A Short History of Italy Part 5

CHAPTER XII

TRIUMPH OF THE PAPACY (1198-1216)

Gregory VII was well named the Julius Csar of the Papacy. His great conception of a sovereign ecclesiastical power, supreme over Europe, was destined to be realized. For in the fulness of time came Innocent III, the Augustus Csar of the Papacy, who ruled the civilized world of Europe more after the fashion of the old Roman Emperors than any one, except Charlemagne, had done. But in the interval between these two famous Popes, there was a period of reaction in which it looked for a time as if the Empire would plant the Ghibelline flag on the papal citadel. The Popes of this period were men of no marked ability, whereas the young king, Henry VI, had inherited the forceful temper of Barbarossa as well as his theories of Imperial rights, and displayed great vigour, energy, and resolution. Despite the opposition of the Popes, who as feudal suzerains of Sicily were most averse to the alliance, he had married the heiress of the Norman line, and despite the fierce opposition of the Sicilians,--part Arabs, part Greeks, with Italians and Normans mingling in,--he established his authority in the island. Henry was horribly cruel, but he was efficient. He was King of Germany, King of Italy, and King of the Two Sicilies, and had compelled a reluctant Pope to crown him Emperor. He determined to be Emperor in Italy in fact, and to accomplish what his father had failed to do. He undertook to check and suppress the communes by reviving the old feudal system. He reinstated old duchies and counties, and enfeoffed his loyal Germans. Matters looked black for the Guelfs, when, to their great good luck, the fiery young Emperor died, leaving an incompetent widow and a helpless baby (1197). By one of those occurrences, in which Catholics see more than the hand of chance, in the very year after the Emperor's death, a man of political talents of the highest order was elected to the pontifical chair.

In the days of Pope Alexander III, the great antagonist of Frederick Barbarossa, a young n.o.bleman, who took holy orders almost in boyhood, had given early promise of an extraordinary career. This handsome, eloquent, imperious boy, named Lothair, inherited through his father, Thrasmund of the Counts of Segni in Latium, the fierce impetuosity of the Lombards, and through his mother, a Roman lady of high birth (from whom he took his master traits), the tenacity, the adroitness, the political genius of the Romans. He was educated at the universities of Bologna and Paris, where he studied law, theology, and scholastic philosophy. The stormy period of the struggle between Alexander and Barbarossa brought character and talents quickly to the front. Before he was twenty he had distinguished himself, before he was thirty he had been made a cardinal, and at thirty-seven he was elected Pope. According to the practice inst.i.tuted by the deposed scamp, John XII, of taking a new name, Lothair a.s.sumed the t.i.tle of Innocent III.

Under the guidance of Innocent III (1198-1216), the Papacy attained the full meridian of its glory. When this great Pope, lawyer, theologian, statesman, came to the throne, it was demoralized and weak; before he died, it had set its yoke on the neck of Europe. For the second time in history, orders were issued from Rome to the whole civilized world. A review of his pontificate brings up a panorama of Europe. His task began in Rome. This little city of churches, monasteries, towers, and ruins, which took no pride in great papal affairs, had plunged into one of its fits of republican independence, and, supported by the Emperor, had ousted the Popes from all control. In the course of a few years, by intrigue, tact, and civil war, Innocent got into his own hands the appointment of the senate and of the city governor, and thereby control of the city. He next turned his attention to the Patrimony of St. Peter, that central strip from Rome to Ravenna, given or supposed to have been given by Pippin and Charlemagne to the successors of St. Peter. Here the impetuous Emperor, Henry VI, had seated his German barons, setting up fiefs for them, and restablishing the feudal system under the Imperial suzerainty. These German barons were hated by the people. Innocent put himself at the head of the popular discontent, organized a Guelf, almost a national, party, and either drove the Germans out, or forced them to swear allegiance to the Holy See.

In Tuscany also the Guelfs were successful in breaking up the feudal restoration. In fact, since the days of Countess Matilda feudalism had been doomed. The cities had taken advantage of the wars between Papacy and Empire to secure virtual independence; and on Henry's death, with the exception of Ghibelline Pisa, they banded together and agreed never to admit an Imperial governor within their territories. Innocent tried to bring these cities under papal dominion, but they were too independent, and he was obliged to rest content with snapping up scattered portions of Matilda's domains.

