Frederick the Second

by Ernst Kantorowicz

  Having grasped this we perceive that all the tyrants of the Renaissance, the Scala and Montefeltre, the Visconti, Borgia and Medici are down to the tiniest features the sons and successors of Frederick II, the diadochi of this “Second Alexander.” A mendicant monk tells of a wonderful nut-tree which sprang from the altar of a ruined church in Apulia, and which, when they felled it, showed the countenance of the Saviour in the cross section, which recurred in every section of every branch even when the tree was hewn into a thousand fragments. When the imperial autocrat was dead, and the Grand Seignory of Italy was shivered to fragments, a similar phenomenon occurred. Each of the princely courts bore the image of Frederick’s court; and all the princely sons which “Ausonia’s sacred soil” bore in succeeding centuries, reflected, as noble or ignoble bastards, the countenance of their great unknown ancestor: Frederick II, this German Emperor by whom the “Maid Italia, Lady of Brothels” (Dante), had once been seized and overborne and got with child.

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  The despotism which Frederick II and his officials exercised in Italy, though often arbitrary in its severity, was by no means in principle exotic in Italy. The constitution of the towns had clearly shown a leaning towards dictatorship. Up till the turn of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the towns had been ruled by two consuls. These were either subordinated to, or superseded by, a radically foreign importation, the podesta, whose functions resembled more and more those of a dictator. The Lombards’ conception of “freedom” will have been an individualistic striving for independence which tilted against any authority imposed from outside, but did not resent the sternness of its own chosen authorities. Hence it came that the individualism was able to mate so kindly with despotism. Frederick fought against the separatist impulse: he and his officials pointed the path to despotism. In many respects the Emperor brought the towns exactly what they themselves wanted, and the individualist spirit was thus for a while overcome. The towns who supported Milan were drawn together by the bond that united them against their great foe; the others were unified by the Imperium and the hope of the general peace which might be expected from the Emperor’s powerful rule.

  Frederick II hit the nail on the head when he wrote at this time: “The Italian towns would be unmindful of their own advantage if they preferred the luxury of an uncertain freedom to the repose of Pax et Justitia.” For many men were heartily sick of this “uncertain freedom” which continually involved them in internal and external wars, and they longed for such order as the Emperor promised. The speculative and mystical hopes of the time, the faith in the saving mission of the Imperium Romanum and of its Emperor went out to Frederick from another side. He had exploited this faith years before. When he was embarking on the “Execution of Justice” in Lombardy, Piero della Vigna heralded his coming with the Scripture words: “The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light. …” This was, however, only the prelude. When the Pope, with his excommunication and his encyclicals, threatened to shake men’s belief in the Emperor’s mission Frederick began seriously to work up these little-used forces and was able with their help partially to paralyse the full potency of the ban. He succeeded in fanning to a blaze the enthusiasm for the long-promised Messiah-Emperor, but only because the highest spiritual authority, Pope Gregory IX himself, had been at pains to surround the Emperor with the atmosphere of the Apocalypse.

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  If the time had not already been steeped in the belief that the Day of Judgment was at hand this last frenzied battle between the two leaders of the Christian world, fought out at first in pamphlets and manifestos of unprecedented savagery, might well have begotten the idea that an era was expiring in delirium. For ten years the Christian peoples were bewildered by the thunder-laden accusations launched by both parties, each proclaiming to the listening monarchs and their peoples that he was the highest authority alike in secular and spiritual spheres: that the Destroyer himself was seated on—as the case might be—the papal or the imperial throne.

  Not many days after Pope Gregory IX had with his excommunication “committed the Emperor’s body to Satan, that his soul might at the Last Day be saved alive,” Frederick II opened the spiritual battle by a great manifesto to all the kings and princes of the earth: “Lift up your eyes, prick up your ears, O ye children of men! Mourn for the woe of the world, the discord of peoples, the exile of justice, since the abomination of Babylon goeth forth from the elders of the people who had the appearance of guiding them, but into wormwood they turned the fruits of justice, and righteousness into gall. Take your seats, O ye princes, and hearken unto our cause, O ye peoples!” Thus Frederick’s document began, in which he expounded in detail his conduct towards the Pope during the whole course of his reign. At the same time he exposed Pope Gregory’s behaviour to detailed criticism. Since the day when he mounted the chair of St. Peter this Pope had, from unknown motives, relentlessly persecuted the Emperor and shown himself an implacable foe. Frederick here laid the foundation of all his attacks on Gregory IX. He was challenging neither Papacy nor Church, but denouncing solely the present Pope, whom he could not acknowledge as his judge, since Gregory, by leaguing himself with the Empire’s enemies, had become a deadly foe. Finally, Frederick proclaimed to the world certain details of Gregory’s procedure as Pope and revealed certain abuses of the Curia.

