The Genealogia Welforum ("Genealogy of the Welfs") is the earliest history of the Welf dynasty. It is an anonymous work in Latin, composed at Weingarten Abbey in the early 1120s. It was commissioned by Henry the Black, the Welf duke of Bavaria who died in 1126. It may have been produced in response to the canonization of Bishop Conrad of Constance in 1123. Conrad was a Welf and his canonization stimulated Henry's interest in his ancestors, since at the same time he took an inventory of his family's tombs. [1]
The Genealogia is a shorter and less detailed work than the Historia Welforum produced a half-century later. It is especially limited in its coverage of the Welfs before Conrad. It contains nothing on the Burgundian branch. It does report the legend that the Welfs were descended from the Roman senator Catiline, whose name is derived from the Latin catulus , which is synonymous with Middle High German welf , both meaning 'whelp'. [1] The compiler was apparently ignorant of much of early Welf history. The earliest family member he mentions is Eticho, founder of Altomünster Abbey. Some of his information is inaccurate. Henry of the Golden Plough was not a son of Eticho, but lived in the following century. King Louis the Stammerer was never emperor nor was he married to Eticho's daughter Hildegard. [2]
The Genealogia is preserved in Munich, Bavarian State Library, manuscript Clm 21563, at folio 41. [3] It was copied at Weihenstephan Abbey in the 13th century. A copy was made from it in the 18th century, now in Clm 28679 under the title Genealogia de Guelfis. [4]
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Conrad III of the Hohenstaufen dynasty was from 1116 to 1120 Duke of Franconia, from 1127 to 1135 anti-king of his predecessor Lothair III and from 1138 until his death in 1152 king in the Holy Roman Empire. He was the son of Duke Frederick I of Swabia and Agnes, a daughter of the Salian Emperor Henry IV.
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Philip of Swabia was a member of the House of Hohenstaufen and King of Germany from 1198 until his assassination.
The House of Welf is a European dynasty that has included many German and British monarchs from the 11th to 20th century and Emperor Ivan VI of Russia in the 18th century. The originally Franconian family from the Meuse-Moselle area was closely related to the imperial family of the Carolingians.
Frederick V of Hohenstaufen was duke of Swabia from 1167 to his death. He was the eldest son of Frederick I Barbarossa and Beatrice I, Countess of Burgundy.
Welf II, or Welfhard, called Welf the Fat (pinguis), was Duke of Bavaria from 1101 until his death. In the Welf genealogy, he is counted as Welf V.
Henry IX, called the Black, a member of the House of Welf, was Duke of Bavaria from 1120 to 1126.
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Welf III, the last male member of the Swabian line of the Elder House of Welf, was Duke of Carinthia and Margrave of Verona from 1047 until his death.
Adelaide of Vohburg was Duchess of Swabia from 1147 and German queen from 1152 until 1153, as the first wife of the Hohenstaufen king Frederick Barbarossa, the later Holy Roman Emperor.
Welf II was a Swabian count and a member of the Elder House of Welf.
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Albert II of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel was Prince-Archbishop of Bremen in the years 1361–1395.
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The Historia Welforum is an anonymous Latin prose chronicle of the House of Welf written around 1170. The original covers the period c. 825–1167, but continuations bring it down to 1208. Because two manuscript copies originate in Weingarten (Altdorf), the work is sometimes known as the Historia Welforum Weingartensis or Chronica Altorfensium.