Introduction and Historiography

At the beginning of the thirteenth century, crusade activities were a common part of life in the regions of the Holy Roman Empire north of the Alps. As the Empire was an important recruiting area, legates, bishops, as well as other clergymen preached the cross and promoted not only expeditions to the LevantFootnote 1 but also campaigns in the Baltic regions,Footnote 2 and the fight against the Albigensians in southern France.Footnote 3 In the early 1220s, emperor Frederick II’s crusade was vigorously promoted—among others by Conrad of Urach, cardinal bishop of Porto and Santa Rufina, who was sent to “preach the verbum crucis to the people.”Footnote 4 From the 1230s onwards, it was mainly trained mendicant preachers who travelled across the country to persuade people to take the cross. In addition, papal collectors collected, deposited, and delivered the various crusade funds raised by the curia to finance the church’s numerous undertakings. Lay people and members of the clergy were animated by eloquent crusade preachers, driven by pious zeal, enticed by privileges or the prospect of the remission of their sins.

Beginning in the late 1220s, crusades were carried out on the soil of the Empire against enemies resident there (Map 10.1). These included (a) campaigns against the Drenther, in what is now the Dutch province of the same name; (b) the conflict between the archbishop of Bremen and the rural population of Stedingen on the Lower Weser; (c) the fight against heretics in the Rhineland led by Conrad of Marburg; and (d) the crusades of Gregory IX and Innocent IV against Frederick II, his son Conrad IV, and their supporters not only in Germany but especially in Italy. Catalysts, motives, protagonists, range, duration, resolution, and remembrance of these internal crusades varied greatly as will be shown in this chapter.

Map 10.1
A map highlights the areas of crusading activity in the Holy Roman Empire. The Stedinger Crusades are Bremen, Hude, and Altenesch. The Conard of Marburg Crusades are Marburg, Frankfurt, Sayn, and Mainz. The Drenther Crusades are Groningen, Oldenburg, Ane, Saxony, and Coevorden.

Areas of crusading activity in the Holy Roman Empire (13th c.)

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Although research on all four of the campaigns mentioned above has been quite thorough, the manner and scope of this research varies as much as the individual details of each conflict. They are all are taken into account, for example, in Rist’s large-scale study on papal crusade policy from Innocent III to Innocent IV as well as in Maier’s work on the contribution of the mendicants to the crusading movement in the thirteenth century.Footnote 5

Both the Drenther and Stedinger crusades, which took place in the north-western parts of the Empire, are primarily a subject of German or Dutch Landesgeschichte. The military campaign against the rural population in Drenthe—which Hoppenbrouwers has called “a remote corner of the Holy Roman Empire that will be little known (if known at all) outside the Netherlands”Footnote 6—has received less attention than the campaigns against the Stedinger. The most relevant study remains that of Dieperink,Footnote 7 and the Drenthers’ resistance is also discussed in a textbook dedicated to the history of the region.Footnote 8 Since the 1980s, the holy wars against the Drenther and Stedinger have been repeatedly examined together and put in a larger context. Examples are Schmidt’s and van Bavel’s works on rural revolts,Footnote 9 and Kennan’s and Rist’s studies on the crusades launched by Gregory IX.Footnote 10 The first—albeit partially outdated—account of the military confrontation in Stedingen was published by Schumacher in 1865.Footnote 11 Hucker, Köhn, and Schmidt provided important insights during the 1980–90s.Footnote 12 Most recently, Cassidy-Welch has studied contemporary politics of remembrance of the Stedinger crusade, while Kaldewei has dealt with the exploitation of the Stedinger during National Socialism.Footnote 13 Furthermore, Holzhausen has examined the remembrance of the Stedinger uprising in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.Footnote 14 However, the only comprehensive study on the events and their remembrance up to the twentieth century was carried out in a popularising book.Footnote 15

The activities of Conrad of Marburg, who carried out the task to fight heretics given to him by the pope, received ample attention in studies on the beginnings of the inquisitorial persecution of heretics in the Empire,Footnote 16 on the contemporary perception of heretical practices,Footnote 17 and on the political structures and interrelations of the 1220–30s.Footnote 18

