HOHENSTAUFEN. 



771 



petitor, Rodolph of Suabia, Frederic of Staufen, lord 

 of Hohenstaufen, in Suabia, not far from Goppingen, 

 displayed so much courage, under the eyes of the 

 emperor, that he was rewarded with the duchy of 

 Suabia, and received Agnes, daughter of Henry, in 

 marriage. Thus was laid the foundation of the future 

 greatness of a house whose elevation and fall are 

 among the most important epochs in the history of 

 the German empire. Frederic (died 1 105) left two 

 sons, Frederic and Conrad ; the elder succeeded him 

 as duke of Suubia, and the younger was invested 

 (1116) by his uncle, the emperor Henry V., with the 

 new duchy of Franconia. After the death of the 

 emperor Henry V. (July 23, 1125), who was the last 

 male of the Franconian line, his two nephews, 

 Frederic II. (the one-eyed), duke of Suabia, and 

 Conrad, duke of Franconia, appear to have aspired 

 to the German crown ; but their connexion with the 

 late emperor was made the ground of opposition by 

 the directors of the election, the archbishop of Mentz 

 and the legate of the pope ; and the eleWion of 

 Lothaire of Saxony took place 1125. This circum- 

 stance, with the demand, made by the new emperor, 

 of the restitution of all the possessions acquired by 

 the lords of Hohenstaufen during the preceding reign, 

 produced a fierce war between the emperor and the 

 two brothers. Lothaire would have been overpowered 

 in this contest, had he not preserved himself by a 

 union with Henry the Proud, duke of Bavaria, to 

 whom he gave his daughter and the duchy of Saxony. 

 Frederic II. was unable to withstand the overwhelm- 

 ing power of both, since his brother Conrad, after his 

 return from the Holy Land, had undertaken a cam- 

 paign to Italy, where he had caused himself (1123) 

 to be proclaimed king. The peace of Muhlhausen 

 (1135), between Lothaire and Conrad, put an end to 

 this ten years' war. Conrad renounced his title of 

 king of Italy, but received the first rank among the 

 dukes, and both he and his brother regained all their 

 lands. After Lothaire's death (1137), Conrad, duke 

 of Franconia, of the house of Hohenstaufen, was 

 raised to the throne of Germany, being chosen Feb. 

 22, 1138, and crowned March 6 of the same year. 

 The archbishop Adelbert of Treves, and the legate 

 of the pope, cardinal Theodoin, accomplished this 

 work ; for the politic and skilful Conrad had suc- 

 ceeded, during Lothaire's reign, in gaining the favour 

 of the church, and he appeared to all less dangerous 

 than his rival, Henry the Proud, duke of Saxony and 

 Bavaria, whose power was formidable. The inex- 

 tinguishable hatred of the Guelphs (q. v.) against the 

 house of Hohenstaufen (Ghibelines), the first germ of 

 which lay in the alliance between duke Henry and 

 the emperor Lothaire, was still more inflamed by the 

 emperor Conrad III. placing Henry the Proud under 

 the ban, depriving him of his feudal possessions, and 

 otherwise injuring him, because he refused to obey 

 his order to relinquish the duchy of Saxony and Tus- 

 cany, and some other Italian possessions, it being 

 contrary to the German constitution for a prince to 

 hold two duchies. The contest produced by this im- 

 perial sentence, which brought so many sufferings on 

 Germany and Italy, lasted for more than 300 years. 

 After the death of Conrad III. (February 15, 1152), 

 the confidence which was felt in the Hohenstaufen 

 family caused the choice to fall on his nephew, Fre- 

 deric III., of Suabia, son of Frederic II., (the one- 

 eyed), called, among the German kings, Frederic I. 

