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The magnificent gestures of a world-monarch came naturally to Frederick. Not less natural was his readiness to relax in the company of his intimate friends, when he could feel sure that none of his words would be misunderstood. Above all other things he loved good conversation; witty and intellectual talk, in which he joined with an indescribable charm of his own, was an absolute necessity to him. He had no need to summon a Voltaire from abroad to provide the dilicato parlare that he loved. There were, it is true, many foreign scholars at his court, but their business was to conduct research in definite philosophic or scientific subjects and to expound these afresh, communicating their results to the court, most frequently through the medium of Frederick himself.
The whole court shared his spirit. There was none who did not, to the measure of his ability, respond to the intellectual stimulus of the Emperor’s personality, and a very considerable proportion of his knowledge and modes of thought communicated itself to the court officials, notaries, and stylists of his entourage. Years after his death it is still possible to tell with almost absolute certainty whether the writer of a given letter had been in touch with one of those sucklings “of the milk of rhetoric at the imperial court.”
Certain philosophical lines of thought which were simply dubbed “Ghibelline ideas” in later times were a product of the spirit that flowed from Frederick II and his circle: The recurrence of Nature, Reason, Necessity in certain connections, the belief in Fortune instead of Providence, the disappearance of threadbare Bible tags in favour of quotations from the classics. Frederick’s contemporaries were ripe for these things. Della Vigna’s activity has shown, however, how conscious, intentional and well-thought-out was the intellectual preparation of the ground.
It was something like a new gospel that emanated from the court, and one of the tokens of it was the inrush of a youthful spirit into an age of decadence and decay—a living something that drew into itself all that was actively alive. Outworn mental attitudes had no place in this State. The whole imperial group was young, not only in spirit but in years, incomparably young, full-blooded and alive. Aged, aged Pope Gregory had good reason to feel afraid; he even lodged a complaint against the excessive youthfulness of the imperial officials. The Emperor curtly retorted that it was none of the Pope’s business, and begged to call the Pope’s attention to the fact that, according to the Sicilian Book of Laws, to debate about the suitability of imperial officers was sacrilege. That was fairly cynical. Indeed an immeasurable cynicism, a sign of vigorous life, prevailed in the circle of Frederick and his friends, especially in reference to their opponents. Not towards opponents only. Frederick always found it hard to repress his acid wit and probably gave it free rein amongst his intimates, pouring scorn not only on the Pope but on friends and contemporaries. He made merry over the envoys of his faithful Cremona and mimicked their absurd way of speaking, how they must first indulge in reciprocal flatteries before one of them would open his business. He said of his friend, the Margrave of Montferrat, that you would need a pickaxe to hew money out of him—a saying that a troubadour swiftly seized on and wove into his sirventes. He even indulged in mockery of Chingiz Khan, who had proposed (what would scarcely have been conceivable save for the Asiatic perspective) that Frederick II should do him homage and accept appointment at the Court of the Great Khan. The Emperor’s prompt repartee was that he would apply for the post of falconer. On the other hand, the Emperor was only amused when one of his friends aimed a shaft at him. The chronicler remarks that Eccelino of Romano would have visited such a jest with instant death.
These are all signs of the intellectual freedom and detachment of the Emperor himself and his court. It was freedom on a large scale. Each of the imperial jests, each of the blasphemies which frequently leaked out, was a challenge to an entire world. These cynicisms would have been wholly unjustified had not Frederick himself been able to build up a new world with its own new sanctities. If anyone dared to breathe against the holy things of the State, Frederick took umbrage immediately: “He who provokes the Emperor with words is punished with deeds.” The officials were not slow to catch their master’s tone. One of his underlings speaks words that might be Frederick’s own: some Guelf prisoners were to be executed, and confession was refused them with the taunt that it was quite supererogatory for them; as friends of the Pope they were all holy together and would alight forthwith in Paradise. Before the days of Frederick II no one would have ventured such a jest. It presupposes an inexpressible contempt for the accepted dogmas of a future life and a complete fearlessness of death. This effect of Frederick’s influence was inevitable and would certainly have been fraught with extreme danger had it not been for the restraints of the State. On Frederick’s own lips such remarks, provoked by sheer defiance, are merely a by-product of his free-ranging mind that shrank from no breadth or depth or height.
