Volume 3 — CHAPTER XXIII INFLUENCE OF THE MOORS ON EUROPE THROUGH THE EMPIRE OF FREDERICK II. AND THE STATES OF SOUTHERN FRANCE 1194–1250

Permanence of Arab Ideas in the South of Europe—Social Corruption—Revolts against the Papacy—Antagonism of the Holy See and the German Empire—Consolidation of the Papal Power under Innocent III.—Civilizing Agencies in Sicily—Influence of the Normans as Heirs of the Arabs—Birth of Frederick II.—Character of Innocent III.—Genius of the Emperor—His Reforms—System of Jurisprudence—Commerce—Legislation—The University of Naples—The Medical School of Salerno—Character of Frederick—His Court—The South of France—Its Early Civilization—Cosmopolitan Character of its Population—Its Wealth, Intelligence, and Profligacy—-Debased Condition of the Clergy—The University of Montpellier—The Troubadours—The Albigenses—Their Defiance of Rome—A Crusade is preached against Them—They are annihilated—Cruelty of the Crusaders—Parallel between the Civilization of Sicily and Languedoc—Survival of the Philosophical Principles and Opinions of the Thirteenth Century.

The extraordinary impulse to scientific investigation, to historical research, to the development and perfection of the industrial arts, to the extension of commerce, to the improvement of the social and economic conditions which are so intimately connected with the comfort and happiness of mankind, imparted by the Saracen kingdoms of Southern Europe, was far from being destroyed by the absorption or conquest of their provinces or by the final extinction of their empire. The progress of their humanizing influence upon other nations had been slow and imperceptible. The philosophical ideas and principles advanced by the Arab universities were necessarily hostile to the doctrines of Christianity, to the opinions of the Fathers, to the inspiration of an infallible Pope, to the imperious claims of ecclesiastical supremacy. In consequence of their heretical tendency, they were perused in secret; and the diligence with which this prohibited literature was studied is revealed by the number of sects which arose, and the defiance of Papal authority, which is the distinguishing characteristic of European annals during the first half of the thirteenth century. The doctrines taught at Cordova and Palermo inspired those audacious mediæval reformers, far in advance of their age, whose aspirations for intellectual and religious liberty were promptly and mercilessly extinguished at the stake and on the scaffold. The spirit of resistance to Papal aggression, corruption, and tyranny, temporarily checked, in time revived, and found permanent expression in the bold and revolutionary theories of the Reformation. These great and radical changes were not spontaneously effected; the causes of their development had been in silent operation for many centuries.

The schools of Moslem Spain and Sicily had long been the resort of students, ambitious of literary attainments and distinction, from every country in Europe. Princes of Castile and France had for generations enjoyed the benefits of the educational advantages to be obtained in the Spanish Peninsula. The proximity of the polished and luxurious towns of Sicily to the ancient seat of Roman greatness and power had produced a corresponding effect, less evident and less durable, it is true, but still most civilizing and beneficial, upon the ferocious barbarism which had succeeded the cruel and shameless vices of the Cæsars. The sacerdotal order had profited more largely than all others by the learning of the Mohammedans. Pope Sylvester II., the most accomplished ecclesiastic of his time, whose prodigious acquirements caused him to be accused of sorcery and led to his assassination by poison, was educated at the University of Cordova. Roger Bacon, another reputed wizard, had deeply imbibed the heretical but fascinating opinions of the sages of the Tagus and the Guadalquivir. In almost every European monastery, whose inmates, corrupted by wealth and depraved by sensual indulgence, had abandoned the ascetic habits of the cloister, the infidel works of the Arabian philosophers were studied with curiosity and delight by jovial monks, long strangers to the vows inculcated as cardinal precepts by the regulations of their order.

With the secular clergy, whose ostentatious luxury was proverbial, the case was even worse. While considerations of policy and self-interest prevented the avowal of principles totally at variance with the tenets of their profession, the fact that those principles were entertained was far from being a secret. The influential prelates of the Church, ignorant or heedless of the prejudicial effects which must inevitably ensue from familiarity with the works of the Moslem philosophers, did not vigorously attempt to suppress them until the mischief they had produced was almost irreparable. The unbelief and moral obliquity of the clergy reacted upon their flocks. The latter saw—first with surprise, then with indifference—the ill-concealed skepticism and open immorality of their spiritual counsellors. As a result of this lax and inconsistent behavior, society became permeated with hypocrisy. The popular tales of the Middle Ages, many of them undoubtedly founded on fact, indicate only too plainly the estimation in which the clergy were held by the people. That such pictures of ecclesiastical life could be drawn and published without interference or punishment shows not only the extent of the evil, but the recognition of its existence by every class of the community. The licentious stories of the mediæval writers were read or repeated with delight both in the palace of the noble and the hovel of the serf. One of the most remarkable of these collections owes its origin to the patronage of Louis XI., the Most Christian King of France.

Although the clergy, and especially the members of the monastic orders, were, in these facetious productions, uniformly represented as objects of hatred and contempt, the practice of the vices and weaknesses imputed to them was evidently so common to their calling as not even to arouse those feelings of resentment which would naturally arise from accusations so nearly affecting their piety and virtue. So little attention, indeed, was paid to these disclosures of the habits of ecclesiastics, that their recital formed one of the ordinary diversions of conventual life, and the Gesta Romanorum, which long maintained a questionable celebrity, is a monkish compilation. When the spiritual guides of a community are deliberately held up to ridicule as the incarnation of all that is vile, rapacious, and bestial, their usefulness as directors of the public conscience and arbiters of private morals is at an end. Their pernicious example was not lost upon the people, although their influence for good declined. Universal corruption became the most prominent trait of every rank of society. The most glaring acts of impiety remained unrebuked. National faith and personal obligations were alike unblushingly violated. Every revolting crime was committed by those whose means were sufficient to appease sacerdotal venality and purchase temporary absolution. No epoch in European history presents a more distressing picture of social demoralization, of royal perfidy, of priestly hypocrisy, of universal wickedness, than the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. But while this condition of affairs was productive of widespread moral debasement, it was not wholly an unmixed evil. The weakening of the sentiments of fatuous reverence with which things denominated sacred had for ages been regarded, awakened among the masses a spirit of intellectual independence. The right of the exercise of private judgment began to be first tolerated, and afterwards tacitly recognized. Then originated the great moral revolution which, subsequently checked and almost overwhelmed by the power of the Papacy and disgraced by scenes of horror to which history affords no parallel, ended in the momentous struggle of the sixteenth century, and the permanent triumph of reason over dogma, of intelligence over ecclesiastical authority.

But it was not only by the removal of superstitious prejudice, through the comparison of creeds, the judicious employment of the principles of philosophical criticism, and the public exposure of the lives of the clergy, that this great and beneficial change was accomplished. The commerce of the European Moslems was almost coextensive with the world at that time familiar to mariners. The excellence and beauty of their wares, unequalled by those of any other nation, were eagerly sought after by the wealthy and luxurious inhabitants of Christian countries. Merchants, traders, and students had spread far and wide accounts of the marvels to be seen beyond the Pyrenees,—opulent and flourishing communities, where the meanest citizen was in the daily enjoyment of comforts unattainable as luxuries by the greatest potentates of Christendom; edifices whose decorations surpassed in richness the wildest conceptions of Oriental fiction; vast plantations, where fruits, unknown to colder climes, grew in prodigal abundance; caravansaries and markets crowded with a profusion of costly fabrics, and resounding with a Babel of strange and guttural tongues; institutions of learning frequented by tens of thousands of students, whose attainments—extraordinary in a world of ignorance—were believed to have been secured by an unholy compact with the infernal powers.

The existence of this civilization in close proximity to the semi-barbarous Mediterranean nations and the salutary experience of its benefits could not fail to produce upon the latter a deep and lasting impression. The Crusades, also, to some extent had enlarged the minds of the fierce warriors of the West. Their respect had been inspired by the equal valor and superior intelligence of their Mohammedan adversaries; and a Saracen was no longer, as formerly, considered a demon incarnate, destitute of honor, insatiable of blood, incapable of compassion, ignorant alike of the courtesies of war and the suggestions of humanity. These various moral and physical agencies, acting through the maintenance of maritime intercourse and the promiscuous association with travellers of every description, gradually produced effects long unperceived and unappreciated by the class whose material interests were most vitally endangered.

The dawn of the thirteenth century witnessed the outbreak and the arrest of two most significant movements of the human mind, destined to exercise immense influence on the intellectual character and political destiny of Europe. The one appeared in Sicily; arose under the auspices and was supported by the power of the Emperor Frederick II.,—that prodigy of mediæval learning and diplomacy, great by birth, and, through the hereditary traditions of his line, still greater through the talents with which he was endowed and the accomplishments that adorned his character; a colossal figure among the pygmy soldiers and churchmen of his time; a combination of opposite and eccentric qualities; brave but treacherous, impetuous but crafty; a skeptic, and an unrelenting persecutor of heretics; at one time heading a crusade for the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre; at another marshalling Saracen armies against the partisans of the Pope; a vassal of the Holy See, and an open ally and friend of the infidel; a professed champion of Christianity, while endeavoring to wrest from its acknowledged head that spiritual dominion which invested him with unlimited power over the lives, the fortunes, and the ultimate destiny of men; legislator, troubadour, author, naturalist; “a poet in an age of schoolmen, a philosopher in an age of monks, a statesman in an age of crusaders.”

