Stupor Mundi

by on

The Emperor as scientist

This is a whole episode about a book, a book called “De Arte Venandi cum Avibus” the Art of Hunting with Birds. Hunting books are similar to books about fishing, riveting for those who do it, crushingly boring to those who do not.

But this book is about hunting in the same way as the The Old Man and the Sea is about fishing. It is about nature, about the beginnings of science and the awakening of the critical mind. It is about someone who acts and thinks very differently to his contemporaries. Come and take a look…and listen to me getting into a rant.

Transcript

Hello and Welcome to the History of the Germans: Episode 84 – The Art of Hunting with Birds

In the centre of the city of Heidelberg, former capital of the Palatinate rises the Heiliggeistkirche, the church of the Holy Spirit built between 1398 and 1515. Inside the church you will notice some unusual galleries on the upper floor. This is where the Bibliotheca Palatina, the greatest repository of books and manuscripts in renaissance Germany was once kept. Put together by the Counts Palatinate on the Rhine it contained 5,000 printed books and 3,524 manuscripts. It served as the library of the University of Heidelberg, then and still today one of the foremost places of learning in the country. In 1622 the Catholic league sacked the Calvinist Palatinate. Count Tilly, commander of the Bavarian troops seized the library and was initially ordered to send it to Munich. But the emperor insisted the library was so valuable and famous it was to be sent to the pope in Rome as a sign of his loyalty and esteem.

Amongst the books in the Bibliotheca Palatina, are three of the most famous medieval manuscripts ever made. The Evangeliar of Lorsch made  in around 810 at the court of Charlemagne. It was the blueprint for the great art of medieval illuminations that reached its peak under the Ottonians, many of which you may have seen on my social media posts these last years. One half of it ended up in the Vatican library in Rome, the other half was nicked by the cardinal in charge of packing up the books in 1622. That half is today in Alba Iulia in Transsylvania.

The second superlative manuscript is the Codex Manesse, the collection of medieval Minnesang decorated with colourful depictions of courtly life In the Highe Middle Ages. These I have also used extensively on my website and in the description of my Patreon tiers. The codex Manesse was taken along to England before the fall of Heidelberg by the Elisabeth Stuart, the wife of the Count Palatinate. Her descendants ran out of cash and had to sell it. In the 19th century it was bought back by the University Library of Heidelberg where you can still see it in real life and in an excellent digital version.

The third book and possibly the one outshining even those two was an illuminated manuscript of De Arte venandi cum Avibus, The art of hunting with birds produced around 1260. It contains 111 folios with brilliantly coloured, extraordinarily lifelike, accurate and minute images of birds, their attendants, and the instruments of the art of falconry. This is the famous falconry book of Frederick II. It came back to Heidelberg one last time in 1986 and since I lived there, I managed to see it. I came almost every day since every day the curators would turn over one page to reveal one more of the fabulous images.

Yes, this is a book about hunting and quite frankly I normally put books about hunting in the same category as books about golf – extremely interesting to those who play golf, crushingly boring to everybody else. But this book is not about hunting, it is about nature about the beginnings of science and the awakening of the critical mind. Let’s take a look..

Before we start just a reminder. The History of the Germans Podcast is advertising free thanks to the generous support from patrons. And you can become a patron too and enjoy exclusive bonus episodes and other privileges from the price of a latte per month. All you have to do is sign up at patreon.com/historyofthegermans or on my website historyofthegermans.com. You find all the links in the show notes. And thanks a lot to Ryan, Brian and Simon who have already signed up.

Support the Show – Become a Patron

Frederick II was a hunter. In the 13th century every nobleman was a hunter. Hunting was one of the three things every knight needed to be able to do, riding, fighting and hunting. Maybe by 1230 he also needed to add a veneer of civilisation and gain skills in putting together some nice verses to the unattainable lady of his heart. Durig the crusades the European aristocracy encountered age-old middle-eastern hunting traditions. One was the hunting with cheetahs or as the European sources called them “hunting leopards”. Cheetahs are extremely fast but tire quickly. Hence, they were trained to ride on horseback to the hunting grounds where they would be released. Hunting with cheetahs was the most expensive and most environmentally destructive sport imaginable since the animals do not easily breed in captivity. We know from court records that Frederick was constantly ordering new cheetahs to be brought across from North Africa and the Middle East.

The other hunting tradition that came across from the Middle East was falconry, the hunting with birds of prey. Falconry is still the sport of the emirs, and it is almost as expensive as hunting with cheetahs would be if still allowed. In 2021 a white gyrfalcon was sold at auction in Riyad for $465,000. In Frederick’s time that was no different. A single Falcon could cost as much as small farm.

It seems Frederick was obsessed with falconry. Some argue that he moved the effective capital of his kingdom from Palermo to the small town of Foggia to be able to better hunt with his falcons. He most likely started this passion as a teenager and wherever he travels, he was always accompanied by his favourite birds.

For Frederick Falconry was not just a way to pass his time but became a scientific endeavour. The fruit of this endeavour was the book I saw in Heidelberg in 1986 – de arte venandi cum avibus – about the art of hunting with birds. Here is in his own words why he wrote it:

Quote: “We have investigated and studied with the greatest solicitude and in minute detail all that relates to this art, exercising both mind and body so that we might eventually be qualified to describe and interpret the fruits of knowledge acquired from our own experiences or gleaned from others. For example, we, at great expense, summoned from the four quarters of the earth masters in the practice of the art of falconry. We entertained these experts in our own domains, meantime seeking their opinions, weighing the importance of their knowledge, and endeavouring to retain in memory the more valuable of their words and deeds.

As the ruler of a large kingdom and an extensive empire we were very often hampered by arduous and intricate governmental duties, but despite these handicaps we did not lay aside our self-imposed task and were successful in committing to writing at the proper time the elements of the art.” (end quote)

So far so good. Frederick is an obsessive falconer who spends every minute he can spare to either. Hunt himself or hear other people talk about falconry and keeping it all in his head. But it is not. just that, he gets his scholars to collect all and everything ever written about birds and falconry. If it is in Arabic or Greek he has someone translate it into Latin. That is how Michael Scot, his astrologer and multipurpose genius comes to translate Aristotle, in particular “de Anima” – about the soul and “de Animalis”, about the Animals. These translations will make their way into the hands of Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinus who will make these books the bedrock of scholasticism. But that is not what he had them translated for. It was for the birds.

And as he was hunting, observing, listening to his falconry experts, going through his books and notes he comes to a set of conclusions that makes this book and its author so different from most things written in the 13th century:

Quote: “Inter alia, we discovered by hard-won experience that the deductions of Aristotle, whom we followed whenthey appealed to our reason, were not entirely to be relied upon, more particularly in his descriptions of the characters of certain birds. There is another reason why we do not follow implicitly the Prince of Philosophers: he was ignorant of the practice of falconry— an art which to us has ever been a pleasing occupation, and with the details of which we are well acquainted. In his work, the Liber Animalium, we find many quotations from other authors whose statements he did not verify and who, in their turn, were not speaking from experience. Entire conviction of the truth never follows mere hearsay.” End quote

Frederick II says that Aristotle is sometimes wrong, that he paddles hearsay and does not check his sources. Not something you find very often, or ever before the 16th century.

Dissing Aristotle flies into the face of any scholastic whose primary assumption was that the authorities, i.e., the bible, the church fathers and the great ancient philosophers were absolutely right. And where the great professors of Paris, Bologna or Oxford found the authorities might on the face of it diverge they strained every one of their synapses to find an interpretation that let both still be right. Finally if compromise cannot be found despite all these efforts, the decision which one was right was based on seniority, i.e., bible first, Aristotle. What played no role in a dispute was actual observations, proof that came bottom-up, not top down.

Frederick operates in the diametrically opposite way. As he says in his introduction: “Our purpose is to present the facts as we find them”. And he puts this into practice. His book consists in total of six chapters, the first is about “The general habits and structure of birds” and the other five about specific techniques of hunting with falcons. I am no biologist, but I understand that his observations were a mainstay of ornithology well into the 20th century. Reading in it, it is clear that what he describes is based on observations. He tests Aristotle’s theories against his observations and where the theory falls short, he puts the prince of philosophers aside and develops his own hypothesis.

Then he tests his hypotheses. For instance he believed  ostrich eggs could be incubated in the sun, and found they could, at least in Puglia. Another concerned the habits of vultures specifically whether vultures exclusively eat carrion. For that he left some vultures without food for several days. Then he put live chicks into their cages. Despite being extremely hungry, the vultures did not attack and eat the chicks. That was proof that vultures only ever eat carrion. Then he wanted to find out whether they detect their food by sight or by smell. He took two vultures and had his men stitch the birds’ brows below its eyes, a long-standing technique applied to falcons that may be painful but not long term harmful to the animal. Then again, he left them hungry and presented them with carrion. The vultures could not see it and left the food untouched, which convinced him that vultures find food by sight, not smell.

He describes himself as an inquisitor, at that time not a laden word, but describing someone who seeks the truth by investigating the circumstances.

At his court other biological and medical sciences also flourished. His court doctor, Thomas of Antioch had studied medicine in Baghdad and brought the much more advanced medical knowledge of the east to the university of Salerno, the leading medical faculty in Christian Europe at the time. Thomas also helped design the criteria for the approbation of doctors and pharmacists, something unknown elsewhere. Jacobus Ruffus, nephew of Frederick’s marshal, wrote the very first book about veterinary medicine of the Middle Ages which includes a rudimentary notion of mendelian inheritance identifying recessive and dominant traits in horses.

His insistence that scientific proof was superior to the faith in established authorities added to the bewilderment that his contemporaries experienced in his presence. That came on top of all the other ways in which he deviated from the monarchical normcore of the 13th century. He had an interest in other religions, he maintained regular exchanges with the court of Sultan Al Malik of Egypt and other Muslim rulers, he had turned his kingdom of Sicily into an absolutist regime and he was in constant conflict with the church.

As the latter conflict, the one with the popes intensified, this mixture gave rise to rumours and tall tales that have been repeated down the centuries. They paint Frederick as a gruesome and godless ruler. And as they keep getting repeated, we will repeat them here too.

One story was that he used men who had been convicted to death in his experiments. One he had put into a sealed wine barrel to find out whether his soul would leave via the bunghole as he suffocated. Another experiment involved two men, both were given the same food, one then ordered to rest and the other to go for a long walk. Once the second men returned, both were killed, and the content of their stomachs investigated to find out whose digestion had proceeded he furthest. And finally, he allegedly undertook an experiment I will not recount here. Google it under Frederick II Language experiment if you are so inclined.

All these allegations are from a book by Salimbene di Parma, a Franciscan Monk who wrote a treatise comparing Frederick II to the ten plagues 30 years after Frederick’s death. So not exactly an impartial eyewitness. Most historians hence dismiss these claims as outright phantasies. I would like to agree, but then if Frederick was indeed of a scientific disposition and – in line with the culture of the time – had little regard for the rights of convicted criminals, these first two experiments are not completely impossible to have happened. The language experiment however must be propaganda.

Falconry was Frederick’s total obsession, but not his only interest. He was as I said before a man of unquenchable curiosity. When he had a chance to meet the great mathematician Leonardo Fibonacci he took it. Whether he understood the Fibonacci retracement, a set of ratios to identify support and resistance levels in a trend, I very much doubt. These calculations are still used today by so=called technical analysts in the markets and drive billions of dollars of investments.

He also picked up another habit of life at the great Muslim courts. Rulers and their courts would send out letters to renowned scholars, seeking answers to questions they had been discussing. Sometimes the scholar would then publish the questions and answers in a book, thereby elevating both their own standing and that of the noble questioner.

The Arab philosopher Ibn Saib wrote a book he called the “Sicilian Questions” which included enquiries allegedly posed by Frederick and his court as well as his responses. Modern historical science has rejected the notion that these queries had indeed originated at Frederick’s court, but the fact remains that one of the most renowned eastern scholars thought it would elevate his standing to pretend the questions came from the emperor.

Even if the Sicilian questions were never posed, we know from multiple sources that Frederick did host and sometimes participated in philosophical and theological debates and posted problems to scholars in east and west . There were not only Christian scholars at his court but also Jewish and Arabic men of letters. A jewish member of his court Jakob ben Anatoli describes debates about the works of Maimonides and whether they could be brought in line with Aristotelian thought. Equally Juda ben Salomon who helped translate Arabic and Hebrew texts reports about discussions of the Talmud, a primary source of Jewish law and theology.

Frederick’s interest in Jewish culture and theology becomes very public during his stay in Germany in 1236 when he is called upon to adjudicate on a case of Blood Libel.

To explain this we have to go back to the year 1177 when Thomas of Monmouth, a monk at the Benedictine abbey of Norwich publishes a book entitled the life and miracles of St. William of Norfolk. According to Thomas of Monmouth, William was a 12-year-old boy of unusual innocence. One day – so Thomas tells us- young William was abducted by Jewish men he did not know who bound and gagged him. They then allegedly shaved the boy’s head, put a crown of thorns on him and fixed him to a cross in a mockery of the crucifixion. Afterwards disposed of the body in a well. In his treatise Thomas  quotes a convert from Judaism, brother Theobald of Cambridge who claimed that the Jewish faith required an annual sacrifice of a Christian child to ensure the return to the Holy Land and to punish the Christians for the persecution of the Jews.

The publication of this book led to copycat accusations of Jewish communities for this so-called Blood Libel. In total there may have been as many as 150 such accusations during the Middle Ages which almost inevitably ended with the lynching or burning of members of the Jewish community. I guess I do not have to tell you that not a single one of these accusations had any link to reality.

One such case was brought before Frederick in 1236. The citizens of Fulda had killed 34 of their Jewish neighbours after five children were found burned to death in their house at Christmas. The Jews were accused not just of the usual ritualistic murder but also of drinking the children’s blood and using it to bake matzos, the traditional bread to be eaten at Passover. The citizens of Fulda brought the bodies of the five children to Frederick’s Pfalz in Hagenau. Ever since Henry IV, all Jews were unfree serfs of the emperor and hence under direct imperial protection. The citizens of Fulda needed confirmation that they had acted legally in the destruction of imperial property.

Frederick was familiar with the Talmud and Jewish customs and hence did not believe that any such crime had been committed, well apart from the murder of the 34 Jews that is. But he also understood that if he just decided it on the back of his own knowledge, the general population may not come along with his judgement and Blood Libel would continue.

And so he staged a huge public trial. He invited theologians, scholars who could read Hebrew and also recent converts from Judaism who could credibly describe the Jewish law. They all pointed out not only that there is no requirement to sacrifice a Christian child every year but that their faith explicitly prohibits the ritual shedding of any blood, human or otherwise.

It was more than just a court decision it was an attempt to end this madness once and for all. Unfortunately this did not work out fully and persecution of Jews continued across Europe. The papacy and other monarchs too tried to stop the maltreatement of the Jews. Their approach tended to be a blunt, don’t do it by the order of the king. As far as I know, Frederick was the only one who tried to persuade the people by bringing proper evidence to the table, another sign of how his approach and thinking differs from other medieval rulers.

And that now gets me off to a rant. Over the last 40-50 years or so historians have worked hard to prove that Frederick was not unusual for the Middle Ages. They argue that he was not the first to bring Arabic and Jewish scholars to his court, his grandfather Roger II did so too, they argue Frederick did not write his book on Falconry himself, because it was common for monarchs to be ascribed authorship when in realty their scholars had written it all, his son Manfred is cited as the translator of a Hebrew text when he spoke no Hebrew, they tell us that negotiating possession of  Jerusalem for Christianity wasn’t a major achievement because Al Kamil was willing to hand it over anyway. I lost it when I read the Hans Martin Schaller, a highly respected scholar argued that Frederick was a very pious monarch, no different to other men in his position.

I really do not get this. I am not a proponent of the great man theory of history. I am the first to admit the Otto the Great or Frederick Barbarossa were very much a product of their times and one was lucky, the other less so. And I hope you noticed that I believe Frederick’s policy in Germany had a detrimental effect on the long-term development of the Holy Roman Empire.

