The character of Frederick is one of extraordinary interest and versatility, and contemporary opinion is expressed in the words stupor mundi et immutator mirabilis. Licentious and luxurious in his manners, cultured and catholic in his tastes, he united in his person the most diverse qualities. His Sicilian court was a centre of intellectual activity. Michael Scott, the translator of some treatises of Aristotle and of the commentaries of Averroes, Leonard of Pisa, who introduced Arabic numerals and algebra to the West, and other scholars, Jewish and Mahommedan as well as Christian, were welcome at his court. Frederick himself had a knowledge of six languages, was acquainted with mathematics, philosophy and natural history, and took an interest in medicine and architecture. In 1224 he founded the university of Naples, and he was a liberal patron of the medical school at Salerno. He formed a menagerie of strange animals, and wrote a treatise on falconry (De arte venandi cum avibus) which is remarkable for its accurate observation of the habits of birds.[1] It was at his court, too, that—as Dante points out—Italian poetry had its birth. Pier della Vigna there wrote the first sonnet, and Italian lyrics by Frederick himself are preserved to us. His wives were kept secluded in oriental fashion; a harem was maintained at Lucera, and eunuchs were a prominent feature of his household. His religious ideas have been the subject of much controversy. The theory of M. Huillard-Bréholles that he wished to unite to the functions of emperor those of a spiritual pontiff, and aspired to be the founder of a new religion, is insufficiently supported by evidence to be credible. Although at times he persecuted heretics with great cruelty, he tolerated Mahommedans and Jews, and both acts appear rather to have been the outcome of political considerations than of religious belief. His jests, which were used by his enemies as a charge against him, seem to have originated in religious indifference, or perhaps in a spirit of inquiry which anticipated the ideas of a later age. Frederick’s rule in Germany and Italy was a failure, but this fact may be accounted for by the conditions of the time and the inevitable conflict with the papacy. In Germany the enactments of 1220 and 1231 contributed to the disintegration of the Empire and the fall of the Hohenstaufen, while conflicting interests made the government of Italy a problem of exceptional difficulty. In Sicily Frederick was more successful. He quelled disorder, and under his rule the island was prosperous and contented. His ideas of government were those of an absolute monarch, and he probably wished to surround himself with some of the pomp which had encircled the older emperors of Rome. His chief claim to fame, perhaps, is as a lawgiver. The code of laws which he gave to Sicily in 1231 bears the impress of his personality, and has been described as “the fullest and most adequate body of legislation promulgated by any western ruler since Charlemagne.” Without being a great soldier, Frederick was not unskilful in warfare, but was better acquainted with the arts of diplomacy. In person he is said to have been “red, bald and short-sighted,” but with good features and a pleasing countenance. It was seriously believed in Germany for about a century after his death that Frederick was still alive, and many impostors attempted to personate him. A legend, afterwards transferred to Frederick Barbarossa, told how he sat in a cavern in the Kyffhäusser before a stone table through which his beard had grown, waiting for the time for him to awake and restore to the Empire the golden age of peace.
The contemporary documents relating to the reign of Frederick II. are very numerous. Among the most important are: Richard of San Germano, Chronica regni Siciliae; Annales Placentini, Gibellini; Albert of Stade, Annales; Matthew Paris, Historia major Angliae; Burchard, Chronicon Urspergense. All these are in the Monumenta Germaniae historica. Scriptores (Hanover and Berlin, 1826–1892). The Rerum Italicarum scriptores, edited by L. A. Muratori (Milan, 1723–1751), contains Annales Mediolanenses; Nicholas of Jamsilla, Historia de rebus gestis Friderici II., and Vita Gregorii IX. pontificis. There are also the Epistolarum libri of Peter della Vigna, edited by J. R. Iselin (Basel, 1740); and Salimbene of Parma’s Chronik, published at Parma (1857). Many of the documents concerning the history of the time are found in the Historia diplomatica Friderici II., edited by M. Huillard-Bréholles (Paris, 1852–1861); Acta imperii selecta. Urkunden deutscher Könige und Kaiser, edited by J. F. Böhmer and J. Ficker (Innsbruck, 1870); Acta imperii inedita seculi XIII. Urkunden und Briefe zur Geschichte des Kaiserreichs und des Königreichs Sicilien, edited by E. Winkelmann (Innsbruck, 1880); Epistolae saeculi XIII. selecta e regestis pontificum Romanorum, edited by C. Rodenberg, tome i. (Berlin, 1883); P. Pressutti, Regesta Honorii papae III. (Rome, 1888); L. Auvray, Les Registres de Grégoire IX. (Paris, 1890).