Meantime in the kingdom of the Two Sicilies the Emperor's widow had died, and left to Innocent's guardianship her little son, Frederick.

Innocent, guardian and suzerain lord, immediately began a struggle with the feudal n.o.bility, just as in Italy, and, after a long and difficult contest, a.s.serted the authority of his royal ward. On the termination of the minority, he handed over the kingdom to Frederick, who, on his part as King of the Two Sicilies, swore fealty to the Pope. Had it not been for his honourable and powerful guardian, Frederick probably would have had no kingdom, and in his oath of fealty he acknowledged his indebtedness: "Among all the wishes which we carry in the front rank of our desires, this is the chief, to discharge a grateful obedience, to show an honourable devotion, and never to be found ungrateful for your benefits--G.o.d forbid--since, next to Divine Grace, to your protection we are indebted not only for land but also for life."

In this way Innocent established the Papacy in Italy; sovereign, suzerain, protector or ally, he was the head of the Italian Guelfs and practically of Italy. Let us now look abroad. In Constantinople, the capital of the Greek Empire, Innocent's legate bestowed the Imperial purple upon an Emperor. An odd whirl of Fortune's wheel brought this to pa.s.s. Innocent had preached a crusade in the hope of recovering the Holy Land from the infidels, who had succeeded in expelling the Christians.

An army of Frenchmen and Flemings answered his summons. They determined to avoid the deadly route overland and go by sea, and applied to Venice for transportation. When they came to pay the bill they did not have the money, and the Venetians insisted that they should help them recapture the city of Zara, on the Dalmatian coast, which had once belonged to Venice but had been lost again. Zara was attacked and taken (1202). One deflection from the straight path of duty led to another. To Zara came the son of the Greek Emperor to say that his father had been deposed, and to beg for help. The Venetians, wishing to wound two commercial rivals at once, Constantinople and Pisa (for the usurping Emperor favoured Pisa), used the suppliant as a stalking-horse, and persuaded the Crusaders once again to divert their immediate purpose and to restore the deposed Emperor to his throne. Again the Crusaders listened to temptation, for the Venetians baited their hook with golden promises; they sailed to Constantinople and restored the wronged Emperor. Matters did not go smoothly, however. Misunderstanding with the Greeks led to disagreements, disagreements to quarrels, and quarrels to war. The Latin Crusaders a.s.saulted Constantinople, carried it by storm, and plundered houses, palaces, churches, shrines, everything; then, with appet.i.tes whetted by petty spoils, seized the frail Empire itself (1204). They divided Thrace, Macedonia, Greece, the islands of the gean Sea, and all the remnants of the Roman Empire of the East that they could lay hands on. Pious Venice came out best; she took coast and island, town and country, all along from recaptured Zara round by the sh.o.r.es of Dalmatia, Albania, Peloponnesus, and Thessaly, ending with half of Constantinople itself. The Marquess of Monferrat became King of Thessalonica, and his va.s.sal, a Burgundian count, was invested with the lordship of Athens and Thebes. The Count of Flanders was elected Emperor of a Latin Empire.

Innocent had been very angry with the deflections to Zara and Constantinople, and had thundered against the polite but inflexible Venetians. When the evil had been done, however, he made the best of it, and behaved with dignity and astuteness. He rebuked the Crusaders for having preferred the things of earth to those of Heaven, and bade them ask G.o.d's pardon for the profanation of holy places; but he admitted the advantage that would arise from reconciling the Greeks, schismatics since the days of Leo the Iconoclast, with the Roman See. So his legate bestowed the purple on a suppliant Emperor in the city of Constantinople.

In Germany Innocent also appears as the giver and withholder of crowns.

