The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 06: (From Barbarossa to Dante)
Dante Alighieri · en
In September the Emperor landed at Ptolemais; but the emissaries of
the Pope had preceded him, and he found himself under the ban of the
clergy and shunned by their partisans. The patriarch and the masters
of the military orders were to see that none served under his polluted
banners. The charge was given to willing servants: but Frederick found
friends in the Teutonic Knights under their grand master Herman de
Salza, as well as with the body of pilgrims generally. He determined
to possess himself of Joppa, and summoned all the crusaders to his
aid.
The Templars refused to stir, if any orders were to be issued in his
name; and Frederick agreed that they should run in the name of God and
Christendom. But while the enemy was aided greatly by the divisions
among the Christians, the death of the Damascene sultan Moadhin was of
little use to Frederick. The Egyptian sultan, Kameel, was now in a
position of greater independence, and his eagerness for an alliance
with the Emperor had rapidly cooled down.
Frederick, on his side, still resolved to try the effect of
negotiation. His demands extended at first, it is said, to the
complete restoration of the Latin kingdom, and ended, if we are to
believe Arabian chroniclers, in almost abject supplications. At length
a treaty was signed. It surrendered to the Emperor the whole of
Jerusalem except the Temple or mosque of Omar, the keys of which were
to be retained by the Saracens; but Christians, under certain
conditions, might be allowed to enter it for the purpose of prayer. It
further restored to the Christians the towns of Jaffa, Bethlehem, and
Nazareth.
To Frederick the conclusion of this treaty was a reason for legitimate
satisfaction. It enabled him to hasten back to his own dominions,
where a papal army was ravaging Apulia and threatening Sicily. One
task only remained for him in the East. He must pay his vows at the
Holy Sepulchre. But here also the hand of the Pope lay heavy upon him.
Not merely Jerusalem, but the Sepulchre itself, passed under the
interdict as he entered the gates of the city, and the infidel Moslem
saw the churches closed and all worship suspended at the approach of
the Christian Emperor.