 CHAPTER V. THE FIRST X COMMUNICATION PART I The choice of the conclave in its election of a successor to Honorius fell upon the cardinal who adopted the name of Gregory the Ninth. The new pope was a man of considerable attainments. He was profoundly learned in Holy Ritt, a master of the canon law, a most eloquent speaker, and well-versed in the arts of statecraft. He had been employed by his uncle Innocent III and by Honorius in many missions of great moment, and had thus acquired a considerable knowledge of worldly affairs. In his less elevated position he had earned the admiration of the Emperor. He is a man of spotless reputation, Frederick had once declared, renowned for piety, erudition, and eloquence. He shines among the rest like a brilliant star. All these graces had helped him to climb to the loftiest summit of an ecclesiastics ambition. Once he had attained to the throne of Saint Peter, however, his character quickly developed aspects that had hitherto lain hidden. An intemperate violence, an ambitious desire for the aggrandizement of his office at the expense of the temporal power, a lack of scruple, which did not shrink from deliberate mendacity, a ferocious intolerance of all forms of unorthodox belief. All these combined to make him a sinister and repellent figure. He was eighty when he succeeded in Honorius, and as the years went by the approach of extreme old age, instead of softening a heart which had been frozen by a long life of rigorous asceticism, did but accentuate the more forbidding traits of his nature, and added there to the quarrelous and petulant temper of senility. Into the conflict between the Empire and the Papacy, he carried an element of fierce personal hatred, a hatred that was aggravated and inflamed by his jealousy of the high renown, the popularity, the magnificent qualities, and the lofty independence of his opponent. In his conception of the superiority of the spiritual power, he reverted to the ideas of Hildebrand. All the monarchs of Christendom, the Emperor himself, should bow the knee to him in temporal submission. And thus the struggle resolved itself into a fight for preeminence on the one hand, and for independence and equality on the other. In the conflict which burst forth soon after his accession, and which after an interval of superficial peace raged unceasingly until the Emperor's death and beyond, Frederick was fighting for the liberties and rights of the monarchs of Europe against the menace of priestly tyranny. The first letter from the new Pope to the Emperor was couched in friendly terms, but ended in a veiled threat. We are willing to grant you all the indulgence we can, wrote Gregory, referring to the long-delayed crusade, but take heed that you do not place yourself in a situation whence we may not be able to extricate you with the best of will. Frederick, however, was exerting himself to the utmost to fulfill the compact of San Germano, and Gregory could find no cause for complaint in this direction. He then turned his attention to the private life of the Emperor, which was certainly open to reproof from one whose life had been spent in constant repression of fleshly lusts. God has bestowed upon you the gift of knowledge and of perfect imagination, runs the rebuke, and all Christendom follows you. Take heed that you do not place your intellect, which you have in common with the 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 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 followers. Far be this from you, dearest son. Follow after justice and mercy, even as Israel followed the fiery pillar and the cloudy pillar. The Emperor seems to have received this reproach with perfect humility. He had no time for wrangles with the Pope, for August was fast approaching, and in August he must sail for the East. It was evident that the means for the Crusade must be supplied almost entirely by himself. England and France were apathetic, nor did Germany answer very readily to the call. The powerful Duke of Austria hung back at the last moment, and the land grave of Turingia had to be paid a large sum before he would consent to march. Finally, however, the German host arrived in Apulia and assembled at Bredendiesi, where a fleet was waiting to carry them to Acker. The time was ill-chosen. The Italian summer was at its height, and the power of the sun was so great that according to one chronicler it melted solid metal. Numbers of the Germans, among them the land grave of Turingia and the bishops of Augsberg and Angers succumbed to the climate. Frederick himself was in a precarious state of health, and rode to join his army at Bredendiesi against the emphatic advice of his physicians. He embarked with his sickly host on the appointed day in August, before he had been three days at sea, however, the threatened illness seized him with such severity that it became evident that to pursue the voyage was to invite almost certain death. The nobles of the Empire and of the East who surrounded him urged him to postpone the expedition. Reluctantly, he followed their council and returned to Otranto. He dispatched an embassy to Gregory to explain matters, and betook himself to the baths of Potswolde near Naples to recover his strength. The crusade was a miserable fiasco. Forty thousand men had assembled at Acker, but nearly all returned when they heard the Emperor would not arrive to lead them. Only eight hundred knights remained under the Duke of Limberg, Frederick's lieutenant. The news that would have reduced Honorius to tears of bitter grief aroused fiercery motions in Gregory's breast. He turned a deaf ear to Frederick's ambassadors and refused to believe even his own messengers, who assured him of the reality of the Emperor's illness. He gathered his cardinals and bishops around him in the Cathedral and delivered a resounding discourse on the text, it must needs be that offenses come, but woe unto him through whom the offense cometh. He then hurled forth the sentence of excommunication. The bells clanged out in discord, the clergy dashed down their torches, while amid the ominous gloom the vicar of Christ called down the eternal curse of God upon the head of Frederick the Emperor. There followed another address to the assembled clergy. The Church of Christ, spoke Gregory, while she thinks that she is nursing up her children, is fostering inner bosom fire and serpents and basilisks, which would destroy everything by their fire, their breath and their burning. To combat these monsters, to triumph over hostile armies, to appease these restless tempests, the Holy Apostolic See reckoned in these latter times on a nursing whom she had brought up with the tenderest care. The Church had taken the Emperor Frederick as it were from his mother's womb, fed him at her breast, born him on her shoulders. She had often rescued him from those who sought his life, instructed him, educated him with care and pain to manhood, invested him with the royal dignity, and to all these blessings bestowed upon him the title of Emperor, hoping to find in him a protecting support, a staff for her old age. No sooner was he king in Germany than of his own accord, unexorted, unknown to the Apostolic See, he took the cross and made a vow to depart for the Holy Land. He even demanded that himself and all other crusaders should be excommunicated if they did not set forth at the appointed time. At his coronation as Emperor, we ourselves, then holding an inferior office under the most holy Honorius, gave him the cross and received the renewal of his vows. Three times, at Veroli, at Ferentino, and at San Germano, he alleged delays. The Church in her indulgence accepted his excuses. At San Germano he made a covenant, which he swore by his soul to accomplish. If not, he incurred by his own consent the most awful excommunication. How has he fulfilled his covenant? When many thousands of pilgrims, depending on his solemn promises, were assembled in the port of Brindisi, he detained the army so long under the burning summer heats that a great part of the pilgrims perished. At length when the ships began to return from the Holy Land, the pilgrims embarked on board of them on the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin, expecting the Emperor to join their fleet. But he, breaking all promises, bursting every bond, trampling underfoot the fear of God, despising all reverence for Christ Jesus, scorning the censures of the Church, deserting the Christian army, abandoning the Holy Land to the unbelievers, to his own disgrace and that of all Christendom, withdrew to the luxurious and wanted delights of his kingdom, seeking to palliate his offense by frivolous excuses of bodily sickness. Rome mourns for Palestine, which we were hoping might be rescued from the Moslem, and which we should have gained in exchange for Damietta, had not the Emperor's letter forbidden it. Our army would not have been captured if he had sent ships to the rescue as he had promised, that we may not be esteemed as dumb dogs, we dare not bark, or fear to take vengeance upon him, the Emperor Frederick who has caused such ruin to the people of God, we proclaim the said Emperor, excommunicate. We command you to publish this our excommunication throughout the realm, and to declare that in case of his contumacy, we shall proceed to still more awful censures. We trust, however, that he shall see his own shame and return to the mercy of his mother the Church, having given ample satisfaction for all his guilt. CHAPTER V. THE FIRST X COMMUNICATION PART II The address which contained so much exaggeration, and no little deliberate falsehood, and which branded the Emperor as a malingerer and a liar, was embodied on a letter and circulated among the ecclesiastical dignitaries of Europe. Frederick received the news of his excommunication with a calmness that must have been far more exasperating to Gregory than a passionate outburst of wrath. The sentence itself he treated with lofty contempt. The clergy throughout the kingdom were ordered to continue to perform their sacred offices, which the excommunication prohibited, and willingly or reluctantly they obeyed. At the same time he was careful to protect them from the violence of his indignant partisans, who would have avenged the Pope's insult on the Pope's underlings. The letter of accusation was answered by one of ex-colpation and counter-accusation, which was dispatched to the monarchs and princes of Europe. We are loath to say it, ran the imperial missive, but our hopes have been deceived. The end of all things is at hand. Love is waxing cold, not only in its branches, but in its roots. The Roman Empire, the bulwark of the faith, is being assailed by its own fathers. If an enemy were to attack us, we should grasp the sword. But when the vicar of Christ arises against us, our reverence for the blessed Saint Peter causes us to pause in amazement. Let the whole world hear the provocations we have received. These are detailed at some length and as special grievance