Dictionary and Thesaurus
Who was this Frederick chap and why does he deserve a chapter all to himself? Frederick was a remarkable man, in many ways well in advance of
his times. His abilities, accomplishments and attitudes astonished his
contemporaries and earned him the name of Stupor mundi, "The Wonder
of the World." For some historians, however, he is more significant for
the possible role he may have played - admittedly at a considerable
distance in time - in shaping important aspects of twentieth-century
Europe.
The Hammer and Anvil
When the Emperor Henry VII Hohenstaufen died in 1197, he was survived by
his widow and young son, Frederick. Frederick presented Innocent III with
something of a problem. The papacy had long pursued policies aimed at
preventing the same power from controlling both Germany and the South of
Italy, the latter being called the Kingdom of Two Sicilies. The danger, as
the papacy saw it, was that the pope would be between the Hammer (Germany)
and the Anvil (Two Sicilies) and could be crushed at any time. Even if the
secular power did not enter the Papal States, the threat alone would be
sufficient to make it impossible for the Church to continue to pursue the
role of being the independent moral arbiter of European affairs. The
problem with Frederick was that he was heir to Two Sicilies and was a
leading candidate of the powerful Hohenstaufen family to inherit his
father's imperial dignity. The pope considered it essential to contain
this danger.
The first step was innocuous enough. Innocent III took the young Frederick
as his ward and turned him over to be educated by some of the first-rate
minds in the papal court. The situation in German was confused. Local
nobles had seized upon the absence of any imperial authority as an
opportunity to settled old scores and to advance their power and wealth as
much as possible. In many ways, however, this was simply a matter of
jockeying for a favorable position to assume the emperorship, which was
still more or less an elective position. Two main candidates soon emerged,
one of who was a Hohenstaufen. Innocent was not eager to promote the cause
of a Hohenstaufen. Previous emperors of the family had attempted to
establish a central power in Germany and to take control of the nominally
imperial cities of the North of Italy. The wealth of these cities was
substantial, and whoever had control of them could expected to be able to
pay for massive armies whenever he chose. But the cities were close to the
Papal States, and the popes were reluctant to allow the German emperors to
establish a base of power so close to them.
So it was that Innocent set the power of the Church against the
Hohenstaufens and threw his support to Otto of Brunswick. He managed to
promote an alliance between Otto and his cousin, King John of England. The
civil war that ensued kept the Germans busy for some time. In 1209,
however, Otto of Brunswick won out and was declared emperor. He soon set
out for the North of Italy and, after subduing the major cities there,
entered the Papal States. Innocent quickly had Frederick crowned and
concluded an alliance with King Philip of France to aid the Church and
Frederick against the "usurper" Otto. In the battle of Bouvines (in modern
Belgium) in 1215, an allied army of French and Hohenstaufen supporters
defeated the English and adherents of Otto of Brunswick. Otto died, and
Frederick was not only king of Two Sicilies but undisputed ruler of the
Holy Roman Empire. Innocent III had managed to turn the potential threat
of the Hammer and Anvil into a real danger.
Innocent III thought that he had made certain that this situation would be
only temporary. Before supporting Frederick's elevation as emperor,
Innocent had required that he promise to relinquish Two Sicilies and to
undertake a crusade to liberate Jerusalem. But the best-laid plans even of
popes may go astray. Innocent died in 1216, before Frederick could be
required to fulfill either of those promises.
Frederick's Policies
Frederick got Innocent's successor to crown him emperor without having to
promise to give up Two Sicilies. He then gave away imperial power to the
German nobles, ensuring that the German empire would be racked by internal
dissension and would remain leaderless as long as he was emperor. He
intended to base his power in Italy and his actions made that clear. He
had been raised in the cosmopolitan city of Palermo and, at least
according to legend had spent much of his time as a child on the docks of
that city. One may suppose that he gained a vision of a Mediterranean
empire from listening to the talk of sailors and merchants.
Frederick and the Crusade
It was perhaps in pursuit of extending his Mediterranean claims that he
married the heiress to the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, the rulers of which
had recent been driven from the Holy Land by the able Muslim leader,
Saladin. Frederick now had a reason to keep his promise of undertaking a
Crusade but he had delayed too long in doing so. Pope Gregory IX
(1227-1241) undertook to force Frederick into compliance with the policies
of the Church. He excommunicated Frederick for not having kept his
crusading vow and, Frederick launched the Sixth Crusade, condemned him for
having ignored the rule that excommunicates could not become crusaders.
This seemed not to have bothered Frederick very much. As soon as he
arrived in the Levant, he undertook negotiations with local Muslim and
concluded a ten-year treaty with some quite favorable terms. He was to
control Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Nazareth and other centers of Christian
worship and was to be recognized as king of Jerusalem The city itself
would enjoy religious toleration for Muslims, Christians and Jews.
Although the treaty was not a permanent commitment on either side, but
Frederick appeared to have thought that there would be no difficulty in
renewing it and quite willingly crowned himself King of Jerusalem in 1229.
The invasion of Two Sicilies by papal and allied troops left him little
time to enjoy his new dignity. He hurried back from the Holy Land to
repair his fortunes in Italy.
If the pope had been furious at Frederick's undertaking the Crusade
against his command, he was doubly so considering the added prestige that
Frederick's success had gained him. The pope may also have apprehensive as
to what use Frederick might make of his control of Jerusalem, the most
holy place of Christendom and the seat of the venerated patriarch of
Jerusalem. He immediately rejected the treaty, excommunicated Frederick
once again and took the remarkable step of placing Jerusalem under
interdict.