The best modern authorities are W. von Giesebrecht, Geschichte der deutschen Kaiserzeit, Band v. (Leipzig, 1888); J. Jastrow, Deutsche Geschichte im Zeitalter der Hohenstaufen (Berlin, 1893); F. W. Schirrmacher, Kaiser Friedrich der Zweite (Göttingen, 1859–1865); “Beiträge zur Geschichte Kaiser Friedrichs II.” in the Forschungen zur deutschen Geschichte, Band xi. (Göttingen, 1862–1886), and Die letzten Hohenstaufen (Göttingen, 1871); E. Winkelmann, Geschichte Kaiser Friedrichs II und seiner Reiche (Berlin, 1865) and Kaiser Friedrich II. (Leipzig, 1889); G. Blondel, Étude sur la politique de l’empereur Frédéric II. en Allemagne (Paris, 1892); M. Halbe, Friedrich II. und der päpstliche Stuhl (Berlin, 1888); R. Röhricht, Die Kreuzfahrt des Kaisers Friedrich II. (Berlin, 1874); C. Köhler, Das Verhältnis Kaiser Friedrichs II. zu den Päpsten seiner Zeit (Breslau, 1888); J. Feiten, Papst Gregor IX. (Freiburg, 1886); C. Rodenberg, Innocenz IV. und das Königreich Sicilien (Halle, 1892); K. Lamprecht, Deutsche Geschichte, Band iii. (Berlin, 1891); M. Huillard-Bréholles, Vie et correspondance de Pierre de la Vigne (Paris, 1865); A. del Vecchio, La legislazione de Federico II (Turin, 1874); and K. Hampe, Kaiser Friedrich II. (Munich, 1899). (A. W. H.*)
FREDERICK III. (1415–1493), Roman emperor,—as Frederick
IV., German king, and as Frederick V., archduke of Austria,—son
of Ernest of Habsburg, duke of Styria and Carinthia, was born
at Innsbruck on the 21st of September 1415. After his father’s
death in 1424 he passed his time at the court of his uncle and
guardian, Frederick IV., count of Tirol. In 1435, together with
his brother, Albert the Prodigal, he undertook the government
of Styria and Carinthia, but the peace of these lands was disturbed
by constant feuds between the brothers, which lasted until
Albert’s death in 1463. In 1439 the deaths of the German
king Albert II. and of Frederick of Tirol left Frederick the
senior member of the Habsburg family, and guardian of Sigismund,
count of Tirol. In the following year he also became
guardian of Ladislaus, the posthumous son of Albert II., and heir
to Bohemia, Hungary and Austria, but these responsibilities
brought only trouble and humiliation in their train. On the 2nd
of February 1440 Frederick was chosen German king at Frankfort,
but, owing to his absence from Germany, the coronation was
delayed until the 17th of June 1442, when it took place at Aix-la-Chapelle.
Disregarding the neutral attitude of the German electors towards the papal schism, and acting under the influence of Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini, afterwards Pope Pius II., Frederick in 1445 made a secret treaty with Pope Eugenius IV. This developed into the Concordat of Vienna, signed in 1448 with the succeeding pope, Nicholas V., by which the king, in return for a sum of money and a promise of the imperial crown, pledged the obedience of the German people to Rome, and so checked for a time the rising tide of liberty in the German church. Taking up the quarrel between the Habsburgs and the Swiss cantons, Frederick invited the Armagnacs to attack his enemies, but after meeting with a stubborn resistance at St Jacob on the 26th of August 1444, these allies proved faithless, and the king soon lost every vestige of authority in Switzerland. In 1451 Frederick, disregarding the revolts in Austria and Hungary, travelled to Rome, where, on the 16th of March 1452, his marriage with Leonora, daughter of Edward, king of Portugal, was celebrated, and three days later he was crowned emperor by pope Nicholas. On his return he found Germany seething with indignation. His capitulation to the pope was not forgotten; his refusal to attend the diets, and his apathy in the face of Turkish aggressions, constituted a serious danger; and plans for his deposition failed only because the electors could not unite upon a rival king. In 1457 Ladislaus, king of Hungary and Bohemia, and archduke of Austria, died; Frederick failed to secure either kingdom, but obtained lower Austria, from which, however, he was soon driven by his brother Albert, who occupied Vienna. On Albert’s death in 1463 the emperor united upper and lower Austria under his rule, but these possessions were constantly ravaged by George
- ↑ First printed at Augsburg in 1596; a German edition was published at Berlin in 1896.
