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MEDIEVAL HISTORY LIBRARY |
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BOOK
V.
CONRAD IV—WILLIAM—RICHARD.
CHAPTER
I.
CONRAD IV. [ 1250—1252.
End of Lewis IX’s Crusade — State of Germany — Conrad and
William — Innocent’s Return to Italy — Manfred’s first
Re-Agency — Difficulties — Exploits — Negotiations.
It may be well, ere proceeding with the history of the Holy Roman Empire and the Sicilies,
succinctly to narrate the conclusion of the canonized French King’s
Crusade, with which the history has no further connexion. And, first,
a word relative to the Moslem rulers of Egypt.
Eyub, the Sultan whom Lewis attacked, had looked upon
the Mamelukes as both his most efficient force, and that in which—from
their insulated position, as slaves purchased in childhood and trained solely
for war—he might place most confidence. In this belief, he had so
augmented their numbers, that now—Eyub himself having, as
before said, died during the royal Crusader’s delay at Damietta, and
his only son, Turanshah or Moattam, as he is diversly named, being in
Syria—they were really masters of Egypt. For the moment, however, the
deceased Sultan’s favourite wife, Chajahreldor, (in English) the
Pearl-tree, managed to elude their sovereignty. Having no son of
her own for whom to seek the throne, she resolved to secure it for the
right heir. To him she instantly despatched intelligence of his father’s death;
whilst at home, carefully concealing that event, she, in the name of Eyub,
issued orders to Bibars Bondokdar, the chief Emir of the Mamelukes, to
swear allegiance to Turanshah, and make his subordinate Emirs do the same.
Not till he and they had thus pledged themselves and their men, did she
reveal the fact that the Sultan was no more: and, feeling themselves
bound, they attempted not to oppose Turanshah’s accession.
Army, court, and country were now anxiously expecting
the new monarch; so were Lewis and his Crusaders, whose fate, hemmed in,
as they were, beyond the possibility of escape, and hourly looking for
massacre or actual starvation—only by the surrender of their arms could
they, so situated, purchase food—hung upon his nod. But not in
inaction did the Mamelukes expect him. They meditated the recovery of Damietta,
by such a detachment as could safely be spared from the business of watching
the Christian army. Had they succeeded, their next measure would, no
doubt, have been the butchery of their actual, and of their virtual
prisoners, whom they kept in suspense, until the issue of the dash upon
Damietta should be known.
Connected with this attempt is one of the incidents
that characterize the Middle Ages. Queen Margaret had accompanied her consort
upon his Crusade: but, being far advanced in pregnancy, when the army
quitted Damietta, she was judged unfit to encounter the fatigues and
dangers of the march to Cairo; and left there to await, as
was supposed, in quiet security, the birth of her child. There she
learned the King’s disasters, and the threatening approach of the
Mamelukes; and, immediately sending for an old Knight, especially charged
with her protection, she knelt at his feet, and required him to bind
himself by a solemn oath to grant her a yet unspoken boon. He of course
took the required oath, and she asked her boon. It was that he would on no
plea stir from her apartment; and, should the
infidels master the town, would strike his sword to her heart, before they
could reach her chamber. The old Knight, far from expressing admiration or
surprise at her prayer, or any reluctance to perform the dreadful office he had
blindly undertaken, quietly answered, “Madam, I had already thought of so
doing.” Happily, the garrison showed itself prepared to make a
resolute defence; and the Mameluke detachment—that had calculated upon
either a surprise, or the discouragement caused by the King’s position,
for the success of their enterprise—felt that they were foiled. They
abandoned their enterprise and retreated.
During this interval, Turanshah had reached Cairo,
and, upon the repulse of the attempt to surprise Damietta,
the negotiations with the French King assumed more activity. The
terms, to which the young Sultan acceded, were, owing perhaps to the
intervention of the Emperor Frederic, who was greatly respected by
Levantine Moslem sovereigns, more liberal than invaders, so completely in
his power, had any right to hope for. They were, that the
royal Crusader should ransom himself and his host for a sum of 80,000
gold bezaunts—worth at that time somewhere
about £50,000 sterling—and swear to evacuate Egypt, Damietta of
course included. Further, all prisoners on both sides, made since the
signature of the treaty with the Emperor Frederic, were to be released,
and all things replaced, as far as might be, in the state ordered by that
treaty. Whether Turanshah, like his grandfather, had Jerusalem to
give, may be questionable; but the dissolution of the ephemeral Kharizmian domination seems to have left the city, for
the moment, open to the first occupant; whilst the Sultan of Egypt was the
strongest of those at hand to profit by the opportunity.
But all was not done when these terms were agreed
upon. Scarcely was the treaty concluded, on neither side as yet confirmed by oath, when one of the
contracting parties ceased to exist. The young Sultan had
offended both her to whom he owed his crown, and those upon whom his
retaining it depended. He demanded of his stepmother an account of his father’s
treasures: she replied, “They were spent in defending Egypt from
the invader;” and became his enemy. He had brought Syrian courtiers
and attendants with him to Cairo, and the favours lavished upon them
irritated the Egyptian Emirs. He betrayed dislike and contempt for the
rude Mamelukes; and headed by their Emir, Bibars Bondokdar, they murdered
him.
Turanshah Moattam had been an only child, and in his
haste to secure his heritage, he had left his family in Syria. There was,
therefore, no heir present to claim
the succession. Eyubite princes, descendants of
both Saladin and Malek el Adel, still, indeed, abounded; but they
were absent, and do not appear to have been even thought of, upon
this occasion. Moreover, Bibars was now all powerful, and though he chose not,
then, to usurp the throne, he did choose to seat thereon a sovereign,
whose total want of birthright must insure submission to his will. To
this end he proclaimed Eyub’s widow, Chajahreldor, Sultana, giving her in
marriage to an eminent Emir, named Asseddin Aibek; puppets, who could, he
was certain, move, but as he should pull the wires.
