Frederick the Second

by Ernst Kantorowicz

  The victory decided nothing. The Landgrave’s recognition was strictly limited, and a few months later, in February 1247, Henry Raspe died, to the great inconvenience of the Church. It is unlikely that he would have accomplished anything of real value. King Conrad at this point married Elizabeth of Bavaria, to put an end once and for all to the Bavarian–Hohenstaufen friction, and in this same year the Duke of Austria died and the Emperor resumed his territories. The route to Italy was thus barred by an unbroken Hohenstaufen barrier from Alsace to Austria. Yet there was no peace for King Conrad. The German situation grew yearly more difficult, and in the endless fighting almost the only allies on whom the young king could count were the towns who were the natural enemies of secular and spiritual nobles. That internal battle which the Italian communes had already fought out still lay before the towns of Germany which were still seeking support from the Empire, were even eager to become “imperial towns” and hoped by this means to achieve their independence. King Conrad sorely needed help. In October 1247 a new rival king had been set up, again a protégé of the great archbishop Sigfrid of Mainz. Sigfrid’s mighty tombstone represents two miserable little dwarfs of kings, one on each side, while in the centre the haughty prince of the Church almost unheedingly places with his finger tips a tiny crownlet on the head of each. This corresponds exactly to reality. The new King of the Romans was Count William of Holland—the first mere count, who was not even one of the princes of the Empire, to bear rule in Germany. William lacked neither courage nor chivalrous qualities, but his power never extended beyond the Rhine country, the sphere of the great archbishops. Still, he contrived from there to keep King Conrad amply occupied. The world in general, however, had no use for a nineteen-year-old Count William of Holland as substitute for the mighty figure of Frederick II!

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  The danger of the conspiracy being overcome, Frederick’s position south of the Alps was almost stronger than before, and his reputation of invulnerability against human assassins was finally established. The confusion of a few weeks died down in Sicily, and the skill with which Frederick had countered the papal machinations had not failed to impress Italy, where the episode was considered a triumph for the Emperor. Even the Musulmans showed the warmest interest in the latest events in Tuscany and Campania. In Northern Italy the Emperor’s power was growing. The Venetians had long since begun to lean towards him. They had little to hope from a Genoese pope. Several important nobles in Western Lombardy and in Piedmont allied themselves to Frederick, and he now controlled a large unbroken block of territory stretching almost as far as Lyons. The importance of these regions to Frederick was very great, and so he hastened to attach the nobles more firmly to his person and his cause by establishing family relations with them. He married one of his natural daughters to the Genoese Margrave of Caretto, and Manfred, the son of his well-beloved Bianca Lancia, he married to the daughter of Count Amadeus of Savoy, thus establishing relationship with Thomas of Savoy, to whom he afterwards entrusted a Vicariate General.

  Circumstances were also favourable in central Italy. Tuscany was firmly held, and Frederick of Antioch ruled like a Signore in Florence after displacing the captains of the popular party. Finally, Viterbo voluntarily submitted. The people of Viterbo had always liked Frederick’s rule; they now timidly sought Frederick of Antioch’s mediation. In response to his son’s request the Emperor again accorded his favour to this once-hated town, opining that its treachery had been the work of Cardinal Rainer. To forestall any recurrence of earlier events he sent his nine-year-old son, whom Isabella of England had borne him, to reside in Viterbo, as “King” they said.

  This precaution is noteworthy because it formed part of a general reorganisation of the whole Italian administration, which was the immediate consequence of the great conspiracy to which it finally put an end. The principle became established that the Vicars General should be, as far as possible, relations of the Emperor. The constitution henceforth depended on primary personal relationships, and it was abnormal for any post of eminence to be held by anyone outside the imperial house. Hubert Pallavicini was one of the rare exceptions. During the years following, Italy became simply a family possession of the Hohenstaufens. Imperial Italy was thereafter partitioned more or less as follows: the north-east is held by Eccelino, central Lombardy by King Enzio, followed later by Pallavicini, who at first administered the coastal province of Liguria; west Lombardy by Thomas of Savoy, whose unmanageably large domain was later divided between the Margraves Lancia and Caretto; Tuscany by Frederick of Antioch; Spoleto, the Romagna and the March (a region which later shrank considerably in size) by Richard of Theate, a natural son of the Emperor, and Viterbo by the nine-year-old Henry.

