Frederick the Second

by Ernst Kantorowicz

  The Emperor’s aim in issuing his manifestos was to get back to facts. He did not plead that his excommunication was unjustified; he emphasised that he had incurred it solely on account of the non-fulfilment of his crusading vow. For the Pope was deliberately obscuring the issue, and Frederick was bent on bringing it again to light. To rob the Pope of his weapons Frederick solemnly undertook before all the world to sail early in the following year, “unless indeed it be—which God forfend—that the new-awakened bitterness of this feud should hold us back against our will from such a holy task.” The allusion here was, of course, to the papal intrigues which Frederick exposed in detail in two subsequent letters: the Pope, in the sight of the assembled people had taken the Milanese, the Emperor’s enemies, into favour; the Pope had issued orders to take up arms against the Emperor; the Pope had already begun to foment insurrection in Sicily against its king. It was indeed true that Gregory IX had forbidden the Sicilian clergy to help the Emperor in any way with his new preparations, and that he was now threatening to release Frederick’s subjects from their oaths of fealty unless the Emperor would obey the Curia. The Emperor took care to keep his friends informed of the facts: the Pope refused to accord him the usual Crusader’s blessing on his departure for the Holy Land; he refused to inform the venerable Archbishop Albert of Magdeburg, the imperial envoy, what penance or amends he would be prepared to accept. The gravest charge against the Pope, and one to which Gregory could find no answer, was reserved for the last. “With the moneys which he has received to aid the Crusaders in Christ’s work this Romish Priest entertains mercenaries to molest us in every way.”

  *

  Frederick was well aware that the best his writings could accomplish was to place matters in a certain light, and that he must show his intentions “not with words but with deeds.” Only thus could he ward off the Pope’s attacks and perchance even turn the papal weapons against the Pope himself: by his action expose the Pope’s machinations and give his words the lie.

  Nothing should now detain him from the Crusade, not even Gregory’s “devilish inspiration” in forbidding him to set out till he had been released from the ban. The Pope’s tactics were too obvious: the excommunicated Emperor must not start, he refused to lift the ban, he refused to state what amends would be acceptable. If Frederick stayed behind the Pope had won: a new procrastination would justify the Pope’s procedure. It was in the circumstances a clever move of the Emperor’s to let nothing detain him. Only some visible act could make him again master of the situation: in the spring he sent on in advance his Marshal, Richard Filangieri, with 500 knights to the Holy Land, held himself a Diet in Barletta at which he appointed Reginald of Urslingen, Titular Duke of Spoleto, as Regent of Sicily. He then embarked on his galley and at the end of June set sail from Brindisi, having just received favourable news from Syria.

  “We have just left Brindisi for Syria and are speeding along before a favourable wind with Christ our Leader…,” so the banned Emperor announced his journey to the world.

