Medieval Italy

Pasquale Villari

• Editore: Ozymandias Press
• Anno: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781531286170
• Argomento: History
• Categoria: European Medieval History

THE placing by Leo III. of the Imperial crown upon the head of Charlemagne in St. Peter's on Christmas Day of the year 800 marked the commencement of a new era in the history of the world. But the Empire of the West, initiated at that moment in its dual character--political and religious--contained within itself the germs of infinite discords and calamities. As Roman and Christian it should have symbolised the union of nations; but meanwhile the Empire of the East, heir to Rome, continued to exist at Constantinople. Furthermore, the Western Empire was composed of very dissimilar races which, until then divided and subdivided among themselves, had often been at war with one another. The greatest and most immediate danger to the unity of the Empire came from the German principle of succession, according to which the State, as the property of the Sovereign, must be divided among his heirs. This principle, which in the past had caused many bloody wars among the Franks, promised no good for the future of the new Empire. Charlemagne, who was a very great leader of Teutonic peoples, but who lacked the true genius of organisation, held it together by the power of his sword and the strength of his personal authority. It was therefore easy to predict that his death would be followed by a period of anarchy.

FROM HENRY VI. TO THE DEATH OF INNOCENT III. (1189-1216)

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NOTWITHSTANDING THE POMP AND SOLEMNITY attending Constance’s wedding, and notwithstanding William’s expressed wishes, the latter was no sooner dead than the people and the municipalities of Sicily manifested their aversion to Henry and their unanimous desire to place Tancred on the throne. The Protonotary Aiello, who, together with Pope Clement III., had always favoured his cause, now proclaimed and crowned him King. This naturally created great disorder in Sicily, where Henry had many adherents, especially among the nobles. Besides which, the Crusade, warmly advocated by the Pope, stirred up in the island a Christian spirit hostile to the Mahometans and excited their opposition. Tancred thus found himself in the midst of turmoil: he was brave, and at the outset fortune seemed to smile upon his arms. Henry VI., also energetic and brave, and who looked upon Tancred as an illegitimate usurper, now prepared, without hesitation, to go in person to fight him. But the bad news from the East, and especially the death of his father, obliged him to postpone action for a time. In Germany, Henry the Lion, the implacable enemy of the Hohenstaufens, rose in rebellion, and Henry VI. was forced to cross the Alps to subdue him. This he rapidly accomplished and returned to Italy with the intention of taking the Imperial crown without delay.

Pope Clement, who had always been averse to him and had recognised Tancred as King, died towards the end of March, 1191. His successor, Celestine III. (1191-1198), equally averse, postponed his own consecration in order to avoid carrying out the Imperial coronation. The Romans, however, intervened in Henry’s favour, and promised that they would hurry on the coronation if he would cease to protect Tusculum and would allow them to deal with it as they chose. The wretched town was thereupon abandoned to its fate, and Henry advanced with safety upon Rome, where the Pope was consecrated on the 14th of April, 1191, and Henry crowned Emperor in St. Peter’s on the following day. Henry then marched southwards to the conquest of the Sicilian Kingdom, which, hitherto prosperous, was now threatened with civil war and anarchy.

In April, 1191, the Imperial army crossed the frontier, and, after occupying several towns, laid siege to Naples. This city, which still enjoyed a certain degree of self-government, offered a vigorous resistance. In order to press the siege from the sea also, Henry had secured the assistance of the Pisan galleys. But the achieved very little, for they were unable to resist the Sicilian fleet under Margarito, while their allies, the Genoese, arrived too late to be of any help. Matters seemed to be taking a bad turn for Henry, whose army, in the great heat, was decimated by sickness. Having raised the siege in August, he was forced to return to Germany, leaving his cause in Southern Italy in a hopeless plight. The Salernitans rebelled and handed over the Empress Constance, who was then residing amongst them, to her enemies, by whom she was transferred to Tancred’s custody in Sicily. But he, not realising what advantage he could obtain from the detention of such a hostage, allowed her to escape. The Pope then began to waver in order to extract promises and concessions from him, and meanwhile the war continued, during two years, with uncertain issue.

