Frederick I Barbarossa (1122 – 10 June 1190) was a German Holy Roman Emperor. He was elected King of Germany at Frankfurt on 4 March 1152 and crowned in Aachen on 9 March, crowned King of Italy in Pavia in 1155, and finally crowned Roman Emperor by Pope Adrian IV, on 18 June 1155, and two years later in 1157 the term "sacrum" (i.e. "holy") first appeared in a document in connection with his Empire. He was then also formally crowned King of Burgundy at Arles on 30 June 1178. The name Barbarossa came from the northern Italian cities he attempted to rule, and means "red beard" in Italian – a mark of both their fear and respect.
Before his royal election, he was by inheritance Duke of Swabia (1147–1152, as Frederick III). He was the son of Duke Frederick II of the Hohenstaufen dynasty. His mother was Judith, daughter of Henry IX, Duke of Bavaria, from the rival House of Welf, and Frederick therefore descended from Germany's two leading families, making him an acceptable choice for the Empire's prince-electors.
First Italian Campaign: 1154-55
Frederick undertook six expeditions into Italy. In the first, beginning in October 1154 his plan was to launch a campaign against the Normans under King William I of Sicily. He marched down and almost immediately began encountering resistance to his authority. Obtaining the submission of Milan, he successfully besieged Tortona in early 1155, razing it to the ground before moving to Pavia where he received the Iron Crown, and with it, the title of King of Italy. Moving through Bologna and Tuscany, he was soon approaching the city of Rome. There, Pope Adrian IV was struggling with the forces of the republican city commune led by Arnold of Brescia, a student of Abelard. As a sign of good faith, Frederick dismissed the ambassadors from the revived Roman Senate, and Imperial forces suppressed the republicans. Arnold was captured and hanged for treason and rebellion. Despite his unorthodox teaching concerning theology, Arnold was not charged with heresy.As Frederick approached the gates of Rome, the Pope advanced to meet him. At the royal tent the king received him, and after kissing the pope’s feet, Frederick expected to receive the traditional kiss of peace. But Frederick had forgotten to hold the Pope’s stirrup while leading him to the tent, and so Adrian refused to give the kiss until this protocol had been complied with. Frederick hesitated, and Adrian IV withdrew, and after a day’s negotiation, Frederick agreed to perform the required ritual. Rome was still in an uproar over the fate of Arnold of Brescia, so rather than marching through the streets of Rome, Frederick and Adrian retired to the Vatican.
The next day, June 18, 1155, Adrian IV crowned Frederick I Holy Roman Emperor at St Peters Basilica, amidst the acclamations of the German army. The Romans began to riot, and Frederick spent his coronation day putting down the revolt, resulting in the deaths of over 1,000 Romans, and many more thousands injured. The next day, Frederick, Adrian and the German army travelled to Tivoli. From there, a combination of the unhealthy Italian summer and the effects of his year long absence from Germany meant he was forced to put off his planned campaign against the Normans of Sicily. On their way northwards, they attacked Spoleto, encountered the ambassadors of Manuel I Comnenus, who showered Frederick with costly gifts, and at Verona, Frederick declared his fury with the rebellious Milanese before finally returning to Germany.
Disorder was again rampant in Germany, especially in Bavaria, but general peace was restored by Frederick's vigorous, but conciliatory, measures. The duchy of Bavaria was transferred from Henry II Jasomirgott, margrave of Austria, to Frederick's formidable younger cousin Henry the Lion, Duke of Saxony, of the House of Guelph, whose father had previously held both duchies. Henry II Jasomirgott was named duke of Austria in compensation for his loss of Bavaria. As part of his general policy of concessions of formal power to the German princes and ending the civil wars within the kingdom, Frederick further appeased Henry by issuing him with the Privilegium Minus, granting him unprecedented entitlements as Duke of Austria. This was a large concession on the part of Frederick, who realized that Henry the Lion had to be accommodated, even to the point of sharing some power with him. He could not afford to make an outright enemy of Henry.
On 9 June 1156 at Würzburg, Frederick married Beatrice of Burgundy, daughter and heiress of Renaud III, thus adding to his possessions the sizeable realm of the County of Burgundy. In an attempt to create comity, Emperor Frederick proclaimed the Peace of the Land, written between 1152–1157, which enacted punishments for a variety of crimes, as well as systems for adjudicating many disputes. He also declared himself the sole Augustus of the Roman world, ceasing to recognise Manuel I at Constantinople.
