DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.15265#0052
Frederick countered the excommunication with a number of important manifestos,
most of them composed by Pietro della Vigna, a member of the imperial Chancery, who
had outstanding literary gifts. The manifesto emphasized that the cardinals were meant
to participate in the leadership of the church, and Frederick even tried to evoke solidari-
ty among the secular princes. He also, however, intensified his military activities in nort-
hern Italy. In order to finance his constantly growing need for arms, he instituted a
thorough administrative reOrganization of imperial Italy (among others, the formation of
ten vice regendes) and of the Kingdom of Sicily. In addition, he decreed the rigorous sur-
veillance of the population. In central Italy he took the offensive, occupying the March of
Ancona and the Duchy of Spoleto, and in February 1240 his army marched into the Papal
States and threatened Rome. At the last moment, however, the Pope won the support of
the Romans.
Following the defeat of a Genoese fleet bringing delegates for a papal Council to
Rome, more than 100 highranking ecclesiastics - cardinals and bishops among them -
were taken as Frederick's prisoners to Apulia. This military victory proved, however, to
be a political disadvantage: it provided material for propaganda depicting Frederick as
an oppressor of the church.
While still encamped before Rome, Frederick received the news of Pope Gregory's
death and thereupon withdrew to Sicily. In the meantime, the Mongols had invaded Eu-
rope. They were temporarily halted in the extremely bloody Battie of Liegnitz in Silesia
on April 9, 1241, but probably only the sudden death of their leader Genghis Khan pre-
vented further Mongol advances at that time.
Celestine IV's brief pontificate was followed by a long Interregnum. When in 1243 In-
nocent IV was elected, Frederick, at the urging of the German princes and of king Louis
IX of France, opened negotiations with the new pope. Agreement between the Pope and
the Emperor seemed close on the evacuation of the Papal States, when in June 1244 Inno-
cent fled the city. In Lyons he convened a Council for 1245, and in July of that year depo-
sed the Emperor, the obstacle to reconciliation apparently being the Status of the Lom-
bard communes.
The battle between the Emperor and the papacy then raged in füll fury; on the papal
side the Emperor was branded as the precursor of the anti-Christ; on the imperial side he
was hailed as a messiah. The Emperor supported the contemporary demand that the
church return to the poverty and saintliness of the early Christian Community and again
appealed to the princes of Europe to join in a defensive league against the power-hungry
prelates. Most of the princes, however, remained neutral, and, although two successive
German antikings received little support, the Emperor steadily lost ground in Germany.
In May 1247, Frederick's planned journey to Lyons in order to plead his own case be-
fore the papal Council was interrupted by the revolt of the strategically placed city of Par-
ma. In the wake of this debacle much of central Italy and the Romagna was lost. The fol-
lowing year the Emperor was to suffer further blows of fate; Pietro della Vigna, for many
years the Emperor's confidant, was accused of treason and committed suicide in prison.
In May 1249 king Enzio of Sardinia, Frederick's favourite son, was captured by the Bolo-
gnese and was kept incarcerated until his death in 1272.
The Emperor's position, both in Italy and - through the efforts of his son, Conrad IV -
in Germany, w as improving when he died unexpectedly on December 13,1250, in Castel
Fiorentino in Apulia. He was buried in the cathedral of Palermo near his first wife, his
parents, and his Norman grandfather.
94
When the news of his death was published, all Europe was deeply shaken. Doubts
arose that he was really dead; false Fredericks appeared everywhere; in Sicily a legend
grew that he had been conveyed to the Aetna volcano; in Germany that he was encapsu-
led in a mountain and would return as the latter-day emperor to punish the worldly
church and peacefully re-establish the Holy Roman Empire. Yet he was also thought to
live on in his heirs. In fact, however, within 22 years after his death, all of them were
dead: victims of the battle with the papacy that their father had begun.
