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MEDIEVAL HISTORY LIBRARY |
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BOOK IV CHAPTER XV.
Affairs of Germany—of Austria—Innocent IV's
Cabals—William Earl of Holland, Anti-King—Affairs of Italy—Captivity of
Enzio—Fall of Pietro delle Vigne—Crusade of Lewis IX—Disasters—Death of
Frederic II.
Even whilst hope still brightened the Emperor’s
prospects in Italy, and yet more after so heavy a disaster had overclouded
them, Germany remained a prey to Innocent’s unceasing cabals. Upon the
failure of the Apulian plot, and the death of Henry Raspe, he
had ordered the active Cardinal Capoccio thither, to supersede the
unsuccessful Bishop of Ferrara, as both a blundering and a timid
politician; and had invested this new Legate with full powers to plant and
cultivate, to eradicate and extirpate, to scatter and annihilate, at his
discretion. In the exercise of these powers Capoccio was not
abstemious; and the employment of calumny, to alienate the
affections of Germany from her sovereign, is one of the
flagitious modes of hostility with which he is charged. For
the dissemination of calumny, he had recourse to the then established
papal means, viz., dispersing a swarm of friars, chiefly Franciscans,
through the country; and, although it may be surmised that these emissaries
exceeded their instructions, when they accused Frederic of such
crimes, as, training young boys for assassins; defiling a church
by offering the last outrage to a virgin, under the effigy of Our
Lady, upon the very altar consecrated to inviolate purity, deified in her
form; feeding young girls, the destined wives or mistresses of his enemies,
upon poison, that their embraces might be death-fraught; and the like;
still, he, who throughout supported the defamers, cannot escape the
responsibility even of these most extravagant falsehoods.
Meanwhile, these multifarious efforts to overthrow an
heroic race, had exhausted the fruit of the Pope’s pecuniary exactions;
and to procure means of continuing the attack, he was again driven to
irritate the clergy of various realms, by heavy demands upon their purses.
He was driven, further, to do that which produced more
permanent disaffection to the See of Rome; namely, to the
commission of every simoniacal offence, with which he and Gregory
IX had charged Frederic II, and represented as a main cause of their
enmity to him; as selling benefices to improper persons, keeping others
vacant—regardless of the souls of flocks thus left without a pastor—in
order to appropriate their incomes, and similar practices. In fact, under
Innocent IV—through his obstinate determination to crush the Swabian
dynasty, and apparent hatred of the friend he had injured—many, if not
most, of the abuses, imputed to the Roman See, reached their culminating
point. In Germany, one immediate consequence of these abuses was a great
increase of heretics. These heretics naturally held the excommunication of
the Emperor and his son invalid, and were staunch loyalists; a
circumstance, of which the Cardinal and his Friars took advantage,
proving Frederic an infidel, from his connexion with heretics,
as well as with Saracens.
To enhance the distraction of Germany, occurred two
disputed successions; one of which Innocent, if guiltless of producing it,
turned to good account. The first arose upon the death of the anti-king.
Though thrice married, Henry Raspe left no child; and, in his disappointment of
heirs, the Thuringians saw the judgment of Heaven upon his conduct towards
his deceased brother’s family, his attempted usurpation of the principality
and poisoning his nephew. His younger brother, Landgrave Conrad, a
bachelor when he entered the Teutonic Order, died as Grand-Master. The
claimants of the landgraviate, the Saxon palatinate, and the ample allodial
family estates, were, therefore, females or sons of females, and
of these there were four. The first was Sophia, eldest daughter of
Landgrave Lewis, married to the Duke of Brabant, a widower with children—her
sisters were nuns ; the second, Hermann, Margrave of Misnia, surnamed
the Illustrious, on account of the frequency and magnificence of his
tournaments, claimed, as the eldest son of Jutta, eldest sister of the two
deceased Landgraves, Lewis the Holy and Henry Raspe; the third was
Hermann, Graf von Henneberg, eldest son of the same Jutta by a
second marriage; and the fourth, Henry, Graf von Anhalt, eldest son
of Irmengard, younger sister of Jutta and of the deceased Landgraves. Against
all four, the imperial tribunals claimed the landgraviate and palatinate,
as lapsed, being sword fiefs, to the crown; considering the allodial
domains as all that the pretenders were contending for. Indeterminate and
vague as was then the law of succession in regard to collaterals, the
third and fourth candidates appear to have been at once dismissed; but the
titles of the daughter, and of the eldest sister’s eldest son, seemed both
so indisputable, that to decide between them was next to impossible. In
Thuringia, the preference for a male over a female ruler, and the
consequent inclination to reject the asserted right of a daughter, as an
irrational encroachment upon the prerogative of the stronger sex, were
somewhat counterbalanced, in favour of Sophia,—whose son was an
infant, incapable for years of taking his mother’s place—by veneration for
St. Elizabeth, and a desire to be governed by her offspring. To the
decision of an Emperor, who not only claimed the principalities as lapsed
fiefs, but, being deposed by the Pope, was disowned by half the
German princes, neither party was willing to submit; and Conrad had
too much upon his hands to be willing, even by inforcing. the imperial right,
much more by deciding between the claimants, to provoke the enmity of
Brabant or of Misnia, if not of both. Frederic proposed to give his
young daughter by the late Empress Isabella, Princess Margaret, in
marriage to Margrave Hermann’s son Albert, with the landgraviate and
palatinate as her portion; leaving the allodial territories to Sophia, or
to be divided. Some of the Thuringian great vassals proposed reserving the
question, for the judgment of an universally acknowledged Emperor. But neither
party wras inclined to give way, and the civil war went on
between the two candidates and their partisans. Those of the Margrave were
found chiefly in the eastern districts, adjacent to Misnia; those of the
Duchess in the western, where lay the chief of the allodial property, and
where St. Elizabeth had latterly lived and had died.
The other disputed succession occurred in Austria,
where, in 1245, the Duke was left defending himself against the Kings of
Hungary and Bohemia. Frederic the Combative made head against them for
many months, long enough, as was seen, to afford him the opportunity of
refusing the Imperial crown, and professing his immoveable fidelity
to the unjustly excommunicated and deposed Emperor. But in the
following year, when nearly triumphant over his enemies, his own rashness
cost him his life. Positively refusing to wait for his daily expected
reinforcements, he attacked the Hungarians with very inferior numbers,
and his temerity succeeded; notwithstanding the disparity of force,
he gained the victory. But, in the eagerness of pursuit outstripping the best
mounted of his army or train, he was separated from his own troops, at the
moment, when his horse, either wounded or chancing to stumble, fell,
and before he could disengage himself from the animal, he received
his death-blow,—from what hand is still matter of dispute. It was dealt,
according to some writer^, by a noble vassal of his own, whose kinswoman
he had forcibly dishonoured; according to Hungarian historians, by
one of the Hungarian leaders, a Frangipani, of a branch of this Roman
family, settled amongst the Magyars; an opinion adopted by
Austrian authorities.
