The Reign Of Frederick Ii And End Of The Hohenstaufen Line

(1215--1268.)



Rival Emperors in Germany. --Pope Innocent III. --Murder of Philip of

Hohenstaufen. --Otto IV. becomes Emperor. --Frederick of

Hohenstaufen goes to Germany. --His Character. --Decline of Otto's

Power. --Frederick II. crowned Emperor. --Troubles with the Pope.

--His Crusade to the Holy Land. --Frederick's Court at Palermo.

--Henry, Count of Schwerin. --Gregory IX.'s Persec tion of

Heretics. --Meeting of Frederick II. and his son, King Henry. --The

Emperor returns to Germany. --His Marriage with Isabella of

England. --He leaves Germany for Italy. --War in Lombardy.

--Conflict with Pope Gregory IX. --Capture of the Council. --Course

of Pope Innocent III. --Wars in Germany and Italy. --Conspiracies

against Frederick II. --His Misfortunes and Death. --The Character

of his Reign. --His son, Konrad IV., succeeds. --William of Holland

rival Emperor. --Death of Konrad IV. --End of William of Holland.

--The Boy, Konradin. --Manfred, King of Naples. --Usurpation of

Charles of Anjou. --Konradin goes to Italy. --His Defeat and

Capture. --His Execution. --The Last of the Hohenstaufens.





[Sidenote: 1215. TWO EMPERORS ELECTED.]



A story was current among the German people, that, shortly before Henry

VI.'s death, the spirit of Theodoric the Great, in giant form on a black

war-steed, rode along the Rhine presaging trouble to the Empire. This

legend no doubt originated after the trouble came, and was simply a

poetical image of what had already happened. The German princes were

determined to have no child again, as their hereditary Emperor; but only

one son of Frederick Barbarossa still lived,--Philip of Suabia. The

bitter hostility between Welf and Waiblinger still existed, and although

Philip was chosen by a Diet held in Thuringia, the opposite party,

secretly assisted by the Pope and by Richard of the Lion-heart, of

England (who had certainly no reason to be friendly to the

Hohenstaufens!) met at Aix-la-Chapelle, and elected Otto, son of Henry

the Lion.



Just at this crisis, Innocent III. became Pope. He was as haughty,

inflexible and ambitious as Gregory VII., whom he took for his model:

under him, and with his sanction, the Inquisition, which linked the

Christian Church to barbarism, was established. So completely had the

relation of the two powers been changed by the humiliation of Henry IV.

and Barbarossa, that the Pope now claimed the right to decide between

the rival monarchs. Of course he gave his voice for Otto, and

excommunicated Philip. The effect of this policy, however, was to awaken

the jealousy of the German Bishops as well as the Princes,--even the

former found the Papal interference a little too arbitrary--and Philip,

instead of being injured, actually derived advantage from it. In the war

which followed, Otto lost so much ground that in 1207 he was obliged to

fly to England, where he was assisted by king John; but he would

probably have again failed, when an unexpected crime made him

successful. Philip was murdered in 1208, by Otto of Wittelsbach, Duke of

Bavaria, on account of some personal grievance.



[Sidenote: 1208.]



As he left no children, and Frederick, the son of Henry VI., was still a

boy of fourteen, Otto found no difficulty in persuading the German

princes to accept him as king. His first act was to proceed against

Philip's murderer and his accomplice, the Bishop of Bamberg. Both fled,

but Otto of Wittelsbach was overtaken near Ratisbon, and instantly

slain. In 1209, king Otto collected a magnificent retinue at Augsburg,

and set out for Italy, in order to be crowned Emperor at Rome. As the

enemy of the Hohenstaufens, he felt sure of a welcome; but Innocent

III., whom he met at Viterbo, required a great many special concessions

to the Papal power before he would consent to bestow the crown. Even

after the ceremony was over, he inhospitably hinted to the new Emperor,

Otto IV., that he should leave Rome as soon as possible. The gates of

the city were shut upon the latter, and his army was left without

supplies.



