Fathers and sons: preparing noble youths
to be lords in twelfth-century Germany
Jonathan R. Lyon
Department of History, University of Chicago, 1126 E. 59th St., Chicago, IL 60637, USA
Abstract
The most prominent noble lineages of the twelfth-century German empire drew much of their authority
from scattered collections of heritable rights and properties, a state of affairs that led each family to
exercise its lordship in a unique manner. As a result, it was important for the success of a lineage that heirs
understood the diverse administrative, political, diplomatic and military foundations of their family’s
power before they came into their inheritance. This article argues on the basis of evidence from several
leading noble houses d including the Staufen, Welf, Za¨hringen, Wittelsbach, Andechs and Wettin d
that fathers played an essential role in the training of their sons to succeed and inherit. For the noble heirs
of twelfth-century Germany, therefore, the period in life known as
youth was principally a time of instruc-
tion and preparation. Models of
youth that emphasise the adventurousness and rebelliousness of noble sons
during the central middle ages are therefore insufficient for explaining father-son relationships within the
imperial nobility.
Ó 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Nobility; Germany; Twelfth century; Youth; Education; Succession; Fatherhood
Count Sigiboto IV of Falkenstein was one of the few survivors of the devastating malaria out-
break that swept through the imperial army in 1167 during Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa’s
fourth Italian campaign. He safely returned home to his lands in southern Germany and con-
tinued to exercise his lordship for another three decades until his death during the closing
years of the twelfth century. In 1166, however, as Sigiboto began to make his preparations
for the campaign in Italy, he clearly was not optimistic about his chances of ever seeing
his family again. He commissioned at this time for his young sons, their guardian, and his
E-mail address:
0304-4181/$ - see front matter
Ó 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.jmedhist.2007.10.003
Journal of Medieval History 34 (2008) 291e310
followers a codex that included d among other documents d a list of his fiefs and a survey
of his estates. This work, known as the
Codex Falkensteinensis, was intended to serve a va-
riety of purposes, but one of its principal functions was to provide his heirs and loyal sup-
porters with a handbook to assist them in understanding the legal, territorial and economic
foundations of his lordship after he was dead.
The Falkenstein Codex is the only such compilation of noble family records to survive from
the twelfth-century German empire, and because of the circumstances surrounding the creation
of the manuscript, it seems unlikely that significant numbers of German noblemen ordered the
writing of similar codices. While the manuscript itself may therefore be unique, the situation
confronting the count of Falkenstein as he prepared for Barbarossa’s Italian campaign was
not. How could a lord best teach his young heirs about the complex combination of rights, titles
properties and other interests that they would be inheriting from their fathers? For the imperial
nobility, there was no simple answer to this question. Twelfth-century lordships inside Germany
were not unified territories with clear borders and well-developed administrative structures.
Like Sigiboto, many of the counts who rose to prominence in the decades around the year
1100 had no claims whatsoever on older forms of comital jurisdiction that had developed dur-
ing the Carolingian and Ottonian periods; most relied instead on scattered accumulations of
fiefs, allods and ecclesiastical advocacies as the foundations for their positions in society.
Even the dukes of the so-called stem-duchies did not have the same kind of authority inside their
duchies that their tenth- and eleventh-century predecessors had; they too often based much of
their power on collections of inherited lands and rights.
As a result, as Count Sigiboto’s commis-
sioning of the
Codex Falkensteinensis suggests, a lord could not assume that, once he was dead,
his heirs would be able to understand without any assistance all the nuances of exercising
their lineage’s lordship.
1
Codex Falkensteinensis: Die Rechtsaufzeichnungen der Grafen von Falkenstein, ed. Elisabeth Noichl (Quellen und
Ero¨rterungen zur bayerischen Geschichte, Neue Folge 29, Munich, 1978). For a more thorough analysis of the codex,
see John B. Freed, ‘The creation of the
Codex Falkensteinensis (1166): self-representation and reality’, in: Representa-
tions of power in medieval Germany, ed. Bjo¨rn Weiler and Simon MacLean (Turnhout, 2006), 189e210 and his The
counts of Falkenstein: noble self-consciousness in twelfth-century Germany (Philadelphia, 1984).
2
For an excellent overview of the extensive historiography on the emergence of new comital lineages during the late
eleventh and twelfth centuries within the German empire, see Werner Hechberger,
Adel im fra¨nkisch-deutschen Mitte-
lalter: Zur Anatomie eines Forschungsproblems (Ostfildern, 2005), 303e46. Many of the most important articles by
Karl Schmid, whose work on noble families helped to establish the field in Germany, are collected in his
Gebetsge-
denken und adliges Selbstversta¨ndnis im Mittelalter (Sigmaringen, 1983). Recent studies that concern the development
of German counties include Ludwig Holzfurtner,
Die Grafschaft der Andechser: Comitatus und Grafschaft in Bayern,
1000e1180 (Historischer Atlas von Bayern, Teil Altbayern, series II 4, Munich, 1994) and Tania Bru¨sch, Die Brunonen,
ihre Grafschaften und die sa¨chsische Geschichte: Herrschaftsbildung und Adelsbewußtsein im 11. Jahrhundert (Husum,
2000).
3
For example, in 1180, Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa enfeoffed Count-palatine Otto of Wittelsbach with the duchy
of Bavaria, but it was the Wittelsbach family’s own extensive network of lands, rights and ministerials d not the rel-
atively limited set of prerogatives that came with the ducal title d that were the true foundation of Otto of Wittelsbach’s
power inside the duchy. See Ludwig Holzfurtner,
Die Wittelsbacher: Staat und Dynastie in acht Jahrhunderten (Stutt-
gart, 2005), 18e21. See also Benjamin Arnold,
Princes and territories in medieval Germany (Cambridge, 1991),
88e111; as Arnold points out, the number of imperial duchies more than doubled during the twelfth century as the kings
and emperors d recognising contemporary political realities d created new ducal titles for other prominent lineages
who held extensive rights and properties but did not possess titles that properly reflected their true standing in the
empire.
292
J.R. Lyon / Journal of Medieval History 34 (2008) 291e310
The aim of this article is to analyse how, in this environment in which no two noblemen
shared the same foundations for their power and authority, lords attempted to prepare their suc-
cessors to exploit effectively their family’s unique collection of lordly prerogatives. I will argue
that those noble lineages that dominated regional and imperial politics during the twelfth cen-
tury d including the Staufen, Welf, Za¨hringen, Wittelsbach, Andechs and Wettin to name only
a few d typically employed a variety of unwritten instructional strategies for readying heirs to
act as lords. Inside most noble families, the central figures in all of this preparation of young
heirs were their fathers, who were often personally involved in teaching their sons the specific
administrative, diplomatic and military duties they would need to perform once they acquired
their lineage’s lordships.
This active participation of fathers in their sons’ training indicates
that the relationships between lords and their heirs played a much more significant role in shap-
ing the history of German noble lineages than scholars have generally recognised.
Recent literature on noble fathers and sons
Within the fields of family history, the history of education and the history of adolescence
and youth, most discussions of lord-heir relationships have tended to take the position that
noble fathers and sons had few close contacts with one another. Numerous historians have
argued that, throughout the early and central middle ages, young heirs were typically sent
to the court of a king, another noble, or occasionally even an ecclesiastical lord for most of
their education.
Though noble sons learned a range of skills while away from home at the
court of another lord, scholars agree that the most important element of the education young
nobles received during these years was training in arms.
Over the course of the twelfth cen-
tury, this traditional military education became enmeshed in developing conceptions of
4
As Arnold points out in his
Princes and territories, 135e51, primogeniture was not practised by the nobility of the
medieval German empire. As a result, throughout this article, I will use the plural when discussing those sons who suc-
ceeded a lord d unless, of course, a father had only one son. It would perhaps be better to speak of ‘potential heirs’
throughout the article since all of the sons who appear in the sources alongside their father did not necessarily end up
inheriting part of the patrimony; some predeceased their fathers while others entered the Church. This seems unneces-
sarily wordy, however. The term ‘heirs’ should therefore be understood here to mean all of those sons who, at some
point during their lives, seem to have been considered as possible successors to their father.
5
It should be noted at the outset that I have chosen to focus on the leading noble lineages of the empire, including
many that would form the
Reichsfu¨rstenstand (estate of imperial princes) of the later twelfth century, because of the rich-
ness of the sources for these lineages and because I am especially interested in investigating the significance of father-son
relationships at the highest-levels of imperial politics. Whether or not the arguments I am making can also be applied to
the lower nobility and the ministerialage is a question that I do not propose to answer. Similarly, the question of how
lords handled the situation when they had only daughters to succeed them d or when they had no children at all d
will also not be considered here.
6
See, for example, Matthew Innes, ‘‘‘A place of discipline’’’: Carolingian courts and aristocratic youth’, in:
Court
culture in the early middle ages: the proceedings of the first Alcuin conference, ed. Catherine Cubitt (Turnhout,
2003), 59e76; Christoph Dette, ‘Kinder und Jugendliche in der Adelsgesellschaft des fru¨hen Mittelalters’, Archiv
fu¨r Kulturgeschichte, 76 (1994), 1e34; Shulamith Shahar, Childhood in the middle ages (London and New York,
1990), 210e11; and Nicholas Orme,
From childhood to chivalry: the education of the English kings and aristocracy
1066e1530 (London and New York, 1984), 45 and 56.
7
Again, this is a tradition that dates back to the early middle ages: see, for example, Re´gine Le Jan-Hennebicque,
‘Apprentissages militaries, rites de passage et remises d’armes au haut moyen age’, in:
E´ducation, apprentissages, ini-
tiation au moyen aˆge (Montpellier, 1991), 211e32 and Danie`le Alexandre-Bidon and Didier Lett, Children in the middle
ages: fifthefifteenth centuries, trans. Jody Gladding (Notre Dame, IN, 1999), 43e5.