Whilst Bibars was thus arranging the government which
he, as yet, shrank from openly assuming,
Lewis and his Crusaders, having long since given up their arms as the
main price of their daily bread, stood upon the brink of the grave. The
Mamelukes, their appetite for blood quickened rather than slaked by the
taste which they had had of Turanshah’s, now thirsted for that of the
Christians; who, disarmed and helpless, saw no chance of escape
from the swords and daggers on all sides menacing them. But Bibars
Bondokdar well knew the value of 80,000 gold bezaunts:
and, hearing of their danger, hastened to avert their loss. With some
difficulty could even he persuade the Mamelukes, that a large sum of
money, and the peaceable surrender of Damietta, from before which their
comrades had been repulsed, were advantages amply repaying the sacrifice
of the pleasure anticipated in butchering Christians. That done, he,
through his creatures, Chajahreldor and her husband, confirmed
Turanshah’s treaty.
But now again arose a difficulty. The mistrustful
Emirs of the Mamelukes insisted, that, to the usual oath, Lewis should add
these words: “If I keep not this engagement, may I be steemed not only perjured but a Christian who denies God, God’s law, and his own
baptism, spitting and trampling upon the Cross!” offering in return, to bind
themselves by a similar imprecation with regard to Mohammed. But Lewis
positively refused to utter such blasphemy; and his refusal enhancing the
mistrust that had dictated the demand, Emirs and Mamelukes, with drawn
swords, menaced instant death in case of non-compliance. Lewis answered: “God
has made you masters of my body, but not of my soul; that is in no
hands but his alone”. The Mamelukes, imputing this refusal
to the admonitions of the Patriarch of Jerusalem, seized the old man,
and bound his hands behind his back so tightly, that the blood burst from
his fingers. The tortured octogenarian prelate entreated the King to pronounce
the imprecation, since, as he meant honestly to fulfil his promises, the
penalty could never be incurred; adding that if sin there were in uttering
the horrid words, that sin he took upon his own soul. Still the King
hesitated, partly lest accident should prevent fulfilment to the letter,
in every the most minute point, and he should thus incur
the penalty, partly from sheer horror at uttering blasphemy. And at
length his persisting in scrupulosity convinced the Mamelukes that he must
be honest. They were now satisfied with an ordinary oath.
The Crusaders were now amply supplied both with
provisions and with boats to convey them down the Nile. Lewis, upon reaching
Damietta, surrendered it, and embarked with his family and his army for Acre.
There he found the Pisans and the Genoese, still, as they had
for weeks been, reckless of the distressed Crusaders in Egypt, and
employing all the artillery—if so it may be
called— then known, in battering each other’s piece of the town. Nor
in other respects were the prospects of the newcomers cheering. From the Prince
of Antioch, reduced to the condition of a tributary to the Mongols, no
assistance could be hoped. The Mongol Khan, who had sought Lewis’s
cooperation, had failed to perform his share of the engagement; and despondency
prevailed amongst the Crusaders. Even the King’s surviving brothers, the
Earls of Poitiers and Anjou, were so infected with this feeling, that
from Acre they returned to France, taking with them all who chose to think
their vow discharged by the sufferings and perils undergone in Egypt. Lewis
himself felt that his Crusade was thus far a
failure; and that he must accomplish something, ere he could reputably leave
the East, as having achieved his adventure. Thus impressed,
he remained behind with that portion of the army, which either
sympathized with, or was bound to him.
In France, the tidings of the Egyptian disaster had
given rise to great disorders. A new Crusade, for the King’s rescue, was,
without any authority, vehemently preached by an old Cistercian monk,
usually called the Hungarian Magister, or Master, who asserted that he
was commissioned so to do, by the Blessed Virgin, in an autograph letter.
He addressed the most ignorant of the people, as ploughmen, shepherds (who
took the cross in such numbers as to give his rabble the name of Croisade des Pastoureaux), shepherdesses, and children.
For a while the Regent Blanche seems, from their professions
and decent conduct, to have believed that their leaders meant well,
though she could surely expect no advantage from their untaught zeal. But
presently, either maniacs, or designing robbers, with criminals of all kinds,
joining them, diverted their crusading zeal from the deliverance of
their holy monarch to the profitable punishment of more accessible
misbelievers. They now plundered and murdered Jews; then—by some
hallucination inconceivable in Crusaders— upon an ecclesiastical student’s
disputing their leader’s mission, turned their rage against the clergy, who
suffered all sorts of ill-usage at their hands. Government
now interfered; troops were sent against the Pastoureaux; the leaders
were slain or taken, and the rabble dispersed.
This strange insurrection furnished the Queen Regent
with a plea, upon which earnestly to entreat that her son would return
home. Lewis submitted the question to his noble fellow-crusaders, when a
large majority decided for compliance with the Queen’s wishes. A small
minority, including Joinville, the biographer and friend of his
sainted King, objected, because Queen Blanche had proved herself fully
equal to governing France; and for a monarch to quit Palestine, without
leaving any memorial of his efforts in behalf of
the Holy City, were disgraceful. They spoke the very sentiments of Lewis,
and he determined to remain, allowing those who blamed his resolution to
return home.
