Ambitions Realized and Thwarted (1150-1250) - European Ambitions and Their Limits - From Empire to "Holy Roman Empire

12 important questions on Ambitions Realized and Thwarted (1150-1250) - European Ambitions and Their Limits - From Empire to "Holy Roman Empire

What was the difficulty for the Emperor?

Being emperor meant controlling Italy and Rome. The difficulty was not only the papacy, defiantly opposed to another major power in Italy, but also the northern Italian communes, which were independent city-states in their own right.

What problem did Frederick I Barbarossa have?

  • Frederick I Barbarossa (r.1152-1190) became king after a long period of bitter civil war.
  • In Frederick's case, the war, spawned in the wake of the Investiture Conflict, was between two powerful German families, the Staufen and the Welfs. Staufen on his father's side and Welf on his mother's, Frederick reconciled the two.
  • Frederick did not have the wealth of Henry II that would allow him to impose his might. He was forced to rely on personal loyalties, not salaried civil servants. He was not powerful enough to tear down princely castles as Henry had done.

How did Frederick I Barbarossa compensate for his lack of power to tear down princely castles?

  • Instead, he conceded to the German princes the powers that they claimed, but he required them in turn to recognize him as the source of those powers.
  • He also committed them to certain obligations, such as attending him at court and providing him with troops. 
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How did Frederick term his empire after a conflict with the pope?

He countered the sancta ecclesia - the "holy Church" - by coining an equally charged term for his Empire: sacrum imperium: the "sacred Empire."

What mistake did Frederick make when he wanted to control Italian communes?

Frederick chose men who spoke only German and cared little about communal traditions. The cities resented them bitterly.

What did most cities of northern Italy do to Frederick? How did Frederick respond to that?

  • By 1167, most of the cities of northern Italy had joined with Pope Alexander III (1159-1181) to form the Lombard League against Frederick.
  • Defeated at the battle of Legnano in 1176, Frederick agreed to the Peace of Venice the next years and withdrew most of his forces from the region.

What was the southern strategy of Frederick?

By marrying his son Henry VI (r.1190-1197) to Constance, heiress of the Norman Kingdom of Sicily, he linked the fate of his dynasty to a well-organized monarchy that commanded dazzling wealth.

What cultures did the kingdom of Sicily embrace?

  • Both multilingual and multi-religious, the Kingdom of Sicily embraced Jews, Muslims, Greeks, and Italians.
  • Its government combined Byzantine, Islamic, and Norman institutions in a highly centralized system, with royal justices circuiting the kingdom and salaried civil servants drawn from the ranks of knights and townsmen. 

How did the popes respond to Frederick II? How did others see him?

  • The popes, eager to carve out their own well-ordered state in the center of Italy, could not allow a strong monarch to encircle them.
  • Declaring war on Frederick, the papacy not only excommunicated him several times but also declared him deposed and accused him of heresy, a charge that led to declaring a crusade against him in the 1240s.
  • In the words of one chronicler, Frederick was "an evil and accursed man, a schismatic, a heretic, and an epicuriean, who 'defiled the whole earth.'"

Which things did Frederick II do besides politics?

  • Frederick II was a poet, a patron of the arts, and the founder of the first state-supported university, which he built at Naples.
  • His administrative reforms in Sicily were comparable to those of Henry II in England.
  • With the Constitutions of Melfi (1231), he made sure that his salaried officials worked according to uniform procedures, required nearly all litigation to be heard by royal courts, regularized commercial privileges, and set up a system of royal taxation.

When was the term "Holy Roman Empire" for the first time termed?

  • During the years between Frederick's death in 1250 and 1272 many kings were elected by various factions of the nobility, but none gained the adherence of all.
  • Strangely enough, it was during this low point of the German monarchy that the term "Holy Roman Empire" was coined. 

What was "Sicilian Vespers"? What was the consequence of it?

  • In 1282, the Sicilians revolted against the Angevins in the uprising known as the "Sicilian Vespers," begging the Aragonese for aid.
  • Bitter war ensued, ending only in 1302, when the Kingdom of Sicily was split: the island became a Spanish outpost, while its mainland portion (southern Italy) remained under Angevin control.

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