The jurists of Bologna soon convinced Otto that some of his concessions

to the Pope were illegal, and need not be observed. He therefore took

possession of Tuscany, which he had agreed to surrender to the Pope, and

afterwards marched against Southern Italy, where the young Frederick of

Hohenstaufen was already acknowledged as king of Sicily. The latter had

been carefully educated under the guardianship of Innocent III., after

the death of Constance in 1198, and threatened to become a dangerous

rival for the Imperial crown. Otto's invasion so exasperated the Pope

that he excommunicated him, and called upon the German princes to

recognize Frederick in his stead. As Otto had never been personally

popular in Germany, the Waiblinger, or Hohenstaufen party, responded to

Innocent's proclamation. Suabia and Bavaria and the Archbishop of

Mayence pronounced for Frederick, while Saxony, Lorraine and the

northern Bishops remained true to Otto. The latter hastened back to

Germany in 1212, regained some of his lost ground, and attempted to

strengthen his cause by marrying Beatrix, the daughter of Philip. But

she died four days after the marriage, and in the meantime Frederick,

supplied with money by the Pope, had crossed the Alps.



[Sidenote: 1212. FREDERICK GOES TO GERMANY.]



The young king, who had been educated wholly in Sicily, and who all his

life was an Italian rather than a German, was now eighteen years old. He

resembled his grandfather, Frederick Barbarossa, in person, was perhaps

his equal in strength and decision of character, but far surpassed him

or any of his imperial predecessors in knowledge and refinement. He

spoke six languages with fluency; he was a poet and minstrel; he loved

the arts of peace no less than those of war, yet he was a statesman and

a leader of men. On his way to Germany, he found the Lombard cities,

except Pavia, so hostile to him that he was obliged to cross the Alps by

secret and dangerous paths, and when he finally reached the city of

Constance, with only sixty followers, Otto IV. was close at hand, with a

large army. But Constance opened its gates to the young Hohenstaufen:

Suabia, the home of his fathers, rose in his support, and the Emperor,

without even venturing a battle, retreated to Saxony.



[Sidenote: 1220.]



For nearly three years, the two rivals watched each other without

engaging in open hostilities. The stately bearing of Frederick, which he

inherited from Barbarossa, the charm and refinement of his manners, and

the generosity he exhibited towards all who were friendly to his claims,

gradually increased the number of his supporters. In 1215, Otto joined

King John of England and the Count of Flanders in a war against Philip

Augustus of France, and was so signally defeated that his influence in

Germany speedily came to an end. Lorraine and Holland declared for

Frederick, who was crowned in Aix-la-Chapelle with great pomp the same

year. Otto died near Brunswick, three years afterwards, poor and

unhonored.



Pope Innocent III. died in 1216, and Frederick appears to have

considered that the assistance which he had received from him was

personal and not Papal; for he not only laid claim to the Tuscan

possessions, but neglected his promise to engage in a new Crusade for

the recovery of Jerusalem, and even attempted to control the choice of

Bishops. At the same time he took measures to secure the coronation of

his infant son, Henry, as his successor. His journey to Rome was made in

the year 1220. The new Pope, Honorius III., a man of a mild and yielding

nature, nevertheless only crowned him on condition that he would observe

the violated claims of the Church, and especially that he would strictly

suppress all heresy in the Empire. When he had been crowned Emperor as

Frederick II., he fixed himself in Southern Italy and Sicily for some

years, quite neglecting his German rule, but wisely improving the

condition of his favorite kingdom. He was signally successful in

controlling the Saracens, whose language he spoke, whom he converted

into subjects, and who afterwards became his best soldiers.



The Pope, however, became very impatient at the non-fulfilment of

Frederick's promises, and the latter was compelled, in 1226, to summon a

Diet of all the German and Italian princes to meet at Verona, in order

to make preparations for a new crusade. But the cities of Lombardy,

fearing that the army to be raised would be used against them, adopted

all possible measures against the meeting of the Diet, took possession

of the passes of the Adige, and prevented the Emperor's son, the young

king Henry of Germany, and his followers, from entering Italy. Angry and

humiliated, Frederick was compelled to return to Sicily. The next year,

1227, Honorius died, and the Cardinals elected as his successor Gregory

IX., a man more than eighty years old, but of a remarkably stubborn and

despotic nature. He immediately threatened the Emperor with

excommunication in case the crusade for the recovery of Jerusalem was

not at once undertaken, and the latter was compelled to obey. He hastily

collected an army and fleet, and departed from Naples, but returned at

the end of three days, alleging a serious illness as the cause of his

sudden change of plan.



