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The man known to history as Emperor Frederick
Barbarossa was born in mid-December in the

year 1122 in Haguenau in what is now the region
of Alsace in eastern France.

He was christened simply as Frederick, and
the name Barbarossa was a nickname he would

acquire later in his life on account of his
facial hair.

Barbarossa literally means ‘Red Beard’
in Italian.

His father was Frederick II, Duke of Swabia.

This was a large duchy which covered the region
approximating to south-western Germany today

and straddled the borders of France, Switzerland
and Austria.

The duke was one of the heads of the Hohenstaufen
family in Germany, a dynasty which was just

beginning to play a major role in the politics
of Europe in the High Middle Ages.

His mother was Judith of Bavaria, a daughter
of Henry IX, the duke of Bavaria.

She and Frederick Senior had only recently
married and Frederick Junior was their first

child.

At some unknown time in the years that followed,
possibly in 1123 or 1124, she gave birth to

a second child, a daughter named Bertha, also
known as Judith.

However, the union produced no more children
and Judith died prematurely in 1130.

As a result, young Frederick had only vague
memories of his birth mother and would have

grown up more familiar with his step-mother,
Agnes of Saarbrucken, whom Frederick Senior.

married soon after Judith’s death.

In order to understand the course of events
which would catapult young Frederick to the

forefront of European politics in the second
half of the twelfth century, we need to look

back at the often rather confusing political
landscape of Europe as it evolved during the

course of the Middle Ages.

After the centuries of instability following
the collapse of the Roman Empire in Western

Europe in the fifth century AD the King of
the Franks, Charlemagne or Charles the Great,

succeeded during the second half of the eighth
century in building up a very substantial

empire which extended throughout most of modern-day
France, Switzerland, the Low Countries, much

of Germany and parts of Austria and Italy.

As a result on Christmas Day in the year 800,
he was crowned in Rome by Pope Leo III as

the Holy Roman Emperor, and his lands were
designated as being the Holy Roman Empire,

a successor state to the earlier Roman Empire,
a move which was given formal sanction by

the Church.

This Holy Roman Empire or Carolingian Empire,
continued to be ruled by Charlemagne for some

years and although it passed intact to his
son and successor Louis the Pious, when Louis

died in 840 the empire was soon divided between
his sons and then, in turn, those sons divided

up their lands, meaning that by the tenth
century, the Holy Roman Empire and the Carolingian

Empire were heavily fragmented.

The Holy Roman Empire did not survive in the
west of Charlemagne’s empire, where the

kingdom of France emerged as a separate entity
during the course of the tenth century.

However, it did survive in Germany and Italy
where the title of Holy Roman Emperor passed

to several families after the direct Carolingian
line died out in Germany in 888.

But because of the rapid division and fragmentation
of the Carolingian lands throughout Germany

and Italy in the ninth and tenth centuries,
there were dozens of competing duchies and

lordships throughout Germany by the time of
Frederick’s birth in the twelfth century.

Many of the rulers of these duchies had a
claim to the title of Holy Roman Emperor,

should the male line of the Salian or Salic
Dynasty, which had served as Holy Roman Emperors

since 1027, die out.

At the time that Frederick was born, the emperor
was Henry V, who had been King of Germany

since 1099 and Holy Roman Emperor since 1111.

His power varied across the course of his
reign as many of the more powerful dukes of

Germany would often ignore his commands, while
the only other major area of the former Carolingian

Empire over which the Holy Roman Emperors
still exercised a nominal control was Italy,

but here the many cities and towns of the
north were de-facto independent by the early

twelfth century.

It was with these two regions of the former
empire of Charlemagne that Frederick’s political

life would be concerned.

When Frederick was just three years old in
1125, the Holy Roman Empire was cast into

turmoil when Henry V died without an heir.

When this occurred Frederick’s father, the
Duke of Swabia, was considered as a leading

candidate to succeed as King of Germany and
to seek election as Holy Roman Emperor.

The Hohenstaufens were indirectly descended
from the Carolingians through several centuries

and the Duchy of Swabia was a stem duchy which
had emerged in the tenth century following

the complicated fragmentation of the Carolingian
Empire.

Moreover, when Henry V had been forced to
head south to Italy in one of his many clashes

with the Papacy in Rome for control over affairs
in Italy, Frederick Senior, had often been

appointed by the Emperor to oversee affairs
in Germany during his absence.

Indeed it is believed that Henry wished for
Frederick to succeed him, but Frederick proved

his own worst enemy in this regard.

When the German lords and bishops met at the
city of Mainz shortly after Henry’s death,

to decide on a new Emperor, Frederick alienated
many with his over-confidence and unwillingness

to accept free princely elections.

As a result a compromise candidate in the
shape of Lothair of Supplinburg was elected

to succeed as Holy Roman Emperor.

It was not an arrangement that would go unchallenged
for long.

While all of this was occurring young Frederick
was being groomed to become a lord one day.

The education of those of noble blood in the
twelfth century focused on preparing sons

to be commanders on the battlefield.

He would have learned to ride on horseback
from a very young age and how to fight with

a sword and other weapons.

Armour would have been drafted into this training
after a certain point, as the manner in which

medieval knights of the twelfth century fought,
involved wearing heavy plate and chain mail

armour.

All of this came at the expense of what we
would view as a ‘normal’ education nowadays.

Many rulers had been illiterate in the early
Middle Ages and while this situation was improving

by the twelfth century, literacy was still
not prioritised.

There has been some considerable debate as
to how well Frederick could read and write

and while we can probably dismiss earlier
claims that he was illiterate, he was no scholar

king either and he had very little grasp of
Latin, the language of scholarship, the law

and the church in the High Middle Ages.

Thus, Frederick was raised to rule on the
battlefield, rather than from behind a desk.

late teenage years, the stability of the Holy
Roman Empire was once again called into question.

