Frederick the Second

by Ernst Kantorowicz

  In spite of these heavy commitments the Emperor was the gainer. He had again secured two years’ respite for Sicily and could turn the Crusade to imperial advantage. Frederick’s present complaisance obliterated for the moment the annoyances of the last five years. In his first meeting with the Pope in 1222 the Emperor seems to have sought to get back into his power by some means or other the old imperial territories of central Italy, the “Recuperations” which he had been compelled to renounce in favour of the Church. He coveted in particular Spoleto and the Ancona March. Pope and Cardinals incontinently refused what the Pope termed “these unseemly requests.” This central Italian complex of territory cut Frederick’s empire in half, and drove a wedge between Sicily and imperial Italy. It was an unendurable thorn in Frederick’s side, and sooner or later the question would have to be thrashed out. Frederick absolutely needed at least the Adriatic coast districts, the March and Spoleto, as a corridor between Sicily and Lombardy. The time for forcible annexation had, however, not yet come and Frederick had prematurely disclosed his plans. The Roman Curia was on the qui vive. Not long after this the imperial governor, Gunzelin of Wolfenbüttel, committed certain encroachments, drove out papal officials and demanded that people should take the oath of allegiance to the Emperor. In vain the Emperor protested his innocence and declared that the Governor had exceeded his instructions; his assurances fell on deaf ears. Nothing short of the disgrace of Gunzelin and the intercession of Hermann of Salza sufficed. With that the storm blew over.

  The heavy obligations which Frederick had assumed at San Germano were in the spirit of his original vow: the Emperor was the Sword of the Church and the Leader of Christendom, and on him fell by right the conduct of the Crusade. Other reasons were operative as well. The Empress Constance had died in 1222 in Catania. Frederick acceded to a wish of the Pope and of the German Grand Master, and in order “the better to conduct the affairs of the Holy Land” declared himself ready to contract a fresh marriage with the daughter of King John of Jerusalem. The intention of the Curia was to strengthen the Emperor’s connection with Jerusalem, and the plan was successful. Isabella of Jerusalem was penniless, but she brought as her dowry the sceptre of the Holy Land, and the lustre this would lend the Empire was unique.

  The hereditary succession of the Syrian kingdom was such that on the death of her mother Isabella became the heir; while her father, Count John of Brienne, merely bore the honorary title of king. The marriage was celebrated in Brindisi in the beginning of November 1225, and the barest recitation of the events flashes a momentary light on the glamour and the glory of crusading times. The Emperor sent a squadron of ships with his notables to Acre, and there in the Church of the Holy Cross the princess was solemnly betrothed, to the wonderment of all, to the absent Emperor, whose ring was placed on her finger by a Sicilian bishop. In Tyre the bride received from the hands of the Patriarch the crown of the Holy Land, and the Knights of Jerusalem did homage to their Queen. The Franco-Syrian child of fourteen, escorted by a knight of the Teutonic Order, embarked on the imperial galley and sailed across the sea to wed the Emperor of the West. The poets of the day could not resist a theme so ready to their hand; the German epic Ortnit makes this Syrian bridal—adorned with many a fable, worked up almost into a fairy tale—the centre of the plot, while other touches hint at Frederick’s story. The hero after many adventures wins his Syrian bride—a worshipper of Apollo and Muhammad—but not without the help of Zacharias the King of the Sicilian Saracens, the “wise heathen of Apulia.” A thread of chivalrous romance—hard to reconcile in appearance with the sober, statesmanlike sense of the Sicilian autocrat—runs through the whole life of this last Hohenstaufen, who must in person have lived through all the saga episodes of the medieval world of knights. If one sought out and wove together the marvellous adventures of the imperial story, as reported in history and in legend, the tale would be the typical biography of a crusading knight as recounted by current romances.