But Frederick as a pious monarch, give me a break. The man built hundreds of castles and only one church, I repeat one, in a reign of nearly 50 years, one. Compare that to contemporary monarchs. Louis IX of France, admittedly, St. Louis, paid 100,000 livres for the large silver chest that housed the crown of thorns he had acquired from Constantinople and that he had brought barefoot and in a hare shirt into Paris himself. There he had built the Sainte Chapelle the most marvellous gothic treasure that cost him another 40,000 livres. Louis IX went on two crusades that achieved nothing but knightly tales, one of which he died on, he passed severe laws punishing blasphemy and targeted the Jews and had the Talmud burned. That is a pious king.

Meanwhile in England, king Henry III of England was almost equally pious, just less popular. He spent vast amounts on church ceremonies and tried to turn Westminster into a rival of the Sainte Chapelle.  Ah, and he had the Jews first robbed and then made to wear yellow badges.

None of these guys had spent time observing the flight of a swan and comparing it to what Aristotle or Pliny the elder or an Arab scholar had said about the flight of swans. None of them had questioned Aristotle’s idea of spontaneous generation that believed that crocodiles suddenly appeared from mud. None of them thought that facts are superior to dusty books.

Yes, I agree that Roger II and the whole Norman court in Sicily was a fascinating intellectual environment rivalling that of Frederick’s court in Foggia. The same goes for Alfonse X of Castile, but these guys are the exception. There is not much science and philosophy coming from Richard Lionheart, Philippe Auguste or any of Frederick II’s own predecessors, except maybe of Otto III.

Sometimes there are exceptional individuals, not superior in all and everything, just very different. Frederick was not the smartest political operator of his time, that was Philippe Auguste. He was not the best fighter, that may have been Richard Lionheart. But to say he was dull, that just is not true.

He grew up with a patchy education from some papal legates who were busy trying to keep a crumbling kingdom together. Maybe that need to make it up for himself is where he got his interests and his contrarian way of thinking from, who knows. But I am not going to believe for a moment that he was the same sort of ruler as Konrad II or Lothar III, two very much run-of-the mill medieval rulers, successful rulers and interesting in their own way, but not exceptional personalities.

o.k. rant over. Do not get me wrong, I am not dismissing modern scholarship. We certainly do not want to get back to the unfettered hero worship of Ernst Kantorowicz though I love quoting him and he is an amazing writer. Without recent publications in particular by Hubert Houben and Olaf Rader this podcast would be utterly lost. So thanks modern scholarship, could you. Just just stop trying to be controversial by making everyone samey!

And that gets us to the end of this episode. Next week we will resume the narrative. Time to go for another attempt at breaking these pesky northern Italian communes with an quick detour via Vienna and maybe we even get to the bit where young Enzo becomes king of Sardinia. I hope you will join us again next week.

Before I go, let me thank all of you who are supporting the show, in particular the Patrons who have kindly signed up on patreon.com/historyofthegermans. It is thanks to you this show does not have to do advertising for products you do not want to hear about. If Patreon isn’t for you, another way to help the show is sharing the podcast directly or boosting its recognition on social media. If you share, comment or retweet a post from the History of the Germans it is more likely to be seen by others, hence bringing in more listeners. My most active places are Twitter @germanshistory and my Facebook page History of the Germans Podcast. As always, all the links are in the show notes.    

Support the Show – Become a Patron

by on

The Invention of the Sonnet and other tall tales

Near the town of Andria in Puglia rising from a rock that makes it visible for miles stands entirely on its own a stone  structure we call the Castel del Monte. Its ground plan is unique, and like many other of the Emperor’s buildings it was probably sketched by Frederick himself: a regular octagon of yellowish limestone; its smooth perfectly-fitting blocks showing no joins and producing the effect of a monolith : at each of the eight corners a squat octagonal tower the height of the wall; two storeys identical in height, each containing eight large equal rooms, in the shape of a trapeze; an octagonal central courtyard adorned with antique sculptures and imitations of the antique, in the centre of which a large octagonal basin served as bath. Every fraction of the structure displays the mental make-up of the Hohenstaufen court: oriental massiveness of the whole, a portal foreshadowing the Renaissance, Gothic windows and rooms with groined and vaulted roofs. The defiant gloom of the tiny-windowed rooms was mitigated by the furnishings; the floors were of mosaic, the walls covered with sheets of reddish breccia or white marble, the groined vaults supported on pilasters with Corinthian capitals, or by delicate clustered columns of white marble. Majesty and grace were fused in one.

Of all that remains of Frederick II nothing epitomises the personality of the great emperor more than this building, which may have been a fortification or a hunting lodge or an enormous marble crown celebrating the concept of universal imperial power.

In this and the following episode we will look not at the emperor’s deeds but how he lived and what he did away from the world of power politics that made the English Chronicler Matthew Paris call him Stupor Mundi, the Wonder of the World.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to the History of the Germans: Episode 83 – The Court of Frederick II

Near the town of Andria in Puglia rising from a rock that makes it visible for miles stands entirely on its own a stone  structure we call the Castel del Monte. Its ground plan is unique, and like many other of the Emperor’s buildings it was probably sketched by Frederick himself: a regular octagon of yellowish limestone; its smooth perfectly-fitting blocks showing no joins and producing the effect of a monolith : at each of the eight corners a squat octagonal tower the height of the wall; two storeys identical in height, each containing eight large equal rooms, in the shape of a trapeze; an octagonal central courtyard adorned with antique sculptures and imitations of the antique, in the centre of which a large octagonal basin served as bath. Every fraction of the structure displays the mental make-up of the Hohenstaufen court: oriental massiveness of the whole, a portal foreshadowing the Renaissance, Gothic windows and rooms with groined and vaulted roofs. The defiant gloom of the tiny-windowed rooms was mitigated by the furnishings; the floors were of mosaic, the walls covered with sheets of reddish breccia or white marble, the groined vaults supported on pilasters with Corinthian capitals, or by delicate clustered columns of white marble. Majesty and grace were fused in one.

Of all that remains of Frederick II nothing epitomises the personality of the great emperor more than this building, which may have been a fortification or a hunting lodge or an enormous marble crown celebrating the concept of universal imperial power.

In this and the following episode we will look not at the emperor’s deeds but how he lived and what he did away from the world of power politics that made the English Chronicler Matthew Paris call him Stupor Mundi, the Wonder of the World.

Before we start just a reminder. The History of the Germans Podcast is advertising free thanks to the generous support from patrons. And you can become a patron too and enjoy exclusive bonus episodes and other privileges from the price of a latte per month. All you have to do is sign up at patreon.com/historyofthegermans or on my website historyofthegermans.com. You find all the links in the show notes. And thanks a lot to Achyuth, Raz and Kurt who have already signed up.

Support the Show – Become a Patron

I thought we start with what he looked like. And immediately the problems begin. There are as always with Frederick two narratives. The arab chronicler Sibt ibn al-Jawzi describes him as of reddish skin, bold and short sighted and adds that if he had been sold as a slave, he would not brought in more than 200 Dirham. Such biased descriptions are not uncommon during the time.

However, there seems to have been something about his height or lack thereof. Otto IV in one of his pamphlets declared that since Frederick was extremely small and hence either still a child or a dwarf, he was unsuited to rule in either case. Walther von der Vogelweide, now in service of Frederick turns the argument on its head and described Otto IV as physical large but mentally a gnome, whilst Frederick on its inner merits rose to be a giant. Not something you write about a man of medium or large stature.

So, he was short. How short? His son the unfortunate king Henry was found to have been just 1.66m or five foot four. Frederick’s bones are unfortunately jumbled up with king peter of Aragon and an unnamed lady, so we do not know for sure. Best guess is he was not much taller than his son. That was small even by the standards of the time. Charlemagne was 1.82 and Konrad well over 6 foot.

As for the reddish complexion, that is confirmed by many other chroniclers. It should not be surprising. His grandfather Barbarossa was famously ginger, as were some of his Norman ancestors. It is interesting how prevalent red hair was amongst royalty during the Middle Ages. Red hair had been associated with status and honour since the time of the ancient Greeks. Roman aristocratic ladies would die their tresses strawberry blond and a ginger mane became a sign of royal rank amongst the Merovingians. Hence it is not inconceivable that chroniclers would ascribe red hair to almost any ruler whose locks displayed even the slightest tinge of ginger.

But let us then assume he was short ginger.

He was likely physically fit. He spent his life criss-crossing his vast empire on horseback and was a commensurate hunter. Though he so far managed to achieve most of his successes without much deployment of military force, he was, like all rulers at the time expected to fight personally in battle, which meant he must have been constantly training.

His face was described even by the otherwise very critical Salimbene di Parma as beautiful and well proportioned. There are several images produced during or close to his lifetime, in particular the figure of the emperor above the gate of Capua and several images in illuminated manuscripts.

All show the emperor clean shaven like a Roman ruler of antiquity, so not wearing the kind of beard his grandfather and father had sported. His face is symmetrical as one would expect from a depiction created at or near his own court. What is striking about all his depictions is the openness of the face, the intelligent and curious expression that lurks behind the façade of imperial haughtiness. even though these were not meant to be portraits in the modern sense, they did however still convey something of the actual person.

So how did this not very tall, physically lean, attractive ginger live?

Let’s start with the where he did live. Like all his predecessors he spent most of his time moving from one location to the next. That was necessary largely because few locations could feed the entirety of the court apparatus for any extended period of time. We know from a partially preserved register of documents that his court comprised of around 200 personnel, musicians, dancers, cooks, servants etc. On top of that came the imperial chancery and the important court officials with their respective servants. Add to that the bishops, princes and nobles who came to court to seek justice, give advice to the emperor or simply enjoy the famous hospitality und you can easily get to 1000 or more individuals who all need food and shelter.

That being said, Frederick had one favourite residence, Foggia where he stayed over 40 times. Foggia is a sleepy town in northern Puglia. An archway with nice carvings is all that is left of the palace that once sported gardens with fountains and statues. Its interior was clad in marble and its roofs were held up by columns made from a green stone called Verde Antico. It was a like a palace from a thousand and one nights, distinctly oriental in its interplay between inside and outside and the use of water in the heat of Southern Italy. Frederick had antique statues brought down from Rome and Naples and displayed them in his palace in Foggia much like a renaissance prince would have done.

Part of the palace complex was an extended menagerie where the emperor kept his exotic animals, lions, leopards, camels, dromedaries, bears, apes and monkeys, parrots and lots and lots of different kinds of birds. The pride of place was given over to a giraffe, an animal not seen in Europe since the gladiatorial games of ancient Rome. At some point the polar bear he gifted to Sulatan al Kamil must have gone through there as well. As one would expect he also had an Elephant that carried a small turret where Frederick’s court musicians would play the trumpets to receive honoured guests. As we heard last week, some of his animals would accompany him on his campaigns as part of the display of imperial power over all the world and all that is in it.

What added to the exotic ambiance was the personnel. The palace guard was recruited mainly from the Muslim community of Lucera. Frederick employed a number of female dancers and acrobats. Matthew Paris describes what his patron Richard of Cornwall saw when he stayed at Foggia:

Quote: “Amongst other astonishing novelties, there was one which particularly excited his admiration and praise: two Saracen girls of handsome form, mounted upon four round balls placed upon the floor, namely, one of the two on two balls, and the other on the other two. They walked backwards and forwards, clapping their hands, moving at pleasure on these revolving globes, gesticulating with their arms, singing various tunes, and twisting their bodies according to the time, beating cymbals or castanets together with their hands, and putting their bodies into various amusing postures, affording with the other jugglers an admirable spectacle to the lookers-on.” (end quote)

There were also number of black slaves usually employed in menial tasks or as musicians. But there was also Jacobus Morus, who was the son of a female black slave. He rose to be the head of the imperial finances, was made a baron and under Frederick’s son became great chamberlain of the kingdom of Sicily. The famous statue in Magdeburg that depicts Saint Maurice as a black man may have been modelled on him.

This court that probably had more in common with Sultan al Kamil’s residence than with the royal assemblies his grandfather Barbarossa held at his palace in Gelnhausen comprised not just the dancers, jugglers and other entertainers.

The heart of it were the gatherings of Frederick with his family, his closest advisers and scholars of mathematics, astronomy, geography, zoology and many more.

Amongst the members of his family the court of Foggia was dominated not by his legitimate offspring, but by his chosen family, his sons from various dalliances and his mistress, Bianca Lancia.

Just to recap, Frederick had spent very little time with his official family. His wives had a habit of dying very quickly and were usually kept behind closed palace doors in the manner of many eastern courts. His sons he barely saw. We already heard about his eldest, Henry, the king in brackets and his sad demise. His next-oldest son, Konrad from his marriage to Isabelle of Brienne was born in 1227 and from the age of 9 also lived in Germany as elected but not crowned king of the Romans. Frederick’s marriage to Isabella of England produced 2 surviving children, Margaret born 1236 and Carlotto, later called Henry born 1238. These two were still children when his father died, which meant he probably spent little time with them either.

That is very different for his illegitimate children. Most of them grew up at their father’s court, had a close relationship with him and were involved in many of his political plans. We know of 12 in total though there were likely many more. We cannot go through all of them in detail, but three became prominent on the European stage.

The oldest was Enzo, born 1220. His name is an Italian version of Heinz, the German abbreviation of the name Heinrich. Frederick will have a total of 3 sons called Henry – not very imaginative and a nightmare for podcasters. Enzo came from a relationship with a Swabian noblewoman called Adelheid who may have been the girl Frederick had grown up with long ago in the castle of the duke of Spoleto. By many accounts he was his father’s favourite son, though that may have had something to do with him being older and hence more employable. Enzo was extremely handsome and blessed with a cheerful personality. His mane of blond hair left the ladies of Bologna swooning and – so the story goes – betrayed his attempt to escape from prison.

Then there is Frederick of Antioch, born 1226 whose mother is unknown to us. His sobriquet “of Antioch” suggests some link to the Holy Land, but what exactly, we do not know. He too shared his father’s passions and will be placed into important positions in the empire.

The third is Manfred, born 1232 who will rise the highest amongst the sons born outside wedlock. His mother was Bianca Lancia, the one woman we know more about.

Bianca Lancia came from a noble family in Piedmont. Her relatives held various positions within Frederick’s armies. Whether they introduced her, or she first met the emperor and then brought in her relatives is unclear. What the chroniclers all say though is that she was stunningly beautiful, though quite frankly have you ever heard of a royal mistress being described as plain?

The relationship between Bianca and Frederick seems to have started around 1227, i.e., during a period when Frederick was married to Isabella of Brienne. When the young bride had died giving birth to the future kin Konrad IV, Bianca could assume a more prominent position at court. That probably changed again when Frederick married Isabella of England in 1235.

We do not know when she died. The elder literature assumed she died before the marriage to Isabella of England, but modern historians date her death to after 1241. The logic for that is that Isabella of England had died in 1241 and two sources, including Matthew Paris state that Frederick married Bianca Lancia on her deathbed. In order to turn his children with Bianca into legitimate offspring.

We can be confident that this deathbed marriage actually took place since Bianca’s children Constance, Manfred and Violante married members of the high aristocracy including royal houses. If they had been bastards, that would have been most unlikely.

There are many myths about the love between Frederick and Bianca Lancia. In the 18th century the vicar of the village church of Gioia del Colle, 40km south of Bari announced that he had found the grave of Bianca Lancia. The grave displayed the image of a lady with a child and an Eagle, the symbol of the emperor.

What added to the credibility of the grave was that in the night you could hear sighs and wailing in the ruins of the medieval tower of Gioia del Colle. Bianca we hear had been locked up in that tower by Frederick who had accused her of infidelity. She was pregnant with Manfred at the time and Frederick thought that a page was the real father. Once Bianca had given birth, she had her son brought to Frederick, together with her breasts she had cut off. Frederick instantly saw that he had been terribly mistaken and rushed to Gioia del Colle only to find Bianca bleeding to death and marrying her there. If you look closely at the tower’s ruins, you can see two breast shaped protrusions that appeared that night.

If that is not proof enough for you, The local confectionary sells purple sugar sweets called the Lacrime d’amore di Bianca Lancia alla Violetta.

Apart from Frederick’s patchwork family, the court also comprised the most important advisors to the emperor. His oldest and most constant supporter was Berard the archbishop of Palermo. He had been with Frederick when he went up to Germany as a teenager in 1212 to gain the imperial crown. It was Berard’s presence that convinced the bishop to open the gates of Constance just hours before Otto IV’s expected arrival, an event without which this season of the History of the Germans would have ended long ago.

