Frederick II HOHENSTAUFEN Holy Roman Emperor

   Another name for Frederick was Kaiser Friedrich II HOHENSTAUFEN Des Heiligen Römischen Reich König Von Szilien.²²⁹¹

   FamilySearch ID: <a HREF="https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/LD7M-NZ3">LD7M-NZ3</a>
Find A Grave ID: <a HREF="https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/13565904">13565904</a>

  General Notes:

Frederick II (26 December 1194 \endash 13 December 1250) was King of Sicily from 1198, King of Germany from 1212, King of Italy and Holy Roman Emperor from 1220, and King of Jerusalem from 1225 to 1228. He was the son of Emperor Henry VI, of the Hohenstaufen dynasty (the second son of Emperor Frederick Barbarossa), and Queen Constance I of Sicily, of the Hauteville dynasty.

Frederick is considered to be one of the most brilliant and powerful figures of the Middle Ages and ruled a vast area, extending from Sicily in the south and stretching through Italy all the way north to Germany. Viewing himself as a direct successor to the Roman emperors of antiquity, he was Emperor of the Romans from his papal coronation in 1220 until his death and also a claimant to the title of King of the Romans from 1212 and unopposed holder of that dignity from 1215. As such, he was King of Germany, Italy, and Burgundy. At the age of three, he was crowned King of Sicily as co-ruler with his mother, Constance, Queen of Sicily, the daughter of Roger II of Sicily. His other royal title was King of Jerusalem by virtue of marriage and his connection with the Sixth Crusade. Frequently at war with the papacy, which was hemmed in between Frederick's lands in northern Italy and his Kingdom of Sicily (the Regno) to the south, he was "excommunicated four times between 1227 and his own death in 1250" and was often vilified in pro-papal chronicles of the time and after. Pope Innocent IV went so far as to declare him preambulus Antichristi (forerunner of the Antichrist).

For his many-sided activities, dynamic personality and talents, Frederick II has been called the greatest of all the German emperors, perhaps even of all medieval rulers. In the Kingdom of Sicily and much of Italy, Frederick built upon the work of his Norman predecessors and forged an early absolutist state bound together by an efficient secular bureaucracy. He was known by the appellation Stupor mundi ('Wonder of the World') and maintains a reputation as a Renaissance man avant la lettre and polymath: a visionary statesman, an inspired naturalist, scholar, mathematician, architect, poet and composer.

Frederick also reportedly spoke six languages: Latin, Sicilian, Middle High German, Old French, Greek, and Arabic. As an avid patron of science and the arts, he played a major role in promoting literature through the Sicilian School of poetry. His Sicilian Imperial-royal court in Palermo, beginning around 1220, was the cultural and intellectual hub of the early 13th century and saw the first use of a literary form of an Italo-Romance language, Sicilian. The poetry that emanated from the school had a significant influence on literature and on what was to become the modern Italian language. He was also the first monarch to formally outlaw trial by ordeal, which had come to be viewed as superstitious.

Though Frederick's line was still in a strong position at the time of his death, it did not survive for long, and the House of Hohenstaufen came to an end. Furthermore, the Holy Roman Empire entered a long period of decline during the Great Interregnum. His complex political and cultural legacy has continued to attract fierce debate and fascination to this day.

  Noted events in his life were:

1. Clan: Hohenstaufen dynasty,,. The Hohenstaufen dynasty, also known as the Staufer, was a noble family of German origin that rose to rule the Duchy of Swabia from 1079, and to royal rule in the Holy Roman Empire during the Middle Ages from 1138 until 1254. The dynasty's most prominent rulers \endash Frederick I (1155), Henry VI (1191) and Frederick II (1220) \endash ascended the imperial throne and also reigned over Italy and Burgundy. The non-contemporary name of 'Hohenstaufen' is derived from the family's Hohenstaufen Castle on Hohenstaufen mountain at the northern fringes of the Swabian Jura, near the town of Göppingen. Under Hohenstaufen rule, the Holy Roman Empire reached its greatest territorial extent from 1155 to 1268. This event was shared with Agnes VON HOHENSTAUFEN (1237-1237), Heinrich Jordan HOHENSTAUFEN (1236-1236), Henry Charles Otto HOHENSTAUFEN (1238-1253), and Margaret HOHENSTAUFEN of Sicily (1241-1270).

Frederick married Isabelle PLANTAGENET of England, daughter of John PLANTAGENET King of England and Isabella TAILLEFER of Angoulême, on 20 July 1235 in Worms, Rheinhessen, Hesse, Germany.²²⁹¹ (Isabelle PLANTAGENET of England was born in 1214 in Winchester, , Hampshire, England,²¹⁶² died on 1 December 1241 in Foggia, Foggia, Apulia, Italy ²¹⁶² and was buried in December 1241 in Andria, Barletta-Andria-Trani, Apulia, Italy ²¹⁶².)