  A thoroughly experienced administrator was essential for Sicily, and Walter of Manupello was appointed. No official was now so tried that Frederick would trust him with complete independence, so the new Vicar was given as “Counsellors” the two juvenile sons-in-law, Thomas of Aquino, the younger, and Count Richard of Caserta, to whom Frederick wrote on one occasion that “as a blood relation of the Emperor you must be wholly faithful.” Thomas of Aquino was later employed as Vicar of the Romagna and Spoleto. Now that the Vicars General were for the most part members of the imperial house their independence was robbed of its danger. This system held good till the Emperor’s death.

  Other alterations were effected at the same time: Richard of Montenero was appointed Lord Chief Justice and Piero della Vigna Logothetes of the Kingdom of Sicily. The Emperor seems to have been working out another unified scheme; to equip each of his sons with his own court and ceremonial, assign to each an endowment and to make each a real “King” over a certain Vicariate General. A fragment is extant of the Emperor’s will dating from 1247, drawn up apparently under the impression of the conspiracy or in anticipation of a campaign towards the north. Its contents are confirmed by certain entries of the chroniclers in the same year: Frederick of Antioch with the County of Alba was to be King of Tuscany; King Enzio of Lunigiana; King Henry of Sicily and the Province of Viterbo; the Emperor’s grandson Frederick, son of the unfortunate German King, Henry VII, was to be king of Austria and Syria. Finally, in the same year, Manfred was to be invested with the Vicariate General of Burgundy and West Lombardy. This scheme was never actually put into execution, but it shows how Frederick was endeavouring to strengthen his Italian Empire which he felt rocking under his feet. It also shows how by this distribution of his inheritance he was gradually loosening himself from earthly ties which were exercising less and less force on the Antichrist and Scourge of God. He announced at this period to his friends that he had handed over the fatigues of Italy to his sons. He was, however, planning another stroke.

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  In the spring of 1247, after a stay of several months in Sicily, the position south of the Alps seemed so favourable that Frederick felt he might safely leave Italy and march to Germany once more, where the pretender Henry Raspe was creating unrest. He had long since promised King Conrad, who was a lad of only twenty and who had been carrying on the fight on hopeless outpost duty, remote from his father and his brothers, that he would ere long be with him, and the preparations for his German campaign occupied the winter of 1246-7. This time he did not intend to rely solely on exotic pomp and imperial riches which had been so effective when he crossed the Alps alone with the boy Conrad twelve years before. A great army was to accompany him as well as his Court, and it was remarked that the Emperor summoned the knights of the Italian towns to join the campaign. The suggestion was supposed to be Piero della Vigna’s. This was an unheard of thing! Many a time had the Emperors led German warriors to Italy, but since the days of the Caesars no Italians had been enlisted for trans-Alpine service in Germany. It appears that the Italian knights acquiesced without a murmur.

  In March 1247 the Emperor quitted his hereditary kingdom. He travelled by the usual route northwards through Tuscany, met Frederick of Antioch in Siena, marched by way of San Miniato to Pisa, witho
ut approaching Florence. Frederick always avoided this town, they say, because the astrologers had foretold that he was destined to die “sub flore,” and the oracle had been interpreted as relating to Florence. From Tuscany he continued his march to Lombardy. Only one of the Apennine passes was open to him: the Cisa Pass, which was covered in the south by Pontremoli and in the north by Parma. The other route, down the Reno valley by way of Pistoia, was commanded by the hostile town of Bologna. Frederick reached Parma in April, intending to push straight on to Cremona. His original plan was to hold a one-day Diet in Cremona and to proceed straight by Verona and the Brenner into Germany. Before quitting Tuscany, however, the Emperor had heard of the death of Henry Raspe, and this news, which the court received with rejoicing, probably modified his plans. He now decided to march through the Arelate instead of by the Brenner and from Burgundy to make his appearance on the Upper Rhine, taking this opportunity not only of visiting his kingdom of Burgundy but also of paying a call on Pope Innocent IV in Lyons. Counting on the mediation of King Louis of France he hoped either to induce the Pope to conclude a friendly peace or by a siege to wring peace from him, as he had once tried to wring it from Gregory in Rome.

