YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY HISTORY FEEDEEICK THE SECOND. VOL. I. LONDON PRINTED BT SPOTTTSWOODE AND CO. NE"W-STREET SQUARB HISTOEY FREDERICK THE SECOND, EMPEROR OF THE ROMANS. FROM CHRONICLES AND DOCUMENTS PUBLISHED WITHIN THE LAST TEN YEARS. BY T. L. KINGTON, M.A. OF BALLIOL COLLEGE, OXFORD, AND THE INNEIt TEMPLE. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I. Qua entro 6 lo Secondo Federico.'— Dantk, Inferno, x. MACMILLAN AND CO. AND 23 HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN, ifottium. 1862. [The right of translation U reserved.-] PREFACE THE history of the Emperor Frederick the Second has long been a favourite study with Continental scholars. Muratori has treated the subject hke a priest ; Giannone like a lawyer. Von Eaumer has handled it with national pride ; Hofier with ultra montane rancour. Indeed it is not easy for an Itahan or a German to write with calm impartiality on this reign, a decisive epoch in the history of the two nations. France has supplied more candid judges in the persons of Cherrier and Breholles. It was not until lately that England furnished any important contributions to the study of the Em peror's life. A few lines in Gibbon, a few pages in Hallam contained all the information respecting it that was readily accessible to an English student. But of late years Dr. Milman has drawn the attention of his countrymen to this grand subject. In his His tory of Latin Christianity he devotes a whole volume to Innocent in. and Frederick II. , the greatest of Popes and the greatest of Emperors. The glowing VI PREFACE ing colours, in which the Dean has pourtrayed the characters and events of that wonderful half century, render any second attempt to delineate the same period a very hazardous experiment. I must plead in excuse, that since Dr. Milman wrote, several French and Latin monuments of Fred erick's age, never before published, have been given to the world. I would especially instance the in valuable Chronicle of Fra Salimbene, the Burnet of the Thirteenth Century ; this has been often con sulted by previous writers, but was never printed until the year 1857.* Another record of the same age, the Chronicon de rebus in Italia gestis (always cited by me as ' Chronicon,' for the sake of brevity), the work of a zealous Ghibelline, long lay unnoticed in the British Museum until it was published by M. Huillard-Breholles.f This gentleman, and his generous Maecenas the Duc de Luynes, have laid every enquirer into Fred erick's times under the deepest obligation. To them we owe the Historia Diplomatica Friderici Secundi, a collection of three thousand charters and letters bearing upon the Emperor's reign, almost one third of which were before unknown to the world ; a few previously-unpubhshed chronicles of Frederick's age are included in the work. I need not say that I have * See ' Monumenta ad provincias Parmensem et Placentinam spectantia.' j See ' Chronicon Placentinum,' by Breholles. PREFACE Vll made full use of this vast storehouse, the existence of which did not come to my knowledge until after I had begun my own book. Any letter or fact, for which I do not give a reference, will be found in the Historia Diplomatica, that imperishable monument of a French scholar's industry, of a French noble man's liberality. I have paid particular attention to the admirable preface which M. Breliolles has prefixed to the Latin documents. Nor is this the only service he has rendered to literature ; I can promise a rich treat to any antiquarian who will look out the word Huillard-Breholles in the Catalogue of the British Museum. I might speak of his kindness to myself when I visited him in Paris, kindness, I suspect, not very often recorded in the annals of hterature ; of his books of reference readily placed in my hands ; of his unpublished manuscripts cheerfully lent to me to be transcribed. It is in the power of others to test his accuracy, which surpasses even that of Von Eaumer. I must place on record the invariable kindness which I received in Paris ; every one, from M. Breholles and M. Cherrier down to the door keepers of the libraries, lent me all the aid in their power. I must pay a grateful tribute to Alma Mater for her latest institution, the School of Law and Modern History ; I have to thank Dr. Milman for the advice he gave me as to the books I should con sult ; my warmest gratitude is clue to Sir Thomas Phillips for the liberality with which he threw open Vlll PREFACE to me his unrivalled treasures of books and manu scripts at Middlehill. Nor can I be silent on the promptness with which the authorities at the British Museum attended to my suggestions as to the pur chase of new books. Few writers have had the paths of literature rendered so smooth to them as I have had. Few have had the advantage of follow ing such guides, as Von Eaumer, Milman, Cherrier, and Breholles have been to me. The four opening chapters of my work are intro ductory. The first of these is derived from the histories of Giannone and Amari ; the second from Hallam. The third is the shortest possible abstract of a great part of Von Eaumer's noble work. The fourth is mainly inspired by Dr. Milman, though I have added much new matter taken from lately pub lished Franciscan writings of the Thirteenth Century. From the end of the fourth chapter to the end of the book I have searched for myself in the old chronicles of the time, contained in Bouquet, Muratori, Pertz, Bohmer, and other collections. The most careless reader will not fail to remark the resemblance between some of the events in Frederick's reign and those which are signalizing the year 1862. I have been careful to draw attention to the Princes around his throne, such as the Dukes of Lorraine, Bavaria, and Brunswick ; the Margraves of Meissen and Baden ; the Counts of Wurtemberg and Savoy ; and the Burgraves of PREFACE IX Nuremberg ; all of whom have left descendants in the male line to fill the European thrones of our own day. Other lines have been less permanent ; I can not help smihng, on looking over my manuscripts begun in the autumn of 1858, to see how many sen tences Napoleon, Cavour, and Garibaldi have forced me to strike out. Eejoicing that better days seem to be in store for the interesting nations over which Frederick reigned, I end by asking the indulgence of the public for an author's first attempt. T. L. KINGTON. 6 Lansdowne Road, Wimbledon : June, 1862. CONTENTS THE FIRST VOLUME. CHAPTER I. SICILY AND SOUTHERN ITALY — THE KINGDOM. A.D. 400— A.D. 1194. A.D.400. Alaric in Southern Italy . 500. St. Benedict — The Lombard conquerors 600. Gregory the Great — Constans defeated 800. Charlemagne baffled — The Saracens 827. Their conquests in Sicily . Their treatment of the Christians 877. They take Syracuse . 900. Conquests of Ibrahim Ibn Ahmed 948. The Kelbite dynasty — Palermo described . The Sicilian Saints 900. The Greeks and Saracens in Southern Italy 983. The Emperor Otho defeated — The two Rituals 1016. The arrival of the Normans 1040. They wrest Apulia from the Greeks 1053. Their investiture by the Popes . 1060. They conquer the Lombards and free cities 1085. Achievements of Robert Guiscard 1090. Roger conquers the Sicilian Saracens 1101. Death of Roger the Great Count 1130. Roger the first King of Sicily . 1154. His wars — William the Bad 1166. William the Good— The Arts . PAGE 1 2 3 4 56 78 9 101112 13 1415 16 17 1819 20 21 22 Xll CONTENTS OF A.D. 1189. Tancred the Usurper — His death 1194. Gloomy prospects of the Kingdom PAGE 23 24 CHAPTER II. GERMANY AND NORTHERN ITALY- THE EMPIRE. A.D. 400 — A.D. 1137. 400. The German conquerors — Clovis 500. Theodoric— Charles Martel 750. Christianity — Conquests of Charlemagne 888. Separation of France and Germany . 962. Otho links Italy to Germany 1024. Conrad the Salic — Azzo . 1039. Henry the Third— Hildebrand . 1073. Struggle between the Church and Empire The German throne elective The free cities of Germany The names of her chief cities . The cities of Northern Italy Rome, the capital of the Empire Milan, Venice, Pisa, Genoa Florence in the olden time 2526 2728 29 3031 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 CHAPTER III. THE HOUSE OF HOHENSTAUFEN. A.D. 1030 — A.D. 1197. 1030. Frederick von Buren — Frederick Duke of Suabia 1105. His sons Frederick and Conrad . 1127. Their wars with the Guelfs 1138. Conrad is elected King of Germany 1147. He leads the Second Crusade 1152. Frederick the First, Barbarossa 1155. He destroys Tortona . His coronation at Rome 1157. His power in Eastern Europe 1158. He leads an army into Italy He holds a Diet at Roncaglia 1160. He takes Crema 40 4142 43 4445464748 4950 51 THE FIRST VOLUME Xlll A.D. PAGE 1162. He destroys Milan 52 He drives the Pope into banishment . . . 53 1163. He punishes Mayence ..... 54 1167. The Lombard League formed against him . . 55 He loses his army at Rome . . . . 56 1168. He flies back to Germany . ... 57 1174. He besieges Alessandria — Battle of Lignano . 58 1177. He makes peace with the Pope at Venice . . 59 1181. He overthrows Henry the Lion — Peace of Constance 60 1186. He marries his son to the heiress of Sicily . . 61 1189. He leads the Third Crusade . . .62 1190. He is drowned in Asia Minor .... 63 1191. Henry the Sixth besieges Naples 64 1194. His cruelties at Palermo ..... 65 1195. He portions out Italy among his followers . . 66 He wishes to make the Empire hereditary . . 67 1196. His cruelties in Southern Italy ... 68 1197. His death at Messina — Sudden change . . 69 CHAPTER IV. THE PONTIFICATE OF INNOCENT III. A.D. 1198 — A.D. 1216. 1198. Innocent's character . His management of Italy . Spain — Constantinople — England The rise and progress of the Church The Dissenters 1208. The Crusade against Languedoc Enthusiasm enlisted on the side of the Church The Dominicans and Franciscans 1224. The Franciscans in England Jealousy of the secular clergy . Defence of the friars Their popularity among all classes Enthusiasm awakened by them . Runaway children 1255. Reproof addressed to the Two Orders Amazing strength of Rome Her wisdom .... 7071727374 7576 77 7879 8081 8283 84 8586 XIV CONTENTS OF CHAPTER V. HISTORY OF FREDERICK THE SECOND. A.D. 1194— A.D. 1212. A.D. 1198. Innocent's Italian policy . He drives out the Germans 1194. The birth of Frederick the Second 1197. Verses by Peter of Eboli upon it The childhood of Frederick 1198. His coronation at Palermo Bargain of his mother with Innocent . Her death — Stories of Frederick's childhood 1199. Markwald invades Apulia .... He assails Sicily Innocent's measures to check him 1200. An army is sent against him His defeat at Palermo He seizes on Frederick's person Innocent calls in Walter de Brienne . ^1201. Rebellion of Walter of Palear Innocent's apology for his policy 1202. Death of Markwald Rebellion of William Kapparon . 1205. Prowess and death of Walter de Brienne . 1206. Innocent's rebuke to Peter of Celano . Sicily insulted by Genoa and Pisa Complaint of Frederick to the Kings of earth His education at Palermo .... 1207. Innocent's advice to him 1208. Innocent holds a parliament at San Germano His letters to the King of Arragon 1209. Frederick's first dispute with Rome His marriage with Constance of Arragon 1212. Birth of his son Henry .... Frederick's grants to the Apulian Churches To Cava and Bari . . . To the Cathedral of Palermo To the burghers of Palermo To Monreale and Messina . To Cefalu and to the Templars To the Teutonic Order PAGE 87 88 89 90 91 9293 94 9596 9798 99 100101102 103 104 105 106107 108 109 110111112113 114115 116 117118119120121122123 THE FIRST VOLUME XV A.n. 1210. The Emperor Otho invades Apulia He is excommunicated by Innocent 1211. He overruns the mainland The German Princes elect Frederick His character, as described by them 1212. He accepts the Crown of Germany PAGE 124125126 127 128 129 CHAPTER VI. a.d. 1212 — a.d. 1220. 1212. Frederick's engagements to Innocent He goes to Rome His interview with Innocent Bad policy of the Papacy . Frederick's concessions He sails to Genoa His reception at Pavia He crosses the Alps . He reaches Haguenau He rewards his friends His German ministers His journey to Vaucouleurs His election at Frankfort . .ssHis coronation at Mayence 1213. He traverses Suabia ^^^Jle punishes all criminals . ^-His grant to the Pope at Egra He ravages Saxony . 1214. His grants to the Churches Otho is defeated at Bouvines Frederick makes his way into Brabant He rewards the Duke of Bavaria He meets the Prelates of Aries . 1215. He goes to Halle He enters Aix-la-Chapelle He is crowned and takes the Cross His homage to the bones of Charlemagne He enters Cologne .... He sends Berard to the Lateran Council The deposition of Otho is there confirmed 1216. Frederick holds a Diet at Wurzburg , vol. i. a 130 131 132 133134 135 136 137 138 139140141 142143144145146 147148 149 150151 152153154 155 156 157 158 159 160 XVI CONTENTS OF 1216. Pope Innocent is succeeded by Honorius III. Hermann von Salza arrives Queen Constance and her son Henry in Germany 1217. Frederick sends four envoys to Honorius He seizes on Leipsic . The Fifth Crusade is begun 1218. Death of the Emperor Otho Birth of Rodolph of Habsburg Defeat of the Duke of Lorraine The siege of Damietta is begun 1219. Frederick's zeal for the Crusade . Italian affairs are brought before him He excites the suspicions of the Pope End of the civil war in Germany '"'-'Fhe lands of Matilda assured to Rome Respites granted by Honorius The conquest of Damietta . 1220. Frederick's schemes . The House of Hohenlohe . Frederick's excuses to the Pope Promises of the Roman Senator The Diet of Frankfort Frederick's son is elected King of the Romans ""Frederick's charter to the Princes It breaks up Germany Business transacted at the Diet . Frederick's excuses to the Pope . The Diet of Augsburg The business there transacted Frederick recrosses the Alps Azzo of Este — The Treaty with Venice Backwardness of Conrad the Chancellor Frederick reaches Bologna His dealings with Genoa . His treachery to Faenza His Coronation at Rome The Order of the ceremony The Princes there present Frederick's nine Edicts on the occasion Quarrel between Pisa and Florence . The Pope secures his temporal power The succours for Palestine PAGE 161 162 163164 165 166 167168 169 170 171172 173 174175176 177 178179180 181182 183184185186 187 188189190191 192 193 194 195196197 198 199 200 201202 THE FIRST VOLUME XV11 A.D. 1220. Frederick regulates Northern Italy He returns to his Kingdom Remonstrance addressed to him by the Pope Affairs of the realm of Aries PAGE 203204205206 H CHAPTER VII. A.D. 1220 — A.D. 1227. 1220. Frederick's two projects . Previous disorders throughout the Kingdom Turbulence of the nobles . Disgrace of Diephold Privileges brought before the Capuan Cour 1221. Explanations offered to the Pope Frederick passes through A23ulia He reaches Palermo . The Counts of Celano rebel 1222. Archbishop Luke of Cosenza Trick played on St. Francis The revolt of the Saracens in Sicily They are transplanted to Lucera Their misdeeds at Girgenti Frederick at Precina . He protects the monasteries Variety of business brought before him The Counts of Celano are subdued The conditions of peace Frederick punishes the cities and nobles He makes an end of the Saracen revolt His dealings with the House of Montferrat The French subjects of the Empire The case of the Bishop of Cefalu 1227. Frederick supplies Rome with corn - His policy in his Kingdom • His taxes ..... 1221. His preparations for the Crusade Cardinal Ugolino in Lombardy . Anxiety of the Pope . His reproaches addressed to Frederick The Sicilian succours sent to Egypt Defeat of the Crusaders in the Nile a2 1223. 1224. 207208209210211212 213214 215216 217218 219220 221 222 223224 225226 227228229230 231232 233 234235 236237 '238 239 XV111 CONTENTS OF A.D. 122112221223. 1224. 1225. 1226. 1227. Damietta is given back to the Moslem The real author of the disaster . The Pope and Emperor meet at Veroli The earthquakes in Lombardy . John de Brienne, King of Jerusalem . The meeting at Ferentino . Frederick's second marriage is discussed Disputes as to vacant Sees . Preparations for the Crusade Frederick and John at Mein The treaty of San Germano Frederick's German grants Affairs of Germany .... Murder of Archbishop Engelbert Henry's marriage — Affairs of Upper Italy Queen Yolande at Acre Her marriage to the Emperor Frederick's quarrels with King John . His conduct to his bride . The Teutonic Order is transferred to Prussia Honorius rebukes the Emperor . Frederick's childhood was guarded by Rome Yet he afterwards oppressed her He gives way . . . Fury of Faenza against him The Lombard League is renewed King Henry crosses the Brenner But is stopped by Verona The business transacted at Parma Declaration of the Prelates Frederick at Cremona He civilizes the Italians The assembly at San Donino The Lombards are placed under the Ban Frederick visits Tuscany . His complaints to Honorius The Crusade against the Albigenses . The prayers used in behalf of Palestine Honorius advises reconciliation with King John His award between the Empire and the Lombards His death PAGE 240 241242 243 244 245246 247 248249 250 251252253254 255256 257258 259 260 261262 263264 265266267 268269 270271 272273274 275276277278279 280 THE FIRST VOLUME XIX CHAPTER VIII. a.d. 1227 — a.d. 1230. A.D. 1227. Election of Pope Gregory IX. . His character .... Very different from that of Honorius His warning to the Lombards . And to the Emperor Preparations for the Crusade Mortality among the Crusaders . Frederick sails, but turns back . He is excommunicated by the Papacy Recapitulation of his life His misconduct about Damietta . Remarks on the excommunication Frederick defies Rome He is remonstrated with by Gregory . State of affairs in Palestine The truce is broken . Frederick's defence .... His letter to England 1228. His dealings with his clergy He renews his preparations for the Crusade Gregory excommunicates him again . But is driven from Rome . Death of the Empress Yolande . The Parliament at Barletta Frederick is bound for the East He revokes the Countess Matilda's bequest He sails to Cyprus .... He seizes the King and his uncle He reaches Acre .... His comrades greet him heartily But turn against him at the Pope's bidding Mutinous spirit of the Templars and others The walls of Jaffa are rebuilt Sultan Kamel is disposed to treat Outrages on the Christians Frederick's friendship for the enemy 1229. His high demands His popularity among the Moslem PAGE 281282283284285 286 287288289290291292293294295296 297 298299 300 301 302 303304 305 306 307308 309310311 312313314 315316317318 XX CONTENTS OF A.D. 1229. Their sorrow at losing Jerusalem The treaty is made . Its nine articles .... Letters of the Patriarch and Von Salza Frederick goes to Jerusalem His behaviour to the Moslem He protects them in their rights He is crowned at the Holy Sepulchre Von Salza's speech on the occasion Rage of the Patriarch Injustice of the Church party Frederick's own account He gives cause for scandal at Acre Malice of the Templars Frederick's grants to his friends Joy of the Germans and Italians Complaints of the Patriarch Frederick returns to Cyprus 1228. The Emperor's Viceroy invades the Pope's lands Gregory retaliates .... 1229. He sends Cardinal Pelagius into the Kingdom Who takes many towns The Pope calls upon other countries for aid He sends Cardmal Otho to rouse Germany John de Brienne and the Lombards invade Apuha The Pope rebukes Pelagius for his cruelty Frederick returns from Palestine He is excommunicated again He drives out the Papal invaders Remarks on his government He justifies his conduct — He takes Sora Peace is proposed .... 1230. The German Princes arrive to make it The conference at San Germano Engagement of the Princes Absolution of Frederick . He visits the Pope at Anagni They discuss the affairs of Lombardy . Frederick returns to his Kingdom Suspicions of the Pope Further causes of dispute . Frederick and Gregory as lawgivers . PAGE 319320 321322323324325 326327328329330331 332 333 334 335 336 337338 339 340 341342343344345346 347 348349 350 351 352 353 354355 356357358359360 THE FIRST VOLUME X.\l CHAPTER IX. PAGE Gregory's habits .... 361 Contrasted with those of Frederick 362 Confusion in the Kingdom of Sicily 363 Feudalism in France — The new Constitution 3 . 364 The Sicilian nobles lose their criminal jurisdic tion 365 Peter de Vinea . . . : . 366 Stories about him ..... 367 -The officers of the Kingdom 368 The Grand Justiciary 369 The Justiciaries in the provinces 370 The Judges and Notaries 371 The Bailiffs ... 372 The Master Chamberlains .... 373 Venality of the Magistrates 374 The Executive power .... 375 The Captains of the Kingdom 376 Administration of justice 377 Steps in an action at law .... 378 Outlawry ... . . 379 Contumacy ; the Indictment 380 The Advocates ..... 381 Frederick's favour to the weak . 382 The Ordeal 383 The Duel ... . . 384 It is regulated by Frederick 385 The Criminal law ..... 386 The Defensa — Rape 387 Death a frequent punishment 388 The Torture 389 The office of Castellan 390 New Castles built ..... 391 Arsenals — The Admiral . 392 His privileges ...... 393 Frederick as a merchant .... 394 His dealings with the Moslem Sultans 395 His coinage ...... 396 He adds new taxes ..... 397 He tries to lighten them .... 398 His farms ...... 399 XX11 CONTENTS OF His stud ...... Comments of the Popes on his government The golden age of Sicily — The Nobles Their vassals ..... Frederick demands back his own vassals Feudal services .... Privileges of knights Marriages of nobles .... The right of female succession granted The Jus Protimeseos ; Dowries . Knights in the field-. .... The old Houses — The Poor A Calabrian law-suit The Abbot of San Stefano di Bosco . Tyranny at Polla .... Frederick's favour to the poor — Serfdom The Middle Classes .... The towns lose their old privileges An Italian household described . Difference between the North and the South Artizans and shopkeepers . The taxes on common articles . The first Parliament .... Frederick's influence on other Kingdoms A Ghibelline prophecy — The Sicilian Church Many Sees kept vacant Statutes of Mortmain ; anger of the Pope He rebukes the Archbishop of Capua . Vices of the clergy .... Jealousy between the regulars and seculars The Time of the Hallelujah The Paterine heretics They are denounced by Frederick He forbids usury .... The Jews in Sicily .... The Mohammedans at Lucera The Sicilian Questions Answered by Ibn Sabin His reputation ..... The medical schools at Salerno . Master Theodore the Philosopher Leonard Fibonacci and Algebra . PAGE 400 401 402 403404 405 406407408409410411412413 414 415 416417418419420 421 422 423 424 425426427 428429430431 432 433 434435436 437438 439 440441 THE FIRST VOLUME XX1U PAGE Frederick's gift to the University of Bologna 442 He founds the University of Naples . 443 He afterwards restores it 444 Its Professors . 445 Study of Aristotle revived . 446 The Greek Language 447 Grosseteste — Old prophecies 448 Michael Scott . 449 Stories about him 450 Frederick's experiments 451 His jokes about Transubstantiation 452 Nicholas the Fish — Frederick's treasures . 453 His buildings ...... 454 His new cities ...... 455 Altamura, Monteleone, Agosta . 456 Lombard emigration — Aquila founded 457 Italian Architecture ..... 458 Italian Poetry ...... 459 Frederick's own poems .... 460 Other poets of the time .... - 461 Frederick's Treatise on Hawking 462 His private life ..... 463 Attempt to revive his Court 464 His Secretaries ..... 465 Outrage at Trani ; Brother Jordan 466 Hermann von Salza ..... 467 The Inquisition in Germany 468 The envoys from Eastern Sultans 469 The banquet ...... 470 Frederick's children ; his wild beasts 471 His sports ...... 472 His treasures . . ... 473 His character — his treachery . 474 His cruelty ....... 475 His harem ....... 476 His vices exaggerated — his children 477 Bianca Lancia ....... 478 Frederick's appearance ¦ . . . . 479 Salimbene's opinion of him 480 XXIV CONTENTS OF CHAPTER X. A.D. 1231. 1232. 1233. 1234.1232. 1233. 1234. a.d. 1231 — a.d. 1236. Correspondence between Frederick and Gregory Their measures against the Paterines . Von Salza in Germany — Raynald disgraced An earthquake — Departure of De Brienne Folly of the Templars in Palestine The Lombards renew their League Frederick goes to Ravenna He welcomes the German Princes But misses many old friends He quarrels with the Genoese . But receives them back into favour . The Aristocracy protected; heresy denounced The persecuting spirit of the age Frederick's intolerance explained He turns his back on the Pope's Legates He goes to Venice and Friuli His agreement with his son Henry His edict in favour of the German Princes His dealings with Worms . He meets the new Duke of Austria . Peace is enforced in Lombardy . The House of Romano Characters of Eccelin And of Alberic .... Frederick's interview with Alberic Criticisms on John of Vicenza . His sermons in favour of peace . State of affairs at Milan King Henry's rebellion Frederick returns to his Kingdom His alliance with the Papacy Arrival of Gerard Maurisius Frederick subdues his rebels He fails to succour the Papacy . His cruelties at Messina He destroys various towns in Sicily . He complains of the Pope's dealings with Lombardy The Romans rebel against Gregory PAGE 481482483484485486487 488 489 490491492493 494 495496 497 498499 500 501 502503 504505506 507508509 510 511 512513514515 516517 518 THE FIRST VOLUME XXV A.D. 1234. Frederick's interview with the Pope . He attacks Rispampini .... He flies back to his Kingdom — Citta di Castello Intrigues in Palestine .... Gregory defeats the Romans Excuses of King Henry .... He complains of his father Frederick's sorrow at the state of Germany He consults the Pope on his English marriage' 1235. Gregory strengthens the hands of Frederick The Emperor's letters to the German Princes His journey into the North He is annoyed by the Duke of Austria He suppresses Henry's revolt He imprisons Henry .... 1242. His letter on Henry's death 1238. His advice to Conrad 1235. He sends envoys to England He secures the hand of the Princess Isabella Her bridal equipment Her arrival at Cologne She is married to Frederick at Worms Her pedigree ..... Frederick's treatment of the German rebels The Diet of Mayence The Constitution of fifteen chapters . Improvements in German law Frederick's favour to Otho of Brunswick "S^His grant to Otho .... ""--Glory of Frederick at this time . The renown of his House . Deposition of King Henry Reparation made to the loyalists The rebel Bishops are summoned to Rome The brilliant Court at Haguenau 1236. The Jews are accused of child murder Frederick's alliance with England His harsh treatment of Wolfelin The story of St. Elizabeth . The translation of her relics at Marburg Frederick's devotion on the occasion . State of Architecture at this time PAGE 519520 521 522523 524525526527 528529530531 532 533 534 535536537538539540 541 542543544545 546547548549 550551 552553554555 556 557558559560 XXVI CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME 1236. Germany inferior to other lands The Church at Marburg . Frederick's dealings with Austria Charges brought against her Duke Another obstacle is at hand PAGE 561 562 563 564 565 ERRATA. Page 79, line 9, for Grostete read Grosseteste, „ 167, .. 16, „ ., 173, „ 3, „ „ 209, „ 21, „ „ 332, „ 14, „ „ 351, ,, 5, „ Kyburg Biandrato Alesina Recordana Severo Kiburg. Biandrate. Lesina. Ricordana. Severino. THE HISTOEY FREDERICK THE SECOND. CHAPTEE I. SICILY AND SOUTHERN ITALY — THE KINGDOM. A.D. 400— A.D. 1194. " Appulus et Calaber, Sieulus mihi servit et Afer." * NOW that the eyes of Europe are kept fixed upon chap. the old land of the Samnites and the islands L of the Mediterranean, it seems advisable to under- 400-1194. take a chapter of history known, it may be suspected, to but few readers. Lr the miseries that followed the downfall of the Eoman Empire, the seat of government, as was natural, had its full share. About the year 400, the German tribes were on their way to ravage the plains of Italy. Alaric, their boldest leader, found his grave near Cosenza, before he could land in Sicily ; he was replaced by other destroyers, such as Genseric and Odoacer. Later in the century, both Italy and Sicily found rest under the mild rule of Theodoric the Ostrogoth, when Naples began to rise upon the * Line engraved on the sword of King Roger. VOL. I. B 2 THE HISTORY VV chap, ruins of more powerful cities. But stormy times — - — were at hand. The whole of Italy was convulsed in 400-1194. t^e strugg|e "between Totila and Teia on the one side, Belisarius and Narses on the other. Yet we turn away from the capture of Taranto and the battle of Mount Vesuvius to a more peaceful scene ; we mark the foundation of that edifice which was to bridge over the dark chasm between the age of Justinian and the age of Luther. St. Benedict came to esta blish at Monte Cassino the head-quarters of his Order, a power more lasting than that of his Ostrogothic visitor, King Totila. Meanwhile the Greek convents of St. Basil were widely scattered over the South of Italy and the neighbouring island, the debatable land between Eome and Constantinople. The Exarchs, who represented the latter city, were not allowed a long tenure of the recovered provinces. Alboin led his Lombards over the Alps, a race worthy to rank as conquerors with their kindred tribes, the Visigoths, Franks, and Angles. La 589, his successor Autharis began to attack the South, and rode into the sea at Eeggio, striking with his spear the pillar there erected, while he cried : ' This is the boundary of the Lombard kingdom.' It was this King who exchanged paganism for Arian- ism, and who established the duchy of Benevento in addition to the two others already existing in Northern Italy. The first Duke, Zoton, laid waste the chosen Abbey of St. Benedict, which did not arise from its ruins for 130 years. But this instance of Lombard ferocity stood almost alone. None of the German invaders were milder in the treatment of their vassals, than Avere the new masters of Italy, as their laws still remain I. 400-1194. FREDERICK THE SECOND to testify. They laid aside their pagan and Arian chap. belief at the persuasion of Gregory the Great, who was also the spiritual conqueror of Spain and Eng land, and whose example proves how truly majestic a Pope may be, unencumbered by a temporal crown. The estates in Sicily, owned by the Boman Church, exhibit him in the character of a humane and pro vident landlord ; a fact the more important, when we learn that slaves formed a great part of the pro perty he had to administer. Gregory was equaUy zealous in protecting Naples and the other Greek cities dotted around the Southern coast, which the Lombards, having no ships, were unable to subdue. The loyalty of Eome to the Eastern Emperors was sorely tried, owing to their eagerness to tamper with heretical novelties. One of the worst of these sovereigns undertook to drive the Lombards out of the South. Constans, the last ruler of Byzantium who ever led an army into Italy, landed at Taranto in 663, retook many cities, and laid siege to Bene vento itself. This town, the last stronghold of Arian- ism, being in great straits, renounced its false creed at the prayer of the orthodox Bishop Barbatus ; and the baffled Emperor fled from Naples to plunder Eome, and to die at Syracuse. In the iconoclastic disputes of the next century, Lombards, Greeks, and Italians were bound together in firm opposition to the Eastern Emperor : all alike ranged themselves under the banner of Eome. Naples, more attached to her images than any other city, put to death her governor ; the Lombard King saw his interest, and placed himself at the head of the movement. The Popes grew afraid of this dangerous ally, who now found himself able to suppress the Exarchate. They I 400-1194 r THE HISTORY OF chap, called in Pepin and Charlemagne ; the Lombard kingdom ceased to exist. But the Lombard duchy of Benevento stood firm as ever under two noble chiefs, Arechis and Grim- bald ; these assumed the crown and sceptre, together with the title of prince. It is no shght boast, that they were the only rulers in Christendom able to withstand the German, the new Emperor of the West, though he was aided by the Popes. All that he could do after seven years of warfare was to take Chieti, and to exact a yearly tribute. ' With the help of God I will ever be free,' was the declaration of his Lombard enemy. Yet it may be doubted whether this stout resistance was of any real advan tage to Italy. A broad line, thanks to Arechis and his son, was drawn between the North and South ; Eome, lying between the two powers, was fully aware of the advantages she derived from this dis union of the peninsula ; and many centuries rolled away before Italy could be anything more than a geographical name. The bones of Charlemagne had scarcely been laid in the earth, before a new event of European interest took place. Sicily had long smarted under the incursions of Moslem pirates. The female captives, torn from her shores, had given the name of Sikilhat to a mansion near the Caliph's abode. The images of gold and silver, once the boast of Sicilian shrines, had been carried off and sold through Moslem agency to the idolaters in Hin- dostan, though the more orthodox of the Saracens had felt a pang of remorse at this traffic in the works of Satan. But in the year 827, the systematic con quest of the island was undertaken ; it had escaped 400-1101. FREDERICK THE SECOND 5 the yoke for a century and a half, mainly on account chap. of the constant civil wars among the African Moslem. - Two parties had been warring with each other in Sicily for six years ; the weaker side, headed by Euphemius, called in the aid of the unbelievers. The city of Kairewan, which had taken the place of destroyed Carthage as the mistress of Africa, sent forth a small army of Arabs and Berbers, besides warriors from Spain and distant Khorassan. The invaders, led by Ased a renowned lawyer, landed at Mazara, routed the Greek host, and were soon encamped in the old stone quarries of Syracuse. Eepulsed from the capital, they withdrew into the West of Sicily, and were reinforced from Spain ; Palermo fell into their hands after a year's siege, and became their main stronghold. Hence they went forth, year after year, to ravage the Christian cities, and to bear off thousands of captives. It was a great day for Islam when the hitherto im pregnable Castro Giovanni, the famous Enna, was stormed ; the savage conquerors gave all the glory to Allah, and sent to the Caliph many of the patrician ladies, forming a part of the enormous booty taken. This city, in the centre of the island, had baffled the Africans for thirty years. The Greek Emperors and Empresses were too much oc cupied with the abolition and restoration of images to pay earnest attention to Syracuse ; the Venetians were chased home up the Adriatic ; the Neapolitans made a base league with the infidels, -and caused the fall of Messina ; Eome owed her safety to the heroism of her Pope, Leo IV. ; but the city of Bari was placed under the rule of Bagdad for a short time by an adventurous Sultan. The Saracens now 400-1194. 6 THE HISTORY OF chap, proceeded to elect a Wali for the Great Land, by which Italy was meant, while Sicily was governed by a Sahib. There was always much disunion among the Moslem conquerors, and the Greek power in the island thus gained a long respite. The Berbers, mostly given to industry, held the country between Mazara and Girgenti ; while the Arabs, the superior race, were established to the North, between Trapani and Palermo. These last furnished the lawyers, governors, and captains of Sicily ; from them was recruited the Giund, an hereditary class of armed nobihty, paid by Christian money. The gezia was a poll tax levied upon all who were not Moslem, in consideration of which the tributaries were al lowed to enjoy their own religion. The Sicilian Christians were forbidden to carry arms, to mount horses, to build high mansions, to drink wine in public, or to celebrate pompous funeral rites. They were forced to wear a peculiar dress, to rise up to a true believer, and to abstain from building new churches and cloisters. Moslem women were not to be annoyed by the presence of Christian females at the baths, and Moslem ears were not to be scanda lized by the sound of the reading of the Gospel or the ringing of bells. But Christian slaves, thanks to the merciful laws of Mohammed, were better off in Sicily than in Italy or France ; any one of them might take a short cut to freedom by professino- Islam. The three vales, into which the island is divided, were under very different institutions ; that of Mazara was full of slaves, that of Noto was held by Christians in a state of vassalage, while the Val Demone abounded in independent or tributary com- 400-1191. FREDERICK THE SECOND 7 monwealths. Tho vast, estates of the Boman epoch chap. were now happily subdivided into many small farms, paying rent to the Moslem landlords, who had dis possessed the former owners. The mild pohcy of the conquerors is plain from the few martyrdoms recorded ; the most renowned Sicilian saint of the time is John of Eachctta, called the modern Elias, whose adventures in Africa recall the history of Joseph. In 877, Giafar led on the Moslem once more to the siege of the Christian capital. They battered and undermined for months the defences of Ortygia, and had the credit of inventing the mangonels and petriers, the chief trust of mediaeval engineers. The days of Hamilcar and Gelon seemed to have re turned ; the Africans of the West were once more be leaguering the Greeks in the noble old city, which had now little help to expect from the East. The soldiers who should have relieved it (the siege lasted almost a year) were kept at Constantinople to build a church. Still the Maronites, Tarsites, and Pelopon- nesians stood at bay in the breach for twenty days and nights, though reduced to eat the corpses of the slain and the grass that was growing on the walls. But a sudden assault of the besiegers carried the town, and an awful massacre followed. The brave governor and seventy nobles were afterwards butchered in cold blood with stones, clubs, and lances ; one hero, who during the siege had often been heard to curse the Prophet's name, was torn asunder, while the Moslem mangled his corpse with their teeth. Never did a Christian city yield so large a booty. Two months were spent in pulling down the walls and churches ; the prisoners were then dragged across 400-1194. 8 THE HISTORY OF chap, the island to Palermo, which henceforth took the place of Syracuse, just as Cairo and Kairewan had supplanted older foundations. The captive clergy were shut up in foul prisons along with negroes and Jews for seven years, after escaping the perils of a religious dispute with the Wali, though a cry for the blood of the polytheists was uttered by a fanatical Imaum. Ibrahim Ibn Ahmed, at whose command the siege of Syracuse had been undertaken, was a man of great genius, but was guilty of wholesale barbarities in Africa. He suppressed the revolt of the Sicilian Moslem, putting to death the leaders of both Arabs and Berbers, whom he played off against each other ; Palermo was sacked by his African soldiery in the year 900 with horrible cruelty. Having received orders from Bagdad to resign his power in Africa, he came to wage the holy war in Sicily, which he had hitherto governed from afar. He completed the conquest of the island, a work of eighty years, by the storm of Taormina ; the citizens, who had all jeered at the reproofs of the modern Ehas, were ruthlessly butchered. The victor now assailed the mainland ; his son had already seized and depopulated Eeggio. ' I will take care of Italy,' cried Ibrahim, ' I will do what I please with the dwellers therein ; expect me at Eome, and then will come the turn of Constantinople.' But Italy was saved ; this new Alaric died under the walls of Cosenza, and Naples was relieved from her agony of fear at his approach. The Tenth century is chiefly taken up with the struggles of the Sicihan Emirs to shake off the yoke of Kairewan. These struggles were at first fruitless ; the rising dynasty of the 1. 400-1194. FREDERICK THE SECOND Fatimitos made its power felt in the island ; Palermo chap. was sacked over and over again, to chastise its re bellions, and one of the satraps sent from Africa made it his boast that he had slaughtered more than half a milhon of his fellow-Moslem. A strict account was exacted from the corsairs of their Italian booty ; the Fatimite ruler complained that his generals ate the camel themselves and brought him only the ears. But in 948, a famous warrior, Hassan the Kelbite, landed in Sicily, who made -Hire Emirate hereditary in his house for a hundred years. His descendants claimed the title of Malek or King, named their own viziers, and waged a successful war against the hosts of Armenians, Eussians, and Paulician heretics, poured into the lost provinces by the reviving Empire of the East. Palermo flourished in spite of its rebellions and the consequent massa cres ; Cordova and Bagdad were its only rivals. It boasted of a mosque, once a Christian church, said to contain the bones of Aristotle ; this stood in the street still called the Cassaro from the old Alcazar. There were five hundred mosques in the city, and nine gates ; many mills were turned by the neigh bouring streams, while the sugar-cane and papyrus grew not far from the walls. Ibn Haukal, a con temporary of St. Dunstan who visited Palermo, complains of the citizens as more prone to vice than to virtue, besides being very filthy in their habits in spite of the numerous baths ; they could hardly be brought to keep the Eamazan or to fast at all ; they would sit idly, young and old, at the city gates, hke monks begging ; it was plain that there was a good deal of Greek blood in these sleek professors of Islam. 10 THE HISTORY OF chap. The later Kelbites degenerated from their fathers, — who had so manfully faced the assaults of both the 400-1194. gastem an(j western Csesars. The Moslem nobihty began to die out, and lingered only in the Christian part of the island. The persecuted followers of Ali fled to Sicily for refuge, and civil wars were soon raging ; each chief seized on all the towns he could, while the central authority was at an end. The hopes of the vassals were rising. Pisa had already begun that career of conquest in Sardinia and Sicily, which may be read in rude Latin verse engraved on the West front of her noble cathedral. More for midable foes were even nearer at hand, at whose approach the native Christians took courage. A few Sicihan monasteries had survived all through the dreary seven generations of Mohammedan op pression ; rehgion in that country has invariably allied itself with patriotism. The hermits of Sicily went forth to proclaim her wrongs throughout Europe. St. Nilus, the statesman and prophet of Eossano, clad in sackcloth which he changed only once a year, was honoured by Emperors and Popes. St. Vitalis lived on Mount Etna, St. Philaret at Traina ; while the Syracusan Simeon astonished the Germans by making the top of the old Eoman gate at Treves his perpetual abode. The deliverance of his country was nigh ; and while welcoming a people back into the Christian fold, we need not regret the hundred and twenty Moslem, who made a name for themselves in grammar, philology, law, medicine, theology, and poetry, while basking in the smiles of the Palermitan court. Sicily had been undergoing for more than two cen turies the sharp discipline of the Saracen scymitar ; I. 100-1194. FREDERICK THE SECOND 11 her sister provinces of the mainland had been almost chap. equally harassed by three diilerent masters, the champions of three different rituals. Not many years after Charlemagne's death the great duchy of Benevento, which had once included almost the whole of Southern Italy, fell to pieces. Its work was done ; it had stayed the progress of Charle magne. The Greeks wore now able to retake most of their lost provinces ; while the degenerate Lom bard princes of Benevento, Salerno, and Capua found their only safety in feudal dependence upon the German sovereigns. The Saracens were called in by the contending parties ; these unbelievers established themselves on Monte Gargano, the re nowned sanctuary of St. Michael, but their great encampment was on the banks of the Garigliano. They swept the country, carrying off all the horses, arms, and young women ; Monte Cassino was now for the second time destroyed. After their inroads had been pushed as far inland as Narni, they were exterminated in 916 by a combination of Greeks and Lombards, aided by the Pope and King Beren- gar. The oppressive exactions of the Eastern Greeks were still more systematic ; they made slaves of those of their brother Christians who had submitted to the Saracens ; the only way of saving the Cala brian peasants from their masters expectant, the foreign soldiery, was first to embark the troops on board ship, and then to set free the crowd of cap tives remaining on the shore. The Byzantine Em pire was now being revived by the energy of Nicephorus Phocas, John Zimisces, and the Slayer of Bulgarians ; who built Troja, Melfi, and Firen- zuola, and established at Bari their Catapan, a magis- I. 400-1194. 12 THE HISTORY OF chap, trate with absolute powers, whence the Capitanata takes its name.* But the Empire of the West, restored in the person of the German Otho, was a redoubtable rival to the Empire of the East. No Kaiser for the next hundred years thought his journey to Eome complete, if he did not receive the homage of the Lombard princes at Capua and Salerno, over which he exercised sovereign rights. The second Otho, surnamed the Bloody, led the flower of Germany and Upper Italy into Calabria. Here he was defeated in a stubborn battle at Colonne by the combined Greeks and Sa racens, and fled by sea to Eossano. After uttering an empty boast that he would throw a bridge of boats across the Straits of Messina, he sacked Bene vento for its treachery, and carried off the bones of its patron, St. Bartholomew, to Eome. These Othos were zealous champions of the rights of Eome against Constantinople. The Latin and Greek rituals made Southern Italy their battle ground. The Popes pre tended to special authority over Gaeta, and moreover erected many of the Southern bishoprics into me tropolitan sees. The duchies of Naples, Amalfi, and little Sorrento, which subsisted as independent states all through these troublous times, claimed each its own archbishop. The three Lombard capitals were of course promoted to equal honour, and the Latin archbishop of Salerno disputed the jurisdiction of the Greek archbishop of Eeggio. Bari was the head-quarters of the Eastern ritual, while Eossano * The Cathedral of Matera is almost the only Greek church in the South of Italy that has been spared by the constant wars and earthquakes. r7 FREDERICK THE SECOND l.'J boasted no fewer than seven convents of St. Basil, chap. There wore several other archiepiscopal sees, subject h to Constantinople, scattered over the South and East 40°-11,J1- of Italy. We must mount up to the political divi sions of the latter half of the dismal Tenth century, if we would know why the late kingdom of Naples possessed more archbishoprics than any other reahn of the West. It woidd have puzzled any observer in the year 1000, who recalled the feats of Ibrahim, Nicephorus, and Otho, to foretell the fate of Southern Italy ; whether the Saracens woidd enslave it as they had already enslaved Sicily ; whether the Greeks would maintain it free from the trammels of the feudal system, as a Theme with a high-sounding name under the rule of the Eastern Caesar ; whether the Lombard Counts and Gastaldi, ever multiplying, would follow their hege lord the German Kaiser to the complete conquest of Apuha and Calabria. But affairs took a very different turn, and the strange event which now astonished ah Christendom bears no shght resem blance to the Enghsh conquest of Hmdostan, when we consider the diversity of the pohtical pretensions to the provinces, the doubts as to the actual and the rightful Lord, and the humble guise in which the conquering race first appeared. They came, not as merchants, but as pilgrims. In 1016, the great-grandsons of Eollo's warriors made their first essay in arms on the Italian coasts, whither they had resorted in hopes of finding a blessing at the shrine of their chosen patron St. Michael, and at the tomb of St. Benedict. About twenty years later, the valiant elder sons of the Norman Vavassor, Tancred de Hauteville, began to arrive in Southern 14 THE HISTORY OF chap. Italy. They found their countrymen installed in the — - — new settlement of Aversa, not far from Naples ; the 400-1194. Nornian knights quartered here always held them selves ready to bear arms in the quarrels of the Lombard princes who still reigned at Capua, Salerno, and Benevento. The German Caesars, Henry the Saint, Conrad the Salic, and Henry the Third, on their visits to these outposts of their empire, invested the gallant strangers with the newly-acquired pos sessions. The Greek Caesars, on their side, were ready to employ, but not to reward, the Norman chivalry. Maniaces the Catapan, trained in the wars of Syria, led against the Sicihan Moslem in 1038 a motley host of Eussians, Scandinavians, Paulicians, and Italians. The famous Hardrada, if we may be heve his national Sagas, served on this occasion ; the wise Arduin from Lombardy, and Wilham Iron- Arm at the head of three hundred Normans, took a better authenticated part in the enterprise. Messina and Syracuse were speedily wrested from the unbelievers, but the bravest allies of Maniaces were disgusted at his ingratitude, shown in the division of the Sicihan spoils ; they dissembled their wrongs, withdrew to Calabria, summoned then" brethren from Aversa, and boldly set about the conquest of the Greek provinces. Victory after victory was won, until the whole of Apuha, except a few cities, was shared out among twelve Norman counts; Melfi became their capital. Wilham Iron-Arm, the eldest of Tancred's offspring, was chosen chief of the new aristocracy ; his captains declared his election by their suffrages to be a better title than any that Pope or Emperor could give. The name of Apulia, the first large province con quered by the Normans, was noised abroad through- 400-1194. rllE SECOND 15 out the Christian kingdoms ; it came in time to stand ciiai for the whole of Southern Italy, as a general name. The tract depending on Benevento was next added to the dominions of the adventurers by the bounty of the Western Emperor, while he granted the city it self to the Papacy. The treachery of the Byzantine court and the re bellion of the oppressed Apuhans had failed to shake tho power so unexpectedly attained by the brave and crafty Normans ; a more formidable danger was threatening from the North. Pope Leo brought in person an army of Suabian knights and Itahan bandits against the new tyrants of Apuha. The battle of Civitella, which ensued, was to Italy what the battle of Hastings was to England thirteen years later. On both fields the stalwart Teutons were cut to pieces by the well-disciplined knights from the Bessin and Cotentin. The Pope, a captive in the hands of the enemies he had come to subdue, invested the Nor mans, henceforth the boldest champions of the Eoman Church, with all the lands they might acquire. They made no sparing use of this grant, with which they gladly sanctified their conquests, betraying no im pertinent curiosity as to its vahchty. The post left vacant by the deaths of his three elder brothers was filled by Eobert Guiscard, who pushed his arms Southward as far as Eeggio, and received from his barons the title of Duke of Apulia and Calabria. In a synod held at Melfi, a.d. 1059, the new Pope rati fied Guiscard's title ; the Norman, acknowledging himself tributary and vassal, was made Gonfalonier , of the Church, receiving a banner, after the Itahan fashion, at the hands of his liege-ford. It is hard to say what right the Papacy had to assume to itself 16 THE HISTORY OF chap, a prerogative which must have belonged either to i the Western or to the Eastern Empire. 400-1194. gut ^ £act remaps that, however doubtful the origin of the Papal claims may have been, Eome has for the last eight centuries claimed the feudal supe riority over the Two Sicilies. Even within living memory, a tribute has been paid to the Holy See by the King of Naples in acknowledgment of his de pendence upon it. In the middle ages we shall find the Innocents and the Clements conferring or with holding the vassal crown at their pleasure, a fruitful source of bloodshed. The Greek schismatics had been overthrown ; it was now the turn of the orthodox Lombards and the free states of the Western coast. The old city of Capua had to yield to the arms of the new colony at Aversa. Salerno, which was the first town that witnessed the exploits of the Normans, and which Guiscard coveted for his capital, was taken after a long siege. Amaffi, dating from the time of Gregory the Great, and famous all over the East for its coinage and commerce, saw its independence and its prosperity pass away. Naples, in which the Greek and Latin rituals were both cherished, alone remained to be conquered. These duchies and cities were now very far removed from the power enjoyed by then.- mighty men of old ; such as Athanasius, the duke bishop, accursed of the Popes as the ally of the Moslem ; or Pandulf Ironhead, who had ruled almost half of Italy, and whose soul, according to the hermits, had dis appeared into Mount Vesuvius. The Normans, men of greater piety than the more ancient lords of the land, were bountiful in their gifts of castles and do mains to the Abbey of Monte Cassino. EREDERlUli THE SECOND 17 Eobert Guiscard secured his conquests by taking chai Bari after a siege of four years, and by destroying rebel lious Cannae ; Barletta had long before taken the place of this ill-omened town. The Duke's most brilhant triumphs were yet to come ; he threw his forces upon the coast opposite to Otranto, and routed the Enghsh, Turks, and Pauhcians, enlisted under the standard of Alexius. The Emperor of the East cried for help to his brother of the West ; they combined to destroy the presumptuous son of the Norman Vavassor who had established his pcwer in their lost provinces. Hildebrand, who was now seated in the Papal chair, and who had long been battling against Imperial claims, found his only ally in Guiscard. The brave Duke returned to Italy at his patron's call ; the onset of the Normans was not awaited by the German Caesar, who withdrew into the North ; the wrongs of the Papacy were avenged by the merciless sack of the Eternal City, a sack worse than that by Alaric, equal to that by Bourbon. The deserted space between the Lateran and the Cohseum still marks the ravages of the Norman. Hildebrand retreated with his de liverer to find a grave at Salerno ; Eobert Guiscard himself died in 1085, the same year that carried off his suzerain, WiUiam the Conqueror. The half century of which we are now treating witnessed a great change in the councils of Christen dom. She was no longer standing on the defensive ; Japhet was now manfully forcing his way into the tents of Shem. Whatever the cause of the counter- movement may have been, certain it is that in 1050 Toledo, Palermo, and Jerusalem were in the hands of the Moslem, and that in 1100 these great capitals were all restored to the Cross. This is the heroic VOL. I. o 400-1194. I 400-1194 18 THE HISTORY OF chap, age of modern Europe, to which her noblest houses love to trace their origin. This is a period abound ing in great warriors, such as the Cid, Hardracla, Godfrey de Bouillon, and above all, the heroes who went forth from Normandy to conquests in Italy, England, and Palestine. Not least among these was the youngest son of Tancred de Hauteville, Guiscard's -brother Eoger, from whose loins a line of kings was to issue. He led a band of Normans to recover Sicily from the decaying rule of the Kelbite dynasty. After receiv ing a consecrated standard at the hands of the same Pope who sent a like gift to Wilham the Conqueror, Eoger sailed from Calabria about the year 1060. The Emir Beitoun was his guide ; the storm of Mes sina was the first exploit of the Normans. They were besieged in Traina by the combined forces of the Greeks and Saracens ; but the great hardships there undergone were atoned for by the victory of Cerami. Eoger sent to Eome all the banners taken on the occasion, and also four camels. The Eastern half of Sicily, which was full of Christians, was easily mastered ; but a siege of five months was required for the reduction of Palermo in 1074. Its fate was afterwards shared by Girgenti and the other Arab strongholds of the West ; Malta was not subdued until thirty years after the beginning of Eoger's en terprise. The adventurer took the title of Great Count of Calabria and Sicily, and formed alhances with the noblest European realms. He granted free toleration to his Mohammedan subjects, from whom he recruited his armies, while at the same time he founded or restored Christian abbeys and bishoprics throughout the island. When his brother Guiscard, who had aided him to take Palermo, was laid in the FREDERICK THE SECOND 19 tomb at Venosa, Eoger was ready to seize the vacant chap place, although the deceased warrior had left children. L The conqueror of Sicily kept a watchful eye upon 40°-1194- the provinces of the mainland, and flew to reduce the revolted Lombards of Capua. During this siege he narrowly escaped with his life from the treachery of the Calabrian Greeks. Sergius, one of that race, who commanded two hundred men, took a bribe from the besieged, and planned the murder of his lord. Eoger, however, was awakened from his slum bers by a vision of St. Bruno in time to escape death and to slay many of the traitors ; the saint was with difficulty prevailed upon to accept a charter for his Calabrian foundation, as a reward for his timely aid. The pious Norman, who had now mastered Greeks, Saracens, and Lombards ahke, met with unusual favours at the hands of Eome. In 1098, Pope Urban came to Salerno, and there created Eoger, and the heirs of Eoger, the legates of the Holy See in Sicily ; this is the only favour of the kind on record. A century later, we shall find Urban's successor anxious to withdraw the dangerous privilege. In 1101, Eoger the Great Count, having reached the age of seventy, was borne to the grave at his favourite resi dence in Calabria, the city of Mileto. At his birth the Normans held in Italy nothing but the town of Aversa ; at his death they were in possession of what was shortly to become a European kingdom.* * The intervals between the births of the Norman line of Sicily are most remarkable — Tanceed de Hauteville, born about 990. Rogee, the Great Count, born in 1031. Rogee, the King, born in 1097. Constance, the Empress, born in 1154. Frederick, the Emperor, born in 1194. 20 THE HISTORY OF chap. The further development of the Norman power in L the South was delayed for a score of years, until 400-1194. R0ger } the son of the Great Count, had arrived at man's estate. The young prince was then able to add Apuha to his Sicihan inheritance, owing to the opportune failure of Guiscard's line. He did not deem the Papal consent necessary to his consecration at Salerno, although the Apulian barons a short time before had professed themselves liegemen of the Holy See. Eoger in a few years reduced Capua and Naples, the one held by an independent Norman prince, the other a free state. He now thought that his possessions entitled him to rank with the kings of France and England ; he was accordingly invested by the Pope, not only with the crown, but with the mitre, dalmatica, ring, and sandals, the tokens of the peculiar spiritual sway claimed by the Norman princes. Eoger proudly styled himself ' King, by the grace of God, of Sicily, Apuha, and Calabria, the helper and shield of Christians, son and heir of Eoger the Great Count.' The boastful inscription on his sword pro claimed the extent of his power ; the navy, the code of laws, and the high posts at court, were all creations due to the first monarch who made Palermo his capital. But his title to his new rank was not secure ; he had unluckily procured it from Anacletus, an un lawful intruder into the chair of St. Peter. St. Bernard upheld another Pope, and the claims of Innocent II. have accordingly prevailed. His par tisans conspired for the ruin of the upstart King, who was speedily driven from Italy, while a pretender was invested with the sovereignty of Apulia. Inno cent the Pope and Lothaire the Emperor of the West FREDERICK THE SECOND 21 each held one end of the gonfalon used in the new chap. investiture, thus purposely leaving in doubt which of L them was in truth liege lord of the South. But 400-1191. Eoger was soon able to settle the question of owner ship by his sword ; he returned from Sicily, put to death the Apulian barons who had taken part against him, and confiscated their lands. St. Bernard came in a short time to love the King as much as St. Bruno had loved the Great Count ; peace was made, and Innocent ratified the honours bestowed by Anacletus. A tenth kingdom was thus added to Latin Europe, known in Italian history as The Kingdom. It kept its boundaries the same for rather more than seven hundred years, when it merged itself into another and happier realm. The new monarch had now leisure for foreign conquests. His admiral took Tripoli, Tunis, Corfu, and Corinth. The manufactory of silk, transported from Greece into Sicily at this time, long maintained the memory of Eoger's triumphs. The learned Moslem of Palermo found a bountiful patron in their Christian master, who adopted their national usages of the harem and the guard of eunuchs, weaknesses in the Sicihan sovereigns which were as yet tenderly treated by Eome. The cathedral of Cefalu and the Martorana church were now built; but the great monument of Eoger is the Eoyal chapel at Palermo, finished in 1142, and adorned with inscriptions in Greek, Arabic, and Latin, as if to represent the poh tical changes in the history of the island. Its first King died in 1154. His son Wilham, surnamed the Bad, inherited a contest with the Pope and the two Caesars. Manuel, the last Emperor who entertained serious designs of 22 THE HISTORY OF chap, reannexing Italy to the Byzantine throne, sent his - — generals to overrun Apulia and Calabria, and thus to 400-1194. avenge the late exploits of the Sicihan admiral in the Bosphorus. But the Norman King, as brave in war as he was slothful in peace, speedily retook these provinces, besieged the Pope in Benevento, and wrung from the Holy Father a gift of three banners, which stood for Sicily, Apuha, and Calabria. Wilham fortified his claims still further by professing himself the vassal of Manuel. He returned to spend the re mainder of his short reign at Palermo in debaucheries and cruelties, and was succeeded by his son, Wilham the Good, in 1166. The Sicihans in later times looked back to the rule of this admirable prince, just as our oppressed fathers talked of the good laws of Edward the Confessor. WiUiam wedded one of the daughters of our first Plantagenet, after having re jected the advances of the Caesars. The country was at peace within itself, and prospered accordingly. The arts flourished throughout the realm under Nor man patronage ; Troja, Trani, Bari, and Bitonto pre served the traditions of Greek architecture ; while Palermo and its neighbourhood inclined to Saracen decorations. There was no need to import into Sicily builders from Eouen or Caen. The great work of Wilham the Good is the cathedral of Monreale, where he and his father lie buried ; the Scriptural history, there set forth in mosaic, is unrivalled by anything at Eome or Venice. The cathedral of Palermo is due . to Archbishop Ofamilio ; it must have appeared as the rival of the huge Alcazar in the west of the city, built with enormous stones of cunning workmanship. No wonder that Falcandus FREDERICK THE SECOND 23 gloried in the marvels of his beloved Palermo, both chap. Mohammedan and Christian. L King WiUiam was as successful in Avar as in peace. 40°-n94- The Norman mariners, assailing the Greek Empire for the last time, sacked Thessalonica ; they were also employed to check the career of Saladin. The third monarch of Sicily died too soon in 1189, leav ing no children ; one fault alone can be imputed to his policy ; he had given his aunt Constance, the right ful heiress of her father Eoger's throne, to Henry, the heir presumptive of the Western Empire. The Sicihan nobles refused to acquiesce in the transfer of their land, as though it had been a mere private estate, to a German master. The legitimate offspring of Tancred de HauteviUe was extinct in the male line, yet an iUegitimate scion still remained. Tancred, a bastard born to one of the sons of King Eoger, was elected King of Sicily by the chancellor and many other nobles, and their choice was ratified by the Pope. The vigour of the new monarch enabled SicUy to keep her independence for five years longer; but his untimely death was the beginning of her woes. The patriot Falcandus bewailed the gloomy consequences hkely to result from the marriage of Constance ; he paints the swarms of angry barbarians thirsting for Sicilian blood and treasure, the fickle ness of the Apuhans, the probable treachery of Mes sina, the helplessness of Catania and Syracuse, and the strength of Palermo rendered useless by the fac tions of Christians and Moslem within her wads. A woman and a child, now that Tancred was gone, were but a feeble bulwark against the Emperor of the Eomans, the husband of Constance, the avenger of 400-1194. 24 THE HISTORY OF chap. hjg sUabian kindred slain by the Normans at CiviteUa. But whUe SicUy and Southern Italy, appaUed by the prophecies of the Calabrian Abbot Joachim, are awaiting the approach of the Northern conqueror, we end this rapid sketch, which has embraced eight hundred years, and we turn to the land whence that conqueror came. FREDERICK THE SECOND 25 400-1137. CHAPTEE II. GERMANY AND NORTHERN ITALY — THE EMPIRE. A.D. 400 — A.D. 1137. " Romani gloria regni Nos penes est ; quemcunque sibi Germania regem Praeficit, hune dives sufemisso vertiee Roma Aecipit et verso Tiberim regit ordine Rhenus." Gunther Ligurinus. IT is weU known how the old worn-out Eoman chap. Empire received fresh hfe-blood into its decaying frame about the year 400. Various bands of hardy Germans crossed the Ehine and the Danube ; and in the course of a century we find the Ostrogoths settled in Italy, the Visigoths in Spain, the Burgundians in Gaul, and the Vandals in Africa. All these con querors were Arians, and were therefore hated by their orthodox subjects. But towards the end of the century, the most important conversion to Christianity, since that of Constantine, was effected. Clovis, the chief of the warlike Franks, embraced the true faith of Athanasius ; and the old Gauhsh Christians, eager to be rid of their Arian masters, aided him to the utmost of their power in achieving the conquest of their country. He, and his children after him, seated at Paris, ruled not only the Eoman provmce, but also the old cradle of the Germanic race, on the other side of the Ehine. Whfle the orthodox Clovis 26 THE HISTORY OF chap, was thus estabhshing the kingdom of the Franks to ii. 400-1137. the north of the Alps, Theodoric the Ostrogoth was master of Italy, whence the last Eoman emperor had vanished* Happy had it been for that Ill-fated land, if this wise and vigorous German had be queathed to his successors a Kingdom of Italy, compact and united, behind its Alpine rampart. But this was not to be; Theodoric's Arian creed was a fatal bar to the estabhshment of an Ostro- gothic crown. Within one generation after his death, his monarchy was annihflated by the arms of Beli- sarius and Narses. The forces of the Eoman empire had in their turn to make way for the Lombards under Alboin, a fresh importation from Germany. The state of Western Europe about the year 600 was this : the Visigoths held Spain ; the Saxons were seated in Britain ; the Lombards ruled Italy ; and the Franks were masters of Gaul. These last had one great advantage over their kindred tribes, since the rulers of Paris kept up their communica tions with Germany, and could thus draw fresh life- blood from the original source, whenever they chose. The race of Clovis very speeddy degenerated, and its power in reahty, though as yet not in name, passed into the more vigorous hands of Pepin l'Heristal and his sons, men who were thorough Germans. Happy was it for Europe that the Saracens, when they crossed the Pyrenees after tramphng down the Visigothic monarchy, found no sluggard king op posed to them. Charles Martel gained his great victory over the Paynim mainly by the valour of the Germans, whom he caUed across the Ehine to his aid, and whom he rewarded with rich lands in the country they had saved. Pepin, the son of Charles, FREDERICK THE SECOND 27 found a new power springing up in Europe, that of chap. the Popes. He made use of their decrees to sanction — his usurpation of the Frankish throne, and in his 40°-1137. turn rendered the Church good service by setting bounds to the power of the Lombard kings in Italy, and by rescuing Eome from their aggressions. He and his house also proved their devotion to the Holy See by promoting the spread of Christianity among the hitherto neglected tribes to the east of the Ehine. Celtic and Saxon missionaries were now waging war against heathenism, and the English Boniface became the apostle of Germany and the first archbishop of Mayence. Under these auspices Christianity and civilization advanced eastward hand in hand. Many new sees were founded in Southern Germany, and the clergy were earnest in enforcing obedience to the Carlovingian sovereigns, whose piety had saved the tottering Church both in Italy and Germany. We now come to the greatest name in the middle ages, that of Charlemagne, who may be called the father of modern Europe, and the restorer of the old Eoman Empire, which gained a fresh lease of a thousand years, after he had transferred its honours to his native Germany. He carried his arms to the Ebro, to the Eaab, to the Elbe, and to the Tiber. He up rooted the heathenism of the Saxons, after pouring out their blood hke water, and leaving them to choose between the axe of the headsman and the font of the priest ; he confronted the Saracens in Spain ; he swept away the Lombard kings, thus laying the foundation of that connexion between Germany and Italy, of which we feel the baleful effects to this day. He marched forth to encounter his enemies in their own head-quarters, instead of awaiting their onset 400-1137 28 THE HISTORY OF chap, on the Loire, as his grandfather had done. The ii . ¦ noble old German fixed his abode at Aix-la-ChapeUe, almost on the boundary-line between the Teutonic and Eomance tongues ; thence he sent forth his Counts, in his time no hereditary vassals, to govern his many provinces. But the master- workman died, and his budding soon crumbled to pieces. After the great battle of Fontenay, fought between his grand sons in 843, Germany and France separated, and after 888 these countries became disunited for ever. The decrepid Carlovingians ruled at Paris, soon to be replaced by the more national dynasty of Hugh Capet; while Germany entrusted her crown to elective monarchs. The Scheldt, the Meuse, the Saone, and the Phone, formed the boundary between France and the Empire ; Italy was for the present left to herself. Western Europe was now undergoing the most cruel sufferings it had ever known. It was attacked at one and the same time by three ruthless enemies from three different quarters, by the Scandinavians from the North, by the Saracens from the South, and by the stiU more terrible Hungarians, a newly-arrived Tartar tribe, from the East. These last took Germany for their own pecuhar prey ; they established them selves on the Danube and Theiss, where their de scendants stiU dweU. The Hungarians pushed their inroads as far as Benevento and Bourdeaux, sweep ing away thousands of captives. Meanwhile the Northmen were ravaging France and the British isles, and the Saracens, who had long before conquered Spain, were masters of Sicily, and threatened the whole of the Itahan coast. The tribes which over threw the old Eoman empire were mostly under the 400-1137. FREDERICK THE SECOND 29 influence of Christianity, but tho hordes of whom we chap. now speak were either Pagans or Moslem. It seemed as though the civihzation planted by Charlemagne and his fathers would soon disappear ; but deliver ance was at hand. Germany, now on the brink of ruin, found able champions in the noble house of Saxony, which held the sceptre during the Tenth cen tury. They subdued Lorraine and Bohemia, but their greatest service was performed against the savage Hungarians. Henry the Fowler overthrew these marauders in the battle of Merseburg, the first great national victory of Germany since the days of Ar- minius. Otho the Great, the second of the Saxon hue, conquered the Slavonians of the North, attacked the Danes in their own land, cleared Germany for ever of the wolfish Hungarians, and crossing the Alps, settled the affairs of Northern Italy at his pleasure. He placed on his own head the crown of Charle magne, and regulated the Church, which stood much in need of his correcting hand ; for this age is the very midnight of Christianity, when the Popes them selves set an example of depravity and cruelty never equaUed by their successors, unless we except the period just at the eve of the Eeformation. Otho thus reestablished the connexion between Germany and Italy, the fruitful source of future woes. Henceforth it was an acknowledged rule, that Upper Italy should obey a sovereign elected by strangers in a strange land. ' The order of things is changed,' cries a keen-sighted poet, k it is now the Ehine that rules the Tiber.' Thus passed away aU chance of founding a national kingdom in Italy, such as Theodoric would have established ; hence forth her history, with a few bright intervals, is the / 30 THE HISTORY OF ' chap, record of her struggles against her German master. - Europe has long been disturbed by the bickerings of 4oo-n87. this ill-assorted pair, and has not yet altogether suc ceeded in divorcing them. In aU ages it has been the same; on the one side we see the brave, uncouth German, looking down with scorn upon his victim ; on the other side is the wily and pohshed Itahan, whose craft in pohcy is greater than his skill in arms. The struggle is constantly going on ; Arminius against Augustus, Alaric against Honorius, Otho against Berengar. Henry against Hddebrand, Hohenstaufen against Conti, Kaiser against Pope, Luther against Leo. For it is the same in things spiritual as in things temporal; three hundred years ago it was Augsburg against Eome, just as now it is Vienna against Turin. Otho, the new master of Italy, seemed to be an other Charlemagne. Poles, Bohemians, Hungarians, Danes, and Saracens, sent humble embassies to his throne. He bequeathed his Empire to his scarcely less powerful descendants, who besieged Paris, pene trated into Calabria, and raised the most learned man of the dark ages to St. Peter's chair. The Tenth may be caUed the Saxon century ; the Eleventh was that of the Franconian hne. Conrad the Salic, the first of this noble race, having gained the crown by due election, estabhshed the feudal system on a secure basis by his weU-known edict ; he strove to depress the great princes by raising the power of the lesser nobles, and by making the possessions of these latter hereditary. About this time, shortly after a.d. 1000, we hear of one Azzo, an Italian by birth, who established his son in Germany. We must look upon this stranger with all respect : he is U'UISDISIUCK THE SECOND ill one of the earliest known ancosLors in the male chap. line of Queen Victoria. The elder branch of his - — — - house, that of Guelf, remained in Italy, destined 10°-1137. in the course of time to acquire Ferrara and Modena ; the younger branch was fixed in Germany, and in the end became the heirs of the English crown. The former has had Ariosto and Tasso for its bards ; the latter has not been equaUy happy. Henry the Third, the son of Conrad the Salic, maintained his sway 'with aU the vigour of Charle magne. He was the last Emperor who was able to uphold the Empire in its unabated power. His suc cessors indeed carried their arms into realms whither he did not venture ; but these sovereigns had their weak point ; they were constantly embroiled with a power which had to await Henry's death before it could put forth aU its pretensions. Some pious Germans, appointed by Henry to the Papacy, had redeemed it from the slough of filth and crime, in which it had long been sunk. The great Hildebrand, who ruled the Church for many years before his actual promotion to the Papacy, was working out his plans for the transformation of Christianity, corrupted as it aheady was, into sacerdotalism. This master spirit of Eome was in full vigour at the time when Henry IV., the new Emperor, was but a child. The priest had therefore ample opportunity for carrying out his great objects. He resolved that his army should be weU driUed, and that its leader should owe service to no man. Before this time the German Caesars had raised their own dependents to the Holy See ; Hildebrand made it a rule that in future the Pope shoidd be chosen by the cardinals, without any lay interference. He caused the bishops throughout 32 THE HISTORY OF O chap. Christendom to acknowledge his sway, and thus sub- 1 1 stituted despotism for aristocracy in Church matters. 400-1137. jje set his face against simony. But his great achieve ment was yet to come. He knew that a theocracy, a kingdom within a kingdom, could only be founded by establishing what may be called a clerical caste. This he achieved by means of a system widely dif fering from that of the old priestly despotisms of India, Egypt, and Gaul. For Hildebrand forced the clergy to lead single hves, cut them off from aU human sympathies, and thus caused them to look to Eome as their one sole point of interest. This great change, however, which had long been foreshadowed, was not thoroughly effected untU about two hundred years after it had been for the first time earnestly enforced. Thus the priestly power made rapid strides, just as a wide door was thrown open for the depravation of clerical morality. Hildebrand next stirred up the great dispute of in vestitures. According to him, the churchman was responsible to the Pope alone ; it was therefore not to be borne that any servant of God should receive the ring and crosier from the Emperor, a man of blood. Now began the struggle between the Papacy and the Empire, between two parties which long afterwards took the names of Guelfs and Ghibellines ; but, as usuaUy happens, the reality of antagonism was felt long before the party names were bestowed. The Pope, as was always the case, availed himself of the aid of rebels in Germany to beat down the Emperor's authority. Whenever Germany was at variance with herself, the Papal power made its greatest progress. Now it was that the degenerate representative of Charlemagne and Otho underwent 100-1137. FREDERICK THE SECOND 33 the unheard-of humiliation at Canossa. This was of chap. no avail ; for a rival Emperor was set up against him. - iL Hildebrand himself died an exile, as has boon before mentioned, and a hundred and twenty years must pass before we find any Pope that will bear com parison with him. His immediate successors were not ashamed to rouse the heir apparent to rebellion against Henry IV, who died an excommunicated man. In this rebellious son, first the ally and then the tyrant of Eome, the old Franconian line came to an end. A few years more bring us to a.d. 1137, when a new House was about to be raised by election to the throne of the Empire. Germany was aU this time enlarging her borders towards the East. We have seen how Christianity and civihzation advanced from the Ehine to the Elbe ; they were now pushing forward from the Elbe to the Oder. The Altmark, the Mittelmark, and the Neumark, na^n«s \Vr?iich still keep their places on our maps, .point out' the slow but sure steps with which Germany strode on, trampling down the barbarous Slavonic tribes hi her march. Further to the South, Austria, the Eastern kingdom, and the Styrian mark, became barriers against any renewed onset of the Hungarians, From this epoch, the middle of the Twelfth, century, Vienna, Berlin, and Munich date their origin. Germany was an elective monarchy. This bad system was doubtless the fruit of the dis gust with which she had viewed the degenerate suc cessors of her first Emperor. She thought to guard herself agamst a repetition of this weak dominion by making her crown elective. The father might be a Charlemagne or an Otho ; the son might be a Charles the Bald or a Charles the Fat. She purchased her vol. I. *D 400-1137. 34 THE HISTORY OF chap, freedom from a possible line of bad sovereigns at the [i price of fearful civU wars, often prolonged from gene ration to generation, events which the Popes did not fad to turn to their own profit. This was also the case in the old Polish monarchy; but Germany had one ad vantage over her neighbour; her population was made up of something more than haughty nobles and ab ject serfs ; she possessed, thanks to the wise foresight of her early emperors, a middle class, the pith and marrow of a nation, without which no kingdom can count upon a long existence. England owes the pre servation of her liberties to her towns ; France found in her burghers the main obstacle to feudal tyranny ; in Castile, the cities alone fought for the old consti tution, when it was on the eve of disappearance. On the other hand, Poland and Hungary can scarcely boast ten cities worthy of the name, and both these heroic countries have been forced to sink their poli tical existence in that of other nations. Germany, happily for herself, abounded with free cities, which it was the interest of the emperors to foster as a counterpoise to the turbulence of the princes and counts. Charlemagne had planted the chairs of bishops among the Saxons, and towns quickly started- up around the relics of the saints enshrined in the cathedrals and abbeys. Henry the Fowler saAv that Germany needed bulwarks against her Hungarian enemies ; he accordingly enjoined every ninth man of those who owed the crown mihtary service to re move into one of the cities newly budt in Saxony and Thuringia. He estabhshed fairs to encourage trade, and overcame the dishke of the forest-loving Germans to a toAvn life. Besides the burghs built in the middle ages, there were the ancient cities of the Ehine, dating from the time of the Eomans, nearly 400-1137. FREDERICK THE SECOND 35 all of which are mentioned by Tacitus in his account chap. of the rebeUion of Civilis. The chief of these was — Treves, the oldest city in Germany, Avhich stiU pre serves in its ruined baths, amphitheatre, gateAvay, and bridge, so many relics of its Eoman greatness. May ence had been the camp of Drusus ; her archbishop Avas the Primate of Germany, endowed with vast political poAver. Cologne, the great station of the legions, became aftenvards the most thriving city in Northern Europe, and can stdl show many churches dating from the Eleventh century ; it is in truth a museum of Christian art. These three cities were the sees of poAverful prelates, the spiritual electors of Germany, who Avere usually as much at home in the saddle as in the pulpit. Worms, the seat of many diets of the Empire, was the classic land of the Minnesingers, and the scene of the Nibelungen Lied. Spkes, famous for its loyalty to the unhappy Hemy IV., contains the great monument of Conrad the Sahc, the cathedral Avhere many of the emperors he in dishonoured graves. Frankfort was the city whither the future emperor repaired for his election, and Avhere he met the spiritual and temporal princes who had the right of voting. He was afterwards crowned at Aix-la-ChapeUe, the burial-place of Charlemagne. All these free cities, except four, have now lost their rights ; but their work has been well clone ; they abated the hardships of feudalism, threw open their privileges to the oppressed serfs, and held in check the robber-knights. When, long afterwards, the Eeformation came, it was defied by the bishops, it was used by the princes for their own selfish ends, but it found a hearty welcome in the free cities of Germany. 36 THE HISTORY OF chap. But these, manifold as were their services to man kind, never equalled the development of the great 400-1137. dties scattered throughout Upper Italy. The whole of this tract belonged, at least in name, to the Em pire ; it had not as yet been portioned out between the House of Savoy, the merchant princes of Florence and Venice, and the Bishops of Eome. It has a history of its own ; feudalism never attained the same growth in Upper Italy, that it did in almost every other European country. Here and there in deed, as in the Trevisan March and Piedmont, we find a few nobles enjoying rights over large domains; but in general the Itahan city would not brook a feudal neighbour. The castles were either destroyed or became the property of the towns ; and the knights, dislodged from their strongholds, were fain to take up their abode within the AvaUs of their con querors.* The burghers saUied forth to battle under the leadership of a Podesta. This officer was usually elected for a year, and was almost invariably a stranger ; a pohcy rendered necessary by the factions that raged in each city. The Popes found it their interest to heap favours upon these commonwealths, just as the Emperors were led to foster the cities of Germany. Thus the history of Northern Italy, un like that of any other modern country, is the history * Salimbene, who saw King Louis pass through Sens on his way to the Crusade in 1248, was struck by the contrast between the customs of France and Italy. ' I wondered, when I remem bered that the Senones captured Rome under Brennus, seeing their women now for the most part look like housemaids. If the King had been passing through Pisa or Bologna, the flower of the ladies would have come to meet him. Then I recollected the French usage ; for in France the burghers alone live in the cities, while the knights and noble ladies live on their estates.' FREDERICK THE SECOND 37 of various toAvns. We naturally turn with the great- chap. est interest to Eome. She was regarded Avith two- — fold reverence, as being at once the capital of 40°-1137 Augustus and the See of St. Peter. Her lot, strangely enough, has been to rule mankind in two separate ages, first with the imperial sceptre, and afterwards Avith the priestly crosier. She drew countless myriads from aU Christendom to worship at the shrines of the Apostles, and these pilgrims must have taken back with them marvellous tales of the monuments stiU to be seen, Avhich amply proved the bygone greatness of Eome. It was there that Charlemagne had re ceived the croAvn of the revived Western Empire at the hands of Pope Leo. Hence it became the customary ceremony, that the ruler of Germany, after having been elected at Frankfort and croAvned at Aix-la-ChapeUe, must stdl repair to Eome for the Papal blessing, before he could be properly styled Emperor, Caesar, or, as his northern subjects caUed it, Kaiser. The Emperor elect must of course be attended by an army, greater or less, in his passage through Italy to his coronation. We may imagine the broils which arose, whenever the German soldiery, the lords of the Avorld according to the system esta blished by Charlemagne, were brought face to face with their despised Itahan subjects. The men of the North were probably at no pains to restrain them selves from rapine and bloodshed, as they straggled through Lombardy and Tuscany after them chief. Sometimes a Eoman patriot was beheaded; once the Emperor was blockaded for three days in his own palace, and after his death the Germans could scarcely prevent the Italians from laying hands on his corpse; on another occasion the great city of Pavia, where the 38 THE HISTORY OF chap, iron crown of Lombardy was kept, was burnt by the — — — Transalpines. The Emperor, if displeased with the 400-1137. ruler of the Church, would often set up an anti-Pope ; Henry V. imprisoned the Pope and Cardinals for two months, because they would not crown him on his own terms. The Eoman people, headed by their Senator, were often more than a match for the spi ritual powers ; and such men as Arnold, Brancaleone, Eienzi, and Porcaro, reappeared in each century, as a matter of course. Mdan stood next to Eome in rank. She was renowned for the numbers and talents of her clergy, and for the pecuhar ritual of her church, which has lasted doAvn to our own age. In no city did the question of clerical celibacy arouse greater contentions. The Archbishops of Mdan, from the time of St. Ambrose, have exercised vast influence over the fate of Italy. Of these the most famous was Eribert, the inventor of the Carroccio, used by the Itahan cities as a raUying-point in battle ; it was a huge waggon surmounted by a mast with a banner and cross. Venice had not as yet attained aU the glory that was to faU to her share ; but even at this date, 1137, Dandolo was alive, and the Cru sades, from which this city almost alone reaped any profit, were being carried on. She wisely gave her attention to the Eastern traffic, and as a general rule abstained from meddling in the quarrels of Italy. Her great church of St. Mark, where the styles of the East and West seem to meet, was aheady in being. Pisa was at this time in all her glory; she had waged a gallant war against the Saracens in Sicily and Sardinia ; and her noble buildings remain to prove what this city, now decayed, must have been in the middle ages. Genoa was the third of FREDERICK THE SECOND 39 the groat Italian naval powers ; she bore her part in chap. the Crusading expeditions, and took her share of the IL profits that resulted; she Avas ahvays at Avar with 40°-1137- either Venice or Pisa, and found that the contest taxed her powers to the utmost, although she had at her disposal most of the resources of the Eiviera. Many other cities remain to be mentioned ; Bologna, the nurse of the canon Liav ; Eavenna, abounding in churches that carry us back to the days of Justi nian ; Cremona, the Avarlike rival of Milan ; together with Siena, Perugia, and Ancona. But there is one Itahan city invested with a pecuhar interest. We are aUoAved a peep at the Florence of the Twelfth century by the greatest of her children, who, meeting Avith iU-usage from Ids own generation, looked back with a loving eye upon the good old times, and de lighted to dweU upon the simphcity of the old customs. He is accosted in Paradise by the spirit of his ancestor Cacciaguida, a hero of the second Crusade, who de scribes to him the city within the old circlet of her walls, peaceful, sober, and chaste. In those days there were no unbecoming female ornaments, no houses, emptied through factious proscriptions, no carpet knights, whose feats were confined to ladies' cham bers ; the highest citizens in the state walked abroad in leathern girdles, while their wives were content to leave their faces unpainted, to handle the distaff, and to tend their children's cradle. Loose women and pettifogging knaves were unknown ; there were no internal factions, no honourable families banished, and no upstarts springing up in place of their betters. Florence was then peaceful, glorious, and just; her ensign, the ldy, was never hung in derision from the lance of a conquering foe, and was never dyed in blood. 40 THE HISTORY OF CHAPTEE III. THE HOUSE OF HOHENSTAUFEN. A.D. 1030 — A.D. 1197. " Longosque per annos Stat fortuna Domus, et avi numerantur avorum." VraGiL. chap. "|"N Suabia, not far from Stuttgard, may be seen the ruins of an old castle, perched upon a conical in. I 1030-1197. hill caUed the Staufen. This fortress was the cradle, or, as the Germans say, the stem-house, of the noble famdy whose fortunes we are now about to foUow. We willingly pass over the improbable fables and pedigrees, with which every great house loves to adorn its origin, and we come at once to the first of the race known to history, Frederick von Buren, who took his name, according to the custom of the age, from the hamlet that acknowledged him as its lord. He must have been born somewhere about the year 1030, just at the time when the rival house of Guelf took root in Germany. This knight begat a son, also called Frederick (the name re-appears in each generation of the famdy), the founder of the greatness of his line. The youth was a faithful foUower of that unhappy Emperor, Henry IV, who finding in the Suabian knight, although a new man, more loyalty than in the old princely houses of FREDERICK THE SECOND 41 Germany, bestoAved the hand of his daughter Agnes chap. upon the bravo partisan, with the Duchy of Suabia L_ as her doAvor. It Avas this lucky adventurer who 1030-1197. removed his abode from Buren to the castle which he built high upon the Staufen ; hence the family took the name of Hohenstaufen. He died in 1105, after having maintained a Avar for twenty years against the Guelfs and Zahringens, enemies of the Franconian line. He left behind him two young lads, Frederick and Conrad, one of whom was the future King of Germany. The eldest succeeded his father in the Duchy of Suabia, while the youngest had a grant of that of Franconia. The youths grew up under the protection of their mother's brother, the Emperor Henry V, and acted as his lieutenants in Germany during his sojourn in Italy. At his death, 1125, the tAvo Hohenstaufens as his next of kin inherited aU his possessions, and became, through theh mother, the representatives of the old Fran conian line, a race so hateful to Eome. The Guelfs, on the other hand, were usually on the side of the Papacy ; theh head at this time was the Duke of Bavaria, Henry the Black, the grandson of the Itahan Azzo. AU the princes, prelates, and nobles of Germany were assembled at Mayence to choose a new Emperor in the room of Henry V. Suger, the famous Abbot of St. Denis, Avas sent from Paris to prevent the election of the young Duke of Suabia, who was one of the three candidates acknowledged by aU to be worthy of the crown. The overweening pride of the Hohenstaufen claimant caused his name to be set aside. Lothaire, the Duke of Saxony, was elected Emperor. He is remarkable as being the only Kaiser, from 1055 to 1250, who was not at 42 THE HISTORY OF chap, some period of his hfe under the Papal ban — a fact which gives some idea of the length of time that the 1030-1197. struggle between the spiritual and temporal heads of Christendom was maintained. In the very year of his election he began to deal harshly with the Hohenstaufens, and to inquire into the title-deeds by which they held their duchies. He gave his only daughter to their enemy, Henry the Proud, the son of the deceased Henry the Black ; and the bride groom received the duchy of Saxony in addition to his old domain of Bavaria. Being employed by the Emperor to combat the Duke of Suabia, he set fire to an abbey, into which he had decoyed his generous rival ; this treacherous attempt, however, faded. The Suabian party set up Conrad, the younger of the two Hohenstaufens, as King in opposition to Lothaire, and had their champion crowned at Milan, in spite of the thunders of the Church. Conrad was soon driven back into Germany : Spires for a long time held out for him, since he was the repre sentative of her beloved Franconian benefactors ; and peace was made in 1135 by the aid of St. Ber nard and the Pope. The Hohenstaufen Dukes swore allegiance to Lothaire, and Germany enjoyed rest for the first time for half a century. Duke Frederick, surnamed the One-eyed, pos sessed not only Suabia but Alsace, which latter province probably belonged to his father. In it, as the saying went, lay the whole strength of the Empire. Its fruitful plains, washed by the Ehine, were guarded by a chain of castles, of which the Duke was an indefatigable builder ; indeed it was said of him that he always trailed a fortress At the tail of his horse. He it was who began the con- FREDERICK THE SECOND 43 struction of the famous Haguenau; but Kaisers- chat-. lantern, Amvodor, and Trifels avoio the work of his ' Imperial son.* The house of Hohenstaufen was 103°-1107- soon to gain another step in the world. Lothaire died in 1137. His son-in-law, Henry the Proud, Avas the mightiest prince in the Empire ; but this very fact made the electors shrink from raising the Guelf above their heads. The opposite faction, which Avas hoav backed by Eome, once more set up Duke Conrad of Franconia after an irregular elec tion, and the Pope's Legate crowned him at Aix-la- ChapeUe in 1138. The new King lost no time in bearing doAvn his old enemy. After declaring that it Avas against aU the laws of the Empire for one prince to hold two duchies, he proceeded to strip Henry of both Saxony and Bavaria. The plundered Guelf died tAvo years after his father-in-law, leaving behind him a boy, afterwards known as Henry the Lion, Avho proved a shrewd foe to the Hohenstau fens. A brisk Avar was carried on between the tAvo parties. An action, fought at Weinsberg in 1140, is remarkable for the battle-cries used on the occasion ; ' Ho for Guelf ! ' 'Ho for Waiblingen ! ' the latter being a castle belonging to the house of Suabia. Sixty years later, these party names were carried into Italy, where they were used for at least three centuries. The partisans of the Popes, who leaned upon the house of Guelf, were caUed Guelfs ; the followers of the Suabian Emperors, the bitter enemies of Eome, took the name of Ghibellines, the Itahan corruption of the German name Waib lingen. The garrison of Weinsberg Avas forced to * Laguille, Alsace. 44 THE HISTORY OF chap, surrender after the battle; but King Conrad was IIL prevailed on by the women of the town to allow 1030-1197. them free egress with as much of their property as they could carry on theh shoulders. He was pre sently astonished to see them come forth, each bear ing her husband. ' A king's word ought not to be wrested or explained away,' said Conrad, on seeing the anger of his brother Frederick at being thus tricked ; the women were even aUowed to remove their clothes and valuables. In 1142, the King at last put an end to all the feuds among the German princes. He gave the duchy of Saxony to young Henry the Lion, and pacified Albert the Bear, who had held a grant of part of the forfeited Guelf inheritance, by other donations. Italy had long demanded Conrad's presence ; but he was summoned elsewhere. Eclessa, a kingdom beyond the Euphrates, was torn from the Christians by the Moslem ; the Second Crusade was the answer to this aggression. St. Bernard exhorted the Ger mans to leave theh civil wars, and to hasten to the Holy Land. After rescuing the Jews from their Christian persecutors, the mobs of the Bhineland towns, he overpowered the resistance of King Con rad, who Avas most unwiUing to start for the East. The head of Germany was at last prevailed on to march ; he took with him his nephew and successor Frederick, who Avas making the journey for the first, but not for the last time. Early in 1147 the German host began to pour through Hungary ; the sortliers were robbed and maltreated by the Greeks, though not with impunity. After admiring the . strength of the walls of Constantinople, the Cru saders were ferried across the Bosphorus, and took FREDERICK THE SECOND 45 the straight road through Asia Minor to Iconium. chap. Cheated, starved, and misled at every step of the m way by theh Greek friends, and harassed beyond 1030-1197. endurance by their Turkish enemies, they were glad to retreat, after losing no less than 63,000 men. Conrad made another unsuccessful attempt early in 1148. He joined King Louis of France at Jeru salem, Avho also had left the flower of his chivalry behind him in Asia Minor. The siege of Damascus Avas undertaken, but in vain. The German sovereign displayed the greatest valour, and one of his vigorous bloAvs is stdl renowned in the ballads of his country as the Suabian stroke. Conrad left Palestine, and went home by Avay of Greece. He died in 1152 ; although unsuccessful as a general, he is free from the taint of cruelty, which after his time reap pear again and again in each generation of the Hohenstaufens. The next monarch, Frederick I, better known by Ms Itahan surname Barbarossa, is one of the national glories of the Fatherland. He, the son of the one-eyed Duke of Suabia, is equally renowned as a Crusader, as an upholder of order in Germany, and as an opponent of the Popes and their Italian alhes. Succeeding his uncle Conrad, he professed to take Charlemagne as his model ; he seemed born to heal the feuds of his country, being a Hohenstau fen on his father's side, and belonging to the Guelfs through his mother. He treated his young cousin, Henry the Lion, with the greatest tenderness, and behaved to him with even imprudent generosity. But Frederick's attention Avas soon called to the future theatre of his exploits. In the year after his coronation, two men of Lodi appeared at the Diet, 46 THE HISTORY OF chap, threw themselves at his feet, and appealed to his justice agamst their MUanese tyrants. After having 1030-1197. had recourse in vain to mild measures, he crossed the Brenner for the first time at the head of a German army. He found Northern Italy in a state of the wildest anarchy. The great cities, such as Milan and Eome, were loud enough in their praises of freedom ; but by this, to judge by their practice, they meant the power of tyrannizing over their weaker neighbours. Thus it was in the days of old Greece, the very type of mediaeval Italy ; each state, as it rose to power, abused its strength, untd all alike had in the end to bow before the Man of the North, Avho reappeared in the person of Barbarossa and many another German Emperor. After holding a diet at Eoncagha, Frederick marched to Turin, in . spite of the opposition offered by the Milanese. He next sat down before Tortona, which defied him for two months. Henry the Lion, Berthold of Zahringen, and Otho of Wittelsbach, especiaUy distinguished themselves in the siege. No rehef came from Milan to the starving garrison, who at length surrendered, and saw their town pillaged and razed to the ground by the Germans. The conqueror was crowned at Pavia, the most loyal city in Italy, and then marched over the Apennines, on his way to Eome, for the still greater ceremony. The capital had been thrown into confusion for the last fifteen years by the preaching of Arnold of Brescia, one of those reformers Avho every now and then started up in the middle ages. St. Bernard himself had been unable to silence the bold heretic, ' the shield-bearer of that Goliath, Abelard.' Arnold's reforms were chiefly of a political nature ; he wished FREDERICK THE SECOND 47 to deprive bishops of all Avealth and poAvcr, and to chap. sot Eome free from the control of popes and em- ' '' perors, so that she might once more become the 1030-1197. mistress of the Avorlcl. But Barbarossa, Avho had no reason to relish the iioav doctrines, ordered the arch- heretic to be delivered up as a kind of peace-offering to the Pope, our countryman, Adrian IV The bold Brcscian Avas led to the stake prepared for him in the castle of St. Angelo, and his ashes were thrown into the Tiber, that the Eoman populace might not preserve them as relics. Adrian, after some hesi tation, trusted himself Avithin the German camp ; but woidd not exchange the kiss of peace with Frederick, until the monarch had held the Papal stirrup. The Eomans now sent a deputation on their own account to Barbarossa, one of whom made him a pompous harangue, demanding a payment in money in return for the honour which Eome Avould confer on Ger many, by crowning Frederick, a foreigner, as her Emperor. The sovereign expectant sharply chid the man's insolence, reminding him that the Empire was gone from vicious, perjured Eome, to virtuous, faithful Germany, and that the Emperor was no prisoner, to ransom himself from his own subjects. Pope Adrian crowned Frederick in St. Peter's ; the Eomans, furious at theh consent never having been asked, made an attack upon the German camp, and lost a thousand of their fellow-citizens, who were either killed or choAvned in the Tiber. Frederick, alarmed at the approach of the summer heats, marched back by Avay of Narni, and made an example of Spoleto. He would gladly have led his army into the domains of his Sicihan brother, had not the Germans been impatient to regain their 48 THE HISTORY OF chap, homes. After escaping the snares laid for him by the Veronese, and after being delivered by the valour 1030-1197. of q^q of "Wktelsbach from a great danger in the Southern Tyrol, Barbarossa recrossed the Alps. His first care, on reaching Germany, was to hold a Diet at Worms, to punish the disturbers of peace, and to dismantle the castles of the robber-knights. His cousin, Henry the Lion, Avho was already Duke of Saxony, received the Duchy of Bavaria from the Emperor, a kindness of which the benefactor had afterwards cause to repent. Frederick had been unhappy in his first marriage ; he now, in defiance of Eome, wedded Beatrice, the fair heiress of the Kingdom of Burgundy, who bore him a fine family of sons of the true Suabian breed. He kept aU his neighbours in due subjection ; he made an expe dition against Poland, and forced King Boleslaus to sue for peace, to pay a heavy ransom, and to do obeisance to the feudal lord of the land. King Geisa of Hungary avoAved himseU the Kaiser's liege man, as the King of Denmark had done five years before. Frederick promoted Duke Wladislaus of Bohemia to the rank of King. In those days, as we see, Germany was of some account in Europe : she was united under one head, and made her power felt on all sides. 'Germany,' said Eaynald the chanceUor, 'has an Emperor; the rest of Europe has but petty kinglets.' The latter term, indeed, can scarcely be applied to our Henry II. , who at this time sent presents to Barbarossa ; but Louis VII. of France was altogether thrown into the shade by his German rival, who held diets at Besancon. This Emperor might have seemed to superficial ob servers the most powerful of the successors of FREDERICK THE SECOND 49 Charlemagne. But his Avoak point lay in Italy, chap. Avhere the Popes, his implacable enemies, strong in the support of theh Norman neighbours, worked 1030-1197. against him, and thus upheld the balance of power in Europe. Tavo Papal Legates appeared at the Diet of Be- sancon Avith complaints on the part of Pope Adrian. Poland, one of these envoys, in the course of debate, used the rash expression, 'From whom does the King hold his poAver, unless from the Pope ? ' At these Avords, Otho of Wittelsbach sprang up, and could scarcely be prevented by the Emperor himself from slaying the bold speaker on the spot. The German prelates, headed by Eaynald the Chancellor of the Empire, disclaimed the base notion that theh Kaiser held his croAvn from any one except from the spiritual and temporal Electors of Germany ; and the Pope, seeing theh temper, hastened to explain away his words. In the mean time, the MUanese had been restoring the waUs of Tortona, and had destroyed Lodi, a town ever faithful to the Emperor. He, therefore, thought it right to undertake his second expedition into Italy, after a sojourn of three years in Germany. He first sent forward Eaynald and Otho, the two main props of his Empire, to prepare Ids way. His army crossed the Alps by four differ ent passes, and was then joined by many of his Itahan vassals. The Bohemian allies distinguished themselves at the passage of the Adda; and the MUanese, after a success gained over the German vanguard, retired to theh city. Barbarossa began thedege at the head of a host of 100,000 foot and 15,000 horse, with which he ravaged Lombardy ; a month passed before the MUanese, tamed by famine, VOL. I. E 50 THE HISTORY OF chap, sued for peace. It was granted, upon the payment of a heavy ransom, the delivery of several hostages, 1030-1197. ancl tiie swearing of an oath of aUegiance. The nobles came forth Avith swords hanging from theh necks, the common people with halters round theh throats ; Barbarossa condescended to give them the kiss of peace after they had faUen at his feet and acknowledged theh gudt. He was now crowned King of Italy at Monza, and held another Diet at Eoncagha, after having en camped his German and Itahan subjects on either bank of the Po. Four doctors of the University of Bologna, the most learned men of their age, laid down the law, as to the old customs of the Emphe. According to them, the Emperor had the right of appointing Podestas and Consuls in the cities, and might claim certain specified revenues ; private wars were put doAvn ; and the regulations were sworn to by aU ahke. Frederick was at the height of his power; even distant Genoa had submitted to pay him a heavy fine. Pope Adrian wrote to his enemy, counseUing humility ; but Frederick, who suspected his Holiness of underhand deahngs with the Lom bards and with the kings of Sicdy, rephed that the Popes owed all their greatness to his own predecessor Constantine. The contested claim to the bequest of the Countess Matdda was once more in fuU agitation, and Adrian averred that the Pope was raised above the German King, as much as Eome was above Aix- la-ChapeUe ; the title of Emperor, it was added, was a free gift from the Pope. The smouldering fire soon blazed forth. In 1159, the MUanese, zealous for their old rights, assaulted three of Barbarossa's deputies, Avho had come to carry out the provisions FREDERICK THE SECOND 51 of the diet of Eoncaglia. The rebels then surprised chap. a garrison of the Emperor's at Trezzo, and treated IIL aU his Lombard allies as traitors to their country. 103o-ii97. They seized a rich prize, the money which their enemy had been collecting in his Italian domains. They made two successive attempts upon his life ; but punishment Avas not long delayed. The Em press and Henry the Lion brought cloAvn troops from Germany, and the siege of the little town of Crema Avas undertaken. Savage cruelty Avas displayed on both sides ; the Germans played at baU with the heads of their prisoners ; and the besieged tore in pieces theh captives on the Avails. Barbarossa, en raged at this, tied his enemies to his engines, so that the garrison could not avoid shooting theh own kins men. The victims died, shouting, c Death for freedom is the next best thing to freedom ! ' Seven months passed aAvay before Crema yielded, early in 1160 ; it was plundered and burnt, though the burghers protested that their resistance had been directed, not against the Emperor, but against their Cremonese lords. MeanAvhile Pope Adrian had been laid in Ids grave, leaving the affairs of the Church at a very Ioav ebb. Fourteen of the Cardinals elected Eoland, the bold Legate, who took the name of Alexander HI. Nine others chose another Cardinal, who called himself Victor IV., and who was favoured by the Eoman populace. To put an end to the unseemly strife, Barbarossa caUed a general Councd, to meet at his weU-beloved Pavia. But Alexander refused to reverse the pohcy of Hildebrand, by making a mere layman umpire in spiritual matters. The present Pontiff was a man of very different mettle from the Popes who had so meekly bowed before the Saxon E 2 52 THE HISTORY OF chap, and Franconian emperors. Milan declared boldly 111 for Alexander, who had excommunicated her tyrant ; 1030-1197. the CouncU of Pavia, which was weU attended, pro nounced for Victor ; each of the rivals sent forth his envoys into all Christian realms. Barbarossa, who had dismissed his German vassals for a year, was sur prised at Carcano and ahnost taken prisoner ; but he afterwards defeated the Mdanese, although his army was now composed of none but his Itahan vassals. On the return of the Germans, in 1161, Milan was once more strictly blockaded. Every man caught in the act of bringing provisions into the city was mutilated by order of the Emperor, who swore that he would not stir until it was taken. It surrendered early in 1162 ; the burghers came forth with cords round theh necks, ashes on theh heads, and crosses in theh hands. They defiled before theh conqueror, and laid theh banners at his feet ; their far-famed Carroccio was hewn in pieces. AU, even the Ger mans themselves, Avept ; the Emperor alone moved not a muscle. The fate of Mdan was decided at Pavia ; the great city had to undergo the same doom that she had herseU inflicted upon Como and Loch. Her Lombard enemies insisted upon her de molition. Barbarossa returned and entered Milan through a breach made in her wads, which were then razed to the ground, according to the terms of the sentence. Some of the churches were spared ; but all the MUanese were driven from theh homes, as their conqueror thought, for ever. He feasted his aUies at Pavia, in honour of his great achieve ment ; and forced the boldest cities in Italy, such as Brescia and Bologna, to give hostages and pay tribute. Already he was parcelling out the fiefs of Sicily FREDERICK THE SECOND 53 among his partisans, and his power seemed to be chap greater than ever, as is proved by the fact that Pope L_ Alexander, preferring banishment to slavery, caused 103°-1197- himself to be conveyed by the Norman mariners into France, Avhere he abode, out of the reach of the Emperor. This flight into France was usuaUy the last resource of the Holy Fathers, whenever the lord of Germany became too overbearing. Bar barossa threatened King Louis with his displeasure, if the fugitive Pope should be received ; but ' both France and England were on Alexander's side. An interview was proposed between the two rival Popes and their partisans, to be held at a viUage on the Saone, the boundary between France and the . Emphe. But Alexander would not lay his rights before a human judge ; Avhile the French king and bishops, who attended the conference, turned a deaf ear to the threats and entreaties of the German sovereign. He and his anti-Pope withdrew, having been unable to effect anything. In the mean time, Henry the Lion and Albert the Bear had been spreading Christianity and civihza tion, after their fashion, among the Slaves of Pome rania. The armies of these Northern princes had overcome the heathen king Pridislaus, while Walde mar of Denmark, who had received his crown at the hands of Barbarossa, conquered the island of Eugen, the old head-quarters of idolatry. Thus the Teutonic warriors were marching Eastward, trampling clown the Slavonic race as they advanced, just as their island brethren, under Norman guidance, were seiz ing on the best lands of the Celts in Wales and Ireland. The Kaiser, after receiving at Besancon the homage of the Archbishop of Lyons and the 54 THE HISTORY OF chap. Count of Provence, came to Avreak his vengeance 111 upon Mayence. Three years before this time, the 1030-1197. burghers had plotted against Arnold theh Archbi shop, had set fire to a tower where he was hiding, and had then torn him to pieces. An inquiry was prosecuted ; many monks, knowing themselves to be accomphces in the murder, threw themselves out of a Avindow; and several of the citizens were sen tenced to death or to various fines. Barbarossa ordered the walls of Mayence to be razed and the trenches to be fiUed up. The greatest cities both of Germany and of Italy had felt his power, which was stiU feared alike at home and abroad. After disposing of SUesia according to his plea sure, he for the thhd time entered Italy, which was in a state of suUen discontent. The heavy yoke of the Emperor forced men to turn their eyes to the Pope, who Avas assembling a great councd at Tours, and causing the kings of France and England to hold his stirrups. His prospects brightened when the anti-Pope Victor died, in 1164. A fresh anti-Pope was chosen, who took the name of Paschal, and whose election — a piece of wanton foUy — sent over to Alexander's side many of the Emperor's old par tisans. This fact marks the turn of the tide ; Bar barossa was slowly losing ground ; his harsh deputies were insulted or slain ; Venice declared against him, and there was no German army at hand to put down the malcontents. Eaynald the Chancellor Avas un able to keep peace between Pisa and Genoa. The former city was forced to give up Sardinia by the Emperor, who sold it to a king of his own choosing. Indeed, Frederick made many mistakes during this unlucky year 1164, and hurried back into Germany FREDERICK THE SECOND to procure fresh levies. At this moment, Henry of chap iii. England Avas in the midst of his contest with Becket, and Avas enacting the constitutions of Clarendon, i°3o-ii97. winch Pope Alexander opposed. Barbarossa thought the time favourable to bring over England to his side ; he accordingly sent his trusty Eaynald, who pro posed that King Henry should give tAvo of the Eng hsh princesses to the heirs of Guelf and Hohenstaufen. In return, English envoys appeared at the Diet of Wurzburg, convoked to withstand the claims of Alexander. The Kaiser, in 1165, visited Aix-la-Cha- peUe, where his creature Paschal enrolled Charle magne among the saints. The rightful shepherd, who had many foUowers even in Germany, now took courage to return to Eome ; the citizens, weary of the German yoke, haUed him with transports of joy; and the King of Sicily was not backward in support of the priestly champion of Italy. Barbarossa also marched across the Alps, for the fourth time, with a noble array ; but he was now at length to learn that there Avas a poAver higher than himself. AU Lombardy was groaning under the tyranny of his deputies, Avhom he aUoAved to carry on the government as they chose, to budd castles by the enforced labour of their sub jects, and to rob the Italians of their lands. The oppressed cities began to draw together, and to make ready for a stand. Early in the year 1167, although there was a strong army of Germans in Italy, the famous Lombard League Avas formed. The Mdanese returned to theh former home ; and, like the Athe nians of old after the flight of Xerxes, they began to rebudd theh dismantled walls. Tortona imitated Milan ; Loch was overpowered by the confederates ; 56 THE HISTORY OF chap, and the ramparts of Ancona kept the Emperor at ' ! ! bay. Meanwhile the two great German Archbishops, 1030-1197. Christian of Mayence and Eaynald of Cologne, had marched through Tuscany, and had cut to pieces the disorderly Eoman mob in a pitched battle. Frede rick united all his forces before Eome, and forced his way into the city, after setting fire to the porch of St. Peter's. Pope Alexander fled to Benevento, leaving the field open to his rival Paschal, who there upon crowned the Emperor and Empress. A hundred years before this time, St. Peter Da- miani had thus sung : ' Eome tames the proud necks of men ; her crop consists of the fruits of death ; the fevers of Eome by a sure law are ever loyal to the Church.' It was noAV the month of August ; the poisonous ah of the Campagna began to teU upon the stout German soldiery ; Avithin eight days the best part of the army feU victims to the plague. Among the deceased were many bishops and counts, Frederick's cousin the young Duke of Suabia, be sides one of the GueUs, and above ah, Eaynald the ChanceUor, the Archbishop of Cologne. Every one cried out that these disasters were a judgment from God on account of the burnt porch of St. Peter's. Two thousand men died in the short space between Eome and Viterbo ; the Emperor could scarcely gain Pavia, since the Apennine passes were held by the rebels. By this time almost every city between Venice, Milan, and Bologna had joined the Lombard League, and was up in arms. Frederick escaped by way of Susa, thanks to the timely aid of Humbert, Count of Maurienne. On the way, the baffled monarch hanged some of the Italian hostages in his hands; their friends plotted his death, and would FREDERICK THE SECOND 57 have succeeded in their murderous attempt, had not chap. Hermann of Siebeneichen placed himself as a willing victim in the Emperor's bed, and so given his master 1030-1107. time to escape in the night. Thus Italy was lost ; and the German Sennacherib (the comparison is Becket' s) after having seen his army melt away hke suoav, slunk back into his own land almost alone. He dwelt in Germany for nearly seven years after this staggering blow, and there employed himself in making provision for his five sons. He had the eldest, Henry, crowned King of the Eomans at Aix-la-Chapelle by Philip, the new Archbishop of Cologne. A third anti-Pope was set up after Paschal's death, and was caUed Cahxtus. These seven years were turned to good account by the Lombards, who overcame the Piedmontese nobles, and built a new city, which they named Alessandria after the Pope, the patron of their League. King Henry had withdrawn from the side of the Emperor after Becket's death, and aided the strugghng states of Italy with Enghsh gold. Christian, the Arch bishop of Mayence, who wielded his club with great effect in the day of battle, was acting as the Im perial Legate in Italy. He besieged Ancona in 1174, while the Venetians blockaded it by sea. The city resolved never to undergo the fate of Mdan, and kept its assadants at bay, until they gave up the siege in despair ; its garrison was re duced to eat the vilest substances, before the enemy quitted the wads. But a fresh danger threatened Italy from the North-west. Her great enemy crossed the Alps for the fifth time, leading his army over Mont Cenis. He burnt Susa, and then laid siege to Alessandria. This bulwark had been 58 THE HISTORY OF chap, thrown up so hastily, that it had been nicknamed 1,1 by the Imperial party Alessandria deUa Paglia. 