Part 81

The war of the Church against him was implacable, and he was under its ban when he died. The pope even pursued him with maledictions when he went, at last, upon his crusade, in 1228, and when he did, by negotiations, free Jerusalem for a time from the Moslems (see CRUSADES: A. D. 1216-1229). He was involved, moreover, in conflicts with the Lombard cities (see FEDERAL GOVERNMENT: MEDIÆVAL LEAGUE) which the papacy encouraged and stimulated, and, in 1236, he won a great victory over the League, at Cortenuova, capturing the famous "Carroccio" of the Milanese and sending it as a gift to the Roman Senate. But, attempting to use his victory too inflexibly, he lost the fruits of it, and all his later years were years of trouble and disastrous war—disastrous to Italy and to himself. He died on the 13th of December 1250. "Out of the long array of the Germanic successors of Charles, he [Frederick II.] is, with Otto III., the only one who comes before us with a genius and a frame of character that are not those of a Northern or a Teuton. There dwelt in him, it is true, all the energy and knightly valour of his father Henry and his grandfather Barbarossa. But along with these, and changing their direction, were other gifts, inherited perhaps from his Italian mother and fostered by his education among the orange-groves of Palermo—a love of luxury and beauty, an intellect refined, subtle, philosophical. Through the mist of calumny and fable it is but dimly that the truth of the man can be discerned, and the outlines that appear serve to quicken rather than appease the curiosity with which we regard one of the most extraordinary personages in history. A sensualist, yet also a warrior and a politician; a profound lawgiver and an impassioned poet; in his youth fired by crusading fervour, in later life persecuting heretics while himself accused of blasphemy and unbelief; of winning manners and ardently beloved by his followers, but with the stain of more than one cruel deed upon his name, he was the marvel of his own generation, and succeeding ages looked back with awe, not unmingled with pity, upon the inscrutable figure of the last Emperor who had braved all the terrors of the Church and died beneath her ban, the last who had ruled from the sands of the ocean to the shores of the Sicilian sea. But while they pitied they condemned. The undying hatred of the Papacy threw round his memory a lurid light; him and him alone of all the imperial line, Dante, the worshipper of the Empire, must perforce deliver to the flames of hell."

_J. Bryce, The Holy Roman Empire, chapter 13._

"The Emperor Frederick was a poet who could not only celebrate the charms of his sovereign lady, 'the flower of all flowers, the rose of May,' but could also exhibit his appreciation for the beauties of nature. … Frederick also delighted in sculpture, painting, and architecture. … Under his fostering influence every branch of learning was starting into life after the slumber of ages. Frederick's age can only be compared to that glorious era of the Renaissance, when the sun of learning, no longer shorn of his beams, poured a flood of light over the dark places of Europe. Frederick was not only distinguished for his love of polite literature, but also for his ardour in the pursuit of scientific knowledge. He was himself an author on medical subjects. {1815} He was a great patron of natural history. He used his friendly relations with eastern kings to form a collection of animals not often seen in Europe—the elephant, camel, giraffe, and camelopard. He also wrote a treatise on Hawking, which is still cited with respect. He classifies birds, and treats generally of their habits. … But poetry and science were very far from occupying all the thoughts of this distinguished monarch. His great concern was the internal regulation of the kingdom committed to his charge. His code in Sicily and Naples was framed with the special view of securing equal rights to all classes of his subjects, and of delivering them from the yoke of the feudal oppressor. He stripped the nobles and prelates of their jurisdiction in criminal cases. He also decreed that any count or baron, carrying on war on his own account, should lose his head and his goods. These were amazing strides in the right direction, but the former was quite unprecedented in feudal kingdoms. Many justiciaries were appointed throughout the kingdom. No one might hold this office without the authorisation of the crown. He strove to make his officials as righteous as he was himself. He himself came before his courts. So great was his love of justice, that he would rather lose his cause than win it if he were in the wrong. No advocates were allowed to practise without an examination by the judicial bench. They were obliged to take an oath that they would allege nothing against their conscience. The court furnished widows, orphans, and the poor with champions free of expense. The law, by which it was guided, endeavoured to secure an even-handed administration of justice."

