Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-gb8f7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-24T10:56:50.521Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Crusade Against Frederick II: A Neglected Piece of Evidence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 September 2016

GIANLUCA RACCAGNI
GIANLUCA RACCAGNI*
Affiliation:
School of History, Classics and Archaeology, University of Edinburgh, Old Medical School, Teviot Place, Edinburgh EH8 9AG; e-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This study argues that contemporary historical works are an unparalleled source for charting the neglected subject of the implementation and impact in northern Italy of the crusade that was launched against Frederick II in 1240; and that a mostly uncritical acceptance of that crusade became a topos in works by laymen as well as clerics across the region. Above all, those works reveal that, while pro-papal factions are a fixture of scholarship on the Italian cities during the central and late Middle Ages, adherence to the Church actually became an explicit and distinguishing feature of Lombard factions only when the crusade was launched against Frederick II.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 67 , Issue 4 , October 2016 , pp. 721 - 740
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 See, most recently, F. Cardini, ‘La crociata e le crociate’, in Gregorio IX e gli ordini mendicanti, Spoleto 2011, 325–50Google Scholar; W. Stürner, ‘Der Kreuzzug Kaiser Friedrichs ii’, in Ruess, L. Heinz (ed.), Stauferzeit – Zeit der Kreuzzüge, Göppingen 2011, 144–57Google Scholar; and Takayama, H., ‘Frederick's crusade: an example of Christian-Muslim diplomacy’, Mediterranean Historical Review xxv (2010), 169–85CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 This trend is exemplified by Wolfgang Stürner's landmark biography of Frederick ii: Friedrich II., Darmstadt, 1992–2000Google Scholar. More attention was devoted to the topic in a previous seminal biography: Abulafia, D., Frederick II, a medieval emperor, London 1988 Google Scholar.

3 Housley, N., Contesting the crusades, Malden–Oxford 2006, 99–122 Google Scholar.

4 For the latest assessment see Riley-Smith, J., The crusades: a history, 3rd edn, London 2014 Google Scholar.

5 See, most recently, Abulafia, D., ‘The Kingdom of Sicily and the origins of the political crusades’, in Arnaldi, G. (ed.), Società, istituzioni, spiritualità: studi in onore di Cinzio Violante, Spoleto 1994, 65–77 Google Scholar, and Housley, N., ‘The crusades against Christians: their origins and early development, c. 1000–1216’, in Edbury, P. (ed.), Crusade and settlement, Cardiff 1985, 17–36 Google Scholar.

6 Rist, R., The papacy and crusading in Europe, 1198–1245, London 2009 Google Scholar.

7 Housley, N., The Italian crusades: the papal-Angevin alliance and the crusades against Christian lay powers, 1254–1343, Oxford 1982 Google Scholar.

8 Capo, L., ‘La cronachistica italiana dell'età di Federico ii ’, RSI cxiv (2012), 380–430 Google Scholar; Zabbia, M., ‘Tra istituzioni di governo ed opinione pubblica: forme ed echi di comunicazione politica nella cronachistica notarile italiana (secc. xii–xiv)’, RSI cx (1998), 100–18Google Scholar.

9 Loud, ‘G. A., ‘The papal “crusade” against Frederick ii in 1228–30’, in Balard, M. (ed.), La Papauté et les croisades, Farnham 2011, 91–104 Google Scholar.

10 Rist, The papacy, 181–4; MGH, Epp., i. 291–327.

11 MGH, Epp., i. 288–9 (Mar. 1228). Around August 1228 Gregory reasserted the excommunication of Frederick along with a long list of heretical groups: ibid. i. 318.

12 Ibid. i. 322–4.

13 Chiodi, G., ‘Istituzioni e attività della seconda Lega Lombarda (1226–1235)’, in Studi di storia del diritto, Milan 1996, 79–262 Google Scholar.

