Year 1228 (MCCXXVIII) was a leap year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. Events By place Sixth Crusade Summer – Emperor Frederick II sails from Brindisi with a expeditionary force and arrives in Acre in the Middle East on September 7. He disembarks a well-trained and equipped Crusader army (some 10,000 men and 2,000 knights). After his arrival in Palestine, Frederick is again excommunicated by Pope Gregory IX, for setting out for the Crusade before he has obtained absolution from his previous ex-communication (see 1227). Many of the local nobility, the Knights Templar and Knights Hospitaller deny him their support for the Crusade. Frederick can only rely on his own army and the Teutonic Knights, whose Grand Master, Hermann von Salza, is his friend. Autumn – Frederick II receives an embassy of Sultan Al-Kamil, including Fakhr al-Din ibn as-Shaikh, at the Hospitaller camp at Recordane, near Acre. Meanwhile, Al-Kamil is engaged in suppressing a rebellion in Syria and has concentrated his forces on a siege at Damascus. Frederick is pressed for time, because his army is not large enough for a major campaign. Al-Kamil, who has full control of Jerusalem, starts diplomatic negotiations. November – Frederick II puts pressure on the negotiations by a military display. He assembles his Crusader army and marches down the coast to Jaffa – which he proceeds to refortify. At the same moment, Ayyubid forces under An-Nasir Dawud, who are not participating in the revolt at Damascus, move to Nablus, to intercept Al-Kamil's supply lines. Al-Kamil breaks off the negotiations, saying that the Crusaders have pillaged several Muslim villages, and only resumes them again when Frederick pays out compensation to the victims. Europe April 25 – The 16-year-old Isabella II, Holy Roman Empress and wife of Frederick II, dies after giving birth to her second child, Conrad IV, at Andria. He receives the title King of Jerusalem (as Conrad II) – with Frederick as regent. By his father, Conrad is the grandson of the Hohenstaufen Emperor Henry VI and great-grandson of the late Emperor Frederick I (Barbarossa). Emperor Robert I (or Courtenay) dies after a 7-year reign in Morea (Southern Greece). He is succeeded by his 11-year-old brother, Baldwin II, as ruler of the Latin Empire in Constantinople, with John of Brienne as regent. King James I (the Conqueror) launches a major offensive against the Almohads in Majorca.