Frederick II

King of Sicily (r. 1198-1250) and Holy Roman Emperor (r. 1220-1250)

• Born: December 26, 1194
• Birthplace: Iesi, near Ancona, Papal States (now in Italy)
• Died: December 13, 1250
• Place of death: Castle Fiorentino, Apulia, Kingdom of Sicily (now in Italy)

An able administrator, Frederick II reorganized the government of Sicily to create a centralized monarchy. He failed, however, in his attempts to gain power relative to the Church and over northern Italy.

Early Life

Frederick II of Hohenstaufen (HOH-uhn-shtaoo-fuhn) was born to Emperor Henry VI and Constance of Sicily, the daughter of Roger II, king of Sicily. When Frederick was two years old, his father had him elected king of Germany to ensure an uncontested succession. When Henry died in 1197, his wife assumed the regency, and the following year at Palermo, she had her son crowned king of Sicily. The boy king was reared and educated in Sicily, and at fourteen, he was declared to be of age. The following year, he married Constance, the daughter of Alfonso II of Aragon and widow of Emerich, king of Hungary.

During Frederick’s youth, Germany was in a state of anarchy, with Philip of Swabia and Otto IV struggling for control. The maturing of Frederick and the death of Philip (1208) caused only a minor shift in the civil war north of the Alps. John of England continued to support Otto, and Philip II of France shifted his support to Frederick. The decisive military encounter was the French victory over Otto at Bouvines in July, 1214.

The following year, Frederick was again crowned the German king, this time at Aachen. Frederick had already begun to make concessions to the Church in Germany, and in 1215, in order to win the full support of Pope Innocent III, he vowed to go on a crusade. Five years later, he had the German nobles elect his young son Henry as German king and then went south to Rome, where Pope Honorius III , Innocent’s successor, crowned him Holy Roman Emperor on November 22, 1220. To win the favor of the new pope, Frederick had again made lavish promises. He renewed his commitment to take the Cross, promised to aid the faltering Fifth Crusade , and said that he would fight against heresy. He also renounced the union of Germany and Sicily, a lingering fear of successive popes. Despite all of his promises, Frederick remained in Sicily for the next several years.

Life’s Work

Frederick’s prolonged absence from Sicily had been marked by rebellion and strife. Frederick first restored his authority and then reorganized the administration of the kingdom. He even founded a university at Naples in 1224. Still, the new pope, Gregory IX, was not impressed. He insisted that the emperor make good his promise to lead a crusade to reinstate Christian control over the Holy Land. To encourage him, the pope arranged, in 1225, for the widowed Frederick to marry Isabella, the daughter of John of Brienne, king of Jerusalem, with the understanding that he would have his father-in-law’s title once he had conquered the Holy City. Yet the emperor, who was in no hurry, continued to postpone his departure. When at last, in 1227, Frederick did sail from Brindisi, sickness broke out aboard the ships, and the expedition was halted and again postponed. Gregory was enraged, and he excommunicated the emperor.

The pope’s ban was not lifted the following year when Frederick again set sail. Reaching Palestine, he was able to achieve his objectives through negotiating rather than fighting. Jerusalem and the surrounding lands, including Bethlehem and Nazareth, were acquired by the treaty signed on February 18, 1229, and he entered the Holy City and was crowned king of Jerusalem on March 18. Having no desire to remain in Palestine, Frederick returned to Italy in June of the same year to deal with a papal army that had invaded his territories in southern Italy and insurrections that had been inspired by Gregory. These affairs were handled with success, and the ban of excommunication was lifted.

For the next few years, Frederick devoted himself to the political and economic reform of his southern Italian kingdom. He strengthened the central administration at the expense of the old Norman feudal system to create a forerunner of the absolute monarchy. In this, he was several centuries before his time. He also brought about reform in the economic structure of the state. He encouraged trade and agriculture, improved roads and built bridges, held annual fairs, and even minted gold coins, which had all but disappeared in most parts of Europe. As a result of his economic policies, the Kingdom of Sicily prospered. Still, Frederick’s ever-increasing needs, brought on by his continuous efforts to control northern Italy, led to increased taxation. Meanwhile, the German princes were establishing their near independence from imperial control. He had made major concessions to them over the years to gain their loyalty and material support for his crusade and wars in Italy. In addition, his oldest son Henry had also made concessions to the German princes that the emperor felt obliged to accept.

