The Two Powers. Brett Edward Whalen
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they held; and the two rulers would pledge to support each other against their respective enemies. On 17 March, Frederick and the crusaders entered Jerusalem, completing their armed pilgrimage. On the following day, Easter Sunday, the Hohenstaufen ruler crowned himself king of Jerusalem in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. The day after that, he began his return journey to Jaffa and Acre.37
Not surprisingly, the pope and his circle attacked the legitimacy of Frederick’s expedition from the beginning. Gregory’s anonymous biographer writes that when Frederick left Brindisi for Syria, he “set sail more like a pirate than an emperor, a transgressor of his vow and oath.”38 From the moment of his arrival in Acre, Frederick’s excommunicate status reportedly caused disruptive scenes in the city. Roger of Wendover writes that the local clergy and people welcomed the emperor with great honor, but, “since they knew he was excommunicated,” they refused to give him the kiss of peace or to eat with him, counseling him to “return to the holy church, making satisfaction to the pope.” Canon law was clear on this point: those who kissed, prayed with, or ate with an excommunicate person were liable to excommunication themselves.39 Not long after the emperor reached Acre, according to the Estoire de Eracles, an old French chronicle devoted to events in the Holy Land, a Franciscan messenger arrived bearing letters from Gregory to Gerold of Lausanne, patriarch of Jerusalem and papal legate, instructing him to “denounce the emperor Frederick, as excommunicate and foresworn.” Frederick answered, laying his grievances with the pope “before the entire army” and denouncing the papal sentence against him as unjust.40
These sorts of demonstrations continued on the road to Jaffa and Jerusalem. Some chroniclers record that the Hospitallers and Templars greeted Frederick on bended knee, committed to serving him. Others, however, relate that the military orders, along with the friars, refused to march with the emperor’s forces, declaring their obedience to the Roman church. They traveled instead to the east of the main army. Worried that the “Turks” might exploit this weakness, Frederick sent riders to cry out his commands “in the name of God and Christianity, without naming the emperor.”41 In a letter sent to the pope, which Gregory subsequently forwarded to other destinations, Gerold explained how the crusaders watched with fear and confusion as envoys passed back and forth between the Christian and Muslim camps, causing a “scandal” in the army. The patriarch, who remained at Acre but followed the crusaders’ progress from afar, denounced Frederick’s coziness with the sultan, who sent him “dancing girls and jugglers” and other unmentionable persons after he heard that Frederick preferred to dress, eat, and live “in a Saracen manner,” behavior that the “army of Jesus Christ” found abhorrent.42
Gerold likewise portrayed Frederick’s ten-year truce with al-Kamil as unrealistic, unsustainable, and a danger to the Christian presence in the Holy Land. He forwarded to the pope a French transcript of the pact that had been sent to him by Hermann of Salza, master general of the Teutonic Order, adding his own derisive commentary on its terms in Latin.43 According to Gerold, the emperor gave away everything and got little in return. He even surrendered his breastplate, shield, and sword to the sultan, telling him that he never wished to take up arms against him again. Gerold stressed the “secretive” and “fraudulent” nature of the negotiations, as Frederick finally made his “hidden” plans “public,” having agreed to the terms of the treaty without ever having them “read aloud or recited openly” before his fellow crusaders, thereby denying the bishops and members of the military orders accompanying the army a chance to consult with the Latin patriarch before they agreed to anything—hardly the behavior of a Christian prince and crusader.44 Possession of the Temple Mount, including the Temple of the Lord, as the crusaders called the Dome of the Rock, was an especially sensitive point. Gerold highlighted the treaty’s clause allowing the infidels continued access to the holy site. With “a greater multitude of Saracens coming to pray at the temple than the crowds of Christians coming to the sepulcher,” he wondered, “how will the Christians be able to maintain their dominion for ten years, without discord and danger to their persons?”45 The “clamor” of Saracens’ call to prayer, proclaimed from that high place above the city, caused all sorts of confusion and uncertainty among the crusaders.46
With regard to the Temple Mount, Frederick seemed to realize that he possibly had a possible public relations disaster on his hands. In his letter Letentur et exultent, which celebrated his triumphs in the holy places, he carefully explained that the Saracens would enter the site “in the manner of pilgrims,” unarmed and unable to spend the night, praying and departing. Apologizing for these upsetting sights and sounds, Hermann of Salza likewise stressed that Christians would also have free access to pray at the site, that the Saracens could keep only a few “unarmed, elderly priests” at the temple, and that the emperor’s guards would monitor the gates into the site, deciding who could enter and exit. He even pointed out that the infidels allowed the Christians similar rights of worship in the cities under their control.47
Frederick’s entry into Jerusalem and coronation in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher provoked more tense scenes. Roger of Wendover describes how the bishops accompanying the army ritually cleansed the city with processions, prayers, and holy water but did not allow any cleric to celebrate mass for as long as the emperor remained present. To the relief of some of the crusaders, a Dominican friar named Walter continued to perform divine services just outside the city walls.48 In his letter to Gregory, Gerold reported that he “denied the pilgrims across the board license to enter Jerusalem or visit the sepulcher,” telling them that the pope would not approve of such a visitation, which might endanger their souls.49 Sent to Jerusalem by the Latin patriarch, the archbishop of Caesarea placed the Church of the Holy Sepulcher and all of the city’s holy sites under interdict. The patriarch also instructed preachers to spread the word around the army that anyone violating this prohibition would have to seek absolution from the pope himself. These actions, Hermann of Salza wrote, caused a great deal of anger toward the church among the crusaders. Hermann also explained that Frederick “complained publicly before all of the bishops that the holy places, under the power of the Saracens for so long and now free by divine aid, placed under interdict, had been enslaved by the patriarch and restored to their earlier misery by the prohibition of the divine office.” Addressing the pope directly, Frederick passed over these events in silence, except for the sardonic comment, “some other time and place, we will take care to explain fully just how much counsel and aid we received from the patriarch of Jerusalem, and the masters and brothers of the religious houses.”50
Even Hermann of Salza advised Frederick to forego mass during his coronation ceremony in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, despite the fact that others in the army advocated such a celebration. On Easter Sunday, speaking before a crowd of prelates and magnates, before the rich and poor, the master general of the Teutonic Order delivered an address in Latin and German. Speaking on Frederick’s behalf, he declared that the emperor had fulfilled his crusade vow. He even made excuses for the pope, who had excommunicated Frederick and hounded him with letters sent across the sea after hearing that Frederick was gathering an army “against the church.” If the pope had known the emperor’s true intentions, he never would have written such things. Likewise, Hermann relayed, Frederick lamented the fact that complaints made against him by some of the crusaders had displeased the pope, causing “harm to the entire Christian people.”51
The day after his coronation, Frederick began his return to Acre. A second letter attributed to the patriarch of Jerusalem, found only in the Major Chronicle of the English monk and historian Matthew Paris, describes more troubles after the emperor arrived there.52 When Gerold and the leaders of the military orders objected to his “treacherous” and “fraudulent” treaty with the sultan, Frederick sent out a “public herald” to summon the crusaders for a gathering outside of the city. In a personal address to the crowd, he publicly denounced those opposing him, forbidding the soldiers on pain of death from staying in the Holy Land any longer. The letter also claims that he posted guards at the city gates, denying the Templars permission to enter; seized and fortified churches around the city; and sent his followers to harass the Dominican and Franciscan friars preaching on Palm Sunday. The streets of Acre erupted into chaos. Gathering the bishops and pilgrims on hand, the patriarch excommunicated