Otto IV (1175 – 19 May 1218) was the Holy Roman Emperor from 1209 until his death in 1218.
Otto spent most of his early life in England and France. He was a follower of his uncle Richard the Lionheart, who made him Count of Poitou in 1196. With Richard's support, he was elected King of Germany by one faction in a disputed election in 1198, sparking ten years of civil war. The death of his rival, Philip of Swabia, in 1208 left him sole king of Germany.
Among the people who have borne Carolingian Counts the title of Count of Poitiers (French: Comte de Poitiers, Latin: Comes Pictaviensis; or Poitou, in what is now France but in the Middle Ages became part of Aquitaine) are:
Among the people who have borne Carolingian Counts the title of Count of Poitiers (French: Comte de Poitiers, Latin: Comes Pictaviensis; or Poitou, in what is now France but in the Middle Ages became part of Aquitaine) are:
The House of Este (UK: /ˈɛsti/ EST-ee, US: /ˈɛsteɪ/ EST-ay, Italian: [ˈɛste]) is a European dynasty of North Italian origin whose members ruled parts of Italy and Germany for many centuries.
The original House of Este's elder branch, which is known as the House of Welf, included dukes of Bavaria and of Brunswick. This branch produced Britain's Hanoverian monarchs, as well as one Emperor of Russia (Ivan VI) and one Holy Roman Emperor (Otto IV).
The Battle of Bouvines took place on 27 July 1214 near the town of Bouvines in the County of Flanders. It was the concluding battle of the Anglo-French War of 1213–1214. Although estimates on the number of troops vary considerably among modern historians, at Bouvines, a French army commanded by King Philip Augustus routed a larger allied army led by Holy Roman Emperor Otto IV in one of the rare pitched battles of the High Middle Ages and one of the most decisive medieval engagements.
In early 1214, a coalition was assembled against King Philip Augustus of France, consisting of Otto IV, King John of England, Count Ferrand of Flanders, Count Renaud of Boulogne, Duke Henry I of Brabant, Count William I of Holland, Duke Theobald I of Lorraine, and Duke Henry III of Limburg. Its objective was to reverse the conquests made by Philip earlier in his reign.
Philip of Swabia (February/March 1177 – 21 June 1208), styled Philip II in his charters, was a member of the House of Hohenstaufen and King of Germany from 1198 until his assassination.
The death of Philip's older brother Henry VI, Holy Roman Emperor, in 1197 meant that the Hohenstaufen rule (which reached as far as the Kingdom of Sicily) collapsed in imperial Italy and created a power vacuum to the north of the Alps. Reservations about the kingship of Henry's underage son, Frederick, led to two royal elections in 1198, which resulted in the German throne dispute: the two elected kings, Philip of Swabia and Otto of Brunswick, claimed the throne for themselves. Both opponents tried in the following years through European and papal support, with the help of money and gifts, through demonstrative public appearances and rituals, to decide the conflict for oneself by raising ranks or by military and diplomatic measures. Philip was able to increasingly assert his kingship against Otto in the north part of the Alps. However, at the height of his power, he was assassinated in 1208. This ended the dispute for the throne; his opponent Otto quickly found recognition. Philip was the first German king to be murdered during his reign. In posterity, Philip is one of the little-noticed Hohenstaufen rulers.
Berengaria of Portugal (Portuguese: Berengária, Danish: Bengjerd; c. 1198 – 27 March 1221) was a Portuguese infanta (princess), who became Queen of Denmark, as the second wife of Valdemar II, from 1214 until her death.
Born into the Portuguese House of Burgundy, she was the daughter of King Sancho I of Portugal and Dulce of Aragon. Likely the youngest of her siblings, she may have been the twin of Branca, and their mother died shortly after their birth. Following the death of her father in 1211, Berengaria became an orphan, and her brother, now King Afonso II, soon sought to curtail his siblings' bequeathed estates. In the ensuing conflicts, Berengaria was initially entrusted to the care of her elder sister Theresa, formerly Queen of León, then a nun at the convent of Lorvão in Penacova. Another brother Ferdinand fled to France, becoming Count of Flanders in 1212, and Berengaria seems to have followed him there or to the court of his overlord, Philip II of France, a cousin of theirs. Seeking to consolidate an anti-French North Sea alliance with King John of England, Emperor Otto IV and others, Ferdinand arranged her marriage to Valdemar II of Denmark, likely facilitated through Valdemar’s sister Ingeborg, the estranged queen of Philip II. The later marriage of Berengaria’s niece Eleanor of Portugal to Valdemar’s eldest son, Valdemar the Young, in 1229 further tightened the dynastic links between the Portuguese and Danish royal houses.
Otto I of Brunswick-Lüneburg (about 1204 – 9 June 1252), a member of the House of Welf, was the first duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg from 1235 until his death. He is called Otto the Child to distinguish him from his uncle, Emperor Otto IV.
The County of Brunswick was a county in the medieval Duchy of Saxony. It existed from about the 9th century until 1235, when it was raised to a duchy, the Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg.
The county developed out of the possessions of the Brunonen dynasty centered on the town of Brunswick and was enlarged by the inheritances of Henry the Fat of Northeim around Northeim and Göttingen and a part of the Billung inheritance around Lüneburg, which fell to the House of Welf in 1106. When the Duchy of Saxony was reorganized in 1180, the county became de facto independent from the Duchy, since the new Ascanian dukes could not establish control over it. In 1203, the three sons of Duke Henry the Lion divided the county among themselves; Henry received the western part including Hannover and Göttingen, William received the area around Lüneburg, and King Otto IV the area around Braunschweig. The independence of Brunswick was recognized when it was raised to the Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg in 1235, which would exist until 1918.
Gervase of Tilbury (Latin: Gervasius Tilberiensis; c. 1150–1220) was an English canon lawyer, statesman and cleric. He enjoyed the favour of Henry II of England and later of Henry's grandson, Emperor Otto IV, for whom he wrote his best known work, the Otia Imperialia.