Oct. 1211.

cent dissembled his joy; he hesitated indeed to become a Ghibelline Pope; he could not but remember the ancient rooted, inveterate oppugnancy of the house of Hohenstaufen to the See of Rome. But fear and resentment for the ingratitude of Otho prevailed; he might hope that Frederick would respect the guardianship of the Pope, guardianship which had exercised but questionable care over its ward. The Swabians passed on to Palermo; they communicated the message of the diet at Nuremberg; they laid the Empire before the feet of Frederick, now but seventeen years old. Frederick even at that age seemed to unite the romantic vivacity of the Italian, and the gallantry of his Norman race, with something of German intrepidity; he had all the accomplishments, and all the knowledge of the day; he spoke Latin, Italian, German, French, Greek, Arabic; he was a poet: how could he resist such an offer? There was the imperial crown to be won by bold adventure; revenge on Otho, who had threatened to invade his kingdom of Sicily; the restoration of his ancestral house to all its ancestral grandeur. The tender remonstrances of his wife, who bore at this time his first-born son; the grave counsels of the Sicilian nobles, reluctant that Sicily should become a province of the Empire, who warned him against the perfidy of the Germans, the insecure fidelity of the Pope, were alike without effect. He hastened to desert his sunny Palermo for cold Germany; to leave his gay court for a life of wild enterprise; all which was so congenial to the natural impulses of his character, to war with his age, which he was already beyond. Ever after Frederick looked back upon his beloved Sicily with fond regret; there, whenever he could, he established his residence, it was his own native realm, the home of his affections, of his enjoyments.

The Emperor Otho heard of the proceedings in Germany; he hurried with all speed to repress the threaten

Qui licet hoc bene vellet, tamen dissimulavit.-Rigord.

Frederick had been married at fifteen to Constantia, widow of K. Emeric of Hungary, daughter of Alfonso King

of Arragon, in Aug. 1209. Henry VII. was born early in 1212.

h Chronic. Ursberg. Chronic. Foss. Nov. Murat. vii. 887.

СНАР. ІІІ.

m

OTHO IN GERMANY.

1212.

59

Feb. 27, 1211.

ing revolt. As he passed through Italy, he could not but remark the general estrangement; almost everywhere his reception was sullen, cold, compulsorily hospitable.* The whole land was prepared to fall off. Appalling contrast to his triumphant journey but two or three years before! In Germany it was still more gloomy and threatening. He summoned a diet at Frankfort; eighty nobles of March 4, all orders assembled, one bishop, the Bishop of Halberstadt. Siegfrid of Mentz, now Papal Legate, with Albert of Magdeburg, declared the Archbishop of Cologne, Dietrich of Heinsberg, deposed from his see under the pretext of his oppression of the clergy and the monks. Adolph, the former archbishop, the most powerful friend, the most traitorous enemy of Otho, appeared in the city, was welcomed with open arms by the clergy, resumed the see, as he declared, with the sanction of the Pope. War, desolating lawless war, broke out again throughout Germany. The Duke of Brabant, on Otho's retreat, surprised Liège; plundered, massacred, respected not the churches; their altars were stripped, their pavements ran with blood: a knight dressed himself in the bishop's robes and went through a profane mockery of ordination to some of his freebooting comrades. The bishop was compelled to take an oath of allegiance. He soon fled and pronounced an interdict against the Duke and his lands. The Pope absolved him from his oath.

May 3.

Aug. 7, 1212.

Otho made a desperate attempt to propitiate the adherents of the house of Swabia. In Nordhausen he celebrated with great pomp his nuptials with Beatrice the daughter of the Emperor Philip, to whom he had been long betrothed. This produced only more bitter hatred. Four days after the marriage Beatrice

i Otho cum totam fere sibi Apuliam subjugasset, audito quod quidam Italiæ principes ibi rebellaverant mandato apostolico, reguum festinus egreditur mense Novembris. Ric. S. Germ. Chron. Foss. Nov. Francisc. Pepin.

Gravis Italicis, Alemannis gravior, fines attigit Alemanniæ; a nullo uti principi occurritur, nulli gratus excipitur.-Conrad de Fabaria, Canon S.

Galli, Pertz, xi. p. 170. The author, a monk of S. Gall, describes Frederick's reception at his monastery.

Ubi octaginta principes ei occurrerunt multum flenti et de rege Francia conquerenti... Ubi curiæ archepiscopi et episcopi pauci interfuerunt, eo quod de mandato domini Papæ eum excomdenunciaverant. municatum Rem. Leod. apud Martene, v.

died. The darkest rumours spread abroad: she had been poisoned by the Italian mistresses of Otho.

May 1 to July 9.

