Joachim of Flora: Three Ages of the world
John of Vicenza
Conrad of Marburg
King Henry’s rebellion and treason
Fate of Henry
Frederick marries Isabella of England
Diet and Landpeace of Mainz
Use of German for imperial proclamation
End of Welf-Waibling feud
Jew ritual murder case
War with Lombardy
Pope’s manoeuvres
Re-burial of St. Elizabeth. 1236, at Marburg
“Execution of Justice” against Lombardy
Appeal to all Christian monarchs
Appeal to Romans
Art of war in Middle Ages
Frederick of Babenberg “the Quarrelsome”
Arrogance of Gregory IX
“Donation of Constantine”
Capture of Vicenza
Diet of Vicenza
Conrad, King of the Romans
Cortenuova, 1237
The “Triumph” in Cremona
VII. Caesar and Rome
The magic of Rome
Renovatio imperii
Identification with Caesar
Spolia opima from Cortenuova
Lust for personal glorification
Frederick’s wooing of the Romans
Cardinals and Pope
Progress in Lombardy
Diets of Pavia and Turin, 1238
Siege of Brescia; Calamandrinus
Coalition against Frederick
Enzio
Imperial Court at Padua
Frederick’s appeal to the Cardinals
Frederick excommunicated
Death of Hermann of Salza
Reorganisation and defence of Sicily
Destruction of Benevento, 1241
Reorganisation of Italy
War of manifestos and propaganda
Brother Elias
Brother Jordan and the Pope
Christmas in Pisa
Frederick invades the Papal States
Letter to Jesi
At the gates of Rome
Gregory turns the multitude
VIII. Dominus Mundi
Cult of the Emperor
The sacratissimum ministerium
Outburst of Sicilian art
Capuan Gate
Nicholas of Pisa
St. Francis and “Gothic” painting
Diet in Foggia, 1240
Inefficacy of papal ban
Princes’ effort to mediate
Surrender of Ravenna
Resistance of Faënza
Cost of prolonged operations
Issue of leather coins
Hostilities against Venice
Gregory’s General Council
Frederick’s counter-measures
Gregory’s pact with Genoa
Fall of Faënza, April 14, 1241
Destruction of Benevento
Victory at sea, 1241; capture of 100 prelates
Mongol threat
Battle of Liegnitz, 1241
Pope hinders Crusade
Muslims retake Jerusalem, Nov. 1240
Frederick negotiates recovery of Jerusalem
Advance on Rome; death of Pope Gregory
Status of Empire in Europe
Relations between Frederick and brother kings
Saint Louis
Stirps caesarea; deification of the Hohenstaufens
Conclave of Terror, 1241
Innocent IV elected Pope
Defection of Viterbo
Treachery of Cardinal Rainer
Provisional peace, 1244; breaks down
Flight of Innocent IV
Lyons
Diet of Verona
Rainer’s hostile propaganda
Council of Lyons
Thaddeus of Suessa
Deposition of Frederick II
IX. Antichrist
Dual interpretation of Frederick’s life
Frederick’s posterity
Satellite giants : Eccelino, Guido of Sessa, Hubert Pallavicini
“Labour of Love”: to purge the Church
Reform manifestos
Pope’s counter-activities
Increasing savagery of Frederick
Lure of the East
Conspiracy of intimates, 1246
Distrust of subordinates
Punishment of conspirators
Complicity of Pope
Henry Raspe
Italy partitioned amongst the Hohenstaufen
March on Germany; threat to Lyons
Defection of Parma
“The Cardinal”
Siege of Parma
Saracens as executioners
Victoria
Defeat before Parma
Money shortage
German knights in Italy
German influence on Renaissance art
Renewed threat to Lyons
Fall of Piero della Vigna
Attempt to poison Frederick
Piero della Vigna’s suicide
Enzio taken prisoner
Fate of King Conrad
Manfred’s rise and fall
Conradin’s coronation
Tagliacozzo; Conradin’s execution
Death of Enzio
Curse on the Hohenstaufen
Parma avenged
Death of Frederick, December 13, 1250
Burial at Palermo
The Frederick myth
An Invitation from the Publisher
Prefatory Note
When the Kingdom of Italy, in May 1924, celebrated the seven-hundredth anniversary of the University of Naples, a foundation of the Hohenstaufen Frederick II, a wreath might have been seen on the Emperor’s sarcophagus in the Cathedral of Palermo with this inscription:
SEINEN KAISERN UND HELDEN
DAS GEHEIME DEUTSCHLAND
This is not to imply that the present Life of Frederick II was begotten of that episode… but that wreath may fairly be taken as a symbol that—not alone in learned circles—enthusiasm is astir for the great German Rulers of the past: in a day when Kaisers are no more.
