n.
German Heinrich
born autumn 1165, Nijmegen, Neth.
died Sept. 28, 1197, Messina, Italy
German king (116997) and Holy Roman emperor (119197) of the Hohenstaufen dynasty who acquired the kingdom of Sicily by marriage.
Crowned king in 1169, Henry took over government of the Holy Roman Empire when his father, Frederick I Barbarossa, embarked on a Crusade to the Holy Land in 1189. Soon after his coronation he faced revolts by Henry the Lion in Germany and Tancred in Sicily, but he succeeded in making peace in 1194. His efforts to make the imperial crown hereditary were unsuccessful, but his son Frederick II would become emperor after the death of Henry's eventual successor, the Welf ruler, Otto IV .