Abstract
In the autumn of 1234, worrying news reached Emperor Frederick II: his son and heir, Henry (VII), the king of the Romans and emperor-elect, had allied himself with the Lombard League, the towns and communes of Northern Italy which, under the leadership of Milan, had repeatedly resisted Frederick’s attempts at establishing full authority in the north of the peninsula.1 This threatened to undermine the precarious hegemony which Frederick had been able to establish in Lombardy, and it also endangered a project which during these years had become central to his relationship with Pope Gregory IX: when Frederick, in the summer of 1234, announced that he was to visit Germany the following year, he had done so with the clear intention of using the visit to prepare for a new crusade.2 This was not merely a formality, or, as has frequently been suggested, an attempt by the emperor to exploit his contemporaries’ religious sensibilities.3 Rather, it was a way by which pope and emperor had been able to find a modus vivendi which allowed them to put aside, at least temporarily, the differences which only a few years earlier, in 1227, had led to Frederick’s excommunication, and which, in 1239, were to result in a second excommunication and, in 1245, even his deposition.4
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Notes
See most recently: M. Lower, The Barons’ Crusade. A Call to Arms and Its Consequences (Philadelphia, 2005), 19–21, 38–41, 159–64; for a more positive view: H.M. Schaller, ‘Die Frommigkeit Kaiser Friedrichs II’, Das Staunen der Welt: Kaiser Friedrich II. von Hohenstaufen 1194–1250, Schriften zur staufischen Geschichte und Kunst xv (Goppingen, 1996), 128–51; R. Hiestand, ‘Friedrich II. und der Kreuzzug’, Friedrich II: Tagung des deutschen Historischen Instituts in Rom im Gedenkjahr 1994, ed. A. Esch and N. Kamp (Tubingen, 1996), 128–49; although limiting its coverage to the actual crusade still useful: B. Hechelhammer, Kreuzzug und Herrschaft unter Friedrich II. Handlungsspielraume von Kreuzzugspolitik (1215–1230) (Ostfildern, 2004).
B. Weiler, ‘Frederick II, Gregory IX and the Liberation of the Holy Land 1231–9’, Studies in Church History xxxv (2000), 192–206.
Hechelhammer, Kreuzzug und Herrschaft, 211–23; M.A. Aziz, ‘La croisade de l’Empereur Frédéric II et l’Orient Latin’, Autour de la Premiere Croisade, ed. M. Balard (Paris, 1996), 373–8; W. Sturner, Friedrich II, 2 vols (Darmstadt, 1994–2000), ii. 130–68.
In 1231, for instance, he promulgated the Liber Augustalis, or the constitutions of Melfi, which sought to codify the legal practice of the kingdom of Sicily [Die Konstitutionen Friedrichs II. fur das Konigreich Sizilien, ed. W. Sttirner, M.G.H Leges (Hanover, 1996); for an English translation see The Liber Augustalis or Constitutions of Melfi Promulgated by the Emperor Frederick II for the Kingdom of Sicily in 1231, transl. by J.M. Powell (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1971)], while in 1232–4 he began to take a more active interest in the affairs of the kingdom of Burgundy [Layettes du Tresor de Chartes, ed. H.-F. Laborde and A. Teulet, 4 vols (Paris, 1863–1909), no. 2309; J. Chiffoleau, ‘I ghibellini de regno di Arles’, Federico II e le citta italiane, ed. P. Toubert and A. Paravacini Bagliani (Palermo: Sellerio, 1994), pp. 364–88].
