vention of the Papal legate between him and the Lombards, because he had really no sufficient force; he did not, however, await the result: persecuted some Catholics whom he was displeased with because, he said, they were heretics, and allowed his Saracens at Lucera to pillage a church; he also chose to regard the Lombards, because there were amongst them some · Cathari, as heretics, whom he said he must exterminate; and because the Pope had favoured them he reproached him with it, and called him 'favourer of heresy." He was displeased at the Pope's decision of the 5th June 1233, in the matter of his dispute with the Lombards; Gregory defended it (12th August), saying that it had been issued with the advice of the cardinals, and was in accordance with law and equity, but offered to retract it, and let everything revert to its former position." Frederick would not agree to this, and gave his consent to the Pope's decision.7

Very different was the assistance which the Pope rendered to Frederick, when his son Henry, for the second time, rebelled against him, from the lukewarm assistance Frederick had rendered to the Pope, on the occasion of a rebellion in Rome in 1234, when Frederick was in secret league with the Pope's enemies,9 and the latter felt it his duty not to decline his help. 10 The situation would have been highly perilous for the emperor if the Pope had given his support to Henry, whose causes of quarrel were not wholly unreasonable, nor the means at his disposal insignificant; but Gregory threatened to excommunicate him, and gave such efficient help to Frederick that the latter succeeded at last in placing Henry in confinement, and kept him until his death in 1242 a close prisoner. Such was the end of Frederick's eldest son, who had been raised to be King of Germany in violation of the promise given to the Holy See.11 Frederick in spite of this aid remained an implacable enemy of the Papacy, and never abandoned his scheme for subjugating the whole of Italy.12 In the year 1236 he made vigorous war upon the Lombards, and rejected all intervention; in 1237 he was at the summit of his power, with strength sufficient to set at naught the supremacy of the Church and the feudal suzerainty. His replies to

the complaints of the Pope were sometimes evasive, sometimes insolent; so that Gregory, on the 23d October 1236, repeated all his grievances, at the same time representing to Frederick his position with regard to the Church, and reproving him for his want of respect.13 Intoxicated by his victory over the Lombards at Cortenuova, 27th November 1237, the emperor drove them by his tyranny to the resistance of despair,14 took every pretext for jeering at the Pope, and multiplied his outrages against the Church, 15 It was a source of much sorrow to the Pope that Frederick's officers in Sicily should, in 1236, have intercepted and imprisoned a nephew of the King of Tunis who had been converted by the Dominicans, and was travelling to Rome, there to receive baptism. Frederick, however, refused to set him at liberty, pretending that the prince had been unduly influenced, and that he could not become a Christian without the consent of his uncle.16 Many other grievances were added to these, viz. that he had violated the treaty of San Germano, incited the Romans to rebellion against the Pope, illtreated and banished several prelates; that he had put priests cruelly to death; that he prevented the filling up of vacant sees, had employed Saracens to destroy Christian churches; that he had rendered vain all endeavours to secure the Christian supremacy in the East; that he had conferred upon his natural son Enzio1 the island of Sardinia, which he had himself acknowledged to belong to the Church of Rome; that he led a dissolute life, and was strongly suspected of heresy and unbelief.18 With regard to the latter point the Pope reserved to himself a more searching investigation. The charge of unbelief was denied by Frederick,19 as well as by his biographers; but the suspicion has always attached to him, since his whole course of action seemed to justify it. Over and above these grievances, he took prisoner Peter the Saracen, who was sent to the Pope on the part of Henry III. of England, and refused to permit Cardinal Palestrina, who was commissioned to Provence, to pass through his dominions on the way thither,20

1 Raynald. a. 1230, n. 17; a. 1231, n. 2.

2 Hefele, v. p. 880.

3 This is treated in detail, of course exactly according to his point of view, by Pietro Giannone: Istoria Civile del Regno di Napoli, t. iv. 1. xvi. c. viii. p. 48 seq. ed. 1821, Italia (place of publication not given).

4 Raynald. a. 1231, n. 10 seq.

5 Cf. Hefele, 1.c. p. 833.

Bréh. iv. p. 447 seq.

Ib. p. 451 seq.

8 Hefele, p. 885.

Cf. Brischar, 1.c. pp. 281-283.

Raynald. a. 1234, n. 4 seq.

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10 Vita Greg. IX. p. 580: Imperator. . . . Reate concitus nec invitatus advenit, Ecclesiae causam, quam ut advocatus ex imperii debito et vassallus ex homagio regni Siciliae gemino tenebatur defendere juramento, cum supplicatione suscipiens D. Papae et fratribus de ipsius fide dubitantibus prosequendam. Fecerat enim eorum judicia futuri profectus incredula mentitae saepius offerentis fidei conjectura. Quod prudenter tandem summi praesulis cautela permisit, eligens potius felicem deesse negotio successum, quam recusare debitum imperatoris ipsius obsequium, per quod, cum ex conditione regni et imperii teneatur, grave poterat Ecclesiae praejudicium generari.'

11 Bréh. iv. pp. 473 seq. 530 seq. Brischar in Stolberg's K. G. vol. lii. p. 340 seq.

12 Sigon. de Regno Ital. Hist. i. 18, p. 180, ed. Venet. 1591. Döllinger, 1.c. ii. p. 205.

13 Bréh. iv. 906 seq. 914 seq. Brischar, 1.c. pp. 378-394.

14 Even Matthew Paris, who was so favourable to Frederick, remarks, p. 400: From this time forward the emperor lost the affection of many hearts, for he showed himself an implacable tyrant; whilst the Milanese, on account of their submissiveness, deserved to have been raised and strengthened.'

