Crusade, Sixth
1228 CE to 1229 CE
The Sixth Crusade, which starts in 1228 as an attempt to reconquer Jerusalem, begins only seven years after the failure of the Fifth Crusade.
It results in the peaceful surrender of Jerusalem to Frederick II and the beginning of greater tensions between Holy Roman Empire and Crusader States.
The Muslims relinquish Jerusalem, Nazareth, Sidon, Jaffa, and Bethlehem to the Crusaders.
but continue to retain the Temple Mount.
Jerusalem will in 1244 be captured by Khwarezm Turks, sparking the Seventh Crusade.
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The War of the Lombards is a civil war in the Kingdom of Jerusalem and the Kingdom of Cyprus between the "Lombards" (also called the imperialists), the representatives of the Emperor Frederick II, largely from Lombardy, and the native aristocracy, led first by the Ibelins and then by the Montforts.
The war is provoked by Frederick's attempt in 1228 to control the regency for his young son, Conrad II of Jerusalem.
Frederick and Conrad represent the Hohenstaufen dynasty.
The war will last fifteen years.
The Sixth Crusade, beginning only seven years after the failure of the Fifth Crusade, starts in 1228 as an attempt to reconquer Jerusalem by the Holy Roman Empire and the Crusader States.
The Muslims relinquish Jerusalem, Nazareth, Sidon, Jaffa, and Bethlehem to the Crusaders but continue to retain the Temple Mount.
Jerusalem will in 1244 be captured by the displaced Khwarezmians, sparking the Seventh Crusade.
Pope Gregory IX, rejecting the Emperor's plea of illness, has made good on his predecessor's promise to excommunicate Emperor Frederick II for reneging on his vow to go on crusade.
Now in the equivocal position of a crusader under the ban of the church, Frederick had ignored the excommunication, setting sail from Brindisi in June 1228 with the remainder of his forces.
The Emperor arrives on July 21 in Cyprus, where John of Ibelin, the leading member of the influential Ibelin family, had been named regent for the young Henry I.
Along with most of the other barons, he is willing to recognize the Emperor's rights as suzerain in Cyprus.
Frederick is connected to the Jerusalem nobles by being married to Isabella II, John of Brienne’s daughter, and Frederick attempts to use this to take power.
He claims the kingship of Jerusalem and the overlordship of Cyprus, as well as John of Ibelin’s lordship of Beirut, which John naturally refuses.
When lured to a banquet and then confronted with Frederick's armed guards, John is forced to hand over the regency, and Cyprus, to Emperor Frederick's control.
This is temporary, however, as John will later resist with military force.
Despite intimidation, John refuses to surrender his lordship of Beirut and insists that his case be brought before the High Court of barons.
The matter is set aside, and Frederick leaves for Acre.
The Emperor can claim only a regency for his infant son Conrad, however, as news of Isabella's death had arrived in Acre, where Frederick meets more opposition.
News of his excommunication had arrived as well, and many refuse to support him.
Dependent, therefore, on the Teutonic Knights, the organization formed by Germans who remained in the east after an expedition in 1197 and now under the direction of Hermann of Salza, and his own small contingent of German crusaders, he is forced to attempt what he can by diplomacy.
Complex negotiations, accordingly, are reopened with al-Kamil.
The treaty of 1229 concluded between the Ayyubid Sultanate and the Holy Roman Empire is unique in the history of the Crusades, and certainly a result of the impact of Frederick's personality on the Arab world, and not armed might.
The Ayyubids, by diplomacy alone and without major military confrontation, cede Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and a corridor running to the sea to the Kingdom of Jerusalem.
Exception is made for the Temple area, the Dome of the Rock, and the Aqsa Mosque, which the Muslims retain.
Important pilgrimage sites, among them Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Lydda, and perhaps Nazareth, are restored to the Christians.
The peace is to last for ten years.
When Frederick, still under excommunication, enters the city, the Patriarch places it under interdict.
By way of response, the excommunicated emperor on March 18, 1229, crowns himself king of Jerusalem in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
As no priest is present, Frederick places a crown on his own head while one of the Teutonic Knights reads the ceremony.
Eschatological prophecies concerning his rule are now made, and the Emperor considers himself to be a messiah, a new David.
His entry into Jerusalem is compared with that of Christ on Palm Sunday (and, indeed, in a manifesto, the Emperor, too, compares himself to Christ).
The benefits of the treaty of 1229 are more apparent than real.
The areas ceded are not easily defensible, and Jerusalem soon becomes a prey to disorder.
Furthermore, the treaty is denounced by the devout of both faiths.
Papal troops have meanwhile penetrated into Frederick's Kingdom of Sicily.
Leaving agents in charge, Frederick hastily returns to Europe.
What follows in Jerusalem and Cyprus, however, is not orderly government by the Emperor's agents but civil war, for Frederick's imperial concept of government is totally opposed to the now well-established preeminence of the Jerusalem baronage.
Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II revives old imperial claims in northern Italy, with the result that the Lombard towns fight him constantly in a rebellion cultivated, in part, by the devious Gregory IX, who, after forcing the emperor to go on crusade to the Holy Land in 1228, has fomented rebellion in Frederick’s territories.
On Frederick’s return in 1229, he fights to regain Sicily, which the Papacy had taken control of in his absence, and finds himself excommunicated a second time.
John's forces, Frederick having departed in April from the island of Cyprus, defeat the remaining imperial bailiffs in a battle outside Nicosia on July 14, 1229, thus beginning the War of the Lombards.