PART XI .

THE SWABIAN DYNASTY

CXLVIII.

Conrad the Third

 

THE great struggle between church and state, the pope and the emperor, had now commenced, and centuries were to pass away before its termination. On the one side stood the pope, supported by France and by an un-German faction in Germany, which up to this period had been the Saxon one, but, since Saxony had fallen to the Bavarian Welf, was denominated the faction of the Welfs, or, as they were called in Italy, Guelphs. On the other side stood the emperor, who, besides defending the prerogatives of the state against the encroachments of the church, sought more especially to uphold the interests and honor of the German nation against the Italians and the French, in pursuance of which he was but too often treacherously abandoned by his own party in Germany. After the extinction of the Salic dynasty and the short reign of Lothar, the Staufen mounted the throne, on which they long sat, and, nam­ing their race after the Allod of Waiblingen in the Remsthal, which they had inherited from the last of the Salic emperors, the name of the Waiblinger, or, in Italian, Ghibellines, was gradually fixed upon the imperial faction.

The election of a successor to the throne was appointed to take place at Mayence, in 1138; the Waiblinger, however, anticipated the Welfs, in the most unconstitutional manner, and proclaimed Conrad von Hohenstaufen emperor at Coblentz. Handsome in his person, and replete with life and vigor, of undaunted and well-tried valor, Conrad stood superior to all the princes of his time, and seemed by nature fitted for command. His election was, moreover, favored by the decease of Adalbert of Mayence, and by the dread with which the princes of the empire beheld the rising power of the Welfs, which it was Conrad’s first aim to break. His faint-hearted opponent, staggered by his unexpected attack, delivered up the crown jewels; the Saxons, and even Lothar’s widow, submitted to him; but, on his demanding from Henry the cession of Saxony, under pretense of the illegal union of two duchies under one chief, the duke rebelled, and was put out of the ban of the empire, Bavaria was given to Leopold of Austria, and Saxony to Albrecht the Bear. The ancient feud was instantly renewed, in 1139. The Welfs possessed numerous A Hods and fiefs in Swabia and Bavaria, which, supported by Welf, Henry’s brother, defended the cause of their liege, while Henry himself carried on the struggle in Saxony. Conrad von Zahringen, at the same time, rose in favor of the Welfs, and the emperor, sending against him his nephew, Frederick Barbarossa (the son of Frederick the One-eyed), who succeeded in getting possession of Zurich, took the field in person, and invaded the lands of the Welfs. It was in 1141, when besieging the Welf in Weinsberg, that . the Germans for the first time changed their war cry, “Eyrie Eleison,” for the party cries of “The Welf!”. “The Waiblinger!” After enduring a long siege, Welf was compelled to surrender, Conrad granting free egress to the women, with whatever they were able to carry. The duchess, accordingly, took her husband, Welf, on her shoulders, and all the women of the city following her example, they proceeded out of the city gates, to the great astonishment of the emperor, who, struck with admiration at this act of heroism, permitted the garrison to withdraw, exclaiming to those who attempted to dissuade him, “An emperor keeps his word!’’. The feud was put an end to by the deaths of Henry and Leopold, who, among other places, had destroyed Ratisbon. The son of the former, Henry the Lion, received Saxony, which Albrecht was, consequently, compelled to cede; in return for which, Brandenburg, which had formerly, like Thuringia, been annexed to the duchy of Saxony, was declared independent. Leopold’s brother, Henry Sammirgott, a surname he derived from his motto, married the widow of Henry the Proud, the mother of Henry the Lion, and became duke of Bavaria. Welf, the only malcontent, leagued with Bela, king of Hungary, and Roger of Naples, and continued to carry on a petty feud. Leopold was defeated, in 1146, by the Hungarians on the Leitha. In the same year, Conrad made an unsuccessful inroad into Poland, for the purpose of restoring the duke, Wladislaw, who had been expelled by his subjects on account of his German wife, who continually incited him against his brothers, and treated the Poles with contempt.

Geisa II, king of Hungary, probably with the view of protecting his southern frontiers, and at the same time of accustoming his wild subjects to German manners and customs, allowed Saxon emigrants to settle in Siebenburgen. In 1160, they founded Hermannstadt, and have, to the present day, preserved their ancient language, customs and privileges. In 1222, King Andreas granted them great privileges; they remained separate as a Saxon nation from the natives, paid merely a small tax, which they laid upon themselves, and elected a count of their own nation, who, in sign of his newly-imposed rank, was presented with a banner, a saber, and a club. Their provincial diets were held in the open field.

About this time, the religious enthusiasm, which the cru­sades had so greatly tended to rouse, rapidly spread; the German prophets, nevertheless, found a greater number of followers in France than in Germany. Ulrich of Ratisbon became the reformer of the celebrated monastery of Clugny, the pride of the monkish world, and the pattern after which all other monasteries formed, or rather reformed themselves. St. Bruno of Cologne founded the severe order of the Carthusians, who bound themselves by the strictest vow com­pletely to renounce the world; and Norbert of Xanten,’ the equally strict order of the Pramonstratenser, in the wild vale of Premontre. While these pious Germans promulgated the doctrine of worshiping God in solitude to the mountaineers of France, Count Hugo von Blankenburg, a Saxon, the abbot of the convent of St. Victor, in Paris, known as Hugh, a knight in the army of the emperor Henry IV, who was converted by a stroke of lightning, which struck him from his horse.—Other celebrated enthusiasts of this age wore Eberhard, brother to Count Adolf von Altona, and Mark, who was outlawed by Lothar as a partisan of the Staufon, and being struck on the forehead with a battle-ax while fighting with the count of Limburg, instantly changed his opinions, and tied, disguised as a serf, to France, where ho was afterward discovered as a swineherd.—In the country around Troves, Rocholin the hermit dwelt for fourteen years naked in the forest. The Countess Ida von Toggenburg attained still greater celebrity in Switzerland. A raven flow away with her wedding ring, which was found and worn by a huntsman. The count perceiving the ring, believed his wife to be unfaithful to him, and cast her from a window down a precipice. She escaped unhurt, and lived long after in seclusion. de St. Victoire, 1140, formed this doctrine into an ingenious philosophical system, and invented scientific mysticism, or Divine mysteries, which were further amplified by Honorius of Augst, near Basel (Augustodunensis), and by Rupert, abbot of Duiz, near Cologne. With these three fathers of mysticism, who gave utterance to the spirit with which the Middle Ages were so deeply imbued, was associated Hildegarde, Countess von Sponheim, and abbess of Bingen, who was the oracle of the pope and of the emperor. She died at a great age, in 1198. She and her sister Elisabeth had vis­ions, during which they appeared to be influenced by a sort of poetical inspiration. While the Germans were thus buried in poetical mysticism, the French and Italians constructed a new system of scholastic divinity, the result of a comparison of the doctrines of the ancient Greek philosophers—for instance, those of Aristotle—with the received tenets of the church, all whose ordinances were defended by philosophical subtleties, which the free-thinkers labored to confute. Abelard, the freedom of whose opinions was quickly adopted by the heretics (Ketzer, Katharer, purifiers) in Germany, flour­ished at this period in France. He was the most celebrated among the free-thinkers of his times.

The Roman Church endeavored, from the commencement, to divide the heretics into different sects, and to give them different names, as if they, in opposition to the united church, could merely have confused and contradictory notions; but the heretics were, from the commencement, extremely simple, and united in their views, which aimed at nothing less than the restoration of Christianity in its original purity, genuine piety, not merely the mock devotion of church ceremonies, real brotherly love in Christ, not the slavish subordi­nation in which the laity was held by the despotic priesthood, whose moral corruption unfitted them for the sacred office they filled. This was the doctrine taught by Tanchelin at Antwerp and at Bonn, and for which he was put to death, his conversion having been vainly attempted by St. Norbert, who had been presented with the archbishopric of Magde. burg (1126). This heresy afterward took a political character in Italy. The Romans, who had long struggled against their chains, revolted against Innocentius II. who had entered into an offensive alliance against them with their ancient enemy, the neighboring town of Tivoli. In the heat of the insurrection, Arnold of Brescia, a monk, the disciple of Abelard, promulgated his heretical doctrines, which threatened to hurl the tiara from the pontiff’s brow. This man preached a universal reform, the reduction of the church to its primitive state of simplicity and poverty, and the restoration in the state of the freedom and equality of the ancient Grecian and Roman republics, at the same time that St. Bernhard was raising a crusade, in which the religious enthusiasm of the age was carried to its highest pitch; and thus did the adverse opinions of so many centuries meet, as it were, in the persons of these two men. Arnold expelled the pope from Rome, and restored the ancient republican form of government. A Roman, Jordanus, was elected consul. The pope, Eugene III, after vainly entreating for as­sistance from Conrad III, who was sufficiently acquainted with Italy to be well aware of the futility of an expedition to Rome, fled into France, to St. Bernhard, in order to aid him in the more important scheme of raising a general crusade. He returned to Rome, whence he contrived to expel Arnold, in 1149. Heresy spread also throughout Switzerland. Arnold of Brescia resided for some time at Constance and Zurich. The shepherds of Schwyz carried on a long dispute with the insolent abbot of Einsiedeln, who attempted to deprive them of a pasturage, the ancient free inheritance of their fathers, in defense of which they were aided by the neighboring herdsmen of Uri and Unterwalden, and although, in 1144, excommunicated by the abbot, by the bishop of Constance, and put out of the ban of the empire by the nobility, they refused to yield (being probably infected with Arnold’s free and bold opinions), and, for eleven years, asserted their independence, without the priests or nobles venturing to attack them in their mountain strongholds; a foretoken of the Swiss confederation of more modern times.—About the same date, 1139, the inhabitants of Groningen in East Friesland were at feud with the bishop of Utrecht, whose pretensions endangered their freedom. They were defeated, but, notwithstanding, defended their liberty against Henry the Lion, whom they beat from the field.—The Ditmarsi belonged to the county of Stade, and, like the West Friscians, had fallen under the temporal government of the dukes. The death of Rudolf, the last of the counts of Stade, whose crown cost him his life, happened during this heretical outbreak (1143). After this, the Dit­marsi maintained their independence for the space of five years, but, less protected, like the more fortunate Swiss, by their mountains, they were defeated and reduced to submission by the imperial forces (1148). They afterward fell successively under the rule of the bishop of Bremen, the counts of Holstein, and the king of Denmark, against all of whom they repeatedly rebelled.

 

CXLIX.

The Crusade of Conrad the Third

The bad state of affairs in the East, meanwhile, necessitated another crusade. The crown of Jerusalem had passed from the house of Lothringia to that of Anjou. The settlers in the Holy Land chiefly consisted of French, who, merely intent upon plunder and conquest, neglected the cause of religion. They had, moreover, married Arabian and Turkish women, and their descendants, the Pullanes, devoid of their father’s energy, and inheriting the soft effeminacy of their mothers, were educated amid the intrigues of Eastern harems. These Pullanes, at the present period, formed the nobility of the kingdom of Jerusalem, and of the principalities of Antioch and Tripoli, and, as they had never visited the West, the new crusaders, by whom they feared to be deprived of their possessions, became objects of general suspicion; and to this cause may be attributed the failure of this crusade.

Baldwin II had been succeeded by his son-in-law, Fulke d’Anjou, an old and incapable prince. Edessa had been governed by the wicked Joscelin, who was thrown into prison. The noble-spirited Pontius of Tripoli had been killed, and Raimund, the valiant son of the dastardly Troubadour, William of Poitou, who had seized the sovereignty in Antioch, was the only one who, since 1136, continued to honor the banner of the cross. Fulke, defeated by the great sultan Zengis, was for a short time assisted by Dietrich of Flanders, who, like the rest of his countrymen, soon returned to his native country (1138). Fulke was thrown from his horse when hunting, and died (1143). He was succeeded by his son, Baldwin III, a boy twelve years of age, and, during the following year, 1144, Zengis took the important city of Edessa, which had long served Jerusalem and Antioch as a bulwark against Bagdad. The city was at first spared, but an insurrection taking place among the Christian inhabitants, thirty thousand of them were cut to pieces. A fearful storm that burst over Jerusalem, during which the church of the holy sepulcher was struck with lightning, was also viewed by the devout as a visitation from heaven on account of the sins of the Pullanes.

The fall of Edessa filled the whole of Christendom with consternation, and the loss of the holy sepulcher was everywhere prognosticated. The pope, Eugene III, a haughty and ambitious man, formed the scheme of assembling the emperor, the kings and princes of Europe beneath the banner of the church, and of placing himself as a shepherd at their head. St. Bernhard traveled through France, emulat­ing his predecessor, Peter the Hermit, in the warmth of his appeal to the people. On the Rhine, a priest named Radulf again incited the people against the Jews, who were assassinated in great numbers in almost all the Rhenish cities. St Bernhard, on his arrival in Germany, opposed Radulf, whom he compelled to return to his convent, and, aided by St. Hildegarde, the Velleda of the times, persuaded multitudes to follow the crusade. The people, in their enthusiasm, tore his clothes off, in order to sew the pieces on their shoulders in the form of a cross. At Frankfort-on-the-Maine he was so closely pressed that the emperor was obliged to carry him away from his admirers like a child on his arm. At first Conrad was unwilling to visit the Holy Land, on account of the unsettled state of his authority in Germany, but he was forced to yield to circumstances, and, while presiding over the diet at Spires, was presented with the cross by St. Bernhard, the sign of his vow, in which he was also joined by his nephew Frederick, Henry Sammirgott, the rebellious Welf, Ladislaw of Bohemia, Berthold, Count von Andechs, Ottocar of Styria, and several bishops, among whom was the emperor’s brother, Otto, bishop of Freysingen, to whom posterity is indebted for an account of this crusade.

Henry the Lion, Albrecht the Bear, all the Saxon nobility, and Conrad von Zahringen, who had no inclination to accompany the emperor to the Holy Land, turned their arms, aided by their Danish allies, against the pagan Wends. A reconciliation had shortly before taken place between them and Adolf of Holstein. Niclot attacked and destroyed Lubeck, but spared all the Holsteiners, and, after gallantly defending his fortress of Dubin on the Sea against the superior Saxon forces, was at length induced to embrace Christianity. Adolf, a prince equally wise and valiant, was attacked by his neighbors, the jealous Danes, whom he had the good fortune to repel (1148). Denmark was, at this period, governed by three brothers, Valdemar, Sueno, and Canute, the last of whom leaguing with Adolf against Sueno, Etheler the Ditmarsch, the hereditary foe of the counts of Holstein, joined Sueno. Adolf was victorious, and Etheler was slain. A quarrel afterward broke out between Adolf and Canute, and the latter was also beaten. The Ascomanni, a piratical horde in the Baltic, composed of people of every nation, took advantage of the confusion to carry on their depredations. The greatest anarchy prevailed. Canute a second time defeated Sueno, who in his turn defeated the Ascomanni. Germany no longer viewed Denmark with apprehension.—Henry the Lion, after making peace with Niclot, contented himself with the destruction of the pagan temples at Rhetra and Oldenburg. He invested the bishop Vicelin with the latter place, bestowing it upon him in fee, as if he united in his own person the prerogatives of both the emperor and the pope. He also invested the count Henry with Ratzeburg, after compelling Przibizlaw, who was less warlike than Niclot, to surrender his lands. Albrecht the Bear took Brandenburg, which was desperately defended by Jatzco, one of Przibizlaw’s nephews, by storm; and the whole of the terri­tory beneath his jurisdiction took henceforth the name of Brandenburg.

In Spain the religious war against the Moors was carried on with great fury. In 1147, a great fleet bearing Friscian, Flemish, and Colognese crusaders headed by Arnulf von Aerschott, landed, when crossing the sea to Palestine, on the coast of Portugal, and understanding that Alfonso the Great, king of Spain, was, at that conjuncture, laying siege to the city of Lisbon, which was then densely populated by Moors, they instantly offered him their assistance, and historians relate that the Spaniards had already retired from before the city walls when the Germans appeared, and bearing all before them, soon made themselves masters of the place. Alfonso, in the excess of his gratitude, divided the enormous booty taken in ransacking the city among the crusaders, who continued their voyage and reached the Holy Land in safety.

In the spring of 1147, Conrad III assembled an immense multitude at Ratisbon, and marched them along the Danube into Greece, where, notwithstanding the friendly reception of the emperor, Manuel, many untoward events took place. Some Germans who were carousing in the suburbs of Philippopolis were joined by a juggler, who, seating himself among them, placed a snake which had been taught tricks on one of the cups. The Germans, imagining him a sorcerer and skilled in the black art, instantly killed him, upon which a desperate fray ensued between them and the Greeks, and the whole country was laid waste. In the beautiful vale of Chorobacha, the German camp was suddenly inundated in the middle of the night by a rain-spout, which washed the tents and numbers of the men into the sea. In Constantinople the Germans destroyed a pleasure-garden belonging to the emperor, and the perpetrators of this wanton act of mis­chief were cut to pieces by the mercenaries, without any attention being paid to the circumstance by Conrad. On reaching Asia Minor, the army divided, Otto von Freysingen marching to the left along the sea-coast, while the emperor led the main force inland. The scarcity of provisions caused great suffering to both armies; the Greeks on their approach fled into the fortified towns, and the starving pilgrims were merely able to procure scanty and sometimes poisoned food at an enormous price. The Greeks even confessed that the emperor Manuel permitted them to sell poisoned flour. It was no unusual practice for them to take the gold offered in exchange for their provisions by the honest Germans, and to run off without giving anything in return. Conrad, nevertheless, continued to push on, but was treacherously led by the Greek guides into a Turkish ambuscade. During the previous year Zengis had been murdered by an assassin; but the petty princes of Asia Minor combined against the Germans, and Conrad’s army, after wandering for three days without food amid the pathless mountains around Iconium, was suddenly attacked and routed by the Turks. The horrors of this dreadful day, October 26, 1147, were still further increased by an eclipse of the sun. Conrad, who had received two severe arrow wounds, now attempted to rescue the remainder of his army from their perilous situa­tion by an orderly retreat, but the brave Count Bernard von Plotzke, who brought up the rear, was deprived of the whole of his men by the arrows of their Turkish pursuers. The arrival of Louis VII of France, at this critical moment, was of little avail. The French merely mocked the unfortunate Germans, and Conrad, racked by ridicule and disappointment, lay sick at Constantinople. The French, however, did not escape. Their army was, as usual, encumbered with a number of women. The pious king had brought with him his young wife, Eleonore, or Alienore, and a numerous suite. Notwithstanding the politeness of their reception by Manuel, they no sooner reached Asia Minor than a fate similar to that which had befallen the Germans awaited them. The Greeks closed the gates of their cities against them, poisoned the provisions, and treacherously delivered them to the Turks. Weary, starving, and faint, they were easily dispersed and slain, and Louis, after defending himself on a rock against the whole Turkish army, was taken prisoner. He was after­ward set at liberty. Otto von Freysingen reached Antioch with the remnant of his weakened forces, while the Germans who marched under Conrad, and the French under Louis, merely found their way to Atalia on the sea-coast, a desolate abode, where hunger and pestilence alone awaited them. The leaders went by sea to Antioch. The common soldiery were, for the greater part, starved to death; three thousand of the French went over to the Turks and embraced Mohammedanism, and the plague spreading among the treacherous Greek inhabitants, the city, completely deserted, sank in ruins.

Antioch was, at that time, governed by Raimund, Eleonore’s uncle, by whom she and her husband were received with great magnificence. The manners of this half-oriental court completely corrupted this beautiful and unprincipled princess, who, forgetful of the sacred object of the crusade, and heedless of the sufferings of the people, wantonly sported with young cavaliers (a handsome Turk is mentioned as one of her most favored lovers), and, protected by Raimund, openly braved the authority of her husband. Louis at length succeeded in secretly carrying her off to Accon, where the emperor Conrad, who had arrived by sea from Constantinople, had, with the remainder of the German pilgrims, been received by the young king, Baldwin III. Edessa being irreparably lost, it was concerted in a council held by all the princes present that an expedition should be undertaken against Damascus, which, it was further agreed, should be bestowed upon Count Dietrich of Flanders, who had just arrived; and, after paying their devotions at the holy sepulcher, the whole body of the pilgrims took the field, and a brilliant victory was gained at Babna, Conrad and his Ger­mans forcing their way through the retreating French, and falling with irresistible fury on the now panic-struck enemy, Conrad is said to have cut a Turk so completely asunder at one blow that his head, arms, and the upper part of his body fell to the ground. The Pullanes, jealous of the fortune of the count of Flanders, now prince of Damascus, were easily bribed by the Turks to betray the pilgrims, whom they persuaded to abandon their safe position, and then broke their plighted word; upon which the emperor Conrad, and Louis of France, justly enraged at their treachery, raised the siege of Damascus and returned to their respective dominions. And thus was another brilliant enterprise doomed to terminate in shame and dishonor. The Pullanes, like the Greeks, hastened their own ruin. Blind to their own interests, they senselessly neglected the opportunity that now presented itself, on the death of Zengis, their most formidable foe, and during the minority of Saladin the Great, for extending and fortifying the kingdom of Jerusalem, whose downfall now rapidly approached.

Welf, who had hurried home before the rest of the pilgrims, had again conspired, with Roger of Naples, against Conrad; and Henry the Lion, deeming the moment favorable, on account of the recent discomfiture of the emperor, openly claimed Bavaria as his own. Conrad hastened back to Germany and held a diet at Spires. His son Henry reduced the Welf to submission, but shortly afterward expired in the bloom of youth. The emperor did not long survive him; he died at Bamberg (according to popular report, of poison administered to him by Roger), when on the point of invading Poland for the purpose of replacing Wladislaw on the throne (1152). The double eagle was introduced by him into the arms of the empire. It was taken from those of the Greek emperor, by whom it was borne as the sym­bol of the ancient Eastern and Western Roman empire.

CL.

Frederick Barbarossa

The claim of Frederick, Conrad’s nephew, to the crown, was received without opposition. The jealous vassals of the empire seemed under the influence of a charm. Even the insolent Welfs bent in lowly submission. There was little union between the heads of this inimical and illustrious house, Welf the elder of Upper Swabia, and Henry the Lion of Saxony, the latter of whom was, moreover, at variance with his stepfather, Henry of Babenberg, who withheld from him his paternal inheritance, Bavaria. In 1152, Frederick was elected emperor at Frankfort on the Maine; and crowned with ancient solemnity at Aix-la-Chapelle. This election was the first that took place in the presence of the city delegates. Frederick publicly swore to increase justice, to curb wrong, to protect and extend the empire. On quitting the cathedral, a vassal threw himself at his feet in the hope of obtaining pardon on this solemn occasion for his guilt, but the emperor, mindful of his oath, refused to practice mercy instead of justice.

Frederick was remarkable for the handsome and manly appearance, and the genuine German cast of countenance, which distinguished the whole of the Staufen family, and powerfully conduced to their popularity. Shortly cropped fair hair, curling closely over a broad and massive forehead, blue eyes with a quick and penetrating glance, and well-curved lips that lent an expression of benevolence to his fine features, a fair white skin, a well-formed and muscular person, combined with perfect simplicity in dress and manners, present a pleasing portrait of this noble chevalier. His beard, that inclined to red, gained for him the Italian sobriquet of Barbarossa. Ever mindful of the greatness of his destiny, Frederick was at once firm and persevering, a deep politician and a wise statesman. To guarantee the internal unity and the external security of the state was his preponderating idea; and regardless of the animosity with which the German princes secretly sought to undermine the imperial authority, he directed his principal forces against his most dangerous enemy, the pope, and rightly concluded that he could alone overcome him in Italy. Those who charge him with having neglected the affairs of Germany, and with having devoted himself entirely to those of Italy, on the grounds that he would have acted more wisely had he confined himself to Germany, forget the times in which he lived. The pope would never have suffered him to remain at peace in Germany, he would ever have stirred up fresh enemies around him, and Frederick had no other choice than, as a good general, to carry on the war in his adversary’s territory, and to direct his whole force against the enemy’s center. The peaceful government of Germany was alone to be secured by the imposition of shackles on the pope.

By giving the crown of Denmark in fee to Sueno, Frederick at once terminated the strife between him and his two brothers, Canute and Waldemar, and secured the northern frontier of the empire. The allegiance of Henry the Lion being confirmed by a promise of the duchy of Bavaria in reversion, he dismissed, without further ceremony, the papal legates, who interfered in the election of the bishops, over the Alps, and assembled a powerful army, with the intention of quickly following in their footsteps. When he was encamped on the Bodensee, the ancient cents or cantons of Schwyz, Uri, and Unterwalden, marched under the banner of the Count von Lenzburg, their governor, to do him feudal service in the field.

While the emperor was assembling his forces at Con­stance, embassadors from the city of Lodi threw themselves at his feet, complaining of the oppression of their city by Milan, whose inhabitants affected the papal party. Frederick commanded the Milanese to make restitution to their neighbors, but they tore his letter in sign of contempt. Frederick now crossed the Alps, and, planting the standard of the empire in the vale of Ronceval, near Piacenza, in 1154, summoned all the Italian vassals to do their bounden service as royal body-guard in the field, and declared all who refused to appear to have forfeited their fiefs. The Ghibellines obeyed the summons; the Guelphs treated it with con­tempt. Milan sent an open defiance, but Frederick, too prudent to attempt the subjugation of this well-fortified and densely populated city by force, sought to weaken her by gradually occupying the towns with which she was in league. The importance of the cities in Upper Italy had been greatly increased by the crusades, by the consequent extension of their commercial relations with the East, and also by the absence of the ruling family since the reign of the Countess Matilda; the warlike nobility of the country had, moreover, assumed the right of citizenship in the cities. The richest commercial cities were Venice, Genoa, and Pisa, while Milan, situated in the heart of Lombardy, was far superior to them all in military power, and had become the focus of the papal faction. The cities of Rosate, Cairo, Asti, fell one after another into the hands of the victorious emperor, who, in order to strike terror into his opponents, reduced the strongly fortified city of Tortona, which had long resisted the siege, to ashes, and leveled the ground on which it had stood. At Pavia he seized the iron crown of Lombardy, and entered into a negotiation with the pope, Hadrian IV., for the performance of the ceremony of coronation. Rome was still convulsed by two rival factions, one in favor of the pope, the other composed of the heretical republican disciples of Arnold of Brescia. The dread with which the success and popularity of Arnold impressed the pope rendered him more docile toward the emperor, who little foresaw of what a powerful weapon he voluntarily deprived himself, by persecuting Arnold, a man as truly great as he was unfortu­nate, instead of aiding him to the utmost in carrying out his plans for the complete reformation of the church. When the embassadors from the citizens of Rome entered his presence, and spoke to him of ancient Roman virtue, he replied to them contemptuously, “Ancient Rome and ancient Roman virtue no longer dwell with you, her effeminate and perfidious children, but with us, her hardy and true-hearted sons.” The enthusiasm created by Arnold of Brescia appeared to him merely an Italian comedy, the contemptible shadow of a temporal republic, instead of, as in fact it was, the germ of a great ecclesiastical reform. He, consequently, permitted Arnold’s execution, and this luckless reformer was burned alive at sunrise before the gates of the city, to whose inhabitants he had preached religious and civil liberty. Rome trembled before the emperor. The pope solemnly placed the crown upon his brow in the church of St. Peter, and the emperor, in return, held his stirrup, an action, the symbolical interpretation of which signified that spiritual power could not retain its empire without the aid of the temporal. Frederick also caused the picture representing Lothar’s acceptance of the crown in fee from the pope, which was publicly exhibited in the Lateran, to be burned, and expressed his displeasure at the artful method by which the church falsely sought to extend her authority, in the following remarkable words: “God has raised the church by means of the state; the church, nevertheless, will overthrow the state. She has commenced by painting, and from painting has proceeded to writing. Writing will gain the mastery over all, if we permit it. Efface your pictures and retake your documents, that peace may be preserved between the state and the church.” The Romans, in the meantime, unable to forget their long-hoped-for republic, were maddened by rage, and the ceremony of the coronation was scarcely over when an insurrection broke out, and Frederick, whose horse fell beneath him, was alone saved by the courage of Henry the Lion. A horrid tumult, in which multitudes were butchered, ensued, but was finally quelled by the Germans. In order to punish the insolence of the Normans, Frederick took the field against William, the son of Roger; but his army being wasted by pestilence, he was forced to retreat through his enemies, who in different places barricaded his path. Spoleto was reduced to ashes for refusing the customary contribution (fodrum). The passage of the Etsch was defended by the Veronese, whom he evaded by the rapidity of his movements, and the pass through the mountains being guarded by a fortress, it was carried by storm by Otto von Wittelsbach, his bravest adherent, who reached it over al­most inaccessible rocks, and the Veronese nobles, captured within its walls, were condemned to hang each other.