[Sidenote: 1228. VISIT TO JERUSALEM.]



He was instantly excommunicated by Gregory IX., and he replied by a

proclamation addressed to all kings and princes,--a document breathing

defiance and hate against the Pope and his claims. Nevertheless, in

order to keep his word in regard to the Crusade, he went to the East

with a large force in 1228, and obtained, by a treaty with the Sultan of

Egypt, the possession of Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Nazareth and Mount

Carmel, for ten years. His second wife, the Empress Iolanthe, was the

daughter of Guy of Lusignan, the last king of Jerusalem; and therefore,

when Frederick visited the holy city, he claimed the right, as Guy's

heir, of setting the crown of Jerusalem upon his own head. The entire

Crusade, which was not marked by any deeds of arms, occupied only eight

months.



Although he had fulfilled his agreement with Rome, the Pope declared

that a crusade undertaken by an excommunicated Emperor was a sin, and

did all he could to prevent Frederick's success in Palestine. But when

the latter returned to Italy, he found that the Roman people, a majority

of whom were on his side, had driven Gregory IX. from the city. It was

therefore comparatively easy for him to come to an agreement, whereby

the Pope released him from the ban, in return for being reinstated in

Rome. This was only a truce, however, not a lasting peace: between two

such imperious natures, peace was impossible. The agreement,

nevertheless, gave Frederick some years of quiet, which he employed in

regulating the affairs of his Southern-Italian kingdom. He abolished, as

far as possible, the feudal system introduced by the Normans, and laid

the foundation of a representative form of government. His Court at

Palermo became the resort of learned men and poets, where Arabic,

Provencal, Italian and German poetry was recited, where songs were sung,

where the fine arts were encouraged, and the rude and warlike pastimes

of former rulers gave way to the spirit of a purer civilization.

Although, as we have said, his nature was almost wholly Italian, no

Emperor after Charlemagne so fostered the growth of a German literature

as Frederick II.



But this constitutes his only real service to Germany. While he was

enjoying the peaceful and prosperous development of Naples and Sicily,

his great empire in the north was practically taking care of itself, for

the boy-king, Henry, governed chiefly by allowing the reigning bishops,

dukes and princes to do very much as they pleased. There was a season of

peace with France, Hungary and Poland, and Denmark, which was then the

only dangerous neighbor, was repelled without the Imperial assistance.

Frederick II., in his first rivalry with Otto, had shamefully purchased

Denmark's favor by giving up all the territory between the Elbe and the

Oder. But when Henry, Count of Schwerin, returned from a pilgrimage to

the Holy Land, and found the Danish king, Waldemar, in possession of his

territory, he organized a revolt in order to recover his rights, and

succeeded in taking Waldemar and his son prisoners. Frederick II. now

supported him, and the Pope as a matter of course supported Denmark. A

great battle was fought in Holstein, and the Danes were so signally

defeated that they were forced to give up all the German territory,

except the island of Ruegen and a little strip of the Pomeranian coast,

beside paying 45,000 silver marks for the ransom of Waldemar and his

son.



[Sidenote: 1230.]



About this time, in consequence of the demand of Pope Innocent III. that

all heresy should be treated as a crime and suppressed by force, a new

element of conflict with Rome was introduced into Germany. Among other

acts of violence, the Stedinger, a tribe of free farmers of Saxon blood,

who inhabited the low country near the mouth of the Weser, were

literally exterminated by order of the Archbishop of Bremen, to whom

they had refused the payment of tithes. In 1230, Gregory IX. wrote to

king Henry, urging him to crush out heresy in Germany: "Where is the

zeal of Moses, who destroyed 23,000 idolaters in one day? Where is the

zeal of Elijah, who slew 450 prophets with the sword, by the brook

Kishon? Against this evil the strongest means must be used: there is

need of steel and fire." Conrad of Marburg, a monk, who inflicted years

of physical and spiritual suffering upon Elizabeth, Countess of

Thuringia, in order to make a saint of her, was appointed Inquisitor for

Germany by Gregory, and for three years he tortured and burned at will.

