and his court was rich in scholars of Islam, astrologers, exotic animals, and, it was alleged, strange and cruel experimentation on humans. Although there is nothing to prove accusations of heresy or scepticism, it was Frederick who achieved one of the few technical successes of the crusading movement, not by force of arms but by parleying with the Sultan, and as an excommunicate; and his policy towards Muslim dissidents on the island of Sicily involved their wholesale transplantation to the plains of Lucera and thus the establishment, within zoo miles of Rome, of an infidel colony with full rights to their own customs and worship. Such behaviour was shocking (and perhaps intentionally so) especially in an emperor, whose traditional justification in the conflict with the pope was that he was the temporal champion of Christendom. But it was not without precedent; and in any case much of this image of Frederick is the result of careful, often papally inspired, propaganda. In the eyes of the popes, Frederick was much more than a maverick or evil ruler. Frederick Barbarossa ( 1152-90) had seen to it that the escalating conflict between pope and emperor was increasingly being conducted in Italy, near the centre of papal power. The marriage between his son the Emperor Henry VI and Constance, heiress to Sicily, threatened not merely further pressure but outright encirclement of Rome. The prospect was so terrifying for the popes that, from the moment of the birth in 1194 of their son Frederick, everything had to be done to prevent the realization of the joint succession. Frederick was thus of immense political significance long before he was responsible for his own actions.

Frederick's youth coincided with the career of one of the ablest and most dynamic men to occupy the papacy, Innocent III ( 1198-1216). Innocent was tireless in the furtherance of papal authority and influence throughout Christendom, intervening in the grand political rivalries of England and France, obtaining the obeisance of rulers from one end of Europe to the other. Yet the future of the empire was a dominant question which he failed to influence to his satisfaction. After the double election of 1197 Innocent allied first with the Welf candidate, Otto of Brunswick, though he was eventually reconciled with

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