The Hohenstaufen dynasty ( / ˈ h oʊ ə n ʃ t aʊ f ən / , US also /- s t aʊ -/ , German: [ˌhoːənˈʃtaʊfn̩] ), also known as the Staufer , was a noble family of unclear origin that rose to rule the Duchy of Swabia from 1079, and to royal rule in the Holy Roman Empire during the Middle Ages from 1138 until 1254. The dynasty's most prominent rulers – Frederick I (1155), Henry VI (1191) and Frederick II (1220) – ascended the imperial throne and also reigned over Italy and Burgundy . The non-contemporary name of 'Hohenstaufen' is derived from the family's Hohenstaufen Castle on Hohenstaufen mountain at the northern fringes of the Swabian Jura , near the town of Göppingen . Under Hohenstaufen rule, the Holy Roman Empire reached its greatest territorial extent from 1155 to 1268.
83-458: The name Hohenstaufen was first used in the 14th century to distinguish the 'high' ( hohen ) conical hill named Staufen in the Swabian Jura (in the district of Göppingen ) from the village of the same name in the valley below. The new name was applied to the hill castle of Staufen by historians only in the 19th century to distinguish it from other castles of the same name. The name of
166-659: A document of emperor Otto III in 987 as descendants of counts of the region of Riesgau near Nördlingen in the Duchy of Swabia , who were related to the Bavarian Sieghardinger family. A local count Frederick (d. about 1075) is mentioned as progenitor in a pedigree drawn up by Abbot Wibald of Stavelot at the behest of Emperor Frederick Barbarossa in 1153. He held the office of a Swabian count palatine ; his son Frederick of Büren ( c. 1020 –1053) married Hildegard of Egisheim - Dagsburg (d. 1094/95),
249-648: A huge ransom in 1193. Henry died at Brunswick in 1195. Henry the Lion's son, Otto of Brunswick, was elected King of the Romans and crowned Holy Roman Emperor Otto IV after years of further conflicts with the Hohenstaufen emperors. He incurred the wrath of Pope Innocent III and was excommunicated in 1215. Otto was forced to abdicate the imperial throne by the Hohenstaufen Frederick II . He
332-458: A largely free class of officials previously formed, many of these assumed or acquired hereditary rights to administrative and legal offices. These trends compounded political fragmentation within Germany. The period was ended in 1273 with the election of Rudolph of Habsburg , a godson of Frederick. Conrad IV was succeeded as duke of Swabia by his only son, two-year-old Conradin . By this time,
415-537: A niece of Pope Leo IX . Their son Frederick I was appointed Duke of Swabia at Hohenstaufen Castle by the Salian king Henry IV of Germany in 1079. At the same time, Duke Frederick I was engaged to the king's approximately seventeen-year-old daughter, Agnes . Nothing is known about Frederick's life before this event, but he proved to be an imperial ally throughout Henry's struggles against other Swabian lords, namely Rudolf of Rheinfelden , Frederick's predecessor, and
498-654: A noble house in Germany. Henry IX, Duke of Bavaria , from 1120 to 1126, was the first of the three dukes of the Welf dynasty called Henry. His wife Wulfhild was the heiress of the house of Billung , possessing the territory around Lüneburg in Lower Saxony. Their son, Henry the Proud , was the son-in-law and heir of Lothair II, Holy Roman Emperor and became also Duke of Saxony on Lothair's death. Lothair left his territory around Brunswick , inherited from his mother of
581-598: A result of increasing tensions with the townsfolk of Brunswick , the Brunswick Line moved their residence to Wolfenbüttel Castle , thus the name Wolfenbüttel became the unofficial name of this principality. With Ivan VI of Russia the Brunswick line even had a short intermezzo on the Russian imperial throne in 1740. Not until 1754 was the residence moved back to Brunswick, into the new Brunswick Palace . In 1814
664-765: A role in the Investiture Controversy . Since the Welf dynasty sided with the Pope in this controversy, partisans of the Pope came to be known in Italy as Guelphs ( Guelfi ). The first genealogy of the Welfs is the Genealogia Welforum , composed shortly before 1126. A much more detailed history of the dynasty, the Historia Welforum , was composed around 1170. It is the earliest history of
747-496: A steep-sided, isolated hill or mountain, because they are not always seen or described in connexion with volcanic processes. All stratovolcanoes and shield volcanoes have a tendency to form a cone at the surface. However, stratovolcanoes are able to form steeper sides whilst shield volcanoes only form very flat cones. The reason for this is that stratovolcanoes are composed largely of solid, eruptive material, whereas shield volcanoes are built up mainly by fluid lava flows. Over
