King and duke · The Rhineland, the Low Countries and the Swiss Lands · as at first light, 1 January 1200

Philip of Swabia: Staufen and royal lands

Philip is a crowned king with the larger party: most of the bishops of the south and east, the dukes of Bavaria and Saxony, the margrave of Meissen, Bohemia, Thuringia since 1199, Trier and Magdeburg.

His strength is the Staufen house lands and the king's lands, castles and towns, run by unfree but powerful knights (ministeriales): above all in Swabia, where he is also duke and holds the Welf inheritance of Upper Swabia (since 1191) and the Pfullendorf inheritance (since 1180). His weakness is that he is buying support with the king's own lands and rights, that Rome has not recognised him, and that Otto holds Brunswick, Cologne and the Lower Rhine.

Who rules

Name
Philip of Swabia
Title
King of the Romans (elected 8 March 1198, crowned 8 September 1198) and duke of Swabia (invested August or September 1196)
Since
duke 1196; king 1198
Born
February or March 1177, in or near Pavia (aged 22 on 1 January 1200)
Family
Staufen. Youngest son of Frederick Barbarossa and Beatrice of Burgundy; brother of Emperor Henry VI (died 28 September 1197) and of Duke Conrad of Swabia (died 15 August 1196 at Durlach); uncle of Frederick, king of Sicily (born 26 December 1194, a ward of the pope since his mother Constance died in November 1198). His first cousin Agnes of Staufen is the wife of Henry of Brunswick, count palatine of the Rhine and Otto's brother.
Confidence
high

de.wikipedia and en.wikipedia (Philipp von Schwaben); ADB (Winkelmann) and NDB (Hucker) via deutsche-biographie.de.

Overlord

None (a crowned king; the pope claims the right to judge the double election).

What the realm holds

  • The duchy of Swabia: the leadership of the Swabian host, the ducal court and diets, the ducal ministeriales and offices
  • The Staufen house lands: Hohenstaufen castle and the Fils and Rems valleys, Lorch abbey (the house monastery and burial place) and its advocacy, Göppingen, Gmünd, Waiblingen, Schorndorf
  • The king's towns, palaces and castles in Swabia: Ulm, Esslingen, Hall with its salt and mint, Wimpfen palace, Giengen, Bopfingen with Flochberg, Wallerstein, Donauwörth, Durlach and Ettlingen, Weinsberg castle, the Kraichgau allods of the 1188 list (King's lands in Swabia)
  • The Welf inheritance of Upper Swabia and the Lechrain since 1191 (Welf inheritance)
  • The advocacy over the church of Augsburg (Augsburg advocacy)
  • The king's lands in Franconia (fra), the Wetterau (mre), the Palatinate (mrw) and Alsace (France map)

How it was acquired

The Staufen lands by inheritance from Barbarossa (died 1190) and Henry VI; the duchy on Conrad's death in 1196; the crown by election in March 1198 and coronation in September 1198. The Welf inheritance passed to the Staufen when Welf VI died at Memmingen on 15 December 1191, under the sale of 1178-1179 to Barbarossa. The Pfullendorf inheritance came by Count Rudolf of Pfullendorf's bequest to Barbarossa (about 1180).

Allies and rivals

Allies: Louis I of Bavaria, Bernhard of Saxony and Dietrich of Meissen (the closest), Ottokar I of Bohemia, Hermann of Thuringia (since summer 1199), the archbishops of Magdeburg, Trier and Salzburg, the bishops of Worms, Speyer, Würzburg, Bamberg, Passau, Konstanz, Basel and Halberstadt (campaign notes), Philip Augustus of France, and in Swabia the margraves of Baden and Ronsberg, the counts of Dillingen, Helfenstein, Württemberg, Zollern and Oettingen (see the lord records, with their confidence). In the south-west, Berthold V of Zähringen withdrew his own candidacy in 1198 and is at peace with Philip (the swi researcher's record); Duke Conrad had died in 1196 campaigning against him. Rivals: Otto IV and his brothers Henry (count palatine) and William; Archbishop Adolf of Cologne; the bishops of Paderborn and Minden; King John of England, Otto's uncle.

Mediator: Conrad of Mainz.

The realm that morning

On 1 January 1200 Philip is undisputed master of Swabia, Bavaria's ally, and holds the Upper Rhine since the Welf party there was crushed in 1198 and the bishop of Strasbourg submitted in summer 1199 (ADB). He spent Christmas at Magdeburg, in Saxony, close to Otto's base at Brunswick. In Swabia no lord is known to back Otto; the only Welf-held ground in the area is Pforzheim, held by Otto's brother Henry the count palatine through his Staufen wife (see Pforzheim).

Wealth

The salt of Hall and its mint (the Hall pfennig, the later Heller, named in an altered charter of 1189; early 13th-century coins survive in quantity); the markets, tolls and bridges of Ulm (Danube bridge from 1174), Esslingen (Neckar crossing and wine), Donauwörth (Danube crossing), Memmingen and Kaufbeuren (salt road), Schongau and Füssen (the Lech and the road to Italy), Ravensburg; the house lands of the Fils, Rems and Kraichgau; the advocacies of Lorch, Weingarten, Steingaden, Füssen and Augsburg; the forests of the Schurwald and the Welzheim forest (not pinned in detail).

