Sixth Crusade - Victory! Victory? It’s complicated.

What’s more important: getting the right result or doing it the right way?

(this is part eight of twelve about The Crusades as a movie series)

Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II Hohenstaufen was the kind of guy who did things his own way. The Sixth Crusade (1228-1229) was his crusade, and he was gonna do it his way.

Technically, the Fifth Crusade was supposed to be Frederick’s crusade, but he was a no-show. Pope Honorius III called the Fifth Crusade in 1217, and he wanted Frederick to lead the crusade.

All the cool kings went crusading, so of course Frederick wanted to join the club. But he had other things going on. Mostly he stayed pretty busy trying to maintain control of his massive territory. He was King of Germany and King of Sicily and ruled the half of Europe in between.

Frederick used crusading for leverage to get what he wanted from the pope. And he wanted the pope to elevate him to Holy Roman Emperor before he went on crusade. It finally happened in 1220 with the understanding that he would join the Fifth Crusade, but he didn’t go. He was busy.

In 1225, he married the heiress of Jerusalem, so he added King of Jerusalem to his many titles. This also added the secular reasons of managing his new holdings in the Levant to the long list of reasons to go on crusade. But still he didn’t go.

He swore to Pope Honorius III he would go by 1227 or face excommunication, but he delayed a few weeks after the deadline, either because his army all got sick, or just to stick it to the pope. But by 1227 there was a new pope, and Pope Gregory IX was tired of all this messing around, so he excommunicated Frederick.

This was the first of what would be many excommunications for Frederick, so he rolled his eyes at the pope and set off for the Holy Land. The excommunicated emperor arrived in Acre in September 1228.

Once there, he began a dialogue with Sultan al-Kamil, and they got along smashingly. Born and raised in multicultural Sicily, Frederick could speak Arabic. Given his experience having Muslim subjects and his general intellectual curiosity, Frederick had an interest in, and respect for, the Islamic faith, well above that of the typical medieval Christian ruler.

So the emperor met with the sultan. Frederick had many complicated math problems on his mind that he wanted to discuss with the sultan’s advisors. So instead of laying siege to anything, he geeked out with his fellow nerds.

Just a few months later, in February 1229, Frederick and al-Kamil signed a treaty that gave the cities of Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and Nazareth back to the kingdom of Jerusalem for the first time in more than 40 years.

Without fighting, Frederick had returned Jerusalem to Christian control. Frederick and al-Kamil also agreed to a 10-year truce, giving everyone time to settle down.

You might expect that the pope would be overjoyed with Frederick’s success, and that’s where you’d be wrong. Both the pope and the patriarch of Jerusalem condemned the deal. Maybe you can think of a leader who trashes the successful negotiations of others by saying they would have done better?

Pope Gregory IX complained that the treaty was insufficiently pious and gave too much to the Muslims. He wanted Frederick to, you know, do some fighting or conquering or something to win more territory. Mainly, the pope was mad that Frederick had done it his own way.

Frederick might have stuck around to rule in Jerusalem, but he had two big problems. First, the local barons were not at all happy with their new foreign overlord. Second, the pope had raised an army and invaded Frederick’s territories in Sicily.

Despite winning Jerusalem for the Christians, Frederick was despised. When he boarded his ship back home, the crowd pelted him with rotten fruit. Medieval people didn’t like this ruler who ruled unlike most medieval rulers.

Looking back, most modern historians have a positive view of Frederick and praise him for his tolerant views. Also, with the benefit of hindsight, they know that this 10-year treaty will be the last time Jerusalem will be in Christian hands.

The Sixth Crusade was more about the holy roman emperor fighting the pope than Christians fighting Muslims. But losing Jerusalem again could only mean one thing: that’s right, another crusade was right around the corner.

The Sixth Crusade was a success because it returned Jerusalem to Christian control. But without any epic sieges or battles, many felt it was incomplete and disliked the outcome, even if that outcome was positive for the crusaders.

In this version of the movie, the auteur director has subverted the genre, making an artsy film that the critics love, but the people hate.

Instead of the action the audience expects, the movie has long, long scenes of slow conversation, then the camera zooms in on water dripping into a puddle for ten minutes, then back for more steamy piles of talking, then a weird dream sequence where blurry figures scream unintelligibly. Finally, mercifully, the movie, er, film, ends.

The movie gets great reviews but is a box office dud. Where were the explosions, the car chases, the gratuitous beach bikini scenes? Where are all the highly quotable comic zingers?

While the film might do well during awards season, there is definitely a strong pull from the fans to bring back one of the old storylines, so that means a sequel and a reboot…