830-564: A time when anti-Catholic sentiment ran high in much of Northern Europe and Great Britain. Sophia died shortly before her first cousin once removed, Anne, Queen of Great Britain , the last sovereign of the House of Stuart . Sophia's son George I succeeded Queen Anne and formed a personal union from 1714 between the British crown and the Electorate of Hanover, which lasted until well after
913-490: A very isolated basalt or phonolite cones." In this work, which was published by Naumann and later revised by Bernhard Cotta , the most important hills are described in the relevant map sheets, for example: 33. The Mittenberg , a conical hill in the centre between Tollenstein , Schönfeld and Neuhütte; rock, coarse splinters, with grey feldspar crystals. Today the descriptors "cone", "conical hill" or "conical mountain" are mainly used as morphological terms in geography for
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#1732757233689996-425: A wholesale denuding of royal power and it did not prevent imperial officials from enforcing Frederick’s prerogatives. The Statutum affirmed a division of labor between the emperor and the princes and laid much groundwork for the development of particularism and, perhaps even federalism in Germany. Even so, from 1232 the vassals of the emperor had a veto over imperial legislative decisions and any new law established by
1079-404: Is Queen Frederica's nephew Ernst August , the third and present husband of Princess Caroline of Monaco . In 1129, after Henry the Proud's defeat against Lothair III, Holy Roman Emperor , his sister Sophia was given a seat at Regensburg . From c. 1150 until his death in 1167, Welf VI's son, Welf VII, was associated to his father, but predeceased him. After Welf VI's death, Altdorf
1162-612: Is a European dynasty that has included many German and British monarchs from the 11th to 20th century and Emperor Ivan VI of Russia in the 18th century. The originally Franconian family from the Meuse-Moselle area was closely related to the imperial family of the Carolingians . The (Younger) House of Welf is the older branch of the House of Este , a dynasty whose earliest known members lived in Veneto and Lombardy in
1245-402: Is generally so wonderfully uniform that you can often recognize them even from a distance. They are cones. Of course, this typical form has many variations; the [normally] round base may be elongated, the peak may take the form of a rocky crest or ridge, ... but most forms can be reduced at least to a conical or a cone-segment shape. ... Flat ridges are then arranged in rows, out of which rise only
1328-507: Is often of volcanic origin. Conical hills or mountains occur in different shapes and are not necessarily geometrically-shaped cones; some are more tower-shaped or have an asymmetric curve on one side of the hill. Typically, however, they have a circular base and smooth sides with a gradient of up to 30°. Such conical mountains are found in all volcanically-formed areas of the world such as the Bohemian Central Uplands in
1411-533: Is shown clearly in the imperial Landfried issued at Mainz in 1235, which explicitly enjoined the princes as loyal vassals to exercise their own jurisdictions in their own localities. The jurisdictional autarky of the German princes was favoured by the crown itself in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries in the interests of order and local peace. The inevitable result was the territorial particularism of churchmen, lay princes, and interstitial cities. However, Frederick II
1494-403: Is unlikely that a particularly “strong ruler” such as Frederick II would have even pragmatically agreed to legislation that was concessionary rather than cooperative, neither would the princes have insisted on such. Frederick II used the political loyalty and practical jurisdictions of the German aristocracy to support his kingly duty of imposing peace, order, and justice upon the German realm. This
1577-674: The Bishop of Minden and Count of Schaumburg and set up his own army. On 28 May 1388, battle was joined at Winsen an der Aller; it ended in victory for Henry . According to the provisions of the Treaty of Hanover from the year 1373, after the death of Wensceslas, the Principality passed to the House of Welf. In 1389, an inheritance agreement between the Welfs and the Ascanians was concluded,
1660-536: The Brunonids , to his daughter Gertrud. Her husband Henry the Proud became then the favoured candidate in the imperial election against Conrad III of the Hohenstaufen . Henry lost the election, as the other princes feared his power and temperament, and was dispossessed of his duchies by Conrad III. Henry's brother Welf VI (1115–1191), Margrave of Tuscany, later left his Swabian territories around Ravensburg,
