Background
The Crusade against the Holy Roman Empire's House of Hohenstaufen was one of political opposition since the Holy Roman Empire was a Christian Catholic entity. The Papal States feared the political influence of the neighboring Holy Roman Empire. In the 1190s, as the Holy Roman Emperors became the rulers of the Kingdom of Sicily, the Papal States feared being swallowed up. (In those times, the "Kingdom of Sicily" not only included the island of Sicily, but also the southern parts of the modern country of Italy.)
In the Holy Roman Empire, the Emperor had to be elected by seven electors—three of whom were Catholic archbishops. Additionally, the new emperor had to be crowned by the Pope. Thus, kingship wasn't purely hereditary since—at a minimum—the archbishop electors would follow the Pope's orders.
However, outwardly, the Pope would criticize the emperor for his lack of zeal in re-taking the Holy Land for which Gregory IX excommunicated Frederick II before welcoming him back into the fold with the Treaty of San Germano.
Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor
The war against Frederick was transformed into a crusade in February 1240, when, in response to Frederick's march on Rome, the pope led the citizens of Rome to take the sign of the cross and offered general indulgences for the defence of the city. The call for a crusade provoked an immediate response in Genoa and Ferrara. Frederick called off his march. In March, he issued an encyclical accusing the pope of preaching a crusade against him.
The crusade came to Germany in 1241, when Archbishops Conrad of Cologne and Siegfried III of Mainz invaded Hohenstaufen lands in the Wetterau.
Deposition call in 1245
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A major turning point was the deposition of Frederick II by Pope Innocent IV at the First Council of Lyon in 1245. This sparked a period of intense crusading in Germany after May 1246. Two rival kings were elected in Germany and both pursued the crusade against the Hohenstaufen, Henry Raspe in 1246–1247 and William II of Holland in 1247–1251. Frederick died in 1250.
Conrad IV
His successor, Conrad IV, left the Holy Roman Empire permanently for Sicily in October 1251. Without the Pope's approval and that of the Empire's Catholic archbishops, Conrad IV would never be crowned emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.
Conrad IV died in 1254 and his half-brother Manfred took control of Sicily. Under Pope Alexander IV, a crusade was preached against him in 1254–1255. It attracted a small English army in support of Edmund Crouchback, the English candidate to the Sicilian throne, but it was defeated by Manfred. Pope Urban IV in 1261 and Pope Clement IV in 1265 proclaimed crusades in favour of a new candidate, Count Charles I of Anjou. Charles defeated Manfred at the battle of Benevento in 1266. A new crusade was preached against Conrad IV' son Conradin in 1268 when he attempted to claim Sicily. Conradin was killed in the battle of Tagliacozzo. The last crusade against the Hohenstaufen was simultaneous with a crusade against the Muslim settlement of Lucera, which backed Conradin. Lucera fell in August 1269 to the forces of Charles of Anjou.
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's most prominent rulers – Frederick I (1155), Henry VI (1191) and Frederick II (1220) – 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.
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