The right of female succession had, at the creation of
the duchy of Austria, been limited, it may be recollected, to the
daughters of the last Duke; and Frederic the Combative had none. Neither had he
made use of the other privilege, then granted to the posterity of Henry
Jasomir, and which, at Verona, the Emperor, in consideration of
his heirless position, had confirmed to the Duke anew, the privilege
of bequeathing his duchy. Thinking he had plenty of time before him, he deferred
making his will, and Austria was thus, clearly, a lapsed fief. As such,
the Emperor—although a few Austrian nobles solicited him to send them
his eldest grandson, the son of the deceased Duke’s eldest sister, as his
uncle’s heir—appointed Graf von Eberstein its Governor, directing him to divide
the allodial possessions of the Babenberg family, amongst the three
co-heiresses, viz., the two sisters of the deceased Duke, Margaret, the
widowed Queen of the Romans, and Constance, Margravine of Misnia, and
their niece Gertrude, the widow of the Bohemian prince, who had been
proposed to the Emperor as his fourth wife. But neither were the Estates
of Austria satisfied to be governed by the Lieutenant of a distant
Emperor, or given away at the imperial pleasure, nor could Innocent endure to
see the power of the enemy, whom he had exasperated by
persecution, thus strengthened; and both*the Pontiff and the
Estates of the duchy endeavoured to obviate the evil they
dreaded. The Pope’s measure appear somewhat inconsistent. Even whilst
exciting the Kings of Hungary and Bohemia to invade, conquer, and divide
the duchy, between their kingdoms, he pronounced the limitation of female
succession by Frederic Barbarossa, when creating the duchy, illegal and
invalid; and encouraged, strangely enough, not one, but two, of the female
claimants, to stand forward. These were, Gertrude, who, but for the
special limitation, would have been the natural heir, and
Queen Margdret. The latter, upon her liberation, had retired to a
convent at Treyes, her sons remaining, it should seem, though not
positively said, with their imperial grandfather. She had not yet pronounced
her vows as a nun, having, when upon the point of so doing, been strictly
forbidden by the Pope, thus to bind herself to seclusion.
Why Innocent brought her forward—whose succession
would transmit the duchy to one of Hohenstaufen race, besides weakening, by
division, the Austrian party that wished for a Babenberg heir, even if a
female,—is not explained; but it may be surmised, that he either
hoped thus to create disunion in the imperial family, or
thought, that the more complicated the question, the more
numerous the claimants, the more certainly must the ultimate decision rest
with him. But, by whatever motive originally actuated, he speedily cast
Margaret aside, concentrating his patronage upon Gertrude. For her, he now
sought a husband, able to inforce her pretensions; fixed upon Hermann,
Margrave of Baden, nephew of the Duchess of Bavaria; and, upon their
marriage, proclaimed them lawful Duke and Duchess of Austria. Yet, even then,
with continuous seeming inconsistency, unless distrusting the power
of his proteges to resist the Emperor, he is said to have exhorted the
Kings of Hungary and Bohemia not to evacuate the districts, of which they
were in possession.
Or this step may, only a little later, have been taken
as a resource against greater evils, when Innocent found that Hermann and
Gertrude were unacceptable to the majority of the Estates of the duchy.
They wanted a Duke of the Babenberg race, but not a woman, nor a stranger,
as the husband of their Duchess, to rule them; and with the full
concurrence of one very considerable party, Graf Eberstein hastened to the
Emperor, to urge his acknowledging his eldest grandson Frederic, Henry and
Margaret’s eldest son, as Duke, and allowing him to take the prince,
so invested, back with him. Innocent thereupon again extended his
patronage to Margaret, as second rival to her own son; and now looked
around for a husband, calculated to give weight to her pretensions. In this he
had not yet succeeded, when another Austrian party, dissatisfied with
all these proposals, determined to offer their duchy to Albert, the son of
Margaret’s younger sister, Constance, Margravine of Misnia. The
deputation, sent to invite this prince, took its way through
Bohemia,—Wenceslas, not having followed the Pope’s advice, it must be
inferred, if really given, but, at least, suspended hostilities, upon
the death of his restless neighbour. He now drew the deputation to his
Court, entertained the members splendidly, and, ere long, persuaded them
that, Albert of Misnia being far too young for their purpose, a much
better plan would be, to declare Margaret her brother’s heiress, marrying
her to his second son, now, by the death of the eldest, his heir, Przemisl
(Germanicè, Ottocar), then in the very prime of manhood; an arrangement
that would insure to Bohemia and Austria, thus united, the command
of Germany. The deputies were convinced, and returned to communicate
their conviction to their constituents. In this they succeeded; Margaret,
who had then seen seven-and-forty winters, was invited from her convent, to
accept the addresses of a young libertine, Ottocar, and claim the
duchy of Austria.
The Pope seems to have fully sanctioned these
proceedings. The Emperor, admitting none of the pretensions thus advanced,
maintained the duchy to be, according to its original constitution, a
lapsed fief, and committed the assertion of the Empire’s disputed right to
the Duke of Bavaria, whom the Pope had previously encouraged
to reclaim the provinces, ceded by Henry the Lion to the margraviate,
when it was made a duchy. But Otho, if he acted vigorously enough against
the partisans of Margaret, showed little eagerness to prevent the
aggrandisement of his wife’s nephew, Hermann of Baden; and the civil war
became more and more complicated. Of Styria, which Frederic now again
severed from Austria, Meinhard, Graf von Gorz, held possession, as Imperial
Governor, without much disturbance.
Innocent’s active hostility to the Emperor was neither
glutted by, nor absorbed in, these endeavours to dispossess him of a
lawfully lapsed, mighty fief. From the day of Henry Raspe’s death he had
been diligently seeking another anti-king; and, as before, distrust either of
his right or of his power to bestow Germany and the Empire,
had induced disinclination to accept the splendid gift. Successively to
the Earls of Guelders and of Cornwall, to the King of Norway, and, again,
to the Duke of Brabant, did he offer this magnificent sovereignty. But the
example of Henry Raspe was not inspiriting: and all declined
the donation of crowns, which, when accepted, had to be wrested from
their able and powerful wearer, against the will of, certainly, the
majority of the subjects, nominally thus transferred.
In this dearth of anti-kings, an idea was entertained
of seducing Conrad to revolt, like his elder brother Henry. To this end,
he was offered not only relief from the sentence of excommunication under which
he lay, but the sanction and support of the Pope, as, at least,
independent King of Germany. The idea would be the more
readily adopted by Innocent, from his knowledge of Lewis
IX’s disgust, at the unoffending boy’s being included in the sentence
pronounced against the father: and overtures to this effect were made to
the King of the Romans, by some German leaders of the Papal faction. But
Conrad, more dutiful or wiser than Henry, answered: “Of a truth, I
shall not play my father and myself false, to please a pack of traitors.”
And again an anti-king had to be sought.
The Duke of Brabant, decidedly as he himself preferred
his duchy to so precarious an empire, suggested that his nephew, William,
Earl of Holland, being only nineteen years of age, ambitious, and boyishly
fond of war, might prefer the prouder title, to his own. The Archbishop
of Cologne eagerly caught at the idea; he wanted a king, under whom
the real authority would be his; and as a lad of nineteen promised to be
precisely such a king, the offer was made. The young Earl’s passion for
war must have been inordinate, indeed, if unsatisfied with what he
already had upon his hands; inasmuch as he was then engaged
in hostilities, with the far more powerful Countess of Flanders and
Hainault. In these counties, Margaret had succeeded to her sister, Joanna,
who, in 1244, died without children by either of her husbands, the Infante of
Portugal, or Earl Thomas of Savoy. William had not done homage to
her for Zealand, which the Earls of Holland held of those
of Flanders, thinking probably, to emancipate himself from vassalage
under a female mesne suzerain; and the haughty Margaret was determined to
deprive him of Zealand, if he persisted in his refusal. But, whatever
might be the case with his martial impulses, Earl William’s ambition
was not damped by his involvements; and he eagerly accepted the
offered crown.