On his return, in 1156, the emperor held a diet at Ratisbon, in which he rewarded Henry the Lion for the succor he had afforded him during the Italian campaign with the duchy of Saxony. Henry Sammirgott was compensated with the duchy of Austria, which remained henceforth independent of Bavaria. Welf was confirmed in the duchy of Tuscany; Frederick von Rotenburg was created duke of Swabia, the emperor disdaining the title of duke in addition to his own; Berthold von Zahringen was compelled to resign the government of Burgundy, which his father Conrad had held. This province presented a scene of the direst anarchy. Its affairs had been almost entirely neglected by the emperor, and the difference between the language spoken by the inhabitants and that of Germany, had gradually estranged them from the Germans, a circumstance which the French monarchs took advantage of in order to gain over the Burgundian nobles, whom they occasionally supported against Germany. It was just at this conjuncture that William, count of Burgundy (Franche Comté), imprisoned Beatrix, the only child of his brother, Count Reinold, in a tower, and deprived her of her rich inheritance. The emperor, mindful of the fidelity with which her father had served him in a time of need, hastened to procure her liberation, and to raise her as his empress, to the throne, which her beauty, talents and virtues were well fitted to adorn. The marriage was celebrated at Wurzburg. Five sons were the fruit of their happy union. The whole province of Burgundy (of whose fidelity she was the pledge, and which is traversed by the Rhone till it falls into the sea) swore fealty to the emperor at Besancon, where Otto von Wittelsbach attempted to cut down the Cardinal Roland, who maintained that the emperor held the empire in fee of the pope. Frederick built a palace at Dole.

In 1157, assisted by Henry the Lion and by Bohemia, he opened a campaign against Poland, and compelled Boleslaw, the king of that country, once more to recognize the supremacy of the German empire, and barefoot, his naked sword hanging around his neck, to take the oath of fealty; after which, the royal dignity was bestowed by the emperor upon his obedient vassal, Wladislaw of Bohemia.

The feuds, so common throughout Germany, were suspended by force; as an example to deter others, he condemned the Pfalzgraf Hermann, who persisted in carrying on a feud with the archbishop of Mayence, to carry a dog, a disgrace so bitterly felt by the haughty vassal that he withdrew into a monastery. The Pfalz was bestowed upon Conrad, the emperor’s brother. The introduction of the different orders and customs of chivalry, and the warlike notions inculcated by the crusades, had greatly tended to foster the natural predilection of the Germans, the love of arms, and there were many knights who supported themselves solely by robbery and petty feuds, or, as it was called, by the stirrup. Their castles were mere robbers’ nests, whence they attacked and carried off their private enemies or wealthy travelers, the higher church dignitaries and merchants, whom they compelled to pay a ransom. Frederick destroyed a considerable number of these strongholds. It is about this period that the oppression under which the peas­antry groaned comes under our notice. The magnificence and luxury introduced from the East, and the formation of different orders of nobility, had multiplied the necessities of life, and consequently had increased the rent of land and feudal taxes. Numbers of the peasants claimed the right of burghership in the towns as Ausburger, absentees, or Pfahlburger, citizens dwelling in the suburbs; and by thus placing themselves under the protection of the cities, occasioned numerous feuds between them and the provincial nobility, who refused to give up their serfs. Some of the princes protected the peasantry, and became in consequence extremely popular. The Landgrave Louis of Thuringia was long ignorant of the misconduct of his nobility. One day, having wandered from the track when pursuing the chase, he took shelter for the night in the house of a smith at Ruhla, without discovering his rank to his host. The next morning the smith set to work at his forge, and, as he beat the iron, exclaimed, “Become hard, Luz! Become hard, Luz!” and, on being demanded his meaning by the land­grave, replied that “he meant that the landgrave ought to become hard as iron toward the nobles’’. The hint was not thrown away upon his listener, Louis henceforward adding to his own power by freeing the peasants from the heavy yoke imposed upon them by the nobility. The nobles made a brave defense in the battle of Naumburg, but were finally defeated, and yoked in turn by fours in a plow, which the landgrave guided with his own hand, and with which he plowed up a field, still known as the Adelacker (the nobles’ acre). Louis received thence the sobriquet of “the Iron.” His corpse was borne from Naumberg to Reinhartsbrunn, a distance of ten miles, on the shoulders of the nobility.

The policy pursued by the emperor was imitated by several of the princes, who sought to keep their vassals in check by means of the cities. Henry the Lion bestowed great privileges on his provincial towns, Lubeck, Brunswick, etc. Berthold von Zahringen, who, in 1113, founded Freiburg, followed his example. Albrecht the Bear sought to ameliorate the condition of his Slavian frontier, by draining and cultivating the marshes, and by bringing numerous colonists from the Netherlands, whence came the name of Fleming that is still given to the frontier tracts of country filled with dikes and marshes, more especially in the vicinity of Magdeburg.

Having thus given peace to Germany and extended his empire, the emperor was once more at leisure to form his plans upon Italy, where the pope had again ventured to mention the empire as a gift bestowed by him upon the emperor, who no sooner menaced him than he declared that he had intended to say “bonum factum” not “feudum.” In 1158, Frederick crossed the Alps, preceded by his zealous adherent, the valiant Otto von Wittelsbach, who everywhere spread the terror of his name. The Milanese, who, in revenge, had laid the cities of Lodi and Crema in ruins, opposed the emperor at Cassano and were defeated. He received their embassadors in the ruins of Lodi, and said to them, “You have destroyed the emperor’s city, and with the same measure with which ye mete shall it be measured unto you again.” He, nevertheless, treated Milan with great lenity, on her surrender in the autumn, in the hope of winning her over to his side, and when, on the 6th of September, the nobles of Milan delivered to him the keys of the city, and came into his presence barefooted, with their naked swords hanging around their necks, he forgot his revenge, and contented himself with an oath of fealty, and a promise of the restoration of Lodi and Crema.

Frederick, true to his policy of legally regulating the affairs of the country as a prince of peace, not as a powerful conqueror, convoked a diet of the native princes of Lombardy in the fields of Ronceval, where the great feudatories of Italy appeared in person. The cities were each represented by two consuls. And, in order to avoid any misunderstanding, and to settle differences, he summoned thither four of the most noted doctors of the law from the Italian universities, to act as impartial judges, Martinus Gosia, Bulgarus, Jacob and Hugh de Porta Ravegnana. The study of the ancient Roman law, to which the discovery of the Pandects at Amalfi had greatly conduced, had, not long before this period, come into vogue in Italy. In the inimical position in which Italy stood in regard to Germany, may be perceived the chief cause of her predilection for the study of her bygone times, while the confusion between her ancient and modern privileges naturally caused the clear, precise, and conclusive laws of ancient Rome to be rigidly examined and consulted. The university of Bologna, in particular, applied herself to the study of the Roman law, which she undertook to explain, and to adapt to the present state of affairs. Frederick, in common with the rest of his contemporaries, acted upon the idea of the intimate connection of the German empire with that of ancient Rome, and therefore discovered no hesitation in reviving all the ancient privileges, which were, in fact, more conformable with his policy, no mention being made of hierarchical power in the old Roman law, which merely propounded the temporal and unlimited authority of the emperor, and thus provided him with a powerful weapon not only against the pope, but also against his unruly vassals, with which he willingly armed himself.

The new Italian code, delivered by the diet held at Ronceval, was founded partly on the German, partly on the Roman legislature. It was decided that all the royal dues usurped by the dukes, margraves, and townships, should relapse to the crown, and that the nomination of all princes and counts, as well as city consuls, was invalid unless confirmed by the emperor. This was an old German prerogative. It was further resolved that the great fiefs should be inalienable and indivisible, in order to put an end to the feuds caused by their conferment and division. The universities were endowed with additional privileges, slavery being antipathetical to the progress of intelligence. A general tax, a most un­popular novelty, was deduced from the Roman law, and now for the first time imposed. When Otto von Wittelsbach attempted to enforce this tax on the Milanese, an insurrection ensued, and he was driven out of the city; and, at the same time, the majority of the cities declared against the deputies, their representatives at the diet, who had been chiefly in­duced to vote with the emperor by the hope of being confirmed by him in their consulates. Hadrian IV also protested against the diet. Henry the Lion then attempted to negotiate matters; the cardinals sent to him for that purpose being seized and imprisoned in Tirol by the lawless counts of Eppan, Henry, in his right as duke of Bavaria, punished . them by destroying their castles. On the decease of Hadrian, in 1159, there was a schism among the cardinals, the Ghibellines electing Victor IV, the Guelphs, Alexander III.

Frederick’s first attack was directed against the cities, his nearest and most dangerous foes. After a dreadful siege, such as no German had ever yet been doomed to stand, he took Crema, the ally of Milan, in 1160. Four times did the enraged Milanese secretly attempt his assassination with­out success. Milan defied him, and, during the winter, when most of the German princes returned as usual to the other side of the Alps, the Milanese defeated him during an inroad into the province of Carnaro. In the spring of 1161, strong re-enforcements arrived from Germany, and the siege began with increased fury, the emperor swearing that his head should not again wear the crown until he had razed Milan to the ground. The contest lasted a whole year without intermission, and terminated on the 6th of March, 1162, in the capitulation of the proud city, which hunger alone had forced to yield. The starved citizens marched out of the city arrayed in sackcloth, a rope around their necks, a taper in their hands, and the nobles with their naked swords hanging around their necks. In this state they remained some time exposed to the heavy rain, until the emperor, who was at table, came forth and saw them deliver up their weapons and badges of honor, while their Palladium, a tall tree bearing a cross, was cut down with a German ax. He then ordered a part of the city wall to be thrown down, and rode through the opening into the city. He contented himself, notwithstanding, with the total destruction of all the walls, towers, and fortifications; the city and the lives of the inhabitants were spared. A considerable booty was gained by pillage. Among others, Reinold, archbishop of Cologne, took possession of the three kings, whose costly relics he carried to Cologne, where, even at the present day, they are objects of great veneration. Frederick henceforth ruled Italy with a rod of iron. He created Reinold, the austere archbishop of Cologne and Count von Dassel, archchancellor and regent of Italy, and gave him subordinate officers, who filled the country with rapine and oppression. The extortion thus practiced was known as little as it had been enjoined by the emperor, the intention of whose regulations was merely the enforcement of strict justice and the maintenance of order; the unhappy results, however, fell upon his head.

During the absence of the emperor, feuds had broken out 'anew in Germany. In 1160, the citizens of Mayence had killed their archbishop, Arnold, for having expelled his predecessor, Henry. Frederick severely punished them, and leveled the city walls. In Swabia, a robber knight, one of Welf’s vassals, having been harshly treated by Hugo, Count von Tubingen, Welf and his allies, the Zahringers and Habsburgers, attacked Tubingen, which was succored by Frederick of Swabia and the Count von Hohenzollern, by whom the Welfs were completely defeated in 1164. These disturbances hastened the emperor’s return from Italy, and in order to preserve his good understanding with the Welfs, which was at that time necessary, he compelled the innocent Count von Tubingen to surrender to Welf the elder, and peace was again made.—Frederick at the same time induced Boleslaw, king of Poland, to restore Silesia to the three sons of his long-exiled brother Wladislaw, in consequence of which Boleslaw the Long received Breslau and the central part of the province, Conrad, Lower, and Mieslaw, Upper Silesia. The German education they had received from their mother, Agnes, inclined them more in favor of German than Polish manners, and they greatly contributed to the gradual annexation to the empire of the fertile valleys watered by the Oder, and bounded by the forests of Poland and by the Riesengebirge (giant mountains).

The emperor’s attention was now recalled to Italy. The pope, Victor, expired in 1164. The recognition of Alexander III by the emperor remained dubious. This pope, a man of energy and cunning, had withdrawn to Genoa, and thence to France, where he sought to form a league against the emperor, in which he was encouraged by the republics of Venice and Genoa, which began to view with dread the supremacy of the emperor in Italy. A reconciliation would indubitably have been proposed by Frederick, had not Henry, king of England, exactly at that conjuncture declared against Alexander, with whom he was at variance concerning some ecclesiastical affairs, and Henry the Lion, being that monarch’s son-in-law, and the alliance with the Welfs being of greater moment to the emperor than the reconciliation with the pope, he recognized the new pope, Pasqual III, and invited him to Germany, where, in 1165, he canonized Charlemagne at Aix-la-Chapelle.

This decision on the part of the emperor put the finishing stroke to Alexander’s projects. The insolent behavior of the Germans had naturally excited the hatred of the Italians. The regent, Reinold, when humbly counseled by Count Blandrate to remember the precepts of wisdom, replied, “What do we want with wisdom ? we want gold, and nothing but gold!“ Gozzo, the governor at Seprio, arbitrarily confiscated property, and burned the deeds, if it happened to be mortgaged or encumbered with debts. Pagano, the governor of Padua, committed violence on the beautiful Speronella Dalesmani, etc. These governors were Italians, but the horrors they perpetrated were countenanced by the Germans. Markwald von Grundbach, the governor of Milan, had tax-gatherers in his pay who were natives of Lombardy, and whom he fixed at Pavia and in the country round about for the purpose of discovering those possessed of wealth. The confiscated estates were entered by these men in the book of pain, as it was called. The rape of the beautiful Paduan was the signal for open revolt. The Germans, although few in number, successfully defended their lives, but were unable to hinder Alexander’s triumphal entry into Rome, in 1165, and the interdict laid upon the emperor. Notwithstanding this, they maintained their ground and continued their attacks upon the pope. Christian of Mayence, the emperor’s steady adherent, a man equally distinguished as an archbishop, a statesman, and a general, besieged Ancona; but was com­pelled to raise the siege in order to succor the archbishop Reinold of Cologne, who was hard pushed by the Romans, thirty thousand of whom were defeated by Christian with merely fifteen hundred men. The Lombards in Upper Italy, meanwhile, remained masters of the field. On the 7th of April, 1167, the league between the cities of Lombardy was established, and Milan was rebuilt on a handsome scale, and more strongly fortified, the women giving all their jewels to the churches that had been plundered of their decorations by the Germans. .

In the same year, the emperor undertook his third expedition against Rome, and invested Pasqual with the tiara. But before he could attack the cities, his fine army was al­most entirely swept away by a pestilence; the archbishop Reinold, Frederick of Swabia, the only son of the aged Welf, and numerous other German counts and bishops, were among the victims. At Pisa, the emperor threw his glove into the air as he pronounced the whole of the Lombard league out of the ban of the empire. He then retreated with the remainder of his army beyond the Alps. On being closely pursued, he ordered the hostages that accompanied his retreat to be hanged on the trees on the roadside. In Susa he narrowly escaped falling into the hands of the Italians; the knight, Hermann von Siebeneichen, who had placed himself in the emperor’s bed, while the latter fled under cover of the night, being seized in his stead.

CLI.

Henry the Lion

As long as the good understanding between the Waiblingers and the Welfs subsisted, Henry the Lion lent his aid to the emperor during his Italian expeditions, and was, in return, allowed the free exercise of his authority in the north of Germany, where, although already possessed of Saxony and Bavaria, he ceaselessly endeavored to extend his dominion by the utter annihilation of the unfortunate Slavonians. The aged and brave prince, Niclot, was treacherously induced to quit his castle of Werle, and assassinated. His son, Wratislaw, was granted a petty territory, but, becoming suspected, was thrown into prison. His second son, Pribislaw, and his ally, Casimir, prince of Pomerania, placed themselves at the head of the Slavonians, who fought with all the energy of despair, and gained a glorious victory over the Saxons at Demmin, in 1164; upon which Henry the Lion invaded the country, hanged the unfortunate Wratislaw, and was on the point of laying the land waste by fire and sword, when a similar attempt was made on his northern frontier by the Danes. In order to protect himself from their attacks, he concluded peace with the Wends, deeming himself more secure in the vicinity of the petty Wendian princes than in that of the powerful Danish monarch. Tetislaw in Rugen, Casimir in Pomerania, and Priczlaw (a third and Christian son of Niclot) in Mecklenburg, became Henry’s vassals. The county of Schwerin was alone severed from the ancient country of the Obotrites and given to the gallant Saxon, Count Guntzel. The descendants of Priczlaw reign at the present day over Mecklenburg. He founded, in 1171, the great monastery of Dobberan. Benno, the first bishop of Mecklenburg, was his worthy contemporary.—In Pomerania, Christianity had been already introduced under the late Duke Wratislaw. The inhabitants. of Stettin, the ancient city of the Wends, obstinately refusing to be converted, Boleslaw of Poland suddenly attacked them in the winter time, and murdered eighteen thousand men (1121). This defeat, and Wratislaw’s project of securing his authority over his wild subjects by the imposition of Christianity, greatly aided the endeavors of St. Otto, bishop of Bamberg, who ventured into the country for the purpose of converting the heathen inhabitants. One of the earlier missionaries, Bernard, had been placed in a boat at Wollin, and sent forth “to preach to the fish.” Wratislaw, and numbers of his subjects, were baptized at Pieritz by Otto. The people of Stettin and Wollin still murmured, and at length revolted, but were reduced to submission, and a new bishopric was erected in Wollin.

In Denmark, the dispute between the three brethren still continued. Sueno, although recognized king by the emperor, was continually harassed by Canute and Waldemar, the former of whom he succeeded in assassinating at a banquet, to which he and Waldemar had been invited under pretext of reconciliation. Waldemar escaped with a severe wound, placed himself at the head of the discontented populace, whom a bard incited to vengeance, and triumphed on the Grathaer heath, and Sueno, who received thence the posthumous surname of Grathe, was deprived of his head by a peasant in 1157. Waldemar, now sole sovereign, visited the emperor, in 1162, at Metz, and besides being allowed to hold Denmark in fee, was granted the reversion of the still diminishing lands of the Wends, for the purpose of balancing the power of Henry the Lion. Waldemar undertook a great expedition against Rugen, under pretext of destroying the last resort of paganism, the great temple of the idol Swantevit on Arcona; but in reality with the intention of gaining possession of that commodiously situated island. This step excited the jealousy of Henry the Lion, who sent a Saxon re-enforcement. Pomerania, now converted to Christianity, also afforded her aid. Arcona fell in 1168. The banquet given in honor of the victory was prepared upon the fragments of the gigantic wooden idol. Waldemar took possession of Rugen in his own name, seized the maritime city of Wollin, and fixed himself boldly on the coasts of the Baltic; upon which Henry invaded Denmark, and com­pelled the proud Waldemar, with whom he held a conference on the bridge of the Eider, to give up to him half of the treasures gained in the pillage of Arcona, and to accept of him as colleague in the government of Rugen.—Henry afterward busied himself with the regulation of his northern state, where, with the same right with which he had formerly nominated and invested the bishop of Oldenburg, he now created a new margraviate, that of Schwerin, dependent upon him alone, which he bestowed upon the gallant Count Guntzel. He also rapidly increased the prosperity of Lubeck, by inviting thither numerous colonists and bestowing upon her great privileges.

Count Florens III of Holland was, in 1169, defeated by the West Friscians. He afterward visited the Holy Land, where he died (1188). The landgrave of Thuringia and Bernhard von Anhalt were at feud with one another and carried fire and sword into each other’s territory (1166).

The aged Welf died at Memmingen, where, surrounded by boon companions, he held a luxurious court, squandered his revenues, and loaded himself with debt (1169). Henry the Lion had never assisted him; the emperor’s treasury, on the contrary, was ever open to him, and as he left no issue, he bequeathed his Swabian allods and the lands of the Countess Matilda in Italy to his benefactor. The loss of the Welfic inheritance estranged Henry the Lion from the emperor, and he lost no opportunity of seeking for revenge.

The Italians treated the election of Calixtus III by the Ghibellines with indifference, and remained firm in their allegiance to Alexander III, in whose honor they erected the formidable fortress of Alexandria, as a bulwark against the Germans. Christian of Mayence, the only imperialist who still kept the field in Italy, again vainly besieged Ancona. This distinguished statesman and general spoke six languages, and was, moreover, celebrated for his knightly feats of arms. A golden helm upon his head, armed cap-à-pie, he was daily beheld mounted on his war-steed, the archiepiscopalian mantle on his shoulders, and a heavy club, with which he had brained thirty-eight of the enemy, in his hand. The emperor, whose arrival in Italy was urgently implored, was retained in Germany by his mistrust of Henry the Lion, who, in order to furnish himself with a pretext for refusing his assistance in the intended campaign without coming to an open breach, undertook a pilgrimage to Jerusalem in 1171; whence, after performing his devotions at the holy sepulcher, without unsheathing his sword in its defence, he returned to his native country. During his stay in the Holy Land, the papal partisans in the East, who at an earlier period had treacherously refused their assistance to Conrad, the Ghibelline, loaded him with attentions on account of his Guelphic origin. This crusade has been adorned in the legends of the time with manifold wonders. On his return, he caused a lion, carved in stone, the symbol of his power, to be placed in the market-place at Brunswick (1172); an occurrence that gave rise to the fable of the faithful lion, by which he is said to have been accompanied during his pilgrimage.

At length, in 1174, Frederick Barbarossa persuaded the sullen duke to perform his duty in the field, and for the fourth time crossed the Alps. A terrible revenge was taken upon Susa, which was burned to the ground. Alexandria withstood the siege. The military science of the age, every ruse de guerre, was exhausted by both the besiegers and the besieged, and the whole of the winter was fruitlessly expended without any signal success on either side. The Lombard league meanwhile assembled an immense army in order to oppose Frederick in the open field, while treason threatened him on another side. It is uncertain what grounds he had for fearing the old Duke Henry Sammirgott of Aus­tria, whose son, Leopold, had wedded Helena, the sister of Geisa, king of Hungary, and he has been charged with having incited against him Duke Hermann of Carinthia, and Count Ottocar IV of Styria, who invaded Austria, and burned three hundred men alive in a church at St. Veit Sammirgott revenged this unprovoked aggression by making an inroad into Styria and laying the whole country desolate.

The Venetians also embraced the papal party, and defeated Ulrich, the patriarch of Aquileia, who held Carniola in fee of the empire. Henry also at length acted with open disloyalty, and declared to the emperor, who lay sick at Chiavenna, on the Lake of Como, his intention of abandoning him; and, unshaken by Frederick’s exhortation in the name of duty and honor to renounce his perfidious plans, offered to provide him with money on condition of receiving considerable additions to his power in Germany, and the free imperial town of Goslar in gift. These unjust demands were steadily refused by Frederick, who, embracing the Welf’s knees, entreated him, as the honor of the empire was at stake, not to abandon him in the hour of need before the eyes of the enemy, with the flower of the army. At this scene, Jordanus Truchsess, the Welf’s vassal, laughed and said, “Duke, the crown which you now behold at your feet will ere long shine upon your brow’’; to which one of the emperor’s retainers replied, “I should rather fear that the crown might gain the ascendency.’’ The emperor was at length raised by the beautiful empress, Beatrice, who said to him, “God will help you, when at some future time you remember this day, and the Welf’s insolence.”—The Welf withdrew with all his vassals.

Frederick, reduced to the alternative of either following his insolent vassal, or of exposing himself and his weakened forces to total destruction by remaining in his present position, courageously resolved to abide the hazard, and to await the arrival of fresh re-enforcements from Germany; the Lombards, however, saw their advantage, and attacked him at Legnano, on the 29th of May, 1176. The Swabians (the southern Germans still remaining true to their allegiance) fought with all the courage of despair, but Berthold von Zahringen was taken prisoner, the emperor’s horse fell in the thickest of the fight, his banner was won by the “Legion of Death”, a chosen Lombard troop, and he was given up as dead. He escaped almost by miracle, while his little army was entirely overwhelmed. In this necessity the emperor had recourse to subtlety, and ingeniously contrived to produce disunion among his opponents. Evading the Lombard league, he opened a negotiation with Venice and with the pope, to whom he offered to make atonement; nor were his proposals rejected, the pope hoping to turn the momentary distress of the emperor to advantage, by negotiating terms before the arrival of the re-enforcements which he foresaw would be sent to his assistance from Germany, and Venice being blinded by her jealousy of the rising power of the cities of Lombardy. An interview took place at Venice, when peace was concluded between Frederick and Alexander III (1177). Guelphic historiographers relate that on the emperor’s kissing the pope’s feet, the latter placed his foot on Frederick’s neck, uttering these words of Holy Writ, “Thou shalt tread upon the adder and the lion’’; to which the latter replied, “Not unto thee, but unto St. Peter be this honor!” The letters of the pope that relate to these times are silent in regard to this occurrence, while there are many proofs, on the other hand, that several conversations took place between the pope and the emperor, each of whom treated the other with respect and esteem, as the most intelligent men of their age. It is true that the emperor sacrificed Calixtus, and that he bestowed upon the Lombard cities the privilege of electing their own consuls; but it is also true that these concessions on the emperor’s part were balanced by those made by the pope, who released the emperor from the interdict, and confirmed all the powerful archbishops and bishops, the stanch adherents of the emperor, in their dignity, thus relieving him from any apprehension on the side of the church, the most dangerous rival of his temporal power.

The death of Albrecht the Bear in 1170, and the parti­tion of Brandenburg between his sons Otto and Bernard, diminished the number of Henry’s dangerous rivals in the North. The insolence with which the neighboring bishops, who relied upon the emperor for aid, opposed him, particularly Reinhold, archbishop of Cologne, Wichmann of Magdeburg, and the bishops of Halberstadt and Munster, nevertheless, kept him fully occupied. Unintimidated by the influence and power of these “bald-pates,” as he scornfully termed them, he boldly attacked them in turn, and gained possession of Halberstadt, when Bishop Ulrich died in consequence of the ill-treatment he received, and a thousand persons were burned alive in the cathedral. On the emperor’s return from Italy, he summoned the Lion to appear before the supreme tribunal, and on the third public summons being unattended, pronounced him out of the ban of the empire. The bald­pates triumphed. All his ancient foes, all those who hoped to rise by his fall, joined the Ghibelline faction against the last of the Welfs, to whose cause Saxony alone adhered. The Lion, driven at bay, proved himself worthy of his name, and almost obliterated the stain upon his honor, the treason of which he had been guilty, by his valorous feats. Aided by his faithful adherents and vassals, Adolf III of Holstein, Bernard, count of Ratzeburg, Guntzel, Margrave of Schwerin, and Bernard von der Lippe, he gained a decisive victory on the Halerfeld (1180). He maintained the contest for three years, and even took the Landgrave of Thuringia prisoner; but his suspicion and pride at length estranged from him the vassals by whom he had so long been upheld, and he was closely besieged by the emperor in Stade, where he was abandoned by all except Bernard von der Lippe (who, after the remarkable defense of Haldersleben, had been forced to quit his country and his connections), and the city of Lubeck, which refused to surrender to the emperor, until commanded to do so by their benefactor, the Lion. An interview took place at this period between the emperor and Henry’s ancient rival, Waldemarof Denmark, whose daughter, Christina, was, on this occasion, affianced to the young prince, Conrad. Frederick declared Jarimar, prince of Rugen, a Danish feoffee, and bound Boleslaw and Casimir, the princes of Pomerania, to do him feudal service in the field as dukes of the empire.

Henry, seeing that all was lost, sent Louis, Landgrave of Thuringia, whom he had restored to liberty, to sue for peace, and threw himself at the emperor’s feet at Erfurt. Frederick no sooner saw his treacherous vassal at his feet, than, with a generous recollection of their former days of friendship, he raised him from his knees, and affectionately embracing him, shed tears of joy at their reconciliation; but, sensible of the danger of permitting the existence of the great duchies, he remained inflexible in his determination to crush the power of the Welfs, by treating Bavaria and Saxony as he had formerly done Franconia and Lothringia. Their partition was resolved upon, and Henry was merely permitted to retain Brunswick. The duchy of Saxon-Lauenburg, to the east of the Elbe, was bestowed upon Bernard, the brother of Otto of Brandenburg, and Westphalia on the archbishop of Cologne. Other small portions of territory fell to Thuringia, and into the hands of the “bald-pates.” The counts of Holstein and Oldenburg were declared independent. Bavaria was given to the trusty Otto von Wittelsbach, in whose family it henceforth remained. Styria and the Tyrol were, however, severed from it. Tyrol, or Meran, was granted to a Count Berthold von Andechs. And for the better security of this new order of things, Henry the Lion was exiled for three years. On his way to England, accompanied merely by a small retinue, the citizens of Bardewik, his own town, closed the gates against him, and treated him with every mark of indignity.

Bohemia met with severe treatment at the hands of the emperor. The aged Wenzeslaw had secretly intrigued with the Italians, and, without obtaining the consent of the emperor, had proclaimed his son, Frederick, his successor on the throne. Barbarossa deposed both father and son, and bestowed the crown on one of their relations, whom he drew for that purpose out of prison; but this prince proving equally unruly and hostile, he deprived him of his crown, which he restored to Frederick on payment of a sum of money in 1180.

Barbarossa granted the greatest privileges to the cities, with the intention of still further diminishing the power of the great vassals; and it is, consequently, to him that a number of the most considerable cities are indebted for their complete affranchisement, and for their elevation to the rank of free imperial cities under the immediate protection of the crown; for instance, Ratisbon, Esslingen, Ravensburg, Reutlingen, Eger, Spires, Hagenau, Memmingen, Altenburg, Rotenburg on the Tauber, Nuremberg, etc., which were severally affranchised from the authority of the reigning bishop or duke. Berthold von Zahringen, who had named the city founded by him, Freiburg, and had greatly favored its rise, nevertheless opposed the affranchisement of the serfs. On attempting, during his government of the bishopric of Sitten, to reduce the peasantry of Upper Valais to submission, they attacked and drove him out of their mountains, pursuing him so closely that his life was in jeopardy (1180).

On the death of Pope Alexander, Frederick preserved good relations with his successor Urban, and concluded a fresh treaty of peace and amity at Constance with Lombardy, to which, although it still remained annexed to the empire, he granted the privilege of electing their own governors, and of forming alliances.

