From an early age he displayed great activity as one of the clergy at the court of Conrad III and later Frederick I, accompanying the latter on many of his campaigns, and frequently fulfilling diplomatic missions for him.
He evidently passed some of his early life at Viterbo in Italy, but he was educated at Bamberg, where he was taken by Lothair in 1133, gaining a good knowledge of Latin,[2] possibly preparing for work in governmental service.
[3] About 1140 he became chaplain to the German king, Conrad III; but the greater part of his life was spent as secretary (notarius) in the service of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa, who appears to have thoroughly trusted him, and who employed him on many diplomatic errands, traveling extensively throughout Europe, including over forty trips to Rome.
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.
[4] 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.
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.