  No one had been expecting the Emperor’s departure, least of all Gregory IX. His stiffnecked implacability put him into a very painful position: “We do not know whose foolish counsel he hearkened to, or, better: what devilish cunning betrayed him into secretly quitting the harbour of Brindisi without penance and without absolution, without anyone’s knowing for certain whither he has sailed.” The fact that he saw himself placed in the wrong by no means inclined Gregory to give in, rather the reverse. Now that he knew the Emperor far away he had a free hand in the West. No sooner had he received tidings of Frederick’s landing in Syria—whence a sudden return was not to be feared—than he opened the long-prepared war: in the Empire and in Sicily he released all subjects from their oath, and then sought to set up a rival king in Germany. He found himself another Welf, but his protégé quickly thought better of the offer and opined “he had no wish to die the death of his uncle, Kaiser Otto IV.” In other ways, too, the Pope’s German plans missed fire. The secular princes and the bishops remained faithful to their openhanded Emperor, especially as there was nothing particular to be done for him at the moment: they were completely indifferent to the papal ban which extended to their sixteen-year-old King Henry VII, and by the time the news of Syrian victories began to penetrate to Germany even the common people were criticising the Pope’s intriguing ways: “The Pope would seem to be possessed by a devil,” “his head is ailing, hence he is obstinate.” Another characterises Gregory’s conduct as an abhorred sign of the decay of the Church, a third exclaims: “Christian folk will suffer from it till the Judgment Day.” What aroused the greatest indignation against Pope Gregory throughout Germany and everywhere else in the world was his behaviour in Sicily. The Emperor’s regent, Reginald of Spoleto, took the Pope’s release of Frederick’s subjects from their oath to be a declaration of war and invaded the March and his own earlier dukedom of Spoleto with Sicilian and Saracen troops—perhaps exceeding his instructions in so doing. Whereupon the Pope, who had long since made full preparations, invaded the kingdom of Sicily with his own soldiers—the first army to fight as Soldiers of the Keys under the banner of Peter—supported by the Lombard rebels. A body of Franciscans under his orders worked through the country spreading the news that the Emperor was dead. The Sicilians did not know what to do, and in a short time a large part of continental Sicily was in his hands. People now began to believe what Frederick had said, that the Pope was using Crusade money to pay his soldiers, and indeed the Pope’s vindictiveness against a Crusader was incredible. The Pope who must not carry out a death sentence was now maintaining a papal army and leading it to battle against a Christian prince, and a Crusader to boot, who was absent in the Holy Land fighting for the true religion, and whose land and property ought, according to time-honoured convention, to be held sacred under the protection of the Church. This brought the Pope into such bad odour that no one can have believed his final justifications—in which there was nevertheless a certain truth—“This war is necessary for the Christian faith that such a mighty Persecutor of the Church may be driven from his throne.” Gregory saw the dire necessity. What the world saw was the reverse.

  *

  The Emperor’s resolution to leave the West was an incomparably daring gamble in which his all was at stake. When he sailed Lombardy was already lost. He knew the Pope’s intention to release his Sicilian subjects from their allegiance and resume the papal fief. He knew that the next step would be to dethrone him. He was sufficiently experienced to have no illusions. His whole western power was in the balance, and if defeat awaited him in the East—a visible judgment of God against the “hubris” of the excommunicated man who with his curse upon him had dared to set foot in the Holy Land—then his thrones were lost, and with them his dreams of Roman Empire. There was no alternative: he must at all costs succeed. There was heavy work ahead, and well Frederick knew it. But, as he said himself, he let none perceive his anxieties, but turned the same confident and smiling face upon the world. This crusade adventure of the excommunicated Emperor, pursued even into the Holy Land by the papal curse, is one of the most stirring episodes in his eventful life. For a brief space Frederick II was cut off from all the confusion of the West, as free as any young adventurer, or as the “pirate” Gregory IX called him.

  It was with a fleet of forty galleys under the chief command of Admiral Henry of Malta that Frederick II eventually sailed from Brindisi in June 1228. He was accompanied as usual by the faithful Archbishop Berard of Palermo and the imperial chamberlain Richard, a Sicilian who had never left the Emperor’s side since he journeyed with the Puer Apuliae to Germany, and finally by Archbishop Jacob of Capua, who also belonged to the trusted courtiers of the Emperor. Frederick’s other immediate friends, the German Grand Master, Count Thomas of Aquino and Marshal Richard Filangieri, were awaiting his arrival in Syria. There were many Germans too in the Emperor’s suite, one of whom, Conrad of Hohenlohe, soon entered his personal service. Amongst the Saracen ret
ainers who as usual accompanied him was Frederick II’s teacher of Arab dialectic, a Sicilian Saracen. The gifted Frederick was to find his fluency in Arabic conversation of more value than warriors or weapons.