  This magic spell for a moment hid political realities; their recrudescence marred the marriage feast. On the wedding day Frederick, as was his right, adopted the title, King of Jerusalem, which appears henceforth in all his documents after the title of Roman Emperor, and before that of Sicilian King. Immediately he demanded that John of Brienne, titular King of Jerusalem, should formally renounce his royal rights. King John was a personal friend of Frederick’s, like him one of the earliest poets to write in the Italian tongue. He had been for months the Emperor’s guest. He had reckoned on being at least the Viceroy of Jerusalem. He was deeply hurt, and after a wordy quarrel with the Emperor he fled to Rome. The Emperor received without delay the homage of the Syrian grandees. Little is known of Isabella’s fate. The Emperor’s quarrel with King John gave rise to many a tale. A Frenchman relates that Frederick spent his wedding night with a Syrian niece of King John’s, beat Isabella, threw her into prison and never went near her. But facts give this tale the lie. Frederick assigned the castle of Terracina near Salerno to his consort, and took her with him to Sicily. The young girl certainly exercised no influence on Frederick, and she died in 1228 at the birth of her son Conrad. The crown of Jerusalem had suddenly lent a tangible political value to the Crusade in Frederick’s eyes. He must win a new kingdom in the East. State and personal factors were thus combined; when World Church, World Empire and World Politics were intermingled the Crusade gained in importance. Nothing further was needed but the opportune moment to achieve success.

  Pope and Emperor, being in the matter interdependent, were in the main at one about the Crusade, though it was inevitable that misunderstandings and differences should arise from time to time in the intricate negotiations entailed. On both sides every effort was made to avoid friction, and for the moment they even steered clear of the rock of the “Recuperations.” The first serious conflicts arose over Sicilian questions, for Frederick in the new organisation of his state began to regulate Church matters after his own fashion. At the Diet of Capua he had urged on his subjects the punctual payments of tithes to the Church. Soon after he revived a Norman edict which forbade the accumulation of lands under mortmain: churches and monasteries might purchase land and receive it as gifts—later the Emperor forbade this also—but they must part with it again within a year a month a week and a day, otherwise, as Frederick later expressed it, “the Church would ere long have bought up the entire kingdom.” These laws were quite customary and roused no hostility against the Emperor.

  Matters assumed a different complexion, however, when Frederick threw down the gauntlet to the Sicilian episcopacy. He was always ready to apply the surgeon’s knife and cauterising iron to get rid of sores and ulcers—the metaphor was a favourite with him—and he embarked according to these principles on a purification of the Sicilian clergy. He suspended Bishop Arduin of Cefalù for his general conduct in squandering Church property—the records of the trial prove that the accusations were well founded—and soon after Archbishop Nicholas of Taranto on similar grounds. The ex-Chancellor Walter of Palear, Bishop of Catania, whom Frederick had mistrusted of old and whom he had sent out of the kingdom ostensibly with reinforcements for the crusading army, did not venture to show his face again in Sicily. He went from Damietta probably first to Rome and on to Venice, where he finally died, it was said, in utter poverty. The irregularities of the Sicilian clergy were probably extreme: Frederick was obliged to imprison a large number of the inferior clergy, and even the Pope had to remove individual bishops such as those of Carinola and Squillace. The bishops deposed by Frederick took refuge in Rome, which gradually became the asylum of exiled Sicilians. In addition to the three bishops, Count Thomas of Molise was there, Roger of Aquila, Jacob of San Severino and the other barons, presumably also the Count of Syracuse, Alaman da Costa and King John of Jerusalem. These episodes contributed to Honorius’s irritation. He had acquiesced in the Emperor’s proceedings against the bishops at the time, but they did not cease to rankle, and on occasion formed a subject of reproach. The thing th
at ultimately provoked a heated correspondence on both sides was the question of the episcopal elections in Sicily.

  It has already been explained how vital was the so-called “freedom of episcopal elections.” One further consideration should be added: at the same moment that the Curia set out to tighten up the relationship between itself and the bishops throughout the Christian world, and convert them into immediate dependants of the Pope and his direct representatives, a parallel movement was at work in the West, a development of strong national self-consciousness in the various countries. The Church’s endeavour to subject episcopacy in each country to the direct and immediate control of Rome ran violently counter to this new tendency of the ancient Roman world to resolve itself into individual nations.

