He signi

King of France sent a more singular menace. fied his determination, by some right which he asserted to belong to the Church of France, through St. Denys, himself to proceed to the election of a Pope. Frederick became convinced of the necessity of such election; none but a Pope could repeal the excommunication of a Pope. In addresses, which rose above each other in vehemence, he reproached the cardinals for their dissensions. "Sons of Belial! animals without heads! sons of Ephraim who basely turned back in the day of battle! Not Jesus Christ the author of Peace, but Satan the Prince of the North, sits in the midst of their conclave, inflaming their discords, their mutual jealousies. The smallest creatures might read them a salutary lesson; birds fly not without a leader; bees live not without a King. They abandon the bark of the Church to the waves, without a pilot." In the mean time, he used more effective arguments; he advanced on Rome, seized and ravaged the estates, even the churches, belonging to the Cardinals. At length they met at Anagni, and in an evil hour for Frederick the turbulent conclave closed its labours. The choice fell on a cardinal once connected with the interests, and supposed to be attached to the person of Frederick, Sinibald Fiesco, of the Genoese house of LaHe took the name of Innocent IV., an omen and a menace that he would tread in the footsteps of Innocent III. Frederick was congratulated on the accession of his declared partisan; he answered coldly, and in a prophetic spirit: "In the Cardinal I have lost my best friend; in the Pope I shall find my worst enemy. No Pope can be a Ghibelline."

July, 1242.

June, 1243.

vagna.

r Pet. de Vin. xiv. 17.

CHAP. XV.

ACCESSION OF INNOCENT IV.

419

CHAPTER XV.

FREDERICK AND INNOCENT IV.

YET Frederick received the tidings of the accession of Innocent IV. with all outward appearance of joy. He was at Amalfi; he ordered Te Deum to be sung in all the churches: he despatched the highest persons of his realm, the Archbishop of Palermo, the Chancellor Peter de Vineâ, Thaddeus of Suessa, and the Admiral Ansaldo, to bear his congratulations to the Pope. "An

June 26.

ancient friend of the noble sons of the Empire, you are raised into a Father, by whom the Empire may hope that her earnest prayers for peace and justice may be fulfilled."

Innocent could not reject these pacific overtures; he sent as his ambassadors to Frederick at Amalfi, offers of the Archbishop of Rouen, William formerly peace. Bishop of Modena, and the Abbot of St. Facundus. They were to demand first the release of all the captive prelates and ecclesiastics; to inquire what satisfaction the Emperor was disposed to offer for the crimes, on account of which he lay under excommunication; if the Church (this could scarcely be thought) had done him any wrong, she was prepared to redress such wrong; they were to propose a General Council of temporal and spiritual persons, Kings, Princes, and Prelates. All the adherents of the Church were to be included in the peace. Frederick demanded the withdrawal of the Papal Legate, Gregory di Monte Longo, from Lombardy; he demanded the release of Salinguerra, the Lord of Ferrara; he complained that honour was shown to the Archbishop of Mentz, who was under the ban of the Empire (he had been appointed Papal Legate in Germany); that the Pope took no steps to sup- Aug. 26. press heresy among the Lombards; that the Imperial ambassadors were not admitted to the presence of the

Pope. It was answered by Innocent, that the Pope had full right to send his Legates into every part of Christendom; Salinguerra was the prisoner of the Venetians, not of the Pope; the Archbishop of Mentz was a prelate of the highest character, one whom the Pope delighted to honour; the war waged by the Emperor prevented the Church from extirpating the Lombard heretics; it was not the usage of Rome to admit persons under excommunication to the holy presence of the Pope.

Frederick's power.

Frederick might seem now at the summit of his power and glory; his fame was untarnished by any humiliating discomfiture; Italy unable to cope with his victorious armies: the Milanese had suffered a severe check in the territory of Pavia: King Enzio had displayed his great military talents with success: the Papal territories were either in his occupation, or with Rome itself was seemingly capable of no vigorous resistance: his hereditary dominions were attached to him by affection, the Empire by respect and awe. He might think that he had full right to demand, full power to enforce, in the first place, the repeal of his excommunication. But the star of the Hohenstaufen had reached its height; it began to decline, to darken; its fall was almost as rapid and precipitate as its rise had been slow and stately.