15 Brischar, pp. 398-407. Hefele, v. p. 892 seq.

16 Raynald. a. 1236, n. 22 seq.

17 Raynald. a. 1238, n. 68.

18 Various utterances of Frederick's are reported, whose contradictions are not surprising considering his sceptical tendencies. Even if the Book of the Three Impostors be not his work, everything makes it credible that he spoke like that book. Not merely Gregory IX. (Mansi, xxiii. 79 seq.) and his biography, but also the Chron. Augustan. a. 1245, ed. Freher, t. i., the Compilatio Chronol. ap. Pistor. Scr. g. i. p. 1102, a. 1249, have the same, as well as the Hist. Langrav. Thuring. c. 1. ib. p. 1327. An utterance concerning the Eucharist is reported by Alberic. ap. Leibniz. Access. Hist. ii. 568; Pistor. Struve, in M. Chron. Belg. t. iii. p. 244. Cf. Bianchi, 1.c. § 4, n. 7, pp. 432, 433; and Ricordano Malespini, Istor. Fiorent. c. cxxxii. (Murat. R. J. Scr. viii. 966). Arabian authors confirm the accusation (Reinaud, Extraits des Hist. Arabes relatif aux Guerres des Croisades, Paris, 1829, p. 431). The Journal Asiatique, Paris, Mars 1853, pp. 240274, gives the questions laid by Frederick before the Mussulman doctors and the answers of Abu Muhammed Ibn Sabin. The words of Gregorovius, quoted by Huber, p. 35, really offer no counter testimony.

19 Petrus de Vineis, lib. i. Ep. 31. Frederick in any case was obliged to

disavow unbelief before his contemporaries (Döllinger, Kirche und Kirchen, p. 52).

20 Rayn. a. 1239, n. 6. Bréholles, v. 271 seq.

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If after all this Gregory IX. did, on the 20th March 1239, renew Frederick's excommunication, and release his subjects from their oath of allegiance so long as he should be under the ban, who could ascribe it to the immoderate claims of the Papacy, to motives of worldly policy, to blind passion," when the many and grievous crimes Frederick had committed, backed up as they were by his outrageous manifestoes,3 are given their due weight? The excommunication was used as a measure of defence, in the Church's direst necessity, and as the fulfilment of an imperative duty. Frederick asserted, and his followers sought to gain credence for the idea, that the Pope excommunicated him with a view of favouring the rebellious towns of Lombardy, and that the other reasons he gave were mere pretexts; but the facts of the case, as shown by the Pope, and which no one has ever contradicted, amply refute the assertion. Although the Lombards had been very negligent in support of the Pope, Gregory had, after peace had been concluded in 1230, shown himself full of consideration towards them, but he could not vanquish their mistrust of a despotic ruler, which Frederick certainly fully justified. The emperor respected the Papal decision of 1233 just so long as he had need of the Pope; and new discords presently arose, which Gregory desired to adjust on the 25th July 1235. Frederick, in reply, declared that if before Christmas the Pope had not arrived at an arrangement honourable to the emperor and advantageous to Germany, he should, in April of the following year, invade Lombardy simultaneously from two quarters. Gregory, upon this, desired the Lombards to send their plenipotentiaries to him by the 1st of December, to lay their cause before the Church, otherwise they would have only themselves to thank for the evils which delay would bring upon them. He charged the Master of the Teutonic Order to prevail if possible upon the emperor to remove from his decrees the condition unfavourable to peace. The

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Lombards, having before their eyes the fear of such tyranny as that practised in Sicily, began by a renewal of their League," which caused a delay in the arrival of their plenipotentiaries in Rome; in consequence of which the Master of the Teutonic Order, as envoy of the emperor, left the city and refused to return, even when messengers were sent after him announcing the arrival of the Lombard plenipotentiaries, and explaining the reason of their delay.10 Frederick paid no attention to the request the Pope sent on the 21st March 1236,11 that these same ambassadors might return without delay for the negotiations, although Gregory represented to him in what a bad light he would appear before the world, if without further parley he were to attack the Lombards; also that these might think they had been deceived by the Church. Gregory also wrote to many of the nobles who surrounded Frederick, and admonished the Lombards by the Bishop of Ascoli to effect a peace with the emperor.12 Frederick, whose forces were well prepared, was dissatisfied with the peace concluded by his grandfather, and was bent on a war of subjugation, which he sought to cover with the pretence of making it a religious war for the extirpation of heresy.13 Gregory's further letters, and the mission of Cardinal Palestrina, were of no avail. 14 As the Lombards had never refused to enter into negotiations, Gregory could not censure them, as Frederick wished him to do; subsequently the shocking acts of violence perpetrated by Frederick made all hope of peace impossible.

1 Donec fuerit vinculo excommunicationis adstrictus' (Raynald. a. 1239, n. 15). Cf. Bréholles, t. v. p. 286 seq.

2 Huber, p. 26.

Bréholles, v. 295 seq. 307, 348 seq.

4 In the letter to the cardinals of 10 March 1239, and in the Encyclical from Padua (Bréholles, v. pp. 282 seq. 307).

5 Bréholles, iii. p. 244 seq.

Bréh. iv. 490, 735 seq.

Ib. p. 759 seq.

s Ib. pp. 479 seq. 776 seq.

Bréholles, iv. 796 seq.

10 Ib. p. 830, n. 5. Annal. Wormat. h.a. p. 165. 11 Ib. pp. 870 seq. 904 seq. Vita Greg. p. 581. 12 Ib. p. 827, n. 1.