But still Jerusalem was not restored, and Lewis,
deserted by so many, was quite unequal to attempting a siege. He would now fain
have made a pilgrimage thither, upon the plighted word of its Moslem masters
and neighbours for his security; but, against thus risking his life
upon Mohammedan safe-conducts, all unanimously remonstrated. The argument
most influential, probably, with the devout King, was, that future
crusaders might make his example a precedent, for holding their crusading vow
thus easily fulfilled. He wept over his disappointment, made his pilgrimage to
Nazareth, and occupied himself with fortifying Caesarea, Joppa, and Sidon.
The alliance of the King of France was now sought by
the Sultan of Aleppo, against the Mameluke murderers of his cousin Turan
shah. Bibars Bondokdar, through Chajahreldor and Asseddin, offered him more
advantageous terms to join them, against Aleppo. Lewis, unblamed
by Pope, Patriarch, or Military Orders,—all of
whom had so furiously attacked Frederic for those treaties with
Mohammedans, by which he had recovered a large portion of the Kingdom of
Jerusalem with the Holy City itself,—negotiated with
both parties, asking Jerusalem and little more than a line of
communication with Acre, as the price of his alliance. Neither party
agreed to his terms. The Sultan of Aleppo, aided by the Turkmans, drove
the Mamelukes out of Palestine, but kept his conquest for himself.
And tidings of the death of Queen Blanche, in December, 1252,—whose place, as regent of France, there was
none to supply, inasmuch as the King durst not trust his brothers with
such authority,—compelled Lewis to return home,
without any compensation whatever for his disappointment; in fact with the mortifying consciousness of not having
accomplished anything.
To resume the more especial subject of these pages.
Conrad, upon receiving the intelligence of his father’s death, at once
committed his affairs, south of the Alps, as ordered by the late Emperor’s
will, to the conduct of his half-brother, Manfred; devoting his own time
and thoughts solely to the establishment of his authority in Germany. This
he might fairly hope would not be a very tedious or difficult task, his
prospects there being at least not discouraging. With respect to external relations he was at ease. His most powerful neighbour,
France, grateful for the late Emperor’s good offices, was kindly
disposed towards him, and had she been the reverse, the
prolonged absence of the King, with some of his best warriors,
incapacitated her for hostile enterprise. Waldemar of Denmark had never been
able to regain the Slavonian provinces, surrendered as the price of his release
from captivity; and, since his decease, A.D. 1241, his
sons, scarcely one of whom died a natural death, had been at war with
each other for the crown; Eric, his heir, the best of them, being
presently murdered by his brother Abel. Nothing but the weakness of the
Empire, caused by papal persecution of the Emperor, had saved Denmark from
being again reduced to vassalage; and, this weakness long continuing and
increasing, Danish history is henceforward as unconnected with that of
Germany, as can well be that of any two neighbouring states. Poland, similarly engrossed with the broils of her many
Dukes, who ruled now conjointly, now independently, and with dread
of, or resistance to, the ever-recurring inroads of the Mongols, similarly
escaped renewed vassalage, solely by the debility of the Empire.
Russia was now enslaved by that division of the
Mongols which had settled upon the Volga, and not even at peace in her slavery.
The north-western Vassal Princes were generally at war with Sweden or the
Teutonic Knights, or with both together, for sovereignty over the still
independent Heathen tribes, inhabiting the eastern shores of the Baltic.
In the south, Daniel of Halitsh showed some disposition to meddle with German
affairs; but his real object was security at home. In the hope of
obtaining efficient allies against his Mongol masters, he had taken
an active part with Bela of Hungary, and Wenceslas of Bohemia in their
quarrel with the Duke of Austria, as he now did in asserting Ottocar’s pretensions to the duchy.
Hungary, as yet only
recovering, and that slowly, from Mongol devastation, limited her interference
with German affairs to the struggle for the adjacent Austrian duchy. The
Eastern Empire, for which several Greek princes were contending, whilst Baldwin
II hardly maintained himself within the walls of Constantinople, could scarcely
be said to exist; and Servia and Bulgaria felt their independence more
secure.
Germany itself was much in its ordinary condition. The
disputed succession to Thuringia remained undecided, although the
division, in which it eventuated, had already in a manner taken place. The
Margrave of Misnia had at length accepted the Saxon palatinate and the
eastern province, with the hand of the Imperial Princess, for his son
and heir Albert: and, this half of the principality being absorbed into
the margraviate of Misnia, the name of this once mighty kingdom, duchy,
and lastly landgraviate of Thuringia, vanishes from the map of Europe. Not
so, however, the latter title; it was merely limited to the western
provinces, of which the Duchess of Brabant held possession; and, as the
landgraviate of Hesse, they, in the end, became the portion of her son,
Henry, surnamed the Child:—a son of the Duke’s prior marriage inheriting Brabant. But this
division, though existing as a fact, was not yet legalized by a Diet, or
recognised by the parties: both of whom still claimed the whole; or, at the
very least, the Duchess, the eastern allodia; the
Margrave, a large share of the western fiefs. Tranquillity was therefore
far from restored.
But, if some prospect of subsidence appeared in
Thuringia, in Austria the contest became, from day to day, more complicated.
Those who desired a hereditary Duke were now divided, some acknowledging
Margaret, on condition of her marriage to Ottocar, others her son
Frederic, and others again her niece Gertrude. Gertrude indeed
soon alienated her partisans. She had lost her second husband, the
Margrave of Baden; and, leaving her infant children by him, Frederic and
Agnes, to the care of his aunt, the Duchess of Bavaria, she remarried with
a son of the Russian Prince of Halitsh, greatly offending the
Austrians. To anticipate a little, in order to have done with this
uninteresting princess, her Russian consort, when he found her pretensions
unpopular, deserted her; whereupon she, in utter regardlessness of her children’s interests, her own dignity, and her maternal duties, sold her
birthright to Bela IV for a mess of porridge, or in other words
for support and protection. Thenceforward, those who had been her
partisans were divided between Bela, who at once put forward his claim,
and her son, another Frederic.