On the death of Henry VI there was a disputed election. The Hohenstaufen party, dreading a long minority, pa.s.sed over the baby Frederick, and nominated Philip, Henry's brother; the rival party, the German Guelfs, nominated Otto of Brunswick, a nephew of Richard Coeur-de-lion. Civil war followed, and both parties appealed to Innocent who, after deliberation, supported Otto, but exacted a high price. Otto was obliged to guarantee to the Pope the strip of territory from Rome to Ravenna, and those portions of Matilda's domains which were not fiefs of the Empire, also to acknowledge papal suzerainty over the Two Sicilies, and to promise to conform to the papal will with regard to the leagues of the Lombard and Tuscan cities. This guarantee of Otto laid the first real foundation of the Papal States. Hitherto, vague _Donations_ had given pretexts for claims; but Otto's deed was a definite Imperial grant, and conveyed an unquestionable t.i.tle. In spite of Innocent's support matters went ill for Otto in Germany. Philip's star rose, and Innocent, to whom the cause of the Papacy was the cause of G.o.d and justified diplomatic conduct, was on the point of shifting to Philip's side, when in the nick of time Philip was murdered (1208). Otto's claim was now undisputed. No sooner, however, did he feel the crown secure on his head than he shifted his ground. Guelf by birth though he was, he found that he could not be both obedient to the Pope and loyal to his Imperial duties. He turned into a complete Ghibelline, broke his grant to the Pope, attempted to restore the feudal system in the papal territories, and a.s.sumed to treat the Two Sicilies as a fief of the Empire. Innocent, outraged and indignant at this breach of faith, excommunicated him (1210). Thereupon, as at the time when Gregory VII excommunicated Henry IV, the German barons rose, deposed Otto, and summoned young Frederick from Sicily to take the German crown. Innocent supported Frederick's cause, but exacted the price which he had formerly exacted from the perjured Otto. Frederick, pressed by present need, and forgetful of Otto's evil precedent, pledged himself as follows: "We, Frederick the Second, by Divine favour and mercy, King of the Romans, ever Augustus, and King of Sicily ... recognizing the grace given to us by G.o.d, we have also before our eyes the immense and innumerable benefits rendered by you, most dear lord and reverend father, our protector and benefactor, lord Innocent, by G.o.d's grace most venerable Pontiff; through your benefaction, labour, and guardianship, we have been brought up, cherished, and advanced, ever since our mother, the Empress Constance of happy memory, threw us upon your care, almost from birth. To you, most blessed father, and to all your Catholic successors, and to the Holy Roman Church, our special mother, we shall discharge all obedience, honour, and reverence, always with an humble heart and a devout spirit, as our Catholic predecessors, kings and Emperors, are known to have done to your predecessors; not a whit from these shall we take away, rather add, that our devotion may shine the more."[11]

Frederick promised that he would not interfere in the election of bishops, and that the candidate canonically elected should be installed.

He confirmed the papal t.i.tle to the Papal States. "I vow, promise, swear, and take my oath to protect and preserve all the possessions, honours, and rights of the Roman Church, in good faith, to the best of my power" (1213).

From this time forward Frederick advanced from success to success. Otto was driven into private life, and the Pope's legate put the German crown on Frederick's head at Aachen (1215). Where Innocent blessed, success and prosperity followed; where he cursed, death and destruction came.

Elsewhere the Pope was equally triumphant. All Europe bent under his imperial decrees. The kings of Portugal, Leon, Castile, and Navarre were scolded or punished. The King of Aragon went to Rome and swore allegiance. The Duke of Bohemia was rebuked, the King of Denmark comforted, the n.o.bles of Iceland warned, the King of Hungary admonished.

Servia, Bulgaria, even remote Armenia, received papal supervision and paternal care. Philip Augustus of France, at Innocent's command, took back the wife whom he had repudiated. John of England grovelled on the ground before him, and yielded up "to our lord the Pope Innocent and his successors, all our kingdom of England and all our kingdom of Ireland to be held as a fief of the Holy See"(1213).

Another triumph of darker hue added to the brilliance of Innocent's career. In the south of France, in the pleasant places of Provence and Languedoc, where troubadours praised love and war, and lords and ladies wandered down primrose paths, the humbler folk got hold of certain dangerous ideas. They believed that there was a power of evil as well as a power of good, that Christ was but an emanation from G.o.d, that the G.o.d of the Jews was not the real G.o.d of Goodness, and, worse than all, that the Roman Church, with its sacerdotalism, forms, sacraments, and ritual, was, to say the least, not what it should be. Innocent entertained no doubts that the Roman Church had been founded by G.o.d to maintain His truth on earth; as a statesman he regarded heresy as we regard treason and anarchy; as a priest he deemed it sin. He called Simon of Montfort and other dogs of war from the north and urged them at the quarry. The heresy was put down in blood. Here appears the black figure of St.

