Hohenstaufen Italy

Southern Italy Series

-----Hohenstaufen Italy-----

On Christmas day 1194 Holy Roman Emperor Henry VI of the House of Hohenstaufen [link] was crowned King of Sicily. Henry wanted to use the power of both realms to do what his father, Frederick Barbarossa, had tried but failed to achieve: the centralization of the Holy Roman Empire and the tightening of Imperial control over Lombardy and the Papal States. But before Henry could put his plans into action, he died in 1197.

Control of the Kingdom of Sicily now passed to Fredrick, son of Henry VI. To the north in Germany a bitter civil war now raged between Philip of the House of Hohenstaufen and Otto of the House of Welf for control of the Holy Roman Empire. Pope Innocent III sided with Otto, to prevent a Hohenstaufen victory.

In 1200 the Pope declared Otto the legitimate Emperor, but by 1206 Philip was winning the war. The war finally ended in 1208 after Philip was assassinated and Otto was confirmed as Holy Roman Emperor. But the alliance between Pope Innocent and Emperor Otto soon soured after Emperor Otto renewed the Investiture Conflict, where he insisted (just as Barbarossa and Henry had) that the Emperor had the right to appoint bishops to the numerous ecclesiastical states in Germany. The Pope responded in 1210 by excommunicating the Emperor Otto.

With the consent of the Pope, a council of German dukes in opposition to Emperor Otto elected Frederick of Sicily to be the Emperor in 1211. Frederick left Sicily, avoided Otto’s armies in Italy and raised an army in the Hohenstaufen Duchy of Swabia. The war between Otto and Frederick was decided at the Battle of Bouvines [link] where Frederick’s ally Phillip II of France decisively defeated Emperor Otto. Frederick II was crowned King of Germany at Aachen in 1215, and Holy Roman Emperor at Rome in 1220.

Frederick II was expected to go on the 5th Crusade, but preparations were delayed and the subsequent defeat of the men already in the Holy Land was blamed on the Emperor. Frederick then married the daughter of the King of Jerusalem and received the title himself. But his delay in joining the 6th crusade lead to his excommunication in 1227. The Emperor Frederick then set out on crusade anyway, a crusade the Pope deemed unholy. So the Pope excommunicated Emperor Frederick again in 1228. Frederick made a deal with the ruler of Egypt to restore the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Frederick crowned himself King of Jerusalem in 1229. The Pope begrudgingly lifted the excommunication against the Emperor in 1230.

But as soon as Fredrick returned to the Holy Roman Empire a rebellion began, instigated by the House of Welf which had made common cause against the Emperor with the Lombard cities of northern Italy. Then in 1243 war broke out between Pope Innocent IV and the Emperor over the extent of the Papal States. As war raged across the Italian peninsula, Emperor Frederick died in 1250.

edit: forgot about the 4th Crusade and Latin Empire [link]

Southern Italy Series

500 BC [link] Origins
264 BC [link] The Punic Wars
115 AD [link] The Roman Empire
405 [link] East and West
526 [link] Collapse of the West
565 [link] Reconquest
572 [link] Lombard Invasion
751 [link] Lombard Italy
814 [link] Charlemagne’s Empire
1000 [link] Italy and the Holy Roman Empire
1095 [link] The Norman Conquest
1154 [link] The Kingdom of Sicily
1250 Hohenstaufen Italy
1280 [link] Anjou Sicily
1300 [link] War of the Vespers
1400 [link] Black Death
1492 [link] Renaissance Italy
1559 [link] Italian Wars
1715 [link] Habsburg Italy
1780 [link] Bourbon Italy
1799 [link] Revolutionary Italy
1812 [link] Napoleonic Italy
1860 [link] United Italy

2/19/12 EDIT:
map base source [link]
map base created by Citypeek [link]