1743-1015: The Chocolate Hills in Bohol on the Philippines . In almost all mountain regions of the world, conical peaks may be formed by erosion processes, but they are not usually isolated landforms. Often they arise through the formation of ordinary riverine meanders . But they can also result from the action of an entrenched river that has cut deeply into a plateau . The resulting cutoff meander spur may be cone-shaped. The artificially created hills or mounds associated, for example, with mining also tend to be cone-shaped. These artificial hills are also free-standing and, once tipping has finished, they may become conical hills overgrown with vegetation. However, as artificial features they are classed as spoil tips rather than natural hills. House of Welf The House of Welf (also Guelf or Guelph )
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#17327572336891826-752: The Czech Republic , the Rhön in Germany or the Massif Central in France . The conical hill as a geomorphological term first appeared in the German language, as Kegelberg , coined by Goethe and geologists of his era. From their natural appearance these were mostly basaltic or phonolitic landforms in the shape of a mathematical cone, hence why the term came to be used in the early geological literature. The first systematic geological mapping of
1909-623: The House of Luneburg residing at Celle Castle . In 1635 it was given to George , younger brother of Prince Ernest II of Lüneburg , who chose Hanover as his residence. New territory was added in 1665, and in 1705 the Principality of Luneburg was taken over by the Hanoverians. In 1692 Duke Ernest Augustus from the Calenberg-Hanover Line acquired the right to be a prince-elector of the Holy Roman Empire as
1992-522: The Investiture Controversy under his Salian predecessors. As royal access to the resources of the church in Germany was much reduced, Frederick was forced to go to Italy to find the finances needed to restore the king's power in Germany. He was soon crowned emperor in Italy, but decades of warfare on the peninsula yielded scant results. The Papacy and the prosperous city-states of the Lombard League in northern Italy were traditional enemies, but
2075-593: The King of the Romans ) through a customary election, but lost to the Saxon duke Lothair of Supplinburg . A civil war between Frederick's dynasty and Lothair's ended with Frederick's submission in 1134. After Lothair's death in 1137, Frederick's brother Conrad was elected King as Conrad III. Because the Welf duke Henry the Proud , son-in-law and heir of Lothair and the most powerful prince in Germany, who had been passed over in
2158-816: The Kingdom of Saxony , proposed and started by Abraham Gottlob Werner , describes, in his later works, numerous mountains and hills of volcanic or subvolcanic origin as Kegel ("cone") or Kegelberg ("conical hill/mountain"). The term was introduced more definitively by Carl Friedrich Naumann in Notes to Section VII of the Geognostic Charter of the Kingdom of Saxony and its Adjacent Territories ( Erläuterungen zu Section VII der geognostischen Charte des Königreiches Sachsen und der angränzenden Länderabtheilungen ) thus: "The ordinary form of basalt and phonolitic hills
2241-421: The Kingdom of Sicily in 1189 and 1194 respectively, a source of vast wealth. Henry failed to make royal and Imperial succession hereditary, but in 1196 he succeeded in gaining a pledge that his infant son Frederick would receive the German crown. Faced with difficulties in Italy and confident that he would realize his wishes in Germany at a later date, Henry returned to the south, where it appeared he might unify
2324-594: The Minnesang , and in narrative epic poems such as Tristan , Parzival , and the Nibelungenlied . Frederick died in 1190 while on the Third Crusade and was succeeded by his son, Henry VI . Elected king even before his father's death, Henry went to Rome to be crowned emperor. He married Princess Constance of Sicily , and deaths in his wife's family gave him claim of succession and possession of
2407-643: The Prince-Elector of Brunswick-Lüneburg . Colloquially the Electorate was known as the Electorate of Hanover . In 1814 it was succeeded by the Kingdom of Hanover . Religion-driven politics placed Ernest Augustus's wife Sophia of the Palatinate in the line of succession to the British crown by the Act of Settlement 1701 , written to ensure a Protestant succession to the thrones of Scotland and England at
2490-642: The Silesian dukes of the Piast dynasty. With the German colonization, the Empire increased in size and came to include the Duchy of Pomerania . A quickening economic life in Germany increased the number of towns and Imperial cities , and gave them greater importance. It was also during this period that castles and courts replaced monasteries as centers of culture. Growing out of this courtly culture, Middle High German literature reached its peak in lyrical love poetry,