That December, Lothair III died.

He had only one surviving child, a daughter
named Gertrude, and the succession was consequently

cast into fresh chaos.

As a result, Frederick’s uncle, Conrad,
the Duke of Franconia, now moved to make himself

King of Germany and Holy Roman Emperor.

Conrad had a long history of seeking the imperial
crown.

He had challenged Lothair’s position back
in 1127 and had been declared as a rival emperor.

And now the opportunity presented by the imperial
throne lying vacant made him the obvious candidate.

At a meeting of the German princes and bishops
at Coblenz in March 1138 he was elected emperor.

However, he faced opposition himself from
Henry the Proud, Duke of Bavaria and Saxony.

This was the origin of a split within the
Holy Roman Empire, between the supporters

of the House of Welf, of which Henry the Proud
was the head, and the House of Hohenstaufen

from which Conrad and Frederick hailed.

Eventually these two camps would become known
as the Guelphs and the Ghibellines.

The Guelphs is an Italian rendering of Welf,
while Ghibellines is an Italianized form of

Waiblingen, the name of the ancestral seat
or stronghold of the House of Hohenstaufen

in Wurttemberg in Germany.

The split between the Guelphs and Ghibellines
would shape much of Frederick’s later life.

Conrad would rule as Holy Roman Emperor, albeit
with some opposition from the House of Welf

or Guelphs throughout the 1140s.

Frederick’s path, though, in these years
lay elsewhere.

By the early 1140s Frederick was emerging
as a substantial character within Germany

as he entered his adult years.

He sat at several Hoftages or imperial assemblies,
under his uncle’s rule at various German

cities between 1141 and 1145.

By this time the distinctive red beard which
he came to be known for was visible.

However, Frederick’s destiny in the second
half of the 1140s was not shaped by events

in Germany or Italy, but by occurrences much
further away.

All the way back in 1095, Pope Urban II had
preached of the need for a Crusade or Holy

War to the Holy Land to reclaim Jerusalem
for Christianity from the Muslims who had

conquered the region.

The First Crusade between 1096 and 1099 had
been extremely successful, resulting in the

establishment of several crusader states around
Jerusalem, Antioch and other cities, including

a newly established Kingdom of Jerusalem.

However, in 1144 a Muslim ruler of the Middle
East called Imad al-Din Zengi reconquered

the city of Edessa from the Christians.

This led a leading churchman, Bernard of Clairvaux,
to preach on the need for a Second Crusade

to be undertaken, while he was visiting the
city of Speyer in 1146.

Frederick would soon be involved.

Unlike the First Crusade, which was led by
several leading nobles, but did not involve

any of Europe’s major monarchs, the Second
Crusade was soon joined by the Holy Roman

Emperor, Conrad III, and the King of France,
Louis VII.

Frederick took the Cross himself, a symbolic
gesture which indicated the intention to go

on Crusade, early in 1147 and committed himself
to travelling with his uncle to the Holy Land.

This was despite the objections of his father,
the Duke of Swabia, who was dying and wanted

his son and heir to remain in Germany to cement
his control over the duchy when he passed

away.

In the event Frederick Senior died early in
April 1147 and Frederick succeeded him before

he ever left for the Holy Land.

Thus, when Frederick led Swabia’s contingent
from the city of Regensburg in late May 1147

off towards the Holy Land, he did so as Duke
of Swabia.

And they did so along with contingents of
tens of thousands of other Crusaders who set

off from various places around Europe.

Some headed by sea from England and won a
notable victory before they ever left Europe

by landing on the Iberian Peninsula and conquering
Lisbon from the Muslims there, for Portugal.

Most, though, headed by land and by the late
summer of 1147 were crossing through the Byzantine

Empire, ready to make their descent on the
Holy Land.

The journey through the Byzantine Empire and
then Turkey proved a pivotal episode in the

Second Crusade.

As they were passing through the Empire’s
lands in the south-east of the Balkans towards

the city of Constantinople, flash floods ravaged
the Crusader camps in early September.

Significant damage had been inflicted on Conrad
and Frederick’s forces as a result of this

and this was compounded in the weeks that
followed as they passed over the Bosphorus

and into Anatolia in what is now western Turkey.

For weeks in the autumn of 1147, the German
armies were confronted by raids and ambushes

on their forces by the Turks of the region.

Eventually frustrated in their efforts they
sent messages ahead to the French under Louis

VII to request his aid.

The French subsequently joined up with the
German Crusaders but when Conrad himself fell

sick, the combined forces retreated back to
Constantinople.

Consequently it was a demoralised Crusader
force which left Constantinople in ships acquired

from Emperor Manuel I Comnenus, the Byzantine
emperor, having abandoned their plans to march

overland.

Thus, Frederick, Conrad and their German Crusaders
finally arrived to the Holy Land when they

sailed into the port town of Acre on the 11th
of April 1148.

This trip to the Holy Land had been an inauspicious
beginning to the Second Crusade.

It was compounded when they learned that King
Louis’s French forces, which had stubbornly

maintained their overland march through Turkey,
had been all but wiped out along the way.

Louis had arrived in Antioch a few weeks earlier
with the remains of his army, but they could

now offer little to the military capabilities
of the Second Crusade.

Having learned this news, Conrad and Frederick
proceeded from Acre to Jerusalem to visit

the Holy Places and consult with the King
of Jerusalem, King Baldwin III.

A decision was taken at this juncture to hold
a major council of the European kings and

their lords, with the lords and rulers of
the Crusader state at Acre in mid-summer 1148.

At the resulting Council of Acre held at Palmarea
just outside the city on the 24th of June

1148, a decision was taken to effectively
change the goals of the Second Crusade.

The Crusade had been called for the purpose
of reclaiming the city of Edessa from the

Muslims, but now the loftier target of seizing
Damascus, the capital of the Burid Emirate

which ruled much of Syria at the time, was
decided upon.

