Frederick II penny, showing imperial eagle. He created Europe's first free trade zone and minted the first gold coins in the West for centuries

Throughout his life, Frederick was a brilliant legislator. His laws continue to influence the legal systems of Europe to this day.

In December 1220, Frederick created the Law of Privileges for Sicily. Although much of it related to establishing his own exclusive rights make land grants, it also set out laws that governed Sicily's trading relationship with the outside world. These trade laws were later to be expanded to cover all of Frederick's dominions, eliminating internal tarrifs to create what may be described as the first European Economic Community.

The Law of Privileges also created in 1224 Europe's first state-funded (as opposed to church-funded) educational institution, the University of Naples, where for the first time in 1240 Frederick passed a decree requiring that doctors should study anatomy by disection. Saracens, Muslims and Jews were deported to the city of Lucera which they were allowed to develop. It wasn't multiculturalism, but it wasn't genocide either.

Frederick's lawmaking was interrupted 1227-1228 while he went on the obligatory crusade, despite being excommunicate. But by signing a treaty with Abu Zakariya of Tunis which allowed him to proclaim himself King of Jerusalem, he showed that he could achieve political goals through negotiation rather than military force. A lesson that most European leaders learned only in the last decades of the twentieth century, and now seem to have taken to decadent extremes.

On his return from the crusades, Frederick passed the Constitutions of Melfi. In these, he declared himself part of a "secular trinity" that included God, himself, and between them, Justice. Frederick held that serving Justice was a form of serving God, which allowed him to place the state above the church (and, not surprisingly, above individual rights). The Constitutions of Melfi abolished trial by combat, instead bringing in trial by prosecution (at the same time restricted the Church's land holdings, which must have annoyed them even more).

The Constitutions also declared that all secular officials be appointed by the Emperor, establishing the first great step towards democracy, providing justice independent of the church. He thus was the first to lay down laws governing absolute monarchy. Although absolute monarchies were finally swept away in Europe during the 18th and 19th centuries, it is interesting to note that the legal system and political philosophies in most continental European countries still rest on the State as the embodiment of all divine and natural law.