Under the administration of this great prince personal merit was the best title to official promotion. His most eminent ministers were of plebeian origin. From them he exacted unremitting attention to their duties. His suggestions to his ambassadors recall the maxims of Machiavelli. As a negotiator, he had no rivals in an age of shrewd and crafty politicians. His erudition was vast, varied, and profound. To aid the study of natural history he collected extensive menageries. He read medical works and prescribed rules of hygiene for his family and household. With his own hands he drew the plans for his palace at Capua. Magnificent hospitals, aqueducts, bridges, castles, arsenals, arose in the imperial domains of Sicily and Italy.
With all his accomplishments, Frederick was singularly deficient in military ability and generalship. He cared more for the pomp than for the victories of war. His crusade was a campaign of diplomacy. The defeat he sustained at the hands of the Parmesans, and which shook the foundations of his throne, was effected by a rabble of peasants and women who attacked his camp while he was absent on a hunting excursion.
The gorgeous court of Palermo, with its stately ceremonial, its heterodox opinions, its intellectual atmosphere, and the predominant Moslem influence which controlled its policy, prescribed its customs, and contributed largely to its importance, was at once the envy and the scandal of Christendom. The bulk of the imperial armies was composed of Saracens. Philosophers and statesmen of the latter nationality often engrossed, to the exclusion of all others, the confidence and intimacy of the Emperor. His different consorts, in turn, subjected to Oriental restrictions, were attended by guards of African eunuchs, colossal in stature, hideous in feature, splendidly apparelled. His harems, luxuriant establishments, not confined to Palermo, but scattered through the cities of Southern Italy, were filled with Moorish beauties from Syria, Egypt, Morocco, and Spain. A number of their occupants always formed part of his retinue in both peace and war. They journeyed after the fashion of the East, in closed litters borne by gayly caparisoned camels. Arab ladies, as remarkable for wit and learning as for their personal charms, mingled freely with the brilliant society of the capital. Among the diversions of the court were the dances of the East, feats of jugglers and buffoons, amatory improvisations of minnesinger and troubadour, games, falconry, literary contests, magnificent banquets. In these merry assemblies, where pleasure reigned supreme, the sensual was, however, never permitted to prevail over the intellectual; they were enlivened by philosophical discussions, by the application of proverbs, by the stories of travellers, by the recitation of ballads.
The personal aspect of Frederick did not correspond to the expectations of those who had formed an ideal from the fame of his talents and the extent of his erudition. His stature was short, his shoulders bent, his form ungainly and corpulent. He was bald and near-sighted. His reddish beard indicated the lineage of the Hohenstaufens. So insignificant was his appearance, that an Arab writer, who saw him at Jerusalem, asserts, with astonishment and contempt, that if he had been exposed for sale as a slave he would not have brought two hundred drachms of silver. The general lustre of his character was marred by many serious and fatal defects. He was tyrannical, perfidious, hypocritical, superstitious, and inordinately dissolute, even in a licentious age. The domestic relations of the greatest of mediæval emperors were the reproach of the Papacy and the horror of Christian Europe. Like the infamous Marquis de Sade, he considered tears and suffering the most desirable prelude to libidinous pleasures. The festivals of the imperial palace of Palermo were enlivened by the performances of the singing- and dancing-girls of the East. European females of the same profession, during the Crusade, travelled in the royal train to Acre, where the novelty of their appearance and costume amused the idle moments of the Moslem princes of Egypt and Syria. Nothing in the career of Frederick provoked the ire of the clergy more than this concession to infidel curiosity. The gigantic Nubians who watched over the Empress, and whose faces were compared to “ancient masks,” awakened the amazement of foreign travellers at the Sicilian court.
