Conrad began his career as count of Assisi, which was given him after its 1174 conquest by Christian of Mainz.
Frederick Barbarossa, the emperor, invested Conrad as count and granted him the Rocca as his seat of power.
In 1190, he was chased from Spoleto by the ascendant Guelph powers, but he regained his duchy in 1195.
He briefly sheltered the young Emperor Frederick II at the Rocca and acted as the vicar of the Kingdom of Sicily, but in 1198 he was ordered to render Spoleto to the Pope and during his absence, Assisi rebelled and declared a commune.
The military imperial career of Conrad I is significantly coterminous with the incipient and aggressive assertion of power by the "communes" of Italy (and European lands generally) and his chaotic biography as an imperial representative, symbolic of the decline of trans-national imperium within Italy and Europe overall, communes self-appointing "militias" across Christendom to overthrow the loyal local upholders of the idea of the Sacrum Imperium - thus paving the way for modern nationalism indirectly.