Friedrich II

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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.

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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.    

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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.

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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.   

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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.

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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.    

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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.

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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.   

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The Sixth Crusade that brings Jerusalem back

This is a story I was looking forward to telling for quite some time. It has everything – mindless fighting, stubbornness, and fake armies as well as elaborate diplomacy, cultural awareness and stunning success. It is the story of the crusade of Frederick II, that has no parallel, for one because Frederick did undertake it whilst excommunicated by the pope and further, because he brought Jerusalem back under Christian control for one last time, without a shot being fired. The latter had not been achieved since the First Crusade and will not happen again before modern times.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to the History of the Germans: Episode 78 – A Crusade without Crusaders

This is the second recording of this episode. I don’t do that very often, but this time I had to. The previous version sounded incredibly rushed and there was a mistake in it. I kept saying the year 1217 when I meant 1227. So I did it all again. If you have listened to the previous version and did not abandon the podcast, thank you. If you gave up halfway through this version will be better. So without further ado – here we go.

This is a story I was looking forward to telling for quite some time. It has everything – mindless fighting, stubbornness, and fake armies as well as elaborate diplomacy, cultural awareness and stunning success. It is the story of the crusade of Frederick II, that has no parallel, for one because Frederick did undertake it whilst excommunicated by the pope and further, because he brought Jerusalem back under Christian control for one last time, without a shot being fired. The latter had not been achieved since the First Crusade and will not happen again before modern times.

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 Christoph, Claire and Jaume who have already signed up.

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We left off last episode with Frederick II’s magnificent coronation in Rome. This was the last step in a string of rituals that established his legitimacy as emperor. The price he had to pay for all this had however been steep. He had to

  • recognise the territorial gains the papacy had made in central Italy,
  • relinquish control of the imperial church,
  • vow to go on crusade and finally
  • promise not to seek a union between the empire and the kingdom of Sicily.

Given these heavy commitment Frederick does what his father and grandfather had done once they had been crowned by the pope, he instantly forgot all about them.

As for the union between Sicily and the empire, he had sort of finagled this already. He had made his son Henry first king of Sicily as had been requested by Innocent III.  And in step 2 he had then made the same child king of the Romans on the grounds that he was about to set off on crusade and the imperial princes had urged him to organise his succession. With that Henry was both king of Sicily and elected Holy Roman Emperor. But Henry being just 8 years-old, the de facto ruler of both Sicily and the Empire was Frederick II, and the pope could do nothing about that.

Frederick left the city of Rome 3 days after his coronation to go home. And home was the kingdom of Sicily. It was the kingdom of Sicily he really cared about. The imperial crown was something he took on, more to protect his beloved south than for any great ambition to exercise power north of the Alps. Nothing makes that clearer than the way he organised the administration of his domains. He himself would reside in Southern Italy for almost all of his remaining reign. He will journey north only when his presence there becomes absolutely mandatory. In total he will spend just 2 of his remaining 30 years on the throne in Germany. Germany he leaves for his son Henry  to rule, first under a regency council and once he has grown up, in his own right as king of the Romans.

Fredericks next few years from 1220 to 1228 are taken up by further tightening his hold over Southern Italy. You may remember that when he left in 1212 his position had been extremely precarious. Various factions had been fighting for domination of the kingdom. There were the German Ministeriales his father had brought over, then what remained of the former royal family, the descendants of the usurper Tancred plus the barons of Puglia, the cities of Pisa and Genoa, the Muslim inhabitants of the island and the chancellor Walter of Pagliara – all of them plotting and fighting.

It is nothing short of a miracle that when Frederick comes back in 1220 that there is a kingdom left there at all.  He can even call a royal assembly and pass a number of laws designed to rebuild royal power and reverse the Encastellation of his dominion.

How is that possible? I could not find much detail about what happened in the kingdom during the 8 years he was away in Germany. All we are told is that Frederick had put his queen, Constance of Aragon in charge as regent for his son. She was supposed to hold things together, a task he, as the legitimate heir to the throne had struggled with ever since he had been declared of age. Whatever Constance did, it must have been successful since the kingdom is in reasonable order, or at least had not risen up and chosen a new ruler. It seems to me that Constance of Aragon was a much more astute politician and administrator than sources give her credit for. Another one of those female medieval protagonists worth of further investigation.

Whether she was a competent ruler or not, she is unlikely to have enjoyed married life very much. Frederick II is the first of the medieval German emperors with a voracious sexual appetite. During their marriage he fathered six children with 4 different women, some daughters of aristocrats in Germany or Italy, others with less exalted lineage. How much is true of the stories that he maintained two fully equipped harems in his main residences and a mobile one that followed him on his journeys remains unclear. Papal propaganda has a habit of ascribing the seven deadly sins to emperors who fall foul of the church. In case of Frederick the accusations were Lust, Sloth and Pride. Ecclesiastical writers painting a picture of him as the Sultan of Lucera, living like an eastern potentate in a palace dripping with gold, surrounded by dancing girls and eunuchs.

Even if that was not the case, Constance could not count on the constancy of her husband. In 1222 she died and is buried in Palermo cathedral in a Roman marble sarcophagus once made for a man. The inscription says: Queen of Sicily was I, Constance, Wife and empress, now here I lie and am Frederick forever yours. Her treatment by Frederick sounds callous but is nothing compared to her successors in the marital bed.

In the 1220s Fredrick’s entire focus was on rebuilding the political institutions of his kingdom of Sicily. A kingdom that under his grandfather was famously tightly managed. We will spend most of the next episode discussing this in detail. What matters for today’s story is that lroblems in southern Italy left Frederick with little or no capacity to fulfil his pledge to go on crusade.

The prioritisation of domestic matters rubbed pope Honorius III up the wrong way. As I mentioned before, Pope Honorius III was a much more conciliatory man than his predecessor Innocent III. But there was one thing he really, really cared about, and that was the recovery of Jerusalem. And Frederick delaying and delaying his departure on crusade was not aiding that objective.

Let us take a quick look at where things stand in the Holy Land by 1217. Following the Third Crusade, which is the one with Barbarossa, Richard Lionheart and Philippe Auguste, the kingdom of Jerusalem had recovered to the point that it did hold a string of cities and fortifications along the coast of Palestine, Lebanon and Syria. The de facto capital was Akkon, modern day Acre just north of Haifa.

After the Third crusade not much progress was made. The 4th crusade was a dud as far as Jerusalem was concerned. Instead of aiding the beleaguered kingdom of Outre-Mer the crusaders had sacked Constantinople on behalf of their Venetian paymasters. That – if anything – made things worse since  the Byzantine empire fragmented into multiple smaller states, some like Constantinople and parts of Greece held by Latin crusaders and others by former Byzantine generals. None of them able to hold back the Seldjuk Turks.

Meanwhile the great Near eastern leader Saladin had consolidated his position. His empire now stretched from Eastern Turkey through Syria and Jordan to Egypt as well as along both shores of the Red Sea down to Yemen.

Simply put, the thin line of crusader cities was surrounded on all sides by one of the most powerful Muslim states ever created. A state that wants to drive them back into the sea at the first opportunity.

As a consequence, the Kingdom of Jerusalem was on a near permanent war footing. Everything was geared up to fight the next Muslim army that would come across the hill. The Knights Hospitallers and the Templars were the closest thing to a standing army the Middle Ages had produced. The military orders were garrisoned in some of  the largest military fortifications of the 13th century. Have a look at the Krak des Chevaliers in Syria which at its height held a force of 2000 knights and attendants. They were an important and independent voice at court since they were directly responsible to the pope, not the king. Then there are the great barons of the kingdom who had come with the First crusade. They owned large estates and strong castles manned by an ever-changing guard of crusaders from back home.  These soldiers would come down to Outre-Mer usually for a limited time period, a sort of chivalric gap year helping out the locals. The key difference was that they did not build schools for the locals but focused on burning down madrasas.

All that had made a lot easier since transport links between the west and Outre Mer had improved significantly. The maritime republics of Venice, Genoa and Pisa had established staging posts along the route to Akkon where ships could be repaired and victualed. Venice in particular had acquired a string of safe harbours along the Dalmatian coast and the Peloponnese as well as landing rights in Rhodes and Cyprus. Their galleys would travel back and forth, transporting crusaders east and returning with the luxury goods from Persia, India and China. The latter they would pick up not in Akkon, but in Alexandria where they had a factory, courtesy of that enemy of the crusaders, Saladin. Venetian merchants become immensely rich in the process.

The kingdom was held together by its titular king, John of Brienne, husband to Maria of Montferrat. John was a minor nobleman from Champagne and a respected military leader. The latter is why the magnates of the kingdom of Jerusalem had asked him to come and marry their queen. It was only through this marriage that he became king of Jerusalem. Formally he ruled only on behalf of first his wife and once she had died on behalf of his daughter, Isabella of Brienne.

This all sounds as if it was a well-oiled machine where new knights would arrive on a conveyer belt from the west, would be put to good use and then replaced with the next set of recruits. Nothing could be further from the truth. The supply of new recruits was extremely volatile. Often times the reinforcements would dwindle down to a mere trickle as conflicts like the civil war between the Welf and the Hohenstaufen or the incessant Anglo-French wars precluded many knights to undertake the journey. At other times, too many would show up, usually led by some mighty king or duke or prince with zero knowledge of the political, military and geographic conditions, keen on one glorious dash and a quick boat home. And the worst of all cases, several of these guys come at the same time and spend most of their efforts at outdoing and insulting each other.

With all that in mind Innocent III had called for a fifth crusade in 1216. Innocent III was convinced that as the true emperor of Christendom he had to lead the crusade in person. Not a completely stupid idea since he was at this point recognised as the superior overlord of all the princes in Europe. Even our Frederick called himself at that time “king by the grace of god and the will of the pope”. With Innocent in the lead there was no risk the Venetians would again turn the crusaders into their private mercenary army.

But the great papal-led crusade never happened because Innocent III died unexpectedly just 55 years-old in 1216. His successor Honorius III was much too old to undertake such a dangerous journey himself.

Hence the fifth crusade ended up with a more familiar setup. King Andrew of Hungary and duke Leopold of Austria were the military leaders at the outset. Honorius dispatched a papal legate as his representative who was to ensure the crusade stayed on the straight and narrow, laser focused on recapturing Jerusalem. Hmmm..

The fifth crusade did try a novel approach to the recapture of Jerusalem. Instead of sending the army straight to besiege the ultimate target, Jerusalem, they decided to attack Egypt.

That was after all not as daft as it sounds. Egypt was the jewel in the crown of the empire the great Saladin had built. Its capital, Cairo was en-route to half a million inhabitants becoming the largest city west of China. Cairo had taken over the role of Constantinople as the great entrepôt between east and west. Goods came up the Red Sea or down via the Silk Road and through Syria to the city of a thousand minarets. From there they would be shipped to a harbour on the Mediterranean to be distributed to Europe and North Africa.

Alexandria had been the great port for exports from Egypt in antiquity. In the 13th century this had changed to a degree. Alexandria was not on the Nile, meaning goods needed to be brought there by road. River transport tended to be safer which meant harbours on the Nile itself began to overtake Alexandria. In 1217 the most important of those was Damietta. Damietta was positioned on the northernmost branch of the Nile and had grown to be a large and well defended city surrounded by strong walls and towers.

The crusaders plan was to take Damietta, choke off the source of Cairo’s and hence the source of Ayyubid wealth and power. This pressure may just get them to a point where the successor of Saladin, Sultan al Kamil would be forced to hand over Jerusalem and all the Holy sites, and maybe some trading privileges to the poor Venetians who had to trade through Alexandria.

And against all the odds, the crusaders did almost achieve their goal. Damietta fell after a 2-year-long campaign that saw the usual combination of internal squabbling, pointless heroism and military ingenuity. When Damietta finally falls, it was almost empty except for the dead and the ill. Disease and dwindling supplies had forced Sultan Al Kamil to take his army home

Having lost the key to the global East-West trade meant Sultan Al-Kamil is ready to negotiate. The Ayyubid is prepared to hand over almost all the crusaders could ask for. The city of Jerusalem as well as the holy sites of Bethlehem and Nazareth. The right to rebuild the defensive walls around Jerusalem and as negotiations drag on, even more territories across Palestine until it encompasses almost all of the old kingdom of Jerusalem.