Indeed, young Henry was a problem for his father in the 1230’. As king of Germany, he favored the privileges of the towns over those of the princes. When the latter accompanied the emperor on his Crusade, Henry took advantage of their absence to strengthen his own position. On their return, however, he was forced to recognize their virtual independence and to submit to the authority of his father, whom he had defied. The prodigal son went to Italy in 1232 and was forgiven after he had sworn allegiance and obedience. Once back in Germany, however, he again rebelled against the emperor, with limited support of the German nobility. This time, he went one step further: He allied himself with his father’s most persistent and bitter enemy, the Lombard League . Frederick, with the temporary support of Gregory IX, was able to stabilize his position in Italy by 1235, and with only a token force arriving in Germany. The German princes, who had never been strong supporters of King Henry, flocked to the standard of the emperor. With little fighting, the wayward son was forced to submit once again to his father. The situation this time was very much different from what it had been four years earlier. Not only was this the second time that Henry had rebelled against his father, but he had also committed the unforgivable offense of allying himself with the Lombards. In July, 1235, at the diet held in Worms, Henry was removed from his throne and imprisoned at Apulia, where he remained until his death in 1242.

In August of 1235, Frederick, whose second wife, Isabella, had died in 1228 giving birth to their son Conrad, married Isabella, the daughter of King John of England. In 1237, after a successful campaign against Frederick II, duke of Austria, which led not only to the subjugation of Austria but also to that of Styria and Carenthia, Frederick secured the election of his second son, Conrad, as German king to replace the deposed Henry. The emperor’s bastard son Enzo (whom he had with his Cremonese mistress) was also provided with a kingdom. He was married to Adelasia, the heiress of Sardinia and named king of that island.

The emperor was now at the height of his reign and was determined to use all of his power and resources to bring northern Italy under imperial authority. Yet Gregory, who recognized the strong influence of the Church, threw his support to the Lombard League. The struggle continued during the last fifteen years of Frederick’s reign, with the fortunes of war and diplomacy swaying back and forth. In September, 1237, the emperor defeated the army of the Cortenuova League, and it appeared as if victory was within his grasp. The failure of the Siege of Brescia the following year, however, renewed the spirits of Frederick’s enemies, and in 1239, Gregory again excommunicated him. The Siege of Rome in 1240 was also a failure, and despite the death of Gregory (August, 1241) and the election of Innocent IV in 1243 (Celestine IV had died within months of his election in 1241), the struggle continued.

The new pope proved to be an even more capable adversary than Gregory. He withdrew from Italy and went to Lyon, on the French border, and held a General Council in June, 1245, at which Frederick was deposed and an antiemperor, Henry Raspe, Landgrave of Thuringia, was elected. The secular German princes, in particular Duke Otto of Bavaria, the father of King Conrad IV’s wife, tended to side with the emperor; it was in Italy that he faced the greatest defections. Even in southern Italy, there were rebellions and defections.

In 1246 and 1247, the imperial forces, strengthened by the support of the very capable Enzo, held their own. Frederick and his son even laid siege to the vital city of Parma in 1247. Then, while the emperor was convalescing from an illness, an army sallied forth from the besieged city and destroyed the imperial army (February, 1248). This defeat was followed in May, 1249, by the defeat and capture of Enzo at La Fossalta by a Bolognese army. With this catastrophe, the hope of victory over the Lombard League came to an end. Frederick, who had never fully regained his health, retired to southern Italy, where he died at the Castle Fiorentino, in Apulia, on December 13, 1250. He was buried in the cathedral of Palermo.

