67 Facts About Frederick Barbarossa

Frederick Barbarossa, known as Frederick I, was the Holy Roman Emperor from 1155 until his death 35 years later.

Frederick Barbarossa, therefore, descended from the two leading families in Germany, making him an acceptable choice for the Empire's prince-electors.

Frederick Barbarossa joined the Third Crusade and opted to travel overland to the Holy Land.

In 1190, Frederick Barbarossa drowned attempting to cross the Saleph river, leading to most of his army abandoning the Crusade before reaching Acre.

Frederick Barbarossa combined qualities that made him appear almost superhuman to his contemporaries: his longevity, his ambition, his extraordinary skills at organization, his battlefield acumen and his political perspicacity.

Frederick Barbarossa learned to ride, hunt and use weapons, but could neither read nor write, and was unable to speak the Latin language.

The elder Frederick Barbarossa, who was dying, expected his son to look after his widow and young half-brother.

Gilbert of Mons, writing fifty years later, recorded that Frederick Barbarossa "prevailed in arms before all others in front of Damascus".

Frederick Barbarossa's father was from the Hohenstaufen family, and his mother was from the Welf family, the two most powerful families in Germany.

When Frederick Barbarossa succeeded his uncle in 1152, there seemed to be excellent prospects for ending the feud, since he was a Welf on his mother's side.

Frederick Barbarossa had the duchies of Swabia and Franconia, the force of his own personality, and very little else to construct an empire.

The Germany that Frederick Barbarossa tried to unite was a patchwork of more than 1,600 individual states, each with its own prince.

Frederick Barbarossa was a pragmatist who dealt with the princes by finding a mutual self-interest.

Unlike Henry II of England, Frederick Barbarossa did not attempt to end medieval feudalism, but rather tried to restore it, though this was beyond his ability.

Frederick Barbarossa then made a vain attempt to obtain a bride from the court of Constantinople.

On his accession, Frederick Barbarossa had communicated the news of his election to Pope Eugene III, but had neglected to ask for papal confirmation.

At the royal tent the king received him, and after kissing the pope's feet, Frederick Barbarossa expected to receive the traditional kiss of peace.

Frederick Barbarossa had declined to hold the Pope's stirrup while leading him to the tent so Adrian refused to give the kiss until this protocol had been complied with.

The Romans began to riot, and Frederick Barbarossa spent his coronation day putting down the revolt, resulting in the deaths of over 1,000 Romans and many more thousands injured.

At Verona, Frederick Barbarossa declared his fury with the rebellious Milanese before finally returning to Germany.

Alexander refused, and Frederick Barbarossa recognised Victor IV as the legitimate pope in 1160.

Louis neared the meeting site, but when he became aware that Frederick Barbarossa had stacked the votes for Alexander, Louis decided not to attend the council.

Frederick Barbarossa severely punished the citizens of Mainz for their rebellion against Archbishop Arnold.

In Frederick Barbarossa's third visit to Italy in 1163, his plans for the conquest of Sicily were ruined by the formation of a powerful league against him, brought together mainly by opposition to imperial taxes.

In 1164 Frederick Barbarossa took what are believed to be the relics of the "Biblical Magi" from the Basilica di Sant'Eustorgio in Milan and gave them as a gift to the Archbishop of Cologne, Rainald of Dassel.

Frederick Barbarossa had no choice other than to begin negotiations for peace with Alexander III and the Lombard League.

Frederick Barbarossa had to humble himself before Alexander III at Venice.

The grounds for a permanent peace were not established until 1183 in the Peace of Constance, when Frederick Barbarossa conceded their right to freely elect town magistrates.

Frederick Barbarossa did not forgive Henry the Lion for refusing to come to his aid in 1176.

Frederick Barbarossa then invaded Saxony with an imperial army to force his cousin to surrender.

Frederick Barbarossa finished his days in Germany, as the much-diminished Duke of Brunswick.

Frederick Barbarossa was faced with the reality of disorder among the German states, where continuous civil wars were waged between pretenders and the ambitious who wanted the crown for themselves.

When Frederick Barbarossa returned to Germany after his defeat in northern Italy, he was a bitter and exhausted man.

Later in 1184, Frederick Barbarossa again moved into Italy, this time joining forces with the local rural nobility to reduce the power of the Tuscan cities.

