Conrad I ( – 8 January 1152) was
Duke
Duke is a male title either of a monarch ruling over a duchy, or of a member of Royal family, royalty, or nobility. As rulers, dukes are ranked below emperors, kings, grand princes, grand dukes, and sovereign princes. As royalty or nobility, t ...
of Zähringen from 1122 until his death and from 1127 also Rector of
Burgundy. He spent most of his life stemming the growing power of the
House of Hohenstaufen and to this end, allied himself with the
House of Guelph.
Life
Conrad I was a son of Duke
Berthold II and his wife,
Agnes of Rheinfelden. In 1120, Conrad I and his elder brother
Berthold III granted city rights to
Freiburg. In 1122, Conrad I succeeded Berthold III as Duke of Zähringen.
In 1127, he came into conflict with Count
Reginald III of Burgundy
Reginald III (french: Renaud; c. 1087 – 1148), son of Stephen I and Beatrice of Lorraine, was the count of Burgundy between 1127 and 1148. Previously, he had been the count of Mâcon since his father's death in 1102, with his brother, Will ...
, because both men claimed the inheritance of Conrad's murdered nephew
William III William III or William the Third may refer to:
Kings
* William III of Sicily (c. 1186–c. 1198)
* William III of England and Ireland or William III of Orange or William II of Scotland (1650–1702)
* William III of the Netherlands and Luxembourg ...
. In this situation, he benefitted from the situation
Emperor Lothar III
Lothair III, sometimes numbered Lothair II and also known as Lothair of Supplinburg (1075 – 4 December 1137), was Holy Roman Emperor from 1133 until his death. He was appointed Duke of Saxony in 1106 and elected King of Germany in 1125 before b ...
found himself in. Lothar urgently needed support against his Hohenstaufen rivals, and he supported Conrad's claim. He rejected Reginald's claim, with the dubious argument that Reginald had failed to comply with his duty to attend the emperor's court. Conrad received the title
rector of Burgundy
Rector (Latin for the member of a vessel's crew who steers) may refer to:
Style or title
*Rector (ecclesiastical), a cleric who functions as an administrative leader in some Christian denominations
*Rector (academia), a senior official in an edu ...
, which denoted, as least theoretically, a kind of representative of the emperor in the
Kingdom of Burgundy.
In 1138, King
Conrad III of Germany grabbed power and the power conflict between the Guelphs and the Hohenstaufen relaxed. Until the late 1150s, the dukes of Zähringen were among the Hohenstaufen's most loyal supporters.
Conrad I died in 1152 in
Constance and was buried in the family vault in the
Abbey of Saint Peter in the Black Forest
St Peter's Abbey in the Black Forest or St. Peter's Abbey, Schwarzwald (german: Kloster St. Peter auf dem Schwarzwald) is a former Benedictine monastery in the village of St. Peter im Schwarzwald, in the district of Breisgau-Hochschwarzwald, Bad ...
.
Marriage and issue
Conrad was married to Clementia of Namur, daughter of
Godfrey I, Count of Namur and had at least five children:
*
Berthold IV, duke of Zähringen
*
Adalbert I, founder of the line
Dukes of Teck
*
Clementia, married
Henry the Lion
*
Rudolf,
Archbishop of
Mainz
Mainz () is the capital and largest city of Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany.
Mainz is on the left bank of the Rhine, opposite to the place that the Main joins the Rhine. Downstream of the confluence, the Rhine flows to the north-west, with Ma ...
* Hugh, Duke of Ullenburg
Notes
References
Sources
*
*
* Eberhard Holz and Wolfgang Huschner (eds.): ''Deutsche Fürsten des Mittelalters'',
Edition Leipzig, Leipzig, 1995,
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Conrad 01 Zahringen
Dukes of Zähringen
1090s births
Year of birth unknown
1152 deaths
Wendish Crusade