293
J.R. Lyon / Journal of Medieval History 34 (2008) 291e310
knighthood, and the dubbing ceremony d which generally occurred during a young noble-
man’s late teens or early twenties d increasingly came to serve as the culmination of this for-
mal martial training.
While the knighting ritual was an important moment in the lives of young noblemen during
the twelfth century, historians have not seen this rite of passage as marking the beginning of
closer ties between heirs and their fathers. As Georges Duby has famously argued, there was
an intermediate stage between childhood and adulthood for noblemen called
youth, which he
defined as the period between a young noble’s knighting and his becoming a father of
legitimate children.
The growing tendency in the central middle ages for noble families to
structure themselves as lineages meant that an heir would typically not be permitted to estab-
lish his own household until he had inherited his share of the patrimony from his father.
Noble sons in their late teens, their 20s, even their 30s and 40s, could therefore potentially
be denied the status of full adulthood for as long as their fathers remained alive and politically
active. As a result, the intermediary stage of life called
youth was, according to Duby,
characterised principally by impatience, volatility and wanderlust.
Until youthful heirs
inherited, they were free to live a life of adventure away from home d frequently on the tour-
nament circuit.
Although many of these arguments about noble education and noble youth have been devel-
oped on the basis of Carolingian evidence or sources from central medieval France and
England, scholars of medieval German history have typically agreed with these models.
A
variety of sources from the twelfth-century German empire have been employed to confirm,
for example, that noble boys were frequently sent away from home for their education. The
text known today as the
Historia Welforum, which was written by an anonymous author around
the year 1170, reports that Duke Welf V of Bavaria (d.1120) ‘arranged his court in a most or-
derly fashion. And that is why the most noble lords of both duchies [Bavaria and Swabia]
8
See, for example, Maurice Keen,
Chivalry (New Haven and London, 2005; originally published in 1984), 18e23
and 64e77; David Crouch,
William Marshal: knighthood, war and chivalry, 1147e1219 (London, New York, et al.,
2002; originally published 1990), 22e8; and Constance Brittain Bouchard, ‘
Strong of body, brave and noble’: chivalry
and society in medieval France (Ithaca and London, 1998), 75e80.
9
Georges Duby, ‘Dans la France du nord-ouest. Au XII
e
sie`cle: les ‘jeunes’ dans la socie´te´ aristocratique’,
Annales,
Economies-Socie´te´s-Civilisations, 19 (1964), 835e46. The article has been translated into English twice: ‘Youth in aris-
tocratic society’, in: Duby,
The chivalrous society, trans. Cynthia Postan (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1977), 112e22 and
‘In north-western France. The ‘youth’ in twelfth-century aristocratic society’, in:
Lordship and community in medieval
Europe: selected readings, trans. and ed. Fredric L. Cheyette (New York, 1975), 198e209. Here, I am using the latter
translation.
10
Duby, ‘In north-western France’, 199.
11
For similar arguments about youth, which are explicitly or implicitly based on Duby’s model, see Ruth Mazo Karras,
From boys to men: formations of masculinity in late medieval Europe (Philadelphia, 2003), 65; Bouchard, ‘Strong of
body’, 80e1; William M. Aird, ‘Frustrated masculinity: the relationship between William the Conqueror and his eldest
son’, in:
Masculinity in medieval Europe, ed. D.M. Hadley (London and New York, 1999), 43; Christiane Marchello-
Nizia, ‘Courtly chivalry’, in:
A history of young people in the west, vol. 1. Ancient and medieval rites of passage, ed.
Giovanni Levi and Jean-Claude Schmitt, trans. Camille Naish (Cambridge, MA and London, 1997), 120e72; and
Jane K. Beitscher, ‘‘‘As the twig is bent.’’’: children and their parents in an aristocratic society’, Journal of Medieval
History, 2 (1976), 181e92. See also David Crouch, The birth of nobility: constructing aristocracy in England and
France 900e1300 (Harlow, 2005), 18 and 107.
12
See especially Joachim Bumke’s monumental
Courtly culture: literature and society in the high middle ages, trans.
Thomas Dunlap (Berkeley, 1991) and Hechberger,
Adel im fra¨nkisch-deutschen Mittelalter, 417e48. One of the few
strong critiques of the generally-accepted model of adolescence and youth is James A. Schultz, ‘Medieval adolescence:
the claims of history and the silence of German narrative’,
Speculum, 66 (1991), 519e39.
294
J.R. Lyon / Journal of Medieval History 34 (2008) 291e310
eagerly committed their sons to his charge to be educated’.
Duke Henry the Lion of Saxony
and Bavaria (d.1195), in an undated letter to King Louis VII of France, requested that the king
send to the ducal court any ‘boys whom you want to learn about our land and language’.
And
the chronicler Gislebert of Mons explains that after Henry VI (d.1197), the king and future em-
peror, helped to arrange a peace in the late 1180s between Count Baldwin V of Hainaut
(d.1195) and the duke of Louvain, ‘The count of Hainaut left his son Baldwin [VI] there
with the lord king to learn the German language and the customs of the court’.
The sources for knightly culture and knightly rituals such as the dubbing ceremony are unfor-
tunately not as rich for Germany as they are for France in the 1100s. Nevertheless, the surviving
evidence suggests that some young German nobles and royals finished their formal education in
arms during their late teens or early twenties.
They then entered a transitional stage of life com-
parable to Duby’s
youth. The young Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa (d.1190) d who was raised
to succeed his father as duke of Swabia, his election as king only coming later when he was al-
ready around 30 years of age d was approximately 20 when he was knighted in the early 1140s.
His biographer, Otto of Freising, clearly sees him as a pre-adult when describing his activities in
the following few years. According to the chronicler, Barbarossa became a knight at a time when
his father, Duke Frederick II of Swabia (d.1147), ‘was still living and fully possessing his land’.
As Otto explains, the young Frederick participated in various military campaigns during his fa-
ther’s lifetime.
The chronicler then concludes his discussion of the ducal heir’s early career by
suggesting that his actions in those years foreshadowed his future greatness as emperor: ‘Fred-
erick, during the period of his youth, performed these and other tasks so arduous that, to the as-
tonishment of many, that which is in the Gospel might be said d not unjustly d about him:
‘‘
What manner of child shall this be?’’ (Luke 1:66).
Although Barbarossa was in his early
20s at the time, Otto identifies him as an
adolescens who was in ipsa puerili aetate. The chronicler
even uses a passage from the Gospels referring to the eight-day-old John the Baptist to emphasise
13
Historia Welforum, ch. 14, in Quellen zur Geschichte der Welfen und die Chronik Burchards von Ursberg, ed. and
trans. Matthias Becher (Ausgewa¨hlte Quellen zur deutschen Geschichte des Mittelalters, Freiherr-vom-Stein-Geda¨cht-
nisausgabe 18b, Darmstadt, 2007), 52:
14
Die Urkunden Heinrichs des Lo¨wen, Herzogs von Sachsen und Bayern, ed. Karl Jordan (Monumenta Germaniae
Historica [hereafter MGH], Die deutschen Geschichtsquellen des Mittelalters 1, Stuttgart, 1949; reprint, 1957), 174,
no. 117: . pueros, quos vel terram nostram vel linguam addiscere vultis. See also Karl J. Leyser, ‘Frederick Barbarossa
and the Hohenstaufen polity’,
Viator, 19 (1988), 155.
15
Gilbert of Mons,
Chronicle of Hainaut, trans. Laura Napran (Woodbridge, 2005), 127. For a more detailed discus-
sion of the German evidence for noble education, see Bumke,
Courtly culture, 312e16.
16
For knightly culture in Germany, see Richard Mortimer, ‘Knights and knighthood in Germany in the central middle
ages’, in:
The ideals and practice of medieval knighthood, 1, ed. Christopher Harper-Bill and Ruth Harvey (Woodbridge,
1986), 86e103; William Henry Jackson, ‘Knighthood and the Hohenstaufen imperial court under Frederick Barbarossa
(1152e1190)’, in:
The ideals and practice of medieval knighthood, 3, ed. Christopher Harper-Bill and Ruth Harvey
(Woodbridge, 1990), 101e20; Bumke,
Courtly culture, 205, 232 and 242e3; and James A. Schultz, The knowledge
of childhood in the German middle ages, 1100e1350 (Philadelphia, 1995), 151e4.
17
Otto of Freising and Rahewin,
Gesta Friderici I. Imperatoris 1.26, ed. Georg Waitz (MGH Scriptores rerum Ger-
manicarum 46, Hanover and Leipzig, 1912), 43. For the argument that Frederick was probably born in December of
1122, see Ferdinand Opll,
Friedrich Barbarossa (Darmstadt, 1990), 29.
18
Otto of Freising,
Gesta Friderici I. Imperatoris, 1.26, 43: . patre adhuc vivente terramque suam plenarie tenente.
19
See below.
20
Otto of Freising,
Gesta Friderici I. Imperatoris 1.27, 44: Haec et alia tam ardua in ipsa puerili aetate gessit negotia,
ut non inmerito cum multorum stupore de ipso dici posset illud evangelii:
Quis putas puer iste erit?
295
J.R. Lyon / Journal of Medieval History 34 (2008) 291e310
the greatness of the twenty-something Frederick.
Unmarried and lacking any property of his
own because his father was still alive, Frederick was technically not a true adult in the
chronicler’s eyes.
