General Notes

Baron of Würzburg 1191, Duke of Spoleto 1195, Duke of Swabia 1196..
     Murdered by Otto Wittelsbach at Bramburg.

Baron of Würzburg 1191, Duke of Spoleto 1195, Duke of Swabia 1196..

Philip of Swabia (1177-1208), German king and duke of Swabia, the rivalof the emperor Otto IV, was the fifth and youngest son of the emperorFrederick I and Beatrix, daughter of Renaud III, count of Upper Burgundy,and consequently brother of the emperor Henry VI. He entered the church,was made provost of Aix-la-Chapelle, and in 1190 or 1191 was chosenbishop of Wurzburg. Having accompanied his brother Henry to Italy in1191, Philip forsook his ecclesiastical calling, and, travelling again toItaly, was made duke of Tuscany in 1195 and received an extensive grantof lands. In 1196 he became duke of Swabia, on the death of his brotherConrad; and in May 1197 he married Irene, daughter of the easternemperor, Isaac II, and widow of Roger III, Titular King of Sicily, a ladywho is described by Walther von der Vogelweide as " the rose without athorn, the dove without guile."

Philip enjoyed his brother's confidence to a very great extent, andappears to have been designated as guardian of the young Frederick,afterwards the emperor Frederick II, in case of his father's early death.In 1197 he had set out to fetch Frederick from Sicily for his coronationwhen he heard of the emperor's death and returned at once to Germany. Heappears to have desired to protect the interests of his nephew and toquell the disorder which arose on Henry's death, but events were toostrong for him. The hostility to the kingship of a child was growing, andafter Philip had been chosen as defender of the empire during Frederick'sminority he consented to his own election. He was elected German king atMuhlhausen on March 8, 1198, and crowned at Mainz on the September 8following.

Meanwhile a number of princes hostile to Philip, under the leadership ofAdolph, archbishop of Cologne, had elected an anti-king in the person ofOtto, second son of Henry the Lion, duke of Saxony. In the war thatfollowed, Philip, who drew his principal support from south Germany, metwith considerable success. In 1199 he received further accessions to hisparty and carried the war into his opponent's territory, although unableto obtain the support of Pope Innocent III, and only feebly assisted byhis ally Philip Augustus, king of France. The following year was lessfavourable to his arms; and in March 1201 Innocent took the decisive stepof placing Philip and his associates under the ban, and began to workenergetically in favour of Otto.

Also in 1201, Philip was visited by his cousin Boniface of Montferrat,the leader of the Fourth Crusade. The Crusaders were by this time underVenetian control and were besieging Zara on the Adriatic Sea. AlthoughBoniface's exact reasons for meeting with Philip are unknown, while atPhilip's court he also met Alexius Angelus, Philip's brother-in-law.Alexius convinced Boniface, and later the Venetians, to divert theCrusade to Constantinople and restore Isaac II to the throne, as he hadrecently been deposed by Alexius III, Alexius and Irene's uncle.

The two succeeding years were still more unfavourable to Philip. Otto,aided by Ottokar I, king of Bohemia, and Hermann I, landgrave ofThuringia, drove him from north Germany, thus compelling him to seek byabject concessions, but without success, reconciliation with Innocent.The submission to Philip of Hermann of Thuringia in 1204 marks theturning-point of his fortunes, and he was soon joined by Adolph ofCologne and Henry I, Duke of Brabant.

On January 6, 1205 he was crowned again with great ceremony by Adolph atAix-la-Chapelle, though it was not till 1207 that his entry into Colognepractically brought the war to a close. A month or two later Philip wasloosed from the papal ban, and in March 1208 it seems probable that atreaty was concluded by which a nephew of the pope was to marry one ofPhilip's daughters and to receive the disputed dukedom of Tuscany. Philipwas preparing to crush the last flicker of the rebellion in Brunswickwhen he was murdered at Bamberg, on June 21, 1208, by Otto ofWittelsbach, count palatine in Bavaria, to whom he had refused the handof one of his daughters. He left no sons, but four daughters; one ofwhom, Beatrix, afterwards married his rival, the emperor Otto IV. Philipwas a brave and handsome man, and contemporary writers, among whom wasWalther von der Vogelweide, praise his mildness and generosity.

See W. von Giesebrecht, Geschichte der deutschen Kaiserzeit, Bd. V.(Leipzig, 1888); E. Winkelmann, Philipp von Schwaben und Otto IV. vonBraunschweig (Leipzig, 1873-1878); O. Abel, Konig Philipp derHohenstaufen (Berlin, 1852); Regesta imperil. V., edited by J. Picker(Innsbruck, 1881); R. Schwemer, Innocenz III und die deutsche Kirchewahrend des Thronstreites von 1198-1208 (Strassburg, 1882); and R. Riant,Innocent III, Philippe de Souabe, et Boniface de Montferrat (Paris,1875).

This text is originally from the 1911 Britannica.