Welf VI (1115 – 15 December 1191) was the margrave of Tuscany (1152–1162) and duke of Spoleto (1152–1162), the third son of Henry IX, Duke of Bavaria , and a member of the illustrious family of the Welf (House of Guelph).
53-596: Welf inherited the familial possessions in Swabia , including the counties of Altdorf and Ravensburg , while his eldest brother Henry the Proud received the duchies of Bavaria and Saxony and his elder brother Conrad entered the church. Henry married Welf to Uta , the daughter of Godfrey of Calw , count palatine of the Rhine . On Godfrey's death in 1131, a dispute opened up between Godfrey's nephew Adalbert and Welf over
106-511: A certain level of internal solidarity. Early among these were Saxony and Bavaria , which had been conquered by Charlemagne , and Alamannia , placed under Frankish administration in 746. In German historiography they are called the jüngere Stammesherzogtümer , or "more recent tribal duchies", although the term "stem duchies" is common in English. The duchies are often called "younger" (newer, more recent, etc.) in order to distinguish them from
159-510: A law stipulating that the kingdom would thereafter be united. Arnulf continued to rule it like a king even after his submission, but after his death in 937 it was quickly brought under royal control by Henry's son Otto the Great . The Ottonians worked to preserve the duchies as offices of the crown, but by the reign of Henry IV the dukes had made them functionally hereditary. The five stem duchies were: The complicated political history of
212-562: A long history of controversy. The overly literal or etymologizing English translation "stem duchy" was coined in the early 20th century. While later authors tend to clarify the term by using the alternative translation "tribal", use of the term "stem duchies" has become conventional. The derivation of the German people from a number of German tribes ( Deutsche Stämme; Volksstämme ) developed in 18th to 19th century German historiography and ethnography. This concept of German "stems" relates to
265-510: A result the concept has a history of political and academic dispute. The terms Stamm , Nation or Volk variously used in modern German historiography reflect the Middle Latin gens , natio or populus of the medieval source material. Traditional German historiography counts six Altstämme or "ancient stems", viz. Bavarians , Swabians (Alemanni) , Franks , Saxons , Frisians and Thuringians . All of these were incorporated in
318-617: Is normally thought of as comprising the former Swabian Circle , or equivalently the former state of Württemberg (with the Prussian Hohenzollern Province ), or the modern districts of Tübingen (excluding the former Baden regions of the Bodenseekreis district), Stuttgart , and the administrative region of Bavarian Swabia . In the Middle Ages , the term Swabia indicated a larger area, covering all
371-1082: Is traditionally spoken in the upper Neckar basin (upstream of Heilbronn ), along the upper Danube between Tuttlingen and Donauwörth , in Upper Swabia , and on the left bank of the Lech , in an area centered on the Swabian Alps roughly stretching from Stuttgart to Augsburg . Many Swabian surnames end with the suffixes -le , -(l)er , -el , -ehl , and -lin , typically from the Middle High German diminutive suffix -elîn (Modern Standard German -lein ). Examples would be: Schäuble , Egeler , Rommel , and Gmelin . The popular German surname Schwab as well as Svevo in Italy are derived from this area, both meaning literally "Swabian". Stem duchy A stem duchy ( German : Stammesherzogtum , from Stamm , meaning "tribe", in reference to
424-750: Is used already by Tacitus in the 1st century, albeit in a different geographical sense: He calls the Baltic Sea the Mare Suevicum ("Suebian Sea") after the Suiones , and ends his description of the Suiones and Sitones with "Here Suebia ends" ( Hic Suebiae finis ). By the mid-3rd century, groups of the Suebi form the core element of the new tribal alliance known as the Alamanni , who expanded towards
477-741: The Ahalolfings ruling the Baar estates around the upper Neckar and Danube rivers. The conflict between the two dynasties was decided in favour of Hunfriding Burchard II at the Battle of Winterthur (919). Burchard's rule as duke was acknowledged as such by the newly elected king Henry the Fowler , and in the 960s the duchy under Burchard III was incorporated in the Holy Roman Empire under Otto I . The Hohenstaufen dynasty, which ruled
530-715: The Battle of Nedao . The Alemanni were ruled by independent kings throughout the 4th to 5th centuries but fell under Frankish domination in the 6th ( Battle of Tolbiac 496). By the late 5th century, the area settled by the Alemanni extended to Alsace and the Swiss Plateau , bordering on the Bavarii to the east, the Franks to the north, the remnants of Roman Gaul to the west, and the Lombards and Goths , united in
