Charles Frederick II, Duke of Württemberg-Oels
Charles Frederick II of Württemberg-Oels (7 February 1690 in Merseburg – 14 December 1761 in Oleśnica) was a Duke of Oels-Württemberg and Regent of the Duchy of Württemberg.
Life.
Charles Frederick was a son of the Duke Christian Ulrich I of Württemberg-Oels (1652–1704) from his second marriage to Duchess Sibylle Marie of Saxe-Merseburg (1667–1693), daughter of the Duke Christian I of Saxe-Merseburg. When his father died in 1704, Charles Frederick was still a minor, so he stood under guardianship until he was declared an adult in 1707.
Charles Frederick married on 21 April 1709 in Stuttgart with Sibylle Charlotte (1690–1735), the daughter of Duke Frederick Ferdinand of Württemberg-Weiltingen, a grandson of Julius Frederick, Duke of Württemberg-Weiltingen.
From 1738, he acted as guardian of Duke Charles Eugene and regent of Württemberg. In this rôle, he succeeded Duke Charles Rudolph of Württemberg-Neuenstadt, who had resigned from the regency for reasons of old age. During his time as regent, the War of the Austrian Succession broke out in 1740. In 1742, the Treaty of Breslau awarded his homeland Silesia to Prussia. Nevertheless, Charles Frederick and his successors did not participate in this war. During his regency, the administration was significantly improved and good relations with the Estates were restored. Georg Bernhard Bilfinger, Johann Eberhard Georgii and Frederick Augustus von Hardenberg served as ministers in his government.
In 1744, Emperor Charles VII declared Charles Eugene an adult, thereby ending Charles Frederick time as regent of Württemberg.
Charles Frederick's marriage remained childless. In 1744, he resigned from the government in Oels, in favour of the son of his younger brother Charles Christian Erdmann. He then resided for some time in Międzybórz, and then moved to Oels, where he died in 1761, at the age of 72.

Merseburg
Town in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany

Merseburg () is a town in central Germany in southern Saxony-Anhalt, situated on the river Saale, and approximately 14 km south of Halle (Saale) and 30 km west of Leipzig. It is the capital of the Saalekreis district. It had a diocese founded by Archbishop Adalbert of Magdeburg.
The University of Merseburg is located within the town. Merseburg has around 35,000 inhabitants.
Geography.
The town Merseburg consists of Merseburg proper and the following four "Ortschaften" or municipal divisions:
Administrative reforms.
Venenien was incorporated into Merseburg on 1 January 1949. The parish Kötzschen followed on 1 July 1950. Since 30 May 1994, Meuschau is part of Merseburg. Trebnitz, previously part of Kreypau, followed in 2003. Beuna was annexed on 1 January 2009. Geusa is a part of Merseburg since 1 January 2010.
History.
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Historical affiliations
 Bishopric of Merseburg 1004-1565

 Electorate of Saxony 1565-1657

 Duchy of Saxe-Merseburg 1657-1738

 Poland-Saxony 1738-1763

 Electorate of Saxony 1763-1806

 Kingdom of Saxony 1806-1815

 Kingdom of Prussia 1815-1871

 German Empire 1871-1918

 Weimar Republic 1918-1933

 Nazi Germany 1933-1945

 Allied-occupied Germany 1945-1949

 East Germany 1949-1990

 1990-present
Pre-history and Middle Ages.
Merseburg was first mentioned in 850. King Henry the Fowler built a royal palace at Merseburg; in the 933 Battle of Riade, he gained his great victory over the Hungarians in the vicinity.
Thietmar, appointed in 973, became the first bishop of the newly created bishopric of Prague in Bohemia. Prague had been part of the archbishopric of Mainz for a hundred years before that. From 968 until the Protestant Reformation, Merseburg was the seat of the Bishop of Merseburg, and in addition to being for a time the residence of the margraves of Meissen, it was a favorite residence of the German kings during the 10th, 11th and 12th centuries. Fifteen diets were held here during the Middle Ages, during which time its fairs enjoyed the importance which was afterwards transferred to those of Leipzig. After Ekkehard's treacherous death on 3 April 1002, Bolesław I Chrobry took Merseburg and Meissen, and then Milsko with Bautzen and Strehla, with the help of the local Slavic population. The German princes accepted the sovereignty of the Polish prince in these areas. Some historians believe that since the convention in Gniezno, the Brave might have had certain rights to the German throne after Otto III, guaranteed by some succession document. Merseburg was later the site of a failed assassination attempt on Polish ruler Bolesław I Chrobry in 1002. The town suffered severely during the German Peasants' War and also during the Thirty Years' War.
17th century to 20th century.
From 1657 to 1738 Merseburg was the residence of the Dukes of Saxe-Merseburg, after which it fell to the Electorate of Saxony. In 1815 following the Napoleonic Wars, the town became part of the Prussian Province of Saxony.
Merseburg is where the Merseburg Incantations were rediscovered in 1841. Written down in Old High German, they are hitherto the only preserved German documents with a heathen theme. One of them is a charm to release warriors caught during battle, and the other is a charm to heal a horse's sprained foot.
At the beginning of the 20th century, Merseburg was transformed into an industrial town, largely due to the pioneering work done by Carl Bosch and Friedrich Bergius, who laid down the scientific fundamentals of the catalytic high-pressure ammonia synthesis from 1909 to 1913. The nearby Leuna works continue this tradition of chemical industry. The "Merseburger Tageblatt" was published as a local newspaper in Merseburg.
Merseburg was badly damaged in World War II. In 23 air raids, 6,200 dwellings were completely or partly destroyed. The historic town centre was almost completely destroyed.
Briefly part of Saxony-Anhalt after the war, it was then administered within the "Bezirk" Halle in East Germany. It became part of Saxony-Anhalt again after the reunification of Germany.
Demographics.
Like many towns in the former East Germany, Merseburg has had a general decline in population since German Reunification despite annexing and merging with a number of smaller nearby villages.
Population of Merseburg "(from 1960, population on 31 December, unless otherwise indicated)":
Sights.
Among the notable buildings of Merseburg are the Merseburg Cathedral of St John the Baptist (founded 1015, rebuilt in the 13th and 16th centuries) and the episcopal palace (15th century). The cathedral-and-palace ensemble also features a palace garden.
Other sights include the Merseburg House of Trades with a cultural stage and the German Museum of Chemistry, Merseburg.
Arts and culture.
The Merseburg Palace Festival with the Historical Pageant, the International Palace-Moat Concerts, Merseburg Organ Days and the Puppet Show Festival Week are events celebrated every year.
Transport.
Merseburg station is located on the Halle–Bebra railway. Leipzig/Halle Airport is 25 kilometers away.
Merseburg is connected with the Halle (Saale) tramway network. A tram ride from Halle's city centre to Merseburg takes about 50 minutes.
Twin towns – sister cities.
Merseburg is twinned with:
References.
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Charles Frederick, Grand Duke of Baden
Charles Frederick (22 November 1728 – 10 June 1811) was Margrave, Elector and later Grand Duke of Baden (initially only Margrave of Baden-Durlach) from 1738 until his death.
Biography.
Born at Karlsruhe, he was the son of Hereditary Prince Frederick of Baden-Durlach and Amalia of Nassau-Dietz (13 October 1710 – 17 September 1777), daughter of Johan Willem Friso of Nassau-Dietz.
