d
him gifts and reverence, among the which gifts were poisoned comfits
from Apulia, and the boy having eaten of them, straightway died.
They, believing Conradino to be dead by poison, departed from Germany,
and when they had returned to Venice, they caused sails of black cloth
to be made to their galley and all the rigging to be black, and they
were attired in black, and when they were come into Apulia, they made
a show of great grief, as they had been instructed by Manfred. And
having reported to Manfred, and to the German barons, and to those of
the Kingdom how Conradino was dead, and Manfred having made show of
deep affliction, by the call of his friends and of all the people (as
he had arranged), he was elected king of Sicily and of Apulia, and at
Monreale, in Sicily, caused himself to be crowned, the year of Christ
1255.

Sec. 46.--_Of the war between Pope Alexander and King Manfred._

[Sidenote: 1255 A.D.]

[Sidenote: 1256 A.D.]

[Sidenote: Purg. iii. 107.]

[Sidenote: Cf. De V.E. i. 12, 21 sqq.]

After the death of Pope Innocent, and the vacancy which followed,
there was elected Pope Alexander IV., born in the city of Alagna, in
Campagna, the year of Christ 1255, and he sat on the papal throne
seven years, and certain months and days. The which Pope Alexander,
hearing how Manfred had caused himself to be crowned king of Sicily
against the will of Holy Church, by the said Pope Manfred was required
to abandon the lordship of the Kingdom and of Sicily, the which he
would neither hearken to, nor obey; for the which thing the said Pope
first excommunicated and deprived him, and then sent against him Otho,
the cardinal legate, with a great host of the Church, and he took many
places on the coasts of Apulia; to wit, the city of Sipanto, and Mount
Santagnolo, and Barletta and Bari, as far as Otranto in Calabria; but
afterwards the said host, by reason of the death of the said legate,
returned with labour lost, and Manfred took back and regained all, and
this was the year of Christ 1256. The said King Manfred was son of a
beautiful lady, of the family of the Marquises of Lancia in Lombardy,
of whom the Emperor Frederick was enamoured, and he was beautiful in
person, and, like his father, but even more, dissolute in every
fashion; a musician he was, and singer, and loved to see around him
buffoons and minstrels, and beautiful concubines, and was always clad
in green raiment; very liberal was he, and courteous, an