2573-585: The Zähringen and Welf lords. Frederick's brother Otto was elevated to the Strasbourg bishopric in 1082. Upon Frederick's death, he was succeeded by his son, Duke Frederick II , in 1105. Frederick II remained a close ally of the Salians, he and his younger brother Conrad were named the king's representatives in Germany when the king was in Italy. Around 1120, Frederick II married Judith of Bavaria from
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2656-519: The monarchs from the Houses of: - Hohenstaufen (1138–1208; 1215–1254) - Süpplinburg (1125–1137) - Welf (1208–1215) Notes: For further detailed dynastic relationships, see also Family tree of the German monarchs . Conical hill A conical hill (also cone or conical mountain ) is a landform with a distinctly conical shape . It is usually isolated or rises above other surrounding foothills, and
2739-698: The "royal lineage of the Waiblingens" ( regia stirps Waiblingensium ). The exact connection between the family and Waiblingen is not clear, but as a name for the family, it became very popular. The pro-imperial Ghibelline faction of the Italian civic rivalries of the 13th and 14th centuries derived its name from Waiblingen. In Italian historiography, the Staufer are known as the Svevi (Swabians). The origin remains unclear, however, Staufer counts are mentioned in
2822-483: The British throne was inherited by an elder brother's only daughter, Queen Victoria . Her offspring belong to the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha : in 1917 the name was changed to the House of Windsor . The Kingdom of Hanover was lost in 1866 by Ernest Augustus's son George V of Hanover , Austria's ally during the Austro-Prussian War , when it was annexed by Prussia after Austria's defeat and became
2905-529: The Child , grandson of the late Saxon duke Henry the Lion, was named Duke of Brunswick and Lüneburg . The power struggle with the popes continued and resulted in Frederick's excommunication in 1227. In 1239, Pope Gregory IX excommunicated Frederick again, and in 1245 he was condemned as a heretic by a church council. Although Frederick II was perhaps one of the most energetic, imaginative, and capable rulers of
2988-537: The Hohenstaufen Emperor in 1185 and returned to his much diminished lands around Brunswick without recovering his two duchies. Bavaria had been given to Otto I, Duke of Bavaria , and the Duchy of Saxony was divided between the Archbishop of Cologne, the House of Ascania and others. Diminished lands did not prevent him from imprisoning Richard I on his return from the Third Crusade , and demanding
3071-552: The Hohenstaufen but he spent little time in Germany. His main concerns lay in Italy and the Kingdom of Sicily, where he ruled as an absolute monarch supported by a sophisticated administrative apparatus. The institutions of Sicily and Italy seemed to be better political laboratories, more conducive to Frederick’s remarkable brand of innovation and absolutist tendencies. He founded the University of Naples in 1224 to train future state officials and reigned over Germany primarily through
3154-656: The Hohenstaufen dynasty, tried to get along with him, but when Henry refused to assist him once more in an Italian war campaign, conflict became inevitable. Dispossessed of his duchies after the Battle of Legnano in 1176 by Emperor Frederick I and the other princes of the German Empire eager to claim parts of his vast territories, he was exiled to the court of his father-in-law Henry II in Normandy in 1180. He returned to Germany three years later. Henry made his peace with
3237-814: The Kingdom of Sicily. The sophistication of the Constitutions or the Liber Augustalis set Frederick as perhaps the supreme lawgiver of the Middle Ages. The Constitutions drew upon decades of Siculo-Norman governmental tradition stretching back to his maternal grandfather, Roger II of Sicily . Almost every aspect in Frederick’s tightly-governed kingdom was regulated, from a rigorously centralized judiciary and bureaucracy, to commerce, coinage, financial policy, weights and measures, legal equality for all citizens, protections for women, and even provisions for
3320-533: The Netherlands. The first ruling Hohenstaufen, Conrad III, like the last one, Conrad IV, was never crowned emperor. After a 20-year period (Great interregnum 1254–1273), the first Habsburg was elected king. Note: The following kings are already listed above as German Kings Note: Some of the following kings are already listed above as German Kings Note: Some of the following dukes are already listed above as German Kings The colors denotes
