ABSTRACT
A new era in papal relations with the empire was to dawn in 1186 when Henry VI, King of Germany and son of Frederick I Barbarossa, was given the leadership of the imperial cause in the region around the Patrimony. In the words of one historian, in so doing, he became ‘virtually the ruler of central Italy’ for the next eight years.1 Following his marriage ceremony in Milan on 27 January 1186 to Constance, heiress to the Kingdom of Sicily,2 the wedding festivities culminated in an unprecedented triple bestowal of crowns-that of Burgundy on the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, that of Germany on Queen Constance, and then, on Henry, the Iron Crown of Lombardy.3 This he received from the hands of the Patriarch of Aquileia.4 Previously, he had been elected as King of the Romans by the German princes at the Diet of Bamberg in 1169 when he was only four years old.5 At nineteen, Henry also became ruler of the regnum Italicum, having to all intents and purposes long been
1 D. Waley, The Papal State in the Thirteenth Century (London, 1961), 23. 2 Annales Marbacenses qui Dicuntur, MGH SRG, [9], ed. H. Bloch (Hanover-Leipzig,
1907), 56; otto of St Blasien, Chronica, MGH SRG in us. schol., [47], ed. A. Hofmeister (Hanover-Leipzig, 1912), 39-40; P. Csendes, Heinrich VI., Gestalten des Mittelalters und der Renaissance (Darmstadt, 1993), 52-7; T. Kölzer, ‘Costanza d’Altavilla’, Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, 30 (1984), 346-56; W. Fröhlich, ‘The Marriage of Henry VI and Constance of Sicily: Prelude and Consequences’, Anglo-Norman Studies, 15 (1992), 99-115.
