§ 42. THE PAPAL CONFLICT WITH FREDERICK II. 183
Frederick took the cross. He also seemed to give proof of piety by ratifying the privileges of the Church, announcing his determination to suppress heresy, and exempting all churches and clerics from taxation. In the meantime his son Henry had been elected king of the Romans, and by that act and the pope's subsequent ratification the very thing was accomplished which it had been Innocent's shrewd policy to prevent ; namely, the renewal of the union of the empire and the kingdom of Sicily in one hand. Frederick was pursuing his own course, but to appease Honorius he renewed the pledge whereby Sicily was to remain a fief of the papal see.
The fall of Damietta,1 in 1221, was adapted to fire a sincere crusader's zeal ; but Frederick was too much engaged in pleasure and absorbed in his scheme for extending his power in Italy to give much attention to the rescue of the holy places. In hope of inflaming his zeal and hastening the departure of the crusade, Honorius encouraged the emperor's marriage with lolanthe, daughter of John of Brienne, king of Jerusalem, and heiress of the crown.2 The nuptials were no sooner celebrated than Frederick assumed the title of king of Jerusalem; but he continued to show no sign of making haste. His aggravating delays were enough to wear out a more amiable disposition than even Honorius possessed. A final agreement was made between them in 1225, which gave the emperor a respite of two years more, and he swore upon penalty of excommunication to set forth October, 1227. Four months before the date appointed for the crusade Honorius died.
The last year of Honorius's reign, Frederick entered openly upon the policy which involved him in repeated wars with the papacy and the towns of Northern Italy. He renewed the imperial claims to the Lombard cities. Upon these claims
1 Damietta, an important harbor in Egypt, had been chosen by the cru saders as their base of operations against Jerusalem and the point from which Jerusalem was to be reached.
2 On the ground that lolanthe was immediate heir to the crown through her mother.
184 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1216-1294.
the Apostolic see could not look with complacency, for, if re alized, they would have made Frederick the sovereign of Italy and cramped the temporal power of the papacy within a lim ited and at best an uncertain area.
§ 43. Gregory IX. and Frederick II. 1227-1241.
An antagonist of different metal was Gregory IX., 1227- 1241. Innocent III., whose nephew he was, seemed to have risen again from the grave in him. Although in years he was more than twice as old as the emperor,1 Gregory was clearly his match in vigor of mind and dauntless bravery, and greatly his superior in moral purpose. In asserting the exorbitant claims of the papacy he was not excelled by any of the popes. He was famed for eloquence and was an expert in the canon law.
Setting aside Frederick's spurious pretexts for delaying the crusade, Gregory in the first days of his pontificate in sisted upon his fulfilling his double pledge made at his corona tion in 1215 and his coronation as emperor in Rome, 1220.2 Frederick at last seemed ready to comply. The crusaders assembled at Brindisi, and Frederick actually set off to sea accompanied by the pope's prayers. Within three days of leaving port the expedition returned, driven back by an epidemic, as Frederick asserted, or by Frederick's love of pleasure, as Gregory maintained.
The pope's disappointment knew no bounds. He pro nounced against Frederick the excommunication threatened by Honorius.3 As the sentence was being read in the church at Anagni, the clergy dashed their lighted tapers to the
1 His exact age is not known. M. Paris, Luard's ed., IV. 162; Giles's trans. , I. 383, says that at the time of his death he was almost a centenarian (fere centenarius} .
2 Frederick had received the cross at his coronation in Rome from the hand of Gregory, then Cardinal Ugolino.
8 "The English chronicler," speaking of the pope's act, uses his favorite expression, "that he might not be like a dog unable to bark" (ne canis videretur non valens latrare}. Luard's ed., M. Paris, III. 145 ; Giles's trans, of Roger of Wendover, II. 499.