Rudolf I, Holy Roman Emperor

Conrad III (25 April 1242 – 21 May 1303) was the Holy Roman Emperor, King of the Romans, and King of Italy (as Conrad IV) from 1272 to his death. He is also crowned King of Sicily (as Conrad I). Conrad was the elder son of Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV (1194-1250) and Bartilmebis of Arce.

During his reign, Conrad was the first physically and mentally healthy ruler of the Holy Roman Empire ever to be deposed without a papal excommunication. He was the second in the succession of so-called count-kings of several rivalling comital houses striving after the Roman-German royal dignity. At age 30, he was crowned King of Sicily on 13 March 1272, a month later, he was crowned the Holy Roman Emperor, King of Germany on 4 April and King of Italy on 1 July. He is continuing the war in 1279 with his father, Charles IV in Poland with Leszek II the Black but the war ended; two years later in 1281. He is struggled the war with the Kingdom of Bohemia with Wenceslaus II in the years of 1285 to his death. He is also famous for his good personality in wars, internal policies and more. On 1291, the 49 year-old Conrad allied with English king and cousin, Edward I of England and against the French king Philip IV of France.

Conrad was able to defend his realm and make it somewhat more cohesive, but he could not conquer the major part of Hungary. His flexible approach to Imperial problems, mainly religious, finally brought more result than the more confrontational attitude of his brother. On his death bed on 21 May 1303, aged 61 in Basilicata when he was still at war with first Italian feudal lord, Adalberto Boccanegra. He was succeeded by his younger son, Henry VII, which Henry was elected King of the Romans. His body was travelling and was buried in Aachen Cathedral in the Holy Roman Empire.

Early years
He was the second but only surviving son of Emperor Frederick II and Isabella II (Yolanda), the queen regnant of Jerusalem. Born in Andria, in the South Italian Kingdom of Sicily, his mother died while giving birth to him and he succeeded her as monarch of the Crusader state of Jerusalem. By his father, Conrad was the grandson of the Hohenstaufen emperor Henry VI and great-grandson of Emperor Frederick Barbarossa. He lived in Southern Italy until 1235, when he first visited the Kingdom of Germany. During this period his kingdom of Jerusalem, ruled by his father as regent through proxies, was racked by the civil War of the Lombards until Conrad declared his majority and his father's regency lost its validity.

Rise to power
When Emperor Frederick II deposed his eldest son, Conrad's rebellious half-brother King Henry (VII), Conrad succeeded him as Duke of Swabia in 1235. However, the emperor was not able to have him elected King of the Romans until the 1237 Imperial Diet in Vienna. This title, though not acknowledged by Pope Gregory IX, presumed his future as a Holy Roman Emperor. Prince-Archbishop Siegfried III of Mainz, in his capacitiy as German archchancellor, acted as regent for the minor until 1242, when Frederick chose Landgrave Henry Raspe of Thuringia, and King Wenceslaus I of Bohemia to assume this function. Conrad intervened directly in German politics from around 1240.

However, when Pope Innocent IV imposed a papal ban on Frederick in 1245 and declared Conrad deposed, Henry Raspe supported the pope and was in turn elected as anti-king of Germany on 22 May 1246. Henry Raspe defeated Conrad in the battle of Nidda in August 1246, but died several months later. He was succeeded as anti-king by William of Holland.

Also in 1246, Conrad married Elisabeth of Bavaria, a daughter of Otto II Wittelsbach, Duke of Bavaria. They had a son In 1250 Conrad settled momentarily the situation in Germany by defeating William of Holland and his Rhenish allies.
 * Conradin, in 1252.

Crown Prince and Italian Campaign
When Frederick II died in the same year, his father, Charles IV become elect-King of Germany and become the Holy Roman Emperor in 1227, as well as the title of Jerusalem, to Conrad, but the struggle with the pope continued. Having been defeated by William in 1251, Conrad decided to invade Italy, hoping to regain the rich dominions of his father, and where his brother Manfred acted as vicar. In January 1252 he invaded Apulia with a Venetian fleet and successfully managed to restrain Manfred and to exercise control of the country. In October 1253 his troops conquered Naples.

Conrad was however not able to subdue the pope's supporters, and the pope in turn offered Sicily to Edmund Crouchback, son of Henry III of England (1253). Conrad was excommunicated in 1254 and died of malaria in the same year at Lavello in Basilicata. Manfred first, and later Conrad's son Conradin, continued the struggle with the Papacy, although unsuccessfully.

