-^ -o-DTTVTri-cm/^TVr "NT .T PRINCETON, N. J. SAelf BR 162 .M64 1883 v. 6 Milman, Henry Hart, 1791- 1868. History of Latin Christianill HISTOEY LATIN CHRISTIANITY; INCLUDING THAT OF THE POPES TO THE PONTIFICATE OF NICOLAS V. By henry hart MILMAN, D.D., DEAN OF ST. PAUL'S. IN NINE VOLUMES.— YoL YL FOURTH EDITION. LONDON: JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET. 1883. p CONTENTS THE SIXTH VOLUME. BOOK IX. — continued, CHAPTEK IX. New Orders. — St. Dominic. aJ) ?agh Preaching rare 1 The Kitual 2 Monasticism 3 Intellectual movement 5 Heresy ib. St. Dominic and St. Francis 8 1170 Birth of Dominic — Education 11 1203-1205 In Languedoc 12 Dominic in the war 14 In the tribunals 15 1217 Foundation of Order of Friar Preachers .. .. 17 1220 First Chapter 19 1221 Second Chapter ih. Death of Dominic 22 CHAPTEK X. St. Francis. J182 Birth and youth 25 1206 Embraces mendicancy 27 His followers 29 Before Innocent III 30 a % IV CONTENTS OF \0L. VI. A.D. TAGS Foundation of the Order •• .. , 30 Foreign missions 32 St. Francis in the East .. .. .. ih. Martyrs 33 Poetry of St. Francis .. 35 Tertiaries.. .. 37 1224 The Stigmata 38 Rule of St. Francis 42 Close of Innocent III.'s Pontificate 45 BOOK X. CHAPTER I. HoNORius III. — Frederick II. 1216 Election of Honorius 54 His mildness 55 Crusade of Andrew of Hungary 57 Death of Otho 58 1219 Correspondence with the Pope 60 1220 Diet of Frankfort— Election of Henry King of the Romans 62 Frederick's laws in favour of ecclesiastics ; against heretics 66 Loss of Damietta 68 1229 Meeting at Veroli— at Ferentino 69 1225 Meeting at San Germano 71 Frederick's marriage with the Princess lolante .. 72 1226 Angry correspondence 75 1227 Death of Honorius 77 CHAPTEE II. Honorius III. and England. Pope protects Henry III 80 Peter's Pence 83 Benefices held by Italians 84 Tenths 8g AJ>. CONTENTS OF VOL. VI. CHAPTER III. Frederick II. and Gregory IX. Pi-GE 1227 Gregory IX 89 Frederick II 90 The Court 91 The Crusade urged on Frederick 92 Prei^aratious 103 Return of Frederick 104 Excommunication of Frederick ?*J. Second excommunication Ill Gregory driven from Rome 112 1228 Frederick sets sail for the Holy Land 115 In Palestine 122 Sultan Kameel of Egypt 123 Treaty 124 Frederick at Jerusalem 126 Anger of Mohammedans at the Treaty .. .. 130 Condemned by the Pope 133 Frederick leaves Palestine 136 Election to Archbishopric of Canterbury .. .. 138 1229 Return of Frederick 139 Christendom against the Pope 141 1230 Peace 144 Frederick as Legislator 147 Laws relating to religion 150 Civil Constitution 152 Cities, Peasants, &c 153 Intellectual progress 158 Gregory IX. and the Decretals 163 CHAPTEE IV. Renewal of Hostilities between Gregory IX. and Frederick II. Persecution of heretics 167 530-1339 Gregory and the Lombards 170 1236 Lombards leagued with Princes 176 1237 Battle of Corte Nuova 179 VI CONTENTS OF VOL. VI. A.D. ?AOn 1238 G regory against Frederick 182 Excommunication ib. Frederick's reply 184 Appeal to Christendom 187 Gregory's reply ,. 192 Public opinion in Christendom — England .. 195 Empire offered to Robert of France 201 Germany 203 Albert von Beham 204 The Friars 207 John of Vicenza 208 1239 War 211 1240 Advance of Frederick on Korae 214 Council summoned 217 Battle of Meloria 219 1241 FallofFaenza 220 Death of Gregory IX 221 CcelestinelV 223 CHAPTEK V. Fkedekick and Innocent IV. 99 :io 1243 Accession of Innocent IV Defection of Viterbo 227 Negotiations .. .. 228 Flight of Innocent to France .. .. 230 Innocent excommunicates the Emperor .. .. 233 Martin Pope's Collector in England 235 1245 Council of Lyons 237 Thaddeus of SiTessa 240 Frederick deposed 243 Frederick appeals to Christendom , 244 Innocent claims both spiritual and temporal power 247 1246 Mutual accusations 251 Innocent attempts to raise Germany 254 Albert von Beham — Otho of Bavaria 255 1247 Election and death of Henry of Thuringia .. .. 257 1248 Siege of Parma 259 King Enzio 260 Peter de Vincu 26S CONTENTS OF VOL. VI. Vll A.D. PXG8 1250 Death of Frederick II 264 Character 265 Papal Legates 270 1251 Innocent's return to Italy 273 Kingdom of Naples ib. Brancaleone 276 1253 Death of Prince Henry 279 Manfred 281 in revolt 284 1264 Death of Innocent 285 Robert GrostSte, Bishop of Lincoln 288 Vision tolnnocent 293 BOOK XL CHAPTER I. St. Louis. Character of St. Louis 295 1226 Blanche of Castile— Youth of St. Louis .. .. 297 His virtues 300 1246 Preparations for Crusade 302 1249 Ci-usade 305 1250 Defeat and Captivity 306 Ransom and Release 308 1252 Return to Europe 310 Contrast between St. Louis and Frederick II. .. 311 1232-44 Code of Inquisition.. ' 312 Insurrection against Inquisition 314 1239 Persecution in France 316 1260 Pragmatic Sanction 319 CHAPTEE II. Pope Alexander IV. 1254 Election .. ..• 320 Manfred ib. Edmund of England King of Sicily .. ,. .. 321 VlD CONTENTS OF VOL. VI. A.D. 'AGK 1250 Boniface Archbishop of Canterbury 324 1258 The Senator Brancaleone 326 Manfred King of Sicily 329 1259 Eccehn da Romano 331 Alberic da Eomano 332 Tlie Flagellants 333 1251 The Pastoureaux 336 The Mendicant Friars 341 1231-52 University of Paris 343 William of St. Amour 347 The Everlasting Gospel .. .. 349 The Perils of the Last Times 351 CHAPTER III. Urban IY. — Clement IV. — Charles of Anjou. 1261 Death of Alexander IV 357 Election of Urban IV ih. Manfred 360 State of Italy ib. Charles of Anjou 362 Ugo Falcodi Legate in England 363 1264 Death of Urban IV 368 Pope Clement IV ih. 1265 Charles of Anjou at Rome .. .. 370 Battle of Beneven to 372 Tyranny of the French 375 England ib. Simon de Montfort .. .. 377 Reaction 380 Council of London 381 James of An-agon 382 1267 Conradin 383 Henry ot Castile 386 1268 Conradin in Italy 388 Defeat and death 390 Battle of Tagliacozzo . . ih Death of Clement IV 392 CONTENTS OF VOL. VI '^ vT CHAPTER IV. GkEGOBY X. AND HIS SUCCESSORS. A D PAGE More than Two Years' Vacancy in the Popedom 394 1268 Pragmatic Sanction .. .. 395 1270 Death of St. Louis 398 1271-2 Gregory X 399 1273 Kodolph of Hapsburg Emperor 403 1274 Council of Lyons 405 Law of Papal Election 407 1276 Death of Gregory X 408 Eapid Succession of Popes — Innocent V. — Hadrian V 409 John XXI 410 1277 Nicolas III 411 Greeks return to Independence 413 1280 Schemes and Death of Nicolas III 417 Martin IV .. .. 419 CHAPTER V. Sicilian Vespers. Discontent of Sicily 421 Tyranny of Charles ot Anjou 422 John of Procida 426 1282 Sicilian Vespers 429 Revolt of Sicily 430 Conduct of Charles of Anjou 433 Siege of Messina 435 Peter of Arragon King of Sicily 436 Martin condemns the King of Arragon 440 1283 Challenge— Scene at Bordeaux .. 442 1285 Death of Charles of Anjou, of Philip of France, and Martin IV 445 1286 James crowned 446 Honorius IV ■*^- 1288 Nicolas IV 447 Nicolas and the Colonnas 451 1292 Death of Nicolas IV 453 VOL. VT. f> CONTENTS OF VOL. VI. CHAPTEE VI. C(ELESTINE V. A.D. PAGB Conclave 454 1293 Peter Morrone— Coelestine V. Pope 456 Inauguration in Naples 461 Abdication .. 466 Jacopone da Todi • 468 HISTORY OF LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK IX. — continued. CHAPTER IX. New Orders. St. Dominic. The progress of the new opinions in all quarters, their obstinate resistance in Languedoc, opinions, if not yet rooted out, lopped by the sword, and seared by the fire, had revealed the secret of the fatal weakness of Latin Christianity. Sacerdotal Christianity, by ascending a throne higher than all thrones of earthly sove- preaching reigns, by the power, the wealth, the magnifi- ^^'"^• cence of the higher ecclesiastics, had withdrawn the influence of the clergy from its natural and peculiar ofSce. Even with the lower orders of the priesthood, that which in a certain degree separated them from the people, set them apart from the sympathies of the people. The Church might still seem to preach to all, but it preached in a tone of lofty condescension; it dictated rather than persuaded ; but, in general, actual preaching had fallen into disuse ; it was in theory the special privilege of the bishops, and the bishops were but few who had either the gift, the inclination, or the leisure from their secular, judicial, or warlike occupa- tions to preach even in their cathedral cities; in the VOL. VI. B 2 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X. rest of tlieir dioceses their presence was but occasional ; a progress or visitation of pomp and form, rather than of popular instruction. The only general teaching of the people was the Ritual. But the splendid Ritual, admirably as it was con- stituted to impress by its words or symbolic forms the leading truths of Christianity upon the more intelligent, or in a vaguer way upon the more rude and uneducated, could be administered, and was administered, by a priesthood almost entirely ignorant, but which had just learned mechanically, not without decency, perhaps not without devotion, to go through the stated observances. Everywhere the bell sum- moned to the frequent service, the service was per- formed, and the obedient flock gathered to the chapel or the church, knelt, and either performed their orisons, or heard the customary chant and prayer. This, the only instruction which the mass of the priesthood could convey, might for a time be sufficient to maintain in the minds of the people a quiescent and submissive faith, nevertheless, in itself could not but awaken in some a desire of knowledge, which it could not satisfy. Auricular confession, now by Innocent III. raised to a necessary duty, and to be heard not only by the lofty bishop, but by the parochial priest, might have more effect in repressing the uneasy or daring doubts of those who began to reason; doabts w^hich would startle and alarm the uneducated priest, and which he would endeavour to silence at once by all the terrors of his authority. Though the lower priesthood were from the people, they were not of the people ; nor did they fully interpenetrate the whole mass of the people. The parochial divisions, where they existed, were arbitrary, accidental, often not clearly defined ; they followed in Chap. IX. - CELIBACY OF THE CLERGY. 3 general tlie bounds of royal or aristocratical dom-ains. A churcli was founded by a pious king, noble, or knight, with a certain district around it ; but in few countries was there any approach to a systematic organisation of the clergy in relation to the spiritual wants and care of the whole Christian community. The fatal question of the celibacy of the clergy worked in both ways to the prejudice of their autho- ceiibacy rity. The married clergy, on the whole no of«^'ei"gy- doubt the more moral, were acting in violation of the rules of the Church, and were subject to the opprobrious accusation of living in concubinage. The validity of their ministrations was denied by the more austere ; the doctrines of men charged with such grievous error lost their proper weight. The unmarried obeyed the out- ward rule, but by every account, not the bitter satire of enemies alone but the reluctant and melancholy ad- mission of the most gentle and devout, in general so flagrantly violated the severer principles of the Church, that their teaching, if they attempted actual teaching, must have fallen dead on the minds of the people. The earlier monastic orders were still more deficient as instructors in Christianity. Their chief, if „ . '' 1 1 • Monasticism. not their sole exclusive and avowed object, was the salvation, or, at the highest, the religious per- fection of themselves and of then- own votaries. Soli- tude, seclusion, the lonely cell, their own unapproached, or hardly approached, chapel, was their sphere ; their communication with others was sternly cut off. The dominant, the absorbing thought of each hermit, of each coenobite, was his own isolation or that of his brethren from the dangerous world. But to teach the world they must enter the world. Their influence, therefore beyond their convent walls was but subordinate and B 2 4 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX accessory. The halo of their sanctity might awe, attract others ; the zeal of love might, as to their more imme- diate neighbours, struggle with the coercive and em- prisoning discipline. But the admiration of their sanc- tity would act chiefly in alluring emulous votaries within, rather than in extending faith and holiness beyond their walls. Even their charities were to i .dieve their own souls, to lay up for themselves treasures of good works, rather than from any real sympathy for the people. The loftier notion of combining their own humiliation with the good of mankind first dawned upon the founders of the Mendicant orders. In the older monasteries beneficence was but a subsidiary and ancil- lary virtue. The cultivation of the soil was not to increase its fertility for the general advantage ; it was to employ their own dangerous energies, to subdue their own bodies by the hard discipline of labour. At all events, the limit of their influence was that of their retainers, tenants, peasants, or serfs, bounded by their own near neighbourhood. No sooner indeed had any one of the older Orders, or any single monastery attained to numbers, rank or influence, than it became more and more estranged from the humbler classes ; the vows of poverty had been eluded, the severer rule gradually relaxed ; the individual might remain poor, but the order or the convent became rich ; narrow cells grew into stately cloisters, deserts into parks, hermits into princely abbots. It became a great religious aristocracy ; it became worldly, without impregnating the world with its religious spirit; it was hardly less secluded fi'om popular intercourse than before; even where learning was cultivated it was the high scholastic theology : theo- logy wliich, in its pride, stood as much aloof from the popular mind as the feudal bishop or the mitred abbot. CHAr. IX. HERESY. But just at this time that popular mind throughout Christendom seemed to demand instruction, intellectual There was a wide and vague awakening and movement. yearning of the human intellect. It is impossible to suppose that the lower orders were not to a certain extent generally stirred by that movement which thronged the streets of the universities of Paris, Auxerre, Oxford, with countless hosts of indigent scholars, which led thousands to the feet of Abelard, and had raised logical disputations on the most barren metaphysical subjects to an interest like that of a tournament. An insatiate thirst of curiosity, of inquiry, at least for mental 823iritual excitement, seemed almost suddenly to have pervaded society. Here that which was heresy, or accounted to be heresy, stepped in and seized upon the vacant mind. Preaching in public and in private was the strength of all the heresiarchs, of all the sects. Eloquence, popular eloquence became a new power which the Church had comparatively neglected or dis- dained since the time of the Crusades ; or had gone on wasting upon that worn-out and now almost unstirring topic. The Petrobussians, the Henricians, the followers of Peter Waldo, and the wilder teachers at least tinged with the old Manichean tenets of the East, met on this common ground. They were poor and popular; tbey felt with the people, whether the lower burghers of the cities, the lower vassals, or even the peasants and serfs ■, they spoke the language of the people, they were of the people. If here and there one of the higher clei'gy, a priest or a canon, adopted their opinions and mode of teaching, he became an object of reverence and noto- riety ; and this profound religious influence so obtained was a strong temptation to religious mmds. But aU 6 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book iJL these sects were bound together by their common revo- lutionary aversion to the clergy, not only the wealthy, worldly, immoral, tyrannical, but the decent but inert priesthood, who left the uninstructed souls of men to perish. In their turn, they were viewed with the most jealous hatred by the clergy, not merely on account of their heterodox and daring tenets, but as usurping their office, which themselves had almost let fall from their hands. We have seen the extent to which they pre- vailed ; nothing less might be apprehended (unless coerced by the obedient temporal power, and no other measure seemed likely to succeed) than a general revolt of the lower orders from the doctrines and rule of the hierarchy. At this time, too, the rude dialects which had been New Ian- slowly formiug by the breaking up of the guages. Eoman Latin and its fusion with the Teutonic, M-ere growing into regular and distinct languages. Latin, the language of the Church, became less and less the language of the people. In proportion as the Roman or foreign element predominated, the services of the Church, the speech in which all priests were sup- posed to be instructed, remained more or less clear and intelligible. It was more so where the Latin maintained its ascendancy ; but in the Teutonic or Sclavonian regions, even the priesthood had learned Latin imper- fectly, if at all ; and Latin had ceased to be the means of ordinary communication ; it was a strange, obsolete, if still venerable language. Even in Italy, in Northern and Southern France, in England where the Norman French kept down to a certain extent the old free Anglo-Saxon (we must wait more than a century for Wyclyffe and Chaucer), in Spain, Latin was a kindred, indistinctly significant tongue, but not that of common KS' Chap. IX. NEW LANGUAGES. nse, not that of the field, the street, the market, or the fair. But vernacular teaching was in all quarters coetaneous with the new opinions ; versions of the sacred writings, or parts of the sacred writings, into the young languages were at once the sign of their birth, and the instrument of their propagation. These languages had begun to speak, at least in poetry, and not only to the knightly aristocracy. The first sounds of Italian poetry were already heard in the Sicilian court of the young Frederick II. : Dante was ere long to come. The Pro- vencal had made the nearest approach perhaps to a regular language ; and Provence, as has been seen, lent her Rom aunt to the great anti-hierarchical movement. In France the Trouveres had in the last century begun their inexhaustible, immeasurable epopees; but these were as yet the luxuries of the court and the castle, heard no doubt by the people, but not what is fairly called popular poetry,* tliough here and there might even now be heard the tale or the fable. Germany, less poetical, was at once borrowing the knightly poems on Charlemagne, and King Arthur, and the Crusades ; emulating France, reviving the old classical fables, among them the story of Alexander ; while in Walter the Falconer^ are heard tones more menacing, more ominous of religious revolution, more daringly expressive of Teutonic independence. But this gradual encroachment of the vernacular » See in the 22nd vol. of the Hist. Litteraire de la France the description and anal3'sis of the innumerable Chan- sons de Geste, Po^mes d'Aventure. With all these were mingled up, both in Gennany and France, as intermina- ble hagiological romances, legends, and lives of saints, even the more modern Saints. See, e.g., the French poem on Thomas a Becket, edited in the Berlin Transactions by M. Bekker. *» Lachraann has edited the original Walter der Vogelweide with his usual industry ; Simrock modernised him to the understanding of the less learneJ reader. 8 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX. poetiy on the Latin, the vain struggle of the Latin to maintain its mastery, the growth and influence of modern languages must be reserved .for a later, more full, and consecutive inquiry. Just at this juncture arose almost simultaneously, St. Dominic witliout coucort, in different countries, two men St. Francis. woudcrfuUy adapted to arrest and avert the danger which threatened the whole hierarchical system. One seized and, if he did not wrest from the hands of the enemy, turned against him with indefatigable force . his own fatal arms, St. Dominic, the fouuder of the Friar Preachers. By him Christendom was at once over- spread with a host of zealous, active, devoted men, whose function was popular instruction. They were gathered from every country, and spoke, therefore, every language and dialect. In a few years, from the sierras of Spain to the steppes of Eussia; from the Tiber to the Thames, the Trent, the Baltic Sea ; the old faith, in its fullest mediaeval, imaginative, inflexible rigour, was preached in almost every town and hamlet. The Dominicans did not confine themselves to popular teaching : the more dangerous, if as yet not absolutely disloyal seats of the new learning, of inquiry, of intel- lectual movement, the universities, Bologna, Paris, Oxford are invaded, and compelled to admit these stern apostles of unswerving orthodoxy. Their zeal soon over- leaped the pale of Christendom : they plunge fearlessly into the remote darkness of heathen and Mohammedan lands, from whence come back rumours, which are con- stantly stirring the minds of their votaries, of wonderful conversions and not less wonderful martyrdoms. The other, St. Francis of Assisi, was endowed with that fervour of mystic devotion, which spread like an epidemic with irresistible contagion among the lower Chap. IX. ST. DOMINIC AND ST. FRANCIS. 9 orders tliroiigbout Christendom. It was a superstition, but a superstition which had such an earnestness, warmth, tenderness, as to raise the religious feeling to an intense but gentle passion ; it supplied a never-failing counter excitement to rebellious reasoning, which gladly fell asleep again on its bosom. After the death of its author and example, it raised a new object of adoration, more near, more familiar, and second only, if second, to the Eedeemer himself. Jesus was supposed to have lived again in St. Francis with at least as bright a halo of mii-acle around him, in absolute, almost surpassing per- fection. In one important respect the founders of these new orders fully agreed, in their entire identification witli the lowest of mankind. At first amicable, afterwards emulous, eventually hostile, they, or rather their Orders, rivalled each other in sinking below poverty into beg- gary. They were to live upon alms ; the coarsest imaginable dress, the hardest fare, the narrowest cell, were to keep them down to the level of the humblest. Though Dominic himself was of high birth, and many of his followers of noble blood, St. Francis of decent even wealthy parentage, according to the irrepealable constitution of both Orders they were still to be the poorest of mankind, instructing or consorting in reli- gious fellowship with the very meanest outcasts of society. Both the new Orders differed in the same manner, and greatly to the advantage of the hierarchical faith, from the old monkish institutions. Their primary object was not the salvation of the individual monk, but the salvation of others through him. Though, there- fore, their rules within their monasteries were strictly and severely monastic, bound by the common vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience, seclusion was no part 10 LAXm CHRISTIANITY. Book IX. of their discipline. Their business was abroad rather than at home ; their dwelling was not like that of the old Benedictines or others, in the uncultivated swamps and forests of the North, on the dreary Apennine, or the exhausted soil of Italy, in order to subdue their bodies, and occupy their dangerously unoccupied time ; merely as a secondary consequence to compel the desert into fertile land. Their work was among their fellow men ; in the village, in the town, in the city, in the market, even in the camp. In every Dominican convent the Superior had the power to dispense even with the ordinary internal discipline, if he thought the brother might be more usefully employed in his special avo- cation of a Preacher. It might seem the ambition of these men, instead of cooping up a chosen few in high- walled and secure monasteries, to subdue the whole world into one vast cloister ; monastic Christianity would no longer flee the world, it would subjugate it, or win it by gentle violence. In Dominic Spain began to exercise that remarkable Dominic a influenco over Latin Christianity, to display Spaniard. ^^^^^ pcculiar charactcr which culminated as it were in Ignatius Loyola, in Philip 11. , and in Torque- mada, of which the code of the Inquisition was the statutory law ; of which Calderon was the poet. The life of every devout Spaniard was a perpetual crusade. By temperament and by position he was in constant adventurous warfare against the enemies of the Cross : hatred of the Jew, of the Mohammedan, was the herrban under which he served ; it was the oath of his chivalry : that hatred, in all its intensity, Avas soon and easily extended to the heretic. Hereafter it was to compre- liend the heathen Mexican, the Peruvian. St. Dominic was, as it were, a Cortez, bound by his sense of duty, Chap. IX. JBIETH OF I>OMINIC. 1 i urged by an inward voice, to invade older Christendom. And Dominic was a man of as profound sagacity as of adventurous enthusiasm. He intuitively perceived, or the circumstances of his early career forced upon him, the necessities of the age, and showed him the arms in which himself and his forces must be arrayed to achieve their conquest. St. Dominic was born in 1170, in the village of Calaroga, between Aranda and Osma, in Old Castile. His parents were of noble name, that of Guzman, if not of noble race.° Prophecies (we must not disdain legend, though manifest legend) proclaimed his birth. It was a tenet of his disciples that he was born without original sin, sanctified in his mother's womb. His mother dreamed that she bore a dog with a torch in his mouth, which set the world on fire. His votaries borrowed too the old classical fable ; the bees settled on his lips, foreshowing his exquisite eloquence. Even in his infancy, his severe nature, among other wonders, began to betray itself. He crept from his soft couch to lie on the hard cold ground. The first part of his education Dominic received from his uncle, a churchman at Gamiel d'Izan. At fifteen years old he was sent to the university of Palencia; he studied, chiefly theology, for ten years. He was laborious, devout, abstemious. Two stories are recorded which show the dawn of religious strength in his character. During a famine, he sold his clothes to feed the poor : he offered in compassion to a woman who deplored the slavery of her brother to the Moors, to be sold for his redemption. He had not what may be strictly called a « This point is contested. The Father Bremond wrote to confute the Bollaii jists, who had cast a promne doubt on the noble descent of Dominic. 1 2 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book iX. monastic traiuing.*^ The Bishop of Osma had changed his chapter into reguhir canons, those who lived in com- mon, and under a rule approaching to a monastic institute. Dominic became a canon in this rigorous house : there he soon excelled the others in austerity. TJiis was in his twenty-fifth year : he remained in Osma, not much known, for nine years longer. Diego de Azevedo had succeeded to the Bishopric of Osma. He was a prelate of great ability, and of strong religious enthusiasm. He was sent to Denmark to negotiate the inLangue- Hiarriagc of Alfonso Vni. of Castile with a '^'^- princess of that kingdom. He chose the con- genial Dominic as his companion. No sooner had they crossed the Pyrenees than tliey found themselves in the midst of the Albigensian heresy ; they could not close their eyes on the contempt into which the A.D. 1203. 1 1 n n i • r. i clergy had fallen, or on the prosperity oi the sectarians ; their very host at Toulouse was an Albigen- sian ; Dominic is said to have converted him before the morning. The mission of the Bishop in Denmark was frustrated by the unexpected death of the Princess. Before he returned to Sj^ain, Azevedo, with his companion, resolved upon a pilgrimage to Kome. The character of the Bishop of Osma appears from his proposal to Pope Innocent. He wished to abandon his tranquil bishopric, and to devote himself to the perilous life of a missionary, among the Cumans and fierce people which occupied part of Hungary, or in some other iniidel country. That "* The Chapter of his order was I conseivatum, nondum illam imper- shocked by, and carefully erased from the authorised Legend of the Saint, a passage, " Ubi semetipsum asserit licet ill integi-itate carnis diviua gratis fectionem evadere potuisse, quia magis afficiebatur juvencularum colloquiis qiiani atlatibus vatularum." — Apud BoUaud. c. 1. CiiAP, IX. DOMINIC AND THE LEGATES. 13 Dominic Avould have been his companion in this ad"^'en- turous spiritual enterprise none can doubt. Innocent commanded the Bishop to return to his diocese. On their way the Bishop and Dominic stopped at Montpel- lier. There, as has been said, they encoun- tered in all their pomp the three Legates of the Pope, Abbot Arnold, the Brother Raoul, and Peter of Castelnau. The Legates were returning discomfited, and almost desperate, from their progress in Languedoc. Then it was that Dominic uttered his bold and memor- able rebuke : " It is not by the display of power and pomp, cavalcades of retainers, and richly houseled pal- freys, or by gorgeous apparel, that the heretics win proselytes ; it is by zealous preaching, by apostolic humility, by austerity, by seeming, it is true, but yet seeming holiness. Zeal must be met by zeal, humility by humility, false sanctity by real sanctity ; preaching falsehood by preaching truth." From that day Dominic devoted himself to preaching the religion which he believed. Even the Legates were for a time put to shame by his precept and example, dismissed their splendid equipages, and set forth with bare feet ; yet if with some humility of dress and demeanour, with none of language or of heart. As the preacher of orthodoxy, Dominic is said in the pulpit, at the conference, to have argued with irresistible force : but his mission at last seems to have made no profound impression on the obstinate unbelievers. Ere long the Bishop Azevedo retired to Osma and died, Dominic remained alone. But now the murder of Peter of Castelnau roused other powers and other passions. That more irre- sistible preacher, the sword of the Crusader, was sent forth: it becomes impossible to discriminate between the successes of one and of the other. The voice oi 14 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX. the Apostle is drowned in the din of war; even the con- duct of Dominic himself, the manner in which he bore himself amidst these unevangelic allies, is clouded with doubt and uncertainty. His career is darkened too by the splendour of miracle, with which it is in- vested. These miracles must not be passed by: they are largely borrowed from the life of the Saviour and those of the Saints ; they sometimes sink into the ludicrous. A schedule, which he had written during one conference, of scriptural proofs, leaped out of the fire, while the discriminating flames consumed the writings of his adversaries. He exorcised the devil w^ho possessed three noble matrons in the shape of a great black cat with large black eyes, who at last ran up the bell-rope and disappeared. A lady of extrem'ganised before it left the chosen scene of its labours. Instead of fixing on Tou- louse or any of the cities of Provence as the centre of his operations, Dominic was seized with the ambition of converting the world. Kome, Bologna, Paris, were to be the seats of his power. Exactly four years after the battle of Muret he abandoned Languedoc for ever. His sagacious mind might perhaps anticipate the unfavour- able change, the fall if not the death of De Montfort, the return of Count Eaymond as the deliverer to his patrimonial city. But even the stern Spanish mind might be revolted by the horrors of the Albigensian war ; he may have been struck by the common grief for the fall of the noble Spanish King of Arragon. At all events, the preacher of the word in Languedoc could play but a secondary part to the preacher by the sword ; VOL. VI. c i^ 18 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX. and now that the aim was manifestly not conversion, but conquest, not the re-establishment of the Church, but the destruction of the liberties of the land, not the subjugation of the heretical Count of Toulouse, but the expulsion from their ancestral throne of the old princely house and the substitution of a foreign usurper, the Castilian miglit feel shame and compunction, even the Christian might be reluctant to connect the Catholic faith which he would preach with all the deeds of a savage soldiery. The parting address ascribed to St. Dominic is not quite consistent with this more generous and charitable view of his conduct. It is a terrible menace rather than gentle regret or mild reproof. At the convent of Prouille, after high mass, he thus spake : " For many years I have spoken to you with tenderness, with prayers, and tears > but according to the proverb of my country, where the benediction has no effect, the rod may have much. Behold, now, we rouse up against you princes and pre- lates, nations and kingdoms ! Many shall perish by the sword. The land shall be ravaged, walls thrown down ; and you, alas ! reduced to slavery. So shall the chas- tisement do that which the blessing and which mildness could not do." ^ Dominic himself took up his residence in Rome.' His success as a preacher was unrivalled. His followers began to spread rumours of the miracles wliich he wrought. The Pope Honorius III. appointed him to the high oflice, since perpetuated among his spiritual descendants, Master of the Sacred Palace. He was held in the highest honour by the aged Cardinal Ugo- •» MS. de Prouille, published by | * He first established the monastei-j Pere Perria : quoted by La Cordaire, ' of San Sisto on the Ccelian Hill, after- Vie de S. Dominique, j*. 404. 1 ward that of Santa Sabina. Chap. IX. RAPID PEOGRESS OF THE ORDER. 19 lino, the future Pope Gregory IX. For the propagation of his Order this residence in Rome was a master-stroke of policy. Of the devout pilgrims to Rome, men of all countries in Christendom, the most devout were most enraptured by the eloquence of Dominic. Few but must feel that it was a preaching Order wliich was wanted in every part of the Christian world. Dominic was gifted with that rare power, even in those times, of infusing a profound and enduring devotion to one object Once within the magic circle, the enthralled disciple either lost all desire to leave it, or, if he struggled, Do- minic seized him and dragged him back, now an unre- luctant captive, by awe, by persuasion, by conviction, by what was believed to be miracle which might be holy art, or the bold and ready use of casual but natural circumstances. "God has never," as he revealed in secret (a secret not likely to be religiously kept) to the Abbot of Casamare, " refused me anything that I have prayed for." When he prayed for the conversion of Conrad the Teutonic, was Conrad left ignorant that he had to resist the prayers of one whom God had thus endowed with irresistible efficacy of prayer ?^ Thus were preachers rapidly enlisted and dispersed throughout the world, speaking every language in Christendom. Two Poles, Hyacinth and Ceslas, carried the rules of the order to their OAvn country. Dominican convents were founded at CracoAV, even as far as Kiow. Dominic had judged wisely and not too daringly in embracing the world as the scene of his labours. Rapid pro- In the year 1220, seven years after he had left g^da"* "'* Languedoc, he stood, as the Master-General of ^-^' ^^^^' his order, at the head of an assembly at Bologna. Italy, ^ La Cordaiie, p. 539. c 2 20 LATIX CHRISTIANITY. liooK IX Spain, Provence, France, Germany, Poland, had now liieir DoDiinican convents; the voices of Dominican preachers had penetrated into every land. But the great question of holding property or dependence on the casual support of mendicancy was still undecided. Dominic had accepted landed endowments : in Langue- doc he held a grant of tithes from Fulk Bishop ot Toulouse. But the Order of St. Francis, of which abso- lute poverty was the vital rule, was now rising with simultaneous rapidity. Though both the founders of the new Orders and the brethren of the Orders had professed and displayed the most perfect mutual respect, and even amity (twice, it was said, they had met, with great marks of reverence and esteem), yet both true policy and devout ambition might reveal to the prudent as well as ardent Dominic that the vow of absolute poverty would give the Franciscans an immeasurable superiority in popular estimation. His followers must not be trammelled with worldly wealth, or be outdone in any point of austerity by those of St. ^rancis. The .universal suffrage was for the vow of poverty in the strongest sense, the renunciation of all property by the Order as well as by the individual Brother. How long, how steadfastly, that vow w^as kept by either Order will appear in the course of our history. The second great assembly of the Order was held shortly before the death of Dominic. The A.D. 1221. Order was now distributed into eight pro- vinces, Spain, the hrst in rank, Provence, France, Lom- bardy, Bome, Germany, Hungary, and England. In England the Prior Gilbert had landed with fourteen friars. Gilbert preached before the Archbishop of Can- terbury. The Primate, Stephen Langton, was so edified by his eloquence, that he at once gave full licence to Chap. IX. TERTIARIES. 21 preach througbout the land. Monasteries rose at Can- terbury, London, Oxford. But the great strength of these two new Orders was, besides the communities of friars and nuns (each asso- ciated with itself a kindred female Order), the establishment of a third, a wider and more secular community, who were bound to the two former by bonds of close association, by reverence and implicit obedience, and were thus always ready to maintain the interests, to admire and to propagate the wonders, to subserve in every way the advancement of the higher disciples of St. Dominic or St. Francis. They were men or women, old or young, married or unmarried, bound by none of the monastic vows, but deeply imbued with the monastic, with the corporate spirit ; taught to observe all holy days, fasts, vigils with the utmost rigour, inured to constant prayer and attendance on divine worship. They were organised, each under his own prior ; they crowded as a duty, as a privilege, into the church wherever a Dominican ascended the pulpit, predisposed, almost compelled, if compulsion were neces- sary, to admire, to applaud at least by rapt attention. Thus the Order spread not merely by its own perpetual influence and unwearied activity ; it had everywhere a vast host of votaries wedded to its interests, full to fana- ticism of its corporate spirit, bound to receive hospitably or ostentatiously their wandering preachers, to announce, to trumpet abroad, to propagate the fame of their elo- quence, to spread belief in their miracles, to lavish alms upon them, to fight in their cause. This lay coadjutory, these Tertiaries, as they were called, or among the Do- minicans, the Soldiers of Jesus Christ as not altogether secluded from the world, acted more widely and more subtly upon the world. Their rules were not rigidly 22 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX. :!anonisation. laid down till by the seventh Master >Df the Order, Munion de Zamora ; it was then approved by Popes.