The most frightful torments, whose ingenious cruelty was long remembered with fear and hatred, were inflicted on his victims. Many were dismembered by wild horses; some were crushed by ponderous cloaks of lead; others were slowly roasted by fire applied to brazen helmets in which their heads had been encased. The special objects of these punishments were the partisans of the Pope, who were charged with the offences of both heresy and rebellion. In the orders issued to his agents, he showed that he was an adept in the arts of deception. Devoted to the forbidden science of astrology, he became the dupe of charlatans; and even the consummation of his marriage with the Princess of England was deferred until the position of the planets was declared to be favorable. His genius was essentially Italian. From early childhood he had been familiar with the arts, the schemes, the casuistry, of unprincipled priests and politicians. In the formation of his character these associations had exercised a most pernicious influence. His education and experience had led him to doubt the existence of the virtues of truth, patriotism, integrity. He never forgave an injury to himself or an insult to his dignity. He sacrificed, without compunction, ministers who had long served him in the most responsible employments, who had profited by his generosity, who had shared his confidence. His utter want of feeling is revealed by a saying attributed to him which is more remarkable for its energy than its elegance, “I have never fattened a hog except to obtain its lard.”
His philosophical indifference to religion did not prevent him from posing as the representative of the orthodox faith and the restorer of primitive Christianity. He compared himself to Elias and to Christ. He humbly solicited enrolment among the monks of Casamara. In a communication to the successor of St. Francis of Assis, he declared his belief in the Scriptures and his hope of eternal salvation. He presided over important religious festivals and assumed the most prominent part in the celebration of their ceremonies. On his death-bed, he wished, in token of his pretended reverence for the humblest ministers of the Gospel, to be clothed with the cowl of a Cistercian friar. Policy caused him to thus profess allegiance to the Church, but there is little doubt that he was an unbeliever, perhaps an atheist. In unguarded moments he scoffed at all religion. One of his favorite jests was in ridicule of the Eucharist. He criticised Divine Wisdom for the selection of the barren land of Palestine, instead of the rich and fertile Sicily, as the abode of the chosen people. In the very cradle of Christianity, at the spot once sanctified by the presence of the Saviour, he edified his Moslem hosts by comparing the throngs of pilgrims who crowded to the shrine to droves of the most stupid and unclean of animals. His unflinching antagonism to the Papacy caused the clergy and the rabble to regard him as Antichrist. He was deposed by the Council of Lyons; was four times excommunicated by the Pope; and was repeatedly disciplined by inferior prelates. In the implacable contest which broke his power and destroyed his house, the ecclesiastical autocracy of Rome, for the moment, triumphed. The civilization he had fostered was checked and obscured. His treasures were scattered. His libraries disappeared. The last of his race perished ignominiously on the scaffold. But the spirit of independent thought which he promoted, and whose exercise he bequeathed to posterity, survived the attack of intolerance and tyranny, to be revived in a better and a more auspicious age.
The South of France, not as yet incorporated into the monarchy, but existing as a semi-independent state, and governed by the Count of Toulouse, one of the most powerful feudatories in Europe, was the scene of another great mediæval revolt of the human mind against Papal despotism and intellectual servitude. From a period so remote that its beginning is lost in tradition, that region had been the seat of a splendid civilization, at once the exemplar and the pride of antiquity. The Phœnicians had early established trading-posts on its shores, and had introduced, with the commercial policy and enterprise of their race, the arts, the learning, and the culture which had laid the foundation of the wealth and renown of Carthage. To the Phœnicians succeeded the Greeks of Phocæa, that flourishing Ionian seaport which, for dignity, elegance of manners, and erudition, ranked among the most famous cities of the Grecian name. Its principal colony, Massilia, exercised dominion over nearly all of the territory south of the Loire; a territory already rich and populous, and containing, among the twenty-five important cities subject to its jurisdiction, such great and opulent communities as Monaco, Nice, Arles, Nîmes, Béziers, Avignon. Unaided by extraneous support, the people of Massilia, in spite of the efforts of barbarian