The Whitsuntide holidays were celebrated at Mayence, in 1184, with unwonted magnificence. Forty thousand knights, the most lovely women, and the most distinguished bards in the empire, here surrounded Frederick Barbarossa, who seemed now to have attained the summit of his power; and the memory of the splendor that was displayed on this occasion was long celebrated in song. The emperor’s four sons, Henry, his successor on the throne, Frederick, duke of Swabia, Conrad, duke of Franconia, Otto, duke of Burgundy, and the youthful Philip, who was still an academician, were present. A violent storm that arose in the night and overthrew the tents in this encampment of pleasure, was, however, regarded as an omen of future ill.

In the following year the emperor carried a great project into execution. The difficulty he had experienced in keeping the cities of Lombardy in check, and, notwithstanding the endeavors of the archbishop, Christian, in retaining the papal dominions without the possession of Lower Italy, drew his attention thither, and he succeeded in obtaining the hand of Constantia, the daughter and heiress of Boger the Norman, king of Apulia and Sicily, in 1185. But scarcely had he crossed the Alps, than Cnud, the new king of Denmark, infringed the treaty, and uniting his forces with those of Jarimar of Bugen, gained a naval victory over Boleslaw of Pomerania, whom he compelled to do him homage. The princes of Mecklenburg, Niclot, the son of Wratislaw, and Borwin, the son of Priczlaw, met with a similar fate. The emperor, whom the affairs of Italy fully occupied, deferred his revenge; but his son Frederick, Louis III. of Thuringia, and a Thuringian count, Siegfried, sent back their brides, the three daughters of Cnud, to Denmark. Jarimar, at this period, greatly improved the island of Rugen, whose inhabitants were fully converted to Christianity during his reign. He built several churches and monasteries, and gave great encouragement to German settlers. The German city of Stralsund was at this time also built on the island opposite.

A fresh contest now took place between Flanders and France. Dietrich, count of Alsace, the great legislator, the upholder of popular liberty, and the promoter of commerce and manufactures in Flanders, died in 1169, and was suc­ceeded by his son, Philip, who inherited the county of Vermandois in right of his wife. He had no children. In 1177, he undertook a crusade to the Holy Land, with the intention of placing the crown of Jerusalem on his own brow. His mother, Sibylla, was daughter to Fulco of Jerusalem, the power of whose descendants, who still reigned in Palestine, had fallen to decay. With the hope of aiding his relatives and Christendom, and with the expectation of never returning to his native country, he secured the possession of Flanders to his sister, Margaret, and to her husband, Baldwin von Hennegau, and thus made amends for the injustice with which the sons of Richilda had formerly been treated. His plan, however, failed, and he returned, bearing for the first time on his shield the black lion, which he had substituted instead of the various badges by which his troops had been hitherto distinguished in the field when combating the Turks. Faithful to his love of peace and concord, and anxious to secure the possession of Flanders and Hennegau to his brother-in-law, Baldwin, he affianced his niece, Elisabeth, to Philip Augustus, the son of Louis VII of France, to whom he promised Artois in dowry. The youthful prince’s education was confided to him, but scarcely had he mounted the throne on the death of his father, in 1180, than, with true French impudence, he demanded the cession of the county of Vermandois. The aged Count Philip, enraged at this behavior, instantly took up arms, and even refused to cede Artois. The whole of the Netherlands espoused his cause, and Philip Augustus, finding himself worsted, revenged himself on the innocent Elisabeth, whom he sent back in disgrace to her father, Baldwin von Hennegau, who happened at that moment to be at variance with Godfred of Lyons on account of an insignificant lawsuit, which, being declared against him by Philip of Flanders, so roused his anger that he aban­doned the league and again made terms with France; a step that was probably greatly induced by the hope of restoring his daughter to her royal spouse. Philip of Flanders, struck with sorrow at this proof of ingratitude, was at length persuaded to sign a treaty of peace at Amiens, in 1186, by which he bequeathed Vermandois to France, after which he undertook a second crusade to the Holy Land, whence he never returned.

CLII.

Barbarossa's Crusade and Death

The situation of the Christians in the East became gradually more perplexing. The treachery practiced by the Greeks and the Pullanes during the last crusade toward the emperor, Conrad III, and Louis VII, gradually met with its fitting reward, although the disputes that arose among the Mahometans were at first in their favor. Zengis the Great had been succeeded by his son Nurreddin, who was opposed by the Egyptian caliphs, and whose son was deprived of his throne by a new aspirant, named Salaheddin, who, uniting Syria and Egypt beneath his rule, subdued the Assassins, the most dangerous enemies of the sultans, and attacked the weak and demoralized Christians, whose strength had been spent in intestine feuds.

After the departure of Conrad III and Louis VII, whose fruitless expeditions had ended in anger and disappointment, Baldwin III, the youthful king of Jerusalem, besieged his own mother, Melisenda, Fulco’s widow, who refused to abdicate the sovereignty, in the city of David. The knights, however, still possessed sufficient zeal and courage to repel an attack made by the Turks on the holy city, and even to gain possession of Ascalon (1153). Raymund of Tripolis, the son of Pontius, fell, meanwhile, by the hand of an assassin, but was well replaced by his gallant son, Raymund. Raymund of Antioch had also fallen, and his widow, Con­stantia, had espoused the savage knight, Reinaid de Chatillon, who shamefully ill-treated the patriarch of Antioch. The patriarch of Jerusalem, with whom the different orders of knighthood were at variance, found it impossible to maintain his authority; the knights of St. John sent a flight of arrows among the people in the church of the Holy Sepulcher. Baldwin, breaking his plighted word with a peaceable Arabian tribe, was severely chastised for his insincerity by Nurreddin, by whom he was so closely pursued, after losing a battle, as barely to escape with his life. At this conjuncture, Dietrich of Flanders fortunately revisited the East, and Nurreddin was defeated. Baldwin was poisoned in 1159. He was succeeded by his brother, Amalrich, who undertook a predatory excursion, in which he was successful, into Egypt, and, aided by Dietrich, was victorious over Nurreddin, by whom he was, however, defeated in a second engagement. Reinaid had, some time before this, been taken prisoner, and his stepson, the son of Raymund and Constantia, Bohemund III of Antioch, shared a similar fate (1163). Amalrich now leagued with the Fatimite caliphs in Egypt against Nurreddin, and was at first successful, but turning against his al­lies, and attempting to seize Egypt, Adad, caliph of Cairo, a youth nineteen years of age, entreated the sultan Nurreddin for aid, sending to him, in token of extreme necessity, the hair of all the women in his harem. Amalrich was again attacked by the united Mahometan forces, and disgrace­fully put to flight. His subsequent attempt against Damietta, although seconded by a Grecian fleet, failed; Nurreddin, meanwhile, fixed himself in Egypt, and reduced the Fatimites, like the Abbasidss in Bagdad, beneath the Turkish yoke. His vicegerent, Salaheddin, afterward seized the sovereignty in Egypt, and put the unfortunate Adad, the last of the Fatimites, to death.

Henry the Lion, who visited Jerusalem in 1171, might have saved Egypt, but merely contented himself with paying his devotions at the sepulcher, and returned home without drawing his sword against the infidels. The other troops of pilgrims that arrived singly and few in number were utterly powerless. In 1174, Henry, bishop of Hildesheim, made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, but all his followers were lost at sea, and he alone escaped on a plank.—Amalrich died in 1175. His youthful son and successor, Baldwin IV, defeated Salaheddin (who, on the death of Nurreddin, had usurped the sovereignty), although abandoned by Philip of Flanders, who, disappointed in his project of placing the crown of Jerusalem on his own head, had returned home with his forces in 1177. Reinald, who had been restored to liberty, now regained courage, and boldly marched against Mecca, with the intention of destroying the Caaba, the object of Mahometan adoration, but was repulsed with great loss in 1182. Salaheddin swore to punish his insolence, sacrificed all the Christians belonging to Reinald’s army, who had fallen into his hands, on the Caaba, and strengthened his authority in Syria, in order to surround the Christians on every side. At that time the patriarch of Jerusalem, Heraclius, was to be seen surrounded by courtesans, on whom he lavished the gifts offered by the pious pilgrims at the shrine. Vice and folly paved the way to ruin. Baldwin IV became blind and died; his son, Baldwin V, a child five years of age, was probably murdered, and Guido de Lusignan, a man of weak intellect, who had wedded Sibylla, the sister of Baldwin IV, was placed on the throne, whose pos­session was disputed by Raymond of Tripolis, the bravest of the Christian knights in the East. This dispute was turned to advantage by Salaheddin, who defeated and almost an­nihilated the Templars and Hospitalers. A pitched battle took place, in 1187, between him and the Christian princes, near the Lake of Tiberias, in which he was again successful.In this battle the holy cross was irretrievably lost. King Guido, Reinald the Wild, the aged Margrave William of Montserrat (by origin a German, and vassal to the German emperor), the grand-master of the Templars, several bishops and knights, fell into the hands of the enemy. Reinald was put to death. Salaheddin, quickly following up this advantage, seized all the cities of Palestine, except Antioch, Tripolis, and Tyre. Jerusalem was for some time valiantly defended by the queen Sibylla, but finally surrendered. A German knight greatly distinguished himself during this siege by the valor with which he resisted the Turks when storming the city. The Christians were granted a free exit; Salaheddin beholding them as they quitted the city in mourn­ful procession, from a lofty throne, Oct. 30, 1187. All the churches, that of the Holy Sepulcher alone excepted, were reconverted into mosques. And thus was Jerusalem lost by the incapacity of her French rulers, and the whole of Palestine would inevitably have again fallen a prey to the Turks, had not Conrad of Montserrat, the son of the captive Mar­grave, encouraged the trembling citizens of Tyre to make head against Salaheddin.

William, bishop of Tyre, the most noted of the historians of his times, instantly hastened into the West, for the purpose of demanding assistance. The pious emperor, then in his seventieth year, joyfully took up the cross for the second time, and with him his son, Frederick of Swabia, Philip of Flanders, Hermann of Baden, Berthold von Meran (a renowned crusader, the father of St. Louis, and grandfather of St. Elisabeth), Florens of Holland, Engelbert von Berg, Ruprecht of Nassau, the Counts von Henneberg, Diez, Saarbruck, Salm, Wied, Bentheim, Hohenlohe, Kiburg, Oettingen, all men of note, Leopold of Austria, and the flower of German chivalry, in all one hundred thousand men. Barbarossa, after sending a solemn declaration of war to Sala­heddin, broke up his camp in 1188; met with a friendly reception from Bela, king of Hungary, held a magnificent tournament at Belgrade, hanged all the Servians—whose robber bands harassed him on his march—that fell into his hands, as common thieves, and advanced into the plains of Roumelia. The Greek emperor, Isaac, who was on friendly terms with him, and had promised to furnish his army with provisions, broke his word, and, besides countenancing the hostility with which the crusaders were treated by his subjects, threw the Count von Diez, whom Frederick sent to him, into prison. Barbarossa, upon this, gave his soldiery license to plunder, and the beautiful country was speedily laid waste. The Cumans, Isaac’s mercenaries, fled before the Germans, who revenged the assassination of some pilgrims, by destroying the city of Manicava, and by putting four thousand of the inhabitants to the sword. The large city of Philippopolis, where the sick and wounded Germans who had been left there had been mercilessly slaughtered by the inhabitants, shared the same fate. These acts of retributive justice performed, Barbarossa advanced against Constantinople, where Isaac, in order to secure his capital from destruction, placed the whole fleet at his disposal. The crusaders no sooner reached Asia Minor than the Greeks recommenced their former treacherous practices, and the sultan of Iconium, who, through jealousy of Salaheddin’s power, had entered into a friendly alliance with the emperor, also attacked him. Barbarossa defeated all their attempts. On one occasion, he concealed the flower of his troops in a large tent, the gift of the Hungarian queen, and pretended to fly before the Turks, who no sooner commenced pillaging the abandoned camp than the knights rushed forth and cut them down. A Turkish prisoner who was driven in chains in advance of the army, in order to serve as guide, sacrificed his life for the sake of misleading the Christians amid the pathless mountains, where, starving with hunger, tormented by thirst, foot-weary and faint, they were suddenly, attacked on every side. Stones were rolled upon their heads as they advanced through the narrow gorge, and the young duke of Swabia narrowly escaped, his helmet being struck off his head. Peace was now offered by the Turks on payment of a large sum of money, to this the emperor replied by send­ing them a small silver coin, which they were at liberty to divide among themselves, and pushing boldly forward, beat off the enemy. The sufferings of the army rapidly increased; water was nowhere to be discovered, and they were reduced to the necessity of drinking the blood of their horses. The aged emperor encouraged his troops by his words, and was answered by the Swabians, who raised their native war­song. His son, Frederick, hastened forward with half of the army, again defeated the Turks, and fought his way to Iconium, entered the city with the retreating enemy, put all the inhabitants to the sword, and gained an immense booty. Barbarossa was, meanwhile, surrounded by the sultan’s army. His soldiers were almost worn out with fatigue and hunger. The aged emperor, believing his son lost, burst into tears. All wept around him; when suddenly rising he exclaimed, “Christ still lives, Christ conquers!” and heading his chiv­alry to the assault, they attacked the enemy and gained a complete victory. Ten thousand Turks were slain. Several fell beneath the hand of Barbarossa himself, who emulated in his old age the deeds of his youth. Iconium, where plenty awaited them, was at length reached. After recruiting here, they continued their march as far as the little river Calicadnus (Seleph), in Cilicia, where the road happening to be blocked up with beasts of burden, the impatient old emperor, instead of waiting, attempted to cross the stream on horseback, and was carried away by the torrent. His body was recovered, and borne by his sorrowing army to Antioch, where it was entombed in St. Peter’s church (1190).

The news of the death of their great emperor was received with incredulity by the Germans, whose dreamy hope of being one day ruled by a dynasty of mighty sovereigns, who should unite a peaceful world beneath their sway, at length almost identified itself with that of Barbarossa’s return, and gave rise to legendary tales, which still record the popular feeling of the times. In a deep, rocky cleft, in the Kylf-hauser Berg, on the golden meadow of Thuringia, still sleeps this great and noble emperor: his head resting on his arm, he sits by a granite block, through which his red beard has grown in the lapse of time; but, when the ravens no longer fly around the mountain, he will awake and restore the golden age to the expectant world. According to another legend, the emperor sits, wrapped in sleep, in the Untersberg, near Salzburg; and when the dead pear-tree on the Walserfeld, which has been cut down three times, but ever grows anew, blossoms, he will come forth, hang his shield on the tree, and commence a tremendous battle, in which the whole world will join, and the good shall overcome the wicked. The attachment which the Germans bore to this emperor is apparent in the action of one solitary individual, Conrad von Boppard, who bestowed a large estate on the monastery of Schonau, on condition of masses being read forever for the repose of the soul of his departed sovereign. The little church on the Hohenstaufen, to which it was Barbarossa’s custom to descend from the castle in order to hear mass, still stands, and over the walled-up doors may be read the words, ‘‘hic transibat Caesar.” Excellent portraits of Frederick and Beatrice may still be seen to the right of the door of the church at Welzheim, which was founded by their son, Philip. But the great palace, seven hundred and ten feet in length, which he built at Gelnhausen, in honor of the beautiful Gela, who is said to have been the mistress of his youthful affections, and who renounced him against his will and took the veil, in order not to be an obstacle in his glorious career, lies in ruins.

CLIII.

Leopold of Austria and Richard Coeur de Lion

Barbarossa’s mighty army had, on its arrival in Antioch, dwindled to less than six thousand men; the rest had fallen victims to war, hunger, and pestilence. The young duke of Swabia led them into the Holy Land, where Conrad of Montserrat defended Tyre with such signal valor that Salaheddin was finally compelled to relinquish the siege. Antioch held out, while Bohemund III sued Salaheddin for peace. Tripolis was defended by a fleet, sent by William, king of Sicily. A re-enforcement of crusaders being expected, Salaheddin feared lest Conrad might gain possession of the crown of Jerusalem; and, in order again to weaken the Christians by reawakening their mutual jealousy, he restored King Guido to liberty, and Conrad’s claim was consequently set aside. In 1189, Guido undertook the siege of Accon (Ptolemais), which, notwithstanding the assistance he received from fresh troops of pilgrims, lasted full two years. This city being the key of Palestine from the sea, and extremely important in a commercial point of view, its possession greatly interested the Pisanese. The besieging army, at first numerically weak, was one day thrown into great terror by the arrival of an enormous fleet, which to their delight proved to be composed of Flemings, Dutch, Friscians, Danes, and English, commanded by Jacob d’Avesnes and the archbishop of Canterbury. Count Adolf von Schauenburg (Holstein) and the count of Guelders were also on board. The Landgrave Louis of Thuringia, his brother Hermann, the lords of Altenburg, Arnstein, Schwarzburg, Heldungen, Beichlingen, Mansfeld, etc., arrived at the same time at Tyre, and marched with them to Accon, and a furious contest took place between them and the garrison of that place on one side, and with Salaheddin, who had advanced to its relief, on the other. Louis of Thuringia was nominated commander-in-chief, and valiantly headed his troops against the enemy, his superior in number. In the following year (1190), some French arrived under Henry, count of Champagne, and a part of the great German army under Leopold of Austria, who had hastened in advance, accompanied by Berthold von Meran and the nobles of the upper country. Louis of Thuringia, whose health had given way, now departed, but expired during the voyage home. Frederick of Swabia and the rest of the German army soon after also arrived, and took an active part in the siege; every attempt, nevertheless, failed; the city, supported from without by Salaheddin, continued to hold out, and a pestilence broke out in the Christian camp, to which Frederick of Swa­bia fell a victim. The Hospitalers, who chiefly consisted of French, disregarding the rules of their order, and neglect­ing the sick and wounded Germans, some citizens of Bremen and Lubeck founded the order of Teutonic knights, who were distinguished by a black cross on a white mantle, who vowed to tend the sick, to practice holiness and chastity, and to combat the infidels. They were termed the Marians, in honor of the holy Virgin, and at first excited little notice. Their first grand-master was Waldpot von Bassenheim. Waldpot signifies “nobilis civis”; the citizens, by whom the order was founded, were partly ancient burghers and partly common merchants. It was afterward entirely composed of nobles, as may be seen in an inscription on the town-house at Bremen:    

“Vele Christen van groter hitte sin krank geworden, Datt gaff eene Ohrsake dem ridderliken dudschen Orden, De van de Bremern und Lubschen ersten befenget, Darnach hefft sick de Adele dar ock mede angehenget. Dorna sind se ock in Liefland gekamen, So dat de Orden is grohter und Mach tiger geworden. Averst nemand mag gestadet werden in den Orden Behalven de van Adel geboren, he sy groot oder kleen Sunder Borger van Bremen und Lubeck alleen.”

It is further remarkable that the house belonging to this order in Bremen was founded by the Cordovan (Spanish leather) makers. The second grand-master of the Marians was Otto von Carpen, also a citizen of Bremen; the third was Hermann Barth, who had formerly been the Danish warden at Lubeck, and who was led by remorse for the cruelty with which he had, during a dreadfully bitter win­ter, refused alms to a woman and her sick child, whom he afterward found frozen to death, to undertake a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, where he entered the Teutonic order.

On the death of Frederick, Leopold of Austria took the command of the German forces. Once, when storming a town, his white coat of arms was so completely soaked in blood that the middle beneath the girdle alone remained white. This bloody coat of arms, represented by a white bar on a red field, was adopted by him instead of the escutcheon he had hitherto borne, that of Babenberg, an eagle or a lark, and has been retained by Austria to the present day. The knights at this time generally wore scale armor, whence they were compared by Arabian writers to glistening snakes. At an earlier period they used a more simple style of armor, composed of small rings, and at a later period plate-armor. The scale armor thus formed the transition from one to the other.

Conrad of Montserrat again attempted to place himself at the head of affairs in the East, and espoused Isabella, the sister of Sibylla, who had been removed by death. The imbecile king, Guido, who was to have abdicated in his favor, being upheld by the French, refused compliance. Conrad, on account of his German descent and vassalage to the emperor, was backed by the Germans. Richard Coeur de Lion, king of England, and Philip, king of France, arrived at this crisis; the former at the head of a powerful force, the latter accompanied by the aged Philip of Flanders, who died before Accon of the plague. Richard, who had taken the island of Cyprus from the Greeks on his way to the Holy Land, arrogated to himself the chief command of the allied crusaders. Accon, exhausted by the long siege, at length surrendered (1191). Richard and Philip garrisoned the citadel; the services of the Germans, who were inferior in point of numbers, were forgotten; and they were excluded, and Leo­pold was reduced to the necessity of borrowing money from the wealthy English monarch in order to procure provisions for his troops. Philip Augustus, king of France, unable to tolerate the insolence of the English monarch, returned home. The Germans, however, remained, with patient endurance, and aided in gaining the great victory of Arsuf over Salaheddin, in which Jacob d’Avesnes fell, gallantly fighting. Leopold was, notwithstanding, unable to repress his displeasure on Richard’s attempt to make use of the Germans in rebuilding Ascalon, which had been completely destroyed by Salaheddin, replying to the haughty and overbearing monarch that “he was neither a mason nor a carpenter.” Richard, enraged at this retort, cast Leopold’s banner forth from his camp, and, as Leopold still delayed his departure, ordered his colors to be torn down and dragged through the streets. Leopold, too weak to avenge the insult, quietly withdrew.

Richard carried on the contest with Salaheddin, but, notwithstanding the valor for which he was so justly famed, all his efforts proved ineffectual, on account of his unwillingness to attack Jerusalem, which arose either from an idea of its invincible strength, or from his indisposition to increase the power of the king Guido, who now solely depended upon him. He was even suspected of being implicated in the murder of Conrad of Montserrat, whom the Pullanes were desirous of electing in the place of their imbecile monarch, and who had been stabbed by two assassins. Henry de Champagne, who espoused Conrad’s widow, became king of Jerusalem, and Guido, in compensation, received the crown of Cyprus (1192). Richard’s obstinate refusal to advance on Jerusalem at length so enraged the remaining German and French crusaders that they marched off under the command of Hugh, duke of Burgundy, after a stormy dispute with the English. Hugh expired in a fit of rage before reaching the coast; the report of his having been poisoned was currently believed. Richard now concluded peace with Salaheddin, who granted him permission to visit Jerusalem with his followers, divided into small companies, in order to pay his devotions at the Holy Sepulcher.

In the winter of 1193, Richard departed for England, taking his way by land through Germany, and traversing Austria. His endeavors to conceal himself were unavailing, and he was discovered when sitting in a kitchen cooking a fowl in the village of Erdberg, near Vienna. He was arrested at Leopold’s command, and imprisoned in the castle of Durenstein on the Danube; an unknightly action, but fully deserved by Richard. But although the manner in which he was captured was ignoble, the emperor Henry VI, Barbarossa’s son and successor, was justified in bringing him as a criminal before the tribunal of the empire. He, accordingly, ordered him to be carried to Worms for the purpose of interrogating him in the diet. The principal crime of which he was accused was the murder of a prince of the German empire, the gallant Conrad of Montserrat, of which he endeavored to clear himself. He was then accused of having withheld from the Germans their share of the booty gained at Accon, and was condemned to make compensation for the loss. It should also be remarked that, besides not protesting against the judicial power exercised by the emperor, he performed hom­age to Henry VI, as a vassal of the holy Roman empire, in the presence of several English nobles; nor was this proceeding deemed irregular, the emperor being universally regarded as the actual liege of every monarch in Christendom. Richard also did not afterward protest against this act, and the English vote was given at the election of the emperor Otto IV. While the ransom of one hundred and fifty thousand silver marks was being collected in England, and Richard was retained in honorable imprisonment at Mayence, his mother Eleanore, now seventy years of age, carried her complaints through Europe. The pope, jealous of his supremacy, enjoined the emperor to renounce his judicial power, and instantly to restore Richard to liberty, but Henry treated even his threat of excommunication with indifference, and when the king of France was on the point of invading Normandy, during the absence of her sovereign, he instantly notified to him that he should consider himself aggrieved in the person of his captive. This manly and decisive conduct on the part of the emperor effectually repelled all further attempts at aggression on the side of either the French monarch or of the pope, and on payment of the ransom in 1194, Richard was restored to liberty. This humiliation of the brutal English monarch before the diet was a just retaliation for the affront offered by him to the arms of Babenberg, and the heavy ransom levied upon his people rendered them sensible that the majesty of Germany was not to be offended with impunity. The emperor acted well and nobly, but Leopold, the cowardly captor of an unarmed foe, was deservedly an object of general scorn; the pope vented his rage by placing him under an interdict, and his being shortly afterward thrown from horseback and breaking one of his legs was universally regarded as a visitation of Providence. At that time the art of surgery was unknown. Mortification took place; the duke, seizing an ax, held it above the broken part of the limb, while his attendant struck upon it with a mallet and severed it from his body. The consequences proved mortal. Styria, whose reigning counts were extinct, was annexed in his time to Austria, and the walls of Vienna were raised with the ransom of England’s king.

CLIV.

Henry the Sixth

Frederick Barbarossa had no sooner departed from Asia than Henry the Lion returned to Germany and attempted to reconquer his duchy of Saxony. In the general confusion, the Ditmarses, dissatisfied with the government of the archbishop of Bremen, severed themselves from the empire and swore fealty to Denmark. The rights of Adolf III. of Holstein, who had accompanied the crusade, were defended by Adolf von Dassel, brother to Reinold, archbishop of Cologne, and by the young Count Bernard von Ratzeburg, against Henry, who was upheld by Bernard’s father, and by Guntzel von Schwerin. The imperialists were defeated by the Welfs at Boitzenburg, and the Lion destroyed the city of Bardewik, in reward for the insolence with which he had been formerly treated by its inhabitants, whom he mercilessly put to the sword. Henry VI, then regent of the em­pire, revenged the fate of Bardewik by burning down the city of Hanover, which favored the duke. Brunswick withstood his attack, and on learning the death of his father, he concluded a truce and hastened into Italy, in order to receive the imperial crown from the hands of the pontiff. This consideration also induced him to leave the Landgrave Hermann, the brother of the ill-fated Louis of Thuringia, in undisturbed possession of that duchy, to which he had at first laid claim as a fief lapsed to the crown. This Landgrave held a peaceful and stately court on the Wartburg, whither he invited all the best and noblest bards of Germany.

A complete reconciliation took place between the Hohenstaufen and the Welfs on the emperor’s return from Italy. Frederick Barbarossa, during his earlier days of friendship, had affianced Agnes, the lovely daughter of his brother Philip, the Rhenish Pfalzgraf, to Henry, the eldest son of Henry the Lion. This betrothal had been forgotten during the subsequent feud that arose between Henry and the emperor, and Agnes had been proposed in marriage to Philip Augustus, king of France. The youthful bridegroom, meanwhile, visited the castle of Stahlet—where Agnes dwelt with her mother—in disguise, gained her affections, and secretly married her. Philip, on discovering this affair, was at first greatly offended, but afterward pardoned his daughter and her husband, and interceded for them with the emperor and Henry the Lion, who, notwithstanding the complaints of the French court, consented to the marriage. Henry the Lion expired in the course of the same year (1195) at Brunswick, where he amused himself during the last period of his life in collecting and perusing old chronicles. His memory was greatly revered by the Saxons. Brunswick, now the only patrimony of the Welfs, was divided between Otto and William, the younger sons of Henry the Lion, whose eldest son, Henry, succeeded his father-in-law, Philip, in the Rhenish Pfalzgraviate, and remained true to his allegiance to the emperor.

In Meissen, Otto the Rich had discovered large mines, and founded the mining town of Freiburg. Toward the end of his life, in 1189, he was thrown into prison, where he died, by his ungrateful son, Albrecht the Proud, for having refused to disinherit his younger son, Dietrich the Oppressed. Dietrich was driven into exile by his brother, and marrying the daughter of Hermann of Thuringia, who was famed for her ugliness, was enabled, by his father-in-law’s aid, to retain possession of Weissenfels. He afterward made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Albrecht and his Bohemian wife, Sophia, were poisoned by order of the emperor, who coveted the rich mines of Meissen, and a plot was laid to assassinate Dietrich in Palestine; but his suspicions being aroused, he had himself carried on board a vessel, concealed in a cask, and escaped (1195). The emperor’s absence in Italy, where he shortly afterward expired, insured his safety, and with it the continuance of the house of Wettin.

Henry VI inherited his father’s energy, but was devoid of his nobler qualities. He made use of ignoble means for the attainment of his purposes, was cold-blooded and cruel. True to his father’s principles, he sought to lower the authority of the pope in Italy itself. William, king of Apulia and Sicily, died without issue, in 1190. His aunt, Constantia, Henry’s consort, being next in descent, he instantly claimed the inheritance; but being at that time at open war with Henry the Lion, Tancred, count of Lecce, a natural grandchild of Roger, seized the opportunity to be crowned king at Palermo, in the hope that the cities of Lombardy would bar the advance of the emperor; they were, however, as usual, at feud with one another, and on Henry’s unexpected arrival in Italy, in the autumn of 1190, many of them fell into his hands, and the pope was induced, through dread of his power, to crown him during Easter at Rome, in 1191. With the view of gaining the favor of the Romans, who had ever evinced the greatest antipathy to the German emperors, Henry treacherously delivered up to them the neighboring town of Tivoli, which had rendered great services to his father, whose cause it had strongly upheld. The Romans instantly destroyed the town and murdered the inhabitants. Henry then advanced upon Naples, but his army being attacked by pestilence, his numbers were greatly di­. minished; his consort, Constantia, was delivered up to Tancred by the citizens of Salerno, and he was compelled to return to Germany in order to recruit his forces. Tancred, meanwhile, was equally unsuccessful. A faction forming in Constantia’s favor, he voluntarily restored her to liberty; an evident proof of his inability to cope with the emperor. He died in 1194. His widow, Sibylla, and his young son, William, were left helpless, and on the emperor’s return during the same year to Italy, Naples threw open her gates to him, Salerno was taken by storm and plundered, and Sicily submitted after a battle gained by Henry von Calatin (Kelten), the bravest of the emperor’s followers (the founder of the house of Pappenheim), at Catanea, at the foot of Mount Etna. The emperor, in order to get William out of the hands of the wretched Sibylla, fraudulently promised to bestow upon him his patrimonial inheritance of Lecce and Tarentum; but no sooner had him under his guardianship than he caused him to be deprived of sight and mutilated, for a pretended charge of conspiracy, the 26th of December, 1194. The empress Constantia was delivered of a son at the very time this crime, which was repaid doublefold on him and his descendants, was committed. William was imprisoned in the castle of Hohenemb in Swabia, where he shortly afterward expired.

