FREDERICK II AT WAR WITH THE PAPACY

[1Sidenote: [1216-1244 A.D.]]

2Honorius III, previously called Cencio Savelli, who succeeded Innocent, 1216, and governed the Roman church more than ten years, did not perform so many deeds worthy of being recorded; yet he was very careful that the Romish power should receive no diminution. Pursuing this course, he had a grievous falling out with the emperor Frederick II, a magnanimous prince, whom he himself had crowned at Rome in the year 1220. Frederick, imitating his grandfather, laboured to establish and enlarge the authority of the emperors in Italy, to depress the minor states and republics of Lombardy, and to diminish the immense wealth and power of the pontiffs and the bishops; and to accomplish these objects, he continually deferred the crusade, which he had promised with an oath. Honorius, on the other hand, continually urged Frederick to enter on his expedition to Palestine; yet he secretly encouraged, animated, and supported the cities and republics that resisted the emperor, and raised various impediments to the latter’s increasing power. Still, this hostility did not, at present, break out in open war.

3But under Gregory IX--whose former name was Ugolino, and who was elevated from the bishopric of Ostia to the pontificate, 1227, an old man, but still bold and resolute--the fire, which had been long burning in secret, burst into a flame.[104] In the year 1227 the pontiff excommunicated the emperor, who still deferred his expedition to Palestine; but without proceeding in due form of ecclesiastical law, and without regarding the emperor’s excuse of ill health. In the year 1228 the emperor sailed with his fleet to Palestine; but instead of waging war as he was bound to do, he made a truce with Saladin on recovering Jerusalem. While he was absent the pontiff raised war against him in Apulia, and endeavoured to excite all Europe to oppose him.

4Therefore Frederick hastened back, in the year 1229, and after vanquishing his enemies, made his peace with the pontiff in the year 1230. But this peace could not be durable, as Frederick would not submit to the control of the pontiff. Therefore, as the emperor continued to press heavily on the republics of Lombardy, which were friendly to the pontiff, and transferred Sardinia, which the pontiff claimed as part of the patrimony of the church, to his son Enzio; and wished to withdraw Rome itself from the power of the pontiff; and did other things very offensive to Gregory--the pontiff, in the year 1239, again laid him under anathemas; and accused him to all the sovereigns of Europe of many crimes and enormities, and particularly of speaking contemptuously of the Christian religion.

5The emperor, on the other hand, avenged the injuries that he received, both by written publications and by his military operations in Italy, in which he was for the most part successful; and thus he defended his reputation, and also brought the pontiff into perplexity and difficulty. To rescue himself, in some measure, in the year 1240 Gregory summoned a general council to meet at Rome, intending to hurl the emperor from his throne by the united suffrages of the assembled fathers. But Frederick, in the year 1241, captured the Genoese fleet, which was carrying a great part of the fathers to the council at Rome, and seizing as well their treasures as themselves, he cast them into prison. Broken down by these calamities, and by others of no less magnitude, Gregory shortly after sank into the grave.

6The successor of Gregory, Goffredo Castiglione of Milan, who assumed the name of Celestine IV, died before his consecration; and after a long interregnum, in the year 1243, Senibaldi, a Genoese, descended from the counts Fieschi, succeeded under the pontifical name of Innocent IV, a man inferior to none of his predecessors in arrogance and insolence of temper. Between him and Frederick there were at first negotiations for peace; but the terms insisted on by the pontiff were deemed too harsh by the emperor. Hence Innocent, feeling himself unsafe in any part of Italy, in 1244 removed from Genoa to Lyons in France; and the next year assembled a council there, in the presence of which, but without its approbation (whatever the Roman writers may affirm to the contrary), he declared Frederick unworthy of the imperial throne.

7[Sidenote: [1244-1274 A.D.]]

8This most unrighteous decision of the pontiff had such influence upon the German princes, who were infected with the superstition of the times, that they elected first Henry, landgraf of Thuringia, and on his death William, count of Holland, to the imperial throne. Frederick continued the war vigorously and courageously in Italy, and with various successes, until a dysentery terminated his life in Apulia, on the 13th of December, 1250. On the death of his foe, Innocent returned to Italy in the year 1251. From this time especially (though their origin was much earlier) the two noted factions of Guelfs and Ghibellines, of which the former sided with the pontiffs and the latter with the emperors, most unhappily rent asunder and devastated all Italy.

9Alexander IV, whose name as count of Segni and bishop of Ostia was Rinaldo, became pontiff on the death of Innocent (1254) and reigned six years and six months. Excepting some efforts to put down a grandson of Frederick II, called Conradin, and to quiet the perpetual commotions of Italy, he busied himself more in regulating the internal affairs of the church than in national concerns. The mendicant friars, Dominicans and Franciscans, are under especial obligations to him. Urban IV, before his election to the pontificate in 1261, was James, patriarch of Jerusalem, a man born of obscure parentage at Troyes. He distinguished himself more by instituting the festival of the Body of Christ than by any other achievement.

10He indeed formed many projects: but he executed few of them, being prevented by death, in the year 1264, after a short reign of three years. Not much longer was the reign of Clement IV, a Frenchman and bishop of Sabina, under the name of Guido Fulcodi (Guy Foulques), who was created pontiff in the year 1265. Yet he is better known on several accounts, but especially for conferring the kingdom of Naples on Charles of Anjou, brother to Louis IX, the king of France. Charles is well known to have beheaded Conradin, the only surviving grandson of Frederick II, after conquering him in battle, and this, if not by the counsel, at least with the consent of the pontiff.[105]

11On the death of Clement IV[106] there were vehement contests among the cardinals, respecting the election of a new pontiff; which continued till the third year, when, at last, 1271, Teobaldo of Piacenza, archdeacon of Liège, was chosen, and assumed the name of Gregory X. He had been called from Palestine, where he had resided; and having witnessed the depressed state of the Christians in the Holy Land, nothing more engaged his thoughts than sending them succour.