Reign
When his father, Charles IV favorite voluntary abdicated in 15 February 1272 when he having health issues. Conrad III succeeded him, on 13 March 1272, he was crowned King of Sicily. On 4 April, Conrad succeeded his father, Charles IV on the Imperial throne, he crowned Holy Roman Emperor in Frankfurt on 12 August 1272, elect-King of the Romans in Aachen Cathedral on 3 January 1273, and King of Italy in Rome on 11 October 1275.

When Stephen V of Hungary's death, his son Ladislaus IV of Hungary become King of Hungary on 1272. Conrad III visit the young King Ladislaus V to become allies. Both Hungary and the Holy Roman Empire and been allies, but it will not participate in any wars. When his father's death on 19 September 1274, aged 65 in London.

War with Ottokar II of Bohemia
In November 1274, the Imperial Diet at Nuremberg decided that all Crown estates seized since the death of the Emperor Frederick II must be restored, and that King Ottokar II must answer to the Diet for not recognising the new king. Ottokar refused to appear or to restore the duchies of Austria, Styria and Carinthia together with the March of Carniola, which he had claimed through his first wife, a Babenberg heiress, and which he had seized while disputing them with another Babenberg heir, Margrave Hermann VI of Baden. Rudolf refuted Ottokar's succession to the Babenberg patrimony, declaring that the provinces reverted to the Imperial crown due to the lack of male-line heirs. King Ottokar was placed under the imperial ban; and in June 1276 war was declared against him.

Having persuaded Ottokar's former ally Duke Henry XIII of Lower Bavaria to switch sides, Rudolf compelled the Bohemian king to cede the four provinces to the control of the royal administration in November 1276. Rudolf then re-invested Ottokar with the Kingdom of Bohemia, betrothed one of his daughters to Ottokar's son Wenceslaus II, and made a triumphal entry into Vienna. Ottokar, however, raised questions about the execution of the treaty, made an alliance with some Piast chiefs of Poland, and procured the support of several German princes, again including Henry XIII of Lower Bavaria. To meet this coalition, Rudolf formed an alliance with King Ladislaus IV of Hungary and gave additional privileges to the Viennese citizens. On 26 August 1278, the rival armies met at the Battle on the Marchfeld, where Ottokar was defeated and killed. The March of Moravia was subdued and its government entrusted to Rudolf's representatives, leaving Ottokar's widow Kunigunda of Slavonia in control of only the province surrounding Prague, while the young Wenceslaus II was again betrothed to Rudolf's youngest daughter Judith.

Frederick, Duke of Lorraine's Comeback
After Conrad and his father Charles IV defeated Frederick in 1264 Civil war, which forced Frederick into exile. Frederick made a comeback in the Holy Roman Empire in 1279, five years after Conrad's father death in 1274. Frederick's legitimate claim to the Imperial throne since 1264. Both Conrad and his father are pro-peace monarchs, while Frederick was pro-war and wants to conqueror. Frederick was also made allies with Conrad's rival the Kingdom of Poland.

Leszek II the Black's army re-took Wrocław on 1 June 1279. One of the famous German generals, Rudolf I of Habsburg died on 8 June 1279, which marks the one of the mourns of the rest of the Empire.

Conrad made allies with his cousin, Edward I of England, at the Battle of Aachen with 5-4. After the loss of Nürnberg in 1281 and the Holy Roman Empire re-took Nürnberg a year later in 1282. On 1 February 1283, Frederick assassinated in his rebel capital of Köln by his own guards. With the civil war at the end, it will be loyalty among the German subjects. Until on 1531, 248 years later, the Schmalkaldic League against the Empire under the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V.

King of Sicily
Upon, Charles I of Naples's accession to the Sicilian and Naples thrones in 1266, after Charles killed Conrad's younger brother, Manfred at the Battle of Benevento. Charles d'Anjou become King of Naples and Sicily. Conrad III didn't recognize the French-born Charles I. But when the and War of the Sicilian Vespers on 1282. The Ghibellines lords wanted Conrad III to overthrow French-born monarch Charles I d'Anjou. However, Conrad declared war against Naples and Sicily. It took two years, when Charles I died on January 1285. Conrad was become King of Sicily by the Ghibellines lords on 2 March 1285. Conrad traveled from Frankfurt to Palermo and was crowned on 18 March 1285.

But, his popularity in Sicily and Naples was well-maintained between Sicilian and Naples citizens and lords with their new monarch, Conrad III. Unlike his father, Conrad's relationship with it's citizen are unique.

Ancestors

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