Historical Tales Volume V Part 7

It was in 1220 that Frederick returned from Germany to Italy, leaving his northern kingdom in the hands of the Archbishop of Cologne, as regent. At Rome he received the imperial crown from the hands of the pope, and, his first wife dying, married Yolinda de Lusignan, daughter of John, ex-king of Jerusalem, in right of whom he claimed the kingdom of the East.

Shortly afterwards a new pope came to the papal chair, the gloomy Gregory IX., whose first act was to order a crusade, which he desired the emperor to lead. Despite the fact that he had married the heiress of Jerusalem, Frederick was very reluctant to seek an enforcement of his claim upon the holy city. He had pledged himself when crowned at Aix-la-Chapelle, and afterwards on his coronation at Rome, to undertake a crusade, but Honorius III., the pope at that time, readily granted him delay. Such was not the case with Gregory, who sternly insisted on an immediate compliance with his pledge, and whose rigid sense of decorum was scandalized by the frivolities of the emperor, no less than was his religious austerity by Frederick's open intercourse with the Sicilian Saracens.

The old contest between emperor and pope threatened to be opened again with all its former virulence. It was deferred for a time by Frederick, who, after exhausting all excuses for delay, at length yielded to the exhortations of the pope and set sail for the Holy Land. The crusade thus entered upon proved, however, to be simply a farce. In three days the fleet returned, Frederick pleading illness as his excuse, and the whole expedition came to an end.

Gregory was no longer to be trifled with. He declared that the illness was but a pretext, that Frederick had openly broken his word to the church, and at once proceeded to launch upon the emperor the thunders of the papacy, in a bull of excommunication.

Frederick treated this fulmination with contempt, and appealed from the pope to Christendom, accusing Rome of avarice, and declaring that her envoys were marching in all directions, not to preach the word of G.o.d, but to extort money from the people.

"The primitive church," he said, "founded on poverty and simplicity, brought forth numberless saints. The Romans are now rolling in wealth.

What wonder that the walls of the church are undermined to the base, and threaten utter ruin."

For this saying the pope launched against him a more tremendous excommunication. In return the partisans of Frederick in Rome, raising an insurrection, expelled the pope from that city. And now the free-thinking emperor, to convince the world that he was not trifling with his word, set sail of his own accord for the East, with as numerous an army as he was able to raise.

A remarkable state of affairs followed, justifying us in speaking of this crusade as a comedy, in contrast with the tragic character of those which had preceded it. Frederick had shrewdly prepared for success, by negotiations, through his Saracen friends, with the Sultan of Egypt. On reaching the Holy Land he was received with joy by the German knights and pilgrims there a.s.sembled, but the clergy and the Knight Templars and Hospitallers carefully kept aloof from him, for Gregory had despatched a swift-sailing ship to Palestine, giving orders that no intercourse should be held with the imperial enemy of the church.

It was certainly a strange spectacle, for a man under the ban of the church to be the leader in an expedition to recover the holy city. Its progress was as strange as its inception. Had Frederick been the leader of a Mohammedan army to recover Jerusalem from the Christians, his camp could have been little more crowded with infidel delegates. He wore a Saracen dress. He discussed questions of philosophy with Saracen visitors. He received presents of elephants and of dancing-girls from his friend the sultan, to whom he appealed: "Out of your goodness, and your friendship for me, surrender to me Jerusalem as it is, that I may be able to lift up my head among the kings of Christendom."

Camel, the sultan, consented, agreeing to deliver up Jerusalem and its adjacent territory to the emperor, on the sole condition that Mohammedan pilgrims might have the privilege of visiting a mosque within the city.

These terms Frederick gladly accepted, and soon after marched into the holy city at the head of his armed followers (not unarmed, as in the case of Coeur de Lion), took possession of it with formal ceremony, allowed the Mohammedan population to withdraw in peace, and repeopled the city with Christians, A.D. 1229.

He found himself in the presence of an extraordinary condition of affairs. The excommunication against him was not only maintained, but the pope actually went so far as to place Jerusalem and the Holy Sepulchre under interdict. So far did the virulence of priestly antipathy go that the Templars even plotted against Frederick's life.

Emissaries sent by them gave secret information to the sultan of where he might easily capture the emperor. The sultan, with a n.o.ble friendliness, sent the letter to Frederick, cautioning him to beware of his foes.

The break between emperor and pope had now reached its highest pitch of hostility. Frederick proclaimed his signal success to Europe. Gregory retorted with bitter accusations. The emperor, he said, had presented to the sultan of Babylon the sword given him for the defence of the faith; he had permitted the Koran to be preached in the Holy Temple itself; he had even bound himself to join the Saracens, in case a Christian army should attempt to cleanse the city and temple from Mohammedan defilements.