The conflict between the papacy and the Hohenstaufen, which was fought by military as well as propagandistic means, has been examined from various perspectives. Maier and Freed have looked at the manifold fields of activity of the mendicant friars in the conflict between pope and emperor,Footnote 19 while Berg has repeatedly addressed their relationship with Frederick II.Footnote 20 Doublier has explored the use of indulgences during the conflict,Footnote 21 Purcell has examined indulgences among other papal instruments,Footnote 22 and Öhlinger has focused on the preaching of the cross against the Staufen.Footnote 23 The so-called anti-kings, Henry Raspe and William of Holland, who were elevated to their position by the alliance against Frederick II and Conrad IV in the Empire, have been taken into account in many of the studies mentioned so far and are also dealt with in recent publications.Footnote 24

The Conflict of the Bishop of Utrecht with the Burgrave of Coevorden and the Drenther

Our knowledge of the events that took place in Drenthe in the Oversticht Utrecht in the 1220–30s is essentially based on the so-called Narracio written by a clergyman of the bishopric of Utrecht.Footnote 25 The period covered by the chronicle ranges from Bishop Hartbert (1139–1150) to Bishop Wilbrand of Oldenburg (1227–1233), under whose episcopate it was written. The work’s focus, however, is on Wilbrand and his immediate predecessor Otto II of Lippe. Thus, the chronicle can be classified as a detailed, yet partial account. It is the only source that describes the conflicts as a crusade. Therefore, whether the military campaigns were really crusades remains disputed.Footnote 26

The Drenther were free peasants to a large extent, who took up arms against the bishop of Utrecht. Around 1225/1226 several conflicts arose around that region, the causes of which often remain unknown. Burgrave Rudolf of Coevorden got involved in a dispute between prefect Egbert of Groningen and the burghers of Groningen, with whom he sided.Footnote 27 Bishop Otto II of Utrecht, who had just peacefully settled a violent conflict with counts Gerhard IV of Guelders and Florens IV of Holland through the mediation of the papal legate Conrad of Urach,Footnote 28 was forced to intervene as Egbert’s ally. An armistice failed because Egbert built a castle at Glimmen, which the other side considered a breach of the agreement. Therefore, Rudolf destroyed the castle with the support of the Drenther and captured Groningen, which Egbert was able to recapture with the help of Frisian troops.

According to the Narracio, the Drenther “presumptuously and foolishly” sided against the bishop of Utrecht and thus they were responsible for “the beginnings of the subsequent evils.”Footnote 29 Apparently, Otto II had tried to demand temporal rights, against which the Drenther peasants resisted.Footnote 30 However, due to the scant amount of primary sources, it remains unclear what kind of claims were made by the bishop, how autonomous the peasants were, and how the peasant communities were organised. In the summer of 1227, Otto II assembled an army “using prayers, promises and gifts.”Footnote 31 He was joined by the counts of Guelders, Cleve, and Holland, among others. The powerful army of knights marched in the direction of Coevorden. Near Ane, on 28 July 1227, they encountered the enemy forces, who had broken off their siege of Groningen.Footnote 32 Indulgences, sermons, and blessings proved to be uselessFootnote 33 as the knights sank into the marshy ground and were, thus, easy prey for the Drenther, who are described as inhumane beasts by the anonymous author of the Narracio because they cruelly slaughtered numerous knights and the bishop.Footnote 34

Shortly after, Wilbrand of Oldenburg, bishop of Paderborn, was elected successor to the late Otto II. According to the Narracio, his family connections, his experience of war and governance, his “crusader past,” as well as his acquaintance with the emperor and pope were all counted in his favour.Footnote 35 In Rome he obtained the pope’s approval, who translated him to Utrecht. In the summer of 1228, he set out to preach the cross against the defiant Drenther and Coevordener in Frisia according to the Narracio. His call was answered by some Frisians who were “summoned by the indulgence of the Lord Pope and the request of the Lord Bishop.”Footnote 36 In October 1228, the people of Drenthe and Coevorden surrendered, offered hostages, paid a fine of 3400 silver marks, and promised to send 100 armed men to campaign in Livonia for a year.Footnote 37 Afterwards, other uprisings and skirmishes followed. During the following two years, Wilbrand repeatedly proclaimed a crusade, for which he promised the remission of sins.Footnote 38 Yet, neither side was able to assert itself decisively.