583-674: The British Royal Family that has ruled since 1714. Smaller feudal dynasties eventually disappeared, however; for example, branches of the Montforts and Hohenems lived until modern times, and the Fürstenberg survive still. The region proved to be one of the most divided in the empire, containing, in addition to these principalities, numerous free cities , ecclesiastical territories, and fiefdoms of lesser counts and knights . A new Swabian League ( Schwäbischer Bund )
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#1732782406931636-667: The Carolingian Empire by the late 8th century. Only four of them are represented in the later stem duchies; the former Merovingian duchy of Thuringia was absorbed into Saxony in 908 while the former Frisian Kingdom had been conquered into Francia already in 734 . The customary or tribal laws of these groups were recorded in the early medieval period ( Lex Baiuvariorum , Lex Alamannorum , Lex Salica and Lex Ripuaria , Lex Saxonum , Lex Frisionum and Lex Thuringorum ). Franconian, Saxon and Swabian law remained in force and competed with imperial law well into
689-649: The Franconian War . The Reformation caused the league to be disbanded in 1534. The territory of Swabia as understood today emerges in the early modern period. It corresponds to the Swabian Circle established in 1512. The Old Swiss Confederacy was de facto independent from Swabia from 1499 as a result of the Swabian War , while the Margraviate of Baden had been detached from Swabia since
742-701: The Franks , Saxons , Bavarians and Swabians ) was a constituent duchy of the Kingdom of Germany at the time of the extinction of the Carolingian dynasty (death of Louis the Child in 911) and through the transitional period leading to the formation of the Ottonian Empire . The Carolingians had dissolved the original tribal duchies of the Empire in the 8th century. As the Carolingian Empire declined,
795-468: The Holy Roman Empire in the 12th and 13th centuries, arose out of Swabia, but following the execution of Conradin , the last Hohenstaufen, on 29 October 1268, the duchy was not reappointed during the Great Interregnum . In the following years, the original duchy gradually broke up into many smaller units. Rudolf I of Habsburg , elected in 1273 as emperor, tried to restore the duchy, but met
848-545: The Imperial Shrievalty ( Reichslandvogtei ) of Swabia, which was given as Imperial Pawn to Duke Leopold III of Austria in 1379 and again to Sigismund, Archduke of Austria in 1473/1486. He took the title of a "Prince of Swabia" and integrated the Shrievalty of Swabia in the realm of Further Austria . The Swabian League of Cities was first formed on 20 November 1331, when twenty-two imperial cities of
901-479: The Kingdom of Odoacer , to the south. The name Alamannia was used by the 8th century, and from the 9th century, Suebia was occasionally used for Alamannia , while Alamannia was increasingly used to refer to Alsace specifically. By the 12th century, Suebia rather than Alamannia was used consistently for the territory of the Duchy of Swabia . Swabia was one of the original stem duchies of East Francia ,
954-741: The Kingdom of Württemberg , the Grand Duchy of Baden , and the Principality of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen as sovereign states. Much of Eastern Swabia became part of Bavaria , forming what is now the Swabian administrative region of Bavaria. The Kings of Bavaria assumed the title Duke in Swabia , with the in indicating that only parts of the Swabian territory was ruled by them, unlike their other title Duke of Franconia which made clear that
1007-632: The Roman Limes east of the Rhine and south of the Main. The Alamanni were sometimes referred to as Suebi even at this time, and their new area of settlement came to be known as Suebia. In the migration period , the Suebi (Alamanni) crossed the Rhine in 406 and some of them established the Kingdom of the Suebi in Galicia. Another group settled in parts of Pannonia , after the Huns were defeated in 454 in
1060-739: The Second Crusade together, Welf and his son, Welf VII , were defeated by Henry Berengar , son of Conrad III, at the Battle of Flochberg . In 1152, the Welfs and the Hohenstaufen made peace and Frederick Barbarossa was elected king. He returned Bavaria to Henry's son Henry the Lion in 1156. In October 1152, at Würzburg , Frederick gave Welf, as the head of his family, the duchy of Spoleto , margraviate of Tuscany , and principality of Sardinia among other Italian properties. Beginning in
1113-685: The duke of Swabia , on his death in 1191. Thus, all the Swabian Welf estates passed to the Hohenstaufen, descended from Welf's sister Judith. The male line of Welfs, descended from Henry the Lion, remained with their Billung patrimony in northern Germany. Welf was a patron of churches. He was buried in the Premonstratensian monastery that he founded, Steingaden Abbey in Bavaria, where his son had also been buried, while most of