Frederick's character was marked by sharp contradictions, undoubtedly the result of
his insecure and emotionally barren childhood. Enchanting amiability and gaiety were
paired with cruelty; harshness and rigidity existed side by side with superior intelligence
and a keen sense of reality; tolerance and intolerance went hand in hand; impulsive sen-
suality did not stand in the way of genuine piety, imbalance and inner discord pervaded
his personality and his achievements.
Frederick cannot be considered the first modern man on the throne, nor a pioneer of
the Renaissance, as some historians have maintained. Though his gifted personality
heralded some of the intellectual trends of later times, he was, all in all, a man of the
Middle Ages. He had indeed had the good fortune to have grown up in Sicily in a mixed
culture that uniquely combined elements of antiquity, Arabic and Jewish wisdom, the
Occidental spirit of the Middle Ages, and Norman realism. The intellectual life of his
court reflected this heritage. A courtly ,republic of scholars', it nurtured and fostered the
natural sciences as well as philosophy, poetry, and mathematics, and translations as well
as original writing, both in Latin and in the vernacular. The pursuit of knowledge with-
out special respect for traditional authorities was characteristic of Frederick and his court.
Witness to the intellectual vigour and distinction of Frederick himself and those
around him are the content and style of his great legal Codices and manifestos, many of
them serving as examples to later generations; the edifices he erected, particularly the
classic style of the Castello del Monte - a fusion of poetry and mathematics in stone, and,
most outstanding, his own work De arte venandi cum avibus, a Standard work on falconry
based entirely on his own experimental research.
Frederick's concept of the emperor's function was rooted in the ideology of the late
Greco-Roman period and the Judeo-Christian philosophy of the Middle Ages, emphasi-
zing the sacredness and universal character of the office. In the light of it, Frederick clai-
med pre-eminence for the emperor over all other secular rulers - undoubtedly an ill-ti-
med claim in an age when separate nation-states were developing. Thus, Frederick's po-
licies, füll of intellectual and political promise, were in actuality dogged by tragedy.
Erstveröffentlichung in: Enzyclopedia Britannica, 121974, Sp. 699 - 707.
95
most of them composed by Pietro della Vigna, a member of the imperial Chancery, who
had outstanding literary gifts. The manifesto emphasized that the cardinals were meant
to participate in the leadership of the church, and Frederick even tried to evoke solidari-
ty among the secular princes. He also, however, intensified his military activities in nort-
hern Italy. In order to finance his constantly growing need for arms, he instituted a
thorough administrative reOrganization of imperial Italy (among others, the formation of
ten vice regendes) and of the Kingdom of Sicily. In addition, he decreed the rigorous sur-
veillance of the population. In central Italy he took the offensive, occupying the March of
Ancona and the Duchy of Spoleto, and in February 1240 his army marched into the Papal
States and threatened Rome. At the last moment, however, the Pope won the support of
the Romans.
Following the defeat of a Genoese fleet bringing delegates for a papal Council to
Rome, more than 100 highranking ecclesiastics - cardinals and bishops among them -
were taken as Frederick's prisoners to Apulia. This military victory proved, however, to
be a political disadvantage: it provided material for propaganda depicting Frederick as
an oppressor of the church.
While still encamped before Rome, Frederick received the news of Pope Gregory's
death and thereupon withdrew to Sicily. In the meantime, the Mongols had invaded Eu-
rope. They were temporarily halted in the extremely bloody Battie of Liegnitz in Silesia
on April 9, 1241, but probably only the sudden death of their leader Genghis Khan pre-
vented further Mongol advances at that time.
Celestine IV's brief pontificate was followed by a long Interregnum. When in 1243 In-
nocent IV was elected, Frederick, at the urging of the German princes and of king Louis
IX of France, opened negotiations with the new pope. Agreement between the Pope and
the Emperor seemed close on the evacuation of the Papal States, when in June 1244 Inno-
cent fled the city. In Lyons he convened a Council for 1245, and in July of that year depo-
sed the Emperor, the obstacle to reconciliation apparently being the Status of the Lom-
bard communes.