People have often praised Frederick for his disregard of position and parentage in his choice of officials. His appointment of town-bred lawyers and his reinforcement of official cadres by outsiders seem to support this view. He was actuated not so much by freedom from snobbery as by a love of playing the oriental despot, who can take his scullion of to-day for his Grand Wazir of to-morrow—a trait which is quite in character. A whole army of slaves, male and female, were attached to the imperial establishment, many of them Moors—who were mainly employed in divers duties in the imperial residences. Frederick had quarters in a number of places: Lucera, Melfi, Canosa, Messina, to which special interest attaches. Until recently it was the fashion to consider these arsenals and clothing stores as imperial harems, and this belief was strengthened by some instructions of the Emperor, that the girls employed there should be provided with clothing and should be kept at their spinning when not otherwise occupied. People affected to consider this a humane and domestic trait of the Emperor in relation to his concubines. It is clear from the wording of his orders that the Saracen girls were in charge of eunuchs, but this would have been necessary for the discipline of Saracen slave women, employed at the looms and in the workshops which supplied the needs of the court, the clothing for the army, woollen coverlets and costly saddlecloths and trappings for horses, camels and hunting leopards; we have no ground for assuming that the women were the odalisques of their lord. In these same quarters weapons and armour were manufactured, machines of war, riding and pack saddles. Frederick frequently fetched craftsmen from a distance to teach his slaves: a Syrian master perhaps for cross-bows, or a Pisan for chain mail.
Apart from the staffs of these provincial quarters there was a personal retinue which accompanied the Emperor on all his campaigns, baggage train and staff and everything appertaining, an immense following which was permanently in attendance. A most amazing cavalcade—such as the West had never seen—like the state of an oriental monarch, always followed Frederick on his journeys after his return from the East. Apart from administrative officials, High Court Judges and the Saracen bodyguard, a complete menagerie was in his train, that brought people crowding in from miles around: strange beasts, unseen before, some of which were useful in hunting, but whose chief function was to add to the glamour and mystery of imperial majesty. Costly four-in-hand teams drew mighty wagons laden with treasure, richly caparisoned camels bearing burdens were escorted by uncounted slaves, gaudily arrayed in silken tunics and linen gear. Leopards and lynxes, apes and bears, panthers and lions, were led on the chain by Saracen slaves. The Emperor even possessed a giraffe. Add to these countless dogs, hawks, barn owls, horned owls, eagles and buzzards, every type of falcon, white and coloured peacocks, rare Syrian doves, white Indian parakeets crowned with yellow tufts of feathers, African ostriches, and, finally, the elephant with his wooden tower on his back, in which were seated Saracen marksmen and trumpeters. On triumphal occasions, once in Cremona for instance, the Emperor himself rode at the head of this procession: the God-man visibly elevated above all the creatures of the world.
The number of animals al
one, many of which people scarcely knew by name, let alone by sight, thrilled the world with excitement. All chroniclers give complete details about the imperial procession. Brunetto Latini, Dante’s teacher, lets himself go about the elephant in Cremona which had dashed a donkey to the ground with its trunk; apart from what he had actually seen he retails all sorts of marvellous tales: that the elephant, which was a present to the Emperor from King John of Jerusalem, would never step on to a ship until it had been promised a safe return, and that before copulation it must eat a mandragora root which grows only in the neighbourhood of the earthly paradise. When the elephant entered at last, the spectators waited breathlessly to see its bones turn into ivory. Others gave their attention to other animals; the Frenchman, Villard de Honnecourt, who once saw this zoological collection on his travels, sketched the lion and wrote underneath: “Ci lions fu contrefais al vif.”