His other confidant and adviser was Pietro della Vigna. Pietro had come from a modest background in Capua but managed to study in Bologna. He quickly gained the favour of the emperor who made him his secretary, the lord chief justice and finally chancellor. He had already been involved in the constitutions of Melfi but will play a major role in our story going forward.

Apart from these two there were more important functionaries of the state, some like Johann von Morra and Thomas and Rainald of Aquino we have already heard about and others, like Taddeo de Sessa and Richard of Caserta we will hear more about shortly.

These men were all chosen not for their aristocratic lineage but for merit. They were mostly lawyers, trained by the best universities. They were also intellectuals and poets.

Poetry and in particular the art of the Troubadours and Minnesaenger has literally exploded in the first half of the 13th century. Whilst some of these singers were professional artists, more and more of them were knights, even counts, dukes, kings and emperors. Being able to put together a set of well-judged verses became almost as important as their ferrule strike. Across Europe this is seen as the beginning of the transition from vassal to courtier, a process of civilising the uncouth thugs into knights playing the lute below the maiden’s tower.

For Frederick’s court this does not apply 100%. The members of his court, even those who were knights, weren’t there as vassals but as Officiales, civil servants in other words. They were used to operate through diplomacy and negotiation rather than brute force. The motto that Frederick gave them was that “fame comes through knowledge, honour comes through fame and riches come through honour”. It was a court that rated brain over brawn. Let us not forget that their emperor had achieved most of his astounding victories so far without raising his sword.

These poets did not write and perform their love poetry to contain the rage within them, but for intellectual pleasure. And there was a close intersection between poetry and diplomacy. The chancellor Pietro de Vigna’s superpower was to write compelling circulars and open letters to the courts of Europe. His unique style of Latin merging bible quotes and ancient Roman literature into some highfalutin prose would be copied across chanceries throughout the europe of the Middle Ages. His quill had the power of an army of knights they said.

Pietro easily transferred these skills into writing romances in the Sicilian dialect of Italian, confessing eternal love to an unattainable courtly lady.

His colleague Rainald of Aquino, son of a count and trained knight develops an exhilarated style using maritime terms to woo his girl. It is not recorded whether his poems were successful but in my experience discussing the perfect jibe rarely quickens a girls heartbeat.

Like in Provence and Germany these poems were written and performed in the local language, in this case, the southern Italian dialect. We are gradually moving into a world where national languages squeeze out Latin as the language of culture and power. The chivalric poetry played an important role in the transition to German, the Langue d’OC and Provencal, later also to northern French.

In Italy, the Northern Italian cites and courts adopted the troubadour culture but did not use Italian. They preferred the Langue d’Oc of their western neighbours. Hence the court of Frederick II became the birthplace of the Italian language. Petrarch recalls, “in a very short time this type of poetry, which had been born amongst the Sicilians, spread throughout all Italy and beyond.” As late as Dante all non-Latin poetry in Italian was dubbed “Sicilian.”. Only with Dante who’s writing far exceeded the cheerful but somewhat vacuous songs of Frederick’s court does the development of the Italian language move to Tuscan.

In this context I can now paper over one of my mistakes. Last week I forgot to mention that the peace of Mainz of 1235 was published in both Latin and Middle High German, making it one of the earliest imperial proclamations in the common tongue.

Now though the poetry was a bit light-hearted and silly, it did bring one important innovation to European literature, the sonnet. It was one of the members of the circle of poets at the court, Giacomo da Lentini who first came up with the idea for a “little song” which is what sonnet means in Italian, that consists of 14 lines in a strict rhyme scheme. He may have been inspired by a type of Sicilian folk song. Sonnets were and are written in literally every European language and even in Urdu. They became the choice mode of expressing romantic love. Shakespeare wrote a mere 154 of them.

Given how successful Lentini’s invention was, it is sad that none of his poems remain in their original Sicilian language. They were converted into the Tuscan dialect in the 13th century and adopted by, amongst others, Petrarch, who is still often ascribed the invention of the sonnet. Whilst poor Lentini is largely forgotten.

Frederick himself and his sons were taking part in these pursuits. There are poems attributed to Frederick himself and several to Enzo, Frederick of Antioch and Manfred. Whether they did write them themselves or had a bit of help like today’s techbros get from professional meme-writers, we will never know.

Poetry was not the only intellectual activity at Frederick’s court. Far from it. Frederick was a man of incessant appetite for knowledge. He was one of those rare people who find simply everything interesting and want to know more and more and more about it. His interests ranged from Astrology to Zoology.

So, unsurprisingly he owned a famed library. Books were revered luxury items and most emperors possessed them You may have seen the psalters of Otto III or Henry II. Henry the Lion had a particularly splendid exemplar designed to underpin his status as an almost royal magnate. Frederick too had Psalters as well as other liturgical texts including the so-called the Exulted role of Salerno which features some of the most stunning 13th century illuminations. On one page it shows Frederick II amongst his court, an image I used in the artwork for episode 80.

Religious texts -as you may gather – made up only a part of his library. Amongst the secular literature he owned several versions of the Romance of Alexander, the most popular topic of the 13th century. The Macedonian king Alexander had become the ideal knight whose conquests were always achieved through most chivalric deeds. Several versions exist, from the French knight Walter of Chatillon, from a priest in Naples, another from Lamprecht of Strassburg and then there is the Erec of Hartmann von Aue. Frederick most likely had copies of all of them, including the one written by Quilichinus a justice in Puglia who compared the emperor to the great Macedon hero. And there is one more, written by Rudolf von Ems for Frederick’s son, the unlucky Henry.

Another writer whose works Frederick possessed was Petrus of Eboli. He had written the Liber ad Honorem Augusti, all about the deeds of Henry VI which we quoted several times already. Petrus might have also written one about the life of Frederick II, thought that is sadly lost.

His third book is however the most interesting, it begins with “Nomines et virtutes balneaorum” of the names and benefits of the baths. The baths he mentions are those of Pozzuoli just north of Naples. Pozzuoli lies just across the bay from Baiae, the most luxurious of the ancient Roman spas that dotted the coast between Capua and Naples. It is here that emperor Caligula had a 2-mile-long floating bridge built so that he could ride across. Why did he do that? Because some astrologer had predicted that he had as much chance of becoming emperor as he could ride a horse across the bay of Baiea. 

Southern Italy is where the tectonic plates of Africa and Eurasia rub against each other which gives us the sights of Stromboli, Etna, Vesuvius and last not least the 35 different hot springs of Pozzuoli. This book was some sort of spa guide, explaining which of the different baths one should use to achieve which medical outcome. His book became extremely popular and was translated into French and other vernacular languages. There were 12 editions in print between 1457 and 1607. Several original copies exist with beautiful miniatures showing men and women enjoying themselves in what seems to be the ruins of ancient Roman baths. At least one of those is likely to have been in Frederick’s possession. Some argue that the verses and miniatures had a purpose beyond guiding tourists. The depiction of the fallen ruins was meant to urge the emperor to rebuild its fallen glory. Frederick himself had used the baths when he recovered from the fever that forced him to abandon the crusade in 1227. But he never rebuilt them, and the springs disappeared in a volcanic eruption in 1538.

Do not worry, I will not go through the entire content of the imperial library, though I would love to. But let me mention one last set of books. They are by a man called Michael Scot, Michael the Scotsman. He was a translator, philosopher, medical doctor, alchemist, astrologer and according to Dante, a magician who practised in every slight of magic wile. In Dante’s hell he resides in the 8th circle as a false prophet of the future with his head turned backwards on his shoulders.

It was probably when Frederick II visited Bologna on his coronation journey that he first met the most celebrated of all the scholars of his later court. Little is known with certainty about the Scottish scholar’s life. He began his career at Toledo, where he translated the Spherics of Alpetragius in 1217. Three years later he appears in Bologna, then was for some time in correspondence with the papal Curia, which recommended him to the Archbishop of Canterbury, and he probably came to Frederick about 1227. He had probably made Frederick’s acquaintance first at the same time that the Emperor had made friends with the mathematician, Leonardo of Pisa, better known to us as Fibonacci.

Innumerable marvellous and uncanny stories were current about him and the Emperor and can still be found in the novels and tales of the Romantics. The shuddering awe which Frederick II inspired was shared by his Court Astrologer, whom people called a “second Apollo.” They related that, knowing beforehand the manner of his own death, he always wore an iron cap, and that in spite of it he was killed by a falling stone, exactly as he had foretold. His death probably occurred in 1235 as he was accompanying the Emperor to Germany.

Michael Scot is credited with a considerably larger number of writings than he actually produced. It is, however, certain that he translated several of Aristotle’s most significant works from Arabic into Latin. De Caelo (about the Heavens) and De Anima (about the Soul) with the commentaries of Averroes, and also the Aristotelian zoological writings which Avicenna had grouped under the title of Liber animalium: Historiae animalium, De partibus animalium, and other treatises — nineteen books in all. This work was dedicated, like most of his others, to the Emperor. It introduced the Aristotelian zoology for the first time to the West. Master Henry of Cologne made a transcript of the Emperor’s copy in 1232, and this may well have been the copy used by Albertus Magnus.

Translations of the Physics and Metaphysics were also ascribed, probably incorrectly, to Michael Scot. His authorship of some obscure philosophical treatises such as the Quaestiones of Nicolas the Peripatetic and a Systematic Philosophy is more probable.

Michael Scot’s other role at court was that of astronomer and astrologer. Astronomy and astrology played an important part in court life and were considered one and the same. Michael Scot in his Liber Introductorius and his Liber Particularis compiled a wonderful encyclopaedia of the collective astronomical and astrological knowledge of his time. There is a copy of his book covered in fascinating drawings of the planets, some surprisingly accurate, others, like the ones depicting the location of hell and paradise a little less so.

An imperial library was not just a repository of books, it was a living thing. The books were not just for the emperor but for the members of the court and the scholars there. They would constantly annotate texts and find annotations to their annotations. Thereby new knowledge was incorporated as it appeared.

Frederick took some of his books on his campaigns which is how he lost his most splendid copy of the great Moamin, probably his greatest possession and the biggest loss to posterity.

What is the Moamin? Well that we will find out next week. As well as the other scientific endeavours of the emperor, some of which left him open to accusation of experimentation on humans. I hope you will join us again next week.

Before I go, let me thank all of you who are supporting the show, in particular the Patrons who have kindly signed up on patreon.com/historyofthegermans. It is thanks to you this show does not have to do advertising for products you do not want to hear about. If Patreon isn’t for you, another way to help the show is sharing the podcast directly or boosting its recognition on social media. If you share, comment or retweet a post from the History of the Germans it is more likely to be seen by others, hence bringing in more listeners. My most active places are Twitter @germanshistory and my Facebook page History of the Germans Podcast. As always, all the links are in the show notes.    

Support the Show – Become a Patron

by on

The Mainzer Landfriede on 1235

What do you do once you have condemned your eldest son and heir to life imprisonment? Exactly, you have a party, or more precisely you have two parties. But as always with Frederick II, these are not just knees-up for entertainment, but elaborately staged political events. The first is a wedding, the second a grand get-together of the whole realm and then there is a third, a funeral of a kind you would not have expected from our rational, seemingly agnostic hero. Lots to unpack as always…

Transcript

Hello and welcome to the history of the Germans: Episode 82 – The Constitution of the Realm

What do you do once you have condemned your eldest son and heir to life imprisonment? Exactly, you have a party, or more precisely you have two parties. But as always with Frederick II, these are not just knees-up for entertainment, but elaborately staged political events. The first is a wedding, the second a grand get-together of the whole realm and then there is a third, a funeral of a kind you would not have expected from our rational, seemingly agnostic hero. Lots to unpack as always…

Before we start just a reminder. The History of the Germans Podcast is advertising free thanks to the generous support from patrons. And you can become a patron too and enjoy exclusive bonus episodes and other privileges from the price of a latte per month. All you have to do is sign up at patreon.com/historyofthegermans or on my website historyofthegermans.com. You find all the links in the show notes. And thanks a lot to Oliver, Rachel and Weyland who have already signed up.

Last week we left Frederick sitting in judgement over his wayward son. This family rift was not based on a fundamental personality clash as had been the case with his namesake, Frederick II of Prussia, nor was it a case of unbridled ambition as it had been when Richard Lionheart and his brothers rose up against their father Henry II. This rift had been almost entirely political.

Henry (VII) in brackets believed that all the resources of the family, which meant basically the resources of Sicily, should be employed in rolling back the encroachment of royal power. He wanted to force the princes to disgorge the rights and privileges they had extracted from Philipp of Swabia and Otto IV during the recent civil wars.

Frederick’s priority was the exact opposite. Forcing the pope into a recognition of the emperor as his equal and as temporal ruler of Christendom was his great objective. And this objective could only be achieved by surrounding the papal lands on all sides. He already had the south where his kingdom of Sicily began just 100 miles from Rome. He also had a hold on Tuscany north-west of Rome. That left Lombardy, the North-eastern flank of the papal states.

Lombardy had only recently revived the Lombard League, the mighty association of Northern Italian cities that had broken the armies of the great Barbarossa. To bring Lombardy into submission required a huge military force and almost unlimited funds. The Lombards were rich, extremely warlike and their cities were well fortified. The latter is the expensive bit. Before the advent of canons, city walls could not be broken. To force entry required expensive siege towers and the stamina to starve out the population sometimes for years. You remember the sieges of tiny but fierce Crema and Alessandria, the city of straw? Frederick II needed to prepare for that and more.

And that meant he needed Sicily for the money and he needed the fierce warriors of Germany, “a land rich in soldiers” as Italian chroniclers had called it since the 10th century. By 1235 these German fighters were controlled by the princes, whether he liked it or not. A reconciliation with great imperial princes had to be made.

And that is where the aforementioned wedding comes in. Frederick’s second wife, Isabelle of Brienne, the queen of Jerusalem had died aged 16 when she gave birth to her son Konrad. This just for reference was not her first pregnancy. Since Isabella’s death in 1228 Frederick had negotiated various marriage alliance options but nothing had come of it. Now, in 1235 he was prepared to wed again. The bride he chose was another Isabelle, Isabelle Platagenent.

She was 21 years old and the sister of King Henry III of England. This marriage was a major shift in Hohenstaufen politics. Until now the Hohenstaufen tended to support the King of France in the perennial Anglo-French conflict. Meanwhile the House of Welf, their rivals had been closely related to the Angevin rulers of England. Otto IV had grown up at the English court and one of his major supporters were the merchants and citizens of Cologne who had close trading relations with the sceptred isle.   

The reason for this shift in alliances and hence the marriage was again all about Northern Italy.

Henry III had promised a dowry worth as much as 30,000 marks of silver as a contribution to the war chest, a sum significant enough, the rich king of England had to raise a special tax for it. But it is not all about money. The kingdom of France had by now stretched down south courtesy of the Albigensian crusade. That brought them uncomfortably close to the wealth of Italy. So it was quite handy that Henry III was preparing another campaign against the French to regain the lands of Anjou and Normandy, an effort that would keep the French busy.

The final and probably biggest benefit was that the marriage paved the way to a reconciliation between Welf and Hohenstaufen. As we have heard, the conflict between these two houses was not the dominant strain of domestic policy during the entire High Middle Ages. But it was a significant component, particularly these last 35 years. Though the Welf were much diminished in power, they still had some following, amongst it the city of Cologne, by now the richest, largest and most important city in Germany. To bring them into the fold, Frederick II had to address the Welf’s most painful grievance.

The mighty Welf, descendants of kings, whose family line goes back not just to Charlemagne but Odoacer and Attila the Hun, who lived in a palace in Braunschweig that rivals any imperial residence and who had been the most preeminent magnates in the empire and whose last head of house had been crowned emperor, these proud nobles had lost their status as imperial princes when Henry the Lion was stripped of his dukedoms of Bavaria and Saxony. The current head of the house of Welf was a simple noble, no duke, no landgrave, not even a meagre margrave. Nothing, just a free man with a lot of land.

In the status-ridden society of the 13th century that was a constant humiliating reminder of their fall. Frederick II was prepared to resolve that. A few months after the sumptuous wedding to Isabella in Worms he created a new duchy, the duchy of Brunswick.

