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 o 56 THE DECLINE AND FALL their zeal against a domestic enemy, were sometimes tempted to forget the distress of their Syrian brethren. From the last age of the crusades they derived the occasional command of an army and revenue ; and some deep reasoners have suspected that the whole enterprise, from the first synod of Placentia, was contrived and executed by the policy of Rome. The suspicion is not founded either in nature or in fact. The successors of St. Peter appear to have followed, rather than guided, the im- pulse of manners and prejudice ; without much foresight of the seasons or cultivation of the soil, they gathered the ripe and spontaneous fruits of the superstition of the times. They gathered these fruits without toil or personal danger : in the council of the Lateran, Innocent the Third declared an ambiguous resolu- tion of animating the crusaders by his example ; but the pilot of the sacred vessel could not abandon the helm ; nor was Palestine ever blessed with the presence of a Roman pontiff.'-"^ The emperor The pcrsons, the families, and estates of the pilgrims were Frederic n. r ■' ^ ^ r o in Palestine, undcr the immediate protection of the popes ; and these spiritual patrons soon claimed the prerogative of dii'ecting their opera- tions, and enforcing, by commands and censures, the accomplish- ment of their vow. Frederic the Second,^" the grandson of Barbarossa, was successively the pupil, the enemy, and the victim of the church. At the age of twenty-one years, and in obedience to his guardian Innocent the Third, he assumed the cross ; the same promise was repeated at his royal and imperial coronations ; [Nov., A.D. and his marriage with the heiress of Jerusalem ^^ for ever bound him to defend the kingdom of his son Conrad. But, as Frederic advanced in age and authority, he repented of the rash engage- ments of his youth ; his liberal sense and knowledge taught him to despise the phantoms of superstition and the crowns of Asia ; he no longer entertained the same reverence for the successoi-s of Innocent ; and his ambition was occupied by the restoration of the Italian monarchy from Sicily to the Alps. But the success ^This simple idea is agreeable to the good sense of Mosheim (Institut. Hist. Eccles. p. 332) and the fine philosophy of Hume (Hist, of England, vol. i. p. 330). 97 The original materials for the crusade of Frederic H. may be drawn from Richard de St. Germane (in Muratori, Script. Rerum Ital. torn. vii. p. 1002-1013 [Chronica regni Siciliae, a contemporary work preserved in two redactions : Ed. Pertz, Mon. xi.x. p. 323 si^^. ; and Gaudenzi (in the Monumenti Storici, published by the Societa Napolitana di storia patria), 1888]), and Matthew Paris (p. 286, 291, 300, 302, 304). The most rational moderns are Fleury (Hist. Eccl(5s. torn, xvi.), Vertot (Chevaliers de Malthe, tom. i. 1. iii.), Giannone (Istoria Civile di Napoli, torn. ii. 1. xvi.), and Muratori (Annali d'ltalia, tom. x.). 3*[Yolande, daughter of John of Brienne.] 1225]