™ Dominic died August 6th, 122 J . He was taken ill at Venice, removed with difficulty to Bologna, where he expired with saintly resignation. His canonisation followed rapidly on his death. Gre- gory IX., who in his interneciue war with the Emperor Frederick II. had found the advan- tage of these faithful, restless, unscrupulous allies in the realm, in the camp, almost in the palace of his adver- sary, was not the man to pause or to hesitate in his grateful acknowledgements or prodigal reward. " I no more doubt," said the Pope, " the sanctity of Dominic than that of St. Peter or St. Paul." In the bull of canonisation, Dominic is elaborately described as riding in the four-horsed chariot of the Gospel, as it were seated behind the four Evangelists (or rather in the four chariots of Zechariah, long interpreted as signifying the four Evangelists), holding in his hand the irresistible bow of the Divine Word. The admiration of their founder, if it rose not with the Dominicans so absolutely into divine adoration as with the Franciscans, yet bordered close upon it. He, too, was so closely approximated to the Saviour as to be placed nearly on an equality. The Virgin Mother her- self, the special protectress of the sons of Dominic," "» Among the special privileges of the Order (in the bull of Honorius) was that in the time of interdict (so common were interdicts now become) tlie Order might still celebrate mass with low voices, without bells. Con- ceive the influence thus obtained in a religious land, everywhere else de- prived of all its holy services. " There is a sti-ange story of the especial protection extended over the Order by the Viigin. It might seem singulaily ill-adapted for painting, but painting has nevertheless ventured, at least partially, to represent it. To this the modesty of more modern manners, perhaps not less real though more scrupulous respect (respect which Chap. IX. INCREASE OF THE ORDER. 23 might almost seem to sanction their bold raptures of spiritual adulation, from which our most fervent piety might shrink as wild profanation. Dominic was the adopted Son of the Blessed Virgin.*' And this was part of the creed maintained by an Order which under its fourth general, John of Wil- deshausen (in Westphalia), in their Chapter-General at Bordeaux, reckoned its monasteries at the number of four hundred and seventy. In Spain thirty-five, in France fifty-two, in Germany fifty-two, in Tuscany thirty-two, in Lombardy forty-six, in Hungary thirty, in Poland thirty-six, in Denmark twenty-eight, in Eng- land forty. They were spreading into Asia, into heathen or Saracen lands, into Palestine, Greece, Crete, Abys- falls far short of worship"), proscribes more than an allusion : The Virgin is represented with the whole count- less host of Dominicans crowded under her dress. In the vision of St. Bri- gitta, the Virgin herself is made to sanction this awful confusion. Though in the vision there is an interpretation which softens away that which in the painting (which I have seen) becomes actual f;ict. « More than this, of the Father himself. " Ego, dulcissima filia, istos duos filios genui, unum naturaliter generando, alium amabiliteret dulciter adoptando .... Sicut hie Filius a me naturaliter et (Btemaliter genitus, assumpta natura humana, in omnibus fuit perfectissime obediens mihi, usque ad mortem, sic lilius meus adoptiviis Dominicus. Omnia, qusie operatus est ab infantiS, su4 usque ad terminum vitge suae, fuerunt angulata secundum obedientiam pi-aceptorum meoruui. nee unquam semel fuit transgressus quodcunque prseceptum meum, quia virginitatem corporis et animi illibatam servavit, et gratiam baptismi quo spiritualiter renatus est, semper con- servavit." The parallel goes on be- tween the apostles of the Lord and the brethren of S. Dominic. — Apud Bolland, xlv. p. 844. See also a pas- sage about the Virgin in La Cordaire, p. 234. In another Vita S. Dominici, apud Bolland. Aug. 4, is this : — There was a prophetic picture at Venice, in which appear St. Paul and S. Dominic. Under the latter, "Faci- Hus itur per istum." The comment of the biographer is : " Doctrina Pauli sicut et ceterorura apostolorum eral doctrina inducens ad fidem et obser- vationem praceptoium, doctrina Domi- nici ad observantiam consiliorum, et ideo facilius per ipsum itur ad Chris- tum." — c. vii. 24 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX. sinia. Nor is it their number alone which grows with such wonderful fertility. They are not content with the popular mind. They invade the high places of human intellect : they are disputing the mastery in the Uni- versities of Italy and Germany, in Cologne, Paris, and in Oxford. Before long they are to claim two of the greatest luminaries of the scholastic philosophy, Albeii; the Great and Thomas of Aquino. Chap. X. EIRTH AND YOUTH OF ST. FRANCIS. 25 CHAPTER X, St. Francis.^ St. Francis was born in the romantic town of Assisi, of a family, the Bernardini, engaged in trade. Birth and His birth took place while his father was on a rD.'ii82. mercantile journey in France ; on his return his new-- born son was baptised by the name of Francis.'' His mother, Picca, loved him with all a mother's tenderness for her first-born. He received the earliest rudiments of instruction from the clergy of the parish of St. George : he was soon taken to assist his father in his trade. The father, a hard, money-making man, was shocked at first by the vanity and prodigahty of his son. The young Francis gave banquets to his juvenile friends, dressed splendidly, and the streets of Assisi rang with the songs and revels of the joyous crew ; but even then his bounty » The vast annals of the Franciscan Order, by Lucas Wadding, in seven- teen folio volumes, are the great authority : for S. Francis himself the life by S. Bonaveutura. I have much used the Chronique de KOrdre du Pfere S. Fran9ois, in quaint old French (the original is in Portuguese, by Marco di Lisbona), Paris, 1623. I have an epic poem, in twenty-five cantos, a kind of religious plagiary of Tasso, San Francisco, d Gierusalemme Celeste Acquistata, by Agostino Gallucci (1617). The author makes 8. Francis subdue the Wickliffites, There is a modern life by M. Malan. ^ When the disciples of S. Francis were fully possessed with the con- formity of their founder with the Saviour, the legend grew up, assimi- lating his birth to that of the Lord. A prophetess foreshowed it ; he was born by divine suggestion in a stable ; angels rejoiced ; even peace and good will were announced, though by a human voice. An angel, like old Simeon, bore him at the font. And all this is gravely related by a ))io- grapher of the 19th o^ntury, M- Malan. 26 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX. to the poor formed a large part of his generous waste- fulness. He was taken captive in one of the petty wars which had broken out between Perugia and Assisi, and remained a year in prison. He was then seized with a violent illness : when he rose from his bed nature looked cold and dreary ; he began to feel disgust to the world. The stirrings of some great but yet undefined purpose were already awake Avithin him. He began to see visions, but as yet they were of war and glory: the soldier was not dead in his heart. He determined to follow the fortunes of a youthful poor knight who was setting out to fight under the banner of the " Gentle Count," Walter of Brienne, against the hated Germans. At Spoleto he again fell ill ; his feverish visions took another turn. Francis now felt upon him that profound religious thraldom which he was never to break, never to desire to break. His whole soul became deliberately, calmly, extatic faith. He began to talk mysteriously of his future bride — that bride was Poverty. He resolved never to refuse alms to a poor person. He found his way to Kome, threw down all he possessed, no costly offering, on the altar of St. Peter. On his return he joined a troop of beggars, and exchanged his dress for the rags of the filthiest among them. His mother heard and beheld all his strange acts with a tender and pro- phetic admiration. To a steady trader like the father it was folly if not madness. He was sent with a valuable bale of goods to sell at Foligno. On his return he threw all the money down at the feet of the priest of St. Damian to rebuild his church, as well as the price of his horse, which he likewise sold. The priest refused the gift. In the eyes of the father this was dishonesty as well as folly. Francis concealed himself iu a cave, where he lay hid for a month in solitary prayer. He returned Chap. X. FRANCIS WEDDED TO POVERTY. 27 to Assisi, looking so wild and haggard tliat the rabble hooted him as he passed and pelted him with mire and stones. The gentle Francis appeared to rejoice in every persecution. The indignant father shut him up in a dark chamber, from which, after a time, he was released by the tender solicitude of his mother. Bernardini now despaired of his unprofitable and intractable son, whom he suspected of alienating other sums besides that which he had received for the cloth and the horse. He cited him before the magistrates to compel him to abandon all rights on his patrimony, which he was disposed to squander in this thriftless manner. Francis declared that he was a servant of God, and declined the jurisdiction of the civil magistrate. The cause came before the Bishop. The Bishop earnestly exhorted Francis to yield up to his father any money which he might possess, or to which he was entitled. " It might be ungodly gain, and so unfit to be applied to holy uses." " I will give up ^i^es up his the very clothes I wear," replied the enthu- Jo^iSe!'''' siast, encouraged by the gentle demeanour of '^^*' ^^" the Bishop. He stripped himself entirely naked.^ " Peter Bernardini was my father ; I have now but one father, he that is in heaven." The audience burst into tears ; the Bishop threw his mantle over him and ordered an old coarse dress of an artisan to be brought : he then received Francis into his service. Francis was now wedded to Poverty ; but poverty he would only love in its basest form — mendi- Embraces cancy. He wandered abroad, was ill used by '^^"'^'^"'^y- robbers ; on his escape he received from an old friend at Gubbio a hermit's attire, a short tunic, a leathern girdle, a staff and slippers. He begged at the gates of « According to S. Bonaventura, he had haircloth under his dress. 28 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boor .X. monasteries ; he discharged the most menial offices. With even more profomid devotion he dedicated himseli for some time in the hospital at Gubbio to that unhappy race of beings whom even Christianity was constrained to banish from the social pale — the lepers.'^ He tended them with more than necessary affectionateness, washed their feet, dressed their sores, aad is said to have wrought miraculous cures among them. The moral miracle of his charity toward them is a more certain and more affecting proof of his true Christianity of heart. It was an especial charge to the brethren of St. Francis of Assisi to choose these outcasts of humanity as the objects of theii' peculiar care.® On his retm-n to Assisi he employed himself in the restoration of the church of St. Damian. " Whoever will give me one stone shall have one prayer ; whoever two, two; three, three." The people mocked, but Francis went on carrying the stones in his own hands, and the church began to rise. He refused all food which he did not obtain by begging. His father reproached him and uttered his malediction. He took a beggar of the basest class : "' Be thou my father and give me thy blessing." But so successful was he in awakening the charity of the inhabitants of Assisi, that " There is something singularly affecting in the service of the Church for the seclusion of the lepers, whose number is as sure a proof of the wretchedness of those times, as the care of them of the charity. The steni duty of looking to the public welfare is tempered with exquisite compassion for the victims of this loathsome disease. The service may be found— it is worth seeking for — in Martene de Antiquis Ecclesiaj Kitibus. I.t is quoted by M, Malan. Compare on S. Fiancis and the Lepers, Mr. Brewer's Preface to the Monumenta Franciscana, p. xxiii., et seqq. ; and Translation of the Testament of S. Francis, p. 592. * S. Bonaventura says that he healed one leper with a kiss : " Nescio quidnam horum magis sitadmirandum, an humilitatisprofunditas in osculotam benigno, an virtutis prajclaritas in mira- culo tarn stupendo." — Vit. S. Francisci, CfliP. X. DISCIPLES OF FRANCIS. 29 not only the church of St. Damian, but two others, St. Peter and St. Maria clei Angeli (called the Porti- uncula), through his means arose out of their ruins to decency and even splendour. One day, in the church of St. Maria dei Angeli, he heard the text, " Provide neither gold, nor silver, nor brass in your purses. Neither scrip for your journey, neither two coats, neither shoes nor yet staves." He threw away his wallet, his staff, and his shoes, put on the coarsest dark grey tunic, bound himself with a cord, and set out through the city calling all to repentance. This strange but fervent piety of Francis could not but, in that age, kindle the zeal of others. Wonder grew into admiration, admiration into emulation, emu- lation into a blind following of his footsteps. Disciples, one by one (the first are carefully recorded), began to gather round him. He retired with them to a lonely spot in the bend of the river, called Rivo Torto. A rule was ^vanting for the young brotherhood. Thrice upon the altar he opened the Gospels, w^hich perhaps were accustomed to be opened on these pass-ages.* He read three texts in reverence for the Holy Trinity. The first was, "If thou wilt be perfect, sell all thou hast and give to the poor ;" ^ the second, " Take nothing for your journey;"^* the third, "If any one would come after me, let him take up his cross and follow me." • Francis made the sign of the cross and sent forth his followers into the neighbouring' cities, as if to divide the world, to the east and west, the north and south. They reassembled at Rivo Torto and determined to go to Rome to obtain the authority of the Pope for the foun- dation of their order. On the way they met a knight f The poet gives the date, St. Luke's day, Oct. 18, 1212. « Matt. xix. 21. h Mark vi. 8. ' Matt. xvi. 24. 30 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book l\. in arms. " Angelo," said St. Francis, " instead of that baldrick thou shalt gii'd thee with a cord ; for thy sword thou slialt take the cross of Christ ; for the spurs, the dirt and mire." Angelo made up the mystic number of twelve, which the profound piety of his followers alleged as a new similitude to the Lord> Innocent III. was walking on the terrace of the Lateran when a mendicant of the meanest appearance presented himself, proposing to convert the world by povierty and humility. The haughty Pontiff dismissed him with contempt. But a vision, says the legend, doubtless more grave deliberation and inquiry, suggested that such an Order might meet the heretics on their own ground ; the Poor Men of the Church might out- labour and out-suffer the Poor Men of Lyons. He sent for Francis, received him in the midst of the cardinals, and listened to his proposal for his new Order. Some of the cardinals objected the difQculty, the impossibility of the vows. " To suppose that anything is difficult or impossible with God," said the Cardinal Bishop of Sabina, " is to blaspheme Christ and his Gospel." The Order was now founded ; the Benedictines of Foundation Mouto Subiaco gavo them a church, called, of the Order, j-j.^ ^j^.^^ ^^^^j. j^g^-g-^ g^^ ^^^^.^^^ ^g- ^ngeli, or de la Portiuncula. In the difficulty, the seeming impos- sibility of the vows was their strength. The three vital principles of the Order were chastity, poverty, obedi- ence. For cliastity, no one was to speak with a woman alone, except the few who might safely do so (from age or severity of character), and that was to urge penitence ^ It was at this period that he was said, or said himself that he was transported to heaven, into the actual presence of the Lord, who, according to the poem, gave him a plenary indul- gence for himself and his foilowerM:— . " E plenarla indulgenza oggi si dava " c. vi. 41 Chap. X. FOUNDATION OF THE ORDER. 31 or give spiritual counsel. Poverty was not only the renunciation of all possessions, but of all property, even in the clothes they wore, in the cord which girt them — even in their breviaries."^ Money was, as it were, infected ; they might on no account receive it in alms except (the sole exception) to aid a sick brother ; no brother might ride if he had power to walk. They were literally to fulfil the precept, if stricken on one cheek, to offer the other; if spoiled of part of their dress, to yield up the rest. Obedience was urged not merely as obligatory and coercive : the deepest mutual love was to be the bond of the brotherhood. The passionate fervour of the preaching, the mystic tenderness, the austere demeanour of Francis and his disciples, could not but work rapidly and profoundly among his female hearei's. Clara, a noble virgin of Assisi, under the direction of St. Francis, had in the same manner to strive against the tender and affection- ate worldliness^ as she deemed it, of her family. But she tore herself from their love as from a sin, entered into a convent attached to the church of St. Damian, and became the mother of the poor sisterhood of St. Clare. Of Clara it is said that she never but once (and that to receive the blessing of the Pope) so lifted her eyelids that the colour of her eyes might be discerned. Clara practised mortifications more severe than any of her sex before. The life of the sisters was one long dreary penance ; even their services were all sadness. The sisters who could read were to read the Hours, but without chanting. Those who could not read were not to learn to read. To the prayers of St. Clara it was " At hi-st, says S. Bonaveatura, they had no books; their onl? boot was the crofts. 32 LATIN CHRISTLiNITY. Book IX. attributed that, in later times, her own convent and the city of Assisi were preserved from the fierce Mohamme- dans which belonged to the army of Frederick II. The Order was confirmed by a bull of Innocent IV. Francis, in the mean time, with his whole soul vowed Foreign to the scrvico of God, set forth to subdue the missions, ^qj-ij, jJo had hesitated between the con- templative and active life — prayer in the secluded mo- nastery, or preaching the cross of Christ to mankind- The mission of love prevailed ; his success and that of his ardent followers might seem to justify their reso- lution. They had divided the world, and some had already set forth into France and into Spain with the special design of converting the Miramamolin and his Mohammedan subjects. Everywhere they were heard with fanatic rapture. At their first Chapter, held in the church of the Portiuncula, only three years after the scene at Kivo Torto, it was neces- sary to ordain provincial masters in Spain, Provence, France and Germany : at a second Chapter of the Order in 1219 met five thousand brethren. The holy ambition of St. Francis grew with his St. Francis succcss. Hc determined to confront the great AD. 1219. ■ enemy of Christianity in his strength. He set off to preach to the Mohammedans of the East. The Christian army was encamped before Damietta. The sagacity of Francis anticipated from their discord, which he in vain endeavoured to reconcile, their defeat. His prophecy was too fully accomplished; but he deter- mined not the less to proceed on his mission. On his way to the Saracen camp he met some sheep. It oc- curred to him, " I send you forth as sheep among the wolves." He was taken and carried before the Sultan. To the Sultan he boldly offered the way of salvation CuAP. X. MAETYRS. 33 He preached (in what language we are not toldj the Holy Trinity and the Divine Saviour before these stern Unitarians. The Mohammedans reverence what thev deem insanity as partaking of Divine inspiration. The Sultan is said to have listened with respect ; his grave face no doubt concealed his compassion. St. IVancis oifered to enter a great fire with the priests of Islam, and to set the truth of either faith on the issue. The Sultan replied that his priests would not willingly sub- mit to this perilous trial. " I will enter alone," said Francis, '* if, should I be burned, you will impute it to my sins ; should I come forth alive, you will embrace the Gospel." The Sultan naturally declined these terms, as not quite fair towards his creed. But he offered rich presents to Francis (which the preacher of poverty re- jected with utter disdain), and then sent him back in honour to the camp at Damietta. Francis passed througli the Holy Land and the kingdom of Antioch, preaching and winning disciples, and then returned to Italy, His fame was now at its height, and wherever he went his wondering disciples saw perpetual miracle. In this respect the life of the Saviour is far surpassed by that of St. Francis. The Order soon had its martyrs. The Mohammedan IMoors of Africa were fiercer than those of Egypt. Five monks, after preaching without success to the Saracens of Seville, crossed into Africa. After many adventures (in one of which during an expe- dition against the Moorish tribes of the interior. Friar Berard struck water from the desert rock, like Moses) they were offered wealth, beautiful wives, and honours, if they would embrace Mohammedanism. They spat on the ground in contempt of the miscreant offer. The King himself clove the head of one of them with a VOL. VT. D 34 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX sword ; the rest were despatched in horrible torments.'' St. Francis received the sad intelligence with triumph, and broke forth in gratulations to the convent of Alon- quir, which had thus produced the first purple flowers of martyrdom. This was no hardness, or want of compassion, but Character of the countcrworking of a stronger, more pas- st. Francis, gionatc emotiou. Of all saints, St. Francis was the most blameless and gentle. In Dominic and in his disciples all was still rigorous, cold, argumentative; something remained of the crusader's fierceness, the Spaniard's haughty humility, the inquisitor's stern sup- pression of all gentler feelings, the polemic sternness. Whether Francis would have burned heretics, happily we know not, but he would willingly have been bm-ned for them : himself excessive in austerities, he would at times mitigate the austerity of others. Francis was emphatically the Saint of the people — of a poetic people like the Italians. Those who were hereafter to chant the Paradise of Dante, or the softer stanzas of Tasso, mio-ht well be enamoured of the ruder devotional strains in the poetry of the whole life of St. Francis. The lowest of the low might find consolation, a kind of pride, in the self-abasement of St. Francis even beneath the meanest. The very name of his disciples, the Friar Minors, implied their humility. In his own eyes (says his most pious successor) he was but a sinner, while in truth he was the mirror and splendour of holiness. It was revealed, says the same Bonaventura, to a Brother, that the throne of one of the angels, who feU from pride. See on these martyrs wSouthey's ballad : — " What news, u Queen Orraca, Of the martyrs five what news ? Does the bloody Miramamoiin Their burial yet refuse ?" Chap. X. CHARACTER OF ST. FRANCIS. 35 was reserved for Francis, who was glorified by humility. If the heart of the poorest was touched by the brother- hood in poverty and lowliness of such a saint, how was his imagination kindled by his mystic strains? St. Francis is among the oldest vernacular poets of Italy." His poetry, indeed, is but a long passionate ejaculation of love to the Eedeemer in rude metre ; it has not even the order and completeness of a hymn : it is a sort of plaintive variation on one simple melody — an echo of the same tender words, multiplied again and again, it might be fancied, by the voices in the cloister walls. But his ordinary speech is more poetical than his poetry. In his peculiar language he addresses all animate, even inanimate, creatures as his brothers; not merely the birds and beasts ; he had an especial fondness for lambs and larks, as the images of the Lamb of God and of the cherubim in heaven.^ I know not if it be among the. Conformities, but the only malediction I find him to have uttered was against a fierce swine which had killed a young lamb. Of his intercourse with these mute animals, we are told many pretty particularities, some of them miraculous. But his poetic impersonation went beyond this. When the surgeon was about to cauterise him, he said, "Fire, my brother, be thou discreet and gentle to me." ^ In one of his Italian hymns he speaks of his brother the sun, his sister the moon, his brotliei the wind, his sister the water.^ No wonder that in this almost perpetual extatic state, unearthly music played ** M. de Montalembert is eloquent, as usual, on his poetry. — Preface to " La Vie d'Elizabeth d'Hongrie." P Bouaventura, c. viii. '^ The words were, " Fratel fuoco, da Dio creato piii bello, piil attivo, e piu giovevole d'ogui altro elemento, noi te mostra or nel cimento disoret*. e mite." — Vita (Foligno), p, 15. ' " Laudato sia el Dio, niio Signore con tute le Creature ; specialmente Messer lo frate Sole. . . . Laudato sia il mio Signore per suor Luna, per tVati vento, per suor acqua." D 2 36 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX. around him, unearthly light shone round his path. When lie died, he said, with exquisite simplicity, " AVelcome, sister Death." ^ St. Francis himself, no doubt, was but juiconsciously presumptuous, when he acted as under divine inspiration, even when he laid the ground-work for that assimilation of his own life to that of the Saviour, which was wrought up by his disciples, as it were, into a new Gospel, and superseded the old. His was the studious imitation of humihty, not the emulous approximation of pride, even of pride disguised from himself; such pro- faneness entered not into his thought. His life might seem a religious trance. The mysticism so absolutely absorbed him as to make him unconscious, as it were, of the presence of his body. Incessantly active as was his life, it was a kind of paroxysmal activity, constantly collapsing into what might seem a kind of suspended animation of the corporeal functions.*' It was even said that he imderwent a kind of visible and glorious trans- figuration.'' But with what wonderful force must all tliis have worked upon the world, the popular world around him ! About three years before his death, with the permission of the Pope, he celebrated the Nativity of the Lord in a new way. A manger was prepared, the whole scene of the miraculous birth represented. The mass was interpolated before the prayers. St. "* " Ben venga la sorella morte." » " E tanto in lei (in Gesu) sovente profondasi, tanto s* immerge, s' abissa, e coiicentra, che assorto non vide, non ascolta, non sente, e se opera carnal- mente,nol conosca, non sel rammenta." This state is thus illustrated : he was riding on an ass ; he was almost torn in pieces by devout men and women shouting around him ; he was utterly uuoouscious, liki^ a dead man. — From a modern Vita di S. Francesco. Foligno, 1824. >i " Ad conspectum sublimis Seraph et humilis Crucifixi, fuit in vivse fbrmae eHigiem, vi quadam deiformi et ignea transformatus ; quemadmo- duni testati sunt, tactis sacrosanctis jurantes, qui palpaverunt, osculati sunt, et viderunt." — S. Bonaventura. in Vit. Minor, i. Chap. X. THE TERTIARTES. 37 Francis preached on the Nativity. The angelic choii^s were heard ; a wondering disciple declared that he saw a beantiful child reposing in the manger. The order of St. Francis had, and of necessity, its Tertiaries, like that of St. Dominic.'' At his preaching, and that of his disciples, such multitudes would have crowded into the Order as to become dangerous and unmanageable. The whole population of one town, Canari in Umbria, offered themselves as disciples. Tlie Tertiaries were called the Brethren of Penitence ; they were to retain their social position in the world : but, first enjoined to discharge all their debts, and to make restitution of all unfair gains. They were then admitted to make a vow to keep the commandments of God, and to give satisfaction for any breach of which they might have been guilty. They could not leave the order, except to embrace a religious life. Women were not admitted without the consent of their husbands. The form and colour of their dress were prescribed, silk rigidly prohibited. They were to keep aloof from all public spectacles, dances, especially the theatre ; to give nothing to actors, jugglers, or such profane persons. Their fasts were severe, but tempered with some lenity ; their attendance at church constant. They were not to bear arms except in the cause of the Church of Kome, the Christian faith, or their country, and that at the licence of their ministers. On entering the Order, they were immediately to make their wills to prevent future litigation ; they were to abstain from unnecessary oaths ; they were to submit to penance, when imposed by their ministers. But St. Francis had not yet attained his height evei> Chapter of Tertiaries, a.d. 1222 ; Chroniques, L. ii. c. xxxii. 38 . LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX. of worldly fame ; he was yet to receive the last marks of his similitude to the Kedeemer, to bear on A.D 1224. * his body actually and really the five wounds of the Kedeemer. That which was so gravely believed must be gravely The stig. related. In the solitude of Monte Alverno (a mata. mountain which had been bestowed on the Order by a rich and pious votary, and where a magni- ficent church afterwards arose) Francis had retired to hold a solemn fast in honour of the Archangel Michael. He had again consulted the holy oracle. Thrice the Scriptures had been opened ; thrice they opened on the Passion of tlie Lord. This was interpreted, that even in this life Francis was to be brought into some mys- terious conformity with the death of the Saviour. One morning, while he was praying in an access of the most passionate devotion, he saw in a vision, or, as he sup- posed, in real being, a seraph with six wings. Amidst these wings appeared the likeness of the Crucified. Two wings arched over his head, two were stretched for flight, two veiled the body. As the apparition disap- peared, it left upon his mind an indescribable mixture of delight and awe. On his body instantaneously ap- peared marks of the crucifixion, like those which he had beheld. Two black excrescences, in the form of nails, with the heads on one side, the points bent back on the other, had grown out of his hands and feet. There was a wound on his side, which frequently flowed with blood, and stained his garment. Francis endeavoured, in his extreme humility, notwithstanding the remonstrances of his disciples, to conceal this wonderful sight; but the *vounds were seen, it is declared, at one time by fifty brethren. Countless miracles were ascribed to their power. The wound on his side Francis hid with peculiar ClIAP. X. CHARACTER OF FRANCISCANISM. 39 Oct. 4, 1226 care. But it was seen during his life, as it is asserted ; the pious curiosity of his disciples pierced through every concealment. Pope Alexander IV. publicly declared that his own eyes had beheld the stigmata on the bodj of St. Francis. Two years after St. Francis died. He determined literally to realise the words of the Scripture, to leave the world naked as he entered it. His disciples might then, and did then, it is said, actually satisfy themselves as to these signs : to complete the parallel an incredulous Thomas was found to investigate the fact with suspicious scrutiny. It became an article of the Franciscan creed ; though the now rival Order, the Dominicans, hinted rationalistic doubts, they were authoritatively rebuked. It became almost the creed of Christendom.^ Up to a certain period this studious conformity of the life of St. Francis with that of Christ, character 11 Ml- 'i*^* Francis- heightened, adorned, expanded, till it received canism. its perfect form in the work of Bartholomew of Pisa, was promulgated by the emulous zeal of a host of dis- ciples throughout the world. Those whose more reve- rential piety might take offence were few and silent ; the declaration of Pope Alexander, the ardent protector of the Mendicant Friars, imposed it almost as an article of the Belief. With the Franciscans, and all under the y The Dominican Jacob de Voragine assigns five causes for the stigmata ; they in fact resolve themselves into the first, imagination. His illustra- tions, however, are chiefly from preg- nant women, whose children resemble something which had violently im- pressed the mother's mind. He does not deny the fact. " Summus ergo Franciscus, in visione sibi facta iraagina- batur Seraphim Crucifixum, et tam fortis imaginatione extitit, quod vulnera passionis in carne sua impressit." — Sermo iii. de S. Francisco. Compare Gieseler, ii. 2, 349. Nicolas IV., too, asserted the stigmata of St. Francis (he was himself a Franciscan) ; he silenced a Dominican, who dared to assert that in Peter Martyr (Peter was a Dominican) were signs Dei vivi, in St. Francis only Dei mortui.— Raynald, a.d. 1291. 40 LATIN CHEISTIANITY. Book IX. dominion of the Franciscans, tlie lower orders through- out Christendom, there was thus almost a second Gospel, a second Kedeemer, who could not but throw back the one Saviour into more awful obscurity. The worship of St. Francis in prayer, in picture, vied with that of Christ : if it led, perhaps, a few up to Christ, it kept the multi- tude fixed upon itself. But as soon as indignant religion dared lift up its protest (after several centuries !) it did so ; and, as might be expected, revenged its long com- pulsory silence by the bitterest satire and the rudest Jburlesque.^ Franciscanism was the democracy of Christianity; but with St. Francis it was an humble, meek, quiescent democracy. In his own short fragmentary writings he ever enforces the most submissive obedience to the clergy ; '^ those, at least, who lived according to the rule of the Koman Church. This rule would no doubt except the simoniac and the married clergy; but the whole character of his teaching was the farthest removed from that of a spiritual demagogue. His was a pacific passive mysticism, which consoled the poor for the inequalities of this life by the hopes of heaven. But ere long his more vehement disciple, Antony of Padua, sounded a dif- • See the Alcoran des Cordeliers. Yet this book could hardly transcend the grave blasphemies of the Liber Conformitatum, e.g., Christ was trans- figured once, S. Francis twenty times ; Christ changed water into wine once, S. Francis three times ; Christ endured vivunt secundum Ordinem Sancta Romance ecclesiae propter ordinem ipsorum, quod si facerent mihi per- secutionem volo recun-ere ad ipsos." — Op. S. Francisc. p. '20. "II disoit que s'il rencontroit uu Sainct qui fust descendu du ciel en terre et un Prestre, his wounds a short time, S. F'rancis qu'il baiseroit premiferement la main two years ; and so with all the Gospel miracles, • In his Testament he writes ; •* Postea dedit mihi Dominus, et dat tantam fideni in sacerdotibus, qui au Piestre, puis il feroit la reverenca au Sainct, recevant de celui-lJi le corps de nostre Seigneur Jesus Christ, pour- quoi il m^ritoit plus d'hoaneul ,*'-* Chroniques, 1. c. Ixxxiv. CHAP. X. FEANCISCANISM. 41 ferent note: he scrupled not to denounce tlie worldly clergy. Antony of Padua was a Portuguese, born at Lisbon. He showed early a strong religious tempera- ment. The reliques of the five Franciscan martyrs, sent over from Morocco, had kindled the most ardent enthusiasm. The young Fernand (such was his bap- tismal name) joined himself to some Franciscan friars, utterly illiterate, but of burning zeal, and under then- guidance set forth deliberately to win the crown of mar- tyrdom among the Moors. He was cast by a storm on the coast of Sicily. He found his way to Eomagna, united himself to the Franciscans, retired into a her- mitage, studied deeply, and at length was authorised by the General of the Order to go forth and preach. For many years his eloquence excited that rapture of faith which during these times is almost periodically breaking forth, especially in the north of Italy. Every class, both sexes, all ages were equally entranced. Old enmities were reconciled, old debts paid, forgotten wrong atoned for ; prostitutes forsook their sins, robbers forswore their calling ; such is said to have been the magic of his w^ords that infants ceased to cry. His voice was clear and piercing like a trumpet ; his Italian purer than that of most natives. At Kimini, at Milan, in other cities, he held disputations against the heretics, who yielded to his irresistible arguments. But the triumph of his courage and of his eloquence was liis daring to stand before Eccelin of Verona to rebuke him for his bloody atrocities. Eccehn is said to have bowed in awe before the intrepid preacher ; he threw himself at the feet of Antony, and promised to amend his life. The clergy dared not but admire Antony of Padua, whom miracle began to environ. But they saw not without terror that the meek Franciscan might soon become a formidable I'l LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX demaofoffue, formidable to themselves as to the enemies of the faith, But what is more extraordinary, already in the time of St. Bonaventm-a the Franciscans had begun to be faith- less to their hard bride, Poverty. Bonaventura himself might have found it difficult to adduce authority for his laborious learning in the rule of his Master. Francis- canism is in both respects more or less repudiating St. Francis. The first General of the Order, Brother Elias (General during the lifetime of the Saint), refused the dignity, because his infirmities compelled him to violate one of its rules, to ride on horseback. He was compelled to assume the honour, degraded, resumed his office, was again degraded ; for Elias manifestly despised, and en- deavoured to throw off, and not alone, the very vital principle of the Order, mendicancy ; he persecuted the true disciples of St. Francis.