He succeeded his grandfather as Margrave of Baden-Durlach in 1738 and ruled personally from 1746 until 1771, when he inherited Baden-Baden from the Catholic line of his family. This made him the Protestant ruler of a state that was overwhelmingly Catholic; however, the Imperial Diet permitted this because the Elector of Saxony had converted to Catholicism from Lutheranism and had been permitted to retain control of the Protestant body of the Imperial Diet. Upon inheriting the latter margraviate, the original land of Baden was reunited. He was regarded as a good example of an enlightened despot, supporting schools, universities, jurisprudence, the civil service, the economy, culture, and urban development. He outlawed torture in 1767, and serfdom in 1783. He was elected a Royal Fellow of the Royal Society in 1747.
In 1803, Charles Frederick became Elector of Baden, and in 1806, the first Grand Duke of Baden. Through the politics of minister Sigismund Freiherr von Reitzenstein, Baden acquired the Bishopric of Constance, and the territories of the Bishopric of Basel, the Bishopric of Strassburg, and the Bishopric of Speyer that lay on the right bank of the Rhine, in addition to Breisgau and Ortenau.
In 1806, Baden joined the Confederation of the Rhine.
Together with his architect, Friedrich Weinbrenner, Charles Frederick was responsible for the construction of the handsome suite of classical buildings that distinguish Karlsruhe. He died there in 1811, and was one of the few German rulers to die during the Napoleonic era.
Marriages and children.
Charles Frederick married Caroline Louise of Hesse-Darmstadt, daughter of Louis VIII of Hesse-Darmstadt, on 28 January 1751.
They had five children:
Charles Frederick married Louise Caroline, Baroness Geyer of Geyersberg as his second wife on 24 November 1787. She was the daughter of Lt. Col. Louis Henry Philipp, Baron Geyer of Geyersberg and Maximiliana Christiane, Countess of Sponeck. This was a morganatic marriage, and the children born of it were not eligible to succeed. Louise was created Baroness of Hochberg at the time of her marriage and Countess of Hochberg in 1796; both titles were also borne by them.
They had five children:
By 1817, the descendants of Charles Frederick by his first wife were dying out. To prevent Baden from being inherited by the next heir (his brother-in-law King Maximilian I Joseph of Bavaria), the reigning Grand Duke, Charles (grandson of the first Grand Duke), changed the succession law to give the Hochberg family full dynastic rights in Baden. They thus became Princes and Princesses of Baden with the style "Grand Ducal Highness", like their elder half-siblings. Their succession rights were reinforced when Baden was granted a constitution in 1818, and recognised by Bavaria and the Great Powers in the Treaty of Frankfurt, 1819. Leopold's descendants ruled the Grand Duchy of Baden until 1918. The current pretenders to the throne of Baden are descendants of Leopold.
Leopold, the eldest son from the second marriage, succeeded as Grand Duke in 1830.
References.
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Charles Frederick, Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach
Charles Frederick (; 2 February 1783 – 8 July 1853) was the reigning Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach.
Biography.
Born in Weimar, he was the eldest son of Charles Augustus, Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach and Luise Auguste of Hesse-Darmstadt.
Charles Frederick succeeded his father as Grand Duke when the latter died in 1828. His capital, Weimar, continued to be a cultural center of Central Europe, even after the death of Goethe in 1832. Johann Nepomuk Hummel made his career in Weimar as "Kapellmeister" until he died in 1837. Franz Liszt settled in Weimar in 1848 as "Kapellmeister" and gathered about him a circle that kept the Weimar court a major musical centre. Due to the intervention of Liszt, the composer Richard Wagner found refuge in Weimar after he was forced to flee Saxony for his role in the revolutionary disturbances there in 1848-49. Wagner's opera "Lohengrin" was first performed in Weimar in August 1850.
Charles Frederick died at Schloss Belvedere, Weimar, in 1853 and was buried in the Weimarer Fürstengruft.
Family and children.
In St. Petersburg on 3 August 1804, Charles Frederick married the Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna of Russia, daughter of Emperor Paul I. They had four children:
References.
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Charles Frederick, Duke of Holstein-Gottorp
Duke of Holstein-Gottorp from 1702 to 1739
Charles Frederick, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorp () (30 April 1700 – 18 June 1739) was a Prince of Sweden and Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorp and an important member of European royalty. His dynasty, the Dukes of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorp, were a cadet branch of the ancient House of Oldenburg, which at that time was ruling Denmark-Norway. His mother was a sister of Charles XII of Sweden. Charles Frederick married a daughter of Peter the Great and became the father of the future Peter III of Russia. As such, he is the progenitor of the Russian imperial house of Holstein-Gottorp-Romanov and the patrilineal ancestor of all Russian emperors starting with Peter III, except for Catherine II.
Early life.
Charles Frederick was born in Sweden, the son of Frederick IV of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorp and his consort, Hedvig Sophia, daughter of King Charles XI of Sweden. He became reigning duke in infancy, upon his father's death in 1702 at the Battle of Kliszów, co-ruling, however under guardianship till 1717, with his father's cousin King Frederick IV of Denmark in the Duchy of Holstein, a Holy Roman imperial fief, and the Duchy of Schleswig, a Danish fief, there as a vassal to the Danish-Norwegian king. All his life he was a legitimate claimant to the throne of Sweden, as "pro forma" heir to Charles XII, who was his maternal uncle.
Charles Frederick's parents had been offered refuge by maternal uncle, Charles XII of Sweden, during the outbreak of the Great Northern War, and they resided in Stockholm. Charles Frederick succeeded to the dukedom at the age of two, upon the death of his father in the Battle of Kliszów. His mother became his regent, and they continued to reside in Stockholm. Actual daily co-rule in the Duchies of Schleswig and Holstein was left to administrators. His mother is said to have raised him tenderly but firmly, but she died in 1708, when Charles Frederick was only eight years old. He was then placed in the care of his great-grandmother (his mother's paternal grandmother), Queen Dowager Hedwig Eleonora of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorp, who reportedly spoiled him terribly, resulting in making him passive and indolent. His mother, and later Hedwig Eleonora, both supported and worked for his right to be considered heir of Sweden after his childless uncle.
Since his guardians sided with Sweden against Denmark-Norway in the Great Northern War, Danish troops ravaged the Gottorp ducal share in the duchies during that war and conquered its northern portions in 1713, including the ancestral ducal seat Gottorp castle near Schleswig city in the homonymous duchy. In 1721 Frederick IV of Denmark-Norway, being the liege lord in Danish Schleswig who had enfeoffed Charles Frederick with the ducal title in Schleswig in 1702, officially withdrew this fief.
Swedish career.
Charles Frederick met his uncle Charles XII for the first time in 1716. He was declared of legal majority in 1717, and was then given some military responsibility. Charles Frederick was in a tense relationship to his aunt Ulrika Eleonora, whose followers pointed him out to be too rude and arrogant and in lack of any sense of responsibility to be a suitable heir to the throne.
Upon the death in 1718 of his maternal uncle and second cousin, Charles XII of Sweden, Duke Charles Frederick was presented as claimant to the throne. However, his aunt Ulrika Eleonora the Younger (1688–1741) managed to wrest the throne for herself, claiming that her elder sister had not "acquired the consent of the Parliamentary Estates" for her marriage to his father, according to laws of succession laid down in "Norrköpings arvförening". The duke's party asserted that the absolute monarchy in Sweden, which his grandfather King Charles XI had created, made that marriage clause irrelevant. Upon the news of the death of his uncle, he was reportedly too grief-stricken to take any action. Ulrika Eleonora's husband Frederick I, however, who was also present with him in Tistedalen, rushed to assist her in claiming the throne. When Charles Frederick was confronted with Ulrika Eleonora, he was forced by Arvid Horn to greet her as queen. He asked to be granted the title Royal Highness and to be recognised as her heir, but when her husband instead was given the title, he left Sweden in 1719. In 1723, he was granted the title Royal Highness in his absence, but his pro-Russian policy made him impossible as heir to the Swedish throne.
