ERNEST F. HENDERSON


Frederick, Duke of Swabia, and his brother Conrad, Duke of
the Franks, grandsons of Henry IV, were the hereditary and
dynastic successors to the throne of Germany, when with the
death of Henry V in 1125 the male line of the Franconian
dynasty ended. The brothers demanded the assertion of the
elective right in the imperial office, and Lothair, Duke of
Saxony, was elected emperor of Germany.

Lothair died in 1138. His son-in-law, the Wolf or Welf
nobleman, Henry the Proud, Duke of Bavaria, whom Lothair had
nominated as his successor, was opposed by the Swabian
faction--also known as the Waiblingen faction--from the
Franconian village in which the Swabian duke Frederick was
born.

The Waiblingen faction elected as emperor of Germany Conrad
the Crusader, in whom began the Hohenstaufen dynasty, so
named from the Swabian family seat on the lofty Staufen hill
rising from the Rems River.

From this event dates the strife of the Welfs and
Waiblingens, who in Italy became known as Guelfs and
Ghibellines. The chief opponents in the long strife that
ensued were the Guelf dukes, Henry the Proud and Henry the
Lion, and the Ghibelline emperor Frederick Barbarossa.

Frederick Barbarossa (Redbeard) succeeded his father Conrad