_A. B. Pennington, The Emperor Frederick II. (Royal Historical Society, Transactions, new series, volume 1)._

Although arbitrary and despotic in temper, the political intelligence of Frederick led him to practical ideas of government which were extraordinarily liberal for his age. In his Sicilian kingdom "the towns were shorn to a great extent of their local privileges, 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, Frederick 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 deputies 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 Parliament 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 supplies. The only function of the deputies summoned seems to have been the assessing of the public burdens. The Emperor demanded a certain sum of money, and the deputies, meekly complying, regulated the ways and means of raising it. 'Send your messengers,' thus runs the writ, 'to see the Serenity of our face on your behalf, and to bring you back our will.' Later in the century, the Assembly acquired greater authority. It is just possible that Simon de Montfort, who is known to have visited the Imperial Court, may have borrowed his famous improvement on the old English constitution from an Apulian source; the gathering of the Commons at Foggia certainly preceded their first meeting at Westminster by thirty years. Other countries besides our own 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 Castile. The ideas of the Suabian Emperor were evidently the model followed by St. Louis and his successors; in France, as well as in Southern Italy, the lawyer was feeling his way towards the enjoyment of the power wielded of old by the knight and the churchman; Philip the Fair 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 all Frederick's efforts in behalf of Italian unity." Frederick's court was the most brilliant and refined in Europe. Mr. Kington, his historian, introduces us to one of the Emperor's banquets, in the following description: "A great variety of strangers meet at the banqueting hour. Ambassadors from the Greek Monarch arrive with a present of falcons. Some clerical visitors from Germany are astounded to find themselves 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 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 behalf. The Emperor himself eats and drinks very little. He is the very model of a host. … The Emperor, it must be allowed, is rather loose in his talk. Speaking of his late Crusade, he remarks: 'If the God of the Jews had seen my Kingdom, the Terra di Lavoro, Calabria, Sicily, and Apulia, he would not have so often praised that land which he promised to the Jews and bestowed upon them.' The Bishops treasure up this unlucky speech, which will one day be noised abroad all 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 girls 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 intricate postures. Games and musical instruments, procured for the Empress, form part of the entertainment. We hear moreover of a Saracen dancer from Aquitaine. Such sports are relished by the guests quite as much as the Greek wine and the viands prepared by Berard the Court cook, who is famous for his scapece; this dish, consisting of fish boiled in salt water and sprinkled with saffron, popular to this day in the province of Lecce, has been derived from Apicius. … The Emperor now shows his guests the wild beasts, which he has brought from Africa and the East. There is the huge elephant, soon to be sent to Cremona, the bearer of the Imperial banner, guarded by a troop of Saracens. {1816} There is the female camelopard, called 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 collection, and are tended by Saracen keepers. Frederick perhaps wishes to show his friends some sport in the Apulian 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 called wolf's powder. He has many parks and fishponds, to which he contrives to attend, even in the midst of Lombard wars. He directs the plantation of woods, and when a storm blows down his trees, the timber is to be sold at Naples. … 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 movements 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, silks from Tripoli, and the choicest works of the Eastern loom. Frederick charms the ears of his guests with melodies played on silver trumpets by black slaves, whom he has had trained. He himself knows how to sing. Travellers, jesters, poets, philosophers, knights, lawyers, all find a hearty welcome at the Apulian Court; if they are natives of the Kingdom they address its Lord in the customary second person singular, 'Tu, Messer.' He can well appreciate the pretensions of each guest, since he is able to converse with all his many subjects, each in his own tongue. The Arab from Palestine, the Greek from Calabria, the Italian from Tuscany, the Frenchman from Lorraine, the German from Thuringia, find that Cæsar understands them all. With Latin, of course, he is familiar. Very different is Frederick from his Northern grandsire, who could speak nothing but German and very bad Latin. Troubadour, Crusader, Lawgiver; German by blood, Italian by birth, Arab by training; the pupil, the tyrant, the victim of Rome; accused by the world of being by turns a Catholic persecutor, a Mohammedan convert, an Infidel freethinker; such is Frederick the Second. His character has been sketched for us by two men of opposite politics, Salimbene the Guelf and Jamsilla the Ghibelline, both of whom knew him well. 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 all is not fair, whatever appearances may be. Every generation of the Hohenstaufen Kaisers seemed to add a vice to the shame of their house. Cruelty is the one dark stain in the character 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 Registers with their varied entries throw more light upon his nature than any panegyrics or diatribes can do. One example will be enough. If he wishes to get an impregnable castle into his hands, he thus writes to his general:—'Pretend some business, and warily call the Castellan to you; seize on him if you can, and keep him till he cause the castle to be surrendered to you.' … Frederick's cruelty is indisputable. His leaden copes, which weighed down the victims of his wrath until death came to the rescue, were long the talk of Italy and are mentioned by Dante."

_T. L. Kington, History of Frederick the Second, Emperor of the Romans, volume 1, chapter 9._

"After the death of Frederick II., an interval of twenty-three years passed without the appointment of a king of the Romans [the Great Interregnum—see GERMANY: A. D. 1250-1272], and an interval of sixty years without the recognition of an emperor in Italy." Frederick's son Conrad, whom he had caused to be crowned, was driven out of Germany and died in 1254. Another son, Manfred, acquired the crown of Sicily and reigned for a time; but the unrelenting pope persuaded Charles of Anjou to make a conquest of the kingdom, and Manfred was slain in battle (A. D. 1266). Conrad's young son, Conradin, then attempted to recover the Sicilian throne, but was defeated, taken prisoner, and perished on the scaffold (1268). He was the last of the Hohenstaufen.

