Frederick the Second

by Ernst Kantorowicz

  There is little need to labour the question of the essential inevitability of the struggle. The personal courage of Pope Gregory, which led him, in spite of his age, to force his foe to battle by every means in his power, compels admiration. These means aimed at so distorting facts that the Emperor might appear to have injured the Lombards. Ultimately these methods did more harm to the Pope than to the Emperor. The fourteen points, whose enunciation was intended to mask the designs of the Curia, were completely unimportant. They dealt with the alleged oppression of churches, monasteries and clergy in Sicily, with the treatment of the Templars and Knights of St. John, with a Muslim prince whose conversion to Christianity Frederick was supposed to have hindered, and similar petty accusations which the Emperor was in many cases able to disprove. It was certainly true that his friends had stirred up disaffection in Rome against the Pope, though the Emperor skilfully excused himself: the Pope also had underlings in Rome who served his ends. Gregory only touched on the Lombard question, the core of the whole situation, casually and as a side-issue: he reproached the Emperor with allowing the cause of the Holy Land to suffer by his Lombard war—the same old complaint which two years before had stirred the German princes to indignation.

  An understanding might have still been possible on all these points, especially as the Emperor promised speedy correction for Sicilian irregularities, but Gregory’s whole attitude made it obvious that he did not want an understanding. Discussions grew more and more acrimonious. On the Emperor’s side Hermann of Salza, the trusty peacemaker of years, began to fail. The German Grand Master had come with King Conrad’s troops to Italy, already seriously ill, he was now trying to recruit his strength in enforced inactivity in Salerno. He could no longer be counted on. Meantime the air in Italy grew thunderous. Frederick’s own behaviour did little to relieve the prevailing tension: as the signs of coming conflict grew plainer he gave fresh cause of offence. That October saw in Cremona the festivities that accompanied the knighting of his beloved son Enzio.

  *

  Of all the sons Enzio must have been the most like his father. Frederick himself called him “in face and figure our very image.” Enzio was the son of a German lady of noble rank whom Frederick had loved in his early days as German king, and the proud, handsome boy, with his lithe body, his medium height, his long golden curls falling to his shoulders, may have well recalled the picture of the Puer Apuliae men might otherwise have forgotten. Well built, alert and light of foot (people even called him falconello), incomparably daring and fearless, the first in every fight, a hero rejoicing in danger and bearing many a wound—such is the picture that contemporaries paint.

  The easy freedom and elasticity of his mind matched his agile body, and the courtly training of the day had given it full development. He was far from being so learned as his father, but he was thoroughly cultured, intellectually most receptive, and a poet to boot. Joy in life and joy in living ring from his lyrics even when the singer was in prison mourning his fate. If the father appeared as a Caesar reincarnate, something of Achilles was reborn in Enzio. A simple straightforward soldier, singer and king, the mind conjures him up seated outside the royal tent during a pause in the battle playing the harp amongst his lighthearted companions.

  Enzio’s unique charm, which has so often been recorded, probably lay in this natural grace and simple heartiness: his enemies even fell victims to it, and it is rare that spite or malice even graze this handsome lad, though no slander is hateful enough for the opponents to heap on the rest of the Hohenstaufens. Legends and tales were woven round this imperial son, even in his lifetime. They have an epic simplicity, happy, simple, less “profound” than the anecdotes, always a shade uncanny and sinister, that gather round the father. A German dream was Enzio—such as life too rarely yields.

  Hard upon Enzio’s knighthood at about twenty followed his marriage with Adelasia, the heiress of two Sardinian provinces, by right of which he was entitled “King of Torre and Gallura,” or King of Sardinia. This marriage had been arranged at Frederick’s wish, but was destined to accentuate the quarrel with the Roman Curia. For Sardinia was reckoned a fief of the Church which long ago Pisa and Genoa, with papal encouragement, had plucked from the hands of the Saracen. Barbarossa, on the other hand, during his struggle with the Papacy, had granted Sardinia in fee to the sea towns, so that the Empire now laid claim to the island, and it became like the Matildine inheritance, a perpetual bone of contention between popes and emperors. By marrying Enzio to the heiress of the greater part of the island Frederick expected to acquire new rights, and he was not to be turned aside by Pope Gregory’s express veto. He had vowed, he said, to win back for the Empire all the possessions it had lost, and the main factor in the Pope’s wrath at Enzio’s marriage was, he hinted, the fact that Pope Gregory had coveted the handsome boy for one of his nieces.