For any rational observer this should be the end of the crusade. The main military objectives are achieved, and they can enter Jerusalem as liberators. For king John of Brienne and the barons of the kingdom of Jerusalem that is a no-brainer. Let’s take the deal and go home.

But there is a snag. The sultan does not want to and probably cannot hand over key castles that protect the pilgrim route to the Al Aqsa Mosque and the Temple Mount as well as the mosque itself. It is after all the place where Mohammed had ascended to heaven, the third most holy place for all Muslims.

That is not good enough for the hardliners, in particular not for the papal legate, you know the one who is supposedly laser focused on recapturing Jerusalem. The whole of the old kingdom of Jerusalem is what he wants, including the castles and the mosque. The templars and Hospitallers being knightly orders reporting directly to the pope side with the papal legate. The Templar’s have particular interest here as they are named after the Temple of Salomon and had their headquarters there.

Negotiations go back and forth for another 2 years whilst the crusader army remains inside the destroyed city of Damietta. In 1221 Al Kamil ups his offer and throws in more land and holy sites. Again, the legate refuses.

Sultan Al Kamil meanwhile is busy implementing his plan B, should negotiations fail. He is gathers troops and builds defensive positions along the Nile.

The crusaders during that time are almost completely inactive. Their camp is riven with discord. The papal legate is pushing for further military action whilst the opposition does not want to jeopardise the deal that is on the table. Arguments go back and forth, and ever more unusual plans are made to break the gridlock.

In September 1219 Saint Francis of Assisi arrives in Damietta. He thinks he can bring peace by converting Sultan Al Kamil to the true faith. Francis and his followers head out to the camp of the sultan and begin preaching. The experienced soldiers advise against it and when Saint Francis insists, prepare themselves to carry back the bones of a martyr. But, for some reason the sultan believes these unwashed men in beggars’ clothing are emissaries of the crusaders.

Saint Francis is brought before the defender of the holy sites of Mekka and Medina and begins preaching, I guess in either in Latin or Italian. Sultan Al Kamil treated him with respect, lets him finish his sermon and had him led back safely to the crusader camp. Contrary to legend, Sultan al Kamil did not convert, and the military situation remained unchanged.

Finally news arrive that they had all been secretly hoping for. The son of the Prester John, ruler of a mighty Christian kingdom in the east was on his way with a vast army. If we attack Cairo from the west and Prester John from the east, we can create a pincer movement that will wipe the Saracens from the face of the earth. Let us go for glory, for Christ and for the plunder of the richest of Islamic cities.

On July 4th 1221 after a 3-day fast to prepare themselves, the crusader army sets off along the Nile for Cairo, the fabled citadel of Saladin where they still hold the captured shards of the Holy Cross. The road crosses several canals and reservoirs that criss-cross the delta. The Nile was at its crest which allowed the Muslim armies to bring ships up these canals in the crusader’s rear.

Cut off from their supply lines the Christian army tried to move forward but faced resistance from the forts Sultan Al Kamil had built. Being stuck with no way going forward or back they make camp. In the night the Sultan’s soldiers opened the sluices, and the Nile water simply drowned the crusader camp in mud. With horses and men stuck in Nile sludge, no battle needs to be fought; the crusader army capitulated.

Prester John and his mighty army did not come to bail them out, because prester John does not exist. He is a fable, not a real man.

The other one who had not come to their aid was the emperor, Frederick II. Since the crusade had begun, pope Honorius urged Frederick in ever more desperate letters to make good on his crusading pledge and join the army at Damietta. Frederick was however still tied up in his reorganisation of the kingdom of Sicily and could not or would not leave.

He did however send his admiral, Henry of Malta and his chancellor, Walter of Pagliaria with a sizeable troop contingent to Damietta. These troops arrived after the army had already set off on their fateful journey to Cairo.

When news came of the catastrophic defeat, the new leadership in Damietta considered their options. Damietta was still a strong defensible position and now newly garrisoned, so it could hold out for a while. But what then? Will there be more enthusiastic campaigners come to Damietta after the tale of incompetence and pig-headedness has spread across Europe. Probably not.

So they offered a treaty to the Sultan. They would leave Damietta in exchange for the fragments of the Holy Cross Saladin had captured at the Battle of Hattin. This time it is the sultan who is stubborn. Instead of digging up some old bits of wood and let the crusaders go home with their heads held up at least a little bit higher, he just says. Apologies, I could not find these old relics you care for so much. May have ended up on a skip, sorry no can do.

And with that the surviving crusaders leave empty handed. Two weeks later Sultan Al Kamil re-enters Damietta. The fifth crusade is over.

As is customary, the pope blamed the failure of the expedition not on the stubbornness and credulity of his legate, but on the hesitancy of Frederick II. If only Frederick had come with a large army as he had promised, Cairo could now be ours. He did not explain how imperial horses could be able to charge Egyptian position over knee deep Nile mud.

As a neglectful crusader blamed for the failure of the great expedition, Frederick was up for excommunication. And that is before all his other misdemeanours such as his personal rule of Sicily in violation of all sorts of golden bulls and solemn oaths.

The reason he for now escapes his punishment is down to the diplomatic skills of a man who will be one of Frederick’s most important advisers, a man who also stands at the beginnings of the state of Prussia, Hermann von Salza, Fourth Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights.

Hermann von Salza born around 1165, came from a family of Ministeriales in the service of the Landgraves of Thuringia. His early years are as so often undocumented. But it seems he had joined the order of the Teutonic knights shortly after its founding.

The Teutonic knights were the youngest of the great military orders. The order had been founded in 1190, so after the fall of Jerusalem, as a field hospital during the siege of Akkon. It took the name of the “German House of St. Mary in Jerusalem” in the hope that one day they would re-open the old hospital for German pilgrims in Jerusalem that had been there since before the First Crusade. Its founders weren’t knights or princes but burghers of the trading cities of Bremen and Lubeck.

It did not take long for the community to transition from providers of medical care to military order. Already by 1193 the German knights were put in charge of part of the defences of Akkon.

The Teutonic knights filled a gap in the crusader military. The Templars were dominated by French knights whilst the Hospitallers mainly took English and Italian nobles. The Germans had been latecomers to the crusader movement as they had so often been detained by conflicts at home. And so they lacked a natural home amongst the military orders in the Holy Land.

To bring these guys in without interfering with the recruitment ground of the established organisations, the statutes of the order contain an unusual requirement:   its members had to come exclusively from German lands. Hence they were known as the German or Teutonic Knights.

The new order grew fast and enjoyed support from both papal and imperial sponsors. But the real boost came when it elected Hermann von Salza as its fourth Grand Master.

The order had been involved in the crusades of Barbarossa and Henry VI and was hence broadly supportive of the Hohenstaufen cause. But when the Fredrick came up to Germany in 1212 and in particular after the battle of Bouvines, the Grand Master and the emperor struck up a close friendship that made the two institutions almost inseparable. There will be a separate season on the Teutonic Knights and the Hanseatic League coming up after this one where we will go into much more detail. But for now it is enough to understand that Frederick II and the Teutonic knights are in a symbiotic relationship. Frederick gives them material wealth and helps them recruit young noblemen to their cause. In return the knights support him in Germany, help organise his crusade and maintain communications lines with the papacy. The latter is most crucial. Fredrick’s father, Henry VI had struggled for years with popes who would simply not answer his letters.

Hermann von Salza enjoyed both the trust of Fredrick II and that of Pope Honorius III. Pope and Grand Master shared the passion for the recovery of the holy sites. During the Damietta campaign Hermann von Salza had assured his Holiness again and again that Frederick would set off very soon.

Salza bridged not just imperial and papal positions but also east and west. He was involved in the siege of Damietta and the subsequent lost battle whilst simultaneously leading the negotiations between Frederick and the pope over his coronation in 1220 and then over his dispensation from the charge of criminal negligence in 1222.

Hermann von Salza’s work isn’t done with the relief from punishment in 1222. Frederick was still pledged to go on crusade. Again von Salza convinces Honorius that Frederick will definitely go. The two sides agree a delay for 2 years to 1224, and then when he still is not ready, a new departure dates is set for 1225.

When Frederick is still refusing to go in 1225 the pope is getting fractious. Even von Salza’s assurances no longer work. He nails Frederick II down to a firm last and final departure date using a carrot and stick approach. The stick is excommunication. If Frederick does not leave for the Holy land by August 1227 with at least 1000 knights that he will keep in the field for 2 years, and provides shipping for a further 2000 knights, and pays 100,000 ounces of gold into an escrow account, he will be automatically excommunicated, his vassals relieved from their oaths of fealty, no ifs, no buts, no excuses. Automatically.

The carrot is Isabella of Brienne, queen and heiress of the kingdom of Jerusalem. Frederick gets to marry her and with it gains the title of King of Jerusalem, on top of already being Emperor, king of the romans and king of Sicily.

That caused the first rift since there was already a King of Jerusalem, Isabella’s father, John of Brienne. John knew that should his daughter marry at any point, he would lose his crown, but he may have expected a bit more courteous treatment by Frederick. The relationship between the two kings soured rapidly, though they had been firm friends in the past.

More rifts occurred when Frederick began to row back on another promise he had made to the popes, recognising their ownership of the March of Ancona and the duchy of Spoleto. One of Fredericks vassals had begun a slow land grab in Spoleto which irritated the pope no end. But from Fredericks perspective these lands are crucial as a bridge between his kingdom in the south and imperial Italy in the north. This issue gained even more prominence when Frederick tried to intervene in Lombard affairs but could neither bring an army up from Sicily nor could his son bring down troops from Germany as a newly founded Lombard League blocked the passes.

And then he purges the Sicilian clergy of papal appointees and replaces them with his own men.

Suffice to say that tensions are running high as we are approaching embarkation day, August 1227. Hermann von Salza had been promoting the crusade in Germany but failed to build up much enthusiasm amongst the princes. The disaster of both the fourth and the fifth crusade had drained the air from the crusading spirit. Hence Fredrick had to pay many of them to come along. Only his friend, the Landgrave Lewis of Thuringia did come on his own volition with a large army. As happened before, the crusades comprised not just armed men, but also civilian pilgrims lured by the false promise of free shipping and keen to see the Holy Sepulchre before their death.

All of these people were heading to Brindisi in the summer of 1227. Numbers are hard to gage. Fredrick’s commitment to transport 3000 knights who came with 3 servants each amount to 9,000 souls plus sailors to operate the ships. On top of that you have probably an equal number of pilgrims which means almost 20,000 people camped before Brindisi.

Fredrick had promised shipping for 3000 knights and but sustenance only for his own 1000 knights and their retinue. Not for the other soldiers and certainly not for all of the roughly 20,000 who had piled in. Many suffered hunger and sanitary conditions in the camp deteriorated terribly. In the summer heat disease broke out, most likely Malaria.

Before the first galley cast off it’s lines nearly half of the crusaders were dead or ill. Fredrick and his friend the Landgrave of Thuringia caught the fever too, but still decided to go out to sea. Frederick because he feared the automatic excommunication and Lewis, because he was a friend. 2 days later the landgrave was dead and the emperor gravely ill. The captain of the ship decided to return to Otranto. Fredrick was brought to Pozzuoli where he recovered in the ancient Roman thermal baths that were still operating in the 13th century.

In the meantime Honorius III had died and his successor Gregory IX had none of the forbearance of his predecessor.

Some of you say that I am somewhat biased. Some say that I present the “church as always evil”. It is probably a question of perspective. From where I am standing, I feel I try my best to be neutral. Just to give you an idea how  much more anticlerical historians can be, here is Ernst Kantorowicz talking about Gregory IX:

quote

“His weapons and methods were for the most part unattractive: slight untruths, imputations, calumnies: they were often too transparent and produced an ugly impression, robbing the Pope’s procedure of every shadow of right, especially as no one but himself recognised the deeper necessity of the struggle. The obstinate old man, drunk with hate, pursued his end with singleness of aim to his last hour, indifferent to the fact that he was called a ” heretic,” that he was forsaken by those nearest him, until he became — for all his petty dishonesties — not only a dangerous enemy but a great one.”