1030-1197. J3ut the toAvn of straw turned out to be a most substantial fact, as Barbarossa found to his cost. He blockaded it in vain for six months, and sen tenced to the loss of theh eyes aU who attempted to bring in provisions to the garrison. One lad, when made prisoner, told the Emperor, in the true spirit of feudahsm : ' I am not fighting against you or your Emphe, but I am obeying my lord who is in the city, just as I should have obeyed him had he been in your camp. Even if you put out my eyes, I shaU stand true to him.' Barbarossa dismissed the youth unharmed. Finding that Alessandria could not be taken either by storming or by sapping underground, he chew off his forces and agreed to a truce with the League. A heavy stroke now paralyzed him. Henry the Lion basely quitted the side of his Imperial benefactor, Avho in vain conjured the waverer at Chiavenna by the honour of Ger many and by the glory of the Emphe not to forsake his lord, his cousin, his friend, in the hour of need. The great Kaiser, in the agony of the moment, even stooped to faU at the Guelf 's knee. ' Eise up, dear lord,' said the Empress, ' remember the past, and may God never forget it ! ' Though this ally was lost, the Archbishops of Treves, Cologne, and Mag deburg brought a large army to Frederick's help from the North ; and the Lombard League resolved to risk a battle before the warlike Archbishop of Mayence could come up from Central Italy and join his master. The patriots pitched their camp near Lignano ; the banner of St. Ambrose was brought out, and it was hoped that the saint would prove as FREDERICK THE SECOND 59 stern a foe to tyranny, as Avhen he shut the gates of chap. his cathedral in the face of another Eoman em- IIr- peror. On the 29th of May, 1176, the two armies 1030-1197. met. Everything at first went doAvn before the German onset, but the Emperor was thrown from his horse, and his standard-bearer was slain. The false neAvs of Frederick's death flew through his ranks, and his followers began to run ; many Avere drowned in the Ticino, and many were taken. Lignano, a name to be ranked with Bannockburn and Morat, is a field of which Italy may weU be proud ; the chief whom she there overthrew was the first soldier of the age, at the head of those German warriors, who had long been taught to think themselves invincible. There is nothing hke this battle in the ldstory of Milan, until we come down to her Five Days in 1848. The long interval is almost whoUy fiUed up with the gloomy sway of Visconti, Sforzas, and Hapsburgs. Frederick was for some time mourned as dead ; but he shortly re-appeared at Pavia. The work of peace was now set about in good earnest ; Pope and Kaiser alike were eager for its return ; the Germans had undergone enough from the fevers of Eome, the swords of Mdan, and the treachery of their own brethren. A truce for six years was granted to the Lombards, and on the 25th of July, 1177, Frederick and Alexander met at Venice, where the Suabian knelt, and received the kiss of peace from his old enemy. Thus ended the strife which had raged in Lombardy for three and twenty years. After making a progress through the middle of Italy, Frederick went to Aries, where he received the crown of that kingdom in 1178. He then 60 THE HISTORY OF chap, hastened to take vengeance upon Henry the Lion. The deserter was placed under the ban of the 1030-1197. Emphe, and his lands were shared out among the many enemies whom he had made by his unbear able pride. The Archbishop of Cologne and other prelates were great gainers in the distribution ; a large part of the Duchy of Saxony was given to Bernard, a son of Albert the Bear. The faithful Otho of Wittelsbach, whose descendants stiU rule at Munich, was instaUed in the Duchy of Bavaria. The Lion did not give up his coveted spods without a sharp struggle ; but in 1181 Barbarossa put an end to it by taking the field himself, and was joined at Lubeck by his vassal the king of Denmark. The beaten Guelf appeared at the Diet of Erfurth, and in his turn feU at Frederick's knee. ' Thou thy self art the cause of thy misery ! ' cried the weeping conqueror. Sentence of banishment was pronounced upon the rebel for a period afterwards shortened at the Pope's request, but Brunswick and Luneburg were assured to Henry. In 1182, he sailed for England, his wife's country, to the throne of which his descendants were to be caHed after more than 500 years. While these revolutions were convulsing Germany, Alexander, the greatest Pope of the Twelfth century, had been succeeded by Lucius IH., who was forced to invoke the aid of the Archbishop of Mayence, the Emperor's lieutenant in Italy. The six years' truce with the Lombard League expired in 1183, and there was a schism among the confederates. Tortona, and even Alessandria, went over to their old enemy. But at length, a treaty of peace was made at Constance, to which the Itahan states were 1030-1197. FREDERICK THE SECOND 61 long wont to appeal, as the charter of their rights. CHAP' Barbarossa granted them the poAver of the sword and self-jurisdiction on condition that their respective Podestas shoidd receive investiture from his deputy, and should furnish their Imperial lord with pro visions, as usual, Avhenever he might pass through Italy. The states were also to SAvear aUegiance to him every ten years. Thus they became republican in reahty, though they stiU nominaUy formed a part of the Emphe. Happy had it been for them had they knoAvn the right use of freedom. In 1184, the Kaiser, whose power Avas stiU un abated in Germany, held a grand Diet at Mayence, attended by 40,000 knights, whom he entertained in a style worthy of the greatest monarch in Chris tendom ; on this occasion he knighted his three eldest sons. He then visited Italy for the sixth and last time, when he met Pope Lucius at Verona. He confirmed the peace of Constance, and was wel comed to Mdan as if that city and the Emperor had been ahvays the warmest of friends ; indeed, this reconciliation alienated his old ally, Cremona. Urban III., who succeeded Lucius, found himself unable to prevent a marriage which seemed to raise the house of Hohenstaufen higher than ever. King Henry, the Kaiser's eldest son, wedded Constance, the rightful heiress of Sicily, on the 27th of January, 1186, at Mdan, amidst the greatest rejoicings. Little thought Barbarossa that this briUiant event would, in the end, be the cause of the ruin of his house. At this very time his quarrels with Eome were stiU smouldering, and he had a dispute with the vigorous Archbishop of Cologne on his hands. But in 1187, aU Christendom was appalled by the news that 62 THE HISTORY OF chap. Jerusalem and almost every other town in Palestme 11 had faUen a prey to Saladin. Three generations had 1030-1197. not eiapged since the First Crusade had been under taken, and now its fruits were gone. The Pope died of grief ; the Kaiser took the Cross in spite of his great age. He held one more Diet at Mayence, forgave the Archbishop of Cologne, caused Henry the Lion to swear to the maintenance of peace, and entrusted Germany to his own son, Henry, during his absence. Barbarossa's letter to Saladin is stiU extant, in which the German claims Judaea, Parthia, and Egypt as part of the old Eoman Emphe, aUudes to the disaster of Crassus and the shame of Antony, and gives the Moslem a year to quit Palestine. Saladin prepared for a stubborn resistance. In May, 1189, the German pilgrims once more foUowed the course of the Danube eastward from Eatisbon to Bel grade. They were harassed by the Bulgarians, and underAvent the usual annoyances from the treachery of the Greek emperor. The Kaiser was so wroth that he wrote to his son to have the fleets of the Itahan states ready for an attack upon Constantinople. Early in 1190, he conveyed his men across the Bos- phorus, and began his march through Asia Minor. He himself took charge of the rear, entrusted the van to his gallant son, Frederick, and placed his baggage in the centre. The Sultan of Iconium had made a treaty with the invaders ; still, they found the country ravaged as they advanced, and were harassed the whole way from Laodicea by the Turk ish cavalry. On the 14th of May, the Christians won a victory over the enemy, but- were reduced to such straits that they Avere eating horseflesh, and FREDERICK THE SECOND 03 using theh saddles for fuel. They fought another chap. battle before Iconium, when Barbarossa himself led IIL the charge, in spite of his seventy years, on seeing i°30-ii97. that his men despahed of the day. They found a rich booty, for they here seized upon the gold which Saladin had sent to the Turks of Asia Minor. The Germans inarched on to Seleucia; the great Em peror, more fortunate now than he had been when serving under his uncle Conrad forty years before, Avas almost on the threshold of Syria ; Saladin was trembling at the approach of so worthy an opponent. But a sad mishap overturned all the calculations of Christendom. On the 10th of June, the army was crossing the Seleph by a narroAV bridge ; theh leader, impatient of delay, plunged into the river, although he had been warned that the tide was strong. The old man was soon overpowered by the stream, and was brought to land a lifeless corpse. We may imagine the agony of the honest Germans as they bewailed the loss of theh Kaiser, theh father, and their chief. He was buried at Antioch, and the remnant of his army that escaped starvation joined the other Christians at the siege of Acre. It is hard to say what results might have followed, had Frederick's life been spared for a few years. He would probably have been able to overawe the malcontents, whose bickerings caused the miscar riage of the Third Crusade. He would have appeared in theh camp hke the majestic Kmg of men, and the unruly Achilles and the wily Ulysses might perhaps have suspended their quarrels, paying homage to the presence of a greater man than was either of themselves. The old Kaiser of the Eed 64 THE HISTORY OF chap. Beard was long mourned in Germany as the PUlar '" of the Emphe, the Morning Star, the Strong Lion 1030-1197. that awed savage beasts into peace. What would he say, could he come forth from his fabled prison, on beholding the present state of the Fatherland and the men that sit in his place ? His son, Henry the Sixth, was intent upon con quering the kingdom of Sicily, which had been usurped by Tancred, although Henry's wife was the rightful heiress. The new Hohenstaufen chief was crowned Emperor, at Eome, in the spring of 1191, by Pope Celestine III. He bought the good-wiU of the citizens by dehvering up Tusculum to theh cruel vengeance, upon the nuns of which town Frascati afterwards rose. He then led his army Southward, and made himself master of every place, until he Avas brought to a stand by the strong waUs of Naples. As usual, the Itahan summer proved the foe most fatal to the Northern warriors. The tur bulent Archbishop of Cologne died, and so great Avas the mortality, that the Emperor, who had been himself a sufferer, was driven to raise the siege late in August. His wife, Constance, a lady ten years older than himself, was made prisoner by the Saler- nitans and sent to her rival, Tancred. Many cares awaited Henry on his return to Germany ; the Church of Liege had been perplexed by a disputed election ; the old Lion of Brunswick, in spite of his oath, had been breaking the peace of the Empire ; and the eldest son of this Duke had given great offence by hastening home without the Kaiser's leave, while the Germans were besieging Naples. Peace, however, Avas restored in a few years be tween the Guelfs and Hohenstaufens by a marriage. FREDERICK THE SECOND 65 Fortune continued to smile upon the house of chap. Suabia. ' In 1193, King Eichard of England was brought i°30-n97- up before the Emperor for judgment, after having pined in a dungeon for a year. The captive was only released on payment of an enormous ransom, which furnished the means for a new onslaught upon Sicily. Henry again marched Southward in 1194, upon hearing the news of Tancred's death. He secured the aid of the Genoese and Pisan ships by making promises never to be fulfilled. He reached his new kingdom in August. Naples now opened her gates. Salerno Avas sacked and burnt, to avenge the wrongs of the Empress Constance. The Apulian and Calabrian nobles flocked to do homage to their German lord. The only drawback to his triumphal march was the quarrelsome spirit of his maritime allies, to whom he made fresh promises at Messina. The Sicilians, seeing- that the mainland had yielded, made no attempt at resistance. Tancred's queen had fled, with her children, into a strong castle ; and Palermo welcomed Henry to her palaces on the 20th of November. His first care was to get his rivals into his power ; he enticed them from their shelter by promises, and constrained the young William, Tancred's eldest son, to abjure aU right to the crown of Sicdy, in the cathedral of Palermo. Henry contrived to put off the demands of the Genoese with renewed promises. Christmas came ; but it was kept after a strange fashion in the Sicihan capital. The Emperor laid before his council cer tain papers (whether genuine or forged is doubtful), according to which the whole of the Norman nobihty vol. i. F 66 THE HISTORY OF chap, had entered into a plot against their German sovereign. !" Peter, the Count of Celano, agreed to play the part 1030-1197. 0f ju(]ge in the bloody assize that foUowed. Prelates and barons ahke underwent the most cruel punish ments. Some lost theh eyes, others were tortured, hanged, burnt, or buried ahve ; the high admiral Margaritone, and the three sons of the deceased chanceUor, were among the sufferers. No mercy was shown to any of Tancred's old partisans. The boy WiUiam was castrated and bhnded ; he was then sent to an Alpine dungeon, as were his mother and sisters, besides the Archbishop of Salerno. The tombs of the usurper and of his eldest son were broken open and rifled ; the bodies were cast out. On the very day when these cruelties were being perpetrated, on the 26th of December, 1194, the Empress Constance gave bhth to a son at Jesi, the future Emperor Frederick II. Pope Celestine excommunicated Henry for his Sicihan atrocities ; but the Hohenstaufen took httle heed of the sentence, knowing that he could master Eome whenever he pleased. He shared out the lands claimed by her among the comrades at his side, whose names were long famous in the South. He gave Tuscany and the lands of the Countess Matdda to Phihp, his humane brother and suc cessor ; he gave Eomagna and the March to his seneschal, Markwald of Anweiler : another German, Conrad of Urslingen, surnamed Fly-in-brain, held the Duchy of Spoleto ; a fourth, Diephold of Voh- burg, was made Count of Acerra a few years later. No account was made of the Pope. The Emperor was in fuU enjoyment of the triumph achieved by the Emphe over the Kingdom. Almost every pro- III. 1030-1197. FREDERICK THE SECOND 67 vince of his realm on each side of the Alps had chap. sent a contingent to his conquering army.* Henry left Sicily early in 1195, taking with him many hostages and a vast amount of treasure, the pillage of the South. At Pavia, the Genoese waited upon him, and reminded him of his repeated pro mises. To their dismay he refused to aUow them any of theh proposed share in his Sicihan conquests, but he told them that they might subdue Arragon, Avhich he would confirm to them. Both Lombardy and Germany had been embroiled in various civil Avars during the Kaiser's absence in the South. One of the chief disturbers of peace was now removed, after a troublous pubhc life of fifty-five years. Henry the Lion Avas carried to his tomb at Brunswick, leaving behind him three sons : Henry, who became Palatine of the Ehine ; Otho, a future Kaiser ; and William, through whom the Guelf stock Avas con tinued. Henry the Sixth in vain strove to keep the crown in his own family. ' Make the empire,' said he to the princes, ' no longer elective, but hereditary in my house, and I wiU add to it my new conquests of Apuha and Sicily. I wiU also grant you the right of female succession in your duchies.' This plan would have been carried out, had it not been for the opposition of Pope Celestine and the Archbishops of Mayence and Cologne ; the Kaiser * Peter of Eboli says, speaking of the next year : " Bavarus et Suevus, Lombardus, Marchio, Tuscus, In propriam redeunt Saxo, Boenras, humum." The Empire, as we see, put forth its whole strength to conquer the Kingdom. E 2 68 THE HISTORY OF Chap, was forced to content himseU with an oath of alle giance sworn by the princes to his infant son. A 1030-1 197. Crusade against the successor of Saladin was now in agitation. Late in 1196 the German warriors, bound on this pious errand, came pouring into Italy, and Henry, who had promised to lead them himself, took advantage of theh presence to rivet his yoke more securely upon the wretched Kingdom. He exacted much money, and razed the waUs of Naples and Capua ; at the latter town he found Count Eichard, Avho had held Naples against him six years before, and who was now in prison, with no hope of mercy. The Emperor sentenced his victim to be dragged through the streets at the tail of a horse, and then to be hung up by the legs on a gibbet. The Count lingered in this posture, it is said, for two days, until a friencdy hand tied a stone round his neck. This is but a sample of the cruelties perpetrated by Henry, which his Empress found herself powerless to check. Conrad of Eabensberg, who had acted as the Imperial viceroy at Palermo, rivaUed his master's atrocities. Constance shuddered at them, and became estranged from her husband ; indeed, it was said that if check were given to the king, the queen would not advance to cover it. * In Henry the Sixth the house of Hohenstaufen seemed to have reached its zenith. We have traced it from its origin ; each generation chmbed one step higher than before up the ladder of greatness ; knight, duke, King, Kaiser, all these gradations Avere left behind ; the present head of the family might aspire to be Lord of the world. Sicily had * Salimbene. IW I'liKDKlUCK THE SECOND 09 ra Ys boon looked upon as a stepping-stone to the chap hi. conquest of the Crook empire. Henry had more chances in his favour than had fallen to the lot of Eobert Guiscard ; ho had already forced the Byzan tine tyrant to pay him large sums of money. He was but thirty-two ; he had even at that age con quered realms Avhither Charlemagne had never penetrated, and where Otho had only met Avith dis comfiture. The Hohenstaufen might not unreason ably look fonvard to stdl greater achievements in the East ; the Sultans of Africa had sent him rich gifts, and Jerusalem, still in Saracen bondage, was inviting a deliverer. But death put a sudden end to aU further dreams of conquest on the part of Henry. The Emperor had aheady queUecl one revolt, and had naded a crown to the head of the patriot leader. He was now besieging the castle of another Sicilian baron ; he caught a chill while hunting, and died at Messina in September 1197. What a change Avas wrought by a few short months! In the autumn of 1197 the ruthless Ho henstaufen, in ah the vigour of manhood, at the head of a compact Empire, was domineering over the feeble old Pope Celestine, whom he could threaten from either side of Eome. In the spring of 1198 the greatest of aU the Popes was instaUed in St. Peter's chair ; the rightful heir to the Empire Avas a chdd but three years old; and fearful civil Avars were lowering over every province of Germany and Italy. 1030-1197. 70 THE HISTORY OF 1198-1216. CHAPTEE IV. THE PONTIFICATE OF INNOCENT III. A.D 1198— A.D. 1216. " Tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento." — Virgil. CtvP- f 17E now find ourselves in the presence of that U Pope under whose guidance Eome attained her highest power. His way had been prepared by Hildebrand, who, however, died in exde, without reaping the fruits of the great clerical revolution enforced in the Eleventh century. In the long in terval between Hildebrand and Innocent HT. no Pope stands out very prominent ; the Hohenstaufens were too strong for the Papacy ; even Alexander, the enemy of Barbarossa, could only bring the stub born battle that raged between them to a chaAvn game. But the new Pope surpassed aU his predecessors. He was a son of the Conti of Anagni : three Pontiffs of this house, during the next sixty years, were to wage the war Avith three more Hohenstaufen sove reigns. He was in the prime of hfe at the time of his election, and was aheady renowned as a theo logian and a jurist. His manners in private hfe, courteous, affable, and condescending, raised the hopes of many a suitor from distant realms. He delighted to walk to a clear fountain, not far from FREDERICK THE SECOND 71 the Lateran palace, and thereto enjoy a merry hour chap. with some keen observer of human nature : he would ! roar with laughter at imitations of the bad Latin and 1198~1216- bad theology of the archbishop of Canterbury. Inno cent had a deep insight into character : he would flatter men of letters by professing interest in the books brought to his notice ; yet he had no scruple in keeping their suits at Eome dragging on for years.* His good sense Avas shown in his decisions on the most knotty points of the canon law, and in other ways besides. Thus, being asked by his chaplains Avhy he always preached from a book, though he Avas so Avise and learned, — ¦' I do it for your sakes,' said he, ' to set you an example ; because you are ignorant and ashamed to learn. 'f But the pidpit Avas too narrow a sphere for Innocent : he aspired to rule the world, and to set his foot upon the necks of its kings. He strove, though with shght success, to bridle the turbulence of the Eomans ; he Avas more fortunate in his deal ings Avith Central Italy, which he delivered from its German tyrants ; he enforced the surrender of the lands bequeathed to the Church by the Countess Matdda, which former Popes had been unable to obtain. To Innocent is clue the temporal power of the Papacy, first established by the priestly statesmen of the Thirteenth century, re-established with more absolute sway at the eve of the Beformation, and lost in our own days by the blindest foUy. His deahngs with the crown of Sicily must be considered in another place. As to the Empire of the West, he found it disputed by Phihp of Hohenstaufen, the * This was the experience of Giraldus Cambrensis. f Salimbene. 72 THE HISTORY OF chap, brother of the last Kaiser, and Otho of Brunswick, IV' the second son of Henry the Lion. Innocent at H98-1216. Qnce deG|areti against the former candidate, as being one of that rebellious house that had for the last fifty years withstood the successor of St. Peter to his face. Hence Germany was for ten years embroded in bloody wars, which the new Pope saw without dis pleasure : he weU knew that the weakness of the Emphe was the opportunity of the Church. He now found himself able to take a tone of high com mand in his deahngs with the Tuscan and Lombard States, which owed aUegiance to the German Caesars. But U Italy saw in Innocent a patriotic dehverer, it was far otherwise with most European realms. The five Christian kingdoms, into which the Spanish peninsula was divided, shuddered at the threat of the Papal interdict ; the people suffered for the matri monial sins of their rulers. The king of Arragon professed himself the vassal of Eome ; the king of Norway was hi vain excommunicated ; but his brethren of Hungary and Bohemia heard the Papal rebukes with awe. Bulgaria and Armenia turned with confidence to Eome, when Constantinople had faUen into the hands of the champions of the Latin creed. Innocent reaped the benefit of the great Venetian enterprise, which he had at first condemned ; the Greek schismatics were trampled under the feet of Western crusaders and Western bishops ; and a short-lived Latin emphe was set up in the capital of the Comneni and the Palaeologi. But Innocent's pohcy with regard to England has led to more abiding results. To him we owe the promotion of Stephen Langton, the father of our English liberties. The tyrant John did indeed FREDERICK THE SECOND 73 attempt to degrade our country to the level oi' chap. Arragon or Sicily, submitting to hold his realm as _ a fief of Eome ; but his baseness was neutrahsed by U98"1216- the staunchness of the noble Archbishop and the barons. WeU had it been for Innocent's fame had he supported Langton throughout ; but the Pope, as is weU known, annulled the Great Charter, and enjoined the patriots to bow before his new vassal, their hated oppressor. Innocent might weU blush on hearing the text from Isaiah pronounced by Enghsh mouths—' Woe unto him who justifieth the Avicked for reward.' His victory over the wretched king of England sinks into nothing in comparison Avith Ids triumph over the resolute and crafty king of France : the Pope, in this instance at least, stood forth as the champion of the oppressed, and com pelled Phihp Augustus to respect the indissoluble tie of wecdock. But France was the agent employed by Innocent in that cruel business, which exhibits the Western Church in her most glaring opposition to the teach ing of her Founder. She had indeed preserved her purity in the Ten Persecutions ; but when she came forth from the Catacombs to take possession of the Basilicas, a change for the Avorse was soon remarked. She struggled for three hundred years against Pagan ism ; she struggled for three hunched years longer against Arianism ; she then conquered heathen Ger many, and her old Scandinavian and Hungarian oppressors. At last, she reigned supreme over Western Europe, except in Spain; even there the tide had begun to turn in her favour. But her doc trines and rites were no longer what they had been in Apostohc times. Little by Uttle, step by step, 1198-1216. 74 THE HISTORY OF chap, new theories and practices had crept in. She had sltilftdly adopted the rites of heathenism, which hngered in Italy for at least two centuries after Con- stantine's conversion. The symbohsm of the Old Testament kept its place in her creed, while the spirituality of the New Testament was overclouded. Her monks have without doubt done priceless ser vice to mankind by their preservation of learning, both sacred and profane, by theh attention to agri culture, and by theh faithful denunciations of slavery. But the lives of too many of them were passed in sloth and vice : men thought that they could no longer recognise in the Church the pure bride of Christ ; she was reviled as the harlot foretold in the Apoca lypse. A race of dissenters had sprung up in Asia Minor ; thence, after cruel persecutions, they had been trans planted into Bulgaria ; from that country they overran Western Europe, foUowing the course of the Danube. Early in the Eleventh century we find the flames kindled for heretics at Orleans and Milan ; but the sectaries grew and multiplied ; they enjoyed a respite owing to the wars between the Church and Emphe, and their converts were especiaUy numerous in France and Italy. The Popes did not rule with vigour : humanity was the leading feature in the character of St. Bernard, who in some degree sup plied their place ; so the Twelfth century was chiefly remarkable for the spread of dissent, just as the Thirteenth century was the age of a bloody re-action. It is hard to discover the precise belief of the various sects : their history has been written by theh enemies. One sect alone, that of the Waldenses, has been pro nounced by the monks free from the Eastern FREDERICK THE SECOND 75 Manichean taint ; and that sect alone has Listed to chap. our day, preserving the traditions of Vigdantius and '. Claude. 1198-1216' Beyond aU question the revolt against the Church Avas caused, not so much by distaste for her corrupt doctrines, as by disgust at the lives led by her cor rupt ministers. The cardinals and legates them selves Avere venal ; the bishops and abbots thought only of worldly power ; the regular and secular clergy ran a race of degeneracy. Their ministra tions Avere deserted for those of the dissenting teachers, men of ascetic hves, who also had theh hierarchy. The evil was at its height in Languedoc, and woidd clearly spread farther, unless stern mea sures of repression were taken. Eome Avas not prepared to give up without a struggle her empire over the consciences of men. It was not for this that Constantine had been her nursing father, that Charlemagne had endowed her with lands, that Hildebrand had organised her forces, that Guiscard and Godfrey had been her champions in the field, Anselm and Bernard in the councd. Innocent the Thhd was now at her head, conscious of poAvers at least equal to those of any men that had gone before. He was resolved to crush the heresies of Languedoc; he cried for help to the warriors of Normandy and Champagne, men whose valour had been esteemed throughout the world for the last two centuries, and who had just set up neAV trophies at Acre and Constantinople. They fleAV to arms at the call of Innocent ; the war Avas Avaged Avith a ferocity surpassing behef ; Languedoc became a sea of blood, and was given over to Simon de Montfort. The work went on after his death ; fresh hosts were 1198-1216. 76 THE HISTORY OF chap, ever ready to be poured in from the North ; Inno- - cent himself shuddered at the deeds of his crusaders. The King of France was as much benefited by the result as the Pope was ; it was the triumph of Paris over Toulouse, of the Langue d'Od over the Langue d'Oc. In the mean time, every Emperor favoured by Eome, whether Guelf or Hohenstaufen, was con strained to publish bloody edicts against the heretics of Italy, known as Paterines or Cathari. But other means were taken to combat the evd ; it Avas resolved to bring fonvard enthusiasm as the best ally of the estabhshed Church. Earnest men, eager to preach, had hitherto betaken themselves to one of the heretical sects. Peter Waldo had been driven into secession from the Church, against his own wiU, by the harshness of Pope Alexander. It must indeed have cost rehgious men a fearful wrench, before they could tear themselves away from the most venerable institution to be found in the world. For no other institution could boast such a catalogue of renowned names. Grievously as she had erred, the Church could point to a long unbroken line of holy men reaching up to the Galilean fisher man. It is true that these men had held very different opinions, for the progress of error had been stealthy and slow. Some unscriptural doctrine had been first broached by an individual, and perhaps hotly debated ; it had then tacitly groAvn to be a part of the popular creed ; and it had lastly, after the lapse of centuries, been stamped with the seal of a General Council. Thus it was hard to tell at what precise period truth had been eclipsed by error. The Church, chaUenging the implicit obedience of all, took the place of the Scriptures, which were FREDERICK THE SECOND 77 scarcely road. Wo are not then surprised to find chap. that the reformers Avere not all included in the IV" heretical sects. Innocent the Third, with an acute- u98"12!6- ness deemed at the time supernatural, saAv how en thusiastic men might be employed in the service of the Church instead of being driven to SAvell the ranks of her enemies. This Avas the distinctive feature of his Pontificate. Castile and Umbria sent forth two champions ; the one stern, logical, and practical ; the other mild, loving, and ardent. Both Dominic and Francis met Avith a repulse at first, on offering their services to the Papacy ; but Innocent soon saw his mistake. How different Avas his conduct from that of our blind Anglican bishops in the last century ! No schism took place in Italy, but two new Orders sprang up, devoted to the Lateran. The tAvo founders stamped their respective characteristics upon their chsciples. The Dominicans Avere not only the preachers, but the police of the Holy See ; to them was entrusted the dreadful engine of the Inquisition, just invented. There was in them a certain good sense, which saved them from the extravagancies of theh rivals ; they took the sound view on the question of the Immaculate Conception ; theh great men, such as Albert and Aquinas, filled the chairs at the universities, and swayed the minds of the learned. Theh convents were to be found in every great city from Kiow to Lisbon. Their Generals were not taken from Italy alone : the greater proportion of these belonged to Transalpine countries. The Franciscans on the other hand were the pecuhar offspring of Italy ; she furnished every one of their Generals, with a single exception, 78 THE HISTORY OF chap, during the first century of this Order's existence. IV- The Minorite friars were remarkable for theh half- 1198-1216. crazy mysticism ; they appealed to love, if the Preaching friars appealed to fear. Poverty was the- bride elect of St. Francis ; huiidlity was his chief injunction. His hfe, abounding in extravagances, Avas supposed to be in close conformity to that of the Saviour. His successors, such as Ehas of Cor- tona and John of Parma, went beyond him, and scared sober minds ; a part of the Order broke through aU bounds, and a formidable secession was the result. But Innocent could not foresee these evils ; at any rate, he furnished the bark of St. Peter Avith two fresh crews of rowers, whose help was especiaUy needed, now that a new General Councd, almost the last act of the Pope's hfe, was called to ratify the innovations Avhich exalted the power of the priesthood over the laity more than ever. The two new Orders, even in the lifetime of their founders, pushed theh way into almost every Chris tian realm ; — one example of their mode of pro ceeding must suffice. In 1224, the Minorites first invaded England, sent by St. Francis himseU; they Avere nine in number, some of them being foreigners. After landing, they were locked up for a night in a castle near Dover by a nobleman, who charged them with being spies or traitors. ' If you take us for robbers,' said one of the band, holding up his cord in jest, 'here is a halter to hang us.' On being let go, they travelled on to London, and were enter tained for a fortnight by the Dominicans, Avho were aheady established in that city. The new comers soon gained possession of a house in CornhiU, and were patronised by Archbishop Langton. Not only FREDERICK THE SECOND 79 citizens, but knights and learned clerks, hastened to chap. enrol themselves in the Grey Order ; it could boast ] ' forty-nine convents all over England in little more 1198"1216' .than thirty years from its introduction. The brethren first moved to Stinking Lane near Smith- field, and then built theh stately convent close to Newgate, the present Christ Church Hospital. Oxford Avas the first town occupied after London ; Eobert Grostete gave the strangers a warm wel- come ; his friend Adam de Marisco was the first Franciscan who lectured at that University, the future nurse of Eoger Bacon, Duns Scotus, and Ock- ham. At Cambridge an old synagogue, near the gaol, Avas bestowed upon the friars, and they ran up a humble chapel of wooden planks in one day. Their first edifices, in truth, were of the most primitive cast ; ' Ave did not enter the Order,' they said, ' to budd waUs.' But they attempted in later years to imitate the noble church of Assisi, and enlarged their convents. Stories were long told by the older friars of the scanty fare and drink sourer than vinegar, of the cells with interstices stuffed with grass, that fell to the lot of the first missionaries, who also looked Avith chsdain upon piUows and shoes. WeU did they deserve the praise of the great John of Parma, who held up the English friars to other nations as pat terns of obedience and honesty.* But the parochial clergy did not appreciate the pohcy of Eome in sending these new labourers into the vineyard. The charges against the begging friars, urged by the jealous seculars, were usuaUy four. The former, it Avas said, chd not preach up the * Thomas de Eccleston. Chron. of Lanercost. 1198-1216 80 THE HISTORY OF chap, duty of paying tithes ; they robbed the parish priest ' N ' of his burial fees ; they heard the confessions of his flock; they allured the people to theh sermons, while he lost aU his hearers. To this the friars would answer, ' Our sermons aim at higher things than the payment of tithes ; you beneficed clergy have enough and to spare ; as it is, you neglect the poor of Christ for your concubines and buffoons. As to burials, every man has a right to choose his own resting- place. As to confessions, the Papacy has allowed us to share in this duty, owing to the temptations thrown in the way of women by you seculars. As to ser mons, the Lord has brought in better men than yourselves, on finding that you had become ignorant and vicious. Some priests practise usury, or keep taverns ; how can they complain if our masses are preferred to theirs, when they use rusty chahces, sour wine, a Host so small that it can hardly be seen and moreover the worse for the flies, while the cele brants wear filthy stoles and maniples ? Our minis trations are much sought after, it is true, by women ; but those who accuse us on this account are always eager to find blots in the elect.' * The friars had their own way ; even if one Pope, weary of the con stant squabbling, made a decree against them, the next Pope was sure to recall it. The jealousies of the parochial clergy were always breaking out against a class of rivals which was bound to a far stricter rule of hfe than themselves. Thus, in a provincial synod at Eavenna, the -secular priests assailed the friars on the four points, espe cially on the question of confessions. At last the Archbishop, a man of savage temper, put a stop to * Salimbene. FREDERICK THE SECOND 81 the attack by saying, ' Wretches and madmen, to chap. Avhom am I to entrust confessions, if not to the Mi- ' noritcs and Preachers ? Am I to entrust the shriv- 1108-1210. ing of women to Priest Gerard here, who has his house full of sons and daughters, as I know well ? Aye, and I Avould that Priest Gerard was the only one of you of whom this could be said ! ' Those of the clergy Avho Avere conscious that they did not keep theh voavs turned red at this very plain speaking.* The personal holiness of hfe, which the new friars professed and at first practised, commanded the respect of all classes. The greatest of Italian poets sang the praises of the two restorers of reli gion. The tomb of St. Dominic at Bologna is the memorial of the first efforts of the Italian chisel ; the stately churches that rise above the bones of St. Francis, at Assisi, enshrine the earUest Italian frescoes. Kings hastened to pay their homage ; St. Louis, the model of royalty, wished that he could give one half of his body to St. Dominic and the other to St. Francis. He listened with respect to a Cordelier, who enlarged from the pulpit on the duties owed by monarchs to their subjects.f Louis employed both Jacobins and Cordeliers to travel tlirough his realm and redress grievances. The Order of St. Francis coidd boast a long hst of Eoyal personages who had enroUed themselves among the lay brethren affiliated to it. So early as 1236, the sister of the Bohemian King, rejecting the proffered hand of the Emperor, became one of the Franciscan nuns known after wards as the Poor Sisterhood of St. Clare. J One of * Salimbene. This took place about 1260. | Joinville. t Alb. Stadensis. VOL. I. G 1198-1216. 82 THE HISTORY OF chap, the main features of the new disciphne was the open ing given for lay agency ; anybody might become a Tertiary, attached to one of the two Orders ; women might incorporate themselves into kindred sister hoods; aU classes aUke might help on the godly work. The Italian mind was stirred to its lowest depths. When the foundation stone of the Domini can convent at Eeggio was being laid and blessed by the Bishop in 1233, men and women, knights and plebeians, peasants and burghers, aU aUke lent their aid, bearing stones and mortar on their backs ; happy was he who could carry the most. The biulding was finished in three years. The devotion aroused by the Franciscans was stiU more fervent. When these brethren first came to Parma, Bafulo, one of the richest and bravest knights in the city, enroUed himseU in the Order. He devised a strange penance for himself ; he was dragged through Parma at the tad of a horse, and was scourged by two of his ser vants. On his approaching the porch of St. Peter's, the knights who were sitting there, as was the cus tom, not recognising their old friend, cried out, ' Give it the robber, give it him ! ' Bafulo looked up and said, ' Very true ; up to this time I have hved Uke a robber, sinning against God and my own soul.' He then bade his servants drag him further, while the other knights glorified God.* But in some cases we find the hearts of the laity estranged by the indiscreet zeal of the friars. Chil dren were sometimes tempted away from theh pa rents, and it was not easy to recover a son lost in this way. By the strongest possible interest, perhaps with * Salimbene. 1198-1216. FREDERICK THE SECOND 83 the aid of an Emperor or a Pope, the bereaved father chap. Avould procure letters from the General of the Order, L_ authorising a personal interview with the proselyte. The young friar Avould be primed with many texts about putting his hand to the plough, loving father or mother more than Christ, confessing Christ before men, the enmity to be expected from those of a man's OAvn household. The friars perhaps would aUow a private conference between father and son, while they themselves were listening behind the Avail, in the greatest fear for their novice. ' Do not beheve these filthy brutes,' the irreverent father would cry ; ' What am I to say to your mother, who is always grieving after you ? ' ' Say to her,' the runaway would an swer, ' that Avhen my father and my mother forsake me, the Lord taketh me up. It is good for a man to bear the yoke in his youth.' The father in despair woidd dash himseU on the ground before aU the brethren, and devote his son to a thousand devils. The lad would find ample compensation hi a vision vouchsafed by the Virgin. He would have to keep very close, if his convent was near the coast, for Anconitan pirates might be bribed by his kinsfolk to carry him off. He would have to bear reproaches from his old acquaintances, such as these, 'Many hhed servants in your father's house have plenty of meat and bread, while you go about begging your bread from the poor. You ought to be riding through your city on a destrier, or joining in a tournament for the benefit of the ladies and buffoons.' But such taunts would not move a stout-hearted Franciscan.* Fathers were not the only class Avho bewaUed the * This is Salimbene's experience. g 2 84 THE HISTORY OF chap, encroachmg sphit of the new Orders ; the Benedic- : tines and Cistercians were inchgnant at the novel pre- H98-1216. tensions now set up by theh younger rivals. Mat thew Paris faithftdly represents the feeling of the old school of monks ; in him we may also remark the Enghsh patriot, who views with anger the subser viency of the new friars to the Papal chair. They became the collectors of the money needed by Eome; they were the shameless exactors of Enghsh revenues for foreign purposes ; they cared for no one but the Pope, theh patron. In process of time their virtue began to grow dim ; they forgot the vows of poverty so earnestly inculcated by theh founders ; theh stately convents rivaUed the palaces of kings. St. Dominic and St. Francis had hved together in unity ; it was not so with their disciples. The Preachers ques tioned the legend of the Stigmata ; the Minorites chuckled over the buffoonish verses made in ridicule of their rivals. A document, published to the two Orders about forty years after theh birth, shows the extent of the mischievous jealousy between the Do minicans and Franciscans. They Avere reminded of theh original aims and alhance by a letter, the joint composition of their Generals, Humbert of Savoy and John of Parma. The brotherhoods are thus ex- toUed : ' These are the two trumpets of Moses which caU the people together ; these are the tAvo Cheru bim, fuU of knowledge, which look towards each other, spreading theh wings to the people ; these are the two breasts of the Bride, which give suck to the babes in Christ ; these are the two witnesses of Christ, that prophesy clothed in sackcloth ; these are the two bright stars foretold by the Sibyl. How can we be true disciples, unless we love one another ? Let FREDERICK THE SECOND 85 there be no stealing of noA-ices or grasping at wealth chap. from each other. Let there be no competition for Iv" alms or wills, no opposition to rival sermons, no abuse U98-i2i6- of each other without good reason.' * In spite of all the evils complained of, the two Orders throve and multiplied. They embraced every class of mankind. They were the counsellors of kings, the teachers of universities, the ambassadors of popes to the heathen, the confessors of noble laches, the companions of the people. Popular preaching, Avhich had been hitherto disused, was brought into fashion by the begging friars ; the elder Orders, a proud aristocracy, might hold to the Latin ritual ; but the Preachers and Minorites harangued the nations of earth in all the modern dialects. The new sermons Avere fuU of proverbs, tales, and historical examples, aU tending to the improvement of morals ; this was the sort of pulpit eloquence which charmed the common folk.f Thus the heretics were assaded with their own weapons, and Eome arose from the combat stronger than ever before. She Avas now putting forth all her might ; she triumphed ahke on the Guacliana, on the Ehone, on the Vistula, on the Bosphorus — pagan and Moham medan, schismatic and heretic, aU ahke went down before her conquering sword. Simon de Montfort, John de Brienne, Baldwin of Flanders, Hermann von Salza, were aU proud to bear arms under Innocent's banner. New vigour had been lent to the Papacy, vigour Avhich inspired ah its chiefs for a hundred years. Hildebrand had faUen and had left his work to feeble successors ; but Innocent had men at his * Wadding, for 1255. t Salimbene. 1198-1216. 86 THE HISTORY OF chap, side whom he knew to be fit for bis place. There JVl was Eegnier Capocci of Viterbo, the bosom friend of St. Dominic, and Ugohno Conti of Anagni, the bosom friend of St. Francis. These were the men Avho would carry on Innocent's work far into the century, relying on the new Orders which Innocent's foresight had given to the Church, and which ap peared just in time to bear the brunt of the renewed struggle with the Hohenstaufens. How wonderful is the Church of Eome ! when ever the hour of need comes, she has some fresh chain ready to rivet mankind anew. Her rehgious brotherhoods have been her salvation. Hildebrand would have done little, had he not had the Benedic tines at hand, to whom he coidd point as the pattern of his darhng celibacy. In the next century, the Cistercians maintained the battle against the new opinions, until Innocent arose to crush ad opposers. The Dominicans and Franciscans gave a fresh lease of three hundred years to the empire of Eome. And in the crash of the Sixteenth century, when aU seemed to be lost, when Britain, Germany, and Scandinavia were gone, when France, Austria, and Poland were wavering, and when Spain and Italy alone remained. true to their allegiance; then it was that a new Order, well fitted to the times, roUed back the tide of Protestantism, recovered half of the lost ground, and turned the doubtful day. FREDERICK THE SECOND 87 1194-1212. CHAPTEE V.* A.D. 1191— A.D. 1212. ' Csesaribus virtus contigit ante diem.' t WE have aheady beheld Innocent grasping at chap. the sovereignty of the whole civilized world, ' and setting Ids foot upon the necks of kings ; we must now regard his statesmanship, as it mixes itself up with Itahan politics and with the interests of Frederick Eoger, the Pope's ward and feudal vassal. Innocent's first care, after subjecting as far as pos sible the turbulent Eomans to his yoke, and making their Senator take the oath of aUegiance to himseU, was to establish his influence throughout Italy, which was at this time undergoing the tyranny of her Ger man masters, the robber-knights of Suabia and Alsace, brought in by the last Hohenstaufen Emperor. Innocent here appeared in the character of an Itahan patriot; it was plain that nothing could be done, * Several of the events recorded in this chapter occurred pre viously to those mentioned in Chapter IV. I prefer to consider Innocent's Italian policy here, in order that I may exhibit the life of Frederick as a continuous whole. The chief authorities for this chapter are Richard of San Germano ; the Letters of Innocent ; and the Gesta, a life of that Pope by a contemporary. 1 Line applied by Pope Innocent to young Frederick. 88 THE HISTORY OF chap. untU Italy was freed from her foreign masters, who ' were bent on carving out lordships for themselves in 1194-1212. ^e general scramble. The first of these whom Linocent took in hand, was the seneschal of the late Emperor, Markwald of Anweder, who had been rewarded for his services in the conquest of Sicily Avith the duchies of Eavenna, Eomagna, and Ancona. He Avas one of the greatest warriors of the age, equally successful on sea and on land.* Yet none the less was he placed imder the ban of the Pope, by whom his subjects were easily induced to revolt. The Church did not spare her treasures ; a Cardinal was sent into the March, and Markwald's castles were burnt to the ground.f Another German, Conrad of Urshngen, had been made Duke of Spoleto by Henry the Sixth, and was thus a near neighbour of the Pope, to whom he in vain offered an enormous bribe for the confirmation of his Itahan possessions ; Innocent never rested, untU he had despatched the intruder to the other side of the Alps. Being aware, however, that he should never be able to keep the distant Eomagnoles true to the Holy See, the far-seeing statesman of the Lateran contented himself with laying the foundation of the future temporal dominion of the Popes, and for the present left the outlying provinces pretty much to themselves. Theh complete subjection to the suc cessors of St. Peter was not accomphshed untU three centuries later, an achievement reserved for Pope * Petrus de Ebulo : ' Hie Marcualdus, cm* se Neptunus ad omne "Velle dedit, cui se Mars dedit esse parens.' •j" Innocent's Letters for 1199. FREDERICK THE SECOND 89 Juhus the Second, the old Avarrior who threw aside chap. the book for the sword, and who stiU frowns upon v. us, stern and resolute as ever, from the canvas of nsi-^^- Eaphael. The next exploit of Lmocent was to form nearly the whole of Tuscany, which had been granted by the late Emperor to his brother Philip, into a league ' for the honour and aggrandizement of the Apostohc See,' as it Avas very candidly ex pressed ; the cities, Pisa alone excepted, bound them selves to acknowledge no one as Emperor without the Pope's sanction. It seemed as if the mission of Innocent was, to reverse every arrangement of the late Hohenstaufen tyrant, who had been so oppor tunely cut off. The new Pope, however, found a harder task awaiting him in Sicdy. The Empress Constance had sent Peter Count of Celano and others to bring her son, the young Frederick Eoger, from Umbria ; she had had him crowned King of Sicdy at Palermo, in the spring of 1198, when he was but three years old. Strange tales were told of his birth. It was said that Joachim, the renowned Calabrian Abbot, whose doctrines were afterwards condemned in the Lateran CouncU, and who exer cised a vast influence upon the rehgious mind of Europe, had made wondrous disclosures concerning the infant's future career. When asked by the Emperor Henry how it would turn out, the prophet had answered ; ' Thy boy is perverse ; thy son and heir, 0 prince, is wicked ; for as lord he shaU disturb the earth, and shaU wear out the saints of the Most Highest.' In his commentary on Isaiah, Joachim (so at least his disciples averred in later years) un derstood the modern Eoman Emphe to be meant by 90 THE HISTORY OF chap, the land of the Chaldees, Sicily by Tyre, and Frede- v- rick himself by Ashur. The prophet also foretold 1194-1212. that Frederick could not be slain, except by God ; all attempts to murder him would fail. Another dark presage was referred to Frederick's bhth; a report was spread, and widely beheved, that the Empress had hved beyond the age of bearing chil dren, that she had shammed pregnancy, and that the son of a butcher at Jesi had been passed off as her own offspring* This sidy tale was long after wards thrown in Frederick's teeth. It was said in Northern Germany, that the man who had lent his chdd to the Empress was either a physician, a miUer, or a falconer, f In order to refute tlds calumny, Constance underwent some unpleasant experiments in pubhc, wishing to convince the Italian dames that she was stiU capable of the honours of maternity. J In truth, she was but forty at the time when her offspring. came into the world. The bhth of Frederick, in the year 1194, had aroused transports of joy in the hearts of the Im perial party, if we may judge by the verses made upon the occasion by a Salernitan bard. Peter of Eboh, when welcoming the Hohenstaufen babe, had indulged in auguries respecting its future lot, curi ously falsified by the event. The father, whose dearest wishes were granted in the midst of his triumphs, was happy ; but the child would be hap pier still. It would surpass its German and Norman * Salimbene. The prophecy about Frederick's death is genu ine ; it was talked of long before that event took place. ¦f Alb. Stadensis. f Anon. Vaticani Hist Sicula, but this is rather a late au thority. FREDERICK THE SECOND 91 forefathers. Young Frederick would be a sun with- chap. out a cloud, and Avould never undergo an eclipse. His birth was hailed in strains that would be appro- n94-12i2- priate oidy to the coming of a Messiah. Beasts of prey, sang the poet, forgot to harass their peaceful victims. Earth and heaven poured forth their choicest blessings upon mankind, happy in the bhth of the Imperial babe, who was the glory of Italy, the offspring of Jove, the heir of the Eoman name, the reformer of the world and of the Emphe. Long might he reign, behold the world full of his de scendants, and be borne to heaven after having become a great-grandfather ! We are indebted to this zealous bard for the first domestic notice of the young Prince. A Spaniard brought to the child a huge fish, which is said to have been worthy of Caesar. The Anconitan coast, indeed, wldch was not very far off, had long before produced Dornitian's famous turbot. The httle Fre derick, with the help of his attendant, cut the fish into three parts, kept two of these for himseU, and sent the third to his father. The ingenious poet contrives to extract some curious presages from this simple story. Henry VI. gratefuUy bestowed some lands at EboU upon his Laureate, who appears in later charters as Master Peter the verse-maker. The chdd, so rapturously greeted, was brought up at Fohgno, at the foot of the Apennines, a town on which he afterwards bestowed many favours, and which thus became firmly attached to its iUustrious nursUng.* The whe of Conrad the duke of Spoleto was en- * In Fulginio fulgere pueritia nostra incepit. Letter of Fre derick. 92 THE HISTORY OF chap, trusted with the care of Frederick's chddhood. His _ rights were very soon in jeopardy; the Electors of 1194-1212. Germany made smaU account of the oath they had sworn to him during his father's hfe-time, and of the sealed letters which they had sent, in token of theh plighted fealty.* Indeed, the Pope himseU directed theh attention to another candidate. But the crown of Sicdy was Frederick's undoubted right. Palermo witnessed at the same time his coronation and his father's burial, in May 1198. The Sicilians invoked the blessing of Christ, of the Virgin, of St. Agatha, and of many other saints on the Eoyal babe, as the crown was placed on his head in the stately cathedral, the work of the late Archbishop Ofamiho.f The first charter known to have been bestowed by the young King is dated in June, a month after his coronation, and is a grant made by him and his mother to Ofamiho the younger, Archbishop of Palermo. The Empress found herself left almost defenceless. She had rewarded the Germans, the old comrades of her husband, and had sent them back into theh own land to join his brother Phihp. The latter, in return, sent home the blinded Apuhan nobles, whom Hemy had kept in his Alpine dun geons. J Intrigues were speeddy set on foot. Walter of Palear, the Bishop of Troja and Chancellor of the Kingdom, was so little to be trusted, that he was deprived of the Seal. The Archbishop of Messina was not aUowed to attend the coronation, lest his absence from his diocese should lead to an outbreak. * Godefr. Colon. Urspergensis. t Codex transcribed by Amato, which Breholles has printed. % Breve Chronicon Vaticanum. 1104-1212. FREDERICK THE SECOND 93 But the real clanger lay in Central Italy, where a chap. storm Avas now gathering. Pope Innocent saw his advantage, and drove a hard bargain with the friendless lady. He sent the Bishop of Ostia as his Legate into Sicdy, where that office, owing to the peculiar privileges of the King dom, had hitherto been unknown. The Pope con gratulated the prelates that the hills of Calabria and the plains of Apulia were now free from the whirl- Avind which had lately swooped upon them from the North, and that Charybclis near Taormina was now unstained with blood. Sicily must prove her gratitude to God for these favours, by returning to her old aUegiance to the Church ; it had been slightly impaired by the late brods. She must welcome, with aU clue honours, the Legate of the Holy See. This letter was followed by another in November, addressed to Constance and her son, whereby, after recalling to her mind the piety of her predecessors, the Pope granted to her 'the Kingdom of Sicily, the Duchy of Apuha and Princi paUty of Capua, with aU its appurtenances, Naples, Salerno, and Amalfi, Avith theh appurtenances, Mar- sia, and the other lands beyond Marsia, to which the Eoyal pah had a right.' The Bishop of Ostia was to receive the oath of fealty from the vassals of Eome ; and homage Avas to be clone to the Pope and his successors in future. A yearly tribute of 1000 schifati was to be paid to the Eoman Church. Elections Avere in future to be canonical ; for Inno cent, whom his contemporary biographer rightly caUs ' a most sagacious Pontiff,' was striving hard to abohsh the privUege of independence as regarded episcopal elections, which his predecessors had 94 THE HISTORY OF chap, granted in a moment of weakness to the old rulers v- of Sicily. This vexed question became afterwards 1194-1212. the bitter source of contention between young Fre derick and the See of Eome. Another letter from Innocent to Constance proposed a compromise, whence it is not easy to see how the Crown of Sicdy could reap much advantage, although doubt less the Papal chair was a great gainer. Much is said about the Eoyal assent to an election being sought, after the chapter has made the choice ; but nothing is settled, in the event of the Crown object ing to the election. Thus Innocent regained most of that power granted of old by the Holy See to the Norman Kings. Constance agreed to pay him 30,000 golden tarins during the minority of her son, besides whatever the Pope might expend in defend ing the Kingdom. Moreover, the Sicihan bishops were in future to have the right of appeal to Eome, and the clergy were to be judged in their own courts for every cause except high treason. Constance died on the 28th of November, 1198, after having bequeathed her now orphan son to the guardianship of Innocent. She had appointed a council of regency, comprising the Archbishops of Palermo, Monreale, and Capua, and also Walter of Palear, the faithless Chancellor of the Kingdom, to whom the Pope very soon wrote for a supply of money ; it was wrong to spare property when lives were at stake.* The young King seems to have been much neglected in the confusion which fol lowed his mother's death. According to one im probable account, the chdd was passed on, until he * Letters of Innocent for 1199. 1194-1212. FREDERICK THE SECOND 95 was seven, from one house to another, the Paler- chap. mitan burghers taking him in, one for a week, . another for a month, as their respective means al io Aved.* Strange tales were repeated long after- Avards about the childhood of the future arch-enemy of Eome. It is said that when he was four years old, he was heard to cry out in his sleep, ' I cannot, I cannot ! ' On being afterwards questioned about his dream, he said, ' I seemed to be eating aU the beUs in the world, and I saw one great beU, which I could not swallow, but it seemed to Mil me ; and on that account I cried out.' Eome in the end did prove a morsel too tough for Frederick.'!' As soon as Markwald heard of the death of the Empress, who had forbidden lrhn to enter her King dom, he hurried from Ancona into Apulia, and claimed for himself the viceroyalty of Sicdy, pro ducing a forged will of the late Emperor to that effect. AU the German intruders, headed by Diep- hold, Count of Acerra, flocked from every part to the invader's standard ; at the same time, Markwald laid before the Pope the most tempting offers of large sums of money, of a doubled tribute, and of forthcoming proofs that Frederick Avas a suppositi tious chdd. These overtures were haughtily rejected ; Innocent ordered the Sicihan nobles to swear aUe- giance to theh King ; but in 1199 Markwald got the Papal Legates into his power. Two of them were overawed ; the third, Cardinal Ugohno, a future Pope, declared the wiU of Innocent in the most un- * Chronicle of Sicily, in Muratori. f Imago Mundi, by Jacobus de Aquis, in the Piedmontese Chronicles lately published. 96 THE HISTORY OF chap, compromising terms; and Markwald shrank from v, harming him. 1194-1212. j^ tte mi{jst 0£ gjj these untoward events, Inno cent wrote a letter of consolation to the orphan King, whom he caUed the especial son of the Apostohc See. ' God,' said the Pope, ' has not spared the rod ; he has taken away your father and mother ; yet He has given you a worthier father, His Vicar ; and a better mother, the Church.' Cardinal Gregory, the Pope's Legate in Sicdy, was exhorted to bestir him self ; the King's courtiers were commanded to obey this representative of the Lord paramount, and to send the wiU of the late Empress to Eome. Inno cent procured an order directed to the men of Monte- fiascone, on the part of Frederick, by Avhich they were ordered to obey the ApostoUc See, in spite of the oath they had sworn to the infant King. In the mean time, Markwald and aU his abettors, Avhether German or Itahan, had been excommuni cated ; but on his coming to Veroli, and making his submission to the Bishop of Ostia, he was absolved ; and Innocent sent into Sicdy the exact terms of the reconciliation, lest a false version of that event might get abroad. This was in August ; three months later, aU had changed for the worse. Innocent teUs the Sicilians, that 'Markwald, a second Saladin in wicked ness, is conspiring against them. The unclean spirit, finding no rest in the March, has returned into Sicdy, taking unto himseU spirits Avorse than himself, such as Diepholcl and the other Germans. Bobbery, arson, rape, and murder, are now threatening the Kingdom.' The excommunication was re-issued against these ruffians. Markwald had crossed over into the island, aided by the pirate Wilham the Fat ; FREDERICK THE SECOND 97 and unmindful of the benefits received from the late chap. Emperor avIio had raised him from the dunghill, he V- Avas plotting the death of the Emperor's child, say- 1101-1212. ing, ' Lo, this is the heir ; come, let us slay him ! ' MarkAvald had been joined by the Saracens of the West. A crusade amis preached against him; the savoiU of Phinehas amis to be employed against this Midianite, and an army Avas promised for the de liverance of the Khigdom, although the Pope groaned over the cost. Innocent also wrote to the Saracens of Western Sicily, praising them for theh past obedience, but warning them not to join Markwald ; if that invader had shoAvn himself so mercdess to his fellow Chris tians, what would he not do to Mohammedans ? he had broken his oath to the Pope, Avould he keep faith with unbelievers ? Many Christian princes had taken the cross aheady, Avho might probably touch at Sicily on their way to Palestine, hi the event of any Moslem revolt in that island. Innocent sent another letter to the regents of Sicdy, reminding them of Markwald's cruelties in the terrible year 1194. 'You know from the past Avhat the man is likely to do. Array the Kingdom against him ; I am despatching an army to your aid from Lombardy, Tuscany, and the Campagna. Think of the SicUian nobles and clergy, bUnded, roasted, drowned, by this man ! Take heed to the King, to the Kingdom, yea, to your own selves ! ' The Pope's exhortations Avere of no avad; Mark wald, beginning his march from Trapani at the head of the Germans and Saracens, and aided by the Pisans, occupied the cathedral of Monreale, and was besieging Palermo in the year 1200. VOL. I. I-I 98 THE HISTORY OF chap. Money was needed for its defence. The Bishop of Patti came forward Avith a gift of 17,000 tarens 1194-1212. to the ChanceUor of the kingdom ; the Canons of Palermo contributed 25,000 tarens.* Besides this, Innocent had coUected an army in Tuscany, which he entrusted to his cousin, James the Marshal, and which was accompanied by the Archbishops of Naples and Taranto, and by Cardinal Cencio, who was sent to act as the young King's guardian.f The Pope's soldiers first landed in Calabria, and there subdued Frederick, a German baron. They then touched at Messina, a town ever loyal to its rightful sovereign, and which had on that account been lately endowed with some commercial privileges. The army of rehef next steered for Palermo ; and the result shaU be told in the words of Anselm, the Archbishop of Naples. ' We reached Palermo on the 17th of July ; all the lords of the court, ex cept the Bishop of Catania, arrived on the same day and hour, as it pleased the Lord. The town had been besieged for twenty days by Markwald and the Saracens, and was in want of proAusions ; that same clay Ave pitched our camp in the King's garden, out side the waUs of the city. The cunning enemy Markwald sent Eegnier of Manente to treat of peace, knowing our want of money, and aAvare that delay would be fatal to us ; but the Lord above, who knows all before the event, overthrew his plans. AU the King's army, with one voice, though in dif ferent tongues, cried out, " No peace Avith an excom municated man ! " Markwald made a second attempt * Charters of Frederick. f This cardinal is not the one who succeeded InnocentinthePapacy. 1191-1212. FREDERICK THE SECOND 99 at peace ; but your scribe, Master Bartholomew, put chap, an end to it, by producing your letter, which forbade any treaty Avith that most wicked Markwald. Four days afterwards, a most stubborn battle took place between Palermo and Moureale, the latter of which MarkAvald held, lasting from nine tdl three. We oavc the victory mainly to the Marshal, who hold a castle in the rear ; for our van was twice forced to fly by the multitude of our foes ; but the Marshal, blessed by the Lord, rallied us and afterwards scat tered the Germans and Saracens in a moment, and chased them Avith slaughter, until they escaped to the mountains ; so, after leaving all theh tents and property, they Avent the way of perdition. Five hundred Pisans and a vast number of Saracens had been left to defend the heights of Monreale ; but our infantry, led by Count Gentile and others, stormed the position, and put aU they found there to the sword. The Pisan leader Benedetto, with a few others, escaped, but the Saracen Emir Magded was kiUed. It is not known whither Markwald has fled ; but his envoy Eegnier, lately the mediator be- tween men and the Devd, is thrown into prison, to gether with many others of their leaders. We know not how many were slain, but we were busy the whole of that day bringing off their spods. This day has given everlasting glory to the Marshal and to all his men ; I do not recommend him to you ; his deeds have done that aheady.' This may have been the first battle ever witnessed by Frederick ; for the child was perhaps a distant spectator of the bloody field. A document Avas found among Mark- wald's baggage, said to be the wdl of the Emperor Henry the Sixth. It bequeathed Sicily to the Pope, u 2 1194-1212, 100 THE HISTORY OF chap, ordered the restitution of the lands of the Countess Matilda, and conferred many advantages upon Mark- Avald. It is impossible now to determine whether this AviU was genuine or forged ; but Innocent Avas not slow to avail himself of it. James the Marshal was made Count of Andria for his services in Sicily, and the Electors of Germany were rebuked for in terceding for Markwald, who soon afterwards lost a second battle. In October, Innocent forbade the regents of Sicily to ahenate the royal domains, or to encroach on the treasury. Frederick was then but five years old, yet it was found necessary to interdict his councdlors from planning any marriage for him Avithout the Pope's consent. Soon Innocent was annoyed to hear that some of the nobles were treating with the foreigners, and he endeavoured to bring over the Saracens to his side by repeating his threat of a crusade in the event of theh adherence to MarkAAnld. This ruffian seems now to have saded back to Apuha, since Innocent wrote to the nobles of that country in November, reminding them that the scars of the wounds inflicted by the German Avere yet unhealed. MarkAvald, as the Pope feelingly complains, succeeded better after his defeat at Palermo than before it • for Walter the ChanceUor, angry at being superseded by a Cardinal from Eome, had gone over to the German party, and had brought the dreaded enemy into Palermo against the wdl of the other prelates. This Avily statesman was accused of aiming at the eleva tion of his brother, Count Gentile, to the throne. He entrusted him with the custody of youno- Fre- * Breve Chronicon Vaticanum. chap. V. FREDERICK THE SECOND 101 derick ; and Innocent was forced to caution the Sicihan clergy against paying any attention to the royal seal, as the King amis not a iree agent. The 1191-1212. Chancellor indeed expended the royal goods, and made grants of -the royal lands, at his OAvn wiU. He had moreover the art to obtain from Car dinal Cencio, the Pope's Legate, the Archbishopric of Palermo ; but Innocent, who was not to be duped, reftised to ratify this arrangement. The Pope Avrote, in 1201, to his Legate, in terms which I should suppose are seldom addressed to an agent of the Lateran : — ' Unless we bore especial love to your person, we should, by chastising you, teach you how you have sinned against the Church, your mother. Of your OAvn proper motion you presumed to confer the office. If one of us two is to be con founded, you are the man.' Innocent, in the mean time, had called a new champion into the field against Markwald. Phihp of Suabia, who Avas at this time struggling Avith Otho of BrunsAvick for the Empire, had set free the Sicihan captives, the victims of his savage brother Henry. Wdliam, the young usurper, had died in his Northern prison ; but his mother SibyUa was now in France, Avhere she had married her eldest daughter Albinia to Walter de Brienne, the head of a noble house in Champagne, the destinies of which were closely interwoven with those of Frederick. This French knight undertook the conquest of Sicdy in the inte rest of the Church, on condition of being made Count of Lecce and Prince of Taranto. Innocent, after long hesitation, agreed to these terms, first causing De Brienne to take an oath that he would be true to Frederick. The Bope's champion went back into 1194-1212. 102 THE HISTORY OF chap. France, in order to enhst men for the crusade against v . Markwald, an easy task in that land of pious adven turers. Thus France was pitted against Germany, a favourite device of the Popes. Meanwhile, the ChanceUor, who had lost all hope of the mitre of Palermo, acted as if he had been king, conferred and took aAvay the titles of count and baron, and appointed justiciaries, chamber lains, and stratigots, disposing of the revenues as he chose. He crossed over into Calabria, and stripped the churches of their treasures. Innocent excom municated him, and would not allow him to hold the mitres of either Palermo or Troja. Finding that he did not gain much by his rebellion, the ChanceUor stooped to make an effort for reconcdiation, and met the Pope's Legate in Apulia. But on being ordered to separate himself from the party of Diephold, he answered : ' Even if the Apostle Peter, sent by Christ himself, should lay this command on me, I would not obey him, even on pain of damnation ! ' An instru ment is still extant, by which it seems that Walter pledged some lands to one of the churches, on receiving from it a loan of ninety ounces of gold. The ChanceUor acts on the occasion in his own name, scarcely mentioning his Eoyal master in the deed. In 1201, on the 3rd of July, Innocent addressed a long letter to the boy King : — '0 that the Lord would inspire your tender years with wisdom ! 0 that you were spared the knowledge of that truth, " A man's foes are they of his own house." We overthrew your enemy Markwald at our own cost, almost unaided by your courtiers. Some of these men are, however, desirous to fish in troubled FREDERICK THE SECOND 103 Avaters; after sending back the Marshal imrowarded, chap. v they have sought peace with Markwald, an excom- ! — muuicated man. Thus they have broken their oath im-1212- to us and to you, pouring venom into the snake and oil into the furnace. They are handing over all power to Markwald, giving us a mere empty name ; and though against our commands they have drained your coffers, they refuse us the tribute promised by the Empress. They have enriched themselves and their kinsmen, male and female. Since the man who used to eat your bread has tried to supplant you, Ave have taken a course for which there is a precedent in Sicihan history. The throne of William the Good Avas strengthened in love and peace by the recaU from banishment of those nobles whom his father WiUiam the Bad had cast out. We have now granted to Walter de Brienne the principahty of Taranto and the county of Lecce, which your father promised to Wilham the son of Tancred and to his heirs, that is, to WiUiam's sister, the bride of Walter. We have taken the precaution to exact an oath from the said Count Walter, that he wdl not plot against your Crown, but that he wiU loyally combat your German foes. We would rather have him your friend than your enemy. He has already returned " with an army from France, raised at his own cost, and has gained a wonderful victory over Diephold, hitherto the master of Apulia. He is causing aU men, by our orders, to take the oath of fealty to you. Walter the Chancellor has indeed made a league Avith the beaten Diephold, but neither of them wiU be able to stand. Take care in whom you put your trust ; your courtiers are undermining your throne ; we are defending you Avith spiritual and temporal 104 THE HISTORY OF \J chap. arms. The Count of Brienne has done more for you in one day, than some of your friends, who make 1194-1212. |)roa(^ tkeir phylacteries, have done in theh whole hves. Give no heed to those who calumniate him, his bride, and her famdy, and who declare that your father banished them ; be suspicious rather of that man, whom your mother would have thrown into prison, had it not been for us. We warn you to trust the loyalty of the Count ; we are ready to receive your courtiers once more into favour U they only repent.' Innocent also wrote, in 1202, to the officials in Apuha, ordering them to undo, as far as they could, the mischief wrought by the rebeUious Walter of Palear, whom the Pope wiU not caU either bishop or chanceUor. He sent James the Marshal once more into SicUy, and proposed to employ De Brienne against the Germans in that island, as the French chief had twice routed Diephold on the mainland. 'Markwald wiU not await you in the field,' says Innocent, Avriting to Walter, ' but he wiU betake himseU to some castle. The Counts Eoger of Chieti and James of Tricarico can deal with Diephold. FoUow my advice without delay.' The Pope gave his champion letters of credit on the merchants, authorising him to pledge the revenues of Apuha, and to borrow money even on usurious terms, under the warrant of the Holy See. But Markwald Avas overpowered by a stronger enemy than De Brienne in the summer of this year ; after having subdued aU SicUy except Messina, and after having got possession of the King's person by means of Count Gentde, he died bellowing with agony, unable to survive an operation for the stone. This event took place at 1194-1212. FREDERICK THE SECOND 105 Patti, when he was on the point of gaining Messina.* chap. Innocent rejoiced over the death of his arch enemy, and congratulated those Sicihan prelates who had not bowed the knee to Baal. Death had dehvered him from other Germans, besides Markwald of damn able memory. Conrad, the Duke of Spoleto, was cut off Avhen on his way to take Markwald's place ; another of their compatriots, who had killed the Bishop of Liege, died pitiably, together with his brother. The German party in Italy was all but annihilated by the end of 1202, and the Pope sent the joyful news to the archbishop of Cologne, recommending the Ger man prelates to take warning by the fate of others, and not to despise the keys of Peter. The best proof of the turn which the affairs of the Kingdom were now taking is, that Walter of Palear at this time made his submission to the Pope. Lmocent wrote to him in the spring of 1203, giving him once more his title of Chancellor. He rebuked him for the past, but received him into favour, after taking many precautions for his future good beha viour. The chief cause which brought over Walter was his enmity to WiUiam Kapparon, another Ger man, who had taken the place of Markwald and caUed himself guardian of the King and chief Cap tain of SicUy. The tyrant harassed the Archbishop of Monreale, banishing his friends and torturing his servants. Innocent sternly reproved the Canons of this Church for wasting its treasures, for giving its precious ornaments to the wife of Kapparon, for robbing the Prelate of his revenues, and for rifling the tomb of his predecessor. They had also offered * Breve Chronicon Vaticanum. 1194-1212. 106 THE HISTORY OF chap, outrages to Innocent's messengers. Excommunica tion for aU these crimes was most distinctly threatened. What must have been the general state of the domi nions of Frederick during his minority, when even the clergy within sight of his own palace set an ex ample of turbulence and rapacity ! Everything seemed to hang upon Innocent's hfe, as the King himself was only eight years old ; for upon a rumour of the Pope's death being spread, many of the chief towns of Apuha revolted from De Brienne. In 1204, Innocent despatched Cardinal Gerard Al- lucingolo, in whom he had especial confidence, as Ids Legate into Sicdy, observing to the prelates and nobles that Satan had sifted them as wheat. The young King had before sent to Eome envoys, among whom was Anselm the archbishop of Naples ; the Cardinal brought Innocent's reply in October, which it was hoped would put an end to the ciAul wars that had torn to pieces the Kingdom ever since the death of the Empress. Even WiUiam Kapparon had asked for peace ; he was told that his request needed much consideration, and he was referred to the Car dinal Legate. AUucingolo in vain strove to reconcde Kapparon and the ChanceUor ; he had better suc cess with the King, with whom he became a great favourite. He found, however, that he could do nothing at Palermo, owing to Kapparon's faith lessness ; so he awaited the Pope's orders at Messina. AU this tune Apulia was the theatre of a war between Diephold and Walter de Brienne. The soldier of the Papacy, who was known as the Gentle Count, would probably have obtained the crown of SicUy in the event of Frederick's death. Walter FREDERICK THE SECOND 107 had so much confidence in the prowess of his own char countrymen, that he used to boast that even armed Z: Germans would not dare to attack unarmed French- 1194-1212- men. However, in the year 1205, notwithstanding his vaunt, he was surprised by Diephold, and ched of his Avounds in the hands of his hated enemy. By the Princess his widow he left a son, whom Frede rick long afterwards regarded with jealousy as a possible pretender to the Crown, since the boy was grandson to Tancred the Usurper. Thus, in the space of three years, both Markwald of Anweiler and Walter de Brienne had vanished from the scene, greatly to the advantage of the Throne. Innocent wrote, in 1206, to the Saracens in Sicily, who held EnteUa, Giato, Platani, and other strong holds, advising them to stand true to their allegiance ; to this letter they paid little heed, as they very soon made an inroad upon the Christians of the plains, when the palace at Palermo was once more distracted by rival factions. Peter the Count of Celano, who was Grand Justiciary of Apulia and of the Terra di Lavoro, and who had married the ChanceUor's sister, now made overtures to Innocent for reconcdia- tion. The wary old statesman seems to have been a man of httle faith ; he would not put himself into the Pope's hands. Innocent rebuked him, gravely tell ing him, ' It is a crime to beheve that the Apostohc See wiU begin to make itself a liar in your case, since it ever stands in truth. 0 noble Count, who has so pitiably bewitched you ? Think of the end of Mark wald, the wicked man who was like a cedar of Lebanon. Walter the Chancellor found himself overthrown when he entered the lists against God. Diephold pretended to reconcile himself with us ; 1194-1212. 108 THE HISTORY OF chap, he tried to deceive us, and lies bound in the cords of his own sins. Do not delay returning to the aUegi- ance which you owe to the Church.' The Pope, in the last-quoted letter, refers to Diephold, who had made his submission, and had then been absolved. Unable to remain quiet long, the German saded to Palermo, and for a time got the King into his hands, until the child was rescued by the ChanceUor. Diephold, after passing some time in prison, escaped back to Salerno. Other parts of the realm were equaUy disturbed. Li 1207 Cuma, a nest of pirates, was destroyed by the Nea politans, who assaded it by sea and land.* Little respect was shown by the great maritime powers to the Sicilian throne during the reign of Constance, and her son's long and disastrous minority. In 1198 the Genoese admiral laid hold of a pirate in the harbour of Palermo, and woidd not release him until the Empress had threatened reprisals. StiU, in 1200, Frederick granted 10,000 ounces of gold to the Genoese, besides giving them houses at Messina, Syracuse, Trapani, and Naples ; they had also valuable privileges of jurisdiction and security throughout the Kingdom. In 1204 the Pisans seized upon Syracuse, and turned out the Bishop and the townsmen ; but this city Avas recovered by the Genoese, aided by Henry, Count of Malta, a renowned captain, whom Innocent praised five years afterwards for his feats in Canclia. The Pisans also blockaded Messina for three months and a half ; and in 1207 they made a descent on Palermo, in the interest of WiUiam Kapparon, but were driven off by the Chancellor, f * Giannone ; Istoria Civile. f Caffari ; Ann. Genuen. 1194-1212. FREDERICK THE SECOND 109 Nobles and prelates, Christians and Saracens, French chap. and Germans, seemed to vie with each other in . ravaging Sicily and Apuha. The resources of the Kingdom seemed to have vanished. Frederick's Nor man grandsire, the great Eoger, had been able to equip fleets of one hundred and fifty galleys, which had spread havoc among the African Moslem, and had insulted the Greek Emperor in his palace at Constantinople. In those clays the office of High Admhal Avas something more than a mere name. But at the beginning of the Thirteenth century, when the King of Sicily was setting about a perilous enter prise, he amis forced to accept money from Eome, and to depend on Genoa for a naval convoy, thus reversing the usual order of things. So low had the poAver of Sicily sunk, OAving to the German conquest and the subsequent disorders. Well might Frede rick thus address himseU to his royal brethren : — ' To aU the kings of the world, and to all the princes of the universe, the innocent boy, King of Sicily, called Frederick ; Greeting in God's name ! Assemble your selves, ye nations ; draw nigh, ye kings ; hasten hither, ye princes, and see if any sorrow be like unto my sorrow ! My parents died, ere I could know theh caresses ; I did not deserve to see their faces ; and I, like a gentle lamb among wolves, feU into slavish dependence upon men of various tribes and tongues. I, the offspring of so august a union, was handed over to servants of all sorts, who presumed to draw lots for my garments, and for my Eoyal per son. Germans, Tuscans, Sicihans, barbarians, con spired to worry me. My daily bread, my drink, my freedom, are all measured out to me in scanty pro portion. No King am I ; I am ruled instead of 1194-1212. 110 THE HISTORY OF chap, ruling ; I beg favours, instead of granting them. — My subjects are silly and quarrelsome. Since there fore my Eedeemer liveth, and can raise me out of such a pool of misery, again and again I beseech you, 0 ye princes of the earth, to aid me to with stand slaves, to set free the son of Caesar, to raise up the crown of the Kingdom, and to gather together again the scattered people ! Unless you avenge me, you yourselves wiU faU into the hke dangers.'* In spite of these distressing pubhc misfortunes, the chdd's private education was weU managed. Mussul man instructors appear to have taught him the various branches of learning, in which at that time they were unrivaUed ; while the Archbishop of Taranto and the notary John of Trajetto, personages whom he afterAvards styled his foster-fathers, exercised a general supervision over his studies. The Eoyal palace at Palermo is described by Peter of Eboli, from whose poem we have aheady quoted. It had a courtyard, in the middle of which a fountain played. The great haU, where the ChanceUor of the realm presided, rested upon forty pillars. There were six rooms adorned with various paintings ; among which were the Creation, the Deluge, the journey of Abraham, the overthrow of Pharaoh, the feats of David, and the events of Barbarossa's last Crusade, with its gloomy end.f In the days of Hemy the Sixth, the poet described the nations of earth bringing tribute to this gorgeous palace ; things were sadly altered in the reign of Henry's son. The boy had scarcely * Von Eaumer believes this letter to be genuine. t There are some frescoes in the Galilee at Durham of the same age. FREDERICK THE SECOND 111 a friend in the world, if Ave except his guardian at chap. Eome. v- Li 1207, Pope Innocent thus addressed Frederick, lWi~12n- at that time twelve years old: — ' We congratulate you on your behig freed from the custody of the uiiAvorthy. The avoU said to the eAve : — "I will suckle your lamb better than you can." Just so these men put aside the guardianship to which your pious mother entrusted you. We were caUed upon to act as your protector both by your mother's wiU and by the old custom of the Kingdom. We have often passed sleepless nights, while defending your interests. Hoav often have letters in your behalf Avearied the pens of our notaries, and dried the inkstands of our scribes ! How often have we postponed the business of the world to your affahs ! We have spared not our own brother or cousins, whose tods have borne good fruit. We now hope that He, through whom kings rule, wiU establish your throne, and give you courage and virtue, by which you may withstand your foes and govern your people happUy. We warn you to be guided by those faithful counseUors with Avhom you noAV are.' Walter of Palear was once more installed as ChanceUor of the realm ; but the Pope addressed a stern rebuke to the Sicihan nobles, who had given no aid to their young King, when WiUiam Kapparon was lording it in the palace at Palermo, when Diephold was harassing the mainland, and when the Saracens were in ftdl rebellion. In the year 1208, Eichard, the Pope's brother, aided by Eoffrid, the warlike Abbot of Monte Cas- sino, took the lead in rescuing Sora and Eocca d'Arce, two fortresses, perched upon high rocky 1194-1212, 112 THE HISTORY OF chap. hiUs, and thought to be impregnable, together with many other towns, from the grasp of Conrad von Marlei ; the latter being one of the most savage and treacherous of those German tyrants of Italy, who for the last seventeen years had been torturing, murdering, and burning at theh pleasure. Fre derick, grateful for this service, created Eichard Count of Sora, and Innocent himseU came to assist at the ceremony of his brother's investiture, which took place at Fossa Nuova. The new Count took an oath of fealty to the Pope for his possession. While at Sora, Innocent regulated the coinage of the Cam- pagna. He refused to receive the customary tribute of provisions, that he might not be a burden to the various churches.* The same year he held a parhament at San Ger mano, which was attended by the counts and barons of the Kingdom. He appointed Peter Count of Celano, his new convert, and Eichard Count of Aquda, regents of the realm ; its peace Avas to be maintained, and private wars were forbidden on pain of outlawry. Two hundred knights were to serve for a year at the expense of theh feudal lords, to preserve peace. They were to act as police, and were to be at the orders of the Cap tains set over the Kingdom. Innocent wrote a letter to the nobles, in which he regretted that the heat of the summer prevented his coming into Apulia; but his cousin, James the Marshal, and other messengers, were charged with the execution of the new statutes. The Pope was now occupied with a plan for the future welfare of his young Avard. * Chron. of Fossa Nuova. FREDERICK THE SECOND 1 13 Six years before this time he had proposed to unite chap. Frederick in marriage with a daughter of Arragon. v' It Avas hoped that the queen-dowager of that king- n9'1-!2!2- dom Avould bring live hundred knights to Sicily, to serve in the Avar against Markwald ; revenues were to be assigned her, and she Avas to act as Frederick's mother, bringing her daughter Avith her. This plan chd not take effect, though a formal embassy was sent to Arragon, and the Princely pair Avere be trothed. Tavo years later, Innocent forbade the Duke of Brabant to think of offering the hand of his daughter to Frederick, as the King was already bespoken. In 1207, Innocent again refers to the matter. We find him, in 1208, writing thus to King Pedro, who four years before had of his own accord acknowledged himself to be the vassal of Eome: — 'What laziness Avithholds you from car rying out your agreement ? We have mentioned it both in your presence, and in our letters to you ; you should do more than send a couple of galleys to the help of the young King. You once seemed to be eager for the match ; you ought not to delay it. Your sister wdl have a noble husband, the offspring of Emperors and Kings ; he is of royal blood both by father and mother. He is endowed with virtues beyond his years ; he is passing from the gate of boyhood into years of discretion at a quicker pace than usual, whence we may expect the happiest results. His Kingdom is rich and noble ; it is the navel and harbour of other realms ; it wdl be of advantage to Arragon, and it is especially beloved by us, being the pecuhar possession of the successors of St. Peter. The Bishop of Mazara goes to you for the purpose of bringing the bride. Let your sister VOL. I. I 114 THE HISTORY OF chap, travel with proper attendance, not avoiding ex- ! pense, as we trust in God that it wdl be made up 1194-1212. tQ yQ^ tenfold.' Innocent also sent a letter in the same style to the queen-mother, advising her to accompany her daughter. He wrote once more, in 1208, from Sora to King Pedro, referring to the bride's proposed dowry, and forbidding any further delay. The Pope had much Sicihan correspondence on his hands about this time. The turbulent Chan ceUor, who had obtained the mitre of Catania, was warned to hold in reverence his superior, the Arch bishop of Monreale. But the great event of the year 1209 was Frederick's first entanglement in a dispute with Eome, although he was only fourteen. He seems to have flown into a rage and banished some of the Canons of Palermo cathedral, on account of their refusing to proceed to a fresh election, and of their making an appeal to Eome. ' We are amazed,' remarked Innocent, ' at the conduct of your advisers. Do not usurp our office in things spiritual ; be con tent with the temporal power which you hold from us. Beware of the doom of Uzzah and Uzziah ; lay not hands on the Ark! It is quite a mistake on your part to think that we confirmed to your mother that privdege concerning appeals to Eome by the Sicdian clergy, of which you speak ; we refused it on her sending ambassadors to us. Do you perse vere in your reverence for Eome, and recall the Canons.' It is said that Sancia, the queen-dowager of Arragon, claimed the crown of SicUy for her second son Fernando, then in holy orders, in the event of Fre derick's dying without leaving issue by her daughter FREDERICK THE SECOND 115 Constance.* Perhaps this union, so earnestly de- CI^AP- sired by Innocent, amis so long deferred, owing to the unAvillingness of the lady to take the place of 119*-i2i2- her younger sister, and to marry a boy at least ten years her junior. She had already been the bride of Emmerich, the king of Hungary, and had borne him a son in the year 1204, at a time Avhen Frede rick, her proposed second husband, was only nine years old. But, by the spring of 1209, aU obstacles to the Arragonese aUiance were removed. Constance saded to Palermo, attended by her brother Alfonso, Count of Provence, and by many Catalan and Pro- A'encal knights. The wedding took place probably in Ma}T, amidst the greatest rejoicings. But these Avere rudely interrupted by the death of Count AUonso and several other knights, owing to the badness of the ah, which brought on a fever, f The young couple, driven from Palermo, visited Catania, Messina, and Cefalu : and Frederick took advantage of the presence of five hundred foreign knights, to estabhsh his authority over all the country between Palermo and Messina. J In the next year, 1210, Frederick was once more in chsgrace at Eome. His Queen, a very resolute lady, Avho had seen something of the world, had opened his eyes to the deceitful character of his Chancellor, and had caused the banishment of that officer from court. § Walter's old shortcomings seem to have been completely overlooked by Innocent. The Pope thus addressed the King: — 'As you are now past childhood, you should put away childish things. * Zurita. f Gianone, Istoria Civile. t Fran. Pipin. § Breve Chronicon Vaticanum. I 2 116 THE HISTORY OF chap. The greater the dangers which threaten your King dom, the more vigorously ought you to strive, in 1194-1212. order to avoid them. You should make a distinc tion between your different courtiers. The Bishop of Catania, Chancellor of the realm, has been your guardian hitherto, and has undergone many toils and sorrows in your behalf. But now, forgetful of his services, you take no notice of him. Be not surprised, if the other nobles of the Kingdom fad off from you. What has foUowed his rethement should teach you the fody of your conduct. Where now are the men who told you, liars as they were, that if the ChanceUor should be dismissed, you would gain many adherents ? We have to think, not only of you, but of the Eoman Church, which is even at this moment, steadily opposing the Emperor in your behalf. Therefore, recall the ChanceUor forthwith, and take his advice henceforth ; let no one assad him, or we shaU take it as an outrage done to our selves.' Frederick did not obey the Pope's haughty commands, for the name of Walter of Palear occurs no longer in the Eoyal edicts. Innocent addressed a letter in the same year to Queen Constance, wherein he confirmed by his Apostohc authority the grant of many towns, made to her by her new husband. They seem in part to have formed the usual doAvry of Sicihan Queens. One of them was Taormina, together with all the honour of Monte San Angelo in Apuha. Early in the year 1212, she gave birth to Frederick's first-born son, who received the name of Henry. The infant was very soon afterwards crowned at Palermo, and adopted as his father's associate in the Kingdom. Although Frederick had from the time of his 1194-1212. FREDERICK THE SECOND 117 birth httle or no authority over Apulia, he had chap. dealings of various kinds Avith the different churches - of that country. The groat seer, Abbot Joachim, came to the Court at Palermo in 1200, and obtained leave to build a refuge for the brethren of his monastery in that part of the Sila Avhich adjoins Cosenza, where the pass is choked up by the winter snows. Six years later, Joachim's successor in the Abbey of Flora obtained a confirmation of the privdeges granted to that foundation by Frederick's parents. Pope Innocent afterwards gave a decision in favour of the Church of Flora against some rival monks, on the ground that Frederick, whose grant was called in question, had at that time been in the grasp of Wilham Kapparon, and that the Eoyal seal must therefore have been improperly used. The Church of Salerno, where lay the bones of St. Mat thew and of Pope Gregory the Seventh, was taken under the Eoyal protection, and no stratigot or count was allowed to meddle with its possessions. The Archbishop had suffered much at the hands of the Germans, and had been borne off to an Alpine prison. Frederick granted a bath at Amalfi, which had come into his hands, to Manso, the brother of the Cardinal of St. MarceUus. He afterwards, when on his way to Eome, handed over his ruinous chapel at Amalfi to the same dignitary, permitting him to use its endowments for the purpose of enriching canon- ries and almshouses. He further allowed the Car dinal a yearly revenue of 1000 gold tarens for the new foundation. The King made . large grants of wood from his forests near Maddalone for the pur pose of repahing the church and other buddings of 1194-1212. 118 THE HISTORY OF chap. Monte Vergine, professing with unusual warmth - his devotion to the Mother of the Saviour. In another instrument, he took the Abbot and brethren of that monastery under his special protection, en dowing it with lands and villeins, to the glory of the Queen of Virgins. Balsamo, the Abbot of Cava, another of the great southern monasteries, weU known to modern traveUers from its picturesque situation, obtained the right of jurisdiction over the vassals of his lands, to the prejudice of the King's stratigot at the neighbouring town of Salerno. The Bishop of Ascoli had his see on the border between the Empire and the Kingdom ; Frederick confirmed him in those of his possessions which lay in the latter realm, though the King afterwards found the Bishop's successors troublesome neighbours. Fur ther to the south, the men of Pescara were forbidden to annoy the Abbot of St. Clement ; Frederick hoped to settle aU differences on his coming among them in person. The Archbishopric of Bari was held in 1207 by an Illustrious man, Berard of Castaca, who was the most loyal of all Frederick's Apulian subjects, and who hved to attend the death-bed of his master. The King made his first grant to this good prelate in 1209, wherein he refers to the long and faithful ser vices already rendered to him by Berard. A year later, the Archbishop had a grant of the empty space around the walls of Bari, for the purpose of building granaries and houses, as his church required fresh buddings for its stores. Frederick bestowed privdeges on the monasteries of Gualdo and Scolcola ; those of the vassals who enjoyed common of pasture on the Eoyal domains were allowed right of way for their 1194-1212. FREDERICK THE SECOND 119 beasts by day or night. The reapers and husband- chap. men of the monasteries Avere not to be molested ; . and nothing deposited in the sacred buildings was to be meddled with by the King's officials, unless it belonged to enemies or traitors to the crown. The see of Furcone Avas not destined to a long existence, yet a castle and hamlet Avere given to it. Sibylla, the Queen of Tancred, had bestowed certain lands on the Archbishop of Taranto ; the gift had been ratified by SibyUa's enemies, the parents of Frede rick ; and it Avas confirmed by the youth himself in 1210. The rehgious foundations in Sicily, being under the King's own eye, were favoured at least as much as those in Apulia. In 1200, the Eoyal child thanked the Canons of Balermo for services rendered at his utmost need (the grant is dated a few months after the defeat of Markwald), and for their prayers in behaU of the souls of Frederick's father and mother, whose bodies Avere lying in the cathedral of Palermo. The Canons had paid much money into Ids treasury ; he therefore gave them the land of Sabuco, the revenues of which were to be shared among them, and were not to be touched by theh Archbishop. Thinking he had not yet clone enough for them, Frederick granted them, seven years later, a miU standing on a stream in the Saracen country, caded the Kadi's mdl, and allowed them to keep a boat for the purpose of fishing in the harbour of Palermo, which was to pay no duty. He added two new prebends to the cathedral in 1210, each with a yearly endowment of 300 tarens, to be derived from the tunny fishery. The chapter would then consist of twenty-two Canons. Frederick, a year later, highly 1194-1212. 120 THE HISTORY OF chap, praised Parisio, the Archbishop- elect of Palermo, for his loyalty to the King's late parents ; and referring to his OAvn anointing and coronation in the noble cathedral, says that as it is the first church in the Kingdom, it ought hkewise to be the wealthiest. He therefore grants to it aU the Jews of Palermo, pre sent and future, and all the profits from the dyeing trade, two sources of revenue which had before be longed to the crown. In the same year, Parisio got for his church the tithes of the tunny fishery, to be received in kind, not in money, as before. In a later charter, Frederick granted to his mother church 29,200 tarens a year, besides corn from the harbour, and flagons of pure must from the Eoyal vineyards. There was to be a special dole of alms to the church on the anniversaries of all the Kings of Sicdy, from Eoger downwards, and on the great ecclesiastical feasts ; the old grants Avere confirmed, and no med dling was aUowed, under threat of a severe penalty, with the jurisdiction of the clergy over wiUs, mar riages, and the unlucky Jews. Elias, one of the Canons, a great favourite, had a grant of half a vine yard held under the croAvn by Ibrahim, a Saracen. As to the burghers of Palermo, who had stood firm, as Frederick says, when others Avere wavering, they were allowed to bring their wares and property in and out of the gates, without paying any toll. There was a duty of two per cent, and one per cent, on foreign produce, depending on whether it came in great or small quantities. A smaU tax was also levied on wine and oil. The Palermitans were allowed to pasture their cattle, and to cut wood, in the Eoyal domains. Various churches and monas teries in the capital were highly favoured. FREDERICK THE SECOND 121 Monreale amis not far from Palermo. The Arch- chap. bishop Caro had long been at variance Avith his _ Canons; the lung, aided by Cardinal Gerard, the 1194"1212' Legate, made peace between the disputants, in order, as he said, that the Church in question, which Avas the work of kings, might not perish. Caro Avas aUowed to seize the refractory Moslem vassals of his see, Avherever he could take them, even in Palermo itself ; and this permission amis often repeated. He might also confer upon whomsoever he pleased the goods of persons bound to defend his church, if these men neglected their duty. He might hold his courts in Palermo, and might enter and quit that city toU free ; his vassals of Monreale had the like privilege. Frederick, Avdien six years old, granted Calatabiano to the see of Messina, Avhich had been much cherished by his grandfather Eoger, and by his father Henry. In 1211, Berard, its Archbishop, was rewarded for having been lavish of his treasures and for having endangered his person in the King's service, by a grant of the Eoyal garden at Messina and of a tenth of the harbour dues, besides many villages. The ChanceUor Walter gave so good a report of the loyalty of the Messinese in 1199, to which he himself could bear witness, that a charter was bestowed upon them, giving them perfect freedom of traffic through out the whole of the Khigdom. A hke privilege was granted to the men of Trapani. Orso, the Bishop of Ghgenti, procured two grants for his see. Eoger, the Bishop of Catania, had in 1200 a con firmation of certain rights which Adelasia, the Coimtess of Aderno, Frederick's cousin, had con ferred upon the bishopric. Its mitre was bestowed 1194-1212. 122 THE HISTORY OF chap, upon Walter of Palear, the crafty ChanceUor, after the Pope had turned him out of the see of Palermo. The Bishop was much harassed by two turbulent neighbours, the Counts of Pagano and Parisio, who even ventured to bear arms against the King himself. They were pronounced rebels, and part of theh con fiscated estates was given to the Church of Catania, at the request of the Bishop and chapter, to make good losses sustained. The Bishop of Patti was rewarded for his loan in the year 1200 by a gift of some lands, which had been held by two traitors in succession, one being a Pisan. The Bishop of Cefalu held a grant of the dues of that port, and of certain tenements besides. Frederick was depicted in mosaic on the waUs of this cathedral as addressing its Prelate thus : — ' Go to Cairo and Damascus, and question the sons of Saladin, and speak my words boldly, that you may be the better able to reform the state of the men.' The King took advantage of the Bishop's absence on this eastern embassy to remove from Cefalu to Palermo two porphyry tombs, which had been placed in the cathedral by King Eoger. The Bishop, on his return, excommunicated the King ; and peace was only restored in 1215, on the payment of a sum of money.* The. men of Calatagirona were excused 100 of the 250 sailors Avhich they had been of old bound to supply, so loyal had been their behaviour during the troubles. The great mihtary Brotherhoods were highly favoured. WUham of Orleans, the preceptor of the Templars in Sicily, procured a grant of a viUage for their house at Messina. He also obtained a boat at Lentini for the * Roccho Pirri. 1194-1212. FREDERICK THE SECOND 123 use of the Order, and had leave to carry water through chap. a pipe into a reservoir, there to preserve fish. The house of the Templars at Aidone was excused a tribute of grain. The Hospitallers Avere taken under the especial protection of the King ; they had fuU leave to come and go in all places throughout the realm ; their house at Messina amis freed from aU vassalage, and the pious were encouraged to endow it in theh last Avills. The goods and persons of the knights Avere, moreover, protected from insult. But there was a third Order Avhich had peculiar claims on a Hohenstaufen prince, and in which Frederick ahvays through life found his best friends. The Teutonic Order of St. Mary in Jerusalem had been founded a very few years before Frederick's bhth by his uncle and namesake, who led the com rades of Barbarossa to the siege of Acre. This brotherhood devoted itself to the sick and wounded Germans, who suffered from the neglect of the elder Orders, recruited as these institutions were for the most part from France. Frederick's father had fostered the new foundation, and his son proved himseU its steady friend. When but seven years old he confirmed the grants of his parents to the Teutonic house at Palermo, bestowing upon it further privdeges. Another house which the Order had at Barletta was endowed with lands near the famous plain of Cannae, close to the bridge over the classic Aufidus. This house had also the right of seU- jurisdiction. In 1205, lands adjoining the waU of Palermo, in a place called Alza, were given by the King to the Teutonic Order ; Gerard, its master, a man of approved hospitahty and zeal, was aUowed a boat ; no harbour-master was to meddle with this 124 THE HISTORY OF chap, bark, or Avith the nets of the brethren. In 1206, Frederick bestoAved upon the Order the village of 1194-1212. Tussano, iying between Salerno and Eboli ; the knights were to have self-jurisdiction, except in criminal cases involving loss of Ufe or Umb. Frederick's authority, as we have already said, was at this time confined to Sicily. His possessions on the mainland were being overrun by an hereditary foe, whom the Pope was unable to control. During the ten years that foUowed the death of the Emperor Henry VI, Germany had been torn to pieces by two rival claimants — Phdip of Hohenstaufen, Frederick's uncle, and Otho of Brunswick, — the former being favoured by France and by the greater part of Ger many, the latter by England and by the Pope. Phihp was murdered at Bamberg, when just on the eve of complete success ; Otho, in consequence, descended the Alps in security, and was croAvned Emperor at Eome by Pope Innocent in 1209. But Otho proved as hard to manage as any of the old Franconian or Suabian Kaisers. He refused to give up to the Church the lands of the Countess Matilda, which for the last hundred years had been a vexed question between the Popes and Emperors. Although he had taken an oath at his coronation that he would not wrong the young King of Sicily, he could not withstand the invitations addressed to him by those obstinate rebels, Peter the Count of Celano, and Diephold the German Count of Acerra. In 1210 Otho entered Frederick's dominions by way of Eieti. He was soon master of Capua and Salerno, Avhich had been placed in his hands by the two Counts. He bestowed on Diephold the Duchy of Spoleto, which the Pope looked upon as his own 1191-1212. FREDERICK THE SECOND 125 fief. The new Abbot of Monte Cassino went forth chap. to meet Otho, much against the Avdl of the monks ; . the lands of the Abbey Avere in consequence un harmed. Aqidno hold out against the Germans, under the command of Thomas and its other lords — the most loyal of the continental nobles. Naples surrendered to Otho, and Avas therefore excommu nicated by its Archbishop, in obedience to a stringent order from the Lateran. The Emperor wintered at Capua, where he busied himself in constructing machines, to be employed against Aversa and other refractory towns.* In November of this year (1210) Innocent, pro voked beyond aU patience at the rebellious career of his old aUy, after quoting the text, ' It repents me that I made man,'f excommunicated Otho, and absolved the Emperor's subjects from their oath. Great was the confusion introduced into Itahan politics when it was seen that the Pope, the natural head of the Guelf party, and the Emperor, the head of the house of Guelf, were ranged on opposite sides. Some ItaUan cities preferred the name to the prin ciple ; others the principle to the name. J Thus Milan resolved to cleave to any one who was detested by her Hohenstaufen foes ; she left the side of the Pope, her natural ally, and, having first taken up arms in behaU of Otho, she five years later pleaded his cause in the great Lateran Council. On the other hand, Pisa, the constant foe of Innocent, took the part of the Emperor, even though he bore the name * Chron. of Fossa Nuova. f See his letter to the Archbishop of Eavenna. J I must remark that the name Guelf was not at this time ap plied to a political party, excejst in Tuscany. 1194-1212. 126 THE HISTORY OF chap, of GueU : she sent forty galleys to the isle of Procida, to co-operate with Otho ; and was ready to aid him, just as she had once aided his enemy Henry VI, in achieving the conquest of Sicdy.* StiU further, Azzo, the Marquis of Este, a far-seeing statesman who two years before had become lord of Ferrara, disregarding the fact that he and the Emperor were both descended from the same GueU stock, forsook the cause of Otho, and placed himself at the orders of the Church. By the autumn of the year 1211, Otho had over run all Apuha and a great part of Calabria, f He disdained the offers of his boyish rival, who en gaged to abdicate his paternal inheritance and to pay much gold and silver, if oidy left in peaceable pos session of Sicily. $ It seems strange that the South ern Italians, who had for the last twenty years undergone much at the hands of German masters, should welcome another Teutonic invader. The Bishop of Melfi, a man of infamous character, was a warmer partisan of Otho than any other Apulian prelate ; he had embraced the Emperor's cause just after taking an oath to Frederick ; he was afterwards deposed by the Pope. Another Prelate, he of Sor rento, carried over his dependants to Otho and dared to celebrate mass after the excommunication of his city.§ Frederick was trembling at Palermo, and had a galley moored under the waUs of his palace, to fly in the event of Otho's success. || But before the German could complete his conquest by crossing * Chron. of Pisa. ¦f Chron. of Fossa Nuova. 1 Ann. Aclmunt. " § Innocent's letters for 1212 and 1213. II Albert von Beham. FREDERICK THE SECOND 127 over into Sicily and leading away captive the King chap. of the priests (so Frederick amis called), ho amis v" forced to hurry back into his native land, where his i194-m2- prospects Avere becoming gloomy. The Archbishop of Mayence, Avho had already proclaimed throughout Germany the excommunication of Otho, the Prelates of Magdeburg and Treves, the King of Bohemia, the Landgrave of Thuringia, and the Dukes of Austria, Bavaria, and Saxony, none of whom had ever borne any great love to Otho, now took advantage of the Kaiser's quarrel with his old patron Innocent. They planned nothing less than the transfer of the Empire from the intruding house of Guelf back to the old Hohenstaufen line, which had ruled Germany for sixty glorious years before the Pontificate of Inno cent, and the late civd wars consequent thereon. Tlds plan Avas formed at Nuremberg, where the Princes met in the October of 1211, branded Otho as a' heretic, and resolved on the election of young Frederick of Sicdy. The instrument, drawn up by the worthy Germans, runs thus, in a truly national key: — ' God Almighty, seeing by Adam's fall that mankind would abuse free wdl, and would become involved in the nets of contentions, set up the Holy Eoman Emphe, that its Lord, hke a God on earth, might rule kings and nations, and maintain peace and justice. After the Greek Emperors ceased to do their duty, Holy Mother Church and the Eoman Senate and people, recalling the said Empire, trans planted its root into mighty Germany, that this do minion might be propped up by our stately princes, our vigorous knights, and our most brave warriors. The Empire without a head is like a ship in a storm without a master pilot. Heresies are spring- 128 THE HISTORY OF chap, ing up, and the universal Church is being harassed. Bees are scattered, when they lose their queen ; so 1194-1212. hingdomS) if unrestrained by a bit, go to ruin. The sun is eclipsed ; the world needs an Emperor to check disorders. The nations have cried aloud to God, who has awoke from sleep and bethought him of the Empire. He has inspired us, the Princes of Germany Avho have the right of election, to draw nigh to the throne, and to meet together in one place, as is our duty. We have been each of us ex amined as to his will ; we have invoked the Holy Ghost and gone tlirough aU customary rites ; we have all in common turned our eyes to the iUustrious lord, the King of Germany and Sicily, the Duke of Suabia, as being worthy of the honour. Though young in years, he is old in character ; though his person is not full grown, his mind has been by Nature AvonderfuUy endowed ; he exceeds the com mon measure of his equals ; he is blest with virtues before his day, as becomes one of the true blood of that august stock, the Caesars of Germany, who have ever been unsparing of their treasures and persons, in order to increase the honour and might of the Empire and the happiness of their loyal subjects.' Such was the report of young Frederick that had penetrated beyond the Alps, and had directed the attention of the German Electors to the only sur viving heir male of the Hohenstaufen line. He had aheady come under their notice, having, as Duke of Suabia, granted privileges to the monas teries of Tennebach and Salem. The Teutonic Order must also have been loud hi his praise. The Electors resolved fortliAvith to open a communi cation with their future lord. Two brave Suabian1 V. 1194-1212. FREDERICK THE SECOND 129 knights undertook the hard task of traversing Italy chap and gaining the consent of Pope Innocent and King Frederick to the intended change. Henry von Neifen stayed behind in Lombardy, to prepare the old Imperiahst cities for the expected coming of their Sicilian lord ; Anselm von Justingen traveUed on to Eome, Avhere he won over both Pope and people to the side of the proposed Emperor. He then laid the tempting bait of the Imperial crown before the King at Palermo. Many difficulties arose ; Queen Constance besought her young hus band not to leave her ; the Sicihan nobles, who looked with natural distrust upon anything that came from Germany, seconded the queen's en treaties. But Frederick had now a successor to his Sicihan realm ; the proposed adventure was of the kind most hkely to allure a young and daring knight ; and he made ready for his voyage to Ger many.