ABSTRACT
The Holy Roman Empire was more intensely involved in Mediterranean affairs when, under Frederick Barbarossa's son Henry VI, who in 1186 had married Constance d'Hauteville, heiress to the kingdom of Sicily, this Mediterranean kingdom joined the Western Empire. Henry VI had prepared a crusade to free Jerusalem from Muslim domination, but he died after the first military contingents had already left. The year before, the Emperor had accepted the request made by Aimery of Lusignan, Lord of Cyprus, to become his vassal and to be crowned king. The two new kingdoms of Cyprus and Armenia, tied to the Holy Roman Empire by a bond of vassalage, soon saw the establishment of the Teutonic Knights. Unlike the older military orders of the Templars and the Knights of St John, the Teutonic order was practically a national order, but it had a wide range of activity, which extended from the Mediterranean to the Baltic.
