As Gregory later explained to Frederick and several high-ranking German bishops, the Lombard delegation, having been delayed for legitimate reasons, had arrived just a few days after Hermann left. When the pope tried to recall the master of the Teutonic Order to the curia, he declined to return, citing letters from the emperor demanding his immediate return to the imperial court. Moving forward, the pope tried to pick up the pieces, calling upon all the parties involved to remain committed to future peace talks, stressing the need to observe the general truce declared in advance of the upcoming crusade, and warning everyone about the negative consequences if they violated the church’s mandates.10
Heading into the spring of 1236, Frederick made no secret of his imminent march into Lombardy, rallying his friends and allies and intimidating his enemies. In March, Peter de Vinea and Thaddeus of Suessa, two prominent members of Frederick’s court with a long future ahead of them as imperial representatives, staged a public gathering at Piacenza’s communal palace for just such a purpose, joined by the emperor’s supporters from Verona, Pavia, Cremona, and else-where.11 The choice of Piacenza for this open-air convocation was not a coincidence. Months earlier, the popular party and its captain, William de Andito, had sent the city’s “golden keys” to Frederick as a sign of their submission to the emperor.12 Gregory made his own plans in advance of Frederick’s arrival, seeking as much leverage and advantage as possible. In March, he appointed a new legate to Lombardy—Marcellino, bishop of Ascoli, sent as an “angel of peace” to the war-torn region. Writing to Marcellino to impose limits on his ability to pass sentences of excommunication and interdict against communities without a “special mandate” from the Apostolic See, Gregory specifically placed Verona, Piacenza, and other “disturbers of the peace” outside of that constraint. With those communes, Marcellino was free to employ ecclesiastical censure as he saw fit. In his legatine commission to the bishop of Ascoli, the pope specifically asked him to intervene in Piacenza, informing the soldiers and citizens of the city about his special concern for their community.13 The following month, Frederick declared his intention to hold an imperial council at Piacenza in July, which would deliberate over the eradication of heresy, the reform of the empire, and the effort to free Jerusalem. Once peace was restored to the region, the riches of Lombardy would be at the crusade’s disposal. In his summons for this gathering, the emperor menacingly declared his intention to pay back what he owed to his friends and enemies alike, subduing the rebels against his rule in Italy.14
In June, Gregory sent yet another “angel of peace” to Lombardy: James, cardinal bishop of Palestrina, who was endowed with full legatine powers to work for the abolishment of heresy and the business of the Holy Land for the honor of church and empire. Gregory knew that some parties might object to this choice, telling Frederick not to listen to those who disparaged James or questioned his motives. The emperor had wanted Albert of Antioch sent back as a legate to the region, a request that the pope denied for unclear reasons.15 A native of Piacenza, James quickly intervened in the civil strife disrupting his hometown. The Genoese chronicler Bartholomew records that the Piacenzans “wisely” expelled their podesta at James’s urging. The Ghibelline Annals of Piacenza—always suspicious of the church’s motives—describe how James “under the guise of peace” effectively staged a coup, bringing troops into the city after some of the citizens exiled William de Andito and his sons before electing a new podesta, a Venetian named Rainier Zenum. From that point forward, this chronicler observes, Piacenza stood in a state of rebellion against the emperor.16
Scholars sometimes view Gregory’s appointment of James as his legate to Lombardy as a provocative move, a sign that he was not truly committed to peace with Frederick and perhaps even worked behind the scenes to oppose him. Or, James’s actions might reveal that he and some of the other cardinals decided to act against the emperor for their own reasons, regardless of what the pope wanted.17 Regardless, by this time Frederick had begun to express increased skepticism about the pope’s willingness or ability to broker peace in Lombardy. In a widely circulated letter addressed to the French king Louis IX in June 1236, the emperor revisited all of his past grievances against the Lombards, from their blockading of the Alpine passes before his planned assembly at Cremona in 1226 to their involvement in his son Henry’s conspiracy and their recent failure to appear on time at the papal curia for peace talks. Every time he had placed the matter into the pope’s hands, the results had been more lies and treachery by the Lombards. Frederick emphasized his undiminished commitment to the upcoming crusade, rejecting Gregory’s insistence that the cause of freeing Jerusalem outweighed the emperor’s obligation to quash the rebellion against his rule in northern Italy. “Surely,” Frederick queried, “we are not to believe that the pope intends the business across the seas to blunt the sword of justice?”18
Rumors of the approaching war in Lombardy spread far and wide, contributing to confusion about the current state of affairs between the emperor and pope. Taking note of the emperor’s growing “rage” and “inexorable hatred” for the Italians, Matthew Paris writes in his Major Chronicle that Frederick turned to the pope for help against them, creating a great deal of “anxiety and worries” for the Roman church when the pope gathered the entire curia for deliberations about how to “reform an honorable peace” between the two sides. He did this not for altruistic reasons, Matthew observes, but rather because he knew that he might need Frederick’s help in the future against his own enemies. In his narrative of these events, the English chronicler includes a letter that he attributes to Frederick, proclaiming the emperor’s hereditary authority over Italy, denouncing the heretical Lombards for impeding his new crusade, and calling upon the pope to support him. According to Matthew, not wishing to seem indifferent to the emperor’s demands, Gregory acquiesced to his plans—for the time being.19
Trouble Overseas
During this period of rising tensions on the Italian peninsula, Gregory and Frederick continued to wrestle with the equally unsettled conditions of the crusader kingdoms “across the sea,” another unraveling area of cooperation between the two powers. Preparations for the so-called Baron’s Crusade had continued to move forward since 1234, anticipating the expiration of Frederick’s ten-year truce with the Egyptian sultan, al-Kamil. Bearing letters and “written warrants” from the pope, mendicant friars and other papal envoys had fanned out around Europe to raise support for the upcoming campaign by preaching the cross, offering indulgences, and collecting funds through donations and pious bequests. They also raised money through the redemption of crusader vows, which were sworn and immediately redeemed by a cash payment. This intensive effort in England raised further complaints from Matthew Paris, who was always ready to excoriate the greed of the friars and papal curia.20 In 1235, Gregory made the decision to split the crusading campaign into two forces, directing one toward Syria and the other toward the embattled Latin Empire of Constantinople, which was being assailed by the “schismatic” Byzantine emperor-in-exile, John III Doukas Vatatzes. According to Matthew, much of the blame for the schism between Latins and Greeks again lay with the greed and corruption of the papal curia, which had alienated the Greeks and caused their rejection of Rome’s authority. No longer willing to stand such disobedience, Matthew writes, the pope decided to send a “universal army signed with the cross” against them.21
As shown above, Gregory’s determination to mobilize a major crusading expedition had played a significant role in conditioning his public relationship with Frederick. The pope’s efforts to achieve a peaceful settlement between the Lombard League and the Hohenstaufen ruler repeatedly invoked the needs of the crusades as requiring an end to strife between the two sides. Peace between the Christians living overseas, and even forms of strategic peace between Christians and certain Muslims, was equally critical for the success of any future effort to free Jerusalem. In March 1235, in a remarkable sign of how Frederick’s truce with al-Kamil had changed the diplomatic playing field between Christian and Muslim powers, Gregory exchanged a number of letters with the sultan of Konya, ‘Ala ad-Din Kaiqubad, exploring the possibility of “friendship and peace” between them, the same “friendship” that the Muslim leader enjoyed with the “lord of the Germans, Frederick.” This unusual