^ At length the successor of St. Francis became a counsellor of Frederick II., the mortal enemy of the Pope, especially of the Franciscan Popes, above all of the first patron of Franciscanism, Gregory IX. The Rule had required the peremptory renunciation of all worldly goods by every disciple of the Order, and those who received the proselytes were carefully to abstain from mingling in worldly business. Not till he was absolutely destitute did the disciple become a Franciscan. They might receive food, clothes, or other necessaries, on no account money even if they found it they were to trample it under foot. They might labour for their support, but were to be paid The Rule. *> Compare Les Chroniques, part ii. c. V. p. 4. " Aussi etoit cause de grand mal, le grand nonibre des frferes qui lui adhe'roient, lesquels comme les partisans le suivoient et I'imitoient, I'incitant k poursuivre les freres qui e'toient ze'les observateurs de la r^gk ." ■ — Kegul., cap. ii. p. 23. Chap. X. FRANCISCANISM — THE RULE. 43 in kind. They were to have two tunics, one with a hood, one witliout, a girdle and breeches. The fatal feud, the controversy on the interpretation of this stern rule of poverty, will find its place hereafter. St. Francis rejected alike the pomp of ritual and the pride of learning. The Franciscan services were to be conducted with the utmost simplicity of devotion, with no wantonness of music. There was to be only one daily mass. It was not long before the magnificent church of Assisi began to rise ; and the Franciscan services, if faithful to the form, began soon by their gorgeousness to mock the spirit of their master. No Franciscan was to preach without permission of the Provincial of the Order, or if forbidden by the bishop of the diocese ; their sermons were to be on the great religious and moral truths of the Gospel, and especially short. He despised and prohibited human learning, even human eloquence displayed for vanity and ostenta- tion.^ Bonaventura himself in his profoundest writings maintained the mystic fervour of his master ; but every- where the Franciscans are with the Dominicans vieing for the mastery in the universities of Christendom; Duns Scotus the most arid dialectician, and William of Ockham the demagogue of scholasticism, balance the fame of Albert the Great and Tliomas of Aquino. A century has not passed before, besides the clergy, the older Orders are heaping invectives on the disciples of St. Francis, not only as distm^bers of their religious ** " Je ne voudrais point de plus grands Docteurs de Theblogie, que ceux qui enseignent leur prochain avec les oeuvres, la douceur, la pauvrete, et Thumilite." He goes on to rebuke preachers who are filled with vain glory by the concourse of heai'ers, and the success of their preaching. — Chro- niques, ii. c. xxiv. I find the Saint goaded to one other malediction, — against a provincial, who encouraged profound study at the University of Bologna. — c. xvin. See above hi» contempt and aversion for books. 44 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX. peace, as alienating tlie affections and reverence of their flocks or their retainers, but as their more successful rivals for the alms of dying penitents, as the more universal legatees of lands, treasures, houses, immu- nities. The Benedictine of St. Alban's,^ Matthew Paris, who at first wrote, or rather adopted language, highly com- mending the new-born zeal, and yet-admired holiness of the mendicants,® in all the bitter jealousy of a rival Change in Order, writcs thus: — "It is terrible, it is an the Order, ^^f^} presago, that in three hundred years, in four hundred years, even in more, the old monastic Orders have not so entirely degenerated as these Fra- ternities. The friars who have been founded hardly forty years have built, even in the present day in England, residences as lofty as the palaces of our kings. These are they, who enlarging day by day their sump- tuous edifices, encircling them with lofty walls, lay up within them incalculable treasures, imprudently trans- gressing the bounds of poverty, and violating, according <* The first Franciscan foundation in England was at Abingdon. — Malan, p. 264. This statement in Paris is singularly illustrated by the documents in the Monumenta Franciscana. Mr. Brewer, in his remarkable Preface, [ enlarges on the self-devoting usage of the early Franciscans to fix their domicile in the mean, foetid, unwhole- some suburbs of the cities. This seems to have been peculiarly the case in England. In London their first residence is in " Stynkinge Lane," in the parish of St. Nicholas in Macello. But ere long grant after grant is recited of houses, lands, and messuages in the same quarter. Till in the reign of Edward I. rises their Church, 300 feet long, 95 wide, 64 high to the roof; the pillars all marble. To this the Queen contributes 200^. sterling. There is a long list of donors, who glazed their windows. At length rises their Libraiy, which cost .556/. 16s. Sd. Richard Whyttyngton, Mayor, gave of this 400/. Multiply this sum by 15, in modern money it amounts to above 8000/. ]\Ir. Brewer, in his fervent admiration of the saintly rise, closes his eyes on the rapid degeneracy of the Order, and their depai'ture from their first principles. ^ Wendover, ii. p. 2J0, sub ana. 1207. Chap. X. DEATH OF POPE INNOCENT. 45 to the prophecy of the German Hildegard, the very fundamental rules of their profession. These are they who impelled by the love of gain, force themselves upon the last hours of the Lords, and of the rich whom they know to be overflowing with wealth ; and these, despising all rights, supplanting the ordinary pastors, extort con- fessions and secret testaments, boasting of themselves and of their Order, and asserting their vast superiority over all others. So that no one of the faithful now believes that he can be saved, unless guided and directed by the Preachers or Friar Minors. Eager to obtain privileges, they serve in the courts of kings and nobles, as counsellors, chamberlains, treasurers, bridesmen, or notaries of marriages ; they are the executioners of the Papal extortions. In their preaching they sometimes take the tone of flattery, sometimes of biting censure : they scruple not to reveal confessions, or to bring forward the most rash accusations. They despise the legitimate Orders, those founded by holy fathers, by St. Benedict or St. Augustine, with all their professors. They place their own Order high above all ; they look on the Cis- tercians as rude and simple, half laic or rather peasants ; they treat the Black Monks as haughty Epicureans." ^ Our history reverts to the close of Innocent III.'s eventful pontificate. In the full vigour of his manhood died Innocent III. He, of all the Popes, had advanced the most ^.d. 1216. exorbitant pretensions, and those pretensions Kp^inno- had been received by an age most disposed to *^^"' ^^^• accept them with humble deference. The high and blameless, in some respects wise and gentle character of Innocent, might seem to approach more nearly than ' Paris reckons the forty years to his own time, sub aiin. 1249- 46 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX any one of the whole succession of Koman bishops, to the ideal height of a supreme Pontiff: in him, if ever, might appear to be reahsed the churchman's highest conception of the Vicar of Christ. Gregory VII. and Boniface VIII., the first and the last of the aggressive Popes, and the aged Gregory IX., had no doubt more rugged warfare to encounter, fiercer and more unscru- pulous enemies to subdue. But in all these there was a personal sternness, a contemptuous haughtiness ; theirs was a worldly majesty. Hildebrand and Benedetto Gaetani are men in whom secular policy obscures, and throws back, as it were, the spiritual greatness; and though the firmness with which they endure reverses may be more lofty, yet there is a kind of desecration of the unapproachable sanctity of their office in their per- sonal calamities. The pride of Innocent was calmer, more self-possessed ; his dig-nity was less disturbed by degi*ading collisions with rude adversaries ; he died on Results of his ^^^ uushakcn throne, in the plenitude of his Pontificate, seemingly unquestioned power. Yet if we pause and contemplate, as we cannot but pause and contemplate, the issue of this highest, in a certain sense noblest and most religious contest for the Papal ascend- ancy over the world of man, there is an inevitable con- viction of the unreality of that Papal power. With all the grandeur of his views, with all the persevering energy of his measures, throughout Innocent's reign, everywhere we behold failure, everywhere immediate discomfiture, or transitory success which paved the way for future disaster. The higher the throne of the Pope the more manifestly were its foundations undermined, unsound, un enduring. Even Kome does not always maintain her peaceful subservience. Her obedience is interrupted, precarious Chap. X RESULT OF HIS PONTIFICATE. 47 that of transient awe, not of deep attachment, or rooted reverence. In Italy, the tutelage of the young Frederick, suspicious, ungenerous, imperious, yet negligent, could not but plant deep in the heart of the young sovereign mistrust, want of veneration, still more of affection for his ecclesiastical guardian. What was there to attach Frederick to the Church? how much to estrange! As King of Sicily he was held under strict tributary control; his step-mother the Church watches every movement with jealous supervision; exacts the most rigid discharge of all the extorted signs of vassalage. It is not as heir of the Empire that he is reluctantly permitted or coldly encouraged to cross the Alps, and to win back, if he can, the crown of his ancestors, but as the enemy of the Pope's enemy. Otho had been so ungrateful, was so dangerous, that against him the Pope would support even a Hohenstaufen. The seeds of evil were sown in Frederick's mind, in Frederick's heart, to spring up with fearful fertility. In the Empire it is impossible not to burthen the memory of Innocent with the miseries of the long civil war. Otho without the aid of the Pope could not have maintained the contest for a year; with all the Pope's aid he had sunk into contempt, almost insignificance ; he was about to be abandoned, if not actually abandoned, by the Pope himself. The casual blow of the assassin alone pre- vented the complete triumph of Philip, already he had extorted his absolution ; Innocent was compelled to yield, and could not yield without loss of dignity.^ The 8 Read the very curious Latin poem published by Leibnitz, R. Brunsw. S. li. p. 525, on the Disputatio between Rome and Pope Innocent on the desti- tution of Otho. Rome becrins : — " Tibi soli supplicat orbis, Et genus humanum, te dispouente move- tur." Innocent, after some flattery of th* gieatness of Rome, urges ; — 48 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book. IX. triumph of Otho leads to as fierce, and more perilous resistance to the Papal power, than could have been expected from the haughtiness of the Hohenstaufen, The Pope has an irresistible enemy in Italy itself. In- nocent is compelled to abandon the great object of the Papal policy, the breaking the line of succession in the house of Swabia, and to assist in the elevation of a Swabian Emperor. He must yield to the union of the crown of Sicily with that of Germany ; and so bequeath to his successors the obstinate and perilous strife with Frederick II. In France, Philip Augustus is forced to seem, yet only seem, to submit ; the miseries of his unhappy wife are but aggravated by the Papal protection. The death of Agnes of Meran, rather than Innocent's authority, heals the strife. The sons of the proscribed concubine succeed to the throne of France. In England the Barons refuse to desert John when under the interdict of the Pope ; when the Pope becomes the King's ally, resenting the cession of the realm, they withdraw their allegiance. Even in Stephen Langton, who owes his promotion to the Pope, the Englishman prevails over the ecclesiastic ; the Great Charter is extorted from the King when under the express protec- tion of the Holy See, and maintained resolutely against " Quae vos stimulavit Krynnis ? Ut sic unauiines relevare velitis Otouem, Vultis ut Kcclesiai Romans' prsudo resurgat, Hontis Catholics fidei, doniinando superbus Non solum factus, sed et ipsa superbia," Thfiii follow several pages of dispute, kindling into fierce altercation. The Pope winds up : — " Si te Non moveant super hoc assignata; rationcs Per quas Ottoui Frcdericus substituatur, Sic volo, sic fiat, sit pro ratione voluntas." Home bursts into invective : — "Quails Servorum Christi Servus ! * * « « » Non es apostolicus, sed apostaticus ; neque Pastor Immo lupus, vescens ipso grege." Rome appeals to a General Council. Rome, supposing the Council present, addresses it. The Council replies : — " Roma parens, non est nostrum deponere Papam." But the Council declaies its right to depose Frederick and to restore Otho. Chap. X. RESULTS OF INNOCENT'S PONTIFICATE. 49 the Papal sentence of abrogation ; and in the Great Charter is laid the first stone of the religious as well as the civil liberties of the land. Venice, in the Crusade, deludes, defies, baffles the Pope. The Crusaders become her army, besiege, fight, conquer for her interests. In vain the Pope protests, threatens, anathematises : Venice calmly proceeds in the subjugation of Zara. To the astonishment, the indigna- tion of the Pope, the Crusaders' banners wave not over Jerusalem, but over Constantinople. But for her own wisdom, Venice might have given an Emperor to the capital of the East, she secures the patriarchate almost in defiance of the Pope ; only when she has entirely gained her ends does she submit to the petty and unre- garded vengeance of the Pope. Even in the Albisfensian war the success was indeed complete ; heresy was crushed, but by means of which Innocent disapproved in his heart. He had let loose a terrible force, which he could neither arrest nor control. The Pope can do everything but show mercy or modera- tion. He could not shake off, the Papacy has never shaken off, the burthen of its complicity in the remorse- less carnage perpetrated by the Crusaders in Languedoc, in the crimes and cruelties of Simon de Montfort. A dark and ineffaceable stain of fraud and dissimulation too has gathered around the fame of Innocent himself.*^ Heresy was quenched in blood ; but the earth sooner or later gives out the terrible cry of blood for vengeance against murderers and oppressors. ^ It is remarkable that Innocent III. was never canonised. There were popular rumours that the soul of Innocent, escaping from the fires of puigatory, appeared on earth, scoui-ged by pursuing devils, taking refuge at the foot of the cross, and imploring the prayers of the faithful. — Chronic. Erfurt, p. 243. Thorn. Cantiprat, Vit. S. LuitgardiE, ap. Surium.Jan. 16 VOL. VI. E 60 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book IX. The great religious event of tliis Pontificate, the foundation of the Mendicant Orders, that which perhaps perpetuated, or at least immeasurably strengthened, the Papal power for two centuries was extorted from the re- luctant Pope. Both St. Dominic and St. Francis were coldly received, almost contemptuously repelled. It was not till either his own more mature deliberation, or wiser counsel which took the form of divine admonition, prevented this fatal error, and prophetically revealed the secret of their strength and of their irresistible influence throughout Christendom, that Innocent awoke to wisdom. He then bequeathed these two great stand- ing armies to the Papacy; armies maintained without cost, sworn, more than sworn, bound by the unbroken chains of their own zeal and devotion to unquestioning, unhesitating service throughout Christendom, speaking all languages. They were colonies of religious militia, natives of every land, yet under foreign control and guidance. Their whole power, importance, perhaps pos- sessions, rested on their fidelity to the See of Kome, that fidelity guaranteed by the charter of their existence. Well might they appear so great as they are seen by the eye of Dante, like the Cherubin and Seraphin in Paradise.* » Paradiso, xi. 34, &c. BOOK X. 62 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK X. CONTEMPORARY CHRONOLOGY. EMPERORS OF GEKMAKY. KIKG8 OF FRANCE. KING OF ENGLAND. 1216 Honorius III. 1227 1227 Gregory IX. 1241 1241 Coelestine rV. 1241 1243 Innocent IV. 1254 1254 Alexander TV. 1261 A.D. A.D. 1216 Henry m. 1272 Philip Augus- tus 1223 i Louis Vm. 1226 1226 Louis IX. (Saint) 1270 ARCHBISHOPS OF CANTERBURY. 1246 Henry Easpe (anti-emperor) 1249 1250 William of Holland 1257 Vacant. Eichard of ComwaU (?) Alfonso of Castile (?) ARCHBISHOPS OF MENTZ. CJonrad of Wit- tlesbach 1230 1230 Siegfried 1. ot I Siegfried II. of Epstein 1251 1251 Christian II. 1269 1269 Gerhard I. Stephen Lang- 1229Bichard We- therhead 1234 1234 Edmund Bich 1244 1244 Boniface of Savoy 1272 BookX. CONTEMPORAJiY CHRONOLOGY. 53 CONTEMPORARY CHRONOLOGY. KINGS OF SCOTLAND KINGS OF SPAIN. KINGS OF NAPLES. EMPEKORS Oi THE EAST. 1214 Alexander U. 1249 A.D. A.D. Castile. 1217 Alfonso X. 1226 1226 Ferdinand m. 1252 1252 Alfonso XI., the Wise 1276 Arragon. 1213 James. 1243 Alexander HI. 1286 KINGS OF POBTUGAL. A.D. AJD. 1213 Alfonso the Fat. 1233 1233 Sancho n. 1246 1246 Allonso m. 1279 Frederick U. 1250 1250 Conrad 1253 1254 Manfred 1266 1266 Conmd H. Charles of Anjou. Latin. 1217 Peter de Cour- tenay 1220 1220 Robert 1228 1228 Baldwin II. 1261 Greek. Theodore Las- caris 1222 1222 John Ducas 1255 1255 Theodoras 1258 I25S John IV. 1259 Michael Paleo- logns. 1262 Reunion. ( 64 ) Book X. BOOK X. CHAPTER I. Honoriiis HI. Frederick II. The Pontificate of Honorius III. is a kind of oasis of Honorius III. ^eposG, between the more eventful rule of Inno- SSecrated^" cent III. and that of Gregory IX. Honorius July 24. ^^^g ^ I^oman of the noble house of Savelli, Cardinal of St. John and St. Paul. The Papacy having attained its consummate height under Innocent III., might appear resting upon its arms, and gathering up its might for its last internecine conflict, under Gregory IX. and Innocent IV. with the most powerful, the ablest, and when driven to desperation, most reckless anta- gonist, who had as yet come into collision with the A.D. 1216 spiritual supremacy. During nearly eleven to 1227. years the combatants seem girding themselves for the contest. At first mutual respect or common interests maintain even more than the outward appear- ance of amity; then arise jealousy, estrangement, doubtful peace, but not declared w^ar. On one side neither the power nor the ambition of the Emperor Frederick II. are mature: his more modest views of aggrandisement gradually expand ; his own character is developing itself into tliat of premature enlighten- ment and lingering superstition ; of chivalrous adven- ture and courtly elegance, of stern cruelty and generous Chap. I. MILDNESS OF HONORIUS. 55 liberality, of restless and all-stirring, all-embracing activity, which keeps Germany, Italy, even the East, in one uninterrupted war with his implacable enemies the Popes, and with the Lombard Eepublics, while he is constantly betraying his natural disposition to bask away an easy and luxurious life on the shores of his beloved Sicily. All this is yet in its dawn, in its yet unfulfilled promise, in its menace. Frederick has won the Empire ; he has united, though he had agreed to make over Sicily to his son, the Imperial crown to that of Sicily. Even if rumours are already abroad of his dangerous freedom of opinion, this may pass for youthful levity, he is still the spiritual subject of the Pope. Honorius III. stands between Innocent III. and Gre- gory IX., not as a Pontiff of superior wisdom and more true Christian dignity, adopting a gentler and more conciliating policy from the sense of its more perfect compatibility with his office of Vicar of Christ, Mildness of but rather from natural gentleness of character "0°''™^- bordering on timidity. He has neither energy of mind to take the loftier line, nor to resist the high church- men, who are urging him towards it ; his was a tempor- ising policy, which could only avert for a time the inevitable conflict. And yet a Pope who could assume as his maxim to act with gentleness rather than by compulsion, by in- fluence rather than anathema, nevertheless, to make no surrender of the overweening pretensions of his func- tion ; must have had a mind of force and vigour of its own, not unworthy of admiration : a moderate Pope is so rare in these times, that he may demand some homage for his moderation. His age and infirmities may have tended to this less enterprising or turbulent 66 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X. administration.'^ Honorius accepted the tradition of all the rights and duties asserted by, and generally ascribed to the successor of St. Peter, as part of his high office. The Holy War was now become so established an article in the Christian creed, that no Pope, however beyond his age, could have ventured even to be remiss in urging this solemn obligation on all true Christians. No car- dinal not in heart a Crusader would have been raised to the Papal See. The assurance of the final triumph of the Christian arms became a point of honour, more than that, an essential part of Christian piety; to deny it was an impeachment on the valour of true Christians, a want of sufficient reliance on God himself. Christ could not, however he might try the patience of the Christian, eventually abandon to the infidel his holy sepulchre. All admonitions of disaster and defeat were but the just chastisements of the sins of the crusaders ; the triumph, however postponed, was certain, as certain as that Christ was the Son of God, Mohammed a false prophet. Honorius was as earnest, as zealous in the good cause, as had been his more inflexible predecessor ; this was Honorius the primary object of his ten years' Pontificate : urges the i • i • i i • i i Crusade. tliis, which howovcr it had to encounter the coldness, the torpor, the worn-out sympathies of Christ- endom, clashed with no jealous or hostile feeling. How- ever severe the rebuke, it was rebuke of which Christen- dom acknowledged the justice ; all men honoured the Pope for his zeal in sounding the trumpet vdth the fiercest energy, even though they did not answer to the call. The more the enthusiasm of Christendom cooled • "Cum esset corjwre iufirrau.s, et ultra modum debilis." — Raynald. sub aim. kT ?HAP. I. FREDERICK II. 57 down into indifference, the more ardent and pressing the exhortation of the Popes. The first act of Honorius was a circular address to Christen- dom, full of reproof, expostulation, entreaty to contri- bute either in person or in money to the new campaign. The only King who obeyed the summons was crusadeof Andrew of Hungary. Some German princes Hungary. and prelates met the Hungarian at Spalatro, the Dukes of Austria and Meran, the Archbishop of Saltzburg, the Bishops of Bamberg, Zeitz, Munster, and Utrecht. But notwithstanding the interdict of the Patriarch of Jeru- salem, Andrew returned in the next year, though not without some fame for valour and conduct, on the plea of enfeebled health, and of important affairs of Hun- gary.^ His trophies were reliques, the heads of St. Stephen and St. Margaret, the hands of St. Bartho- lomew and St. Thomas, a slip of the rod of Aaron, one of the water-pots of the Marriage of Cana. A.D.1219. The expedition from the Holy Land against Damietta. Damietta, the flight of Sultan Kameel from that city, its occupation by the Christians, raised the most exult- ing hopes. The proposal of the Sultan to yield up Jerusalem was rejected with scorn. But the fatal reverses^ which showed the danger of accepting a Legate (the Cardinal Pelagius) as a general, too soon threw men's minds back into their former prostration. But even before this discomfiture, King Frederick II. had centred on himself the thoughts and hopes of all who were still Crusaders in their hearts, as the one monarch in Christendom who could restore the fallen fortunes of the Cross in the East. In his first access of youthful pride, as having at eighteen b This wris the Crusade joined by S. Francis. — See Ch. X. 58 LATIN CHEISTIANITY. Book X. years of age won, by his own gallant daring, the Trans- alpine throne of his ancestors ; and in liis gTateful devotion to the Pope, who, in hatred to Otho, had main- tained his cause, Frederick II. had taken the Cross. Nor for some years does there appear any reason to mistrust, if not his religious, at least his adventurous and ambitious ardour. But till the death of his rival Otho, he could command no powerful force which would follow him to the Holy Land, nor could he leave his yet unsettled realm. The princes and churchmen, his partisans, were to be rewarded and so confirmed in their loyalty ; the doubtful and wavering to be won ; the re- fractory or resistant to be reduced to allegiance. The death of Otho, in tlie castle of Wurtzburg, near Goslar, had been a signal example of the power of re- ligious awe. The battle of Bouvines and the desertion of his friends had broken his proud spirit ; his health failed, violent remedies brought him to the brink of the grave. Hell yawned before the outcast from the Church ; nothing less than a public expiation of his sins could soothe his shuddering conscience. No bishop would approach the excommunicated, the fallen Sovereign ; the Prior of Halberstadt, on his solemn oath upon the reliques of St. Simon and St. Jude brought for that purpose from Brunswick, that if he lived lie would give fuU satisfaction to the Churcli, obtained him absolution and the Last Sacrament. The next day, the last of his life, in the presence of the Empress and his family, the nobles, and the Abbot of Hildesheim, he knelt almost naked on a carpet, made the fullest confession of his sins ; he showed a cross, which he had received at Kome, as a pledge that he would embark on a Crusade : " the devil had still thwarted his holy vow." The cross was restored to him. He then crouched down exposed Chap. I. PEOMISES TO LEAD THE CRUSADE. 59 liis naked shoulders, and entreated all present to inflict the merited chastisement All hands were armed with rods ; the very scullions assisted in the pious work of flagellation, or at least of humiliation. In the pauses of the Miserere the Emperor's voice was heard : " Strike harder, spare not the hardened sinner." So died the rival of Philip of Swabia, the foe of Innocent III., in the forty-third year of his age.*' With the death of Otho rose new schemes of aggran disement before the eyes of Frederick II. ; he must secure the Imperial crown for himself; for his son Henry the succession to the German kingdom. The Imperial crown must be obtained from the hands of the Pope ; the election of his son at least be ratified by that power. A friendly correspondence began with Hono- rius III. The price set on the coronation of Promises to Frederick as Emperor was his undertaking a cmsade. Crusade to the Holy Land. At the High Diet at Fulda, Frederick himself (so he writes to the Pope) had already summoned the princes of Germany to his great design : at the Diet proclaimed to be held at Magdeburg, he urged the Pope to excommunicate all who should not appear in arms on the next St. John's day. His chief counsellor seemed to be Herman of Salza, the Master of the Teutonic Order, as deeply devoted to the service of the Holy Land, as the Templars and Knights of St. John. On that Order he heaped privi- leges and possessions. But already in Rome, no doubt among the old austere anti-German party, were dark suspicions, solemn admonitions, secret warnings to the mild Pope, that no son of the house of Swabia could be ^ Otho died 19th May, 1218. — See iii. p. 1S73. " Prsecepit coquinariis Narratio de IMorte Ottonis IV. apud ut in collum suum conculcarent."— • Martene et Durand Thes. His, Anecdot. ! Albert. Stadens. Chron. p. 204. dO LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X otherwise than an enemy to the Church : the Imperial crown and the kingdom of Naples could not be in the possession of one Sovereign without endangering the independence of the Papacy. Frederick re- pelled these accusations of hostility to the Church with passionate vehemence. " I well know that those who dare to rise up against the Church of Eome have drunk of the cup of Babylon ; and hope that during my whole life I shall never be justly charged with ingratitude to my Holy Mother. I design not, against my own declaration, to obtain the election of my son Henry to the throne of Germany in order to unite the two kingdoms of Germany and Sicily ; but that in my absence (no doubt he implies in the Holy Land), the two realms may be more firmly governed ; and that in case of my death, my son may be more certain of inheriting the throne of his fathers. That son remains under subjection to the Roman See, which, having pro- tected me, so ought to protect him in his undoubted rights." ^ He then condescends to exculpate himself from all the special charges brought against him by Eome. The correspondence continued on both sides in terms of amicable courtesy. Each had his object, of which he never lost sight. The Pope would even hazard the ag- sept. 6, 1219. grandisement of the house of Swabia if he could SceTith'^ send forth an overpoweriug armament to the the Pope. East. Frederick, secure of the aggrandise- ment of his house, was fully prepared to head the Crusade. Honorius consented that, in case of the death of Henry the son of Frederick without heir or brother, Frederick should hold both the Empire and the king- «• Regest. Hon., quoted from the Vatican archives by Von l^umcr, iii. p. 314. Chap. I. CORRESPONDENCE WITH THE POPE 61 dom of Naples during his lifetime. Frederick desired to retain unconditionally the investiture of both king- doms; but on this point the Pope showed so much reluctance that Frederick broke off the treaty by letter, reserving it for a personal interview with the Pope. " For who could be more obedient to the Church than he who was nursed at her breast and had rested in her lap ? Who more loyal ? Who would be so mindful of benefits already received, or so prepared to acknowledge his obligations according to the will and pleasure of his benefactors ? " Such were the smooth nor yet deceptive words of Frederick.® Frederick had already consented, even proposed, that the Pope should place all the Ger- man Princes who refused to take up the Cross under the interdict of the Church, and thus, as the Pope reminds him, had still more inextricably bound himself, who had already vowed to take up that Cross. Frederick urged Honorius to write individually to all the princes among whom there was no ardour for the Crusade, to threaten them with the ban if at least they did not maintain the truce of God ; he promised, protesting that he acted without deceit or subtlety, to send forward his forces, and follow himself as speedily as he might. The Pope expressed his profound satisfaction at finding his beloved son so devoted to God and to the Church. He urged him to delay no longer the holy design : " Youth, power, fame, your vow, the example of your ancestors, summon you to fulfil your glorious enterprise. That which your illustrious 2:randfather Frederick I. J / 1 -.1 n 1 • . .^ • March, 122&. undertook with all his puissance, it is your mission to bring to a glorious end. Three times have I * All this I am not surprised to find by such writers as Hofler represented as the most deliberate hypocrisy. I am sorry to see the same partial view id Boehmer's Regesta. 62 LATm CHRISTIANITY. Book X. consented to delay ; I will even prolong the term to the 1st of May. Whose offer is this ? — Not mine ; but that of Christ ! Whose advantage ? — That of all his disciples ! Whose honom- ? — That of all Christians ! Are you not invited by unspeakable rewards ? summoned by miracles ? admonished by examples ? " But, in the mean time, Frederick, without waiting the assent of the Pope, had carried his great design, the election of his son Henry to the crown of Germany. His unbounded popularity, his power now that his rival Otho was dead, the fortunate falling in of some great fiefs (especially the vast possessions of Berthold of Zah- ringen, which enabled him to reward some, to win Diet of others of the nobler houses), his affability, his Frankfort. ... _ , . . . /. / April, 1220. liberality, his lustice, 2:ave him command over Election of J' i> xl, ? i • "O Henry as his the sutirages 01 the temporal princes. By a successor. " r» • i i • • i Apr. 26, 1220. great measure oi wisdom and justice, the charter of the liberties of the German Church, on which some looked with jealousy as investing him with danger- ous power, he gained the support of the high ecclesias- tics.^ The King surrendered the unkingly right or usage of seizing to his own use the personalities of bishops on their decease. These effects, if not becjueathed by will, went to the bishop's successor. The King consented to renounce the right of coining money and levying tolls within the territory of the bishops without their consent ; and to punish all forgeries of their coin. The vassals and serfs of the prelates were to be received in no impe- rial city or fief of the Empire to their damage. The advocates, under pretence of protection, were not to injure the estates of the Church : no one was to occupy by force an ecclesiastical fief. He who did not submit Mouumeut. Germ. iv. 235, Chjip. f. FREDERICK II. (53 within six weeks to the authority of the Church fell under the ban of the Empire, and could neither act aa judge, plaintiff, nor witness in any court. The Bishops, on their side, promised to prosecute and to punish all who opposed the will of the King. The King further stipu- lated that no one might erect castles or fortresses in the lands of a spiritual prince. No officer of the King had jurisdiction, could coin money, or levy tolls in the epis- 3opal cities, except eight days before and eight days after \ diet to be held in such city. Only when the King was actually within the city was the jurisdiction of the prince suspended, and only so long as he should remain. The election of Henry to the throne of Germany without the consent of the Pope struck Eome with dismay. Frederick made haste to allay, if possible, the jealous apprehension. He declared that it was the spon- taneous act of the Princes of the Empne during hia absence, without his instigation. They had seen, from a quarrel which had broken out between the Archbishop of Mentz and the Landgrave of Thuringia, the absolute necessity of a liing to maintain in Frederick's absence the peace of the Empire. He had even delayed his own consent. The act of election would be laid ^urenberg, before the Pope with the seals of all who had -^"'^ ^^• been concerned in the affair.^ He declared that this election was by no means designed to perpetuate the union of the kingdom of Naples with the Empire. " Even if the Church had no right over the kingdom of Apulia and Sicily, I would freely grant that kingdom to the Pope rather than attach it to the Empire, should I die without lawful heirs." ^ He significantly adds, that it * Regest., quoted by Von Kaumer, p. 335. Pert^, Monumenta. " " Prius ipso regno Romanam Ecclesiam quam Imperium dotaremus.'* — Ibid» 64 LATIN CHRISTIANlTTc. Book X. is constantly suggested to him tliat the love professed to him by the Church is not sincere and will not be lasting, but he had constantly refused to entertain such un- grounded and dishonourable suspicions. The Abbot of Fulda had, in the mean time, been despatched to Eome to demand the coronation of Frede- rick as Emperor. This embassage had been usually the office of one of the great prelates of Germany, but the mild Honorius took no offence, or disguised it. At the end of August Frederick descended the Alps into the plain of Lombardy. Eight years before, a boy of eighteen, he had crossed those Alps, almost alone, on his desperate adventure of wresting the crown of his fathers from the brow of Otho. He came back, in the prime of life, one of the mightiest kings who had ever occupied that throne ; stronger in the attachment of all orders, perhaps, than any former Swabian king ; having secured, it might seem, in his house, at least the Empire, if not the Empire with all its rights in Italy ; and with the kingdom of Sicily, instead of a hostile power at the command of the Popes, his own, if not in possession, in attachment. During these eight years Italy had been one great feud of city with city, of the cities within themselves. Milan, released from fears of the Emperor, had now begun a quarrel with the Chiu'ch. The Podesta expelled the Archbishop. Parma and many other cities had followed this example ; the bishops were driven out, their palaces destroyed, their property plundered : the great ability of the Cardinal Ugolino, afterwards Gre- gory IX., had restored something like order, but the fire was still smouldering in its ashes. Frederick passed on witliout involving himself in these implacable quarrels : it was time to assert the Imperial rights when invested in the Imperial crown. He had « «HAP. I. FREDERICK IN ITALY. 