Translator’s Note
The English edition of Frederick II differs from the German in the following points: it has been provided with maps, with a table of contents, and with page headlines which are not in the original; also with a few unobtrusive footnotes [signed Tr.].
A brief Summary of Sources has been appended, kindly supplied by the author himself.
Occasionally an allusive passage has been made clearer to an English reader by the insertion of an author’s name or the quotation of an exact phrase. In a few passages a paragraph has been compressed or a recondite allusion omitted.
The translator is deeply indebted to F. J. E. Raby, who generously placed at the disposal of an amateur a scholar’s expert knowledge of medieval literature and religion, and to D. L. R. Lorimer for a similar service in oriental lore; to both for constructive criticism and suggestion. The translator’s responsibility for any errors or mistranslations remains undivided.
List of Maps
The Battle of Bouvines, 1214
The Birth of Prussia, 1226
The Fifth Crusade
The Battle of Cortenuova
The Mongol Peril
Chronological Table
1190 Death of Barbarossa
Emperor Henry VI
1194 December 26th. Frederick II born in Jesi
1197 September 28th. Death of Henry VI
1198 Innocent III becomes Pope
Welf-Hohenstaufen rivalries
1198 May. Frederick II crowned in Palermo as King of Sicily
1198 November 28th. Death of the Empress Constance
Innocent III Regent of Sicily and Guardian of Frederick II
1201 Markward of Anweiler ruling in Palermo
1204 Conquest of Constantinople by the Crusaders
1208 June 21st. Murder of King Philip of Swabia
December 26th. Frederick II comes of age
1209 Marriage with Constance of Aragon
Otto IV crowned Emperor in Rome
1210–11 Otto IV in the Kingdom of Sicily
1211 Frederick II elected German Emperor
1212 Arrival in Constance of the Puer Apuliae
1215 Coronation in Aix
Takes the Cross Fourth
Lateran Council
1216 July 16th. Pope Innocent III dies at Perugia
Honorius III as Pope
1218 Death of Otto IV
1220 Diet at Frankfurt
Henry (VII) elected King of the Romans
Frederick crowned Emperor in Rome
Diet of Capua
1221–23 Subjugation of Sicily
1224 Foundation of the University of Naples
1225 Crusade Negotiations with the Curia
Treaty of San Germano
Marriage with Isabella of Jerusalem
1226 Diet of Cremona
Renewal of the League of Lombardy
Order of Teutonic Knights
Death of Francis of Assisi
1227 Death of Honorius
Pope Gregory IX
Preparations for Crusade
Plague in Brindisi
First Excommunication of Frederick II
1229 March. Coronation in Jerusalem
Return to Sicily
Rout of Papal Troops
1230 Peace with the Curia
1231 Constitutions of Melfi
Augustales
Development of the Sicilian Monarchy
1232 Visit to Venice Diet of Friuli King Henry VII
1233 Penance Movement in Italy
1235 King Henry’s Rebellion
Frederick’s March to Germany
Court of Justice at Worms
Marriage with Isabella of England
Diet of Mainz
1236 Obsequies of St. Elizabeth
First Lombard Campaign
Conquest of Vicenza
Campaign against Austria
Winter Camp at Vienna
Conrad IV elected King of the Romans
1237 Second Lombard Campaign
Cortenuova
Triumph in Cremona and Rome
Siege of Brescia
Marriage of Enzio
1239 Camp at Padua
Excommunication
Fourth Lombard Campaign
Reorganisation of Sicily
Foundation of the Italian State
Invasion of the Patrimonium
1240 March on Rome
Return to Sicily
Campaign in the Romagna
Capture of Ravenna
Siege of Faënza
1241 Capture of Faënza
Victory at Sea
Capture of the Prelates
Tartar Invasion of Silesia
New Campaign against Rome
Death of Gregory IX
1241–43 Papal Chair vacant
1243 Innocent IV as Pope
Negotiations for Peace
Defection of Viterbo
1244 Peace with the Curia
Flight of Pope to Lyons
1245 Council of Lyons
Deposition of Frederick II
1246 Camp at Grosseto
Conspiracy
Campaign in the Kingdom of Sicily
Henry Raspe Anti-King in Germany
1247 Re-organisation of Italian State
March on Lyons
Defection of Parma
Rise of Guelf Party in Italy
Parma besieged
Building of Victoria
1248 Defeat of Parma
1249 Arrest of Piero della Vigna
Doctor’s attempt to poison Frederick
King Enzio taken Prisoner
1249–50 Crusade of Saint Louis
1250 December 13th. Death of Frederick II at Florentino
1265 May 8th. Birth of Dante
1266 King Manfred killed at Benevento
1268 Execution of Conradin
1272 Death of King Enzio
Summary of Sources
(The actual documents and references to the sources on which this book is based form a second volume of the German edition, which has just been published by Georg Bondi, Berlin. These pièces justificatives will no doubt be consulted in the original tongues by serious students of the subject.
