Holy Roman Empire (XII): Frederick II
24. Frederick II
Friedrich II (26 December 1194 – 13 December 1250), King of the Roman people of the Hohenstaufen dynasty (reigned 1211–1250) and Holy Roman Emperor (coronation in 1220). He was also King of Sicily (known as Frederick I, from 1198), King of Jerusalem (1225–1228), King of Italy and Lord of Burgundy.
Frederick II's father was Henry VI, Holy Roman Emperor, and his mother was Constance of Sicily (the only heiress of the Norman-ruled Kingdom of Sicily). Jesi Mark Ancona was born in the Border Region of Ancona (Mark), Italy, the only son.
Frederick II paid great attention to Sovereignty, leaving behind a large number of sculptures that allow people to guess his appearance. When he was young, his appearance was quite handsome and beautiful, and he appeared very calm. But as the years grew, he grew thinner and thinner, his expression grew harsher, and in his old sculpture one saw a frowning monarch who seemed rather stern.
Although the emperor was expelled, he used diplomacy to direct the Sixth Crusade, entered the holy city of Jerusalem without any casualties, and became an intellectual known as "The First modern ruler on the throne".
(1) Life and childhood
His father was Henry VI, King of Germany and Holy Roman Emperor, and his mother was Constance, Queen of Sicily, who was 40 years old when he was born. Boccaccio records a legend about his mother, Queen Constance, in the Biography of a Famous Woman. Constance, a Sicilian princess and the aunt of King Guglielmo II, prophesied that her marriage would destroy Sicily, which led to her being imprisoned as a nun in a convent as a nun while still in her childhood, and only at the age of 30 was engaged to the later Henry VI and married 2 years later.
Frederick II died when his father died when he was 3 years old, and he fled to Sicily with his mother to escape the war, and a year later his mother died, and Pope Innocent III became his guardian. He grew up in Sicily and has always loved Sicily ever since.
Empress Constance had no children after her marriage and did not conceive until she was 40 years old, and some ill-intentioned people claimed that a butcher's son would be replaced by a crown prince, which was a very dangerous rumor for the hereditary Sicilian royal family. On 26 December 1194, the Empress, on her way to Sicily (the Emperor had been crowned King of Sicily at Christmas), set up a tent in Jesse's market, and in order to maintain the legitimate succession of children, she allowed the female citizens of the town to watch the Queen give birth and showed the naked breasts dripping with milk.
In his only meeting with his father, Henry VI, he was given the name FEDERICO RUGGERO: He would inherit the names of his grandfather, Federico I, and his grandfather RUGGERO, as well as their exploits, as kings of Sicily and Germania.
In December 1196, his father Henry VI had the princes elect the young Frederick king of the Roman people, but at the same time the hereditary system of the throne that the emperor tried to achieve failed due to strong opposition from the Holy See. But when Henry VI died suddenly of malaria, Frederick II was still a child, and the emperor's will (possibly forged) planned an "ideal future" for him. With the concessions of the empire to the Holy See, Frederick II was guaranteed a huge empire. However, upon the emperor's death, Markward of Annweiler, the chancellor of the orphans, was expelled from Sicily by Empress Constance, and the young Frederick II abdicated the German throne.
At the behest of Empress Constance, Frederick II was crowned King of Sicily on 17 May 1198. A year after her husband's death, the 44-year-old Empress Constance also came to an end of her life, dying on 28 November 1198, before which she asked the powerful Pope Innocent III to protect the young king. Thus the young king grew up under the papacy and was called the "father-fed king", while the Germans liked to call him "the child of Apulia".
Although the child wears a crown, he is actually a prisoner who is constantly under surveillance. The young Frederick II spent his entire childhood in palermo, the capital of Sicily, where legend has it that at the age of 6 he wore the king's sharp fingernails and kept scratching his silk robe and his own delicate skin, sometimes even eating became a problem, wandering the streets of Palermo, relying on the loving support of the emperor's family. But it was this tragic and bumpy childhood experience that affected Frederick II's life, he treated others equally, he could talk to grooms equally, he only believed in himself, extremely self, quite sophisticated. His knowledgeable and tireless knowledge also began with his childhood life in the city.
At the age of 15, his guardian Innocent III finally did something significant to get him married. Choose a bride for him, at least 10 years older than the young king and still a widow, a princess of Aragon.