The most cruel torments were inflicted upon every partisan of the ancient Norman dynasty. A Count Jordan, who was supposed to be secretly favored by Constantia, was placed upon a throne of red-hot iron and a red-hot crown was nailed upon his head. Richard, one of Tancred’s brothers-in-law, was dragged to death at a horse’s tail. It was in vain that the pope, Celestin III, who beheld Henry’s increasing power in Lower Italy with dread, placed him under an interdict; he was treated with contempt; every malcontent was either executed or dragged into Germany, and the lands of the Countess Matilda were bestowed on Duke Philip, with the view of reducing Upper Italy to a similar state of subserviency. Philip, who had originally been destined for the church, was, moreover, presented with the hand of a beautiful Grecian princess, Irene, the youthful widow of Roger (who died early), the son of Tancred, with whom she had been captured in Sicily. Her father, Isaac, the Greek emperor, was deposed and deprived of sight by his brother Alexius, who was called to account for this crime by Henry, and threatened with an invasion on the part of the Germans, “who had angry eyes instead of shining diamonds, and, instead of pearls, brows trickling with the sweat of battle.” Alexius paid a considerable tribute. Henry, nevertheless, had a serious intention of annexing Greece, of which Irene was the only rightful heir, to the German empire, and a crusade was set on foot as a means of carrying this project into execution in 1196. It was headed by the archbishop of Mayence, the chancellor, Conrad, who was accompanied by the dukes of Austria, Carinthia, Meran, Thuringia, Brandenburg, Brabant, and by the archbishops of Cologne and Bremen.

Conrad, on reaching Cyprus, received the oath of fealty from the king of that island in the name of the emperor. The king of Armenia afterward also swore allegiance to the empire. In Crete, the Swabian Count von Pfirt had raised himself to the throne, which he afterward exchanged with the Venetians for that of Thessalonica. The extension of the empire over the whole of the Christian East, with Con­stantinople to his back in Asia Minor, formed the scheme Henry now sought to realize. The sons of Salaheddin, who had expired in 1193, were striving with one another for the sovereignty. Bohemund III. of Antioch had been taken prisoner by the Old Man of the Mountain. Henry de Champagne, king of Jerusalem, visited this assassin king, and solicited his friendship. He shortly afterward fell out of his palace window down a precipice. The Germans under Conrad arrived simultaneously with a Dutch fleet from Bremen, Friesland, etc., which had on its way taken the city of Silves in Portugal. At this period, as it was not birth, but bravery and skill, that caused a man to be elected commander-in-chief, that office was delegated to Walram von Limburg, a younger brother of the Brabanter, and to Henry von Kelten (Pappenheim), who had already distinguished himself in a former crusade, and in Sicily. Sidon, where a great victory was gained, was quickly taken; Berytos and other cities fell into their hands; Thoron was soon the only one on the sea­coast held by the infidels, and the systematic plan on which the reconquest of the Holy Land was now conducted, favored by the weakness and disunion of the Turkish government, seemed on the point of succeeding, and the crusaders were engaged in the siege of Thoron, when the news of the death of the emperor arrived. The German camp was instantly in commotion, and part of the crusaders returning home, the rest were too much weakened to continue the war and followed their example. Frederick of Austria died in the Holy Land. Thus ended the vast projects of Henry VI, beneath whose scepter the power of Germany founded by Barbarossa would have been confirmed and extended. He expired suddenly in 1197, in the prime of life, at Messina. His death was occasioned by an iced beverage or by poison. The pope, Celestin III, a man of weak ability, died during the same year, and was succeeded by Innocent III, whose powerful intellect humbled the power of the proud Hohenstaufen, which was upheld in Germany by the last of the sons of Barbarossa, Philip the Gentle, against the great faction of the Welfs, and in Italy by Henry’s young son, Frederick, against the pope and the Guelphs. Philip, after a toilsome struggle, succeeded in asserting his independence in Germany, to which he was compelled to limit himself, while Frederick and the whole of Italy fell under the rule of the pope. Constantia plainly perceived that her son was lost unless she threw herself into the arms of the pontiff, who spared the royal child, from whom he had nothing to dread, with the idea of setting him up, at some future period, as a pretender to the imperial crown, in opposition to any emperor who might prove refractory; besides which, Constantia’s voluntary submission conferred upon him an appearance of right, which he could otherwise have only gained by force. Frederick was, in 1198, crowned king of Apulia and Sicily; his kingdom was, however, held in fee of the pope, to whom he paid an annual tribute. Constantia also bestowed the duchies of Spoleto and Ravenna on the pope, besides the district of Ancona, which was annexed to the State of the Church, after the expulsion of the German governor, Marquardt von Anweiler. These grants were confirmed in her will by Constantia, who expired in the course of the same year. A German general, Diephold, who had been created Count d’Acerra by Henry, was the only one who still offered any opposition; he was opposed by Walther, count de Brienne, who had married a sister of the murdered William, and in her right laid a claim to Lecce and Tarentum. A pitched battle took place between Diephold and Walther, in 1205, in which, although the former was victorious, he was compelled, through want of aid from Germany, to make terms with the pope, and went to Palermo, where he entered the service of the young monarch. Rome also submitted to the pope. The Lombard Guelphs hailed their deliverance from the German yoke with delight, and thus the whole of Italy became a papal province.

Innocent III, by his masterly management of his power, founded upon the superstition of the people, gradually placed all the temporal sovereigns of Europe beneath his guidance. In Germany the emperor and his rival courted his favor, and emulated each other in their concessions. In France, Philip Augustus, who had attempted to impose restrictions on the clergy, was quickly humbled by the interdict. John of England received similar treatment, and the monarchs of Spain, Norway, and Hungary, the princes of Poland, Dalmatia, and even of Bulgaria, bent in lowly submission to his decree.

CLV.

Philip, and Otto the Fourth

During the prolonged absence of the emperor in Italy, feuds had again become general throughout Germany. The attempts made by the bishops to increase their power and to extend their authority produced violent contests between them and the nobility or the people; hence arose the feuds between Mayence and the Thuringians, Utrecht and the Friscians, Passau and the Count von Ortenburg, Salzburg and Ratisbon and Louis of Bavaria. The ambition of the princes gave rise to similar disputes between themselves; the Count von Hennegau was at feud with the duke of Brabant, and the two brothers, Dietrich and William of Holland, with each other. Even Conrad, the emperor’s brother, duke of Swabia, resuscitated the ancient feud that had formerly been carried on between him and his neighbor, Berthold von Zahringen. He was taken in adultery at Durlach, and killed (1197). His brother Philip succeeded to Swabia and to the imperial throne. The princes of Bavaria, Austria, Carinthia, Meran, and Bohemia, remained true to their allegiance to the Hohenstaufen, and even Berthold von Zahringen, sensible of the advantage of being on good terms with his powerful neighbor, was conciliated. Philip, who, in 1198, was elected emperor at Muhlhausen, was also upheld by the bishops of Northern Germany and by the Slavian Margraves; in fact, by all who had gained in wealth or power by the fall of the Welfs. Otto, the son of Henry the Lion, also pretended to the crown, but the faction of the Welfs being extremely weak in Germany, he sought the alliance of England and Denmark (to whose king, Waldemar II, he wedded his daughter, and resigned Holstein, Hamburg, Lubeck, Mecklenburg, and Pomerania), and the favor of the pope, whose policy it was to create a counterpoise to the power of the Hohenstaufen. Otto IV was, consequently, elected emperor by his faction at Cologne, which city he took by force, the pope declaring at the same time to the princes of Germany that the election depended on him alone, kings reigning over separate countries, the pope over the universe; and in virtue of this self-arrogated right bestowed the imperial title on Otto, who, in return, recognized him as his liege, and took the oath of unconditional obedience, which was received in the pope’s name by the cardinal-legate, Guido, who, on this occasion, introduced the ceremony of the elevation of the host (during the celebration of mass) before the prostrate congregation. The Rhenish bishops, who had primarily declared in Philip’s favor, were induced by Henry the Pfalzgraf, by means of promises and bribes, to countenance his brother Otto. Among other things, he resigned the government of Treves, which he held from the crown, to the archbishop, who thus became the master of the city. The church lost no opportunity, however trifling, of increasing her authority at the expense of the temporal lords. The feud between the emperors was carried on on the Rhine. Strasburg was besieged by Philip (1199), and Otto, when advancing to her relief, was defeated. Ottocar of Bohemia, Philip’s partisan, gave no quarter on the Lower Rhine; a popular insurrection headed by Curt von Arlofi was the result; his army was surprised at Nesselroth in the Wupperthal, after a night passed in revelry, and was almost annihilated; Philip, nevertheless, forced his antago­nist to retreat into his own territory, and, supported by the Saxon bishops besieged him in Brunswick. Otto was successful in a sally, and by means of a fresh intrigue received a considerable addition to his forces; Hermann of Thuringia rose in his favor, and Ottocar of Bohemia went over to his side; but being forced to retreat from the vicinity of Erfurt, where he exercised the most horrid barbarity, by the peasantry headed by Otto von Brenen, he listened to the persuasions of the Wittelsbacher of Bavaria, with whom he was connected by marriage, and returned to his allegiance. Philip, after twice defeating Bruno of Cologne, Otto’s most powerful partisan on the Rhine, invaded Thuringia, upon which Hermann threw himself at his feet and abandoned Otto’s now hopeless cause. The pope also was induced by this turn in affairs to recognize Philip, an act of condescension for which he was repaid by the sacrifice of Italy, and the humble recognition of his supremacy. An interview at length took place between Philip and Otto at Cologne, where terms of peace were agreed to.

The Wittelsbacher in Bavaria, who owed their elevation to the Staufen, had ever repaid their debt of gratitude by the services they rendered. Otto was succeeded by his son Louis, whose cousin, Otto, became Philip’s most inveterate foe. Philip had promised to bestow upon him the hand of one of his daughters, but afterward refused to fulfill his engagement, partly on account of Otto’s licentious manners and guilt (he had already committed murder), and partly because he had higher matches in view for his daughters (in particular, an alliance with the Welfs as a means of conciliation). Otto then sought the hand of a daughter of Henry the Bearded of Silesia, and being inconsiderately charged by Philip with a letter of warning to his intended father-in-law, he broke the seal on his way to Silesia, and on reading the contents instantly returned, and hastening to Bamberg (old Babenburg), where the emperor was then holding his court, entered his apartment and ran him through with his sword as he sat at chess (1208). He escaped after wounding in the face Henry von Waidburg, the imperial Truchsess, who attempted to seize him.

Irene of Greece, Philip’s mourning widow, was con­ducted by Louis of Wurtemberg to the ancestral castle of the Hohenstaufen, where she died before long of grief. On her death, her youthful daughter, Beatrice, threw herself weeping at the feet of her father’s former competitor, Otto IV, and implored his protection and vengeance on her father’s murderer. Her entreaties were listened to. The murderer was slain at Ebrach on the Danube, his memory was cursed, and his castle of Wittelsbach reduced to ruins. Frederick of Palermo, the young king of Sicily, was now the only male heir of the Hohenstaufen, and Otto the Welf, dreading lest he might succeed in attaching the partisans of that house in Germany, to whom he was still a stranger, to his person, by a marriage with Beatrice, affianced himself to her, the celebration of the nuptials being delayed on account of her extreme youth. His position was, notwithstanding, extremely critical. Ruin was inevitable, if the pretensions of young Frederick were brought forward by the pope. His whole anxiety was consequently to win the pontiff’s favor. In 1209, he accordingly paid him a visit, humbled himself before him, confirmed him in the possession of the lands of the Countess Matilda, the right of investiture, even the induction of the bishops independently of the right of election possessed by the chapters, and took the oath of unconditional obedience. The imperial crown was his reward. The presence of the Germans, however, again roused the passions of the Roman populace; an insurrection took place, and the Germans were driven out of the city. The non­interference of the pope, on this occasion, at length roused the emperor’s sense of honor, and he ventured to offer some opposition, by withholding from him Tuscany and the district of Ancona, which he bestowed upon Azzo d’Este. Innocent retaliated by a short but sure measure, by excommunicating his weak opponent, and by commanding the princes of Germany to elect his protégé, Frederick, emperor (1211).

Otto, in the intention of first disencumbering himself of his rival, marched quickly into Lower Italy, and was on the point of crossing over to Sicily, in order, with the assistance of the treacherous Diephold, to seize Frederick in Palermo, when he received the news of the obedience of the German princes to the pope’s mandate, and of the election of Frederick by a diet held at Bamberg, and hastily recrossing the Alps, stoutly attacked his adversaries. He laid the archbishopric of Magdeburg waste, put the king of Bohemia out of the ban of the empire, and would in all probability have reinstated himself, had not Frederick suddenly made his appearance in Germany. Beatrice, Otto’s beauteous and youthful bride, whom he had espoused at Nordhausen, and by whose means he had hoped to gain over the whole of the Hohenstaufen faction in Germany, expired a few days after the solemnization of the nuptials, it was said of poison administered to her by his mistresses (1212). The Swabians and Bavarians instantly quitted his camp and returned home.

Innocent III, who in his boundless ambition sought to extend his sway over the East as well as over the West, incessantly stirred up the people for the formation of crusades. In 1198, Otto of Brandenburg had made a solitary pilgrimage to the sepulcher. In 1202, a large army of crusaders assembled under Baldwin, count of Flanders, Boniface de Montferrat, Conrad, bishop of Halberstadt, etc. On reaching Venice, they were retained by the doge, Dandolo, who proposed the conquest of Greece before that of the Holy Land. His object was to deprive Constantinople of the commerce with the East; Baldwin, however, coveted the imperial crown. The rage of the pope, on this intelligence, was extreme, and he instantly placed the whole of the crusade under excommunication, which occasioned the more piously inclined among the Germans to quit the army (the majority of which pronounced in favor of Baldwin and of the Venetians), and to set out alone for the Holy Land. The greatest anarchy prevailed at that time in Constantinople; the father contended with his son, the servant with his lord, one emperor supplanted the other. The city, nevertheless, defended by her strong fortifications, and by the immense number of her inhabitants, resisted every attack, and the crusaders were compelled to create a party in their favor by embracing that of the emperor Alexius Angelus, in whose name they succeeded in taking possession of the city for the first time (1203). This emperor being assassinated by his competitor, Alexius Ducas, they conquered Constantinople a second time, but for themselves (1204). The circumjacent country was quickly reduced to submission; each leader took possession of a city or a castle for himself; new counties and principalities were founded in ancient Hellas. Baldwin of Flanders, who had placed the crown of the Byzantine emperors on his own brow, did not long enjoy the elevation to which he had attained; John, king of Wallachia and Bulgaria, invaded his empire, carried all before him, and took him prisoner (1205). The Wallachian queen became enamored of her husband’s captive, and offered to restore him to liberty on condition of sharing his throne as empress. On Baldwin’s refusal, she persuaded her husband to order his hands and feet to be struck off. Baldwin’s fidelity to his wife, Maria, was equaled by hers; she followed him to Greece with the Flemish fleet, and had the good fortune to die before him. Boniface de Montferrat also fell in the battle. Henry, Baldwin’s brother, mounted the imperial throne, but was poisoned by a Bulgarian princess whom he had married. His brother-in-law and successor, Peter d’Auxerre, was thrown into prison, where he died, by the Greeks, who regained courage and ere long reconquered their metropolis.

The German crusaders, who, influenced by the dread of excommunication, had refused to accompany Baldwin, and had set off as common pilgrims for the Holy Land, were conducted by their leader, the Abbot Martin, an Alsatian, to Accon, where the Flemish fleet also arrived, under the command of John de Neele, the bailiff of Bruges, who insolently refused to join Baldwin at Constantinople, although his consort, the Countess Maria, was on board. This lady had awaited her accouchement in Flanders, and then hastened after her husband. She died at Accon. These pilgrims effectuated nothing. Amalrich of Cyprus, who by his marriage with Isabella, the widow of Conrad and Henry, had seated himself on the throne of Jerusalem, instead of aiding the Flemings, increased their difficulties, from a dread of being deprived, like the Greek emperor, of his crown. Bohemund of Antioch was incessantly at feud with the Christian Armenians. The pilgrims, on discovering the futility of their endeavors, returned home. Amalrich died. Iolantha, Isabella’s daughter by the gallant Conrad de Montferrat, espoused, in 1210, Count John de Brienne, who became king of Jerusalem. He resided at Accon, unpossessed of wealth or power.

Innocent, undeterred by these mishaps, still continued his exhortations for the formation of fresh crusades, but the princes, engaged at home with their own affairs, and warned by the ill success of those that had already been undertaken, either refused, or made promises they did not intend to fulfill. The preaching of the crusades, the zeal of the clergy, and the delay on the part of the princes, had, meanwhile, excited the imagination of the multitude, more especially that of the young people of both sexes, to the highest pitch of frenzy. At Cologne, a boy, named Nicolaus, announced that Christ would alone bestow his promised land on innocent children, assembled a multitude of children, and led seven thousand boys and girls across the Alps. Several of these children, of noble families, were retained at Genoa, and became the founders of different races of Genoese nobles. In Italy, this extraordinary crusade (which would certainly have never been generally countenanced had it not been viewed by the papists as a means for the attainment of their design) broke up. Numbers of these children remained in Italy; others set sail for the Holy Land, whence they never returned; very few retraced their steps to Germany (1212). Not long after this, a still more numerous multitude of French children of both sexes arrived; twenty to thirty thousand; part of whom were shipwrecked, the rest were sold by two French slave merchants to the Turks.

The religious enthusiasm of the times, excited to the ut­most by the pope, now threatened to overturn his authority. The notion that every action ought to tend to the glory of God, led to the question whether the church walked in his ways, and to the discovery of the difference between her despotism and ambition, and the humility of the Founder of Christianity. The Cathari, or the pure, from whom the name of heretic, that afterward attained such celebrity, was derived, first came, as their Grecian name attests, from the East, spread over Italy and Provence, where they received the name of Albigenses, from the city of Albi. Their aim was the restoration of such a pure evangelical mode of existence that they even rejected the Old Testament. The crusades and the alliance with Greece had infected them with some of the ideas of the ancient Greek-Christian philosophers, the Gnostics, which had been condemned by the church, and probably with some of the doctrines of Islamism; many of them also rejected the Trinity. Some remains of ancient Arianism may also have been preserved among them; the Burgundians and Goths, its most zealous supporters, having been compelled to turn Catholics by the Franks. During the reign of Charlemagne, Bishop Clau­dius energetically protested at Turin against the worship of images. Thus an anti-Catholic feeling might have been easily preserved among these mountaineers. The Waldenses, in the mountains and at Lyons, were freer from oriental philosophy than the Albigenses on the coast; their founder, Peter, was surnamed “the Vaudois’’, probably on account of his being a native of the Waadtland, or of some part of Vaud. They also denominated themselves the “poor people” of Lyons; taught practical Christianity, humility, and brotherly love; rejected all ecclesiastical tenets and denounced all ecclesiastical power; regarding the church, drunk as it were with despotism, luxury, and ambition, as the kingdom of Satan upon earth, the great Babylon cursed for her sins; and the pope, as antichrist.

The necessity of strong measures for the suppression of these heresies was clearly perceived by the church, which, instead of justly estimating the causes whence they had arisen, instead of reforming her own internal abuses and limiting the power she had seized, blind to the future, and regardless of the universal law that excess ever defeats its aim, condemned the heretics unheard, and sought to extirpate them by violence and bloodshed. Innocent prohibited the study of the Bible and the investigation of spiritual matters by the laity, and, instead of teaching those whom he professed to believe in error, instantly had recourse to violence. In 1178, the bloody persecution of the heretics commenced; and in 1T98, tribunals, composed of monks who arbitrarily trod law and justice beneath their feet, were established by the pope for the trial of his disobedient children. The tortures anciently made use of by the Romans were re­introduced, and the church, founded upon the doctrine of universal love and brotherhood, first inflicted the punishment of the rack. Those whom pain induced to confess their guilt were condemned to the performance of severe penance; those who refused to confess were burned alive. The whole property of the criminal was confiscated, and served to swell the coffers of the church. There was no appeal beyond this tri­bunal. The number of heretics, and that of the Albigenses, notwithstanding, increased to such a degree that Innocent caused a crusade to be formally preached against them, in 1209. The heretics, at whose head stood Raimund, count of Toulouse, were favored by the nobility of the country, and stoutly resisted every attack, defending themselves with unflinching heroism against the fanatical multitudes that poured upon them from every side, until finally overpowered by numbers. Their heresy, nevertheless, was continued in secret from one generation to another, and the utter inability of the perplexed and weak emperor to offer any aid to the ancient kingdom of Burgundy, which, after the suppression of the heresy, he was compelled to leave under papal and French influence, may justly be deplored.

The Beguines in Liege owed their origin to peculiar circumstances. The license of the ecclesiastics in this town reached such a pitch that during Easter and Whitsuntide the most beautiful of the priests’ mistresses were placed publicly as queens upon thrones and were paid homage, the night concluding in debauchery and riot. The obscenity of the priests produced a popular reaction. The burgher Lambert founded a society of chaste maidens and virtuous widows, who were bound by certain rules, and who before long gained great credit by their care of the sick (1176).

A general council was convoked by Innocent, in 1215, at Rome, for the purpose of reforming the most grievous abuses in the church, and severe penalties were adjudged as a check upon the immorality and the avarice of the clergy, which had now overstepped every restraint, and ever re­mained the deplorable and inseparable result of the immense wealth they had gained; although there were not wanting men among their order who viewed the profligacy of their brethren with horror and regret. Two may be particularly mentioned as important reformers of the monastic orders. Francisco d’Assisi, an Italian, founded, in 1210, the order of the Franciscans, who were also denominated Minorites, or lesser brothers; and Domingo Guzman, a Spaniard, in 1215, that of the Dominicans. These monks vowed to practice the most rigid austerity, to remain in utter poverty, never to possess or even to touch gold, and to content themselves with the mere necessaries of life, the most homely diet and clothing. They were for this reason named the begging monks; and the Dominicans, whose object it also was to move the people to penitence by their sermons, were named the preaching monks. The second general of the Dominicans was a Saxon, Jordan von Battberg. He was shipwrecked off Cyprus, in 1237, when on his way to the East. He used to say when defending celibacy, “Earth is good and water is good, but when they are mingled they turn into mud.’’ These pious enthusiasts were by no means impostors, and the character of Francisco d’Assisi, remarkable for its simplicity, piety, and sincere fervor, has merely been misunderstood owing to the manner with which it was abused by the hierarchy for purposes of which he was ignorant, and at which his pure and innocent mind would have revolted. The reformation of the church and its restoration to apostolical simplicity was, like that of the heretics, the object of these monks, whose excessive zeal, however, was merely made use of by the artful pope to effectuate a pretended ref­ormation, in order to obviate the true reformation projected by the heretics. These begging monks, flattered, canonized, universally recommended, and endowed with unlimited authority by the pope, were speedily converted into mere blind political tools. Their character as the peculiarly holy and zealous servants of God gave them the precedence of all other sacred orders; they had the right of entering every diocese, of preaching everywhere, of reading mass, of hearing confession, of granting absolution, of founding schools; the gates and doors of the laity (for were they not enveloped in the odor of sanctity) flew open at their approach; they became their bosom friends, their counselors, and their spies; they incited them against the enemies of the pope, inflamed their fanaticism, and strengthened their blind belief in the pontiff’s power; and, in a word, they might fairly be regarded as a body of spiritual mercenaries or church police. The repose so long enjoyed by the church, during which the papal power was confirmed, and the long persecution of the heretics, were entirely effected by them. The Inquisition, or judgment of the heretics, was exclusively consigned to the Dominicans by a synod held at Toulouse, and the flames of persecution spread instantly throughout Europe. The Christian priest emulated the cruelty of his pagan predecessor, and human blood was poured in horrid libation on the altar of the God of peace. The Franciscans, blinded by their honest zeal, long remained unconscious of the political purpose for which their simple piety was abused, but no sooner perceived the truth than, abandoning their former master, they afforded their utmost aid to the emperor and to the heretics in their contest with the church.

 

CLVI.

Frederick the Second

Frederick, surrounded at Palermo, where he held his pleasure-loving court, with all the delights of lovely Sicily and with oriental refinement, early acquired the classic lore of the ancients, their sense of beauty, and the sciences of the East. In his fifteenth year (1209) he was united by the pope to Constantia, the daughter of Peter, king of Aragon, who ere long presented him with a son, Henry. Frederick was remarkable for the symmetry of his person. The expression of his countenance was replete with nobility, intelligence, and benevolence. In 1212 the youthful monarch was visited by a German knight, Anselm von Justingen, who invited him in the name of all the German partisans of the house of Hohenstaufen to place the crown of Charlemagne on his brow. Fired with the spirit of his ancestors, he joyfully acceded, and accompanied Anselm to Germany. The pope, actuated by dread of Otto’s revenge, favored his plans, but nevertheless compelled him to swear that his infant son, Henry, should possess Sicily alone, and that the crown of Lower Italy should remain separate from that of Germany. The Milanese, foreseeing Frederick’s future power, refused him permission to pass through their territory, but the loyal citizens of Pavia, bravely arming in his cause, opened a road for him after a desperate and bloody conflict, and, at the pope’s bidding, he was assisted across the Alps by Azzo, the Margrave d’Este. On his way he received information of the march of his competitor, Otto, toward Constance, for the purpose of capturing him at the outlet of the Alps, but, undeterred by the danger, he fearlessly crossed the mountains of the Grisons, and, disguised as a pilgrim, with merely sixty men in his train, entered Constance amid the joyous shouts of the ancient friends of his house, the loyal Swabians. The citizens of Constance, warned of his approach, had closed the gates against Otto, while the counts of Kyburg and Habsburg had come at the head of their vassals to receive their youthful monarch. Otto retreated down the Rhine; the citizens of Breisach expelled him from their city; and he was driven from place to place, while the grandchild of the great Barbarossa was everywhere received with a delight, to which his wisdom, extraordinary for his years, and the nobility of his address, contributed as much as his personal beauty. Before quitting the mountains, he concluded a treaty with France, at that time at war with England, Otto’s ally. For this treaty Frederick received a large sum of money, which he instantly distributed among his adher­ents. Almost the whole of Germany did homage to him in 1213, when he held his first diet at Frankfort. The Landgrave Hermann of Thuringia, who, although apparently absorbed with the Minnesingers on the Wartburg, incessantly watched over his political interests, had at one time adhered to Philip, at another to Otto, from both of whom he had obtained a considerable addition to his power, for instance, the cities of Muhlhausen and Nordhausen. Notwithstanding his late friendship with Otto, he now took the field against him, and defeated him at Tannstatt. The emperor Frederick visited Thuringia, held a diet at Merseburg, where he gave a legal sanction to the Saxon spiegel, or Saxon code of laws.

Otto IV. still hoped to be able to save his honor, if not to maintain his authority in the North. Flanders, on the death of Count Philip (1191) in the East, had fallen to his brother-in-law, Baldwin von Hennegau; Philip Augustus of France, nevertheless, continued to partition and to weaken the country, in order to annex it piece-meal to France, on which it was merely dependent as a fief of the crown, which, with its German population, its civism, its wealth, its national power and national hatred, it was far more likely to endanger than to serve. Baldwin ceded Artois to Louis, the son of Philip Augustus, but his son Baldwin, the subsequent emperor of Constantinople, repossessed himself of a great portion of it, besides taking the earldom of Namur from Limburg and Luxemburg. After his death in Greece, his daughters were delivered (1205) to the French monarch by his brother, Philip the Weak, who had assumed the title of Earl of Namur. The eldest daughter, Johanna of Constantinople, was bestowed in marriage by the French king on Ferrand, the powerless count of Portugal, on condition of the cession of a portion of Flanders. The Flemings had, however, taken the precaution of electing Burkhard d’Avesnes, a man of well-known prudence, regent during Johanna’s minority. As soon as she had attained her majority, Ferrand escaped from Paris, where he was kept under surveillance, and threw himself into the arms of the Flemings in 1211. John, king of England, now interfered, demanded aid from Otto, and formed a Northern League against France. The allies suffered a complete defeat at Bouvines in the first engagement that took place (1214). The emperor, Otto, was wounded. Ferrand was taken prisoner, and exposed in an iron cage to public derision in the streets of Paris. Flanders was placed in the hands of Johanna, but in complete dependence upon France. The pope, who regarded this league between the powers of the North as a German reac­tion against French and Italian Romanism, in his wrath anathematized and deposed the English monarch, and be­stowed the whole of his dominions upon Philip Augustus. John, threatened at the same time by his own subjects, was driven in this extremity to grant to them the famous Magna Charta, which at once secured the liberties and laid the foundation to the future glory of England.