The way this happened is somewhat revealing about the way vassalage worked in Germany. The current head of the house was Otto von Luneburg, called “the child” though he was now 31-years old. Otto had inherited the family possessions around Brunswick and Luneburg from his uncle, the Count Palatinate.

It is these lands that were now to be made into a separate duchy. A a duchy is by definition a fief of the emperor. In order to grant Otto these lands as a duchy, Otto first had to hand those lands over to the emperor. Legally it was a present, without recourse. Frederick then declared that: quote “Otto von Luneburg hath done us homage, and unmindful of all the hate and harassment that existed between our forefathers hath placed himself under our protection and at our service.” Unquote.

As a faithful imperial vassal Otto could expect to receive a fief that allowed him to fulfil his military obligations towards the empire. And so he received his lands back, plus Goslar and surroundings, not as his property, but as a fief, so technically a loan from the emperor. Since it was an imperial fief it could be elevated to a duchy, the duchy of Brunswick. So just to recap, Otto hands his privately owned lands to the emperor who makes them now royal lands that can be enfeoffed to that same man who previously owned them outright. This sounds like an awful deal for Otto, but it was not.

Yes, in principle the emperor could now enfeoff someone else with his lands. But that right had almost completely diminished. Already under Henry VI, the princes received the right to pass their lands by inheritance to distant family members and even to their son-in-laws. The recall of a fief was almost defunct, though we will see that Frederick and later emperors will still try.

Furthermore, Otto was now obliged to offer Frederick military support as an imperial vassal. But in return he was also entitled to imperial protection and support.

But the most important benefit however was the elevation to rank of imperial prince. That allows him to participate in imperial decision making and opens up all sorts of opportunities for consolidation and expansion of power, something that ends up for the house of Welf in a royal title.

So what about young Isabella, the one who made all this reconciliation possible? She was by all accounts an exceptionally beautiful woman, so beautiful indeed that people along her route into Germany constantly demanded to see her famous face. She received the most splendid welcome in Cologne, the city that was most keen on close relationships with England. Matthew Paris the English chronicler wrote that “Tens of thousands flocked to welcome her with flowers and palm branches and music. Riders on Spanish horses had performed with their lances the nuptial breaking of the staves, whilst ships which appeared to sail on dry land, but were drawn by horses concealed under silken coverings whilst the clerks of Colone played new airs on their instruments. The matrons seated on their balconies sang the praises of the empress’ beauty, when Isabella at their request laid aside hat and veil and showed her face”

Six weeks later the wedding was celebrated with all possible pomp and in the presence of a sea of bishops and a banner of knights. Frederick did not however stay with his bride on the wedding night. His astrologer had suggested the morning as more auspicious. Business over, he declared that Isabella was now with child and was sent to live behind closed doors in the royal palace of Palermo catered for by eunuchs and having an estimated five children. She was barely again seen in public and even her brother had to insist to be allowed to meet her.

The wedding took place in July 1235. A mere month later an even bigger gathering took place in Mainz. Frederick had called all the imperial princes to join him in one great assembly to confirm and swear upon a new constitution of the empire.

And they all came. The Archbishops of Mainz, Cologne, Trier, Salzburg, Besancon and Magdeburg. And amongst the bishops came those of Regensburg, Bamberg, Konstanz, Augsburg, Strassburg, Speyer, Basel, Hildesheim Osnabrück, Lüttich, Utrecht, Cambrai, Metz, Verdun, Naumburg, Merseburg, Passau, Eichstaedt and Freising. Then we had the great abbots of Murbach, Reichenau and Ellwangen, the dukes of Bavaria, Brabant, Saxony, Lothringia, Carinthia, the Landgrave of Thuringia, the Margraves of Baden, Meissen and Brandenburg and many, many more even I cannot be bothered to mention.  Everybody was there. It was almost a rerun of the great Pentecost assembly Barbarossa had held 50 years earlier.

But this time it was less about chivalric play and display, but about negotiations over the future shape of the empire and the upcoming campaign in Lombardy. The aforementioned reconciliation with the house of Welf took place here. The other great outcome of the event was the Mainzer Landfrieden, another public peace or more likely public truce that we have heard about since the reign of Henry III.

Gone are the days an emperor can simply order peace to be maintained, threatening anyone who were to pursue his demands by force of arms.

Feud is by now endemic in Germany. The logic is the same we talked about when we looked at the constitutions of Melfi. In the absence of a functioning judicial system of redress, society recognised feud as a viable way to resolve conflict. In the kingdom of Sicily, Frederick addressed the issue by establishing a complete system of appellate courts backed by central powers, a set of provisions intended to prevent and de-escalate conflict and a ban on privately held castles.

The idea to introduce the same in the empire was simply inconceivable. In the two great privileges, the one in favour of the bishops from 1220 and the more recent one in favour of the temporal princes, jurisdiction in princely territories had moved permanently from the imperial hands into princely hands. The process of passing laws in the Empire also involved the princes. Formally their role was purely advisory, but in practice any imperial Ukase issued without the bishops, dukes and margraves consent was not worth the parchment it was written on. And surely the princes would never consent to take down their castles. They would love to pass a law that ordered all their own vassals to take own their castles, but that is not something an emperor would be prepared to sign. So, the castles stay, all 20,000 of them. Even passing laws preventing the carrying of weapons or the provision that nobody can get out by saying that “the other guy started it” were seemingly not possible to get through.

But there were still 29 articles all sides could agree on. Some of those repeated the privileges granted in the documents from 1220 and 1232.

The new things were, that any feud had to be formally declared and that there would be a three-day cooling-off period before hostilities could begin. Further that certain acts of violence were prohibited upon sanction of instant imperial ban. These included setting things alight, in particular houses and castles.

And finally that before a feud could be formally declared, the parties have to go before a judge. Historians as I increasingly learn are not lawyers, and hence are keeping stum on what exactly this judge could decide and how a judgement could be enforced. I tried to read the original text but was no wiser. What is clear is that the parties have to get a judge’s decision, but either party is still able to initiate a feud if they do not like the outcome. So it seems the judge acts more as an arbitrator, attempting to diffuse the tension and arrive at a mutually acceptable solution. That is not a judgement as we would regard it today, but it was better than nothing.

In fact the establishment of a permanent imperial judge, even if he was just an arbitrator became the seed of what would later become the imperial courts that operated from 1495 to 1806 helping to maintain peace and order in the empire.

That does not sound very impressive for such an enormous gathering, the creation of a new duchy and a common peace with marginal improvements to the plague of feuds. But the most important purpose of this gathering was not to produce some formal agreement. Its significance lies more in the fact that it was the first opportunity for the princes and the emperor to operate the new constitution of the empire as it had been created by the privilege to the bishops in 1220 and the privilege to the princes in 1232.

We have discussed both before, but just as a recap. In these imperial charters, Frederick had passed most of the imperial rights first to the bishops and then to the other imperial princes. These included things like jurisdiction, the minting of coins, the building of castles, the establishment of tariff borders and posts etc. Any imperial prince would now have the right to exercise royal power within his territory.

The charters of 1220 and 1232 did in the eyes of many historians not really grant rights to these princes they did not have before. In all these endless wranglings with the royal authority at least since Henry IV’s forced trip to Canossa, the princes have continuously squeezed more and more concessions from the emperors. The civil wars after the death of Henry VI may have accelerated the process, but the direction had been set long before.

But importantly until 1220 and 1232, all the transfers of rights had been bilateral. I.e., every single right had been granted to an individual prince in an individual negotiation. Each prince would hence see his rights and privileges as the result of his own cunning or the dexterity of his ancestors.

The privileges of 1220 and 1232 were granted not to each individual prince, but to the bishops and to the temporal princes as a group. It formally created a distinction between imperial princes and mediated vassals. All imperial princes, irrespective whether they were bishops, abbots, dukes, landgraves, margraves or counts, all shared the same rank. They now exercised these rights not on the basis of some bilateral agreement, but because they were imperial princes. If you are an imperial prince you can for instance mint coins, if you are not, you cannot, unless the emperor or an imperial prince grants you the right. For instance the just created duke of Brunswick had exactly the same rights in his territory as the duke of Bavaria whose family had patiently gather them for over 200 years.

The definition of an imperial prince was that an individual had received a princely fief immediately from the emperor. That distinguishes them from the mediated nobles, i.e,. aristocrats who had received their fief from a territorial lord or even sometimes had no fief at all, just their own allodial, i.e., private lands.

This clarification of the rank of imperial prince had an immediate positive effect on the coherence of the empire. The princes feel reassured that their rights would not be taken away by a more assertive emperor. Because they are based on rank, the rights can only be removed by removing them from everyone of princely rank. Hence in any imperial attempt to roll back time, the princes would stand together.

It also meant that the princes were now integrated into the imperial project. The concept of the Honour of the Empire, that each prince was called upon to uphold, dates back to Barbarossa. Now it gains even more traction. The princes are the pillars of the empire, they have an obligation to support the emperor and provide the Reichsdienst, the service to the empire..

I have often wondered why in periods of almost completely diminished royal authority, say in the late 13th century none of the larger territories, say Bavaria, Austria, Saxony or Bohemia decided to throw off the yoke of imperial oversight. I doubt it was purely for reasons of language or cultural affinity. That for example did not stop the Swiss.

The princes, even the biggest ones, had seen some compelling benefits in this coordination mechanism where they were integrated in the decision-making process at the top level whilst free to act as they wished within their territory. 19th century historians often criticised Frederick’s charters of 1220 and 1232 as the nail in the coffin of any hope of early statehood for Germany. I would agree that these decisions cemented a development already under way that may, just may have been reversed. And I am convinced the territorialisation of Germany resulted in a significant slowing down of economic development. But we should not overlook the fact that the empire held together for another 571 years using broadly this framework.

Peter Wilson, Olaf B. Rader and others draw a parallel to Magna Carta which was granted around the same time. Like in Frederick’s privileges, the king of England is passing some fundamental royal rights to his nobles. The difference is though that in England the rights go to parliament, an institution the membership of which can change. That has allowed for a gradual development where through a change in the composition of the membership of parliament and the transfer of more rights to this institution, you could ultimately arrive at democracy.

In Germany the royal rights transferred not to an institution, but to individuals based on rank. These individuals change over time, in case of bishops through the regular election of new holders of the post and in case of the temporal princes through inheritance, elevation and division. But that is not the same as passing them on to an institution.

At least not yet. By 1495 the participation of princes and other holders of I,perils immediacy became instutiinalised in the Reichstag of the Holy Roman Empire. But the Reichstag despite over 300 years of existence did not become the nucleus of a democratic Germany. I have my views about why and how that happened, but if I have learned one thing over the last 82 episodes, it is to keep my mouth shut until I have properly researched the topic.

And as we are talking about mouth shut, these last episodes were a bit too long for what I promised. And I do not want to put out another 35 minute one. Hence, I will skip the bit about the reburial of Saint Elisabeth of Hungary or as the Germans call her Saint Elisabeth of Thuringia. It would have shone a light on one of the very, very few saints I do have genuine regard for, but ultimately, she did not have a major impact on history, as gentle, caring people rarely do. I will produce a Patreon episode about her, so if you still want to hear more, about Elisabeth and the much less caring and much less gentle Konrad von Marburg, just go over to Patreon, support the show and take a listen.

Otherwise, next week we will take a look at some of the most fascinating aspects of Frederick II, outside his political life. We will talk architecture, poetry, science and his true passion, the arte de venandi con avibus, the art of hunting with birds. I hope it will be a nice breather before the sound of clashing horses and ring of swords on armour dominate the rest of this season of the History of the Germans Podcast.

Support the Show – Become a Patron

by on

The sad story of Henry (VII), son of the emperor and rebel

If you have only listened to the last 5 episodes or so, you may be wondering whether this is really the History of the Germans or whether you have accidentally stumbled into A History of Italy minus the eloquence and humour of Mike Corradi. So today we will leave the shores of the Mediterranean to travel up north, though not with a train of mules carrying gold and silver, camels, dromedaries, leopards and apes as Fredrick II did in 1235. The reason for that journey was nowhere near as joyous as the display of wealth and exotic animals suggests. It is a tale of a father and son relationship that went disastrously wrong…

But let me not spoil this amazing story for you yet.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to the History of the Germans: Episode 81 – The King in Brackets

If you have only listened to the last 5 episodes or so, you may be wondering whether this is really the History of the Germans or whether you have accidentally stumbled into A History of Italy minus the eloquence and humour of Mike Corradi. So today we will leave the shores of the Mediterranean to travel up north, though not with a train of mules carrying gold and silver, camels, dromedaries, leopards and apes as Fredrick II did in 1235. The reason for that journey was nowhere near as joyous as the display of wealth and exotic animals suggests. It is a tale of a father and son relationship that went disastrously wrong…

But let me not spoil this amazing story for you yet.

Before we start, I will today not remind you that the History of the Germans is advertising free thanks to the generous support of my patrons. You probably know this by now. What you will also know is that very occasionally I highlight other history podcasts I enjoy, and I think you may enjoy too. One of those is Anglo Saxon England by Tom Kearns. Tom is a fully fledged academic with an Oxbridge background and a phd in Anglo-Saxon History. But do not let that stop you from listening. He is an excellent narrator who brings the stories to life and is the only one who made me finally understand how all these little English kingdoms all link up. If you like following the journey of a podcaster from the beginning, Tom is your man. He is on episode 28, so you can easily catch up. His podcast is called Anglo-Saxon England by Tom Kearns.

Anglo-Saxon England | Podcast on Spotify

Last week we took a possibly too detailed look at the Constitutions of Melfi, Frederick II’s great lawbook. I apologise if that was dragging on a bit, but I am a lawyer by training and I cannot help myself.

If law is not your thing and you have skipped after 10 minutes, here is the bit you need to remember. By 1231 Frederick II had made Sicily into a state where according to his enemy Pope Gregory IX “no man can raise a hand or a foot without Imperial consent”. He had brought peace and justice to his kingdom and was collecting taxes to fund his bureaucracy and armies.  In other words, his Kingdom of Sicily was as stable and as well managed as it could ever be. He now had the bandwidth to take charge of Imperial affairs. And the empire meant two things, Northern Italy and its Lombard league was one part, and the realm north of the Alps a second one. It is the latter he was most concerned with in the first half of this decade.

Frederick had left Germany in 1220 and for the last decade had left his eldest son and heir, Henry in charge. Henry had been elected and crowned as King of the Romans, the title an emperor acquired before imperial coronation in Rome.

Henry was born in 1211 in Sicily. His mother was Constance of Aragorn, the first wife of Frederick II. He was just a year old when he was crowed king of Sicily as had been requested by pope Innocent III. 5 years later, he is now just 6 years old, Frederick called him and his mother up to Germany.

We know nothing about the relationship between father and son in these four years from 1216 to 1220 the only significant amount of time they will ever spend together. His parents were probably not on brilliant terms. Frederick never had much regard for his wives. You may remember that previous emperors like Otto the Great, Otto II, Henry II and Konrad II granted their wives significant roles at court and describing them in their charters as “sharing in the imperial authority”. Barbarossa did not go that far but still recognised his wife Beatrix’s importance as an imperial prince and the mother of his children. Frederick II did take an almost oriental approach to his wives. Constance’s successors were often confined to the women’s quarters of the palace, rarely seen and certainly without any political influence. Constance had been a bit better off, probably because she was much older when she married 16-year-old Frederick and came with important political connections.

But that did not stop Frederick from maintaining liaisons with a string of women and fathering a whole brace of illegitimate children.  These children and mistresses lived at court which may have impinged on marital harmony. Whether that affected Henry, we do not know.

When his father finally set off for Italy in 1220, he left Henry behind to be brought up by imperial princes loyal to the Hohenstaufen cause. The first of those was bishop Engelbert of Cologne.  

How much time he spent educating young Henry is again unclear, nor what kind of emotional support he received Engelbert was a busy man. He was a member of the family of the counts of Berg whose main residence was confusingly called Schloss Burg, which translates as castle castle. If you have grown up near Dusseldorf as I have, chances are you have made a school trip to castle castle, which is another 19th century reconstruction of dubious accuracy.

 Engelbert was a typical member  of the 13th century imperial high aristocracy – well versed in weaponry, ambitious and not much interested in pastoral care.

