272 A BRIEF SURVEY OF HUMAN HISTORY

southern realms and may be said to have founded the
first modern well-regulated state, in which the king was
indisputably supreme."1 In his earlier years he was the
contemporary of Innocent III, one of the greatest of the
Popes. Though he had been brought up under the
Muslim Culture of Sicily (the island was under the
Saracens from 827—1060) Frederick II had pro-
mised Innocent III to go on a Crusade some-
time. In the fulfilment of this undertaking Frederick
proved eminently successful, for he actually brought the
Holy City (Jerusalem) under Christian rule and was him-
self declared its king. But this was a shortlived triumph.
The Popes were not to be appeased. Their rivalries once
again revived, and Frederick like Henry IV was excommuni-
cated and deposed. After his death, in 1250, Sicily was
lost to the Hohenstaufens. The Pope bestowed the island
upon its French conquerors under Charles Anjou, the brother
of St. Louis. Thus ended the German attempt to revive
the glories of the Roman Empire. Europe, particularly
Central Europe, continued to welter in anarchy, though Ger-
man kings pompously proclaimed themselves Emperors.
A confused group of duchies, counties, bishoprics, arch-
bishoprics, abbacies, free towns, and all manner of feudal
estates, asserted each its practical independence of the nomi-
nal kings. There was to be no imperial way yet out of the
chaos of the Middle Ages.

1. Robinson, op. tit., p. 136.