In the meantime Professor Kantorowicz has kindly written for the English edition the following note as a guide to the general reader.)
The most important sources for the history of Frederick II are the Regesta imperii, vol. v: Die Regesten des Kaiserreichs unter Philipp, Otto IV, Friedrich II, Heinrich (VII), Conrad IV, Heinrich Raspe, Wilhelm und Richard, 1198–1272, edited by Boehmer, Ficker and Winkelmann (Innsbruck, 1881–1901). Letters and documents have been collected by Huillard-Bréholles in Historia diplomatica Friderici secundi (Paris, 1852–61). Constitutional documents, edicts, etc., relating to the Empire are to be found in the Monumenta Germaniae Historica: Constitutiones et acta publica imperatorum et regum, Tom. II (1198–1272), ed. L. Weiland (Hanover, 1896). The Letters of Petrus de Vinea were last edited by Iselin (Basle, 1740); there is no more modern edition. Further documents and letters will be found in J. F. Boehmer’s Acta imperii selecta (Innsbruck, 1870); Julius Ficker’s Forschungen zur Reichs- und Rechtsgeschichte Italiens (Innsbruck, 1874); E. Winkelmann’s Acta imperii inedita saeculi XIII (Innsbruck, 1880–85); and also in Italian and German periodicals, especially in Quellen und Forschungen aus italienischen Archiven und Bibliotheken, published by the Preussische Historische Institut in Rome (Rome, 1898 ff.). Karl Hampe has printed a large number of important letters; the publications in which these have appeared are enumerated in Quellen und Forschungen aus italienischen Archiven, etc., vol. xx, p. 40.
The authoritative edition of the Emperor’s Sicilian laws is that of C. Carcani: Constitutiones regum regni utriusque Siciliae, mandante Friderico II imperatore (Naples, 1786); the Greek translation and the fragment of the Register of 1239–40 will be found in the same place. The edition by Antonius Cervonius: Constitutionum regni Siciliarum libri III (Naples, 1773) is also useful on account of containing the Glosses. The Laws in chronological order will be found in Huillard-Breholles, op. cit., vol. iv, pp. 1 ff. The courtiers’ letters are in an appendix to Huillard-Breholles: Vie et correspondence de Pierre de la Vigne (Paris, 1865).
The number of chronicles and annals relating to the period of Frederick II is extraordinarily large; an excellent summary of them will be found in the Regesta imperii, vol. v, 9, pp. lxxxvii ff. The important biography of Frederick II by Bishop Mainardinus of Imola has unfortunately perished; it has been as far as possible reconstructed from surviving fragments by F. Gueterbock in Neues Archiv, vol. xxx (1905), pp. 35–83. The most outstanding Italian chroniclers are: Richard of San Germano, edited by A. Gaudenzi in Monumenti storici, serie prima: Cronache (Naples, 1888); the Guelf and Ghibelline Annals of Piacenza in the Monum. Germ. Histor.: Scriptores, vol. xviii, a volume which also contains the important Annales Januenses; the Chronicle of Rolandin of Padua, ibid., vol. xix, and the Chronicle of Fra Salimbene of Parma, ibid., vol. xxxii. The most important German chroniclers are: Burchardi Praepositi Urspergensis Chronicon, ed. Holder Egger and B. v. Simson in Scriptores rerum Germanicarum (Hanover, 1916), and the Chronica regia Coloniensis, ed. G. Waitz, in Scriptores rerum Germanicarum (Hanover, 1880). A further main source is Roger of Wendover, Flores historiarum, ed. Coxe (London, 1841), and Matthew Paris, Historia maior, ed. Luard (London, 1872 ff.). Both of these are Englishmen. The Arabic sources have been edited and translated into Italian by Michele Amari, Bibliotheca arabo-sicula (Turin–Rome, 1880 ff.). The most important of the papal letters have been printed in Monum. Germ. Histor.: Epistolae saeculi XIII e regestis pontificum Romanorum selectae, ed. C. Rodenberg (Berlin, 1883 ff.).