The rest of the Emperor’s escort aroused nearly as much speculation as the exotic animals. For the court retinue included Saracen women and eunuchs, as people never failed to note when the train passed through the Italian towns. Nothing was more obvious—even without the hints of the Pope’s letter—than to see in these veiled women the favourite concubines of the already legendary harem. The very uncertainty was stimulating. Whether these girls, like the acrobats, conjurors and rope dancers who were often in attendance, were kept by the Emperor merely for the entertainment their skill provided (as Kaiser Frederick protested in innocent surprise to the reproaches of the Pope) or whether Frederick made use of them on occasion in other ways (“swept away by their charms,” as the Pope preferred to imagine) could not be ascertained. “Who could testify in the matter?” as the Emperor’s ambassador later said to the Council of Lyon. They were simply part of the court staff, maidservants and slave-girls, perhaps also dancers and singing-girls, which fitted in with the oriental arrangements of the Emperor’s court.
The Emperor’s staff included also numerous male slaves, whose duties were very various, and ranged from personal attendance on the monarch to the most menial tasks. The Emperor provided suitable education and training on the most varied lines for the abler ones. Many were taught to read and write Arabic. Another time he selected negro boys between sixteen and twenty to form a musical corps; they were magnificently clad and taught to blow large and small silver trumpets. We may assume that the duty of this imperial band was to play at meal times, since the courts of Anjou and Aragon, whom Frederick copied in every way, indulged this custom. Black page boys are frequently mentioned; one pair of these servitelli nigri* were called Muska and Marzukh, and they brought down on the Emperor from the Pope the reproach of “scarcely veiled sodomy.” When Frederick’s wrath fluttered his accusers they later tried to take the sting out of this by returning to the innuendoes about the Saracen girls and the harem of Gomorra. One of these boys will probably be the slave who grew up at the imperial court and rose to hold the highest offices of state, Johannes Maurus. The slave-woman’s son attracted the Emperor’s attention; he became guardian of the Emperor’s chamber, rose to still more important positions, received a barony, and later, under King Conrad, became Chief Chamberlain, Commandant of the fortress of Lucera, and finally Lord Treasurer of the Sicilian kingdom. Ultimately he was overtaken by the usual fate of the slave who attains great office: he turned traitor and paid the penalty. The Pope took him into favour, but he was murdered by the Saracens who had remained faithful to Manfred. This was another of the types represented at the Court of Frederick II. There were isolated Saracen officials under Frederick, as under the Normans, especially in the departments of Customs and Finance, but they tended to disappear and no other had so brilliant a career as Johannes Maurus.
*
Beside the town-bred literati who grouped themselves round Piero della Vigna and the foreigners, there was a third group of officials, the aristocratic knights. Though Frederick looked more to the efficiency than to the origin of his officers, yet the posts of Justiciar, or, as they were later called in Northern Italy, the posts of Vicar and Vicar-General, were reserved almost exclusively for the lower, less wealthy nobility. The mere possession of a fief was not as in Norman times a qualification for office; the decisive factor was the person. The nobleman could achieve distinction only by his personal service and according to his individual ability. It is the more remarkable that not only the circle of stylists who surrounded della Vigna, but the overwhelming majority of knightly aristocratic officials were drawn from Beneventan or Campanian stocks, were supplemented to a certain extent from Apulia. The Morra family to which the Grand Master Justiciar belonged came from Benevento. They liked to trace their descent, which, however, shared the uncertainty common to all Italian genealogies, back to a certain Gothic Chieftain, King Totila. The Lords of Aquino, who boasted a Lombard descent, came from Campania. They espoused the Emperor’s cause more warmly than any of his other supporters, and Frederick even took a wife from among them. The only untypical scion of the house was the saint, Thomas Aquinas. A third famous family, the Filangieri, claimed to be of Breton lineage and to have come to Sicily with the Normans; they had their seat in the ancient principality of Benevento. The house of Eboli were also reputed to be Lombards. The Montefusculi and the Monteneri came from Benevento, and also the Counts of Caserta, into whose family also Frederick married. Other celebrated servants of the Emperor were the Cicala, probably originally from Genoa, the Acquaviva, settlers in the Abruzzi, the Caraccioli from Naples, the Ruffi from Calabria. The kernel of the kingdom was undoubtedly the Campanian-Beneventan strip, which was full of Lombard blood and had been early conquered by the Normans. It had been less exhausted by racial admixtures than other regions: one is reminded of the similar importance of the Lombard factor in the culture of Tuscany. What influenced the Emperor was the fact not of their Germanic descent but of their undegenerate quality. Frederick liked to boast himself “the offshoot of a new breed” and never counted in the South as a northern foreigner. Nothing, therefore, was further from Frederick’s intention than to create antagonisms where none existed, by re-awakening half-forgotten Germanic memories.