His horrible cruelty at last provoked revenge: he was assassinated on

the highway near Marburg, and his death marks the end of the Inquisition

in Germany.



In 1232, Frederick II., in order that he might seem to fulfil his

neglected duties as German Emperor, summoned a general Diet to meet at

Ravenna, but it was prevented by the Lombard cities, as the Diet of

Verona had been prevented six years before. Befriended by Venice,

however, Frederick marched to Aquileia, and there met his son, king

Henry, after a separation of twelve years. Their respective ages were

thirty-seven and twenty-one: there was little personal sympathy or

affection between them, and they only came together to quarrel.

Frederick refused to sanction most of Henry's measures; he demanded,

among other things, that the latter should rebuild the strongholds of

the robber-knights of Hohenlohe, which had been razed to the ground.

This seemed to Henry an outrage as well as a humiliation, and he

returned home with rebellion in his heart. After proclaiming himself

independent king, he entered into an alliance with the cities of

Lombardy and even sought the aid of the Pope.



[Sidenote: 1235. FREDERICK'S MARRIAGE AT WORMS.]



Early in 1235, after an absence of fifteen years, Frederick II. returned

to Germany. The revolt, which had seemed so threatening, fell to pieces

at his approach. He was again master of the Empire, without striking a

blow: Henry had no course but to surrender without conditions. He was

deposed, imprisoned, and finally sent with his family to Southern Italy,

where he died seven years afterwards. The same summer the Emperor, whose

wife, Iolanthe, had died some years before, was married at Worms to

Isabella, sister of king Henry III. of England. The ceremony was

attended with festivals of Oriental splendor; the attendants of the new

Empress were Saracens, and she was obliged to live after the manner of

Eastern women. Immense numbers of the nobles and people flocked to

Worms, and soon afterwards to Mayence, where a Diet was held. Here, for

the first time, the decrees of the Diet were publicly read in the German

language. Frederick also, as the head of the Waiblinger party, effected

a reconciliation with Otto of Brunswick, the head of the Welfs, whereby

the rivalry of a hundred years came to an end in Germany; but in Italy

the struggle between the Ghibellines and the Guelphs was continued long

after the Hohenstaufen line became extinct.



In the autumn of 1236, Frederick conquered and deposed Frederick the

Quarrelsome, Duke of Austria, and made Vienna a free Imperial city. A

Diet was held there, at which his second son, Konrad, then nine years

old, was accepted as king of Germany. This choice was confirmed by

another Diet, held the following year at Speyer. The Emperor now left

Germany, never to return. This brief visit, of a little more than a

year, was the only interruption in his thirty years of absence; but it

revived his great personal influence over princes and people, it was

marked by the full recognition of his authority, and it contributed, in

combination with his struggle against the power of Rome which followed,

to impress upon his reign a more splendid and successful character than

his acts deserved. Although the remainder of his history belongs to

Italy, it was not without importance for the later fortunes of Germany,

and must therefore be briefly stated.



[Sidenote: 1237.]



On returning to Italy, Frederick found himself involved in new

difficulties with the independent cities. He was supported by his

son-in-law, Ezzelin, and a large army from Naples and Sicily, composed

chiefly of Saracens. With this force he won such a victory at

Cortenuovo, that even Milan offered to yield, under hard conditions.

Then Frederick II. made the same mistake as his grandfather, Barbarossa,

in similar circumstances. He demanded a complete and unconditional

surrender, which so aroused the fear and excited the hate of the

Lombards, that they united in a new and desperate resistance, which he

was unable to crush. Gregory IX., who claimed for the Church the Island

of Sardinia, which Frederick had given as a kingdom to his son Enzio,

hurled a new excommunication against the Emperor, and the fiercest of

all the quarrels between the two powers now began to rage.



The Pope, in a proclamation, asserted of Frederick: "This pestilential

king declares that the world has been deceived by three impostors,

Moses, Mohammed and Christ, the two former of whom died honorably, but

the last shamefully, upon the cross." He further styled the Emperor,

"that beast of Revelations which came out of the sea, which now destroys

everything with its claws and iron teeth, and, assisted by the heretics,

arises against Christ, in order to drive his name out of the world."

