MEDIEVAL HISTORY LIBRARY

BOOK IV

CHAPTER XII. FREDERIC II.        [ 1242—1245.

Election of Innocent IV —Negotiations—Innocent's flight— Hostility to the Emperor—Affairs of the East—Position of Christians and Mohammedans—Minor Crusades—Kharismians—Mongols.   

The unaccustomed delay in filling the vacated Chair of St. Peter, had now begun to astonish and dissatisfy Europe. The Cardinals imputed this dilatoriness in performing their most important function, partly to the inconvenience of being absent from Rome—the Conclave sat at Anagni, which they represented as, not their own act, but a compulsory escape from Roman violence—chiefly however, to the incompleteness of their body, through the Emperor’s imprisoning, amongst the Fathers of the intended Council, some members of the Conclave. This last allegation—even supposing that their Eminences thought more of their own exculpation than of strict veracity—is somewhat perplexing. The Cardinal of Palestrina is the only member of the Conclave whom there seems to be any reason—and that doubtful—for supposing detained in custody by Frederic; and that the absence of a single Cardinal—if real—should be made so important, is, at least, strange. Or could a release upon parole be considered a moral imprisonment, a duress nullifying votes?

But, whatever the plea, upon which the Conclave chose to transfer the blame of procrastination from itself to the Emperor, the light in which the accusation was regarded generally, or even by the devout Lewis IX, is by no means certain. A letter, addressed in that Sovereign’s name to the Princes of the Church, is indeed extant, in which, after rebuking them for thus long keeping Christendom without the Spiritual Head so greatly needed, he promises them, and the Pope they shall elect, his protection against any monarch, who should aspire to unite the incompatible spiritual and temporal sovereignties. But critical inquirers entertain great doubts of the genuineness of this letter; the tenor of which, in regard to the Emperor, is little consonant with the sainted King’s previous or subsequent conduct, towards his brother Sovereign. He might, however, think the encouragement, afforded by slightly disguising his real sentiments, indispensable to the Cardinals; and he might just then be indisposed to a favourable view of Frederic’s proceedings, by anger at the seemingly causeless, protracted detention of the French prelates, captured at Meloria, whose liberation he had vainly demanded; whilst there assuredly was some reason to suppose that a monarch, so cruelly persecuted by one Pope, would hardly promote the election of another. There is, nevertheless, in Frederic’s conduct, nothing to justify such a suspicion. He was constantly urging the Cardinals to fix their choice; and, in 1242, he nearly, if not quite, annihilated the plea, for their complaints of himself as the real impediment to an election, by setting almost all the captive prelates at liberty. But neither this removal of the alleged principal obstacle, nor the exhortations of the new Grand-Master of the Teutonic Order, Gerhard von Malberg, whom he sent to urge the performance of this momentous duty, had any perceptible effect in expediting the movements of the Conclave; and the Emperor now addressed a rebuke, sharper than the French King’s, to the Cardinals. He explicitly taxed them, with grudging each other the exaltation that each desired for himself; and, little heeding, amidst this selfish strife, the perils to which they were exposing the Church, the souls committed to their care, and Christendom’s self. This epistle proving as inefficacious as Lewis’s, Frederic now, as a coercive process, invaded the Estates of the Church; where, in the course of the summer and autumn, he took several towns; but still their Eminences deliberated, apparently unmoved. He then turned his arms against the possessions of individual Cardinals; and this measure was not without influence. The Conclave petitioned the Emperor to withdraw his troops, promising to elect a Pope without further delay. The Emperor complied; but the hesitation of the Conclave was not at an end. The spring of 1243 passed away; the summer began, and still Christendom was without a Spiritual Head. Not till the latter end of June was the Cardinals’ promise fulfilled, and Sinibaldo Fiesco, Conte di Lavagna, and Cardinal of San Lorenzo, proclaimed Pope, by the name of Innocent IV.

The family of the Fieschi belongs to the nobility of Genoa; but, as descending from the vassal-sovereigns of Bavaria, and therefore ranking with the Princes of the Empire, looks down upon those nominal compeers. Sinibaldo, the fifth son of Conte Ugo, had been educated in all the general learning of the times, as well as specifically for the Church. Civil and canon law he had studied at Bologna, under the most celebrated professors of that flourishing University; and was distinguished alike for legal and theological science. He was renowned not only as a friend and patron of the learned, but as having fixed his own rank amongst them, by Commentaries upon the Decretals, and by Expositions of some parts of the Bible. Cardinal Ugolino, when commissioned to mediate a peace between Pisa and Genoa, found him so able and, though a Genoese, so impartial an assistant, that Honorius III, then Pope, recompensed his services with the post of Vice-Chancellor of the Holy See; and Cardinal Ugolino himself, when, as Gregory IX, he succeeded Honorius, immediately created him Cardinal of San Lorenzo in Lucina; habitually availing himself of his abilities, in all thorny and tangled negotiations; provided they were not inimical to the Emperor. The Fieschi being so thoroughly Ghibeline, that one branch of the family had quitted Genoa solely to avoid the Guelphism of their native city; domiciliating themselves at Parma, then eminently loyal. Individually, the Cardinal of San Lorenzo had ever been a zealous adherent of the Emperor, and, as such, highly favoured by him.

Great, therefore, was the joy which the tidings of Cardinal Fiesco’s election diffused through the Imperial Court, and glowing were the congratulations offered to the Sovereign upon the accession of a friendly Pope, under whose pontificate all difficulties and annoyances must needs disappear. Frederic, clearer sighted than his courtiers and ministers, as to the character, whether of the man or of the papacy, shook his head, as he replied, “Rather lament that I have lost a powerful friend in the College of Cardinals. No Pope can be a Ghibeline.” But this answer was given only to his most trusted councillors, prudence requiring the concealment of this conviction. He wrote to divers princes, expressing his hopes that peace in the Church would be the fruit of Cardinal Sinibaldo’s election. He ordered public thanksgivings for this result of the Conclave’s deliberations, which he celebrated by a grand festival. He sent an embassy, composed of his most distinguished vassals and ministers, as the Teutonic Grand-Master, the Archbishop of Palermo, the Grand-Admiral Ansaldo di Mare, Pietro delle Vigne, and Taddeo da Suessa, the Apulian Grand Judge, to congratulate the new Pope upon his election, and to negotiate the revocation of the anathema under which he lay, together with the restoration of peace between the two Heads of Christendom. They were likewise bearers of an autograph letter from the Emperor, expressing his hope that he should now find in the Church no longer a stepmother, but a genuine parent; to whom, in that trust, he proffered filial love and duty, hailing the name, Innocent, as an auspicious omen, auguring the reign of peace, justice and friendship, between the Popedom and the Empire.