In 1211, due to the uncontrolledness of Otto IV, Innocent III proposed frederick as king of Germain, while his infant eldest son Henry was crowned king of Sicily and his wife was regent of the kingdom. So Frederick embarked on the road to Germania. In March, he departed from Palermo and arrived in Rome on Easter eve to meet Innocent III – the only of the two. Frederick swore allegiance to the Pope. He then passed through Genoa, arrived in Konstanz in July, and signed a joint confrontation with King Louis VIII of France three months later against Otto IV. On 12 July 1213, in the Pope's Golden Decree, he undertook the separation of the Holy Roman Empire from the Kingdom of Sicily, relinquished all Germanic powers on the Italian peninsula, and promised the Fifth Crusade. The Pope was satisfied that he had complete control of Frederick II. In 1214, Otto IV suffered a crushing defeat at the Battle of Bouvines, which allowed Frederick II to secure the throne of the Holy Roman Empire.
(2) Sicily and the Crusades
When Frederick II came of age, he showed an attitude that was quite different from what Innocent III had thought. Innocent III's successor, Hornorius III, was an indecisive man who enabled Frederick II to free himself from Sicily as his political base. In 1220 the Imperial Council elected Frederick II as king of the Roman people. So the emperor's territory surrounded the papal states, which the popes had strongly opposed. In general, Frederick II was less concerned with German affairs, and the center of his rule was Sicily. The Italian cities had just relied on the Lombard Confederation to repel Frederick II's grandfather, Frederick I the Red Beard, and now they found themselves facing an even more terrifying Frederick.
In 1226, Frederick II issued a charter to Hermann von Sarza, grand master of the Teutonic Order, authorizing him to conquer Prussia. Sarza was one of frederick II's most trusted advisers during his lifetime.
In 1227 the stubborn Gregory IX was elected pope, and he spent the rest of his life fighting Frederick II. He ordered Frederick II to immediately lead the Crusades. However, Frederick II's crusaders encountered the plague and soon turned back. Gregory IX did not believe this to be true, and he executed Frederick II. Frederick II had to go to Jerusalem again.
The Crusade led by Frederick II was the only one in the history of the Crusades. His actions surprised both the East and the West, but with the best results. In fact, Frederick II avoided any battlefield clashes and negotiated the return of Jerusalem. The Egyptian sultan Al-Kamil praised him as the best European monarch. Under the peace treaty, Frederick II re-established the Kingdom of Jerusalem and proclaimed himself king, while marrying Joland of Brion, the daughter of the former king. These unprecedented activities of his became an excuse for Gregory IX to oppose him. Gregory IX denounced Frederick for openly signing a pact with the pagans and sending an army to attack Sicily (the pope had its own territory and army around Rome). However, the Pope greatly underestimated frederick II's power. Frederick II quickly returned to Italy to defeat the Papal army. The two sides truceded in 1230, and Gregory IX lifted Frederick's excommunication.
(3) The struggle with the Pope
Frederick II's contradictions with the Papal States were deeply entrenched. In 1234, the Pope supported King Henry VII of the Roman people, the son of Frederick II, against his father. Frederick II soon put down the rebellion, deposing his son from the throne and imprisoning him for life in An Italian prison (1235). He had a strong supporter in Italy: The Governor of Verona, Ezelino III da Romano. With the support of the latter, he conducted a conquest of the anti-emperor city alliance in southern Italy (1236). In 1237, Frederick II defeated the San Zenone Confederation at Cortenois. In 1241 he attacked the genoa fleet, capturing two cardinals who were preparing to attend the papal meeting to condemn Frederick II.
The new Pope Innocent IV showed an even harsher attitude than Gregory IX. In 1245, he executed Frederick II in Lyon, France (he chose Lyon to avoid the emperor's direct military threat). Frederick II faced a dire situation: papal sanctions undermined his prestige, and in an era when the people were convinced of The Roman Catholic Church, the expulsion of the monarch was extremely dangerous, as there have been many previous examples of this. More seriously, german princes began to unite against him with Italian cities, who had been a threatening force that plagued every generation of emperors. In 1246, Henry, Duke of Thuringians, was elected rival king with the support of the Pope and the princes. In the face of difficulties, Frederick II was defeated by the Italian Confederation at the Battle of Fosalta and his son was captured.
(4) Talent
Frederick II was impressed, as if he were not a monarch but a scholar. He himself mastered seven languages: German, Italian, French, Latin, Greek, Hebrew and Arabic. This was very surprising in the Middle Ages, when education was relatively backward.
