Such appeals presupposed a people for the Emperor to address, a people on whom such words would act. The Normans had certainly made the first “firm settlement,” but Guiscard’s successors could not have spoken in such terms to the mixture of Arabs, Greeks, Latins and Jews, nor by such words have hoped to fire any but the few noble Norman kinsmen who were round them. Frederick treated the Sicilians as a nation with its own glorious history, and he was the first to attempt to point the Sicilians to their common traditions, to address to them a common appeal. He was able to do so because he was no usurper, but “an off-shoot from the new Sicilian planting,” who felt a bond with the new people amongst whom he had grown to manhood, a community of race between the ruler and the ruled, which had hitherto been lacking. The Emperor’s allusions to race and nurture were no accident. We quote another pronouncement.
The Emperor had once explained the sacrament of marriage as a natural necessity for the maintenance of the human race. Not every marriage, however, was calculated to secure the “better nature” of mankind. The Emperor therefore published a law which paid more heed to breed than to sacramental considerations, so that a commentator, long after, was moved to indignation, remarking “this discloses the whole spiritual degeneracy of this Emperor Frederick who would hinder the just and free marriage instituted by God in Paradise. Such a law is not binding before the judgment-seat of God.” Frederick II had forbidden, on pain of confiscation of property, any Sicilian man or maid to contract a marriage with a foreigner (that is anyone born outside Sicily) without special permission from the Emperor. He explains the reasons with profound wisdom: “It has often grieved us to see how the righteousness of our kingdom has suffered corruption from foreign manners by the mixture of different peoples. When the men of Sicily ally themselves with the daughters of foreigners, the purity of the race becomes besmirched, while evil and sensual weakness increases, the purity of the people is contaminated by the speech and by the habits of the others, and the seed of the stranger defiles the hearth of our faithful subjects.” Hence, as a remedy against “degeneracy of race,” against “racial confusion in the kingdom,” the law forbids marriage with foreigners.
Nothing could demonstrate more clearly than this law the intention of the Emperor to create, even from the racial standpoint, a unified nation out of the Sicilian people. It was a measure which, aiming with wholesome severity at something higher, frankly ran counter to every custom of the Church and was always felt as a monstrosity, as the commentator shows. Though the same writer adds, not without admiration, “This Emperor, however, strove most diligently to preserve his people pure from corruption by the customs and conversation of strangers.” Everything in this stern State aimed at unity, not only in theory but in practice, based on the necessitas rerum. For unity was of God and multiplicity was of the Devil.
History proves that Frederick II achieved his aim, and succeeded in awakening amongst the Sicilians respect for the dignity of their own race. Some sixty years after the death of their only Emperor the Sicilians rose (the most mongrel population of Palermo first of all) against the Anjous at the Vespers and slaughtered the French garrison in an unexampled massacre. They fought under the unfurled eagles with the cry “Death to the Gauls!”, and when they found Sicilian women pregnant by the French they ripped open their wombs with the sword to trample under foot the foreign brood.
The history of Frederick II demonstrates how much a lawgiver can accomplish by force and compulsion, so long as he knows what his aims are, and so long as those aims are just. Nevertheless, certain limits are set to the direct spiritual influence of a ruler on the masses of his people, and his wishes, thoughts and opinions are for the most part handed on with necessary and inevitable dilution through intermediaries, those intimates who stand under the ruler’s personal influence, the court, the entourage, the hierarchy of imperial employees. A picture of the Emperor himself can best be formed by studying his human influence on those most closely associated with him.
III
From the intellectual point of view Frederick’s new secular State was a triumph of that lay culture which, for the last century, had been spreading in wider and wider circles. This was the first time that profane learning had been concentrated and organised. The pillars of the state were now educated laymen, no longer clerics, and it is only natural that the Founder of the State was himself the most highly cultured layman of them all. By his organisation of the emancipated “secular” spirit Frederick II broke once and for all the spell which the Church had laid on the whole domain of the nonmaterial as an intellectual and spiritual unity. Even more clearly than by the state philosophy, the complete mental independence of the new State was demonstrated by the fact that the clergy ceased to play a part in the administration of Sicily, and their spiritual influence on it gradually ceased.
The Sicilian state itself is the proof that lay education had made great strides in Frederick’s century, for the Emperor was able to risk basing his whole new kingdom on it. On the other hand the existing supply of educated laymen was not sufficient, and in order to be able to draw on larger numbers Frederick founded the University of Naples. In the Charter of the University Frederick stated: “We propose to rear many clever and clearsighted men, by the draught of knowledge and the seed of learning; men made eloquent by study and by the observation of just law, who will serve the God of all and will please us by the cult of Justice. … We invite learned men to our service, men full of zeal for the study of Jus and Justitia, to whom we can entrust our administration without fear.” The Emperor thus made clear what spirit was to govern his state—the legal spirit. This need not surprise us. For, since Justice was the Emperor’s mediator with God the same must apply to his followers and servants.
