The Late Middle Ages

Ephraim Emerton

• Publisher: Endymion Press
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781531298586
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: European Medieval History
• Index: History

The period of which this volume treats differs fundamentally both from that which precedes and from that which follows it. In each of those periods we are able to fix our attention upon a certain well-defined set of institutions which completely control its activities. In the former, the strictly mediæval, we see Europe wholly under the sway of two vast ideas, feudalism and the Roman church system. In the latter, the purely modern period, Europe has almost wholly lost those ideas and has come out into the familiar political structure of a family of independent national states and into the freer air of religious toleration, if not yet of religious liberty.

THE AGE OF THE DESPOTS IN ITALY

~

FLORENCE

WITH THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE “Ordinances of Justice” in 1293 Florence entered upon the most serious trial of the democratic principle as yet attempted by an Italian state. Nobility of birth had been declared a disqualification for public office. None but persons actually and continuously engaged in the trade and manufacture by which Florence had grown rich and powerful were entitled to a share in governing the Commonwealth. It was a program marvelously attractive to the democratic mind, but the test was to come. The very life of the. Florentine community depended not only upon its power to maintain itself in the midst of jealous neighbors, each aiming at an independent commercial and political life of its own, but also upon its power to control these neighboring communities and lead them into some kind of conformity with its own policy. In other words, the Florentine problem of the fourteenth century was to build up a great central Italian, Tuscan state which should be able to hold its own against the more distant units of power at Milan, Venice, Rome, and Naples.

The Florentine writers follow naturally the lines of local, partisan politics, but we have to try to read through these rather pitiful records of street brawls, cowardly murders, impotent military displays, and far too clever negotiations the story of a real political growth. The old party cries of “Guelf” and “Ghibelline” had lost their large significance since King Rudolf, the Habsburger, in 1273, had definitely promised to leave Italy to itself provided the Papacy would keep its hands off the politics of Germany. They were retained as a handy classification but were replaced in practice by new terms to indicate new phases of the old social antagonisms. In Florence the Ghibelline Party as such had disappeared. The Guelfs had triumphed with the triumph of the local, democratic principle over the feudal, imperial, aristocratic principle. But hardly had this victory been declared in the Ordinances of Justice when a split in the Guelf ranks grouped the local interests on much the same lines as before. The Neri (Blacks) became the conservative, upper-class party over against the Bianchi (Whites) as the party of the lower gilds. This phase of party strife has been dignified to later times by the part taken in it by the poet Dante, who was a passionate Bianco and was finally driven out of Florence in a general banishment of his party in 1302; but the genius of Dante only brings out into higher relief the pettiness of the motives that seem to have governed most of the actors in this political drama.

The victory of the Neri would have had little meaning if it had not been accompanied by a new development of wide significance for Italian affairs. Their success was largely due to the aid of a French prince called into Italy by Boniface VIII, Charles of Valois, brother of King Philip IV and the second of the three French Charleses whose advent in Italy marks three of the most important crises in the history of the peninsula. The modern student feels himself in the region of fable or of comic opera when he suddenly finds this sternly democratic community, where nobility was a crime under the constitution, and where the most democratic elements had but just gained the upper hand, admitting this foreign prince with his armed followers into their city, giving him a sumptuous lodging, and inviting him to do for them what they could not or would not do for themselves, – make peace between the factions of their own fellow citizens. To that end they granted him full power (signoria) in the city, and were then surprised and grieved to find him using his power to set up again, if this were possible, the banished party of the Bianchi! Charles himself, quite indifferent one way or the other to the local squabbles of the Florentines, as soon as he had got out of them all the ready money in sight went on his way southward.

The episode of his momentary rule interests us only as showing how badly the carefully wrought scheme of Florentine democracy worked in any moment of trial. It was a system devised by a community of merchants to prevent any one person or any small group of persons from gaining permanent power over the rest. It assumed that every full citizen was as capable as every other to do the business of the state. It dreaded expert capacity in governing just as the Florentine gild system dreaded any expertness in industry when not regulated by the laws of the gild. And yet, the moment any extraordinary emergency arose, such expert capacity was precisely the thing needed. Every one was afraid of giving power to any of his fellow citizens, and so they all welcomed an outsider, in full confidence that Florentine patriotism would unite them all in preventing such a foreign master from going too far in getting power for himself. And the singular thing is that, on the whole, they were right. Helter-skelter policy as this must seem to us, the fact remains that the Florentine city-state bungled along under it for more than a hundred years in a continual up-and-down of democracy and hired tyranny, growing all the time in wealth and power, a light and a leader in all the things that go to make up an advancing civilization.