_O. Browning, Guelfs and Ghibellines, chapters 2-3._

ALSO IN: _J. Bryce, The Holy Roman Empire, chapters 11-13._

_E. A. Freeman, The Emperor Frederick the Second (Historical Essays, volume 1, Essay 10)._

_Mrs. W. Busk, Mediæval Popes, Emperors, Kings, and Crusaders, book 4 (volumes 3-4)._

ITALY: A. D. 1198-1216. The establishing of Papal Sovereignty in the States of the Church.

See PAPACY: A. D. 1198-1216.

ITALY: 13th Century. Political conditions which prepared the way for the despots.

"The struggle between the Popes and the Hohenstaufen left Italy in a political condition which differed essentially from that of the other countries of the West. While in France, Spain, and England the feudal system was so organised that, at the close of its existence, it was naturally transformed into a unified monarchy, and while in Germany it helped to maintain, at least outwardly, the unity of the empire, Italy had shaken it off almost entirely. The Emperors of the fourteenth century, even in the most favourable case, were no longer received and respected as feudal lords, but as possible leaders and supporters of powers already in existence; while the Papacy, with its creatures and allies, was strong enough to hinder national unity in the future, not strong enough itself to bring about that unity. Between the two lay a multitude of political units—republics and despots—in part of long standing, in part of recent origin, whose existence was founded simply on their power to maintain it. In them for the first time we detect the modern political spirit of Europe, surrendered freely to its own instincts, often displaying the worst features of an unbridled egoism, outraging every right, and killing every germ of a healthier culture. {1817} But, wherever this vicious tendency is overcome or in any way compensated, a new fact appears in history—the state as the outcome of reflection and calculation, the state as a work of art. This new life displays itself in a hundred forms, both in the republican and in the despotic states, and determines their inward constitution, no less than their foreign policy. … The internal condition of the despotically governed states had a memorable counterpart in the Norman Empire of Lower Italy and Sicily, after its transformation by the Emperor Frederick II. Bred amid treason and peril in the neighbourhood of the Saracens, Frederick, the first ruler of the modern type who sat upon a throne, had early accustomed himself, both in criticism and action, to a thoroughly objective treatment of affairs. His acquaintance with the internal condition and administration of the Saracenic states was close and intimate; and the mortal struggle in which he was engaged with the Papacy compelled him, no less than his adversaries, to bring into the field all the resources at his command. Frederick's measures (especially after the year 1231) are aimed at the complete destruction of the feudal state, at the transformation of the people into a multitude destitute of will and of the means of resistance, but profitable in the utmost degree to the exchequer. He centralised, in a manner hitherto unknown in the West, the whole judicial and political administration by establishing the right of appeal from the feudal courts, which he did not, however, abolish, to the imperial judges. No office was henceforth to be filled by popular election, under penalty of the devastation of the offending district and of the enslavement of its inhabitants. Excise duties were introduced; the taxes, based on a comprehensive assessment, and distributed in accordance with Mohammedan usages, were collected by those cruel and vexatious methods without which, it is true, it is impossible to obtain any money from Orientals. Here, in short, we find, not a people, but simply a disciplined multitude of subjects. … The internal police, and the kernel of the army for foreign service, was composed of Saracens who had been brought over from Sicily to Nocera and Luceria—men who were deaf to the cry of misery and careless of the ban of the Church. At a later period the subjects, by whom the use of weapons had long been forgotten, were passive witnesses of the fall of Manfred and of the seizure of the government by Charles of Anjou; the latter continued to use the system which he found already at work. At the side of the centralising Emperor appeared an usurper of the most peculiar kind: his vicar and son-in-law, Ezzelino da Romano. … The conquests and usurpations which had hitherto taken place in the Middle Ages rested on real or pretended inheritance and other such claims, or else were effected against unbelievers and excommunicated persons. Here for the first time the attempt was openly made to found a throne by wholesale murder and endless barbarities, by the adoption, in short, of any means with a view to nothing but the end pursued. None of his successors, not even Cæsar Borgia, rivalled the colossal guilt of Ezzelino; but the example once set was not forgotten. … Immediately after the fall of Frederick and Ezzelino, a crowd of tyrants appeared upon the scene. The struggle between Guelph and Ghibelline was their opportunity. They came forward in general as Ghibelline leaders, but at times and under conditions so various, that it is impossible not to recognise in the fact a law of supreme and universal necessity."

_J. Burckhardt, The Renaissance in Italy, part 1, chapter 1, (volume 1)._

ITALY: A. D. 1215. The beginning, at Florence, the causes and the meaning of the strife of the Guelfs and Ghibellines.