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PREFACE
The House of Hohenstaufen, also known as the Swabian dynasty or
the Staufen, was a dynasty of German monarchs in the High Middle Ages,
reigning from 1138 to 1254. Three members of the dynasty were crowned Holy
Roman Emperors. In 1194, the Hohenstaufens were granted the Kingdom of Sicily.
The terms Hohenstaufen and Staufen also identified the family's Hohenstaufen
Castle in Swabia, located on an eponymous mountain near Göppingen. This second
castle was built by the first known member of the dynasty, Duke Frederick I.
The founder of the line was the count Frederick (died 1105), who built Staufen
Castle in the Swabian Jura Mountains and was rewarded for his fidelity to Emperor
Henry IV by being appointed duke of Swabia as Frederick I in 1079. He later
married Henry’s daughter Agnes. His two sons, Frederick II, duke of Swabia, and
Conrad, were the heirs of their uncle, Emperor Henry V, who died childless in 1125.
After the interim reign of the Saxon Lothar III, Conrad became German king and
Holy Roman emperor as Conrad III in 1138. Subsequent Hohenstaufen rulers were
Frederick I Barbarossa (Holy Roman emperor 1155–90), Henry VI (Holy Roman
emperor 1191–97), Philip of Swabia (king 1198– 1208), Frederick II (king, 1212–50,
emperor 1220–50), and Conrad IV (king 1237–54). The Hohenstaufen, especially
Frederick I and Frederick II, continued the struggle with the papacy that began
under their Salian predecessors, and were active in Italian affairs.
Following the death of Henry V (r. 1106-25), the last of the Salian kings, the dukes
refused to elect his nephew because they feared that he might restore royal power.
Instead, they elected a noble connected to the Saxon noble family Welf (often
written as Guelf). This choice inflamed the Hohenstaufen family of Swabia, which
also had a claim to the throne. Although a Hohenstaufen became king in 1138, the
dynastic feud with the Welfs continued. The feud became international in nature
when the Welfs sided with the papacy and its allies, most notably the cities of
northern Italy, against the imperial ambitions of the Hohenstaufen Dynasty. Their
rule in south Italy was to be brief, lasting from 1194 to 1266. In many ways it was a
continuous of the Norman period, but with the Greek and Arabic elements
progressively displaced by Western ones, as the political and economic links of the
Regno shifted northwards.
Frederick II (26 December 1194 – 13 December 1250), was one of the most
powerful Holy Roman Emperors of the Middle Ages and head of the House of
Hohenstaufen. His political and cultural ambitions, based in Sicily and stretching
through Italy to Germany, and even to Jerusalem, were enormous; however, his
enemies, especially the popes, prevailed, and his dynasty collapsed soon after his
The Hohenstaufen Dynasty - Page 9 of 200