Editing Henry the Lion (section)

==Family background==
Henry the Lion came from the [[House of Welf|Welf Dynasty]]. Since the 1120s, there arose more documents in the history of this family, where there were different spellings. This meant the Welfs were the first noble family in the kingdom that we know the history of. The household records in the [[Genealogia Welforum]], in which  the Saxon Welf Origins and the [[Historia Welforum]] are found, show a link before  the [[Carolingian dynasty|Carolingians]], and have a possible etymology of the name Welf, which may come from the Latin word catulus (Welpe in German).<ref name=":1">{{Cite web |date=2023-10-22 |title=Heinrich der Löwe |url=https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich_der_L%C3%B6we |url-status=live |access-date=2025-03-04 |website=Heinrich der Löwe |language=German}}</ref>

The ancestors of the Welfs begin in the eighth century at the time of the Carolingians. The rise of the family came completely from advantageous marriages. The Welf [[Judith house welf|Judith]] was the second wife of [[Louis the Pious|Emperor Louis the Pious]], and brought the earliest influence of the Welfs to the history of the [[Francia|Frankish Kingdom]].  Her sister, [[Hemma]], was married to Judith's stepson King Ludwig the German.  This second marriage into the Carolingian royal family secured the rise of the Welfs in the Royal Circle. The fall of the Frankish Kingdom offered an opportunity for the family of the [[Burgundy|Kings of Burgundy]] in 1032. After the death of Welf III in 1055 without an heir, the dynasty was thrown into an existential crisis. His sister, Cuniza, married the [[Albert Azzo II, Margrave of Milan|Margrave Azzo II of Este]], changing the future of the dynasty.<ref name=":1" />

The grandfather of Henry the Lion, the Bavarian [[Henry IX, Duke of Bavaria|Duke Henry the Black]], married [[Wulfhilde of Saxony|Wulfhild]], the eldest daughter of the Saxon Duke [[Magnus, Duke of Saxony|Magnus Billung]] and [[Sophia of Hungary|Sophia]], the daughter of the Hungarian King. Large tracts of land around [[Lüneburg|Luneberg]] the center of power and the burial place of the [[Billung|House of Billung]], now went to the Welfs. In 1123 a relative of the family, [[Conrad of Constance|Bishop Conrad of Constance]], was put forward for canonisation, and raised the reputation of the family. The Welf [[Judith of Bavaria, Duchess of Swabia|Judith]], daughter of Henry the Black, married the Hohenstaufen Duke [[Frederick II, Duke of Swabia|Frederick II]], the father of Frederick Barbarossa. The candidacy of Frederick II as the successor to the ore rich lands of the late, childless [[Henry V, Holy Roman Emperor|Henry V]] stayed unsponsored. Instead, the Saxon duke [[Lothair III, Holy Roman Emperor|Lothar III]] was preferred. The usual sponsors of Henry the Black were split between him and Duke Lothar. Some of these sponsors were won over by Lothar marrying his only daughter [[Gertrude of Süpplingenburg|Gertrude]] to Henry's son, Henry the Proud. Gertrude’s mother was [[Richenza of Northeim|Richenza]], heiress of the Saxon territories of [[Northeim]] and the properties of the [[Brunones]], counts of [[Braunschweig|Brunswick]]. From this union came Henry the Lion.<ref name=":1" /> He was born in Ravensburg.<ref name=":2" /> From the Steterburger Chronik, he must have been born around 1129/1130. His baptism was around 1135/36, but this seems a long time to wait for a baptism. It is possible that the copyist made a transcription error, so Henry's birth could have been in 1133/35.<ref name=":1" />

Soon after, Henry the Proud gained a conglomeration of duchies, close to the size of a kingdom.  At the end of the reign of his father in law Lothar, he ruled over the duchies of Bavaria and Saxony, and over the [[March of Tuscany]] in the Mathilda Guter, specifically the extensive lands in [[Swabia]], Bavaria, Saxony and [[Italy in the Middle Ages|Italy]]. Henry's father died in 1139, aged 32, when Henry was still a child. King [[Conrad III of Germany|Conrad III]] had dispossessed Henry the Proud of his duchies in 1138 and 1139, handing Saxony to [[Albert the Bear]] and Bavaria to [[Leopold, Duke of Bavaria|Leopold of Austria]]. This was because Henry the Proud had been his rival for the Crown in 1138.