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#17327824069311166-495: The early modern period , now divided between the states of Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg . Swabians ( Schwaben , singular Schwabe ) are the natives of Swabia and speakers of Swabian German . Their number was estimated at close to 0.8 million by SIL Ethnologue as of 2006, compared to a total population of 7.5 million in the regions of Tübingen , Stuttgart and Bavarian Swabia . Like many cultural regions of Europe, Swabia's borders are not clearly defined. However, today it
1219-410: The 1150s, a feud broke out between Welf (along with his son Welf VII ) against Hugh of Tübingen , count palatine of Swabia. It came to a head between 1164 and 1166 and ended with the resolution of the emperor himself, generally on the side of the Welfs. When Welf's aforementioned only son died of malaria at Rome in 1167, while campaigning with Barbarossa against Pope Alexander III , Henry demanded
1272-512: The 13th century. The list of "recent stems" or Neustämme , is much less definite and subject to considerable variation; groups that have been listed under this heading include the Märker , Lausitzer , Mecklenburger , Upper Saxons , Pomeranians , Silesians , and East Prussians , roughly reflecting German settlement activity during the 12th to 15th centuries. The use of Stämme , "tribes", rather than Völker "nations, peoples", emerged in
1325-646: The Duke of Württemberg was soon restored. The region was quite divided by the Reformation. While secular princes such as the Duke of Württemberg and the Margrave of Baden-Durlach , as well as most of the Free Cities, became Protestant , the ecclesiastical territories (including the bishoprics of Augsburg , Konstanz and the numerous Imperial abbeys ) remained Catholic , as did the territories belonging to
1378-550: The East-Frankish, "German", stem-duchies. . . Certainly, their names had already appeared during the Migrations . Yet, their political institutional, and biological structures had more often than not thoroughly changed. I have, moreover, refuted the basic difference between the so-called älteres Stammesfürstentum [older tribal principalities] and jüngeres Stammesfürstentum [newer tribal principalities], since I consider
1431-467: The German population of these stems or tribes as a historical reality is mostly recognized in contemporary historiography, while the caveat is frequently made that each of them should be treated as an individual case with a different history of ethnogenesis, although some historians have revived the terminology of "peoples" ( Völker ) rather than "tribes" ( Stämme ). The division remains in current use in
1484-685: The Habsburgs ( Further Austria ), the Sigmaringen branch of the House of Hohenzollern , and the Margrave of Baden-Baden . In the wake of the territorial reorganization of the empire of 1803 by the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss , the shape of Swabia was entirely changed. All the ecclesiastical estates were secularized, and most of the smaller secular states, and almost all of the free cities, were mediatized , leaving only
1537-531: The Holy Roman Empire during Middle Ages led to the division or disestablishment of most early medieval duchies. Frederick Barbarossa in 1180 abolished the system of stem duchies in favour of more numerous territorial duchies. The duchy of Bavaria is the only stem duchy that made the transition to territorial duchy, eventually emerging as the Free State of Bavaria within modern Germany. Some of
1590-720: The city league disbanded according to the resolutions of the Reichstag at Eger . The major dynasties that arose out of medieval Swabia were the Habsburgs and the Hohenzollerns , who rose to prominence in Northern Germany. Also stemming from Swabia are the local dynasties of the dukes of Württemberg and the margraves of Baden . The Welf family went on to rule in Bavaria and Hanover , and are ancestral to
1643-660: The duchies before and after Charlemagne to have been basically the same Frankish institution. . . After the division of the Kingdom in the Treaty of Verdun (843), Treaty of Meerssen (870), and Treaty of Ribemont (880), the Eastern Frankish Kingdom or East Francia was formed out of Bavaria, Alemannia, and Saxony together with eastern parts of the Frankish territory. The kingdom was divided in 864–865 among