related to the Pope's refusal to believe in Frederick's illness. Our apostolic lord did not deal fairly with the ambassadors we sent him. They were ready to explain all, but he was scarcely listened 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 defense made by our envoys. Thus the council arrived at a conclusion without hearing what he had to bring forward. Besides this the men of Rietti, the subjects of the Pope, 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 world. In spite of all, we shall not desist from the service of Christ. Perhaps it has all been ordained for the best, since we shall be able to do more in Palestine next year. We ask you to help, as we mean to set forth in May. We also ask you to send envoys to us at Ravenna in Midlent, when we shall hold a diet for the maintenance of peace in Italy. The letters sent to Henry III of England contain timely references to recent English history. Take warning from the past. Has not the unjust interdict of the Pope reduced the count of Toulouse and many other princes to servitude? Did not innocent III urged the noble barons of England to insurrection against John the enemy of the church? But no sooner had the humiliated kings objected his realm like a daster to the sea of Rome, than having sucked the fat of the land he abandoned those barons to shame, ruin, and death. Such is the way of Rome. Under words as smooth as oil and honey lies the rapacious bloodsucker. The church of Rome is like a leech. She calls herself my mother and nurse, while all her acts have been those of a stepmother. The whole world pays tribute to the avarice of Rome. Her legates travel through all lands, with full powers of ban and interdict and excommunication, not to sow the seed of the word of God, but to extort money, to reap what they have not sown. The primitive church, founded on poverty and simplicity, brought forth numberless saints. She rested on no foundation, but that which had been laid by our Lord Jesus Christ. The Romans are now rolling in wealth. What wonder that the walls of Rome are undermined to the base and threaten utter ruin? The well-deserved censure on ecclesiastical luxury and avarice was followed by a warning, that the pope's attack on the emperor was fraught with danger to other monarchs. Remember that when your neighbor's wall is on fire, your own property is at stake. Frederick then proceeded to secure allies in the enemy's citadel. He invited to his court the frangipani and other patrician families of Rome, bought all their lands and houses from them at their own valuation, and then handed them back to them as feudal holdings. By this lavish transaction he bound the families to his cause as his own vassals, who owed him homage and service, in return for the fiefs he had bestowed upon them. Whether the subsequent occurrence was the direct outcome of this politic generosity is unknown, but at any rate, a few weeks later, Gregory received convincing proof of the emperor's popularity with the citizens of Rome. He had recently repeated the sentence of excommunication with a more emphatic denunciation of the emperor's conduct and was celebrating mass in St. Peter's when the common folk broke out into hissings and abusings and evinced so marked a hostility that Gregory was compelled to flee from Rome and take refuge in Perugia. Meanwhile, Frederick, undeterred by the papal fulminations, was making ready to resume the voyage to the Holy Land which his illness had interrupted. The death of the Sultan Moadin of Damascus, the most dreaded of the Muslim chiefs, and the subsequent dissension that raged among his sons seemed a favorable omen for the success of the venture. Domestic trouble was not allowed to hinder the cause. In the April of 1228 the Empress Yolanda died after giving birth to a son Conrad. The child wife was buried with the honors fitting her high estate, and Frederick, now a widower for the second time at the age of 33, turned from her grave to rest the heritage she had brought to him from the hands of the infidels. Before his departure he held a great assembly in the open air at Bartoletta and appointed Reynold of Spoleto to the vice regency of the kingdom. Henry already elected as his successor to the imperial crown was named as his heir to the kingdom of Sicily. The babe Conrad, his second son, was to succeed on the event of Henry's death. From Bartoletta the emperor proceeded to Brindisi and there issued an edict withdrawing the grant of the March of Ancona, which he had made to the papacy at his coronation. We made our grant to the church, he wrote to the inhabitants of the March, without intending to give up the rights of the empire. The popes have abused our kindness, they have tried to withdraw our liaises 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. From O' Pronto, the final port of embarkation, he issued one more protest against the harshness of Gregory addressed to his subjects throughout the empire and the kingdom. We have sent envoys to the pope for forgiveness even more frequently than became our dignity. We have lately sent to him the Archbishop of Magdeburg and two judges of our court, but they could not prevail upon him even to name his own terms. He has allowed his subjects, the men of Rietti, 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. Still, we are bent on the service of Christ. We are just about to set sail for Syria with a fair wind. We order you all to do your best to aid us in the cause of Palestine. The pope showed no signs of relenting. His final message to the departing crusader was a peremptory order forbidding Frederick to sail while under the church's ban. Frederick ignored the command and assembled his men. A force of five hundred knights had already been dispatched some months before and great quantities of supplies. He had also been over lavish with his grants to needy pilgrims who had besought his help on their journey to the east and his treasury was almost exhausted. It was therefore with no great pomp that he sailed for Palestine on the 29th of June and only a hundred knights accompanied him. He sailed more like a pirate than an emperor, sneered the vicar of Christ. End of Section 10 Section 11 of Stupor Mundi, The Life and Times of Frederick II by Lionel Alshorn This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Pamela Negami. Chapter 6 The Excommunicate Crusader Part 1 All Christendom stood amazed at the spectacle of an excommunicated emperor leading a crusade into the Holy Land against the expressed commands of the pope. It was an affront to the papacy such as no monarch had ever dared to offer, a blow at the infallibility of the vicar of Christ, a direct challenge of his position as the earthly mouthpiece of God. A crusade was so essentially a religious enterprise, so firmly identified in men's minds with the service of the church and of the pope as the head of the church. Yet here was a monarch setting forth not merely unblessed but definitely forbidden, and, more causeful remasement still, a monarch who was excommunicated, who was under the awful ban of the church, outcast from the fold of the faithful and branded with the curse of God. In spite of all Frederick had written, we shall not desist from the service of Christ. If such a man could serve Christ, then the papal pretensions to be the mediator between earth and heaven were vain. The service of God, in fact, was not synonymous with the service of the pope. The two might even be in direct opposition. Frederick's action aimed to blow at the very foundations of the papal doctrine by proclaiming to the world that the condemnations and commands of the pope issued from the mouth of man and not from the mouth of God, and that the emperor himself could interpret the divine will more truly than the successor of Saint Peter, small wonder that a flame of hatred raged in the soul of Gregory. Meanwhile the crusader was sailing with a fair wind for Palestine. A three weeks voyage brought him to Cyprus and after a stay of a month's duration which he spent in reviving the imperial overlordship of that island, he sailed for Acker and on the 3rd of September, 1228, first set foot in the Holy Land. Here a large host of pilgrims were assembled. The Teutonic Order, the Templars and the Hospitalers, the Patriarch of Jerusalem, prelates from England and France, and a number of Germans and Lombards all welcomed the long-expected emperor as the savior of Israel. It seemed probable that Frederick would have a formidable force to lead to battle against the infidels. In a few days however, discord in the shape of two minorite friars arrived in the camp. They brought the news that the emperor was still unabsolved from his excommunication and that he had had the effrontery to sail in direct defiance to the Holy Father's commands. They delivered the papal orders that all faithful Christians were to shun the emperor as one accursed and to leave him to make his way alone to Jerusalem if he persisted in his presumptuous and unrepentant sin. Gregory intended the crusade to fail. He cared nothing for the recovery of those holy places for which Europe had poured out its blood for more than a century. All the Christian in him was obliterated by his virulent anger against the emperor. If the arrival of the papal messengers was not so effective in turning the assembled warriors against their leader as Gregory might have hoped, it at any rate aroused a lively spirit of mutiny. Some of the crusaders returned to Europe. The knights Templars and hospitalers flatly refused to follow the emperor and persuaded many waverers to adopt the same attitude. With others, Frederick's popularity stood him in good stead. The peasants and genoese remained faithful and the stout Germans of the Teutonic Order under their grandmaster Hermann von Salza were not to be turned from their devotion to their Kaiser. This Hermann was a valuable friend. He was a man of most spotless reputation and high renown, a very perfect knight, and throughout his life he was the trusted comrade and loyal subject of Frederick. Pride had first impelled the emperor to set out for Jaffa his proposed base without the support of the disaffected party rather than attempt to conciliate them. The news of a formidable force of Turkish horse in the neighborhood, however, prompted him to halt and compromise with the malcontents, who were following a day's march behind under the leadership of the grandmaster of the Templars and hospitalers. These refused to obey any orders issued in the name of an excommunicated emperor and demanded that such orders should be promulgated in the name of God and the Christian Commonwealth. Frederick yielded to necessity and the combined force now consisting of eight hundred knights and ten thousand infantry marched to Jaffa, which they reached in the middle of November. The whole army was immediately employed in surrounding the landward side of the port with strong fortifications. The news that the emperor himself, who had dealt with their