This was a dangerous decision given that their
forces were already much depleted from the

losses they had suffered on their journey
to the Holy Land.

In the weeks that followed the European monarchs
and lords and the heads of the Crusader states

gathered their forces in preparation for the
siege.

Modern estimates of the combined forces which
they advanced from Tiberias against Damascus

in mid-July have suggested a possible army
of 50,000 men, but the likely number was probably

considerably smaller and it is important to
note that the bulk of the troops were comprised

of recruits from the Crusader states themselves,
rather than the European Crusader armies which

had been so depleted by the attempt to travel
through Turkey.

They arrived outside Damascus on the 23rd
of July.

What followed was a fiasco.

Damascus was surrounded in the twelfth century
by vast orchards which limited visibility

on the approach to the city and as they tried
to near the walls the Crusader forces faced

constant hit and run attacks by the more mobile
Burid cavalry.

Over the next several days tactical errors
mounted on the part of the Crusaders and a

dispute broke out between rival contenders
over who would rule Damascus, if by some miracle

they captured it.

As a result on the 28th of July, just five
days after initiating the siege, Conrad and

Frederick took their forces back towards Jerusalem
and the siege was abandoned.

bring the Second Crusade to an end.

Back at Jerusalem plans were initiated to
launch an attack on the smaller city of Ascalon

and Conrad and Frederick started off with
their troops to head there, but quit the enterprise

when it became clear that no co-ordinated
response would come from the other Crusaders.

And with this the Second Crusade was over,
a costly and complete failure in terms of

achieving its goals in the Holy Land.

Although King Louis VII of France remained
behind in Jerusalem until 1149, Conrad and

Frederick made for Constantinople with what
remained of their forces in late 1148.

On the way at Thessaloniki in Greece they
reconfirmed an agreement which Conrad had

reached with Emperor Manuel of Byzantium while
in Constantinople the previous year.

This was a deal whereby both sides would ally
together to attack the Norman Kingdom of Sicily

which ruled the island itself and much of
the southern mainland of Italy.

This was a part of Europe which would feature
significantly in Frederick’s own rule in

the years to come.

And with this agreement made, Frederick left
Conrad and headed off in haste through the

Balkans to Swabia where he needed to shore
up his own rule having left so soon after

he succeeded to the duchy in 1147.

Back in Germany Frederick set about consolidating
his rule over Swabia.

He might have remained a simple duke here
for the next several decades had it not been

for events in the months that followed.

In 1150 Henry Berengar, Conrad’s eldest
son, died.

He had another child, also called Frederick,
but this boy was just five years old at the

time.

Thus, Henry’s death in 1150 opened the possibility
of the succession descending elsewhere should

Conrad die in the near future.

And that is exactly what happened.

In early 1152 Conrad, who was nearly sixty,
a ripe old age by the standards of the twelfth

century, fell ill.

And when he died on the 15th of February 1152
at Bamberg in Bavaria there were just two

individuals by his deathbed, the Prince-Bishop
of Bamberg, Eberhard II, and Frederick Barbarossa.

We will never know if the tale Frederick and
Eberhard emerged from the scene of Conrad’s

death with was true or not, but it would come
to have enormous significance.

Conrad, Frederick claimed, had chosen him
to be his successor on his deathbed, rather

than his six year old son.

Whether it was true or not the lords and electors
of Germany wanted to believe it, in order

to avoid the chaos that would ensue from a
long minority reign.

Accordingly Frederick was quickly designated
as the next King of Germany and crowned as

King of the Romans at Aachen on the 9th of
March 1152.

This effectively made him the Holy Roman Emperor,
however he would have to wait some time for

the formal coronation.

Frederick quickly made clear his intention
to revitalise the Holy Roman Empire and the

position of the emperors.

For decades the imperial title had been weakening.

In Germany there were over a thousand separate
political entities, all of which were nominally

under the overall rule of the Emperor, but
which in reality, generally paid little more

than token recognition to the Emperors.

Some amongst the Guelphs were openly hostile
to the Ghibelline Emperors such as Conrad

had been and Frederick now was.

In Italy, the other major area where the Holy
Roman Empire still held some sway, Frederick

would face opposition from Roger II of Sicily
whose powerful Norman kingdom in the south

of Italy could conduct raids further north
with impunity.

More significantly the Emperors had been weakened
in their authority as a result of what was

known as the Investiture Controversy in the
late eleventh and early twelfth centuries.

This was a dispute which had arisen between
the Papacy and the Emperors over whether Rome

or the current Emperor had the right to appoint
bishops and archbishops in Germany and Italy.

The Papacy had won the argument, but it had
created a rift between Rome and the Emperors.

As a result, Conrad had never actually been
crowned in Rome as Holy Roman Emperor and

the many cities and towns of northern and
central Italy had begun to exercise increasing

independence so that by the time Frederick
became Emperor in 1152 imperial control over

the Kingdom of Italy had diminished almost
entirely.

All of these issues confronted Frederick when
he became emperor in 1152, but he quickly

took steps to strengthen his position.

Just months later in 1153 he reached an agreement
with Pope Eugenius III known as the Treaty

of Constance.

Under the terms of this, Frederick promised
to help prevent any efforts by the Byzantine

Empire to re-establish itself in Italy and
also to help Eugenius to gain control of Rome

again.

The Pope had spent much of his pontificate
since 1145 at Farfa Abbey north of the Eternal

City, as Rome itself had been taken over by
a body of citizens led by Arnold of Brescia,

a religious radical, who established the Commune
of Rome as a patrician government.

In return Frederick affirmed his claim to
become the Emperor and was attempting to indicate

that he did not need Papal approval in order
to become the legitimate Holy Roman Emperor.