14 Guido Faba, Dictamina rhetorica, ed. A. Gaudenzi, Il Propugnatore v (1892), 102.

15 Camargo, M., Ars dictaminis, ars dictandi, Turnhout 1991, 43–4Google Scholar.

16 Raccagni, G., ‘The teaching of rhetoric and the Magna Carta of the Lombard cities: the Peace of Constance, the empire and the papacy in the works of Guido Faba and his leading contemporary colleagues’, Journal of Medieval History xxxix (2013), 61–79 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

17 Ryccardi de Sancto Germano notarii Chronica, ed. Garufi, C. A., RIS2, vii/2, Bologna 1938, 160 Google Scholar.

18 G. Arnaldi, ‘Codagnello Giovanni’, in DBI xxvi. 562–8. On Faenza see Mascanzoni, L., Il Tolosano e i suoi continuatori: nuovi elementi per uno studio della composizione del Chronicon faventinum, Rome 1996 Google Scholar.

19 Castignoli, P., ‘La storiografia e le fonti’, in Storia di Piacenza, II: Dal vescovo-conte alla signoria (996–1313), Piacenza 1984, 21–3Google Scholar.

20 On the lack of a sharp distinction see Dumville, D., ‘What is a chronicle?’, in Cooper, E. (ed.), Medieval chronicles, ii, Amsterdam 2002, 1–27 Google Scholar.

21 Chronicon faventinum, ed. Rossini, G., RIS2, xxviii/1, Bologna 1936–9, 156–8Google Scholar.

22 Iohannis Codagnelli Annales placentini, ed. Holder-Egger, O., in MGH, Scriptores rerum germanicarum in usum scholarum separatim editi, xxiii, Hanover–Leipzig 1901, 86–90 Google Scholar, 110.

23 Annales placentini gibellini, ed. Pertz, G. H., MGH, In folio, xviii, Hanover 1863, 469–70Google Scholar.

24 On the later crusade against Ezzelino see Housley, The Italian crusades, 159–69.

25 Verci, G., Storia degli Ecelini, Bassano 1779, iii. 234–5Google Scholar.

26 Ibid; Piazza, A., ‘Alle origini del coinvolgimento dei Minori contro l'eresia: i frati di Angarano nella Marca di Ezzelino da Romano’, Bullettino dell'Istituto storico italiano per il medioevo cvii (2005), 205–28Google Scholar.

27 MGH, Epp., i. 459.

28 Montanari, P., ‘Milano “fovea hereticorum” le fonti di un'immagine’, in Benedetti, M., Merlo, G. G. and Piazza, A. (eds), Vite di eretici e storie di frati, Milan 1998, 33–74 Google Scholar.

29 Piazza, ‘Alle origini’. On the role of the mendicant orders see also Maier, C., Preaching the crusades: mendicant friars and the cross in the thirteenth century, Cambridge 1994 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Barone, G., ‘Federico ii di Svevia e gli ordini mendicanti’, Mélanges de l' École française de Rome: moyen-âge, temps modernes xc (1978), 607–26Google Scholar.

30 N. Housley, ‘Politics and heresy in Italy: anti-heretical crusades, orders and confraternities, 1200–1500’, this Journal xxxiii (1982), 193–208.

31 Baietto, L., Il papa e le città: papato e comuni in Italia centro-settentrionale durante la prima metà del secolo XIII, Spoleto 2007, 269–336 Google Scholar.

32 See, most recently, Berteli, C. and Marcadella, G. (eds), Ezzelini: signori della Marca nel cuore dell'impero di Federico II, Milan 2001 Google Scholar. On the corpus see Arnaldi, G., Studi sui cronisti della Marca Trevigiana nell'età di Ezzelino da Romano, Rome 1963 Google Scholar.

33 Gazzini, M., ‘«Fratres» e «milites» tra religione e politica: le milizie di Gesù Cristo e della Vergine nel duecento’, Archivio storico italiano clxvii (2004), 3–78 Google Scholar.

34 Baietto, Il papa e le città, 269–336.

35 Ibid.

36 MGH, Epp., i. 355.

37 Milani, G., L'esclusione dal comune: conflitti e bandi politici a Bologna e in altre città italiane tra XII e XIV secolo, Rome 2003, 90–111 Google Scholar.

