his perceived threat to papal autonomy, received no
explicit mention.
The struggle quickly developed its apocalyptic as
well as military aspects. Detractors called Frederick An-
tichrist; supporters hailed him as the expected messianic
ruler of the Last Day. Crucial to Frederick’s propaganda
was his minister Petrus de Vinea, the architect of a new
high rhetorical style that rivaled the fulminations of
the papal chancery. On the military front the emperor
and his subordinate commanders went from strength
to strength. The disputed territories of Spoleto and the
March were seized, and Frederick himself conducted an
invasion of papal territories farther north. After a long
siege Faenze surrendered. The emperor even managed
to ruin the pope’s impending Easter 1241 council in
Rome, where Frederick expected further condemna-
tions: his Pisan allies won a complete naval victory
near the island of Montecristo over the Genoese fl eet
carrying many prelates to Rome. More than a hundred
prospective council participants were captured and im-
prisoned under harsh conditions. But this triumph soon
boomeranged to Frederick’s discredit, for it confi rmed
the popes characterization of him as an oppressor of
the church.
The struggle consumed the emperor’s political and
military energies to such an extent that he played no
role in confronting the Mongol storm that since 1273
had swept irresistibly through the Russian principali-
ties, Poland, Hungary, and into Germany. At Liegnitz
in Silesia in 1241, the Mongols annihilated a German-
Polish army, but news of the death of their Great Khan
Ogotai and the expectation of a succession struggle led
to their withdrawal eastward. Nonetheless, Frederick
was still castigated by many German subjects for his
inactivity.
When Gregory IX died in August 1241, the em-
peror prudently awaited further developments. The
election and short pontifi cate of Celestine IV led to a
nineteen-month interregnum until a suffi cient number
of cardinals elected Innocent IV in 1243. Negotiations
began immediately between Frederick and the new
pope. The emperor offered several concessions, but
Innocent continued to distrust his commitments and to
fear his ultimate intentions. For their part, both papal
and imperial partisans occasionally broke the truce.
Eventually, the pope’s unwillingness to abandon the
Lombards convinced Frederick to break off negotiations
and secure his own safety through fl ight across the Alps
to Lyon in 1244.
To that city Innocent summoned a general council
to meet the following summer in order to deal with the
many accusations leveled against Frederick. When the
synod met, the verdict was a foregone conclusion: the
pope solemnly excommunicated the emperor again
and deposed him from his imperial and royal offi ces.
Under papal pressure in 1246 and 1247, several German
princes elected in succession antikings Henry Raspe of
Thuringia and William of Holland, but neither ultimately
had much effect on Frederick’s position in Germany.
More serious, however, were the conspiracies and
revolts in Italy. A plot by some Apulian offi cials and
aristocrats was discovered and crushed in 1246. Parma
unexpectedly revolted in 1247 against Frederick and
stymied his impending trip to Lyon and to Germany. To
retake Parma the emperor now ordered construction of
a new wooden siege town named Vittoria. But a sally
by the besieged while Frederick was absent hunting
scattered imperial forces, destroyed the siege town, and
infl icted heavy casualties in 1248. The emperor had to
discontinue the siege and withdraw. His misfortunes
continued during 1249. First Frederick narrowly escaped
an attempted poisoning by his personal physician. Next
he had his close associate, Petrus de Vinea, arrested
under mysterious circumstances as a traitor. Perhaps
Petrus’s actual crime was offi cial corruption; in any
event, he died shortly afterward, probably by suicide.
Finally, the emperor’s beloved son Enzio was captured
by the Bolognese, never to be released until his death
two decades later.
Despite these setbacks, Frederick’s position in Ger-
many, where Conrad IV defended his interests, was still
strong. And while the emperors political and military
fortunes in northern and central Italy swung back and
forth, he was still a force to be reckoned with. But a
decisive reckoning would not occur. While in Apulia
at the end of November 1250 Frederick became seri-
ously ill, probably with dysentery. He managed to reach
Castel Fiorentino; there he made his last testament,
disposing of titles and territories, received absolution
and extreme unction at the hands of a loyal bishop,
and died on December 13. Frederick was buried in the
cathedral of Palermo.
Frederick was an object of wonderment and fear
during his life, but his death marked the beginning of
the end for the Hohenstaufen dynasty; his sons and
grandson were overwhelmed by premature and often
violent deaths. The chronicler Matthew Paris called
the emperor “wonder and marvelous transformer of
the world” (stupor mundi et immutator mirabilis).
Frederick’s three major constitutional documents for
Germany—the Confoederatio cum principibus eccle-
siasticis, the Constitutio in favorem principum, and the
Mainz Landfriede—represented not the surrender of
his political position there but, instead, the salvaging
of royal prerogatives and a sober recognition of what
the princes had already achieved. It was Frederick’s
death and the disappearance of his dynasty that created
the interregnum that weakened forever the German
monarchy’s ability to imitate the piecemeal consoli-
dations of English and French royal power. In Sicily,FREDERICK II