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Frederick II (Italian: Federico; German: Friedrich; Latin: Fridericus; 26 December 1194 – 13 December 1250) was King of Sicily from 1198, King of Germany from 1212, King of Italy and Holy Roman Emperor from 1220 and King of Jerusalem from 1225.
- Overview
- Early years
- Consolidation of the empire
Frederick II (born December 26, 1194, Jesi, Ancona, Papal States [Italy]—died December 13, 1250, Castel Fiorentino, Apulia, Kingdom of Sicily) king of Sicily (1197–1250), duke of Swabia (as Frederick VI, 1228–35), German king (1212–50), and Holy Roman emperor (1220–50). A Hohenstaufen and grandson of Frederick I Barbarossa, he pursued his dynasty’s...
In 1196, Frederick, at the age of two, was elected king by the German princes at Frankfort. His father, however, failed in his attempt to gain the princes’ support to make Frederick’s succession hereditary. Just before embarking on a Crusade to the Holy Land, Emperor Henry died in September 1197 after a brief illness, only 32 years old. Though the medieval Roman Empire was at the height of its strength, the emperor’s death brought it close to dissolution.
After the death of her husband, Empress Constance had young Frederick brought to Sicily, where in May 1198 he was crowned king of Sicily. Before her death later that year, Constance loosened the bonds that joined Sicily to the empire and to Germany by appointing Pope Innocent III her son’s guardian as well as regent of the Kingdom of Sicily, which was already under papal suzerainty. In Germany two rival kings were elected, Frederick’s uncle Philip of Swabia and Otto of Brunswick, as Otto IV.
Even the pope, however, did not succeed in protecting Sicily from many years of anarchy. German and papal captains, local barons, and Sicilian Saracens, as well as the cities of Genoa and Pisa, fought for mastery of the country. The situation was not stabilized until the imperial chancellor conquered Palermo in November 1206 and governed in Frederick’s name. In December 1208 Frederick, then 14, was declared of age.
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In 1209 he married the much older Constance of Aragon, who brought him an urgently needed troop of knights with whose help he gained control of Sicily, defeated a conspiracy of the barons, and was partially successful in regaining the crown properties that had been lost during his minority. At this time his relations with the pope began to show signs of strain.
In April 1220 Frederick’s nine-year-old son, Henry VII, was elected king by the German princes, thus negating Frederick’s promise to Pope Innocent that he would relinquish control of Sicily in favour of Henry, for it meant that Sicily and Germany would eventually be united under one ruler. Although Frederick sought to exonerate himself with Pope Honorius III by claiming that the election had been held without his knowledge, he had to pay for it by surrendering extensive royal prerogatives to the German ecclesiastical princes.
Crowned emperor by the pope in St. Peter’s Church, in Rome, on November 22, 1220, Frederick confirmed on the same day the legal separation of the empire from the Kingdom of Sicily while continuing the existing personal union. In addition, he granted important privileges to the Italian ecclesiastics and issued laws against heretics, and it seemed indeed that harmony had been reestablished between the emperor and the pope for some years to come. Frederick spent the following years consolidating his rule in Sicily. He broke the resistance of the barons to revocation of certain of their privileges and defeated the rebellious Saracens (1222–24), whom he later resettled in Apulia where they became his most faithful subjects, providing him with a loyal bodyguard immune to papal influence.
- Gunther Wolf
May 14, 2020 · Frederick II (l. 1194-1250 CE) was the king of Sicily (r. 1198-1250 CE), Germany (r. 1215-1250 CE), Jerusalem (r. 1225-1228 CE), and also reigned supreme as the Holy Roman Emperor (r. 1220-1250 CE). He was born in Jesi in 1194 CE but spent his childhood in Palermo.
He defeated his rival Otto IV in 1214, and though the planned union of Sicily and Germany alarmed the pope (1220), he negotiated a compromise and was crowned emperor. A delay in departing for the Sixth Crusade brought excommunication (1227), later revoked. By 1229 Frederick was king of Jerusalem.
Abstract. Here, Frederick presents a version of social contract theory, in which monarchical power is justified before civil society and stands in opposition to republicanism, by its maintenance of the law, defense of the realm, and other services.
Frederick II personally led his forces into battles, earning him a reputation for bravery as well as an expert, even genius, commander. His greatest triumph was in 1757 at Leuthen against an...
Dec 26, 2021 · Frederick II, who was called “wonder of the world” often astonished his contemporaries with his unorthodoxy on the one hand and his stubbornness on the other. In concerns of religion, he was known to be a skeptic but remained substantially linked to traditional Christianism.