Otto retreated to Brunswick, where he continued to defend himself against Frederick’s adherents, more particularly against Albrecht, archbishop of Magdeburg, his most inveterate foe, who, falling into his hands in 1215, he remained in tranquillity until his death, which took place in the Harzburg in 1218. The imperial regalia were delivered by his son Henry to Frederick, to whom France also courteously restored the banner of the empire, which had been taken at Bouvines.

In 1215, Frederick II. was solemnly crowned at Aix-la-Chapelle. He then proceeded to restore order to the empire. A Ghibelline by birth, he was in the contradictory and unnatural position of a favorite of the pope and an ally of France, and he was even reduced to the necessity of flattering Denmark in order, by her aid, to weaken the influence possessed by the Welfs in Northern Germany. For this purpose, he confirmed Waldemar in the sovereignty of Holstein, Mecklenburg, and Pomerania.

In 1218, the last Berthold von Zahringen died without issue. Burgundy, ever restless, had fully engaged his attention. His attempt to reduce Warin, bishop of Sion, and the free peasantry of Wallis (Valais), to submission terminated in his defeat. He was driven down the Grimsel in 1211. He was, nevertheless, victorious over the rebellious nobles at Wiflisburg (ancient Aventicum), and again in the Grindelwaldthal. The nobles revenged themselves by poisoning his sons Berthold and Conrad, to whom, according to Pschudi (later historians doubt the fact), the fatal draught was administered by their stepmother, a Countess von Ky-burg. The city of Berne, famed for its hatred of the nobility, was founded in revenge by the sorrowing father, amid the forest depths. The city was named Berne from a bear which was slain during its erection, Berthold saying, “As the bear rules the denizens of the wild, so shall Berne rule the castles of the nobles”; and he raised the ancient towns of Zurich, Freiburg, and Solothurn to such prosperity, by the grant of immense privileges, that the citizens were after­ward enabled to curb the lawless nobles. In his will he bequeathed Zurich to the emperor; the free cities of Berne, Freiburg in Uechtland, and Solothurn, to the empire; his possessions in Burgundy to his sister Anna, Countess von Kyburg; those in Swabia, together with Freiburg in the Breisgau, to his sister Agnes, Countess von Urach. Peter, earl of Savoy, however, seized the Waadtland and leagued with the cities against the Kyburgs. Baden, at that period a place of little importance, fell to Hermann, one of Berthold’s cousins, who took the title of Margrave of Baden, on account of his having for a short time governed the mark or frontier district of Verona. By him the Zahringen name was continued. He remained true to his allegiance to Frederick. His eldest son, Rudolf, inherited Baden, and after­. ward went over to the Welfic faction. His second son, Hermann, wedded a princess of Babenburg; their son, Frederick, fell, when a youth, at the side of the last of the Hohenstaufen. In Lothringia, the duke, Frederick, had remained true to the Staufen; his son, Theobald, was, on the contrary, wild and lawless; he caused his uncle, Mathias, bishop of Toul, to be assassinated, and was himself surprised and slain by the emperor near Rothheim.

The support given to the emperor in Germany induced an attempt on his part to escape from his unnatural and harassing position, by openly professing himself the Ghibel­line he was by birth. Innocent III, the protector of his youth, by whom he had been called to the throne, and who was almost omnipotent in the fullness of his hierarchial power, he had never ventured to oppose, in the consciousness of his inability to maintain his quickly-gained empire against this giant of the church, and of the impossibility of retaining his friendship, should he, like his ancestors, assert his independence of Rome. Innocent’s death, in 1216, created but little change in the aspect of affairs, his ambitious preten­sions being inherited by his successor, Honorius III.

The emperor, in imitation of Barbarossa, acted with great circumspection; his first care was to gain over the German bishops, whom he loaded with favors. Their support greatly facilitated his opposition to the pope, and by their assistance he succeeded in causing his son, Henry, who had already been recognized by the pope as king of Sicily and Apulia, to be elected king in Germany. This proceeding startled the pope, who had still cherished the hope of being able to keep the crowns of Germany and Sicily separate. The emperor now sought to mollify the pope by assurances of friendship, and even promised to raise a crusade, a sure means of conciliation, the papal authority having in some degree been shaken by the coolness with which his eternal summons to the crusades was now received. The ill success attending them had at length cooled the popular zeal.

Another crusade was raised under Honorius III, which shared the fate of its predecessors. Leopold the Glorious, of Austria, Andreas, king of Hungary, and a number of Saxons, who accompanied the crusade without a noble for their leader, sailed, in 1217, for the Holy Land (which had been visited not long before by Casimir of Poland for the purpose of praying at the Holy Sepulcher), repulsed the Turks, and bathed in the Jordan. Tabor, on the mountain, repelled their attacks, and Andreas returned home with his Hungarians. Leopold remained, and in 1218 laid siege to Damietta in Egypt, with the idea of more easily securing the reconquest of Syria by the conquest of Egypt. He was here joined by a Friscian fleet, which had on its way deprived the Moors of Cadiz. A second Dutch fleet, under William of Holland, captured Alcahar do Sal. The Friscians and Dutch, fired with enthusiasm by the eloquence of Oliverius, a canon of Cologne, the chronicler of this expedition, joined Leopold, and greatly distinguished themselves in the siege of Damietta. The harbor was defended by a tower that stood upon an inaccessible rock in the deep sea. The Friscians and Flemings constructed a wooden tower of equal height, which was placed upon two vessels and carried alongside the fort­ress. Haye von Groningen was the first who mounted the wall, where he laid about him so furiously with an iron flail that the garrison was speedily compelled to surrender. The arrival of the cardinal Pelagius, who usurped the chief command in the name of the pope, caused Leopold and the majority of the Germans to return home (1219). The counts of Holland and of Wied remained and assisted in the taking of the city. Henry, Count von Schwerin, and Dietrich von Katzenellenbogen, also arrived, after a sharp conflict at sea. On the arrival of Louis, duke of Bavaria, and Ulrich, bishop of Passau, with a multitude of Lombards under the archbishop of Milan, it was resolved to attack the sultan, Camel, in his metropolis, Cairo. Saint Francisco d’Assisi, who accompanied this fleet, ventured into the sultan’s presence and attempted his conversion. Camel is said to have listened with patient good humor to his harangue. The crusaders, ignorant of the nature of the Nile, were surprised in the night by its sudden rising, and reduced to such extreme necessity by wet and famine that they were compelled to purchase their lives by the restoration of Damietta to the sultan, in 1221. Shortly after these events, Henry, Count von Bapperschwyl, and his wife Anna, undertook a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and on their return founded the wealthy monastery of Wettingen, in the Aargau.

The story of the Thuringian count, Ernest von Gleichen, belongs to this period. He had married a Countess von Orlamunde, whom he left at home, he was taken prisoner in the East, but was restored to liberty by the sultan’s daughter, Meleohsala, on condition of taking her to his native country as his wife. He fulfilled his promise; the countess received the Saracen lady as a sister, and the pope confirmed the double marriage. The “drei Gleichen,” or three equals, the count’s castles, still stand in the neighborhood of Gotha, and at Erfurt may be seen the three tombs, that of the count in the center. Their remains were examined not very long ago, and the Asiatic formation of one of the female skulls seems to vouch for the authenticity of this oft-doubted tale.—The legend of the faithful Fiorentina von Metz is still more interesting. On the departure of her husband, Alexander, for the crusades, she presented him with a shirt that pos­sessed the property of ever retaining its purity. The knight was taken prisoner and condemned to draw the plow. The sultan remarked the extraordinary quality of his shirt, and on being told that it would retain its purity as long as Fiorentina remained faithful to her husband, he resolved to make the experiment, and sent a cunning man to Metz, whose attempts to shake her fidelity entirely failed. Fiorentina, on learning the situation of her husband from this man, disguised herself as a pilgrim, and set out in search of him, won the sultan by her singing, and begged of him his slave, Alexander, from whom she merely demanded, in token of gratitude for his redemption, permission to cut a small piece out of his shirt. She then hastened back to Metz. On Alexander’s return, he was informed of the long absence of his wife, and bitterly reproached her, upon which she produced the piece of linen, which proved her identity with the person by whom he had been freed.—A Swabian knight, von Mohringen, returned from the crusades on the day fixed by his wife (by whom he was believed to be dead) for her second wedding, with the Chevalier von Neuffen, who, being thus compelled to withdraw his pretensions, received the hand of the daughter instead of that of the mother.—One of the counts von Rapperschwyl was met, on his return home, by his steward, who, attempting to raise his suspicions of the fidelity of the countess, received for answer, “Say whatever you wish, but say nothing against my wife.” The disconcerted steward, anxious to retain his lord’s favor, spoke of the first thing that came into his head, of the advantage of erecting a castle on the tongue of land which contracts the Lake of Zurich, and Rapperschwyl was built in consequence.—St. Hildegunda of Cologne quitted the convent at Neuss, disguised in male attire, and traveled to the Holy Land under the name of Joseph. At Accon she was robbed by her servant. She dwelt for some time at Jerusalem, visited Rome, and then went to Schonau, near Heidelberg, where she lived as an Eisterzienser monk until 1188. Her sex remained undiscovered until after her death.—Count Poppo von Henneberg was followed home by a foreign lady, whose love he had gained during the crusade. She arrived during the celebration of his marriage with another, and in her despair tore off at once the whole of her beautiful braided hair, which was afterward placed as an ornament on the helm in the arms of Henneberg. These and many other similar stories of the times form the subject of the national ballads of Germany.

The emperor’s departure for the Holy Land was meanwhile constantly expected. In 1220 he visited Italy, leaving Engelbert, the noble-spirited archbishop of Cologne, regent of the empire. He received the imperial crown from the hands of the pontiff at Rome; the crusade, nevertheless, could not be raised, partly on account of the general want of enthusiasm and of funds, and partly on account of the emperor’s deeming the regulation of the affairs of Lower Italy more conducive to utility. The pope, whose authority diminished with every addition to the imperial power, showed signs of impatience, and Frederick, in order to lull his apprehensions, bound himself by oath, in 1225, to undertake a crusade within two years from that time under pain of excommunication. The empress, meanwhile, expiring, he espoused Iolantha, the daughter of John, the ex­king of Jerusalem, in right of whom he claimed the Eastern kingdom. The preparations for the crusade were now commenced in earnest; immense bodies of troops poured across the Alps, and ranged themselves beneath his banner. A fearful pestilence, that suddenly broke out in the camp in 1227, carried off the flower of his army. Louis the Pious, Landgrave of Thuringia, was among the victims. The expedition now became impossible; the term of respite expired, and at this unfortunate conjuncture the life of Honorius III reached its close. His successor, Gregory IX, a man of a far more exacting and despotic temper, instantly took ad­vantage of the emperor’s embarrassment to anathematize him for the non-fulfillment of his oath. The emperor, enraged at the harshness of this treatment, dropped the mask and openly expressed his hatred of the hierarchy: “The bloodsucker deceives with her honeyed words, she sends her embassadors, wolves in sheep’s clothing, into every land, not to sow the word of God, but to fetter liberty, to disturb peace, and to extort gold.” The pope was driven by the Frangipani out of Rome, and compelled to fly for refuge to Viterbo.

The emperor would, in all probability, have openly defied the papal interdict, had not his word of honor been implicated by the oath he had taken in 1225; and in order to redeem that honor in the eyes of the world, not from any regard for the pope, he resolved at all hazards to perform the crusade, and, in 1228, set sail for the East, with as numerous an army as he found it possible to raise. Enlightened and humane, a free-thinker, accustomed to oriental refinement, as a Hohenstaufen the hereditary foe of Rome, and with the pope’s anathema still rankling in his mind, Frederick naturally sought an alliance with the equally free- spirited Mahometan chief. Camel was at that time carrying on a contest with his nephew Nasr David, similar to that between Frederick and the papists. Before Frederick’s departure for the East, a private understanding had been arranged, by means of secret emissaries, between him and Camel. On his arrival in Palestine, he was avoided, as an excommunicant, by the Templars, the Hospitalers, Gerold, the patriarch of Jerusalem, and by all the foreign settlers. The pope even ventured in his wrath expressly to prohibit any assistance to the emperor, thereby attempting to frustrate the success of an expedition he had at first so zealously forwarded. Frederick, undisturbed by these maneuvers, treated the worthless Christian population with well-merited contempt, and only confided in the Germans, the gallant grand-master of the German Hospitalers, Hermann von Salza, the Genoese, and Pisanese, who had ever taken part with the German pilgrims against the degenerate Pullanes. Camel agreed to cede the city of Jerusalem and the adjacent territory to the emperor, upon condition of permission being granted to the Mahometans to make pilgrimages to a mosque within the city. These terms were gladly consented to by Frederick, who marched into the holy city at the head of his armed followers (not unarmed, like Richard Coeur de Lion), formally took possession of it, with his own hands placed the crown of Jerusalem on his brow, allowed the Mahometan inhabitants to withdraw in peace, and repeopled the city with Christians in 1229. The patriarch of Jerusalem, however, instead of manifesting gratitude for the reconquest of the Holy Sepulcher, laid the whole city under excommunication; priestly passion and intrigue sought to undermine the peace that once more spread its blessings around, and the Templars even plotted against the emperor’s life. The sultan was apprised by them of the spot where he could conveniently capture his opponent. The letter was sent by the generous Mussulman to Frederick with a friendly caution. The understanding that existed between the emperor and the sultan naturally caused Frederick to be accused by his enemies of openly professing Mohammedanism, and imbittered the “true believers’’ against him. Inventive calumny distilled her poisons. He was charged with being accessory to the murder of the duke of Bavaria, who had fallen by the hand of a bold assassin, and of many other similar crimes. On the confirmation of peace, Frederick returned to Italy, leaving his master of the horse, Richard, at the head of affairs in the East. Richard at first kept the Pullanes at bay, but afterward fell into their hands and was expelled. The emperor, occupied with home affairs, neglected the East. The treaty of peace between him and the sultan was infringed by the Pullanes, and ruin, as might have been foreseen, speedily ensued.

During the emperor’s absence, the pope had raised a body of mercenaries, who bore, as insignia, St. Peter’s keys (whence they were denominated the key-soldiers), and had, moreover, attempted to deprive the Ghibellines of Lower Italy. At the same time, he denounced the treaty concluded by the emperor with the sultan as a league with the devil. The key-soldiers were led by Frederick’s jealous stepfather, John of Jerusalem, who was also joined by the Milanese and Lombards. The governor Reinald, the son of Conrad of Spoleto, who had formerly been expelled by Innocent III, and the Frangipani with difficulty upheld the imperial cause. But no sooner did Frederick reappear, and his faithful Austrians, Tyrolese, Carinthians, and Salzburgers, under their temporal and spiritual leaders, descend the Alps to lend him aid, than the pontiff, filled with dismay, acceded to the proposals of peace made by Hermann von Salza, the emperor’s prudent emissary and friend, and released the emperor from the interdict (1230). The pope had failed in his attempt to raise disturbances in Germany. Ulrich, bishop of Basel, alone had carried on a feud with the Count von Pfirt, the imperial governor of Alsace, whom he defeated on the Hart.

Affairs now retook their former aspect. Gregory IX beheld with pain the confirmation of the emperor’s sovereignty in Lower Italy, and the establishment of his gay and heretical court in the beloved land of his youth. Smiling palaces were erected at Naples, Palermo, Messina, and several other places. Frederick was ever surrounded by the noblest bards and the most beautiful women of the empire; it was to him that the Italians owed the elevation of their popular dialect to a written language, by his use of it in his love-sonnets. By his mistresses, the greatest beauties of the West and East, he had several sons and daughters, celebrated for their wit and beauty. Moorish dancing-girls and Eastern science abounded in his court. The sultan Camel presented him with an astronomical tent, in which the motions of the celestial bodies were represented by means of curious mechanism. His astrologer, Michael Scotus, translated Aristotle’s zoography; he also possessed a menagerie of rare animals, among others a giraffe, kept tame leopards (chetahs) for the chase, and studied ornithology, on which he wrote a treatise.

Poetry and science were, however, far from fully occupying the mind of this great statesman, whose thoughts were chiefly engaged with the internal regulation of his vast empire. The formation of a well-regulated temporal state was his prevailing idea, which he first sought to realize, by way of essay, in his little Italian kingdom, before carrying it out on a larger scale in the empire of Germany. The internal dissolution with which the empire was threatened by the ambitious aspirations of the church, the nobility, and the cities to independence, was foreseen by this emperor. The sole object of his attempt to create a ministry intended to replace the irregular diets, and to levy a tax instead of receiving the tardy and insufficient imperial contributions, was the restoration of the unity of the empire. In a word, he would willingly have overthrown both the hierarchy and the feudal system, and have created a state possessing a well-organized government, and a well-regulated financial sys­tem; but he was, unfortunately, too far in advance of his age, which neither would nor could keep pace with his ideas. His intended reforms were announced in a great diet held at Capua, in 1231, by a code of laws composed by his intelligent chancellor Peter de Vineis for Lower Italy, where Frederick at first successfully carried his political views into execution; his innovations were, naturally enough, highly displeasing to Gregory IX, who, in 1234, published a collec­tion of ecclesiastical laws, which he set up in opposition to the imperial code. These codes were grounded on entirely contrary principles; that of Frederick ascribing all earthly power to the supremacy of the emperor; that of Gregory to the pope, as the representative of God.

CLVII.

The Inquisition—The Humiliation of Denmark

The Salic and the Swabian emperors, the latter of whom had found it requisite to court the aid of Denmark against Saxony, had been unable to maintain their authority in the north of Germany, whose frontier Frederick II, on account of his almost permanent residence in Italy, was even still less able to guard. The rising importance of Saxony, nevertheless, secured the frontier of the empire against Denmark, and extended it far to the east. The civil wars in Germany had, in fact, restricted Saxony to a system of defense against the Danes and Slavs, but peace was no sooner confirmed, and the emperor absent beyond the Alps, than she again projected the conquest of the North.

Frederick, far from planning the extension of the limits of the empire to the North, had merely applied himself to secure her internal tranquillity by his close union and good intelligence with her great ecclesiastical dignitaries. Engelbert, Count von Berg and archbishop of Cologne, who was intrusted by him with the regency of the empire, was the founder of the Feme, or secret tribunal, which was primarily connected in the duchy of Westphalia, which belonged to Cologne, with the ancient gau or provincial tribunal. Ecclesiastics were not allowed to become members of this tribunal, before which they also could not be cited, the affairs of the church being beyond its jurisdiction. To the licentious laity, especially to the wild and haughty barons, this tribunal was a fearful scourge; the criminal was cited to appear at midnight before his darkly masked judges; flight was vain; the condemned wretch was hanged on a tree by the mysterious avenger of his crime, and a knife struck into the trunk signified that he had fallen by the hand of a Feme. The stern justice exercised by Engelbert, when at the head of this secret tribunal, is said to have produced the most beneficial effects. He was assassinated by the Count von Isenburg, on whom he had justly inflicted punishment. The design of the cathedral of Cologne was drawn out during his reign (1226), and his death was immortalized by Walther von der Vogelweide, the most celebrated poet of the age.

Northern Saxony, notwithstanding the murder of the regent and the absence of the emperor, succeeded, at this period, in shaking off the Danish yoke. King Waldemar II of Denmark, besides the Wendian duchies of Mecklenburg and Pomerania, had taken possession of the German earldom of Holstein (whose sovereign, Adolf III, was a prisoner in his hands), the country of the Ditmarses, who had volun­tarily placed themselves under his government owing to their dislike of the archbishop of Bremen, the countships of Ratzeburg and Schwerin, and the cities of Lubeck and Hamburg. These conquests were viewed with great apprehension by the Saxon princes, one of whom, Bernard von Sachsen-Lauen burg, wittily remarked to Henry of Brunswick, the son of the emperor Otto, that “he ought to turn his grandfather’s marble lion, which always looked toward the east, toward the north”. In 1219, Waldemar also conquered Esthland, where the Danebrog banner, bearing a white cross on a red field, which afterward became the flag of Denmark, is said to have fallen from heaven during an engagement that took place near Lindanissa, not far from Reval. Waldemar possessed one thousand four hundred ships and one hundred and sixty thousand soldiers; his denial of his vassalage to Germany gained for him the zealous support of the pontiff, who declared Denmark exclusively St. Peter’s fief. Waldemar, rendered insolent by success, deprived the Holsteiners of all their ancient privileges, and placed a governor over Segeburg, who, when the people appealed to their ancient laws, mockingly replied, “I will send you a dog that shall howl out your laws before you.” The noble Frau von Deest roused the people to vengeance, and the governor was slain. In the commencement of Frederick’s reign, the necessity of preserving peaceful relations with both France and Denmark, in order to weaken the faction of Otto IV, rendered him unable to assist the Holsteiners, who, consequently, remained beneath the Danish yoke. In 1223, Waldemar was surprised by night, in the island of Lyoe, and carried in fetters to the castle of Lenzen, in Brandenburg, by Henry, Count von Schwerin, whose wife he had dishonored during his absence in the Holy Land. He was afterward imprisoned at Dannenberg. Adolf IV—the son of Adolf III, who had meanwhile expired—also returned, and was received with open arms by the Holsteiners. The Danes, in 1225, raised a large army under Albrecht von Orlamunde, who governed the kingdom in the place of their imprisoned monarch; they were defeated, and Albrecht was taken prisoner. Waldemar was now reduced by necessity to restore all the countries which he had seized on the German coast, to hold his crown in fee of the empire, and to pay a heavy ransom. His liberty was no sooner regained than he planned a bloody revenge, in which he was assisted by Otto (the Child) of Brunswick. The Ditmarses also flocked beneath his banner. He was opposed by Adolf, earl of Holstein, Henry von Schwerin, Gerhard, bishop of Bremen, and the citizens of Lubeck, who, headed by their gallant burgomaster, Alexander Soltwedel, had overpowered the Danish garrison placed in their city. A decisive battle was fought at Bornhovede on the day of St. Maria Magdalena. The rays of the sun poured upon the faces of the Holsteiners and completely dazzled them. Adolf, in this extremity, fell upon his knees, and vowed to devote his future life to God, if victory were granted; at that moment St. Magdalena appeared in the heavens and cast her veil before the sun (a cloud). In the heat of the engagement, the Ditmarses went over to the Holsteiners, and attacked the Danes in the rear. Waldemar lost one of his eyes. The Germans gained a brilliant victory. Adolf, true to his vow, became a monk, held his first mass on the field of battle, made a pilgrimage on foot to Rome, and built the church of St. Maria at Kiel with the alms he had himself collected. His sons, Gerhard and John, retained the sovereignty in Holstein. Lubeck (to which the bishopric of Oldenburg was transferred) and Hamburg became free towns, and were raised by their commerce to great importance.

Brandenburg also began to gain strength, and to press upon Pomerania and Poland. Barnim, the Pomeranian prince at Stettin, was compelled to take the oath of fealty to Brandenburg, as well as to the empire, and to cede the Uckermark. The Margrave, Albrecht II, deprived Poland of the bishopric of Lebus (founded 1135), and defeated the king, Wladislaw, who had armed in its defense. Henry the Bearded, of Silesia, and Albrecht, archbishop of Magdeburg, Brandenburg’s ancient neighboring foe, also laid claim to this bishopric; and Otto the Child, of Brunswick, who had been taken prisoner in the Danish war, was no sooner restored to liberty than his vassals were incited to rebellion by this archbishop, the ancient foe of the Welfs, and, in fact, of all the temporal lords, at whose expense he sought to raise himself by means of the emperor. In 1229, Brandenburg embraced Otto’s cause. The sons of Albrecht II, who had divided their inheritance, John, the founder of the Stendal branch, and Otto, of that of Salzwedel, were nevertheless put to flight at Klettenbach, and Otto of Brunswick was, in 1238, taken prisoner by Willebrand, Albrecht’s successor, in a battle at Alvensleben. Still, notwithstanding the union of the Margrave, Henry von Meissen, with the archbishop, the Meissners were defeated by the Brandenburg brothers at Mittenwald in 1240, and the archbishop met with a similar fate at Gladigau, where his active partisan, Ludolf, bishop of Halberstadt, was also taken prisoner in 1243. This success was followed by another victory at Plauen, where numbers of the combatants were drowned in the Havel by the breaking of a bridge (1244). An alliance was, notwithstanding, formed not long afterward between Brandenburg and Magdeburg, for the purpose of depriving Poland of their common object of dissension, the bishopric of Lebus, which they partitioned between themselves in 1250. The Neumark was also gradually ceded by Poland to Brandenburg. The Germans penetrated into every part of the newly-acquired territory, and founded cities among the Slavs in Pomerania and on the frontiers. Neubrandenburg and Greifswalde were erected in 1248, Landsberg in 1257.

Silesia was also, at this period, much more Germanized. Boleslaw the Long, duke of Breslau and Liegnitz, had been succeeded by his son, Henry the Bearded, whose consort, St. Hedwig, the daughter of the renowned crusader, Berthold von Meran, invited German settlers into the country, and erected a number of cities and monasteries; the laws, cus­toms, and language of Germany prevailed in all these cities; Henry, who was deeply engaged with the affairs of Poland, having placed those of Silesia chiefly under the control of his pious duchess in 1238.

The tenacity with which the German bishops, ever mindful of the power to which they had been raised by the policy of Barbarossa, asserted and sought to extend their authority, gave rise to the ecclesiastical feuds that at that period disgraced the church. Ludolf, bishop of Munster, carried on a feud with Guelders; Otto, bishop of Utrecht, was defeated in 1225, by the Friscians of Drent (on whom he had imposed a cruel governor), and becoming entangled in a morass while attempting to escape from the field of battle, was scalped by one of his pursuers. In Franconia the bishops of Wurzburg and Bamberg were at feud with each other; the latter was defeated at Meiningen in 1228.

The authority of the pope in Germany was at this period greatly increased by the renommée of a celebrated saint. One day during the year 1207, as Hermann, Landgrave of Thuringia, sat among his Minnesingers in his castle of the Wartburg, the renowned poet and magician, Klingsor von Ungerland, announced to him that on that self-same night Gertrude von Meran, the sister of St. Hedwig and consort to Andreas, king of Hungary, would give birth to a daughter, the destined bride of his son, Louis. This daughter, whose name was Elisabeth, was instantly demanded in marriage for his son by the Landgrave, and she was carried in a silver cradle to the Wartburg, where she was brought up with her bridegroom, and in due course of time became his wife. During her youth she was reared in such excessive piety by her con­fessor, Conrad von Marburg, a Dominican monk, that she bestowed all her wealth on the poor, who, consequently, beset her steps. On being blamed for her conduct, she pursued the same plan in secret. As she bestowed her alms without distinction, she was, when herself overtaken by misfortune, thrown tauntingly into the mud by a beggar woman whom she had repeatedly benefited. She practiced the strictest abstinence, rose at midnight to pray, washed and tended those afflicted with the most disgusting maladies, etc. Louis, who, besides succeeding his father as Landgrave of Thuringia, was the guardian of Henry von Meissen, then in his minority, made a successful inroad into Poland, in order to punish a robbery committed on some German merchants, and restrained the Meissner nobility. He died on his way to Palestine, leaving a son, named Hermann, still in his infancy. His brothers, Conrad and Henry, undertook the administration of affairs. The former checked the insolent archbishop of Mayence, who incessantly attempted to seize the government of Thuringia. Touched to the quick by the taunts of the women of Eritzlar as they watched him from their walls, he burned their town (belonging to the see of Mayence) and all its inhabitants. In expiation of this crime he took the cross, and enrolled himself in the order of German Hospitalers, of which he afterward became grand-master. Henry, surnamed Raspe, the other brother, a man of an evil disposi­tion, now made himself master of Thuringia, and Elisabeth and her child were reduced to beg for bread at Eisenach. This roused the indignation of the vassals, and Rudolf Schenk von Vargula, boldly forcing his way into the presence of the Raspe, compelled him to treat his brother’s widow with all due honor. This coercion was revenged on young Hermann, who was poisoned by his uncle. Elisabeth selected Marburg for her residence, and the fame of her sanctity spread far and wide. A strong light casts dark shadows. She was daily subjected to the scourge by her confessor, Conrad, who en­forced the observance of devotional acts which often over­stepped the bounds of decency and greatly scandalized the people, to whom she displayed the wounds inflicted by the scourge, exclaiming, “Behold the caresses of my confessor.” The monk, secretly supported by the pope, at length usurped the office of heretical judge, and commenced his inquisition among women, peasants, and beggars. The success he met with rendered him more daring, and he ventured to cite the citizens and even the petty nobility before his tribunal, and to impose upon them the most disgraceful acts of penance; but he no sooner assailed the high nobility, by summoning the Counts von Solms, Henneburg, and others before him, and by condemning the Count von Sayn to have his head shorn, which at that time was the greatest mark of disgrace, than their pride rebelled even against the sacred authority of the pope. The count went to the diet at Mayence, proved his innocence of the charges brought against him, and de­manded reparation for his insulted honor. Even one of the archbishops, that of Treves, spoke for him. The youthful king, Henry, granted him the reparation he desired, and the monk was given up to popular vengeance. He had con­demned eighty men to be burned alive; Elisabeth was dead, and her reputed sanctity was powerless in his defense. He was slain along with twelve of his apparitors by a Chevalier von Dornbach. Two of his underlings, who were noted for cruelty, Johannes and Conrad, fled; Johannes to Freiburg in the Breisgau, where he was taken; Conrad (von Tors) was killed by a Chevalier von Muhlbach. The Dominicans were humbled, and the Inquisition made no further progress in Germany.