Dominic, encouraging the faithful, rallying the hesitant, and by the fervour of his belief, by his devotion, by his genius for organization, more destructive to heresy than the sword of Montfort.

Thus Innocent sat supreme. He had created a papal kingdom where his predecessors had a.s.serted impotent claims; he had confirmed the Two Sicilies in their dependency upon the Holy See; he had put the Papacy at the head of the Guelf party in Italy, and had made that party almost national; he had enforced the power of the Church throughout Europe, had given crowns to the Kings of Aragon and of England, to the Emperors of Germany and of Constantinople. No such spectacle had been seen since the reign of Charlemagne; none such was to be seen again till the coming of Napoleon. The conception of Europe as an ecclesiastical organization had reached its fullest expression.

FOOTNOTES:

[11] _Select Medival Doc.u.ments_, Mathews, p. 115, translated.

CHAPTER XIII

ST. FRANCIS (1182-1226)

In spite of the dazzling success achieved by Innocent, matters were not well with the Church in Italy. Corruption threatened it from within, heresy from without. Simony was rampant; livings were almost put up at auction. Innocent a.s.serted that there was no cure but fire and steel.

The prelates of the Roman Curia were "tricky as foxes, proud as bulls, greedy and insatiable as the Minotaur." The priests were often shameless; some became usurers to get money for their b.a.s.t.a.r.ds, others kept taverns and sold wine. Worship had become a vain repet.i.tion of formulas. The monks were superst.i.tious, many of them disreputable. The inevitable consequence of this decay in the Church was heresy. Italy was nearly, if not quite, as badly honeycombed with heretics as Languedoc had been. The Patarini, whom we remember in Hildebrand's time, now become a species of heretics, abounded in Milan; other sects sprang up in towns near by. In Ferrara, Verona, Rimini, Faenza, Treviso, Florence, Prato, anti-sacerdotal sentiment was very strong. In Viterbo the heretics were numerous enough to elect their consul. At Piacenza priests had been driven out, and the city left unshepherded for three years. In Orvieto there had been grave disorders. In a.s.sisi a heretic had been elected _podest_ (governor).

The great Innocent knitted his brows; he knew well that his noisy triumphs, which echoed over the Tagus, the Thames, the Rhine, and the Golden Horn, were of no avail, if heretics sapped and mined the Church within. It seemed as if the great ecclesiastical fabric, to which he had given the devotion of a life, was tottering from corner-stone to apex; when, one day, a cardinal came to him and said, "I have found a most perfect man, who wishes to live according to the Holy Gospel, and to observe evangelical perfection in all things. I believe that through him the Lord intends to reform His Holy Church in all the world." Innocent was interested, and bade the man be brought before him. This man was Francis Bernadone, known to us as St. Francis, the leader of a small band of Umbrian pilgrims from a.s.sisi, who asked permission to follow literally the example of Jesus Christ. The Pope hesitated. To the cardinals, men of the world, this young man and his pilgrims were fools and their faith nonsense. "But," argued a believer, "if you a.s.sert that it is novel, irrational, impossible to observe the perfection of the Gospel, and to take a vow to do so, are you not guilty of blasphemy against Christ, the author of the Gospel?" Thinking the matter over, the Pope dreamed a dream. He beheld the Church of St. John Lateran, the episcopal church of the bishops of Rome, leaning in ruin and about to fall, when a monk, poor and mean in appearance, bent under it and propped it with his back. Innocent awoke and said to himself, "This Francis is the holy monk by whose help the Church of G.o.d shall be lifted up and stand again." So he said to Francis and his followers, "Go brethren, G.o.d be with you. Preach repentance to all as He shall give you inspiration. And when Almighty G.o.d shall have made you multiply in numbers and in grace, come back to us, and we will entrust you with greater things."