While organised knightly competitions seem to have been more common in France than in
the empire throughout the twelfth century, sources indicate that there were young nobles inside
Germany who enjoyed this risk-seeking lifestyle as well. According to the monastic chronicler
Berthold of Zwiefalten, who was writing in the late 1130s, ‘In the same way as the Lord said,
‘‘He who loves danger shall fall into it’’ (Ecclesiasticus 3:27), the youth Henry of Habsburg
took more pleasure than was proper in the contesting of ill-fated games, which he dangerously
did not cease to play with great frequency, and having been unfortunately struck, he died’.
In
a letter most likely written in the early 1140s, Landgrave Ludwig II of Thuringia (d.1172)
warns his younger brother against suffering a similar fate: ‘How I wish, brother most dear to
my soul, that you would abstain in times of peace from useless knightly games of arms.
Because you have been youthfully seduced by such games on numerous occasions, you have
met with danger to your life’.
23
Ludwig then offers additional advice to his brother: ‘you should preferably make your virtue
and industry shine forth for the public affairs of the kingdom, as is fitting for a prince’.
24
The
landgrave’s letter seems to point to a dichotomy existing at the heart of noble society: for Lud-
wig, youths played idle games (
ludis inutilibus) while lords involved themselves in serious
affairs (
publicis regni negotiis). As I will argue here, however, one must be careful not to draw
too sharp a line between these two aspects of the noble lifestyle. Ludwig was writing to his
brother because the young man was already an independent lord.
Some noblemen, in other
words, continued to enjoy youthful pursuits after they had succeeded their fathers. Similarly,
every youth did not spend all of his days seeking pleasure in frivolous pursuits. Though
much of a young nobleman’s childhood and youth might be spent outside of his father’s house-
hold, separation was not permanent, and heirs frequently played active, vital roles in familial
and imperial affairs prior to their fathers’ deaths. Sources from the twelfth-century German
21
For the often confusing and inconsistent manner in which medieval authors employed terms denoting childhood,
youth and adolescence, see Edward James, ‘Childhood and youth in the early middle ages’, in:
Youth in the middle
ages, ed. P.J.P. Goldberg and Felicity Riddy (York, 2004), 11e23; Thilo Offergeld, Reges pueri: Das Ko¨nigtum Mind-
erja¨hriger im fru¨hen Mittelalter (Hanover, 2001), 10e21; Fiona Harris Stoertz, ‘Adolescence and authority in medieval
monasticism’, in:
The growth of authority in the medieval west, ed. Martin Gosman, Arjo Vanderjagt and Jan Veenstra
(Groningen, 1999), 121e2; Schultz,
The knowledge of childhood, 21e42; Barbara A. Hanawalt, ‘Historical descriptions
and prescriptions for adolescence’,
Journal of Family History, 17 (1992), 342e3; and various articles in: The premodern
teenager: youth in society 1150e1650, ed. Konrad Eisenbichler (Toronto, 2002).
22
Die Zwiefalter Chroniken Ortliebs und Bertholds, ed. and trans. Luitpold Wallach, Erich Ko¨nig and Karl Otto Mu¨ller
(Schwa¨bische Chroniken der Stauferzeit 2, Sigmaringen, 1978), 240: Heinricus iuvenis de Habichisburc, plus quam de-
cuit laetus, secundum quod Dominus ait: ‘Qui amat periculum, incidet in illud’ in congressu infelicium ludorum, quibus
periculose iocari saepius non destitit, infeliciter ictus occubuit. See also Bumke,
Courtly culture, 249.
23
Die Reinhardsbrunner Briefsammlung, ed. Friedel Peeck (MGH Epistolae Selectae 5, Weimar, 1952), 57e8, no. 63:
Qua re, frater animo meo carissime, pacis tempore militaribus armorum ludis inutilibus, quibus iuveniliter sepenumero
delectatus vite periculum incurristi, velim abstineas.
24
Die Reinhardsbrunner Briefsammlung, 57e8, no. 63: . ac potius publicis regni negotiis virtutem tuam atque in-
dustriam, ut principem decet, enitescere facias.
25
Landgrave Ludwig II had two younger brothers who also acquired pieces of the patrimony following the death of
their father in 1140. The letter is probably addressed to Henry Raspe II (
Die Reinhardsbrunner Briefsammlung, 57). For
Henry, see Tobias Weller,
Die Heiratspolitik des deutschen Hochadels im 12. Jahrhundert (Cologne, Weimar and
Vienna, 2004), 595.
296
J.R. Lyon / Journal of Medieval History 34 (2008) 291e310
empire suggest that young nobles had a broad range of opportunities to learn from their fathers
how to manage effectively their lineages’ political, military and administrative affairs.
Noble fathers and sons together in the sources
Charter collections and cartularies preserve valuable evidence for the direct contacts between
lords and heirs d revealing especially how fathers and their sons acted together as property
grantors and as witnesses to other lords’ property agreements. Recent scholarship has demon-
strated that the customs surrounding the nobility’s granting of property during the central
middle ages frequently required sons d regardless of their age d to be present when their no-
ble fathers made gifts to religious communities.
As a result, it is not surprising that many
heirs make their first appearances in the extant sources as consenters to property agreements
arranged by their fathers. In the early 1120s, Count Berthold I of Andechs (d.1151) gave a group
of ministerials to the house of Augustinian canons at Diessen in Bavaria ‘in the presence of his
wife Sophia and his sons Poppo and Berthold [II]’.
Also in the 1120s, Duke Conrad of Za¨h-
ringen agreed to an exchange of lands with the Swabian monastery of St Peter in the Black
Forest. The duke made the agreement ‘with his wife, the lady Clementia, and his sons Conrad
and Berthold [IV]’.
These two documents are the earliest surviving references to all four of
these noble sons, who were all probably young children at the time of these grants.
As heirs grew older, they continued to appear in archival sources concerning their fathers’
property arrangements with religious communities. Duke Berthold IV of Za¨hringen (d.1186)
and his eldest son Berthold V (d.1218), who was probably born around 1160, are typical of
this trend. In 1171, both Berthold IV and Berthold V were named as principal figures in a treaty
with Archbishop Arnold I of Trier concerning fiefs the archbishop was giving to the noble
house of Za¨hringen.
Four years later on 6 October 1175, father and son made a joint property
donation to the monastery of St Peter and Paul in Ru¨eggisberg.
And in either 1177 or 1178,
Duke Berthold IV agreed to give to the monastery of St Maria in Peterlingen a portion of his
town of Fribourg (in modern Switzerland). He made this gift ‘with the approval of his son B’.
Between the ages of approximately 11 and 18, the young Berthold V thus appeared alongside
his father on three occasions in order to participate in property arrangements.
While there is
26
See especially Stephen D. White,
Custom, kinship, and gifts to saints: the laudatio parentum in western France,
1050e1150 (Chapel Hill and London, 1988), 86e129.
27
Die Traditionen und Urkunden des Stiftes Diessen, 1114e1362, ed. Waldemar Schlo¨gl (Quellen und Ero¨rterungen
zur bayerischen Geschichte, Neue Folge 22, 1, Munich, 1967), 4e5, no. 2: . presente uxore sua Sophia filiisque Pop-
pone et Bertolfo.
28
Ulrich Parlow,
Die Za¨hringer: Kommentierte Quellendokumentationen zu einem su¨dwestdeutschen Herzogsgeschlecht
des hohen Mittelalters (Stuttgart, 1999), 181, no. 265: . cum uxore sua, domna Clementia et filiis suis Covnrado et Berhtold.
29
For additional examples of heirs who make their first appearances in their fathers’ property agreements while still
young children, see various cases discussed below, including those of Welf VII and Henry of Brunswick.
30
Parlow,
Die Za¨hringer, 292e3, no. 463.
31
Parlow,
Die Za¨hringer, 296e7, no. 469.
32
Parlow,
Die Za¨hringer, 303, no. 480: . laudante filio suo B..
33
Similar examples abound. Nevertheless, because there were no rigid rules or customs concerning when sons were
expected to appear as consenters, witnesses or co-donors with their fathers, heirs were not involved in every one of their
fathers’ property agreements during their childhood and youth. As numerous historians have observed, there is simply
not enough context provided in most archival sources concerning gifts to religious communities to draw any clear con-
clusions about the precise reasons why sons were or were not involved. See, for example, White,
Custom, kinship, and
gifts to saints, 128e9.
297
J.R. Lyon / Journal of Medieval History 34 (2008) 291e310
no evidence that indicates Berthold V was ever sent to the court of another lord to receive train-
ing in courtliness and knightly combat, it is clear that d even if he did leave home for part of
his education d he spent at least some of his formative years in close contact with Duke Bert-
hold IV.
Interactions between lords and heirs on those occasions when they united for property
donations could be important moments in the process of preparing young nobles to exercise
their lineages’ lordship effectively. Grants to monasteries were complicated acts. The members
of a noble family who participated in a grant became part of a local religious community’s
broader network of spiritual and social ties. As a result, the relatives involved in territorial
agreements elevated their status within those regions where they held rights and properties.
Moreover, when a son was at his father’s side for a donation, he had the opportunity to be in-
troduced to the personal networks that were one of the central foundations of his family’s power
and authority. When the teenaged Berthold V of Za¨hringen was with his father on 6 October
1175 for their property donation to Ru¨eggisberg, for example, he was also in the presence of
his paternal uncle, several high-ranking ministerials from his father’s household, and the bishop
of Lausanne.
How a father could use a property agreement to introduce his son to regional political
networks can be seen even more clearly in the case of Henry of Brunswick (d.1227), future
count-palatine of the Rhine. Henry was the oldest son of the most famous noble lord of the
twelfth-century German empire, Duke Henry the Lion of Saxony and Bavaria. The young
Henry of Brunswick was probably born in 1173, during the height of his father’s power and
influence.