The ducal title of Meran was extinct, with the race
that bore it; having expired in the person of the only son of Duke Otho
and Beatrice of Hohenstaufen, King Philip’s niece; as if nuptials, so
inauspiciously solemnized, could not escape the doom of those who had
stained them with blood. The large widely scattered possessions of
the Andechs family were divided amongst sisters
of the last Duke, and collaterals.
The confederation of towns, self-entitled the Rhine
League, was prosperous and increasing; comprising, about this time, nearly
sixty cities. Divers Saxon towns followed the
example set them on the Rhine, as did, a little later, others in
Franconia. But all alike, though, with
scarcely an exception, loyal to Conrad, were absorbed in the especial
business of the Leagues; to wit, in repressing the noble marauders who
were fostered by the debility of the sovereign authority. Throughout most
German provinces the usual broils existed; and, whilst nearly everywhere
the clergy, at Innocent’s bidding, supported the Anti-king, his uncle
the Duke of Brabant, with some few Lotharingian connexions, alone amongst the Princes deserted
the Imperial cause.
Innocent, upon learning the death of his mighty
antagonist, resolved, with a view to deriving the greatest possible advantage
from the event, to resume his station in Italy without loss of time; and
at once despatched the Archbishop of Ravenna thither, to prepare the way for
him. But he likewise felt it indispensable before he left
the vicinity of Germany, to place his Anti-king in a
position similarly to profit by that event. His first measures
in Italy, therefore, were taken from Lyons; and all of them clearly
proved that his fierce persecution of Frederic II, was not provoked by
sinfulness, heresy, misbelief, or disbelief, in him, but originated solely
in the desire to overthrow a dynasty, whose power and individual
energies opposed a formidable and increasing barrier against
papal usurpation of sovereignty. He persecuted the youthful Conrad,
whom he charged with no personal fault, as inveterately as his father. He
addressed letters to the Apulians and Sicilians,
containing the most inflated, and really brutal congratulations upon their
deliverance from the storms that had so long desolated the land; to which
were added information that the deposal of Frederic included that of
his son Conrad, and a consequent positive prohibition to acknowledge any king
of the Hohenstaufen race, or indeed any authority but that of the Pope, as
Lord Paramount. The letters concluded with a command immediately to set up
the standard of the Church, his Holiness having determined never more to grant
Sicily or Apulia to emperor, king, duke, or earl, but to
incorporate those countries indissolubly with, the Estates of
the Church. At the same time he is said to have
covertly instigated the towns, that had greatly thriven under Frederic’s
liberal policy, to aim at the republican forms and independence of the
Lombard cities. Probably he thought awakening such aspirations the only
chance of alienating them from Frederic’s son, while such
feeble republics could never, without external protection, resist the
will of a pope.
To Germany he addressed epistles equally violent and
imperious, commanding every prince, prelate, noble, city, town, and
village, as they would, here and hereafter, escape the severest pains and
penalties of the Church, to forsake Conrad, the excommunicated son of an
excommunicated father, and acknowledge William as their king. He commanded
the Margrave of Misnia to break off the matrimonial contract between his son
and the deposed Emperor’s daughter; or, if the marriage were unfortunately already
solemnized, to beware that he be not thereby seduced from his allegiance
to King William. He inforced the interdict upon all
places that should adhere to Conrad; further commanded all the possessions
of Ghibelines to be confiscated; and pronounced the private property
of the House of Hohenstaufen, in Swabia, Franconia, and elsewhere,
forfeited, as well as its crowns.
If Innocent failed in his endeavour thus to raise up
an enterprising party for his anti-king in Germany, he succeeded in checking
the activity of those who would not desert the lawfully elected monarch,
to whom they had sworn allegiance. The Margrave of Misnia celebrated
his son’s union with Conrad’s half-sister, but took so little share in the contest for the Empire, that he might be
called neutral. Of the Duke of Bavaria, though perforce staunch to
his imperial son-in-law, much the same might be said; his wish to secure
the ducal hat of Austria to the son of his wife’s nephew, an orphan
domiciliated in his palace, and like a child of his own, engrossing his
energies. If the loyalty of Conrad’s connexions and relations was
thus passive, what could be expected from others? Some of the cities
upon the Rhine, indeed, expelled their bishops for publishing the bull of
excommunication against the young, unoffending monarch, to whom all had
sworn allegiance; but most of his adherents were content to wish him well
in silence. Even in his own Swabia, where the democratic Swiss cantons,
Schwitz, Uri, and Zurich, confederated to support their sovereign, (the
first Swiss confederation known), several great vassals, allured by the
prospect of dividing the Hohenstaufen domains, forsook him; and
the majority of the lower nobles desired only to prolong that absence
of controlling authority, which left free scope to their tyrannical, as to
their marauding propensities.
But the now impatient heads of the Papal faction,
without waiting to ascertain the result of the various endeavours to gain
partisans, adopted against Conrad the nefarious projects that had scarcely been
disowned against his father. The loyal citizens of Ratisbon had solicited
the protection of Conrad and Duke Otho against the oppression of their
Guelph, ecclesiastical superiors, their Bishop, and the Abbot of St.
Emeran. The armed intervention of the King and the Duke, driving the
prelates out of the town, compelled them to sue for peace; when a
reconciliation between the parties was seemingly effected.
