Conrad II, Holy Roman Emperor - Grave of a Famous Person on Waymarking.com

Conrad II is buried in the crypt of the Speyer Cathedral.

During his reign, he proved that the German monarchy had become a viable institution. Survival of the monarchy was no longer dependent on contracts between sovereign and territorial nobles.

Henry, count of Speyer, the father of Conrad II was a grandson of Luitgard, a daughter of Emperor Otto I who had married the Salian Duke Conrad the Red of Lorraine. Conrad grew up poor by the standards of the nobility and was raised by the bishop of Worms. He was reputed to be prudent and firm out of consciousness of deprivation. In 1016, he married Gisela of Swabia, a widowed duchess. Both parties claimed descent from Charlemagne and were thus distantly related. Strict canonists took exception to the marriage, and Emperor Henry II used this to force Conrad into temporary exile. They became reconciled, and upon Henry's death in 1024, Conrad appeared as a candidate before the electoral assembly of princes at Kamba in the Rhineland. He was elected by the majority and was crowned king in Mainz on September 8, 1024.

The Italian bishops paid homage at Conrad's court at Konstanz in June 1025, but lay princes sought to elect William III (V), Duke of Aquitaine, as king instead. However early in 1026 Conrad went to Milan, where Ariberto, archbishop of Milan, crowned him king of Italy. After overcoming some opposition of the towns Conrad reached Rome, where Pope John XIX crowned him emperor on Easter, 1027.

He formally confirmed the popular legal traditions of Saxony and issued new constitutions for Lombardy. In 1028 at Aachen he had his son Henry elected and anointed king of Germany. Henry married Cunigunde or Gunhilda, daughter of King Canute the Great of England, Denmark and Norway. This was an arrangement that Conrad had made many years ago, when he gave Canute the Great parts of northern Germany to administer. Henry, the later Emperor Henry III, became chief counselor of his father.

When Rudolph III, King of Burgundy died on February 2, 1032, he bequeathed his kingdom, which combined two earlier kingdoms of Burgundy, to Conrad. Despite some opposition, the Burgundian and Provencal nobles paid homage to Conrad in Zürich in 1034. This kingdom of Burgundy, which under Conrad's successors would become known as the Kingdom of Arles, corresponded to most of the southeastern quarter of modern France and included western Switzerland, the Franche-Comté and Dauphiné. It did not include the smaller Duchy of Burgundy to the north, ruled by a cadet branch of the Capetian King of France. (Piecemeal over the next centuries most of the former Kingdom of Arles was incorporated into France - but King of Arles remained one of the Holy Roman Emperor's subsidiary titles until the dissolution of the Empire in 1806.)

In 1039 Conrad fell ill and died in Utrecht.

Note : The Salian dynasty succeeded the Saxon dynasty. The Salian Franks were a subgroup of the Franks who had been living North and East of the limes in the Dutch coastal area. From the 5th century they migrated throughout Belgium and to northern France, then formed a kingdom in northern France and on coasts north of it. This kingdom was the nucleus of the future Kingdom of France.

They are distinguished from the Ripuarian Franks. The name Ripuarian is believed to mean 'river-dwelling'. The name Salian may refer to salt and, by extension, the sea, i.e. 'sea-dwelling'. Alternatively, it may be derived from the Roman name for a river in The Netherlands: Isala, a branch of the Rhine currently named IJssel in Dutch. In the third century A.D., the Romans may have named the Germanic tribe living in this area after this river. Even nowadays, this area is called Salland.

Description: See Long Description above. Date of birth: 01/01/0990 Date of death: 06/04/1039 Area of notoriety: Politics Marker Type: Horizontal Marker Setting: Indoor Visiting Hours/Restrictions: 9:00 - 17:00 Fee required?: No Web site: [Web Link]

Visit Instructions:
To post a visit log for waymarks in this category, you must have personally visited the waymark location. When logging your visit, please provide a note describing your visit experience, along with any additional information about the waymark or the surrounding area that you think others may find interesting.

We especially encourage you to include any pictures that you took during your visit to the waymark. However, only respectful photographs are allowed. Logs which include photographs representing any form of disrespectful behavior (including those showing personal items placed on or near the grave location) will be subject to deletion.

Recent Visits/Logs:

Date Logged Log   10/02/2018 me.toString visited it 05/17/2014 KaPsTeam visited it 04/27/2014 dellwo visited it 05/21/2012 datenhamster visited it 09/13/2009 wittels visited it

View all visits/logs