TALY is my heritage, and all the world knows it. ITA To cover other men's property, and to give up CHAP. my own, would be sinful, especially as the disre- 1235-1239. spectful insolence of the Italians has provoked me. Moreover I am a Christian, and am ready to overcome the foes of the Cross. Heresies have sprung up and are growing thick in Italy, especially at Milan; it would be bad policy, were I to quit the Italians, and to attack the Saracens. I cannot undertake a Crusade without a large army, and for that purpose I need the wealth of Italy, which abounds in arms, horses, and wealth, as all the world knows.' Such was Frederick's haughty declaration of war in the summer of 1236. It was an answer to the Papacy, which had tried in March to draw off his attention from Italy to Palestine. Announcing that many Kings had taken the Cross, Gregory had requested the presence of Hermann von Salza, and CHAP. ΧΙ. had asserted, that the truce between Frederick and the Lombards was not yet over. But Frederick had 1235-1239. had enough of truces and of Papal mediation; he had from the very first met with the most grievous insults from the Lombards. They had tried to seize him, when a lad, at the ford of the Lambro in 1212; they had refused to crown him with their iron Crown in 1220; they had joined in the attack on his Kingdom in 1229. They had been the ruin of his two Diets, first at Cremona, and then at Ravenna; and worst outrage of all, they had entered into a league against him with his rebellious son. He had often approached them in peace; he was now coming down among them, sword in hand. By his manifesto, he had skilfully placed the Pope in a dilemma ; his Holiness must either take the part of heretics, or he must see his best allies in any future struggle with the Empire borne down before his eyes. Gregory chose the least of the two evils; the spiritual interests of the Papacy gave way to its temporal advantage. With Rome, Doctrine is always secondary to Dominion. Alliance with Paterines was less to be dreaded than the overwhelming might of the Hohenstaufen Kaisers. Thus it has ever been; one Pope deserted Charles the Fifth at the very crisis of the struggle with the Lutherans, for fear of that Monarch's becoming too powerful in Italy. Another Pope hailed with joy the English Revolution of 1688, deeming the overthrow of the schemes of his overbearing enemy, Louis the Fourteenth, of far greater importance than the stern check given to the Papal religion in the British Isles.* * See Von Ranke on these points. XI. As yet, Gregory did not venture on open oppo- CHAP. sition to the Emperor. He contented himself with harping on the approaching end of the truce made 1235-1239. with the Moslem, and on the consequent danger of Palestine. Frederick had other game in view. He was about to enter on that war in Northern Italy, which at the end of fourteen years and a half brought him to his grave. Henceforward, there would be scanty leisure for laws or arts, for poetry or prose treatises. A bloody and rancorous strife was about to lay waste Italy. Hitherto her factions had been local, each city warring against its nearest neighbour. Now at length the Ghibellines were to possess a Head, who would direct and combine their movements; the Guelfs would still be for nearly three years without a declared Head. It was an unhappy fate that forced Frederick to give up to a party what was meant for mankind. A bird of ill-omen had already appeared at Augsburg, where the Imperial Chamber was held in June and July. Eccelin da Romano, the petrel of the coming storm, had secretly made his way thither; he and his brother were ready for war, and he knew that he could easily seduce his brother-in-law Salinguerra, the Lord of Ferrara, from the party of the Church.* Cæsar was entreated to enter Italy; the gate of Verona now stood wide open to him, and he would strike terror into his foes by coming down the Brenner with a few thousand Germans at his back. What advice Hermann von Salza gave at this juncture, we do not know; but he was assuredly in favour of peace, as Pope Gregory had already Laurentius de Monacis. CHAP. XI. 1235-1239. requested his services in Italy as a mediator. Frederick was now like the Wildgrave in the German ballad, who rode between an angel and a devil, the one striving to restrain him from evil, the other urging him on to every kind of crime. But Von Salza, Frederick's good angel, had not three years more to spend on earth; the baleful Eccelin, on the other hand, was to outlive his employer, and was to cast a foul stain on his employer's memory. Throughout this year, 1236, Pope Gregory had done his utmost for the cause of peace; it was indeed his interest, for if war were to break out in Italy, it would be the ruin of his darling Crusade. Three years more, and the Truce made with Sultan Kamel would be at an end. It was clearly for the interest of Rome that Frederick should give proof of his prowess on the Jordan rather than on the Oglio. If he were to conquer in Palestine, and complete the work left but half ended in 1229, it would bring everlasting honour to Gregory's Pontificate. If the Emperor were to be unfortunate in his Crusade, the failure would still be of use to the Church; she might sternly reprove him, trumpet his sins throughout Christendom, and declare that the enterprise had miscarried, owing to the unworthiness of her Champion. Should Frederick fall in battle or be carried off by some Eastern plague, Rome would decorously mourn her son, though her grief for his loss would be lightened by the pleasure of splitting up his vast realms, too large to be held by any single Sovereign. The Kingdom of Sicily might be safely given to the child Conrad, Rome acting as his guardian, as she had done in his father's case; the German Princes would of course choose a new King in the prime of life, taken probably from some house less dangerous to Rome than that of Hohenstaufen. Gregory had made a peace with his restless flock in 1235, their Senator Malebranca taking the oath on their behalf. They did not give way until they had stripped the Lateran Palace and pillaged the houses of the Cardinals. Frederick, then on his road to Germany, had written a congratulatory letter to the Pope on the occasion of the Peace, referring at the same time to his own efforts against the Romans in 1234. Although,' he says, 'we have suffered the loss of great personages and of much wealth, yet we are rejoiced at your success. Even though we ourselves are called away, yet we will not leave the Church defenceless.' Gregory had written to the Princes at Mayence, bidding them lay aside their national prejudices, and requesting that the whole business of Lombardy might be entrusted to himself. The Emperor answered, that the Princes would aid him in attacking the Italian rebels, unless the Pope could bring the Lombards to reason by Christmas. In September, Gregory again put forward the subject he had most at heart, complaining of the sons of iniquity who were striving to sow discord between the Church and the Empire, and who had been plotting in an underhand way to further their views. The Papal letter entreated Frederick to stop his ears against those barkers at his side, who would be the ruin of his authority, were he to believe their lying tales. Gregory explained why he had relaxed the interdict denounced against the rebels in Palestine by the Archbishop of Ravenna, a staunch upholder of Frederick's sway. Peter de Vinea and the Bishop of Patti had been unable to set aside the decision of CHAP. XI. 1235-1239. |