Italy/Sicily Feudal Coin: Frederick II (1197-1250)

Description

Denero
, 16mm, .69gr. Obv: +ROM.NPERATOR, central F with three stars. Rev: +.R.IERSL'.ET.SICIL', central cross with four stars.
Mint is Brindisi
. Biaggi 473 as Brindisi; MEC14: 570 as Brindisi; Spahr 148 as Brindisi or Messina.
Frederick
was a most interesting person and ruler. His life started with a very public birth - his mother was 40 and hadn't had any children so when her time came she set up a tent and invited people to witness the birth, so there was no question she was actually the mother and Frederick her son. He was named Frederic Roger, reflecting both his German and Norman ancestry. He was only three when his parents died. His mother Constance paid the pope to act as his protector but the pope joined the German nobles introduced by Henry VI in trying to turn Sicily into a private fief. Frederick had several wives, serially, and a harem, coincidentally. He apparently lived a sensuous and sexually focused life, leaving behind a string of illegitimate offspring by several women. His first marriage was arranged by the pope (Innocent III) to Constance of Aragon. Her primary attraction to the pope was that she wasn't German. Popes feared having their territorial interests pressed from both north and south by Germanic controlled lands.
When
he came of age he asserted his control over Sicily and put down repeated rebellions against his authority. Several writers speak of his cruelty in dealing with organized dissent. Italy was his primary interest and even though he was crowned HRE and ruler of substantial German territory, he farmed out the ruling of those lands to his son and other German nobles. He spend most of his time in Italy, where he introduced governmental reforms that actually did not long survive his death in 1250. He was the founder of a university in Naples that functioned as a secular, in contrast to religious, university. It was the first secular university in Europe, earlier ones having been founded on strong religious grounds. His goal was to produce an educated cadre of people with law and administrative backgrounds who could help run his lands. He provided financial incentives for teachers and students to come to Naples, as well as closing competing schools in his territory. His focus in Naples contributed to its rise as a major city in successive centuries.
As HRE
, the Church and secular leaders looked to Frederick for leadership in asserting Christian goals in the middle east. Jerusalem, which was captured by the First Crusade, fell to Saladin in 1187. The Church was keen to recapture it and Frederick was under constant pressure to go crusading. He resisted so long and often he was excommunicated, one of several times this happened over his life. He finally went the the middle east in 1228, as much to protect the interests of a son born to a subsequent wife which allowed that child to claim the crown of Jerusalem. The legend 'king of Jerusalem' enters his coinage. His crusade was unusual in that he accomplished the goal of bringing Jerusalem back into Christian control but he did it by negotiation with the caliph of Cairo rather than by force of arms. He also did this while excommunicated, so couldn't get a celebratory mass said for himself on entering Jerusalem so he ended up crowning himself. This reacquisition of Jerusalem was a temporary phenomena and it fell again about a dozen years later. The lines of communication were too long for European interests to hold in the 13th century.
Frederick
was intellectually curious and had scholars in his court. Among his interests, he was a coin collector. He was culturally interested in Islamic thought but was forceful in dealing with any kind of resistance from Islamic (or other) subjects. At one point he forcibly relocated 15,000 rebellious Muslims to the mainland as a way of asserting control in Sicily. He required Muslims and Jews and prostitutes to wear distinctive clothing as a way of setting them apart in Sicily. This was all happening as Europe was becoming even less tolerant of non-orthodox non-Christian thinking. He directed this hostility towards his subjects, and was himself the target of a 'crusade' for his unorthodox ideas and anti-papal actions. It was not successful. This was just after the time the Church supported another intra-European crusade, against the Albigensian heresy in southern France.
Frederick
died in 1250 after a decently long reign. Finley et al (p69) characterize the Hohenstaufen legacy as such: "While it belonged to the world of North Africa and the Levant, the island had been rich; but when forcibly attached to western Europe it lost many of the advantages of its geographical position. After 1194, Sicily was one small peripheral region in a succession of larger empires, and her wealth expended on projects in which Sicilian concerns were minimal."
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