But Frederic’s secret fears, not his professed hopes, were prophetic, and the name chosen was an omen, far less auspicious than it might seem. The new Pope meant to show that he took Innocent III, as his prototype; but he imitated him only in his ambition, and his determination to exalt the papal above all temporal sovereignty. He was, in truth, a caricature of the faults of that really great, and, despite his errors, virtuous, pontiff; destitute of his excellences, of his personal disinterestedness, of his conscientiousness, and, above all, of his pure and lofty, if impracticable, views of papal sovereignty. The ambition of Innocent IV was of coarser kind, aggressive and worldly in character, like Gregory VII’s; unsusceptible of the spiritual tone distinguishing Innocent III’s, even when directed to temporal acquisitions. Moreover, in opposition to both those Popes, the ambition of Innocent IV, was wholly for the Pope, not for the Church; and he oppressed the clergy, nearly as much as he endeavoured to oppress princes.

The Imperial mission crossed, upon the road, a Papal mission to the Emperor, bearing analogous professions of good will, thinly veiling those altered views that Frederic apprehended. Innocent IV, anxious for the peace of Christendom, paternally invited Frederic II, to say, what satisfaction he proposed making to the Church, for his offences against her; and indulgently added, that, should Frederic deny that he was in fault, fancying the Church had wronged him, though this was manifestly impossible, the Pope would frankly call upon all Christian Kings and Princes, to assemble and judge between them; when he would accept whatever terms of reconciliation they should pronounce just, provided every friend of the Church were included in the treaty.

When the negotiation really began, even these paternal professions melted away, and little prospect of a reconciliation appeared. The Imperial Envoys had complaints to make, instead of any specific satisfaction to offer; and Innocent, instead of inviting a congress of sovereigns to judge between himself and the Emperor, required the latter, as a preliminary, to evacuate the Papal dominions, and submit his differences with the Lombards unreservedly to his own arbitration. The. Imperial Envoys observed that Frederic had already taken the initiative in conciliation, by freely releasing all the captured prelates, and, instead of finding his liberality reciprocated, saw his faithful vassal, Salinguerra, who was accused of nothing but loyalty, still pining in exile and prison; whilst, with respect to the Lombards, when his differences with them were before unreservedly submitted to a Pope’s arbitration, the umpire had not previously, by pronouncing or maintaining a sentence of excommunication against the Emperor, shown himself his enemy; and yet, even then, had the arbitration been unfair. The Pope urged that he was pledged not to treat for peace separately from his allies, the Lombards ; the Envoys rejoined, that rebellious vassals must be judged by their peers, the Estates of the Empire, before their liege Lord, the Emperor, could treat with them. The Pope doubted, whether the Lombards were so completely vassals of the Empire, as to require such a course; and the Envoys received the doubt as an insult to their Sovereign.

Baldwin II, of Constantinople, and Raymond VII, of Toulouse, uninvited, interposed their good offices, in the hope of softening the Pope. The Earl felt that the enormous sacrifices made by his father and himself to conciliate the Church, entitled him to some consideration on her part, and Baldwin was under obligation to Frederic. He had endeavoured to take advantage of a war between Vatazes and the other Greek Princes, by proposing to Kai Khosrou, Sultan of Iconium, an offensive alliance against the neighbour of the one, the rival—for the Eastern Empire —of the other. The Sultan, whose mother was a Greek Christian, declared himself well-disposed to such an alliance, provided that a Christian Princess were, as a preliminary, given him to wife—apparently a taste of the Iconium Seljuks—pledging his word for her enjoying the free exercise of her religion, with all necessary attendance of priests, &c. And he further promised, in consideration of such a marriage, to place his Christian subjects under the spiritual jurisdiction of the Patriarch of Constantinople. Baldwin, having no daughter of fitting age, requested his sister and her husband, Eudes de Montaigne, to send him one of theirs, through whom he might become the Moslem Sultan’s uncle and ally; and he entreated the pious mother of the pious Lewis IX, to influence them to comply with his request. Again, no repugnance to the connexion appears; but, whilst this treaty was pending, Vatazes had made peace with his compatriot foes, and was pressing Baldwin so closely, that the imperilled Byzantine Emperor, unable to await its result, had no immediate resource, save obtaining, through Frederic’s intervention, a year’s truce from Vatazes. This respite he had employed, in visiting western Europe, there to seek the assistance requisite for the preservation of his throne; and he saw that, whilst the Pope should be engrossed by his quarrel with the German Emperor, such assistance was unattainable. His interest, therefore, combining with gratitude for Frederic’s mediation, he zealously endeavoured to effect their reconciliation. But his efforts, and those of the Earl of Toulouse, were fruitless. Innocent grew more and more unyielding, as his intrigues, in the cities that had either been conquered by, or declared in favour of, Frederic, ripened.

Amongst these towns, Viterbo, which the Emperor, during a brief sojourn, had captivated by his majestic courtesy, and to which he had by charter granted unusually large rights and privileges, seemed the most firmly attached to him. But even there, the Bishop, Cardinal Rainiero Capocci, had created, or revived, a factious Guelph spirit, which he was gradually extending. At his instigation, complaints of oppression by the Governor, Simone di Theano, were addressed to the Emperor; who, alive to the importance of conciliating Viterbo, without inquiring into the justice or injustice of the complaints, appointed the Conte di Caserta to supersede him. But before Caserta could arrive to take his place, Capocci had succeeded in provoking a Guelph outbreak. Theano was suddenly accused of threatening to destroy the town; was attacked by the factious, defeated, compelled to shut himself up in the castle, and there besieged. Caserta, who had been prepared only for the peaceable occupation of an office peaceably resigned to him by his predecessor, learning upon his road what had happened, felt that he, with only his small escort, was unable to relieve Theano. He requested reinforcements of the Emperor, and halted to await them. Frederic brought them in person, and the Cardinal, whose utmost efforts the castle still defied, taking fright at the idea of the Emperor’s presence, entreated the Patriarch of Antioch to interpose, and, upon the plea of Theano’s tyranny, appease, if possible, the Imperial resentment. The Patriarch replied, that the plea was worthless, inasmuch as the Emperor had already, upon their complaint, superseded Theano, before the Viterbans took the redress of their supposed grievances into their own hands, and declined to interfere. The Cardinal then sought help from Innocent, who, unprepared as yet for an open breach with Frederic, would not publicly countenance such proceedings; but, by a secret pecuniary supply, enabled him to raise troops for the defence of Viterbo. With the means of paying, Cardinal Capocci procured recruits from the veriest rabble of Rome—Ghibeline as Rome then professed herself—as well as from the vagabonds and ruffians of the neighbourhood.