The fanaticism with which the Romish priesthood had inflamed men’s minds was, however, still powerful enough to raise a crusade against a harmless but free-spirited German race. The Stedingers, East Friscians in the province of Stade, had, in 1187, destroyed the castles of the Count von Oldenburg, who carried off their wives and daughters and secluded them within the walls of his fastnesses. This occurrence had imbittered the nobility against them. In 1204, a priest—who, instead of the wafer, had put a groschen, which had been paid him for confession by a woman, and with which he was dissatisfied, into her mouth—having been put to death by them for sacrilege, they were excommunicated by the archbishop of Bremen, who carried on a feud with them, though not very vigorously, for twenty years. This wornout quarrel, nevertheless, afforded Conrad von Marburg an opportunity for the indulgence of his blood­thirsty inclinations, and shortly before his death he incited the pope to persecute them as heretics, and succeeded in rais­ing a crusade expressly against them. In 1233, numbers of the unfortunate Stedingers were slain; every prisoner was burned alive. The archbishop made an unsuccessful attempt to drown them all by cutting the dikes. In the following year they were invaded by the duke of Brabant, the counts of Oldenburg, Cleve, and Holland, at the head of forty thou­sand crusaders, against whom they made a noble and spirited defense under their leaders Bolke von Bardenfleth, Thammo von Huntorp, and Detmar von Dieke. Henry, Count von Oldenburg, was slain. They were at length overpowered, and fell, to the number of six thousand, in the battle of Altenesch, in 1234. They were completely unaided by their Friscian fellow countrymen. Some villages around Halle in Swabia were destroyed at the same time in a similar manner.

Henry, who had already been crowned king and named regent of the empire, was ill-calculated to sustain that dignity. The example of Frederick the Warlike of Austria, the brother of his consort Margaretha, may have had some influ­ence over him. The slave of violent and lawless passion, he soon rendered himself an object of contempt; in 1228 he was driven from the field, not far from Breisach, by Berthold,  bishop of Strasburg, whom he had foolishly attacked. He was also charged with having removed by assassination Louis, duke of Bavaria, his father’s friend, whose superintendence he justly feared. It was probably with a view of conciliating the great vassals of the empire, if not also with that of gaining their support against his father, that, in 1231, at a diet held at Worms, he published an imperial edict which rendered the great vassals and the bishops to a greater degree independent of the crown, and increased their power over the people and over the free towns indicated by it. This edict deprived the emperor of the right of exercising his imperial prerogatives, or of coining money, etc., within their territories; and the cities or towns, of' the free election of their councilors without the consent of the bishop to whose diocese they belonged. It placed the ancient county or hundred courts of justice under the jurisdiction of the princes as their natural lieges, instead of that of the representative of the crown, and declared that no one could in future withdraw himself from the jurisdiction of these tribunals, that is to say, no malcontent should venture to free himself from the yoke imposed by the lord of the country, by placing himself as a Pfahlburger under the protection of the cities. This notorious law, which was drawn up in a completely aristocratic spirit, aimed at the annihilation of the last remains of popular liberty, and of the popular administration of justice, and at crushing the budding privileges of the cities; it was at the same time so completely antipathetic to the sovereign prerogative of the emperor that its contents and their ratification can only be ascribed to Henry’s peculiar circumstances. His object was to make use of the German aristocracy in opposition to his father, whom it was his intention to confine within the limits of Italy, while he seized the sovereignty of Germany. Frederick II, however, fear­ing to lose the support of the princes in this critical moment, sent his assent to the new law from Italy, a step probably unforeseen by Henry, who, dreading his father’s reappearance in Germany, and his own consequent deposition, entered into a secret league with his most inveterate Italian foes, the pope and the Lombards, the latter of whom he trusted would retain him in Italy. He then publicly announced his usurpation of the crown to the assembled princes at Boppart. He had, however, falsely calculated on their support, and on the ability of his Italian allies. Frederick, instead of remaining in Italy, hastened into Germany, where his compliance had confirmed the princes, both lay and ecclesiastical (with the exception of Frederick the Warlike), in their allegiance; his prolonged absence, moreover, rendered him less formidable to them as a sovereign than young Henry, who was ever present in Germany, and of an extremely arbitrary disposition. Henry was compelled to sue for pardon, which was granted him, at Ratisbon: the undeserved lenity with which he was treated proved ineffectual to reclaim him, and his subsequent attempt to remove his father by poison was punished by perpetual imprisonment at Martorano in Apulia, where he died in 1240. The death of his sons at an early age was, by the papists, falsely ascribed to poison, administered by their grandfather. In order to appease the manes of Louis of Bavaria, the emperor entered into a close alliance with his son, Otto, whose daughter, Elisabeth, then a maiden of sixteen, he affianced to his son, Conrad. He also sought for a consort for himself, on the death of his second wife, Iolantha, and, in order to ally himself with the Welfs, de­manded the hand of Isabella, the sister of Henry III of England. Beauty being, in Frederick’s eyes, woman’s highest attribute, he first committed to his friend and chancellor, Peter de Vineis, the task of judging for him whether her charms deserved their fame, and dispatched him for that purpose to England; on Peter’s declaring her beauty unrivaled, the enchanted emperor sent to her the most mag­nificent jewels that had ever been beheld since the treasures of the East had been opened, by means of the crusades, to the wondering gaze of Europeans. The princess made her triumphal entry into Cologne, whither he went to receive her, on the 22d of May, 1235. The citizens, decked in their best attire, and bearing flowers in their hands, went in crowds to meet her; ten thousand burghers on horseback, with a band of music in advance. The most extraordinary diversions were prepared; the clergy rode in carriages made in the form of ships, etc. The imperial pair, nevertheless, remained but a short time in Cologne, but mounted the Rhine and solemnized their nuptials at Worms. Seventy-five princes and twelve thousand knights were among the guests. The imperial court was completely oriental in character, and the historians of the time speak with astonishment of the camels which attended its movements.

The emperor, immediately after this, opened a great diet at Mayence. He was much beloved by the Germans, who had, notwithstanding his continued absence, ever recognized him as their liege, and frustrated the treasonable plots of his enemies; he, nevertheless, deceived himself in believing that Germany could be placed, like Apulia, under an organized government. His first step was the proclamation of peace throughout the empire, and the enforcement of severe penal­ties against all those who persisted in carrying on feuds. He also appointed an imperial court of justice, which took cognizance of all disputes between the princes and the subordinate classes. A check was attempted to be placed upon the encroachments of the members of the empire upon the imperial prerogative. The forcible seizure of royal dues, the levying of fresh taxes, etc., were prohibited. The barons were no longer permitted to molest and rob the citizens, and the citizens were in their turn forbidden to deprive the provincial nobility of their serfs by the admission of new Pfahlburger. The nobility were no longer to build castles at the expense of the poor peasantry. Ecclesiastical jurisdiction was, according to ancient custom, to be placed under the control of the imperial archbishop, as a check upon the influence of the emissaries of Rome. All power was for the future to be exercised in the name of the empire alone. The union of the empire was to be effectuated under the emperor. Moreover, in order to prove to the Germans that his residence in Italy had not rendered him a stranger, he caused this decree to be drawn up in German (all the former imperial edicts were drawn up in Latin). He also chartered several cities, for instance, Berne, Nuremberg, Worms, Batisbon, etc., and greatly promoted the influence of the Feme or secret tribunal.—He declared his hereditary possessions in Germany crown property, and made all his personal vassals, vassals of the empire, which gave rise to the immediate nobility of the empire in Franconia and Swabia. Several of these ancient vassals of the house of Hohenstaufen subsequently acted with great ingratitude toward Frederick’s sons, whose cause they abandoned for the sake of annihilating the remains of mediative power by the destruction of the Staufen.

In 1236 the emperor performed the last act of piety to St. Elisabeth, by attending her burial, after which he returned to Italy never again to visit Germany. His departure was hailed with delight by the German princes, who ill supported his authority. During his stay in Germany he was obeyed and even beloved by them, still it is probable that their egotism was visible even under the mask of friendship. Walther von der Vogelweide, so fervid in his zeal for the union, prosperity, and glory of Germany, bitterly laments their hypocrisy, and designates them faithless servants watching for their lord’s departure. One only of the princes at that time openly defied the emperor. Frederick the Warlike, the son of Leopold of Austria, was a man of notoriously lawless character. In his nineteenth year he vanquished the pow­erful Cuenringer, who, during his minority, had, in union with others among the nobility, seized the government. In 1233, he took the field against Bela, king of Hungary, who had occupied Styria and reduced the brave peasantry of that country beneath his yoke. He, moreover, assisted his brother-in-law, Henry, against his father, the emperor, and opposed Otto of Bavaria, the imperial partisan. Being overcome in this quarter, he recompensed himself with the province of Carniola, whose count, Engelbert, died childless in 1234. Notwithstanding his gallantry in the field, Frederick was dissolute and lawless at home. During a festival at Vienna, he carried off the beautiful Brunehilda von Pottendorf, which so roused the citizens that they advised him if he valued his life instantly to quit their city. He took the hint, but pursued the same riotous course in his country residences. His consort, Agnes, fled to the emperor for protection from his outrages. He married and succes­sively repudiated three wives, whom he treated equally ill

CLVIII.

German Rulers in Livonia and Prussia—The Tartar Fight

The cities of Lower Germany, particularly Bremen, Lubeck, and Hamburg, had, since the crusades, rapidly increased in commerce, wealth, and importance. In 1158, Bremen ships touched on the coasts of Livonia, where they speedily opened a fresh channel for trade. The whole coast of the Baltic beyond Pomerania was inhabited by branches of the Slavian and Finnish races. The province of Pomerelia, still Slavian and belonging to Poland, extended as far as Pomerania (to Dantzig) and Michelau (to Thorn) from the left bank of the Vistula, on whose right bank the nation (probably an ancient Slavian race) of the Sambii or Prussians, spread from Dantzig as far as Memel. Here began the Finnish races, the Schamaytse (Samogitiae); further on the great peninsula running into the Baltic, the Curen (Courland); at the bottom of the bay formed by this peninsula, the Liven (Livonia); eastward of them, the Letten; and opposite Courland on the other side of the Great Gulf, the Esthae (Esthonia). One of the most powerful tribes of this nation dwelt on the large island of OEsel (Kure-Saar, the island of cranes), which joins Courland and Esthonia, and closes the broad gulf of Livonia. The Lithuanians, apparently an ancient Slavian race (the Finnish tribes having merely spread as far as the Niemen), dwelling to their rear in the deep forests of the Rinnenland, were the most powerful of the nations inhabiting the coast. These nations were still heathen; they were naturally humane, poetical, and imaginative, until rendered wild by desperation, and degraded by slavery. They were surrounded by Slavian nations which had already been converted to Christianity; on the west the Poles, on the east the Russians, both of which were still separated by the Lithuanians. The Prussians were often at war with the Poles, the Esthonians with the Russians (at Pleskow and Nowogorod). The Danish and Swedish sea-kings had often landed on the Esthonian coasts at an earlier period; their dominion, however, appears to have been of but short duration. In 1161, the conquest of the opposite coast, Finland, by the Swedes, seems to have raised the jealousy of the Hanse towns, which attempted to gain a settlement in Livonia in order to secure the northern trade. The nations on the coasts were divided into small states, disunited among themselves, and little disposed to regard the German merchants as their future oppressors and rulers. Numbers of the Hanseatic ships visited the coasts of Livonia, where they were at first well received on account of the advantages produced by trade. St. Meinhard, who followed in the train of the merchants, and who was tolerated on their account, preached to the natives, and, in 1187, founded the bishopric of Yxkull (Ykeskola), from a very small beginning. His successor, Berthold, treated the peaceable inhabitants with violence, but when pursuing the fugitives on gaining a victory, was borne among them by his unruly horse, and killed (1198). The barons and crusaders, who had accompanied him on this expedition, then returned to Germany; and the Livonians, retaking possession of the coasts, expelled the Christian priests, but granted the merchants permission to remain; a clear proof of the great value they set upon the trade carried on with the Hanse towns, and of the facility with which their confidence was regained. Their subjection speedily followed.

On the death of Berthold, Albrecht von Apeldern, a canon of Bremen, was elected bishop of Yxkull, and dispatched with twenty-three ships to Livonia in 1199. Albrecht pursued a cunning policy, and inviting the Livonian chiefs to a banquet, deprived them of their liberty, which they only regained under certain conditions. One of them, named Caupo, who was persuaded to turn Christian, rendered him great services, and even visited Rome for the purpose of kissing the pope’s feet. Albrecht founded the city of Riga, in which he was assisted by the Livonians, who were fully sensible of the advantage of a commercial settlement at the mouth of the Puna for the sale of their produce. The bishopric was translated to Riga; Yxkull was fortified and placed under the command of Conrad von Meiendorf. The Germans had now gained a firm footing in the country, and the progress of the colony was so rapid that Riga contained a large population before the termination of the following year. The influx of German colonists and soldiers increased to such a degree that, in 1203, Albrecht founded an order, entirely composed of knights, intended to guard and to extend the limits of the colony, known as the chivalry of Christ, or the order of the Cross and Sword. In 1204, these knights gained a signal victory over the Lithuanians, who attempted to plunder Livonia and Esthonia. They were assisted by the Livonians and the Semgallians; twelve thousand of the Lithuanians strewed the field. Livonia was at this period almost entirely Christianized. Albrecht, finding it difficult to make himself understood without the aid of interpreters, had recourse to the drama, and caused biblical scenes and allegorical representations to be performed in the market­place at Riga, as a mode of giving the people an idea of Christianity. His policy of gaining the natives by kindness was greatly aided by their love of commerce, as well as by the dread they entertained of their wild Lithuanian neighbors. His projects were, however, nullified by the brutal conduct of the knights, who were viewed with deadly hatred by the natives. Henry the Lette, the oldest annalist of Livonia, a Christian Lette in the service of the bishop, relates that the Chevalier von Leuwarden plundered, ill-treated, and imprisoned the little Livonian king Veszeke, who was very peaceably inclined; the bishop restored him to liberty, but Veszeke so deeply resented the insult he had received that he set fire to his castle with his own hands and bade eternal adieu to his country. The Lithuanians again invaded Livonia, and were again worsted by the united Germans and Livonians at Ascherade. The Letts, dwelling to the east of Livonia, were also persuaded to embrace Christianity. The Lithuanians, however, incited the Curen and Esthonians, who beheld the encroachments of the Germans with jealousy, to rebel, and during Bishop Albrecht’s absence in Germany, an insurrection, in which numbers of the Livonians and Letts took part, suddenly broke out. Every German who was unable to take shelter within the fortified cities was assassinated; Riga was besieged, and a solemn purification of their persons and also of their houses was determined upon, in order to wipe off the stain of Chris­tianity. Albrecht’s return at the head of a crowd of armed crusaders, however, shortly restored matters to their former footing; a fearful revenge was taken, and the conquest was greatly extended. In 1217, Count Bernard von der Lippe became the first bishop of Semgallen. This Count Bernard had fought under Henry the Lion, and had been expelled his country. His remorse for the torrents of blood he had shed caused him to turn monk. It is a singular fact that he was consecrated by his own son, Otto, at that time bishop of Utrecht. Gerard, archbishop of Bremen, was another of his sons.

The conquest of Esthonia was now resolved upon by the knights of the Cross and Sword, and a battle took place, in which the Esthonians were defeated, and Caupo was killed; but their further advance was checked by the Russians of Pleskow, who, headed by their grandduke, Miceslaus, made a sudden inroad into Livonia, which they laid waste by fire and sword. The Russians were in their turn attacked by the Lithuanians, and before the contest could be decided, the knights, aided by Waldemar of Denmark, had seized the opportunity to conquer Esthonia, to which Waldemar laid claim. He founded the city and bishopric of Revel in that country in 1218. The Swedes, in order not to be behind­hand with their neighbors, also invaded Esthonia, but were defeated, and lost their bishop, Charles, who was burned to death in a house set on fire by the natives. The departure of Waldemar was a signal for general revolt; the Esthonians took several castles, murdered numbers of Danes and Ge­mans, among others the governor, Hebbe, whose heart they tore from his palpitating bosom and devoured, “in order to keep up their courage’’. In the bitterness of their wrath, they even tore the corpses which had received Christian burial from their graves, and burned them with the usual pagan ceremonies. Still, notwithstanding the aid they received from the Russians, they were subsequently reduced to submission by the Danes and by the knights, who even took Dorpat, where they founded a bishopric, 1223.

The pope was no sooner informed of their success than he claimed the whole of the conquered territory, and sent his legate, Guglielmo di Modena, as stadtholder to Riga in 1224. Modena was a man of energetic character; in the winter of 1227, he induced the Germans to cross the frozen ocean for the purpose of attacking the large island of Oesel, inhabited by pirates, and defended by two fortified towns, which were stormed and taken by the master of the order, Volquin von Winterstetten, who compelled the prison­ers to undergo the rite of baptism by plunging them into ice­water. A second legate, Balduino d’Alva, succeeded in peaceably converting the Courlanders. A dispute subsequently arose between the clergy, who attempted to annex the whole of the conquered territory to the bishoprics and to treat it as church property, and the knights who had conquered the country for themselves. The chief power, however, rested with Volquin, who quickly turned it to the best advantage; he organized the government, bestowed privileges on the knights, citizens, and peasantry; he was, moreover (1228), confirmed in his government by the emperor, Frederick II, who regarded the conquered territory as an imperial fief held by the knights of the Cross and Sword, and rejected the claims of the pontiffs.

Shortly after this, the Lithuanians rose under their gal­lant leader, Prince Ringold, and attempted to cause a general insurrection among the heathen against the Germans, the Russians, and the Poles. A pitched battle was fought, in 1236, in which the pagans were victorious, Volquin fell, and the knights of the Cross and Sword were almost entirely cut to pieces.

Poland was at this period partitioned between several princes of the house of Piast, one of whom, Conrad von Masovien (the province of Warsaw), being unfortunate in battle with the Prussians and Lithuanians, called the German Hospitalers, instead of the knights of the Cross and Sword, whom he deemed too weak, to his aid. The monk Christian, a Pomeranian, the first who, since the death of St. Adalbert in Samland, had attempted to convert the Prus­sians, and who had been nominated to the see of Culm, greatly contributed to this step. Hermann von Salza, the grand-master of the German Hospitalers, was the more inclined to accede to this request, on account of the inability of his order to make head in the East against the superior forces of the Mahometans and the envious opposition of the French, and on account of the necessary decline of his power unless a fresh field were opened for conquest. In 1230 he accordingly entered Poland, where he was granted the province of Culm, and was instructed to open a campaign against Prussia. The Prussians had a very peculiar form of government; they were ruled by a Criwe, or high priest, and possessed a constitution said to have been the result of the observations made by their ancient mythical popular hero, Waidewut, on the domestic economy of a beehive. Some gigantic and aged oaks at Welau, Thorn, Heiligenbeil, or holy ax (so called from the circumstance of a Christian wounding his own leg with the ax with which he was felling it), were held sacred, particularly one at Romowe in Samland.—Hermann von Salza sent Hermann Balk, as first Prussian governor, and a few of the knights, to the Vistula, where they erected the castle of Nessau, and thence spread themselves further up the country. Balk took possession of the sacred oak of Thorn, afterward the name of the city, which has been derived from Thor, a gate, the door of Prussia, or from Thurm, a tower, the knights having defended themselves in its wide-spreading branches, as in a tower, against the furious attack of the natives. In 1232, a petty crusade, in which the Burgrave Burkhard von Magdeburg distinguished himself, was raised. German colonists settled in the country; the privileges enjoyed by Magdeburg were conferred upon the cities of Thorn and Culm.’ The Prussians, nevertheless, still opposed the German invaders, whom they succeeded in repelling, and even took the bishop, Christian, prisoner. Guglielmo di Modena, the papal legate, however, drawing Suantepolk, duke of Pomerania, into their interest, he granted his aid to the Hospitalers, and being shortly afterward joined by the Margrave Henry von Meis­sen, the whole of the left bank of the Vistula was conquered, and Christian was restored to liberty. In 1236, Balk was able, unaided, and scarcely without a blow, to take posses­sion of Pomesania, the panic-stricken Prussians flying before him as he advanced. It was here that the city of Elbing was founded.

In 1237, the order of the Cross and Sword in Livonia was incorporated with that of the German Hospitalers, and Balk visited Livonia, where he restored order and conciliated the Banes, who desired to annex Livonia to Esthonia, which they had already conquered. He even subdued Russian Pleskow by their aid. Hermann von Altenburg, the Prussian stadtholder, meanwhile cruelly persecuted the natives and destroyed a whole village, together with its inhabitants, with fire, on account of their having relapsed to their ancient idolatry. The exasperated Prussians rose en masse and gained a complete victory. Suantepolk also turned against the knights, whose vicinity he foresaw might prove prejudicial to his authority; and Salza and Balk died. The bishop, Christian, bitterly complained to the pope in 1238, of the misfortunes produced by the unchristian ferocity of the knights, who, instead of treating the conquered people with lenity and like free-born men, reduced them to the most abject slavery. The existence of this order of knighthood was, however, prolonged by the Landgrave, Conrad of Thuringia, who sought to wash his guilt away in the blood of the heathen (1239). The re-enforcements brought by Otto of Brunswick enabled him to beat the Prussians in every quarter from the field, and to subdue Warmia, Natangen, and the Barterland.

On the death of Conrad, Suantepolk renewed his attacks, and a general insurrection took place in Prussia. Every German in the country, with the exception of a few of the knights, who took shelter in three castles, Thorn, Culm, and Rheden, was assassinated. Culm was besieged by Suantepolk, who, making a false retreat, drew the Germans from the city into an ambuscade, where they were all cut to pieces. He then attacked the city. The women and girls, however, closed the gates against him, and appearing upon the walls clothed in armor, he actually withdrew, believing the city to be still strongly garrisoned. David relates in his Chronicle, that the brave women of Culm being thus deprived of their husbands, Bishop Heidenreich preached to them the necessity of their marrying a second time during the same year, for the honor of God, in order to hinder the decrease of the Christian population of the country, and that they made choice of the young German crusaders. Henry von Hohenlohe, the new grand-master of the German Hospitalers, and more particularly the brave governor, Poppo d’Osterna, aided by an army of crusaders under the command of Frederick the Warlike of Austria, restored victory to the German arms. A general insurrection, notwithstanding, broke out again in 1243, and fifty-four captive knights were cruelly butchered. The heathen were again repulsed by a fresh army of crusaders under Otto of Brandenburg, in 1249. The Russians on the borders of Livonia also gained strength and, reconquered Pleskow.

Disputes had already taken place between the knights and the bishops (who had been placed by the pope under the jurisdiction of Albert, archbishop of Riga), for the possession of the conquered territory. The knights built the town of Memel, and for the first time invaded Samland, where they suffered a severe defeat. An army of crusaders, greatly superior to the preceding ones in number, led by Ottocar, king of Bohemia, and by Otto of Brandenburg, coming to their relief, Samland was laid waste by fire and sword, Romowe the Holy was destroyed, Ottocar founded the town of Konigsberg, and his companion, Bishop Bruno of Olmutz, that of Braunsberg, in 1255. The future prosperity of the order was secured by this well-timed success.

An unexpected and fearful storm that arose in the East, and threatened the new colonies in the North with destruction, passed harmlessly over close to their frontier. Dschingischan, a second Attila, had burst from the heart of Asia, at the head of the Tartars or Mongols, the descendants of the ancient Huns, and had conquered China and India. In 1240, his grandson, Batu, invaded Europe; the Russians and Poles gallantly but vainly opposed his advance; they were defeated in several severe engagements, and, in 1241, Batu invaded Silesia.

Henry the Pious, at that time, reigned at Breslau and Liegnitz, Miceslaw at Oppeln. Henry, the son of St. Hedwig, had continued to Germanize the country, although engaged in a violent feud with the archbishop of Magdeburg, whom he had again deprived of the bishopric of Lebus. On a sudden the Tartars poured across the frontiers; Batu was quickly master of Upper Silesia; villages and cities were burned, the inhabitants butchered, sacrificed to idols, or reduced to slavery. These Tartars carried with them figures of dragons, which spit fire and vomited an intolerable smoke (probably cannons from China). Their march along the Oder was traced by flames. The country lay open before them; its defenders fled without attempting to check the course of the enemy, by bringing them to a pitched battle. The fugitive Poles, with their duke, Boleslaw, the people of Upper Silesia, with their cowardly duke, Miceslaw, men, women, and children, hurried through the Blachfeld, nor ceased their flight until they reached the most distant fron­tier of Slavonia, where the first German settlement was posted. Here Henry the Pious retained the panic-stricken fugitives, and St. Hedwig prepared her gallant son for a patriot’s death. The German miners of Goldberg and a squadron of Hospitalers, who, headed by the governor, Poppo, had hastened to his assistance from Prussia, gathered with the remaining Poles under his banner in the valley of Liegnitz. No aid was sent by the neighboring state of Bohemia. The whole force of the Tartars was meanwhile engaged in the siege of Breslau, which, although deserted in the general panic by a part of the citizens, was so bravely defended by the remainder as for some time to defy the attempts of the conquerors of the world. The citizens at length, finding further defense impossible, set fire to their city and took refuge on the island of the bishop’s cathedral in the Oder, which they successfully defended, notwithstanding the simultaneous attack made by the Tartars on every side. A storm, the supposed sign of the wrath of Heaven, at length caused the foe to retire. Batu then took a southward direction toward Hungary, and dispatched a division of his army under his general, Peta, further westward. This division alone was five times as strong as the whole of the allied army of the Christians that had taken the field at Liegnitz. Not far from this city, on the Katzbach, five squadrons of the Mongols, each above thirty thousand strong, attacked the little Christian army, which scarcely numbered thirty thousand men. The battle was carried on with incredible fury for two days. Thirty-four persons belonging to the family of Rothkirch fell side by side. One only of the fam­ily of Haugwitz and Rechenberg returned from the field. The victory was still undecided, when the Poles, mistaking the cry “Zabijejcie!” (No quarter!) for “Zabiezcie!” (Fly!) fled panic-struck. Death on the battlefield was now the only alternative that presented itself to the gallant Germans. Henry was struck beneath the arm when in the act of raising it to deal a blow. His headless corpse was afterward recog­nized by his wife by the six toes on the feet. The Tartars filled nine sacks with the ears of the Christians. Notwithstanding the victory they had gained, the immense loss they suffered caused them to shun “the land of the iron-clad men,” and, after vainly besieging Liegnitz and Goldberg, they turned southward. The German princes and bishops had assembled at Merseburg, and had resolved upon a gen­eral summons to the field; in Saxony, men, women, old men, and children had already taken the sign of the cross, when the news of the retreat of the Tartars arrived. These bar­barians, bearing the head of Henry the Pious and of those of some other knights in their van, crossed the mountains to Moravia. Olmutz, bravely defended by Jaroslaw von Stern­berg, offered a stout resistance; Peta lost his arm in a sally made by the besieged, and died of the wound. The air is said to have been darkened by showers of the enemies’ arrows. At the present day pastry is annually made at Whitsuntide in the shape of hands and ears, at Sternberg in the Kuhlandchen, in memory of the slaughter that took place. Hungary was next laid waste; the Tartars were nevertheless defeated, and immense numbers of them slain, in an unknown spot on the Danube, by the emperor’s gallant sons, Conrad, who had hastened to oppose them from Swabia, and Enzio, from Italy, in 1241.

The terror inspired by the Mongols spread over Asia Minor and Palestine. After the departure of Richard of Cornwall, an English prince, who had unsuccessfully undertaken a petty crusade in 1241, the Charizmii, a pagan nation flying from the Mongols, entered Palestine and com­pletely destroyed Jerusalem in 1248. The Pullanes, who had been almost annihilated at Gaza, merely retained pos­session of the maritime cities, Accon, Tyre, and Joppa. St. Louis, king of France, who attempted to aid them, and to reconquer the Holy Land from the side of Egypt, according to the plan of the early crusaders, took Damietta, but was himself taken prisoner. He was restored to liberty in 1254. Shortly after his return to France, he sent a monk, named Buisbrock, a native of the German Netherlands, to Asia, for the purpose of persuading Batu to embrace Christianity. Ruisbrock, who was a tall, stout man, performed an extremely arduous journey, visiting Persia and Tartary, and even the borders of China. Batu received him in an immense city of tents, listened to him with a smile, and graciously dismissed him. In his travels he met with a woman, a native of Lothringia, who had been made captive in Hungary. She was living happily with a Russian husband. The captive Europeans were prized and well-treated on account of their knowledge and handicraft.—It is also related of the emperor Frederick, that when the Tartar Khan, after bestowing great encomiums on German bravery, offered to take him into his service, he laughingly replied, that he knew how to train hawks, and would become his falconer.

CLIX.

