§ 56. FREDERICK II. AND THE FIFTH CRUSADE. 279
Kerak, together with the release of all Christian prisoners, on condition of the surrender of Damietta. It was a grand opportunity of securing the objects for which the Cru saders had been fighting, but, elated by victory and look ing for help from the emperor, Frederick II., they rejected the offer. In 1221 Damietta fell back into the hands of Mohammedans.1
The Fifth Crusade reached its results by diplomacy more than by the sword. Its leader, Frederick II., had little of the crusading spirit, and certainly the experiences of his ancestors Konrad and Barbarossa were not adapted to encourage him. His vow, made at his coronation in Aachen and repeated at his coronation in Rome, seems to have had little binding force for him. His marriage with lolanthe, granddaughter of Conrad of Montferrat and heiress of the crown of Jerusalem, did not accelerate his preparations to which he was urged by Honorius III. In 1227 he sailed from Brindisi; but, as has already been said, he re turned to port after three days on account of sickness among his men.2
At last the emperor set forth with forty galleys and six hundred knights, and arrived in Acre, Sept. 7, 1228. The sultans of Egypt and Damascus were at the time in bitter conflict. Taking advantage of the situation, Frederick concluded with Malik-al-Kameel a treaty which was to re main in force ten years and delivered up to the Christians
1 For the text of Frederick's summons to his crusade of 1221, see Mathews, Select Med. Documents, 120 sq.
2 Funk, in Wetzer-Welte, VII. 1166, says that in view of contemporary testimony, Frederick's sickness cannot be doubted. Roger Wendover, an. 1227, however, doubted it. Funk is wrong in saying that it was not till 1239 that Gregory, aggravated by the emperor's conduct, impeached Frederick's plea of sickness. In his sentence of excommunication of 1228, Gregory asserted that Frederick " was enticed away to the usual pleasures of his kingdom and made a frivolous pretext of bodily infirmity." In 1235, at a time when emperor and pope were reconciled, Gregory spoke of Jerusalem " as being restored to our well-beloved son in Christ, Frederick."
280 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
Jerusalem with the exception of the mosque of Omar and the Temple area, Bethlehem, Nazareth, and the pilgrim route from Acre to Jerusalem.1 On March 19, 1229, the emperor crowned himself with his own hand in the church of the Holy Sepulchre. The same day the archbishop of Ctesarea pronounced, in the name of the patriarch of Jerusalem, the interdict over the city.2
Recalled probably by the dangers threatening his kingdom, Frederick arrived in Europe in the spring of 1229, but only to find himself for the fourth time put under the ban by his implacable antagonist, Gregory. In 1235 Gregory was again appealing to Christendom to make preparations for another expedition, and in his letter of 1239, excommunicating the emperor for the fifth time, he pronounced him the chief im pediment in the way of a crusade.3
It was certainly a singular spectacle that the Holy City should be gained by a diplomatic compact and not by hard ship, heroic struggle, and the intervention of miracle, whether real or imagined. It was still more singular that the sacred goal should be reached without the aid of ecclesiastical sanc tion, nay in the face of solemn papal denunciation.
Frederick II. has been called by Freeman an unwilling Cru sader and the conquest of Jerusalem a grotesque episode in his life.4 Frederick certainly had no compunction about living on terms of amity with Mohammedans in his kingdom, and he probably saw no wisdom in endangering his relations with them at home by unsheathing the sword against them abroad.5 Much to the disgust of Gregory IX. he visited the mosque of Omar in Jerusalem without making any protest
1 See Rohricht, Eegesta recjni Hier., 262, and Bre"holles, III. 86-90.
2 Geroldus was patriarch of Jerusalem and notified Gregory IX. of Fred erick's " fraudulent pact with the Egyptian sultan." Rohricht, 263.
3 In 1240 a petition signed by German bishops and princes and addressed to Gregory urged him to cease from strife with Frederick as it interfered with a crusade. Breliolles, V. 985.
4 Hist. Essays, I. 283-313. * Bre"holles, V. 327-340.