  *

  Whatever the rights and wrongs of the case the Emperor’s procedure embittered the Pope afresh, and peace was not easily maintained. Frederick II repeatedly sought to re-establish good relations with the Pope. Gregory, however, only dallied with the Emperor’s envoys, most distinguished men like Archbishop Berard of Palermo, Count Thomas of Aquino, Thaddeus of Suessa. He had been long since planning a breach. The embassy was fruitless. Frederick saw clearly what was coming. He had taken up his winter quarters in Padua, intending a lengthy stay, and there the beginning of 1239 found him. He was living with his court in the monastery of Santa Justina. It was a great honour for the monks, of course, but no small burden, for they were expected (as were later the monks of San Zeno in Verona) to entertain an elephant, five leopards and twenty-four camels, as well as an emperor.

  The Emperor had summoned Eccelino to Padua. His government of the Trevisan March had been threatened by the intrigues of his brother Alberigo of Romano, Azzo of Este and other nobles, who were jealous of Eccelino’s growing power. The situation must have been eased a little by Frederick’s arrival in person, and by his giving his daughter Selvaggia in marriage to Eccelino. Similar unrest in Parma had shortly before been quelled and peace quickly restored by Frederick’s appearance on the spot, the strengthening of the imperial palace, and Frederick’s taking over the office of podesta himself.

  Frederick tried to improve matters with the Pope by reissuing his edicts against heretics, but he must have known the case was hopeless. A couple of weeks later he tried a new expedient to avert the threatening ban. He addressed himself no longer to the Pope but to the cardinals, availing himself of their divided counsels. In order to subordinate the Pope’s position to the College of Cardinals Frederick evolved a remarkable new theory, in reality an old well-nigh forgotten theory revived: an expedient which later generations took up again. The Emperor recalled that the cardinals, the lights and true representatives of the Church, were also successors of the apostles. Peter had been only spokesman and executant among the apostles, not their despotic master, and similarly the Pope, as successor of Peter, was in all questions of Church policy and jurisdiction only the president and executive officer of the cardinals, his equals. Frederick thus sought to appeal to an oligarchy of the cardinals, amongst whom he had many friends, instead of to the rigid papal autocracy. It was, he wrote, the cardinals’ business to avert the imminent offence. The ultimate responsibility was theirs if the Pope, whom they had elected to proclaim the gospel, chose to wield the spiritual sword in the interests of Lombard rebels and heretics against the Advocate of Rome. For their own prestige, which the Emperor highly valued, he must beg the college to dissuade the Pope from his rash enterprise; the whole world possessed irrefutable proof that it was based on injustice and domineering caprice. The cardinals who shared responsibility for whatever occurred would feel his imperial vengeance: he would have to take steps against them, for neither this Pope himself nor his kin were worthy that the illustrious Empire should waste attention on him or them. Frederick II was already dubbing the Pope “unworthy.” He himself, he added menacingly, was willing to bear in
justice from the Holy Father, but actual violence he would requite with the measures “which Caesars are wont to use.”