The other intellectual revolution against ecclesiastical traditions and Papal despotism originated in the sunny lands of Provence and Languedoc, between the Mediterranean and the Pyrenees. That region, early overrun and colonized by the Saracen, had long remained subject to the Mohammedan princes of Spain. Although nominally Christian, its population was deeply infected with heterodox and atheistical opinions. The country had never lost the characteristics peculiar to the Moslem conqueror,—the intelligent and persevering cultivation of the soil, the venturesome spirit of commercial enterprise, the development and profitable adaptation of every natural resource, the pride of ostentatious luxury, the profound distrust of the female sex, which condemns its members to the seclusion of the harem. Amidst the freedom and gayety of its semi-Oriental cities, sectaries of every creed lived unquestioned and undisturbed. Polygamy was practised without concealment or reproach; scarcely a castle of count or baron was without its numerous seraglio. Education was general, and remarkable in its scope and efficiency when contrasted with the ignorance of contemporaneous societies. The famous University of Montpellier, a manifestation of the intellectual ideas and spirit which pervaded the South of France, was for generations a monument of the progress and erudition of the inhabitants of Languedoc. Among the public teachers were many Jews and Mohammedans, who, in addition to the profound and varied learning of the schools of Cordova, brought to the notice of a curious and speculative race theories that boded ill to the ecclesiastical establishment, which, stained with every hideous and disgusting vice, was fast sinking into universal and deserved contempt. The practice of improvisation,—the composition of extemporaneous poetry,—derived from the imaginative but unlettered tribes of the Arabian Desert, and for generations the delight of the capitals of Moorish Spain, found here its most fascinating expression and its highest development. Next to the prince himself, the troubadour was the most important personage of the Provençal court. His accomplishments, often acquired by association with the Moslem, were the envy of the cavalier and the horror of the priest. His elegant manners and poetical talents gained for him the passionate adoration of high-born ladies, whose beauty he celebrated in florid and licentious verse. His satires were often directed against the clergy, whose lives too readily furnished cause for ridicule and censure. With him occasionally travelled the jongleur, who, to the recitation of amorous chants, added the charm of harmonious minstrelsy. The ditties of the troubadours, like the coarse and facetious tales of this and subsequent periods, afforded an unfailing index of popular taste and prevalent opinions. In their lays the ecclesiastic is almost invariably an object of derision. His hypocrisy, his licentiousness, his greed, are depicted in language which admits of no palliating or ambiguous interpretation. He is constantly represented as the proverbial embodiment of all that is execrable and repulsive. If a butt for ridicule was needed, to give an appropriate climax to a story composed for the amusement of the court, the monastery could be relied upon to furnish an inexhaustible number of subjects, whose foibles were at once recognized by the delighted and scoffing auditors. The sacred calling of the ministers of religion was constantly made the occasion of ribald pleasantry; the tricks of practical jokers were played with impunity upon every incumbent of the sacerdotal dignity, from the haughty bishop to the cowled and barefooted friar. Even the populace, in whom the spirit of superstitious reverence is always the first to be awakened and the last to be destroyed, shared in an equal degree the feelings of their superiors. The vagrant rhymer, declaiming his sarcastic verses in the streets or by the wayside, was always sure of a liberal and appreciative audience. Such a condition of society indicates a certain degree of intellectual progress which can only result from independence of thought and moral irresponsibility of action. The extraordinary opinion began to be advanced and largely accepted that the investiture of the priesthood, of itself, conveyed no special virtue which dispensed with the rules of social morality or conferred immunity from public criticism. This idea, at variance with all the traditions of a Church which attached the highest importance to the rigid observance of mere formalities, was followed by others of even more novel and startling character. The unbroken intercourse with the Moslem principalities of the Peninsula had introduced into a country, whose people might, in some degree, justly claim consanguinity with the Saracens of Andalusia, the arts, the philosophy, and the erudition which had long embellished the accomplished courts of the Western Khalifate. Hence arose the popularity of the works of Averroes, and the general familiarity with the pantheistic ideas of Indian origin, subsequently adopted by the heretical sects which, from time to time, sprang up to vex the Papal orthodoxy of Europe. With their importation into France, the doctrines of the Arab philosophers were invested with a far broader significance than had ever been claimed by those who first inculcated their truths. The gay ballads of the South assumed a greater license of sentiment and language than their prototypes, whose freedom had provoked the censure of the Mohammedan society of the Guadalquivir, little inclined to displays of prudish morality. It was from such beginnings that were derived the suggestions of those memorable religious revolutions which, headed by Wyclif in England, Huss in Bohemia, and Luther in Germany, in defiance of the tremendous power of the Vatican, impressed an indelible seal upon the character and belief of so large a portion of the inhabitants of the civilized globe. The influence that Troubadour and Trouvère—poets and minstrels—during their incessant wanderings exerted upon the provincial dialects in which their productions were composed, and the extensive distribution of the latter, did more than all else to form and perfect the language of France. It was the same in Italy. That country also indirectly owes the sweet and musical accents of its graceful idiom, equally adapted to the descriptions of the historian, the representations of the dramatist, and the melodious versification of the poet, to a race foreign in all its characteristics and traditions to that quarter of the world where it exercised its greatest power. As with poetry, so it was with other manifestations of genius. Much of the architecture of Southern Europe, and especially those buildings devoted to religious worship, present unmistakable evidences of their Moorish origin; and thus the law of Mohammed, while it failed to retain its dominion over the minds of men, was enabled to perpetuate the memory of the arts, which it promoted in the construction of magnificent and imposing edifices raised for the celebration of the rites of another and an inimical religion. In a thousand ways, the march of intellectual improvement, suggested by the presence and example of Moslem skill and learning, was accelerated in the provinces of the South of France. The active minds of the inhabitants of the valley of the Rhone devoured with eagerness the extravagant tales of Moorish fiction, and their curiosity was stimulated by the study of the maxims of Plato and Aristotle contained in Arabic versions of those writers. Their manners insensibly became softened, their ideas were enlarged, their tastes were cultivated; they no longer regarded the torture of heretics and the massacre of infidels as conformable to the precepts of a religion based upon “peace and good-will to men.” With deep disgust they threw off their allegiance to the Church of Rome. Woman, hitherto a slave, subjected to the caprice of an imperious and irresponsible master, was raised by the hand of chivalry and made the cherished companion, if not the equal, of her lord. Semi-barbarous Europe looked with wonder upon a land so blessed by nature and adorned by art; where the remains of classic antiquity were taught in the same schools with the botany of Syria and the chemistry of Spain; where a philosophic spirit of inquiry had awakened the noblest aspirations of the human intellect, and where knightly courtesy had replaced the rudeness of the sword.

This advanced civilization had, unfortunately, come four centuries too soon. The fears of the Papacy were excited, and a ferocious crusade, which spared neither rank, age, sex, nor infirmity, was published against the unfortunate Albigenses. Upon the ruins of one of the most refined societies that had arisen to instruct mankind since the days of Athenian greatness, a society which embodied all that was interesting, learned, profitable, or entertaining in human life, was erected the Inquisition, the bane of science, and the implacable foe of civil and religious liberty.

The great contest of the thirteenth century between the Empire and the Holy See for the mastery of the world derived its origin from the barbarian occupation of Italy. The imperial dignity of the Cæsars embodied, as is well known, not only its supreme exercise, but the prestige and the mysterious power which attached to the place of Pontifex Maximus, the prototype of the Papacy. That power had been solemnly confirmed, and materially enlarged, by the ambition and politic measures of Constantine. The occasional employment of the Bishop of Rome as arbiter of the differences between the Sees of Constantinople and Alexandria had magnified the importance and insensibly extended the jurisdiction of his office. Aspiring prelates, who held their court on the banks of the classic Tiber, in sight of the stupendous memorials of ancient civilization, soon began to arrogate to themselves a preponderance in the determination of secular matters to which their comparatively obscure predecessors had advanced no claim. The texts of Scripture were invoked and interpreted to confirm their pretensions. In addition to the alleged vicarious sovereignty vested in them by the traditional choice of the Saviour, they asserted that the privileges and authority enjoyed by the Pontifex Maximus were theirs by the right of inheritance. They insisted, moreover, that as celestial matters were of far greater importance to mankind than any connected with the affairs of a transitory life, the sacredness of their exalted position conferred extraordinary prerogatives, and that the imperial power was subordinate to, and, under some circumstances, actually merged into, the pontifical dignity. By thus shrewdly taking advantage of every circumstance which could either strengthen its influence or extend its jurisdiction, the Holy See subjected to its tyrannical and irresponsible sway a far more extensive and populous territory than had ever paid reluctant tribute to the masters of imperial Rome. Excommunication, anathema, and interdict, the means by which this tremendous authority was enforced, were moral instruments which appealed with irresistible force to the fears of a superstitious age.

The barbarian invasions, which swept away the last vestige of imperial greatness, introduced the heretical doctrines of Arius into Southern Europe. The religious antagonism resulting from the incessant clash of adverse opinions was perpetuated by the mutual jealousies of king and bishop, until the accession of Charlemagne practically united in the hands of that emperor the temporal and sacerdotal powers,—the dominion of the earth, and the control of an order whose members were universally regarded as mediators with heaven. With his death the exercise of the exalted prerogative of spiritual jurisdiction reverted to the Papacy. The claim to its enjoyment was never afterwards successfully urged by any monarch who was entitled, by right of inheritance, to the dignities and privileges of the Carlovingian empire. By degrees, the resistless influence of intellectual superiority, quietly, but none the less powerfully exerted, began to manifest itself. It was to the fact that the Church monopolized all the learning of early mediæval times, even more than to the reverence that attached to the holy calling of its ministers, that its boundless power over the most truculent and merciless barbarians is to be attributed. A mysterious and exaggerated importance was ascribed to that profession whose members held communion with past ages; who called down the blessings or the maledictions of celestial beings in a tongue unknown to the vulgar; who communicated, in unintelligible characters, with the learned and the wise of distant nations; and who, in the seclusion of the laboratory, indulged in pursuits condemned by the canons of their faith, but occasionally productive of results whose character, remarkable for that epoch, not infrequently acquired for the monkish chemist the unenviable and perilous title of conjuror. The literary and scientific attainments acquired in the cloister bore, however, no comparison to the erudition of those countries where Saracen energy and munificence had long promoted the exercise and expansion of the highest faculties of the human intellect. The knowledge possessed by the clergy was only extensive by contrast with the impenetrable ignorance by which they were surrounded, and which it was their interest to diligently propagate and maintain.

