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The solemn speech-making of Friuli was the prelude to Frederick II’s personal intervention in German affairs, and it was German business which here chiefly engaged attention. Counsel was taken, however, about other countries of the Empire, and much important business transacted. A favourable turn was given to the Lombard question by Frederick’s success in winning over the brothers Eccelino and Alberigo of Romano, who were just then acquiring great importance in the March of Treviso. By a skilfully-engineered rising they succeeded in making Frederick master of Verona, so that the Alpine passes were now open to the Germans. The kingdom of Burgundy also, which was very loosely attached to the Empire, was drawn into closer relationship, and before long Burgundian forces were, for the first time, commandeered for imperial purposes. Envoys of the French King, Louis IX, St. Louis, arrived to conclude a pact of friendship. And here the ambassadors of the “Old Man of the Mountain,” the head of the Assassins, came to find Frederick, and the ambassadors of the Sultan of Damascus, who brought a planetarium made of gold and jewels to the Maliku ’l Umara¯, the King of the Amirs. The Feast of the Hijra came round. In honour of the Muslim envoys the Emperor celebrated the day of the Prophet’s Flight by a brilliant banquet, attended by German princes and bishops.
After an absence of many months from Germany the princes were finally loaded with costly gifts and dismissed in the middle of May, amongst them King Henry, on whose behaviour the peace of the North now hung. Frederick himself, with his oriental escort, took ship to Apulia. On his way he made a successful attack on the Dalmatian pirates, took many prisoners and flung them into chains. His next immediate affairs were negotiations with the Pope.
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The outward vision of concord did not alter the fact that the peace between the Emperor and Pope was a secret battle, conducted with the weapons of an infinitely delicate diplomacy. The tension between Frederick II and Gregory IX, just veiled for the moment, had reached a height unprecedented in the long warfare between Empire and Papacy. Henry VI and Innocent III had not held the stage together; equal powers now existed simultaneously and stood face to face awaiting the outburst of the final battle; but both postponing it a while and both willing for expediency to exercise moderation and control. Deadly enemies, each as capable as the other of savage passion, but for the moment unable to dispense with each other, and each benefiting by the momentary truce. The Emperor benefited perhaps even more than the Pope, his wish for peace with Gregory was certainly more sincere, was even too sincere, though his hate for the old man in Rome was deep.
No sooner was peace concluded than an amazing diplomatic game began between Court and Curia, a game which was to last for some years yet, though with ever-growing embitterment. In the eyes of the world the two powers still figure as Father and Son, and while both weigh each several step with utmost caution, and each watches lynx-like to exploit any chance of weakness on the other’s part, each is equally eager to seize opportunities of offering civility and assistance, so as to place the other under an obligation. Each side had difficulties and to spare. Pope Gregory was openly at war with the Romans. He had had to quit the town because the citizens had risen against their bishop, as had been occurring long since in the other communes of Italy. The thought of the ancient republican freedom of Rome was not without influence on men’s minds, and they craved territorial expansion. The Romans always cast covetous glances on the Campagna and the Patrimonium. As enemies of their bishop they were the natural allies of the Emperor, yet Frederick, at the Pope’s request, had sent a detachment of troops to Viterbo, which was usually the first point of their attack.
Frederick on his side was not without serious embarrassments. Apart from Lombard problems he had to assure himself of the Pope’s concurrence in all questions relating to his son Henry, so as to be secure against surprise. The kingdom of Syria, too, provided endless difficulties. Not that the Saracens had broken the truce, but because the Christians raged against each other. The Syrian-Cypriot nobles, under the leadership of the sometime administrator of Cyprus, John of Ibelin, and supported by the Patriarch Gerold and the people, had inflicted a severe defeat on the imperial marshal, Richard Filangieri, who had enjoyed some initial successes. It ended within a year with the loss of Cyprus. Pope Gregory had now at last granted the Hohenstaufen Emperor the long-withheld title of King of Jerusalem. It cost him nothing to take the Emperor’s part on the distant, now indifferent, oriental scene, and it laid on Frederick the obligation of some return service. So Pope Gregory loudly denounced Patriarch Gerold, whom we know of old, and abruptly recalled him; the Curia having been suddenly assailed with misgivings about his behaviour during the Crusade. “People whisper in secret and openly proclaim that the Syrian kingdom of our well-beloved son in Christ, Frederick, the ever-exalted Emperor of the Romans, King of Jerusalem and Sicily, has been unsettled by thy means, for thy hand has lain behind the hands of the disturbers of the peace.” This was the new note in the Pope’s letters to Gerold, whom he replaced by the Patriarch Albert of Antioch. The Pope was similarly ready to go to any lengths against King Henry; his reasons were transparent. The ruin of the German King, if skilfully exploited, might mean the collapse of the whole Hohenstaufen rule north of the Alps. On Frederick’s side it was the usual game of harnessing opposition forces, when he himself requested the Pope, nay even—to enhance the effect—compelled King Henry to request the Pope to excommunicate the son if he should prove rebellious to the father. Emperor and Pope were here able to indulge in the amusement of mutually obliging each other—each secure in the faith that he would ultimately outwit his foe—and of presenting to the world the edifying spectacle of their affectionate harmony.