6b crossed the Brenner, and moving by Verona and Mantua, so avoided Milan. The absence of the Ai'ch- Frederick bishop from JVIilan was a full excuse for his Aug^n, postponing his coronation with the iron crown ^^^''• of Lombardy. He granted rights and privileges to Venice, Genoa, Pisa; overawed or conciliated some cities. On the thirtieth of September he was in Verona, on the fourth of October in Bologna. His Chancellor, Conrad of Metz, had arranged the terms on which he was to receive the Imperial crown. Frederick advanced with a great array of churchmen in his retinue — the Archbishops of Mentz, of Kavenna, the Patriarch of Aquileia, the Bishops of Metz, Passau, Trent, Brixen, Augsburg, Duke Louis of Bavaria, and Henry Count Palatine. Ambassadors appeared from almost all the cities of Italy : from Apulia, from the Counts of Celano, St. Severino, and Aquila ; deputies from the city of Naples. The people of Home were quiet and well pleased. The only untoward incident which disturbed the peace w^as a quarrel about a dog between the Ambas- sadors of Florence and Pisa, which led to a bloody war. On the twenty-second of November Frederick and his Queen were crowned in St. Peter's amid universal accla- mations. Frederick disputed not the covenanted price to be paid for the Imperial crown. He received the Cross once more from the hand of Cardinal Ugolino. He swore that part of his forces should set forth for the Holy Land in the March of the following year, himself in August. He released his vassals from their fealty in all the territories of the Countess Matilda, and made over the appointment of all the podestas to the Pope ; some who refused to submit were placed by the Chancellor Conrad under the ban of the Empire. He put the Pope in possession of the whole region from Kadicofani to VOT.. VT. F 66 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X Ceperano, with the March of Ancona and the Duchy ol Spoleto. His liberality was not limited to these grants. Two laws concerning the immunities of ecclesiastics and Laws in the suppression of heretics might satisfy the ecclesiastics, scvcrest churchman. The first absolutely an- nulled all laws or usages of cities, communities, oi ruling powers which might be or were employed against the liberties of the churches or of spiritual persons, or against the laws of the Church and of the Empire. Outlawry and heavy fines were enacted not only against those who enforced, but who counselled or aided in the 3nforcement of sucli usages : the offenders forfeited, if contumacious for a whole year, all their goods.^ No tax or burthen could be set upon ecclesiastics, churches, or spiritual foundations. Whoever arraigned a spiritual person before a civil tribunal forfeited his right to im- plead; the tribunal which admitted such arraignment lost its jurisdiction ; the judge who refused justice three times to a spiritual person in any matter forfeited his judicial authority. The law against heretics vied in sternness with that Laws of Innocent III., confirmed by Otho lY.^ All heretics. Cathari, Paterines, Leonists, Speronists, Ar- noldists, and dissidents of all other descriptions, were incapable of holding places of honour, and under barn. Their goods were confiscated, and not restored to their children; "for outrages against the Lord of Heaven were more heinous than against a temporal lord." Whoever, suspected of heresy, did not clear himself after a year's trial was to be treated as a heretic. Every > Constit. Fiederici II. in Corp. Jur. tit. i. BuUar. Roman, i. 63. •« This law was renewed and made more severe, 1224. Raynald. subann. 1231, Cuxv. I. LAWS AGAINST HERETICS, &c. G7 magistrate on entering upon office must himself take an oath of orthodoxy, and swear to punish all whom the Church might denounce as heretics. If any tem- poral lord did not rid his lands of heretics, the trup believers miglit take the business into their own hands, and seize the goods of the delinquent, provided that the rights of an innocent lord were not thereby im- peached. All who concealed, aided, protected heretics were under ban and interdict ; if they did not make satisfaction within two years, under outlawry ; they could hold no office, nor inherit, nor enter any plea, nor bear testimony. Three other laws, based on the eternal principles of morality, accompanied these acts of ecclesiastical legis- lation, or of temporal legislation in the spirit of the Church. One prohibited the plundering of wrecks, excepting the ships of pirates and infidels. . T ° ^ .-, . 1 1 other laws. Another protected pilgrims ; they were to be received with kindness ; if they died, their property was to be restored to their rightful heii'S. The third pro- tected the persons and labours of the cultivators of the soil. The Pope and the Emperor, notmthstanding some trifling differences, parted in perfect amity. "Never," ^yrites Honorius, " did Pope love Emperor as he loved his son Frederick." Each had obtained some great objects ; the Pope the peaceable surrender of the Ma- thildine territories, and the solemn oath that Frederick would speedily set forth on the Crusade. The Emperor retired in peace and joy to the beloved land of his youth. The perilous question of his right to the king- dom of Sicily had been intentionally or happily avoided ; he had been recognised by the Pope as Emperor and King of Sicily. There were still brooding F 2 68 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book a. causes of mutual suspicion and dissatisfaction. Frederick pursued with vigour his determination of repressing the turbulent nobles of Apulia ; the castles of the partisans of Otho were seized ; they fled, and, he bitterly com- plained, were received with more than hospitality in the Papal dominions. He spared not the inimical bishops ; they were driven from their sees ; some im- prisoned. The Pope loudly protested against tliis audacious violation of the immunities of Churchmen. Frederick refused them entrance into the kingdom ; he had rather forfeit his crown than the inalienable right of the sovereign, of which he had been defrauded by Innocent III., of visiting treason on all his sub- jects."^ Then in the next year came the fatal news from the A.D.1221. East — the capture, the disasters which fol- Loss of . Damietta. lowed the capturo of Damietta. The Pope and the Emperor expressed their common grief; the Pope was bowed with dismay and sorrow ; ° the tidings pierced as a sword to the heart of Frederick.^ Fred- erick had sent forty triremes, under the Bishop of Catania and the Count of Malta ; they had arrived too late. But this dire reverse showed that nothing less than an overwhelming force could restore the Christian cause in the East ; and in those days of colder religious zeal, even the Emperor and King of Sicily could not at once summon such overwhelming force. Frederick was fully occupied in the Sicilian dominions. During his minority, and during his absence, the powerful Germans, Normans, Italians, even Churchmen, had " " Ch^ prima si lascierrebbe torre la corona, ch6 derogar in un punto da questi suoi diritti.'' — Giannone, 1. xvi. c. 1. " Letter of Pope Honorius, Nov. 1221. « Epist. Honor, apud Raynald. Aug. 10, 1221. Chap. I. MEETING AT VEROLI. 69 usurped fiefs, castles, cities :^ he had to resume by foic© rights unlawfully obtained, to dispossess men whose only title had been open or secret leanings to the Emperor Otho ; to punish arbitrary oppression of the people ; to destroy strong castles built without licence ; to settle ancient feuds and suppress private wars : it needed all his power, his popularity, his firmness, to avert insur- rection during these vigorous but necessary measures. Two great assizes held at Capua and Messina ppc. 1220 to showed the confusion in the affairs of both ^'^y-i^ai. kingdoms. But from such nobles he could expect no ready obedience to assemble around his banner for an expedition to the Holy Land. Instead of a great fleet, suddenly raised, as by the wand of an enchanter (this the Pope seemed to expect), and a powerful army, in April in the year 1222 the Pope and the Meeting Emperor met at Yeroli to deliberate on the ^'^^^''o"- Crusade. They agreed to proclaim a great assembly at Verona in the November of that year, at which the Pope and the Emperor were to be present. All princes, prelates, knights, and vassals were to be summoned to unite in one irresistible effort for the relief of the East. The assembly at Verona did not take place ; the illness of the Pope, the occupations of the Emperor, were alleged as excuses for the further delay. A second time the Pope and the Emperor met at Feren- AtFerentino. tino ; with them King John of Jerusalem, the ^^''''^' ^^^^• Patriarch, the Grand Master of the Knights Templars. Frederick explained the difficulties which had impeded his movements, first in Germany, now in Sicily. Tc the opposition of his turbulent barons was now added the danger of an insurrection of the Saracens in Sicily. 9 Letter of Frederick to the Pope frcm Irani, March 3, 1221. 70 LATIN CHRISnANIT>. Book X. Frederick himself was engaged in a sliort but obstinate war.^ Even the King of Jerusalem deprecated the despatch of an insufficient force. Two full years were to be employed, by deliberate agreement, in awakening the dormant zeal of Christendom ; but Frederick, now a widower, bound himself, it might seem, in the inex- tricable fetters of his own personal interest and ambition, by engaging to marry lolante, the beautiful daughter of King John. Two years passed away; King John of Jerusalem travelled over Western Christendom, to England, France, Germany, to represent in all lands the state of extreme peril and distress to which his kingdom was reduced. Everywhere he met with the most courteous and royal reception ; but the days of Peter the Hermit and St Bernard were gone by. France, England, Germany, Spain, were involved in their own affairs ; a few took the Cross, and offered sums of money to no great amount ; and this was all which was done by the royal preacher of the Crusade. Tuscany and Lombardy were almost as indifferent to the expostulations of Cardinal Ugolino, who had for some years received full power from the Emperor to awaken, if possible, the sluggish ardour of those provinces. King John and the Patri- arch, after visiting Apulia, reported to the Pope the 1 The two following p:iss;iges show that this was no feigned excuse : — " Imperator in Sicilia de Mirabello triumphavit, et de ipso et suis fecit quod eorunn meruerat exigentia com- missorum." — liichd. San. Germ. " Dominus Fredericus erat cum magno exercitu super Saracenos Jacis, et cepit Benavith cum filiis suis, et suspendit ar>u John he describes as " carissimum in Christo filium nostrum J., Anglioe regem illustrem crucesignatum et vassallum nostrum." — p. 15. The kingdom of England " specialis juris apost. sedis existit." — p. 27. The Bulls of Honorius have been printed in an appendix to the Royal Letters of the time of Henry III., by Mr. Shirley. Rolls Publications, 1862. ' Honorius admits that the Barons might liave had some cause for their wickedness (malitia) in resisting undei John what they called the intolerabk yoke of servitude. Now that John is dead, they have no excuse if they do not return to their allegiance. He gives power to the Legates, to the Bishops of Winchester, Worcester, Exeter, the Archbishops of Dublin and Bordeaux (the Primate was still in Rome), to absolve the Barons froni their oaths to Prince Louis. Chap. II. THE LEGATE GUALO. 81 more than rumours, that the ambitious and unscrupulous Louis intended, so soon as he had obtained the crown, to rid himself by banishment and by disinheritance of his dangerous partisans ; to expel the barons from the realm.'^ The desertion of the nobles, the decisive battle of Lincoln, seated Henry III. on the throne of the Plantagenets. The Pope had only to reward with his praises, immunities, grants, and privileges the few nobles and prelates faithful to the cause of John and of his son, W. Mareschal Earl of Pembroke, the Earl of Arundel, Savary de Mauleon, Hubert de Burgh the Justiciary, the Chancellor R. de Marisco, who became Bishop of Durham.® He liad tardily, sometimes ungra- ciously, to reheve from th(^ terrible penalties of excom- munication the partisans of Louis ; *" to persuade or to force the King of France to withdraw all support from the cause of his son, who still continued either in open hostility or in secret aggression on the continental do- minions of Henry III. ; and to maintain his lofty position as Liege Lord and Protector of the King and of the reahn of England. The Legate Gualo, the Cardinal of St. Marcellus, had conducted this signal revolution with consummate address ^ Shakespeare has given this plot, with its groundwork in the confession of the Count of Melun. — King John, Act V. So. 4, ^ There are several letters (IMS. B.M.) to these English nobles; one to Robert de Marisco empowered him to hold the chancellorship with the bishopric of Durham, and excused him from the fulfilment of his vow to take the cross in the Holy Land, his services being wanted in England, On R. de Marisco compare Collier, i. VOT,. VT. p. 430. ' There are some curious instances (MS. B. M.) of the terror of the ex- communications. One of the subjects of France, in fear of his life from a fall from his horse, implores absolution for having followed his sovereign's son to the English war : the Pope would hardly excuse him from a journey to Rome. The Chancellor of the King of Scotland is excommunicate for obeying his King. So too the Archbishop of Glasgow. 82 LATIN CHRISTIANITY:. B^osX. and moderation/ From the coronation of Henry III. at Gloucester by his hands, the Cardinal took the lead in all public affairs : he was virtual if not acknowledged Protector of the infant King. Before the battle of Lincoln the Legate harangued the royal army, lavished his absolutions, his promises of eternal reward ; under the blessing of God, bestowed by him, the army ad- vanced to victory.^ In the settlement of the kingdom, in the reconciliation of the nobles, he was mild if lofty, judicious if dictatorial. England might have owed a deep debt of gratitude to the Pope and to the Legate, if Gualo's fame had not been tarnished by his inordinate rapacity.* To the nobles he was liberal of his free absolution ; the clergy must pay the penalty of their rebellion, and pay that penalty in forfeiture, or the redemption of forfeiture by enormous fines to the Pope and to his Legate. Inquisitors were sent through the whole realm to investigate the conduct of the clergy.^ The lower ecclesiastics, even canons, under the slightest suspicion of the rebellion, were dispossessed of their benefices to make room for foreign priests; the only way to elude degradation wa? by purchasing the favour of the Legate at a vast price. The Bishop of Lincoln 8 Letter to the Abbots of Citeaux and Clairvaux (MS. B. M. i. p. 43). They are to use all mild means of per- suasion, to threaten stronger metisures. ^ Wendover, p. 19. ' Compare the verses of Giles de Corbeil, p. 69, on the avarice of Giialo in France, ■« Wendover, p. 33. The inquisitors sent some " suspensos ad legatum et ab omni beneficio spoliates, qui illorum beneficia suis clericis abundanter dis- iribuit atque de damnis aJ'^'-um suos omnes divites fecit." Wendover gives the case of the Bishop of Lincoln, whose example was followed by others, who " sumptibus nimis damnosis gratiam sibi reconciliabant legati. Clericonim vero et canonicorum sa^cu- larium ubique haustu tarn immoderato loculos evacuavit," &c. See also Math. Westra. ann. 1218, who describes Gualo returning to Rome, "clitellif auro et argento refertis," having dis- posed ad libitum of the revenues (redditus) of England. i Chap. II PArAL EEVENUE FROM ENGLAND. 83 for his restoration to his see paid 1000 marks to tlie Pope, 100 to the Legate."^ Throughout the long reign of Henry III. England was held by successive Popes as a province of the Papal territory. The Legate, like a praetor or proconsul of old, held or affected to hold an undefined supremacy : during the Barons' wars the Pope with a kind of feudal as well as ecclesiastical authority condemned the rebels, not only against their Lord, but against the vassal of the Holy See. England was the great tributary pro- vince, in which Papal avarice levied the most enormous sums, and drained the wealth of the country by direct or indirect taxation. There were four distinct sources of Papal revenue from the realm of England. I. The ancient payment of Peter's Pence ; "^ this " Pope Honovius was not wtU informed on the affairs of England. When Henry was counselled to take up arms to reduce the castles held by the ruffian Fulk de Breaute in defiance of the King and the peace of the realm, the Primate had supported the King iiud the nobles in this act of necessary justice and order by ecclesiastical cen- sures. The Pope wrote a furious letter of rebuke to Langton (MS. B. M. ix. Aug. 1224), e.^pousing the cause of Fulk, who had through his wealth intiuence at Jiome. Still later Gregory IX, reproves and revokes certain royal grants to Bishops and Barons, as " in grave preejudicium ecclesise Komauas ad quam Regnum Angliae pertinere dinoscitur, et enor- mem l^esionem ejusdem regui." — MS. B. M. ad regem, vol. xiv. p. 77. ° The account of Cencius, the Pope's chamberlain, of the assessment of Peter's pence in the dioceses of Eng- land, has been published before by Dr. Lingard, but may be here inserted from MS. B. M.:— De Cantuarensi Ecclesia . vii. libras et xviii. solidos. De RofFensi . . V. xii. „ De Londoniensi . . . xvi. X. „ De Norwicensi . . xxi. „ X. „ I3e Eliensi . . . . . V. De Lincolniensi . . . xUL De Cicestriensi . . viii. De Wintoniensi . . . xvii. vi. „ et vili. denarioa. De Exoniensi . . . Ix. V. „ I^ Wigorniensi . V. „ V. „ 1* H refoidensi . vi. De Bathoniensi . . . vi. V. » De Saresberiensi . . . xviii. De Conventria; . . X. V. ,. De Eboracensi . . xl. „ X. „ l\ 181. G 2 84 LATI?^ CHRISTIANITY. " Book X subsidy to the Pope, as the ecclesiastical sovereign, acknowledged in Saxon times, and admitted by the Conqueror, was regularly assessed in the different dio- ceses, and transmitted to Eome. Dignitaries of the Church were usually the treasurers who paid it over to Italian bankers in London, the intermediate agents with Kome. II. The 1000 marks— 700 for England, 300 for Ire- land — the sign and acknowledgment of feudal vassalage, stipulated by King John, when he took the oath of sub- mission, and made over the kingdom as a fief. Powerful Popes are constantly heard imperiously, necessitous Popes more humbly, almost with supplication, demand- ing the payment of this tribute and its arrears (for it seems to have been irregularly levied) ; ^ but during the whole reign of Henry III. and later, no question seems to have been raised of the Pope's right. III. The benefices held by foreigners, chiefly Italians, and payments to foreign churches out of the property of the English church ; ^ the invasion of the English sees by foreign prelates, with its inevitable consequences (or rather antecedents, for John began the practice of purchasing the support of Kome by enriching her Italian clergy), in crowding the English benefices with strangers, and burdening them with persons who never came near them. These abuses as yet only raised deep and sup- pressed murmurs, ere long to break out into fierce and obstinate resistance. Pandulph, the Papal Legate, be- o Urban IV., MS. B. M. x. p. '29, ham to convent of M. A uieo in Anagni, Dec. 1261. Clement IV., ibid. 12, June 8, 1266. P The convent of Viterbo has a tirant of 30 marks from a moiety of the living of Holkham in Norfolk, i. 278 ; 50 marks from church of Wing- iii. 110. Claims of another convent in Anagni on a benefice in diocese of Winchester, vol. iv. 50. See the grants to John Peter Leone, and otheT?- in Prynne, p. 23. MS. B. M. Chap. II. BENEFICES HELD BY ITALIANS. «5 came Bishop of Norwich. Pope Honorius writes to Pandulph not merely authorising but urging him to provide a benefice or benefices in his diocese of Norwich for his own (the Bishop's) brother, that brother (a curious plurality) being Archdeacon of Thessalonica." These foreigners were of course more and more odious to the whole realm : to the laity as draining away their wealth without discharging any duties ; still more to the clergy as usurping their benefices ; though ignorant of the language, affecting superiority in attainments; as well as from their uncongenial manners, and, if they are not belied, unchecked vices. They were blood- suckers, drawing out the life, or drones fattening on the spoil of the land. All existing documents show that the jealousy and animosity of the English did not exag- gerate the evil.'' At length, just at the close of his Pontificate, even Pope Honorius, by his Legate Otho, made the bold and open demand that two prebends in every cathedral and conventual church (©ne from the portion of the Bishop or Abbot, one from that of the Chapter), or the sustentation of one monk, should be assigned in perpetuity to the Church of Eome. On this the nobles interfered in the King's name, inhibiting such alienation. When the subject was brought before a synod at Westminster by the Archbishop, the pro- 1 Pandulph is by mistake made ing the Barons, having been ejected cardinal ; he was sub-deacon of the j from it, i. p. 233. Transfer from one Roman Church. He is called in the j Italian to another, 235. Grant from documents Master Pandulph. Many Bishop of Durham to Peter Saracen letters to and from Pandulph, showing (Civis Roraanus) of 40 marks, charged his great power and influence, may be on the See tor services done, ii. 158. read in the Royal Letters among the liequiring a canonry o^ Lincoln for Rolls Publications, Thebaldus, scriptor nostir, 186. * MS. B. M. £'.^,, grant of a church Canonry of Chichester for a sou ol to a consanguineus of the Pope, one a Roman citizen. Gervaise, excommunicated for favour- 8G LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Cook X. posal ^yas received with derisive laughter at tlie avarice of the see of Kome. Even the King was prompted to this prudent resolution : " When the rest of Christendom shall have consented to this measure, we will consult with our prelates whether it be right to follow their example." The Council of Bourges, where the Legate Otho urged the same general demand, had eluded it with the same contemptuous disregard. It was even more menacingly suggested that such general oppression from Kome might lead to a general withdrawal of allegiance from Eome.^ Five years after, the people of England seemed deter- mined to take the affair into their own hands. Terrible letters were distributed by unseen means, and by un- knoN\Ti persons, addressed to the bishops and chapters, to the abbots and friars, denouncing the insolence and avarice of these Romans ; positively inhibiting any pay- ments to them from the revenues of their churches; threatening those who paid to burn their palaces and barns over their heads, and to wreak the same vengeance on them which would inevitably fall on the Italians.* Cencius, the Pope's collector of Peter's Pence, a Canon of St. Paul's, was suddenly carried off by armed men, with their faces hid under vizors : he returned with his bags well rifled, after five weeks' imprisonment. John of Ferentino, Archdeacon of Norwich, escaped the same fate, and concealed himself in London. Other aggres- sive measures followed. The barns of the Italian clergy were attacked ; the corn sold or distributed to the poor. • Wendover, p. lU, 121, 124. of Canterbury (1234) that the English *' Quia si omnium esset universalis oppressio, posset timeri ne immineret generalis discessio, quod Deus avertat." " ajgre non fei-ant si inter ipsos monintea extranei, honores ibidem et beneficia consequantur, cum apud Deum non * Gregory wiites to the Archbishop est ac:ceptio personarum."— MS. B. M, Chap. 11. PAPAL REVENUE FROM ENGLAND. 87 It might seem almost a simultaneous rising : though the active assailants were few, the feelings of the whole people were with them." At one place (Wingham) the sheriff was obliged, as it appeared, to raise an armed force to keep the peace ; the officers were shown letters- patent (forged as was said) in the King's name, autho- rising the acts of the spoiler : they looked on, not caring to examine the letters too closely, in quiet un- concern at the spoliation. The Pope (Grre- A.D 1232 gory IX.) issued an angry Bull,'^ which not only accused the Bishops of conniving at these enor- mities, and of making this ungrateful return for the good offices which he had shown to the King; he bitterly complained of the ill usage of his Nuncios and officers. One had been cut to pieces, another left half dead ; the Pope's Bulls had been trampled under foot. The Pope demanded instant, ample, merciless punish- ment of the malefactors, restoration of the damaged property. Kobert Twenge, a bold Yorkshire knight, who under a feigned name had been the ringleader, appeared before the King, owned himself to have been the William Wither who had headed the insurgents : he had done aU this in righteous vengeance against the Romans, who by a sentence of the Pope, fraudulently obtained, had deprived him of the right of patronage to a benefice. He had rather be unjustly excommunicated than despoiled of his right. He was recommended to go to Rome with testimonials from the King for absolu- tion, and this was all.^ Tlie abuse, however, will appear " The Pope so far admitted the iustice of these complaints as to issue a bull allowing the patrons to present after the death of the Italian incum- b.-":ts.— MS. B. M. iii. 138. Gregory IX. said that he had less frequently used this power of granting beneficei in England. — Wilkin's Concilia, i. 269l * Apud Rymer, dated Spoleto. y Wendover, 292, 88 LATIN CHEISTIANITT. Book X. yet rampant, when we return to the history of the Englisli Church. IV. The taxation of the clergy (a twentieth, fifteenth, or tenth) as a subsidy for the Holy Land ; but a sub- sidy grudgingly paid, and not devoted with too rigid exclusiveness to its holy purpose. Some portion of this was at times thrown, as it were, as a boon to the King (in general under a vow to undertake a Crusade), but applied by him without rebuke or remonstrance to other purposes. This tax was on the whole property of the Church, of the secular clergy and of the monasteries. Favour was sometimes (not always) sho\vn to the Cis- tercia]:is, the Praemonstratensians, the Monks of Sem- pringham — almost always to the Templars and Knights of St. John. Other emoluments arose out of the Cru- sades ; compositions for vows not fulfilled ; besides what arose out of bequests, the property of intestate clergy, and other sources. The Popes seem to have had boundless notions of the wealth and weakness of England. Eng- land paid, murmured, but laid up deep stores of aliena- tion and aversion from the Eoman See.^ Clement IV. (Viteibo, May 22, ; vel depositis vel testamentamentis 1266) orders his collector to get in all arrears " de censibus, denariis Sancti Petri, et debitis quibuscunque." Of these debts there is a long list. " Aut (sic) aut bonis clericorum decedentium ab intestate seu alia quacunque ratione modo vel causa eisdem sedi Apostolicae et terrse sanctaj vel alteri earum a ex vote seu promisso, decima vel quibuscunque personis debentur." The vicesima, seu redemptionibus votorum collectors had power to excommunicata tana crucesignatorum quam aliorum, for non-payment. MS. B. M iii. c:iiAP. III. GEEGOny IX. 89 CHAPTEK III. Frederick 11. and Gregory IX. The Empire and the Papacy were now to meet in their last mortal and implacable strife ; the two Last strife of first acts of this tremendous drama, separated Empire. by an interval of many years, were to be developed during the Pontificate of a prelate who ascended the throne of St. Peter at the age of eighty. Nor was this strife for any specific point in dispute like the right of investiture, but avowedly for supremacy on one side, which hardly deigned to call itself independence; for independence, on the other, which remotely at least aspired after supremacy. Caesar would bear no superior, the successor of St. Peter no equal. The contest could not have begun under men more strongly contrasted, or more determinedly oppugnant in character than Gregory IX. and Frederick II. Gregory ^^^^^^ retained the ambition, the vigour, almost the activity of youth, with the stubborn obstinacy, and something of the irritable petulance of old age. He was still master of all liis powerful faculties; his knowledge of affairs, of mankind, of the peculiar interests of almost all the nations in Christendom, acquired by long em- ployment in the most important negotiations both by Innocent III. and by Honorius III.; eloquence which his own age compared to that of TuDy ; profound eru- dition in that learning which, in the mediaeval chm'ch- man, commanded the highest admiration. No one was 90 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X. his superior in the science of tlie canon law ; the Decretals to which he afterwards gave a more full and authoritative form, were at his command, and they were to him as much the law of God as the Gospels them- selves or the primary principles of morality. The jealous reverence and attachment of a great lawyer to his science strengthened the lofty pretensions of the churchman.* Frederick II. with many of the noblest qualities which could captivate the admiration of his own age, Frederick n. . ^ . • -l. • 1 J J m some respects might appear misplaced, and by many centuries prematurely born. Frederick having crowded into his youth adventures, perils, successes, almost unparalleled in history, was now only expanding into the prime of manhood. A parentless orphan he had struggled upward into the actual reigning monarch of his hereditary Sicily ; he was even tben rising above the yoke of the turbulent magnates of his realm, and the depressing tutelage of the Papal See. He had crossed the Alps a boyish adventurer, and won, so much through his own valour and daring that he might well ascribe to himself his conquest, the kingdom of Ger- many, the imperial crown ; he was in undisputed posses- sion of the Empire, with all its rights in Northern Italy ; King of Apulia, Sicily, and Jerusalem. He was beginning to be at once the Magnificent Sovereign, the knight, the poet, the lawgiver, the patron of arts, letters, and science; the Magnificent Sovereign now holding his court in one of the old barbaric and feudal cities of Epist. Honor., 14th March, 1221. peritia eminenter instructus, fluvius He is described as " Forma decorus et venustus aspectu, perspicuus ingenii et fidelis memorise prerogativa donatus, libera'lium artium et utriusque juris eloquentiffi TuUianae, sacrae paginae di- ligeiis observator et doctor, zelator fidei." — Cardin. Arragon. Vit. Greg IX. Chap. III. FHEDEEICK II. 91 Germany among the proud and turbulent princes of the Empire, more often on the sunny shores of Naples or Palermo, in southern and almost Oriental luxury; the gallant Knight and troubadour Poet not forbidding him- self those amorous indulgences which were the reward of chivalrous valour, and of the " gay science ; " the Lawgiver, whose far-seeing wisdom seemed to anticipate some of those views of equal justice, of the advantages of commerce, of the cultivation of the arts of peace, beyond all the toleration of adverse religions, which even in a more dutiful son of the Church would doubtless have seemed godless indifference. Frederick must appear before us in the course of our history in the full de- velopment of all these shades of character ; but, besides all this, Frederick's views of the temporal sovereignty were as imperious and autocratic as those of the haughtiest churchman of the spiritual supremacy. The ban of the Empire ought to be at least equally awful with that of the Church ; disloyalty to the Emperor was as heinous a sin as infidelity to the head of Christendom ; the independence of the Lombard republics was as a great and punishable political heresy. Even in Kome itself, as head of the Roman Empire, Frederick aspired to a supremacy which was not less unlimited because vague and undefined, and ii-reconcileable with that of the Supreme Pontiff. If ever Emperor might be tempted by the vision of a vast hereditary monarchy to be per- petuated in his house, the princely house of Hohen- staufen, it was Frederick. He had heirs of his great- ness ; his eldest son was King of the Eomans ; from his loins might yet spring an inexhaustible race of princes : the failure of his imperial line was his last fear. The character of the man seemed formed to achieve and to maintain this vast design; he was at once terrible LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BookX. Gregory IX. and popular, courteous, generous, placable to bis foes ; yet there was a deptb of cruelty in tbe beart of Frederick towards revolted subjects, wbicb made bim look on tbe atrocities of bis allies, Eccelin da Komano, and tbe Salinguerras, but as legitimate means to quell insolent and stubborn rebellion. Tbe loftier cburcbmen, if for a moment tbey bad mis- givings on account of bis age, bailed tbe elec- tion of Cardinal Ugolino witb tbe utmost satis- faction. Tbe surpassing magnificence of bis coronation attested tbe unanimous applause of tbe clergy, and even of tbe people of Kome.^ Gregory bad in secret mur- mured against tbe gentler and more yielding policy of Honorius III. Of sucb weakness be could not accuse Gregory's bimsclf. Tbc old man at once tbrew down tbe first act. gauntlet; on tbe day of bis accession^ be issued an energetic proclamation to all tbe sovereigns of Cbristendom announcing bis election to the pontificate, and summoning tbem to enter on a new Crusade. Tbat addressed to Frederick was more direct, vebement, and imperative, and closed not witbout some significant bints tbat be would not long brook tbe delay witb wbicb tbe Emperor bad beguiled bis predecessor.^ Tbe King's disobedience migbt involve bim in difficulties from wbicb tbe Pope bimself, even if be sbould so will, could bardly extricate bim.^ Frederick, in tbe beigbt of tbeir subsequent contest, b "Tunc lugubres vestes mutavit Ecclesia, et urbis semiiutse moenia pris- tinura recepere fulgorem." — Cardin. Arragon. in Vit. See descriptioa of the iuauguration. c 1227, March 18. Raynaldi Annal. ^ " Alioquin quantumcunque te siiiceia diligamus in Domino charitate, et tibi quantunti in Domino possumus deferre velimus, id dissimulare nulla poterimus ratione." — Epistol. ad Fre- deric, apud Raynaldi, March 23. * '* Kequaquam nos et teipsum it illam necessitatem inducas, de qua forsan te de facili non poterimut , etiamsi voluerimus, expedire." — Ib'd. Chap. III. GREGORY'S FIRST ACT. 93 reproached the Pope as having been, while in the lower orders of the Church, his familiar friend, but that no sooner had he reached the summit of his ambition than he threw off all gratitude, and became his determined enemy/ Yet his congratulations on the accession of Gregory were expressed in the most courtly tone. The Bishop of Reggio, and Herman of Salza, the Grand Master of the Teutonic order, were his ambassadors to Rome. Gregory, on his side, with impartial severity, compelled the Lombards to fulfil and ratify the treaty which had been agreed to through the mediation of Honorius. Frederick had already transmitted to Eome . the documents which were requisite for the full execu- tion of the stipulations on his part, the general amnesty, the revocation of the Imperial ban, the release of the prisoners, the assent of King Henry. The Lombards were not so ready or so open in their proceedings. Greofory was constrained to send a strong . ° March 24. summons to the Lombards declaring that he would no longer be tampered with by their idle and frivolous excuses : " If in this important affair ye despise, mock, or elude our commands and those of God, nothing remains for us but to invoke heaven and earth against your insolence."^ The treaty arrived in Rome the day after this summons had been despatched, wanting the seal of the Marquis of Montferrat, and of many of the cities ; but Gregory would not be baffled ; the Arch- bishop of Milan received orders to menace the cities ' '* Iste novus athleta, sinistris auspiciis factus Pontifex Generalis, amicus noster prsecipuus dum in minoribus ordinibus constitutus, bene- Ecclesiam oblitus, statim post assump- tum suum fidem cum tempore varians et mores cum dignitate commutans." — Petr. de Vinea, Epistol. i. xvi. ficiorum omnium quibus Imperium s Regest. Gregor., quoted by Vor Christianum sacrosanctam ditavit Raumer, p. 416. 94 LATIN CnRISTIANITY. Book X with ecclesiastical ceusures, and the treaty came back with all the necessary ratifications. In this Gregory Dursued the politic as well as the just course. The Emperor must not have this plausible excuse to elude his embarkation on the Crusade at the appointed day in August. The Lombards themselves were imperatively urged to furnish their proper contingent for the Holy War. Gregory IX. knew Lombardy well, it had been the scene of his own preaching of the Cross ; and the sagacious fears of the Church (the stipulations in the treaty of Honorius betrayed this sagacity and these fears) could not but discern that however these proud republics might be heartily Guelfic, cordially on the side of the Church, they were only so from their common jealousy of the Empire. But there was that tacit understanding, or at least unacknowledged sympathy, between civil and religious liberty, which must be watched with vigilant mistrust. It was manifest that the respect for their bishops in all these republics depended entirely on the political conduct of the pre- lates, not on the sanctity of their office. There was a remissness or reluctance in the suppression of heresy, and in the punishment of heretics, which required con- stant urgency and rebuke on the part of the Pope : " Ye make a great noise," writes Gregory, " about fines imposed, and sentences of exile against heretics; but ye quietly give them back their fines, and admit them again into your cities. In the mean time ye regard not the immunities of the clergy, neither their exemption from taxation nor their personal freedom ; ye even permit enactments injurious to their defence of their liberties, enactments foolish and culpable, even to their banishment by the laity. Take heed, lest a more fearful interdict than that with which you have been punished Chap. III. GREGORY'S LETTER OF ADMONITION 95 (the ban of the Empire) fall upon you, the interdict of the Church." 