Editing Conradin (section)

==Legacy==
[[File:Corradino Statue.jpg|thumb|Memorial by [[Bertel Thorvaldsen|Thorvaldsen]]]]
With Conradin's death at 16, the direct (male) line of the [[Hohenstaufen|Hohenstaufen dynasty]] became extinct.{{efn|After Conradin's demise, the remaining members of the [[Hohenstaufen|Staufer dynasty]] were his half-aunts Margaret and [[Anna of Hohenstaufen|Anna]] and the offspring of his-uncle [[Manfred, King of Sicily|Manfred]]. Both Anna and Manfred were the children of Frederick II by his mistress and fourth wife, [[Bianca Lancia]]. However, despite being born out of wedlock, they were legitimised by the posterior marriage of their parents on their mother's deathbed (which is attested in at least two medieval sources, the ''Chronicles of''  [[Salimbene di Adam]] and [[Matthew Paris|Mathew of Paris]]). This means that upon the deaths of Margaret in 1270 and Anna in 1307, Manfred's issue were the only ones who could have claimed dynastic rights to the House of Hohenstaufen, whose last member was indeed his son, Henry [Enrico], deceased on 31 October 1318 (as referenced by source n. 5).}}<ref>[[Ferdinand Gregorovius|Gregorovius, Ferdinand]] (2010) [1897], ''History of the City of Rome in the Middle Ages'', Vol. 5, Part 2, Cambridge University Press.</ref> His remains, with those of Frederick of Baden, lie in the church of the monastery of [[Santa Maria del Carmine, Naples|Our Lady of Mt. Carmel]] at [[Naples]], founded by his mother for the good of his soul; and here in 1847 [[Maximilian II of Bavaria|Maximilian]], crown prince of Bavaria, erected a marble statue by [[Bertel Thorvaldsen]] to his memory. In the 14th-century ''[[Codex Manesse]]'', a collection of [[medieval]] German lyrics, preserved at [[Heidelberg]], there appear two songs written by Conradin, and his fate has formed the subject of several dramas.<ref name=EB1911/>

His hereditary Kingdom of Jerusalem passed to the heirs of his great-great-grandmother [[Isabella I of Jerusalem]], among whom a succession dispute arose. The senior heir in primogeniture was [[Hugh of Brienne]], a second cousin of Conradin's father, but another second cousin [[Hugh III of Cyprus]] already held the office of regent and managed to keep the kingdom as Hugh I of Jerusalem. Conradin's grandmother's first cousin [[Mary of Antioch]] also staked her claim on basis of [[proximity of blood]], which she later sold to Conradin's executioner [[Charles of Anjou]].

According to a strict sense of legitimacy,{{efn|Despite the fact that he usurped his nephew's crown, if [[Manfred, King of Sicily|Manfred]] is deemed legitimate, his sons and after them the offspring of his eldest daughter would have been Conradin's natural successors in Sicily and Swabia.}} the general heiress of his Kingdom of Sicily and the Duchy of Swabia was his aunt [[Margaret of Sicily|Margaret]], half-sister of his father Conrad IV (the youngest but only surviving child of Frederick II and his third wife, Isabella of England) and married with [[Albert II, Margrave of Meissen|Albert, Landgrave of Thuringia]] since 1255. Their son [[Frederick of Meissen|Frederick]] claimed Sicily and Swabia on her right.

However, these claims met with little favor. Swabia, pawned by Conradin before his last expedition, was disintegrating as a territorial unit. He went unrecognized in Outremer, and Charles of Anjou was deeply entrenched in power in Southern Italy. Margrave Frederick proposed an invasion of Italy in 1269, and attracted some support from the Lombard Ghibellines, but his plans were never carried out, and he played no further part in Italian affairs.

Finally, Sicily passed to Charles of Anjou, but the [[Sicilian Vespers]] in 1282 resulted in dual claims on the Kingdom; the Aragonese heirs of Manfred retaining the island of [[Sicily]] and the [[Capetian House of Anjou|Angevin]] party retaining the southern part of [[Italy]], popularly called the [[Kingdom of Naples]].<ref name="Benjamin2010"/><ref name="Kleinhenz2004"/>