neighbors and jealous rivals, preserved their political and mercantile importance until their conquest by Cæsar degraded their commonwealth to a subordinate rank among the provinces composing the gigantic fabric of the Roman Empire. The policy of that great soldier despoiled them of their dependencies, crippled their resources, and turned to letters and the arts the restless spirit which had formerly been engrossed by the pursuits of commerce and the exercise of arms. Before its political annihilation, the colony of Massilia, in extent, in population, in wealth, and in intelligence, ranked higher than any Grecian republic that had ever existed, save Athens alone. Its possessions were not acquired by conquest. They were gradually absorbed through the imperceptible influence of superior knowledge, the example of prosperity and luxury, the acuteness of sagacious and aggressive rulers, the exhibition of magnificent monuments of artistic genius. Under the Romans, this region, designated as Narbonnese Gaul, was one of the most flourishing provinces of the empire. Its literary culture was proverbial. Its schools were famous. It is mentioned by Livy as having preserved without contamination the arts, the manners, and the laws of Greece. The ancient polity of Massilia is eulogized by Cicero as a scheme of almost ideal perfection. The philosophers of that city enjoyed such a reputation for learning, that the patronage of such of the Roman youth as were ambitious of the most finished education was equally divided between it and Athens. The first three professors of Latin rhetoric at Rome were Gauls educated at Massilia. Its intellectual progress was greatly assisted by the mercantile spirit of its citizens, whose faculties were developed and enlarged by constant and familiar intercourse with other nations. Its navigators possessed all the skill and activity of their Phœnician ancestors. Their vessels were seen on the western coast of Africa, in the Euxine, in the Baltic, in the distant fjords of Norway. Their factories and their agents were established in Germany and Britain. Their internal trade was most extensive and important. They traversed the course of the Rhone and the Loire from their sources to the sea. Every tribe in communication with those waterways paid tribute to their shrewdness and shared the benefits of their experience. The Greek language was familiar to the inhabitants of Gaul; it was even adopted and used by the Druidical priesthood, and eventually became the general medium of commercial and social intercourse. The dark and cruel superstitions and legends of the country were supplanted by the elegant and graceful fictions of Paganism; by the songs, the dances, the floral games, the pomp of sacrifice, the joyous festivals, which characterized the religious ceremonials of Greece and Italy. The existence of such conditions could not fail to exert a marked effect upon the minds of a people, barbarous indeed, yet highly susceptible to impressions which appealed equally to its imagination and its interest. Narbonnese Gaul, under the emperors, maintained the literary and artistic pre-eminence which had, from time immemorial, distinguished it among the provinces of Western Europe. The most copious, elegant, and euphonic of languages was still spoken throughout the various municipalities that formerly acknowledged the jurisdiction of the Massilian Republic. The capital was especially renowned for its philosophers and physicians; for its patronage of letters; for the refinement of its society; and for the number and excellence of its educational institutions, which, in the estimation of many distinguished Romans, took precedence of the schools of Greece. Imperial favor bestowed upon the Narbonnese province monuments whose perfection was eminently worthy of the taste and splendor of the Augustan age. Its cities were adorned with beautiful temples, porticos, and theatres. In the gardens were peristyles of precious marble, mosaic pavements, superb fountains, vases filled with flowers, and statues of gilded bronze. Sumptuous baths administered to the luxury of the populace. In the circus, the chariot race displayed a pomp but little inferior to that exhibited by the imperial spectacles of Rome. Aqueducts of colossal dimensions brought, for a distance of many leagues, the water demanded by the requirements of an immense population. In no portion of the Roman world have such a variety of the architectural memorials of classic elegance survived as in the district of Provence and Languedoc. From the magnificent ruins that still remain, we are enabled to form a grand but inadequate idea of the structures created by imperial munificence and Grecian taste which have perished by the neglect and the violence of thirteen centuries. After the Roman came the Goth, and then the Arab, himself at first but a marauder. By degrees, however, his nobler instincts obtained the mastery over his love of rapine; his