* * Ursperg. VOL. I. K 130 THE HISTORY OF CHAPTEE VI. A.D. 1212— A.D. 1220. ' Te csede gaudentes Sicambri Compositis yenerantur armis.' Horace. chap. TTREDEBICK'S removal from Palermo to the seat J_ of his Hohenstaufen forefathers was soon to be 1212-1220. carried out. But the authorities at the Lateran de manded guarantees for his future good behaviour. The Cardinal of St. Theodore, who was Legate in Sicdy, received Frederick's oath of fealty to the Pope, in consideration of the grant of the Kingdom made long before to its youthful possessor.* Innocent, indeed, seems at this time to have taken aU possible precautions for keeping the Emperor- elect steady in his allegiance to Eome. He exacted three oaths from the boy at Messina, in February 1212. By the first, Frederick vowed obedience to the Holy See ; by the second, he acknowledged that he owed his hfe and his realm to Innocent, and pro mised on that account to be more devout than any of his pious predecessors at Palermo. He under took to go to Eome, to profess himseU in public the Pope's vassal for the Kingdom of Sicily, and to pay a yearly tribute of 1000 golden schifati. By the third * See the letters for 1245. 1212-1220. FREDERICK THE SECOND 131 oath, Frederick agreed to Innocent's innovation as chap. regarded elections to Sicilian sees. The chapter amis to choose the bishop, and the King amis bound to give his assent.* The prolate Avas not to enter upon his functions until the Pope had confirmed him in his office. A charter, granted to Caro the Archbishop of Monreale, in the same month of February, is the first in Avhich Frederick styles himself Emperor of the Eomans Elect. We may conjecture, that he Avas not aUoAved by his guardian to assume this new title until the threefold security, just mentioned, had been given to Eome. In March, he grants to another of his Archbishops, Luke of Cosenza, aU the Jews in that city, avIio seem to have had the dyeing trade in theh hands. Frederick hopes that they may per chance arrive at the knowledge of Gospel truth, by becoming the servants of the Church. At this period, we search in vain for any trace of those hberal opinions which the Sicihan Prince professed towards the end of his life. As yet, he shows no scandalous toleration to any of his misbelieving subjects, al though it was to them that he owed a part of his education. Frederick was now to exchange the sunny South for the bleak North. About the middle of March 1212, he set forth with a few chosen comrades on his daring adventure. From Palermo he sailed to Gaeta, where he remained a month, and was met by the Count of Fondi and the lords of Aquino. He again took ship, and reached Eome in AprU. Here he was received with due honours by aU classes ; * Cui requisitum a nobis prabere debeamus assensum. k 2 1212-1220. 132 THE HISTORY OF chap. Azzo of Este and Peter Traversaro, the representa tives of Ferrara and Eavenna, foUowed by many other Northern nobles, had come to greet their future Em peror.* Stid, a few murmurs were raised by the Eomans of Otho's party. They contrasted Innocent's young Sicihan candidate for the Empire with the stalwart Brunswicker, who had ridden through theh city in triumph only three years before. Was a Thersites to be preferred to a Hercules, a dwarf to a giant, a Pygmy to a German \ Frederick's stature was so short, that he must be either a child or a dwarf ; in either case he was unfit for the Emphe. The Papal party allowed that their lay champion was smaU ; stiU he was bigger than many who were neither children nor dwarfs.f Frederick now for the first time saw his guardian, Pope Innocent, face to face. It was the meeting of the tAvo greatest Italians of the century, the tAvo most renoAvned leaders of their respective parties. The future head of the Ghibellines knelt before the mighty head of the Guelfs. The Pope, the spiritual conqueror of the Avorld, aided Avith money and advice one Avho was to become the most powerful temporal Prince on earth, and the wearer of many distinct * Chron. Placentinum. ¦j- Carmen de destitutione Othonis, in Leibnitz. This takes the form of a dialogue between the Pope and Rome. ' Sed in Fredericum Replico. Nemo negat quin ille brevissimus ; ergo Aut puer aut nanus. — Vult onus Alcidse Thersites ferre, gigantis Nanus, Teutonici Pygmceus.' Innocent answers, that Frederick is ' Eevera, parvus, nee vero brevissimus ; immo Pluribus est major, qui nee pueri neque nani Sunt.' 1212-1220. FREDERICK THE SECOND 133 crowns. The man of the present saw before him chap. the man of the future, though Innocent little imessed Z^l_ Avhat a future it Avas that awaited the lad of seven teen, hoav all complaisance to the claims of the Papacy, and content, in token of vassalage, to place his hands Avithin those of the Holy Father.* This Pope certainly was never guilty of a greater blunder than Avhen he alloAved his hatred of Otho to carry him OATer to the Hohenstaufen party. The election of Frederick to the Eoman Empire, ap proved of by Innocent, amis fated to give rise to the greatest struggle ever undertaken by the Papacy. Surely Eome here forgot her cunning ! The match of 1186, which united the heir of Germany and Upper Italy with the heiress of Sicily and Lower Italy, had seemed to foreshadow the pohtical annihi lation of the Popes. By an unexpected chance, by the untimely death of the Emperor Henry the Sixth, the two crowns had become once more separated ; yet here is Lmocent agreeing to the election of the King of Sicily to the throne of Germany. The con sequence was that the false step of 1212 had to be retrieved by succeeding Popes ; that Germany, Italy, and Sicdy had to become a prey to anarchy lasting for years ; that a civd strife, unusually rancorous, had to be waged betAveen Guelfs and Ghibelhnes. Foreigners caUed into Italy by the Papacy; the house of Hohenstaufen rooted out ; executions, battles, mas sacres, prolonged to the end of the Thirteenth cen tury ; the maiming of the old Eoman Empire, and its division amongst petty princes, instead of its an cient union under one powerful head ; all these were * Letter of Innocent IV., in 1245. 1212-1220. 134 THE HISTORY OF chap, the fruits of Innocent's policy, and of Frederick's acceptance of the proffered crown. The deposition at Lyons, in 1245, and the scaffold at Naples, in 1268, were the direct results of the adventure of 1212. Innocent took advantage of the present moment to wrest a few concessions from his young ward. He procured a grant of some lands as additional se curity for the 12,800 ounces of gold, in which sum the Crown of Sicdy stood indebted to Eome. When at Gaeta, Frederick had sent John Buffo, one of his knights, to hold Eocca Bantra at the request of the inhabitants, who had undergone much in the late wars. The King was now, however, bidden to restore this place to the Abbey of Monte Cassino.* More over, there is extant a charter given at Eome in April 1212, whereby Frederick yielded up the county of Fondi and aU the lands as far as the river Gari- gliano, so that the Pope might grant them to whom soever he would, after the death of Eichard, the present Count, who had previously made a gift of his lands to Eome. Three years later, Frederick says in a charter given at Spires, that he is aware that he can never display a proper amount of gratitude to the Bope for past favours ; stiU, to show his sense of Innocent's goodness, he directs Eichard, the Pope's brother, to hold Sora, Arpino, Brocco, and many other fiefs, not of the Kingdom of Sicily, but of the Church. Neither of these grants seems to have taken effect ; the fiefs of both the Eichards are stiU beyond the Southern boundary of the States of the Church. The Pope was equaUy attentive to his spiritual autho rity in Sicily ; the highest in rank were not spared. * Ric. San Germano. 1212-1220. FREDERICK THE SECOND 135 A feAV days after Frederick had left Eome, Innocent chap. Avrote to the chapter of Palermo, ordering the re moval of Parisio, the Archbishop elect, since that prelate had chosen to quit Eome while a lawsuit Avas going on concerning his election. The chapter was to choose a neAv Archbishop Avithin thirty days ; otherwise the Cardinal of St. Theodore, the Pope's Legate in Sicily, would name a prelate. In the mean time, Frederick Avas proceeding on his journey, after having received a supply of money from Innocent. The Pisans, faithful to Otho, were on the look-out for the young pretender, but if Pisa was on one side, Genoa was sure to take the other. To Genoa accordingly Innocent applied for a convoy, and that city sent four gaUeys, which brought Frederick and his comrades in safety to the Ligurian coast. He reached Genoa on the first of May, and Avas joy- ftdly welcomed by both priests and people. Here he had to wait for two months and a half, Avhile his partizans throughout Northern Italy were making ready. All this time he was hving at the cost of the State, which he afterwards repaid with more than 1500 pounds. He proved ungrateful to Genoa on his return eight years later, much to the indig nation of her patriotic historian, who teUs us that the city was the gate (janua), giving Frederick access to the Emphe. ' He was well received from the greatest to the least ; I can hardly write it, how well he was received. We gave him money when he had not necessaries.'* But he certainly gave a deed to the Consuls of Genoa, among whom we find a Guercio, a Doria, and a Spinola, whereby * CafFari ; Ann. Genuenses. 136 THE HISTORY OF chap, he promised, as soon as he should gain the Empire, ' c' _ to confirm aU the privdeges of Genoa, to grant cer- 1212-1220. ta-n eagties to the state, to transfer to it aU the Im perial authority in the district between Atrenoho and Monaco, and to pay the city 9200 golden tarens. Ogerio Pane, the Genoese annalist, took the oath on the part of Frederick, the Emperor elect pledging his sord in token of performance. By this time the Marquess of Montferrat, the son of the weU-known hero of the crusade against Con stantinople, the Marquess of Este, the Count of San BonUazio, and the Bope's Legate, had arrived at Genoa ; they had aheady been employed by Inno cent in bringing over the Tuscan states from the side of Otho. That Emperor had placed Azzo of Este under the ban of the Empire for refusing to attend the last Diet. On the 15 th of July, the Boy from Sicily (so Frederick Avas caUed in the North), set out from Genoa, taking the road of Montferrat and Asti. He met with a grand reception at Pavia, where a canopy was borne over his head, accorchng to the custom of the Empire. Great enthusiasm was shown by the partizans of the Church ; the Cremonese en voys, the Pavians, and the Marquess of Este, aU vowed to carry theh candidate in triumph to Cre mona, and thence to Eome, U need were, however sturddy Otho's friends might oppose themselves. Frederick's way was noAV beset with dangers ; Mdan to the north, and Piacenza to the south, Avere his de clared foes, and indeed theh enmity only ceased at his death. The Pavians were forced to take him by night to meet the Cremonese, to whom they handed over their precious charge at the ford of the Lambro, very early on a Sunday morning. He Avas but two FREDERICK THE SECOND 137 miles on his Avay thence to Cremona, Avhen a fight chap. took place between his old Pavian escort and Otho's ' partisans.* The Milanese, who had brought out their Carroccio and aU their forces for a battle with the young Hohenstaufen, angry at having missed their prey, set upon the retreating Pavians, and routed them Avith great loss, f A warm greeting awaited Frederick at Cremona, the chief rival of Milan. The citizens, we are told, received the youth ful adventurer as if they had seen an angel of the Lord. J Nor did they ever waver in their attach ment to him, and to his heirs after him. Frederick was then passed on to Mantua, and thence to Verona ; the inhabitants of this city, aided by the Count of San BonUazio, escorted theh Eoyal guest some dis tance on his northern road, and then left him to make his own way. His easiest course would have been to travel up the vale of the Adige, and so across the Brenner ; but in that case he might have fallen into the hands of Otho, who had regained Germany some months before this time. Frederick, therefore, had to turn aside to the left at Trent, and to make his way as he best could with a handful of foUowers over the trackless Alpine snows. A glance at the map wdl show the difficulties he must have encountered before he could come down upon Cohe, in the Gri- sons. Happily for him, all this took place in the months of August and September. He was joined by the Bishop of Cohe and the Abbot of St. GaU, the great men of those parts, and crossing the Euppen with sixty knights, he made his entrance into Con- * Chron. Placentinum. t Francis piPm and otners- J Tolosanus. 1212-1220. 138 THE HISTORY OF chap, stance.* Had he tarried but three hours he would N '' have lost Germany ; for Otho was only three leagues off with two hundred knights, and had already sent on his cooks and servants into the town. The Bishop, who had been wavering between the two rivals, took the advice of the Abbot of St. GaU, and shut the gates in Otho's face after Frederick's arrival. Thus the star of Guelf once more paled before that of Hohenstaufen. Otho was instantly excommunicated in Constance by Berard, the Archbishop of Bari, who had foUowed Frederick from the South, and who acted as Innocent's Legate.^ The Guelf disbanded his army and retreated into the North, while " the child of Apuha" took the road to Basle. Here Frederick was surrounded by the local nobihty, among whom was Eodolph, the Count of Habsburg and Landgrave of Alsace ; the Count's renoAvned grandson was as yet unborn. The Bishop of Strasburg brought his new sovereign five hundred knights. J Frederick was met at Colmar by the Duke of Lorraine, who came fully expecting to make a good bargain for himself ; the young King bought the powerful aid of his kinsman by the promise of 4000 silver marks. The first-fruits of his alliance with the Duke was the capture of Haguenau, a strong castle in Alsace, Avhich was always a favourite resort of the Hohenstaufen Kaisers, and which was now wrested out of the hands of Otho.§ Frederick's great-grandfather, the one-eyed Duke of Suabia, had surrounded the town with walls. Barbarossa had * Ursperg. 1 Conr. de Fabaria. Iordanus. Frederick says of himself in 1227 ' prseter humanum scnsum et subsidium in Theutoniam veniendo.' $ Ursperg. § Richer Senon. iC6i VI. 1212-1220. FREDERICK THE SECOND 139 adorned the haUs of its castle with a red marble pave- chap. ment, and had built three chapels Avithin its circuit ; in these 'he designed to keep the insignia of Char lemagne, which Avere aftenvards, in 1209, removed to Trifels. Frederick the First had also founded a hospital in Haguenau ; his son Henry had created the toAvn an Imperial city, on account of its having become the abode of the Caesars. Frederick the Second made it his head-quarters whenever he was in Germany ; he built the parish church, and established his trea sury in Haguenau, Avhither all the towns in Alsace brought theh tribute.* He soon began to distribute rewards among his partisans. One of his first acts Avas to issue an edict in favour of Ottocar, the King of Bohemia, Avho had been foremost in promoting the late election. The faithfulness ever shown by the Bohemians towards the Empire was praised ; the privilege granted to their nation by Philip, Frederick's uncle, was recited. Whomsoever they might hereafter elect as theh king, Frederick would institute. The sovereign of Bohemia was not bound to attend any Diets, except those that might be held at Bamberg, Nuremberg, and Merseburg. Ottocar was to send 300 knights to Eome for the next Imperial coronation, or else to pay 300 marks. A grant of several castles was made to him. Two castles were also given to another staunch partisan, Henry the Duke of Moravia, the brother of the King of Bohemia. It may seem strange that the business of a great Empire, the granting of charters, the pledging of castles, and the disbursement of large sums of money, should be entrusted to a Sicihan foreigner of tender * See Laguille's Alsace. 1212-1220, 140 THE HISTORY OF chap, years ; but we learn that Frederick was assisted by a councd of seven, who were usually in attendance upon his person. First in rank came the ChanceUor and the Protonotary ; the other five had each an honorary title, derived from the servile offices once rendered by theh predecessors to the Emperors. Thus one of them was Seneschal, another Butler, a third Master-cook, while the other two had the better-sounding offices of Chamberlain and Marshal. These titles theh possessors, usually Suabian nobles, were proud to bear, and to transmit to their descend ants. Among them Ave find Werner von BoUanden, who had taken the lead in making war upon Otho, even before Frederick had crossed the Alps * ; many members of the Schipf, Tanne, and Eotenburg fami lies ; and Anselm von Justingen, who long afterwards proved unAvorthy of his trust. It is possible that on grand occasions they exercised the offices Avhence they took their titles ; but their real function was to act as counsellors to theh young master, who could as yet know nothing of German customs. They are sometimes caUed in his charters, Princes of the Emphe. They afterwards performed theh ministerial offices for Frederick's sons, when those children were each in his turn placed at the head of Germany even at a younger age than when Frederick himself took the reins of government. The same office might be held by more than one noble at the same time ; thus one Seneschal followed Frederick to Eome in 1220, while two Seneschals were left behind in Germany to act as regents, f * Reiner Leod. f I have been guided here by the remarks of M. Huilkrd Breholles, in the preface to his great work. I'ltJiDUHlCR TUUi SECOND 141 Tho youthful adA'onturer amis most lavish in his chap. vi. grants to his iioav subjects. He had given the town of Eosheim in pledge to his friend, the Duke of 1212-1220- Lorraine, but took it back on hearing of the Duke's death iii the folloAving year. He made another grant to Siffrid, the Archbishop of Mayence, who had undergone many dangers and had spent much money in Frederick's behalf. This prelate had excommuni cated Otho, and had been empowered by Innocent to Avear the Papal dress and to ride on a white horse.* AU possessions held by the Crown under the Arch bishop Avere at once given up to him. Conrad, the Bishop of Metz and Spires, who had acted as Chan ceUor of the Emphe under Otho, came over to Fre derick, and stiU kept the high office. He was a prelate renowned for wisdom, but of expensive tastes; he Avas ahvays in want of money, although enjoying the revenues of tAvo sees.1)" The Bishop of Worms had done great things for the house of Hohenstaufen, and had served Frederick's uncle in Italy long before this time ; he was rewarded by a remission of Impe rial claims, both as to his see and as to the abbey of Lorsch. Two years afterwards, he was made Legate in Apuha, where he succeeded the Marquess of Este. Frederick, although now on the high road to success, thought it as weU to secure a way of retreat, in the event of Otho's making a stout resistance. He ac cordingly went to Vaucouleurs on the Meuse, the boundary between France and the Empire, where he met the eldest son of Phihp Augustus, the greatest sovereign of the day and the true founder of the French monarchy. The conference was attended * Reiner Leodien. f Alb. Trium Fontium. 1212-1220. 142 THE HISTORY OF chap, by a vast throng of Princes and knights.* On the 19th of November, a league was made at Toul between the Capets and Hohenstaufens; Frederick refers to the friendship which had always existed between these houses, and makes known to all men that he has engaged to make no peace with either Otho, or John of England, Otho's chief supporter, without the consent of the King of France. This monarch, of whose conduct Otho had complained bitterly in the spring, sealed the bargain by a gUt of 20,000 silver marks to his new aUy. 'Where shaU we stow away aU this money ? ' asked the pru dent ChanceUor. 'Share it out among the Princes of the Empire,' was the answer of Frederick. It need not surprise us to learn that these lords broke out into loud praises of their open-handed Emperor elect, f He must have formed a strong contrast to his rival, the churlish Otho. The young chief, who was not yet eighteen years old, returned from Lorraine to Mayence, where he held a Diet of the Empire, on the 1 3th of November. Very many of the Princes who owed him homage took the oath of aUegiance, but Leopold the Duke of Austria, one of his staunchest supporters, was not present ; that Prince had joined the crusade against the unhappy Albigenses, and had afterwards marched on into Spain, to fight against the Moslem. J And now the great event of the year was to take place. Frederick went by Worms to Frankfort. There, on the 5th of December, he was met by the spiritual and temporal Electors of Germany, by the envoys of the Pope and of PbUip Augustus, and by 5000 * Guill. Armor. f Chronic. Sampetr. J Godefr. Colon. 1212-1220. FREDERICK THE SECOND 143 knights.* All Avith one voice hailed the Boy from chap. Sicily as their King. Four days afterwards he was v ' crowned in the old cathedral of Mayence by the Archbishop of that see, who officiated at the re quest of the Prelate of Cologne. Frederick took all the customary oaths ; and the nobles promised that even in the event of his death they would never recognise Otho. Conrad the Chancellor preached before the countless multitudes in the church, and confirmed them in their hatred to Otho, whose minister he had been, by revealing a dark secret. He made oath that the Guelf Kaiser had entertained the design of recruiting his finances by means of an unheard-of tax, to be laid upon brothels, f The ChanceUor sent a fuU account of the proceedings at Mayence to the King of France, asking him at the same time to continue his support, for which the Germans woidd ever be bounden to him. Frederick did not allow this year to pass aAvay without rewarding his faithful travelling companion, Berard, the Archbishop of Bari. Eeference is made, in the grant bestowed at Sphes in December, to the stedfastness with which that Prelate had adhered to the Crown in the time of need, and to the risks he had run, when following his master into Germany. Frederick gave him at his request some lands near his cathedral ; his countrymen Walter Gentile, the high Constable of Sicdy, the Count of Loritello, and Andrew the Logothete, put theh names to the deed. But the Electors of Germany, who had just raised Frederick to the throne, were also witnesses to the honour conferred upon the Apuhan stranger ; the * Reiner Leodien. f Ann. Reinhardsbrunn, quoted by Schirrmacher. VI. 1212-1220. 144 THE HISTORY OF chap. Archbishops of Cologne, Mayence and Treves, the Dukes of Lorraine, Zahringen, and Bavaria, and the Landgrave of Thuringia, who must aU have been present at the election and coronation, subscribed their names. Another faithful Apuhan comrade, John of Sulmona, in the same month obtained from Frederick a nomination to a staU in the Eoyal chapel at Palermo. Thus worthily ended the year 1212, the most important in Frederick's hfe. It had been fraught with danger to him ; in it were comprised interviews with Pope Innocent, perils from Pisan gaUeys, perUs from MUanese onslaughts, journeys over rugged Alpine heights, and impending encoun ters with the jealous Otho. But the great event of December made up for aU; Uttle did the youth think that this very event, which seemed to raise him to the highest pinnacle of earthly renown, would be the cause hereafter of a great and fearful downfaU. Lr January 1213, Frederick was again at his ancestral castle of Haguenau, where he was at tended by some of his archbishops and barons. In February, he for the first time traversed Suabia, the cradle of his race ; as yet he had not been far to the east of the Ehine. At Eatisbon he met the Duke of Carinthia ; the heroic Duke of Austria, who eight years before had rescued Constance, the reign ing Queen of Sicdy, from her Hungarian persecutors ; and Diephold, the Margrave of Hohenburg, who became one of the most constant attendants of the Eoyal progresses. Frederick held another Diet, and received the. oath of fealty from many who had not appeared at Mayence* At his side might al- * Conr. Schirensis. VI. 1212-1220. FREDERICK THE SECOND 145 ways be remarked the Duke of Bavaria, possessing chap. good claims to the notice of the Hohenstaufen party, not merely as being the son of Otho of Wittelsbach, but as an old Avarrior Avho had foUovfed Henry the Sixth into Apuha in 1194 and 1197. No small share of Kaiser Henry's sternness seemed to have descended to his son Frederick. The eight years which the youth spent in Germany were employed by him in traversing the country in aU directions, and in execut ing rough justice upon criminals, without any respect of persons. No mercy was shown to those guilty of robbery, arson, or sedition. They were not alloAved to buy themselves off; they were beheaded, broken on the Avheel, mutilated, or put to various tortures. The merchants, who could now travel in peace, were loud in Frederick's praise ; the fame of the good beginning he had made of his reign was spread far and wide.* Throughout his hfe he was regarded as the very impersonation of justice ; he delighted to style himseU "Law animate upon earth." His bounty to the Churches was appreciated at least as much as his vigorous rule. Thus at Eatisbon he heaped favours upon the famous Scotch monastery in that city. The Bishop of Trent, the Emperor's cousin, was made his General Legate in Northern Italy. Frederick next visited Augsburg, where he granted a charter to the Bishop of Cohe, without whose timely aid he would scarcely have reached Constance in the previous year. He now once more returned to the city of the lake, and held another Diet towards the end of March. Many princes came to Coblentz, but Frederick could not meet them, * Richer Senon. Iste pacem firmat, et predones, quos reperit, indifferenter dampnat. — Hist. Novientensis Monasterii. VOL. I. L 1212-1220. 146 THE HISTORY OF chap, being too much occupied. * He bestowed favours upon Eberhard, the Archbishop of Salzburg, who was at this time one of the Papal Legates, and who never wavered in his loyalty up to the eve of his death thhty-three years afterwards. The Abbot of St. GaU and many others of the Emperor's old Swiss friends, who had brought him such important aid in the previous year, waited upon their grateful Lord at Constance. In July, Frederick entered Bohemia for the first time, and met his heges at Egra, a town better known as the scene of the death of WaUenstein many centuries later. The Emperor Elect was now sur rounded by nearly aU the heads of Germany, sphitual and temporal. From Egra is dated a most weighty instrument, tending greatly to the advantage of Pope Innocent and his successors. Full justice is done by Frederick to the services aheady rendered to him by Eome ; obedience is promised ; and the old rights long enjoyed by the Sicihan crown are ceded. Elec tions to the sees are to be free ; appeals to Eome are aUowed ; and the goods of deceased prelates are no longer to go to the crown. Heresy is to be rooted out. The lands of the Countess Matdda are to be handed over to the Pope, once for aU. Ancona, Spoleto, Eavenna, and many other cities and territo ries are to be given up by the Empire. The Golden Bull was used to ratify these important grants. Frederick also took the oath of obedience to Eome in the curious double chapel of the castle at Egra, in the presence of the German prelates and nobles, who confirmed the act of their new head. * Reiner Leod. 1212-1220. FREDERICK THE SECOND 147 Later in July, the Emperor Elect returned west- chap. Avard, visiting Nuremberg ; in September he was at Uberhngen. In the mean time Otho had been at tacking the Archbishop of Magdeburg, another of the Papal Legates, and the Landgrave of Thuringia. Frederick marched to the aid of his aUies ; his army Avas joined by the wUd Bohemians, who ravaged Saxony in a ferocious manner, and went home laden with booty. Otho, unable to defend his country, retreated to Brunswick, his great stronghold, and saw the Margrave of Meissen go over to the other side. In 1211 Otho had overrun Apuha, and had threat ened Frederick in Palermo ; in 1213 Frederick was laying waste Saxony, and was almost at the gates of Brunswick. Two short years had wrought a great change. Very few of the Germans had leisure to attend Frederick's Diet at Merseburg, in the midst of these wars.* The young conqueror had at one time resolved to besiege Otho in his head-quarters ; but this plan was abandoned, f He kept Christmas at Sphes, holding one more Diet ; on this occasion, by the advice of his friends, he had the corpse of his once popular uncle Phdip buried in the cathedral, the noblest specimen of old German architecture, where many of his forefathers, the Franconian Kaisers, lay interred. Theh tombs were broken open and destroyed long afterwards by the ruthless soldiers of Louis the Fourteenth. Phdip's body was brought to Sphes from Bamberg, where it had lain for five years after his murder, and his nephew bestowed on the former cathedral a church belonging to him at Esshngen, that the souls of the Emperor's deceased kinsmen might * Chronic. Sampetr. Reiner Leod. f Alb. Stadensis. L 2 1212-1220. 148 THE HISTORY OF chap, meet with aU due attention. ' Under the old dispen- vi . sation,' Frederick remarks in his charter, ' it seemed useless to pray for the dead ; we, who are appointed to hve in the time of grace and truth, cannot doubt but that it is salutary and necessary to pray for our deceased friends, and to aid them with alms.' Otho, Philip's old rival, had been steachly losing ground from the time of Frederick's first appearance at the gates of Constance. The year 1213 had been most unfavourable to the House of Guelf; the fol lowing year was to put the finishing stroke to its dis comfiture. Not content with the many enemies who were pressing him hard in Germany, Otho went forth to seek new foes in France. Frederick knew that Suabia and Bavaria would be his best aUies in the coming struggle. He therefore took up his abode at Augsburg, in February 1214, where he was met by Albert Count of Tyrol, Frederick the Burgrave of Nuremberg, an ancestor of the royal house of Prussia, Henry von Neifen, who had once done the Crown good service in Lombardy, and by many Prelates. Ever since his arrival in Germany, Frederick had been most lavish in his grants to the Churches, and had flattered the nation by his predilection for the Teutonic Order, which was especiaUy strong in Thu ringia. The Patriarch of Aquileia, on the Adriatic, was a German; his rights over Friuli, Istria, and Carniola, were now clearly defined, and his power was extended even as far as BeUuno. In June, the new head of Germany was once more at Egra, where the King of Bohemia and many other chiefs waited upon him. He endowed the monastery of Wald- sachsen with pecuhar privileges, on account of its barren fields and of its exposure to the inroads of VI. 1212-1220. FREDERICK THE SECOND 149 the rude Bohemians. He held another Diet at Ulm, chap. in Avhich his faithful Apuhan prelate took part. Be rard appears no longer as Archbishop of Bari, having been promoted to the See of Palermo. Pope Inno cent had specially hiterested himself in this change, reproving his Legate in Sicdy for having been slow in procuring Berard's translation. The great crisis had now come ; Otho had rushed on to Ms doom. Whde Frederick was at Worms in July, Ids rival had completed his own ruin. The Guelf had ravaged the lands of the Count of Gueldres and the Bishop of Liege, and had cajoled the latter into aUowing him to cross the Meuse. He marched to the aid of the Count of Flanders, and further strengthened his party by wedding the daughter of the Duke of Brabant, a most fickle politician.* Phdip Augustus,on the other hand, led the chivahy of North ern France against the German invaders, who were joined by an Enghsh contingent under the stout Earl of Salisbury, and by the rebeUious Count of Flanders. The rivals met at Bouvines, near Tournay, on the 27th of July. The nations who fought on that day were much the same as at Waterloo ; on the one side were the French, under the eye of their King ; on the other side was a motley host of Germans, Flemings, and English. But the result of the battle Avas widely different from that of Waterloo. In vain did Otho display the courage ever shown in war by his house ; he was driven off the field, leaving the Counts of Salisbury and Flanders prisoners in the hands of the enemy, who returned in triumph to Paris. Bou vines is the first great national victory of France ; * Reiner Leod. 150 THE HISTORY OF chap, it heads the noble list on which are inscribed the ' ' names of Marignan and Eocroi, Fontenoy and ' Austerlitz Frederick did not give his beaten rival any breath ing time. On hearing of Otho's defeat at Bouvines, he marched from Worms at the head of an unusuaUy strong army, which included some of the Southern Princes, and he crossed the MoseUe. The nobles of those parts, unable to withstand him, gave him their aUegiance. He went further North than he had as yet ventured, but lost his faithful partizan the Duke of Bavaria, who was treacherously seized and im prisoned in a castle near Zolpich. An attack on Aix-la-Chapelle failed and cost many Uves ; but Frederick crossed the Meuse at Maestricht on the 24th of August, and was obhged to make use of the fords of the river, as the bridge was not large enough for his mighty army. He then ravaged those parts, sweeping off the cattle ; and on advancing into Bra bant, he was met by two of Otho's staunchest fol lowers, the Dukes of Brabant and Limburg, who submitted to Frederick, giving theh sons as hostages.* When at Worsele, he conferred Maestricht upon the Duke of Lorraine and his son, as a reward for their good services, engaging to redeem the town from its possessor by Easter in the following year. The Bishop of Liege joined him ; Fauquemont was block aded ; and the Counts of Juhch and Cleves were forced to yield.f The muster-roU of the Princes and Prelates attending Frederick at this time is immense. By the 18th of September the Emperor Elect had marched Southward, and was besieging the Castle of Landskrone, standing on a hill well known to all * Godefr. Colon. Reiner Leod. -f Reiner Leodien. 1212-1220. FREDERICK THE SECOND 151 those who turn aside from the Ehine to travel up chap. VI the Ahr vaUey. This fortress had been bunt in 1206 by Phihp of Hohenstaufen, as a thorn in the side of his enemy the Archbishop of Cologne. He had placed in it the kinsmen and friends of Gerich- Avin von Shizig to garrison it. But the castle had fallen into the hands of Otho's partizans, and Frede rick found himself unable to take it. He promised Gericlrwin, praising him highly for past loyal services, the office of Castellan, and engaged to bestow other faA'ours as soon as God should give Landskrone into their hands. Gericlrwin was allowed to keep as a pledge for the promised money certain goods which Otho had granted him. This knight, and his sons after hhn, ever showed unswerving loyalty to the Hohenstaufens, even in the Avorst of times. Land skrone did not surrender until the next year, when Trifels foUowed its example.* Philip of France, in his truce with John of England made after the victory at Bouvines, reserved to him self the power of aiding his German allies. One of these, the Duke of Bavaria, ransomed himself from his gaolers in October, having exacted a vast sum of money from his subjects, to which rich and poor alike were forced to contribute, f He now gained a new title, that of Count Palatine of the Ehine, which had before been borne by Henry, the still Uving elder brother of Otho. This title the Duke of Ba varia transmitted to one branch of his descendants, retaining it during his ovm life. The partizans of the young Hohenstaufen, as we see, were rising upon the ruin of the Guelf party. Frederick himself went by Sphes to Basle, where he mediated between the * Alb. Stadensis. f Ann. Schirenses. 152 THE HISTORY OF chap. Bishop of Strasburg and the Duke of Zahringen, and : held a Diet, attended by the Archbishop of Besancon 1212-1220. and Qtlier prelates of t]ie far west. He at this time granted important privileges to Humbert, Archbishop of Vienne and Arch-ChanceUor of the kingdom of Burgundy, which had been inherited by Frederick from his grandmother. The Bishops of Viviers, Die, and St. Baul Trois-Chateaux, were also highly favoured. Aries was called the head of Provence and the chief seat of the Emperor ; aU possible powers were heaped upon its Archbishop, and its burghers were gratified by the recognition of theh consuls. Indeed, this Diet of Basle, held towards the end of November, seems to have been summoned almost exclusively for the advantage of those domi nions of Frederick which lay on the Bhone. He himself, unhke his grandfather, never held a Diet at Besancon or Aries, though his influence Avas favour able to the privileges of the French-speaking towns. One of these, Metz in Lorraine, became his head quarters later in the year, and there he made a treaty Avith King Waldemar of Denmark, who was allowed to hold in peace aU the conquests of the Danish crown, beyond the Eyder and the Elbe, in the Sla vonic country. Henceforth the Dane became a most bitter enemy to Otho, and attacked the city of Stade.* During Frederick's stay at Metz, a lawsiut betAveen the Canons of the cathedral and some merchants of Huy was decided ; the latter claimed exemption from paying custom dues, since they had houses in Metz. But Simon, the Canons' advocate, convinced the Arch bishop of Treves and the Duke of Lorraine, whom * Alb. Stadensis. 1212-1220 FREDERICK THE SECOND 153 Frederick had deputed to hear the cause, that the chap. merchants Avere in the wrong, since they did not make Metz their home, and their wives hved else- Avhere. The Chancellor and the magistrates of Metz confirmed the judgment. Another Diet was held during Epiphany 1215, when the title of King, attached to the kingdom of Aries and Vienne, amis granted to WUliam des Baux the Prince of Orange, and to his heir. This was probably nothing more than a mere complimentary distinction. Frederick then left Metz for Geln- hausen, the palace of his grandfather Barbarossa, a few fragments of which stiU remain, specimens of the interlacing arches of the Twelfth century. Here he confirmed a grant by the Count of Nassau of the church of Wiesbaden to the Teutonic Order. StiU attended by the throng of nobles, who had foUowed him from Metz, he rode on through Naumburg and Altenburg, where, after alluding to a ght of forty fields for planting vmes made to a neighbouring Abbey by his beloved cousin Theodoric, Margrave of Meissen, he aUoAved the brethren two cartloads of wood every week out of the Eoyal forests. By the beginning of February, Frederick had made his way into the hostde Saxon country, as far as Halle ; here he rewarded the good services of the Archbishop of Magdeburg, and compensated the Prelate for his losses. About this time, as we are told, King Fre derick began to be mighty in the Eoman Empire, and ordered peace to be kept throughout aU the land ; the folk began once more to enjoy comfort, to till their fields, and to sow corn.* Peace was * Magdeburg Schoffenchronik, quoted by Schirrmacher. 1212-1220. 154 THE HISTORY OF chap, also enjoined upon the higher Princes. At Augs burg, Frederick arranged a dispute betAveen the Bishop of Passau and the Duke of Austria. To wards the end of Aprd he was at Spires, where he made another grant to his friend Berard of aU the Jews at Balermo for six years, presenting that Church with Caccabo as a recompense for its losses sustained in the cause of the Crown. In the previous year, Innocent had caused the Crusade to be preached through Germany, and on the 1st of May, Frederick held a conference at Andernach with many of the nobles, some of whom took the Cross, headed by the Duke of Bavaria.* The siege of Cologne and Aix-la-ChapeUe was debated, and resolved upon, that the war might be ended once for all.f Frede rick then retreated for the present to Frankfort, where the poverty of the Chapter moved his com passionate indignation, and obtained a remedy. The long-desired enterprise was at length accom pUshed. Frederick left Haguenau, and took the field at the head of aU the nobles of Lorraine. Aix- la-ChapeUe, which had long withstood the efforts of the Hohenstaufen party, made no further resist ance. The burghers, though a powerful minority dissented, wrote to Frederick, inviting him to enter their city in peace. This he did, after the bars of the gates had been broken, on the 24th of July ; and on the next day he Avas anointed and placed in the Imperial seat of Charlemagne. No one was at this time recognised as Archbishop of Cologne by the Church party ; the Archbishop of Mayence there fore took the leading part at the coronation, as he * Godefr. Colon. •)• Reiner Leod. FREDERICK THE SECOND 155 had done tAvo years before at the ceremony in his chap. own cathedral* The young King fell on his face VI. at the foot of the high altar, while the Divine bless- 1212-1220- ing amis being invoked upon him. He then sat upon the marble throne, which had been taken out of the tomb of Charlemagne, and heard mass, an Archbishop sitting on either hand. He next made answer to the questions addressed to him by the officiating Prelate, which were translated into Ger man, promising to do justice to all subjects of the Emphe, and to obey the Pope. The throng of Princes and Prelates, knights and clergy, who filled the church, Avere then asked by the Archbishop of ' Mayence U they would obey Frederick as King ; they thrice shouted assent. The Sovereign was duly anointed and arrayed in the customary garb ; he then received the Eoyal insignia, and three Archbishops placed the silver Crown of Germany upon his head. Then, placing both his hands on the altar, he repeated the coronation oath in Latin and German. -j- On this occasion a further ceremony foUowed. John of Xanten, and Conrad the Dean, who after wards became Bishop of Hildesheim, preached the Crusade before the august assembly ; and Frederick, then only twenty years old, took the Cross ; a step destined to influence the next fifteen years of his hfe. By dint of largesses and promises, he prevaded upon several Princes present to enlist for the Cru sade. Siffricl of Mayence and four other Prelates, together with three Dukes and many nobles and knights, folloAved the example set by their Lord. * Reiner Leod. Godefr. Colon. f Pertz, Leges. 1212-1220. 156 the history of chap. On the 27th of July, Frederick heard a solemn mass. He then placed the bones of his great prede cessor Charlemagne in a precious rehquary of sdver, gdt and enameUed, which may yet be seen under that time-honoured dome. He laid aside his robes, took a hammer, and mounted the scaffolding, assisted by the craftsman whom he had employed. He drove the nads firmly into the reliquary in the sight of aU the people. The rest of the day was given up to sermons ; the Dean of Sphes was most successful in his pulpit ministrations.* Two days later a Diet was held at Aix-la-ChapeUe, which included most of the grandees. The young Emperor-Elect gave a charter to the burghers, hi which he ranked theh city as the second in the Empire, Eome being the first. He confirmed the privileges granted them by St. Charles, Frederick the Fhst, and Henry the Sixth. No Imperial Judge was to tax them ; an illicit revenue, derived from the seders of bread and beer, was abolished ; and no one of the citizens was to be summoned from home to any greater distance than so that he could go and return with the daylight. Frederick, after receiving homage, gave investiture to his cousin the Bishop of Cambray, and annulled a charter, which the Bishop's flock had previously contrived to gain from the Crown. These rebels were, at their pastor's request, placed under the ban ; but two months later, they regained Frederick's favour. Many of the clergy of Cologne and Cambray were present at the Diet, and signed their names before the Dukes of Bavaria and Lorraine. * Godefr. Colon. Reiner Leod. Ann. Argent. 1212-1220. FREDERICK THE SECOND 157 Frederick passed a month in the city of Charle- chap. magne, and then Avent to Neuss on the Ehine, where he granted a charter to the strict Cistercians of Altenberg. Their prayers Avere entreated by Fred erick as a make-Aveight ; he being ftdly alive to the fact, that he by himself could not obtain the mercy of Heaven, OAving to his sins. The beautiful con ventual buddings of Altenberg, which still remain, date from about this period. In the mean time, the Archbishop of Treves and the Duke of Brabant had brought over to Frederick's side the neighbouring city of Cologne ; Otho, who had been lurking there, scarcely daring to stir out of doors, ever since the fatal field of Bouvines, noAv made his escape into Saxony * His best friend, King John of England, Avas powerless to help him, that monarch having been forced to sign Magna Charta a few Aveeks oidy before Frederick's coronation at Aix-la-Chapelle. Early in August Frederick entered Cologne, and was weU received by the clergy and people so lately the supporters of his rival. Without their consent, he would never have been able to hold his court in Cologne ; as the strong walls, built about thirty years before this time, which are stiU standing, would have baffled any feudal army. He stayed a week among his new subjects, and made them aU, gentle and simple, swear that they would not debase the coinage, levy unjust taxes, or disturb the peace of the city. Cologne was now relieved from the excommunica tion which had been laid upon it seventeen months earher. Later in the month, it experienced the shock of an earthquake.f Frederick quitted it for * Godefr. Colon. Reiner Leod. f Godefr. Colon. 158 THE HISTORY OF chap. Metz, where he put down intestine brods with a v '" strong hand.* Writing to the burghers of that city 1212-1220. from gt Avold) he forbade them to harass the clergy. But he does not seem to have interfered in behalf of eighty heretics, who were seized at Stras burg about this time, and who were nearly aU burnt aUve, after faiUng to prove theh innocence by the ordeal of red-hot iron.f Frederick sent his friend Berard to act as his ambassador in the great Lateran CouncU, held in November 1215. Pope Innocent had assembled at Eome 71 Archbishops, 412 Bishops, upwards of 800 Abbots and Priors, and many envoys from Kings and cities.J So dense was the throng, that the Archbishop of Amalfi was actuaUy crushed to death. § The three most distinguished men present, after Innocent himself and a few of the Cardinals, were probably Berard, the Archbishop of Palermo, Frederick's most faithful partisan ; Koderick Ximenes, the Archbishop of Toledo, the father of Castihan prose ; and Stephen Langton, the Archbishop of Can terbury, the founder of the Uberties of England. It is strange to find the Monk of Cologne affirming that nothing was achieved at this CouncU, except the subjection of the Greek to the Latin Church. The truth is, that the Lateran Fathers did but affix theh seal to doctrines and opinions which had long been taught in the Church. The heresies of the Albigenses and the book of Abbot Joachim were condemned. Transubstantiation was defined ; the cehbacy of the clergy and yearly confession to a * Reiner Leod. f Ann. Argent. | De Wendover. § Amalf. Chron. FREDERICK THE SECOND 159 priest Avere rigorously enjoined. The pubhcation of chap. baims was ordained, and new degrees of relationship 1^ Avhich barred wedlock were instituted. Temporal 1212-1220- lords Avere ordered, under fearful penalties, to aid in the suppression of heresy.* Any person who reads the canons of the Lateran CouncU wdl see that they have all one end in view, the power of the priest hood over the laity ; thus one more coat of white wash was smeared over the fine old stones of the Christian fabric, aheady shamefully defaced by the ignorance or mahce of those who had held it in charge. The CouncU did not confine its attention to the affairs of rehgion. The unhappy Count of Toidouse was despoiled of his rights, although the Pope him self wept over the tale of the woes of Languedoc. The sentence against Otho was confirmed ; stiU, the MUanese made a gaUant attempt to restore their favourite to his old position. On the other side, the Marquis of Montferrat declared that Otho's advocates ought to be denied a hearing. The Archbishop of Palermo was also a dangerous enemy to the GueU. Pope Innocent, supported by pubhc feeling, con firmed the election of Frederick, who had shown himself such a true son of the Church by the grants made at Messina, Eome, and Egra.f Thus passed away this most important year, remarkable for three great events — the coronation of Frederick, the grant of Magna Charta, and the assembhng of the Lateran divines. Of these, the first has had the least abiding results ; the effects of the councils * L'Art de Verifier les Dates. f Ric. San Germano. 160 THE HISTORY OF chap, about this time held at Eunnymede and Eome, Vi though dating from more than six hundred years 1212-1220. ag0^ are fejt to tke present day in every quarter of the world. In January 1216, Frederick was employed in the usual way, making grants to monasteries, and sum moning his nobles around him. The complaints of Aix-la-Chapelle were redressed, and the privdeges lately granted were confirmed. The burghers of Cambray had stolen a march upon their Bishop, Avhde he was on his way to the Lateran Council. They had obtained a grant to his prejudice, which was now quashed in the presence of many of his Canons. On the 17th of April, Frederick, then at Spires, made Gerard von Sinzig his deputy in the fruitful country where the Moselle flows into the Ehine. On the 1st of May a Diet of the Empire was held at Wurzburg, the city of St. Kilian, at which Cardinal Peter attended as the Pope's Legate. Here Frederick invested Engelbert, the new Arch bishop of Cologne, the best of aU the Prelates who have ever ruled that powerful see. The instaUation of Engelbert, to make way for whom two prior occupants had been set aside, was confirmed by the Legate*, and Frederick renewed a grant of his father to the Church of Cologne. Moreover, on this occasion he gave up the old custom of keeping in the Eoyal hands the personalty of Prelates and the revenues of their churches for a whole year after the death of the last occupant. This he renounced, as he says, out of his reverence for the Crucified One, whose sign he now wore, as a voAvecl Crusader. * Gqdefr. Colon. FREDERICK THE SECOND. 161 The Archbishop of Magdeburg, acknowledged by chap. Frederick as the chief author of his elevation, was ' ' aUoAved to coin money, and had the town of Ober- 1212-1220- Avesel restored to his sec. Tavo abbesses of Batisbon laid a complamt before the Emperor Elect that their churches had been Avrongecl in an exchange made by him. The Diet decided that no possession could be transferred from the Empire to any one else, against the wdl of the chief tenant concerned. The exchange in question was therefore revoked, and the sentence of the Diet, was confirmed for ever. A most weighty engagement was now entered into with Pope Innocent. Frederick, who could not afford to offend this powerful but exacting guardian, promised at Strasburg, on the 1st of July, that whenever he should gain the crown of the Empire, he Avould hand over the Kingdom of Sicily to his son Henry, and would entrust it to some deputy until the child was of age. This arrangement was made, he said, to prevent any harm accruing to the Apostohc See and to his own heirs from the union of the Emphe and the Kingdom. The agreement, which seemed to crown the Pope's policy with suc cess, was fated never to take effect. It is probable that Innocent never heard of its execution, for he died at Perugia only fifteen clays after the date of it. He was succeeded in the Papacy by a man of a very different temper, Cardinal Cencio SaveUi, who took the name of Honorius HI* Frederick was then at Constance, engaged in fostering various Cistercian foundations, an Order whose strictness kindled his * Ric. San Germano. VOL. I. M 1212-1220. 162 THE HISTORY OF chap, admiration. At Ulm appeared the Margrave of Moravia, and many of the Bohemian nobles ; these had just elected Ottocar's son, Wenceslaus, as their king, with the father's consent. The election was confirmed by the head of Germany, whose first cousin Catherine was the wife of Wenceslaus ; and a grant of the kingdom of Bohemia was made to the young prince. Frederick was at Leipsic in October, whence he returned to Nuremberg in December. It was probably here that he met his Queen and his son, after having been parted from them for almost five years.* They were accompanied into Germany by many ladies and knights, and also by Berard, the Archbishop of Palermo ; Binalclo Gentde, the Arch bishop of Capua ; the Marquess of Montferrat ; Wilham Porco, the Admiral of the Victorious Fleet, as his title runs, a kidnapper and a pirate ; and Her mann von Salza, who had been for six years the Grand Master of Frederick's cherished Teutonic Order. This good knight wdl often re-appear in the course of this work. He was born in Thuringia, in the country watered by the Salza and the Langen- salza, which became the head-quarters of the national Order. No man ever did so much to advance the interests of this renowned brotherhood as Von Salza, during the nine and twenty years of his Grand Mastership. He had all the quahties requisite for his post ; valour, wisdom, eloquence, and, above aU, stainless honour. He was a thorough German, as true a son of the Fatherland as Luther or Von Stein. Often had he to do battle for his countrymen against insolent Templars or Hospitallers, who drew their * Reiner Leod. FREDERICK THE SECOND 163 recruits chiefly from France. The weight of his chap. personal character is surprising ; it compelled Popes ' and croAvned heads ahke to defer to his opinion, and to 1212-1220. strive for Ins approbation. Strong in his unimpeach able virtue, he could rebuke even the Lateran itself. He amis the mediator equally Avelcome to French, Itahans, and Germans, Avhose services all parties were eager to engage ; he was the knight in whose honour aU had thorough confidence, when men looked sus piciously upon the proffers of Pope or Emperor. Von Salza is the model man of the Thirteenth cen tury ; iu him Frederick found a trusty friend, who shrank not from uttering disagreeable truths, when ever he saAv Ids superiors in the wrong. Brother Hermann looked up to Ids Hohenstaufen benefactor with true German loyalty, such as was seldom met with in his age ; we seem to be in the presence of one of Froissart's knights, or one of Clarendon's cavahers. Queen Constance had been overwhelmed by a great sorrow since she had last seen her lord. Her noble brother, the King of Arragon, had faUen in - battle on behalf of the persecuted Albigenses, the year after Frederick's arrival in Germany. She wrote a piteous letter to the Bishop of Urgel, be wailing her brother's death in what she considered a bad cause, and entreating that his remains might obtain Christian burial. Her son Henry was prob ably brought to his father from Sicdy, that a certain plan might take effect, not unconnected with Frede rick's last promise to Bope Innocent. What this plan was will appear about three years later; at present Henry's rightful title of King of SicUy was carefully suppressed. The two chief friends of M 2 164 THE HISTORY OF chap. Frederick, who had brought the chdd, were both rewarded. Von Salza had a grant of certain taxes at' 1212-1220. Brindisi for the good of his house, with which Frede rick had made an exchange in Germany. The Arch bishop of Palermo obtained various towns for his see, together with the land once held by Eoger Achmet, the descendant most probably of a converted Saracen. The clergy of the Eoyal chapel at Palermo were freed from taxation, on account of the hardships which they had undergone during the King's ab sence. In February, 1217, the court was transferred to Ulm, where the monarch gave a viUage to the men of San Miniato in Tuscany, and appointed that the highway should run tlirough their town. Further privdeges were heaped upon his favourite monastery of Salem in Suabia. In April he was at Haguenau. He had sent the Abbot of St. GaU, the Dean of Spires, the Marquess of Montferrat, and the Castel lan of San Miniato to Eome, with assurances of his sorrow at the death of Innocent, and of his joy at the election of Honorius. The new Pope engaged to send a Legate into Germany, and aheady began to remind Frederick of his promised crusade. The Emperor Elect, after a tour in Bavaria, returned westward to Coblentz by Esshngen, which dates her old waUs and gates from his reign. The monks of Heisterbach, under the Drachenfels, Avere now allowed by him to convey their wine up and down the Ehine free from toll, a much coveted privilege. The young conqueror Avas called once more into Saxony. Otho and his brother Henry, who had lost all their allies except the Margrave of Bran denburg, had been laying waste the district of Bre men, because that see had been filled by a nominee FREDERICK THE SECOND 165 of Eome.* Frederick assembled an army, and in chap. August inarched into the north by Avay of Fulda ; he u drove Otho within the Avails of BrunsAvick, and laid 1212"1220- Avaste his rival's lands. He was joined by many of the nobles of the district, and at length withdrew, f Frederick's march Avas foUoAved by its usual re sults, the triumph of the high lords and the depres sion of the burghers. Thus Theodoric of Meissen seized on tins opportunity to avenge himseU on his hated enemies, the men of Leipsic, a\1io had been ravaging his lands for the last two years. He brought Frederick into the town with a few knights ; the smaU force came in by different gates and Avent to theh quarters without any parade, in order to luU the jealous suspicions of the citizens. Leipsic, hke many other towns in the middle ages, boasted of a great bed, at the sound of which the burghers turned out for war. The clapper of this was secretly car ried away by the Margrave's orders, and at a given signal each one of Frederick's foUowers seized the person and goods of his host. Theodoric next razed the city waUs, and budt three castles to overawe Leipsic ; he made diligent search for several knights who had found shelter there after an attempt upon his hfe. One of these ruffians, to whose capture great importance was attached, mounted his horse, broke open the gate with his battle-axe, and fled into the country ; his brother was handed over to Frederick, and was sent to perish in the Crusade.J When at Altenburg, the sovereign requested the Canons of Meissen to dispense with the presence of * Alb. Stadensis. f Reiner Leod. | Ann. Pegavienses, just published by Pertz. 166 THE HISTORY OF chap. Nicholas, one of theh body, whom he found most YL useful. Frederick made Nuremberg his head-quarters 1212-1220. ^n December. Thus ended the year 1217, which is remarkable as the beginning of the new Crusade. This enter prise had been one of the great objects of the Lateran Council ; Pope Innocent had promised him self to superintend the embarkation of the Cru saders at Messina. The undertaking was delayed for a year by his death, but in the summer of 1217, the Dukes of Austria and Meran, the Bishops of Bamberg, Utrecht, Munster, and others, set out for Acre. Frederick could not as yet lead in person the way to the East, his rival Otho being stiU aUve ; he contented himself with granting 200 ounces of gold out of his Messinese revenues to the Teutonic Order to provide the brethren with warm wooUen cloaks for winter wear. The Kings of Hungary, Cyprus, and Jerusalem were foUowed by the Crusaders into Gahlee, whence, after piUaging the country and bathing in the Jordan, they feU back upon Acre. WiUiam the Count of HoUand, accompanied by many Germans who had sailed down the Ehine, had touched at Lisbon on his way to the East, and had done good service there with his Frieslanders.* On reaching the Holy Land, he found that the King of Cyprus had died, and that the King of Hungary had gone home without achieving anything. King John of Jerusalem alone remained, ready for any daring enterprise. Frederick was for some time at Haguenau in the beginning of 1218 ; he bestowed his protection upon * De Wendover. God. Colon. 1212-1220. FREDERICK THE SECOND 167 the hospital at that town, which his grandfather, his chap. VT father, and his uncle had fostered during their re- - spective reigns. Li this year the foreign influence of the House of Hohenstaufen Avas stdl further ex tended. The Bishop of Burgos and Fray Pedro de Arlanza were sent by the Queen-Mother of Castile into Germany. After a sojourn of four months at Frederick's court, they secured the hand of Beatrice, the daughter of the late King Pldhp, for their young master, St. Ferdinand, and brought the bride into Spain by Avay of Paris.* About tlds time, Berthold the Duke of Zahringen, one of the greatest princes in Germany, ched without issue. Frederick did not grasp at much for the Emphe, but spht up the broad lands of the deceased among many claimants. The Count of Kyburg had a grant of large territories in Burgundy ; Egeno, Count of Urach, and other kins men of the late Berthold, had the domains adotted to them which the deceased had held in Suabia. The Count of Savoy, the Margrave of Baden, the Bishop of Lausanne, and other powerful barons had theh share. Berne, Freiburg, and Soleure became free cities of the Emphe ; whde Zurich went to the Em peror himself, f Frederick was probably at Frankfort when he heard of the death of his Guelf enemy. Otho had sent an embassy to Eome to sue for reconcdiation ; he showed penitence, and was absolved by the Bishop of Hddesheim. By his wdl he ordered his brother Henry to yield up the Holy Cross, the Lance, and the Crown, to whomsoever the princes should elect as Emperor ; and he bequeathed his stores of arms * Ann. Spirenses. Mariana. j Von Raumer. 168 THE HISTORY OF chap, to the cause of Palestine.* He died on the 15th ' l of May, in the Castle of Harzberg, and his body 1212-1220. was iaid by the side of his parents in the Church of St. Blaize, at Brunswick, after being arrayed in the robes of royalty. f The same month which beheld the death of one Emperor gave another to Germany. On the 1st of May, a child was born to the House of Habsburg, and Frederick gratified his loyal servants by holding the babe in his arms at the font. J Little did he think that young Eodolph, as the chdd was named, would one day wear the very crown which the present Emperor had just, to all appearance, secured for himself and for a long line of hehs ; that this son of the Swiss Count was destined to found one of the great houses of Europe, and to be the stem whence the rulers of Spain and Austria would proudly claim descent. Too many of them have proved unworthy of their chivalrous founder. Frederick was a good friend to his godchild ; it is pleasant to mark the man of the present in close contact with the man of the future ; to see, for in stance, Cortez, fresh from his Mexican triumphs, giving encouragement to the unknown Pizarro ; and Chve, almost on the field of Plassey, picking out from the croAvd the young Warren Hastings. It was a happy thing for Frederick that Otho was removed at this juncture, smce the surviving claimant of the throne was involved in a war with one of his own partizans. Theobald, Duke of Lorraine, had rebeUed and had laid waste Alsace, Frederick's own province. The monarch caUed to his help the Count * See Otho's Will in Pertz, Leges. f Godefr. Colon. J Annal. Colmar. Von Kaumer. FREDERICK THE SECOND 169 of Bar and the Countess of Champagne, who burnt chap. the town of Nancy. He carried on the Avar against his old friend so vigorously that he was soon able to 1213rJ-220 convey Theobald, a prisoner, into Germany.* With the aid of the Archbishop of Treves, he had be sieged the rebel Duke in Amance, a strong castle three leagues from Nancy, and had driven him to beg for mercy. On the 1st of June, Theobald was constrained to forswear any future strife with the French alhes of the Crown, to render all services due from him to the Countess, to renounce his league with those in rebel lion against her, and to hand over a certain castle to the Duke of Burgundy as a pledge of concord. Conrad, the ChanceUor of the Emphe, proclaimed the terms of peace in Frederick's presence, after the rebel had knelt at the feet of his lord. The Sovereign of Germany at that time exercised great in fluence over the rulers of Burgundy and Champagne, Avho held fiefs within his dominions, although they were also vassals of the French Crown. Frederick took the Duke of Lorraine into Germany as a hostage. He used to invite his captive to his table, whither Theobald came imattended, except by a squire who carried his cloak. The Duke was not set free until a year had passed ; ten months afterwards he died in Lorraine, and an unfounded charge was brought against Frederick of having employed a harlot to poison the son of his old benefactor.f After the Lorraine war, the Emperor Elect visited several towns in Bavaria. The Bishop of Basle questioned Frederick's right to establish new insti tutions in that town, without the consent of its pre- * Reiner Leod. Rich. Senonensis. f Richer. Senon. 1212-1220. 170 THE HISTORY OF chap. late. The cause was judged by Theodoric, the Arch bishop of Treves, a prelate of great prudence, whose voice was always for peace rather than for war, and who had alhed himself with the new Archbishop of Cologne, so that it was said that the two were one heart and one soul.* A Count, in want of money for the Crusade, had pledged his castle to the Bishop of Passau for 1000 marks. Frederick authorized the transaction and the conditions annexed to it, enjoin ing a duphcate of the deed to be made, to prevent any future wrangling. Orders were sent to Frederick's Judge at Egra, to do justice, without regard to the local courts, upon any one, high or low, who might rob the convent of Waldsachsen. In November, a Diet was assembled at Erfurth, by which Frederick's title to the Empire was established.f A second Diet, weU attended, was held at Fulda, in December, where he confirmed to the Teutonic Order aU the privdeges he had ever granted to them. They were at this time manfully waging the war against the Moslem in the East. Another Diet with a view to the Crusade was appointed to be held at Magdeburg, early in the next year. After having held these Diets in Otho's country, Frederick returned to Frankfort. Li the mean time, the Christians at Acre had un dertaken a fresh enterprise. Pope Honorius had sent to them Cardinal Pelagius as his Legate, who started from Brindisi with James, the Count of Andria, steering for Egypt.J For in May, 1218, the army had sailed from Acre, and had laid siege to the great city * Gesta Arch. Trevirorum. f Alb. Stadensis. X Ric. San Germano. FREDERICK THE SECOND 171 of Damietta near the mouth of the Nile, upon which chap. the eyes of the whole Christian world were kept YL fixed for more than three years. The Duke of Aus- 1212-1220< tria, the Frieslanders, and Von Salza's knights won honourable mention from the chroniclers of the great Leaguer. England, France, Germany, and Italy had aU contributed soldiers for the holy war. A tower on the bank of the Nde Avas carried with great loss ; after which, Adel, the brother of the mighty Saladin, died, leaving a fearful contest to his three sons, the rulers of Cairo, Damascus, and Aleppo.* It had been arranged that some of the German pilgrims should set out on the 1st of July. But on reaching Apuha, they found their further progress hindered, at which the Pope was very wroth.f We are now in January, 1219. Frederick, who had visited Treves and forgiven the burghers of Strasburg some old offences, wrote from Haguenau on the 12th of the month to Honorius on the ad- engrossing topic. ' We know,' said he, ' that the Holy Land has more need of succour now than ever before ; the army, as it seems, must either conquer or perish. We are grateful to Him who has raised us to the Kingdom and to the Emphe, and we are about to appoint a time for our men to assemble for the Crusade. Any prince who does not attend the proposed Diet, unless hindered by a reasonable cause, is to lose land and honour.' Frederick went on to suggest to the Pope various means of rousing the zeal of the faithful, and to request that an ex communication might be launched against the town of Brunswick and its Count Henry, the elder brother * De Wendover. t Abbas Ursperg. 172 THE HISTORY OF chap, of Otho, who would not give up to the rightful claim- : ant the insignia of the Empire. 1212-1220. rp^g answer 0f Honorius was dated twenty-seven days later. He sent a Eoman prior to Frederick, and advised him to win over Henry by gentle means; otherwise, U the Guelf should prove obstinate, ex communication should foUow. The Pope took Fre derick and his Empire under his protection; and threatened aU who had taken the Cross with the ban unless they should set out for Damietta on St. John the Baptist's day. The correspondence between the two heads of Christendom was not renewed until three months later. Frederick seems at this time to have been intent on gaining influence throughout Northern Italy, a quarter which he had hitherto neglected. The Bishop of Turin and the Marquess of Montferrat, after each obtaining a charter, were sent thither as Vicars. To Asti was granted the right of jurisdiction over its own causes. Two Lombard Counts Balatine received a renewal of the privdege granted to their forefathers by Barbarossa, of carrying the sword be fore the Emperor, whenever he might be in Lom bardy. Otho's grants to a Milanese rival were quashed. Bernard Orlando Eosso and another Par mesan Judge were ordered to restrain Salinguerra and the Ferrarese from plaguing the Modenese. To the Bishop of Ivrea, who came to Court, was granted power over his fellow-townsmen. Three envoys from Imola besought Frederick to confirm a charter given to them by his grandfather ; Bologna and Faenza were forbidden to meddle with theh neighbour. Parma was highly praised, and was aUowed the privdege of seU-jurisdiction ; no appeals were to be carried into Germany ; and the city was FREDERICK THE SECOND 173 left free to fortify itself. Cremona, Brescia, Verona, chap. and Bergamo were favoured. To each of the Counts '- — of Biandrato was granted a charter. A Camaldolese 1212-1220- abbey on the Aclige received the usual hst of privi leges. The Italians secured all they could, knowing that nothing more could be got from Otho, and that Frederick was soon to start for the Crusade. A grant was made to the Archbishop of Magde burg of aU the Pagan lands beyond Livonia ; he was in future to be the source of all jurisdiction in those barbarous tracts. These charters give us some idea of the wide stretch of the Empire ; it noAV reached from Eevel to Antwerp, from Vienna to Lyons, from the Eyder to the Tiber. But it contained Avithin itself the elements of dissolution ; at this very moment a storm seemed to be gathering in the South. The Archbishop of Brindisi arrived in Germany with the news that the Pope was becoming suspicious of the Emperor Elect. Germany and Sicily, so thought unkind politicians, Avere to be united in after years under young Henry. Eaynald, the son of Conrad von Urshngen, was allowed to style himself Duke of Spoleto, a province of the Church. Clerical elec tions were not uninfluenced by Eoyalty. Such were the charges against Frederick current at Eome. He sent back the Archbishop, with orders to make his excuses, and with the announcement that he himself would soon folloAV. At his request, Honorius de layed the Crusade until Michaelmas, though trem bling for the result. The Archbishop of Brindisi was not the only Apulian Avho made his way into the North. In May, Frederick was waited upon at Augsburg by some monks from Monte Vergine, who had come to obtain his confirmation of the grants 1212-1220. 174 the history of chap, made to theh monastery. Diephold, the German Count of Acerra, had been one of their benefactors. The Archbishop of Otranto also arrived, to procure a fresh grant of privileges from the Crown, since the charters bestowed on his church by the old Nor man conquerors had become worm-eaten. The Archbishop of Messina and Simon Count of Chieti appeared at court later in the year, and were followed by the brave Count of Malta. From Nuremberg Frederick wrote a letter of thanks to Honorius : ' God can reward you, dear Father, for your kindness to us, better than we can. Your letters concerning the Crusade arrived just in time to be of use to us, and to render fruitless the excuses which would otherwise have been made by many Princes. We request stdl further favours from you, of which you wdl not repent. Do not lend your ear to those calumniators who tell you that we are lukewarm in the matter of the Crusade ; such a thought is abhorrent to our conscience.' In July, the Hohenstaufen chief held a great Diet at Goslar, which seemed to put an end to the civd war in Ger many, after more than twenty years of strife. Henry the Duke of Brunswick yielded up the Imperial in signia lately worn by his brother Otho.* In return, he received a grant of considerable privileges, and the question of the Palatinate of the Ehine seems to have been amicably arranged between him and Bavaria. He henceforward signed himself Duke of Saxony, and remained in high favour untd his death. Frederick granted a most ample charter to the bur ghers of Goslar, who had undergone much persecu- * Alb. Stadensis. i'luijuumuii THIS SECOND 175 tion at the hands of his enemies on account of their chap. loyalty. Every possible privilege was rehearsed, and conferred upon the faithful citizens. Coiners, as Ave 1212-1220- see by this charter, Avere looked upon as the worst of all pubhc enemies ; they Avere condemned to lose a hand, unless they could redeem it by a payment of money. Frederick's favours had hitherto been reserved for churches or for princes, and the privi leges granted to Goslar were a great innovation on his usual pohcy. In the next year he made Pfullen- dorf a city of the Emphe, in consideration of the damage it had sustained from fire and quarrelsome neighbours. The Emperor Elect now went by Erfurth to Frank fort, and granted to its citizens a site near the corn market for budchng a chapel, which he took under his protection. He passed on tlirough Worms to Haguenau, where we find him associating with him self his son Henry, Duke of Suabia, in various grants. Several Itahan bishops waited upon their lord in August, and two men of Locarno procured from him special favours. Pa\ia was rewarded for her services by a confirmation of her old privileges. Alessandria, an ancient foe, was ordered by the Pope to take the oath to Frederick. Alatrino, the sub-deacon, whom Honorius often employed as his envoy, and whom he made provost of St. Castor at Coblentz, appeared in Germany with letters from Eome. The Emperor Elect returned an answer, in which he ftdly acknow ledged the right of the Church to the lands of the Countess Matdda ; Spoleto and Narni Avere bidden, under the sternest penalties, to obey the Pope. Ee- storation of the lands, not as yet recovered, was gua ranteed ; the right of election and appeal was once 176 THE HISTORY OF chap, more confirmed to prelates ; and the famous oath of ' Egra was repeated. 1212-1220. jn October, Frederick held a Diet at Nuremberg, where he caused many of the Princes to take an oath to set forth for Palestine. The term of Michaelmas, fixed by Honorius for the enterprise, was aheady past. But the Pope granted his friend a third re spite up to March in the following year, reminding him at the same time that httle had as yet been done, and hinting at excommunication. ' What ships, dearest son, what galleys have you made ready? We had rather that you forestaUed our wishes in such an undertaking, instead of lagging behind them. Do not sleep, but arouse others to watch. Haste, haste, noble King, to obey the King of Kings, after the example of your grandfather Frederick ; it may be that you will accomphsh, with the Divine wdl, the work which he only began. You are young and A^a- liant ; the more God has given you, the more wdl He require at your hands. The Christian host wiU be much diminished if it be not succoured by next March. Send forward some at least of your men to recruit it. Up to this time, God has granted success to His army, but greater triumphs wdl foUow.' What success had hitherto been vouchsafed to the Christian arms, Frederick had now an opportunity of learning from an eye-witness. Leopold the Duke of Austria, after an absence of two years, returned home, whde the court was still at Nuremberg. He had distinguished himself in Egypt before the arrival of Pelagius, the Legate ; after which event the Christians had crossed the Nile, seized on the Sultan's camp and fleet, and blockaded the great city of Damietta. The Germans, Avhose valour is acknow- 1212-1220. FREDERICK THE SECOND 177 lodged by foreign chroniclers, drove off the Saracen chap. army of relief; and the Duke of Austria defended a bridge during the second onset of the Moslem, which took place on Palm Sunday. On the 31st of July, the third great attack from outside was made on the Christian camp, Avhen the Templars Avould have been cut to pieces, had not the Germans and Frieslanders rushed to the rescue. The Christians, against the advice of King John of Jerusalem, gave battle to the Mohammedans outside, and suffered severely, both from the arms of theh enemies and from the heat of the sun. Towards the end of September several of the besiegers returned to Europe ; among these was the Duke of Austria, who, during his stay in Egypt, had made over 6000 marks to the Teutonic House, and who is highly praised by the chroniclers for his freedom from selfishness and pugnacity ; traits which honourably distinguished him from most crusading chiefs.* Had he waited a few months longer he Avould have witnessed the faU of Damietta ; the brave Moslem garrison had begun to suffer fearftdly from famine and ophthalmia ; the Sultan offered nearly the whole of the lost Kingdom of Jerusalem to the Chris tians, if they would only quit the siege of the doomed city ; but the Legate would not hear of these terms. At length, on the 5th of November, 1219, the Cru saders made their way over the triple walls of Da mietta, and found only 3000 of the inhabitants left aUve ; no less than 80,000 are said to have died of the plague and starvation during the long siege. Much booty feU into the hands of the conquerors ; aU chdehen found ahve were baptized ; and the Le- * Bern. Thesaurarius. VOL. I. N 178 THE HISTORY OF chap, gate turned the great mosque of Damietta into a 1 Christian church. The strong Castle of Tannis was 1212-1220. taken in the same month, being deserted at the ap proach of the Crusaders.* Honorius had sent them large sums of- money, and had informed them that Frederick would come to theh help after his corona tion had taken place. The German prelates were or dered to excommunicate aU who delayed the perform ance of theh vows. Frederick was at Nuremberg on the day of the capture of Damietta, attended by the King of Bohemia, the Duke of Austria, and many prelates and princes. It might be thought that he had now no longer any excuse for delaying his march ; aU Germany was at peace with itseU ; Otho's brother Henry was content to act as Frederick's Adcar in Brunswick, an office which he held up to his death eight years later. After bestowing a most ample charter upon the loyal city of Nuremberg, and visit ing Egra, Frederick ended the year 1219 at Augs burg, in company with his son Henry. Six officials of the Kingdom of SicUy were in attendance upon him ; his journey into Italy would evidently soon take place. In the beginning of 1220 he saw within his reach the attainment of an object which he must long have had at heart, and for which his old friend Pope Innocent would probably have excommunicated him on the spot. He was at this time doing aU in his power to make the name of his son familiar to the German princes, giving him the title of Euler of Burgundy, besides the Dukedom of Suabia, and associating the boy with himself in grants to the * De Wendover. 1212-1220. FREDERICK THE SECOND 179 various churches. He returned to Haguenau in chap. January, wintering there for the last time for many a long year. Here he brought to an end a question which was about to sunder the members of the house of Hohenlohe, his faithful friends. Theh father had been reAvarded by Henry the Sixth with AveU-earned lands in Italy, and had been named as one of Frederick's guardians.* The famdy now con sisted of five brothers and a sister. Two of the brothers, Godfrey and Conrad, determined to cleave to the world, and to win renown in the Emperor's service ; the three others chose to enrol themselves among Von Salza's knights, who had been among the foremost at Damietta, and to bestow their lands upon the Teutonic Order. Frederick confirmed an agreement which the Hohenlohe brethren had made with each other in the presence of the Bishop of Wurzburg. Various exchanges of property were made and ratified ; the chief anxiety of the brothers on quitting the world was that theh sister Cunigunda, then a minor, might make a suitable match. Shortly after this, Frederick took under his protection the Church of Matton, close to Interlaken, and its estate near Grindelwald, at the request of Werner, the provost. It was settled that the advocate of this Church was not to make his lucrative office here ditary — a privdege which the grasping nobles of the time Avere apt to assume. On the 10th of February Frederick renewed to Pope Honorius his promise of separating the Crowns of Germany and SicUy. He says that he has aheady, after the arrival of Alatrino, sent off the Dean of Messina to Eome, and has * Voigt, Prussia, for 1244. n 2 180 THE HISTORY OF chap, entrusted other matters to the Archbishop of YL Taranto. But he requests a shght change in the 1212-1220. termg of hig oatll_ He has already gained leave to hold Sicily during hfe, in the event of his son's death. He now hopes to have absolute dominion over the Kingdom reserved to himseU during his life, asking, with much plausibility, who would be more grateful, more faithful, more devout than him self, if his request should be granted? Alatrino, it is observed, has been most resolute in standing up for the rights of the Pope, and can teU how the grateful Frederick intends his son to be suckled at the breast of the Church. The Pope is then informed of the efforts made for the Crusade at the late Diet of Nuremberg, which had hitherto produced no great results. ' We fear,' says Frederick, ' that if we start first, our followers wiU find some pretext to stay behind. This wiU entail a Uttle delay, which you must grant. God knows that we are planning no trick : we have caused the knights to swear that they wdl foUow us, and we have made many truces between enemies, that the Crusade may be forwarded. We are sending two messengers to prepare you for the coming of the Abbot of Fulda, our ambassador. He wdl explain to you and to the Eoman senator and people our devotion to the Church, and our wish that peace may be kept in the city.' The last part of the letter, the original of which is much mutilated, clearly refers to Frederick's in tended coronation as Emperor. He excused himself to Honorius for writing to the town of Fermo, as though it had been a city of the Empire, not having known that it belonged to the States of the Church. FREDERICK THE SECOND 181 Honorius made a somewhat surly ansAver to his chap. VI friend's request for one more respite before starting L_ for Damietta. ' He who loves much, fears much,' 1212-1220- said the Pope ; ' Ave therefore fear delay in succour ing Palestine. You are now asking for a fourth respite : a criminal is pronounced contumacious who neglects to appear after three citations. We will give you to the 1st of May. Consider, consider whose cause it is that is at stake ? — that of Christ. Whose advantage ? — that of Ids followers. Whose renoAvn ? — that of the Avhole Christian people. God is inciting you to the work — first, by past favours, in raising you to your present height ; secondly, by miracles, having granted that strong city Damietta to a handful of Christians ; thirdly, by examples, since the poor and weak, as well as the noble, have embarked in the enterprise. Then arouse yourself, mighty King, for we hope that God wiU bestow a great victory. Gird your sword upon your thigh ; be powerful in humility ; be humble in power ; trust not to your own arm, but to the hand of the Most High.' Another letter came to Frederick from Parenzio, the Eoman Senator, written in the name of the whole Eoman people. ' The letter sent to us by your Serenity, when read in the Capitol, rejoiced the hearts of us aU. Your worthy ambassador, the Abbot of Fulda, has told us how you are disposed to cherish the Eoman Senate and people : we beseech the Most High to continue this disposition in you, when you are raised to the Empire. We are all longing for that happy day, Avhen we shall hail your coronation. You warned us to obey the Pope, and to set an example of devotion to the Christian world. We 182 THE HISTORY OF chap, are resolved to bind ourselves to the Eoman Church, ! which has been founded in the city, not by men, 1212-1220. kvrt by Jesus Christ himseU: it is our special mother, and we are its special bulwark against foes. We wiU take care that peace be kept at your coronation.' Honorius answered Frederick's letter a few days after Parenzio had sent off his despatch. The Pope says he takes no exception to the Abbot of Fulda as an envoy, though it certainly had been usual for an Emperor to send an Archbishop, or at least a Bishop, to Eome on a simUar errand. Frederick again wrote, excusing himself for having throAvn Begnier of Manente into a German prison. This Count was an old enemy, whom the Pisans had been ordered to seize when he was sading to attack SicUy. Though the rebel had come into Germany without a safe- conduct, Frederick professed himself ready to release him at the Pope's wish, upon Eegnier's giving up his Sicihan estates.* We have now come to the famous Diet of Frank fort, held in April 1220, which crowned aU Frederick's schemes. It was prefaced by the usual Ust of Imperial favours. The Bishop of Verdun had a charter bestowed upon him ; to the Arch bishop of Cologne was given the charge of the Church of St. Servais, at Maestricht, which boasts a long list of Hohenstaufen grants. The Bishop of Utrecht was authorised to remove his custom-house to a more convenient spot. The Provost of Aix-la- ChapeUe had neglected his duty: the windows of * It is odd that the mild Honorius should have taken such an in terest in ruffians. In England, he interfered on behalf of Fulke de Breaut£. 1212-1220. FREDERICK THE SECOND 183 the Church, the books, the workshops, were all out chap. of repair ; a certain proportion of the contents of an alms-box was allotted to supply all that was Avanting. The vine-dressers of Sinzig Avere warned to be exact in the payment of their tithes to this church. The monastery on Marienberg, near Bop- pard, was taken under Frederick's protection. His journey to Eome Avas arranged, and aU marked with the cross, whether high or low, were forced to set out for the East.* But more weighty business was in hand. Fre derick, young as he was, had for the last eight years been working hard to gain the hearts of the German princes. He had been most lavish in his bounty to them, and he now hoped to reap the fruits of his many grants, charters, and privdeges. He had ap pealed to the seU-interest of these men, who, accord ing to that shrewd observer, the Abbot of Ursperg, loathed and hated aU justice, coveted each the estates and honours of his neighbour, and did not even shrink from murder. In spite of aU his pro mises to Innocent and Honorius, Frederick was resolved to unite the Crowns of Aix-la-ChapeUe and Palermo in the person of his son Henry. His own account of the election of the child by the German princes is this : — the Archbishop of Mayence and the Landgrave of Thurmgia had long been at enmity ; they came to the Diet at Frankfort with aU theh forces, and a civU war seemed at hand. The other princes swore that they would not stir from the place until terms of peace had been agreed upon. No progress was made in soldering up the quarrel ; and * Reiner Leod. 1212-1220. 184 THE HISTORY OF chap. aU men feared that it would break out afresh, after Frederick's departure for Borne, now close at hand. Hereupon aU the princes voted the election of young Henry to the throne, those who had before withstood it now taking the lead. Frederick declared that he had not had the least idea of what was going on — an excuse which his Hohness probably received with a shrug of the shoulders. The youthful Emperor, though only five-and-twenty, was indeed a pupil worthy of Bope Innocent. The chief Princes present at Frankfort were the Archbishops of Mayence, Cologne, Treves, and Mag deburg, several Bishops, the Dukes of Bavaria and Brabant, the Landgrave of Thuringia, the Margraves of Namur and Baden, the Counts of HoUand and Cleves, and the officials of Frederick's court. Con rad the ChanceUor, Bishop of Metz and Sphes, was appointed Imperial Legate in Italy, and was sent forward as the harbinger of his Lord, with fuU power to place aU rebels under the ban of the Em pire. The Princes aU joined in a declaration of theh aUegiance to the Church, and of their objection to any union between the Empire and the Kingdom of Sicily. On the 26th of Aprd, the boy Henry is styled King for the first time, in the charter which his grateful father gave to the Electors. Frederick says, that the authors of his promotion ought them selves to be promoted ; he therefore did away with certain old abuses. The instrument runs thus : — ' First, we wdl never hereafter seize upon the goods of any deceased Prelate ; any layman infring ing this rule shaU be outlawed. We wiU preserve the old coinage and toUs in the lands of the Princes ; no innovations shaU be made without their consent. 1212-1220. FREDERICK THE SECOND 185 We will not receive theh serfs into our cities. The chap. churches are not to be damaged by their advocates. We Avill make no attempt to wrest lapsed fiefs from ecclesiastics. Those whom they excommunicate shall be out of the pale of the law ; no advocate shaU be aUowed to such. Proscription shall fodow excommunication, if the latter sentence has lasted beyond six weeks. The Princes on their side pro mise to aid us against our rebels. No castles are to be built on church lands. None of our officials are to interfere with the rights of the Princes, as to tolls or coinage. We bequeath to our hehs and suc cessors the duty of maintaining these privileges.' Such was the edict, which in its practical effect broke up the old Germanic system ; other later echcts of Frederick completed the work. The Princes now became in reality independent ; even Frederick himself lived to see Germany slip away from his grasp. At this very time, the French no bles were being by degrees subjected to the crown ; in Germany on the other hand the Princes, as we see, were becoming more and more independent of the crown. France became compact in itself, and bowed before one despot; Germany was spht up into m'any states, under many despots. Even Eodolph of Habsburg could not bring back the old system ; none of Eodolph's descendants made any great attempts towards enforcing the ancient Im perial prerogatives, until Charles the Fifth essayed, and failed. By that time the Beformation had sun dered Germany; the sword of WaUenstein for a moment enforced unity and submission to his master, but the moment soon passed away. Eicheheu and Louis the Fourteenth ravaged the divided Emphe 186 THE HISTORY OF chap, at their pleasure; it saw a kingdom within itself YI- start up ; and Napoleon put the last stroke to 1212-1220. tke work of disruption in Germany. In these latter times, we know not whether most to be amazed at the baseness of the German princes, or at the tameness of the German people. The nation, heroic in 1813, was feeble in 1854 and 1859, thanks to its rulers, the parasites now of France, now of Eussia ; the old worn-out Empire has been replaced by another system, powerless, as it seems, for good, and mighty for evil. Strange it is, that Phdip Augustus should have been laying the foundations of French union, just when Frederick the Second, intent on a temporary advantage, was beginning the work of breaking up Germany. Some attention was now paid to the great cities. The money of Nuremberg was no longer aUowed to be coined in imitation of that of Eatisbon. The faithful city of Worms had a most ample charter. To Henry, the new Duke of Lorraine, was granted a fief, which the late King Phihp, Frederick's uncle, had first bestowed ; to this sixty waggon-loads of wine were added. The Count of Guelches was forbidden to take toll at certain spots on the Lower Ehine, in ac cordance with a sentence passed by the Princes in the Diet ; he persevered however, as many subsequent edicts against him prove. The Archbishop of Co logne was to enforce this judgment. The Canons of Verona had a decree made in their favour. The merchants of Dortmund were freed from toll through out the Empire. The affairs of the Hohenlohe famUy were at last settled. Such was the business, which occupied the attention of the famous Diet of Frank fort. Frederick, having at length compassed his 1212-1220. FREDERICK THE SECOND 187 great end, spent the month of May at Haguenau chap. and Spires. Towards the beginning of that month, Honorius, happily as yet ignorant of the late proceedings at Frankfort, Avrote to his chaplain Conrad, a scholar of Mayence, then in Germany. He exhorted him to bestir himself, to keep an eye on the preachers of the Crusade, and to urge on Frederick. If the monarch could not himself start for the East, he might at least send on his comrades. None were to be absolved from theh vows, since even the poorest men might be of use in Palestine. A month later, Honorius ordered Alatrino to receive the resignation of the Countess Matdda's lands, and also bade the Arch bishop of Mayence procure the freedom of Eegnier, since the Count's Sicihan usurpations had been re stored. Frederick was to be reminded of his pro mise to set this enemy at hberty. About the middle of July, the Emperor Elect was roused by the news that the Pope was by no means pleased at having been tricked by the Frankfort election. Frederick writes thus to Honorius : — ' We have heard that the Church is dismayed at the exaltation of our son, and that she blames us for not having announced his election, either before or after it took place.' He then gives his version of what had taken place at Frankfort, saying that he was not an swerable for the choice of the Electors ; he had in sisted on the election being ratified by Eome. ' It was arranged that one of them should seek your presence. However, most blessed Father, you wdl hear the whole from ourselves, when we come to you; or your chaplain Alatrino wiU inform you. The Bishop of Metz was sent to you, but he is 1212-1220. 188 THE HISTORY OF chap, detained on his way by some IUness. We shall take care to prevent the . union of the Empire and the Kingdom ; we should give the latter, in the event of our death without lawful issue, to the Church rather than to the Empire. We will make no further delay in coming to you, our Father and Lord.' Frederick then mentions two out of many causes, which have hitherto kept him in Germany. Egeno, Count of Uracil, backed by his brother the Bishop of Borto, has not furnished the stipulated quota of men and money for the Crusade ; many in Alsace have fol lowed this bad example. The Count of Champagne, after marrying the widow of the late Duke of Lor raine, has seized upon a fief of the Empire, though a foreigner, to the consternation of the princes. Now however, this difficulty being settled, Frederick is ready to start on his journey. The Pope, a few clays afterAvards, wrote to his Legate Pelagius, an nouncing to the heroes of Damietta, that Frederick Avould sail for the East at Michaelmas, a most faUa- cious hope. He also sent various sums of money in aid of the Crusade, which seemed now to have come to a stand-stdl. Before taking a long leave of Germany, Frederick spent a month at Augsburg, the old city whence Emperors usuaUy set out for Eome. Here were assembled his son Henry the new King of the Eomans, the King of Bohemia, the Margrave of Moravia, the Duke of Meran, the Archbishops of Mayence, Treves, and Magdeburg, and many Pre lates and Counts, besides those nobles who were to foUow their lord into Italy. The Abbot of St. GaU, who had helped Frederick to the crown of Germany eight years before, died on the eve of his journey 1212-1220. FREDERICK THE SECOND 189 to Eome. He had maintained the honour of the chap. Western Empire at the Eternal City, by preventing the coronation of the Latin Emperor of Constanti nople at St. Peter's, and by refusing to rise up to him. Such Avere the Abbot's talents for civd busi ness that all the most difficult questions were reserved for his judgment. His successor paid Frederick three hundred and fifty marks to be excused the Italian journey, saying that the ah of that country Avas turbid.* The Emperor put forth many edicts for the welfare of his dominions. One monastery was freed from a troublesome advocate, who acknow ledged in Frederick's presence the injustice with Avhich he had treated the Church placed under his charge. A castle and town were given in pledge to the Archbishop of Magdeburg for a loan of 2000 marks. A toll, levied upon those who crossed the Danube by the bridge at Donauwerth, was abol ished ; and Frederick determined to replace the old wooden bridge by one of stone. CoUectors were accordingly sent out under his protection, to gather the alms of the charitable for the work in hand. A fair was transferred to Gelnhausen. Jane, the Countess of Flanders, had a former adverse decision reversed, as she had been prevented by reasonable causes from pleading her suit before Frederick. The Count of HoUand was forced to give up the lady's lands which he had unjustly held. The Pope, who was by this time pacified, sent orders to the German princes, that no one should dare to trespass on Fre derick's rights. Egeno, the turbulent Count of Urach, was enjoined to set out on the Crusade * Conr. de Fabaria. 1212-1220. 190 THE HISTORY OF chap, without delay, and Honorius expressed his joy that Constance, Frederick's wife, was to share in the honours of the coronation. Late in August the Court broke up from Augs burg, and Frederick once more crossed the Alps, after having spent eight years in Germany. He had come thither with a handful of foUowers, and had been in perd of his hfe whde steaUng along passes in the mountains scarcely ever trodden by the foot of man ; he was now returning into Italy, the most powerful Sovereign in Europe, surrounded by the Princes and Prelates of Germany, who were proud to foUow their young Hohenstaufen lord to his coro nation. The most conspicuous of these was Berthold, a brother of the Duke of Meran. This German had become in succession Archbishop of Colocza in Hun gary, and Patriarch of Aqudeia in Italy. He had accompanied his sister Gertrude, who was married to the King of Hungary, into the land of her adop tion. Aided by her, he had perpetrated a ruffianly outrage upon the lady of a Magyar noble ; the in jured husband had taken his revenge upon the foreign queen by assassinating her.* These crimes, committed in 1213, have left a lasting stain upon the memory of Berthold ; with the record of them before us, we can scarcely take into account the sturdy loyalty he displayed towards Frederick for thhty years, even when under the frown of Eome. Besides the Patriarch of Aqudeia, who was employed on the road as a judge in contested suits, the Duke of Bavaria, the Bishops of Passau and Augsburg, the Margrave of Hohenburg, Eaynald the titular Duke * Contin. Prssdicatorum Vindobonensium. FREDERICK THE SECOND 191 of Spoleto, and Anselm von Justingen, were in the chap. monarch's train. His son had been left behind, VL under the care of a trusty guardian. 1212-1220. On the 3rd of September the Emperor Elect was at Botzen, to the south of the Alps, where he re ceived in his tent the Bishops of Brixen and Trent, and Albert, Count of Tyrol. At Verona he was met by Alatrino and his own notary, with good news from Eome. When on the banks of Lake Garda, he ordered the city of Asti to blot out from its records aU statutes which might prejudice the Church. The proctor of a nunnery at Verona waited upon Frederick, and obtained a charter for his chents. The inhabitants of Sirmio, ' the gem of peninsulas and islands,' were taken under the mundiburd of the Imperial protection. When near Mantua, the Em peror Elect had his first deahngs with a lad who was fated to cross his path many times in the course of his hfe, Azzo the younger, the Marquis of Este. Frederick refers in his charter to the services ren dered to him in 1212 by the father of this youthful noble, and then gives a strict charge to the Bodesta and ambassadors of Padua, who had come out to meet their sovereign, that they shoidd refrain from harassing the heir of Este, and should rebufld his ancestral castle in the style he might direct. Fre derick also invested with his golden sceptre Jordan, the Bishop of Padua, confirming him in his temporal privileges ; and the Prelate, in return, swore fealty to his lord on the Gospels and rehcs. Peter Ziani, the Doge of Venice, had sent Dandolo and another envoy to greet the Emperor Elect, who was naturaUy anxious to court the aUiance of the Lord of Croatia, Dalmatia, and a large part of the old Greek empire. 1212-1220. 192 THE HISTORY OF chap. The Doge is styled Frederick's dearest friend. A league is entered into by the two powers, and the towns subject to Venice are enumerated. The re dress of outrages, and the surrender of fugitives and stolen property, is promised on either side. The Venetians are freed from paying custom dues throughout the Empire and the Kingdom. Trials for , murder and other crimes are regulated. In return, the Doge promises a yearly tribute of money, pepper, and a robe. By this time Conrad, the German ChanceUor, had rejoined Frederick near Mantua. Honorius had had some trouble in procuring from this official the restoration of the lands of the Countess Matdda : a threat of excommunication had been held out, since Conrad had been slow in setting forth on the Crusade. A second letter from Eome had reproved the Chan cellor for his shuffling conduct. Conrad had been especially busy in Eomagna : Frederick now sent another legate into Tuscany, through which he at that time meant to pass. Everard of Lutra was appointed to the office, with as fuU powers over the cities and nobles as the Emperor himself could have wielded. On the 24th of September, Frederick, at the request of Honorius, quashed aU the edicts made by the cities throughout Italy to the prejudice of the Church, declaring that heretical depravity was the source of this obnoxious legislation. Very many Italian bishops had by this time joined him, who were witnesses to another edict for the advantage of his Holiness. The sons of Albert Count of Casalodi were placed under the ban, for having refused to give up the Castle of Gonzaga to the Pope's chap lains, although mild measures had been first tried 1212-1220. FREDERICK THE SECOND 193 with those nobles. The two Chaplains were invested chap. Avith the lands so long hotly debated, and all the vassals were ordered to take the oath of fealty to the Eoman Church. Ever since the beginning of the Thirteenth Century, the Papacy had been extending its temporal power, and its pohcy seemed now to be crowned with success. On the 1st of October, Frederick, then at Spilim- berto, released the Bishop of Padua from the burden of foUowing him to Eome, on payment of fifty silver marks. Two days afterwards the Eoyal train was on the Eeno, the western boundary of Eomagna. The Bishop of Como and others were sent on as Frederick's messengers to Honorius, with a letter from theh employer, couched in a most dutiful strain. He refers to the vast amount of business which had awaited him in Lombardy and prevented him from sending a more proper embassy. He is grateful to the Church for her favours — ' she wiU not repent of having begotten and cherished such a son. We are hastening to the feet of your Holiness : soon wdl you have the deshed fruit from the tree which the Church has planted.' Frederick pitched his camp near Bologna for a few days, and made acquaintance with the turbulent Eomagnoles. A month before this time, the ChanceUor had reheved the Bolognese from the ban, under which they had been placed for their misdeeds. He had also ratified a peace made between Imola and Faenza. The district was there fore in the enjoyment of quiet, to which the Eo magnoles were unused. Embassies from all the great cities in Italy came to wait upon Frederick, all being rival claimants for his favour. To this the Genoese had an undoubted right ; for it was their VOL. I. 0 1212-1220. 194 THE HISTORY OF chap. gaUeys which had convoyed him across the sea, and theh city which had sheltered him, at a time when his rival Otho was stiU in possession of the throne. They requested a confirmation of their privdeges ; but from some unexplained reason Frederick seems to have viewed the Genoese with dishke. He would scarcely grant them those rights which they claimed as depending on the Empire ; those connected with Sicdy were altogether abolished.* Certain it is, however, that a charter given at this time by Fre derick to the Genoese is stiU extant, whereby after praising theh tried valour, he grants them power over the whole coast from Borto Venere to Monaco, with Ucence to budd a castle above the latter port. He counts upon them, in case of a war with Mar- seflles or a crusade against the Saracens. Wldle on this errand, they were to be protected against their powerful neighbours. They also obtained aU the privdeges belonging to seU-jurisdiction. In spite of this, the Genoese annalist Avill have it, that his coun trymen were Ul-used by Frederick. The Emperor wished them to send ambassadors to be present at his coronation ; they refused, saying that it was not theh custom, and that their senate must first sanction such an innovation. He was angry, and turned away the Genoese envoys as if they had been. strangers ; but his more politic Chancellor, the Bishop of Metz and Spires, wishing to atone for the rudeness of his young Master, paid no less than three visits to the tent of their Podesta.f Frederick had undergone another rebuff in his progress. He had a great wish to be crowned at Monza, as his fore- * Caffari ; Ann. Genuen. f Caffari ; Ann. Genuen. FREDERICK THE SECOND 195 fathers had been, with the iron crown of the Lom- chap. bards ; but the Milanese, in Avhose possession it was, YL had refused his request ' with round mouth,' to use 1212~1220- the expression of their chronicler.* Frederick never forgave this and sundry other offences of these inso lent burghers. He iioav left Bologna behind him, and marched onwards Avith his little army. After investing the Bishop of Bobbio, he was met by the envoys of Fa- enza, who gave him 1500 silver marks and abundance of provisions ; in return, he released the townsmen from the ban under Avhich they had been placed. On the 15th of October he granted them a charter, which aUowed them to garrison a certain castle and a trench, until the fate of this stronghold should be decicled. He then Avent on to Forli, Avhere he displayed one of the Avorst features of Ids character ; for, notwith standing his late charter, he turned back, and de stroyed the castle and trench, granted so short a time before to Faenza. The garrison ran off just in time to escape capture by their Forlivese enemies, who had persuaded Frederick to break his Avord to Faenza.f The wronged city ever afterAvards displayed peculiar enmity to his person. AU this time charters were being freely bestowed ; one of them granted to the Abbot of Sassena is remarkable for its sanctioning a local custom, directly contrary to the old feudal kvws which obtained in England, mercifully devised for the extinction of slavery. It set forth that if any serf of that monastery should marry a free woman, the offspring of the marriage must remain in thral dom. In the mean time, the Chancellor and the Bishop of Turin had been sent back to keep peace * Galvaneo Fiamma. f Tolosanus. vor. i. "o 2 1212-1220. 196 THE HISTORY OF chap, in Lombardy. An exchange of lands, made many years before by Markwald, Frederick's old persecu tor, Avas ratified by the Emperor Elect, when he was not far from Eimini. In November, the Pope Sent to his promising pupil two envoys, Nicholas the Bishop of Tusculum, a sub ject of the Sicihan crown, and the chaplain Alatrino ; they were charged to point out the danger resulting from the union of the Empire and Sicdy under one head ; Honorius having an uncomfortable conAdction that his young friend had outAvitted him in this matter. They were commissioned besides to sharpen Frederick's zeal against the Paterines, and to add, that if the Crusaders in the East were to be succoured at all, their brethren must cross the sea directly, under the Emperor's guidance. Honorius, moreover, ordered his Legates to have the capitu laries ready, sealed with the Golden Bull, to be published on the very clay of the coronation. He was determined not to be tricked by any more eva sions. Frederick, as usual, promised everything ; for Honorius wrote to the Cardinal at Damietta that help Avas coming in March next year. The 22nd of November, 1220, was one of the proudest clays that Eome ever saAv. The younc King of Sicily, after having regained the crown that had been Avorn for seventy years by his Hohenstaufen forefathers, knelt before the Father of the Christian Avorld, an old man almost on the verge of the crave owing to bodily ailments and decaying strength.* It was in San Lorenzo, beyond the Avails, that Honorius had a short time before crowned the Latin Emperor * ' Erat corpore infirmus ex senio, et ultra niodum debilis.' Ursperg. 1212-1220. FREDERICK THE SECOND 197 of the East ; but the present ceremony took place chap, in the old Basilica of St. Peter, the church which - had survived through many destructive mischances since its foundation by Constantino, and which was to stand for nearly three centuries longer. Italians and Germans, Guelfs and GhibeUines, clergy and laity, for once were aU united. The Eoman populace, usuaUy so uproarious, were now loyal in their acclamations. A bloody fight between them and the Germans had disgraced Otho's corona tion, but nothing now occurred to mar the festivities in honour of Otho's rival. They had indeed pro mised Frederick, some time before this, that they Avould maintain peace on the occasion, and would clutifuUy obey the Pope, with whom they were always at variance. The 'Illustrious Senator and people' kept theh word ; they did well to enjoy the sight of the present ceremony ; for this was almost the last time that a Pope would crown an Emperor at Eome. The old state of things was passing away, and a new era was about to begin. The order, used at the Eoman coronation of Fre derick's father, is stdl extant, in the hand of Hono rius himself. Even Henry, that terrible Emperor, condescended, as we there see, to kiss the feet of the Pope, and to present his shaven chin for a return of the greeting ; to undergo a catechism in his reh gious behef, turning chiefly upon the Athanasian Creed ; to wear the priestly dress, to kneel before the relics of St. Peter, and to receive the ring, the sword, the crown, and the other insignia, at the hands of his Holiness. He deigned also to hold the stirrup of the Pope, and to ride behind him through the city, followed by the Empress ; his place at the en- 198 THE HISTORY OF chap, suing banquet being at the Pope's right hand.* If these ceremonies were rigorously exacted from the 1212-1220. haughty Henry the Sixth, it is not probable that any omission of them would be aUowed in the case of the deferential Frederick the Second. The dignitaries of the Church had each his ap pointed office in the ceremony. The Cardinals and Prelates stood around theh Lord ; among them was Innocent's nephew, Ugohno, the Bishop of Ostia, Frederick's evil genius, holding the cross -which the Emperor had sworn to assume. The Archbishops of Mayence and Eavenna, the Patriarch of Aqudeia, the Duke of Bavaria, Conrad and Obizzo Malaspina, Azzo of Este, and Wilham of Montferrat, had come in theh Kaiser's train. There were also present many Bishops and envoys from Northern and Central Italy, who were waiting upon their new Lord. Besides these, there were some of the great nobles from Frederick's own maternal realm : the Abbot of Monte Cassino, Boger Count of Aquila, Eichard Count of Celano, and James Count of San Severino.*!' The Count of Conversano arrived with 300 knights in his train, some of whom were Castellans and Vavassors. J Such were the men who surrounded the Emperor and Empress ; some, doubtless, clad in the long flowing robes of that pe riod, reaching clown to the feet ; others in their armour, wearing the close-fitting, flat-topped helmet, which showed but httle of the warrior's moustached face ; having theh arms and legs cased in chain- mail, with the tunic coming down to the knee ; girt * The order of the Roman coronation is set out in Pertz, Leges, II. f Ric. San Germano. | French Manuscript, quoted by Huillard Breholles. 1212-1220. FREDERICK THE SECOND 199 with the unusually long sword of the time, and bear- chap. ing the long narrow triangular shield. Men arrayed hi this fashion, the contemporaries of Frederick's nobles, may be seen sculptured in effigy under the Eotunda of the Temple Church in London. The sacred insignia of the Holy Eoman Empire were aU brought forth, the Cross, the Sword, the Sceptre, the Lance, the golden Apple with a cross on it, the golden Diadem, studded with precious stones, and sur mounted by a crest.* This last was placed by Honorius on the head of Frederick, and then on that of Constance. Mass was performed immedi ately after the coronation ; the hghted candles were quenched, and the Pope excommunicated aU heretics and their abettors. Frederick took the cross from the hands of Cardinal Ugohno, and vowed that he would sad to the rescue of the Crusaders in the fol lowing August, engaging to send off previously 500 knights on the holy errand in March. He recom mended the three mihtary Orders in the most earnest manner to the Pope.f But Honorius knew very weU that it would be foUy to combat the creed of Mohammed in the East, if heresy was to be aUowed to take root in the West. Though himself the mildest of men, stfll, as a perse cutor of Baterines and Albigenses, he trod closely in the footsteps of his predecessor Innocent. He seized on the occasion to prove to the world that on this subject the Bope and Emperor were of one mind. On the very day of the coronation, Frederick put forth his nine Edicts, which were to be published * These, and their uses, are described in a poem by Godfrey of Viterbo, written about thirty years before this time. f See his Letters for 1221. 200 THE HISTORY OF chap, throughout the Emphe. In the first, he declares ' nuU and void all statutes and customs which are 1212-1220. agaulst the freedom of the Church and churchmen. AU future offenders against this decree are to be de nounced as infamous, and theh goods are to be con fiscated. In the second, he forbids any taxation of churches or churchmen, under the penalty of three fold restitution. In the third, he places under the ban of the Empire any one who has remained for a year under the excommunication of the Church. In the fourth, he forbids plaintiffs and judges to bring Churchmen before the civd power, though the reve rend suitors are not to be denied theh legal rights. In the fifth, he denounces as infamous, and confis cates the goods of, aU Cathari, Paterines, Leonists, Speronists, Arnaldists, Circumcisi, and all heretics of either sex. In the sixth, he orders aU civil magis trates to take an oath that they will purge the land of heretics ; the abettors of false doctrine are to be outlawed ; and this is to be enforced against judges, advocates, and notaries. In the seventh, he de nounces penalties against wreckers, whatever be the local custom to the contrary. In the eighth, he pro tects the rights of pilgrims, and makes the local Bishop guardian of their property, if they die intes tate. In the ninth, he forbids any invasion of the goods of the tiUers of the sod, and protects their oxen and implements. This last clause reminds us of a certain provision in our own Great Charter, Avhich only preceded these constitutions of Frederick by five . years. The Emperor at once sent his new laAVs to the University of Bologna to be inscribed on its rods. It was not to be expected that an occasion, on which envoys from nearly all the cities of Italy were FREDERICK THE SECOND 201 present, should pass off without a single disturbance, chap. One of the Ambassadors of Florence, dining with a • Cardinal, asked his entertainer for a hound, which 1212-1220 was in the house, as a present. Next clay the Cardi nal gave a dinner to the Pisan envoys, who had come to Eome in a AveU-furnished gaUey, attended by fifty youths, and whom Frederick had welcomed most graciously, it being an unusual honour.* The host, forgetting that the hound had been aheady bespoken, gave it to one of the Pisans. The Florentine, how ever, got the start of the Pisan, as it happened, in sending for the dog, and therefore kept it. The rivals met in the streets of Eome, and abused each other ; the two embassies took up the quarrel, and the Florentines were worsted, as the Pisans had sol diers at hand. The latter wrote home to lay an embargo on aU Florentine wares at Pisa ; the order was carried out, and a long and bloody war ensued between the two chief cities of Tuscany. Malespini, the Florentine historian, declares that he heard this story from some old countrymen of his who had been at Frederick's coronation. A small spark hke this was quite enough in that age to set aU Italy in a blaze. ' The Devil took the shape of a dog,' says John Villani, ¦ as we see by the mischief that fol lowed.' Honorius exulted in the territorial influence ac quired by Eome, in return for bestowing the crown on Frederick. In the presence of the Emperor, the Pope invested Azzo the Marquess of Este, then a mere stripling, with the Anconitan March, using a banner in the ceremony. The patrimony of St. Peter seemed * Croniche di Pisa. 1212-1220. 