FREDEGONUE FREDERIC I!. 



313 



These drops operate like a convex glass, to concen- 

 trate the rays, which are thus made to act power- 

 fully on the rete malpighii, and the carbon which it 

 contains is half acidified, and this substance, in this 

 state, always has a dark colour. In the same man- 

 ner arises the dark tint which the skin in general as- 

 sumes in summer, and which fire communicates to ar- 

 tisans who labour constantly in its immediate vicinity. 

 The only bad effect of freckles is, that they induce 

 ladies to keep themselves shut up from the influences 

 of the weather, or to apply injurious washes to the 

 face to remove them. 



FREDEGONDE ; the wife of Chilperic, a Prank- 

 ish king of Soissons, a woman who, if all that 

 chronicles relate of her is true, must be considered a 

 monster of wickedness. With Brunehaut (q. v.), she 

 was the principal cause of the wars which the sons of 

 Clothaire carried on against each other from the 

 year 561. She was born in 543. The station of her 

 parents is unknown, and, while in the service of the 

 first and second wives of Chilperic, her beauty capti- 

 vated the king. In order to arrive at the throne. 

 Fredegonde removed the first wife of the king by arti- 

 fice, and the second by assassination. This led to 

 a war between the two brothers Chilperic and Sige- 

 l)ert, Brunehaut, wife of Sigebert and sister of the 

 murdered queen, urging her husband to vengeance. 

 Chilperic was defeated by his brother, besieged in 

 Tournai, and seemed to be lost, when Fredegonde, 

 who had now become his wife, found means to have 

 Sigebert assassinated. She then took advantage of 

 the confusion which this event produced in the camp 

 of the enemy, to attack and defeat them, and ad- 

 vanced to Paris, where she took Brunehaut and her 

 daughters prisoners. Chilperic, however, afterwards 

 sent Brunetiaut back to Metz, where her son Childe- 

 bert was proclaimed king, in 575. The sons of her 

 husband by his first marriage now fell victims to the 

 ambition of Fredegonde, who at length caused Chil- 

 peric himself to be assassinated, to obtain the op- 

 portunity of gratifying another passion. By the 

 assistance of her brother-in-law, Guntram, king of 

 Orleans, Fredegonde was made regent of the king- 

 dom during the minority of her son, Clothaire II. 

 She gradually extended her authority, was victorious 

 in her wars against the Prankish kings, who had 

 formed an alliance against her, and, on her death, at 

 the age of 55 (in 597), she left the kingdom, in a 

 flourishing condition, to her son. If Fredegonde was 

 what we have described her from the chronicles, she 

 is a remarkable instance of successful guilt. Brune- 

 haut, the mortal enemy of Fredegonde, attempted to 

 deprive Clothaire II. of the crown, but she was 

 deserted by her vassals, taken prisoner by Clothaire, 

 who, in 1613, caused her to be tied to the tail of a 

 wild horse, and dragged till she was dead : her re- 

 mains were then burned. 



FREDERIC ; the name of many distinguished 

 monarchs, particularly of Germany. The German 

 name is Freidrich, compounded of Friede (peace), and 

 reich (rich) , and means peaceful. 



FREDERIC I. BARBAROSSA, son of Frederic, 

 duke of Suabia, whom he succeeded in 1147, was 

 born 1121, and received the imperial crown in 1152, 

 on the death of his uncle, the emperor Conrad III. 

 He was the second German emperor of the house of 

 Hohenstaufen, and one of the most able and most 

 intelligent of the sovereigns of Germany. Me waged 

 war with success against Boleslaus, king of Poland, 

 in 1157, and raised Bohemia to the rank of a 

 kingdom. His principal efforts <vere directed to the 

 extension and confirmation of his power in Italy. 

 He undertook six campaigns, to chastise the rebel- 

 lious cities of Lombardy, which liad become rich and 

 powerful, through their commerce and manufactures. 



The city of Milan, in particular, had resisted his 

 orders, and subjected several cities. The emperor 

 compelled it, after an obstinate resistance (1158), to 

 surrender. The city, having revolted a second time, 

 was again captured (1162), and razed to the ground, 

 with the exception of some churches and convents, 

 some suburbs, and one gate, built in honour of the 

 emperor Otho. Brescia and Piacenza were com- 

 pelled to destroy their fortifications ; the other cities, 

 which had engaged in the revolt, lost their privileges 

 and their freedom. But the pope, Alexander III., 

 who had fled to France, excommunicated the em- 

 peror, in 1168. The cities of Lombardy entered 

 into a new alliance. The Milanese rebuilt their 

 city, and gained the decisive battle of Como, over 

 the imperial army (1176), the consequence of which 

 was the peace, concluded at Venice (1777), between 

 the emperor, the pope Alexander III., and the cities 

 of Lombardy. The events of the war, which lasted 

 almost twenty years, were not particularly favourable 

 for the emperor. In the mean time, Frederic had 

 declared Lubeck and Ratisbon imperial cities, and 

 thus founded a middle rank between the emperor 

 and the German princes, by which the imperial 

 power was increased, and the condition of the 

 citizens raised. Frederic also increased his power 

 by the separation of the duchies of Bavaria and 

 Saxony (1180), which Henry the Lion had held 

 together ; but the two parties of the Guelfs and 

 Ghibelines (q. v.), which had arisen under his pre- 

 decessors, were, on this account, the more exasperated 

 against each other. News having been received, 

 that Saladin had retaken Jerusalem from the Chris- 

 tians, and the pope having preached a new crusade, 

 Frederic, with an army of 150,000 men and several 

 thousand volunteers, undertook the third crusade, 

 before the commencement of which, in 1187, a 

 general peace was signed in Germany. The Greek 

 emperor, at Constantinople, had secretly entered 

 into alliance with Saladin and the sultan of Iconium, 

 and attempted to prevent the march of the Germans 

 through his dominions. But Frederic forced his 

 way to Asia, gained two battles over the Turks, near 

 Iconium, penetrated into Syria, and died, in the 

 midst of his successes, June 10, 1190, near Seleucia, 

 in Syria, after bathing, as some writers say, in the 

 Cydnus ; others say, in the Salef. Frederic was 

 brave, liberal, and equally firm in good fortune and 

 in reverses; and these qualities atone, in some 

 measure, for the pride and arrogance which were 

 the principal motives of his actions. He possessed a 

 remarkable memory, and, for his age, unusual know- 

 ledge. He esteemed men of letters, particularly 

 historians, from whose works he drew the exalted 

 idea of an emperor, which he endeavoured to realize 

 throughout his reign. He appointed his cousin, the 

 bishop Otho of Freysingen, his biographer, and 

 his taste for architecture is still attested by the 

 memorable ruins of the imperial palace erected by 

 him at Gelnhausen, in Wetteravia. He was of a 

 noble and majestic appearance, and, notwithstanding 

 his quarrels with the popes, a more faithful adherent 

 to religion than those who used its name to obtain 

 their own purposes. After the emperor's death, the 

 object of the crusade was no longer attainable. 

 His heroic son, Frederic, duke of Suabia, who had 

 accepted the chief command, and founded the Teu- 

 tonic order, was also carried off by a contagious 

 disease (1 191), and only a small part of that powerful 

 army, which Frederic had conducted out of Germany, 

 ever returned home. 



FREDERIC II. HOHENSTAUFEN, grandson of the 

 preceding, born at Jesi, in the marquisate of Ancona, 

 December 26, 1194, was son of the emperor Henry 

 VI. and of the Norman princess Constance, heiress 



