April 26.

almost compelling a war of extermination; for if treaties with a conqueror were thus to be cast aside, what opening remained for mercy? In a long and solemn address, he called on the bishops, barons, cities, people of the kingdom of Naples and Sicily to throw off the yoke under which they had so long groaned of the tyrant Frederick. Two Cardinals, Rainier Capoccio and Stephen di Romanis, had full powers to raise troops, and to pursue any hostile measures against the King. The Crusade was publicly preached throughout Italy against the enemy of the Church. The Emperor on his side levied a third from the clergy to relieve them from the tyranny of the Pope. He issued inflexible orders that every clerk or religious person who, in obedience to the command of the Pope or his Legate, should cease to celebrate mass or any other religious function, should be expelled at once from his place and from his city, and despoiled of all his goods, whether his own or those of the Church. He promised his protection and many advantages to all who should adhere to his party; he declared that he would make no peace with the Pope till all those ecclesiastics who might be deposed for his cause should be put in full possession of their orders, their rank, and their benefices. The Mendicant Friars, as they would keep no terms of peace with Frederick, could expect no terms from him; they were seized and driven beyond the borders. The summons of the Pope to the barons of the realm of Sicily to revolt found some few hearers. A dark conspiracy was formed in which were engaged Pandolph of Fasanella, Frederick's vicar in Tuscany, Jacob Morra of the family of the great justiciary, Andrew of Ayala, the Counts San Severino, Theobald Francisco, and other Apulian barons. It was a conspiracy not only against the realm, but against the life of Frederick. On its detection Pandolph of Fasanella and De Morra, the leaders of the plot, fled to and were released by the Pope's Legate. The Cardinal Rainier, Theobald and San Severino seized the castles of Capoccio and of Scala, and stood on their defence. The loyal subjects of Frederick instantly reduced Scala; Capoccio with the

X Raynald. sub ann.

y Peter de Vin. i. 4.

CHAP. XV.

MUTUAL ACCUSATIONS.

July 18.

439

rebels fell soon after. Frederick arraigned the Pope before the world, he declared on the full and voluntary confession of the rebels, as having given his direct sanction not only to the revolt, but to the murder of the Emperor." "This they had acknowledged in confession, this in public on the scaffold. They had received the cross from the hands of some Mendicant Friars; they were acting under the express authority of the See of Rome. Frederick at first proposed to parade the chief criminals with the Papal bull upon their foreheads through all the realms of Christendom as an awful example and a solemn rebuke of the murtherous Pope; he found it more prudent to proceed to immediate execution, an execution with all the horrible cruelty of the times; their eyes were struck out, their hands hewn off, their noses slit, they were then broken on the wheel. The Pope denied in strong terms the charge of meditated assassination; on the other hand, he declared to Christendom that three distinct attempts had been designed against his life, in all which Frederick was the acknowledged accomplice. On both sides probably these accusations were groundless. On one part, no doubt, fanatic Guelfs might think themselves called upon even by the bull of excommunication, which was an act of outlawry, to deliver the Church, the Pope, and the world from a monster of perfidy and iniquity such as Frederick was described in the manifestoes of the Pope. Fanatic Ghibellines might in like manner think that they were doing good service, and would, meet ample even if secret reward, should they relieve the Emperor from his deadly foe. They might draw a strong distinction between the rebellious subject of the Empire, and the sacred head of Christendom.

The Pope pledged himself solemnly to all who would revolt from Frederick never to abandon them to his wrath,

never on any terms to make peace with the perfidious tyrant; "no feigned penitence, no simulated humility shall so deceive us, as that when he is cast down from the height of his imperial and royal dignity he should be restored to his throne. His sentence is absolutely irrevocable! his reprobation is the voice of God by his Church he is condemned and for ever! His viper progeny are included under this eternal immitigable proscription. Whoever then loves justice should rejoice that vengeance is thus declared against the common enemy, and wash his hands in the blood of the transgressor. So wrote the Vicar of

Christ! c

A.D. 1246.

Frederick took measures to relieve himself from the odious imputation of heresy. The Archbishop of Palermo, the Bishop of Pavia, the Abbots of Monte Casino, Cava, and Casanova, the Friar Preachers Roland and Nicolas, men of high repute, appeared before the Pope at Lyons, and declared themselves ready to attest on oath the orthodox belief of the Emperor. Innocent sternly answered, that they deserved punishment for holding conference with an excommunicated person, still severer penalty for treating him as Emperor. They rejoined in humility, "receive us then as only representing a Christian."

May 23, 1246.

