each accusing the other of neglecting one of their office’s paramount duties. The “business of the cross” could publicly unite and yet still divide the two powers like almost nothing else.48
The pope’s concern for Christians overseas did not abate after the end of hostilities between him and Frederick. In the early months of 1231, the Roman pontiff identified a new threat to the holy places: a coming assault by the “king of the Persians.”49 It remains unclear whom, exactly, the pope had in mind with this warning, but the danger struck him as quite real, having been relayed to him in letters sent to the curia from Syria by Gerold, patriarch of Jerusalem, and the leadership of the military orders.50 In his blanket appeals for military and financial aid to the Holy Land, which were sent to Frederick, Henry III, Louis IX, and bishops throughout the church, Gregory drew upon well-developed themes from generations of crusade bulls, lamenting the Persian assault on the place where Christ had shed his precious blood for humanity’s salvation as a blow against all Christendom. Under these circumstances, he renewed his call for peace among Christians, including an end to ongoing hostilities between the French and English crowns. Writing to Frederick in August 1231, the pope stressed his obligation to defend Jerusalem against such “barbarous nations,” insisting that the Hohenstaufen ruler send funds to rebuild Christian fortifications around the region. In a conciliatory gesture, Gregory addressed him in this letter for the first time as the “king of Jerusalem,” a title that he and his predecessor, Honorius III, had withheld from their formal correspondence in light of the dispute between Frederick and the papal ally John of Brienne over the crown.51
By this time, however, Gregory faced another unprecedented situation in the history of crusading: a truce struck by the emperor of the Romans with the sultan of Egypt, one that had restored Jerusalem to Christian hands by peaceful means. Before reconciling with Frederick, the pope had done everything possible to spread disparaging news about this “traitorous” agreement. In a turnabout, he now recognized its temporary advantages in light of new threats. In February 1231, after receiving Frederick’s complaints that the Templars had disregarded the commands of his bailiff and had begun marshaling troops in the region, thereby potentially violating the truce with al-Kamil, Gregory rebuked the master of Templar Order at Jerusalem. Although the pope commended the Templars’ desire to fight the “enemies of God,” he insisted that they show temporary restraint, since the disruptions of war might further expose Jerusalem to danger from the menacing Persian king and cause “confusion among the entire Christian people.”52 Taking advantage of these improved relations with al-Kamil, later that year Gregory wrote directly to the sultan, calling upon him to free a number of merchants from Ancona, who, according to rumor, were wrongfully imprisoned in Egypt. Over the coming years, seeing the possibilities of a temporary “détente” with the infidels, the pope dispatched a number of remarkable letters to the Egyptian sultan and other Islamic rulers around the Mediterranean, expressing his hopes for their conversion.53
During the years after the Treaty of San Germano, Pope Gregory also confronted something close to a civil war in crusader territories overseas that were still reeling from the disruptions caused by Frederick’s recent visit to the Holy Land. In Cyprus and Syria, fighting had continued between the emperor’s supporters and officials, including his new marshal in the area, Richard Filangerium, and factions that opposed his authority, including John of Ibelin, lord of Beirut, and a sworn association of nobles and citizens from Acre supported by the Genoese. The pope took steps to resolve this divisive conflict. Similar to his interventions in Lombardy, Gregory identified peace among Christians in the Holy Land as a necessary condition for concerted action against the infidels. In the region of Jerusalem, such discord among believers represented an existential threat. Latin Christians, the pope recognized, represented an embattled minority in the crusader principalities.54 To deal with this situation, Gregory pressed Frederick to fulfill one of his obligations stipulated by the peace of San Germano: restoring the goods and properties seized from the Templars and Hospitallers during his controversial crusade and the War of the Keys. Without the healthy military orders, the pope declared, there could be no successful defense of the holy places.55
For the most part, however, Gregory spoke out in support of Frederick’s rights as ruler of Jerusalem. In this case, his change of policy put him at odds with his own legate in Syria, the patriarch Gerold, who had repeated the emperor’s excommunication during his stay in the Holy Land and dogged his every step while on crusade, sending letters back to Europe that denounced Frederick’s vile pact with the infidels. By the summer of 1232, the pope had decided to recall the patriarch to the papal curia, accompanied by the Templar and Hospitaller masters, to give a full accounting of their recent actions in the turbulent crusader principalities. The pope had instructed Gerold to cooperate with the emperor’s representatives and help them to settle the political unrest in the region. News had reached Gregory’s ears that Gerold instead had actively supported the rebels opposing Frederick’s authority. Voices were crying out “openly and publicly” that Gerold worked to disturb the kingdom of Jerusalem, while some—mindful of Gerold’s previous attacks on the emperor’s reputation—blamed the pope for his actions. Proclaiming that the Devil was sowing “discord in place of peace, dissension in place of reform, hatred in place of love,” the pope arranged for Frederick to provide Gerold with letters of safe conduct, enabling him to depart from Syria at the next available passage.56 The pope commissioned Albert Rezzato, patriarch of Antioch, to replace Gerold, who would be stripped of his legatine status if he failed to return immediately to the curia. Albert set to work mediating between the warring factions in the holy places, trying to secure Frederick’s rights along with those of his son Conrad, bringing the rebels back into line, and restoring peace to the area.57
In the summer of 1234, Gregory dispatched a special legate to Syria, Theodoric, archbishop of Ravenna, to enforce the terms of an agreement finally struck by Albert between the emperor and his opponents. Addressing the barons of Jerusalem, the citizens of Acre, the masters and brothers of the military orders, and all of the clergy in the kingdom of Jerusalem, the pope again emphasized the need for peace in the region as part of his developing plans for a campaign to the holy places, which were endangered by the endemic fighting there among Christians. At this point, he took extra steps to ensure cooperation with his legate, enjoining the recipients of his letters “by the remission of sins” to observe inviolably the established truce and informing them about his instructions for Theodoric to secure the full restoration of Frederick’s possessions and rights as they existed before the recent uprising. As was often the case with such fully empowered legates, Gregory authorized the archbishop of Ravenna to compel obedience to his mandates through ecclesiastical censure, confirming in advance any judgment that Theodoric legitimately passed against the rebels.58
Intervening on Frederick’s behalf and anticipating the end of Frederick’s ten-year truce with al-Kamil in 1239, Gregory clearly hoped to advance his plans for a new crusading expedition. His summons for what became known as the “Baron’s Crusade” served as a visual and vocal reminder of the pope’s authority to mobilize Christians—men and women, clergy and laity, the powerful and the humble—for a common purpose. In the widely circulated bull Rachel suum videns, the pope tapped into the emotional and biblical language of past crusade appeals, reminding his audience about Christ’s life and passion in the sacred places of Jerusalem. The loss of the Holy Land was a source of grief and scandal for the entire church. Among other measures, Gregory called for the observation of a “four-year general peace throughout the entire Christian world,” threatening excommunication and interdict for those who violated its terms unless they had suffered injuries that justified violating the peace.59 Through sermons and liturgies, prayers, pious bequests and tithes, the redeeming of vows, and more, Christians from all walks of life could contribute to the crusading cause. To enact these plans in public, the pope relied especially on the mendicant orders, who provided an unparalleled cadre of crusade preachers and fund-raisers. Matthew Paris, always ready to criticize the invasive mendicants, bore witness to the impact of such activities in England, even though he viewed the friars’ preaching, commutation of vows, and other financial exactions as a fraud, since the monies collected for the Holy Land would never