The era which witnessed the climax of Papal supremacy was coincident with the most thoroughly concerted and menacing attempt at its overthrow ever directed by any secular potentate. The birth of Frederick II. preceded the election of Innocent III. to the Holy See only three years. In the deadly struggle that arose between these two mighty antagonists,—a struggle which was far more political than religious, and whose tempting prize was the dominion of the earth,—the influence of the Saracen was a powerful, and, in many instances, a predominant factor. Moslem laws, institutions, and customs had for centuries, amidst communities hostile in origin and belief, survived alike the existence of their own dynasties and the domination of their conquerors. Tribal dissensions and hereditary enmity had prompted and facilitated the destruction of the splendid Mohammedan empire in Sicily. In its turn, the Norman kingdom, after a prolonged and stormy existence, in which the Moorish tributaries played no inconsiderable part, lost its identity; and, by the marriage of Constance, the mother of Frederick II., with Henry VI., was merged into the German Empire. During the great political and moral revolutions which disposed of crowns and repeatedly changed the destinies of the island, the Arab element of the population maintained an undisputed superiority in arts, in commerce, in literature,—in short, in all professions and employments save that of war alone. The semi-barbarian conqueror, whose only passports to distinction were the dexterity with which he wielded lance and sword and the undaunted courage with which he faced tenfold odds, early recognized the advantages of that intellectual power which enabled his Moorish vassals to cope with, and overreach, in both trade and diplomacy, the astute politicians of Christian Italy. This exotic population, notwithstanding the successive calamities which had afflicted it, exhibited through long periods of time no extraordinary diminution of numbers, a fact no doubt largely attributable to the prevalence of polygamous customs. In the centre of the island many Moorish settlements, defended by impregnable fortresses, subsisting by pastoral occupations, and whose comparative poverty offered little inducement to invasion, remained in tranquillity and in the enjoyment of a rustic independence. In the great seaports, on the other hand, the Moslem tributaries retained under foreign domination all of the refinement and much of the splendor which had distinguished the luxurious court of the emirs. In these vast emporiums, where were constantly assembled the merchants of every Christian and of every Mohammedan state, a numerous, motley, and industrious people pursued, without oppression or hinderance, all the avocations of thriving mercantile communities. The peculiar adaptability of the genius of the Norman to novel social and political conditions, a quality which was the main source of his prosperity and greatness, was never more prominently displayed than after the conquest which transferred the sceptre of Sicily from one race of foreign adventurers to another. No more striking antagonism of national customs, religious prejudices, habits, and traditions could be conceived than that existing between the victor and the vanquished. One came from the borders of the Arctic Circle; the original home of the other was in the Torrid Zone. Both traced their lineage to tribes steeped in barbarism and idolatry; but the Norman, though he had changed his system of worship, still retained many of its objectionable and degrading features, while the Arab professed a creed that regarded with undisguised abhorrence the adoration of images and the invocation of saints. In the arts of civilization, there was no corresponding advance which could suggest resemblance or justify comparison. Poverty, ignorance, ferocity, still remained the characteristics of the Norman, as when, with a handful of resolute companions, he scattered to the winds the armies of the Sicilian Mussulman. The latter, however, if inferior in endurance and martial energy to his conqueror, was possessed of accomplishments which justly entitled him to a prominent rank in the community of nations. No circumstance of honor, of distinction, of inventive genius, was wanting to exalt his character or magnify his reputation. The fame of his military achievements had filled the world. His commercial relations had made his name familiar to and respected by remote and jealous races, to whom the Christian kingdoms of Europe were unknown. His civil polity was admirably adapted to the character and necessities of the people its laws were intended to govern. Under those laws, administered by a succession of great princes, Moslem society had become opulent, polished, and dissolute beyond all example, but eventually and inevitably enervated and decadent. Political and social disorganization had not, however, entirely destroyed the prestige earned by ages of military glory and intellectual pre-eminence. The schools of Cordova had been swept away by hordes of African fanatics. Her libraries had been scattered or destroyed. Her incomparable palaces had been levelled with the ground or had succumbed to the gradual decay to which they had been abandoned by ferocious chieftains, alike ignorant of the arts and indifferent to the claims of civilization. But the glory of the fallen metropolis had been reflected upon the provincial capitals of a distracted and dismembered monarchy. Malaga, Granada, Toledo, Seville, were still celebrated as seats of learning; civil war had interrupted but not extinguished the pursuit of science; a taste for letters counteracted in some degree the thirst for blood which prompted the atrocities of tribal hate and hostile faction; and the chivalrous intercourse established at intervals between the two races contending for national superiority afforded a happy if a deceptive image of affluence and security. ‘The Sicilian Mohammedans, while the vicissitudes and calamities of their history presented in miniature a general resemblance to those experienced by their brethren of the Spanish Peninsula, were never subjected to such repeated and overwhelming disasters as fell to the lot of the subjects of the Ommeyade dynasty and of the principalities which inherited its enmities, and the shattered fragments of its once vast and populous but cumbersome empire. The Norman acquisition of Sicily, unlike the Spanish Reconquest, was accomplished with surprising ease and rapidity. In the former instance there was but little of that indiscriminate ferocity which was characteristic of the conflicts of the Middle Ages, and especially of these where religious interests were directly involved. The experience of the conquerors—obtained in many lands—enabled them to appreciate the value of the monuments of a highly developed civilization, whose promoters were soon to pass under their sceptre. For this reason there was no ruthless spoliation of cities, no indiscriminate devastation of a fertile country which had been reclaimed by infinite toil and perseverance from an unpromising prospect of marsh, ravine, and precipice. The tangible results of three hundred years of national progress and culture were transmitted, with but little impairment, to the victorious foreigner. These advantages were at once grasped and appropriated with an avidity absolutely phenomenal in a people whose career had been dictated by the predatory instincts of the bandit, and whose manners had been formed amidst the license of the camp, the superstition of the cloister, and the carnage of the field.

Norman Sicily exhibited, to all intents and purposes, a prolongation, under happier auspices, of that dominion to which the island owed its prosperity and its fame. The influence of Moorish thrift, capacity, and skill was everywhere manifest and acknowledged. Its silent operation facilitated its progress and increased its power. The maritime interests of the island were in the hands of the Moslems; they controlled the finances; they negotiated treaties; to them was largely confided the administration of justice and the education of youth. Their integrity was acknowledged even by those whose practices appeared most unfavorable by contrast; their versatile talents not infrequently raised them to the highest and most responsible posts of the Norman court. That court is declared by contemporary historians to have equalled in splendor and culture those of Cairo and Bagdad. This comparison, while the highest encomium that could be pronounced upon its grandeur and brilliancy, also denoted unmistakably the Oriental influence which pervaded it. Great dignitaries, with pompous titles and retinues imposing in numbers and magnificence, exercised the principal employments of the crown. A rigid system of subordination and accountability was established, governing the conduct of the minor officials in their relations to their superiors and to the sovereign. The gradations in rank of these civil magistrates were numerous, and their respective duties plainly and accurately defined. The system of fiefs had never obtained in Northern Italy, owing to the extraordinary growth of maritime enterprise, the mutual jealousies engendered by commercial rivalry, the prejudices of the Lombard population, hostile to the restraints and abuses which the adoption of that system implied, the foundation of many independent and wealthy communities,—conditions naturally incompatible with the maintenance of an establishment based upon obligations of military service and baronial protection. In Apulia and Northern Sicily, however, Norman domination transplanted, to some extent, the laws and customs of Western Europe, which found a congenial soil in provinces already familiar with the exactions of Saracen despotism. But the feudal system of Norman rule had lost much of its original severity, and had been curtailed of those oppressive privileges with difficulty endured even in countries for centuries accustomed to the suffering and degradation they entailed. These modifications were so extensive and radical as to be almost revolutionary in their nature. The disputes of lord and vassal, of noble and suzerain, were decided by a court of judicature. Villeinage, as recognized elsewhere in Europe, was practically unknown. While the villein was attached to the glebe and passed with its transfer, he could not be persecuted with impunity; he could own property and alienate it, make wills, ransom his services, and, in many other respects, exercise the rights of a freeman, while still subject to the disabilities of a serf. The days of compulsory labor enjoined upon him were prescribed by law. His testimony was admissible in the trial of causes; he could not be illegally deprived of the results of his industry when his duties to his lord had been faithfully discharged; and, under certain circumstances, he was permitted to enter the clerical profession, whose opportunities might open to an aspiring zealot a career of the highest distinction.

The barbarian prejudices of the Norman conqueror survived in many institutions inherited from ages of gross superstition and ignorance. Among these were the absurd and iniquitous trials by fire, water, and judicial combat, prevalent in societies dominated partly by priestcraft and partly by the sword. But more correct ideas of the true character of evidence and its application, acquired from association with a people familiar with the codes of Justinian and Mohammed, eventually mitigated the evils produced by such irrational procedure; and, while not entirely abandoned, its most offensive features were gradually suffered to become obsolete. In other respects, the administration of justice—for the excellence of its system, for the rapidity with which trials were conducted, for the opportunity afforded the litigant for appeal and reversal of judgment—was remarkable. Invested with a sacred character, the judge, in the honor of his official position, was inferior to the king alone. His person was inviolable. No one might question his motives or dispute his authority under penalty of sacrilege. The head of the supreme court of the kingdom, by which all questions taken on appeal from the inferior tribunals were finally adjudicated, was called the Grand Justiciary. His powers and dignity claimed and received the highest consideration. None but men conspicuously eminent for learning and integrity were raised to this exalted office. The Grand Justiciary, although frequently of plebeian extraction, took precedence of the proud nobility, whose titles, centuries old and gained in Egypt and Palestine, had already become historic. A silken banner, the emblem of his office, was carried before him. In public assemblies and royal audiences he sat at the left hand of the sovereign. Only the constable, of all the officials of the crown, approached him in rank. These unusual honors paid to a dignitary whose title to respect was due, not to personal prowess or to hereditary distinction, but to the reverence attaching to his employment, indicate a great advance in the character of a people which, but a few years before, acknowledged no law but that of physical superiority, no tribunal but that of arms. In the other departments of government—in finance, in legislation, in the regulations of commerce, in the protection and encouragement of agriculture, in the maintenance of order—the Norman domination in Sicily presented an example of advanced civilization to be seen nowhere else in Europe, except in the Moorish principalities of Spain. The system of taxation not only embraced regular assessments, but authorized such extraordinary contributions as might be required for the construction of great public works or demanded by the exigencies of war. A powerful and well-equipped navy enforced the authority and protected the rights of the Norman kings in the Mediterranean. In the classification of orders, ecclesiastics were not, as elsewhere, granted extraordinary privileges by reason of their sacred profession. Those of rank were enrolled among the feudatories; the inferior clergy were relegated to the intermediate grade of subjects placed between the noble and the serf; all were, equally with the laity, responsible for infractions of the laws. The monarch was the head of the Church under the Pope; the office of Papal legate, which he usurped, was assumed, by a convenient fiction, to have been transmitted by inheritance; he exercised the rights of the erection of bishoprics, the presentation of benefices, the translation of prelates, the exemption of abbeys; he imposed taxes on the priesthood, and, when occasion demanded, did not hesitate to seize and appropriate property set aside for the uses of public worship. In his dominions, the Pope, while the nominal head of Christendom, was merely a personage of secondary importance, with little real influence and with no prestige save that derived from his venerated title and from his residence in that city which had once given laws to the world. The Papacy, it is true, had not yet fully established those portentous claims to empire which subsequently brought the most remote countries under its jurisdiction; but its aspiring pontiffs had already laid the foundations of their despotism; and this defiance of their authority, at the very gates of the capital of Christendom, was fraught with the most vital consequences to the future peace and welfare of Europe.