To Innocent, under existing circumstances, any
candidate for empire was welcome; and he may even have preferred one, who must
needs be completely dependent upon his support. Zealously he wooed the princes,
upon whom the election depended; and it was to gain the vote of
King Wenceslas, that he had invited him to conquer and annex Austria
to Bohemia—the canvass for an anti-king having preceded his protection of
Gertrude as heiress of that duchy. Cardinal Capoccio addressed himself to
the ecclesiastical princes of Germany, and prevailed upon several to
be content with the papal candidate—the only one obtainable—for their
crown. When thus assured of success, an Electoral Diet wds convoked by the
Archbishop of Mainz, and again was a place of no account appointed for
its meeting: Woringen, near Cologne, being upon this occasion selected.
There he, with the Archbishops of Treves and Cologne, the King of Bohemia,
and a few prelates and princes who did not habitually claim a voice in
the election of a sovereign, the Duke of Brabant being one, and some
immediate vassals of inferior power and dignity, proceeded, upon the 3rd
of October, 1247, to elect William Earl of Holland, King of Germany and of the
Romans. The official document states the election to have been by the
general consent of the princes present. The circumstance is not
surprising, as only princes determined to vote for the papal candidate
attended: but is worth recording, as tending to show the rights of suffrage not
yet definitively vested in the seven electors of the golden bull, or
even limited to that number. The new King was then knighted with the accustomed
ceremonies, accompanied by great banquetting and other festivities; amidst
which, the intention of proceeding directly to Achen, there to solemnize
his coronation, was announced.
The annunciation was somewhat premature, for Achen,
faithful as a true German city to the Emperor, closed her gates against
the Anti-king and his partisans. The coronation was unavoidably postponed,
until the proper theatre should be in the hands of the Guelph faction.
Achen was regularly besieged and gallantly defended. In fact,
the preponderance of the Imperialist over the Papal party, throughout
Germany, was at this time very decided; invigorated, probably, by anger at the
election of a prince so inconsiderable in dominions, age and reputation,
as William of Holland. Franconia, Swabia, Styria, and, in part, Austria, were
chiefly under Imperial officers; the Free Imperial Cities were loyal; and
the Dukes of Saxony and Bavaria, the Margraves of Brandenburg and Misnia,
the Archbishop of Magdeburg, apd the Bishops of Passau and Freising,
loudly protested against the recent pretended election, as in every way
illegal, and therefore null. Even Prince Ottocar of Bohemia publicly
reprobated his father’s share in the transaction; and, partly, perhaps, to
punish his opposition, Innocent now proposed a marriage
between Margaret, Queen Dowager of the Romans, and Earl Florence, a
younger brother of the Anti-king. William shrank from the risk of
offending the King of Bohemia, and the proposal dropped. The Pope,
resuming his former practices, gradually gained a few partisans; but still
William was the weakest, and as such was driven to all means
of bribing adherents. He lavished grants of every description, of imperial
fiefs, of tolls, dues, and what not; he made unprecedented, if not
actually unlawful, transfers of suzerainty over immediate vassals, as
cloisters, knights, and even one Free Imperial City,—Nimeguen; and,
in direct opposition to this last act, he raised Flemish towns to the
rank of Free Imperial Cities. But Countess Margaret, —though herself, like her
father and sister, extremely liberal of charters to her towns—denied the
right of even the most legally elected and universally acknowledged
Emperor, thus to emancipate her subjects from her authority; and speedily
compelled the Anti-king, not only to cancel his charters to Flemings and
Hainaulters, but to purchase peace, and her recognition of his title, by
concessions unbecoming a monarch who called himself her sovereign.
The Pope sought, at least, to lessen the need of such
waste of imperial possessions and power, by supplying his Anti-king with
money, wrung from the clergy; but even in this he was not uniformly
successful. The sums that he ordered to be remitted from Italy, were
frequently intercepted by Conte Amedeo; and, to Innocent’s no
small mortification, diverted to the service of the Emperor, for
whose overthrow they had been designed. Only what was extorted from the
German clergy certainly reached the intended receiver. Cheaper succours he
provided by commanding, rather than permitting, all those, who had taken
the Cross for the recovery of the Holy Land, to perform their vow at the
siege of Achen. A singular commentary upon the Council’s prohibition of war in
Europe, for a certain period, lest it should interfere with the enterprise
contemplated for this object. But to what anomalies will not passion give
birth!
That Lewis IX paid no attention to this papal
injunction hardly need be said. But, being welcome to the idle, as to the
lukewarm, amongst vowed Crusaders — it brought William reinforcements,
that seemed to render further resistance on the part of the besieged
unavailing. Yet they still replied to the Anti-king’s summons, that they
would neither violate nor palter with their oath of allegiance. And
still they defended their walls: nor, till the building— or the breaking
down—of a dam turned a torrent of water into the town, not only filling
the cellars, but so completely inundating the lower parts, as actually to drive
the inhabitants to the upper stories of their houses, and
by destroying the contents of many provision-magazines, to produce
famine, could the besiegers, with all their accumulation of forces succeed.
Upon the 16jh of October, 1248, Achen, after a year’s siege, surrendered,
and William, in the joy of being at length enabled to solemnize
his coronation in the only place where the ceremony was deemed valid,
offered the citizens a free pardon. They were too high-mindedly
unflinching in their allegiance to accept it. They had yielded only to the
irresistible coercion of hunger; and the majority, with their families, in
appearance more like shadows than living human creatures, now quitted
Achen, carrying their moveable property w ith them, again to tender their
services to their lawful sovereigns, Frederic and Conrad.
In Charlemagne’s Cathedral, the Archbishop of Mainz,
upon the 1st of November, anointed William of Holland, and the Archbishop
of Treves placed the crown upon his head. Henry Raspe had never achieved
his coronation; and the Pope, therefore, hoped that even those, who
had refused to acknowledge an uncrowned king, might be expected to submit
to a successor, duly crowned at Achen. He was disappointed; the
Imperialists admitted no pow er in a coronation-ceremony, however
regular—and this was imperfectly so, the proper regalia being
in the possession of Frederic or Conrad — to heal the defects of an
illegal, invalid election; much less to cancel oaths of allegiance
to living sovereigns. They still called William, as they had called
Henry, both Anti-king and Parsons’ King.
When Achen surrendered, these perverted Crusaders
deemed their vow fulfilled, and, not being Papal partisans, dispersed; by
their desertion leaving William too weak, to attempt, at this time,
anything further towards establishing his authority. It is likewise said, that
the Archbishop of Cologne was beginning to tire of his proposed
puppet, whose power proved inadequate to repay the trouble of such second
hand wielding; and his leaving his own especial office, of placing the
crown upon the new king’s head, to another, was noticed. On the other
hand, Conrad was unable to crush his antagonist, his party being
indisposed to vigorous exertions in his cause; resting nearly
content with petty hostilities against Guelph neighbours,
and compelling the clergy to baptize, marry, bury, and say mass, as though
neither excommunication nor interdict existed. Germany remained therefore
harassed by civil war, general but indecisive.