Whether Gregory IX provided Wilbrand with a crusade bull or issued one later or whether the bishop acted on his own authority without papal permission remains unclear. However, “there is no evidence that Gregory had Wildbrand’s allegations against the Drenther investigated.”Footnote 39 It is equally noteworthy that in the Narracio the Drenther are never called heretics but are always merely described as disobedient to and fighting against the bishop. Persistent disobedience, though, was considered heresy.Footnote 40 If our anonymous chronicler is to be believed, the armed resistance was briefly elevated to the status of a crusade and the Frisians fought “like true pilgrims and very special defenders of their Utrecht Church.”Footnote 41

The Crusade against the Stedinger

While the conflict in Drenthe was well underway, a similar dispute had broken out on the Lower Weser between the rural population of Stedingen and Archbishop Gerhard II of Bremen, brother of Bishop Otto II of Utrecht. Numerous contemporary and later—mainly ecclesiastical—annalists and chroniclers, whose reliability seems questionable at times, have recorded the events.Footnote 42 Furthermore, several papal letters have been preserved which provide insight into the course of the conflict, the information passed on to the curia and the pope’s intervention. Although medieval sources and historical accounts refer to the Stedinger, it is unlikely that they were a homogeneous group. Predominantly, this group was made up of peasants with different origins, whose ancestors had settled on the Lower Weser as colonists in the twelfth century. They were granted special rights and privileges to promote the cultivation of these marsh- and moorlands.Footnote 43 In the early thirteenth century, the financially as well as politically troubled archbishop of Bremen attempted to re-establish his sovereign rights and to collect levies from the largely independent peasants of Stedingen, who had meanwhile achieved a certain level of prosperity.Footnote 44 The exact nature of the claims made by the archbishop and the organisation of the peasants remain obscure, but we do know that the Stedinger resisted the archbishop’s attempts.Footnote 45

During the schism in the church of Bremen (1207–1217), the Stedinger peasants initially supported Waldemar of Schleswig, who had been elected by the cathedral chapter. Even though his opponent Gerhard of Osnabrück was backed by the pope, Waldemar did not give up his claim. The Stedinger, however, later sided with the pope’s candidate, presumably because Innocent III had called for military action and granted an unspecified remission of sins, thus virtually proclaiming a crusade against the “schismatic son of perdition” Waldemar.Footnote 46

A rift between the Stedinger and the archbishop of Bremen developed in 1227–1229. Through military victories and diplomatic efforts, Archbishop Gerhard II succeeded in regaining sovereign rights, resolving hostilities, and gaining new allies, including the counts of Stotel and Oldenburg.Footnote 47 In Stedingen, his attempts to regain power remained unsuccessful, and in response, he excommunicated the inhabitants some time before Christmas 1229. The military campaign he waged against the Stedinger together with his brother Hermann II of Lippe turned into a disaster, resulting in Hermann’s untimely death.Footnote 48 In memory of his fallen brother, Archbishop Gerhard hastened to establish pious foundations such as the Cistercian monastery of Lilienthal.Footnote 49

At a Lenten synod in the spring of 1231,Footnote 50 the archbishop of Bremen took up the spiritual instead of the secular sword and denounced the Stedinger as heretics. They were accused of contemptus clavium, i.e., disobeying the Church (and their bishop in particular), as well as pillaging churches and monasteries, committing perjury, summoning demons, and consorting with fortune tellers.Footnote 51 A delegation from Bremen informed Gregory IX of these accusations. However, the pope did not authorise a crusade in the summer of 1231, as perhaps the archbishop of Bremen had hoped. Instead, he instructed the bishop of Lübeck, the Dominican prior of the monastery of St. Catherine in Bremen, and the papal penitentiary John of Wildeshausen,Footnote 52 to investigate the allegations and take appropriate measures to return the Stedinger to the bosom of the church or to coordinate military countermeasures in case the charges could be corroborated.Footnote 53 Further actions were not taken until more than a year later.

In the autumn of 1232, the pope gave permission to preach the cross against the heretical Stedinger in a restricted area. He ordered the bishops of Minden, Lübeck, and Ratzeburg to recruit crusaders in northern Germany with the help of Dominican friars. Volunteers were to be granted gradual indulgences: rewards ranged from a 20-day remission of sins for attending the crusade sermons to a plenary indulgence for those who died in the fight against heresy.Footnote 54 In January of the following year, the pope decided to involve other bishops of northern Germany.Footnote 55 In his effort to bring down the Stedinger, Archbishop Gerhard II also had to rely on the logistical support of the burghers of Bremen. He therefore made significant concessions to the latter regarding their trade activities (exemption from military obligations, elimination of customs duties and of bad coinage, amongst others).Footnote 56 Meanwhile, the Stedinger were the ones achieving military victories, destroying the castle in Schlutter as well as the monastery in Hude,Footnote 57 and defeating an army of crusaders near Hemmelskamp.

