1.
Brunswick Cathedral
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Brunswick Cathedral is a large Lutheran church in the City of Braunschweig, Germany. It is currently owned and used by a congregation of the Evangelical Lutheran State Church of Brunswick, henry the Lion established the original foundation as a collegiate church, built between 1173 and 1195. The limestone statues of them on their tomb in the nave are a representation made a generation after their death. The cathedral was consecrated on December 29,1226, dedicated to Saints Blaise, John the Baptist, the cathedral is also the burial place of Otto IV, Holy Roman Emperor and Caroline of Brunswick, Queen Consort of George IV of the United Kingdom
2.
Duke of Saxony
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This article lists Dukes, Electors, and Kings ruling over different territories named Saxony from the beginning of the Saxon Duchy in the 9th century to the end of the Saxon Kingdom in 1918. See Counts Palatine of Saxony In the 10th century the Emperor Otto I created the County Palatine of Saxony in the Saale-Unstrut area of southern Saxony. Hadugato Berthoald Theoderic Widukind Abo Banzleibs With the final removal of the Welfs in 1180, westphalia fell to the Archbishop of Cologne, while the Duchies of Brunswick and Lüneburg remained with the Welfs. The Ascanian Dukes had their base further east, near the Elbe, the post carve-up Saxony is therefore sometimes called the younger Duchy of Saxony. Also the counting of its dukes is discontinued, the second post carve-up duke Albert I is already usually counted as the first, although before 1180 he had one predecessor of the same name, being even his grandfather Albert the Bear. The new dukes replaced the Saxon horse emblem and introduced their Ascanian family colours and emblem added by a bendwise crancelin, symbolising the Saxon ducal crown, the later rulers of the House of Wettin adopted the Ascanian coat-of-arms. In 1314 both lines found themselves on different sides in a double election, eventually, the Dukes of Saxe-Wittenberg succeeded in 1356 after the promulgation of the Golden Bull. To distinguish him from other rulers bearing the title Duke of Saxony, for the predecessor see the section Ascanian or younger Duchy of Saxony above in this article. Of these, Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Saxe-Meiningen, and Saxe-Altenburg lasted until 1918 and this article does not list the subsequent Ernestine dukes. The Golden Bull of 1356 confirmed the right to participate in the election of a Holy Roman Emperor to the Duke of Saxony in the Saxe-Wittenberg line, for the predecessor see the section Ascanian Dukes of Saxe-Wittenberg above in this article. The Holy Roman Empire came to an end in 1806, the Elector of Saxony, allied to Napoleon I, anticipated its dissolution by becoming the ruler of an independent Kingdom of Saxony in 1806. The legal line of succession of the house of Wettin has continued to the present, for later rulers, see List of Ministers-President of Saxony. House of Wettin Line of succession to the former Saxon thrones History of Saxony Coat of arms of Saxony House Laws of the Kingdom of Saxony
3.
Albert the Bear
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Albert the Bear was the first Margrave of Brandenburg from 1157 to his death and was briefly Duke of Saxony between 1138 and 1142. Albert was the son of Otto, Count of Ballenstedt. He inherited the estates in northern Saxony of his father in 1123. Alberts entanglements in Saxony stemmed from his desire to expand his estates there. In spite of this, he went to Italy in 1132 in the train of the king, and his services there were rewarded in 1134 by the investiture of the Northern March, which was again without a ruler. Once he was established in the Northern March, Alberts covetous eye lay also on the thinly populated lands to the north. In 1137 Conrad III, the Hohenstaufen King of the Germans, deprived Alberts cousin and nemesis, Henry the Proud of his Saxon duchy, which was awarded to Albert if he could take it. After some initial success in his efforts to take possession, Albert was driven from Saxony, and also from his Northern march by Henry, when peace was made with Henry in 1142, Albert renounced the Saxon duchy and received the counties of Weimar and Orlamünde. It was possibly at this time that Albert was made Archchamberlain of the Empire, in 1158 a feud with Henrys son, Henry the Lion, Duke of Saxony, was interrupted by a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. On his return in 1160, he, with the consent of his sons, Siegfried not being mentioned, donated land to the Knights of Saint John in memory of his wife, Sofia, at Werben at the Elbe. In 1162 Albert accompanied Emperor Frederick Barbarossa to Italy, where he distinguished himself at the storming of Milan, in 1164 Albert joined a league of princes formed against Henry the Lion, and peace being made in 1169, Albert divided his territories among his six sons. He died on 13 November 1170, possibly in Stendal, and was buried at Ballenstedt and he is also called by later writers the Handsome
4.
Bernhard, Count of Anhalt
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Bernhard, a member of the House of Ascania, was Count of Anhalt and Ballenstedt, and Lord of Bernburg through his paternal inheritance. From 1180 he was also Duke of Saxony, Bernhard was the youngest of the seven sons of Albert the Bear, Duke of Saxony from 1138 to 1142 and first Margrave of Brandenburg from 1157, by his wife Sophie of Winzenburg. In 1157 he was present together with his father and brothers at the funeral of the Wettin margrave Conrad of Meissen, two years later, Bernhard accompanied Emperor Frederick Barbarossa to Italy with his brother Margrave Otto I of Brandenburg. These territories eventually emerged as the nucleus of the Ascanian Principality of Anhalt, when his elder brother Albert died without male issue in 1172, Bernhard also inherited his County of Ballenstedt. In the same year he solicited the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa in the Imperial Diet of Goslar for possession of Plötzkau, Bernhard nonetheless was able to confirm his possessions. When Henry the Lion was outlawed by the Emperor in 1180, previously the duchy had been divided, so that Bernhard could only receive the region between Meissen and the Mark of Brandenburg as his formal possession. Besides these, he received several small territories, the towns of Aken and Wittenberg. The dignity Duke of Saxony, Angria and Westphalia was only an empty title, the rich lands of Engern and Westphalia, in addition to the ducal title of Highness, were conferred on the Archbishopric-Electorate of Cologne. Bernhard was forced to support the Emperor in his war against Henry the Lion in 1181. In spite of his defeat, Henry the Lion was able to preserve his Allodial title, from which the Duchy of Brunswick, in Nordalbingien and the areas between the Elbe and the Baltic Sea, Bernhards vassals soon rebelled against him and gave their support to Henry the Lion. Bernhard tried to assert his claims, thanks to the support of his brothers Otto I of Brandenburg and Siegfried, at first the vassals of Artlenburg swore an oath of fidelity. After them, the counts of Ratzeburg, Danneberg, Luckow, however, the most powerful of these vassals, Count Adolf of Holstein, would not accept the Bernhards lordship and became his adversary. Conflicts broke out around Dithmarschen, in western Holstein, but without success for Adolf, after Adolfs defeat, Lauenburg on the lower Elbe, became the focal point for opposition to Bernhards rule. In 1183 another of Bernhards brothers, Count Dietrich of Werben died without surviving male issue and his possessions fell mostly to Bernhard. Warfare involving Henry the Lion also expanded to the Slavic countries, Henry Borwin I, the son of Pribislav, was a supporter of Henry the Lion like his father, and remained an opponent of Bernhard. His cousin Nicholas I, granted Burg Malchow by Henry the Lion in 1164, Borwin allied himself with Duke Bogislaw I of Pomerania and Nicholas with Prince Jaromir I of Rügen, a faithful vassal of Denmark. Borwin was taken into captivity by King Canute and was forced, like Nicholas, after incursions of the Danes in Pomerania in 1184 and 1185, Bogislaw shared the same destiny. With the success of the Danes, the Emperor in 1184 pressed for a balance between Bernhard and his vassal
5.
Duke of Bavaria
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The following is a list of rulers during the history of Bavaria. Bavaria was ruled by dukes and kings, partitioned and reunited. Since 1949, Bavaria has been a state in the Federal Republic of Germany. The first duke we know of, and likely the first, was Gariwald, or Garibald I and this was the beginning of a series of Agilolfing dukes that was to last until 788. Carolingian dynasty The Kings of the Franks now assumed complete control, placing Bavaria under the rule of non-hereditary governors and they were not Dukes but rather Kings of Bavaria. The Emperor Louis the Pious divided control of the Empire among his sons, the Frankish rulers controlled Bavaria as part of their possessions. Luitpolding dynasty Luitpold, founder of the Luitpolding dynasty, was not a Duke of Bavaria, Frankish power had waned in the region due to Hungarian attacks, allowing the local rulers greater independence. Luitpolds son, Arnulf, claimed the title of Duke in 911, ottonian dynasty Salian dynasty From 947 until the 11th century, the kings of Germany repeatedly transferred Bavaria into different hands, never allowing any one family to establish itself. Bavaria was ruled by a series of short-lasting, mostly unrelated dynasties, houses of Welf and Babenberg In 1070, Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor deposed duke Otto, granting the duchy instead to Welf I, Duke of Bavaria, a member of the Italo-Bavarian family of Este. Welf I subsequently quarreled with King Henry and was deprived of his duchy for nineteen years, during which it was directly administered by the German crown. Welf I recovered the duchy in 1096, and was succeeded by his sons Welf II and Henry IX — the latter was succeeded by his son Henry X, Bavaria remained in the possession of various branches of the family until the First World War. In 1253, on Otto IIs death, Bavaria was divided between his sons, Henry became Duke of Lower Bavaria, and Louis of Upper Bavaria. From this point until the beginning of the 16th century, the territories were divided between brothers, making the Dukes difficult to list. In Lower Bavaria, Henry XIII was succeeded by his three sons, Otto III, Louis III, and Stephen I ruling jointly, Otto IIIs successor in the joint dukedom was his son Henry XV. Stephens successors were his sons Otto IV and Henry XIV, Henry XIVs son was John I. In Upper Bavaria, Louis II was succeeded by his sons Rudolf I, the latter was elected King of Germany in 1314. After John Is death in 1340, Louis IV unified the Bavarian duchy, the dukes of Upper Bavaria served also as Counts Palatinate of the Rhine. In 1329 Louis IV released the Palatinate of the Rhine including the Bavarian Upper Palatinate to the sons of Rudolf I, the Upper Palatinate would be reunited with Bavaria in 1623, the Lower Palatinate in 1777
6.
Henry II, Duke of Austria
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He was a member of the House of Babenberg. As the son of Margrave Leopold III, he first became Count Palatine of the Rhine until being appointed Duke of Bavaria and Margrave of Austria when his brother Leopold IV unexpectedly died. The new Emperor, Frederick I, tried to reach a compromise with the Welfs and endowed the son of Henry the Proud, Henry the Lion, with Bavaria in 1156. A replacement had to be found for the Babenberg family, namely the Privilegium Minus, by which Austria was elevated to a duchy, unlike his father, who resided in Klosterneuburg most of the time, Henry moved his residence to Vienna in 1145. Only by this act could the modern Austrian capital surpass cities such as Krems, since then, it has remained the capital of the country. Also in 1147, St. Stephens Cathedral was completed, which became a landmark of the city. In 1155, Henry founded the Schottenstift monastery in Vienna, in the courtyard of which a statue of him stands to this day, until 1143, he was married to Gertrude of Süpplingenburg, the daughter of Emperor Lothair III. In 1148 he married Theodora Comnena, a niece of the Byzantine Emperor Manuel I, both marriages strongly show the importance of the House of Babenberg in Central Europe in that period. Henrys brother was the important chronicler Otto of Freising and his sister Judith was the wife of William V of Montferrat. Henrys nickname, Jasomirgott, was first documented during the 13th century in the form of Jochsamergott, according to one theory, it is derived from an Arab word bearing a connection to the Second Crusade where Henry participated in 1146. According to an etymology, it is derived from the formula Ja so mir Gott helfe. He was buried in Schottenstift, Vienna, list of rulers of Austria Citations Bibliography Heinrich II
7.
