10C9 



FREDERICK II. (OF GERMANY). 



FREDERICK II. (OF GERMANY). 



1010 



met with many difficulties, chiefly from the perfidy of the Greek 

 emperor, who had secretly made a convention with Saladin and the 

 sultan of Iconium to obstruct the passage of the Germans, Frederick 

 penetrated into Asia, gained two victories over the Turks near Iconium, 

 which he took, and was proceeding in his victorious career to Syria, 

 when his eventful life was brought to a close in 1190, in an attempt to 

 swim on horseback across the river Calycadnus, where he was carried 

 away by the current The statement that he was drowned iu the 

 Cydnus while bathing is certainly incorrect. 



Frederick was a brave and liberal prince, equally firm in prosperity 

 and adversity. These great qualities veiled the pride and ambition 

 which were unquestionably in part the motives by which ho was 

 actuated. He possessed an extraordinary memory, and a greater 

 extent of knowledge of different kinds than was common in that age. 

 He esteemed learned men, especially historians, and wrote in Latin 

 memoirs of some part of his own life, which he left to Otho, bishop of 

 Freysingen, whom he appointed his historian. He was of noble and 

 majestic appearance, and, notwithstanding his disputes with the popes, 

 a fiieiid to religion. After his death his son Frederick, duke of Suabia, 

 took the chief command, but died of a pestilential disorder at the siege 

 of Acre iu 1191; and of the mighty army that Frederick led from 

 Germany only a email remnant returned. 



FREDERICK II., Emperor of Germany. On the death of Frede- 

 rick L he was succeeded by his son Henry, who reigned only eight 

 years, leaving his son Frederick, a child of four years of age, who 

 had been created king of the Romans when in his cradle. He was 

 very carefully educated by his mother, Constance of Sicily, and 

 acquired a degree of learning very extraordinary at that age. His 

 hereditary dominions consisted of the kingdoms of Naples and Sicily, 

 the duchy of Suabia, and other territories in Germany. In 1210, the 

 emperor Otho being excommunicated by the pope, Frederick, then 

 fourteen years of age, was declared e'mperor by a considerable number 

 of the German princes, but it was not till some years afterwards, on 

 the retreat and death of Otho, that he became peaceable possessor 

 of the imperial throne, and was crowned at Aix-la-Chapelle in 1215. 

 Scarcely another prince in the middle ages, Charlemagne excepted, has 

 made so distinguished a figure ; the most remarkable period of those 

 ages is connected with his name and his long rei_;n. It was the time 

 in which Innocent III., Gregory IX., and Innocent IV. carried 

 Gregory's VII. 's policy to an extent that had been considered as 

 impossible ; when, by the origin of the orders of knighthood, the 

 foundation of the Mendicant orders, and the Inquisition, were formed 

 powerful supporters of the spiritual edifice; when the nations of 

 Europe were for the first time impressed by the Crusades with one 

 general idea, represented by the symbol of the Cross, and drawn closer 

 together; when, after many single voices had died away unheeded 

 or forgotten, a Protestantism of the middle ages was proclaimed by 

 the Waldcnscs and a kind of Manichicauism by the Albigenses ; when 

 chivalry attained a more elevated position, ennobled by religion and 

 a re_'iilar organisation ; when the class of free citizens gradually rose 

 in e-timation and importance, and favoured in Germany by Frederick 

 against tho aristocracy, and opposed by him in Upper Italy as 

 instruments of the popes, acquired, by means of great confederations 

 of many cities, and, by the institution of corporate bodies, respect 

 abroad and internal strength; when, in opposition to the club-law, 

 a law for ensuring public peace and security was first proclaimed in 

 the German language ; when the Secret Tribunal began to act in its 

 first, scarcely perceptible commencement ; when the first universities 

 excited a spirit of inquiry and research ; and when the poetry of the 

 Troubadours found a home in Germany and Italy, and was honoured 

 and cultivated by emperors and kings. 



Frederick, though not tall, was well made; he had a fine open 

 forehead, and a mild and pleasing expression of the eye and mouth. 

 The heir of all the best qualities of all the members of his dis- 

 tinguished race, enterprising, brave, liberal, with excellent natural 

 talents, full of knowledge; he understood all the languages of his 

 subjects, Greek, Latin, Italian, German, French, and Arabic ; he was 

 austere, passionate, mild, and generous, as the occasion prompted, 

 cheerful, magnificent, and fond of pleasure. And as his body had 

 gained strength and elasticity by skill in all chivalrous exercises, so 

 his mind and character, early formed in the school of adversity and 

 trial, had acquired a degree of flexibility which those who are born to 

 power but seldom know, an'd an energy which strengthened and 

 raised him in times of difficulty. Cut such a body and such a mind 

 were necessary for a man who was to combat in Germany, already 

 divided into parties, a preponderating aristocracy ; in Upper Italy a 

 powerful democracy ; in Central Italy an arrogant hierarchy ; and in 

 his own southern hereditary dominions, to reconcile, and unite by 

 internal ties, the hostile elements of six nations; who, opposed by 

 temporal and spiritual arms, by rival kings, by excommunication and 

 interdict, persevered, conquering and conquered, for forty years, sur- 

 vived the rebellion of a son, the treachery and poison of his most 

 valued friend, the loss of his favourite child, and did not resign the 

 ccptre, which he had held so firmly, till the last moment of his life. 



