promulgated by any western ruler since Charlemagne." Without being a great soldier, Frederick was not unskilful in warfare, but was better acquainted with the arts of diplomacy. In person he is said to have been "red, bald and short-sighted," but with good features and a pleasing countenance. It was seriously believed in Germany for about a century after his death that Frederick was still alive, and many impostors attempted to personate him. A legend, afterwards transferred to Frederick Barbarossa, told how he sat in a cavern in the Kyffhaeusser before a stone table through which his beard had grown, waiting for the time for him to awake and restore to the Empire the golden age of peace. The contemporary documents relating to the reign of Frederick II. are very numerous. Among the most important are: Richard of San Germano, _Chronica regni Siciliae_; _Annales Placentini, Gibellini_; Albert of Stade, _Annales_; Matthew Paris, _Historia major Angliae_; Burchard, _Chronicon Urspergense_. All these are in the _Monumenta Germaniae historica_. _Scriptores_ (Hanover and Berlin, 1826-1892). The _Rerum Italicarum scriptores_, edited by L. A. Muratori (Milan, 1723-1751), contains _Annales Mediolanenses_; Nicholas of Jamsilla, _Historia de rebus gestis Friderici II._, and _Vita Gregorii IX. pontificis_. There are also the _Epistolarum libri_ of Peter della Vigna, edited by J. R. Iselin (Basel, 1740); and Salimbene of Parma's _Chronik_, published at Parma (1857). Many of the documents concerning the history of the time are found in the _Historia diplomatica Friderici II._, edited by M. Huillard-Breholles (Paris, 1852-1861); _Acta imperii selecta. Urkunden deutscher Koenige und Kaiser_, edited by J. F. Boehmer and J. Ficker (Innsbruck, 1870); _Acta imperii inedita seculi XIII. Urkunden und Briefe zur Geschichte des Kaiserreichs und des Koenigreichs Sicilien_, edited by E. Winkelmann (Innsbruck, 1880); _Epistolae saeculi XIII. selecta e regestis pontificum Romanorum_, edited by C. Rodenberg, tome i. (Berlin, 1883); P. Pressutti, _Regesta Honorii papae III_. (Rome, 1888); L. Auvray, _Les Registres de Gregoire IX_. (Paris, 1890).