CHAP. XV. FREDERICK'S RELIGION. 453 is accused of studying the influence of the stars, but it may have been astrology aspiring (under Arabic teaching) to astronomy, rather than astronomy grovelling down to astrology. That which most revolted his own age, his liberality towards the Mohammedans, his intercourse by negotiation, and in the Holy Land, with the Sultan and his viziers, and with his own enlightened Saracen subjects, as well as his terrible body-guard at Nocera, will find a fairer construction in modern times. How much Europe had then to learn from Arabian letters, arts and sciences; how much of her own wisdom to receive back through those channels, appeared during the present and the succeeding centuries. Frederick's, in my judgement, was neither scornful and godless infidelity, nor certainly a more advanced and enlightened Christianity, yearning after holiness and purity not then attainable. It was the shattered, dubious, at times trembling faith, at times desperately reckless incredulity, of a man for ever under the burthen of an undeserved excommunication, of which he could not but discern the injustice, but could not quite shake off the terrors: of a man, whom a better age of Christianity might not have made religious; whom his own made irreligious. Perhaps the strongest argument in favour of Frederick, is the generous love which he inspired to many of the noblest minds of his time; not merely such bold and eloquent legists as Thaddeus of Suessa, whose pride and conscious power might conspire with his zeal for the Imperial cause, to make him confront so intrepidly, so eloquently, the Council at Lyons; it was the first bold encounter of the Roman lawyer with the host of Canon lawyers. Nor was it merely Peter de Vineâ, whose melancholy fate revenged itself for its injustice, if he ever discovered its injustice, on the stricken and desolate heart of the King: but of men, like Herman of Salza, the Grand Master of the Teutonic Order. Herman was, by all accounts, one of the most blameless, the noblest, the most experienced, most religious of men. If his Teutonic Order owed the foundation of its greatness, with lavish grants and immunities, to Frederick, it owed its no less valuable religious existence, its privileges, its support against the hostile clergy, to the Popes. Honorius and Gregory vied with the Emperor in heaping honours on De Salza and his Order. Yet throughout his first conflict, De Salza is the firm, unswerving friend of Frederick. He follows his excommunicated master to the Holy Land, adheres to his person in good report and evil report; death alone separates the friends. The Archbishop of Palermo (against whom is no breath of calumny) is no less, to the close of Frederick's life, his tried and inseparable friend; he never seems to have denied him, though excommunicate, the offices of religion; buried him, though yet unabsolved, in his cathedral; inscribed on his tomb an epitaph, which, if no favourable proof of the Archbishop's poetic powers, is the lasting tribute of his fervent, faithful admiration. Pope Inno On the other hand, Innocent IV. not only carried the Papal claims to the utmost, and asserted them cent IV. with a kind of ostentatious intrepidity: "We are no mere man, we have the place of God upon earth!" but there was a personal arrogance in his demeanour, and an implacability which revolted even the most awe-struck worshippers of the Papal power. Towards Frederick he showed, blended with the haughtiness of the Pope, the fierceness of a Guelfic partisan; he hated him with something of the personal hatred of a chief of the opposite faction in one of the Italian republics. Never was the rapacity of the Roman See so insatiate as under Innocent IV.; the taxes levied in England alone, her most profitable spiritual estate, amounted to incredible sums. Never was aggression so open or so daring on the rights and exemptions of the clergy (during the greater part of the strife the support of the two new Orders enabled the Pope to trample on the clergy, and to compel them to submit to extortionate contributions towards his wars): never was the spiritual character so entirely merged in the temporal as among his Legates. They were no longer the austere and pious, if haughty churchmen. Cardinal Rainier commanded the Papal forces in the states of St. Peter with something of the ability and all the ferocity and mer b In Voigt, Geschichte Preussens, is of Herman of Salza, and the rise of the a very elaborate and interesting account Teutonic Order. CHAP. XV. PAPAL LEGATES. 455 cilessness of a later Captain of Condottieri; Albert von Beham, the Archdeacon of Passau, had not merely been detected, as we have seen, in fraudulent malversation and shamefully expelled from Bavaria, but when he appeared again as Dean of Passau, his own despatches, which describe his negotiations with the Duke of Bavaria, show a repulsive depth of arrogant iniquity. The incitement of Conrad to rebellion against his father seems to him but an ordinary proceeding. The Bishop of Ferrara, the Legate in Germany, was a drunkard, if not worse. Gregory of Monte Longo, during the whole period Papal representative in Lombardy, the conductor of all the negotiations with the republics, the republics which swarmed with heretics, was a man of notorious incontinence; Frederick himself had hardly more concubines than the Cardinal Legate. the death of Immediately on the death of Frederick, the Pope began to announce his intention of returning to Italy. The Pope after Peter Capoccio was ordered to ascertain the state Frederick. of feeling in the kingdom of Sicily. The Pope himself raised a song of triumph, addressed to all the prelates and all