Saracen kinsfolk in Sicily and so summery a fashion, had at last arrived in their midst to lead the Christian host, spread a wholesome terror throughout the Mohammedan population. His reputation, one rather of personality than of actual martial achievement, had preceded him, and the fact that for more than ten years his coming had been repeatedly rumored and eagerly expected by their Christian enemies served but to heighten the salutary effect of his final advent. Nor was this the only factor that promised well for the success of the crusade. Islam itself was disturbed by internal dissensions. The great sultan Mohadin had died the year before. His brother Kamel of Cairo had seized the southern part of his dominions, which included Palestine, but was not entirely free from anxiety as to the secure tenure of his new possessions since the rightful heir, Mohadin's son, was supported by a considerable party. There was little fear of a formidable rising since Kamel's brother, the sultan of Aleppo, was lead with him in the laudable task of disboiling their nephew, but Islam could not present so united a front as had done during Mohadin's lifetime. Under such propitious circumstances great results might have been expected from the crusade if only the whole Christian force had placed itself unreservedly under the sagacious leadership of the emperor. Descension however aroused by the papal agents and only temporarily subdued by Frederick's compromise during the march to Jaffa was raging in the camp, and the news of his adversary's weakness in this respect could not fail to embolden the sultan. To Frederick himself it became obvious that he could not hope to rest submission from the infidels when the half of his army was plainly hostile to his leadership and might desert his standard at any vigorous assertion of his authority. Fortunately for the cause of Christendom, Frederick had other resources than the mere force of arms, which was rendered in effect by this union. Just as Richard Curdeleon and Saladin had discarded religious fanaticism and recognized in each other chivalrous qualities which opened the way to an interchange of amenities and friendliness, so Frederick and Kamel were mutually attracted by the love of philosophy and learning, entirely free from the preposterous narrowness which characterized his age, the emperor while still in his own dominions had not scrupled to exchange courtesies and correspondence with the rulers of the infidels and with sultan Kamel in particular. The relations thus commenced had continued when Frederick arrived in Palestine. Soon after reaching Ocker he had sent an embassy to Kamel bearing costly gifts and had received an elephant and other eastern animals in return. Once at Jaffa serious negotiations were opened which at the same time were accompanied by every evidence of friendship and mutual esteem. Two Amirs were constantly passing between the Christian and Islamite leaders. Frederick would propound problems of philosophy and mathematics which Kamel would answer and in turn set others for the emperor to solve. Saracen dancing girls were presented to Frederick who according to his enemies paid them more intimate attentions than were becoming in a Christian sovereign. Fanatics on both sides deplored these friendly relations. Both monarchs were accused of betraying their religions and Frederick was said to have become almost a Saracen himself. The first demands that the emperor made in the interest of Christendom were couched in a high tone. All towns that the Christians had ever held in the east were to be restored to them. Kamel however knew well enough that such demands were unwarranted by the emperor's power to enforce them. The disunion and the crusader's camp had been refueled to him directly by a treacherous attempt of the Templars. Frederick had resolved to make a solitary pilgrimage to the Jordan and to bathe in its holy waters. The Templars wrote to Kamel and informed him of the details of the proposed pilgrimage so that he might capture the emperor and imprison him or put him to death. The sultan however refused to take advantage of this perfidious act and sent the Templars' letter to their intended victim. It is probable also that other means were taken to increase the emperor's difficulties. He declared later and offered to prove to all Europe that he had intercepted a letter from the pope to the sultan which warned the infidel leader not to surrender Jerusalem to the emperor. Conscious of the weakness of his position, Frederick lowered his demands. The negotiations dragged on and on, continually frustrated by the quarrelsome spirit of the ecclesiastical party. Finally his patience gave way. He summoned a council of crusaders and informed them that his money was at an end and that he could not stay much longer in Palestine. Concessions had been promised by the sultan which would restore Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Nazareth, and Sidon and the villages between these towns to the emperor and to Christendom. It was his intention he declared to accept these terms. The grand masters of the Templars and hospitalers demurred. The patriarch Gerald was not present and they could agree to nothing which did not meet with his approval. Gerald had already made himself particularly odious and Frederick applied that he could very well dispense with his sanction. The council broke up with varying emotions. The ecclesiastics bitterly hostile to the treaty, the Germans ready to welcome any compact their Kaiser chose to make. Frederick would have no more delay. Plenipotentiaries were exchanged between emperor and sultan and finally on the 18th of February 1229 the treaty was completed. It consisted of nine articles of which only a bare outline is preserved. Number one Jerusalem was to be surrendered to the emperor. Number two the temple of Solomon which was now the mosque of Omar was to be retained by the Saracens. Number three Christians were to be allowed to enter the temple to pray. Number four Saracens were to be allowed to make pilgrimages to Bethlehem which to them also was a holy place. Number five the Saracens who remained in Jerusalem were to have their own judges for cases in which only themselves were concerned. Number six the emperor was to give no aid to either Christian or Saracen who should attack the sultan during the truce which was the last for 10 years. Number seven he was to restrain Christians from attacking the sultan. Number eight he was bound to aid the sultan in preventing breaches of the truce. Number nine Tripoli Antioch and various other towns outside the kingdom of Jerusalem which the Christians were attempting to hold were to remain as they were and the emperor was to forbid his men to aid them. Thus after it had remained in infidel hands for more than 40 years the holy city was once again restored to Christendom. It was a notable achievement. The crusade of Frederick has been relegated to the obscurity of a minor crusade by historians because it was enlivened by no clash of arms nor signalized by martial victories or great disasters. Yet it achieved more than any crusade since the first which had captured Jerusalem in 1099. The second crusade led by the emperor Conrad III and Louis VII of France had striven vainly in the middle of the 12th century to rescue the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem from the destruction with which it was threatened. In 1187 the city had fallen again into the hands of the Saracens led by the redoubtable Saladin. The great Barbarossa, Philip Augustus of France and Richard of England had hastened to repel the invaders. Barbarossa had perished miserably by the way. Philip returned to France rather than suffer the humiliation of being eclipsed by the English monarch. Richard himself for all his gallantry and dowdy deeds failed to recover the holy city and only succeeded in securing a short-lived toleration for the Christians. The fourth crusade had not even set foot in Palestine. In 1221 the legate Pelagius had led the fifth crusade to an ignominious truce on the banks of the Nile. It remained for Frederick II, cursed by the church, thwarted and hindered at every turn by its partisans with a small army rent by dissensions to obtain by treaty that which the mightiest monarchs of Europe, blessed and aided by the Pope and with far superior armaments under their leadership, had failed to rest by the power of the sword. The fifth crusade, or as it is sometimes called the second act of the fifth crusade, was an amazing personal triumph. Its success the work of one man. Frederick's military weakness and the difficulties of his position were known to the infidels, yet by the mere weight of his reputation, by some potent spell which his personality exercised over the impressionable Oriental mind, he had induced them peaceably to surrender the sacred city which they had captured and maintained in spite of all the efforts of Christendom. We may imagine that had he been supported instead of hindered by the Pope, had even the small army at Jaffa unanimously accepted his leadership he might have gained far greater concessions. It seems probable, wrote Hermann von Salza in covert reproof to the Pope, that if our Lord the Emperor had crossed the sea with the favor and peace of the church, the business of the Holy Land would have prospered much more. What thanks he might expect from the head of the religion in whose cause he had striven was soon demonstrated. Scarcely had the treaty been signed when a messenger arrived from his kingdom summoning him back with all speed. Gregory had actually declared a crusade against the absent crusader and the papal armies were invading Apulia led by Frederick's bitter enemy John de Brienne, the ex-king of Jerusalem. Frederick however was determined to visit Jerusalem before returning to his native kingdom. In this desire he was not actuated solely by the devotional aspirations of a pilgrim. The recovered city was his own possession by virtue of his marriage with Yolande and he naturally wished to assume in his new capital the crown of his kingdom of Jerusalem. Accompanied by Hermann von Salza and the Teutonic knights and by many of his Italian subjects he arrived in the Holy City on the 19th of March. Hot on his heels followed the emissary of the patriarch Gerald, the papal gadfly, who proclaimed anew the sentence of excommunication and laid the city that harbored the accursed emperor under the interdict. To such a pass had things come that the very burial place of Christ himself, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, was pronounced unholy and all prayer and praise forbidden within its walls. There were many priests and prelates among Frederick's following who would have ignored the papal ban and performed any rites their emperor chose to command, but councils of moderation prevailed and since no priest could lawfully crown him he resolved to crown himself. He proceeded in state to the Church of the Sepulcher and there, surrounded