1^ But the Pope was not content with general exhorta- tions to the Emperor to embark on the Cru- sade : he assumed the privilege of his holy office and of his venerable age to admonish the young and brilliant Frederick on his life, and on the duties of liis imperial dignity. The address was sent from Anagni, to which the Pope had retired from the heats of Eome, by the famous Gualo, one of the austere Order of Friar Preachers instituted by St. Dominic* The Gregory's ,,.,,., 1 letter of letter dwelt m the highest terms on the won- admonition. derful mental endowments of Frederick, his reason quickened with the liveliest intelligence, and winged by the brightest imagination. The Pope entreats him not to degrade the qualities which he possesses in common with the angels, nor to sacrifice them to the lower appe- tites, which he has in common with the beasts and the plants of the earth. The love of sensual things debases the intellect, tlie pampering of the delicate body cor- rupts the affections. If knowledge and love, those twin lights, are extinguished; if those eagles which should soar in triumph stoop and entangle themselves with earthly pleasures, how canst thou show to thy followers the way of salvation ? " Far be it from thee to hold up this fatal example of thraldom to the sensual life. Your justice should be the pillar of fire, your mercy the cool- ing cloud to lead God's chosen people into the land of promise." He proceeds to a strange mystic interpreta- tion of the five great ensigns of the imperial power ; the •^ Kegesta, ibid. p. 417. • The Cardinal Ugolino had been the first to foresee the tremendous power of the new Orders. He had been their firm protector : they were bound to him, especially the Francis- cans, not only by profound reverence, but by passionate personal attachir.e it. 96 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X. inward meaning of all these mysterious symbols, the cross, the lance, the triple crown, the sceptre, and the golden apple : this he would engrave indelibly with an iron pen on the adamantine tablets of the king's hearts It were great injustice to the character of Gregory to attribute this high-toned, however extravagantly mystic, remonstrance to the unworthy motives of ambition or Court of animosity. The severe old man might, not Frederick. without grouuds, take offence at the luxury, the splendour, the sensuality of Frederick's Sicilian court, the freedom at least, if not licence, of Frederick's life. It was the zeal, perhaps of a monk, but yet the honest and religious zeal. Frederick's predilection for his native kingdom, for the bright cities reflected in the blue Mediterranean, over the dark barbaric towns of Germany, of itself characterises the man. The summer skies, the more polished manners, the more elegant luxuries, the knowledge, the arts, the poetry, the gaiety, the beauty, the romance of the South, were throughout his life more congenial to his mind than the heavier and more chilly climate, the feudal barbarism, the ruder pomp, the coarser habits of his German liegemen. Among the profane sayings attributed to Frederick (who was neither guarded nor discreet in his more mirthful conversation, and as his strife mth the Church grew fiercer would not become more reverential), say- ings caught up, and no doubt sharpened by his enemies, was that memorable one — that God would never have chosen the barren land of Judtea for his own people if he had seen his beautiful and fertile Sicily. And no doubt that delicious climate and lovely land, so highly appreciated by the gay sovereign, was not without influ- ' Epistola Gregor. apud Raynaldi. Aiiai^ni, Jijie 8 Chap. III. COUET OF FUEDERICK. 97 ence on the state, and even the manners of his court, to which other circumstances contributed to give a peculiar and romantic character. It resembled probably (though its full splendour was of a later period) Granada in its glory, more than any other in Europe, though more rich and picturesque from the variety of races, of man- ners, usages, even dresses, which prevailed within it. Here it was that Southern and Oriental luxury began to impart its mysteries to Christian Europe. The court was open to the mingled population which at that time filled the cities of Southern Italy. If anything of Gre- cian elegance, art, or luxury survived in the West, it was in the towns of Naples and Sicily. There the Norman chivalry, without having lost their bold and enterprising bearing, had yielded in some degree to the melting influence of the land, had acquired Southern passions. Southern habits. The ruder and more ferocious German soldiery, as many as were spared by the climate, gi-adually softened, at least in their outward demeanour. The Jews were numerous, enlightened, wealthy. The Mohammedan inhabitants of Sicily were neither the least polished, nor the least welcome at the court of Frederick : they were subsiding into loyal subjects of the liberal Christian King ; and Frederick was accused by his enemies, and even then believed by the Asiatic and Egyptian Mussulmon, to have approximated more closely to their manners, even to their creed, than be- came a Christian Emperor. He spoke their tongue, admired and cultivated their science, caused then- phi- losophy to be translated into the Latin language. In his court their Oriental manners yielded to the less secluded habits of the West. It was one of the grave ciiarges, at a later period, that Saracen women were seen at the court of Palermo, who by their licentious- VOL. VI. H 98 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X. ness corrupted tlio morals of liis Christian subjects. Frederick admitted the truth of the charge, but asserted the pure demeanour and chastity of these Mohammedan ladies : nevertheless, to avoid all future scandal, he con- sented to dismiss them. This at a time when abhor- rence of the Mohammedan was among the first articles of a Christian's creed ; when it would have been impious to suppose a Mohammedan man capable of any virtue except of valour, a Mohammedan female of any virtue at all ! The impression made by this inclination for the society of miscreant ladies, its inseparable connexion with Mohammedan habits, transpires in the Guelfic- cha- racter of Frederick by Villani. The Florentine does ample justice to his noble and kingly qualities, to the universality of his genius and knowledge, " but he was dissolute and abandoned to every kind of luxury. After the manner of the Saracens lie had many concubines, and was attended by Mamelukes ; he gave himself up to sensual enjoyments, and led an epicurean life, taking no thought of the world to come, and this was the principal reason of his enmity to Holy Church and to the hierarchy, as well as his avarice in usurping the possessions and infringing on the jurisdif.tion of the clergy.""^ It was in this Southern kingdom that the first rude notes of Italian poetry were heard in the soft Sicilian dialect. Frederick himself, and his Chancellor Peter de Vinea, were promising pupils in the gay science. Among the treasures of the earliest Italian song are sevei'al compositions of the monarch and of his poetic rival. One sonnet indeed of Peter de Vinea is perhaps equal to anything of the kind before the time when '^ Utorie Fiorentin. vi. c. I. Ohap. III. POETIC STATE OF SOCIETY. 99 Petrarch set the common thoughts of all these amorous Platonists in the perfect crystals of his inimitable lan- guage. Of these lays most which survive are amatory, but it is not unlikely that as the kindred troubadours of Provence, the poets did not abstain from satiric touches on the clergy. How far Frederick himself indulged in more than poetic licence, the invectives of his enemies cannot be accepted as authority. It was during his first widowhood that he indulged the height of his pas- sion for the beautiful Bianca Lancia ; this mistress bore him two sons, his best beloved Enzio, during so many years of his more splendid career the pride, the delight of his heart, unrivalled for his beauty, the valiant war- rior, the consummate general, the cause, by his impri- sonment, of the bitterest grief, which in the father's decline bowed dovA-n his broken spirit. Enzio was born at the close of the year in which Frederick wedded lolante of Jerusalem. The fact that lolante died in childbed giving birth to his son Conrad, is at least evi- dence that he had not altogether estranged her from his affections. In public she had all the state and splendour of his queen ; nor is it known that during her lifetime her peace was embittered by any more cherished rivals. Still if this brilliant and poetic state of society (even if at this time it was only expanding to its fulness of luxury and splendour) must appear dubious at least to the less severe Christian moralist, how must it have appeared to those who had learned their notions ol morals from the rule of St. Benedict rather than the Gospel ; the admirers of Francis and of Dominic ; men m whom human affections were alike proscribed with sensual enjoyments, and in whose religious language, to themselves at least, pleasure bore the same meaning aa H 2 100 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X. sin ; men, who liad prayed, and fasted, and scourged out of themselves every lingering sympathy of our common nature ? How, above all, to one in whom, as in Gregory IX., age had utterly frozen up a heart, already hardened by the austerest discipline of monk- hood? It is impossible to conceive a contrast more strong or more irreconcileable than the octogenarian Gregory, in his cloister palace, in his conclave of stern ascetics, with all but severe imprisonment within con- ventual walls, completely monastic in manners, habits, views, in corporate spirit, in celibacy, in rigid seclusion from the rest of mankind, in the conscientious determi- nation to enslave, if possible, all Christendom to its inviolable unity of faith, and to the least possible lati- tude of discipline ; and the gay, and yet youthful Frederick, with his mingled assemblage of knights and ladies, of Christians, Jews and Mohammedans, of poets and men of science, met, as it were, to enjoy and minister to enjoyment ; to cultivate the pure intellect : where, if not the restraints of religion, at least the awful autho- rity of churchmen, was examined with freedom, some- times ridiculed with sportive wit. A few months were to put to the test the obedience of Frederick to the See of Kome, perhaps his Christian fidelity. By the treaty of San Germano, the August of AD i2"7 ^^^® present year had been fixed for his em- barkation for the Holy Land. Gregory, it is clear, mistrusted his sincerity ; with what justice it is hard to decide. However Frederick might be wanting ijti fervent religious zeal, he was not in the chivalrous love of enterprise ; however he might not abhor the Mohammedans with the true Christian cordiality of his day, he would not decline to meet them in arms as brave and generous foes ; however the recovery of the Chap. 111. FEEDERICK AND THE CRUSADE. 101 Saviour's tomb might not influence liim with the fierce enthusiasm which had kindled the hearers of Peter the Hermit or St. Bernard, or perhaps that which sent forth his grandsire Barbarossa: yet an Oriental kingdom, which he claimed in the right of his wife, a conquest which would have commanded the grateful admiration of Christendom, was a prize which his ambition would hardly disdain, or rather at which it would grasp with bold eagerness. Frederick was personally brave ; but neither was his finer, though active and close-knit frame, suited to hew his way through hosts of unbelievers ; he aspu-ed not, and could not hope, to rival the ferocious personal prowess of our Kichard Coeur de Lion, or to leave his name as the terror of Arabian mothers. Nor would his faith behold Paradise as the assured close of a battle-field with the Infidels, the remission of sins as the sure reward of a massacre of the believers in Islam. Frederick was not averse to obtain by negotiation (and surely, with the warnings of all former Crusades, espe- cially that of his grandsire Barbarossa, not unwisely), and by taking advantage of the feuds between the Saracen princes, those conquests which some would deem it impious to strive after but by open war. Frederick had already received an embassy from Sultan Malek-al-Ivameel of Egypt (of this the Pope could hardly be ignorant). Between the Egyptian and Dama- scene descendants of the great Saladin there was im- placable hostility. Kameel had now recovered Da- mietta;" he had made a treaty with the discomfited ° In the fierce invectives of their l panied the first German division of later controversy, the Papal party the German Crusaders, the Christians attributed to the tardiness, even to the would not have been without a leader ; treachery of Frederick, the disastrous and with his fame and power he might, loss of Damietla. If he had accom- by the conquest of Egypt, have re* 102 LATIN CHEISTIANITY. Book X. Crusaders. Ke hated his rival of Damascus even more bitterly than he did the Christians. His offers to Fre- derick were the surrender of the kingdom of Jerusalem, Negotiations ou couditiou of closc alHauce against the Sultan Kameei. of Damascus. Frederick had despatched to the East an ambassador of no less rank than the Arch- bishop of Palermo. The Prelate bore magnificent and acceptable presents, horses, arms, it was said the Empe- ror's own palfrey.'' In the January of the following year the Ai'chbishop had returned to Palermo, \\dth presents, according to the Eastern authority, of twice the value of his own ; many rare treasures from India, Arabia, Syria, and Irak. Among these, to the admira- tion of the Occidentals, was a large elephant.^ To the Pope, the negotiations themselves were unanswerable signs of Frederick's favour to the Infidels, and his per- fidy to the cause of the Christians.*^ Yet Frederick seemed earnestly determined to fulfil his vow. Though the treaty with the Lombard cities was hardly concluded, he had made vast preparations. He had levied a large tax from the whole kingdom of Sicily for the maintenance of his forces ;'" a noble fleet established, and for ever, the Christian dominion in the East. But Frederick certainly could not have gone at that time with a force equal to this great enterprise. •» Ebn FeVah, quoted in Michaud's Bibliographie des Croisades, p. 727. P Kichd. de S. German, p. 1604, IMakrisi apud Reinaud. Hugo Plagen, 1 The letter of Gregory IX. in Matth. Paris. " Quod detestabilius est, cum Soldano et aliis Saracenis nefandas (Fredericus) contrahens pac- tiones, illis favorem, Christianis odium exhibuit manifestum." — Sub ann. 1228, p. 348. On these rumours of the understanding between the Em- peror and Sultan Kameei no doubt Gregory founded his darker charge of Frederick's having compelled the sur- render of Damietta, not only by with- holding all relief from the Christians when masters of it, but by direct and treacherous intercourse with the Soldan. ' Richard de S. German, p. 1103. Alberic, ad ann. 1227. The monastery of San Germano was assessed at 450 ounces. Chap. III. PEEPARATIONS FOE CRUSADE. 103 rode in the harbour of Brundusium : Frederick himself, with his Empress lolante, passed over from Sicily and took up his abode in Otranto. Pilgrims in the mean time had been assembling from various quarters. In Germany, at a great Diet Preparations at Aix-la-Chapelle, in the presence of King ^orcrusude. Henry, many of the Princes and Prelates had taken the Cross. Some of these, especially the Duke of Austria, alleged excuses from their vow. But the Landgrave of Thuringia, the husband of Elizabeth of Hungary, after- wards sainted for her virtues, tore himself from his beloved wife in the devotion to what both esteemed the higher duty.^ The Bishops of Augsburg, Bamberg, and Ratisbon accompanied the Landgrave to Italy. France seemed for once to be cold in the Holy cause (Louis IX. was in his infancy), but in England there had been a wide-spread popular movement. On °^*° ' the vigil of John the Baptist's day it was rumoured abroad, that the Saviour himself had appeared in the heavens, bleeding, pierced with the nails and lance, on a cross which shone like fire.' It was to encourage forty thousand pilgrims, who were said already to have taken the Cross. This was seen more than once in different places, in order to confute the incredulous gainsay ers. But of those forty thousand who were enrolled, probably no large proportion reached Southern Italy. The Emperor, hardly released from the affairs of Northern Italy, was expected to have provisions and ships ready for the transport of all this vast undisciplined rout, of which no one could calculate the numbers. * Montalemberl,ViedeSt. Elizabeth de Hongrie, * Wendover, p. 144. The reading in Paris for quadraginta is sexagintn, Ed Coxe p 144. IVA LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X. Delays took place, which the impatient Pope, ignorant no doubt of the difficulties of maintaining and embarking a great armament, ascribed at once to the remissness or the perfidy of Frederick. The heats came on with more than usual violence, they were such, it is said, as might have melted solid metal." A fever broke out fatal, as ever, to the Germans.'' The Landgrave of Thuringia, the Bishops of Augsburg and of Angers were among its victims ; the pilgrims perished by thousands. The death of the Landgrave was attributed not only to the wanton delay, but even to poison administered by the orders of Frederick, who, in his insatiate rapacity, coveted the large possessions of the Prince. About the appointed day Frederick himself embarked ; the fleet set sail ; it lost sight of the shore ; — but three days after the Im- perial ship was seen returning hastily to the haven ( f Otranto ; Frederick, alleging severe illness, returned to the baths of Pozzuoli, to restore his strength. The greater part of the fleet either dispersed or, following the Emperor's example, returned to land. Gregory heard at Anagni (the year of Gregory's accession had not yet expired) the return of Frederick, the dissolution of the armament. On St. Excommu nlcation o Frederick, nlcation of Michacl's Day, surrounded by his Cardinals Sept. 30. ^-^^ Prelates, he delivered a lofty discourse, on the text, " It must needs be that offences come, but woe unto him through whom they come." He pro- nounced the excommunication, which Frederick had incurred by his breach of the agreement at San Ger- * " Cujus ardoribus ipsa fei^'solida sold indulgences, releasing the pilgrims metalla liquescunt." — Card. Arragon. from their vows. Ai'ter carrying on in Vit. Greg. IX. *■ An impostor placed himself on the steps of St. Peter's, in the attire and character of the Pope, and publicly this sti'ange bold fraud for some days, he was apprehended, and paid the penalty of his imposture. — Kaynald, sub anu. Chap. III. EXCOMMUNICATION OF FEEDERICK. 105 mano. Nothing was wanting to the terror. All the bells joined their most dissonant peals ; the clergy, each with his torch, stood around the altar. Gregory imjDlored the eternal malediction of God against the Emperor. The clergy dashed down their torches : there was utter darkness. The churchmen saw in this sen- tence the beginning of the holy strife, of the triumph of St. Michael over the subtle and scaly dragon. The sentence was followed by an address to the Apulian bishops, the subjects of Frederick. "The little bark of St. Peter, launched on the boundless ocean, though tossed by the billows, is submerged but never lost, for the Lord is reposing within her: he is awakened at length by the cries of his disciples ; he commands the sea and the winds, and there is a great calm. From four quarters the tempests are now assailing our bark ; the armies of the Infidels are striving with all their miglit that the land, hallowed by the blood of Clmst, may become the prey of their impiety; the rage of tyrants, asserting their temporal claims, proscribes justice and tramples under foot the liberties of the Church : the folly of heretics seeks to rend the seam- less garment of Christ, and to destroy the Sacraments of the faith ; false brethren and wicked sons, by their treacherous perversity, distm-b the bowels and tear open the sides of their mother." " The Church of Christ, afflicted by so many troubles, while she thinks that she is nursing up her children, is fostering in her bosom fire and serpents and basilisks,^ which would destroy every- thing by their breath, their bite, and their burning. To combat these monsters, to triumph over hostile armies, to appease these restless tempests, the Holj r Regulos. 1U6 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X. Apostolic See reckoned in these latter times on a nursling whom she had brought up with the tenderest care. The Church had taken up the Emperor Frederick, as it were, from his mother's womb, fed him at her breasts, borne him on her shoulders ; she had often rescued him from those who sought his life ; instructed him, educated him with care and pain to manhood; invested him with the royal dignity ; and to crown all these blessings, bestowed on him the title of Emperor, hoping to find in him a protecting support, a staff for her old age. No sooner was he King in Germany than, of his own accord, unexhorted, unknown to the Apos- tolic See, he took the Cross and made a vow to depart for the Holy Land ; he even demanded that himself and all other Crusaders should be excommunicated if they did not set forth at the appointed time. At his coronation as Emperor we ourselves, then holding an inferior office under the most Holy Honorius, gave him the Cross, and received the renewal of his vows. Three times at Veroli, at Ferentino, at San Germane, he alleged delays ; the Church in her indulgence accepted his excuses. At San Germane he made a covenant, wliich he swore by his soul to accomplish ; if not, he incurred by his own consent the must awful excom- munication. How has he fulfilled that covenant? When many thousands of pilgrims, depending on his solemn promises, were assembled in the port of Brundu- sium, he detained the armament so long, under the burning summer heats, in that region of death, in that pestilent atmosphere, that a great part of the pilgrims perished, the noble Landgrave of Thuringia, the Bishops of Augsburg and Angers. At length, when the ships began to return from the Holy Land, the pilgrims em- barked on board of them, on the Nativity of the Blessed Chap. III. WRATH OF GREGORY. 107 Virgin, expecting the Emperor to join their fleet. But he, breaking all his promises, bursting every bond, trampling under foot the fear of God, despising all reverence for Christ Jesus, scorning the censures of the Church, deserting the Christian army, abandoning the Holy Land to the Unbelievers, to his own disgrace and that of all Christendom, withdrew to the luxuries and wonted delights of his kingdom, seeking to palliate his offence by frivolous excuses of simulated sickness.'"- "Behold, and see if ever sorrow was like unto the sorrow " of the Apostolic Pontiff. The Pope describes in pathetic terms the state of the Holy Land; attri- butes to the base intrigues of Frederick with the Un- believers, the fatal issue of the treaty of Damietta; " but for him, Jerusalem might have been recovered in exchange for that city. That we may not be esteemed as dumb dogs, who dare not bark, or fear to take ven- geance on him, the Emperor Frederick, who has caused such ruin to the people of God, we proclaim the said Emperor excommunicate ; we command you to publish this our excommunication throughout the realm ; and to declare, that in case of his contumacy, we shall proceed to still more awful censures. We trust, however, that he will see his own shame ; and return to the mercy of his mother the Church, having given ample satisfaction for all his guilt." * Compare with this statement Fredericls's own account, pubhshed to the world three months after. Both he and the Landgrave had been ill ; both had a relapse ; both returned to Otranto, where the Landgrave died. " Praeterea nondura resumpta con- valescentia, gajpas ingressi sum us, nos et dilectus consanguineus noster Laut- gravius, vestigia pracedentium secuti. Ubi tanta subito invasit utruraque turbatio, quod et nos in graviorem decidimus recidivam, et idem Lant- gravius post accessum nostrum apud Idrontum de medio, proh dolor ! est ereptus." — Epist. Frederic. If this was untrue, it was a most audacious and easily cunt'uted untruth. JOS LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X. Gregory IX. had been on the throne of St. Peter not eight months before he uttered the fulminating decree; in which some truth is so confounded and kneaded up with falsehood and exaggeration ; and there is so much of reckless wrath, such want of calm, statesman-like dignity, such deliberate, almost artful determination to make the worst of everything. The passionate old man might seem desperately to abandon all hopes of future success in the Holy Land ; and to take vindictive comfort in heaping all the blame on Frederick.* Gregory returned to Eome ; Frederick had already sent ambassadors solemnly to assert that his illness was real and unfeigned, the Bishops of Bari and Reggio, and Reginald of Spoleto. By one account, the Pope refused to admit them to his presence : at all events he repelled them with the utmost scorn, and so persisted in branding the Emperor in the face of Christendom as a hypocrite and a liar.° Twice again, on St. Martin's Day and on Christmas Day, the Pope, amid all the assembled hierarchy, re- newed and confirmed the excommunication. Frederick treated the excommunication itself with utter contempt ; either through love or fear the clergy of the kingdom of Naples performed as usual all the sacred offices. At Capua he held a Diet of all the Barons of Apulia ; he assessed a tax on both the kingdoms for an expedition to the Holy Land, appointed for the ensuing May. He * *'Hic CGregorius IX.) tanquam tone, declaring that the Pope had been superbus pnmo anno pontificatus sui blamed for the mansuetnde of his ccepit excommunicare Fredericum Im- proceedings ; because he had not also peratorem pro causis frivolis et falsis." ' censuied him for many acts of tyranny — Abb. Ursjjergens. p. 247. and invasion on the rights of thi *» There is a letter to Frederick, Church in Naples and Sicily, quoted in Kaynaldus, in the milder j Chai>. III. CONTINUED STRIFE. 109 summoned an assemblage of all his Italian subjects to meet at Kavenna, to take counsel for this common Cru- sade. From Capua came forth his defiant aj^peal to Christendom.*^ In this appeal Frederick replied to the unmeasured language of the Pope in language not less unmeasured. He addressed all the Sovereigns of Chris- tendom ; he urged them to a league of all temporal Kings to oppose this oppressive league of the Pope and the Hierarchy. He declared that he had been pre- vented from accomplishing his vow, not, as the Pope falsely averred, by frivolous excuses, but by serious ill- ness ; he appealed to the faithful witness in Heaven for his veracity ; he declared his fixed determination, im- mediately that God should restore him to health, tc proceed on that holy expedition. " The end of all is at hand; the Christian charity which should rule and maintain all things is dried up in its fountain not in its streams, not in its branches, but in its stem. Has not the unjust interdict of the Pope reduced the Count of Toulouse and many other princes to servitude ? Did not Innocent III. (this he especially addressed to King Henry of England) urge the noble Barons of England to insurrection against John, as the enemy of the Church ? But no sooner had the humiliated King subjected his realm, like a dastard, to the See of Eome, than, having sucked the fat of the land, he abandoned those Barons to shame, ruin, and death. Such is the way of Eome, under words as smooth as oil and honey lies hid the rapacious blood-sucker: the Church of Eome, as though she were the true Church, calls herself my mother and my nurse, while all her acts have been those of a stepmother. The whole world pays tribute * Rich, de San Germ, no LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X. to tJie avarice of the Eornans. Her Legates travel about through all lands, with full powers of ban and interdict and excommunication, not to sow the seed of the word of God, but to extort money, to reap what they have not sown. They spare not the holy churches, nor the sanctuary of the poor, nor the rights of the prelates. The primitive Church, founded on poverty and simplicity, brought forth numberless Saints : she rested on no foundation, but that which had been laid by our Lord Jesus Christ. The Eomans are now rolling in wealth ; what wonder that the walls of the Church are undermined to the base, and threaten utter ruin?"^ The Emperor concluded with the solemn admonition to all temporal Sovereigns to make common cause against the common adversary : " Your house is in danger when that of your neighbour is on fire." But in all this strife of counter proclamations, the advantage was with the Pope. Almost every pulpit in Christendom might pro- pagate to the end of the earth the Papal fulminations : every wandering friar might repeat them in the ears of men. The Emperor's vindication, the Imperial ban against the Pope, might be transmitted to Imperial officers, to municipal magistrates, even to friendly pre- lates or monks : they might be read in diets or burgher meetings, be affixed on town-halls or market places, but among a people who could not read ; who would tremble to hear them.^ <* Matth. Paris, sub ann. 1228. rimpiimerie ne pouvaieut que diffi- Written no doubt at the end of cilement se faire entendre des masses 1227, Dec. 6 ; received in England in 1228. « " D'ailleurs les moyens de pub- licite faciles et puissans dans les mains du Pape, e'taient piesque nuls dans eelles des princes se'culiere, qui avant populaires. Dans cette lutte de paroles I'avantige devoit raster au Saint Si6ge, puisque la chaire dont il disposait etait la seule tribune de ce temps."—* Cherrier, Lutte des Papes et des Em pereurs, ii. p. 239. Chap. III. SECOND EXCOMMUNICATION. Ill Yet the Emperor had allies, more dangerous to the Pope thaii the remote Sovereigns of Cliristendom. Gregory, on his return from Anagni, had been received in Rome with the acclamations of the clergy, and part at least of the people. But in Rome there had always been a strong Imperialist party, a party hostile to the ruling Pontiff, (jregory had already demolished the palaces and castle tow^ers of some of the Roman nobles, which obstructed his view, and no doubt threatened his security in the Lateran : ^ he had met with no open re- sistance, but such things were not done in Rome without more dangerous secret murmurs. Frederick, by timely succours during a famine in the last winter, had won the hearts of many of the populace. He had made himself friends, especially among the powerful Frangipani, by acts of prodigal generosity. He had purchased the lands of the heads of that family, and granted them back without fine as Imperial fiefs. The Frangij^anis became the sworn liegemen of the Emperor's family. Roffrid of Benevento, a famous professor of Jurispru- dence in Bologna, appeared in Rome and read in pubhc, with the consent of the Senate and people of Rome, the vindication of the Emperor. On Thursday in the Holy Week the Pope proceeded to his more tremendous censures on the im- March 23. penitent Frederick. "His crimes had now excommu- accumulated in fearful measure. To the triple a.d. 1228. offence, which he had committed in the breach of the treaty of San Germano — that he had neither passed the sea to the Holy Land, nor armed and despatched the stipulated number of knights at his own cost, nor furnished the sums of money according to his obligation Card. Arragon. ia Vita. 112 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X. — were added other offences. He had prevented the Archbishop of Tarento frora enteriug his See ; he had seized all the estates held by the Knights Templars and Knights of St. John within his realm ; he had broken the treaty entered into and guaranteed by the See of Eome with the Count of Celano and Keginald of Acerra ; he had deprived the Count Koger, though he had taken the Cross, of his followers and of his lands, and thrown his son into prison, and had refused to release him at the representation of the Holy See." All these were, in Frederick's estimation, his rebellious subjects, visited with just and lawful penalties. These aggravated crimes — ^for crimes they were assumed to be on the irrefrag- able grounds of Papal accusation — called for aggravated censures. The Pope declared every place in which Frederick might be, under interdict ; all divine offices were at once to cease ; all who dared to celebrate such offices were deprived of their functions and of their benefices. If he himself should dare to force his way into the ceremonies of the Church he was threatened with something worse. If he did not desist from the oppression of the chm-ches and of ecclesiastical persons, if he did not cease from trampling under foot the eccle- siastical liberties, and from treating the excommuni- cation with contempt, all his subjects were at once absolved from their allegiance. He was menaced with the loss of his fief, the kingdom of Naples, which he held from, and for which he had done homage to, the See of Home. The holy ceremonies passed away undis- turbed ; but on the Wednesday in Easter week, while the Pope was celebrating the mass, there was suddenly Gregory heard a fierce cry, a howl as Gregory describes driven from . , , , , . . . Rome. it ; and the whole populace rose m insurrec- tion. The storm was for a time allayed ; but after Chap. III. FREDERICK PREPARES FOR THE CEUSADE. 113 Bome weeks Gregory found it necessary to leave Eome. He retired first to Eieti, afterwards to Perugia.^ Frederick, in the mean time, altliough under excom- munication, celebrated his Easter with great pomp and rejoicing at Baroli. Tidings had arrived of high importance from the Holy Land. Gregory had received, and had promulgated throughout Christendom, the most doleful accounts of the state of the Christians in Palestine. A letter addressed to the Pope by Ceroid the Patriarch, Peter Archbishop of Csesarea (the Pope's Legate), the Archbishop of Nar- bonne, the Bishops of Winchester and Exeter, the Grand Masters of the Templars and of St. John, announced, that no sooner had the news of the Emperor's abandon- ment of the Crusade arrived in Syria, than the pilgrims, to the number of forty thousand, re-embarked for the West. Only eiglit hundred remained, who were re- tained with difficulty, and were only kept up to tlie high pitch of enthusiasm by the promise of the Duke of Limbourg, then at the head of the army, to break the existing treaties, and march at once upon Jerusalem. On the other hand, a letter from Thomas Count of Acerra, the Lieutenant of Frederick in the Holy Land, who now held the city of Ptolemais, announced the death of the Sultan Moadhin of Damascus.^ Moadhin was the most formidable enemy of the Christians ; lie had been at the head of a powerful army ; his implacable hatred of the Christians had brought all the more warlike Saracens under his banner : he had destroyed many of the strongholds, w^hich, if in the power of the Crusaders, f Rich. San Germ. " Quocirca iidem (the Frangipanis) reversi cum Papa rursus excommunicaret impera- torem, fecerunt ut a popuio pelleretur VOL. VI. turpiter extra civitatem." — Conrad. Ursperg. Compare Vit. Greg. IX. •» The Christians called him Coa radvA.^ -Rich, San Germ, 114 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X. might be of military importance : he had subjected Jerusalem itself to further ravage. All the acts of Frederick now showed his determina Frederick tion to embark before the sprino; was passed prepares for ttix i tt it • i the Crusade, lor the -tloly Land. Me would convmce the world, the Pope himself, of his sincerity. Already had he despatched considerable reinforcements to the Count of Acerra ; the taxes for the armament were levied with rigour ; the army which was to accompany liim was drawn together from all quarters. The death of the April, 1228. Empress lolante in childbirth did not delay Baroii. thcsc Warlike proceedings. To Baroli he sum- moned all the magnates of the kingdom, to hear his final instructions, to witness his last will and testament, in case he should not return alive from his expedition. No building could contain the vast assemblage : a tri- bune was raised in the open air, from which the Im- perial mandates were read aloud. He exhorted all the barons and prelates with their liegemen to live at peace among themselves, as in the happy days of William 11. Reginald Duke of Spoleto was appointed Bailiff of the realm ; his elder son Henry was declared heir both oi the Empire and of the kingdom of Sicily ; ' if he died without heirs, then Conrad; afterwards any surviving son of Frederick by a lawful wife. This, his last will, could only be annulled by a later authentic testament. The Duke of Spoleto, the Grand Justiciary Henry de Morro, and others of the nobles, swore to the execution of this solemn act. The more determined Frederick appeared to fulfil his vow, the more resolute became the Pope in his hostility. He had interdicted the payment of all taxes to the ex- Ric. de San Geiin. p. 1005. Chaf. III. FKEDERICK SETS SAIL. 115 communicated sovereign by all the prelates, monasteries, and ecclesiastics of his realm.^ Pilgrims who passed the Alps to join the army were plmidered by the Lom- bards; at the instigation (so, no doubt, it was falsely rumoured, but the falsehood is significant) of the Pope himself.*^ The border of the Neapolitan kingdom was violated by the Pope's subjects of Rieti ; the powerful Lords of Polito in the Capitanata renounced their alle- giance to the King. Frederick went down to Brundu- sium ; his fleet, only of twenty galleys, rode off the island of St. Andrew.'^ Messengers from the Pope arrived peremptorily inhibiting his embarkation on the Crusade till he should have given satisfaction to the Church, and been released from her ban. Frederick paid no attention to the mandate ; he sailed to Otranto ; as he left that harbour, he sent the Archbishop of Bari and Count Henry of Malta to the Pope, to demand the abrogation of the interdict: they were rejected with scorn by Gregory." Frederick set sail with his small armament of twenty galleys, which contained at most six hundred Frederick knights, more, the Pope tauntingly declared, ^^^^^^i- like a pirate than a great sovereign. He could not await, perhaps he had no inclination to place himself at the head of a great Crusade, assembled from all quarters of the world, and so involve himself in a long war which he could not abandon without disgrace. He could not safely withdi-aw the main part of his forces, and expose his kingdom of Naples to the undisguised hostility of the Pope, with malcontents of all classes, ^ Ric. de San Geitn. ™ Urspergen. sub ann. 1228. " Jordanus, in Raynald. sub ann. Andreas Daudolo, apud Muratori, xji 544. June or July. *» Reg. Gregor., quoted by Von Raumer, p. 445. I 2 116 LATIN CimiSTIAXITY. Book X. especially the clergy, whom he had been forced to keep down with a strong hand. He was still in secret intel- ligence with the Sultan of Egypt, still hoped to acquire by peaceful negotiations what his predecessors had not been able to secure by war.^ Frederick, after a prospe- rous voyage, landed at Cyprus : there, by acts of violence and treachery (the only account of these transactions is from hostile writers) he wrested the tutelage of the young King from John of Ibelin, whom he invited to a banquet, treated with honour as his own near kinsman, and then compelled to submit to his terms. But as the vouns: Kin 2^ was cousin to his Em- press lolante, his interference, which was solicited by some of the leading men in the island, may have rested on some asserted right as nearest of kin.