their positions, leaving them less and less room to maneuver. Undeniably, the tone of their direct communications took on an increasingly confrontational posture. At the same time, these years of worsening relations were also ones of persistent if fraying restraint, each side repeatedly stepping back from an outright confrontation. Both parties had good reasons to avoid another costly and disruptive confrontation. Neither of them had particularly benefited from their last open confrontation, while their years of relative cooperation had brought undeniable benefits. Above all, the two Christian leaders remained committed, in the capacity of their respective offices, to the greater goals of peace, crusading, and wiping out heresy. Another battle between the papacy and empire would endanger those projects, as Gregory and Frederick repeatedly reminded each other, each trying to pressure the other into backing down for the common good.
Almost four years would pass before Gregory deployed the “nuclear option,” excommunicating Frederick for the second time. If the pope was eager to annihilate the emperor, he certainly took his time going about it. At the very least, he knew that he had to proceed cautiously. After years of celebrating the concord that ought to exist between their offices, he began to erase the record of their cooperation, reminding everyone about his previous struggles with Frederick and accusing him of ingratitude, double-dealing, and sedition. The emperor broadcast a similar revision of the past. The peace, it turned out, had been a false one that concealed true enmity. As the rumor mill churned and new sources of scandal arose, as the sights and sounds of war began to drown out calls for harmony, the two powers once again stood on the verge of open conflict, provoking a renewed sense of anxiety in Christendom.
Angels of Peace and Sowers of Dissension
By the summer of 1235, even as Frederick married Isabella of England with the pope’s blessing, if not encouragement, Gregory knew that trouble lay on the horizon with regard to the volatile situation in Lombardy. As it had since the beginning of his papacy, the immediate circumstances of the “Lombard business” continued to shape the pope’s interactions with the emperor across the board. Gregory continued his efforts to thread the needle between supporting the Lombard League while stopping short of an open break with the emperor, sending his legates to the region to act as “angels of peace” and to counter the shadowy figures who tried to sow dissension with their lies and deceptions. Meanwhile, Christians around Europe followed news of the growing escalation between Frederick and the Lombard League, recognizing that the growing chances of war in northern Italy affected the Roman church directly and indirectly concerned the entirety of Christendom.
In July, anticipating the emperor’s upcoming assembly at Mainz, Gregory sent a batch of letters to the clergy and lay nobles at the imperial court. Declaring that the time approached for the planned crusade to redeem the holy places, the pope called upon the recipients of his communications to lay aside any “rancor” toward the Lombards, working instead with the emperor for peace. Further discord, he insisted, would serve only to undermine the upcoming crusade’s prospects for success. Gregory also reminded the recipients of his letters that Frederick had previously placed the Lombard business in the mediatory hands of the Roman church. If they needed evidence of that fact, he forwarded copies, bearing the papal seal, of the agreement struck a year earlier between the emperor and the Lombard rectors in which both sides promised to abide by the pope’s arbitration in Lombardy, the March of Treviso, and Romaniola.3
The pope had good reasons for communicating his concern. On 24 August, Frederick wrote to Gregory, informing him about the proceedings at Mainz. Coming on the heels of Henry VII’s unsuccessful rebellion, the imperial assembly proclaimed peace in Germany.4 But it also formed a council of war against the cities of Lombardy that continued to reject Frederick’s authority. As the emperor described the scene for the pope, not wishing to “conceal” anything from him, the nobles present swore to avenge all of the wrongs perpetrated by the Lombards against their ruler, taking an oath to that effect “with their hands raised in the air, as is customary among them.” Divided into two forces, the emperor’s armies would march into Italy the following April. As for the agreement made with the pope in Tuscany the previous spring, Frederick, submitting his dispute with the Lombard rebels for papal judgment, insisted that he still desired to follow the pope’s “paternal counsel” and honor that commitment. As evidence of his restraint, he would delay his final decision about the campaign until the upcoming Christmas, allowing for the rectors of the league and the Roman pontiff to reach a favorable accommodation. Otherwise, there would be no more delays, no more chances for the Lombards to put him off with “sweet-sounding words” and “false promises.”5
Frederick indicated that a papal notary, Master Peter, who was retained at the imperial court until the end of the deliberations at Mainz, would give the pope this letter and inform him more fully in person about the emperor’s intentions. There is no way of knowing what Peter might have said off the record. Regardless, despite his publicly stated intentions to wage war against the Lombard League, the emperor had still not closed the door to papal mediation. To the contrary, he likely intended his open threats against the Lombards to place pressure on both the league’s rectors and the pope to reach a political solution before a costly, disruptive, and hazardous military campaign became necessary. At the same time, by marshaling his forces and allies north of the Alps and setting a firm Christmas deadline for further negotiations, the emperor sent a clear message to everyone involved that he would no longer tolerate the status quo in Lombardy.6
In response, Gregory turned to his highest-ranking legate in northern Italy, Albert Rezzato, patriarch of Antioch. As discussed previously, Albert had already represented papal and imperial interests in Syria, helping to broker peace in the crusader kingdoms during the Ibelin uprising. Gregory had first sent Albert—bishop of Brescia before his promotion to the patriarchate of Antioch—to Lombardy in March 1235, instructing him to act as a mediator between the warring communes of Bertinorio and Faeza, whose conflict violated the crusade-related truce declared in 1234. In May, Gregory tasked Albert with a “full legation” to Lombardy, the March of Treviso, and Romaniola, deputizing him to “reform the peace” in the conflict-ridden region after years of devastating losses in lives, goods, and properties, which damaged the crusade to free the Holy Land and impeded the church’s effort to wipe out heretics, the “little foxes” in the Lord’s vineyard. After hearing about Frederick’s threats to invade Lombardy, the pope relied upon Albert to ensure that the rectors of the Lombard League would send their fully empowered ambassadors to the papal curia by the first of December, well in advance of the Christmas deadline imposed by the emperor.7 Recognizing the dangerous escalation in the conflict between the league and Frederick, the pope projected a measured but firm tone with both sides. In September, writing to the emperor and Hermann of Salza, who was once again acting as a go-between for the imperial court and the papal curia, Gregory assured them that he was doing everything he could to bring the Lombards to the negotiating table. Around this time, he addressed the letter to Frederick described at the beginning of this chapter, warning him about the liars and sowers of dissension that wanted to drive them apart. Corresponding with Hermann and calling upon him to convince the emperor to extend the deadline for this “arduous business” past Christmas, Gregory stressed the preparations underway for the new crusade that would be imperiled if Frederick broke his word to abide by the pope’s mediation and invaded Lombardy, a move that the church would not bear. Just what actions the pope might take remained unsaid. Communicating with the Lombards, the pope was far more explicit about possible consequences for noncompliance, threatening them with excommunication if their envoys failed to appear on time and assessing a penalty of thirty thousand marks if they failed to show up.8
The fall and winter months, however, proved just how intractable the situation in Lombardy had become. In November, during an assembly in the bishop’s palace at Brescia, the cities of the Lombard League renewed their alliance against the emperor, adding Ferrara to their ranks and securing a promise from the city’s podesta to block the Germans and their allies from using any roads and rivers under Ferrara’s control.9 The following month, disregarding the pope’s threats, the rectors of the league failed to send their envoys to the papal
