 In 1181, Emperor Frederick Barbarossa stayed there; in 1208, Irene Angelina, the widow of Barbarossa's son, the recently murdered Philip of Swabia, died at Hohenstaufen Castle.After the fall of the Hohenstaufen in 1268, the castle was declared an imperial possession by the Habsburg king Rudolf I of Germany.The strategically and symbolically important location was a constant bone of contention between the Counts of Württemberg and the Holy Roman Emperor.