Crusade of Frederick II

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Sultan al-Kamil hands over the city of Jerusalem to Frederick II (left) , recognizable by the dome of the Dome of the Rock on the right . (Giovanni Villani, Chronica, 14th century, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Rome Cod.Chigi L VIII 296, fol.75r.)
The kingdom of Jerusalem according to the treaty of 1229 in dark yellow

The crusade of Frederick II. Was the Crusade of Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II. To Jerusalem in the years 1228 to 1229. He is often described as the conclusion of the crusade of Damietta considered and either this together as Fifth Crusade , or as a separate Seventh Crusade expected - the counting of the following crusades then shifts accordingly.

history

Fifth crusade

Pope Innocent III had already called for a new crusade to recapture Jerusalem from the Muslims in his bull Quia maior in the spring of 1213 . Thereupon Frederick II committed himself to the Pope to crusade to the Holy Land on the occasion of his royal coronation in 1215 , but had to postpone the departure several times. The so-called Crusade of Damiette had already started without him in 1217 and failed with heavy losses in 1221. In 1225 Frederick took his crusade vows to Pope Honorius III. renewed. When he postponed his crusade again in 1227 because of an outbreak of an epidemic in the ready-to-leave crusader army, he was succeeded by Honorius' successor Gregory IX. banned . Notwithstanding this, the emperor embarked for Palestine with a relatively small force in 1228 . This crusade became the only one that was peaceful and successful.

As the grandson of his Norman grandfather Roger II, Friedrich grew up in a multicultural environment in Palermo . In the Holy Land, the educated and linguistically versed emperor appeared with oriental pomp and his Muslim bodyguard and thus stood out completely from all previously appeared crusaders. In September 1228 Friedrich arrived in Akkon and immediately made diplomatic contact with the Muslims.

Peace of Jaffa

The Ayyubid Sultan of Egypt al-Kamil got into a difficult situation with the arrival of another crusader army , as he was waging war against his nephew an-Nasir , with whom he was contesting his inheritance, the rule of Damascus . Thereupon his brother al-Ashraf , the lord of Upper Mesopotamia , intervened . As early as 1227 the Sultan had therefore renewed his offer from 1219 that he would be willing to return Jerusalem under certain conditions. On February 18, 1229, both sides found a compromise: In the Peace of Jaffa it was agreed that the Christians should get back Jerusalem, Bethlehem , Lydda and probably Nazareth . The Muslims were to keep the Jerusalem Temple Mount with the al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock , where Christians were allowed to hold devotions in future. The Muslims were granted freedom of movement in the area around Bethlehem as well as their own jurisdiction under a kadi in Jerusalem. In addition, the emperor promised to prevent his army, the knights of the order and the princes of the crusader states from further acts of war against the territories of al-Kamil. Whether the treaty also returned the coastal city of Sidon and Toron Castle to the Crusaders and allowed them to rebuild the fortifications of Jerusalem is uncertain - these provisions can only be found in Christian sources; Jerusalem remained unfortified until the city was reconquered in 1244. During the negotiations with the emperor, al-Kamil concluded a treaty with his Ayyubid relatives at the end of 1228, which ended the inheritance disputes and secured his possession of Palestine for him.

On March 18, 1229, Frederick put on the crown of Jerusalem, although it was not a real coronation, as he did not receive any religious ceremony or consecration as a banished man. He derived his claim to the throne of Jerusalem from the rights of his wife Isabella II of Brienne , the heiress of the Kingdom of Jerusalem , and from the rights of their son Conrad , whose birth Isabella died in April 1228.

The treaty was extremely unpopular with the Christian population of the Crusader states. This was less because the emperor had used political means instead of war and recognized the sultan as de facto equal - Richard the Lionheart and al-Kamil's uncle Saladin had cultivated similar friendly and diplomatic contacts . Rather, it was significant that the emperor, due to his excommunication, was not entitled to lead a crusade under canon law. In addition, he had relied militarily on his German knights , simply ignoring the interests of others - such as the mostly French-speaking Templars who did not get their ancestral home on the Temple Mount back. The fact that there should be a Muslim enclave in Christian Jerusalem was a thorn in the side of the Latin patriarch Gerold , who in a letter to the Pope denounced the emperor's allegedly Saracen lifestyle and simply called the treaty a “fraud”. On his departure from Palestine, Frederick is said to have been insulted by the population on May 1, 1229, and pelted with slaughterhouse waste.

consequences

As the new king of Jerusalem, Frederick did not stay in the country, but was represented by governors. These continually fought with the local barons of the crusader state for supremacy in the kingdom. The resulting civil war-like turmoil ( see Lombard War ) contributed to the further weakening of the crusader states.

Whether the peace treaty is to be interpreted as a sign of Friedrich's openness and tolerance towards the Arabs and Islam is disputed in research. The ruling Sultan al-Kamil in Egypt also had power-political reasons for the negotiations, as he was preparing a campaign against his brother al-Muazzam of Damascus and interference from crusaders was inconvenient. The compensation lasted only as long as al-Kamil was alive and Frederick's influence on the Kingdom of Jerusalem continued. The successors made sure that the old contrast flared up again. The city was recaptured by the Ayyubids as early as 1244.

The ban on Frederick II was lifted in 1231, but the relationship with the papacy hardly improved. After the emperor's return from the crusade in 1229, Nikolaus von Bari gave a fiery sermon in which he portrayed Friedrich as a hero and the House of Staufen as the final emperor family.

proof

  1. ↑ Hans Eberhard Mayer : History of the Crusades. 5th edition, Kohlhammer, Mainz 1980, ISBN 3-17-005744-8 , p. 210ff
  2. ↑ Wolfgang Lautemann, Manfred Schlenke: Middle Ages. Empire and Church. Bayerischer Schulbuch Verlag , Munich 1978, ISBN 3-7627-6057-8 , pp. 522-531.
  3. ↑ Wolfgang Lautemann, Manfred Schlenke: Middle Ages. Empire and Church. Bayerischer Schulbuchverlag, Munich 1978, ISBN 3-7627-6057-8 , pp. 524f
  4. ↑ Hans Eberhard Mayer: History of the Crusades. 5th edition, Kohlhammer, Mainz 1980, ISBN 3-17-005744-8 , p. 212f
  5. ↑ Hans Eberhard Mayer: History of the Crusades. 5th edition, Kohlhammer, Mainz 1980, ISBN 3-17-005744-8 , p. 214.
  6. ↑ See e.g. B. Eberhard Horst: The Sultan of Lucera. Friedrich II. And Islam. (Herder Spektrum 4453) Herder Verlag, Freiburg im Breisgau 1997, ISBN 3-451-04453-6 , and the critical review on it in the German Archive for Research into the Middle Ages 56.2 (2000) .

literature

See also the references in the article Friedrich II .

  • Bodo Hechelhammer : Crusade and rule under Frederick II. Scope for action in crusade politics (1215–1230) (= Medieval research. Volume 13). Thorbecke, Ostfildern 2004, ISBN 3-7995-4264-7 (at the same time: Darmstadt; Techn. Univ., Diss., 2000), (latest study on the crusade of Frederick II and his politics at this time).