Barbarossa Elected King: Holy Roman Empire Rises

Frederick I Barbarossa was elected King of Germany by the princes at Frankfurt on March 4, 1152, emerging as a compromise candidate between the rival Hohenstaufen and Welf dynasties because his mother came from one family and his father from the other. His red beard earned him the Italian nickname 'Barbarossa.' He was crowned Holy Roman Emperor by Pope Adrian IV in 1154 and immediately launched a series of military campaigns to reassert imperial authority over the wealthy cities of northern Italy, which had grown increasingly autonomous. Barbarossa fought six Italian campaigns over thirty years, winning battles and destroying Milan in 1162 before the Lombard League defeated him decisively at Legnano in 1176. He drowned crossing the Saleph River in Anatolia during the Third Crusade in 1190, reportedly weighed down by his armor. German legend held that he slept in a cave beneath the Kyffhauser mountain and would return to restore the empire in its hour of greatest need.