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154 GERMAN T.
[Swabia.
lordf}ilps, immediately dependent on the Empire. Tlius the dukes of Swabia
could not affumc any territorial fupremacy over them, nor require aids
or impofts without the Emperor's permilTion and order. The Princes,
counts and lords were alfo to fit with them as ainilants in the adminillration
of juftice in a kcnigßhule, or King's-bench. The high regalia, and
profits accruing therefrom in the countries and lordfhips of the Sivabiait
Princes, counts and lords, for a long time appertained, in a great mealure,
only to the Emperors and Kings, who appointed provincial-ftewards, and
thefe again deputy-ftewards, for the levying and management of them j
but, in procefs of time, the Princes, barons and lords, by grant, mortgage,
fale and prefervation, have got them into their own hands. Over the Imperial
foundations and convents here, the Emperors and Kings nominated
adminiftrators. In the free Imperial cities were Imperial governors, criminal
and civil judges, ftewards, curators, &c. whilft over the Imperial
villages and i\\e freycn Lenten, or ' free people,' the prccwatcrcs pradiorwit
regaliiwi prefided.
§.5. Of the dukes of Sijoabia, of the family o^Hobenflaufen, feven have fat
on the throne as Kings of Germany and Roman Emperors. (See Introduöicn to
Germany, §.2.) Of thefe Conradlll. was the firft and CoKradW. the laft. They
have alfo poflefTed the hereditary eflates of theGuelpbs in Sicabia, among which
was particularly the hereditary earldom oi Ahorf, as left in inheritance by the
lad of the youngeft branch of the Guelpbs, Guclpho VI. at firft to his brother's
fon Henn the Lion, duke of Baiaria&nd Saxcny, but afterwards to his fifter's
fon the Emperor Frederick, as duke of Swabia, of the houfe of Hobenßazifen,
and on his unfortunate death, in the year 1190, to his fon the
Emperor Henry VI. But though thefe dukes of the Hohenßauff'en family
foon rofe to great power and were poffellurs of very confiderable countries
and lordfhips both in and out of Germany, fo their declenfion was equally
precipitate. Pbilip, duke of Sivabia, had amaffed vaft fums, by which he
obtained the Imperial crov/n. The Emperor, Frederick}!, was obliged to
give up feveral hereditary lands, and his fon, Conrad IV. was put under
the bann of the Empire by his competitor the anti-emperor William, earl
of Holland, and declared to have forfeited both the dutchy of Swabia and
all his lands and lordfhips in Germany ; which feverity received the fandlion
of the Pope. His fon Conrad, by the Italians named Conradin, after many
fruitlefs endeavours to recover his hereditary dutchy of Sivabia, loft his
head at Naples in the year 1268 ; and in him ended the ducal line of Hohenßaiifen.
The hereditary eftates here had been «before alienated, and
the dutchy efcheated to the Empire. Though feveral Princes, counts and
lords affumed to themfelves many Imperial 1 mds in Sioabia, King Rudolph
compelled them to a reftitution. Ever fince the extindfion of the dukes of
Sivabia, the fuperintendency and management of the Imperial cafualties,
profits and revenues, as alfo of the Imperial villages and eftates ftill reiBainin?