Agnes of Waiblingen

Agnes of Waiblingen, also known as Agnes of Germany, Agnes of Franconia and Agnes of Saarbrücken, was a member of the Salian imperial family. Through her first marriage, she was Duchess of Swabia; through her second marriage, she was Margravine of Austria.

Family

She was the daughter of Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor, and Bertha of Savoy. She was named after her paternal grandmother, Agnes of Poitou. She had two siblings, Adelaide/Adelheid and Henry, who died in infancy, and two brothers, Conrad II, [King of Italy|Conrad], and Henry. Her mother died when she was around 15, and around 17, her father remarried to Eupraxia of Kiev.

First marriage

In 1079, aged seven, Agnes was betrothed to Frederick, a member of the Hohenstaufen dynasty; at the same time, Henry IV invested Frederick as the new duke of Swabia. The couple married in 1086, when Agnes was fourteen. They had two sons and three daughters:

Frederick II of Swabia
Conrad III of Germany
Gertrud, who married Hermann III, Count Palatine of the Rhine
Heilika, who married Frederick III of Pettendorf-Lengenfeld-Hopfenche, and were the parents to Heilika of Lengenfeld
Richildis, who married Hugh I, Count of Roucy

In 1977, German genealogist and historian Hansmartin Decker-Hauff revealed the existence of several other children he claimed to have found in documents from the abbey of Lorch, the Staufers' family monastery. These claims were later exposed as forgeries. Historian Heinz Bühler's suggestion that Berta of Boll, the wife of Count Adalbert of Elchingen-Ravenstein, was Agnes' and Frederick's daughter is purely speculative.

Second marriage

Following Frederick's death in 1105, Agnes married Leopold III, the Margrave of Austria. According to a legend, a veil lost by Agnes and found by Leopold years later while hunting was the instigation for him to found the Klosterneuburg Monastery.
Their children were:

Adalbert
Leopold IV
Henry II of Austria
Berta, married Heinrich III, Burgrave of Regensburg
Agnes, "one of the most famous beauties of her time", married Wladyslaw II of Poland
Ernst
Uta, married Luitpold I, Count of Plain
Otto of Freising, bishop and biographer
Conrad, Bishop of Passau, and Archbishop of Salzburg
Elisabeth, married Hermann, Count of Winzenburg
Judith, married c. 1133 William V of Montferrat. Their children formed an important Crusading dynasty.
Gertrude, married Vladislav II of Bohemia

According to the Continuation of the Chronicles of Klosterneuburg, there may have been up to seven other children stillborn or who died in infancy.
In 2013, documentation regarding the results of DNA testing of the remains of the family buried in Klosterneuburg & Heiligenkreuz strongly favor that Adalbert was the son of Leopold and Agnes.
In 1125, Agnes' brother, Henry V, Holy Roman Emperor, died childless, leaving Agnes and her children as heirs to the Salian dynasty's immense allodial estates, including Waiblingen.
In 1127, Agnes' second son, Konrad III, was elected as the rival King of Germany by those opposed to the Saxon party's Lothar III. When Lothar died in 1137, Konrad was elected to the position.