TOWARDS BETTER ORDER IN EUROPE 27L

But matters again reached a crisis when Fredrick Bar-
barosa (1152—90) came to the throne. He was the most
famous of the medieval Emperors after Charlemagne. He-
was ambitious to restore the glory and power of the Roman.
Empire, and claimed to be the successor of the Caesars as
well as of Charlemagne and Otto the Great. He declared
that his office was bestowed upon him/ by God no less than
was the Papal See. This brought him into conflict with the
Pope. The old struggle revived. But the flourishing towns
of North Italy (about which we shall learn more later)
were now on the side of the Church. They hated the Ger-
man Emperor no less than the Pope did. They formed a
powerful union known as the Lombard League to oppose
Frederick, and refused to pay taxes to a foreign ruler from-
across the Alps. At the end of a series of expeditions all
that Barbarosa succeeded in achieving was to make the
Lombard League merely acknowledge his overlordship, lea-
ving its members free to act as they liked.

As a counterpoise to the defection of the Northern cities,
Frederick tried to secure a hold upon South Italy by marry-
ing Constance, the heiress of Naples and Sicily, to his son.
But the Pope being the feudal lord of these cities, this in-
troduced a fresh complication into the struggle. Finally,
worn out by some forty years of fighting in Germany and.
Italy, Frederick sought to divert himself by going on a
Crusade. This proved his last venture, for he lost his life
on his way to the Holy Land.

Meanwhile, his son (who had married the heiress of South
Italy) too was carried away by fever, leaving an infant
heir to the troublesome inheritance. This was Frederick II
(1212—50). Though he developed into a contemptible-
figure, he possessed marvellous ability and extraordinary
energy. " He drew up an elaborate code of laws for hi&