* From Cyprus he sailed to Ptolemais (Acre) : he was received with the AtPtoie- utmost demonstrations of ioy. The remnant Sept." 7. of the pilgrims who had not returned to Europe w^elcomed their tardy deliverer as about to lead them to conquest; the clergy and the people came forth in long processions ; the Knights of the Temple and St. John knelt before the Emperor and kissed his knee; but (inauspicious omen !) the clergy refused the kiss of peace, and declined all intercourse witli one under the ban of the Church.^ At the head of a great force Frederick miglit have found it difficult to awe into con- cord the conflicting factions which divided the Christians in the Holy Land : they seemed to suspend their Frederick mutual animositics in their common jealousy landed ,, -r^ i • i rm i i ' n i «ept. 7. 01 Frederick. ihe old estrangement 01 the clergy quickened rapidly into open hostility. The P See above, p. 100. . mother of the Empress. 1 The mother of Heury of Cyprus • ' Matth. Paris. Urspengens. sufc was half-sister to JMaria lolante, the aan. Chap. 111. OPPOSITIO:^ TO FUEDEEICK. 117 active hatred of the Pope had instantly pursued the Emperor, even faster than his own fleet, to the Holy Land. Two Franciscan friars had been despatched in a fast sailing bark, to proclaim to the Eastern Christians that he was still under excommunication ; that all were to avoid him as a profane person. The Patriarch, the two Grand Masters of the Orders, were to take measures that the Crusade was not desecrated by being under the banner of an excommunicated man, lest the affairs of the Christians should be imperilled. The Master of the Teutonic Order was to take the command of the German and Lombard pilgrims; Eichard the Marshal and Otho Peliard of the troops of the kingdoms of Jerusalem and Cyprus ; in his own camp the Emperor was to be without power, nothing was to be done in his name.^ The Knights Templai-s and Knights of the Hospital hardly required to be stimulated by the Papal opposition of the clergy censures to the hatred of Frederick. These tiie xem- ' associations, from bands of gallant knights Hospitaiiers. vowed to protect the pilgrims to the Holy Sepulchre, and to perform other Christian services, had rapidly grown into powerful Orders, with vast possessions in every Christian kingdom ; and, themselves not strong- enough to maintain the kingdom of Jerusalem, were jealous of all others. As yet they were stern bigots, and had not incurred those suspicions which darkened around them at a later period in their history. Fre- derick had placed them under severe control, with all the other too zealous partisans of the Church, in his realm of Naples and Sicily. This was one of the acts which appears throughout among the charges of tyran- • Richard de Sa:^ Gei piano, p. 1005, 118 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X. nical maladministration in the Apulian kingdom. These religious Orders claimed the same exemptions, the same immunities, with other ecclesiastics : the mere fact that they were submitted to the severe and impartial taxa- tion of Frederick would to them be an intolerable grievance. Their unruly murmurs, if not resistance, would no doubt provoke the haughty sovereign; his haughtiness would rouse theirs to still more inflexible opposition. Perhaps Frederick's favour to the Teutonic Order might further exasperate their jealousy. They had already* filled the ears of the Pope with their clamours against Thomas of Acerra, the Lieutenant of Frederick. G-regory had proclaimed to Christendom, to France where the Templars were in great power, that "the w^orthy vicegerent of Frederick, that minister of Mahomet who scrupled not to employ his impious Saracens of Nocera against Christians and Churchmen in his Apulian kingdom, had openly taken part with the unbelievers against these true soldiers of the Cross." The Saracens, when the suspension of arms was at an end, had attacked a post of the Knights Templars, and had carried off a rich booty. The Templars had pur- sued the marauders, and rescued part of the spoil ; when Thomas of Acerra appeared at the head of his troops, and, instead of siding with the Chi-istians, had compelled them to restore the booty to the Infidels. Such was their version of this affair,* eagerly accredited by the Pope. It is more probable that the Lieutenant of the Emperor acted as General of the Christian forces ; and that this whole proceeding was in violation of his orders, * Letter of Gregory to the Legate in France, in Matth. Paris. Compai-e Hugo Plagen. where the Marshal Richard is represented as in command of the pilgrims. Chap. III. FREDERICK BEFORE PTOLEMAIS. 119 as it clearly was on both sides, of the existing treaty. Tlie Knights Templars and Hospitallers held themselves as entirely independent powers; fought or refused to fight according to their own will and judgement ; formed no part of one great Christian army : were amenable, in their own estimation, to no superior military rule. If they had refused obedience to the Lieutenant of the Emperor or the King of Jerusalem, they were not likely to receive commands from one under excommunication. Frederick himself soon experienced their utter con- tumacy. He commanded them to evacuate a castle called the Castle of the Pilgrims, which he wished to garrison with his own troops. The Templars closed the gates in his face, and insultingly told him to go his way, or he might find himself in a place from whence he would not be able to make his way." Frederick, however, with the main army of the pilgrims was in high popularity ; they refused not to march under his standard ; he appeared to approve of their deter- mination to break off the treaty, and to advance at once npon Jerusalem. Frederick, to avoid this perpetual col- lision with his enemies, pitched his camp at Eecordana, some distance without the gates of Ptolemais. He then determined to take possession of Joppa (Jaffa), and to build a strong fortress in that city. He summoned all the Christian forces to join him in this expedition. The Templars peremptorily refused, if the war was to be carried on, and the orders issued to the camp, in the name of the excommunicated Emperor. Frederick com- menced his march without them ; but mistrusting the small number of his forces, was obliged to submit that all orders should be issued in the name of God and of Hugo Plagen. laO LATIN CHRISTIAN-ITY. Book X Christianity. Frederick's occupation of Joppa, the port nearest to Jerusalem, was not only to obtain possession of a city in which he should be more completely master than in Ptolema'is, and to strengthen the Christian cause by the erection of a strong citadel ; but as the jealous vigilance of his enemies discerned, to bring himself into closer neighbourhood with the Sultan of Egypt. Kameel, the Babylonian Sultan, as he was called from the Egyptian Babylon (Cairo), was en- camped in great force near Gaza. The old amity, and more than the amity, something like a close league between the Sultan of Egypt and the Emperor Fre- derick, now appeared almost in its full matmity. Already, soon after the loss of Damietta and its re- covery from the discomfited Christians, Sultan Kameel had sent his embassy to Frederick, avowedly because he was acknowledged to be the greatest of the Christian powers, and in Sicily ruled over Mohammedan subjects with mildness, if not with favour. The interchange of presents had been such as became two such splendid sovereigns.'^ The secret of their negotiations, carried on by the mission of the Archbishop of Palermo to Cairo, of Fakreddin the favourite of Sultan Kameel to Sicily, could be no secret to the watchful emissaries of the Pope. There had been mortal feud between Malek Kameel of Egypt and Malek Moadhin of Damascus. Malek Moadhinhad called in the formidable aid of Gelal-eddin, the Sultan of Kharismia, who had made great conquests in Georgia, the Greater Armenia, and Northern Syria. Sultan Kameel had not scrupled to seek the aid of the Christian against ]\Ioadhin ; no doubt to Frederick the See the Arabian history of the Patriarchs of Alexandria. Chap. III. FREDERICK AND KAMEEL. 121 lure was the peaceful establishment of the kingdom of Jerusalem, in close alliance with the Egyptian Sultan.^ On the death of Moadhin the Damascene, Sultan Kameel had marched at once into Syria, occupied Jeru- salem, and the whole southern district : he threatened to seize the whole dominions of ]\Ioadhin. But a third brother, Malek Ashraf, Prince of Khelatli, Edessa, and Haran on the Euphrates, took up the cause of David, the young son of Moadhin. The Christians, reinforced by Frederick's first armament under Thomas of Acerra, upon this had taken a more threatening attitude ; had begun to rebuild Sidon, to man other fortresses, and to make hostile incursions. Sultan Kameel affected great dread of their power: he addressed a letter to his brother Ashraf, expressing his fears lest, to the disgrace of tlie Mohammedan name, the Christians should wrest Jerusalem, the great conquest of Saladin, from the hands of the true believers. Ashraf was deceived, or chose to be deceived ; he abandoned the cause of the young Sultan of Damascus ; he agreed to share in his spoils ; Sultan Kameel was to remain in Palestine master of Jerusalem, to oppose the Christians ; while Asliraf undertook the siege of Damascus. Such was the state of affairs when Frederick suddenly landed at Ptolema'is. Sultan Kameel repented that he had invited him ; he had sought an ally, he feared a master. The name of the Great Christian Emperor spread terror among the whole Mohamiuedan population.^ Had Frederick, even though he had brought so inconsiderable a force, at once been recognised as the head of the Crusade ; had he been joined cordially by the Knights of tlie Temple and of the Hospital, his name had still been imposing, 1 Abulfeda. « Ibid. 122 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X. he might have dictated his own terms. The dissensions of the Christians were fatal — dissensions which could not be disguised from the sagacious Mohammedans. Almost the first act of King Frederick on his arrival in Palestine was an embassy, of Balian Prince of Tyre and Thomas of Acerra his Lieutenant, to the camp of his old ally Sultan Kameel ; they were received with great pomp ; the army drawn up in array. The em- bassy returned to Ptolemais with a huge elephant and other costly presents. The negotiations began at the camp of Eecordana; they were continued at Joppa. The demands of Frederick were no less than the abso- lute surrender of Jerusalem and all the adjacent dis- tricts ; the restoration of his kingdom to its full extent. The Sultan, as much in awe of the zealots of Moham- medanism as Frederick of the zealots of Christianity, alleged almost insuperable difficulties. The Emir Fak- reddin, the old friend of Frederick, and another named Shems Eddin, were constantly in the Christian camp. They not merely treated with the accomplished Em- peror, who spoke Arabic fluently, on the subjects of their mission, but discussed all the most profound ques- tions of science and philosophy. Sultan Kameel affected the character of a patron of learning; Frederick ad- dressed to him a number of those philosophic enigmas wliich exercise and delight the ingenious Oriental mind. Their intercourse was compared to that of the Queen of Sheba and Solomon. There were other Eastern amuse- ments not so becoming the Christian Emperor. Chris- tian ladies met the Mohammedan delegates at feasts, it was said with no advantage to their virtue. Among the Sultan's presents was a bevy of dancing girls, whose graceful feats the Emperor beheld with too great in- terest, and was not, it was said, insensible to their beauty, Chap. III. NEGOTIATIONS WITH SULTAN KAMEEL. 123 The Emperor wore the Saracen di-ess ; he became, in the estimation of the stern Churchmen, a Saracen.* The treaty dragged slowly on. Sultan Kameel could not be ignorant of the hostility against Frederick in the Christian camp : if he had been ignorant, the knowledge would have been forced upon him. The Emperor, by no means superior even to the superstition of the land, had determiued to undertake a pilgrimage almost alone, and in a woollen robe, to bathe in the Jordan. The Templars wrote a letter to betray his design to the Sultan, that he might avail himself of this opportunity of seizing and making Frederick prisoner, or even of putting him to death. The Sultan sent the Negotiations letter to the Emperor.^ From all these causes, Kameei. ' the tone of the Sultan naturally rose, that of Frederick was lowered, by the treason of which he was obliged to dissemble his knowledge, as he could not revenge it. Eastern interpreters are wont to translate all demands made of their sovereigns into humble petitions. Tlie Arabian historian has thus, perhaps, selecting a few sentences out of a long address, toned down the words of Frederick to Sultan Kameei to abject supplication. " I am thy friend. Thou art not ignorant that I am the greatest of the Kings of the West. It is thou that hast invited me to tliis land ; the Kings and the Pope are well informed of my journey. If I return having obtained nothing, I shall forfeit all consideration with * " Quod cum maxima verecundia reterimus et rubore, Imperatori Sol- danus audiens quod secundum morem Saracenicum se haberet, misit caiita- trices quae et saltatiices dicuntur, et joculatores, personas quidem non solum infames verum etiam de quibus inter Christianos haberi mentio non debebat. Cum quibus idem princeps hujus mundi vigiliis, potationibus, et indu- mentis, et omni modo Saracenus se gerebat." — Epist. Ceroid, apud fiay- nald. 1229, V. ^ Jlatthew Paris, and the Arabian historians in Reinaud, p. 429. Addi tion to Micbaud. 124 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X. them. And after all, Jerusalem, is it not the birthplace of the Christian religion ? and have you not destroyed it ? It is in the lowest state of ruin ; out of your good- ness surrender it to me as it is, that I may be able to lift up my head among the kings of Christendom. I re- nounce at once all advantages which I may obtain from it." To Fakreddin, in more intimate converse, he acknowledged, according to another Eastern account, " My object in coming hither was not to deliver the Holy City, but to maintain my estimation among the Franks." He had before made large demands of com- mercial privileges, the exemption of tribute for his merchants in the ports of Alexandria and Kosetta. The terms actually obtained, at their lowest amount, belie this humiliating petition. The whole negotiation was a profound secret to all but Frederick and the immediate adherents to whom he condescended to communi- cate it. At length Frederick summoned four Syrian Barons; he explained to them that the state of his affairs, the utter exhaustion of his finances, made it impossible for him to remain in the Holy Land. There were still stronger secret reasons for hastening the conclusion of the treaty. A fast-sailing vessel had been despatched to Joppa, which announced that the Papal army had broken into Apulia, and were laying waste the whole land, and threatened to wrest from Frederick liis beloved kingdom of Sicily. The Saltan of Babylon, he told the Barons, had offered to surrender Jerusalem, and other advantageous conditions. He demanded their advice. The Barons replied that under Terms of ^uch circumstauccs it might be well to accept treaty. ^j^^ tcmis ; but they insisted on the right of fortifying the walls of Jerusalem. The Emperor then Chap. III. TERMS OF TREATY. 125 summoned the Grand Masters of tlie Temple and the Hospital and the English Bishops of Winchester and Exeter ; he made the same statement to tliem. They answered that no such treaty could be made without the assent of the Patriarch of Jerusalem, in his double capacity as head of the Syrian Church and Legate of the Pope. Erederick superciliously replied that he could dispense with the assent of the Patriarch. Gerold, before his adversary, became his most implacable foe. One week after the first interview the treaty was signed : there is much discrepancy in the ar- ticles between the Mohammedan and Christian accounts; the Mohammedans restrict, the Christians enlarge the concessions. The terms transmitted by the Patriarch to the Pope, translated from the Arabic into the Erench, were these : — T. The entire surrender of Jerusalem to the Emperor and his Prefects. 11. Except the site of the Temple, occupied by the Mosque of Omar, which remained absolutely in the power of the Saracens : they held the keys of the gates. III. The Saracens were to have free access as pilgrims to perform their devo- tions at Bethlehem. IV. Devout Christians were only permitted to enter and pray within the precincts of the Temple on certain conditions. V. All wrong committed by one Saracen upon another in Jerusalem was to be judged before a Mussulman tribunal. YI. The Em- peror was to give no succour to any Erank or Saracen, who should be engaged in war against the Saracens, or suffer any violation of the truce. YII. The Emperor was to recall all who were engaged in any invasion of the territory of the Sultan of Egypt, and prohibit to the utmost of his power every violation of such territory. VIII. In case of such violation of the treaty, the Em- peror was to espouse and defend the cause of the Sultan 126 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X. of Egypt. IX. Tripoli, Antioch, Karak, and theii dependencies were not included in this treaty.^ The German pilgrims rejoiced without disguise at this easy accomplishment of their vows ; they were eager to set out to offer their devotions in the Holy Sepulchre. Frederick himself determined to accomplish liis own Frederick in pilmmaffc, and to assumo in his capital the Jerusalem. -^ ° /T i i • i p t i a i i March 17. crowu 01 tuo kmgdom oi J erusalem. Attended by the faithful Master of the Teutonic Knights, Herman of Salza, and accompanied by Shems Eddin, the Saracen Kadi of Naplous, he arrived on the eve of Sunday, the 19th of March, in Jerusalem : he took up his lodging in the neighbourhood of the Temple, now a Mohammedan mosque, under the guardianship of the Kadi ; there were fears lest he should be attacked by some Mohammedan fanatic. But the Emperor had not arrived in Jerusalem before the Archbishop of Csesarea appeared with instruc- tions from the Patriarch of Jerusalem to declare him under excommunication, and to place the city of Jeru- salem under the ban. Even the Sepulchre of the Lord was under interdict ; the prayers of the pilgrims even in that holiest place were forbidden, or declared unholy. No Christian rite could be celebrated before the Chris- tian Emperor, and that disgrace was inflicted in the face of all the Mohammedans ! Immediately on his arrival the Emperor visited the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The church was silent: c These articles are obviously incom- j the right of the Emperor to rebuild plete; they do not describe the extent I the walls of Jerusalem ; nor of the of the concessions, which, according condition that the Saracens were only to other statements, included, with | to enter Jerusalem unarmed, and not to Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Nazareth, and pass the night within the walls. The the whole district between Joppa and important stipulation of the surrender Jerusalem. There is nothing said, if j of all Christian prisoners without anything was definitively agreed, as to ransom is altogether omitted. Chap III. FilEDERICK CROWNED AT JERUSALEM. 127 not a priest appeared: during Ins stay no mass was celebrated within the city or in the suburbs. An English Dominican, named Walter, performed one soli- tary service on the morning of the Sunday. Frederick proceeded again in great pomp and in all his imperial apparel to the Church of the Sepulchre. No prelate, no priest of the Church of Jerusalem was there who ventured to utter a blessing. The Archbishops of Palermo and of Capua were present, but seem coronation cf to have taken no part in the ceremony. The Fr^<*e"ck. imperial crown was placed on the high altar ; Frederick took it up and with his own hands placed it on his head. The Master of the Teutonic Order delivered an address in the name of the Emperor, which was read in German, in French, in Latin, and in Italian. It ran in this strain : " It is well known that at Aix-la-Chapelle I took the Cross of my own free will. Hitherto in- superable difficulties have impeded the fulfilment of my vow. I acquit the Pope for his hard judgement of me and for my excommimication : in no other way could he escape the blasphemy and evil report of men. I excul- pate him further for his Avriting against me to Palestine in so hostile a spirit, for men had rumoured that I had levied my army not against the Holy Land, but to invade the Papal States. Had the Pope known my real design, he would have written not against me, but in my favour : did he know how many are acting here to the prejudice of Christianity, he would not pay so much respect to their complaints and representations I would willingly do all which shall expose those real enemies and false friends of Christ who delight in dis- (^ord, and so put them to shame by the restoration of peace and unity. I will not now think of the high estate which is my lot on earth, but humble myself 128 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BookX. before God to whom I owe my elevation, and before him who is his Vicar upon earth." ^ The Emperor returned through the streets wearing the crown of Jerusalem. The same day he visited the site of the Temple, whereon stood the Mosque of Omar. The zealous Mohammedans were in bitter displeasure with Frederick, as having obtained from their easy Sultan the possession of the Holy City ; yet their reli- gious pride watched all his actions, and construed every word and act into a contempt of the Christian faith, and his respect, if not more than respect, for Islam. The Emir Shems Eddin, so writes the Arabic historian, had issued rigid orders that nothing should be done which could offend the Emperor. The house where the Emperor slept was just below the minaret from which the Muezzin was wont to proclaim the hour of prayer. But in Jerusalem the Muezzin did more. He read certain verses of the Koran ; on that night the text, ** How is it possible .that God had for his son Jesus the son of Mary ? " The Kadi took alarm ; he silenced altogether the officious Muezzin. The Emperor listened in vain for that sound which in the silent night is so solemn and impressive. He inquired the reason of this silence, which had continued for two days. The Kadi gave the real cause, the fear of offending the Christian Emperor. " You are Mrong," said Frederick, " to neglect on my account your duty, your law, and )^our religion. By God, if you should visit me in my realm, ^ If this is the genuine si)eefh, quoted by Von JJaumer from the un- published Kegesta in tlie Papal archives, it may show the malice of the Tatriarch Ceroid, who thus describes it : — " Ita coronatus resedit in cathedra Patriar- chatus excusando malitiam suam et accusando ecclesiara Kornanam, im- ponens ei quod injuste processerat contra eum ; et notabilem earn fecerat invective et reprehensiv6 de insatiabili et simoniali avaritia." Chap. III. VTSTT TO THE MOSQUE OF OMAE. ] 29 you will find no such respectful deference." The Em- peror had declared that one of the chief objects of his visit to the Holy Land was to behold the Mohammedans at prayer. He stood in wondering admiration before the Mosque of Omar ; he surveyed the pulpit from which the Imaun delivered his sermons. A Christian priest had found his w^ay into the precincts with the book of the Gospels in his hand ; the Emperor resented this as an insult to the religious worship of the Mohammedans, and threatened to punish it as a signal breach of the treaty. The Arabic historian puts into his mouth these words : " Here we are all the servants of the Sultan it is he that has restored to us our Churches." Sc writes the graver historian.® There is a description ot Frederick's demeanour in the Temple by an eye-witness, one of the ministering attendants, in which the same ill- suppressed aversion to the uncircumcised is mingled with tlie desire to claim an imperial proselyte. " The Em- peror was red-haired and bald^ with weak sight ; as a slave he would not have sold for more than 200 drachms." Frederick's language showed (so averred some Mo- hammedans) that he did not believe the Christian religion ; he did not scruple to jest upon it. He read without anger, and demanded the explanation of the inscription in letters of gold, " Saladin, in a certain year, purified the Holy City from the presence of those who worship many Gods." ^ The windows of the Holy Chapel were closely barred to keep out the defilements of the birds. " You may shut out the birds," said Frederick, " how will ye keep out the swine ? " At noon, at the hour of prayer, when all the faithful fall on <• Makrizi, in Reinaud. ' The Mohammedans so define the v/orshippers of the Trinity. VOL. VI. E 130 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X, their knees in adoration, the Mohammedans in attend- ance on Frederick did the same ; among the rest the aged preceptor of Frederick, a Sicilian Mussulman who had instructed him in dialectics. Frederick, in this at least not going beyond the bounds of wise tolerance, betrayed neither surprise nor dissatisfaction. After but two days the Emperor retired from the interdicted city ; if he took no steps to restore the walls, some part of the blame must attach to his religious foes, who pursued him even into the Holy City with such inexorable hostility. Both the Emperor and the Sultan had wounded the Unpopularity pi*ide and offended the religious prejudices of of the treaty. ^^^ morc zcalous among their people. To some the peaceful settlement of the war between Christian and Mussulman was of itself an abomination, a degenerate infringement of the good old usage, which arrayed them against each other as irreclaimable ene- mies : the valiant Christians were deprived of the privi- lege of obtaining remission of their sins by the pillage and massacre of the Islamites : the Islamites of winning Paradise by the slaughter of Christians. The Sultan of Egypt, so rude was the shock throughout the world of Islam, was obliged to send ambassadors to the Caliph of Bagdad and to the Princes on the Euphrates to explain his conduct. The surrender of Jerusalem was the great cause of affliction and shame. The Sultan in vain alleged that it was but the unwalled and defenceless city that he yielded up ; there were bitter lamentations among all the Moslems, who were forced to depart from their homes; sad verses were written and sung m the streets The Imauns of the Mosque of Omar went in melancholy procession to the Sultan to remonstrate. They attempted to overawe him by proclaiming an Chap. III. UNPOPULARITY OF THE TREATY. 131 unusual hour of prayer. Kameel treated them with great indignity, and sent them back stripped of their silver lamps and other ornaments of the Mosque. In Damascus was the most loud and bitter lamentation. The Sultan of Damascus was besieged in his capital by Malek el Ashraf. The territory, now basely yielded to the Christians, was part of his kingdom ; he was the rightful Lord of Jerusalem. There an Imaun of great sanctity, the historian Ibn Dschusi himself, was sum- moned to preach to the people on tliis dire calamity. The honour of Islam was concerned ; he mounted the pulpit : " So then the way to the Holy City is about to be closed to faithful pilgrims : you who love communion with God in that hallowed place can no longer prostrate yourself, or water the ground with your tears. Great God ! if our eyes were fountains, could we shed tears enough? If our hearts were cloven, could we be afflicted enough ? " The whole assembly burst into a wild wail of sorrow and indignation.^ Frederick announced this treaty in Western Christen- dom in the most magnificent terms. His letter to the King of England bears date on the day of his entrance into Jei'usalem. He ascribes his triumph to a miracle wrought by the Lord of Hosts, who seemed no longer to delight in the multitude of armed men. In the face of two great armies, that of the Sultan of Egypt and of Sultan Ashraf encamped near Gaza, and that of the Sultan (David) of Damascus at Naplous, Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Nazareth, the district of Sharon, and Sidon, had been freely ceded to him : the Mohammedans were only by sufferance to enter the Holy City. The Sultan had bound himself to surrender all prisoners, whom he *•' Reinaud. Extrait des Auteurs Arabes. — Wilken. vi. p. 4U3^ K 2 132 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X. ought to have released by the treaty of Damietta, and all who had been taken since> The seal of this letter bore a likeness of the Emperor, with a scroll : over his head " the Emperor of the Komans," on the right shoulder " the King of Jerusalem," on the left " the King of Sicily." Far different was the reception of the treaty by the Pope, and by all who sided with, or might be expected to side with, the Pope. It was but a new manifestation of the perfidy, the contumacy, the ingratitude to the Church, the indifference of the Emperor to religion, if not of his apostasy. A letter arrived, and was actively promulgated through Western Christendom, from Ceroid, Patriarch of Jerusalem, describing in the blackest colours every act of the Emperor. In the treaty the dignity, the interests of religion and of the Church, the dignity and interests of the Patriarch, had been, it might seem studiously neglected ; even in the territory conceded by the Sultan some of the lands belonging to the Knights Templars were comprehended, none of those claimed by the Patriarch. Ceroid over- looked his own obstinate hostility to Frederick, while he dwelt so bitterly on that of Frederick to himself. The Letter of the letter began with Frederick's occupation of Patriarch. Joppa ; his avowcd partiality to the interests of the Mohammedans, his neglect, or worse, of the Christians. At least five hundred Christians had fallen since his arrival, not ten Saracens. All excesses, all breaches of the truce were visited severely on the Christians, connived at or disregarded in the Moham- medans. A Saracen who had been plundered was sent back in splendid apparel to the Sultan. All the •» The letter in Matthew Paris. Chap. m. LETTERS OF PATRIARCH AND POPE. 133 Emperor's suspicious intercourse with the Saracens, his Mohammedan luxuries, his presents of splendid arms to be used by Infidels against true Believers, were rC' counted ; the secresy of the treaty and its acceptance, with the signature of the Sultan as its sole guarantee. The Master of the Teutonic Order had insidiously invited him (the Patriarch) to accompany the Emperor to Jerusalem. He had demanded first to see the treaty. There he found that the Sultan of Damascus, the true Lord of Jerusalem, was no party to the covenant; " there were no provisions in favour of himself or of the Church ; how could he venture his holy person within the power of the treacherous Sultan and his unbelieving host ? " The letter closed with a strong complaint that the Emperor had left the city without rebuilding the walls. But the Patriarch admitted that Erederick had consulted the Bishops of Winchester and Exeter, the Master of the Hospitallers, the Praeceptor of the Temple, to advise and aid him in this work: their reply had been cold and dilatory ; and Frederick departed from the city.* Even before the arrival of Gerold's letters, the Pope, in a letter to the Archbishop of Milan and his Letter of suffragans, all liegemen of the Emperor, had irdShop denounced the treaty as a monstrous recon- ^^'^^i^'^^- ciliation of Christ and Belial ; as the establishment of the worship of Mohammed in the Temple of God ; and thus "the antagonist of the Cross, the enemy of the faith, the foe of all chastity, the condemned to hell, is lifted up for adoration, by a perverse judgement, to the intolerable contumely of the Saviour, the inexpiable disgrace of the Christian name, the contempt of all * Epist. Gerold. Patriarchse, apud Matth, Pam, 134 LATIN CHRISTIANITY Book 5. the martyrs who have laid down their lives to purify the Holy Land from the worldly pollutions of the Saracens." ^ Albert of Austria was the most powerful enemy who might be tempted to revolt against Frederick in his German dominions, the greatest and most dangerous vassal of the Empire. Him the Pope addressed at greater length, and with a more distinct enu- meration of four flagitious enormities with which he especially charged the Emperor. First, he had shamelessly presented the sword and other arms which he had received from the altar of St. Peter, blessed by the Pope himself, for the defence of the Letter to faith, and the chastisement of the wicked, to AnZ\l the Sultan of Babylon, the enemy of the faith, the adversary of Christ Jesus, the worshipper of Mo- hammed the son of Perdition ; he had promised not to bear arms against the Sultan, against whom as Emperor he was bound to wage implacable war. The second was a more execrable and more stupendous offence. In the Temple of God, where Christ made his offering, where he had sat on his cathedral throne in the midst of the doctors, the Emperor had cast Christ forth, and placed Mohammed, that son of Perdition ; he had commanded the law of God to keep silence, and permitted the free preaching of the Koran : to the Infidels he had left the keys of the Sanctuary, so that no Christian might enter without their sufferance. Thirdly, he had excluded the Eastern Christians of Antioch, Tripoli, and other strong places, from the benefit of the treaty, and so betrayed ihe Christian cause in the East to the enemy. Lastly, he had so bound himself by this wicked league, that if Ad Episc. :Mediol. June 13, 1223. Chap. Ill, f JLST ACTS OF FREDERICK IN PALESTINE, i; the Christian army should attempt to revenge the insult done to the Eedeemer, to cleanse the Temple and the City of God from the defilements of the Pagans, the Emperor had pledged himself to take part with the foe. Albert of Austria was exhorted to disclaim all allegiance to one guilty of sucli capital treason against the majesty of God, to hold himself ready at the summons of the Church to take up arms against the Emperor. The last acts of Frederick in Palestine are dwelt upon both by the Patriarch and the Pope; they are known almost entirely by these unfriendly representa- tions. Frederick returned from Joppa to Ptolemais in no placable mood with his implacable enemies leagued against him in civil war."^ The Patriarch had attempted to raise an independent force at his own command : if the pilgrims should retire from the Holy Land he would need a body-guard for his holy person. He proposed, out of some large sums of money left for the benefit oi the sacred cause by Philip- Augustus of France, to enrol a band of knights, a new Order, for this end. Frederick declared that no one should levy or command soldiers within his realm without his will and consent. With the inhabitants of Ptolemais Frederick had obtained, either by his affable demeanour or by his treaty, great popularity. He summoned a full assembly of all Christian people on the broad sands without the city. There he arose and arraigned the Patriarch and the *" " Prseterea qualiter contra ipsum Imperatorem, ajjud Aeon, postmodum redeuntem, prasdicti Patriarchal, Magis- tri domuum hospitaJis et templi se gesserint, utpote qui contra ipsum, intestina bella moverint in civitate praedicta, his qui inteifuerunt luce clarius extitit manifestum." — Rich. San Germ. It is remarkable liow many privileges and grants he made to the Teutonic Order : it is manifest that his object was to raise up a loyal counter- poise to the T'^mplarK and HospitalleJ'f. — Boehmer, Regesti, 4ub anu. 136 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X Master of the Templars as having obstinately thwarted all his designs for the advancement of the Christian Cause, and having pursued him with their blind and obstinate hostility. He summoned all the pilgrims, having now fulfilled their vows, to depart from the Holy Land, and commanded his Lieutenant, Thomas de Acerra, to compel obedience to these orders. He was deaf to all remonstrance ; on his return to the city he seized all the gates, manned them with his crossbow- men, and while he permitted, all the Knights Templars to leave the city, he would admit none. He took possession of the churches, and occupied them with his archers. The Patriarch assembled all his adherents and all the Templars still within the city, and again thundered out his excommunication. Frederick kept him almost as a prisoner in his palace ; his partisans were exposed to every insult and attack, even those who were carrying provisions to the palace. Two bold Palm Sunday. Frauciscaus, who on Palm Sunday denounced Aprils. Frederick in the Church, were dragged from the pulpit, and scourged through the streets. But these violences availed not against the obstinate endurance of the Churchmen. After some vain attempts at recon- ciliation, the Patriarch placed the city of Ptolemais under interdict. These are not all the charges against Frederick ; it was made a crime that he destroyed some of his ships, probably unserviceable : his arms and engines of war he is said to have sent to the Sultan of On the day of St. Peter and St. Paul the Emperor set sail for Europe ; his presence was imperi- ously required. Li every part of his dominions the Pope, with the ambitious activity of a temporal sovereign, and with all the tremendous arms wielded by :hap. in. WAR m APULIA. 