1152
Frederick Barbarossa elected King of the Romans
The Hohenstaufen duke of Swabia, a nephew of the previous emperor, was chosen at Frankfurt to end the Welf-Staufer quarrels that had paralyzed Germany. Barbarossa, red-bearded and tireless, would spend the next thirty-eight years trying to make the imperial title mean something again in Italy. His election was a compromise between the two great German factions, and the young duke's charm and energy briefly united a kingdom accustomed to civil war.
Henry II marries Eleanor of Aquitaine
Eight weeks after her annulment, the twenty-nine-year-old former queen of France married the nineteen-year-old Henry of Anjou without asking permission of her nominal overlord Louis VII. The marriage brought Henry more French land than the French king held himself. The union created the vast Angevin empire stretching from the Scottish border to the Pyrenees, a territorial assemblage that would dominate European politics for the next half century.
Annulment of Louis VII and Eleanor
After fifteen years of an unhappy marriage and two daughters, the royal couple were formally separated by a council at Beaugency on grounds of consanguinity. Eleanor was back in her duchy within weeks. She would be remarried to Henry of Anjou within eight weeks more. The annulment was one of the great diplomatic blunders of the medieval era, as Louis let slip the wealthiest territory in France.
Henry the Lion confirmed Duke of Saxony
The young Welf prince, whose father had been stripped of Saxony by Conrad III, had his ducal title restored by his cousin Frederick Barbarossa. He would spend the next thirty years making himself almost a sovereign in northern Germany, founding cities and challenging imperial authority. His establishment of Lubeck, Munich, and Braunschweig as major urban centers reshaped the economic geography of northern Germany.