Frederick, in an answer which was sent to all the kings and princes of

Christendom, wrote: "The Apostolic and Athanasian Creeds are mine; Moses

I consider a friend of God, and Mohammed an arch-impostor." He described

the Pope as "that horse in Revelations, from which, as it is written,

issued another horse, and he that sat upon him took away the peace of

the world, so that the living destroyed each other," and named him

further: "the second Balaam, the great dragon, yea, even the

Antichrist."



[Sidenote: 1241. CAPTURE OF THE POPE'S COUNCIL.]



Gregory IX. endeavored, but in vain, to set up a rival Emperor: the

Princes, and even the Archbishops, were opposed to him. Frederick, who

was not idle meanwhile, entered the States of the Church, took several

cities, and advanced towards Rome. Then the Pope offered to call

together a Council in Rome, to settle all matters in dispute. But those

who were summoned to attend were Frederick's enemies, whereupon he

issued a proclamation declaring the Council void, and warning the

bishops and priests against coming to it. The most of them, however, met

at Nice, in 1241, and embarked for Rome on a Genoese fleet of sixty

vessels; but Frederick's son, Enzio, intercepted them with a Pisan and

Sicilian fleet, captured one hundred cardinals, bishops and abbots, one

hundred civil deputies and four thousand men, and carried them to

Naples. The Council, therefore, could not be held, and Pope Gregory died

soon afterwards, almost a hundred years old.



After quarreling for nearly two years, the Cardinals finally elected a

new Pope, Innocent IV. He had been a friend of the Emperor, but the

latter exclaimed, on hearing of his election: "I fear that I have lost a

friend among the Cardinals, and found an enemy in the chair of St.

Peter: no Pope can be a Ghibelline!" His words were true. After

fruitless negotiations, Innocent IV. fled to Lyons, and there called

together a Council of the Church, which declared that Frederick had

forfeited his crowns and dignities, that he was cast out by God, and

should be thenceforth accursed. Frederick answered this declaration with

a bold statement of the corruptions of the clergy, and the dangers

arising from the temporal power of the Popes, which, he asserted, should

be suppressed for the sake of Christianity, the early purity of which

had been lost. King Louis IX. of France endeavored to bring about a

suspension of the struggle, which was now beginning to disturb all

Europe; but the Pope angrily refused.



In 1246, the latter persuaded Henry Raspe, Landgrave of Thuringia, to

claim the crown of Germany, and supported him with all the influence and

wealth of the Church. He was defeated and wounded in the first battle,

and soon afterwards died, leaving Frederick's son, Konrad, still king of

Germany. In Italy, the civil war raged with the greatest bitterness, and

with horrible barbarities on both sides. Frederick exhibited such

extraordinary courage and determination that his enemies, encouraged by

the Church, finally resorted to the basest means of overcoming him. A

plot formed for his assassination was discovered in time, and the

conspirators executed: then an attempt was made to poison him, in which

his chancellor and intimate friend, Peter de Vinea--his companion for

thirty years,--seems to have been implicated. At least he recommended a

certain physician, who brought to the Emperor a poisoned medicine.

Something in the man's manner excited Frederick's mistrust, and he

ordered him to swallow a part of the medicine. When the latter refused,

it was given to a condemned criminal, who immediately died. The

physician was executed and Peter de Vinea sent to prison, where he

committed suicide by dashing his head against the walls of his cell.



[Sidenote: 1249.]



In the same year, 1249, Frederick's favorite son, Enzio, king of

Sardinia, who even surpassed his father in personal beauty, in

accomplishments, in poetic talent and heroic courage, was taken prisoner

by the Bolognese. All the father's offers of ransom were rejected, all

his menaces defied: Enzio was condemned to perpetual imprisonment, and

languished twenty-two years in a dungeon, until liberated by death.

Frederick was almost broken-hearted, but his high courage never flagged.