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1696-581: The early 19th century in the context of the project of German unification . Karl Friedrich Eichhorn in 1808 still used Deutsche Völker "German nations". Friedrich Christoph Dahlmann in 1815 asked for unity of the German nation ( Volk ) in its tribes ( in seinen Stämmen ). This terminology became standard and is reflected in the preamble of the Weimar constitution of 1919, reading Das deutsche Volk, einig in seinen Stämmen [...] "The German nation (people), united in its tribes (stems) ...". The composition of
1749-421: The early and high medieval period and is to be distinguished from the more generic Germanic tribes of late antiquity . A distinction was sometimes made between the "ancient stems" ( Altstämme ), which were in existence in the 10th century, and "recent stems" ( Neustämme ), which emerged in the high medieval period as a result of eastward expansion . The delineation of the two concepts is necessarily vague, and as
1802-442: The early high-medieval period under the Hohenstaufen , and Frederick Barbarossa finally abolished them in 1180 in favour of more numerous territorial duchies. The term Stammesherzogtum as used in German historiography dates to the mid-19th century, and from the beginning was closely related to the question of national unification . The term's applicability, and the nature of the stem duchies in medieval Germany, consequently have
1855-474: The formation of a new league of fourteen Swabian cities on 4 July 1376. The emperor refused to recognise the newly revitalised Swabian League, seeing it as a rebellion, and this led to an " imperial war " against the league. The renewed league defeated an imperial army at the Battle of Reutlingen on 14 May 1377. Burgrave Frederick V of Hohenzollern finally defeated the league in 1388 at Döffingen . The next year
1908-477: The former Duchy of Swabia banded together in support of the Emperor Louis IV , who in return promised not to mortgage any of them to any imperial vassal . Among the founding cities were Augsburg , Heilbronn , Reutlingen , and Ulm . The counts of Württemberg , Oettingen , and Hohenberg were induced to join in 1340. The defeat of the city league by Count Eberhard II of Württemberg in 1372 led to
1961-571: The former classification of German dialects into Franconian , Alemannic , Thuringian , Bavarian and Low Saxon (including Friso-Saxon , with Frisian languages being regarded as a separate language). In the Free State of Bavaria , the division into "Bavarian stems" ( bayerische Stämme ) remains current for the populations of Altbayern (Bavaria proper), Franconia and Swabia . Within East Francia were large duchies, sometimes called kingdoms ( regna ) after their former status, which had
2014-536: The historic settlement area of the Germanic tribe alliances named Alemanni and Suebi . This territory would include all of the Alemannic German area, but the modern concept of Swabia is more restricted, due to the collapse of the duchy of Swabia in the thirteenth century. Swabia as understood in modern ethnography roughly coincides with the Swabian Circle of the Holy Roman Empire as it stood during
2067-513: The inheritance of Calw . Welf was an uncle to the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa (Barbarossa's mother, Judith , was Welf's sister). Welf himself was only a decade or less older than his nephew, during whose reign most of Welf's activity occurred. When Conrad III of Germany , Frederick's uncle, confiscated the duchy of Bavaria in 1142, Welf joined his brother in rebelling. Even though, Conrad III and Welf VI had gone on
2120-633: The inheritance of all the Welf estates. Welf demanded in return a large sum of money, which Henry did not raise. Welf therefore gave his Italian states to the emperor. Welf remained in charge of his Italian duchies until 1173, while Christian , Archbishop of Mainz , was imperial vicar . A rift between Henry and Barbarossa over an Italian campaign in 1176 provided the basis for the proceedings against Henry in 1179, which finally deprived him of all his estates, including those he had purchased from Welf. These were given back to Welf, who gave them to Barbarossa's heir,
2173-498: The kingdom. The dukes gathered and elected Conrad I to be their king. According to Tellenbach's thesis, the dukes created the duchies during Conrad's reign. No duke attempted to set up an independent kingdom. Even after the death of Conrad in 918, when the election of Henry the Fowler was disputed, his rival, Arnulf, Duke of Bavaria , did not establish a separate kingdom but claimed the whole, before being forced by Henry to submit to royal authority. Henry may even have promulgated
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2226-740: The lands associated with the Frankish stem duchy of Alamannia stretching from the Vosges Mountains in the west to the broad Lech river in the east: Like all of Southern Germany , what is now Swabia was part of the La Tène culture , and as such has a Celtic (Gaulish) substrate. In the Roman era, it was part of the Raetia province. The name Suebia is derived from that of the Suebi . It
