Frederick II and the Crusades (part 2)

When discussing Frederick and the Crusades, it becomes superfluous to speak of irony. Other Crusaders had won admiration from the Saracens as worthy opponents, but none left such a good impression with the Muslims, or at least with Egypt's elite. Ibn Wasil recorded that Frederick was a ruler 'distinguished and gifted, a student of philosophy, logic and medicine and a friend of Muslims.' This legacy of admiration was confirmed by Jean de Joinville. In 1250, when Joinville was captured aboard a vessel on the Nile, the Saracen admiral asked if he happened to be related to Frederick of Germany. Joinville replied that he thought his mother was the emperor's first cousin '…whereupon the admiral remarked that he loved me all the more'.
Frederick's struggle with Rome had overshadowed the Sixth Crusade. Frederick himself was not entirely responsible for this, for while either side showed intransigence, Frederick was generally the more conciliatory. Rome could have absolved Frederick when he embarked for the east, when he arrived in Tyre and when he entered Jerusalem. Gregory personally might have had to swallow pride to do so but in reality the Church would have lost little face. It would have been seen to be acting magnanimously, for the general good of Christendom and the participants of the Crusade, and, moreover, according with divine will. It could also then have shared in the glory of the recovery of Jerusalem. Instead of attempting to sabotage that achievement the Church could have helped to consolidate it. It is unfortunate that the Curia was so ungracious. The papacy created a crisis for itself, and sacrificed its own credibility as a source of spiritual leadership. Its later crusades against Frederick and his heirs would prove yet costlier in this respect.


John of Brienne had been leading papal armies attacking Apulia. Frederick landed in Brindisi in June 1229, and by October had chased his erstwhile father-in-law back into papal territory. Rather than pushing his advantage, however, Frederick halted and sought peace. Hermann von Salza mediated, persuading a reluctant Gregory to absolve Frederick on 1 September 1230. Frederick subsequently helped the Teutonic Knights establish themselves as the vanguard of the ongoing Baltic Crusade. The birth of the Order's state in Prussia was to some extent another legacy of his. Hermann von Salza, meanwhile, continued endeavouring to preserve harmony between his two overlords. Relations between Frederick (who was engaged in war with the Lombard league) and Gregory remained strained and Hermann died on the same day that Frederick was again excommunicated (20 March 1239). By February 1240, Frederick was poised to enter Rome itself, and the Pope called a crusade against him. Afterwards, at the Council of Lyons, Innocent IV declared Frederick deposed, and prioritised an anti-Hohenstaufen crusade over Louis IX's projected Eastern expedition. Papal letters flew about detailing Frederick's 'manifold villainies' Innocent's propagandists also accused Frederick of impeding aid to Jerusalem, while Frederick countered that only papal hostility prevented him from succouring the Holy Land. Papal obstinacy over Frederick also hampered Louis's preparations.
Matthew Paris was critical of the anti-Hohenstaufen crusades, and of Innocent's demands for English funds and troops. Paris recorded how English Crusaders swore an oath to proceed to the Holy Land, and not to be diverted by Rome to fight in Greece or Italy, indicating grass-roots scepticism concerning papal policy. Another critic was the Venetian Marino Sanudo, who urged an end to the wars in Italy, seeing them as a major reason for eastern losses. Housley has argued that the Italian crusades were not viewed by most contemporaries as perversions of the Crusade ideal, or devaluing to indulgences. However he conceded that the popes who concentrated on these wars were criticized from many quarters. The view that these crusades were scandalous and detrimental to the cause of the Latin East can withstand such attempts at revisionism. Only those with political interests in the Guelf cause could have convinced themselves that these civil wars were remotely holy. That Rome was willing to resort to bribery, and to restrain the Inquisition in regions where it might jeopardise anti-Hohenstaufen alliances, moreover, perhaps shows willingness to compromise principles, and the shifting nature of alliances in these conflicts made it difficult to associate them with higher ideals.

Rome's exploitation of Crusading to serve its worldly interests was resisted by purist Crusaders. Richard of Cornwall's force in 1239 refused to have their vow to assist the Holy Land commuted, and would not be steered aside. Frederick indeed, backed Richard of Cornwall's Crusade of 1240 and might have supported the Seventh Crusade but for Innocent's hostility. Frederick was not without clerical supporters, either. In 1240, for example, the dean of Passau publicly preached the cross against the papal legate Adam von Bahem, who had been sent to discipline the pro-imperial clerics. Thus the 'anti-crusade' was born. It was not the last time Christians would proclaim holy war against each other. It seems a natural reaction, however; it would have been unreasonable for Frederick's supporters (themselves potential Crusaders) to accept Rome's invectives. Frederick, after all, could and did argue that as the restorer of Jerusalem, he and not the Pope had been the true instrument of God's will. The anti-Hohenstaufen crusade was one in a succession of political/territorial conflicts involving the papacy, which ultimately brought Crusading into disrepute. It is difficult, however, to see how Frederick could have avoided the conflict without allowing Rome to establish theocratic mastery over Europe. (Gregory had claimed in 1236 that the whole earth was subject to the judgement of the Apostolic See). Frederick died in 1250 passing into legend. As it was, the Church triumphed over his heirs, though in the process it bound itself to Capetian tyrants and ended up with similar problems as it had before.

Frederick's status as a Crusader has been underestimated. In a short time he did more for Latin Palestine than any Christian leader since Richard. Surpassing Richard, Frederick recovered Jerusalem, and did so peacefully, while the violent efforts of previous Crusaders had tended if anything to do more harm than good. Frederick's impact on the Crusades in the Holy Land was on balance positive, and may have been more so but for the Church's uncharitable behaviour. Later Frederick became the subject of papal crusades. The impact of these wars was universally negative, hampering support for Jerusalem, and causing widespread strife and division at a time when European unity was vital in order to maintain Crusading efforts and to confront the looming threat from the Mongols.