the nobles of the realm: "Earth and heaven were to break out into joy at this great deliverance." But the greater number of both orders seem to have been insensible to the blessing; they were mourning over the grave of him whom the Pope described as the hammer of persecution. The aged Archbishop of Palermo and the Archbishop of Salerno openly espoused the cause of Conrad; the Archbishop of Bari, Frederick's deadly enemy, seemed to stand alone in the Papal interest. Strangers, the Subdeacon Matthew, and a Dominican friar, were sent into Calabria and Sicily to stir up the clergy to a sense of their wrongs. In Germany Conrad was arraigned as a rebellious usurper for presuming to offer resistance to William of Holland. He was again solemnly excommunicated; a crusade was preached against him. The Pope even endeavoured to estrange the Swabians from their liege lord: "Herod is dead; Archelaus aspires to reign in his stead." In an attempt to murder Conrad at Ratisbon, the Abbot Ulric is supposed to have been the chief actor; the Dec. 25, 1250. Bishop of Ratisbon was awaiting without the walls the glad tidings of the accomplishment of the assassination." The Archbishop of Mentz, Christian, a prelate of great piety, broaches the unpalatable doctrine that, as far as spiritual enemies, the word of God is the only lawful sword; but as for drawing the sword of steel, he held it unbefitting his priestly character. He is deposed for these strange opinions. A youth, the Subdeacon Gerard, is placed on the Primate's throne of Germany. honour to Monarchs, however, seemed to vie in giving honour to The kings do the triumphant Pontiff on his proposed return to Innocent IV. Rome. The Queen-mother Blanche of France (Louis IX., her son, was now prisoner in the East) offered to accompany him with a strong body of French troops. Henry of England expressed his earnest desire to prostrate himself at the feet of the Holy Father before he departed for the south. Alphonso of Castile entreated him to trust to the arms, fleets, and protection of Spain rather than of France. Before he bade farewell to the city of Lyons, whose pious hospitality he rewarded with high praise and some valuable privileges,' he had an interview within the city with his own Emperor William of Holland. After that he descended the Rhone to Vienne, to Orange, and then proceeded to Marseilles. He arrived at Genoa; the city hailed her holy son with the utmost honours. The knights and nobles of the territory supported a silken canopy over his head to protect him from the sun. On Ascension-day he received the delegates from the cities of Lombardy. Ghibellinism held down its awe-struck and discomfited head. Rome alone was not as yet thought worthy, or April 19. May 17. d" Qui episcopus foras muros civitatis cum multis armatis eventum rei solicitus expectabat."-Herm. Alt. apud Boehmer, ii. 507. See Chron. Salis. Pez. i. 362. "At jure episcopatu dejectum ob principatum conjunctum exploratum est; cum non modo præsulem sed etiam principem agere, ac vim insultantium ecclesiæ vi repellere oporteret." Such is the comment of the ecclesiastical annalist Raynaldus, sub ann. The morals of Lyons were not improved by the residence of the Papal court. It was openly declared by Cardinal Hugo, "Magnam fecimus, postquam in hanc urbem venimus, utilitatem et eleemosynam: quando enim primo huc venimus, tria vel quatuor prostibula invenimus; sed nunc recedentes uaum solum relinquimus; verum ipsum durat continuatum ab orientali parte civitatis usque ad occidentalem."-Matt. Paris, p. 819. CHAP. XV. KINGDOM OF NAPLES. Italy. 457 sought not to be admitted to the favour of his presence, or he dared not trust, notwithstanding his close His return to alliance with the Frangipani (whom he had July 24. bought), that unruly city. He visited Milan, Brescia, Mantua, Ferrara, Modena, everywhere there was tumultuous joy among the Guelfs. While he was at Milan Lodi made her submission: the Count of Savoy abandoned the party of the Hohenstaufen. On All-Saints'-Day he was at Faenza; on the 5th of November he stayed his steps, and fixed his court at Perugia. For a year and a half he remained in that city; Rome was not honoured with the presence of her Pontiff till Rome compelled that presence. Among the first resolutions of Innocent was the suppression of heresy, more especially in the Ghibelline cities, such as Cremona. A holocaust of these outcasts would be a fit offering of gratitude to heaven for the removal of the perfidious Frederick. It was his design to strike in this manner at the head of the Ghibelline interests in Lombardy. The sum of Eccelin di Romano's atrocities, atrocities which, even if blackened by Guelfic hatred, are the most frightful in these frightful times, must be still aggravated by the charge of hereditary heresy. It may well be doubted if such a monster could have religion enough to be a heretic; but Eccelin was dead to spiritual censures as to the reproaches of his own conscience. But the affairs of the kingdom of Naples occupied the thoughts of Innocent. Though the firm hand of Manfred had maintained almost the whole realm in allegiance, the nominal rule was intrusted by King Conrad to his younger brother Henry. The denunciations, intrigues, and censures of the Pope had wrought on certain nobles and cities. A conspiracy broke out simultaneously in many places, at the head of which was the Count of Aquino; in Apulia the cities of Foggia, Andrea, and Barletta; in the Terra di Lavoro Capua and Naples were in open rebellion. Capua and Naples defied all the forces of Manfred. The Pope had already assumed a sovereign power, as if the forfeited realm had reverted to the Holy Nic. de Curbio, c. 30. |