Charles of Valois left Florence in April, 1302, and for more than two years the city was occupied in warding off attack by the Bianchi exiles, who rallied at Pistoia and kept up a continual attempt to win their way back into their beloved patria by force of arms. The next experiment was to hire Robert of Calabria, son of Charles II the Angevine king of Naples, to command the Florentine military forces and to bring with him a considerable body of fighting men. With this help, not only were the Bianchi beaten, but Pistoia was destroyed after a frightful siege (April 10, 1306) and its territory divided between Florence and Lucca, her momentary ally. No great harm came from this Robert, who soon, by the death of his father, became king of Naples and found in Florence his best ally against the threatened assault of the emperor Henry VII, the Luxemburger.

This futile expedition of Henry VII affected Florence only by drawing together all the enemies of her existing government, including many of her own exiled citizens, into an opposition that might have become dangerous but for the timely death of the emperor and the consequent scattering of the Ghibelline forces (1313). Florence was the center of resistance to Henry’s imperialistic plans, as Pisa was the center of what power he had in central Italy. Thus the ancient quarrel between the two most important Tuscan cities was renewed, and Lucca, lying between them, was for a time the most active agent in furthering the conflict. This is to be explained by the rise to power in Lucca of a man of first-rate capacity in his kind. Castruccio Castracani, who seemed to Machiavelli two hundred years later worthy of a biography, is one of the earliest examples of a type soon to become fatally familiar in every Italian community. It is the type of the strongly individualized citizen, impatient of the restraints of the local constitution and quick to find ways of setting himself above them. The citizens of Lucca often followed Florence in the dangerous game of employing foreign executive officers, but on this occasion went far ahead of her in readiness to surrender themselves to a tyrant of their own creating. Castruccio offered them a fighting chance of keeping themselves independent of both Florence and Pisa and even, if they could make suitable alliances, of controlling the valley of the Arno. He readily became the ally of the Visconti in Milan, who were watching the growth of Florence with everincreasing jealousy, and by the year 1325 he was able to put into the field a large army of native and hired soldiers. Castruccio’s policy was to avoid a fight until he should be in a position to hit hard, but when the moment came he showed himself the ablest general of his time. The army of the Florentines, caught at a disadvantage, was completely routed at Altopascio, and the whole country up to the very walls of the city was laid waste. For nearly a year this shameful situation lasted. While party quarrels and divided counsels crippled all effective action in Florence, the energy of Castruccio held the surrounding country in terror and raised the name of the little commonwealth of Lucca to the highest point. The result was that Florence was driven along one step further on the road toward a tyranny. To offset the influence of Milan she bargained with Naples and hired Duke Charles of Calabria, son of King Robert, to come and govern her for ten years. He was to have the signoria of the city, but promised not to change the Florentine constitution in any particular. In return for a very handsome salary he was to maintain a considerable force of transalpine soldiers both in peace and war and engaged either to reside personally in Florence or to keep there one representative to command the army and one to administer justice. In short, the Florentine democracy was already convinced that it lacked the executive force necessary for prompt and effective action, but was afraid to do what Venice had just done, to intrust any one or any body of its own citizens with such power. Pending his own arrival, the duke of Calabria sent his French cousin, Walter of Brienne, “duke of Athens,” to begin the necessary work of restoration.

This new experiment brought no relief. The duke seems to have regarded the whole affair very much as a pleasant and profitable comedy. He bled the worthy Florentines as much as they would stand, but saw no reason why he should waste good fighting material in defending people who could not defend themselves. Castruccio met every movement of the Florentine forces with his usual promptness and was in full possession of every advantage, with a fair prospect of making himself master of a united Tuscany, when he suddenly died. Within two months Charles of Calabria died also, and Florence was thus relieved at once of her most dangerous enemy and a still more dangerous friend.

