Judging Frederick
Sir: In his review of my Frederick II: A Medieval Emperor (20 August) David Gil- mour dismissively accuses me of applying modern standards of tolerance to Frederick II's time; he cites a few words from a paragraph in which I argue that one should not do so, and in which I take St Louis of France rather than Gandhi (whom I never mention) as the measuring stick. In fact it is Gilmour who applies modern standards, mentioning Frederick's appa- rent tolerance to the Jews but failing entirely to understand that Frederick's attitude was far from unconventional at the time.
Here and elsewhere in his review Gil- mour shows an ability to reverse the meaning of the text that one should not expect in a historian of so delicate an issue as the Palestinian diaspora.
David Abulafia
Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge
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