In 1250, Archbishop Grosseteste attended the Council of Lyon, which was presided over by Pope Innocent IV, who likewise was not in Rome.
The Holy Roman Emperor at the time, Frederick II, had no respect for the Church. This may have had something to do with his childhood. His father, Henry VI, had suddenly died of malaria, and Frederick II, still a child, and his mother were driven out of the palace by the ministers entrusted with his care.
She managed to have her son crowned King of Sicily and gave up the German throne. Then, a year after her husband's death, his mother also died. Before she passed away, she asked Pope Innocent III to become the young king's guardian and oversee his education. But Innocent III did not actually do so. The young emperor grew up amid discrimination and abuse. Though he wore a crown, he was in truth a prisoner. No one cared about him, and at times even finding enough to eat was a problem.
He was little different from a street urchin. In fact, he could at least scrape together a full meal among the common people. He came to trust only himself, grew worldly and knowledgeable, spoke to stablehands as equals, yet despised the clergymen sent by the Holy See to educate him, always believing they had been sent by the pope to spy on him. When he was fifteen, Pope Innocent III arranged his marriage to an Aragon princess ten years his senior.
Considering that he was fifteen, even being ten years older still left the Aragon princess in the bloom of youth. Not long after their marriage, he went to Rome, and on the eve of Easter, guardian and ward met for the only time in their lives.
Since Otto IV, then