Military

The host of the duchy of Swabia, the king's ministeriales (Kalden, Waldburg, Rechberg, Schüpf, Weinsberg in this area; Bolanden and Münzenberg elsewhere) and the castles they keep, the Swabian counts, and allied princes' contingents. Record: the Upper Rhine campaign of 1198; a devastating raid into the archbishop of Cologne's lands in September 1199 that Otto did not dare to meet (ADB). No figures in the sources used.

Threats

  • Innocent III's decision for Otto, ripening during 1200 and made public in 1201
  • Otto and Cologne holding the Lower Rhine, with English money behind them
  • The cost of buying princes with royal lands and towns (Nordhausen and Mühlhausen to Thuringia in 1199)
  • The death of Conrad of Mainz, which will split Mainz between the parties
  • His own oath of 1196 to the boy Frederick, which Rome uses against his election
  • Conrad of Querfurt's excommunication and the double see of Würzburg and Hildesheim

Consort

Irene (renamed Maria at her wedding), daughter of the Byzantine emperor Isaac II Angelos and widow of Roger III of Sicily. Taken prisoner by Henry VI in Sicily in 1194, betrothed to Philip in April 1195, married probably at Pentecost (25 May) 1197 at the Gunzenle hill near Augsburg. Whether she was crowned with Philip at Mainz is uncertain. She is with him at Magdeburg this Christmas: Walther von der Vogelweide's poem on the Christmas procession praises her.

Children

Born by 1 January 1200: Beatrice (born April to June 1198; about 18 months old). Maria is born in 1199 or 1200: not pinned whether she is born yet. Not yet born: Kunigunde (February or March 1202), Elisabeth, called Beatrice the younger (1205). Sons named Reinald and Frederick in some sources, buried at Lorch, lack contemporary evidence.

Officers

Chancellor: Conrad of Querfurt, bishop of Würzburg, who also keeps Hildesheim and is excommunicated for it (campaign notes; the fra researcher writes him). Imperial court marshal (Reichshofmarschall): Henry of Kalden, in office since 1191, Philip's field commander in 1199 and named in more than 30 of his charters. Steward (Truchsess): Henry of Waldburg, steward since 1183 and imperial steward from 1198; his brother Frederick, also steward, died in 1198 at Viterbo.

Cupbearer (Schenk): the Schenken of Schüpf, Walter being attested 1200-1218. Marshal of the duchy of Swabia: Ulrich of Rechberg (attested 1179-1205), castellan on the Hohenstaufen. Chamberlain: the Münzenberg house of the Wetterau (mre's record). Churchmen often at court: Bishop Lupold of Worms (a close confidant), Hartwig of Eichstätt, Conrad IV of Regensburg, Diethelm of Konstanz (campaign notes), and later Conrad of Speyer.

The chancellery carries on Henry VI's staff.

Court winter 1199

Christmas 1199 at Magdeburg, a splendid court close to Otto's base at Brunswick, hosted by Archbishop Ludolf, with Saxon and Thuringian lords. Duke Bernhard of Saxony carried the king's sword in the procession; Walther von der Vogelweide was present and wrote of it. Where Philip is on 1 January itself is not pinned beyond the Magdeburg court; no dated act survives for January to spring 1200 (ADB).

Treaties

Alliance with Philip II Augustus of France, made at Worms about 29 June 1198, two days after Philip's first surviving royal charter (27 June 1198). Ottokar I of Bohemia took the royal title in 1198 as the price of his support. Landgrave Hermann of Thuringia was won over in summer 1199 by the grant of Nordhausen, Mühlhausen and other royal places (ADB). After Archbishop Conrad of Mainz's proposal of a princes' arbitration was rejected in autumn 1199, a truce was agreed for the Rhineland (ADB; its term is not pinned).

The princes' declaration of Speyer (28 May 1199) claimed 4 archbishops, 23 bishops, 4 abbots and 18 lay princes for Philip and told the pope to keep out of the election. Philip's daughters are not yet promised to anyone (the first betrothals are of 1203).

Relations with rome

Pope Celestine III had excommunicated Philip over his rule as margrave of Tuscany (1195-1196). After Henry VI's death the bishop of Sutri was sent to secure the release of Sicilian captives and absolved Philip, but Innocent III held that he had exceeded his powers and shut him away for life (ADB), so Rome's view of Philip's ban is open. A mission of the Strasbourg provost Frederick to the pope in 1199 failed. Innocent has not yet decided between the kings; he leans to Otto, wants the right to judge, and wants Sicily kept apart from the Empire.

His written weighing of the candidates comes at the turn of 1200 and 1201, and the ban on Philip and recognition of Otto in 1201.

