§ 45. THE LAST OF THE HOHENSTAUFEN. 199
Freeman's judgment must be regarded as extravagant when he says that " in mere genius, in mere accomplishments, Frederick was surely the greatest prince that ever wore a crown." 1 Bryce pronounces him " one of the greatest per sonages in history."2 Gregorovius declares that "with all his faults he was the most complete and gifted character of his century." Dante, a half-century after his death, puts the great emperor among the heresiarchs in hell. When the news of his death reached Innocent IV., that pontiff wrote to the Sicilians that heaven and hell rejoiced at it. A juster feeling was expressed by the Freiburger Chronicle when it said, " If he had loved his soul, who would have been his equal?"3
§ 45. The Last of the Hohenstaufen.
ADDITIONAL LITERATURE. — Letters of Urban IV. in Mansi, vol. XXIII. — POTTHAST: Eegesta, 1161-1650. — Les Eegistres of Alexander IV., Eecueil des bulles de ce pape d'apres les MS 8. originaux des archives du Vatican, Paris, 1886, of Urban IV., Paris, 1892, of Clement IV., Paris, 1893-1904. — * DOLLINGER : Der Uebergang des Papstthums an die Franzosen, in Akademische Vortrage, III. pp. 212-222, Munich, 1891. Lives of the popes in Muratori and Platina.
The death of Frederick did not satisfy the papacy. It had decreed the ruin of the house of the Hohenstaufen. The popes denounced its surviving representatives as " the viperous brood " and " the poisonous brood of a dragon of poisonous race."
In his will, Frederick bade his son Conrad accord to the
1 Hist. Essays, I. 286. He says again, p. 283, " It is probable there never lived a human being endowed with greater natural gifts." We may agree with Freeman's statement that in Frederick's career " are found some of the most wonderful chapters in European history," p. 313.
2 Holy Rom. Emp., ch. XIII.
8 Herbert Fisher says, " Of all the mediaeval emperors, Frederick II. alone seems to have the true temper of the legislator." Med. Emp., II. 167. Equal to his best generalizations is Gibbon's characterization of Frederick's career, as "successively the pupil, the enemy, and the victim of the Church," ch. LIX.
200 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1216-1294.
Church her just rights and to restore any he himself might have unjustly seized but on condition that she, as a merciful and pious mother, acknowledge the rights of the empire. His illegitimate son, the brilliant and princely Manfred, he appointed his representative in Italy during Conrad's absence.
Innocent broke up from Lyons in 1251, little dreaming that, a half century later, the papacy would remove there to pass an exile of seventy years.1 After an absence of six years, he entered Rome, 1253. The war against Frederick he con tinued by offering the crown of Sicily to Edmund, son of the English. Henry III. Conrad descended to Italy and entered Naples, making good his claim to his ancestral crown. But the pope met him with the sentence of excommunication. Death, which seemed to be in league with the papacy against the ill-fated German house, claimed Conrad in 1254 at the age of 26. He left an only son, Conradin, then two years old.2
Conrad was soon followed by Innocent to the grave, 1254. Innocent lies buried in Naples. He was the last of the great popes of an era that was hastening to its end. During the reign, perhaps, of no other pope had the exactions of Rome upon England been so exorbitant and brazen. Matthew Paris charged him with making the Church a slave and turn ing the papal court into a money changer's table. To his relatives, weeping around his death-bed, he is reported to have exclaimed: "Why do you weep, wretched creatures? Do I not leave you all rich ? "
Under the mild reign of Alexander IV., 1254-1261, Man fred made himself master of Sicily and was crowned king at Palermo, 1258.
1 M. Paris reports that a cardinal, after delivering a farewell sermon in In nocent's name, said, " Since our arrival in the city, we have done much good and bestowed alms. On our arrival we found three or four brothels, but now, at our departure, we leave only one behind, but that extends from the east ern to the western gate of the city." Luard's ed., V. 237.
2 A few months before, Henry, Frederick's son by Isabella of England, had died. His son Enzio languished to his death in a Bologna prison, 1272.