One of the five stem duchies of the medieval German kingdom, proclaimed in 915 by count palatine Erchanger in the southwestern Alemannic lands stretching from the Alsatian Vosges to the Lech river and south to the Gotthard Pass. A core building block of East Francia / the Holy Roman Empire's regional power structure.
Held by the Hohenstaufen (also Holy Roman Emperors) from 1079; the duchy ended with the execution of the last Hohenstaufen duke, Conradin, in 1268, after which the territory fragmented (the Margraviate of Baden had already split off in the 12th century).
No dedicated Swabia monograph found on Open Library; this is a standard English-language survey of the German kingdom across almost exactly the stem duchy's lifespan (911-1250), used as a verified fallback.