Otto I, Duke of Bavaria
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Otto I, called the Redhead, was Duke of Bavaria from 1180 until his death. He was also called Otto VI as Count Palatine of Bavaria from 1156 to 1180 and he was the first Bavarian ruler from the House of Wittelsbach, a dynasty which reigned until the abdication of King Ludwig III of Bavaria in the German Revolution of 1918. Duke Otto I was probably born at Kelheim, the son of Count Palatine Otto IV of Wittelsbach and Heilika of Pettendorf-Lengenfeld and he was the brother of Archbishop Conrad I of Mainz and Salzburg. Upon the death of his father in 1156, he succeeded him as Count palatine of the Bavarian duchy, then under the rule of Henry the Lion, a scion of the Welf dynasty. He was finally rewarded with the duchy of Bavaria on 16 September 1180 at Altenburg in Thuringia, but he was so little regarded by many of the Bavarian aristocracy that they are said to have refused him the customary homage. They went so far as to refuse to attend his first court assembly at Regensburg, with the separation of Styria under Duke Ottokar IV in the same year, Bavaria lost the last of her southeastern territories. With the support of the emperor and his brother Conrad, Otto was able to secure the rule of his dynasty from the wary Bavarian nobility and his descendants ruled Bavaria for the next 738 years. In 1183 Otto accompanied Emperor Frederick to sign the Peace of Constance with the Lombard League and he was succeeded by his only surviving son Louis. Ottos mortal remains are buried in the crypt of Scheyern Abbey, about 1169 Otto married Agnes, a daughter of Count Louis I of Loon. Sophia, married Landgrave Hermann I of Thuringia Citations Bibliography
8.
Ravensburg
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Ravensburg is a town in Upper Swabia in Southern Germany, capital of the district of Ravensburg, Baden-Württemberg. Ravensburg was first mentioned in 1088, in the Middle Ages, it was an Imperial Free City and an important trading centre. The Great Ravensburg Trading Society owned shops and trading companies all over Europe, the historic town centre is still very much intact, including three town gates and over 10 towers of the medieval fortification. The all-white Mehlsack is a tower marking the Altstadt’s southern edge, a steep staircase leads up to the Veitsburg, a quaint baroque castle. The towns most popular festival is the Rutenfest in mid year, Ravensburg was first mentioned in writing in 1088. It was founded by the Welfs, a Frankish dynasty in Swabia who became later Dukes of Bavaria and Saxony, with the death of Conradin 1268 in Naples the Hohenstaufen line became extinct. Their former estates became imperial property of the Holy Roman Empire, like many other cities in Swabia, at the end of the 13th century Ravensburg became an Imperial Free City in 1276. The Great Ravensburg Trading Society was founded at Ravensburg and Konstanz around 1380 by the merchant families of Humpis, Mötteli, at first, the society mostly dealt in the production of linen and fustian. With the opening of one of the first paper mills north of the Alps in 1402 in Ravensburg, the Ravensburg stores also sold oriental spices, Mediterranean wines and Bohemian ores. After the liquidation of the Great Ravensburg Trading Society in 1530, the Thirty Years War caused a grave decline of the population. Swedish troops destroyed the old castle, now named Veitsburg after the St. Veit chapel at the castle grounds, following the Reformation a paritetic government emerged, meaning an equal distribution of public offices between the Catholic and Protestant confession. The city council was one half each Protestant and Catholic, for some time there was even a Catholic and a Protestant mayor at the same time, and the both confessions celebrated the village fair, the Rutenfest, apart from each other. This system was approved at the end of the Thirty Years War in the Peace of Westphalia which named four Paritetic Imperial Cities, Augsburg, Biberach, Dinkelsbühl, as a result, Ravensburg first became a Bavarian exclave within Württemberg. After a swap of estates between Bavaria and Württemberg it was incorporated in the Kingdom of Württemberg in 1810, since Ravensburg was impoverished and depopulated after the Thirty Years War, only a few new buildings were raised during the 18th and the early 19th century. The benefit of this economic stagnation was the conservation of an intact medieval city with nearly all towers. During World War II Ravensburg was strategically of no relevance, Ravensburg did not harbor any noteworthy arms industry, but was home to a big aid supplies center belonging to the Swiss Red Cross, so no air raid destroyed the historic city center. In the 1970s, Ravensburg increased in population and territory by the incorporation of communities like Eschach, Schmalegg. Ravensburg University of Cooperative Education was established in the town in 1978, in the 1980s, the Old Town was renovated and all transit traffic was banned from the city center
9.
Braunschweig
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Braunschweig, also called Brunswick in English, is a city of 252,768 people, in the state of Lower Saxony, Germany. It is located north of the Harz mountains at the furthest navigable point of the Oker river, today, Braunschweig is the second largest city in Lower Saxony and a major centre of scientific research and development. The date and circumstances of the foundation are unknown. The towns original name of Brunswik is a combination of the name Bruno and Low German wik, the towns name therefore indicates an ideal resting-place, as it lay by a ford across the Oker River. Another explanation of the name is that it comes from Brand. The city was first mentioned in documents from the St. Magni Church from 1031, up to the 12th century, Braunschweig was ruled by the Saxon noble family of the Brunonids, then, through marriage, it fell to the House of Welf. In 1142 Henry the Lion of the House of Welf became duke of Saxony and he turned Dankwarderode Castle, the residence of the counts of Brunswick, into his own Pfalz and developed the city further to represent his authority. Under Henrys rule the Cathedral of St. Blasius was built and he also had the statue of a lion, his heraldic animal, the lion subsequently became the citys landmark. Henry the Lion became so powerful that he dared to refuse military aid to the emperor Frederick I Barbarossa, Henry went into exile in England. He had previously established ties to the English crown in 1168, through his marriage to King Henry II of Englands daughter Matilda, however, his son Otto, who could regain influence and was eventually crowned Holy Roman Emperor, continued to foster the citys development. By the year 1600, Braunschweig was the seventh largest city in Germany, the Princes of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel didnt regain control over the city until the late 17th century, when Rudolph Augustus, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, took the city by siege. In the 18th century Braunschweig was not only a political, influenced by the philosophy of the Enlightenment, dukes like Anthony Ulrich and Charles I became patrons of the arts and sciences. In 1745 Charles I founded the Collegium Carolinum, predecessor of the Braunschweig University of Technology, with this he attracted poets and thinkers such as Lessing, Leisewitz, and Jakob Mauvillon to his court and the city. Emilia Galotti by Lessing and Goethes Faust were performed for the first time in Braunschweig, in 1806, the city was captured by the French during the Napoleonic Wars and became part of the short-lived Napoleonic Kingdom of Westphalia in 1807. The exiled duke Frederick William raised a corps, the Black Brunswickers. After the Congress of Vienna in 1815, Braunschweig was made capital of the reestablished independent Duchy of Brunswick, in the aftermath of the July Revolution in 1830, in Brunswick duke Charles II was forced to abdicate. His absolutist governing style had alienated the nobility and bourgeoisie. During the night of 7–8 September 1830, the palace in Braunschweig was stormed by an angry mob, set on fire
10.
Matilda of England, Duchess of Saxony
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Matilda of England was the eldest daughter of Henry II, King of England and Eleanor of Aquitaine. Through her marriage with Henry the Lion, she was Duchess of Saxony, in 1165 Rainald of Dassel, Archbishop of Cologne, arrived at the court of King Henry II at Rouen, to negotiate a German match for Matilda. The original plan to match a daughter of Henry II with a son of Frederick I, Holy Roman Emperor, was abandoned and she married Henry the Lion, Duke of Saxony and Bavaria, on 1 February 1168 at Minden Cathedral. They had four sons and one daughter, Matilda of Saxony, married Geoffrey III Count of Perche and Enguerrand III, Lord of Coucy Henry V, otto IV, Holy Roman Emperor and Duke of Swabia. Matilda governed her husbands vast estates during his absence in the Holy Land from 1172 to 1173. In 1174, Henry the Lion became involved in a conflict with the Emperor Frederick, Matilda, her husband, and their family remained in Normandy under the protection and support of King Henry until 1185, when they were allowed to return to Saxony. Early in 1189 the Emperor again ordered Henry the Lion to go into exile and this time Matilda remained at Brunswick to defend the interests of her husband but died just three months later. Ralph of Diceto Robert of Torigny Wheeler, Bonnie, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Lord and Lady,2002 Diggelmann, Lindsay. Exile and the Poetic Standpoint of the Troubadour Bertran de Born,2005 Betran de Born, Casutz sui de mal en pena Bertran de Born, Ges de disnar non foroimais maitis
11.
Henry V, Count Palatine of the Rhine
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Henry V, the Elder of Brunswick, a member of the House of Welf, was Count Palatine of the Rhine from 1195 until 1213. Henry was the eldest son of Henry the Lion, Duke of Saxony and Bavaria and Matilda, after his fathers deposition by the Hohenstaufen emperor Frederick Barbarossa, he grew up in England. When the family returned to Germany in 1189, young Henry distinguished himself by defending the Welf residence of Braunschweig against the forces of the emperors son King Henry VI. Peace was established the year, provided that Henry and his younger brother Lothar were held in hostage by the king. He had to join the German forces on the 1191 campaign to the Italian Kingdom of Sicily, Henry finally deserted, fled to Marseille, and returned to Germany where he falsely proclaimed Henry VIs death and tried to underline his own abilities as a possible successor. Though he was banned, he became heir to the County Palatine of the Rhine through his 1193 marriage to Agnes and he and the emperor reconciled shortly afterwards, and upon Conrads death in 1195, Henry was enfeoffed with his County Palatine. A close ally of the emperor, he accompanied him on the conquest of Sicily in 1194/95, after the sudden death of the emperor in 1197, Henrys younger brother Otto IV became one of two rival kings of the Holy Roman Empire. At first he supported him, but switched sides to Philip of Swabia in 1203, when the German throne quarrel ended with Philips assassination in 1208, Henry again sided with Otto IV. In Imperial service, he tried to ward off the claims by the Rhenish Prince-archbishops of Cologne, Trier and Mainz. After he inherited further significant properties in Saxony from his brother William in 1213, Henry ceded the Palatinate to his son Henry the Younger and moved north. After his sons death the next year, he left his Welf properties to his nephew, Williams son Otto the Child. Henry died in 1227 and is entombed in Brunswick Cathedral, in 1193, Henry married Agnes of Hohenstaufen, daughter of Count Palatine Conrad. Around 1209, he married Agnes of Landsberg, daughter of the Wettin margrave Conrad II of Lusatia
12.
Otto IV, Holy Roman Emperor
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Otto IV 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 Henry the Lion, Duke of Bavaria and Saxony, and Matilda of England. His exact birthplace is not given by any original source and he grew up in England in the care of his grandfather King Henry II. Otto was fluent in French as well as German and he became the foster son of his maternal uncle, Richard I of England. In 1190, after he left England to join the Third Crusade, the authenticity 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, neither did he succeed in getting the 25,000 silver marks willed to him by his uncle in 1199. In 1195, Richard began negotiations to marry Otto to Margaret, daughter, lothian, as Margarets dowry, would be handed over to Richard for safekeeping and the counties of Northumberland and Cumberland 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 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, there is some disagreement over whether Otto received Poitou in exchange for or in addition to the earldom of York. 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 he then participated in the war against Philip II of France on the side of Richard. In October he returned to Poitou, the German historian Jens Ahlers, taking into account Ottos life prior to 1198, considers that he might have been the first foreign king of Germany. Those princes opposed to the Staufen dynasty also decided, on the initiative of Richard of England, Ottos elder brother, Henry, 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 king 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 and this was of great symbolic importance, since the Archbishop of Cologne alone could crown the King of the Romans. Nevertheless, the coronation was done with fake regalia, because the materials were in the hands of the Staufen. Ottos election pulled the empire into the conflict between England and France, Philip had allied himself with the French king, Philip II, while Otto was supported at first by Richard I, and after his death in 1199 by his brother John. The papacy meanwhile, under Innocent III, determined to prevent the unification of Sicily. Therefore, Innocent III favoured Otto, whose family had always opposed to the house of Hohenstaufen
13.