So St. Francis, "true servant of G.o.d and faithful follower of Jesus Christ," went about his ministry with the blessing of the Church. To the people of a.s.sisi, of Umbria, and afterwards of all Central Italy, his life was a revelation of Christianity. He imparted the gospel anew, as fresh as when it had first been given under the Syrian stars. He embodied peace, gentleness, courtesy, and self-sacrifice. It is not too much to say that he saved the Catholic Church, and put off the Protestant Reformation for three hundred years. His example and influence raised the standard of conduct within the Church; and his love, his devotion, his insistence on the essential parts of Christ's teaching, and his dislike of worldly pomps, deprived heresy of all its weapons. He satisfied the widespread religious hunger better than heresy did. He was so characteristically Italian, and his ministry throws so much light on the state of Italy at the opening of the thirteenth century, that it is worth while to dwell for a few pages on his doings.

a.s.sisi, built for safety on a hill and protected by great walls and gates, was a good example of a little medival town. In the centre was the _piazza_, on which fronted a Roman temple to Minerva, haughtily scornful of its medival surroundings. Hard by was the cathedral, where every baby was taken for baptism. On the tiptop of the hill stood a huge castle, where the feudal baron dwelt with his ruffianly soldiers and received his feudal lord, the Emperor, when he stopped at a.s.sisi on his way to Rome. In Francis's boyhood, the people, aided by Pope Innocent, had driven out the German count, and had formed themselves into a free commune, save for their allegiance to the Holy See; but the change was not all gain. The town was divided into discordant cla.s.ses; the n.o.bility, maintained in idleness by the produce of their estates, the bourgeoisie, engaged in trade (Francis's father was a merchant), the artisans grouped in guilds, and the serfs, who tilled the fields and tended the vineyards and olive orchards. Once rid of the German count, the bourgeoisie endeavoured to rid themselves of the arrogant and idle n.o.bility. Street war broke out. The n.o.bles fled to Perugia, another little town perched on a hill some dozen miles across the plain, and asked for help. Perugia rejoiced in the opportunity. The miseries of a petty war between two little neighbours need no description. Fields and vineyards were devastated, olive orchards destroyed, farm-houses burned.

Even in peace the peasants around a.s.sisi lived in constant disquiet, ready to fling down their mattocks and flee to the protection of the city walls.

Within the city the streets were narrow, the houses small. Dirt abounded. War brought poverty, dirt brought the pest, Crusaders brought leprosy. At the gates of the town stood lazar-houses, and in remote spots lepers in the earlier stages of disease gathered together. Yet, despite war, pest, and leprosy, life in Umbria could never have been wholly sad. Certainly the sons of the well-to-do enjoyed themselves and whiled away the time carelessly. Sometimes a great personage stopped on his Romeward way; sometimes strolling players exhibited their shows on the _piazza_ before the Temple of Minerva; sometimes a troubadour, escaped from the persecution in Provence, pa.s.sed by on his way to Sicily, and sang his songs to repay hospitality. Many an afternoon and night the clubs of young gentlemen gave _ftes champtres_ and dances.

Francis, as a boy, was gayest of the gay, dancing and piping in the market-place, fighting in the front rank against the n.o.bles of Perugia, but when he grew to manhood he could not bear the contrast between mirth and misery. He sought for some universal joy and found it in the love of Christ. He gathered about him a scanty band of holy and humble men of heart, who took the vow of poverty, and devoted themselves to praising G.o.d, comforting the wretched, and tending lepers. The abbot of the neighbouring Benedictine monastery gave them a little chapel, where St.

Benedict himself had once said ma.s.s, which lay in the plain a mile below the town. This little chapel, named the _Portiuncula_ (the little portion), which is now covered by the great church of _Santa Maria degli Angeli_ (St. Mary of the Angels), so called because the songs of angels were heard there, was the cradle of the Franciscan Order. It was a tiny building, twenty feet wide and thirty long, with a steep pitched roof, plain walls, and big, round-arched door, and was sadly dilapidated. St.