202 THE HISTORY OF chap, now to be secured. The Pope had CasteUans of his own not far from Bologna. Peace was enforced upon the quarrelsome Umbrians, who were at war from Narni to FoUgno, Honorius having aheady summoned the Podestas of Central Italy to resign theh strongholds to him at Orvieto. A Cardmal was sent to act as the deputy of Eome in the Duchy of Spoleto, which was coveted by a certain German, who had followed Frederick to Eome.* The Holy See was at length, as it seemed, in possession of the Countess Matilda's bequest. But what had been easdy gained might be as easily lost. The Apuhan barons, who were present at the cere mony, had brought with them great numbers of war-horses as gifts to their King. Many of these Frederick gave to his German subjects, who were now about to return to their own landf The Bishop of Metz, the Duke of Bavaria, and more than 400 German and Apulian barons, together with a vast number of knights and common people, had taken the Cross for the ensuing March ; and Honorius sent the cheering news to the sorely-pressed Christian host at Damietta. He also despatched Conrad of Mayence, his Penitentiary, into Germany, to stir up the flagging zeal of the faithful. The Crusaders had now greater need of reinforcements than ever, since many of theh comrades had re turned home. Von Salza seems to have obtained leave of absence, for he was with the Emperor at Eome. Happily, the Moslem Sultans had made no * See a letter of Honorius for 1221. f Reinerius says that 2000 of these dextrarii (destriers) were brought, of which Frederick gave away more than 600. 1212-1220. FREDERICK THE SECOND 203 fonvard movement since the check received by them chap. in 1219. VL Soon after his coronation, Frederick encamped on Monte Mario, whence he could overlook the whole of the glorious city, from his lofty post on the other side of the Tiber. Here the young Emperor was overAvhelmed Avith business. The Archbishop of Eavenna, the Bishop of Ivrea, the Biedmontese no bles, and the city of Turin, aU claimed his attention. Azzo of Este procured a charter for a Benechctine monastery on the Po. The Abbot of Borgo San Sepolcro obtained privileges and protection against his neighbours. Pistoia was granted a charter, and its Podesta received investiture. Tortona was fa voured in a similar way. The Bishop of Bologna had sliOAvn himseU most courageous in the Emperor's service, and was accordingly weU rewarded. The Podesta of the same city received high compliments for its loyalty, which did not last long, as Frederick afterAvards found to his cost. The Ubalchni, a famous Florentine house, gained important privileges. The men of Poggibonzi, a Tuscan viUage, made a present payment, and agreed in future to pay eighty marks of sdver to the CasteUan of San Miniato, and to lodge the Emperor and Empress once a year. In return, they were released from theh subjection to Siena and Florence. A castle was given in pledge to Asti for a loan of 1800 marks. Pagano, the Bishop of Volterra, corning to Frederick, was called an fllus- trious Prince of the Empire, and Avas aUowed to ex ercise civil and criminal jurisdiction in his diocese. An Abbot of Eavenna obtained a confirmation of the possessions of his monastery. 1212-1220 204 THE HISTORY OF chap. But sterner duties had sometimes to be performed. Ugohno, the Bishop of Ostia, had already placed Parma under an interdict for outrages committed against her Bishop and clergy ; the Cardinal now re quested the Emperor to apply the secular arm. This Frederick did on the 25th of November, after taking the advice of the Princes of the Empire then at Eome, who were aU named in the decree pronounced against Parma. On the previous day he had granted a charter to the Pisans, in which he praises their services to his forefathers, and omits to mention their enmity against himself in 1212. He confirms all theh possessions, among which Elba and Corsica are reckoned ; their jurisdiction is to extend from Civita Vecchia in the South to Porto Venere in the North, the Genoese boundary. Frederick used his sword in the ceremony of investing the Pisan envoys with their new privileges. This Tuscan city from henceforth became the great stronghold of the Ghibelhne cause, never wavering in her loyalty to Frederick, and to his son and grandson after him. She had stdl sixty- four glorious years before her. On the 25th of November, Frederick had moved off to Sutri, about twenty-five mdes to the north of Eome, and here he remained six days. He gave remarkable powers to his faithful ChanceUor Conrad, the Bishop of Metz, as Imperial Legate in Italy, and he took under his protection the five Palatine Counts of Tus cany, the sons of Count Guido Guerra, giving them many privileges. Early in December the Emperor, making a long circuit, marched by Narni to Tivoh, and thence to San Germano. He met with a royal reception on gaining the bounds of his beloved King- FREDERICK THE SECOND 205 dom, after an absence of eight years and a half* chap. Ho had already prevailed on the Abbot of Monte YL Cassino, while at Eome, to restore Eocca Bantra to m2-mo. the Crown, a fort which had been the cause of a dis pute between Pope Innocent and himself in 1212. He sent forth his edicts to every part of Germany and Italy ; but a letter from Eome came to remind him that after aU he was not the undisputed master of the latter country. It is dated on the 11th of December, and we see that even after the coronation and Frederick's great concessions to the Pope, there had been a shght dispute between the two. ' We do not think that ever Pope of Eome loved Empe ror more heartily than we love you, as we hope to prove to you, with God's help, hereafter. If any thing has gone wrong as regards the supply of pro visions on the road, it is not our fault ; since when you were approaching Tuscany, we sent Alatrino, who is entirely devoted to you, with our orders that you might be provided with necessaries readily. Stdl we must remark that, according to the express treaty, within the States of the Church purveyance is subject to the dhection of the deputies of the Pope, not of those of the Emperor. Moreover, the districts of the Maritima and the Campagna owe no service by law, as they are not usuaUy Uable to be disturbed either on the Emperor's way to the coronation, or on his return. Still, if Emperors on theh expeditions against SicUy have exacted the same service, it was done by might, not by right. It Avas not our duty ; but in order to show our special love to you, we charged the Cardinal of St. Angelo, the ruler of that * Ric. San Germano. 1212-1220. 206 THE HISTORY OF chap, district, Avith the care of seeing that necessaries in VI - . every place should be delivered in sufficient quanti ties. After receiving your letter, we repeated our order to him.' Both Honorius and Frederick seem to have been satisfied with the bargain made at Eome ; the former had secured immunity for ecclesiastics, the lands of the Countess Matdda for the Church, and the services of the Emperor against heretics and Moslem ; the latter was weU pleased to be acknowledged both as Emperor and as King of Sicdy. More than this, Honorius sent a letter to the Prelates in the Kingdom of Aries, Frederick's third realm, dhecting them to give aU the aid in theh power to the Marquess of Montferrat, whom the Emperor had just despatched from Eome to act as his Vicar in those parts. It was hoped that the Mar quess, a man of approved Catholic principles, would promote the cause of rehgion, which was confronted on the Ehone by the Albigenses. Conrad, the Ger man Bishop of Porto, no friend to Frederick, was also directed to give his aid to the Marquess, who would need the support of the Pope's Legate in Ger many. In the mean time, the Bishop of Metz went as Frederick's Legate into Northern Italy, and appointed Everard of Lutra to act for him in Tuscany. FREDERICK THE SECOND 207 CHAPTER VII. A.D. 1220 — A.D. 1227. ' Hunc saltern everso juvenem succmrere sseclo Ne probibete I — Vikgil. F EEDEEICK had left Sicily a lad of seventeen, chap. who had been merely a tool in the hands of why priests, and the laughing-stock of marauding barons. He returned to Sicily a man of six-and-twenty, the hero of a daring enterprise, holding the highest temporal dignity known in the world, and aware that France and England were bidding against each other for his friendship. He had added his father's Emphe to his mother's Kingdom ; he had had much experience in courts and camps ; and he knew himself to be a match either for priests or warriors, having learnt craft from the one class, and promptitude from the other. He was now to pass almost eight years in his Kingdom, — a period spent by him with two distinct objects in view : first, the Crusade in which he had enlisted ; secondly, the regulation of SicUy and Apuha. These two projects were always run ning counter to one another. Honorius held that a King's first object ought to be the glory of the King of Kings, and the rescue of Christ's Sepulchre from the unbehevers ; Frederick thought that a Monarch's first efforts were due to his own people. The Pope VII. 1220-1227. 208 THE HISTORY OF iCHAP. kept pointing to Jerusalem and Damietta ; the 1 ' Emperor was not disobedient, but stdl kept looking 1220-1227. back on Capua and Palermo. Hence we may divide the time between 1220 and 1228 into two parts: the preparations made by Frederick for his Crusade, and the measures adopted by him for the good order of his dominions. We will take the latter division of the subject first. The great bane of the Kingdom of Sicdy was the excessive power of the nobles, who made war upon each other without scruple, budt castles without licence, seized on the Eoyal domains, and usurped the right of criminal jurisdiction. They were partly men of old Norman blood, partly German adven turers who had obtained grants of land and titles from Frederick's father. Other honours and estates had been conferred by Pope Innocent ; he had made full use of his prerogative as feudal Lord of the Kingdom. The Genoese and Pisans held with a firm grasp several towns on the coast, and disputed the Eoyal sway. Moreover, the western part of Sicdy was peopled by Saracen tribes, ever ready to rush clown from theh mountains and plunder the Christians of the plains. The common folk suf fered much from the quarrels of the nobles ; all looked forward to a ruler who would hold the reins with a firm, steady hand ; and such a ruler they found in Frederick. Peter, the old Count of Celano, had died the very year of his Sovereign's departure for Germany ; but many other veteran disturbers of the peace survived, not to be kept in order either by Queen Constance, the Eegent, or by Cardinal Gregory, the Pope's Legate at Palermo. Three years later, Innocent had deposed the Abbot of FREDERICK THE SECOND 209 Monte Cassino for dismantling that convent, and had chap. also caused Eoger of Aquila, the new Count of L Fondi, to swear fealty to the absent King. But in 1220-122?- the very next year this Count and John of Ceccano Avere engaged in a bloody strife ; during Avhich upon one occasion 424 persons, men and women, young and old, were burnt ahve in a castle.* The Counts of Celano and Molise waged open Avar in the Abruzzi. The Bishop of Teano was guUty of the vdest out rages, yet hoped to retain his mitre by bribing the Eoyal Legate.f The Crusaders traversing Apuha were robbed and murdered. Count Eegnier, as we have aheady seen, had perpetrated horrible butcheries in Sicdy. No wonder that the Commons looked forward to the coming of one, who alone could bridle feudal turbulence. ' No man now dares to put his trust in iniquity,' says Frederick in a charter given after his return, ' we wid introduce justice into aU things subject to us.' His reputation had gone before him. The Count of Alesina, unwilhng to face his young master, had started with eight gaUeys for Damietta. J The Count of Molise, unable to gain Frederick's favour, had shut himseU up in Magenul, whde the Countess took refuge in Boiano amid the Appenines. On the other hand those two almost impregnable positions on the border, Sora and Eocca d'Arce, surrendered to their hege Lord. He enjoyed a further triumph ; he found an old enemy awaiting sentence at Capua, who had been the bane of Southern Italy for nearly * Chron. of Fossa Nuova. f Letters of Thomas of Capua, given by Breholles. | French Chronicle, quoted by Breholles. VOL. I. P VII. 1220-1227. 210 THE HISTORY OF chap, thhty years. Diephold had in 1210 betrayed Capua to the Emperor Otho, and had in return been created Duke of Spoleto. Six years afterwards he had been seized, Avldle returning into the Kingdom on an ass, and had been throAvn into prison at Eome by the Senator ; he had however escaped by means of bribes, only to be seized again in 1218 by the orders of Frederick ; Diephold's own son-in-law, James of San Severino, had effected this capture. The criminal was now, in 1220, brought up for judgment ; but the host of Germans in Frederick's train could not look unmoved upon the sad plight of one, whose name was so associated with the son of Barbarossa, and with the German conquest of Sicdy. At their intercession, and on his brother Siffrid's consenting to give up certain towns, Diephold was set free. He was however deprived of his honours, which were given to another ; Thomas of Aquino was made Count of Acerra, and also Grand Justiciary of the Terra di Lavoro ; this chief became one of the ablest heutenants ever employed by the Crown. He Avas the uncle of his namesake, the great Schoolman, who was born a few years later. The lords of Aquino henceforth enjoyed much of the Emperor's confi dence; and other able ministers were found in the Morra and Cicala families. Before the end of the next year, Frederick contrived to get rid of another man, who had been the plague of his childhood. Walter of Palear, the crafty Bishop of Catania, was driven into banishment, like his old ally Diephold.* In the winter of 1220, the King of Sicily esta blished a new tribunal, caUed the Capuan Court, at that * Ric. San Germano. 1220-122". FREDERICK THE SECOND 211 city ; where tAventy Assizes Avere enacted. One great chap. object of this institution was, to restore to the Crown i_ those services, which the nobles were bound to yield, and which had become obsolete owing to the troubles of the last thirty years. * Again, very many Charters existed, which had been drawn up in defiance of Frederick's title to the sovereignty ; he fixed upon the death of King WiUiam the Good as the latest period of undoubted prescriptive right. Any privi leges granted by Tancred the usurper, or by Otho the invader, or any improperly bestowed by Markwald, Diephold, or Kapparon, were condemned as infringe ments on the Eoyal authority. It was not to be borne, for instance, that the pubhc acts of the city of Naples should recognise Otho as reigning even up to the Lateran Council. For a whole year after the new Court had been set up, Charters granted to Bishops, Abbots, and Corporations, were being sent in for revision, and this inspection seems to have been renewed in later years. These strong measures had been contemplated by the Emperor, even before quitting Germany. AU noblemen, who chd not come in by a certain day, were held to have forfeited their honours ; and various grants, that had been extorted by fraud in the old times, were revoked. Some persons, who did not bring forward their privdeges by the appointed day, were much injured. AU these steps were taken by the advice of a famous lawyer, Andrew BoneUo of Barletta.f The nobles, from this time forward, were in general estranged from Frederick's government ; like theh Norman brethren * See the Charter to Monte Vergine, in 1222. f Giannone ; Istoria Civile. VII. 1220-1227. 212 THE HISTORY OF chap, in England in the course of the same century, they preferred to hold their lands by the sword, rather than by the sheep-skin. These men, as we see by Frederick's subsequent Charters, were no longer aUowed to oppress the monasteries ; theh castles were threatened ; Eichard, the brother of the late Pope, had to give up Sora, and Cardinal Stephen was forced to quit Eocca d'Arce. Sessa, Teano, and Eocca Dracone were taken from the Count of Aquda.* Taxes were laid on the clergy; and Frederick began to meddle in the elections to vacant sees and to banish rebeUious Prelates ; he asserted that he was not bound by Innocent's compact, since it had been made with a woman. He complained of the Papal exactions during Ids minority, and recurred to the old privileges of the Sicihan Kings : ' How long,' said he, ' wdl the Pope abuse my patience ? What bound wiU he set to his ambition ? He begins to despise the majesty of the Emperor ; I woidd rather lay down the Crown, than lessen my authority ! ' f Frederick, however, who could not as yet afford to break with Honorius, wrote to him in March, protesting against the suspicions of his Holiness, that the privileges granted to the Church were in clanger, owing to this new institution of the Capuan Court. ' Our father,' says Frederick, ' granted away too large a portion of the Eoyal domains ; many of the title deeds by which they are now held are forgeries ; the Eealm was in danger of ruin, and we have, therefore, ordered all privUeges to be brought before us. You may be sure that aU the charters * Ric. San Germano. j Fazelli. FREDERICK THE SECOND 213 You demand shall be sent to your Paternity.' About chap. . VII the same time, Frederick allowed the Jcavs to dwell '. in Trani, on their making a yearly payment of thirty-eight ounces of gold to the clergy of the cathedral. One of the first things he did, after the sitting of the Court of Capua, Avas to order two laymen to refrain from harassing a Church at Ma- rano. His legislation certainly aimed at strict im partiality. From Capua, after confirming to the Pope the lands of the Countess Matilda, and after bestowing ample privdeges on Monte Cassino, Frederick passed on to Naples and Salerno ; he made to the Arch bishop of the latter see the usual grant of Jews and other rights, and protected the neighbouring Abbey of Cava, aUowing vassals to place themselves under its rule. He then took his way across the mainland, visiting, for the first time in his hfe, Foggia, Trani, Bari, Brindisi, and Taranto, whence the Germans, A\rho had foUowed him to Eome, set sail for Da mietta ; they bore to Von Salza the news of many new Imperial grants to his Order. Frederick at last crossed over to Sicily, and held another Court at Messina, in which he enacted laAvs against dicers and blasphemers. Jews were to be distinguished by their dress from Christians. Harlots were ordered to dwell outside the walls of the cities, and were for bidden to use the pubhc baths when honest women Avere there. Buffoons were placed beyond the pale of law and might be wounded or robbed with im punity. Frederick stripped the Genoese of all the privileges enjoyed by them at Syracuse, whence they had chiven the Pisans ; Genoa had now to pay dues at the custom-house, like any other state ; her Ad- 214 THE HISTORY OF chap, ndral barely escaped from the Emperor's clutches, and another of her citizens, Count Alamanno, found ' himself obhged to yield up his authority as Governor of Syracuse.* The vexation of the Genoese was doubtless heightened, on seeing their Pisan rivals receive a Charter shortly afterwards. While at Messina, Frederick confirmed Hddebrand, the Count Palatine of Tuscany, in all his rights, especiaUy in those appertaining to the city of Grosseto ; from this nobleman the Alclobrandeschi derived theh lineage. After visiting Catania and Calatagirona, the Emperor in July was able once more to date from ' the happy city of Palermo,' the official title of the capital. His long exile in bleak Germany was at last over ; he must have rejoiced to find himself once more within sight of Monte PeUegrino, to walk in the gardens of La Cuba, and to feast his eyes on the far-famed Conca d'Oro. The faithful burghers of Palermo had, according to the edict of the Court at Capua, brought before Frederick the Charter given to them in his name when he was a babe ; this he now confirmed. Many Abbots and Prelates hastened to comply with the rigorous edict, the Abbey of Flora being alone excepted from its provisions ; the charters seem to have been regranted to theh holders, after careful inspection. Knights, as we have seen, were forbidden to harass the churches ; on the other hand we find an Abbot rebuked for taking more than his due from certain villagers ; and the rebuke had to be repeated. The Eoyal Chapel at Palermo had received many injunctions from Frederick, when in Germany, to confer its * Caffari ; Ann. Genuenses. Ric. San Germano. VII. 1220-1227. FREDERICK THE SECOND 215 vacant dignities on persons named by him. Two chap years before, he had given to Brother Gerard the charge of a hospital for lepers in the capital, which Avas open to aU ; Von Salza Avas to have the power of appointing the future masters of this institution, since his Order had been founded mainly to alleviate sickness and disease. This grant Frederick after- Avards confirmed, when at Taranto. The magistrates of Palermo were complained of by the Teutonic brethren, and Avere in consequence sternly forbidden to molest them. These knights noAv obtained from Frederick a yearly pension of two hunched ounces of gold, charged on the Brinchsi revenues, to buy theh Avhite cloaks. Sicily seems to have remained at peace, under the \ eye of its Lord, but it was far otherwise on the main- ' land. Even before Frederick's coronation, the sons of Peter of Celano had broken out into civd war, as we gather from the letters of Thomas of Capua, a born subject of the Kingdom, who became a Cardinal. He had besought Frederick to pardon the offenders, acknowledging at the same time that it would be most unsafe for the Emperor, if he sailed for Pales tine, to leave behind him the turbulent Count of Molise, the son-in-law of the deceased Peter of Celano. The Count had, in vain, sent one of his sons to Eome, to implore Frederick's mercy. Eichard, the new Count of Celano, had gone on a like errand, and had been one of the spectators of the corona tion. Some of the youthful burghers of Capua were eager to serve the Crown, in order to have a pretext for avenging private wrongs. The good Cardinal wrote to the Celano brethren, Avarning them that the ruin of their house would be a heavy 216 THE HISTORY OF chap, blow to the Kingdom. It was foUy to scatter the VII . . . - ! riches which Peter, theh prudent father, had ac- 1220-1227. qUU,ed. It was a shame for brother to raise the hand against brother, and the Countess should know better than to sth up these brods. He sent a second letter to Frederick, imploring mercy for the dis turbers of the peace. The Emperor showed himself ungracious, and the war in the Abruzzi was carried on throughout the year 1221. The Count of Mohse was abetted by the Count of Celano ; they had made a truce between themselves, the more easily to combine against the Crown. Thomas, the Count of Acerra, was endeavouring to suppress this revolt; Boiano, Celano, and Magenul, were besieged and burnt, taken and retaken.* In January 1222, the Emperor quitted Sicily for the mainland. He was accompanied by Nicholas the Bishop of Tusculum, the Legate of Eome, one of the great Sicilian House of Chiaramonti.f This Cardinal consecrated in Frederick's presence the Cathedral of Cosenza, at the request of Archbishop Luke, and on the next day walked round and blessed the cemetery. Luke was revered as having been the chosen secretary of Abbot Joachim, con cerning whom the Archbishop had much to tell ; how the aged Seer had forced the Empress, Frede rick's mother, to go down upon her knees, while he was hearing her confession ; how he had given away aU his garments to the poor of Calabria, in the dreadful winter of 1202, the year of his death.J The Emperor was now to make acquaintance with * Ric. San Germano. -j- Cardella. X Ughelli, in his account of Cosenza, gives Luke's long letter about Joachim. FREDERICK THE SECOND 217 one greater than Joachim. Early in this year, St. chap. Francis had started from Eome on a mission to YIL Southern Italy, Avhich he traversed, founding con- 1220"1227- vents and working miracles at every step. He came to Bari, where he met the Court, and preached against the vices of Frederick and the nobles. It Avas resolved to try whether the Saint carried out his preaching in Ids own practice. He was invited to supper, and was afterwards subjected to a practical joke, Avherein a courtesan played the chief part. The fiery shield with which, according to the legend, he protected himself, put the temptress to flight, and Frederick, who, with his courtiers, had been peeping through the chinks into the room, acknowledged the miraculous poAvers of the man of God, begged his pardon for the insult, and spent some hours in dis cussing spiritual things with him. The tower in which the interview took place retained the name of St. Francis.* While the friar was making his pd- grimage to the shrine of St. Michael on Monte Gargano, the Emperor, attended by the Margrave of Baden and the titular Duke of Spoleto, passed on to Troja, Naples, and Capua. He visited the Pope, and on his return begged the monks of Casamara to remember him in theh prayers, and entrusted his seal to theh Abbot. Feudal services were exacted from the churches on account of the civd war which was raging. Frederick gave counsel to the Count of Acerra, then engaged in the siege of Magenul, advising a more strict blockade. After bestowing a charter on the Bishop of Marseilles, who had waited upon him, he was recalled to Sicdy by a more * Wadding, for 1222. 1220-1227. 218 THE HISTORY OF chap, serious danger than that of the Abruzzi. The VII Saracens of the West, who had always given much trouble to the Archbishop of Monreale, had broken out and were ravaging the plains, aided by pirates of theh own and of the Christian faith. WUUam Porco, Frederick's old Genoese Admhal, who had been doomed by his master to a prison, was active on their side. Henry, Count of Malta, was employed against them, but, not having troops enough under his orders, he was forced to retreat before them, and thus a second time fell into disgrace with Frederick ; for he had already been implicated in the disgraceful surrender of Damietta to the Saracens of the East. On this occasion the Count was thrown into prison and deprived of the government of Malta. He was able, however, to make a good defence of his con duct, and was accorchngly set free ; but he was dis possessed of the Castle of Malta, which was retained in the hands of the Crown.* Frederick, who had been joined by Conrad the Burgrave of Nurem berg, and by some Teutonic knights, now took the field himself ; he seems to have been kept for two months before the Castle of Giato, near Mazara. At last he defeated the Saracens. A gibbet was erected at Palermo, upon which he hanged at one and the same time their Emir Ben Abed, with his two children, and the foreigners, Wilham Porco, and Hugh de Fer, a pirate from MarseiUes.f The Em peror forced the wild tribes, which had so readily flown to arms at the call of Markwald, and which had prepared to welcome Kaiser Otho, to come down from their mountains, and to dwell in the * Caffari ; Annal. Genuen. f Alb. Trium Fontium. 1220-1227. FREDERICK THE SECOND 219 plains, although many stiU held out in their fast- chap. nesses, and were not thoroughly tamed until four years later. Not satisfied with this, Frederick de vised and executed a master-stroke of policy ; he converted the Arabs from harassing foes into the most useful of allies. He transported 20,000 of them, all able-bodied men, to the mainland, and there settled them at Lucera, in the broad plains of Apulia, famed from the earUest times for its breed of sheep. Frederick emptied this city of its Chris tian inhabitants, to make Avay for the men of the turban ; the Cathedral was turned into a Mosque ; he built a citadel only half a mde from the city, and he fortified its circuit with fifteen towers. The Castle of Lucera, one of the largest in Italy, may still be seen ; the great central building was pro bably Frederick's palace and treasury ; it is flanked with bastions and two circular towers, showing the style then for the first time introduced into castel lated architecture. But no trace now remains of the mosques, arsenals, and workshops, built for the use of the new colony. In Sicdy, where they often-, were succoured by theh brethren from Africa, the Saracens were a source of clanger to Frederick ; in Italy, they became his best soldiers, and were not withheld by any superstitious awe of the Church from attacking the Pope himseU. They are said to have committed fearful havoc in the Capitanata. The Emperor excused himself for employing them by saying that he was driven to wage many wars, and that the souls of Moslem were surely of less consequence than those of Christians, since blood must be shed. As yet the Pope had to rest satisfied with this excuse. Complaints came from 220 THE HISTORY OF chap. Girgenti concerning the transportation of the Sara- u ' cens ; that Bishopric had previously been much 1220-1227. harassed by their incursions, and at this time it was almost beggared by so many of its viUeins being forcibly removed from it. It was now richer in classic ruins than in worldly possessions. The Bishop Orso had, for thirty years, taken a leading part in Sicihan pohtics. He had been a partisan of the usurping King Tancred ; he had afterwards been seized by the Saracens, with whom in those days his Bishopric swarmed. They shut him up in a castle until he had paid five thousand golden tarens for his ransom. This Prelate came before the Imperial Court at Palermo, and proved by witnesses, duly sworn on the gospels, that his Church had lost its old privileges. Certain revenues were in consequence granted to it, and Frederick, coming to Girgenti in November, encloAvecl the Bishop with various lands, after praising him highly in the charter then be- stoAved, ' considering that this Church has been beggared by persecution, and that we receive seven thousand tarens from it.' The Cathedral of Girgenti, which had fallen into ruins owing to the long exile and captivity of Orso, was re- budt by his successor, Einaldo of Acquaviva.* It had been profaned by the Saracens, who installed themselves in it, drove off the clergy and people, and would not adow children to be brought to the font. In 1228, Ave find Frederick ordering the transfer of a brotherhood from Gir genti to the house of an Arab, named Barchelek, who had probably been banished to the mainland. + * Rocchus Pirrus. + Gregorio. FREDERICK THE SECOND 221 By October 1222, the Saracen war must have been chap. much abated, since the Emperor had leisure to visit ' Catania and Messina. He granted the request of the 122°-1227- Brethren of the Abbey of Ferraria, whose charters had been torn up by a former Abbot, 'instigated by the goadings of the Old Enemy.' The seal of the Emperor Henry had been broken, owing to the carelessness of its keeper, as appeared at the Capuan Court ; Frederick therefore granted a general con firmation to the Brethren of Ferraria, with leave to make an aqueduct. The Canons of Cefalu were recommended to the Pope's notice. In December, Frederick crossed to Apulia, where he Avas joined by some of the returning German Crusaders. Von Salza was at this time in Italy, after having witnessed the ruin of the Crusade ; he had long before this obtained from the Emperor the grant of a house in Sachsenhausen, the suburb of— Frankfort, with the gUt of two dady waggon-loads of dry wood from the neighbouring forest. The Teutonic Order was now still further favoured by an Lnperial edict, which declared that no one entering the Brotherhood should be hable for any debts pre viously incurred by him ; these must be discharged by the hehs of Ids worldly goods. Frederick re ceived Hermann, the Grand Master, at Precina, Avhere the court was ; this was a castle which had been given up to the Emperor by the Abbot of San Giovanni in Piano in the previous year. It stands at the foot of Monte Gargano, in the country where Frederick loved to follow the chase. It is now caUed Apricena, and tradition tells of a supper given on the spot by the Emperor, after the death of a huge 1220-1227. 222 THE HISTORY OF CJ£P- boar.* While in Apuha, Frederick noticed the conduct of some men, who, even after the edicts issued from the Capuan Court, had laid hands on the goods of the Monasteries ; Monte Vergine was an especial sufferer by this violence, which was now sternly forbidden. The Emperor was equaUy zealous for ecclesiastical interests in more distant provinces ; he at this time commended to the charge of the Burgundian nobles the church of St. Stephen at Besancon, where some of his kinsmen had been buried. In January 1223, Frederick, being surrounded by many of the Princes of Germany, issued some edicts for the benefit of that country, which he had left under the care of Engelbert, the good Archbishop of Cologne. Loud complaints were made against the Count of Gueldres, who was taking unjust tolls from traveUers on the Ehine, in defiance of the sentence passed at Frankfort; he was accordingly warned to desist. The Advocacy of the Abbey of Hirschau had come into Frederick's hands, which he promised never to alienate. Hermann von Salza besought the Emperor to confirm the privdeges of his Order, which was highly praised for its courage in the late Crusade, and for its tender care of the poor and sick. The Court removed from Precina to Capua in January ; the Princes of Germany continued to flock to theh Kaiser; among them were many of the high officials of the Empire. The Archbishop of Magdeburg, having been lately appointed Frederick's * The name was certainly written Precina in the Thirteenth Century. FREDERICK THE SECOND 223 Legate in Northern Italy, appeared at Capua. Con- chap. rad, Bishop of Hddesheim, who had done much for _ — the Crusade, obtained a pubhc sentence from the "" ' ' Emperor, that no official of the Empire should appoint a deputy, or dispose of property, without the consent of the Brince his lord. Another sentence Avas given, that no Brelate might ahenate the lands of his Church, or grant them as perpetual fiefs, unless he Avas one of those who received his insignia from the Emperor himself, and bore a shield in the Im perial sendee.* The Bishop of MarseiUes came to Capua, to obtain a confirmation of his privdeges. The Provost of St. Servais at Maestricht came on a hke errand, and moreover obtained a ruined build ing for the use of his Church. At this time, Frede rick's Court was crowded, not only with Prelates from the Ehine and the Ehone, and with nobles from Northern Italy, but also with stiU more Ulus- trious strangers from Palestine. They aU followed Frederick to an interview with Pope Honorius at Ferentino. Petitioners both from the Emphe and the Kingdom kept flocking in. Amongst others, the Provost of the Church of Berne procured an Imperial decree against the two Counts of Kiburg, who had kept him and his Canons out of his Church for six years, and had scorned the ban of the Bishop of Constance. Frederick also granted to a Prior of Aversa a confirmation of the Charter given by Duke Eoger ; one of the witnesses to this deed is a judge named Aminadab. Anchew the Archbishop of Bari, the successor of Berard in that see, obtained three Charters from Frederick at Ferentino ; one of which * Johann Victor. 1220-1227. 224 THE HISTORY OF chap, establishes the fact, that the Greek clergy and Catapans were stiU to be found in the diocese of Bari. Frederick left Ferentino in March, and returned to Sora, foUowed by Von Salza and many nobles of the Empire. The Bishop of Trent was appointed Legate of the Empire in Tuscany, where he received seventy marks of sdver for his master. The Church of Hamburg obtained a Charter, and orders were sent to Engelbert to give corporal possession of the Emperor's late grant to the Church at Maestricht. Frederick, having thus bestowed much time upon German business, was now recaUed to the wars of Italy. He besieged Celano in March, being resolved to put an end to the strife which had been rag ing in the Abruzzi for more than two years. The Count of Acerra, his Ueutenant, aided by the Archbishop of Capua and the Abbot of Monte Cassino, had been occupied, sometimes in chasing the noble rebels whenever they broke out of Celano, Boiano, or Magenul, sometimes in laying siege to those strong positions. Frederick strove to get the Count of Mohse into his hands, by making the Countess and her son his envoys.* He was aided in the siege of Celano by Henry Count of Malta, who was once more in favour. The Pope at last made peace between the two parties ; the Count was allowed to proceed to Eome, whde the Countess kept the estate and honours. A treaty was also made with the Count of Celano. A letter was sent to Pope Honorius from Pescara, dated on the 25 th of April, 1223, which explained that the Emperor * Ric. San Germano. FREDERICK THE SECOND 225 had forgiven Count Thomas, his sons, Einaldo of chap. Aversa, and their followers. A full pardon was YIL promised them, to be confirmed by the Church ; but 1220-1227. they Avere to give up their fortresses. The Count's vassals Avere to receive back their fiefs ; and their lord Avas that very year to start for the Crusade and to serve for three years ; if there should be no Crusade, he Avas to go into Lombardy in August. His son and the son of Einaldo of Aversa were to be placed as hostages in the hands of Hermann von Salza, the master of the Teutonic Order, in whom aU men had ftdl confidence. The County of Mohse Avas confirmed to Count Thomas, his wife, and heirs ; his faithful barons and knights were not to be judged, unless in his presence or in that of his deputy. Einaldo of Aversa was also to receive back his estates, and the conditions of peace were to be published before the whole army. The Emperor's Court was to be bound by oath to observe them faithfully, and they were to be an nounced to the Pope. This treaty, which restored peace to the Abruzzi, was made towards the end of April, when Frederick was at Pescara ; in May, he Avent to Cotrone, where he inspected several Greek Charters granted by his Norman forefathers to the See of Eossano; these he confirmed to Basil the Archbishop. When at Maida, the Emperor occu pied himself with the busmess of the Kingdom of Aries. In the beginning of June, he Avas once more at Palermo. By this time, the Saracens of the West had been almost entirely subdued ; an army Avas sent to exterminate their brethren in the island of VOL. I. Q 226 THE HISTORY OF chap. Gerbes.* Frederick had also the satisfaction of knowing that, at the other end of his Empire, the 1220-1227. Xing of Denmark was his captive. Cassar, victorious at every point, remained for a long time in Sicily, after making a hasty visit to Melfi in Apulia ; the towns of the Abruzzi felt his vengeance. Celano, church and all, Avas destroyed, and the old in habitants were not aUowed to dwed any where near its site, which was now called Cassarea. An iron hand was thus laid heavily upon this land of feudalism. Many new strongholds, built in the county of Molise, Avere puUed cIoavii, as also were the waUs of the old Samnite city of Isernia. On the other hand, castles were ordered to be built at Gaeta, Naples, Aversa, and Foggia ; and Eoger of Pesclalanzano was charged with the execution of these orders. Frederick now resolved to strike a further blow against his nobles. The Saracen war Avas stiU being waged in Sicdy, and the feudatories of the mainland were summoned to serve theh King in this struggle. Four of them, Eoger of Aquila, Thomas of Caserta, James of San Severino, and the son of the Count of Tricarico did not appear at the proper time, or with proper attendance ; upon which Frederick ordered Henry of Morra, his faithful deputy, to seize them and to confiscate their lands. The Count of Mohse shared the hke fate, having refused to appear before Morra, when summoned by that official.f The restlesss oligarchy, under which the Kingdom had groaned during Frederick's minority and absence in Germany, Avas now forced * App. ad Gauf. Malaterram. f Ric. San Germano. FREDERICK THE SECOND 227 to make way for a despotism, Avhich at least gave\ chap. peace and quiet to the land. '. The next year, 1224, Avas entirely spent by the 1220-1227. Emperor in Sicily, and this Avas the only year in the Avhole period between his return from Germany and his embarkation for Palestine, in which his presence Avas not needed on the mainland. He seems to have been much at Catania, and while he Avas there, almost the last embers of the Saracenic war were trodden out on the heights of Platani. This Avas a natural fortress, held by the unbelievers, a mile in cir cumference, with abrupt precipices on every side ; the ruins of waUs Avere visible upon it three cen turies after this time, and it still bears the Moslem name of Calata.* In March the Arab sheikhs, the deputies of all the mountain tribes, were brought before the Emperor by the Marshal at Catania, and there they made their submission. The Sicihan nobles besought Frederick to follow up his advantages, and not to quit their shores. MeaiiAvhde the Pope pleaded the cause of the four nobles who had been thrown into prison in the previous year ; they were released, but had to give up their sons as hostages. The Em peror now laid a trap for some of his humbler enemies ; he caused Morra to lure back to theh homes the scattered inhabitants of Celano, under promise of restoring to them their lost possessions. As soon as ( they came together, they were seized and shipped off to Sicily, and were thence sent to colonize the barren rock of Malta. About this time, letters concerning the University of Naples, Frederick's new foundation, were sent * Amari ; Storia dei Musulmaui in Sicilia. Q 2 228 THE HISTORY OF chap, throughout the Khigdom. The order for dismanthng fortifications was strictly enforced ; the walls of San 1220-122,. Q-ermano were with difficulty spared. An edict was issued, aUowing the churches exemption from feudal services. An Illustrious stranger, WiUiam the Mar quess of Montferrat, came with troops to Brindisi, the favourite port of embarkation for the East. He was on his way to recover Thessalonica, which had fallen to the share of his family at the time of the Latin conquest of Constantinople. He went into Sicily alone, in order to obtain Frederick's aid for this enterprise, and he pawned to the Emperor as many towns and castles in Montferrat as he was able to pledge ; for these he received 9000 silver marks. He soon perished ; his brother Demetrius came to Frederick two years later on the hke errand, and at his death bequeathed to the Emperor his own claim to the possession of Thessalonica. Frederick kept it until the year 1239, when, standing in need of every friend he could make, he handed it back to the Montferrat famdy.* In November, 1224, he made a treaty with the King of France, binding himself not to aid the rebels in that country, or to enter into any league with the Kmg of England. Tavo French ambassadors came to Catania to make this treaty, whde King Louis himself had an interview with Frederick's son in Lor raine. Archbishop Engelbert, on the other hand, chd aU he could to uphold the Enghsh adiance. Shortly afterwards, Frederick asserted his power over Pro vence ; the Abbot of Montmajeur begged his inter position against the rapacious Count of Forcalquier, who made light of the ban pronounced by the Arch- * Benvenuto San Giorgio. FREDERICK THE SECOND 229 bishop of Aix. Frederick placed the Count under chap. the ban of the Empire, finding that a previous warning had had no effect. A feAV months afterwards, 1220-1227. he conferred favours on the Prelates of Orange and Aries, the latter of Avhom Avas allowed to become the legatee of persons dying, though he Avas forbidden to alienate a castle belonging to the Empire. The same prohibition Avas extended to the Count of Toulouse, Avho became one of Frederick's firmest friends, when they Avere both alike persecuted by the Church. The Count of Provence Avas enjoined to make war on the burghers of Marsedles, for having rebelled against their Bishop, avIio had fled for protection to the Em peror. These mutineers and their goods were to be seized, wherever found, whether on sea or on land, and Aries Avas ordered to wage the war against them. A sentence of the Empire against Besancon Avas also approved, and a prayer of the Chapter of Toul was granted. Louis of France was entreated to dis countenance the men of Cambray, who made light of the Emperor's edicts. These papers, which have come doAvn to us, give some notion of the power wielded by the Hohenstaufen Princes. Many provinces, now included Avithin the boundaries of France, then looked for direction to Haguenau or Palermo, not to Paris. On the 26th of December, his birthday, Frederick heard mass in the Eoyal Chapel of Palermo, when he was shown by the Chapter a charter of King Eoger, the Golden BuU of which had been cut off by some one ' led by diabohcal instinct, or bhnded by desire for gold ; ' whereupon the Emperor renewed the charter. Monksof the different Orders were constantly coming to him with privileges granted to them by his fore fathers, and often written in Greek. Some time before 1220-1227. 230 THE HISTORY OF chap, this, he had banished Harduin, the Bishop of Cefalu, on a charge of wasting the estates of that See. The Pope ordered the cause to be tried by two Judges, the Bishop appearing as Plaintiff and denouncing the exactions of the Imperial officials. One of his griev ances was, that he had been forced to ransom himseU from the unruly Eoman mob, Avhilst in exde. A Eoyal Notary, on the other hand, charged the Bishop with nepotism and waste. Harduin rephed by stating all that he had done for his Church, and by aUeging the cost of travelling to Germany and to Eome. The sentence was, that the Emperor should make good the past revenues of the See and the money expended by the Bishop, but that the Crown should be allowed to hold the Castle of Cefalu, a bulwark against the incursions of the Arabs. Harduin was soon again driven into banishment, and had the honour of being one of the Prelates most hated by Frederick. The Emperor, in 1225, was quitting Sicily for almost two years ; he therefore summoned into that island all Ids barons and feudatories, in order to overawe the Saracens wldle he himseU went into Apuha. He took up his abode for some time at Foggia and Troja, whence he repaired to San Ger mano. This year being a peaceful one, the designs for the Crusade were much forwarded. Early in 1226, he ordered aU the barons of his Eealm to meet him at Pescara and follow him into Lombardy. He made Henry of Morra Chief Jus ticiary and Captain of the Kingdom. Frederick's first care, after his return from his bootless journey in the autumn, was to receive accounts at Foggia from aU his Justiciaries, and to appoint new ones. He withdrew into Sicily for the winter, which was FREDERICK THE SECOND 231 a remarkably hard one ; Lake Fucino of the glassy chap. Avave Avas frozen over, so that men and oxen could ' — pass across it; and early in the next year, 1227, 1220-1227. there was a great dearth Avhich speedily made its effect felt at Eome. Honorius, besot by a starving population, at once turned his eyes towards the old granary of the city ; he sent to Sicily for corn, Avith many complaints of the Eoman dealers, who had locked up theh grain. Frederick Avas exhorted to imitate Joseph, and to supply the need of his father and brethren ; it Avas not very long since the Kings of Sicily had sent corn to Eome in the time of distress. Morra Avas accordingly ordered to provide for the Pope's wants. The Emperor was now on the eve of Ids great enterprise ; he summoned aU the Justiciaries over to Sicdy, that he might once more take an account of theh labours. Thomas of Acerra visited that island, before sailing for Palestine as his Sove reign's harbinger. At this period Frederick per formed an act of mercy, a fitting prelude to his crusade. The men of Celano had now been in banishment for three years ; they were all set free by his command. Marsia seems to have been the most disloyal province on the mainland ; it was noAv caUed upon to give hostages for its good behaviour during Frederick's absence in the East. There Avere one or tAvo outbreaks, as it was, before he could start for Acre in 1228.* In the previous year, we find the Pope writing to Morra, and urging him to punish one Saul, who is called an apostate, the ringleader of the Sora rioters. The citizens of this border town had piUaged the goods and carried off the cattle * Ric. San Germano. 1220-1227. 232 THE HISTORY OF [Chap. belonging to Frederick's favourite Abbey of Casa- mara, besides being gudty of bloodshed. The Lords of Monte San Giovanni had borne their share in these outrages ; they were therefore ordered to appear at Eome within eight days, on pain of excommunication.* Thus, as we see, the Church herself bore witness to the lawlessness of Frederick's subjects. He loudly proclaimed that his hand alone could tame the rebels of Apulia. He seized upon the Castles of Bishops and Abbots, alleging that he was the Advocate of the Church and the best judge of military matters ; the clergy would have more time for prayer, if they were reheved from the duty of acting as CasteUans. This was Frederick's pohcy in the government of his own Kingdom. The punishments he had inflicted on German criminals, such as mutilation and breaking on the wheel, were revived in Sicdy. f His system savoured more of the wisdom of the serpent than of the harmlessness of the dove. ' Long promise with short heed ' was the characteristic feature of his government; he had learnt the lesson of duplicity from the rulers of the Church, and he never hesitated to combat them with their own weapons. Whatever may be laid to his charge, no act of his can quite come up to that letter of a renowned Pope, which justifies an atrocious act of treachery on the part of the Papal Legates in the Albigensian war, by the text, 'Being crafty, I caught you Avith guile.' And the man who thus quoted Scripture for his purpose Avas Frederick's old guardian, Innocent the Third It may readdy be beheved, that the wars hi SicUy * Regesta of Gregory for 1227. Middlehill MSS. f Rich. Senon. 1220-1227- FREDERICK THE SECOND 233 and the Abruzzi cost enormous sums of money ; chap. Frederick seems to have estabhshed the most regular system of taxation knoAvn in Western Europe since the fall of the old Eoman Empire. The cost of these Avars Avas borne by the Avhole Kingdom ; not by the particular district in which they were being waged. Again, the impending Crusade Avas a heavy drain upon the finances. The first levy of taxes Avas made in 1221, and a new coinage of tarens was issued at Amalfi. In the next year, Frederick ordered that Avares should be sold for the new money at a certain valuation, to be made by the judgment of six good men, sworn for the purpose, in every district. In quisitions were constantly being made into the ways in which the taxes were raised. The Saracenic war exacted great sacrifices ; an Abbot complained, that he was not properly supported by his vassals in contributing men for the army ; and Frederick ordered the defaulters to repay all necessary ex penses. In 1223, the whole Kingdom was taxed for this war hi Sicdy ; three hundred ounces of gold were raised from the lands of St. Benedict alone, and they were rated at the like amount for the next year. Taxes were levied on the Church, under the name of loans*; one was raised throughout the Eealm, when Frederick was on the eve of setting out for Lombardy. This may remind us of the old English system of ' benevolences.' The Mint at this time seems to have been estabhshed at Brindisi, in the Palace of Margaritone, the blind Admiral, which had gone to the Crown, and was used as a Custom House, even after being granted to the Teutonic * Giannone ; Istoria Civile. 234 THE HISTORY OF chap. Order.* From Brindisi the neAV coinage, styled Imperial, was issued at the end of 1225, the old 1220-1227. monev "being caUed in. The Master of the Mint, a Messinese, was taken under Frederick's special pro tection, and obtained a valuable grant. Sometimes the taxes were commuted for services ; thus in 1226 the Abbot of Monte Cassino had leave to send his vassals to Gaeta, to aid in building the new Castle. Two years later, the vassals of that Monastery were called upon for military service, and the Abbot raised 1200 ounces for their pay.f During these seven years and a half, which Fre derick spent in his own Kingdom, he was constantly interrupted in his efforts for the good of his people, by the calls of Eome to make ready for the Crusade ; and there Avere various other differences between him and the Pope, which had an untoAvard ending. This branch of the subject Avill now occupy our attention. He had already, while in Germany, obtained several respites from Eome. At his coronation in 1220, however, he vowed to cross the sea in the August of 1221. In the mean time, he sent on before him the Duke of Bavaria, the Bishop of Passau, and many other Germans, who on arriving at Damietta found the Christian host a prey to anarchy. John de Brienne, the King of Jerusalem, dissuaded any further enterprise durmg the summer heats. Pelagius the Legate, on the other hand, insisted on pushing on to Cairo. In vain had Frederick entreated the Crusa ders to await his arrival. The unlucky expedition was undertaken in July, although at the very time large * See Frederick's Charters for 121 G. | Ric. San Germano. FREDERICK THE SECOND 235 reinforcements Avere coming from Italy. The Pope chap. had sent Cardinal Ugolino, the Bishop of Ostia, into the North to preach the Crusade, and described 122tM227- him ' as a man Avho had a zeal for God according to knoAvledge, holy as avcII as eloquent, the man of our right hand, Ugohno, avIio is like a cedar of Lebanon planted in the garden of God, a man Avhose presence Ave are loth to lose.' Frederick had also, early in 1221, congratulated the Cardinal on his appointment, little knoAving Avhat a baneful influence this Church man Avould exercise on the future. He thus addressed him ; ' We hear that our father Honorius has made you his Legate in Lombardy and Tuscany, with a view to the Crusade. We rejoice that the office is given to one, avIio is so sound in the faith, so spotless in morals, of such eloquence, and so renowned for his virtues and learning. We beheve that any Legate sent by the Pope would bear proper fruit ; still we think that your Avords will be peculiarly blessed. We give you full permission to release from our ban any of our subjects Avho have incurred it.' The Cardinal, armed with full poAvers both by Church and State, set himself to the task of collecting money. The Podestas of Siena and Florence promised him a certain sum for every hearth in their respective cities, and the Bishops of Lombardy and Eomagna were probably equally active in the cause of Pales tine. Frederick wrote from Salerno in February, 1221, to his liegemen in Germany, Lombardy, and Tuscany : ' We OAve to God some return for the help He has vouchsafed us in raising us to the Empire ; we have therefore taken the Cross, and we think night and day of succouring the Holy Land Avhere Eachel is now weeping for her children, and of 236 THE HISTORY OF chap, making ready gaUeys and ships. Many have followed ' — our example, but they are too few for the present 1220—1227 ' danger. Up, loyal soldiers of the Empire ! snatch up your arms ! for now the conquering Eagles of the Eoman Empire have gone forth ! Our comrades will have a double reward, our favour and everlasting bliss ! Think of the old Eomans, who followed their Emperor to the uttermost parts of the East ! Why do not the members feel pity for the Head, who underwent so much on our behalf? We have taken upon our shoulders the sign of Him, Avho for us bore the Cross. Be guided by the Bishop of Ostia, our especial friend.' Frederick wrote in the hke strain to the Milanese ; he was engaged in an enterprise in which both friends and foes ahke could help him. Vast sums of money for the Crusade were coUected by the agents of Honorius throughout Christendom, and many soldiers crossed over to the aid of their brethren at Damietta ; but stdl a leader was wanting. All hopes of success lay in Csesar, and in him alone. The Bope thus wrote to him in June ; ' 0 that you would consider, how wistfully the Christian host awaits you in the East, beheving that you wdl post pone aU to Jerusalem, especially since the Lord has granted you such means for the enterprise ! But many are murmuring, that you delay the galleys Avhich you had prepared, and which would be of great service to the army, should they be despatched instantly. We beseech, we warn, and we exhort you to put away from yourself this reproach ! ' Frederick made excuses on the plea that much money had been spent on his coronation and on send ing men to the East ; but he promised to despatch a fleet forthwith to Egypt. Honorius made answer, 1220-1227. FREDERICK THE SECOND 237 that the fleet Avould have been of some use, had it chap. been sent earlier ; and he warned Frederick not to devote himself too much to the affahs of Sicily. The Emperor had asked for a fiuther respite, until March next year. The Pope rephed, ' God, who knows all secrets, is my witness, with what joy of heart I awaited the clay, Avhen I Avas to crown you. I re joiced in your exaltation, as a father in that of his son, expecting from it the greatest profit for the Church. The more she has served you, the more she hopes from you. Even before your coronation, you fell under an excommunication ; which I only removed, on your oath to obey the Church. But you have hitherto disappointed the hopes of the Christians in the East. Moreover, your deputies have been oppressing Bene vento, although I am always ready to listen to any complaints of your subjects against the people of that city. Besides, I hear that you are meddling in the elections of Bishops : I wiU see that no wrong is clone you in these affairs ; but beware of treacling in the footsteps of your forefathers, whom God has so chastised, that you are almost the last of your race. Think of the past, and see if you can hope for any advantage from war with the Church ! How many both in Germany and Apuha woujd rejoice, if I were to assad you ! If you force me to harsh measures, I wiU lay aU that has passed between us before the world, and will call Heaven and Earth to witness, how unwillingly I gave up gentle means.' * This letter was written in August, the very month in which Frederick, at his coronation, had promised to sail. He could scarcely have been aware of the * Regesta of Honorius, quoted by Von Raumer. Raynaldus gives very little of this letter. 238 THE HISTORY OF chap, incredible folly, which Avas at this time guiding the counsels of the army in Egypt ; stiU he prepared to send succours to it, according to his promise. Boused by the Papal warnings, although he had aheady despatched his Marshal Anselm von Jus- tingen with troops to the East*, he now sent off another fleet, consisting of forty galleys, under the command of Henry Count of Malta, a gallant leader, who had been much mixed up with Sicilian affairs since the beginning of the century. With Henry was joined Walter of Palear, the Bishop of Catania, the old Chancellor who had given Bope Innocent so much trouble in the clays of Markwald. These tAvo chiefs were also entrusted with large sums of money, levied throughout the Kingdom for the benefit of the Crusade. On their way, they turned aside to chase sbme Saracen pirates, and upon reaching Damietta, they found that aU had gone to ruin.*!* The Saracens had manned gaUeys, and had inter cepted the succours from the West that were being poured into Egypt. Malek Moadhin, the poAverfnl Sultan of Damascus, the brother of Sultan Ka- mel of Cairo, had done much damage to the Chris tians in Syria, and had taken the castle of Cassarea, although Acre Avas protected by its large garrison. Ashraf, the Lord of Aleppo, was at first hostile to the Sultans his brothers, but afterwards joined with them. The Christian towns, Antioch, Tripoli, and Acre were thought to be in great danger, as all the power of the West Avas concentrated at Damietta. The expenses incurred Avere enormous ; many Avere the prayers put up for the Emperor's arrival ; if * Letter of Frederick for 1227. f Eic. San Germano. FREDERICK THE SECOND 239 he did not come speedily, affairs both in Syria and chap. Egypt would be in a most precarious state. Afte :t 1 oo()— 12''7 fortifying Dandetta Avith trenches, the Crusaders hold a groat councd, attended by the Legate Pelagius ; the Duke of Bavaria, Frederick's lieutenant, who avowed that he had come to fight ; the Masters of the Templars, the Hospitallers, and the Teutonic Order ; and many nobles. They resolved to march upon Cairo ; the King of Jerusalem arrived by sea ; and they set forth in July, 1221, with 6000 knights and 40,000 infantry. The Sultan flying before them lured them on to his camp, which was defended by a branch of the Nde. This proved an awkward check ; thousands of deserters left the standard of the Cross ; and the Saracens, getting into the rear of their enemy, held the command of the river and pre vented any provisions being brought up from Dami etta. Kamel, Moadhin, and Ashraf, together Avith other Sidtans, hemmed in the Crusaders ; and when the latter faced about, after making up their minds to go back, they found their retreat cut off by means of many canals, into which the Nile had been turned.* AU their stores and baggage were lost ; the river began to overflow, and they Avere now on an island, up to their waists in water. The Sultan, to quote the words of the Grand Master of the Temple, had them hke a fish in a net ; and he Avould not throw aAvay his advantages or risk a battle. In this strait, the Christians were ready to catch at any terms of peace ; they agreed to give up their great conquest, Dami etta, which had just been purchased by so many lives, and by a siege that had lasted more than a * Populus incidit in lacum, immo laqueum. Letter of Fre derick for 1227. 240 THE HISTORY OF chap. year. In return, the Sultan was to yield up the true Cross ; and each party was to restore all 1220-1227. prisoners to the other side. A truce for eight years was also agreed upon, unless a crowned Head should come into the East, and begin the war again. Hostages were given on both sides ; and the sad news was brought to Damietta by deputies chosen from the army. Von Salza and others met Fre derick's fleet coming up the Nde, and ordered its return.* Great was the dismay of the garri son ; the Bishop of Acre, the Sicihan ChanceUor, and the Count of Malta, wished to defend the city ; but on strict search being made, neither men nor money were forthcoming. The treaty was there fore confirmed ; and Damietta, which had been held by the Christians for almost two years, was once more given up to the Sultan, in the beginning of September. Thus ended in disaster what may be called the first act of the Fifth Crusade, f Frederick's two representatives seem to have borne their part in causing the surrender, by loitering on their voyage from Italy. Walter the ChanceUor was naturaUy averse to the idea of facing the Im perial wrath, after the untoward issue of the under taking, knowing that this was not his first offence ; he accordingly fled to Venice ; and there the old in triguer, reduced to a state of want, died in exile. The Count of Malta, a valiant solcher, returned home ; Frederick laid hands upon him, and took away his estates. A dismal gloom overspread Christendom on the arrival of the news, that Damietta, which had * Letter of Frederick for 1227. j Letters in De Wendover. FREDERICK THE SECOND 241 absorbed so much blood and treasure, was once chap. more in the hands of the Moslem. The grave YIL Notary of San Germano is unusuaUy aroused. For 1220-1227. almost the only time, he disregards the rule he has laid down for himseU on beginning his Chronicle, that he wdl set down nothing but what he has either seen himseU or heard from others most worthy of behef ; he is now tempted to quit his sober prose, and breaks out into most piteous rhyming stanzas.* The real author of this disaster was beyond all doubt Cardinal Pelagius, the Pope's Legate in the East. He must have known that many gaUeys were coming to his aid from Apuha, Avith strong reinforce ments ; yet he chose to push on towards Caho, without waiting for Frederick's soldiers and saflors, who would have done good service in the Nile. This arrogant priest, puffed up by his success at Damietta, had meddled in mihtary matters, and had thwarted King John of Jerusalem, the first soldier of the age now that Simon de Montfort was gone. Honorius ought to have laid the blame on the shoulders of his Legate, his ' second Joshua,' who had found the Nde * ' Jesu bone, si fas est dicere, Cur sic placuit nos dejicere ? Ubi nunc decus est Ecclesisj, Christians flos et militia? ? Legatus, Rex, et Dux Bavarian Victi cedunt viri perfidies ! O quam pravo ducti consilio Exierunt duces in proelio I Damiata, tu das exilio Quos fovisti fere biennio ! ' The more phlegmatic German, who writes the Augsburg Chronicle, contents himself with a simple heu, heu ! for the fall of Damietta. VOL. I. R 242 THE HISTORY OF chap, less easy to manage than the Jordan. Instead of lIL this, the Pope turned round upon Frederick. The 1220-1227. Emperor wrote in October, 1221, ' that the sad news from Egypt had plunged a sword into his heart, and had made him the more eager to rush to the rescue ; but that further advice must be taken.' Honorius made answer in November : ' For five years men have been expecting your Crusade ; they now throw the whole blame of the disasters in Egypt on the Pope, and not altogether without reason. We have been too easy in sanctioning your delays. Owing to the solemn vow made by you at your Coronation, and owing to your letters to the Crusaders, announc ing your speedy arrival, they rejected the proffer of Jerusalem. We shaU spare you no longer, if you stdl neglect your duty ; we shaU excommunicate you in the face of the Christian world. Take heed then, hke a wise man and a Cathohc Prince.' Ni cholas, the Sicilian Bishop of Tusculum, was once more sent from Eome to arouse Frederick to a sense of his duties. In Aprd, 1222, Honorius met the Emperor at Veroh, a smaU town near the boundary separating theh dominions. They were in conference for fifteen days.* Damietta was lost ; and there was therefore no need of immediate hurry. The Pope proposed to caU a Council at Verona, where Germans and Italians could most conveniently assemble ; he and Fred erick would there meet the Princes of the Empire, late in the year. Honorius also desired the presence of the heroes, who had aheady begun the good work in the East; King John of Jerusalem, the Grand * Ric. San Germano. FREDERICK THE SECOND 243 Masters of the Three Orders, and Cardinal Pelagius chap. himseU were to appear at Verona. These competent judges Avere there to discuss every thing bearing on 1220-1227. the new enterprise, which the Emperor himself would lead. In the autumn, he sent four galleys to Acre, to bring the illustrious party.* Frederick, his whe, his son, and his kingdoms, were taken under the Papal protection, now that he was reaUy to become God's own soldier. But aU these plans came to nothing. King John indeed appeared at Borne towards the end of the year, together with the Grand Master of the HospitaUers : but Frederick was caUed into Sicdy by the Saracen revolt, which occupied him for two years. It would be foUy to attack the Moslem in the far East, and at the same time to leave theh brethren in Sicdy unsubdued. Honorius, on his side, was prevented from visiting Verona by bad health. Had the CouncU taken place, it would pro bably have been rudely disturbed by the fearful earthquakes which laid waste the North of Italy towards the end of this year. At Brescia alone, 12,000 are said to have perished. At Parma, the Bap tistery was nearly overthrown ; a mishap which, had it been complete, would have entaded the loss of one of our best authorities, Sahmbene the Franciscan, then in his cradle. His mother, scared by the impend ing fall of the great buUding, rushed from her house after catching up his httle sisters, but left him behind. Happily for all who search into matters con nected with Frederick's age, the Baptistery stood, and Sahmbene was saved. The Emperor showed no lack of zeal in the cause * Oliverius. b 2 244 THE HISTORY OF chap, of Palestine. ' 0 shame ! ' cried he ; ' the dogs of ' _ the synagogue are putting to flight the sons of the 1220-1227. Church ! ' But he was this year embroded in another quarrel with the Pope. It wiU be remembered that Conrad von Urshngen had been made Duke of Spoleto by the Emperor Henry the Sixth, and had afterwards been driven out of Italy by Pope Innocent the Third. The Duke's sons were now with Frederick, and had never forgotten theh claim to Central Italy. One of them, Berthold, was trying at this time to get posses sion of what he looked upon as his rightful inherit ance ; he received homage and money from many of the cities of the March, placed malcontents under the ban, and was aided by Gunzehn, Frederick's Seneschal. The Emperor Avrote to the Cardinals, declaring that he had ordered all to be restored to Eome ; he was very angry on hearing that he was suspected of duphcity in the affair, and his first letter of the next year was directed to the authorities of Ancona and Spoleto, revoking aU that Gunzehn had done against the Church. In the spring of 1223, another conference was held upon the affairs of the Crusade. Frederick came to San Germano ; but Honorius was unable to appear, on account of a bad disease in his leg ; the Bope however, after much pressing, came to Feren tino, a town, like Veroh, not very far from the bor der. Thither also came King John of Jerusalem, the hero of Champagne, impatient of rest, although he must have been at this time more than seventy years old. He was taU, stout, and strongly-budt, surpassing the common size of men, like another Charlemagne or Judas Maccabseus ; it was said that none of the Saracens dared to stand up to him, when FREDERICK THE SECOND 245 he had once warmed to his work and begun to lay chap. about him Avith his iron mace. Yet he Avas observed YIL to tremble on the eve of battle ; on being asked the 1220-1227. reason, he answered that he cared not for his body, but feared that his soul might not be well ordered in the sight of God. France was right proud of her champion ; a ballad was sung in the cloisters of Bails long after his edifying death, wherein King John was praised as the pro west of knights, j ust as Alexander Hales was the Avisest of clerks.* De Brienne had been half burnt by the terrible Greek fire at Damietta ; he was a savage old warrior, and was said to have beaten his second wife until he kiUed her, because she had tried to poison her step-daughter Yolande.'!' He had quitted Egypt in disgust at the arrogance of Cardinal Pelagius, and had only re turned in time to share in the disastrous expedition up the Nile. Demetrius the King of Thessalonica, the Patriarch of Jerusalem, seven German Prelates, and the Masters of the three Brotherhoods, who were now at enmity with each other, were also pre sent at Ferentino. Frederick laid before them the causes which had delayed his coming into the East to fulfil his vow ; at this very moment the Saracens in Sicdy, and the nobles of the Abruzzi, were up in arms against him. Honorius therefore granted a further delay of two years ; by the end of that time it was to be hoped that Frederick would have put clown the rebels and made aU his preparations for the Crusade. He took an oath to sail in 1225 ; but the Pope now proposed to * Salimbene, who often sang the ballad. See also Acropolita, the Greek. f Bernard Thesaurarius. 246 THE HISTORY OF chap, give him a stiU nearer hiterest in the success of the VII. ° undertaking. 1220-1227. Frederick's first wife, Constance of Arragon, had died in the summer of the previous year at Catania ; her tomb, a Greek sarcophagus, may stiU be seen in the Eoyal Chapel of the Cathedral of Palermo, near her husband's remains. They seem to have led a happy hfe together, in spite of the disparity of their years. Frederick therefore was now free to marry again. King John was the father of a httle girl named Yolande, the rightful heiress, through her mother, of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. This Crown, by an unhappy fatahty, was always passing by female descent ; a circumstance which had been the chief cause of the dechne of the Kingdom, and of its overthrow by the arms of Saladin in the last gene ration. If Frederick were to wed this child, the mischief might be undone. There would never occur a better chance of regaining the lost prize than now, when the De Briennes of France and the Hohenstaufens of the Emphe were about to set forth, side by side, for the Holy Land.* Honorius sent the news to France, and seems to have had no misgivings on his thus bestovring another Crown upon one who aheady held those of Sicdy, Germany, and Aries. On the 5th of August, 1223, he dis pensed with the relationship that existed between the bride and the bridegroom. But these affahs were not the only subjects of interest to Pope and Em peror. The old vexed question of nominations to Sicihan Bishoprics had been once more mooted. Frederick had been much displeased with the Court of Eome in the previous year, for not confirming a * Ric. San Germano. FREDERICK THE SECOND 247 Notary of his in the See of Brindisi ; the only pos- chap. sible objection Avas, that three months had passed before the Chapter had proceeded to a fresh election. 1220-1227. The Chapter of Capua, on the other hand, having been unable for four months to agree, had at last fixed on Hugh the Dean, whom Frederick begged the Pope to confirm. But in June, 1223, Honorius returned an unfavourable ansAver. The Judge of Bari had demanded the confirmation of Frederick's candidates in the Sees of Capua and Aversa. This was not immediately granted ; he therefore proceeded to dehver an unusuaUy harsh message from his master, which shocked Honorius. The Judge averred that the Pope's superintendence was not protection, but destruction, tenchng to the ruin of the Kingdom. Honorius had also heard that orders had been sent to shut the gates of Capua, Salerno, and Aversa, on any Eoman nominee ; he therefore writes thus to the presumptuous Emperor : ' Be not corrupted by flatterers ; shaU we not have in Sicdy the rights that we have in other lands, even in the Empire itseU? Think you that you can prevail against the Church? The Lord's hand is not shortened, that He cannot save ; be not ashamed to acknowledge your fault, by sending a messenger without delay to remove the disagreeable impression created by your envoy, who has doubtless gone beyond his instructions.' Frederick had returned to his Kingdom to crush, first the Barons in the Abruzzi, and then the Saracens in Sicdy. The Pope mediated a peace on behalf of the former ; and Hermann von Salza, whom the Emperor favoured more than ever, took part in the proceedings. The Moslem were almost enthely subdued by the spring of 1224. In the mean time 248 THE HISTORY OF chap. Honorius sent a Legate into Germany to arouse the zeal of that part of the Emphe for the coming 1220-1227. Crusade. Frederick wrote to the Pope in March this year, and referred to his own approaching marriage. ' We hope,' he went on, ' to have 100 galleys and 50 transports ready. Two of the knights of the Teutonic Order are occupied in the construc tion of these, and they think that aU wUl be ready by next summer.' A German monk says that 2000 horses and knights, and 10,000 infantry, could be conveyed in these 50 transports, which were well furnished with gangways for the egress of mounted soldiers, so that a landing might be foUowed by an immediate battle.* Frederick informed the Pope that Hermann von Salza, at his own request, had traveUed into Germany to hold a conference with the Princes of the Empire; the Duke of Austria, the Landgrave of Thuringia, and the King of Hun gary were counted upon. The Emperor would have gone thither himself, had it not been for the wars stdl raging in SicUy. He described the scene with the Saracen Sheikhs at Catania, and told the Pope of the various hindrances to the Crusade. 'Your preachers are despised as low persons, and their indulgences command no respect ; the nobles of France and England wdl not give help unless a long truce be made between the two countries ; many of the English are backing out, saying that they have been absolved from their vows. We have sent round to aU men King John's letter concerning the passage, the provisions, and other matters. We are about to despatch our beloved friend James, * Godefr. Colon. FREDERICK THE SECOND 249 the Bishop of Batti, to Acre, to gain Queen chap. Yolande's consent to the marriage. We beseech L_ you to send into the Kingdoms of the West proper 1220-i227. preachers of the Crusade, and to despatch a special Legate, that a truce may be made between France and England.' In the same month, Frederick took under his Imperial protection the Bagans of the Baltic, who were coming over to Christianity. During aU this time, King John of Jerusalem had been travelhng over France, England, Spain, and Germany, seeking help for the Crusade. He had collected some large sums of money, but could not find many men read to erdist for 1225. In that year, he returned from his tour in Western Europe, bringing with him his new bride, a princess of Castile ; they had a noble reception at Capua, by the orders of Frederick. John thence went to Melfi, there to await his future son-in-law. The Emperor, after caUing aU his Barons into Sicily, in the hope of overawing the lately subdued Arabs, joined the King at Melfi, the old Norman capital of Apulia, budt on a hid of lava, with its Castle, the earliest of aU the Norman buddings in Italy, overhanging a precipice. Here the two Sovereigns met, and De Brienne, together with the Patriarch of Jerusalem, was sent to the Pope, in order to obtain one more postponement of the Crusade. Nor did Frederick trust alone to the eloquence of his aUy; he summoned aU the Prelates of the Kingdom to his Court, and there he kept them against theh wdl untd the news came that Eome had granted him the deshed respite.* He then * Ric. San Germano. 250 THE HISTORY OF chap, went with King John to San Germano ; on this VII. & occasion the Pope himseU was unable to meet them, 1220-1227. kut sent tw0 Cardinals as his deputies, whom he called in a letter to Frederick, written in the middle of July, ' columns erect in the house of the world, and stars shining in the firmament of heaven.' One of these envoys was Pelagius, the arrogant Portu guese, who had ruined the affairs of the East four years before. The other was Gualo Bicchieri, who had been sent to England as Pope Innocent's Legate the year after the grant of the Great Charter, in order to prevent Louis, the son of the French King, from estabhshing himself on the Enghsh throne. He had received, as Legate of Eome, the homage of the boy Henry the Third at his coronation, had been present at the battle of Lincoln, in 1217, and had afterwards deprived of their benefices all the Enghsh clergy who had taken part in the rebeUion, some of them regaining his favour at a ruinous expense.* His name is connected with the budding of Sahsbury Cathedral, and with a famous Church at his native Vercelh, the delight of architects. Pelagius and Gualo had fuU powers from Honorius to treat with Frederick. On the 25th of July, matters were thus arranged. The Emperor was to set out for the Holy Land in August, 1227. He was to keep 1000 knights in Palestine for two years, under a penalty then agreed upon. He was to have 150 ships ready to transport 2000 knights, their followers, and three horses for each knight. He was to pay 100,000 ounces of gold to certam Commissioners by four * De Wendover. FREDERICK THE SECOND 251 instalments, which he Avas to receive back if he chap. saded to Palestine within tAvo years. This sum was to remain with the Commissioners in the event 1220-1227. of his death, or if the Crusade did not take place. The agreement was binding on his successors, and if he made default in any one condition, he and moreover his Kingdom was to faU under the ban of the Church. The treaty was published, sealed with the Golden BuU. Thus, U Frederick should be prevented by any cause from leading the Crusade in August, 1227, he would be an excommunicated man. No very gene rous interpretation of the treaty of San Germano could be expected from the Lateran. Eaynald, the Duke of Spoleto, was at San Germano, and took the oath on Frederick's behalf. The Emperor was now released from his oath of Veroli, sworn three years before. He despatched letters, sealed with the Golden BuU, to the princes of Germany (some of them had been present at San Germano), and to the burghers of Lombardy, directing them to attend the Diet which would be held at Cremona next Easter. Car dinal Conrad, who had been aheady sent to make peace between France and England, preached the Crusade throughout Germany in 1225. Frederick promised a free passage to aU who enlisted, and placed in the hands of Hermann von Salza, who had been at San Germano, 100,000 ounces of gold for the undertaking. Apuha and Sicdy were, by this time, well accustomed to taxation. The Emperor, rejoiced to meet once more so many of his northern heges, made several grants to them when at San Germano. He gave a fief to the absent Archbishop of Cologne, after highly commending 252 THE HISTORY OF chap, his services. He confirmed an old grant to the VII ¦ Church of Spires, referring to his Imperial fore- 1220-1227. fathers who lay buried there. A thousand sdver marks were paid over to the warhke Bishop of Bamberg, and more were promised in return for a certain fief. The Burghers of Eheinfelden were privdeged to hold of the Emphe for ever as a reward for their services. The Imperial Council must have paid particular attention to OUver, the Bishop of Paderborn, as an authority on the Crusade ; it is to him that we owe a valuable account of the siege of Damietta, where he acted as engineer to the Chris tians. Honorius had yielded to Frederick's prayers as to the delay of the Eastern enterprise, but he was less compliant in another disputed affair. Two months after the treaty at San Germano, he an nounced that he had taken upon himself to name fit persons for the Sees of Capua, Salerno, Brindisi, and Conza, and for an Abbey at Aversa. None of the new Prelates, except the first, were acceptable to Frederick. The Emperor refused to admit the Pope's nominees, and there the matter for the present rested. It is now time to relate what had passed in Ger many during the five years of Frederick's absence from that country. His son Henry, the King of the Eomans, whose election had so disquieted Honorius, was left there in 1220, under the charge of Engel bert, the Archbishop of Cologne. The Eegent had exerted himself to suppress the feuds which were always weakening the Empire. He had anointed Henry as King, at Aix-la-ChapeUe, in the year 1222. In the next year the new Crusade was preached throughout Germany ; all the faithful were to cross FREDERICK THE SECOND 253 the sea with 'the glorious Emperor Frederick,' in chap. 1225. No repetition of the Damietta disaster need be feared ; the Dukes of Austria and Bavaria would i22°-m7. gather fresh laurels in Balestine. In 1224, the young King held a Diet at Frankfort, whither letters came from his father, announcing the mission of Hermann von Salza, whom the Emperor himself would have accompanied, had he not been detained by the Saracen revolt in Sicdy. This year, John de Brienne also arrived in Germany ; King Henry accompanied him to Cologne, where Archbishop Engelbert gave them a gorgeous reception. Brother Hermann obtained the liberation of the Danish King, after a captivity of two years ; he was to pay 100,000 marks as his ransom, give up all the land he had taken from the Emphe, and receive his Crown at the hands of Frederick. To these hard conditions the Danish nobles refused to submit. In 1225, Cologne was overtaken by a sad disaster. Engelbert, ' the father of our country, the ornament of Germany,' was murdered on a journey by his own kinsman, the Count of Isenberg. The deed had been connived at by many nobles, whose turbulence the good Eegent had kept within bounds. His body, pierced with thirty-eight wounds, was received at Cologne, with unspeakable grief on the part of both clergy and laity ; it was honoured with a noble tomb, which perished, together with the old Cathe dral, about twenty years later ; mhacles were said to be wrought by the corpse. King Henry shed many tears over one whom he looked upon as his father. Engelbert's murderer was given up for a bribe of 2000 marks ; he confessed his gudt, and was broken on the wheel at Cologne ; his castle was 254 THE HISTORY OF chap. leveUed with the ground. The loss of the good Archbishop was a terrible blow to Frederick ; his VII. 1220-1227. son from this time was abandoned to the guidance of wicked counseUors, who led on the unhappy boy to his ruin. The Germans would not consent to the marriage of their young King with an Enghsh Princess ; the Plantagenet Monarch sent over the Bishop of Carhsle as his envoy, tendering the hand of his sister IsabeUa ; but it was useless, for no offer of money was made by England. The King of Hungary offered a large sum with his daughter, if the Emperor would marry her to Henry. The King of Bohemia made a bid of 30,000 marks, to which the Duke of Bavaria added 15,000 more, UFrederick would accept a member of their house as his daughter-in-law. All was in vain ; for Henry wed ded Margaret, the daughter of the Duke of Austria, at Nuremberg in 1225 ; such was the throng on the occasion, that forty people were crushed to death. Two years later, the bride was crowned and en throned at Aix-la-ChapeUe, in the presence of all the Prelates and Princes of Germany, just on the eve of the long expected Crusade.* Upper Italy, being left to herseU, and not having an Engelbert at her head, had been in a constant state of civil war ever since Frederick's coronation. Cardinal UgoUno had endeavoured, though with scanty success, to make peace between the Lombard states in 1221. The Count of San Bomfazio was at war with the house of Eomano. Azzo, the Marquess * These details, as to Germany, are taken from Godfrey, the Monk of Cologne, and from the Augsburg Chronicle. See the amusing letter of the Bishop of Carlisle in Rymer, as to King Henry's marriage. FREDERICK THE SECOND 255 of Este, and Sahnguerra were struggling for the chap. VII possession of Ferrara. The Bolognese razed the L_ walls of Imola in 1222, and carried home the gates 1220-1227. of that toAvn, much to the indignation of Frederick, who cited the Bolognese Podesta to appear before him. Faenza, Cesena, and Forli were Guelf; Eimhd, Fano, Pesaro, and Urbino Avere Ghibelhne.* The cities of Tuscany were equaUy embittered agamst each other. The Paterines and other heretics were making great progress. In March, 1224, Frederick, writuig from Catania, ordered the Archbishop of Magdeburg, his Vicar in Upper Italy, to pubhsh an edict agamst them throughout Lombardy ; if taken, they were to be burnt alive, or to have their blas phemous tongues cut out. StiU we hear of the heretics increasing at Brescia in the year 1225. Such were the turbulent lovers of disorder, with their many jarring interests, whom Frederick would have to encounter at Cremona next Easter, aU for the sake of Palestine. One other event, connected with the Crusade, dis tinguished the year 1225. After the treaty of San Germano, Frederick sent to Acre fourteen gaUeys under Henry of Malta. On board were the Bishop of Patti, who in the next year was promoted to Capua, and Guy L'Enfant. The former acted as Frederick's proxy, and placed the ring on Queen Yolande's finger ; folk were astonished that a bridegroom in Apuha could wed his bride in Syria. She was then crowned Queen of Jerusalem by Eaoul the Patriarch, surrounded by a briUiant assembly. A Teutonic Knight named Henry undertook the charge of her, * Sismondi and Muratori. 256 THE HISTORY OF chap, and brought her to Brindisi, where amid great re- ! joicings she was married to the Emperor in the 1220-1227. Cathechal, on the 9th of November. It jars upon our modern notions to find all the chief authorities of Christendom eager to haud over a girl, who at this time could not have been more than fifteen, to a man of the world double her own age.* She was the heiress in her own right of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, just as her mother before her had been. Frederick was not the man to forego anything that seemed his due. On the very day of the wedding, he required King John to make over to him ad the rights connected with the Crown of Palestine. The old warrior was taken by surprise ; for Von Saka, who had brought about the marriage, had engaged that John should hold the Kingdom for his hfe. The French hero however was forced to yield. On the next clay, the Emperor went with his bride to Foggia ; his father-in-law lodged at San Lorenzo, a vdlage near, whence he visited his daughter. He had been for three years on the best terms with Frederick, but henceforth he became Frederick's bitter enemy. He saw Balian of Sidon, and aU the nobles of Palestine, who had long owed him aUegi- ance, doing homage to a new master. The Emperor sent the Bishop of Melfi, Count GentUe, and three hundred Sicilian knights to Acre, where Eudes de Montbedlard was appointed his Bailiff. Frederick now styled himseU Emperor of the Eomans ever August, of Jerusalem and SicUy King.f King John gave further offence, by refusing to * Her parents were married late in 1209. Michaud. f Old French Chronicle, set out by Huillard Breholles. FREDERIC!! THE SECOND 257 yield up to his son-in-law the 50,000 silver marks, chap. which the late King of France had bequeathed for VIL the purposes of the Crusade.* The new union 1220-1227. did not promise fair at the outset. Two different stories have come down to us of some fresh cause of quarrel between Frederick and John. The Cru sader had with him his nephew Walter, the son of that Walter de Brienne who had been em ployed agamst Markwald and Diephold. This youth was by his mother the grandson of the Usurper Tancred, upon whose issue Frederick looked Avith no loving eye.f The story went, that the Emperor, having failed to make away with young De Brienne by means of poison, invited him to play at chess, intending to have him stabbed whUe so engaged. King John hearing of the plot dragged away his nephew from the board, calhng the Em peror a Devd and the son of a butcher, in aUusion to the old Jesi slander. Frederick clared not answer a word. J It is added, that the two De Brienues made theh escape from Barletta in December, taking the road near the coast, and thus contriving to elude the Emperor's watchfulness. There is another story, by no means creditable to Frederick, which found favour with some chroniclers of the century. It was said that soon after Yolande had been crowned with the diadem of the Empire, her father found her weeping in her chamber. On being asked the cause, she complained that her husband had neglected her and had taken a cousin of hers into his bed. King John consoled her, as * Chronic. Turon. f Old French Chronicle. | Salimbene. ' Fi de becer diabele.' VOL. I. S 258 JHE HISTORY OF chap, he best could, and then went off to seek Frederick. ' The Emperor rose up, with aU due respect ; but his 1220-1227. father-in-law scowled at him, and said, ' I want no greeting from the man, whose honour has been stained by a foul crime.' Frederick was then threatened with instant death, if he did not reform his conduct. The Emperor banished his bold guest, and it is said that he shut up Yolande in prison, but released her on learning that her adventurous sire was among the turbulent Lombards.* These rebels came to John at Bologna, and offered him their Hon Crown ; but he declined to do anything that would disquiet his daughter. Frederick, hearing of this, thought it best to reconcile himself with his father- in-law ; and John returned to Eome, which city had promised him 1000 horse.f Frederick kept his Christmas at Troja this year. Whatever disputes there may have been at first between him and his second Empress, these were certainly at an end by the next autumn. Yolande did not hve three years after her marriage, but from her sprang all Frederick's posterity born in wedlock, who made any pretensions to his crown. There is nothing incredible in the story of his having been unfaithful to so youthful a bride ; but her wrongs have been wonderfuUy exaggerated by the Eomish annahsts. Early in January 1226, Frederick made a grant to Hermann von Salza, confirmed by the new Empress, of all the possessions of the Teutonic Order in Pales tine, some of which had stiU to be won out of the * Francis Pipin, a very poor authority. 1 Bernard. Thesaurarius. FREDERICK THE SECOND 259 hands of the heathen ; a number of Syrian nobles, chap. among Avhom was the Archbishop of Tyre, the Lord ' ! '' of Sidon, and the Patriarch, acted as witnesses. The 1220-1227. Emperor in vain begged the Pope to absolve the Count of Tripoh, a possible ally in the Crusade, from an excommunication. Frederick left his Empress at Salerno ; from which city he wrote to the Fries- landers, summoning them to equip their fleets for the Crusade, and reminding them of their tried valour and of the blood of theh martyrs with which Damietta was stdl red. He also sent a circular to the Itahan cities, the members of the body of which he was Head, ordering them despatch theh warriors to the conference at Cremona. This was the Arery last thing they intended to do. In March, we find Frederick at Pescara, on the opposite coast of his kingdom, where he had ordered aU the Barons of Sicily and ApuUa to assemble, that they might foUow him into Lombardy. The cavalcade took the way of Eimini ; at this town an event occurred, which had a most important bearing on the history of Europe for many ages. It was nothing less than the transfer of the Teutonic Order from Palestine to Prussia ; instead of warring against Moslem, they were henceforward to convert Pagans. The Duke of Masovia had aheady sent an invitation to the Brother hood. At Eimini, Frederick as Emperor gave per mission to Hermann von Salza, ' a man mighty in works and words,' to make Culm his head-quarters, and thence to undertake the conquest of heathen Brussia. Bower over markets, tribunals, tolls, and coinage was included in this famous grant. A few years elapsed, before the plan could be carried out ; Hermann must first foUow his Kaiser to Jerusalem. « s 2 260 THE HISTORY OF chap. About this time, Honorius sent another sharp letter VII '. to Frederick. The Emperor had wished to force the 1220-1227. men of tlie ^nconitan March, through which he was passing, to foUow him to the Diet at Cremona ; this con duct was sternly rebuked by the Pope, who brought forward many texts of Scripture to justify the style of the letter. 'Be content with your own boun daries, and seek not to encroach on the Patrimony of St. Peter. You have begun to harass the Church, no longer by deputy, but in person. The higher you rise, the more awful will be your faU. Ee- member the fate of Nebuchadnezzar and Pharaoh ; aye, and of your own grandfather. He burnt the Porch of St. Peter's and worried the Church ; he was punished, hke the Israelites of old, who were not allowed to enter the Promised Land ; he was drowned before he arrived in Palestine ; we wish his soul may have reached the heavenly Jerusalem. The venge ance of God fell on his sons Henry and Phihp. Why do you boast yourself in wickedness ? We love you more than other crowned heads ; we are therefore bound to rebuke you, when you go astray. Take care that God does not root you out of the land of the living ; we must excommunicate you, U you persist in your wickedness.' Frederick wrote back in the hke style, and thereby drew clown upon himseU another long letter from the Pope, who had stout-hearted advisers. This second letter is a summing up of the whole case, a statement of all the grievances of Eome against the Emperor.* Honorius was angry that his five * Salimbene says that it was composed by Cardinal Thomas of Capua. FREDERICK THE SECOND 261 Prelates, before referred to, had not been allowed to chap. enter the Kingdom ; moreover Frederick had enacted IL a laAv, by which priests and monks guilty of the i22°-i227. Avorst crimes were to be punished by the civd magis trate.* ' If you are amazed at our letters,' thus the Pope at length wrote, 'much more so are we at yours. You ought to be grateful to your spiritual Father and your sphitual Mother. You say, that contrary to the expectation of aU men, and agamst the advice of the Princes, you have been more obedient to the Church than any of your forefathers were. You do not say very much for yourself, even when you make that comparison. You are ungrate ful to the Church ; Avhy do you attack your nurse ? Hoav many tears did Innocent, our predecessor, shed for you ! he is now called by you a stealthy robber of your goods ! Think how he found you, and how he left you ! An army was sent against Markwald ; and Cardinals came into Sicily, one of whom died there ; De Brienne also was sent to your aid. You now reproach the Church with having raised Otho to your father's throne. But what could the Pope have done for you, a child helpless and forsaken, against your mighty foes ? Stdl you used to thank the Church, after God, for your safety and your life ! Are your letters, your words, and your promises in direct opposition to your inmost thoughts ? What have you done for her ? what can she hope from you ? You cannot caU the German throne your paternal inheritance ; it is elective. Phihp neither could nor would hold it for you ; the vassals of the Church had some trouble to keep him out of Sicily ; * Giannone ; Istoria Civile. 262 THE HISTORY OF chap, and after his death, when aU the Princes turned to VII Otho, you had not the slightest claim or hope. As 1220-1227. soon ag Otho attacked you, the Church began the war against him. 0 how nigh were you to dangers ! 0 how close to a faU ! What more could she have clone for you ? We are amazed, that you talk of your own efforts ; it was others who sowed, that you might reap ! We ourselves in aU our deahngs with you have looked more to your honour than to our own. Yet you are making loud outcries about our intru sion of Bishops ; you should pay regard to the treaty made by your mother with the Holy See, and to the learning of holy fathers. We are aware of no rule, by which the jurisdiction of the Apostolic Chair depends upon your choice. We have often had to complain of your treatment of Prelates ; the Arch bishop of Taranto, long your favourite, has now been aU of a sudden banished unjustly, and is called a traitor and thief*; the Bishops of Catania and Cefalu have been improperly punished. After overthrowing the Bishops, the pillars of the Church, you design to lord it over the inferior clergy; but here is the Apostohc Chah, ready to check you. You say further, that the Church has harboured your rebels, driven out of Apulia. You promised safety to Count Thomas, and to Einaldo of Aversa ; yet many of their followers have been banished, and others have been put to a shameful death : some have found freedom in strange lands ; but a Prince, such as you are, should not display his might in chasing a leaf driven hither and thither by the wind. Count Matthew, even * This Archbishop is not the one who Avas Frederick's tutor. See Ughelli. FREDERICK THE SECOND 263 though he was in the Holy Land, Avas oppressed by chap. vii. you. Think of the renowned Juhus Ciesar, and of the clemency he showed to Domitius and Metellus ! The 1220-1227. IsraeUtes of old had cities of refuge ; David was the protector of the oppressed ; and shaU the Pope, the Vicar of the great David, turn away his face from the afflicted ? You think it very hard that these men are stdl alive ! We are grieved to hear of your quarrel with King John ; this is not the way to aid the Holy Land ! Moreover, you are detaining Arquata and other castles from our loyal subjects. You complain that we are laying heavy burthens upon you, to bear which we ourselves will not move a finger ; but you forget that in Germany you took the Cross of your own free AviU ; that we have given you many respites ; that we have granted you the tenth of the goods of the clergy ; that Ave have helped you with money and with the zeal of our brethren in preaching the Crusade. You often call yourseU the Advocate of the Church ; that title implies protection in her rights. You ought not, without our consent, to expect from our subjects those feudal services that have been long since abohshed. StiU the hand of the Lord is not weaker, to bring clown the pride of men. Be not seduced by prosperity ; Pharaoh's butler, Avhen restored to favour, forgot the Interpreter ; but a noble mind is neither elated by success, nor depressed by adversity.' The Emperor could not afford to quarrel with Eome, Avhen he was about to face his Lombard subjects. This long letter therefore had its desired effect ; Frederick made a humble reply, and acknowledged that the Pope had won the battle. From Eimini, where their company had been 1220-1227. 264 THE HISTORY of chap, joined by the Duke of Saxony and by many other Germans who probably came by way of Venice, the noble traveUers passed on to Eavenna, and there kept Easter.* This city at that time stiU boasted of the remains of King Theodoric's palace ; her Podesta was Paul Traversaro, a great Baron, much beloved, and very rich ; it was hard to say whether he or King John was the handsomer man. Peter, the father of Paul, and the old supporter of Frederick, had long been sleeping in San Vitale, where the Traversal! buried their dead.f That fine old church obtained a charter from the Emperor, through the good offices of his favourite Lando, the Arch bishop of Eeggio. The Imperial Court remained for five weeks at Eavenna, and was there joined by the Landgrave of Thuringia, the young and chival rous husband of St. Elizabeth. The Emperor noAV marched westward towards Faenza, the burghers of which city had no reason to love him, as he well knew. His treachery just before his coronation was stiU fresh in their minds. He sent a knight into the city with a goodly attendance ; the townsmen, thinking that the Emperor himseU was come among them, rushed upon Frederick's counterfeit, cut him down, and seized his treasures and horses.J Such was the spirit of Faenza, which Frederick was un able to tame until long afterwards. These sturdy burghers were alarmed at the vast crowds of Ger mans and Apulians, the men of the March and the men of Urbino, who were in the Emperor's train. * ' Hie profectus est Ravenam, Que fsetentem habet venam.' Chron. Placentinum. | Salimbene. \ Chronicon. FREDERICK THE SECOND 265 The whole of the neighbouring districts seemed to chap. have combined for the destruction of Faenza. The YIL CasteUans of the Archbishop of Eavenna and the 1220"1227- numerous Eomagnole Counts were eager for the at tack. Frederick marched on from his encampment at Cosna, and Faenza was in an uproar. The citi zens shouted 'We are undone!' and put up their prayers to God and St. Peter. However, the danger Avas averted for this time, and they had the pleasure of seeing their enemies of Eimini run as far as Forh, though none pursued. All the roads were strewn with arms, flung away by the flying GhibeUines. Frederick, caring httle for the discomfiture of his allies, avoided Faenza and passed on by Tdlaveria* Bologna refused to receive him ; he rebuilt the waUs of Imola, which had been puUed down by her poAverful neighbour. He encamped near San Gio vanni di Persiceto, and Avas there greeted by the envoys of Cremona, Parma, Eeggio, and Modena, almost the only cities in all Northern Italy which would pay him any respect, f He crossed the Eeno with great difficulty, and his German retinue were hunted out of Bologna, where the rain had forced them to lodge. J The truth was, that the Lombards regarded the grandson of theh old enemy Barbar ossa with the greatest suspicion ; they saw him coming up from the South at the head of the Apulian chivalry, and they knew that his son Henry was coming down from the North with a German host. The spirit of 1167 Avas abroad, and the old Lombard League was once more renewed. Milan and Bologna * Tolosanus. f Annales Mutinensium. | Chron. Schwartzburg. 266 THE HISTORY OF chap, took the lead, and were followed by Biacenza, Verona, L_ Brescia, Faenza, Mantua, Vercelli, Lodi, Bergamo, 1220-1227. ijtunn, Alessandria, Vicenza, Badua, and Treviso.* The peace of Constance had given them the right to renew the League ; but was there the least occasion for their turbulence ? The Emperor had clone nothing to jeopardize the rights, which they had enjoyed un disturbed ever since the field of Lignano. He was merely coming into the North to hold a Diet, for the purpose of furthering the interests of his Crusade. Nothing could be more unlike, than the First and the Second Lombard Leagues. That of 1167, formed against Frederick the Fhst after the most cruel pro vocation, was sanctioned by the Bope, and had for its end the dehverance of Lombardy. That of 1226, formed against Frederick the Second, after no provo cation received, was discountenanced by the Pope, and resulted in the frustration of the Crusade and in sowing the germ of endless, civil wars. This year is fixed upon by the Brescian Chronicler as the begin ning of 'those plaguy factions of GueU and Ghi- beUine, which were so engrained into the minds of our forefathers, that they have handed them down as an heir-loom to their posterity, never to come to an end.'f King Henry had in the mean time led his German warriors across the Brenner, and had marched down the vaUey of the Adige. He had in his train a Patriarch, three Archbishops, six Bishops, and five * ' Sed Lombardi sunt astuti, Et in factis valde tuti : Quare cito perpenderunt Dolum, quern machinaverunt Cremonenses perfidi.' — Chron. Placentinum. t Jac. -Malvecius, who wrote many years later. FREDERICK THE SECOND 267 Dukes, others having gone round by Eimini. He chap. reached Trent, but found his further progress barred YIL by the precipices which overhang the Adige, scarce 122°-i227- leaving room for the road, and by the strong waUs of Verona, the key of Italy, which was in the hands of the League. He must either storm these ram parts, in part the Avork of Galhenus and Theodoric, or he must go back by the way that he came, renouncing aU hope of meeting his father. He preferred the latter alternative ; and the greater part of the city of Trent, Avhere he had wasted six weeks, was burnt by the Germans before they set off on theh homeward march.* This per verse conduct of the Lombards long rankled in Frederick's mindf Years afterwards he refers with bitterness to their cruelty in separating father and son. J The King of the Eomans probably needed much parental advice, now that he had lost his good guardian, Archbishop Engelbert, whose place was id suppUed by the Duke of Bavaria. The Em peror also never forgot that Verona was the key of Italy ; unless it should fall into his hands, he could scarcely pour down his German soldiery into rebel lious Lombardy. Whde the great CouncU of this province was sitting at Mantua, to which city Conrad, the German Bishop of Porto, the Patriarch of Jerusalem, Von Salza, and others were repeatedly sent, the Emperor and Ids train reached Parma, where he was on the 20th of May. He despatched Berthold, the younger * Godefr. Mon. f ' Ipse venit cum furore, Sed recessit cum dolore.' — Chron. Placentinum. % See his letters for 1239. 1220-1227. 268 THE HISTORY OF chap, brother of the Duke of Spoleto, as his Legate into ' the more tractable province of Tuscany. Conrad, the Bishop of HUdesheim, had been most earnest in preaching the Crusade in Germany ; he now gained some valuable privdeges from Frederick ; and Henry, the brother of the late Kaiser Otho, was ordered to protect from injury this Bishop, who was his near neighbour. Three burghers of Lubeck arrived with a Charter granted by Frederick the Fhst, which was now confirmed by Frederick the Second. They also brought a petition from Volquin, who was lead ing the Crusade agamst the Bagans of Livonia ; this request of the good knight was granted in the pre sence of Von Salza, a kindred spirit. The Abbot of Vallombrosa sent a monk to obtain the Emperor's protection for his monastery. The men of Asti im plored Frederick's forgiveness for their past short comings. The Archbishop of Magdeburg and the Landgrave of Thuringia had each a request to prefer. The Bishop of Paderborn asked Frederick to confirm his agreement with the Church of Osnaburg. A Parmesan Abbess begged the Emperor's protection for her sisterhood. A new Podesta of loyal Pavia, named by Frederick, took the oath of adegiance ; and a way was found to appease the brods in that city. The 24th of June was named as the very last clay of grace for the Lombards. By the 10th of June, the number of Prelates from all countries, assembled at Parma on account of the Crusade, was immense. Among them was Gerold of Lausanne, the new Patriarch of Jerusalem, for the time at least Frederick's friend ; the Archbishops of Magdeburg, Bourdeaux, Milan, and Beggio ; together with many Bishops from Germany and Italy. These 1220-1227. FREDERICK THE SECOND 269 all joined in putting forth a declaration, how the chap. Lombards had hindered the meeting of the Em- — YIL peror with the King his son, in spite of Frederick's guarantees for the independence of the states ; how the rebels had sought to impose degrading conditions on the young King ; how the Emperor had shown astonishing forbearance towards them ; how the Bishop of HUdesheim, entrusted with letters from the Bope, had asked the advice of the Prelates as to excommunicating the Itahan enemies of the Crusade. AU Avith one voice agreed that the sentence would be just, and put theh seals to the declaration. The proud soul of Frederick must have undergone bitter humiliation during this visit to Lombardy ; he after- Avards took care to avenge himseU. On the 13th of June, the Emperor took up his quarters at San Donino, a little town near Parma, deriving its name from a Christian soldier who suffered martyrdom under Maximian. Hence he issued three edicts on behalf of Modena, one of the feAV towns upon which he could rely, and the especial enemy of Bologna. The town of Op- penheim, on the Ehine, now obtained great privi leges, and long afterwards proved grateful. Lubeck was made a free city of the Empire on account of its loyalty, and its traffic with England was released from toU. The Bishops of Cambray and Beauvais arrived with letters for Frederick from the nobles of France, who sent their excuses for attacking his town of Avignon on their way to the Crusade against the Albigenses. The first-named Bishop procured one more sentence against his mutinous subjects, who were forbidden to assemble at the sound of a bell. Frederick in this decree asserts, 1220-1227. 270 THE HISTORY OF chap, that a Diet of Germany may be held out of the boundaries of that land, wherever the Emperor may happen to be. He at last reached Cremona, the seat of the pro posed Diet. The Bishop of Porto, Alatrino, Guala the Dominican, and others, had obtained from the Lombards degrading terms of peace, in which the Prelates persuaded Frederick to acquiesce, although the Princes of the Emphe were furious. Even these terms were afterwards set aside by the insolent Lombards. Cremona was one of the few exceptions to the prevailing disloyalty ; from this time she became the head-quarters of the Ghibelline cause, and her attachment to Frederick was the subject of many joking tales.* Here it was that he ap peared, not as a conqueror or a tyrant, but as the author of civihzation and as the benefactor of mankind. AU the chroniclers, Guelf as AveU as GhibeUine, monks as well as laymen, are agreed on this point. ' He brought more honour to the Em pire than the Emphe brought to him,' says JamsiUa. The Monk of Padua affirms, when treating of this year, 1226, ' that Frederick was exalted in riches, in glory, and in numerous offspring, above aU the Emperors from Charlemagne downwards ; he came in peace, but the Milanese counted his promises as nothing.' Eiccobaldi of Ferrara says that 'in Frederick's time the manners of the Italians were rude ; man and wife ate out of one plate ; no knives or forks were used; there were only one or two drinking vessels in a house ; the famdy were lighted at supper by torches held by one of the * See some of these in the Imago Mundi. FREDERICK THE SECOND 271 sons, or by a servant, for Avax candles there were chap. . VII none; the clothes of men were of unlined flax, !_ malting but httle shoAV of gold or sdver ; the common i22°-m7- folk ate meat but thrice a week, and kept it cold for supper ; the wine cellars were small, the dowries of women were smad, and the ladies, Avhether married or single, wore no costly orna ments in theh heads ; men prided themselves on theh armour and horses ; the great ambition of the rich and noble was to possess castles, great numbers of which were in Italy.' This account is confirmed by the curious Chronicle of the Imago Mundi, written late in this century or perhaps early in the next : its author, being a Dominican, is bound to look upon Frederick almost as an incar nation of Satan, yet he testifies thus ; ' The people of Italy, from Aqudeia to VerceUi in particular, in Frederick's time hved in a barbarous and strange fashion, hke Alboin's men ; their food, raiment, and arms were ahke uncouth ; their dialect, theh amuse ments, and their dances were aU coarse. Frederick changed everything and taught the Italians better ways ; he was remarkable among aU the Emperors, being endowed with courteous, noble, and elegant manners ; in his time the Itahans used to practise incantations and other brutahties, derived from the old idolaters ; they had armour of leather, and strange uncouth coins ;' which, the friar goes on to teU us, were sometimes dug up in his own age. He is a valuable authority for anything connected with Cre mona, and has preserved many traditions of that city.* * The good friar cannot be trusted, when he wanders far away from the Valley of the Po ; thus he brings Charles of Anjou into Apulia during Frederick's lifetime. 272 THE HISTORY OF chap. Whde Frederick was there, the Genoese, over looking old grievances, sent envoys to him, whom 1220-1227. ke treated with courtesy on this occasion, as friends were very scarce. They were bent on having redress for the wrongs they had undergone from theh neighbours. They were much offended at the conduct of the rival ambassadors from Savona, who would not rise up to them, but laughed behind their backs, and pretended to be sick at their approach ; these mockers were much blamed for their insolence, as the Genoese patriot takes good care to tell us.* Frederick, it is to be hoped, did his best to pohsh the rude men of the Eiviera. He made the Count of Savoy his Legate in Upper Italy; former Em perors had aheady transplanted that noble stem, which soon took root and flourished in its new sod to the south of the Alps. The tree has been groAV- ing stronger and stronger for the last six hundred years; let us hope that the whole of Italy, after ages of misery and disunion, may at length find rest under its shade. Frederick had returned to San Donino by the 5th of July, whence he sent orders to the Duke of Brunswick to put a stop to a civil war hi the North, which was damaging the property of the loyal Bishop of Hddesheim and was likely to prejudice the Crusade. He ordered Paul Traversaro, as Podesta of Eavenna, to do justice to an oppressed Israehte. On the 11th of July, his own patience, and that of his advisers, was at an end. He held an assembly of Bishops, Judges, and others, in the great Church of San Donino, which was thronged. * Barth. Scriba, Ann. Genuen. FREDERICK THE SECOND 273 The Pope's letters, granting full powers to the chap. Bishop of Hildesheim, Avere read, and the German denounced the sentence of excommunication against 1220-1227. the rebellious Lombard cities, from Badua to Ales sandria, though this was afterwards reversed by Alatrino, the Chaplain of Honorius.* The sphitual power having done its work, the temporal Magis trate foUowed. The Emperor, with the consent of the Avhole assembly, placed the Lombards under the ban of the Emphe, depriving them of theh laws, corporations, and aU the rights they had gained by the peace of Constance. It is remarkable to find Pope and Emperor united against the Lombards ; this only proves that the zeal of Honorius for the Crusade overpowered his anxiety to see the House of Hohenstaufen shorn of its strength. The next Pope would take a very different view of affahs. It was now time for the Kaiser to reward his friends. The Bishop of Porto had done his utmost to check the froward proceedings on the Po, and had been one of the most earnest preachers of the Crusade. Frederick therefore ratified an agreement formerly made between this Carchnal and King Henry, and promised to provide the Bishop's brother, Egeno Count of Urach, with thhty or forty knights as an escort in the Holy war. Another mainstay of that enterprise, the Bishop of HUdesheim, was aUowed, in token of the Imperial favour, to bequeath his goods undisturbed to his episcopal successor. The Bishop of Imola had been untiring in his attendance on Frederick ; he was rewarded with a Charter. * Godefr. Colon. VOL. I. T 274 THE HISTORY OF chap. Another was granted to Aix-la-Chapelle, the Pal ladium of Germany. Guercio, the Marquess of 1220-1227. Savona, was aUowed the priAdlege of female succes sion in his fief. Cremona also obtained a Charter, which its staunch loyalty richly deserved. After distributing these rewards to his faithful subjects, Germans and Italians, the Emperor turned his back on perverse Lombardy, and began his march home wards. He knew that it was useless to begin a war with the few troops he had at hand. He crossed the Apennines by the pass which leads to Pontremoli, the way by which Hannibal is thought to have penetrated into Etruria. Halting at Sarzana, Frederick took that town under his protection. He was now entering Tuscany for the first time, and doubtless liked its gentle inhabitants better than the savage Eomagnoles. By the end of July, he was at San Miniato, a strong castle which he had caused to be built on a steep hid, commanding the road between Bisa and Florence. This lofty tower, caUed from its builders San Miniato dei Tedeschi, is visible for many mdes round ; here the residence of the Vicar of the Emphe was fixed, an office held at this time by Everard, the nephew of the Duke of Spoleto. The Castle of Prato is also Frederick's work.