Second, Third and Fourth Italian Campaigns: 1158-1174
The retreat of Frederick in 1155 forced Pope Adrian IV to come to terms with King William I of Sicily, granting to William I territories that Frederick viewed as his dominion.This aggravated Frederick, and he was further displeased when Papal Legates chose to interpret a letter from Adrian to Frederick in a manner that seemed to imply that the imperial crown was a gift from the Papacy and that in fact the empire itself was a fief of the Papacy. Disgusted with the pope, and still wishing to crush the Normans in the south of Italy, in June 1158, Frederick set out upon his second Italian expedition, accompanied by Henry the Lion and his Saxon troops. This expedition resulted in the revolt and capture of Milan, the Diet of Roncaglia that saw the establishment of imperial officers in the cities of northern Italy, and the beginning of the long struggle with Pope Alexander III.Pope Adrian IV’s death in 1159 saw the election of two rival popes; Alexander III and the antipope Victor IV. Both sought Frederick’s support, Frederick, busy with the siege of Crema, appeared unsupportive of Alexander III, and after the sacking of Crema demanded that Alexander appear before the emperor at Pavia and to accept the imperial decree. Alexander refused, and Frederick recognised Victor IV as the legitimate Pope in 1160. In response, Alexander III excommunicated both Frederick I and Victor IV.
Frederick attempted to convoke a joint council with King Louis VII of France in 1162 to decide the issue of who should be pope. Louis came near the meeting site but, when he became aware that Frederick had stacked the votes for Alexander, Louis decided not to attend the council. As a result the issue was not resolved at that time.
The political result of the struggle with Pope Alexander was that the Norman state of Sicily and Pope Alexander III formed an alliance against Frederick. In the meantime, Frederick had to deal with another rebellion at Milan, which saw the city surrender on March 6, 1162, and much of it destroyed three weeks later on the emperor’s orders. The fate of Milan saw the submission of Brescia and Placentia and many other northern Italian cities. Returning to Germany towards the close of 1162, Frederick prevented the escalation of conflicts between Henry the Lion from Saxony and a number of neighbouring princes who were growing weary of Henry's power, influence and territorial gains. He also severely punished the citizens of Mainz for their rebellion against Archbishop Arnold. The third visit to Italy in 1163 saw his plans for the conquest of Sicily ruined by the formation of a powerful league against him, brought together mainly by opposition to imperial taxes.
In 1164 Frederick took what are believed to be the relics of the "Biblical Magi" (the Wise Men or Three Kings) from Milan and gave them as a gift (or as loot) to the Archbishop of Cologne, Rainald of Dassel. The relics had great religious significance and could be counted upon to draw pilgrims from all over Christendom. Today they are kept in the Shrine of the Three Kings in the Cologne cathedral. The death of the antipope Victor IV saw Frederick give his support to a new antipope, Paschal III, but he was soon driven from Rome which once again saw the return of Pope Alexander III in 1165.
Frederick in the meantime was focused on restoring peace in the Rhineland, where he organized a magnificent celebration of the canonization of Charles the Great (Charlemagne) at Aachen, done under the authority of the antipope Paschal III. Concerned over rumours that Alexander III was about to enter into an alliance with the Byzantine Emperor Manuel II, in October 1166, he embarked on his fourth Italian campaign, hoping as well to secure the claim of Paschal III, and the coronation of his wife Beatrice as Holy Roman Empress. This time, Henry the Lion refused to join Frederick on his Italian trip, tending instead to his own disputes with neighbors and his continuing expansion into Slavic territories in northeastern Germany. He began besieging Ancona in 1167, which had acknowledged the authority of Manuel II; at the same time, Frederick's forces achieved a great victory over the Romans at the Battle of Monte Porzio. Heartened by this victory, he lifted the siege of Ancona and hurried to Rome where he not only had his wife crowned empress, but he also received a second coronation at the hands of Paschal III. Unfortunately, his campaign was stopped by the sudden outbreak of an epidemic (malaria or the plague), which threatened to destroy the Imperial army and drove the emperor as a fugitive to Germany, where he remained for the ensuing six years. During this period, Frederick decided conflicting claims to various bishoprics, asserted imperial authority over Bohemia, Poland, and Hungary, initiated friendly relations with the Byzantine emperor Manuel I Comnenus, and tried to come to a better understanding with Henry II of England and Louis VII of France. Many Swabian counts, including his cousin the young Duke of Swabia, Frederick IV, died in 1167, so he was able to organize a new mighty territory in the Duchy of Swabia under his reign in this time. Consequently, his younger son Frederick V became the new Duke of Swabia in 1167, while his eldest son Henry was crowned King of the Romans in 1169, alongside his father who also retained the title.
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