with arms," he said. Then, exacting their oaths of allegiance, placing
the imperial eagle upon the spire of the cathedral, and taking with him
three hundred hostages, he marched away, with the confident belief that
the defiant resistance of Milan was at length overcome.
He did not know the Milanese. When, in the following year, he attempted
to lay a tax upon them, they rose in insurrection and attacked his
representatives with such fury that they could scarcely save their
lives. On an explanation being demanded, they refused to give any, and
were so arrogantly defiant that the emperor pronounced their city
outlawed, and wrathfully vowed that he would never place the crown upon
his head again until he had utterly destroyed this arrant nest of
rebels.
It was not to prove so easy a task. Frederick began by besieging
Cremona, which was in alliance with Milan, and which resisted him so
obstinately that it took him seven months to reduce it to submission. In
his anger he razed the city to the ground and scattered its inhabitants
far and wide.
Then came the siege of Milan, which was so vigorously defended that
three years passed before starvation threw it into the emperor's hands.
So virulent were the citizens that they several times tried to rid
themselves of their imperial enemy by assassination. On one occasion,
when Frederick was performing his morning devotions in a solitary spot
upon the river Ada, a gigantic fellow attacked him and tried to throw
him into the stream. The emperor's cries for help brought his attendants
to the spot, and the assailant, in his turn, was thrown into the river.
On another occasion an old, misshapen man glided into the camp, bearing
poisoned wares which he sought to dispose of to the emperor. Frederick,
fortunately, had been forewarned, and he had the would-be assassin
seized and executed.
It was in the spring of 1162 that the city yielded, hunger at length
forcing it to capitulate. Now came the work of revenge. Frederick
proceeded to put into execution the harsh vow he had made, after
subjecting its inhabitants to the greatest humiliations which he could
devise.
For three days the consuls and chief men of the city, followed by the
people, were obliged to parade before the imperial camp, barefooted and
dressed in sackcloth, with tapers in their hands and crosses, swords,
and ropes about their necks. On the third day more than a hundred of the
banners of the city were brought out and laid at the emperor's feet.
Then, in sign of the most utter humiliation, the great banner of their
pride, the Carocium--a stately iron tree with iron leaves, drawn on a
cart by eight oxen--was brought out and bowed before the emperor.
Frederick seized and tore down its fringe, while the whole people cast
themselves on the ground, wailing and imploring mercy.
The emperor was incensed beyond mercy, other than to grant them their
lives. He ordered that a part of the wall should be thrown down, and
rode through the breach into the city. Then, after deliberation, he
granted the inhabitants their lives, but ordered their removal to four
villages, several miles away, where they were placed under the care of
imperial functionaries. As for Milan, he decided that it should be
levelled with the ground, and gave the right to do this, at their
request, to the people of Lodi, Cremona, Pavia, and other cities which
had formerly been oppressed by proud Milan.
[Illustration: THE AMPHITHEATRE AT MILAN.]
The city was first pillaged, and then given over to the hands of the
Lombards, who--such was the diligence of hatred--are said to have done
more in six days than hired workmen would have done in as many months.
The walls and forts were torn down, the ditches filled up, and the once
splendid city reduced to a frightful scene of ruin and desolation. Then,
at a splendid banquet at Pavia, in the Easter festival, the triumphant
emperor replaced the crown upon his head.
His triumph was not to continue, nor the humiliation of Milan to remain
permanent. Time brings its revenges, as the proud Frederick was to
learn. For five years Milan lay in ruins, a home for owls and bats, a
scene of desolation to make all observers weep; and then arrived its
season of retribution. Frederick's downfall came from the hand of God,
not of man. A frightful plague broke out in the ranks of the German
army, then in Rome, carrying off nobles and men alike in such numbers
that it looked as if the whole host might be laid in the grave.
Thousands died, and the emperor was obliged to retire to Pavia with but
a feeble remnant of his numerous army, nearly the whole of it having
been swept away. In the following spring he was forced to leave Italy
like a fugitive, secretly and in disguise, and came so nearly falling
into the hands of his foes, that he only escaped by one of his
companions placing himself in his bed, to be seized in his stead, while
he fled under cover of the night.
Immediately the humbled cities raised their heads. An alliance was
formed between them, and they even ventured to conduct the Milanese back
to their ruined homes. At once the work of rebuilding was begun. The
ditches, walls, and towers were speedily restored, and then each man
went to work on his own habitation. So great was the city that the work
of destruction had been but partial. Most of the houses, all the
churches, and portions of the walls remained, and by aid of the other
cities Milan soon regained its old condition.
