Well, it happened. After 12 parts, continuity issues. The first is that the Slovenian sources give Frederick's older sister the name Kunigunde instead of Gertrude, and so I changed that. Second, Heinrich became Henry following typical Anglicization of German names. There is no English equivalent to a Siegfried or Sigismund, but Frederick for Friedrich and Henry for Heinrich are common. To explain the close ages of Henry and Clothilde, I have also made them twins, which also opens up a new storyline and gives both much needed depth. Please see Chapter 3, Part 1 for a refresher if you've already read it. The third is more complicated. I wanted Siegfried to be fifteen by the time Frederick left on crusade. I needed to move the date of action to 1187 for that to happen, so that Frederick could leave in 1191, which he did in real life. This required me to edit Chapter 3, Part 1, wherein there are rumors of King Béla's brother Géza going on crusade with the emperor. Such talk wouldn't have begun until 1189, when the crusade was actually called for. As early as 1187, the pope began agitating for another crusade privately, so it's more than possible for Frederick and his family to be discussing such matters. Géza merely had to be taken out of it. I always had Frederick lying to Siegfried about his age (because I have made him a liar) but I decided to make him eighteen to give more space between him and his siblings and to make his actions have more weight. We don't exactly know when the real Frederick was born, which complicates things.
Information about the Diet of Mainz in 1184 can be found here.
We don't know who Frederick squired with or what he was doing before he went off to crusade. He shows up in a Salzburg charter as "a boy" in 1180. Despite being a Salzburg ministerial, Frederick does seem to be more in the company of ducal ministerials. The part about Stein is a lie.The choices I've made regarding his adolescence are entirely fictional, but they do square up to his actions later in the 1190s and 1200s when he is actively involved, along with the archbishop, the duke, and Frederick's wife's kinsmen, the Trixens, in getting Philip of Swabia elected emperor. Every ministerial in Chapter 4, Part 1 will have a major role in the story going forward.
The new characters can be found on the Reference Page.