  Pope Gregory was not wholly beside the mark when he stated that no one knew whither the Emperor sailed, for Frederick II was killing two birds with his one stone. Three weeks after leaving Brindisi, and sailing mainly close to the coast past Corfu, Cephalonia, Crete and Rhodes, the Emperor’s galleys cast anchor in Limassol, the harbour of Cyprus. The prince of the island, Amaury of Lusignan, had at his own request done feudal homage to the Emperor Henry VI and received the crown at his hands, and since then Cyprus had been counted a fief of the Roman Empire. During the years of chaos in Germany the island had been lost to the Empire and Frederick had long intended to reconquer it. This necessitated an interruption of his journey. The Emperor looked on it as one of his duties to reassemble under one firm hand the scattered possessions of the Empire, but Cyprus had just now particular importance as a base for the Syrian campaign. This large island could easily support a thousand fighting men who could release the Emperor’s own troops for other work. We need only mention here that Frederick without fighting, though not without a few adventures, achieved what he wanted. He concluded an agreement with John of Ibelin, the guardian of the twelve-year-old king, a Syrian nobleman who enjoyed a great reputation throughout the whole of the Christian East as a lawyer and a scholar, and was renowned for his shrewdness, eloquence and ingenuity. By this agreement the regency passed, in accordance with German feudal law, to the Emperor, who immediately nominated a Sicilian regent and installed Sicilian chatelains in all the fortresses, while he appointed finance officials to collect the revenues of the various districts. Ibelin and the Cypriot knights were carried off to fight in the Holy Land.

  The Fifth Crusade

  Such was the result of the halt in Cyprus, which lasted many weeks. Individual events on the island belong to the epic story of knightly deeds which constitutes the life of Frederick II. People loved to hear and tell how John of Ibelin, leader of the anti-imperial party, appeared before the Emperor in mourning for his dead brother. The Emperor immediately sent him the most costly scarlet robes and begged him to put them on: for his joy at welcoming the Emperor must surely triumph over his grief for a lost brother. A day or two later a brilliant banquet was held at which Ibelin sat on the Emperor’s right hand while his sons served as pages. As the feast drew to a close the castle gradually filled with sailors and armed men from the Emperor’s galleys, while Frederick in a stern tone demanded an account of Ibelin’s guardianship. Confounded, Ibelin at first could make no reply. The Emperor wrathfully swore to arrest him, when the celebrated jurist was inspired to one of his famous speeches which held Frederick spellbound, as often before Ibelin had enthralled the feudal court. The episode, however, had alarmed Ibelin. A night or so later he took flight secretly with his knights, who had been instant in warning him, and were minded to avenge themselves for Frederick’s autocratic behaviour. The Emperor heard the noise and fearing an ambush slept the night on board his ship, and next morning pursued the fugitive who had fled to the castle Dieu d’Amour, well known to be difficult to capture. The agreement closed the adventure. Ibelin followed the Emperor to the Holy Land and for the moment did him good service there, biding his time for revenge.

  The news of Frederick’s speedy triumph in Cyprus must have preceded him to Syria. On landing in Acre he was hailed with indescribable joy, and the pilgrims greeted the Pope’s accursed as the “Saviour of Israel,” mindful of the ancient, ever-living prophecy that an Emperor would come out of the West to fulfil the time, to unite East and West, and to free Jerusalem. Even the clergy appeared to welcome him; though they refused the kiss of homage, the Templars and the Knights of St. John knelt before the excommunicate Emperor. The Muslims believed that the mighty Emperor of the West, the “King of the Amirs,” had come with uncounted hosts, and they were afraid.

  They soon found out that the fear was groundless. Frederick had assembled in Acre at most ten thousand pilgrims and some thousand knights, and he could not wholly trust even this exiguous force. A few days after his arrival two Franciscan emissaries of the Pope made their appearance, commanding that none should render obedience to the banned Emperor. Thus the quarrel between Pope and Emperor was carried even into the Holy Land, where Frederick’s fulfilment of his vow might have been expected to effect his release from the ban. The Emperor’s position as leader of Christendom was undermined, and the pilgrims split into two hostile camps. The Sicilians, the Germans with the Order of Teutonic Knights, the Pisans and Genoese remained faithful to the Emperor, but all the rest, the English and French with the Templars and the Knights of St. John, and above all the clergy, concentrated on one purpose: to hinder the Emperor in every way and to nullify his every action. For the sake of the cause Frederick exercised the greatest self-restraint and sought to obviate all grounds of discord. He went so far as to hand over the nominal leadership to the Grand Master, Hermann of Salza, Marshal Richard Filangieri and the Syrian Constable, Odo of Montbeliard, so that no one should need to obey an excommunicated leader. He even acquiesced in the Templars’ demand that orders should no longer be issued over the imperial name but in the name of God and of Christendom. All moderation on the Emperor’s part was fruitless as long as the Pope and his Legate, Gerold, Patriarch of Jerusalem, hounded his enemies on. Their hostile propaganda strengthened from day to day.