  In so doing Frederick catered for a prevailing mood. The materialism of the spiritual power had long been abhorrent to the best minds, and to ordinary men the Curia’s insatiable thirst for money was burdensome. Public opinion was ready enough to find in the Emperor’s words confirmation of all that songs and satires, parodies and pamphlets had long since openly betrayed. This vigorous century had seen a multitude of squibs and skits on Pope, Cardinals and Curia, parodying hymns and litanies and masses, and pillorying above all the greed of the Church and of her head. Witty bogus gospels were broadcast in which the rôle of St. Mark is taken by the silver mark, in others the cardinal becomes the carpinal (the “snatcher”), and money reigns as king of kings. The secret of the papal entente with usurers who were counted heretics was common knowledge. Speaking at the Council of Lyons Frederick’s ambassador warded off an attack on his master as a heretic by retorting that it was not the Emperor who tolerated usurers in his dominions. The western powers were deeply embittered by the papal demands for money. England, in particular, resented the payment of tribute, and ceaselessly protested against the plague of papal money-hunters.

  This critical attitude towards the Roman Church and its abuses had first found voice in the threatening words of Abbot Joachim at the beginning of the century, and criticism had been quickened by contrast with the frugal life of St. Francis. Frederick II now seized on it and exploited it, not in an attack against Church or Curia or Papacy, but solely against the person of Pope Gregory IX, from whom he strove to detach cardinals and Curia. He accused Gregory of issuing dispensations without the concurrence of the cardinals but in exchange for money. Like a huckster who acts as his own clerk and sets his own seal, and mayhap is also his own paymaster, Gregory sits in his closet, binding and loosing. Frederick added some specific examples of the unworthiness of the present Bishop of Rome. The same line was taken by a pamphlet that emanated from Frederick’s circle which attacked Pope Gregory sharply and with effect. “Thou who as Shepherd of the Sheep preachest poverty according to the commands of Christ, why dost thou so diligently flee the poverty that thou commendest…?” Frederick II’s most serious accusation against Pope Gregory was his alliance with the Lombard heretics, more especially the Milanese. The Pope himself had accused them of heresy, and responsible spiritual authorities had judged that the town was mainly inhabited by heretics. By making common cause with Milan Pope Gregory had forfeited all claim to be worthy of the priesthood.

  The Emperor felt moved by anxiety lest “the flocks of the Lord by such a shepherd be led astray.” He, therefore, urges the cardinals to summon a General Council composed of the clergy of the whole Christian world, not
excepting the secular princes. Let this Synod then judge both Pope and Emperor. This proposal seemed monstrous, for since the days of Gregory VII the Church Councils had ceased to be above the Pope and had become his instruments. Frederick II reiterates that he is fighting only against the person of this Gregory. “The Church in general and the Christian people must not marvel that we fear not the verdict of such a judge: not that we lack reverence for the papal office nor for the apostolic dignity, to which all orthodox believers do homage and we in particular above them all,… but we accuse the degeneracy of this one person who hath manifested himself to be unworthy of a throne so illustrious.” Frederick II thus scrupulously distinguished between the papal office and its present incumbent: a refinement which his contemporaries noted and felt to be extremely skilful. For the Emperor thus avoided a quarrel with the Church and her institutions and prosecuted his campaign solely against a personal enemy. And Gregory had displayed enmity enough by the alliance with Venice, Genoa and Milan. On the other hand, this discrimination of office and incumbent brought Frederick into conflict with the dogmas of the Church, which taught that the sacramental virtue was independent of the personal worthiness or unworthiness of the priest. This gave Pope Gregory his opportunity.