There follow fifteen years of constitution-tinkering, bargains with every power in Italy, fitful and disastrous campaigning under incompetent hired generals, all with the one great object of getting possession of Lucca and breaking forever the power of Pisa. Even with the emperor Ludwig the Bavarian secret negotiations were carried on, but the price demanded by the emperor, the acceptance of an imperial vicar in Florence, was too high, and Florence turned once more to the device of a foreign lordship of her own choosing. In spite of their experience with him fifteen years before as lieutenant of Charles of Calabria, the citizens were innocent enough to intrust their fortunes to Walter of Brienne. This French nobleman, who had little to do with France, nothing whatever with Athens, and still less with Florence, a typical fourteenth-century free lance out of a job, was hired as “Captain of the People.” Employed to execute the constitution, he almost at once took measures to place himself above it. Examples, like those of Castruccio and the northern Lombard tyrants, were not wanting. The constitution gave large scope for executive action, and party hatreds furnished support against almost any dreaded citizen. The duke began a strenuous policy of “justice,” which soon showed him in his true colors as a servant of the commonwealth only that he might become its master. He had been hired to lead Florence in gaining possession of Lucca and humiliating Pisa. Instead, he made a peace with Pisa which guaranteed her the lordship of Lucca for fifteen years. In a few months he had offended every element of the Florentine population, including that of the popolani by which he had hoped to rise. A furious reaction against him set in, and in fourteen months from the day of his arrival he was driven from the city with every circumstance of tumult and infamy. The experiment with Duke Walter was the last of the kind which the Florentines were to try for many years to come. The latent dread of a tyranny, – regno d’un solo, – which was the dominant passion of the Florentine democracy, was greatly increased by the series of costly experiences we have been noting. From 1343 to 1378 is a period of comparative peace, in which we can clearly discern two parallel tendencies, – one the intensifying of the democratic spirit and the other the gradual building up of a “ring” of noble families that were in time to break down democracy. We have also to note in this period two scourges of Italy, both of which fell with full force upon Florence. One of these was the terrible pestilence, the “Black Death” of 1348 and 1349, of which Boccaccio has left us such a graphic and appalling picture in the introduction to the “Decamerone.” Politically this visitation could affect the community only by reducing the numbers of the lower orders and thus throwing the balance of power on the side of the aristocratic party. The other infliction was the incursion of the “Free Companies.” For this evil Italy had only itself to thank. War being an honorable occupation, it was but natural in an age when science of every kind was coming to be appreciated that the science of war also should be studied and carried out in practice as a fine art. War was a trade, and the Italian trader, absorbed in his profession of money-getting, found it quite in order to spend the money he gained in paying for professional service of this as well as of other kinds. Life to him was too pleasant a thing to be risked when he could hire some one to take the risks for him. But, on the other hand, the professional captain, like any other merchant, was bound to reduce the risks of his business to a minimum. He was not called upon to waste good fighting material when it could be saved to fight another day. If having been hired by one party he could sell out to the other at a profit, he saved his men, was able to pay them better and so keep them loyal to him, and he gained also a new customer for his wares. In the intervals of his “engagements” he held his men together in the joys of camp life and could now and again take a hand in politics on his own account. Florence had her full share of dealings with these gentry. Especially with the English captain, John Hawkwood, – Giovanni Acuto, – one of the most decent of his kind, she had a long series of negotiations and succeeded on the whole in holding him to a fair degree of fidelity to her interests.

During this generation down to the outbreak of the Ciompi in 1378 the general progress of Florentine life was greater than ever before, and this in spite of the fact that her pet ambition, the control of the Arno valley through the subjugation of Pisa, had not yet been realized. The uprising of the lower orders under the name of the Ciompi does not indicate any serious discontent with the principles of the government, but only a restless desire to change the elements of the population through which the government was to be carried on. It was a furious and brutal demonstration of power by the democracy, but it proved also the utter incapacity of this democracy to use its power in the steady administration of a state. Its only means to carry out its wishes was through the leadership of strong, rich, and determined individuals, and here we begin to see, shaping itself more and more definitely, the group of “new” families among whom the real conflict for power was about to take place. The most useful person in calming the passions of the lower orders through an understanding of their wishes and an attempt to meet them reasonably was Salvestro dei Medici, a prosperous merchant, carried by the rotation of office into the signoria and implicated from the start in the designs of the lower gilds. He carried himself through the storm, trusted on the whole by the masses and too important to be crushed in the general reprisals that of course followed the inevitable collapse of their blind protest. With him appear on the popular side a Strozzi and an Alberti, names full of meaning for the future. The close of the century is marked by a long struggle with the Visconti of Milan, who, in alliance with Pisa, were trying to break the power of Florence in central Italy. It is a rather wearisome story of continuous intrigue, now with Venice, now with Genoa; of bargainings with the free captains, of money poured out in rivers and of precious little real fighting. The climax seemed to be reached when, in 1399, Pisa was actually sold out to Milan by her own tyrant, Gherardo d’Appiano, and thus the schemes of Florence seemed forever blocked. The death of Gian Galeazzo Visconti, the most implacable enemy of Florence, in 1402, opened up a new prospect of success in this direction. Again took place a long series of negotiations, ending finally in a contract with Gabriele Maria Visconti, son of Gian Galeazzo, by which he undertook to sell the lordship of Pisa to Florence. The sale was completed, but the delivery of the prize was delayed by an unusual display of energy on the part of the Pisans, who had meanwhile taken possession of themselves and refused to give themselves up. It required a siege of several months, accompanied by brutal atrocities, to bring them to terms, one of many indications of the capacity for resistance in these Italian commonwealths, whenever their citizens could unite for common action. Starvation finally accomplished what generations of diplomacy and warfare had failed to gain, and Pisa, the key to the Arno and the chief representative of Ghibellinism in Italy, passed without redemption under the power of Florence, the type of Guelfism and all that it stood for.