One growth from these disorders, or rather from their
parent, the suspension of the sovereign-authority, had already been the
increase of robber-knights, and—if the epithet be applicable to all extorters
of money from strangers— of robber-nobles. A second product, the offspring
of the first, was, that the towns had been driven to measures of
defence, new in Germany. The Graf von Katzenellenbogen
having unlawfully imposed, at Castle Rheinfels, an unwonted and heavy
toll upon the Rhine, Mainz, Frankfort, and Worms sent an army, or rather
three allied bands, against him. The allies were repulsed. Then a
patrician burgher of Mainz, Arnold von Thum, proposed a confederation of
the cities upon the Rhine, regularly organized after the manner of the
Lombard League, but more completely so, and with a purely lawful object,
viz., conjointly to equip an army under one general, and a fleet under one
admiral, for the protection of their trade from plunder. In
the preceding year, 1247, his plan had been adopted, and was now in
full and successful activity, having compelled the Earl to give up his
toll. This was a state of affairs that could not fail of being propitious
to Conrad.
Another occurrence that about this time promised
materially to increase his preponderance, was the death of Siegfried,
Archbishop of Mainz, the most warlike of Innocent’s ecclesiastical partisans in
Germany. The Chapter selected the Archbishop of Cologne as his successor,
and —from the objections made by the Pope to their choice—it should seem,
not as translated to the higher metropolitan See, but to hold Mainz together
with Cologne. The Holy Father, objecting upon just principle to
pluralities, positively forbade such an accumulation of
powerful archbishoprics, from which he is said to have feared
the rise of a patriarchate beyond the Alps, capable of resisting, if
not of throwing off, the papal authority. Annulling the election, he
commanded the Mainz Chapter to proceed to a new one. Their choice then
fell upon their own Provost, another Graf Christian, an ecclesiastic of a
meeker and more religious nature than either his namesake or his more
immediate predecessor, and who, shrinking from a post so responsible in
times so critical, sincerely and repeatedly declined the dignity; at last
accepting it, really upon compulsion.
In Italy, a little more activity prevailed, but with
results scarcely more decisive. Enzio gained victories, and Ezzelino took
cities; but so did Cardinal Ubaldini, whose troops, by circuitous routes,
at length joined him. The Pope obtained, from the Bolognese, an oath to
confiscate all Ghibeline property upon their territories, and ordered
a new 8warm of friars into Apulia and Sicily, there to excite new
rebellions. These emissaries were often severely punished by the
tribunals, ecclesiastical as well as lay, and yet oftener very roughly
handled by the loyal populace. Their endeavours appear, however, to have
alarmed Frederic; for he made over the conduct of his troops in
the northern and central provinces, to his two sons, Enzio
and Frederic, named Amedeo of Savoy Imperial Vicar in Lombardy, and
hastened to his southern kingdom. There he speedily baffled and checked
the manoeuvres of the friars, whose success had been trifling; and thence
he renewed his intercourse with Lewis IX, touching that monarch’s
Crusade, offering him all assistance in his power, and regretting the
impossibility, caused by the Pope’s enmity, of his joining him.
This Crusade was now really beginning; the French King
having, at length, surmounted the opposition of his mother and his
council. Such an attendance of nobles, as seemed requisite, he had, since
his own assumption of the Cross, secured by a ludicrous stratagem, and
noticeable because characterizing an age, of whose religiously
chivalrous ideal Lewis might be termed the impersonation. It
was customary for the King to give, as a sort of Christmas-box, new
dresses to all who kept, with him, that solemn winter festival. Having
drawn as many of the nobility to court as possible, he secretly ordered a
Crusader's Cross to be affixed upon the mantles, completing these dresses;
and then caused these Christmas-boxes to be delivered before dawn, on
Christmas-day, with a message, requiring each receiver's instant attendance
upon him, to mass. Unsuspicious of the snare, the receivers hurried on the
new dresses in the dark, and, when they had light enough
to distinguish their garments, found themselves, unconsciously as
unintentionally, pledged Crusaders. This occurred at the close of 1245,
about a year after his own vow and it was not until 1248, that he was
ready to set forward, with an army really wearing the aspect of
pilgrim-warriors. Following the King’s example, every appearance of splendour was
discarded; no furs or gold ornaments were worn, not even the
highly-prized, golden spurs of knighthood; and coarse grey cloth
superseded scarlet velvets and satins, in the mantles and doublets.
This army proceeded by different routes. The King,
with the main body, embarked at Aiguesmortes, his only port upon the
Mediterranean, for Cyprus; which he had appointed as the rendezvous as
well with his other divisions as with the Syro-Frank magnates, whom, prior
to finally arranging his proceedings, he wished to consult respecting the
direction his armament should take. His brother, the Comte de Poitiers,
being appointed to march through Italy, was invited by the Emperor to
embark at an Apulian port, where he would furnish him shipping.
Nor was this his only service to the Crusade. Understanding that the
King’s stay in Cyprus had, unexpectedly, been so prolonged, as to cause a
distressing scarcity in the island, Frederic not only sent Lewis a large
supply of provisions, but gave the Venetians,—who, despite the
commercial treaty, were again at war with him—safe-conducts, that the
recurrence of such an inconvenience might be prevented, by their feeding the
Crusaders in the way of trade. Both Lewis, upon his holy expedition, and
the Regent, Queen Blanche, at home, wrote earnest expostulations to the Pope,
against his persecution of so truly Christian a prince as the Emperor, the
benefactor of Christendom. In vain! Innocent had already shown, by
granting dispensations from their crusading vow to as many French
Crusaders, as acknowledged the wish to evade what all then esteemed an
essentially religious duty, how little he cared for the defence or
recovery of the Holy Land, in comparison with the overthrow of those
steady opponents of papal aggression, the Swabian Emperors. He paid
no attention to these grateful remonstrances of the truly pious royal
Crusader, and his universally revered mother.
The Pope’s schemes for destroying the race were
beginning to prosper. Calamity, that had first visited Frederic II at
Parma, now pressed, well-nigh uninterruptedly upon the indefatigable, the
long invincible monarch. Modena, being at war with Bologna, and besieged
by the forces of her far stronger antagonist, entreated imperial succours,
which, readily granted, Enzio hastened to afford. The
besieged, conscious of their relative inferiority, had attempted nothing
beyond the defence of their walls, until the Bolognese, from one of their
mangonels, hurled a dead ass, bound with silver fetters, into a favourite
fountain, in the very heart of the town. The insult overpowered all
prudence; and the Modenese, in a bold sally, destroyed the offending engine.
But they were too much elated by this success to rest content with it,
especially when Enzio, bringing a body of Germans to their aid, raised
them to a numerical equality with the foe. Eager, moreover, to profit by
the presence of the Emperor’s warrior son, they issued forth to try
the fortune of arms in the open field. The hostile armies met upon the
small river Scultenna, which Enzio had proposed to cross at a ford,
sufficiently distant from both parties, to be unwatched. His plan being
traitorously revealed to the Bolognese Podesta, the intended
surprise failed, and the action that ensued was, in fact, a
drawn game. Shortly afterwards a pitched battle w as fought,
of which, during nearly the whole day, the issue was doubtful. But,
towards evening, Enzio himself being engaged hand to hand with Antonio
Lambertazzi, a Bolognese, his unchivalrous adversary slew his horse, and
he, falling with the animal, vanished for an instant from the eyes of
the army. Such an accident seems, at this epoch, to have been always
fraught with irretrievable ruin. Enzio was, indeed, quickly relieved from
the dying steed, and remounted by his Germans; but the momentary
disappearance of him, upon whom alone their hopes rested, had so
disheartened the Modenese, that they were already rather flying,
than retreating. The infection of fear, and the desertion of half the
army, irremediably disordered the remainder. Enzio and his chief officers,
Marino di Eboli and Buoso da Doaria, strove in vain to check the panic;
the rout was not to be stemmed, and—far more fatal to the
Imperialists! —they themselves were surrounded and taken.