At the beginning of 1193 Tancred fell ill, and, withdrawing to Palermo, died there on the 20th of February. The Protonotary Aiello, his most trusted counsellor, was already dead, and so was Tancred’s eldest son, Roger. There remained another son, still a child, who was proclaimed King as William III., while the widow, Sibilla, was appointed Regent.

In 1194 Henry VI., having returned from Germany, was again in Italy, athirst for vengeance: but at first he controlled himself to some extent, and only in later years did he give proof of occasional cruelty. Discord and treachery compelled one Southern Italian city after another to submit to his rule, and finally he entered Palermo. At Caltabellotta, the Regent Sibilla with her son, William III., Margarito and many other leaders, fell into his hands, and of these several were sent to Germany, where they were blinded. Henry was accused of having actually exhumed the bodies of Tancred and of his son Roger in order to deprive them of Christian sepulture. Even those who defend him from the accusation of having been cruelly revengeful during the first years after his return, are forced to admit that he became so later on.

After he had made sure of Southern Italy Henry appointed his brother, Duke Philip, Viceroy in Tuscany. At Spoleto he placed Conrad of Uerslingen, and over Romagna and the Marches a captain called Markwald. Thus were the Papal States enclosed, as it were, within a circle of iron. Meanwhile in Rome the nobles reigned supreme, forming an oligarchy at whose head was a sort of Podestà with the title of “Summus Senator.” The first of them, Carushomo, retained office for two years, and was the compiler of the first City Statute. In 1197 a new revolution set up a Government composed of fifty-six Senators and a Prefect. This was a mutable, hybrid form of Republic, which, nevertheless, served to keep the Pope within bounds, and, in so doing, benefited the Emperor.

In the meantime the Empress Constance, the innocent and indirect cause of so many calamities, was living in retirement at Jesi, where, on the 26th of December, 1194, she had given birth to a son, afterwards the celebrated Frederick II. His father, wishing to make the title of Emperor hereditary, during his stay in Germany in 1196, had him at once proclaimed King of the Romans. Then, returning to Italy the same year, Henry proceeded to the South, where, with ever-increasing cruelty, he continued the task of subjugating the kingdom and of making any future act of rebellion impossible. But he died at Messina on the 28th of September, 1197, in his thirty-third year. The sole heir to the Empire, to which the whole of Southern Italy and Sicily were now united, was his son Frederick, a child scarcely three years old. On the 8th of January, 1198, Celestine III. died, and was succeeded by Innocent III. Everything thus pointed to the commencement of a new era.

Henry VI. might well cherish the illusion that he had subjugated Italy. By the Peace of Constance matters had been settled with the Lombard Communes, which had finally acknowledged the Imperial authority. In Central Italy, his brother Philip and the Imperial Seneschal Markwald, both of whom bore the title of Duke, ruled respectively over Tuscany and over Ravenna and the Exarchate, while Conrad of Uerslingen, with the title of Count, commanded in Assisi.

The union with Constance seemed to have definitely added Southern Italy to the Empire. But instead it was at this very moment that a strong and increasing opposition to German rule began to manifest itself in all parts of Italy—an opposition which was warmly encouraged by Innocent III. The Pope’s aim was to re-establish the authority and independence of the Church in its dealings with the Empire, and, like all other Popes, he was strongly opposed to the aggregation of the Southern Kingdom, which he regarded as a Papal fief, to the Empire. Elected on the 8th of January, 1198, and consecrated on the 22nd of February, Innocent was a man of energetic character, vast learning, and great talent. He had studied in Rome, Bologna, and Paris, and his mastery over civil and canon law as well as theology was such that he was regarded as an oracle to whom people from every part of the world had recourse when they needed an authoritative opinion upon theological or moral questions. Being profoundly convinced of the superior authority and dignity of the Church, he wished to re-establish them in opposition to the Imperial supremacy and to make them respected by all the Princes of the earth. To him is attributed the comparison of the Pope to the sun and the Emperor to the moon, who thus from the Pope receives light and authority and, in consequence, is dependent upon him; and the simile, as is well known, was constantly used during the Middle Ages.