Frederick had, at first, to make use of the Sicilian-Italian nobility as he found them. Gradually, as time went on, this aristocracy, having breathed the air of the court, began to mould itself to a given model, as new generations arose both under Frederick and after him. We gain a vivid insight into all the chivalrous activities of the court—for the court was still strong in knightly tradition—by following out the education and evolution of the nobly born official. The men who were later to attain the highest posts had nearly all served in their boyhood as pages in the Emperor’s immediate circle, and enjoyed that knightly education which is familiar from the court poetry of the time. This education now had a new direction, for it combined knightly culture with the hope of future official employment.
In Frederick’s vicinity we meet at every turn the noble pages, or, to use the French phrase inherited from Norman days, the valetti imperatoris. No nobleman could become a knight unless he had served as page to some great man, Emperor or Pope, or to some spiritual or secular prince. It was customary for the Sicilian nobility to pass the years of boyhood at the imperial court. Service began at the age of fourteen. Prior to this boys of noble birth will have been taught in one of the monasteries. We know of Thomas Aquinas that “as a small boy he had to share the lot of the other noble youths who received instruction in Monte Cassino, as was customary in the country of the saint.” Having once come to court the pages belonged to the Emperor’s familia, received from him a salary of six ounces of gold a month, were entitled to two shield-bearers and three horses (which, like themselves, were maintained by the court), and for the rest formed the lowest rung of the ladder of chivalry, as they are styled in the Sicilian Book of Laws. If a page insults a knight who is of higher rank than himself his hand is cut off. The pages, while at court and not employed on special service, were under the orders of the Seneschal. They fought under his flag, a
nd they had to keep him informed of their comings and goings, even though the Emperor might be already aware of them.
The Emperor took a personal interest in the pages: one who was sick was sent to Apulia for change of air; another at court expense to the baths of Pozzuoli and Salerno. The pages’ duties were very various. Some were told off for personal attendance on the Emperor; one was despatched for the honourable duty of meeting the messenger of Michael Comnenus, another for the reception of the Duke of Carinthia. Their more particular duties concerned all matters of chivalry. We find imperial pages employed in the royal stables, others in the kennels, another in attendance on the hunting leopard, a large number busied about Frederick’s favourite pastime: falconry. Frederick’s passion for hawking is well known. People were so well accustomed to see the Emperor in hunting dress that green became the fashionable colour amongst the Ghibelline partisans in Northern Italy. A papal chronicler writes mockingly that: “Frederick degrades his majestic title to huntsman’s work, and instead of adorning himself with laws and weapons, he surrounds himself with panthers, hounds and screeching birds, and converts the Emperor into a follower of the chase. He exchanges his illustrious sceptre for a spear and disputes with eagles their triumph in bird-slaying.” The imperial hunstman needed numerous pages at hand, and kept them fully employed. There were hawks to be conveyed to the Apulian barons, to be cared for during their mewing; there were the Emperor’s sacri falcones to be fetched from Apulia; other pages were sent to Malta, others again as far as Lübeck, to bring back certain types of falcon. It was probably exceptional for the lads to be permitted to take any actual part in the hawking. The Emperor’s standard for an “ideal falconer” was high. He draws a picture of one in his book on falconry: quick wit, sharp sight, good memory, acute hearing, courage and endurance are essential, and the perfect falconer must be of medium height—long-legged ones are useless. Folk who were only half or quarter-qualified were not allowed near the birds, and the over-young must first grow useful in the Emperor’s service. It is expressly stipulated: “The falconer must not be too boyish in behaviour, lest his boyishness lead him to transgress against the art; for boys are wont to be impatient, and delight chiefly in seeing beautiful flights and many of them. But we do not banish boys completely, for even they will grow wiser. …”
Frederick the Second Page 37