The Bishop, upon returning to his palace within
the walls, found it, as he must have expected, materially damaged by
the triumphant hostile party. It is asserted that his exasperation at this
very common-place incident of civil war, was so excessive, as to give
consistency to a vague project, already floating in his mind; and, with
more devotion to Innocent, than to Him, whose ordained minister,
Innocent like himself, was, he resolved that Conrad, as an enemy of the Church,
should be sacrificed, i.e. murdered, for the honour of
God. The opportunity seemed favourable, as the young sovereign, unapprehensive
of danger amongst the loyal citizens of Ratisbon, occupied a house so
small, as not to afford nocturnal accommodation for more than himself and,
four attendants.
In the middle of the night, when all Ratisbon slept, a
band of armed men, vassals and hirelings of the Bishop and the Abbot,
attacked the house, broke down the outer door with axes, killed the first
servant who attempted to oppose their entrance, made prisoners of the
other three, burst into the royal bedchamber, and plunged their
swords and daggers into the body of its occupant, as he lay asleep.
Then, rushing into the street, they roused the citizens from their slumbers,
with the triumphant announcement, that they had delivered the Empire from
the excommunicated, intrusive prince, a sacrilegious rebel against
the Pope. In this they were mistaken. A devotedly loyal vassal of his lawful,
though excommunicated, sovereign, a Graf von Eberstein, Eversheim, or Wysheim, for
unhappily such discordance touching the name of this hero exists amongst
the old chroniclers, discovered the scheme, so completely at the last
moment, that he had barely time to get into the king’s quarters, before
the assassins appeared. There was not a moment to awaken the
neighbourhood, or in any way to seek assistance; he therefore merely
persuaded Conrad not to attempt resistance against overwhelming numbers,
but to foil the murderers, by so concealing himself as to elude their
search. Conrad followed his counsel. But this genuinely loyal vassal
and devoted friend well knew that no concealment could long escape
discovery, if the search were, as it would be, vigorously prosecuted;
therefore, lying down in the bed his King had just quitted, he silently,
in apparent sleep, received the wounds designed for his liege Lord.
When Conrad learned the price at which he had been
saved, his grief and rage were unbounded; but his position and his public
duties compelled him to restrain these feelings. His friends urged that,
excommunicated as he already was, to risk further alienating the
clergy by shedding ecclesiastical blood, would really be rendering the
sacrifice by which he had been rescued of no avail. The Bishop was suffered to fly; and he fled, uncensured by the unapostolic successor
of St. Peter, for either his intended regicide, or the actual murder
committed by his orders. He took refuge in Bohemia; and as, encouraged,
perhaps, by impunity, he subsequently perpetrated crimes less venial than
regicide in Innocent’s eyes, he ended by being deprived of his
see, and compelled to take the monastic vow. The Abbot of St. Emeran
was less fortunate. By the orders of the King and the Duke he was seized,
deposed, and punished, though not capitally; the rights and privileges of
the Abbey were pronounced forfeited; and only the humbly earnest
prayers of the monks saved the abbey itself from destruction. The house,
the scene of the flagitious deed, was razed, and a chapel built upon its
site. This attempt upon Conrad’s life was made upon the 28th of December
1250, in one fortnight after the death of his father.
Meanwhile both King and Anti-king were diligently
preparing for a trial of strength. The Pope’s orders to all the
ecclesiastical princes, to appear in arms with every vassal they could
command or influence, were stringent. The newly elected Archbishop of
Mainz, nevertheless, positively refused to raise troops for any anti-king,
grounding his refusal upon the scriptural injunction against unsheathing the
sword; he added the remark, that the business of the Supreme Head of the Church
was to make peace, not war. Innocent instantly deposed him, appointing in
his stead a Graf von Eppenstein, of course a partisan of William’s, and who,
it is alleged, helped on his nomination by the payment of a handsome sum
of money into the papal treasury. Such a contribution was
much needed; for so exhausted was the Anti-king’s exchequer, that, in
order to take the field, he was, even then, mortgaging Burgundian and Arelat
towns, namely, Arles, Besançon, and Lausanne, to the French Duke of
Burgundy, for 10,000 marks of silver. The fugitive Bishop of Ratisbon, as yet exulting at the Court of Bohemia, in his
impunity, was otherwise serving the Papal cause there, by exciting
Wenceslas to invade Bavaria; thus to deprive Conrad of
his father-in-law’s forces, by keeping them at home for the defence of his
own duchy.
Whilst Conrad was weakened by the compulsory absence
of Duke Otho, and the reluctance of many of his friends to come forward, the
Bishop of Metz brought William considerable reinforcements from Lorrain.
In the spring of 1251, the adversaries met near Oppenheim, and
Conrad, again placed in disadvantageous circumstances, again suffered a defeat.
The triumphant Antiking hastened to Lyons to exchange
congratulations with Innocent. He was received with all the honours that
a Pope could, without detriment to his own asserted supremacy, pay an
Emperor; and in return readily acknowledged, as lawful, all papal encroachments
and usurpations in Germany. Could he do less, when to such an usurpation of the rights of the Chapter of Mainz he was,
perhaps, indebted for his recent victory?
Innocent now felt that he had one enough for his
German dependent, to allow of leaving him to his own resources; and,
immediately after this interview, set out for Italy. He took his way
through Savoy, in order to win that
powerful county back from the Ghibeline interest; nor was
this difficult. Amedeo was dead; his heir, Bonifazio, a minor; and
the regency in the hands of the boy’s uncle, Conte Tommaso, the husband of
Beatrice Fiesca. The only remaining Ghibeline tie of the family was the
marriage of Bonifazio’s sister, Beatrice, to
Manfred; and the minor had no voice in the matter.