Dynasty
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A dynasty is a sequence of rulers from the same family, usually in the context of a feudal or monarchical system but sometimes also appearing in elective republics. The dynastic family or lineage may be known as a house, historians periodize the histories of many sovereign states, such as Ancient Egypt, the Carolingian Empire and Imperial China, using a framework of successive dynasties. As such, the dynasty may be used to delimit the era during which the family reigned and to describe events, trends. The word dynasty itself is often dropped from such adjectival references, until the 19th century, it was taken for granted that a legitimate function of a monarch was to aggrandize his dynasty, that is, to increase the territory, wealth, and power of his family members. The longest-surviving dynasty in the world is the Imperial House of Japan, dynasties throughout the world have traditionally been reckoned patrilineally, such as under the Frankish Salic law. Succession through a daughter when permitted was considered to establish a new dynasty in her husbands ruling house, however, some states in Africa, determined descent matrilineally, while rulers have at other times adopted the name of their mothers dynasty when coming into her inheritance. It is also extended to unrelated people such as poets of the same school or various rosters of a single sports team. The word dynasty derives via Latin dynastia from Greek dynastéia, where it referred to power, dominion and it was the abstract noun of dynástēs, the agent noun of dynamis, power or ability, from dýnamai, to be able. A ruler in a dynasty is referred to as a dynast. For example, following his abdication, Edward VIII of the United Kingdom ceased to be a member of the House of Windsor. A dynastic marriage is one that complies with monarchical house law restrictions, the marriage of Willem-Alexander, Prince of Orange, to Máxima Zorreguieta in 2002 was dynastic, for example, and their eldest child is expected to inherit the Dutch crown eventually. But the marriage of his younger brother Prince Friso to Mabel Wisse Smit in 2003 lacked government support, thus Friso forfeited his place in the order of succession, lost his title as a Prince of the Netherlands, and left his children without dynastic rights. In historical and monarchist references to formerly reigning families, a dynast is a member who would have had succession rights, were the monarchys rules still in force. Even since abolition of the Austrian monarchy, Max and his descendants have not been considered the rightful pretenders by Austrian monarchists, nor have they claimed that position. The term dynast is sometimes used only to refer to descendants of a realms monarchs. The term can therefore describe overlapping but distinct sets of people, yet he is not a male-line member of the royal family, and is therefore not a dynast of the House of Windsor. Thus, in 1999 he requested and obtained permission from Elizabeth II to marry the Roman Catholic Princess Caroline of Monaco. Yet a clause of the English Act of Settlement 1701 remained in effect at that time and that exclusion, too, ceased to apply on 26 March 2015, with retroactive effect for those who had been dynasts prior to triggering it by marriage to a Catholic
14.
House of Welf
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The House of Welf was a European dynasty that has included many German and British monarchs from the 11th to 20th century and Emperor Ivan VI of Russia in the 18th century. The House of Welf is the branch of the House of Este. The first member was Welf IV, he inherited the property of the Elder House of Welf when his maternal uncle Welf III, Duke of Carinthia and Verona, the last male Welf of the Elder House, died in 1055. Welf IV was the son of Welf IIIs sister Kunigunde of Altdorf and her husband Albert Azzo II of Este, in 1070, Welf IV became duke of Bavaria. Since the Welf dynasty sided with the Pope in this controversy, Henry the Black, duke of Bavaria from 1120–1126, was the first of the three dukes of the Welf dynasty called Henry. His wife Wulfhild was the heiress of the house of Billung, possessing the territory around Lüneburg in Lower Saxony and their son, Henry the Proud was the son-in-law and heir of Emperor Lothair of Supplinburg and became also duke of Saxony on Lothairs death. Lothair left his territory around Brunswick, inherited from his mother of the Brunonen family and her husband Henry the Proud became then the favoured candidate in the imperial election against Conrad III of the Hohenstaufen. But Henry lost the election, as the other princes feared his power and temperament, Henry the Lion recovered his fathers two duchies, Saxony in 1142, Bavaria in 1156 and thus ruled vast parts of Germany. In 1168 he married Matilda, the daughter of Henry II of England and Eleanor of Aquitaine, and sister of Richard Lionheart, gaining ever more influence. His first cousin, Emperor Frederick I of the Hohenstaufen dynasty, tried to get along with him, Henry made his peace with the Hohenstaufen Emperor in 1185, and returned to his much diminished lands around Brunswick without recovering his two duchies. Bavaria had been given to Otto I Wittelsbach, Duke of Bavaria, Henry died at Brunswick in 1195. Henrys son Otto of Brunswick was elected King of the Romans and he incurred the wrath of Pope Innocent III and was excommunicated in 1215. Otto was forced to abdicate the throne by the Hohenstaufen Frederick II. He was the only Welf to become emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, Henry the Lions grandson Otto the Child became duke of a part of Saxony in 1235, the new Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg, and died there in 1252. The subsequent history of the dukedom and its subordinate principalities was characterized by divisions and reunifications. The subordinate states that were created, and which had the legal status of principalities within the duchy were generally named after the residences of their rulers. The estates of the different dynastic lines could be inherited by a line when a family died out. The individual subordinate principalities continued to exist until the end of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, following the Congress of Vienna in 1814/15, the territories became part of the Kingdom of Hanover and the Duchy of Brunswick
15.
Henry II, Duke of Saxony
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Henry the Proud, a member of the House of Welf, was Duke of Bavaria from 1126 to 1138 and Duke of Saxony as well as Margrave of Tuscany and Duke of Spoleto from 1137 until his death. In 1138 he was a candidate for the election as King of the Romans but was defeated by Conrad of Hohenstaufen, Henry came of age in 1123, in 1126 his father retired to Weingarten Abbey where he and his wife died shortly afterwards. As his elder brother Conrad had entered the Cistercian Order, Henry was enefeoffed with the Duchy of Bavaria and he shared the family possessions in Saxony, Bavaria and Swabia with his younger brother Welf VI. In 1127 he married Gertrude, the child of King Lothair III of Germany. Henrys father had promised her marriage and inheritance as reward for his changing to support Lothair in the royal election of 1125 against the Hohenstaufen rival Duke Frederick II of Swabia. Gertrude was heir of the properties of three Saxon dynasties, the House of Supplinburg, the Brunonids, and the Counts of Northeim, the marriage marked the expansion of power of the Welf dynasty, Bavarian dukes since 1070, to the northern parts of Germany. The couple had one son, Henry the Lion. After a war of devastation, Count Frederick submitted in 1133 and he was also given the private properties of late Margravine Matilda of Tuscany from the hands of Pope Innocent II. When Emperor Lothair died on his way back from Italy in December 1137, Henrys wealth, according to the contemporary chronicler Otto of Freising, after his appointment as Duke of Saxony he boasted of a realm stretching from sea to sea, from Denmark to Sicily. However, the qualities which earned him the cognomen of the Proud aroused the jealousy of the princes. The new king, Conrad III, demanded the Imperial Regalia which Henry had received from Lothair, but Conrad, who feared his power, refused to assent to this on the pretext that it was unlawful for two duchies to be in one hand. Attempts at a settlement failed, and when in July 1138 Henry refused to take the oath of allegiance, Bavaria was given to the Babenberg margrave Leopold IV of Austria, a half-brother of the new king Conrad. In 1139 Henry succeeded in expelling his enemies from Saxony and was preparing to attack Bavaria when he died in Quedlinburg. Henry is buried in the Imperial Cathedral of Königslutter next to his parents-in-law Emperor Lothair and his death left his son Henry the Lion underage who later would be given Saxony, while Henry II, Duke of Austria received Bavaria. This article incorporates text from a now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh
16.
German language
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German is a West Germanic language that is mainly spoken in Central Europe. It is the most widely spoken and official language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, South Tyrol, the German-speaking Community of Belgium and it is also one of the three official languages of Luxembourg. Major languages which are most similar to German include other members of the West Germanic language branch, such as Afrikaans, Dutch, English, Luxembourgish and it is the second most widely spoken Germanic language, after English. One of the languages of the world, German is the first language of about 95 million people worldwide. The German speaking countries are ranked fifth in terms of publication of new books. German derives most of its vocabulary from the Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family, a portion of German words are derived from Latin and Greek, and fewer are borrowed from French and English. With slightly different standardized variants, German is a pluricentric language, like English, German is also notable for its broad spectrum of dialects, with many unique varieties existing in Europe and also other parts of the world. The history of the German language begins with the High German consonant shift during the migration period, when Martin Luther translated the Bible, he based his translation primarily on the standard bureaucratic language used in Saxony, also known as Meißner Deutsch. Copies of Luthers Bible featured a long list of glosses for each region that translated words which were unknown in the region into the regional dialect. Roman Catholics initially rejected Luthers translation, and tried to create their own Catholic standard of the German language – the difference in relation to Protestant German was minimal. It was not until the middle of the 18th century that a widely accepted standard was created, until about 1800, standard German was mainly a written language, in urban northern Germany, the local Low German dialects were spoken. Standard German, which was different, was often learned as a foreign language with uncertain pronunciation. Northern German pronunciation was considered the standard in prescriptive pronunciation guides though, however, German was the language of commerce and government in the Habsburg Empire, which encompassed a large area of Central and Eastern Europe. Until the mid-19th century, it was essentially the language of townspeople throughout most of the Empire and its use indicated that the speaker was a merchant or someone from an urban area, regardless of nationality. Some cities, such as Prague and Budapest, were gradually Germanized in the years after their incorporation into the Habsburg domain, others, such as Pozsony, were originally settled during the Habsburg period, and were primarily German at that time. Prague, Budapest and Bratislava as well as cities like Zagreb, the most comprehensive guide to the vocabulary of the German language is found within the Deutsches Wörterbuch. This dictionary was created by the Brothers Grimm and is composed of 16 parts which were issued between 1852 and 1860, in 1872, grammatical and orthographic rules first appeared in the Duden Handbook. In 1901, the 2nd Orthographical Conference ended with a standardization of the German language in its written form
17.
Rulers of Saxony
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This article lists Dukes, Electors, and Kings ruling over different territories named Saxony from the beginning of the Saxon Duchy in the 9th century to the end of the Saxon Kingdom in 1918. See Counts Palatine of Saxony In the 10th century the Emperor Otto I created the County Palatine of Saxony in the Saale-Unstrut area of southern Saxony. Hadugato Berthoald Theoderic Widukind Abo Banzleibs With the final removal of the Welfs in 1180, westphalia fell to the Archbishop of Cologne, while the Duchies of Brunswick and Lüneburg remained with the Welfs. The Ascanian Dukes had their base further east, near the Elbe, the post carve-up Saxony is therefore sometimes called the younger Duchy of Saxony. Also the counting of its dukes is discontinued, the second post carve-up duke Albert I is already usually counted as the first, although before 1180 he had one predecessor of the same name, being even his grandfather Albert the Bear. The new dukes replaced the Saxon horse emblem and introduced their Ascanian family colours and emblem added by a bendwise crancelin, symbolising the Saxon ducal crown, the later rulers of the House of Wettin adopted the Ascanian coat-of-arms. In 1314 both lines found themselves on different sides in a double election, eventually, the Dukes of Saxe-Wittenberg succeeded in 1356 after the promulgation of the Golden Bull. To distinguish him from other rulers bearing the title Duke of Saxony, for the predecessor see the section Ascanian or younger Duchy of Saxony above in this article. Of these, Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Saxe-Meiningen, and Saxe-Altenburg lasted until 1918 and this article does not list the subsequent Ernestine dukes. The Golden Bull of 1356 confirmed the right to participate in the election of a Holy Roman Emperor to the Duke of Saxony in the Saxe-Wittenberg line, for the predecessor see the section Ascanian Dukes of Saxe-Wittenberg above in this article. The Holy Roman Empire came to an end in 1806, the Elector of Saxony, allied to Napoleon I, anticipated its dissolution by becoming the ruler of an independent Kingdom of Saxony in 1806. The legal line of succession of the house of Wettin has continued to the present, for later rulers, see List of Ministers-President of Saxony. House of Wettin Line of succession to the former Saxon thrones History of Saxony Coat of arms of Saxony House Laws of the Kingdom of Saxony
18.
