object of a hereditary empire; for Henry, now King with his father in
Germany and in Italy, must needs succeed to all the paternal honours.
In vain Urban tried to raise up a party against the Emperor; and the
sentence of excommunication, which at length he had determined to
pronounce, was stopped only by the death of the Pope on October 20,
1187.

[Sidenote: Frederick's death.]

It was, however, chance and not the policy of the Emperor that averted
the inevitable conflict. On July 5 the Christians of Palestine had
suffered a crushing defeat at the battle of Hittim or Tiberias at the
hand of Saladin, and on October 3 the Mohammedan conqueror entered
Jerusalem. The quarrel was necessarily suspended, and a new crusade
was preached with such success that in May, 1189, Frederick set out
for Palestine, to be followed a year later by the Kings of France and
England. But the Emperor never reached the Holy Land. He made his way
by Constantinople and Iconium into Cilicia, and there not far from
Tarsus he disappeared, apparently drowned while crossing or bathing in
a river.

[Sidenote: The new contest.]

With the great Emperor's death the contest between Papacy and Empire
enters on a new phase. It is typical of this phase that the one
outstanding question between the two powers after the Peace of Venice
was the question of Tuscany. For the quarrel was now almost entirely
political, and was becoming more and more confined to Italian
politics. The imperial attempt to subdue Italy to Germany had failed,
and it remained for the Emperor to make it impossible for the Pope to