No sooner was he seated upon the Chair of St. Peter than he gave vent to the cry so frequently repeated in his letters: “Out with the hateful race of Teutons!” The moment seemed favourable to his views. In Germany there was no unanimity of opinion regarding the Imperial succession. Henry VI., as we have already noted, had left only a boy barely three years old to the guardianship of his mother Constance. On the 27th of November, 1198, Constance died, and by her will she entrusted her son to the Pope, whom she also appointed provisionally as administrator of the kingdom. This being the state of affairs, there were many in Germany who favoured the election of the Ghibelline Philip of Suabia, Henry’s brother, while others supported the Guelf Otto of Brunswick. The latter was, in fact, crowned King of the Romans at Aix-la-Chapelle in July, 1198, and the former, shortly after, was crowned at Mayence. Nor were matters more peaceful in Central Italy, for several Communes, among which were Spoleto, Assisi, Rieti, Foligno, Narni, Todi, Città di Castello and Perugia, rose against the Empire and swore fealty to the Pope. A still larger number of the more important Communes not only declared themselves independent of the Empire but occupied their own territories, ousting the Imperial magistrates and replacing them by men of their own choosing. For this purpose the Tuscan cities formed an alliance (November 11, 1197), which assumed the proportions of a veritable Guelf league against the Empire. In Sicily the aversion to the Germans was such, that it seemed as though the whole island were about to break into rebellion. This had driven Constance, shortly before her death, to rid herself of the German officers and to rely upon the Pope, who, at once profiting by it, sent a Legate to Palermo. And, after Constance’s death, taking advantage of Frederick’s tender age, of the vacancy of the Imperial throne, and of the general disorder, he actually assumed the Regency of the whole Empire.

But he too was soon forced to realise that matters were taking a turn very different to that which he desired and hoped for. The favour shown him by the Communes was merely the outcome of their hatred for the Germans. Although they wished to be independent of the Emperor they were by no means disposed to be dependent on the Pope. Through the League they aimed at making themselves masters of their territories, driving out the Imperial officials and substituting them by their own. But, at the same time, they declared themselves ready to resist the Pope should he wish to take the place of the Emperor and burden them with his political authority. The fact was that there had grown up in the Italian Communes a spirit of independence which could no longer be curbed, and which, after having led them into conflict with the Emperor, was now destined to lead them into conflict with the Pope. Furthermore the increasing Papal interference in Southern Italy had aroused the opposition of the Feudatories of the kingdom. These lords were assisted and encouraged in their opposition by Markwald, who had repaired to the South in the hope of gaining favour in Sicily, where his project was to obtain mastery in the name of the Empire. To meet these threats the Pope, being without sufficient troops of his own, had recourse to Walter of Brienne, a valiant French captain of fortune. But he proved a dangerous tool, for, having married Albinia, daughter of Tancred, he soon began to advance his own pretensions to the Sicilian throne. Thus it came about, in 1201, that while his friends and enemies on either side of the Straits contended with one another, the success of either party was equally a source of anxiety to the Pope. Fortunately for him, Markwald died of stone in 1202 and Walter of Brienne was killed in battle in 1205.

This did not suffice, however, to free the Pope from the difficulties against which he had to struggle. The Roman Republic was always very turbulent, and the arrogant nobles at its head gave him no peace, for they were irritated by his inclination towards nepotism and the excessive favour he showed to his brother Richard.