38 Manselli, R., ‘Ezzelino da Romano nella politica italiana del sec. xiii ’, in Fasoli, G. (ed.), Studi Ezzeliniani, Rome 1963, 35–79 Google Scholar.

39 Gerardi Maurisii cronica dominorum Ecelini et Alberti fratrum de Romano, ed. Soranzo, –G., RIS2, viii/4, Città di Castello 1914, 24 Google Scholar.

40 Fiorese, F., ‘Maurisio, Gerardo’, DBI lxxii, Rome 2008, 456–7Google Scholar.

41 Gerardi Maurisii cronica, 5.

42 Ibid. 25–9.

43 ‘In tantum eos verbis ferventibus animavit, quod fere omnes contra imperatorem cruce signati fuerunt’: Iacopo da Varagine e la sua Cronaca di Genova dalle origini al MCCXCVII, ed. Monleone, C., Rome 1941, 381 Google Scholar.

44 ‘Quapropter maior pars Romanorum ibidem incontinenti levaverunt signum crucis in defensionem ecclesie’: Annales placentini gibellini, 483.

45 da Ferrara, Riccobaldo, Pomerium Ravennatis Ecclesie, ed. Zanella, G., Cremona 2001, 47 Google Scholar. On Riccobaldo see Hankey, A. T., Riccobaldo of Ferrara: his life, works and influence, Rome 1996 Google Scholar.

46 Housley, The Italian crusades, 46.

47 ‘proprios humeros de manu nostra crucis charactere munierunt, generalem indulgentiam de Apostolice Sedis gratia suscepturi’: HD v/2, 776–9; cf. Vita Gregorii IX, in Rerum Italicarum Scriptores, ed. Muratori, L. A., ii, Milan 1728 Google Scholar, c. 387.

48 MGH, Const., ii. 312.

49 ‘ibique facta predicatione de facto crucis suscipiende contra inimicos et rebelles sacrosancte Ecclesie, remissionem omnium peccatorum omnibus crucem assumentibus, tamquam transeuntibus ultra mare ad recuperationem terre sancte, auctoritate apostolica condonavit’: Annali genovesi di Caffaro e de’ suoi continuatori, III: al MCCXXV al MCCL ed. C. Imperiale di Sant'Angelo (Fonti per la storia d'Italia xiii, 1923), 98Google Scholar.

50 Ibid. 127.

51 Dotson, J., ‘The Genoese civic annals’, in Lewin, A. W. and Osheim, D. J. (eds), Chronicling history: chronicles and historians in medieval and Renaissance Italy, University Park, Pa 2007, 55 Google Scholar, 64.

52 Caffaro, Genoa and the twelfth-century crusades, ed. Hall, M. and Phillips, J., Farnham 2013, 1–10 Google Scholar.

53 Annali genovesi, 124.

54 Ibid. 96.

55 Abulafia, Frederick II, 346–7.

56 Annali genovesi, 124–40.

57 Balbi, G. Petti, ‘Federico ii e Genova tra istanze regionali e interessi mediterranei’, in Fonseca, C. D. and Crotti, R. (eds), Federico II e la civiltà comunale nell'Italia del Nord, Rome 1999, 99–130 Google Scholar.

58 Annali genovesi, 98–187.

59 Meneghetti, M. L., ‘Martin da Canal e la cultura veneziana del xiii secolo’, Medioevo romanzo xxx (2006), 111–29Google Scholar.

60 da Canale, Martino, Les Estoires de Venise, ed. Limentani, A., Florence 1973, 132 Google Scholar.

61 Ibid. pp. liv–v; D. M. Perry, ‘1308 and 1177: Venice and the papacy in real and imaginary crusades’, in La Papauté et les croisades, 117–29.