Charles Frederick withdrew from Sweden, eventually settling in Russia, where in May 1725 he married Grand Duchess Anna Petrovna, elder daughter of Tsar Peter the Great. Meanwhile, the so-called Holstein Party in Sweden continued to advance Charles Frederick's claims. The party made preparations and awaited the childless Ulrika Eleonora's death, but Charles Frederick died before his aunt and left his claims to his infant son. By this time however, Sweden had enacted new laws of succession which specifically excluded Charles Frederick and his heirs because of their Russian politics, because at that time, Russia and Sweden had a strained relationship. The exclusion of Charles Frederick and his progeny from the Swedish succession avoided the personal union of Sweden and Russia, because Charles Frederick's only child would become Tsar Peter III of Russia.
The question then became who was to become the next king of Sweden after the death of the childless incumbent. The so-called "Hat faction" in Sweden managed to elect Charles Frederick's first cousin Adolph Frederick, who was his father's younger brother's son and thus belonged to the same Oldenburg dynasty, as Crown Prince of Sweden.
Later life.
Charles Frederick left for Hamburg, as the Gottorp ducal share in the duchies of German Holstein and Danish Schleswig had been occupied by Denmark since 1713. Having lost the title as duke of Schleswig, succeeded to have the occupation of the ducal share in German Holstein removed by application to his Holstein liege lord, the Holy Roman Emperor. In 1720, Sweden and Denmark-Norway concluded the Treaty of Frederiksborg, in which Sweden pledged to cease its support of the House of [Schleswig-]Holstein-Gottorp. Duke Charles Frederick opposed the treaty, made by a Swedish government which he regarded as rebellious against his own right to the Swedish succession; the treaty also made virtually impossible the regaining of his lost ducal share in the northern duchy of Schleswig. (This was to be a motivation for his son Peter in 1762, upon his Russian accession, to start preparations for the use of Russian troops to reconquer the lost lands from Denmark-Norway.)
Duke Charles Frederick was married to Anna Petrovna, Tsesarevna of Russia and elder daughter of Tsar Peter I and Marta Skavronskaya (who would later become Empress Catherine I of Russia). As Charles was the Swedish heir, Peter saw the marriage as politically useful. Charles Frederick was officially engaged to Anna by Tsar Peter. After the death of Peter in 1725, he was given a place in the council, his own court, palace and income by Catherine I of Russia and married to Anna. Anna was not enthusiastic about the marriage, because of his reputation of consorting with prostitutes.
Charles Frederick, then commander of the palace guard in St. Petersburg, attempted to secure his wife's succession to the Russian throne upon the death in 1727 of her mother, the Empress Catherine I of Russia. His attempt failed, but his son by Duchess Anna Petrovna, Charles Peter Ulrich (who - as Duke of Holstein-Gottorp - succeeded in the ducal share of Holstein in 1739), eventually became Russian tsar in 1762, as Peter III.
Charles Frederick and Anna left for the Gottorp ducal share of Holstein in 1727, taking residence in Kiel Castle, where Anna died following the birth of their son in 1728. Charles Frederick spent the rest of his life in Holstein-Gottorp at Kiel. His prime concern was to secure his son's succession to the Russian throne. He did support his followers in Sweden also, but did not pay much attention to Holstein-Gottorp. Before a member of the family of Holstein-Gottorp was to sit on either the Swedish or the Russian throne, Duke Charles Frederick died in 1739 in Rohlfshagen, today part of the town of Rümpel. His grave is in the Cloister Church at Bordesholm.
References.
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Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor
Holy Roman Emperor from 1220 to 1250
Frederick II (, , ; 26 December 1194 – 13 December 1250) was King of Sicily from 1198, King of Germany from 1212, King of Italy and Holy Roman Emperor from 1220 and King of Jerusalem from 1225. He was the son of Emperor Henry VI of the Hohenstaufen dynasty (the second son of Emperor Frederick Barbarossa) and Queen Constance I of Sicily of the Hauteville dynasty.
He was one of the most powerful figures of the Middle Ages and ruled a vast area, beginning with Sicily and stretching through Italy all the way north to Germany. Viewing himself as a direct successor to the Roman emperors of antiquity, he was Emperor of the Romans from his papal coronation in 1220 until his death; he was also a claimant to the title of King of the Romans from 1212 and unopposed holder of that monarchy from 1215. As such, he was King of Germany, of Italy, and of Burgundy. At the age of three, he was crowned King of Sicily as co-ruler with his mother, Constance, Queen of Sicily, the daughter of Roger II of Sicily. His other royal title was King of Jerusalem by virtue of marriage and his connection with the Sixth Crusade. Frequently at war with the papacy, which was hemmed in between Frederick's lands in northern Italy and his Kingdom of Sicily (the "Regno") to the south, he was "excommunicated four times between 1227 and his own death in 1250", and was often vilified in pro-papal chronicles of the time and after. Pope Gregory IX went so far as to declare him "preambulus Antichristi" (predecessor of the Antichrist).
For his many-sided activities, dynamic personality and talents Frederick II has been called the greatest of all the German emperors, perhaps even of all medieval rulers. In the Kingdom of Sicily and much of Italy, Frederick built upon the work of his Norman predecessors and forged an early absolutist state bound together by an efficient secular bureaucracy. He was known by the appellation ('Wonder of the World'), enjoying a reputation as a brilliant Renaissance man and polymath even today: a visionary statesman, an inspired naturalist, scholar, mathematician, architect, poet and composer. Frederick also reportedly spoke six languages: Latin, Sicilian, Middle High German, Old French, Greek, and Arabic. As an avid patron of science and the arts, he played a major role in promoting literature through the Sicilian School of poetry. His magnificent Sicilian imperial-royal court in Palermo, beginning around 1220, was the cultural and intellectual hub of the early 13th century and saw the first use of a literary form of an Italo-Romance language, Sicilian. The poetry that emanated from the school had a significant influence on literature and on what was to become the modern Italian language. He was also the first monarch to formally outlaw trial by ordeal, which had come to be viewed as superstitious.
Though still in a strong position at his death, his line did not long survive, and the House of Hohenstaufen came to an end. Furthermore, the Holy Roman Empire entered a long period of decline during the Great Interregnum. His complex political and cultural legacy has attracted fierce debates and fascination until this day.
Birth and naming.
Born in Jesi, near Ancona, Italy, on 26 December 1194, Frederick was the son of Henry VI, Holy Roman Emperor. He was known as the "puer Apuliae" (son of Apulia). His mother was Constance of Sicily. Frederick was baptised in Assisi, in the church of San Rufino.
At birth, Frederick was named Constantine by his mother. This name, a masculine form of his mother's name, served to identify him closely with both his Norman heritage and his imperial heritage (through Constantine the Great, the first Christian emperor). It was still his name at the time of his election as King of the Romans. He was only given his grandfathers' names, becoming Frederick Roger (or Roger Frederick), at his baptism when he was two years old. This dual name served the same purpose as Constantine: emphasising his dual heritage.
