December 20, 1192: Richard I of England is Captured by the Duke of Austria

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Dürnstein Castle, Duke of Bavaria, Henry the Lion, Holy Roman Emperor Henry VI, House of Babenberg, Leopold V of Austria, Pope Celestine III, Richard I of England, Third Crusade

Returning from the Third Crusade, bad weather forced King Richard I of England’s ship to put in at Corfu, in the lands of Byzantine Emperor Isaac II Angelos, who objected to Richard’s annexation of Cyprus, formerly Byzantine territory. Disguised as a Knight Templar, Richard sailed from Corfu with four attendants, but his ship was wrecked near Aquileia, forcing Richard and his party into a dangerous land route through central Europe.

On his way to the territory of his brother-in-law Heinrich XII the Lion, Duke of Bavaria and Saxony, Richard was captured December 20, 1192 near Vienna by Leopold V, Duke of Austria, (member of the House of Babenberg) who accused Richard of arranging the murder of his cousin Conrad of Montferrat. Moreover, Richard had personally offended Leopold by casting down his standard from the walls of Acre.

Tomb of Richard I the Lion Heart, King of England

Leopold kept Richard prisoner at Dürnstein Castle under the care of Leopold’s ministerialis Hadmar of Kuenring. His mishap was soon known to England, but the regents were for some weeks uncertain of his whereabouts. While in prison, Richard wrote Ja nus hons pris or Ja nuls om pres (“No man who is imprisoned”), which is addressed to his half-sister Marie. He wrote the song, in French and Occitan versions, to express his feelings of abandonment by his people and his sister. The detention of a crusader was contrary to public law, and on these grounds Pope Celestine III excommunicated Duke Leopold.

On March 28, 1193 Richard was brought to Speyer and handed over to Holy Roman Emperor Heinrich VI, who imprisoned him in Trifels Castle. Heinrich VI was aggrieved by the support the Plantagenets had given to the family of Heinrich XII the Lion and by Richard’s recognition of Tancred in Sicily. Heinrich VI needed money to raise an army and assert his rights over southern Italy and continued to hold Richard for ransom. Nevertheless, to Richard’s irritation, Celestine hesitated to excommunicate Heinrich VI, as he had Duke Leopold, for the continued wrongful imprisonment of Richard.

Ruins of Dürnstein Castle, now in Austria, where Richard was kept captive.

Richard famously refused to show deference to the Emperor and declared to him, “I am born of a rank which recognises no superior but God”. The king was at first shown a certain measure of respect, but later, at the prompting of Philippe of Dreux, Bishop of Beauvais and Philippe II of France’s cousin, the conditions of Richard’s captivity were worsened, and he was kept in chains, “so heavy,” Richard declared, “that a horse or ass would have struggled to move under them.”

The Emperor demanded that 150,000 marks (100,000 pounds of silver) be delivered to him before he would release the King, the same amount raised by the Saladin tithe only a few years earlier, and two to three times the annual income for the English Crown under Richard. Richard’s mother, Eleanor, worked to raise the ransom. Both clergy and laymen were taxed for a quarter of the value of their property, the gold and silver treasures of the churches were confiscated, and money was raised from the scutage and the carucage taxes.

At the same time, John, Richard’s brother, and King Philippe II of France offered 80,000 marks for Heinrich VI to hold Richard prisoner until Michaelmas 1194. Heinrich turned down the offer. The money to rescue the King was transferred to Germany by the Emperor’s ambassadors, but “at the king’s peril” (had it been lost along the way, Richard would have been held responsible), and finally, on February 4, 1194 Richard was released. Philip sent a message to John: “Look to yourself; the devil is loose”

March 4, 1152: Election of Friedrich I Barbarossa as King of the Germans

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Beatrice of Burgundy, Duke of Bavaria, Duke of Saxony, Frederick Barbarossa, Friedrich I Barbarossa, Henry the Lion, Holy Roman Emperor, Holy Roman Emperor Henry VI, Holy Roman Empire, House of Hohenstaufen

Friedrich I Barbarossa (1122 – June 10, 1190), was the Holy Roman Emperor from January 2, 1155 until his death. He was elected King of the Germans at Frankfurt on March 4, 1152 and crowned in Aachen on March 9, 1152. He was crowned King of Italy on April 24, 1155 in Pavia and emperor by Pope Adrian IV on June 18, 1155 in Rome. Two years later, the term sacrum (“holy”) first appeared in a document in connection with his empire. He was later formally crowned King of Burgundy, at Arles on June 30, 1178. He was named Barbarossa by the northern Italian cities which he attempted to rule: Barbarossa means “red beard” in Italian; in German, he was known as Kaiser Rotbart, which has the same meaning.