But in 1180, following a number of court proceedings, Emperor Frederick I
Barbarossa stripped Henry the Lion of the duchies of Saxony and Bavaria. Two years later,
Henry the Lion went into exile in the lands of his father-in-law, King Henry II of England,
accompanied by his wife Matilda, their daughter, and two of their sons, Henry of Brunswick
and Otto.
Henry the Lion did not return to the German empire with his wife and children until
the spring of 1185. There, on 11 August 1186, the young Henry of Brunswick, then aged 13,
made a property grant alongside his father to the monastery of Northeim, which was situated
near his family’s allodial lands in Saxony.
Father and son were surrounded by a group of wit-
nesses who included a prominent Saxon count, a local abbot, Provost Gerhard of Steterburg (an
important annalist of the period), several lesser nobles, and some of the leading ministerials in
Henry the Lion’s household.
Henry of Brunswick was thus in contact, for the first time since
he had been a young child, with many of the key powerbrokers in the region around Brunswick.
His father was introducing him to some of the people with whom he would have to build close
relationships if he were to exercise lordship effectively after his father’s death. Even if d as
must frequently have been the case d heirs like Henry were too young and inexperienced
34
For this argument, see especially Barbara H. Rosenwein,
To be the neighbor of Saint Peter: the social meaning of
Cluny’s property, 909e1049 (Ithaca and London, 1989).
35
Parlow,
Die Za¨hringer, 296e7, no. 469. For the roles uncles played in the lives of their nephews, see below, note 96.
36
He makes his first appearance in an extant source only a year later in 1174, when he is referred to in one of Duke
Henry the Lion’s charters as ‘our son H., who at present is still growing up’.
Die Urkunden Heinrichs des Lo¨wen, Her-
zogs von Sachsen und Bayern, 153e4, no. 102: . filius noster H., qui inpresentiarum adolescit. See also Karl Jordan,
‘Heinrich der Lo¨we und seine Familie’, Archiv fu¨r Diplomatik, 27 (1981), 131.
37
Karl Jordan,
Henry the Lion: a biography, trans. P.S. Falla (Oxford, 1986), 183e4.
38
Die Urkunden Heinrichs des Lo¨wen, 174e6, no. 118.
39
Die Urkunden Heinrichs des Lo¨wen, 174e6, no. 118.
298
J.R. Lyon / Journal of Medieval History 34 (2008) 291e310
to appreciate fully the significance of the events they were observing and the people they were
meeting when property was exchanging hands, they were nevertheless learning an essential
family role that they could not have learned while being educated at the court of another
lord or wandering as adventurous youths.
A lineage’s own property agreements are not the only archival sources to reveal direct contacts
between nobles and their heirs. Fathers and sons frequently appear together as witnesses in the
charters of other lords, a somewhat different role for an heir than consenting to a family land
donation since a witness was expected to be a
legal adult. Indeed, once an heir attained the
age of majority (typically 12) he could begin to be involved in a much broader range of public
acts than just his family members’ territorial arrangements.
For example, Frederick Barbarossa
makes his entrance into the historical record in April of 1138 d shortly before becoming a knight
and almost a full decade before succeeding his father Frederick II as duke of Swabia. In a charter
of his paternal uncle King Conrad III (1138e52) for the monastery of Maria Laach drawn up at
Mainz, he appears unnamed in the witness list after his father: ‘Duke Frederick and his son’.
The 16 year-old heir is virtually invisible in this text, but by the early 1140s, Frederick began
to play an increasingly observable role in imperial affairs. On eight occasions between the spring
of 1141 and the spring of 1145 he witnessed alongside his father additional royal charters. Unlike
the 1138 text, his name is included in the witness list in each of these documents.
Moreover, in
another of King Conrad III’s charters, this one from 1144, Barbarossa and his father d both of
whom are identified as advocates of the religious community of Lorch d gave their consent to
the foundation of a new community of religious women by two of Lorch’s subjects.
The young
Frederick thus frequently accompanied Duke Frederick II to the royal court, and the numerous
places where they witnessed King Conrad III’s charters d including Strassburg, Constance,
Ulm, Wu¨rzburg, Lorch and Worms d suggest that the duke and his heir must have travelled
extensively together in south-western Germany.
Similar references to fathers and sons acting together as witnesses in the charters of the
German kings and emperors of the twelfth century are common. A random survey of 25 of
King Conrad III’s charters reveals that approximately one-third of the documents include at
least one father-son pair in the witness list. On 21 May 1149 at Salzburg, for example,
Count-palatine Otto of Wittelsbach (d.1156) witnessed Conrad’s charter for the monastery of
40
For 12 as the customary age of majority for twelfth-century German noblemen, see Jordan,
Henry the Lion, 22 and
Offergeld,
Reges pueri, 17. John Freed suggests boys may have been around the age of 10 when they started to act as
witnesses alongside their fathers:
Noble bondsmen: ministerial marriages in the archdiocese of Salzburg, 1100e1343
(Ithaca and London, 1995), 96e7. For the medieval age of majority more generally, see Nicholas Orme,
Medieval chil-
dren (New Haven and London, 2001), 216 and 321e8.
41
Die Urkunden Konrads III. und seines Sohnes Heinrich, ed. Friedrich Hausmann (MGH Diplomata 9, Vienna, Co-
logne and Graz, 1969), 15e16, no. 8: Fridericus dux et filius eius.
42
Die Urkunden Konrads III., 93e103, nos. 56e8 [1141]; 127e9, no. 72 [1142]; 170e1, no. 95 [1143]; 174e6, no. 98
[1144]; 230e2, no. 128 [1145]; and 234e7, no. 130 [1145].
43
Die Urkunden Konrads III., 202e3, no. 113.
44
Although one could perhaps argue that the young Barbarossa was a member of King Conrad III’s court during these
years and therefore travelled to these places with the king rather than his father, the fact that between 1138 and 1145
Barbarossa only appears in the witness lists of royal charters that also name Duke Frederick II makes it more likely that
the young Frederick was only present at the royal court when he accompanied his father there. For the analysis of the
witness lists of imperial charters, see Alheydis Plassmann,
Die Struktur des Hofes unter Friedrich I. Barbarossa nach
den deutschen Zeugen seiner Urkunden (Hanover, 1998), 1e17.
299
J.R. Lyon / Journal of Medieval History 34 (2008) 291e310
St Lambrecht alongside his two sons Otto (future duke of Bavaria) and Frederick.
He and his
eldest son Otto had already appeared together in the witness list of a December 1142 royal char-
ter drawn up in Regensburg, and in that same text, Count Albert of Bogen (d.1146) is named as
a witness immediately before his own son Hartwig.
The royal court was clearly a place where
noblemen had the opportunity to demonstrate for their onlooking heirs the benefits of working
closely with other prominent secular and ecclesiastical lords in conducting the business of the
empire.
Fathers and sons also appear alongside one another in charters drawn up by other lords
besides the kings and emperors, especially by bishops whose territorial interests overlapped
with those of local noble lineages. Margrave Conrad of Meissen (d.1157), who divided his lord-
ships among all five of his adult sons upon his withdrawal to a monastic community in 1156, is
named with various combinations of his sons during the late 1140s and early 1150s at the courts
of two leading Saxon ecclesiastics. On 16 April 1147 Conrad and his eldest son Otto were in
Magdeburg to witness a charter drawn up by Archbishop Frederick of Magdeburg for the mon-
astery of Gottesgnaden.
Four years later on 29 May 1151, two additional sons, Dietrich and
Dedo, joined Conrad and Otto in witnessing another of the archbishop’s charters.
And on 1
April 1154, the margrave was joined by four of his five sons at Naumburg, where they all wit-
nessed a charter by Bishop Wichmann of Naumburg for the convent at Zeitz.
In each of these
cases, the aging Conrad of Wettin can be seen introducing his heirs into local power networks in
the area around Meissen.
The importance of such gatherings at regional courts for the training of noble sons should
not be underestimated. In 1135, Count Berthold I of Andechs and his eldest son Poppo
witnessed a charter of Bishop Otto I of Bamberg (1102e39) for the monastery of Vessra.
Bert-
hold I had inherited lands and rights within the Upper Franconian diocese of Bamberg from his
mother around 1100, but this charter is the first surviving source to attest to his presence in the
region. It is also the earliest extant document that does not directly involve the Andechs line-
age’s own lands and rights to name Berthold’s son Poppo. As C. Stephen Jaeger has argued,
Otto of Bamberg was the quintessential courtier bishop, an ecclesiastical lord renowned in
his day for his elegance and his diplomatic skills.
Attending the bishop’s court with his father
must therefore have been a valuable learning experience for the young political novice Poppo.
Indeed, the evidence for noblemen and their heirs acting together as witnesses at other lords’
courts suggests that fathers were often involved in important ways in their sons’ early instruc-
tion in proper courtly conduct. Young heirs needed to be introduced to the social and cultural
dimensions of noble life as well as the martial ones, for knowing how to act appropriately
45
Die Urkunden Konrads III., 363e5, no. 201.
46
Die Urkunden Konrads III., 144e5, no. 82.
47
Urkunden der Markgrafen von Meissen und Landgrafen von Thu¨ringen, 1100e1195, ed. Otto Posse (Codex Diplo-
maticus Saxoniae Regiae I 2, Leipzig, 1889), 139e40, no. 202.
48
Urkunden der Markgrafen von Meissen, 154e5, no. 224.
49
Urkunden der Markgrafen von Meissen, 167, no. 249.
50
Bamberg, Staatsarchiv Bamberg, BU 192. Summary of charter:
Das Urkundenbuch des Abtes Andreas im Kloster
Michelsberg bei Bamberg, ed. C.A. Schweitzer (Bericht des historischen Vereins Bamberg 16, Bamberg, 1853),
14e15. For a more detailed discussion of this incident, see Jonathan R. Lyon, ‘Cooperation, compromise and conflict
avoidance: family relationships in the house of Andechs, ca. 1100e1204’ (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Notre
Dame, 2004), 305e8.
