A Source Book of Mediæval History / Documents Illustrative of European Life and Institutions from the German Invasions to the Renaissance

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19. It shall be permitted to the cities to erect fortifications within or without their boundaries.

20. It shall be permitted to the League to Recognition of the League's right to exist maintain its organization as it now is, or to renew it as often as it desires.

71. Current Rumors Concerning the Life and Character of Frederick II.

Frederick II. (1194-1250), king of Naples and Sicily and emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, was a son of Emperor Henry VI. and a grandson of Frederick Barbarossa. When his father died (1197) it was intended that the young child's uncle, Philip of Hohenstaufen, should occupy the imperial throne temporarily as regent. Philip, however, proceeded to assume the position as if in his own right and became engaged in a deadly conflict with a rival claimant, Otto IV., during which the Pope, Innocent III., fanned the flames of civil war and made the situation contribute chiefly to the aggrandizement of papal authority in temporal affairs. In 1208 Philip was assassinated and in the following year Otto received the imperial crown at Rome. Almost immediately, however, disagreement broke out between the Pope and the new Emperor, chiefly because of the latter's ambition to become king of Sicily. Repenting that he had befriended Otto, Innocent promptly excommunicated him and set on foot a movement—in which he enlisted the services of Philip Augustus of France—to supplant the obnoxious Emperor by Frederick of Sicily (the later Frederick II.). Otto was a nephew of Richard I. and John of England and the latter was easily persuaded to enter into an alliance with him against the papal-French-Sicilian combination. The result was the battle of Bouvines [see [p. 297]], in 1214, in which John and Otto were hopelessly defeated. Meanwhile, in 1212, Frederick had received a secret embassy from Otto's discontented subjects in Germany, offering him the imperial crown if he would come and claim it. In response he had gathered an army and, with the approval of Innocent and of Philip Augustus, had crossed the Alps for the purpose of winning over the German people from Otto to himself. The battle of Bouvines (in which Frederick was not engaged, but from which he profited immensely) was the death-blow to Otto's cause and Frederick was soon recognized universally as head of the Empire.

The reign of Frederick II. (1212-1250) was a period of large importance in European history. The Emperor's efforts and achievements—his crusade, his great quarrel with Gregory IX. and Innocent IV., his legislation, his struggles with the Lombard League—were full of interest and significance, but, after all, not more so than the purely personal aspects of his career. Mr. Bryce has a passage which states admirably the position of Frederick with reference to his age and its problems. A portion of it is as follows: "Out of the long array of the Germanic successors of Charles [Charlemagne], he is, with Otto III.,[550] 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 valor of his father Henry and his grandfather Frederick I. But along with these, and changing their direction, were other gifts, inherited perhaps from his half Norman, half Italian mother and fostered by his education in Sicily, where Mussulman and Byzantine influences were still potent, a love of luxury and beauty, an intellect refined, subtle, philosophical. Through the mist of calumny and legend 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 law-giver and an impassioned poet; in his youth fired by crusading fervor, 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 Ionian 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."[551]

The following selections from the Greater Chronicle of Matthew Paris comprise some of the stories which were current in Frederick's day regarding his manners, ideas, and deeds. Frederick was far ahead of his age and it was inevitable that the qualities in him which men could not understand or appreciate should become the grounds for dark rumors and unsavory suspicions. Matthew Paris was an English monk of St. Albans. It is thought that he was called Parisiensis, "the Parisian," because of having been born or educated in the capital of France. He seems to have confined his attention wholly to the study of history, and mainly to the history of his own country. His Chronicle takes up the story of English and continental affairs in detail with the year 1235 (where Roger of Wendover had stopped in his Flowers of History) and continues to the year 1259. His book has been described as "probably the most generally useful historical production of the thirteenth century."[552]

Source—Matthæus Parisiensis, Chronica Majora [Matthew Paris, "Greater Chronicle">[. Adapted from translation by J. A. Giles (London, 1852), Vol. I., pp. 157-158, 166-167, 169-170; Vol. II., pp. 84-85, 103.

In the course of the same year [1238] the fame of the Emperor Frederick was clouded and marred by his jealous enemies and rivals; for it was imputed to him that he was wavering in the Catholic faith, or wandering from the right way, and had given Frederick suspected of heresy utterance to some speeches, from which it could be inferred and suspected that he was not only weak in the Catholic faith, but—what was a much greater and more serious crime—that there was in him an enormity of heresy, and the most dreadful blasphemy, to be detested and execrated by all Christians. For it was reported that the Emperor Frederick had said (although it may not be proper to mention it) that three imposters had so craftily deceived their contemporaries as to gain for themselves the mastery of the world: these were Moses, Jesus, and Mahomet [Mohammed]; and that he had impiously given expression to some wicked and incredible ravings and blasphemies respecting the most holy Eucharist. Far be it from any discreet man, much less a Christian, to employ his tongue in such raving blasphemy. It was also said by his rivals that the Emperor agreed with and believed in the law of Mahomet more than that of Jesus Christ. A rumor Accusation of friendly relations with the Saracens also crept amongst the people (which God forbid to be true of such a great prince) that he had been for a long time past in alliance with the Saracens, and was more friendly to them than to the Christians; and his rivals, who were endeavoring to blacken his fame, attempted to establish this by many proofs. Whether they sinned or not, He alone knows who is ignorant of nothing....

In Lent, of the same year [1239], seeing the rash proceedings of the Emperor, and that his words pleaded excuse for his sins,—namely, that by the assistance of some of the nobles and judges of Sardinia he had taken into his own possession, and still held, the land and castles of the bishop of Sardinia, and constantly declared that they were a portion of the Empire, and Frederick's seizure of the lands belonging to a bishop that he by his first and chief oath would preserve the rights of the Empire to the utmost of his power, and would also collect the scattered portions of it,—the Pope[553] was excited to the most violent anger against him. He set forth some very serious complaints and claims against the Emperor and wrote often boldly and carefully to him, advising him repeatedly by many special messengers, whose authority ought to have obtained from him the greatest attention, to restore the possessions he had seized, and to desist from depriving the Church of her possessions, of which she was endowed by long prescription. And, like a skilful physician, who at one time makes use of medicines, at another of the knife, and at another of the cauterizing instrument, he mixed threats with entreaties, friendly messages with fearful denunciations. As the Emperor, however, scornfully rejected his requests, and Refusing to restore them, he is excommunicated excused his actions by arguments founded on reason, his holiness the Pope, on Palm Sunday, in the presence of a great many of the cardinals, in the spirit of glowing anger, solemnly excommunicated the said Emperor Frederick, as though he would at once have hurled him from his imperial dignity, consigning him with terrible denunciations to the possession of Satan at his death; and, as it were, thundering forth the fury of his anger, he excited terror in all his hearers....[554]