by the Teutonic knights, clad in their white surcoats marked with a black cross, he lifted the crown of Jerusalem from the altar and placed it upon his head. Hermann van Salza then spoke in the name of the emperor. It is well known, ran the address in tones of surprising moderation, that at ex-La Chapelle I took the cross of my own free will. Hitherto insupportable difficulties have impeded the fulfillment of my vow. I acquit the pope for his hard judgment of me and for my ex-communication. In no other way could he escape the blasphemy and evil report of men. I exculpate him further for his writing against me in Palestine, in so hostile a spirit, for men had rumored that I had levied my army not against the holy land but against the papal states. Had the pope known my real designs, he would not have written against me but in my favor. Did he know how many are acting here to the prejudice of Christianity he would not pay so much respect to their complaints and representations. I would willingly do all which might expose those real enemies and false friends of Christ to delight in discord, and so put them to shame by the restoration of peace and unity. I will not now think of the high estate which is my lot on earth, but humble myself before God, to whom I owe my elevation, and before him, who is my ficker on earth. If such were the sentiments expressed by the emperor in public, his private words and actions, if we may credit the accounts of the Mohammedan chroniclers, were less circumspect. He was said to have asked the Saracens why they had placed gratings over the windows of the holy chapel. To keep out the defilements of the birds, they replied. You may shut out the birds, but how will ye keep out the swine, he answered, referring bitterly to his Christian persecutors. On another occasion he was inspecting the mosque of Omar when he saw a Christian priest enter with the book of the Gospels in his hands. He considered this an affront to the religious convictions of the Mohammedans and threatened to punish the priest for violating the treaty. The house in which the emperor slept adjoined a minaret, from which the Muezzin was wont to proclaim the hour for prayer and to read certain verses from the Quran. One night he took for his text, how is it possible that God had for his son Jesus the son of Mary? The Amir feared this would offend the emperor, and silenced the Muezzin. The sudden cessation of the cry aroused Frederick's attention as he lay awake, and the next morning he sent for the Amir and inquired the reason. You are wrong, he declared, to neglect your duty, your law, and your religion on my account. By God, if you should visit me in my realms, you will find no such respectful deference. This spirit of toleration was naturally abhorrent to the fanatical churchmen. There was no time for the emperor to tarry in Jerusalem while the papal armies were overrunning Apulia. He stayed only two days after his coronation, and then, leaving a prefect to govern the city, he returned to Akker. Needless to say, Gerald had forwarded most venomous accounts of his conduct to Rome. The Pope, too, had denounced the treaty as a monstrous reconciliation of Christ and Belial, and by woefully confusing the Temple of Solomon with the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, was endeavouring to persuade Europe that Frederick had left the Holy of Holies in the hands of the Infidels. He adjured Albert of Austria, the most powerful prince of the empire, to revolt against his lord, and to join the crusade against the enemy of the church. The emperor's last acts in Palestine are only known to us through the source of his enemies. His patience seems at last to have become exhausted before the continual annoyances to which he was subjected, and his conduct at Akker bears evidence of a very justifiable spleen. The patriarch had attempted to enroll a considerable force in a new order under his own leadership. Frederick absolutely forbaded and declared that no one should levy armed forces in his dominions without his authority. He then assembled a vast multitude of the crusaders and the populace of Akker, with whom he was in high favour, on the seashore. He condemned the obstinate and treacherous hostility of Gerald and the Templars in no measure terms, and commanded all the crusaders to leave Palestine as they had now fulfilled their vows. On his return to the city he seized the gates and would admit none but his own followers. The churches he occupied with his archers. Gerald replied by again proclaiming the sentence of excommunication. It seems that constant recapitulation was necessary to keep it before the popular mind. In return he was kept a prisoner within his own palace and deprived of luxuries, while the emperor feasted and enjoyed the terpsichorean antics of his serison dancing girls. Two Franciscans who denounced the emperor from the pulpit were soundly flogged. Gerald in turn laid the city under an interdict. On the first of May Frederick turned his back on the ungrateful shores of Palestine and as his galleys left the port there floated to him over the waters the sound of thanksgiving. Gerald and his followers were raising a tadaeum for their deliverance from his accursed presence. It was high time for the emperor to return to his kingdom for the papal armies were sweeping all before them in northern Apulia. Unfortunately the imperial viceroy Reinal, Duke of Spoleto, had been the first aggressor. Pursuing some rebels into the march of Ancona he had allowed zeal to outrun discretion and had trespassed on the papal territories. Frederick afterwards declared that this was entirely unauthorized and that he had punished Reinal for his temerity. But the mischief was done and the pope was quick to seize upon the provocation as an excuse for extensive reprisals. He levied large forces and placed them under the warlike legate Pallagius, John de Bruyenne, and Cardinal John Colonna. A report of Frederick's death in Palestine was industriously circulated in order to dishearten his subjects and the papal armies marched into Apulia. The war was prosecuted with a ferocity unusual even in southern Italy and the papal levies vied with Frederick Saracen's soldiery and cruelty. Gregory, meanwhile, endeavored to arouse Europe in the support of his so-called crusade. The frigid unresponsiveness which his legates everywhere encountered was significant of the disapproval of Christendom. Men throughout the Christian world, remarks Millman, could not but doubt by which party the real interests of the Eastern Christians had been most portrayed and injured. And that the pope should now endeavor to levy tithes for the prosecution of his wars against the absent emperor was sufficient to arouse even the ecclesiastics to opposition. England alone sullenly responded to the papal extortions. Germany stood loyal to her emperor in spite of the strenuous efforts of Gregory to arouse sedition. The Duke of Bavaria half-heartedly raised the standard of revolt and was quickly crushed by the young King Henry. In Apulia, however, the banner of the keys was making rapid headway, and the northern districts groaned under the devastations wrought by Gregory's generals. Suddenly the news ran round that the emperor had returned and the aspect of the war changed as if by a miracle. He landed near Brindisi on the 10th of June and immediately sent an ambassador to the pope. His overtures were scornfully rejected, and again the sentence of excommunication was repeated. Meanwhile the loyal populace was flocking to his support, and he soon had a formidable force under his command, among which were several of the brave Germans who had followed him to Jerusalem. As soon as he learned that Gregory had refused his offers of reconciliation, he advanced against the invaders. Everywhere he was welcomed as a deliverer, and his enemies were confounded. Town after town was regained and the papal forces broke up in confusion and fled before him. Gregory now began to yearn for the blessings of peace. In November he sent Hermann von Salza back to the emperor with the message that he wished the war to end, and that a treaty should be made to put an end to this fruitless shedding of Christian blood. Frederick disbanded his army and kept Christmas with high festival in the city of Kapua. Many of the princes of the empire joined him, anxious to witness the consummation of the peace. Finally in the July of 1230 the treaty was concluded at San Germano. Frederick was absolved from the excommunication which had harassed him for nearly three years. In return he made considerable concessions. He granted a complete amnesty to all his subjects who had rebelled against him during his excommunication and restored to them their lands and benefits. He undertook to relinquish all the papal territories he had occupied and all the estates which he had seized from churches, monasteries, the orders of the Templars and hospitalars, and all other allies of the church. He renounced the right of judging ecclesiastics in the civil courts, except in cases which concerned the royal feats. Lastly he actually agreed to levy no more taxes on ecclesiastical property throughout his realm. We cannot but wonder why Frederick, whose star was undoubtedly in the ascendant at the close of hostilities, should have conceded so much. He appears in the treaty as the conquered rather than the conqueror. No doubt he was very weary of the burden of the church's curse and anxious for a period of peace in which to govern his realms undisturbed by continued conflict, and for this he was willing to surrender much. Moreover, if he seems to humble himself, the Pope also, by omitting all mention of Frederick's offenses in the matter of the Crusade, by preserving a significant silence with regard to the treaty with the infidels which originally he had denounced as impious and monstrous, had tacitly recognized the injustice of his fulminations against the Crusader. On the first of September the reconciliation was sealed by the meeting of the two former adversaries. The emperor visited the Pope at his residence at Ananya and exchanged the kiss of peace. So ended one more scene in the great medieval drama of the Empire and the Papacy. CHAPTER 7. THE YEARS OF SALAS, PART I Peace and leisure which had known Frederick so little during the first thirty-five years of his life, and which after a brief sojourn were to know him no more, now came to him for the space of four years. They were spent in the pursuit of those duties for which nature had so eminently fitted him, the work of an enlightened despot ruling for the good of his people and to his own glory and honor. It was not Germany that he chose for his home during these years. Her skies were too leaden, her people too rude, her princes too powerful and turbulent. In the south was the land of his mother, the land of his birth and his adoption. Here poetry and romance could flourish under the sunny skies, here the people were less slow of mind. Here