I leave that standing here and you can make up your own mind as I talk about what happens next.

Gregory IX wasted no time. Frederick II had disembarked in Otranto half dead on September 12th, 10 days later pope Gregory IX excommunicated him. The fact that Frederick was ill was no excuse, which is indeed true. The treaty said automatic excommunication, no ifs not buts.

Still Frederick appealed to the pope and public opinion. He pointed to his determination to go and the death of his friend claiming extenuated circumstances. But that only upped the ante for Gregory IX. The pope now blamed the disease itself on Frederick. It was the emperor’s idea to leave from Brindisi in August when the risk of Malaria was highest. He claimed the emperor had not paid the 100,000 ounces of gold as promised nor he says has he provided all the shipping required.

Frederick the  tried the age-old strategy of doing penance, as Henry IV and Barbarossa had done. But Gregory IX refused to grant absolution to this penitent. Instead he began rattling off another long list of transgressions, some real, some entirely invented. This is where the stories of Frederick’s sexual and moral deviance begin to circulate. Gregory IX seemingly does not care for the resolution of the conflict in the interest of the crusade. It appears Gregory IX main concern is the encirclement of the Papal lands. He is prepared to let a chance to regain Jerusalem go if it rids him of his excessively powerful neighbour.

What further riles the pope is that Frederick, like his father, was running the crusade as his personal campaign, not as a campaign on behalf of the pope. Hence in the unlikely case that he would be successful, all the glory would go to him, not to the pope. Honorius could accept this in the interest of the higher purpose, Gregory could not.

We are in a catch 22. The pope does not want to release Frederick from the ban until he has fulfilled his crusader vows. But without release from the ban Frederick cannot go on crusade.

Frederick concludes that the only way out is for him to go on crusade anyway. If he can recapture Jerusalem, he will be the great hero of Christendom and the pope will have to relent. On the flip side if he is not successful, then it is all over. The excommunication will stick, his vassals will be released from their oaths and his kingdom will go up in flames. It is a bit like in 1212, there is only one option to be safe and that option is a hare-brained scheme of gaining a kingdom from a much more powerful opponent.

In June 1228 Frederick sets sail for Akkon with a sizeable but not huge army. Those who come along are not crusaders because there is no promised absolution should they die in the endeavour. Mostly they are personal vassals, Teutonic Knights and mercenaries. There is no papal blessing for this journey. Frederick even takes his Muslim fighters, a huge affront to the idea of a religious holy war.

Nobody is more surprised about Frederick’s departure than pope Gregory IX. But he acts quickly. With Frederick out on the high seas and the 100,000 ounces of gold that Frederick had indeed paid safely in the papal coffers, he musters his own mercenary army to invade Sicily. At the same time he subtly encourages the imperial princes to elect a new king to replace the unrepentant excommunicate.

What Frederick II sees beyond the wake of his ships is the total unravelling of his realm. The only way to keep his many crowns is to recapture Jerusalem. That task had been too much for the greatest of medieval warriors, for Richard the Lionheart, for Philippe Auguste, for Leopold of Austria even for his own grandfather the mighty Frederick Barbarossa, they have all failed. He has a smaller army and he hasn’t got time. Jerusalem needs to be his before the papal armies storm into Palermo.

This sounds like a completely loopy scheme, even more foolish than his wild dash to Constance in 1212. But he is no longer 17 and this time he has a plan. A trump card nobody knows about. Since before he left Frederick had been in contact with the sultan Al Kamil of Egypt. Al Kamil was tied up in family quarrels that were so serious he was prepared to renew the old offer he had made before Damietta. Return of the whole kingdom of Jerusalem in exchange for an alliance against his brother, the emir of Damascus. That would involve some military action against the emir, but if the forces of the kingdom of Jerusalem joined his army, a campaign would have a much higher chance of success than anything attempted these last 40 years.

But when Frederick arrives in Akkon he receives news from Al Kamil that blow his entire plan out of the water. As it happens the sultan’s brother, the one he was quarrelling with, had been kind enough to set off for paradise on his own accord. Al Kamil had seized the opportunity, taken over most of his brother’s territory including Jerusalem and was now lying with a large army in Nablus. No longer does he need the help of his brother emperor. He wishes him all the best in his endeavour. And here are some camels, silks and other gifts as signs of my enduring friendship. Most sincerely etc., etc., pp

The emperor’s position is now desperate. Things weren’t helped by a storm that cut his supply lines and his army goes hungry. His negotiations have fallen through. An enemy army is on the march in Sicily and the pope has relieved all his subjects in Italy from their oath of fealty.

But what makes it completely untenable is that Gregory had sent envoys to Outre-Mer getting the patriarch of Jerusalem and all the local clergy to preach against the excommunicated sinner who was planning to despoil the Holy Sepulchre. That meant he could no longer count on the forces of the Templars and Hospitallers or even the local barons. No way he can take Jerusalem by force.

For what happens next is that Al Kamil agrees to give Fredrick Jerusalem, Bethlehem and Nazareth for 10 years. For Why he does that there are two versions.

Modern historians like Hubert Houben claim that Al Kamil was preparing further confrontations with his nephew an-Nasir and hence was keen to sign a peace  agreement with the crusader state. Others like Olaf Rader do not talk about Al Kamil’s motives at all.

Arguably the crusader states were tying up a chunk of Al Kamil’s forces which may be a reason for him to seek a more permanent arrangement. But the agreement falls a bit from the sky if that were the only reason. Al Kamil could have made such an arrangement with the crusaders at any point before and seemingly didn’t.

Then there is the “old school” that sounds a bit romantic and improbable, but let me run you through it, again in the inimitable words of Ernst Kantorowicz:

“Frederick treated with Fakhru’d Din, [The Sultan’s envoy] which all goes to indicate how important the personal factor was throughout. The emperor was a past master in the art of discussion. The charm of his personality, his astounding knowledge, his quickness of repartee made him the equal of anyone…[…]

Frederick had complete command of Arabic and was acquainted with the Arab poets; his amazing knowledge of philosophy, logic, mathematics and medicine, and every other branch of learning enabled him to turn any conversation into the philosophical channels dear to the Oriental heart. He had been completely successful in his handling of his Saracen colonists of Lucera, and now he moved amongst the Saracen princes with the perfect savour faire of an accomplished man of the world. So he conversed away with Fakhru’d Din about philosophy and the arts of government, and Fakhru’d Din must have had much to tell his master about the emperor.

Al Kamil was the very man to appreciate such qualities. He was an oriental edition of the emperor, unless indeed it be more correct to call the Emperor an occidental edition of the Sultan. Al Kamil loved to dispute with learned men about jurisprudence and grammar, beloved especially of the Arab; he was himself a poet — some of his verses still survive — and in his mountain castle, as they tell, “fifty scholars reclined on divans round his throne to provide his evening conversation.”

He spent money willingly in the furtherance of learning; founded a school in Cairo for the study of Islamic Tradition, and appointed salaries for jurists. People praised his courteous bearing as much as his stern and impressive dignity. In addition he was an admirable administrator, who checked his own revenues and even invented new varieties of tax.

He had no more fancy than Frederick for aimless bloodshed if the end could be reached by friendly means, and so it came about that their negotiations presently bore fruit.”

And that fruit was the return of the cities of Jerusalem, Bethlehem and Nazareth including a narrow land corridor connecting them to Akkon and Jaffa. All that in exchange for a 10 year peace agreement.

A bromance between the defender of Mekka and Medina and the sword of Christendom had resulted in peace. Somehow the two men had found a way to trust each other enough to sign a compromise that would enrage either of their camps but serve their purposes. It is an astounding and rarely repeated event, if ever.

Frederick II entered Jerusalem on March 17th, 1229, proceeded to the church of the Holy Sepulchre where he walks under the crown of Jerusalem. The pilgrims and soldiers he had brought with him break out in great jubilation. That turns quickly into despair. The patriarch of Jerusalem has put the whole city under interdict. No mass can be said, no sacrament performed no prayers at the Holy Sepulchre will be said. All the pilgrims had come for was suddenly put out of reach. Frederick has to leave his new capital the next day so the interdict can be lifted.

Upon Frederick returns to Akkon, he receives a most frosty reception. As expected the patriarch and the clergy of the kingdom instructed by Gregory refuse to release him from the ban. No release from the ban, no formal coronation. But the barons of the kingdom are disappointed too. He has failed to regain the fertile lands surrounding the cities, making the holy sites largely a financial burden. And the Templars are outraged that the Temple Mount and the Al Aqsa Mosque had remained out of bounds for Christian pilgrims. They wanted their old headquarters back.

When the animosity turns into street fighting does the dejected emperor leave Akkon and sets sail for home. News arrive that papal troops had come as far as Benevento. It is time to go home and save his kingdom.

Jerusalem would remain in Christian hands until 1241. Crusades will continue for another 100 years but never again will crusaders gain control of the Holy sites.

Next week we will take a look at how Frederick reestablishes his  reign in Sicily, expels foreigners, breaks his barons and creates the famous community its of Muslims in Lucera. I hope you can 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.   

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Frederick II in Germany and the Sanctification of Charlemagne

This week we take a look at the reign of Frederick II in Germany from 1212 to 1220. Most of what he did was putting a nail in an actual coffin whilst also putting the metaphorical nail into the carcass of imperial rule in Germany.

And was that such a bad thing? What happens when the emperor just hands out what is left of the royal demesne? Cathedrals go up, princes hold splendid courts and none of them think about disturbing the peace in Italy. If you are the king of Sicily, that is a near perfect result.

And if you are the pope, even more so, in particular when Frederick II throws in a brand-new crusade and swears on all that is holy that he would never pursue a link-up between Sicily and the empire.

Everybody happy? Let’s see..

Transcript

Hello and welcome to the History of the Germans: Episode 77 – The Nail in the Coffin

This week we take a look at the reign of Frederick II in Germany from 1212 to 1220. Most of what he did was putting a nail in an actual coffin whilst also putting the metaphorical nail into the carcass of imperial rule in Germany.

And was that such a bad thing? What happens when the emperor just hands out what is left of the royal demesne? Cathedrals go up, princes hold splendid courts and none of them think about disturbing the peace in Italy. If you are the king of Sicily, that is a near perfect result.

And if you are the pope, even more so, in particular when Frederick II throws in a brand-new crusade and swears on all that is holy that he would never pursue a link-up between Sicily and the empire.

Everybody happy? Let’s see..

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 Sharon, q and John who have already signed up.

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Let’s start and end this episode with Frederick II’s relationship with the papacy, something we will probably have to do in most upcoming episodes as well, so brace yourselves.

Frederick’s trip to Germany had been sponsored financially and politically by his godfather, pope Innocent III. And once Frederick had settled down north of the Alps, had been elected and gone through his first coronation, it was payback time. Payback happened in the shape of the Golden Bull of Eger. A golden bull is not a grown-up version of the Golden calf the Israelites danced around. It refers to a decree that had received a special status thanks to the use of a golden seal, a bulla aurea. These golden bulls were rare and usually reserved for the most important decisions. The most famous of those was the Golden bull of 1356 that set forth the constitution of the Holy Roman Empire, namely the institution of the 7 electors.

Golden Bull of 1356

In short, in 1213 Frederick II issued a decree that was to be of utmost importance. It consisted of three main commitments. First that the crown gives up the right to the spolia, i.e., the right to receive the income from any bishopric that happened to be vacant after the incumbent’s death. Second, Frederick II gives up his rights to decide contested episcopal elections, and finally he recognises the pope’s right to central Italy, specifically to the March of Ancona and the duchy of Spoleto. That is pretty much the end of the concordat of Worms. The church in Germany is now fully independent of the emperor. All its resources can now be used as the bishops wish. All the generous donations in lands and rights that the Ottonian emperors had made in the hope these would remain at their disposal are lost to the crown for good.

In 1216 when his rule is fully established Frederick was made to swear to these concessions again and had to get the imperial princes themselves to swear to them as well. And he had to agree to another condition. He had to abandon the crown of Sicily in favour of his son Henry, so as to ensure that there would not be a union between the Holy Roman Empire and Sicily, a union that would encircle the papal states.

