Conrad III of Germany
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Conrad III (1093 - February 15, 1152) was the first German king of the Hohenstaufen dynasty. He was the son of Frederick I, Duke of Swabia and Agnes, a daughter of Emperor Henry IV.
Conrad was appointed duke of Franconia by his uncle, emperor Henry V, in 1115. One year later he acted as regent for Germany, together with his elder brother, Frederick II of Swabia. At the death of Henry (1125), Conrad unsuccessfully supported Frederick for the kingship of Germany.
Elected antiking of Italy in December 1127 at Nuremberg, in opposition to Lothair II, Conrad acknowledged Lothair as emperor only in 1135. After this he was pardoned and could take again possession of his lands. After Lothair's death (December 1137), Conrad was elected King of the Germans and King of the Romans (the title customarily accorded preparatory to accession as emperor) at Coblenz, on March 7, 1138, in the presence of the papal legate. Conrad was crowned at Aachen six days later and was acknowledged in Bamberg by several princes of southern Germany. As Henry the Proud, son-in-law and heir of Lothair and the most powerful prince in Germany, who had been passed over in the election, refused to do the same, Conrad deprived him of all his territories, giving Saxony to Albert the Bear and Bavaria to Leopold of Austria. Henry, however, retained the loyalty of his subjects. The civil war that broke out is considered the first act of the struggle between Guelphs and Ghibellines, which later extended southwards to Italy. After Henry's death (October 1139), the war was continued by his son Henry the Lion, supported by the Saxons, and by his brother Welf. Conrad, after a long siege, defeated the latter at Weinsberg in December 1140, and in the May 1142 a peace agreement was reached in Frankfurt.
In the same year Conrad entered Bohemia to reinstate his brother-in-law Vladislav II as prince. The attempt to do the same with another brother-in-law, the Polish prince Władysław, failed. Bavaria, Saxony and other regions of Germany were in revolt.
In 1146, Conrad heard Bernard of Clairvaux preach the crusade at Speyer, and he agreed to join Louis VII on the Second Crusade. Conrad and his army went overland, via Hungary, causing disruptions in the Byzantine territories they passed through. They arrived at Constantinople by December of 1146, ahead of the French army.
Rather than taking the coastal road around Anatolia through Christian-held territory, by which he sent most of his noncombatants, Conrad took his army across Anatolia. On October 25, 1147, they were defeated by the Turks at the Battle of Dorylaeum. Conrad and most of the mounted knights escaped, but most of the foot soldiers were killed or captured. The remnants of the German army limped on to Nicaea, where many of the survivors deserted and tried to return home. Conrad and his adherents had to be escorted to Lopadium by the French, where they joined the French army of Louis VII. Conrad fell seriously ill at Ephesus, and was sent to recuperate at Constantinople, where his host the Byzantine emperor Manuel I acted as his personal physician. After recovering, Conrad sailed to Acre, and from there reached Jerusalem. He participated in the ill-fated Siege of Damascus and after that failure, grew disaffected with his allies. Another attempt to attack Ascalon failed when Conrad's allies failed to appear as promised, and Conrad returned to Germany.
In 1150, he and his son and co-king, Henry Berengar, defeated the Welfs Welf VI and Welf VII at the Battle of Flochberg. Henry Berengar died later that year and the succession was thrown open. The Welfs and Hohenstaufen made peace in 1152 and the peaceful succession of one of Conrad's family was secured.
Conrad married twice:
- c. 1115, Gertrud von Komburg (died c. 1130-31)
- 1136, Gertrud von Sulzbach (died 14 April 1146), whose sister Bertha married Manuel I Comnenos.
He was never crowned emperor and continued to style himself King of the Romans until his death. On his deathbed, in the presence of only two witnesses, his nephew Frederick Barbarossa and the bishop of Bamberg, he allegedly designated Frederick Barbarossa his successor, rather than his own six-year-old son Frederick, who instead succeeded Barbarossa as Duke of Swabia. Frederick Barbarossa, who had accompanied his uncle on the unfortunate crusade, forcefully pursued his advantage and was duly elected king in Cologne a few weeks later.
[edit] Sources
- Baldwin, M.W. A History of the Crusades: the first hundred years, 1969
| Preceded by: Lothair II |
King of Germany 1138–1152 |
Succeeded by: Frederick I Barbarossa |
