Frederick was one of the ablest men of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, though not meriting the title given him by an English chronicler, “the Wonder of the World.” The grandson of Frederick Barbarossa, son of Henry IV. and Constance of Sicily, he united in his person the strongest traits of German and Italian stock. Born in 1194, at two years of age he was elected king of the Romans, and in his fourth year was crowned King of Sicily. Pope Innocent III. was the guardian of his childhood, and well discharged his duty, if the rare education of Frederick may be taken as evidence. The royal youth mastered Latin, Greek, French, German, and knew something of Arabic and Hebrew; he was creditably versed in Saracenic science and arts, as well as in Christian philosophy and scholasticism; he wrote well on the habits of birds, and shared with the Troubadours the joys of the poet’s art; he endowed universities, patronized painters, and encouraged architects. In government he deserves to rank among the empire-builders, for in a narrow age he extended the scope of law for the toleration of Jews and Mohammedans, for the emancipation of peasants from undue oppression at the hands of the upper classes, and for the enlargement of international commerce almost to the line of the modern theory of free trade. His liberality towards Moslems brought him the accusation of harboring in his heart a secret infidelity, which his severity with the Christian schismatics could not entirely dispel. At the age of eighteen Frederick entered into contest for the imperial throne of Germany, and in 1215, at the age of twenty-one, won the crown of Charlemagne. In order to accomplish this grand object, he had, as a first step, secured the alliance of the Pope. This he did by pledging, among other things, to lead a crusade; but the pressing emergencies of his new crown caused delay from year to year. In 1225 he married Iolante, the daughter of John of Brienne, King of Jerusalem. He at once asserted that John held his crown only in virtue of being the husband of Queen Mary, and this lady having died, her daughter, Iolante, was lawful sovereign. Thus by marriage he annexed to his German title that of King of Jerusalem, and was looked to by all for the defence of his new dominion. But two years later (1227) he was still too busy unravelling European complications to absent himself in the distant East. In this year Gregory IX. ascended the papal throne. While this Pope still retained the faculties and ambition of youth, he had developed also the obstinacy and petulance of old age. By his unwise dealing with the German emperor, and the impolitic assertion of his own capricious will as of divine authority, he may be said to have started the decadence of the papal throne, which in another generation was destined to lose the prestige of the Hildebrandian policy and all prospect of becoming the world monarchy.