"Barbarossa city" (german: Barbarossastadt) is a nickname for

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) ** Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...

cities that the

Staufer The Hohenstaufen dynasty (, , ), also known as the Staufer, was a noble family of unclear 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 ...

Emperor Frederick Barbarossa stayed in or near for some time. The cities usually mentioned include

Sinzig Sinzig is a town in the district of Ahrweiler, in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is situated on the river Rhine, about 5 km south-east of Remagen and 25 km south-east of Bonn, and it has approximately 20,000 inhabitants (2004). ...

, Kaiserslautern,

Gelnhausen Gelnhausen () is a town, and the capital of the Main-Kinzig-Kreis, in Hesse, Germany. It is located approximately 40 kilometers east of Frankfurt am Main, between the Vogelsberg mountains and the Spessart range at the river Kinzig. It is one o ...

, Altenburg,

Bad Frankenhausen Bad Frankenhausen (officially: Bad Frankenhausen/Kyffhäuser) is a spa town in the German state of Thuringia. It is located at the southern slope of the Kyffhäuser mountain range, on an artificial arm of the Wipper river, a tributary of the Uns ...

, but

Annweiler am Trifels Annweiler am Trifels (), or Annweiler is a town in the Südliche Weinstraße district, in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is situated on the river Queich, 12 km west of Landau. Annweiler am Trifels station is on the Landau–Saarbrücken r ...

Bad Wimpfen Bad Wimpfen () is a historic spa town in the district of Heilbronn in the Baden-Württemberg region of southern Germany. It lies north of the city of Heilbronn, on the river Neckar. Geography Bad Wimpfen is located on the west bank of the River ...

, Eberbach and

Waiblingen Waiblingen (; Swabian: ''Woeblinge'') is a town in the southwest of Germany, located in the center of the densely populated Stuttgart region, directly neighboring Stuttgart. It is the capital and largest city of the Rems-Murr district. , Waib ...

consider themselves as such as well.

Sinzig

is a city on the

Middle Rhine Between Bingen and Bonn, Germany, the river Rhine flows as the Middle Rhine (german: Mittelrhein) through the Rhine Gorge, a formation created by erosion, which happened at about the same rate as an uplift in the region, leaving the river a ...

in Ahrweiler County. Celtic in its early history and settled by the

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...

s, the city was first mentioned in 762 as a Franconian king's court, ''sentiacum''. The city was at its height from the 12th through the 14th century as a

Kaiserpfalz The term ''Kaiserpfalz'' (, "imperial palace") or ''Königspfalz'' (, "royal palace", from Middle High German ''phal ne'' to Old High German ''phalanza'' from Middle Latin ''palatia'' luralto Latin ''palatium'' "palace") refers to a number of ...

often visited by the German kings and emperors. Barbarossa himself stayed at Sinzig four times.

Kaiserslautern

The settlement history of Kaiserslautern, an industrial city and university seat at the northern edge of the Palatinate forest, begins in the

5th millennium BC The 5th millennium BC spanned the years 5000 BC to 4001 BC (c. 7 ka to c. 6 ka). It is impossible to precisely date events that happened around the time of this millennium and all dates mentioned here are estimates mostly based on geological an ...

. Around 1100 CE,

Salian The Salian dynasty or Salic dynasty (german: Salier) was a dynasty in the High Middle Ages. The dynasty provided four kings of Germany (1024–1125), all of whom went on to be crowned Holy Roman emperors (1027–1125). After the death of the l ...

rulers built themselves a castle on the grounds of the present-day city hall. Between 1152 and 1158 Barbarossa had the castle expanded that would bear his name and serve as his Kaiserpfalz "with no insignificant amount of pomp". He designated Lautern the center of his Staufen empire, which marked the beginning of a boom for the community. The ''Kaiser''s (imperial) palace was mentioned for the first time as "castrum domini imperatoris". In 1176 Barbarossa donated a hospital to the community and called

Norbertines The Order of Canons Regular of Prémontré (), also known as the Premonstratensians, the Norbertines and, in Britain and Ireland, as the White Canons (from the colour of their habit), is a religious order of canons regular of the Catholic Church ...

into Lautern to take on the hospital's management. The people of "Kaiser's Lautern" were proud to call their city a "Barbarossa city".

