Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume VII.djvu/463

 FREDERICK (GERMANY) 451 duchy of Bavaria. He reduced Boleslas of Po- land to vassalage, and in six years had restored the empire to the prosperity which it enjoyed under Henry III. He now turned his attention again to Italy, where the smaller towns were oppressed by Milan, and in 1158 he appeared before that city with 115,000 troops and forced it to submission. Crema was destroyed after a terrible siege (1160). Milan soon rebelled again, and its fortifications were destroyed and its inhabitants exiled. Meanwhile Pope Adrian had died (1159), and Alexander III. been chosen to succeed him. Frederick supported an anti- pope, Victor V. (or IV.), and Alexander fled to France. Victor died in 1164, and the emperor thereupon set up another antipope, who took the name of Pascal III., and crowned the empe- ror and his consort a second time in the church of St. Peter at Rome in 1167. The Lombard cities had formed a powerful league against Frederick, and a terrible pestilence which broke out in his army forced him to return to Ger- many in disguise, with only a few followers. The defences of Milan were then restored, and a new city sprang up in a beautiful and natu- rally fortified spot, which in honor of the pope and in defiance of the emperor was called Alexandria or Alessandria. During this time Frederick was busily engaged in regulating the affairs of Germany and strengthening his own power. In the autumn of 1174 he invested Alessandria, and besieged it for five months, during which his army suffered greatly. The Lombards came to the relief of the city, and on May 29, 1176, a decisive battle was fought near Legnano, in the vicinity of the lake of Como, in which Frederick was defeated with great loss, and was supposed for some days to have been killed. He reappeared at Pavia, where the empress had already put on mourning, ac- knowledged Alexander as pope, and in July, 1177, held an interview with him at Venice, in which a complete reconciliation was effected, Frederick humbling himself again at the pope's feet, and receiving from him the kiss of peace. The cities of Lombardy obtained a truce for six years. New troubles were now raised in Germany by the ambitious duke Henry the Lion. He was finally subdued, and banished for three years. The Lombard truce was fol- lowed in 1183 by a definitive treaty of peace on terms honorable to all parties, and when Fred- erick made a journey to Italy soon afterward he was received with acclamations of joy. Tran- quillity reigned in all his dominions when the news of the fall of Jerusalem in 1187 caused Pope Clement III. to proclaim the third cru- sade. The old emperor took the cross, and in the spring of 1189 put himself at the head of 150,000 warriors, crossed Hungary, severely punished the Greeks, whom he suspected oif treachery, penetrated into Asia Minor, defeat- ed the Moslems in several engagements, and took Iconium (Konieh). The army reached the banks of the Seleph or Calycadnus in Cili- cia, June 10, 1190. The vanguard had crossed by a bridge, when the emperor, impatient to join his son, Duke Frederick of Swabia, who led the advance, plunged with his war horse and heavy armor into the stream, was over- powered by the current, and was borne away. Some historians have preferred a less well au- thenticated account that he lost his life in con- sequence of bathing, like Alexander, in the Cydnus. Frederick was a man of noble quali- ties, of great mental endowments, and of spirit equal alike in reverses and prosperity, though somewhat arrogant and not seldom cruel in the heat of war. He was a patron of letters and a man of learned accomplishments, and re- markable for elegance and majesty of aspect. He wrote memoirs of some parts of his life, which he left to Otho, bishop of Freising. After divorcing his first wife (1156), he mar- ried Beatrice of Burgundy. His son Frederick, founder of the Teutonic knights, lost his life in the third crusade, and another son, Henry VI., succeeded to the empire. FREDERICK II., a German emperor and king of Naples and Sicily, grandson of the preceding and son of Henry VI. and Constantia of Sicily, born at Jesi, near Ancona, Dec. 26, 1194, died at Fiorentino or at Fiorenzuola, Dec. 13, 1250. He was carefully educated by his mother under the guardianship of Pope Innocent III., ac- quired an extensive knowledge of ancient and modern languages, and of different sciences, in- cluding philosophy, which he learned from a Saracen teacher, and poetry, which he culti- vated himself, and soon developed those chival- ric and royal talents, that active, energetic, and buoyant spirit, which made him one of the most distinguished monarchs of the middle ages. He was hereditary dnke of Swabia and other dominions in Germany, but for his in- vestiture and coronation as king of Naples and Sicily his mother sacrificed to Innocent III. (1209) some of the most essential rights of the state. His uncle, Philip of Swabia, who dis- puted the throne of Germany after the death of Henry VI. with Otho IV., having fallen in battle, Frederick was assisted by the pope to reestablish the imperial dignity of his house. He went to Germany in 1212, was joyfully re- ceived by the Ghibellines, compelled Otho to retire, was crowned at Aix-la-Chapelle in 1215, and generally acknowledged in 1218. Leaving his son Henry, whom he caused to be declared king of the Romans, in Germany, he started in 1220 for Italy, hastened to Rome, where he was crowned as emperor, and thence to his hereditary kingdom, whose affairs he arranged while preparing for a crusade, according to a solemn promise given to the see of Rome. Men of science, poets, and artists flocked to his court, the university of Naples was founded, the medical school of Salerno became flourish- ing, collections of art were procured, and Pe- ter de Vinea prepared an extensive code of laws to suit all the classes and nations of Ger- many and Italy, which Frederick was schem- ing to unite into one hereditary empire. These