The Last Battles of Frederick the Second

The renewal of the league between the cities of Lombardy, in 1235, occasioned the emperor’s return to Italy in 1236. His army was at first solely composed of the Italian Ghibellines, at whose head stood Ezzelino di Romano, a man famed equally for gallantry and cruelty, the grandson of a German of the same name, who had held a fief in Italy under Conrad III. The city of Pisa also warmly upheld the Ghibelline faction, while Milan and the Margrave Azzo d’Este, Ezzelino’s ever restless neighbor, as warmly espoused that of the Guelphs. The Ghibellines took Vicenza by storm, and the emperor summoned his faithful adherents in the German Alps to his aid; and on their being suddenly attacked and dispersed by Frederick the Warlike while assembling for the field, instantly hastened in person, although in the depth of winter, into the Alps, and directed his second son, Conrad (to whom he had committed the regency of the empire), to attack Frederick from the north. Frederick was, consequently, compelled to retire within the fortress of Neustadt, where he stoutly defended himself (1237). Vienna was at that period made independent of the duke, and raised to the rank of a free imperial city. Styria was also severed from Aus­tria, and granted a charter, which confirmed her privileges and rendered her an immediate fief of the empire.—During this year Ezzelino seized Padua, which he delivered up to the wild ravage of his soldiery. The emperor, in defiance of the papists, took ten thousand Moors, belonging to the colony of Luceria, which he had transplanted into Lower Italy, into his pay; they were chiefly instrumental in gaining a victory at Cortenuovo, in 1238, over the Lombard alliance, whose banner, and Tiepolo, the captive Podesta of Milan, were, after the battle, carried in triumph on the elephant brought by the emperor from Asia. Frederick, in honor of this victory, bestowed the hand of his lovely daughter, Selvaggia (the offspring of a lawless union), on his gallant ally, Ezzelino, and raised Enzio, another of his illegitimate children, the most beautiful youth of his time, to the throne of Sardinia, bestowing on him in marriage, Adelasia, the most wealthy heiress in the island, who, being quickly abandoned by him on account of her age and ugliness, consoled herself in the arms of a Guelphic paramour, and became his most implacable enemy.

The emperor’s success in Italy excited a still more vigor­ous resistance on the part of the pope; and the two heads of Christendom, each of whom knew that defeat was certain annihilation, were unwearied in seeking each other’s destruction. A reconciliation was hopeless. Frederick’s reasons for carrying on this deadly contest, and for absenting himself from Germany, have often formed a subject for in­quiry. But, when his object was so nearly attained; when a prosperous empire had been founded in Lower Italy, and his opponents in Upper Italy reduced to submission; when one step further, and the pope was rendered totally defenseless or dependent; were all these advantages, the object to which Barbarossa’s ambition had aspired, to be thrown away ? Was Italy to be once more ceded to the pope? and was the emperor, tranquilly seated beyond the Alps, to wait until his antagonist poured his anathemas, his legates, and a legion of begging monks over Germany, raised against him competitors for the crown, and roused the fanaticism of the people against his supposed heresy? The renunciation of Italy, or a weak dread of the pontiff, would have involved him in calamities more dreadful than the fate of the unfortunate Henry IV.

Gregory IX, driven to the last extremity by the em­peror’s progress, encouraged the resistance of the Lombard league, drew Venice also into his alliance, and on Palm Sunday (1239) again excommunicated his opponent. His temporal arms failing, he had recourse to spiritual weapons, and attempted to undermine the emperor’s authority by an accusation of arch-heresy. Frederick now unrelentingly attacked him: ‘‘What said the Teacher of all teachers ? Peace be with you. What did he delegate to his disciples? Love. Why, therefore, dost thou, Christ’s nominal vicar, act in the contrary spirit?” The pope replied: “A beast hath risen out of the sea, and hath ‘opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme his name and his tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven.’ With his claws and iron teeth he spreadeth destruction around’’. The emperor wrote in return: “Thou art thyself the beast of which it is written: ‘And there went out another horse that was red; and power, was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth.’ Thou art the dragon ‘which deceiveth the whole world,’ the antichrist ” The emperor’s predilection for the East occasioned him to be accused by the pope of Mohammedanism, at that period the greatest abomination in Christendom. He was also charged with having, during his crusade, mockingly said to those around him as he pointed to a corn-field, “There grows your god,” meaning the flour used in the holy wafer. The pope, blinded by rage, maintained at the same time that the emperor despised all religions, and had termed Jesus, Moses and Mahomet the three great im­postors. The emperor very logically demanded how could he by any possibility be a Mahometan, if he had termed Mahomet an impostor? The notorious work De Tribus Impostoribus, although written at a later period, and neither by the emperor nor by his chancellor Peter de Vineis, or dalle Vigne, originated from this dispute.

Frederick the Warlike, the ally of the pope, had raised fresh disturbances in Germany, and by his machinations had even induced Otto of Bavaria to waver in his allegiance. The pope’s projects were, however, frustrated by the shameless conduct of his legates, who rendered themselves equally obnoxious to the clergy and laity. Otto of Bavaria attacking the legate, Albert Beham, for the purpose of putting him to death, he was protected by Conrad von Wasserburg, a zealous Guelph, in his castle on the Inn, until an opportunity presented itself for escape. Notwithstanding the danger he had incurred, he returned in order to support the Guelphic Bishop Berthold of Salzburg against the Ghibelline Bishop Rudiger. Passau also sided with him. Otto, nevertheless, succeeded in beating the Guelphs out of the field, and a second time besieged the legate in the castle of Orth, where he at length took him prisoner and condemned him toa cruel death, some writers say, to be flayed alive. According to Aventin, the flayed wolf in the arms of the city of Passau was assumed in memory of the flayed legate. Conrad, bishop of Freysingen, preached against the pope, and upheld the independence of the German church. The people of Zurich expelled all the clergy, except the Franciscans, the favorers of the Ghibelline faction. The legate was expelled from Spires. A similar feeling began to show itself in Italy. Helias, a Franciscan monk, traveled through the country preaching in the emperor’s favor. The majority of the people, nevertheless, favored the pope. The Lombards regained courage; Brescia and Alexandria made a determined resistance; the discomfited Milanese gained fresh advantages; the emperor lost Ferrara. While Ezzelino and Enzio were thus hotly contesting in Upper Italy, the emperor raised fresh troops in Apulia, conquered Faenza, and carried all before him. In 1241, the pope, in order to arm himself with the whole authority of the church, having appointed a convocation of the clergy to be held during Easter at Rome, Enzio equipped a small fleet, and waylaid the French cardinals and bishops who came by sea from Genoa to Rome, accompanied by several delegates from the Lombard cities, all of whom he captured near the island of Meloria, not far from Leghorn; twenty-two galleys with three legates, above a hundred archbishops, bishops, abbots, and embassadors, and a large sum of money on board, fell into his hands. The Pavians at the same time gained a signal victory over the Milanese, and the imperial banner was once more waving high in Italy; the pontifical castles of Narni, Tivoli, and Albano had fallen into Frederick’s hands and been destroyed, the church plate collected in Apulia had been melted and coined at Grotta Ferrata, and Rome was closely besieged when Gregory IX expired within her walls, in his ninetieth year (1241).

The emperor, in order not to impede the elevation of a successor to the pontifical throne, restored the captive cardinals to liberty; but, although their choice fell upon Sinibald Fiesco, an old friend of the emperor, who wore the tiara under the name of Innocent IV, Frederick shook his head, saying, “Instead of remaining my friend he will become my enemy, for no pope can be a Ghibelline.” Nor was he deceived in his opinion; Innocent became his most implacable foe, and frustrated all his long-cherished plans by abandoning Italy and fixing his residence at Lyons. Had the Hohenstaufen, in their eagerness to gain possession of Italy, merely aimed at placing the pope under their influence, the object of their ambition would have been snatched away when apparently within their grasp. The pontiff’s absence at once rendered the emperor’s sovereignty in Italy unavailing for the ultimate success of his plans; Lyons, although in Burgundy, being entirely under the influence of France.

The pope had scarcely reached Lyons (1242) when he outvied the denunciations formerly pronounced by Gregory against Frederick, and excused his flight by falsely charging the emperor with the design of seizing his person. In 1245, he convoked a great council at Lyons, and Frederick was reduced to the necessity of sending his gallant and eloquent partisan, Taddeo di Suessa, there, as a counterpoise against the pope. Innocent said, “It is evident to the whole world that the emperor’s sole object is the extirpation of the church and of the true worship of God from the earth, that he alone may be worshiped by fallen man.” Taddeo elo­quently defended the emperor, solemnly protested against the council, and demanded an impartial assembly and a more Christian pope. His appeal was treated with scorn; the council, governed by papal influence, was molded to his will, and the anathema formerly pronounced against Frederick II was renewed in the severest terms. Taddeo shudderingly exclaimed, “Dies irse, dies doloris!” and the assembled fathers of the church, sinking their torches and candles to the ground, extinguished them, while Innocent said with a loud voice, “May the emperor’s glory and prosperity thus vanish forever!”—Frederick received the news of his condemnation with dignity. He declared, “The restoration of the church to her primitive apostolical simplicity has ever been my sole object, but the clergy regard worldly lusts more than the fear of God. It was your duty, as temporal princes, to have aided your sovereign, but you deserted his cause, and allowed the whole world to fall into the extended jaws of the pope.” The pope replied, “Christ founded not merely a spiritual, but also a temporal supremacy, both of which he bestowed on St. Peter and on his successor the pope, as is clearly demonstrated by the two keys of the apostle.” By this assumption of temporal sovereignty, Innocent IV destroyed the ancient aristocratic gradation in the church, and rendered her government an unlimited despotism, in which one alone, the pope himself, ruled, and the rest of mankind was reduced to slavery. However unwillingly this interruption and deprivation of the power they had enjoyed since the time of Adalbert of Mayence might be beheld by the spiritual lords, the pope was of too energetic and decisive a character, and his authority over the superstitious multitude too great, for them to venture openly to oppose his mandates, and the powerful Rhenish archbishops, so long protected by the Hohenstaufen against Rome, voluntarily yielded to her supremacy, and forgot their allegiance to the now aged emperor.

Theodorich, archbishop of Treves, the emperor’s most faithful partisan in Germany, and the guardian of the youthful Conrad, died, and was succeeded by Arnold, a zealous papist, by whom the Rhenish archbishops were induced to elect Henry Raspe, Landgrave of Thuringia, emperor, at Hochheim near Wurzburg, 1246. None of the temporal princes were present; none except the lawless Raspe, the poisoner of the child of the ill-fated Elisabeth, played this dishonorable part, but they also showed great lukewarmness toward the regent, Conrad, the majority of them preserving a perfect neutrality, and, during ‘the contest between the emperors, merely seeking to fix their individual power on a firmer basis. The pope had, moreover,  offered the Hohenstaufen inheritance to the highest bidder, and drawn Conrad’s vassals from their allegiance. In the first engagement that took place between Conrad and the Raspe near Frankfort, two of the most powerful Swabian nobles, the Counts de Citobergo and de Croheligo, probably Wurtemberg and Groningen, deserted to the enemy, bribed by a promise of the partition of Swabia between them on the part of the pope. Conrad was consequently defeated, and, after the battle, Rudolf of Baden also went over to the Raspe. Otto of Bavaria, whose daughter Conrad wedded, remained true to his allegiance, and the cities of Upper Ger­many, which had always been protected by the Hohenstaufen, and feared the overwhelming power of the bishops and the ambitious projects of the princes and counts, rose in his defense. The citizens of Metz, Strasburg, Frankfort, Er­furt, Eichstadt, Wurzburg, and Ratisbon, took up arms against their bishops; Reutlingen defied the attempts of the Raspe, who unsuccessfully laid siege to the town. The citizens of Reutlingen afterward built their cathedral of St. Maria the length of the gigantic battering-ram left by the Raspe before their walls. Henry Raspe afterward advanced upon Ulm, where he was surprised and defeated by Conrad. A severe wound compelled him to seek refuge in the Wartburg, where he expired in 1247.

During these disturbances, Bela, king of Hungary, who had recovered from the Tartar invasion, and had even gained an accession to his strength by the settlement of the Cumans, a wild nation flying from the Tartars, in Hungary, attacked Frederick the Warlike, who had refused to restore the treas­ures which Bela had intrusted to his care in order to secure them from the Tartars. A bloody engagement took place near Neustadt, in which Frederick was killed by the Italian Frangipani, whose family acquired great possessions in Hungary, in 1246. Frederick left two sisters, Margaretha, the widow of King Henry, who resided in a convent at Treves, and Constance, the wife of the Margrave Henry von Meissen; besides a niece, Gertrude, the wife of Hermann von Baden, and the mother of Frederick. The emperor took possession of Austria as a lapsed fief, and placed over it his old friend, Otto of Bavaria, who had inherited the Rhenish Pfalz in right of his wife, the daughter of the Pfalzgraf Henry, the son of Henry the Lion, and had annexed it to Bavaria. His sons repartitioned the inheritance, Louis the Cruel taking possession of Bavaria, and Henry, of the Pfalz. The pope, meanwhile, bestowed Austria upon Bela as a papal fief, and the Hungarians, whom Otto of Bavaria was too old and helpless to oppose, laid the country waste, but were at length expelled by Ottocar of Bohemia.

Henry Raspe dying without issue, the pope sought for another competitor for the throne. William the Rude, count of Holland, was the only one among the princes whom he could persuade to play the part, and his election was solely supported by the duke of Brabant, who claimed Thuringia as his inheritance, and by Ottocar, king of Bohemia, who aimed at depriving the Hohenstaufen of Austria. William, who was elected at Woringen near Cologne, by the Rhenish archbishops, battled for a whole year with the citizens of Aix-la-Chapelle, who viewed his pretensions with contempt, before obtaining an entry into their city, which was gallantly defended by William, count of Juliers, the faithful adherent of Frederick II, until forced to surrender by the flood poured into the city by the enemy, who attempted “to drown them in their own water.’’ William of Holland, also, received aid from Flanders in 1248.

Johanna of Constantinople, whose husband, Ferrand of Portugal, had been taken prisoner at Bouvines, in 1214, and still languished in France, reigned over Flanders. Her younger sister, Margaretha, had wedded Burkhard d’Avesnes, a man celebrated for his handsome person and deep learning, who had been nominated regent of Flanders during her sis­ter’s minority. The importunities of Philip Augustus of France in favor of a lame Burgundian, whom he offered to her as a husband, hastened her marriage with her guar­dian, in which the Flemish joyfully concurred. Burkhard was a man of noble birth, who had been Doctor Juris and professor at Orleans, a canon at Doornik, and dubbed knight in England. This highly-gifted adventurer, at the time of his union with Margaretha, concealed the fact of his having been a priest, nor was this circumstance discovered until after the birth of two children. It appears that France dreaded lest Burkhard’s popularity in Flanders might con­travene her projects, and that on the demise of the childless Johanna he might be elected her successor on the throne; Burkhard was consequently formally accused of having broken his vow of celibacy, and Johanna, possibly influenced by jealousy on account of her childless state, or by a hope of winning over the French king to restore her husband to liberty, aided him in persecuting the unfortunate Burkhard, who fled to Rome and entreated the pope to grant him a dispensation. The pope refused, and condemned him to do penance for the space of a year by fighting against the infidels in the Holy Land. He obeyed; received, on his re­turn, absolution from the pope, and hastened back to Flanders, in order to renew his union with Margaretha. His arrival was no sooner made known to Johanna than she ordered him to be arrested and privately executed at Ruppelmonde. She also declared his children illegitimate, in 1218. This crime was, however, unable to gain the favor of the French monarch, by whom Ferrand was retained in prison until 1226, when he merely regained liberty on payment of an immense ransom, and on condition of leveling every fortress in Flanders with the ground. Artois was annexed to France, and bestowed by Louis IX. on his brother Robert. On the demise of Ferrand in 1233, Johanna was forced by France to espouse Thomas, earl of Savoy.

Margaretha became the wife of Guillaume de Dampierre, a Burgundian noble. Dampierre died in 1241, leaving children by Margaretha. Johanna died childless in 1244. Thomas, whose brother William was bishop of Liege, supported him in a feud with Walram von Limburg, in 1237, and in another with Henry of Brabant, whom he took prisoner. He left Flanders, laden with costly gifts, on the death of Johanna, when the government passed into the hands of Margaretha, surnamed the Black, on account of her disposition, which misfortune had rendered gloomy and ob­durate. Her unnatural hatred of her eldest son, John d’Avesnes, caused her to listen the more readily to the per­suasions of France, and to allow her younger son, Guillaume de Dampierre, to hold Flanders in fee of that crown. This insolent youth, when in the French court at Peronne, publicly termed his brother John a bastard. John, finding powerful support in the Hennegau, and a friend and brother-in-law in William of Holland, took up arms, but was pacified by a division of the inheritance. On the death of Marga­retha, in 1246, he was to have received the Hennegau, Guillaume de Dampierre, Flanders; but the emperor William, discontented with this division, also bestowed Imperial Flanders on John, in fee of the empire. The pope also favored his cause, declared him legitimate, and the marriage of his unfortunate father legal. The pope also gained over Burgundy and the Rhenish clergy. William, by his profuse distribution of the crown lands, created a faction in his favor, and at length brought an army into the field by which Conrad was defeated at Oppenheim in 1247. This defeat ruined Conrad’s hopes in Germany. The cities, although still firm in their allegiance, were intimidated by the danger of openly disputing with the church, more especially since the citizens of Swabian Hall, by their excessive zeal, had brought upon themselves a charge of heresy. Conrad narrowly escaped as­sassination in the monastery of St. Emmeran. Shortly before this, when Conrad was conducting his young sister Margaretha to the Landgrave Albrecht the Degenerate, of Thuringia, and the citizens of Ratisbon sent their delegates to accompany her, Albrecht, bishop of Ratisbon, had attacked them, and taken prisoner forty of the most considerable among them, upon which Conrad and the Landgrave laid the episcopal lands waste with fire and sword. The bishop, in revenge, persuaded the abbot of St. Emmeran to murder the king during his sleep. He was saved by Frederick von Euwesheim (Wysheim, Eberstein, according to different readings), who, concealing him under the bed, laid himself in it, and allowed himself, together with six of his companions, to be murdered in his stead. The monastery was afterward plundered by Conrad’s adherents, who, in their blind fury, committed five hundred manuscripts to the flames. Conrad was now on the brink of ruin; the pope incessantly encouraged the powerful princes of the church to the attack; the princes of the empire, bent upon advancing their own individual interests, preserved a strict neutrality, and the allegiance of the Hohenstaufen vassals became daily more doubtful. The downfall of the imperial house, which was unable either to make head against, or to come to terms with the pope, evidently approached, and many a hand was stretched out, not to avert its impending ruin, but to seize a share in the spoil. William of Holland, meanwhile, aided his brother-in-law, John d’Avesnes, in Flanders. Guillaume de Dampierre was mortally wounded at a tournament. His mother, Margaretha, and his younger brother, attempted to defend Flanders against the emperor and John d’Avesnes, but were defeated at Westcappel on the island of Walchern, and the latter taken prisoner in 1253. Margaretha implored aid from France, and sold Flanders to Charles d’Anjou (brother to Louis IX.), who subsequently attained such notoriety. This prince marched with a numerous army into Flanders, defying the emperor William, whom he scoffingly termed the Water-king, to meet him on dry land. He was completely put to the rout, and pursued as far as Valenciennes.

The pope, constant in his hatred of the Hohenstaufen, also incessantly endeavored to undermine their power in Italy. His first attempt was the formation of a conspiracy in Apulia, which being discovered and crushed in the bud, he urged (1240) the Guelphs of Lombardy to take up arms; and the wealthy cities of Upper Italy, incited by the pope and by their own ambition, suddenly entered into open and furious warfare with one another, Genoa striving to rule the sea and commerce, Milan, Lombardy, and Florence, Tuscany. The most eminent among the citizens coveted the rank and power of princes, while, at the same time, the defeat of the Ghibellines promised them great acquisitions in land and wealth. The emperor, notwithstanding the disturbed state of affairs, held an imperial diet at Verona, which was in truth but thinly attended, and made a solemn protestation of his innocence of the charges made against him by the pope. He also wrote in the following terms to the king of England: “Our majesty is uninjured by the pope’s anathema. Our conscience is pure. God is with us. Our sole aim has ever been to bring the clergy back to their primitive apostolical simplicity and humility. They were formerly saints, healed the sick, performed miracles; now they are led astray by their own wantonness, and the spirit of covetousness has stifled in their hearts that of religion. Had our ancestors bequeathed to us the example afforded by us to posterity, the church could never have succeeded in thus ignominiously persecuting her benefactors.” Frederick, on one occasion, ordered all his crowns to be placed before him, and energetically exclaimed, “I still possess them all; no pope shall deprive me of them”. The uncurbed spirit of the aged but still haughty emperor was shared by his faction, which treated the church with open contempt. Ezzelino publicly avowed himself the sworn enemy of the clergy. Irreconcilable hatred hardened every heart; mercy was unknown; and Ezzelino bathed in the blood of his enemies, shed indiscriminately on the scaffold and on the battlefield. He and young Enzio were the most powerful supporters of the imperial cause. The siege of Parma long engaged the attention of the emperor, who built a new town, to which he gave the proud name of Victoria, opposite the ancient city. The Parmesans, however, stung to the quick by the execution of Marcellinus, bishop of Arezzo, whom the emperor’s Moorish soldiers had at his command dragged to death at a horse’s tail, made a furious sally, in which Taddeo di Suessa, now an aged man, was killed, the imperial crown fell into their hands, and Victoria was totally destroyed, in 1248. The Ghibellines, notwithstanding this repulse, again for a short time gained the upper hand; Enzio attacked Bologna in 1249, and was taken prisoner; his restoration to liberty was obstinately refused by the citizens, although his imperial father offered a silver ring, for his ransom, equal in circum­ference to their city, and in his twenty-fourth year this noble youth, whose mental qualities, extraordinary beauty, and remarkable valor had already gained for him the highest fame, was doomed to end his life in a dungeon. He was celebrated as a Minnesinger.

This misfortune broke the hitherto unbending spirit of his father, and his health began to decline. At the recommenda­tion of his old friend and counselor, Peter de Vineis, he took a certain physician into his service, but, being told that Peter had secretly embraced the papal cause and intended to poison him, he ordered the medicine prepared for him to be given to a malefactor, who instantly expired. This proof of infidelity extorted a bitter lament from the aged monarch: “Alas!” exclaimed he, “I am abandoned by my most faithful friends. Peter, the friend of my heart, on whom I leaned for sup­port, has deserted me and sought my destruction. Whom can I now trust ? My days are henceforth doomed to pass in sorrow and suspicion!”' Peter was deprived of sight and thrown into prison, where he killed himself in despair by dashing his brains out against the wall. Ezzelino begin­ning to yield, the emperor once more roused himself, and, assembling a fresh army of Moors from Africa, for some time kept the field, until suddenly overtaken by illness at Firenzuola, where he expired on the 13th of December, 1250. His corpse was carried to Palermo, and there in­terred. The luster of the seven crowns that adorned his brow, that of the Roman empire, that of the kingdom of Germany, the iron diadem of Lombardy, and those of Bur­gundy, Sicily, Sardinia, and Jerusalem, was far surpassed by his intellectual gifts and graces. On his tomb being opened in 1781, his body was discovered wrapped in em­broidered robes, the feet booted and spurred, on the head the imperial crown, in the hand the ball and scepter, and on the finger a costly emerald.

CLX.

Conrad the Fourth and Conradin

The news of the emperor’s death was received with exultation by the pontiff: “Let the heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad.” With insolent triumph he wrote to the city of Naples, declaring that he took her forthwith into his possession, and that she should never again be under the control of a temporal sovereign. He also declared the Hohenstaufen to have forfeited their right upon Apulia and Sicily, and even upon Swabia. The Alemannic princes made a lavish use of the freedom from all restraint granted to them by the pope. The Alpine nobles became equally lawless. Baso, bishop of Sion, a papal partisan, whom William of Holland had empowered to confiscate the lands of the Ghibellines, countenancing the tyranny exercised by Mangipan, lord of Morill, over the Valais peasantry, they applied for aid to Peter, earl of Savoy, by whom he was humbled (1251). In 1255, the Ghibelline bishop, Henry of Coire, took the field against the Bhaetian dynasts, who discovered equal insolence, and defeated them and their allies, the Lombard Guelphs, at Enns. The imperial cause was sustained in Upper Italy by Ezzelino, in Lower Italy by Manfred. This prince, Enzio’s rival in talent, valor, and beauty, was a son of the emperor by his mistress Blanca Lancia, whom he afterward married. Born and educated in Italy, he was the idol of his country­men, and, as prince of Tarento, was by no means a despicable antagonist to the pope.

Conrad IV, Frederick’s eldest son and successor, everywhere driven from the field in Germany, took refuge in Italy, and, trusting that his father’s death had conciliated the pope, offered in his necessity to submit to any conditions he might impose, if he were recognized emperor by him. His advances were treated with silent contempt. Manfred, with a truly noble and fraternal spirit, ceded the sovereignty of Italy to his brother, whom he aided both in word and deed. In 1253, the royal brothers captured Capua and Naples, where Conrad placed a bridle in the mouth of an antique colossal horse’s head, the emblem of the city. The terrible fate that pursued the imperial family was not to be averted by success. Their younger brother, Henry, the son of Isabella of England, to whom the throne of Sicily had been destined by his father, suddenly expired, and, in 1254, his fate was shared by Conrad in his twenty-sixth year. Their deaths were ascribed to poison, said, by the Guelphs, to have been administered by Conrad to Henry, and by Manfred to Conrad. The crime was, nevertheless, indubitably committed by the papal faction, the pope and the Guelphs being solely interested in the destruction of the Hohenstau- fen. Manfred’s rule in Italy was certainly secured to him by the death of his legitimate brothers, but on the other hand it deprived him of all hope of aid from Germany, and his total inability unaided to oppose the pope was evident immediately after Conrad’s death, when he made terms with the pontiff, to whom he ceded the whole of Lower Italy, Tarento alone excepted. He was, nevertheless, speedily necessitated again to take up arms against the lieutenant of the pope, and was driven by suspicion of a design against his life to make a last and desperate defense. The German mercenaries at Nocera under the command of the Margrave von Hochberg, and the Moors who had served under the emperor Frederick, flocked beneath his banner, and on the death of the pontiff in 1254, who expired on the anniversary of the death of Frederick II, affairs suddenly changed. The cardinals elected Alexander IV., who was powerless against Manfred’s party; and the son of Conrad IV., the young Duke Conradin of Swabia, whose minority was passed in obscurity at the court of his uncle of Bavaria, being unable to assert his claim to the crown of Apulia, the hopes of the Ghibellines of Lower Italy naturally centered in Manfred, who was unanimously proclaimed king by his faithful vassals, and crowned at Palermo, 1258.

In Upper Italy the affairs of the Ghibellines wore a contrary aspect. Ezzelino, after making a desperate defense at Cassano, was defeated, wounded, and taken prisoner. He died of his wounds in 1259, scornfully rejecting to the last all spiritual aid. His more gentle brother, Alberich, after seeing his wife and children cruelly butchered, was dragged to death at a horse’s tail. The rest of the Ghibelline chiefs met with an equally wretched fate. These horrible scenes of bloodshed worked so forcibly upon the feelings of even the hardened Italians, that numbers arrayed themselves in sack­cloth, and did penance at the grave of Alberich: this circumstance gave rise to the sect of the Flagellants, who ran lamenting, praying, preaching repentance, and wounding themselves and others with bloody stripes, through the streets, in order to atone for the sins of the world.

It was in the course of this year that Manfred solemnized his second nuptials with Helena, the daughter of Michael of Etolia and Cyprus, who was then in her seventeenth year, and famed for her extraordinary loveliness. The uncommon beauty of the bridal pair, and the charms of their court, which, as in Frederick’s time, was composed of the most distinguished bards and the most beautiful women, were such as to justify the expression used by a poet of the times, “Paradise had once more appeared upon earth.’’ Manfred, like his father and his brother Enzio, was himself a Minnesinger. His marriage with Helena had gained for him the alliance of Greece, and the union of Constance, his daughter by a former marriage, with Peter of Aragon, confirmed his amity with Spain. He was now enabled (1260) to send aid to the distressed Ghibellines in Lombardy. They were again victorious at Montaperto, and the gallant Pallavicini became his lieutenant in Upper Italy. The pope was compelled to flee from Pome to Viterbo. The city of Manfredonia, so named after its founder, Manfred, was built at this period.

The Guelphs, alarmed at Manfred’s increasing power, now sought for foreign aid, and raised a Frenchman, Urban IV, to the pontifical throne. This pope induced Charles d’Anjou, the brother of the French monarch, who had already “fished in troubled waters” in Flanders, to grasp at the crown of Apulia. On the death of Urban, in 1265, another Frenchman, Clement V, succeeded to the chair of St. Peter, and greatly contributed to hasten the projected invasion. Charles was gloomy and priest-ridden; extremely unprepossessing in his person, and of an olive complexion; invariably cold, silent, and reserved in manner, impatient of gayety or cheerfulness, and so cold-blooded and cruel as to be viewed with horror even by his bigoted brother, St. Louis. This ill-omened prince at first fixed his residence in the Arelat, where the emperor’s rights were without a champion, and then sailed with a powerful fleet to Naples in 1266. France, until now a listless spectator, for the first time opposed her influence to that of Germany in Italy, and henceforward pursued the policy of taking advantage of the disunited state of the German empire in order to seize one province after another.