Frederick's birth was accompanied by gossip and rumour on account of his mother's advanced age. According to Albert of Stade and Salimbene, he was not the son of Henry and Constance but was presented to Henry as his own after a faked pregnancy. His real father was variously described as a butcher of Jesi, a physician, a miller or a falconer. Frederick's birth was also associated with a prophecy of Merlin. According to Andrea Dandolo, writing at some distance but probably recording contemporary gossip, Henry doubted reports of his wife's pregnancy and was only convinced by consulting Joachim of Fiore, who confirmed that Frederick was his son by interpretation of Merlin's prophecy and the Erythraean Sibyl. A later legend claims that Constance gave birth in the public square of Jesi to silence doubters. Constance took unusual measures to prove her pregnancy and its legitimacy and Roger of Howden reports that she swore on the gospels before a papal legate that Frederick was her son by Henry. It is probable that these public acts of affirmation on account of her age gave rise to some false rumours.
In the spring of 1195, a few months after Henry VI had been crowned king of Sicily and not long after the birth of her son, Constance the empress continued her journey to Palermo. After the unexpected death of Tancred of Lecce (an illegitimate son of Roger, eldest son of Roger II of Sicily) Henry had hurried over to assume power and to have himself crowned king. Frederick was entrusted to the care of the duchess of Spoleto, the wife of the Swabian noble Conrad I of Urslingen, who was named duke of Spoleto by Frederick Barbarossa. Frederick II stayed in Foligno, a place located in papal territory and so under papal jurisdiction, until the death of his father, on 28 September 1197.
Minority.
In 1196 at Frankfurt am Main the infant Frederick was elected King of the Romans and thus heir to his father's imperial crown. His rights in Germany were to end up disputed by Henry's brother Philip of Swabia and Otto of Brunswick. At the death of his father Henry VI in 1197, Frederick was in Italy, travelling towards Germany, when the bad news reached his guardian, Conrad of Spoleto. Frederick was hastily brought back to his mother Constance in Palermo, Sicily, where he was crowned King of Sicily on 17 May 1198, at just three years of age. Originally his title had been "Romanorum et Sicilie rex" (King of the Romans and Sicily), but in 1198, after Constance (who kept using title of Empress) found out that Philip of Swabia had been recognized by the Staufer supporters in Germany, she had her son renounce the title King of the Romans. She probably agreed with Philip that Frederick's prospects in Germany were hopeless. The decision strengthened Frederick's position in Sicily as this satisfied both Philip of Swabia and the Pope, who did not like the idea of a ruler who had authority in both Sicily and the North Alpine realm.
Constance of Sicily was in her own right queen of Sicily, and she established herself as regent. Constance sided with the Pope who preferred that Sicily and the Germans were under separate governments. She renounced the authority over the Sicilian state church to the papal side, but only as Sicilian queen and not as empress, seemingly with the intention of keeping options open for Frederick. Upon Constance's death in 1198, Pope Innocent III succeeded as Frederick's guardian. Frederick's tutor during this period was Cencio, who would become Pope Honorius III. Markward of Annweiler, with the support of Henry's brother, Philip of Swabia, reclaimed the regency for himself and soon after invaded the Kingdom of Sicily. In 1200, with the help of Genoese ships, he landed in Sicily and one year later seized the young Frederick. He thus ruled Sicily until 1202, when he was succeeded by another German captain, William of Capparone, who kept Frederick under his control in the royal palace of Palermo until 1206. Frederick was subsequently under tutor Walter of Palearia, until, in 1208, he was declared of age. At that time he spoke five languages, Greek, Arabic, Latin, Provençal and Sicilian. His first task was to reassert his power over Sicily and southern Italy, where local barons and adventurers had usurped most of the authority. Pope Innocent was in search of a diplomatic match for his protege Frederick, to enable him successful future alliances. Eventually Constance of Aragon, a widow of the late King of Hungary and double his age was found.
Frederick’s childhood was turbulent as he passed through the hands of a collection of self-serving, scheming regents while the Sicilian nobility grabbed much of the royal demesne and wealth. Some chroniclers report that the young king was so destitute that he had to seek shelter among the citizens of Palermo. Frederick had no stable intimate relationships apart from, perhaps, the few of his personal household. However, the young king quickly grew to be a formidable and fiercely individualistic personality. He seems to have been highly precocious and insatiably inquisitive, impatient of restraint, with coarse manners, and already convinced of his own sense of royalty. Even in his younger years, Frederick was an avid reader and passionately interested in nature and the study of the universe. Some reports have him freely wandering the streets of cosmopolitan Palermo, talking and arguing with all manner of people, and always devouring knowledge.
Securing the Imperial Crown.
Otto of Brunswick had been crowned Holy Roman Emperor by Pope Innocent III in October 1209. In southern Italy, Otto became the champion of those noblemen and barons who feared Frederick's increasingly strong measures to check their power, such as the dismissal of the pro-noble Walter of Palearia. The new emperor invaded Italy, where he reached Calabria without meeting much resistance.
In response, Innocent sided against Otto, and in September 1211 at the Diet of Nuremberg Frederick was elected "in absentia" as German King by a rebellious faction backed by the pope. Innocent also excommunicated Otto, who was forced to return to Germany. Frederick sailed to Gaeta with a small following. He agreed with the pope on a future separation between the Sicilian and Imperial titles and named his wife Constance as regent. Passing through Lombardy and Engadin, he reached Konstanz in September 1212, preceding Otto by a few hours.
Frederick was crowned king on 9 December 1212 in Mainz. Frederick's authority in Germany remained tenuous, and he was recognized only in southern Germany. In the region of northern Germany, the centre of Guelph power, Otto continued to hold the reins of royal and imperial power despite his excommunication. Otto's decisive military defeat at the Bouvines forced him to withdraw to the Guelph hereditary lands where, virtually without supporters, he died in 1218.
The German princes, supported by Innocent III, again elected Frederick king of Germany in 1215, and he was crowned king in Aachen in mid-July 1215 by one of the three German archbishops. Frederick then astonished the crowd by taking the cross and calling upon the nobles present to do the same. It was not until another five years had passed, and only after further negotiations between Frederick, Innocent III, and Honorius III – who succeeded to the papacy after Innocent's death in 1216 – that Frederick was crowned Holy Roman Emperor in Rome by Honorius III, on 22 November 1220. At the same time, Frederick's oldest son Henry took the title of King of the Romans.
Unlike most Holy Roman emperors, Frederick spent few years in Germany. In 1218, he helped King Philip II of France and Odo III, Duke of Burgundy, to bring an end to the War of Succession in Champagne (France) by invading Lorraine, capturing and burning Nancy, capturing Theobald I, Duke of Lorraine and forcing him to withdraw his support from Erard of Brienne-Ramerupt. After his coronation in 1220, Frederick remained either in the Kingdom of Sicily or on Crusade until 1235, when he made his last journey to Germany. He returned to Italy in 1237 and stayed there for the remaining thirteen years of his life, represented in Germany by his son Conrad.
Restoring the Kingdom of Sicily.
After his imperial coronation in Rome, Frederick crossed into southern Italy determined to rebuild the authority of the Sicilian crown which had heavily waned over the preceding two decades. Under his grandfather, Roger II, and successors William I and William II, the Norman kingdom of Sicily was arguably the most centralized state in all of Europe. However, during the years of Frederick's minority, subsequent regents had allowed the nobility to grab much of the Crown's power and domain. The Crown was weak and its effective power did not extend far beyond Palermo.