predatory strongholds were transformed into centres of trade; and with the habits and religion of the Orient were introduced all the benefits and all the vices of its voluptuous existence. The Moorish principality of Narbonne was subject to the Western Emirate only forty years; yet, during that short period, the impressions produced by Moorish occupancy were so deeply stamped upon the mental and physical characteristics of the population that no subsequent revolutions have ever been able to entirely efface them. The practical genius of the Arab, which considered utility as the first and most valuable of all the objects of civilization, was again exhibited in the improvements applied to all the arts and avocations of life which sprang up in the track of his victorious armies. The Oriental principles of agriculture, with its painstaking tillage of the soil, its perfect irrigating system, its introduction of foreign plants, were applied with wonderful success to the delightful region watered by the Rhone and the Garonne. Many varieties of grain, including the buckwheat, originally brought from Persia, and which at that time obtained its significant name of sarrasin, were imported from Spain. The bark of the cork-tree, still one of the greatest sources of wealth to Catalonia and Provence, was then first made known to Europe. The boundless evergreen forests on the slopes of the Pyrenees were utilized for the manufacture of pitch and rosin. In every district, the breed of horses was improved by crosses with the best blood of Arabia. Innumerable articles of luxury preserved in museums and private collections—beautiful objects of silver, ivory, and crystal, damascened armor, and silken robes—attest the variety and excellence of the Moorish manufactures. The popular dances and other amusements of Southern France are also striking reminiscences of the Moslem ascendency. While Arabic literature must have exercised an important influence upon the public mind of Provence and Languedoc, no historical information has been transmitted to us relative to its character, and even its existence during this period is largely a matter of conjecture. There is no doubt, however, concerning the effects subsequently produced by familiarity with Moorish civilization, established by conquest and perpetuated by the aid of merchants and travellers. The learning, the elegance, the refinement, and the infidelity of the court of Cordova were carried beyond the Pyrenees. The writings of Averroes and other Arabian philosophers were studied with pleasure by the scholars of Southern France. That entire region was more Mohammedan than Christian and more infidel than either. The nobles adopted polygamous habits and maintained harems filled with concubines. A thriving trade in eunuchs was carried on with the Spanish Arabs, whose profits, it was notorious, were principally engrossed by ecclesiastics. A passionate love of poetry developed the troubadour, a most important factor of European intellectual progress, and the counterpart and representative of the Arab bard, whose improvisations had, from time immemorial, been the delight of the emotional tribes of the Desert. A language infinitely sweeter and more melodious than modern French, and exhibiting a strong similarity to the Italian formed at the court of Frederick II., became the vehicle of charming poetical compositions, which satirized the lives of the priesthood, recounted the achievements of the tournament and the foray, and celebrated, in graceful and rhythmic hyperbole, the beauty and fascinations of woman. This tongue, known as the Langue d’Oc, while indirectly derived from the Latin, owed, in fact, nothing to classic associations or influence. It was the first of the numerous family of languages and dialects of Roman origin which, during mediæval times, attained to any marked degree of perfection in grammatical construction or in elegance of expression. It is a significant fact that it only obtained a permanent foothold in countries once subject to Arab domination. It spread eventually all over the South of Europe. It was spoken in Valencia, Barcelona, and the Balearic Isles, whose dialects are now corrupted forms of the ancient Limousin. The productions of which it formed the medium were read in Italy, Germany, Sicily, and England. It adapted itself with such ease to the purposes of the poet that it almost seemed constructed especially for that variety of composition. It early incurred the hostility of the Church on account of the Albigensian heresy; and in 1248, Innocent IV., by a special bull, forbade its study to all good Catholics. The rapidity with which it was perfected, the extent of its distribution, the number of provincial dialects to which it gave rise, the richness of the literature which adopted it, and the suddenness and completeness of its extinction constitute one of the most interesting and extraordinary phenomena in the annals of linguistics.
