1237.
On returning to Italy, Frederick found himself involved in new difficulties with the independent cities. He was supported by his son-in-law, Ezzelin, and a large army from Naples and Sicily, composed chiefly of Saracens. With this force he won such a victory at Cortenuovo, that even Milan offered to yield, under hard conditions. Then Frederick II. made the same mistake as his grandfather, Barbarossa, in similar circumstances. He demanded a complete and unconditional surrender, which so aroused the fear and excited the hate of the Lombards, that they united in a new and desperate resistance, which he was unable to crush. Gregory IX., who claimed for the Church the Island of Sardinia, which Frederick had given as a kingdom to his son Enzio, hurled a new excommunication against the Emperor, and the fiercest of all the quarrels between the two powers now began to rage.
The Pope, in a proclamation, asserted of Frederick: "This pestilential king declares that the world has been deceived by three impostors, Moses, Mohammed and Christ, the two former of whom died honorably, but the last shamefully, upon the cross." He further styled the Emperor, "that beast of Revelations which came out of the sea, which now destroys everything with its claws and iron teeth, and, assisted by the heretics, arises against Christ, in order to drive his name out of the world." Frederick, in an answer which was sent to all the kings and princes of Christendom, wrote: "The Apostolic and Athanasian Creeds are mine; Moses I consider a friend of God, and Mohammed an arch-impostor." He described the Pope as "that horse in Revelations, from which, as it is written, issued another horse, and he that sat upon him took away the peace of the world, so that the living destroyed each other," and named him further: "the second Balaam, the great dragon, yea, even the Antichrist."
1241. CAPTURE OF THE POPE'S COUNCIL.
Gregory IX. endeavored, but in vain, to set up a rival Emperor: the Princes, and even the Archbishops, were opposed to him. Frederick, who was not idle meanwhile, entered the States of the Church, took several cities, and advanced towards Rome. Then the Pope offered to call together a Council in Rome, to settle all matters in dispute. But those who were summoned to attend were Frederick's enemies, whereupon he issued a proclamation declaring the Council void, and warning the bishops and priests against coming to it. The most of them, however, met at Nice, in 1241, and embarked for Rome on a Genoese fleet of sixty vessels; but Frederick's son, Enzio, intercepted them with a Pisan and Sicilian fleet, captured one hundred cardinals, bishops and abbots, one hundred civil deputies and four thousand men, and carried them to Naples. The Council, therefore, could not be held, and Pope Gregory died soon afterwards, almost a hundred years old.
After quarreling for nearly two years, the Cardinals finally elected a new Pope, Innocent IV. He had been a friend of the Emperor, but the latter exclaimed, on hearing of his election: "I fear that I have lost a friend among the Cardinals, and found an enemy in the chair of St. Peter: no Pope can be a Ghibelline!" His words were true. After fruitless negotiations, Innocent IV. fled to Lyons, and there called together a Council of the Church, which declared that Frederick had forfeited his crowns and dignities, that he was cast out by God, and should be thenceforth accursed. Frederick answered this declaration with a bold statement of the corruptions of the clergy, and the dangers arising from the temporal power of the Popes, which, he asserted, should be suppressed for the sake of Christianity, the early purity of which had been lost. King Louis IX. of France endeavored to bring about a suspension of the struggle, which was now beginning to disturb all Europe; but the Pope angrily refused.
In 1246, the latter persuaded Henry Raspe, Landgrave of Thuringia, to claim the crown of Germany, and supported him with all the influence and wealth of the Church. He was defeated and wounded in the first battle, and soon afterwards died, leaving Frederick's son, Konrad, still king of Germany. In Italy, the civil war raged with the greatest bitterness, and with horrible barbarities on both sides. Frederick exhibited such extraordinary courage and determination that his enemies, encouraged by the Church, finally resorted to the basest means of overcoming him. A plot formed for his assassination was discovered in time, and the conspirators executed: then an attempt was made to poison him, in which his chancellor and intimate friend, Peter de Vinea—his companion for thirty years,—seems to have been implicated. At least he recommended a certain physician, who brought to the Emperor a poisoned medicine. Something in the man's manner excited Frederick's mistrust, and he ordered him to swallow a part of the medicine. When the latter refused, it was given to a condemned criminal, who immediately died. The physician was executed and Peter de Vinea sent to prison, where he committed suicide by dashing his head against the walls of his cell.
1249.
In the same year, 1249, Frederick's favorite son, Enzio, king of Sardinia, who even surpassed his father in personal beauty, in accomplishments, in poetic talent and heroic courage, was taken prisoner by the Bolognese. All the father's offers of ransom were rejected, all his menaces defied: Enzio was condemned to perpetual imprisonment, and languished twenty-two years in a dungeon, until liberated by death. Frederick was almost broken-hearted, but his high courage never flagged. He was encompassed by enemies, he scarcely knew whom to trust, yet he did not yield the least of his claims. And fortune, at last, seemed inclined to turn to his side: a new rival king, William of Holland, whom the Pope had set up against him in Germany, failed to maintain himself: the city of Piacenza, in Lombardy, espoused his cause: the Romans, tired of Innocent IV.'s absence, began to talk of electing another Pope in his stead: and even Innocent himself was growing unpopular in France. Then, while he still defiantly faced the world, still had faith in his final triumph, the body refused to support his fiery spirit. He died in the arms of his youngest son, Manfred, on the 13th of December, 1250, fifty-six years old. He was buried at Palermo; and when his tomb there was opened, in the year 1783, his corpse was found to have scarcely undergone any decay.
Frederick II. was unquestionably one of the greatest men who ever bore the title of German (or Roman) Emperor; yet all the benefits his reign conferred upon Germany were wholly of an indirect character, and were more than balanced by the positive injury occasioned by his neglect. There were strong contradictions in his nature, which make it difficult to judge him fairly as a ruler. As a man of great learning and intelligence, his ideas were liberal; as a monarch, he was violent and despotic. He wore out his life, trying to crush the republican cities of Italy; he was jealous of the growth of the free cities of Germany, yet granted them a representation in the Diet; and in Sicily, where his sway was undisputed, he was wise, just and tolerant. Representing in himself the highest taste and refinement of his age, he was nevertheless as rash, passionate and relentless as the monarchs of earlier and ruder times. In his struggle with the Popes, he was far in advance of his age, and herein, although unsuccessful, he was not subdued: in reality, he was one of the most powerful forerunners of the Reformation. There are few figures in European history so bright, so brave, so full of heroic and romantic interest.