3403-615: The Prussian province of Hanover. The Welfs went into exile at Gmunden , Austria, where they built Cumberland Castle . The senior line of the dynasty had ruled the much smaller principality of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel , created the sovereign Duchy of Brunswick in 1814. This line became extinct in 1884. Although the Duchy should have been inherited by the Duke of Cumberland , son of the last king of Hanover, Prussian suspicions of his loyalty led
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3486-435: The Romans in Germany. None of these claimants were able to achieve any position of authority much less the power and imperial grandeur of the Hohenstaufen. The German princes vied for individual advantage and managed to strip many powers away from the diminished monarchy. Rather than establish sovereign states however, many nobles tended to look after their families. Their many male heirs created more and smaller estates, and from
3569-412: The Welfs, but when Otto, now sole elected monarch, moved to appropriate Sicily, Innocent changed sides and accepted young Frederick II and his ally, King Philip II of France , who defeated Otto at the 1214 Battle of Bouvines . Frederick had returned to Germany in 1212 from Sicily, where he had grown up, and was elected king in 1215. When Otto died in 1218, Frederick became the undisputed ruler, and in 1220
3652-538: The allocation of royal prerogatives, leaving the sovereign authority and imperial estates to the ecclesiastical and secular princes. In 1232, Henry (VII), King of Germany and Frederick’s eldest son, was forced by the German princes to promulgate the Statutum in favorem principum ("statute in favor of princes"). Frederick II, embittered but aiming to promote cohesion in Germany in preparation for his campaigns in northern Italy, pragmatically agreed to Henry’s confirmation of
3735-668: The boy's uncle, Duke Philip of Swabia , brother of late Henry VI, was designated to serve in his place. Other factions however favoured a Welf candidate. In 1198, two rival kings were chosen: the Hohenstaufen Philip of Swabia and the son of the deprived Duke Henry the Lion , the Welf Otto IV . A long civil war began; Philip was about to win when he was murdered by the Bavarian count palatine Otto VIII of Wittelsbach in 1208. Pope Innocent III initially had supported
3818-441: The charter. It was a charter of liberties for the leading German princes at the expense of the lesser nobility and the entirety of the commoners. The princes gained whole power of jurisdiction, and the power to strike their own coins. The emperor lost his right to establish new cities, castles and mints over their territories. The Statutum was more a confirmation of political realities which had existed for generations in Germany than
3901-417: The course of time, after several eruptions , a cone of debris forms from the eruptive material. The natural conical shape so formed is simply a result of the fact that the amount of ejected material decreases with the radially distance from the crater . The layer of debris deposited is greater near the volcano than further away, so the volcano grows more rapidly close to the crater itself. The slope gradient of
3984-768: The duchy's throne to remain vacant until 1913, when the Duke of Cumberland's son, Ernst August , married the daughter of Kaiser Wilhelm II and was allowed to inherit it. His rule there was short-lived, as the monarchy came to an end following the First World War in 1918. The Welf dynasty continues to exist. The last member sitting on a European throne was Frederica of Hanover , Queen of Greece († 1981), mother of Queen Sofia of Spain and King Constantine II of Greece . Frederica's brother Prince George William of Hanover married Princess Sophie of Greece and Denmark , sister of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh . The House's head
4067-461: The dynasty followed suit, but in recent decades, the trend in German historiography has been to prefer the name 'Staufer', which is closer to contemporary usage. The name 'Staufen' itself derives from Stauf ( OHG stouf , akin to Early Modern English stoup ), meaning ' chalice '. This term was commonly applied to conical hills in Swabia during the Middle Ages. It is a contemporary term for both
4150-694: The election, refused to acknowledge the new king, Conrad III deprived him of all his territories, giving the Duchy of Saxony to Albert the Bear and that of Bavaria to Leopold IV, Margrave of Austria . In 1147, Conrad heard Bernard of Clairvaux preach the Second Crusade at Speyer , and he agreed to join King Louis VII of France in a great expedition to the Holy Land which failed. Conrad's brother Duke Frederick II died in 1147, and
4233-408: The emperor had to be approved by the princes. These provisions not withstanding, royal power in Germany remained strong under Frederick. By the 1240s the crown was almost as rich in fiscal resources, towns, castles, enfeoffed retinues, monasteries, ecclesiastical advocacies, manors, tolls, and all other rights, revenues, and jurisdictions as it had ever been at any time since the death of Henry VI. It
