Search results
Duke of Swabia. The Dukes of Swabia were the rulers of the Duchy of Swabia during the Middle Ages. Swabia was one of the five stem duchies of the medieval German kingdom, and its dukes were thus among the most powerful magnates of Germany. The most notable family to rule Swabia was the Hohenstaufen family, who held it, with a brief interruption ...
- Overview
- Early years
- Consolidation of the empire
Frederick II (born December 26, 1194, Jesi, Ancona, Papal States [Italy]—died December 13, 1250, Castel Fiorentino, Apulia, Kingdom of Sicily) king of Sicily (1197–1250), duke of Swabia (as Frederick VI, 1228–35), German king (1212–50), and Holy Roman emperor (1220–50). A Hohenstaufen and grandson of Frederick I Barbarossa, he pursued his dynasty’s...
In 1196, Frederick, at the age of two, was elected king by the German princes at Frankfort. His father, however, failed in his attempt to gain the princes’ support to make Frederick’s succession hereditary. Just before embarking on a Crusade to the Holy Land, Emperor Henry died in September 1197 after a brief illness, only 32 years old. Though the medieval Roman Empire was at the height of its strength, the emperor’s death brought it close to dissolution.
After the death of her husband, Empress Constance had young Frederick brought to Sicily, where in May 1198 he was crowned king of Sicily. Before her death later that year, Constance loosened the bonds that joined Sicily to the empire and to Germany by appointing Pope Innocent III her son’s guardian as well as regent of the Kingdom of Sicily, which was already under papal suzerainty. In Germany two rival kings were elected, Frederick’s uncle Philip of Swabia and Otto of Brunswick, as Otto IV.
Even the pope, however, did not succeed in protecting Sicily from many years of anarchy. German and papal captains, local barons, and Sicilian Saracens, as well as the cities of Genoa and Pisa, fought for mastery of the country. The situation was not stabilized until the imperial chancellor conquered Palermo in November 1206 and governed in Frederick’s name. In December 1208 Frederick, then 14, was declared of age.
Britannica Quiz
Kings and Emperors (Part III) Quiz
In 1209 he married the much older Constance of Aragon, who brought him an urgently needed troop of knights with whose help he gained control of Sicily, defeated a conspiracy of the barons, and was partially successful in regaining the crown properties that had been lost during his minority. At this time his relations with the pope began to show signs of strain.
In April 1220 Frederick’s nine-year-old son, Henry VII, was elected king by the German princes, thus negating Frederick’s promise to Pope Innocent that he would relinquish control of Sicily in favour of Henry, for it meant that Sicily and Germany would eventually be united under one ruler. Although Frederick sought to exonerate himself with Pope Honorius III by claiming that the election had been held without his knowledge, he had to pay for it by surrendering extensive royal prerogatives to the German ecclesiastical princes.
Crowned emperor by the pope in St. Peter’s Church, in Rome, on November 22, 1220, Frederick confirmed on the same day the legal separation of the empire from the Kingdom of Sicily while continuing the existing personal union. In addition, he granted important privileges to the Italian ecclesiastics and issued laws against heretics, and it seemed indeed that harmony had been reestablished between the emperor and the pope for some years to come. Frederick spent the following years consolidating his rule in Sicily. He broke the resistance of the barons to revocation of certain of their privileges and defeated the rebellious Saracens (1222–24), whom he later resettled in Apulia where they became his most faithful subjects, providing him with a loyal bodyguard immune to papal influence.
- Gunther Wolf
The Duchy of Swabia ( German: Herzogtum Schwaben; Latin: Ducatus Allemaniæ) was one of the five stem duchies of the medieval German Kingdom. It arose in the 10th century in the southwestern area that had been settled by Alemanni tribes in Late Antiquity .
- None
- Early Middle Ages
- Feudal Duchy
- Roman Catholicism
Mar 4, 2024 · Frederick I (born c. 1123—died June 10, 1190) was the duke of Swabia (as Frederick III, 1147–90) and German king and Holy Roman emperor (1152–90), who challenged papal authority and sought to establish German predominance in western Europe.
Rudolf of Rheinfelden, duke in 1057, was set up as German king in 1077 in opposition to Henry IV, who in 1079 appointed the rebel’s son-in-law, Frederick I of Hohenstaufen, duke of Swabia. Frederick’s grandson was elected German king as Frederick I Barbarossa in 1152; and Swabia remained a dynastic possession of the Hohenstaufen until the ...
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
The Dukes of Swabia were the rulers of the Duchy of Swabia during the Middle Ages. Swabia was one of the five stem duchies of the medieval German kingdom, and its dukes were thus among the most powerful magnates of Germany.
Frederick II (Friedrich II, 1090 – 6 April 1147), called the One-Eyed, was Duke of Swabia from 1105 until his death, the second from the Hohenstaufen dynasty. His younger brother Conrad was elected King of the Romans in 1138.