This follows the more traditional reading proposed by Sturner, Friedrich II, 296–309; C. Hillen, Curia Regis. Untersuchungen zur Hofstruktur Heinrichs (VII). 1220–1235 nach den Zeugen seiner Urkunden (Frankfurt am Main, 1999), 214–36; P. Thorau, Konig Heinrich (VII.), das Reich und die Territorien. Untersuchungen zur Phase der Minderjahrigkeit und der ‘Regentschaften’ Erzbischof Engelberts I. von Köln und Herzog Ludwigs I. von Bayern (1211) 1220–38, Jahrbiicher der Deutschen Geschichte: Jahrbticher des Deutschen Reichs unter Heinrich (VII.), Teil I (Berlin, 1998), pp. 202–27; T. Broekmann, Rigor lustitine. Herrschaft, Recht und Terror im normannisch-staufischen Suden (1050–1250) (Darmstadt, 2005), 260–368, has suggested a conflict of political cultures as a driving factor of Frederick’s response. Although, as we will see, this was certainly one element, it does not invalidate the reading proposed here.
See L. Shepard, Courting Power: Persuasion and Politics in the Early Thirteenth Century (New York, 1999), for a recent case study.
Stiirner, Friedrich II, i. 231–5; G. Baaken, ‘Die Erhebung Heinrichs, Herzogs von Schwaben, zum Rex Romanorum (1220/1222)’, G. Baaken, Imperium und regnum. Zur Geschichte des 12. und 13. Jahrhunderts. Festschrift zum 70. Geburtstag, ed. K.-A. Frech and U. Schmidt (Cologne, Weimar and Vienna, 1997), 289–306.
In many ways, this was a problem not unlike the one which had faced Henry II in England after 1170, when he had his son Henry crowned king, but with the important difference that, in theory at least, Henry (VII) could exercise real political power in the heartlands of the Staufen Empire. Le Recueil des Historiens des Gaules et de la France xvi (Paris, 1814), pp. 643–8.
W. Stiirner, ‘Der Staufer Heinrich (VII.) (1211–1242): Lebensstationen eines gescheiterten Konigs’, Zeitschrift fiir Wurttembergische Landesgeschichte 52 (1993) 13–33.
H. Flachenecker, ‘Herzog Ludwig der Kelheimer als Prokurator Konig Heinrichs (VII.)’, Zeitschrift fur Bayerische Landesgeschichte 59 (1996), 835–48; Hillen, Curia Regis, 147–62.
K.A. Frech, ‘Ein Plan zur Absetzung Heinrichs (VII): die gescheiterte Legation Kardinal Ottos in Deutschland 1229–1231’, Von Schwaben bis Jemsalem: Facetten staufischer Geschichte, ed. S. Lorenz and U. Schmidt (Sigmaringen, 1995), 89–116; P. Thorau, ‘Die erste Bewahrungsprobe Heinrichs (VII.)’, Der Staufer Heinrich (VII.). Ein Konig im Schatten seines kaiserlichen Vaters (Goppingen, 2001), 43–52; Sttirner, Friedrich II., ii. 170–4.
Annales Marbacenses qui dicuntur (Cronica tiohenburgensis cum continuatio et additamentis Neoburgensibus), ed. H. Bloch, MGH SSrG sep. ed. (Hanover and Leipzig, 1907), 96.
HB iv. 531–3. On the bishops see: E. Freiherr von Guttenberg, Das Bistum Bamberg. Erster Teil, Germania Sacra: Zweite Abteilung — Die Bistumer der Kirchenprovinz Mainz 1 (Berlin and Leipzig, 1937), 164–70; A. Wendehorst, Das Bistum Wurzburg. Teil 1: Die Bischofsreihe bis 1254, Germania Sacra Neue Folge 1: Die Bistumer der Kirchenprovinz Mainz (Berlin, 1962), 211–17.
Hillen, Curia Regis, 214–36; K. Borchardt, ‘Der sogenannte Aufstand Heinrichs (VII.) in Franken 1234/35’, Forschungen zur bayerischen und frdnkischen Geschichte: Festschrift Peter Herde, ed. K. Borchardt and E. Btinz (Wii.rzburg, 1998), 53–119.
