Frederick Barbarossa
c. 1122 — June 10, 1190 — Holy Roman Empire
Frederick Barbarossa — "Barbarossa" being Italian for "Red Beard" — was one of the most powerful rulers of medieval Europe. As Holy Roman Emperor from 1155, he reunited the fragmented German kingdom, clashed repeatedly with popes over the authority of church versus state, and led military campaigns in Italy and the Holy Land. His drowning death while leading the Third Crusade shocked Christendom and became one of the great tragedies of the crusading era.
Rise to Power
Frederick was born around 1122, the son of Frederick II, Duke of Swabia, from the Hohenstaufen dynasty, and Judith, daughter of Henry the Black from the rival Welf dynasty. This dual descent made him a compromise candidate when German princes elected him king in 1152. He was crowned Holy Roman Emperor by Pope Adrian IV in Rome in 1155 — becoming, at roughly thirty, ruler of the largest and most powerful realm in Western Europe. His court at Hagenau became a center of poetry and courtly culture; he himself embodied the ideals of medieval kingship, combining personal bravery in battle with diplomatic skill and genuine administrative ability.
The Italian Campaigns and Papal Conflict
The central struggles of Barbarossa's reign were in Italy, where the prosperous cities of Lombardy — Milan chief among them — resisted imperial authority, and in his long conflict with Pope Alexander III, who refused to recognize him and allied with the Lombard League against him. Frederick led six military expeditions into Italy. He destroyed Milan in 1162 but was decisively defeated by the Lombard League at the Battle of Legnano in 1176 — one of the key medieval battles demonstrating that infantry and civic militias could defeat armored knights. He made peace with Alexander and the Italian cities at the Peace of Constance (1183), acknowledging their self-governance while retaining nominal suzerainty. Within Germany he suppressed the powerful Henry the Lion and reshaped the political landscape of the German principalities.
Did You Know?
German legend holds that Barbarossa is not truly dead but asleep beneath the Kyffhäuser mountain in Thuringia, where ravens keep watch. When Germany faces its darkest need, he will wake and lead the country to glory. This legend was so potent that Kaiser Wilhelm I, when founding the German Empire in 1871, chose to be identified with it — and a massive monument at Kyffhäuser depicts the old emperor rising beneath the new one.
Death on Crusade
In 1189, at nearly seventy, Barbarossa led what was arguably the largest crusading army yet assembled — estimates range from 30,000 to 100,000 men — toward the Holy Land in response to Saladin's capture of Jerusalem. The march through the Balkans and Anatolia was grueling. On June 10, 1190, while crossing a river — the Saleph, in what is now southern Turkey — Barbarossa drowned. Accounts disagree on whether he was fording in full armor, fell from a bridge, or his horse threw him. The news devastated the crusading army, which largely disintegrated; without his forces, the Third Crusade achieved only limited results.