“Recuperation”of the Papal States under Innicent III

We all know by now know what an oath is worth in 1216. At no point did Frederick II contemplate to put down the crown of Sicily. Southern Italy is his home. Even though he now styles himself all Swabian grandson of Barbarossa, in truth, the only reason he came up to Germany in first place was to protect Sicily from imperial invasions.

He comes up with a cunning plan to outmanoeuvre the pope. If he cannot be king of Sicily and emperor at the same time, well, let us see whether my son Henry can. Whilst he solemnly reaffirms all these commitments about not being king of Sicily anymore, he negotiates with the princes about electing young Henry as king of the Romans. And in December 1216 young Henry and Frederick’s wife, Constance of Aragon arrive in Nurnberg and by 1220 young Henry is elected and crowned.

One reason Frederick gets away with such blatant disregard for his godfather is that he died, quite unexpectedly, in 1216. Innocent III had been a young man by papal standards when he was elected, just 37 years old. He died on July 16th, 1216 of a recurring malaria in Perugia. Sometimes the great defence mechanism of the papacy takes one of its own..  

Earlier that year he had presided over the 4th Lateran council, which must count as the absolute high point of medieval papal authority. Present were 400 bishops and archbishops from all corners of the Christian world. Even the patriarchs of Constantinople, Jerusalem, Antioch and Alexandria had come. 800 abbots and priors as well as delegates of the emperors, both our Frederick as well as the now Latin emperor of Constantinople, the kings of England, France, Aragon, Hungary, Cyprus and Jerusalem. Remember that in 1204 the fourth crusade had taken Constantinople and placed a French nobleman onto the throne of the Basileus.

Innocent III at the 4th Lateran Council (19th century engraving)

The council promulgated 71 decrees covering a remarkable wide field. The doctrine of transubstantiation was defined in the very first of them. Number 13 forbade the formation of new religious orders, though the Dominicans were approved at the same council, the 18th abolished the use of boiling water and red-hot irons in trials by ordeal; the 21st insisted on confession and communion for all Catholics at least once a year at easter; the 31st banned illegitimate sons of clergy taking over their father’s churches. The last segments were directed against the Jews. No Christian was to have commerce with Jewish usurers; both Jews and Muslims had to wear distinctive dress, nor were they allowed to be seen in public during Holy Week.

But at least he did not call for their expulsion or destruction. That was reserved to heretics, namely the Albigensian or Cathars of Southwest France. The 4th Lateran Council granted any knight who would be prepared to undertake the tough job of slaughtering peasants a free ticket to paradise.

The overarching theme of the council was however the recapture of the holy sites in Palestine. The crusader states still clung on to the coastline but despite several attempts, including the huge third crusade, Jerusalem was still in Muslim hands. After the catastrophe that was the 4th crusade, pope Innocent III did even contemplate to take a crusader army to Outre Mer himself. As the true emperor that he saw himself, that was a natural conclusion. A date for the crusade was set for 1217 and a special tax was levied on all bishops and cardinals to fund the expedition. That project collapsed with the death of Innocent III.

Though Innocent III was probably the most powerful medieval pope, his remains did not get treated with the respect they deserved. The night after his death, the house he had died in was raided and his body stolen. It was found the next morning, stripped naked in the street, rapidly decomposing in the heat. The citizens of Perugia buried him hastily in their cathedral. It is said that his bones ended up being mixed up with those of Urban IV and Martin IV in a box that was kept in the sacristy. In the 19th century Leo XIII ordered that the bones should be brought to Rome to be buried in a splendid tomb in St. John Lateran. A priest was dispatched to pick them up. Innocent III came back to Rome by train in a simple suitcase.

Tomb of Innocent III

“Brief and empty is the deceptive glory of this world” is what Jacques de Vitry said when he saw the popes naked body in the street.

Innocent III’s successor was Honorius III, a much older man and, as it happens, a former tutor of Frederick in his very early years. We will get back to Honorius towards the end of the episode when he will perform the imperial coronation in Rome.

The pope is as we know by now only one of the trifecta of horrors an emperor has to deal with. The other two are the princes and the Italian communes. We get to the communes in one of the next episodes, so today it is only imperial princes.

The way Frederick dealt with them was a combination of exalted ritual and plain bribery. Bribery was the way Philipp and Otto IV had competed for the crown and Frederick just continued the process. Other than Philipp he had never seen a different model of how to manage the Holy Roman Empire and none of the princes would have told him otherwise. And there is also the question whether there was a road back to the governance in the first years of Barbarossa’s reign. The idea that an emperor could rally his princes behind him with the promise of the riches of Italy had died from dysentery before the walls of Rome in 1167. Even Frederick’s grandfather had replaced a policy of centralising royal power with a policy to strengthen the territorial power of the Hohenstaufen family.

But Fredericks level of generosity was unprecedented, in particular given his rival, Otto IV was utterly defeated and by 1218 also utterly dead. Even poor Walter von der Vogelweide, the itinerant Minnesaenger finally gets his fief that allows him to live in relative comfort.

The most generous donation though goes to the bishops. In 1220 he agrees to the Confoederatio cum principibus ecclesiasticis. A very long word for the total abandonment of even the last remaining vestiges of royal power in ecclesiastical lands. He hands over the right to mint coins and raise duties on the rivers.  These are the most financially valuable rights. The right to mint coins does not just involve the ability to physically stamp coins, but it also includes the right to determine which coins are legal tender. And that can be really lucrative. The tradition was to declare certain coins invalid as of a particular day and require the inhabitants of the territory to swap them for either a smaller number or inferior coins. The prince or king would then pocket the difference. This may help filling the pockets of the bishop but had devastating impact on the economy. Constant devaluation or replacement of the currency created uncertainty and made transactions riskier. In England the kings did not resort to such policies. The English pound remained fairly stable throughout the Middle Ages despite occasional royal bankruptcies, one of the many reasons for England surpasses Germany in terms of prosperity during this period.

See the lands held by the church before teh reformation shown here in pink

Granting the right to levy duties on river and road transport was even more devastating for the German economy. The rhine river is the natural link between Northern and Southern Europe. It is navigable from Rotterdam to Basel. From there it is 400 km to Milan across alpine passes or 250 km overland to Chalons where one can pick up the Rhone River and sail down to Marseille. It is the natural transport artery of Europe. Today transport volume on the Rhine, Main, Mosel and Neckar is 6 times that of all French navigable rivers. Nevertheless, by the 15th century the cities from Reims to Lyon matched or exceeded the economic power of the German cities along the Rhine. And that had a lot to do with the ability of all sorts of princes with access to the river to demand duties. On top of that came the Stapelrecht, the right to demand that any passing merchant had to offer his wares at market in the town he passed. The Rhine was still a great way to transport things from North to South, but it had to fight with one arm tied behind its back.

You cannot blame all that on Frederick II whose room to manoeuvre was limited and who may not fully understand the economic implications.  Though his grandfather did at some point cut down to duty posts along the Rhine and Main River to facilitate trade. So maybe he could have understood that in part. In his beloved Sicily we will see him deploying much more beneficial policies. Detractors may claim he simply did not care.

Generosity towards the princes was one part of Fredrick’s governance model. The other was the power of rituals. We have already seen how Barbarossa had tried to wow his contemporaries with the imperial diet of Pentecost 1184 and how Philipp of Swabia used splendid feasts as a way to bring wavering princes over to his side.

Frederick turbocharged these events by leveraging potent symbols to legitimise his regime. The first of these elaborate ceremonies took place in 1213, so before the battle of Bouvines and Frederick’s rise to undisputed power.

He had the remains of his uncle Philipp who had been murdered and quickly buried in Bamberg dug up and laid to rest in the cathedral of Speyer. Speyer was the St. Denis of Germany, the place where the emperors had been buried. Once the greatest and most splendid church building in Western Europe, next to Cluny it was the German Metropolis as a chronicler called it.

Remember that the family of Barbarossa never called themselves the Hohenstaufen. They saw themselves as descendants of the Henrys of Waiblingen, the dynasty we call the Salians. Hence the Salien burial place in Speyer, built by Konrad II and Henry IV was their family mausoleum. That was true even though until 1213 no Hohenstaufen rulers had been buried in Speyer. Frederick Barbarossa’s remains had been lost in Palestine. Henry VI was buried in Palermo and Konrad III, well Konrad III nobody talks about. He was also in Bamberg in a long-forgotten corner. But the women of the family were buried in Speyer. Beatrice, the wife of Barbarossa and grandmother of Frederick was there as well as her daughter Agnes.

By staging a great reburial of the murdered Hohenstaufen king, his uncle, in the burial ground of the old emperors, Frederick II establishes a link between himself and the splendour of the empire of old. He, the child of Puglia is lifted to the true heir of the kingdom. Not quite the same as the revelation of Aragorn of Gondor, but the same idea. The true king is back.

The next big set piece is linked to the coronation. You may remember that his first coronation in Mainz was a bit haphazard. In 1215, after Otto IV had lost the battle of Bouvines, this was to be remedied. Aachen had been firmly within the territory controlled by Otto IV. But when Frederick II took an army up north along the Rhine, the Welf allies came across one by one, even Otto’s father-in-law, the duke of Brabant. The city of Aachen opened its gates and Frederick entered in all his splendour.

What followed was the full medieval coronation ceremony inside Charlemagne’s palatine chapel. That chapel not only held the fabled throne of Charlemagne that Frederick ascended, but it was also lit by the enormous Barbarossa Chandelier, made from gilded copper, 4.2m in diameter and hanging off a 27 metre chain that symbolised the new Jerusalem.

But that is not the only relic that Barbarossa had left behind. In 1165 Barbarossa had arranged for his antipope to elevate Charlemagne to be a saint. The Holy Roman Empire still lacked a saint. The Hungarians had Saint Stephen, the Norwegians Saint Olaf, the English had Edward the Confessor. Charlemagne was to become a symbol of the divinity, holiness of the empire, independent from papal authority. No surprise then that the official church never acknowledged the sainthood of Charlemagne.

As part of the sanctification of Charlemagne Barbarossa had his grave opened and his bones put into a temporary casket. Ever since then the debate raged about how to properly honour the greatest of all the emperors. Finally, Otto IV had commissioned the metalworkers of Maastricht and Aachen to create a splendid, golden shrine, almost as large and as splendid as the three kings’ reliquary in Cologne. By the time it was finished, Bouvines had happened, and Aachen had fallen to Frederick.  

Two days after his coronation and on the first anniversary of the battle of Bouvines, Frederick had the remains of Charlemagne solemnly translated into its final resting place. Once the lid had been put over the casket, the king took off his royal mantle, mounted the scaffold together with the Master of Works and personally nailed the coffin shut.

With this, almost intimate act, he declared not just his veneration of the saint, but also his personal, familial connection. He is the pious son who gives rest to his great, great, great grandfather, reaffirming his membership to the everlasting imperial dynasty that traces back to Julius Caesar and ultimately ancient Troy.

We may grin at this ham-fisted historical fabrication, but the medieval world swallowed it hook line and sinker. There were over 100 locations across the empire where Charlemagne was venerated as a saint.

The shrine is obviously more than worth travelling to Aachen for. What I find fascinating is the iconography. First on the front we see Charlemagne enthroned flanked by two smaller figures of pope Leo III and the archbishop of Reims, i.e., the emperor is bigger than the pope.

Then on the sides where you would normally find apostles or prophets, we have depiction of emperors and kings. Chronologically we have Louis the Pious, Lothair, Charles the Fat, one unknown emperor, Zwentibold King of Lothringia, Henry the Fowler, Otto I to III, Henry II, Henry III, Henry IV, Henry V, Henry VI, Otto IV and Frederick II. There are some surprising absences. No Louis the German who founded East Francia. Instead, we have Lothair and Zwentibold, rulers of Lotharingia of which Aachen was a part. This is not a German shrine then. The next absence is Conrad II, probably an oversight. Conrad III because nobody liked him. Lothar III, grandfather of Otto IV is an odd absence. But the most confusing omission is Barbarossa himself. Why is he not there when Otto IV is? Given Frederick II himself is on, the piece must have been reworked in the months before Frederick had entered Aachen. So why not remodel Otto IV into Barbarossa? If all this is about the everlasting Staufer dynasty, why having the interloper there? It is a mystery.

