ABSTRACT
Chronology 1197 death of the Emperor Henry VI; Frederick, aged three, is heir
to the kingdom of Sicily
1214 Otto IV defeated by Philip Augustus at the Battle of Bouvines
1215 Frederick crowned at Aachen
1216 death of Innocent
1218 death of Otto IV
1220 Frederick crowned as Emperor by Pope Honorius III
1226 accession of Louis
1227 death of Honorius III, election of Cardinal Ugolino as Gregory IX; Frederick finally embarks on a Crusade, returns within two days and is excommunicated
1231 The Constitutions of Melfi promulgated by Frederick
1233 the Inquisition in France
1237 Milan defeated by Frederick; Gregory instigates a campaign of anti-imperial preaching
1239 Frederick excommunicated
1240-1 Frederick marches on Rome; death of Gregory
1243 election of Innocent IV
1245 Frederick’s deposition pronounced by General Council of the Church at Lyons
1248 defeat of Frederick’s army by papalist forces at Parma
1249-54 Louis’s first Crusade
1250 death of Frederick, accession of Conrad IV; capture and ransom of Louis
1259 Treaty of Paris
1266 papally supported eviction of Conrad’s heir by Charles of Anjou
1268 Frederick’s grandson, Conradin, beheaded after unsuccessful attempt to reclaim his patrimony
1270 Louis’s second Crusade, on which he dies
1297 canonization of Louis
In the Middle Ages the people of Western Europe regarded them-selves as a single society, which they often likened to the seamless robe of Christ. They considered themselves to be ‘the Christian people’ or the Church, and professed obedience to the government of Christ as it was exercised through the agency of two powers, the Empire and the Papacy. The one was supposed to exercise all temporal, and the other all spiritual power; and though there might in fact be several independent kingdoms and a schism between Orthodox and Catholic Christianity, these latter were not regarded as essential features of the order of creation, but simply as accidents or the consequence of sin.