Frederick Barbarossa expressed support for the crusade but declined to take the cross on the grounds of his ongoing conflict with Archbishop Philip of Cologne.

Bishop of Wurzburg, Godfrey of Spitzenberg, preached a crusade sermon and Frederick Barbarossa asked the assembly whether he should take the cross.

At Mainz Frederick Barbarossa proclaimed a "general expedition against the pagans".

At Strasbourg, Frederick Barbarossa had imposed a small tax on the Jews of Germany to fund the crusade.

Frederick Barbarossa put the Jews under his protection and forbade anyone to preach against the Jews.

Frederick Barbarossa successfully prevented a repeat of the massacres that had accompanied the First Crusade and Second Crusade in Germany.

Frederick Barbarossa sent a large embassy ahead to make preparations in Byzantium.

Frederick Barbarossa's crusade was "the most meticulously planned and organized" up to that time.

Later on, Frederick Barbarossa camped in Philippopolis, then in Adrianople in the autumn of 1189 to avoid winter climate in Anatolia, in the meantime, he received imprisoned German emissaries who were held in Constantinople, and exchanged hostages with Isaac II, as a guarantee that the crusaders do not sack local settlements until they depart the Byzantine territory.

Frederick Barbarossa opted on the local Armenians' advice to follow a shortcut along the Saleph river.

Frederick Barbarossa took Iconium, Philomena, and many other cities, and reached Armenia, where, during great heat, he went into the river, which the natives call the Iron River, to bathe, and therein for our sins was miserably drowned, and so died to the loss of all Christendom.

Frederick Barbarossa's death caused several thousand German soldiers to leave the force and return home through the Cilician and Syrian ports.

The unexpected demise of Frederick Barbarossa left the Crusader army under the command of the rivals Philip II and Richard, who had traveled to Palestine separately by sea, and ultimately led to its dissolution.

Frederick Barbarossa returned home after he signed the Treaty of Ramla agreeing that Jerusalem would remain under Muslim control while allowing unarmed Christian pilgrims and traders to visit the city.

Frederick Barbarossa was the first to use the availability of the new professional class of lawyers.

The institution of the Justinian code was used, perhaps unscrupulously, by Frederick Barbarossa to lay claim to divine powers.

In Germany, Frederick Barbarossa was a political realist, taking what he could and leaving the rest.

Frederick Barbarossa desired to put the pope aside and claim the crown of old Rome simply because he was in the likeness of the great emperors of old, who tended to have a domineering role over the church, Caesaropapism.

Frederick Barbarossa did little to encourage economic development in Germany prior to the autumn of 1165.

Frederick Barbarossa had already travelled to northern Italy, the most economically advanced region in the Empire, three times.

From 1165 on, Frederick Barbarossa pursued economic policies to encourage growth and trade.

Frederick Barbarossa himself established at least twelve royal mints, including those of Aachen, Donauworth, Ulm, Haguenau, Duisburg, Kaiserswerth, Frankfurt, Gelnhausen and Dortmund.

Frederick Barbarossa granted privileges exempting the merchants of Aachen, Gelnhausen, Haguenau, Monza, Rome, Pisa and Venice from all tolls within the Empire.

Otto of Freising, Frederick Barbarossa's uncle, wrote an account of his reign entitled Gesta Friderici I imperatoris, which is considered to be an accurate history of the king.

Frederick Barbarossa's character is such that not even those envious of his power can belittle its praise.

Frederick Barbarossa is shorter than very tall men, but taller and more noble than men of medium height.

Frederick Barbarossa's charisma led to a fantastic juggling act that, over a quarter of a century, restored the imperial authority in the German states.

When Frederick Barbarossa came to the throne, the prospects for the revival of German imperial power were extremely thin.

Frederick Barbarossa is the subject of many legends, including that of a Kyffhauser legend.

Frederick Barbarossa's eyes are half closed in sleep, but now and then he raises his hand and sends a boy out to see if the ravens have stopped flying.

Some sources of this legend indicate that Frederick Barbarossa implemented his revenge for this insult by forcing the magistrates of the city to remove a fig from the anus of a donkey using only their teeth.

Frederick Barbarossa's legend was further reinforced in the early twentieth century, when Adolf Hitler named Nazi Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union after him.

Scholarly evaluations of Frederick Barbarossa began in the nineteenth century, but have been hampered by the unfortunate deaths of key researchers who did not have the chance to complete their works.