137 the spiritual power, was waging a war either in open day, or in secret intrigues with liis unruly and disaffected vassals. The ostensible cause of the war was the ag- gression of Frederick's vicegerent in Apulia, ^ar m Keginald Duke of Spoleto. Frederick had ^p^"'^- left Keginald to subdue the revolt of the powerful family of Polito. These rebels had taken refuge in the Papal territory : they were pursued by Eeginald. But once beyond the Papal frontier the Duke of Spoleto extended his ravages, it might seem reviving certain claims of his own on the Dukedom of Spoleto. Frederick afterwards disclaimed these acts of his lieutenant, and declared that he had punished him for the infringement of his orders. ^ But the occasion was too welcome not to be seized by the Pope. He levied at once large forces, placed them under the command of Frederick's most deadly enemies, his father-in-law; John de Brienne, the ejected King of Jerusalem, and the Cardinal John Colonna, with the King's revolted subjects, the Counts of Celano and of Aquila; the martial Legate Pelagius, who had com- manded the army of Damietta, directed the whole force. A report of Frederick's death in Palestine (a fraud of which he complains with the bitterest indignation) was industriously disseminated. John de Brienne even ven- tured to assert that there was no Emperor but himself. The Papal armies at first met with great success ; many cities from fear, from disaffection to Frederick, from despair of relief, opened their gates. The soldiers of the Church committed devastations almost unprece- dented even in these rude wars. But Gregory was not content with this limited war; he strove to arm all " The most particular account of these wars is in Rich. Ue San Germano, ipud Muratori, t. vii. 138 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X. Chi-istendom against the contumacious Emperor who defied the Church. From the remotest parts, from Wales, Ireland, England, large contributions were de- manded, and in many cases extorted, for this holy war. Just at this juncture England contributed in a peculiar manner, even beyond her customary tribute, to the Papal treasuiy : the whole of such revenue was devoted to this end. A dispute was pending in the Court of Kome con- Eiection to ccming the See of Canterbury. On the death bishopric of of Archbishop Stephen, the monks of Canter- juVi228f' bury elected Walter of Hevesham to the primacy. The King refused his assent, and the objec- tions urged were sufficiently strange, whether well- founded or but fictitious, against a man chosen as the successor of Becket. The father of Walter, it was said, had been hanged for robbery, and Walter himself, during the interdict, had embraced the party opposed to King John. The suffragan bishops (they always resented their exclusion from the election) accused Walter of having debauched a nun, by whom he had several chil- dren. Appeal was made to Kome ; the Pope delayed his sentence for further inquiry. The ambassadors of the King, the Bishops of Chester and Eochester, and John of Newton in vain laboured to obtain the Papal decision. One only argument would weigh with the Pope and the Cardinals. At length they engaged to pay for this tardy justice the tenth of all moveable property in the realm of England and Ireland in order to aid the Pope in his war against the Emperor. Even then the alleged immoralities were put out of sight ; the elected Primate of England was examined by three Cardinals on certain minute points of theology, and condemned as unworthy of so august a see, " which Chap. III. RETURN OF FREDERICK. 139 ought to be filled by a man noble, wise, and modest." ° Eichard, Chancellor of Lincoln, was proposed in the name of the King and the suffragan bishops, and re- ceived his appointment by a Papal Bull. In France, besides the exertions of the Legate, the Archbishops of ^*^ens and of Lyons were commanded by the Pope him- self to publish the grave offences of Frederick against the Holy See, and to preach the Crusade against him. In Germany, Albert of Austria had been urged to revolt ; in the North and in Denmark the Legate, the Cardinal Otho, preached and promulgated the same Crusade.P He laid Liege under an interdict, and King Henry raised an army to besiege the Cardinal in Stras- burg. The Pope praised, as inspired by the Holy Ghost, the chivalrous determination of the Prince of Portugal, to take up arms in defence of the Church of Christ. The Lombards, on the other hand, were sternly rebuked for their tardiness in sending aid against the common enemy, the Pope gave them a significant hint that the deserters of the cause of the Church might be deserted in their turn in their hour of need. The rapid return of the Emperor disconcerted all these hostile measures. With two well-armed barks he landed at Astore, near Brundusium ; many of the brave German pilgrims followed after and rapidly May 15 and grew to a formidable force. His first act was Relurn'of'^* to send ambassadors to the Pope, the Arch- ^^'^^"'=^- bishop of Bari, the Bishop of Keggio and Herman de " He was asked whether our Lord descended into hell, in the flesh or not munication, unrightly pronounced ; on a case of niariiacre, where one of the in the flesh ; on the presence of Christ , parties had died in infidelity. To in the sacrament ; how Rachel, being all these questions his answers wew already dead, could weep for her w ong. rhildren ; on the power of an excora- 1 Rayaald. ia cot^ 140 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X Salza, the master of the Teutonic order. The overtures were rejected with scorn. An excommunication even more strong and offensive had been issued by the Pope at Perugia.'^ The first clause denounced all the heretics with names odious to all zealous believers. After the Cathari, the Publicans, the Poor Men of Lyons, the Arnoldists, and under the same terrific anathema as no less an enemy of the Church, followed the Emperor Frederick ; his contumacious disregard of the excom- munication pronounced by the Cardinal of Albano was thus placed on the same footing with the wildest opinions and those most hostile to the Church. After the recital of his offences, the release of all his subjects from their allegiance, came the condemnation of his adherents, Reginald of Sj)oleto and his brother Bertoldo. With the other enemies of the Church were mingled up the Count de Foix, and the Viscount of Beziers ; the only important names which now represented the odious heresy of Southern France. Some lesser offenders were included under the comprehensive ban. These were all> if not leagued together under the same proscription, alike denounced as enemies of God and of the Church. The conquering army of the Pope was on all sides arrested, repelled, defeated ; the rebellious barons and cities returned to their allegiance ; Frederick marched to the relief of Capua ; the strength of the Papal force broke up in confusion. Frederick moved to Naples where he was received in triumph. In Capua he had organised the Saracens whom he had removed from Sicily, where they had been a wild mountain people, untameably and utterly lawless, to Nocera : there he 1 This bull must have been issued in June, not in August. See Boehmer, p. 335. Raynaldus, sub ann. Chap. III. CHRISTENDOM AGAINST THE POPE. 141 had settled them, foreseeing probably their future use as inhabitants of walled cities and cultivators of the soil. This was a force terrible to the rebellious church- men who had espoused the Papal cause. From San Germano Frederick sent forth his counter appeal to the Sovereigns of Europe, representing the violence, the injustice, the implacable resentment of the Pope. The appeal could not but have some effect. Christendom, even among the most devout adherents of the Papal supremacy, refused to lend itself Christendom to the fiery passions of the aged Pontiff. The Pope. Pope was yet too awful to be openly condemned, but the general reluctance to embrace his cause was the strongest condemnation. Men throughout the Christian world could not but doubt by which party the real interests of the Eastern Christians had been most be- trayed and injured. The fierce enthusiasm which would not receive advantages unless won from the unbeliever at the point of the sword had died away : men looked to the effect of the treaty, they compared it with the results of all the Crusades since that of Godfrey of Bouillon. Jerusalem, the Holy Sepulchre, were in the power of the Christians : devout pilgrims might perform unmolested their pious vows ; multitudes of Christians had taken up their abode in seeming security in the city of Sion. But if, thus trammelled, opposed, pursued by the remorseless excommunication into the Holy Sepulchre itself, Frederick by the awe of his imperial name, by his personal greatness, had obtained such a treaty ; what terms might he not have dictated, if supported by the Pope, the Patriarch, and Knights Templars."" Treaties with the Mohammedan ' It has been observed that the three I Paris, the Abbot Urspergensis, and contemporary historians, Matthew | Richard of Sa» Gernaano, are aU 142 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X. powers were nothing new ; they had been lately made by Philip Augustus, and by the fierce Kichard Coeur de Lion. The Christians had never disdained the policy of taking advantage of the feuds among the Mohammedan sovereigns and allying themselves with the Sultan of Egypt or the Sultan of Damascus. Even the Pope himself had not disdained all peaceful intercourse with the Unbelievers. Frederick positively asserted that he had surprised and had in his possession letters addressed by the Pope to Sultan Kameel, urging him to break off his negotiations with the Emperor. Gregory afterwards denied the truth of this charge ; but it was publicly averred, and proof offered, in the face of Christendom.^ Frederick had appealed to witnesses of all his acts, and they, at all events the English Bishops of Winchester and Exeter, the Master of the Hospitallers, the Master of the Teutonic Order, had given no countenance to the envious and rancorous charges of the Patriarch. There was a deeper cause of dissatisfaction through- out that Hierarchy, to which the Pope had always looked for the most zealous and self-sacrificing aid. The clergy felt the strongest repugnance to the levy of a tenth demanded by the Pope throughout Christendom, to maintain wars, if not unjust, unnecessary, against the Emperor. No doubt the lavish and partial favour with against the Pope. " Veiisimile enim videtur, quod si tunc Imperator cum gratia ac pace Romanse Ecclesiae tran- sisset, longe melius et efficacius pi'os- peratum fuisset negotium Terras Sanctse." — Richard de San Geimano adds, that if the Sultan hud not known that Frederick was excommunicated by the Pope, and hated by the Patriarch, he would have granted much better teims. Compare Muratori, Annal. d'ltalia, sub ann. ; and in Wilken the extract from Theuerdank : — " Waren dem Kaiser die gestanden, Die ihm sin Ehre wanden (rntwandteiU Das Grab und alle diese Land, Die stunden gar in seiner Hand : JS'azarelii und Bethlera, Der Jordan und Jerusalem, Dazu manig heilig Stat, Da Gott mitt seinem Fussen trat, Syria und Juda," &c. —Wilken, vi. p. 509. " Epist. I^etr. de Vinea. Chap. IIJ. THE KUMAN HIERARCHY DISSATISFIED. 143 which he treated the Preaching and Begging Friars had already awakened jealousy. Gregory had sagaciously discerned the strength which their influence in the lowest depths of society would gain for the Papal cause. He had solemnly canonised Francis of Assisi — one of his most confidential counsellors was the Dominican Gualo.* So active had the Friars been in stirring up revolt in the kingdom of Naples, that the first act of Keginald of Spoleto had been their expulsion from the realm. Christendom had eagerly rushed into a Crusade against the unbelievers ; it had not ventured to disap- prove a Crusade against the heretics of Languedoc ; bat a Crusade (for under that name Gregory IX. levied this war) against the Emperor, and that Emperor the re- storer of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, was encountered with sullen repugnance or frank opposition. It was observed as a strange sight that when Frederick's troops advanced against those of the Pope, they still wore the red crog-^es which they had worn in Palestine. The banner of the Cross, under which Mohammedans fought for Frederick, met the banner with the keys of St. Peter.'^ The disapprobation of silent disobedience, at best of sluggish and tardy sympathy if not of rude disavowal and condemnation, could not escape the all-watchful ear of Kome. Gregory had no resource but in his own dauntless and unbroken mind, and in the conviction of his power. The German Princes had refused to de- throne King Henry: some of the greatest influence, * Gualo was his emissary, if not his Legate, in Lombardy. He was active in framing the peace of San Gerrcano. —Epist. Gregor., Oct. 9, 1226. « " Imperator cum cruoesiguati* contra clavigeros hostes properat.' — Rich, de San Germano, p. 1013. 144 LATIN CnRISTIANITT. Book X, Leopold Duke of Austria, tlie Duke of Moravia, the Archbishops of Saltzburg and of Aquileia, the Bishop of Eatisbon, were in It^aly endeavouring to mediate a peace. The Lombards did not move ; even if tbe Guelfs had been so disposed, they were everywhere con- trolled by a Ghibelline opposition. One incident alone was of a more encouraging character. Gregory was still at Perugia pu exile from rebellious Kome. But a terrific flood had desolated the city. The religious fears of the populace beheld the avenging hand of God for their disobedience to their spiritual father ; the Pope returned to Eome in triumph.'' Peace was necessary to both parties, negotiations Nov. 1229. were speedily begun. The Pope was suddenly May, 1230. scizcd with a sacred horror of the shedding human blood. A treaty was framed at San Germano Avhich maintained unabased the majesty of the Pope.^ In truth, by the absolution of the Emperor with but a general declaration of submission to the Church, with- out satisfaction for the special crime for which he had undergone excommunication, the Pope, virtually at least, recognised the injustice of his own censures. Of Treaty of San the affairs of tlic Holv Land, of the conduct June 14, 1230. of tlio Empcror, of the treaty with the bultan^ denounced as impious, there was a profound and cau- tious silence. In other respects the terms might seem humiliating to the Emperor; he granted a complete amnesty to all his rebellious subjects, the Archbishop of Tarentum and all the bishops and churchmen who had i Not only was there a great de- struction of property, of corn, wine, cattle, and of human life, but a great quantity of enoiinous serpents were cast on shore, whicli rotted and bred a pesti- lence. This IS a story more than once repeated iu the later annals of Rome — i)n what loundcd ? — Gregor, Vit. y Albanensi Episcopo, apud Raynald. 1229. Chap. III. TREATY OF SAN GERMANO. 14t fled the realm ; even the reinstatement of the insurgent Counts of Celano and Aversa in their lands and do- mains in Germany, in Italy, in Sicily ; he consented to restore all the places he occupied in the Papal domi- nions, and all the estates which he had seized belonging to churches, monasteries, the Templars, the Knights of the Hospital, and generally of all who had adhered to the Church. He renounced the right of judging the ecclesiastics of his realm by the civil tribunals, excepting in matters concerning royal fiefs ; he gave up the right of levying taxes on ecclesiastical property, as well that of the clergy as of monasteries. It is said, but it appears not in the treaty, that he promised to defray the enor- mous charges of the war, variously stated at 120,000 crowns and 120,000 ounces of gold ; but in those times promises to pay such debts by no means ensured their payment. Frederick never fulfilled this covenant. If to obtain absolution from the Papal censures Frederick willingly yielded to these terms, it shows either that his firm mind was not proof against the awe of the spiritual power which enthralled the rest of Europe, or that he had the wisdom to see that the time was not come to struggle with success against such tyranny. He might indeed hope that, ere long, to the stern old man who now wielded the keys of St. Peter with the vigour of Hildebrand or Innocent III., might succeed some feebler or milder Pontiff. Already was Cregory approaching to or more than ninety years old.'' He was himself in the strength and prime of manhood, nor could he expect that this same aged Pontiff would rally again for a contest, more long, more obstinate, and though not * I confess that this extreme old age of Gregory IX. does not seem to me quite clearly made out. At all ereuts, after every deduction, he was of an extraordinary age to display sucb activity and firmurrx. VOL. VI. L 146 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BookX terminated in his lifetime, more fatal to the Emperor and to the House of Holienstaufen. Frederick had been released from the ban of excommunication at Ceperano Aug. 28, by the Cardinal John of St. Sabina ; he visited Sept! 1,1230. ^i^g p^pg g^t Anagni. They met, Frederick with dignified submission, the Pope with the calm ma- jesty of age and position, held a conference of many hours, appeared together at a splendid banquet, and interchanged the kiss of peace ; the antagonists whose mortal quarrel threatened a long convulsion through- out Cliristendom proclaimed to the world then- mutual amity.*^ Nearly nine years elapsed before these two anta- sept. 1, 1230, p^onists. the Pope Gregory IX. and the Em- to 1239, Palm ° ^ ^ ^ i xi • • •^- i i Sunday. pcror Jj rcdericK ii. resumed then- immitigable warfare, — years of but dubious peace, of open amity yet secret mistrust, in which each called upon the other for aid against his enemies ; the Pope on Frederick against the unruly Romans, Frederick on the Pope against the rebellious Lombards and his rebelKous son ; but a Frederick describes the interview — " I einde ut post absolutionem ex pras- sentia corporum mentium serenitas sequeretur, primo Septembris apostoli- cam sedem adivimus. et sanctissimum patrem domiuum Gregorium, Dei gratia summum Pontificem, vidimus reverenter. Qui afi'ectione paterna nos recipiens, et pace coi'dium sacris osculis lederata, tarn benevole, lam benigne propositum nobis sua' intentionis aperuit de ipsis quaj ])recesserant nil omittens, et singula prosequens evidentis judicio rationis, quod etsi nos precede'ns causa commoverit, vel rancorem potuerit aliquem attulisse, sic benevoleutia, quam perseosimus in eodem, onmem motum lenivit animi, et nostram amoto rancore serenavit adeo voluntatem, ut non velimus ulterius prfeterita me- raorari quae necessitas intulit, ut virtus ex necessitate prodens opei'aretur gra- tiam ampliorem." — Monument. Germ, iv. 275. There is something very striking in this. The generous awe and reverence of Frederick for the holy old man, considering his deep injuries (I envy not those who can see nothing but specious hypocrisy in Frederick), and the Christian amenity of the Pope, considering that Frederick, a short time before, had been called a godless heretic, almost a Mohammedan. Their mutual enmity is lost in mutual respect. Chap. III. FKEDERICK II. AS LEGISLATOR. 147 where each suspected a secret understanding with those enemies. It is i^emarkable that both Frederick and the Pope betook themselves in this in- terval of suspended war to legislation. Frederick to the promulgation of a new jurisprudence for his kingdom of Naples and Sicily ; Gregory of a complete and autho- ritative code of the Decretals which formed the statute law by which the Papacy and the sacerdotal order ruled the world, and administered the internal government of the Church. During the commencement of this period Frederick left the administration of affau's in Germany, though he still exercised an imperial control, to his son Henry. The rebellion of Henry alone seemed to compel him to cross the Alps and resume the . . -1 A-I^- 1235. sway. His legislation aspired to regulate the Empire ; but in Germany from the limits imposed on his power, it was not a complete and perfect code, it was a succession of remedial laws. His earliest and most characteristic work of legislation was content to advance the peace, prosperity, and happiness of his own Southern realm. The constitution of his beloved kingdom was thus the first care of Frederick. As a legislator he commands almost unmingled admiration ; and the aim and temper of his legislation whether emanating from himself, or adopted from the counsel of others, may justly influence the general estimate of a character so variously repre- sented by the passions of his own age, passions which have continued to inflame, and even yet have not died away from the heart of man.'^ The object of Frederick's "> liven in our own day M. Hofler, for instance, seems to revive all the ran- 6:»ur of the days of Innocent IV. Even Boebmer is not above thisfatai nifluence. This part of my vi^ork was finished before the publication of the '* Regesta Im- perii," to which, nevertheless, 1 am bound to acknowledge niuth obli^atiot^ L 2 148 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X. jurisprudence was tlie mitigatiou, as far as possible the suppression, of feudal violence and oppression ; the as- sertion of equal rights, equal justice, equal burthens; the toleration of different religions ; the pi'omotion of commerce by wise, almost premature regulations; the advancement of intellectual culture among his subjects by the establishment of universities liberally endowed, and by the encouragement of all the useful and refined arts. It is difficult to suppose a wise, equitable and humane legislator, a blind, a ruthless tyrant; or to reconcile the careful and sagacious provision for the rights and well-being of all ranks of his subjects with the reckless violation of those rights, and with heavy and systematic oppression ; more especially if that juris- prudence is original and beyond liis age. The legislator may himself be in some respects below the lofty aim of his laws; Frederick may have been driven to harsh measures to bring into order the rebellious magnates of the realm, whom his absence in Asia, the invasion and the intrigues of the Papal party, cast loose from their allegiance ; the abrogation of tlieir tyrannical privileges may have left a deep and brooding discontent, ready to break out into revolt and constantly enforcing still more rifjorous enactments. The severe guardian of the morals of his subjects may have claimed to himself in some respects a royal, an Asiatic indulgence ; he may have been compelled by inevitable wars to lay onerous burthens on the people, he may have been compelled to restrict or suspend the rights of particular subjects, or classes of subjects, by such determined hostility as that of the clergy to himself and to all his house ; biit on the whole the laws and institutions of the kingdom of Naples are an unexceptionable and imperishable tes- timony at least to his lofty designs for the good of man- Chap. III. FREDEEICK II. AS LEGISLATOR. 149 kind ; wliich history cannot decline, or rather receives with greater respect and trust than can be claimed by any contemporary view of the acts or of the character of Frederick II. It is in this light only as illustrating the life of the great antagonist of the Church that they belong- to Christian history, beyond their special bearing on reli- gious questions, and the rights and condition of the clergy.^ The groundwork of Frederick's legislation was the stern supremacy of the law ; the submission of all, even the nobles, who exercised the feudal privilege of sepa- rate jurisdictions, to a certain extent of the clergy, to the king's sole and exclusive justice. This was the great revolution through which every feudal kingdom must inevitably pass sooner or later.'^ The crown must be- come the supreme fountain of justice and. law. The first, and most difficult, but necessary step was the uni- formity of that law. There was the most extraordinary variety of laws and usages throughout the realm, Koman, Greek, Gothic, Lombard, Norman, Imperial-German institutes ; old municipal and recent seignorial rights.® The Jews had their special privileges, the Saracens their own customs and. forms of procedure. The majestic law had to overawe to one system of obedience, with due maintenance of their proper rights, the nobles, the clergy, the burghers, and the peasants, even the Jews « The constitutions of the Emperor Frederick may be read in Canciaui, vol. i. sub fine. I am much indebted for a brief, it appears to me very sensible and accurate comment in the (jonsiderazioni soprala Storiadi Sicilia, by the Canonico Gregorio (Palermo, 1805), and to my friend M. von Ran. mer's earliest and best work, Geschichte dcr Hohenstaufen. ^ King Roger (see the Canonico Gre- gorio, t. iii.) had already vindicated a certain supremacy for the King's Justi- ciary. King Roger's legislation is strikingly analogous to, Gregorio thinks borrowed from, that of his remote kins- man William, our Norman Conqueror. In France this was among the grett st.«ps first decisively taken by St. Louis. « Canciaui, Preface. 150 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X and the Mohammedans. Frederick wisely determined not to aspire so much to be the founder of an absohitely new jurisprudence, as to select, confirm, and harmonise the old institutions.^ The religious ordinances of the Sicilian constitution Laws relating demand our first examination. Frederick main- to religion, taiucd the immunities of the worshippers of other religions, of the Jews and the Arabians, with such impartial equity, as to incur for this and other causes the name of Jew and Saracen. But the most faithful son of the Church could not condemn the heretic with more authoritative severity, or visit his offence with more remorseless punishment.^ Heresy w^as described as a crime against the offender himself, against his neiglibour, and against God, a more heinous crime even than high treason. The obstinate heretic was condemned to be burned, his whole property confiscated, his children were incapable of holding office or of bearing testimony. If such child should merit mercy by the denunciation of another heretic, or of a concealer of heretics, the Emperor might restore him to his rank. Schismatics were declared outlaws, incapable of inheriting, liable to forfeiture of their goods. No one might petition in favour of a heretic : yet the repentant heretic might receive pardon ; his punishment, after due investigation of the case by the ecclesiastical power, was to be ad- judged by the secular authority. But these law^s were *' The code was published at Am alti, I against the Lombard heretics. They Sept. 1231: Rich. San Germ, sub ann. might have satisfied S. Dominic or 1231 ; in Sicily by Richard de Monte- 1 Simon de Monttbrt. Re-enacted at negro, High Justiciary, during the , Cremona, 1238; at Padua, 1239. — same year. Append, ad Malater. p. 251. j Monument. Germ. iv. 287, 288. Also Gregorio, iii. 14. I letter of June 15, ex Reget.t. Greg. IX s Compare the edicts issued at | In Hofler, p. 344. Ravenna, Feb. 22, 1232, and March, \ Chap. III. LAWS' AGAINST HERETICS. 151 directed against a particular class of men, dangerous it was thought no less to the civil than to the religious power ; actual rebels against the Church, rebels likewise against the Emperor, who was still the conservator of pure orthodoxy, and betraying at least rebellious incli- nations, if not designs hostile towards all power. They were neither enacted nor put in force against the Greek Christians who were still in considerable numbers in the kingdom of Sicily, had their own priests, and celebrated undisturbed their own rites. They were those heretics which swarmed under various denominations, Cathari or Paterins, from rebellious and republican Lombardy, the hated and suspected source of all these opinions. In all the states of the Pope, in Kome itself, not merely were there hidden descendants of the Arnoldists, but all the wild sects which defied the most cruel persecu- tions in the North of Italy, spread their doctrines even within the shadow of the towers of St. Peter. Naples and Aversa were full of them,^ and derived them from rebellious Lombardy ; and Frederick, whose notions of the imperial power were as absolute as Gregory's of the Papal, not only would not incur by their protection such suspicions, as would have inevitably risen, of harbouring or favouring heretics, he scrupled not to assist in the extermination of these insolent insurrectionists against lawful authority.* •» "Adeo quod ab Italia) finibus, prsesertim a partibus Longobardise in quibus pro certo peipendimus ipsorum nequitiam ampliusabundare,jam usque ad regnum nostrum suae perfidise rivulos derivarunt." — 1. i. tit. i. " Quod dolentes referimus, in i-egno nostro Sicili£E Neapolin, et Aversam, partesque vicinas dicitur infecisse." — j Frederic. Epist. apud Epist. Gie£;or. iv. 131. ' Gregor. Vit. Richard de San Germ. See also the Edict of the Senator and people of Rome. — Apud Raynald. 1231. Compare (afterwards) Fi'ederick's letter commanding the heretics throughout Lombardy to be committed to th« flames. 152 LATIN CHUISTIANITY. Book X. The Constitution of Frederick endeavoured to reduce the clergy into obedient and loyal subjects at once by the vigorous assertion of the supreme and impartial law, and by securing and extending their acknowledged im- munities. The clergy were amenable to the general law of the realm as concerned fiefs, could be impleaded in the ordinary courts concerning occupancy of land, inheritances, and debts : they had jurisdiction over their own body, with the right of inflicting canonical punish- ments: but besides this they were amenable to the secular laws, especially for treason, or all crimes relating to the person of the King.'^ They were not exempt from general taxation ; they were bound to discharge all feudal obligations for their fiefs. On the other hand, the crown abandoned its claim to the revenues of vacant bishoprics and benefices : "" three unexception- able persons belonging to the Church were appointed receivers on behalf of the successor. On the election of bishops the law of Innocent III. was recognised ; the chapter communicated the vacancy to the Crown, and proceeded to elect a fit successor ; that successor could not be inaugurated without the consent of the King, nor consecrated without that of the Pope. Tithes were secured to the Church from all lands, even from the royal domains:" the Crown only enforced the expen- diture of the appointed third on the sacred edifices, the churches and chapels. All special courts of the higher ecclesiastics as of the barons were abrogated ; the crown would be the sole fountain of justice : but the holders of the great spiritual fiefs sat with the great Barons under the presidency of the high Chancellor. Except- * i. 42. A law of King William. • iii. 26. Serfs and villains were not to k avflained, iii. 1,3, " i. 7. ClIAF. III. NOBLES ~ CITIES — PEASANTS. 153 ing in cases of marriage, no separate jurisdiction of the clergy was recognised over the laity .° Appeals to Eome were allowed, but only on matters purely ecclesiastical ; and these during wars with the Pope were absolutely forbidden. The great magnates of the realm received likewise substantial benefits in lieu of the privileges wrested from them, which were perilous to the public peace.P All their separate jurisdictions of noble or prelate were abolished ; the King's justiciary was alone and supreme. But their fiefs were made hereditary, and in the female line and to collaterals in the third degree. *^ The cities were emancipated from all the jurisdictions of nobles or of ecclesiastics ; but the muni- Cities. cipal authorities were not absolutely left to their free election. The Sicilian King dreaded the fatal example of the Lombard Eepublics: all the superior governors were nominated by the Crown; the cities only retained in their own hands the inferior appoint- ments, for the regulation of their markets and havens.' The law overlooked not the interest of the free peasants, who constituted the chief cultivators of the soil ; or that of the serfs attached to the soil. Absolute slavery was by no means common in Sicily ; the serfs could acquire and hold property. The free peasants were numerous ; the measures of Frederick tended to raise the serfs to the same condition. He ab- solutely emancipated all those on the royal domain. ° Frederick ab&eiifd and exercised the right of declarinor the children of the clergy, who by the canon law were spurious, legitimate, with full title to a share in all the inheritances of all the goods of their parents, unless they weie fiefs ; and capability of attaining to ail civil offices and honours. For this privilege they paid an annual tax of five per cent, to the royal exchequer. Tliis implied the marriage of the clergy to a great extent.. — Pet. de Vin. vi. 16. Constitut. iii. 25. ? i. 43. 1 iii. 2c5, '«-i. ' 1, 4T, 154 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X The establishment of his courts enabled all classes to obtain justice at an easy and cheap rate against their lords ; the extraordinary aids to be demanded by the lord were limited by law, that of the lay feudal superior, to aids on the marriage of a daughter or sister, the arm- ing the son when summoned to the service of the King, and his ransom in captivity ; that of the higher ecclesi- astics and monasteries, to the summons to the King's service, and receiving the King at free quarters; journeys to Church Councils summoned by the Pope, and Consecrations. Frederick was so desirous to pro- mote the cultivation of the soil, that he exempted new settlers in Sicily from taxes for ten years; only the Jews, who took refuge from Africa, were obliged to pay such taxes, and compelled to become cultivators of the land. But of all institutions, the most advanced was the system of representative government, for the first time regularly framed by the laws of the realm. Besides the ancient Parliaments, at which the magnates of the realm, the great ecclesiastical and secular vassals of the CroAvn assembled when summoned by the King's writs, two annual sessions took place, on the 1st of March and the 1st of August, of a Parliament constituted from the different orders of the realm.^ All the Barons and Prelates appeared in person ; each of the larger cities sent four representatives, each smaller city two, each town or other place one ; to these were joined all the great and lesser Bailiffs of the Crown. The summons to the Barons and Prelates was directly from the King, that of the cities and towns from the '^ One of the cities appointed for the meeting of Parliament in Apulia wa» Lentini ; in Sicily, Piazza. Compare Gregorio, nu p. 82. CHAP. ni. OTHER LAWS. 155 judge of the province. They were to choose men o^ probity, good repute, and impartiality. A Commissioner from the Crown opened the Parliament, and conducted its proceedings, which lasted from eight to ten days. Every clerk or layman might arraign the conduct of any public officer, or offer his advice for the good of his town or district. The determinations which the royal Commissioner, with the advice of the most distinguished spiritual and temporal persons, approved, were delivered signed and sealed by him directly to the King, except- ing in unimportant matters, which might be regulated by an order from the Justiciary of the Province. The criminal law of Frederick's constitution was, with some remarkable exceptions, mild beyond pre- cedent ; and also administered with a solemnity, impar- tiality, and regularity, elsewhere unknown. The Chief Justiciary of the realm, Avitli four other judges, formed the great Court of Criminal Law ; and the Crown asserted itself to be the exclusive administrator of cri- minal justice.* Besides its implacable abhorrence of heresy, it was severe and inexorable against all dis- turbers of the peace of the realm, and those who en- dangered the public security. Private war,*^ and the exe- cution of the law by private hands, was rigidly for- bidden. Justice must be sought only in the King's courts. The punishment for every infringement of this statute was decapitation and forfeiture of goods. Arms were not to be borne except by the King's officers, employed in the court or on the royal affairs,^ or by knights, knights' sons, and burghers, riding abroad from * Gregorio, 1. iii. c. iv. " Nobis aliquando, quibus solum ordinationem justitiariorum, ubicunque fuerimiis, re- ►trvamus." — 1, i. t. 95. This was psj-t of the "merum imperium' sovereign. — i. t. 49. - i. 8. « i. 9. of th,j 156 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book }v. their own liomes. AVTioever drew his sword on another paid double the fine imposed for bearing it; whoever wounded another lost his hand ; whoever killed a man if a knight, was beheaded, if of lower rank, hanged. If the homicide could not be found, the district paid a heavy fine, yet in proportion to the wehrgeld of the ■slain man ; but Christians paid twice as much as Jews or Saracens, as, no doubt, bound more especially to know and maintain the law. The laws for the preser- vation of female chastity were singular and severe. Even rape upon a common prostitute was punished by beheading, if the charge was brought within a certain time : ^ whoever did not aid a woman suffering violence was heavily fined. But in these cases a false accusation was visited with the same punishment. Mothers who betrayed their daughters to whoredom had their noses cut off;^ men who connived at the adultery of their wives were scourged. A man caught in adultery might be slain by the husband ; if not instantly slain, he paid a heavy fine. The trials by battle and ordeal were abolished as vain and superstitious : the former allowed only in cases of murder, poisoning, or high treason, where there was strong suspicion but not full 23roof. It was designed to work on the terror of the criminal ; but if the accuser was worsted, he was condemned in case of high treason to the utmost penalty ; in other cases to proportionate punishment. Torture was only used in cases of heavy suspicion against persons of notoriously evil repute.* y i. 20. « iii. 48, 50. * Frederick's legislation was uot content with abolishing these barbarous forms of testimony, almost the only available testimony in rude unlettered evidence ; documents must be on parch- ment, not on perishable paper ; he prohibited a certain kind of obscure and intricate writing, in use at Naples, Amalfi, and Sorrento; and ordered th? times. He laid down rules on written , iiotai'ies to write all deeds Icg'bly an- VllAF. III. COMMERCE — MAKUFACTUEES. 167 These are but instances of the spirit in which Fre- derick framed his legislation, which aimed rather to advance, enrich, enlighten his subjects than to repress their free development by busy and perpetual inter- ference. His regulations concerning commerce were almost prophetically wise : he laid down the great maxim that commercial exchange benefited both parties ; he permitted the export of corn as the best means of fostering its cultivation. He entered into liberal treaties with Venice, with Asia, Genoa, and the Greek Empire, and even with some of the Saracen powers in Africa. By common consent, both parties condemned the plundering of wrecks, and pledged themselves to mutual aid and friendly reception into their harbours. The King himself was a great merchant; the royal vessels traded to Syria, Egypt, and other parts of the East. He had even factors who traded to India.*^ He encouraged internal commerce by the establishment of great fairs and markets ;*" manufactures of various kinds began to prosper. But that which — if the constitution of Frederick had continued to flourish, if the institutions had worked out in peace their natural consequences — if the house of Hohenstaufen had maintained their power, splendour and tendencies to social and intellectual advancement — if they had not been dispossessed by the dynasty of Charles of Anjou, and the whole land thi^own back by many centmies — might have enabled the Southern kingdom clearly. The Emperor himself laid down regulations to test the authen- ticity of a certain document. — Gre- gorio, Jii. p. 61. •• " Fredericus II. erat omnibus So!