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#17327572336894316-405: The end of the Napoleonic Wars more than a century later, through the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire and the rise of a new successor kingdom. The British royal family became known as the House of Hanover . The "Electorate of Hanover" (the core duchy) was enlarged with the addition of other lands and became the Kingdom of Hanover in 1814 at the Congress of Vienna . During the first half of
4399-415: The entire Middle Ages, he seemed to be less concerned with drawing the disparate forces in Germany together. Frederick was pragmatic enough to realize that for all his ability and power, his time and focus could only be fully concentrated either north or south of the Alps, where the bulk of his resources lay. Frederick II’s most profound legal legacy remains the Constitutions of Melfi promulgated in 1231 in
4482-458: The environment and public health. Per the Constitutions, Frederick II was lex animata and ruled as an absolute monarch. The Constitutions have been regarded as perhaps the “birth certificate” of the modern continental European state. From 1240, Frederick II was determined to push through far-reaching reforms to establish the Sicilian kingdom and Imperial Italy as a unified state bound by a centralized administration. The new unified administration
4565-421: The estates, which was to supervise the treaty. However, 1373–1388 would be the only period in which a Brunswick-Luneburg land was not ruled by a Welf: In the wake of his death, Elector Wenceslas appointed Bernard, his brother-in-law, as co-regent involved him in the government. But his younger brother Henry did not agree with this ruling, and after vain attempts to reach an agreement, the fight flared up again in
4648-409: The fear of Imperial domination caused them to join ranks to fight Frederick. Under the skilled leadership of Pope Alexander III , the alliance suffered many defeats but ultimately was able to deny the emperor a complete victory in Italy. Frederick returned to Germany. He had vanquished one notable opponent, his Welf cousin, Duke Henry the Lion of Saxony and Bavaria in 1180, but his hopes of restoring
4731-400: The hill and the castle, although its spelling in the Latin documents of the time varies considerably: Sthouf, Stophe, Stophen, Stoyphe, Estufin , etc. The castle was built or at least acquired by Duke Frederick I of Swabia in the latter half of the 11th century. Members of the family occasionally used the toponymic surname de Stauf or variants thereof. Only in the 13th century would
4814-663: The late 9th/early 10th century, sometimes called Welf-Este. The first member was Welf I, Duke of Bavaria , also known as Welf IV. He inherited the property of the Elder House of Welf when his maternal uncle Welf III , Duke of Carinthia and Verona, the last male Welf of the Elder House, died in 1055. Welf IV was the son of Welf III's sister Kunigunde of Altdorf and her husband Albert Azzo II, Margrave of Milan . In 1070, Welf IV became Duke of Bavaria . Welf II, Duke of Bavaria married Countess Matilda of Tuscany , who died childless and left him her possessions, including Tuscany , Ferrara , Modena , Mantua , and Reggio , which played
4897-401: The late Staufer period, the population had grown from an estimated 8 million in 1200 to about 14 million in 1300, and the number of towns increased tenfold. The most heavily urbanized areas of Germany were in the south and the west. Towns often developed a degree of independence, but many were subordinate to local rulers if not immediate to the emperor. Colonization of the east also continued in
4980-411: The name come to be applied to the family as a whole. Around 1215, a chronicler referred to the "emperors of Stauf". In 1247, the Emperor Frederick II himself referred to his family as the domus Stoffensis (Staufer house), but this was an isolated instance. Otto of Freising (d. 1158) associated the Staufer with the town of Waiblingen , and around 1230, Burchard of Ursberg referred to the Staufer as of
5063-416: The nineteenth century, the Kingdom was ruled as personal union by the British crown from its creation under George III of the United Kingdom, the last elector of Hanover until the death of William IV in 1837. At that point, the crown of Hanover went to William's younger brother, Ernest Augustus, Duke of Cumberland and Teviotdale under the Salic law requiring the next male heir to inherit, whereas
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#17327572336895146-419: The office of duke of Swabia had been fully subsumed into the office of the king, and without royal authority had become meaningless. In 1261, attempts to elect young Conradin king were unsuccessful. He also had to defend Sicily against an invasion, sponsored by Pope Urban IV (Jacques Pantaléon) and Pope Clement IV (Guy Folques), by Charles of Anjou , a brother of the French king. Charles had been promised by
