CONRADIN or CONRAD THE YOUNGER 1268), king of Jerusalem and Sicily, son of the German king, Conrad IV., was born at Wolf stein, Bavaria, on March 25, 1252. Although he had been entrusted by his father to the guardianship of the Church, pope Innocent IV. sought to bestow the kingdom of Sicily on a foreign prince. Innocent's successor, Alexander IV., continued this policy, offered the Hohenstaufen lands in Germany to Alphonso X. king of Castile, and forbade Conradin's election as king of the Romans. Having assumed the title of king of Jerusalem and Sicily, Conradin took possession of the duchy of Swabia in 1262. Conradin's first invitation to Italy came from the Guelphs of Florence, by whom he was asked to take arms against Manfred, who had been crowned king of Sicily in 1258. This invitation was refused, but after Manfred's fall in 1266 envoys came again to Bavaria. Conradin crossed the Alps and issued a manifesto at Verona setting forth his claim on Sicily. His partisans both in the north and south of Italy took up arms; his envoy was received with enthusiasm in Rome ; and the young king himself was welcomed at Pavia and Pisa. In Nov. 1267 he was excommunicated; but his fleet was victorious over that of Charles, duke of Anjou, who had taken possession of Sicily on Manfred's death; and in July 1268 he was himself greeted with immense enthusiasm at Rome. In Aug. 1268 he unsuccessfully encountered the troops of Charles at Tagliacozzo. He was seized at Astura and handed over to Charles. Tried as a traitor, he was beheaded with his friend Frederick of Baden, titular duke of Aus tria. With his death the Hohenstaufen race became extinct. In the great 14th century "Manesse" ms. (c) collection of mediaeval German lyrics, preserved at Heidelberg, there are two songs by Conradin, and his fate has formed the subject of several dramas.
See F. W. Schirrmacher, Die letzten Hohenstaufen (Gottingen, 1871) ; del Giudice, Il Giudizio e la condanna di Corradino (Naples, 1876) ; K. Hampe, Geschichte Konradins von Hohenstaufen (Berlin, 1893) ; E. Miller, Konradin von Hohenstaufen (Berlin,