In 1174 Frederick reappeared in Italy, with a new army, and with hostile
intentions against the revolted cities. The Lombards had built a new
city, in a locality surrounded by rivers and marshes, and had enclosed
it with walls which they sought to make impregnable. This they named
Alexandria, in honor of the pope and in defiance of the emperor, and
against this Frederick's first assault was made. For seven months he
besieged it, and then broke into the very heart of the place, through a
subterranean passage which the Germans had excavated. To all appearance
the city was lost, yet chance and courage saved it. The brave defenders
attacked the Germans, who had appeared in the market-place; the tunnel,
through great good fortune, fell in; and in the end the emperor was
forced to raise the siege in such haste that he set fire to his own
encampment in his precipitate retreat.
On May 29, 1176, a decisive battle was fought at Lignano, in which Milan
revenged itself on its too-rigorous enemy. The Carocium was placed in
the middle of the Lombard army, surrounded by three hundred youths, who
had sworn to defend it unto death, and by a body of nine hundred picked
cavalry, who had taken a similar oath.
Early in the battle one wing of the Lombard army wavered under the sharp
attack of the Germans, and threw into confusion the Milanese ranks.
Taking advantage of this, the emperor pressed towards their centre,
seeking to gain the Carocium, with the expectation that its capture
would convert the disorder of the Lombards into a rout. On pushed the
Germans until the sacred standard was reached, and its decorations torn
down before the eyes of its sworn defenders.
This indignity to the treasured emblem of their liberties gave renewed
courage to the disordered band. Their ranks re-established, they charged
upon the Germans with such furious valor as to drive them back in
disorder, cut through their lines to the emperor's station, kill his
standard-bearer by his side, and capture the imperial standard.
Frederick, clad in a splendid suit of armor, rushed against them at the
head of a band of chosen knights. But suddenly he was seen to fall from
his horse and vanish under the hot press of struggling warriors that
surged back and forth around the standard.
This dire event spread instant terror through the German ranks. They
broke and fled in disorder, followed by the death-phalanx of the
Carocium, who cut them down in multitudes, and drove them back in
complete disorder and defeat. For two days the emperor was mourned as
slain, his unhappy wife even assuming the robes of widowhood, when
suddenly he reappeared, and all was joy again. He had not been seriously
hurt in his fall, and had with a few friends escaped in the tumult of
the defeat, and, under the protection of night, made his way with
difficulty back to Pavia.
This defeat ended the efforts of Frederick against Milan, which had,
through its triumph over the great emperor, regained all its old proud
position and supremacy among the Lombard cities. The war ended with the
battle of Lignano, a truce of six years being concluded between the
hostile parties. For the ensuing eight years Frederick was fully
occupied in Germany, in wars with Henry the Lion, of the Guelph faction.
At the end of that time he returned to Italy, where Milan, which he had
sought so strenuously to humiliate and ruin, now became the seat of the
greatest honor he could bestow. The occasion was that of the marriage of
his son Henry to Constanza, the last heiress of Naples and Sicily of the
royal Norman race. This ceremony took place in Milan, in which city the
emperor caused the iron crown of the Lombards to be placed upon the head
of his son and heir, and gave him away in marriage with the utmost pomp
and festivity. Milan had won in its great contest for life and death.
We may fitly conclude with the story of the death of the great
Frederick, who, in accordance with the character of his life, died in
harness. In his old age, having put an end to the wars in Germany and
Italy, he headed a crusade to the Holy Land, from which he was never to
return. It was the most interesting in many of its features of all the
crusades, the leaders of the host being, in addition to Frederick
Barbarossa, Richard Coeur de Lion of England, the hero of romance, the
wise Philip Augustus of France, and various others of the leading
potentates of Europe.
It is with Frederick alone that we are concerned. In 1188 he set out, at
the head of one hundred and fifty thousand trained soldiers, on what was
destined to prove a disastrous expedition. Entering Hungary, he met with
a friendly reception from Bela, its king. Reaching Belgrade, he held
there a magnificent tournament, hanged all the robber Servians he could
capture for their depredations upon his ranks, and advanced into Greek
territory, where he punished the bad faith of the emperor, Isaac, by
plundering his country. Several cities were destroyed in revenge for the
assassination of pilgrims and of sick and wounded German soldiers by
their inhabitants. This done, Frederick advanced on Constantinople,
whose emperor, to save his city from capture, hastened to place his
whole fleet at the disposal of the Germans, glad to get rid of these
truculent visitors at any price.
Reaching Asia Minor, the troubles of the crusaders began. They were
assailed by the Turks, and had to cut their way forward at every step.
Barbarossa had never shown himself a greater general. On one occasion,
when hard pressed by the enemy, he concealed a chosen band of warriors
in a large tent, the gift of the Queen of Hungary, while the rest of the
army pretended to fly. The Turks entered the camp and began pillaging,
when the ambushed knights broke upon them from the tent, the flying
soldiers turned, and the confident enemy was disastrously defeated.