Frederic appeared before Viterbo at the head of an army; but, being far more anxious to relieve Theano and his troops, who might, he feared, be starved in the castle, than to punish the mutineers, he offered liberal terms of capitulation. The Cardinal, now confident in his numbers, made the Viterbans believe these offers perfidious, and their destruction predetermined. They therefore rejected the Emperor’s clemency. A desperate assault was the answer to this rejection; it was as desperately resisted, and ultimately repulsed. The siege was now regularly formed, and all the improvements, to w⁷hich military engineering had yet attained, were brought into play on both sides. The besiegers filled the ditch with fascines, which enabled them to bring the moveable towers and their scaling ladders on wheels, close up to the walls, over which they threw Greek fire—here seemingly, first employed by western Europeans—and to station carts laden with combustibles almost in contact with the gates intended to be burned. The besieged extinguished the Greek fire with vinegar, abundantly provided for the purpose, and by secret communication with the ditch, set the fascines on fire. But this conflagration, whilst repulsing the assailants from the walls, equally rendered them untenable for their defenders; and hostilities were unavoidably suspended. The Imperialists made the most strenuous exertions to rescue their endangered machinery; but at this critical moment the wind changed; breeze from the north blowing the flames outward from the town wall, left the station of the besieged clear, and again the Viterban archers and engineers plied the besiegers—whom their anxious labours amidst perils from fire, exposed unprotected—with darts and stones. One of these stones unfortunately struck a knight who in person greatly resembled Frederic. As he fell from his horse, a cry of, “The Emperor is slain!” resounded; and the troops, in utter dismay, abandoning their engines, fled for shelter to their entrenched camp.

Frederic was greatly depressed by this accident, which reduced him to beginning even his preparations over again, and he next day gladly received overtures from the Pope, through Cardinal Otho. Innocent—who professed to retain his old affection for the Emperor, and doubtless did wish rather to coerce him into thorough subserviency, than to crush him—proposed a suspension of hostilities, in order to treat; with free egress from the Castle of Viterbo for Theano and his troops. To this the Emperor willingly acceded, and Otho entered the town to enforce observance of the convention. The result was not encouraging. The little garrison, in reliance upon the terms, left their stronghold, carelessly straggling through the town on their way to the Imperial camp; when the Viterbans and their auxiliary rabble suddenly fell upon the incautious Imperialists, plundering, butchering, and throwing, those whom they did not massacre, into prison; Cardinal Capocci is accused of purposely exciting this treacherous, sanguinary riot, though guilty, perhaps, only of neither guarding against nor checking it. Cardinal Otho, at the risk of his own life, strove to supply the last omission, and rescue the assailed, but in vain. And in bitterness of spirit Frederic wrote to him: “Tell me, what am I to expect, to hope, to fear; if truth, shame, oaths, and conscience, be no longer of avail? By what bonds shall men be held, when a holy Legate, yea, a Cardinal, a name venerated by the nations, violates his promise.”

The successful revolt of Viterbo proved the signal for others. In Lombardy, Vercelli and Alessandria again joined the League; the Marquess of Montferrat again deserted his imperial kinsman, and the long-faithful Marquess Malaspina followed his example. Even the Queen of Sardinia, regardless of her husband Enzio, who, fighting his father’s battles, was absent from her, sought a reconciliation with the Pope. Innocent, on his part, overpowered the opposition of the Frangipani* and on the 15th of November, in great pomp, made his entry into Rome. A sedition was, indeed, provoked by his delaying to pay a debt of 40,000 marks, incurred by Gregory IX, to some Roman traders; but quickly suppressed by his energy and address.

When the Pope was thus established in his metropolis, the Emperor sent Pietro delle Vigne and Taddeo da Suessa, in company with the Earl of Toulouse, to renew the interrupted negotiations; not only pledging himself to accept any conditions to which they might agree, but undertaking that the Princes of the Empire should be security for his so doing. Trusting that these offers must satisfy Innocent, and be met by moderate terms, he invited' the German Princes to Verona, that they might there in person guarantee him to the Pope; and requested his brother-in-law, the King of England, to witness, through a special embassy, the final settlement of dissensions so momentous, and his readmission into the bosom of the Church; thus to enhance the solemnity of the transaction.

The Imperial plenipotentiaries seem to have thought that, whatever the price, the Emperor must be relieved from excommunication; so absolute was the submission required by the terms, to which, in his name, they agreed. Dictated by Innocent, these were as follow:

The Emperor shall, first, restore all conquests made since his excommunication:—secondly, shall declare that, not out of disrespect for the Church had he slighted his excommunication by Gregory IX ; but this not being regularly announced to him, he had considered it as non-existent; confessing that herein he had erred, since he knows and firmly believes the Pope to possess, in spiritual concerns, absolute authority over him, as over all Christians, kings and princes, clergy and laity:—thirdly, shall in satisfaction of this error supply the Pope with whatever troops and money he may require, keep fasts, and give alms according to the Pope's directions, submitting humbly to his sentence of excommunication, until the Holy Father may see fit to relieve him :— fourthly, shall make compensation to the captured prelates for loss of property, to churches and ecclesiastics for damage suffered, according to the assessment of the Pope and three Cardinals: —5thly, shall build and endow churches and hospitals, as the Pope may require: —sixthly, shall withdraw his garrisons from all fortresses not his own:—seventhly, shall allow divers nobles of northern and central Italy to do homage vicariously :—eighthly, shall, conjointly with the Pope, appoint an Italian Judge to decide all suits, civil and criminal, between Italian Guelphs and Ghibe-lines:—and, finally, shall release all prisoners, cancel all convictions, and, grant the fullest amnesty conceivable. Upon these conditions the Emperor was to retain his honours, rights and dominions, and to be formally relieved from excommunication.

To these terms, upon the 31st of March, 1244, in presence of the Emperor Baldwin, of the Roman Senator, and of an immense concourse of the Roman people, the Imperial Ambassadors, by oath, pledged the Emperor. Frederic had engaged to abide by what they should conclude; and to the mortifying terms he made no objection; but he raised a question respecting two points which were left unsettled; to wit, the order in which the conditions were to be executed, and the future relation of the Lombards to the Empire. The Emperor averred, that he could not be expected to evacuate all his conquests, release all his prisoners, &c. &c., without receiving some security for the promised subsequent relief from excommunication; but he proposed to restore part of those conquests, if the Holy Father would then receive him back into the bosom of the Church; and meet him, when thus freed from excommunication, in a personal interview, conjointly to arrange the mode of executing the other conditions, and determine the relation of the Lombards to the Empire.

