Individual

Go to List of Family Names Go to List of People    < Previous Next >

Birth:          Feb 1177 Pavia, Italy
Death:          21 Jun 1208 Bamberg, Oberfranken, Bavaria
Cause of Death: murdered

Notes
also Emperor of the West but not crowned
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_of_Swabia
Philip of Swabia (February/March 1177 – 21 June 1208) was a prince of the House of 
Hohenstaufen and King of Germany from 1198 to 1208. In the long-time struggle for 
the German throne upon the death of Emperor Henry VI between the Hohenstaufen 
and Welf dynasties, he was the first German king to be assassinated.
Early life[edit]

Philip was born in or near Pavia in the Imperial Kingdom of Italy, the fifth and youngest 
son of the Hohenstaufen emperor Frederick Barbarossa and his second wife Beatrice,
[1] daughter of Count Renaud III of Burgundy, and thereby younger brother of Emperor 
Henry VI. Philip's great uncle Conrad III was the first scion of the Swabian 
Hohenstaufen dynasty to be elected King of the Romans in 1138, already against the 
fierce resistance by the rivalling House of Welf. During the time of Philip's birth, his 
father Emperor Frederick was able to settle the longstanding conflict with Pope 
Alexander III and the Italian cities of the Lombard League by concluding the Treaty of 
Venice. The newborn was probably named after Frederick's valued ally and confidant 
Archbishop Philip of Cologne.

 Frederick Barbarossa with his sons Henry and Philip, Peter of Eboli, Liber ad honorem 
Augusti, 1196
Young Philip initially prepared for an ecclesiastical career, he entered the clergy of 
Adelberg Abbey and in April 1189 was made provost at the collegiate church of 
Aachen Cathedral, while his father left Germany for the Third Crusade and drowned in 
the Göksu (Saleph) River in Anatolia the next year,[2] succeeded by Henry VI. In 1190 
or 1191 Philip was elected Prince-bishop of Würzburg, though without being 
consecrated. His brother Henry had expanded the Hohenstaufen domains by marrying 
Queen Constance of Sicily in 1186, suspiciously eyed by the Roman Curia. Having 
accompanied his brother Henry to Italy in 1191, Philip forsook his ecclesiastical 
calling, and, travelling again to Italy, was appointed Margrave of Tuscany in 1195 and 
received an extensive grant of lands. In his retinue in Italy was the Minnesinger 
Bernger von Horheim.

On 26 December 1194, Queen Constance finally gave birth to a son, the later Emperor 
Frederick II. To secure his succession, his father Henry had the two-year-old elected 
King of the Romans before he prepared for the Crusade of 1197. To improve 
relationships with the Byzantine Empire, Henry betrothed Philip to Irene Angelina, a 
daughter of Emperor Isaac II and the widow of Roger III of Sicily, a lady who was 
described by Walther von der Vogelweide as "the rose without a thorn, the dove 
without guile". In early 1195, Philip was made Duke of Tuscany and received the 
disputed Matildine lands.[3] His rule there earned him the enmity of Pope Celestine III. 
In 1196 his brother Conrad died and he succeeded him as Duke of Swabia. His 
marriage to Irene took place in 1197 near Augsburg.

Struggle for the throne[edit]

Philip enjoyed his brother's confidence to a very great extent, and appears to have 
been designated as guardian of Henry's minor son Frederick II, in case of his father's 
early death. In September 1197 he had set out to fetch Frederick from Apulia for his 
coronation as German king. While staying in Montefiascone, he heard of the emperor's 
sudden death in Messina and returned at once to Germany. He appears to have 
desired to protect the interests of his nephew and to quell the disorder which arose on 
Henry's death, but was overtaken by events.

Meanwhile, a number of Princes of the Holy Roman Empire hostile to the ruling 
Hohentaufen dynasty under the leadership of Prince-Archbishop Adolph of Cologne 
took the occasion to elect a German anti-king in the person of the Welf Otto of 
Brunswick, the second surviving son of the former Saxon duke Henry the Lion and a 
nephew of King Richard I of England. The hostility to the kingship of a child was 
growing, and after Philip had been chosen as defender of the empire during 
Frederick's minority he finally consented to his own election. He was elected German 
king at Mühlhausen in Thuringia on 8 March 1198 (Laetare Sunday), backed by Duke 
Leopold VI of Austria, Duke Ottokar I of Bohemia, Duke Berthold V of Zähringen, and 
Landgrave Hermann I of Thuringia, however, in the absence of the Archbishops of 
Cologne, Mainz and Trier. His rival Otto was not elected king until June 9 by the 
Cologne archbishop, the Bishop of Paderborn, Bishop Thietmar of Minden, and three 
Prince-Provosts; he was crowned by Archbishop Adolph of Cologne on July 12 at the 
traditional place in Aachen, which had to be captured before against the resistance of 
loyal Hohenstaufen liensmen, though without receiving the Imperial Regalia, which 
were in the safe keeping of Philip.

