It seems almost incredible that no history should exist of the childhood and early life of an emperor of such note as "Barbarossa;" yet, in spite of most diligent search, we have been compelled almost to renounce one of the most pleasing tasks of a biographer, which consists in making acquaintance with a hero in his infancy, and through childhood and youth following his career to fame and glory. So far as we have been able to discover, no trace, except a few dry data, exists of "Frederick of the Red Beard," until we find him setting out with his uncle, Conrad III., in the spring of 1147, to join the second crusade against the Saracens. The date of his birth is given as 1121, his father being Duke Frederick of Hohenstauffen (surnamed "le Borgne") and his mother Judith, daughter of Henry the Black, Duke of Bavaria; opinions are divided on the subject of his birthplace, some writers mentioning the castle of Veitsberg, near Ravensburg, others the town of Weiblingen, in Nuremburg; but since the main interest of his history does not begin until his succession to the paternal duchy of Swabia, and his departure for the Holy Land in 1147; his marriage with Adelaide, daughter of Theobald, Margrave of Vohburg, in 1149; and finally his accession to the imperial throne in 1152, we must resign ourselves to silence on the subject of his earlier years, and take up his history from the death of Conrad III., and that monarch's choice of him as a successor, to the exclusion of his own son. [Illustration: Frederick Barbarossa.] From every possible point of view, Frederick of Hohenstauffen justified his uncle's choice: endowed with the most brilliant qualities of heart and mind, he had already earned the suffrages of a great portion of his new subjects by the manner in which he had distinguished himself during the above-mentioned campaign in the Holy Land; moreover, as the son of Frederick of Hohenstauffen and Judith, daughter of Henry the Black, Duke of Bavaria, Ghibelline by his father and Guelph on his mother's side, there seemed good ground for the hope that in him might terminate the differences of the two contending factions. The election diet was accordingly assembled at Frankfort, and it being there decided to confirm Conrad's choice and to invest Frederick with the imperial insignia, he was proclaimed King of the Romans and of Germany, and anointed at Aix-la-Chapelle on March 5, 1152, the ceremony being performed by Arnoul de Gueldre, Archbishop of Cologne. Not lightly or eagerly did the new emperor accept these dignities, but after mature and careful consideration of his capacity to undertake the responsibility of guiding Germany through shoals and quicksands which had little by little enveloped the fair countries won three hundred years before by the valiant Charlemagne.