Hohenstaufen, << `hoh` uhn SHTOW fuhn, >> was the name of a princely family of medieval Germany which held the imperial throne from 1138 to 1254. The family took its name from the ancestral castle built at Staufen in southern Germany in the 1000’s.
Frederick of Hohenstaufen received the duchy of Swabia from Emperor Henry IV as a reward for loyal service. He married Henry’s daughter Agnes. Frederick’s son, also called Frederick, claimed the hereditary right to the crown. But in 1125 the German princes reaffirmed their right of free election.
In 1138, a member of the Hohenstaufen family secured the German throne as Conrad III. Frederick I (Barbarossa), Henry VI, and Frederick II were also Hohenstaufen rulers.