He was encompassed by enemies, he scarcely knew whom to trust, yet he

did not yield the least of his claims. And fortune, at last, seemed

inclined to turn to his side: a new rival king, William of Holland, whom

the Pope had set up against him in Germany, failed to maintain himself:

the city of Piacenza, in Lombardy, espoused his cause: the Romans, tired

of Innocent IV.'s absence, began to talk of electing another Pope in his

stead: and even Innocent himself was growing unpopular in France. Then,

while he still defiantly faced the world, still had faith in his final

triumph, the body refused to support his fiery spirit. He died in the

arms of his youngest son, Manfred, on the 13th of December, 1250,

fifty-six years old. He was buried at Palermo; and when his tomb there

was opened, in the year 1783, his corpse was found to have scarcely

undergone any decay.



Frederick II. was unquestionably one of the greatest men who ever bore

the title of German (or Roman) Emperor; yet all the benefits his reign

conferred upon Germany were wholly of an indirect character, and were

more than balanced by the positive injury occasioned by his neglect.

There were strong contradictions in his nature, which make it difficult

to judge him fairly as a ruler. As a man of great learning and

intelligence, his ideas were liberal; as a monarch, he was violent and

despotic. He wore out his life, trying to crush the republican cities of

Italy; he was jealous of the growth of the free cities of Germany, yet

granted them a representation in the Diet; and in Sicily, where his sway

was undisputed, he was wise, just and tolerant. Representing in himself

the highest taste and refinement of his age, he was nevertheless as

rash, passionate and relentless as the monarchs of earlier and ruder

times. In his struggle with the Popes, he was far in advance of his age,

and herein, although unsuccessful, he was not subdued: in reality, he

was one of the most powerful forerunners of the Reformation. There are

few figures in European history so bright, so brave, so full of heroic

and romantic interest.



[Sidenote: 1250. KONRAD IV.'S REIGN.]



Frederick's son and successor, Konrad IV., inherited the hate and enmity

of Pope Innocent IV. The latter threatened with excommunication all who

should support Konrad, and forbade the priests to administer the

sacraments of the Church to his followers. The Papal proclamations were

so fierce that they incited the Bishop of Ratisbon to plot the king's

murder, in which he came very near being successful. William of Holland,

whom the people called "the Priests' King," was not supported by any of

the leading German princes, but the gold of Rome purchased him enough of

troops to meet Konrad in the field, and he was temporarily successful.

The hostility of the Pope seems scarcely to have affected Konrad's

position in Germany; but both rulers and people were growing indifferent

to the Imperial power, the seat of which had been so long transferred to

Italy. They therefore took little part in the struggle between William

and Konrad, and the latter's defeat was by no means a gain to the

former.



The two rivals, in fact, were near their end. Konrad IV. went to Italy

and took possession of the kingdom of his father, which his

step-brother, Manfred, governed in his name. He made an earnest attempt

to be reconciled with the Pope, but Innocent IV. was implacable. He then

collected an army of 20,000 men, and was about to lead it to Germany

against William of Holland, when he suddenly died, in 1254, in the 27th

year of his age. It was generally believed that he had been poisoned.

William of Holland, since there was no one to dispute his claim,

obtained a partial recognition of his sovereignty in Germany; but,

having undertaken to subdue the free farmers in Friesland, he was

defeated. While attempting to escape, his heavy war-horse broke through

the ice, and the farmers surrounded and slew him. This was in 1256, two

years after Konrad's death. Innocent IV. had expended no less than

400,000 silver marks--a very large sum in those days--in supporting him

and Henry Raspe against the Hohenstaufens.



[Sidenote: 1256.]



Konrad IV. left behind him, in Suabia, a son Konrad, who was only two

years old at his father's death. In order to distinguish him from the

latter, the Italians gave him the name of Conradino (Little Konrad),

and as Konradin he is known in German history. He was educated under the

charge of his mother, Queen Elizabeth, and his uncle Ludwig II., Duke of

Bavaria. When he was ten years old, the Archbishop of Mayence called a

Diet, at which it was agreed that he should be crowned King of Germany,

but the ceremony was prevented by the furious opposition of the Pope.