  On the other hand it also stood in the way of each individual nation as it strove to consolidate itself into a unified state, for everywhere the Church was a “state within a state.” The more because she was in no wise a purely spiritual force, but a very material one, endowed with land and possessions, and in the most important matters refusing allegiance to the state. This situation led sooner or later to serious friction in every country in Europe. Things came to a head in Sicily first, because Frederick II was not only King of Sicily but also Emperor. As Emperor he had a dual rôle to sustain. For the preservation of world unity the Church’s aims were the Emperor’s, for the Roman Emperor felt himself just as responsible for the oneness of the world as any Pope, but their views diverged in this, that the Emperor fully recognised national individuality—nay, was in the act of creating a new and well-knit nation. Frederick’s dual attitude had been latent from the first; its full, extent began to be revealed when the evolution of the Sicilian state made the question a vital one for him. A permanent conflict that haunted Frederick all his days is here seen in its beginning: it may be summed up in the formula “an empire—and yet—nations.” A tension which Dante felt in yet acuter form: “individuals and yet a Roman Empire.”

  It is interesting to note that in Germany, where national feeling was less developed, the time was not yet ripe for conflict with Rome, and Frederick was content to leave the Curia unmolested in its bishops’ elections. But in Sicily, where he was not only Emperor but King, he fought the Pope most strenuously. As a mere boy he had crossed swords with Innocent III about the Palermo elections. Episodes of this sort were bound to multiply with time, and a glance at the constitution of the Sicilian Church will show what importance these elections assumed in Sicily. There was no other country where new elections were so frequent, for this tiny land boasted 21 archbishops and 124 bishops. The disproportion of this becomes more manifest when we realise that at the Lateran Council of 1215, which was graced by all the spiritual dignitaries in Christendom, 105 out of 405 participants came from the Sicilian kingdom. The enormous number of archbishops is probably rightly traced to the Byzantine influence in southern Italy. The Greek archpriest develops into the Roman archbishop, though the two are radically different, and “archpriest” connoted no more than a priest independent of the Patriarch of Constantinople. Vacancies occurred in Sicily with extraordinary frequency, and it was absolutely vital to the Emperor to keep his bishoprics in trusty hands, that the bishops might be as they had been in Norman days, organs of the king and of the state. The excessive number of the bishops made this in one way easier to achieve. The Sicilian bishop was not, like his German brother, a mighty prince of the Empire, holding extensive territories, but of humbler status, well suited to be a Church or state official.

  The episcopal type dear to Frederick’s heart is well represented by the Primate of the Sicilian Church, Berard of Castacca, Archbishop of Palermo. To forestall an election squabble with Frederick, over Palermo, Pope Innocent III had entrusted the church of the capital to Berard, formerly Archbishop of Bari. From Frederick’s point of view no more fortunate choice could have been made. Archbishop Berard of Palermo became quite indispensable to the Emperor, a second Hermann of Salza. He had not the statesmanship of the German Grand Master, but he was his superior in learning and culture. He enjoyed the respect of the Roman Curia while being whole-heartedly devoted to the Emperor. Ultimately no weighty negotiation with the Pope could be conceived in which the shrewd and reverend prelate did not represent the Emperor. There was indeed no weighty event of any kind in which Berard had not his share, so completely did he command the Emperor’s confidence. The services he rendered are innumerable. Frederick himself wrote “… in danger of every sort he stood by our side and many things hath he endured on our behalf.” Berard was one of the few churchmen who could breathe the intellectual atmosphere of Frederick’s court and was able to hold his own in the literary activities of the courtiers. Indeed it was he who discovered Piero della Vigna and brought him to the imperial court. His greatest service, however—and it was no slight one—was that he lived through the whole of Frederick’s life in closest proximity with him. As Bishop of Bari he had been one of the household officers of the boy king. He had accompanied him on his adventurous journey to Germany. It was on Berard’s summons that the Bishop of Constance had opened the city gates; it was Berard who represented Frederick at the Lateran Council. He lived almost continuously at the imperial court, and was destined to outlive his master and administer to him the final sacrament. We have no detailed knowledge of Berard’s personality—he was the Emperor’s instrument and clung to his master through ban and curse—but as the faithful and honourable priest who stood by the Emperor from his boyhood to his dying bed he is one of the most human of the secondary figures in the picture of Frederick’s life. No astounding achievement immortalises his name; it is enough that when great deeds were doing he was there.

