Swabia , German Swabia , historical region of southwestern Germany, including the , which is now the southern part of Baden-Württemberg Country (state) and the southwest part of Bavaria Country in Germany and Eastern Switzerland and Alsace .
The name Swabia is derived from des. Suebi , a Germanic people who used the Alemanni occupied in the 3rd century n . Ch. The Upper Rhine and Upper Danube Region and spread south to to Lake Constance and east to the Lech. The region first known as Alemannia was called Swabia from the 11th century. The Franks under Clovis ruled the Alemanni around 500 n . Chr .; Later in the 6th century, the Franks established a duchy in Alemannia to control the region, the among the later Merovingians Autonomy acquired but lost under the Carolingians. The Lex Alemannorum, a code based on Alemannic common law, first arose in the 7th century. In the 7th century, Irish missionaries began to introduce Christianity. The abbeys of St. Gallen and Reichenau as well as the bishoprics of Basel, Constance and Augsburg were among the centers of Christian activity; Most of the Swabian lakes came into the archbishopric province of Mainz.
Swabia was one of the five big Root Duchies of the early Medieval Germany - with Franconia, Saxony, Bavaria and Lotharingia (Lorraine) - and was held by successive families. Rudolf von Rheinfelden , duke from 1057, was installed as German king in 1077, in contrast to Henry IV, who in 1079 succeeded the son-in-law of the rebels, Frederick I of Hohenstaufen, Duke of Swabia, appointed. Friedrich's grandson was 1152 to the German king as Frederick I Barbarossa selected; and Swabia remained a Hohenstaufen dynastic possession until the extinction of their male line in 1268. After that, local nobles, notably the Counts of , took over Württemberg , the ducal and royal lands. The German King Rudolf von Habsburg saved parts of the duchy for his son Rudolf II of Austria; 1313, with the death of the latter's son, the ducal title fell into disuse.
In the late European Middle Ages the so-called Swabian Leagues played an important role in changing the struggles between cities supported by the Holy Roman Emperor, territorial magnates and the petty nobility became. In the year 1321, in the first league, 22 Swabian imperial (free) cities, including Ulm and Augsburg banded together to support Emperor Louis IV in return for his obligation not to cede any of them to a vassal pledge; Count Ulrich III. Württemberg was made to join them in 1340. In contrast, in 1366 the Swabian Knights formed their own league, the Schleglerbund (from German Flail "mallet" or "hammer" on their insignia). In the civil war that followed, Eberhard II., Ulrich III. Son and successor, together with the Schleglerbund 1372 the Swabian towns.
Ulm organized a new league of 14 Swabian imperial cities in 1376 with the aim of protecting the status of members from the risk of a mortgage protect and safeguard their commercial interests. In 1377 this new league defeated Eberhard II's son Ulrich at Reutlingen and was a fighting force in southern Germany until Eberhard II defeated them in 1388. In 1395 Eberhard III fell. From Württemberg the Schleglerbund by taking his fortress in Heimsheim.
1488 was in Esslingen a new one, more comprehensive Swabian League, which not only consisted of 22 imperial cities, but also the Swabian Knights' League St. George's shield, bishops and princes (Tyrol, Württemberg, Palatinate, Mainz, Trier) , Bathing , Hesse, Bavaria, Ansbach and Bayreuth). The League was governed by a federal council of three colleges of princes, cities and knights, who called up an army of 13,000 men. It aided in the rescue of future Emperor Maximilian I, son of Frederick III, who was being held captive in the Netherlands and later became his main support in southern Germany. It helped Peasant Uprising (1524–25) to suppress . The Reformation led to the dissolution of the League in 1534.
The name Schwaben was in the name of Swabian circle ("county" or administrative district) perpetuated , one of the zones into which Germany was divided from the 16th century for purposes of imperial administration. The 1500 Swabian organized for the first time circle was fully established in 1555 and lasted until the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire 1806. In the old Reichstag there was also a Swabian city bank.