The battle between the Emperor and the papacy then raged in füll fury; on the papal
side the Emperor was branded as the precursor of the anti-Christ; on the imperial side he
was hailed as a messiah. The Emperor supported the contemporary demand that the
church return to the poverty and saintliness of the early Christian Community and again
appealed to the princes of Europe to join in a defensive league against the power-hungry
prelates. Most of the princes, however, remained neutral, and, although two successive
German antikings received little support, the Emperor steadily lost ground in Germany.
In May 1247, Frederick's planned journey to Lyons in order to plead his own case be-
fore the papal Council was interrupted by the revolt of the strategically placed city of Par-
ma. In the wake of this debacle much of central Italy and the Romagna was lost. The fol-
lowing year the Emperor was to suffer further blows of fate; Pietro della Vigna, for many
years the Emperor's confidant, was accused of treason and committed suicide in prison.
In May 1249 king Enzio of Sardinia, Frederick's favourite son, was captured by the Bolo-
gnese and was kept incarcerated until his death in 1272.
The Emperor's position, both in Italy and - through the efforts of his son, Conrad IV -
in Germany, w as improving when he died unexpectedly on December 13,1250, in Castel
Fiorentino in Apulia. He was buried in the cathedral of Palermo near his first wife, his
parents, and his Norman grandfather.
94
When the news of his death was published, all Europe was deeply shaken. Doubts
arose that he was really dead; false Fredericks appeared everywhere; in Sicily a legend
grew that he had been conveyed to the Aetna volcano; in Germany that he was encapsu-
led in a mountain and would return as the latter-day emperor to punish the worldly
church and peacefully re-establish the Holy Roman Empire. Yet he was also thought to
live on in his heirs. In fact, however, within 22 years after his death, all of them were
dead: victims of the battle with the papacy that their father had begun.
Frederick's character was marked by sharp contradictions, undoubtedly the result of
his insecure and emotionally barren childhood. Enchanting amiability and gaiety were
paired with cruelty; harshness and rigidity existed side by side with superior intelligence
and a keen sense of reality; tolerance and intolerance went hand in hand; impulsive sen-
suality did not stand in the way of genuine piety, imbalance and inner discord pervaded
his personality and his achievements.
Frederick cannot be considered the first modern man on the throne, nor a pioneer of
the Renaissance, as some historians have maintained. Though his gifted personality
heralded some of the intellectual trends of later times, he was, all in all, a man of the
Middle Ages. He had indeed had the good fortune to have grown up in Sicily in a mixed
culture that uniquely combined elements of antiquity, Arabic and Jewish wisdom, the
Occidental spirit of the Middle Ages, and Norman realism. The intellectual life of his
court reflected this heritage. A courtly ,republic of scholars', it nurtured and fostered the
natural sciences as well as philosophy, poetry, and mathematics, and translations as well
as original writing, both in Latin and in the vernacular. The pursuit of knowledge with-
out special respect for traditional authorities was characteristic of Frederick and his court.
Witness to the intellectual vigour and distinction of Frederick himself and those
around him are the content and style of his great legal Codices and manifestos, many of
them serving as examples to later generations; the edifices he erected, particularly the
classic style of the Castello del Monte - a fusion of poetry and mathematics in stone, and,
most outstanding, his own work De arte venandi cum avibus, a Standard work on falconry
based entirely on his own experimental research.
Frederick's concept of the emperor's function was rooted in the ideology of the late
Greco-Roman period and the Judeo-Christian philosophy of the Middle Ages, emphasi-
zing the sacredness and universal character of the office. In the light of it, Frederick clai-
med pre-eminence for the emperor over all other secular rulers - undoubtedly an ill-ti-
med claim in an age when separate nation-states were developing. Thus, Frederick's po-
licies, füll of intellectual and political promise, were in actuality dogged by tragedy.
Erstveröffentlichung in: Enzyclopedia Britannica, 121974, Sp. 699 - 707.
95