Frederick II 277EMPIRE, by promising Innocent III that he would abdicate
his Sicilian throne in favor of his son, young Henry, and
that he would go on a CRUSADEat the earliest opportunity.
On June 27, 1214, Otto IV was defeated at the Battle of
BOUVINESby Frederick’s ally, King PHILIPII AUGUSTUSof
France, and in 1215 Frederick was recognized as emperor-
elect by Pope Innocent III, who died soon after. Frederick
was crowned at Aachen later that year.
EARLY REIGNFrederick began his reign as emperor in Germany by ral-
lying the support of the magnates, both lay and ecclesias-
tical, by confirming in 1213 and 1220 the privileges they
had presumptuously usurped in 1197 on the death of
Emperor HENRYVI. He then made his son Henry king of
Germany and his viceroy and returned to ITA LY, which
henceforth occupied most of his attention, for Germany
never interested him other than as a source of funds and
manpower for his Italian projects. Immediately when he
returned, he persuaded the new Pope, Honorius III (r.
1216–27), to crown him emperor and managed to avoid
really giving up Sicily, as he had promised, on the
grounds that he needed to pacify it so that it could sup-
port his CRUSADE.
The first task Frederick undertook was to establish
firm control over the kingdom of Sicily, which had been
without an effective central government since 1197. In
1220, in contrast with his actions in Germany, he revoked
all privileges granted its towns and nobles since the death
of King William II in 1189, put down a Muslim revolt on
the island of Sicily itself, and began to organize his realm
into a tyrannical but well-administered kingdom. By
1225, prodded by Pope Honorius III, he had married
Yolanda or Isabel of Brienne (ca. 1212–28), heiress of the
kingdom of JERUSALEM, after his first wife, Constance (d.
1222), an Aragonese princess, died. Frederick made new
plans to proceed with his Crusade to the East. He was
still delaying this project when Pope Honorius died in- Honorius was succeeded by the aged pope GRE-
GORYIX (r. 1227–41), who, though more than 80 years
old, was an unrelenting enemy of Frederick. The aged
pope at once excommunicated him for not going on Cru-
sade and, when Frederick then left for the East in 1228
without having the excommunication lifted, excommuni-
cated him again. The pope then began planning a Cru-
sade against Frederick’s Sicilian domains, released
Frederick’s subjects from any oath to him, and tried to set
up a rival king in Germany.
Frederick proved successful in the East, where he
opened access to the city of JERUSALEMfrom the Muslims
by negotiation instead of war and crowned himself king
of Jerusalem. He returned in 1230 to find Pope Gregory
IX attacking his realm in Sicily. After he had defeated the
papal forces, he did not pursue the pope into the Papal
Estates but made Gregory lift his excommunication.
ITALY
In 1231 Frederick promulgated the Constitutions of Melfi
(Liber Augustalis), an important code of laws that gave
order to his kingdom in Sicily. By this code the indepen-
dence of towns and nobles was theoretically curbed, a
centralized judicial and administrative system was estab-
lished, mercenary armies were recruited, ecclesiastical
privileges were limited, and commerce and industry were
fostered by a uniform system of tolls and port dues and a
reliable gold currency. At the same time Frederick
increased his revenues by establishing royal monopolies
over such activities as salt production and the trade in
grain. Sicily soon became one of the most prosperous
realms in Europe.
Frederick next attempted to extend his centralized
rule to northern Italy, where in 1231 his plan was to sub-
jugate its cities by appointing podestàs,or governors or
judges, over them. This course alarmed the pope, who
saw the PAPACY, as in Henry VI’s time, threatened. Gre-
gory’s answer was to reopen hostilities against Frederick
II by attempting to revive the LOMBARDLEAGUEthat had
been used against Frederick’s grandfather, FREDERICK I
BARBAROSSA. When these same cities again rose against
him in support of the German revolt by his son, King
Henry, Frederick suppressed the revolt and in 1237 won a
great victory over the Milanese at Cortenuova. As a result
of this victory, this Lombard League temporarily col-
lapsed and most of its cities submitted to him, as did the
majority of the nobles of northern Italy.GERMANY
While Frederick was establishing his authority firmly in
Sicily and northern Italy, however, he followed quite a
different policy in Germany. In 1231 he issued the Consti-
tution in Favor of the Princes,which made the magnates
practically independent and even placed the imperial
cities under their rule. When his son Henry objected toCastel del Monte, a massive octagonal castle built by
Frederick II in about 1240, probably as a hunting lodge
(Courtesy Edward English)