Despite the pope’s measures, enthusiasm to commit to the fight against the Stedinger seems to have been limited.Footnote 58 Gregory heard that the crusade sermons had only evoked a meagre response, so in mid-June 1233 he granted full crusade indulgences akin to those promised for an expedition to the Holy Land and expanded preaching activities.Footnote 59 These measures proved to be effective. Dominicans, “who flew almost like clouds,” were particularly successful in recruiting crusaders in the Rhineland, Westphalia, Holland, Flanders, and Brabant.Footnote 60 Several noblemen took crusade vows, including duke Henry II of Brabant and the counts Floris IV of Holland, Henry III of Oldenburg-Wildeshausen, and Ludwig of Ravensberg.Footnote 61 In March 1234 Gregory IX ordered his legate William of Modena to mediate between the parties in one last effort to resolve the matter peacefully but to no avail.Footnote 62 On 25 May 1234, the crusader army crushed the Stedinger near Altenesch. Many peasants lost their lives, some fled and convinced the pontiff to lift their excommunication in the following year.Footnote 63 Although there would be some smaller uprisings in the following decades, the archbishop of Bremen, like the counts of Oldenburg, was able to extend and assert his sovereign rights.

The Activity of the Inquisitor Conrad of Marburg

While these events were unfolding in Drenthe and in Stedingen, Conrad of Marburg was acting as papal inquisitor on the Middle and Lower Rhine. Previously, Innocent III and Honorius III had commissioned the eloquent Conrad, who was presumably a secular priest,Footnote 64 to preach the cross for the Holy Land along with other ecclesiastical dignitaries. It appears the charismatic preacher was extraordinarily successful in recruiting and mobilising crusaders.Footnote 65 In June 1227, Gregory IX entrusted him not only with one but with two important tasks: Conrad was to promote the reformation of the secular and regular clergy, and at the same time, he was put in charge of tracking down heretics “in the German lands” (in partibus Theutonie).Footnote 66 The dutiful Conrad performed his mission so well that the Roman pontiff sang his praises and expanded his authority in the persecution of religious deviance in October 1231: Conrad was to continue persecuting religious dissidents. He was given the authority to excommunicate or impose an interdict upon their followers and protectors, and to grant partial indulgences to those who helped him eradicate the “heretical depravity” (heretica pravitas).Footnote 67 Moreover, he was allowed to pass sentence and was thus independent of episcopal jurisdiction.Footnote 68 Until then, the condemnation of heretics used to be the responsibility of the episcopate. This led to tensions between Conrad and the Rhenish archbishops, in whose archdioceses the papal inquisitor performed his duties. However, the archbishops supported his measures as long as they did not affect their own high-ranking allies. But they had to intervene, when Conrad began to take action against nobles from the Middle Rhine region, including Count Henry III of Sayn,Footnote 69 who were tightly linked to the alliance networks of the archbishops, especially those of Mainz and Cologne.Footnote 70 In his study, Gramsch even suspects that Conrad’s accusations against Henry III of Sayn and others, who were most likely not involved in heretical activities, may have been a political attack by the Ludovingians (the ruling landgraves of Thuringia) against the archbishops of Mainz and Cologne, who quarrelled with each other in Central Germany.Footnote 71 The resistance that formed against Conrad’s actions did not stem from class consciousness but rather resulted from an attempt to defend the interests of a certain circle. In addition, Conrad’s approach was met with criticism, since he, allegedly, left the accused with only two options: to confess and renounce or to deny the accusation and be burned at the stake.Footnote 72

The inquisitor’s modus procedendi—which largely corresponded to the later customary inquisitorial practiceFootnote 73—was viewed as controversial: on the one hand, he enjoyed the support of some grandees, such as Bishop Conrad of Hildesheim, and was thus considered to be a “relentless accuser of vices, the terror of tyrants and heretics.”Footnote 74 On the other hand, he was criticised by many, for instance, as a “judge without mercy.”Footnote 75 Conrad continued to evoke mixed reactions: Count Henry III of Sayn successfully appealed against Conrad’s charges of heresy to the archbishop of Mainz and to King Henry (VII) and was able to evade Conrad’s inquisitorial justice and to defend himself against the accusations before a synodal court in July 1233. Yet, shortly before Count Henry could plead his case, the pope had allowed Conrad—as well as other episcopal inquisitors—to grant the same indulgences for the fight against heretics as those received by crusaders who crossed the Mediterranean to liberate the Holy Land.Footnote 76 The Synod of Mainz did not reach a verdict but sent a delegation to the curia with a request to comment on the matter.Footnote 77