Stem duchy
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The Carolingians had dissolved the original tribal duchies of the Frankish Empire in the 8th century. As the Carolingian Empire declined in the late 9th century, the old tribal areas assumed new identities as the subdivisions of the realm and these are the five stem duchies, Bavaria, Franconia, Lotharingia, Saxony and Swabia. The term Stammesherzogtum as used in German historiography dates to the mid-19th century, the terms applicability, and the nature of the stem duchies in medieval Germany consequently have a long history of controversy. The overly literal or etymologizing English translation stem duchy was coined in the early 20th century, while later authors tend to clarify the term by using the alternative translation tribal, use of the term stem duchies has become conventional. The derivation of the German people from a number of German tribes developed in 18th to 19th century German historiography and ethnography and this concept of German stems relates to the early and high medieval period and is to be distinguished from the more generic Germanic tribes of Late Antiquity. A distinction was made between the ancient stems, which were in existence in the 10th century, and recent stems. The delineation of the two concepts is necessarily vague, and as a result the concept has a history of political, the terms Stamm, Nation or Volk variously used in modern German historiography reflect the Middle Latin gens, natio or populus of the medieval source material. Traditional German historiography counts six Altstämme or ancient stems, viz. Bavarians, Swabians, Franks, all of these were incorporated in the Carolingian Empire by the late 8th century. The customary or tribal laws of these groups were recorded in the medieval period. Franconian, Saxon and Swabian law remained in force and competed with imperial law well into the 13th century, the use of Stämme, tribes, rather than Völker nations, peoples, emerged in the early 19th century in the context of the project of German unification. Karl Friedrich Eichhorn in 1808 still used Deutsche Völker German nations, Friedrich Christoph Dahlmann in 1815 asked for unity of the German nation in its tribes. This terminology became standard and is reflected in the preamble of the Weimar constitution of 1919, reading Das deutsche Volk, einig in seinen Stämmen The German nation, united in its tribes. The division remains in current use in the classification of German dialects into Franconian, Alemannic, Thuringian, Bavarian. In the Free State of Bavaria, the division into Bavarian stems remains current for the populations of Altbayern, within East Francia were large duchies, sometimes called kingdoms after their former status, which had a certain level of internal solidarity. Early among these were Saxony and Bavaria, which had been conquered by Charlemagne, in German historiography they are called the jüngere Stammesherzogtümer, or more recent tribal duchies, although the term stem duchies is common in English. The duchies are often called younger in order to them from the older duchies which were vassal-states of the Merovingian monarchs. Certainly, their names had already appeared during the Migrations, yet, their political institutional, and biological structures had more often than not thoroughly changed. The kingdom was divided in 864–865 among the sons of Louis the German, after the death of the last Carolingian, Louis the Child, in 911, the stem duchies acknowledged the unity of the kingdom
19.
Hohenstaufen
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The Hohenstaufen, also called the Staufer or Staufen, were a dynasty of German kings during the Middle Ages. Besides Germany, they ruled the Kingdom of Sicily. In Italian historiography, they are known as the Svevi, since they were dukes of Swabia from 1079, three members of the dynasty—Frederick I, Henry VI and Frederick II—were crowned Holy Roman Emperor. The name Staufen derives from Stauf, meaning chalice, and was applied to conical hills in Swabia in the Middle Ages. The family derives its name from the castle which the first Swabian duke of the lineage built there in the half of the 11th century. Staufen castle was finally called Hohenstaufen by historians in the 19th century. The name of the dynasty followed, but in recent decades the trend in German historiography has been to prefer the name Staufer, the noble family first appeared in the late 10th century in the Swabian Riesgau region around the former Carolingian court of Nördlingen. A local count Frederick is mentioned as progenitor in a pedigree drawn up by Abbot Wibald of Stavelot at the behest of Emperor Frederick Barbarossa in 1153. He held the office of a Swabian count palatine, his son Frederick of Buren married Hildegard of Egisheim-Dagsburg and their son Frederick I was appointed Duke of Swabia at Hohenstaufen Castle by the Salian king Henry IV of Germany in 1079. At the same time, Duke Frederick I was engaged to the kings approximately seventeen-year-old daughter, Fredericks brother Otto was elevated to the Strasbourg bishopric in 1082. Upon Fredericks death, he was succeeded by his son, Duke Frederick II, Frederick II remained a close ally of the Salians, he and his younger brother Conrad were named the kings representatives in Germany when the king was in Italy. Around 1120, Frederick II married Judith of Bavaria from the rival House of Welf, when the last male member of the Salian dynasty, Emperor Henry V, died without heirs in 1125, a controversy arose about the succession. A civil war between Fredericks dynasty and Lothairs ended with Fredericks submission in 1134, after Lothairs death in 1137, Fredericks brother Conrad was elected King as Conrad III. In 1147, Conrad heard Bernard of Clairvaux preach the Second Crusade at Speyer, conrads brother Duke Frederick II died in 1147, and was succeeded in Swabia by his son, Duke Frederick III. When King Conrad III died without heir in 1152, Frederick also succeeded him. As royal access to the resources of the church in Germany was much reduced and he was soon crowned emperor in Italy, but decades of warfare on the peninsula yielded scant results. The Papacy and the prosperous city-states of the Lombard League in northern Italy were traditional enemies, under the skilled leadership of Pope Alexander III, the alliance suffered many defeats but ultimately was able to deny the emperor a complete victory in Italy. During Fredericks long stays in Italy, the German princes became stronger, offers of reduced taxes and manorial duties enticed many Germans to settle in the east in the course of the Ostsiedlung
20.
Frederick I, Holy Roman Emperor
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Frederick I, also known as Frederick Barbarossa, was the Holy Roman Emperor from 1155 until his death. He was elected King of Germany at Frankfurt on 4 March 1152 and he became King of Italy in 1155 and was crowned Roman Emperor by Pope Adrian IV on 18 June 1155. Two years later, the term sacrum first appeared in a document in connection with his Empire and he was later formally crowned King of Burgundy, at Arles on 30 June 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, before his imperial election, Frederick was by inheritance Duke of Swabia. He was the son of Duke Frederick II of the Hohenstaufen dynasty and Judith, daughter of Henry IX, Duke of Bavaria, Frederick therefore descended from the two leading families in Germany, making him an acceptable choice for the Empires prince-electors. Historians consider him among the Holy Roman Empires greatest medieval emperors, in 1147 he became Duke of the southern German region of Swabia, and shortly afterwards made his first trip to the East, accompanied by his uncle, the German king Conrad III, on the Second Crusade. The expedition proved to be a disaster, but Frederick distinguished himself, when Conrad died in February 1152, only Frederick and the prince-bishop of Bamberg were at his deathbed. Frederick energetically pursued the crown and at Frankfurt on 4 March 1152 the kingdoms princely electors designated him as the next German king and he was crowned King of the Romans at Aachen several days later, on 9 March 1152. Fredericks father was from the Hohenstaufen family, and his mother was from the Welf family, the Hohenstaufens were often called Ghibellines, which derives from the Italianized name for Waiblingen castle, the family seat in Swabia, the Welfs, in a similar Italianization, were called Guelfs. The reigns of Henry IV and Henry V left the status of the German empire in disarray, for a quarter of a century following the death of Henry V in 1125, the German monarchy was largely a nominal title with no real power. The king was chosen by the princes, was given no resources outside those of his own duchy, the royal title was furthermore passed from one family to another to preclude the development of any dynastic interest in the German crown. When Frederick I of Hohenstaufen was chosen as king in 1152, royal power had been in abeyance for over twenty-five years. The only real claim to lay in the rich cities of northern Italy. The Salian line had died out with the death of Henry V in 1125, one of the Hohenstaufens gained the throne as Conrad III of Germany. When Frederick Barbarossa succeeded his uncle in 1152, there seemed to be excellent prospects for ending the feud, the Welf duke of Saxony, Henry the Lion, would not be appeased, however, remaining an implacable enemy of the Hohenstaufen monarchy. Barbarossa had the duchies of Swabia and Franconia, the force of his own personality, the Germany that Frederick tried to unite was a patchwork of more than 1600 individual states, each with its own prince. A few of these, such as Bavaria and Saxony, were large, many were too small to pinpoint on a map. The titles afforded to the German king were Caesar, Augustus, by the time Frederick would assume these, they were little more than propaganda slogans with little other meaning
21.
Henry VI, Holy Roman Emperor
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Henry VI, a member of the Hohenstaufen dynasty, was King of Germany from 1190 and Holy Roman Emperor from 1191 until his death. From 1194 he was also King of Sicily and he was the second son of Emperor Frederick Barbarossa and his consort Beatrix of Burgundy. In 1186 he was married to Constance of Sicily, the daughter of the Norman king Roger II of Sicily. Henry, still stuck in the Hohenstaufen conflict with the House of Welf, had to enforce the claims by his wife against her nephew Count Tancred of Lecce. Based on a ransom for the release of King Richard I of England, he conquered Sicily in 1194, however. Henry was born in autumn 1165 at the Valkhof pfalz of Nijmegen to Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, at the age of four, his father had him elected King of the Romans during the Hoftag in Bamberg at Pentecost 1169, and Henry was crowned on 15 August at Aachen Cathedral. Henry was fluent in Latin and, according to the chronicler Alberic of Trois-Fontaines, was distinguished by gifts of knowledge, wreathed in flowers of eloquence, and learned in canon and Roman law. He was a patron of poets and poetry, and he almost certainly composed the song Kaiser Heinrich, in one of those he describes a romance that makes him forget all his earthly power, and neither riches nor royal dignity can outweigh his yearning for that lady. Having returned to Germany in 1178, Henry supported his father against insurgent Duke Henry the Lion and he and his younger brother Frederick received the knightly accolade at Mainz in 1184. The emperor had already entered negotiations with King William II of Sicily to betroth his son. He and Constance were married on 27 January 1186 in Milan, in the Hohenstaufen conflict with Pope Urban III, Henry moved to the March of Tuscany, and with the aid of his liensman Markward von Annweiler devastated the adjacent territory of the Papal States. Back in Germany, he took the reins of the Empire from his father, further difficulties arose when the exiled Welf duke Henry the Lion returned from England and began to subdue large estates in his former Duchy of Saxony. A Hohenstaufen campaign to Saxony had to be abandoned when King Henry received the message of the death of King William II of Sicily on 18 November 1189, the Sicilian vice-chancellor Matthew of Ajello pursued the succession of Count Tancred of Lecce and gained the support of the Roman Curia. To assert his own rights in the dispute, Henry initially supported Tancreds rival Count Roger of Andria. While he sent an Imperial army to Italy, Henry initially stayed in Germany to settle the succession of Louis III, Landgrave of Thuringia and he had planned to seize the Thuringian landgraviate as a reverted fief, but Louis brother Hermann was able to reach his enfeoffment. The next year, the king followed his army across the Alps, in Lodi he negotiated with Eleanor of Aquitaine, widow of King Henry II of England, to break the engagement of her son King Richard with Alys, a daughter of late King Louis VII of France. He hoped to deteriorate English-French relations and to isolate Richard, who had offended him by backing Count Tancred in Sicily, Henry entered into further negotiations with the Lombard League cities and with Pope Celestine III on his Imperial coronation, and ceded Tusculum to the Pope. At Easter Monday on 15 April 1191, in Rome, Henry and his consort Constance were crowned Emperor, the crown of Sicily, however, was harder to gain, as the Sicilian nobility had chosen Count Tancred of Lecce as their king
22.
