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mid-thirteenth century, and died on another crusade 20 years later. This crusading
king was a living embodiment of the Christianity of the time: he lived for the
welfare of his subjects and the glory of God. He would not sacrifice the welfares of
the French to please a papal empire builder. Had all his fellow monarchs been of
the same high stature, the government of Europe would have been persuasive and
the Papacy would have had time to understand that limits to its monarchy. But
Louis was an exception.
There were still able and glamorous members of the Hohenstaufen family who
commanded loyalty. Meantime the Pope could not be sure of living safely in his
own see of Rome. When Manfred acquired the Hohenstaufen inheritance in Italy,
he seemed, owing to Italian politics, as dangerous as his father government. To
crush him and to provide Italy with more dutiful government, the Pope determine
to call in a prince from abroad with abundant money to pay for the military
campaign. The English Prince Edmund´s youth and King Henry III´s
incompetence were combined with the excessive financial demand of the Pope to
make the English candidature would run at a loss; instead salvation was sought
from France.
With the Italian cardinals quarrelling among themselves Pope Urban IV, a
Frenchman who had been Patriarch of Jerusalem and was a man of wide
international experience, had seemed an obvious choice. To Urban IV it was
natural to call in a France prince to rescue the Church from Germany-Italian
dynasty. It was lamentable that at this moment a Frenchman should have sat on
the papal throne.
A French Pope meant the creation of a number of French cardinals, who with the
Guelph allies could be trusted. The Papacy´s alliance with Charles of Anjou brought
it nothing but trouble. Charles was a man of vast ambition and the invitation to
come to Italy gave him full scope for it. He was soon as dangerous to the
independence of the church as ever the Hohenstaufen had been. The danger was
greater because he, Charles, instead of the Pope, became the leader of the Guelphs.
Italy commanded Urban IV's near full attention: the long confrontation with the
late Hohenstaufen German Emperor Frederick II had not been pressed during the
mild pontificate of Alexander IV, during which it devolved into inter-urban
struggles between nominally pro-Imperial Ghibellines and even more nominally
pro-papal Guelf factions. Frederick II's heir Manfred was immersed in these
struggles. Urban IV's military captain was the condottiere Azzo d'Este, nominally at
the head of a loose league of cities that included Mantua and Ferrara. Any
Hohenstaufen in Sicily was bound to have claims over the cities of Lombardy, and
as a check to Manfred, Urban IV introduced Charles of Anjou into the equation to
place the crown of the Two Sicilies in the hands of a monarch amenable to papal
The Hohenstaufen Dynasty - Page 164 of 200