there was more scope for a monarch whose delight was in culture and learning and luxury, and whose spirit could brook no power within his realm that might rival or confine his own. It is good then to be able to turn aside from the contemplation of his strife with the papacy and to see him as he passed the happiest years of his life on the western shores of his beloved kingdom, now governing his realm with a firm and wise hand, issuing just laws and repressing evil with the rigor so necessary and medieval times, now cultivating all the gentler arts of learning and elegance, maintaining undimmed the flame of his intellect while indulging the senses in voluptuous dalliance, spreading abroad such a light of splendor and refinement as to foreshadow in his person the glories of that renaissance which was yet to tarry for two centuries and more. It is to the sterner aspect of Frederick's rule during these years that we must first give our attention. He had already before his crusade spent eight years in his kingdom of Sicily, but his energies during that period had been occupied rather with the reconstruction than innovation. Disturbed by the continual calls of the papacy to fulfill his vows, he had been able to do little more than remedy the mischief which the anarchy that had reigned since the death of his maternal grandfather had wrought. He was now able to devote himself to the higher organization of the state, and the first step in this direction was the compilation of a new code of laws. The existing law of the kingdom was a confused medley of conflicting customs. Romans, Greeks, Goths, Lombards, Normans, and Germans had left their mark upon its jurisprudence. Jews and Saracens had their usages. The church had its private jurisdiction based upon the canon law. Frederick set himself the task of substituting this chaos by a universal code which should embrace all that was best of the old and all the improvements which he and his counselors could devise. The keynote of the new system was the substitution of royal supremacy for private privilege. The nobles were no longer to have the right of judging their vassals. The churchmen who offended against the law of the land must submit themselves to the justice of the temporal courts. The towns could no longer appoint their own magistrates to interpret the laws they chose. In every town and district, the royal courts were erected and the royal officials administered the law of the king. These officials were always strangers to the neighborhood in which they exercised their functions. They must have no personal interests or prejudices to influence their decisions. The meanest among these magistrates was secure against the oppression of the powerful or the slander of the discontented. Be not afraid of abuse was Frederick's exhortation so long as you commend yourself to us since our highness looks to works not to words. At the same time an official who misused his power was subject to the severest penalties. Unjust sentences, declared the royal lawgiver, cannot be too severely punished since otherwise the path of truth will be darkened and the oppression of the just will prevail. 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. If any have erred through ignorance they may thank their own folly in assuming the office of judge. With the help of such encouragements and warnings an impartial justice was ensured. Frederick himself frequently lost cases in the common courts of the realm. It is impossible in limited space to give even a summary of the comprehensive code of this medieval Justinian. From a mass of civil and criminal measures we can only select such as our of special interest and serve to illustrate the spirit of the whole. The profession of advocacy, for instance, was subjected to regulations which, however irksome they might be to its members, were certainly for the general good. All would-be advocates must acquit themselves creditably in an examination before a judicial bench and must take an oath that in the course of their practice they would allege nothing contrary to their conscience nor accept the advocacy of any cause which they knew to be evil. The fees they might exact from their clients were fixed by the presiding judges. A notable clause enacted that widows and orphans and the poor should receive free legal assistance at the expense of the state. The dignity of the law was upheld by the enforcing of almost complete silence in the courts. The judge was bound to give his decision in every case within a period of three days. Bale was now allowed for the first time, except in cases of obvious guilt or high treason. False accusers were fined one-sixth of their goods and futile litigation was discouraged by similar methods, though women in this respect were treated leniently. In spite of his oriental habits, Frederick's public attitude toward women earned him the gratitude of the sex. The law which debarred women from succession to estates was first annulled by him. The irrational and superstitious system of trial by ordeal was forbidden by the new code. Trial by combat was also abolished, except in cases of poisoning and high treason, and in these it was discouraged by transferring the choice of weapons from challenger to challenger, and by the condemnation to death of the accuser of high treason if he was defeated in the fight that he had provoked. The employment of torture was also strictly limited. It was henceforth only to be used as a last resource in charges of murder against persons of notoriously bad repute. The evil of private war, so cherished and abused in element of feudalism, was now certainly repressed. The offender, however high his position was beheaded. The custom of carrying weapons so general in other countries for many centuries to come was henceforth only allowed to courtiers, to knights and burgers on their travels and to the royal officials in the pursuit of their duties. The occasions when a man might justifiably take the law into his own hands were limited in much the same manner as in modern England. An attack upon life or property might be forcibly repelled, but might not be privately avenged afterwards. The law must be allowed to deal with the offender, except in cases of self-defense. A burglar might be slain, but must first be given the opportunity to surrender peaceably. The persons of women, even of the lowest prostitutes, were protected by the infliction of the severest punishments on the ravisher. Anyone who was within hearing, when an outrage was being perpetrated, and who did not respond to the woman's cries for assistance was heavily fined. The ravisher incurred the sentence of death or more frequently the appropriate mutilation. At the same time the law recognized that man is not always the oppressor, and the woman who falsely accused the man of rape, and thereby exposed him to the terrible penalty, was herself condemned to death. The convicted procurus, had her nose cut off, was branded on the face and flogged. The man who connived at the adultery of his wife was scourged. A husband might slay a man whom he caught in the act of adultery with his wife, but the deed must be done in hot blood. He must have recourse to the law, unless he actually witnessed his dishonor and avenged it immediately. The sentence of death was necessarily a frequent one in a country which had passed through so long a period of disorder, though Frederick removed it in many instances. It was still inflicted on coiners, incendiaries, destroyers of wills and compounders of fatal love potions. Mutilation was a frequent punishment, blasphemers lost their tongues, perjurers and robbers of corpses were deprived of their hands. Such a code may seem barbarous enough, but it was considerably less severe than the general character of the laws it replaced, and the state of the country rendered any more remarkable alleviation of penalties impossible. Moreover, it compares favorably with our own law of even two centuries ago. Frederick made a determined effort to check the rapid progress of heresy throughout his dominions. He had already issued stringent edicts on this subject at his coronation, and now increased the severity of the penalties. It is not likely that he was inspired by religious motives in this policy, for his own beliefs were regarded with great suspicion by the ecclesiastics. But a freedom of thought that might be permitted in himself and his court became dangerous when shared by the common people. Unorthodox views on religion were too often accompanied by unorthodox views on all established systems and institutions, and Frederick realized that the growth of heresy was a menace to the security of the temporal as well as the spiritual power. Of other religions he was tolerant beyond his day. Greeks, Jews, and Saracens throughout his kingdom might worship as they pleased. Gregory the Ninth, adopting the graceful pose of protector of the poor as a cloak wherewith to cover his antagonism to Frederick, constantly accused him of oppressing his subjects with grievous taxation. It is significant, however, that the common people upon whom the burden of taxation would naturally fall most heavily were the most loyal portion of the community. The nobles stripped of many of their privileges and curbed in their license might revolt against him. The higher ecclesiastics deprived of their immunity from all obligations to the state and rendered amenable to the common law of the land might be bitterly hostile. But the general mass of the people, burgers and peasants alike, realized that they were singularly happy in their king. It is true that the taxation was heavy and increased in severity year by year as the emperor became more deeply involved in his mortal combat with the papacy. Yet he did everything to mitigate the burden which the antagonism of the popes imposed upon his people. The royal officials were restrained from illegal extortion. The merchant might trade in peace and security and the tiller of the soil might reap his harvest undisturbed by the private wars of the barons and free from their oppression. In times of scarcity the taxes were lightened as far as possible and the poorer districts were assessed less heavily than flourishing towns and provinces. Commerce was stimulated not only by internal peace and improved and standardized coinage but by wise regulation and encouragement. Freedom of exchange was established between the various provinces. Fairs and markets were increased and organized. Desirable immigrants were attracted by the remission of taxation for ten years from their arrival to introduce new industries or to cultivate neglected lands. Commercial treaties were formed with Venice, Asia, Genoa, Greece and Africa. Frederick himself set the example of enterprise and the royal merchant ships sailed to Syria, Egypt and the east. Even India was visited by his factors. Agriculture was fostered by similar methods. Waste districts were planted with corn and vines. Model farms were established on the royal