The Karlschrein is one of the absolute highpoints in European medieval goldsmith art, together with the shrine of Mary also in Aachen and the slightly older three kings reliquary in Cologne. In these years following the battle of Bouvines, Europe experiences a period of incredible artistic flourishing. We already talked about the troubadours and Minnesaenger whose most productive period is between 1190 and 1230. Many of the great medieval epics were written down and finalised in this period. Parzival, Tristan and Isolde, The Nibelung, Dietrich von Bern and one of my favourites, the story of duke Ernst – do you remember it from episode 23?

In architecture we are transitioning from the Romanesque to gothic. The first gothic church had been St. Denis near Paris that was begun under the abbot Suger in 1135. In 1207 the cathedral of Magdeburg, the great church erected by Otto the Great had burned down. Its replacement was the first German gothic church. It was followed shortly after by the cathedrals of Bamberg and Naumburg. Where German artists and craftsmen excelled was in the sculptures decorating these new gothic cathedrals. There is the statue of St. Maurice in Magdeburg, the first realistic depiction of an African man since Roman times. The great figures of the founders of Naumburg cathedral which includes the gorgeous Uta von Ballenstedt and, the greatest of them all, the intriguing Bamberg Horseman, the first monumental equestrian statue since antiquity, depicting, well we do not know who. Some say it is Frederick II, but it could equally have been Henry II, Imre of Hungary or a saint, if not the messiah.

The funding for these great works came at least in part from the incredibly generous donations Frederick had to do to keep the imperial princes on side.

By 1220 Frederick feels he had spent enough time and money in Germany, 8 years overall. The realm north of the alps is at peace. His legitimacy is recognised by all. All the generosity had also allowed him to have his son Henry elected and consecrated as king.

The next, inevitable step is the coronation as emperor in Rome. And that required the agreement of the pope. As I said, this episode begins and ends with the relationship between pope and emperor.

Innocent III had died in 1216. His successor, Honorius III was a much more conciliatory man. He was much older and more of an administrator than a visionary. That does not mean he lacked political objectives, but other than Innocent, he lacked the ambition to achieve all of them at once.

Honorius III cared about one thing, regaining Jerusalem. For that objective he was willing to overlook many a thing.

In 1215, at his coronation in Aachen Frederick did not only ascend the throne of Charlemagne and nailed his coffin shut, he also emulated him a third time, by taking the cross. The notion of what constitutes a crusade had gradually shifted from the liberation of the Holy Sepulchre to a more general Holy war on Muslims and pagans. As a consequence Charlemagne’s brutal raid on the pagan Saxons was recast as a crusade, a crusade even before crusades were a thing..

Hence when Frederick took the cross in 1215, he did that to elevate his standing as future emperor, as a descendant and follower of Charlemagne, not as a faithful son of the church. That is why Innocent III largely ignored it and called his own crusade at the 4th Lateran Council, a crusade he planned to lead himself without material involvement of the emperor.

Honorius III, as I said, was less ambitious. He embraced Frederick’s commitment to take the cross. It is probably also in this context that Honorius accepted the election of little Henry as king of the Romans alongside his title as king of Sicily. He must have realised that this would mean a de facto union between the Holy Roman Empire and the Kingdom of Sicily, in other words, the encirclement of the states of the Church.

Pope Honorius III (by Giottto)

When Frederick arrives before the Porta Collina on November 22, 1220 he promises again that he would never seek a union between the empire and Sicily and only them is he admitted to the Holy city. From there he rides in procession behind the prelates and cardinals of Rome to old St. Peter. He enters the Atrium, a space that, like Old St. peter itself, no longer exists. In there stood on one side the enormous sarcophagus of Otto II also now relocated and replaced. On the other is St. Maria dei Turri, rebuilt after his grandfather had so sacrilegiously destroyed the predecessor church. Here he swears all the oaths of fealty and obedience to the pope his predecessors had sworn before him. Upon entering the basilica itself he is made a canon of St. Peter, in other word he is now a priest, able to administer sacraments.

He is anointed by Hugolino, the cardinal bishop of Ostia who had also anointed Otto IV just 11 years earlier. Hugolino was a nephew of Innocent III and will later become pope Gregory IX.

The climax of the ceremony comes when Frederick receives the imperial robes, the orb, the sceptre and the crown from the pope himself at the altar of St. Peter. Amongst the great imperial garments are now the wonderful items brought across from Palermo. The imperial coronation mantle, the imperial socks and the even more over the top imperial gloves. I will put pictures of all of these and the sculptures I mentioned before on to the episode webpage. The link is in the show notes.

After that the pope celebrates mass at which the emperor – having taken his clothes off again – assists him as if he was a junior priest.

At last Frederick again pledges to take the cross and receives the crusaders robes from the cardinal bishop of Ostia.

Leaving St. Peter the pope mounts his horse, again helped by the emperor who holds his stirrups. Frederick then performs the service of Strator and leads the Pope’s horse over an unknown distance.

My god has this changed from the days of Otto the Great. The emperor is made to bow and assist and kneel and reaffirm the supremacy of the pope so often, it almost looks as if the pope is crowned, not the emperor. Remember the fallout between Barbarossa and the pope over the strator service? That feels a long time ago.

In the Middle Ages, these ceremonies were supposed to mean an awful lot. It used to be that the displayed reality became truth through its performance. An emperor leading the pope’s horse like a groom became a servant of the pope.

But we are also coming to the end of the true medieval period, which means that oaths and rituals are still performed and intended to convey reality, the truth is that oaths are broken, and rituals do not protect from political realities.

What nobody knows and probably nobody even imagines is to be possible is that this is the last imperial coronation performed by a pope in Rome for the next 150 years.  

Next week we will see what Frederick does with his newly acquired imperial crown and crusading pledge. Suffice to say that oaths will be broken, political necessities will overturn ritually confirmed relationships. But that is not all. Frederick will set out on crusade despite being excommunicated, will be successful without a shot being fired and still….well, 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.   

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The upbringing of emperor Frederick II “Stupor Mundi”

This week we will go back 20 years and pick up the other strain of our history of the Hohenstaufen. The last three episodes we focused on events in Germany and the struggle between Philipp of Swabia and Otto IV. Today we take a closer look at the early years of Frederick II, before he came up to Germany and took over.

Little is known but much has been written about the youth of emperor Frederick II, not only because it was exceedingly turbulent, but also because it forged a man who burst on the European stage aged 14 already displaying many of those personality traits that would make him known as the Stupor Mundi, the Astonishment of the World. How did he become who he became?

Transcript

Hello and welcome to the History of the Germans: Episode 76 – From Urchin to Emperor

This week we will go back 20 years and pick up the other strain of our history of the Hohenstaufen. The last three episodes we focused on events in Germany and the struggle between Philipp of Swabia and Otto IV. Today we take a closer look at the early years of Frederick II, before he came up to Germany and took over.

Little is known but much has been written about the youth of emperor Frederick II, not only because it was exceedingly turbulent, but also because it forged a man who burst on the European stage aged 14 already displaying many of those personality traits that would make him known as the Stupor Mundi, the Astonishment of the World. How did he become who he became?

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 Jason, Dave K and Dennis who have already signed up.

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Let us go back to 1194. Emperor Henry VI is still sitting on his throne. Not only that, he had just been crowned king of Sicily the fulfilment of all his ambitions. In that year, on December 26th, the day of St. Stephen, in the city of Jesi was born to him a son, Frederick, by his wife Constance who had been in her fortieth year and barren for so long.

We very rarely know the birthdays of even the most important personalities in the Middle Ages. Birthdays were barely recorded, not just because so many children died. The birthday was not as significant as the day of baptism and in some places the name day which established the connection of the child to the divine or saintly. Frederick is different in that as in many other areas of life. He remembers his birthday and even orders his birthday to be celebrated with great feasts throughout his realm, the first ruler in post Roman times to do so.

Not just that, but there is even a poem written shortly after the birth by Peter of Eboli, a monk and chronicler of the reign of Henry VI. He wrote:

“From Italy came the palm of a triumphal new birth

Having the distinction of a fortunate father

He was brought to life through screams [heard] by those present

The palm tree brought forth its fruit, although delayed.

A son is born to Augustus, a boy who will excel at arms,

Though the father is fortunate, the son will be more so,

This boy will in every way be blessed.”

This is lifted almost word for word from Virgil and ties little Frederick back to the Romans, Aeneas and the city of Troy. As you may remember by now the official Hohenstaufen ideology is that there is only one imperial dynasty that goes back to Troy and has ruled ever since Julius Caesar in an unbroken line that led to this little boy in a crib in the march of Ancona. It even has some messianic connotations that Frederick would rekindle in 1245 when he writes to the citizens of Jesi calling their hometown his Bethlehem where his blessed mother had birthed him.

Peter writes these words sometime between 1195 and 1197, so little does he know about the fate of the blessed boy.

Because these first years are not at all fortunate.

The first image we have of Frederick is again in the book of Peter of Eboli. We see a baby wrapped up tightly, wearing a tiny crown being handed over by his mother to the duchess of Spoleto who will look after him. The duchess and even his mother touch the precious child only with their covered hands. 

Frederick will stay with the family of the duke of Spoleto for the next three years. The duke, Konrad von Urslingen was an aristocrat from Swabia with possessions around the city of Rottweil. Konrad had come to Italy in the train of emperor Barbarossa. Barbarossa had acquired the duchy of Spoleto from his uncle Welf VI and had put Konrad in, first as administrator and a little later as duke. The Urslinger was able to hold on to Spoleto even through the upheaval following the battle of Legnano and the Peace of Venice. When henry VI came through these lands in his attempts to conquer Sicily, Konrad von Urslingen provided significant military help. Konrad and Henry VI became quite close, and he was one of the few people present at the emperor’s deathbed.

Konrad, like most medieval fathers, had very little to do with childrearing. That was largely left to the women and if money was no object, a tutor, usually a monk or bishop. Hence the first person Frederick formed an attachment to was Konrad’s wife, the duchess of Spoleto. About her, pretty much nothing at all is known. Neither a name nor whether she was German or Italian. Hence, we do not know what language he spoke his first words in.

Konrad and his nameless wife had two sons, marginally older than Frederick and a daughter, Adelheid, of roughly the same age. Later in life Frederick will have a mistress called Adelheid from noble Swabian stock who will give birth to Enzo, one of Fr3derick’s most favoured sons and later king of Sardinia and prisoner in Bologna. This may have been the same Adelheid he played with as a toddler.

The next important event in his life that he was probably blissfully unaware of was his election as King of the Romans sometime late 1196 or 1197. At that point he is 2 to 3 years old, but not yet baptised. The delay is explained by his father’s desire to make amends with the pope and one of his offers was to let the pope baptise young Frederick himself.

But that did not happen. In all likelihood Frederick was baptised in nearby Assisi sometime after negotiations with the papacy had broken down. Albert von Stade describes it as a splendid event attended by 15 bishops and the emperor himself. Such a great spectacle would almost certainly have attracted a young man, son of a wealthy cloth merchant in the city with a love of troubadour romances, court life and a burning ambition to become a knight. That young man/boy had been baptised over the same baptismal font in the name of Giovanni. But he would alter change his name to Francis and is known now as St. Francis of Assisi. The emperor and the most significant saint of the 13th century will cross paths many more times.

Baptismal font in the cathedral of Assisi

The time at the castle of Folignano where the dukes of Spoleto lived comes to an abrupt end when Henry VI died in 1197. Constance immediately sends for him to be brought to Palermo. And as we have heard, when Philipp of Swabia arrives in central Italy to pick up his nephew for his coronation in Aachen, the little boy is gone, and the House of Hohenstaufen is thrown into a severe crisis.

Again, nobody mentions anything about how Frederick took the separation from the person he in all likelihood regarded as his mother.