Among secondary authorities Schirrmacher’s Kaiser Friedrich
der Zweite (Gottingen, 1859–65) is superseded by E. Winkelmann: Jahrbücher der deutschen Geschichte, Philipp von Schwaben und Otto von Braunschweig, 2 vols. (Leipzig, 1873–78), and Kaiser Friedrich II, 2 vols. (Leipzig, 1889–97), which, however, only extends to the year 1233. A concise and more recent account is given by Karl Hampe’s Deutsche Kaisergeschichte in der Zeit der Salier und Staufer. Other attempts to give a complete portrait are: Wolfram von den Steinen’s Das Kaisertum Friedrichs II nach den Anschauungen seiner Staatsbriefe (Berlin-Leipzig, 1922); Antonio de Stefano: L’idea imperiale di Federico II (Florence, 1927); further, Otto Yehse: Die amtliche Propaganda in der Staatskunst Kaiser Friedrichs II (Munich, 1929). A number of single questions relating to the history of the Emperor have been handled in smaller monographs in the Heidelberger Abhandlungen zur mittleren und neueren Geschichte (Heidelberg) for the medieval section of which Karl Hampe is the editor. The two following books are indispensable for a study of the culture and intellectual life at the court of Frederick II: Hans Niese’s Zur Geschichte des geistigen Lebens am Hofe Kaiser Friedrichs II, Historische Zeitschrift, vol. 108 (1912), pp. 437 ff., and the supremely excellent researches of Charles Homer Haskins, the bulk of which are collected in his Studies in the History of Medieval Science (Cambridge, Mass., U.S.A.), 1924.
E. K.
I. Frederick’s Childhood
Prophecies—Birth in Jesi, Dec. 26, 1194—Character
of Henry VI—Hohenstaufen conception of Empire—
Baptism—Death of Henry VI—Philip of Swabia;
Otto of Brunswick—Sicilian hatred of Germans—
Papal policy towards Sicily—Constance’s Concordat
with Rome; death, 1198—Innocent: Deliberatio super
facto imperii—The Sicilian myth—Markward of
Anweiler; Walter of Palear; Walter of Brienne—The
Saracens of Sicily—Pisa and Genoa—San Germano
—Frederick of age, 1208—Episcopal elections—
Wedding with Constance of Aragon, 1209—Death of
Aragon knights—Revolt of island barons
I. Frederick’s Childhood
Of all the prophecies in verse foretelling a future Saviour to which the West has given birth, Vergil’s Fourth Eclogue is the most famous. Before celebrating in his mighty epic the future of Imperial Rome, the poet painted in this relatively short poem his picture of the future ruler of the world. He lent him all the attributes of the Messiah: as befits a son of the Gods he shall greet Life with a smile, he shall bring peace on earth and the Age of Gold, and shall evoke once more the kingdom of Apollo. The Middle Ages never paused to reflect that Vergil’s promises might seem to be fulfilled in Augustus, Emperor of Peace, the poet’s patron. To that Christian age such prophetic verses could bear one interpretation only—a miraculous foretelling of Christ’s advent. That they foretold a “Ruler” was no deterrent, for men were wont to praise Christ as “King of the World” and “Emperor of All,” and to represent him graphically, in a mandorla, throned on clouds, bearing the globe and law book in his hand and on his head the diadem: the stern Ruler of the Cosmos. To the pious mind it was but one miracle the more, that the heathen Vergil, like the prophets of the Ancient Covenant, had known and told the coming of the Redeemer. Thus this short poem, with its miraculous foreknowledge, earned for Vergil the admiration and reverence of the medieval world. This Vergilian prophecy provided the inspiration both in manner and matter for the song in which the Campanian poet, Peter of Eboli, extravagantly hailed the birth of Henry VI’s only son. It is by no means without significance that Vergil thus stands by the cradle of the last and greatest Christian Emperor of the German Roman Imperium.