Innocent next visited Milan, where he was received
with seeming cordiality, much festivity, and extraordinary honours; the baldacchino, or state canopy, is said to have been invented upon this occasion,
expressly for him—a report that may be questioned—and he was requested
to name the Podesta for the ensuing year. But his enjoyment of this
reception was somewhat disturbed, by a request for the repayment of expenses
incurred in his cause. He pleaded the exhausted state of his
finances, through his exertions in Germany for the common good, that
is to say, for the relief of the Empire, on both sides of the Alps, from a
race of ambitious, rapacious, irreligious tyrants; he promised largely for the future, and hurried forward to avoid further urgency.
When safe beyond the territories of his creditors, he, rather
indiscreetly, retaliated the unwelcome demand for money by attacking some
late Milanese encroachments upon ecclesiastical jurisdiction; the consequence
of which was, that in this virtual metropolis of Lombardy, Guelphism cooled down to the degree of selecting a
Ghibeline, an uncle of Manfred’s, Marchese Lancia, as Captain-General of
the Lombard League.
At Bologna, the Pope made a politic display of
clemency by soliciting the release of Enzio’s fellow prisoner, Buoso da Doaro—Eboli seems to have been early ransomed
or exchanged. This was granted: but his hopes of similarly obtaining
the restitution of some portions of the Papal dominions, which this city
had seized, were disappointed. In fact, his journey was by no means one of
unalloyed satisfaction to Innocent. He had, in its course, by his
arrogance and exorbitant expectations of support, alienated many of his
partisans; and he discovered that Guelph cities were Guelph—or in words
more to the purpose, supported the Pope—only when to do so suited their
own interest or passions. Florence he did not
visit, perhaps thinking her securely Guelph and disagreeably democratic.
There, upon the first news of the Emperor’s death,
the Guelphs had discarded their compelled tranquillity, and driven away both
the Podesta appointed by Frederic of Antioch and the Ghibeline citizens,
re-establishing their bimensually changed Anziani, with
other ultra-popular institutions.
The Romans now invited the Pope to return to the
metropolis of Christendom. But in that really papal metropolis, Innocent IV did not choose, unless as its sovereign, to reside; and
for this the season seemed unpropitious. The Romans had, during his absence,
indulged in such thoroughly anarchial licence, their ideal of
liberty, that they themselves, growing weary at length of their own
violence, sought peace and security in submission to despotic control To this end they appointed a sole senator., an officer
analogous, it will be remembered, to the Lombard Podesta, being similarly
invested with temporary absolute authority. The person they selected
for their Senator was Brancaleone d’Andalone,
Conte di Casalecchio, a Bolognese nobleman, distinguished for
his wealth, his virtue, his inflexibility in the administration
of justice, and his arbitrary temper. Brancaleone waged war upon
offenders of all kinds and of all classes; vanquishing and severely
punishing all alike. Tranquillity was restored; but
Innocent looked upon the sovereign power of the Senator as more inimical
to the papacy than the frequent insurrections of the turbulent Romans. For
the present, he judged that he had enough upon his hands, without
engaging in a struggle with the Conte di Casalecchio for supremacy in Rome; and
he preferred taking up his abode momentarily at Perugia or Anagni,
whence he could as conveniently conduct his designs upon the Sicilian
kingdom; whilst awaiting the hour, not very distant, he presumed, when the
Romans should be tired of their Senator’s rigorous justice.
The execution of his designs upon the Sicilies, the
Pope flattered himself, could not be difficult, the government having
devolved upon a youth — Manfred — scarcely eighteen years of age, and
holding only imperfect, because delegated, authority. But what Manfred
was, how truly the son of his father, or how ready were the great
qualities he inherited from that great father to be elicited by the
first emergency, the supreme Pontiff had yet to learn. And so had
friend as well as foe; perhaps even Manfred was to be indebted to Innocent
IV, for a thorough knowledge of himself. In proportion, as these paternal
qualities developed themselves, the hatred, borne him merely for
his father’s sake, increased in acrimony. The aggregate of the sins, habitually
laid to the charge of the deceased Emperor, became too small a mass of
guilt when imputed to his son; and Manfred was further accused, as has
been seen, of parricide, as will be seen, of fratricide and nepoticide. Yet, as in regard to Frederic II, the same
chroniclers, who impute to Manfred such fearful crimes, superadded to manifold
ordinary offences, depict him as wise, valiant, charitable to the poor,
liberal in rewarding merit, a patron of the arts as of the science of the
age, both a patron and a cultivator of literature, easy of access, courteously affable in his demeanour, and naturally beloved by
all who approached him. It were needless to
consult Ghibeline writers for the character of their hero, when thus
described by his Guelph calumniators.
Upon first undertaking the government, the youthful
Regent found the kingdom prosperous, tranquil, and loyal; in spite of
factious misrepresentation, and the exertions of friars, so satisfactory
to his subjects had been the rule of Innocent’s reviled and excommunicated
Nero, whose death had, as a happy riddance, been made matter of
congratulation. Manfred retained all his father’s ministers, sedulously trod in
his father’s footsteps in the government of the kingdom, and gloried, as
much as he delighted, in the peaceful happiness he saw around him in
Apulia, whilst Germany, like Lombardy, was torn with civil war. The
state of Sicily, if equally satisfactory in regard to Conrad’s
interest, was, to Manfred individually, less so. His brother Henry, a boy
of about eleven years, was of course only nominally his deputy, the
administration of affairs being really intrusted to the young Prince’s
counsellor or tutor, the Marshal of Sicily. This officer was one Pietro
Ruffo, or Matteo Rufo, as the name is variously given, another man of
inferior birth, but of great talent and industry, whom Frederic II—the
fosterer, unheeding adventitious circumstances of ability wherever met
with —bad raised to high posts. But Ruffo was ambitious; he probably,
like Innocent, despised Manfred, as a mere youth, placed by parental
fondness in a situation to which he must be unequal: thus the able upstart thought the opportunity favourable for acquiring more
independent power; and whilst firmly maintaining Conrad’s
sovereignty, and resisting Papal usurpation, he disowned, as far
as might be without an open breach, the young Regent’s superior
authority. He evaded giving Manfred’s uncles, Galvano and Federigo Lania,
possession of the Sicilian domains bestowed upon them by the late Emperor,
and yet more obstinately, those added since his death, by their nephew.
