Editing Salian dynasty (section)

==Origins and name==

[[File:Ottonian Salian dynasty.png|thumb|right|The family tree of the early imperial dynasties of the [[Holy Roman Empire]]: Carolingians, Ottonians, Salians and Hohenstaufen]]

Modern historians suppose that the Salians descended from the [[Widonids]], a prominent noble kindred emerging in the 7th&nbsp;century. Their estates were located at the confluence of rivers [[Moselle]] and [[Saar (river)|Saar]] and they supported the [[Carolingians]]. The Widonids' eastward expansion towards the river [[Rhine]] started after they founded [[Hornbach Abbey]] in the [[Bliesgau]] around 750. Hornbach remained their [[proprietary church|proprietary monastery]] and royal grants to the abbey established their presence in the [[Wormsgau]]. As time passed, several branches split off the Widonids. The late 9th-century Holy Roman Emperor [[Guy III of Spoleto|Guy (or Wido) of Spoleto]] descended from one of these branches, the Lambertines. The Salians' forefathers remained in [[Duchy of Franconia|Rhenish Franconia]].{{sfn|Weinfurter|1999|pp=7–9}}

[[Wipo of Burgundy]], the biographer of the first Salian monarch, [[Conrad II, Holy Roman Emperor|Emperor Conrad&nbsp;II]], described Conrad's father and uncle as "distinguished noble lords from Rhenish Franconia" around 1044, but without calling them Salians. Wipo added that Conrad's mother, [[Adelaide of Metz]], was "supposedly descended from the ancient royal house of [[Troy]]". The statement made a connection between Conrad and the royal [[Merovingian dynasty|Merovingians]] who had claimed a Trojan ancestry for themselves.{{sfn|Weinfurter|1999|pp=5–6}}

Historian Stefan Weinfurter proposes that the putative relationship between the Salians and the Merovingians gave rise to the family name, because the Salian Franks had been the most renowned Frankish group. Their memory was preserved through a Frankish law code, known as the [[Salic law]].{{sfn|Weinfurter|1999|pp=5–6}} Peter H. Wilson states the Salians received their name due to their origins amongst the Franks living along the Rhine in western Franconia, a region "distinguished through its use of Salic law".{{sfn|Wilson|2016|p=247}} A less likely [[etymology]] links the appellation to the old German word ''sal'' ("lordship"), proposing that the name can be traced to the Salian monarchs' well-documented inclination towards hierarchical structures.{{sfn|Weinfurter|1999|pp=5–6}}

The term ''reges salici'' (or Salian kings) was most probably coined early in the 12th&nbsp;century.{{sfn|Weinfurter|1999|p=5}} A list of monarchs and archbishops from [[Mainz]], which was completed around 1139–40, is the first extant document to contain it. Bishop [[Otto of Freising]], a maternal descendant of the Salian monarchs, also used the term in his ''Chronicle or History of the Two Cities'' in the middle of the 12th&nbsp;century.{{sfn|Wolfram|2006|p=15}} In a narrow sense, only the four German monarchs who ruled from 1024 to 1125 could be called Salians, but the same appellation has already been expanded to their ancestors by modern historians.{{sfn|Weinfurter|1999|p=5}} An earlier name of the family, appearing in 982, was the Wormsers, due to their main holdings being in the Diocese of Worms.{{sfn|Wilson|2016|p=247}}

All male members of the family who were destined to a secular career were named [[Conrad (name)|Conrad]] or [[Henry (given name)|Henry]]. Emperor Conrad&nbsp;II's grandfather, [[Otto I, Duke of Carinthia|Otto of Worms]], established this tradition in the late 10th&nbsp;century. He named his eldest son, [[Henry of Speyer|Henry of Worms]], after his maternal great-grandfather, King [[Henry the Fowler]]; and he gave the name of his father, [[Conrad, Duke of Lorraine|Conrad the Red]], to one of his younger sons, [[Conrad I, Duke of Carinthia|Conrad of Carinthia]]. Conrad the Red was most probably named for King [[Conrad I of Germany]].{{sfn|Wolfram|2006|p=323}}