Frederick and Italy
The military matter was settled rather quickly. By 1230, Frederick had
defeated Gregory and his allies and the struggle between Frederick and the
papacy settled down to a war of words, each advanced complex legal
arguments in support of their rights in the dispute. Meanwhile, Frederick
went to Germany and abdicated virtually all imperial authority in those
lands. He then began organizing the kingdom of Two Sicilies into a modern
centralized state. He eliminated all aspects of feudal organization and
directed the writing and promulgation of the Constitutions of Melfi. This
was a remarkable document, one of the earliest written constitutions and
unusually liberal for the day. The Constitutions established uniform
system of laws to be observed throughout the realm. They established a
standard form local government, declared that taxes would be fair and
fairly administered, and ensured that Two Sicilies would welcome trade and
commerce. Perhaps most remarkable, The Constitutions provided for
representative assemblies decades before the birth of the Parliament of
England.
Meanwhile, the war of words between Frederick and the papacy continued.
The popes had something of an advantage in that they were able to call
upon the faculty of law at the University of Bologna for assistance in
formulating their arguments. Recognizing the value of such a resource,
Frederick established and endowed the University of Naples, the first
clearly secular university in the West. Moreover, he took care that its
faculty included Christians, Muslims and Jews, and that all of these
languages would be taught, together with the laws and literature of these
cultures. Equally remarkable considering the times was Frederick's edict
ordering religious toleration for Christians, Muslims and Jews throughout
his realm. At the same time, however, he announced his intention of
establishing his control over the former imperial cities of the North of
Italy and making them another province of what he intended to be the
kingdom of Italy.
Frederick and the Papacy
Neither the papacy nor the towns of the North approved of Frederick's
designs. The towns formed an alliance known as the Lombard League -
the region of northern Italy in which many of these cities were situated
was known as Lombardy. The papacy offered its support, excommunicated
Frederick (yet again!) and called upon other monarchs to join in a war
against him. Frederick, in turn, issued a series of papers that advocated
reducing the Church to apostolic poverty.
The complex struggle ended with Frederick's death in 1250. The papacy
continued to work against the Hohenstaufens, and the family was eventually
destroyed, with its last member, a young lad, being publicly beheaded in
the public square of Salerno. In 1266, the papacy introduced a French
dynasty into the kingdom of Two Sicilies and supported its establishment.
Two Sicilies had been a political football for so long, however, that it
should come as no surprise to find that it remained so. The Sicilians did
not like their French overlords and so, with the support and
promised alliance of the king of Aragon (in Spain), began plotting their
overthrow/
In 1282, the Sicilians rebelled against the French in a bloody uprising
known as the Sicilian Vespers, and the Aragonese took over the kingdom.
Aragonese monarchs continued to rule the region until the 18th century.
Frederick's Significance
A. Frederick was not only a freethinker but something of a cynic. He
supposedly remarked that there were three great frauds in history - Moses,
Jesus and Muhammad. Although such statements may have startled people, his
own subjects were more directly affected by his policy of religious
toleration (except for heretics) within his realms. The Church was
naturally incensed by this insult to the One True Faith, by Frederick was
willing to oppose the Church in almost anything. He used his power to
create a completely secular government, a feat without parallel in the
history of the middle ages. Within his lands, he established a written
constitution that guaranteed the rights of his subjects and was
instrumental in promoting the development of Roman law and representative
institutions in southern Italy.
B. He was remarkably learned and seemed inclined to experiment rather than
rely on authorities or the use of logic. He spoke several languages, was a
composer of music, and supported the arts in his court. He provided refuge
for some of the troubadours fleeing the devastation attending the
Albigensian Crusade and they, with his encouragement, lay the bases for
the lyric quality of the Italian language, a quality later exemplified by
Dante. Frederick himself preferred to observe nature and, it has been
claimed, was the first of the stream of naturalists who contributed so
much to the development of science. Frederick wrote and illustrated a
superb little book entitled The Art of Hunting With Birds. His
illustrations are clearly the product of a long and organized observation
of birds in flight. It was for this accomplishment that Frederick has been
accorded the title of first scientific ornithologist. Not all of his
scientific bent was exercised such unacceptable ways; he often engaged
in bizarre physical experiments. With Frederick one never knows whether
what one reads in sources from the period is an honest attempt to tell the
truth about him, a fantastic bit of gossip, or a downright lie. It seems
agreed, though, that perhaps the thing that gained him the most fame among
with populace was the fact that he refused to travel anywhere without his
harem and his zoo - both of which were exceedingly well-stocked with
beautiful and exotic creatures.
C. In the sphere of politics, he was the occasion for the restructuring of
the traditional alliances of Western Europe. The papacy found itself
forced to abandon its old alliance with the Holy Roman Empire and to
entrust itself to the support of the kings of France. During their long
struggle, Frederick weakened the papacy by fomented civil war among the
nobles of the Papal States. This danger from their own subjects drove the
papacy deeper into the arms of the French and so set the stage for the
problems of the Avignon Papacy of 1305-1373 and of the Great Schism that
followed. One might argue that Frederick started the Church down the path
that was to lead, two and a half centuries later, to the Protestant
Reformation.
D. But Frederick failed in his own plan of creating a strong and secular
Kingdom of Italy. History might have been very different if he had
succeeded. As it was, the threat that he had posed caused the papacy to
adopt an unswerving policy of opposing any movement toward Italian
unification. The result of this policy was that Italy was not unified
until the 1860's. It played little role in Europe's age of expansion even
as its sailors, navigators and map-makers helped Spain, France and England
establish great overseas empires.
Frederick's German legacy was not much better. He had so weakened the
office of emperor that Germany developed without central leadership and
instead developed dynamic institutions to advance the fortunes of the
various classes of the German states. The peasants had confederations such
as Dietmarschen and the Swiss cantons, the middle class had the powerful
Hanseatic League, and the nobles had the Teutonic Knights and the dream of
expansion to the East.
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