2279-439: The later Holy Roman Empire , as it developed in the 9th and 10th centuries. Due to the foundation of the important abbeys of St. Gallen and Reichenau , Swabia became an important center of Old High German literary culture during this period. In the later Carolingian period , Swabia became once again de facto independent, by the early 10th century mostly ruled by two dynasties, the Hunfriding counts in Raetia Curiensis and
2332-414: The old tribal areas assumed new identities. The five stem duchies (sometimes also called "younger stem duchies" in contrast to the pre-Carolingian tribal duchies) were Bavaria , Franconia , Lotharingia (Lorraine) , Saxony and Swabia (Alemannia) . The Salian emperors (reigned 1027–1125) retained the stem duchies as the major divisions of Germany, but the stem duchies became increasingly obsolete during
2385-451: The older duchies which were vassal-states of the Merovingian monarchs. Historian Herwig Wolfram denied any real distinction between older and younger stem duchies, or between the stem duchies of Germany and similar territorial principalities in other parts of the Carolingian empire: I am attempting to refute the whole hallowed doctrine of the difference between the beginnings of the West-Frankish, "French", principautés territoriales , and
2438-402: The opposition of the higher nobility who aimed to limit the power of the emperor. Instead, he confiscated the former estates of the Hohenstaufen as imperial property of the Holy Roman Empire, and declared most of the cities formerly belonging to Hohenstaufen to be Free Imperial Cities , and the more powerful abbeys within the former duchy to be Imperial Abbeys. The rural regions were merged into
2491-413: The other early Guelphs are buried in Weingarten Abbey . He was the patron of the Historia Welforum , the first medieval chronicle of his dynasty. Welf had at least two children with Uta: Swabia Swabia is a cultural, historic and linguistic region in southwestern Germany . The name is ultimately derived from the medieval Duchy of Swabia , one of the German stem duchies , representing
2544-414: The other stem duchies emerged as divisions of the Holy Roman Empire; thus, the Electorate of Saxony , while not directly continuing the duchy of Saxony , gives rise to the modern state of Saxony . The duchies of Franconia and Swabia , on the other hand, disintegrated and correspond only vaguely to the contemporary regions of Swabia and Franconia . The Merovingian duchy of Thuringia did not become
2597-401: The sons of Louis the German , largely along the lines of the tribes. Royal power quickly disintegrated after 899 under the rule of Louis the Child , which allowed local magnates to revive the duchies as autonomous entities and rule their tribes under the supreme authority of the King. After the death of the last Carolingian, Louis the Child , in 911, the stem duchies acknowledged the unity of
2650-479: The term. Baden's residents mostly refer to themselves as Alemanni (versus the Swabians ). SIL Ethnologue cites an estimate of 819,000 Swabian speakers as of 2006. This corresponds to roughly 10% of the total population of the Swabian region, or roughly 1% of the total population of Germany. As an ethno-linguistic group, Swabians are closely related to other speakers of Alemannic German , i.e. Badeners , Alsatians , and German-speaking Swiss . Swabian German
2703-409: The twelfth century. Fearing the power of the greater princes, the cities and smaller secular rulers of Swabia joined to form the Swabian League in the fifteenth century. The League was quite successful, notably expelling the Duke of Württemberg in 1519 and putting in his place a Habsburg governor, but the league broke up a few years later over religious differences inspired by the Reformation , and
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#17327824069312756-408: The whole of Franconia had become part of their kingdom. In contemporary usage, Schwaben is sometimes taken to refer to Bavarian Swabia exclusively, correctly however it includes the larger Württemberg part of Swabia. Its inhabitants attach great importance to calling themselves Swabians. Baden, historically part of the duchy of Swabia and also of the Swabian Circle, is no longer commonly included in
2809-469: Was formed in 1488, opposing the expansionist Bavarian dukes from the House of Wittelsbach and the revolutionary threat from the south in the form of the Swiss . In 1519, the League conquered Württemberg and sold it to Charles V after its duke Ulrich seized the Free Imperial City of Reutlingen during the interregnum that followed the death of Maximilian I. It helped to suppress the Peasants' Revolt in 1524–26 and defeat an alliance of robber barons in
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