No people presented greater variety in manners, language, habits, and religion than that of Norman Sicily. The mingling of strange tongues, the constant recurrence of picturesque costumes, denoted the presence of many distinct nationalities. In general, although close relations were maintained and intermarriages were common, the different races were distributed in separate quarters and districts, and existed as castes. Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Arabic, as well as the harsh and barbaric dialects of Germany and France, were spoken; the laws of each nation were suffered to prevail, except when they conflicted with the supreme authority; enforced proselytism and religious persecution were unknown; and, in a society of such a diversified character, it was impossible that national prejudice could obtain a permanent foothold. The tendency of public opinion, as well as the policy of the government, was towards the indulgence of religious and intellectual freedom. In no respect was this liberality so apparent as in the treatment of the Jews. Elsewhere in Europe they were considered the legitimate prey of every oppressor; liable to be transferred by entire communities, like so many cattle, from one petty tyrant to another; robbed and tortured with impunity; incapacitated from invoking the protection of the laws; rendered powerless by centuries of systematic oppression to exert the right of self-defence or to successfully appeal to arms in an age of anarchy and violence. In Sicily, under the Normans, an enlightened public sentiment dictated the measures pursued in the treatment of an enterprising but unfortunate people. Their usefulness to the state was recognized by the immunities they enjoyed. For generations, no badge of infamy or servitude made them conspicuous in the crowded streets; no onerous taxes were laid upon them as a class; they shared, in large measure, the rights and privileges of other citizens; no tribunal was permitted to discriminate against them in the dispensation of justice; they were not prohibited from exercising the profession of bankers, but the rate of interest they might exact was limited to ten per cent.

The lustre of Saracen civilization was rather heightened than tarnished by the Norman conquest. The stability and confidence which the rule of the victors produced more than compensated for the damage inevitably resulting from their military operations. The supremacy of law was everywhere established. Tribal animosity, which had been the curse of Moslem society, was suppressed, if not entirely eradicated. The seaports increased rapidly in extent and opulence. Palaces of equal dimensions and beauty, but more substantial in their construction, replaced the airy and picturesque villas which had displayed the taste of the Moorish princes. Massive stairways afforded access to the broad stone quays encumbered with the merchandise of the Mediterranean. The narrow and tortuous thoroughfares of the Orient gave way to wide and well-paved avenues adapted to the commercial necessities of a numerous trading population. As formerly, under Greek and Moslem, Palermo exhibited, in the highest degree, the influence and progress of the arts of civilization. Its citadel, defended by every resource of military science, was of such extent as to merit of itself the appellation of a city. Here were situated the warehouses, the bazaars, the baths, the markets, the churches, and the mosques. Above it rose the castle reared by the Normans, the solid blocks which composed its walls being covered with arabesques and inscriptions. The residences of the merchants and the nobility were conspicuous for their number and elegance; the royal palace was in itself a marvel of architectural grandeur and sybaritic luxury. But the edifices which struck the imagination of the stranger most forcibly were the two great shrines respectively allotted to Christian and to Moslem worship. Sectarian rivalry had exhausted itself in their construction and adornment. The mosque was one of the most superb in all Islam. Its beauty was enhanced by its rich tapestries, and by the exquisite coloring and gilding it exhibited in the delicate carvings which embellished its interior. But grand and beautiful as it was, the Christian cathedral was generally conceded to surpass it in those material attractions which appeal most strongly to the senses of the enthusiastic and the devout. Arab writers have vied with each other in celebrating the majesty and splendor of this famous temple. The combined skill of the Moorish and the Byzantine artist had been laid under contribution in its embellishment. The walls were incrusted with gold, whose dazzling brilliancy was relieved by panels of precious marble of various colors bordered with foliage of green mosaic. The columns were sculptured with floral ornaments, interspersed with inscriptions in Cufic characters. The lofty cupola, covered with glistening tiles, was one of the landmarks of the capital, and, projected against the cloudless sky, was the most prominent object which caught the eye of the expectant mariner. Around the city, rising in terraces, like the seats of an amphitheatre, were the suburbs, verdant with the luxuriant vegetation of every country that could be reached by the enterprise of man, through whose leafy screen appeared at intervals the gayly painted villas of the merchant princes or the sumptuous and imposing palaces of the Norman aristocracy.

Amidst the numerous measures originated and brought to maturity by the new domination, it is remarkable that no especial encouragement was afforded to institutions of learning. A tradition exists of the academy of the great Count Roger, but it is only a tradition. No national university was founded to perpetuate the fame or to exalt the benefits of regal patronage. No general plan of promoting the education of the masses was inaugurated. The Jewish and Saracen schools, however, still survived; they were often the recipients of royal generosity, and were resorted to by such Christians as were desirous of profiting by the valuable instruction they afforded. As elsewhere in Christendom, the clergy were the general depositaries of knowledge,—an advantage which they thoroughly understood, and were by no means willing to voluntarily relinquish. In one respect alone their power was seriously curtailed. The spurious medicine of the time, as practised under the sanction of the Holy See, had raised up a herd of ignorant and mercenary ecclesiastical charlatans. These operated by means of chants, relics, and incense; and their enormous gains were one of the chief sources of revenue to the parish and the monastery, and a corresponding burden on the people. King Roger abolished this abuse, and required an examination, by experienced physicians, of all candidates for the profession of medicine and surgery, restricting those whose superstition was ineradicable or whose learning was deficient to the clandestine ministrations of the shrine and the confessional.

In the subjugated race, which had inherited the wisdom and experience of many ages and peoples, is to be discerned the principal, and indeed the indispensable, factor of Norman prosperity and civilization. Its characteristics had been deeply impressed upon the various regulations which controlled the destinies of the island; they reappeared in the military organization, in the civil polity, in the social customs, in the architectural designs, even in the religious ceremonial, of the conquerors. The invaders were but a handful in number; but the moral influence they wielded, through invincible valor, prodigious personal strength, and inflexible tenacity of purpose, at once gave them almost undisputed ascendency. These qualities, however, could not, unaided, found or maintain a flourishing state eminent in those arts which contribute to the welfare and opulence of nations. Oriental craft, refinement, and learning were able, however, to supply the deficiencies of whose existence the rude and unpolished Western adventurers were thoroughly cognizant. The Moslem stood high in the confidence and favor of the Norman princes. Quick to appreciate and meet the exigencies of every occasion, his prowess was invaluable in the suppression of anarchy and the establishment of order. Saracen cavalry were enrolled by thousands in the Norman armies. Saracen councillors stood in the shadow of the throne. Saracens collected taxes and administered the public revenues. They conducted, with the artful diplomacy characteristic of their race, important negotiations with foreign powers. Their religious assemblies were protected from intrusion and insult with the same solicitude which assured the inviolability of Christian worship. The unobstructed enjoyment and disposal of real and personal property was accorded to them by the laws. Their impress on the customs of social and domestic life was deep and permanent. The prevailing language of court and city alike was Arabic. Eunuchs, in flowing robes and snowy turbans, swarmed in the palaces of king, noble, and bishop. Dark-eyed beauties of Moorish lineage filled the harems of the martial and licentious aristocracy. The kadi, retaining the insignia and authority of his original official employment, was an important member of the Sicilian judiciary. He not only determined the causes of his countrymen, but was frequently the trusted adviser of the monarch. From the summits of a hundred minarets which seemed to pierce the skies, the muezzin, shrilly intoning the prescribed verses of the Koran, summoned the followers of Mohammed to prayer. As was Palermo, such were the other Sicilian cities,—Messina, Syracuse, Enna, Agrigentum.

Moslem institutions, with the powerful influences resulting from their universal adoption, thus maintained an overwhelming preponderance throughout the provinces of the Norman kingdom. Even in Apulia and Calabria, the original seat of the new dynasty, the same conditions prevailed. The centre of the Papal power and of the various states subject to its immediate jurisdiction—a jurisdiction already important, but not as yet exercised with undisputed authority—could not fail to be profoundly impressed by the proximity of this anomalous empire; where Christian symbols and Koranic legends were blended in the embellishment of cathedrals; where the crucifixion and the mottoes of Mohammedan rulers were impressed together upon the coinage of the realm; where eminent prelates owed investiture, rendered homage, and paid tribute to the secular power; where Moslem dignitaries not infrequently took precedence of Papal envoys; and the hereditary enemies of Christendom fought valiantly under the standard of the Cross. Nor was the effect of this ominous example confined to localities where daily familiarity had caused it to lose its novelty. The traders who visited the remote and semi-barbarous courts of Europe, the Crusaders who from time to time enjoyed the hospitality of the Sicilian cities, the returned adventurers who had served in the armies of the princely House of De Hauteville, all spread, far and wide, exaggerated and romantic accounts of the strange and sacrilegious customs of the Norman monarchy. Ecclesiastics crossed themselves with dismay when they heard of the honors lavished upon infidels, whose co-religionists had profaned the Holy Sepulchre, evoking gigantic expeditions which had depopulated entire provinces and drained the wealth of credulous and fanatic Europe. Others, whom study and reflection had made wise beyond the age in which they lived, saw, with open indifference and concealed delight, in this defiance and contempt of Popish tyranny, the dawn of a brighter era, the prospect of the ultimate emancipation of the human mind. The progress of the mental and moral changes which affected European society, acting through the intervention of Norman influence in the political and religious life of the continent, was gradual, indeterminate, and long imperceptible, but incessant and powerful. The universal deficiency of the means of information, the dearth of educational facilities, which promoted the dependence of the masses upon the only class capable of instructing and improving them, the terrible penalties visited upon heresy, deferred for nearly three hundred years the inevitable outbreak of an intellectual revolution. The principles on which that revolution was based, although at first discussed furtively and in secret, in time became so popular as to endanger the empire of the Church and to seriously impair its prestige.

