• OTHER TITLES:
  King of Sicily 1197-1250
  
• BIOGRAPHY
  Friedrich was born at Jesi near Ancona in Italy, on 26 September 1194, the son of Holy Roman Emperor Heinrich VI and Costanza of Sicily. Friedrich's brilliant and extraordinary life was marred, indeed stifled, by continuing battle with the papacy.
  
  His father had married Costanza, daughter and heir-presumptive of Roger II of Sicily, despite the opposition of Pope Celestine III. In 1191 the pope crowned Heinrich and Costanza emperor and empress. Heinrich then set out to recover Sicily, which had been divided by the feudal barons who had elected Tancred, an illegitimate grandson of Roger II, as king. Heinrich only succeeded by treacherously massacring many of the Sicilian aristocracy.
  
  In 1194, at the age of forty, Costanza gave birth to Friedrich, her only child. In 1197 Heinrich died before he was able to inflict any further cruelties, leaving Costanza as regent to deal with the German soldiers of fortune. However, Costanza was capable and determined, securing the support of Pope Innocent III who crowned both Costanza and her infant son in the summer of 1198. Costanza died on 27 November 1198 and Friedrich II became the ward of the pope while rival factions in Sicily fought for control.
  
  Friedrich was ignored and would have starved had the poorer citizens of Palermo not taken pity and looked after him. At the age of seven he was kidnapped. Fortunately, however, his kidnapper died a few months later, otherwise Friedrich might have been blinded and castrated, as Tancred's son had been by orders of Friedrich's father.
  
  As a youth he led a wild life with grooms and huntsmen, who taught him how ordinary people lived. He studied languages, including Arabic, and was widely read. In his learning he was encouraged by Papal legates and Muslims alike. The Norman kings had made Sicily the most cultivated court in Europe, from which Friedrich now benefited. At fourteen, he was declared to be of age and the pope selected a wife for him, Constanza of Aragón, who was considerably older and the widow of King Emmerich of Hungary. Constanza both improved his manners and gave birth to a son Heinrich in 1211.
  
  Friedrich's right to succeed his father as emperor had been ignored, and at the age of seventeen he had to prepare himself for a possible invasion by Emperor Otto IV. However the Guelf princes in favour of the House of Hohenstaufen deposed Otto and elected Friedrich as emperor. At the age of eighteen he was invited to come to Germany as emperor-elect.
  
  He would have been happier had he remained in Sicily, but he accepted the call as his destiny and went to Germany. Pope Innocent III insisted that he first come to Rome to pay homage. As well he was expected to give Sicily to his baby son, as Innocent III did not want to have Friedrich II as both emperor in the north of Rome and king of Sicily in the south. Friedrich had other ideas, but was wise enough not to reveal them.
  
  Although Friedrich found a hostile Germany, by diplomacy he overcame all opposition and was crowned with various titles. Yet he still had to be crowned by the pope to be confirmed as emperor. Although he did not care for Germany, he arranged for his wife and son to come there and even had his son elected as his successor without consent of the pope.
  
  Pope Innocent III had been succeeded by the gentle Pope Honorius. After a promised crusade to liberate Jerusalem, he crowned Friedrich in Rome on 22 November 1220. Friedrich then went straight to Sicily and issued laws based on earlier Norman laws, which had made Sicily the most prosperous kingdom in Europe. He also built up the army and fleet.
  
  Friedrich had to have order in his kingdom before he could set out on the crusade, and he needed time to make Sicily prosper in order to finance the crusading venture. He built ships especially to transport two thousand knights and ten thousand soldiers. Part of each ship could be let down so that the knights could disembark already mounted and ready to meet the enemy. He also had to defeat the Muslim population of Western Sicily, after which he settled them as farmers in Apulia.
  
