He was known as the puer Apuliae (son of Apulia). 1348)īorn in Jesi, near Ancona, Italy, on 26 December 1194, Frederick was the son of the emperor Henry VI. įrederick's birth in Jesi (illustration in Giovanni Villani's Nuova Cronica, ca. Ī man of extraordinary culture, energy, and ability – called by a contemporary chronicler stupor mundi (the wonder of the world), by Nietzsche the first European, and by many historians the first modern ruler – Frederick established in Sicily and southern Italy something very much like a modern, centrally governed kingdom with an efficient bureaucracy.

Furthermore, the Holy Roman Empire entered a long period of decline during the Great Interregnum from which it did not completely recover until the reign of Charles V, 250 years later. Īfter his death his line did not survive, and the House of Hohenstaufen came to an end. He was also the first king to formally outlaw trial by ordeal, which had come to be viewed as superstitious. The poetry that emanated from the school had a significant influence on literature and on what was to become the modern Italian language.

His Sicilian royal court in Palermo, beginning around 1220, saw the first use of a literary form of an Italo-Romance language, Sicilian. He played a major role in promoting literature through the Sicilian School of poetry. Speaking six languages (Latin, Sicilian, Middle High German, Langues d'oïl, Greek and Arabic ), Frederick was an avid patron of science and the arts. Pope Gregory IX went so far as to call him an Antichrist. Frequently at war with the papacy, which was hemmed in between Frederick's lands in northern Italy and his Kingdom of Sicily (the Regno) to the south, he was excommunicated three times and often vilified in pro-papal chronicles of the time and after. His other royal title was King of Jerusalem by virtue of marriage and his connection with the Sixth Crusade. At the age of three, he was crowned King of Sicily as a co-ruler with his mother, Constance of Hauteville, the daughter of Roger II of Sicily. As such, he was King of Germany, of Italy, and of Burgundy. Viewing himself as a direct successor to the Roman emperors of antiquity, he was Emperor of the Romans from his papal coronation in 1220 until his death he was also a claimant to the title of King of the Romans from 1212 and unopposed holder of that monarchy from 1215. However, the Papacy became his enemy, and it eventually prevailed.

As the Crusades progressed, he acquired control of Jerusalem and styled himself its king. His political and cultural ambitions were enormous as he ruled a vast area, beginning with Sicily and stretching through Italy all the way north to Germany.

Crusader kings 2 ambitions