The whole state was thick-sown with lawyers. Ousting the clergy, hitherto the only representatives of education and culture, the jurists now had the entry to the Emperor’s court, and the replacing of a clerical atmosphere by an emancipated secular atmosphere was pregnant with momentous change even in the highest politics. The Church had long been striving to enlist to her side the newly-awakened town-dweller. Frederick II now entered the lists, and while the Church, with the support of the mendicant orders, was successful in capturing the masses the Emperor won over the educated classes, the new intellectual aristocracy. These were usually inclined to support the Government. It was, therefore, of the greatest importance that Frederick II, recognising their vigour and their potentialities, enlisted the town lawyers in his service, gave them the widest possible scope, in administration, in his chancery work, and in his court circles, and by this means within a few years revolutionised the whole central government of Sicily and even of the Empire. The two administrations of Sicily and of the Empire were originally to be kept apart, in accordance with the agreement with Rome, but they were afterwards amalgamated.
The University of Naples was to rear professional jurists, judges, and notaries with legal training. Hard and fast “careers” were unknown in Frederick’s state, as was any systematic promotion by seniority which the one-year tenure of office made impossible. The factors making for success were the personal qualities of the individual, an opportunity of distinguishing himself, and luck in happening to attract the attention of the Emperor and the court. The number of officials was relatively small, and it was possible to keep them all under observation. It was probably rare for a really able man to be passed over, for the Emperor was quick to seize a suitable man for a given post, whether a precedent was thereby followed or created. Certain general tendencies can, however, be traced: the judge’s career, for instance, was usually distinct from the notary’s, though occasional interchanges took place.
Having completed his studies at the University of Naples (we have no clue to the length of the course; in Northern Italy three to six years was prescribed) the new judge was selected by some town to act as town-judge. On this the candidate betook himself to court with a certificate, to receive his appointment from the Emp
eror or his representative, to take the oath and, if necessary, to be tested by the High Court in his literary and legal attainments. In this way the Emperor and the Court Judges kept in touch with the rising generation of lawyers, except so far as during the Emperor’s absence appointments were made by his provincial representatives, the justiciars. The young judge next had an opportunity of entering the narrower State service as judex to one of the justiciars, or, later, in Northern Italy, to one of the numerous vicars, vicars general or podestas. With good fortune he might ultimately reach the office of High Court Judge. This was not the only avenue to the High Court bench, for we know of High Court Judges who had never officiated as ordinary judges: the famous Thaddeus of Suessa, for example, a courtier and one of Frederick’s intimates. It is worth noting that quite a number held the title of High Court Judge without having officiated at all. These were the consiliarii, the counsellors who were employed in the imperial Chancery and on diplomatic missions and formed part of the Emperor’s immediate following. This is the first time that professional lawyers figure in the permanent personnel of an Emperor’s court, not merely as occasional experts. The judges of lower degree could find many niches for themselves in the service; we find them as chamberlains, as tax collectors, as overseers of the accounts departments, as keepers of the King’s treasury and in other capacities; in offices which might perfectly well have been filled by non-legal nobles or burgesses. It is important to note how the lawyers were thrusting into posts of every sort.
The second important group of educated lawyers were the notaries. They had to pursue a course of study, and probably to win the degree of master, before seeking further training as registrar of some chancery. After examination by the High Court the notary received the imperial nomination and appointment. For a notary as for a judge service at court was the desirable goal. A man might begin at the court of a provincial justiciar or in some branch of the finance department, and then get an opening at court and become Court Notary at the High Court, or President of some section of the imperial Chancery: Current Business or Feudal Affairs, for instance. As a general rule the supply of court notaries and chancery clerks was supplemented in other ways with which we shall deal later. The state, as we have already seen, was full of notaries who had to deal with the ever increasing mass of written documents which gave the administration so modern an air. The immense number of orders issued by the Court, most of them required in several copies, demanded in every grade of the services a highly skilled staff of clerks not subject to annual displacement. Other departments, notably Finance, also required the services of notaries.
