Frederick II. was, if not the strongest, certainly the most brilliant of German kings. With the medieval passion for adventure he combined the intellectual culture and freedom of a modern gentleman. A lover of poetry, of art and of science, he was also a great statesman; he knew how to adapt his policy to changing circumstances and how to move men by appealing at one time to their selfishness and weakness and at another time to the nobler qualities of human nature. For outward splendour his position was never surpassed, and before he died he possessed six crowns, those of the Empire, Germany, Sicily, Lombardy, Burgundy and Jerusalem. But Germany profited neither by his gifts nor by his prestige. After Bouvines he purchased the assistance of Valdemar II., king of Denmark, by ceding to him a large stretch of land along the Baltic coast; and, promising to go on crusade, he secured his coronation at Aix-la-Chapelle in July 1215. Then being generally recognized as king he was able to do something to quell disturbances in various parts of the country, and, in April 1220, to bring about the election of his young son Henry as king of the Romans. But for this favour he had been compelled to pay a high price. Seven years before, at Eger in July 1213, he had made extensive concessions to the church, undertaking to take no part in episcopal elections, thus surrendering the advantages gained by the concordat of Worms, and to allow to German bishops the right of appeal to Rome. Proceeding a step farther in the same direction, he now promised to erect no new toll-centre, or mint, on the lands of the spiritual princes, and to allow no towns to be built thereon. Thus the prelates possessed nearly all the rights of sovereigns, and regarded the pope in Italy and not the king in Germany as their head, a state of affairs which was fatal to the unity, nay, even to the existence of the Empire. Germany in Frederick's absence.