The first inauspicious sign was the defection of Viterbo. Defection of The Cardinal Rainier, at the head of the Guelfic Viterbo. party, drove Frederick's garrison into the citadel, destroyed the houses of the Ghibellines, and gathered all the troops which he could to defend the city. Frederick was so enraged at this revolt, that he declared, if he had one foot in Paradise, he would turn back to avenge himself on the treacherous Viterbans. He immediately, unwarned by perpetual failures, formed the siege. The defence was stubborn, obstinate, successful; his engines were burned, he was compelled to retire, stipulating only for the safe retreat of his garrison from the citadel. Notwithstanding the efforts of Cardinal Otho of Palestrina, who had guaranteed the treaty, the garrison was assailed, plundered, massacred. To the re

Sept. 9 to

Nov. 13.

"Von Raumer, iv. 67.

CHAP. XV.

INNOCENT IV. IN ROME.

421

monstrance of Frederick, the Pope, who was still under a kind of truce with the Emperor, coldly answered, that he ought not to be surprised if a city returned to its allegiance to its rightful Lord. The fatal example of the revolt of Viterbo spread in many quarters: the Marquises of Montferrat and Malespina, the cities of Vercelli and Alexandria deserted the Imperial party. Even Adelasia, the wife of King Enzio, sought to be reconciled with the Holy See. Innocent himself ventured to leave Anagni, and to enter Rome; the Imperialists were awed at his presence; his reception, as usual, especially with newly crowned Popes, was tumultuously joyful. The only sullen murmurs, which soon after almost broke out into open discontent, were among the wealthy, it was said mostly the Jews, who demanded the payment of 40,000 marks, borrowed in his distress by Gregory IX. Innocent had authority enough to wrest from the Frangipanis half of the Colosseum, and parts of the adjacent palace, where they no doubt hoped to raise a strong fortress in the Imperial interest.

Nov. 15.

March 31,

The Emperor again inclined to peace, at least to negotiations for peace. The Count of Toulouse, the Treaty. Chancellor Peter de Vineâ, and Thaddeus of 1244. Suessa, appeared in Rome with full powers to conclude, and even to swear and guarantee the fulfilment of a treaty. The terms were hard and humiliating; the Emperor was to restore all the lands possessed by the Pope and the Pope's adherents at the time of the excommunication; the Emperor was to proclaim to all the sovereigns of Christendom that he had not scorned the Papal censure out of contempt for the Pope's predecessor, or the rights of the Church; but, by the advice of the prelates and nobles of Germany and Italy, treated it as not uttered, since it had not been formally served upon him; he owned his error on this point, and acknowledged the plenitude of the Papal authority in spiritual matters. For this offence he was to make such compensation in men or money as the Pope might require; offer such alms and observe such fasts as the Pope should appoint; and respect the excommunication until absolved by the Pope's command.

He was to release all the captive Prelates, and compensate. them for their losses. These losses and all other damages were to be left to the estimation of three Cardinals. Full amnesty was to be granted, the imperial ban revoked against all who had adhered to the Church since the excommunication. This was to be applied, as far as such offences, to all who were in a state of rebellion against the Emperor. The differences between the Emperor and his revolted subjects were to be settled by the Pope and the College of Cardinals within a limited time to be fixed by the Pope. But there was a saving clause, which appeared to extend over the whole treaty, of the full undiminished rights of the Empire. The Emperor was to be released from the excommunication by a public decree of the Church. To these and the other articles the imperial ambassadors swore in the presence of the Emperor Baldwin of Constantinople, the Cardinals, the Senators, and people of Rome. The Emperor did not disclaim the terms proposed by his ambassadors; but in the treaty there were some fatal flaws, which parties each so mistrustful, and justly mistrustful, of the other, could not but discern, and which rendered the fulfilment of the treaty almost impossible. Was the Emperor to abandon all his advantages, to release all his prisoners (one of the stipulations), surrender all the fortresses he held in the Papal dominions, grant amnesty to all rebels, fulfil in short all these hard conditions at once, and so leave himself at the mercy of the Pope: then and not till then, not till the Pope had exacted the scrupulous discharge of every article, was he to receive his tardy absolution? Nor was the affair of the Lombards clearly defined. Innocent (perhaps the Emperor knew this) had from the first declared that he would not abandon their cause. Was the Emperor to be humiliated before the Lombards as he had been before the Pope, first to make every concession, with the remote hope of regaining his imperial rights by the

March 31, 1244.

"Jurabit præcise stare mandatis domini Papæ salva tamen sint ei honores et jura quoad conservationem integram sine aliqua diminutione Imperii et honorum suorum."-If these unde

fined rights were to be respected, the Pope's decisions concerning the Lombards were still liable to be called in question.