  The imperial manifesto had been forceful. In comparison, however, with Pope Gregory’s answer the Emperor’s most savage outbursts appeared tame. Gregory piled up all the most terror-fraught images of the Apocalypse against “this scorpion spewing passion from the sting of his tail,” against this dragon, this hammer of the world. The opening words of his frenzied encyclical were calculated to awaken horror at this apocalyptic monster, already Satan’s prey: “Out of the sea rises up the Beast, full of the names of blasphemy who, raging with the claws of the bear and the mouth of the lion and the limbs and likeness of the leopard, opens its mouth to blaspheme the Holy Name and ceases not to hurl its spears against the tabernacle of God and against the saints who dwell in heaven. With fangs and claws of iron it seeks to destroy everything and to trample the world to fragments beneath its feet. It has already prepared its rams to batter down the walls of the catholic faith. … Cease ye therefore to marvel that it aims at us the darts of calumny, since the Lord himself it doth not spare. Cease ye to marvel that it draws the dagger of contumely against us, since it lifts itself to wipe from the earth the name of the Lord. Rather, that ye may with open truth withstand his lying and may refute his deceits with the proofs of purity: behold the head and tail and body of the Beast, of this Frederick, this so-called Emperor. …”

  The Pope called uncanny forces to his aid in this warfare against the Emperor. Distorting every fact with magnificent effrontery he accused him of crime after crime, careless of everything save the effect he hoped to produce on the minds of Christian people. Frederick had intentionally doomed to death the crusaders in the pilgrim camp of Brindisi, had poisoned the Margrave of Thuringia, had made peace with the Sultan in the Holy Land to the detriment of the Christians, had in his own absence directed the war against the peace-loving Pope, while for greed he allowed his own kingdom to be wasted by fire and sword. Pope Gregory met with humility the reproaches directed against his person and his conduct: “Freely we confess our lack of merit and that we are all unworthy to be the Vicar of Christ. We acknowledge our impotence in face of such a burden which the nature of man, save with divine assistance, is unable to sustain.” Nevertheless, so far as human fragility permits, he has conducted his office in singleness of heart and according to the command of God.

  Far otherwise Frederick II, continues Pope Gregory, doomed to perdition he, with his craftiness and wiles, who has sought to add the functions of the priest to those of the prince, who rejoices to be called the Forerunner of Antichrist and blasphemously denies the Church’s power to bind and to loose. Frederick in his own writings had brought the darkness into light, and with his own hand has torn the veil from his own hideousness. “For while he obstinately declares that he cannot be bound by the fetters of our ban who are the vicegerent of Christ, therewith he declares that the Church does not possess the power transmitted by the Holy Peter and his followers to bind and to loose… thus he sets the seal on his own heresy and thereby shows how evilly he thinks of the other clauses of the true faith. …” Having thus, out of his own mouth, convicted the Emperor of heresy, Pope Gregory hurls against him the most terrible of all accusations: “This King of the Pestilence has proclaimed that—to use his own words—all the world has been deceived by three deceivers, Jesus Christ, Moses and Muhammad, of whom two died in honour, but Christ upon the Cross. And further, he has proclaimed aloud (or rather he has lyingly declared) that all be fools who believe that God could be born of a Virgin, God who is the creator of Nature and of all beside. This heresy Frederick has aggravated by the mad assertion that no one can be born save where the intercourse of man and wife have preceded the conception, and Frederick maintains that no man should believe aught but what may be proved by the power and reason of nature.” Pope Gregory had saved up his deadliest weapon for the last, for behind this monstrous blasphemy could be discerned, however distorted and disguised, the radiant features of the man who sought to see in Nature “the things that are, as they are.” On this point there was no doubt. There is no hope of proving whether or no Frederick had made the infamous statement about the three deceivers. He was certainly capable of saying that—and worse. … The phrase would not, in any case, be his own invention. A generation earlier a Paris doctor of theology, Simon of Tournai, had propounded the thesis in order to prove his dialectic skill in its disproof. The Popes never again laid this blasphemy to Frederick’s charge, and even Pope Gregory never renewed the charge when once the poison had done its work and the accusation had been taken up by all the world. Little did Gregory reck whether it was false or true. The assumption that Frederick’s friendship with the Muslims would have restrained him from any blasphemy against Muhammad will not hold water, though his contemporaries distrusted the papal statements on this ground. How could Frederick, they asked, have named Muhammad as a deceiver along with Moses and with Christ when the same Pope Gregory had based his first excommunication of the same Emperor on the accusation that he was a servant of Muhammad, and addicted to Saracen, no longer to Christian, customs? Pope Gregory could not, of course, prove his statement. But Frederick was equally unable to refute it, and he must, therefore, seek by some other means to neutralise the effect of the papal document that painted him as Satan and as Antichrist. He repudiated the speech about the three deceivers. Such a phrase had never crossed his lips. A mere denial, however, proved nothing, and even a solemn profession of the true faith carried little weight. The most effective course was to cast doubt on the Pope’s veracity and to turn against him the most deadly accusation of all: that of heresy.