The literary and social condition of Southern France was, with the single exception of Sicily, which bore to it a remarkable resemblance, anomalous among the countries of civilized Europe. Its population was singularly cosmopolitan; half a score of races had contributed to its formation; it had inherited the culture of the Greek, the Roman, the Arab; mixture of blood and comparison of creeds had produced universal toleration of belief and widespread and uncompromising skepticism. In its courts, its schools, its learned professions, Semitic ideas, traditions, and influence preponderated. Not a few Moslems had established themselves in the cities of Nîmes, Narbonne, and Toulouse, and the Jews abounded in every community which afforded encouragement to scientific attainments or facilities for traffic. The system of public instruction was essentially Hebrew; the faculty of the famous medical school of Montpellier, the successful competitor of that of Salerno, was at first principally composed of Jews and Mohammedans, and retained for centuries, amidst foreign conquest and domestic convulsion, the impress derived from the character of its founders. The closest relations were maintained between the academies of Languedoc and those of imperial Sicily and Moorish Spain. This intimacy was strengthened by the multiplicity of mercantile transactions arising from a constant interchange of commodities dependent upon a vast and profitable trade. The capitals of Cordova, Seville, and Palermo were better known to the people of Provence than any of the Mediterranean cities to the inland towns of continental Europe; now, great centres of wealth, commerce, and civilization; then, despised as semi-barbarous and rarely visited. The continuance of this friendly intercourse with Mohammedan countries, confirmed at once by congenial pursuits and by the powerful influence of pecuniary advantage, was portentous in its effects, and boded ill to the propagation of Christianity and the maintenance of ecclesiastical discipline. The succession of numerous forms of worship, distinct in their origin, unlike in their ceremonial, irreconcilably hostile in their polity, each asserting divine infallibility, yet each, in turn, overthrown by a new and more popular belief, was not favorable to the existence of any religion. Strongly attached to the cheerful festivals of Paganism, the inhabitants of Southern France had embraced the precepts of the Gospel with insincerity and reluctance. Their disposition, their traditions, the souvenirs of classic magnificence and beauty which surrounded them, all contributed to confirm the deeply grounded affection they entertained for the creed of their fathers. Nowhere else in Christendom was such a spectacle presented of all that is attractive to the luxurious, and all that is admired by the intellectual, as that disclosed by the life of the polished and corrupt society of Southern France. That entire region was subjected to the highest cultivation of which the soil, naturally fertile and improved by every resource of scientific agriculture, was susceptible. The cities, large and populous, enjoyed every advantage of wealth which could be derived from an extensive traffic. Béziers had sixty thousand inhabitants, a larger number than any town in England. Nîmes, Arles, Carcassonne, were but little inferior in size and grandeur. Every commercial device was familiar to the people. Their shrewdness was proverbial. Their trade was enormous. A knowledge of banking and bills of exchange, with many important fiscal regulations, had been introduced by the Jews of Barcelona.
Toulouse, one of the most beautiful and licentious of mediæval capitals, was the focus of this splendid civilization. It was the seat of the Muses, the home of chivalry, the goal of every devotee of love and of ambition. There the knightly adventurer sought distinction in the tournament and the tilt of reeds, martial amusements borrowed from the Moor. Thither journeyed the troubadour and the jongleur, sure of hospitality and reward in palace and castle, in the comfortable home of the merchant, in the humble dwelling of the laborer. There was crowned the poet, successful in the literary contest, two hundred years before the laurel was placed upon the brow of Petrarch in the Capitol at Rome. There were held the Courts of Love, where women argued and determined, with all the grave impartiality of a judicial tribunal, questions involving the laws of gallantry, their observance and their violation. The potentate, who, under the modest title of count, governed this great and opulent realm, enjoyed a larger measure of authority than most representatives of the royal houses of Europe. His family was of high antiquity, and its rank dated back for many centuries. The rich fiefs of Béziers, Foix, Quercy, Montpellier, and Narbonne, with their numerous important dependencies, acknowledged his authority as suzerain. Wealthier than any of his Christian contemporaries, he was more powerful in all the attributes of monarchical dignity than the King of France. His dominions included the greater part of the territory south of the Loire, and embraced the fertile and flourishing districts bounded by the Garonne, the Isère, the Mediterranean, and the Alps. He had achieved renown in the Crusades. His sword had won for him the principality of Tripoli. He had been an unsuccessful but prominent competitor for the throne of Jerusalem. In his public relations he was the soul of chivalric courtesy; in his personal habits a fastidious voluptuary; in belief a skeptic; in tastes a Mohammedan. The conspicuous valor he displayed on the fields of Palestine was, in some degree, neutralized by a moral cowardice which instinctively shrank from a conflict involving the dearest privileges for which humanity can contend,—the preservation of political integrity and the exercise of the right of intellectual freedom. Brave, impetuous, sensual, vacillating, and insincere, such was Raymond VI., Count of Toulouse, the representative of the most polished and dissolute state in Europe.