The great question was, of course, that of the Imperial succession. Frederick, who had by this time reached the age of thirteen, was the legitimate heir to the Sicilian throne. Were he once elected Emperor he would dominate Italy and Germany and might reasonably count on making the Empire hereditary. To all this Innocent was necessarily most averse. And yet, when he saw that the German Electors were divided between the Guelf Otho, nephew of Richard Cœur de Lion, and the Ghibelline Philip, brother of Henry VI., he unhesitatingly gave is support to the former. Otho responded by recognising the Pope’s sovereignty as extending from Radicofani to Ceprano and including the Exarchate, the Pentapolis, the Marches of Ancona, Spoleto, the lands of Countess Matilda and the county of Bertinoro with its neighbouring territories. All this was expressly confirmed by the Treaty of Neuss, signed on the 8th of June, 1201, which was a real official recognition of the States of the Church. To this Treaty Philip made violent opposition, finding many supporters among the partisans of the late Emperor, not only in Germany and Italy, but also in France. The Pope, naturally alarmed, sought to come to terms with him. But Philip suddenly disappeared from the scene, for he was killed on the 21st of June, 1208, by a personal enemy, Otho of Wittelsbach. On the 11th of November Otho of Suabia was, with general approval, proclaimed King of the Romans at Frankfort, and on the 4th of October, 1209, was crowned Emperor in St. Peter’s. The Romans, however, were not willing that he should go beyond the Leonine City, cross the Tiber, or enter Rome.

There was therefore the usually bloody fray, in which it is said that 1,000 Germans lost their lives. It is, however, certain that Otho IV. departed without having crossed the river, and very soon he made it clear that he had no intention of respecting the Treaty of Neuss. He was of a Guelf family, but no sooner had he been crowned Emperor than he became, of necessity, a Ghibelline in Italy. He proceeded to occupy certain territories, among them some of Countess Matilda’s lands, which by the Treaty of Neuss he had promised to leave to the Pope. He appointed Imperial representatives in Spoleto, Ancona and elsewhere. He also entered into negotiations with such persons as came to him from Southern Italy and sought to re-establish the Imperial authority there. But besides all this, he marched with his army to the Abruzzi, crossing the Papal States on his way. Thereupon Innocent, who was not the man to hesitate in the face of provocation, on the 18th of November, 1210, solemnly excommunicated the Emperor whom he had so recently crowned. He commenced, moreover, a violent propaganda against him, and now openly avowed the intention, conceived some time before, of supporting the election of Frederick II., who had then reached his nineteenth year.

In consequence of this, many Germans also forsook Otho and returned to Frederick, whom they invited to come and be crowned King of the Romans. And he made ready to accept the invitation. But first he caused his infant son Henry, born to him but a few months previously by his first wife, to be crowned in Palermo in 1212. On arriving at Rome in April of the same year, he evinced much gratitude to Innocent III., whom he then saw for the first time, and promised him, among much else, that, as soon as he should be crowned Emperor, he would quit the Southern Kingdom, for which, meanwhile, he rendered due homage. In Germany he was met by many difficulties, and is cause made but slow progress until the middle of 1214. But then Otho IV., having engaged in war with Philip Augustus of France, suffered a defeat on the 27th of July, 1214, which proved his ruin and Frederick’s fortune. In fact, Frederick was crowned King of the Romans at Aix-la-Chapelle on the 25th of July, 1215. Meanwhile he had gone even further in his promises to Innocent. He guaranteed the freedom of the Papal elections and recognised the Papal States as extending from Radicofani to Ceprano, with the inclusion of the Marches of Ancona, Spoleto, the Exarchate, the Pentapolis, Corsica, Sardinia, and the lands of Countess Matilda. Moreover, he recognised the Pope’s feudal lordship over the Southern Kingdom on both sides of the Straits and repeated the promise of abandoning that kingdom, which would be his son’s, for he admitted the impossibility of uniting it to the Empire. But these were almost all promises which he neither would nor could keep, and the keeping of them, in fact, did not depend on his will alone. Obstacles in the way of maintaining them were inherent to the contradiction that was in them. The Pope needed an Emperor who should not be a real Emperor: and the Emperor a Pope who should be no real Pope. The struggle between them was bound to last as long as the two supreme authorities which desired to govern mediæval society should continue to exist in their ancient form. But for the moment it seemed as though harmony had been achieved, and in a solemn Council held at the Lateran on the 11th of November, 1215, and attended by 1,500 prelates and many lay personages representing various States, the deposition of Otho and the recognition of Frederick were declared.