In addition to these charges, accusations of murder and other crimes were circulated against him, and a false report of his death was industriously circulated. Frederick found it necessary to return home without delay. He crowned himself at Jerusalem, as no ecclesiastic could be found who would perform the ceremony, and then set sail for Italy, leaving Richard, his master of the horse, in charge of affairs in Palestine.

Reaching Italy, he soon brought his affairs into order. He had under his command an army of thirty thousand Saracen soldiers, with whom it was impossible for his enemies to tamper. A bitter recrimination took place with the pope, in which the emperor managed to bring the general sentiment of Europe to his side, offering to convict Gregory of himself entering into negotiations with the infidels. Gregory, finding that he was getting the worst of the controversy with his powerful and alert enemy, now prudently gave way, having a horror of the shedding of blood.

Peace was made in 1230, the excommunication removed from the emperor, and for nine years the conflict between him and the papacy was at an end.

We have told the story of Frederick's crusade, but the remainder of his life is of sufficient interest to be given in epitome. In his government of Sicily he showed himself strikingly in advance of the political opinions of his period. He enacted a system of wise laws, inst.i.tuted representative parliaments, a.s.serted the principle of equal rights and equal duties, and the supremacy of the law over high and low alike. All religions were tolerated, Jews and Mohammedans having equal freedom of worship with Christians. All the serfs of his domain were emanc.i.p.ated, private war was forbidden, commerce was regulated, cheap justice for the poor was inst.i.tuted, markets and fairs were established, large libraries collected, and other progressive inst.i.tutions organized. He established menageries for the study of natural history, founded in Naples a great university, patronized medical study, provided cheap schools, aided the development of the arts, and in every respect displayed a remarkable public spirit and political foresight.

Yet splendid as was his career of development in secular affairs, his private life, as well as his public conduct, was stained with flagrant faults, and there was much in his doings that was frowned upon by the pope. New quarrels arose; new wars broke out; the emperor was again excommunicated; the unfortunate closing years of Frederick's career began. Again there were appeals to Christendom; again Frederick's Saracens marched through Italy; such was their success that the pope only escaped by death from falling into the hands of his foe. But with a new pope the old quarrel was resumed, Innocent IV. flying to France to get out of reach of the emperor's hands, and desperately combating him from this haven of refuge.

The incessant conflict at length bowed down the spirit of the emperor, now growing old. His good fortune began to desert him. In 1249 his son Enzio, whom he had made king of Sicily, and who was the most chivalrous and handsome of his children, was taken prisoner by the Bolognese, who refused to accept ransom for him, although his father offered in return for his freedom a silver ring equal in circ.u.mference to their city. In the following year his long-tried friend and councillor, Peter de Vincis, who had been the most trusted man in the empire, was accused of having joined the papal party and of attempting to poison the emperor.

He offered Frederick a beverage, which he, growing suspicious, did not drink, but had it administered to a criminal, who instantly expired.

Whether Peter was guilty or not, his seeming defection was a sore blow to his imperial patron. "Alas!" moaned Frederick, "I am abandoned by my most faithful friends; Peter, the friend of my heart, on whom I leaned for support, has deserted me and sought my destruction. Whom can I trust? My days are henceforth doomed to pa.s.s in sorrow and suspicion."

His days were near their end. Not long after the events narrated, while again in the field at the head of a fresh army of Saracens, he was suddenly seized with a mortal illness at Firenzuola, and died there on the 13th of December, 1250, becoming reconciled with the church on his deathbed. He was buried at Palermo.

Thus died one of the most intellectual, progressive, free-thinking, and pleasure-loving emperors of Germany, after a long reign over a realm in which he seldom appeared, and an almost incessant period of warfare against the head of a church of which he was supposed to be the imperial protector. Seven crowns were his,--those of the kingdom of Germany and of the Roman empire, the iron diadem of Lombardy, and those of Burgundy, Sicily, Sardinia, and Jerusalem. But of all the realms under his rule the smiling lands of Sicily and southern Italy were most to his liking, and the scene of his most constant abode. Charming palaces were built by him at Naples, Palermo, Messina, and several other places, and in these he surrounded himself with the n.o.blest bards and most beautiful women of the empire, and by all that was attractive in the art, science, and poetry of his times. Moorish dancing-girls and the arts and learning of the East abounded in his court. The Sultan Camel presented him with a rare tent, in which, by means of artfully contrived mechanism, the movements of the heavenly bodies were represented. Michael Scott, his astrologer, translated Aristotle's "History of Animals." Frederick studied ornithology, on which he wrote a treatise, and possessed a menagerie of rare animals, including a giraffe, and other strange creatures. The popular dialect of Italy owed much to him, being elevated into a written language by his use of it in his love-sonnets. Of the poems written by himself, his son Enzio, and his friends, several have been preserved, while his chancellor, Peter de Vincis, is said to have originated the sonnet.