* He was forced to quit San Miniato by night, feeling himseU unable to meet the armies brought against him by Florence and Lucca.f He probably feared the autumn winds blowing from the south across the poisonous Cam- pagna, and therefore did not visit Eome; but * Ric. Malespini. f Tolosanus. FREDERICK THE SECOND 275 struck across Italy by way of Narni ; had an inter- chap. view Avith Brother Leonard, who came to him on the part of Honorius ; and wrote to the Pope from 1220-1227. Ascoh, on the 29th of August, just before entering his own Kingdom. ' God, who knows all secrets, is aware that we postponed everythmg to His service ; that we attended the Diet in the spirit of love and graciousness towards aU men ; and that we showed hatred to none of those who had offended us and our Empire. Eespect for the Saviour (whose cause we are undertaking), prevented us from chastising them, as the dignity of our Emphe required ; we shoAved ourselves merciful, and we did and bore many things, which we should have neither clone nor borne, had not the hohest of aU causes been at stake. But instead of peace we found uproar ; instead of love we found mahce ; and aU our efforts coidd not tempt the Lombards from their unright eous course ; moreover, owing to their wickedness, the late Diet had no due results, although summoned on behalf of the hohest cause. How they have sinned against God; how they have damaged the honour of the Church, and that of the Empire, your Hohness wdl easily estimate. We entrust the whole affair to you, and to the Cardinals.' Frederick wrote also to a preacher of the Crusade in Germany, begging him to send off to Balestine aU who had taken the Cross, in spite of the dl success of the Cremona Diet. He was now doing aU in his power to please Honorius. He aUowed the five intruded Prelates to take possession of theh Sees ; he despatched a body of men to Palestine, the harbingers of his own speedy arrival. The Pope T 2 276 THE HISTORY OF chap, had in the earlier part of the year complained that his servants had been robbed by one Tancred of 1220-1227. Campeho, a son of Behal, aided and abetted by the men of Berthold, the brother of the Duke of Spoleto. The captives were sent at midnight by secret roads to this German, who, ' with damnable presumption,' opened and read the Papal letters in pubhc, while his crew of ruffians stood by. ' This could scarcely have happened,' so Honorius wrote to Frederick, ' without your connivance ; for the man is your special messenger, and he declares that Tancred has a general licence from you to act thus.' Frederick certainly gave Tancred two castles shortly afterwards, but the matter seems to have been satisfactordy arranged, as the Pope was soon on friendly terms with the Emperor, and promised that the Kingdom of Aries should not be injured by the French Crusaders. These were marching under their King against the unhappy Albigenses, and they had already explained to the Emperor how they came to lay siege to his city of Avignon. It was dis mantled by the French at the end of a long blockade, after it had been treacherously inveigled into a surrender by the Legate. Frederick com plained to Eome, but was told that he could only recover the Kingdom of Aries, after the poison of heresy had been thoroughly purged out. We have admired that letter of Honorius, in which he stands forward as the champion of the oppressed exdes from Apulia, and compares Eome to an Israehtish city of refuge. It is a noble idea, that of the Bope being the Great Eedresser of aU the wrongs done in Christendom ; but unhappily there is a dark FREDERICK THE SECOND 277 side to the picture. From Eome came the orders chap. which set in motion the warhke barons of the North YIL against the helpless South ; which made Languedoc 122°-1227- a scene of rape and robbery, torture and murder. To quote the words of the English monk, who describes the taking of Avignon, ' It seems evident that an unjust war had been set on foot, of which covetousness Avas the cause rather than the wish to root out heresy.' Frederick, as is stated above, was doing his utmost to keep on good terms with Eome. He was at Foggia during the latter part of this eventful year. He confirmed the County of Provence and Forcal quier to Eaymond Berenger, and forbade the cities to act in despite of their ruler's Avishes ; the rights of the Emphe were to be scrupulously respected. Thomas of Savoy undertook to reconcUe Marsedles with the Emperor, and Honorius interceded with Frederick on behaU of tAvo Crusaders of that city, avIio were kept in prison. The great enterprise in hand occupied the hearts of all, and no means were left untried to procure recruits. The aid vouchsafed by Honorius, as shown by his letters to the Churches of Eomagna, was this. Every clay, except on Sun days, the Psalm 'Deus venerunt gentes' was to be sung by the clergy, with loud voice, before the elevation of the Host. Every month, there was to be a pro cession of men and women, headed by the banner of the Cross, with fasting and a special Indulgence. A box was to be placed in the Churches, to receive the alms of the faithful for the great object. The hves and property of Crusaders were taken under the protection of the local Bishop until their return 278 THE HISTORY OF chap. home. The Podesta was enjoined to constrain Jewish YI1, usurers to remit theh gainful trade in favour of 1220-1227. Crusaders; while the pious warriors on the other hand might enforce the payment of any debts due to themselves. Those of the clergy, who joined in the enterprise, were guaranteed their revenues during their absence. None who made the vow could lay it aside at their own pleasure.* Li November the Emperor sent an embassy to the Pope consisting of the Archbishops of Eeggio and Tyre, the latter of whom was also the Chancellor of Jerusalem and a great favourite at Court ; Hermann von Salza accompanied the Prelates ; they besought Honorius to act as umpire betAveen their master and the Lombards, who were ready to submit to the Papal arbitration, in order that the Crusade might not be hindered. Frederick speaks hghtly of his own humilia tion, so long as the honour of God is maintained. In the mean time he crossed over into Sicily, having the Empress Yolande with him, who had probably bene fitted by her sojourn among the learned medical men of Salerno. Very soon, early in the year 1227, a letter came from the Pope, advising Frederick to make overtures to his father-in-law, John . de Brienne. ' Why estrange a man of such prudence, such acti vity, such zeal, such counsel ? Who is more terrible to the infidels than he, or more serviceable to the Holy Land ? Even had you taken a plain knight for your father-in-law, you ought to have made him a King. Through you the zeal of many is waxing cold ! We beseech you in Christ, as a special favour, to recon- * Fantuzzi, Ravenna, Oct. 21, 1226. FREDERICK THE SECOND 279 sider the matter ; Ave are sending to you the Abbot chap. of Viterbo.' YIL Honorius thus did his utmost to reconcile the 1220-1227. wayward soldiers of the Cross ; and he determined that, whatever Frederick might do, so brave a veteran as King John should be maintained in a manner befitting his rank and services. The Bope accordingly gave that hero the charge of the whole country between Eome and Eadicofani, on the Tuscan boundary. Perugia, Orvieto, and Toch were under the government of various Cardinals. Very early in this year, on the 5th of January, 1227, Honorius made his aAvard between the Empire and the Lombards, almost his last act on earth. There was to be a hearty reconcdiation, and prisoners on both sides were to be set free. All, especially the University of Bologna, were to be released from the ban of the Empire, and from the sentence pro nounced in the previous summer. The Lombards on their side were to maintain at their own cost 400 knights in Palestine for two years, and Avere to hunt out the heretics from among themselves. They were also to take an oath to obey the canons of the Lateran Council. Theh letters, bowing to this deci sion, were to be sent to the Pope by the first Sunday in Lent. Thus, Eome, acting as umpire, made an award which suited her OAvn interests in every Avay. The Emperor and his son were taken under her special protection ; he at once acquiesced in her decision. The Lombards however were rebuked for the delay they had made in sending succours. Hermann von Salza went into Germany once more on the busmess of the Crusade, which must take place this year, 280 THE HISTORY OF chap, according to the treaty of San Germano. Honorius '— despatched urgent letters to Andrew the King of 1220-1227. Hungary, who had already made one campaign in Palestine, and to the Landgrave of Thuringia.* But this Pope was not to see the end of all his toUs on behaU of the Holy Land ; he died on the 18th of March, 1227, and was buried in Santa Maria Mag- giore. Raynaldus. FREDERICK THE SECOND 281 CHAPTEE VHI. A.D. 1227— AD. 1230. ' Eece parat Csesar domito, quod defuit, orbi Addere. Nunc, Oriens ultime, noster eris I ' — Ovid. THE Cardinals had at first wished to elect Conrad, chap. the German Bishop of Porto and the boast of the ' ' " Cistercian Order ; but he dechned the Papacy, just 1227-1230. as he had long before refused various wealthy Sees.* They next fixed upon Cardinal Ugohno ; after with standing for some time the holy violence of the Conclave, he took the name of Gregory the Ninth, on his election to St. Peter's Chair. He came of the noble house of Conti, which had aheady given his uncle, Innocent the Thhd, to the Church, and which was to count yet another Pope, after Gregory's death, among its ornaments. The new Pontiff is described as 'the possessor of a noble form and countenance, of great talents, endowed with a good memory and a penetrating mind, skdled in law, a stream of Tulhan eloquence, a diligent reader in the Sacred Page, a planter of rehgion, and a pattern of every kind of holiness.' He had aheady acted as the Protector of the new Order of St. Francis, and had composed hymns in honour of the Saint ; he was a great founder of monasteries and hospi tal^ ; he laid the foundation stone of the Church at \ ' * Holler. 282 THE HISTORY OF chap. Assisi, and bruit the waUs of Ostia, his old Bishop- IL ric. His election took place at the Sette Sole ; 1227-1230. he was then instaUed in the Lateran Palace, and was duly enthroned in St. Peter's and in Santa Maria Maggiore. Shortly after Easter, he heard mass and was crowned with the double diadem of the Papacy. He then rode on horseback round the walls of Borne. The squares were hung with silks and tapestry, trumpets were blown, hymns were sung, odours were burnt ; the Judges in theh sdken copes, the Greeks, the Jews, the children in the streets, bawhng out the ribald jests customary in Eoman triumphs from time immemorial, aU alike shouted their greetings to the new Vicar of Christ, and strewed palm branches and flowers before him. The Senator and Prefect on foot led the Pope's horse in its gorgeous trappings, until the long procession of Cardinals, Bishops, and Clergy reached the Lateran, amid the applause of the vast multitude.* Gregory was no mere monk, taken at hap-hazard from the cloister and suddenly plunged into the business of the great world. He had been employed by Innocent and Honorius in missions to Germany, France, Apulia, and Lombardy. He was a master of the Canon Law, to which he made some impor tant additions. Stern and unbending as he seemed, he thought it no sin, when among friends, to relax his usual gravity. A smde would cross his face, even at an unseasonable moment.f CaUed to a * Vita Gregorii IX. f Frater Augustinus. . . . retulit publice in conventu Londonia? se fuisse apud Assisium in festo S. Francisci, et fuit ibi Papa Gregorius, et cum procederet ad prsedicandum cantabant fratres, Hunc Sanctus prwelegerat ; et subrisit Papa. — Thomas de Eccleston. FREDERICK THE SECOND 283 high post of honour in troublous times, he wisely chap. yielded to the spirit of the age, by showing his ! ! ' sympathy Avith chivalry. On quittmg the pulpit, 1227-1230, he Avould place a garland of floAvers on the head of each of the cavaliers avIio craved the honour of knighthood on St. Francis's day.* He was also a patron of learning, and befriended the famous Michael Scott. Gregory foresaAV the storms threaten ing the Church, and resolved to recruit the Sacred College Avith able men. Half a year after his in- staUation in St. Peter's Chah, he created three Cardinals, avIio were destined in succession to fill his place. These were Geoffrey Castighone of Mdan ; Sinibald Fiesco of Genoa; and Einaldo Conti of Anagni, the Pope's nephew and Chamberlain. To these he added the dauntless Otho of Montferrat, whose name is closely connected with Enghsh his tory ; and tAvo other Churchmen of less note.f The sphit of the Lateran underwent a great change. No two men were more unlike in character than Honorius and Gregory. The former was mdd, easy, and inclined to gentle measures ; we have seen Iioav many respites he granted to Frederick, after the Emperor had taken the Cross. The Pontificate of Honorius, placed between those of the two great Conti Popes, is, as it Avere, a lud between two awful storms. Gregory was stern, uncompromising, and even too prone to harshness ; no more respites could be expected from him ; he had stood undaunted in the German camp, while those around him were quading before the ruffian Markwald. Yet, unlike as they were, the two Cardinals seem to have been linked together * Eccleston. f Alb- Trium Fontium. 1227-1230. 284 THE HISTORY OF chap, by a heartfelt attachment. Honorius, after becoming vm . . Pope, needed a strong arm upon which to lean ; in the very first year of his Pontificate, he wrote thus of his friend : ' Ugohno is a man after my own heart, mighty in words and deeds ; on him I can rely, and trust him in aU cases.'* Both probably viewed with equal dismay the overwhelming might of the House of Hohenstaufen ; but Honorius seemed to shrink from the battle which he must have fore seen ; he strove to end his hfe in peace, and to put off the evil day. Gregory, on the other hand, looked the danger fuU in the face ; his Pontificate, as he well knew, Avould decide whether the Pope was to rule the world henceforward, or whether he must become a mere chaplain to the Emperor. This was a problem which Gregory twice attempted to solve in his own way. Frederick perhaps expected to find his old friend Ugohno as favourably disposed towards him as Honorius had been ; if he did, he was soon grievously disappointed. Even agamst Honorius he had lately had many causes of com plaint ; he was now to find that Gregory was made of stiU sterner stuff than his predecessor. The first letter received from the new Pope is dated the 23rd of March. It reminds the Emperor of the good offices he has received from Cardinal Ugohno, and proceeds ; ' We are willing to grant you every indulgence that we can, but take heed that you do not place yourself in a situation whence we may not be able to extricate you, even with the best wdl.' On the very next clay, Gregory wrote to the Lom bard states, ordering them to make ready for the * Regesta of Honorius, quoted by Von Raumer. FREDERICK THE SECOND 285 Crusade. ' Ye know hoAv we loved you of yore, chap. Avhen Ave acted as Legate in Lombardy ; but we — shall love you much more, if ye obey now.' He 1227-1230, Avas not to be tricked by these men, who according to their countryman Sahmbene were 'slippery as eels ;' he had remarked that some of the states, and also the Marquess of Montferrat, had not set theh seals to the treaty ; he insisted on the due per formance of the compact, ordering the Archbishop of Mdan to excommunicate the refractory. He also uttered bitter complaints against the tolerant treatment of heretics in Lombardy, and against the firm subjection in which the clergy were kept by the laws of the states. The Bishop of Ghibefline Cremona was excommunicated for not obeying his superior, the Archbishop of Guelf Milan.* From the Lombards, Gregory turned his attention to Frederick. The life of the Emperor was not without blemish ; it could Ul bear the scrutiny of the stern censor at Eome. The Pope sent to his young friend a letter by Guala, a renowned Do minican ; the first part is written in a style worthy of a Christian phdosopher ; the last part degenerates into the strangest mysticism. 'God has bestowed on you the gift of knowledge and of perfect imagi nation, and aU Christendom follows you. Take heed that you do not place your intellect, which you have in common with angels, below your senses, which you have in common with brutes and plants. Your intellect is weakened, if you are the slave of your senses. If those two lights, knowledge and love, be * Regesta of Gregory for 1227, LIV. LIX. Middlehill MSS. He says, speaking of his arbitration, ' Utraque pars humiliter acceptavit.' 1227-1230. 286' THE HISTORY OF chap, quenched, if those conquering eagles be brought low and turned to earthly lusts, you will not be able to point the way of salvation to your foUowers. Far be this from you, dearest son ! FoUow after justice and mercy, even as Israel followed the fiery pillar and the cloudy pdlar. Eemember the five Insignia at your coronation ; the cross and lance are carried before you in the procession, and you wear on your head the golden crown studded with precious stones, having the sceptre in your right hand and the golden apple in your left. Christ, hke you, wore three crowns ; He had the crown of grace from His mother ; the crown of justice from His step-mother ;* and the crown of glory from His Father. You are crowned by Germany, by Lombardy, which may be caUed your step-mother, and by your father, the Pope. The sceptre stands for justice ; the apple for mercy ; be not unmindful of these qualities.' Frederick was at Catania in the spring ; and his lieutenant, the Count of Acerra, came into Sicily before starting for Palestine. AU men were preparing for the Crusade ; a paper remains, which informs us that eleven dignitaries of the Church, residing near Otranto, made up between them a contingent of ten knights and forty foot soldiers.f In June, the Em peror was at Melfi in Apulia, and whde there he received a message from Pope Gregory, requesting that provisions from every part of the Kingdom might be sent to Anagni, the Papal residence. A few weeks stdl remained for the transaction of the business of the Emphe. The Bishops of Batisbon * Jerusalem is probably meant. | Chronic. Neritinum. FREDERICK THE SECOND 287 and Bamberg came in July, and the former procured chap. the revocation of the mischievous acts of his prede- — cessor. A month later, four monks, from as many Aus- 1227-1230. trian Abbeys, obtained a confirmation of their privi leges. Frederick reneAved the treaty with France, now governed by Blanche, the Queen-mother. August had at length arrived, in which the long-expected Crusade must be undertaken, according to the agreement of San Germano. To a great extent it was a faUure. Few came from England, fewer stdl from France ; the main strength of the enterprise lay in the Ger mans, Avho came over the Alps under the Landgrave of Thuringia and the Bishop of Augsburg. Frede rick had paid the former recruit a large sum of money to induce him to march ; the Duke of Austria had himg back at the last moment. The German host arrived in Apuha; and theh Kaiser, leaving his Empress Yolande at Otranto, joined them at Brindisi. He rode thither in the heat, against the wishes of his physicians, who feared the worst from his imprudence, since his health was giving way. As it was, the constitutions of the Northern men could not bear the heat of an Itahan summer ; they were more than a week engaged in freighting theh ships with provisions and water ; the power of the sun was so great, that it melted sohd metal ; Brin disi was an iU-chosen trysting-place, being most unhealthy ; the badness of the air, and the rain that feU, kiUed off many of the Crusaders.* The Bishops of Angers and Augsburg died ; and the Landgrave himself feU a victim at Otranto. Gregory, twelve years afterwards, charged Frederick with having * Life of Gregory. 288 THE HISTORY OF chap, poisoned the Thuringian. What interest could the Kaiser have had in making away with a gaUant 1227-1230. comrade? He endeavoured to Ughten the sorrow of the bereaved family, by giving Hermann, the son of the deceased Landgrave, certain rights over Meissen, in the event of the death of Margrave Henry. The surviving warriors set sail from Otranto, Frederick among them. But after remain- mg at sea for three days, he said that he was seized with a sudden illness, so that he could not at the risk of his hfe any longer bear the roughness of the waves and the unhealthy season. The nobles of the East, who surrounded him, advised him to delay his voyage, after a careful consideration of the state of his health. He put about and returned to Otranto, offering two galleys to Gerold the Pa triarch, who went off by himseU, seeing that the matter could not be otherwise.* The other pil grims, 40,000 fighting men in aU, reached Acre ; but returned home for the most part, on finding that the Emperor was not coming ; ' putting theh trust in man rather than in God,' as the Patriarch remarked. Only 800 knights remained, the command of whom Frederick had given to the Duke of Limburg ; the Crusade seemed a total failure."!' A report was spread and widely beUeved, that the Emperor had made a treaty Avith the Sultan, to break off the enterprise. J Frederick sent two Judges to Borne to explain all, and went to recruit himself at the baths of Pozzuoh, near Naples, where he could hunt in the forests around Licola, his royal chase. He * French Chronicle. f De Wendover. | Ric. Malespini. FREDERICK THE SECOND 289 despatched a further embassy to Gregory, consisting chap. of the Archbishops of Eeggio and Bari, Eaynald of — Spoleto, and Homy Count of Malta; they Avere m7-1230' charged Avith the task of his exculpation. The Bope Avoidd not beheve a word they said ; but calhng together as many Bishops as he could, he pubhcly excommunicated the recreant Crusader on the 29th of September, 1227.* Hermann von Salza, probably the only man in all Christendom who could have kept peace between Pope and Emperor, had unluckily sailed for the East. Gregory ordered the sentence to be published throughout all Christian Kingdoms ; his letter to Stephen Langton, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Avas as follows : ' The bark of Peter is in such constant danger, that its pilots and oarsmen can scarcely breathe ; for if it is making full sail for port with a fah wind, the breeze suddeidy veers round to an opposite quarter, and carries the ship into the deep ocean. Yet it is not overwhelmed ; for the Lord, awakened by the cries of his disciples, commands the sea and the waves, and there is a calm. Four gusts are as sailing our ship ; the Moslem in Palestine ; the fury of Tyrants ; the madness of Heretics ; and the per- Arerseness of false brethren. Without are fightings, and within are fears ; the sword slays abroad and at home ; while the Church thinks she is cherishing sons, she is fostering snakes and cockatrices. The Apostolic See, to escape these dangers, brought up a certain pupil, the Emperor Frederick, whom she took from his mother's womb, rescued from his murderers, and raised first to the Kingdom, then to * Ric. San Germano. VOL. I. U 290 THE HISTORY OF chap, the Empire. In Germany he gave us a happy omen, ; though it now seems a dangerous one ; for of his 1227-1230. own accord, unknown to the Apostolic See, he took the Cross. He then obtained a decree of excom munication against himself and the others who had imitated him, if he should not set out by a certain time. The Church caUed him to the Crown out of due order, that he might the more speedily sail to Palestine ; but he has used the banner of the Cross until now for his own purposes. After his coronation by Pope Honorius, he received the Cross from the hands of ourselves, who were at that time hi a lower place ; he then induced many others to imitate him. He afterwards conferred with the Pope at Veroli, and there swore to set out whenever the Church should fix the time. Again, at Ferentino, he swore to sail within two years, and to marry the heiress of Jeru salem ; adding that he should thereby be bound to the service of Palestine, not like the other pilgrims, but like the Templars and Hospitallers, for ever. At the end of the two years he made fresh delays, and Avanted another respite for three years. The Church, after much debating, sent Cardinals Pelagius and Gualo to San Germano ; and there the Emperor of his own accord swore that he would sail within two years, that is, in August last past ; and many other conditions were named. The Cardinals then pro claimed the sentence which he would incur if he failed in aught. But you are now to learn how he has fulfilled his promises ; for many thousand Cru saders came to BrmcUsi at the appointed time ; he had withdrawn his favour from the cities of the coast ; we had in vain urged him to make the proper preparations ; he neglected to send provisions ; he FREDERICK THE SECOND 291 kept the Christian army in a foul climate so long chap. that nobles and commons ahke perished from disease, thirst, and heat. Many died in the woods, plains, 1227-1230. mountains, and caves. The survivors could scarcely get leave to sad, but at last they did, though there Avere not ships enough to convey aU the provisions and horses, as had been promised. Yet the Emperor, slinking his engagements and casting aside all fear of God, came back, making a frivolous pretence of bodily sickness. Is there any sorrow hke unto our sorroAV ? He has paid no attention to the id-usage of priests and to the complaints of the poor, both commons and nobles, Avhose prayers, we think, have entered the ears of the Lord God of Sabaoth. Borne mourns for him, conquered Avithout a battle, borne down without an enemy. She mourns the death of part of the host, and the wasted efforts of the rem nant, Avho are chiven they know not whither, doing but httle good to the Holy Land ; we cannot help them owing to the stormy season. She mourns for Balestine, which we were hoping would now be res cued from the Moslem, and which we should have gained in exchange for Damietta, had not the Em peror's letters forbidden it; our army would not have been captured, if he had sent ships to the rescue, as he had promised ; for Damietta, after it had been placed in the hands of his envoy and been de corated with the Imperial eagles, was on that day cruelly piUaged and then given back to the infidels. We mourn the more, when we think of the toil, the cost, the blood, and the time spent on Damietta. Eachel is weeping for her cliddren and for these mishaps ! Who can refrain from tears ? Ought not every Christian to hurry to the Holy Land, seeing v 2 1227-1230. 292 THE HISTORY OF chap, that God and Christ are disgraced ? Yet His mercy is not clean gone for ever ; He AviU show us a better way, and He AviU send men after His own heart, who with pure hearts and clean hands wiU lead on His host. We therefore, by these Apostolic letters, be seech you to set all these matters before the clergy and people under your care, and to induce them to avenge this insult offered to Jesus Christ. However, that we be not hke unto dumb dogs unable to bark, we pubhcly excommunicate the Emperor Frederick ; as he has wilfully faUed to keep his promise, and has therefore fallen under our ban ; and we order you to proclaim it in aU your churches. We trust in the Lord that the Emperor may stiU have recourse to the true Physician and return to the Church his mother. For we do not desire his damnation, as we formerly loved him truly, when we were in a lower place.' — Given at the Lateran. We may remark on this letter, that the sentence seems to have been most hastily pronounced. It was doubtless an annoyance to the Pope, when he saw the Crusade miscarrying ; but he should have satisfied himself that Frederick's illness was only a pretence, before punishing him so grievously. The Papal messengers themselves seem to have confirmed the Emperor's statement.* If Frederick had hed, de tection was easy. It was haidly generous to hold him to the strict letter of the law ; if the Pope had wished to ruin the Crusade, he could not have effected his object better than by excommuni- * Ad Papam ad suam excusationem suos dirigit nuncios Im- perator, . . . quibus non plus credens, quam nuntiis suis, de invalitudine Imperatoris, excommunicat, &c. — Hie. San Ger mano. FREDERICK THE SECOND 293 eating the only man avIio could possibly bring it to a chap. happy end. It amazes us to hear Gregory charging the 1_ Emperor with having refused to yield up Damietta 1227-1230. in exchange for Palestine; Frederick indignantly denied this, and Cardinal Pelagius, at the Pope's elboAV, could have enlightened the Holy See, had he chosen, as to the real cause of the great disaster. Frederick's envoy had been one of the few who had wished to hold out Damietta to the last. The excommunication, with which the end of the letter is taken up, seems more hke the freak of a spiteful school boy, than the grave sentence of a grey-beard who held in his keepmg the interests of all Christendom. Gregory did his best to set the Crusade on foot once more. He sent letters to the Duke of Austria, praising him for his zeal, though Leopold had hung back in the summer ; the other Princes of Germany were also to be aroused by messengers sent for that purpose. Frederick on his side was not idle ; he quitted Pozzuoh for Sessa, and from that town went to Gaeta, Avhere he found the castle he had been budding ready to receive its garrison. He then held a Parhament at Capua, whither he summoned aU the Counts of the Kingdom ; he regulated the neAV levies and the taxation, ordering the money to be paid in by next May, Avhen he meant to cross over to Palestine \^- he proclaimed a Diet of the Empire, which was to be held at Eavenna in March next year. He ordered the clergy to go on celebrating the offices, although theh Sovereign was an excommunicated man ; if they disobeyed, theh property was to be confiscated to the Crown ; none of them were allowed to leave the realm. At the same time, he was careful to 294 THE HISTORY OF chap, protect them. He despatched to Eome one of his YIIL ablest lawyers, Eoffrid of Benevento, who read his 1227-1230. master's exculpation before the Senate and people assembled in the Capitol. The Emperor sent to the Bope another embassy, which was more hkely to succeed than the last ; it consisted of two Cardinals, one of whom was Otho of Montferrat.* Gregory wrote two more important letters before the end of the year 1227 ; the first was to the ex communicated Emperor, ' 0 that you would submit yourseU to Him, who has subjected to you various nations, that you may not be found ungrateful ! 0 that you would humbly recognize the goodness and long-suffering of the Eoman Church, which in spite of many provocations has never met you save with the sphit of gentleness ! We have been blamed, and perhaps with justice, for cherishing you in your hurtful pleasures ; as it were, seething a kid in its mother's milk. All hoped that you would bring the Crusade to a glorious end ; but we have all begun to despair of the recovery of the Holy Land. Owing to you, many are groamng over their banishment (God grant that it be not theh death !) who at your instigation have undertaken the voyage. Let not our love towards you be held in suspicion ! a father chastises the son whom he loves. Be not, we be seech you, of the number of those, of whom the Lord complains, " I have smitten them, and they have not mourned ;" but hasten back into the bosom of the Church, which yearns for you. We have of ten been blamed for not asserting the rights of the Count of Celano, and of Binaldo of Aversa. When * Ric. San Germano. FREDERICK THE SECOND 295 the treaty Avas made betAveen you and those parties, chap. you promised Pope Honorius that you Avould again ! take Count Eoger into favour ; but he is in exile 1227-1230. and his son is a captive, although you made the former take the Cross. People say " See Iioav Eome protects these men ! they took the Cross, when poAverftd and rich : but now, being thrust out by the Emperor, they are banished men and beggars." We cannot pass over the oppression of Sicily ; men ask how can Ave endure such tyranny. We can noAv no longer put up with your faults or delay your punishment ; we beg you to remember that it profits a man nought, if he gain the whole world and lose his OAvn soul. Eeturn then to virtue, knowing that we are ready to restore you to our favour ; otherwise we shaU act as God and Justice dictate.' Gregory sent another letter into aU the Kingdoms of the West, which displays the state of Palestine during the autumn of 1227. It was a copy of a despatch from Gerold the Patriarch of Jerusalem, the Prelates of Narbonne, Winchester, and Exeter, and the Grand Masters of the three Knightly Brother hoods. It began with a bitter expression of disap pointment at the non-arrival of the Emperor in Palestine, and with an account of the consequent dispersion of the Crusaders. ' Eight hundred knights remained, who were clamorous for the breach of the truce with the Sultan. The Duke of Limburg was appointed to act as the Emperor's Lieutenant. He caUed a councd, and openly stated his wish to break the truce. Some withstood this, saying that it was dishonourable and also dangerous. The Duke and his party declared that the Pope could not wish the truce to be kept ; the pilgrims coidd not idle away 296 THE HISTORY OF chap, their time ; and if they departed, the Saracens might perhaps get the start in breaking the truce. Now, 1227-1230. if ever, was the time to fight ; for Moadhin, the Sultan of Damascus, was hard pressed by some of the other Mohammedan powers, and would offer terms of peace, if the Christians were to threaten him. At length the council determined on a march to Jerusalem next August, and resolved in the mean time to fortify first Cassarea, and then Jaffa. Part of the plan was carried out ; and the pdgrims, who did not know the whole of the design, were suddenly seized with a longing deshe to see Jerusalem ; each man felt as if he could beat a thousand Moslem.' The despatch ended with an earnest hope that all faithful Christians would hasten to the succour of the small but devoted band in Palestine.* We must regret to see Hermann von Salza lending his sanction to anything that was a breach of the laws of honour. He must have known ftdl well, having been at the surrender of Damietta, that the eight years' truce, then agreed upon, would not expire untd 1229. The only circumstance that could annul it was the arrival of the Emperor in person, which had not hitherto taken place. This, as far as I know, is the only blot on the otherwise stainless reputation of Brother Hermann. If a man such as he was could prefer expediency to honour in his dealings with unbelievers, we may judge how unscru pulous must have been the ideas of most of his con temporaries ! In the mean time, the Emperor resolved to set himself right with his brother Monarchs. He accord- * De Wendover. FREDERICK THE SECOND 297 ingly sent a circular round all the Kingdoms of the chap. r . . vin. West, which throAvs much hght upon the events of ._. '_ his past hfe.. "We are loth to say it, but our hopes 1227-1230. have been deceived; the end of aU things is at hand ; love is waxing cold, not only in its branches, but in its roots. The Eoman Emphe, the bulwark of the Faith, is being assailed by its oavu fathers. If an enemy were to attack us, Ave should grasp the sword ; but Avhen the Vicar of Christ arises against us, our reverence for the blessed Beter causes us to pause in amazement. Let the whole earth hear the provo cations we have received from our step-mother the Church.' Frederick then goes through the story of his hfe. He complains of Otho having been preferred to the Emphe, and of his oavu Kingdom having been left exposed to dangers, wldle he was a chdd. He refers to the many perils he undenvent hi Germany, and to the Avhole history of his preparations for the Crusade, the vow at Aix-la-ChapeUe, the coronation at Borne, the succours despatched in vain to Damietta, the three conferences Avith the Bope and his Legates. ' We sent Von Salza into Germany, to levy soldiers, and to promise pay according to theh deserts. We gave up the March of Meissen, Avorth more than twenty thousand sdver marks a year, to the Land grave of Thuringia, that he might be induced to ac company us ; besides paying him five thousand marks doAvn. We took seven hundred knights into our pay ; we had eight hundred carpenters at work on our ships ; we had fifty gaUeys and other vessels ready at Brindisi ; there were not pilgrims enough to fiU them.' Frederick then gives a minute account of his own illness, and of the death of the Landgrave ; he declares that he meant to foUow his comrades in 298 THE HISTORY OF chap, the ensuing May ; he upbraids the Church with '. harshness in excommunicating him after he had done 1227-1230. his utmost, since seven hundred German knights and two hundred and fifty Sicilian knights had been despatched to Palestine, and the four hundred Lombard knights would also have been sent off, if the Pope had not connived at their delay. He affirms that he can fully account for the hunched thousand ounces of gold, which he Avas bound to pay ; Von Salza at least Avas satisfied. ' Our Apos tolic Lord did not deal fairly with the ambassadors we sent him ; they were ready to explain all, but he would scarcely listen to them ; it is said that he consulted with each Prelate in private, and warned each not to depart from the sentence arranged beforehand, prior to the defence made by our envoys ; thus the Councd arrived at a conclusion without hearing what we had to bring forward. Besides this, the men of Eieti, the subjects of the Church, on hearing of our embarkation, made an attack on our Kingdom, but were beaten off. All this we desire to make known to the whole Avorld ; hi spite of aU, Ave shah not desist from the service of Christ. Perhaps it has been aU ordered for the best ; since we shall be able to do more in Palestine next year. We ask you for succour, as we mean to set forth in May. We also ask you to send envoys to us at Eavenna in Mid-Lent, Avhen we shall hold a Diet for the maintenance of peace in Italy.' Frederick sent another letter to the King of England, in which he sIioavs himself weU versed in our national history. ' Take Avarning by the past; did not the Bope hard press the Count of Toulouse and others by an unjust excommunication, until FEEDER1CK THE SECOND 299 they boAved before him? Did not Imioccnt the chap. Third stir up the English Barons against King L John, as being a foe of the Church ? As soon as 1227-1230. the King had crouched like a coward and handed over his realm to Borne, the Pope, who only hungered for the fat of the land, gave the Barons up to misery and death. The Eoman Church is like a leech ; she calls herself my mother and nurse ; but she is a step-mother, and the root of aU evils. Her Legates go throughout all lands, binding, loosing, punishing ; not to sow the seed of the Word, but to subdue aU men and to wring from them theh money. Neither churches nor hospitals are now spared. This Church was founded on poverty and innocence at first, as its catalogue of saints proves ; but other foundation can no man lay, than what Christ has laid. Now she walloAYS in riches ; and it is to be feared that riches will overthrow her. AU the wicked are eager for the fray, and hope to riot on the ruin of the kingdoms of the earth. Unite yourselves then, and overturn this unheard-of tyranny, this danger common to aU. Eemember that when your neighbour's wall is on fire your OAvn property is at stake.' The year 1228 seemed at its outset to promise but httle for the cause of the Crusade. The Spiritual and Temporal heads of Christendom were waging a rancorous war. Frederick began the strife by hold ing up to public shame the morals of the enemy's partizans. The clergy, debarred from wedlock by Hildebrand's stern policy, had evaded the joyless existence to which they were doomed by Eome ; it was a common custom among them to keep concu bines, called in Italy focarice, to cheer their hearths. 300 THE HISTORY OF chap. Oidy the year before, Gregory had written to Conrad of Marburg, bidding him look to the state of the 1227-1230. parish priests and the ordained men throughout Germany, nearly all of whom kept their concubines.* Frederick now issued orders that these women, with their sons and daughters, should be thrown into prison, wherever they could be found, in Sicdy or Apuha. King John of England, a few years before, had avenged himself on the Bope in a simdar Avay. Meanwhde preparations for the Crusade were going on in spite of the excommunication. The Archbishop of Balermo, the most loyal of aU the clergy, had been sent on an embassy to Sultan Kamel of Egypt, whom Frederick hoped to find better dis posed towards the Christians than the other rulers of the East were. The Brelate brought home an ele phant, some mules, and other costly gifts from the Sultan to the Emperor. The ruler of Cairo was not hkely to be a hindrance to the Crusade. All feudal services were rigorously exacted throughout Apuha and Sicily ; the Abbot of Monte Cassino alone had to provide a hundred well armed men for Palestme, to be kept at his own cost ; 1200 ounces were col lected to pay these troops ; and the Abbot was sum moned to meet Frederick at Taranto. A fresh blow was iioav aimed at Pope Gregory. The Emperor called to him the Frangipani and other powerful Eoman patricians ; he bade them value theh real property at Eome ; he bought the whole of it at a fixed price, and then restored it to the * Regesta of Gregory for 1227, Middlehill MSS. The Pope says that the priests were ' gastromargite dediti et foetore libidinis inquinati.' FREDERICK THE SECOND 301 .nobles, Avho hoav according to the feudal law be- chap. vm came his vassals and did homage to him.* They '_ Avent back to Eome, and soon rendered good service 1227-1230. to their neAV lord. Gregory had assembled a Coun cil of Prelates from Lombardy, Tuscany, Eomagna, and Apuha ; he once more excommunicated Frederick on Holy Thursday, rebuking him at the same time for seizing on some lands belonging to the rebellious Milanese. He sent the foUowing letter to the Bishops of the Kingdom : — L We have drawn the medicinal sAvord of Peter against Frederick, in the spirit of gentleness ; Ave have placed him under the ban, as he himseU had consented. But he has added sin to sin ; for scorning the Keys of the Church, he has caused the divine offices to be celebrated, or rather profaned, in his presence. Our predecessor Hono rius took care to warn him respecting divers matters in which he offended the Church ; and Ave ourselves sent to him the Cardinal of St. Sabina and Cardinal Otho, that they might admonish him ; but they were unable to recaU him to repentance. We have ex communicated him once more, because he did not sail at the time agreed ; because he wdl not alloAv the Archbishop of Taranto to return to that see ; be cause he has robbed the Templars and Hospitallers ; and because he maltreats his nobles. We have ordered the suspension of the divine offices in any place where he may be ; Ave shall proceed against him hke a heretic ; we shall absolve his subjects from theh oath of allegiance ; and we shall strip him of his Kingdom, Avhich is our fief, and for Avhich he has done us homage.' lo^ * Abbas Ursperg. ATHI 1227-1230. 302 THE HISTORY OF chap. Gregory was too hasty in his measures. He was celebrating mass at St. Beter's, when the common folk, ' ministers of Satan, heirs of perdition,' hissed him and abused him most scurrilously, barking like dogs, whilst the Host was being elevated.* They soon drove the Holy Father out of Borne ; he took refuge at Eieti, travelling under a safe escort ; and thence moved on to Berugia, which was under the government of Cardinal John Colonna. At this time, Frederick was laying a tax upon all the churches of the Kingdom on behalf of Balestine ; Gregory forbade them to pay anything. He sent two Minorite friars to his enemy early in May ; they were charged with a letter ; ' The noise and howling of the Churches of Sicily and Apuha, plundered by you, has come up into our ears. We are placed here to defend Christ's Church ; we warn you to restore everything.' The Diet, to be held at Eavenna in Lent this year, was a failure ; the men of Milan and Verona robbed the German pilgrims, who were on their way to the South. This was said to have been done by the Bope's orders ; ' Avhich woe is me ! ' says the Abbot of Ursperg, ' is unfit to be named ! ' Frederick kept Easter Avith great pomp at Barletta on the Adriatic ; his joy was all the greater, on the arrival of the news from the Count of Acerra, his lieutenant in the Holy Land, that Moadhin the Sultan of Damascus, the most dreaded of aU the Moslem, was dead. Eichard Fdangieri, the Marshal, was at once sent off from Brindisi with 500 knights as a reinforcement. The Emperor supplied needy pilgrims with horses, arms, * Life of Gregoi 7- FREDERICK THE SECOND 303 and provisions, besides having ships ready. He sent chap. an account of his struggle with the Pope to the men of Cesena, and complained of Gregory for siding with 1227-123a Apulian traitors. He stiU found time to protect monasteries both in Italy and Germany. The Crown of Jerusalem seemed now more easy of attainment than ever ; but the heiress who had brought it to Frederick Avas at the point of death. The Empress Yolande gave birth to a son, the last but one of the race of Hohenstaufen. She Avas cut off at the early age of seventeen, having had httle enjoyment in her life-time ; her step-mother had attempted to poison her ; her father had quitted her side ; and her hus band had neglected her. She died ten clays after becoming a mother, unable to survive the pains of child-birth. The infant was called Conrad by his father's desire, and was held at the font by the am bassadors of Cremona. The men of this city, the stronghold of Frederick's party in Lombardy, had begged for the honour of acting as the sponsors of the young Prince ; they gave sumptuous presents to the Emperor, who thus made them his gossips ; and their women hkewise sent gifts to the Empress, which must have come too late for her acceptance. Yolande Avas buried with all due honour at Andria.* A letter of Gregory to his Legate in France gives us an insight into the state of the Holy Land at this time. He complains of Frederick's treaty with Egypt, and of the kindness shown by him to Sara cens. After the breach of the truce, which the Pope affirms to have been broken by the Emperor's order, the Saracens made a foray into the Christian * Ric. San Germano. Imago Mundi. 304 THE HISTORY OF chap, territory, and carried off great booty in cattle and prisoners. The Templars recovered part of the pro- 1227-1230. per£y . ku£ ^he Count of Acerra took from them by force what they were bringing home and restored it to the Saracens, keeping back part of it, so the Papal accusation ran, for his own use. This traitor would not allow the Christians to recover goods from Mos lem plunderers ; and thus the enemy became more daring in their attacks. The Count also set himself to persecute the Templars and Hospitallers, by tak ing away their goods and privdeges. The Emperor' was said to have seized upon a hundred slaves, held by these Orders in Sicily and Apuha ; these he gave up to the Saracens without any ransom being paid. He was therefore charged with favouring the servants of Mahommed more than those of Christ. Frederick held one more Parhament at Barletta. So great was the throng, that he was fain to have his throne prepared in the open ah. Hence he read his last Will and Testament, of Avhich the purport Avas as follows : AU Prelates, Barons, and vassals were to live in peace, as in the time of King William the Second. Eaynald of Spoleto Avas made Viceroy of the Kingdom. In the event of Frederick's death, the Crown of Sicily was to go to his son Henry ; if the latter should die, it devolved on Conrad ; and in default of other issue, the succession passed to daughters. All this was to be ratified by an oath taken by the lieges. Eaynald of Spoleto and Henry of Morra swore in due form first, and the others followed. No more taxes were to be levied, unless for the good of the Kingdom. Frederick took and destroyed Godiano, a place near Melfi. The Lords of Pohto were placed under the FREDERICK THE SECOND 305 ban, and Eaynald summoned the Avhole Kingdom to chap. suppress the revolt ; the rebels' stronghold, Torre VIII. di Eenaria, which they had newly fortified against 1227-1230. theh Sovereign, Avas destroyed, after they had sur rendered on condition of having their hves spared ; they fled to Eieti, in the Bope's country. A short time before these latter events, Frederick at length set off on his AToyage to the Holy Land. This was the point to which the pohtical movements of the last thirteen years had been tending ; the taking of the Cross at Aix-la-ChapeUe in 1215 ; the respites up to 1220, so often granted by Pope Hono rius ; the bestowal of the Crown of the Empire at Borne in 1220 ; the renewed delays after the loss of Damietta in 1221 ; the conference at Veroh in 1222 ; the conference at Ferentino in 1223 ; the conference at San Germano in 1225 ; the marriage Avith the heiress of Jerusalem in the same year ; the bootless journey into Lombardy in 1226 ; the false start in 1227, foUowed by Pope Gregory's excom munication ; aU these events had now at length their fitting end ; the Emperor Frederick the Second was on his way to the East, thus treading in the steps of his Hohenstaufen forefathers and kinsmen ; of Conrad, the first Suabian monarch ; of Frederick Barbarossa ; and of Duke Frederick, the fomider of the Teutonic Order. What might not Christendom expect at the hands of so vigorous and pohtic an Emperor? One thing alone was wanting, the hearty co-operation of the Bope in the new under taking. There was no mighty Saladin now in the East, wielding the whole strength of Islam ; his realm had been spht up into kingdoms for his different nephews, whose aUiance was often sun- vol. 1. x 306 THE HISTORY OF chap, dered ; now, U ever, was the hour for a successful Crusade. Could it be imagined that Christendom 1227-1230. wou}d imitate Islam, and ruin her own efforts by her unhappy divisions at home, when on the eve of what ought to have been a great triumph ? Frederick went to Brindisi, ordering aU his com rades to meet at St. Andrew of the Island. From the former port he issued an edict, which ap pointed Eaynald his Imperial Legate in the March of Ancona. This was a direct defiance to the Bope, being an abrogation of the concessions made at the late Boman coronation. Frederick explained his reasons for taking this step in a letter to the men of Civita Nuova. ' We made our grant to the Church, without intending to give up the rights of the Empire. The Fopes have abused our kindness ; they have tried to withdraw our heges from the service due to us. They have besides installed as your magistrates men who are the sons of schism and discord. We have therefore resolved to revoke our grant to the Church.' The Emperor also con ferred a favour upon the Patriarch of Jerusalem, who had sailed in the previous year. Two old German friends, Anselm von Justingen and Henry von Neifen, Avere now at their Kaiser's side. Twenty- two galleys were to start for the East ; but Fre derick had only a hundred knights, and not much money ; he was afterwards glad to borrow thhty thousand bezants at Cyprus. The Boman Court, learning the mtention of the enemy, sent to forbid him to set sail, unless he should first gain absolution from the Holy See. Frederick made light of this command.* ' He saded more hke a pirate than an * Old French Chronicle, printed by Breholles. FREDERICK THE SECOND 307 Emperor,' said Gregory ; ' owing to which the awful chap. name of the Boman Emphe Avas less respected among — the barbarous nations.'* 1227-1230. From Brindisi, the Emperor dropped down the coast to Otranto. Thence he issued one more circular for the benefit of his heges. After referring to his zeal for the Crusade and to the unjust excommuni cation, he says : ' We have sent envoys to the Pope for forgiveness even more frequently than became our dignity ; Ave have lately sent to him the Arch bishop of Magdeburg and tAvo Judges of our Court, but they could not prevail upon him even to state his own terms. He has allowed his subjects, the men of Bieti, to make an attack upon our Kingdom. He has made use of the money subscribed for the Crusade to raise soldiers for the purpose of harassing us. StiU we are bent on the service of Christ ; we are just about to sail for Syria with a fair wind. We order you all to do your best to aid us and the cause of Balestine.' Frederick started from Otranto on the 29th of June ; in two days he reached Corfu. At Cefalonia, he was welcomed by an Apulian subject, Count Maione, who had aU things necessary in readiness. The fleet steered from Cerigo to Candia, along which it coasted. On the 13th of July, the weary voyagers dropped anchor at Bhodes, where they were glad to rest. They then coasted along Lycia, a land full of interest to the Apuhan worshippers of St. Nicholas, one of whom has bequeathed to us an account of the voyage. On the 21st of July, they reached a harbour of Cyprus, having thus taken * Monach. Patavinus. x 2 308 THE HISTORY OF chap, three weeks to accomphsh what may now be done VIII. , . . in a couple of days.* Frederick's father, acting m 1227—1230 > 'his Imperial capacity, had erected Cyprus into a Kingdom for one of the Lusignans. The reigning King was only eleven years old, and had just lost his guardian, Philip of Ibelin. Frederick asserted his own right of wardship over the youthful Monarch, and claimed homage from him. The Emperor was welcomed at Limisso with great rejoicings, having been invited into Cyprus by five of the barons of that country, enemies of the Ibehn faction. At their request, he laid a scheme for possessing himself of the Begency of the Khigdom. He sent a letter, couched in honied terms, to John of Ibehn the actual Eegent, catting him his dearest uncle, and begging him to come and to bring the young King, his ward. The pair came accordingly ; they were in mourning for a kinsman, probably the deceased Phihp ; but Frederick bade them lay aside their black garments, giving them scarlet robes in ex change ; he also invited them to dinner for the next day. While at the meal, they found them selves surrounded by armed men, and Frederick cried with a loud voice : ' I want two things of you ; first, the town and castle of Beyrout ; secondly, the revenues of Cyprus, during the King's minority.' The Emperor laid his hand on his head, and swore by his Imperial Throne that he would make good his claims at any cost. The Eegent at first re fused to yield to these pretensions, but at length said: 'I am ready for the love of Christ, and for * Breve Chronicon Vaticanum. By a comrade of Frederick. He makes the fleet to consist of forty galleys. FREDERICK THE SECOND 309 my OAvn honour, to undergo anything.' He was chap. forced to give tAventy hostages, among whom — Avere tAvo of his oavu sons ; they were chained to 1227_123°- as many servants of the Emperor, arm to arm. John of Ibelin made his escape with his retinue in the night, hearing that his capture was being planned. He began to fortify three castles near Nicosia, saying, ' Our face shall not hereafter see the Emperor's face.' Frederick remained at Limisso until the 17th of August. By this time he had been joined by many of his Syrian vassals, besides his Cyprian partizans. He noAv rocle across the island towards Nicosia, and on the way was met by Bohemond the Prince of Antioch at the head of sixty knights and other armed men. The Emperor entered Nicosia, attended by the King of Cyprus ; John of Ibehn took refuge in the strong castle of Dieu d' Amour. A treaty of peace was at last made between the contending parties. Frederick was acknowledged as Guardian of young Kmg Henry, whom he took Avith him to Palestine ; while he placed his own Badiffs in the Castles of Cyprus, to coUect the revenues for him. He set free the hostages, receiving the homage of John of Ibelin for Beyrout ; this noble however was exempted from citation before the great Court of Jerusalem.* The Emperor set sail from Famagosta on the 3rd of September ; he dropped doAvn the Syrian coast by Beyrout, Sidon, and Tyre, and reached Acre in four clays, having thus spent more than two months in his voyage from Apulia to Balestine. * Old French Chronicle. Breve Chronicon Vaticanum. Jor dan. Marin. Sanuto. 310 THE HISTORY OF chap. He probably trod those holy shores for the first time, '— if not with the devout enthusiasm of a Chateau- 1227-1230. kriand or a Lamartine, at least with the hope of achieving something great for Christendom, after so many years spent in preparations. The first King of Jerusalem had been a German Brince ; the pious Godfrey was a ruler whom even an Emperor might be proud to succeed. The present enterprize, which had Jerusalem's Crown for its mark, was somewhat akin to Frederick's famous adventure in 1212, when he won Germany. But in that undertaking, he had been fain to trust to chance, to the favour of Eome, and to the loyalty and umon of his confederates ; noAV he must place all his reliance on his own skid and forethought, for there was httle hope of favour from Eome, or of loyal union amongst his Crusading comrades. At first aU promised fair. Clergy and laity alike came forth from Acre to greet the Emperor ; the Templars and Hospitallers knelt before him, kiss ing his knees ; and the Avhole army saw in Fred erick the saviour of Israel. The Duke of Lim- burg had hitherto held the command, aided by the Grand Masters of the Three Brotherhoods. Many powerful Brelates were also at Acre ; among them were the Archbishops of Nazareth, Cassarea, and Narbonne. Gerold, who had been successively Ab bot of Cluny, Bishop of Valence, and Batriarch of Jerusalem', had of course great influence in the coun cils of the Crusaders. There were moreover two English Brelates, Wifliam de Bruere from Exeter, who was spending 4000 marks, bequeathed to him by his uncle, on the Crusade*, and Peter des Eoches * Regesta of Gregory for 1227. Middlehill MSS. 1227-1230. FREDERICK THE SECOND 311 from Winchester. This Poitevin Bishop Avas one of chap. VIII. the worst of England's rulers. The Abbot of Mur- - bach, the Count of Wurtemberg, with several Sua bian knights, the famous Werner von Bollanden, and Balian of Sidon, were in the camp. But it Avas found that many of the pilgrims woidd not remain in the Holy Land any longer. For the first feAV days the Emperor, who had made the Castle of Eicordana his head-quarters, was treated with the greatest respect ; but all was changed on the arrival of two Minorites A\tith the news, that he was stiU under the Bope's ban, and that he had added the gtdlt of presumption to his other sins, in sading to Acre Avithout the absolution of his Hohness. Gregory charged the Batriarch and the Grand Mas ters of the Templars and HospitaUers to allow no one to associate with Frederick.* He had also in July striven to detach the Teutonic Order from their Kaiser, by granting them a long Charter, f The Emperor uttered bitter complaints to the army on account of the unjust sentence, and declared that his illness at sea in 1227 had been no subterfuge. His comrades advised him to give satisfaction to the Pope, to whom he accordingly sent the Archbishop of Bari and the Count of Malta ; in the mean time many refused to sit at table Avith Frederick, and denied him the kiss of peace.J The Templars and HospitaUers became his worst foes ; the Venetians, with characteristic wariness, stood neuter ; and Fre derick found that he could oidy rely on the Bisans and Genoese and on his trusty Teutonic Order, the * Ric. San Germano. f Regesta of Gregory for 1228. MiddlehiU MSS. | De Wendover. 312 THE HISTORY OF chap, flower of Germany, headed by Von Salza.* This vm. , ! good Knight was entrusted by the Emperor with the 1227-1230. care Qf t^e (3j-ermans and Lombards ; Eichard Filan- gieri, the Apuhan Marshal, was to lead the subjects of Jerusalem and Cyprus.f Great part of the army Avere either lukewarm or openly opposed to the General ; Frederick is caUed by one writer, ' a hunter who hunts in spite of the hounds.'J He had long been negotiating with the Moslem ; he now proposed to march on Jaffa. AU the Crusaders were willing except the Grand Masters of the Templars and Hos pitaUers, who talked loudly of their duty to the Church, and of the impossibihty of theh obeying an excommunicated man ; but they agreed to folloAV the Emperor, U nothing was clone in his own name. Indignant at their conduct, he set off without them, and they foUowed in his rear at the distance of a day's march ; remembering however that the Sultan had seven thousand Turkish hght horse, Frederick proposed a compromise, and it was settled that orders should be issued in the name of God and the Chris tian Commonwealth, without any mention of the Emperor's name. § ' Who,' says the Abbot of Ur sperg, remarking on the Pope's conduct, 'who, on pondering this, can help bewailing and loathing oc currences, which seem to be the mark and presage of a falling Church ? ' The Christian host, consisting of eight hundred knights and ten thousand foot- soldiers, marched on from Acre along the coast to CaBsarea, which had been already strengthened. On the 15th of Nov- I * Ursperg. Abbas. f Ric. San Germano. t. Mutius. § Old French Chronicle, to be found in Breholles. FREDERICK THE SECOND 313 ember, they reached Jaffa, the future base of all chap, . . . VIII operations, which had therefore to be fortified, before any fresh work could be undertaken. The Crusaders 1227_i230- had brought no food or baggage with them, trusting to the ships which had been chartered at Acre. But a sudden storm had arisen ; and owing to the rough ness of the sea, the army Avas left for seven days at Jaffa without provisions. Loud were the outcries among the pilgrims ; many advised a retreat to Acre ; but at last, the storms abating their fury, several ships were enabled to enter the port of Jaffa, laden with corn, barley, and wine ; the pilgrims purchased food, some for one month, others for two months. Many ships, great and small, were now passing to and fro between Acre and Jaffa, freighted with provisions.* The work of rebuilding the waUs and the castle was being briskly carried on ; and the Chronicler of San Germano assures us, that those ramparts of Jaffa wdl be a memorial for ever to aU Christendom ; Frederick and the army toiled on for whole days Avithout ceasing ; and before the ensuing Lent, the Avork was so weU done, that nothing ever surpassed it. It may be asked, what were the Saracens doing aU this time ? f The truth Avas, that Islam was in a tot tering condition ; Sultan Moadhin, the most worthy of the kinsmen of the great Saladin, had died a year before, leaving a chdd, Daoud, to succeed him at Damascus. The deceased Sultan had before his death been at variance with his brother, Sultan Kamel of Cairo, and had caUed in Gelaledclin, the mighty * De Wendover. •j- Wilken, Michaud, and Reinaud's Extracts are my authorities here. 314 THE HISTORY OF chap, ruler of Kharizmia. Kamel, on the other hand, looked to the West for aid ; he had sent the Emir Fakr- 1227-1230. eddin to Frederick, whom he thought the most powerful of Christian Princes. This envoy had visited the Emperor in Sicily, and had promised him Jerusalem as the price of his aUiance ; the Pope was kept enthely in the dark as to these negotiations. Matters were much simplified by the death of Sultan Moadhin ; Kamel instantly seized upon the Southern part of that monarch's dominions, including Jeru salem; and* then informed his surviving brother Ashraf, the Sultan of Aleppo, that he was now about to return into Egypt. Ashraf, frightened at the im pending Crusade, agreed to leave Kamel undisturbed in his new acquisitions ; and the two brothers muted in a project to despod theh nephew, the young Daoud.* Kamel had expected that the Emperor would come to the East at the head of an immense army, which would sweep everything before it. On hear ing of Frederick's arrival at Acre with merely a handful of men, he began to repent of his late imi tation. f He and his brother Ashraf lay encamped at Gaza to the South, while Daoud had halted his men at Nablous to the North ; Frederick lying at Jaffa between the two Moslem armies. The Chris tian intruder had no object in fighting, if he could gain the great prize, Jerusalem, by means of nego tiations ; almost as soon as he had landed at Acre, he had begun to treat with Kamel, who had shown himself gracious to the Imperial envoys, the Count of Acerra and the Lord of Sidon. The Sultan had received * Ibn-Alatir. J Abulfeda. FREDERICK THE SECOND 315 horses, jeAvels, gold and silver plate, and the choicest chap. works of the loom, as presents from his Christian vm' brother.* The Patriarch, Frederick's bitter foe, i227-i230. dweds Avith pleasure on the slights, which he alleges the Emperor received. According to him, the Sultan at first declared, that the Christians had no right to fortify Jaffa or to plunder the country, so long as the Truce lasted. Frederick ordered all that had been robbed from the villages, which he now took under his protection, to be restored. Kamel hereupon condescended to send his rival'some mean weapons, those of a light-armed soldier and barber, saying that he had plenty more in his country. Fre derick's own Notary was now despatched to the Sultan, but only met with insult, and was robbed by the Saracens on his return. He was again sent, to the great scandal of the Pilgrims, carrying the Emperor's own coat of mad, helmet, and sword, with a message, as was rumoured, that his Master would not take up arms agamst Kamel. The Sultan, speaking by the mouth of one of his Courtiers, desired the presence of Thomas Count of Acerra, upon whose arrival the articles of truce made pro gress ; still the pdgrims, to the number of 500, if we may beheve Gerold, were either kflled or taken prisoners by the Saracens, who did not themselves lose a tenth part of that number. A Mussulman prisoner, on the other hand, was sent back to Kamel, arrayed in rich garments ; but the Christians, who escorted him, were robbed and had a narrow escape from death. Frederick asked the Sultan to send Saracen guards for the Christian * Old French Chronicle, in Breholles. 316 THE HISTORY OF ' chap, army ; these came ' hke wolves turned into shep herds.' Dancing and singing girls, the Almehs of 1227-1230. the East, and other loose characters, the very mention of whom makes Gerold blush, were sent into the Christian camp, in order to suit the Emperor's taste ; Frederick donned the Saracen garb, and was lavish of his gifts to his foes, as if desirous of purchasing peace. Long before Christ mas, 1228, he ordered biscuits and gaUeys and all his plate to be got ready for a sea voyage, to the great scorn of the Arabs.* Bahan, the Lord of Sidon, accompanied the Count of Acerra ; and Kamel, noAV showing himself more gracious, sent presents to Frederick of gold, sdver, precious stones, and sdk ; elephants, dromedaries, horses, bears, and apes were also offered as gifts. Many difficulties were made ; Schems-eddin and Fakr-eddin, the latter of whom had already visited Frederick in Sicdy, were the two Emirs employed by Sultan Kamel. The Emperor Avas fond of conversing Avith Fakr- eddin on philosophy ; and if we may believe Yafei, their opinions were very much in unison. Certain of the Frank nobles, eager to effect Frederick's ruin, wrote to the Sultan, Avho sent theh letter to the Emperor ; the intended victim for a time dissembled his rage at their treachery. His reply to Kamel has been preserved by Dehebi ; ' I am your friend ; I am, as you know, above all the Princes of the West. It was you who brought me hither ; if I go back without gaining something, I lose aU my honour. After all, Jerusalem gave birth to our rehgion ; and have you not destroyed it, so that it is in the last * Letter of Gerold, in Raynaldus. 1227-1230. FREDERICK THE SECOND 317 stage of misery? Give it back to me hist as it is, chap. VIII that I may uphold my renown. I will then return home and renounce all the advantages I niight gain from it.' Frederick had at first demanded, that all the towns Avhich the Franks had ever held in the East shoidd be given up to him ; thus overturning aU that Saladin had effected. He had also claimed immunity from taxation for all the natives of his Kingdom, who might trade at Damietta or Bosetta. But Kamel well knew that, owing to the divided state of feeling in the Christian host, these high terms could not be enforced. At last, in the spring of 1229, the Emperor came down to more reason able conditions. ' I only made those lofty demands,' so he told Fakr-eddin, turning from the discussion of Aristotle and Averrhoes to more serious busi ness, ' to keep up my credit in the West ; that Avas my only object in coming hither.' He declared ten years afterwards, that the Bapal Court, besides throwing many hinchaiices in his way by means of the Legate, had warned the Sultan not to yield up Jerusalem to the Emperor. He affirmed that he had seized the bearers of the Bapal letters, and that he had these documents in his possession, to prove the truth of his statement.* Gregory himself accounts for the scanty advantages gained by Frederick in Balestine by saying, ' that the Almighty did not then deign to confer more glory on the Christians ;' thus setting down to the account of Brovidence the effects of Papal misconduct.f The Emperor is said to have knighted his friend * See his letters for 1239. f De Wendover, for 1235. 318 THE HISTORY OF chap. Fakr-eddin, who bore the Imperial arms on his banner until he was slain by the soldiers of St. Louis, 1227-1230. ten vears iater>* The fame of the Western invader hngered long in the East ; when young JoinviUe, in a day of disaster, mentioned that he claimed kin with Frederick, the Saracen Emir at once answered ; 'I shaU love you the more for it.' The Monarch turned to account his thorough knowledge of phUo sophy, geometry, and mathematics, by sending hard problems to the Sultan, who had them solved by a Sheikh in his train, and then returned them, along with fresh difficulties, to his Christian brother, f The customs of the East are stiU much the same as in the clays of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. It is strange, that Frederick and Kamel never had an interview. They much resembled one another in character, in habits, and in theh pohtical situation. The Sultan of Caho, like his friend from the West, was a Sovereign magnificent in his tastes, deter mined to enforce order in his realm, delighting to converse with learned men, and taking pleasure in beautifying his capital ; J he was besides sus pected of being very loose in his rehgious notions. The bigots of Christendom raded at Frederick for gaining too little ; the bigots of Islam abused Kamel to his face for granting too much. 'After aU,' said the Sultan, ' we are only giving up churches and ruins; and if Frederick makes a breach in the agreement, I can easdy recover Jerusalem. '§ StiU so great was the wrath of the Moslem at what they considered a traitorous surrender and a betrayal of the renown of Saladin, that Kamel was * JoinviUe. Makrizi. 1 Makrizi. f Abulfeda. § Yafei. FREDERICK THE SECOND 319 forced to send envoys to the Caliph, a phantom still chap, lingering at Bagdad, and to other Mohammedan Princes, iu order to justify his conduct. He probably did not on this occasion put his excuses into verse, as Avas his usual custom in transacting business. After wards, when the Holy City was to be evacuated, the Moslem broke into loud groans ; the place, which Avas esteemed next to Mecca and which was hal lowed by the foot-mark of their Prophet, was to be given up to Idolaters. The Imaum of the Mosque of Omar remonstrated with Kamel, and announced prayers at an unusual time at the entrance of the Boyal tent. The Sultan drove off the fanatics and seized on the silver lamps and other ATaluables from the Mosque. This added fresh fuel to the flame ; and verses were chanted on the sad fate of Jerusalem. Ibn-Alatir caUs its surrender an act of inexcusable wickedness, and prays AUah to restore it to Islam. Another Eastern Chronicler, Ibn-giouzi, produced an amazing effect from the pulpit at Damascus, at that time besieged by Sultan Ashraf, by announcing the loss of Jerusalem. We may safely affirm, that Fre derick with his httle army would never have gained his object, had there not been quite as much dis union and jealousy among the Moslem, as among their Christian foes. At last the Emperor, whose patience was at an end, caUed four Syrian nobles before him, and told them, that he was was too poor to stay any longer in the country ; and that the Sultan had offered him Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Nazareth, and Sidon, together with some unimportant villages lying on the roads between the great towns. Not one foot of ground was to be restored to the Monasteries. The Grand VIII. 1227-1230. 320 THE HISTORY OF chap. Masters and the Enghsh Bishops, on being sum- VIII • moned to a councd, declared that they could not 1227-1230. sanction anything without taking the Patriarch's opinion, which Frederick did not want, as he openly said. He gave his oath to the Sultan's messengers that he would be bound by a certain secret charter, which none of the Pdgrims ever saw ; and with this Kamel was content. The German Crusaders deshed httle more than to visit the Holy Sepul chre ; theh advice alone was worth anything, so Frederick and Hermann said ; the Emperor would be guided by them, and bade them raise a song of joy for the honour he had won. Kamel had despatched an envoy named Sahah-eddin to Jaffa with fuU powers. This Arab swore to the treaty in his master's name and received the Imperial oath. Being a famous poet, he sent back two Arabic verses to the Sultan, with the news of the conclusion of the treaty. ' The accursed Em peror has promised us a lasting peace. He has drunk the oath with his right hand ; may he gnaw his left hand if he dares to break his word ! '* On the part of Frederick, the Grand Master of the Teutonic Order, the Count of Acerra, and the Lord of Sidon, went once more to Kamel, and received the Sultan's oath. Daoud of Damascus made difficulties, saying that he knew that his uncles Kamel and Ashraf wished to rob him of his lands, and that they had no right to give away what had never belonged to them ; he therefore refused to be a party to the Truce. * Ibn-Kallikan, quoted by Cherrier. The Arabic word Yemin, means both an oath and a right hand ; so a pun is in tended. To drink an oath means ' to be forced to take it.' FREDERICK THE SECOND 321 At this juncture, Von Salza sent a letter to the chap. Patriarch, begging him to join the army on its march to Jerusalem, and saying that the Emperor 1227-1230. Avas desirous of his advice. ' We knew Frederick's treachery,' Gerold remarks in his letter to the Pope ; ' and Ave were aware that he would make off in stantly.' Here foUoAvs some abuse of Brother Her mann. The Treaty had been made on the 18th day of February, 1229, and consisted of nine Articles. 1. Jerusalem was to be given up to the Christians. 2. Geemelata, which is the Temple of So lomon, with its precincts and its keys, was to remain in the hands of the Saracens. 3. No Saracen was to be prevented from making a pdgrimage to Bethlehem. 4. If a Frank entered the Temple to pray, he might do so ; but he was not to make any stay. 5. The Saracens were to have their own judges in cases of outrages perpetrated among them selves. 6. The Emperor was to give no aid to any Frank or Saracen hi carrying on any war agamst the Saracens during the Truce. 7. He was to keep in check aU those who designed to attack Sultan Kamel. 8. He was bound to aid the Sultan in preventing breaches of the Truce. 9. Tripoli, with its territory, Karak, Castel Blanco, Tortosa, Margato, and Antioch, were to be left as they were ; and the Emperor was to forbid his men to aid them. This was the famous Treaty of 1229, the chief fruit of . Frederick's Crusade. It undid part of the mischief caused by Saladin forty years before ; and it obtained advantages for Christendom, which neither the craft of Philip of France nor the courage of Eichard of England had been able to win. No VOL. i. y 1227-1230. 322 THE HISTORY OF chap. Crusader, since Godfrey de BouiUon, had effected so _ much as Frederick the Second. What would he not have obtained, had the Bope, the Batriarch, and the Orders given him theh hearty co-operation ? It is possible that he might in that case have smitten Cairo to the South, and Damascus to the North ; that he might have restored the old Kingdom of Jerusalem, as it existed before Saladin's fatal inroad ; and that he might have alarmed even distant Mecca and Bagdad. The Patriarch was not too well pleased with the Treaty. ' We asked to see it,' he says, ' and we found some surprising things in the copy of it sent to us by Von Salza. We took counsel, and saw that the Sultan of Damascus might stiU annoy us ; that there was no mention of the Church in the Treaty ; and that the Saracen worship was stiU aUowed in the Lord's Temple. We therefore refused the pilgrims leave to enter the Holy Sepulchre, and we forbade the celebration of the divine offices.' Von Salza writes to the Pope in a very different strain. He begins by praising the works at Jaffa. ' The Em peror and all worked so hard, that the building was as good as it ever was before, by Sexagesima Sunday.' Hermann then refers to the Treaty ; ' St. George was restored to us ; and we are allowed to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem and Montfort, our new castle, which we began to erect this year in the mountains. It seems probable that if our Lord the Emperor had crossed the sea with the favour and peace of the Church, the business of the Holy Land would have prospered much more. The Truce is made for ten years; the Sultan is to build no new Castles. The Emperor purposes to visit Jeru- 1227-1230. FREDERICK THE SECOND 323 salem, and to Avoar the CroAvn there ; for that advice chap. VIII. has been given him by the majority of the Pilgrims. I cannot describe the joy of the folk at what has been done. Brother Leonard came to us at Jafia on the 7th of March, with rumours from the parts beyond sea ; Ave Avould that these rumours had been better and different from Avhat they are. But the Archbishop of Eeggio, avIio has been sent to j our feet, wdl explain how, and in what manner, Ave attended the Emperor. We are ready to obey your future commands.' The rumours, to Avhich Brother Hermann, assum ing a tone of grave rebuke, refers in the foregoing letter, Avere nothing less than the tidings of the invasion of Apuha by a Papal army, led by John de Brienne. If Frederick hoped to save his Euro pean Kingdom from the brigandage prompted by Eoman emissaries, he must hurry back thither as fast as he could. StiU Jerusalem must be visited, where no Eoman Emperor had been seen since Heraclius lost it six hundred years before. The present Cassar accordingly set forth from Jaffa, at the head of his rejoicing army, leaving the men of Cyprus behind him. He was accompanied, on the journey by an Imaum of the Mosque of Omar, who gave the foUowing detads of the grandson of Bar barossa to the Chronicler lbn-Giouzi : ' The Em peror was red and bald ; he had Aveak eyes : had he been a slave, he would not have fetched 200 drachms. Whenever he spoke, he railed at the Christian rehgion. He saw an inscription in gold letters on the Holy Chapel, " Saladin, in such a year, purged the holy city from the presence of those who worship many Gods." He then asked, why bars had T 2 324 THE HISTORY OF chap, been placed on the windows of the Chapel. "To keep out the birds," was the answer. " You may 1227-1230. keep out tke birds," said Frederick, " but God is sending you hogs in their place." Thus scornftdly did he refer to his fellow-Christians. " When noon came," says the Imaum, " we knelt for prayer, and no one attempted to hinder us. Among those who knelt was an old Sicihan Mussulman, who had been the Emperor's tutor in Dialectics." ' Another Mohammedan was an attentive observer of Frederick's conduct. Schems-eddin, the Cadi of Nablous, was sent by Sultan Kamel to escort the Emperor to Jerusalem. He had orders to prevent the occurrence of any thing which might displease the Frank. Among other things, no preaching was to be allowed in the Mosque of Omar, and no cries from the minarets were to be uttered by the Muezzins. On the day of the Emperor's arrival in Jerusalem, the Cadi forgot to give the necessary orders ; so every thing went on as usual. One of the Muezzins made the most of his opportunity, by shouting at the top of his voice those parts of the Koran, which are dhected against Christianity. Among other texts, he propounded, ' How can it be possible, that God had for His son Jesus the son of Mary ? ' Frederick's lodging happened to be close to the minaret ; he overheard the Cadi rebuk ing the Muezzin and forbidding him to shout any more texts. Next morning the Emperor asked, , ' What has become of the man, who shouted from the minaret ? ' The Cadi answered, that he feared his Christian guest might be annoyed. ' You are wrong,' said Frederick, 'why out of compliment to me should you fail in your duty, your law, FREDERICK THE SECOND 325 and your rehgion ? ' The impression left on the chap. Cadi's mind was, that the Emperor was no true Christian. 1227-1230' One of the inducements which brought Frederick to Jerusalem, if Makrizi may be trusted, was a de sire to hear the caU of the Moslem to prayer. He was greatly charmed with his first view of the Mosque of Omar ; he then wished to see with his own eyes the pulpit whence the Imaums dehvered theh sermons. While he was there, a Christian priest happened to come in with the Gospels in his hand. Frederick remembered the agreement, which forbade any insult to the Moslem in theh mosques, or any disturbance of theh religious rights. He was angry with the priest, and bade him come no further, swearing that he would severely punish any Christian who should enter the Mosque without a special license. ' We are all the servants and slaves of the Sultan,' said he ; 'he has given us our Churches of his own free wdl, and we must not abuse his kindness.' * The Arab Chroniclers long remembered Frederick's learning and theological bias. The Cadi Gemal-edclin, who visited Sicdy a genera tion later, says that this Emperor was remarkable among the Princes of his time for Ids fine quahties, and for his delight in philosophy, dialectics, and medicine. ' His inclination,' the Cach affirms, ' car ried him towards Islam, for he had been bred in Sicily, where there are many Mussulmen.' These witnesses of Frederick's conduct on the road from Jaffa to Jerusalem made acquaintance with the champion of Christianity at a most unfavourable * I cannot help suspecting a little Oriental exaggeration in the report of this speech. 1227-1230 326 THE HISTORY OF chap, moment. He had just heard how the Church had been pouring an army of marauders into his King dom, who were robbing, torturing, and murdering his faithful subjects. A gaUey from Apulia had brought the news, and had gone back with orders to Henry of Malta, to bring a fleet instantly for the purpose of escorting the Emperor home.* At such a moment, he was not hkely to be sparing in his sarcasms on the Vicar of Christ ; he would probably give fuU play to his wit, in contrasting the theories of the Church with her practice. On Saturday, the 17th of March, he made his entry into Jerusalem at the head of the joyful Crusaders. On the morrow, Sun day, he prepared for a repetition of the pageant in which he had aheady been the leading actor at Palermo, at Aix-la-Chapelle, and at Eome. Godfrey de BouiUon had refused to wear a crown of gold, where his Saviour had worn a crown of thorns ; but Godfrey's successors had been less scrupulous. This Crown of Jerusalem was now Avithin Frederick's grasp. Many had advised him to have the Divine offices celebrated on the occasion, but Von Salza, always on the side of moderation, withstood this. ' We dissuaded it,' says the good Knight, ' acting like one who is zealous for the exaltation of both Church and Empire, because we saw no advantage either to Frederick or to the Church in the project. So he did not hear mass, foUowing our advice, but simply took the Crown from the Altar without any conse cration, and carried it to his Throne, as is the custom. The Archbishops of Palermo and Capua and many other nobles were present ; rich and poor were there. * Old French Chronicle. FREDERICK THE SECOND 327 He bade us speak both in Latin and German on his chap. behalf.' * YIIL The scene must have been of a striking character. 1227-1230. The Christians Avere once more instaUed in the pos session of the Holy Sepulchre, after having for the previous forty years bewailed its loss. The loyal subjects of the Empire, Germans and Italians, were overjoyed. The faithful Apuhan Prelates were at their master's side. The Church Avas probably thronged with Pisan sailors, Genoese crossbowmen, and German knights. Foremost among the latter wovdd be Von Salza's noble Brotherhood, gazing with reverence upon their Kaiser, and arrayed in their white cloaks marked with the black cross. A few Templars and HospitaUers, proud of theh French refinement, scowled upon the scene and treasured up its detads for the ear of the Patriarch, to be trans mitted to Eome. The noblest hero of the age now became spokesman ; the tongue, as well as the sword of Brother Hermann, was ever at his Kaiser's service. Gerold groans over the long speech that foUowed in praise of Frederick, couched in two languages. Von Salza began with the taking of the Cross at Aix-la- Chapelle in 1215. He explained the reason of the respites granted to Frederick, and complained of the harshness of the Church, declaring his belief that the Pope himself could not approve the charges brougiht forward. He avowed to the whole Christian host, that the Emperor would act for the honour of God, as he had promised long before. His master would not extol himself, but so high as God had raised him, so low would he humble himseU before * Gerold says that Von Salza spoke in German and French. 1227-1230. 328 THE HISTORY OF chap, the most Highest and before His Vicar. ' The joy at the Emperor's entry into the City, and during our speech, cannot be explained.' Here the Patriarch Gerold takes up the tale. ' Fre derick received offerings, in despite of the priests, for the repair of the walls. After dinner, he went out, and caUed for the English Bishops and the Chiefs of the Eehgious Orders ; stiU making Von Salza his mouth-piece, he asked them to help in re building the walls; they promised to consult together. He demanded their answer for the morrow. Next day (Monday), he prepared to set off, together with aU his people, though the Chiefs hastened to affirm that they were ready to help him in the work of re building the ramparts. He went off towards Jaffa ; and the Pilgrims, hearing the name of Mohammed stdl proclaimed in Jerusalem, left the City with one accord and followed him ; he reached Acre in Mid- Lent. He in vain tried to inveigle the German knights into foUowing him home ; they stood in aAve of exeommunication.' The Patriarch has sadly garbled the history of the proceedings at Jerusalem, as wUl be seen on comparing his account with that of Von Salza. The German says, ' On the Monday, the Patriarch sent the Archbishop of Cassarea, and laid the Holy Sepulchre and aU the Holy Places under an Interdict. The whole army was much disquieted, and was wroth Avith the Church for taking this step Avithout any seeming cause. Fre derick sent for the Archbishop of Cassarea, (who did not appear) and for aU the Prelates ; he com plained pubhcly in theh presence of the Interdict having been laid on the Holy Places, just rescued from the Saracens. He said, that if he or his men 1227-1230. FREDERICK THE SECOND 329 had offended the Patriarch in aught, he was ready to chap. . VIII. make the Prelates umpires in the dispute. After having busied himself about the repair of the walls, he Avent off towards Jaffa that very day. We heard aftei'Avarcls, that the Interdict had been laid on the City, on account of the Saracens stiU holding the Temple of Solomon, and Avor shipping there. But you must knoAV that they have only a few unarmed priests there, to offer prayer and to clean the building. The Emperor's soldiers keep the outer doors, and grant access to the Saracens at their own pleasure ; this we have seen and heard. The Christians also receive the offerings made in the House of the Lord, at the stone where Jesus Christ was offered up. Old men say more over, that after the Saracens lost Palestine, the unbe lievers were allowed to have their own laws in almost aU the Christian cities, and they worshipped, just as the Christians do now at Damascus. God knows, that the Emperor could not make the Truce other wise ; he did not make it, in the way he could have wished. We write this, that you may know the truth, if any one should be writing the contrary. Our Brother, the bearer of these presents, wiU tell you more.' The last part of the letter clearly refers to what the Patriarch might be expected to write. Von Salza, we see from this letter, understood the prin ciples of toleration far better than most men of his day. He seems to have had a suspicion, which indeed proved correct, that the Church party would wilfully confound the Holy Sepulchre with the Tem ple of Solomon, in other words, with the Mosque of Omar. A great effort would be made to induce aU Christendom to believe, that the Holy Sepulchre had 330 THE HISTORY OF chap, been left in the hands of the unbelievers by the god- . vm* less Emperor. Frederick, in his despatch to the 1227-1230. p0pe^ ^YQS all t]ie glory tQ Qod; describes the famine at Jaffa, and the advantages gained by the Truce, and thus proceeds : ' We shaU tell you more openly of the help received by us from the Batriarch of Jerusalem, and from the Masters and Brethren of the Three Orders ; but we cannot be sdent on the conduct of the Master and Brethren of St. Mary of the Germans ; from the beginning they have stood by us most loyally. We entered Jerusalem on Satur day, March 18, to the great joy of all ; we reverently visited the Tomb of the Living God, hke a Cathohc Emperor. On the next day, Sunday, we wore the Crown there, to the honour of the Most Highest ; and we took measures for the rebmlding of the walls, which wdl be carried on in our absence. The Sultan is bound to restore those captives whom he did not give up after the loss of Damietta.' The walls of Jerusalem did indeed stand in need of a new Nehemiah ; they had been razed to the ground ten years before this time by the dreaded Sultan Moadhin. The only part of them left standing by him was the huge mass known to us as the Tower of David, said to be built on, and indeed to form part of, the renowned Tower of Hippicus ; this the Emperor bestowed on his trusty Teutonic Order.* It is asserted that he burnt his mditary engines, or gave them to the Saracens, after the Truce had been made. He ordered Eudes de Montbeillard to remain as his Bailiff at Jerusalem, though he afterwards summoned him to Acre.f The Pope declared that a covenant had been arranged between Christ and Behal. J * Fran. Pipin. f Old French Chronicle. J Raynaldus. FREDERICK THE SECOND 331 ' The Avay in Avhich the Patriarch and the Eeligious chap. Orders behaved, after Frederick's return to Acre, Yin' and in the civil Avars, Avas clearer than day-light.' 1227-1230. Thus says Eichard of San Germano ; the English Chronicler gives us some particulars of the tran sactions in Palestine. Frederick seems to have caused great scandal in the first place by croAvning himself, by sitting in the Patriarchal Throne, and by Avearing the Crown when on his way to the Palace of the HospitaUers, Avhere he held his Court. In his OAvn Palace at Acre, where he had to wait some time for his naval convoy, he feasted with the Saracens and brought in Christian dancing ghls for their entertainment ; worse excesses are said to have ensued. He adopted theh customs ; and it was a general matter of complaint, that no one but himself kneAv the terms of the famous Treaty, caUed in Arabic mosepha. It was said that it contained a condition, wldch bound the Emperor to aid the Sul tan against Christians as weU as against Saracens. Some Canons at Acre had been robbed of theh harbour-dues. The Archbishop of Nicosia in Cyprus had been plundered. On the other hand, a schis- matical Syrian bishop had been sheltered from the persecution of the Patriarch. The Emperor had seized upon oblations, made in different Churches. On Palm Sunday, he had ordered the preachers to be dragged from their pulpits, and had imprisoned them. At Easter he had besieged the Patriarch, the two Enghsh Bishops, and the Templars, in their houses ; but without success. Gregory, in writing to the Duke of Austria, an old Crusader, imputes four crimes to Frederick. ' He has given up to the Sultan the power of the sword, taken from the altar of 332 THE HISTORY OF chap. St. Peter's, thus renouncing the honour of the Emphe. — He has left the temple of God in the hands of the ' Saracens. He has left Antioch and other places exposed to the Pagans, if they break the truce. He has entered into a League against the Christians.' Gregory goes on to say that he has heard of Fre derick's besieging Gerold and the Templars for five days at Acre, meaning to rob them, and of his carry ing off arms belonging to the Christian Common wealth, besides destroying some galleys. Copies of these charges were sent to the King of France and to his Archbishops. This quarrel with the Templars is easily explained. The Emperor had once more encamped at Eecor- dana, near Acre, and had entered into fresh engage ments with Sultan Kamel, who was at that time waging Avar on his brother Ashraf. The Christian Chief Avished the Templars to place the Pdgrim's Castle in his hands ; they shut their gates and said, that if he did not depart, they would put him in a certain place, whence he would never come forth.* When the Emperor went to bathe in the Jordan, a common custom with pdgrims in all ages, the treacherous Templars informed Kamel how easdy Frederick might be surprised. The noble Moham medan sent back the letter to the intended victim. f The Order of the Temple was aheady deeply tainted with that spirit of pride and insubordination, which has been set forth by a Master's hand. ChU- dren were ahve at this very time, who would see in theh old age the appalling doom of the powerful Brotherhood. The HospitaUers have identified theh * Hugo Plagensis. J Michaud. 1227-1230. FREDERICK THE SECOND 666 name with Ehodes and Malta ; the Teutonic Order chap. laid the foundation of the Kingdom of Prussia ; but the Templars passed away for ever, long before the Middle Ages had fled. Frederick had few friends on his side, but these he took care to reward. When at Acre, he granted no less than seven Charters to Hermann von Salza. He confirmed an exchange made by the Order with James of Amigdala, whereby the brave knights gained the strong Castle of Montfort, a new bulwark. They had a grant of 6400 bezants from the revenues of Acre. They were also presented with King Bald win's Palace at Jerusalem, and with a barbacan near the Holy Sepulchre. A lady complained to Fre derick of his granting aAvay her property to his favourite Order ; she obtained her rights on proving her case. The Pisans had been most loyal through out the whole campaign. They were now aUowed to hold their own Courts in Acre, as of yore ; they recovered their old privdege of freedom from tolls in the Kingdom of Jerusalem ; and they had free access to the Holy City, both in going and returning. Theh three Consuls complained to the Emperor of Thomas of Acerra ; and the injury done them was soon redressed. It would seem that this noble man had been sent back to Acre early in the spring, whence he had transmitted a letter to his master, with fuU details of the bloody war then raging in Apuha. If Frederick would retain his maternal "Realm, he must hurry back thither to counteract the designs of his Hohness, who was no foUower of the advice given to his great predecessor, ' But up thy sword into its sheath.' The Count had added, that the harbours of the Kingdom were filled with 1227-1230. 334 THE HISTORY OF chap, armed spies, aU on the look-out for the return of vm. „ n . , Iredenck. There is no chapter in the history of human per- verseness more strange, than the conduct of Gregory towards his discarded friend. He excommunicated him in 1227 for not sailing to Palestine ; he excom municated him again in 1228 for sailing, without having first been absolved. He did his utmost to cripple Frederick's efforts for the good of Christen dom, thwarting by means of the Legate every mea sure taken by the Emperor. In 1229, the Pope viewed with displeasure the campaign in Palestine ; he viewed with stiU greater displeasure the return to Apulia. Can we wonder at those outbursts of Fre derick on the road from Jaffa to Jerusalem, which so startled his neAV Moslem friends ? On reviewing this campaign, the Second Act of the Fifth Crusade, which wiped out the disaster at Damietta, we are tempted to agree with honest Freigedank, who probably gives utterance to the thoughts of the German Pilgrims, Von Salza among them : ' 0 what in the world can a Kaiser do, Since Christians and heathen, clergy too, Are striving against him with might and main ? 'Tis enough to craze e'en Solomon's brain ! Since Frederick does the best he can, Upon us they needs must lay the ban.' * The Itahan poets were as loud in praise of the Emperor as the Germans. Marquard of Padua dwells on the fact, that Frederick won his victories by peaceful rather than by warhke means. The Imperial patience had achieved great things on * Von Raumer gives the old German Verses. 1227-1230. FREDERICK THE SECOND 335 either side of the sea. Let Jerusalem rejoice ; Jesus chap. had once been her King, and his place Avas now filled by Frederick, avIio trod in the footsteps of God, and showed himself to be the Defender of the Faith, and a lover of peace.* Gregory's agent was a man like-minded with his master. Some idea may be formed of the hatred borne by Gerold to Frederick from the letter written by the Patriarch, just as the Emperor Avas leaving Palestine. Things the very reverse of truth are stated hi this most venomous composition, and the events of the Crusade are misrepresented. ' When the Emperor returned to Acre from Jerusalem, he tried to curry favour with the townsmen. AU were about to leave Palestine ; we wished to retain some knights in our pay with the money bequeathed by the late King of France, since there was nothing in the Truce to prevent the Sultan of Damascus from attacking us. The Emperor convened an assembly of aU the Prelates and Pdgrims on the sea-shore, abused us and the Grand Master of the Temple ; and forbade any knight, under pain of punishment, to remain in the land. He posted archers and cross- bowmen, so as to prevent access to us or to the * Qui paciendo magis quam pugnando domat omnes, Cujus et hie et ibi vicit paciencia summos, Oui munimento sunt leges, anna decori. Jerusalem, gaude, . . . Rex quia magnificus, Jesus olim, nunc Fridericus, Promptus uterque pati, sunt in te magnificati, Obtulit ille prior semet pro posteriore, Et pro posterior sua seque prioris honore. Hie Deus, ille Dei pius ac prudens imitator, Defensor fidei, spem firmans, pacis aniator. The whole may be read in Pertz, 9. 1227-1230. 336 THE HISTORY OF chap. Temple, forbidding provisions to be brought us. L_ He caused the Dominican and Franciscan friars to be dragged through the streets and flogged as if they had been thieves, because they preached on Palm Sunday. After a fruitless attempt at peace on his part, we laid Acre under an interdict. He sent off to his dear friend the Sultan the arms which had been stored up for the defence of the Holy Land ; he burnt the galleys which he could not take with him ; and he wrung much money from Cyprus. He set sad for that island on the first of May, with out saluting any one, and leaving Jaffa unprotected ; 0 that he may never return ! ' * The Emperor went his way, leaving the Patriarch and his faction to sing hymns of joy at the departure of theh Champion. They might rejoice in 1229, when no danger was near ; but a few years later, when the Third Act of the Fifth Crusade had proved a fadure, when no heaven-born General had come for- Avard, and when the savage Kharizmians were knock ing at the gates of Jerusalem, the Christians who remained behind would sigh in vain for that wise head and strong right-hand, which had for a moment revived their affahs and Avrested a glorious peace from the Moslem, in spite of aU that Pope and Patriarch, Templars and HospitaUers, could do to counteract it. Frederick left the ungrateful shores of Palestine, and touched at Limisso on his way * Muratori's remarks on the Pope's conduct throughout the whole affair are worth quoting. ' lo per me chino qui il capo, ne oso chiamar ad esame la condotta della Corte di Roma in tal congiuntura, siccome superiore a i miei riflessi, bastandomi di dire che,' &c. Here he quotes the Abbot of Ursperg and Richard of San Germano, who are both indignant at the Pope. FREDERICK THE SECOND 337 home. He gave Ahce, the daughter of the Marquis chap. of Montferrat, in marriage to the boy-King Henry, L_ and entrusted Cyprus to five noblemen, who were to 1227-1230. act as Eegents and pay ten thousand marks to the Emperor's Bafliff at Jerusalem. Frederick then steered westward for Apuha.* It is now time to relate the fate of that country during his absence. Bandulph of Aquino and Stephen of Anglone were left in office under Eaynald, the Duke of Spoleto, at the Emperor's departure in 1228. Eaynald took post at Antrodoco, and sum moned the heges of the Kingdom to his aid. Torre di Eenaria and Capitiniano, two rebel towns, were taken ; and the Lords of Pohto were driven into banishment. Eaynald had never forgotten the claims of his father Conrad to the Duchy of Spoleto ; he could not with stand the temptation of invading the Pope's dominions. He entered the March of Ancona, over which he had been just appointed Vicar ; his brother Berthold halted near Norcia, and destroyed the Castle of Prusa. The Arabs of Sicdy, whom Frederick had transported into Apuha, now made theh first ap pearance in Itahan warfare ; they tortured to death some of the luckless prisoners taken at Prusa, whom Berthold placed in theh hands ; some were blinded, others hanged, and priests were among the sufferers. The Bope in vain sent his chaplain Cencio to remon strate with Eaynald, and to threaten excommunica tion. The Southern assailants were soon at Montelmo and Macerata; Eaynald, so far from quitting the March within the eight days aUotted by Gregory, tried to bribe the men of Perugia to rise against * Old French manuscript. VOL. I. Z 338 THE HISTORY OF chap, their Papal guest. He had before constrained some, _!__ who owed aUegiance to the Apostohc See, to swear 1227-1230. fealty to himseU. Conrad, another German, marched into Fohgno, a city ever rebeUious to Eome ; but he was soon driven out again. Eaynald, by virtue of his authority, bestowed great privdeges on Osimo and Eecanati. The German and Apuhan leaders were all excommunicated, on their refusal to leave the States of the Church. A Councd for that pur pose was caUed at Perugia, and the Pope once more denounced Frederick's misdeeds, especiaUy his at tempt to oppress Benevento, the special dependency of Eome ; the Emperor was revfled as worse than Pharaoh. Cardinal John Colonna, the richest and noblest of all the members of the Sacred CoUege, and moreover a good soldier, was sent against the in vaders* Pandulph of Anagni, the Pope's chaplain, an able man, also led troops into Frederick's do minions ; with him were the banished nobles, Thomas of Celano and Eoger of Aquda. The Emperor long afterwards protested, that he had had no hand in the attack on the Eoman States, and that he had made this manifest, by punishing the authors of the mis chief, f The Bishops of Beauvais and Clermont arrived with troops, but were sent back by Gregory, who spent 120,000 gold coins on the war, a dead loss. He wrote to the Genoese late in November : ' The Emperor has sent the Archbishop of Bari and Henry Count of Malta to treat of peace. We heard them, but said that we could do nothing, while Eay nald was vexing the Church.' The Pope sought help from Milan and Piacenza ; he demanded money even * Ric. San Germano. f See his letters for 1239. FREDERICK THE SECOND 339 from distant Sweden ; and summoned the Marquis chap. Azzo into the March. The Archbishop of Eavenna '. — was rebuked for not having excommunicated Fre- 1227-i23o. derick. Gregory's soldiers, who advanced on the 18th of January, 1229, were beaten off from Fondi, the frontier town of the Kingdom ; this place was held by John of Poh, a Eoman, but no friend to the Bope, Aquino also held out for Frederick. Cicala, Morra, and AdenuU the son of the Count of Acerra, were as loyal as ever. The strong position of Monte Cassino, and San Germano below it, were forti fied ; the Abbot seemed at present to be a staunch loyahst. The Bope's army, bearing the ensign of the Keys, 'having no fear of God,' plundered the vdlages, after fading in an attempt to storm Eocca d'Arce. Then the tide of war turned. In March, Stephen of Anglone the Justiciary lost a battle in the mountains and fled to San Germano. The Abbot was induced to yield up Monte Cassino, after a long treaty with the Legate, ' which I know not, God knows,' says loyal Eichard, who was doubtless watching the progress of events with more than usual interest. His native town was also given up, and the nobles of the Kingdom went off to theh own lands. All seemed lost ; the Bope's army took the classical towns of Venafro, Isernia, Teano, and Caleno ; Cardinal Pelagius, who was now Legate, more lucky in his operations in Apuha than he had been in Egypt, went on from conquest to conquest. He mastered Sessa after a long siege, forcing it to yield by cutting down the vineyards. The strong Castle of Gaeta, one of Frederick's four great fortresses, which had cost a large sum of money, was taken z 2 1227-1230. 340 THE HISTORY OF chap, and pulled down; the materials were thrown into the sea. Two of its citizens went to Gregory and procured several privdeges ; among others, the right of coining money stamped with the head of St. Peter ; they were to contribute one galley to any fleet equipped by the Church. The Pope engaged to protect Sessa and Gaeta, as if they were towns in his own Campagna. Aquino surrendered, and the commander of Bocca Bantra was bribed to yield that place. William of Sora gave up Trajetto, which he held ; and the men of Benevento, a town ever true to the Pope, made forays into Apulia, seizing the cattle in those rich plains. The Papal commanders asserted on oath, that Frederick was a prisoner in Palestine* ; the he was spread every where, probably by clerical agency, for we find Eaynald the Viceroy driving aU the Franciscans, and also the monks of Monte Cassino, out of the Kingdom. The Pope gave out that the Apulians were released from the oath of fealty they had taken to Frederick, since he was under the ban of the Church. Alife feU, but Capua was staunch in her loyalty ; the Papal troops, unable to take this city, withdrew after three days to Benevento, burning the viUages around. But the army could be kept together no longer, melting away with great speed upon certain evd tidings coming from the eastern coast of Apuha.f No reinforcements were at hand ; the Lombards were sIoav in marching down, and those who served under Cardinal Colonna threatened to desert. The Pope in vain wrote to the chiefs of the League : ' Now is the time to strengthen the * Letters of Frederick for 1239. f Ric. San Germano. FREDERICK THE SECOND 311 army of the Church, since her enemy has returned chap. in confusion from beyond the sea. You, Lombards ' ' ' ' are in as great jeopardy as ourselves. We command 1227-1230. you by your oath to keep your men in the field for at least three months, and to send them pay. Believe the message from us, Avhich Guala will give you.' This Avas Avritten in July ; later in the year Gregory thus upbraided his sluggish alhes : ' Would that Ave had never looked for help from Lombardy ! since we placed our dependence on her, she has disgraced herself for ever.' StiU he would make no peace Avithout the advice of this province, declaring that the Church, the mother of the Lombards, would never forsake them.* Gregory wrote early in June to Pedro, the Infant of Portugal, whose conduct seems to have given his Hohness more satisfaction than that of most other European princes. Pedro is compared to De borah in Israel, sitting under the palm tree, ready to do battle against the new Sisera, avIio does not feel the sharpness of the spiritual SAvord that is drawn against him, but has hardened his heart. The Portuguese champion obtained remission of sins for himself and for his comrades.^ England sup phed nothing but money. One Master Stephen, the Pope's Legate, caUed a council at Westminster, and bullied the Prelates into granting one tenth of their incomes and personal property, which was to go towards the expense of the Apulian war. Arch bishop Langton Avas by this time in his grave at Canterbury. The young King, Henry the Third, * Regesta of Gregory for 1229, XXXVI. LXXV. Middlehill MSS. t Raynald lis. VOL. 1. z 3 342 THE HISTORY OF chap, made no resistance ; but the laity proved refractory. — The clergy throughout England and Wales, Scotland 1227-1230. anc| Treiand, furnished pay for the Pope's army, at that time harrying Frederick's dominions. Gregory, according to Master Stephen, was so overAvhelmed with debts, that he knew not how he shoidd finish the Avar he had begun.* Cardinal Otho was sent into Germany, but found it impossible to stir up sedition there. Henry, the Emperor's son, had already crushed the Duke of Bavaria, the only Prince Avho seemed inclined to rebel. The King of England wished to raise the House of Guelf once more to the throne of Ger many ; the famdy's sole surviving representative was Otho, the nephew of the late Emperor of the same name ; but Otho the younger was Lord of Uttle besides Luneburg. The Pope was consulted as to the possibi lity of dislodging the House of Hohenstaufen in fa vour of this youth, Avho hoAvever had the wisdom to decline the ghttering bait.f The Bishop of Verdun declared for the Church, but was almost ruined by a contest with his own flock. J In the end, Cardinal Otho Avas chiven to take refuge in Huy, in order to save his hfe from the Imperialists ; he placed Liege and Aix-la-Chapelle under an interdict. He pene trated into Denmark, where he had no better suc cess than in Germany. The constant opposition which he had to encounter must have convinced him that Frederick Avas firm in his seat". The Patri- arch of Aqudeia not only prevented any Northern army from embarking for Apulia from Pola, but * De Wendover for 1229. ¦j" Conr. de Fabaria. Godefr. Monachus. % Regesta of Gregory for 1229, LXXVIII. Middlehill MSS. 1227-1230. FREDERICK THE SECOND 313 Avent to the King of Hungary and prevailed upon chap. him to discountenance the measures of Eome. France was almost as deaf as Germany to the calls of the Church. The army led by Cardinal Pelagius was not the sole dependence of Pope Gregory. An out break took place at Lentini in Sicily, stirred up by one Vinito of Palagonia, who survived to take part in another rebellion ten years later.* More over, Cardinal John Colonna Avas commanding in the country of the Abruzzi, and was aided by John de Brienne, the old King of Jerusalem. Though at this time he had seen more than seventy years, that redoubtable Champenois was as fuU of life and activity, as Avhen tAventy years before the King of France had singled him out as the man best suited for the war in Palestine. John had eagerly joined in an enterprise directed against the Kingdom of his hated son-in-law. Mdan had Avith great wdlingness sent a hundred knights, Piacenza thirty ; f though as we have seen, the Lombard contingent did not satisfy Gregory. These were the soldiers who, ac- corclmg to the award of the late Pope Honorius, should have followed the Emperor to the Holy Land. Instead of this, they were now joining in the attack on his Apulian dominions, a perverse sort of satisfaction, as he caUed it, for their former conduct. J The army of the Church had driven Eaynald out of the March, and was now blockading him in Sulmona ; but Cardinal Belagius summoned these forces to his aid. After the Avhole of Marsia * See the Regestum for 1240. f Gal. Fiamma. X See his letters for 1239. vol. i. *7 4 344 THE HISTORY OF chap, had been conquered, the two armies united to lay siege to Caiazzo. A tradition, probably untrue, was ~1230' current sixty years later, that when King John was besieging Boiano, the babe Conrad was shoAvn to him from the walls, and the authorities begged him not to despoil his own grandson of his inherit ance. John answered with tears, ' The Bope must be obeyed.'* In the mean time the Count of Campagna, who was at the head of a third division, had taken the town of Sora, though the Castle above it still held out for Frederick. In September, Gregory issued an edict, by which he annexed Furcone and Amiterno on the border to the States of the Church, denouncing Frederick's past oppressions. A heavy payment was exacted from the towns men, and they were ordered to set about build ing a new city at Accola, to be strongly fortified under the inspection of Bandulph the chaplain. This design was carried out many years later by Frede rick himself, who caUed the neAV city Aquila, after his armorial bearings. We eagerly catch at anything which proves the humanizing influence of the Church on the savage style of warfare usual in these times. The Bope seems to have been shocked at the cruelties prac tised by the Portuguese Cardinal. He thus writes to Pelagius in May : ' We ought not to revel so much in blood ; we should remember who has said, " Thou shalt not kill." 0 brother, it is not expe dient ! Let no murder or mutilation of prisoners be practised, for we abhor it ; let your captives be thrown into prison, but nothing more.' Warfare in * Earth, de Neocastro. 1227-1230. FREDERICK THE SECOND 345 Southern Italy has always been waged with a fero- chap. city elsewhere unknown. The Count of Acerra had aheady sent a letter to his master, in which he com plained of King John's cruelty ; towns were set on fire, cattle seized, men tortured until they paid heavy ransoms, and no age or sex was spared. If the Em peror's name was invoked, King John would declare that there was no other Emperor besides himself. Even the clergy were amazed at these proceedings, Avhich seemed to be authorized by the Vicar of Christ.* But dehverance was now at hand for the harassed South. To the astonishment of the Apulians, the Imperial eagles reappeared. Frederick, returning from Acre with only seven galleys, which the Count of Malta had brought him, landed at Ostuni, not far from Brindisi, on the 10th of June, 1229, escaping from the snares laid for him on the coast. He made Brindisi his head-quarters, whence he sent letters throughout the Kingdom to proclaim his arrival from the East. Eaynald his Viceroy and the Justiciaries of the loyal towns were soon at the side of theh master. Some brave Germans, on whom Frederick placed great rehance, arrived from Palestme. They had at first refused to aid their Kaiser in reconquering Apulia, but a strong wind had blown them out of their course and delayed theh voyage to Venice.f Frederick's first act was to send some knights of the . Teutonic Order to the Pope, asking for peace. But Gregory, who had just canonized St. Francis, made up his mind to try the chances of war ; on the 19th of August he first excommunicated all heretics, by * See Acerra's letter in 1229. f Breve Chron. Vaticanum. 1227-1230. 346 THE HISTORY OF chap, whatever name they were called ; then he thundered VIII the same anathema against Frederick, rehearsing all the sins of this enemy, absolving the subjects of the Kingdom from theh oath of fealty, and laying aU towns, whither the Emperor might come, under an interdict. Eaynald and Berthold ; certain Eoman citizens of Frederick's party ; the CasteUan of San Miniato, who had robbed many pilgrims on their way to Eome ; the men who had seized upon the Abbey of San Quirico ; Ubaldo of Pisa, who had entered Sardinia, an island claimed by the Eoman Church ; aU these, and many others besides, were laid under the same excommunication. Frederick was busy equipping his army and assembhng his horse and foot. He was detained on the Eastern coast during nearly three months ; for he dates in August from Barletta, one of his chief strongholds, when he confirmed the late grant made by Eaynald to Eecanati and Osimo. The Hohenlohe brothers, Conrad and Godfrey, were rewarded for their loyal services by a German grant. We find another faithful Uegeman, Gebhard von Arnstein, in attend ance upon the Kaiser, who afterwards entrusted this chief with the highest commands. Landulf of Aquino was recompensed for his late services in the West. Frederick now advanced by Canossa to Foggia. As his troops were taking up their quarters in the latter city, an outbreak on the part of the citizens forced the German soldiers to fly and to seek lodgings at San Lorenzo, not far off.* He sent another embassy to the Pope, consisting of the Archbishops of Eeggio and Bari, and Hermann von Salza ; but they returned * Old French Chronicle. FREDERICK THE SECOND 347 without effecting anything. Carchnal Colonna, on chap. the part of the Papal forces, had to apply to Gregory u " for more money. The wearers of the Cross, fresh 1227-1230. from the East, were now opposed to those who bore the ensign of the Keys. The Castle of Caiazzo had undergone a long siege from King John and Cardi nal Pelagius ; these leaders, hearing of Frederick's sudden advance on the last day of August from the Eastern coast, burnt their engines, among which was a trebuchet made at great cost ; they fled to Teano. That same day, Frederick pushed on to loyal Capua, and thence Avent to Naples, in search of men and money. He now retook Calvi, Alife, and Vena fro, hanging some of the Campanian prisoners. Within four days he had recovered more than 200 castles.* But on the other side of his Kingdom, Baul of Logoteta, one of his Justiciaries, was torn in pieces by the enemy ; a cruel deed, to which the Emperor refers many years later.f The King and the Cardinal fled to San Germano, whither Frederick followed them with the utmost speed ; the men of the town removed theh goods, expecting a battle ; but Pelagius shut himseU up in Monte Cassino, the treasures of which he had already seized. The rebeUious Prelates and the Pope's soldiers from the Campagna fled to Eome ; Frederick retook Piedemonte, and his Saracens plundered the Church of St. Matthew. Sessa was given up to him by Thaddeus the Judge, a man of remarkable character. The Count of Acerra was in fuU employment ; nearly every town in the Kingdom had been retaken, ex cept Sora, Gaeta, and the strong position of Monte * Old French Chronicle. f See his letters for 1239. 