In the first of three great legislative acts, Frederick issued the Assizes of Capua soon after his return to the kingdom in December 1220 which built on the Assizes of Ariano of Roger II. The legislation was already prepared before Frederick's return, down to the last detail, and he seized the earliest opportunity to publish them in the first city of the realm in which he stopped. This shows the Emperor's impatience to immediately bring home to his subjects that the time of lawlessness was at an end. The Assizes of Capua demanded the restoration of all royal lands and castles to the state they were at the death of William II, the last legitimate Norman king. All privileges accorded to anyone whatsoever since the end of William II's reign were ordered to submit for confirmation to the Royal Chancery before Easter 1221 for the mainland provinces and before Whitsun of the same year for the island of Sicily. This sweeping decree covered the entirety of royal grants made during the last thirty years, from the greatest fiefs to the smallest individual holdings, along with the collection of tolls and other perquisites. Spurious legal means and forged documents used to grab land from the royal domain since the death of William II were comprehensively revoked pending revision by the Royal Chancery, creating an ideal means of determining which legal fiefs and privileges really did exist. This proved a shrewd stroke and returned the monopoly on justice to the Crown. The laws promulgated at Capua also regulated the present tenure of fiefs and provided for their future control by the Emperor. Their holders could neither marry, nor could their children inherit directly, without the sovereign's consent, affording Frederick the possibility for constant reversion of fiefs, and a potent means of keeping control over not only the actual holder but his heir as well.
The Assizes of the Capua created the legal basis for Frederick's action against opposition to his supremacy and the resumption of crown lands and castles. Frederick used legal trickery to confiscate the lands of some of the most powerful barons and exile them from the kingdom. The Emperor launched a campaign against the barons who did not submit to the decree. The barons who resisted him were besieged in their castles and, when captured, either exiled or sometimes executed and their families sold into slavery. However, the Emperor did not conduct these operations in person. He delegated important barons to subdue opposition then used the lesser nobility against these barons, and resorted to the most Machiavellian of means to break resistance. He wrote to one of his captains:
<templatestyles src="Template:Blockquote/styles.css" />Pretend some business and warily call the Castellan to you. Seize on him if you can and keep him till he cause the castle to be surrendered to you.
Over the course of 1221-1222, Frederick had subdued most of the resistance on the mainland and restored much of the royal domain. A whole series of further fortresses were conquered, destroyed or newly fortified, amongst them Naples, Gaeta, Aversa, and Foggia. Only Thomas of Celano, Count of Molise offered serious resistance in his redoubts in the Abruzzi. After a long campaign, however, his fortresses of Roccamandolfi and Ovindoli surrendered and he was banished. As punishment for its resistance, the town of Celano was razed and its inhabitants deported to Sicily. The Count of Molise's defeat saw the end of baronial resistance on the mainland and the power of the greater nobility had been utterly broken. Frederick II began to construct fortresses across the mainland to impose order across the region. These fortresses were massive and utilitarian in nature, showing nothing but a mathematically simple design of stern right-angles, with no residential quarters, and garrisoned by state troops at the expense of the local nobility. The loosely-knit framework of a feudal kingdom, fractured by years of decline, was steadily succeeded by the firm "architecture of a state".
In the spring of 1221, Frederick issued assizes in Messina concerned with
municipal administration. These included regulations for public order, prostitution, and distinctive clothing for Jews. The maritime powers of Genoa and Pisa had long dominated trade in Sicily, taking advantage of the instability during the last decades. Frederick ejected Genoese traders from Syracuse and withdrew all concessions granted to Genoa in Palermo, Messina,
Trapani, and other ports during the last three decades. Genoese and Pisan warehouses were confiscated by the state. Frederick also reestablished the Sicilian navy with provisions based on older Norman laws whereby certain fief holders, including cities and towns of the realm, were bound to furnish timbers or money for shipbuilding and provide for the maintenance of the fleet. These laws were brought into full force again, while Frederick erected new state wharves. By the end of 1221, the emperor already had two squadrons at sea. In the course of Frederick's reign, the Sicilian fleet again became a formidable force in the Mediterranean, rivalled only by those of the maritime republics.
Worried by the independent rule the Sicilian Muslim population developed since his departure in 1212, Frederick deported the rebellious Muslim population of Sicily to Lucera on mainland Italy between 1220 and 1223. The town of Lucera was emptied of its Christian inhabitants and replaced with the deported Muslims of Sicily who were allowed complete religious autonomy in exchange for a special tax. Frederick enlisted six hundred as his personal bodyguards and several thousand as a relatively large standing army. The deportation and resettlement of the Sicilian Muslims revealed the Emperor’s “rare enlightenment” and extraordinary objectivity among his contemporaries, proving to be a masterstroke of bold statecraft; Frederick had not only turned the rebellious Muslims of Sicily into obedient and valuable subjects, totally dependent on his protection but also secured a permanent military force whose loyalty could be relied on against his Christian enemies or papal hostility.
In the space of a few years, Frederick II had restored royal authority in the kingdom of Sicily and reversed several decades of decline in the realm. The kingdom had been revived and once again stood centre stage in European politics. During this process, the Emperor had shown himself to be an astute and devious politician, as well as an inventive state-builder. His reputation as a driven and energetic monarch spread, adding to his already semi-legendary status. The Capuan Assizes laid the groundwork for the broad reorganization of government which Frederick would expand dramatically with the Constitutions of Melfi in 1231, leaving behind a lasting influence on the history of European statehood. By his actions, Frederick could rely on a formidable power base from which he could launch his grand ambitions. The kingdom of Sicily would provide the bulk of his immense resources and remain the jewel among his vast collection of territories. Over the course of the Emperor's reign, the "Regno" would become the most sophisticated European state of the Middle Ages and a vibrant epicentre of culture in the Mediterranean. Frederick's firm grip on his southern kingdom would survive invasion, conspiracy, excommunications, and war with his enemies in Lombardy and the papacy. The strong position he bequeathed to his successors was fundamentally rooted in the "Regno" and was a much-coveted prize by the enemies of the Hohenstaufen, but it eventually suffered disintegration and fracture under the Angevins later in the 13th century.
Foreign policy and wars.
The Fifth Crusade and early policies in northern Italy.
At the time he was elected King of the Romans, Frederick promised to go on a crusade. He continually delayed, however, and, in spite of his renewal of this vow at his coronation as the King of Germany, he did not travel to Egypt with the armies of the Fifth Crusade in 1217. He sent forces to Egypt under the command of Louis I, Duke of Bavaria, but constant expectation of his arrival caused papal legate Pelagius to reject Ayyubid sultan Al-Kamil's offer to restore the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem to the crusaders in exchange for their withdrawal from Egypt and caused the Crusade to continually stall in anticipation of his ever-delayed arrival. The crusade ended in failure with the loss of Damietta in 1221. Frederick was blamed by both Pope Honorius III and the general Christian populace for this calamitous defeat.
In 1225, after agreeing with Pope Honorius to launch a Crusade before 1228, Frederick summoned an imperial Diet at Cremona, the main pro-imperial city in Lombardy: the main arguments for holding the Diet would be to continue the struggle against heresy, to organize the crusade and, above all, to restore the imperial power in northern Italy, which had long been usurped by the numerous communes located there. Those assembled responded with the reformation of the Lombard League, which had already defeated his grandfather Frederick Barbarossa in the 12th century, and again Milan was chosen as the league's leader. The Diet was cancelled, however, and the situation was stabilized only through a compromise reached by Honorius between Frederick and the league. During his sojourn in northern Italy, Frederick also invested the Teutonic Order with the territories in what would become East Prussia, starting what was later called the Northern Crusade.