The Pope was compelled to appoint a commission of three cardinals. These not only avouched the report of the ambassadors, but averred the Emperor prepared to assert his orthodoxy in the presence of the Pope. Innocent extricated himself with address: he declared the whole proceeding, as unauthorised by himself, hasty, and presumptuous: "If he shall appear unarmed and with but few attendants before us, we will hear him, if it be according to law, according to law." Even the religious Louis of France could not move the rigid Pope. In his own crusading enthusiasm, as strong as that of his ancestors in the days of Urban, Louis urged the Pope to make peace with the Emperor, that the united forces of Christendom might make head in Europe and in Palestine against the

Apud Höfler, p. 383.

sicut de jure fuerit audiamus."—Apud

d "Ipsum super hoc, si de jure, et Raynald. 1246.

CHAP. XV. THE POPE ATTEMPTS TO RAISE GERMANY.

441

unbelieving enemies of the Cross. He had a long and secret interview with the Pope in the monastery of Clugny. Innocent declared that he could have no dealings with the perfidious Frederick. Louis retired, disgusted at finding such merciless inflexibility in the Vicar of Christ. But not yet had the spell of the great magician begun to work. The conspiracy in the kingdom of Sicily was crushed; Frederick did not think it wise to invade the territories of Rome, where the Cardinal Rainier kept up an active partisan war. But even Viterbo yielded; the Guelfs were compelled to submit by the people clamouring for bread. Prince Theodore of Antioch entered Florence in triumph. The Milanese had suffered discomfiture; Venice had become more amicable. Innocent had not been wanting in attempts to raise up a rival sovereign in Germany to supplant the deposed Emperor. All the greater princes coldly, almost contemptuously, refused to become the instruments of the Papal vengeance: they resented the presumption of the Pope in dethroning an Emperor of Germany.

The Papal Legate, Philip Bishop of Ferrara, in less troubled times would hardly have wrought powerfully on the minds of Churchmen. He was born of poor parents in Pistoia, and raised himself by extraordinary vigour and versatility of mind. He was a dark, melancholy, utterly unscrupulous man, of stern and cruel temper; a great drinker;' even during his orisons he had strong wine standing in cold water by his side. His gloomy temperament may have needed this excitement. the strength of the Papal cause was Albert von Beham." Up to the accession of Innocent IV., if not to the Council of Lyons, the Archbishops of Saltzburg, the Bishops of Freisingen and Ratisbon and Passau, had been the most loyal subjects of Frederick. They had counteracted all

e Matt. Paris, 1246.

"Multas crudelitates exercuit. Melancholicus, et tristis et furiosus, et filius Belial. Magnus potator."-Salimbeni, a Papal writer quoted by Von Raumer, p. 212.

Höfler affirms that because Albert von Beham, in one of his furious letters to Otho, calls Frederick the parricide,

But

the murderer of Otho's father, that it is a striking proof that Frederick was guilty of that murder.-p. 118. The letter is a remarkable one. Höfler's is one of those melancholy books, showing how undying is religious hatred. Innocent himself might be satisfied with the rancour of his apologist, and his merciless antipathy to Frederick.

the schemes of Albert von Beham, driven him, amid the universal execration for his insolence in excommunicating the highest prelates, and rapacity in his measureless extortions, from Southern Germany. We have heard him bitterly lamenting his poverty. Otho of Bavaria, who when once he embraced the cause of the Hohenstaufen adhered to it with honourable fidelity, had convicted him of gross bribery, and hunted him out of his dominions. Albert now appeared again in all his former activity. He had been ordained priest by the Cardinal Albano; he was nominated Dean of Passau; but the insatiable Albert knew his own value, or rather the price at which the Pope and his cardinals calculated his services: he insisted on receiving back all his other preferments. The Pope and the Cardinals held it as a point of honour to maintain their useful emissary.h

Sept. 1241.

Already before the elevation of Innocent, at a meeting at Budweis, a league of Austria, Bohemia, and Bavaria, had proposed the nomination of a new Emperor. Eric King of Denmark had refused it for his son, in words of singular force and dignity. At Budweis Wenceslaus of Bohemia had fallen off to the interests of the Emperor: there were fears among the Papalists, fears speedily realised, of the Imperialism of Otho of Bavaria. A most audacious vision of Poppo, the Provost of Munster, had not succeeded in appalling Otho into fidelity to the Pope. The Queen of Heaven and the Twelve Apostles sent down from Heaven ivory statues of themselves, which contained oracles confirming all the acts of Albert; writings were shown with the Apostolic seals, containing the celestial decree. Albert had threatened, that if the electors refused, the Pope would name a French or Lombard King or Patrician, without regard to the Germans. The meeting at Budweis so far had failed; but a

He complains that they prevented him from collecting 300 marks of silver, which otherwise he might have obtained. Höfler cannot deny the venality of Albert von Beham, but makes a long apology, absolutely startling in a respectable writer of our own day. The new letters of Albert seem to me more fatal to his

character than the partial extracts in Aventinus.

i “Quorum decreta cum divinæ mentis decretis examussim conspirantia, ambobus cælestis senatus-consulti in eburneis descripta sigillis, inspiciendi copiam factam." The sense is not quite clear; I doubt my own rendering.