Francis and his friends built it up, and it became their church. Round it they built their huts, and encompa.s.sed all with a hedge. Here it was that St. Clare, the daughter of a n.o.bleman of a.s.sisi, donned the nun's dress. Here Francis pa.s.sed the happy years of his life, while as yet his disciples were few and all were animated by his pa.s.sionate longing for self-abnegation. He followed the New Testament literally, superst.i.tiously one would say were it not that this literal obedience was accompanied by ineffable peace of heart and joy. He specially enjoined poverty. A smock, a cord, and sandals were enough for a true brother. Once a novice begged for permission to own a psalter, and teased him, but Francis answered: "After you have the psalter you will covet and long for a breviary; and when you possess a breviary you will sit on a chair like a great prelate, and say to thy brother, fetch me my breviary." Nor would he suffer the brethren to take heed for the morrow.

They were only allowed to ask for provisions sufficient for the day. For he, in the rapture of his love, found infinite pleasure in the literal fulfillment of every word that had fallen from Christ's lips. Francis was an orator; he possessed pa.s.sion, the great source of eloquence, and stirred prelates and Crusaders as well as peasants and lepers. The world wished for sympathy and he gave it. He seemed to be sick with the sick, afflicted with those in affliction, holy with the good; and even sinners felt him one of themselves. To his disciples he was Jesus come again.

Joy and happiness radiated from him. All the world felt the charm and beauty of his love of G.o.d, and poetry followed him as wild violets attend the spring.

Thus Francis, by rubbing off the incrustations of twelve hundred unchristian years, revealed the poetry of the gospel to an eager world.

One charming trait of his character was his love of animals, especially of birds. He wished the ox and the a.s.s, companions of the manger, to share in the Christmas good cheer; and hoped that the Emperor would make a law that n.o.body should kill larks or do them any hurt. He was always very fond of larks and said that their plumage was like a religious dress. "Wherefore,--according to his disciple, Brother Leo,--it pleased G.o.d that these lowly little birds should give a sign of affection for him at the hour of his death. On the eve of the Sabbath day after vespers, just before the night in which he went up to G.o.d, a great mult.i.tude of larks flew down over the roof of the house where he lay, and all flying together wheeled in circles round the roof and singing sweetly seemed to be praising G.o.d."

His disciples went forth from their headquarters, the _Portiuncula_, like the Apostles, to preach the gospel, first to the people of Umbria and Tuscany, then on to Bologna and Verona, and soon over the Alps and across the seas. The Order had three branches: the begging friars themselves, tonsured and clad in undyed cloth, with cords about their waists and sandals on their feet; the sister Clares, shut up in nunneries, and dressed most simply; and the third order, people who continued to live in the world, but wished to follow the example of Christ and his blessed imitator and servant, Francis. The first rule of the begging friars had been very strict. For Francis the strait gate that led to eternal life was poverty. Even in his lifetime after his Order had become popular, there was grumbling and opposition; and after his death, the literal observance of his wishes was promptly given up.

He would never allow his brethren to own a house or have a church; and yet within two years after his death the great basilica in a.s.sisi was begun, dedicated to him, and hurried to magnificent completion. The Church, which held the doctrine of evangelical poverty fit only for mad men of genius, laid her heavy hand on the Order, and guided and governed it as best suited her purposes. But it would be grossly unfair to the Church to blame her for violating Francis's chief dogma. The total rejection of property, the total disregard of the morrow, seemed to her, as they seem to us to-day, doctrines wholly inapplicable to this world in which we find ourselves.

CHAPTER XIV

THE FALL OF THE EMPIRE (1216-1250)

The Church seized the Franciscan Order as a man in danger grasps at a means of safety, and shaped it to her needs; for, in spite of her brilliant triumphs under Innocent, her needs were great. The Papacy and the Empire approached their final struggle; both felt instinctively that the issue must be decisive. Their fundamental incompatibility had been aggravated by the union of the crowns of Sicily and Germany. Innocent had been pushed by circ.u.mstances into supporting Frederick's claim to Germany, and though he had striven to prevent the natural consequences by extorting oaths from Frederick, yet as time went on the danger became clearer. Under Innocent's successor, Pope Honorius, the Papacy lay like a cherry between an upper and lower jaw, which watered to close and crunch it; and this extreme peril is the excuse for the bitterness of the Popes in the contest which followed. The Papacy fought for its life.