The premise of a Crusade was of a Holy War, and, from a curial standpoint, of papal authority on God's behalf to grant indulgences to the participants. Success or failure, however, depended on divine favour. All the later Crusades that embarked with papal blessing failed to achieve their objectives. Frederick's Crusade, which succeeded in spite of a papal curse, did achieve its material goals. This undermined the theology of Crusading as predicated by the clergy. Frederick's success also brought into focus that aspect of the Crusading movement that while still religious was more than a vehicle for upholding papal authority. Instead it subverted papal pretension. When it came to warfare in Europe (which Rome was prepared to wage at Jerusalem's expense) Frederick had no little justice on his side, and little choice but to resist an increasingly absolutist enemy.
There is a more positive aspect to Frederick's Crusading legacy. His 1229 arrangement with al-Kamil over Jerusalem set an example of compromise. It was a victory of diplomacy over force, and of humanity over bigotry. As David Abulafia has suggested, it points to the possibility of mutual tolerance between religious groups and coexistence as a way forward for the Holy Land. Although the treaty was born largely from political expediency, from a progressive point of view it was the finest moment in the history of the Crusades.


Bibliography
Primary Sources
Bernard of Clairvaux. 'In Praise of the New Knighthood':
Greenia, C. (trans.), Werblowsky, R.J.Z. (intro.), in Works of St Bernard of Clairvaux, vol. VII, treatises, 3.

Ibn al-Athir, Ibn Wasil &c.:
Gabrielli, F. (trans.) Arab Historians of the Crusades (London 1969).

Jean de Joinville, 'Vie de Saint Louis':
Shaw, M.R.B. (trans.), Joinville and Villehardoun, Chronicles of the Crusades (London 1963).

'L'Estoire d'Eacles Empereur':
Recueil des Hostoriens des Croisades. Historiens Oxidentaux, vol. 2, (Paris, 1844-59) pp. 436-42.

Matthew Paris, 'Chronica Majora':
Vaughan, R., (trans.) The Illustrated Chronicles of Matthew Paris: Observations of Thirteenth Century Life (Stroud, 1993).

Oliver of Paderborn, Patriarch Gerold, Frederick II, Roger of Wendover etc. :
Peters, E. (ed.) Gavin, G.J. (trans.) Christian Society and the Crusades 1198-1229: Sources in Translation including The Capture of Damietta by Oliver of Paderborn (Pennsylvania, 1948).

Philip de Novarre:
Philip de Novare: Les Gestes des Ciprois, No. 135-37, ed. Gaston Reynaud, (Geneva: Jules-Guillaumefick, 1887), 48-50, translated by James Brundage, The Crusades: A Documentary History, (Milwaukee, 1962), pp. 231-32


Secondary Works
Abulafia, D., Frederick II, A Medieval Emperor (London 2002).
_____., The Two Italies (Cambridge, 1977).
Aziz, M.A., 'La Croisade de l'Empereur Frédéric II et l'Orient Latin', Autour de la Première Croisade; Actes du Colloque de la Society for the Study of the Crusades in the Latin East (Clermont-Ferrand, 22-25 juin 1995). ed. M. Balard (Paris, 1996).
Barber, M., The New Knighthood (Cambridge, 1994).
Bartlett, R., The Making of Europe (London, 1993).
Billings, M., The Crusades (Stroud, 2000).
Forey, A., The Military Orders from the Twelfth to the Early Fourteenth Centuries (Basingstoke, 1992).
Hilenbrand, C., The Crusades: Islamic Perspectives (Edinburgh, 1999).
Jotischky, A., Crusading and the Crusader States (Harlow, 2004).
Lock, P., The Routledge Companion to the Crusades (London, 2006).
Kantorwicz, E. Frederick the Second (New York, 1931).
Maalouf, A., The Crusades through Arab Eyes (Paris, 1983).
Masson, G. Frederick II of Hohenstaufen, a Life (London, 1957).
Mayer, H.E., The Crusades, 2nd edition, trans. J. Gillingham (Oxford, 1988).
Nicholson, H., , The Knights Templar, a New History (Stroud, 2001).
Omran, M.S., 'Truces between Moslems and Crusaders (1174-1217 A.D.)' Autour de la Première Croisade, ed. M. Balard (Paris, 1996) p. 423-441.
Phillips, J., The Fourth Crusade ( London, 2005).
Powell, J.M., Anatomy of a Crusade 1213-1221. (Pennsylvania 1986).
Read, P.P., The Templars (London, 1999).
Riley-Smith, J.S.C., ed., The Oxford Illustrated History of the Crusades (Oxford, 1995).
_____, What Were the Crusades, (Basingstoke 2002)
Runciman, S., A History of the Crusades: the Kingdom of Acre and the Later Crusades (Cambridge, 1955).
Seward, D., The Monks of War (London, 1972).
Smith, C., Crusading in the Age of Joinville (Aldershot, 2006).
Tyerman, C., The Invention of the Crusades (London, 1998).
_____, God's War (London, 2006).
Van Cleeve, T.C., The Emperor Frederick II: Immutator Mundi (Oxford, 1972).

Journal Articles:
Throop, P.A., 'Criticism of Papal Crusade Policy in Old French and Provençal', Spectrum, vol 13, no. 4 (1938).

Weiler, B., 'Image and Reality in Richard of Cornwall's German Career', The English Historical Review, Nov 1998, pp.1111-1142.

Powell, J.M., 'Frederick II and the Church in the Kingdom of Sicily 1220-1224' Church History (1961) pp. 28-34.