North Sea
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The North Sea is a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean located between Great Britain, Scandinavia, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France. An epeiric sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the ocean through the English Channel in the south and it is more than 970 kilometres long and 580 kilometres wide, with an area of around 570,000 square kilometres. The North Sea has long been the site of important European shipping lanes as well as a major fishery, the North Sea was the centre of the Vikings rise. Subsequently, the Hanseatic League, the Netherlands, and the British each sought to dominate the North Sea and thus the access to the markets, as Germanys only outlet to the ocean, the North Sea continued to be strategically important through both World Wars. The coast of the North Sea presents a diversity of geological and geographical features, in the north, deep fjords and sheer cliffs mark the Norwegian and Scottish coastlines, whereas in the south it consists primarily of sandy beaches and wide mudflats. Due to the population, heavy industrialization, and intense use of the sea and area surrounding it. In the southwest, beyond the Straits of Dover, the North Sea becomes the English Channel connecting to the Atlantic Ocean, in the east, it connects to the Baltic Sea via the Skagerrak and Kattegat, narrow straits that separate Denmark from Norway and Sweden respectively. In the north it is bordered by the Shetland Islands, and connects with the Norwegian Sea, the North Sea is more than 970 kilometres long and 580 kilometres wide, with an area of 570,000 square kilometres and a volume of 54,000 cubic kilometres. Around the edges of the North Sea are sizeable islands and archipelagos, including Shetland, Orkney, the North Sea receives freshwater from a number of European continental watersheds, as well as the British Isles. A large part of the European drainage basin empties into the North Sea including water from the Baltic Sea, the largest and most important rivers flowing into the North Sea are the Elbe and the Rhine – Meuse watershed. Around 185 million people live in the catchment area of the rivers discharging into the North Sea encompassing some highly industrialized areas, for the most part, the sea lies on the European continental shelf with a mean depth of 90 metres. The only exception is the Norwegian trench, which extends parallel to the Norwegian shoreline from Oslo to a north of Bergen. It is between 20 and 30 kilometres wide and has a depth of 725 metres. The Dogger Bank, a vast moraine, or accumulation of unconsolidated glacial debris and this feature has produced the finest fishing location of the North Sea. The Long Forties and the Broad Fourteens are large areas with uniform depth in fathoms. These great banks and others make the North Sea particularly hazardous to navigate, the Devils Hole lies 200 miles east of Dundee, Scotland. The feature is a series of trenches between 20 and 30 kilometres long,1 and 2 kilometres wide and up to 230 metres deep. Other areas which are less deep are Cleaver Bank, Fisher Bank, the International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the North Sea as follows, On the Southwest
23.
Baltic Sea
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The Baltic Sea is a sea of the Atlantic Ocean, enclosed by Scandinavia, Finland, the Baltic countries, and the North European Plain. It includes the Gulf of Bothnia, the Bay of Bothnia, the Gulf of Finland, the Gulf of Riga, the sea stretches from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from 10°E to 30°E longitude. The Baltic Sea is connected by waterways to the White Sea via the White Sea Canal. Traffic history Historically, the Kingdom of Denmark collected Sound Dues from ships at the border between the ocean and the land-locked Baltic Sea and they were collected in the Øresund at Kronborg castle near Helsingør, in the Great Belt at Nyborg. In the Little Belt, the site of intake was moved to Fredericia, the narrowest part of Little Belt is the Middelfart Sund near Middelfart. Oceanography Geographers widely agree that the physical border of the Baltic is a line drawn through the southern Danish islands, Drogden-Sill. The Drogden Sill is situated north of Køge Bugt and connects Dragør in the south of Copenhagen to Malmö, it is used by the Øresund Bridge, including the Drogden Tunnel. By this definition, the Danish Straits are part of the entrance, but the Bay of Mecklenburg, another usual border is the line between Falsterbo, Sweden and Stevns Klint, Denmark, as this is the southern border of Øresund. Its also the border between the shallow southern Øresund and notably deeper water, hydrography and biology Drogden Sill sets a limit to Øresund and Darss Sill, and a limit to the Belt Sea. The shallow sills are obstacles to the flow of salt water from the Kattegat into the basins around Bornholm. The Kattegat and the southwestern Baltic Sea are well oxygenated and have a rich biology, the remainder of the Sea is brackish, poor in oxygen and in species. While Tacitus called it Mare Suebicum after the Germanic people called the Suebi, the origin of the latter name is speculative. Adam of Bremen himself compared the sea with a belt, stating that it is so named because it stretches through the land as a belt and he might also have been influenced by the name of a legendary island mentioned in the Natural History of Pliny the Elder. Pliny mentions an island named Baltia with reference to accounts of Pytheas and it is possible that Pliny refers to an island named Basilia in On the Ocean by Pytheas. Baltia also might be derived from belt and mean near belt of sea, meanwhile, others have suggested that the name of the island originates from the Proto-Indo-European root *bhel meaning white, fair. This root and its meaning were retained in both Lithuanian and Latvian. On this basis, a related hypothesis holds that the name originated from this Indo-European root via a Baltic language such as Lithuanian, yet another explanation is that the name originally meant enclosed sea, bay as opposed to open sea. Some Swedish historians believe the name derives from the god Balder of Nordic mythology, in the Middle Ages the sea was known by variety of names
24.
Alps
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The mountains were formed over tens of millions of years as the African and Eurasian tectonic plates collided. Extreme shortening caused by the event resulted in marine sedimentary rocks rising by thrusting and folding into high mountain peaks such as Mont Blanc, Mont Blanc spans the French–Italian border, and at 4,810 m is the highest mountain in the Alps. The Alpine region area contains about a hundred peaks higher than 4000 metres, the altitude and size of the range affects the climate in Europe, in the mountains precipitation levels vary greatly and climatic conditions consist of distinct zones. Wildlife such as live in the higher peaks to elevations of 3,400 m. Evidence of human habitation in the Alps goes back to the Palaeolithic era, a mummified man, determined to be 5,000 years old, was discovered on a glacier at the Austrian–Italian border in 1991. By the 6th century BC, the Celtic La Tène culture was well established, Hannibal famously crossed the Alps with a herd of elephants, and the Romans had settlements in the region. In 1800 Napoleon crossed one of the passes with an army of 40,000. The 18th and 19th centuries saw an influx of naturalists, writers, in World War II, Adolf Hitler kept a base of operation in the Bavarian Alps throughout the war. The Alpine region has a cultural identity. The Winter Olympic Games have been hosted in the Swiss, French, at present, the region is home to 14 million people and has 120 million annual visitors. The English word Alps derives from the Latin Alpes, maurus Servius Honoratus, an ancient commentator of Virgil, says in his commentary that all high mountains are called Alpes by Celts. The term may be common to Italo-Celtic, because the Celtic languages have terms for high mountains derived from alp and this may be consistent with the theory that in Greek Alpes is a name of non-Indo-European origin. According to the Old English Dictionary, the Latin Alpes might possibly derive from a pre-Indo-European word *alb hill, Albania, a name not native to the region known as the country of Albania, has been used as a name for a number of mountainous areas across Europe. In Roman times, Albania was a name for the eastern Caucasus, in modern languages the term alp, alm, albe or alpe refers to a grazing pastures in the alpine regions below the glaciers, not the peaks. An alp refers to a mountain pasture where cows are taken to be grazed during the summer months and where hay barns can be found. The Alps are a crescent shaped geographic feature of central Europe that ranges in a 800 km arc from east to west and is 200 km in width, the mean height of the mountain peaks is 2.5 km. The range stretches from the Mediterranean Sea north above the Po basin, extending through France from Grenoble, the range continues onward toward Vienna, Austria, and east to the Adriatic Sea and Slovenia. To the south it dips into northern Italy and to the north extends to the border of Bavaria in Germany
25.
Westphalia
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Westphalia is a region in northwestern Germany and one of the three historic parts of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. It has an area of 7,802 sq mi and 7.9 million inhabitants, the region is almost identical with the Province of Westphalia which was a part of the Kingdom of Prussia from 1815 to 1918 and the Free State of Prussia from 1918 to 1946. In 1946, Westphalia merged with the Northern Rhineland, another part of Prussia. In 1947, the state with its two parts was joined by a third one, Lippe, a former principality and free state. All of the 17 districts and 9 independent cities of Westphalia, the Westphalian language, a variant of the German language, spreads north of Westphalias borders into southwest Lower Saxony. Being a part of the North German Plain, most of Westphalias north is flat, in the south the German Central Uplands emerge. Westphalia is divided into the following landscapes, other important rivers are the Ems and the Lippe. The Langenberg and the Kahler Asten in the Sauerlands part of the Rothaar Mountains are Westphalias, Westphalia is divided into three governmental districts. These are subdivided into districts and independent cities. All districts and independent cities of the districts of Arnsberg. The District of Lippe as successor of the Free State of Lippe in the Governmental District of Detmold is rather considered to be a historic region. The traditional symbol of Westphalia is the Westphalian Steed, a horse on a red field. It is derived from the Saxon Steed in the coat of arms of the medieval Duchy of Saxony which most of todays Westphalia was part of. In official contexts the coat of arms of Westphalia is being used by the Westphalia-Lippe Regional Association which represents these two historic parts of North Rhine-Westphalia. The coat of arms of Lower Saxony uses a different version of the Saxon Steed since the state also covers parts of the Old Saxons duchy. The colors of Westphalia are white and red, the flag of the Westphalia-Lippe Regional Association uses these colors with the Westphalian coat of arms in its center. The flag of North Rhine-Westphalia is a combination of the Northern Rhinelands colors green/white, the flag of the Prussian Province of Westphalia already displayed the colors white and red. The flag of Lower Saxony shows the colors of Germany and the Saxon Steed, composed in Iserlohn in 1886 by Emil Rittershaus, the Westfalenlied is an unofficial anthem of Westphalia
26.
Pomerania
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Pomerania is a region on the southern shore of the Baltic Sea in Central Europe, split between Germany and Poland. The name derives from the Slavic po more, meaning by the sea, Pomerania stretches roughly from the Recknitz river in the west to the Vistula river in the east. The largest Pomeranian islands are Rügen, Usedom/Uznam and Wolin, the largest Pomeranian city is Gdańsk, or, when using a narrower definition of the region, Szczecin. Outside its urban areas, Pomerania is characterized by farmland, dotted with lakes, forests. The region was affected by post–World War I and II border and population shifts. Pomerania is the area along the Bay of Pomerania of the Baltic Sea between the rivers Recknitz in the west and Vistula in the east and it formerly reached perhaps as far south as the Noteć river, but since the 13th century its southern boundary has been placed further north. Most of the region is coastal lowland, being part of the North European Plain, but its southern, hilly parts belong to the Baltic Ridge, within this ridge, a chain of moraine-dammed lakes constitutes the Pomeranian Lake District. The soil is rather poor, sometimes sandy or marshy. The western coastline is jagged, with many peninsulas and islands enclosing numerous bays, Łebsko and several other lakes were formerly bays, but have been cut off from the sea. The easternmost coastline along the Gdańsk Bay and Vistula Lagoon, has the Hel peninsula, the Pomeranian region has the following administrative divisions, Hither Pomerania in northeastern Germany, stretching from the Recknitz river to the Oder–Neisse line. This region is part of the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. The southernmost part of historical Vorpommern is now in Brandenburg, while its eastern parts are now in Poland. Vorpommern comprises the regions inhabited by Slavic tribes Rugians and Volinians, otherwise the Principality of Rügen. The West Pomeranian Voivodeship in Poland, stretching from the Oder–Neisse line to the Wieprza river, the Pomeranian Voivodeship, with similar borders to Pomerelia, stretching from the Wieprza river to the Vistula delta in the vicinity of Gdańsk. The northern half of the Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship, comprising most of Chełmno Land, the bulk of Farther Pomerania is included within the modern West Pomeranian Voivodeship, but its easternmost parts now constitute the northwest of Pomeranian Voivodeship. Parts of Pomerania and surrounding regions have constituted a euroregion since 1995, the Pomerania euroregion comprises Hither Pomerania and Uckermark in Germany, West Pomerania in Poland, and Scania in Sweden. Pomerania was first mentioned in a document of 1046, referring to a Zemuzil dux Bomeranorum. Pomerania is mentioned repeatedly in the chronicles of Adam of Bremen, the term West Pomerania is ambiguous, since it may refer to either Hither Pomerania or to the West Pomeranian Voivodeship
27.