Moreover, he was further facilitated in the
months that followed by the death of Roger

II of Sicily.

He was succeeded by his son William, who was
not necessarily an ineffective ruler, but

was not the equal of his father, who had been
one of the most dynamic and energetic rulers

of twelfth-century Europe.

Once the Treaty of Constance had been agreed
Frederick began preparing his forces for a

campaign into Italy.

His actions in the peninsula and how they
related to his control over Germany and relationships

with successive Popes would come to dominate
Barbarossa’s reign.

The country at this time was a patchwork of
different political entities which was almost

as confusing as twelfth-century Germany’s
political landscape.

In the south the Kingdom of Sicily, which
covered the island itself and much of the

peninsula south of Rome, was the dominant
power.

Elsewhere a number of states such as the Republic
of Venice in the north-east of the country

were also independent.

But much of central Italy and the north in
the Plain of Lombardy was nominally part of

the Kingdom of Italy.

This was another constituent part of what
had been the Carolingian Empire hundreds of

years earlier, but which had also fragmented
as Germany had.

Thus, it included cities such as Rome, Milan,
Mantua, Bologna, Florence, Genoa and Turin

which theoretically owed some allegiance to
the Holy Roman Emperor, but which, as we have

seen, were independent in all but name by
the mid-twelfth century, and were governed

as city states by their own communes of wealthier
citizens.

Now, shortly after ascending as Emperor, Frederick’s
mission was to re-establish imperial authority

across the peninsula.

Frederick began reasserting himself in Italy
with an intended campaign against the Normans

in the south in the autumn of 1154.

With Roger II just having died and the country
adjusting to a new ruler, Barbarossa believed

this was the time to strike the powerful Kingdom
of Sicily.

However, no sooner had he arrived into the
Plain of Lombardy with a field army of about

7,000 men including 1,800 knights, than he
realised exactly how unwilling to obey his

commands the cities of the Kingdom of Italy
were.

Consequently, he immediately changed tactic
and instead began a military campaign against

the northern cities, forcing Milan to submit
to him that winter and completely destroying

the town of Tortona in the Piedmont in north-western
Italy.

Then he proceeded towards the city of Pavia,
from where the Holy Roman Emperors had long

based their rule in the Kingdom of Italy to
avoid jurisdictional overlaps with the Papacy

in Rome.

Here Frederick was formally crowned as King
of Italy on the 24th of April 1155.

With this done he campaigned further south
through Florence and Bologna, all the time

making it clear that he intended to exercise
greater control over the Italian cities than

they had seen from a Holy Roman Emperor in
some time.

With his control over the north of Italy re-imposed,
Frederick continued on south to fulfil his

promises to Pope Adrian as part of the Treaty
of Constance.

Thus, in early June he arrived in Rome where
he had Arnold of Brescia, the religious radical

leader there, executed.

Then Pope Adrian entered the city and formally
crowned Barbarossa as the Holy Roman Emperor

on the 18th of June 1155, even as riots were
occurring across the city in opposition to

the re-imposition of imperial and Papal rule.

In the hours that followed, Frederick’s
troops restored order to the city, but by

that time there were over a thousand Romans
dead on the streets as a result of the unrest.

And thereafter Frederick proceeded south with
the goal of finally campaigning against the

Normans, yet reinforcements which he had been
promised by the German lords never arrived.

Consequently he returned to Germany late in
1155, bringing his First Italian Campaign

to an end.

His goal was now to strengthen his position
in Germany before attempting a second campaign

in Italy.

This he duly achieved by placating the leading
lord of the Welfs or Guelphs in Germany, Henry

the Lion, by granting him the Duchy of Bavaria
in 1156.

This made Henry the second most powerful lord
in Germany next to Barbarossa himself, but

in doing so Frederick galvanised the support
of the German lords in advance of a new campaign

into Italy.

It was also in 1156 that Frederick entered
into his second and more substantial marriage.

Barbarossa had married much earlier in 1147
prior to his departure from Germany on the

Second Crusade, to Adelaide of Vohlburg, a
daughter of the Bavarian Margrave, Diepold

III of Vohlburg, but the union proved unsatisfactory.

It did not lead to children and Adelaide was
suspected of adultery during Frederick’s

absence in the Holy Land.

Accordingly an annulment was secured in 1153.

Then, three years later Frederick married
Beatrice of Burgundy, the only surviving child

of Renaud III, the Count of Burgundy, as his
second wife.

As a result Frederick became co-ruler of the
County of Burgundy, an acquisition which provided

him with lands strategically located north
of the Plain of Lombardy in northern Italy.

These could now be used as a way to campaign
into Italy without having to rely exclusively

on bringing his forces over the Alps through
the Brenner Pass.

The marriage proved happy by the standards
of the time and after several years it also

resulted in eleven children between 1162 and
1179.

Eight of these were boys so there would be
no question of Frederick not having a surviving

heir when he died.

With his position in Germany at least temporarily
strengthened and having acquired the further

boon of control over Burgundy through his
marriage, Frederick undertook his Second Italian

Campaign in the summer of 1158, with the goal
of further consolidating his hold on the Kingdom

of Italy and then invading the Kingdom of
Sicily.

This time he was accompanied by Henry the
Lion and enjoyed much greater support from

the German lords as a consequence.

As a result when they descended into the Plain
of Lombardy that summer Barbarossa’s forces

quickly crushed a fresh bout of unrest in
the city of Milan, the leading city in the

north of Italy.

Following this, an Imperial Diet or parliament
was convened at Roncaglia near Piacenza.

Here Frederick made it clear that he intended
to re-establish imperial authority across

Italy and further efforts to acquire independence
by cities such as Milan would only result

in fresh military campaigns by him.

