The House of Hohenstaufen.
Under the Swabian emperors of the house of Hohenstaufen (1138–1254) the Roman empire
reached its highest power in connection with the Crusades, in the palmy days of mediaeval chivalry,
poetry and song. They excelled in personal greatness and renown the Saxon and the Salic emperors,
but were too much concerned with Italian affairs for the good of Germany. Frederick Barbarossa
(Redbeard), during his long reign (1152–1190), was a worthy successor of Charlemagne and Otho
the Great. He subdued Northern Italy, quarrelled with pope Alexander III., enthroned two rival
popes (Paschal III., and after his death Calixtus III.), but ultimately submitted to Alexander, fell at
his feet at Venice, and was embraced by the pope with tears of joy and the kiss of peace (1177).
He died at the head of an army of crusaders, while attempting to cross the Cydnus in Cilicia (June
10, 1190), and entered upon his long enchanted sleep in Kyffhäuser till his spirit reappeared to
establish a new German empire in 1871.^257
Under Innocent III. (1198–1216) the papacy reached the acme of its power, and maintained
it till the time of Boniface VIII. (1294–1303). Emperor Frederick II. (1215–1250), Barbarossa’s
grandson, was equal to the best of his predecessors in genius and energy, superior to them in culture,
but more an Italian than a German, and a skeptic on the subject of religion. He reconquered Jerusalem
in the fifth crusade, but cared little for the church, and was put under the ban by pope Gregory IX.,
who denounced him as a heretic and blasphemer, and compared him to the Apocalyptic beast from
the abyss.^258 The news of his sudden death was hailed by pope Innocent IV. with the exclamation:
"Let the heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad." His death was the collapse of the house of
Hohenstaufen, and for a time also of the Roman empire. His son and successor Conrad IV. ruled
but a few years, and his grandson Conradin, a bright and innocent youth of sixteen, was opposed
by the pope, and beheaded at Naples in sight of his hereditary kingdom (October 29, 1268).
Italy was at once the paradise and the grave of German ambition.
The German Empire.
After "the great interregnum" when might was right,^259 the Swiss count Rudolf of Hapsburg
(a castle in the Swiss canton of Aargau) was elected emperor by the seven electors, and crowned
at Aachen (1273–1291). He restored peace and order, never visited Italy, escaped the ruinous
quarrels with the pope, built up a German kingdom, and laid the foundation of the conservative,
orthodox, tenacious, and selfish house of Austria.
(^257) Friedrich Rückert has reproduced this significant German legend in a poem beginning:
Der alte Barbarossa,
Der Kaiser Friederich,
Im unterird’schen Schlosse
Hält er verzaubert sich.
Er ist niemals gestorben,
Er lebt darin noch jetzt;
Er hat im Schloss verborgen
Zum Schlaf sich hingesetzt.
Er hat hinabgenommen
Des Reiches Herrlichkeit,
Und wird einst wiederkommen
Mit ihr zu seiner Zeit,"etc.
(^258) He alone, of all the emperors, is consigned to hell by Dante (Inferno, x. 119):
"Within here is the second Frederick."
(^259) Schiller calls it "die kaiserlose, die schreckliche Zeit."