Henry X, Duke of Bavaria
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Henry the Proud, a member of the House of Welf, was Duke of Bavaria from 1126 to 1138 and Duke of Saxony as well as Margrave of Tuscany and Duke of Spoleto from 1137 until his death. In 1138 he was a candidate for the election as King of the Romans but was defeated by Conrad of Hohenstaufen, Henry came of age in 1123, in 1126 his father retired to Weingarten Abbey where he and his wife died shortly afterwards. As his elder brother Conrad had entered the Cistercian Order, Henry was enefeoffed with the Duchy of Bavaria and he shared the family possessions in Saxony, Bavaria and Swabia with his younger brother Welf VI. In 1127 he married Gertrude, the child of King Lothair III of Germany. Henrys father had promised her marriage and inheritance as reward for his changing to support Lothair in the royal election of 1125 against the Hohenstaufen rival Duke Frederick II of Swabia. Gertrude was heir of the properties of three Saxon dynasties, the House of Supplinburg, the Brunonids, and the Counts of Northeim, the marriage marked the expansion of power of the Welf dynasty, Bavarian dukes since 1070, to the northern parts of Germany. The couple had one son, Henry the Lion. After a war of devastation, Count Frederick submitted in 1133 and he was also given the private properties of late Margravine Matilda of Tuscany from the hands of Pope Innocent II. When Emperor Lothair died on his way back from Italy in December 1137, Henrys wealth, according to the contemporary chronicler Otto of Freising, after his appointment as Duke of Saxony he boasted of a realm stretching from sea to sea, from Denmark to Sicily. However, the qualities which earned him the cognomen of the Proud aroused the jealousy of the princes. The new king, Conrad III, demanded the Imperial Regalia which Henry had received from Lothair, but Conrad, who feared his power, refused to assent to this on the pretext that it was unlawful for two duchies to be in one hand. Attempts at a settlement failed, and when in July 1138 Henry refused to take the oath of allegiance, Bavaria was given to the Babenberg margrave Leopold IV of Austria, a half-brother of the new king Conrad. In 1139 Henry succeeded in expelling his enemies from Saxony and was preparing to attack Bavaria when he died in Quedlinburg. Henry is buried in the Imperial Cathedral of Königslutter next to his parents-in-law Emperor Lothair and his death left his son Henry the Lion underage who later would be given Saxony, while Henry II, Duke of Austria received Bavaria. This article incorporates text from a now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh
28.
Henry IX, Duke of Bavaria
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Henry IX, called the Black, a member of the House of Welf, was Duke of Bavaria from 1120 to 1126. Henry was the son of Duke Welf I of Bavaria from his marriage with Judith. As a young man, he administered the familys Este property south of the Alps, through his marriage to Wulfhilde, daughter of Duke Magnus of Saxony, about 1095, he acquired part of the Billung estates around Lüneburg. He aspired to succeed his father-in-law as Saxon duke when Magnus died without heirs in 1106. Duke Henry nevertheless upheld close relations with the ruling Salian dynasty, in 1116, he joined Emperor Henry Vs second Italian campaign to seize the estates of late Margravine Matilda of Tuscany. He succeeded his elder brother Welf II as Bavarian duke, when the latter died childless in 1120, Henry was also instrumental in bringing about the 1122 Concordat of Worms, ending the long-lasting Investiture Controversy between Pope and Emperor. The marriage was concluded in May 1127, the estrangement between the Welf and Hohenstaufen dynasties lasted until the 13th century. After Lothair won the election, he imposed an Imperial ban on Frederick II, however. Henry died shortly thereafter and was buried in Weingarten and his wife Wulfhilde outlived him by only 16 days. Henrys epithet the Black has not been recorded before the 13th century, both Emperor Frederick Barbarossa and his bitter rival Henry the Lion were his grandsons. 2000, ISBN 3-17-014999-7, pp.149 ff, photograph Archive of Old Original Documents
29.
Lothair II, Holy Roman Emperor
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Lothair II or Lothair III, known as Lothair of Supplinburg, was Holy Roman Emperor from 1133 until his death. He was appointed Duke of Saxony in 1106 and elected King of Germany in 1125 before being crowned emperor in Rome. The son of the Saxon count Gebhard of Supplinburg, his reign was troubled by the constant intriguing of the Hohenstaufens, Duke Frederick II of Swabia and he died while returning from a successful campaign against the Norman Kingdom of Sicily. Little is known of Lothairs youth and his father joined the Saxon Rebellion against the ruling Salian dynasty and died on 9 June 1075 in the Battle of Langensalza, fighting troops loyal to Emperor Henry IV. Shortly thereafter, Lothair was born posthumously at Unterlüß, in 1100 he married Richenza, daughter of Count Henry of Northeim and Gertrude of Brunswick, heiress of the Brunonids. He backed the emperors son Henry V during the disempowerment of his father Henry IV and he acted autonomously, vesting Count Adolf of Schauenburg with Holstein in 1110, was temporarily deposed in 1112 but reinstated after he tactically submitted himself to the rule of Henry V. In 1115 however, he joined the rebellious Saxon forces which defeated those of the Emperor in the Battle of Welfesholz. When in 1123 Henry V vested Count Wiprecht of Groitzsch with the Margraviate of Meissen, Lothair enforced the appointment of Conrad of Wettin and ceded the March of Lusatia to Count Albert the Bear. After the death of Emperor Henry V in 1125, Lothair was viewed by the Imperial chancellor, as an extensive landowner all over Saxony, he brought power to the table, but he was old and had no male issue, potentially making him malleable for the nobility. He was therefore elected King of the Romans after a power struggle with Duke Frederick II, Duke of Swabia. His election was notable in that it marked a departure from the concept of hereditary succession, a campaign undertaken in the same year against Bohemia ended in defeat, a weak start by Lothair. Among those captured by the Bohemians was Albert of Ascania, future Margrave of Brandenburg, a civil war between Fredericks dynasty and Lothairs ended with Fredericks submission in 1134. With both Saxon and Bavarian origins, the Süpplingenburg dynasty was an opponent of the Salian dynasty. During his reign, a dispute broke out between the House of Welf and the Hohenstaufens, the latter were led by Frederick II, Duke of Swabia. Frederick II was placed under the Imperial ban, Conrad was deprived of Franconia, the Staufens, with the support of their own lands, many Imperial Free Cities, the Duchy of Austria, and the Duchy of Swabia, got Duke Conrad elected as anti-king Conrad III. In 1128 Conrad went to Italy, to be crowned King of Italy by Anselm V, Lothair took advantage of Conrads absence and weak position by attacking the Staufens in Germany. In 1129 he took two strong Staufen cities, Nuremberg and Speyer, Conrad failed to make anything of his visit to Italy, and returned in 1130 with nothing to show for it, which assured at least a partial victory for Lothair. In the double election of 1130, both sides campaigned for Lothairs support
30.
Richenza of Northeim
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She was the daughter of Count Henry the Fat of Northeim and Gertrude of Brunswick, daughter of the Brunonid margrave Egbert I of Meissen. Around 1107 Richenza married Lothair of Supplinburg, who upon the death of the last Billung duke Magnus was enfeoffed with the Duchy of Saxony by King Henry V of Germany in 1106. After Lothair was elected King of the Romans in 1125, she was crowned queen consort by Archbishop Frederick I of Cologne. In 1132-33 she accompanied her husband to Italy, both were crowned emperor and empress by Pope Innocent II at the Lateran Basilica in Rome on 4 June 1133. She also took part in Lothairs second Italian expedition in 1136-37, whereby she presided over hearings of the Imperial court, richenzas only surviving daughter with Lothair, Gertrude of Süpplingenburg, was born in 1115,15 years after her parents marriage. In 1127 she married the Bavarian duke Henry the Proud, a member of the Welf dynasty and this act brought both the Northeim and Brunonid lands into the hands of the House of Welf. Lothair died in 1137, and Richenza moved swiftly to ensure the lands of Saxony went to her son-in-law, on Pentecost the following year, however, the Princes of the Holy Roman Empire convened in Bamberg to elect Conrad III King of the Romans. Conrad vested the Ascanian count Albert the Bear with Saxony and Henry died soon after, Richenza fought hard for the inheritance of her grandson Henry the Lion, seeing to his education, and pushing for his right to be regarded as the heir to the Saxon duchy. Young Henry was finally appointed Duke in 1142, his mother Gertrude ruled as regent until his majority, Richenza however did not live to see her grandson succeed to the duchy. She died in 1141 and was buried next to her husband Emperor Lothair and her grave goods included a simple and elegant lead crown. Here is her family tree, List of Catholic saints List of Holy Roman Empresses The information in this article is translated from and/or based on that found in its German equivalent
31.
Northeim
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Northeim is a town in Lower Saxony, Germany, seat of the district of Northeim, with, in 2011, a population of 29,000. It lies on the German Half-Timbered House Road, Northeim is first mentioned in 800 in a document recording a property transfer by a Frankish nobleman to the Abbey of Fulda. In the 10th century the region became a county, administered by the Counts of Northeim. The first of them, Siegfried is mentioned in 982, from 1061 to 1070 Count Otto II held the stem duchy of Bavaria as an Imperial fief, but lost it again because of his involvement in the Saxon plot against King Henry IV. The monastery of St. Blasius was founded around 1100, in 1252 Northeim obtained town rights, and from 1384 to 1554 it was a member of the Hanseatic League. When protestantism was introduced in 1532 all the churches were allocated to the protestants, the town became part of the Kingdom of Hanover. A part of Northeim was devastated by a fire in 1832 when the town hall dating from the Middle Ages. Further damage was caused by a fire in 1892 which destroyed several buildings in the Market Place. After the railway from Hanover to Göttingen had been inaugurated in 1854 Northeim gained in importance, the South Harz Railway was opened in 1868 and the Solling Railway in 1878. During the Second World War Northeim was hit by bombs in September 1944, February 1945, the railway station, five factories and 18 houses were completely destroyed and 80 houses were damaged. Fortunately the historic centre did not suffer bomb damage. Northeim is the subject of William Sheridan Allens book The Nazi Seizure of Power, the book describes how the Nazis took over all social groups in the town and Nazified them, but failed to instill positive enthusiasm for the Nazi state. Instead, the population was atomized and deprived of the means to express group grievances, the book has been criticized for neglecting the role of the churches, which remained largely autonomous. However, even its critics say that the book is crucial to our understanding of Nazi Germany and has played a key role in shaping scholarship, Imbshausen, the site of a post-World War II British sector Displaced Persons camp, was incorporated into the town in 1974. On 15 November 1992 an express train crashed into the wreckage of a freight train near Northeim. Eleven people died and 52 were injured, the town has a town museum and archive. There is a stage outside the town. The town is home to a puppet theater, Theater der Nacht
32.
