Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 6.djvu/307

 FREDERICK

FREDERICK

lung Heinrichs des Luwen in Hist. Zeilschrift, LXXVI; Schef- FER-BolcHORST, Kaiser Friedrichs letzter Streit mit der Kurie (1866).

F. Kampers.

Frederick II, German King and Roman Emperor, son of Henry VI and Constance of Sicily; b. 26 Dec, 1194; d. at Fiorentina, in Apulia, 13 Dec, 1250. He adopted his father's policy of making Italy the centre of his power, and was interested in Germany only be- cause it guaranteed to him his title to Upper and Central Italy. On the other hand, he could not arrest the dissolution of the empire hastened by the failure of his predecessor Otto IV. The possessions of the empire and those of his own Hohenstaufen family, by means of which Frederick I had sought to build up his power, were plundered. Frederick's sole desire was for peace in Germany, even if to secure this he had to make the greatest sacrifices; and for this reason, he granted to the ecclesiastical and temporal lords a series of privileges, which subsequently developed into the independent sovereignty of these princes. This emperor's policy was entirely dominated by the idea that without Sicily the possession of Italy would always be insecure, and that a king of Italy could not maintain himself without being at the same time em- peror. This policy was naturally antagonistic to the papacy. The popes, isolated as they were in Central Italy, felt themselves compelled to prevent the union of Southern Italy with the empire. Frederick recog- nized this fact, and for several years strove to main- tain peace by extreme concessions. Innocent III had chosen Frederick to be his instrument for the destruc- tion of the C!uelph, Otto IV. In return for Innocent's support, Frederick had been obligetl to make promises to the pope at Eger (12 July, 1215), which would put an enti to the undue influence of the civil power over the German bishops. The emancipation of the Church from the royal power dates from this time. The cause of Frederick's concessions to the Church lay not in his religious convictions but in his polit- ical aims.

Frederick had also been obliged to acknowledge the pope as his overlord in Sicily, thus abandoning his father's cherished hopes of uniting .Sicily with the im- perial crown of Germany, though the attempts of the pope to entirely nullify this "personal union" were far from successful. Italian affairs continued to be the hinge on which turned the papal policy towards the emperor, for the popes in their efforts to sustain their traditional supremacy could not allow the em- peror a controlling influence in Italy. The conflict between the two powers strangely influenced the Cru- sades. Frederick hafl been forced to pledge himself to take part in a new crusade, for which inadequate preparations had been made by the pope, and the Council of Lateran (1215) fixed 1 June, 1216, as the time for beginning the crusade.

The condition of Ciermany, however, did not permit the absence of the emperor. At Frankfort in April, 1220, the German diet passed regulations concern- ing the Roman expedition and the crusade. After Frederick's young son Henry had been chosen king, and Engelljert, the powerful Archbishop of Cologne, named vice-regent, Frederick set out for Italy. He was crowned emperor at Rome (22 Nov., 1220), and renewed his vow to take the cross, promising to begin the campaign in the following year. By a severe edict against heretics, he placed the secular power at the service of the Church, and thus appeared to have ar- rived at a complete understanding w-ith the pope. Even when he failed to keep his promise to start the crusade in the following year, the friendly relations of pope and emperor remained unaltered. For this the peace-loving pope deserved the chief credit, though Frederick also strove to avoid a breach by his loyal policy towards the Holy See. Both pope and em- peror, however, saw that this peace was maintained

only by skilful diplomacy, and that it was constantly imperilled by their conflicting interests.

Frederick at this time was chiefly solicitous about Sicily, towards which he was drawn by his Norman parentage on the mother's side, while the character of his own German people did not attract his sympa- thies. He had grown up in Sicily where Norman, Greek and Mohammedan civilization had intermin- gled, at once strengthening and repelling one another. The king, endowed with great natural ability, had acquired a wonderful fund of learning which made him appear a prodigy to his contemporaries, but, although he was intimately acquainted with the great- est productions of eastern and western genius, his soaring spirit never lost itself in romantic dreams. He eagerly studied both the more and the less iinpor-

SeAL of FKEl'tlKUK ii

" Fridericus D[e]i Gra[tia) Romanor[um] Rex et se[m]p[er] .\UKUSt[usJ et Re.\ Sicil(iael " a tie

From a document in 1

nicipat archives at Frankfort

tant interests of the political and economical life of Southern Italy. The founding of the University of Naples sufficiently attests his interest in education. He was an intelligent admirer of the beauties of na- ture, his love for which was intensified by his natural powers of observation. The unlimited resources of the physical world and its constantly multiplying problems increased the inclination of this sceptical spirit towards a thorough empiricism. In none of his contemporaries does intellectual subjectivism show itself so strongly and at the same time so one-sidedly. This desire to penetrate into the secrets of the uni- verse, as well as his scandalous sensual indulgence, brought on Frederick the reputation of an atheist. In spite, however, of his sceptical tendencies, he was not an atheist. An epigrammatic utterance about " the three impostors, Moses, Christ and Mohammed" has been unjustly ascribed to him in later times, and he remained true to the Church. Perhaps his rational- istic mind took pleasure in the strictly logical charac- ter of Catholic dogma. He was not, however, a champion of rationalism, nor had he any sympathy with the mystico-heretical movements of the time; in fact he joined in suppressing them. It was not the Church of the Middle Ages that he antagonized, but its representatives. It is in his conflict with the pope that his colossal character becomes manifest. At the same time, it becomes apparent how he combined force and ability with cunning and the spirit of re- venge. His most prominent characteristic was his self-conceit. In Germany this megalomania was kept in check, but not so in Sicily. Here he could build up