Friedrich I Barbarossa

Before his imperial election, he was by inheritance Friedrich III, Duke of Swabia (1147–1152). He was the son of Duke Friedrich II of the Hohenstaufen dynasty and Judith, daughter of Heinrich IX, Duke of Bavaria, from the rival House of Guelph. Friedrich, therefore, descended from the two leading families in Germany, making him an acceptable choice for the Empire’s prince-electors.

Friedrich’s first wife Adelaide was a daughter of the Bavarian margrave Diepold III of Vohburg (c. 1079 – 1146), probably from his first marriage with Adelaide (c. 1091 – 1127), a daughter of the Polish duke Władysław I Herman and Judith of Swabia. Since the days of Emperor Heinrich IV, her father’s ancestors ruled over the Egerland territory in the Bavarian March of the Nordgau, which, however, was seized by King Conrad III of Germany upon the margrave’s death in 1146.

Adelaide and Friedrich’s marriage was not successful, however. According to some later sources, this was because Adelaide committed adultery. The couple remained childless. In 1153 Friedrich petitioned Pope Eugene III for an annulment. The separation was granted and confirmed by the Bishop of Constance in March 1153; the justification given on grounds of consanguinity. Friedrich immediately began to court the Byzantine princess Maria Komnena, though to no avail. Maria was the youngest child of Isaac Komnenos, son of John II Komnenos and elder brother of the Byzantine Emperor Manuel I Komnenos, and Isaacʻs first wife, Theodora, great-granddaughter of King Ladislaus I of Hungary.

Coat of Arms of the Holy Roman Empire

Friedrich’s second wife was Beatrice I (1143 – 15 November 1184) the only surviving child of Renaud III, Count of Burgundy and Agatha of Lorraine. As the only child of her father, she was the heir of the County of Burgundy. At the death of her father in 1148, she inherited the vast County of Burgundy and became countess palatine in her own right. As such, she was one of the most desired brides in France, and a marriage was suggested to Emperor Frederick I.

The wedding between Beatrice and Friedrich took on June 9, 1156 at Würzburg. After the wedding, the Bishop of Trier anointed Beatrice queen. She was crowned empress by Antipope Paschal III in Rome on August 1, 1167, and as Queen of Burgundy at Vienne in August 1178.

Holy Roman Empire during the reign of Friedrich I Barbarossa

The relationship between Beatrice and Friedrich is traditionally described as happy, and there is nothing to indicate that he was ever unfaithful to her. Though Beatrice was rumored to be greatly loved by Friedrich and thereby attributed influence over him in the sense that he had great affection for her, there is nothing to indicate that she acted as his political adviser and she is confirmed to be directly involved in a major political affair only once. In 1168 supported the election of bishop Peter of Cambrai and at successfully blocked the attempt of the archbishop Philip to transfer the bishopric of Cambrai from the metropolitan province of Riems to Cologne, supported by archbishop Christian of Mainz and Heinrich III-IV the Lion, Duke of Saxony and Bavaria, this was reputedly the only case Beatrice took decisive action in a major political affair.

The couple had 11 children including Heinrich VI, Holy Roman Emperor, (1165 – 1197)

Historians consider him among the Holy Roman Empire’s greatest medieval emperors. He combined qualities that made him appear almost superhuman to his contemporaries: his longevity, his ambition, his extraordinary skills at organization, his battlefield acumen and his political perspicacity. His contributions to Central European society and culture include the reestablishment of the Corpus Juris Civilis, or the Roman rule of law, which counterbalanced the papal power that dominated the German states since the conclusion of the Investiture Controversy.

Friedrich fought in the Third Crusade and on June 10, 1190, Emperor Friedrich I Barbarossa drowned near Silifke Castle in the Saleph river. There are several conflicting accounts of the event. According to the chronicler Ibn al-Athir, Friedrich was thrown from his horse and the shock of the cold water caused him to have a heart attack. Weighed down by his armour, he drowned.

This date in History: October 21, 1209, Coronation of Otto IV, Holy Roman Emperor.