Innocent, on the other hand, asserted, that should he revoke the excommunication before the conditions were fulfilled, he should have no security for the subsequent execution—an evidently fictitious difficulty; since nonexecution of the terms would abundantly justify the renewal of the anathema. The advantages which the Emperor was required preliminarily to give up, could not be thus easily regained. An interview the Pope seemed willing to grant the Emperor, even whilst excluded by the ban of the Church from Christian fellowship; he authorized Cardinal Otho to intimate that, for the sake of easier communication, he would remove from Rome to Civita Casteliana; but, unless the Lombards were satisfied, peace could not be restored. Frederic’s anxiety for his reconciliation to the Church may be appreciated, from his now consenting to submit his quarrel with the Lombards, as it stood before his last excommunication, to the arbitration of the Pope, unfriendly as he showed himself. If he afterwards somewhat modified the concession, by observing, that, a treaty concluded, as was the Peace of Constance, under the sanction of the Diet, he had no power, save with the concurrence of the Diet, to alter; he added that, to whatever the Princes of the Empire should approve, he would consent.

Whilst the negotiations were thus advancing, some degree of reciprocal irritation, the offspring of trifles, chiefly of words reported, and probably exaggerated, by individuals, who found war more profitable than peace, was arising. No doubt, many an ejaculation of anger, at the concessions extorted from him as the price of sheer justice, would escape the Emperor, and be carried to the Pope; whilst many an arrogant speech of Innocent’s, such as, that his seizure of the prelates should cost Frederic 400,000 marks; that vainly should he implore the settlement of the Lombard question; and the like, would be as diligently made known to the Emperor. Notwithstanding these rubs, the negotiation advanced. If Frederic had not begun the promised evacuation, he had proposed that two Cardinals should be appointed by the Pope, to arrange with him the order of proceeding; Innocent had approved the idea; and, though he had not yet selected the Cardinals, announced his purpose of removing to Sutri for yet speedier intercourse. All appeared happily progressive; when, early on the morning of the 30th of June, 1244, the astounding intelligence reached the Imperial Court, that the Pope had vanished! Astounding it seemed to Guelph as to Ghibeline.

Innocent, haughtily self-confident, as the hard terms so arbitrarily dictated to the Emperor exhibit him, had, during the whole negotiation, felt himself really in the power of the monarch, whose troops occupied his dominions, and had, therefore been preparing for flight. By patriotic letters, addressed upon his election, to his native Genoa, taking the Republic under the immediate and especial patronage of the Holy See, he had stimulated the Guelph zeal of his countrymen to enthusiasm. He had since, probably upon Frederic’s declining implicitly to trust his promise, sent Fra Bojolo, a Minorite, secretly to Genoa, bearing his request for rescue through a fleet, from the imminent danger of imprisonment, by the faithless because Godless, Emperor. The Friar upon his arrival solicited and obtained a private audience of the Podesta, Filippo Vicedominio, a nobleman of Piacenza; who at once assented to the Holy Father’s desire. But, perfect secrecy being held indispensable to the success of the scheme, the Podesta sought to deceive the Emperor by affecting animosity to the Pope. To this end, he positively refused to one of the Pope’s nephews, the publicly solicited permission to attend the wedding of a relation, resident at Parma; whilst a fleet was, with quiet diligence, equipped. When all was ready for sea, Innocent’s nephews, with a few of his most devoted partisans, embarked, and sailed for a destination, known only to themselves. Upon the 27th of June the fleet made Civita Vecchia, when the Fieschi, landing with their companions, sent the Pope word, that three nephews and twenty-two Genoese ships awaited his commands. It was the receipt of this message, that determined the Supreme Pontiff, upon the pretence of expediting his intercourse with Frederic, to set out for Sutri; which, lying nearer the sea, would bring him thus far on his way, without Awakening a suspicion of his design. At Sutri, he declared, that two hundred Imperialist horse were, he heard, moving in that direction, who must, unquestionably, be sent to take him prisoner. He thereupon threw aside his pontifical attire, assumed the ready-prepared garb of a layman, mounted his fleetest horse, and galloped off. Outstripping his train, he reached Civita Vecchia alone, late at night, and instantly embarking, requested that no time might be lost in putting to sea. Those who had landed, were recalled, and got on board, as they collected; so did the Pope’s train, as it scatteringly came up, and the squadron was actually weighing anchor, at dawn of June the 30th, when six Cardinals, who had follow ed the Pope, arrived, and were the last to embark.

The weather was unpropitious to the fugitive Pope; tempests driving the ships for shelter into a Ghibeline port. But the confident expectations of peace, at that moment insured Guelph vessels against hostile treatment, there; and, news travelling slowly in those days, no suspicion of the quality of the important passenger, or of the altered aspect of affairs, occurred. Upon the 7th of July, Innocent landed at Genoa, where he was received with pomp and enthusiasm. Here the Earl of Toulouse presently waited upon him, to express the Emperor’s astonishment and regret at the flight of his Holiness, as also, his willingness still to abide by the treaty, provided he could have any security, that he really should, when his part was performed, be relieved from excommunication. He further entreated that the Holy Father would, for the convenience of the negotiation still necessary upon this point, return to Rome. The Pope’s answer was, that he had been too often deceived to confide anew, and would not incur perils which, through his person, menaced the rights of the Church.

Frederic afterwards offered, with as little success, to commit the negotiation to some of the Cardinals; promising to be content with any arrangements that did not impair the Imperial dignity. But he, at the same time, ordered the port of Genoa to be closely blockaded by his fleet, and the passes of the Alps and Apennines, especially those leading towards France, to be as closely watched by his troops, in order to prevent the Pope from leaving Italy. The Pope represented these precautionary measures, as corroborations of the Emperor’s design to make him a prisoner; and again boldly asserted that he had never dreamt of flight, till forced to escape, as he best could, from the two hundred horse sent to seize him at Sutri. The practical refutation of his assertion, contained in the presence of the Genoese fleet, he endeavoured to rebut, by declaring this to have been accidental. But it was only of the manner of Innocent’s departure from Sutri, and of the cause assigned, that Frederic had just reason to complain. The Pope certainly treated under great disadvantage, in a province, of which the Imperial troops had the command; and his desire to escape from such a position, by removing to Genoa or to France, was as reasonable, as the Emperor’s, to preserve his advantage by detaining him. Doubtless, this was Innocent’s real motive, whatever personal fears he chose to allege, for flying to Genoa; and, that Frederic was aware of its being so, appears from his own words upon first hearing of his antagonist’s evasion: “ Hitherto,” said he, “when I have played at chess with the Pope, I have check-mated him, or at least taken his castle; now, the Genoese have laid a hand upon the board and spoiled my game.”