Gelnhausen (Hesse)

The "Barbarossa city" of

is a city in Main-Kinzig County in the eastern part of

Hesse Hesse (, , ) or Hessia (, ; german: Hessen ), officially the State of Hessen (german: links=no, Land Hessen), is a state in Germany. Its capital city is Wiesbaden, and the largest urban area is Frankfurt. Two other major historic cities are Dar ...

. It was founded in 1170 by Barbarossa in this convenient location because the merchant highway

Via Regia The Via Regia (Royal Highway) is a European Cultural Route following the route of the historic road of the Middle Ages. There were many such ''viae regiae'' associated with the king in the medieval Holy Roman Empire. History Origins The V ...

from

Frankfurt Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian: , " Frank ford on the Main"), is the most populous city in the German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located on it ...

Leipzig Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as ...

intersected here with several other roads. Frederick I founded the city by combining three existing villages into the

imperial free city In the Holy Roman Empire, the collective term free and imperial cities (german: Freie und Reichsstädte), briefly worded free imperial city (', la, urbs imperialis libera), was used from the fifteenth century to denote a self-ruling city that ...

of Gelnhausen. Imperial trading privileges such as duty-free zones lead to a rapid aggregation of traders and merchants. The fact that Gelnhausen was simultaneously awarded the ''Stapelrecht'' ( la, Jus emporii), requiring passing merchants to offer their goods in town for a certain amount of time, also helped in making it a successful trading town. Only ten years after it was born the city hosted an important Reichstag where

Henry the Lion Henry the Lion (german: Heinrich der Löwe; 1129/1131 – 6 August 1195) was a member of the Welf dynasty who ruled as the duke of Saxony and Bavaria from 1142 and 1156, respectively, until 1180. Henry was one of the most powerful German p ...

was tried ''in absentia'' and all his lands were redistributed. The Kaiserpfalz in Gelnhausen is the best maintained Staufer country palace still in existence.

Altenburg (Thuringia)

Altenburg in the east of

Thuringia Thuringia (; german: Thüringen ), officially the Free State of Thuringia ( ), is a state of central Germany, covering , the sixth smallest of the sixteen German states. It has a population of about 2.1 million. Erfurt is the capital and lar ...

may also rightfully call itself a "Barbarossa city". It was first mentioned in 976 by

Emperor Otto II An emperor (from la, imperator, via fro, empereor) is a monarch, and usually the sovereign ruler of an empire or another type of imperial realm. Empress, the female equivalent, may indicate an emperor's wife ( empress consort), mother (empr ...

and Barbarossa stayed in the imperial castle Altenburg (''Castrum Plysn''), first mentioned in 1132, a total of six times between 1165 and 1188. In 1172 he consecrated the

Augustinian Augustinian may refer to: *Augustinians, members of religious orders following the Rule of St Augustine *Augustinianism, the teachings of Augustine of Hippo and his intellectual heirs *Someone who follows Augustine of Hippo * Canons Regular of Sain ...

monastery of "Our dear Lady St. Mary" at the top of the mountain.

Bad Frankenhausen

Excavations evidence first settlements in

at the southern edge of the

Kyffhäuser The Kyffhäuser (,''Duden - Das Aussprachewörterbuch, 7. Auflage (German)'', Dudenverlag, sometimes also referred to as ''Kyffhäusergebirge'', is a hill range in Central Germany, shared by Thuringia and Saxony-Anhalt, southeast of the Harz mou ...

area at approximately 8000 BC. The town itself was first mentioned in the 9th century in official documents of the abbey in Fulda where it was referred to as a Franconian settlement. Nearby is the "Barbarossa Cave" with its "emperor's throne" and the " Barbarossa Memorial" featuring a larger-than-life Frederick Barbarossa that was built on the ruins of the imperial castle of Kyffhausen (''Reichsburg Kyffhausen'') between 1890 and 1896. Because of these items, Frankenhausen is counted among the Barbarossa cities even though there is no evidence the Emperor ever stayed here.

References