But this will not be the only trauma. When Frederick arrives in Palermo he meets his mother, presumably for the first time since she had left him in the care of the Urslingens three years earlier. Constance is at that point preoccupied with the question of how she can secure the kingdom of Sicily for her son. She de facto gives up the title of king of the Romans on behalf of her son so that he can be crowned king of Sicily with the papal blessing. That stabilised things for the moment. Meanwhile, as we know Philipp had himself elected king of the Romans and had received approval from Constance to be crowned. Sicily and the Empire are now separated.

Shortly after that, on November 27th, 1198, Constance of Sicily dies. Frederick is still only 4 years old and now an orphan. In her testament Constance had appointed Pope Innocent III guardian of young Frederick. Innocent kept entirely aloof from is ward. He would send papal legates to look after him. He felt anxiety for his dangers, praised his progress and expressed unfeigned pleasure at his escape from enemy hands. But he never saw him in all these years until the boy was 17.

There were no family members looking out for little Frederick. The only remaining Hohenstaufen was Philipp, and he was far away in Germany. His mother’s family, the Hautevilles had been decimated or exiled by his father Henry VI and those who returned bore him ill will.

In principle the kingdom was ruled by Frederick’s guardian, pope Innocent III. But Innocent stayed back home in Rome. In practice the kingdom was to be managed by a regency council headed by the chancellor of the kingdom, Walter of Palear. Walter was first and foremost interested in his own and his family’s advancement. But since his power rested on his appointment as regent for little Frederick, he was the closest thing to an ally Frederick had got.

Innocent III

After Constance’s death the kingdom collapsed into chaos. Several factions fought for supremacy and possession of the child king.

There were the Germans who had come to Sicily with Henry VI. Many had been Ministeriales or simple knights and out here in the south had risen to be counts or even attaining princely rank. Their leader was Markward of Annweiler, erstwhile trusted military leader of Henry VI armies and now elevated to Margrave of Ancona. Annweiler saw himself as the representative of Hohenstaufen power in Italy and took orders from Philipp of Swabia.

Walter von Palear (left) and Markward von Annweiler (right)

Opposed to the Germans was the old Norman aristocracy whose position had been curtailed after the fall of Tancred. They saw an opportunity to chuck out the northern invaders and either replace little Frederick with one of their own or to make him their plaything. Their cause got a massive boost when Innocent III pushed the regency council to return the provinces of Tarento and Lecce to Walter of Brienne, son in law of the former king Tancred. That gave this faction a natural focal point. Cleary Innocent III wasn’t looking out for his ward’s interests at all times.

And then we have the Muslim population in central Sicily who raided the lands outside the major cities, whilst the Pisans were enforcing trading privileges on the island, some real, some imagined. And for the barons on the mainland who were neither Norman nor German, their objective was simply a weak central power that allowed them to do as they please.

All these parties had only one thing in common: to pursue their own most obvious advantage, and to enrich themselves at the expense of the helpless king, who thus became the focus of all their activities. The goal, above all others, was to get possession of the King’s person, for this child represented the legal basis of the victor’s de facto power. Frederick became “a lamb amongst ravenous wolves” as the chronicler put it.

There is one story about Frederick when he was 7 years old. In 1201 Markward of Annweiler had overpowered Walter of Palear and had entered Palermo. He and his men searched for their quarry, the boy king who they found in some back room of the Castello a Mare. Frederick tried to fight them but when he realised the futility of his actions, he threw away his royal garments and began scratching himself with his nails in his impotent rage. The papal legate who informs the pope of these events concludes that it was “a worthy omen for the future ruler who cannot be false to his own nobility, who with royal instinct feels himself, like Mount Sinai, outraged by the touch of a beast of prey.”

The question arises how a child could grow up in such circumstances and become a commensurate ruler, an accomplished diplomat and skilled administrator with enormous appetites for life, love and above all knowledge. The story I grew up with is probably best told in the words of Ernst Kantorowicz whose biography of Frederick II we will encounter several times on our journey and which itself and its author’s life are worth a whole episode. Here is what he had to say about Frederick’s childhood:

Ernst Kantorowicz

Quote:

“From this time forward (he means after the coup by Markward of Annweiler) no one in the fortress seems to have bothered his head about the boy. The royal property had been so shockingly squandered that the child was often literally in want of the barest necessaries till the compassionate citizens of Palermo took pity on him and found him food. One fed him for a week, another for a month, each according to his circumstances.

He was a handsome boy whose clear bright glance already caused remark, and the people were probably glad to see him amongst them. At eight and nine years old the young King wandered about without let or hindrance and strolled unchecked through the narrow streets and markets and gardens of the semi- African capital at the foot of the Pellegrino. An amazing variety of peoples, religions and customs jostled each other before his eyes: mosques with their minarets, synagogues with their cupolas stood cheek by jowl with Norman churches and cathedrals, which again had been adorned by Byzantine masters with gold mosaics, their rafters supported by Greek columns on which Saracen craftsmen had carved in Kufic script the name of Allah. Round the town lay the pleasure palaces and fountains of Norman Kings in the exotic gardens and animal preserves of the Conca d’Oro, the delights of which had inspired the Arab poets. In the marketplaces the people went about their business in many-coloured confusion: Normans and Italians, Saracens, Jews and Greeks. The lively boy was driven back on all these for company and soon learned the customs and the speech of all these tribes and races. Did any wise Imam play the part of Chiron to the lonely child? Did some unknown tutor teach the future ruler of men to observe, to know, to use, the forces of Earth and Nature? We do not know. We are certain only that his education was unique and radically different from any that ever fell to the lot of a royal child. Later, men marvelled at his knowledge of the habits of man and beast and plant as profoundly as they trembled at his actual approach.

Frederick was not brought up, as his father for instance had been, by a learned chaplain of the type of Godfrey of Viterbo, nor reared like many another prince by world-shy monks in the seclusion of a cloister. Amazed by his comprehensive knowledge, his astounding exotic erudition, men have sought diligently: to trace the real teacher of this great Hohenstaufen — research has not revealed his Aristotle. And with reason.

The teacher never existed whom he would not have surpassed and disillusioned, and the school of a mere fencing-master would not long have satisfied him.  Frederick II is a typically self-taught man: he had no one to thank for his education: what he was, he was sud virtute. Quite possibly he learnt the elements from that Magister William Franciscus who has once been mentioned in attendance on him as a seven-year-old child and is on record as still with him in 1208. Quite possibly one or another of the papal legates may have taken an interest in him and taught him the necessary amount of Scripture.  Quite possibly he received irregular instruction now and then in other things, but he never enjoyed a systematic education.  His later learning bears all the marks of being not the product of ” school” but of life itself. He was compelled from his tenderest years to absorb directly, without extraneous aid and from every source, the strength he needed. This differentiated his knowledge both in its content and in its application from that of his contemporaries.  Stern Necessity was his first tutor, and she — to quote the Pope’s expression — ” taught him the eloquence of grief and of complaint at an age when other children scarcely lisp aright.”  His next instructors were the marketplaces and streets of Palermo: Life itself. He laid the foundations of his wisdom in those wanderings which made him the friend of every man. (end quote)

This idea of young Frederick running wild through the streets of Palermo, a city second only to Constantinople when it comes to the mingling of cultures, is now sharply dismissed by modern historians. There are no real contemporaneous accounts of such activities and the citations used to confirm it have been written 70 and 100 years later. But most importantly, there is no way whoever was in control of Palermo at any given point would let Frederick II run free. To large is the risk he could be kidnapped by a rival in this endless civil war and used to prop up another rickety regime.

I hear all this, and it sort of makes sense. But then I look at teenagers and angry teenagers in particular. They can be so godawfully stubborn. And that is leverage in itself. Walter, or Markward or whoever just controlled Palermo needed Frederick to occasionally parade through town and perform some ceremonial function. And if they wanted for that to go smoothly, they needed to give Frederick some leeway. He may not be running around town all on his own, but he could have demanded his bodyguards to keep a distance whilst he is discovering all there is to see in the Conca d-Oro, the bay of Palermo.

In 1208, at the age of 14 Frederick receives the Schwertleite, which means he is now considered an adult and expected to gradually transition to independent personal rule. He is an accomplished politician well beyond his years. He has his grandfather Barbarossa’s inexhaustible energy and ability to charm people over to his side. And from his other grandfather, Roger II he inherited intellectual rigour and administrative skills. And he has this unquenchable curiosity to find out how the world works, the desire for new experiences, for adventures and for sexual pleasure, something entirely of his own. Can you believe that this man had been locked up in a castle with a dour monk as tutor for all his early adolescence? I can’t and that is why I stick to the romantic image of a future emperor roaming the streets of the Sicilian capital like an urchin.

What happened next, we already discussed last episode. If you haven’t, I strongly recommend you do check out Episode 75 – Wet Pants and other Miracles.

For those of you who do not have the time or inclination, here is the 60 second rundown.

In 1208 king Philipp of Swabia is murdered which brings his opponent Otto IV to the throne. Otto did enjoy papal support but makes the fatal mistake to go after Sicily in 1211. The papacy is utterly terrified by the idea of being surrounded by imperial territories, by Lombardy and Tuscany in the north and the Kingdom of Sicily that includes the southern Italian Mainland. Hence Innocent III withdraws support from Otto IV and encourages the German princes to elect Frederick II to become Emperor. That is when Otto IV makes his second mistake. His army is down in Messina and if he had crossed over to the island, Palermo had fallen, and he would have had his rival in custody. But he panicked and ran back home – all that also involves a dream about a bear. As I said, listen to episode 75, much better than this rushed story.

Anyway, Frederick II realises that he has to go to Germany and take the crown because whoever will be emperor in the future will try to take Sicily from him. He sets off, nearly dies a couple of times and then, in the nick of time, enters the city of Constance which gives him the much-needed foothold north of the Alps. The civil war resumes pretty much where Philipp and Otto had left off. That war ends with a battle Frederick is not involved in at all, the battle of Bouvines.

Bouvines was a battle between king Philippe Auguste of France against the Eking John Lackland. Otto IV was reliant on English support. King John had asked him to gather an army and, together with English forces – defeat the French monarch. The battle ends with a rout of Otto’s troops which triggers a set of events that reshape the face of Europe. Not only does Frederick II become the undisputed king of the Romans and subsequently emperor, but the French Monarchy enters its great expansionist phase that will see them becoming the dominant power in Europe, and most importantly, it leads almost directly to the barons’ rebellion and the signing of Magna Carta.

There you go, Frederick II is emperor. How he reigns, in particular how he approaches the politics in Germany will be subject to the next episode. I hope you will be joining 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.

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Otto IV attacks Sicily and Frederick II chases him back to Germany

Otto IV, scion of one of the oldest and most aristocratic families in the world had achieved what so many of his ancestors have craved, ruling the empire. This week we will follow him to his coronation and the sequence of errors that will leave him back home in Brunswick, alone and forgotten. At the same time his nemesis, the child of Pulle, the impoverished 15-year-old king of Sicily and son of emperor Henry VI, young Frederick II rises to the imperial crown on a wing and some very potent  prayer.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to the History of the Germans: Episode 75 – Wet Pants and other Miracles

Otto IV, scion of one of the oldest and most aristocratic families in the world had achieved what so many of his ancestors have craved, ruling the empire. This week we will follow him to his coronation and the sequence of errors that will leave him back home in Brunswick, alone and forgotten. At the same time his nemesis, the Child of Pulle, the impoverished 15-year-old king of Sicily and son of emperor Henry VI, young Frederick II rises to the imperial crown on a wing and some very potent  prayer.

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 Sanjay, Jason and Quidquis who have already signed up.

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Last week we saw Philipp of Swabia grinding towards ultimate victory against his rival for the imperial title, Otto IV. Otto IV had run out of money when his English sponsor, king John Lackland cut off the flow of subsidies. The endorsement by pope Innocent III also proves to be worth a lot less than he had hoped for and finally he had managed to alienate his two most important allies, his brother Henry, the Count Palatinate on the Rhine, and archbishop Adolf of Cologne. Otto IV had rejected a last generous offer from Philipp and in spring 1208 was readying himself for one last battle, presumably to go down in a blaze of glory. The attitude of Rome was the infallible index of the hopelessness of his cause; pope Innocent III withdrew his support from Otto IV, released Philipp from the ban, recognised him as king and offered to crown him emperor should he come down to Rome.