Frederick was perfectly aware that this untroubled amity would not last a day longer than Gregory’s Roman embarrassment, and he was therefore in no hurry effectively to end this, hoping to derive some advantage for himself in his Lombard affairs from the present favourable situation. The Romans themselves increased the pressure on the Pope so greatly that by the end of July 1232, shortly after Frederick’s return from Aquileia, Pope Gregory decided definitely to request the Emperor’s help against the Romans, though knowing well that he would have to requite his imperial ally by concessions in other spheres. The Emperor received the papal letter exhorting him “to dash to the ground the pride of these overweening Romans with his triumphant and illustrious right hand, to scatter the demon hosts and break the horns of the ungodly.” Frederick was obliged, most reluctantly he said, to refuse. He had, in fact, the luck to hear at the same moment of the rebellion in Messina, which imperatively recalled him to Sicily, and claimed all the fighting forces of his kingdom. So the most the Emperor could do was to place his good friends the Romans under the imperial ban. But he immediately summoned the Germans, the feudal knights of Provence, and of the whole kingdom of Burgundy, to come to the assistance of the harassed Pope. The imperial diplomat killed several birds with this one stone. It was the first time in history that the feudal army of Burgundy had been summoned for service in Italy, and Frederick created this weighty precedent not in his own but ostensibly in the Pope’s sole interest. Further, this summons gave Frederick an opportunity of sending an imperial plenipotentiary to the Burgundian court, with the remark that it was a very long time since Burgundy had performed any service for the Empire; not indeed that he wished to cast this fact in her teeth, since she had not been offered the opportunity. Thirdly, Frederick had great hopes that, though he personally had displayed the utmost promptitude, it would be a considerable time before help actually reached the Pope. Meantime, he had not antagonised the Romans whose friendship might at any moment be valuable, and amongst whom he had built up a strong aristocratic party. Finally, he could now devote himself in peace to restoring order in Messina and the other towns in the island of Sicily.
The Pope had hoped that Frederick, the King of Sicily, the feudal vassal of the Holy See, would appear in person before the walls of Rome; he expressed himself, however,
grateful for the assistance promised. A remarkable correspondence now set in between Pope and Emperor, taking its rise in the immediate circumstances, but laying down in the most perfect form the ideal relationship between Empire and Papacy and the principles of their mutual assistance. It was a remarkable feature of the time that in treating any question of the moment the eternal order of the universe was always included. Pope Gregory expressed his thanks that “the Emperor’s spirit had been illuminated and rightly directed by a ray of divine radiance and the inspiration of God himself, who had united the son to his mother (the Church) and the mother to her son, to restore the rights of Church and Empire.” The wily Gregory supplied precisely the phrases that Frederick had long and eagerly awaited; for in view of the triangular struggle of Emperor, Pope and Lombards, nothing was so dear to Frederick’s heart as a rapprochement with Gregory that would loosen the Pope’s disastrous attachment to the towns. Frederick hastened, therefore, to answer in similar style in a lengthy letter, which the writer, Piero della Vigna and the Grand Justiciar Henry of Morra, both of them negotiators in Lombard affairs, were entrusted to carry to the Pope. This masterly composition, enriched by all possible resources of style and playing on words, formulated a universal doctrine: God, the all-foreseeing physician, had in time diagnosed the double oppression of the Church by heretics and rebels, and to combat these two diseases had prepared not two separate medicines but a double treatment: “The ointment of the priestly office by which the inner infirmity of false servants is spiritually healed, and the might of the imperial sword which cleanses with its edge the suppurating wounds, and with its whetted blade of worldly Empire hews off from the conquered foe all that is infected and decayed.” Again: “This, Most Holy Father, is in truth the one, yet dual, healing for our sickness. Although Holy Empire and Holy Priesthood from their names appear two separate entities yet they are in the effective sense one and the same, being of like origin, consecrated by the divine power. They are to be guarded by the same reverent homage and—I shudder to say it—annihilated by the same overthrow of their common faith.”
It is worth noting that there, in writing to the Pope, as elsewhere in speaking to the princes, Frederick alludes to the downfall of the Empire. He was perfectly aware that his throne was a volcano. His statecraft in Sicily is based on a knowledge of the insecurity of existing institutions. The interdependence of Empire and Papacy has never been more clearly expressed than by Frederick II. It is Dante’s vision of the two Suns of Rome, based on the immediate relation of the Emperor to God, which Frederick here emphasises, and which the Church never recognised. We shall see later that Frederick’s picture of the ideal Pope anticipates Dante’s most exactly. This doctrine, however, apart from its general, eternal, universal validity, had a very present practical application: “Therefore, Most Blessed Father, since we are one, and assuredly feel alike, let us take thought as one for the common service: let us restore the Church’s impaired freedom, and while we renew the rights of Church and Empire let us sharpen the swords entrusted to us against the underminers of the faith and the rebels of the Empire. …” This return to present affairs meant, in fact, would the Pope be so good as to enforce obedience on the Lombard rebels with the same zeal as Frederick showed against heretics—“for time is pressing and quibbling out of place!”