This penetration of the secular state by the legal spirit was only a reflection of what had already taken place within the bosom of the Church. A knowledge of Canon Law was indispensable for every cleric of any position. The carefully cultivated style of the notaries was also originally a product of the Church. It followed that a course of study at Naples and employment in the imperial Chancery might be the opening of a clerical career. There was the possibility of Church promotion for anyone who had mastered both laws, and if this did not offer the Chancery was a safe refuge. We have already alluded to the Emperor’s efforts to secure the appointment of his notaries to vacant bishoprics. In the early days these efforts always failed, but after the second excommunication the Emperor flung aside all restraint and began to appoint Sicilian bishops of his own choice, or allow Archbishop Berard of Palermo to do so, except in cases where he preferred to keep a vacancy. The Ottos and the Salians long ago in Germany used to rear up their private chaplains to be their future bishops, and the Chancery of the Imperial Court now served the same purpose as of old the private chapel of the Emperor. The radical innovation was that these clerical Chancery officials, never very numerous, were appointed not because they were clerics but because they were jurists, and in spite of their being clerics. The Emperor found them in no way indispensable, and their priestly character was a matter of indifference to him, fraught with no danger. Walter of Ocra, notary and chaplain of the Emperor, and one of his busiest officials, rose to be Sicilian Chancellor, but he was on an entirely different footing from the bishop-chancellors of earlier days: he was simply an imperial official who happened to be a cleric. The higher clergy were still represented at Court, especially by prelates who were able to adapt themselves to the new spirit of the times. The Archbishops Berard of Palermo, and Jacob of Capua, belonged to the most intimate circle of the Emperor. Frederick had utilised the latter as collaborator in the Constitutions of Melfi, especially in those sections which dealt with the Church and the Sicilian clergy. A few other bishops were intimate with the Emperor, Archbishop Berard of Messina and Bishop Peter of Ravello. These prelates had weight in the intellectual life of the court only in so far as they accommodated themselves to the literary and mental pursuits around them. They were no longer themselves the independent purveyors of spiritual life as bishops had been wont to be. Still we must not undervalue the fact that the mental atmosphere of the Court was sufficiently catholic to give scope even to canonistic culture. It was inevitable that the University of Naples should have a number of clerical students, since all Sicilian subjects were compelled to attend it. One of the greatest of all churchmen was a product of Naples: Thomas Aquinas, the doctor angelicus of the Roman Church.
Two years after founding the University of Naples Frederick II had closed the University of Bologna on account of the fiasco of the Cremona Diet in 1226. In so doing he had a special intention of his own. He wrote to the professors as well as to the scholars of Bologna: the last thing he wished was that learned men should suffer through the recalcitrance of the rebellious Bolognese who had joined the Lombard League. He invited them, therefore, to quit Bologna and come to Naples, “where instituted by us with much care, study flourishes… the beauty of the neighbourhood attracts, no less than the lavish supplies of everything, and the reverend community of doctors.” This great plan of transferring to Naples the famous Law School of Bologna fell through. The Pope’s intervention secured a truce with the Lombard League, and the Emperor had to retract his outlawry of Bologna and permit the reopening of the University. The scholars of Bologna made merry over the imperial University of Naples: this ambitious home of all sciences was at best an embryo, and one not likely to thrive. For it depended on the caprice of its founder, who had no obligations and whose mood might easily change. The Bolognese were not far wide of the mark. For better or worse the fate of this suddenly-founded University was linked with the fate of the Emperor and his State. When the Papal troops invaded the kingdom all study ceased in Naples, though only for a few years. In 1234 Frederick re-established the University and attracted a really excellent teaching staff. At first Roffredo of Benevento taught Civil Law; the Canon Law scholar, Bartholomew Pignatellus, the Decretals; Master Terrisius of Atina gave instruction in Arts; a Catalonian, Master Arnaldus, lectured on Aristotle’s natural philosophy. The grammarian, Walter of Ascoli, was secured, and completed in Naples his great Etymological Encyclopaedia, begun in Bologna. Finally, Peter of Ireland, the teacher of Thomas Aquinas, whom his contemporaries called gemma magistrorum et laurea morum, represented natural science.
Frederick II’s severe struggles with the Church compelled certain retrenchments of study to be made at a later date, but the university was never again dissolved. After its re-establishment in 1234 its administration was in the hands of a Justiciar of Students, so that the University enjoyed a certain independence, though it remained immediately connected with the High Court and with the imperial Chancery. Students and professors were well aware who was the determining personality; when they begged, in 1234, for the opportunity of resuming their studies, they did not appeal direct to the Emperor but to the “Master,” who was even then considered as “the expounder of the sole truth for the ears of the Emperor,” the High Court Judge, Piero della Vigna.
*
We know all too little about this famous scholar and writer, who, like a second St. Peter, “he
ld both keys to Frederick’s heart,” and who even in Dante’s Hell, in the ghostly wood of the Suicides, maintained that his fall was solely due to “envy’s cruel blow,” that “harlot of courts.” He is sometimes supposed to represent a frequently recurrent type, so much so that Conrad Ferdinand Meyer had no difficulty in painting from him his picture of the English Thomas à Becket. Yet Piero della Vigna is radically different, by his whole position, and his human relation to his master, from Chancellors like Cassiodorus or Reginald of Dassel. He was not the complementary brain of a warrior king, but an instrument which a most intellectual Emperor had consciously fashioned for him-himself: the spokesman and the mouthpiece of his master.
Frederick the Second Page 35