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, instituted
representative parliaments, asserted 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 emancipated,
private war was forbidden, commerce was regulated, cheap justice for the
poor was instituted, markets and fairs were established, large libraries
collected, and other progressive institutions 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 circumference 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 pass 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 noblest 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 institutions 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 institutions 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 passed in battle. The verdict had been given,
the ideas had grown into institutions, 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 circumstance
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 Ætolia, 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
classed 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 pass
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, nobler-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 lustrous 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 Görtz, 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. Assured 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, passing 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."
Then, throwing his glove to the ground, he charged him who should raise
it to bear it to Peter, King of Aragon, to whom, as his nearest
relative, he bequeathed all his claims. The glove was raised by Henry,
Truchsess von Waldberg, who found in it the seal ring of the unfortunate
wearer. Thence-forth he bore in his arms the three black lions of the
Stauffen.
In a minute more the fatal axe of the executioner descended, and the
head of the last heir of the Hohenstauffens rolled upon the scaffold.
His friend, Frederick, followed him to death, nor was the bloodthirsty
Charles satisfied until almost every Ghibelline in his hands had fallen
by the hand of the executioner.
Enzio, the unfortunate son of Frederick who was held prisoner by the
Bolognese, was involved in the fate of his unhappy nephew. On learning
of the arrival of Conradin in Italy he made an effort to escape from
prison, which would have been successful but for an unlucky accident. He
had arranged to conceal himself in a cask, which was to be borne out of
the prison by his friends, but by an unfortunate chance one of his long,
golden locks fell out of the air-hole which had been made in the side of
the cask, and revealed the stratagem to his keepers.
During his earlier imprisonment Enzio had been allowed some alleviation,
his friends being permitted to visit him and solace him in his
seclusion; but after this effort to escape he was closely confined, some
say, in an iron cage, until his death in 1272.
Thus ended the royal race of the Hohenstauffen, a race marked by
unusual personal beauty, rich poetical genius, and brilliant warlike
achievements, and during whose period of power the mediæval age and its
institutions attained their highest development.
As for the ruthless Charles of Anjou, he retained Apulia, but lost his
possessions in Sicily through an event which has become famous as the
"Sicilian Vespers." The insolence and outrages of the French had so
exasperated the Sicilians that, on the night of March 30, 1282, a
general insurrection broke out in this island, the French being
everywhere assassinated. Constance, the grand-daughter of their old
ruler, and Peter of Aragon, her husband, were proclaimed their
sovereigns by the Sicilians, and Charles, the son of Charles of Anjou,
fell into their hands.
Constance was generous to the captive prince, and on hearing him remark
that he was happy to die on a Friday, the day on which Christ suffered,
she replied,--
"For love of him who suffered on this day I will grant thee thy life."
He was afterwards exchanged for Beatrice, the daughter of the unhappy
Helena, whose sons, the last princes of the Hohenstauffen race, died in
the prison in which they had lived since infancy.
_THE TRIBUNAL OF THE HOLY VEHM._
The ideas of law and order in mediæval Germany were by no means what we
now understand by those terms. The injustice of the strong and the
suffering of the weak were the rule; and men of noble lineage did not
hesitate to turn their castles into dens of thieves. The title "robber
baron," which many of them bore, sufficiently indicates their mode of
life, and turbulence and outrage prevailed throughout the land.
But wrong did not flourish with complete impunity; right had not
entirely vanished; justice still held its sword, and at times struck
swift and deadly blows that filled with terror the wrong-doer, and gave
some assurance of protection to those too weak for self-defence. It was
no unusual circumstance to behold, perhaps in the vicinity of some
baronial castle, perhaps near some town or manorial residence, a group
of peasants gazing upwards with awed but triumphant eyes; the spectacle
that attracted their attention being the body of a man hanging from the
limb of a tree above their heads.
Such might have been supposed to be some act of private vengeance or
bold outrage, but the exulting lookers-on knew better. For they
recognized the body, perhaps as that of the robber baron of the
neighboring castle, perhaps that of some other bold defier of law and
justice, while in the ground below the corpse appeared an object that
told a tale of deep meaning to their experienced eyes. This was a knife,
thrust to the hilt in the earth. As they gazed upon it they muttered the
mysterious words, "_Vehm gericht_," and quickly dispersed, none daring
to touch the corpse or disturb the significant signal of the vengeance
of the executioners.
But as they walked away they would converse in low tones of a dread
secret tribunal, which held its mysterious meetings in remote places,
caverns of the earth or the depths of forests, at the dread hour of
midnight, its members being sworn by frightful oaths to utter secrecy.
Before these dark tribunals were judged, present or absent, the
wrong-doers of the land, and the sentence of the secret Vehm once given,
there was no longer safety for the condemned. The agents of vengeance
would be put upon his track, while the secret of his death sentence was
carefully kept from his ears. The end was sure to be a sudden seizure, a
rope to the nearest tree, a writhing body, the signal knife of the
executioners of the Vehm, silence and mystery.
Such was the visible outcome of the workings of this dreaded court, of
whose sessions and secrets the common people of the land had exaggerated
conceptions, but whose sudden and silent deeds in the interest of
justice went far to repress crime in that lawless age. We have seen the
completion of the sentence, let us attend a session of this mysterious
court.
Seeking the Vehmic tribunal, we do not find ourselves in a midnight
forest, nor in a dimly-lighted cavern or mysterious vault, as peasant
traditions would tell us, but in the hall of some ancient castle, or on
a hill-top, under the shade of lime-trees, and with an open view of the
country for miles around. Here, on the seat of justice, presides the
graf or count of the district, before him the sword, the symbol of
supreme justice, its handle in the form of the cross, while beside it
lies the _Wyd_, or cord, the sign of his power of life or death. Around
him are seated the _Schöffen_, or ministers of justice, bareheaded and
without weapons, in complete silence, none being permitted to speak
except when called upon in the due course of proceedings.
The court being solemnly opened, the person cited to appear before it
steps forward, unarmed and accompanied by two sureties, if he has any.
The complaint against him is stated by the judge, and he is called upon
to clear himself by oath taken on the cross of the sword. If he takes
it, he is free. "He shall then," says an ancient work, "take a farthing
piece, throw it at the feet of the court, turn round and go his way.
Whoever attacks or touches him, has then, which all freemen know, broken
the king's peace."
This was the ancient custom, but in later times witnesses were examined,
and the proceedings were more in conformity with those of modern
courts. If sentence of death was passed, the criminal was hanged at
once on the nearest tree. The minor punishments were exile and fine. If
the defendant refused to appear, after being three times cited, the
sentence of the Vehm was pronounced against him, a dreadful sentence,
ending in,--
"And I hereby curse his flesh and his blood; and may his body never
receive burial, but may it be borne away by the wind, and may the ravens
and crows, and wild birds of prey, consume and destroy him. And I
adjudge his neck to the rope, and his body to be devoured by the birds
and beasts of the air, sea, and land; but his soul I commend to our dear
Lord, if He will receive it."
These words spoken, the judge cast forth the rope beyond the limits of
the court, and wrote the name of the condemned in the book of blood,
calling on the princes and nobles of the land, and all the inhabitants
of the empire, to aid in fulfilling this sentence upon the criminal,
without regard to relationship or any ties of kindred or affection
whatever.