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 circumstances 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 Caesarian
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 passed, 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 preeminently counts that they took their name from their
title), 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 noble 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 spacious 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 breasts, 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 compassion of God 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 God, and take no vengeance upon him,
the Emperor Frederick, who has wrought such ruin on God's people. We,
though unwilling, do publicly pronounce 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
pass over her simony, her unheard-of exactions, her open usury, and her
new-fangled tricks, which infect the whole world. We pass 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
God, trampled down the nobles, whom he had first supported and pricked
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 hither
and thither, to excommunicate, to reprimand, to punish,--not to save the
fruitful seed of God'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_."
These letters show the temper on both sides. Outwardly, however, peace
was observed, and Frederick really went on the promised crusade; and,
though in Syria he found Patriarch, Templars, Hospitallers, and
Franciscans all turned against him, he succeeded in making a treaty by
which Jerusalem, Nazareth, and Bethlehem were ceded to him, and he
crowned himself king in Jerusalem. In the mean time hostilities had
broken out in Italy. Frederick incited the Roman barons to drive the
Pope from Rome, and the Pope preached a crusade against Frederick. But
both sides, having many cares within their respective jurisdictions, at
length made peace, and Frederick was enabled to go back to his
_consuetas delicias_, his wonted delights.
This phrase, which was used by the Pope, probably contained an innuendo,
for gossip busied itself with Frederick's christianity and morals. He
tolerated Saracens in his kingdom, lived on friendly terms with them,
and preferred them in his army, for they were indifferent to
excommunication; and gossip added that he liked Saracen ladies, hinted
at a harem, and alleged that in Syria he had accepted the present of a
troop of Moslem dancers. Gossip, spread by the glib tongues of mendicant
friars, charged him with saying, "If God had seen my beautiful Sicily,
he would not have chosen that beggarly Palestine for His Kingdom,"
"There have been three great impostors who invented religions, and one
of them was crucified." Frederick's real offence in ecclesiastical eyes
was that he wished to subordinate the spiritual to the secular power. It
was natural, however, that pious folk should look askance at a prince
who, while Christendom was fighting Islam, hobnobbed with Mohammedans
and seemed to find them more sympathetic than Christians.
Frederick's real _consuetae deliciae_ were of another kind. In his
Sicilian court we catch the first streaks of the dawn that was destined
to brighten into the day of the Renaissance. He himself was a highly
accomplished man, spoke Italian, German, Arabic, and Greek, and took an
interest in mathematics, philosophy, and in general learning. But poetry
was his favourite pleasure. The Italian language, recently emerged from
dog Latin, had just begun to serve literary uses, and Frederick's court
had the honour of producing the first school of Italian poetry. He, his
sons Manfred and Enzio, his chief counsellor Pier della Vigna, and many
poets and troubadours drawn thither by his fame, so far outstripped the
rest of Italy that all Italian poetry, wherever written, was called
Sicilian.
Sicily was the most civilized place in Europe, now that Southern France
had been crushed by the Albigensian persecution. The old Greek stock
kept some trace of their inheritance; the Arabs had brought their
culture; the Normans had added chivalric ideas; the Crusades and
commerce had enlarged the intellectual boundaries; and Frederick himself
had extraordinary versatility. Mathematicians from Granada, philosophers
from Alexandria, were as welcome as the troubadours from Provence.
Frederick looked after his own royal estates, managed his stud farm in
Apulia, decided when brood mares should be fed on barley and when kept
to grass. He was a great sportsman, too, and wrote a book on falconry.
He enacted a famous code of laws, far superior in many respects to
existing legislation, which was conceived with the definite plan of
exalting royal authority over feudal prerogatives and communal customs.
He deprived the barons of criminal jurisdiction; forbade private war,
carrying weapons, etc; he limited trial by ordeal so far as he could,
calling it "a species of divination;" he made minute regulations in
matters of business and behaviour, and maintained a paternal authority.
In fact, Sicily, with its culture, poetry, Moslems, and its unorthodox
king, succeeded to the heretical position of Southern France. The Papacy
felt instinctively that a civilization so happy in the good things of
this world, so lax on many points of morality, so careless of the Roman
ecclesiastical system, was a perpetual menace to it. In the nature of
things, the peace that had been made with Frederick could not last long.
The breach happened in the North. The Lombard cities revolted. Frederick
marched against them and won a victory (1237). Then was the zenith of
his power; his very triumph was the cause of his undoing. All the Guelfs
of Italy roused themselves for the struggle. The Pope took part, and a
second time excommunicated Frederick, enumerating a score of sins. A
later Pope held a council at Lyons (a place of safety), excommunicated
Frederick again, and deposed him from his Imperial throne (1245). Then
an anti-emperor was set up. Blow on blow fell upon Frederick. He was
terribly routed at Parma, through carelessness. His gallant son Enzio,
the poet, was captured by the Bolognese, who would not release him,
though Frederick offered to put a rim of gold round the walls of their
city. Enzio spent twenty-three years in prison and there died. Pier
della Vigna, who "kept both the keys of Frederick's heart," was
suspected of high treason and condemned to death. Frederick himself died
in 1250, and the Pope shouted for joy at the news, "Be glad ye Heavens,
and let the Earth rejoice!" He had good reason, for the Church had lost
its most dangerous enemy.
With the death of Frederick the Empire came to its end. The name of Holy
Roman Empire continued till 1806, and from time to time for several
hundred years German kings came down across the Alps to receive the
Imperial crown, but on Frederick's death the old mediaeval Empire
practically ceased; and Italy, instead of being an Imperial province,
became a series of independent states.
The end of the Hohenstaufens themselves reads like the last act of a
bloody Elizabethan tragedy. Within a few years the only survivors among
Frederick's descendants were his lawful heir, a baby, Conradin, and an
illegitimate son, Manfred. Manfred, who had inherited the charm, the
address, the energy and brilliance of his father, succeeded in
establishing himself in the Two Sicilies, at first as regent for his
nephew, and afterwards, for in those troubled times a regency was
precarious, as king in his own right. But the Popes were resolved not to
undergo a repetition of the danger they had experienced from Frederick,
and laid their plans to destroy the last of the "viper's brood," as they
called Frederick's family. They followed the old precedent, set in the
days when the Papacy had been in danger from the Lombards, and invited a
French prince, Charles of Anjou, brother to St. Louis, to come and
depose Manfred, and offered him the crown of the Two Sicilies. The
crafty, capable, deep-scheming Charles accepted, and came amid great
rejoicing among the Guelfs. Rome made him Senator. Florence made him
_podesta_; in fact, all Guelf Italy was at his feet. The Pope proclaimed
a crusade against Manfred, collected tithes and taxes for the holy
purpose, and provided Charles with an army. Manfred was defeated and
killed (1266), and two years later, the valiant Conradin, a lad of
sixteen, who came down in the mad hope of regaining his kingdom, was
also defeated, taken prisoner, and, after a mock trial for treason, put
to death. Thus the Papacy prevented the union of the Two Sicilies with
the Empire, and thus the House of Anjou supplanted the last of the
Hohenstaufens at Palermo and Naples.