Conrad III of Germany
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Conrad III was the first King of Germany of the Hohenstaufen dynasty. He was the son of Duke Frederick I of Swabia and Agnes, the origin of the House of Hohenstaufen in the Duchy of Swabia has not been conclusively established. Conrads father took advantage of the conflict between King Henry IV of Germany and the Swabian duke Rudolf of Rheinfelden during the Investiture Controversy and he died in 1105, leaving two sons, Conrad and his elder brother Frederick II, who inherited the Swabian ducal title. Their mother entered into a marriage with Babenberg margrave Leopold III of Austria. In 1105 Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor since 1084, was overthrown by his son Henry V, Emperor since 1111, Henry V preparing for his second campaign to Italy upon the death of Margravine Matilda of Tuscany, in 1116 appointed Conrad a Duke of Franconia. Conrad was marked out to act as regent for Germany, together with his elder brother, at the death of Henry V in 1125, Conrad unsuccessfully supported Frederick II for the kingship of Germany. Frederick was placed under a ban and Conrad was deprived of Franconia, with the support of the imperial cities, Swabia, and the Duchy of Austria, Conrad was elected anti-king at Nuremberg in December 1127. Conrad quickly crossed the Alps to be crowned King of Italy by Anselm V, Archbishop of Milan. Over the next two years, he failed to achieve anything in Italy, however, and returned to Germany in 1130, after Nuremberg and Speyer, two strong cities in his support, fell to Lothair in 1129. Conrad continued in Lothairs opposition, but he and Frederick were forced to acknowledge Lothair as emperor in 1135, after this they were pardoned and could take again possession of their lands. After Lothairs death, Conrad was elected king at Coblenz on 7 March 1138, Conrad was crowned at Aachen six days later and was acknowledged in Bamberg by several princes of southern Germany. 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 Henrys death, the war was continued by his son Henry the Lion, supported by the Saxons, Conrad, after a long siege, defeated the latter at Weinsberg in December 1140, and in 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 Ladislaus the Exile, failed. Bavaria, Saxony, and the regions of Germany were in revolt. In 1146, Conrad heard Bernard of Clairvaux preach the Second Crusade at Speyer, before leaving, he had the nobles elect and crown his son Henry Berengar king. The succession secured in the event of his death, Conrad set out and his army of 20,000 men went overland, via Hungary, causing disruptions in the Byzantine territories through which they passed. They arrived at Constantinople by September 1147, 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
33.
Leopold, Duke of Bavaria
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Leopold, known as Leopold the Generous, was Margrave of Austria as Leopold IV from 1136, and Duke of Bavaria as Leopold I from 1139 until his death in 1141. He was one of the sons of Margrave Leopold III. It is not known why he was preferred to his brothers Adalbert. Through his mother Agnes, he was related to the Hohenstaufen, in the course of their struggle against the competing Welfen family, he was given the formerly Welfish Bavaria as a fief by Emperor Conrad III. He managed to maintain his position there, as his brother Otto was Bishop of Freising there, the most important measure of his short reign was the Exchange of Mautern entered into with the Bishop of Passau in 1137. The bishop was given the St. Stephens Cathedral, Leopold died at Niederaltaich Abbey in Bavaria unexpectedly and was succeeded by his brother Henry. List of rulers of Austria Citations Bibliography Leopold IV
34.
Wendish Crusade
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By the early 12th century, the German archbishoprics of Bremen and Magdeburg sought the conversion to Christianity of neighboring pagan West Slavs through peaceful means. During the preparation of the Second Crusade to the Holy Land, however, the Slavic leader Niklot preemptively invaded Wagria in June 1147, leading to the march of the crusaders later that summer. They achieved an ostensible forced baptism of Slavs at Dobin but were repulsed from Demmin, another crusading army marched on the already Christian city of Szczecin, whereupon the crusaders dispersed upon arrival. The Ottonian dynasty supported eastward expansion of the Holy Roman Empire towards Wendish lands during the 10th century, the campaigns of King Henry the Fowler and Emperor Otto the Great led to the introduction of burgwards to protect German conquests in the lands of the Sorbs. Ottos lieutenants, Margraves Gero and Hermann Billung, advanced eastward and northward respectively to claim tribute from conquered Slavs, bishoprics were established at Meissen, Brandenburg, Havelberg, and Oldenburg to administer the territory. A great Slavic rebellion in 983 reversed the initial German gains, while the burgwards allowed the Saxons to retain control of Meissen, they lost Brandenburg and Havelberg. The Elbe River thus became the limit of German-Roman control. Lacking support from the Salian dynasty of the Holy Roman Empire, christians, especially Saxons from Holstein, and pagans raided each other across the Limes Saxonicus, usually for tribute. From 1140-43 Holsatian nobles advanced into Wagria to permanently settle in the lands of the pagan Wagri, count Adolf II of Holstein and Henry of Badewide took control of Polabian settlements which would later become Lübeck and Ratzeburg, Vicelin was subsequently installed as bishop at Oldenburg. Adolf sought peace with the chief of the Obodrite confederacy, Niklot, the fall of Edessa in 1144 shocked Christendom, causing Pope Eugenius III and St. Bernard of Clairvaux to preach a Second Crusade to reinforce Outremer. While many south Germans volunteered to crusade in the Middle East and they told Bernard of their desire to campaign against the Slavs at a Reichstag meeting in Frankfurt on 13 March 1147. Approving of the Saxons plan, pope Eugenius issued a bull known as the Divina dispensatione on 13 April. Those who volunteered to crusade against the Slavic pagans were primarily Danes, Saxons, the German monarchy took no part in the crusade, which was led by Saxon families such as the Ascanians, Wettin, and Schauenburgers. Papal legate Anselm of Havelberg was placed in overall command, after expelling the Obodrites from his territory, Adolf signed a peace treaty with Niklot. The remaining Christian crusaders targeted the Obodrite fort Dobin and the Liutizian fort Demmin, the forces attacking Dobin included those of the Danes Canute V and Sweyn III, Archbishop Adalbert II of Bremen, and Duke Henry the Lion of Saxony. Avoiding pitched battles, Niklot ably defended the marshland of Dobin, one army of Danes was defeated by Slavs from Dobin, while another had to defend the Danish fleet from Niklots allies, the Rani of Rügen. Henry and Adalbert maintained the siege of Dobin after the retreat of the Danes, when some crusaders advocated ravaging the countryside, others objected by asking, Is not the land we are devastating our land, and the people we are fighting our people. The Saxon army under Henry the Lion withdrew after Niklot agreed to have Dobins garrison undergo baptism, the Saxon army directed against Demmin was led by several bishops, including those of Mainz, Halberstadt, Münster, Merseburg, Brandenburg, Olmütz, and Bishop Anselm of Havelberg
35.
Margraviate of Austria
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The Margraviate of Austria was a southeastern frontier march of the Holy Roman Empire created in 976 out of the territory on the border with the Kingdom of Hungary. Originally under the overlordship of the Dukes of Bavaria, it was ruled by margraves of the Franconian Babenberg dynasty and it became an Imperial State in its own right, when the Babenbergs were elevated to Dukes of Austria in 1156. In contemporary Latin, the entity was called the marcha Orientalis, marchia Austriae, the Old High German name Ostarrîchi first appeared on a famous deed of donation issued by Emperor Otto III at Bruchsal in November 996. Later the march was called the Margraviate of Austria or the Bavarian Eastern March to differentiate it from the Saxon Eastern March in the northeast. During the Anschluss period of 1938–45 the Nazi authorities tried to replace the term Austria with Ostmark, the march comprised the lands north and south of the Danube river, with the Enns tributary in the west forming the border with the Traungau shire of the Bavarian stem duchy. The eastern frontier with the Hungarian settlement area in the Pannonian Basin ran along the Morava and Leitha rivers, with the Gyepű borderland beyond. In the north, the march bordered on the Bohemian duchy of the Přemyslids, the early march corresponded closely to the modern region of Lower Austria. The initial Babenberger residence was probably at Pöchlarn on the former Roman limes, but maybe already Melk, the original march coincided with the modern Wachau, but was shortly enlarged eastwards at least as far as the Wienerwald. Under Margrave Ernest the Brave, the colonisation of the northern Waldviertel up to the Thaya river and the Bohemian march of Moravia was begun, the margraves residence later was moved down the Danube to Klosterneuburg until in 1142 Vienna became the official capital. The Babenbergs had a system of several castles built in the Wienerwald mountain range and along the Danube river. In the Austrian Alps some valleys retained their Rhaeto-Romance speakers until the 17th century, the first marches covering approximately the territory that would become Austria and Slovenia were the Avar March and the adjacent March of Carantania in the south. Both were established in the late 8th century by Charlemagne upon the incorporation of the territory of the Agilolfing dukes of Bavaria against the invasions of the Avars. When the Avars disappeared in the 820s, they were replaced largely by West Slavs, the March of Pannonia was set apart from the Duchy of Friuli in 828 and set up as a march against Moravia within the East Frankish regnum of Bavaria. These march, already called marcha orientalis, corresponded to a frontier along the Danube from the Traungau to Szombathely, by the 890s, the Pannonian march seems to have disappeared, along with the threat from Great Moravia, during the Hungarian invasions of Europe. Upon the defeat of Margrave Luitpold of Bavaria at the 907 Battle of Pressburg, in 955 King Otto I of Germany had started the reconquest with his victory at the 955 Battle of Lechfeld. However, much of Pannonia was still conquered by the Magyars and he appointed the Babenberg count Leopold the Illustrious from the House of Babenberg margrave in turn for his support. Leopold replaced one Burchard, whose status is not well known, margravial Austria reached its greatest height under Leopold III, a great friend of the church and founder of abbeys. He patronised towns and developed a level of territorial independence
36.
Duchy of Austria
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After the ruling dukes of the House of Babenberg became extinct, the German king Rudolf I took over the dominion as the first monarch of the Habsburg dynasty in 1276. Thereafter, Austria became the homeland of the dynasty and the nucleus of the Habsburg Monarchy. In 1453, the title of the Austrian rulers, invented by Duke Rudolf IV in the forged Privilegium Maius of 1359, was officially acknowledged by the Habsburg emperor Frederick III. Initially, the duchy was comparatively small in area, roughly comprising the modern-day Austrian state of Lower Austria. As a former border march, it was located on the periphery of the Empire, on the northern and southern shores of the Danube River. In the east, the Imperial border with the Kingdom of Hungary had gradually shifted towards the plains of the Morava River, on the right shore of the Danube, the lower Leitha River marked the Imperial–Hungarian border for centuries. In the south, Austria bordered the Styrian lands which were elevated to a duchy. The Avar Khaganate established in 567 comprised most of the later Austrian march up to the Enns river, temporarily part of Samos Empire from 631 to 658, the territory was under constant attack by the Carolingian forces of Charlemagne from 791 onwards. In 976 Emperor Otto II enfeoffed the Babenberg count Leopold the Illustrious with the Austrian margraviate, a large-scale German settlement along the Danube down to the border with Hungary followed, which ultimatively disrupted the Slavic continuity between the West Slavic and South Slavic lands. Although today closely associated with the Habsburg dynasty, Austria was, until 1246, Margrave Leopold the Generous was a loyal liensman of the Imperial House of Hohenstaufen in the struggle against the Bavarian Welf dynasty. In 1139, after King Conrad III of Germany deposed the Welf duke Henry the Proud, leopolds brother and successor Henry Jasomirgott was enfeoffed with Bavaria in 1141. In 1156 the Hohenstaufen Emperor Frederick Barbarossa approached a settlement with the Welfs, at the 1156 Imperial Diet in Regensburg, Henry Jasomirgott had to renounce the Bavarian duchy in favour of Henry the Lion. In compensation, the Babenberg margraviate was elevated to an equal duchy, the new Austrian duke took his residence at Vienna at the site of the later Hofburg Palace. He also founded Schottenstift Abbey as the Babenberg proprietary church, settled with Irish monks, the Austrian lands prospered, due to their favourable location on the Danube, as an important trade route from Krems and Mautern via Vienna down to Hungary and the Byzantine Empire. For a short time, the Babenbergs came to be one of the most influential ruling families in the Empire, peaking under the reign of Leopold V the Virtous and Leopold VI the Glorious. They also expanded their territory into the old Bavarian lands west of the Enns River, along the Traun to the city of Linz, in 1191 Duke Leopold V joined the Third Crusade and the Siege of Acre. When the English kingpassed through Austria on his way home, Leopold had him abducted and arrested at Dürnstein Castle. Handed over to Emperor Henry VI, Richard was only released after paying a ransom
37.