Coinage

No single royal coin: in Swabia the king's mint at Hall strikes the Hall pfennig (the later Heller; named in an altered charter of 1189, plentiful from the early 13th century); bishops' and lords' mints (Augsburg, Konstanz, the Ulm advocates later) strike their own pfennigs. Details for 1200 are not pinned.

The host

The duke of Swabia leads the Swabian host; the king's ministeriales and the castles they keep are the backbone; allied princes bring their own men. No figures in the sources used.

What the year holds

What happened next, if nothing in play changes it. Each event carries what it depends on and what would stop it.

  1. 3 March 1200Otto of Henneberg, bishop of Speyer, dies (campaign notes); Speyer stays a Staufen see under his successor Conrad (of Scharfenberg, from general reference knowledge), whom de.wikipedia names as the most prominent of the bishops at Philip's court.Depends on: Natural death; the chapter electing a Staufen man. Stopped by: Play that changes the old bishop's circumstances, or a Welf intervention in the election.
  2. 8 April 1200Adalbert III of Salzburg dies (campaign notes); Eberhard of Brixen succeeds and appears as archbishop in Philip's charter of 14 September 1201.Depends on: Natural death and a Staufen-minded election. Stopped by: Papal or Welf interference in the election.
  3. 1200 (not pinned)Court day at Speyer, attended among others by Margrave Gottfried of Ronsberg.Depends on: Philip on the Upper Rhine. Stopped by: War elsewhere.
  4. August 1200 (the attack fails on 21 August)Philip's great campaign against Brunswick fails completely (ADB).Depends on: Philip raising the Swabian, Bavarian and Saxon princes for a summer campaign in Saxony; Henry the count palatine and Otto holding Brunswick. Stopped by: A truce, a different target, or the princes refusing service.
  5. 20 October 1200 (ADB) or 25 or 27 October (campaign notes)Conrad of Mainz dies; Philip has Bishop Lupold of Worms elected, a minority elects Siegfried of Eppstein, who takes Mainz with Otto's help after Philip leaves (ADB).Depends on: Natural death of the old archbishop; a split chapter. Stopped by: Conrad's survival or an agreed candidate.
  6. Turn of 1200 and 1201Innocent III weighs the candidates in writing and decides for Otto; the ban on Philip and recognition of Otto follow in 1201 (1 March 1201 in the ADB; the legate proclaims Otto at Cologne on 3 July 1201).Depends on: Otto's promises on Sicily and the Papal State; Philip's refusal to accept papal judgement. Stopped by: A Staufen offer the pope can accept, or a truce between the kings.

Places of note

  • Hohenstaufen castle: The house's namesake castle, kept for the duke by Ulrich of Rechberg.
  • Lorch abbey: The Staufen house monastery and burial place (Duke Conrad buried there in 1196).
  • Ulm palace: The king's palace town, centre of the duchy's diets.
  • Wimpfen palace: The great Staufen palace on the Neckar, built 1160-1170 on the bishop of Worms' ground.

Where the sources disagree

  • Strasbourg (campaign notes Part 11, ruling 10, and Part 9, which lists Strasbourg as Welf in 1198): the ADB article on Philip (Winkelmann) says the bishop of Strasbourg was brought to submission by Philip in summer 1199, so the see is on Philip's side by 1 January 1200 unless the campaign rules otherwise. Source: https://www.deutsche-biographie.de/sfz74515.html
  • Conrad of Mainz's death: the ADB gives 20 October 1200; the campaign notes give 25 or 27 October 1200.
  • The Speyer declaration: the ADB dates it 28 May 1200 by inference; modern accounts (de.wikipedia, campaign notes) date it 28 May 1199.
  • The chancellor: the NDB names Conrad of Querfurt as chancellor only for 1201-1202; the campaign notes make him chancellor already, which this record follows.
  • Philip's own ban: the campaign notes do not mention it. Celestine III's excommunication over Tuscany was lifted by the bishop of Sutri, whose absolution Innocent III repudiated (ADB): the campaign may want to rule whether Rome counts Philip as excommunicated on 1 January 1200.

Evidence: The king's movements, officers and treaties are well recorded for 1198-1199; nothing is dated for January to spring 1200. The children's birth dates are from en.wikipedia and are approximate.

On the map: The realm is drawn through its lord records: King's lands in Swabia, Welf inheritance, the ministeriales' records, and the counts who back Philip; the realm id colours the king's own ground only.

Primary sources for this realm

Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.

19 more in the sources library for The Rhineland, the Low Countries and the Swiss Lands.

Sources and studies

  1. Philipp von Schwaben (de.wikipedia)
  2. Philip of Swabia (en.wikipedia)
  3. Philipp von Schwaben, ADB and NDB (deutsche-biographie.de)
  4. Deutscher Thronstreit (de.wikipedia)
  5. Waldburg (Adelsgeschlecht) (de.wikipedia)
  6. Heinrich von Kalden (de.wikipedia)
  7. Otto IV., ADB (Winkelmann) and NDB, Deutsche Biographie

Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.