348 THE HISTORY OF chap. Cassino ; the revenues of this Abbey were now con- VIII. ! — fiscated. Frederick was further strengthened by 1227-1230. the arrival of some Greek soldiers and ambassadors from Eoumeha. He appointed lieutenants in all the towns, and sent from San Germano letters into Lom- - bardy, Tuscany, and Bomagna, bearing date the 5 th of October : — '- We have returned,' he wrote, ' by the favour of God from beyond the seas ; we have driven our foes, who had invaded our Kingdom, into the Campagna ; in the space of a few days we have won back what they had held for haU a year. Wishing then to hasten into Germany, we give you warning to meet us quickly with your horses and arms.' Frederick's speedy reconquest of his Kingdom is a fact of great weight in our view of his character. Were we to beheve the Papal letters directed against him, he would appear to have been a monster, rivaU- ing in cruelty the worst of the old Eoman Emperors, a fiend who had reduced the Kingdom of Sicily to ashes, whose thirst for blood and treasure could never be slaked, and who was always grinding his subjects to the dust, or goading them into revolt. But here we find him landing unexpectedly with a handful of men at a time when his Kingdom was half lost, and when his loyal subjects had no leader in whom they could trust ; no sooner does Frederick appear on the scene than aU is changed ; crowds flock to his banner, and in a few days his enemies, — King, Cardinals, and ad— are glad to fly out of his dominions.* The Commons of Apuha had re- * Copiosum exercitum tarn de Regnicolis quam de Theotonicis congregare cepit. — Chron. breve Vaticanum. FREDERICK THE SECOND 349 ceived a practical lesson as to the advantages of Fre- chap. derick's rule, by which they ever afterwards profited ; henceforth they showed no eagerness to welcome a 1227-1220. Papal army of dehverance. The nobles and clergy of the Kingdom might conspire, but the Commons, with few exceptions, Avere ever true to him who had saved them from the tender mercies of King John and Cardinal Pelagius. Frederick sent an ambassador to Gaeta, one of the few disloyal towns : the envoy was put to death by the burghers, and the Emperor treasured up the wrong. Two hundred knights recovered Marsia for him, Avhither Berthold, the brother of Eaynald, was now sent back. Frederick at this time thought it right to send letters to aU the kings of the world, explain ing his conduct in Balestine, and refuting the false charges of the Patriarch, who had accused him of having brought shame on Christendom. Frederick appealed in support of his own assertions to the Bishops of Winchester and Exeter, and to the Heads of the Beligious Orders, who had been present at the signing of the Truce. His cause stdl continued to prosper ; the Eoman Senate and people sent an embassy to him, when at Aquino. On the 28th of October he took Sora, which was burnt ; and some of the citizens perished by fire and sword. The garrison, men of the Eoman Campagna, fled into their own land ; WiUiam of Sora was handed over to Fre derick and hanged as a rebel. The Abbey of Cava, which had preserved its loyalty, was taken under the Emperor's special protection. About this time, Hermann von Salza returned with the welcome news that Gregory was ready to make peace. The Pope very honourably consulted 350 THE HISTORY OF chap, his Lombard aUies on the terms proposed, promising ! not to desert them. Frederick had an interview 1227-1230. with Thomas of Capua^ the Qardinal of St. Sabina; the result of which was a proclamation of peace and pardon to the Abbot and monks of Monte Cassino, and the restoration of theh confiscated lands. Car dinal Pelagius and his garrison left the impregnable convent, which together with its possessions was placed in the hands of Von Salza, a man in whom all parties ahke could put theh trust. He ap pointed Brother Leonard its guardian ; and then, with the Cardinal went once more to Eome. Money was exacted from the revolted towns, Venafro, Isernia, and Teano, while a horse fair was established at San Germano. Forty men of that town were chosen to garrison the great convent so lately in the enemy's hands, after they had taken an oath to be trusty. The war seemed now to be at an end, and the German soldiers were sent home with bountiful rewards.* Frederick kept his Christmas at Capua with great joy ; he set free on this occasion some of the prisoners taken at Sora. He also made Conrad von Hohenlohe, one of his faithful Germans, Count of Mohse. Early in January the next year, 1230, Frederick was at Melfi, whence he sent the Archbishop of Eeggio and Von Salza to the Pope. Gregory had been recalled to Eome, after a sojourn of more than two years at Perugia, by the Eoman authorities, who were in dismay at a great overflow of the Tiber. Proclamation Avas made at San Germano, that any one who would serve the Crown should be free from all servde burdens. The town was fortified, and the * Chron. breve Vaticanum. FREDERICK THE SECOND 351 Constable of Capua was ordered to overlook the chap. work. Frederick kept Easter at Foggia, which had L by this time submitted ; its walls were destroyed and 1227-1230. its trenches idled up ; Troja, Casale Nuovo, San Severo, and Civitate, which had refused even provi sions to the Emperor, aU underwent the like fate, and had to give crowds of hostages.* Stephen of Anglone garrisoned some castles, but burnt others, constraining the inhabitants to dweU in the plains. Pope Gregory had been excommunicating Berthold and Eaynald ; he was now welcoming at Eome some of theh more dlustrious countrymen, who had come from the North to make peace between the Church and their Emperor. The Dukes of Austria, Carinthia, and Meran, the Patriarch of Aqudeia, the Archbishop of Salzburg, and the Bishop of Batisbon held a conference at Eome with four Cardinals. These Germans kept Easter with Frederick at Foggia, returning to Eome with the Abbot of Monte Cassino. The Emperor, at the request of the Duke of Austria and Von Salza, gave a Charter of forgive ness to this renowned monastery, and also bestowed privdeges upon many German foundations. He came back to Capua on the 30th of May ; on the way he was overtaken by two nobles of Palestine, who demanded that his son Conrad should be sent to Acre, there to be brought up ; Frederick returned an evasive answer, f At Capua he met the Cardi nals, who had fuU powers to make the peace. The re bellious Prelates, frightened at his severity towards the Eastern towns, would not encounter him. The Pope had set his heart upon retaining Gaeta and St. Agata, to which request Frederick would not hsten. Peter * Chron. breve Vatican um. f Old French Chronicle. 352 THE HISTORY OF chap, de Vinea, one of the greatest men of the age, brought VTTT . some of the Gaetans to a conference with the Cardinals, 1227-1230. wh0 could not induce the rebels to submit to their rightful Sovereign. Von Salza and one of the Bishops had therefore to undertake yet another embassy to Gregory, and returned with Guala the Dominican. Hereupon the treaty of peace was at last made, and aU the banners in the churches of San Germano were waved for joy. Frederick was at that town when Guala met him; the Pope being then at Anagni. On the 9th of June, the Cardinal Bishop of Sabina and the Cardinal of St. Sabina received the Emperor's oath in one of the churches of San Germano ; aU the Transalpine Brinces were present, except the Duke of Austria, who was dangerously iU. The Archbishops of Balermo, Bari, and Eeggio, the rebel Prelates, Eaynald, Acerra, and Morra, the Justicia ries of the Kingdom, the Barons, and their vassals, made an imposing assemblage. The oath taken was, that Frederick would give satisfaction to the Church for his misdeeds. The Archbishop of Salzburg preached a long sermon to exculpate him ; the Car dinal of St. Sabina, a subject of the Sicilian Crown, replied with equal clearness.* Frederick's engagement bears the date of July. He swore to give satisfaction to the Church, to for give the offences of all, and to remit the punishments of trespassers ; Acerra was to take the oath hi his behalf. The question as to Gaeta and St. Agata was left as yet undecided. AU that was settled was, that they were to be returned to Frederick, and yet the honour of the Church was to be saved. The De- * Ric. San Germano. FREDERICK THE SECOND 353 claration of the German nobles is dated on the 23rd chap. of July. The Princes and Prelates of the Empire ¦ YII~ there assembled make it knoAvn to all that they vm~ino- have set their seals to the agreement. Three of them, being Churchmen, declare the cause of Frederick's excommunication, and order him to restore all, especially what has been taken from the Monastery of Antrodoco. The Archbishop of Taranto and other exiled Prelates are to return to their sees. Gaeta and St. Agata are to be given back to Frederick, and a year's time is allotted for the fulfilment of the treaty ; if the business cannot then be arranged, umpires are to be chosen, two by each side ; if need ful, a fifth is to be added. Germans, Italians, and French, are ahke pardoned. Frederick engages not to invade either the Duchy of Spoleto or the March of Ancona. The Princes at length declare, ' We have sworn on the Gospels to enforce the keeping of this Treaty ; if it be not kept, Ave will aid the Church against the Emperor within a certain time ; but if the Church does not name umpires, as agreed, we are not to be bound by our oath.' The goods of the HospitaUers and Templars within the Kingdom are to be restored ; the exiled Prelates are to be allowed to return ; the clergy are not to be taxed ; and the elections of churches and monasteries are to be free. The only parties shut out of the Treaty were Eay- nald's soldiers, who had ravaged the March. The County of Fondi was at length restored to Eoger of Aquila ; John of Poli, on whom it had been bestowed, becoming Count of Alba. Monte Cassino was given up to its Abbot, and the exiled Bishops returned to their dioceses. The only circumstance Avhich occurred to clamp VOL. I. *AA 1227-1230. 354 THE HISTORY OF chap, the rejoicings at San Germano, Avas the death of '" Duke Leopold of Austria. He had fought for the Church in many parts of the world, in Languedoc, in Spain, in Palestine, and in Egypt. He had done his part in the siege of Damietta, but had luckdy returned home before its loss. His bones, after the custom of his country, were taken back to Germany, while his flesh was buried at Monte Cassino. His death was a great blow to Frederick's interests. The Emperor wrote to the Stedingers, a people in Northern Germany, praising them for their devotion to the Teutonic Order. He forbade the burghers of Lubeck to hold tournaments, on account of the riots which were wont to ensue. The Archbishop of Salerno was enjoined to deliver up a Castle to Von Salza, the usual referee, until peace should be made. Guala, upon the signing of the treaty, brought back leave from the Pope that religious offices might once more be celebrated in the Kingdom ; the invaders of the March were alone excluded from divine worship. On the 1st of August, Frederick went to Eocca d'Arce on the border ; thence he proceeded to Ceprano, and met some of the Cardinals ; here he encamped his army and reviewed it. The conditions of peace were slightly altered, and more Castles were placed in the hands of Hermann von Salza. The Archbishop of Aries and the Bishops of Winchester and Beauvais, being at Ceprano, were requested to publish Frederick's absolution, which duly followed aU these concessions. On the 26th of August, he for gave Strasburg for her adherence to Cardinal Otho, and heaped privileges upon the Archbishop of Aries. Gregory wrote thus to the Emperor ; ' The Church is rejoicing over her recovered son, like Anna over FREDERICK THE SECOND 355 Tobias. Great is the joy in heaven over one sinner chap. that repenteth ! Give up to us, we beseech you, the sons of Count Thomas and Einaldo of Aversa, as 1227-i23o. this day is the Feast of Angels, in order not to grieve your guardian Angel' Everything was done to please the Pope. Fre derick on the 24th of August sent letters to his officials on behalf of the clergy throughout the King dom, and ordered aU the Castles in the March to be given up. At length, on Sunday, the 1st of Septem ber, the formal reconciliation took place. A Papal invitation arrived, and the Emperor entered Anagni, the Pope's beloved abode, in great pomp, attended by the Cardinals and the leading men of the town. Gregory received him in person ; it was the meeting of Priam and AchiUes, although on this occasion it was not the aged man who bowed himself at the feet of the warrior. Frederick knelt before Gregory, arrayed in a cloak, and gave him the kiss of peace ; he after wards sat at the Papal table, and then held a long con ference with his old friend in the Pope's own chamber. The Cardinals were not admitted ; no one was pre sent, except Hermann von Salza, the truest friend that either of the reconcded pah possessed. The Em peror spent the night at the Palace, and on the mor row again sat at the same table with Gregory, many Princes being in attendance.* Frederick's own ac count of the interview is this ; ' We went to the Pope, who receiving us with fatherly love and with the kiss of peace, talked with the judgment of clear reason, calmed our passion and removed our rancour, so that we were unwilling to speak of the past. We * Vita Gregorii. 1227-1230. 356 THE HISTORY OF chap, have forgiven our foes, one and aU, theh offences VIII. . ° against us.' In the next month, Gregory thus wrote to the Lombards ; ' We did the best we could for you, when Frederick, our dearest son in Christ, humbled himself before us and was absolved. The Bishop of Brescia was present, and acted on your behalf with faithfulness and wisdom. The Emperor has expressly forgiven your trespasses.' Frederick's approaching journey into Lombardy was one of the chief topics of the conference; Gregory earnestly advised him to go without an army, and to trust to the peaceful efforts of the Apostohc See.* Frederick may have thought that these efforts had met with with but smaU success in the year 1226. Gregory has left us his own account of the meeting ; he dwells on the Emperor's humble demeanour, un expected devoutness, and pleasant converse. The noble guest paid his visit on the second day in simple fashion, without Imperial pomp, and showed himself complaisant in every matter debated. The cheer ing news was sent to Eome, to the vassals of the Campagna, and to France. Frederick, when at Anagni, had more German business in hand. The act of a Bishop of Freisingen, who had enfeoffed his Episcopal city to the rebeUious Duke of Bavaria, was reversed, as being contrary to the laws of the Empire. Eatisbon was rewarded for its loyalty by a most ample Charter, and had a grant for six years of the proceeds of a toU, that the city waUs might be strengthened. The Church of Gurck was subjected to that of Salzburg. The Bishop of Trieste had a confirmation of the privdeges of his * Letters for 1239. 1227-1230. FREDERICK THE SECOND 357 See. Among the witnesses to these Charters were chap. VIII Conrad the Burgrave of Nuremberg and the Count - of Habsburg, the ancestors of the Eoyal Houses of Prussia and Austria. The Emperor rode down the steep hill, upon which is built the city of the Conti, followed by the good wishes of his Hohness and of the Cardinals. He had exerted himself in behaU of the Abbots and Bishops who had remained loyal to him, when the Kingdom was invaded ; and he had obtained theh absolution from Gregory. He took breakfast at SanGermano, and thence hastened to Capua; after visiting Melfi, where his friend the King of Thessalonica died, he kept Christmas at Precina.* The high dignitaries who had met at Anagni were soon scattered; the German nobles went home, the Bishop of Beauvais was made Duke of Spoleto, though he was unable to reduce that city ; Gregory himself returned to Borne, where he added greatly to the Lateran Palace and built hospitals for the poor. He took Monteforte, kept it for the Church, and fortified it with a high waU, towers, and trenches. The work was pressed on in spite of the winter frosts ; 900 pounds were paid for the stronghold, which was then entrusted as a fief to some of the nobles.f Gregory however had leisure to write to Frederick in October ; the Emperor had been laying hands on some of his officials. ' We doubt not but that some evfl man is advising you to harass the men of Foggia, Casale Nuovo, and San Severino ; a deed which does you no credit. Do not exasperate your Eedeemer. Let not the feast be turned into mourn ing ; let it not be said, that those great Lights, the * Ric. San Germano. f Vita Gregorii. 358 THE HISTORY OF chap. Pope and the Emperor, only met to produce the VI" darkness of sorrow. Forgive them that have tres- 1227-1230. passed against you.' Later in the same month, Gregory sent a long letter to the Sicihan Prelates, ordering them to chastise the vices of theh clergy* Heresy, as usual, was the result of the evU hves of the appointed pastors. Frederick confirmed the possessions of the Templars in SicUy and Calabria, at the prayer of theh Preceptor. It was probably with far greater good will that he made a grant to Henry von Walclstromer and Gramheb his brother, and to theh hehs after them, of the office of chief Foresters in the wood near Nuremberg. This was done, to reward them for the faithfulness with which they had served the Kaiser beyond the seas. An important letter that was sent by the Pope to the Emperor this year, is dated the third of December, and refers to some hagghng about the terms of the Treaty, attempted by Frederick. Gre gory writes to him ; ' We heard your proposals from your messenger, the Judge of Pavia ; but on looking into your letters to the Princes your sureties, we find certain things omitted through neghgence or pre occupation ; so we did not make the letters pubhc. The Archbishop of Capua befriended you with great judgment and zeal. We send you back the letters ; and we beseech you to believe in our sincerity, and not to suspect that we mean to cheat you in aught ; since we deshe that aU may succeed according to your wishes. We trust that you will speedily recaU that messenger of yours, who has strangely set off for Germany without having an interview with us, * Raynaldus. FREDERICK THE SECOND 359 in order that he may not go beyond the prescribed chap. form of the surety.' The aged Pope was fully alive '- to any attempt on the part of his young friend to 1227-1230. overreach him. In the same month of December, the Archbishop of Capua was sent as ambassador to Eome upon a matter connected with the rights of the Empire on the Ehone. Gregory, after having consulted his brethren, returned this answer to Frederick ; ' The Eoman Church, after much outpouring of Christian blood, has triumphed over heresy in Brovence. Yet the land may easdy relapse into errors worse than the first ; we therefore think it best not to grant your request at present, though we do not intend to wrong you. Moreover, you say that you have been robbed of Citta di CasteUo ; but you forget that this place belongs to the Apostohc See ; we ask you to listen to what the Archbishop of Capua wUl teU you as to that matter.' This letter closed the correspondence between the two parties for the year, making it plain that there was more than one subject of dispute stdl unsettled. The year 1230 ended, to ad appearance, with the reconciliation of Church and Emphe. What astonishes us most in the Treaty of San Ger mano is, that the Pope, the weaker party, gains almost everything ; the Emperor, fresh from his con quests, at the head of a great army, can compass little more than his absolution from the sentence of 1227. Even the restoration of his faithful partizans to theh old position seems to have been an after thought, a concession not made by Gregory before the interview at Anagni. Peace is made, but it is only a hoUow truce ; the great battle betAveen Eome and the House of Hohenstaufen has yet to be 1227-1230. 360 THE HISTORY OF chap, fought out. Meanwhile each party makes the most of the breathing-time aUowed. Frederick spends the next five years, perhaps the happiest of his hfe, in his beloved Kingdom, to which he gives new laws ; Gregory also, with the help of the great Spanish Dominican, Eamon de Pennaforte, compdes a code, not for one realm alone, but for the whole of the civihzed world ; a code long the bulwark of priestly government, which has influenced even coun tries unshackled by the yoke of Eome. To this day, the Decretals of Gregory the Ninth are quoted under the roof of Westminster HaU. FREDERICK THE SECOND 361 CHAPTEE IX. ' Sub rege Medo Marsus et Appulua.' — Hobace. IT was not only in theh public acts that the greatest chap. contrast possible was to be seen between the IX" Pope and the Emperor ; their private lives were AAddely different. Gregory, who had now filled the highest offices in the Church for two and thhty years, was its living embodiment. The Saints, the preservers of its tottering fabric, had been his bosom friends when ahve, and after their death received at his hands the honours of Canonization. He and his Cardinals composed the earhest hymns in praise of St. Francis. He dehghted to throw off his costly trappings, and to share the devotions of the Minorites with his feet unshod.* He would assume theh garb as a disguise, if he wished to visit the holy places around Eome. When these brethren were engaged in washing the feet of the poor, one in the dress of St. Francis went through the duty so clumsily, that he was bluntly told to make room for others who understood their work better than he did. Little did the thankless complainants know that they were rejecting the services of Pope Gregory the Nhlth.•!¦ But his character has a darker side. He was an * Thomas de Celano. X Letter of Philip of Perugia, who could just remember Gre gory. It is in Wadding, Vol. I. 362 THE HISTORY OF chap, earnest patron of the Inquisition, which he strove to — ' — transplant from France into Germany. On hearing that its rigours had been pushed to excess, ' The Germans,' he coldly remarked, ' were always mad men, and therefore they have had madmen for their judges.' One of the speeches of these sphitual judges was this ; ' We should hke to burn a hundred innocent men, if one guilty man were among them.' * Happdy for Germany, this outrageous violence de feated its object. A man hke Gregory, as stern to himseU as he was to others, was the very last person to feel any sym pathy with Frederick's pursuits. The Pope was shocked at the life led by the Sicdian Monarch, the harem stocked with handsome girls and watched by black eunuchs, the intercourse maintained with Arab and Jewish sages, the laws enacted to keep the Church in due subjection to the State, the pro fane lays of the Itahan Troubadours which were so much prized, the jests upon sacred things which Eumour put into Frederick's mouth. A brilliant, Court, which even outshone the former glories of Toulouse, was close at hand to invite the atten tion of Eome. Palermo was forsaken, except for grand occasions of state ; Naples did not become the capital until much later in the century ; the chosen abode of the Suabian Monarchs of the King dom was the Eastern coast of Apulia, where the broad plains were the delight of the hunter, and where it was easy to watch the affairs of Northern Italy.f * Ann. Wormat. X Frederick says of the Capitanata in 1240 ; ' Magis quam in aliis provinciis regni nostri moram ssepius trahimus ibidem.' FREDERICK THE SECOND 363 Frederick was the most powerful Sovereign of chap. the age. He had already fulfilled the three con- IX' ditions of greatness ; he was born great, being the heir to Sicdy ; he achieved greatness, when he mastered Germany ; he had greatness thrust upon him, when he was forced by the Church against his wiU to undertake the conquest of Jerusalem. A vast tract of country owned his sway ; but we are at this time more immediately concerned with that part of his dominions which he loved the best, and in which he was now spending the five happiest years of his lUe. We gladly turn aside from his wars for a short time, to gaze at the triumphs of peace.* The interval of rest which was granted him, an interval unliappdy short, was employed by him in drawing up a code of laws for the Kingdom of Sicily, a heritage, as he says, more noble than any other of his possessions. Many masters had left traces of themselves in that realm. There were Eoman customs, Lombard feudal laws, Greek regu lations, and Arab innovations. But aU former in vaders had been forced to bow before the swords of the Norman conquerors, the Mowbrays and Grent- mesmls. Feudahsm had been firmly established in Southern Italy, just at the time when it was loosening its hold upon Northern Italy. The nobles, ever turbulent unless when held down by some strong hand, had enjoyed a long period of misrule. This had been brought to an end in 1220 ; Frederick, no longer distracted by preparations for the Crusade, was now determined to make Itahans, Greeks, Arabs, * The authorities for this Chapter are the Imperial Constitutions of 1231, and the Imperial Registers of 1239 and 1240. 364 THE HISTORY OF chap. Normans, Germans, and Jews ahke submit to a code TV" which should include the best customs of each race.* The way had been cleared by the resumption of fllegal privdeges and charters ; Eoyalty was to be the only fountain of government for the future. But before proceeding to describe Frederick's laws, we must cast a glance at the state of France during the minority of St. Louis ; by this means alone can we appreciate the new enactments of Melfi. Let us contrast the model land of feudalism with the Sicilian realm. In the former we see the power of the Crown set at nought by the meanest vavassor ; the nobles claiming the right of coining money, of waging private wars, of exemption from taxes ; the owners of fiefs allowed to judge their vassals at wiU, and proudly erecting theh own gibbets ; the villeins fleeced or outraged at the caprice of theh lords without the shghtest chance of legal redress ; the towns groaning under the yoke of their Bishops ; the Church in aU her glory ; the Jews plundered without remorse ; the magistrates at the mercy of any burly ruffian, who might chaUenge them to the wager of battle for an adverse sentence. In France alone there were at least sixty different codes of local customs.f Bearing all this in mind, we turn to a widely different scene and mark the Itahan lawgiver. The new Justinian prefaced his Constitutions with every one of his titles ; Caesar of the Eomans ever August, Itahcus, Siculus, Hierosolyrnitanus, Arela- tensis, happy, conquering, and triumphant. In his * According to Grotius, Frederick borrowed more from the Lombards than from any other race. f Hallam, Middle Ages, Chap. ii. FREDERICK THE SECOND 365 preamble, he traced the progress of law from the chap. creation of rebeUious man ; Necessity and Providence — had ahke pointed out Kings as the correctors of vice, the arbiters of hfe and death, the vicegerents of God. Theh first duty was to protect His Church, and to maintain those two sisters, Justice and Peace. Fre derick had been raised above aU other Kings ; he had to give account of double talents ; he cleshed to render under God the calves of his lips. He could not do this better than by providing the Kingdom of Sicily with the code of laws it so sadly wanted ; aU statutes and customs adverse to his new Constitutions were now quashed. Cassar, by the decision of the Quirites, was the origin and the guardian of law ; he must prove himseU both the father of justice by giving bhth to her, and the son of justice by vene rating her. She should now be tendered to each and all of the loyal subjects of the Kingdom without respect of persons, the civd and criminal codes being administered by distinct officials. Frederick gave to the world his Oracles, as he styled his laws, not for the vain glory of being admired by future ages, but to repah the injuries caused in time past by the sdence of Law. He inserted in his own Constitutions some of those of his Norman kinsmen, but prided ldmseU on having softened the old laws in several particulars. Many were the changes now introduced into the Sicilian code, but the most important change of ad was the stripping of the Prelates and nobles of theh juris diction in criminal causes. This was an amazing stride in the right direction, but a step quite unprecedented in thoroughly feudal Kingdoms. The very first thing Frederick did, on returning home from Germany in 366 THE HISTORY OF chap. 1220, was to exact the right of blood, an expressive : — name, from the Abbot of Monte Cassino ; it had been granted to the monastery by Frederick's father.* The high clergy were at the time powerless to resist ; but the moment the Hohenstaufens had faUen, the Bishop of Catania hastened to prove that these Mo narchs had stripped him of his criminal jurisdiction in his city, and he brought forward witnesses to speak to the old state of things, f The change was probably felt still more acutely by the nobles. We can imagine the disgust with which Norman Barons, able perhaps to trace up their Uneage as far as Lod- brog or Hasting, would see themselves forced to hand over their powers to some low-born upstart, who was raised aboA7e the heads of the rightful lords of the land, merely because he had studied law. Such an upstart was the famous Peter de Vinea, the leading statesman of the age.J His parents being wretchedly poor, he had to beg his bread while studying at Bologna. The Archbishop of Palermo was so struck with a letter written by the needy ad venturer, that he recommended Peter to the Em peror's notice. Frederick had a quick eye in singling out men of talent, whether rich or poor. It was said of the new favourite, that Nature had accumu lated upon him all the gifts she usuaUy distributes among many ; that wisdom, after having long sought a resting place, had at length transfused herself into him ; that he was a second Moses in legislation, a second Joseph in his Sovereign's favour ; superior to St. Peter in faithfulness, to Cicero in eloquence. * Ric. San Germano. f Charter of 1266, quoted by Gregorio. X See Tiraboschi and Giannone. FREDERICK THE SECOND 367 MeanAvhile the friends of Eome branded him as a chap. modern Achitophel. We find the learned Capuan IX' sitting on the Judicial bench so early as 1225.* Eiches and honours were heaped upon him, and he was employed by his master to compile the state papers, which throw so much hght upon the history of that age. Although somewhat turgid, they were accounted the finest models of epistolary composi tion ; a fact which explains the number of letters, attributed to Beter, preserved in the Mediaeval con vents. He was at the same time a poet, an orator, a lawyer, and a diplomatist. His mournful fate, far worse than that of Wolsey, and the romantic interest aroused by his story, have left theh traces in Itahan legends. Thus, according to one tale, the Emperor came into the chamber where Peter's beautiful wife lay asleep. The intruder covered her arms which happened to be exposed, and withdrew after dropping his glove. On finding it, Peter, whose suspicions were naturaUy excited, refused to speak to his wUe ; she in her trouble sent for the Emperor, and the three sat together in sdence for some time, until the lawyer broke out into verse : ' On a Vineyard another plant trespassing came, And ruined the Vineyard, O villainous shame ! ' The lady promptly made her protest : ' Vineyard I am, Vineyard I '11 be ; My Vineyard never was false to thee.' Peter instantly dismissed his suspicions and went on : ' If this be so, as she says ; then I vow, That the Vineyard I love more than ever now.' * See the Charters for that year. 368 THE HISTORY OF chap. So great was Peter's joy, according to this Pied- : — montese tale, that he forthwith composed his poem on the twelve months of the year.* After naming Thaddeus of Sessa and Eoffrid of Benevento as Beter's ablest assistants, we pass on to the great Officers of the Kingdom. The Logothete, who long retained his Greek title, drew up charters and edicts in the Sovereign's name, overlooked the accounts of the Treasury and the financial affairs of the Church, and altogether acted as the right hand of his employer. The office of Brotonotary was not kept up in Sicily during the last thirty years of the Emperor's life, but the Notaries of the Court, one of whom was Eichard of San Germano the Chronicler, transcribed privdeges and signed theh names as wit nesses. The dignity of Constable of the Kingdom of Sicdy was suppressed after Frederick's return in 1220 ; the post, as was the case in England three hun dred years later, was thought too high to be entrusted to any subject. But many other great officers sur rounded the Emperor. There was the Grand Admi ral of Sicily, charged with the dhection of aU mari time affahs. WiUiam Porco, the Genoese phate and kidnapper who died on the gibbet at Palermo, was succeeded in this office by Henry Count of Malta, and afterwards by various fugitives from Genoa. The Chamberlain administered the Sovereign's privy * Imago Mundi. The lines were : ' Una vigna o pianta per travers e intra Chi la vigna mal goasta. An fait gran pecca Di far ains che tant mal.' ' Vigna sum, vigna saray, La mia vigna non fali may.' ' Se cossi e como e narra, Plu amo la vigna che fis may.' FREDERICK THE SECOND 369 purse, took charge of the palace, and acted as chap overseer of the Avoods and forests. Eichard, who I ' first held this post, was replaced after his death by a negro, called John the Moor, raised by Frederick from the loAvest grade.* The Seneschal and the Butler Avere about the Sovereign's person. The Marshal of the Kingdom was Eichard Filangieri of the Brincipato, famous ahke in Italy and in Pales tine ; other warriors bore the same title during Eichard's life. As to the high and permanent post of ChanceUor, it was never fiUed up by Frederick after the disgrace of Walter of Palear in 1221, though Peter de Vinea might weU plead his claim to the honour. The lofty titles connected with the Emphe, Aries, and Jerusalem were respected ; but the great offices belonging to the Sicihan realm were watched with a jealous eye, and were kept in abey ance, U there seemed any danger of creating too powerful a subject, f Highest in authority among aU these Officials, owing their origin to King Eoger, stood the Grand Justiciary of Sicdy, whose power reached to every corner of the Eealm. Henry of Morra held this post for aU but twenty years, replaced at his death by the unpopular Eichard of Montenero, who enjoyed Frederick's favour to the last, but proved false to Frederick's son. The Grand Justiciary corrected any errors committed by the inferior Courts, com pelled them to do justice without delay, restored property and hberty to aU wrongfuUy injured or detained, and in many cases acted without consulting the Crown. He was caUed the Mirror of Justice, * Jamsilla. t See Breholles' Preface. VOL. I. B B 370 THE HISTORY OF chap, and was sworn to act with speed and without gude. ' AU causes connected with the greater fiefs and castles of the nobles came under his cognizance. He was also speciaUy deputed to hear questions brought forward by the Courtiers. He was supreme in any city he might enter, throwing into darkness the lesser lights, the provincial Justiciaries. His duty was to examine aU petitions, whether from the Emphe or the Kingdom. He was aided by three or four Judges in the great Imperial Court, who em ployed two special seals for pubhc and secret busi ness. One of these magistrates was Peter de Vinea, at least up to 1232 ; and the name of his nephew William appears afterwards on the hst. These Judges seem usuaUy to have sate for hfe, unlike most of the other officials. There were many Justiciaries in the provinces, who presided over criminal causes. No one might hold this office without the authorization of the Crown ; no Prelate, Count, Baron, or Knight might take the duties of Justiciary upon himself ; a deadly blow, as stated above, was thus aimed at the feudal system. The cities of the* Kingdom were forbidden under the sternest penalties to elect their own magistrates. The higher nobility alone were tried by the sentence of their peers ; and if an appeal was made, a Baron must be Judge. In every province there was a Jus ticiary, aided by a Judge and a Notary. They were always strangers, without property or family ties in their district ; and they were forbidden to employ any of their fellow-townsmen in theh households. They traveUed about at the cost of the province, searching for robbers and murderers, who met with no mercy. The Justiciary usually gave his decision FREDERICK THE SECOND 371 Avithin three months in a common cause, and avoided chap. IX dragging suitors up and doAvn the province, or tres- '. passing on the time of the local Bailiff. In the inquisitions made, all depositions were given in without any needless delay. These inquisitions were rather vexatious. If ten witnesses of good repute convicted a man of quarreUing, gambling, frequenting taverns, or living beyond his means, the Justiciary sent the culprit to labour for a time on the public Avorks. The accused Avas given a copy of the names of the Avitnesses, but no copy of what they meant to prove. An absurd old law was abohshed, by which the witness of ten men was deemed irrefragable. Those who informed against their neighbours were protected. The Justiciary was aUowed to receive nothing from Utigants, except the cost of his eating and drinking for two clays ; U he took horses, jewels, or other bribes, he was stripped of his belt of honour as a manUest thief. There was no need for him to resort to bribes, since he had a yearly aUoAvance from the Treasury. The Justiciary was answerable for the good order of his provmce ; U any charge agamst him was brought to Frederick, down would come a letter with round abuse of the careless Epicurean, as the official was styled. The Emperor appointed five Judges and eight No taries in each of the cities, Naples, Salerno, Mes sina, and Capua. In every other large town of his domain' he established three Judges and six Notaries ; these had to bring testimonials from their townsmen before taking office, and were necessarily men who held their lands of the Crown alone. They were paid by receiving a certain proportion of the value of every thing brought under their judicial notice. B B 2 372 THE HISTORY OF chap. They held office only for one year, and on rething they underwent a strict examination as to their past conduct. They were doomed to death if they attempted to falsify a pubhc instrument. They were not aUowed to have any money deahngs, or to contract matrimony, in their districts, while in office. They, in common with the rest of Frederick's agents and courtiers, were protected against violence by a double penalty inflicted on the aggressor. Several statutes of King Eoger had defined the power of the Bailiffs. His Imperial grandson ex cluded the clergy from this post, and forbade more than three officials to hold office in the same town. They were paid by receiving the thirtieth part of the value of the thing upon which they decided. Every month they inquired into the justice of the weights and measures in common use. They were forbidden to harass the heges by forcing them to undertake journeys, or to give up their animals for the Imperial service ; a fair price was ordered to be paid for hired horses, and any harm suffered by the beasts was compensated. The Badiffs redressed the damage done to private persons by the rapacious exactions of the Imperial foresters and harbour-masters. Se vere fines and perpetual infamy awaited any official, who abused his authority in avenging private grudges; peculators had their heads cut off. The Secretary of Messina, as we learn from Frederick's registers, was charged to imprison certain Bailiffs accused of hav ing wrongfrdly extorted money. On the other hand, some other Bailiffs in Calabria were dehvered from the oppression of one Basd, who had terrified them into bestowing money upon him, by maliciously citing them before the Emperor. The goods of a FREDERICK THE SECOND 373 defaulting official went to the Treasury, but we find chap. Frederick making provision for the widows of such ' — culprits ; if the marriage had taken place before the commission of the crime, the wife, as he said, had a claim prior to his own, and so might take her dowry. Duplicates of all accounts had to be kept, one copy being lodged in the Treasury. Badiffs, Judges, and Notaries were bound to labour from morning to evening, with intervals aUowed for their meals and siesta ; though Christmas, Easter, Sunday, and the festivals of the Virgin and the Apostles, were always kept as hohdays. If an in strument was to be drawn up at the request of pri vate persons, the official was bound to do it within a week, on pain of a fine ; in the contingency of his death, other strict rules were observed. A curious cypher in use in three cities was abohshed. The only material to be employed for the future was parchment ; cotton paper was forbidden, as not hkely to last long. But a few sheets of the Emperor's own Eegisters, written on the objectionable sub stance, are stdl to be seen at Naples, and are the most precious rehc of his age. These Badiffs, and all other civil officials, were under the direction of Master Chamberlains, just as aU criminal business was placed in the hands of Jus ticiaries. The Chamberlains, before entering office, took an oath on the Gospels to do justice according to the Imperial Constitutions ; faihng these, accord ing to the local Eoman or Lombard common law. They were in a post of great trust, since the super intendence -of the Emperor's estates, the exaction of fines, the collection of taxes and customs, formed a part of their duty. The Kingdom was divided for 374 THE HISTORY OF chap, these purposes into six provinces ; each province had ! its Master Chamberlain, who was subject to the same restrictions as the Justiciary. He held assizes in the different towns to fix the price of wares or proAti- sions ; he heard all suits brought against the Trea sury, except those connected with Eoyal fiefs. He was not to seU the office of Badiff, but to bestow it upon the most worthy. He might inflict fines upon, or send up to Court, any man who was so stubborn as to refuse the proffered office. In the island of Sicily, the Master Chamberlain changed his title for that of Secretary, and was allowed twelve horses for himself and his attendant Judge and Notaries. He paid out money, took receipts, and transmitted the surplus he might have in his hands, after defraying the charges of justice, to the Imperial Treasury hi the Castle of Naples. He often incurred ill-wiU in the discharge of his duty ; thus we find the Emperor consoling Fallamo- naco, the faithful Secretary of Balermo, in these terms ; ' Be not afraid of abuse, so long as you commend yourself to us ; since our Highness looks to works, not to words.' Frederick was not equaUy satisfied with other officials ; he complained that many of them were very loth to pay their debts to his Trea sury and that their meaning was not always clearly ex pressed. There were stdl worse faults ; he might make them belted knights, but he could not make them honest men. He seems to have had much trouble with his Magistrates, a venal race, against whom he launched an edict early in 1239. ' Unjust sentences cannot be too severely punished, since otherwise the paths of truth wfll be darkened and the oppression of the just wfll prevail, which is contrary to Chris- FREDERICK THE SECOND 375 tianity. Justice is the foundation of faith, without chap. which nothing can be built up. By this laAv, which, !_ please God, shall last for ever, we condemn to death those judges who have given unjust sentences from any motive. Their goods, especially if they have sinned in capital causes, are confiscated. Pf any have erred through ignorance, they may thank their own folly in assuming the office of Judge, and they must incur a minor penalty.' We find Frederick rebuk ing the Justiciary of the Principato for having aUoAved an unlearned merchant named Matthew Curiale to be chosen Judge in Salerno. The removal of this official was ordered, because merchants usu ally had hands swift to lucre, and there ought to be no dearth of learned men in such a city as Salerno was. Any litigant attempting to bribe a Judge lost his cause, even if he were in the right ; his name and the sum he offered were sent to the Emperor. The bestower of the bribe was allowed to denounce the Judge who took it, but had to give in his charge within three days of the aUeged commission of the crime. The corruption of pubhc officers in the Kingdom, if we may judge by detached notices, seems to have been on a truly Bussian scale. A superior Court, however, called the School of Ac counts, travelled from place to place, and revised all balance sheets ; this put some slight check on official peculation. From the Judicial authorities we proceed to the Executive. The Kingdom under Frederick the Second was divided into two parts ; Sicily and Cala bria forming one, while the other comprised the rest of the mainland. This division answered to the old Norman partition of the provinces between Eobert 376 THE HISTORY OF chap. Guiscard and his brother Eoger. Each of the two ' parts had its own governor, who was styled Captain or Master Justiciary. This office was held by the most distinguished warriors and statesmen of Frede rick's age, such as Walter de Brienne, Beter of Celano, the Counts of Andria and Acerra, Henry of Morra, Andrew of Cicala, and Eichard of Montenero. The Captain was bound to hold Courts twice at least in the year, where grievances might be redressed ; he took cognizance of great crimes, such as those com mitted by nobles or corporations ; he heard appeals from the sentences of the local Justiciaries ; he re presented the Emperor, except in cases of treason or infamous crimes. He punished the faults of the local officers, especiady of the Secretaries, Castellans, and Proctors of the Eoyal domains ; he kept an eye upon aU neghgence or bribe-taking. If charges were brought against the Court, the Captain heard them, having first appointed a clever Broctor to act for the Imperial interest ; the decision was then sent under seal for Frederick's confirmation. The Emperor often lost a suit in his own Courts. Thus in 1224, the Brovost of a Monastery complained that the Trea sury was exercising feudal oppression over the men of a hamlet, which of right belonged to his Church. Witnesses were produced, one of whom spoke to the state of things in the days of King William. The High Court of the Bealm inspected the deposi tions, while the famous Eoffrid of Benevento appeared for the Emperor. In the end, sentence was given against his Highness. Frederick so loved justice, as his subjects boasted, that he placed himself on a level with the meanest in the land ; he preferred to lose his cause rather than win it, U he was in the FREDERICK THE SECOND 377 wrong.* He strove hard to make his officials as right- chap. • IX eous in their deahngs as he himself was. With this _ intent he estabhshed a new institution in 1234, which was to be held at Piazza, Cosenza, Gravina, Salerno, and Sidmona, in May and November every year. To this each great city was to furnish four impartial deputies, each town and each castle was to send two representatives ; the Counts and Barons of the neigh bourhood met them. All the Prelates, who could, were to be present in order to denounce the Paterines. The main object of the institution was to insure to all men theh rights. A special Imperial messenger was sent down, who placed on record the complaints of the heges against the Officials, and brought them to his master's notice. The Justiciaries decided causes in the usual way, and the Court lasted a week or a fort night.'!' It is clear that there was no attempt at legis lation on the part of these five Provincial assemblies. Justice was administered between man and man with aU due solemnity. No recourse to any other tribunals than those of the Crown, except in cases authorized by law, was aUowed. No advocates might practise Avithout undergoing an examina tion by the Judicial Bench; they then took an oath that they would aUege nothing against theh conscience, that they would throw up theh case, should it appear contrary to fact or to law, and that they would demand no increased fees during the process ; any breach of this oath was pun ished by perpetual infamy, loss of office, and a fine.J The clergy might not plead in secular * Jamsilla. t -^c- ^an Germano. X In modern times, the Neapolitan bar has been the sole pro fession entitled to national respect ; army, navy, clergy, nobility, peasantry, magistracy, have been alike worthless. 378 THE HISTORY OF chap, causes, except on behalf of themselves, their own ! — kin, or the poor ; but in no case did they receive a fee. The first step hi an action at law was to obtain a writ of summons directed to the Defendant; a certain delay was granted by the Court, according to the distance of his abode. A trusty messenger, not the Plaintiff, bore the citation ; which specified the Court, the complaint, and the time granted for ap pearance ; if the Defendant dwelt beyond the King dom, he was entitled to a delay of sixty days. If he would not open his door to receive the citation, it was laid on the threshold in the presence of two or three witnesses or a public Official. The fine im posed for contumacy was a third of the personal property of the culprit ; by this innovation on the old law, Frederick spared the purses of the poor and made the rich smart, who had formerly paid with ease a smaU fine. If the Defendant kept out of the way, his hereditary goods were sold by the Judge after a year's delay ; the sale of feudal pro perty was always referred to the Crown. The per son of the fugitive might be seized and imprisoned, until judgment was given. A Count might swear to a debt being due to himself up to the value of a hundred ounces of gold ; a Baron up to half, a Knight up to a quarter of that sum ; a rich Burgher up to a pound of gold ; whde the oaths of men of lower rank were only good as regarded a debt of three ounces. To recover any debts beyond the above quantities, written instruments or good wit nesses had to be brought forward. Sales of disputed property were not aUowed, since Justice might thus be defeated. Any contempt of Court, caused by the parties not being ready for trial, was punished by a FREDERICK THE SECOND 379 fine of a tenth of the property at stake, which was chap. levied in equal portions upoii Plaintiff and Defendant ; '. — and aU compounding of suits after trial had begun, with the intent of defrauding the Treasury, Avas punished. Should any corporate body prove con tumacious, Avithout possessing any tangible property, a fine Avas levied upon the citizens at the rate of half an Augustal for each hearth ; they assessed it accord ing to their Avealth and paid it to the Crown. In criminal cases, those who neglected to appear to the citation were despoiled of their goods and then outlawed by the local Justiciary. In these cases, Frederick conferred a great boon on his sub jects by aUowing corporate bodies and married women to be represented by Proctors. After the lapse of a year from the proclamation of the Ban against a contumacious culprit, outlawry ensued ; he was accounted a pubhc enemy, whose hfe might be taken without question ; a price was set on his head ; a hundred Augustals, if he was a Count ; six, U he was a peasant ; those who sheltered him were Uable to a similar sentence of outlawry. A man under the Ban might give himself up within two months from its proclamation, but was obliged to make good all losses sustained in consequence of his contumacy by his accusers. The names of outlaws were sent up to Court and entered on the rods; but the rights of their kinsfolk were respected, so long as no aid in money was afforded to the culprits. The son of such an outcast became the ward of the Treasury. Defend ants in criminal causes Avere allowed to give bail for their appearance ; unless their guilt was notorious or the charge one of high treason. It had often been found in practice that a man was accused by his 380 THE HISTORY OF chap, spiteful enemies, merely that he might be thrown into prison ; when they had gained theh end, they would quietly withdraw the charge. The prison allowance aUotted by the Treasury was very smaU ; those in gaol had to keep themselves ; but Frederick declared that he had often known a sojourn in one of his prisons turn a man into a good citizen for the future. The worst offenders, it seems, were sent in chains to Malta. Fraudulent accusers were now punished with the loss of the sixth part of their goods. To prevent calumny, every accuser must bind himself to undergo, in default of proof, the punishment he might have invoked against the accused ; coUusion between the two, for the purpose of delaying judgment, was punished by heavy fines ; the Emperor set his face sternly against compound ing felonies deemed atrocious by the common law. He wished to hold the balance even between all suitors in his courts, whether they were Eomans, Lombards, or Normans ; he therefore abohshed the term of fifteen days, aUowed by the law of the latter race, which interposed vexatious delays in htigation. The old law against contumacy, which bore too hard upon the Normans, was also changed for a mdder enactment. The hbel or indictment was preferred without delay, containing ftdl particulars of the charge sought to be estabhshed ; aU exceptions to it must be tendered within three days of its prefer ment. The Judge then granted as long a delay as the nature of the case might requhe, taxing the costs of any frivolous defence. A Defendant would some times endeavour .to rebut the charge against him, by bringing a counter-accusation of some greater offence against the Blaintiff; but Frederick ordered the prior FREDERICK THE SECOND 381 charge ahvays to be proceeded with first ; except in chap. the case of high treason, when the Crown had a right IX' to the goods of the culprit. As soon as the cause came on for trial, each party took an oath to abstain from calumny ; the Plaintiff then began, and was restricted to two days at the furthest. The Defend ant followed; peremptory exceptions, replications, and triphcations Avere discountenanced ; aU costs use lessly incurred were taxed by the Judge. He might put questions and administer oaths to the parties at his discretion. He kept the advocates in proper order, for by the Constitutions silence was termed the homage paid to justice. No one might speak in Court, without leave from the Judge ; a whisper from the chent to his advocate was the utmost aUowed, unless a clamorous interruption was justified by im mediate necessity. Three Avarnings were vouchsafed to a noisy or tedious htigant ; after these, he atoned for his foUy by fines ranging from one to sixteen Augustals, according to his degree. Those advocates, who made broad their phylacteries in theh perora tions, were not spared ; they might have two days, and no more, for theh legal arguments, after the witnesses had been examined. The fees to be re ceived by the Counsel were fixed by the Judge, unless the cause was one of property ; in that case the sixtieth part of the value of the matter in htiga tion was always the advocate's due. The Plaintiff was also bound to reimburse the messengers of the Court who had carried the citation ; the fee varied according to the distance. The Judge had to give his decision within three days ; it was not valid, un less in writing ; the defeated suitor was always con demned in costs, though he was allowed fifty days, 382 THE HISTORY OF chap, should he wish to appeal to a superior Court. The Ix Crown showed itself most merciful to the weak, such as widows, orphans, and the poor ; it furnished them with advocates and champions free of expense ; it shielded them from the exacting harpies that are always found attached to law courts; it gave the friencUess suppUants a claim to be heard before aU others, as soon as the law business of the Church and the Treasury had been brought to an end. 'We water the domain of Justice,' said Frederick, ' with the streams of mercy.' He would even allow women to present themselves before his Court, pro vided they were poor and helpless, although the common feehng was against modest matrons appear ing in public. The frailty of the sex was thought ample excuse for mistakes in lawsuits, such as aban doning a claim for an inadequate consideration, or neglecting to sign an instrument. Women were held harmless against the fraud of their Proctors, and special provision was made for chddren, who were accounted minors until they reached the age of eighteen. All instruments brought forward at the trial were narrowly scrutinized ; in the case of debts, the acknowledgment had to be witnessed in writing by a Judge, a Notary, and three witnesses, if the loan amounted to more than a pound of gold. The Im perial Judges insisted upon the production of instru ments in Court. Thus, in a case which was heard early in 1239, the Crown obtained a decree against two Barons who were detaining some of its lands, mainly on the ground that the Defendants were unable to produce a Charter said to have been granted them by the Emperor, on which they re lied ; although many witnesses were brought for- FREDERICK THE SECOND 383 ward to SAvear that they had seen the Charter in chap. question. The Proctor for the Treasury challenged Ix" the Barons either to produce the Charter, or to prove that it had been destroyed ; and the Court gave sentence in his favour. No documents were held good, which contained the names of traitors or invaders of the Kingdom, hke the Emperor Otho ; such charters were brought to Frederick's officials, who erased the objectionable name and date, and inserted the name of the rightful Sovereign. An Imperial confirmation of old Charters of the Crown was absolutely necessary to their vahdity, and this confirmation must have been granted since the year 1220. Commissions were issued for the examination of sick or aged persons, who could not appear in Court ; and aU fraudulent deahng on the part of the delegates was punished by heavy fines. Frederick was shrewd enough to see the folly of the trial by ordeal, against which the Church had aheady set her face, on the strength of the text ; ' Thou shall not tempt the Lord thy God.' A missal, compiled at Palermo during the earlier years of the Emperor's hfe, instructs us as to the fourfold usage of Sicily in these matters. The accused received the Host after a solemn warning from the priest, who then blessed the water, sang the seven special psalms and the Litany, and offered a prayer to Christ that the truth might be made manifest. If the appeal was made to cold water, the accused, after kissing the Gospel and the Cross, was sprinkled with holy water and plunged into the probative element ; if it refused to receive him, his guilt was clear; U he sank, he was pronounced innocent. Sceptics were found, even in that age, who attributed these effects to 384 THE HISTORY OF chap, physical causes. When the appeal was made to boil- ! — ing water, the accused dipped his hand therein, and it was afterwards wrapped up in a cloth, sealed with the Episcopal seal. He spent three days in fasting and prayer, and then tendered his hand for inspec tion, the seal having been removed ; U the hand was not unscathed, he underwent a suitable penance. In the ordeal of red-hot hon, the fire was blessed by the priest, and the accused carried the glowing mass in his hand for three paces in the name of the Trinity; the hand was then sealed up as before. There was a fourth kind of proof, in which the ac cused placed in his mouth some bread and cheese blessed by the priest ; U it could not be swaUowed, gudt was presumed. But the fabled doom of Earl Godwin was not meted out to Sicilian culprits ; the Missal from which we quote invariably forbids the punishment of death.* Frederick now put down altogether these Leges Baribiles, as they were caUed by simple folk from a notion that the truth was in this way made to appear ; they ought rather, as he thought, to be called Leges Absconsas a Veritate. Another sort of appeal to God's judgment was less uncompromisingly dealt with in the new Constitu tions. The Lombards rooted in the Kingdom theh national custom of the duel or single combat as a test of truth, and used to challenge a hostde witness to a trial of physical strength. But the Emperor pro nounced this to be divination rather than proof, contrary to nature, to the common law, and to the rules of justice. StiU, even he found himself con- * This Missal is quoted by Gregorio, ' Considerazioni sopra la Storia di Sicilia.' It may have been compiled a few months "before Frederick's birth, which is its earliest possible date. FREDERICK THE SECOND 385 strained to alloAv the Avager of battle in certain cases ; chap. for instance, on the trial of a poisoner or a traitor, if ,. the presiding Judge had exhausted all other modes of proof. Such criminals, Frederick declared, were beyond the pale of moderation, and were liable to an aAvful kind of trial. He did his best, however, to ensure a fair fight. Thus the man challenged was ahvays henceforth to be alloAved the choice of wea pons, and might fight on foot or on horseback accord ing as he might wish ; in old times, it had been the challenger Avho had enjoyed and abused this privi lege of selection. The combatants were put on an equal footing, as far as might be ; thus, if the man challenged was blind of an eye, the other party was bound to deprive himself for the time of the use of one of his own eyes. A man above sixty, or below twenty-five, might employ a substitute against a chal lenger. This champion, before entering the ring, took an oath that he beheved his principals to be in the right, and that he would stand up for them with his Avhole might. No covenant was allowed between combatants, that they would abstain from using hands or teeth ; each must put forth all his means of offence, though King WUham had forbidden the use of clubs bristhng with sharp spikes. If the presiding Judge should think, with the concurrence of the by standers, that the champion had played into the enemy's hands or had raised the craven cry too soon, then both the principal and the faithless champion were doomed to death. This took place, if the wronged principal was the defendant ; but the cham pion only lost a hand, U his principal was the accuser, perhaps a father eager to avenge the death of a son. vol. I. c c 386 THE HISTORY OF chap. In cases of high treason, the accuser lost his life U he ix . '. did not prove the conqueror in the combat. The criminal law, as moulded by the Suabian Emperor, was very severe. But the unruly sphit of the age demanded strong measures. No weakness could now be laid to the charge of the government. There was no need to have recourse to the Truce of God, sworn in solemn assemblies, the only remedy for civd broils known to the old Norman conquerors.* Peace throughout the land was henceforth to be inviolably maintained ; no reprisals were allowed, unless to repel an attack upon Ufe or property; even then the retahator was not to employ arms superior to those used by the aggressor, and was bound to defend himself on the instant, or not at aU. Noc turnal burglars, however, might be put to death on the spot, if they would not surrender. Any Count or Baron carrying on war on his own account lost his head and aU his goods. Instances are recorded of punishment foUowing such lawlessness eleven years after the offence. No weapons were aUowed to be borne ; even knives and iron-tipped staves were forbidden ; though Courtiers were allowed an exemption, while knights and burghers might wear swords on a journey. Foreigners had to lay aside their armour on entering the Kingdom. Any one inflicting a wound with forbidden weapons lost the offending hand; Frederick took credit to himseU for mitigating the old laws, which in such cases in variably presumed a murderous intention. Not even the Eoyal CasteUans might go armed outside their fortresses, unless they were employed on their Lord's * Gregorio. FREDERICK THE SECOND 387 business. Murderers Avere beheaded or hung, accord- chap. ix ing to their rank ; children and madmen being ex- _JJ cepted. If the murderer could not be discovered, a hundred Augustals were exacted from the district ; a popular rising Avas now and then the result of this law. An inferior unjustly attacked by a superior was alloAved to invoke the Sovereign's name, and this was called a Defensa. If a Lord robbed his vassal after this outcry, he Avas debtor to the Treasury, as well as to the Avronged sufferer, after a civil process ; but this did not apply to offences against the person. Frederick's officials imposed the Defensa in cases where factions or fights were apprehended. Three witnesses of unblemished character were required to convict the scorner of the Eoyal name, who lost a third of his property i£ he had employed arms in his crime. Jews and Saracens were admitted to a share in the benefits of this privilege ; any abuse of it by debtors or others was carefully guarded against. The persons of women had been aheady protected by King Eoger and King WiUiam, who had punished rape with death, whether a nun or a harlot were the sufferer. Frederick's laws were stdl more severe ; they were aimed against a custom prevalent in some of the Sicilian provinces, according to which, a sub sequent marriage was supposed to atone for the out rage. He was aware of the difficulties that perplex the trial of such cases, and reserved them speciaUy for his own decision, now that the ordeal of battle had been almost entirely forbidden. Any person under the same roof, who did not fly to the rescue of the victim, U she screamed, was fined four Augus tals. But a woman, bringing a false charge of rape c c 2 388 THE HISTORY OF chap to extort marriage or money, was sentenced to death ; ! if pregnant, her execution was delayed forty days after her giving birth to a child, which was then brought up at the cost of the Treasury, in the event of no kinsman coming forward to maintain it. The con victed ravisher found no mercy ; in one instance, an Imperial letter ordered the castration of a steward, who had outraged both a lady and her handmaid, after they had been entrusted to the knave's care by his lord, a certain knight. By the new Constitutions, procuresses had their noses cut off, were branded on the brow, and were flogged. All who blasphemed God or the Virgin, a very common vice in Italy to this day, lost their tongues ; those guilty of perjury in a court of justice, and those who stripped corpses, were deprived of their hands. Frederick changed the absurd punishment of death for accidental homi cides. But he maintained the old laws, by which men gudty of arson, forgers of Eoyal charters, utterers of bad money, chppers of the coinage, destroyers of wills, suborners of perjury, and seUers of poison, were sentenced to death. He adjudged the same doom to those who compounded love potions, U the draught should prove fatal. In cases of forcible dispossession, the new Constitu tions took a middle course between the Lombard and the common law. If the rightful claimant had been kept out of real property, he recovered it and half its value besides ; if personal property had been carried off, it must be restored fourfold. A remedy was now for the first time given against the heir or the assignee of the wrong-doer. It was a common practice to cut down trees and set fire to houses at night ; these crimes were punishable with death, and FREDERICK THE SECOND 389 the district had to make good the damage even to a chap. . IX Jcav or a Saracen, since it Avas often found to be the 1_ case that the culprits Avere screened by their neigh bours. Frederick granted a special letter of redress to a AvidoAv avIio had found her vineyard cut clown, on her return from Court ; he strove also to detect the men gidlty of laying Avaste the crops belonging to the Archdeacon of Monreale. It is the glory of England, her special glory, that our common law has never recognized the torture as a means of Avringing confession of crimes. At the time of the ruin of the Templars, Ave find it questioned whether a tormentor by trade could be found in our land. Frederick, enlightened in so many respects, Avas no wiser than the rest of the continent as regards the torture ; he enjoined it in suspected cases of murder, after inquisition had been made. He himself however confessed that this method had often been known to fail. Whenever it did fad, the district forfeited a hunched Augustals for a murdered Christian, and haU that sum for a murdered JeAV or Saracen ; these unbelievers were often the victims of Christian bigotry. In Sicdy, as in Leland now, it would seem that the neighbour hood was sometimes in tacit league with the mur derers. Death Avas the punishment for many a crime in the Sicilian code ; it was inflicted on those who helped themselves to their neighbour's goods during a shipwreck, a fire, or the fall of a house ; any man who neglected to give aU clue aid in such cases was fined an Augusta! The lieges were for bidden to appropriate stray animals ; these must be handed over to the local Justiciary, on pain of a charge of robbery. It is plain, the lawgiver remarks, 390 THE HISTORY OF chap, that no one can lose animals by theh rumiing away, — — — if they be not seized and kept. Any one capturing a robber with the stolen animal, was rewarded with a tenth part of its value. The foresters both of the Crown and of the Barons were accused of grievous exactions in seizing stray cattle ; it was enacted that sheep should be allowed pasture during a day and a night, whde they were being driven along. The Emperor mitigated the punishment of death adjudged by his Norman prede cessors to transgressors of the laws respecting cattle. He allowed the horses of any traveUer to feed on hay or grass in fields by the wayside, so long as theh hind legs remained in the pubhc road ; only the half of their bodies might be introduced into the field. The fences and hedges in the Kingdom cannot have been very formidable obstacles. One of the most important trusts in the realm was that of the Castellan or gaoler. He was forbidden to take more than a specified sum from the prisoners in his castle ; if he connived at their escape, he was capitally punished ; if they broke out through his negligence, he lost aU his goods and was imprisoned for a year. He was not aUowed to meddle in the business of the district in which his fortress lay, under a penalty of fifty Augustals and the loss of his post. He was aided by a certam number of sergeants, men of approved loyalty, receiving three gold tarens a month, who might not go out of the castle without his leave, and even then not more than four at a time. He was under the authority of the Captain of his province, by whom he could be imprisoned or removed on just cause being shown to the Emperor. The garrison under the orders of FREDERICK THE SECOND 391 the Castellan varied in numbers ; that of Bari com- chap. prised a hundred sergeants, that of Naples ten IX' knights, sixty crossbowmen, and a hundred and forty Serjeants and sentinels. The latter Castle was pro vided Avith an oven, a blacksmith's shop, and stores of mdlet, salt, and coals ; it was thoroughly repaired in 1239. Frederick's fortresses were kept in good order by the men of the district, this being one of the feudal burdens ; if any persons claimed exemp tion, they had to prove their case by the oaths of several witnesses. No houses were adowed to abut on an Imperial Castle ; if budt, they Avere liable to be puUed down at any moment. The Saracens and sergeants Avho garrisoned Frederick's numerous strongholds in Sicdy were provided by his orders with barley, wine, cheese, and shoes ; to see to this was a part of the duty of the Messinese Secretary. The Castle of Catania was begun in 1239, great stores of stone and mortar were laid in, and the men of the district furnished the money, for which they received an Imperial letter of thanks. Besides the renowned Matagriffone, a new Castle was built at Messina in 1240, upon which a hundred beasts of burden and twenty yoke of oxen were employed, chawing stones from the quarries. The Castles of Bari and Trani were repahed in the same year ; the rain threatening great damage, unless the halls and chambers were roofed in. The CasteUans were some times charged with the duty of attending to the growth of the trees which surrounded their walls. Frederick would tolerate no Castles but his own in the towns of his domain. No towers belonging to private persons, such as those which frowned over the riotous streets of Viterbo and Bologna, were allowed to encumber 392 THE HISTORY OF chap, the cities of the Kingdom ; Gaeta alone had at one '. — time nearly thirty of these petty fortresses. But no Castles, erected since the clays of Wilham the Good, were allowed to stand without Frederick's special hcense ; aU must be pulled down by Christmas, 1231. The Imperial strongholds were used not only as gaols, but as arsenals ; the wars of the time demanded a large store of arms. We find Saracen artizans fabricating armour and bows at Melfi, Canossa, and Lucera. Master Simon of Syria was kept at work in Messina, turning out crossbows ; the Emperor wrote to know how much progress was made every week ; sixty-five of these weapons, the work of Simon, were stored in one Castle. The Imperial galleys would sometimes bring back a cargo of crossbows from Acre, ' good, true, and beautiful,' as Frederick wished his arms to be. All that could be found of the proper length, carved with the chisel, were bought up by his orders. Moreover every private ship, making the voyage to Palestine, had to bring home a certain number of crossbows, one for each of its cables ; the fine laid by the Emperor on those who failed in this new duty caused much grumbling among the lieges. The Admiral held one of the highest posts in the Kingdom. Nicholas Spinola, a noble Genoese whom Frederick appointed for hfe, proved himself as active as any of the Norman seamen of the previous age. He had under him Vice- Admirals and at least one official in each dockyard ; he corresponded directly with the Treasury. No one might sail as a privateer without Spinola's leave; the chief was bound to make good any damage done to friendly ships by those whom he licensed. He was supreme in aU causes be- FREDERICK THE SECOND 393 longing to seamen, just as the Marshal Avas supreme in ^hap, the army. He might depose any navy official, except 1__ those Avhose office Avas hereditary. The leader of the enemy's fleet, if taken, Avas Spinola's acknow ledged prize, besides all anus and a fixed proportion of the corn and Avine that might be captured. The Admiral enjoyed certam privileges in the event of success against the Saracens, and he was stimulated by an Imperial letter to demand new tributes from them. He might have aU foreign vessels wrecked on the coasts of the Kingdom, and his property paid no duty to the Crown on entering or leaving the Sicihan harbours. Spinola took his measures against the Slavonian pirates, Avho issued forth under the guise of merchants from Zara, Eagusa, and Spalatro ; none of these robbers might be released, even should they offer money for their pardon. The Genoese and Venetian Caravans used to arrive from the East about the month of May ; in time of war they were accounted fah game ; four ships and four galleys of the Imperial fleet were thought strong enough to deal with them ; Frederick would not commit to writing the instructions with which he charged Spi nola in these matters. Due precautions were taken against the enemies of the Kingdom ; a trusty man was appointed in each harbour Avho boarded every strange vessel before it Avas aUowed to unload its cargo, making strict search for rebels or theh letters. The Admhal found that his duties often clashed with those of the local magistrates ; he sometimes com plained of their delays in furnishing him with money. He was provided with armour for his seamen, with pitch, wine, biscuit, and salt pork. Fortified clocks, to hold twenty gaUeys, were built at Brindisi, the 394 THE HISTORY OF chap, chief harbour of Apuha. Others were constructed at ! Messina and Nicotera, whde those at Naples were enlarged. We hear of Imperial ships being built at Gaeta, Naples, CasteUamare, Amalfi, and Salerno. Sorrento and Ischia furnished each a gaUey to the fleet ; the crews of these two made up 2 8 3 men, aU paid to serve for a stated time. Admiral Spinola infused some of his Genoese activity into the towns of the Apulian coast, the inhabitants of which seemed at one time to have lost aU taste for the sea. He promised his master to have ten ships and seventy-five galleys ready within a very few months. Frederick ordered him to seU a damaged ship for as much as it would fetch, and to see another ship, which it was deshable to purchase, with his own eyes before buying. A third, too large for navigation, was to be reduced in size. Each had its name ; one bore that of the Eagle, an other that of the Half World. Wood for their con struction was cut down in the Emperor's forests. These ships were not aU equipped for war ; Fred erick was one of the keenest merchants of the day. He was ready to convey pilgrims to Palestme on pay ment of their passage-money ; but his chief gains arose from the export of corn. He enjoyed a great advantage over his rivals in trade, since Ave find him forbidding his subjects to ship any grain, until his own vessels had got fairly under weigh for the Tunis market. He was much annoyed on learning that the Genoese merchants had contrived to overreach him by buying up Sicihan corn with the money of the King of Tunis, to their own great profit. The wary Emperor was fully alive, as his registers prove, to the advantage of buying in the cheapest market and seUing in the dearest, whether in Spain FREDERICK THE SECOND 395 or in Africa. His agents, it is said, pushed their chap Avay as far as Hmdostan ; he had deahngs with '— ad the Eastern Sultans, from whom he received costly gifts ; at one time a dozen camels arrived, laden with gold and silver.* The Paynim stood upon their dignity Avhen treating Avith their Itahan brother. Thus Conrad of Amici, Frederick's Am bassador at Cairo, sturdily refused to kiss the Sultan's hand, though bribes were offered. The Mohammedan, determined to triumph over the Christian, gave him audience in a room so small that no one could enter without bending the knee ; besides this, carpets embroidered with crosses were laid upon the floor. But Conrad, aware of the intended trick, came into the room with his back to the Sultan. A Turcoman asked, why the Chris tian was trampling on the cross of the Lord ? ' These,' answered the envoy, ' are not the one holy Cross of Christ, but the crosses of the thieves.' He was sent back to his master, laden with many gifts.f The treaty between Abou Zak, the King of Tunis, and the great King of the Eomans, was drawn up early in 1231. Captives, who had not changed their creeds, were to be restored on both sides, and the Moslem dweUing in the island of Pentel- laria, between Africa and Sicily, were to be ruled by a Mussulman deputy, sent by Frederick. Mer chants were to be free from vexatious interference in both countries. The Emperor was to be answer able for the depredations of Christian phates, and the Tunisian undertook to make all the coast of * * M. Paris. X Anon. Vaticani Hist. Sicula. 396 THE HISTORY OF chap. Africa, as far as Egypt, secure to the Sicihan cara- ! vels. This treaty, negotiated by Vibald a Christian knight, was to last for ten years, but the African after wards gave offence by opening his harbours to Frederick's Itahan enemies. A regular tribute was long paid by the King of Tunis to the rulers of Sicily, whether Norman, Suabian, or Angevin, in return for the corn he was allowed to import from the island.* Frederick also sent frequent embassies to the Cahph of Morocco, and entertained envoys from Cairo at his own cost from the time of their arrival in Apuha. He recruited his army from the subjects of these Mussulman Princes, adding the Moslem of Barbary to their more civihzed brethren already at Lucera ; just as the Sovereigns of Africa employed Spanish Christians in theh service. f The Popes might express theh horror at this scandalous interchange of good offices ; but the world was far wiser than it had been in the First Crusade, and Sicdy and Africa Avere now drawn closely together by the ties of commerce. The old Sicilian coinage had been a strange med ley ; Frederick's grandfather had stamped some of his coins with the Arabic profession of faith ; the Emperor himself struck nothing but Latin coins, the execution of which far surpassed that of any other European mint. Constant changes took place ; the money of Brindisi Avas substituted for that of Amalfi ; and six trusty men in each town assessed the new coinage at its proper value. It Avas brought into the various provinces, and its reception Avas compulsory when it was once made current. Frederick's coins * Saba Malaspina. -j- Chronicon. FREDERICK THE SECOND 397 Avere at first called Imperials; but in 1231 the chap. Augustals were struck ; they bore his head on the ^— one side and the Eagle on the other.* The mint at Messina existed for the benefit of Sicily and Calabria ; a Jewish notary employed in it had once to report to the Emperor that many in these provinces refused to deliver up the old coins after receiving the new, taking advantage of the Secretary's death, f As regards taxation, Frederick was not satisfied Avith the usual feudal aids, given for the defence of the Eealm, for the Coronation of the Sovereign, for the knighting of his son, for the marriage of his daughter. He had taken much money, as we have seen, for his Crusade ; and after that event, he made it a regular practice to enforce a coUection of taxes in January every year. His constant wars, some times on behalf of Eome, more often against her, forced him to drain the resources of his Sicilian sub jects, to Avhom he made a tardy reparation on his death-bed. Besides the aids, all feudal holders, in cluding even Bishops, paid a rehef to the Crown on coming into possession of a fief. The indirect im posts had been numerous even in the golden days of the old Norman Kings ; these were now multiplied. There were harbour dues, fishing dues, grazing dues, and others for od, cheese, and meat, of which the Church took her tithe. To these Frederick added several new taxes on iron, steel, pitch, salt, silk, dye ing, soap, mills, and timber, besides many others. The monopoly of salt, usurped by the Emperor, was a great grievance ; he had many salt mines in his domain lands ; and if there was any scarcity, he im- * Ric. San Germano. f Regesta. 398 THE HISTORY OF chap, ported it from Sardinia ; he was very unwiUing to ' lower its price. Those who worked in his salt mines sometimes grumbled at the diminution of their wages. Andrew of Isernia, a lawyer who wrote his glosses in the reign of the Angevin Kings, bears witness to the discontent caused by the new taxes, and declares that Frederick who introduced them is sleeping, not in peace, but in pitch.* The taxes were heavy, but it must be owned that the Emperor did aU in his power to hghten them. He watched the proceedings of his officials with a heedful eye, ever ready to put down abuses, and to foster commerce. In 1234 he estabhshed yearly fairs, which were to be held at seven cities of the Kingdom in succession, thus stimulating the industry of every one of the provinces. He seemed to forestal our modern advances in pohtical economy. The Crown had indeed its monopolies of various articles in common use, but these were managed in such a way as to further the public interests. No officials were aUowed to fatten on the miseries of the people. ' The glory of Eulers,' Frederick writes, 'is the safe and comfortable state of their subjects.' Even at a time when he needed every ounce of gold that his ministers could scrape together, he chid them for their misdirected zeal in raising the tariffs. He forbade them to tax the exportation of provisions from one province to another. He would decree a diminution of taxation in hard times, and would adjust the burden according to the resources of each particular district. Free course was given . to trade even in time of war, when * In pice, non in pace requiescit. See Tiraboschi. FREDERICK THE SECOND 399 the exportation of machines and horses alone was chap. forbidden. He was Avilling to wink at the sojourn of _ his Genoese and Venetian enemies in his dominions, if they would only hve in peace and abstain from intrigues against him. Frederick's aim was to pro mote his own power by giving free play to the energies of his people. He was as attentive to the interests of tiUage, as to those of commerce. Being a great landed proprietor, he budt mills for himself and his neighbours, and planned model farms for the instruction of his subjects. These were under the dhection of a superintendent, who drew up an inventory of the stock every October. The stewards were closely watched, and were forbidden to employ their own kinsmen on the farms. A strict account of the crops was taken ; the wine made was stored in clean vessels ; oats, mdlet, hemp, cotton, were sown on each farm ; peacocks, geese, pigeons, and other poultry were bred, and Frederick wished to know what was done with their feathers. Bees were among the hve stock ; oxen, pigs, goats, and sheep Avere fattened and sold for the benefit of the Treasury; whde vines and ohves were planted in suitable spots, especiaUy in the country round Mes sina. The farmers in Western Sicily complained that there was no wood wherewith to make theh ploughs, on account of the space occupied by the Emperor's hunting grounds ; he hastened to remedy this want. He farmed out marshes and woods in his own domain lands, granting leases for five years to the highest bidder. He kept herds of buffaloes, and we hear of 6000 sheep of his in Calabria, and 500 cows in Sicily; some of these latter were aUowed to run wild in the forests. Frederick took pains to maintain a proper 400 THE HISTORY OF chap, supply of the most valuable animals, sending his '. orders throughout the Kingdom that those who had mares should cover them with asses and horses in alternate years. He himself imported steeds of re nowned pedigree from Barbary, and estabhshed a breeding stud in Apulia.* The yearhngs were care fully kept at a distance of ten miles from the stallions and mares ; they were turned out in the Capita nata, and men were hired to cut grass for them. The charge for disabled horses appears in the Eegisters ; Frederick would insist on knowing how many of his stallions died, and in what way. He imprisoned certam Sicilian Chamberlains, who had taken advantage of theh superior's death to neglect the steeds entrusted to their care. Twenty of these Sicihan mares were fed on barley by Fre derick's special orders, to improve theh milk. The island seems to have been also famous for its breed of asses ; three were brought over to cover the mares in Frederick's Calabrian stud. On one occasion he sent for three ambhng mules, young and sound, for the use of his Court. The saddles for these animals were ordered at Naples and were made of good Cordova leather. He was weU versed in the management of the stud and made his servants equaUy skdful. One of these, Jordan Buffo of Calabria, the composer of a treatise on the training of horses, avowed that he owed his knowledge to a long apprenticeship in the Emperor's stables, f About the same time, Master Moses of Palermo translated from Arabic into Latin a work by Hippocrates on the same subject. J * Aratia, the French haras. -j- Giannone. X Tiraboschi. FREDERICK THE SECOND 401 Frederick appointed in each province a Master chap. Proctor, who looked out for all property that might L faU to the Crown, and watched over the Imperial domain lands, granaries, fisheries, and farms ; these officials leased out various offices to the highest bid der, provided he Avas a man of good conduct ; the Emperor would confirm the appointment, after hear ing all the particulars. Others bought the privilege of collecting the duties on taxable articles ; they were forbidden to force the provincials into buying more salt than was ready requisite. From the preceding facts, it wiU be clear that, whatever might be the state of the rest of the Im perial dominions, Sicdy and Apulia at least were happy in the enjoyment of a far-seeing ruler, a des pot indeed, but a despot who wielded his power to promote the happiness and comfort of his subjects, not to fleece them. AU that was wanted for theh complete prosperity was peace in Upper Italy, a boon denied them owing to the policy of the Popes. It is true that Honorius, Gregory, and Innocent were loud in theh outcries against the Emperor's Sicihan mea sures, which, aiming at the perfect equality of all men before the law, beat down the power of the nobles, bridled the turbulence of the clergy, and checked faction in the cities. The heavy taxation of Sicily was another charge always ready to be launched against Frederick. But the Sicilians knew not when they were weU off. They might murmur at the Suabian whips, yet what were these to the coming Angevin scorpions ? That very Pope, who rooted out the House of Hohenstaufen for ever, bears witness to the statesmanlike qualities of its greatest ornament. Clement the Fourth writes VOL. I. DD 402 THE HISTORY OF chap, thus in 1267 to his greedy champion, Charles of Anjou, on finding him not content with the treasures of the conquered Kingdom ; ' Who can pity the poverty of which you complain, when you have not the abdity or the sense to Uve on the resources of a realm, in which the noble Frederick, some time Em peror of the Eomans, who had, as you know, greater expenses than you, was able to enrich both himseU and his subjects enormously, and besides to replenish Lombardy, Tuscany, the two Marches, and Ger many?'* It is very possible to imagine a subject of the Sicdian Crown, born under the old national Nor man line, who might have been a witness both of the Suabian conquest in his boyhood, and of the Angevin conquest in his old age. Such a man, looking back upon the past, and taking leave of hfe at a time when the whole of the Kingdom was groan ing under the yoke of bloodthhsty and lecherous foreigners newly brought in by Papal management, would probably fix upon the years that immediately foUowed Frederick's Crusade, as the golden age of Southern Italy fading within an old man's recollec tions. Strange as it may seem to an Englishman, the history of SicUy has been one of retrogression ; the Emperor's reforms were annuUed by those who succeeded to his Crown. Neapohtan writers, not far from our own times, sigh when they think of the good old clays of the Hohenstaufen Kings, f There were not many degrees of rank among the * Quoted in Breholles' Preface, 426. I suspect that no Italian Pope would have written in these terms of Frederick ; but Cle ment was a Provencal. ¦j- Coletta talks of ' la buona casa Sueva.' See also Giannone, Galanti, and Amari. FREDERICK THE SECOND 403 Sicilian nobihty. The old Dukes of Naples had long chap, since passed away ; in Frederick's time there were L_ only Counts, Barons, and Knights. He had stripped them of much of the power they had enjoyed since the death of King Eoger ; but he stdl aUowed them the privilege of being tried by those of their peers Avho held theh fiefs of the Crown alone, whether the charge were civd or criminal. An appeal lay from the sentence to the Emperor, who would then ap point a Count or Baron to pronounce the final de cision, after this Judge had sworn to act aright. No alienation of fiefs, whether by deed or by wfll, Avas valid in law, without the confirmation of the Crown. Frederick abolished the old harsh laAvs of prescription, by which adverse possession for a year, a month, a clay, and an hour, ousted the rightful owner. The holder of a fief had now to prove undisputed pos session for thhty years, before he could be secure for ever. A hundred years' possession was requhed to bar the claims of the Treasury ; the old hmit had been forty or sixty years. But these Constitutions of 1231 gave no similar reUef to the holders of small farms depending on fiefs. As to vassals, the Prelates and Nobles were still al lowed to retain the customary civil jurisdiction, and to hold theh Courts ; the Imperial Judge only interfered, Avhen the impleaded vassals of the nobles happened to dwell on his master's domains, or when one of the htigants owed service to the Crown ; the fine and the salary were in such cases shared between the Treasury and the Lord. No one Avas allowed to oppress his vassals contrary to justice, or a fine was due both to the wronged man and to the Treasury ; a vassal falsely accusing his Lord had to pay the D D 2 404 THE HISTORY OF chap, costs of the other party. No Prelate, Count, or ' Baron might retain vassals who had been adjudged to belong to the Crown, under penalty of confiscation of all the culprit's goods. Such vassals, U recalled to the Imperial domain, might be compeUed to sell their property to other vassals of their former Lord ; and these latter might be compeUed to purchase. This provision Avas looked upon as an abatement of the rigour of the old law. The Emperor drew a broad distinction between the states of Eecommendation and Vassalage ; he also asserted his right by the common law over aU vassals, unless this was re butted by the production of authentic instruments. He moreover declared that persons were more precious in his eyes than things ; he therefore de manded back from the nobles all men belonging to his own domain. Any burgher or vdlein who had quitted the Crown lands must return within three months, if he were stdl in his native province ; with in six months, if he had left it ; flight was often re sorted to as a means of escaping the tax-gatherer. Any Brelate, Count, Baron, or Knight detaining such fugitives forfeited a pound of the purest gold, U the Emperor were wronged; half-a-pound if any other proprietor suffered loss. Frederick, on his side, gave up aU runaways who had fled to his do main lands since his coronation. He abolished a custom which had long prevailed, that of nobles undertaking the protection of the men of the Crown domains ; his own Judges, he thought, were well able to throw a shield over such clients ; any one who should usurp this duty hereafter was to lose his head for the second offence. AU personal service rendered to nobles was for the future forbidden ; fiefs must be paid for FREDERICK THE SECOND 405 by rent or money ; w Ave,' said the Emperor, ' are the chap, Lords of persons.' If a Lord had made his vassal __ll_ stand surety in a cause for himself, and did not hold him harmless, the vassal was released from homage, if it was a criminal cause, and was reimbursed for losses sustained, if it was a civil cause. AU neglect on the part of the vassal in a question of suretyship for his Lord was punished in a similar Avay. It was the duty of vassals to protect the hfe, hberty, lands, and honour of the Lord ; to reveal his counsel to no man, to give him notice of all threatening dangers, to defend his land against every man ; and these feudal duties could only cease when they clashed with the Empe ror's rights, a proviso which Frederick took care to in sert. If vassals refused to stand as sureties for their Lord, or committed felony against himself, his wife, or his children, or neglected to render their due ser vice after three summons, or refused to aid him in the law courts, they were hable to disseisin. On the other hand, U the Lord would not stand surety for vassals accused of any criminal charge, treason ex cepted, or if he flogged them without just cause, or if he debauched their wives and daughters, then homage was at an end, and the parties injured were transferred to the Crown. Feudal services in the Twelfth Century were more burdensome in Sicily than in some other Eealms. Aids were payable for redeeming the Lord's person from pubhc enemies ; for making his son a knight ; for bestowing his daughter or sister in marriage ; for contributing to the purchase of land bought for the Eoyal service. Brelates might exact an aid for their consecration, for their journey to a Council, for theh joining the Eoyal army, for their travelhng on 406 THE HISTORY OF chap. Eoyal embassies, for theh receiving the King on — their lands. In addition to these long estabhshed burdens, Frederick aUowed his nobles and cavahers to take a moderate aid from theh vassals, whenever the younger brother of the feudal Lord was knighted, even should the cadet have returned to his home after having quitted it against the wfll of the head of the house. The Emperor, in more than one instance, in terfered to procure the knightly belt for a neglected heir. Maintaining a law of his Norman grandshe, he allowed no one to be knighted who was not of knightly birth, without a special license from the Crown. No videin, bastard, or son of a clerk could become a Judge or a Notary. But those only, who behaved as knights should do, were entitled to the privdeges of knighthood. These privileges had a curious bearing in civil and criminal actions. Thus no viUein or man of low degree could bear witness against a knight, in a case of feudal rights or in a capital charge ; the evidence of a respectable burgher was the very lowest that could be received in such cases, and even then sixteen burghers were required to prove the case against the defendant, U he hap pened to be a Count ; four, if he was only a knight. There was a regular gradation of the evidence re quired to convict each rank, absurd as this may seem to our levelling age. A charge of high treason alone put all parties on the same footing, whatever theh con dition might be. Due respect to rank was enforced by law. If a squire or any one of low degree struck a knight, the aggressor lost his hand, unless he could prove that he was acting in self-defence. If a noble attempted to strike his equal, he was sentenced to loss of knighthood and to a year's banishment ; he was de- FREDERICK THE SECOND 407 nounced as a shameless feUoAv, who disgraced a rank chap. that Avas the foundation of every dignity. If a knight struck his equal, he forfeited all his horses and arms, besides undergoing a year's banishment. If a knight struck an inferior who was not his vassal, the sen tence was left to the discretion of the Judges. Cer tain rules for their guidance were laid down by Frederick ; the time, the place, the witnesses, the in jured part were all taken into consideration. The sufferer had to make oath that he would rather have lost so much money than have borne the wrong of which he complained, and according to this oath the aggressor was condemned, always with the right of appeal. The Emperor contented himseU with two- thirds of the fine, leaving the rest to the party ag grieved ; this boon was an innovation on the custom of several provinces in the Kingdom. King Eoger had forbidden his nobles to celebrate their weddings in private ; his grandson went so much further, as to provoke the comment of Andrew of Isernia, that marriage, the institution of God hi Para dise, had been prohibited by a side-blow, to the ruin of the Emperor's soul What Frederick chd was this ; he enacted a law which prevented any tenant, whether of the Crown or of any other feudal lord, from taking a wife, or from giving a daughter, a sister, or a niece in marriage, without leave from Court ; any local custom to the contrary notwith standing. Ahens, who had dwelt for ten years in the Kingdom and paid taxes, were allowed to marry wives of stainless loyalty. If a Count or Baron died, his heh could not receive the oaths of his vassals, with out Frederick's sanction ; confiscation followed any breach of this new statute. The noble who was the 408 THE HISTORY OF chap, superior Lord was bound to announce to the Crown ' the death of any knight holding a fief or barony in scribed on the Treasury rods ; a schedule of the real and personal property of the deceased was also to be drawn up.* The Emperor would then appoint an other feudal tenant, who paid a rehef to the superior Baron not exceeding ten ounces of gold. Frederick, remembering perhaps that it was from his mother that he inherited his Crown, introduced a most im portant innovation by granting the right of female succession throughout the Khigdom, declaring that this was agreeable to Nature ; Norman and Lombard, knight and burgher, came ahke under the operation of this new statute; Frederick claimed for himseU the wardship of young heiresses, who were under the age of fifteen. In some cases he would set aside his own law, and grant the vacant fief to a brother of the last tenant, even should a daughter be left to represent her deceased sire. A younger sister, unmarried at her father's death, excluded an elder sister, who was aheady married and dowered.f If none were dowered, the elder sister was preferred to the younger, in a province where the Norman law obtained. If the family were subject to the Lombard law, all the sisters brought their dowries into the common stock and an equal division took place ; this is our Enghsh hotchpot. Nephews had no claim to the property of their uncles. If a man had chddren born to him by a concubine whom he * These rolls formed a kind of Sicilian Doomsday Book, and were kept throughout the whole of the Thirteenth century. They have perished since Freccia wrote. See Gregorio on this point. | In the Sicilian kingdom, unmarried ladies wore their hair loose, whence they were called ' filiee in capillo.' — Ducange. FREDERICK THE SECOND 409 afterwards married, these chilchen were placed on a chap. par with his legitimate offspring ; and we see, by a 1_ case that occurred at Naples, the care of Frederick to uphold the law of the Emperor Anastasius on this point. Another law, borrowed from Greece, was the Jus Protimeseos, intended to give to the kinsmen and joint tenants of the vendor the right of pre emption of his real property. Their claim must be made within thirty days, or in certam specified cases of exemption, within four months. AU inti midation, direct or indirect, practised on the vendor to force on the sale, was guarded against. On the other hand, those who had the right of pre emption might exact an oath from both vendor and purchaser, that there was no fraudulent deahng in the sale. The right was denied by general custom to the representatives of the pubhc road, the church, and the city. To revert to dowries, by the new Constitutions, a baron or knight, if possessed of but one fief, was obhged to provide for his Avife in money, not in land. If he were possessed of one fief and a half, he might assign the half fief to his wife ; and after his death the lady was bound to render aU feudal services. The Crown gave the wardship of heirs under age to its own nominee, who was forced to render an ac count thereof to the Justiciary, and to replace aU losses caused by the fraud of the guardian. In old times his misdeeds used to pass unchaUenged. We find Frederick, in 1240, enjoining the Justiciary of the Principato to undertake the wardship of certain children, since their mother Aroasa, a lady with a taste for a religious hfe, was wasting the revenues of 410 THE HISTORY OF chap, their deceased father's estate upon nuns and sister- : — hoods. We gather from Frederick's Eegisters a few details respecting the Apulian chivalry. A knight on ser vice had three ounces of gold per month, furnishing his own saddle and bridle, though not always pro viding his own horse. In some expeditions each knight was expected to bring four horses ; U the service was evaded, the defaulter lost his fiefs. We usually find the knight mounted on his destrier, and attended by what was caUed his family ; that is, two squires on ronzini or inferior horses, while another steed, the somero, bore the baggage of the party.* The great dignitaries sent vast contingents into the field ; thus the Abbot of Monte Cassino in one year furnished sixty horsemen and two hundred foot.f Frederick was not disposed to lose any of the mih tary service due for land. He praised his Justiciary for summoning certain Neapolitan knights, after cunningly getting from them the title-deeds of their fiefs, in order to knoAV whether they really owed any service. All who were conscious of being debtors to the Treasury were exhorted to come forward without waiting to be informed against ; their zeal might thus make amends for the sloth of Officials. The Marshal commanding the army had authority, by a new law, to decide aU disputes between soldiers in the field. A knight who served at his own expense was not bound to answer the complaints of any knight * The lines of Jacopone da Todi, who lived in this century, are often quoted : ' Non vuol nullo Cavalieri, Che non serva a tre destrieri.' f Ric. San Germano. FREDERICK THE SECOND 411 Avho served at the charges of another. Employment chap in the field was a bar to any action brought against LL soldiers by civilians ; even outlaws serving in the army enjoyed this privdege, which was called the Hosticum. A man summoned to serve the state might oppose this exception to any citation, and was shielded by it for fifteen days before joining the army, and for fifteen days after his return. The Norman race stdl maintained theh old pre-eminence in the South, as Ave see by the names of the Imperial offi cers Fitzosmond, Fitzmauger, Fitzhenry. The great houses, famous for ages in Itahan story, already begin to appear. Thus in February, 1240, we find Frederick alluding to the marriage of Bartholomew Caraffa of Spina, a man descended from the old Consuls of the city of Naples and the rulers of Sardinia, who was wedded to Dehzia Caraccioli. The Emperor granted letters patent to this Lady, whereby the off spring of the marriage were aUowed to bear the name of Caraccioli Caraffa, and to hold certain reve nues in the Abruzzese country. The Filangieri, Capeci, Acquavivas, Chiaramonti, and Sanseverini Avere all very prominent in Frederick's reign. A stdl higher interest attaches to the weU-known pa trician names among the Genoese, Venetians, Barme- sans, Florentines, and Eomans, meeting us at every turn. But the state of the poor, who tended the vast herds of cattle on the plains of Apuha, or cultivated the vines and olives on the slopes of Etna, now com mands our attention. Vdlenage was widely prevalent in Frederick's Kingdom, and a few monuments re main which dlustrate its effects. The men of four viUages in Calabria complained to the Emperor's 412 THE HISTORY OF chap. Chamberlain, in the year 1221, that they were being -^ — oppressed by a neighbouring monastery, that of San Stefano di Bosco, dlustrious as the burial-place of the Carthusian founder. The case was remitted to the Imperial Justiciary of the province, when the vdleins acknowledged that they were unwilling to go to law with their lords. Shortly afterwards, while the Abbot was at Eome, the peasants laid another complaint before Frederick, who bade the conventual authorities desist from oppressing men, the gift of the pious. Still the suit proceeded. The Broctor of the Abbey had the viUeins condemned in a large sum, for non appearance to a citation. At last theh Proctor, Nicholas Asy, appeared, and a long suit ensued. The Abbey brought forward a charter, granted to it by Count Boger, who, after his preservation at Capua through the prayers of St. Bruno, had handed over the forefathers of the complainants, traitorous con spirators as they were, to be, with theh posterity, for ever serfs to the famous Carthusian Monastery, where St. Bruno lay buried. The vdleins produced a subsequent instrument which discharged them from many of their burdens. But the Court gave sentence in favour of the Abbey, and decided thus : — Every villein must work two days a week for the Abbey, either in reaping, or tending the vineyards, or thresh ing. Once a year they were to feU timber for their lords. Theh dues, to be paid in olives, wine, poultry, and eggs, were aU specified. Their asses and teams were to perform certain fixed work in bringing corn, salt, and wood to the monastery. The villeins might give theh daughters in marriage to whomsoever they would, provided they first ob tained leave from theh lord, and paid the usual FREDERICK THE SECOND 4 id tribute. They were to yield the Abbot a feudal aid, chap, Avhenever he might be summoned to Borne or to the __!_ Cistercian Chapter. They had to give sureties for the payment of past arrears. In spite of this sentence, the villeins persisted in their old course, and once more complained to Fre derick. After receiving another Imperial injunction, the Abbot appeared before the Court, and accused the complainants of having uttered falsehoods re specting his conduct. Various questions were put to them, the instruments were brought forward, and judgment was given against them, after a short delay. They were sentenced to pay a fine of 5000 tarens, and the old decision as to their state of villeinage was confirmed. Frederick was enraged at theh conduct, and declared that they were the worthy descendants of those traitors, the accomplices of the wretch Ser- gius, who had plotted to betray the Great Count Eoger into the hands of the Capuan enemy. The Emperor was with difficulty dissuaded from putting the vdleins to death, but forbore at the prayer of the Abbot, who was highly commended. This ec clesiastic was soon involved in another suit. Two Avomen came before Frederick, and complained that they had been driven by hunger to seU some lands to the Abbot, who had only given them half of the fair price. The Emperor, avowing that the laws come to the aid of the deceived and not of deceivers, sent the case to the Bishop of Mileto ; it was decided against the plaintiffs. Inl225, theAbbot of San Stefano diBosco was once more before the Court, and was once more success ful. He complained that some neighbouring nobles, under the pretence that he owed them three coins VOL. i. *»»' 414 THE HISTORY OF chap, called Eoyals, had robbed him of three oxen, ' not IX. having the Lord and respect of justice before their eyes.' The case was heard ; when the Monastery produced a series of old Charters and wills, some of which were in Greek. The brethren also aUeged, that if they had at any time paid more than one Eoyal, that was because the malice of the times had forced them so to act against their will. Theh rea sons were admitted by the Court. If the influential Convents suffered from feudal oppression, as we see by the foregoing instance, what must the state of the poor have been in this age? The men of the vfllage of San Bietro, whose obedi ence was due to the Abbey of Cava, were tyrannized over by Theodora, the Lady of BoUa, enjoying certain Norman rights. She would not allow them to cut wood in the groves, or to make use of water, or to buy the necessaries of life in her town of Bolla. She cited the villagers before her Court in order to exact money from them, although all they were bound to give her was two days' digging and two clays' reaping in each year. She endeavoured to en force her claims by seizing upon the oxen of the poor peasants, and she Avas supported in her tyranny by the town of Bolla. A lawsuit was decided in favour of the oppressed parties ; the Lady made no appeal : and the Emperor confirmed the sentence in 1235, at the prayer of the Abbot of Cava. Cases such as this drew from Frederick a merciful edict, which forbade the seizure of oxen for debt, even though his own Treasury might lose thereby. He found that the poor were often robbed of their crops and vines by the rapacity of the wealthy. Foolish trans gressors, he remarked, must be made wise by punish- FREDERICK THE SECOND 415 ment. A culprit of the male gender was to chap. undergo imprisonment ; but less mercy was shown 1_ to the female attendant, who, secure of her master's protection, plucked the fruit belonging to the poor vine-dressers. Such women were to be flogged round the toAvn, no matter what the rank of their lords might be. The Emperor not only favoured the humbler classes in his legislation, but lightened their cares by allotting to them a substantial part in pubhc rejoicings. Thus at San Germano alone, more than five hundred of the poor were feasted in the piazza on meat, bread, and wine, when the joyful anniversary of Frederick's birth was kept by his directions.* The Commons, as we see, looked up to him as theh best friend, f A dispute arose at Sorrento, between the clergy, monks, and knights on the one hand, and cer tain vdleins dwelUng beyond the waUs on the other. The Emperor, by bis Broctor, intermed dled in the suit at the prayer of the serfs, and sent the case before Henry of Morra. The Lords ap pealed to the rights which they held since the days of WiUiam II. After Morra had made a report of the case, it was heard by five judges, who decided against the vdleins. The work to be done, and the tribute to be paid in kind, was settled. No villein was to make his son a priest, or to give his daughter in marriage, without his lord's leave. We need not be surprised to learn, that runaway serfs were numerous throughout the realm. King WiUiam had enacted a kind of Fugitive Slave law, by which all runaways of either sex must be restored, by * Ric. San Germano. X Cassar, amor legum ; Friderice, piissime regum. 416 THE HISTORY OF chap, any one who might find them, to theh master. ! If unclaimed, they were sent to the Court. Frede rick kept them for his own use, unless the master should prove his title to his missing chattels within a year's time by lawful documents. Any one, who sold a free man into slavery, became the slave of the Court with his posterity. It would seem that serfdom was much more general in the King dom than in that part of Italy which belonged to the Emphe. StiU even in the South, Christiamty was at her usual work, hghtening the burdens of the lowly. In 1222, we find Ephraim, a pious nobleman of Bari, giving freedom to numbers of his serfs.* The poor had another powerful friend in the Bope, who withstood feudal tyranny on professional grounds. Thus he ordered the Archbishop of Naples to check a knight, who was endeavouring to debar a deacon from further advancement in the Church, on the pretence that the priest expectant was the son of a male serf. Gregory remarked that there could be no feudal claims upon the clerk, since he must foUow the condition of his mother, who had been free.f King Wdliam had enacted in the last century that those villeins only who were bound to the soil could be debarred by theh lord's wfll from the honours of the tonsure. The state of the middle classes next caUs for notice. We find a Charter bestowed upon Trani, so early as 1215, by the Bishop of Worms, Frederick's Vicar in Apuha, which grants to the burghers the privilege of seU-jurisdiction in both civil and criminal causes; their magistrates had a certain fixed salary, and the * Beatillo. f Labbceus. FREDERICK THE SECOND 417 King's Justiciary alone might intermedcUe with them, chap Trani Avas excused military service, but Avas to fur- — 1!_ nish two gaUeys, as of old, to the fleet ; a yearly collection Avas to be made for the pay of the seamen. A small sum Avas allotted to the man who watered horses from the pubhc fountain. No citizen was to be chaUenged to the duel, except on a charge of high treason ; and these privdeges were extended to any strangers who might settle in Trani. But it is not hkely that the burghers enjoyed this Charter for very many years. Frederick's laws, as we might expect, were unfavourable to the maintenance of distinctions between the different cities of his realm. Naples, Amalfi, Sorrento, and other waifs of the old Eastern Emphe, which had retained their privileges even after the Norman Conquest, were now reduced to the level of theh neighbours, the ancient Lombard Duchies. A custom had long prevaded in the above- named cities of electing umpires to decide suits be tween the citizens ; but Frederick would tolerate no judges save his own. A few cities, such as Messina and Aversa, had enjoyed the privilege of sheltering their inmates from the citations of the Eoyal officials ; the new Constitutions refused to recognise this right. The town of Gaeta was deprived of her Consuls, as soon as she had yielded to the Emperor's arms. The privileges of Balermo, ' the first Seat of the King dom,' were the only ones respected. The local officer of Messina, who bore the name of Stratigot, was blamed in 1240 for refusing to allow appeals in criminal cases, on the ground of this being an in fringement on the customs of his city.* No toAvn * Gallo's book on Messina is the best history of any of the cities of the Kingdom. VOL. I. E E 418 THE HISTORY OF chap, was suffered to set up a Podesta, a Consul, or a IX — Eector, under pain of being laid waste for ever; Frederick would have no imitation of the Lombard League in his Kingdom ; he must be the sole foun tain of justice. He and his sons put down with the strong hand every attempt at dlegal combination. We cannot satisfy our curiosity as to the manners and customs of Capua or Naples in the days of yore ; stdl we are aUowed a glimpse of private Ufe in Parma during Frederick's reign ; and doubtless there were many simdar households in every part of Italy. A family group is placed before us ; the most vener able figure in it is Hermengarde the aged grand mother, a hundred years old, born before the first Hohenstaufen had been elected to the Crown, ever ready to bestow her counsels on the young folk as to the duty of avoiding evil society and foUowing after wisdom. Then we have the father, hot and passion ate, with a strong dislike of the new friars, fond of talking of his adventures in the Crusade, where he owned the best destrier in his company. He laid some of the foundation stones of the noble Baptistery in 1196, which was budt on the site of the houses of his banished kinsmen. Still more interesting is the mother, humble and devout, given to fasting and alms-deeds, never seen to be ruffled in temper or to raise a hand against a servant. Every winter she took into the house some poor woman from the mountains, to whom she gave food and raiment, out of pure love to God. Lastly, we have httle Sahm bene himself with his three brothers and three sisters, in whom the race was fated to end, owing to their devotion to a monastic hfe. ' We destroyed our house in males and females, that we might build it FREDERICK THE SECOND 419 in heaven.' It was a good old family, and highly chap. respected ; the Bishop of Parma himself would gos- L_ sip with the father, as the worthy Prelate sat at the window of his palace. Another friend was one of the Canons of the Cathedral named Sinibald Fiesco, of whom the world was to hear much. But the earhest recoUections of the young Chronicler were of a Avarlike character ; when eight years old he could remember a quantity of mangonels, taken in battle from the Bolognese, standing in the Piazza before the Cathedral. These were trophies of the great fight of San Cesario, which immediately fol lowed Frederick's return from Palestine, and in which Itahan party sphit blazed forth in its fuU vi gour. On this occasion it was that the Podesta of Modena knighted his son, saying, 'Go, charge the enemy, and fight like a man.' The youth soon died of a thrust from a lance, when the stern father said, ' I care not, since my son has been knighted and has faUen fighting manfuUy.' This spirit runs through the whole Of the Thirteenth century and many a succeeding one. But only in the Northern half of Italy ; very dif ferent was the state of things in the South. Not three years before this battle we find Henry of Morra, the Grand Justiciary, publishing sundry Imperial edicts at San Germano. The burghers must abstain from dice, must shut up their shops at the second toU of the bell, and must not stir abroad at night after the third toU. Certain men were sworn in, to carry out these orders, and to lay fines on transgres sors according to the rank of each. Strict inquisition was made whether any hved in too luxurious a style, E E 2 420 THE HISTORY OF chap, or carried forbidden weapons.