Till the year 1209, when Frederick took upon himself the govem- 



uf Ix>wer Italy and Sicily, ho was under the guardianship of 



Innocent III. ; but the empress Constance, his mother, was obliged 



to purchase the investiture of Naples and Sicily, and the coronation 



of her son, by sacrificing to the pope the most important ecclesiastical 

 rights. The royal crown of Germany, which was adjudged by the 

 German princes to the child when only three years of age, was taken, 

 after the death of his father, by the Duke of Suabia, his uncle, who 

 however wore it without advantage in opposition to Otho IV. till he 

 was murdered in 1208 by Otho von Wittelsbach ; but Otho IV. dis- 

 pleasing the pope, Innocent himself called Frederick to the throne of 

 Germany. In spite of all the efforts of the party of the Guelphs, 

 Frederick arrived in Germany in 1212, and was received with open 

 arms by the party of the House of Hohenstaufen. The possession of 

 the crowns of Germany and Sicily inspired Frederick with hopes of 

 making himself master of all Italy, subduing Lombardy, and reducing 

 the power of the spiritual monarch to the dignity of the first bishop 

 of Christendom. But he misunderstood the spirit of his age, which 

 was far less enlightened than himself, and still cherished prejudices 

 which he had overcome. If the conception of the plan was great, it 

 was equalled by his prudence in gradually preparing to carry it into 

 effect. In 1220 he caused his eldest son Henry to be chosen king of 

 the Romans, and appeased the anger of the new pope Honorius III. 

 by alleging that this measure was absolutely necessary before he could 

 proceed to the crusade which he had undertaken, and by promising 

 that he never would unite Sicily with the empire. Disregarding the 

 refusal of the Milanese to place the iron crown on his head, he pro- 

 ceeded to Rome, was crowned emperor in 1220, and as such hastened 

 to his hereditary dominions which he had left almost as a fugitive. 

 It was there that preparations were to be made for the crusade, but 

 first of all it was necessary to put an end to the internal troubles of 

 the country. By the advice of Hermann von Halza, grand master of 

 the Teutonic order, Frederick married lolante, daughter of John of 

 Brienne, titular king of Jerusalem, and assumed his father-in-law's 

 title. Meantime the pope granted him a delay for undertaking the 

 crusade ; his chancellor, Peter de Vinci, compiled a new code of laws, 

 the object of which was to settle the authority of church and state, 

 to reconcile the nobility, clergy, citizens, and peasants, and to be 

 adapted to many different nations, Romans, Greeks, Germans, Arabs, 

 Normans, Jews, and French, respecting as much as possible all existing 

 institutions. For the education of his subjects, he founded a 

 university at Naples in 1224 f and the medical school at Salerno was 

 very flourishing. The belles-lettres were cultivated at his court, and 

 Frederick himself, some of whose juvenile poems iu the Sicilian 

 dialect, at that time the most cultivated, have been preserved to our 

 times, may be considered as one of tha first authors of the refined 

 Tuscan poetry. Many eminent artists, Nicola, Masaccio, and Tomasi 

 da Steffani, were patronised by Frederick ; aud the collections of 

 works of art at Capua and Naples were founded. 



The year 1227 being fixed for the crusade, Frederick proposed 

 before he set out to call a general diet of the empire at Cremona, to 

 satisfy himself of the sentiments of the Lombards and be crowned as 

 their king. But the Milanese refused, renewed their ancient league 

 with fifteen cities, and intercepted the communication with Germany 

 by occupying the passes of the Alps. For this they were put under 

 the ban of the empire ; but Frederick hastening to the crusade, left 

 the management of the affair to the pope, who only proposed a general 

 amnesty, and enjoined the Lombards to furnish 400 horsemen at their 

 expense, for two years, to join the crusade. At this juncture Hoiiorius 

 died, and Cardinal Hugolinus, nephew of Innocent III., was chosen 

 pope by the name of Gregory IX. Resembling, in the energy of his 

 will, Gregory VII., the new pope urged the emperor, who received the 

 cross for the second time from his hands, to fulfil his promise, and did 

 not hesitate to censure the luxurious way of life of the emperor and 

 his court. A great number of pilgrims had assembled in Italy, but 

 pestilential diseases raged among them, aud the emperor himself was 

 ill wbeu he embarked with Louis, landgrave of Ttmringia. In three 

 days Frederick grew worse, and was obliged to land at Otranto, where 

 Louis Landgrave died. The fleet proceeded only to the coast of the 

 Morea, and the crusade failed. Upon this Gregory excommunicated 

 the emperor, and laid his dominions under an interdict. Frederick 

 however, notwithstanding the death of his wife lolaute iu child-bed, 

 set out on a new crusade in 1228 ; but Gregory, who had not expected 

 this, and thought it improper for a prince under excommunication to 

 go to the Holy War, commanded the patriarch of Jerusalem and the 

 three orders of knights to oppose the emperor in everything, and 

 caused Frederick's hereditary estates to be occupied and laid waste 

 by his soldiers and John of Brienne. Frederick, notwithstanding all 

 this, by an agreement with Kamel, sultan of Egypt, succeeded in 

 making a ten years' truce, and acquired for himself Jerusalem, the 

 holy places, all the country between Joppa, Bethlehem, Nazareth, and 

 Acre, and the important seaports of Tyre and Sidon. 



The city of Jerusalem, where Frederick, on the 18th of May, put 

 the crown upon his own head because no priest would even read mass, 

 was laid under an interdict, and Frederick was even betrayed to the 

 sultan, who gave him the first information of it. Frederick hastened 

 back to Lower Italy, and after fruitless negociations with Gregory re- 

 conquered his hereditary estates and defeated all the intrigues of the 

 pope, who was at length obliged (1230) to free him from the excom- 

 munication. The Lombards alone would not hear of any terms, pre- 

 vented his son Henry from going to the diet at Rnvenna, and were not 

 deceived by Gregory's exhortation to peace. While Frederick at last 