  It was a daring undertaking which held great prospect of success. The plan of appearing on the Upper Rhine shows foresight. He could count on many supporters there and could immediately march on to the lower Rhine which was the focus of the German revolt. His personal appearance in Burgundy would have greatly strengthened its attachment to his service; he had already made more impression on this western frontier kingdom than any preceding German Emperor had done, and he was now apparently intending to establish Manfred there as a Burgundian king. The undertaking against Lyons was not less promising. The recent alliances with the Count of Savoy and his neighbouring magnates had extended his power up to the very gates of Lyons, so that Innocent IV would indeed be in serious straits if Frederick II really appeared in Burgundy. The King of France and his brothers would, of course, have shielded him from actual armed attack, but Lyons belonged not to France but to the Empire, and King Louis had not given permission for the Pope to cross into French territory.

  In this spring of 1247 Pope Innocent IV was in considerable distress. He was a partial prisoner. The fate of his predecessor besieged in Rome, the very fate he had sought to flee from, seemed about to overtake him. Preparations for the Emperor’s reception were proceeding apace. The Count of Savoy and the Dauphin had already prepared the pass south of the Mont Cenis; the Gallic nobles were invited to a Diet in Chambéry for the second week after Whitsun, and the trans-Alpine populace was eagerly awaiting the arrival of the “Caesarea Fortuna.” After a brief meeting with Eccelino in Cremona, Frederick had turned his face westwards in the middle of May, had marched through Pavia with great pomp and reached Turin in early June. While the imperial household and the whole attendant train marched on into the mountains Frederick remained behind for a few days in Turin at the foot of the Alps to meet the Count of Savoy. Just as he was about to set out to overtake his vanguard a cry for help reached him from Enzio. Parma had been surprised and taken by the Guelfs.

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  Orlando di Rossi had again taken a hand in the game. Some seventy Guelf knights of Parma, who had fled to Piacenza with Orlando two years before, had seized their opportunity to appear suddenly one Sunday before the gates of their native town. They knew the Emperor was in Turin; Enzio was besieging a fortress in the Brescia region; the Ghibelline knights of Parma has just assembled for a big wedding and were “full of wine and of good cheer.” Nevertheless they leapt to horse on hearing of the Guelfs’ approach. Led by the imperial podesta, Arrigo Testa of Arezzo, the knightly poet and the Emperor’s friend, they flung themselves on the foe before he reached the town. The imperialists were worsted in the first bloody encounter. Arrigo Testa fell “fighting like a king,” and with him many another, so that the Guelfs unhindered entered the open city. Frederick had always feared the internal treachery of Parma, and with a refinement of shrewdness he had had the fortifications destroyed. The German garrison, though fairly strong, was therefore unable to make a stand, and the victors met with no other resistance, for the townsfolk remained indifferent. No sooner had the surprise been successful than Parma by arrangement received help from all sides. The other Guelf towns sent help; the Guelf partisans who had been banished from the imperial towns hastened to Parma; Milan sent a strong body of auxiliaries under the leadership of the papal legate Gregory of Montelongo. With them came Orlando di Rossi. All the Emperor’s enemies who had long been chafing in inactivity had now one rallying point; in the shortest possible space of time the struggle for Parma had become the affair of all the Guelfdom of Italy.

