OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 357 of this project would have reduced the popes to their primitive simplicity ; and, after the delays and excuses of twelve years, they urged the emperor, with entreaties and threats, to fix the time and place of his departure for Palestine. In the harbours of Sicily and Apulia, he prepared a fleet of one hundred galleys, and of one hundred vessels, that were framed to transport and land two thousand five hundred knights, with their horses and attendants ; his vassals of Naples and Germany formed a powerful army ; and the number of English crusaders was magnified to sixty thousand by the report of fame. But the inevitable or affected slowness of these mighty preparations consumed the strength and provisions of the more indigent pilgrims ; the multitude was thinned by sickness and desertion, and the sultiy summer of Calabria anticipated the mischiefs of a Syrian campaign. At length the emperor hoisted sail at Brundusium, with a fleet and army of forty thousand men ; but [a.d. 1227] he kept the sea no more than three days ; and his hasty retreat, which was ascribed by his friends to a grievous indisposition, was accused by his enemies as a voluntary and obstinate disobedience. For suspending his vow was Frederic excommunicated by Gre- gory the Ninth ; for presuming, the next year, to accomplish his vow, he was again excommunicated by the same pope.^^ While he served under the banner of the cross, a crusade was preached against him in Italy ; and after his return he was compelled to ask pardon for the injuries which he had suffered. The clergy and military orders of Palestine were previously in- structed to renounce his communion and dispute his commands ; and in his oAvn kingdom the emperor was forced to consent that the orders of the camp should be issued in the name of God and of the Christian republic. Frederic entered Jerusalem [March is, in triumph ; and with his own hands (for no priest would per- ' ' '^^"^^ form the office) he took the crown from the altar of the holy sepulchre. But the patriarch cast an interdict on the church which his presence had profaned; and the knights of the hospital and temple informed the sultan ^'^'^ how easily he might be surprised and slain in his unguarded visit to the river Jordan. In such a state of fanaticism and faction, victory was hopeless and defence was difficult ; but the conclusion of an advantageous peace may be imputed to the discord of the Mahometans, and their 8^ Poor Muratori knows what to think, but knows not what to say, " Chino qui il capo," &c. p. 322. 1M[A1-Kamil Mohammad, 1218-1238.]
