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256 A Short History of The World credit and undo his work. Or some enfeebled old man tottering on the brink of the grave might succeed him. It was inevitable that this peculiar weakness of the papal organiza- tion should attract the interference of the various German princes, the French King, and the Norman and French Kings who ruled in England ; that they should all try to influence the elections, and have a pope in their own interest established in the Lateran Palace at Rome. And the more powerful and important the pope became in European affairs, the more urgent did these interventions become. Under the circumstances it is no great wonder that many of the popes were weak and futile. The astonishing thing is that many of them were able and courageous men. One of the most vigorous and interesting of the popes of this great period was Innocent III (1198-1216), ^ho was so fortunate as to be- come pope before he was thirty-eight. He and his successors were pitted against an even more interesting personality, the Emperor Frederick II ; Stupor mundi he was called, the Wonder of the world. The struggle of this monarch against Rome is a turning place in history. In the end Rome defeated him and destroyed his dynasty, but he left the prestige of the church and pope so badly wounded that its wounds festered and led to its decay. Frederick was the son of the Emperor Henry VI and his mother was the daughter of Roger I, the Norman King of Sicily. He in- herited this kingdom in 1198 when he was a child of four years. Innocent III had been made his guardian. Sicily in those days had been but recently conquered by the Normans ; the Court was half oriental and full of highly educated Arabs ; and some of these were associated in the education of the young king. No doubt they were at some pains to make their point of view clear to him. He got a Moslem view of Christianity as well as a Christian view of Islam, and the unhappy result of this double system of instruction was a view, exceptional in that age of faith, that all religions were impostures. He talked freely on the subject; his heresies and blasphemies are on record. As the young man grew up he found himself in conflict with his guardian. Innocent III wanted altogether too much from his ward. When the opportunity came for Frederick to succeed as Emperor, the pope intervened with conditions. Frederick must promise to put down heresy in Germany with a strong hand. Moreover he must relinquish his crown in Sicily and South Italy, because otherwise