The warning was not heeded, however, and rebellions
sprung up across the north of Italy in the

months that followed, notably at the city
of Crema, where Frederick spent much of the

rest of his Second Italian Campaign engaged
in a siege in 1159.

siege of Crema in 1159 that Pope Adrian IV
died.

This would have major consequences for the
next twenty years of Italian politics, as

at a Papal conclave which followed the favoured
candidate amongst the cardinals was unquestionably

Roland of Siena, a cardinal and the Papal
Chancellor.

But there was a problem with this proposed
candidate.

Roland was an avowed opponent of Frederick’s
who had consistently argued throughout the

1150s that the Holy Roman Emperor was a vassal
of the Papacy and took his commands from Rome,

not the other way around as Barbarossa wanted
it.

Therefore when the Papal conclave elected
Roland and he became Pope Alexander III, Frederick

moved to have his closest rival, a Ghibelline
candidate, Octavian of Monticelli, elected.

Octavian was duly elected by a minority of
the cardinals and became Pope Victor IV.

Victor was the first of three so-called Antipopes,
the others being Paschal III from 1164 and

Callixtus III from 1168.

These were Popes who were not legally elected
by a majority of cardinals, but who were set

up by Frederick as rivals to Alexander III
during his long pontificate down to 1181.

Thus, Frederick effectively shattered the
harmony of the church in Italy for 22 years

following Alexander’s election as Pope as
a means of keeping this opponent of imperial

authority from having full control over the
Papacy.

The immediate consequences were that Pope
Alexander now moved to ally the Papacy with

the Kingdom of Sicily against any further
incursions by Frederick against Rome or the

south of the Italian Peninsula.

They also began fomenting further unrest in
the north and this was at least partially

responsible for a new revolt by Milan in the
early 1160s.

A lengthy siege followed in 1161 and early
1162, following which the Milanese finally

surrendered on the 6th of March 1162.

Unhappy at having become bogged down in northern
Italy for nearly four years when his goal

all along had been to strike against the Kingdom
of Sicily, Frederick exerted a heavy revenge

on Milan for having revolted three times under
his rule already.

When the city was entered in early March his
army set about destroying much of it in the

hours that followed.

The example this set led several other cities
across the north such as Brescia and Placentia

which had also revolted, to surrender, actions
which brought to an end Barbarossa’s Second

Italian Campaign.

Thereafter he briefly returned to Germany,
but it would not be long before fresh unrest

arose to the south.

It was not all war for Frederick.

His reign was also central to what is known
as the twelfth century Renaissance.

This was an early period of political, social,
cultural and intellectual revival throughout

Europe following the Dark Ages which had followed
the fall of the Roman Empire.

This early Renaissance saw many marked advancements
in these fields which are now seen as being

necessary precursors to the later, more well-known,
Italian Renaissance of the fifteenth century

which spread throughout Europe throughout
the sixteenth century.

One of the foremost elements of this earlier
twelfth century Renaissance was the emergence

of Europe’s first universities.

These typically emerged where groups of students
pooled their financial resources together

to hire scholars to teach them.

The first such university to emerge anywhere
in Europe was in the Italian city of Bologna.

Some studies place the foundation date to
1088, but what is generally agreed is that

the university here was given a formal foundation
in 1158 when, at the beginning of his Second

Italian Campaign, Frederick issued what is
known as the Authentica Habita, a document

which set out for the first time what the
rights and responsibilities of both the students

and teachers at the University of Bologna
were.

This was a highly important formalisation
of the University here and in the early thirteenth

century the model provided by Bologna was
imitated by the universities of Oxford and

Cambridge in England, Paris in France, Salamanca
in Spain and Padua in Italy.

Another element of this twelfth century Renaissance
which was characteristic of Frederick’s

reign was the revival in interest in different
forms of legal systems.

During the Medieval period, the legal systems
of kingdoms such as England and France and

other entities such as the Holy Roman Empire
had come to increasingly be a combination

of canon law or church law and the common
law, which was effectively a distillation

of earlier Germanic laws and the Roman civil
law.

However, during Frederick’s reign there
was renewed interest in different legal systems

with an increasing number of lawyers being
hired by governments such as Frederick’s.

Thus, there was a revival of interest in the
Roman civil law at Frederick’s court and

also alternative legal systems such as the
Justinian Code, a legal code which had been

developed by the early sixth century Byzantine
emperor Justinian.

Much of this revival was purely motivated
by self-interest on Frederick’s part as

he sought to use legal arguments to justify
his attempts to have greater jurisdiction

than the Papacy in Rome over parts of Italy,
but it is significant that it was revived

as a result of Frederick’s reign and the
Roman civil law went on to fundamentally influence

the legal systems of modern Europe in due
course.

It is interesting to speculate, given these
administrative and educational reforms, how

Barbarossa’s reign might have developed
had he not engaged in determined efforts throughout

it to re-establish imperial control over Italy,
but ultimately his attentions were focused

on the southern peninsula.

No sooner had he returned to Germany in 1162
after his Second Italian Campaign than he

was planning a third for 1163, this one again
aimed at finally campaigning against William

I of Sicily in the south.

However, the Third Italian Campaign would
yet again be diverted following the emergence

of a new independence movement in the urban
communes at Verona and neighbouring cities

in the northeast.

And this time Frederick was unable to suppress
these, in the same way that he had the revolt

of the early 1060s, by making an example of
Milan.

This is because the insurrection was more
co-ordinated, with the cities of Verona, Padua

and Vicenza allying themselves into what was
known as the Veronese League, which also acquired

the aid of the independent and powerful Republic
of Venice.

As a result Frederick was unable to tame them
immediately following his entry into Italy

in 1163 and instead cut the Third Italian
Campaign short.

He returned to Germany and began preparing
a fourth larger expedition.

The Fourth Italian Campaign which Frederick
led south through the Brenner Pass and into

Italy in 1166 was a more formidable affair
than the Third Campaign a few years earlier.