The influence of the royal House of De Hauteville was extended, magnified, perpetuated, by the imperial House of Hohenstaufen. The traditions of the Arab, inherited by the Norman, were transmitted to and became the inspiration of the German. The genius of Frederick II. impressed itself indelibly upon the entire Teutonic race. It must not be forgotten that the most formidable revolt against Papal tyranny and corruption broke out in Saxony. The new German Empire owes largely its commanding position in Europe and its exalted rank in the scale of civilization to the talents, the energy, and the transcendent wisdom of the greatest monarch of mediæval times.

The fierce struggle between the Papacy and the Empire for universal rule began with the ascendency of the House of Hohenstaufen, in the beginning of the twelfth century. The princes of that House, eminent for valor and diplomacy, early displayed a spirit of insubordination towards the Holy See which augured ill for the political supremacy which had begun to be the leading object of its ambition. The Papal power, not yet consolidated, nor even fully defined, was unable to successfully oppose to the encroachments of the haughty German sovereigns those measures which afterwards proved so effective against the recalcitrant monarchs of Europe in the settlement of disputes involving its doctrines and its authority. The chaotic state of European politics made it impossible for the Pope to enlist the aid of any potentate able to withstand the tyrants of the North, whose ambition aimed at the absorption of St. Peter’s patrimony, as their insolence had already menaced the independence of his throne. Diplomatic negotiation had proved of no avail. The once formidable weapon of excommunication was treated with contempt. No other resource remained. The influence of the Empire attained its maximum during the reign of Henry VI.; and the Pope, surrounded on every side by powerful and determined enemies, seemed about to be degraded to the rank of an imperial vassal, when the sudden death of the Emperor, and the election of one of the greatest of the Supreme Pontiffs ever raised to the chair of the Holy See, reversed the political and ecclesiastical conditions, to all appearances firmly established, and upon whose maintenance so much depended, and opened the way for a train of calamities unequalled in their atrocious character by any acts of tyranny that have ever stifled independent thought or retarded the progress of human civilization.

Innocent III., when elected to the Papal dignity, was already a man of mature years, wide experience, and established reputation. His abilities as a scholar and a diplomatist, his familiarity with the principles of theology and law, had made his name known and respected throughout Europe, while the influence he exerted in the councils of the Church, long before his exaltation to its highest office, rendered him eminently conspicuous in the ecclesiastical affairs of Italy. With his extensive erudition and versatility of character were united talents for intrigue and administration equal to the most exacting requirements of statesmanship and command. Insinuating in address, jovial in conversation, by turns haughty and affable in manner, his unrivalled acquaintance with human nature, and his delicacy of tact, enabled him to regulate his conduct and his demeanor according to the circumstances of his political or religious environment. Conscious of his commanding genius, his insatiable ambition was not content with the enjoyment of the traditional honors and material advantages of Papal sovereignty; it aimed at the establishment of an autocracy, free from the interference of earthly potentates, nominally subject to celestial power alone, but, in fact, absolutely irresponsible and despotic.

Such was the formidable antagonist who, at the close of the twelfth century, confronted the majesty of the German Empire, represented by an infant less than four years of age. The minority of that infant, afterwards Frederick II., was one of degrading dependence and constant humiliation. His mother was compelled to acknowledge the suzerainty of the Pope in order to retain even nominal authority in her own hereditary dominions. Her death left her child the ward of the Holy See, in addition to being its vassal, and, in consequence, the entire ecclesiastical polity of his kingdom was changed; the clergy were declared independent of the secular power; grants of real property, confiscated by preceding emperors and confirmed by long prescription, were revoked, and the lands restored to the Church; quarrels among the turbulent nobles were industriously fomented, to afford a pretext for Papal interference and an extension of ecclesiastical jurisdiction, for the nominal purpose of reconciling enmities and preserving order; the Jews and Moslems, left without a protector and subjected to horrible persecution, were driven to the desperate alternative of exile or brigandage. As a result of these impolitic measures, Sicily became oppressed by anarchy far more deplorable and vexatious than that produced by the crimes and follies of Saracen misgovernment. Its population diminished; its prosperity declined; its commerce almost disappeared. With the returning ascendency of the priesthood, the evils inseparable from that condition—ignorance, intolerance, private corruption, organized hypocrisy—once more became predominant. The irruption of a horde of greedy and insatiable ecclesiastics into the rich Sicilian benefices brought with it all the abuses of Papal Italy. Simony was openly practised. Some priests lent money at ruinous rates of interest; some kept taverns; others derived enormous incomes from even more questionable places of public entertainment. The impurity of their lives and the blasphemies in which they often indulged soon caused them to forfeit the respect of their parishioners, as had long been the case at Rome. They were so careless of the outward observances and duties enjoined by their profession as to neglect the service of the altar until their conduct became a scandal. It was a matter of common complaint that the sacred vestments were ragged and filthy; the chalices unpolished; the sacramental wine sour; the Host, the visible symbol of God, unprotected from insects and covered with dust. The habits of the clergy were incredibly vile. The more exalted the rank and the more conspicuous the prelate, the greater was the example of pecuniary corruption and social depravity. The revenues of the Church, extorted from a reluctant and impoverished people, were squandered in the purchase of fine equipages, in sumptuous banquets, and upon rapacious courtesans. The duties of religion were forgotten in the general scramble for power. The palace of Palermo was the rallying point of these ecclesiastical politicians, whose broils and intrigues, so inconsistent with their calling, frequently disturbed the peace of the city, and whose vices were the reproach of a population which had never been able to boast of a high standard of personal morality.

The imperious spirit of Frederick, unwilling to brook interference in the affairs of his kingdom even from his feudal superior, first disclosed itself when he was but fourteen years old in a dispute with the clergy of Palermo, who appealed from his decision to the Pope. His defiance of the Pontiff was subsequently of such frequent occurrence as to be regarded as one of the leading principles of his administration. Innocent seems to have viewed with almost paternal indulgence the disobedience of a youth of excellent parts and undaunted resolution, who was subject to his authority not only as a member of the Christian communion, but in the double capacity of ward and vassal. His inability to appreciate the true character of Frederick was never so apparent as when he committed the fatal error which raised that prince to the greatest throne in Christendom. The paltry concessions extorted as the price of this great dignity were an indifferent compensation for the series of misfortunes its bestowal entailed upon Europe,—the rancorous hostility of faction; the perpetuation of intestine conflict, with its inseparable evils, widespread anarchy, the destruction of cities, the waste of provinces, the massacre of non-combatants, the obstruction of national progress; and the partial return to the barbarous conditions of former ages induced by the relentless strife of Guelf and Ghibelline. It is not the object of this work to minutely set forth the events of that mighty struggle. The relations of the Holy See and the Empire are only important as they may have affected indirectly the influence of the reforms instituted by the great Emperor; reforms whose foundation had been laid by two preceding dynasties of widely different character, and whose principles derived their origin from the colonization of Sicily by a nation utterly foreign to the laws and traditions of contemporaneous Europe.

Born under a southern sky, accustomed from childhood to daily intercourse with the most intellectual society of the age, Frederick II. retained to the last a decided predilection for Sicily, the land of his birth. The classic memories and romantic history of that famous island exerted over his active mind a most potent and lasting influence. He had no sympathy with, and less inclination for, the rude and barbarous customs, the coarse festivities, the ferocity, drunkenness, and bestiality of that country which was the original seat of his royal House, the realm whence he derived the proudest and most grandiloquent of his numerous titles. Educated by two Moorish preceptors, under the superintendence of a cardinal,—a curious circumstance which indicates that infidel learning had not yet entirely succumbed to ecclesiastical prejudice,—he in time became proficient in all the arts and accomplishments possessed by that remarkable people whose erudition and industry were admired and feared by the dominant race whose members the fortune of arms had made the depositaries of power and the interpreters of orthodoxy. This early, intimate, and constant association with Mohammedans and Greeks, in each of whose systems of government the temporal and spiritual functions were vested in one individual, undoubtedly suggested to the mind of the Emperor the stupendous project of merging the Papal office in the imperial dignity,—a combination of two despotisms under a single head, whose powers, of uncertain and indefinable extent, could not be questioned without incurring the penalties of both treason and sacrilege, and whose jurisdiction would eventually embrace the habitable world. The political and judicial systems instituted and perfected by Frederick II., remarkable in themselves, become almost marvellous when considered in relation to the era of their establishment, the difficulties encountered in their application, and the antagonism of the privileged classes whose designs they interfered with and whose abuses they were intended to correct and restrain. Two questions of paramount importance engaged the attention of this enlightened prince, questions containing in themselves the solution of every administrative and every social problem,—the promulgation of law and implicit obedience to its mandates, and the adoption of measures which might secure the greatest attainable happiness of the people. To the accomplishment of these noble and praiseworthy ends the talents and energy of the great ruler were constantly devoted,—in hours of triumph and in hours of humiliation; when engrossed with the cares of a vast and seditious empire; in the deserts of Syria; in the very face of death; in the bitterness of spirit induced by shattered dreams of long-nourished ambition.