  Such will be roughly the type of prelate which Frederick II liked to have, and there always were a considerable number of such in Sicily, though none enjoyed the same intimacy as Berard of Palermo. The only right remaining to the Emperor under the Concordat was that of choosing such adherents for episcopal vacancies—or rather of giving his concurrence only to such candidates. The Concordat of the Empress Constance had reduced the King’s right to simple concurrence in the choice made by the Chapter. The bishop thus chosen by the Chapter and confirmed by the King could only officiate after final approval by the Pope. Even this meagre privilege of the King’s was further whittled away by the Pope’s revival of an ancient “right of devolution.” According to this a vacancy which lasted over six months entitled the Pope to fill it immediately himself, without reference to either King or Chapter. A favourite practice of the Roman Curia was therefore to postpone on the flimsiest pretexts the final confirmation of the bishop till the six months had elapsed, and then simply to appoint another man, whom neither King nor Chapter wanted, but who best suited Rome. The Emperor, conversely, sought to exceed his rights, and by promises or pressure to induce the Chapter to choose a candidate of his proposing, an imperial physician it might be, or notary—a procedure which the Curia did not fail to challenge.

  Things gradually came to such a pass that the mere recommendation of the Emperor damned any candidate in the eyes of the Curia. In Capua, for instance, a certain dean, Hugo by name, had been unanimously chosen and was recommended to the Pope by Frederick—who did not apparently even know the man personally—as “an educated, suitable man and a native of the country.” Thereupon the Pope rejected him.

  In Nola Master Peronnus, a notary of the Emperor’s, was chosen, but a minority dissented and his appointment was not confirmed. On the other hand the long vacancy in Salerno is to be thus explained: Archbishop Nicholas of Ajello had proposed his own successor. Now Nicholas was some relation of Count Richard of Ajello, no great friend of Frederick’s, and had himself been an adherent of Kaiser Otto’s and had rebelled against the Law of Privileges. He had therefore fallen into disfavour, sufficient grounds for Frederick on his part to reject the proposed successor.

  In Brindisi matters reached a climax. The unanimous choice fell on a notary and household officer of the Emperor’s,
John of Trajetto, a man well known to the Roman Curia. Frederick had exerted himself most eagerly to secure this candidate’s appointment by the Pope, had even sent a special deputation to Rome. It had, however, become almost a point of honour at Rome to reject the Emperor’s candidate. Honorius made the excuse of a technical error in the election—it had taken place three months after the death of the previous incumbent—and refused John of Trajetto even when Frederick wrote again. A similar state of affairs prevailed in Aversa, Acerno, Sarno, Conza, Bari: as far as can be judged the Emperor never succeeded in carrying the day.

  Bitterness increased on both sides. Honorius reproached Frederick with interference in the election in just such words as Innocent had used to the boy of years ago: he had better be warned to avoid the evil practices of his ancestors whose trespasses had brought it about that he, Frederick, was the last scion of his race. The Emperor replied that Honorius was seeking his destruction: this papal protection was not protection but extinction. With extreme incisiveness he declared that if the Pope would not confirm in office the bishops nominated by the Emperor he might save himself the trouble of sending other persons as bishops into the Sicilian kingdom, for the Emperor on his side would henceforth refuse to receive the men chosen by the Pope. He would give orders to close not only the churches but the towns against them. That had all the ring of an ultimatum, yet Honorius did not so interpret it, but turned it aside with the comment that the young Emperor was misled by evil counsellors, and swept off his feet by his own youth. Such procedure, however, was bound to cause unpleasantness. He requested the Emperor to apologise for the unseemly utterances of his messengers—by which was meant the unseemly tenor of the imperial letter itself. Whether the Pope received his apology or not we do not know.