Unbounded was the exultation of the victors, who led
their prisoners in triumphant procession to Bologna. First went the eagles
and other minor trophies; then the Imperial Carroccio, which—having
accompanied Enzio to the field—borne upon its elephant, towered above all
others; the captured troops followed, Enzio and his two friends, in
full panoply and bearing all marks of dignity, closed the train. The
Grand-Council of the city assembled to receive the victors, and—startling
to civilized ears!—to decide upon the fate of prisoners of war. Those who
deliberate upon that which admits not of hesitation, are proverbially lost
to honour and honesty: accordingly the fate determined upon for the
gallant, as handsome, King of Sardinia, who had scarcely yet seen
four-and-twenty summers, and whose sole offence was helping the friends,
against the enemies, of his father, was lifelong captivity.
Whether any amount of instantly offered ransom and
flattery, could have softened this determination dictated, partly by the
inveteracy, which Innocent IV had instilled into many of his partisans,
and partly by the politic desire to weaken the Emperor, by depriving him
of his best captain, may be doubted: but certainly the measures, to which the
first burst of paternal grief and anger impelled Frederic, were injudicious. He
authoritatively demanded his son’s release, threatening terrible vengeance
if it were denied or delayed; and the triumphant Bolognese, convinced
that, with such a hostage in their hands, he dared not attack them, answered
with insulting taunts. The imperial father, then perceiving that violence
was worse than useless, tendered ample ransom, to which Enzio proposed to
add a silver ring, of magnitude to encircle Bologna, and the proffers were
scornfully rejected. Still Frederic despaired not. He had a son of the
Marquess of Montferrat, now a confirmed Guelph, in his hands,
and trusted, through the interest which the Marquess must needs have
with his new friends, to effect the exchange of their captive children.
The Marquess was naturally willing; Enzio was, however, thought of more
importance than the adhesion of Montferrat; and this hope
was blighted.
But, if Enzio languished in seemingly perdurable
captivity, that captivity was neither lonely nor cheerless. The brilliant and
fascinating qualities, that he inherited from his father in a greater
degree than any of his brothers, except Manfred, won the hearts of the
Bolognese youth of both sexes. The sons of the noblest courted the
prisoner’s society, and the fairest of their daughters, Lucia Viadagola,
yielded him her heart. Whether their loves were sanctioned by religious
rites, is a disputed question, there being no doubt that Enzio might hold
himself free to contract a new marriage; his Queen, Adelasia,
having, apparently, found little satisfaction in her union with
a husband, whom his father’s affairs kept habitually absent from her,
is accused of early seeking consolation in the society of one Michele
Zanchi, her Seneschal, a brutal Sardinian, placed by Dante amongst the
worst traitors. When Innocent excommunicated her Imperial father-in-law, she,
although mother of a daughter by Enzio, applied to the Pope for a divorce,
upon the ground of having been ill-used and even imprisoned by her
husband. What foundation there might be for her complaints is
unknown, but her application was successful, and she had
already given her hand to Zanchi, as her third husband. It is even
said that, in consequence of Adelasia’s divorce, a marriage with a
daughter of the house of Romano had been proposed for Enzio, the treaty
pending when interrupted by his capture. It is therefore to be hoped,
that he made his fair consoler his wife; for, married or not, from their
loves the noble Bolognese family of Bentivoglio is believed to spring. In
a prison thus replete with solace, Enzio seems for a while to
have patiently abided, looking forward to political casualties, that,
if they did not actually win Bologna to their side, yet might so restore
her enmity, as to induce acceptance of the ample ransom, repeatedly
offered by his father, and subsequently by his brothers, Conrad and
Manfred.
Enzio’s capture had been speedily followed by the fall
of Modena; despairing of relief, she was now compelled to submit to the
domination of Bologna, and desert the Imperial, for the Papal party. But this
consequence at least of the loss of his son, was, to the Emperor, fully
compensated; Ravenna and Faenza, which had again become Guelph, forsaking
the Pope about this time, once more to profess themselves Ghibeline; an
example followed by Lodi and Piacenza, a few months later, A.D. 1250, when
Marchese Oberto Palavicino, Podesta of Cremona, defeated the troops of
Parma, even capturing their Carroccio. These successes encouraged Frederic in
the exertions he was, with still uncompromising energy, making, in his
southern dominions, for the vigorous prosecution of the war, to which he
must now' have looked as the best, if not the only, way of recovering
Enzio.
But the wound, inflicted by his son’s captivity, was
to be envenomed by the discovery, real or delusive, of treason, in one of
his most favoured, most trusted, friends and servants. Whether Pietro delle
Vigne actually were a traitor, and if he were, what might be the extent
and degree of his treason; or whether he were skilfully made to appear
one, and again if so, whether by envious rivals, or by the machinations of
the Papal faction; are all questions upon which contemporary authorities
of course differ, according to their Guelph or Ghibeline prepossessions;
and they are variously followed by later historians; even that
laborious investigator, Raumer, confessing himself unable to find conclusive
evidence amidst the Italian archives that have been laid open to him. The
assertion that he fell, altogether unsuspected, a victim to Frederic’s
tyrannous rapacity, may assuredly be pronounced a calumny advanced
by Innocent IV, but uncredited even by most Guelphs, and Giannone observes
that, if the Protonotario and Grand Judge was, indeed, innocent, many others of
the Emperor’s courtiers and ministers were indisputably sold to
the Pope.
The low station (Guido Bonatti says that of a famished
beggar) from which the Emperor had raised Pietro delle Vigne to the
exalted posts of Grand-Judge and, in fact, Secretary of State, if not to
that of Grand-Chancellor, will not have been forgotten; and he appears to
have valued him as a companion and brother-songster, almost as
highly as in his capacity of statesman. But, like most
upstarts, whatever their abilities and merits, the poetic minister
was arrogant and rapacious. Of the latter vice he is fully convicted by
the uncontested fact, that, besides enriching many members of his family,
the penniless student had accumulated wealth, such as to excite the
cupidity,-not only of the courtiers (whose enmity he thus
provoked), but, according to the Pope, of the Emperor himself;
a charge he could not have dreamt of making, had the fortune in question
been moderate) The former, arrogance, is said to have been manifested,
offensively to Frederic, in so altering and modifying imperial measures,
decrees, &c., as to adapt them more to his own views than to the
Emperor’s: such presumption appears to have been overlooked
or pardoned, in consideration of his abilities and valuable services, or
of the pleasure afforded by his society. When doubts of this favourite
servant’s fidelity were first conceived by Frederic, or first instilled into
him, either by rival politicians, by courtiers, or by the bribed tools of
Innocent, is uncertain. The Grand-Judge has indeed been accused of suspicious
intercourse with the Pope during his mission to Lyons, in 1245 ; but if
so, it is evident that either Frederic rejected the accusation, or the
accused justified himself, since he retained his master’s
confidence long after that mission, certainly up to, if not till after,
the siege of Parma. The first manifestation of such doubts, with
their simultaneous supposed corroboration, is thus recounted.