Frederick was distracted with the League when in June 1226 Louis VIII of France laid siege to Avignon, an imperial city. The barons of the French army sent a letter to Frederick defending their action as a military necessity, and a few days after the start of the siege Henry (VII) ratified an alliance with France that had been signed in 1223.
The Sixth Crusade.
Problems of stability within the empire delayed Frederick's departure on the crusade. It was not until 1225, when, by proxy, Frederick had married Isabella II of Jerusalem, heiress to the Kingdom of Jerusalem, that his departure seemed assured. Frederick immediately saw to it that his new father-in-law John of Brienne, the current king of Jerusalem, was dispossessed and his rights transferred to the emperor. In August 1227, Frederick set out for the Holy Land from Brindisi but was forced to return when he was struck down by an epidemic that had broken out. Even the master of the Teutonic Knights, Hermann of Salza, recommended that he return to the mainland to recuperate. On 29 September 1227, Frederick was excommunicated by Pope Gregory IX for failing to honour his crusading pledge.
Many contemporary chroniclers doubted the sincerity of Frederick's illness, and their attitude may be explained by their pro-papal leanings. Roger of Wendover, a chronicler of the time, wrote that Frederick:
<templatestyles src="Template:Blockquote/styles.css" />went to the Mediterranean sea, and embarked with a small retinue; but after pretending to make for the Holy Land for three days, he said that he was seized with a sudden illness [...] this conduct of the emperor redounded much to his disgrace, and to the injury of the whole business of the crusade.
Frederick eventually sailed again from Brindisi in June 1228. The pope, still Gregory IX, regarded that action as a provocation, since, as an excommunicate, Frederick was technically not capable of conducting a crusade, and he excommunicated the emperor a second time. Frederick reached Acre in September. Many of the local nobility, the Templars, and Hospitallers were therefore reluctant to offer overt support. Since the crusading army was already a small force, Frederick negotiated along the lines of a previous agreement he had intended to broker with the Ayyubid sultan, Al-Kamil. The treaty, signed in February 1229, resulted in the restitution of Jerusalem, Nazareth, Bethlehem, and a small coastal strip to the Kingdom of Jerusalem, though there are disagreements as to the extent of the territory returned.
The treaty also stipulated that the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa Mosque were to remain under Muslim control and that the city of Jerusalem would remain without fortifications. Virtually all other crusaders, including the Templars and Hospitallers, condemned this deal as a political ploy on the part of Frederick to regain his kingdom while betraying the cause of the Crusaders. Al-Kamil, who was nervous about possible war with his relatives who ruled Syria and Mesopotamia, wished to avoid further trouble from the Christians, at least until his domestic rivals were subdued.
The crusade ended in a truce and in Frederick's coronation as King of Jerusalem on 18 March 1229, although this was technically improper. Frederick's wife Isabella, the heiress, had died, leaving their infant son Conrad as rightful king. There is also disagreement as to whether the "coronation" was a coronation at all, as a letter written by Frederick to Henry III of England suggests that the crown he placed on his own head was in fact the imperial crown of the Romans.
At his coronation, he may have worn the red silk mantle that had been crafted during the reign of Roger II. It bore an Arabic inscription indicating that the robe dated from the year 528 in the Muslim calendar (1133-34), and incorporated a generic benediction, wishing its wearer "vast prosperity, great generosity and high splendour, fame and magnificent endowments, and the fulfilment of his wishes and hopes. May his days and nights go in pleasure without end or change." This coronation robe can be found today in the "Schatzkammer" of the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.
In any case, Gerald of Lausanne, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, did not attend the ceremony; indeed, the next day the Bishop of Caesarea arrived to place the city under interdict on the patriarch's orders. Frederick's further attempts to rule over the Kingdom of Jerusalem were met by resistance on the part of the barons, led by John of Ibelin, Lord of Beirut. In the mid-1230s, Frederick's viceroy was forced to leave Acre, and in 1244, following a siege, Jerusalem itself was lost again to a new Muslim offensive.
Whilst Frederick's seeming bloodless recovery of Jerusalem for the cross brought him great prestige in some European circles, his decision to complete the crusade while excommunicated provoked Church hostility. Although in 1230 the Pope lifted Frederick's excommunication, this decision was taken for a variety of reasons related to the political situation in Europe. Of Frederick's crusade, Philip of Novara, a chronicler of the period, said: "The emperor left Acre [after the conclusion of the truce]; hated, cursed, and vilified." Overall this crusade, arguably the first successful one since the First Crusade, was adversely affected by the Church's refusal to support the emperor's settlement as an excommunicate. Because of this and the papal invasion of his Sicilian kingdom, Frederick was compelled to leave behind the kingdom of Jerusalem torn between his agents and the local nobility, a civil war known as the War of the Lombards.
The itinerant Joachimite preachers and many radical Franciscans, the Spirituals, supported Frederick. Against the interdict pronounced on his lands, the preachers condemned the Pope and continued to minister the sacraments and grant absolutions. Brother Arnold in Swabia proclaimed the Second Coming for 1260, at which time Frederick would then confiscate the riches of Rome and distribute them among the poor, the "only true Christians".
War of the Keys.
During Frederick's stay in the Holy Land, his regent, Rainald of Spoleto, had attacked the March of Ancona and the Duchy of Spoleto. Gregory IX recruited an army under John of Brienne and, in 1229, invaded southern Italy. His troops overcame an initial resistance at Montecassino and reached into Campania as far as the Volturno–Irpino. Frederick arrived at Brindisi in June 1229. He quickly recovered the lost territories, and tried and condemned the rebel barons, but avoided crossing the borders of the Papal States.
The war came to an end with the Treaty of San Germano in July 1230. On 28 August, in a public ceremony in Ceprano, the papal legates Thomas of Capua and Giovanni Colonna absolved Frederick and lifted his excommunication. The emperor personally met Gregory IX at Anagni, making some concessions to the church in Sicily. He also issued the Constitutions of Melfi (August 1231) to solve the political and administrative problems of the country, which had dramatically been shown by the recent war.
Henry's revolt.
While he may have temporarily made his peace with the pope, Frederick found the German princes another matter. Frederick's son Henry VII (who was born 1211 in Sicily, son of Frederick's first wife Constance of Aragon) had caused their discontent with an aggressive policy against their privileges. This forced Henry to a complete capitulation, and the "Statutum in favorem principum" ("Statute in favour of the princes"), issued at Worms, deprived the emperor of much of his sovereignty in Germany. Frederick summoned Henry to a meeting, which was held at Aquileia in 1232. Henry confirmed his submission, but Frederick was nevertheless compelled to confirm the "Statutum" at Cividale soon afterwards.
The situation for Frederick was also problematic in Lombardy after all the emperor's attempts to restore the imperial authority in Lombardy with the help of Gregory IX (at the time, ousted from Rome by a revolt) turned to nothing in 1233. In the meantime Henry in Germany had returned to an anti-princes policy, against his father's will: Frederick thus obtained his excommunication from Gregory IX (July 1234). Henry tried to muster an opposition in Germany and asked the Lombard cities to block the Alpine passes. In May 1235, Frederick went to Germany, taking with him no army, only a sumptuous entourage as a display of his power and wealth. News of his arrival spread quickly and the rebellion disintegrated. As soon as July, he was able to force his son to renounce the crown and all his lands at Worms, where Henry was tried and imprisoned. Henry remained a prisoner in Apulia for the rest of his life until he reportedly committed suicide. Frederick II skillfully turned the complex challenge of Henry's rebellion into a chance to introduce "thorough and groundbreaking" reform of Germany and the way the empire was ruled. The Mainz Landfriede or "Constitutio Pacis", decreed at the Imperial Diet of 1235, became one of the basic laws of the empire and provided that the princes should share the burden of local government in Germany. It was a testament to Frederick's considerable political strength, his increased prestige during the early 1230s, and sheer overpowering might that he succeeded in securing their support and rebinding them to Hohenstaufen power.