At Genoa, Innocent was seized with a dangerous illness, from which he could scarcely be called convalescent, since still confined to his bed, when he was informed of the strict watch kept upon his movements. Such a blockade convinced him that he was not yet beyond the reach of the Imperial forces: whilst consciousness of the grievous offence he had given might now really inspire the previously pretended fears of capture. He resolved, at all hazards, to place a greater distance betwixt himself and the Imperialists. He ordered his bed to be laid upon a litter, carried by men: thus, October 5, he quitted Genoa; and thus was he borne along bye-paths, upon which no traveller was looked for, eluding the vigilance of the Emperor’s troops. Thus he crossed the Apennines, and pursued his journey, resting at Guelph cities, as Astri, Alessandria, Turin, and Susa. To secure the House of Savoy to his interest, he, during these pauses, arranged the marriage of a richly portioned niece, with the influential brother of Amedeo IV, Conte Tommaso, the second husband of Joanna Countess of Flanders, and now a widower. Then, tolerably recovered, he crossed the Alps, and, on the 2nd of December, arrived at Lyons.

That a Pope, flying from the power of the Emperor, should fix his abode, even temporarily, in the Arelat, still part of the Empire, and in a city, whose archbishop owed unusual rights and privileges to the Emperor’s grandfather, Frederic Barbarossa, may, at first sight, seem irrational. But the choice was really judicious. Whilst divers Burgundian great vassals were, even then, meditating the transfer of their allegiance from the Emperor to the King of France, Lyons—whose suburbs west of the Saone were already in France—aspired to independence; in fact, acknowledging no authority but that of her archbishop, who, as a churchman, despite the obligations of his see to the Swabian dynasty, was a partisan of the Pope’s. Moreover, the close proximity of the French territory, secured a pontiff resident at Lyons from being completely blockaded by Imperialists, so long as the devout Louis IX sat upon the French throne.

In addition to these recommendations of Lyons, Innocent proposed to convoke a Council, partly, perhaps, that it might share the responsibility of the steps he purposed taking against the Emperor; and Lyons was conveniently accessible from all parts of Europe, without danger of such disasters to the Fathers of the Church as had prevented the sitting of the Council convoked by Gregory IX. Upon the 30th of January, 1245, the Pope published a summons to the kings, princes, and prelates of Christendom, to assemble in an Ecumenic Council at Lyons, upon the festival of St. John the Baptist, otherwise Midsummer-day, next ensuing, in order to deliberate upon the situation of the Holy Land, of the Latin East-Roman Empire, and also, upon the dangers to be apprehended, as well from the Mongols, as from the existing dissensions between the Holy See and the Holy Roman Empire.

But, even whilst thus professing to refer the questions in dispute betwixt himself and Frederic to the future Council, Innocent, forestalling not only the judgment of the Fathers of the Church but their investigation of the case, fulminated anew the sentence of excommunication against his antagonist. This injudicious step, which may be presumed a mere ebullition of temper, appears to have been, openly or secretly, very generally blamed. By none more boldly, or more whimsically, than by a Parisian priest; who, when he obeyed the papal command to publish the sentence at the altar, added to the denunciation these words: “That the Pope and the Emperor are quarrelling and persecuting each other, I know, but not which of the two is in the wrong; wherefore I excommunicate him who is guilty, whichever that may be, and absolve him who is guiltless." For this commentary upon his appointed task, the priest was, as might be anticipated, severely reprimanded by the Pope, and handsomely rewarded by the Emperor. In Germany, the majority of the Princes of the Empire, ecclesiastical as well as lay, boldly reprobated the sentence, avowing unshaken loyalty; and if, again, a few of the, always Guelph, Rhine prelates, deserted the common cause, their enmity to their Sovereign was again more than neutralized by their own cities, like all others, with scarcely an exception, ardently loyal.

The impending storm was foreseen by Frederic, when the Pope’s second flight was made known to him; and he prepared to meet it. Leaving to Vitale d’Aversa the command of the troops occupying the Estates of the Church, he hastened, in the first place, to his maternal heritage, there to make all requisite arrangements. Amongst others, he granted new favours and privileges to the Saracens in the Capitanata, whose grateful affection for himself must, he felt, be strengthened, whatever confidence he might place in their abhorrence for the sovereignty of an intolerant Christian Priest. Thence he repaired to Verona, whither he had summoned the Princes of the Empire.

Lombardy, taken largely as rest, was a prey to the usual disorders, if these were not rather increasing in acrimony; for, in the feud that Bologna and Parma were then fighting out, prisoners of war on both sides were slaughtered. At Milan, the most democratic had by this time placed the supreme authority in the hands of Pagano della Torre—whether still only as Capitano del Popolo, or as Podesta also, seems doubtful—and this haughty Republic had, excepting in name, ceased to be one. Verona, amidst the general distractions, was enjoying an internal calm, due to the policy of Ezzelino, who had won the hearts of the people by opening the Great Council, previously consisting exclusively of nobles, not only to the most opulent traders, but to all who were solvent and of legitimate birth.

At Verona, the Signor di Romano received his Imperial father-in-law with his accustomed loyal magnificence; and there the chief of the German princes, the few still faithful Italian vassals, and Emperor Baldwin, met him. Various affairs, both German and Italian, were regulated at this assembly, which hardly was, perhaps, a regular Diet, and a fourth marriage is said to have been there projected, for the Emperor. The proposed bride was Gertrude, the childless widow of the Bohemian heir-apparent, daughter of the Duke of Austria’s deceased brother, and who, the Duke still being without legitimate offspring, might, by a slight deviation from the strict law of Austrian succession or through his bequest, be his heiress. It is said to have been upon this occasion, that the Emperor, at the Duke’s request, set Queen Margaret and her sons (his own grandchildren), who had hitherto remained in confinement, at liberty. But the matrimonial scheme was still inchoate, when, the Duke abruptly quitting Verona, it dropped.