Manfred collected his whole strength to oppose the French invader, but the clergy tampered with his soldiery and sowed treason in his camp. Charles no sooner landed than Riccardo di Caseta abandoned the mountain pass intrusted to his defense, and allowed the French to advance unmolested as far as Benevento, where, on the 26th of February, 1266, a decisive battle was fought, in which Manfred, notwithstanding his gallant efforts, being worsted, threw himself in despair in the thickest of the fight, where he fell, covered with wounds. Charles, on the score of heresy, refused him honorable burial, but the French soldiery, touched by his beauty and gallantry, cast each of them a stone upon his body, which was by this means buried beneath a hillock still known by the natives as the rock of roses.

Helena, accompanied by her daughter Beatrice and her three infant sons, Henry, Frederick, and Anselino, sought safety in flight, but was betrayed to Charles, who threw her and her children into a dungeon, where she shortly languished and died. Beatrice was saved from a similar fate by Peter of Aragon, to whom she was delivered in ex­change for a son of Charles d’Anjou, who had fallen into his hands. The three boys.were consigned to a narrow dungeon, where, loaded with chains, half-naked, ill-fed, and untaught, they remained in perfect seclusion for the space of thirty-one years. In 1297 they were released from their chains, and allowed to be visited by a priest and a physician. The eldest, Henry, died in 1309. With fanatical rage, Charles destroyed every vestige of the reign of the Hohenstaufen in Lower Italy.

Italy was forever torn from the empire, from which Burgundy, too long neglected for the sake of her classic sister, was also severed. Her southern provinces, Provence, Vienne, and Toulouse were annexed to France, while her more northern ones, the counties of Burgundy and Savoy, became an almost independent state.

While the name and power of the Hohenstaufen family was being thus annihilated in Italy, Germany seemed to have forgotten her ancient fame. The princes and vassals, who mainly owed their influence to the Staufen, had ungratefully deprived the orphaned Conradin of his inheritance. Swabia was his merely in name, and he would, in all probability, have shared the fate of his Italian relatives had he not found an asylum in the court of Louis of Bavaria.

William of Holland, with a view of increasing his popularity by an alliance with the Welfs, espoused Elisabeth, the daughter of Otto of Brunswick. The faction of the Welfs had, however, been too long broken ever to regain strength, and the circumstance of the destruction of his false crown (the genuine one being still in Italy) during a conflagration which burst out on the night of the nuptials, and almost proved fatal to him and his bride, rendered him an object of fresh ridicule. He disgraced the dignity he had assumed by his lavish sale or gift of the imperial prerogatives and lands to his adherents, whom he by these means bribed to uphold his cause, and by his complete subserviency to the pope. His despicable conduct received its fitting reward: no city, none of the temporal nor even of the spiritual lords throughout the empire, tolerated his residence within their demesnes. Conrad, archbishop of Cologne, ordered the roof of the house in which he resided at Nuys to be set on fire, in order to enforce his departure. At Utrecht, a stone was cast at him in the church. His wife was seduced by a Count von Waldeck. This wretched emperor was at length compelled to retire into Holland, where he employed himself in attempting to reduce a petty nation, the West Friscians, beneath his yoke. This expedition terminated fatally to himself alone; when crossing a frozen morass on horseback, armed cap-à-pie, the ice gave way beneath the weight, and while in this helpless situation, unable either to extricate or defend him­self, he was attacked and slain by some Friscian boors, to whom he was personally unknown. On discovering his rank, they were filled with terror at their own daring, and buried him with the utmost secrecy. The regency of Holland was committed to Adelheid, the wife of John d’Avesnes, during the minority of her nephew, Florens V, the son of William. She was expelled by the Dutch, who disdained a woman’s control. Florens succeeded to the government on attaining his majority. On the death of the emperor, John d’Avesnes was induced by a political motive to conciliate his mother and stepbrothers, who were supported by France. The departure of Charles d’Anjou was purchased with large sums of money. Guy de Dampierre obtained Flanders; John. d’Avesnes, merely the Hennegau. Namur passed from the hands of Philip, the brother of Baldwin of Constantinople, by intermarriage, into those of the French monarch, but was sold by Louis to Guy de Dampierre, who bestowed it on one of his sons. Artois remained annexed to France.

The northern Friscians greatly distinguished themselves at this period by their spirited contest with the Danes. Waldemar had left several sons, Erich, Abel, Christoph, etc. Erich, on mounting the throne in 1241, attempted to reconquer Holstein and Lubeck, in which he signally failed, and his metropolis, Copenhagen, was burned to the ground, in 1248, by a' Lubeck fleet. Erich was basely slain by his brother Abel, who cast his corpse, laden with chains, into the water, and seized the sovereignty, in 1250; and this monster of infamy was offered the imperial throne by Innocent IV, when that pontiff was seeking for a fitting tool to set up in opposition to the Hohenstaufen. Abel was a tyrant. The heavy taxes imposed by him on the northern Friscians, in the west of Schleswig, inducing a rebellion, he invaded their country, but was defeated by the brave peasantry, and slain on the Myllerdamm by a wheelwright, named Henner. His corpse was interred in the cathedral at Schleswig, but his ghost becoming restless and troublesome, it was dis­interred, pierced with a stake, and sunk in a swamp at Gottorp, 1251. He was succeeded by his more moderate brother, Christoph, who was poisoned in 1259 by the canon Arnefast. The pope was implicated in the commission of this crime, Christoph having refused to submit to the authority assumed by the clergy; his son was consequently re­jected by the Danish bishops, who raised Erich, the son of Abel, to the throne. The pope, the former friend of the lawless Abel, raised Christoph’s assassin to the bishopric of Aarhus. Margaretha, Christoph’s widow, and her infant son, Erich dipping, the blinkard, maintained their station for a while, but the opposing faction being succored by the Earls Gerhard and John of Holstein, they were defeated and taken prisoners on the Lohaide near Schleswig, in 1261. Albrecht of Brunswick, their most active supporter, governed Denmark in Margaretha’s name. Margaretha also succeeded in obtaining pardon from the pope, by a pilgrimage undertaken by her for that purpose to Rome. Her son Erich became king of Denmark, and Erich, the son of Abel, duke of Schleswig. Erich dipping was despotic, dissolute, and lawless; he was murdered in his sleep, in 1286, in re­venge for having violated the wife of Stigo, the marshal of his empire. By the notorious Birka Rett, a new code of laws compiled by this monarch, he had completely deprived the Danes of their ancestral rights and liberties, and reduced the peasantry to servitude; a measure that gained for him the favor of the clergy and nobility. He was succeeded by his son, Erich Menved.

On the death of Conrad IV and of William of Holland, fresh competitors for the crown appeared, although undemanded by the German princes, each of whom strove to protract the confusion that reigned throughout the empire, and utterly to annihilate the imperial power, in order to increase their own. The crown was, in consequence, only claimed by two foreign princes, who rivaled each other in wealth, and the world beheld the extraordinary spectacle of the sale of the shadow crown of Germany to the highest bidder. The electoral princes were even base enough to work upon the vanity of the wealthy Count Hermann von Henneberg, who coveted the imperial title, in order to extract from him large sums of money, without having the slightest intention to perform their promises. Alfonso of Castile sent twenty thousand silver marks from Spain, and was in return elected emperor by Treves, Bohemia, Saxony, and Brandenburg. Richard, duke of Cornwall, however, sent thirty-two tons of gold from England, which purchased for him the votes of Cologne, Mayence, and Bavaria; and, to the scandal of all true Germans, both competitors, neither of whom were pres­ent, were simultaneously elected emperor, Alfonso in Frank­fort on the Maine, and Richard outside the walls of the same city, in 1257. Alfonso, buried in the study of astronomy, never visited Germany. Richard claimed the throne, without regarding the superior rights of Conradin, in right of his wife, the sister of Frederick II, as the heir of the Hohenstaufen, a claim which drew upon him the suspicions of the pontiff, who, notwithstanding Richard’s apparent humility, delayed his recognition of him as emperor. In Germany, where he made his first appearance on the defeat of ,the citi­zens of Treves at Boppart by his rival Conrad of Cologne, he was merely held in consideration as long as his treasury was full. Necessity ere long compelled him to return to England. In 1268 he revisited Germany, where, during his short stay, he attempted to abolish the customs levied on the Rhine. It was during this visit that he became enamored of Gode von Falkenstein, the most beautiful woman of the day, whom he persuaded to accompany him to England.

Conradin, the last of the Hohenstaufen, resided sometimes in the court of Louis of Bavaria, at other times under his protection at the castle of' Ravensburg on the Bodensee, an ancient allod of the Welfs, which had formerly been bequeathed by Welf the elder to Barbarossa. In this retreat he associated with a young man of his own age, Frederick, the son of Hermann, Margrave of Baden. Frederick assumed the surname of Austria, on account of his mother, who was a descendant of the house of Babenberg; he cherished, moreover, a hope of gaining possession of that duchy, on the restoration of the Hohenstaufen. Conradin and Frederick became inseparable companions; equally enthusiastic and imaginative, their ambitious aspirations found vent in song, and sportive fancy embellished the stern features of reality. One of Conradin’s ballads is still extant. His mother, Elisabeth, who, on the death of Conrad IV., had carried him for protection to the court of her brother, Louis of Bavaria, had wedded Meinhard, Count von Gortz, the possessor of the Tyrol. In 1255, Munich became the ducal residence, and the metropolis of Bavaria. (In 1248, the dukes of Meran-Andechs becoming extinct on the death of Otto, their possessions fell to his cousin, Albrecht, Count of Tyrol, whose daughter, Adelheid, brought them in dower to her husband, Meinhard I, Count von Gortz. Meinhard left two sons, Meinhard II, who wedded Elisabeth, and obtained the Tyrol, and Albrecht, who succeeded to Gortz. Bavaria was now the sole supporter of the fallen imperial dynasty. Gratitude toward the Hohenstaufen, however, was far from being the guiding motive of this selfish prince, who solely aimed at turning his guardianship to advantage by laying Conradin under an obligation which he was bound to repay if restored to his dignity, or, in case of his destruction, by seizing all that remained of the Hohenstaufen inheritance. Cruel and choleric, he was one day seized with jealousy on perusing a letter innocently penned by his consort, Maria of Brabant, and in a fit of sudden fury stabbed the bearer of the letter, the castellan, and a waiting-woman, threw the chief lady in attendance out of the window, and ordered his un­offending wife to execution (1256). When too late, he became convinced of her innocence, and was seized with such terrible despair that his hair turned white in one night; in order to propitiate Heaven, he founded the wealthy abbey of Furstenfeld.

The seclusion of Conradin’s life and the neglect with which he was treated became daily more harassing to him as he grew up, and he gladly accepted a proposal on the part of the Italian Ghibellines, inviting him to place himself at their head. He was, moreover, confirmed in his resolution by Louis of Bavaria and Meinhard von Gortz, who even accompanied him into Italy, but merely for the purpose of watching over their own interests, by persuading the unsuspecting youth, in return for their pretended support, either to sell or mortgage to them the possessions and rights of his family. Conradin was still duke of Swabia, and held the ancient Franconian possessions of the Salic emperors. The private possessions of the Hohenstaufen having been declared crown property by Frederick II, the majority of the petty lords in Franconia,’ unawed either by the power of the emperor or by that of the duke, had asserted their independence as immediate subjects of the empire. In Swabia, Conradin’s dignity was merely upheld for the purpose of legitimating robbery and fraud, and his last official act as duke was the signature of a document which deprived him of his lawful rights. His conviction of their eventual loss inclined him to cede them voluntarily, particularly as the sale furnished him with funds for raising troops. In the autumn of 1267, he crossed the Alps at the head of ten thousand men, and was welcomed at Verona by the Scala, the chiefs of the Ghibelline faction. The meanness of his German relatives and friends was here undisguisedly displayed. Louis, after persuading him to part with his remaining possessions at a low price, quitted him, and was followed by Meinhard, and by the greater number of the Germans. This desertion re­duced his army to three thousand men.

The Italian Ghibellines remained true to their word. Verona raised an army in Lombardy, Pisa equipped a large fleet, the Moors of Luceria took up arms, and Pome welcomed the youthful heir of the Hohenstaufen by forcing the pope once more to retreat to Viterbo. He was also joined by two brothers of Alfonso, the phantom monarch, Henry and Frederick, and marched unopposed to Rome, at whose gates he was met and conducted to the Capitol by a procession of beautiful girls bearing musical instruments and flowers. The Pisanese, meanwhile, gained a signal victory off Messina over the French fleet, and burned a great number of the enemy’s ships. Conradin entered Lower Italy and encountered the French army under Charles, at Scurcola, where his Germans, after beating the enemy back, deeming the victory their own, carelessly dispersed to seek for booty, some among them even refreshed themselves by bathing: in this condition they were suddenly attacked by the French, who had watched their movements, and were completely put to the rout, August 23, 1268. Conradin and Frederick owed their escape to the fleetness of their steeds, but were basely betrayed into Charles’s hands at Astura, when crossing the sea to Pisa, by John Frangipani, whose family had been laden with benefits by the Hohenstaufen. Conradin, while playing at chess with his friend in prison, calmly lis­tened to the sentence of death pronounced upon him. On October 22, 1268, he was conducted, with Frederick and his other companions, to the scaffold erected in the market­place at Naples. The French even were roused to indignation at this spectacle, and Charles’s son-in-law, Robert, earl of Flanders, drawing his sword, cut down the officer commissioned to read the sentence of death in public, saying, as he dealt the blow, “Wretch! how darest thou condemn such a great and excellent knight?” Conradin, in his address to the people, said, “I cite my judge before the highest tribunal. My blood, shed on this spot, shall cry to Heaven for vengeance. Nor do I esteem my Swabians and Bavarians, my Germans, so low, as not to trust that this stain on the honor of the German nation will be washed out by them in French blood.” He then threw his glove on the ground, charging him who raised it to bear it to Peter, king of Aragon, to whom, as his nearest relative, he bequeathed all his claims. The glove was raised by Henry, Truchsess von Waldburg, who found within it the seal ring of the unfortunate prince, and henceforth bare in his arms the three black lions of the Staufen. His last bequests thus made, Conradin knelt fearlessly before the block, and the head of the last of the Hohenstaufen rolled on the scaffold. A cry of agony burst from the heart of his friend, whose head also fell; nor was Charles’s revenge satiated until almost every Ghibelline had fallen by the hand of the executioner. Conradin’s unhappy mother, who had vainly offered a large ransom for his life, devoted the money to the erection of the monastery of Stams, in a wild valley of the Tyrol. Charles’s next work was the destruction of Luceria, where every Moor was put to the sword. Conrad, a son of Frederick of Antioch, a natural descendant of Frederick II, alone escaped death. A contrary fate awaited Henry, the youthful son of the emperor Richard, the kinsman and heir of the Hohenstaufen, who, when tarrying by chance at Viterbo on his way to the Holy Land, was, by Charles’s command, assassinated in 1274.’ The unfortunate king Enzio was also implicated in Conradin’s fate. On learning his nephew’s arrival in Italy, he was seized with the greatest anxiety to escape from Bologna, where he was imprisoned, and concealing himself in a cask, was carried by his friends out of his prison, but being discovered by one of his long fair locks which fell out of the mouth of the cask, he was strictly confined, some say, in an iron cage, until his death, which happened in 1272. During the earlier part of his imprisonment, when less strictly treated, his seclusion, embellished by poetry and art, had been cheered by the society of his beautiful mistress, Lucia Viadagola. From these lovers descended the family of the Bentivoglio, who derived their name from Lucia’s tender expression: “Enzio, che ben ti voglio. ’’

Thus terminated the royal race of the Hohenstaufen, in which the highest earthly dignity and power, the most brilliant achievements in arms, extraordinary personal beauty, and rich poetical genius, were combined, and beneath whose rule, the middle age and its creations, the church, the empire, the states, religion, and art, attained a height, whence they necessarily sank as the Hohenstaufen fell, like flowers that fade at parting day.

Charles d’Anjou retained Apulia, but was deprived of Sicily. In the night of the 30th of March, 1282, a general conspiracy among the Ghibellines in this island broke out, and in this night, known as the Sicilian Vespers, all the French were assassinated, and Manfred’s daughter, Constance, and her husband, Peter of Aragon, were proclaimed the sovereigns of Sicily. Charles, the son of Charles d’Anjou, was taken prisoner, and afterward exchanged for Beatrice, the sister of Constance. Constance behaved with great generosity to the captive prince, who, saying that he was happy to die on a Friday, the day on which Christ suffered, she replied, “For love of Him who suffered on this day will I grant thee thy life.’’

It is remarkable that about this time the crusades ended, and all the European conquests in the East were lost. Constantinople was delivered in 1261, by the Greeks, from the bad government of the French Pullanes, and, in 1262, Antioch was retaken by the Turks. The last crusade was undertaken in 1269, by Louis of France, Charles d’Anjou, and Edward, Prince of Wales, who were joined by a Friscian fleet, which ought to have been equipped instead in Conrad’s aid. After besieging Tunis and enforcing a tribute, the French returned home. The English reached the Holy Land in 1272, but met with such ill success that Tripolis was lost in 1288, and Accon in 1291. On the reduction of these cities, the last strongholds of the Christians, Tyre voluntarily surrendered and Palestine was entirely deserted by the Franks.

CLXI.

The Interregnum

The triumph of the pope over the emperor was complete; but the temporal power of which the emperor had been deprived, instead of falling wholly into the hands of his antagonist, was scattered among the princes and cities of the empire, and, although the loss of the emperor had deprived the empire of her head, vitality still remained in her different members.

The powers of the Welfs had ceased a century before the fall of the Hohenstaufen. The princes that remained possessed but mediocre authority, no ambition beyond the concentration of their petty states and the attainment of individual independence. The limited nature of this policy attracted little attention and insured its success. Equally indifferent to the downfall of the Hohenstaufen and to the creation of the mock sovereigns placed over them by the pope, they merely sought the advancement of their petty interests, by the usurpation of every prerogative hitherto enjoyed by the crown within their states; and thus transformed the empire, which had, up to this period, been an elective monarchy, into a ducal aristocracy. Unsatisfied with releasing themselves from their allegiance to their sovereign, they also strove, aided by their feudal vassals and by the clergy, to crush civil liberty by carrying on, as will hereafter be seen, a disastrous warfare against the cities, in which they were warmly supported by the pope, whom they had assisted in exterminating the imperial house. The power they individually possessed was, moreover, too insignificant to rouse the jealousy of the pontiff, whom they basely courted and implicitly obeyed. The people, meanwhile (at least those among the citizens and knights who still ventured freely to express their opinions), bitterly lamented the dissolution of the empire, its internal anarchy, the arbitrary rule of the princes, their utter disregard of order, public security, and national right, and loudly demanded the election of a successor to the imperial throne.

Ottocar of Bohemia, who took advantage of the universal anarchy to extend the limits of his Slavonian state, was the only one among the princes who strove to raise himself above the rest of the aristocracy. The Austrian nobility, sending Ulrich von Lichtenstein to Henry of Misnia, in order to offer him the country, he was bribed when passing through Prague by Ottocar, who found means to induce the Austrians to elect him instead, and, in order to exclude all other competitors, espoused Margaretha, the eldest and now aged sister of Frederick the Warlike, who left her convent in Treves to perform this sacrifice for her country. Ottocar then marched in aid of the Poles and of the German Hos­pitalers against the Prussians and Lithuanians. On his return in 1254, on arriving at Breslau, he threw the flower of the Austrian nobility, whose allegiance he mistrusted, Ulrich von Lichtenstein not excepted, into chains, carried them prisoners into Bohemia, and confiscated all their lands. Louis and Henry of Bavaria, whose father, Otto, had been formerly nominated to the government of Austria by the emperor Frederick II., influenced by hatred of their dangerous and despotic neighbor, and being, moreover, aided by the archbishop Ulrich of Salzburg, raised a faction against and fortunately defeated him at Muhldorf, where a bridge gave way beneath the rush of the Bohemians, three thousand of whom were drowned, in 1255. Ottocar, in order to protect his rear, had ceded Styria to Bela, king of Hungary. Gertrude, Margaretha’s younger sister and the widow of Hermann of Baden, had fled for protection to the Hungarian monarch, to whom she had, in her infant son’s name, transferred her claim upon Austria, in return for which Bela had procured her a second husband, Boman, a Russian duke, by whom she was speedily abandoned. The Styrians vainly opposed the monarch thus forced upon them; they were overpowered; fifteen hundred men, who had taken refuge within the church at Modling, were burned to death. The cruelty subsequently practiced by the Hungarian governor, Stephen von Agram, occasioned a fresh insurrection in 1254; so close was the pursuit of the enraged natives that the obnoxious governor merely escaped by swimming across the Drave; the attempt of the gallant Styrians to regain their freedom proved vain; all aid was refused by Ottocar, and they again fell beneath the Hungarian yoke and the iron rod of their ferocious governor. Four years later, Ottocar commenced a brilliant career. In 1258, the Styrians again rebelled, and in eleven days drove every Hungarian out of the country, upon which Ottocar dispatched to their aid Conrad von Hardegg, an old Austrian noble, who fell valiantly opposing the superior forces of the foe on the river March, and, in 1259, took the field in person at the head of his whole forces, and entirely routed the Hungarians in a pitched battle at Croisenbrunn. Styria was replaced beneath his rule, in 1260, and in the ensuing year peace was further confirmed by his marriage with Cunigunda, Bela’s wayward niece, for whom he divorced the hapless Margaretha. This divorce was no sooner effected than the Austrians, deeming his right of inheritance annulled, attempted to free themselves from his tyranny; resistance was, however, vain; the malcontents were thrown into prison, and, as an example to all future offenders, Otto of Misnia, the judge of the country, was burned alive in a dungeon filled with straw. Ottocar’s power was still further increased by the possession of Carinthia, which was bequeathed to him by Ulrich von Ortenburg, who expired, in 1263, leaving no issue. The opposition of Ulrich’s brother, Philip, the patriarch of Aglar, and of Ulrich of Salzburg, was unavailing. They were defeated, and the whole of the mountain country was annexed to Bohemia.

Silesia had been partitioned between the sons of the pa­triotic duke, Henry, who fell on the field of Wahlstatt. A quarrel subsequently arose between them, and Boleslaw, on attempting to make himself sole master of the country, was reduced to submission by his brother, Henry of Breslau, the celebrated Minnesinger. Boleslaw was also so passionately fond of singing and of music that he was always accompanied by Surrian, his fiddler, who, during his master’s wanderings, sat behind him on horseback. Silesia, notwithstanding the numerous German colonists settled by Henry in the country devastated by the Tartar war, was ruined by the repeated partitions between the sons and grandsons of her dukes, and by their consequent feuds. One instance will suffice to give an idea of the disastrous and disturbed state of this wretched country. Henry the Thick, the son of Boleslaw, was imprisoned by his cousin Conrad von Glogau for six months in a narrow cage, in which he could neither sit upright nor lie at full length. Wladislaw von Leignitz, the son of Henry the Thick, was a wild and lawless wretch, who led a robber’s life in his castle of Hornsberg, near Walden­burg, and was finally taken captive by the outraged peas­antry. The Germanization of Brandenburg advanced. Since the partition of the bishopric of Lebus, in 1252, between Brandenburg and Magdeburg, the city of Frankfort on the Oder had been made by the former the center of German civilization, and peopled with German settlers. Whenever the German nobility took possession of a village, the Slavonian peasantry obstinately resisted every innovation. Several villages were, in consequence, sold to German citizens and peasants, under condition of their being peopled with Germans, in which case the purchaser became the heredi­tary mayor of the free community. In 1269, the Margrave, Otto, erected on the Polish frontier the wooden castle of Zielenzig, exactly opposite to which Boleslaw of Poland instantly built the fortress of Meseritz. Magdeburg ceded her part of the bishopric of Lebus to Brandenburg, but merely as a fief dependent on the archbishopric.

Upon the death of Henry Raspe in Thuringia, Sophia, the daughter of St. Elisabeth, and widow of Henry, duke of Brabant, brought her infant son, Henry, to Marburg, where fealty was sworn to the “child of Brabant,” the descendant of the great and beloved national saint. The Wartburg and the protection of the country were intrusted by Sophia to her neighbor the Margrave Henry, surnamed the Illustrious, of Misnia, who proved faithless to his trust, and attempted to make himself master of the country, which he also induced the mean-spirited emperor, William, to claim as a lapsed fief. Sophia hastened into the country on receiving information of his treason. The gates of the city Eisenach, which had already paid homage to Henry of Misnia, being closed against her, she seized an ax, and with her own hand dealt a vigorous blow upon the gate, which was instantly opened by the astonished citizens; Negotiations were opened between the contending parties; Henry of Misnia deceitfully proposed that the matter should be left to the decision of twenty Thuringian nobles of high standing, and that Sophia should promise to cede Thuringia to him, if they swore that his claim was more just than hers. Sophia fell into the snare, and the perjured nobles took the oath. On hearing their decision the injured duchess threw her glove into the air, exclaiming, “O thou enemy of all justice, thou devil, take the glove with the false counselors!” According to Imhof’s chronicle, the glove vanished in the air. Sophia now implored the aid of the warlike duke of Brunswick Albrecht the Fat, who invaded Thuringia (1256) and defeated Henry of Misnia; but Gerhard, archbishop of Mayence, creating a diversion in Henry’s favor by invading Brunswick during his absence, he was compelled to retrace his steps, upon which Henry of Misnia re-entered the country and captured Eisenach, where he condemned the gallant counselor, Henry von Velsbach, who had watched over Sophia’s interests in that city, to be cast by an enormous catapult from the top of the Wartburg into the town below. The feud was meanwhile vigorously carried on. Albrecht returned, and conquered the whole of Thuringia; his horrid cruelty occasioned an insurrection, which was headed by the aged Rudolf von Vargula, and Albrecht was surprised when intoxicated on the Saal near Halle, and taken captive, in 1263. Peace ensued; Henry of Misnia retained Thuringia, and Henry of Brabant, the founder of the still reigning house of Hesse, was forced to content himself with Hesse, Brabant falling to his nephew John.

Before the commencement of this war, a contest had arisen between Albrecht and his nobles, who were at that period as rebellious against their dukes as the dukes were against the emperor. Busso von der Asseburg, who bore in his escutcheon a wolf with the Welfic lion in his claws, formed a conspiracy among the nobles against the Welfs, in which Gerhard, archbishop of Mayence, joined. Albrecht was, however, victorious, Gerhard was taken captive, and Conrad von Everstein, one of the conspirators, hanged by the feet, 1258. In the bishopric of Wurzburg, the noble family of Stein zum Altenstein attained great power, and excited the jealousy of the bishop, Henning, who invited them to a banquet, where they were all, except one—who, drawing his sword, cut off the bishop’s nose and escaped—deprived of their heads. The ferocity of the nobles manifested itself also in 1257, during a great tournament held at Neuss, where the mock fight became earnest, and Count Adolf von Berg, thirty-six knights, and three hundred men at arms, were slain. In 1277, the robber knights took the frontier count, Engelbert, captive, and he pined to death in prison. Berold, abbot of Fulda, was also murdered in 1271, by his vassals, while reading mass; thirty of the conspirators were, however, executed. The citizens of Erfurt endured several severe conflicts with Sigmund (surnamed the Thuringian devil), Count von Gleichen, the son of the crusader of that name celebrated for his two wives.

The power of the princes in Germany was counterpoised by that of the cities, which, sensible of their inability individually to assert their liberty, endangered by the absence and subsequent ruin of the emperor, had mutually entered into an offensive and defensive alliance. The cities on the Northern Ocean and the Baltic vied with those of Lombardy in denseness of population, and in the assertion of their independence. Their fleet returned from the East covered with glory. They conquered Lisbon, besieged Accon and Damietta, founded the order of German Hospitalers, and gained great part of Livonia and Prussia. A strict union existed among their numerous merchants. Every city possessed a corporation, or guild, consisting, according to the custom of the times, of masters, partners, and apprentices. These guilds were armed, and formed the chief strength of the city. Ghent and Brugges were the first cities in Flanders which became noted for their civil privileges, their manufactories, commerce and industry. In the twelfth century, they had already formed a Hansa, or great commercial association, in which seventeen cities took part. In the thirteenth century, their example was followed by the commercial towns on the Rhine, the Elbe, and the Baltic, but on a larger scale, the new Hansa forming a political as well as a commercial association, which was commenced by Lubeck, between which and Hamburg a treaty was made, 1241, in which Bremen and almost every city in the north of Germany far inland, as far as Cologne and Brunswick, joined. The most distinguished character of these times was a citizen of Lubeck named Alexander von Soltwedel, the indefatigable adversary of the Danes, who, besides assisting in gaining the victory near Bornhovede in 1227, performed still more signal services at sea. He several times went in pursuit of Erich IV of Denmark, who incessantly harassed the northern coasts, with the Lubeck fleet; plundered Copenhagen, or, as Ditmar writes it, Copmanhaven; burned Stralsund, at that time a Danish settlement, to the ground, and returned home laden with immense booty. John, earl of Holstein, was taken prisoner by the citizens of Lubeck, whom he had provoked (1261). The citizens of Bremen pulled down the custom-houses erected by the archbishop and asserted their independence in 1246.