51
C. Stephen Jaeger,
The origins of courtliness: civilizing trends and the formation of courtly ideals 939e1210
(Philadelphia, 1985), 52.
300
J.R. Lyon / Journal of Medieval History 34 (2008) 291e310
around the king and other lords would be essential to their success after their fathers died.
Furthermore, as a result of the growing significance of the ideals of knighthood in the twelfth
century, there were also moral and religious dimensions to this education since proper knightly
behaviour was becoming an important aspect of each nobleman’s persona.
In the modern lit-
erature on noble youths, all of this training has typically been viewed as occurring while a son
was separated from his father, while the young man was being educated by a tutor or raised at
the court of another lord.
But this was clearly not the case for the German nobility. Lords and
heirs were frequently together at the royal/imperial court and at the courts of other lords, giving
fathers at least some opportunity to play a role in teaching their sons how to function in the
often complex and dangerous world of the medieval court.
Sons’ administrative and political roles during their fathers’ lifetimes
Sources that provide evidence for the direct contacts between fathers and sons reveal only
some of the roles heirs could play inside their lineages prior to the moment when they suc-
ceeded their fathers. Youths could also act independently from their fathers while conducting
family business, and the responsibilities granted to sons during their fathers’ lifetimes took a
variety of different forms. Many of the opportunities that heirs were given centred on their
lineages’ territorial lordships.
In some cases, a lord simply gave to his son(s) the task of over-
seeing a portion of the lineage’s rights and properties. Poppo IV of Henneberg (d.1156), son of
Burgrave Gotebold II of Wu¨rzburg, had already begun to act as advocate for the monastery of
Lorsch in 1140, four years before the death of his father.
The aforementioned Poppo and
Berthold II of Andechs, the two oldest sons of Count Berthold I of Andechs (d.1151), similarly
appear at different times during the 1140s in documents from the Bavarian monastery of
Benediktbeuern as ‘our advocate’.
Their youngest brother Otto, who would begin a Church
career in the early 1150s, is also named in the witness lists of Benediktbeuern documents
from the same period d documents that do not concern the Andechs lineage’s own proper-
ties.
This suggests that Count Berthold I wanted all three of his sons to establish close
connections to this religious community, the advocacy for which was one of the most important
components of the lineage’s Bavarian lordships.
One of the best examples of the prominent role that a son and heir could play in the exer-
cising of his lineage’s territorial rights involves Welf VII, who was probably born around 1140
52
Bumke,
Courtly culture, 231e42.
53
See above, notes 6e8 and 12.
54
Andrew W. Lewis, in his work on the Capetians and the nobility of northern France, has employed the term ‘antic-
ipatory association’ to explain the numerous examples he has found of fathers who chose to incorporate their sons into
their own office-holding. As he demonstrates, this strategy could serve a broad range of purposes ultimately designed to
insure the smooth hereditary transmission of the family’s patrimony to the next generation. See especially his
‘Anticipatory association of the heir in early Capetian France’,
American Historical Review, 83 (1978), 906e27. The
sources from Germany suggest that, at least within the empire, there was much more to this practice than an emphasis
on the legal dimensions of succession and inheritance might indicate.
55
Heinrich Wagner, ‘Entwurf einer Genealogie der Grafen von Henneberg’,
Jahrbuch des Hennebergisch-Fra¨nkischen
Geschichtsvereins, 11 (1996), 45.
56
F.L. von Baumann, ‘Das Benediktbeurer Traditionsbuch’,
Archivalische Zeitschrift, Neue Folge, 20 (1914), 17e18,
nos 29e30 and 25, no. 50: advocatus noster.
57
Baumann, ‘Das Benediktbeurer Traditionsbuch’, 18, no. 30 and 25, no. 50.
58
Holzfurtner,
Die Grafschaft der Andechser, 155.
301
J.R. Lyon / Journal of Medieval History 34 (2008) 291e310
and who died in 1167 during the malaria outbreak that struck Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa’s
army outside Rome.
His father, Welf VI (d.1191), was one of the most prominent nobles in
the south of the German empire during the middle decades of the twelfth century. In 1152, in an
effort to stabilise the political situation in southern Germany, the newly-elected Barbarossa had
agreed to recognise his maternal uncle Welf VI as the holder of the titles of duke of Spoleto,
margrave of Tuscany and rector of Sardinia. These titles were empty ones to a certain extent,
but in subsequent years Welf VI nevertheless began to extend his political influence across the
Alps into northern Italy.
When, eight years later in 1160, Welf VI chose to side with Pope
Alexander III in the papal schism that pitted Alexander against the emperor’s candidate, Victor
IV, the duke of Spoleto found himself in a precarious position.
He possessed strategically-
important rights in Italy as well as extensive properties in the two south German duchies of
Swabia and Bavaria, between Lake Constance in the west and the Lech river valley in the
east; many of his Swabian lands and rights lay in regions where the emperor’s Staufen family
also had valuable possessions. As a result of this situation, and in order to control more effec-
tively his territories north and south of the Alps, the duke turned to his son Welf VII for
assistance.
The
Historia Welforum reports that Welf VI spent the early part of the year 1160 in Italy
securing his rights there. Then, ‘he entrusted to his son Welf [VII] that land [the duchy of Spo-
leto] and the parts of Italy that belonged to him and, leaving behind with his son every one of
the strongest of his men, he returned home through the valley of Trent. Thereafter Welf the
Younger, having taken possession of the land, with constancy of spirit, rigor of judgment,
and inestimable largesse and kindness showed himself to be acceptable to everyone’.
The au-
thor of the
Historia is admittedly biased here in his depiction of Welf VII’s popularity, but the
basic point is clear: at a time when Welf VII was probably in his late teens or early 20s, this
noble youth began to exercise personally his father’s lordship in Italy.
That Welf VI consid-
ered this a difficult task for his son is suggested by his decision to leave ‘behind with his son
every one of the strongest of his men’ to support the young heir. Even this strategy apparently
did not allay the duke’s concerns, however, and at some point prior to the early months of 1164,
59
Welf VII is first named in an extant source on Christmas day of 1146. As Welf VI was preparing to depart on the
second crusade, he agreed to return to the monastery of Hirsau properties he had unjustly seized from this religious
community. His wife and their son Welf VII consented to the arrangement. Unfortunately, there are no additional texts
from this period that refer to Welf VII. Because he is listed in the 1146 agreement after his mother, and because he is not
named in another extant source for more than a decade, he was almost certainly a young child at the time this document
was written. See Karin Feldmann,
Herzog Welf VI. und sein Sohn: Das Ende des su¨ddeutschen Welfenhauses (Tu¨bingen,
1971), 22e3 (especially note 77) and text no. 17 in the register.
60
For an excellent overview of the career of Welf VI, see Bernd Schneidmu¨ller, Die Welfen: Herrschaft und Erinner-
ung (819e1252) (Stuttgart, 2000), 180e241.
61
For the difficult political situation in which Duke Welf VI found himself in this period, see Katrin Baaken, ‘Herzog
Welf VI. und seine Zeit’, in
Welf VI.: Wissenschaftliches Kolloquium zum 800. Todesjahr, ed. Rainer Jehl (Sigmaringen,
1995), 19e22.
62
Historia Welforum, ch. 29, 78: . filio suo Guelfoni terram illam ac totam Italiam ad se spectantem conmisit, ac de
suis strennuissimos quosque secum relinquens, per vallem Tridentiam revertitur. Guelfo igitur iunior terra potitus, con-
stantia animi, districtione iudicii, largitate et affabilitate inestimabili, omnibus se acceptabilem prebuit.
63
An imperial charter from 6 April 1162, in which Frederick Barbarossa granted an array of privileges to Pisa in return
for the city’s support, confirms Welf VII’s role in Italian politics in this period. According to the text, Frederick would
support Pisa if the city’s new privileges were threatened ‘by Welf [VI], by his son, by their successor, or by any other
person acting for them’. See
Die Urkunden Friedrichs I., ed. Heinrich Appelt, 5 vols (MGH Diplomata 10, Hanover,
1975e90), 2:201, no. 356: . a Welfone vel eius filio vel eorum successore vel ab aliqua persona pro eis.
302
J.R. Lyon / Journal of Medieval History 34 (2008) 291e310
Welf VI decided to return to Italy. This led Welf VII to cross the Alps into Germany.
As the
Historia explains, ‘the father recalled his son from Italy and, about to go there to take on the
business of that land for himself, he granted undiminished to his son his whole patrimony and
those possessions that [Welf VII] was to have from his mother’s inheritance’.
Welf VI and
Welf VII thus essentially switched places, and to the youthful heir fell the task of exercising
his family’s lordship along the Bavaria-Swabia border. By the time he was approximately 25
years of age, therefore, Welf VII had had the opportunity to learn about governing his lineage’s
rights and properties in both Italy and Germany.
While youthful sons tended to receive from their fathers tasks that focused on their lineages’
own territorial interests, these heirs were also occasionally given the opportunity to play impor-
tant roles in the
negotium imperii, to borrow a phrase from Landgrave Ludwig’s aforementioned
letter to his younger brother. Otto of Meissen, eldest son of Margrave Conrad of Meissen
(d.1157), appears to have quickly earned the trust and respect of King Conrad III even as a youth.
Without his father, he is named alongside his younger brother Dietrich in the witness list of a royal
charter from March 1144.
Then, on 21 August 1149 at a gathering of the royal court in Frank-
furt, he acted as the chief judge among the numerous lords who issued a ruling on a dispute
between the count-palatine of the Rhine and the monastery of St Remi at Reims.