The departure of Frederic the Combative is variously explained. Most writers assign, as the motive, resentment for the death of a noble Austrian vassal, slain in a street broil betwixt the Germans and the Veronese; for which broil different causes are again found. Some Guelph writers assert, that it was provoked by the Emperor, for the idle purpose of trying whether he or Ezzelino were the most powerful in Verona; whilst others, of the same party, attribute it to Ezzelino, in the wanton indulgence of his sanguinary temper. Both accounts imputing, at such a crisis, downright childish folly, rather than wickedness, to men, whose political sagacity their bitterest enemies never disputed! And, when it is recollected, that the Italians appear to have hated the Germans quite as cordially in the thirteenth century, as they do in the nineteenth, and that numbers of the lowest military followers of German princes must now have been crowded into Verona, what need to seek other cause of quarrel between them and the like class of Italians, quickly growing into open hostilities, and costing the life of any noble, who either joined his countrymen as a partisan, or endeavoured to separate the combatants? But, without reasoning upon the improbability of either of those accounts^ or upon the impossibility of another, an Italian statement, that, allowing the affray to be casual, sends the Duke of Austria away in anger, that the rioters who had killed his nephew—he having none but the Emperor’s grandsons and Albert, afterwards Margrave of Misnia—were, at Ezzelino’s request, pardoned. The history of Austria will supply a motive, totally unconnected with either the Emperor or his princely host, for Duke Frederic’s abrupt departure. To explain this, the narrative must revert to the Mongols and Hungary.

If Austria had, since the second defeat of her barbarian invaders, remained free from their devastating inroads, Hungary, for upwards of two years, groaned under the burthen of their presence: Bela’s efforts for the relief of his kingdom availing only to make Dalmatia, where he had found an asylum, a partaker, though casually and slightly, in the sufferings of Hungary and Transylvania. But, early in 1244, the death of Octai Khan recalled Batu, with his portion of the Golden Horde, to Tartary, for the election of a new Grand Khan. If he expected to obtain that dignity for himself, he was disappointed; but he succeeded in securing a separate empire, of which Crim Tartary was a principal part, and Russia a tributary dependency. Content, seemingly, with such dominions, he thenceforward left the rest of Europe untroubled.

Upon the departure of the Mongols, Bela returned, to find his realm devastated and nearly depopulated. But he procured food from other countries, to relieve the famine consequent upon such devastation; whilst numbers, who, having disappeared, were supposed to be slain, hastened home from the mountain recesses, amongst which they had taken refuge. The Kumans brought their herds back from Bulgaria; and, either the Mongols having, by the slaughter of rival proprietors, provided ample pasture grounds for their cattle, or, they themselves having gradually imbibed something of the principles and habits of the Christian religion, which they had so recently embraced, they henceforward lived in as much amity, as was then usual, with their neighbours. Bela invited colonies of Germans to settle upon the unoccupied, ownerless, lands, with other portions of which he largely endowed the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem. Hungary, thus aided, so rapidly recovered from her sufferings, that, in the spring of 1245, Bela found himself able to indulge the vindictive feelings towards the Duke of Austria, provoked by his rapaciously turning to his own advantage, the distress he had caused, or at least helped to increase, by stirring up discord between the Magyars and the Kumans, when the Mongols first entered Hungary. He had, therefore, conjointly with the King of Bohemia, taken the opportunity of Frederic the Combative’s absence at Verona, to invade Austria. This invasion it was, that suddenly called the Duke back to the defence of his dominions, and subsequently prevented his attending the Council of Lyons. That his departure might occur simultaneously with a broil between Germans and Italians at Verona, which cost a transalpine nobleman his life, is as likely as not.

When the time appointed for the meeting of the Council drew near, the assembly at Verona broke up. The German princes returned home; Baldwin betook himself to Lyons to prosecute his suit for European assistance; and Frederic, with his principal councillors, temporarily fixed his quarters at Turin, for the sake of more convenient communication with his representatives at the Council. At Turin he quickly revived the loyalty of the Marquess of Montferrat and the Earl of Savoy, the latter having only the preceding year been drawn over to the adverse party by his brother, Tommaso, husband of Innocent’s niece. His influence the Emperor seems to have counteracted by giving Amedeo, now a widower, another of his own illegitimate daughters, and creating him Duke of Aosta and Chablais. The title hardly appears in history, perhaps dying with Amedeo’s childless son. At Turin, the Emperor received the homage of Charles of Anjou for the county of Provence; his marriage with the heiress, Beatrice, having been celebrated, either in 1243, when her elder sister, Sancha, married Richard, Earl of Cornwall, or in the current year, 1245.

But before relating the transactions of the memorable Council of Lyons, inasmuch as the interests of Palestine were named amongst the important subjects to be considered, a brief survey of the condition of that scarcely existing kingdom must be taken. A condition growing worse from day to day. Filangieri, the Governor appointed by Frederic, found even a shadow of sovereign authority denied him; whilst all parties, united only against him, were embroiled amongst themselves. The Patriarchs of Jerusalem and Antioch quarrelled respecting the limits of their respective provinces. The Templars and Hospitalers, upon every occasion, in every war of Christians or of Mohammedans, embraced opposite sides, and had forfeited, by their rapacity and licentiousness, the veneration and universal confidence they once enjoyed. The Hospitalers were taxed with accepting lands from the schismatic Vatazes, as the price of helping him to recover the Eastern empire from the Roman-Catholic, Baldwin; and laboured, moreover, under accusations, akin, although lighter, to those which, at a somewhat later period, rightfully or wrongfully, formed the plea for the spoliation and atrocious extermination of the Templars. The Marians, whom both alike hated, having mainly transferred themselves and their exertions to a more promising field in Europe, were, in Palestine, too few to be of much account; but those few were loyal to the Emperor-King of Jerusalem, and obedient to his Lieutenant.

It may seem strange, that the Mohammedans should not have taken advantage of these weakening dissensions, to expel the intrusive Latin Christians from Syria. But the most powerful of the Moslem Princes, Kameel, Sultan of Egypt, was honourably restrained by the truce he had concluded with Frederic and his Lieutenants; and the wars, in which the Sultans of Damascus and Aleppo were constantly engaged with each other, or with him, insured for some years their observance of that truce, although not parties to it. In 1236-7-8, these three Sultans successively died, and the second death, that of Daher of Aleppo, appeared to the Templars a favourable opportunity, his sons being young children, of conquering his dominions. Little caring whether there were or were not a truce with Aleppo, they at once attacked the capital; but his widow, a daughter of Malek el Adel, proved worthy of her race. Resolutely she defended the town, repulsing the assailants with the loss of upwards of 100 knights. She was, nevertheless, unable to save the territories of Aleppo from the fate undergone by all the dominions of Saladin’s descendants; to wit, further division amongst heirs, consequent upon these deaths, producing increase of discord and of weakness amongst these Mohammedan States.

