plans to embark on crusade, despite his excommunicate status. In a letter sent to Italian communes the preceding April, the emperor drew a clear contrast between his commitment to freeing Jerusalem and the pope’s recent decision to speak against him on Maundy Thursday before the large crowds gathered for Holy Week. Rather than preaching about Frederick’s crusade and encouraging his listeners toward the “service of the cross,” the pope had raised the subject of Milan and other “traitors” to the empire, denouncing Frederick for not sufficiently compensating them after their recent rebellion. This revealed that Gregory did not have sufficient cause to judge him based on the “business of the Holy Land,” given Frederick’s past efforts toward that end and imminent departure overseas. Stressing his burning desire to fulfill his oath, as evident “before the entire world,” and accusing the pope of damaging the crusade by favoring traitors to his imperial rule, the emperor called for his loyal followers to support the upcoming expedition. In a similar letter sent from the imperial court in June, he described how he had again sent solemn envoys to the curia bearing the written “form of satisfaction” that he would make so that he might cross overseas with the pope’s blessing. Demonstrating his intransigence, Gregory rejected those terms but refused to explain what kind of satisfaction he would find acceptable to lift the ban. Frederick’s message was clear. Although the pope had unjustly opposed him at every turn, the emperor refused to turn aside from fulfilling his duties in the Holy Land.36
The emperor set sail in August 1228. The course of his crusade is well known. After various stops en route, including a five-week stay on Cyprus, he landed at Acre on 7 September 1228. In November, Frederick marched with a mixed army of crusaders, local Christian nobles, and members of the military orders to Jaffa planning to fortify the city, which was within striking distance of Jerusalem. Ships reaching the port resupplied the army by year’s end. Frederick, however, did not intend to free the holy city by military means, seeking instead to establish a truce with the Ayyubid sultan, al-Kamil. The Egyptian ruler had his own reasons for making such a deal, including political infighting with his brother and nephew, the sultans of Damascus. Negotiations had begun between the two even before the emperor left on his crusade. In February, they agreed to a ten-year peace: al-Kamil would restore Jerusalem to the emperor, along with Bethlehem, Nazareth, and various other villages, and allow the Christians living there access to the coast; both sides would release any prisoners they held; and the two rulers would pledge to support each other against their respective enemies. On 17 March, Frederick and the crusaders entered Jerusalem, completing their armed pilgrimage. On the following day, Easter Sunday, the Hohenstaufen ruler crowned himself king of Jerusalem in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. The day after that, he began his return journey to Jaffa and Acre.37
Not surprisingly, the pope and his circle attacked the legitimacy of Frederick’s expedition from the beginning. Gregory’s anonymous biographer writes that when Frederick left Brindisi for Syria, he “set sail more like a pirate than an emperor, a transgressor of his vow and oath.”38 From the moment of his arrival in Acre, Frederick’s excommunicate status reportedly caused disruptive scenes in the city. Roger of Wendover writes that the local clergy and people welcomed the emperor with great honor, but, “since they knew he was excommunicated,” they refused to give him the kiss of peace or to eat with him, counseling him to “return to the holy church, making satisfaction to the pope.” Canon law was clear on this point: those who kissed, prayed with, or ate with an excommunicate person were liable to excommunication themselves.39 Not long after the emperor reached Acre, according to the Estoire de Eracles, an old French chronicle devoted to events in the Holy Land, a Franciscan messenger arrived bearing letters from Gregory to Gerold of Lausanne, patriarch of Jerusalem and papal legate, instructing him to “denounce the emperor Frederick, as excommunicate and foresworn.” Frederick answered, laying his grievances with the pope “before the entire army” and denouncing the papal sentence against him as unjust.40
These sorts of demonstrations continued on the road to Jaffa and Jerusalem. Some chroniclers record that the Hospitallers and Templars greeted Frederick on bended knee, committed to serving him. Others, however, relate that the military orders, along with the friars, refused to march with the emperor’s forces, declaring their obedience to the Roman church. They traveled instead to the east of the main army. Worried that the “Turks” might exploit this weakness, Frederick sent riders to cry out his commands “in the name of God and Christianity, without naming the emperor.”41 In a letter sent to the pope, which Gregory subsequently forwarded to other destinations, Gerold explained how the crusaders watched with fear and confusion as envoys passed back and forth between the Christian and Muslim camps, causing a “scandal” in the army. The patriarch, who remained at Acre but followed the crusaders’ progress from afar, denounced Frederick’s coziness with the sultan, who sent him “dancing girls and jugglers” and other unmentionable persons after he heard that Frederick preferred to dress, eat, and live “in a Saracen manner,” behavior that the “army of Jesus Christ” found abhorrent.42
Gerold likewise portrayed Frederick’s ten-year truce with al-Kamil as unrealistic, unsustainable, and a danger to the Christian presence in the Holy Land. He forwarded to the pope a French transcript of the pact that had been sent to him by Hermann of Salza, master general of the Teutonic Order, adding his own derisive commentary on its terms in Latin.43 According to Gerold, the emperor gave away everything and got little in return. He even surrendered his breastplate, shield, and sword to the sultan, telling him that he never wished to take up arms against him again. Gerold stressed the “secretive” and “fraudulent” nature of the negotiations, as Frederick finally made his “hidden” plans “public,” having agreed to the terms of the treaty without ever having them “read aloud or recited openly” before his fellow crusaders, thereby denying the bishops and members of the military orders accompanying the army a chance to consult with the Latin patriarch before they agreed to anything—hardly the behavior of a Christian prince and crusader.44 Possession of the Temple Mount, including the Temple of the Lord, as the crusaders called the Dome of the Rock, was an especially sensitive point. Gerold highlighted the treaty’s clause allowing the infidels continued access to the holy site. With “a greater multitude of Saracens coming to pray at the temple than the crowds of Christians coming to the sepulcher,” he wondered, “how will the Christians be able to maintain their dominion for ten years, without discord and danger to their persons?”45 The “clamor” of Saracens’ call to prayer, proclaimed from that high place above the city, caused all sorts of confusion and uncertainty among the crusaders.46
With regard to the Temple Mount, Frederick seemed to realize that he possibly had a possible public relations disaster on his hands. In his letter Letentur et exultent, which celebrated his triumphs in the holy places, he carefully explained that the Saracens would enter the site “in the manner of pilgrims,” unarmed and unable to spend the night, praying and departing. Apologizing for these upsetting sights and sounds, Hermann of Salza likewise stressed that Christians would also have free access to pray at the site, that the Saracens could keep only a few “unarmed, elderly priests” at the temple, and that the emperor’s guards would monitor the gates into the site, deciding who could enter and exit. He even pointed out that the infidels allowed the Christians similar rights of worship in the cities under their control.47
Frederick’s entry into Jerusalem and coronation in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher provoked more tense scenes. Roger of Wendover describes how the bishops accompanying the army ritually cleansed the city with processions, prayers, and holy water but did not allow any cleric to celebrate mass for as long as the emperor remained present. To the relief of some of the crusaders, a Dominican friar named Walter continued to perform divine services just outside the city walls.48 In his letter to Gregory, Gerold reported that he “denied the pilgrims across the board license to enter Jerusalem or visit the sepulcher,” telling them that the pope would not approve of such a visitation, which might endanger their souls.49 Sent to Jerusalem by the Latin patriarch, the archbishop of Caesarea placed the Church of the Holy Sepulcher and all of the city’s holy sites under interdict. The patriarch also instructed preachers to spread the word around the army that
