Conrad I, Duke of Zähringen


Conrad I, Duke of Zähringen was Duke of Zähringen from 1122 until his death and from 1127 also Rector of Burgundy. He spent most of his life stemming the growing power of the House of Hohenstaufen and to this end, allied himself with the House of Guelph.

Life

Conrad I was a son of Duke Berthold II and his wife, Agnes of Rheinfelden. In 1120, Conrad I and his elder brother Berthold III granted city rights to Freiburg. In 1122, Conrad I succeeded Berthold III as Duke of Zähringen.
In 1127, he came into conflict with Count Renaud III of Burgundy, because both men claimed the inheritance of Conrad's murdered nephew William III. In this situation, he benefitted from the situation Emperor Lothar III found himself in. Lothar III urgently needed support against his Hohenstaufen rivals, and he supported Conrad's claim. He rejected Renaud's claim, with the dubious argument that Renaud had failed to comply with his duty to attend the Emperor's court. Conrad received the title Rector of Burgundy, which denoted, as least theoretically, a kind of representative of the Emperor in the Kingdom of Burgundy.
In 1138, King Conrad III of Germany grabbed power and the power conflict between the Guelphs and the Hohenstaufen relaxed. Until the late 1150s, the Dukes of Zähringen were among the Hohenstaufen's most loyal supporters.
Conrad I died in 1152 and was buried in the family vault in the Abbey of Saint Peter in the Black Forest.

Marriage and issue

Conrad was married to Clementia of Namur, daughter of Godfrey I, Count of Namur and had at least five children: