A History of Germany Part 16

At Viterbo he met Pope Adrian IV., and negotiations commenced in regard to his coronation as Emperor, which, it seems, was not to be had for nothing. Adrian's first demand was the suppression of the Roman Republic, which had driven him from the city. Frederick answered by capturing Arnold of Brescia, who was then in Tuscany, and delivering him into the Pope's hands. The latter then demanded that Frederick should hold his stirrup when he mounted his mule. This humiliation, second only to that which Henry IV. endured at Canossa, was accepted by the proud Hohenstaufen in his ambitious haste to be crowned; but even then Rome had to be first taken from the Republicans. By some means an entrance was forced into that part of the city on the right bank of the Tiber; Frederick was crowned in all haste and immediately retreated, but not before he and his escort were furiously attacked in the streets by the Roman people. Henry the Lion, by his bravery and presence of mind, saved the new Emperor from being slain. The same night, Arnold of Brescia was burned to death by the Pope's order. (Since 1870, his bust has been placed upon the Pincian Hill, in Rome, among those of the other great men who gave their lives for Italian freedom.)

The news of the Pope's barbarous revenge drove the Romans to madness.

They rushed forth by thousands, threw themselves upon the Emperor's camp, and fought until the next night with such desperation that Frederick deemed it prudent to retreat to Tivoli. The heats of summer and the fevers they brought soon compelled him to leave for Germany; the glory of his coming was already exhausted. He fought his way through Spoleto; Verona shut its gates upon him, and one robber-castle in the Alps held the whole army at bay, until it was taken by Otto of Wittelsbach. The unnatural composition of the later "Roman Empire" was again demonstrated. If, during the four centuries which had elapsed since Charlemagne's accession to power, the German rule was the curse of Italy, Italy (or the fancied necessity of ruling Italy) was no less a curse to Germany. The strength of the German people, for hundreds of years, was exhausted in endeavoring to keep up a high-sounding sovereignty, which they could not truly possess, and--in the best interests of the two countries--_ought not_ to have possessed.

On returning to Germany, Frederick found enough to do. He restored the internal peace and security of the country with a strong hand, executing the robber-knights, tearing down their castles, and even obliging fourteen reigning princes, among whom was the Archbishop of Mayence, to undergo what was considered the shameful punishment of carrying dogs in their arms before the Imperial palace. By his second marriage with Beatrix, Princess of Burgundy, he established anew the German authority over that large and rich kingdom; while, at a diet held in 1156, he gave Bavaria to Henry the Lion, and pacified Henry of Austria by making his territory an independent Dukedom. This was the second phase in the growth of Austria.

[Sidenote: 1156. BARBAROSSA'S RULE IN GERMANY.]

Henry the Lion, however, was more a Saxon than a Bavarian. Although he first raised Munich from an insignificant cl.u.s.ter of peasants' huts to the dignity of a city, his energies were chiefly directed towards extending his sway from the Elbe eastward, along the Baltic. He conquered Mecklenburg and colonized the country with Saxons, made Lubeck an important commercial center, and slowly Germanized the former territory of the Wends. Albert the Bear, Count of Brandenburg, followed a similar policy, and both were encouraged by the Emperor, who was quite willing to see his own sway thus extended. A rhyme current among the common people, at the time, says:

"Henry the Lion and Albert the Bear, Thereto Frederick with the red hair, Three Lords are they, Who could change the world to their way."

The grand imperial character of Frederick, rather than what he had actually accomplished, had already given him a great reputation throughout Europe. Pope Adrian IV. endeavored to imitate Gregory VII.'s language to Henry IV. in treating with him, but soon found that he was deserted by the German Bishops, and thought it prudent to apologize. His manner, nevertheless, and the increasing independence of Milan, called Frederick across the Alps with an army of 100,000 men, in 1158. Milan, then surrounded with strong walls, nine miles in circuit, was besieged, and, at the end of a month, forced to surrender, to rebuild Lodi, and pay a fine of 9,000 pounds of silver. Afterwards the Emperor pitched his camp on the Roncalian fields, with a splendor before unknown.

Amba.s.sadors from England, France, Hungary and Constantinople were present, and the Imperial power, almost for the first time, was thus recognized as the first in the civilized world.

Frederick used this opportunity to revive the old Roman laws, or at least, to have a code of laws drawn up, which should define his rights and those of the reigning princes under him. Four doctors of the University of Bologna were selected, who discovered so many ancient imperial rights which had fallen into disuse that the Emperor's treasury was enriched to the amount of 30,000 pounds of silver annually, by their enforcement. When this system came to be practically applied, Milan and other Lombard cities which claimed the right to elect their own magistrates, and would have lost it under the new order of things, determined to resist. A war ensued: the little city of Crema was first besieged, and, after a gallant defence of seven months, taken and razed to the ground.

[Sidenote: 1162.]

Now came the turn of Milan. In the meantime the Pope, Adrian IV., had died, after threatening the Emperor with excommunication. The college of cardinals was divided, each party electing its own Pope. Of these, Victor IV. was recognized by Frederick, who claimed the right to decide between them, while most of the Italian cities, with France and England, were in favor of Alexander III. The latter immediately excommunicated the Emperor, who, without paying any regard to the act, prepared to take his revenge on Milan. In March, 1162, after a long siege, he forced the city to surrender: the magistrates appeared before him in sackcloth, barefoot, with ashes upon their heads and ropes around their necks, and begged him, with tears, to be merciful; but there was no mercy in his heart. He gave the inhabitants eight days to leave the city, then levelled it completely to the earth, and sowed salt upon the ruins as a token that it should never be rebuilt. The rival cities of Pavia, Lodi and Como rejoiced over this barbarity, and all the towns of northern Italy hastened to submit to all the Emperor's claims, even that they should be governed by magistrates of his appointment.

In spite of this apparent submission, he had no sooner returned to Germany than the cities of Lombardy began to form a union against him.

They were instigated, and secretly a.s.sisted, by Venice, which was already growing powerful through her independence. The Pope whom Frederick had supported, was also dead, and he determined to set up a new one instead of recognizing Alexander III. He went to Italy with a small escort, in 1163, but was compelled to go back without accomplishing anything but a second destruction of Tortona, which had been rebuilt. In Germany new disturbances had broken out, but his personal influence was so great that he subdued them temporarily: he also prevailed upon the German bishops to recognize Paschalis III., the Pope whom he had appointed. He then set about raising a new army, and finally, in 1166, made his _fourth_ journey to Italy.

[Sidenote: 1166. FOURTH JOURNEY TO ITALY.]

This was even more unfortunate than the third journey had been. The Lombard cities, feeling strong through their union, had not only rebuilt Milan and Tortona, but had constructed a new fortified town, which they named, after the Pope, Alessandria. Frederick did not dare to attack them, but marched on to Ancona, which he besieged for seven months, finally accepting a ransom instead of surrender. He then took that part of Rome west of the Tiber, and installed his Pope in the Vatican. Soon afterward, in the summer of 1167, a terrible pestilence broke out, which carried off thousands of his best soldiers in a few weeks. His army was so reduced by death, that he stole through Lombardy almost as a fugitive, remained hidden among the Alps for months, and finally crossed Mont Cenis with only thirty followers, himself disguised as a common soldier.

Having reached Germany in safety, Frederick's personal influence at once gave him the power and popularity which he had forever lost in Italy. He found Henry the Lion, who in addition to Bavaria now governed nearly all the territory from the Rhine to the Vistula, north of the Hartz Mountains, at enmity with Albert the Bear and a number of smaller reigning princes. As Emperor, he settled the questions in dispute, deciding in favor of Henry the Lion, although the increasing power of the latter excited his apprehensions. Henry was too cautious to make the Emperor his enemy, but in order to avoid another march to Italy, he set out upon a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Frederick, however, did not succeed in raising a fresh army to revenge his disgrace until 1174, when he made his _fifth_ journey to Italy. He first besieged the new city of Alessandria, but in vain; then, driven to desperation by his failure, he called for help upon Henry the Lion, who had now returned from the Holy Land. The two met at Chiavenna, in the Italian Alps; but Henry steadfastly refused to aid the Emperor, although the latter conquered his own pride so far as to kneel before him.

[Sidenote: 1177.]

Bitterly disappointed and humiliated, Frederick appealed to all the German States for aid, but did not receive fresh troops until the spring of 1176. He then marched upon Milan, but was met by the united forces of Lombardy at Legnano, near Como. The latter fought with such desperation that the Imperial army was completely routed, and its camp equipage and stores taken, with many thousands of prisoners, who were treated with the same barbarity which the Emperor himself had introduced anew into warfare. He fell from his horse during the fight, and had been for some days reported to be dead, when he suddenly appeared before the Empress Beatrix, at Pavia, having escaped in disguise.

His military strength was now so broken that he was compelled to seek a reconciliation with Pope Alexander III. Envoys went back and forth between the two, the Lombard cities and the king of Sicily; conferences were held at various places, but months pa.s.sed and no agreement was reached. Then the Pope, having received Frederick's submission to all his demands, proposed an armistice, which was solemnly concluded in Venice, in August, 1177. There the Emperor was released from the Papal excommunication; he sank at Alexander's feet, but the latter caught and lifted him in his arms, and there was once more peace between the two rival powers. The other Pope, whose claims Frederick had supported up to that time, was left to shift for himself. Before the armistice ceased, in 1183, a treaty was concluded at Constance, by which the Italian cities recognized the Emperor as chief ruler, but secured for themselves the right of independent government. Thus twenty years had been wasted, the best blood of Germany squandered, the worst barbarities of war renewed, and Frederick, after enduring shame and humiliation, had not attained one of his haughty personal aims. Yet he was as proud in his bearing as ever; his court lost none of its splendor, and his influence over the German princes and people was undiminished.

He reached Germany again in 1178, full of wrath against Henry the Lion.

It was easy to find a pretext for proceeding against him, for the Archbishop of Cologne, the Bishop of Halberstadt, and many n.o.bles had already made complaints. Henry, in fact, was much like Frederick in his nature, but his despotic sternness and pride were more directly exercised upon the people. He raised an army and boldly resisted the Imperial power: again Westphalia, Thuringia and Saxony were wasted by civil war, and the struggle was prolonged until 1181, when Henry was forced to surrender unconditionally. He was banished to England for three years: his Duchy of Bavaria was given to Otto of Wittelsbach; and the greater part of Saxony, from the Rhine to the Baltic, was cut up and divided among the reigning Bishops and smaller princes. Only the province of Brunswick was left to Henry the Lion, of all his possessions. This was Frederick's policy for diminishing the power of the separate States: the more they were increased in number, the greater would be the dependence of each on the Emperor.

[Sidenote: 1184. TOURNAMENT AT MAYENCE.]

The ruin of Henry the Lion fully restored Frederick's authority over all Germany. In May, 1184, he gave a grand tournament and festival at Mayence, which surpa.s.sed in pomp everything that had before been seen by the people. The flower of knighthood, foreign as well as German, was present: princes, bishops and lords, scholars and minstrels, 70,000 knights, and probably hundreds of thousands of the soldiers and common people were gathered together. The Emperor, still handsome and towering in manly strength, in spite of his sixty-three years, rode in the lists with his five blooming sons, the eldest of whom, Henry, was already crowned King of Germany, as his successor. For many years afterwards, the wandering minstrels sang the glories of this festival, which they compared to those given by the half-fabulous king Arthur.

Immediately afterwards, Frederick made his _sixth_ journey to Italy, without an army, but accompanied by a magnificent retinue. The temporary union of the cities against him was at an end, and their former jealousies of each other had broken out more fiercely than ever; so that, instead of meeting him in a hostile spirit, each endeavored to gain his favor, to the damage of the others. It was easy for him to turn this state of affairs to his own personal advantage. The Pope, now Urban III., endeavored to make him give up Tuscany to the Church, and opposed his design of marrying his son Henry to Constance, daughter of the king of Sicily, since all Southern Italy would thus fall to the Hohenstaufen family. Another excommunication was threatened, and would probably have been hurled upon the Emperor's head, if the Pope had not died before p.r.o.nouncing it. The marriage of Henry and Constance took place in 1186.

[Sidenote: 1190.]

The next year, all Europe was shaken by the news that Jerusalem had been taken by Sultan Saladin. A call for a new Crusade was made from Rome, and the Christian kings and people of Europe responded to it. Richard of the Lion-Heart, of England; Philip Augustus of France; and first of all Frederick Barbarossa, Roman Emperor, put the cross on their mantles, and prepared to march to the Holy Land. Frederick left his son Henry behind him, as king, but he was still suspicious of Henry the Lion, and demanded that he should either join the Crusade or retire again to England for three years longer. Henry the Lion chose the latter alternative.

The German Crusaders, numbering about 30,000, met at Ratisbon in May, 1189, and marched overland to Constantinople. Then they took the same route through Asia Minor which had been followed by the second Crusade, defeating the Sultan and taking the city of Iconium by the way, and after threading the wild pa.s.ses of the Taurus, reached the borders of Syria. While on the march, the Emperor received the false message that his son Henry was dead. The tears ran down his beard, no longer red, but silver-white; then, turning to the army, he cried: "My son is dead, but Christ lives! Forwards!" On the 10th of June, 1190, either while attempting to ford, or bathing in the little river Calycadnus, not far from Tarsus, he was drowned. The stream, fed by the melted snows of the Taurus, was ice-cold, and one account states that he was not drowned, but died in consequence of the sudden chill. A few of his followers carried his body to Palestine, where it was placed in the Christian church at Tyre. Notwithstanding the heroism of the English Richard at Ascalon, the Crusade failed, since the German army was broken up after Frederick's death, most of the knights returning directly home.

The most that can be said for Frederick Barbarossa as a ruler, is, that no other Emperor before or after his time maintained so complete an authority over the German princes. The influence of his personal presence seems to have been very great: the Imperial power became splendid and effective in his hands, and, although he did nothing to improve the condition of the people, beyond establishing order and security, they gradually came to consider him as the representative of a grand _national_ idea. When he went away to the mysterious East, and never returned, the most of them refused to believe that he was dead. By degrees the legend took root among them that he slumbered in a vault underneath the Kyffhauser--one of his castles, on the summit of a mountain, near the Hartz,--and would come forth at the appointed time, to make Germany united and free. Nothing in his character, or in the proud and selfish aims of his life, justifies this sentiment which the people attached to his name; but the legend became a symbol of their hopes and prayers, through centuries of oppression and desolating war, and the name of "Barbarossa" is sacred to every patriotic heart in Germany, even at this day.

[Sidenote: 1191. HENRY VI. EMPEROR.]

Henry the Lion hastened back to Germany at once, and attempted to regain possession of Saxony. King Henry took the field against him, and the interminable strife between Welf and Waiblinger was renewed for a time.

The king was twenty-five years old, tall and stately like his father, but even more stern and despotic than he. He was impatient to proceed to Italy, both to be crowned Emperor and to secure the Norman kingdom of Sicily as his wife's inheritance: therefore, making a temporary truce with Henry the Lion, he hastened to Rome and was there crowned as Henry VI. in 1191. His attempt to conquer Naples, which was held by the Norman prince, Tancred, completely failed, and a deadly pestilence in his army compelled him to return to Germany before the close of the same year.

The fight with Henry the Lion was immediately renewed, and during the whole of 1192 Northern Germany was ravaged worse than before. In December of that year, King Richard of the Lion-Heart, returning home overland from Palestine, was taken prisoner by Duke Leopold of Austria, whom he had offended during the Crusade, and was delivered to the Emperor. As king Richard was the brother-in-law of Henry the Lion, he was held partly as a hostage, and partly for the purpose of gaining an enormous ransom for his liberation. His mother came from England, and the sum of 150,000 silver marks which the Emperor demanded was paid by her exertions: still Richard was kept prisoner at Trifels, a lonely castle among the Vosges mountains. The legend relates that his minstrel, Blondel, discovered his place of imprisonment by singing the king's favorite song under the windows of all the castles near the Rhine, until the song was answered by the well-known voice from within. The German princes, finally, felt that they were disgraced by the Emperor's conduct, and they compelled him to liberate Richard, in February, 1194.

[Sidenote: 1197.]

The same year a reconciliation was effected with Henry the Lion. The latter devoted himself to the improvement of the people of his little state of Brunswick: he inst.i.tuted reforms in their laws, encouraged their education, collected books and works of art, and made himself so honored and beloved before his death, in August, 1195, that he was mourned as a benefactor by those who had once hated him as a tyrant. He was sixty-six years old, three years younger than his rival, Barbarossa, whom he fully equalled in energy and ability. Although defeated in his struggle, he laid the basis of a better civil order, a higher and firmer civilization, throughout the North of Germany.

Henry VI., enriched by king Richard's ransom, went to Italy, purchased the a.s.sistance of Genoa and Pisa, and easily conquered the Sicilian kingdom. He treated the family of Tancred (who was now dead) with shocking barbarity, tortured and executed his enemies with a cruelty worthy of Nero, and made himself heartily feared and hated. Then he hastened back to Germany, to have the Imperial dignity made hereditary in his family. Even here he was on the point of succeeding, in spite of the strong opposition of the Saxon princes, when a Norman insurrection recalled him to Sicily. He demanded the provinces of Macedonia and Epirus from the Greek Emperor, encouraged the project of a new Crusade, with the design of conquering Constantinople, and evidently dreamed of making himself ruler of the whole Christian world, when death cut him off, in 1197, in his thirty-second year. His widow, Constance of Sicily, was left with a son, Frederick, then only three years old.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE REIGN OF FREDERICK II. AND END OF THE HOHENSTAUFEN LINE.

(1215--1268.)

Rival Emperors in Germany. --Pope Innocent III. --Murder of Philip of Hohenstaufen. --Otto IV. becomes Emperor. --Frederick of Hohenstaufen goes to Germany. --His Character. --Decline of Otto's Power. --Frederick II. crowned Emperor. --Troubles with the Pope.

--His Crusade to the Holy Land. --Frederick's Court at Palermo.

--Henry, Count of Schwerin. --Gregory IX.'s Persecution of Heretics. --Meeting of Frederick II. and his son, King Henry. --The Emperor returns to Germany. --His Marriage with Isabella of England. --He leaves Germany for Italy. --War in Lombardy.

--Conflict with Pope Gregory IX. --Capture of the Council. --Course of Pope Innocent III. --Wars in Germany and Italy. --Conspiracies against Frederick II. --His Misfortunes and Death. --The Character of his Reign. --His son, Konrad IV., succeeds. --William of Holland rival Emperor. --Death of Konrad IV. --End of William of Holland.

--The Boy, Konradin. --Manfred, King of Naples. --Usurpation of Charles of Anjou. --Konradin goes to Italy. --His Defeat and Capture. --His Execution. --The Last of the Hohenstaufens.

[Sidenote: 1215. TWO EMPERORS ELECTED.]

A story was current among the German people, that, shortly before Henry VI.'s death, the spirit of Theodoric the Great, in giant form on a black war-steed, rode along the Rhine presaging trouble to the Empire. This legend no doubt originated after the trouble came, and was simply a poetical image of what had already happened. The German princes were determined to have no child again, as their hereditary Emperor; but only one son of Frederick Barbarossa still lived,--Philip of Suabia. The bitter hostility between Welf and Waiblinger still existed, and although Philip was chosen by a Diet held in Thuringia, the opposite party, secretly a.s.sisted by the Pope and by Richard of the Lion-heart, of England (who had certainly no reason to be friendly to the Hohenstaufens!) met at Aix-la-Chapelle, and elected Otto, son of Henry the Lion.