In Germany, the Hohenstaufen and the Guelphs reconciled in 1235. Otto the Child, the grandson of Henry the Lion, had been deposed as Duke of Bavaria and Saxony in 1180, conveying the allodial Guelphic possessions to Frederick, who in return enfeoffed Otto with the same lands and additional former imperial possessions as the newly established Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, ending the unclear status of the German Guelphs, who had been left without title and rank after 1180, and encouraging their cooperation.
The war for Lombardy and Italy.
With peace north of the Alps, Frederick raised an army from the German princes to suppress the rebel cities in Lombardy. Gregory tried to stop the invasion with diplomatic moves but in vain. During his descent to Italy, Frederick had to divert his troops to quell a rebellion of Frederick II, Duke of Austria. At Vienna, in February 1237, he obtained the title of King of the Romans for his 9-year-old son Conrad.
After the failure of the negotiations between the Lombard cities, the pope and the imperial diplomats, Frederick invaded Lombardy from Verona. In November 1237 he won a great victory over the Lombard League at the Battle of Cortenuova, displaying his capability as a strategist and battlefield leader able to manoeuvre and prevail in difficult situations. Frederick celebrated the victory with a triumph in Cremona in the manner of an ancient Roman emperor, with the captured "carroccio" (later sent to the commune of Rome) and an elephant. The imperial victory at Cortenuova sent shockwaves around Europe and burnished Frederick’s already legendary status. Now at the zenith of his power, Frederick's political preeminence was seemingly unassailable and his hegemony was recognized across almost all of Europe. Not since the days of his father and grandfather, or perhaps even since the heyday of the Ottonians or Salians, had imperial sovereignty been in such a strong position.
With his imperial supremacy now apparently secure, Frederick rejected any suit for conditional peace from his Lombard enemies, even from Milan, his most implacable foe among the cities, which had sent a great sum of money. Perhaps from sober political calculation in light of years of Milanese opposition or simply hatred of the city, he was convinced that only complete military subjection could finally ensure imperial dominance. The Emperor believed, perhaps, that any peace conducted with the Milanese—which must include the imposition of imperial rule in the city by his official—would fail because the Milanese would quickly overthrow his representatives after his departure from the region. Frederick's demand for total surrender spurred further resistance from Milan, Brescia, Bologna, and Piacenza. In the spring of 1238 Frederick summoned a vast international army to aid in his campaign against the remaining insurgent cities, gathering troops from England, France, Hungary, the Nicene Empire, and even a contingent sent by Muslim sultans in the east. From June, he besieged Brescia. After savage fighting in which the emperor himself was nearly captured, Frederick was surprised at the city's continued defiance in the face of his large army and sent emissaries to negotiate its surrender. Frederick’s chief engineer was captured and forced to work against the besieging imperial forces. The Brescians rejected the emperor's terms and the siege continued into September when torrential rains prevented any assault. After a last unsuccessful attack in October, Frederick was forced to raise the siege. Frederick's prestige suffered a blow and the "legend of the emperor's invincibility" had been damaged. Regrouping as the year closed, it was not Frederick's political nous which failed him but a combination of bad luck and his incorrect assessment of the military resources required to subjugate the last few holdouts against imperial authority in northern Italy.
Gregory IX sensed vulnerability and Frederick received the news of his excommunication by the pope in the first months of 1239 while his court was in Padua. The emperor responded by expelling the Franciscans and the Dominicans from Lombardy, taking hostages from important northern Italian families, and electing his son Enzo as Legate General and Imperial vicar of Lombardy. Enzo soon annexed the Romagna, Marche, and the Duchy of Spoleto, nominally part of the Papal States. The emperor ordered Enzo to destroy the Republic of Venice, which had sent some ships against Sicily. In the "Regno" itself, Frederick remorselessly purged the clergy of any of Gregory’s supporters: expelling mendicant friars, arresting suspect priests, replacing wavering bishops with loyal supporters, and filling vacant bishoprics with trusted allies. The Sicilian church effectively became independent of Rome and Frederick’s close advisor, Berard of Castagna, Archbishop of Palermo, was appointed its nominal head. In December of that year, Frederick entered Tuscany and spent Christmas in Pisa. In January 1240, Frederick triumphantly entered Foligno followed by Viterbo, whence he aimed to finally conquer Rome to restore the ancient splendours of the Empire. Frederick's plan to attack Rome at that time, however, did not come to fruition as he chose to leave for southern Italy where a papal-incited rebellion flared in Apulia. In southern Italy, Frederick attacked and razed the papal enclaves of St Angelo and Benevento.
In the meantime, the Ghibelline city of Ferrara had fallen, and Frederick swept his way northwards capturing Ravenna and, after another long siege, Faenza. The people of Forlì, which had kept its Ghibelline stance even after the collapse of Hohenstaufen power, offered their loyal support during the capture of the rival city: as a sign of gratitude, they were granted an augmentation of the communal coat-of-arms with the Hohenstaufen eagle, together with other privileges. This episode shows how the independent cities used the rivalry between the Empire and the Pope as a means to obtain maximum advantage for themselves.
At this time, Gregory considered yielding. A truce occurred and peace negotiations began. Direct peace negotiations ultimately failed and Gregory called for a General Council. Frederick and his allies, however, dashed Gregory's plan for a General Council when they intercepted a delegation of prelates travelling to Rome in a Genoese fleet at the crushing Battle of Giglio (1241), capturing almost all of the high dignitaries and taking thousands of prisoners along with most of the fleet. The emperor proclaimed his victory to be divine judgment and a symbol against the illegality of his persecution by Gregory.
Frederick then directed his army toward Rome and the Pope, burning and destroying Umbria as he advanced. Then, just as the Emperor's forces were ready to attack Rome, Gregory died on 22 August 1241. Recognizing that an assault on Rome could prove both unsuccessful and detrimental to broader European perception of his cause, Frederick attempted to show that the war was not directed against the Church of Rome but against the Pope by withdrawing his troops and freeing from prison in Capua two cardinals he had captured at Giglio, Otto of Tonengo—whom he had befriend and made into a staunch ally—and James of Pecorara. Frederick then travelled to Sicily to wait for the election of a new pope.
Mongol raids.
In 1241–1242, the forces of the Mongol Empire decisively defeated the armies of Hungary and Poland and devastated their countryside and all their unfortified settlements. King Béla IV of Hungary appealed to Frederick for aid, but Frederick, being in dispute with the Hungarian king for some time (as Bela had sided with the Papacy against him) and not wanting to commit to a major military expedition so readily, refused. He was unwilling to cross into Hungary, and although he went about unifying his magnates and other monarchs to potentially face a Mongol invasion, he specifically took his vow for the defence of the empire on "this side of the Alps".
Frederick was aware of the danger the Mongols posed, and grimly assessed the situation, but also tried to use it as leverage over the Papacy to frame himself as the protector of Christendom. While he called them traitorous pagans, Frederick expressed admiration for Mongol military prowess after hearing of their deeds, in particular their able commanders and fierce discipline and obedience, judging the latter to be the greatest source of their success. He called a levy throughout Germany while the Mongols were busy raiding Hungary. In mid-1241, Frederick dispersed his army back to their holdfasts as the Mongols preoccupied themselves with the lands east of the Danube, attempting to smash all Hungarian resistance. He subsequently ordered his vassals to strengthen their defences, adopt a defensive posture, and gather large numbers of crossbowmen.
