Rudolf of Rheinfelden
Duke of Swabia from 1057 to 1079
Rudolf of Rheinfelden (c. 1025 – 15 October 1080; German: Rudolf von Rheinfelden) was Duke of Swabia from 1057 to 1079. Initially a follower of his brother-in-law, the Salian emperor Henry IV, his election as German anti-king in 1077 marked the outbreak of the Great Saxon Revolt and the first phase of open conflict in the Investiture Controversy between the Emperor and the Papacy. After a series of armed conflicts, Rudolf succumbed to his injuries after his forces defeated Henry's in the Battle on the Elster.
Life
Rudolf was the son of the Swabian count (German: Graf) Kuno of Rheinfelden. He was first mentioned in a 1048 deed issued by the Salian emperor Henry III as a count in the Swabian Sisgau on the High Rhine (in present-day Northwestern Switzerland), an estate then held by the Prince-Bishopric of Basel. Rudolf's family had large possessions up to Sankt Blasien Abbey in the Black Forest and down to the Aargau beyond the border with the Kingdom of Burgundy. He probably was related to King Rudolph II of Burgundy (d. 937), the Dukes of Lorraine, and the Ottonian dynasty.
Duke of Swabia
When Duke Otto III of Swabia died without male heirs in 1057, Empress Agnes, consort of late Henry III, appointed Rudolf Swabian duke and administrator of Burgundy. Rivalling with the Zähringen count Berthold, Rudolf, according to Frutolf of Michelsberg, had taken advantage of the minority of Agnes' son Henry IV, elected King of the Romans, by kidnapping his sister Matilda of Swabia.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 15, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q438435. VIAF identifies the subject as 168004730. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1025, 1080, 1057 and 1079.
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This entry incorporates text from “Rudolf of Rheinfelden” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.