estates where the peasants might learn the effect of intelligent husbandry. The royal stud farms improved the strain of horses and cattle throughout the countryside. Surfdom was abolished on all the royal domains and gradually suppressed throughout the kingdom. No measure was neglected that might increase the resources of his realm and contribute to the prosperity of his people. The glory of rulers, he was wont to declare, is the safe and comfortable state of their subjects. Frederick was the first monarch in medieval Europe to summon the third estate to a parliament. Representatives from the towns of his kingdom were called twice a year to assemble together for the wheel of the kingdom and the general advantage of the state. It is unlikely that this assembly had any real authority, and its chief function was probably the adjustment of taxation. The royal writ contains no invitation to assist in legislation. Send your messengers, it ran, to see the serenity of our face on your behalf and to bring you back our will. It was, however undoubtedly, a first step in the direction of popular representation, and it is more than probable that Simon de Montfort, who visited the imperial court, was inspired by this example when some thirty years later he summoned the famous parliament of Westminster. Section 14 of Stupor Mundi, the Life and Times of Frederick II by Lionel Alshorn. This Librovox recording is in the public domain, recording by Pamela Nagami. Chapter 7 The Years of Salus, Part II Side by side with these beneficent measures for the material welfare of his people, projects were carried out for their intellectual enlightenment. It is this aspect of his rule which excites the enthusiastic admiration of Milman, that which, if the Constitution of Frederick had continued to flourish, if the institutions had worked out in peace their natural consequences, if the House of Hohenstaufen had maintained their power, splendor and tendencies to social and intellectual advancement, if they had not been dispossessed by the dynasty of Charles of Anjou, and the whole land thrown back by many centuries, might have enabled the southern kingdom to take the lead and anticipate the splendid period of Italian learning, philosophy and art, was the universities, the establishments for education, the encouragements for all learned and refined studies imagined by this accomplished king. The University of Naples was his foundation and his special care. The most famous scholars of the day were invited to fill its professorial chairs. Its curriculum was extended to more liberal studies than that of theology, which absorbed so much of the mental effort of the day. The law which he himself had promulgated, mathematics, languages, philosophy, the treasures of Greek and Arabian learning, Aristotle told Amie Abaroas by his orders translated into the Latin tongue and rendered accessible to the students of Naples, all these found their voteries in the new university. The weapons of the despot were enlisted to ensure its success. No student was henceforth to study in foreign universities. All immigrant scholars were to return immediately, now that such ample provision was offered in their native country. We keep the students, declared Frederick, recounting the advantages that he offered to his subjects, within view of their parents. We save them many toils and long foreign journeys. We protect them from robbers. They used to be pillaged while traveling abroad. They may now study with small cost and short wayfaring. The cost of their lodging was fixed at a definite rate. If they were in need of money the authorities would advance it at a low rate of interest and would not harass them for repayment until the years of study were completed. To those students who showed exceptional promise the king offered posts of honor and profit in his own service. The medical schools of Salerno were also fostered by his liberality and wise regulation. Here, Italians, Greeks, Hebrews and Arabians might study in their own tongues. The works of Hippocrates in Galen and the study of anatomy were recommended by the royal patron, himself well versed in the medical knowledge of the day. The physicians who had studied successfully at Salerno were ensured against the competition of the unqualified. No man might practice medicine who could not produce a testimonial from his professors and a license from the court of Salerno, and the probation of eight years must be spent before such a license could be obtained. Three years must be devoted to the study of logic and five to medicine and surgery. The graduate must then subscribe to many oaths, the most notable being to the effect that he would always supply free advice to the destitute. The king himself was first among his subjects in learning. Rarely in the history of the world has so accomplished a monarch filled the throne. In sheer genius writes Freeman, he was the greatest prince who ever wore a crown. Six languages had been mastered before he had attained the prime of manhood. He could talk fluidly in Latin and Greek, German, Italian, Arabic, and Hebrew. With his philosophical problems called the Sicilian questions, he confounded the wise men of Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Darub, and Tunis. One philosopher Ibn Sabin was at last found in Saracen, Spain, who could answer them to Frederick's satisfaction, and he, it must be confessed, replied in a tone of lofty patronage, You must know, wrote this infallible sage, that all these questions of yours are already known here better than a beacon fire. Another time you must throw them into a more obscure form, for we have Muslim doctors sharper than swords or scissors, men who are not true philosophers but mere wise-acres. These men are not first in these discussions and they conclude that both questioner and respondent are fools. If these men knew that I had answered your questions, they would regard me as they do the problems, and then I might escape or not as Allah might direct. The science of mathematics was an open book to Frederick. He correspondent and exchanged problems with the most learned mathematicians of all countries. The illustrious scholar and astrologer Michael Scott, sojourned awhile at the Sicilian court, attracted dither by the emperor's fame. He dedicated a translation of Avicenna's work on animals to his illustrious patron, with the hope that it might be an ornament to the head of a chain to the neck of the Lord of Earth. He also compiled a work on physiognomy at Frederick's Request, which was one of the first manuscripts to be printed. Medicine and the natural sciences absorbed a great share of the emperor's attention. He wrote a Latin treatise on hawking and on birds of prey, which portrays a knowledge of anatomy and ornithology, which even our own day must regard with respect. Many and curious are the stories which are circulated by his enemies, of the fearful lengths to which his ardent thirst for knowledge led him. Some of these are still available to us in the quaint wording of the Chronicle of Fra Salimbeni. One relates a gruesome instance of human vivisection. He fed two men most excellently at dinner, one of whom he forthwith sent to sleep and the other to hunt, and that same evening he caused them to be disemboweled in his presence, wishing to know which had digested the better, and it was judged in favor of him who had slept. Another describes an experiment to ascertain the original language of mankind. He gathered several newly born babes together, bidding foster mothers and nurses to suckle and bathe and wash the children, but in no wise to prattle or speak with them, for he would have learnt whether they would speak the Hebrew language, which had been the earliest, or Greek, or Latin, or Arabic, or perchance the tongue of their parents of whom they had been born. But he labored in vain, for the children could not live without clappings of hands and gestures and gladness of countenance and blandishments. Whether the experiment was pursued to fatal lengths is not clear. Another victim of Frederick's curiosity, according to Salim Bene, was one Nicholas the Fish, a native of Sicily, upon whom his mother had invoked the amiable curse that he might ever live in the water and seldom come to land. The man developed extraordinary powers of diving, and enduring for a great while underwater, which phenomena excited the Emperor's lively interest. He oftentimes sent this Nicholas against his will to the bottom of the pharaoh, and off times he returned dense, and wishing to know and soothe whether he had indeed gone down to the bottom and returned dense, the Emperor threw in his golden cup, where he thought the depth was greatest. So Nicholas plunged and founded and brought it back, where at the Emperor marveled greatly. But when he would have sent him again, he said, Send me not dither I pray you, for the sea is so troubled in the depths that if ye send me I shall never return. Nevertheless the Emperor sent him, so there he perished and never returned. For in those sea depths are great fishes at times of tempests, and rocks, and many wrecks of ships, as he himself reported. He might have said to Frederick in the words of Jonah, Thou hast cast me into the deep, in the heart of the sea, and the flood encompassed me round about, all thy whirlpools and waves have gone over me. At Frederick's right hand his chief minister and most favorite servant, his advisor in the making of laws and the government of his kingdom, and his friend in the hours of relaxation, stood Peter Vainia. Born in extreme poverty, he had first attracted the attention of the Archbishop of Palermo, who was so impressed by his unusual wisdom that he recommended him to the Emperor's notice. His rise to eminence was rapid, his enjoyment of the royal favor long, and his fall infinitely more tragic than that of Woolsey. The relations between Master and Servant were intimate. A Piedmontese tale relates how the Emperor wandered one night into the bedchamber of Peter's beautiful wife. The rounded arms of the sleeping lady lay outside the coverlet, and Frederick gently covered them up and withdrew, but he dropped his glove on the floor beside the bed and Peter discovered it some hours later. His suspicions were naturally aroused and he refused to speak to his wife. She greatly concerned and formed the Emperor of her husband's inexplicable displeasure, and both were summoned to the royal presence. The three sat in silence for some moments and then Peter broke out into impromptu verse. On a vineyard another plant trespassing came and ruined the vineyard O villainous shame. The lady replied in a similar measure, Thy vineyard I am and still will be, for my vineyard was never untrue to thee. The relieved husband promptly made amends. If this be so, as she says, then I vow, that the vineyard I'll love more than ever now. And forthwith he commenced a poem on the twelve months of the year to express the joy of his heart. His suspicions seemed to have been