But as the army advanced its difficulties increased. A Turkish prisoner
who was made to act as a guide, being driven in chains before the army,
led the Christians into the gorges of almost impassable mountains,
sacrificing his life for his cause. Here, foot-sore and weary, and
tormented by thirst and hunger, they were suddenly attacked by ambushed
foes, stones being rolled upon them in the narrow gorges, and arrows and
javelins poured upon their disordered ranks. Peace was here offered
them by the Turks, if they would pay a large sum of money for their
release. In reply the indomitable emperor sent them a small silver coin,
with the message that they might divide this among themselves. Then,
pressing forward, he beat off the enemy, and extricated his army from
its dangerous situation.
As they pushed on, the sufferings of the army increased. Water was not
to be had, and many were forced to quench their thirst by drinking the
blood of their horses. The army was now divided. Frederick, the son of
the emperor, led half of it forward at a rapid march, defeated the Turks
who sought to stop him, and fought his way into the city of Iconium.
Here all the inhabitants were put to the sword, and the crusaders gained
an immense booty.
Meanwhile the emperor, his soldiers almost worn out with hunger and
fatigue, was surrounded with the army of the sultan. He believed that
his son was lost, and tears of anguish flowed from his eyes, while all
around him wept in sympathy. Suddenly rising, he exclaimed, "Christ
still lives, Christ conquers!" and putting himself at the head of his
knights, he led them in a furious assault upon the Turks. The result was
a complete victory, ten thousand of the enemy falling dead upon the
field. Then the Christian army marched to Iconium, where they found
relief from their hunger and weariness.
After recruiting they marched forward, and on June 10, 1190, reached
the little river Cydnus, in Cilicia. Here the road and the bridge over
the stream were so blocked up with beasts of burden that the progress of
the army was greatly reduced. The bold old warrior, impatient to rejoin
his son Frederick, who led the van, would not wait for the bridge to be
cleared, but spurred his war-horse forward and plunged into the stream.
Unfortunately, he had miscalculated the strength of the current. Despite
the efforts of the noble animal, it was borne away by the swift stream,
and when at length assistance reached the aged emperor he was found to
be already dead.
Never was a man more mourned than was the valiant Barbarossa by his
army, and by the Germans on hearing of his death. His body was borne by
the sorrowing soldiers to Antioch, where it was buried in the church of
St. Peter. His fate was, perhaps, a fortunate one, for it prevented him
from beholding the loss of the army, which was almost entirely destroyed
by sickness at the city in which his body was entombed. His son
Frederick died at the siege of Acre, or Ptolemais.
As regards the Germans at home, they were not willing to believe that
their great emperor could be dead. Their superstitious faith gave rise
to legendary tales, to the effect that the valiant Barbarossa was still
alive, and would, some day, return to yield Germany again a dynasty of
mighty sovereigns. The story went that the noble emperor lay asleep in a
deep cleft of Kylfhaüser Berg, on the golden meadow of Thuringia. Here,
his head resting on his arm, he sits by a granite block, through which,
in the lapse of time, his red beard has grown. Here he will sleep until
the ravens no longer fly around the mountain, when he will awake to
restore the golden age to the world.
Another legend tells us that the great Barbarossa sits, wrapped in deep
slumber, in the Untersberg, near Salzberg. His sleep will end when the
dead pear-tree on the Walserfeld, which has been cut down three times
but ever grows anew, blossoms. Then will he come forth, hang his shield
on the tree, and begin a tremendous battle, in which the whole world
will join, and in whose end the good will overcome the wicked, and the
reign of virtue return to the earth.
_THE CRUSADE OF FREDERICK II._
A remarkable career was that of Frederick II. of Germany, grandson of
the great Barbarossa, crowned in 1215 under the immediate auspices of
the papacy, yet during all the remainder of his life in constant and
bitter conflict with the popes. He was, we are told, of striking
personal beauty, his form being of the greatest symmetry, his face
unusually handsome, and marked by intelligence, benevolence, and
nobility. Born in a rude age, his learning would have done honor to our
own. Son of an era in which poetry was scarcely known, he cultivated the
gay science, and was one of the earliest producers of the afterwards
favorite form known as the sonnet. An emperor of Germany, nearly his
whole life was spent in Sicily. Though ruler of a Christian realm, he
lived surrounded by Saracens, studying diligently the Arabian learning,
dwelling in what was almost a harem of Arabian beauties, and hesitating
not to give expression to the most infidel sentiments. The leader of a
crusade, he converted what was ordinarily a tragedy into a comedy,
obtained possession of Jerusalem without striking a blow or shedding a
drop of blood, and found himself excommunicated in the holy city which
he had thus easily restored to Christendom. Altogether we may repeat
that the career of Frederick II. was an extraordinary one, and amply
worthy our attention.
The young monarch had grown up in Sicily, of which charming island he
became guardian after the death of his mother, Constanza. He was crowned
at Aix-la-Chapelle, having defeated his rival, Otho IV.; but spent the
greater part of his life in the south, holding his pleasure-loving court
at Naples and Palermo, where he surrounded himself with all the
refinements of life then possessed by the Saracens, but of which the
Christians of Europe were lamentably deficient.
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 God,
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 assembled, 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 noble
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.