And this time Barbarossa had a different approach.

Rather than striking at the cities of the
Veronese League and other recalcitrant elements

amongst the cities of the Plain of Lombardy,
he would pass through the north entirely and

move against Rome and Pope Alexander III,
whom he believed was the major prop holding

together the rebellious cities in the north.

Frederick was also doubtlessly perturbed by
rumours that the Byzantine Emperor, Manuel

I, had sent emissaries to Alexander offering
to end the Great Schism, which had developed

between the Roman Catholic Church in the West
and the Greek Orthodox Church in the East

over several significant doctrinal and procedural
differences between the two churches, if the

Pope would recognise Manuel’s rights to
land which had previously belonged to the

Roman Empire in Italy and elsewhere.

If Alexander was so inclined, then Manuel
would send aid to Italy to help the Pope in

his struggle with Frederick.

Thus, Barbarossa had more reasons than one
to strike against the Papacy in 1166.

Campaign a few years earlier, ran into stalemate.

Frederick proceeded south and captured Rome
after victory outside the city at the Battle

of Monte Porzio on the 29th of May 1167.

Alexander now fled south to the Kingdom of
Sicily and found refuge at the city of Benevento,

while Frederick imposed the Antipope Paschal
III in Rome.

However, this victory soon turned to despair.

Disease struck Frederick’s forces in Rome,
most likely an outbreak of malaria, severely

reducing his military capacity.

Then news arrived from the north that while
he was capturing Rome the Veronese League

there had expanded to include nearly every
city and town in the Plain of Lombardy, including

Milan, Genoa, Bologna, Crema, Cremona, Mantua,
Piacenza, Brescia, Modena, Parma and Ferrara.

Leading members of the communes of these cities
and towns had sworn an Oath at the Abbey of

Pontida near Bergamo by the Italian Alps on
the 7th of April 1167 creating this new Lombard

League.

As new members joined every week, and with
his own forces ravaged by the outbreak of

malaria in Rome, Frederick now decided to
postpone his showdown with the Italian cities

and returned to Germany in 1168.

It would be six years before he returned for
the final showdown.

Frederick spent the late 1160s and the early
1170s undertaking reforms elsewhere to strengthen

his position in advance of a new campaign
into Italy.

For instance, economic changes of a kind were
made, particularly in the proliferation of

mints throughout Central Europe to produce
imperial coins.

There were just two dozen of these in all
of Germany at the start of his reign in the

early 1150s, but by the 1180s well over a
hundred could be found in the same region.

He also made efforts to strengthen imperial
authority to the east of the Holy Roman Empire,

around Bohemia and Hungary, two regions which
had been expanding in the twelfth century

into the Balkans and western Poland.

For instance, when a dispute arose in the
Kingdom of Bohemia over the succession there

in the early 1170s, Barbarossa convened a
Diet at the German town of Hermsdorf in September

1173 where he championed the cause of Oldrich,
a son of the former king, Sobeslav I. Admittedly

Oldrich did not want the crown and immediately
abdicated in favour of his brother, Sobeslav,

who then became Sobeslav II, a decision which
temporarily seemed to stabilise the situation

in Bohemia, although fresh unrest arose in
the mid-1170s.

By the time that the latter unrest arose in
Bohemia, Frederick had already turned his

attentions back southwards towards Italy.

In 1174 he undertook his Fifth Italian Campaign,
the last major military foray into the peninsula

of his reign.

For this he brought an army of over 10,000
troops south from Germany, however he faced

an unprecedented alliance of the Lombard League,
the Papacy and the Kingdom of Sicily, with

some minor support provided by the Byzantine
Empire.

At first it seemed possible that direct conflict
could be avoided as negotiations were opened

between Barbarossa and the Lombard League
at the city of Pavia, but these broke down

in the summer of 1175.

Months of movements across the Plain of Lombardy
followed as the League was able to gather

an army of in excess of 20,000 men, while
Frederick sent missives north to Burgundy

and various parts of Germany requesting further
detachments to be sent south.

The reinforcements he received did not meet
his expectations and when the imperial and

League forces finally clashed at the Battle
of Legnano on the 29th of May 1176 to the

northwest of Milan, Frederick suffered the
worst military defeat of his life.

The Emperor was struck from his horse himself
during the conflict and wounded, to the extent

that it was briefly believed he was dead.

was the turning point in the Italian Wars
he had engaged in for twenty years.

He now accepted that he would have to reach
an agreement with the communes and nobles

of the northern cities.

He had realised that he could not overwhelm
them and force them into complete submission

as he had set out to do twenty years earlier.

But at the same time the Italian communes
of the north knew that they would have to

acknowledge some imperial oversight of northern
Italy and they could not go back to the de

facto independence they had held for much
of the first half of the twelfth century.

Accordingly, negotiations were entered into
between Frederick and the League with Alexander

III sending emissaries from Rome.

The result was the Treaty of Venice which
was agreed to at the trading republic’s

city on the 22nd of July 1177.

The Treaty did not bring about a full resolution
to the showdown between the Italian cities

and Frederick, but largely concluded that
a six year truce would hold between the Emperor

and the League.

In the meantime negotiations for a fuller,
more long-lasting understanding would continue.

The Treaty of Venice brought to an end Frederick’s
military campaigning in Italy.

But while he had technically lost the war
with the defeat at Legnano, in the end he

gained a partial victory in the peace.

When the six year truce concluded it was replaced
by a new diplomatic arrangement which was

signed at Lake Constance on the 25th June
1183.

The Peace of Constance was a major compromise.

The cities and towns of the Kingdom of Italy
would henceforth be allowed to manage much

of their internal affairs themselves, but
they agreed to acknowledge Frederick’s imperial

claims on northern and much of central Italy.

They would owe fealty to Frederick who would
have the right of appointment of some of the

senior officials in each city.