very easily elade, but his trust was justified. Frederick, so far as we know, never sinned with the sin of David. His high conception of the dignity of his august position and his extreme natural jealousy withheld him from seeking his pleasures where he must share them, or at least succeed a lawful spouse. Peter the vineyard was skilled in the making of poetry, and has left to us the first sonnet in the Italian tongue. This gentle art so long neglected in southern Italy, held high sway at Frederick's court, and the Emperor's cultivation of it has earned for him the title of the father of Italian poetry, bestowed by the greatest of Italian poets. The soft language of Sicily, which was to become the vulgar tongue of Italy, was chosen by the Emperor and his courtiers as the medium for their songs. The illustrious heroes Frederick Caesar and his noble son Manfred, says Dante, followed after elegance and scorned that which was mean, so that all the best compositions of the time came out of their court. Thus because their royal throne was in Sicily, all the poems of our predecessors in the vulgar tongue were called Sicilian. Frederick himself was a poet who sung the charms of his lady and the beauties of nature, and a few of his verses still survive in the Italian parnassus. His sons, Manfred and Zio and Conrad, contributed to the volume of song which resounded through his court. CHAPTER VII. THE YEARS OF SALAS, PART III. LEARNING IN ART, MUSIC AND POETRY, ALL THE ELEGANCE AND CULTURE AND LUCTURY WHICH THE ENLIGHTENED MIND OF MAN CAN DEVISE, RAINED IN THE EMPEROR'S PALACES, AND WITH THEM, THE AMORUS FREEDOM, WHICH IS THEIR ALMOST INEVITABLE COMPANION, ESPECIALLY UNDER SOUTHERN SKIES. FREDRIK, FIRST AMONG HIS SUBJECTS IN INTELLCT, WAS FIRST ALSO IN THIS. AT LUCERA HE KEPT A PERMANENT HERRUM, GARDED BY BLACK UNIX, AND IT WAS A GRAVE CAUSE FOR SCANDAL THAT THIS CERALIO WAS CHIEFLY FILLED WITH INFIDDLE WOMEN. TO EVERY PLACE WHERE HE WAS RESIDING, AT THE MOMENT, A NUMBER OF THESE CONCUBINES WOULD FOLLOW HIM. EVEN ON HIS MILITARY EXPEDITIONS IN THE LOMBARDY THEY WOULD ACCOMPANY HIM, CARRIED IN PALANQUINS OR RIDING ON CAMELS, AND THE LOSS OF THESE PRETTY DEERS WAS ACCORDING TO A PARMEZE VERSEMAKER, THE BITTEREST FEATURE OF HIS DEFEAT BEFORE PARMA IN 1248. HIS ORIENTAL TASTS DID NOT LIMIT THEMSELVES TO THE MaintANANCE OF A HERRUM. HIS SECOND AND THIRD WIFES WERE SECLUEDED LIKE EASTERN SULTANAS AND RARELY EXPOSED TO THE PUBLIC GAYS. IT WAS CONSIDERED A GREAT HONOR THAT RICHARD OF CORNWALL, THE BROTHER OF THE THIRD EMPRESS, WAS GRANTED THE FAVOR OF A LONG PRIVATE CONVERSATION WITH HER ON HIS VISIT TO FREDRIX SOME YEARS LATER. HIS FAVORITE MISTRESS, BEYOND GALANCHEA, WAS SURROUNDED WITH SCARESLY LESS ERKS AND PRECAUTIONS. IT IS REGRETTABLE THAT WE KNOW SO LITTLE ABOUT THIS LADY, WHO SEEMS TO HAVE BEEN THE CHIEF ROMANCE OF FREDRIX LIFE. SHE WAS A PIEGMONTEZE OF NOBLE BIRTH, AND HER RELATIONS WITH THE EMPEROR COMMENCED IN 1231 WHILE HE WAS A WIDOWER. HE WAS CONSTANT, THOUGH NOT FAITHFUL TO HER FOR THE REMAINEDOR OF HER LIFE, AND JUST BEFORE HER DEATH, WHICH ACCORED AFTER THE DECEASE OF HIS THIRD WIFE, HE MARRIED HER AT HER URGENT REQUEST TO LEGITIMIZE THE CHILDREN SHE HAD BORN HIM. THE CHURCH HOWEVER REFUSED TO RECOGNIZE THE UNION, SINCE THE EMPEROR WAS EXCOMMUNICATE AT THE TIME. IN SPITE OF HIS VELUPTIOUS HABITS FREDRIX WAS ACTIVE IN BODY. HE WAS A DEVOTE OF THE CHASE AND THE FORESTS OF WESTER NAPULIA WERE STUTTED WITH HIS HUNTING LODGES. IN THE PURSUIT OF THE DEER HE WOULD EMPLOY HUNTING LEPERDS OR CHITAS WHICH HE HAD APTAINED FROM THE EAST FOR THIS PURPOSE. FALCONRY ALSO WAS A FAVORITE SPORT, AND THE EMPEROR WAS MORE LEARNED IN ITS SCIENCE THAN ANY OF HIS FALCONERS. WE CAN PICTURE HIM AS HE ROAD OUT WITH THE HOOTED BIRD ON HIS RIST, A MAN OF MIDDLE HEIGHT, STOUTLY BUILT WITH BROD HIGH BROW, FIRM BUT RATHER SENSUIS MOUTH, AND THE RETISH HUE OF THE HOEINCH DOLPHINS IN HIS HAIR. ON HIS RIGHT WOULD BE THE FAIR BEYONCA, ON HIS LEFT PEDER DEVINIA, HIS FAMILIAR SPIRIT. BEHIND HIM WOULD RIDE A GAY AND CALLITTERING THRONG OF LORDS AND LADYS, WITH PERHAPS MANY A TURB AND CLAD CERISON IN THEIR MITSTS. FOR FREDRIX COURT WAS COSMOPOLITAN IN CHARACTER AND ALERNED OR NOBLE VISITOR WOULD ALWAYS FIND A WELCOME THERE WHATEVER HIS NATIONALITY OR RELIGION. IF HE WAS A WARRIOR RETURNING FROM THE CRUSADE, HE WOULD BE GIVEN HEALING BATHS AND SOFT REMENT, AND BEAUTIFUL HANDMADENS FOR HIS SOLACE AND ATTENDANCE. HE WOULD BE SHOWN THE WONDERS OF THE ROYAL PALACE. PERHAPS FREDRIX HIMSELF WOULD CONDUCT HIM ROUND HIS MANAGERY, WOULD POINT OUT THE GREAT ELEPHANT PRESENTED BY SALTON COMELL, THE LEPARDS, LIONS, PANTHERS, CAMELS, DROMIDARIES AND RARE BIRDS, ALL TENDED BY CERISON KEEPERS. HIS EYES WOULD BE DASZLED BY THE IMPERIAL TREASURES, A THRONE MADE OF PURE GOLD AND ENCRUSTED WITH PURLS AND GEMS, A WONDERFUL TENT, WHICH BY SOME MECHANICAL DEVICE, DISPLAYED THE MOVEMENTS OF THE HEAVENLY BODYS AND THE SEASONS OF THE YEAR, AND OTHER RICHES OF PRESSIOUS STONES AND SUMFIOUS FABRICS FROM EASTERN LOOMS. IN THE EVENING HE WOULD BE INVITED TO THE BANKWIT, WHERE THOUGH THE EMPEROR HIMSELF WAS SPARING OF FOOD AND DRINK, THE MOST VARID VEONS AND THE CHOICEST WINDS WOULD REPOSE UPON THE TABLE. BLACK MUSICIANS WOULD PLAY STRANGE INSTRUMENTS, AND CERISON DANCING GIRLS WOULD ESTONISH THE FOREINER WITH THEIR FEETS, PURRUETTING AND SWAYING UPON LARGE BALLS WHICH THEY WOULD REVOLVE THE WHILE WITH THEIR FEET. HE WOULD CARRY HOME TO HIS OWN LAND, GLOWING TAILS OF THE SPLENDER OF THE EMPEROR'S COURT, OF THE FAMBULOUS WEALTH OF GOLD AND RISH SILKS, OF THE NOVEL ENTERTAINMENTS AND ORIENTAL LUXURY, OF THE LEARNED DISCORES OF BREDRIK AND HIS CORDEERS, AND PROBABLY ALSO A SUBSTANCIAL TOKEN OF THE ROYAL MUNIFICIENCE. LIKE MOST POWERFUL RULERS OF ANCIENT AND MEDEVAL TIMES, BREDRIK WAS A GREAT BUILDER. HIS PALACES, MANY OF THEM OF CERISON ARCHITECTURE, ABOUNDED IN THE ISLAND OF CICILLE, ON THE WESTERN SHORES OF THE MAINLAND. ALL WERE DESTROYED IN THE SUCCESSION OF INVASIONS WHICH THE UNHAPPY COUNTRY AFTERWARDS EXPERIENCED. A SINGLE ARCH OF THE PALACE OF FOJA IS ALMOST THE ONLY FRAGMENT THAT IS LEFT. OF HIS MANY CASELS THAT OF DEL MONTE, NEAR ANDRIA, STILL STANDS, ONE OF THE MOST PERFECT SURVIVALS IN ITALY. IT IS SOMETHING MORE THAN A MEAR DEFENSIVE STRUCTURE. ITS FINE VALTED HALLS ARE DECKED WITH MARBLE AND MOSAICS AND ITS WINDOWS ADORNED WITH SCULPTURE. THE CASEL OF CAPUA, PLONG SINCE DEMOLISHED, WAS ORNAMENTED WITH STATUS, MARBULS, AND ALABASTER. ITS MAIN ENTRANCE WAS SURMOUTED BY A BAURELIEF, REPRESENTING FREDRIK IN HIS CROWN AND IMPERIAL ROBES, ON HIS RIGHT AND LEFT, THE TWO CHIEF ADVISORS OF HIS REALM, PEDER DEVINIA AND THATIUS OF SUESA. HE ALSO BUILT MANY CITIES WHICH HE PEOPLEED BY DISPOTIC MEANS. HIS ACTIVITIES WERE NOT CONFINED IN HIS SOUTHERN KINGDOM. MANY CASELS WERE ARRECTED IN NORTHERN NIDDLY IN THE ENDEVERTOO OVERALL THE TURBULENT CITIES OF LOMBARDE, TUSCANI, AND THE PEOPLES OF THESE TERRITORIES FOR THE MOST PART, SO BITTERLY HOSTLE TO THE HOEIN-SCHDAUFEN NAME, COULD NOT BE INSENSIBLE TO THE REFINING INFLUENCE WHICH RATIATED FROM FREDRIK'S COURT. THAT THEY WERE SADLY IN NEED OF SUCH INFLUENCE IS MADE EVIDENT BY MANY REFERENCES TO THEIR RUDEN BARBEROUS WAYS AND EXEMPLIFIED IN THE FOLLOWING INCIDENT. THE DEPUTIES OF SAVONA WERE AWAYTING AN AUDIENCE WITH THE AMPERER DURING HIS VISIT TO CROMONA IN 1226, WHEN THE EMBASSADORS OF THE RIVAL CITY OF GENOWA ENTERED THE CHAMBER. THE UNMANNORLY SAVONESE COMMENCED TO PULL RYE FACES AT THEIR APPROACH AND MADE VULGAR GESTURES EXPRESSIVE OF A VIOLENT PHYSICAL NAUSIA. THE PEOPLE OF ITALY, ROTODOMINIC AND CRONICLER LATE IN THE CENTURY, FROM ACULEA TO VERCELLI IN PARTICULAR, IN FREDRIK'S TIME, LIVED IN A BARBEROUS AND STRANGE FASHION. THEIR FOOD, RAIMENT, AND ARMS WERE ALIKE ON KOOTH. THEIR DIALLECT, THEIR AMUSEMENTS, AND THEIR DANCES WERE ALL COURSE. FREDRIK CHANGED EVERYTHING AND TOUGHT THE ITALIANS BETTER WAYS. HE WAS REMARECABLE AMONG ALL THE EMPERORS, BEING ENDOWED WITH CURTIOUS, NOBLE, AND ELEGANT MANNERS. SO IN SPLENDER AND WISDOM OF GOVERNANCE, SUCH AS HIS GENERATION HAD NEVER SEEN, SUCH AS HAD NOT BEEN KNOWN FOR MANY CENTURES IN THE HISTORY OF THE WESTERN WORLD, PASSED THE GOLDEN YEARS OF FREDRIK'S LIFE. IF Europe regarded his sway with wonder and admiration, THE CHURCH FEWED IT IN A VERY DIFFERENT LIGHT. To the jealous and distrustful eye of the Pope and his murmidons, every aspect of his rule seemed to rid down to the harm of the Church, to the lowering of its prestige and the undermining of its authority. His just and equitable code of laws was but a rival to the ancient jurisprudence of the Church, where other nations based their codes upon the canon law and accepted the advice and influence of ecclesiastics in their compilation and their execution, Frederick had discarded every precedent that did not commend itself to him on its own merits, however sanctified by the ancient usage of the Church. If other monarchs followed him in this irreverent independence, the Church would lose its immemorial influence over the jurisprudence of the peoples of Christendom. The highly organized system of government which he had erected, however much it might tend to the happiness and prosperity of his kingdom, deprived the clergy of those immunities which they had so long enjoyed, and degraded them to a position of equality with the lay subjects of the state. His very efforts for the intellectual enlightenment of his people seemed mischievous, for at his University of Naples the study of theology had given place to more liberal learning, and the Church suspected, and in later centuries was to know only too well, that liberal learning was an enemy to its sway over the minds of men. The culture that ranged supreme at Frederick's court seemed evil because it contained so much that was pagan and infidel in origin. The profane and amorous poetry of Frederick and his satellites, his oriental tastes, his triflings with infidel women, all these things were bitterly condemned. If he built for himself castles and palaces, he raised no sacred spires to the glory of God. His philosophical researches, his mathematical lore, were meant to raise human nature to the level of divine knowledge. The fearful result was to be seen in his own contempt for sacred things. The doctrine of transubstantiation, recently endorsed by the papacy, came under the lash of his ridicule. How many gods will be made out of this corn in my lifetime, he was believed to have said when riding through a field of grain. How long will this mummery last, as he saw the sacred elements being carried in solemn procession through the streets? God, he declared, would never have chosen the barren country of Judea as the promised land if he had seen his own beautiful realm of Sicily. He was even reported to have said that the world had been led by three imposters, Moses, Christ, and Muhammad. Such and such were the abominations which proceeded from his mouth, from the mouth of one who was not merely the king of Sicily, but the emperor of Rome, the first monarch of