On the other
side of the political divide, the youthful heir Berthold IVof Za¨hringen had already emerged as an
important figure in the anti-King Conrad III camp by the close of the 1140s, a few years before his
father Duke Conrad’s death in 1152. Late in the year 1148 or early in the year 1149, King Roger II
of Sicily wrote a letter to several imperial lords asking them to support his close ally Welf VI
against King Conrad III.
Roger directed his request at Frederick Barbarossa (who was duke
of Swabia in this period), Duke Henry the Lion, Duke Conrad of Za¨hringen, and Duke Conrad’s
son Berthold IV, whose inclusion alongside three such prominent magnates is clearly noteworthy.
The young Berthold IV must have already earned a reputation as an influential figure alongside
his father.
The aforementioned Henry of Brunswick, eldest son of Henry the Lion, was also active in
imperial politics throughout his late teens and early 20s. During the early months of 1190, fol-
lowing Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa’s departure on the third crusade, Henry the Lion
agreed to a peace with the emperor’s son Henry VI, who was ruling as king. As part of the
agreement, the young Henry of Brunswick promised to participate in Henry VI’s planned
expedition to Italy and to bring with him a force of 50 knights.
According to the annalist
Gerhard of Steterburg, Henry of Brunswick participated in Henry VI’s imperial coronation
64
Feldmann,
Herzog Welf VI. und sein Sohn, 54 and register nos 107 and 115 identifies Welf VII as the ‘dux Welfo’
named in the witness lists of two imperial charters from February 1162 and November 1163, both of which were drawn
up at Lodi. However, it is impossible to say with certainty whether this ‘dux Welfo’ was the father or the son, making
difficult any attempt to determine exactly how long Welf VII remained in Italy.
65
Historia Welforum, ch. 30, 80: . pater filium de Italia revocavit, ipseque illo iturus et negocia terrae per se tracta-
turus, filio omne patrimonium, et posessiones quas ex parte matris habiturus erat, ex integro tradidit.
66
Die Urkunden Konrads III., 174e6, no. 98.
67
Die Urkunden Konrads III., 377e9, no. 210. For more on Otto’s early career, see Stefan Pa¨tzold, Die fru¨hen
Wettiner. Adelsfamilie und Hausu¨berlieferung bis 1221 (Cologne, Weimar and Vienna, 1997), 52.
68
Parlow,
Die Za¨hringer, 210e11, no. 319.
69
Similarly, it was Poppo and Berthold II of Andechs, not their father Count Berthold I, who accompanied Emperor
Lothar III on his Italian campaign in 1137 d 14 years before the death of their father. See
Die Urkunden Lothars III.
und der Kaiserin Richenza, ed. Emil von Ottenthal and Hans Hirsch (MGH Diplomata 8, Berlin, 1927), 194e202, no.
120.
303
J.R. Lyon / Journal of Medieval History 34 (2008) 291e310
at Rome in 1191 and then accompanied the new emperor south toward Apulia. The annals re-
port that, soon thereafter, the young Henry received news of the death of one of his younger
brothers, Lothar, who died under mysterious circumstances while being held as a hostage by
Emperor Henry VI’s supporters.
In late June or early July of 1191, Henry suddenly aban-
doned the imperial army and, departing from Naples, fled northward. He stopped briefly in
Rome, where on 5 August 1191 he received from Pope Celestine III an important privilege
declaring that only the popes and their official legates had the right to excommunicate Henry
the Lion or any of his surviving sons.
The privilege effectively neutralised many of the two
Henrys’ ecclesiastical enemies in Saxony, and viewed from the perspective of the careers of
noble youths, the document also offers a revealing glimpse into the diplomatic skills of an
18 year-old heir.
Gerhard of Steterburg reports that the young Henry eventually made his way safely back to
Brunswick: ‘The junior duke, with God protecting him . through many hardships and great
danger, unexpectedly reached Brunswick. His father rejoiced upon his arrival’.
The annalist’s
claim that Henry the Lion was happy to see his son seems well-founded. After his return,
Henry of Brunswick began to play an increasingly prominent role in his father’s Saxon lord-
ships, and Henry the Lion clearly had great trust in his young heir’s abilities. The chronicler
Arnold of Lu¨beck states that in the summer or autumn of 1193, Henry the Lion sent the young
Henry on a diplomatic mission to the king of Denmark.
Henry the Lion was in his early 60s
in the early 1190s and was not as physically active as he had been in his younger days. He thus
appears to have relied heavily on his eldest son to take the lead in pursuing the lineage’s
interests.
Fathers and the military training of their sons
The invaluable learning experiences that sons could gain during their fathers’ lifetimes are
most evident in the sphere of warfare. In the early months of 1143, the young Frederick Bar-
barossa participated in his first known military engagement when he accompanied his maternal
uncle Welf VI on a campaign.
According to Otto of Freising, two other campaigns, both of
which probably occurred in 1145/1146 while Barbarossa was 23 or 24 years of age, were then
led by the heir. As Otto explains, Frederick conducted a successful raid against a prominent
Bavarian count on the first of these campaigns. The chronicler then continues,
70
Annales Stederburgenses auctore Gerhardo praeposito, ed. Georg Heinrich Pertz (MGH Scriptores 16, Hanover,
1859), 223e4. His captivity was intended to insure that Henry the Lion and Henry of Brunswick would follow the terms
of the 1190 peace agreement. However, since Lothar had died more than six months earlier in the autumn of 1190, it
seems likely that the provost of Steterburg d a strong supporter of Henry the Lion d was simply using his death to
justify Henry of Brunswick’s surprising actions during the summer of 1191.
71
Schneidmu¨ller, Die Welfen, 236e8 and Jordan, Henry the Lion, 191e3.
72
Annales Stederburgenses, 224: . iunior dux, Deo se custodiente, . per multos labores et gravia pericula inopinate
Brunswich advenit; in cuius adventu patri suo laetitia accrevit.
73
Arnold of Lu¨beck, Chronica Slavorum, 5.20, ed. J.M. Lappenberg (MGH Scriptores rerum Germanicarum 14,
1868), 183.
74
Jordan,
Henry the Lion, 194.
75
Cronica Regia Coloniensis (Annales Maximi Colonienses), ed. Georg Waitz (MGH Scriptores rerum Germanicarum
18, Hanover, 1880), 79. For a detailed analysis of Frederick’s involvement in this campaign d which has long posed
problems for historians who envision a Welf-Staufen conflict in the twelfth-century German empire d see Werner
Hechberger,
Staufer und Welfen 1125e1190: Zur Verwendung von Theorien in der Geschichtswissenschaft (Cologne,
1996), 32e5 and 216e17.
304
J.R. Lyon / Journal of Medieval History 34 (2008) 291e310
After these events, Frederick declared war on Duke Conrad [of Za¨hringen], son of Duke
Berthold [II], and after he captured the town of Zu¨rich in Alemannia, he placed a garrison
there. Then, when he had been joined by certain nobles from Bavaria, he entered the
territory of the aforesaid duke with a large force of knights. Advancing almost all the
way to the furthest reaches of Alemannia, he arrived at Za¨hringen, a castle of the same
duke, with no one opposing him or having the strength to resist him. Not long after that,
Frederick stormed and captured a certain stronghold of the duke, which even now appears
to everyone seeing it to be impregnable. Contrary to the expectation of many, he so bravely
subdued the very strong and wealthy duke that he compelled Conrad to approach his father
and his uncle [King Conrad III of Germany] and to seek peace.
This campaign against Duke Conrad of Za¨hringen was much more than simply a knightly
adventure for Barbarossa. It was a well-planned, carefully-executed attack against one of his
family’s territorial rivals.
Otto of Freising’s statement that the young Frederick forced Duke
Conrad to seek peace from his father and uncle indicates that Frederick was operating strictly
within the parameters of family politics during this war. His father Duke Frederick II of Swabia
and his uncle King Conrad III, who were both approaching 60 years of age during the mid-1140s,
appear to have used the young and ambitious Barbarossa to their own advantage, employing him
as their family’s strong right arm as they pursued their own interests. In the process, the young
Frederick had the opportunity to gain experience campaigning d while under the watchful eye
of members of the older generation of his family.
Two decades later in the mid-1160s, the aforementioned Duke Welf VI of Spoleto’s twenty-
something heir Welf VII attacked some of his lineage’s enemies as part of the conflict known to
modern historians as the ‘Tu¨binger Feud’.
While Welf VI was still exercising lordship north of
the Alps, Count-palatine Hugo of Tu¨bingen, whose properties and rights included a county he
held in fief from Welf VI, permitted at least one of Welf VI’s ministerials to be hanged. Rather
than responding with military force, Welf VI sought to settle his dispute with Hugo peacefully.
When Welf VII replaced his father in their German lordships in early 1164, the young heir con-
tinued negotiations. Hugo, however, refused to accept Welf VII’s demands. As a result, Welf VII
took up arms against the count-palatine of Tu¨bingen.
The
Historia Welforum and Otto of St Blasien’s Chronica both provide detailed accounts of
the dispute.
Welf VII gathered a large army that included numerous south German nobles and
76
Otto of Freising,
Gesta Friderici I. Imperatoris 1.27, 44: Post haec Conrado duci, supradicti Berhtolfi ducis filio,
bellum indicit, captoque supra memorato Alemanniae oppido Turego, presidia ibidem posuit. Dehinc iunctis sibi etiam
quibusdam de Baioaria nobilibus prefati ducis terram cum magna manu militum introivit atque ad ultima pene Aleman-
niae procedens ad Zaringen usque, eiusdem ducis castrum, pervenit, nullo sibi obviante vel resistere valente. Non multo
post etiam arcem ipsius quandam, quae cunctis adhuc cernentibus inexpugnabilis esse videtur, cepit et expugnavit ac
contra multorum opinionem fortissimum et ditissimum ducem tam acriter debellavit, ut ad patrem patruumque suum
supplicem eum venire ac pacem petere cogeret.
