after Frederick landed, reporting that John de Colonna fled the battlefield, pretending he needed to return to the curia to secure pay for his troops. In August 1229, keeping up his own forms of public pressure on Frederick, Gregory again renewed his sentence of excommunication, circulating a written version of the sentence that revisited the now long list of sins and crimes committed by him and his agents, including Raynald of Spoleto. Suggesting the gravity of Frederick’s crimes, the pope opened the sentence by excommunicating a stock list of supposed heretics, ironically the same list featured at the emperor’s coronation. Frederick continued to send out “excusatory letters” to the “princes of the world” about his successes in the Holy Land, denouncing the patriarch of Jerusalem’s defamatory letters and calling upon figures like the crusading bishop of Winchester and the master general of the Teutonic Order as his witnesses.86
While these dueling letters circulated and the fighting in the Regno continued, however, negotiations for an end to the discord between church and empire had already begun. Over the winter and spring, representatives including Frederick’s envoys Hermann of Salza, Lando, archbishop of Reggio in Calabria, and Marinus, archbishop of Bari, joined by the pope’s legates Thomas of Capua and John de Colonna, traveled back and forth between the papal curia and imperial court. In July 1230, a gathering of prelates, princes, and imperial officials met at San Germano and nearby Ceprano to negotiate the final terms of peace between the pope and emperor, leading to Frederick’s absolution by the end of August. After three years of scandal and war, peace had returned to the Christian community.87
Scholars rarely seem to consider the full range of evidence available for the negotiations leading up to the Peace of San Germano, including a series of letters and documents exchanged between the pope, the curia, and Thomas of Capua during the months leading up to Frederick’s absolution.88 Written in a plainer style than papal encyclicals, the cardinal’s letters reveal behind-the-scenes details, such as when Thomas commented on the heavy rains and flooding that impeded his travels in the Regno, or when he described how he found the cardinal bishop of Albano “more dead than alive” after spending months besieged by the emperor’s forces in the monastery of Monte Cassino.89 His on-the-road communications also suggest the limits of his willingness to commit things to writing during such challenging negotiations, since his letters contain frequent references to information that would be shared “verbally” (viva voce) by the bearer or writer of the letter at a later date. The written word possessed a permanence that could become a disadvantage, potentially exposing things that were meant only for certain ears—conversations that are now lost to the historian.90
What remains nevertheless reveals a great deal, exposing the conflicting interests, points of contention, and collective mediation that lay behind the Peace of San Germano. The “form of peace” provided by the Roman church became an immediate source of debate. Initial versions called for the emperor to make amends for his occupation of ecclesiastical properties within one month. Later versions allowed for a window of three months if he was in the Regno, four months elsewhere in Italy, and five months beyond the peninsula. A dispute emerged about the possession of two towns, Gaeta and Sant’Agata, which the church would retain for one year while a solution could be found for their rightful disposition.91 In February, the talks almost collapsed when a contingent of Lombards arrived at the papal curia with objections to the ongoing negotiations. A month later, Thomas informed Gregory that he might achieve his goals if he could offer absolution to Frederick immediately, but he knew that the representatives from Lombardy opposed such a move. The emperor desired peace, the cardinal legate insisted, but he also remained suspicious, in part due to disturbing “rumors” he had heard from the city of Rome about the church playing him false.92
Although negotiating the form of peace involved off-the-record conversations, guaranteeing its terms represented a public and collective commitment. Frederick was expected to swear various oaths, binding himself to obey the “mandates of the church,” to make amends for his occupation of church lands, and to observe the truce that ended the fighting in central Italy, or he would suffer an automatic reinstatement of his excommunication. But he also had to secure the accompanying oaths of “worthy and sworn” princes, barons, counts, and others named by the church willing to pledge on his behalf (fidejussores), bound for eight months from the day of his absolution to assist the church against him if he failed to fulfill the agreed-upon conditions.93 In the later stages of negotiations, papal and imperial envoys argued over the protections that would be extended to the church’s faithful “adherents,” guarantees that Frederick would “remit all rancor” and revenge toward them. The princes swearing on Frederick’s behalf hesitated to give such assurances.94 People who had suffered the “hardships of war,” Thomas wrote, held high hopes for peace, but others were “throwing stones” without saying why, preferring to “fish in stormy waters” rather than seek concord. In response to his envoy’s disillusionment, Gregory sent words of encouragement, calling upon him to persist in his labors for peace. One of the final documents sent from the curia to Thomas in early July contained instructions for the drawing down of forces in the region, the lifting of sieges, and the end of hostilities.95
By July 1230, only after months of performing such a balancing act, the stage was set for the ceremonial formalizing of this peace at San Germano at the foot of Monte Cassino. The siege of that monastery had ended; Frederick met in the town below with Gregory’s envoy, Guala, the Dominican friar. Rather than the noises of war, the sound of ringing bells filled the town after Guala announced the emperor’s agreement to the church’s form of peace. On 23 July, before a “multitude” of German and Italian princes and prelates, cardinal legates, imperial officials, and local counts, Berthold of Aquileia, the archbishop of Salzburg, and the bishop of Regensburg recited the reasons for Frederick’s excommunication, reading them aloud “in public.” Thomas of Acerra, swearing on Frederick’s behalf with his hand on the Gospels, rendered an oath to obey the “mandates of the church” before a number of witnesses, promising to observe the form of peace. The emperor agreed to restore lands seized from the Roman church and also from the Templars and Hospitallers; to allow displaced prelates in the Regno access to their sees; to exempt clergy from the jurisdiction of civil courts; to forego any tallages and taxes on clerical properties; and to keep the peace, taking no revenge on faithful papal vassals who had fought against him during the recent war.96
The princes committed to guaranteeing the peace on Frederick’s behalf made their pledges, while the bishops present produced “testimonial letters” memorializing the oaths rendered aloud in Frederick’s name and by others. Seal after seal was affixed to the written copies of these agreements, including those authenticated by Frederick’s golden bull—documents that would be preserved in the papal archives and forwarded to interested parties. On 25 July, Guala returned from the Roman curia, lifting the interdict pronounced by Pelagius on San Germano, thereby allowing for the celebration of the divine offices there and elsewhere in the Regno. On 28 August, at nearby Ceprano, John de Colonna and Thomas of Capua performed the ritual of absolution for Frederick, “publicly and solemnly,” before a crowd of cardinals, clergy, princes, and a “multitude of various people,” to the “general joy of all Christendom.” An encyclical sent from the imperial chancery in September describes this scene, telling its recipients that they deserved to know about the restoration of peace after receiving so many disturbing letters from the pope and emperor. Over the following months, Gregory circulated his own letters celebrating his agreement with Frederick, assuring the Lombards of his gratitude for their efforts on the church’s behalf and asking the French King Louis IX to beseech God for their continued concord. Through such shared acts of ritual performance and remembrance, written assurances, and prayers, the scandalous discord between church and empire had come to an end.97
A few days after Frederick’s absolution, on the first of September, Pope Gregory hosted the emperor at Anagni, welcoming him to one of his family’s residences. They shared the kiss of peace and met together in the pope’s private chambers and the next day shared a