  While Friedrich was preparing himself for the crusade, on 23 June 1222 his wife Constanza died. On 9 November 1225 he chose Yolande de Brienne, daughter of Jean de Brienne, king of Jerusalem, as his second wife. She gave him his second legitimate son, Konrad IV, in 1228 and died thirteen days later. In 1227 Pope Honorius died, and was succeeded by Gregory IX who was to become Friedrich's formidable adversary. After seven years delay Friedrich set out on crusade. However, after three days at sea, an epidemic broke out and he decided to return while the others went on, as he preferred to recover in Sicily rather than die at sea. Pope Gregory IX excommunicated him as he considered this to be just another excuse for not going on crusade. When the excommunication became known, the whole army of forty thousand knights and soldiers returned from the Holy Land.
  
  Europe then watched to see whether the pope would again be victorious in the struggle for supreme power between pope and emperor. Friedrich tried in vain to appease the pope, as he wanted to make the crusade once he had recovered. Despite further troubles caused by the pope, he set out for Jerusalem, which greatly annoyed the pope.
  
  No one expected any success as he arrived with a much less impressive army than originally intended. However for some considerable time he had been on friendly terms with the sultan of Egypt, and through diplomacy Friedrich succeeded where armies had failed. In a treaty in 1229, those parts of Jerusalem considered holy by the Christians were returned to them, while those regarded holy by the Muslims were retained by them. In the church of the Holy Sepulchre, Friedrich crowned himself king of Jerusalem as the pope's patriarch would have nothing to do with the ceremony.
  
  Friedrich returned to Sicily in glory. The pope, embarrassed and distrustful, forced Friedrich to make many concessions, but in August 1230 the excommunication was lifted. Pope Gregory IX disliked the remarkable Constitutions of Melfi, the new legal code for the kingdom of Sicily promulgated on 1 September 1231 by Friedrich, which had been drawn up by jurists. These included the schools for training civil servants and doctors, but most importantly they enshrined that all were equal before the law, taking away the jurisdiction of prelates and nobles. Even though Friedrich was an autocrat, he found nothing more odious than the oppression of the poor by the rich.
  
  The pope distrusted Friedrich's sophistication and curiosity as Friedrich's court had many learned men and poets. Friedrich's own book _The Art of Hunting with Birds_ has remained a classic, and he had important works translated from Arabic. He also built castles in Apulia. He believed in cleanliness to the extent that his daily baths were regarded as a scandal.
  
  Having been a widower for seven years, in July 1235 he married again, this time choosing Isabella, daughter of John Lackland, king of England. By Isabella he became the father of several children of whom a daughter Margarethe would have progeny. Isabella died in 1241 and from then on he remained unmarried. During his life he also fathered at least eleven illegitimate children.
  
  To retain his influence in Germany, he needed to secure lines of communication, which had to be through the papal state and Lombardy. The pope prevented Friedrich from uniting northern Italy, by which action Friedrich suspected the pope of encouraging insurrection against the empire. When he eventually realised that the opposition of the pope was continual, Friedrich tried to deprive him of temporal power.
  
  For a second time Gregory IX excommunicated Friedrich II in 1239, but the kings of England, France and Hungary sent forces to help Friedrich in his struggle against the Lombard League. When the nearly hundred-year-old Gregory IX verbally attacked Friedrich for many sins, mostly invented, Friedrich decided to capture both Rome and the pope who had been deserted by many of his cardinals. However, Gregory IX inspired the Romans to defend their city and Friedrich decided to withdraw his forces. Twice more he advanced and withdrew. After the first time, Gregory IX had died. He was replaced by Innocent IV, who escaped from Rome dressed as a soldier.
  
  In 1245 in Lyons, Innocent IV declared Friedrich to be deposed, which undermined Friedrich's position. Friedrich then had to depose his own son for incompetence as well as for allying himself with his father's enemies. In February 1249 he failed to capture Parma, which kept his main route across the Apennines closed. Various attempts were made on his life, ordered by the pope. He died in Firenzuola in December 1250, and was buried in Palermo.