Frederick II had entrusted to the Pope the mediation in Lombardy. The Emperor’s general position, after the Friuli Diet, and after the alliance with Eccelino and Verona, and after various imperial successes in Northern Italy, seemed so unusually favourable that the Lombards were prepared to make many concessions. Only on two points were the parties irreconcilable: the Emperor demanded satisfaction for the closure of the Verona passes, and refused to recognise the Lombard League as such. For the confederation was to him a rebel state within the State, which split the Empire in two and severed Sicily from Germany. This was why the Lombard question was the fountain head of all quarrels between Court and Curia: Frederick needed an unconditionally submissive Lombardy to round off his Empire; while the Pope, to stave off this encircling power, was bound in defiance of right or custom to look with favour on such a buffer as the League provided. Since the Pope at the moment wanted Frederick’s help he skilfully evaded contentious matters and put off the whole Lombard question. This expedient was probably not unwelcome to the Emperor, for it left all possibilities still open. They were thus partially at one on the subject of Lombards and rebels, and even of heretics, though they held different views on the methods of the Inquisition. After the Sicilian insurrection Frederick permitted his imperial officials and a few docile clerics to carry on an Inquisition of a markedly political type, but he excluded all papal assistants; whereas in Lombardy the Inquisitors were all the Pope’s creatures, Dominicans for the most part. The Pope was none too well pleased with the imperial methods of heretic-hunting, while Frederick strongly objected to the Lombard Inquisition’s proceeding without the presence of imperial officials, for he had sound reason to fear disturbance of the loyal towns. For Emperor and Pope alike utilised the edicts against heretics as a welcome political weapon, and ere long the papal interdict lay heavy on Verona, with her new imperial leanings, and on her ruler, Eccelino. Anyone, in fact, who failed to accommodate himself to the papal or the imperial will was a heretic: for this was manifest rebellion against God.
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While Pope and Emperor, each in his own way, persecuted the heretics, an event suddenly took place which can only be compared to some great natural cataclysm. The entire North of Italy succumbed simultaneously to the madness and confusion of the penance mania. This movement is probably not unconnected with the Dominican persecutions in the North. Dominicans were amongst the chief leaders of the penitents, and rivalry with the Franciscan Order may have been another factor. Francis of Assisi had long since been canonised, and in July 1232 another Franciscan, Anthony of Padua, had been beatified, whereas twelve years had elapsed since the death of Dominic, and no one had yet officially recognised his saintliness or honoured him by canonisation. A bishop who was in close touch with the preaching monks even challenged the brothers: “Now that ‘Brothers Minor’ have a saint of their own, get yourselves one somehow, even if you have to throw him together out of wooden stakes.” People took saints very seriously in Italy. The penance-movement was so successful that the other great Founder, Dominic, was presently canonised too (in 1234).
The most natural ambition of the Dominicans, to know that their Founder was a Saint, set no doubt a certain goal for some of the leaders. Other impulses, however, underlay the movement as a whole. For over thirty years prophetic sayings had stirred and terrified Italy with words of dread, and the populace here more than in any other region was kept in a state of continuous excitement in anticipation of the Last Trump. Abbot Joachim of Flora had introduced the turn of the century with terrifying visions of the Last Day, which profoundly influenced the whole thirteenth century till Dante. The greatest effect was exercised by his remarkable doctrine of the three ages: the first begins with the Creation of the World and the creation of Adam; the second with the birth of Christ; the third was just about to dawn. Similar divisions of time were not new. Joachim, however, referred the three ages to the Trinity and named the first the Age of the Father, the second the Age of the Son on which should follow the third, the Age of the Spirit. As the three members of the Trinity are coequal it follows that the three ages must be essentially identical and the courses of the three must correspond. The world situation at the opening of the third age must resemble that of the dawn of the first and second, the ages of Creation and Redemption. This was the same conception as Frederick had employed in order to place himself on a par with Adam and with Christ as the bringer of the third and last age.
From this starting point people began to reinterpret the Bible. If the three ages were exactly to reproduce each other, the prophets of the Old Covenant who associated all the terrors of destruction with the coming of the Saviour, must again be valid for t
he present age which was once more expecting the Messiah. The sayings of Isaiah, Jeremiah and Daniel, prophesying destruction and salvation, raged once again through the towns of Italy; the awe-inspiring visions of John’s Revelation and other apocryphal Apocalypses broke in upon the terror-stricken world, which took all these sayings as applying to itself and to the immediate future. Abbot Joachim, with his interpretations of the Apocalypse and the Commentary on Jeremiah which was ascribed to him, had set the ball rolling, and in a short time he found innumerable imitators, especially amongst the mendicant monks. Matters reached such a pitch that every occurrence on earth was interpreted as the “fulfilment” of a Bible dictum, and the chronicles of the mendicants are full of such interpretations: this and that word of Scripture was accomplished in this and that event, the Law has been fulfilled. When Frederick II announced that he had come to fulfil the Law, and found the salvation of the world in the fulfilment of the Law, he was speaking to an age that was craving this fulfilment.
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