Officeholders throughout the communes would
also have to swear an oath of fealty to the

emperor and while the court systems would
operate independently in each city or town,

citizens there could appeal to the imperial
court in Germany if they so wished.

Thus, the Peace of Constance guaranteed the
Italian cities a substantial degree of internal

independence, but Frederick, after nearly
30 years of conflict in Italy, had succeeded

in re-establishing a much greater degree of
control over the region than many of his near

predecessors as emperor had enjoyed.

With the wars over in Italy, Frederick was
able to turn his attention yet again to Germany

where he sought revenge against those who
had failed to adequately reinforce him in

1175 and 1176 before the defeat at Legnano.

In particular he was determined to move against
Henry the Lion, the Welf or Guelph leader

to whom he had granted the Duchy of Bavaria
back in 1156 in order to quell unrest amongst

the Welf faction at that time.

Henry had failed to support his Fifth Italian
Campaign adequately and had also aroused some

enmity within Germany at his accumulation
of huge tracts of land.

As a result Frederick was able to place Henry
on trial in 1180 on the grounds that Imperial

law held sway over traditional German law
and that Henry could be tried on charges brought

by an emperor.

Henry refused to appear at the trial and was
quickly found guilty in absentia.

Frederick then invaded his lands in Saxony
and Henry was eventually forced to submit

in November 1181.

Shortly afterwards he was driven into exile
for three years, which he spent in northern

France.

Thereafter he returned to Germany and tried
to re-establish himself, but he never regained

the authority he had held prior to 1180.

Moreover, with the death of Pope Alexander
III in August 1181 Frederick found another

adversary gone from the scene.

as the strongest Holy Roman Emperor which
Europe had seen for some time were needed,

then one was provided in May 1184 when Barbarossa
summoned an Imperial Diet to assemble at the

city of Mainz in western Germany on Pentecost.

The Diet of Pentecost, as it has become known,
saw the great lords of the Empire assemble

by the River Main there from the 20th of May
onwards.

Several banquets and ceremonies were held
and there was talk of developing an anti-French

alliance with England by the German lords
to re-extend imperial control over eastern

France.

The Diet was widely written about at the time
and celebrated for its indication of how Barbarossa

had rejuvenated the empire.

And a further victory soon followed.

In 1186 Frederick managed, despite Papal objections,
to engineer the marriage of his son, Henry,

to Constance of Sicily, a posthumously born
daughter of King Roger II of Sicily.

This opened the possibility of the Hohenstaufens
one day having a claim to the throne of the

Kingdom of Sicily, a possibility which if
realised, would see the family and Ghibelline

influence extend from Sicily north to the
Baltic Sea.

And so, the victories which had so often escaped
Frederick on the battlefield were accumulating

through diplomacy in the 1180s.

It was, though, the call of the battlefield
which still appealed to Frederick.

In 1187, just after he had organised the Sicilian
marriage, that call came yet again from the

east.

The Crusader states were in fresh trouble
there.

A dynastic crisis had broken out in the Kingdom
of Jerusalem following the death of King Baldwin

IV in 1185.

The problem was compounded by the fact that
the disparate Muslim kingdoms of Syria and

Egypt, which were often divided amongst themselves,
had been united under a new Muslim leader

from Kurdistan.

His name was Yusuf Ibn Ayyub, but he is better
known as Saladin, meaning the ‘goodness’

or ‘righteousness of the faith’.

In July 1187 his forces won a great victory
at the Battle of Hattin near the city of Tiberias

against a Crusader army, where over ten thousand
Christian soldiers are believed to have lost

their lives or been captured.

With the fighting forces decimated, the Crusaders
were unable to prevent Saladin from continuing

onwards to Jerusalem and re-capturing the
city after nearly a century in Christian hands.

The call now went out from the remaining Crusader
states.

Help was needed from Europe if they were to
survive and retake Jerusalem.

And when word reached 67 year old Frederick
Barbarossa he determined to take the Cross

again and return to the Holy Land forty years
after his last foray there.

Preparations commenced in April 1188 and were
to continue throughout the Empire for the

next year.

Frederick would be joined by several senior
lords, the most notable being Richard the

Lionheart, a Prince of England who would soon
become its king following King Henry II of

England’s death in the summer of 1189.

King Philip II of France also took the Cross,
as did several of Frederick’s senior lords

such as his son, the Duke of Swabia, Frederick
VI, and Leopold V of Austria.

With Europe’s three most powerful states,
England, France and the Holy Roman Empire,

in support of it, the Third Crusade was formidable.

Barbarossa’s contingent alone would constitute
upwards of 15,000 soldiers, at least 3,000

of which were knights.

Beyond these military preparations, diplomatic
envoys were also sent out to the various powers

in the Balkans and even the Seljuk Turks of
the region around modern-day Turkey with the

goal of securing safe route-ways to the Holy
Land from Europe.

There could be no repeat of the arduous journey
from Constantinople to Jerusalem during the

Second Crusade where the Crusaders had been
massively depleted before they ever arrived

to Acre and Antioch.

With all of this in place Frederick took the
staff of a pilgrim at his birth place of Haguenau

on the 15th of April 1189 and set out for
the Holy Land.

a safer passage this time, Frederick would
never make it to the Holy Land.

The journey through the Balkans and the Byzantine
Empire into Anatolia was relatively smooth,

though slow.

By the summer of 1190 they were in southern
Turkey making their way along the coast towards

Mersin after which they would soon turn south
towards Jerusalem.

When a shortcut was proposed to Frederick
along the Saleph River he took the advice

offered to him, but it was a fatal mistake.

There are varying accounts of exactly what
happened, but all are clear that Frederick

drowned in the Saleph River near Silifke Castle
on the 10th of June 1190.

Some suggest that he was weighed down by his
armour after falling from his horse, others

that he tried to traverse the river.

