Pope Gregory IX. fulminated against Frederick all the terrors of his personal scorn and ecclesiastical vengeance. From his pulpit he pictured him “breaking all his promises, bursting every bond, trampling underfoot the fear of God, despising all reverence for Jesus Christ, scorning the censures of the church, deserting the Christian army, abandoning the Holy Land to unbelievers, to his own disgrace and that of all Christendom withdrawing to the luxury and wonted delights of his kingdom, and seeking to palliate his offence by frivolous excuses of simulated sickness.” Then, while the cathedral bells were clanging a demoniacal accompaniment to what was transpiring beneath them, the clergy stood with lighted torches around the altar. Gregory invoked the eternal curse of God upon his imperial victim. The clergy dashed their torches and extinguished them upon the floor, in token of the “blackness of darkness forever” which should settle upon the emperor’s soul. The news of this anathema excited the minds of the common people to such a degree that they saw all sorts of signs of Heaven’s disapproval of the crowned Judas; such as bloody crosses, on which the Saviour was dying afresh, “as if laying a complaint before each and every Christian.” Frederick made a quick retort to the papal fulmination, in which he advised all temporal princes to beware of the unscrupulous domination of the Roman hierarchy. He closed a letter to the princes of Europe with these words of an old couplet: “Give heed when neighboring houses burn, For next, perhaps, may be your turn.” The Pope, having generated a fresh supply of gall, discharged it in an interdict by which all subjects of Frederick should be deprived of the ministrations of religion. The emperor, in order to prove the injustice of the Pope’s assault upon him and the falsity of the accusation that he had feigned sickness, prepared to resume the crusade, taking, however, his own time and way. His armaments were repaired. He summoned all the dignitaries of his kingdom to meet him at Baroli (April, 1228). There, in the presence of a vast multitude, he declared his will regarding the succession in the event of his not returning alive, and exhorted his people to live in peace during his absence. The Pope now became not less violent in denouncing the crusade than he had been previously in urging it, on the ground that its leader was excommunicate. He refused to recognize it as a holy war, and stigmatized it as an expedition of piracy. With a small army of six hundred knights Frederick sailed for Acre (September, 1228). Two Franciscan monks in a swift bark outsped him, and aroused Palestine against the coming of such a champion. The partisans of John of Brienne refused to recognize the kingship of his son-in-law. Templars and Hospitallers were jealous of the new hand in affairs, and refused to serve under him.