 (q. v.), (Barbarossa) the red-beard. Frederic I. had 

 excited the jealousy of the pope by his increasing 

 power in Italy. This was the true cause of the 

 failure of the exertions of his son and successor, 

 Henry VI., to make the German crown hereditary in 

 his fninily, so that he was scarcely able to have his 

 eon Frederic, two years of age, declared his successor 



(1 169). After the death of Henry VI. (1197), Philip 

 duke of Suabia, was named regent of the empire, 

 during the minority of Frederic, his nephew, who was 

 acknowledged king ; and the pope was powerful 

 enough to set up in opposition to him, first Berthold, 

 duke of Zahringen, and then Otho, second son of 

 duke Henry the Lion, who, by the gift of his uncle, 

 king Richard of England, had become lord of the 

 French county of Poitou. The murder of Philip, by 

 Otho, count of Wittelsbach (June 21, 1208), secured 

 to Otho IV., for some years, the entire government ; 

 but, when he wished to make good his imperial rights 

 in Italy, he excited the anger of pope Innocent III. 

 to such a degree that he took under his protection 

 Frederic, the young king of Sicily (against whom 

 Otho was carrying on war), laid the emperor under 

 an interdict, and raised up a powerful party in Ger- 

 many against him. King Frederic now went to Ger- 

 many, caused himself to be crowned at Aix-la-Cha- 

 pelle, and, after the defeat of Otho IV. at Bovines, 

 (1214), became sole ruler, under the title of emperor 

 Frederic II. (Otho IV. died May 19, 1218). Dur- 

 ing his lifetime, Frederic had his second son, Conrad, 

 chosen king of the Romans (1237), after his eldest son, 

 Henry (who died in prison, 1242), had rendered him- 

 self ineligible to his dignity, by rebelling against his 

 father. Conrad IV., after the death of his father 

 (1250), was acknowledged as king by most of the 

 states of the empire; but Innocent IV. laid him under 

 an interdict, declared him stripped of all his lands, 

 and persecuted him with relentless hatred; but Con- 

 rad, who had many personal friends in Germany, 

 kept in check William of Holland, the opposite can- 

 didate, defeated the army of the pope, and was about 

 to advance into Lombardy, when he died, in his 

 camp, at Lavello (1254), as is thought, from poison, 

 administered to him by his illegitimate brother, Man- 

 fred. After the death of Conrad IV. this Manfred 

 possessed himself of the crown of Sicily ; but he lost 

 his life and his crown in a battle, and Charles of 

 Anjou was crowned by the pope (1266) king of 

 Naples and Sicily. The severe and cruel govern- 

 ment of Charles raised up a powerful party against 

 him ; their love for the noble house of Hohenstaufen 

 was awakened, and Conradin (q. v.), the only son of 

 Conrad IV., was called from Bavaria, where he had 

 hitherto lived, in order to ascend, his rightful throne. 

 In order to raise money to defray the expenses of a 

 campaign in Italy, Conradin pledged several castles 

 and other possessions for 2200 marks of silver ; went 

 to Italy at the head of his army, accompanied by his 

 friend, the young prince Frederic of Baden ; defeated 

 the usurper Charles, August 23, 1268, but had the 

 misfortune, while pursuing the enemy too warmly, to 

 be taken prisoner, together with Frederic and several 

 German princes. Charles had him, together with his 

 attendants, publicly executed at Naples, October 29, 

 1268. Thus perished the last Hohenstaufen. The 

 possessions of the family fell to Bavaria, Baden, and 

 Wurtemberg ; the ducal dignity in Suabia and Fran- 

 conia ceased, and the title of duke of Franconia alone 

 went to the bishop of Wurtzburg. The fame of the 

 family of Hohenstaufen is rendered imperishable by 

 the political greatness to which the Frederics, in 

 particular, attained, by means of their wisdom, 

 virtue, and power, by their struggles to free Germany 

 from the dominion of the pope, by the order which 

 they introduced into all the states of the empire, by 

 the encouragement which they gave to commerce 

 and trade, and likewise by their unwearied care to 

 promote the sciences and arts. They particularly 

 patronised history and poetry. How much they 

 valued history is apparent from the letter of Frederic 

 I., in which he invited his uncle Otho, bishop of Frey- 

 sinjjen, to be his historiographer. Both Frederics 

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