* The graves of the ! dead were obliged to be made of a certain depth ; the hides and carcasses of dead animals must be thrown into the sea, or into a river, at least a quarter of a mde distant from towns, under penalty of one Augusta! The slaughter-houses were always outside the waUs. Butchers and fishmongers were forbidden to injure the health of theh customers by selling unwholesome food. No one might warm up and sell eatables cooked on the previous day, or mix water with the wine for sale in taverns. AU flax and hemp was to be soaked in water at least a mile from the city walls, that the air might be kept sweet. Frederick pried into the secrets of every trade, ex horting aU handicraftsmen to fah deahng. Those who sold shields, saddles, and candles were specially enjoined not to palm off inferior wares upon their customers. AU who worked in gold, silver, brass, or iron, and all who made bows and crossbows, were to labour with honesty and zeal. Goldsmiths and sdversmiths were closely watched by two officials in every town, who were set apart for the purpose and approved by the Court. Eings, buckles, cups, and plate were to be fairly made, without any undue admixture of alloy ; eight ounces of gold went by law to the pound, eleven ounces of silver to the same. Any trickery was punished ; the culprit forfeited a pound of the purest gold for the first offence, or else was flogged; he lost his hand for the second offence ; he was sent to the gallows for the third. Weights and measures were under the dhection of the Court, and fair deahng was strictly enforced. * Ric. San Germano. FREDERICK THE SECOND 421 If a shopman, for instance, was detected in stretch- chap ing the cloth he sold beyond the fair measurement 11_ of the canna, or in using false weights and measures, he Avas liable to the triple penalty just mentioned, besides having his cheating yard-wand hung around his neck whde he was being flogged through the town. A double punishment was inflicted on any Sicihan subject who tried to overreach a pilgrim. The shopkeepers were not the only class under the watchful eye of the Government. The Imperial Bailiffs regulated the Avages and tasks of vine-dressers, reapers, and artisans, punishing any attempt at fraud by imposing a fine four times the value of the wages wrongfully received. The State seems to have inter meddled in everything. AU merchants entering a city with wares hable to duty were bound, under penalty of forfeiture, to deposit these in a certain place set apart for the purpose ; thus the Treasury could not be tricked. The taxes on articles in general use varied according to the state of Frede rick's finances. Thus in 1232 he promulgated the following assizes at San Germano. He reduced to their old scale the duties on wine, apples, chestnuts, nuts, and other fruit. It was the same with leather, flax, cotton, Syrian wool, tunny fish, and anchovies ; the duty on hemp was altogether remitted. The merchants uoav paid less for their lodging in the Custom-house, the overseer of which was bound to furnish them with beds, lights, straw, and wood. The tax paid on the various beasts kdled in the slaughter houses was also lessened ; and the duties levied on the sale of horses and the pasturage of animals re turned to theh old scale.* But Frederick, in years * Ric. San Germano. 422 THE HISTORY OF chap, of scarcity, was forced to look more narrowly into ' ways and means. Thus, on starting for Germany in 1235, he found himself in great want of money. He allowed the citizens of rebeUious Troja to pur chase for 3400 ounces of gold the freedom of their brethren, whom he had long kept in prison. Three of the townsmen were employed to assess and coUect the money. One John Tafuro was rated at the sum of eleven ounces, but he made his escape rather than pay. Frederick's Justiciary sent down an order to satisfy the claims of the Treasury by selling the pro perty of the runaway. A pubhc auction was accord ingly held, but no one came forward to purchase. Tafuro's lands only reahzed three ounces and a haU, when sold in private by the collectors. The towns were shorn to a great extent of their local privUeges, but were taught to unite their strength for the common good. Twice, at least, in the course of his reign, in 1232 and in 1240, Fre derick summoned their deputies to a conference or Parliament, ' for the weal of the Kingdom and the general advantage of the State.' Forty-seven cities, all belonging to the Imperial domain, sent two depu ties each to the Assembly convoked, which must not be confounded with the Solemn Courts held by the Sovereign and his Barons for the purpose of revising charters, enacting Constitutions, and regulating the government. We should be mistaken in supposing that the Sicilian Barhament enjoyed much of the power implied by the name. There is no trace of any clamour against grievances, of any complaints against officials, or of any refusal to grant suppUes. The only function of the deputies summoned seems to have been the assessing of the pubhc burdens. FREDERICK THE SECOND 423 The Emperor demanded a certain sum of money, chap. and the deputies, meekly complying, regulated the 1 Avays and means of raising it. ' Send your messen gers,' thus runs the writ, ' to see the Serenity of our face on your behalf, and to bring you back our wfll.' Later in the century, the Assembly acquired greater authority. It is just possible that Simon de Mont- fort, who is known to have visited the Imperial Court, may have borrowed his famous improvement on the old English constitution from an Apuhan source ; the gathering of the Commons at Foggia certainly preceded theh first meeting at Westminster by thhty years. Other countries besides our OAvn were indebted to Frederick for a better mode of legislation. Shortly after his death, many of his innovations were borrowed by his cousin Alonzo the Wise, and were inserted in Las Siete Partidas, the new Code of Castde. The ideas of the Suabian Emperor were evidently the model foUowed by St. Louis and his successors ; in France, as well as in Southern Italy, the lawyer was feehng his way towards the enjoyment of the power wielded of old by the knight and the churchman ; Phihp the Fah was able to carry out the projects which Frederick had merely been able to sketch. The world made rapid strides between 1230 and 1300. The Northern half of Italy, distracted by endless struggles, was not insensible to the improvements introduced into the South by her mighty son. But in the North two fatal obstacles existed, the Papal power and the municipal spirit of the various States, which marred aU Frederick's efforts in behalf of Itahan unity. In vain did he visit in person almost every Itahan city, except Milan and Florence ; in 424 THE HISTORY OF chap, vain did he throw himself almost entirely upon ' Itahan agents, when obhged to exercise his authority through deputies. The Guelfs were not to be so conciliated. He failed in his attempts ; and the Imperial sway was exchanged on the Po and the Arno for the rule of petty tyrants, the curse and the shame of mankind. Six hundred years of internal misery and foreign oppression passed away, before the House of Savoy was allowed to achieve what its old Hohen staufen patrons had in vain essayed to do. Our own age is witnessing the fulfilment of a prophecy, uttered by a Ghibelhne scribe, who bewaded the decay of the Emphe that foUowed Frederick's death : — 'As the spawn of fish, which have remained for a century in the dry bed of a river, become fruitful when the river returns to its bed ; so the cities and nobles, which were favoured of old by Imperial Majesty, wiU joyfully submit themselves to this protective sway, when the power of Imperial exceUence shaU reappear.' * The seeds of Itahan happiness have now started to hfe at the call of a Savoyard ruler, Boyal if not Imperial ; no more account is made of the temporal power of the Papacy, or of petty local broils — curses now taken away. We have aheady considered the state of the higher, the lower, and the middle classes ; a fourth class remains. The condition of the Sicihan Church had already given rise to many bickerings between the Crown and the Papacy. King Wilham had exempted the clergy from arrest or imprisonment in civil actions, and had aUowed them the privdege of being tried * Chronicon. FREDERICK THE SECOND 425 in their own courts, except for treason or some great chap. crime. Frederick's Constitutions deduced the duty _ of paying tithes from the Old and New Testaments ; his officials were enjoined to enforce this Divine obligation, at least as far as they could without injury to his Eoyal rights. He maintained the Sicihan clergy in their dues, even when he was at war with Eome. But he kept a tight hand upon both bishops and priests ; he upheld every jot of the rights granted by the Bapacy to the old Norman Kings. In 1239 he issued a mandate to check the Bishop of Caiazzo, who was raising riots both by clay and night, and who had seized on certain vassals and lands belonging to the Crown, thinking himself above the Law. By a statute of King William's, the property belonging to a cathedral, at the Brelate's death, was placed in the hands of three clergymen, untd the successor was appointed. But Frederick, in such cases, would put in two Bailiffs of his own to coUect the revenues, keep the buUdiugs in repah, and cultivate the vineyards. Southern Italy then, as now, abounded with Arch- bishopricks and Bishopricks, far out of proportion to the requirements of the population. These Frederick often kept vacant for the benefit of his Treasury. In October 1239, we find by his regis ters that the sees of Ghgenti, Monreale, Cefalu, Catania, Eeggio, Eossano, Ahfe, Telesia, Capaccio, Aversa, Teano, Sorrento, Caleno, Bohcastro, Venafro, Sora, Aquino, Gaeta, Chieti, Benna, Otranto, Melfi, Lecce, Monopoh, Venosa, Salpi, Potenza, Vesti, Ascoh, Lesina, and many others, were in a state of widowhood. If an Abbess died, the Imperial leave must be obtained for a fresh election, and the nuns 426 THE HISTORY OF chap, must choose their ruler from a loyal house. The ix — Emperor would order his Archbishops to withdraw any excommunication he himseU might deem unjust. The Greek Protopapa of Messina was kept in as great subjection as the Latin Archbishop of Salerno.* Frederick was an enemy to plurahties, and bade his Justiciaries correct this fault ; he was very angry on finding that some clerks, to whom he had given an order on the Treasury, had extracted from it more than was their due. The chddren of the clergy, being illegitimate, could not inherit their parents' goods, but the Emperor ordered these luckless victims of Eomish legislation to be provided for out of his Treasury. He himself, as a great favour, would sometimes confer legitimation on the chddren of his subjects ; but the offspring of priests had to pay a yearly sum to the Crown for this boon. The clergy, much to the disgust of Eome, were obhged to appear before secular judges, in civil actions for pro perty not belonging to the Church. No lands charged with any service to the CroAvn might be bestowed on the Temple or the Hospital, though personal property did not come under the statute. Even the beloved Teutonic Order could obtain no exemption from this law, which was a revival of old Norman enactments. If a man left any forbidden real property to one of these Houses, the hereditaments so devised went to the Crown, unless they were sold within a year to a kinsman of the deceased. Eome, of course, frowned upon Frederick's Statutes of Mortmain, which pre ceded those of the Plantagenets. In July 1231, Gregory rebuked his friend for the tendency of this * See the Regesta. FREDERICK THE SECOND 427 legislation. ' We have heard,' says the Pope, ' that chap. you mean to enact new laws, which force men to — style you a persecutor of the Church, and a sup pressor of pubhc freedom ; thus you are working against yourself. We fear that God has withdrawn his favour from you, while you are thus careless of your own fame, supposing you are acting of yourself ; but if you are urged on by others, we wonder that you hsten to such bad counsellors. 0 that you would consult your own peace and our reputation, both of which are endangered by the invectives of the people ! The poor, it appears, find theh sorrow most bitter in this time of peace. We seem to hear beforehand the howlings of the many that weep.' Gregory also wrote to the Archbishop of Capua, one of Frederick's most trusted advisers : ' We learn that you are, of your own accord, suggesting to the Emperor laws destructive of salvation, and the sources of enormous scandals. You stitch yourself an apron of fig-leaves, and pretend that you are only the pen that writes the laws, not their adviser, though you ought to be theh most zealous opponent. You are perhaps glad of the opportunity of showing off your learning, in spite of the displeasure of God the Bestower of knowledge, and of our anger. We warn you to be mindful of your office, and to redeem your former fault.' The Bope was not the only person who thought that the new legislation, dating from 1220, was prejudicial to the Church. The idea seems to have been widely spread. In October 1231, the BoreUo family of Anglone, one of whom held the See of Siponto, made a gift of lands to the Abbey of Casamara, carefuUy inserting this clause in the deed : 428 THE HISTORY OF chap. ' We renounce aU aid from the laws, and from every '. — Constitution of Capua, or from any future one, by which we may have the power to impair or revoke this gift.'* The laity were stdl under the spell of the priesthood, although the morals of the Sicihan clergy were very lax. Deeds of murderous violence were not uncommon. Thus late in 1239 we find two monks joining with two laymen in the murder of the Prior of Campogrosso. The Emperor wrote a stern despatch, commenting on the men who abused the stamp and privilege of rehgion. Such crimes, he said, should not go unpunished. The ecclesiastics on this occasion were thrown into prison, whde theh lay accomphces were put to the torture. Other clerical failings were remarked ; the system of keeping concubines and of making simoniacal con tracts was in fuU vogue, as many a Papal letter of the age angrily testifies. Nor was the disorder confined to the lower ranks of the clergy ; a bad example was set by the highest Prelates. Thus Andrew, the Archbishop of Acerenza, who had held that See for more than thhty years, was accused of a variety of crimes in 1231. He had refused to ordain priests, untd he had extorted bribes ; he had aUowed his clergy to keep concubines, if they could pay for the privilege ; he had brought nuns from the East, and had kept them at Brindisi for infamous purposes. He had added cruelty to his other vices, for when acting as Justiciary during the inroad of the Emperor Otho, he had mutdated two men. The Pope now instituted an enquiry into his conduct, and forced him to resign. f Great jealousy existed between the * Ughelli, for Siponto. X Ughelli gives Gregory's letters of 1231 on these charges. FREDERICK THE SECOND 429 secular clergy and the begging friars. The Mino- chap. rites at Palermo were prevented by their rivals from Ix' budding a convent, and Gregory ordered the Arch bishop of the city to make good their losses. The Franciscan buildings at Patti were greatly ob structed, for the seculars pulled doAvn during the night whatever the brethren had built in the day. The feud was only arrested upon the Pope's threat ening to curse the aggressors. When the Emperor was at war with Eome, the enemies of the friars ventured to much greater lengths. In 1248, an Abbot and a Bishop, who were brothers, harassed the Minorites in Apulia, cut off the garments, hoods, and sleeves of the friars, and forbade them to beg for the necessaries of lUe. The Adctims comforted themselves by rehearsing the Divine judgments said to have faUen upon the oppressors.* The new race of friars carped at the old-established Orders. The Benedictine Abbots, the worst specimens of whom dwelt in Italy, were accused of eating meat with seculars, while their monks were left to a vegetable diet in the refectory. If a Dominican or a Franciscan were promoted to a Bishoprick, the election was sure to be due to worlcUy motives ; for the Canons of Cathedrals did not care to set a good man above them, who was likely to reprove them for their carnal vices. Some Itahan towns had a pecuhar distaste for virtue and the begging friars. Thus at Parma, clergy and laity, men and women, high and low, all aUke refused to show any devotion to the Brethren, and preferred to spend their money on buffoons. In France, any city of the size of * Wadding. 430 THE HISTORY OF chap. Parma would have maintained a hundred Minorites ix ' — in abundance. The Lombard Prelates were noted for selfishness and churhsh behaviour ; they would eat the whitest bread and drink the best wine, without inviting their inferiors to partake, though sitting at the same table with them.* No Juvenal arose to scourge these followers of Virro. But the sloth and greediness of the secular clergy were forgotten amid the paroxysms of devotion aroused every now and then by cowled enthusiasts. The most noted instance is the disciphne of the Fla gellants. Long before theh time a strange religious fever ran through Italy, which we trace both in the Kingdom and in Lombardy. This was in the year 1233, called the time of the HaUelujah. An old man from Spoleto, who had no learning, entered Parma, dressed in a black garment reaching down to his feet, which was marked before and behind with a great red cross. He wore a hood, had a long black beard, and carried a smaU brazen trumpet which he blew very loudly. A crowd of chddren foUowed with lighted candles and boughs of trees. He began in the vulgar tongue, ' Praise and blessing and glory be to the Father,' which the chddren repeated after him. After a similar address to the other Persons of the Trinity, his hearers thrice shouted, HaUelujah ; he blew his trumpet, preached a sermon, and ended with a hymn to the Vhgin. The like went on in every city of Italy. Arms were laid aside, nothing but hymns of praise were heard ; every -vdlage sent forth its procession with the banner of its patron Saint ; and the peasants thronged into the great * Salimbene. FREDERICK THE SECOND 431 cities, singing as they marched, to hear the famous chap. Dominican and Franciscan preachers, who held forth l_ morning, noon, and evening. High and low ahke seemed to be drunk with Divine love.* The Empe ror looked upon these exhibitions with no loving eye, since the friars were often uirvvflling to draw the Une betAveen things spiritual and temporal, and made use of theh vast influence to weaken the Imperial authority. All the enthusiasm drawn out by the new ma chinery lately furnished to the Church was only barely sufficient to make head against the heretical sects which swarmed throughout Italy. These pushed theh way into the cities of the Kingdom, such as Naples ; but their chief conquests were achieved in the North. As was the case long after wards with the Huguenots and Puritans, the Paterines made their converts mainly from the middle classes in the towns. The heretical burghers of Como, Mdan, and Cremona spared no pains in proselytising, and entertained theh neophytes most sumptuously. The richest wines and the choicest fruits were used as baits. A pervert would be kept for months in theh houses, and would then be passed on from one city to another, always lodging with the initiated. The Paterine merchants were ever on the look-out for unwary customers, whom they entrapped both temporaUy and sphituaUy. Most of the Lombard and Tuscan cities sent heretical students to Paris for the purpose of learning logic, to be turned against the orthodox faith.f Nor were the Prelates of the * Salimbene. Ric. San Germano. The former says that the Frati Godenti, so well known to students of Dante, arose in 1233. X See the curious letter of Ivo de Narbonne in M. Paris. .. 432 THE HISTORY OF °rx:P' Church itseU always what they seemed ; heresy crept into high places. Thus the Bishop of Parma in 1236 was a concealed Paterine, although he came from Eome. He refused the Sacrament on his death-bed, saying that he had no faith in that religion. ' Why,' it was asked, ' did you take the Bishoprick ? ' ' For the sake of the riches and the honour,' and so he died.* The number of heretics in Italy was in creased by theh brethren who fled from fiery trials on the other side of the Alps. They were here in comparative safety, since no Crusade, hke those in flicted upon France and Germany, was ever launched against Italy ; it was not the interest of the Bopes to exterminate the burghers of Lombardy. But a sud den turn of politics would bring dismay upon the little knots of heretics that had thriven aU through these stormy times. One of the results of the triumph of the Angevin conqueror was, that many Provencals, who had long before fled into Italy for shelter, were sent back in chains to theh Inquisi torial tyrants.^ The Emperor in his day was reviled as an Epi curean and an abettor of heresy. He tried to clear himseU from these charges by issuing edicts against the heretical sects both in the Emphe and in the Kingdom. He denounces them in his Constitutions as men who rend the seamless coat of Christ, who lead astray the sheep from Peter's fold ; wolves in sheep's clothing, snakes that vomit forth poison under the semblance of honey. Arius and Nestorius had given theh names to the sects that followed them ; but these new heretics called themselves Paterines, * Salimbene. f Chronicon. FREDERICK THE SECOND 433 since they pretended to undergo the passion of mar- chap. tyrdom. They offended alike God, their neighbours, IX' and themselves ; careless of their own lives, strange to say, they Avere not overawed by the prospect be fore them. The Neapolitan heretics were most worthy of punishment, since they dared to practise their superstitions close to the seat of the Church. Theh crime was worse than treason ; they were to lose theh hves, their goods, and their reputation. Frederick's officials were ordered to search after them, and to bring them on the very shghtest suspi cion before the Bishops ; if found guilty, the culprits Avere doomed to the stake ; no man might make intercession with the Crown for such wretches. Those Avho favoured them were banished and stripped of theh goods ; the only way in which the reputation of a family inchned to heretical errors could be re stored, was, for a member of it to come forward and denounce some other Paterine. The legislation at Melfi was stern enough, but it did not quite rival the Canons of Toulouse, under which Languedoc was now groaning. StiU Frederick's laws assuredly checked the progress of heresy in Southern Italy. King Boger had long before enacted severe statutes against apostate Christians and robbers of Churches. Usurers were in general looked upon as only inferior in gudt to heretics, having been expressly condemned by the Fathers. The Emperor would not aUoAV any native of his Kingdom, or any sojourner within it, to practise usury ; confiscation of all the goods of the culprit was the penalty, and all borrowers at usurious interest might denounce their creditors in the Courts. In spite of this virtuous indignation, both Frederick and his Bapal enemies were glad to vol. I. F F 434 THE HISTORY OF chap, take up money at a most exorbitant rate, in defiance ' of theh avowed principles. One class alone was excepted from the punishment due to usurers ; the Emperor aUowed the Jews to take ten per cent, since they were not bound by the authority of the Fathers. A few other records of his favour towards the Hebrews remain. Several of them, coming to Palermo from Gerbes in 1239, found themselves unable to agree with theh Sicihan breth ren ; at the request of the strangers, an old man was chosen from among themselves to be their magis trate ; they were aUowed to rebuild any synagogue which had gone to ruin, although a simflar boon Avas refused to the Minorite friars. The Jews had leave to erect theh houses on ground outside the Alcazar of Palermo. They made an offer to improve the Sovereign's plantation of date trees at Favara, if they might have half of the crop for themselves ; they obtained a lease for not longer than ten years. They imported into Frederick's dominions indigo and other plants not known there before ; he allowed them to settle on any lands of his not set apart for his sports. They paid dues for wine and knives, be sides the old Arabic tax of gezia. He foresaw the advantages which would accrue to his realm, if it were thrown open to aU industrious strangers ; a like poUcy has contributed hi no small degree to the greatness of England. The Emperor expressly for bade any compulsion to be used towards the Hebrews when it was proposed to settle them in one body at Palermo ; they might dweU wherever they chose. About the same time, he sent for two men who were to instruct the burghers of Palermo in the mysteries of sugar boiling ; an art which he was unwilhng to FREDERICK THE SECOND 435 let die.* A learned Prince hke Frederick had a still chap. further motive for patronising the children of Israel ; L_ they Avere renowned as translators. One of them, named Antoli, came from Provence to Naples, and there published a version of the Almagest in 1231. In the next year he translated some works of Averr- hoes, ending with an eulogium on Frederick, who had provided him and his family with the means of life. ' God has put the love of learning and of its culti vators into the Emperor's heart ; may He manifest His clemency in the man, whom He has raised above aU the Kings of the earth ! ' The writer hopes that his national Messiah may appear during Frederick's reign. Another Jew, born in Spain, named Judah Cohen Ben Salomon, estabhshed himseU in Italy and corresponded with his patron on hard questions of geometry, Avhich the Emperor was fond of pro posing, f But Frederick regarded his Mohammedan subjects Avith stdl greater favour. His establishment of them at Lucera Avas a scandal to Christendom. They pidled down the Church at Foiano, twenty miles from theh new abode, and carried off the stones and tim ber to budd theh houses. Bope Gregory complained of this outrage in 1232, remarking that too much indulgence was shoAvn to the sons of Behal, whose just doom ought to be slavery, and who ought not to be placed on an equal footing with the children of hght. In the foUowing year, he sent a mission of Dominicans to enlighten this people that dwelt in darkness, requesting the Emperor to water where the Bope had planted. Frederick returned a dutiful * Regesta. f See Breholles' Preface. JP F 2 436 THE HISTORY OF chap, answer, saying that many conversions had already '. taken place ; the Moslem had by this time learnt Italian. He watched over those left in Sicdy most jealously, and endeavoured to allure them from theh native hflls to Palermo and other large towns, promising them his favour. Some of them paid him a certain rent for the use of his sheep ; many of these men ran into arrears, and were therefore seized and set to labour on pubhc works. Frederick was most particular in maintaining his colony at Lucera ; his officers had orders to prevent any of the transplanted Saracens from straying back to their old haunts in Sicily, or from loitering in the Calabrian towns on pretence of business. He sent a thousand oxen to Lucera, for the use of which the Moslem paid a certain sum ; gezia was exacted from every one of them, including the Cadi. They were employed by the Emperor to keep his camels, attend to his wild beasts, and fabricate weapons for his army. The votaries of Islam had been the teachers of his youth ; he stfll hankered after theh lore, while he was embarrassed with the cares of state. Ibn Sabin, a Murcian Mussulman, surnamed Kot- beddin (pole star of the faith), was an author on phdosophical subjects at the early age of fifteen, and afterwards founded a sect, to which he gave his name. While Uving at Ceuta in Africa, he was re quested by Frederick, somewhere about theyear 1240, to solve certain problems, which are called the Sici han Questions. The wise man, hke his correspon dent the Imbhatour of Bourn, was accused of irreli gion by the bigots of his own creed ; he therefore strove to silence his enemies, who in the end drove him into exile, by setting himself up as the haughty FREDERICK THE SECOND 437 champion of Islam against Christian cavillers. Fre- chap. derick had aheady in vain sent his Questions into — Egypt, Syria, Irak, Daroub, Yemen, and Tunis ; no satisfactory solution had come. He then sent them by an Ambassador to Easchid, the Caliph of Spain, who pitched upon Ibn Sabin to solve them. The philo sopher received them with a smile, answered them, and refused the Emperor's proffered guerdon, only desiring the conversion of the Christian. He be sought Adah to turn the learner from the doctrine of vague reasonings, and to bring him to the certainty of truth. Ibn Sabin begins by rebuking the Empe ror for using inexact and obscure language, when treating of points that had puzzled the greatest phi losophers, and for falsely attributing to Aristotle the theory of the world's existence from everlasting. He then lays down the exact meaning of certain Arabic Avords loosely used by Frederick in one Question as to the existence of the world, and he ends by pronouncing that our planet was created. The second Question was, ' What is the end of Theo logy, and what are the prehminary theories indis pensable to it?' Ibn Sabin quotes largely from Aristotle, but answers that the preliminaries re quired are doctrine and works, and that their subject is the Koran. ' The best thing,' writes the Moslem, ' would be to have a personal interview with you ; for your questions prove that you know not the sciences, and that you have not tasted speculative doctrines, though you deshe to walk in the way of truth. If you cannot come to me yourseU, you might send a man of scholastic attainments, who is in your confidence. You must know that aU these questions of yours are already known here, better 438 THE HISTORY OF chap, than a beacon fire. Another time you must throw T-y- ! them into a more obscure form ; for we have Mus sulman doctors, sharper than swords or scissors, men who are not true philosophers, but mere wiseacres ; these men are not versed in these discussions, and they conclude that both the questioner and the re spondent are fools. If these men knew that I had answered this part of your Questions, they would regard me as they do the problems ; and then I might escape or not, as Allah might direct' The third Question was on the subject of the Ten Categories, theh use, and their real number. Ibn Sabin sees clearly that Frederick is one of the crowd void of intelligence, and moreover unable to explain his own meaning. The teacher goes on, in a strain provokingly pedantic and dogmatical, to complain of the feeble capacity, inexperience, and obtuseness of the Imperial student, who contradicted himseU. He then answers Frederick's Question as to the soul and as to the proof of its immortality, by sending the questioner to the Koran, the Pentateuch, the Gospel, the Psalms, the Sohofs, Plato, Socrates, and Aristotle. He discusses Mohammed's words ; ' The heart of the believer is betAveen two fingers of the Merciful' The whole ends with a wish expressed by the Mussulman, that he may have an opportunity of speaking mouth to mouth with the Christian.* The reputation of the sage was weU known at Eome, where the Bope himself avowed that no Mussulman knew God better than did Ibn Sabin. Having so much intercourse with the Moslem * Amari found the ' Sicilian Questions ' in the Bodleian Li brary. FREDERICK THE SECOND 439 Princes and philosophers, Frederick naturally wished chap, to keep up the knoAvledge of Arabic in his domi- — nions. Two of the slaves at his Court bore the Eastern names of Mosca and Marzuch ; a third, Ab- daUah, learned to read and write the Saracen charac ter, Avhde the cost of his board and education was defrayed by his master.* In the medical schools at Salerno, the Arabs were taught in theh own language ; Avhile the Latins, the Greeks, and the Hebrews were equally favoured. Even Avomen, it is said, profited by the teaching of the various professors, and gained a reputation for themselves by their lectures and writings.'!" The Emperor himself was most attentive to sanitary matters, forbidding any physician to prac tise, who could not produce testimonials from the board at Salerno and a hcense from the Court. The examination of the surgeon-expectant, as it seems, ex tended to his own pohtical principles and to those of his family. No one might give lectures on medicine, except at Naples or Salerno. J The Masters in physic at the latter University licensed two men in each town throughout the Kingdom to sell electuaries and syrups ; any fraudulent dealings on the part of the Masters involved a capital sentence ; an oath was taken by aU druggists to compound theh medicines with due heed. Frederick allowed no physician to practise Avithout three years' study of logic, and five years' study of medicine and surgery ; the practitioner was sworn to denounce all foul play * Regesta. f Von Raumer. X The physician of Philip Augustus, quoted by Tiraboschi, speaks thus of Salerno : ' Urbs Phoebo sacrata, Minerva; sedula nutrix, Fons physicee, pugil eucrasias, cultrix medicines.' 440 THE HISTORY OF chap, attempted by druggists, and to give advice gratis to the poor. Every patient must be visited twice a day, and once in the night should he wish it, paying half a taren of gold each day ; eight times as much was the fee for a patient dwelling beyond the city walls. The price of the druggists' wares was regulated with nice adjustment. The Emperor, being himself an author on medical subjects, was most particular in prescribing the study of Hippocrates, Galen, and anatomy. He knew by experience the virtues of the baths of Pozzuoli, and we find him sending his sick German squire thither in 1240. Other sciences besides medicine were cultivated at Frederick's Court. One of the leading men there was Theodore, styled the Emperor's Philosopher. He it was who translated into Arabic his master's correspondence with the Sovereigns of Africa. He condescended to prepare syrups and sugar for the Imperial table.* He was also versed in mathematics, and pretended to skill in astrology ; but he some times met with his match. During the siege of Brescia in 1238, Theodore had posed certain friars with hard questions which they could not answer. Brother Poland of Cremona, hearing of this, cried, ' Saddle me an ass.' He was not to be kept back by the gout which tormented him ; he instantly chal lenged his enemy in the face of all the Court. ' Master Theodore,' said the Domim'can, ' that you may know that the Order of Preachers has its philosophers, I give you your choice ; either start objections, or make answer, on any phdosophical subject.' Theodore chose the former part ; and * Regesta for 1240. FREDERICK THE SECOND 441 Boland, who answered, had so much the best of the chap. argument, that the Avhole affair turned out to the great glory of the Order.* A more illustrious sage than Theodore now and then appeared at the Emperor's Court. A Pisan, acting as consul for the merchants of his city at Bougie, had his son Leonard brought to him in Africa. There the youth learnt aU that Egypt, Syria, Greece, or Provence could teach in mathe matics. He included in his studies Euclid and the use of the Hindoo numerals. Leonard Fibonacci grew up, and had the lot of most benefactors of mankind, being nicknamed by his Pisan countrymen BigoUone, or the Fool. He wrote his treatise on the Abacus in 1202, the second edition of which he dedicated to Michael Scott in 1228, at the request of that worthy. In this work he pointed out the close connexion between arithmetic and geometry, and enjoined dady study on his disciples. He also mentioned the mysterious Elcataym, the Algebra so weU known to us, which Leonard was the first to introduce into Christendom. Another work he dedicated to Theodore, ' the highest Bhilosopher of the Imperial Court,' asking him at the same time to correct and prune the treatise. Cardinal Eegnier of Viterbo was a frequent correspondent, who took a keen interest in Leonard's problems. But the chief patron of the Bisan sage was the Emperor himseU. To him Leonard addressed his Treatise on Square Numbers, which has lately been brought to hght When Frederick was at Pisa, he heard an arith metical problem proposed by John of Palermo, * Salanhacus in Echard. 442 THE HISTORY OF chap, which cost the ffreat mathematician much research. IX ! Leonard wrote to his Imperial jpatron, rejoicing that Frederick had deigned to read the treatise on the Abacus, and had taken pleasure in subtle mathe matical questions. Eobertino, a squire of the Em peror's, carried problems and theh answers to and fro between the master and the pupil* These details prove the readiness of Frederick to meet aU men, whether they caUed themselves Chris tians, Jews, or Mohammedans, on the common ground of learning. He was wdling to sink all differences, whether religious or pohtical, for the promotion of the sciences. Bologna was his bitter enemy; yet in 1232 he sent to her renowned Uni versity certain translations into Latin of Aristotle's works on logic and mathematics, made by the Impe rial orders. ' We have ahvays,' he writes, ' loved knowledge from our youth ; whatever time we can steal from State affahs we cheerfuUy dechcate to reading the many volumes stored in our hbrary. We have stripped the works written by the Greek and Arabic phdosophers of their old garb ; we have had them translated by chosen men, maintaining faithfully the virginity of the words. We do not wish to keep these all to ourselves ; you are the first to whom we send them, since you are the iUustrious nurslings of phUosophy, who skiUuUy draw new waters out of old cisterns. Do you make them public for the use of students, to the glory of your friend Cassar.' At this very time he was fostering a rival to Bologna. He had issued, so early as 1224, his * Boncompagni, on Leonardo Pisano. FREDERICK THE SECOND 443 edicts in behalf of his iicav University at Naples, chap. Avhich had no slight influence in making that city U the capital of the realm, after the lapse of a few years. He thought it, as he says, only proper that the lieges of rich Sicily should not beg for learning in foreign parts, but that they should have a table set before them at home. His forefathers had drawn even foreigners to theh Sicilian schools. He there fore, wishing to restore the Kingdom to its old splen dour, had pitched upon Naples as the future seat of learning, praising it for the purity of its faith and for the pleasantness of its site. Masters and scholars were ahke invited to the proffered banquet. Sicily should be as eminent for learning as for fruitfulness. The arts and sciences had too long lain dormant, during the King's disastrous minority. Naples, as the ancient mother and home of learning, easily approached by sea and abounding in the wealth of earth, would be grateful ahke to teachers and to learners. Bishops, Barons, Judges and aU ranks, were invited to aid the good work. The service of God and the practice of justice Avere the two great objects in view. Eiches and honours would be showered upon the students, Avho had long hungered after the learning which had been denied them at home. Provisions in plenty, roomy haUs, and a hearty greeting from kindly Naples awaited the scholars, and the Emperor would heap gifts upon those worthy of them. ' We keep the students,' he says, ' within view of their parents ; we save them many tods and long foreign journeys ; we protect them from robbers ; they used to be pillaged while travelling abroad, they may now study with smaU cost and short wayfaring, thanks to our liberality.' 444 OF HISTORY THE chap. Peter of Isernia, a famous Professor of law, who had IX rendered many services both to the Emperor and to the Emperor's father, was specially invited to Naples, and was promised a yearly pension of twelve ounces of gold. Eoffrid of Benevento, a most voluminous writer, was also named Professor of Civd Law. Fre derick's Officials were ordered to prevent any of his subjects from going to study abroad ; all emigrant scholars, natives of the Kingdom, must return by Michaelmas. Naples was to have a monopoly of learning ; grammar schools indeed were barely tole rated, where the hungry chddren of science might begin to suck ; but solid meat must be sought at Naples alone. There all the learned faculties might be cultivated; the scholars were protected in their persons and property ; the cost of their lodging would be fixed at a certain rate ; two ounces of gold a year would be the very highest sum asked. Loans would be advanced to them, i£ they chose to pledge their books, and to swear that they would not give their creditors the shp. There was no need to regulate the price of corn, wine, meat, and fish, in so plentiful a city as Naples was. But the new University almost perished at its bhth, when the troubles broke out in 1229. Five years later, the Emperor had leisure to restore his beloved foundation.* He turned his attention to Bologna, the only rival that Naples had any cause to dread. He stooped to court the alhance of his old enemies, the Eomagnole Guelfs. ' We wish our knights,' he says, ' to understand arms and not laws ; we also wish to adorn our throne with learned men * Ric. San Germano. FREDERICK THE SECOND 445 of every profession. Do you then help us in restoring chap our University, since we are gathering there doctors 1_ in theology, professors of each branch of law, and masters of aU the liberal arts. Next September (1235) Ave hope that our scholars will begin their studies, and Ave invite you, as men of experience, to our University ; you wiU have a warm welcome from our kindly subjects.' About the same time Frederick sent a famous Professor of Civil Law to the Univer sity of Vercelh, a high proof of favour. A feAV years later, while carrying on a desperate war in Lombardy, the Emperor was not unmindful of his Neapohtan scholars. The University had sent two envoys to his feet, whose requests he granted in 1239, in spite of theh inopportune appearance. Instead of suppressing the foundation, as he had intended, he now threw open its haUs to aU his subjects of the Kingdoms of Jerusalem and Sicily, invited the Trans- alpines and all the inhabitants of Upper Italy, and only excepted eight rebel cities, together with all abettors of the Papal power. He went on to advise the gownsmen to live in peace with the townsmen, for the University of Naples seems to have resembled her Northern sisters in pugnacity. Andrew of Cicala was ordered to see that the students were not har assed by the officials. Bartholomew Pignatelh of Brindisi was raised by the Emperor to a chair, and ' was licensed to explain the Decretals. The death of Walter of Ascoli, who had taught grammar in the Uni versity, was likened by Beter de Vinea to an eclipse of the sun. John of Barma, one of the most daring speculators of the age, lectured on theology at Naples before his promotion to the Generalship of the Fran ciscan Order in 1247. Sicdy was in the mean time 446 THE HISTORY OF chap, enlightened by Friar Gerardino of San Donino, ' who taught grammar. It was this Minorite who long afterwards composed the strange book called the Everlasting Gospel, that supplement to the reve lations of Abbot Joachim which threw the whole of the rehgious world into confusion, and Avas condemned by Eome.* Incidental notices also occur of the course of study pursued by children. It was the custom at Monte Cassino to receive the young nobility of the Kingdom at a very early age ; each came attended by his own tutor, and began to study logic and the natural sciences. The httle Thomas Aquinas was sent to the Convent when only five years old ; he got on so fast that his parents were advised by the Abbot to trans fer the child to Naples. He there studied grammar and logic under Master Martin, whde Beter of Isernia was Ms tutor in natural science, f The Greek phi losopher, to whose writings the future Schoolman became so partial, was now once more coming into vogue. Aristotle, condemned at first by the Church, was soon embraced as her cherished teacher. His works were brought into Western Christendom from two different quarters. He had long been a favourite in the Moslem colleges of Spain, and had been com mented upon by Avicenna. The Christian student used to seek Cordova and Toledo ; and there, sur rounded by Jewish or Arabic assistants, he trans lated the Stagirite's works into Latin for the use of the West. But scholars, whose appetites had been whetted by these translations, soon had recourse to * Salimbene settles the point as to the authorship of the Book. f Ptol. Lucensis. Gul. de Tocco. FREDERICK THE SECOND 447 the original Greek. Paris and Constantinople had chap. been brought into close connexion by the issue of — li the Fourth Crusade. The Dominicans and Francis cans were ever running to and fro between the East and the West on the errands of Eome. It is not sur prising that they Avere eager importers of Aristotle, whose works were by degrees tacitly adopted by the Church. The University of Paris had been at first the enemy of the new learning ; she was now the enemy of the begging friars. Albert the Great, the famous Dominican, became the ablest commentator on the Greek phdosopher, although working upon a vilely corrupt text ; the master Avas foUowed by his pupil, Thomas Aquinas, avIio had access to far better manuscripts.* Eoger Bacon, our great Franciscan, was an ardent admirer of Aristotle, and hfted up his voice against the bad translations, only fit for the fire, Avhich 'were made by pretenders ignorant alike of Greek, Hebrew, and Arabic. Ignorance of the first of these languages was inexcusable ; it was still widely spoken in Southern Italy. This is plain from the fact, that Greek charters were sometimes brought to the Emperor, the benefactions of his Norman forefathers, which he confirmed, making use of the Latin language. He even found it advisable to pub lish a Greek version of his Constitutions. After his death, the Greek began to die out, and the Ecclesias tical authorities deemed it needful to have Latin translations made of their ancient Charters, f The Judges and Notaries of Eeggio boasted of their skid in both tongues. Still, the old Greek long main tained its sway. We hear that there were Greek * Jourdain. f ra Xariva teal ra ypa'iKa ovtojq XaKovvTa. 448 THE HISTORY OF chap. Archbishops and Abbots from the Kingdom of SicUy ' present at the Second Council of Lyons, many years after the Emperor's death* ; and Eoger Bacon asserts that even in his day the title of Magna Graxia, con ferred upon a part of Italy, was no misnomer. The greatest English scholar in the time of Fre derick was Eobert Grosseteste. There may have been a connexion between the Emperor and the Bishop of Lincoln ; letters on pubhc affahs certainly passed between them, and we know that it was to Italy that the Enghshman sent for books and for men who un derstood Greek. ' The only thing that has been really done for the last seventy years,' says Eoger Bacon, 'is the translation of St. Dionysius, Damascenus, and other books by Grosseteste. 'f The same author tells us that his ' glorious Bishop ' knew mathematics and perspective, and had books of grammar brought from Greece.J The reputation of English authors was widely spread on the continent. Frederick was delighted on receiving a copy of the new romance of Palamedes, composed in England, on one of King Arthur's knights. He had fuU beUef in the prophe cies of Merlin, and encouraged a writer of the name of Eichard to translate them from Latin into French, ' that knights and other laymen might understand them better and take example from them.'§ The Emperor himseU had an interest in them ; Merlin had declared ; ' The Second Frederick shall be of an unhoped-for and wonderful origin.' Many connected this prophecy with the mysteries that hung about the birth at Jesi. The dark sentences of the sooth- * Bail's Summa Conciliorum. f Compendium Studii. X Opus Tertium. ^Breholles' Preface. FREDERICK THE SECOND 449 saver shake our faith in the gift he Avas supposed to chap. possess, more especially Avhen Ave find him allotting ' — two-and-seventy years of prosperity to the Emperor. It Avas an age of insatiable curiosity as to the hidden future ; Frederick's father had, forty years before, induced Abbot Joachim to write commentaries on the Old Testament prophecies, Merlin, and the Sibyls. The greatest preachers and logicians of the time pored over the books of the renowned Calabrian seer.* Sahmbene, as wise as most men of his cen tury, eagerly devoured any prophetical writings ; of aU the ten Sibyls, he could find only the Erythrasan and the Tiburtine prophetesses, whom he searched for information as to Frederick's hfe. The friar re hearses with awe the sixty hues ascribed to Michael Scott, threatening dire woes to almost every city in Lombardy. The name of this renowned soothsayer is better known to us in connection with Melrose Abbey and the Eildon HiUs than with his real abodes, the clois ters of Castde and the Court of Apuha. After having studied at Oxford and Paris, Michael betook himself to Toledo. His earUest work, a treatise on the Sphere of Alpetronji, bears the date of 1217. This was foUowed by several translations from Averrhoes. In 1224, Scott's reputation was so weU established, that Pope Honorius gave him leave to hold two benefices in England. Donat O'Lonargan resigned the Archbishoprick of Cashel in that year, and Honorius was eager to place the great scholar in the vacant see ; Scott refused it on the ground of his not knowing Irish.f Among the first letters * Salimbene. X Regesta of Honorius, MSS. in the British Museum. VOL. I. 0 0 450 THE HISTORY OF chap, written by Gregory on his election in 1227, was one Ix to Archbishop Langton in the interest of Master Michael Scott, who, as the Bope says, had not been content with Latin hterature, but had toiled at Hebrew and Arabic. So iUustrious a scholar, who had abandoned aU for the sake of learning, ought to be rewarded with a suitable benefice.* On the other hand, both Albert the Great and Eoger Bacon accuse Scott of the grossest ignorance. Michael dedicated to Frederick a translation of Avicenna's work upon Animals, with the fervent wish that it might be an ornament to the head and a chain to the neck of the Lord of Earth. Another work on Physiognomy by Scott, composed at Frederick's request, Avas one of the first manuscripts to be printed. f The wise man, it is said, knew that he should die by a small stone of a certain weight dropping on his head. To avert his doom, he invented the iron covering for the head known as the cervellier. But one day, being in Church, he uncovered his head at the elevation of the Host ; a stone feU on him, which he caused to be weighed. On learning its weight, he settled aU his worldly affairs and awaited his end, which soon came.J AU sorts of tales about the Astrologer were long current in Italy. Thus the Emperor, it is said, once asked Michael Scott, what was the distance from the chamber where they were sitting to the sky. After being answered, he took the wise man with him to another part of the Kingdom, and in the mean time had the roof of the chamber lowered, so that the change was almost imperceptible. * Regesta MSS. in the British Museum. + Jourdain. X Fran. Pipin. Dante's lines upon Scott are well known. FREDERICK THE SECOND 451 When this Avas done, Frederick brought back his chap, TV" friend to the old place, and asked him if his former 1. reckoning Avas right. Michael went tlirough some calculations, and then said, that either the sky had been raised or at any rate the earth had been lowered. Another time, the Emperor took it into his head to investigate the origin of language. He had certain babies brought up, enjoining the nurses not to speak or caress their charges. But Frederick was disap pointed in his wish to know whether the chilchen would speak Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Arabic, or mo dern Itahan ; they aU died, since they missed the luUabies and nursery rhymes. A third experiment was made on the digestive powers of mankind ; two men were treated to a very good meal ; then one was sent to sleep, another to hunt ; in the evening Frede rick had them both ripped open in his presence, and the medical men decided that the sleeper had digested his food the best.* These are samples of the legends about the Apuhan Court, which were carried into the North and there retaded to lovers of the marvellous. The Emperor certainly had some knowledge of phy sic; thus in his Constitutions he avowed that to those who searched into truth and the nature of things it seemed a frivolous or rather fabulous notion, that the minds of men could be moved to love or hatred by meat or drink. He was a ddigent student of aU sciences, both earthly and heavenly ; his mind, ever busy, Avas compared to the swift motion of the wind. His contemporaries attributed his wondrous faculties to the arts of the astrologers and necromancers, in whom he delighted. His mathematical studies, so * Salimbene. g g 2 452 THE HISTORY OF chap, his enemies declared, were meant to raise human ! nature to the level of Divine knowledge.* TheGueUs denounced him as an Epicurean, who searched the Scriptures in the hope of upsetting the existence of a future state.f The doctrine of Transubstantiation was too tempting a subject to be spared by a scoffer. After hearing a solemn mass, the Emperor was asked by a Moslem Brince, what was the thing hfted up by the priest and adored by aU the Christians so rever ently. 'The priests say that it is our God.' 'Were your God as large as a mountain,' answered the Moslem, ' he Avould long ago have been eaten up by your priests, since they devour him dady in the mass. Put away this hateful superstition, or it will defile all your glory.' One day, riding through a corn field in the Bhineland, Frederick cried, ' 0, how many Gods wdl be made out of this corn in my time ! 'J On another occasion he saw a priest carry- the Host to a sick man. ' How long,' the Emperor remarked, ' is this mummery to last ? '§ It is to be remembered that the Latin theory as to the Lord's Supper was now for the first time stamped with the ftdl authority of the Church and surrounded with new mysteries. Bope Innocent enforced the doctrine by his Lateran decrees ; Bope Honorius first ordered the priests to hold the Eucharist before theh breasts, whenever it was carried to the sick, and to have tapers borne before it ; || Pope Gregory first ordered the bed to be rung at the elevation of the Hostel But Frederick had a greater taste for the mys- * Saba Malaspina. We must bear in mind, that so learned a prince had not been seen in Italy for four hundred years. X Salimbene. J Vitoduranus, § Alb. Trium Fontium. || Salimbene. ^ Vita Gregorii. FREDERICK THE SECOND 453 teries of Nature than for those of Eehgion. There chap. Avas a man in Sicdy named Nicholas, upon whom IX' his mother had once called down a curse, that he might eA'er live in the water and seldom come to land. The Emperor had often made this man clive in the Faro ; Avishing to knoAV if the bottom had been reached, Frederick threw his golden cup into the deepest part, which the diver brought back. A second attempt being proposed, Nicholas said : ' Do not send me thither, for the sea is so disturbed, that I shaU never return; there are rocks, and many wrecked ships, and huge fish at the bottom.' But Frederick would make him dive again, and Nicholas never came up. These tales, and many more, were brought into Northern Italy by the friars of Messina, one of whom Avas Sahmbene's cousin. Towards the end of the century, Eomagnole mothers used to frighten their naughty children into silence by a re ference to Nicholas the Fish.* Frederick delighted in sculpture, painting, and architecture, and gathered around him aU the choicest works of art he could find. Like most collectors of rarities, he was very unscrupulous ; Eavenna and Grotta Ferrata had to yield up theh treasures, in order that Lucera and Balermo might be embeUished. Even in the midst of a costly war, he found a large sum of money to lay out upon an onyx and other jewels, sold to him by some Bro vencal merchants. He bought from the Venetian traders a sculptured throne, together with more rich furniture.'!' He also seized upon the most prized gems of the Churches and convents in the Kingdom. But un- 'ov * Fran. Pipin. f Regesta. 454 THE HISTORY OF chap, happily he had httle respect for the monuments of ' antiquity ; the Greek temples were too often de spoiled by the Norman Bishops and Barons, in order to erect new Churches and Castles. Great havoc was thus made at Ghgenti and in various places on the Calabrian coast ; Frederick himself budt a stronghold at Brindisi, when on the eve of his Cru sade, with the stones of old Eoman aqueducts, the atres, and shrines ; which accounts for the fact that very few antiquities are now left in that famous city. Its spoliation was avenged three centuries later by the Spanish Viceroy, who in his turn pulled down the finest buildings left by the Suabian Emperor.* Saracen art found more favour, than did the Greek remains, in Frederick's eyes. He had many Sicilian palaces, the work of the Arabs, and we find him writing to forbid the planting of vineyards too near the curious Ziza at Balermo. But he usually pre ferred to dweU on the mainland. The Eastern coast of Apuha was studded with his castles and hunting lodges, such as that at Lago Pesole ; from these he salhed forth to the chase in the forest of Incoronata. A single arch, decked with the Imperial Eagles, is aU that is left of the Palace at Foggia, budt in 1223, as we learn from the inscription. The Castel del Monte near Anchia, the most perfect remaining in Italy, was completed shortly after 1240, being built on the site of an older fortress of the Nor mans. Its thick walls are pierced with loopholes and flanked by eight towers, each standing at an angle. Eight grand vaulted haUs are stfll in being, decked * Von Raumer. IX. FREDERICK THE SECOND 455 Avith marbles of different colours, and with the re- chap. mains of mosaics. The windows, one of which over the entrance gate recalls the triforium of Westminister Abbey, are finely sculptured, commanding a wide view ; the reservoirs for water are weU contrived, Avith a noble cistern in the court. Painting was largely employed in the decoration of Frederick's mansions, although Cimabue, the reputed father of the art, was not born until towards the close of the Em peror's reign. In the Palace at Naples, the Monarch was painted sitting on his throne, and addressing his kneeling subjects, bidding them take their lawsuits to the tribunal of Peter de Vinea, who was seated near.* This picture was probably a fresco, of the age and style of those painted on the walls of the old Palace of Westminster. If the halls of Naples were adorned by the hmner, the fortress of Capua Avas decked by the sculptor. Its front, commanding the bridge over the Voltorno, was flanked by two huge towers, and was ornamented with statues, bas- reliefs, marbles, and alabaster. Frederick was repre sented in his CroAvn and robes, with one arm out stretched, the other resting on his knee ; the two pillars of his realm, Peter de Vinea and Thaddeus of Sessa, were on either hand, with Latin verses beneath each statue. The Castle of Capua kindled the admiration of the foreign soldiery, who passed through the city on theh way to overthrow Frede rick's heir ; but it was demohshed three hundred years ago.f The Emperor, Ave have said, was a great builder ; he drew out the plan of new cities with his own hand ; many owed their origin to him, * Fran. Pipin. f Breholles' Preface. 456 THE HISTORY OF chap, as we learn from Jamsflla. Thus he founded Alta- IX" mura, and dedicated its Church to the Virgin. He appointed one of his clerks Archpriest in 1232, re serving aU future coUations to himself and his suc cessors. No Bishop, except the Bope, was aUowed to meddle with this new city. Frederick budt Monte- leone in Calabria, and on finding that there were no lands around for its inhabitants to till, he endeavoured to effect an exchange with the neighbouring Bishops and Barons. Another of his foundations was Eraclea in Sicily ; the citizens were allowed to pay their rent in corn, and a quay was budt for them by the Em peror at the cost of a thousand tarens, so that boats could easily be unloaded there. He peopled these cities by despotic means, forcing men to quit their old homes and to dwell in his new creations. Li this way he built two new vdlages near Ghgenti, while his own hunting lodge was constructed hard by, on the banks of a fountain. The old cities of Centorbi and Capizzi were destroyed in 1233 to punish their rebellion ; the burghers were ordered to transfer themselves to Balermo ; but these commands had to be enforced by fines even seven years later. At this time the new city of Agosta was founded, and named after its builder ; to it were removed many substan tial burghers, who stfll retained vineyards near theh native Catania ; Augustus allowed them to visit their old homes at stated seasons, provided they left their families at Agosta, Avhich must not be forsaken. The letting of its granaries, mdls, and meadows was at first mismanaged. The officials took advantage of the unsettled tenure of land ; one at Trapani pre sumed to -sell Frederick's free gifts to the new comers, making them pay two Augustals a head. The Emr FREDERICK THE SECOND 457 peror founded Melehuch and BetroUa on the main- chap. land, in the district of Otranto ; but the men whom 1_ he wished to settle there got off by bribing the offi cials, at Avhich the neighbouring Barons connived ; his Avrath broke out in two rebukes addressed to the Justiciary.* In 1235, he endeavoured to repeople the old toAvn of Cuma, destroyed by the Neapolitans dur ing his minority ; he sent thither many Avho belonged to his domain land.f The contrast between the state of Northern and Southern Italy at this time is still further marked by the emigration of several Lom bards under Otho of Camarana in 1237. They came before Frederick at Brescia, and represented to him that they were weary of constant war and oppression ; he removed them at their prayer into Sicily, and settled them at last on his rich domain lands at Cor- leone, granting them the right of pasture and of cutting down wood to build their houses. Such emi grants paid no taxes for ten years after their arrival. Twelve years later, Frederick transferred his Lom bard colony to Militello, and endowed them with the privileges of Norman law. In 1240, he provided for the defence of his Kingdom by founding Aquda in the Abruzzi, hoping by this means to block up that road so often trodden by invaders, traitors, and robbers. Pope Gregory had already entertained the idea of budding this new city ; Frederick named it after his ensign, and endowed it with the neighbour ing lands and woods : aU vassals who fled to it were safe from theh lords, to whom however a fixed com pensation was made ; the towers within its hmits were to be destroyed. Aquda might fortify itself with * Regesta. t Ric. San Germano. 458 THE HISTORY OF chap. waUs of a certam height, and hold two fairs in each IX ' — year. The Emperor, as usual, ordered a castle to be budt for himself at the cost of the burghers. While he was issuing his orders about the roofs, tiles, staircases, and frescoes of his Southern castles, demanding an exact account of the length, breadth, and strength of the new erections, the Northern half of the peninsula was making but httle progress in architecture. It gave but a cold welcome to the beautiful pointed style which had long prevailed in France and had become naturalised in England. Cardinal Gualo Bicchieri had indeed employed an Enghsh architect when building a new church at Vercelli in 1219 ; and another church at Asti, begun about ten years later, shows those long, nar row, pointed windows, repeated later at Arezzo, in which our own country abounds. The German buildings at Assisi, the dehght of Pope Gregory and Brother Ehas, also show the lancet windows ; but these churches are far more remarkable for their paintings than for theh architecture. The Cathedral of Siena, a city ever faithful to Frederick, Avas begun seven years before his death. Grand as it undoubt edly is, it is far surpassed by many cathedrals on this side of the Alps ; we cannot reconcile our Northern eyes to the huge, plain, circular window of the West front, and to the strange intermixture of round and pointed, however marvellous may be the beauty of the niches and pinnacles. The sister Ca thedral of Orvieto was begun much later in the century, soon to be foUoAved by that of Florence. Borne, well-stocked with churches that reach back to the earhest ages of triumphant Christianity, had no need of any new style, and furnished no example FREDERICK THE SECOND 459 of Thirteenth century architecture, if we except the chap, Basilica of San Lorenzo beyond the walls, thoroughly restored by Pope Honorius, and the noble Tribune of San Paolo with its mosaics, unhappily the only part of that church which has been spared by a late disastrous fire.* If Frederick gave but httle coun tenance to church-building in the North, he atoned for this by the number of castles he budt for his Vicars and Captains. Lombardy, Tuscany, and Eo- magna were overawed by his many fortresses ; he Avas anxious to have a Palace or a Castle in every city that owned Ids sway.*!" Among the arts cultivated with success at the Apuhan Court was poetry. Frederick's Kingdom Avas indeed full of local memories, recaUing the past triumphs of the godhke art. The tongue of Bion and Theocritus was stiU spoken in Sicily and Calabria. Few lands possess associations which can rival those linked for ever with the banks of the Ofanto, the cool streams of Sulmona, the tomb look ing clown upon Naples, the town of Aquino. The first great epoch of Itahan song had long passed away ; but its second age was now about to dawn. The supremacy of the Latin, as the language of the learned, was being invaded by her daughter. Al ready, towards the end of the previous century, CiuUo of Alcamo had written poems in the Sicihan dialect. St. Francis had made the vulgar tongue the vehicle of rehgious rapture ; but it received its great impetus at the hands of Frederick and his corn-tiers. The most renowned master, who ever wielded the re sources of the modern Italian, acknowledged his * F. Pipin. f Salimbene. 460 THE HISTORY OF chap, country's debt to this Emperor. ' The illustrious !__ heroes, Frederick Caesar and his noble son Manfred, followed after elegance and scorned what was mean ; so that aU the best compositions of the time came out of their Court. Thus, because their Eoyal throne was in Sicily, all the poems of our predecessors in the vulgar tongue were caUed Sicihan.' * And Dante, who was born Uttle more than fourteen years after Frederick's death, was weU able to appreciate the fostering cares of the Imperial bard. Indeed it seemed at one time as if Palermo, and not Florence, was to be the cradle of the sweet Italian tongue. The Emperor himself was a poet, who had an eye not only for the charms of his sovereign lady, ' the flower of all flowers, the rose of May,' but also for the beauties of Nature — a source of inspiration commonly despised by the Troubadours of the middle ages.f In his days we find the first traces of the poetical crown, which Petrarch long afterwards inherited. There was a bard living near Ancona, who bore the title of the King of Verses, and who received the * Dante, De vulgari eloquio. f I give a specimen of Frederick's rhymes from the Parnaso Italiano, where five poems of his may be found : — ' Per voi son gioioso, Gaio ed amoroso, Viso prezioso, D'amore lezioso. Pregovi, Donna mia, Per vostra cortesia, E pregovi che sia Quello, che lo core disia.' Six hundred years have made very little change in the Italian language. The old orthography is preserved in the ballads quoted by Cherrier and by the editors of Salimbene. FREDERICK THE SECOND 461 honour of coronation at Frederick's hands shortly chap, IX after 1220, with all due solemnity. This poet, how- !_ ever, soon retired from the world, being converted by St. Francis himself. We may further mention the names of Patecelo, Salimbene, and that myste rious SordeUo, as Lombard composers in the vulgar tongue. Alcadino, a doctor at Salerno, made epi grams at Frederick's instance on the baths of Pozzu- oli, and also Avrote in his patron's praise.* The Emperor's sons, Enzio, Conrad, and above all, Man fred, have bequeathed to us poems in Itahan and German. Peter de Vinea has left us the earhest specimen of the Itahan sonnet. Einaldo of Aquino, James of Lentini, Inglulfredi of Palermo, and the two Colonnas of Messina, were poets who flourished in Frederick's reign. The pohtical ballad, which had hitherto been couched in Latin, took its vernacular form rather later in the century, almost exactly at the moment when it underwent a like transforma tion into the vidgar tongue of England. The Itahan muse made her first efforts in this style both in behaU of and against ConracUn, the Emperor's ill- starred grandson, who was himself a poet.f I From aU this it wfll be clear that Commerce, N\ Learning, and Art were basking in the smdes of a Patron, such as they had not had since the age of Charlemagne and Alfred. Every branch of knoAv- ledge was starting into hfe, after a sleep that had lasted for centuries. The clerks of Paris were no longer to enjoy a monopoly. The tide of enquiry, awakened early in the Thirteenth century, flowed on without a check to the age of the Beformation, which alone * Tiraboschi. f See the poems in the Appendix of Cherrier. 462 THE HISTORY OF chap, can be compared to Frederick's era. In both periods L_ we find the same appeal to antiquity, the same thhst for classic lore, the same development of national tendencies, the same daring speculations in rehgion, the same homage paid to artistic novelties. Those who take pleasure in historical paradels wUl find a curious resemblance between Charles the FUth and his Suabian predecessor in many points ; for instance, both of them coveted the glories of authorship. But the performances of Charles were not aUowed to see the hght, whfle the bolder Frederick gave to the world a Latin treatise on the art of hawking. He begs pardon in his Preface for a few barbarous terms he is driven to use, since he can find no Latin words to express his meaning. He begins with his reasons for preferring hawking to aU other kinds of sport. He classifies bhds, and treats gene raUy of their habits, describing in particular a white cockatoo sent to him by the Sultan of Caho. The Emperor next gives a careful description of the mem bers of bhds, theh beaks, wings, talons, and interior organization. He goes on to treat of theh various methods of flying, fighting, and moulting. In his second Book, he writes on bhds of prey, quoting Pliny, and having the courage sometimes to differ from Aristotle. He extols the Gerfalcon of Iceland above all other feathered fowl, deriving the first syl lable of its name from the Greek. The nests, incu bation, migration, plumage, and digestion of hawks are described ; also the way to capture, tame, and carry them; the falconer must be a man endowed with many special qualifications. Several chapters of the book are devoted to the causes which prompt the bhds to flap theh wings, when on the pole. The FREDERICK THE SECOND 463 Emperor claims the merit of havhig introduced into chap. Europe the hood to cover the falcon's eyes ; the — Eastern Sultans had sent their best falconers to him when he was in theh country, and he had thus learnt many things.* The treatise of the Imperial author, AAtith some additions by his son Manfred, has often been printed, and is stdl cited Avith respect. In the noble had at Frankfort, Avhich is adorned with the portraits of every one of the German Cassars, Frede rick is painted with a haAvk on his wrist. He was once summoned to submit by the Khan of the Tar tars, who Avas then ravaging the frontiers of the Em pire. Cassar was offered any post he might choose for himseU at the barbarous Court ; he laughed, and said he knew enough of bhds to take the place of Grand Falconer.f The book, upon which he rested his hterary fame, proves that he succeeded far better in Latin prose than in verse ; the Latin hnes ascribed to him, to say the truth, are below the rhyming jingles of the dudest monk. He should have wooed the Itahan Muse, and none other. But it is Frederick's private hfe that most attracts our curiosity. We care httle for a monkish descrip tion of the great Emperor, as he enters some city of his dominions with the gold-embroidered canopy borne above his head, while the Barons and Abbots of the neighbourhood welcome him with joy and banqueting. J We would fain know more of his every-day hfe ; what rude things were said to his * Albertus Magnus, in his treatise on hawks, quotes largely from William, a Sicilian falconer. X Alb. Trium Fontium. X Chron. Neritinum for 1225. One of these Imperial canopies may still be seen at Ratisbon. 464 THE HISTORY OF chap, face by the friars from the pulpit ; how Bianca IX" Lancia first attracted his notice ; how much he ready believed of his rehgion ; what efforts were made to trip up his great minister. A few scattered notices may be gleaned of the enjoyments in which Frede rick reveUed. Thus we read of the abode he chose, when at Pisa, with a leafy vine spreading over the whole building, delighting strangers with its green ness and its tempting shade. Near it were seen leopards, and other strange beasts from beyond sea. Handsome boys and ghls were present in gay attire, with viohns and harps in theh hands, to the music of which some of their number danced ; charm ing songs were sung, whde the bystanders hstened in sdence. If a stranger found his way in by chance, he could scarcely tear himself away from a scene of so great enchantment.* This mode of hfe, which the Emperor enjoyed when at a distance from home, whets our curiosity as to the state kept by him when in his own Kingdom. But it is scarcely possible to revive the old Court, of which Frederick was the sun. Here no Hamilton, no Bepys, no St. Simon comes to my aid ; a few detached passages- from scanty Chronicles, a few scraps from the Impe rial Begisters, are aU the materials which a modern enquirer can find. We may imagine the Emperor in one of his Castles on the Apuhan coast ; he is most attentive to the care of his health, which is not strong ; he eats but once in the day ; he takes fre quent baths, and his enemies make it a crime that he * Salimbene. It never seems to have struck the friar that the mansion which he saw could have belonged to no one but the Emperor. FREDERICK THE SECOND 465 continues this habit on Sundays.* Ile consults his chap. Astrologers, Master Theodore or Michael Scott, on 1_ the day that lies before him. Peter de Vhiea, we may be sure, has an early audience ; he discusses the business of the Kingdom Avith his master, and makes no scruple of overturning any of Frederick's decrees.f Law is not their only topic ; the Emperor perhaps recites a poem he has composed in honour of some favourite beauty ; and the Magistrate produces a sonnet, of Avhich Petrarch himself might be proud. Frederick then dictates to his Secretaries the mandates which are to go forth into every pro vince of the Kingdom ; the most trifling subject, such as the breeding of poultry, the purchase of an ass, the removal of a superannuated keeper, does not escape the master's eye. If there are illustrious petitioners from distant lands at the Apuhan Court, charters must be drawn up, to be afterwards signed by the Emperor. The Bishops of Burgundy, the Monks of Saxony, the cities of Tuscany, the Knights of Balestine, aU ahke turn to Frederick's Throne as theh common centre of attraction, and await their respective messengers who wfll bring home the im press of the Golden BuU. The Secretaries must take heed ; the Emperor once had the thumb of a care less scribe cut off, because the man wrote Fredericus instead of Fridericus. J The weighty affahs of the Empire are debated in the presence of the highest nobles, both Germans and Italians. A famous lawsuit between Florence and Siena is decided in a Court comprizing Gebhard von Arnstein, the Count of Acerra, the Count of * Vitoduranus. f Guido Bonatti. J Salimbene. VOL. I. H H 466 THE HISTORY OF chap. Chieti, the Marquess Lancia, Eichard the High i — Chamberlain, and Peter de Vinea. Sentence is pro nounced after calling in the aid of other Counts, Barons, and lawyers ; an enormous fine is inflicted upon Florence for her violent acts and insolent con tumacy* But the grievances of the Kingdom are more easily brought to the Monarch's notice. Lord Simon Eocca, one of the highest nobles of Trani, steps forward with three Syndics of that city and two brothers of his wife ; aU have hoods drawn over theh eyes in token of shame ; they fall on theh knees before Frederick, craving justice. It seems that a Saracen Captain named Phocax, quartered in Simon's house, cast his eyes upon the beautiftd lady of his host ; the vdlain in the night turned the hus band out of doors stark naked, while the wife be came the victim of an infamous outrage. But Fre derick remarks : ' Lord Simon, where force has been used, there is no cause for shame. Go, I wdl take care that no such crime be committed again ; had the culprit been a native of the Kingdom, I should have ordered him to be beheaded.' After this heart less sentence, we cannot wonder at the emigration to Dalmatia of many noblemen of Trani and Bari, whose wives have the fatal gift of beauty, upon the arrival of seven fresh troops of Saracens in Apuha. f But Frederick's fadings do not always go unrebuked. Thus, Brother Jordan, who at this time fills the post of St. Dominic, is admitted, in his garb of black and Avhite, to an interview with the Emperor. After sitting silent for some time, the Saxon friar begins : ' My Lord, I am always running about my provinces, * See the Charters for 1232. f Mat. Spinello. FREDERICK THE SECOND 467 as iii duty bound ; I wonder therefore that you do chap. not ask me for news.' Frederick answers : ' I have __!_ my own envoys in all Courts and provinces, and I knoAv all that goes on in the world.' — ' Our Lord Jesus Christ,' rephes the Dominican General, ' knew all things, since he was God ; yet he asked his disciples, " Whom do men say the Son of man is ?" You as suredly are but a man ; and you are ignorant of many things said of you, which it is very much your interest to know. It is said of you, that you oppress the Churches, that you scorn censure, that you put faith in auguries, that you favour Jews and Saracens too much, that you do not employ faithful advisers, that you pay no respect to the Vicar of Christ, the Father of Christians and our sphitual Lord; and surely aU these things do you no honour.' The Breacher, hke an Old Testament prophet, goes on with his lecture after this courtly opening.* Other Germans, besides Jordan, find theh way to the far distant throne of theh Kaiser. Master Henry of Cologne comes to borrow one of Michael Scott's works from the Imperial hbrary ; its owner is most Uberal of his treasures, and the transfer of the book is made in the house of Volmar, the Court physician.1!" Perhaps Hermann von Salza has arrived from the North, having taken Eome on his way. Frederick hads with pecuhar dehght the stout old warrior, the hero of the white mantle, who was batthng in the Holy Land at the time when the Emperor was a babe In the cradle.J The friends talk over the affahs of Palestine, the haughtiness of the Templars, * Acta Sanctorum, Feb. 13. t See the Charters for 1232. X Voigt. Hermann landed at Acre in 1196. HH 2 468 THE HISTORY OF chap, the squabbles always going on at Acre, the -unac- !___ countable conduct of his Hohness. Thence the transition is easy to the perverse Lombard League, and Frederick groans out : ' Germany, Sicily, and Palestine, are content to obey us ; why cannot Lom bardy imitate them ?' Hermann makes what excuses he can for his clients on the Po, whom he knows by experience to be shppery as eels. He also takes occasion to reprove his young friend, who is not exactly a monk in his tastes and habits. A man hke Hermann, the type Of old-fashioned German vhtue, must do good wherever he goes. Dreadful news comes from the North about this time. Heresy, checked in France twenty years be fore, is now making great progress both in Germany and Italy. Almost every city between Hamburg and Naples is more or less tainted with the disease. But the begging-Friars are ready to encounter it, and to apply sharp remedies. The Emperor, although he can remember the stakes lighted for the heretics of Alsace in 1215, is appaUed at the lengths to which matters are now carried. The persecution has lasted for three years, and has confounded the innocent with the gudty. Eich burghers denounced for the sake of the spods, which are afterwards shared among the barons ; the Inquisition brought into Germany ; processes determined by venal Judges ; the highest nobles at last marked out for a prey ; disapprobation of the new severities expressed by the great Prelates ; appeals made to Eome ; the murder of the Inquisitors by their maddened victins ; Diets held by King Henry to clear the good name of those accused ; such are the items of the news brought at this time from Germany. Frederick has also to hear FREDERICK THE SECOND 469 of the massacre of a Avliole people, that once dwelt chap. between the Ehine and the Elbe. The Stedingers _ of Friesland have for thirty years scoffed at the laws of Eome. A Crusade is preached against them by the Archbishop of Bremen ; the dams of their country are broken ; and an army of 40,000 men, headed by the neighbouring Counts, annihilate the heretics, in spite of an heroic resistance. Eome hopes to reign triumphant in Germany after the bloody year 1234.* Perhaps some Crusader of high birth, on his way home from Palestine, makes his appearance at Court. He is conducted thither by Frederick's Seneschal, who furnishes horses and mides for the journey. The knights of the various cities, through which the noble stranger passes, turn out on horseback by the Impe rial orders, and their ladies in choicest apparel greet him with flowers and music. His health is restored by baths, medicines, and bleeding, during his stay at Court ; for the Emperor understands physic. Should the guest be highly favoured, he is admitted by spe cial order to an interview with the Empress.f A great variety of strangers meet at the banquet ing hour. Ambassadors from the Greek Monarch arrive with a present of falcons. Some clerical visitors from Germany are astounded to find them selves seated close to the turbaned men of the East, and shudder on hearing that these are envoys from the Sultan of Cairo and the Old Man of the Mountain.^ The honest Germans whisper among themselves some remarks on the late end of the * See the Annals of Worms, Treves, Cologne, &c. X M. Paris. J Godefr. Colon. 470 THE HISTORY OF Ohap. Duke of Bavaria, who was stabbed at Kelheim by — ! a man, suspected to be an assassin, employed by the mysterious Old Man on Frederick's behaU. The Emperor himself eats and drinks very httle. He is the very model of a host, and can put up with a great deal from his guests.* Some Itahan Bishops are at table.f One of them, instead of re turning the cup to his entertainer after drinking, gives it to an attendant priest, to the astonishment of aU the guests. The Prelate wishes to inculcate the truth, that the lowest of the clergy is above any earthly Sovereign. w The Emperor, it must be allowed, is rather loose in his talk. Speaking of his late Crusade, he re marks : ' If the God of the Jews had seen my King dom, the Terra di Lavoro, Calabria, Sicdy, and Apu lia, he would not have so often praised that land which he promised to the Jews and bestowed upon them. 'J The Bishops treasure up this unlucky speech, which wiU one day be noised abroad aU over Italy. When the meal is over, the company are amused by the feats of some of the Almehs, brought from the East. Two young Arab ghls of rare beauty place themselves each upon two balls in the middle of the flat pavement. On these they move backwards and forwards, singing and beating time with cymbals and castanets, while throwing themselves into intri cate postures. Games and musical instruments, pro cured for the Empress, form part of the entertain ment^ We hear moreover of a Saracen dancer from Aquitaine. Such sports are rehshed by the *. Salimbene. f Acta Sanctorum, Feb. 9. X Salimbene. § M. Paris. IX. FREDERICK THE SECOND 471 guests quite as much as the Greek wine and the chap. viands prepared by Berard the Court cook, who is uimous for his scapece ; this dish, consisting of fish boiled in salt water and sprinkled with saffron, popu lar to this day in the province of Lecce, has been derived from Apicius.* The meal being over, Frederick takes his German friends-to see his son Conrad, the future King of the Eomans.f He ponders with a sigh over the tales from the North respecting the unruly conduct of his other son, Henry, and promises his guests soon to cross the Alps himself, and once more to revisit Imperial Haguenau, which he has not seen for many a long year. He points with a father's pride to Enzio, his golden-haired darhng, who bids fair to be the best cavaher in Italy. The little Man fred, the most renowned of Frederick's children, who is destined to have all his sire's virtues with hardly one of his she's faults, is now a babe in the arms of his mother, the Marchioness of Lancia, a fah Piedmontese. The brothers of the frad Bianca are in high esteem, and are entrusted with important offices. The Emperor's favourite is watched with Oriental jealousy, and is under the care of hideous eunuchs from Africa. Every consort whom Frederick may choose must make up her mind to undergo the hke imprisonment. | The Emperor now shows his guests the wild beasts, which he has had brought from Africa and the East. There is the huge elephant, soon to be sent to Cre mona, the bearer of the Imperial banner, guarded * Regesta for 1240. f Conrad de Fabaria. X Alb. von Beham. 472 THE HISTORY OF chap, by a troop of Saracens. There is the female came- lopard, caUed Seraph by the Arabs and Italians.* Next come the camels and dromedaries which carry the Emperor's treasures when he is on the march. Lions, leopards, panthers, and rare birds form part of the coUection, and are tended by Saracen keepers. Frederick perhaps wishes to show his friends some sport in the Apuhan plains ; he has hawks of all breeds, each of which has its name ; but what most astonishes strangers is his method of bringing down the deer. The cheetahs, or hunting leopards of the East, are mounted on horseback behind their keepers ; these animals, as the Emperor says, ' know how to ride.' He is a strict preserver of game ; he gives orders that the wolves and foxes, which prey upon the small animals in his warren at Melazzo, be destroyed by means of a poison caUed woU's powder, f He has many parks and fishponds, to which he contrives to attend, even in the midst of Lombard wars. He clhects the plantation of woods, and when a storm bloAvs down his trees, the timber is to be sold at Naples. Bas- sages for the use of sportsmen and dogs are to be cut through the reeds. A CasteUan is to be impri soned for abusing the office of keeper of one of the Eoyal parks. The men of Eboli and Monopoli are rebuked for poaching on these preserves. Frederick is equaUy attentive to the care of his hounds ; an attendant is allotted to every four of these animals on a journey. Siwin the huntsman is to be provided with suitable garments and a proper allowance. His master loves to hawk at Foggia in the spring, going * Albertus Magnus. -j- Regesta. FREDERICK THE SECOND 473 up to the hills for the summer.* His hunting esta- chap. bhshment is upon a large scale ; we read of nineteen — falconers being sent at one time to fetch hawks from Malta ; others of these birds are found at Lampe- clusa, PanteUaria, and the neighbouring isles. He has cranes taken aUve for the purpose of training his falcons.*!" The treasures, with which Frederick dazzles the eyes of his visitors, rival those of Solomon. The Sultan of Egypt has given his Christian brother a tent of wonderful workmanship, displaying the move ments of the sun and moon, and telling the hours of the day and night. This prodigy, valued at 20,000 marks, is kept at Venosa.^ There is also a throne of gold, decked with pearls and precious stones, doomed to become the prey of Charles of Anjou and Pope Clement. § There are purple robes embroidered with gold, sdks from Tripoli, and the choicest works of the Eastern loom. Frederick charms the ears of his guests with melodies played on sdver trumpets by black slaves, whom he has had trained. || He himself knows how to sing. Travel lers, jesters, poets, philosophers, knights, lawyers, aU find a hearty welcome at the Apuhan Court ; if they are natives of the Kingdom they address its Lord in the customary second person singular, ' Tu, Messer.'^ He can weU appreciate the pretensions of each guest, since he is able to converse with aU his many sub jects, each in his own tongue. The Arab from Palestine, the Greek from Calabria, the Itahan from * Villani. f Regesta. | God. Coloniensis. § Saba Malaspina. || Regesta. "f Salimbene. Natives of Rome addressed the Pope in this style. 474 THE HISTORY OF chap. Tuscany, the Frenchman from Lorraine, the German IX" from Thuringia, find that Cassar understands them all. With Latin, of course, he is familiar.* Very different is Frederick from his Northern grandshe, who could speak nothing but German and very bad Latin. 7 Troubadour, Crusader, Lawgiver ; German by blood, Italian by birth, Arab by training ; the pupil, the tyrant, the victim of Borne ; accused by the world of being by turns a Cathohc persecutor, a Moham medan convert, an Infidel freethinker ; such is Frederick the Second. His character has been sketched for us by two men of opposite politics, Sahmbene the GueU and Jamsilla the Ghibelhne, both of whom knew him weU. Each does justice to the wonderful genius of the Emperor, and to the rapid development of the arts and commerce under his fostering care. But aU is not fah, whatever ap pearances may be. Every generation of the Hohen staufen Kaisers seemed to add a vice to the shame of their house. "x Cruelty is the one dark stain in the cha racter of Barbarossa ; cruelty and treachery mar the soaring genius of Henry the Sixth ; cruelty, treachery, and lewdness are the three blots that can never be wiped away from the memory of Frederick the Second. He has painted his likeness with his own- hand. His Eegisters with theh varied entries throw more light upon his nature than any panegyrics or diatribes can do. One example wdl be enough. If he wishes to get an impregnable castle into his hands, he thus writes to his general : — ' Pretend some business, and warily caU the Castellan to you ; seize on him * Malespini. FREDERICK THE SECOND 475 U you can, and keep him till he cause the castle to chap. be surrendered to you.' * The Emperor's chief aim in 1X' these transactions was to avoid scandal. ' Give good words,' he writes to another agent, ' and employ clan destine theft, if necessary ; but be sure of your ground at the outset, so that you may not have to aban don the undertaking.' Frederick was very particular in the choice of his agents, usuaUy preferring those of low bhth, whether Christians or Saracens. They were disgraced without scruple, if they chanced to transgress, and theh wealth flowed into their master's coffers. ' I have never bred a hog without having its lard,' is one of the sentiments put into the Em peror's moutli.f Frederick's cruelty is indisputable. His leaden copes, which weighed down the victims of his Avrath untd death came to the rescue, were long the talk of Italy and are mentioned by Dante. In this way died Count Eegnier of Manente, who harassed Sicily dur ing Frederick's early years, and in whom Bope Honorius felt so warm an interest. J It was an age of horrible punishments, when the Church herself took the lead in torturing, manghng, and roasting the bodies of mankind. Treachery as well as cruelty might easily be learnt from her preaching and prac tice ; but there is another vice which is Frederick's own. He may be compared to one of the old war hke Caliphs or Sultans, with aU the best and aU the worst, points in the character of Lorenzo de' Medici superadded. This Oriental likeness is especiaUy seen in his treatment of women. He might sing theh * Regesta. f Salimbene. X French Chronicle, quoted by Breholles for 1220. 476 THE HISTORY OF chap, praises in his Sicilian lay ; but he Auewed them in the Ix" light of slaves, created for his pleasures. Treading in the steps of the old Norman kings, he was the master of a harem, recruited from Saracen countries, which was the scandal of aU good Christians. It was watched by eunuchs ; the Emperor himself is said to have deprived these wretched beings of their natural rights.* They were sent into Apuha, as we find in his Eegisters, by the Cadi of Palermo. The ghls attached to the Imperial estabhshments, whether at Lucera or at Messina, were not allowed to eat the bread of idleness ; Frederick ordered them to employ themselves in spinning or in some other useful work. An Arab of the name of Ben Abou Zeughi superin tended the distribution of the robes trimmed with fur, the veds, and the linen raiment, served out to each of the Emperor's ladies.f This is not a pleas ing part of our subject ; but it proves the utter falseness of the idea, that the mere cultivation of the human mind has any power to elevate, unless there be a higher motive at work. These vicious habits bore theh usual fruit ; the heart was hardened, the feehngs were petrified ; the Sovereign, as we have seen, turned away from the cry of the oppressed. How different is Frederick, surrounded by his Saracen lemans, from St. Louis sitting under the oak of Vin cennes ! [ The Emperor, so his Bapal monitor acknow ledged in 1227, was well fitted by nature to soar up into heaven ; he chose rather to grovel on earth. ' We may easdy imagine the dehght with which his * Letters of Innocent for 1245. Let us hope that this hateful practice is now confined, in Europe at least, to the Pope's choir and to the Sultan's harem. f Regesta. Nic. de Curbio. FREDERICK THE SECOND 477 enemies, the scribes of Eome, fastened upon this chap, TX weak side of his character. It Avas bad enough, but 1 they aggravated the scandal. If we put faith in the statements made by Gregory's biographer, by Albert von Beham, by Nicholas of Corby, we must beheve that Frederick was the greatest of monsters, a com pound between Sardanapalus and Nero ; that he shut up his consorts in dark prisons untd he kflled them ; that he enforced prostitution on Christian virgins and gloated over theh agonies Avith fiendish glee ; that he sold his female subjects to the Saracens ; that he was defiled by the foulest of all vices.* The histo rian, who makes truth his aim, must draw the line somewhere. I think we may admit as proved those accusations of vice which the Bopes, no male prudes, put forth against Frederick in the face of the world. But the writings of private ecclesiastics, unconfirmed by the seal of Eome, must be viewed with the greatest suspicion. We are not content to take the measure of Hannibal's character from Livy. We know how the Cavaliers have painted CromweU, how the Legitimists have painted Buonaparte. The hatred, which the Friars bore to the Hohenstaufen, was the ological as weU as poUtical. Frederick was the father of a numerous offspring. His eldest sons, born in wedlock, were Henry and Conrad, each of whom in turn became King of the Eomans. His third Empress bore him two children, Margaret and a second Henry. But Frederick's * De Curbio says : ' Et non contentus juvenculis mulieribus et puellis, tanquam scelestus infami vitio laborabat : quod quidem turpe est cogitare, turpius dicere, turpissimum exercere. Nam ipsum peccatum quasi Sodoma? aperte pradicabat nee penitus occultabat.' 478 THE HISTORY OF chap, bastards were many. Fhst in age came the best- beloved of them aU, the chivahous Enzio. His name is probably the Itahan corruption of the German Hans, caUed by the French Ance. His bhth in 1220, and the yeUow locks for which he was famed, point to a German mother. Next came Frederick of An tioch, the origin of whose title is unknown ; Tuscany, not Syria, was the field in which he gathered his laurels. Eichard was a third son, the future Vicar- General of Eomagna. The youngest male of the Imperial Illegitimate brood was Manfred. His mother, Bianca Lancia, came from Asti in Biedmont; her connexion with her seducer began in 1231. When she was lying on her death-bed, at some period during the nine last years of Frederick's hfe, she be sought him to marry her. He comphed, and thus legitimated the children she had borne him.* But the Church never recognized the union, since the Empe ror was at the time an excommunicated man. He distinguished Manfred from his other children by bestowing upon that youth a part of the lands usually granted as a dowry to the Sicihan Queens, Avith which the dying Bianca had been gratified. Manfred is the only bastard son mentioned in his father's will ; the three elder sons born out of wed lock are not named in that document, although they had aU of them done the Emperor good service in his wars. Manfred had one sister, Constance, who was married to the Greek Emperor. Frederick also begat at least five fllegitimate daughters, whom he gave to various Itahan nobles ; these were Selvaggia, Yolande, Catharine, and the Countesses of Acerra and Carretto. * Salimbene, Jamsilla, Imago Mundi, and other chronicles. IX. FREDERICK THE SECOND 479 A sixth daughter, Blanchefleur, the last survivor of chap. all this numerous tribe, ched a nun at Montargis in 1278* After this attempt to describe the Court of Apulia, the great central figure must once more occupy our attention. Frederick was of middling height, well made, rather fat, with shghtly red hair, the heritage of the Hohenstaufens. f His face, with a mouth unmistakeably sensual, may be seen upon his seals and coins. J His handsome broAv confirms the accounts given by aU the Italian chroniclers of his knoAvledge, so wonderful for his age. Palermo, the cradle of his youth, was the point where the Latin, the Greek, the JeAvish, and the Arabic elements all met together. Much knowledge he undoubtecUy gained from these various sources ; but he found it a dangerous possession. His rehgious behef, so it was ever rumoured, was of the most perverse hue. In vain did he found masses, attend ceremonies, be stow yearly wax candles upon saints, and issue per secuting edicts ; Borne stdl held his orthodoxy in suspicion. Yet even the partizans of Eome could not withhold theh meed of praise from one who was the marvel of that marvedous century, who was re garded by some of his contemporaries as Antichrist, by others almost as an incarnation of the Deity. Mo dern students, who are not so dazzled by Frederick's briUiant quahties as to forget his many faults, may adopt almost word for word the opinion entertained * See Breholles' Preface, 211. ¦j" Salimbene. Ric. Ferrariensis. X The finest coin I ever saw of Frederick's was a golden one in the museum at Treves. 480 THE HISTORY OF chap, of him by good old Sahmbene the Minorite : ' I have IX. seen him, and at one time I loved him ; in truth, there would have been few rulers in the world like him, had he loved God, the Church, and his own soul' FREDERICK THE SECOND 481 CHABTEE X. A.D. 1231— A.D. 123C. ' Custode rerum Caesare, non furor Civilis aut vis eximet otium.' — Horace. THE first tiling recorded of Frederick in 1231 is chap. his reneAval of the famous edict of 1220 ; he x ordered Stephen of Anglone, who had been much 1231-1236. employed in pubhc affairs, to give notice that all privileges must be presented to the Court by a certain clay, with a vieAV to theh future validity. The men of Eavella, Avho Avould seem to have fled into the mountains, were commanded to send back theh Avives and chilchen by a specified time, and no more new castles were aUoAved to be built.* The Pope deigned to express his approbation of Frede rick's zeal in the work of recovering Palestine, but exhorted him to deal gently with the two chief buhvarks of that land, the Temple and the Hospital. He also warned the Emperor to fulfil his promise of giving sureties within the allotted eight months. The Pope's letters, with a vieAV to this object, went forth into every part of Germany and Upper Italy. Li February a special Court was held at Taranto. Gebhard von Arnstein, who had replaced Eaynald as Frederick's Vicar in Italy, brought a flourishing report of the loyalty of Siena, to which city the * Ric. San Germano. VOL. I. I I 482 THE HISTORY OF chap. Emperor addressed two letters. Gregory a few x' months later seconded Frederick's efforts to promote 1231-1236. peace in Tuscany by a letter to Bistoia. He remon strated again and again on behaU of the persecuted Orders; but his attention was now occupied with more serious business. Several Baterine heretics had been discovered at Bome, agamst whom Pope, Senator, and People were ahke zealous ; some of the victims were burnt, others were despatched to the monasteries of Monte Cassino and Cava for conver sion. Frederick sent the Archbishop of Eeggio and Eichard the Marshal to seize the heretics at Naples.* ' We are moved to vengeance,' so he writes on the 28th of February, ' hearing that heresy, hke a canker, is creeping through our realm, and that it has reached Naples and Aversa. We are the more grieved, since the plague is found so nigh to the seat of the Emphe and the Apostohc See.' The Archbishop of Eeggio some time afterwards made inquisition at San Germano after suspected Paterines. The Pope kept a watchful eye upon the daring muti neers, who had ventured to show themselves so near the head-quarters of Orthodoxy. Writing to the Abbot of Cava in March, he says : ' Venomous rep tiles rage the more they are hurt. We commit these heretics to you, that they may not poison those who hsten to them. Put them in irons, in dungeons that have no windows, that none may visit them ; theh victuals may be let down to them through a little hole in the roof. AUow them to be instructed ; if one of them escapes, you shah ansAver it.' WhUe giving these benevolent orders for the safe custody * Ric. San Germano. FREDERICK THE SECOND 483 of the Southern heretics, Gregory was equally atten- chap. tive to the state of the Apulian clergy, who have x' never been in much repute for genius or holiness. 1231-1230. One man had gained the See of Potenza by simony, and had robbed a neighbouring Church ; the Arch bishops of Bari and Trani were to send him to Eome to explain his conduct. Gregory, as his letters prove, suspended the Archbishop of Benevento for having been lax in examining a suffragan Bishop, and bade him be more careful in future.* Von Salza had informed the Papacy of his invita tion to Culm. He returned in Aprd from Ger many, where his Order was taking fast root ; the Duke of Masovia had already caUed seven of the brethren to his aid.f It might have been thought that this Transalpine mission would have caused a separation between Brother Hermann and his Kaiser ; but such was not the case ; the friends usually con trived to meet at least once a year, and the good Knight was employed by Frederick, as before, on embassies for the good of Christendom. The perse cuted Hospitallers professed themselves ready to place theh fiefs in Hermann's hands, until umpires should decide the dispute between theh Order and the Emperor ; an offer which the Pope eagerly em braced. Frederick, who was at Melfi in May, made httle difficulty in transferring an Abbey of the Bene dictines, disgraced by the evd hfe of its inmates, to the Cistercians, for which he received the thanks of the General Chapter of the Wldte Order. He hoav broke Avith two old friends. Eaynald, the Viceroy of 1228, * Regesta of Gregory for 1231, Middlehill MSS. X Raynaldus. n 2 484 THE HISTORY OF chap, was seized at Foggia and stripped of ail his goods ; his brother Berthold took refuge in the fortress of 1231-1236. Antrodoco. It is said that the latter fell into dis grace, for having spent large sums of money without being able to give an account of the outgoings.* Gregory, much to his credit, forgave these Germans their late inroad into his Duchy of Spoleto, and interceded with theh master in theh behaU; he wrote letters with this view to Frederick in the summer, bidding him take the merciful David as an example ; he also advised the Emperor not to send into the East those Apuhans, who had em braced the side of the Church in the late troubles. Eichard Filangieri of the Prmcipato was despatched to Palestine with some troops, there to act as Fre derick's Marshal ; his soldiers had been ordered to assemble at Brindisi in March. The Archbishop of Bari and Von Salza were sent on an embassy to the Pope, then at Eieti ; his Holiness had been driven from Eome by a fearful earthquake, which desolated all the country between that city and Capua for a whole month, overthrowing castles and churches, and forcing the people to fly into the fields ; a huge stone was also hurled from the top of the Colosseum, f In May, Frederick was enacting his new Augustal Constitutions, before mentioned, at Melfi ; and whde he was there, he confirmed the Kingdom of Bohemia to Wenceslaus, the neAV Monarch, toge ther Avith aU the rights and honours enjoyed by the deceased King. About this time the Emperor Avas delivered from a doughty enemy, his own father-in- law. John de Brienne, now not far from fourscore, * Raynaldus. f Ric. San Germano. FREDERICK THE SECOND 485 Avas sent by the Pope to rescue the tottering Latin chap. Emphe on the Bosphorus, whither the gallant old Champenois sailed with an army from Venice. 1231-1236. Frederick now found himself obliged to raise the siege of Antrodoco, Avhich Avas held by Berthold.* He sent Von Salza into Lombardy, to pave the Avay for the Imperial Diet at Eavenna, to be held later in the year. The Bope v/rote to Frederick, exhorting him to put on the spirit of charity. The correspondence between the now reconciled friends was very brisk. In March, the King of Sicily had asked the Papacy to restrain the men of Ascoh in the March, who had seized on some of his fiefs. Gregory in return complained that the King's Justiciaries were throwing priests into prison and robbing men ; ' Our faithful people can scarcely breathe ; the Justiciaries pretend that they are offended, in order to provoke you to offence, if they can. We have enjoined the Bishop of Beauvais, the Euler of the Anconitan March and of the Duchy of Spoleto, to correct what has been done to your prejudice ; do you act in the hke way with your Justiciaries.' Affairs in Palestine also required constant watching. In February, Gregory had written to the Grand Master of the Templars, rebuking him for breaking the Truce which Frederick had made with the Sara cens, and for acting against the will of Frederick's Bailiff. He remarks with truth, that in consequence of this piece of folly the King of the Persians wiU find the road to conquest more easy. In August, the Pope once more writes to Frederick : ' You say * Eic. San Germano. 486 THE HISTORY OF chap, that you are sending Eichard Filangieri your Mar shal beyond the sea. We give you letters addressed 1231-1236. to the Prelates in those parts, as you wished. We do not caU your champion Legate of the Empire, but we entitle him your Legate, or the Emperor's Legate, so that your heirs may not be prejudiced ; the King dom of Jerusalem is not subject to the Empire.' The wary Pontiff well understood the importance of keeping Frederick's various realms distinct. The Emperor had previously complained, that the Papal letters addressed to him had omitted his last title, that of King of Jerusalem. Gregory answered this charge : ' We do not mean to dishonour you, but we grant you the title ; be more worthy of it. May you be a Comforter of mourners, especially of the Sicilians, who are almost in despair. Jeru salem is a Vision of Peace ; be you then a foUower of peace.' The Pope had in the early part of the year strengthened the hands of Thaddeus of Sessa, Fre derick's envoy to the Lombards. Later, in Septem ber, he Avrote to the Prelates of that turbulent Pro- vince, advising them to throw no obstacles in the way of the Diet, since the Emperor would give security that nothing should be done to prejudice Lombard interests. But in spite of the Pope, the Northern men once more renewed their League late in October, at Bologna, whence they confronted Frederick at Eavenna. They agreed to keep on foot an army of 3000 cavalry, 10,000 infantry, and 1500 crossbow- men.* They told the Pope that the Emperor should not come into Lombardy with an army ; otherwise, * Chron. Placentinum. FREDERICK THE SECOND 487 if it went ill Avith him, let him look to himself* chap. x The Marquess of Este and the Count of San Boni- fazio took the lead at Bologna, the head-quarters of 1231-1236. the League. Frederick long afterwards affirmed that the Pope himself had been the mainspring of this warhke movement, and that Gregory had sent both messengers and letters to the Lombards, as some men coidd bear witness, Avho Avere on the side of the rebels in 1231.f Li October, Frederick sent Einaldo of Acqua- viva to the aid of Viterbo, which was now beginning a long war with Eome ; the Apostolic city resolved to tax her Churches for the struggle. J In November the Emperor left Apuha after completing his legis lative tods, and took the road to Fano. Here he confirmed the new Count of Gueldres in the posses sions enjoyed by the father of this noble, investing Aylhard, one of the favourite Teutonic Order, as the representative of the absent Count. Frederick then arrived at Eavenna, where he was probably sur rounded by the Traversari, Tignosi, Manardi, and Anastagi, the fine old houses of the country, whose places were usurped seventy years latter by beggarly upstarts, ' bastard slips of old Eomagna's line.'§ His letters to the various cities of Italy had aheady gone forth, commanding the attendance of their de puties at the Diet to be held at Eavenna on the feast of AU Souls. He declared that he had convoked this assembly by the advice of the Bapacy, that his son King Henry and aU the Brinces of Germany were expected, that the object in view was to appease * Gal. Flamma. t See his letters for 1239. X Eic. San Germano. § Dante, Purg. XIV. 488 THE HISTORY OF chap, the civil wars in Italy and the neighbouring lands ; these must now be brought to an end. 'We bid 1231-1236. y0U Come,' thus he writes to the Genoese, ' as you are bound by your oath of fealty. Choose you out able men, and send them to Eavenna, together with your Podesta.' The Lombards not only disdained to appear at the Diet themselves, but prevented the German Princes from approaching theh Kaiser ; the Diet, in consequence of this opposition, was put off untd Christmas. Frederick received the Pisan em bassy with remarkable graciousness, for no state in Italy stood in higher favour with him ; he was some what nettled however at theh having chosen a MUa nese official* The Genoese were welcomed with equal warmth ; no envoys from any other state, as their annalist boasts, could compare Avith their Po desta and ambassadors. But Genoa was soon under a cloud. The haughty German Princes were fain to travel southwards with the utmost secresy, since the Lombards had by this time brought out their Car- roccio, and were attacking Eccehn, a partizan of the Emperor, in Verona, f At length Frederick was able to hold his Diet in the Cathedral of Eavenna, where both Germany and Italy were represented. He kept Christmas with great pomp, and sent home all those who had followed him from the Kingdom, of which the Count of Acerra was made Captain. J At the end of 1231, Frederick found himself in the midst of many of the highest nobles in the Empire. There was Berthold, the loyal Patriarch of Aqudeia, the old Archbishop of Magdeburg, Theo doric the Archbishop of Eavenna, who was at present * Croniche di Pisa. j- See Frederick's letters for 1239. X Eic. San Germano. FREDERICK THE SECOND 489 a zealous Ghibelhne, besides Berard the Archbishop chap. of Palermo, Frederick's best friend in the Kingdom. ! Many Lombard and German Prelates Avere also pre- 1231-1236. sent ; among them was Siffrid, the youthful Bishop of Batisbon, who was cousin to the Archbishop of Mayence, and who this year became Chancellor of the Emphe.* The Duke of Saxony, the Duke of Carinthia, the Duke of Meran, the Landgrave of Thuringia, the Count of Nassau, Gebhard von Arn stein, the Legate of the Empire in Italy, Werner von Bodanden, and Godfrey von Hohenlohe, were also at their Kaiser's side, and saw him wear the Crown of the Empire on Christmas-day. But Frederick missed many of those who had welcomed him to Germany in the famous 1212. His old friends, the King of Bohemia and the chivahous Duke of Austria, had both died in 1230. Another ancient partizan, the Duke of Bavaria, a hero of Damietta, had been murdered in 1231 by a madman ; a foohsh report Avas spread that Frederick had instigated the crime, and had fetched an assassin from the East ; the Old Man of the Mountain was said to have been the Kaiser's accomplice in this ruffianly deed.'!' There was a new Landgrave of Thuringia, a new Arch bishop of Mayence, the nephew and namesake of that Siffrid who had crowned Frederick, and a new Archbishop of Cologne in the room of the deeply- mourned Engelbert. A new race of men was springing up in Germany, who had borne no part in the great transfer of the Empire from the Guelfs to the Hohenstaufens, and who grumbled because the edicts, which regulated the Fatherland, were * Alb. Trium Fontium. f Godefrid. Colon. 490 THE HISTORY OF chap, issued from Capua or Palermo. If Frederick wished to preserve the Emphe in his house, he must not 1231-1236. content himself with summoning the German Princes to meet him at Cremona or Eavenna, but he must show himself on the other side of the Alps, and hold Diets, as of old, at Eatisbon or Frankfort. The Kaiser was soon besieged by a crowd of apphcants. The Margraviate of Brandenburg was confirmed to the two brothers, John and Otho, and the Duchy of Pomerania was added to the gift. The Archbishop of Besancon was upheld in his rights against the burghers of his city. The Bishop of Como procured a grant of the mines in his Diocese, and a mandate in his favour was directed to Ids rebeUious flock at Lugano. The Emperor now for bade the Itahan cities to elect as Bodesta any man from the rebelhous Lombard States. The Genoese had already made such an election ; they were in dismay, and tried to excuse themselves. Frederick would not hear a word from them untd he had explained the edict, brought forward several weighty arguments, and given very many examples of the mischief which might be expected to foUow any such election. The Bodesta of Genoa excused his State, as best he could ; he said that the election in ques tion had been made before the Diet had been announced, and before the Lombards had been placed under the ban of the Empire ; otherwise the obnoxious Lombard, whose name was Pagano of Pietra Santa, would not have been chosen, although described as a knight eloquent, rich, and comely in face. Since the thing was done, however, it could not, for the honour of Genoa, be undone. She was bound to keep her Podesta ; but when his year of FREDERICK THE SECOND 491 office Avas over, she Avould for the future elect no chap. one displeasing to the Emperor. Nothing was settled at Eavenna ; the Genoese went home, where 1231-1236, Frederick's orchnance caused great tumults. He de spatched John of Eeggio, a Judge of his High Court, with letters to Genoa ; the envoy gave them fair Avords in the Toavii Council, but repeated the harsh edict. Frederick would not be defied ; in the next year, 1232, he sent orders into Sicily to seize the Genoese and their Avares throughout the Kingdom. Genoa was in an uproar ; one party wished to join the Lombard League. The State equipped a fleet to protect her children at Tunis, whose expulsion Frederick had enjoined. This fleet ruled the sea ; the Emperor's Marshal had to fly to Tyre with a few men, the rest of his army being either kiUed or taken. Frederick now took a milder course ; he despatched Thaddeus of Sessa and the Judge of Bari to Genoa Avith letters, and bade the burghers rejoice at his victories in the East. If they would only send envoys to him, he would release all the Genoese in his hands, together with theh goods. Two envoys were accordingly sent, and were well received; they procured letters to the authorities throughout the Kingdom for the attainment of their object. Frede rick talked of his Imperial mddness, saying that he did not disdain to temper justice with clemency, and that his Highness would be placable for the future. He hoped that Genoa woidd obey him, even as she had obeyed his predecessors in the Empire.* Other towns of Northern Italy were found by the Emperor more comphant than Genoa. On the 14th * Bart. Scriba, Ann. Genuen. 492 THE HISTORY OF chap, of January, 1232, he held a Council in the Arch- '. — bishop's Palace at Eavenna, which was attended by 1231-1236 tne p0destas and envoys of Parma, Modena, Cremona, Pavia, and Tortona ; they aU joined in concerting measures against the Milanese.