But that did not happen. Instead, a totally random event took place. King Philipp was murdered by Otto von Wittelsbach, a Bavarian count who he had upset by cancelling a marriage alliance. Just to avoid any confusion, this Otto von Wittelsbach is a different Otto to the man of the same name who was the greatest paladin and occasional skinny-dipping buddy of Frederick Barbarossa. That Otto, good Oto was by now dead and his son, Ludwig was the current duke of Bavaria. Murderous Otto was a cousin from another branch of the Wittelsbach family.

That is probably enough genealogy for this episode. Let’s go back to the history.

With Philipp’s death the Hohenstaufen party in Germany simply collapsed. In a terrible twist of fate, the whole of the family had died out without any male descendants. Barbarossa had a stepbrother and eight sons. All of them, were now dead. With the exception of Emperor Henry VI, they all had died without producing a male heir. That made 14-year-old Frederick, the son of the superannuated queen Constance of Sicily and currently residing in Castello a Mare in Palermo the last remaining male Hohenstaufen or as they would have called themselves, the last of the house of Waiblingen. 

Without a natural rallying point the complex alliances that Philip had woven for a decade disappeared overnight. The imperial princes immediately joined Otto IV’s camp and Otto IV just for safety staged a repeat election in Frankfurt in November 1208 where he was unanimously confirmed as king of the Romans and elected Roman emperor.

Philipp’s oldest daughter, Beatrice, appeared before the new sovereign and demanded her father’s murderers to be caught and brought to justice. Otto granted her that justice and Heinrich von Kalden, one of Philipp’s most accomplished warriors was despatched to hunt down Otto von Wittelsbach. That he did, cut off his head and threw it in a river. The duke of Meranien and his brother, the bishop of Bamberg, were also indicted, but were able to keep their heads and other limbs, probably because they were actually innocent.

This act of respect towards his rival was followed by an even more meaningful political move. Otto IV broke his engagement to Maria of Brabant and instead married his rival’s daughter Beatrice. Luckily for him Marie’s father, the duke of Brabant was a little less prickly than Otto von Wittelsbach and refrained from cutting the king’s throat.

Germany pacified the next natural step is for Otto to head down to Italy. Things have changed a lot since the days of Henry VI. The peace of Constance between the empire and the Lombard League is no more. The Lombard League has broken down during the struggle for the imperial crown. The old rivalries between Milan and Cremona and Milan and Pavia have returned. No tax had been sent to either king.

But the biggest change happened in what we now call the Papal States. The popes had returned to Rome in 1188 after years in virtual exile as guests of the commune of Verona. That had been achieved through a deal the popes had to strike with the senate of the Holy City that by now had taken over full temporal control.

The lands the papacy laid claim to on the back of the fake donation of Constantine, such as the Campania around Rome, the March of Ancona, the duchy of Spoleto, the area around Ravenna and the Emilia Romagna were in the hands of either local lords or the communes or imperial vassals. For instance, the duchy of Spoleto was held by Konrad von Urslingen, a Swabian nobleman who had come down to Italy with Henry VI and had received the duchy as his vassal. Spoleto was considered so safe that the empress Constance left her precious son Frederick with Konrad’s family in Folignano rather than take him down to Sicily.

When Otto IV comes down 10 years later, all of these territories have been seized by the papacy. Pope Innocent III had swept in right after Henry VI death and had pushed out the imperial administration. He called it the recuperation of the Patrimonium Petri. These lands now formed a wedge straight across the Italian peninsula. South of it was the kingdom of Sicily, a papal fief ruled by the papal ward Frederick. And north was Lombardy where anti-imperial sentiment was strong at least in parts. A papal Italy was a distinct possibility

Innocent was only 38 when he was elected pope in 1198 and in the years since had become the true ruler of Europe. It wasn’t just the empire that was riven with discord. In Sicily various factions fought over the kingdom as the child-king Frederick looked on. In England John Lackland had lost Normandy and Anjou to king Philippe Auguste of France and subsequently presided over a much more fragile Country than his brother and father. The only powerful monarch was Philippe Auguste but he had a major marital issue that forced him to seek papal favour. Innocent III used these weaknesses to tighten his reign on the bishops and abbots, expanded the judicial responsibilities of papal legates and channelled more and more of church income to Rome. Innocent III had called the fateful fourth crusade, the one that went so off the rails, that ended with crusaders breaking into Constantinople, sacking the greatest Christian city in the world, and installing a Latin emperor and patriarch.

Innocent III did see himself as the “verum imperator”, the true emperor. His favourite image was that of the sun and the moon. The papacy was the sun and the emperors and kings were the moon, who received all their light from the sun. Temporal power was a mere reflection of the might of the Vicar of Christ on earth.

And for him, Otto IV was simply a tool. A physically powerful man with modest intellectual capacity seemed an ideal sword of the church. To gain church support in his struggle with Philipp of Swabia, Otto had given in to all of Innocent’s demands. That included a big step away from the concordat of Worms. There should be free episcopal elections without any interference from the emperor, the recognition of Sicily as a papal fief, assurance that he would never attack Sicily and incorporate it into the empire, the right of the pope to scrutinise any imperial election including the right to vet the elected king of the Romans, and finally, full recognition of papal right to that wedge of land across the Italian peninsula, the Patrimonium Petri.

Otto had promised all this before, and he promised it again to gain his all-important coronation. That Innocent III performed on October 4, 1209, in St. Peter as is good and proper. And, as usual there is a bit of brawling and in the morning some Romans lay dead. By now the city of Rome is not a place a Holy Roman Emperor can stay. Before the coronation Otto IV had made camp on the Monte Mario, outside the city walls and right after he retires to a defensive position in the countryside.

And then he does what every self-respecting emperor would do in his position, now that the octagonal crown is safely on his head and the sacred oil had dried. He writes to the pope and says: Maybe we should meet up and discuss some of the details of our agreement. Maybe talk about the lands of Matilda or poleto. I just have a few questions. And, I am sorry, but I will not be able to meet in person in Rome because the city is a bit too dangerous for me, so why don’t you come into my camp, and we have a nice chat.

Surprise, surprise, Innocent III shows no interest to sit down in a tent surrounded by 6,000 armoured men. He suggests conducting negotiations via envoys.

Negotiations begin whilst Otto IV starts wandering around Tuscany and Spoleto, issuing charters for local lords, monasteries and bishops as if it was his fief. In March 1210 he is in Ravenna and Ferrara, slap bang in the Patrimonium Petri still acting as if he owns the place.

Innocent III is getting nervous. When is this guy going back home? What is he up to? Sure, a bit of imperial play acting is ok as long as he does not take it seriously. But this is dragging on a bit. Otto brings about a peace agreement between Genova and Pisa, making another set of alarm bells ring.

Meanwhile in Southern Italy the barons on the mainland, in Apulia and Calabria are stirring. There is talk of getting rid of young Frederick and bringing in Otto IV. Some of these barons were Germans who had come down with Henry VI and they firmly believed that the kingdom of Sicily should be part of the empire. Whilst the now emperor Otto IV stays in Pisa, the rebellious Sicilian barons seek him out and invite him to take the kingdom. The Pisans promise to help and provide shipping to cross over to the island.

What goes on in Otto’s mind we will never know, but it may have gone along the following lines. Pope Innocent III may appear all powerful but quite frankly his excommunication of Philipp had little to no effect. So, if he goes to Sicily and the pope goes ballistic, this is not going to be such a big deal.

On the other hand, the last of the Hohenstaufen sits in this palace in Palermo. Yes, he is still a boy, his grasp of power in Sicily is weak, but he had once been the elected king of the Romans and he could still be a challenge. Better to stamp out this viper before it comes to bite you.

A man of modest intellect – well let us see.

Whilst Otto makes preparations for a trip down south Innocent III too makes his preparations to bring down his former champion. First, he writes a letter to the German bishops. Not yet excommunicating Otto IV he just lets the bishops know that they are all automatically released from any oath of fealty to the emperor once he formally excommunicates him. Though this is not yet a call for action, the bishops understood right away. Off they went talking to the Landgraves, Margraves, dukes and other imperial princes seeding sedition.

The next one on Innocent’s Christmas card list is king Philippe Auguste and there Innocent resorts to rather uncharacteristic grovelling. He regrets he had not seen through the duplicitous nature of the Welf, something the wise king had so easily done. And he skilfully wove into the letter a few remarks that Otto had made. For instance, that he could not sleep as long as the king of France still occupies lands that rightfully belong to his beloved uncle, king John of England. Again, no call to action, just the subtle encouragement to get in touch with the German princes.

In the autumn of 1210, the conflict breaks out into the open. Otto had by now recruited a sizeable army from German and Lombard allies and began his march down south. The southern Italian rebels joined him at the border of Apulia.

As soon as Otto’s army set out on its quest, the pope issued the formal excommunication and carefully set machinery of rebellion in Germany was put into forward gear. Otto at this point still does not care much.

In spring 1211 hostilities resume and Otto cuts through the resistance of the boy-king of Sicily like butter. By the summer he is near the straits of Messina that separate Sicily and the mainland, waiting for the Pisan fleet that is supposed to take him across.

Frederick’s position is utterly hopeless. His hold on the Sicilian kingdom had always been tenuous, but now it is completely slipping out of his hands. Almost all the feudal lords were siding with the emperor. The still sizeable Muslim population in central Sicily declared for Otto. His kingdom had shrunk to no more than the royal palaces of Palermo. A galley is standing ready to take Frederick across to Africa, should the inevitable take place.

And that is when the first or by some counting the second miracle of Frederick’s life occurs. The first miracle was of course his actual existence, born as he was from a superannuated and perennially barren mother.

Just as Otto was about to embark on the last leg of his conquest, messengers arrive from Germany telling of revolt and the intention of the princes to have him deposed and to elect a new king. And that is when the miracle happens. The messengers, some from Germany, others from his allied city of Milan tell him the imperial princes are meeting and revolt is in the air. They tell him to return as fast as he can.

That same night Otto dreams of bear cup joining him in the imperial bed. The bear. Up grew and grew until it had become the largest and mightiest bear ever seen, a bear that took up so much space it pushed him, Otto, off his couch. Otto IV was “shaken to the marrow” and, terrified of losing his hard-won imperial crown, abandons his prey. The long legged Welf strikes camp and runs, runs as if that bear, he had dreamt of was chasing him back across the Alps.

As so often in history one man’s miracle is just another one’s panic. If Otto had thought about his dream calmly and rationally, he should have pushed forward and killed the bear cup before it grows. Sicily and his potential rival for the imperial rival was right there in his grasp. Capturing him would have brought the whole rebellion come crushing down.

Frederick was saved. And more than that. Just as the imperial army vanished in a cloud of dust, an envoy from Germany, Anselm von Justingen, arrived in Palermo. He bore the news that the German princes had met in September in Nurnberg, deposed Otto IV and elected none other than him, young Frederick, last of the Hohenstaufen, to become King of the Romans. Within just days Frederick had turned from being a near deposed king of Sicily to be elected emperor of the Romans and leader of Christianity.

The title, grand as it was, was still theoretically. To make it real he needed to be crowned, crowned by as we know, the right archbishop in the right church with the true imperial regalia. To get there he has to travel 2300 km, he will need to find allies along the way as Otto’s friends will try to stop him. The notoriously treacherous German princes must still be on side when he gets there for the plan to work out. And he is a 17-year-old who had never been to Germany, does not speak the language and does not know the ins and outs of the fiendishly complicated political landscape of the empire.

No wonder his council strongly discourage him to go. His wife Constance of Aragon – who had just borne him a son – objects even more vehemently. How is she supposed to keep Sicily together on the baby’s behalf when Frederick himself could barely keep it going? What happens if the pope changes his mind about making a king of Sicily emperor, thereby bringing back that dreaded encirclement of the papacy?  As they debated news arrive from Germany that some of the princes who in September had elected Frederick were now coming back to Otto, no doubt lured by some juicy bribe. Another reason to stay back.