The following year, 1239, one of the latent royal troubadours, Thibalt Earl of Champagne and King of Navarre—in right of his mother, Blanche, eldest daughter, and eventually heiress, of Sancho VII—took the Cross, together with many French knights and nobles, amongst whom was Amauri de Montfort, eldest son and heir of Simon the Crusader, who had ceded the earldom of Leicester to his younger brother, as incompatible with his French fiefs. Lyons had been designated as the place of meeting, and thither came Crusaders from every part of France, again, it is said, beginning their holy war by the massacre of all Jews (pregnant women included), domiciliated in the provinces through which they passed. The further report, that they burnt the Jews’ sacred books (³⁴) is more difficult to believe, since whatever their mistakes touching the creed of heretics, that the Jewish Bible was the Old Testament could hardly be unknown. The massacre and book-burning may, however, have been unauthorized acts of the ignorant multitude; but Theobald himself, the Spanish king, French peer, and troubadour, thought to propitiate the Deity, and duly prepare for his hallowed enterprise, by sanctioning arid witnessing, at Vertu, in Champagne, the day before his departure, the burning of 183 of his vassals, as heretics. A contemporary chronicler calls this wholesale execution “ a mighty sacrifice pleasing to God.” At Lyons, the Crusaders, in lieu of the encouragement and assistance, which Gregory IX’s repeated calls upon Europe to arm on behalf of the Holy Land, entitled them to expect, found, Gregory’s object being changed, a papal bull, forbidding them to undertake that remote expedition at this juncture, and enjoining them rather to defend the Latin Empire of Constantinople, then in danger from the schismatic Greeks. They likewise found letters from the Emperor, regretting that the posture of his affairs rendered his leading their Crusade, as he had intended, impossible; and earnestly warning them against being hurried, with inadequate forces, into any rash enterprise. Many were disheartened by such disappointments, and turned back; but the King of Navarre, and all those who, by great sacrifices, had equipped themselves for the holy war, that w as to earn them Heaven, and made arrangements for a prolonged absence, resented being thus treated as puppets of the Pope’s caprice, and persevered. But they ceased to form an united body, and therefore an available crusade. Some embarked for Syria, at Marseilles; others traversed Italy, to take shipping at Brindisi; and others, again, lengthened their pilgrimage by taking their way through Sicily, where they saw and received all practicable assistance from the Emperor.

Upon landing in Palestine, the fervent zeal that had prompted the enterprise, triumphed, as might be anticipated, over the prudence which Frederic had endeavoured to impress upon the Crusaders. The ten years’ truce, renewed when it expired, and still subsisting, ended, according to its terms, upon the arrival of a crusading army headed by a monarch. There was, therefore, nothing but their own discretion to check their martial ardour, and at once they invaded the Moslem states. They were defeated, with great loss, by the far more numerous Mohammedans, whom the common danger momentarily reunited. The resumption of hostilities had, however, the beneficial effect of inducing the Jerusalemites to repair the walls of the Holy City, which had hitherto remained as when it was restored by Kameel. But this measure of forethought, being too late begun, was imperfectly executed. And again, as the pressure ceased, with the danger vanished Syro-Frank care of the fortifications. Dissensions revived amongst the victors, and war raged anew between the Sultans of Egypt and Damascus. The Templars presently joined the latter, whereupon the Hospitalers offered their alliance to the former; and even Crusaders, though some carried on active hostilities against both, took service on either side, satisfied that they were still fighting against unbelievers, and well paid for so doing. All was sanguinary disorder. Jerusalem, after a possession of twelve years, was again lost, only the tower of David being still held by an Imperialist garrison. To increase the confusion, Alicia Queen of Cyprus, stimulated by the Venetians, whose extravagant pretensions Filangieri was disposed to resist, again advanced her preposterous claim to the crown of Jerusalem; and, by way of securing a champion, married Raoul Comte de Soissons, one of the Crusaders. The Baronage of Palestine allowed him, apparently, to assume the government, merely protesting, that they did so without prejudice to Conrad’s right. But Raoul soon discovered, that the authority thus committed to him was altogether nominal, every one still doing just what he pleased, regardless of the ruler he acknowledged, whether Alicia’s consort, or the vicegerent of Yolanthe’s widower, or son. Weary of so unsubstantial a royalty, he presently deserted his royal wife, returning, with his brother Crusaders and the King of Navarre, to Europe.

In 1240, the opulent Earl of Cornwall undertook his already mentioned Crusade, at the head of a body of belligerent pilgrims, volunteers, and mercenaries. He led them across France, to embark at a Mediterranean port for Syria, and at St. Gilles, in Languedoc, was, like Thibalt, met upon his road by a message from Gregory, prohibiting the employment of his arms in the defence of the Holy Land; Earl Richard being commanded, instead, to join the Pope’s forces in attacking his sister’s husband, the Emperor. He similarly disregarded the prohibition, and, embarking with his troop, landed in Palestine. But, in the impossibility of reconciling the Templars and Hospitalers, he speedily found an insuperable obstacle to effecting anything against the Mohammedans, without an actual army of crusaders; inasmuch as the high pay offered by the Moslem princes, in the wars which they were waging against each other, not against Christians, tempted the martial portion of the people, knights and nobles included, to enlist under their respective hostile banners. He therefore, following Frederic’s example, had recourse to negotiation, and was at the head of forces sufficient to insure success in that direction. From the Sultan of Egypt, hard pressed by his rival kinsmen, he obtained, as the price of renewing the truce, ended by the King of Navarre’s Crusade, the restoration of Jerusalem, with the places between the Holy City and Acre, to Filangieri, as Governor, for the King of Jerusalem; as also the release of the bulk of his Christian prisoners, especially of Thibalt’s captured Crusaders. The Earl next interred the remains of the Christians, who, having fallen in a defeat near Ascalon, still lay on the field of battle. He fortified Ascalon, built a castle there, delivered over the place, so strengthened, to the officers of his Imperial brother-in-law, and embarked for Europe. He was scarcely at sea, when Balian d’Ibelin and Philip de Montfort expelled those officers, seizing this important fortress in the name of Queen Alicia, whose pretensions Gregory now countenanced, as though the boy Conrad had, by his father’s excommunication, forfeited his maternal heritage.