The political organization of the various cities and provinces composing the County of Toulouse presented a strange anomaly. Some were, in all but name, republican; their magistrates, under the title of consuls, administered the affairs of government, and were elected by the public voice of the people. The civil regulations of others partook rather of the nature of feudal tenures in which the most oppressive privileges had been relaxed or entirely discharged. But neither the feeble copy of the institutions of ancient Rome nor the barbarous laws of mediæval tyranny were sufficient to compel the obedience of such a heterogeneous population. The authority of the elective magistracy was frequently defied. The fealty of the great vassals was but nominal. The jurisdiction of the suzerain was, under various, and sometimes under frivolous, pretexts, questioned or ignored. There was no organized military power to enforce the mandates of the ruling authority. Enervated by pleasure, the people of Languedoc and Provence passed their existence in a constant round of intellectual diversions and refined sensuality. The martial sports of the chase and the tourney did little but recall the profession of arms, once the only occupation worthy of the dignity of the mediæval cavalier. Thus, broken up into semi-independent communities, destitute of military resources, and incapable of systematic defence or united action, the power of the Count of Toulouse was ready to crumble at the approach of the first resolute aggressor. The civilization represented by that power lacked the indispensable essentials of every permanent government,—loyalty and religion. Want of centralization, and a multiplicity of rulers, weakened the patriotic attachment of the people, and discouraged the growth of an enlightened and healthy public sentiment. National pride could not exist when there was no royal personage to whom all could appeal, no common country to exalt and defend. In addition to these serious impediments to durability and progress was added an absolute want of religious feeling. Numerous causes had combined to produce this condition. Comparisons of many forms of faith had exposed their defects and inconsistencies, and led to a general rejection of them all. The Crusaders had familiarized all Europe, and especially France, with the manners and religion of the Mussulmans. Hundreds of enterprising merchants had assumed the cross, much less for the piety it was presumed to indicate and the sacred privileges it conferred, than for the worldly advantages to be procured by traffic with distant, and otherwise inaccessible, regions. Their glowing reports of Oriental civilization had dissipated the remaining prejudices of a people whose intercourse with the Moslem kingdoms beyond the Pyrenees had long predisposed them in favor of a race held in peculiar abhorrence by the See of Rome. The silks and gold of Syria and Egypt appealed far more eloquently to the passions of the multitude than the genuflexions of the priest or the rosary and cowl of the friar. Even the sacred profession was invaded by the prevailing spirit of toleration, itself dependent on material interests; the inferior clergy dealt as brokers in the money of the East, and from the mints of bishops and metropolitans were issued coins impressed with Mohammedan texts and symbols. In addition to this extraordinary partiality for infidel customs, and the practical renunciation of the vow of poverty, which were calculated to arouse, especially among the vulgar, a suspicion of heterodoxy, the entire body of the Provençal clergy had become thoroughly debased and profligate. Those of high rank vied with the nobles in prodigal and ostentatious luxury. Prelates constantly abandoned the duties of their office for the fascinations of the chase and the licentious pleasures of intrigue. They travelled in state with numerous trains of ladies and attendants, the richness of whose appointments rivalled that of a royal equipage. The Archbishop of Narbonne kept in his pay a band of foreign outlaws who levied blackmail on opulent citizens, and who, protected by their ecclesiastical patron, defied the weak and disorganized civil power of the land. In every gay assembly where the song of the troubadour recounted the triumphs of love and gallantry, or aimed its satirical shafts at the failings of the priesthood, the bishop was foremost in laughter and applause. It was a common saying among the people that while the apostles were poor, their successors, plunged in luxury, “loved fine horses and splendid garments, white women and red wine.” The vices of the higher class, confirmed by the possession of great wealth and secure from the censure of ecclesiastical tribunals, surpassed, in turpitude and effrontery, the excesses of any other society then existing in Christendom.