77
For more on this point, see Opll,
Friedrich Barbarossa, 30e1 and, for a discussion of Barbarossa’s raid against the
Bavarian count (Count Henry of Wolfratshausen), Alois Schu¨tz, ‘Das Geschlecht der Andechs-Meranier im europa¨i-
schen Hochmittelalter’, in:
Herzo¨ge und Heilige: Das Geschlecht der Andechs-Meranier im europa¨ischen Hochmittelal-
ter, ed. Josef Kirmeier and Evamaria Brockhoff (Munich, 1993), 58.
78
For detailed discussions of the ‘Tu¨binger Fehde’, see Gerd Althoff, ‘Welf VI. und seine Verwandten in den Kon-
flikten des 12. Jahrhunderts’, in:
Welf VI.: Wissenschaftliches Kolloquium, 77e82 and Feldmann, Herzog Welf VI.
und sein Sohn, 64e9.
79
Historia Welforum, chs 30e1, 80e85 and Otto of St Blasien, Chronica, ed. Adolf Hofmeister (MGH Scriptores re-
rum Germanicarum 47, Hanover and Leipzig, 1912), 20e2.
305
J.R. Lyon / Journal of Medieval History 34 (2008) 291e310
three bishops. Count-palatine Hugo of Tu¨bingen had many allies and a large army of his own,
however, and for Welf VII, this first reported opportunity to demonstrate his military leadership
proved disastrous. The opening battle of the campaign, which was fought in September of 1164
at Tu¨bingen, was a rout for Hugo’s side. Over 900 members of Welf VII’s army were reportedly
captured. Duke Welf VI soon returned from Italy in order to help negotiate the release of the
prisoners. Already on 1 November 1164, father and son were together at a gathering of the im-
perial court in Ulm, possibly attempting to end the conflict.
The dispute continued, however.
As Otto of St Blasien reports, ‘Because of his son’s misfortune, the inflamed elder Welf reor-
ganised the army, and Duke Berthold [IV of Za¨hringen] came to his assistance with additional
forces. After he [Welf VI] laid waste with fire and sword all the possessions of the count-
palatine, he besieged the castle of Chelmunz and, after some days, took the castle by assault
and destroyed it’.
From there, Welf VI continued his attacks on the count-palatine’s fortifica-
tions, and Hugo and his allies soon retaliated. The fighting between the two sides did not
conclude until another gathering of the imperial court at Ulm in 1166.
The events comprising the ‘Tu¨binger Feud’ offer an extraordinary glimpse into the
relationship between a noble lord and his youthful heir. Welf VI’s decision to travel to Italy to
investigate the condition of his rights and properties there gave Welf VII the opportunity to
take the lead in conducting the campaign against Count-palatine Hugo. When the son proved un-
suitable for the task, however, the father returned and promptly took control of the situation,
launching his own military campaign to correct his son’s mistakes. Thus, Duke Welf VI was will-
ing to give his heir important responsibilities and independence, but he also kept a close eye on
the youth in order to protect his lineage’s position.
The cases of the young Frederick Barbarossa and Welf VII suggest that other noble heirs
may also have been more closely integrated into their fathers’ military plans than most
scholars have recognised. Otto of Freising recounts, for example, the story of a journey
King Conrad III made to Regensburg in the duchy of Bavaria late in his reign in order to
put an end to the raiding habits of the two Wittelsbach youths Otto and Frederick: ‘After
Count-palatine Otto had been outlawed on account of the excesses committed by his sons,
Conrad laid siege to the count-palatine’s nearby castle called Kelheim . and compelled
him to turn over one of his sons as a hostage’.
While the precise motives behind these young
noblemen’s activities are not given in the text, that the king would besiege Count-palatine
Otto’s castle in response to the violent activities of his sons indicates that there may have
been more to Otto and Frederick’s ‘excesses’ than mere youthful exuberance. Conrad may
have suspected or known that these two heirs were following their fathers’ orders. Indeed,
lords may have frequently given their sons the opportunity to display their military prowess
and improve their martial skills in a way that simultaneously taught them about the family’s
territorial and political interests.
80
Die Urkunden Friedrichs I., 2:381e2, no. 470. See also Feldmann, Herzog Welf VI. und sein Sohn, 67.
81
Otto of St Blasien,
Chronica, 21: Quo infortunio filii Welf senior inflammatus militem instaurat venienteque Ber-
toldo duce cum milicia sibi in adiutorium cunctis rebus palatini igne ferroque profligatis castrum Chelmunz obsedit ac
post aliquod dies expugnatum funditus destruxit.
82
Otto of Freising,
Gesta Friderici I. Imperatoris 1.69, 97e8: . palatino comite Ottone ob filiorum suorum excessus
proscripto, vicinum eius castrum Cheleheim dictum . obsidione cingit eumque ad hoc, ut unum filiorum suorum ob-
sidem daret, coegit.
83
For a similar point, see Matthew Bennett, ‘Military masculinity in England and northern France c.1050ec.1225’, in:
Masculinity in medieval Europe, ed. Hadley, 77e8.
306
J.R. Lyon / Journal of Medieval History 34 (2008) 291e310
Fathers, sons and the problem of intergenerational conflict
By giving their heirs a variety of administrative, political and military responsibilities during
their own lifetimes, noble fathers within the twelfth-century German empire helped to prepare
their sons for their roles as lords. In most cases, this instructional process appears to have
promoted close relationships between fathers and sons. But there is evidence that reveals
disagreements and open conflicts were also a possible result of these intergenerational contacts.
The model of father-son conflict that currently prevails in the scholarship, however, which
follows Duby in seeing the powerlessness of youths during their fathers’ lifetimes as the chief
cause of family disputes, is insufficient for explaining most of these conflicts.
Because many
sons were actively involved in their fathers’ affairs from an early age, the intergenerational
disputes that appear in the sources for the German nobility require a different interpretation,
one that shifts the emphasis away from the theory that these sons were essentially emasculated
while they were heirs.
Two cases concerning noble sons who have already been discussed bring to light some of the
complexities of intergenerational tensions. According to Otto of Freising, when Frederick Bar-
barossa made the decision to participate in the second crusade,
[his father] the most noble Duke Frederick [II] was tarrying in Gaul, delayed by a grave
illness. He bore in his heart fierce indignation against his lord and brother King Conrad
because Conrad had permitted his son Frederick to take the cross. The duke had already
made Frederick d who as the first-born and only son of his most noble first wife had
been entrusted by the duke’s grace with his second wife and their little son d the heir
to all his lands . . The duke, after living not many more days, could no longer endure
the force of his sorrow and died.
Otto of Freising, who avoids criticising Barbarossa here, is quick to deflect the blame for this
situation toward King Conrad III. Nevertheless, the chronicler does not hide the fact that the
young Frederick had apparently defied his father’s wishes in the duke’s final days in order to
accompany his king (and paternal uncle) on the crusade.
Henry of Brunswick seems to have challenged his father’s authority in a similar fashion late
in Henry the Lion’s life. At some point in the closing months of 1193, Henry of Brunswick
married Agnes of Staufen, the heiress to the county-palatine of the Rhine. The marriage appar-
ently took place in secret, for neither Henry the Lion, nor Agnes’s father Conrad, nor Emperor
Henry VI (Agnes’s paternal uncle) knew about the marriage ahead of time. Agnes’s mother had
acted alone in arranging the union.
Henry of Brunswick then became a staunch ally of
Emperor Henry VI, a strategy apparently designed to soothe the emperor’s anger over the secret
84
Duby, ‘In northwestern France’ and the works cited above in note 11.
85
Otto of Freising,
Gesta Friderici I. Imperatoris 1.41, 59e60: . Fridericus dux nobilissimus in Gallia manens gravi
infirmitate detinebatur, acrem in mente contra dominum et fratrem suum Conradum regem indignationem gerens, quod
filium suum Fridericum, quem ipse tamquam primogenitum ac nobilissimae prioris comparis suae filium unicum, com-
mittendo ipsius gratiae cum filio suo parvulo secundam uxorem, totius terrae suae heredem fecerat, crucem permiserat
accipere . .Ipse tamen vim doloris non sustinens non multis post diebus vivendi finem fecit.
86
Frederick’s independent streak may be partly explained by the fact that he was newly-married at this point in time:
Jan Paul Niederkorn, ‘Die U
¨ bergang des Egerlandes an die Staufer: Die Heirat Friedrich Barbarossas mit Adela von
Vohburg’,
Zeitschrift fu¨r bayerische Landesgeschichte, 54 (1991), 618.
87
Jordan,
Henry the Lion, 196e7.
307
J.R. Lyon / Journal of Medieval History 34 (2008) 291e310
marriage. As Arnold of Lu¨beck explains, ‘Then a new light rose in Saxony, namely the enjoy-
ment of peace, because from that time forward he [Henry of Brunswick] adhered to the emperor
with great friendship, so that [the emperor] would decide to undertake nothing against him con-
cerning the other matter [that is, the marriage]’.
Although Henry the Lion continued to be
active in his Saxon lands until his death in August of 1195, his son Henry of Brunswick had
clearly surpassed him in prestige and influence following his marriage and his reconciliation
with Emperor Henry VI. Still in his early 20s, Henry of Brunswick was suddenly one of the
leading nobles of the empire d even before his father died.