But Manfred was prudent beyond what could have been anticipated at his
age; he made, for the moment, no attempt to coerce Ruffo, and the island
remained undisturbed.
But Manfred’s task of vicarious sovereignty was
destined to be arduous, and Innocent did not long permit him to reign in peace.
He began the war, by once more filling the kingdom, on both sides of the
strait, with swarms of Mendicant Friars, commissioned to
disseminate the opinions and inforce the
commands, contained in his, before-mentioned, epistles. He recalled
Cardinal Capoccio from Germany, that he might direct the proceedings
of these emissaries in Apulia, and assume the government as his Vicar
or Lieutenant. By a proclamation, he annulled, rather than repealed, all
that portion of Frederic’s code which related to ecclesiastics, because a
layman, from his inferior position, could not interfere with the laws of
God, as set forth by the Church. He renewed and aggravated the
interdict upon all places that should acknowledge, as king, a prince
incapacitated by excommunication, as was Conrad IV, from succeeding to the
throne. If by all these measures the Pope did not succeed to his wish
in alienating the kingdom from its hereditary sovereign, he did in
exciting doubts, dissensions, discontent, and impatience of the continuous
interdict: as also in persuading some ambitious nobles, and a few very
prosperous towns, that they would enjoy more power and more liberty,
as Papal vassals, than under the sway of the mighty and unyielding
German heirs of the Norman kings. His chief success was with the clergy,
to great numbers of whom, independence of the state appears to have been
an irresistible lure; though the wiser, and the higher members of that
body, like far the larger part of the baronage, dreaded, for themselves,
the despotism, which they saw boldly exhibited, in this arbitrary disposal
of kings and emperors.
Manfred was speedily informed of the spirit of
disaffection, thus generated in the realms committed to his charge; and it
appears to have alarmed him, the rather, from his consciousness, that he
could not rely upon the obedience, or even upon the cordial co-operation,
of the Marshal of Sicily. Therefore, when he found that Naples and
Capua, at the instigation of Papal emissaries, had so far forgotten their
wonted loyalty as to close their gates against himself, the Regent appointed by
the late Emperor, his alarm became serious. Under such circumstances,
he shrank from a contest, as Regent, with the Pope, as
Lord Paramount; and judged the personal presence of the actual
sovereign necessary to counteract papal intrigue, and confirm the wavering fidelity of his people. Earnestly, therefore, did he
entreat Conrad to visit his Sicilian kingdom forthwith; as a preliminary
step, sending him the ratification of all their father’s charters, whether
to town or to noble, and of all his final commands; also of all the measures that he, Manfred, had taken, or might in case
of emergency find it expedient to take. At the same time, being fully
aware of the popular impatience provoked by any privation of religious
rites, he would not delay seeking a reconciliation with the Pope. As a first
move towards this important object, he caused overtures to
be secretly made to Innocent, and inquiries as to the terms, upon
which the excommunication and interdict would be revoked.
But, whilst awaiting the result of these applications,
and hoping that his father’s death might have somewhat allayed the
pontiff’s animosity, Manfred did not for an instant relax his preparations
for defence. He exhorted barons, citizens, clergy, and peasants, to bear
in mind the allegiance they had sworn to Conrad, as the lawful
heir and successor of their long line of Norman Kings. In
the Saracens, to whom the idea of a papal government must needs be
odious, as necessarily fraught with intolerance of their religion,
probably with expulsion from their homes, and confiscation of their
property, he knew that he might feel perfect confidence; and he stationed
them wherever he most distrusted the people. The German legion, which
the late Emperor had brought to Apulia, he likewise believed to be
staunch, and he left it encamped beside the ill-disposed city of Troja, whilst
he himself repaired to Foggia, to raise more troops.
But, ere he could make any progress in this business, the
Germans, whose pay was much in arrear, leaving Troja uncontrolled,
appeared in battle array before Foggia, demanding their due, which they
well knew Manfred had not to give them, and threatening, in case of
non-compliance, to procure it for themselves, by sacking the town. Upon
this trying occasion the young Regent, who had no troops to oppose to
them, displayed the spirit and genius of his race. He took no such
precautionary measures, as betray the alarm that dictates them; but calmly
sent the following message to the mutineers: “Why come ye in arms
against me? Have ye forgotten that I am your Emperor’s son? If ye persist
in disobedience, I shall punish you more severely than ye expect. If ye
want your pay, depute, as is fitting, four unarmed men to present your
request, and I will return you a fitting answer.” The leaders of the
mutiny had now learned that the Regent, if a boy he were,
was not to be bullied, and repented of their attempt to turn his
inexperience to their advantage. They sent their request in the manner
he commanded, and received the small portion of their arrears, that
deficient funds and the exigencies of the moment would allow.
Scarcely was this riot quelled, when a sedition,
accompanied, as usual, with outrage, broke out at Andria, and thither, with the
troops immediately at hand, Manfred hastened. The conscious offenders fled
from the wrath they had provoked, leaving only women and children
in the town. But Manfred, as wisely clement as he was energetic,
sought rather to conciliate than terrify. He invited the fugitives to
return, and, beyond a heavy fine, inflicted no punishment, even upon the ringleaders.