Philip hesitated to assert himself, but at least he received the support of further 
German princes, forged an alliance with King Philip II of France and was crowned by 
Archbishop Aymon of Tarentaise at Mainz on 8 September of the same year. 
Nevertheless, he knew that he had to settle the conflict with Otto and his supporters. 
A first attempt to mediate by the Mainz archbishop Conrad of Wittelsbach in 1199 was 
rejected by the Welf. Both sides strived for the coronation as Holy Roman Emperor by 
Pope Innocent III. The pope himself acted tactically, trying to wrest the affirmation of 
the sovereignty of his Papal States and the Kingdom of Sicily from the candidates. 
Several ecclesiastical and secular princes loyal to Philip reacted with a protestation in 
1199, whereby they rejected any papal exertion of influence on the Imperial line of 
succession

In the war that followed, Philip, who drew his principal support from his Swabian home 
territories, met with considerable success. In 1199 he received further accessions to 
his party and carried the war into his opponent's Saxon territory, although unable to 
obtain the support of the papacy, and only feebly assisted by his ally King Philip II of 
France. The following year was less favourable to his arms; and in March 1201 
Innocent took the decisive step of declaring the Hohenstaufen "persecutors of the 
church", placing Philip and his associates under the ban. The pope began to work 
energetically in favour of Otto, who beforehand had solemnly renounced any 
intentions to affiliate the Sicilian kingdom with the Holy Roman Empire.

Consolidation[edit]
 
The papal support had little effect, however, and the Welfs as well as the 
Hohenstaufens had to assert their position by both threatening and bribing, by the 
display of splendour, and dynastic marriage politics. In 1199 Philip and Irene Angelina 
lavishly celebrated Christmas in Magdeburg–close to Otto's residence in Brunswick–in 
the presence of the Ascanian duke Bernard of Saxony and numerous Saxon and 
Thuringian nobles. The festival was rendered in an eloborated poem by Walther von 
der Vogelweide in order to spread the reputation of King Philip as a capable ruler. 
Again in Magdeburg Cathedral, Philip celebrated the elevation of Saint Cunigunde of 
Luxembourg on 9 September 1201.

Also in 1201, Philip was visited by his cousin Boniface of Montferrat, the leader of the 
Fourth Crusade. Although Boniface's exact reasons for meeting with Philip are 
unknown, while at Philip's court he also met Alexius Angelus, Philip's brother-in-
law.Some historians have suggested that it was here that Alexius convinced Boniface, 
and later the Venetians, to divert the Crusade to Constantinople and restore Isaac II 
to the throne, as he had recently been deposed by Alexius III, Alexius and Irene's 
uncle.

The two succeeding years were still more unfavourable to Philip. The Premyslid ruler 
Ottokar I, though he had received the hereditary Bohemian regality, divorced his wife 
Adelaide of Meissen and was declared deposed by Philip. Another former ally, 
Landgrave Hermann of Thuringia, drove him from northern Germany, thus compelling 
him to seek by abject concessions, but without success, reconciliation with Innocent. 
The reconciliation with Ottokar and the submission to Philip by Hermann of Thuringia 
after the 1204 siege of Weißensee, rendered by the chronicler Arnold of Lübeck, 
marks the turning-point of his fortunes. Philip was soon joined by Archbishop Adolph of 
Cologne, though against the will of the Cologne citizens, by Duke Henry of Brabant 
and even by Otto's brother Count Palatine Henry V. Archbishop Adolph, who received 
a sum of 5000 marks, and Duke Henry, who was vested with Maastricht and Duisburg, 
signed a written statement of support in November 1204.

To emphasize the new alliance with his long-time enemy Adolph of Cologne, Philip on 
6 January 1205 was crowned again with great ceremony by the Archbishop at Aachen 
Cathedral. On 27 July 1206, he defeated a Cologne army loyal to Otto in Wassenberg, 
whereby both kings for the first time held secret talks, however without result. It was 
not until 1207 that Philip's entry into Cologne practically brought the war to a close. 
Pope Innocent noticed the worsening of Otto's prospects and a month or two later 
Philip was loosed from the papal ban. In March 1208 it seemed probable that a treaty 
was concluded by which a nephew of the pope was to marry one of Philip's daughters 
and to receive the disputed dukedom of Tuscany.