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  The Emperor had little difficulty in presenting Pope Gregory as the real heretic and the friend of heretics. The Pope’s alliance with the Lombards was known to all the world and lent weight to the charge. The spiritual princes of Germany, who still to a man stood firm behind the Emperor, wrote soon after this to Pope Gregory. They had examined all the reasons for the excommunication, and with all respect they begged to counsel the Pope not further to embitter so true a son of the Church as this Emperor. For such vexation would add new dangers to those already seriously threatening the catholic faith. Moreover, the Pope’s attitude lent colour to the general belief that the Pope’s severity towards the Emperor was prompted by a desire to protect the Milanese, these enemies of the Empire, and their following. Little as they themselves could credit that the “Vicar of the Truth” could be abetting the manifest baseness of recalcitrant rebels, yet appearances were against him, for the papal legate in Lombardy was doing his utmost to entice the towns from the allegiance they owed the Emperor. They openly stated, therefore, that they, who as limbs of the Empire must not fail her, would be reluctantly compelled to mourn for the Church. For the Emperor truthfully contended that he had offered hi
mself and all he possessed to the Church, and they, therefore, begged the Pope to make peace without delay. They were ready themselves to act as intermediaries.

  Frederick II was still, in the eyes of all the world, primarily the liberator of the Holy Sepulchre, who had, in fact, sacrificed himself and his wealth for the good of the Church. As a persecutor of heretics, too, he had shown himself an orthodox prince. It was, therefore, not easy to shake his position or men’s faith in him. “We know”—they wrote in England—“that he faithfully set out to war for our Lord Jesus Christ, and exposed himself to the perils of the sea and of the fight. We have not up to now observed an equal piety in the Pope.” Frederick II must still be accounted innocent and unconvicted in England. Moreover, they said, an enemy’s word is in no wise to be trusted, and all know that Pope Gregory is the deadly enemy of the Emperor. That the Pope dared to protect imperial rebels and heretics from the punishment justly due, and even excommunicated the victorious and fortunate Emperor solely for their sakes, is sufficiently remarkable.

  Frederick II expressly returned to this point, that he himself had only been the fortunate instrument of the divine will: “In truth, however, the Emperor’s good fortune has always awakened the hostile envy of the Pope. When Simonides was asked how it was that none were jealous of him he answered, ‘because I have never successfully accomplished anything.’ But because by God’s grace all has prospered with us and we are pursuing the Lombards our rebels to the death, this apostolic Priest who wishes them to live, heaves a sigh and seeks himself to obstruct our good fortune.” By thus representing the Pope as envious of others’ good fortune and a disturber of the world’s peace Frederick appeared as the champion of the oppressed Church.

  To illustrate the confusion which the Pope was causing Frederick had recourse to the doctrine of the two luminaries, the familiar parable of the Sun and the Moon, which were typified on earth by Papacy and Empire. Both were directly appointed by God so that man who is always drawn hither and thither might be bridled by a double rein—both, however, were independently created so that neither should disturb the other in his orbit. As the Sun and Moon exist in heaven side by side, so on earth the Papacy and the Empire. Frederick made no attempt to assert imperial superiority over the priest; he contentedly equates the Empire to the Moon: