Agnes of Germany

Agnes of Germany (1072/73 – 24 September 1143), also known as Agnes of Waiblingen, was a member of the Salian imperial family. Through her first marriage, she was a Duchess consort of Swabia; through her second marriage, she was a Margravine consort of Austria.

Family

She was the daughter of Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor, and Bertha of Savoy. Her maternal grandparents were Otto, Count of Savoy, and Adelaide of Susa. Her brother was Henry V, Holy Roman Emperor.

First marriage

In 1079, aged seven, Agnes was betrothed to Frederick, a member of the Hohenstaufen dynasty; at the same time, Henry IV invested Frederick as the new duke of Swabia. The couple married in 1086, when Agnes was fourteen. They had eleven children, named in a document found in the abbey of Lorsch:

• Hedwig-Eilike (1088–1110), married Friedrich, Count of Legenfeld
• Bertha-Bertrade (1089–1120), married Adalbert, Count of Elchingen
• Frederick II of Swabia
• Hildegard
• Conrad III of Germany
• Gisihild-Gisela
• Heinrich (1096–1105)
• Beatrix (1098–1130), became an abbess
• Kunigunde-Cuniza (1100–1120/1126), wife of Henry X, Duke of Bavaria (1108–1139)
• Sophia, married a count Adalbert
• Fides-Gertrude, married Hermann III, Count Palatine of the Rhine

• Robinson, Henry, pp. 189, 223.
• Decker-Hauff, Zeit der Staufer, III, p. 350.

Second marriage

Following Frederick's death in 1105, Agnes married Leopold III (1073-1136), the Margrave of Austria (1095-1136). According to a legend, a veil lost by Agnes and found by Leopold years later while hunting was the instigation for him to found the Klosterneuburg Monastery.

Their children were:

• Leopold IV
• Henry II of Austria
• Berta, married Heinrich of Regensburg
• Agnes, "one of the most famous beauties of her time", married Wladyslaw II of Poland
• Ernst
• Uta, wife of Liutpold von Plain
• Otto of Freising, bishop and biographer
• Conrad, Bishop of Passau, and Archbishop of Salzburg
• Elizabeth, married Hermann, Count of Winzenburg
• Judith, m. c. 1133 William V of Montferrat. Their children formed an important Crusading dynasty.
• Gertrude, married Vladislav II of Bohemia

According to the Continuation of the Chronicles of Klosterneuburg, there may have been up to seven other children (possibly from multiple births) stillborn or who died in infancy.

In 1125, Agnes' brother, Henry V, Holy Roman Emperor, died childless, leaving Agnes and her children as heirs to the Salian dynasty's immense allodial estates, including Waiblingen.

In 1127, Agnes' eldest surviving son, Konrad III, was elected as the rival King of Germany by those opposed to the Saxon party's Lothar III. When Lothar died in 1137, Konrad was elected to the position.

Sources and Further Reading

• Karl Lechner, Die Babenberger, 1992.
• Brigitte Vacha & Walter Pohl, Die Welt der Babenberger: Schleier, Kreuz und Schwert, Graz, 1995.
• Ancestral Roots of Certain American Colonists Who Came to America Before 1700 by Frederick Lewis Weis, Line 45-24
• I.S. Robsinson, Henry IV of Germany, 1056-1106 (Cambridge 2003).
• H. Decker-Hauff, Die Zeit der Staufer, vol. III (Stuttgart, 1977).