But his satisfaction, in the bloodless reduction of
Andria to obedience, was early interrupted by information, that, no sooner
had he quitted Foggia, than the inhabitants had begun to prepare for
future rebellion, by fortifying their town. He led back his little army
during the night, and at daybreak the Foggians were startled by the sight of the offended prince at the
city-gate, ready to chastise their projected revolt. Their walls were of
course as yet hardly rising from the ground, and
they had no alternative; submission was unavoidable. The women, with
dishevelled hair, and accompanied by a deputation from the magistracy,
hurried forth, to throw themselves at his feet, and implore pardon. It was
granted, upon condition of the citizens destroying with their own hands
the incipient wall, and paying a heavy fine;
Manfred thus making the efforts to throw off his authority, the means of
supplying him with those sinews of war, in which he was most deficient,
viz., ready money.
Not quite so easily quelled were the disturbances at Baroli (or Barletta, for some uncertainty exists as to
which was their scene). The citizens had deposed the
magistrates appointed by Frederic, and elected others, to whom
they committed the administration of justice and the government of the town;
professedly, however, without prejudice to their loyalty to Conrad.
Manfred summoned a deputation from a town of such peculiarly, complexioned
loyalty, to attend him. He seems to have deemed it prudent to take
very little notice of their unlawful proceedings, but, reminding them that
they had sworn allegiance to his brother, he required them, in discharge
of a long established and acknowledged duty, to co-operate with him in the
maintenance of the royal authority, and afford their assistance in
reducing Naples and Capua, then in open rebellion, to obedience. The
deputies promised faithfully to report the Regent’s words to their fellow-citizens
and return with the answer. When they did so, they found, to their no
small surprise and annoyance, Manfred ready to receive it within a few
miles of the town, and at the head of his forces. The message with which
they were charged was so vague, that, despite all reverential
humility of phraseology, Manfred judged it designed only to
gain time, whilst preparations might be made for resistance. He sent
them back, with orders to bring him a categorical answer. But many Apulian
cities, including both Baroli and Barletta had
now, seduced by Innocent, formed a confederacy in emulation of the Lombard
League; and the citizens, trusting to the succours of their
confederates, refused to alter their answer, or to hold any further
communication with the Regent.
Manfred hastened forward, but found the gates closed against him. He called upon the townsmen to
open them to the representative of their King, and the reply was a
flight of arrows mingled with a shower of stones. He now commanded the
walls to be scaled: the troops advanced, but recoiled from the tempest of. missiles that met them; whilst some German
veterans are reported to have loudly grumbled, at
being ordered to storm well-defended walls by a beardless boy, reared in the
lap of luxury, and sitting on his horse, aloof from danger. But,
amidst these murmurs, they suddenly beheld that reprobated beardless
boy—who, on seeing them fall back, had dismounted—rush forward to lead the
storming party. They felt the rebuke, and no man hesitated to follow
their late Emperor’s gallant orphan. The walls, though
stoutly defended, were scaled, and still Manfred led; Manfred was the
first, who entered the town as victor. The chief punishment inflicted upon
the citizens, in addition to the regular and useful fine, was the
demolition of the walls that had encouraged their rebellious arrogance.
In all these difficulties and dangers, the Regent had
received no help from Sicily. In the beginning of the struggle he had demanded reinforcements thence, and summoned the Marshal to Apulia,
that they might, in a personal interview, concert measures for maintaining
the royal authority, on both sides the Faro; naming Galvano Lancia to
act as Ruffo’s deputy, during his brief absence. But Ruffo declared, that
he could neither spare troops, nor quit his post, even for an hour, to
confer with Manfred; and, at Messina, he excited such a riotous
sedition against Lancia, who had landed there upon his mission, as
drove him from the island. The Regent had no present means of chastising this
insubordinate officer, or compelling his obedience, and for such conduct in
Ruffo he was probably prepared. But grievously had he been disappointed by
the failure of support from two powerful noblemen, upon whom he was well
entitled to reckon as his firm friends and allies, to wit the Earls of
Caserta and of Aquino, the husbands of two of the late
Emperor’s illegitimate daughters, Violante and Anna. These gentlemen,
though they certainly did not profess themselves partisans of the Pope,
joined the malcontents, loudly complaining of being ill-used, as well in
not having received larger portions with their wives, as in seeing
their juvenile brother-in-law preferred to one of themselves,
as Regent of the kingdom.
But, notwithstanding these disappointments of the help
he ought to have received, Manfred’s heroic gallantry, judicious measures,
and rapid success, aided by that of his German officer, the Margrave of
Hohenberg, who reduced Avellino simultaneously with his own
conquest of Baroli or Barletta, checked the
seditious spirit, that had, for a moment, seemed to be gradually pervading
the kingdom. The confederated cities dissolved their League, Naples and
Capua nearly alone persisting in their republican aspirations and open revolt.
The Regent blockaded the first, and ravaged the territories of the second,
whilst expecting the arrival of Conrad, or the means of
besieging both at once.
This was Manfred’s position, when the Pope’s answer to
his overtures reached him. It was, that, upon his delivering over Apulia and
Sicily to Papal officers, taking the oath of allegiance, and doing homage
to the Holy See, he, Manfred, should be individually relieved from
his inherited excommunication, and the principality of Tarento should
be conferred upon him. Need it be said, that
he declined to purchase a part of his father’s bequest,
the principality of which he was in possession, by betraying the
trust which his father and his brother had reposed in him? Renouncing, for
the present at least, every idea of reconciliation with the inveterate
pseudo-Father of Christendom, the Regent devoted his thoughts to
the blockade of Naples, and looked impatiently for Conrad, to whom
even the refractory Marshal of Sicily would not, he felt assured, deny
obedience and reinforcements.
BOOK
V.
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