The evils incident to a protracted minority had manifested themselves with more than ordinary prominence in the Kingdom of Sicily. The supervision of the Pope had, as usual, been uniformly exercised for the benefit of the ecclesiastical order and the aggrandizement of the Holy See. A fierce and rapacious aristocracy, impatient of restraint and eager for innovation, defied the laws, and wreaked their hereditary vengeance upon each other with every circumstance of merciless atrocity. The mass of the population, probably composed of more diversified elements and nationalities than any community of equal numbers in the world, unable to prosper and scarcely able to live, endeavored to obtain, by different methods, exemption from the intolerable persecution of their enemies. The Greek, with the craft of his race, attached himself to the faction which, for the time being, enjoyed the best prospect of success. The Jew purchased a temporary immunity by the voluntary surrender of the greater part of his possessions. Alone among his companions, the Saracen took up arms. His martial spirit and the numbers of his countrymen obtained from his turbulent and disorganized adversaries a tacit recognition of independence, which the rugged nature of the country that contained his strongholds did not a little to confirm. In the effort to re-establish the royal authority, the Saracens rendered invaluable assistance; they were among the first to assemble around the imperial standard; without their co-operation the result would have been uncertain; and their valor and fidelity preserved the empire of Frederick, as that of their fathers had consolidated the power of the Norman domination.

The jurisprudence of the Emperor was based upon and included the system established by the Normans. Its rules were modified and improved as experience had suggested would be expedient and profitable. The main objects of the laws were the extinction of feudal tyranny, and the enjoyment of private liberty so far as it was not inconsistent with the prerogatives of the crown. No monarch of ancient or modern times was more solicitous for the happiness of his subjects, and none ever more fully appreciated the fact that the test of a nation’s greatness is the benefit derived by mankind from its works, its history, its example. The difficulties encountered in the formation of a uniform code which could be enforced in such a cosmopolitan society as that of Sicily seemed insuperable. Feudal rights and ecclesiastical exemptions; the privileges of the Jews and Saracens, founded on prescription and confirmed by tribute; the jealous contentions of many forms of religious belief; the perpetual encroachments and usurpations of pontifical authority; the skepticism of Moslem philosophers, and the fanatical rage of persecuting zealots,—all of these antagonistic rights, claims, prejudices, and prerogatives it was necessary to correct, rearrange, amend, and embody in one practical, efficient, and harmonious system. The task, though stupendous, was not beyond the abilities and constructive genius of the great law-giver. The turbulence of the nobles was firmly restrained. All members of the clerical order were rendered amenable to the laws of the realm in cases which concerned the dignity and traditions of the empire. In matters relating to marriage alone they were permitted to exercise jurisdiction over those who had not taken the tonsure; the assent of the Emperor was necessary to the validity of an election; the prelate as well as the layman was compelled to assist in defraying the expenses of the government; nor, in any way, could he escape the discharge of duties enjoined by the Imperial Code or plead immunity from burdens necessary to the security of the state or the enforcement of order. The law of mortmain, framed under the direction of the Emperor, preceded the famous statute of Edward I., of which it was the prototype, nearly a century. Upon every individual the maxim was continually impressed that the sovereign was the fountain of justice, authority, and mercy. The criminal procedure, founded on Norman precedents, was singularly free from the legal atrocities generally prescribed by feudal regulations; the penalty of death was only inflicted for the most heinous offences; mutilation was seldom permitted except in the cases of incorrigible criminals; torture, while recognized, was one of the rarest of punishments. The courts were invested with every outward circumstance of official pomp and dignity. From the decision of the supreme tribunal there was no appeal; even in the monarch vexatious litigation was systematically discouraged; judicial bribery was considered a crime of peculiar infamy; and the practice of holding the magistrate responsible for the maintenance of peace in his district was a most efficient check upon the violence and depredations of professional malefactors.

In the statutes relating to the detection and punishment of heresy, the character of Frederick appears to singular and manifest disadvantage. His long wars with the Pope, his close intimacy with infidels, his oppression of ecclesiastics, the repeated acts of sacrilege of which he was guilty, the blasphemous speeches constantly upon his tongue, the profane and mysterious studies in which he delighted, his employment of and confidence in wizards and astrologers, demonstrate beyond contradiction the weakness of his faith or the profoundness of his hypocrisy. But the latitude of opinion and conduct which he allowed himself was in an inverse ratio to that which he vouchsafed to others. No familiar of the Inquisition ever pursued heretics with greater zeal or pertinacity than the famous monarch whose name is constantly associated with all that is liberal, enlightened, and profitable in the annals of human progress, an inconsistency all the more glaring in a prince whose favorite sentiment was, “The glory of a ruler is the safe and comfortable condition of the subject.” History has never been able to advance a satisfactory or even a plausible explanation of this anomaly; its cause, at this distance of time, must remain forever unknown, and may be ascribed, for want of a better solution, to the innate perversity of the human mind, which often by a single glaring defect obscures the brilliant lustre of a character eminently conspicuous for every princely quality, for every generous impulse, and for every literary and artistic excellence.

His commercial regulations were among the principal sources of Frederick’s power and greatness. His genius perceived at a glance the vast advantages which must result from an interchange of commodities with maritime nations; and, in the application of this principle, every facility was afforded those bold spirits whose energy the expectation of gain or the love of adventure directed into the channels of trade. Treaties more liberal in their provisions and more profitable in their effects than any which had heretofore been adopted by the powers of the Mediterranean were concluded with the greatest mercantile communities of Europe,—Constantinople, Venice, Genoa,—as well as with Damascus and Alexandria and the Moorish principalities of Africa and Spain.

The intimacy maintained by Frederick with Mohammedan sovereigns contributed greatly to the prosperity of his dominions. The Sultan of Egypt was his friend. The Emir of Tunis was his tributary. With the other Moslem princes he was on the best of terms. Treaties of commerce, framed for mutual advantage, were frequently negotiated with these potentates, who were only too willing to discriminate against other European monarchs in favor of the Emperor of Germany. In 1241, on the arrival of the Imperial ambassadors, Cairo was illuminated in their honor. The trade of Sicily extended to India. The luxuries of the Orient were brought to the ports of Palermo and Messina. In their markets the arms, the jewels, the stuffs, the porcelain, of countries remote from civilization found a ready sale. In return, immense quantities of grain and manufactured articles were exported. It has been established upon undoubted authority that white female slaves of Christian birth formed no inconsiderable portion of the commodities dealt in by the subjects of Frederick II.

The fortunate geographical situation of Sicily, her magnificent harbors, the productiveness of her soil, the excellence and variety of her manufactures, had, in all ages, been factors of paramount importance in her commercial development. That development was now materially aided by the reciprocal observance of humane and courteous regulations, hitherto unrecognized in the intercourse of nations during the Middle Ages. Merchants in foreign ports were received with lavish hospitality; distrust of strangers gradually subsided; and unfortunates, cast away at sea, were no longer compelled to endure both the violence of the elements and the heartless rapacity of ferocious outlaws or amateur freebooters. In the widely distributed commerce of the monarchy the crown enjoyed no insignificant share. The ships of Frederick were anchored in every harbor; his warehouses were filled with the choicest and most costly fabrics of every country; and his agents, conspicuous for their enterprise and daring, collected, in the distant and almost unknown regions of the Orient, articles whose sale would most contribute to the benefit of the royal treasury. The principles of free trade seem to have been first promulgated in the maritime code of Sicily. The Emperor, however, in the application of those principles, evinced no reluctance in discriminating against his own subjects, whose vessels were not permitted to clear for foreign ports until those of the crown had been a certain time at sea. Every branch of commerce paid tribute to the imperial merchant. His ships carried pilgrims to the Holy Land. The grain he annually sent to Africa returned an enormous and certain profit. His trade with India brought into European markets objects of unfamiliar uses and elaborate workmanship, whose rarity often increased their great intrinsic value. His friendly relations with Mohammedan princes, begun during the Crusade and terminated only by his death, made him frequently the recipient of magnificent presents. We read that on one occasion an eastern potentate sent him a dozen camels laden with silver and gold. All ships trading to Palestine were required to bring back a cross-bow for each of their cables, a measure which, while it replenished the royal arsenals with the most effective weapons of the age, was free from the dangers of official incapacity or corruption, and entailed no expense on the government. A great fleet of galleys, commanded by the Genoese admiral Spinola, maintained the naval power of the kingdom and protected the coasts from the depredations of pirates.

In the internal administration of the kingdom, the most progressive and equitable ideas of commercial honor and common advantage prevailed. No duty could be levied on articles of necessity transported from one province to another. While monopolies were not forbidden, they were restricted to the crown, and the oppression resulting from this measure in other countries was not felt by the subjects of Frederick. Annual fairs were held in all the principal cities; markets existed everywhere. Taxes were apportioned according to the wealth of the district where they were to be collected. Constant war made these impositions onerous at times, but there was some relief in the knowledge that the clergy were forced to contribute their share to the public burdens, an inconvenience from which they were elsewhere exempt. The coinage was one of the purest, the most convenient, the most beautifully executed that had ever been put in circulation by any government. Agriculture, still largely in the hands of the Arabs, was carried to the highest perfection. Every plant or tree, whose culture was known to be profitable and which could adapt itself to a soil of phenomenal fertility, was to be found in the gardens and plantations of Sicily. The regulations of the kingdom concerning the rural economy of its people were minute and specific, even paternal, in their character. They were especially exact in details when directing how the royal demesnes should be administered. Records were kept of the crops produced in each district. Inventories of all the stock, poultry, grain, and fruit were made each year; the methods of their disposition and the prices they brought were noted on the public registers. The very uses to which even the feathers of the domestic fowls were destined was a matter of official inquiry. The breeds of horses, asses, and cattle were improved; the greatest care was taken of these animals. Food, which after experiment was found to be the most nutritious, was adopted; and the Emperor, whose interest in these matters was stimulated by the profit he derived from his stables, personally scrutinized their management with the most assiduous care. The supervision exercised by government officials over all occupations was most precise, and must have often proved vexatious. Weights and measures were prescribed by law, and any departure from honest dealing in this respect was visited with the severest penalties. Officers were appointed in every town for the detection of false weights and the sale of spurious merchandise. The laws of hygiene were understood and enforced with a degree of intelligence unknown to many European communities even at the present day. Unwholesome provisions could not be exposed for sale in the markets. Trades offensive to the senses or injurious to public health were prohibited within the walls of cities. A depth was prescribed for graves, that the exhalations proceeding from them might not contaminate the air. No carrion was permitted to be left on the highways.