Christendom, who should be beyond all men in reverence for holy things and let it not be forgotten in dutiful submission to the vicar of Christ. Retribution must follow, and the proud must be brought low, and meanwhile Gregory pondered on these injuries and treasured them up in his heart. And from henceforth his life was to be surrounded by storm and stress, and passed in a struggle so endless and wearisome that his days were shortened and bereft of all gladness. The papacy was not the first disturber of his peace, for the present pope and emperor were to appear before the world as friends and were even to aid each other against their enemies. Though always there was an undercurrent of suspicion and hostility and ceaseless wranglings and recriminations, which in 1239 were to culminate in the inevitable strife. Meanwhile, the emperor was called away from his Apulian palaces by the rebellion of his son Henry and by the aggressive turbulence of the Lombard towns. As early as 1231 he had left his southern kingdom for a while in the endeavour to check the civil warfare which was incessantly ranging in Lombardy. This portion of the empire was the source of continual humiliation to the Hohenstaufen Kaisers. The cities clung to their freedom, with an obstinacy and courage that would have been entirely admirable had they not abused that freedom by the most ferocious internal dissensions. They resented the slightest exercise of the imperial authority, and if their outraged lord brought his armies to their chastisement they would retire behind their massive walls which were almost impregnable before the military engines of the time. The reduction of even one of the cities of the league would then entail a protracted siege and the reduction of a score was an almost impossible task. Barbarossa had tried to solve the problem in 1162 by burning Milan, the head city of the league, utterly to the ground. But Milan had risen again from her ashes, summoned the league to action once more and crushed the might of Germany at the Battle of La Gnano. The Treaty of Constance, wrung from Barbarossa by this defeat, had reduced the imperial lordship of northern Italy almost to a shadow. His grandson might have been content with this very moderate suzerainty if only this part of his dominions had maintained a peaceful demeanor, but when he looked from his kingdom, where his authority was absolute and order reigns supreme, to the northern part of Italy which was one vast and sanguinary scene of confusion, the contrast became intolerable to his pride. And when peaceful persuasion was rejected with the most violent antagonism, he took up the task which Barbarossa had attempted with such disastrous results. In 1231 then Frederick advanced northwards with a small following and summoned King Henry and the German princes in the cities of northern Italy to meet him at Ravenna, where a diet was to be held and an attempt made to appease the disturbances of Lombardy and the neighboring provinces. The Lombards not only disdained to attend the diet, but by their hostility compelled Henry and his Germans to travel southwards with the utmost secrecy. Some Ghibeline cities, Pisa, Genoa, Parma, Madana, Cremona, and Pavia, sent their envoys and announced their readiness to cooperate in whatever measures the emperor should decide to take against Milan and her allies. Such measures, however, were obviated by the partial submission of the League. Frightened by the emperor's expressed intention of punishing them for hindering his diet by their attitude, they sought the mediation of the Pope. Frederick, anxious to return to his work in his kingdom, agreed to recognize Gregory as arbitrator, and in May 1232 a temporary peace was made which postponed the threatened war for four years. While in the north, Frederick first became acquainted with a noble who was to play a prominent part in the coming struggle. Eccellino de Romano, one of the most sinister figures of his century, was the representative of a powerful family of northeastern Italy. He was a brilliant soldier, loyal to the cause he chose to follow, but possessed with an inordinate lust of power and cruel to an extent that rendered him remarkable, even in a cruel age. Entirely indifferent to sexual emotions and lusts, women as well as men were the victims of his cold-blooded barbarity and were subjected to the most exquisite tortures that the refined cruelty of the Italian mind could devise. Dante places him in hell in the crimson-seething flood reserved for tyrants who were given to blood and to rapine. This eccellino, writes Salim Bene, was feared worse than the devil. He held it of no account to slay men, women, and children, and he wrought such cruelty as men have scarce heard. I believe most certainly that as the Son of God wished to have one specially whom he might make like unto himself, namely St. Francis, so the devil chose eccellino. He was a gibbaline in politics, and as soon as the war broke out between the emperor and the league, he ranged himself on the side of Frederick and was made imperial vicar in Lombardy. Serving his own interests as well as those of his master, he made himself lord of Verona, Vicenza, Padua, and other cities in northeastern Lombardy. He always remained staunch to Frederick and shared with him the enmity of the church, to which he fell a victim nine years after Frederick's death. Undoubtedly he rendered valuable material service to the emperor, but the alliance of such a monster of cruelty could not enhance Frederick's good repute throughout Christendom. The meeting between King Henry and his father, who had been separated for twelve years, could not have been a very happy reunion. Ever since the death of his guardian, the good Archbishop Engelbert of Cologne, in 1225, Henry had followed evil courses. He had become a profligate and had surrounded himself with parasitical favourites. The government of Germany had been neglected, and its revenues dissipated in the maintenance of a licentious and frivolous court. If reports spoke truly, he had even made a secret league with Milan against his father, prompted there too by jealousy of the emperor's attachment to his second son Conrad. Frederick would have been wiser and kinder if he had taken the power for evil out of Henry's hands, but he dealt leniently with him and crediting his promises of amendment even allowed him a fuller authority in Germany. The realization of his mistake was soon brought home to the emperor. Father and son parted in the March of 1232, the one to resume his wise rule of Sicily, the other to plunge still more deeply into folly and vice and to invite inevitable ruin. A madness seemed to seize upon the young Henry, the only rebellious son the house of Hohenstaufen had ever known. He sowed the seed of discontent against his father and received at his court nobles who had been banished from the kingdom. He endeavored vainly to enlist the Duke of Austria and the King of France on his side. Strasbourg and many towns on the upper Rhine were induced to cast off their allegiance to the emperor and to proclaim Henry as their only lord. Three prelates also lent themselves to his schemes. Finally in December 1234 he entered into a treaty with the Lombard League and raised the standard of rebellion. So grave a situation called for Frederick's own presence in Germany and in the April of 1235 he left his kingdom to chastise his disobedient son. Gregory for once gave the emperor his whole hearted support and excommunicated Henry. At the same time he wrote to the German prelates and exhorted them to stand loyal to their temporal lord. We have had long experience, he wrote in bland disregard of the past, of the devotion of our dearest son in Christ the emperor Frederick. His son Henry, unmindful of the divine love, a scorn of human affection, is a rock of offense 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. In May Frederick crossed the Alps and arrived in Germany. In spite of the resentment the Germans might justly feel at his open preference for his southern dominions and in spite of the rapidly increasing mischief wrought by his son he came with the scantiest following, relying on the personal devotion of the German princes and their loyalty to his house. His confidence was quickly justified. The nobles of his ancestral duchy of Schwabia and a number of the princes among them the dukes of Saxony and Bavaria flocked to meet him at Radesbund. The rebellion collapsed without daring to show its face to the emperor. King Henry, utterly deserted by all his adherents, was compelled to surrender and submitted himself to his father at Worms. The unhappy youth might have been allowed to retain his freedom even though stripped of his power had he not been driven by some malignant madness to his own destruction. He suddenly withdrew his unconditional acceptance of Frederick's terms, refused to surrender the castle of Trifels once the prison of Richard Coeur de Lyon which had been given to him as part of his personal estate and finally made an attempt to escape from Worms. Frederick's patience was at an end. He sent the rebel under escort to Apulia where he was imprisoned in one of the royal castles. For seven years he lingered in confinement, transferred periodically from one castle to another and closely guarded. Finally in a fit of futile passion he put an end to his life by dashing himself from his horse onto the rocky ground. Frederick mourned his death in fitting terms. The feelings of the father overpower those of the judge, he wrote, and we are forced to bewail the death of our eldest son. We confess that though we could not be bent by our son when living, we mourn him when dead, we are not the first or the last who have wept for the death of undutiful sons. Some two months after his arrival in Germany and when all traces of the rebellion had been effaced by Henry's banishment to a Napoleon prison, the Emperor took unto himself a third wife. This time it was an English bride that he chose, Isabella, the daughter of John, and the sister of the reigning King Henry III. Negotiations had been opened before the Emperor left his kingdom, and Peter Divinia had been one of the envoys to lay the imperial proposal before the English monarch. Henry took counsel with his prelates and nobles, and after a deliberation which lasted three days the prince's Isabella was brought before the Emperor's ambassadors. She appeared before them, writes the English chronicler, Roger de Wendover, a lady in her twentieth year, beautiful to look upon, adorned with virgin modesty and distinguished by her royal dress and manners. After they had refreshed their sight for some time with gazing on the lady, they decided that she was most worthy in all respects of the imperial couch and confirmed the marriage on the soul of the Emperor by oath, presenting her with a wedding ring in his name. After they placed it on her finger, they proclaimed her Empress of Rome, all exclaiming, Long live our Empress. End of section 16.