* The Bishops of Batisbon and Osnaburg, the Abbot of Molk, the Cardinal Bishop of Sabina, the Patriarch of Aqudeia, and the Archbishop of Bremen, procured valuable privileges from Frederick. He took under his special protection the inhabitants of Comacchio, calling them ' his own fishermen.' The first important edict, which was the fruit of the Diet of Eavenna, bears the date of January, 1232. ' We quash,' Frederick says, ' in every town of Germany aU statutes, made by burghers or by gudds, against the will of their Bishops. No other money than the local coin is to be used. We recall aught that we or our forefathers have done to the prejudice of the Empire or the Brinces. A fine of fifty pounds of pure gold is the penalty of trans gression.' Frederick is now courting the higher poAvers at the expense of the cities ; he himself says that he desires to give the most ample interpretation to the privileges of the Brinces ; later in his hfe he will be found courting the burghers in his struggle with their superiors. Heresy next claimed the attention of the Diet. The Stedingers, so called from a town in Friesland, had risen against the Church, maddened by persecu tion. The Northern heretics had many brethren in Italy, who were increasing every day, sheltered by the stormy factions of the time. On the 22nd of February, these men were placed under the ban of Corio. FREDERICK THE SECOND 493 the Empire ; they were debarred from the learned chap. professions ; their goods Avere confiscated ; all per sons suspected by the Church were held guilty until 1231-1236. they had proved their innocence, which they were bound to do. Li this hideous fashion the usual rule of justice was reversed, Avhich considers a man inno cent untd his guilt be proved, whoever his accuser may be. All Bodestas and Temporal Lords were to help in the work of rooting out the heretics, whose houses were to be destroyed. A fresh decree was issued from Eavenna in March. Inquisitors were appointed by the Apostolic See, and the heretics were denied their common-laAV rights throughout Germany, which boasted of its having been hitherto always sound in the faith. ' The Dominicans of Wurzburg,' says the Emperor, ' are our deputies in this matter ; they are to be protected from all oppo nents ; there exists in Germany a neAV and unwonted infirmity of heretical wickedness.' Even children were now punished if they did not come forward to inform against their own parents. These edicts are hi the spirit of the time ; the Church was infallible, and Avhoever clared to dissent from her decrees was a heretic, out of the pale of the law, food for fire, to be knocked on the head like a wolf, wherever taken. The first half of the Thir teenth century was the golden age of persecution, of that sphit of religious bigotry which seems hkely to disgrace human nature, as long as the world shah last. This foul spirit is of very early date in the history of Christianity ; it Avas rebuked by our Lord Himself, though mankind have chosen to take pattern rather by the savage request of His two disciples than by the mild words of reproof used to restrain the pair. 494 THE HISTORY OF chap. Intolerance had full play even in that early age X" which saw the Cross overthrow the idols of Baganism. 1231-1236. rpne vjce reaped its highest point at the time of which we are now treating ; would that it had stop ped there ! It is by no means confined to Eome ; indeed, save two or three humble Brotestant sects, all forms of Christianity, when entrusted with power, have encouraged the most horrible results of the proverbially bitter theological hatred. We have all sinned alike in this matter. The Spanish Inquisition, the Irish Statute Book of the last century, and the Lithuanian persecutions of our own day, all bear witness to the fact that every dominant creed has been fully persuaded of the truth of that accursed doctrine, the right of the temporal magistrate to enforce his spiritual convictions on the mass of the people. The excuse of blind zeal may be pleaded for others ; but what shall Ave say of Frederick ? His conduct in Balestine, if we believe the Moslem chro niclers, shows that his faith was not with him a very strong principle even in theory, certainly not in practice. Yet here we find him taking the lead in the most intolerant counsels. The probable truth is, that he looked upon the Baterines as forming a great part of his rebellious Lombard subjects. For every Paterine that was burnt, there would be one traitor the less ; tLombardy was a hive swarming with both heretics and rebels. The Emperor would most hkely have made no objection, had the Popes been so blind to their own interest as to inflict on Lombardy the doom of Languedoc, and to pour in hosts of blood thirsty crusaders under some new De Montfort. The Stedingers indeed, as far as we know, were loyal FREDERICK THE SECOND 495 subjects, to Avhom Frederick had written in terms of chap. Avarrn approval ; yet he Avas iioav forced to throw x" them, as Avell as the hated Itahan Paterines, into the i23i-123C- bargain of persecution struck Avith the Church. One other echct Avas issued from Eavenna. Frede rick made a decree in favour of his hegeman, the Count of Brovence : ' Vassals ought to obey their lords ; this laAv is to be in force for ever in Provence and Forcalquier ; none of the Count's feudatories are to sth up Avar agamst, or to attack the said Count.' The legislation of Eavenna was aU in favour of the lugh aristocracy, whom the Emperor looked upon as the best guardians of peace and order. Lombardy Avas swayed by democracy, and Avas a chaos of Avar and turmoil. In the month of February, Carchnal Otho and the Bishop of Balestrina had gone to Bologna as the Bope's Legates, to enforce peace in the North. They seem to have effected theh object by the beginning of March, when they sought Frederick at Eavenna. He had no longing to behold either of them ; the Bishop he always distrusted ; the Carchnal had done Ids best to raise Germany against its Sovereign a few years before. Hearing of theh approach, Frederick rode off in the afternoon of the 7th of March Avith a smaU body of knights, and afterwards saded up the Po to Loreto. Here he found the Venetian envoys, of Avhom he asked leave to visit the shrine of St. Mark Avith his retinue. This request being granted, he set out on his voyage.* He afterwards complained bitterly of his having been chiven by the disobedient Lombards to embark on the stormy Adriatic in the * Chron. Placentinum. 496 THE HISTORY OF chap, boisterous month of March.* He met with a noble reception at Venice, and made costly oblations of 1231-1236. g^ an(j jeweig at the high altar of St. Mark's, which he perhaps compared with the mosques he had seen in the Eastif Overlooking the lukewarm support which the State had given him in his late Crusade, he bestowed many privileges on the Vene tian merchants, who bought wool in Sicily ; they were especially anxious that their stranded vessels might be protected from Apuhan wreckers, but at the same time warned the Emperor that posterity would impute his concessions to fear. J Frederick was equally bountiful to the Monastery of St. Ni cholas on the Bialto, and to the Abbey of St. George. Venice must have recaUed to his ndnd his grand father's long struggle with the Lombards, which was here brought to an end. The Doge at this time was James Tiepolo, whose son Beter happened to be Podesta of Treviso. The Emperor wished much to get that city into his hands, but Peter withstood aU his attempts. § Li the same month, Frederick went by Aqudeia to Cividale di Friuli, where the Patriarch had a palace, in order to meet King Henry. The interview must have been a painful one, for the young man, removed from his father's eye for the last eleven years, and deprived of his watchful guardian Archbishop Engel bert, had fallen into bad courses, and had disgusted many of his subjects in Germany by his evil life. He had wasted the ample revenues which the Em peror had placed at his disposal ; the lands of the * See his letters for 1239. f Godefr. Colon. X Chronicon. § Dandolo. FREDERICK THE SECOND 497 Emphe Avere pledged in the most reckless way, order chap Avas no longer maintained, and the roads were not ' safe for travellers.* Henry Avas a bad son ; it was 123i-i236. rumoured that in the previous year he had invited envoys from Mdan to his Court and had made a league with them against Ids own father. The cause of this unnatural conduct is said to have been jealousy of his half-brother Conrad, f Frederick seems to have demanded security for Henry's future good behaviour, as in April Ave find the Prelates and Princes of the Emphe issuing the following declara tion. ' The throne of the Empire is set upon our shoulders, and we derive some reflection from its brilliancy. At Cividale di Friuli, King Henry begged us to mediate Avith his father on his behalf : we therefore make oath, that if the King does not keep the Capitularies, which he swore to his father that he would keep, we wiU be at the Kaiser's bid ding, and we shaU be absolved from our oath to Henry. This we swear at the urgent request of the King.' Henry himseU wrote to the Pope on the same subject, stating that he had of his own free aaIU engaged to execute his father's commands, to honour his father's friends, to do nothing in pre judice of his father's rights ; should he fail in his promise, he was to become an excommunicated man. In return for this open acknowledgment, the Em peror allowed his son a more complete authority over Germany ; which turned out to be a most im politic step. J Frederick was now surrounded not oidy by those * Ann. Argentin. t Mon. Patavinus. X See Henry's letters for this year, 1232. VOL. I. K K 1231-1236. 498 THE HISTORY OF chap, members of the Diet who had foUowed him from "V" Eavenna, but also by several Princes who were fresh from Germany, such as the Archbishops of Mayence and Salzburg, and Meinhard, the younger Count of Goritz. He kept Easter in company with his son and the other Princes at Aqudeia, where he solemnly invested Archbishop Siffrid with the superiority over the Abbey of Lorsch. He paid especial respect to the Abbot of St. Gall, whom he lodged nearer to the Palace than the rest of the nobles.* Li May, the Court returned to Cividale di Friuh, whence the foUowing most weighty decree Avas issued by the Kaiser. ' The shoulders, upon which the Head is placed, are deserving of honour. Be it known then to the present and to posterity that we, meeting in this place our beloved son, and being asked by the Princes of the Empire to confirm the Edict given by him in theh favour at Worms last year, decree, that no new Castle is in future to be built by us, or by any one else on any pretext, upon Church Lands ; no new customs are to annul the old ones ; no one is to be sued at any Court of which he does not approve ; old roads are not to be removed without consent given ; each of the Princes is to have the old customary fiefs and jurisdictions in his own lands ; no one is to change his residence without his lord's consent ; Pfahlburghers are to be driven out of the walls of towns, where they intrude ; taxes on the peasants, received in wine, com, and money, are to be remitted ; the serfs of the Princes are not to be harboured in our cities, whither they may have escaped ; Ave give safe conduct to the Princes through * Conr. de Fabaria. FREDERICK THE SECOND 499 our lands ; no guilty men are to be received into our chap. cities ; if any such be there, they are to be driven ' forth ; the coinage is not to be debased ; and our 1231-1236. towns are not to extend their jurisdictions.' As usual, the burghers are curbed, and the Princes and Prelates are protected by the Kaiser. From Udine an edict in the same spirit was put forth against Worms, one of the free cities of the Empire, which was rising slowly but surely to im portance ; leave Avas granted to its Bishop to pull dovra. the toAvn hall, the site of which Avas to be handed over to the Church. This decree is a type of the sphit of Frederick's political system at this time. The Bishop of Worms is described as a wise man, who had been refused money by his flock for his journey to Eavenna ; they preferred to send their own envoys on a bootless errand, for the Kaiser, hear ing from the Bishop that all Episcopal authority was at an end, declared that such a state of things must last no longer. This decree, and also an excommu nication, Avas launched at the high-sphited burghers, who destroyed their beloved town haU, one of the finest buildings in Germany, rather than allow it to become a standing menace to theh liberties in the hands of the Bishop.* On the other hand, the Count of Holstein obtained a confirmation of the pri vileges of the new city of Hamburg. The Emperor and his Court now removed to Bordenone. The Bishop of Worms was here protected against another enemy, the young Duke of Bavaria, who had refused to appear at the Diet ; one German Count was placed under the ban for robbing the Bishop of Batisbon, * Ann. Wormat. K K 2 500 THE HISTORY OF chap, while at Eavenna ; another underwent the like punishment for offences against the Church of Wurz- 1231-1236. bi.rrg. Two Knights of Plawen, men of old Eoman blood, had a grant of mines and the right of coining, to reward theh prowess against the Pagans. The most important instrument that was issued from Pordenone, was a League entered into by Frederick with King Louis of France. No rebels from either contracting party were to be sheltered by the other side. No league with the King of England was to be made by either party without the consent of the other. The oath was taken on Frederick's behalf by a German, whom he had thrust into the Bishopric of Catania.* It may be asked, why the Emperor should have turned out of his way for the sake of visiting Porde none. He had taken this step, because he had found it otherwise impossible to have an interview with Frederick, the new Duke of Austria. This Prince stands out quite by himself from the common run of German Princes ; he was the strangest of aU the strange characters with whom the Emperor had to deal. The Duke had succeeded his heroic father nearly two years before this time ; he had just been knighted, and is described by the contemporary verse- makers as resembling Paris and Absalom in beauty, while in valour he might be compared to Hector or Judas Maccabasus.f He kept a tight hand over his subjects ; indeed it was hard to distinguish his justice from tyranny. He had not the least respect for the ties of blood ; his own kinsmen and connexions un- * See the note of Huillard-Breholles on this Treaty. t See the monkish rhymes incorporated with the History of the Archbishops of Salzburg, in Pertz. FREDERICK THE SECOND 501 derwent as much at his hands as any of his enemies, chap. He is accused of foul outrages upon the honour of ^L women, and of dire cruelty towards his vassals. He 1231-1236. made no difference between the convent and the castle. Unable to remain at peace, he was always embroiled with his neighbours in Germany, Hungary, or Bohemia. The Kaiser himseU was treated by him with very scanty reverence ; indeed Frederick, usu ally so courteous to his German Princes, was pro voked into caUing the Austrian, ' that mad youngster.' The Duke had refused to attend the Diet at Eavenna, or even to appear at Aqudeia ; the Emperor, making adoAvance for his vassal's boyish years, and being resolved to become acquainted with him, turned out of his road to visit Pordenone, which belonged to the Duke. The young mutineer, who could not well refuse to do the honours on his own lands, at length condescended to meet his Kaiser. Frederick received him most graciously, gave him fine horses and other presents, and promised him 8000 marks in order to solder up a quarrel which had been fastened upon him by King Hemy, respecting the dowry of Mar garet, the Duke's sister.* Frederick had contemptuously turned his back on the Pope's Legates at Eavenna, much to their dis composure ; they had however been active in en forcing peace throughout Lombardy, the Trevisan March, and Eomagna, and envoys had been sent for that purpose to Padua. He had expressed his dis pleasure at his enemies having frustrated his Diet at Eavenna, which had been convoked for the aid of the Holy Land and for the good of the Empire. * See Frederick's letters in 1236. 502 THE HISTORY OF chap. They had moreover prevented his son and the German Princes from coming through Lombardy. 1231-1236. jje was now distributing much gold and sdver among his Northern vassals, and was already fixing a day for an attack on the rebels.* The League on the other hand began to be dismayed, protesting that it had only acted in self-defence ; the Pope undertook to mediate. Hermann von Salza, as usual, was Fre derick's ambassador on the occasion, and peace was made at Padua on the 13 th of May, each party promising to abide by the decision of Eome. The evil day was thus put off for four years longer. One more event marked the Emperor's sojourn at Pordenone. Among all the nobles who flourished in the North of Italy, none were more powerful than the Lords of Eomano. The founder of the house had been settled in Italy by his countryman, the Emperor Conrad the Sahc, about two hundred years before this time. In the beginning of the Thirteenth Century, the chief of the family was Eccehn, known sometimes as the Monk, at other times as the Heretic. For in his old age, weary of the storms of hfe, he had withdrawn to a hermitage, after having made over his Trevisan estates to his elder son Eccelin, and his possessions in Vicenza to his younger son Alberic. The old man only came forth from his retreat to curb the violent measures to which his children were prone. They were at enmity with the Lombard League, having been tricked by the crafty Guelf statesmen; they therefore became staunch friends of the Imperial cause, to which Eccelin, born in the same year as Frederick, always stood * Chronicon. FREDERICK THE SECOND 503 true.* This youth began his career soon after the chap. untoward Diet of Cremona in 1226. He entered x' Verona at the head of the Ghibellines, to the cry of 1231-1236. ' Long live Cavaher Eccehn ! ' The city was for many years the prize for which he and the Count of San Bonifazio, the local head of the Guelfs, were struggling, f Alberic in the mean time became Bo desta of Vicenza. These men were so eager to bid for any support, that they were actually ready to denounce their own father, Eccelin the Monk, to the Inquisition, on the old man's becoming suspected of a leaning towards the Paterines. J He died, leaving his estates as aheady described ; and his two sons, Eccehn and Alberic, fought against their many sur rounding foes, the Marquis of Este, the Count of San Bonifazio, and the Lords of Camino. The brothers were in close aUiance with Sahnguerra, an aged warrior who had married one of their sisters, and who had driven the house of Este from Ferrara. Eccelin and Alberic were very different in charac ter. The former was bold, clear-sighted in politics, and staunch to the side he had chosen as his OAvn. He had a most commanding intellect, and his coun sels, whether in war or peace, were sure not to be shghted. He was a first-rate soldier, and could over awe his enemies with a glance ; he was however superstitious, as many found to their cost. § Covetous of power, he was unscrupulous as to the means by which it was won or kept. His merciless cruelty and his callousness to human suffering brand him as an enemy to mankind. Women quite as much as * Gerard Maurisius. f Eolandini. X Eaynaldus for 1231. § Antonio Godi. x. 1231-1236, 504 THE HISTORY OF chap, men, were by him handed over to death and to the most agonizing tortures ; for Eccelin cared not for beauty ; his whole soul was centred on power, the only lust to which he was prone. When young, his seeming mddness imposed upon many ; but he soon threw off the mask, after raising himself to greatness.* Unhappy Italy has groaned under many tyrants, from King Mezentius doAvn to some of her present rulers ; but on the whole, not one of them has been able altogether to equal the atrocities of Eccehn da Eomano. Well does he deserve the place in HeU given him by Dante, a lake of seething blood ! f He was wont to say, that he had heard in his sleep these words from the Almighty : ' Take thy sword, and avenge me on my foes in the Trevisan March ; for I have chosen thee for theh scourge.' J He certainly paid httle heed, either to the voice of God, or to the excommunications so often thundered against him by the Popes, during the thirty years of his tyranny. The younger brother Alberic was revengeful and cruel, though in this respect outdone by his better- known brother. If Eccehn was Moloch, Alberic was Belial. He had a passion for women, and he seems also to have been greedy of gold. He was accused on one occasion of showing cowardice in the field, but justified himself by quoting a saying of his grandfather, who would rather have had it said, ' Here Eccelin ran,' than that people should point out the spot where Eccehn was kiUed or taken. § The wicked brethren were aware that their fall was impending, * Ant. Godi. X Dante, Inferno, XII. X Imago Mundi. § Gerard Maurisius. FREDERICK THE SECOND 505 unless they could gain support from some strong hand. chap. They knew that the Emperor Avas now not very far x' from Treviso, at Pordenone, and thither Alberic has- 1231-1236. tened. He met Avith a most gracious reception, and told Frederick that Verona was ready to acknowledge the Emperor as her master, having already under Eccehn's guidance stood a siege from the Count of San Bonifazio and the Lombards. Frederick was overjoyed, knowing the importance of Verona, and remembering hoAv her strong Avails had barred an inroad of Ids German aides in 1226, when she was in the hands of the Lombard League. But he prudently made answer to Alberic ; ' It is weU ; still I have not men enough with me to hold Verona. It would bring the greatest shame on our Imperial Majesty, if our subjects were to besiege us there, or to withstand us. But it is our pleasure, that you defend the city up to a certain time, and then Ave AviU come with such a fearful host of men, that none AviU dare to withstand us.' Alberic promised this for himseU and his brother, and Frederick, taking ship for Apulia, sailed from Aqudeia southwards.* While the Emperor is on his way back to his fa vourite Kingdom, it wdl be convenient to look forward a httle, and to give a sketch of the affairs of Lombardy and the Trevisan March during the three years which followed his visit. Disunion was the curse of North ern Italy. Every city was ranged against its neigh bour ; scarcely a year passed, without local wars waged with the bitterest rancour. The Church now took up the cause of peace and order ; in the year after Frederick quitted the North, a famous Domi- * Gerard Maurisius. 506 THE HISTORY OF chap, nican, John of Vicenza, appeared on the scene. He ! first attempted to establish union at Bologna; his 1231-1236. proceedings there have been described to us by an eye-witness, Guido Bonatti the Astrologer. This sage, jealous of any rival, says that he himself was the only man in 1233 who would not venerate the new light, and that he was on this account accused of heresy. It was asserted that John raised the dead to life, cured diseases, and cast out devils ; ' But I,' says Guido, ' could not find one instance of this, al though I tried every means ; and I could find no one who spoke with certainty as to any cures. AU the world ran after the Friar, and happy was the man Avho got a thread out of his hood. The Bolognese gave him a guard of armed men, fenced him round with a paling of wood, and killed or wounded any one who came near him ; this he seemed to enjoy. He gave out, that he had interviews with Christ, with the Blessed Vhgin, and with the Angels, whenever he chose. The Dominicans coUected 20,000 sdver marks and more. He let a murderer out of prison, laying his commands on the Bodesta. I was the only one who withstood him, knowing his tricks. This went on for a year, before people found out what he was.' The Minorite Salimbene is another hostile witness. He says that John was a man of scanty hterature, who used to meddle with miracles ; and that Buon- compagno, a Professor of Grammar at Bologna, com posed satirical verses upon him, of which a specimen remains* But the unbelievers were few in number. * ' Et Johannes johannizat, Et saltando choreizat : FREDERICK THE SECOND 507 The Bolognese in vain besought the General of the chap. Preaching Order to alloAv John to remain Avith them. U He was made Legate of the Pope in Lombardy and 1231-1236. in the March. He visited the great city of Padua, where the magistrates received him with due honours. His influence soon spread over the whole of the Trevisan March ; he altered the statutes of the cities at his pleasure, and threAV open the prison doors ; nobles and burghers ahke crowded to hear the holy Dominican ; even the Lords of Eomano inclined, or seemed to incline, their minds to peace. After preaching at most of the large cities, John of Vicenza gathered an assembly on the plains of Baquara, near Verona. All the towns between Venice and Brescia, Treviso and Parma, were there represented. The great nobles and the Bishops, among them the Patriarch of Aqudeia, hung upon the hps of the Preaching friar. He took for his text the words, ' Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you ; ' and on this noble theme he thundered from a lofty pulpit, in a voice miraculously loud. He dic tated a treaty of peace which is stdl extant, and confirmed it by bestoAving the daughter of Alberic of Eomano on the son of Azzo of Este. Thus Ghibelhne and Guelf were united by a happy tie ; and this wedding, which took place before the bride groom was twelve years old, wrought an unexpected change in Itahan politics six years later. John was Modo salta, modo salta, Qui ccelorum petis alta ! Saltat iste, saltat ille, Resaltant cohortes mille, Saltat chorus Dominarum, Saltat Dux Venetiarum.' 508 THE HISTORY OF chap, now the greatest man of the day; Pope Gregory ' wrote to him, inviting him to make peace between 1231-1236. Florence and Siena, since his labours had been so much blessed in the North. The Bolognese were ordered not to detain the holy man from his Tuscan mission. Had John died at this moment, his name would probably have come clown to us by the side of that of his brother Dominican, Las Casas, as both alike being great benefactors to mankind. But the Friar could not abstain from meddling in pohtics ; having established his power at Vicenza, and after wards at Verona, he made a revolting use of it, burn ing alive sixty persons of the best houses, under pretence of punishing heresy. Disgusted by this reckless cruelty, both Vicenza and Verona shook off his yoke, and drove him back to Bologna. His influence was confined to one year, 1233, after Avhich he scarcely re-appears in history. We now turn our attention to the Mdanese. In spite of all their promises to the Bope and the Em peror, they went on with their warhke preparations after Frederick's departure from the North. Wldle he was at Eavenna and Aqudeia, they had elected seven captains to lead them in the expected war. One of the Delia Torre famUy made himseU very prominent. Seven thousand knights were ready to take the field, who Avere sworn to do battle against the Emperor, and to choose death rather than base flight.* In the next year, the example of John of Vicenza, then at the height of his renown, was followed by the orthodox at Milan. Oldrado da Tresseno of red-hot memory is still famous as a hammer of heretics. His * Ann. Mediolan. FREDERICK THE SECOND 509 statue on horseback may yet be seen outside the chap. Broletto at Milan, with a Latin line underneath of _J___ terrible import* In 1234, the Milanese offered a 1231-1236. most daring insult to Frederick. He Avas sending an elephant, with several camels and dromedaries, to his loyal Cremona. The rivals of this city came forth Avith their Carroccio to seize the strange animals, but could only succeed in capturing the keepers. One of Frederick's bitterest enemies at Milan was Henry of Monza, a Avarlike hero of very great personal strength, surnamed the Fire-kincUer, f and a devoted adherent of the Delia Torre party. He and others estabhshed in this year the Company of the Brave, a band sworn to combat Frederick. J There was evidently httle hope of peace continuing in Italy, whatever efforts the Bope or his Legates might make. But the crowning outrage was yet to come. King Henry had long before this time forgotten aU the promises of amendment made by him to his father when they met at Friuli. He received at his Court men who had been banished by the Emperor, such as Eaynald the Duke of Spoleto ; he complained of his father, and strove to gather adherents from any quarter. He made advances to the Duke of Austria and to the King of France, but his grand aim was to get the German cities on his side, these having always been shghted by the Kaiser. Stras burg, most of the towns on the Upper Ehine, and even Sphes, declared for him ; tAvo or three Pre lates also took the oath of allegiance to the ill-fated Prince. Not finding as many partizans as he could * Qui solium struxit, Catharos ut debuit uxit. X Mettefuoco. } Ann. Mediolan. 510 THE HISTORY OF chap, wish to the North of the Alps, Henry sent envoys to Milan, with the project of an alliance against the 1231-1236. Emperor. One of these was Anselm von Justingen, Marshal of the Imperial Court, the very man who more than twenty years before this time had gone to Palermo with the news of Frederick's election to the Emphe. Late in December, 1234, the treaty was made between King Henry on the one hand, and the Marquess of Montferrat, Milan, Brescia, Bologna, Novara, and Loch on the other. Among the wit nesses who signed was a son of the Marshal, and Pagano DeUa Torre. Cremona and Pavia were specially marked out for the vengeance of the League. After thus forestalling the march of events in Lombardy, we return to Frederick, who sailed back to his Khigdom late in May, 1232, capturing some pirates on the voyage.* Having reached Melfi, he sent an envoy to Gregory with assurances of his readiness to fight on the Papal side against the rebels at Eome; for the Holy Father had suspected the Emperor of stirring up the Eoman populace and bribing the Senator. Owing to the delay of Geb- hard von Arnstein, Gregory put off the settlement of the Lombard dispute until November. In the mean time, a brisk war was going on in the East, where John of Ibehn, mindful of Frederick's treacherous conduct in Cyprus in 1228, had garrisoned Acre against the Emperor, and had won a battle against Marshal Eichard. Frederick assembled an army for the succour of Acre, as a part of the city was still holding out for him. He also accused his old enemy * Godefr. Colon. FREDERICK THE SECOND 511 the Patriarch of having been at the bottom of the chap. whole business ; Gregory accordingly recalled Gerold, ' — and stripped him of his Legateship.* ' We wonder,' 1231-1236- the Pope says, ' Avhat has induced men to rebel against our beloved son Frederick ! His child at least is guiltless. Let not the httle flock of the Lord break out into strife ; if you need enemies, there are Saracens at hand.' The Knights of the Hospital were entrusted with the task of quelling these disturbances in the Holy Land. Another military Brotherhood, which was achieving the conquest of Courland and Livonia under the gallant Volquin, obtained a Charter from Frederick about this time, to which Von Salza was witness. The affahs of the Kingdom were now becoming more settled. The Count of Acerra was pressing on the siege of Antrodoco at the head of a large body of troops, gathered from the different parts of the realm. Landon, the Archbishop of Eeggio, a most loyal Churchman, was translated to Messina. Eoger of Aquila, a very old enemy of Frederick's, died this year, and was buried in the garb of a monk in the Monastery of Fossa Nuova. His lands, lying near Fondi, were instantly seized by the Crown, but Itri, a spot in the mountains well known to traveUers, held out as long as possible for his son Geoffrey, who fled to the Pope. Gregory was at this time upon unusually friendly terms with Frederick, of whose help he stood much in need, owing to the war that had broken out between Eome and Viterbo. Each of the two potentates en deavoured to aid the other. A Papal chaplain was sent to accomplish the surrender of Gaeta, but this * Raynaldus. 512 THE HISTORY OF chap, was delayed untd the next year. The Emperor on H__ his side ordered his vassals to hurry to the rescue of 1231-1236. khe Church ; with this view he strove to put an end to the quarrel between the Count of Provence and the burghers of Marseilles, who were backed by the Count of Toulouse. Frederick also sent a mes sage to his Burgundian vassals, reminding them that it was very long since they had performed any service for the Emphe, and summoning them to his side for a warlike enterprise in the May of the next year. He was probably planning a campaign against the unruly Eomans. He once more sent provisions to Anagni for the use of the Pope, who, mindful of his late pro mise to respect the rights of the Emphe, was now discussing those rights with special envoys from Lombardy; whde Vinea and Morra represented their master.* Frederick was holding his Court at Precina, when a suitor came from the North in the person of the Chronicler Gerard Maurisius, a notary of Vicenza and a staunch Ghibelhne, devoted to the house of Eomano. He obtained for his patrons on this occa sion a charter, sealed with the Golden Bull; for their services were fresh in Frederick's memory. The document ran thus ; ' Having before our eyes the pure faith and sincere love of Eccehn da Eomano and Alberic his brother, our tried hegemen, who have jeoparded their persons and goods for us, and seeing their constancy and their toils in our behalf, Ave take them, theh Castles, and their goods under our protection. Let no person, of whatever rank he may be, do them harm ; if any one attempts it, he * Ric. San Germano. FREDERICK THE SECOND 513 shall pay 200 pounds of gold, one half to our Trca- chap. sury, the other half to the sufferer.' The Arch- x" bishops of Palermo and Capua were among the wit- 1231-1236- nesses to this Charter. ' I got it,' Gerard tells us, ' without orders, and at my own cost, and I am still Avaiting for my reAvard.' Frederick's courtiers must have been highly amused at the lawyer's officiousness and seU-importance, supposing that he ever contrived to make his way into the ante-chamber. At the same time, Frederick wrote to the Bishops of Badua, Vicenza, and Treviso, on behalf of the Lords of Eomano. In January, 1233, he summoned all the Barons of his Eeahn to Pohcoro, where they were to assemble by the 1st of February for an expechtion against the rebeUious island of Sicily. Lucera and Naples were further strengthened, and new Castles were budt at Trani, Bari, and Brindisi ; but the walls of Troja were puUed down. The Emperor passed the two first months of the year on the Eastern coast. His affairs were prospering ; the captive Eaynald was led up to the walls of Antrodoco, in order to induce his brother Berthold to surrender the town. It was given up in July, after having stood out for two years ; and both Eaynald and Berthold were allowed to quit the Kingdom, where they had once held high command. Frederick was at Bohcoro in March, when he made over the city of Gaeta, stfll in rebelUon, and also some nobles who had taken the side of the Church, to his son Conrad, then a child of five years old. Later in the year, Gaeta returned to her aUegiance, and her citizens, at the request of the Pope, took the oath to Frederick and Conrad. Her crimes had been great ; she was therefore VOL. I. L L 1231-1236. 514 THE HISTORY OF chap, deprived of her elective magistrates, and underwent the infliction of a custom-house. In the following year, all her towers, except four, were pulled down.* Thus vanished the last traces of the troubles of 1228. Frederick seemed to be stdl on good terms with the Pope at the beginning of the year 1233. He had thus written from Precina ; ' The Emphe and the Papacy ought to be for ever united ; they are the two swords, to which the Apostle referred ; but Mother Church possesses the sheath of both. They should never be parted ; far be it from us to sunder them ! We promise to sharpen them against those who pervert the faith and rebel against the Empire.' Gregory now resolved to put this devotion to the proof ; he caUed on the Monarch for aid against the enemies who were attacking the Holy See, since Frederick was her feudal vassal. But an outbreak in Sicily was distracting the vassal's attention and making him deaf to the calls of his Lord. The Bope had written to Frederick so early as the 3rd of February from Anagni, bidding him come to the rescue without delay, and speaking of the madmen who were working against the dignity of the Empire. A week later, Gregory thus wrote ; ' We were re joiced to hear that you were coming ; but it was with the greatest sorrow that we learnt that you were turn ing towards Sicily, throwing aside the affairs of the Empire and our defence. We looked to you as the chief Defender of the Church ; nothing ought to have prevented you from coming to us ! ' Gregory, moreover, was of opinion that even U the Emperor * Ric. San Germano. FREDERICK THE SECOND 516 had beeii unable to come himself, he might at least chap. have sent his generals. x' In the previous year, a sedition had broken out at 1231-1236- Messina, the toAvnsmen taking offence at the appoint ment of Eichard of Montenero to the office of Jus ticiary for Sicily, and accusing him of oppression. This movement seems to have become general throughout the Eastern parts of the island. Frederick flew to the point of danger, eager to crush the mischief while still in the bud ; at the same time he excused himseU to the Bapacy, by saying that he was unwilling to lose his noble island. Having no hope of succour from Apuha, Gregory made peace with his rebellious Eomans without consulting Frederick, who had de clared war against them at the Pope's instigation ; this was a breach of the law of nations of which the Emperor afterwards complained.* Frederick entered Messina in April at the head of Ids troops. He assembled the unruly burghers in the Cathedral, and there pardoned them all, high and low. But a loathsome act of mingled cruelty and treachery was to folloAv this seeming clemency. After a feAV days the Emperor, ' not treading in the foot steps of the great Princes whose words are never recalled,' wreaked his vengeance upon the revolters.*!* Some were happy enough to. escape, others lost their goods ; the Archbishop of Palermo obtained the vine yard of the traitor Temonerio. Many were sen tenced to a cruel death ; Martin MaUone, the ring leader of the sedition, and several of his accomphces were hanged or burnt alive. Syracuse and Nicosia underwent a simdar punishment. J Two months * See the letters for 1239. f Chron. breve Vaticanum. X Eic. San Germano. Ap. ad Malaterram. l l 2 516 THE HISTORY OF chap, later Gregory wrote a letter to his aUy, rebuking .A, him for having burnt true behevers, to punish them 31-1236. £Qr f.nejr rebemon) under the pretence of theh being heretics. According to this letter, Frederick himseU seems to have been present at their death. He made no scruple of condemning traitors to that fearful punishment which the Church wished him to reserve for heretics. Very few of the Hohenstaufens were free from a thirst for cruel revenge. Other towns in Sicdy, as we have before said, had taken part in the revolt. Frederick stormed Cen- torbi in the mountains, and utterly destroyed it, forcing the inhabitants to take up theh abode at Agosta on the sea ; this town he budt and named after himseU, and thither the Bishoprick, with its revenues, was transferred. Capizzi and Traina were also dismantled.* He had always a great objection to mountain strongholds. In June he was at Ca tania. A legend was long believed, though no author of the century aUudes to it, that this city also was doomed to destruction, but that the Emperor, while reading his missal, thrice met with this sentence ; ' Do not destroy the country of Agatha, since she is the avenger of wrongs.' Hereupon Frederick con tented himself with building a Castle to overawe Catania. St. Agatha's girdle, when brought forth, is said to have arrested the fiery stream pouring down from Mount Etna on the city below I f Whde Frederick was subduing Eastern Sicily, the Pope had been maintaining peace in Lombardy ; a treaty was drawn up, whereby the states in that province, receiving pardon for their past misdeeds, * Jamsilla. f Rocchus Pirrus. 1231-1236. FREDERICK THE SECOND 517 engaged to furnish 500 knights for the next Crusade, chap. The Emperor, on being asked to send letters con firmatory of his desire for peace, promised to despatch Hermann von Salza, the only man who could be trusted with the business. Writing in confidence to the Bishop of Ostia, Frederick complained of this treaty Avith the Lombards, since his Holiness had been strangely indifferent to the honour of the Empire. If the Bope's aAvard were made pubhc, Kings and Brinces would in future be unwilhng to make him theh um pire. The Emperor's correspondent, a mdd Pre late, could do nothing for him, and Gregory excused the Lombards for not having sent their 400 knights according to agreement in aid of the former Crusade, on the ground that Frederick had not saded at the appointed time. In August, the Emperor wrote from Castro Giovanni, in Sicdy, engaging to keep the peace with the Lombards, according to the conditions dictated by the Pope. The Count of Acerra was stationed at Cremona, to watch over his master's interests in the North. Frederick paid a visit to Palermo, which had evi dently not been drawn into the late rebelhon. He ordered his Justiciaries to hear the complaints of the clergy, and to do whatever justice demanded on their behalf, saying that he would provide for the correction of abuses. Some of the Prelates appeared at Teano, but none of them made any complaints. Their in fluence over theh flocks seemed to be waning; a letter was sent to the Bishop of Caserta concerning the Paterines and their abettors, who were in great force in the neighbourhood of Naples; aU heretics were to be doomed to the stake.* After a visit to * Ric. San Germano. 518 THE HISTORY OF chap. Butera, Frederick held a Court at Syracuse. Here — — — he put forth an important edict, to the intent that 1231-1236. none of the subjects 0£ tije Kingdom should marry foreigners without his special hcence, on pain of con fiscation of aU the offender's goods. He Avas now thorough master of his own Eealm on either side of the Faro ; no one moved hand or foot without his order, as the Bope remarked. The year 1234 opened with another Court at Messina. In February, the Emperor left Sicily for ever, and came into Apuha, Avhich was suffering from a very hard winter ; thousands of sheep had died from the effects of rain and starvation ; trees perished, and wild animals and birds were found dead in the snow. In the North of Italy aU the fruit trees were killed, and in the next year wine was so scarce, that it was given up even at wedding feasts.* On the 20th of March, Frederick came to see the new Castle at Trani.f He next visited the Terra di Lavoro, where he marked out with his own hand the plan of a Castle which was to be built at Capua, and he strengthened the one he had already built at Naples. In April, he wrote once more about the Treaty which was to be made Avith the Lombards ; but the Pope had other business on his hands. Gregory's truce with his Eoman subjects had not lasted very long ; he had again been driven from his See ; but if Eome was against him, her fierce enemy Viterbo was for him. Indeed, for the greater part of this century, the Bope was most usually to be found at Anagni, Eieti, Viterbo, or Perugia ; any where, ex- * Ric. San Germano. Patavinus Mon. Eiccobaldi Ferrarien. f Mat. Spinello. FREDERICK THE SECOND 519 cept at Eome. Even Innocent the Third, the con- chap. -y- queror of the Avorld, had been unable to keep his own diocese in proper subjection. The Author 1231~123 • of Gregory's hfe calls Eome ' a city of raging beasts.' That Pope had taken refuge at Eieti, where Frederick, unsummoned, sought an inter view Avith him in May, bringing the child Conrad, Avhom he deigned to tender as a hostage. At this time, Conrad Avas the only son left to comfort the Emperor, for the offences of Henry were glaring, in spite of aU the promises of amendment made at the late Diet in Northern Italy. The Emperor was most anxious to keep the Pope steady to his side, which was the chief cause of the present interview. He repeatedly sat at the Papal table. He called on God to witness the sincerity of his desire for a complete union between himseU and the Church. He thought, as he afterwards said, that Fortune had smiled upon him, in giving him this opportunity of proving his steady devotion. Both Gregory and his courtiers made unbounded professions of good-Avfll towards the Em peror ; the httle Conrad was sent back to the King dom ; a hostage was not needed. Frederick was urged to marry again, for the sake of his spiritual and tem poral interests, and the Pope promised to find a suit able bride. The Emperor now, after having gained a favourable hearing, explained the cause of his strife with the Lombards, and of another quarrel he had with the Anconitans. Feeling sure of success in his suit, he disbursed large sums of money from his treasury, more than 100,000 marks of silver, as he himself said ; he gathered a large army of Italians and Ger mans, though the Transalpines were only allowed to pass through jealous Lombardy after letters to that 1231-1236. 520 THE HISTORY OF chap, effect had been sent thither by the Pope. Frederick endeavoured to restore quiet in Germany, by order ing aU the nobles to swear the peace lately estabhshed at Frankfort. Since he was aiding the Pope in Italy, Gregory in return strengthened the hands of his friend in Germany. He wrote to the good Arch bishop of Treves, exhorting him to place in a strong hght the sin of disobedience to parents before the eyes of King Henry, and to proclaim the youth ex communicated for perjury, should he prove rebeUious. Much busmess connected with Germany was trans acted at Eieti. Among other supphants, Conrad of Thuringia, who afterwards succeeded Von Salza in the Grand Mastership of the Teutonic Order, came and obtained a Charter for a hospital at Marburg, which had been built by his sister-in-law, St. Eliza beth of Hungary. Meanwhile the Eoman rebels had sent envoys throughout Tuscany and Sabina, sthring up a gene ral revolt. Frederick asked leave of the Bope to caU upon Spoleto and the March for aid ; he posted his army at Montefiascone, which, as weU as Eadico- fani, had been fortified by the care of Gregory. The Papal Commissioner was Cardinal Eegnier Capocci, who must have known the ground well, and who was one of the most active men in the Sacred College, a zealous patron of learning, and the founder of the Dominican convent of Viterbo. He, more than any other of the Cardinals, may be caUed Frederick's contemporary, since he was raised to his high office ¦ in the year that Frederick first quitted Sicily ; and, he died but a few months after the Emperor's own decease. By Eegnier's advice, Eispampani, a Eoman garrison near Toscanella, was blockaded for two 1231-1236. FREDERICK THE SECOND 521 months.* But the Emperor scandahzed the Church chap. party by interchanging civilities with the enemy, and by his unseasonable amusements. ' He joined him seU to the foe, bestoAving gifts and honours on the Eomans, following the chase, and exchanging armies for dogs, the sceptre for hunting spears ; instead of attacking the enemy, he practised his triumphant eagles in catching birds ; he gave the Eomans a cer tain day for evacuating Eispampani, which he saved from nun ; he was thought not to have ridden, but to have floAvn, back to his Kingdom.' Thus writes Gregory's Biographer ; the Pope himseU afterwards asserted that he possessed written proofs of Frede rick's treachery. He accused the Emperor of having shamelessly fled before the enemies of the Church at Viterbo, and of ha-ving neglected to reheve one of his own garrisons, besieged before his very eyes. There was another quarrel betAveen the Pope and Emperor. When at Bieti, Gregory had refused to give up to his aUy Citta di CasteUo. This was against the advice of his brethren, and agamst terms before arranged ; but the Bope justified his refusal, saying that he had only received 50,000 marks for the town. ' See how this most Holy Father of ours loved us ! ' cried Frederick ironically some time after wards. The burghers of the town in question took the matter into theh own hands ; they broke theh oath of fealty to the Church, and gave themselves up to Frederick. Gregory asserted on the other hand, that he had been always ready to do justice and to listen to the advice of his brethren ; but that the Emperor's envoys had declined a trial, f * Eic. San Germano. f See tne letters f°r 1239. 1231-1236. 522 THE HISTORY OF chap. The troubles in the Holy Land had also engaged the attention of both Emperor and Pope in August. The Archbishop of Eavenna, a strong partizan of Frederick's, had in that month been sent to the East as Apostohcal Legate, with orders to put down the sedition raised by John of Ibehn, and to restore the Kingdom of Jerusalem to its rightful King and to his son Conrad, the true heir. The Archbishop, furnished by Frederick with full powers over all his subjects at Acre, went beyond the Bapal instructions, and laid the Holy Land under an interdict, on ac count of an appeal against himself having been made to Borne. Gregory took alarm ; he was aheady sthring up Christendom to a fresh Crusade, as the truce made with Sultan Kamel was now half over ; he feared that these proceedings in Balestine would delay the passage of the Pilgrim's, and that the sol diers aheady there would depart to their homes ; he therefore withdrew the interdict, after taking security from the nobles of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Frederick afterwards made this one of his chief grounds of complaint against Gregory, adding that the Pope had refused to send letters to Palestine, in consequence of which refusal much bloodshed and burning of churches had ensued. The Crown of Jerusalem Avas rather a barren honour than a profit able possession to the Emperor.* In the next year, Gregory sent a letter to John of Ibelin, avIio was besieging Tyre, after his attempts on Acre had been defeated. Peter de Vinea and the Bishop of Patti had come to the Pope, asking him to confirm what the Archbishop of Eavenna had done. But Gregory * See the letters for 1239. 1231-1236. FREDERICK THE SECOND 523 wrote to Frederick ; ' The men of Acre Avill now submit chap. X to Eichard your Marshal in the name of yourself and your son, lay down theh arms, and depose the Cap tains they have elected ; a sentence of excommunica tion will be proclaimed against them. We think that there is danger of heresy ; Ave have therefore relaxed the interdict.' These men of Acre appear to have set up a republic and to have forsworn both Frederick and Conrad. They placed themselves wholly in Gregory's hands ; he Avent further and Avished to make a truce betAveen the Emperor and the King of Cyprus, Avho had not forgotten 1228. The success of the approaching Crusade was much endangered by these constant bickerings.* Whde the Emperor was hastening back to his own Kingdom, the Bope withdrew in the other direction to Berugia. He kept some German nobles at Viterbo, and these chiefs routed the Eoman army Avith great slaughter, after it had revictualled Eispam- pani. Many of the conquerors however fell ; Conrad von Veingen, who had helped Frederick in suppress ing the Sicihan revolt, was among those slain. f The whole of Sabina was reduced, but Gregory was fully alive to the dangerous temper of the Eomans ; they wished, as he said, to raise a republic on the ruins of the Church. He therefore wrote to the Kings of Spain and the Duke of Austria, who sent him large sums of money. All the Brinces of Germany were invited to lead their troops to the aid of the Pope in March, and to serve for three months. The Arch bishop of Bouen was summoned from France, and the old Bishop of Winchester from England ; each * Eaynaldus. t Godefr. Colon. 1231-1236. 524 THE HISTORY OF chap, hi a military rather than in a clerical capacity. The Count of Toulouse had aheady arrived in Italy, to serve under the banner of his old enemy. Gregory now sent envoys to the recreant Frederick, once more urging a peace between him and the Lombards, so that the expected Crusade might not be inter rupted. The Emperor placed the whole business, as usual, in the hands of the Pope, who was assured by the Lombards that they would not break the peace. He wrote to them on the 27th of October, drawing theh attention to the cries of the Holy Land. If it was to be succoured, the Emperor's right hand must be strengthened by the help of Lombardy, so abounding in men and wealth. The Pope would not allow any harm to befall the states, but they must aU set their seals to the bond which Gregory's own chaplain would bring them. On returning home, Frederick threw into prison for a short time one Walter of Aversa ; this man, thinking to curry favour with his master, had been harassing certain subjects of the Kingdom, whose past conduct had been disloyal. Some hamlets in Apuha were destroyed. And now the news from Germany was becoming worse and worse ; the sedition raised there by Henry against his father was the common talk. The young King wrote a letter to the worthy Bishop of Hildesheim in September this year, giving his own version of the cause of the quarrels between himself and the Kaiser. ' We withstood the Pope,' said Henry, ' when he wished to depose our father a few years ago; we blockaded Cardinal Otho, the Papal emissary, in Strasburg, and we forced the old Duke of Bavaria to acknowledge our father's authority. We afterwards constrained the young Duke of Bavaria 1231-1236. FREDERICK THE SECOND 525 to do the hke. We held a grand Diet at Frankfort, chap. Avhither such a crowd of Princes came as had not - been seen for a very long time.* By the advice of these Princes we ordered the destruction of certain Castles Avhere lawless deeds were done. Wicked men took occasion of this to sow discord between ourselves and our father, who, alas ! lent his ear to them too easily, wrote to us most harshly, and with drew from us the privdeges he had long allowed us to enjoy. He commanded us to repair aU the damage we had done to the Hohenlohe brethren, and he forced us, much to our discredit, to give up the hostages we had taken from the Duke of Bavaria and the Mar grave of Baden. Our father lends himself to the plots of any nobles and vassals who seek his Court, and he grants them letters directed against us. He has now begun to threaten that he wdl not receive our letters, U we are in the least neglectful of his orders. He has procured our excommunication from the Apostohc See, without our having been cited or con victed of any wrong. We have now sent the Arch bishop of Mayence and the Bishop of Bamberg, the noblest envoys whom we could employ, to the feet of the Kaiser, begging him to restore us to his favour. We cad upon you and upon aU the Princes of the Emphe to help us. God the Searcher of all hearts knows, and the Princes of Germany know, that from the time that we could distinguish between good and evd, we have done nothing to displease our father.' In this letter Henry takes care not to mention the agreement made at Cividale in 1232. He is also sdent as to another ground of complamt which his father * This was held in February, 1234. 1231-1236. 526 THE HISTORY OF chap, had against him ; namely, Henry's wish to divorce his wUe Margaret of Austria, and to take a Bohemian bride in her place.* Frederick, ftdly alive to the dangers that threatened the Empire, wrote a letter to his German subjects in these terms ; ' We grieve to hear of the evil state of your land ; but we will endeavour to correct it. We desire you to swear to the Peace of Frankfort.' In November he was visited at Foggia by Siffrid the warlike Archbishop of Mayence, to whom he had sent a most urgent summons, and also by the Margrave of Baden and the Bishops of Bamberg and Eichstaclt ; these nobles were witnesses to various edicts protecting the Ger man Prelates. The Abbot of Tegernsee procured an injunction, restraining the new Duke of Meran and the Count of Tyrol from oppressing his Monastery ; the brethren had prudently elected Frederick as theh advocate. It is remarkable that even at this date the Emperor stiU calls Henry, ' our dearest son.' The career of the King was now speedily drawing to its end ; Germany was weary of him, and Lombardy could give him httle help. His father had aheady written from Precina in November, overturning an edict put forth by the rash youth against the Mar grave of Baden, for the purpose of wresting some towns from that noble. The Emperor however had another more pleasing subject to engage his thoughts. He had now been a widower for six years and a half, but he was at this moment seeking the hand of his third Empress, a daughter of England, whom Gregory had, according to his promise in the past summer, chosen as Frederick's bride, f At Foggia, * Ann. "Wormat. f See Frederick's letters for 1235. FREDERICK THE SECOND 527 on the 15th of this month, the Emperor gave full chap. poAvers to his trusty Peter de Vinea to act as his — — — - 1231—1236 proxy at Westminster. The document opens with an eulogium on the wedded state and its advantages. Frederick then goes on thus ; ' After various nego tiations carried on for us by the Pope, Ave have sent Master Peter de Vinea, the Judge of our High Court, Avhose loyalty and industry have deservedly endeared him to us, to ask the Princess Isabella of England in marriage, and Ave promise that we wdl treat her with Imperial honour. Henry, the Archbishop of Cologne, is also joined in this commission. Peter de Vinea is to assign to the bride as her dowry the Valley of Ma zara with all its appurtenances, and the honour of Monte San Angelo ; for other Queens of Sicdy have had, according to custom, both of these districts as a dowry. This is to be assigned to her on her wedding-day. Brother George de Merk is also our special Euvoy ; he is not to be content with less than 30,000 marks of silver, as the dowry of the Prin cess.'* On the 9th of December, Frederick took the Pope's advice on his Enghsh project. He says ; ' We are sending Peter de Vinea to England on the business of our wedding ; and a Prelate, whomsoever Her mann von Salza may judge fit for the duty, is to bring the Princess to us. In case our future distance be an obstacle, we think that you ought to regulate the dowry, and the place where it is to be paid, for per haps the King of England may not now be able to pay. We leave to you the sum, and the time at * She had been proposed, ten years before, as the bride of Frederick's son. 528 THE HISTORY OF chap, which it is to be disbursed.' Frederick acted wisely in referring any money matters connected with Eng- ' land to Gregory. None knew better than the old Pope how great a strain our country would bear upon its finances. Early in December, he wrote to England, in furtherance of Frederick's project. Gregory's Biographer assures us that the Boman Church alone could have procured the Brincess Isa bella for the Emperor, by influencing her devout brother, King Henry the Third. The great event of the year, 1235, was Frederick's journey across the Alps, to overwhelm the partizans of his rebeUious Absalom. He must have heard of the league formed by Henry with the Milanese, late in the previous year ; it was high time to restore order in Germany. The Pope gave his help to the good work by excommunicating the headstrong youth, who was the cause of aU the mischief. Gre gory thus wrote to the German Prelates on the 13th of March ; ' We have long had experience of the devotion of our dearest son in Christ, the Emperor Frederick. His son Henry, unmindful of the Divine love, a scorner of human affection, is a rock of offence to the Emperor. Bring the youth back to the right path; in these times there should be peace, for the sake of the Holy Land. We absolve all men from any oaths they may have taken against the Emperor.' The Archbishop of Salzburg, who had held that See long before 1212, and who had ever been on the side of Frederick, pubhshed the excommunication against the rebel. Moreover, some of the German Bishops were suspected of disloyalty to their Kaiser ; their conduct was to be inquhed into by the Bishop of Batisbon, the Brefect of the Imperial Court ; and they FREDERICK THE SECOND 529 were to present themselves at Eome within two chap. months' time. The Bishops of Augsburg and Wurzburg, and the Abbot of Fulda, were among 1231-1236. the accused. Certain Canons, who had gone to Mdan on Henry's behaU, Avere suspended and sum moned to appear before the Pope. Surely a great improvement had been wrought in the morals of the Lateran, within a century or thereabouts. Hildebrand and his successors had not been ashamed to harass that luckless Emperor, Henry IV, by stirring up against him his own sons. But in the present case Pope Gregory refuses to abrogate the FUth Com mandment ; more than this, he gives his hearty co-operation to the wronged father. The Eoman annahst says ; ' Frederick set forth, as if he had been the Legate of the Church, strengthened by letters from her.' * No tampering with the young King can be laid to the charge of the Pope ; in later years the Emperor, when raking up against Gregory every old score he can caU to mind, abstains from accusing his enemy of having abetted Henry. Frederick prepared the way for his appearance in Germany by a circular addressed to the Princes. He reminded them of theh tried loyalty to himself, and of the obligations by which his son was bound to the Germans. But the youth, in spite of his father's repeated injunctions to the contrary, had be gun to lay hands on the Brinces, whom Frederick calls the pupils of his eyes. Hemy had been un mindful of the oath taken at Friuli, had feared neither God nor man, and had forced his father's loyal subjects to give him hostages. The Emperor had * Gregorii Vita. VOL. I. MM 1231-1236, 530 THE HISTORY OF chap, thought it his duty to impart the painful details to aU his Brinces, that by their services some check might be given to the now rapidly spreading disease. Worms was the only city on the Upper Ehine that had stood faithful to its Kaiser. It accordingly re ceived a letter of thanks for the stubborn refusal it had given to take a disloyal oath, in spite of cajo leries and threats. The Kaiser would soon come into Germany, would hold all his faithful burghers harmless, and would richly reward them, just as King David had repaid his loyal subjects after crush ing his wicked son's revolt. Their sorrows would be only for a moment ; let them imitate the persever ance of their forefathers, and hold out a Uttle longer. Frederick was well furnished with money for his Northern expedition. He had not only levied the usual January taxes, but had borrowed large sums from the monasteries, which he stdl continued to fa vour. He had also allowed some of the Apuhan prisoners to ransom themselves from their prison at Canossa ; others of them underwent punishment. He kept Easter at Brecina, and then made ready for his journey to the North. He took with him his second son Conrad, that boy being noAV his only hope. He started from his Kingdom in Aprd, having first sent Hermann von Salza to the Pope. The Count of Acerra, the Archbishop of Palermo, and a few others foUowed their Lord as far as Fano, whence they re turned, after receiving many directions as to the government of the Kingdom. In May, Frederick with a very few attendants set sail from Eimini for Aqudeia.* That same month, having crossed the * Ric. San Germano. FREDERICK THE SECOND 531 Alps near Canale, he Avas at Neumarkt in Styria, chap. where he Avas attended by three German Prelates, the Duke of Carinthia and the Duke of Lorraine, 1231-1236. besides Von Salza. He had come Avithout an army, trusting to the simple loyalty of the German Princes and to their attachment to the Kaiser ; he calculated aright. One exception there was however to the prevalent good feeling. The young Duke of Austria met Frederick at Neumarkt, and with great shame- lessness requested a loan of 2000 marks for his wars with Hungary and Bohemia. Upon this being refused, he burst out into violence and told the Kaiser to his face that he would never serve him more. Frederick waswiUing to overlook this petulance in a striphng un accustomed to control ; besides, he could not afford to break Avith a Prince who was Lord of Austria, Styria, and Carniola, and who was able to bring 30,000 men into the field. He gave him fair words, caUing to mind probably the way in which the Duke's grandfather had treated King Eichard of England.* The King of Bohemia was wdhng to submit to the Emperor's mediation, but the Duke's unbearable pride and foUy stood in the way, and a bloody battle in July was the result. f On the last day of May, Frederick was received at the Styrian Abbey of Aclmont, to which he had al ready granted a Charter. J He thence passed on to Batisbon, after having been met by the Bishop of that city, the Chancellor of the Emphe. The faithful nobles of Suabia and a vast number of Princes came pouring into Batisbon. The Duke of Saxony ap- * See Frederick's letters for 1236. f Chron. Erphord. X Chron. Admont. m m 2 532 THE HISTORY OF chap, peared, and the Duke of Bavaria proved himself a x" loyal subject, thus discountenancing the reports which 1231-1236. traced his father's death to the wfles of the Kaiser. The Duke had indeed heavy grounds of complaint against King Henry, who had overrun his lands and forced him to give up his son as a hostage ; King Henry's father on the other hand had endeavoured by reiterated injunctions to undo this mischief.* From Batisbon, where he seems to have won the hearts of the Chapter, Frederick marched westward to Nuremberg, and granted to the Bishop of Bassau the right of the axe and the sword over aU criminals worthy of death. Another edict was issued in favour of Von Salza's Order ; every benefit conferred upon it by the faithful was viewed by Frederick as a service done to himself. Henry's rashly undertaken rebelhon was now a thing of the past ; the Margrave of Baden was cheered by the approach of his rightful Lord, whose defence he had so manfuUy undertaken ; and the faithful burghers of Worms were reheved from any future fears of a siege by the rebel party, such as they had stood in April, f The hopes of the in surgents were soon at an end. The Kaiser made a triumphant progress through Germany, where he had not been seen for fifteen years ; yet not the less on that account did his loyal subjects hasten to his side. Young Henry was forsaken by the men he had bribed to revolt ; they fled to their castles, leaving him to act upon the advice of Von Salza, the usual peace maker, and to throw himseU upon his father's mercy. Frederick was greeted by twelve Prelates when he * See Henry's letters for 1234. •j" Ann. Argentin. Ann. Wormat. 1231-1236. FREDERICK THE SECOND 533 entered Worms on the 4th of July. Among these ciiap. was Landolf, the Bishop of the city and the chief abettor of the revolt, whom the Emperor ordered to get out of his sight.* The Bishop of Hildesheim, an old and tried friend, was soon able to report to Pope Gregory, that owing to the favour of Borne, the Em peror had found all the Brinces of Germany, great and smaU, ready to do his bidding, and that aU thought of resistance had been given up. In the same letter, the glories of the coming Diet of May ence were foretold. A short time before, Frederick had addressed a letter to the Lombards, in which he related how he had been joined by his Brinces near Udine, who had made haste to swear fealty to their Lord ; how great had been the concourse of loyalists at Batisbon, where he had received good news of his English bride ; how at Nuremberg he had been able to de mand unconditional surrender from his rebelhous son. A great Diet was to be held at Mayence on the 15th of August. Let the Lombard nobles and cities send honourable ambassadors thither, to con found the hopes of aU rebels, and to animate the Brinces to the estabhshment of the weal of the Em peror and of Italy. The unhappy Henry had in the mean time achieved his own ruin. He disdained to accept the terms of submission proposed by his father, or to give up the stronghold of Trifels, lately the prison of an Enghsh King. He resolved to escape from Worms ; but the Kaiser at once threw him into a secure prison and thence transferred him to the neighbouring Castle of * Ann Wormatien. Ann. Argentin. 534 THE HISTORY OF chap. Heidelberg, which was held by Henry's bitter enemy ' the Duke of Bavaria, as Count Balatine of the 1231-1236. Rhine. Thence the youthful rebel was sent under a strong guard into Apuha, by the direction of the Patriarch of Aqudeia.* The King's two sons shared their father's prison ; neither of them make any great figure in history, although according to our ideas they Avere the Emperor's rightful heirs. Mar garet, Henry's iU-used wife, dechned to follow her husband into Apulia. The deposed King was transferred from one Castle to another, until at last, about seven years after this time, he dashed himself to the ground from his horse while being removed across the mountains from Ni- castro to Martorano. His attendants brought the dying man to the latter place, and he was buried in the Cathedral of Cosenza.f Frederick wrote a pa thetic letter on the death of his firstborn, who was the only rebellious son ever known in the annals of the Hohenstaufen House. ' The feelings of the father overpower those of the Judge, and we are forced to bewad the death of our eldest son. Cruel fathers may perhaps wonder that Caasar, unconquered by public foes, should be mastered by domestic sorrow ; yet every Prince is subject to Nature, which recog nizes neither Kings nor Kaisers. We confess that though Ave could not be bent by our son Avhen alive, we mourn him when dead. We are not the first or the last, who have wept for the deaths of undutiful sons. We order you to celebrate his funeral rites with all devotion, and to commend his soul to God's * Godefr. Colon. Chron. Erphord. f Chron. breve Vaticanum. 1231-1236. FREDERICK THE SECOND 535 mercy with masses, that you may sIioav sympathy chap. with our sorrows, as you exult in our joy.' — — Warned by the evil habits which had led Henry to his ruin, the Emperor was unusually particular in the training of Conrad. Many a letter of fatherly advice did he address to his second son. Towards the end of 1238, Frederick thus admonished the boy, from whom he had but lately parted. ' High birth alone is not enough for Princes ; they ought to be diligent in the pursuit of virtue. They cannot rise above their fellow-mortals, unless they outstrip them in prudence. Listen to the voice of Solomon, my son ; be a true King ; for if we Mon archs are without wisdom, we are ruled by others instead of ourselves being rulers. Kings are bound to be wise ; they are more teachable than others, owing to theh noble blood ; and their folly is often the nun of theh people. You, the King of the Eo mans Elect, have more depending on you than other Kings have ; you should therefore swiftly chmb the ladder of study and reach wisdom. Lay aside your dignity ; you must be a scholar, not a King or Kaiser, under your master's rod. Eejoice the heart of your father ; shrink not from disciphne, and be a true King.' A year after despatching this letter, which was garnished with many texts from the Proverbs, Frederick ordered two saddles to be made for Conrad at Messina, one adapted to a paUrey, the other to a des trier. A shield was also ordered for the young King's squhe, who was five years older than his master. Conrad gave his father some trouble, on approaching the awkward age of seventeen. The Emperor, who probably called to mind the very different feats per formed by himseU at that age, was loud in his com- 536 THE HISTORY OF chap, plaints against the German guardians of his son, who x. had concealed the youth's insolent vices untd these 1231-1236. ka(j kgcc-riie notorious. He ordered Conrad's false friends to be sent, whether willing or not, to the Im perial Court, commanding theh place to be supphed by trusty and virtuous Officials of the Empire. An improvement was soon seen in the boy ; for his father thus addressed him. ' You are our joy, god like offspring of Cassar's noble blood, since you are daily progressing in years and knowledge. Scorn double-tongued slaves, and love honest men ; give no ear to the flatterers and detractors who creep around the doors of the powerful ; honour the Prelates faithful to our Emphe and the priests of God ; take pleasure in the ruggedness of knights and knight hood ; be affable to your subjects, truthful, and a lover of peace. We do not forbid hawking and hunting, the customary amusements of Kings, at the right time and place ; but do not make yourself so familiar with huntsmen and crossbowmen as to allow them to encroach on your Boyal dignity. Pay respect to ourselves, and cleave to the counseUors we have given you. Take warning by the rashness of your brother Henry, who, listening to perverting flatterers, feU from his seat, which you have acquired from us. Be obedient to us, that our glory may be increased by the possession of a wise son.' This ad mirable advice was not wasted on Conrad. While aU Germany was welcoming Frederick, the project of the Enghsh marriage was being duly carried out. The Emperor's envoys, one of whom was Beter de Vinea, came before King Hemy the Thhd at Westminster, produced their master's letters, and asked the hand of the Prhicess IsabeUa, begging for 1231-1236. FREDERICK THE SECOND 537 a speedy decision. The King debated the matter chap. with his Prelates and nobles for three clays ; and on the 27th of February the request was granted, no one raising any objection. Isabella Avas brought from the Tower of London, where she had been kept in strict seclusion ; she is described as beautiful, modest as becomes a maiden, and remarkable for her dress and manners. The foreign envoys, who had asked to see her, gazed on her for some time, and then, after declaring her to be most worthy of their Em peror's bed, gave her a ring in his name, and she sent him another through Peter de Vinea. The Ambassadors aU shouted ' Long live our Empress ! ' * King Henry promised to pay the money for her dowry in sterhng marks by six instalments, and to provide aU things suitable to the lady's rank ; if he failed, the Pope was to constrain him to the due per formance of the agreement. Among the witnesses to the contract were Eichard Earl of CornwaU, the King's brother, and the famous Hubert de Burgh. The Archbishop of Cologne Avas to undertake to bring the Princess back to England, in the event of Frederick's death before the marriage could take place ; and the King fixed the 17th of Aprd for the wedding day. Coidd Peter de Vinea, during his stay at Westminster, have interchanged thoughts on law and government with young Bracton ? It is hardly probable ; the learned Ambassador must have been too impatient to rejoin his master to make a long sojourn in England. The Emperor, on hearing how matters stood, im mediately after Easter sent over the Archbishop of * De Wendover. 538 THE HISTORY OF chap. Cologne, the Duke of Brabant, and many other x. nobles. The bridal array of the new Empress was 1231-1236. tne wonder of the age ; her Crown was of pure gold, studded with jewels, and adorned with the images of the four Martyr Kings of England, to whom Henry entrusted his sister's soul. Bings, necklaces, jewels, sdks, fine bed-linen, golden goblets, and silver cook ing-pots formed part of her equipment. The orna ments, we are told, would incite women to covet- ousness ; the garments would almost distract the Emperor's thoughts from his bride. But the English nation afterwards underwent heavy taxation to defray the cost of aU this magnificence. The King ordered ten gaUeys to be made ready for sea, to come from Norfolk and Suffolk ; if their tackle was not suitable, that of other ships was to be seized for the purpose.* The Bishop of Exeter was fixed upon to take charge of the bride on her journey ; he was an old Crusading comrade of the Emperor, who would be glad to talk over with him the march to Jaffa and the squabbles at Jerusalem. The King's Seneschal, and a bevy of noble dames of the Court, were also the travelling companions of the Brincess. After a grand feast at Westminster, the cavalcade set out. IsabeUa and her ladies were mounted on am bling palfreys, the saddles and bridles of which were richly fretted with gold. The King and 3000 knights attended her. They slept at Feversham Abbey, and on the next day, after kneeling before the shrine of the holy blissful Martyr at Canterbury, they reached Sand wich, then one of the great ports of the realm. The Empress bade a sorrowful farewell to her brother, em- * Eymer. FREDERICK THE SECOND 539 barked on the 11th of May, and a voyage of three chap. days brought her up the Scheldt to Antwerp. There ' she Avas met by a large army, which Frederick had 1231-1236. sent to keep guard over her ; for it was said that some of the allies of King Louis were bent on carrying her off. The wedding indeed seems a breach of the Treaty with France, made at Bordenone three years before this time. Both the Bope and the Emperor had thought it needful to apologize to Louis for the Enghsh connexion, which the one had planned and the other had accepted. Frederick had thrown aU the blame, U there was any, upon Gregory, and had reminded Louis of the friendship which the two last Kings of France had ever borne to the House of Hohenstaufen, and which need not now be inter rupted. He had also made proposals for a meeting in order to draw closer the aUiance. The pious King was evidently wounded at Frederick's conduct, al though Louis refused to avenge himself, as he easily might have done, by abetting the revolt on the Upper Ehine. The cities of North Western Germany had always been eager partizans of the English alliance. Isabella was therefore welcomed with the greatest enthusiasm. Ten thousand burghers of Cologne, clad in holiday garb and mounted on valuable horses, went forth to meet theh beautiful Empress ; they raced, and gave proof of theh skiU in arms, assaUing each other with lances or reeds. But the masterpiece of art was a procession of ships, which seemed to sail along the streets, the horses drawing them being shrouded from the eye of the pubhc by silken cloths. Some clerks, sitting in the ships, tuned their musical in struments to ravishing melodies. IsabeUa was led 540 THE HISTORY OF chap, through the chief squares of Cologne, which had x- been decked out for her arrival. Hearing that the 1231-1236. noble matrons of the city, seated in theh balconies, were longing to see her countenance, she threw back her hood ; the populace, won by her gracious de meanour, shouted blessings on her handsome face, and had no doubt of the fruitful issue of her marriage bed. She lodged in the house of the Brovost of St. Gereon*, and was entertained by bevies of maidens, who sang and played tunes through the whole of the night. In the mean time armed men kept watch and ward on the walls of Cologne, lest King Louis should interrupt the festivities. After Isabella had been six weeks at that city, she was sent for by Frederick, whose marriage had been delayed, owing to his having been occupied with the suppression of his son's rebellion. The Arch bishop of Cologne and the Bishop of Exeter brought her to Worms, a triumphal journey of seven days. The Emperor was overjoyed at the sight of his bride, on whom Nature had lavished her choicest gifts, both of body and mind. The wedding took place on the 15th of July; four Kings, eleven Dukes, thhty Counts and Margraves, besides many Brelates, were present. f Frederick persuaded the Brinces not to lavish theh wealth upon buffoons, as was the usual custom on festive occasions, deeming it the height of madness. J He would not enter upon the duties of the marriage bed, untd the exact hour had been fixed by his Astrologers. The wedding festivities lasted four days, at the end of which time * Godefr. Colon. X I wish Matthew Paris had told us who the four kings were. X Godefr Colon. 1231-1236. FREDERICK THE SECOND 541 the Bishop of Exeter and the other English envoys chap. returned home. Frederick sent three leopards to his new brother-in-law, King Henry the Third, in allusion to the Eoyal coat-of-arms ; these animals, which had been brought from the East, became the nucleus of the Tower menagerie. The Emperor also promised help against France, the present mistress of provinces on the Seine and the Loire claimed by the Enghsh Crown. He sent back IsabeUa's maids of honour, and being fudy persuaded of her preg nancy, he entrusted her after the fashion of his Mo hammedan friends to the care of hideous black eunuchs, ugly as masks, as the Enghsh chronicler says. This patriot takes occasion to reply to the dl- mannered sneers of the German genealogists, who would appear to have carped at IsabeUa's pedigree. It seems to have been taken for granted, that a Hohenstaufen Kaiser ought to wed no bride who chd not bring him at least a Khigdom as her dower. Frederick the Fhst had married the heiress of the Kingdom of Burgundy ; Henry the Sixth had married the hehess of the Kingdom of Sicily ; Frederick the Second had married the heiress of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, his first wUe after he had been crowned Emperor. It was thought beneath him, the wealthy and mighty Lord of the whole Earth, as the Ger mans fondly beheved, to mate with a mere Brincess. But the Enghsh monk turns round upon these envious snarlers, and points out Isabella's connexion with aU the Eoyal houses of Europe. He then caUs attention to her English honours ; she is a descend ant of the dlustrious King AUred, and from that point he has no doubt but that her lineage can be 542 THE HISTORY OF chap, traced up to Adam.* Frederick himself seems to have been well satisfied with his Blantagenet Em- 1231-1236. press ; she was not ten years older than himself, as his first wife Constance had been ; she was not a mere chdd of fifteen, as his second wife Yolande had been at the time of her wedding. IsabeUa was in the fud bloom of youth and beauty; she won the hearts of all by her ready wit and gentle manners. Thus happily was renewed that bond between the two great branches of the Teutonic race, which should be the main object of every statesman, and which, after successive unions, from the time of King Athelstane downwards, has been once more knitted in our own day. Yet Isabella, though the representa tive of England, was by bhth and education French ; she must have been astonished, on first entering Germany, to hear the noble ladies and knights of her adopted land talking in a tongue akin to what at home was looked down upon as the low jargon of churls and villeins. The efforts of the German rebels to form an alliance with their Lombard brethren have aheady been noticed. Frederick caught three Lombard envoys in the North, whom he shut up for a year in one of his Castles, and then let them go unharmed, f This mddness is astonishing when we consider the provocation received, and the very harsh treatment experienced by the Messinese revolters two years before for a far less offence. But Frederick in Alsace was always very different from Frederick in Sicily. Anselm von Justingen, who had gone as * See De Wendover for all connected with the Empress. X Chronicon. 1231-1236. FREDERICK THE SECOND 543 Henry's ambassador to Mdan, fled from the Kaiser's chap. vengeance into Austria, and his Castle was destroyed.* Henry von Neifen had also been active on the side of the rebels, and had harassed and robbed the loyal Count of HohenzoUern, who now petitioned Frederick for compensation. Another leader of sedi tion, Egeno Count of Urach, made ready for a siege in his strong Castle, and prevented Conrad von Hohenlohe and the other loyahsts from taking Neifen. The Prelates, who had abetted Henry, went to Eome in obedience to the Pope's commands. Every trace of the late revolt seemed to be on the point of disappearance ; what remained to be done for the perfect good order of Germany was reserved for the renowned Diet of Mayence. This was inaugurated by Frederick on the 15th of August. It was the last exhibition of the Holy Eoman Empire in all its old pomp and unity ; it was the last time that any Cassar saw both Germany and Italy at his feet, and Avas able to scorn the bare idea of foreign interference with his realms, whether to the North or South of the Alps. Frederick had indeed sapped the foundations of the old system ; but the budding of Charlemagne and Otho was stiU standing in aU its majesty, though the next few years would inflict sad ravages upon the time-honoured fabric. Some of Frederick's successors were tho rough masters of Germany ; some exerted a momen tary influence both in Germany and Italy, although scarcely a year passed in which foreign arms might not overturn theh work and rend theh do minions asunder ; but not one Emperor for the last * Ann. Zwifalt. 544 THE HISTORY OF chap, six hundred- years has ever stood so high as Fred- _ erick the Second did at the Diet of Mayence in 1231-1236. 1235. His throne was not endangered by Turks, French, or Swedes, or mined by religious disunion. The Kaiser came from Haguenau to Mayence, where he found almost every Prince in Germany, besides 12,000 knights, assembled.* The Archbishops of Mayence, Cologne, Treves, Besancon, Magdeburg, Salzburg ; the Bishops of Bamberg, Eatisbon, Con stance, Augsburg, Strasburg, Basle, Hildesheim, Liege, Cambray, Metz, Toul, Verdun, Utrecht, Munster, Os- nabttrg, Naumburg, Bassau, Eichstadt, Freismgen, Sphes, and Merseburg ; the Abbots of Corvey and Fulda ; the Grand Master of the Teutonic Order ; the Dukes of Saxony, Bavaria, Brabant, Carinthia, and Lorraine ; the Landgrave of Thuringia ; the Mar graves of Meissen, Brandenburg, and Baden ; and the Counts of Cleves and Hainault, were among those present. The good Estate of the Empire was pro vided for by the well-known Constitution, which contains fifteen Chapters, and which has many Ger man words interspersed amid the Latin text. It aims at the supremacy of Bight over Might, and is a solemn statement of old customs, containing a refer ence to the unwritten Law, whde some new regu lations are added. It was published to all the heges, contrary to precedent, in the German tongue.1!* By it the Clerical dignitaries are protected ; Advocates are forbidden to damage the Churches entrusted to their care ; Truces, when once made, are rigorously enforced ; those who sit on the Judicial Bench are admonished ; no one is allowed to take vengeance * Ann. Argentin. f Godefr. Colon. FREDERICK THE SECOND 545 into his own hands, unless for an outrage on his per- chap. son or property. AU unjust tolls are forbidden, and those aUowed are to be expended in repahing roads 1231-1230. and bridges. No frauds are to be perpetrated by those enjoying the right of coining. No safe- conducts are to be sold for money, unless the right be derived from the Emphe ; Bfahlburghers are to be removed from the cities ; any one a\1io gives a man in pledge is to be treated as a robber. The next Chapter must have struck home to Fre derick's heart. ' Ingratitude is always hateful, more especiaUy when a son turns against his father. Who ever strives to eject Ids father from his possessions or makes a league with his father's enemies, is to lose aU right to his paternal inheritance ; and if a son plots his father's death, he can never be restored to his rights. The son's abettors are to incur the doom of everlasting infamy. The father's cause may be pro secuted by his next of kin.' Broscription, duly made by the Judge, is to entad outlawry. No town or city is to receive the pro scribed, under the harshest penalties, which are set forth. Not only thieves, but receivers of stolen goods, are to be severely punished. By the last article, Frederick appoints a Justiciary in the Emperor's absence to preside over aU causes, except those of Brinces. This Official is to hold his place for at least a year, if weU conducted. He is to take an oath to be an upright and incorruptible Judge. Under him is to be a lay Notary for aU causes bearing on proscription, the particulars of which are to be careftdly set forth, and are to serve as precedents. This second Official is to take the same oath as his Superior. Frederick was evi- vol. 1. UN 1231-1236. 546 THE HISTORY OF chap, dently striving to persuade the rude men of the North to yield to the sovereignty of Law, as some thing better than their old national Fist-right. But what he had introduced with the strong hand in Apuha was not so easily pressed upon the Germans. In a very few years from this date, the Fatherland feU back into its old anarchy, and beheld every knight's hand turned against his neighbour. The cities were stfll under Frederick's frown, although Worms might have pleaded a claim to his highest favours. These despised communities were the only part of the Germanic body that appreciated his legis lation. Princes and Prelates, knights and priests, might hereafter break out into rebelhon, but the cities, led by a sure instinct, stood fast by the side of the Kaiser. There was one other circumstance which made the Diet of Mayence for ever remarkable, and which has a pecuhar interest for Enghshmen. For the last five generations two great Houses, those of Hohenstaufen and GueU, had been struggling for the first place in Germany. Frederick the Duke of Suabia had fought against Henry the Black ; King Conrad against Henry the Proud ; Fre derick Barbarossa against Henry the Lion ; Bhilip against Otho. For a century and a half had this great wresthng match lasted, and the faUs had usuaUy chanced to the GueUs. For one moment indeed Otho had retrieved the fortunes of his house ; but Otho had been forced to yield to a boyish rival. That rival, now at the height of his power, was willing to put an end once for aU to the strife that had so long vexed the Fatherland, and to estabhsh Otho's kinsman in a position, lower hideed, but FREDERICK THE SECOND 547 not much lower, than the Throne itself. The Chief chap. of the Guelfs, avIio bore Otho's name, was now con tent to bow the knee before the Chief of the Hohen- mi-1236- staufens. He had Avithstood the temptations of the Bomish Cardinal in 1229, and had smce refrained from taking any part hi the late revolt ; he was ac cordingly uoav rewarded by the Kaiser. Otho the younger sAvore fealty to Frederick on bended knees, and gave up to the Crown his aUodial possessions,* including Luneburg. He placed both his hands in those of his Kaiser, and took the usual vassal's oath on the Holy Cross of the Emphe. Frederick then granted back to him his possessions, now to be held of the Empire by feudal tenure ; and he moreover bestowed upon the GueU the toAvn of Brunswick, which the Em peror had just bought from its Princely OAvners ; the tithes of Goslar were added ; the whole was created a Duchy with the much-coveted right of female suc cession, and Otho was mvested as first Duke with the ceremony of the banners. Every Prince, then at Mayence, set his seal to Frederick's Charter ; the worthy Bishop of Hddeshehn alone protested against any infringement on the rights of his See, to which Otho was a dangerous neighbour. The Kaiser begged that the clay, on which he had augmented the Empire by adding to it another Brince, ndght be enrolled in aU the annals of Germany, f Henceforward Otho and his successors the Dukes of Brunswick, laying aside aU thoughts of gaining the Imperial Crown, rooted themselves fast in theh Duchy. They saw the rival race pass away for ever ; * Quod idiomate Teutonico vocatur Eygen. See Frederick's deed of gift. X Godefr. Colon. Chron. Hildesheim. N N 2 548 THE HISTORY OF chap, they themselves, after centuries of comparative ob- X' scurity, were invited to mount a throne far more 1231-1236. saf6) |f jts gtyie wag iegs imposing, than that of the Hohenstaufens, and to sway dominions upon which the sun never sets. The GueUs had hitherto only waged unsuccessful war against the House of Suabia ; many centuries later they were caUed upon to do battle, not unsuccessfully, with Stuarts and Bourbons, Buonapartes and Eomanoffs. The briUiant destinies of the House of Brunswick are owing, not so much to the courage displayed by it in every battle from Bouvines to Inkermann, as to the rehgion it has pro fessed. It is curious to remark that even the first of its Dukes, Frederick's vassal, proved himseU a foe to Borne, by ranging himself on the side of the perse cuted Stedinger heretics.* On the 22nd of August, the day after Otho's ele vation, Frederick wore the Crown of the Empire in the fine old Cathedral of Mayence, many parts of which date from his time. Nearly aU the Princes surrounded him, whom with their attendants he in vited after mass to a monster banquet, prepared at great cost in a plain near the city.'!' We can scarcely imagine a more lofty pinnacle of greatness than that upon which Frederick was now seated. He felt him self justified at this time in demanding from the King of Hungary the arrears of tribute, which had not been paid for seven and forty years.J He knew himself to be the first Monarch in Christendom, both as to power and rank ; he was surrounded by his liege men, the Princes and Prelates of Germany, who revered him not only for his own worth, but also * Anon. Saxo. f Godefr. Colon. J Alb. Trium Fontinm. FREDERICK THE SECOND 549 because the glory of the Fatherland seemed in a chap. certam sense to be bound up with the greatness of his House. Their sires had folio Aved its fortunes i23i-i236. through Aveal and Avoe for a hundred years. One generation had marched to the siege of Damascus under Conrad, the first Hohenstaufen Monarch. An other generation had aided Barbarossa in razing the haughty Lombard capital to the ground, had borne the holy rehcs of the Three Kings from Milan to Cologne, and had shared the disasters of their great Head at Borne and Lignano. A third generation had followed Henry the Sixth to rifle the treasures of Ba- lermo, had seen the caged Lion of England brought up before him for judgment, and had after his untimely death fought for his brother Bhilip against the rival House of Guelf. They themselves, the nobles who now surrounded Frederick the Second, could remember how the Boy from Sicdy had come across the Alps at the bidding of Bope Innocent to win the Crown of the Holy Eoman Empire, and some of them had been his comrades in the Fifth Crusade, the only success ful attempt upon Balestine within the memory of man. These adventurers could appreciate his cou rage and conduct under the most trying circum stances. They now beheld him once more among them on the banks of their own Ehine. They aU swore to back him in his next attempt to bring the insolent rebels of Lombardy to order. The Minne singers, such as Walter von Vogelweide, were loud in praise of so noble a patron of theh art ; they saw with joy that in spite of his long residence in the South he had not forgotten the old German lays which his forefathers had loved. From his time dates the modernized form of the Nibelungen Lied, 550 THE HISTORY OF chap, and also the Sachsenspiegel, which marks the revival , X' of the study of law. Every class and order of men 1231-1236. ^oked upon him with favour. Princes, warriors, bards, and burghers, were ahke his loyal subjects. Even the Churchmen could not assail a Monarch with whom the Pope was now in strict aUiance. Besides aU this, Frederick had just received at the altar the hand of his fah young English bride, a lady whose beauty might gladden the heart of any King ; from which union a race of new Hohenstaufen Kaisers might with confidence be expected, the future bulwarks of the Empire. It was a moment in which Frederick might fancy himseU a god rather than a man. But, like the slave's whisper in the Eoman triumph, there was one thought which might have arisen in Frederick's breast, to remind him that after aU he was but a mortal. He must have recol lected with bitter anguish that his first-born, so long his hope and pride, was now on the road to a Southern prison, there to expiate an unnatural rebeUion. Such was the only thought that could sadden Frederick's triumphant sojourn in the old city of Mayence. One of the chief objects of the Diet was the depo sition of Henry. It is thought probable that at this time his half-brother Conrad was elected King in his stead, although the election was only made pubhc two years later. Bope Gregory, who on the first of August had not known of Henry's second attempt at revolt and its consequences, wrote to remove the excommunication which had been inflicted, so soon as the youth should make compensation for the wrongs he had done to the soldiers of the Church. Letters also came to Mayence from the Pope, exhort ing the Princes of the Emphe to induce theh Head FREDERICK THE SECOND 551 to lay aside his wrath against the Lombards, and to chap. alloAV the Church to mediate betAveen the Crown and x' its turbulent subjects. The umon of Christendom 1231-1236. Avoidd be the salvation of Palestine. It is said, that the Pope Avas at this very time intriguing against the election of Frederick's second son.* The Mo narch, liOAvever, sent back word, that the Princes had taken an oath to help him against the Lombards in the Aprd of the ensuing year. The warriors assembled had aU shouted and held up their hands, the old German Avay of confirming an oath. Still, the Pope might settle the business, if he could, by Christmas. The Kaiser, whfle at Mayence, granted a charter to his old friend the Bishop of Hddesheim, who had crossed the Alps no less than four times on behalf of the Crusade.f A Count from Franche-Comte com plained to the Diet that his daughter Clemence was kept a prisoner by Egeno of Urach, a lover of strUe, who had also robbed her of her share in the great Zahringen inheritance ; this outrage was redressed. On returning to Haguenau from Mayence, Frederick brought with him the Chancellor, the Grand Master of the Teutonic Order, and several other nobles. He sat in his Balace to administer justice, and found much to do in repahing the damage suffered by the loyahsts during the late rebellion. Godfrey von Hohenlohe was promised 1000 sdver marks by Walter von Limburg as compensation for outrages undergone, and certain Castles were handed over by the aggressor as pledges to be kept until the instalments were paid. Louis von Schipf entered into an agreement Avith * See Frederick's letters for 1239. f Ann- Hildesheim. 552 THE HISTORY OF chap. Godfrey to pay a like sum on the like account, and x. besides this, made over to him the Castle of Virns- 1231-1236. purg, which was then purchased from its new owner by the Burgrave of Nuremberg. All these transac tions took place in Frederick's presence at the Balace of Haguenau ; he used to vary his toils by hunting and fishing.* In October we find him at Augsburg, where he was chiefly employed in protecting monasteries from their lay neighbours. He received back into his favour the Bishop of the city, who had been sum moned to Eome to answer the charge of rebellion made against him. At the same time Gregory had sent letters to the Bishops of Batisbon and Hildesheim, urging them to proceed against the rebeUious Pre late. The Bishop of Wurzburg and several of his Canons, who had gone on the disloyal embassy to Milan, were not to be spared. The Bishops of Worms, Spires, and Wurzburg were made to under take a journey to Eome, there to beg pardon for theh past conduct. Hermann von Salza foUowed them, and had to exert all his wisdom in order to prevent the Bope, whose temper was not meUoAved by age, from launching an excommunication against the Emperor. For Frederick had once more laid rash hands on the Ark of God ; he had intermeddled with the functions of the Bishop of Worms, and had deputed a Judge to act in the place of the Brelate. Von Salza hoAvever promised Gregory to put an end to the quarrel, and brought back Landolf later in the year, for whom the Judge had to make way.f While at Augsburg, the Kaiser busied himself in * Rich. Senon. 1 Ann. Wormat. FREDERICK THE SECOND 553 destroying the Castles of the Bavarian robber-knights, chap. and in passing sentence of death on malefactors, high — — — and low. He betrothed the daughter of Duke Otho 1231-123G" to his son Conrad, but the bride Avas soon carried off by death. The Duke of Austria is said to have been affrighted at his OAvn folly and at the Kaiser's avis- dom ; he would not however alloAv provisions to be supphed to the Court from his produces.* Frede rick ordered the Officials in the chstrict of Stade to obey theh new Lord, Otho of Brunswick, and com manded the burghers of Stade to restore to him his rights. The Duke of Bavaria made an arrangement with the Abbot of Tegernsee in Frederick's presence. On the 1st of November a new Diet was held, when the King of Bohemia received 10,000 marks from the Imperial Crown for that part of Suabia which formed the inheritance of his Queen, Frederick's cousin.'!' Hermann von Salza procured grants for his Order both in Germany and Palestine. The ser vices rendered by the Styrian towns in the spring were not forgotten. Towards the end of November Frederick returned from Augsburg to Haguenau, where he passed the winter. The Emperor of the Eomans was in aU his glory, and foreigners flocked to his brilhant Court not far from the Ehine. His cousin the Queen of Castile, who was herself a Hohenstaufen by bhth, sent him some very fine horses and other costly gifts ; her death, which soon foUowed, was a great sorrow to him. The Count of Brovence, at this time fifty years old, sought the honour of knighthood * Continuatio Sancrucensis. Ann. Salisburg X Godefr. Colon. 554 THE HISTORY OF chap, at the hands of the Emperor. The ceremony had been delayed up to this time owing to a superstitious 1231-1236. belief that the Counts of Provence usually died imme diately after being knighted. But Eaymond Beren- ger's sons-in-law, the Kings of France and England, held it unbecoming in their kinsman to remain any longer in an inferior position.* The Count of Tou louse also traveUed to Haguenau, did homage to Frederick, and received from him the March of Pro vence, the Venaissin, the city of Carpentras, and many other towns; the Count was at this time enjoy ing a short respite from the persecutions of Borne and Baris. Another Frenchman, the Bishop of Vi- viers, came before his Lnperial Lord, and procured a charter for his Church. The Bishop of Valence in vain entreated the honour of knighthood for his brother the Count of Savoy ; Frederick found the request unseasonable, f About the beginning of the new year, 1236, Ha guenau was visited by some less courtly guests. The Christians at Fulda had risen upon the Jews and had massacred thirty-four men and women, upon the usual charge of chdd-murder for the purpose of celebrating the Hebrew ritual. The bodies of the boys, said to have fallen victims to the Jews, were carried to the Castle of Haguenau and buried there in great state.! Frederick found himseU unable to calm the fury aroused in Germany; he therefore summoned an assembly of learned men from aU * Godefr. Colon. j See Frederick's letters for 1236. X According to one account, Frederick took a bribe from the Jews and disappointed the Christians, saying ; ' If the boys are dead, go and bury them, since they are good for nothing else.' Richer. Senon. 1231-1236. FREDERICK THE SECOND 555 parts, and put a question to them. Did the JeAvs chap. hold Christian blood to be a necessary ingredient x" in theh Passover ? if so, every Jew in the Empire ought to be slain. Not one of the learned Doctors ventured to answer the question absolutely in the affirmative ; they were therefore debarred from carrying out the conclusion. This device of the Emperor saved the JeAvs for the moment, and put a large sum of money into his coffers.* The hke massacres were going on in other countries ; in England, young Hugh of Lincoln was soon to be enrolled in the Calendar ; in France, King Louis not long after this time ordered aU the Hebrew books to be burnt. The Pope was almost the only friend who came forAvard to shield the unhappy Israelites ; he was in consequence denounced by the fiery zealots of Christendom as a taker of Jewish bribes.^ Frederick sent the news of the Fidda tragedy to his Enghsh brother-in-law by Walter of Ocra, a priest who was usuaUy employed as the Emperor's ambassador to Westminster, and who afterwards rose to the highest honours in the Kingdom of Sicily. Henry the Thhd had given Walter a safe-conduct, which would take Ihm tlirough any part of England, Wales, or Ireland. J The King sent back two Jewish converts, to assist in answering Frederick's ques tion as to the murderous nature of the Hebrew rites. Germany and England were stiU in aUiance against France. Henry had four years before expressed to Frederick his wish, that the County of Burgundy might be transferred to other hands. § The Emperor * Chron. Erphord. Annal. Argentin. f Eaynaldus. X Eymer, for 1236. § Eymer, for 1232. 556 THE HISTORY OF chap, in 1236 proposed to aid Henry in regaining aU the French provinces which had been lost by the Enghsh 1231-1236. Crown. He also demanded the presence of Eichard the Earl of Cornwall for the purpose of carrying on the intended war. But the Enghsh nobles dechned to aUow the heir presumptive to leave the Kingdom, offering however to Frederick any substitute he chose to demand. Later in the year, the Emperor sent a camel and eighteen valuable horses to King Henry, besides three mules laden with silks ; Earl Eichard had also a share in the Imperial bounty.* Frederick, always lavish in his expenditure, hit upon many questionable means of replenishing his exchequer. Thus there hved at Haguenau a man of low bhth named WoUelin, whose wisdom was in high repute. He was accused of grievous extortion committed upon his tenants and serfs ; but he spent the greater part of his treasures in budding Castles throughout Alsace, and in surrounding the towns, such as Cohnar, with strong walls. The Kaiser laid hold of WolfeUn and his sons, threw them into prison, and wrested 16,000 marks from the Id-gotten hoards of the family. The Alsatian afterwards had leave to visit his wife, who undutifully smothered him in the night, in order that he might not betray where he kept his remaining treasures.f In March, Frederick left Haguenau for Strasburg, Avhere, in the presence of many Brelates and Nobles, he put an end to a contest that had long lasted between himself and Bishop Berthold. Mulhausen was given up to the Crown in exchange for certain other towns. He then went to Colmar, a town which * M. Paris. f Eicher. Senon. Ann. Argent.] FREDERICK THE SECOND 557 hi the previous year had beheld with wonder his long chap. train of camels.* How he got them across the Alps, we are not told. He bestowed an ample charter 1231-1236- upon the burghers of Strasburg, and abolished in theh favour the right of high-born land-owners to seize on wrecked vessels. Beturning to Haguenau, he invested the neAV Bishop of Batzburg with his temporalities. In Aprd, the Kaiser was at Spires, where he protected laymen against Churchmen, a practice at this time unusual with him. The Bishop of Trent had laid unlawful taxes on the men of Sopramonte, had carried off their goods, and had thrown them into dungeons, where some of them had died. Frederick inchgnantly forbade this op pression, and defined the exact amount of tribute to be paid henceforth by the vassals of the Bishopric. Four Brelates put theh names to the merciful edict. After making ready for his Itahan campaign, and after sending on the vanguard of his army under Gebhard von Arnstein, Frederick took part in a reli gious ceremony. All Germany was at this time triumphing in the possession of a new Saint, whom Bope Gregory had lately enroUed in the Calendar. She came of a bad stock ; her father was Andrew, the very unsaintly King of Hungary ; her mother was Gertrude of Meran, whose death had been brought about in 1213 by unqueenly wickedness. These were the parents of the good Saint Ehzabeth, one of those remarkable women whose piety did so much to miti gate the harshness of the feudal times. She was married, while still a child, to Landgrave Louis of * Ann. Cohnar. 558 THE HISTORY OF chap. Thuringia, who met an untimely death at Brindisi in — 1227, on the eve of Frederick's Crusade. Even be- 1231-1236. fore tne arrjva| 0f tne bones of her husband, which were sent back from Apulia, she and her chddren were thrust out of doors by his brother Henry. Insulted by the wretched creatures whom her former bounty had fed, she took refuge at Marburg, and gave herself up a willing victim to the tyranny of Conrad, her ruthless confessor. She affords perhaps the strangest instance on record of the entire prostration of a human inteUect before the wfll of a fellow-creature. EUzabeth might have had her wrongs redressed, for she was niece both to the influential Batriarch of Aquileia and to the warlike Bishop of Bamberg ; but she preferred a hfe of loathsome drudgery to the ease of the Wartburg. She tended lepers with her own hands, sought out disgusting objects with whom no one else would medcUe, and, above all, yielded her self up meekly to every caprice of her Confessor, who took from her her children, her attendants, and even the scanty stock of money which she lavished upon good works. Her death in 1231 was very soon followed by her Canonization. Conrad, one of her husband's brothers, visited the Bope at Perugia in 1234, and gained his favour by alms-deeds. After being invited to Gregory's table, the Thuringian procured Ehzabeth's enrolment among the Saints.* On the first of May, 1236, the relics of St. Eliza beth were translated to their new resting-place in the Church of Marburg. The multitude assembled sur- * See the depositions of her ladies, in Menecken ; and her life by Theodoric, in Canisius. FREDERICK THE SECOND 559 passed anything within the memory of man ; twelve chap. hundred thousand persons are said to have been pre sent. The Archbishops of Mayence and Treves and 1231-1236- the Bishop of Hildesheim had been charged by Bope Gregory with the office of translation. The Emperor, who never lost an opportunity of proving in pubhc his zeal for the faith, opened the tomb of his cousin the Hungarian Saint, and placed a golden Crown from his own treasury upon her head.* Her corpse, Avhich of course Avrought many miracles on the occasion, and whence oil was said to flow, was placed in a golden reliquary, where it remained untd the Lutherans laid hands upon its treasures, the accumulation of three hundred years.f Frederick avowed himself a behever in the miracles wrought, Avhich he noticed in a remarkable letter addressed to his friend Ehas, the General of the Minorites. ' Our Imperial ExceUence cannot but be Ulustrated by the beams of the glory of our Eoyal cousin, for we rejoice that our Saviour came of the Eoyal race of David, and the Books of the Old Testament prove that the ark of aUiance can be touched by noble hands alone. But we caU God to witness, that it is not the relationship or the noble birth of the Saint, but devotion alone, that causes us to pro claim what we have seen with our own eyes. If we are proud that God has revived the old miracles in our time, owing to the merits of the Blessed Eliza- : Dae was darbey Keyser Friderich, Der beweyset sich gar adelich ; Und opfert eine gulden Krone, Eine kostliche und schone. Old Song in Menechen. X Godefr. Colon, and others. X. 1281-1236. 560 THE HISTORY OF chap, beth, the joy we feel on the ground of temporal interests is a token that we are aspiring to the glory of bhss everlasting.' * The Church, which is stiU standing at Marburg, was built over the body of St. Elizabeth, and invites a di gression as to the state of German architecture during the first half of the Thhteenth Century. The hfe of Frederick happens to coincide almost exactly with the golden age of our Enghsh architecture, when the old Norman round arches and windows had whoUy given way to a more elegant style. Eight years before Frederick's birth, St. Hugh of Grenoble began to build his stately Cathechal at Lincoln, the first finished specimen of the new style. Ten years after Frederick's death the Five Sisters of York Minster were completed, the last great effort of the beautiful Early Enghsh. During the seventy-four years which elapsed between 1186 and 1260, England was adorned with the finest churches she has ever seen. To this age belong the Lady Chapel of Salisbury, the Presbytery of Ely, the Choir of Westminster, the Transepts of York, the Nave of Lincoln, the Portico of Peterborough, and the West front of WeUs. France also owes her most glorious buUdings to the same age ; we need hardly refer to Eheims, Amiens, Coutance, and that httle gem, the Holy Chapel of St. Louis. In Spain, the contemporary Cathedrals of Burgos and Toledo were slowly rising, for in that country the progress of the arts kept pace Avith the success of the national arms against the Paynim. It niight have been expected that Germany, under the * This letter has not yet been published, but part of it may be read in Breholles' Preface. FREDERICK THE SECOND 561 guidance of such an enlightened Prince as Frederick chap. was, Avould have produced during his reign build- X- ings at least as noble as those raised by her Western 1231-1236. sisters ; but this Avas not the case. The Empire seems most uiiAviUingly to have abandoned the old national style of architecture, in Avhich Otho the Great and Conrad the Sahc had delighted. Some of the Churches built in Germany during the first haU of the Thirteenth Century do indeed somewhat remind us of our oavu Early Enghsh, especially by the quatrefoil ornament, the banded columns, and the black marble so often used, answering to that of Purbeck. Stdl the progress made at this time by Germany was certainly not equal to that made by England, France, and Spain. The beautiful little sexagonal Chapel of St. Matthias, which looks down upon the MoseUe from the height above Cobern, and Avhich is said to have been budt by Crusaders, pos sibly by some of Frederick's comrades, on a smaU scale reminds us of the Eotunda of the Temple Church in London, though the latter was built much earher. The contemporary Abbey of Borners- dorf near Coblentz, now turned into a hay-loft, has a Chapter-house and cloisters worthy of England. The central Decagon of St. Gereon at Cologne, begun in 1201, shows how the pointed style Avas sloAvly but surely gaining ground upon the old round arch ; but at the same time St. Cunegunda, a Church in the same city dedicated only two years after Frederick's death, proves how resolutely the Germans clung to their old national style, even Avhde using the pointed arch to a limited extent ; and the same may be said of the noble Churches of Sinzig and Andernach, on the banks of the Ehine. The cloisters of the VOL. I. oo 562 THE HISTORY OF chap. Austrian Abbeys of this date are inferior to those '. of Salisbury. The beautiful Liebenfrauenkhclie at 1231-1236. TreveS) bruit between 1227 and 1243, by its banded columns and by the smaU circlets at the head of its taU windows carries back the mind of the English traveUer to his own glorious Abbey at Westminster, both Churches ahke showing the traces of French influence. But the example at Treves yields to its great Enghsh rival in two points ; it has no triforium, and its architect has not been able to withstand the temptation of introducing the old round arch into the upper story of its toAver. The Church of Alten berg, so often referred to in Frederick's Charters, is of the same age. We now return to the point Avhence we started. Very simdar to the last men tioned Churches is the building erected over the relics of St. Ehzabeth at Marburg, begun in 1235 and finished in 1283. We see the same circlets in the heads of the windows and the same absence of the triforium, the Avant of which is almost the only thing that mars the perfect beauty of the Church, Before its completion a more glorious era had opened for German architecture ; the Nave of Strasburg and the Choir of Cologne were far ad vanced, but with these we have nothing to do. On the day following the translation at Marburg, Frederick left that town for Wetflar, where he granted to his favourite town of Oppenheim the right to hold a fah for fourteen days after Easter in each year, those who frequented it being taken under the Imperial protection. The neighbouring city of Worms was stdl without its Bishop, who had gone to Borne with the other disappointed rebels. Frederick had replaced him by a Judge, Markward FREDERICK THE SECOND 563 von Sneite, who overaAved the citizens and governed chap. them as he wdled.* The Bope now wrote to the Archbishop of Mayence to consecrate Landolf the 1231-1236. Bishop elect of Worms, after a commission had sat upon him ; this turbulent Prelate returned late in the year from Eome, and put an end to the hopes of Henry of Catania, one of Frederick's subjects, who had aspired to Landolf's chair, f In May the Kaiser visited Coblentz, where he was very unsuccessful in enlisting men for the impending Campaign in Italy ; he had better fortune afterwards in Suabia and Alsace, the two main strongholds of his influence. J He gave a Charter to the burghers of Cologne, whose rights were protected against aU men, including theh Archbishop. The Brelate of Treves was ordered to inquire into a fact stated by the men of Dortmund, that their old Charter had been burnt ; it was now renewed to them by Fred erick. Two matters were at this time weighing heavdy upon him ; the Avar with Lombardy, and the Avar Avith Austria. The last months of happy peace which he was ever fated to enjoy were now speedily slipping aAvay. After issuing a proclamation against the Lombard rebels, Frederick turned his attention to the Danube. The Duke of Austria had been true to his character. Ever since his accession six years before, he had heaped insults upon the Emperor. He had been the same in 1235 as in 1232. He had refused to appear at the great Diet of Mayence in the former year, entangling himself in a war with the King of * Ann. Wormat. t Ann. Wormat. X Godefr. Colon. 564 THE HISTORY OF chap, Hungary, whom he provoked into invading the '. Empire. Many Princes had repeatedly complained 1231-1236. to tke j£aiser of the Duke's conduct towards them, and the Austrians themselves were groaning under a cruel bondage. Frederick had treated his wayward vassal Avith unusual tenderness, mindful of the ser vices of the Duke's father Leopold, the hero of Damietta. He had in vain granted to Leopold's son a safe-conduct, that the accused might make answer for himself before his peers assembled at Augsburg in the previous Avinter. Duke Frederick had also refused to appear at Haguenau, making evasive answers to the Kaiser's summons. He was charged Avith forming an aUiance with the Lombard rebels, with sending envoys to the Old Man of the Moun tain, with trying to enlist the Pope on his side, and AAtith seizing upon gifts that were being brought to the Emperor from Eussia. The Sovereign was at this time deafened with the cries of the Duke's own mother, a Greek Princess, who had been stripped of aU her goods and threatened with the loss of her breasts. She had fled from her unnatural son into Bohemia. and was now calling upon God and the Kaiser for vengeance. The Duke of Austria had been guilty of another outrage upon his own sister and her husband, the Margrave of Meissen. He had surprised the newly-married pah in bed, and had wrested from them by threats of violence a renunciation of the dowry due to the bride from himself. Frederick sent a circular to the various Princes of the Empire, announcing an expedition against his Ducal name sake ; it Avas called for by nobles and commons, widows and orphans. The fool Avas to be answered 1231-1236. FREDERICK THE SECOND 565 according to his folly, and was at length to be chap. chastised. Frederick went up the Ehine from Coblentz, visit ing Boppard and Wiesbaden, Avhence he turned aside to Frankfort. The Teutonic Order, the Church of St. Servais, the Abbot of Heisterbach, and the burghers of Worms Avere partakers of his bounty. He then moved eastwards to Wurzburg and Werda. In June, another obstacle which had long confronted him, and Avhich was to wear aAvay the remainder of his hfe, started up in its full proportions. END OF THE FIRST VOLUME. LONDON I'KINTED BY E POTTXS WO ODE AJfB CO. 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