62 Annali genovesi, 98; Alberti Milioli notarii regini Liber de temporibus, ed. Holder-Egger, O., MGH, In folio, xxxi, Hanover 1903, 513 Google Scholar; Cronica Fratris Salimbene de Adam, ed. Holder-Egger, O., MGH, In folio, xxxii, Hanover–Lipsia 1913, 165 Google Scholar; Hermani altahensis annales, MGH, In folio, xvii, Hanover 1861, 388 Google Scholar; Liber regiminum Padue, ed. Bonardi, àA., RIS2, viii/1, Città di Castello 1905–8, 307 Google Scholar; Martino da Canale, Les Estoires, 87–99; Paris, Matthew, Chronica maiora, ed. Liebermann, F., MGH, In folio, xxviii, Hanover 1888, 161 Google Scholar, 179; Cantinelli, Pietro, Chronicon, ed. Torraca, F., RIS2, xxviii/2, Città di Castello 1902, 4 Google Scholar. Riccobaldo da Ferrara mentioned it in all his works, which were produced on both sides of the century, but especially in his Cronica parva Ferrariensis, ed. Zanella, G., Ferrara 1983, 168–77Google Scholar; Ryccardi de Sancto Germano Chronica, 205, MGH, In folio, xviii: Memorie mediolanenses, 402; Annales placentini gibellini, 483, MGH, In folio, xix, ed. Pertz, G. H., Hanover 1866 Google Scholar: Annales veronenses, 11; Annales mantuani, 22; Rolandini patavini chronica, 75–7; Annales S. Iustinae patavini, 157. The list would be far longer if the fourteenth-century works were added.

63 Herde, P., ‘Federico ii e il papato: la lotta delle cancellerie’, in Herde, –P. (ed.), Studien zur Papst- und Reichsgeschichte, zur Geschichte des Mittelmeerraumes und zum kanonischen Recht im Mittelalter, i, Stuttgart 2002, 277–91Google Scholar.

64 HD v/1, 337; Hermani altahensis annales, 388.

65 Annali genovesi, 98.

66 ‘alioquin in frontibus fideium crucis signaculum imponemus, cuius virtute mirabili vos inimicos Ihesus Christi confundent, et expugnabunt omnem hereticam pravitatem’: Guido Faba, Epistole, ed. A. Gaudenzi, Il propugnatore v (1863), 382.

67 Annales placentini gibellini, 483; Annales S. Iustinae Patavini, 157.

68 Martino da Canale, Les Estoires, 87–99.

69 Vasina, A., ‘Comune, Vescovo e Signoria estense dal xii al xiv secolo’, in Vasina, A. (ed.), Storia di Ferrara, V: Il basso medioevo XII–XIV, Ferrara 1987, 94–5Google Scholar.

70 Annales placentini gibellini, 484.

71 Bernini, F., ‘Come si preparò la rovina di Federico ii ’, RSI lx (1948), 204–49Google Scholar.

72 Matthew Paris, Chronica maiora, 161–2.

73 Siberry, E., Criticism of crusading: 1095–1274, Oxford 1985 Google Scholar.

74 Matthew Paris, Chronica maiora, 179.

75 Annales placentini gibellini, 483.

76 Riccobaldo, Cronica parva, 168–77.

77 Rolandini Patavini Chronica, 75–7.

78 Ibid. 133.

79 On Rolandino's work see Andrews, F., ‘Albertano of Brescia, Rolandino of Padua and the rhetoric of legitimation’, in Alfonso, I., Kennedy, H. and Escalona, J. (eds), Building legitimacy: political discourses and forms of legitimation in medieval societies, Leiden 2004, 319–41CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

80 Rist, The papacy, 193.

81 ‘Qui statim ut ibi accessit, sumptis civibus de mandato eius signo crucis et paratis duobus vexillis cum crucibus et clavibus intus, venit ad Laudum vegium, et ibi cum Mediolanensibus sua tentoria finxit destruendo turres ecclesiarum et segetes devastando’: Annales placentini gibellini, 481. On Montelongo see Alberzoni, M. P., ‘Le armi del legato: Gregorio da Montelongo nello scontro tra Papato e Impero’, in La propaganda politica nel basso medioevo, Spoleto 2002, 177–239 Google Scholar.