He was pursuing a policy all of his fellow imperial princes were following at the time, something called territorialisation. What that meant is basically an extension of princely power not just horizontally by acquiring more territory but vertically, i.e., consolidating and deepening their influence. Engelbert systematically pulled in rights and privileges that had been held by vassals or Ministeriales and transferred the, into direct archepiscopal control. You remember in the 10th century it was common that multiple institutions would hold rights in the same territory. Say the count as a royal vassal would be in charge of justice, most of the land was held by another aristocrat as his private, allodial possession. The bridge and its tolls were owned by the bishop, whilst the monastery operated the mills. Coins in use may be from the royal mint or from a completely different prince. Equally a fourth one would have the right to claim tariffs for transport on the river whilst the local bishop would refuse to pay any taxes or tolls based again on royal privileges.  What the imperial princes have been doing these last 200 years and will continue to do over the next 500 is to consolidate all these individual rights and privileges until there is only one authority in each area.

That creates conflict. The local aristocrats were not happy being sucked underneath the control of an imperial prince. The same goes for the Ministeriales who by now barely remember their servile status and have become almost indistinguishable from knights and other non-princely aristocrats. And the other group unhappy with this were the cities. Though most of them had been founded by imperial princes, by the 13th century they were increasingly rubbing up against the tightening territorial powers. As the century progresses fee imperial cities emerge who, like imperial princes, are only subject to imperial vassalage and refute any interference by territorial lords. The city leagues are beginning to emerge, the most famous of which will be the Hanseatic League. For the major cities that had been the seat of a bishop, this creates an additional layer of conflict. We already heard about the City of Cologne occasionally pursuing its own political objectives that did not always match those of the archbishop. But for now the archbishop can still reside in Cologne, not yet chucked out to live in Bonn.

Engelbert as I said was in the midst of all this. His policy to consolidate power in the Rhineland as well as in the duchy of Westphalia was no different to what others were doing. But he had the advantage of being the guardian of the young king and regent of the kingdom.

When I said he operated no different to his peers, I mean he was happy to employ military might to get what he wanted. He fought two feuds with the duke of Limburg over his family’s inheritance. As was typical at the time, the bloody conflict did not end with the defeat of either party, but with ritual reconciliation and compromise. The duke of Limburg and the archbishop embraced, and an agreement was signed whereby the duke got an annual subsidy and the right to inherit after Engelbert’s death, but the family lands were Engelbert’s for now. The use of brute force in the pursuit of territorial or financial gain was common and as we see from this, had limited downside for the main protagonists. Once military capacity was spent, the parties almost always reconciled and if anything may lose a little bit of their possessions.

Risks may be manageable for the principals in the conflicts, but they weren‘t zero. Sometimes even a mighty Archbishop and regent of the empire can fall victim to the reckless and brutal politics of the age. In 1225 one of the Engelbert‘s vassals, the count of Isenburg had decided to kidnap the archbishop, presumably to force him to concede on some contested issue. He and his men ambushed the prelate when he was travelling between Soest and Cologne. But things went wrong when the archbishop refused to come along quietly. Engelbert was nearly six foot tall and well versed in the use of weapons. The count lost control of the situation and his Ministeriales cut down the archbishop. Later forensic analysis of his bones showed that he received more than 50 blows with sharp metal objects. That was sufficiently bad behaviour to bring about repercussions for the count who was caught and beheaded. Engelbert – as you would expect – became a saint, at least in Cologne.

Thus ended the first period of guardianship for young Henry.  

Henry was now 14 years old. At that age his father had taken personal responsibility of the kingdom of Sicily. Henry might have expected something similar, at least a transition towards personal rule with a less intrusive guardianship. But that was not forthcoming. Instead his father appointed Ludwig, duke of Bavaria as the new guardian and regent. You may remember him. He is the same Ludwig who did move across to the papal side in 1228 and ended up defeated by young Henry, only to die under mysterious circumstances 2 years later.

Henry was not happy about having another guardian, nor was he delighted when his father arranged for him to marry Margaret, a daughter of the duke of Austria who was seven years his senior.

When Henry’s minority formally ended in 1228, the relationship between father and son wasn’t off to a good start. It improved a bit when Henry defeated Ludwig of Bavaria in 1229 thereby significantly improving Frederick’s position vis-a-vis the pope. But things will get difficult soon.

I gave you all this rundown about Engelbert not just because it reminded me of a rain sodden afternoon in my childhood trotting up to Castle Castle with my schoolmates, at least one of whom I think listens to the podcast – Hi Ulf.

The reason we went through that is to show how Henry’s view of the political realities of his kingdom was shaped. Henry had grown up as a German prince, not just that but as the elected and crowned king of the Romans and future emperor. His tutors will have told him about the lives of all the Henries before him. Henry the Fowler who had brought the fragmented kingdom back together, Henry II who built a kingdom of god, Henry IV who fought and fought and fought against the princely overreach, Henry V who had concluded the concordat of Worms that had given him at least some influence on the bishops, a right lost since his father traded it for his election, and his grandfather Henry VI who had set off for Sicily hoping to gain the resources needed to force the German princes into submission.

And outside his window he sees first-hand what has become of the empire. Imperial princes were filching more and more of royal lands. The revenues of the king had dwindled as tolls, tariffs and mints had moved from the royal purse to the counts, dukes and bishops. No longer could a ruler call upon the knights of the realm to ride against his foes,, no, he had to ask the imperial princes to provide these forces. Most vassals only swore an oath to their territorial lord, not to the king any more.

Meanwhile in neighbouring France the king had first consolidated most of the former Angevin empire and was busy wiping out the counts of Toulouse in the south. In France every subject was swearing fealty to the king – except obviously in the lands the king of England still possessed.

Henry believed that it was in his job description to bring the kingdom back together, to consolidate royal powers and become a new Henry the Fowler or Barbarossa. He even had an idea how to do it.

He had natural allies, the cities, the lower nobility and the Ministeriales. All these people who were losing out in the drive towards territorialisation. The problem with these allies was that they were individually not very powerful. Henry had resources of his own, the duchy of Swabia and the family lands in Alsace and along the Main River all the way into Bohemia. After the fall of Henry the Lion, he was individually the most powerful of the territorial lords.

But that was not enough. He needed some allies, some bishops, some dukes, margraves, landgraves you name it.

Now these guys had zero incentive to sign up to a political program that was trying to roll back all the gains these guys had made since the death of Henry VI. In fact it was near suicidal to sign up for such a policy. Territorialisation was entirely binary. Either you and your clan became the territorial ruler or the subject of a territorial ruler. Any family that did not make it to imperial prince by 1250 disappeared from the frontline of German politics for good.

But the princes had an Achilles heel, money. Most of them were perennially broke. Being a territorial lord is expensive business. First up there is the need for bling. The princes would compete over who had the most splendid courts. In Marburg, Mainz, Cologne or Vienna an endless sequence of tournaments, feasts and festivals displayed the power and importance of the local lord. Knights would relish in the opportunities to display chivalric valour and courtly love. Men and women wore increasingly tight clothes, and the men in particular went on to display their shapely legs by cutting open their trouser legs. A well-formed quad muscle was the sixpack of the 13th century. And the girls were equally willing to display their assets in ever more daring garb.

And before you think medieval love was all platonic longing, playing the harp below a tower and dying in defence of the honour of a aiden, here are some verses from Walter von der Vogelweide:

Under the linden tree

on the heath,

where we shared a bed,

there you may find

beautiful to look at,

broken flowers and grass.

Near the forest in a vale,

tandaradei,

beautiful sang the nightingale.

I came to meet him

in that meadow,

there my beloved had come before me.

such I was received –

Oh Queen of Heavan! -,

that I would be blessed forever.

Did he kiss me? – Probably a thousand times and some!

Tandaradei,

look how red my mouth is!

If someone knew

He lay with me

God forbid! – for shame I’d die

What we did together,

I don’t want anyone to know

Except for him and me

and a little bird,

tandaradei –

but he won’t tell.

That frill was however not the biggest expense. That was the cost of acquisition of new territories, rights and privileges. Sometimes it was done by force which required the hiring of mercenaries or at least the cost of keeping the Ministeriales and vassals supplied. In other cases it was simple outright purchase.

On occasion, say a juice deal comes available or a rival invades your territory, money needed to be mobilised quickly. The only ones who could do that were money men from the Italian cities, from Bologna, Florence, Lucca or Asti. They had learned about money transfer during the crusades when princes and knights needed to have funds sent through from home. This infrastructure and experience with bills of exchange and pledges of lands and assets were now put to good use. The bankers offered ready access to money to any prince happy to pay extortionate interest and pledge their property. Lending to the spiritual lords, the bishops and abbots was particularly attractive. Under church law a priest could only borrow with the consent of the pope since the security was unalienable church land. Lenders would demand the papal authorisation and usually a commitment that the whole church would pay the debt and that in case of failure to pay the pope would automatically excommunicate the borrower. That made loans to bishops and archbishops cheaper, but at the same time the bishops and archbishops became more and more dependent upon the pope.

The counter to that rise in papal influence would have been imperial money. Sicily was enormously rich and with this money a king of the Romans could have bought himself enough bankrupt princes to roll back the tide.

That was the plan. Bring together the lower nobles, the cities and buy some imperial princes with Sicilian money and roll back the last 20 years of declining imperial authority.

That was a sound plan. Any emperor who had grown up North of the Alps, a Barbarossa or a Henry IV would have looked to implement such a plan. Form where they came from, it made sense.

But there is the problem with this plan though. Frederick II was the emperor, and he was not an emperor who had grown up in the German lands. He did not share this world view and had a different set of priorities.

When Frederick had first come to Germany in 1212, his main objective was to prevent any future attacks on his kingdom of Sicily. The crown as king of the Romans was in his eyes more of an insurance policy than a central tenet of his policy.

This perspective shifted after his coronation as emperor and the reorganisation of Sicily. With his position in Southern Italy now secured he could direct his ambition towards imperial matters. When he thought about empire, he did not see Otto the Great, Henry III and Barbarossa, he saw Caesar, Augustus, Trajan, and Constantine. In his view, the emperor is not just the ruler of three kingdoms, Germany, Italy and Burgundy, but the emperor is the monarch who rules over all the world and all the other monarchs, the reguli, the little kings.

There are two swords granted by god, the spiritual sword the one made of words and sacraments that is to be wielded by the pope and then there is the temporal sword, the one made from iron, to be gipped firmly by an emperor. This concept may be ancient and broadly in line with church doctrine. But by 1230 the popes had moved on from there to a notion that the spiritual power of the church stands above the temporal rule and that kings and emperors are to take orders from them.

If Frederick wanted to make his vision real, conflict with the papacy was inevitable. Frederick knew that. And he also knew that the key to this conflict lay in Italy, now that Sicily was his, in Northern Italy. The imperial hold on northern Italy had weakened since the days of Henry VI. Under his father the relationship between the empire and the Lombard League had been almost cordial. After all, Henry VI celebrated his marriage in Milan. But that is now 35 years ago. In the meantime, the Lombard cities had stopped paying the agreed imperial taxes and returned to their previous pastime of endless internecine warfare.

Internally the Italian cities were riven with factions, the Ghibellines and the Guelfs. The Ghibellines were socially members of the city aristocracy. Not the aristocracy of money, it w the land-owning aristocracy who in Italy lived inside the cities in their enormous noble towers. They were broadly supportive of the emperor. The Guelfs were recruited mostly from the emerging class of merchants and bankers. They were loyal to the pope, not for particular religious reasons, but because the church was not only rich but also a heavy user of the emerging banking industry. The papacy would play these factions by awarding their business to merchants in Guelf cities and withdrawing it from cities that had shifted back to the Ghibellines.

If Frederick wanted to control the pope, he needed to support the Ghibellines, politically, financially and, above all, militarily. Militarily he could count on his Sicilian army, but that was not enough. He needed reinforcements from the North. He needed the Imperial Princes. They were the only nes who could muster a few thousand knights to help his campaigns in Lombardy. The last thing he wanted was the princes to be tied up in a protracted struggle with his son. It simply was not the right time to fight for royal rights in Germany. Italy first, Germany second. As far as Frederick was concerned, Henry should put his ambitions on the back burner and work to support his father.

But neither of them seems to have comprehended the other’s position. They had not seen each other since Henry was 9 years old. He did not know him, did not know his friends or what he thought about the world.

And then there is the language issue. Henry spoke German not as his mother tongue in the formal sense of the word since his mother was Spanish, but it was the language he had used since adolescence, the language he operated in daily.  Frederick’s main language, the language he used in his poetry was Sicilian Italian. Formal letters between the two were likely in Latin if produced by their respective chancellors. One can assume that some things were simply lost in translation.

The imperial princes were quickly wizening up to the fact that father and son were at odds about strategy. So when Henry clamped down on their position, they simply wrote to Frederick, and he reversed his son’s decision.

This was humiliating for Henry who was after all a king, and not any odd king, but the king of the Romans and the future emperor. His authority was being eroded by his own father, a father who he believed simply did not understand the situation in Germany and what was needed to bring the empire back to its former glory. Meanwhile the father despaired of the son, who was unable to see the bigger picture, who could not get his head around the fact that Germany was only one part of the all-encompassing empire, and that the battlefield was Lombardy.

The next humiliation for Henry came when he tried to divorce his wife, the daughter of the Austrian duke in order to marry Agnes of Bohemia. His father denied him that because he needed Austria for his plans in Italy, whilst he had no use for Bohemia.

Whilst Henry’s relationship with his father is gradually deteriorating, his position vis-à-vis the princes is collapsing. In 1230 he granted wide ranging autonomy to the cities, in particular to elect their city council without having to seek permission from the bishop or secular territorial lord and to form city leagues. In January 1231 at a royal assembly the princes came together and issued a verdict, rendering Henry’s previous grant null and void. They banned the cities from forming associations and made the members of the city councils dependent upon prior approval of the lord.

That verdict was then written up and issued by the royal chancellery as as if it had come from henry himself. Henry was seemingly unable to prevent this from happening, though I could not find a detailed explanation why and how.

Emboldened by their success, in May 1231 the princes did the same thing again, but now went for the whole gambit. Once again, they made Henry (VII) issue a royal charter, a charter that transfers all remaining regalia, i.e., the right to issue coins, to demand tariffs and tolls, to hold court, to build castles or to found new cities to the princes. The ecclesiastical princes already enjoyed such rights thanks to Frederick’s golden bull from 1220.

And it may be true that most of the temporal princes held similar rights before on the basis of individual privileges, but with this decision, every imperial prince automatically enjoys what is essentially freedom from imperial interference. the emperor recedes from direct ruler to a mediated ruler who acts through the imperial princes. For Henry this was a political catastrophe, and he blamed his father’s reluctance to support him for it.

For December 1131 Frederick calls an imperial assembly in Ravenna, inviting all his vassals in Italy, Burgundy and Germany to come together. Only a few princes show up since Verona had closed the Brenner pass. But what infuriated Frederick II most was that his son did not come, indeed did not even make an effort to come down.

Frederick has to set a new date for the royal assembly, this time in Aquilea, much closer to Germany. He makes it abundantly clear that he expects his son to put in an appearance.

Henry cannot hold out any longer and indeed shows up in Northern Italy. There he is subjected to more humiliation. He is not allowed to enter the city of Aquilea before he has publicly asked his father for forgiveness and after swearing total obedience to him. Frederick renews the ordinance from 1231 that granted the territorial princes the freedom to do as they liked within their territory. Henry has to swear to treat the princes as “lights and protectors of the empire” and “apples of the emperor’s eye”. To round it all up, he makes Henry write to the pope that if he should in any way disrespect his fathers’ wishes, the pope was to automatically excommunicate him.

Henry is 20-years-old. What do you think a 20-yearold does after treatment like that? Exactly.  “apples of my fathers eye – you got it coming”.

Henry goes back to Germany, tears up all the ordinances he did not like, grants the citizens of Worms the right to form a city council and to enter into leagues of cities if they so wished.

Bang, automatic excommunication. In turn Henry goes into outright rebellion. He has some friends amongst the bishops, a smattering of princes some cities and members of the lower nobility join him. Not exactly the greatest of rebellions, but not nothing. He treats it as a feud, as a message to his father that his treatment is unacceptable. At no point was he realistically able to overthrow his father.