In questions of legislation, as well as in those relating to political economy, the kingdom of Sicily was far in advance of its contemporaries. The constitution of England, and especially the organization of the House of Commons, owe much to the Sicilian Parliament. While the duties of its members were ordinarily confined to the registering of royal edicts and the imposition of taxes, it presents the first example of a truly elective, representative assembly that is mentioned in history. From the institutions of Frederick, his relative, Alfonso X. of Castile, appropriated many of the legislative and judicial provisions of Las Siete Partidas,—a compilation for which that monarch is principally entitled for his fame. France and Germany also ultimately experienced the imperceptible but potent impulse communicated to society by the supremacy of law over theology, which had its beginning in Sicily during the thirteenth century.

Extensive and important as were the reforms of Frederick, it was from the munificent and discerning patronage extended to science and literature that is derived his most enduring claim to the gratitude and commendation of posterity. The impressions imparted by Moslem taste, in the prosecution of early studies, during the formation of his character, never lost their power. His court was frequented by the most accomplished Jews and Arabs of the age. They were the favorite instructors of youth. Their opinions, drawn from the sources of classic and Oriental learning, were heard with respect and awe, even by those who dissented from their creeds and deprecated their influence. They filled the most responsible and lucrative offices of the government. Admitted to friendly and confidential audiences with the sovereign, who, himself an excellent mathematician, delighted to pose them with abstruse problems in geometry and algebra, their philosophy was regarded with signal disfavor by distinguished prelates that daily, in halls and antechambers, impatiently awaited the pleasure of the Emperor. So fond was Frederick of these intellectual diversions, that he sent certain questions for solution to the Mohammedan countries of Africa and the East; but no one was found competent to answer them until they reached the court of one of the princes of Moorish Spain. One of the most accomplished of linguists, Frederick sedulously encouraged the study of languages throughout his dominions. Arabic, Hebrew, and Greek were understood and spoken by all who made any pretensions to thorough education. Naples and Salerno were the most famous seats of learning in that epoch,—at the former was the University established by the Emperor; the Medical College of Salerno is justly celebrated as one of the most extraordinary academical institutions that has ever existed. The Faculty of the University was composed of the most eminent scholars who could be attracted by ample salaries, the prospect of literary distinction, and the certain favor of an enlightened monarch. The resources of all countries were diligently laid under contribution to insure the success of this noble foundation. The popularity of Frederick with the Moslem princes of the East gave him exceptional facilities for the acquirement of literary treasures. The collections of Egypt and Syria and of the monasteries of Europe were ransacked for rare and curious volumes with which to furnish the library of the great Neapolitan college. No city was better adapted to the necessities of a large scholastic institution than Naples. Its situation in the centre of the Mediterranean, the salubrity of the climate, the cheapness and variety of its markets, offered unusual inducements to poor and ambitious students desirous of an education. Their interests were protected and their security assured by special and rigorous laws. Extraordinary precautions were taken to prevent their being molested during their journeys to and fro. The prices which might be charged for lodging were clearly and definitely established. Provision was made for loans, at a nominal interest, to such scholars as did not have the funds requisite to successfully prosecute their studies. The preparatory schools of the kingdom were conducted with equal care and prudence, and nowhere else in the world, in that age, could educational advantages of a similar character be enjoyed as in the Sicilian dominions of the Emperor.

Great as it was, the reputation of the University of Naples has been eclipsed by the superior renown of the Medical College of Salerno. There the study of surgery and medicine was pursued under the eyes of the most learned and distinguished practitioners of every nation familiar with the healing art. Ignorance of any language could scarcely be an impediment to the student, for instruction was given in Latin, Greek, German, Hebrew, Arabic. Scientific methods were invariably observed in its curriculum. The prevalent superstitions, which, encouraged by the clergy, appealed to the credulous fears of the vulgar, were contemptuously banished from its halls. While the School of Salerno had existed since the eighth century, and, from its origin, chiefly owed its fame and success to Arabic and Jewish influence, it attained its greatest prosperity under the fostering care of Frederick II. The writers principally relied on by its professors were Hippocrates and Galen, whose works had been preserved from barbarian destruction or oblivion by the Saracens of Egypt and Spain. But while these venerable authorities were always quoted with reverence, no obstinate adherence to tradition, no devotion to errors consecrated by the usages of centuries, characterized the College of Salerno. Its spirit was eminently progressive, inquisitive, liberal. The monk, the rabbi, the imam, the atheist, were numbered among its teachers, and each maintained a position among his fellows in a direct ratio to his intellectual attainments. This anomalous condition, the more conspicuous in an era of general ignorance, and flourishing under the very shadow of the Papacy, itself inimical to all pursuits which tended to mental progress and interference with its spiritual emoluments, rendered the existence of such an institution all the more remarkable. To its researches are to be attributed many maxims, theories, and methods of practice still recognized as correct by modern physicians. Its investigations were thoroughly philosophical and based largely upon experiment. Information was communicated by lectures; anatomical demonstrations, as in modern times, were considered among the most useful and valuable means of instruction. Mediæval prejudice still opposed the mutilation of the human form, which, with the sectarian prohibition of ceremonial uncleanness, had long before been overcome by the Moorish surgeons of Cordova; and, in the Salernitan clinic, anatomists were forced to be apparently content with the dissection of hogs and monkeys. In secret, however, human bodies were not infrequently delivered to the scalpel, and the offices of many internal organs were observed and determined by the aid of vivisection,—a practice indispensable to a proper understanding of surgery, yet reprobated, even in our age of scientific inquiry, by a class of noisy, but well-meaning, fanatics. The unsatisfactory memorials of the School of Salerno which have descended to us—some of doubtful authenticity, others of unknown derivation—nevertheless disclose the extraordinary discoveries its professors had made in anatomy; among them those of the functions of the chyle ducts, of the lymphatic system, of the capillaries, which then received their name; of the different coats and humors of the eye; of the phenomena of digestion, together with detailed descriptions of the office of the ovaries and their tubes, which anticipated the researches of Falloppio by more than four hundred years. Specialists then, as now, devoted their talents to the improvement and perfection of certain branches of medical science. There were many celebrated oculists and lithotomists, and practitioners who were highly successful in the treatment of hernia, of mechanical injuries of every kind, and of the diseases of women. The rules of hygiene, the properties of the various substances of the Materia Medica, the principles of pathology and therapeutics, as laid down by the faculty of Salerno, have been transmitted to us in a lengthy and curious poem entitled, “Flos Medicinæ Scholæ Salerni,” popularly known as Regimen Sanitatis.

This extraordinary production, none of which is probably later than the twelfth century, and whose origin is unknown, has been ascribed by Sprengel to Isaac ben Solomon, a famous Jewish practitioner of Cordova, who died in 950. Careful examination, however, discloses the fact that it is not the work of a single hand, but a compilation of various medical precepts and opinions belonging to different epochs. In its prologue, the pre-eminent value of temperance in all things is diligently inculcated:

It also contains hints on diagnosis and prognosis; information indicating no small degree of anatomical and physiological knowledge; formulas for antidotes of poisons; advice for the care of the body during every month in the year; and astrological indications of the favorable or malign influence of the signs of the zodiac and the stars. From the following couplet, designating the Seven Ages of Man,

seems to have been derived the inspiration of the familiar lines of Shakspeare.

The vitiated taste of an age not yet fully acquainted with the properties of correct literary composition caused the incorporation of verses into many of its most serious and dignified productions. These didactic poems seem singularly out of place in a medical treatise, and especially so where, as is usually the case, the poetry is, in both matter and harmony of numbers, below mediocrity.

Apothecaries and chemists, of whom a competent knowledge of drugs was required, were subject to the corps of physicians who were forbidden to join in their enterprises or share their profits; they were sworn to obey the Code; the number of pharmacies was limited; and they were liable to the visitation of imperial inspectors responsible for the purity of their merchandise and the observance of the law. The precautions required in the sale of poisons; the directions for compounding electuaries and syrups; the most approved methods for the preparation of the love-potions believed to be so efficacious by mediæval credulity; the fabrication of charms for the prevention of disease, are all set forth in the Salernitan Code with minute and tedious exactness.

In the city were many hospitals, the oldest of which was established in the ninth century, and was contemporaneous with similar institutions founded by the Ommeyade dynasty of Cordova. Some of them were richly endowed, others were entirely supported by charitable donations. The strict requirements of medical police were recognized in the isolation of patients suffering from contagious diseases. A systematic distinction was observed in the purposes of these beneficent foundations; they were of various classes and devoted to the care of the poor and the homeless, to the protection of invalid females of rank and fortune, to the support of foundlings; and the most intelligent treatment of every malady was gratuitously afforded. The members of monastic orders, for the most part, had charge of the hospitals, and acted in the capacity of nurses and attendants.

The regulations of Frederick, who united the various schools of Salerno into one vast institution of medical learning, exacted the possession of the highest abilities, dexterity, and experience by the expectant practitioner. A preparatory course of three years in the general branches of literature and philosophy was required of him. Five years at least were to be devoted to study in the colleges, and one year was then to be passed under the eye of an experienced physician before the aspirant for professional distinction was pronounced competent to prescribe for the suffering.

The remarkable attainments and skill of Roger of Parma, the great surgeon, who was famous for the treatment of wounds and fractures and the extirpation of tumors and polypi; of Maurus, Gaulterius, and Matthew Silvaticus, who published treatises on phlebotomy, general practice, and the Materia Medica; of Garipontus, an expert in operations for calculus and other diseases of the pelvic organs; of Giovanni da Procida, the accomplished court physician of Frederick II., all graduates of the School of Salerno, are conspicuous in the annals of mediæval surgery and medicine. Then first appeared the patronymic of Farragut—afterwards destined to such renown in the naval history of the New World—borne by a Jew of Messina, who was educated at Salerno and Montpellier, and whose translation of the “Continent” of Rhazes, made in the latter part of the thirteenth century, was dedicated to Charles of Anjou, brother of Louis IX., King of France.

