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The German princes refused to give Frederick the support necessary to attack the
Sicilian kingdom, which, under Roger’s son William I (reigned 1154–66), was
passing through a crisis. Although Manuel now formed an allegiance with the
rebellious Norman barons, the city of Genoa, and the Pope, Adrian still would not
accept the Byzantine offer of help against William I of Sicily. After William had
brought his crisis to an end, he was able to force the Pope to sign the Concordat of
Benevento in 1156 by which Adrian gave William Sicily and the Norman
principalities on the mainland as far north as Naples and Capua and granted him
special rights for the Sicilian church. This new treaty was in violation of the Treaty
of Constance. Cardinal Roland (later Pope Alexander III) was supposed to explain
the Pope’s new policy to the princes and to the Emperor at the imperial Diet of
Besançon 1157. A letter from the Pope, which was translated in an inflammatory
manner by the imperial chancellor Rainald of Dassel, caused a critical argument
between the papal delegation and the German princes over whether or not the
empire was dependent upon the papacy. Adrian explained later that he meant the
word beneficium, which had caused all the trouble, to mean benefit and not fief.
Third Crusade and death
Chivalry gave Barbarossa’s time a special stamp. He expressed his enthusiasm for
knighthood as the ideal way of life at the festival of Pentecost at Mainz in 1184,
where he dubbed his sons knights. This festival was surpassed by the “Diet of
Jesus Christ” in 1188, when the margravate of Namur was transformed into an
imperial principality. More important was Barbarossa’s call to the Third Crusade in
the spring of 1189 to free Jerusalem from Saladin’s army, which had captured it in
The Hohenstaufen Dynasty - Page 35 of 200