BOOK IX. PART II. Honorius III. A.D. 1216 to 1227. CHAPTER XI. HONORIUS III. FREDERICK II. THE Pontificate of Honorius III. is a kind of Oasis of repose, between the more eventful rule of Innocent III. and of Gregory IX. Honorius was a Roman 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 antagonist, who had as yet come into collision with the spiritual supremacy. During nearly eleven years the combatants seem girding themselves for the contest. At first mutual respect or common interests maintain even more than the outward appearance of amity; then arise jealousy, estrangement, doubtful peace, but not declared war. 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 that of premature enlightenment and lingering superstition; of chivalrous adventure and courtly elegance, of stern cruelty and generous liberality, of restless and all-stirring, all-embracing activity, which kept Germany, Italy, even the East, in one uninterrupted war with his implacable enemies the Popes, and with the Lombard Republics, while he is constantly betraying his CHAP. XI. HONORIUS III. 285 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 Gregory 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; but rather from natural gentleness of character bordering on Mildness of timidity. He has neither energy of mind to take Honorius. the loftier line, nor to resist the high churchmen, who are urging him towards it; his was a temporising 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 influence rather than anathema; nevertheless, to make no surrender of the overweening pretensions of his function, 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 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 cardinal 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 * “Cum esset corpore infirmus, et ultra modum debilis.”—Raynald. sub ann. * Honorius urges the Crusade. Dec. 5, 1216. 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; at length 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 the primary object of his ten years' Pontificate; this, which however it had to encounter the coldness, the torpor, the worn-out sympathies of Christendom, clashed with no jealous or hostile feeling. However severe the rebuke, it was rebuke of which Christendom acknowledged the justice; all men honoured the Pope for his zeal in sounding the trumpet with the fiercest energy, even though they did not answer to the call. The more the enthusiasm of Christendom cooled down into indifference, the more ardent and pressing the exhortation of the Popes. The first act of Honorius was a circular address to Christendom, full of rebuke, expostulation, entreaty to contribute either in person or in money to the new campaign. The only King who obeyed Crusade of the summons was Andrew of Hungary. Some Hungary. German princes and prelates met the Hungarian at Spalatro: the Dukes of Austria and Meran, the ArchBishop of Salzburg, the Bishops of Bamberg, Zeitz, Munster, and Utrecht. But notwithstanding the interdict of the Patriarch of Jerusalem, 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 Hungary. His trophies were reliques, the heads of St. Stephen and St. Margaret, the hands of St. Bartholomew and St. Thomas, a slip of the rod of Aaron, one of the water-pots of the Marriage of Cana. The expedition from the Holy Land against Damietta, the flight of Sultan Kameel from that city, its occupation by the Christians, raised the most exulting hopes. The proposal of the Sultan to yield up Jerusalem was rejected with But the fatal reverses, which showed the danger b This was the Crusade joined by S. Francis.-See Ch. X. Andrew of A.D. 1219. scorn. CHAP. XI. FREDERICK II. 287 Frederick II. of accepting a Legate (the Legate 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 years of age won, by his own gallant daring, the Transalpine throne of his ancestors; in his grateful devotion to the Pope, who, in hatred to Otho, had maintained 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 refractory or resistant to be reduced to allegiance. The death of Otho, in the castle of Wurtzburg, near Goslar, had been a signal example of the power of religious 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 he would give full satisfaction to the Church, 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 Rome, as a pledge that he would embark on a Crusade: "the devil had still thwarted his holy vow." |