  This ambitious document was the Emperor’s last attempt to preserve peace by threat. He knew exactly what was now at stake. Deposition and excommunication awaited him as soon as the breach with Pope Gregory should come. He had no further power to influence the Pope’s decisions. Things must take their course. He could do nothing but outwardly preserve an unruffled calm. No one could have divined from his manner of life the weight of the burden that lay on the whole court. Those were many care-free days—to all appearance—which he spent in Padua. Banquets and hunting parties succeeded each other, and when on Palm Sunday the Paduans, in accordance with ancient custom, were making merry on the town common with every sort of sport the Emperor appeared among them. From his raised seat as from a throne he watched the proceedings with cheerful good-fellowship, while Piero della Vigna made one of his magnificent speeches, in which he dwelt specially on the Emperor’s affection and goodwill towards the people of Padua. None could have guessed that at that very moment the Pope’s ban had fallen. Frederick’s letter to the cardinals, from which he had expected great things, arrived too late. It is quite possible that the Pope had got wind of it, and fearful perhaps of the cardinals’ intervention, had anticipated Maundy Thursday, which was the usual opportunity for proclaiming excommunications. Determined to postpone the fight no longer he acted swiftly, perhaps over-hastily.

  On that same Sunday, while Frederick in Padua was watching the amusements of the people, Gregory IX excommunicated the Emperor for the second time. From henceforth at every High Mass, in every church throughout the world, every priest, to the accompaniment of bell and of burning tapers, should proclaim Frederick’s extrusion from the community of the faithful. Simultaneously all subjects of Frederick were released from their oaths of fealty. Not one syllable of Gregory’s pronouncement hinted that the Lombards had been the cause of strife: the whole cause of the ban was sought in the Sicilian differences.

  *

  The die was cast. By a fateful coincidence the great German Grand Master, Hermann of Salza, died on that Palm Sunday in Salerno. His life had been devoted to preserving the unity of Empire and Papacy. It had lost all meaning. The ideal picture of a Pope and Emperor perfectly balanced and perfectly united in a perfectly-organised world, that had floated before the mind of Europe for centuries, was shattered for ever. The ruthless, savage combat à outrance between the two powers began, though the monstrous strife that overstrained the strength of both antagonists, and in a few years devoured the hoarded wealth of centuries, was destined to remain indecisive. The Interregnum and Avignon are the graves of the Middle Ages and of Christian world dominance.

  When the news of the excommunication reached the Emperor in Padua a week later there was a moment of consternation. Frederick summoned the Paduans to the town-hall. Piero della Vigna had to address them a second time in the name of the Emperor, and scarcely had he ceased speaking than, to the amazement of the people, the monarch himself lifted up his voice from his elevated seat to defend himself against the precipitate action of the Pope. The tension was relieved. The Emperor quitted Padua. The paralysing uncertainty that had condemned him to inactivity during the leaden-footed months of suspense was ended, and was replaced in the twinkling of an eye by an almost feverish activity. He could now develop without let or hindrance. In those last months of oppressive strain, when everything had to be done with the utmost silence and caution, Piero della Vigna had warned the Grand Justiciar of Sicily to beware of irritating the sensitiveness of the Roman Curia by any measure not expressly sanctioned by the Emperor, lest he should thereby pour oil on the fire and set the whole of Italy ablaze. No such consideration now prevailed. The long-dammed wrath burst forth. The Emperor addressed the world in thunderous manifestos and pamphlets full of passion, provoking thereby from the Curia reproaches and retorts not less vehement. These were the flourishes of the trumpets before the battle. Actions soon succeeded each other headlong. Frederick at last was free to develop all his rich resources in their full magnificence.

  To turn to the fighting. … The campaign against the Lombard rebels had become a side issue. In spite of it an unprecedented work of reorganisation was accomplished within a few months. Hither and thither, to and fro, in every direction Frederick crossed and re-crossed Northern Italy. The announcement of the ban had cheered the rebels, the Curia intrigued through its legates everywhere, and conflagrations were breaking out in various places. Frederick hastened from Padua to Treviso, then back to Padua, and off again to Vicenza to make sure of the nobles of the Trevisan March who, under Margrave Azzo of Este, Eccelino’s enemy, were inclined to quit the Emperor’s cause. The Emperor could do little to prevent it. The Margrave, who had recently sworn good faith, betrayed him. In the middle of May Treviso was surprised, and the imperial podesta, Jacob of Morra, driven out. In the middle of June Azzo of Este went over to the enemy, and other nobles with him. A solemn session was held in Verona, and Piero della Vigna, seated on horseback, was commanded to proclaim the imperial ban against them.