What Florence meant to Italy had never been so clear as now. Her control of Tuscany after the Pisan conquest was continually strengthened and widened by the voluntary submission of one after another of the remaining feudal lordships which had been keeping alive what was left of the Ghibelline spirit. Such an arrangement was described by a word borrowed from the old feudal practice of “commendation.” The territorial lords were called raccommandati, and they entered into a contract for a longer or a shorter period to serve the great commonwealth as her citizens. The analogy of this arrangement with that of the Pfahlbürger of the German cities is obvious. It was an expensive luxury, but the necessity of some such compact to make possible the growth of Florence from a city to a state is clear. The importance of this question is well illustrated by the case of Forlì, a little lordship in Romagna, whose chief had “recommended” himself to Florence and, before his death in 1423, had counseled his widow to maintain this relation. The duke of Milan, however, could not afford to let such an opportunity slip and urged the countess of Forlì to enter instead into an alliance with Milan. To one or another of the greater citystates the little principality must turn. It was a test case, for the loss of Forlì would have carried with it that of Imola and many another Romagnol territory. More clearly than ever before we see now the growth of the greater states into which Italy was grouping. The real question was whether Florence was prepared to face the issue squarely and block the southward progress of Milan on the east as she had already blocked it in the Pisan war toward the west. In the negotiations that followed it is interesting to note, on the one hand, the implied understanding that Italy was to be divided among her five greater powers, but, on the other hand, the failure to fix definitely and once for all the lines along which such division should take place. That division was finally to be determined by just such accidental tests as this of the Forlì inheritance.

The first move in the game was made by the Duke Filippo Maria Visconti, who promptly occupied Forlì and began negotiations with this advantage on his side. The ring of aristocrats who now for two generations had been ruling Florence hesitated, negotiated in every direction, and finally decided to fight – of course with hired soldiers under hired captains. Again the fortunes of war were disastrous for Florence. Four times in two years (1424-1426) her armies were beaten in the field, and it was only the dread among the other powers of too great success on the part of Milan that saved her from utter humiliation. From the first moment of this Milanese trouble Florence had been in negotiation with Venice, trying to persuade the City of the Islands to make common cause with her against the overgrowth of Milan. The first ambassador to Venice had been Giovanni dei Medici, the first of that family to appear in public life since the complication of Salvestro with the Ciompi in 1378. His plea for aid had been rejected on the ground that Milan had so far done nothing to violate the treaties by which Venice was bound to peace with her. Now, however, as it began to appear that Milan was growing too fast, Venice changed her policy also and entered into a treaty with Florence by which the whole political situation in Italy was at once altered. Not only did Venice enter heartily into the war on the eastern frontier of the Milanese territory, but many of the smaller lordships were thus led to forsake Milan and range themselves on the side of Florence. The loss of Brescia, the humiliating peace signed by the Milanese envoys, – though immediately repudiated by the duke, – and the crushing defeat at Cremona are the chief incidents in this most important struggle. The end was a new peace giving to Venice Brescia and a large increase of territory and securing to Florence, so long as the peace should last, a firmer hold on the whole of central Italy.

This great result had been brought about under the lead of a narrow group of rich trading families. They had gained such control over the resources of the commonwealth that they had not hesitated to incur enormous indebtedness to bring about the desired end, the freedom and security of the Florentine state. This indebtedness, however, was to their own fellow citizens, imposed by a system of forced loans so arranged that the burden of them fell upon the mass of the people, while the richest families, bearing proportionately less of the money burden, were able to keep their capital continually employed to profit in the great commercial undertakings by which the city as a whole grew and prospered. The Milanese war had immensely increased this burden on the lower classes and with this had increased also the demand for a revision of the method of imposition of taxes, so that the share of the rich should be greatly increased and the mass of the citizens proportionately relieved. It is here that we begin to see clearly the policy whereby the family of the Medici, perhaps the richest of them all, took the position of leadership which it was to maintain for many generations. Giovanni dei Medici, already known as a busy champion of the lower orders, put himself at the head of a movement for tax revision under the name of the Catasto, ...

Table of contents

• THE PRINCIPLE OF THE MODERN STATE
• LOUIS IX AND THE FRENCH STATE
• THE NEW EMPIRE
• THE NEW PAPACY (1300-1409)
• THE RISE OF A MIDDLE CLASS: POPULAR MOVEMENTS IN THE NORTH
• THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS TO 1300
• THE HUNDRED YEARS’ WAR (1328 – 1453)
• THE AGE OF THE COUNCILS
• THE AGE OF THE DESPOTS IN ITALY
• THE RENAISSANCE IN ITALY
• THE NORTHERN RENAISSANCE