e, except a few dry data, exists of "Frederick of the
Red Beard," until we find him setting out with his uncle, Conrad III.,
in the spring of 1147, to join the second crusade against the Saracens.
The date of his birth is given as 1121, his father being Duke Frederick
of Hohenstauffen (surnamed "le Borgne") and his mother Judith, daughter
of Henry the Black, Duke of Bavaria; opinions are divided on the
subject of his birthplace, some writers mentioning the castle of
Veitsberg, near Ravensburg, others the town of Weiblingen, in Nuremburg;
but since the main interest of his history does not begin until his
succession to the paternal duchy of Swabia, and his departure for the
Holy Land in 1147; his marriage with Adelaide, daughter of Theobald,
Margrave of Vohburg, in 1149; and finally his accession to the imperial
throne in 1152, we must resign ourselves to silence on the subject of
his earlier years, and take up his history from the death of Conrad
III., and that monarch's choice of him as a successor, to the exclusion
of his own son.

[Illustration: Frederick Barbarossa.]

From every possible point of view, Frederick of Hohenstauffen justified
his uncle's choice: endowed with the most brilliant qualities of heart
and mind, he had already earned the suffrages of a great portion of his
new subjects by the manner in which he had distinguished himself during
the above-mentioned campaign in the Holy Land; moreover, as the son of
Frederick of Hohenstauffen and Judith, daughter of Henry the Black, Duke
of Bavaria, Ghibelline by his father and Guelph on his mother's side,
there seemed good ground for the hope that in him might terminate the
differences of the two contending factions. The election diet was
accordingly assembled at Frankfort, and it being there decided to
confirm Conrad's choice and to invest Frederick with the imperial
insignia, he was proclaimed King of the Romans and of Germany, and
anointed at Aix-la-Chapelle on March 5, 1152, the ceremony being
performed by Arnoul de Gueldre, Archbishop of Cologne. Not lightly or
eagerly did the new emperor accept these dignities, but after mature and
careful consideration of his capacity to undertake the responsibility of
guiding Germany through shoals and quicksands which had little by
little enveloped the fair countries won three hundred years before by
the valiant Charlemagne.

Tidings of ever-recurring disturbances determined Frederick to make an
expedition into Italy