Munich
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Munich is the capital and largest city of the German state of Bavaria, on the banks of River Isar north of the Bavarian Alps. Munich is the third largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Hamburg, the Munich Metropolitan Region is home to 5.8 million people. According to the Globalization and World Rankings Research Institute Munich is considered an alpha-world city, the name of the city is derived from the Old/Middle High German term Munichen, meaning by the monks. It derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who ran a monastery at the place that was later to become the Old Town of Munich, Munich was first mentioned in 1158. From 1255 the city was seat of the Bavarian Dukes, black and gold—the colours of the Holy Roman Empire—have been the citys official colours since the time of Ludwig the Bavarian, when it was an imperial residence. Following a final reunification of the Wittelsbachian Duchy of Bavaria, previously divided and sub-divided for more than 200 years, like wide parts of the Holy Roman Empire, the area recovered slowly economically. In 1918, during the German Revolution, the house of Wittelsbach, which governed Bavaria since 1180, was forced to abdicate in Munich. In the 1920s, Munich became home to political factions, among them the NSDAP. During World War II, Munich was heavily bombed and more than 50% of the entire city, the postwar period was characterised by American occupation until 1949 and a strong increase of population and economic power during the years of the Wirtschaftswunder after 1949. The city is home to corporations like BMW, Siemens, MAN, Linde, Allianz and MunichRE as well as many small. Munich is home to national and international authorities, major universities, major museums. Its numerous architectural attractions, international events, exhibitions and conferences. Munich is one of the most prosperous and fastest growing cities in Germany and it is a top-ranked destination for migration and expatriate location, despite being the municipality with the highest density of population in Germany. Munich nowadays hosts more than 530,000 people of foreign background, the year 1158 is assumed to be the foundation date, which is the earliest date the city is mentioned in a document. The document was signed in Augsburg, by that time the Guelph Henry the Lion, Duke of Saxony and Bavaria, had built a bridge over the river Isar next to a settlement of Benedictine monks—this was on the Old Salt Route and a toll bridge. In 1175, Munich was officially granted city status and received fortification, in 1180, with the trial of Henry the Lion, Otto I Wittelsbach became Duke of Bavaria and Munich was handed over to the Bishop of Freising. In 1240, Munich was transferred to Otto II Wittelsbach and in 1255, Duke Louis IV, a native of Munich, was elected German king in 1314 and crowned as Holy Roman Emperor in 1328. He strengthened the position by granting it the salt monopoly
38.
Augsburg
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Augsburg is a city in Swabia, Bavaria, Germany. It was a Free Imperial City for over 500 years and it is a university town and home of the Regierungsbezirk Schwaben and the Bezirk Schwaben. Augsburg is a district and home to the institutions of the Landkreis Augsburg. It is the third-largest city in Bavaria with a population of 286,000 citizens, after Neuss and Trier, Augsburg is Germanys third oldest city, being founded by the Romans as Augusta Vindelicorum, named after the Roman emperor Augustus. Augsburg is the only German city with its own legal holiday and this gives Augsburg more legal holidays than any other region or city in Germany. Augsburg was the home of two families that rose to great prominence internationally, replacing the Medicis as Europes leading bankers, the Fugger. Augsburg lies at the convergence of the Alpine rivers Lech and Wertach, in the south extends the Lechfeld, an Outwash plain of the post ice age between the rivers Lech and Wertach, where rare primeval landscapes were preserved. The Augsburg city forest and the Lech valley heaths today rank among the most species-rich middle European habitats, on Augsburg borders the nature park Augsburg Western Woods - a large forestland. The city itself is also heavily greened, as a result, in 1997 Augsburg was the first German city to win the Europe-wide contest Entente Florale for Europes greenest and most livable city. Augsburg is surrounded by the counties Landkreis Augsburg in the west, the neighboring towns and cities are Friedberg, Königsbrunn, Stadtbergen, Neusäß, Gersthofen, Rehling, Affing, Kissing, Mering, Merching, Bobingen, Gessertshausen und Diedorf. Augsburg has a continental climate. The city was founded in 15 BC by Drusus and Tiberius as Augusta Vindelicorum, the name means Augusta of the Vindelici. This garrison camp soon became the capital of the Roman province of Raetia, thus, Augsburg was the intersection of many important European east-west and north-south connections, which later evolved as major trade routes of the Middle Ages. Around 120 AD Augsburg became the capital of the Roman province Raetia, Augsburg was sacked by the Huns in the 5th century AD, by Charlemagne in the 8th century, and by Welf of Bavaria in the 11th century, but arose each time to greater prosperity. Augsburg was granted the status of a Free Imperial City on March 9,1276 and from then until 1803, it was independent of its former overlord, the Prince-Bishop of Augsburg. Frictions between the city-state and the prince-bishops were to remain frequent however, particularly after Augsburg became Protestant and curtailed the rights, with a strategic location as intersection of trade routes to Italy, the Free Imperial City became a major trading center. Augsburg produced large quantities of goods, cloth and textiles. Augsburg became the base of two banking families that rose to prominence, the Fuggers and the Welsers
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Hildesheim
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Hildesheim is a city in Lower Saxony, Germany with almost 100,000 inhabitants. It is located in the district of Hildesheim, about 30 km southeast of Hanover on the banks of the Innerste River, the settlement around the cathedral very quickly developed into a town and was awarded market rights by King Otto III in 983. Originally the market was held in a street called Old Market which still exists today, the first market place was laid out around the church St. Andreas. When the city grew further, a market place became necessary. The present market place of Hildesheim was laid out at the beginning of the 13th century when the city had about 5,000 inhabitants, when Hildesheim obtained city status in 1249, it was one of the biggest cities in Northern Germany. For four centuries the clergy ruled Hildesheim, before a city hall was built, construction of the present City Hall started in 1268. In 1367 Hildesheim became a member of the Hanseatic League, a war between the citizens and their bishop cost dearly in 1519-1523 when they engaged in a feud. Hildesheim became Lutheran in 1542, and only the cathedral and a few buildings remained in imperial hands. Several villages around the city remained Catholic as well, in 1813, after the Napoleonic Wars, the town became part of the Kingdom of Hanover, which was annexed by the Kingdom of Prussia as a province after the Austro-Prussian War in 1866. In 1868 a highly valuable trove of about 70 Roman silver vessels for eating and drinking, the city was heavily damaged by air raids in 1945, especially on 22 March. 28. 5% of the houses were destroyed and 44. 7% damaged. 26. 8% of the houses remained undamaged, the centre, which had retained its medieval character until then, was almost levelled. As in many cities, priority was given to building of badly needed housing. Fortunately, most of the churches, two of them now UNESCO World Heritage Sites, were rebuilt in the original style soon after the war. During the war, valuable world heritage materials had been hidden in the basement of the city wall, in 1978, the University of Hildesheim was founded. In the 1980s a reconstruction of the centre began. Some of the concrete buildings around the market place were torn down. In the fall of 2007, a decision was made to reconstruct the Umgestülpter Zuckerhut, in 2015 the town celebrates 1200 years from 815 to 2015 with the Day of Lower Saxony
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Stade
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Stade is a city in Lower Saxony, Germany and part of the Hamburg Metropolitan Region. It is the seat of the named after it. The city was first mentioned in a document from 994 and it includes the urban districts of Bützfleth, Hagen, Haddorf and Wiepenkathen which have a district council of their own with some autonomous decision making rights. Stade is located on the lower Elbe river and the German Timber-Frame Road, the first human settlers came to the Stade area in 30,000 BC. Since 1180 Stade belonged to the Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen, in early 1208 King Valdemar II of Denmark and his troops conquered Stade. In August Valdemar IIs cousin being in enmity with the king, in 1209 Emperor Otto IV persuaded his ally Valdemar II to withdraw into the north of the Elbe, and the deposed Prince-Archbishop Valdemar took Stade. On 2 May 1209 Otto IV granted important town privileges to Stade, Otto IV confirmed the burghers to be personally free and recognised them constituting a political entity of their own law, the burgenses and optimi cives of Stade. Property within the boundaries could not be subjected to feudal overlordship and was to be freely inherited without feudal claims to reversion. Fair juridical procedures were constituted and maximal fines fixed, Otto IV obliged himself to prevent burghers from being taken as hostages and to liberate captured burghers. After Otto IV had changed his mind and reinvested Prince-Archbishop Valdemar with the See in 1211, in 1213 Ottos elder brother Count Palatine Henry V of the Rhine, reconquered Stade for the Prince-Archbishop. In 1215 Henry repelled another Danish attack on Stade, in the winter of 1216 Valdemar II and his Danish troops, unable to take the city of Stade, ravaged the County of Stade. From then on Stade remained a part of the Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen, in medieval times, Stade was a prominent member of the Hanseatic League, but was later eclipsed by Hamburg. In 1611 the city signed a contract with Sephardic Jews, allowing the foundation of a community, in 1648, by the Treaty of Westphalia, the Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen underwent a constitutional transformation from a prince-bishopric into a monarchy, the Duchy of Bremen. The duchy and the neighboured Principality of Verden, colloquially referred to as Bremen-Verden, were granted by the Treaty of Westphalia as an appanage to the Swedish crown, Stades heyday lasted until the Thirty Years War. In 1628 Tilly conquered the town, shortly thereafter, Sweden took possession of it until 1636. After a period of Danish occupation, Sweden finally recaptured it in 1643 and was officially granted possession of it, together with the Archbishopric of Bremen. Two-thirds of the town were razed in the town fire on 26 May 1659. The town was again to the same plan
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Kassel
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Kassel is a city located on the Fulda River in northern Hesse, Germany. It is the seat of the Regierungsbezirk Kassel and the Kreis of the same name and has 200,507 inhabitants in December 2015. The former capital of the state of Hesse-Kassel has many palaces and parks, including the Bergpark Wilhelmshöhe, Kassel is also known for the documenta exhibitions of contemporary art. The citys name is derived from the ancient Castellum Cattorum, a castle of the Chatti, Kassel was first mentioned in 913 AD, as the place where two deeds were signed by King Conrad I. The place was called Chasella and was a fortification at a crossing the Fulda river. A deed from 1189 certifies that Cassel had city rights, in 1567, the Landgraviate of Hesse, until then centered in Marburg, was divided among four sons, with Hesse-Kassel becoming one of its successor states. Kassel was its capital and became a centre of Calvinist Protestantism in Germany, strong fortifications were built to protect the Protestant stronghold against Catholic enemies. Secret societies, such as Rosicrucianism flourished, with Christian Rosenkreutz’s work Fama Fraternitis first published in 1617, in 1685, Kassel became a refuge for 1,700 Huguenots who found shelter in the newly established borough of Oberneustadt. Landgrave Charles, who was responsible for this act, also ordered the construction of the Oktagon. In the early 19th century, the Brothers Grimm lived in Kassel and they collected and wrote most of their fairy tales there. At that time, around 1803, the Landgraviate was elevated to a Principality, shortly after, it was annexed by Napoleon and in 1807 it became the capital of the short-lived Kingdom of Westphalia under Napoleons brother Jérôme. The Electorate was restored in 1813, having sided with Austria in the Austro-Prussian War to gain supremacy in Germany, the principality was annexed by Prussia in 1866. The Prussian administration united Nassau, Frankfurt and Hesse-Kassel into the new Prussian province of Hesse-Nassau, Kassel ceased to be a princely residence, but soon developed into a major industrial centre, as well as a major railway junction. Henschel & Son, the largest railway locomotive manufacturer in Germany at the end of the century, was based in Kassel. In 1870, after the Battle of Sedan, Napoleon III was sent as a prisoner to the castle of Wilhelmshohe above the city, during World War I the German military headquarters were located in the castle of Wilhelmshohe. In the late 1930s Nazis destroyed Heinrich Hübschs Kassel Synagogue, the most severe bombing of Kassel in World War II destroyed 90% of the downtown area, some 10,000 people were killed, and 150,000 were made homeless. Most of the casualties were civilians or wounded soldiers recuperating in local hospitals, Karl Gerland replaced the regional Gauleiter, Karl Weinrich, soon after the raid. The Allied ground advance into Germany reached Kassel at the beginning of April 1945, post-war, most of the ancient buildings were not restored, and large parts of the city area were completely rebuilt in the style of the 1950s
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