Assassination[edit]

Philip was preparing to crush the last flicker of the Welf rebellion in Brunswick-
Lüneburg, when he proceeded to Bamberg, in order to participate as a guest at the 
wedding of his niece Countess Beatrice II of Burgundy with Duke Otto of Merania on 
21 June 1208. After the ceremony, Philip retired in his rooms, where he was assaulted 
and murdered by the Bavarian count palatine Otto VIII.[1] The pregnant queen Irene 
Angelina fled to Hohenstaufen Castle where she miscarried and died shortly 
afterwards. Otto of Wittelsbach escaped the Hohenstaufen henchmen.

The motives for the murder have not been conclusively established. Allegedly the 
Wittelsbach scion, already known for his unstable character, had fallen into a rage 
when he learned of the dissolution of his betrothal to Gertrude of Silesia by her father, 
the Piast duke Henry I the Bearded. Duke Henry was apparently informed of the 
Wittelsbach's cruel tendencies and in an act of concern for his young daughter 
decided to terminate the marriage agreement. Otto proceeded to blame Philip for 
another spurned marriage alliance (the first being to one of Philip's own daughter, 
Beatrice or Kunigunde, who was betrothed to Wenceslaus I of Bohemia in 1207) and 
swore revenge on the German King, culminating in the murder at Bamberg.[4] An 
alleged conspiracy by the Andechs dukes of Merania, King Philip II of France and 
Duke Henry of Brabant in favour of King Otto could never be proved.

Posthumous reputation[edit]

Philip was first buried at Bamberg Cathedral; one of the attempts of an interpretation 
of the Bamberg Horseman, erected a few years after Philip's death, identifies the 
statue as an impersonation of the murdered king. He was the first ruling king to be 
assassinated since the era of the Merovingian dynasty, and the only German monarch 
ever to be killed beside the Habsburg king Albert I, who was slain by his nephew a 
hundred years later.

After Philip's death, Otto IV quickly prevailed against the remaining Hohenstaufen 
supporters, was acknowledged as German monarch at an Imperial Diet in Frankfurt in 
November 1208 and crowned Holy Roman Emperor by Pope Innocent III the next year. 
To make clear that he had not participated in Philip's assassination, he administered 
the Imperial ban to Otto of Wittelsbach and his alleged accomplices. Count Palatine 
Otto was killed as vogelfrei by the Imperial marshal Henry of Kalden in March 1209. 
However, Emperor Otto soon entered into conflict with Pope Innocent III, when he 
tried to conquer the Kingdom of Sicily in 1210. Upon his excommunication, the German 
princes turned to the Hohenstaufen heir Frederick II, who on Christmas 1213 had 
Philip's mortal remains re-interred in Speyer Cathedral.

Philip was described as a brave and handsome man, and contemporary writers, among 
whom was Arnold of Lübeck and Walther von der Vogelweide, praise his mildness and 
generosity.

Family[edit]

Philip of Swabia married Princess Irene Angelina, daughter of Emperor Isaac II 
Angelos on 25 May 1197. Their four daughters were:
Beatrice of Hohenstaufen (1198–1212), married Otto IV, Holy Roman Emperor
Cunigunde of Hohenstaufen (1200–1248), married King Wenceslaus I, King of Bohemia
Marie of Hohenstaufen (1201–1235), married Henry II, Duke of Brabant
Elisabeth of Hohenstaufen (1203–1235), married King Ferdinand III of Castile[1]

Parents
____ Frederick (Friedrich) III "Barbarossa" (1122 - 10 Jun 1190)
OF BURGUNDY (OF MACON) Beatrice (Beatrix) (1143 - 15 Nov 1184)

Siblings
____ Henry (Heinrich) VI (Nov 1165 - 28 Sep 1197)
VON HOHENSTAUFEN Philipp II (Feb 1177 - 21 Jun 1208)

Marriage To ANGELINA Irene (Eirene) (Irini) Maria (ABT 1181 - 27 Aug 1208)
    m. 25 May 1197 

Notes

Parents
ANGELOS Isaakios II (Sep 1156 - Jan 1204)
KOMNENA Eirene (ABT 1164 - )

Children by ANGELINA Irene (Eirene) (Irini) Maria ABT 1181 - 27 Aug 1208
VON HOHENSTAUFEN Maria (3 Apr 1201 - 29 Mar 1235)
VON HOHENSTAUFEN Elizabeth (1205 - 5 Nov 1235)

Produced by Fzip 1.7 6/20/2017