One member of the Protonotario Grand-Judge’s household
was a physician of superior skill, whom Frederic, when indisposed, as he now
seems often to have been occasionally consulted. Being taken ill at Capua,
in the year 1249, he sent for him. Accompanied by Pietro delle Vigne,
who was uneasy about the Emperor’s health, the Doctor came, prescribed,
and proceeded to compound the necessary potion. Whilst he was preparing
it, Frederic, who had been previously assured that the leech, if not
the minister, was suborned by Innocent to poison him, looking fixedly
at the man of medicine, said: “Friend, my soul trusts you, yet beware that
you give me not poison, in lieu of healing drugs.” The Minister, startled
by such an admonition, exclaimed: “My Liege, so often as he has administered
healing draughts to you, why such an apprehension?” Without answering him, the
Emperor again addressed the leech: “Drink half the potion, then
give me the other half.” As, preparatively to obeying the command, the
physician, with the goblet in his hand, hastily advanced, he stumbled,
fell, and spilt its contents: not completely however, and Frederic, his
suspicions increased by the seeming accident, ordered the small remainder
to be given to a criminal, then under sentence of death. It was done,
and the man died. Upon this, to his mind “confirmation strong as proof of
Holy Writ,” Frederic burst into a flood of scalding tears, wrung his
hands, and cried: “Woe is me! If those nearest and dearest to me
thus seek my life, in whom shall I trust! How can I ever more rejoice
in gladness!” Amidst such lamentations, he commanded his Minister either to be
thrown into prison, or confined in his own splendid Capuan mansion: and
it seems probable that he further caused his eyes to be put out; no
uncommon punishment in those days, as sparing life, whilst rendering the
dreaded individual innoxious through helplessness. But, sightless or
seeing, Pietro in his captivity is said to have found means of
committing suicide, whether by strangling himself, dashing his
brains out against the wall of his dungeon, or flinging himself down
from the roof of his palace, just as Frederic was riding past.
In this whole story, the only points actually certain
are, the captivity and suicide of Pietro delle Vigne; and concerning even
these, some discrepancies still exist; some writers asserting, that
Frederic, being then at Pisa, merely gave Pietro into the hands of the
Pisans, who imprisoned and ill-used him. The incident of the poisoned cup
is averred to rest upon the single authority of Matthew Paris, and, even
if true, is not conclusive against the minister, whose physician might be
suborned without his knowledge; nay, the potion might be salutiferous, and
the poison substituted by an enemy, amongst those commissioned to try it
upon the criminal: as, indeed, seems most likely, from so deadly an effect
being ascribed to the small remainder of the dose to be administered.
Dante, who, though not a contemporary of Frederic and Pietro, had
all opportunity of conversing with those who were—he held public
office at Florence before the end of the century— acquits Pietro, ascribing
his fate to the manoeuvres and intrigues of envious rivals, and throwing
doubt over his privation of sight. Nevertheless, his suicide, taken
in combination with his enormous wealth, must be owned to afford
presumption of conscious guilt; and, without imputing to the favoured friend
and minister a crime so atrocious as projecting the murder of his
benefactor, it may be surmised, that, alarmed at the effects of the
excommunication, seeing Frederic’s health fail, and knowing Conrad, though
brave and not deficient in talent, unequal to supplying his father’s
place, he might be tempted, at once to secure himself from future danger,
and to receive the profuse rewards with which Innocent would
purchase such an ally, by betraying his master’s counsels, though not
by poisoning him. But, on another hypothesis, how easily might Innocent
and his agents write answers, to suppositious treasonable offers from the
incorruptible Protonotario Grand-Judge, and play their letters into
the Emperor’s hands.
The guilt, real or fictitious, of his long-trusted
Minister, involving the loss of a favourite companion, and of confidence in all
around him, was a heavy blow to the Emperor, depressed as he already was
by Enzio’s captivity, and, although only in his 55th year, weakened in
constitution, by the incessant fatigues and anxieties of his life.
An attack of erysipelas ensued, from which he recovered to display
his wonted energetic activity, raising troops in Italy, and procuring
reinforcements of Saracens from Africa to form an army, with which he again
occupied the greater part of the Papal dominions. But he does not appear
to have ever regained his bodily vigour. Still his affairs looked
promising; Conrad was decidedly superior to the anti-king, in Germany; and
south of the Alps, Ezzelino was now lord of the whole country, from the
Oglio to Trent in the Tyrol, where Bolsano likewise scarcely disputed his
authority. Victory seemed about to recompense his long struggle; but
whilst it was yet inchoate, his pleasure in the fair prospect and the actual
success was damped by ill news from his, now, true friend, Lewis IX; and
yet more by the cruel calumny, for which Innocent IV found occasion,
in the disasters of the Crusade.
The royal Crusader had received, at Cyprus, an embassy
from one of the Mongol Chiefs, announcing an inclination on his part
towards Christianity, derived from a Christian mother; and inviting the
King of France to attack Sultan Eyub, simultaneously with his own intended
attack upon the Caliph at Bagdad, thus to prevent the former from
assisting his spiritual Head. This proposal suiting well with the opinion
held by the Patriarch of Jerusalem and the Grand-Masters of the Templars
and Hospitalers—whom he had laboured, at length successfully, to
reconcile—that Egypt, now the principal seat of Moslem power, must
be conquered, to render the existence of the kingdom of Jerusalem
possible, he sailed from Cyprus, in May, 1249, for one of the mouths of
the Nile, and, after a gallant struggle, happily made himself master of
Damietta. Here the progress of Christian Europe in civilization
and humanity appeared, in his forbidding the massacre of women and
children, whom he ordered to be made prisoners, and converted; even of men,
recommending the capture and conversion rather than the slaughter. But as
though it were due to the Roman See to tread in a Legate’s footsteps, he
loitered at Damietta, even as Cardinal Pelayo had there loitered, throwing away
the opportunity—offered by the death of Eyub, the absence of his son
Turanshah, and the consequent cabals and intrigues amongst the
Mamelukes—for striking a blow7; and, again like Pelayo, began
his march to Cairo just before the periodical rise of the river. Upon his
way, he wasted more time in constructing a dam or dyke across a canal
that impeded his progress; and he suffered a heavy loss through the
obstinate imprudence of his brother, the Comte d’Artois, in rashly
pursuing a fugitive troop of Mamelukes. An obstinacy oddly explained by
Joinville, the noble chronicler of this Crusade, as resulting from the
deafness of the knight, who led the Prince’s horse; and who
heard neither the furious clamours of the Templars, against such a
violation of their rights as thus preceding them in action, nor the
commands of the King’s messenger to return, nor the cries to stop, of the
obedient Robert himself. All this can, however, only be conjecture, as
both Prince and knight, rushing into the midst of the Mohammedans, were
slain. A series of subsequent idle delays and injudicious measures finally
placed Lewis, in spite of great gallantry, in the precise position, in
which Jean de Brienne and Cardinal Pelayo had been before him. Hemmed in
between the waters of the Nile and the daily increasing hosts of
the enemy, unable to advance or retreat, or to procure provisions for his
army, he was compelled to open negotiations, and offer ransom for leave to
evacuate the country.
