Frederick Barbarossa

Frederick I Barbarossa (1122–1190), of the Hohenstaufen family, was Holy Roman Emperor from 1155 until his death. The son of Duke Frederick II of Swabia and Judith, a Welf, he succeeded his father as duke of Swabia and in 1152 was elected king.

Six expeditions took him into Italy. He was crowned emperor in 1155, married Beatrice of Burgundy in 1156 and destroyed much of Milan in 1162. Backing antipopes brought him to the Lombard League, which beat him at Legnano in 1176, where he was wounded and thought dead; he made peace at Venice in 1177.

In 1180 he had his cousin Henry the Lion stripped of his lands. He took the cross in 1188 and led an army into Anatolia, where he drowned in the Saleph River on 10 June 1190. His body was divided among Antioch, Tyre and Tarsus, and his son Henry VI succeeded him.