Apparently dissatisfied with the outcome of the meeting, Conrad resumed preaching the cross at Mainz on the spot, despite friendly warnings. Shortly thereafter, Conrad and his companions were killed by unknown attackers on their way back to Marburg. The news reached Rome, causing Gregory IX not only to order the Empire’s high clergy to excommunicate the murderers, but also to instruct some clergymen to continue preaching the cross against heretics in Teutonię partibus and to keep on promising the plenary remission of sins.Footnote 78 At least the bishop of Hildesheim, who was able to recruit some nobles, complied with this order,Footnote 79 but since a large part of the nobility and clergy had distanced themselves from both the inquisitorial procedures as well as the crusade project, the plan never came to fruition. Instead, Count Henry III of Sayn and others accused of heresy were finally acquitted at the diet of Frankfurt in February 1234. A few days later, the inquisition was virtually banned under imperial law through a Landfrieden, as King Henry ordered all those “who have judicial power by virtue of royal office” to “make every effort to suppress the perfidy of heretics and to prefer the justice of the court to unjust persecution.”Footnote 80 Thus, the inquisition and the crusades proclaimed in its name ended abruptly in Germany.

The Crusade against the Staufen

Compared to the disputes elaborated on so far, the controversy between the papacy and the Hohenstaufen took a wholly different shape as it reached pan-European dimensions. Because Frederick II had repeatedly postponed his own crusading campaign to the Holy Land and had finally abandoned it due to a plague outbreak on his ship shortly after departure, Gregory IX excommunicated him on 29 September 1227. When Frederick II—although excommunicated—sailed to the Holy Land the following year, the pope sent legates to proclaim his state of excommunication and to campaign against the Staufen across Europe.Footnote 81 Odo of Tonengo, cardinal deacon of San Nicola in Carcere Tulliano, was sent to manage the election of a new king in the Empire. However, Henry (VII) prevented him from entering the territory of the German kingdom.Footnote 82

Just as 12 years earlier, the renewed excommunication of Frederick II on 20 March 1239, initially remained ineffective in Germany. The princes refused to revolt against the emperor and instead sought to mediate between the two parties. The mendicants hardly complied with the papal request to pronounce Frederick’s excommunication and instead continued to cultivate an amicable relationship with the Hohenstaufen.Footnote 83 The papal legates at times acted rather presumptuously: for example, archdeacon Albert Behaim in Bavaria, who most notably excommunicated the archbishop of Salzburg and was not only expelled from the region, but the cross was preached against him.Footnote 84 In the early 1240s, however, several princes turned against the Staufen party. Among the defectors were, in September 1241, the archbishops of Cologne and Mainz,Footnote 85 who were to lead the opposition, as well as Landgrave Henry Raspe, who switched sides in 1242/1243.Footnote 86

Nevertheless, mobilisation against the Staufen only took shape under Innocent IV, who acceded to the Cathedra Petri in the summer of 1243. After he had fled from Frederick II to Lyon, he deposed the emperor on 17 July 1245 and freed his subjects from their oath of allegiance. He also called on the princes directly to elect a new king.Footnote 87 Though the German princes remained divided, the opposition that had formed around the archbishops of Cologne and Mainz followed the pope’s call and elected Henry Raspe as German king on 22 May 1246. Thereupon, Innocent immediately gave the instruction to preach the cross against the Staufen and their followers.Footnote 88 For this purpose, the pope dedicated all his personnel, along with spiritual and jurisdictional instruments at his disposal to this endeavour. Legates with comprehensive powers coordinated the resistance on the ground; Franciscans and Dominicans acted as crusade preachers, money collectors, and messengers;Footnote 89 and crusade funds were levied throughout Europe, which provoked criticism in France and England, primarily because of the financial burden.Footnote 90 Crusaders were recruited by means of various incentives such as plenary indulgences,Footnote 91 marriage and other dispensations,Footnote 92 awarding benefices and other financial concessions.Footnote 93 The supporters of the Staufen were threatened with the revocation of benefices, excommunication, and interdict; if they remained obstinate, the threats were carried out—in Regensburg, for instance.Footnote 94