82 Annales S. Iustinae patavini, 156–7.

83 Manipulus florum, in Rerum Italicarum Scritores, ed. Muratori, L. A., xi, Milan 1727, 647–9Google Scholar.

84 MGH, Const., i. 311.

85 Busch, –J. W., ‘Sulle traccie della memoria comunale di Milano: le opere dei laici del xii e xiii secolo nel Manipulus florum di Galvano Famma’, in Chiesa, P. (ed.), Le cronache medievali di Milano, Milan 2001, 79–88 Google Scholar.

86 Tomea, P., ‘Fiamma (Flamma, de Flama) Galvano’, DBI xlvii (1997), 331–8Google Scholar.

87 HD v/1, 465. For its background see Weiler, B., Henry III of England and the Staufen empire, 1216–1272, Woodbridge 2006, 86–109 Google Scholar.

88 For crusading experimentations against the emperor see Abulafia, ‘The Kingdom of Sicily’.

89 HD v/1, 400.

90 HD v/1, 458.

91 There is reason to believe, however, that difficulties persisted in fitting the conflict against Frederick into the usual crusading propaganda: G. A. Loud, ‘The case of the missing martyrs: Frederick's war with the Church, 1239–1250’, in D. Wood (ed.), Martyrs and martyrologies (Studies in Church History xxx, 1993), 141–52.

92 MGH, Epp., ii, ed. C. Rodenberg, Berlin 1887, 150–1, 184–5, 327–8, 629–30.

93 A. W. Lewin, ‘Salimbene de Adam and the Franciscan chronicle’, in Lewin and Osheim, Chronicling history, 87–112.

94 Cosgrove, W. Reid, ‘ Crucesignatus: a refinement or merely one more term among many?’, in Madden, T. F., Naus, J. L. and Ryan, V. (eds), Crusades – medieval worlds in conflict, Farnham 2010, 95–107 Google Scholar.

95 Matthew Paris, Chronica maiora, 179.

96 Annali genovesi, 98.

97 Annales S. Iustinae patavini, 156–7.

98 Cronica fratris Salimbene de Adam, 369.

99 Pini, A. I., ‘Il comune di Ravenna tra episcopio e aristocrazia cittadina’, in Vasina, A. (ed.), Storia di Ravenna, III: Dal mille alla fine della signoria polentona, Venice 1993, 233 Google Scholar.

100 Iacopo da Varagine, 411.

101 Petti Balbi, ‘Federico ii e Genova’, 123.

102 Annales Parmenses maiores, MGH, In folio, xviii. 670; Rolandini Patavini Chronica, 85.

103 As already noted here: Araldi, G., ‘Codagnello, Giovanni’, DBI, xxvii, Rome 1982, 567–8Google Scholar.

104 Iohannis Codagnelli Annales placentini, 125.

105 Rolandini patavini chronica, 83, 88; Bartholomaei scribae annales, 179.

106 Raccagni, G., The Lombard League, 1167–1225, Oxford 2010, 183 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 137–46.

107 Idem, ‘Tra Lega Lombarda e Pars ecclesie: l'evoluzione della seconda Lega Lombarda e la leadership dei legati papali negli anni a cavallo della morte di Federico ii (1239–1250)’, Società e Storia xxxv (2012), 249–75Google Scholar.

108 Baietto, Il papa e le città; Milani, L'esclusione dal comune, 90–121.

109 Savioli, L. V., Annali bolognesi, iiii/2, Bassano 1795 Google Scholar, no. dcxxi.

110 Gazzini, ‘«Fratres» e «milites»’.

111 Ibid; Housley, ‘Politics and heresy’.

112 G. Ortalli, ‘Federico ii e la cronachistica cittadina: dalla coscienza al mito’, in Pierre Toubert and A. Paravicini Bagliani (eds), Federico II e le città italiane, Palermo 1994, 249–63.

113 For a recent discussion of the vast literature on that topic see Gentile, M., ‘Factions and parties: problems and perspectives’, in Gamberini, A. and Lazzarini, I. (eds), The Italian Renaissance state, Cambridge 2012, 304–22CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

114 Zabbia, ‘Tra istituzioni di governo ed opinione pubblica’, 118.