Frederic, upon learning the melancholy condition of
the Crusaders, despatched an embassy to the Sultan of Egypt, to mediate in
his name in behalf of the French King; to whom he at the same time
transmitted a sum of money, to facilitate the payment of ransom, by which
alone he could hope to escape. Whilst he was thus generously exerting
himself to help the royal Crusader out of the difficulties in which he had
so unwisely involved himself, Innocent loudly accused him of having, in
the first place, caused the disaster, by betraying Lewis to the
Sultan, and in the next set on foot intrigues with the same Sultan,
in order to prolong, if not to perpetuate, the captivity of the King and his
army. That he would, as bound by treaty, give Eyub notice of the
termination of the truce by a royal Crusade—though the information must
surely have been supererogatory —need not be disputed; but that Egypt was
threatened—the direction of the enterprise having been decided only
in Cyprus, and probably put in execution before known in Italy—he could
not warn him. Clearly no warnings had prevented the capture of Damietta, after
which there was nothing to betray. Frederic appears to have felt this
imputation more keenly, than any of the preceding calumnies heaped upon
him.
Perhaps the declining state of his health, and the
afflictions that within the last two or three years had so rapidly accumulated
around him, might have rendered him more sensitive, and the consequences
of that sensitiveness were now about to reach their climax. Upon the 29th
of November, 1250, at Firenzuola, not far from Luceria, the Emperor was
taken ill. How long he struggled against the fatal disease seems not quite
certain; for, whilst the 13th of December is most generally named as
the day of his death, and often noticed as the anniversary of that lamented
event, Christmas day is so called upon many occasions. But whether the
illness lasted a fortnight only, or nearer to a month, during
its continuance, the Archbishop of Palermo, who, years before had
satisfied himself of the orthodoxy of his sovereign’s faith, solemnly relieved
him from excommunication, re-admitting him into the bosom of the Church.
His body was conveyed to his favourite residence, Palermo, and there,
in the month of February next ensuing, with all the rites and ceremonies
of religion, interred. The Sicilian magnates recorded their estimate of
their lost Sovereign upon his monument.
Of all Frederic’s numerous children, only his
favourite son Manfred was with him during his illness, to watch by his
side and close his eyes. And as he most especially inherited, with his
father’s talents and powers of captivation, the papal hatred for the heroic
house of Swabia, Innocent and the Guelph faction took advantage of
the circumstance to charge him with parricide; asserting, some that
he administered poison to his slightly indisposed father, others, that he
smothered him with a pillow. Why a son, not the heir, should murder a fond
parent, from whose affection and power he had everything to hope, in
order to transfer the sovereignty to a half-brother whom—living and
reigning in Germany, whilst he himself was growing up in Italy—he scarcely
knew, the Pope, his original accuser, did not take the trouble of
explaining. Ghibeline writers equally ascribe Frederic's
premature death, at the age of 56, to poison, but charge the
crime more plausibly upon the hostile Pope or his agents, not upon
the sufferer's favourite child.
During his last illness, Frederic made a will, which
in various respects claims notice. In those days, kingdoms were considered
as royal property, and the Emperor bequeathed his realms and subjects, as
he would manors and cattle. His old engagement, to sever the Sicilies
from Germany, he might naturally deem cancelled by the persecution he had
undergone from the Popes, Gregory IX and Innocent IV; and, taking no
notice of any such intention, he names, as universal heir, his eldest surviving
son, Conrad; in case of Conrad's dying without children, his youngest
son, Henry; and in case of his also dying childless, Manfred. This nomination
of Manfred as a possible heir, yet postponing him to his younger brother,
the son of the Empress Isabel, seems clearly to mark the imperfect
legitimacy of his birth. The children of his guilty eldest son, Henry, are
wholly omitted in the series of successive heirs to the crown; the father's
forfeiture of his birthright having, apparently, annihilated all the
pretensions of his posterity. A few lesser bequests follow; they are, to
Henry, at Conrad's choice, either the kingdom of Arles or that of
Jerusalem, to be held in vassalage of Conrad, as Emperor, with a sum of 10,000
ounces of gold; to Manfred, the principality of Tarento and some
Apulian and Sicilian counties, in vassalage to Conrad, as King
of Sicily; and a direction that, whenever Conrad shall be in Germany,
Manfred shall be his Lieutenant or Vicar, on either side the Faro;
employing their younger brother, Henry, as his substitute in insular
Sicily, when he should himself be on the continental side—(a singular
provision as in conjunction with the kingdom bequeathed Henry); to
his grandson, Frederic, the eldest son of his deceased eldest son Henry,
he bequeathed the duchy of Austria, to which he had already nominated him,
with 10,000 ounces of gold, intended, probably, in his case, as in his
uncle Henry's, to assist the legatee in taking possession of
his bequeathed dominions. Neither legitimate daughters nor
illegitimate children are mentioned in the will, its further provisions
relating chiefly to the allotment of 100,000 ounces of gold to the
recovery of the Holy Land, and instructions relative to the rebuilding of
ruinous churches, the restoration of such ecclesiastical rights as might
be compatible with those of the Empire and the Emperor— conditions
possibly of his relief from excommunication—a bequest to the see of
Palermo—which might be in acknowledgment of the Archbishop’s so relieving
him—directions for the treatment of vassals, of all classes, according to
the laws of the country, and a command to release all prisoners except
traitors.
Of a man so eminent and so variously appreciated, it
is impossible to take leave, without a further glance at the opinions
entertained of him, by his contemporaries and by posterity. Perhaps, the
most striking point in those opinions is the high praise, finally bestowed upon
him, even by those, who have most reprobated his conduct
throughout their narrative. Villani, who taxes Frederic II,
besides other crimes, with the murder of his second wife
Yolanthe, with falsely accusing his eldest son of rebellion, and
then causing him to be murdered in his prison, winds up by allowing
him talent, wisdom, learning, generosity, and other good qualities,
blaming only his addiction to sensual pleasures, and his scepticism
touching a future state. Malaspina, who adopts most of Innocent IV’s
accusations, says, that he was valiant, frank, naturally most wise,
generous, and courteous, well versed in science, and master of six
languages, viz., Latin, Italian, German, French, Greek, and Saracenic.
Jamsilla, a more favourable historian, especially lauds his justice, which he
says was such, “that any man might appeal to the tribunals against the
Emperor, whose rank gave him no advantage, and no lawyer feared to
undertake the cause of the meanest of these arraigners of their sovereign.
Yet did his clemency often temper the rigour of his justice.” Dante places
him in the realms of eternal perdition, but solely as a heretic;
and of two modern writers republican in principle, the
Italian Arrivabene says, that Frederic II’s only heresy was banishing the
Mendicant Orders; whilst the Swriss, Zschockke, thinks, that he
respected all the just rights of the Church, but provoked censure by his
disdain, too openly shown, for all prejudices. In the last century,
Muratori, naturally, from his position in the service of the Guelph house
of Este, opposed to the Emperors, after saying: “ I vizii
di Federico eran majuecoli” observes: “Convien dire che
la Storia di questi tempi e alterata di troppo dalle passioni, dalle
calunnie, dalle dicerie, che non ci lasciano discernere la verita di tutte
le magagne d’allora.” That, in him, great faults were blended with great virtues
and splendid talents, will now hardly be questioned; but perhaps those
faults have less affected his reputation, than his being too much in
advance of his age to be understood by his contemporaries. Thence his want of
needful influence.