Urkundenbuch zur Geschichte der Babenberger in Osterreich. Vierter Band. Zweiter Halbband. Erganzende Quellen 1195–1287 ed. O. Freiherr von Mitis, H. Dienst, C. Lackner and H. Hageneder (Vienna and Munich, 1997), no. 1198.
Broekmann, Rigor Iustitiae, 272–8; B. Weiler, ‘Reasserting power: Frederick II in Germany (1235–6)’, Representations of Power in Medieval Germany, 700–1500, ed. S. MacLean and B. Weiler (Turnhoult, 2006), 241–70.
B. Keilmann, Der Kampf um die Stadtherrschaft in Worms während des 13. Jahrhunderts, Quellen und Forschungen zur hessischen Geschichte 50 (Darmstadt and Marburg, 1985), 47–80.
Gotidfredi Viterbensis Continuatio Eberbacensis, MGH SS 22, 348; Annales Wormatienses, in: Quellen zur Geschichte der Stadt Worms, ed. H. Boos, 3 vols (Berlin, 1886–93), ii. 146–8.
Ryccardi de Sancto Germano Notarii Chronica, ed. C.A. Carufi, RIS NS (Bologna: Niccola Zanichelli, 1936–8), p. 190.
Annales Erphordenses fratrum praedicatorum, in: Monumenta Erphesfurtensia saeculi xii., xiii., xiv., ed. O. Holder-Egger, MGH SSrG sep. ed. (Hanover and Leipzig, 1899), 89.
Annales Marbacenses qui dicuntur (Cronica Hohenburgensis cum continuatio et additamentis Neoburgensibus), ed. H. Bloch, MGH SSrG sep. ed. (Hanover and Leipzig: Hahn, 1907), p. 96.
Hillen, Curia Regis, pp. 214–19; Stiirner, Friedrich II., ii 302–9; G. Wolf, ‘Wimpfen, Worms und Heidelberg. Einige Bemerkungen zum Herrschaftsende Konig Heinrichs’, Zeitschrift fiir Geschichte des Oberrheins Neue Folge 98 (1989), 471–86.
A. Buschmann, ‘Landfriede und Verfassung. Zur Bedeutung des Mainzer Reichslandfriedens von 1235 als Verfassungsgesetz’, AusOsterreichsRechtsleben in Geschichte und Gegenwart. FS Ernst C. Hellbling (Berlin, 1981), pp. 449–72.
E. Boshof, ‘Reich und Reichsfiirsten in Herrschaftsverständnis und Politik Kaiser Friedrichs II. nach 1230’, Heinrich Raspe — Landgraf von Thilringen und romischer Konig (1227–1247), ed. M. Werner (Frankfurt/Main, 2003), pp. 3–27, at 10–11.
F. Hausmann, ‘Kaiser Friedrich II. und Osterreich’, Probleme um Friedrich II., ed. J. Fleckenstein (Sigmaringen, 1974), pp. 225–308 (pp. 242–56); H. Dopsch, K. Brunner and M. Weltin, Osterreichische Geschichte 1122–1278. Die Lander und das Reich. Der Ostalpenraum irn Hochmittelalter (Vienna, 1999), pp. 189–94; Stiirner, Friedrich II, ii. 263–6.
J.P. Huffman, ‘Prosopography and the Anglo-imperial connection: a Cologne ministerialis family and its English relations’, Medieval Prosopography 11 (1990), 53–134.
M. Morris, The Bigod Earls of Norfolk in the Thirteenth Century (Woodbridge, 2005) provides an illuminating case study.
B. Arnold, Princes and territories in medieval Germany (Cambridge, 1991); idem, ‘Emperor Frederick II (1194–1250) and the political particularism of the German princes’, JMH xxvi (2000), 239–52.
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© 2007 Björn Weiler
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Weiler, B. (2007). To Be King in Name as well as Deed: the Revolt of Henry (VII) in Germany (1234–5). In: Kingship, Rebellion and Political Culture. Medieval Culture and Society. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230593589_1
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