When his father does not yield to what he believes are his rightful demands, he has to up the ante. He thrusts a knife into the heart of his father’s policies; he forms an alliance with the Lombard League.

That is it. In 1235 Frederick II comes to Germany to sort this out. Did he take an army to subdue his rebellious son? No. As the chronicler said, “he progressed with the utmost pomp, many chariots followed him laden with gold and silver, with byssus and with purple, with gems and costly vessels. He had with him camels, dromedaries, apes and leopards, with Saracens and dark-skinned Ethiopians skilled in arts of many kinds, who served as guards for his money and his treasure”.

He had barely crossed into Bavaria before the German princes flocked to his banner. Whether they were in awe of the display of his menagerie and the exotic attendants or more likely the lure of gold and silver, they hoped would replenish their empty coffres, we leave to history.

Suffice to say Henry’s rebellion collapsed within days and he had to sue for his father’s forgiveness. Being brought up in the German society of the 13th century, he expected his father to sternly reprimand him and then make him undergo a ritual submission. But once that is done he will be left in peace and position afterwards, right? That is how conflict resolution was done in the German lands ever since time immemorial. You remember Otto the great not just forgiving his brother Henry two rebellions and an assassination attempt but making him duke of Bavaria. Even Konrad II, the most warlike of emperors forgave his son Henry III his disobedience.

Henry attempted to throw himself at his father’s feet at the Pfalz in Wimpfen. But he he was not let into the imperial presence. Instead he was carried along to Worms as a prisoner. There in Worms, after a few days in confinement he was finally led into the audience hall. Now he threw himself on the floor crying and begging for forgiveness for his sins.  His father did not move a muscle. He left his son lying there. Second stretched into minutes. The German nobles watched in bewilderment. The normal process was for the emperor to allow his son to rise again. But no.  Finally some of the princes could not stand it any longer that their king was still prostrate and intervened on his behalf.  After even more delay his father finally gave him the order to stand up. Henry again begged forgiveness, promised to give up all his possessions and renounce the crown for now and for ever.

Another, final misunderstanding. In Southern Italy there was only one resolution for high treason, death. Henry’s alliance with the Lombard League, that was high treason. And Frederick was a Sicilian who will apply Sicilian justice.

The verdict was High Treason. Only Henry’s renunciation of the crown saved his life. Frederick was prepared to commute his sentence from death to life imprisonment. Henry was brought to Sicily, first to a castle near Melfi, 6 years later he was moved to Nicastro. There he fell ill with disease probably leprosy. In 1242 during another transfer Henry rode his horse over a cliff. He was 30 years of age. He was buried in the church of Cosenza in a marble sarcophagus, clad in a shroud of gold and silver into which eagles’ feathers were woven. A Franciscan preached the final sermon and chose as his text: And Abraham stretched forth his hand and took the knife to slay his son”.

Frederick mourned his son’s death. In the letter ordering the details of the funeral he wrote: quote “The pity of a tender father must yield to the judgement of the stern judge; we mourn the doom of our first-born. Nature bids flow the flood of tears, but they are checked by the pain of injury and the inflexibility of justice” end quote.

Did he have a choice to forgive his son? One would have thought so given other examples where forgiveness had worked. But for that Frederick would have had to understand and trust his son, and his son would have had to grasp his father’s strategy. But they did not. And now one of them is dead. So dead, he is almost written out of history. Numerically he would have been Henry VII, but there is another Henry VII in the early 14th century. So this Henry is known as Henry der Klammersiebte, Henry VII (in brackets), a name most appropriate for his position, bracketed in between the imperial princes and his father, his ambition and his inability to communicate it.

Next week we will talk a bit more about the impact this privilege to the princes had on the constitution of the Holy Roman empire. Plus Frederick issues some more laws, makes an interesting verdict and marries an English Rose that he will send into his harem to wither away like her predecessors. I hope you will join us again.

Before I go, let me thank all of you who are supporting the show, in particular the Patrons who have kindly signed up on patreon.com/historyofthegermans. It is thanks to you this show does not have to do advertising for matrasses or as I recently heard energy supplements and pension plans. If Patreon isn’t for you, another way to help the show is sharing the podcast directly or boosting its recognition on social media. If you share, comment or retweet a post from the History of the Germans it is more likely to be seen by others, hence bringing in more listeners. My most active places are Twitter @germanshistory and my Facebook page History of the Germans Podcast. As always, all the links are in the show notes.   

Support the Show – Become a Patron

by on

The Constitutions of Melfi

A medieval ruler that has a Muslim fighting force at his back and call and who negotiates Jerusalem out of the hands of the Sultan of Egypt is not what you expected when you began listening to the History of the Germans Podcast. I am afraid you aint seen nuttin yet!

This week we come to what was long believed to be his masterpiece, the Constitutions of Melfi. Even if It isn’t the creation of a modern state in the 13th century as Kantorowicz had believed there is still something fundamentally different here. The Middle Ages is a world where progress comes from people moving forward whilst looking back. They ask questions about the world and seek the answers in the past, in the Bible, the Church Fathers, Aristotle, Averroes etc. Only where the ancients are silent will great minds like Albertus Magnus look at the real world, undertake experiments and collect observation to derive their answers. Frederick is different. He does turn around and look at the natural world first and at dusty books second.

Let’s see what that means when it comes to organising his kingdom.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to the History of the Germans: Episode 80: A different kind of Emperor

A medieval ruler that has a Muslim fighting force at his back and call and who negotiates Jerusalem out of the hands of the Sultan of Egypt is not what you expected when you began listening to the History of the Germans Podcast. I am afraid you aint seen nuttin yet!

This week we come to what was long believed to be his masterpiece, the Constitutions of Melfi. Even if It isn’t the creation of a modern state in the 13th century as Kantorowicz had believed there is still something fundamentally different here. The Middle Ages is a world where progress comes from people moving forward whilst looking back. They ask questions about the world and seek the answers in the past, in the Bible, the Church Fathers, Aristotle, Averroes etc. Only where the ancients are silent will great minds like Albertus Magnus look at the real world, undertake experiments and collect observation to derive their answers. Frederick is different. He does turn around and look at the natural world first and at dusty books second.

Let’s see what that means when it comes to organising his kingdom.

Before we start just a reminder. The History of the Germans Podcast is advertising free thanks to the generous support from patrons. And you can become a patron too and enjoy exclusive bonus episodes and other privileges from the price of a latte per month. All you have to do is sign up at patreon.com/historyofthegermans or on my website historyofthegermans.com. You find all the links in the show notes. And thanks a lot to Ernst and the 2 Roberts who have already signed up.

Support the Show – Become a Patron

Before we can go to the part where we stare at Frederick with open mouths, we have to close the loop and talk about what happened when he returned from his adventures in the Holy Land. Just to recap. Frederick had finally set off on crusade in June 1228 after having delayed so often, the new pope, Gregory IX had lost his rag and excommunicated him. Frederick tried in various ways to placate the pope but to no avail. He needed his excommunication lifted since otherwise his authority and legitimacy would erode. With a pope dead set against him, this unauthorised crusade was his only hope to be re-admitted into the bosom of mother church.

When he managed to acquire Jerusalem, minus the temple of Salomon for Christendom, he thought that this would make the pope so happy that he would give up his hostile stance. But that was a bitter miscalculation. Gregory IX was – if anything – even more incensed about Frederick being successful than he was about Fredrick being late. Since Gregory VII the papacy had grown to believe it stood above all secular rulers and when Innocent III climbed to the apotheosis of papal power, he called for a crusade he would lead himself. Though this did not happen, it implanted the idea that it was the pope’s job to free Jerusalem. He would use his vassals the kings, princes and emperors for the job, but the ultimate responsibility and glory was to go to the pope. Frederick’s actions have brought this concept to collapse. He had undertaken his crusade against the explicit wishes of the pope and as an excommunicate could not be construed in any way as acting on behalf of the pope. That meant the recovery of Jerusalem was his achievement, leaving the popes whose efforts had so far failed, feeling humiliated

Hence his stay in Jerusalem was in equal measure brief as it was uncomfortable. He stayed a mere 2 days because on the day after the coronation the patriarch put the entire city under the interdict. No mass could be red, no sacrament performed. Imagine you have undertaken the immensely painful journey to Jerusalem and then against the odds, you can get into the Holy city only to find, you cannot pray before the mount Golgotha, the one reason you had come in the first place. Without that prayer, the absolution you craved would not be forthcoming. Your soul is condemned to remain in purgatory for a very, very long time. Frederick had to leave the nominal capital of his new kingdom in haste so the interdict could be lifted and the pilgrims got their absolution.

Things did not exactly improve when he came back to Akkon. The patriarch and the Templars had gathered troops in the city. These could only be meant to fight him since there was now peace with the Muslims. Frederick had the patriarch and some leaders of the crusader orders put under house arrest which threw oil on the flames. The population rose up and pelted him and his men with filth as they went down towards their waiting ships. With a curse on his lips Frederick left the Holy Land.

The papal opposition to Frederick’s escapade was not limited to the Holy land itself. Whilst Frederick was out opening up holy sites to pilgrims, the pope was attacking on two fronts. In Germany he encouraged the imperial princes to consider the election of a new king, the deposition of Frederick as emperor and removal of his now 17-year old son Henry who had become King of the Romans

In Southern Italy Gregory IX took an even more hands-on approach. He hired an army of mercenaries, kitted them out with uniforms bearing the keys of St. Peter and sent them off to invade the Kingdom of Sicily. He flanked this move with the usual papal weapons, a release from any oath of fealty sworn to the excommunicated emperor and a solid dose of misinformation. Frederick, his Holiness announced had died in the Holy Land, a just punishment for all the unspeakable sins he had committed.

Gregory IX excommunicating Frederick II

The leader of the papal army was none other than John of Brienne, erstwhile king of Jerusalem and Frederick’s father-in-law. And he was a skilful commander. By the time Frederick’s galley landed in Brindisi on June 10th, 1229, most of the mainland was in papal hands. Frederick’s generals and his Saracen fighters were undefeated, but their area of operation had shrunk, and the units were separated.

Frederick’s arrival flipped the situation rapidly. Frederick’s mere existence exposed the papal lies. As news of the recovery of Jerusalem spread across the country, people questioned the papal intentions. Plus the emperor gained some unexpected help as the Teutonic Knights were blown into Brindisi by a storm and joined his forces.

The papal forces weighed down by their contradictions and possibly a lack of pay rarely stood and fought. By August Frederick was in Capua. The papal legate melted down the treasures of the ancient monastery of Montecassino to pay the troops just to convince them to hold the border. But still they ran. In just 2 months Frederick had cleansed his kingdom of the invaders, again with barely shot fired. These bloodless victories have become his speciality. He had gained Jerusalem without a fight, he had gained the empire through the battles of others and now Sicily regained twice, again more through law and diplomacy than brute force.

Well, not without any brute force. The city of Sora was one of the few places that resisted. It was besieged, conquered and flattened, never to rise again. “The plough should furrow the site of the faithless city as of old the city of Carthage had been”, that is how the emperor himself described his punishment. The male inhabitants were hanged, women and children sold as slaves.

City of Sora in 1606 (not permanenty destroyed)

Meanwhile up in Germany the situation had not spiralled out of control as Gregory had hoped. By and large the German magnates remained loyal. Only Duke Ludwig of Bavaria fell for the lure of papal promises. He had been one of the great political maneuverers during the civil wars between Hohenstaufen and Welfs. By playing one against the other he got his son into the line of succession of the Count Palatinate on the Rhine. Frederick II enfeoffed him with this rich land in 1214 and the Bavarian duke decamped immediately to lovely Heidelberg. From that day onwards until 1918 the Palatinate and Bavaria remained in the House of Wittelsbach. Frederick weirdly trusted Ludwig and made him a member of the regency council during his sons Henry minority. In 1228 Henry turned 17 and the regency was over. Henry took the reigns north of the Alps as the elected and crowned king of the Romans. The relationship between king and duke soured quickly which may be one of the reasons Ludwig sided with Gregory. In 1229 Henry lead a large army against Ludwig and defeated him, which brought an end to papal schemes in Germany.

There is an epilogue to that story. In 1231 Ludwig of Bavaria is murdered by a man nobody can identify. The murderer is tortured for days but even upon the worst pain medieval justice can inflict refuses to name the man who had ordered the hit. What bewildered contemporaries was that reluctance to name his client. In the 13th century there was only one organisation everybody knew about whose contract killers never disclosed who they worked for – the assassins. I guess there is a significant overlap between listeners to the podcast and fans of Assassins creed, so if you are one of those, move on 60 seconds. For the rest of you, the Assassins were a radical Islamic sect who gained a significant territory in Syria. They took in young man and trained them as killers in the name of Jihad. Given that important personalities in the Middle Ages were usually armed and well-guarded, many of these attempts were suicide missions. The story goes that the recruits were given hallucinogenic drugs, mainly hashish and once properly off their faces, were led to a fake paradise where amazing food and beautiful girls were on tab. Once they had seen the beauty of where they would go, they craved nothing more than death in the name of Jihad.

Murder of duke Ludwig in Kelheim

Frederick had allegedly met the leader of the assassins during his stay in the Holy Land. Out of this most likely apocryphal story the idea emerged that Frederick had his own assassins, trained in the mysterious Saracen city of Lucera. And it was one of those who had killed the Bavarian duke.

Lovely story, but a few too many ifs and buts. My money is that the killer was either mentally ill or had other, more rational reasons to conceal his client. That doesn’t mean that Frederick of Henry are off the hook. It was known that Henry in particular wanted to be shot of the duke.

Germany and Sicliy brought back under control, the question is what next? The road to the papal residence in Agnani is wide open. Gregory IX is out of funds to pay soldiers, none of the kings and cities he calls upon are sending him military support. Frederick could just go and capture the vicar of Christ and dictate terms.. That is what his Norman forebearers had done on many previous occasions.

Map of the Papal states

But Frederick had constraints that his ancestors did not have to deal with. He wasn’t just king of Sicily but also the Holy Roman Emperor. And whilst the Sicilians would be completely fine with a pope in chains, the Germans less so and the Lombard cities definitely not. That explains why he, the conqueror and ultimately injured party sued for peace.

Hermann von Salza, grand master of the Teutonic Knights and eternal go-between was sent to the curia where he achieved a truce. Still pope Gregory refused to lift the excommunication, even though that excommunication was put on for failure to go on crusade, a misdeed the emperor had undoubtedly remedied.  When the German princes vowed for the future behaviour of their overlord, Gregory ran out of arguments.

Still, Gregory took his pound of flesh. Not only did Frederick have to restore all church property he had confiscated during the war. That would be standard. But the pope also changed the way the Sicilian church was to be run. Under the Normans the Sicilian clergy had been entirely at the kings back and call. Appointments were in the royal gift and did not even need papal approval. When the usurper Tancred needed the pope in his fight with Henry VI papal influence in Sicily grew. Henry VI tried to turn back the tide but after his death Innocent III took direct charge of Sicilian bishops and abbots.in the years 1220 to 1228 Frederick had turned the dial back and expelled those bishops he found to take orders from Rome and brought the rest in line, much like he did with the Barons and the Sicilian Muslims

We do know our Frederick and his attitude to the management of Sicily, so it is surprising that he accepts wide ranging papal influence in Sicily. Clergy is no longer subject to secular law and even free from royal taxation. That was a significant concession as it allowed for the existence of institutions independent of him within the tightly run kingdom.

So, how did he want his kingdom being run?.   

Peace and Justice are the preeminent yardsticks on which medieval rulers were measured by their contemporaries. We may look at battles won or lost, territories gained or irredeemably ceded to their neighbours, but for the general population bringing peace and security was what mattered.

Peace and justice are two sides of the same medal. Real peace can only exist when there is justice and justice can only be provided when there is peace. In the previous decade Frederick had brought peace. He had driven the barons from their castles and brought the Guerrilla war in central Sicily to an end.

Now it is time to bring Justice as well.

In late summer of 1230 Frederick ordered that his justices, the judges presiding over the courts in each of the 9 provinces of his realm to send 4 of their most knowledgeable and wise lawyers to court. These men were called upon to compile the entirety of the law that prevailed in the land. This they would do under the auspices of the Lord Chief justice, Henry of Morra and the future chancellor Peter of Vinea.