Significance

The reign of Frederick II must be considered a failure. Of his many accomplishments, few survived even his own life span. The Holy Roman Empire would exist primarily on paper and in the minds of those who claimed its title. The German princes had gained virtual independence from the German king and emperor. Northern Italy continued in a state of anarchy for the next three hundred years, with neither kings nor emperors nor popes able to exercise domination except for the briefest periods of time. The Kingdom of Sicily, where Frederick had been the most successful in creating a centralized monarchy with an enviable economy, went into decline following the emperor’s death. It had been the site of Frederick’s finest achievements and the best example of his administrative abilities.

The power and influence of the Church had not been strengthened during Frederick’s reign, but neither had they been noticeably weakened. The pontificate of Innocent III is frequently noted as the high point of the medieval Papacy, but Frederick, despite his near-perpetual struggle with successive popes, did not triumph over the Church. In fact, the positions of both the emperor and the Papacy declined in the first half of the twelfth century. It was the secular princes and the cities of Germany that emerged stronger north of the Alps, while in northern Italy, the independent city-states were taking shape. Finally, it should be noted that the death of Frederick II heralded the demise of the house of Hohenstaufen.

Kings of Sicily and Naples, 1042-1285

Reign

• Ruler (Line)

1042-1046

• William Iron Arm (Norman)

1046-1051

• Drogo (Norman)

1051-1057

• Humphrey (Norman)

1057-1085

• Robert Guiscard (Norman)

1085-1103

• Roger Borsa (Duke of Apulia)

1103-1154

• Roger II of Sicily (Norman)

1154-1166

• William I (Norman)

1166-1189

• William II the Good (Norman)

1190-1194

• Tancred of Lecce (Norman)

1194

• William III (Norman)

1194-1197

• Henry VI (Hohenstaufen)

1197-1250

• Frederick II (Hohenstaufen)

1250-1254

• Conrad IV (Hohenstaufen)

1250-1266

• Manfred (Hohenstaufen)

1267-1268

• Conradin (Hohenstaufen)

1268-1285

• Charles I of Anjou (Angevin)

The Hohenstaufen Emperors and Rivals, 1138-1254

Reign

• Ruler

1138-1152

• Conrad III (Hohenstaufen)

1152/55-1190

• Frederick I Barbarossa (Hohenstaufen)

1190/91-1197

• Henry VI (Hohenstaufen)

1198-1208

• Philip of Swabia (Hohenstaufen)

1208/09-1215

• Otto IV (married into Hohenstaufens)

1215/20-1250

• Frederick II (Hohenstaufen): Last emperor crowned at Rome.

1246-1247

• Henry Raspe

1247-1256

• William of Holland

1250-1254

• Conrad IV (end of the Hohenstaufen line)

1254-1273

• Great Interregnum

Bibliography

Abulafia, David. Frederick II: A Medieval Emperor. 1988. Reprint. London: Pimlico, 1992. A biography of Frederick II. Contains illustrations, maps, bibliography, and index.

Andrewes, Patience. Frederick II of Hohenstaufen. London: Oxford University Press, 1970. Part of the Clarendon Biographies series, this biography covers the life and times of Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II. Illustrations and map.

Kantorowicz, Ernst. Frederick the Second, 1194-1250. Translated by E. O. Lorimer. 1931. New York: Unger, 1967. Translated from the original German, this 680-page study of Frederick II is a very detailed and thorough account available in the English language. It contains an excellent index and a summary of sources, which takes the form of a brief bibliographical essay.

Powell, James M. Anatomy of a Crusade, 1213-1221. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1986. An examination of the Fifth Crusade and Frederick II’s role in it. Contains maps, illustrations, a bibliography, and an index.

Tronzo, William, ed. Intellectual Life at the Court of Frederick II Hohenstaufen. Hanover, N.H.: Distributed by the University Press of New England, 1994. A collection of papers from a symposium sponsored by the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts in 1990. Focuses on the emperor’s palaces and the arts in his court, including literature and philosophy. Also treats economy and society in the Kingdom of Sicily.