With some novel ideas, he was very successful in the development of industry and commerce. Frederick II, who attached great importance to education, founded the University of Naples (1224) and opened a poetry school in Sicily. The emperor himself also wrote a collection of poems, "The Art of The Hunting bird." Frederick II codified the laws of Sicily into a collection of decrees. In the natural sciences, Frederick II attached great importance to the knowledge acquired by Islamic scholars, whose cultural level at that time far exceeded that of Europe. He sometimes did experiments, but these experiments were said to turn into atrocities (slowly drowning prisoners in wine barrels to see if souls existed, infants raised by deaf and mutes to see how language originated), and of course this may have been a slander against him by the Pope.
(5) Personal life
Frederick II was a man with a strong desire for sensual stimulation, in other words, a very strong sexual desire. His pursuit of femininity may have come from the premature loss of maternal love and the fact that he lived in an environment of complete lack of care and love in his childhood.
He loved women, loved many, many women and wrote many sincere, passionate, and even rather fleshy love poems for them. Legend has it that he mingled with prostitutes at a young age and at the age of 15 married a beautiful widow at least ten years his senior, Constance of Aragon, the former queen of Hungary. At the age of 17, he had his eldest son, henry the future co-ruler of Germany. After the death of his beloved wife, he married twice, and both ladies died after bearing him many children. When his beloved lover was dying, he held a wedding ceremony with her at her bedside. He also had a peculiar hobby, like the previous Sicilian kings, who loved the beautiful Arabian concubines, and he often traveled with some Arab slave girls and exotic animals.
(6) Death and influence
Frederick II has never been able to find a reliable ally against Innocent IV. In December 1250, he suffered a sudden stroke during a hunting expedition. Others say he was killed by his son Manfred. On 13 December 1250, suffering from dysentery, Frederick II died at the age of 56 at the castle of Florentino (present-day San Severo, Fouca, Italy). When he died, he wore the white robes of a Cistercian monk.
After his death, his titles were divided according to his will: the rightful heir Conrad IV received the titles of King of the Roman People and King of Sicily; Manfred was enfeoffed with Taranto and regent of the affairs of the kingdom; Henry VII, though deprived of the succession for rebellion, was succeeded by his heirs to the Dukes of Austria and Styrians. Frederick II's last wish was to return all lands seized from the Pope to the Pope without prejudice to the prestige of the state, while at the same time granting amnesty and reducing taxes. However, Conrad IV died four years after his succession, and the dynasty's position was in jeopardy. This last wish of Frederick II ultimately failed to materialize.
After the death of Frederick II, Muslim Muslims in Islam in the army took him captive and took him to Palermo. The sarcophagus that eventually housed his body was placed in the chapel of the Cathedral of Palermo, alongside his father, Henry VI, and King Roger II of Sicily.
In the 19th century, historians conducted an academic survey of Frederick II's remains. In the sarcophagus his body was dressed in Islamic-style clothing, the sleeves of which were embroidered in Arabic with the words "friends, magnanimous people, honest people, knowledgeable people, victors".
25. Henry VII
Heinrich VII (c. 1275 – 24 August 1313) was the first King of the Roman people of the Luxembourg Dynasty (reigned 1308–1313) and Holy Roman Emperor (coronation in 1312). He was also count of Luxembourg in Germany.
Henry VII used the king's name to grant various privileges to the bohemian princes and churches, and in 1310 transferred both the countate and the bohemian throne to his son John of Luxembourg, thus turning Bohemia into a hereditary fiefdom of his family.
At a time when Italy was being divided into two factions, the Emperor's Party and the Papal Party, Henry VII entered Italy in 1310. Henry VII decided to maneuver between the Emperor's Party and the Papal Party, while actually expanding his power. However, many Italians, including Dante, hoped that Henry VII would lead a fractured Italy to reunification. Henry VII's actions began fairly smoothly: in Milan in 1310 he was crowned King of Italy with the Iron Crown of Lombardy in Milan; on 29 June 1312 he was officially crowned Holy Roman Emperor in Rome by the Pope (the first emperor to be crowned after Frederick II's death). He then attacked Florence.
Henry VII's invasion of Italy was naturally opposed by King Roberto of Naples and Pope Clement V, who was actually trying to restore the power of the feudal lords in Italy, as many commercial cities also opposed him. Henry VII destroyed Brescia and besieged Florence for a long time, but he was unable to achieve any important results. He died suddenly in Siena as he prepared to launch a new conquest.