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Eleanor of Aquitaine, Henry II of England, Henry the Lion, Holy Roman Empire, King Richard I of England, Matilda of England, Otto IV Holy Roman Emperor, Philip II of France, Philip of Swabia, Pope Innocent III., Third Crusade

Otto IV (1175 – 19 May 1218) was one of two rival kings of Germany from 1198 on, sole king from 1208 on, and Holy Roman Emperor from 1209 until he was forced to abdicate in 1215. The only German king of the Welf dynasty, he incurred the wrath of Pope Innocent III and was excommunicated in 1210.

Otto was the third son of Heinrich XII the Lion, Duke of Bavaria and Duke of Saxony, (as Heinrich III) by his wife and Matilda of England, the eldest daughter of King Henry II of England and Eleanor of Aquitaine. His exact birthplace is not given by any original source. He grew up in England. in the care of his grandfather King Henry II. Otto was fluent in French as well as German. He became the foster son of his maternal uncle, King Richard I of England. In 1190, after he left England to join the Third Crusade, Richard appointed Otto as Earl of York.

Coat of Arms of Otto IV as Duke of Bavaria

The authenticity (or authority) of this grant was doubted by the vassals of Yorkshire, who prevented Otto taking possession of his earldom. Still, he probably visited Yorkshire in 1191, and he continued to claim the revenues of the earldom after becoming king of Germany, although he never secured them. Neither did he succeed in getting the 25,000 silver marks willed to him by his uncle in 1199.

In 1195, King Richard I of England began negotiations to marry Otto to Margaret of Scotland, daughter and heir presumptive of King William the Lion of Scotland Lothian, as Margaret’s dowry, would be handed over to Richard for safekeeping and the counties of Northumberland and Cumberland (Carlisle) would be granted to Otto and turned over to the king of Scotland. The negotiations dragged on until August 1198, when the birth of a son and heir to William rendered them unnecessary. Having failed in his efforts to secure Otto an English earldom or else a Scottish kingdom, in September 1196 Richard, as duke of Aquitaine, enfeoffed Otto with the county of Poitou. There is some disagreement over whether Otto received Poitou in exchange for or in addition to the earldom of York.

Coat of Arms of Otto IV, Holy Roman Emperor.

Otto was in Poitou from September 1196 until mid-1197, when he joined Richard in Normandy to confer over the appointment of bishops to the vacant sees of Poitiers, Limoges and Périgueux. He then participated in the war against Philippe II of France on the side of Richard. In October he returned to Poitou. The German historian Jens Ahlers, taking into account Otto’s life prior to 1198, considers that he might have been the first foreign king of Germany.

After the death of Emperor Heinrich VI, the majority of the princes of the Empire, situated in the south, elected Heinrich VI’s brother, Philip, Duke of Swabia, as German King in March 1198, after receiving money and promises from Philip in exchange for their support. Those princes opposed to the Staufen dynasty also decided, on the initiative of Richard of England, to elect instead a member of the House of Welf. Otto’s elder brother, Heinrich, was on a crusade at the time, and so the choice fell to Otto. Otto, soon recognized throughout the northwest and the lower Rhine region, was elected German by his partisans in Cologne on June 9, 1198.

Otto took control of Aachen, the place of coronation, and was crowned by Adolf, Archbishop of Cologne, on July 12, 1198. This was of great symbolic importance, since the Archbishop of Cologne alone could crown the King of the Romans. The coronation was done with fake regalia, because the actual materials were in the hands of the Staufen.

After Philip’s death, Otto made amends with the Staufen party and became engaged to Philip’s daughter Beatrix. In an election in Frankfurt on November 11, 1208, he gained the support of all the electoral princes, as he promised he would not make hereditary claims to the imperial crown on behalf of any children he might father.

Now fully reconciled with Pope Innocent III, Otto made preparations to be crowned Holy Roman Emperor. To secure Innocent’s support, he promised to restore to the Papal States all territory that it had possessed under Louis the Pious, including the March of Ancona, the Duchy of Spoleto, the former Exarchate of Ravenna, and the Pentapolis.

Travelling down via Verona, Modena, and Bologna, he eventually arrived at Milanwhere he received the Iron Crown of Lombardy and the title of King of Italy in 1208. He was met at Viterbo by Pope Innocent and was taken to St. Peter’s Basilica, where he was crowned emperor by Pope Innocent on October 21, 1209, before rioting broke out in Rome, forcing Otto to abandon the city.