Frederick Barbarossa and Henry of Brunswick both rebelled in small ways against their
fathers: Frederick by going on the second crusade and Henry of Brunswick by secretly marry-
ing. In neither of these cases, however, was the son acting as a turbulent youth attempting to
challenge the tyrannical authority of his father. Frederick and Henry were both twenty-
something men who already had years of experience in the world of imperial politics. Their
actions represent differences of opinion with their fathers on matters of family strategy rather
than conscious efforts to seize power. As Otto of Freising suggests, Duke Frederick II of
Swabia saw only the risks involved in letting his one adult son go on crusade; Barbarossa, how-
ever, saw only the potential rewards in following King Conrad III on the expedition. And Henry
of Brunswick’s willingness to marry Emperor Henry VI’s niece d and his subsequent strong
support for the emperor d may reflect the fact that the young man, unlike his father, had
not spent two decades mired in conflict with the Staufen rulers of the empire.
The complex set of factors that underlay the tensions between lords and their heirs is espe-
cially apparent in those cases where father-son conflict led to violence. In 1189, Margrave Otto
of Meissen was captured and imprisoned by his eldest son, Albrecht. The reason for the young
heir’s sudden attack on his father was well known to contemporaries: Otto had decided to by-
pass his eldest son and to give the march of Meissen to his second son, Dietrich.
To describe
Albrecht’s attack on his father as the result of a simple case of disinheritance is to overlook the
broader context of the event, however. Albrecht had been involved in his father’s affairs for
more than five years prior to his rebellion in 1189. He witnessed a property settlement on 5
September 1183 that his father had helped to mediate.
In 1184, 1185 and 1186, he appeared
in the witness lists of various charters concerning his father’s interests.
A document dated 23
April 1186 reveals that the duke of Bohemia had agreed to arrange a marriage between
Albrecht and the duke’s daughter.
And in 1187 Albrecht witnessed a charter without his father
for the first time, evidence for his growing independence even during Otto’s lifetime.
His
younger brother Dietrich, meanwhile, appeared alongside his father only once prior to the
events of 1189.
88
Arnold of Lu¨beck, Chronica Slavorum, 5.20, 183e4: Tunc nova lux in Saxonia orta est, pacis videlicet iocunditas,
quia ex illo tempore tanta familiaritate imperatori adhesit, ut nil de cetero contra ipsum moliri decrevisset.
89
Chronicon Montis Sereni, ed. Ernst Ehrenfeuchter (MGH Scriptores 23, Hanover, 1874), 161 and Cronica Rein-
hardsbrunnensis, ed. Oswald Holder-Egger (MGH Scriptores 30, 1, Hanover, 1896), 543e4. See also Pa¨tzold, Die
Wettiner, 56e7 and Carl Wenck, ‘Ein meissnischer Erbfolgekrieg am Ende des 12. Jahrhunderts’, Zeitschrift des Vereins
fu¨r thu¨ringische Geschichte und Altertumskunde, Neue Folge 2:2, (1880), 183e218.
90
Urkunden der Markgrafen von Meissen, 331e2, no. 476.
91
Urkunden der Markgrafen von Meissen, 336e8, no. 484; 351e3, no. 510; and 361e2, no. 523.
92
Urkunden der Markgrafen von Meissen, 357e8, no. 517. For more on this marriage, see Weller, Die Heiratspolitik,
669e70.
93
Urkunden der Markgrafen von Meissen, 366, no. 530.
94
Urkunden der Markgrafen von Meissen, 361e2, no. 523.
308
J.R. Lyon / Journal of Medieval History 34 (2008) 291e310
The extant sources from the 1180s thus indicate that Albrecht was the one being prepared to
succeed as margrave in the years prior to Otto of Meissen’s decision to give the march to
Dietrich. The choice to bypass Albrecht had not been made while he was a young child. His
disinheritance seems to have been quite sudden and clearly caught him by surprise. Given
this context, his imprisonment of his father becomes d while perhaps not justifiable d at least
understandable. Margrave Otto had trained Albrecht to be his heir, and when Otto changed his
mind, he had to face the wrath of a young man who had learned from his father how to behave
like an independent lord zealously protecting his rights. The strategies fathers employed when
they gave power and authority to their sons during their own lifetimes therefore played a critical
role in shaping the reasons why intergenerational conflict sometimes erupted. Regardless of
how medieval authors chose to label young heirs d as
pueri, adolescentes, juvenes or
something similar d such sons were frequently mature adults who were more than capable
of effectively challenging their fathers’ decisions when necessary.
Conclusion
Not every lord lived long enough to see his sons reach adulthood. Some young heirs had to
learn from someone other than their father how to exercise their family’s political and territorial
rights.
In those cases, mothers, uncles and more distant relatives seem to have filled the void
left by a deceased father.
For the upper nobility of the twelfth-century German empire, how-
ever, the premature death of a lord appears to have been a relatively uncommon event. Many of
the most prominent and best-documented lineages experienced periods lasting years, and often
even decades, when the lives of fathers and sons overlapped, giving the older generation the
opportunity to prepare the younger generation to succeed and inherit. As part of the training
lords offered to their heirs, young sons were sometimes present with their fathers when these
lords made property agreements; they accompanied their fathers to the courts of the kings/
emperors and other magnates; and they even had the chance to prove themselves by occasion-
ally acting independently in conducting various types of family business. All of these situations
made it possible for fathers to maintain at least some control over their youthful heirs d while
simultaneously providing the young men with invaluable on-the-job training that would prepare
them for the day when they became the heads of their lineages.
For the upper nobility of the twelfth-century German empire, therefore, the model of noble
youth that has dominated medieval scholarship in recent decades is inadequate. Georges Duby’s
arguments, which emphasise the adventurousness and rebelliousness of young heirs, have
95
Examples of heirs whose fathers died while they were still minors include Henry the Lion, Count Sigiboto IV of
Falkenstein, and Duke Ludwig I of Bavaria, the second Wittelsbach duke. See respectively Jordan,
Henry the Lion,
25; Freed, ‘The creation of the
Codex Falkensteinensis’, 202; and Holzfurtner, Die Wittelsbacher, 22e3.
96
Uncles, especially maternal uncles, have often been viewed in the recent literature on the nobility as central figures
in the education of young heirs (see, for example, Freed,
Noble bondsmen, 106e7). My research on the leading lineages
of the German empire suggests, however, that uncles only became deeply involved in the training of young nobles when
these heirs’ fathers were dead. Few sources for the families discussed here reveal regular contacts between heirs and
their uncles. Indeed, the evidence for contacts between heirs and their fathers is significantly richer than the evidence
for these young men’s interactions with any other relatives d further demonstrating just how central a role a father
typically played in the training of his heirs.
97
For a similar notion of training and instruction to the one I am employing here, see Stanley Chojnacki, ‘Measuring
adulthood: adolescence and gender in Renaissance Venice’,
Journal of Family History, 17 (1992), 379e80 and his
‘Political adulthood in fifteenth-century Venice’,
American Historical Review, 91 (1986), 809.
309
J.R. Lyon / Journal of Medieval History 34 (2008) 291e310
served as the foundation for modern theories about the behaviour of noble sons in medieval
Western Europe. But the evidence from the German empire suggests that twelfth-century
youths were much more fully and effectively integrated into the family environment than
most scholars have assumed. Throughout their fathers’ lifetimes, German noble sons frequently
played prominent roles in the military, political and administrative dimensions of their lineages’
power. The lord-heir relationships that developed as fathers gave increasing numbers of respon-
sibilities to their maturing sons tended to promote intergenerational cooperation and to insure
that heirs were well-prepared for the moment when they succeeded to their fathers’ lordships.
For the leading lineages of the empire, the instructional opportunities lords afforded their heirs
were essential for long-term stability. When a father died, his heir needed to be familiar with
the scattered collection of fiefs and allods he was inheriting; with the rival secular and eccle-
siastical lords against whom he would be vying for regional influence; and with the politics of
the imperial court. For a young son, a father was unquestionably the best resource for knowl-
edge about all of these aspects of lordship.
While the need to prepare heirs for the complex nature of twelfth-century German politics
and lordship was probably the most important reason for the development of the father-son
bonds I have discussed here, it is worth noting in conclusion that this is not the only lens
through which these relationships can be viewed. The presence of youthful heirs in a lineage
was a significant advantage for a lord, one that gave a father the opportunity to pursue a far
more complex family strategy than he otherwise might attempt. Put simply, two heads d
and sword-arms d were better than one. When a lord prepared his heir to exercise their
family’s lordship, therefore, he may not have been thinking only about the long-term stability
of the lineage and the necessity of preparing his son for the day when the young man would
succeed him. He may also have been thinking about the short-term advantages of having an
ally inside his own lineage who could help him extend his family’s power and influence.
The various noble houses analysed in this article all benefited tremendously from those periods
in their history when fathers and sons were able to work together at the local, regional and im-
perial levels to expand their families’ interests. As a result, the relationships between lords and
their heirs were a vital component of twelfth-century German politics, though one that has re-
ceived relatively little attention in the modern scholarship on the empire. Examining the roles
played by father-son networks in the development of lineages’ territorial, diplomatic and
military strategies thus offers the opportunity to explore new dimensions of noble power and
lordship and to provide new perspectives on the political history of the central middle ages.
Jonathan R. Lyon
is a graduate of Colgate University in New York and took his Ph.D. at the University of Notre Dame
in 2005 with a thesis on ‘Cooperation, compromise and conflict avoidance: family relationships in the House of An-
dechs, c.1100e1204’. He is organiser and founding member of Societas rerum imperii. Since 2006 he has been assistant
professor in the Department of History at the University of Chicago. His publications include ‘The withdrawal of aged
noblemen into monastic communities: interpreting the sources from twelfth-century Germany’, in:
Old age in the mid-
dle ages and the renaissance, ed. Albrecht Classen (Berlin and New York, 2007).
310
J.R. Lyon / Journal of Medieval History 34 (2008) 291e310
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