Just at this crisis, Innocent III. became Pope. He was as haughty, inflexible and ambitious as Gregory VII., whom he took for his model: under him, and with his sanction, the Inquisition, which linked the Christian Church to barbarism, was established. So completely had the relation of the two powers been changed by the humiliation of Henry IV.

and Barbarossa, that the Pope now claimed the right to decide between the rival monarchs. Of course he gave his voice for Otto, and excommunicated Philip. The effect of this policy, however, was to awaken the jealousy of the German Bishops as well as the Princes,--even the former found the Papal interference a little too arbitrary--and Philip, instead of being injured, actually derived advantage from it. In the war which followed, Otto lost so much ground that in 1207 he was obliged to fly to England, where he was a.s.sisted by king John; but he would probably have again failed, when an unexpected crime made him successful. Philip was murdered in 1208, by Otto of Wittelsbach, Duke of Bavaria, on account of some personal grievance.

[Sidenote: 1208.]

As he left no children, and Frederick, the son of Henry VI., was still a boy of fourteen, Otto found no difficulty in persuading the German princes to accept him as king. His first act was to proceed against Philip's murderer and his accomplice, the Bishop of Bamberg. Both fled, but Otto of Wittelsbach was overtaken near Ratisbon, and instantly slain. In 1209, king Otto collected a magnificent retinue at Augsburg, and set out for Italy, in order to be crowned Emperor at Rome. As the enemy of the Hohenstaufens, he felt sure of a welcome; but Innocent III., whom he met at Viterbo, required a great many special concessions to the Papal power before he would consent to bestow the crown. Even after the ceremony was over, he inhospitably hinted to the new Emperor, Otto IV., that he should leave Rome as soon as possible. The gates of the city were shut upon the latter, and his army was left without supplies.

The jurists of Bologna soon convinced Otto that some of his concessions to the Pope were illegal, and need not be observed. He therefore took possession of Tuscany, which he had agreed to surrender to the Pope, and afterwards marched against Southern Italy, where the young Frederick of Hohenstaufen was already acknowledged as king of Sicily. The latter had been carefully educated under the guardianship of Innocent III., after the death of Constance in 1198, and threatened to become a dangerous rival for the Imperial crown. Otto's invasion so exasperated the Pope that he excommunicated him, and called upon the German princes to recognize Frederick in his stead. As Otto had never been personally popular in Germany, the Waiblinger, or Hohenstaufen party, responded to Innocent's proclamation. Suabia and Bavaria and the Archbishop of Mayence p.r.o.nounced for Frederick, while Saxony, Lorraine and the northern Bishops remained true to Otto. The latter hastened back to Germany in 1212, regained some of his lost ground, and attempted to strengthen his cause by marrying Beatrix, the daughter of Philip. But she died four days after the marriage, and in the meantime Frederick, supplied with money by the Pope, had crossed the Alps.

[Sidenote: 1212. FREDERICK GOES TO GERMANY.]

The young king, who had been educated wholly in Sicily, and who all his life was an Italian rather than a German, was now eighteen years old. He resembled his grandfather, Frederick Barbarossa, in person, was perhaps his equal in strength and decision of character, but far surpa.s.sed him or any of his imperial predecessors in knowledge and refinement. He spoke six languages with fluency; he was a poet and minstrel; he loved the arts of peace no less than those of war, yet he was a statesman and a leader of men. On his way to Germany, he found the Lombard cities, except Pavia, so hostile to him that he was obliged to cross the Alps by secret and dangerous paths, and when he finally reached the city of Constance, with only sixty followers, Otto IV. was close at hand, with a large army. But Constance opened its gates to the young Hohenstaufen: Suabia, the home of his fathers, rose in his support, and the Emperor, without even venturing a battle, retreated to Saxony.