We have already spoken of his reforms in his southern kingdom. It was his purpose to introduce similar reforms into the government of Germany, abolishing the feudal system, and creating a centralized and organized state, with a well-regulated system of finance. But ideas such as these were much too far in advance of the age. State and church alike opposed them, and Frederick's intelligent views did not long survive him.

History must have its evolution, political systems their growth, and the development of inst.i.tutions has never been much hastened or checked by any man's whip or curb.

In 1781, when the tomb of Frederick was opened, centuries after his death, the inst.i.tutions he had advocated were but in process of being adopted in Europe. The body of the great emperor was found within the mausoleum, wrapped in embroidered robes, the feet booted and spurred, the imperial crown on its head, in its hand the ball and sceptre, on its finger a costly emerald. For five centuries and more Frederick had slept in state, awaiting the verdict of time on the ideas in defence of which his life had been pa.s.sed in battle. The verdict had been given, the ideas had grown into inst.i.tutions, time had vouchsafed the far-seeing emperor his revenge.

_THE FALL OF THE GHIBELLINES._

The death of Frederick II., in 1250, was followed by a series of misfortunes to his descendants, so tragical as to form a story full of pathetic interest. His son Enzio, a man of remarkable beauty and valor, celebrated as a Minnesinger, and of unusual intellectual qualities, had been taken prisoner, as we have already told, by the Bolognese, and condemned by them to perpetual imprisonment, despite the prayers of his father and the rich ransom offered. For twenty-two years he continued a tenant of a dungeon, and in this gloomy scene of death in life survived all the sons and grandsons of his father, every one of whom perished by poison, the sword, or the axe of the executioner. It is this dread story of the fate of the Hohenstauffen imperial house which we have now to tell.

No sooner had Frederick expired than the enemies of his house arose on every side. Conrad IV., his eldest son and successor, found Germany so filled with his foes that he was forced to take refuge in Italy, where his half-brother, Manfred, Prince of Taranto, ceded to him the sovereignty of the Italian realm, and lent him his aid to secure it. The royal brothers captured Capua and Naples, where Conrad signalized his success by placing a bridle in the mouth of an antique colossal horse's head, the emblem of the city. This insult made the inhabitants his implacable foes. His success was but temporary. He died suddenly, as also did his younger brother Henry, poisoned by his half-brother Manfred, who succeeded to the kingship of the South. But with the Guelphs in power in Germany, and the pope his bitter foe in Italy, he was utterly unable to establish his claim, and was forced to cede all lower Italy, except Taranto, to the pontiff. But a new and less implacable pope being elected, the fortunes of Manfred suddenly changed, and he was unanimously proclaimed king at Palermo in 1258.

But the misfortunes of his house were to pursue him to the end. In northern Italy, the Guelphs were everywhere triumphant. Ezzelino, one of Frederick's ablest generals, was defeated, wounded, and taken prisoner.

He soon after died. His brother Alberich was cruelly murdered, being dragged to death at a horse's tail. The other Ghibelline chiefs were similarly butchered, the horrible scenes of bloodshed so working on the feelings of the susceptible Italians that many of them did penance at the grave of Alberich, arrayed in sackcloth. From this circ.u.mstance arose the sect of the Flagellants, who ran through the streets, lamenting, praying, and wounding themselves with thongs, as an atonement for the sins of the world.

In southern Italy, Manfred for a while was successful. In 1259 he married Helena, the daughter of Michael of Cyprus and aetolia, a maiden of seventeen years, and famed far and wide for her loveliness. So beautiful were the bridal pair, and such were the attractions of their court, which, as in Frederick's time, was the favorite resort of distinguished poets and lovely women, that a bard of the times declared, "Paradise has once more appeared upon earth."

Manfred, like his father and his brother Enzio, was a poet, being cla.s.sed among the Minnesingers. His marriage gave him the alliance of Greece, and the marriage of Constance, his daughter by a former wife, to Peter of Aragon, gained him the friendship of Spain. Strengthened by these alliances, he was able to send aid to the Ghibellines in Lombardy, who again became victorious.

The Guelphs, alarmed at Manfred's growing power, now raised a Frenchman to the papal throne, who induced Charles of Anjou, the brother of the French monarch, to strike for the crown of southern Italy. Charles, a gloomy, cold-blooded and cruel prince, gladly accepted the pope's suggestions, and followed by a powerful body of French knights and soldiers of fortune, set sail for Naples in 1266. Manfred had unluckily lost the whole of his fleet in a storm, and was not able to oppose this threatening invasion, which landed in Italy in his despite.

Nor was he more fortunate with his land army. The clergy, in the interest of the Guelph faction, tampered with his soldiers and sowed treason in his camp. No sooner had Charles landed, than a mountain pa.s.s intrusted to the defence of Riccardo di Caseta was treacherously abandoned, and the French army allowed to advance unmolested as far as Benevento, where the two armies met.