Castle of Melfi where the Laws were announced

This commission worked extremely fast and in August 1231 Frederick promulgated a new and comprehensive collection of the law: (quote) “We therefore desire that only the present laws under our name should be in force in the Kingdom of Sicily,’ and we order that these constitutions should be observed in the future, after the laws and customs contradicting these our constitutions have been annulled in this kingdom.”

There is now only one law in the land and that law is contained in this codex. All other pre-existing laws, orders and ordinances are null and void. What is not in the book no longer exists.

Consolidating the law isn’t unusual in the 13th century. As literacy spread and the increasingly complex society also becomes a written society, kings and emperors commission summaries or compilations of their laws. One of those we have already encountered, the Laws of Roncaglia that Barbarossa had promulgated in 1158. Others are compiled by lawyers like Eike von Repgow’s Sachsenspiegel.

If you want to refresh your memory, check out Episode 55 – Episode 55 – The Laws of Roncaglia • History of the Germans Podcast

But these laws, that did not have a name at the time but would later be called the Liber Augustalis, i.e., the Book of the Emperor or the Constitutions of Melfi is something quite fundamentally different.

The Laws of Roncaglia weren’t new. They were just a reaffirmation that the Roman law as laid down in the Code of Justinian in the 6th century still prevailed. What was laid down in there had often nothing to do with the law as it was practiced amongst the Lombard communes at the time. Barbarossa wanted to use the Code of Justinian to force through political and economic change. The laws of Roncaglia derived their legitimacy from the fact that these had always been the laws of the Empire and hence need to be obeyed. They were not legislation coming from the will of Barbarossa. The only new law in the laws of Roncaglia were the statutes of the university of Bologna.

The Sachsenspiegel is a compilation of the laws as they are practiced amongst the Saxons. Eike von Repgow who had put it together had no power to legislate nor did he want to introduce new legislation. Again, it is based on the idea that law is ancient and immutable. All the compiler is doing is finding and reporting it.

The constitutions of Melfi are fundamentally different. Like the Sachsenspiegel they are based on the law as it was practiced at the time. The lawyers collected the existing ordinances and commands of the Norman kings, reviewed judgements and included those concepts of Roman Law that were practiced in Sicily.

But here is the big difference. In doing so they first looked at rules that contradicted each other and selected one of them. They added new laws and regulations either on topics not yet covered or replacing existing legislation. The constitutions of Melfi were not a compilation of laws but an act of legislation.

Frederick did not just ask what the law has been, but what the law should be. What rules and regulations do we need to bring Justice to my lands. Where existing laws are unhelpful, they are replaced. Where there aren‘t any rules but there should be some, he has them created.

This is big step away from medieval thinking, not just in law but generally. The medieval mind as best expressed in the scholastic method looks at a problem and asks what the authorities have said about it. Has Aristotle or Pliny the Elder said something about this. How does that compare to other authorities, the bible or the church father. The scholastic disputation is not about, which of the authorities is right, but how one can derive a solution that fits with all of them. This is not to say that the scholastic method was an aberration. The rigour of its process and the resurrection of so many works of antiquity made a huge contribution to the development of humanities and science.

But intellectually it is a process where you move towards your goal by walking backwards with your head in a book. That is what the Sachsenspiegel and the Laws of Roncaglia do in law. With The Constitutions of Melfi Frederick turns around looks down the path and asks, what laws do I need to get to where I want to go. And his objective is a peaceful realm where people can rely on justice. But to achieve this is not for the benefit of the people, but for the benefit of the state.

To legitimise this new approach, he does not go back to the idea that the Roman Caesar was all powerful and could make laws. He goes back to the nature of man. In his preamble he says that: “Thus man, whom God created virtuous and simple, did not hesitate to involve himself in disputes. Therefore, by this compelling necessity of things and not less by the inspiration of Divine Providence, princes of nations were created through whom the license of crimes might be corrected. And these judges of life and death for mankind might decide, as executors in some way of Divine Providence,’ how each man should have fortune, estate, and status.”

If you strip out the Divine providence bit, this is pure Hobbes. “Homo Homine Lupus est”, man is by natural law prone to fight and quarrel. Only the force of the state can tame this desire for discord and civil war. This concept of an objective morality that legitimises strong central government was first published in 1679, but Frederick had incorporated it into his idea of justice as early as 1231.

Having a clear purpose and being freed from the shackles of tradition, the commission was able to  arrive at novel solutions, novel solutions the tie in with each other to achieve peace and justice.

To illustrate that let’s look at one of the fundamental theeats to peace in the Middle Ages, the feud.

Across all medieval kingdoms, society recognised feuds as a legitimate way to resolve conflict. Was that because the culture was suffused with the concepts of honour and status that needed to be constantly reaffirmed and defended. In part certainly. But the more profound issue was that there were not many other ways to resolve conflict.  

Higher justice was administered intermittently by peripatetic kings. So, unless the king came round, there was no court that could adjudicate the differences between important nobles. And if he came around that was no guarantee the case would be heard. To bring a case, the claimant needed access to the immediate entourage of the ruler who could suggest a case to be heard.

Next problem, the judgements were utterly unpredictable. There were few written laws and lots of unwritten conventions. These were applied by a judge and jury made up of kings and nobles with little legal training.

So as a nobleman being attacked by a ruthless neighbour, you did not know if at all and when you would get justice. Taking up arms and defending your rights was often a necessity, not a choice. Society had to accept it, even if the church was trying to put limitations around it through the Truce of God.

The constitutions of Melfi are going to the root cause of feuds to provide peace.  

The rules start with an outright ban on feuding. (i) A count, baron, knight, or anyone else who publicly incites war in the kingdom should be punished by death after all his goods have been confiscated. (ii) Moreover, he who makes attacks or counterattacks should be condemned by the proscription * of half of all his goods. Bingo! The defence that “he started it” may save your neck, but still means you lose half of all you own! Great incentive to deescalate a conflict.

Then he takes a stab at avoiding feuds in the first place. Many of those we hear emerge when men are drinking together and real or perceived sleights end up with swords drawn. So he tries to nip those in the bud:

“Since the bearing of forbidden weapons sometimes is the cause of violence and murder, we elect to resist now rather than to avenge later. By the present law, we order that none of the fideles of our kingdom should dare to carry sharpened and prohibited weapons: small knives with points, swords, lances, breast-plates, shields or coats of mail, iron maces, or any others which have been made more to cause injury than for some beneficial purpose. However, we allow the curials and their servants to carry the aforementioned prohibited arms and others as long as they are staying with us in the court or are returning to or from home or are traveling on our business. We also exempt knights, the sons of knights, and townsmen from the force of the present law. We do not forbid them at all to carry swords when they ride on business outside of the locality in which they live. But when they have returned to their own locality or are guests somewhere, they should immediately put aside their swords.”

Privately owned castles as we have heard in the last episode are already banned which again reduces the probability of nobles resorting to feud because that makes it a lot more dangerous.

And then he addresses the biggest issue, the absence of alternatives to get justice. Sicily did already have a fairly sophisticated legal infrastructure, but the Constitutions of Melfi establish a full system of appellate courts.

The kingdom is divided into 9 districts. In each district there is a permanent court, presided over by a Justice usually a trained lawyer. This is an appellate court, i.e., it decides mainly cases brought up from judges. Of those there are 5 each in the major cities, 3 in the medium sized ones and at least one in the smaller ones. The judges are the courts of first instance.

Any dispute, quarrel or crime is to be brought before the Judge in the city. If either party is unhappy with the decision, they can appeal to the court at district level who will investigate the case anew. And even on the district court decision, there is an appeal to the royal court, presided over not by the king, but by the Lord Chief Justice. And for minor disputes there are baillis or magistrates in most larger villages whose decisions are reviewed by the judges.

Not only is this full range of appellate courts absolutely unique in Europe and in many places will take until the 19th century to develop, the process in front of the courts is also extremely modern.

There is no trial by combat. There are no compurgators, the sworn witnesses who could get you off by simply stating that you were a decent and honest man.

Frederick’s court procedure aims to establish the facts. To do that there are broadly two methods. In the Anglo-Saxon/Germanic tradition the idea is that both sides of the disputes battle it out before the judge and jury. Judge and Jury only look at the evidence presented by the parties. In the Roman law procedure that is applied here, the judge attempts to establish the facts through enquiry. The parties bring the facts, but the judge can ask for additional information to support the enquiry. 

It is the judge’s job is to question witnesses, review documents and other evidence in order to find out what really happened. Only on that factual basis would he (and I am afraid it was inevitably a he), make his decision. T

Frederick goes one further in his desire to bring peace through state intervention. He determines that if a crime was committed, the judge would investigate, even if the injured party does not want a prosecution or can no longer ask for one. This state prosecution is new. Again, the compilers of the laws looked at what needed to be done to stop the intimidation of witnesses and victims and came up with a novel solution, a solution that you find today in many Roman Law based legal systems such as Germany and France.

If you add it all up, the constitutions provided a coherent system to suppress feuding. The ban on carrying weapons reduced the probability of feuds emerging, the system of appellate courts provided reassurance that the aggrieved party could find swift and predictable justice. If the conflict has broken out, the argument that “the other one has started it”, brings only partial relief. And yes, there are draconian punishments for anyone breaking the peace. But the latter have existed for 300 years threatening punishment both here and in the afterlife without much effect. This one worked.

There are more provisions in the constitutions of Melfi that feel extremely modern. Secular Divorce procedures were introduced, though only the man was allowed to ask for one. Weaker members of society were brought under the particular protection of the state, that includes nuns and widows but also Jews, Muslims and prostitutes. The punishment for rape of a prostitute was death. Rape and the difficulty to prove takes up a significant section in the Liber Augustalis. He cannot find a solution either, but at least allows circumstantial evidence as proof and puts a fine of four gold coins for anyone who does not come to the aid of a woman being raped.

It even included laws about the environment. Hemp and Flax can only be soaked in places 1 mile away from cities or castles, burials have to have a minimum depth and animal cadavers have to be deposed off a quarter mile from the district. What is remarkable about that is not so much the specific rules, but that there are royal rules about air and water quality at all. At the time the idea of the state ensuring the health of its citizens was again entirely novel.

Finally Frederick sets out the administrative structure of his kingdom. Above and on top of everything is he, the king. Then there are three great officials, the Chancellor, responsible for administration and documentation, the Lord Chief Justice in charge of the courts and the Treasurer in charge of collecting taxes, paying out funds and keeping the books. All three of them are salaried officials appointed upon merit. Beneath them the structure gets a bit murky as justices and governors have overlapping responsibilities in the provinces. But what a difference to the political structure in the empire where the imperial princes have roles based on inheritance and where there are simply no salaried bureacrats, except for the chancellor and his notaries. Where there is no tax income to pay for any institutions.

That being said, the state of Frederick II wasn’t completely detached from the medieval world. The opening paragraphs are dedicated to the persecution of heretics who were to be subjected to the harshest of punishments. Tax was arbitrary and collected by tax farmers who enriched themselves at the expense of the people.

And there is obviously no notion of citizenship of the people. The inhabitants of the kingdom are subjects whose freedoms can be restricted at will based on the necessities of the state. And that state is Frederick II. And what we do not know is how neat and tidy the system really was. Were there really justices in all the cities who diligently enquired into the circumstances of the cases? Did the cases progress smoothly to the appellate courts etc., etc., pp.

And there is the shadowy downside of the legitimisation of his powers. Frederick believed that without a firm hand, his kingdom would fall into chaos and civil war, something he had experienced painfully during his entire childhood. It was better to brutally enforce justice, or the will of the king which was the same thing, then letting things slip. And that was to apply even if it is cruel. He did wipe out the city of Sora, had its male population hanged and the women and children sold into slavery in the name of the necessities of the state. This notion of justice being blind and cruel applies not just to his subjects but even to his own family and closest friends.

The state of Frederick II was and is a near endless source of debate. Was Frederick really foreshadowing the renaissance, an absolutist ruler 400 years before Louis XIV, a modern autocrat or was he just resurrecting or prolonging the institutions of his Norman forebearers plus a set of fanciful ideas that were never implemented?

These debates moved to the forefront of the historical debate in the 1920s and 30s after the publication of Ernst Kantorowicz famous biography of Frederick II. I may have said this before, but the perception history of Frederick II is almost as interesting as the actual history. So we will do at least one episode on that when we come to the end of this season.

But next week we remain firmly in the 13th century. Frederick can keep the peace with the pope until 1239 when Hermann von Salza died and this vital communication link breaks. In the interim he tries to consolidate his reign. Sicily put on a stable footing, his gaze turns to Lombardy where a Second Lombard League had formed. And then there is the realm north of the Alps where his son Henry who he had made king of the romans at the age of 8 was now asserting his independence from a father he had not seen since childhood. I hope you will join us again.

Before I go, let me thank all of you who are supporting the show, in particular the Patrons who have kindly signed up on patreon.com/historyofthegermans. It is thanks to you this show does not have to do advertising for products you do not want to hear about. If Patreon isn’t for you, another way to help the show is sharing the podcast directly or boosting its recognition on social media. If you share, comment or retweet a post from the History of the Germans it is more likely to be seen by others, hence bringing in more listeners. My most active places are Twitter @germanshistory and my Facebook page History of the Germans Podcast. As always, all the links are in the show notes.    

Support the Show – Become a Patron

by on

Frederick II as a state builder in Sicily

This week we look in a bit more detail how Frederick II regained his beloved kingdom of Sicily. For 30 years after the death of the last Hauteville king in 1190 the institutions of that kingdom had been eroded, the crown estate squandered, and powerful local forces had been riding roughshod over the royal administration. Fredrick will bring this land back under his firm control. That is however not your usual return of the king story, because the way he does it is no longer typically medieval…..

Transcript

Hello and welcome to the History of the Germans: Episode 79 – Return to Sicily

I have to start with an apology. Last week there was no episode even though there should have been one. What happened is quite simple – I was not happy with the what I had produced. And that was not just a problem with the new Episode I was recording but also the one before, Episode 78.  It simply wasn’t doing justice to the story. The Crusade of Frederick II and the creation of Frederick’s kingdom in Sicily are amongst the events in medieval history that I had really, really wanted to tell and tell them well. So I went back to the drawing board, rewrote the script for the last and this episode and I hope this is now more up to scratch. .

This week we look in a bit more detail how Frederick II regained his beloved kingdom of Sicily. For 30 years after the death of the last Hauteville king in 1190 the institutions of that kingdom had been eroded, the crown estate squandered, and powerful local forces had been riding roughshod over the royal administration. Fredrick will bring this land back under his firm control. That is however not your usual return of the king story, because the way he does it is no longer typically medieval…..

Before we start just a reminder. The History of the Germans Podcast is advertising free thanks to the generous support from patrons. And you can become a patron too and enjoy exclusive bonus episodes and other privileges from the price of a latte per month. All you have to do is sign up at patreon.com/historyofthegermans or on my website historyofthegermans.com. You find all the links in the show notes. And thanks a lot to Kevin, Don and Eric who have already signed up.

Support the Show – Become a Patron

Last time we left Frederick II leaving the Holy Land where he had gained Jerusalem for Christendom only to be pelted with manure and hounded out of town by the patriarch of Jerusalem..

Today, we need to wind the clock back to 1220 and the days after Frederick II had been crowned emperor by pope Honorius III in Rome. As we heard before, Frederick almost instantly ignored all the concessions he had made to the pope in the run-up first to the coronation as king of the Romans and then the coronation as emperor. The most significant of these concessions was his promise not to rule Sicily and the empire simultaneously thereby encircling the Papal states.

And it is also the concession he is most thoroughly disregarding. Frederick is first and foremost a Sicilian and giving up his home and his inheritance is inconceivable. Plus, the Sicilian crown could be incredibly valuable, though at this point, in the winter of 1220, it was nothing but.

His ancestors, the Norman kings, in particular Frederick’s grandfather, King Roger II had created one of the richest and most tightly run states in 12th century Europe. On the island of Sicily and in the former Byzantine provinces of Puglia and Calabria, the Normans were able to continue with the institutions that dated back to ancient Rome. The population was accustomed to paying taxes. And I guess by now you know my view on taxes; a political entity that collects taxes can establish a bureaucracy staffed with officials, keep sizeable armies and fleets in the field and is no longer dependent upon its vassals. Simply speaking it can create a state as opposed to a medieval kingdom that is a loose confederation built on ritual and personal relationships.

