'More Devoted to Equipment of Battle Than Splendor of Banquets': Frontier Kingship, Military Ritual, and Early Knighthood at Court of Louis German. This article explores role of political symbolism and ritual in creation of a medieval frontier kingdom. The study focuses on reign of Carolingian king Louis the (840-876), founder of east Frankish kingdom that later evolved into kingdom of Germany. Reflecting endemic warfare along his kingdom's Slavic frontiers, Louis cultivated a highly militarized courtly ceremonial and triumphal royal ideology rooted in emerging Frankish culture of knighthood, exemplified especially by king's devotion to relics of True Cross, which became holy talisman of east Frankish army in its annual campaigns against pagan barbarian Slavs. Through militaristic rituals of knighthood and a triumphal devotion to True Cross, Louis German and his magnates proclaimed independent existence of their n...