  At the end of June the hitherto completely loyal town of Ravenna suddenly seceded. The Emperor himself hastened to Cremona, where Cardinal Sinibald Fiesco, later Pope Innocent IV, had stirred up the people, and Paulus Traversarius, podesta of Ravenna, had driven out the Emperor’s adherents, though his only daughter was said to be a hostage in the Emperor’s hands. The protection of Ravenna had been entrusted to Bologna and to Venice. Frederick rapidly marched out from Cremona into the Romagna for a campaign against the Bolognese. The territories without the town were laid waste, and two fortresses, Piumazzo and Crevalcore, were conquered within a fortnight. By the end of August the Emperor was again in Parma, where signs of unrest had shown themselves the year before, and, finally, from mid-September till the beginning of November, he was prosecuting the war under circumstances of the gravest difficulty against Milan and against Piacenza, the Curia’s latest ally. Frederick had no intention of trying actually to take these towns any more than Bologna. He had no time for long-drawn sieges. He had weightier tasks in hand.

  He did his best to compel the town troops to accept battle in the open. If they evaded it he wasted their town lands, which caused them sensible loss. He did not succeed, however, as with his considerable superiority in force he had doubtless hoped, in repeating Cortenuova. Each time he advanced against Milan, after conquering and burning down several fortresses on various sides, the Milanese simply gave way or retreated to their town under cover of trenches and hastily drained water-courses. Frederick was in this way successful in inducing Como and some neighbouring towns to forsake the Milanese and come over to his side. This was an important gain, for Como was “the key to the passage from Germany to Italy,” as the Emperor wrote to King Conrad. The Julier and Septimer Passes, and possibly the St. Gothard also, were now open to him as well as the Brenner. Just before the onset of winter, Frederick had hastily undertaken a new venture, the capture of a new bridge-head which Piacenza had recently built on the Po. Continuous rain fell for days, the Po flooded its banks, the bridge-head was inaccessible, and the effort had to be abandoned.

  *

  The fighting had only just begun, the Emperor was still in the Bologna terrain, when the Curia compelled him to turn his thoughts to other things. The alliance which Pope Gregory had engineered between Venice and Genoa was widened by the inclusion of Piacenza and Milan, and, finally, of the Roman Curia itself. The agreement was that none of the contracting parties, not even the Pope, should make peace with the Emperor without the concurrence of the others, and, further, that Venice and Genoa should land troops—their own and the Pope’s—in Sicily. A great attack on Sicily, the basis of the imperial power, was planned. They reckoned that six months would suffice for the campaign, and the distribution of the spoils had been agreed upon. The Pope would keep the whole kingdom quod est beati Petri patrimonium. Venice would be rewarded by the harbours
of Barletta and Salpi, and Genoa by the restoration of her bitterly-mourned Syracuse, and both should receive compensation in other ways also for their expenses. This was the programme of the group of compact allies whom Frederick had now to face.

  The Emperor saw his Sicilian kingdom gravely imperilled. Even if he was at first unacquainted with these secret arrangements, which is most unlikely, he must from his previous experience have been fully prepared for the invasion of Sicily by a papal army as soon as one had been mustered. He could not break off the war in Northern Italy, but he must seek at the same time so to secure his territories on every side that they would be strong enough not only to ward off attack but to pursue the even tenor of their way. Sicily must surpass her previous achievements in raising money and war-material. Complete reorganisation was necessary to put the kingdom on a war footing, for the country was at the moment being governed by a Council of the Household Officers (consisting of the Grand Justiciar Henry of Morra, Count Thomas of Aquino, the Archbishop Berard of Palermo and two other prelates) to whom Frederick had entrusted the regency during his absence. This independent council would no longer be serviceable. The outbreak of war with the Church involved Sicily’s meeting the ever-varying demands of the Emperor fighting in the North, in addition to her own normal requirements. The Council could not divine what Frederick’s needs might be. The Emperor must, therefore, resume the direct government of Sicily himself.