These internal dissensions invited the destruction evidently impending over the remnant of the Syro-Latin States. The Mongols were pressing closer and closer upon Western Asia, driving conquered nations before them; and the Korasmians or Kharizmians were thus brought into fearful proximity to Syria. Eyub, Sultan of Egypt, who had not without difficulty made head against the Sultans of Damascus and Aleppo, was driven to actual desperation by an incursion of the Templars, directly violating the armistice, just renewed by the Earl of Cornwall and Filangieri. Distracted with terror, he, as his last chance, offered his alliance and friendship to the homeless vagrant nation, together with his advice, to conquer and settle in the dominions of his Christian, if not also of his Moslem, enemies. The Kharizmians needed no pressing; they poured into Palestine, ravaging and destroying, on their way, as might be expected from a barbarous tribe, and directed their course towards Jerusalem. A body of 7,000 Christians, flying thence too late, encountered them, and, with the exception of the children of both sexes, reserved for slaves, was massacred. In the month of August, 1244, it should seem, the precise date being uncertain, they entered the undefended Holy City, plundered houses and churches, broke open the tombs of the kings, destroyed the Holy Sepulchre—either in search of treasure or in mere wantonness—and butchered the inhabitants they found, male and female, Christian and Moslem, with the same exception of children as before. The Sultan of Damascus and the Princes of Karak and Emesa, being now thoroughly alarmed for themselves, hastened to the assistance of their Christian neighbours; and, entering Palestine, united their forces with the Syro-Frank warriors, not far from Gaza. There, upon the 18th of October, they conjointly gave battle to the far more numerous Kharizmians, reinforced by Egyptian troops, and were defeated with the loss of 16,000 men. The two, or according to some writers, three Grand-Masters (the emergency having brought the Marian, with his disposable knights to their original scene of duty, the Holy Land) the Archbishop of Tyre, and most of the great vassals were amongst the slain, or the prisoners. Certainly 312 Templars, and 325 Hospitalers fell; and, of the three military Orders, only eighteen of the former, sixteen of the latter, with a few Marian esquires, appear to have survived this fatal battle. The Patriarch and the Constable are said to have reached Acre with about 100 fugitives.

Among the prisoners was Gaultier de Brienne, the son, either of the late ex-King of Jerusalem and Emperor of Constantinople, or of the Conte di Lecce, who had obtained the county of Joppa as the portion of his wife, a daughter of the Queen of Cyprus. He was carried in chains to Joppa, there fastened to a gallows, and ordered, on pain of instant death, to make the town surrender. He bade the citizens defend themselves without regard to him; and his courage awakening respect, he was spared; unfortunately but for days. The Christian prisoners were delivered up, by previous agreement, to the Sultan of Egypt; who, upbraiding them with their breach of the truce, their treason to their lawful sovereign, the Emperor-King, and their disregard for the precepts of the Bible, which they professed to obey, told them that nothing short of the intercession of that Emperor-King, Frederic, whom he esteemed and respected, could soften their lot. They were made slaves, kept to severe labour, and scantily fed; the gallant Earl of Joppa was, at the especial request of some merchants, whom he had, it seems, individually offended, made over to them, and they murdered him in his prison. Notwithstanding the Sultan’s professed implacability, the Minorite Friars, who, with genuine apostolic zeal, ventured into the power of the Mohammedans in order to afford their suffering brethren the consolations of religion and thus maintain them steadfast in their faith, were freely permitted to visit the prisoners. It is to be hoped that their self-sacrificing charity was recompensed by the consciousness of having strengthened many to prefer martyrdom to apostacy; but despite their admonitions, in many endurance failed; numbers sought alleviation of their misery by abjuring Christianity. The Emperor-King of Jerusalem, persecuted by the Pope, was then in no condition to make effective intercession for his own or his son’s rebellious subjects. He indeed applied to the Sultan, who had professed respect for him; but he could not menace; Eyub was no Kameel or Malek el Adel, and only a few were released upon his interposition.

When the Kharizmians had so thoroughly devastated Palestine that impending famine drove them away, and had quarrelled with Eyub for inadequately remunerating their services in the battle of Gaza and the subsequent capture of Damascus, they fell upon Egypt. But Egypt, no longer harassed by a formidable Moslem and Christian confederacy, now opposed a resistance for which they were unprepared. They were repulsed, and seemingly disheartened; for they forthwith broke up into separate bands: some of which took service under divers small potentates; some became robbers, and the greater number joining the Mongols, were incorporated with the Horde or made slaves. The Kharizmians, as a nation, disappear from history.

Jerusalem, thus abandoned by her conquerors and not yet seized by the Egyptians, might again have been occupied by Christians, though of Christian warriors to defend it, none remained. But a little to the north of the line, previously followed by the Kharizmian migration, was advancing a more terrific danger. The Mongols, whom Gregory IX had represented as virtually protectors of Palestine, and likely soon to become Christians, were now spreading desolation far westward. The Syro-Frank state first found on their way was Antioch; and, whilst devastating the territory, they required the Prince to redeem himself and subjects from utter annihilation, by razing the walls and fortifications of all his towns, and delivering up to them, not only all the gold and silver in his dominions, but also 3,000 virgins. This demand was just made at the moment of the assembling of the Council of Lyons, and, like the destruction of the Kharizmians, could not be yet known in Europe. Still, the condition of the Syro-Frank States, the prospects of Christianity itself, in the East, might, it should seem, have furnished the Head of the Church with more important subjects to lay before the embodied Church, than his own personal quarrels with his proper protector and champion, the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.

One measure of Innocent’s, with respect to the threatening barbarians, was, however, correctly pontifical. Partly adopting his predecessor’s views relative to the Mongols, he sent a company of Mendicant Friars to convert the Grand-Khan to Christianity. These bold missionaries were better received than might reasonably have been expected, inasmuch as they did not suffer death, for such actually incomprehensible presumption, as visiting them with a purpose so audacious, must have appeared to the Mongols. But the answer they brought back was: “To me, has God committed the task of exterminating corrupt nations. For the prevention of war let the Pope come hither, and acknowledge me as the Lord of the earth, let the Emperor surrender his dominions to me, and both shall have office at the Mongol Court.” When Frederic heard of the mission and its results, he laughed, and observed: “As I understand the management of birds, perhaps I may hope to be the Grand-Khan’s Falconer.” But, if unsuccessful in the task assigned them, the Friars’ expedition was not altogether useless. Having taken their way, as directed by Innocent IV, through Russia, some of their number were left in that country, the conversion of which to the Church of Rome might, it was hoped, be facilitated by the sufferings consequent upon Mongol domination. Daniel of Halitsh, alone among the Russian princes, was won by them to renounce the schismatic Greek Creed; and the Pope rewarded him with the title of King, and the promise of a Crusade to be preached against his oppressors, the Mongols:—all that Daniel gained by his conversion, or apostacy. But this Romanist triumph did not occur till a few years later. The immediate fruit of the mission was geographical information.

Some Greek and Syrian monks who, actuated solely by their own zeal, undertook a similar mission to a nearer body of Mongols, were not so easily dismissed. This Mongol leader sneeringly remarked, that the greatest kindness he could do them must surely be to send them to their God, and ordered them to be burnt to death. Singular, that he should pitch upon the mode of execution, selected in Europe as the punishment of misbelievers!

BOOK IV

CHAPTER XIII. FREDERIC II. [ 1245— 1246.