A chronicler reports that Frederick received a demand of submission from Batu Khan at some time, which he ignored. Frederick II apparently kept up to date on the Mongols' activities, as a letter from the emperor dated June 1241 comments that the Mongols were now using looted Hungarian armour. On 20 June in Faenza, the emperor issued the "Encyclica contra Tartaros", an encyclical letter announcing the fall of Kiev, the invasion of Hungary and the threat to Germany, and requesting each Christian nation to devote its proper quota of men and arms to the defense of Christendom. According to Matthew of Paris's copy of the encyclical, it was addressed to the Catholic nations—France, Spain, Wales, Ireland, England, Swabia, Denmark, Italy, Burgundy, Apulia, Crete, Cyprus, Sicily, Scotland and Norway—each addressed according to its own national stereotype. Richard of San Germano states that copies were sent to all the princes of the West and quotes the start of the letter to the French king. In the encyclical, Frederick indicated he had accepted Hungarian submission as emperor. Another letter written by Frederick, found in the Regesta Imperii, dated 20 June 1241, and intended for all his vassals in Swabia, Austria, and Bohemia, included a number of specific military instructions. His forces were to avoid engaging the Mongols in field battles, hoard all food stocks in every fortress and stronghold, and arm all possible levies as well as the general populace.
Thomas of Split comments that there was a frenzy of fortifying castles and cities throughout the Holy Roman Empire, including Italy. Either following the Emperor's instructions or on their own initiative, Frederick II, Duke of Austria paid to have his border castles strengthened at his own expense. King Wenceslaus I of Bohemia had every castle strengthened and provisioned, as well as providing soldiers and armaments to monasteries in order to turn them into refuges for the civilian population.
Mongol probing attacks materialised on the Holy Roman Empire's border states: a force was repulsed in a skirmish near Kłodzko, 300–700 Mongol troops were killed in a battle near Vienna to 100 Austrian losses (according to the Duke of Austria), and a Mongol raiding party was destroyed by Austrian knights in the district of Theben after being backed to the border of the River March. As the Holy Roman Empire seemed now the target of the Mongols, Frederick II sent letters to Henry III of England and Louis IX of France in order to organise a crusade against the Mongol Empire.
A full-scale invasion never occurred, as the Mongols spent the next year pillaging Hungary before withdrawing. After the Mongols withdrew from Hungary back to Russia, Frederick turned his attention back towards Italian matters. The danger represented by the presence of the Mongols in Europe was debated again at the First Council of Lyon in 1245, but Frederick II was excommunicated by that very diet in the context of his struggle with the Papacy and ultimately abandoned the possibility of a crusade against the Mongol Empire.
Conflict with Innocent IV.
A new pope, Innocent IV, was elected on 25 June 1243. He was a member of a noble Imperial family and had some relatives in Frederick's camp, so the Emperor was initially happy with his election. Innocent, however, was to become his fiercest enemy. Negotiations began in the summer of 1243, but the situation changed as Viterbo rebelled, instigated by the intriguing local cardinal Ranieri Capocci. Frederick could not afford to lose his main stronghold near Rome, so he besieged Viterbo.
Innocent IV convinced the rebels to sign a peace but, after Frederick withdrew his garrison, Ranieri had them slaughtered on 13 November. Frederick was enraged but signed a peace treaty, which was soon broken. The new pope was opposed to Frederick. Together with many of the Cardinals, most of whom were newly appointed by himself, Innocent fled via Genoese galleys to Liguria, arriving on 7 July. His aim was to reach Lyon, where a new church council had been held since 24 June 1245.
The council was under-attended and despite initially appearing that it could end with a compromise, the intervention of Ranieri, who had a series of scurrilous pamphlets published against Frederick (in which, among other things, he defined the emperor as a heretic and an Antichrist), led the prelates towards a less accommodating solution. One month later, before Frederick's representatives even reached Lyon, Innocent IV declared Frederick to be deposed as emperor, characterizing him as a "friend of Babylon's sultan", "of Saracen customs", "provided with a harem guarded by eunuchs", like the schismatic emperor of Byzantium, and in sum a "heretic". The "deposition" of the emperor provoked consternation from other European monarchs and, weary of the interference of an overweening pope, none offered any support to Innocent. Louis IX, sympathetic to the emperor, refused Innocent's requests to enter France and Henry III of England, pushed by English discontent with increased church taxes to finance a papal war with Frederick, rebuffed Innocent's entreaties to move to Gascony. Even within some of the clergy in France, Germany, England, and Italy itself, unrest with Frederick's "deposition" and the preaching of a crusade against the emperor grew. Nevertheless, the struggle between the pope and the emperor had become an all-or-nothing one, and Frederick brutally purged the clergy in Sicily and Italy of Innocent’s supporters wherever he found them. Frederick was supposed to have declared, "I have been the anvil long enough… now I shall be the hammer."
In 1246 Innocent allegedly set in motion a plot to kill Frederick and Enzo, with the support of the pope's brother-in-law Orlando de Rossi, another friend of Frederick. The assassination of Frederick would be the signal for a general uprising against imperial rule across Italy. However, while the emperor was staying in Grosseto, the plotters were unmasked by Riccardo Sanseverino, Count of Caserta, after one of their number, Giovanni da Presenzano, betrayed them. The chief conspirators were some of the Emperor’s closest friends and officials. Among them was the former Imperial vicar of Tuscany, Pandolfo Fasanella, Jacobo di Morra—son of Frederick's long-serving minister Henry of Morra, Ruggero de Amicis—a justiciar and ambassador of the emperor, Teobaldo di Francesco—imperial podestà of Parma, and the hitherto loyal Andrew of Cicala, one of Frederick's chief lieutenants in the Kingdom of Sicily. Frederick dealt ruthlessly with the plot. His lieutenants hunted down the conspirators, destroying their strongholds of Cilento, Sala Consilina, and Altavilla where they had found refuge. The last of the conspirators held out against Frederick's forces in the castle of Capaccio for most of the summer of 1246 but were forced to surrender for lack of water. Hundreds of the conspirators were captured, including Teobaldo di Francesco and Tommaso Sanseverino, Count of Marsico. They were blinded, mutilated, and burnt alive or hanged, and their families were imprisoned or sold into slavery. Much of the holdings of Sanseverino family along with those of other conspirators were seized by the crown. The conspiracy had been utterly crushed and the Sicilian crown had enlarged its already sizable domain. An attempt to invade the Kingdom of Sicily, under the command of Cardinal Ranieri, was halted at Spello by Marino of Eboli, Imperial Vicar of Spoleto. For his fidelity in unmasking the plot, Frederick betrothed his illegitimate daughter Violante to Riccardo Sanseverino. Despite the papal-backed conspiracy against his life, Frederick was now an even more powerful autocrat in the "Regno" and his grip on central Italy and much of Lombardy remained strong. However, the conspiracy was a personal blow to the Emperor, leaving him deeply suspicious of his subordinates and he increasingly relied on his sons. Enzo was already his father's chief representative in Lombardy while Frederick of Antioch was appointed Imperial vicar of Tuscany.
Innocent also sent a flow of money to Germany to dislodge Frederick's power there. The archbishops of Cologne and Mainz also declared Frederick deposed, and