Konradin made such progress in his studies and exhibited so much

fondness for literature and the arts, that the followers of the

Hohenstaufens saw in him another Frederick II. One of his poems is still

in existence, and testifies to the grace and refinement of his youthful

mind.



After Konrad IV.'s death, the Pope claimed the kingdom of Naples and

Sicily as being forfeited to the Church, but found it prudent to allow

Manfred to govern in his name. The latter submitted at first, but only

until his authority was firmly established: then he declared war,

defeated the Papal troops, drove them back to Rome, and was crowned king

in 1258. The news of his success so agitated the Pope that he died

shortly afterwards. His successor, Urban IV., a Frenchman, who imitated

his policy, found Manfred too strongly established to be defeated

without foreign aid. He therefore offered the crown of Southern Italy to

Charles of Anjou, the brother of king Louis IX. of France. Physically

and intellectually, there could be no greater contrast than between him

and Manfred. Charles of Anjou was awkward and ugly, savage, ignorant and

bigoted: Manfred was a model of manly beauty, a scholar and poet, a

patron of learning, a builder of roads, bridges and harbors, a just and

noble ruler.



Charles of Anjou, after being crowned king of Naples and Sicily by the

Pope, and having secured secret advantages by bribery and intrigue,

marched against Manfred in 1266. They met at Benevento, where, after a

long and bloody battle, Manfred was slain, and the kingdom submitted to

the usurper. By the Pope's order, Manfred's body was taken from the

chapel where it had been buried, and thrown into a trench: his widow and

children were imprisoned for life by Charles of Anjou.



[Sidenote: 1268. KONRADIN IN ITALY.]



The boy Konradin determined to avenge his uncle's death, and recover his

own Italian inheritance. His mother sought to dissuade him from the

attempt, but Ludwig of Bavaria offered to support him, and his dearest

friend, Frederick of Baden, a youth of nineteen, insisted on sharing his

fortunes. Towards the end of 1267, he crossed the Alps and reached

Verona with a force of 10,000 men. Here he was obliged to wait three

months for further support, and during this time more than two-thirds of

his German soldiers returned home. But a reaction against the Guelphs

(the Papal party) had set in; several Lombard cities and the Republic of

Pisa declared in Konradin's favor, and finally the Romans, at his

approach, expelled Pope Urban IV. A revolt against Charles of Anjou

broke out in Naples and Sicily, and when Konradin entered Rome, in July,

1268, his success seemed almost assured. After a most enthusiastic

reception by the Roman people, he continued his march southward, with a

considerable force.



On the 22d of August he met Charles of Anjou in battle, and was at first

victorious. But his troops, having halted to plunder the enemy's camp,

were suddenly attacked, and at last completely routed. Konradin and his

friend, Frederick of Baden, fled to Rome, and thence to the little port

of Astura, on the coast, in order to embark for Sicily; but here they

were arrested by Frangipani, the Governor of the place, who had been

specially favored by the Emperor Frederick II., and now sold his

grandson to Charles of Anjou for a large sum of money. Konradin having

been carried to Naples, a court of distinguished jurists was called, to

try him for high treason. With one exception, they pronounced him

guiltless of any crime; yet Charles, nevertheless, ordered him to be

executed.



[Sidenote: 1268.]



On the 29th of October, 1268, the last Hohenstaufen, a youth of sixteen,

and his friend Frederick, were led to the scaffold. Charles watched the

scene from a window of his palace; the people, gloomy and mutinous, were

overawed by his guards. Konradin advanced to the edge of the platform

and threw his glove among the crowd, asking that it might be carried to

some one who would avenge his death. A knight who was present took it

afterwards to Peter of Aragon, who had married king Manfred's eldest

daughter. Then, with the exclamation: "Oh, mother, what sorrow I have

prepared for thee!" Konradin knelt and received the fatal blow. After

him Frederick of Baden and thirteen others were executed.



The tyranny and inhuman cruelty of Charles of Anjou provoked a

conspiracy which, in the year 1282, gave rise to the massacre called

"the Sicilian Vespers." In one night all the French officials and

soldiers in Sicily were slaughtered, and Peter of Aragon, the heir of

the Hohenstaufens, became king of the island. But in Germany the proud

race existed no more, except in history, legend and song.