth and Godfrey of Viterbo. Placed in these multiple contexts, which have a European as well as a specifically German dimension, the jats:italicKaiserchronik</jats:italic> emerges as an important document of the uses of the past in fostering a sense of German identity among secular and ecclesiastical elites in the high Middle Ages.</jats:p>