Students of both sexes were permitted to enjoy the rare advantages afforded by the School of Salerno; no prejudice hampered the acquisition by woman of medical knowledge, in whose application her natural acuteness and sympathy rendered her remarkably proficient and successful. Many female physicians rose to great eminence in the different departments of their profession as lecturers, chemists, operators: among them the names of Rebecca, who wrote on fevers and the embryo; Abella, on generation and prenatal life; Trotula, on the Materia Medica, hernia, and obstetrics; Mercuriade, on general surgery; and Costanza Colenda, whose scientific accomplishments, as well as her beauty, made her famous in Europe, have descended to our time. A college of midwifery existed at Salerno, whose graduates were subjected to examinations fully as strict as those required of candidates for medical honors, and who, sworn to fidelity, enjoyed a lucrative practice in the opulent families of Naples and Messina. Although a lofty sense of professional etiquette distinguished the faculty of Salerno, imperial supervision, which, under Frederick, found nothing too minute for its attention, carefully protected the public from extortion. Fees were fixed by law; their amounts were regulated by circumstances. Even the ordinary number of visits required in a given time was defined; and attendance was accorded without charge to the poor. In our age, so prolific of professional incompetence, the exalted rank and profound attainments of the graduates of the Salernitan school may well excite astonishment; amidst the darkness of mediæval ignorance it was the educational and literary phenomenon of Europe.

A generous patron of every art and occupation which could embellish his domains, benefit his subjects, or enrich his treasury, the Emperor gave also much attention to great public works,—the fortification of cities, the improvement of harbors, the construction of highways. His palaces disclosed a marked partiality for Moorish customs and Moorish architecture. Some of these beautiful edifices had come down from the Saracen domination, but many were constructed after the plans of the royal architect, who personally superintended their erection. They were finished with costly marbles and adorned with bas-reliefs, statues, and paintings. The eagles of Germany were sculptured over their portals. Outworks of vast extent defended their approaches. In all were courts and gardens odorous with the blossoms of jasmine and orange and surrounded by secluded apartments destined for the occupants of the imperial seraglio. Attached to some of these delightful retreats were extensive menageries, aviaries, and miniature lakes filled with gold and silver fish. There was no appliance of Oriental luxury, no means which could contribute to the gratification of the senses, that was not to be found in the Sicilian palaces of Frederick II. In the foundation of new cities, extensive districts were depopulated to provide them with inhabitants. This arbitrary proceeding was often a measure of profound policy, which insured the good behavior of a turbulent population that, removed from the influence of former associations, transplanted among strangers, and regarded by their new neighbors with suspicion and hostility, were rendered incapable of serious mischief. In this manner was established the Saracen colony of Lucera, whose members, composed of rebellious Mussulmans of Sicily, became, soon after their settlement, the most faithful subjects of Frederick and the chief support of the imperial throne.

That city was built on the slope of the Apennines, in a location most advantageous for both the purposes of commerce and defence. Its citadel was a mile in circuit and protected by fortifications of enormous strength. In the centre stood a lofty tower, at once the palace and the treasury of the Emperor. Frederick neglected no opportunity of gratifying the pride and confirming the attachment of his Saracen subjects. The spoils of the Papal states were lavished upon them. The trade of the colony was encouraged by every available means. Armorers and workers in the precious metals were imported from Syria. From Egypt came laborers highly skilled in horticulture. Great orchards were planted in the environs. The soldiers of the imperial body-guard were Moslems of Lucera. Splendidly uniformed and mounted, they were constantly on duty at the palace, on the march, in the camp. Conspicuous in the funeral escort of the deceased monarch, their duties were only relinquished at the grave.

The maintenance of this infidel stronghold in the heart of Christian Europe was a standing reproach to the Papacy; and the horror of the clergy was aggravated by the knowledge that churches had been demolished to supply it with building materials; that the revenues of rich and populous districts were diverted through its agency from the coffers of the cathedral and the monastery; that it enjoyed exclusive and valuable commercial privileges; and that, worst of all, it was able at a moment’s notice to furnish more than twenty thousand well-equipped, valiant, and incorruptible soldiers to the armies of the Emperor.

The patronage of letters, which distinguished this accomplished sovereign, is not the least of his titles to renown. No prince ever sought out books and manuscripts with greater assiduity, or more strenuously endeavored, by the bestowal of scholastic honors and pecuniary emoluments, to attract the learned to his court. Nationality, creed, partisanship, feudal enmity, private grudges, were alike forgotten in the friendly contest for literary pre-eminence. In the royal antechambers, in the halls of the University, no student was entitled to precedence, save only through his established claim to mental superiority. The incessant rivalry of many acute and highly cultivated intellects, stimulated by rewards and unhampered by restrictions, was productive of results most important for the revival of letters and the future benefit of humanity. Great advances were made in all departments of knowledge,—chemistry, natural history, botany, poetry, mathematics. The famous scholar, Michael Scott, whose rare attainments contemporaneous ignorance attributed to magic, and whose simple tomb in Melrose Abbey awakens to-day the veneration of every educated and appreciative traveller, was employed by the Emperor as a translator of the classics, and carried to Palermo vast stores of learning acquired in the schools of the Spanish Moslems. Theodore, called “The Philosopher,” published treatises on geometry and astrology; John of Palermo wrote on arithmetical problems; Leonardo Fibouacci brought to the general notice of Europe the science of algebra as known and used in modern schools; the versatile Pietro de Vinea, statesman, jurist, orator, amused his leisure in the composition of the first Italian lyric poetry, and of epistolary correspondence unsurpassed, in any age, for perspicuity, ease, and elegance of diction. Frederick himself wrote amorous sonnets, and published in Latin a work on hawking and birds of prey, which is even now an authority on the subject. The apocryphal book, De Tribus Impostoribus, an alleged compendium of blasphemy and vileness, attributed to him by the clergy of the Middle Ages, is now known to have been an invention of ecclesiastical malice to blacken a character only too vulnerable to such attacks. At the Sicilian court was formed that melodious and graceful idiom afterwards employed with such success by Petrarch, Dante, and Boccaccio. The political, social, and literary revolutions of seven centuries have not materially altered the grammatical construction or orthography of the beautiful language spoken and sung by the knights and ladies of Palermo. The enduring fame of such an achievement far exceeds in value and utility the temporary and barren distinctions obtained by the gaining of battles, the sack of cities, the plunder of baronial strongholds, and the humiliation of popes.

Such was the Emperor Frederick II., and such the civilization which, inspired by Moslem precept, tradition, and example, his commanding genius established in Southern Europe. Not only was he the most intelligent, but he was the most powerful and illustrious sovereign of his age. In addition to the imperial dignity, he possessed the titles of King of Naples and Sicily, of Lombardy, of Poland, of Bohemia, of Hungary, of Denmark, of Sardinia, of Arles, and of Jerusalem. In birth and affinity he was first among the great potentates of the earth. He was the grandson of the famous Barbarossa and of King Roger of Sicily. He was the uncle of Jaime I. of Aragon, Lo Conquerador. He was the father-in-law of the Greek Emperor of Nicea. He was the son-in-law of the Latin Emperor of Constantinople. He was the brother-in-law of the King of England. His relations with the Sultan of Egypt, dictated, in a measure, by state policy, but for the most part prompted by personal admiration, were of the most social and friendly character. He exchanged gifts with the chief of the execrated Ismailian sect known as the “Old Man of the Mountain.” Community of ideas, tastes, languages, and mercantile interests, which he shared with Mohammedan rulers, confirmed the intimacy already long existing between the Kingdom of Sicily and the fragments of the Hispano-Arab empire. His authority was respected from the Mediterranean to the Baltic; his matrimonial connections made his influence felt from the banks of the Nile to the Pillars of Hercules. It was this power, exercised over a territory of vast extent and unlimited resources, added to a consciousness of pre-eminent ability, that suggested to Frederick a renewal of the ancient Carlovingian jurisdiction, and the daring but imprudent attempt, by usurping the prerogatives of the Papacy, to realize a dream of more than imperial ambition.

That dream contemplated the foundation of a national, schismatical church, of which he was to be the head and Pietro de Vinea the vicar. The Pope was to be restricted to the exercise of spiritual functions, and finally deposed. In the Emperor were to be centred all the glory, the majesty, the sanctity, of an omnipotent ruler, presumably responsible only to the Almighty; really the sole arbiter of the religious professions and the actions of mankind. How the demands of such a system, which must necessarily be maintained, to a certain extent, by intellectual coercion, could be reconciled with the broad and equitable tolerance which was for the most part the distinguishing characteristic of the policy of Frederick, does not appear. The claim was, as has already been mentioned, that ecclesiastical supremacy was vested in the secular power of the empire, and dated from the time of the Roman emperors. They were the Supreme Pontiffs from whom the Pope derived his title, but not his authority. That office was merged into, and was inferior to, the imperial dignity. Its inheritance by the monarch of Italy rested upon a more secure basis than the ambiguous and disputed commission alleged to have been conferred upon the fisherman of Galilee. Its validity had been strengthened by centuries of prescription. It had been exercised by many generations of sovereigns. The ministrations of the chief priest of a sect embracing millions of worshippers, the revered intermediary between the devotee and Heaven, are only too easily confounded with the attributes of divinity. These advantages were early recognized and diligently improved by Constantine. The Byzantine emperor was the head of the Greek Church. In Mohammed temporal and spiritual functions were united. Such examples, constantly present to the mind of Frederick, exerted no small influence in determining his course. In the eyes of his Sicilian subjects, the claim of the Imperial Crown to religious supremacy was regarded as a royal prerogative, which had been suspended but never relinquished. The usurpation of the Papal power was a favorite project of European monarchs in succeeding ages. It was seriously meditated by Philippe le Bel in France during the fourteenth century. It was effected by Henry VIII. in England during the sixteenth century. The defiance of the Pope by the great German Emperor was, even at the distance of three hundred years, one of the inspiring causes of the Reformation. The spirit of intellectual liberty, oppressed at first, was victorious in the end.