les of Anjou, brother of
Louis IX of France.

But while the popes were thus temporarily successful in the giant
contest against their greatest rival, to such partisan extremities
were they driven by the necessities of the struggle, that the
awakening world looked at them with doubtful eyes, began to question
their spiritual rights and honors, as well as the temporal authority
they claimed. In Charles of Anjou the popes soon found that they had
but substituted one master for another. Charles was rapidly becoming
as obnoxious to Rome as the emperors had ever been, when suddenly the
tyranny of his French soldiers roused the Sicilians to desperation,
and by the massacre of the Sicilian Vespers[15] the French power in
Italy was crushed.

Men were slow to realize that the mighty hold which the papacy had
once possessed on the deep heart of the world was being sapped at its
foundation. Diplomatic pontiffs still managed for a time to play off
one sovereign against another, and to have their battles fought by
foreign armies on a business basis. As late as the year 1300 the first
great jubilee of the Church was celebrated and brought hundreds of
thousands of pilgrims flocking to Rome.[16] The papacy, though sorely
pressed by many enemies, still proudly asserted its political
supremacy. But in truth it had lost its power, not only over the minds
of kings to hold them in subjection, not only over the interests of
nobles to stir them to revolt, but alas, even over the love of the
lower classes to rally them for its defence. Within ten years from the
great jubilee the papacy met complete defeat and subjugation at the
hands of a far lesser man and feebler monarch than Frederick II.

To the empire the long contest was as disastrous as to the papacy.
When Frederick II, at one time the most splendid monarch of Europe,
died in 1250, a crushed and defeated man, Germany sank into such
anarchy as it had not known since the days of the Hunnish invasion.
"When the Emperor was condemned by the Church," says an ancient
chronicle, "robbers made merry over their booty. Ploughshares were
beaten into swords, reaping hooks into lances. Men went everywhere
with flint and steel, setting in a blaze whatsoever they found." The
period from 1254 to 1273 is known as the "Great Interregnum" in German
history. There was no emperor, no authority, and every little lord
fought and robbed as he pleased. The cities, driven to desperation,
raised armed forces o