“written mandates” from the pope, did not have a monopoly on proclaiming the Lord’s wishes for a new crusade. Roger also describes a fisherman who saw a vision of Christ’s body with bloody wounds, pierced by the nails and lance from the crucifixion, who told everyone in the local marketplace about this miraculous sign.15
During the first few months of his papacy, therefore, Gregory’s desire to destroy Frederick seems nowhere in sight. Writing to the emperor on 22 July 1227, just before Frederick’s planned departure on crusade, Gregory struck a pastoral—if, perhaps, paternalistic—tone. The pope offered an exegesis of sorts on the five insignia of the Christian imperial office, including the relics of the cross and holy lance, the triple crown, the scepter for the right hand, and the orb for the left. All of these symbols served as reminders of Frederick’s duty and devotion to Christ: the cross, of the Lord’s suffering; the lance, of the blood that poured from his side; the triple crown, denoting grace, justice, and glory, of Frederick’s crowns in Germany, Lombardy, and the imperial one bestowed upon him by the pope; the scepter, of earthly power to punish the wicked; and the orb, of dispensing mercy. In closing, Gregory stressed his past affection for the emperor and his present concern for his eternal salvation. On the eve of Frederick’s planned departure for the Holy Land, the pope sought to valorize rather than undermine the imperial office, as long as its present occupant remembered the true nature of his calling in the service of the Lord.16
Various chronicles relate how a large crusading force gathered at Brindisi in July and August to await passage overseas. They also describe how the summer heat, spoiled food, and disease took a terrible toll on the soldiers camped outside the city. Some of the troops returned home, while others waited for transport as August turned into September. Frederick numbered among those who fell ill; Ludwig, landgrave of Thuringia, died of sickness. After an aborted attempt to set sail for Syria, the emperor decided to delay his own departure again until the following May, although a good portion of the crusaders left for Acre at his command, including Gerold of Lausanne, the patriarch of Jerusalem and the papal legate assigned to the army, and Hermann of Salza, the master general of the Teutonic Order. Opinions remained divided about the real reasons for the emperor’s decision not to leave for the Holy Land. According to some, the emperor made the best of unfortunate circumstances, postponing his passage due to his illness. For others, he had only pretended that he planned to cross overseas and feigned being sick. The Waverley Annals claim that the “pagans” corrupted him with gifts, while the Annals of Schäftlarn say that other crusaders did not fall ill, but rather, Frederick had poisoned them. Roger of Wendover observes that the emperor’s failure to depart brought “shame and harm to the entire business of the cross,” adding that, “in opinion of many,” his failure to depart was the reason why the Lord revealed himself on the cross in the vision described above, “placing his grievance against the emperor for the injuries caused by him before each and every one.”17
Communicating Excommunication
On 19 September, Pope Gregory confirmed Frederick’s self-inflicted sentence of excommunication at Anagni. As one of Frederick’s modern biographers wryly observes, excommunication represented an “occupational hazard” for medieval emperors.18 Gregory IX’s anathematizing of Frederick II, however, hardly represented a run-of-the-mill excommunication, if there ever was such a thing. It placed the pope and the most powerful ruler in Europe publicly at odds during a moment when the fate of Jerusalem seemed to hang in the balance.19
Gregory’s anonymous biographer, a member of the curia with close ties to the pope, describes the scene of the emperor’s solemn excommunication in the Life of Gregory IX.20 Gregory had come to his hometown in July. The bishops of Rome commonly left the city during the summer months to escape the heat. On 18 September, no doubt anticipating his plans for the following day, he elevated six presumably supportive clerics from the curia to the college of cardinals, promoting, among others, Sinibaldo Fieschi—the future pope, Innocent IV—as cardinal priest of San Lorenzo in Lucina.21 On the Feast of the Archangel Michael, assisted by the cardinals and other archbishops and bishops and wearing his pontifical robes, Gregory delivered a sermon in the city’s cathedral church on the Gospel of Matthew 18: 7: “For it must be, that scandals come to pass, but woe to the man by whom that scandal comes.” After delivering multiple warnings to Frederick about the need to fulfill his vow, the pope, like the “archangel triumphing over the dragon,” had “publicly announced” Frederick’s excommunication, affirming the sentence incurred when he had failed to depart on crusade as he had sworn to do at San Germano. Although the author of Gregory’s vita does not say so, the solemn ceremony must have closely followed the guidelines for excommunication and anathema from canon law, including twelve priests holding lit candles, throwing them on the ground, and stamping them out.22
In canon law, the rules for excommunication give instructions for a letter to be sent throughout the appropriate parish announcing the sentence. In this case, the “parish” constituted nothing less than the entirety of Christendom.23 The papal letter In maris amplitudine shows this messaging campaign at work. Issued on 10 October, the encyclical opens by describing the tempests that menaced the ship of Saint Peter on the storm-tossed seas: the “perfidy of the pagans” in the holy places; the “frenzy of tyrants” assailing the liberty of the church; the “madness of heretics” tearing Christ’s “tunic” asunder; and the “perversity of false sons and brothers.” For this reason, the Apostolic See had elevated and supported Frederick since his boyhood to act as a defender of the church. When he traveled to Germany to receive his crown, he had assumed the cross, a source of hope for the Holy Land. When crowned emperor “by our own hands, although in a lesser office,” Frederick had “publicly” renewed his vow, planning to leave on crusade two years later. When the deadline drew near, however, with “many excuses,” he had failed to depart. At San Germano, he had bound himself by another such oath, promising to make his passage by August two years later. The legates on hand, “publicly by the authority of the Apostolic See,” had authorized a sentence of excommunication that would be triggered if he failed to meet these obligations. Now he had done so. Gregory’s letter describes the gathering of the crusader army at Brindisi and its decimation by the summer heat, disease, and desertion, followed by the emperor’s failure to depart for Syria, which left those crusaders who did set sail leaderless and endangered the Holy Land to the emperor’s shame and the “shame of all Christendom.” After lamenting the conditions overseas and emphasizing his commitment to the crusade, the pope had “unwillingly but publicly” pronounced the emperor as excommunicate, commanding him to be “shunned by all” and instructing prelates to announce his status publicly and gravely proceed against him if his stubbornness persisted.24
It is hardly surprising that this product of the papal chancery offers a onesided picture of Frederick’s actions. That was the point: to sway opinions and trigger indignation, leaving no room for doubt about the rightness of Gregory’s decision. As intended, In maris amplitudine circulated widely, having been sent to prelates in Italy, Germany, England, and elsewhere. In his Flowers of History, Roger of Wendover includes a version of the text sent to Stephen, the archbishop of Canterbury. Roger did more than just “copy” or “transcribe” the letter. He narratively framed the letter, describing the pope’s decision to anathematize the emperor by relating how Gregory “ordered the sentence of excommunication to be published in every place through apostolic letters.” Other chroniclers offer similar observations about how the pope commanded Frederick “to be denounced throughout the empire,” how he sent his “general letters throughout the entire west” regarding the emperor’s public excommunication, or how he denounced the emperor “as excommunicate throughout the western church, through his letters sent to all the prelates, that is, archbishops, bishops, and archdeacons, so that they might denounce him in their dioceses.”25
The emperor responded by sending out his own “excusatory” letters, including the encyclical In admiratione vertimur. This product of the imperial chancery lamented the unforeseen devastation of the crusading army at Brindisi, explaining
