here - Nobility Associations

dimension; yet it also had a more regional one. The alignment of cities on one side
or the other reflected their rivalry with one another for power within their own
area. Thus predominantly Guelf Florence opposed Ghibelline Siena, its major rival
for influence in Tuscany .Below the regional level, the controversy had a local level
which reflected the rivalry of powerful families. Thus within Florence Guelf-
Ghibelline alignments were often based on considerations more familial than
ideological.
Five members of the Hohenstaufen family were kings of Sicily; Henry VI (1104-
1197), Frederick II (1197-1250), Conrad II/V or Conradin (1254-1258) and Manfred
(1259-1260). Manfred´s rule was limited to the Sicilian kingdom; the others were
also kings of Germany and of the regnum Italicum, effectively north and central
Italy. Only Frederick II was fully king of both countries; most of the lives of Henry
VI, Conrad IV and Conradin were passed in Germany. Henry VI was in Italy only
for the last three years of his life, Conrad IV in 1252-1254 and Conradin for less
than a year in 1267-1268. Manfred was technically a usurper, becoming king only
on receipt of the false news of Conradin´s death and refusing to relinquish the post
when it was learnt the young king was still alive. Hohenstaufen rule over the
southern mainland and Sicily effectively ended in 1255, when Charles of Anjou,
brother of the French king Louis IX and summoned by Pope Innocent IV to assume
the Sicilian crown, defeated and killed Manfred at the battle of Benevento. The
brief and tragic reign of Conradin was only an epilogue. Summoned from Germany
by the Italian Ghibellines, the seventeen year old boy was defeated by Charles at the
battle of Tagliacozzo in Abruzzo, just inside the frontier of the Regno, and after a
mock trial was beheaded at Naples by the victor on 29 October 1268.
After the dead of the Emperor Frederick II, Pope Innocence IV left marks to
destroy the “Svevi” (Swabian): “Never leave this man and his poisonous family the
scepter with which dominated the people of Christ!” and, other terrible sentence:
“Extirpate name, body, and seed of the heirs of the Babylonian”. Innocence died in
1254. Under his successor Urban IV and Clemente IV, more rigid and obstinate,
brought the destruction to them.
Most of the Hohenstaufen sovereigns were thus primary kings of Germany and
concerned with the maintenance of royal authority in that much divided land, but
since the regnum Italicum formed part of the empire they had also to cope with the
papacy and the communal movement in the north. The literature on these aspects
of their history is huge and we will only describe those perspectives interested in
the presentation of our family memoir.
While the Swabian dynasty in the legitimate line became extinct with the death of
Corradin (Corradino) in 1268, the illegitimate offspring which Federico Prince of
Antioch, continued for many generations. There are many descendants of Frederick
The Hohenstaufen Dynasty - Page 11 of 200