Frederick in the mean time, almost without attendants, with nothing which could call itself an army, set off to win the imperial crown in Germany. At Rome March, 1212. he was welcomed by the Pope, the Cardinals, and the senate. He received from Pope Innocent counsel, sanction, and some pecuniary aid for his enterprise. Four galleys of Genoa conveyed him with his retinue from Ostia to that city, placed under the ban of the Empire by Otho. Milan was faithful to her hatred of the Hohenstaufen;" he dared not venture into her territory; the passes of Savoy were closed against him; he stole from friendly Pavia to friendly Cremona. He arrived safe at the foot of the pass of Trent, but the descent into the Tyrol was guarded by Otho's partisans. He turned obliquely, by difficult, almost untrodden passes, and dropped down upon Coire. Throughout his wanderings the Archbishop of Bari was his faithful companion. Arnold, Bishop of Coire, in defiance of the hostile power of Como, which belonged to the league of Milan, welcomed him with loyal hospitality. The warlike Abbot of St. Gall had sworn, on private grounds, deep hatred to Otho: he received Frederick with open arms. At St. Gall he heard that Otho was hastening with his troops to occupy Constance. At the head of the knights, the liegemen of the Abbot of St. Gall, Frederick made a rapid descent, and reached Constance three hours before the forces of Otho. The wavering Bishop, Conrad of Tegernfeld, declared against the excommunicated Otho; Constance closed its gates against him. That rapid movement won Frederick the Empire. At Basle he was welcomed by the Bishop of Strasburg at the head of 1500 knights. All along the Rhine Germany declared for him; he had but to wait the dissolution of Otho's power; it crumbled away of itself. The primate Siegfrid of Mentz, secured Mentz and Frankfort; even Leopold the deposed

August.

n Compare letter of Innocent rebuking Milan for her attachment to Otho-reprobo et ingrato, immo Deo et

hominibus odioso, qui nunquam nisi mala pro bonis retribuit.-Epist. ii. 692. Oct. 21, 1212.

CHAP. III.

FREDERICK KING.:

61

Bishop of Worms, the rival Archbishop of Mentz, the turbulent and faithful partisan of the house of Hohenstaufen, was permitted to resume his See of Worms. Frederick was chosen Emperor at Frankfort: held his court Dec. 2. at Ratisbon. Otho retired to his patrimonial do- Feb. 2. mains in Saxony; he was still strong in the north of Germany; the south acknowledged Frederick. On the lower Rhine were some hostilities, but between the rivals for the Empire there was no great battle. The cause of Frederick was won by Philip Augustus of France. Philip had welcomed, and had entered into a close alliance with Frederick. The King of England, the Count of Flanders, and the other Princes of the Lower Rhine arrayed themselves in league with Otho. The fatal battle of Bouvines broke almost the last hopes of Otho; he retired again to Brunswick; made one bold incursion, and with the aid of the Bishop Waldemar seized on Hamburgh. But to his enemies was now added the King of Denmark. Again he retreated to the home of his fathers, passed the last three years of life in works of piety and the July 25. foundation of religious houses. Long before his May 19, 1217. death Frederick had received the royal crown from the hands of Siegfrid of Mentz at Aix-la-Chapelle. He was now undisputed King and Emperor, in amity with the Church; amity, hereafter to give place to the most obstinate, most fatal strife, which had yet raged between the successor of St. Peter and the successor of the Cæsars.

• Leopold had been absolved before Philip's death, Nov. 1207. Epist. Innocent, i. 731.

May 27, 1214.

A.D. 1215.

P Frederick had an interview with Louis, elder son of Philip, between Vaucoleur and Tours, Nov. 1212.

CHAPTER IV.

INNOCENT AND PHILIP AUGUSTUS OF FRANCE.

THE kingdom of France under Philip Augustus almost began to be a monarchy. The crown had risen in strength and independence above the great vassals who had till now rivalled and controlled its authority. The Anglo-Norman dukedom, which in the extent of its territory and revenues, its forces, its wealth, under Henry II. with his other vast French territories, had been at least equal to that of France, had gradually declined; and Philip Augustus, the most ambitious, unscrupulous, and able man who had wielded the sceptre of France, was continually watching the feuds in the royal family of England, of the sons of Henry against their father, in order to take every advantage, and extend his own dominions. With Philip Augustus Innocent was committed in strife on different grounds than in the conflict for the German empire. The Emperors and the Popes were involved in almost inevitable wars on account of temporal rights claimed and adhered to with obstinate perseverance, and on account of the authority and influence to be exercised by the Emperor over the hierarchy of the realm. The Kings of France were constantly laying themselves open to the aggressions of the Supreme Pontiff by the irregularity of their lives. The Pope with them assumed the high function of assertor of Christian morals, and of the sanctity of the marriage tie, as the champion of injured and pitiable women. To him all questions relating to matrimony belonged as arbiter in the last resort; he only could dissolve the holy sacrament of marriage; the Pope by declaring it indissoluble, claimed a right of enforcing its due observance. Pope Cœlestine had bequeathed to his successor the difficult affair of the marriage of Philip Augustus; an affair which gave to Innocent the power of dictating to that haughty sovereign.