In reality, Frederick did not have a choice. The events of the last year had shown that if a powerful emperor, be it Otto or someone else comes down to Sicily, his kingdom would fall. He needed to become emperor as a forward defence position to protect Sicily, probably the most extended forward defence in European history.

He would later claim that he went because his elevation was the sign of God that he, the last descendant of the great emperors of old had survived. He writes to Germany as follows: “since no other could be found, who could have accepted the proffered dignity in opposition to us and to our right…since the princes summoned us and since from their own choice the crown is ours” he accepts the elevation.

Frederick sets off on his great adventure in the middle of March 1212. Upon request of the pope, he had his son, Heinrich, crowned king before his departure.

Progress stalled already in Gaeta south of Rome where a Pisan fleet is lying in wait for him. After a month he finally manages to proceed to Rome where he meets for the first and the only time his guardian, pope Innocent III. He swears fealty to him for the Sicilian kingdom and – as Otto IV before – makes all the assurances the papacy could possibly demand.

Innocent covers the cost of the impecunious monarch’s stay in the Holy city and gives him the funds to continue his journey. The Genoese, perennial rivals of the Pisans are happy to take the boy further north to Lombardy. With just a few friends and a Genoese escort he follows a circuitous route to Pavia, avoiding cities and castles held by Otto’s allies.

The eternally loyal city of Pavia is prepared to take the last of the Ghibellines further on his journey. The next stage post is Cremona and that meant crossing the hostile territory of Piacenza and Milan. As Frederick moved east, news of his movements reaches his Lombard enemies. The Milanese ready their mighty Caroccio and send it down to the river Lambro, where spies have told them the Pavese were planning to hand the boy king over to the men of Cremona. Piacenza meanwhile searched all ships going up the Po expecting to find Frederick hiding amongst the sacks of wheat or bales of cloth.

The Pavese set out in the middle of the night taking their host as quietly and safely as possible the 25 km to the river crossing. Meanwhile the Cremonese head out for the same spot. And as dawn breaks the two contingents rendezvous as planned. They sit down for a well-earned farewell breakfast when the banners of Milan appear on the horizon. In a split-second decision, Frederick wearing no more than his pants and a shirt jumps on a horse and rides bareback across the river into the waiting arms of the Cremonese whilst behind him the faithful Pavese are being slaughtered.

That Frederick saw as miracle #3 whilst the Milanese will recount for decades about how they got the emperors pants wet.

From here there is no stopping him. From Cremona he goes to Mantua, then Verona. He tries to get across the Brenner pass but that is barred by Otto’s allies, so he goes on small mountain paths across bleak landscapes into the Engadin. In early September he is in Chur. The bishop of Chur, itself part of Frederick’s ancestral duchy of Swabia accompanies him to St. Gallen where the abbot of this great monastery joins him.

Along this route Frederick may have witnessed one of the most heart-breaking scenes of the entire Middle Ages, the so-called Children’s Crusade. At Easter 1212 in Cologne a young man, Nicolaus, declared an angel had appeared to him and foretold him that if he led an army of innocents south, he would be able to free Jerusalem. The lord would part the sea and they could get to Palestine on foot. Thousands of mostly adolescents and young adults joined this effort. They set off from Cologne and got to the Brenner pass via Trier and Speyer. By the time they had reached Lombardy most had already died or given up. They reached Genoa via Cremona in August 1212. – there, surprise, surprise, the sea did not part. At that point most were too exhausted, hungry and poor to continue. Very few returned home, some settling in Italy and some even sold into slavery. Later Frederick will condemn to death two merchants involved in that enslavement.

Gustave Dore: children’s crusade

For Frederick travelling the opposite direction, the next destination is Constance, a bishopric in Swabia and crucial to his claim on Philipp’s old powerbase. Otto IV meanwhile had consolidated his position and had come down to Lake Constance to intercept his rival.

Otto camped in Überlingen, a mere 12 km from the episcopal seat. The emperor had negotiated his entry into Constance with the bishop and great festivities were being prepared. His servants were in the town laying the tables and his cooks were putting the huge roasts into even bigger ovens when Frederick and his merry band appeared before the gates of the city.

The bishop was made to come to the battlement and parley with the young contender. Frederick demanded entry as duke of Swabia and as elected king of the Romans. The archbishop Berard of Bari, one of Frederick’s closest advisors and also the papal legate pushed hard on Otto IV being excommunicated and deposed by order of both the princes and the pope.

Entry of frederick II in Konstanz – not how it happened

After some back and forth the bishop relented. Frederick entered the city. Otto was kept out and lacking a full army retreated. Frederick and his men ate all the delicious food and celebrated that the Hohenstaufen were back. Had he been three hours later, Otto IV would have been inside Konstanz and the journey of the young king of Sicily would have ended right there.

This was miracle #4

Frederick’s support quickly grew as he progressed to Basel and then further to Alsace. Like his uncle, the support did not come cheap. Ottokar of Bohemia came and swore allegiance on condition that he would be confirmed, now for the third time, in his royal title.

This time he got even more than a personal royal title. In a splendid golden bull, Ottokar was granted an inheritable Bohemian kingdom as well as free investiture of bishops, relief from serving in imperial campaigns and some generous fiefs from the Hohenstaufen lands. This document was produced by a Sicilian notary and the seal attached was the royal seal of Sicily. Best guess, neither the elected emperor of the Romans nor his notary had the faintest idea where Bohemia was and what he had just handed over.

so-called “Golden Bull of Sicily”

Word of Frederick’s generosity spread rapidly, and the usual turncoats swelled the ranks of the Hohenstaufen loyalists. Our old friend and most unreliable ally Hermann Landgrave of Thuringia popped up again in the Ghibelline tent. The dukes of Lothringia, Zaehringen and Bavaria joined as did the archbishop of Mainz who had been put on his episcopal seat by Otto IV but now saw more value in the young Staufer Prinz.

All of them would benefit but none more than the duke of Bavaria who would gain the Palatinate when Otto’s brother Henry died without heir. The Palatinate and Bavaria would remain in the Wittelsbach family until 1918.

The Wittelsbach territories around 1500 across multiple lines

King Philippe Auguste who had pulled the strings in the background sent the penniless king a generous donation of 20,000 mark of silver. When the French envoys asked where to deposit this huge sum, Frederick said, “what do you mean?” All this money goes straight out to my supporters.

No surprise he was popular. People started calling him the Puer Apuliae, the child of Puglia, the young and innocent man, a true knight, descendant of emperors who was set against the gruff, battle-hardened, tight fisted, not very clever Otto IV.

In November 1212 the princes elected him King of the Romans, now for the third time. Four days later he was crowned king in the cathedral of Mainz by the archbishop of Mainz and with fake imperial regalia.

We know what that means – it means the war isn’t over yet.

We are quickly reverting back to the political situation of 1198-1208. Frederick holds southern Germany with his centres of power in the Hohenstaufen lands. Otto IV holds his family estates in Saxony and has allies in the lower Rhine. But his most important ally is the king of England, John lackland.

King John had lost the heart of the Angevin empire, Normandy and Anjou. The following 10 years John has spent gathering money and weapons with the single aim to get it back. And part of his plan was now the support of Otto IV. When he rekindled that alliance Otto IV was the undisputed ruler of the empire and hence a hugely important ally. Had Frederick never been born, been routed in Sicily in 1211, drowned in the river Lambro or missed the entrance into Konstanz by 3 hours, English history would have taken a different turn. Because now Otto IV could not provide anywhere near the kind of help John Lackland had hoped for.

At the beginning of 1214 John Lackland could not wait any longer for his ally to succeed. The great campaign against Philippe Auguste had to begin.

At its heart was a two-pronged approach. King John was to attack from the Southwest luring Philippe Auguste away from the Capetian heartlands around Paris. Otto should lead a combined force of Saxon, Brabant, Flanders and English forces in from the North East, taking the Ile de France and cutting the French king off from supplies.

On paper a very sound plan. John landed in La Rochelle, but his campaign ended quickly and rather embarrassingly. Philippe Auguste send him back into his boats and turned round to face the other invading army in the north. That was certainly a setback for the Anglo-Welf alliance, but it was partially offset by Frederick’s failure to distract Otto IV on the lower Rhine.

All now depended on the outcome in the Northeast. The two armies met at the bridge of Bouvines, between Lille and Tournai.  

Georges Duby estimated that Philipps army consisted of 1,300 knights, about the same number of mounted fighters and 6,000 foot soldiers. Otto’s army was larger not by a wide margin, but somewhat larger. Philippe’s army comprised predominantly of men from his personal domains in the Ile de France, the Artois and the Picardy. Otto’s forces were in part English but in the majority from Saxony, Flanders, Brabant, and Holland.

Philippe lined his army up in the traditional French manner. In the middle were the armed infantrymen with the cavalry on either side. Behind the infantry stood the king himself with his household knights and the reserve cavalry. Above the king flew the Oriflamme, the blood-red sacred war banner shot through with golden stars, confirming the presence of St. Denis, patron saint of the French monarchy.

The oriflamme on the top right hand corner – image depicts another battle at Roosebeke

Otto’s army was mirroring the French side. On the left flank knights from Flanders and Germany, on the right flank the English knights under William of Salisbury, called Longsword, the half-brother of king John. Otto IV took the centre with his Saxon knights and the foot soldiers lined up before him.

Otto IV had brought a highly symbolic battle standard too. Not the Holy Lance as it had been wielded by the Ottonians, but a golden imperial eagle. Raised on a staff that symbolized the Honor Imperii, the honour of the empire. And below flew the Anglo-Norman silk dragon symbolising the unity of Normandy, the dark dragon, and the white and red dragons of Britain.

Anglo-Saxon dragon flag

With two monarchs on the battlefield the key objective of either side was to capture the leader of the other side and/or his battle standard.

Otto made the first move and sent his experienced and numerically superior foot soldiers into the French centre. This move nearly decided the battle. The lightly armoured men got all the way to king Philippe Auguste and pulled him off his horse. They started hacking at his armour looking for the weakness that their daggers could penetrate. Only by a hair’s breadth did his bodyguard get him out.

That gave the French side new momentum. They pushed back the imperial infantry and started moving towards the golden eagle. Otto IV and his Saxon knights pushed back and finally fighting began between the knights whilst the simple soldiers were trampled under the horses’ hoofs.

A French knight, Gerard de Trui got close enough to drive his dagger into Otto’s chest armour. The armour deflected the blow but on the second attempt, Gerard hit the emperor’s horse in the eye. The horse rose up in pain and Otto fell on the ground. Otto was pulled out the melee and mounted a fresh horse. Another French knight, Walther de Barres grabbed him by the neck twice but failed to take the emperor down. At that point Otto IV lost his nerve and fled, leaving behind the golden eagle whose wings were broken when it fell.

Their leader gone the bulk of the army surrendered. Only the count of Boulogne and his 700 mercenaries from Brabant, the much feared Brabanzones held out until almost all of them lay dead.

This was not a miracle, just a medieval battle. But this battle decided so much of European history.

The Angevin empire shrunk to just Aquitaine. The Capetian kings began calling themselves kings of France, no longer king of the Francs as they had gained permanent possession of Northern and central France.  

King John Lackland returned to England empty handed after having squeezed the last dime out of his land in the hope of regaining the riches of France. His barons could not take it any longer and forced him to sign a list of concessions, the document we now know as Magna Carta.

And as for Otto IV, his imperial dream had collapsed. He would hold out in Brunswick until 1218, friendless and largely forgotten. After his truly gruesome death, his nephew, Otto the child, would be raised to duke of Brunswick and the House of Welf would depart from the global stage until on August I, 1714 a certain George, duke of Brunswick-Luneburg and elector of Hannover ascended the English throne where his descendants still reign.

Otto “the child” being elevated to duke of Brunswick by Frederick II

Frederick II was the other winner of the battle without having shot a single arrow. He was crowned properly in Aachen by the right archbishop and the real imperial regalia in 1215. And as we know, once that has happened the civil war is usually over.

Next week we will go back in time and talk about Frederick II’s early years, his mindset and outlook and the role of his guardian, pope Innocent III. I hope you will join us again.

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