But most of these institutions had collapsed in the 30 years after the death of the last of the Norman kings, William II. In the wars between Tancred and Henry VI and later during the minority of Frederick, local barons as well as German Ministeriales occupied the vast crown estates whilst the maritime republics of Genoa and Pisa monopolised the trade in grain and other foodstuff. The Muslim population in the centre of the island asserted itself, set up emirates independent of the crown and forged alliances with their brethren in North Africa and southern Spain. Royal authority, such as it was rested initially in the hands of Frederick’s wife, Constance of Aragon and then with the chancellor William of Pagliara, a wily politician with a keen eye on his own purse.

When Frederick returns to his homeland in 1220, he comes with a fully formed plan how to regain control. The first step was to get the crown lands back. And for that he goes back to a legal model his other grandfather, Frederick Barbarossa had once deployed in Italy, but with a twist.

On December 20th, 1220, Frederick calls the barons of Southern Italy to an assembly at Capua. There he proclaims his Law of Privileges. This law states that everyone who currently occupies former royal lands is to come to the chancery and request a re-issue of the charter that granted him possession in the first place. That automatically wipes out all of those occupants who never got a piece of paper granting them the land, very similar to what Barbarossa did with his laws of Roncaglia – Episode 55 if you want to check back.

But Frederick II goes not just one, but two steps further. Step one is that even if a baron shows up with a privilege issued after 1190, it is at the emperor’s discretion whether or not the baron can keep it. This discretion is guided by the necessities of the state, which, unsurprisingly in the majority of cases suggested the lands and rights should be given back. And finally, those few that were allowed to keep their lands did receive them with the caveat that the emperor could at any time demand them back. Alongside the law of privileges came the rule that no vassal of the king could build or hold a castle, neither on crown land nor on his own. All castles are to be handed over immediately or destroyed.

That sounds great in theory. But as we have seen with Laws of Roncaglia, an emperor can announce all sorts of far-reaching laws, enforcing them is a entirely different kettle of fish. And that is where Frederick goes a completely different path to his grandfather.

Barbarossa had managed the empire by supporting the largest of his magnates, Henry the Lion against the smaller princes. Frederick turns this policy on its head. He uses the smaller barons to tackle the largest one. Once Mr Big is removed the focus shifts to the second largest and so on and so on until the last of the barons is broken. In 1220 the most powerful of the Southern Italian barons was the count of Molise. Against him he fielded Thomas of Aquino, the father of the great scholastic thinker, Roger of Aquila, Jacob of San Severino and other lesser Barons.  By spring 1221 the count of Molise was reduced to his last stronghold where he surrendered two years later. In the settlement he had to hand back all the crown lands and go into exile. However, he was allowed to keep his personal property. A further two years later, he was summoned to court for some infringement to the settlement, failed to appear and subsequently the remaining Molise property was confiscated and ended in Fredericks hands. Frederick did not even have to fight these campaigns in person. He left this to the barons who, blinded by greed, were all too happy to oblige.

Once the campaign against the larger barons was over these lesser barons, Roger of Aquila, Jacob of San Severino and others were called to fight the next war, this time against the Saracens on the island of Sicily. When they arrived late, or with insufficient troops, Frederick had them tried for treason, convicted and their lands confiscated. Their sentence was commuted to exile, and they joined their former foe, the count of Molise in Rome.  Now their land fell to the crown too.

The push to return all castles into royal hands also went surprisingly smoothly. Usually it was enough for two royal officials to come to the castle gate, point out that their neighbours would be happy to sack his castle, rape his wife and murder his children upon royal orders if he did not hand it over and hey presto the castle was in royal hands. Once enough castles were acquired and most of the local barons deprived of their defensive walls, all the officials had to do was point at the imperial garrisons nearby and the last of the private fortifications fell.

Many of the once immensely powerful German Ministeriales who had conspired with Otto IV caved almost instantly. The unfortunately named Diepold von Schweinspeunt had once been the effective ruler of the kingdom but found himself now imprisoned in his own castle until he had handed over all his vast territories. Only then was he allowed to join the Teutonic Knights, never to be heard of again.

Within just months Frederick was in possession of a whole string of castles in the North of his kingdom and this network grew and grew over the next decades. He built allegedly as many as 200 castles and towers, of which 37 are still in existence.

Frederick’s citadels in their majority lack any of the picturesque that you associate with medieval castles. They are blocky, designed to hold a garrison of soldiers in wartime. There is no space here for a seigneur and his family to live and entertain guests. The castle is a fortress of the state, meant to defend the realm against enemies from without or from within. They were forts held by a small detachment during peacetime and to be reinforced by the local lords and their retinue in wartime. They could therefore be built like a Roman castrum, based on a single uniform ground plan with slight variations – representing the latest in simplicity, utility and rectangularity. A stone square or rectangle with a tower at each corner. This is what most of his castles look like. However his most famous castle, the Castel del Monte looks entirely different. We will talk about it at a later stage.

But let us get back to Frederick’s reconquest of his kingdom. In 1221 the subjugation of the barons on the mainland was running on its own momentum so that he could set off for the island of Sicily itself. The island was structurally different from the mainland in as much as feudal lords had historically been less powerful. The challenges here were the maritime republics of Genoa and Pisa on the one hand and the Muslim population on the other.

The maritime republics were interested in two things. The first was to have staging posts for the extremely lucrative crusader trade. Ship travel on galleys was an unmitigated nightmare. The ships were rammed full with people, passengers as well as rowers and sailors. A later traveller Konrad Grunenberg describes the scene below decks. People got seasick or picked up other diseases that made it impossible for them to reach or empty their chamber pots. The whole floor was covered in human waste, was crawling with fleas, lice, gnats and worms. Moreover, the galleys also transported animals, horses for the knights and sheep, goats, calves, pigs etc as food, all making noises and adding to the ever-present dirt and rodent infestation. That meant for passengers to survive the ordeal they needed to go ashore at regular intervals, breathe fresh air, clean up and sleep. To make that possible and to virtual and repair their ships Genoa and Pisa needed safe harbours along the Mediterranean coasts, in particular in the Kingdom of Sicily.

The other thing they cared about was the grain trade. Ever since ancient Rome, Sicily was one of the breadbaskets of the Mediterranean. By 1220 the Pisans and Genoese had established an oligopoly for the transport of grain, paying minimal amounts to Sicilian farmers and selling the goods at high prices in Rome, Florence or Milan.

 When we think about these merchants from Venice, Genoa or Pisa, we see them depicted in their finery, kneeling before a beautifully painted cross or admiring the Madonna. In their daily life, a 13th century Genoese merchant was more corsair than confrere. Their vessels were good for both transport and war and they thought nothing of attacking competitor’s ships or, if there were enough of them, unsuspecting cities. That is what happened to Syracuse. A Genoese merchant-corsair, Alaman da Costa had captured a Pisan ship laden with weapons. When he met up with other Genoese in Crete, they decided to put these to good use. The sailed on to Malta, convinced the Genoese commander of the harbour to lend seven war galleys and made themselves masters of the ancient Greek colony of Syracuse.

Frederick could not leave that standing, even though he did feel a lot of gratitude towards the Genoese who had helped him to get to Germany and his destiny in 1212. Frederick drove the Genoese out of Syracuse and also recalled many of their privileges under the laws of Capua.

But he went a lot further. He passed regulations that forbade foreigners to have preferential treatment on the island, in particular as tax and dues are concerned. That diminished their trading profits because it created a level playing field with the locals.

But the final blow to their dominance came when Frederick decided to rebuild the Sicilian fleet. Ever since Robert Guiscard the Hautevilles had been a sizeable maritime power, sometimes stronger even than Venice. For Sicily and the crown of Sicily to prosper, the kingdom needed a fleet. A fleet consists of ships and building and operating ships is skilled work and takes time. Frederick needed a fleet now. He got there by hook and by crook. He confiscated Genoese and Pisan ships first as prizes in the military conflict, but later by offering to buy them, or else. He hired sailors and ships officers from the Italian cities. His admirals were often Genoese, like the famous Henry of Malta who had been a pirate like Alaman da Costa but could be bought into imperial service. With time shipbuilding in the kingdom sped up so that by 1225 the emperor could send a fleet of fifty warships and a hundred transport vessels to Damietta. By 1228 he had enough to ship 3000 knights and their retinue to the Holy Land.

This is the first time a medieval emperor had a fleet. Otto III had an admiral but not a single ship. Barbarossa was allegedly defeated in a sea battle by Venice according to the great fresco of Spinello Aretino in the Palazzo Pubblico in Siena, but that did not happen, because Barbarossa did not have any ships. Frederick II is the first, and the last medieval emperor to fly the imperial standard from one of his own vessels. The next one will be Charles V in the 16th century. Not that Germany lacks maritime tradition, not at all. It is just that the emperors had no hold on the famous Hanseatic fleets.

Having merchants ships and war galleys to protect them, Frederick could enter the grain trade himself, buying up grain in Sicily and selling it at a major profit In Northern Italy, Spain and Provence, thereby squeezing out the Pisans and Genoese.  

Frederick embarked on all sorts of mercantilist economic policies that would much later be employed by Louis XiV’s minister Colbert. Precious metal exports were banned. The manufacture and export of luxury goods encouraged. Silver coins introduced to facilitate trade that until then had relied on heavy Byzantine cold coins. In one year he banned all export of grain to bankrupt the foreign traders, cancel their remaining privileges and take over their facilities, creating state monopolies.

And – you guessed it, taxes were re-introduced, still crude based on the total amount the emperor specified as needed and allocated to subjects based on some arbitrary measure. Like Louis XIV, Frederick would leave the tax collection to private individuals, a sure way to make taxes harder and even more unfair.

But remember we are in the 1220s and in France during the Ancien Regime 500 years later tax farmers were squeezing the last out of the population.

With the barons subdued, tax income being raised and economic policies pursued, the government no longer relies on vassals and their fiefs to administrate the realm. Frederick’s kingdom is run by officiales, people who serve because of their skills not because their father had the same job. They serve for exactly as long or as short and in whatever capacity Frederick orders. It is almost the diametrically opposite of the Holy Roman Empire where the archbishop of Mainz is by convention always the imperial arch chancellor. The chancellor of the Kingdom of Sicily is whoever Frederick appoints.

That leaves the question, where do these officiales, these medieval civil servants come from? Bologna, the great law faculty once endowed with special rights by Barbarossa would be the natural source. But these jurists are scarce, and they have options. Four of the last 6 popes had been jurists trained in Bologna. What would you like to become, pope or civil servant in the imperial chancery? It is a no-brainer. And in case you disagree due to the obvious downsides of becoming pope remember that many of the medieval popes had not taken holy rites before ascending the papal throne.  It really is a no-brainer.

To overcome this shortfall Frederick founds the university of Naples, the first secular, state sponsored and state-maintained university in the world. The existing universities at the time, Paris, Bologna, Oxford, Cambridge, Salerno have emerged organically. A group of scholars and their students would form a union, a “Universitas” and ask for recognition from an emperor, king or pope. They would receive a charter that grants  special legal status and regulate the operation of the university.

Naples is different. Frederick founds it as a branch of the state that provides him with officialis. It is a secular institution. The church has no control over it. It has a monopoly for higher education in law in Sicily. That means his subjects are banned from going to any other university. He offers generous support to foreign students, and he pays the professor, not the students. It is, like most things in Frederick’s Sicily, in his control and serves his purposes. Very different to many medieval institutions that are created by and for its members.

Now we get to the last set of opponents to the emperor, the Muslim population on the island. They had come as conquerors in the 9th century and ruled the place for nearly 200 years. They had inflicted a terrible defeat on emperor Otto II in the battle of Capo Colonna in 972. It had taken the Normans decades to conquer the island but once they had, they did not have either manpower nor inclination to force them to convert. In particular under Roger II the Muslim population even flourished. The Normans had taken over the machine of government, but the  Muslim bureaucrats and officers remained. The Saracen guard of Roger II was a legendary force, entirely immune to excommunications and other papal weapons. Muslim craftsmen worked on the great churches of Palermo and you find Arabic script all over the output of the great manufactures of Palermo, including on the imperial coronation mantle.

One of the reasons nobody forced conversion was that Muslims and Jews were paying a special tax in exchange for being allowed to maintain their religion. That is pretty much the same the Muslim rulers did with the Christian population when hey conquered Egypt, North Africa and Syria.

By 1220 this rather idyllic coexistence had gone quite comprehensively sour. In 1190 Christians massacred their Muslims neighbours in Palermo. The survivors either converted or fled into the mountains. A state within the state sprang up around mountain fastness. The original population mixed with the refugees from Palermo and newly arrived North Africans. Their base was in the centre and south of the Island near Agrigento and in the Valle di Noto.

During Fredricks minority the Saracens were hostile to the king, largely because they feared the influence of pope Innocent III who had no time for coexistence between Muslims and Christians.  During that time their raids stretched sometimes as far north as Monreale just outside Palermo.

In 1222 when war breaks out between Frederick and the former rulers of the island. The concern now is less about papal influence and religious persecution. Frederick does not have the slightest bit of religious fervour in his bones. He famously will only erect one church in his entire life despite an otherwise massive building programme. His faith, if he has one, is the belief in the necessities of the state..

Hence the conflict is political not religious. Frederick cannot tolerate the existence of a political entity that is not obedient to him – full stop.

The war goes on for almost a decade. As Frederick’s army take the cities and larger villages, the Muslim forces retreat into the mountainous hinterland. This is territory even the modern Italian state struggles to control.

What makes this one of the most famous stories in medieval European history is how Frederick resolves the impasse. There was no chance they would ever give up fighting as long as they stayed in the hills and mountains of central Sicily. So he has them shipped them off to the plains of Puglia. He makes no difference between combatants and the general Muslim population. All are rounded up and put on ships to go across the the Mainland. A near abandoned ancient Roman military colony, Lucera was chosen to house them. How many were moved is uncertain. Somewhere between 15,000 and 60,000 might have been brought across. In Lucera they were allowed to live as their religion and custom demanded. They were allowed to build mosques and minarets. They could elect their own leadership and were given the surrounding lands to cultivate.

In Lucera there was no chance for them to resume the guerrilla war. They were surrounded in all directions by Christian communities that even if not openly hostile were unlikely to help them. The Saracens quickly realised that the only guarantor of their survival in this environment was the emperor himself, the one they had fought and the one who had forced them here. To protect themselves they became their enemy’s closest allies. Frederick allowed them to arm themselves and train for war. In  return he received what no western monarch could command, a standing army. Yes, the templars and knights of St. John too were standing armies, but they weren’t loyal to the king of Jerusalem. Frederick was the only king who could snap his fingers and an army would appear by his side, an army feared throughout the western world. An army that would happily fight the pope and mother church itself.

The existence of Lucera, the deal Frederick made with sultan Al Kamil over Jerusalem and rumours he had connections to the Order of the Assassins all added up to a picture of man in thrall of the Followers of mohammed. The emperor, the sword of Christendom a closet Muselman? And even if not, was he a good Christian when he is doing all this? Pope Gregory IX and his successors will use this narrative when the struggle between emperor and pope is hurtling to its climax.

Next week we will pick up the narrative in 1229. Frederick had liberated Jerusalem but is still excommunicated. Pope Gregory IX has put a mercenary army in the field to conquer Sicily for the church. At the same time things are stirring in Germany where Frederick’s oldest son, Henry reigns as king. Duke Ludwig of Bavaria once guardian of the young king is encouraged by the pope to contest the crown. Will Fredrick’s empire hold together against papal wrath? I hope you will join us again.

Before I go, let me thank all of you who are supporting the show, in particular the Patrons who have kindly signed up on patreon.com/historyofthegermans. It is thanks to you this show does not have to do advertising for matrasses or as I recently heard energy supplements and pension plans. If Patreon isn’t for you, another way to help the show is sharing the podcast directly or boosting its recognition on social media. If you share, comment or retweet a post from the History of the Germans it is more likely to be seen by others, hence bringing in more listeners. My most active places are Twitter @germanshistory and my Facebook page History of the Germans Podcast. As always, all the links are in the show notes.   

Support the Show – Become a Patron