The papal party’s commitment did not dwindle after Henry Raspe died on 16 February 1247. They continued with their endeavours, now favouring Count William of Holland, who was elected king on 3 October 1247. Due to both “anti-kings’” meagre personal and financial resources, the pope had to finance the recruitment of their retinue.Footnote 95 For this purpose, crusade tithes were levied. Furthermore, crusade vows to make the voyage to the Holy Land were commuted into either a monetary payment or an obligation to serve in the campaign against the Staufen. The papal party succeeded in assembling a formidable crusader army to besiege the city of Aachen.Footnote 96 The citizens of Aachen refused to open the city gates to William so that he could not be crowned Roman-German king at the legitimate coronation site. Mendicant crusade preachers recruited troops from Brabant, Flanders, the Rhineland, Holland, and Frisia, among others. The participation of the Frisians, who were experienced in dyke construction, was decisive in forcing the citizens of Aachen to surrender. The Frisian crucesignati first cut off the beleaguered city’s supplies and then built a dam causing the various streams flowing through Aachen to accumulate and flood the city. After a six-month siege, the people of Aachen capitulated on 18 October 1248. William showed mercy and confirmed their rights and privileges. He was crowned king in Aachen’s Marienkirche on All Saints’ Day, but spent almost half of his reign in his own dominions.Footnote 97

The pope and his delegates did not relent in their fight against the Staufen—neither when Frederick II died in southern Italy in December 1250, nor when his son, Conrad IV, crossed the Alps in October 1251 to assert his sovereign rights on the Italian peninsula. The support for King William as well as the harassment of the Staufen’s supporters continued.Footnote 98 The battlefield, however, on which this conflict would be resolved, was relocated to southern Italy, where the house of Hohenstaufen met a bloody end—Frederick II’s son Manfred died on the battlefield of Benevento in 1266, his grandson Conradin was decapitated in Naples in 1268.Footnote 99

Conclusions

For a rather short period of time from the late 1220s to the early 1250s, crusades were proclaimed and, indeed, waged in the regions of the Holy Roman Empire north of the Alps. Temporal, ideological, or personal overlaps connect, albeit only loosely, the theatres of conflict of the late 1220s and early 1230s in Drenthe, Stedingen, and the Rhineland. Members of the Oldenburg-Wildeshausen, for example, were involved in both military campaigns in the northwest of the Empire. These were initiated by local church dignitaries, who had provoked rural revolts. But these clergymen failed to assert themselves on their own in these regional disputes. Only then was the pope called for help, by the bishop of Bremen in 1231 and perhaps also by the bishop of Utrecht in the previous years. Only the Stedinger, though, were labelled as heretics by a local synod at an advanced stage of the conflict. The early 1230s are characterised not only in Germany by burgeoning heretical groups, but also by a certain anti-heretic hysteria, which was partly fuelled by the papally appointed inquisitor Conrad of Marburg, who reported to Gregory IX about a spreading sect of Luciferians. Like in Stedingen, some of Conrad’s persecutions may have been politically motivated. The pope first observed the progression of events on the Lower Weser and the Rhine, before gradually deploying a host of spiritual measures against the (alleged) religious deviants. It was not until mid-June 1233 that he granted full crusade privileges and indulgences, directing at the same time, in his decretal Vox in Rama, the secular as well as the ecclesiastical rulers to persecute the heretic Luciferians.Footnote 100

About a decade later, his successor Innocent IV granted the same plenary indulgences—along with other financial and spiritual benefits—in the struggle against the Staufen. The crusade against Frederick II and his sons was a large-scale venture, transcending political boundaries. Compared to the three earlier crusades on the soil of the Empire, more resources were used, and more people were involved. Frederick II, among other crimes, too, was accused of heresy, because he “despised and despises the keys of the Church.”Footnote 101 However, this was not a direct borrowing from the two previous crusades in Drenthe and Stedingen but the application of the same “politically extended concept of heresy.”Footnote 102 With the appointment of an “anti-king,” even the political constitution was affected. Moreover, this conflict was fought on both sides by military as well as propagandistic means. After Conrad IV’s death, the crusades came to an end in the Empire, which became a papstferne region, i.e., a region which did not maintain nor was it afforded close ties to Rome. In this region territorialisation and fragmentation would grow, and the inquisition would not be re-introduced until the second half of the fourteenth century, and in some places not until the fifteenth century. For a long time, no dominating dynasty would prevail. Instead, princes cooperated and regulated the region’s affairs together. Therefore, there was probably neither reason nor intention to preach the cross.