In the battle that followed, Manfred defended himself gallantly, but, despite all his efforts, was worsted, and threw himself desperately into the thick of the fight, where he fell, covered with wounds. The bigoted victor refused him honorable burial, on the score of heresy, but the French soldiers, n.o.bler-hearted than their leader, and touched by the beauty and valor of their unfortunate opponent, cast each of them a stone upon his body, which was thus buried under a mound which the natives still know as the "rock of roses."

The wife and children of Manfred met with a pitiable fate. On learning of the sad death of her husband Helena sought safety in flight, with her daughter Beatrice and her three infant sons, Henry, Frederick, and Anselino; but she was betrayed to Charles, who threw her into a dungeon, in which she soon languished and died. Of her children, her daughter Beatrice was afterwards rescued by Peter of Aragon, who exchanged for her a son of Charles of Anjou, whom he held prisoner; but the three boys were given over to the cruellest fate. Immured in a narrow dungeon, and loaded with chains, they remained thus half-naked, ill-fed, and untaught for the period of thirty-one years. Not until 1297 were they released from their chains and allowed to be visited by a priest and a physician.

Charles of Anjou, meanwhile, filled with the spirit of cruelty and ambition, sought to destroy every vestige of the Hohenstauffen rule in southern Italy, the scene of Frederick's long and l.u.s.trous reign.

The death of Manfred had not extinguished all the princes of Frederick's house. There remained another, Conradin, son of Conrad IV., Duke of Swabia, a youthful prince to whom had descended some of the intellectual powers of his noted grand-sire. He had an inseparable friend, Frederick, son of the Margrave of Baden, of his own age, and like him enthusiastic and imaginative, their ardent fancies finding vent in song. One of Conradin's ballads is still extant.

As the young prince grew older, the seclusion to which he was subjected by his guardian, Meinhard, Count von Gortz, became so irksome to him that he gladly accepted a proposal from the Italian Ghibellines to put himself at their head. In 1267 he set out, in company with Frederick, and with a following of some ten thousand men, and crossed the Alps to Lombardy, where he met with a warm welcome at Verona by the Ghibelline chiefs.

Treachery accompanied him, however, in the presence of his guardian Meinhard and Louis of Bavaria, who persuaded him to part with his German possessions for a low price, and then deserted him, followed by the greater part of the Germans. Conradin was left with but three thousand men.

The Italians proved more faithful. Verona raised him an army; Pisa supplied him a large fleet; the Moors of Luceria took up arms in his cause; even Rome rose in his favor, and drove out the pope, who retreated to Viterbo. For the time being the Ghibelline cause was in the ascendant. Conradin marched unopposed to Rome, at whose gates he was met by a procession of beautiful girls, bearing flowers and instruments of music, who conducted him to the capitol. His success on land was matched by a success at sea, his fleet gaining a signal victory over that of the French, and burning a great number of their ships.

So far all had gone well with the youthful heir of the Hohenstauffens.

Henceforth all was to go ill. Conradin marched from Rome to lower Italy, where he encountered the French army, under Charles, at Scurcola, drove them back, and broke into their camp. a.s.sured of victory, the Germans grew careless, dispersing through the camp in search of booty, while some of them even refreshed themselves by bathing.

While thus engaged, the French reserve, who had watched their movements, suddenly fell upon them and completely put them to rout. Conradin and Frederick, after fighting bravely, owed their escape to the fleetness of their steeds. They reached the sea at Astura, boarded a vessel, and were about setting sail for Pisa, when they were betrayed into the hands of their pursuers, taken prisoners, and carried back to Charles of Anjou.

They had fallen into fatal hands; Charles was not the man to consider justice or honor in dealing with a Hohenstauffen. He treated Conradin as a rebel against himself, under the claim that he was the only legitimate king, and sentenced both the princes, then but sixteen years of age, to be publicly beheaded in the market-place at Naples.

Conradin was playing at chess in prison when the news of this unjust sentence was brought to him. He calmly listened to it, with the courage native to his race. On October 22, 1268, he, with Frederick and his other companions, was conducted to the scaffold erected in the market-place, pa.s.sing through a throng of which even the French contingent looked on the spectacle with indignation. So greatly were they wrought up, indeed, by the outrage, that Robert, Earl of Flanders, Charles's son-in-law, drew his sword, and cut down the officer commissioned to read in public the sentence of death.

"Wretch!" he cried, as he dealt the blow, "how darest thou condemn such a great and excellent knight?"

Conradin met his fate with unyielding courage, saying, in his address to the people,--

"I cite my judge before the highest tribunal. My blood, shed on this spot, shall cry to heaven for vengeance. Nor do I esteem my Swabians and Bavarians, my Germans, so low as not to trust that this stain on the honor of the German nation will be washed out by them in French blood."