- ■iaiiis Orientis particeps in mercimoniis «t amicissunus, ita ut uscjue ad Indos cuiTebant ad commodum suum, tarn per mare, quam per terras, institores." — Matth. Par. 544. c See edict for annual fairs at Sul- mona, Capua, Lucera, Bari, Tarentum, Cosenza, Keggio, Jan. 1234. — Rich San Germ. 158 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X, to take the lead, and anticipate the splendid period of Italian learning, philosophy, and art, was the Univer- sities ; the establishments for education ; the encourage- ments for all learned and refined studies, imagined by this accomplished King. Even the revival of Greek letters might not have awaited the conquest of Constan- tinople by the Turks two centuries later. Greek was the spoken language of the people in many parts of the kingdom ; the laws of Frederick were translated into Greek for popular use ; the epitaph of the Archbishop of Messina in the year 1175 was Greek.'^ There were Greek priests and Greek congregations in many parts of ApuKa and Sicily ; the privileges conferred by the Emperor Henry VI. on Messina had enacted that one of the three magistrates should be a Greek. Hebrew, and still more Arabic, were well known, not merely by Jews and Arabians but by learned scholars. Frederick him- self spoke German, Italian, Latin, Greek, Arabic, and Hebrew. He declared his own passionate love for learned and philosophical studies. Nothing after the knowledge of affairs, of laws and of arms, became a mo- narch so well ; to this he devoted all his leisure hours, these were the liberal pursuits which adorned and dig- nified human life.^ In Syria, and in his intercourse with the Eastern monarchs, he had obtained great col- lections of books ; he caused translations to be made from the Arabic, and out of Greek into Latin, of some of the philosophic works of Aristotle and the Almagest of Ptolemy.^ The University of Naples was his great <* Von Raumer, p. 556. e Peter de Vinea, iii. 67. f He employed the celebrated Michael Scott (the fabled magician) iu the translation of Aristotle. Among the Papal documents relating to England in the British Museum are several letters concerning this remarkable man, patronised alike by Frederick and by the Popes. Honorius III, writes Chap. III. INTELLECTUAL PROGEESS. 159 foundation ; Salerno remained the famous school of medicine ; but the University in the capital was encou- raged by liberal endowments, and by regulations with regard to the relations of the scholars and the citizens ; the price of lodgings was fixed by royal order ; sumr of money were to be advanced to youths at low interest, and could not be exacted during the years of study. The King held out to the more promising students honourable employments in his service. Philosophical studies appeared most suited to the genius of Frederick ; natural history and the useful sciences he cultivated with success ; but he had likewise great taste for the fine arts, especially for architecture, both ornamental and military. He restored the walls of many of the gi-eatest cities; built bridges and other useful works. He had large menageries, supplied from the East and from Africa. He sometimes vouchsafed to send some of the more curious animals about for the instruction and amusement of his subjects. The Eavennese were de- lighted with the appearance of some royal animals. He was passionately fond of field sports, of the chase with the hound and the hawk ; his own book on falconry is not merely instructive on that sport, but is a scientific treatise on the nature and habits of those birds, and of many other animals. The first efforts of Italian sculp- ture and painting rose under his auspices ; the beautiful Italian language began to form itself in his court: it has been said above that the earliest strains of Italian (Jan. 16, 1225, p. 214) to the Arch- bishop of Canterbury to bestow pre- ferment on Michael Scott " Quod inter literatos dono vigeat scientise singulari." M, Scott (p. 229) has a licence to hold pluralities, (P. 246) he is named by the Pope Archbishop of Cashel, and to hold his other benefices. (P. 253) he refuses the Archbishopric: "Dum linguam terraeillius se ignorare diceret." He is described as not only a great Latin scholar, but as familial with Hebrew and Arabic. 160 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X. poetry were heard there: Peter de Vine^, the Chan* cellor of Frederick, the compiler of his laws, was also the writer of the earliest Italian sonnet. Nor was Peter de Yinea the only courtier who emulated the King in poetry : his beloved son Enzio, many of his courtiers, vied with their King and his ministers in the cultivation of the Italian language ; and its first fruits the rich har- monious Italian poetry.s His own age beheld with admiring amazement the magnificence of Frederick's court, the unexampled pro- gress in wealth, luxury, and knowledge. The realm was at peace, notwithstanding some disturbance by those proud barons, whose interest it was to maintain the old feudal and seignorial rights ; the reluctance of the clergy to recede from the complete dominion over the popular mind ; and the taxation, which v/eighed, especi- ally as Frederick became more involved in the Lombard war, on all classes. The world had seen no court so splendid, no system of laws so majestically equitable ; a new order of things appeared to be arising ; an epoch to be commencing in human civilisation. But this admi- ration was not universal : there was a deep and silent jealousy, an intuitive dread in the Church,'^ and in all ^ Some of these poems I have read in a collection of the Poeti del Piimo Secolo, Firenzp, 1814. A small volume has been published by the Literary Uuion of Stuttgard (J 543), Italien- ische Lieder des Hohenstaufischen Holes in Sicilien. It contains lays by thirteen royal and noble authors. Dante, in his book De Vulgari Eloquentia, traces to the court of Frederick the origin of the true and universal Italian language. We return to this subject. *• The Pope seennid to consider that Frederick's new constitutions must bo inimical to the Church. " Intelleximus siquidem quod vel proprio motu, vel se- duetus inconsultis consiliis perveisorum, novas edere constitutiones intendis ex quibus necessario sequitur ut dicaris Ec- clesiffi persecutor et obrutor publicuf hbertatis." — lib. v. Epist. 91, apud Kay- nald. 1231. He reproaches the Arch- bishop of Capua as " Frederico constitu- tiones destructivas salutis et institutivas enoi-mium scmdalorum edenti volunta- riusobsoquens/'-Apud Hofler ii. p. 333 c'uAP. III. DANGER TO THE CHURCH. 161 the faithful partisans of the Church of remote, if not immediate danger ; of a latent design, at least a latent tendency in the temporal kingdom to set itself apart, and to sever itself from the one great religious Empire, which had now been building itself up for centuries. There was, if not an avowed independence, a threaten- ing disposition to independence. The legislation, if it did not directly clash, yet seemed to clash, with the higher law of the Church ; if it did not make the clergy wholly subordinate, it degraded them in some respect to the rank of subjects ; if it did not abrogate, it limited what were called the rights and privileges, but which were in fact the separate rule and dominion of the clergy ; at all events, it assumed a supremacy, set itself above, admitted only what it chose of the great Canon Law of the Church ; it was self-originating, self-asserting.. it had not condescended to consult those in whom for centuries all political as well as spiritual wisdom had been concentered : it was a legislation neither emanating from, nor consented to by, the Church. If every nation were thus to frame its own constitution, without regard to the great unity maintained by the Church, the vast Christian confederacy w^ould break up, Kings might assume the power of forbidding the recurrence to Eome as the religious capital of the world ; independent king- doms might asphe to found independent churches. This new knowledge too was not less dangerous because its ultimate danger was not clearly seen ; at all events, it was not knowledge introduced, sanctioned, taught by the sole great instructress, the Church. Theology, the one Science, was threatened by a rival, and whence did that rival profess to draw her wisdom ? from the Heathen, the Jew, the Unbehever ; from the Pagan Greek, the Hebrew, the Arabic. That which might be in itseli VOL. VI. M 162 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X. harmless, edifying, improving, when taught by th« Church, would but inflame the rebellious pride of the human intellect. What meant this ostentatious tolera- tion of other religions, if not total indifference to Christ and God ; if not a secret inclination to apostasy ? What was all this splendour, but Epicurean or Eastern luxury? What this poetry, but effeminate amatory songs ? Was this the life of a Christian King, of a Christian nobility, of a Christian people ? It was an absolute renunciation of the severe disciphne of the Church, of that austere asceticism, which however the clergy and relie^ious men alone could practise its angelic, its divine perfection, was the remote virtue after which all, even Kings (so many of whom had exchanged their worldly robes for the cowl and for sackcloth) ought to aspire, as to the ultimate culminating height of true Christianity. It was Mohammedan not merely in its secret indulgences, its many concubines, in which the Emperor was still said to allow himself Mohammedan licence ; some of his chosen companions, his trusted counsellors, at least bis instructors in science and philosophy were Moham- medans ; ladies of that race and religion appeared, as has been said, at his court (in them virtue was a thing incredible to a sound churchman). The Saracens whom he had transplanted to Nocera were among his most faithful troops, followed him in his campaigns ; it was even reported, that after his marriage with Isabella of England, he dismissed her English ladies, and made her over to the care of Moorish eunuchs. Such to the world was the fame, such to the Church the evil fame of Frederick's Sicilian court ; exaggerated no doubt as to its splendour, luxury, licence, and learn- ing, as well by the wonder of the world, as by the abhor- rence of the Church. Yet, after all, out of his long life Chap. Ill TEE DECEETALS. 163 (long if considered not by years but by events, by the civil acts, the wars, the negotiations, the journey in o-s, the vicissitudes, crowded into it by Frederick's own busy and active ambition and by the whirling current of affairs) the time during which he sunned himself in this gorgeous voluptuousness must have been comparatively shorty intermittent, broken. At eighteen years of age Frederick left Sicily to win the Imperial crown ; he had then eight years of the cold German climate and the rude German manners during the establishment of his Sovereignty over the haughty German Princes and Prelates. Then eight years in the South, but ^ p. mo to during the first four the rebellious Apulian and ^^^*- Sicilian nobles were to be brought under control, the Saracens to be reduced to obedience, and trans- ^ ^ ^325 to ported to Apulia : throughout the later four, ^^^^• was strife with the Lombard cities, strife about the Crusade, and preparation for the voyage. Then came his Eastern campaign, his reconciliation with the Church. Four years followed of legislation ; and perhaps the nearest approach to indolent and luxurious ^d 1230 to peace. Then succeeded the revolt of his son. ^^^^• Four years more to coerce rebellious Germany, to at- tempt in vain to coerce rebellious Lombardy: ^^ 123* to all this was to close, with his life, in the unin- ^^^^* terrupted immitigable feud with Gregory IX. and Innocent IV. The Pope Gregory IX. (it is impossible to decide how far influenced by the desire of overawing ^he Decre- this tendency of temporal legislation to assert ^^• its own independence) determined to array the highei and eternal law of the Church in a more august and authoritative form. The great code of the Papal Decretals constituted this law ; it had now long reeog- M 2 164 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BookX, iiised and admitted to the honours of equal authority the bold inventions of the book called by the name of Isidore ; but during the Pontificate of Innocent III. there had been five distinct compilations, conflicting in some points, and giving rise to intricate and insoluble questions.^ Gregory in his old age aspired to be the Justinian of the Church. He entrusted the compilation of a complete and regular code to Raimond da Penna- forte, a noble Spaniard, related to the royal house of Arragon, of the Dominican Order, and now the most distinguished jurist in tlie University of Bologna. Raimond da Pennaforte was to be to the Canon what Irnerius of Bologna had been to the revived Roman Law. It is somewhat singular that Raimond had been the most famous antagonist of the Arabian school of learning, the most admired champion of Christianity, in his native Spain. The first part of these Decretals comprehended the whole, in a form somewhat abbreviated ; abbreviations which, as some complained, endangered the rights of the Church on important points ; but were defended by the admirers of Raimond of Pennaforte, who declared that he could not err, for an angel from Heaven had con- stantly watched over his holy work.'' The second con- tained the Decretals of Gregory IX. himself. The whole was promulgated as the great statute law of Christendom, superior in its authority to all secular laws as the interests of the soul were to those of the ' " Sane diversas oonstitutiones, et decretales epistolas, prcTdecessorum nostrorum in diver.sa sparsas volumina, quarura aliqua2 propter nimiam simili- tudinem, et qufcdam propter contrarie- tatem, nonnullae etiam propter suam prolixitatem, confusionem inducere videbantur ; aliqua; vero vagabantur extra volumina suoradicta, quae tan- quam iucertae frequenter in judiciis vacillabant." — In Praefat. '' CiiiHet, quoted by Schroeck, xxvii. 64. Raimond la Pennaforte wai canonised by Clement VIII., in 1601. CHJk.p. III. THE DECRETALS. 10-5 body, as tlie Church was of greater dignit)" than the State ; as the Pope higher than any one temporal sove- reign, or all the sovereigns of the world. Though espe- cially the law of the clergy, it was the law binding like- wise on the laity as Christians, as religious men, both as demanding their rigid observance of all the rights, immunities, independent jurisdictions of the clergy, and concerning their own conduct as spiritual subjects of the Church. All temporal jm^isprudence was bound to frame its decrees with due deference to the superior ecclesiastical jurisprudence ; to respect the borders of that inviolable domain ; not only not to interfere with those matters over which the Chm*ch claimed exclusive cognisance, but to be prepared to enforce by temporal means those decrees which the Church, in her tender- ness for human life, in her clemency, or in her want of power, was unwilling or unable herself to carry into execution. Beyond that sacred circle temporal legisla- tion might claim the full allegiance of its temporal subjects; but the Church alone could touch the holy person, punish the delinquencies, control the demeanour of the sacerdotal order ; could regulate the power of the superior over the inferior clergy, and choose those who were to be enrolled in the order. The Church alone could administer the property of the Church ; that pro- perty it was altogether beyond the province of the civil power to tax ; even as to feudal obligations, the Church would hardly consent to allow any decisions but her own : though compelled to submit to the assent of the crown in elections to benefices which were temporal fiefs, yet that assent was, on the other hand, counter- balanced by her undoubted power to consecrate or to refuse consecration. The Book of Gregory's Decretals was ordered to be the authorised text in all courts and T^6 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Uook X in all schools of law ; it was to be, as it were, more and more deeply impressed into the minds of men. Even in its form it closely resembled the Roman law yet un- abrogated in many parts of Europe ; but of course it comprehended alike those who lived under the different national laws, which had adopted more or less of the old Latin jurisprudence ; it was the more universal statute- book of the more wide-ruling, all-embracing Rome. ^ Chap. IV. PERSECUTIONS OF IlEilETICS 167 CHAPTEK IV. Renewal of hostilities between Gregory IX. and Frederick II. During the nine years of peace between the Empire and the Papacy, Pope Gregory IX. at times Peace of nine poured forth his flowery eloquence in the i'23S^'t^"239, praise, almost the adulation, of the Emperor; P^-^sunda^y: the Emperor proclaimed himself the most loyal sub- ject of the Church. The two potentates concurred only with hearty zeal in the persecution of those rebels against the civil and ecclesiastical power, the heretics.* * During this period of peace an obscure heresy, that of the Stedinger, appeared or grew to its height in the duchy of Oldenburg; the Poj3e and the Emperor would concur in inflicting summary punishment on these rebels. Hartung, the Archbishop of Bremen, had long appealed to Rome. On one occasion he returned with full power to subdue his refractory spiritual subjects, bearing, as he boasted, a singular and significant relique, — the bword with which Peter had struck off the ear of Malchus. More than thirty years after, Archbishop Gei-hard, Count de la Lippe, a martial pi elate, turned not his spiritual but his secular arms against them. Among their deadly tenets was the refusal to pay tithes. The Pope recites the charges against them, furnished of course by tlieir mortal enemies. They wor- shipped the Evil One now as a toad, which they kissed behind and on the mouth, and licked up its foul venom ; now as a man, with a face wonderfully pale, haggard, with coal-black eyes. They kissed him ; his kiss was cold as ice, and with his kiss oozed away all their Catholic faith. The Pope would urge the Emperor to take part in the war against these wretches. Conrad of Marburg, the hateful perse- cutor of the saintly Elizabeth of Hun- gary, now the Holy Inquisitor, was earnest and active in the cause. The Stedinger withstood a crusading army of 40,000 men ; were defeated with the loss of 6000. Many fled to other lands ; the rest submitted to the Archbishop. The Pope released them from the excommunication : but it is curious to observe, he only censures their disobedience- and insurrection 168 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BookX. At Kome mnltitudes of meaner religious criminals were burned ; many priests and of the lower orders of clergy- degraded and sent to Monte Casino and other rigid monasteries as prisoners for life.^ The Pope issued an act of excommunication rising in wrath and terror above former acts. Persons suspected of heresy were under excommunication ; if within a year they did not prove themselves guiltless, they were to be treated as heretics. Heretics were at once infamous ; if judges, their acts were at once null ; if advocates, they could not plead ; if notaries, the instruments which they had drawn were invalid. All priests were to be publicly stripped of their holy dress and degraded. No gifts or oblations were to be received from them ; the clerk who bestowed Christian burial on a heretic was to disentomb him with his own hands, and cast him forth from the cemetery, which became an accursed place unfit for burial. No lay person was to dispute in public or in private con- cerning the Catholic faith : no descendant of a heretic to the second generation could be admitted to holy orders. Annibaldi, the senator of Rome and the Ro- man people, passed a decree enacting condign punish- ment on all heretics. The Emperor, not content with suppressing these insurgents in his hereditary domi- nions, had given orders that throughout Lombardy, their chief seat, they should be sought out, delivered to the Inquisitors,^ and there punished by the secular arm.** One of his omi most useful allies, Eccelin da Romano, he is silent of their heresy. — Ray- naldus, sub ann. 1233 ; Schroeck, xxix. 641, &c. The original authorities are Albert. Stad. Ger. Monach. apud Boehmer — above all the Papal letters. •> Vit. Gregor. IX. Rich. San German. Raynald. sub ann. 1231. «5 Gregory in one letter insinuates that Frederick had burned some good Catholics, his enemies, as pretending that they were or had been heietics.— Epist. 244. Raynald. p. 85. ^ See ante, note, p, 151. Chap. IV. PERSECUTIONS OF HERETICS. 169 was in danger. Eccelin's two sons, Eccelin and Alberic, offered to denounce their father to the Inquisition. There was, what it is difficult to describe but as pro- found hypocrisy, or worse, on the part of the Pope : he declared his unwillingness to proceed to just vengeance against the father of such pious sons, who by his guilt would forfeit, as in a case of capital treason, all their inheritance ; the sons were to persuade Eccelin to aban- don all connexion with heresy or with heretics : if he refused, they were to regard their own salvation, and to denounce their father before the Papal tribunal.^ It is strange enough that the suspected heretic, suspected perhaps not unjustly, took the vows, and died in the garb of a monk ; the pious son became that Eccelin da Bomano whose cruelty seems to have defied the exagge- ration of party hatred. But in aU other respects the Pope and the Emperor were equally mistrustful of each other ; peace was dis- guised war. Each had an ally in the midst of the other's territory whom he could not avow, yet would not aban- don. Even in these perverse times the conduct of the Romans to the Pope is almost inexplicable. No sooner had the Pope, either harassed or tlu-eatened by their unruly proceedings, withdrawn in wrath, or under the pretext of enjoying the purer and cooler air, to Rieti, Auagni, or some other neighbouring city, than Eome began to regret his absence, to make overtures of submission; and still received him back with more rapturous demon- strations of joy.^ In a few months they began to be ® The age may be pleaded in favour of Gregory IX. What is to be said of the comment of the Papal annalist, Kaynaldus? — "Nee mirum cuiquam videri potest datum hoc filiis adversus parentem consilium, cum numinis, a quo descendit omnis paternitas, causa humanis affectibus debet anteferri, ' —p. 41. Raynald. 1231. f Rich, de S. Germ., sub ann. 1231, 170 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X. weary of their quiet: his splendid buildings for the defence and ornament of the city lost their imposing power, or became threatening to their liberties ; he was either compelled or thought it prudent to retire. Yiterbo had become to the Komans what Tusculum had been in a former century ; the Eomans loved their own liberty, but their hate of Yiterbo was stronger than their love ; tlie fear that the Pope might take part Avith Yiterbo brought them to his feet ; that he did not aid them in the subjugation of Yiterbo rekindled their hostility to him. More than once the Pope called on the Emperor to assist him to put down his insurgent subjects : Frederick promised, eluded his promise;^ his troops were wanted to suppress rebellions not feigned, but rather of some danger, at Messina and Syracuse. He had secret partisans everywhere : whenKome was Papal, Yiterbo was Imperialist; when Yiterbo was for the Pope, Rome was for the Emperor. If Frederick was insincere in his maintenance of the Pope against his domestic enemies, Gregory was no less insincere in pre- tending to renounce all alliance, all sympathy with the Lombards.^ But this connexion of the Pope with the Lombard League requhed infinite management and 2233. He returned to Rome, March, 1233. He was again in Anagni in August ! s Rebellion, reconciliation, 1233. New rebellion, beginning of 1234. *' Quo Fredericus imperator apud sanctum GeiTnanum certa relatione comperto, qui fidele defensionis pre- sidium ecclesia^ Romanaj promiserat, et fidei et majestatisoblitus, Messanam pi'operans, nuUo persequeute decessit, hostibus tanti fovoris auxiiium ex cessione dalurus." — VitGregor. Com- pare Pope's letter (Feb. 3, from Anagni, and Feb. 10). But in fact there was a dangerous insurrection in Messina; the King's Justiciary had been obliged to fly. Frederick had to put down movements also at Syracuse and Nicosia. — Aun. Sicul. Rich. San Germano. ^ The Ckronicon Placentinum haa revealed a renewal of the Lombard League at Bologna, Oct. 26, 1231, an- a secret mission to the Pope, p, 9S. Chap. IV. GREGORY AND THE LOMBARDS. 171 dexterity: the Lombard cities swarmed with heretics, and so far were not the most becoming allies of the Pope.* Yet this alliance might seem an affair, not of policy only, but of safety. Gregory could not disguise to himself that so popular, so powerful a sovereign had never environed the Papal territories on every side. If Frederick (and Frederick's character might seem daring enough for so impious an act) should despise the sacred awe which guarded the person of the Pope, and scorn his excommunications, he was in an instant at the gates of Rome, of fickle and treacherous Eome. He had planted his two colonies of Saracens near the Apulian frontier ; they at least would have no scruple in executing his most irreverent orders. The Pope was at his mercy, and friendless, as far as any strong or immediate check on the ambition or revenge of the Emperor. The Pope in supporting the Lombard republics, assumed the lofty position of the sacred defender of liberty, the asserter of Italian independence, when Italy seemed in danger of lying prostrate under one stern and despotic monarchy, which would extend from the German Ocean to the further shore of Sicily. At first liis endeavours were wisely and becomingly devoted to the maintenance of peace — a peace which, so long as the Emperor refrained from asserting his full imperial rights, so long as the GueLfs ruled undisturbed in those cities in which their interests predominated, the republics were content tc * A modern writer, rather Papal, thus describes the state of Italy at that time: " Alle Kreise iind Stiinde derjenjgen Theils der Nation, den man als den eigentlichen Trager der Intel- ligenz in Italien betrachten miisste, waren geistig frei und machtig genug, entgegen waren, die letzeren mit Fiissen zu treten, nicht bloss einzelne Podestaten, oder das Geld-interesst des gemeinen Volkes, sondern oft alle gebildeten Stadtbewohner wagten es keck den Bannstrahlen des Papstai hohn zu sprechen." — Leo, Geschichte wo ihre Interessen denen der Kirche | der Itaiien, ii. 234. 172 LATIx>r CHRISTIANITY. Book X. observe ; tlie lofty station of the mediator of sucn peace became his sacred function, and gave him great weight with both parties.^ But nearly at the same time an in- Affairsof surrcction of the Pope's Koman subjects, more ^^™®- daring and aggressive than usual, compelled him to seek the succour of Frederick, and Frederick was threatened with a rebellion which the high-minded and religious Pope could not but condemn, though against his fearful adversary. For the third or fourth time the Pope had been com- pelled to retire to Rieti. Under the senator- ship of Luca di Sabelli the senate and people of Eome had advanced new pretensions, wliich tended to revolutionise the whole Papal dominions. They had demolished part of the Lateran palace, razed some of the palaces of the cardinals, proclaimed their open defiance of the Pope's governor, the Cardinal Rainier. They had sent justiciaries into Tuscany and the Sabine country to receive oaths of allegiance to themselves, and to exact tribute. The Pope wrote pressing letters addressed to all the princes and bishops of Christendom, imploring succour in men and money ; there was but one near enough at hand to aid, had all been willing. I'he Pope could not but call on him whose title as Emperor w^as protector of the Church, who as King of Naples was first vassal of the papal see. May 20, 1234. ^ ■'••'• Frederick did not disobey the summons : with his young son Conrad he visited the Pope at Rieti. The Cardinal Rainier had tlu'own liimself with the Pope's forces into Viterbo ; the army of Frederick sat do^vn before Respampano, a strong castle which the ^ See the letter to Frederick, in which he assumes the full power of arbitration between the Emperor and the League. — Monument. Gti-m, iv 299. dated June 5, 1233. Chap. iV. PEACE ^VITH ROME. 173 Romans occupied in the neighbourhood as an annoy- ance, and as a means, it might be, of surprising and taking Viterbo. But Respampano made re- sistance ; Frederick himself retired, alleging important affairs, to his own dominions. The Papalists burst into a cry of reproach at his treacherous abandon- ment of the Pope. Yet it was entirely by the aid of some of his German troops that the Papal army inflicted a humiliating defeat on the Romans, who were compelled to submit to the terms of peace dictated by Apruie, the Pope,™ and enforced by the Emperor, who ^^^^' was again with the Pope at Rieti. Angelo Malebranca, " by the grace of God the illustrious senator of the gentle city" (such were the high-sounding phrases), by the decree and authority of the sacred senate, by the command and instant acclamation of the famous people, assembled in the Capitol at the sound of the bell and of the trumpet, swore to the peace proposed by the tliree cardinals, between the Holy Roman Church, their Father the Supreme Pontiff, and the Senate and people of Rome. He swore to give satisfaction for the demoli- tion of the Lateran palace and those of the cardinals, the invasion of the Papal territories, the exaction of oaths, the occupation of the domains of the Church. He swore that no clerks or ecclesiastical persons belong- ing to the families of the Pope or cardinals should be summoned before the civil tribunals (thus even in Rome there was a strong opposition to those immunities of the clergy from temporal jurisdiction for temporal offences). "° " Milites in civitate Viterbio collocavit, quorum quotidianis insulti- Dus et depredationibus Romani adeo font vexati, ut non multo post cum •'apa pacem subirent." — God. Colon. The author of the life of Gregory says that the Emperor, instead of aiding the Pope, idled his time away in hunting : " Majestatis titulum ia officium venaturae commutans .... in capturam avium soUicitabat aquilaa ti-iumphales." 174 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X. This did not apply to laics who belonged to such, house- holds. He swore to protect all pilgrims, laymen as well as ecclesiastics, who visited the shrines of the Apostles." The peace was re-established likewise with the Emperor and his vassals — with Anagni, Segni, Velletri, Viterbo, and other cities of the Papal territories. But even during this compulsory approximation to the Emperor, the Pope, to remove all suspicion that he might be won to desert their cause, wrote to the Lombards to reassure them. However, he might call upon them not to impede the descent of the Imperial troops from the Alps, those troops were not directed against their liberties, but came to maintain the liberties of the Church. But if the rebels against the Pope were thus his immediate subjects the Romans, the rebel against Frederick was his own son. Henry had been left to rule Germany as king of the Romans ; the causes and indeed the objects of his rebellion are obscure.^ Henry Rebellion of appcars to have been a man of feeble cha- King Henry, ^acter ; SO loug as lic was governed by wise counsellors, filling his liigh office mthout blame ; re- leased from their control, the slave of his own loose passions, and the passive instrument of low and design- ing men. The only impulse to which the rebel son could appeal was the pride of Germany, which would no longer condescend to be governed from Italy, and to " Apud Raynald. ami. 1235. " In the year 1232 Frederick began to entertain suspicions of his son, and to be discontented with liis conduct. Henry (but 20 years old) met his father at Aquileia, promised amend- ment, and to discard his evil coun- sellors. — Hahn. Collect. Monument, i. 222. Frederick might remember the Catal example of the Franoonian house ; the -conduct of Henry V. to Henry IV. The chief burthen of Heniy's vindica- tion, addressed, Sept. 1234, to Bishop Conrad of Hildesheim. is that the Emperor had annulled some of his grants, interfered in behalf of the house of Bavaria (Louis of Bavaria had been guardian of the realiQ duniiij his minority). Chap. IV. REBELLION OF KING HENRY. 175 be a province of the kingdom of Apulia. Unlike some of his predecessors, Pope Gregory took at once the high Christian tone : he would seek no advantage from the unnatural insurrection of a son against his father. All the malicious insinuations against Gregory are put to silence by the fact that, dm-ing their fiercest war of accusation and recrimination, Frederick never charged the Pope with the odious crime of encouraging his son's disobedience. Frederick passed the Alps with letters from the Pope, calling on all the Christian prelates of Germany to assert the authority of the King and of the parent. Henry had held a council of princes ^ at Boppart to raise the standard of revolt, and had entered into treasonable league with Milan and the Lombard cities. The rebellion was as weak as wanton and s^uilty ; Frederick entered Germany with the scantiest attendance ; the affrighted son, abandoned by all his partisans, met him at Worms, and made the humblest submission.'^ Fre- derick renewed his pardon; but probably some new detected intrigues, or the refusal to surrender his castles, or meditated flight,^ induced the Emperor to send his son as a prisoner to the kingdom of Naples. There he remained in such obscurity that his death might have been unnoticed but for a passionate lamen- tation which Frederick himself sent forth, in which he adopted the language of King David on the loss of his ungrateful but beloved Absalom.^ P God. Colon. Chron. Ei-phvud. j ' God. Col. Annal. Erphurdt. apud Boehmer Fontes R. G. | Quotation from Ann. Argentin. in '^ " Ipso mense, nullo obstante, Ale- j Boehmer's Regesta, p. 254. manniam intrans, Henricum regem I * Besides this pathetic letter in filium suum ad mandatum suum ! Peter de VineS,, iv. 1, see the more recepit, quem duci Bavarise custodien- extraordinary one, quoted by Hofler, dum commisit." — Rich. San Gcitq. j addressed to the people of Messina, 176 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X. Worms had beheld the sad scene of the ignominious arrest and imprisonment of the Ktag of the Germans : that event was followed by the splendid nuptials of the Emperor with Isabella of England. But though the Pope was guiltless, we believe he was Lombards guiltlcss, the Louibards were deep in this con- Kta "^Heur'^ spiracy against the power and the peace of rebeuion. Frederick. They, if they had not from the first instigated, had inflamed the ambition of Henry : * they had offered, if he would cross the Alps, to invest liim at Monza with the iron crown of Italy.^ Frederick's long-suppressed impatience of Lombard freedom had now a justifiable cause for vengeance. The Ghibelline cities — Cremona, Parma, Pisa, and others ; the Ghibel- line Princes Eccelin and Alberic, the two sons of the suspected heretic Eccelin II. (who had now descended from his throne, and taken the habit of a monk, though it was rumom-ed that his devotion was that of an austere Paterin rather than that of an ortho- dox recluse) summoned the Emperor to relieve them from the oppressions of the Guelfic league, and to wTeak his just revenge on those aggressive rebels. Frederick's declaration of war was dra^vn with singular subtlety. His chief object, he declared, was the suppression of heresy. The wide prevalence of heresy the Pope could not deny ; to espouse the Lombard cause was to espouse that at least of imputed heresy ; it was May 1, 1236. Aug. 1236. » Galvaneo Fiamma has these words : " Henricus composuit cum Mediola- nensibus ad petitioneni Domini Papae," — c. 264. " Et tunc facta est lega fortis inter Henricum et Mediolanenses ad petitionem Papa^ contra Imperatorem patrem suum." — Annal. Jlediolan., Moratori, xvi. 624. These are Mi- lanese, certainly not Ghibelline writers ! " During this year (1235) Frederick assisted with seemingly deep devotion at the translation to Marburg of the remains of St. Elizabeth of Hungary. 1,200,000 persons are said to have been present. — Montilembert, Vie de St. Elizabeth d'Hongrie. CHAP. IV. LOMBARDS LEAGUED WITH HENKY. 17 "J to oppose the Emperor in the exercise of his highest imperial function, the promotion of the unity of the Church. The Emperor could not leave his own domi- nions in this state of spiritual and civil revolt to wage war in foreign lands: so soon as he had subdued the heretic he was prepared to arm against the Infidel. Lombardy reduced to obedience, there would be no obstacle to the reconquest of the Holy Land. Yet though thus embarrassed, the Pope, in his own defence, could not but interpose his mediation ; he commanded both parties to submit to his supreme arbitration. Frederick yielded, but resolutely limited the time ; if the arbitration was not made before Christmas, he was prepared for war. To the most urgent remonstrances for longer time he turned a deaf and contemptuous ear : he peremptorily challenged the Legate whom the Pope had appointed, the Cardinal Bishop of Pra^neste, and refused to accept as arbiter his declared enemy.^ Fre- derick had already begun the campaign : Verona had opened her gates; he had stormed Yicenza, and laid half the city in ashes. He was re- called beyond the Alps by the sudden insurrection of the Duke of Austria. Gregory so far yielded, that in place of the obnoxious Cardinal of Praeneste, he named as his Legates the Cardinals of Ostia and of IVIavch 12*^7 San Sabina. He commended them wdth higli praise to the Patriarchs of Aquileia and of Grado, to the Archbishops of Genoa and Ravenna, whom, with the suffragans and all the people of Northern Italy, he ex- horted to join in obtaining the blessings of peace. But already he began to murmur his complaints of thoso * Compare ^he letter, apud Kaynald. stib am\. 123b ; more complete in Hofler, p. 357, and 3fiC. YOL. VL ^ 178 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Book X.