5229-537: The original possessions of the Elder House of Welf , to his nephew Emperor Frederick I , and thus to the House of Hohenstaufen. The next duke of the Welf dynasty Henry the Lion (1129/1131–1195) recovered his father's two duchies, Saxony in 1142, Bavaria in 1156 and thus ruled vast parts of Germany. In 1168 he married Matilda (1156–1189), the daughter of Henry II of England and Eleanor of Aquitaine , and sister of Richard I of England , gaining ever more influence. His first cousin, Frederick I, Holy Roman Emperor of
5312-435: The peninsula under the Hohenstaufen name. After a series of military victories, however, he fell ill and died of natural causes in Sicily in 1197. His underage son Frederick could only succeed him in Sicily and Malta, while in the Empire the struggle between the House of Staufen and the House of Welf erupted once again. Because the election of a three-year-old boy to be German king appeared likely to make orderly rule difficult,
5395-405: The popes the Kingdom of Sicily, where he would replace the relatives of Frederick II. Charles had defeated Conradin's uncle Manfred, King of Sicily , in the Battle of Benevento on 26 February 1266. The king himself, refusing to flee, rushed into the midst of his enemies and was killed. Conradin's campaign to retake control ended with his defeat in 1268 at the Battle of Tagliacozzo , after which he
5478-444: The power and prestige of the monarchy seemed unlikely to be met by the end of his life. During Frederick's long stays in Italy, the German princes became stronger and began a successful colonization of Slavic lands. Offers of reduced taxes and manorial duties enticed many Germans to settle in the east in the course of the Ostsiedlung . In 1163 Frederick waged a successful campaign against the Kingdom of Poland in order to re-install
5561-409: The principality became the Duchy of Brunswick , ruled by the senior branch of the House of Welf. In 1432 the estates gained by the Principality of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel between the Deister and Leine split away as the Principality of Calenberg . In 1495 it was expanded around Göttingen and in 1584 went back to the Wolfenbüttel Line. In 1634, as a result of inheritance distributions, it went to
5644-487: The prototype for the great signori who dominated Italy in later generations, each a petty sovereign in Frederick’s image—some even continued to claim the title of imperial vicar. By the time of Frederick's death in 1250, the crown in Germany was still formidable and Conrad IV , Frederick’s eldest surviving legitimate son and heir, enjoyed a strong position. However after Conrad’s death in 1254, The Great Interregnum followed which saw several rival claimants elected as King of
5727-404: The resulting volcano is dependent both on the angle of repose as well as the speed at which the volcano is weathered. The angle of repose is, in turn, dependent on the composition of the lava , its viscosity and rate of solidification, and also the amount of ejected loose rock . Many volcanoes tend to produce subsidiary craters or adventive cones . These are new openings formed on the sides of
5810-410: The rival House of Welf . When the last male member of the Salian dynasty, Emperor Henry V , died without heirs in 1125, a controversy arose about the succession. Duke Frederick II and Conrad , the two current male Staufers, by their mother Agnes, were grandsons of late Emperor Henry IV and nephews of Henry V. Frederick attempted to succeed to the throne of the Holy Roman Emperor (formally known as
5893-415: The spring of 1388. Elector Wenceslas had to assemble an army without the help of Bernard, supported by the town of Lüneburg. From Winsen an der Aller , he wanted to attack Celle , which was held by Henry and his mother. During the preparations Elector Wenceslas fell seriously ill and died shortly thereafter. According to legend, he was poisoned. Lüneburg continued the preparations, formed an alliance with
5976-553: The style of the subordinate principality. By 1705, the subordinate principalities had taken their final form as the Electorate of Hanover and the Principality of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel , and these would become the Kingdom of Hanover and the Duchy of Brunswick after the Congress of Vienna in 1815. In 1269 the Principality of Brunswick was formed following the first division of the Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg. In 1432, as