The contest affected all Italy. Milan and many cities of the valley of the Po were Guelf; but Pavia and some others were Ghibelline, not that they loved the Emperor, but hated Milan; Florence and the other Tuscan cities, except Ghibelline Pisa and Siena, which hated Florence, were Guelf; Rome was split in two; the Colonna, the Frangipani, and other great families were generally Ghibelline, though permanent allegiance was unfashionable, while the Orsini and others were Guelf. The Gray Friars, who swarmed from the Alps to the Strait of Messina, were steadfast Guelfs, and even carried their loyalty so far, their enemies said, as to subordinate religion to political ends. On the other hand, the aristocracy, which was chiefly of Teutonic descent, held for the Empire.

Frederick himself is the central figure of the period. In his lifetime he excited love and hate to extravagance, and he still excites the enthusiasm of scholars. His is the most interesting Italian personality between St. Francis and Dante. I say Italian, for though Frederick inherited the Hohenstaufen vigour and energy, he got his chief traits from his Sicilian mother. Poet, lawgiver, soldier, statesman, he was the wonder of the world, _stupor mundi_, as an English chronicler called him. Impetuous, terrible, voluptuous, refined, he was a kind of Csarian Byron. In most ways he outstripped contemporary thought; in many ways he outstripped contemporary sympathy. He was sceptical of the Athanasian Creed, of communal freedom, and of other things which his Italian countrymen believed devoutly; while they were sceptical of the divine right of the Empire, of the blessing of a strong central government, and of other matters which he believed devoutly.

Between a stubborn Emperor, a stiff-necked Papacy, and obstinate communes, relations strained taut. The first break occurred between Emperor and Papacy. The Popes honestly desired to reconquer Jerusalem, which had fallen back into infidel hands, and incessantly urged a crusade; but perhaps at this juncture their zeal was heightened by a notion that the most effective defensive measure against the Emperor would be to keep him busy in Palestine. Frederick had solemnly promised to go. He had also solemnly promised to keep the crowns of Germany and of the Two Sicilies separate, by putting the latter on his son's head; but instead of this separation he kept both crowns on his own head, and secured both for his son as his successor. In spite of this violated promise, Pope Honorius, a gentle soul, devoutly eager for the crusade, crowned Frederick Emperor (1220), upon Frederick's renewed promise that he would start on the crusade within a year. The year pa.s.sed, then another and another, and Frederick, with his crowns safe on his head, did not move a foot towards Jerusalem. The gentle Honorius remonstrated; Frederick made vows, excuses, protestations, but did not go. Finally the mild Pope died, and was succeeded by the venerable Cardinal Ugolino, Gregory IX, (1227-1241). Ugolino was a member of the _Conti_ family of Latium (so preminently counts that they took their name from their t.i.tle), and a near relation to Innocent III. His indomitable character proved his kinship. Blameless in private life, a warm friend to St.

Francis, deeply versed in ecclesiastical affairs, he had a benign face and n.o.ble presence; in fact, to quote the gentle Pope Honorius, he was "a Cedar of Lebanon in the Park of the Church." But, in spite of his virtue, his training, and his fourscore years, he was a very Hotspur, fiery, impatient, and headstrong. It was he who had put the crusader's cross into Frederick's hands and had received his crusader's vow; and now, having bottled up his wrath during the pontificate of Honorius, he could brook no further delay. Frederick made ready to go. Ships and men were gathered at Brindisi, and, in spite of a pestilence which killed many soldiers, the fleet set sail. A few days later word was brought that Frederick had put about and disembarked in Italy.

Gregory was furiously angry, and despatched an encyclical letter to certain bishops in Frederick's kingdom, which sets forth the papal side of the matter: "Out in the s.p.a.cious amplitude of the sea, the little bark of Peter, placed or rather displaced by whirlwinds and tempests, is so continuously tossed about by storms and waves, that its pilot and rowers under the stress of inundating rains can hardly breathe. Four special tempests shake our ship: the perfidy of infidels, the madness of tyrants, the insanity of heretics, the perverse fraud of false sons.