  The situation was aggravated by the news that Pope Gregory had released the Emperor’s subjects from their allegiance. Under such unhappy auspices Frederick began his difficult enterprise in the East. Circumstances forbade warlike action against the Saracens, even if that had formed, as it did not, part of Frederick’s plan.

  *

  A short while before, the position in the East had been phenominally favourable for Frederick II. The Muslim princes were at strife with each other and the Emperor had hoped to take advantage of their rivalries. He had been carrying on negotiations for a long time back with al Kamil, the Sultan of Egypt. Al Kamil was a nephew of the chivalrous Saladin, the first of the Ayyubids whose immense Empire was divided up at his death; he conceived himself threatened by his brother al Muazzam, Sultan of Damascus, and sought to win allies against him. The Sultan of Egypt therefore, as soon as he heard of the Emperor’s projected Crusade into Syria—which would necessarily make Frederick a enemy of the Sultan of Damascus—immediately sent ambassadors to Sicily to invite an alliance, promising to give up to Frederick the whole of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, which they would conquer together, and begging only the Emperor’s speedy arrival. Further embassies were interchanged, led on Frederick’s side by Archbishop Berard of Palermo, and on the Sultan’s by the Amir Fakhra’d Din; presents were exchanged, one of the gifts to Frederick being an elephant, and negotiations had reached a fairly advanced stage when Frederick reached Acre—much later than originally intended—and at once announced his arrival to the Sultan through his Syrian regent Count Thomas of Aquino.

  The story later ran that the Sultan had spread the streets with carpets to welcome Frederick II: even in a metaphorical sense this is far from true. Al Kamil was lying at Nablus with a great army. He received the Emperor’s envoys with the greatest honour, held a review, and sent Fakhru’d Din on his behalf to the Emperor with costly gifts, fabrics and gems, riding camels and mules. All talk of handing over Jerusalem, however, suddenly ceased; the general situation had greatly altered to Frederick’s disadvantage. The feared al Muazzam, the Sultan of Damascus, their common foe, was dead, and his little son could scarcely rank as a serious enemy. So al Kamil, who had also concluded an alliance with the Sultan of Mesopotamia, had conquered a large part of the Damascus territory, including Jerusalem, without Frederick’s help. His western ally, whom he had so urgently summoned and to whom he had promised so much, was for the moment an encumbrance, for the Emperor would want land which the Egyptian Sultan had just conquered on
his own behalf. Al Kamil, therefore, had recourse to the time-honoured Oriental device of exercising lavish politeness, inexhaustible courtesy, the liveliest assurances of friendship, and maintaining the silence of the grave on the point at issue. The Sultan, moreover, was aware of the weakness of Frederick’s actual forces, the quarrel in the Christian camp, and the breach between Emperor and Pope. So before long he completely “forgot” the Emperor’s existence and quietly overlooked the notary, his new messenger.

  The Emperor’s position was desperate. He must have success, and everything was conspiring against him. He could not dream of attacking al Kamil’s mighty army; the pilgrims and the troops whom he had marched, by way of demonstration, a little nearer to Nablus as far as Jaffa, were on the point of starvation, for storms had detained their supply-ships; the negotiations on which he had built so much had fallen through; sensational news was arriving from Italy about the Pope’s activities, and—worst of all—the disaffection in his own camp was on the increase. Intercepted letters proved that the Pope was conjuring the Sultan on no account to hand over Jerusalem to the Emperor. The Pope stooped to this because the success of the banned Emperor would mean the Judgment of God against himself. That his contemporaries were ready to believe in the Pope’s treachery is shown both by spurious letters of the time and by the Crusade sagas which grew up round the events of the day. Later versions even relate the capture of Frederick, and tell how the Pope had a “counterfeit” of Frederick made, and sent the portrait to the Sultan so that he might make no mistake about the person of his victim.