A few words more, touching the love of science so
generally attributed to Frederic—even if it should be thought that such
notice properly belongs to the Chapter upon the condition of the century
in relation to science and other kindred subjects—may be here indulged to
the interest awakened by this remarkable Sovereign. His patronage of
learning and letters, as shown in his foundation of the Neapolitan University,
in his zealous and liberal exertions to foster the studies to which it was
dedicated, and yet more, perhaps, in his gift of translations made
by his orders for their promotion in his own University, to the rival
Guelph, University of Bologna, has been already mentioned. So has his love
and talent for poetry, his inviting poets to his court, and there contending
with them for the laurel crown, and his cultivation of the living
languages of his dominions. It may, however, be added, that, although his
Latin verses are not held in much esteem by later critics, those in the
vulgar tongue of Sicily are judged by the same authority, Tiraboschi,
to show fancy, a lively sense of the beauties of nature, and poetic
feeling. Whether he, or Pietro delle Vigne, were the inventor of the
sonnet, in its true Italian form, is still a question, although the oldest
specimen extant be from the pen of the Judge: but if this especial proof
of creative genius be denied him, Frederic devised various
complicated metres, in the admired troubadour style.
But Frederic, busy, agitated, and even harassed, as
was his life, did not confine his intellectual efforts to the lighter
branches of literature. He preceded Albertus Magnus, and Friar Bacon, as
well as Lord Bacon, in substituting observation to speculation. He occupied
himself much with astronomy, which he studied independently of astrology. He
made a philosophic use of his friendly relations with Oriental princes,
very materially to enlarge his knowledge of Natural History, by obtaining from
them animals then unknown in Europe, as elephants, camels, lions, tigers,
even camelopards, and various others, which were carefully tended in
gardens, or menageries. He himself wrote a book upon falconry;
as did his Marshal, Giordano Rufo, under his superintendence and instruction,
one upon the horse; which are said to show, the first, such perspicuous
views of ornithology, and both, such intelligent perceptions in
comparative anatomy, as entitle the Emperor to a very high place amongst
early Naturalists. This spirit of physical investigation led
to various useful experiments, and to some idle ones,—if, in the then
state of scientific ignorance, any can justly be termed idle—which last
were distorted by his enemies into crimes. A single instance of each may
suffice. He ordered two dogs to be similarly fed, and the one
immediately taken a-hunting whilst the other slept; then both to
be killed and opened, in order to ascertain which process was the
most favourable to digestion. The Minorite, Salimbeni, who, contrary to
general testimony, makes two condemned criminals the subjects of this
investigation, as bitterly condemns the following. In order to ascertain which
is the natural or original language, he had two children reared from
their birth by mutes, and their first words sedulously watched for. This attempt proved an absolute failure; both children dying, perhaps for
want of tender nursing, but, the Franciscan thinks, as the inevitable
consequence of such inhuman silence.
Patrons of the Fine Arts other monarchs had so far
been, as to build churches, castles, and palaces; decorating their
architectural works with sculpture and painting, such as they then were.
But so destitute had they been of the sense of beauty in these arts, that
the most exquisite temples and theatres remaining as specimens of
the masterpieces of classical antiquity, had, together with the statues
contained in them, been considered merely as magazines of stone, whence
building materials might be procured more conveniently and cheaply than
from distant quarries. Frederic II appears to have been nearly
the first person who perceived the marvellous beauty of
these' remains, their ineffable superiority to all subsequent productions;
and he ordered excavations in search of sculpture to be made in various
places, chiefly in Sicily. He found a congenial spirit in the artist,
Nicola Pisano, who, waiting upon him to submit architectural designs for
churches, castles, and palaces, to his inspection, was
immediately taken into his service and employed to execute some
of his plans. Thenceforward Nicola was Fredericks principal architect,
sculptor, goldsmith, and civil engineer; and, conscious of the excellence
of the ancients, he laboured to form himself upon their model. The degree
to which he succeeded can be appreciated only by those who have had
an opportunity of comparing his carvings with those of his predecessors
and contemporaries. Fredericks beautiful gold coin, the already-mentioned augustale, despite the
Angevine usurper’s endeavours to suppress it, still exists to exhibit
Nicola’s skill in that department. But in the Arts, as in Literature,
Frederic was not a mere patron; the designs for some of his edifices were
his own; nor did he give his attention to the ornamental alone. He
built and repaired towns. He employed Nicola as an engineer, amongst
other things to repair the gigantic Roman works for preventing the
destructive overflow of the lake Celano. He himself is said to have
devised improvements in fortification, and a monument of his own engineering
talent remains in the bridge over the Volturno, at Capua, said
to have been wholly built from his own plans. Upon this bridge the
grateful Capuans placed statues of the Emperor and his two Italian Judges,
Pietro delle Vigne and Taddeo da Suessa, though whether the work of Nicola Pisano
himself, or of his scholar, Nicola Matuccio, is a question upon which
connoisseurs were divided as long as the statues were extant, the bent of
opinion being for the latter. Undecided it must now be laid to rest; the
image of Frederic, which alone of the three had survived the injuries
of time, having, in the maniac antipathy to royalty and antiquity, with
which, at the close of the last century, the first French revolution had
filled the minds of the ignorant, been thrown down, mutilated, and finally
destroyed. Fortunately, the Neapolitan historical antiquary, Daniele, had,
some time before, had a cast of the head taken, and a ring cut from the
cast. The cast, like the statue is lost, but the ring still exists, in the
possession of one well entitled to the relic, namely, the German historian
of the House of Hohenstaufen, Friedrich von Raumer. The resemblance
between the head upon the ring and the head upon the remaining augustali,
or rather their identity, is said to be striking.
Frederic’s chief musicians appear to have been
Saracens; but he himself was, in contemporary judgment, only too successful as
an amateur; his skill in this art being, in the eyes of Salimbeni and
Gregory IX, nearly as heinous a sin as his employment of Moslem
performers, probably his instructors. The acme of his offences in this
kind, however, was the appearance at his court of dancing girls, sent
him by his Moslem allies—it may be presumed from Egypt—and the sole
extenuation of this offence against Christian decorum, must be sought in
the description, given by Matthew Paris, of their performance before the
Earl of Cornwall when visiting his sister Isabella. This entertainment was
given by the Emperor, not to the Earl, but to the Empress, in her private
apartment—to which, according to mediaeval custom, she seems to
have been then confined by expectation, not actually immediate, of dn
increase of family—and she invited her brother to enjoy it with her. She
would hardly have been thus gracious, relatively to the fair dancers, if
jealous of them. The historian, who is likely to have received the
account from the Prince’s lips, represents the dance as alike beautiful
and marvellous; and also, by implication, at least, as free from the
customary objectionable character, no idea of pain to the modesty of an
English princess, appearing. He says, that two wondrous fair Saracen
maidens presented themselves, standing each upon two balls. Upon these
balls they moved over a polished floor, striking their cymbals in harmony
with their gay song; fled each other, sought each other, intertwined their
arms in divers pretty attitudes; then, discarding a ball apiece,
gracefully pursued the discarded balls, each moving upon her
single remaining ball; recovered the others, and began a new series
of dances in various fashions.
Frederic’s love for the favourite mediaeval pastimes,
the chase and hawking, shows itself in his treatise on falconry, in his extant
letters, dated from the most distant parts of his dominions, inquiring
after particular hawks and their broods, giving directions for their
management, &c., and in the numerous train of falconers,
huntsmen, dogs, birds, trained leopards—Oriental were superadded by
him to the European forms of the chase—that accompanied him wherever he went.
The main difference, in this respect, betwixt him and his contemporaries,
princes or subjects, being, that his pastime was to them an
engrossing pursuit, and that he sought rest from its fatigues
in pleasures somewhat more intellectual than those of the wine-cup.
Though keeping a table described as delicately magnificent, he was
remarkably temperate in his habits.
BOOK
V.
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