Sound or unsound, however, these arguments did their work, for they were urged skilfully and boldly, and none denied that it was by the Pope alone that the crown could be lawfully imposed[260]. In some instances the rights claimed were actually made good. Thus Innocent III withstood Philip and overthrew Otto IV; thus another haughty priest commanded the electors to choose the Landgrave of Thuringia (A.D. 1246), and was by some of them obeyed; thus Gregory X compelled the recognition of Rudolf. The further pretensions of the Popes to the vicariate of the Empire during interregna the Germans never admitted[261]. Still their place was now generally felt to be higher than that of the monarch, and their control over the three spiritual electors and the whole body of the clergy was far more effective than his. A spark of national feeling was at length kindled by the exactions and shameless subservience to France of the papal court at Avignon[262]; and the infant democracy of industry and intelligence represented by the cities and by the English Franciscan Occam, supported Lewis IV in his conflict with John XXII, till even the princes who had risen by the help of the Pope were obliged to oppose him. The same sentiment dictated the reforms of Constance, but the imperial power which might have floated onwards and higher on the turning tide of popular opinion lacked men equal to the occasion: the Hapsburg Frederick the Third, timid and superstitious, abased himself before the Romish court, and his house has generally adhered to the alliance then struck.
[251] I quote from the Liber Augustalis printed among Petrarch's works the following curious description of Frederick: 'Fuit armorum strenuus, linguarum peritus, rigorosus, luxuriosus, epicurus, nihil curans vel credens nisi temporale: fuit malleus Romanae ecclesiae.'
As Otto III had been called 'mirabilia mundi,' so Frederick II is often spoken of in his own time as 'stupor mundi Fridericus.'
[252] 'Quà entro è lo secondo Federico.'--_Inferno_, canto x.
[253] The interregnum is by some reckoned as the two years before Richard's election; by others, as the whole period from the death of Frederick II or that of his son Conrad IV till Rudolf's accession in 1273.