6059-612: The thirteenth century, most notably through the efforts of the Teutonic Knights. German merchants also began trading extensively on the Baltic . The Kyffhäuser Monument was erected to commemorate Frederick I, and was inaugurated in 1896. On October 29, 1968, the 700th anniversary of the death of Konradin, a society known as "Society for Staufer History" ( de ) was founded in Göppingen . The Castel del Monte, Apulia which
6142-542: The volcano through which new material is ejected sometimes only on one side. As a result, these mountains lose their ideal conical shape. The formation of an almost perfect conical mountain or hill is only possible where there is a stable, central crater. Many volcanoes are therefore only conical from one direction of view; from other angles they appear to have an irregular shape or bulges. Conical hills may form in tropical karst regions, such terrain being known as kegelkarst . A typical example of non-volcanic conical hills are
6225-540: Was a ruler of vast territories and “could not be everywhere at once”. The transference of jurisdiction was a practical solution to secure the further support of the German princes. By the 1226 Golden Bull of Rimini , Frederick had assigned the military order of the Teutonic Knights to complete the conquest and conversion of the Prussian lands. A reconciliation with the Welfs took place in 1235, whereby Otto
6308-476: Was annexed to the Holy Roman Empire . Beatrice of Swabia 1212 no children Maria of Brabant 19 May 1214 Maastricht no children After their death, rule of the Principality was to revert to the Ascanians. In order to underpin the agreement, in 1374 Albert of Saxe-Lüneburg married Catharina, the widow of Magnus II. The treaty also envisaged the creation of a statutory body representing
6391-617: Was built during the 1240s by the Emperor Frederick II was designated as a World Heritage Site in 1996. The German artist, Hans Kloss , painted his Staufer-Rundbild depicting in great detail the history of the House of Hohenstaufen, in Lorch Monastery . From 2000 to 2018, the Committee of Staufer Friends ( de ) has built thirty-eight Staufer steles ( de ) in Germany, France, Italy, Austria, Czech Republic and
6474-533: Was crowned Holy Roman Emperor . Philip changed the coat of arms from a black lion on a gold shield to three leopards, probably derived from the arms of his Welf rival Otto IV . The conflict between the Staufer dynasty and the Welf had irrevocably weakened the Imperial authority and the Norman kingdom of Sicily became the base for Staufer rule. Emperor Frederick II was the most brilliant and extraordinary of
6557-498: Was generally named after the ruler's residence, e.g., the rulers of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel originally lived in Wolfenbüttel. Whenever a branch of the family died out in the male line, the territory was given to another line, as the duchy remained enfeoffed to the family as a whole rather than its individual members. All members of the House of Welf, male or female, bore the title Duke/Duchess of Brunswick-Lüneburg in addition to
6640-463: Was handed over to Charles, who had him publicly executed at Naples . With Conradin, the direct line of the Dukes of Swabia finally ceased to exist, though most of the later emperors were descended from the Staufer dynasty indirectly. The last member of the dynasty was Manfred's son, Henry [Enrico], who died in captivity at Castel dell'Ovo on 31 October 1318. During the political decentralization of
6723-449: Was succeeded in Swabia by his son, Duke Frederick III . When King Conrad III died without adult heir in 1152, Frederick also succeeded him, taking both German royal and Imperial titles. Frederick I (Reign 2 January 1155 – 10 June 1190), known as Frederick Barbarossa because of his red beard, struggled throughout his reign to restore the power and prestige of the German monarchy against the dukes, whose power had grown both before and after
6806-469: Was taken over directly by the emperor and his highly trained Sicilian officials whose jurisdiction now ranged across all of Italy. For the rest of Frederick’s reign, there was a continuous movement toward the extension and perfection of this new unified administrative system, with the emperor himself as the driving force. Despite his mighty efforts however, Frederick’s unified Italian state proved ephemeral after his death. The vicars and captains-general provided
6889-510: Was the only Welf to become Holy Roman Emperor. Henry the Lion's grandson Otto the Child became duke of a part of Saxony in 1235, the new Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg , and died there in 1252. The duchy was divided several times during the High Middle Ages amongst various lines of the House of Welf. The subordinate states had the legal status of principalities within the duchy, which remained as an undivided imperial fief . Each state
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