There are wars without and fears within, and it frequently happens that the distressed Church of Christ, while she thinks she cherishes children, nourishes at her breast fires, serpents, and vipers, who by poisonous breath, by bite and conflagration, strive to ruin all. Now, in this time when there is need to destroy monsters of this sort, to rout hostile armies, to still disturbing tempests, the Apostolic See with great diligence has cherished a certain child, to wit, the Emperor Frederick, whom from his mother's womb she received upon her knees, nursed him at her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, carried him on her back, rescued him often from the hands of them that sought his life, with great pains and cost studied to educate him until she had brought him to manhood, and led him to a kingly crown and even to the height of the Imperial dignity, believing that he would be a rod of defence, and a staff for her old age."

The encyclical then proceeds to recount Frederick's promises, his delays, evasions, excuses, and the false start from Brindisi, and adds, "Hearken and see if there be any sorrow like the sorrow of your mother the Apostolic See, so cruelly, so totally deceived by a son whom she had nursed, in whom she had placed the trust of her hope in this matter. But we put our hope in the compa.s.sion of G.o.d that He will show to us a way by which we shall advance prosperously in this affair, and that He will point out men, who in purity of heart and with cleanness of hand shall lead the Christian army. Yet lest, like dumb dogs who cannot bark, we should seem to defer to man against G.o.d, and take no vengeance upon him, the Emperor Frederick, who has wrought such ruin on G.o.d's people. We, though unwilling, do publicly p.r.o.nounce him excommunicated, and command that he be by all completely shunned, and that you and other prelates who shall hear of this, publicly publish his excommunication. And, if his contumacy shall demand, more grave proceeding shall be taken."

This ban of excommunication was published over the world; bishops gave it out in their dioceses, priests in their parishes; Gray Friars told of it from Sicily to Scotland. Frederick in answer wrote letters to the kings of Europe, saying that the Roman Church was so consumed with avarice and greed, that, not satisfied with her own Church property, she was not ashamed to disinherit emperors, kings, and princes, and make them tributary. To the King of England he wrote:--

"Of these premises the King of England has an example, for the Church excommunicated his father, King John, and kept him excommunicated till he and his kingdom became tributary to her. Likewise all have the example of many other princes, whose lands and persons she squeezed under an interdict till she had reduced them to similar servitude. We pa.s.s over her simony, her unheard-of exactions, her open usury, and her new-fangled tricks, which infect the whole world. We pa.s.s over her speeches, sweeter than honey, smoother than oil,--insatiable bloodsuckers! They say that the Roman Curia is the Church, our mother and nurse, when that Curia is the root and origin of all evils. She does not act like a mother, but like a stepmother. By her fruits which we know she gives sure proof.

"Let the famous barons of England think of this. Pope Innocent instigated them to rise in revolt against King John as a stubborn enemy of the Church, but after that abnormally celebrated King made obeisance and, like a woman, delivered up himself and his kingdom to the Roman Church, that Pope, putting behind him his respect for man and fear of G.o.d, trampled down the n.o.bles, whom he had first supported and p.r.i.c.ked on, and left them exposed to death and disinheritance, so that he, after the Roman fashion, should gulp down his impudent throat the fatter morsels. In this way, under the incitement of Roman avarice, England, fairest of countries, was made a tributary. Behold the ways of the Romans; behold how they seek to snare all and each, how they get money by fraud, how they subjugate the free and disturb the peaceable, clad in sheep's clothing but inwardly ravening wolves. They send legates. .h.i.ther and thither, to excommunicate, to reprimand, to punish,--not to save the fruitful seed of G.o.d's word, but to extort money, to bind and reap where they have never sown.

"Against us also, as He who sees all things knows, they have raged like bacchantes, wrongfully, saying that we would not cross the sea according to terms fixed, when much unavoidable and arduous business about the going, and about the Church and about the Empire, detained us, not counting sickness. First there were the insolent Sicilian rebels: and it did not seem to us a good plan nor expedient for Christianity to go to the Holy Land," etc. And he ended, so the chronicler says, with an exhortation to all the princes of the world to beware against such avarice and wickedness, because "_you are concerned when your neighbour's house is on fire_."