Conrad of Urach

[2] Conrad was the second son of Count Egino IV of Urach and his wife Agnes, sister of Berthold V of Zähringen, in the early generations of the line of Dukes of Württemberg.

While he was in Rome on the business of the order, Pope Honorius III created him cardinal, on 8 January 1219, and later charged him as Papal legate with two important missions: one in France (1220–23), to suppress the Albigenses; the other in Germany (1224–26), to promote the crusade which Emperor Frederick II had vowed to undertake (the eventual Sixth Crusade).

While in Germany, Conrad was responsible for the declaration as a martyr of Engelbert II of Berg, Archbishop of Cologne, murdered on 7 November 1225.

His pressure on the Holy Roman Emperor was aimed at containing Frederic II's increasing moslimisation as well as defending the interests of the Southern German nobility, of which he was a member.

After the death of Honorius III on 18 March 1227 he was appointed a member of a triumvirate of cardinals chosen to select the new pope the next day, and as a matter of courtesy was offered the papacy, which he refused out of concern he would be accused of self-aggrandisement.