What is clear is that he died and once he
did, much of the German contingent melted

away and returned to Europe.

Thus, it was a much reduced force which his
son Frederick, led on to the Holy Land where

they variously buried his bones and flesh
in Antioch and Tyre.

There they joined up with the other Crusaders
who had arrived by sea.

Over the next two years they would fight Saladin
to a stalemate, never recovering Jerusalem

but forcing the Muslim lord to allow safe
passage of Christians to the city.

The Holy Roman Empire was weakened in the
long run by Frederick’s death.

He had rejuvenated it and made it strong again
after decades of internal strife and political

decline during the first half of the twelfth
century.

His eldest surviving son, Henry, succeeded
him as Holy Roman Emperor in 1191 following

the receipt of news that Barbarossa had died
on the way to the Holy Land.

Henry VI, as he became, was an effective emperor
who built on his father’s successes.

In 1194 he claimed the throne of the Kingdom
of Sicily by right of his marriage to Constance

in 1186 and thereafter he even went to war
against the Byzantine Empire and extracted

a vassalage tax from Constantinople.

But Henry died prematurely, possibly of malaria,
in September 1197, and this development opened

up a period of renewed conflict within the
Empire.

Philip of Swabia, another of Barbarossa’s
sons was elected as Holy Roman Emperor in

1198, but a rival contender emerged from the
Welf faction in the shape of Otto of Brunswick.

Accordingly for the next eleven years there
were two rival emperors before Philip’s

death saw Otto become the only unchallenged
Welf or Guelph Emperor of the High Middle

Ages.

Henry VI’s son, named Frederick after his
grandfather, managed to reacquire the imperial

title in 1215 and created a strong, centralised
state much like Barbarossa had forty years

earlier, but his death in 1250 ushered in
a renewed period of decline.

Thereafter the Kingdom of Sicily passed to
the French House of Anjou in 1266 and imperial

authority in Italy slowly collapsed in the
late thirteenth century as fully independent

republics began to emerge in Milan, Florence,
Genoa and other cities.

Frederick Barbarossa of course has had a modern-day
afterlife.

When the forces of Nazi Germany invaded the
Soviet Union in the summer of 1941 they did

so following the plans laid down in what was
known as Operation Barbarossa.

This blueprint for the conquest of Eastern
Europe was variously named Operation Otto

and Operation Fritz during the planning stage,
however in the months before the invasion

was undertaken it was renamed Operation Barbarossa
at the directive of Adolf Hitler.

Hitler seems to have wished to use the name
for two reasons.

Firstly, he believed that it was fitting because
Barbarossa had sought to establish a militarily

and administratively strong German empire
during the twelfth century after the Holy

Roman Empire had been weakened for several
decades, similar to how Germany had been weakened

through its defeat in the First World War.

Secondly, the Nazis believed Barbarossa had
an acute interest in expanding Germany eastwards.

But while Christian Europe was certainly expanding
into the Baltic Sea region and further east

during the twelfth century, it was a complete
misconception to believe that Frederick Barbarossa

had been at the forefront of this eastwards
march.

Rather, as the foregoing has demonstrated,
his primary concern was always with Germany

and Italy and the rejuvenation of imperial
power there.

Frederick Barbarossa is a paradoxical figure
and one whose career can be difficult to assess

given the sheer complexity of the Holy Roman
Empire in Germany and Italy during the twelfth

century.

A casual observer could conclude that his
reign was not very successful at all.

For instance, his near forty year term as
Emperor was book-ended on either side by the

Second Crusade in the late 1140s and the Third
Crusade in the late 1180s.

The first of these was a failure when judged
by any criteria and achieved nothing in the

Holy Land other than a failed siege of Damascus
which lasted less than a week.

The Third Crusade was much more successful
overall, but Frederick never made it to the

Holy Land himself.

At home he was often even less successful.

The paramount concern of his reign was to
re-establish imperial control over the Kingdom

of Italy and he launched five campaigns into
the Plain of Lombardy between the mid-1150s

and the mid-1170s to try to achieve that.

Eventually at the end of these he was effectively
defeated by the Lombard League at the Battle

of Legnano in 1176.

His loftier earlier ambition to conquer the
Kingdom of Sicily was never even really attempted

because his attentions were always on the
north of Italy.

However to assess Frederick Barbarossa’s
career in this way would be to overlook his

accomplishments.

When he effectively became Holy Roman Emperor
in 1152 following his election as King of

Germany, the Empire had been weakened by decades
of decline.

Germany was divided between the Welfs and
Hohenstaufen factions, or Guelphs and Ghibellines

as they have more popularly become known,
and imperial control over the Kingdom of Italy

had all but vanished in the wake of the Investiture
Controversy and the clash with the Pope.

As a result, the many cities and towns of
Northern and Central Italy were all but independent

city states ruled by their own communes.

Frederick changed all of that.

By reaching an accommodation with many of
the Welf lords in Germany he galvanised imperial

control over the country and by engaging in
a relentless campaign to wear the Italian

cities down between the 1150s and the 1170s
he re-established a degree of imperial rule

over the Kingdom of Italy under the terms
of the Peace of Constance in 1183.

Near the end of his life he also ensured that
his son would become the King of Sicily by

marrying Henry to Constance.

However, there was one major flaw in all of
this.

While Frederick was able to revive imperial
power in Germany and Italy during his reign,

the settlement he reached in both countries
relied on strong imperial rule for it to be

maintained.

When weaker rulers came along after himself
and his grandson, Frederick II, ultimately

the process of political fragmentation in
Germany and Italy and the decline of imperial

rule recommenced.

What do you think of Frederick Barbarossa?

Was he a great medieval monarch or were his
accomplishments somewhat illusory?

Please let us know in the comment section,
and in the meantime, thank you very much for

watching.