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The Popes and Fredrick II
Emperor Frederick II in Palermo - Arthur Georg von Ramberg (1819 - 1875)
The career of Frederick II cannot be considered separately by the Popes with whom
entertained a long litigation, often dramatically.
In this period the Church and the papacy ascend from the lowest state of weakness
and corruption to the highest power and influence over the nations of Europe. It is
the classical age of Latin Christianity: the age of the papal theocracy, aiming to
control the German Empire and the kingdoms of France, Spain, and England. It
witnessed the rise of the great Mendicant orders and the religious revival which
followed. It beheld the full flower of chivalry and the progress of the crusades, with
the heroic conquest and loss of the Holy Land. It saw the foundations laid of the
great universities of Bologna, Paris, Oxford. It was the age of scholastic philosophy
and theology, and their gigantic efforts to solve all conceivable problems and by
dialectical skill to prove every article of faith.
During its progress Norman and Gothic architecture began to rear the cathedrals.
All the arts were made the handmaids of religion; and legendary poetry and
The Hohenstaufen Dynasty - Page 68 of 200