  Frederick recognised the danger involved. The journey to Lyons and the German campaign were abandoned and the return march hastily begun. The Emperor’s prestige demanded the most severe punishment of the treacherous town, which was of the highest strategic importance because it commanded the only route of communication with the south. The command of Italy outweighed every other consideration. “Only one anxiety occupies our mind: to restore Italy’s severely-shattered government.” Within two weeks of the catastrophe the Emperor reached Cremona, where he was met by Eccelino with six hundred knights. Two days later he camped before Parma, where King Enzio was awaiting him. He had abandoned his luckless expedition against Brescia, hastened to Cremona, and marched on Parma with all men capable of bearing arms. Enzio had not ventured to attack with such meagre forces, though according to the chroniclers’ account the town might even then have been re-won for the Emperor. He had fortified his camp in front of Parma and was awaiting his father’s arrival. It is not now possible to divine why Frederick did not immediately storm the town, which had scarcely had time to throw up serious defences. He seems to have overestimated the strength of his opponents, and waited to bring up reinforcements from every side. Hugo Boterius of Parma was one of the first to arrive; he brought the levies of Pavia. He was a nephew of the Pope and of Orlando di Rossi, but in spite of his two uncles he remained faithful to the Emperor to the last. Frederick of Antioch was soon on the spot with the troops of Tuscany. The Emperor had himself had a large army going to Turin, mainly composed of Sicilians, Saracens, Italian and German mercenary knights. Eccelino had brought Burgundian knights. Altogether Frederick must now have had a very considerable force at his disposal. Having missed the initial opportunity of storming the town without waiting to besiege it he could not keep this large army together before Parma.

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  The defection of Parma was the signal for an almost universal revolt of the Guelfs of Italy. In every province the Emperor’s authority was suddenly endangered. There was not a single Vicariate General where the Guelfs did not rise against the Emperor, usually supported by papal troops, and even Sicily seemed threatened by the Genoese. Within a few weeks the whole of Italy was ablaze, and innumerable minor theatres of war sapped the strength of the main army. Every great power in its death-throes is exposed to the same danger. Never before had Frederick’s case been so desperate. It was no small achievement that he did succeed in repressing the insurrection in spite of the infinite dispersion of his forces.

  A hard and fast siege of Parma was from the first impossible. The Emperor must be in a position to release troops as required for minor campaigns. He, therefore, set about cutting off all lines of communication with the town in a wide arc, while his strong cavalry detachments swept the country round Parma. The Emperor himself closed the road to the Guelf town of Piacenza by camping west of Parma on the Taro. The imperial towns of Reggio and Modena blocked the eastern road to Bologna. The road to the north, and with it the communication with the Po, had to remain open for the moment, for nothing competed in importance with the southern route over the Cisa Pass. This pass over the Apennines was as good as lost. The northern exit had been at once secured by Margrave Lancia, but confusion reigned on the further side. Garfagnana and Lunigiana had fallen at the same time as Par
ma, the Imperial Vicar had been taken prisoner and the Malaspina Margraves had revolted, hoping thus to recover their territories which the Emperor had confiscated. Communication with Tuscany was, therefore, actually cut. King Enzio had just returned with Eccelino and Hubert Pallavicini from a raid—he had been sent to strengthen Modena and Reggio against Bologna. He was now entrusted with the task of opening up the Cisa Pass. With the assistance of Pallavicini, and supported by the loyal Pontremoli, he succeeded in taking the fortress of Berceto and pushing on far beyond Pontremoli. One of the Malaspina Margraves submitted. This most important route was thus at the Emperor’s disposal once more.

  Frederick was now free to complete the encirclement of Parma on the north. As long as the besieged town had free access to the Po the garrison was able to secure provisions sent from Mantua and Ferrara by boat. Enzio and Eccelino, who now usually worked in concert, were ordered to make a bridgehead on the Po west of Guastalla, both to put an end to river traffic and to close the roads leading from the river to Parma. They took Brescello, a fort upstream from Guastalla, and threw a bridge across the river which they strongly fortified. This drew the Mantuans and Ferrarese into the quarrel. They tried to relieve Parma, and Enzio and Eccelino had to keep this new enemy at bay. This they did without difficulty, but presently a strong army from every possible Guelf town, accompanied by a great fleet, was known to be approaching. Eccelino’s brother, Alberigo of Romano, was in the Guelf camp. But they did not venture to attack the imperial forces, and for two months the hostile army lay at Guastalla. Enzio and Eccelino felt no need to attack. They were holding a whole army in check and fulfilling their task of closing Parma’s last line of communication.