Innocent might well have thought that, by means of the negotiations now concluded, he had destroyed the work of Barbarossa and Henry VI. in Italy and had established once and for all the supremacy of the Church; but it would have been a great delusion. Not only did Frederick very soon come into conflict with him, but a very general feeling of political aversion to the Church had arisen, which was destined ere long radically to change the Pope’s position in regard to the Communes and to the growing civil power of other States.

For some time past a great change in Italian social life had been in process, as was evident from the rapid progress of literary and scientific culture as well as from a growing religious agitation. The medical school of Salerno was already flourishing, as were the law schools of Pavia, Bologna, and Ravenna; while a national literature was about to blossom at the Court of Palermo. And, at the same time, various forms of that religious movement which had begun with Arnold of Brescia, with the followers of the Cluny reform, and with the Pataria of Milan, showed signs of fresh vitality, and, as was always the case in Italy, turned towards mysticism or towards the improvement of public manners rather than towards theological discussion, which never offered great attraction to Italian minds. The beautiful “Imitation of Christ,” so widely diffused and translated into so many tongues, gives us a clear idea of pure, evangelic love as it was then conceived. Another sign was the appearance of such a man as Abbot Joachim and the great influence he exercised in Italy. Born in Calabria and educated by the Greek monks of St. Basil, he had founded an Abbey at a spot called “Fiore” in Sila, in 1189. He was the author of three Latin works: “The Concordance of the Old and New Testaments,” a “Commentary of the Apocalypse,” and “The Psalter of the Ten Strings” or “Decacordo”: and these three works, united and preceded by a preface, were entitled “The Eternal Gospel,” and were widely read in Italy. In them, by a fantastic and far-fetched interpretation of the Bible, a new era of peace, love, and brotherhood was foretold. The Church of the Father (the Old Testament) had been succeeded by the Church of the Son (the New Testament), and this, in the year 1260, would be succeeded by the Church of the Holy Ghost. On its coming even the humblest mortals would be filled with the true spirit of the Gospels. This doctrine, which continued to spread even after the author’s death in 1202, soon became fused with several others to which it gave its colour, and was admired and accepted by many of the followers of St. Francis.

This Saint, born at Assisi about 1182, has, not without reason, been called by some the true Italian Saint. Coming of a well-to-do family, after some years of worldly life, he renounced all his possessions in order to give himself to poverty, which he called his bride. The spirit of sacrifice and abnegation which filled him, and the ardent enthusiasm and love which he felt, not only for his fellow-mortals but for all living things, made him the idol of the multitude, which surrounded his name with legends and made of him, in a certain sense, the personification of the popular feeling of his day. Extraordinary indeed was the influence he exercised not only upon the moral and religious life of the people, but also upon art and literature, and upon the very soul of Dante, as appears in the “Divine Comedy.”

By the side of St. Francis we see the Spaniard St. Dominic. In 1215 he was in Rome, where (1216) he received from Pope Honorius the bull sanctioning the institution of the new Order of Preachers which he had founded. Originally the Dominicans also made a rule of poverty, from which, however, in later times, they deviated. The two new orders, Franciscan and Dominican, retained nothing of the hermit spirit, and were in no way feudal; they, and more especially the Franciscans, were instead democratic, living in the midst of their fellow-beings and mixing freely with them. But they differed fundamentally from one another. St. Dominic went to Provence in 1205 to preach the Crusade against the Albigenses, inciting his hearers to a bloody persecution of the heretics; St. Francis, instead, would have willingly submitted himself to cruel torture rather than cause suffering to any living creature.

In Italy the religious movement as well as the literary movement of this time received its impulse from France and Provence, and from these countries came also the heretical movement. The first and most important of the heretical sects, from which most of the others were derived, was that of the Catharists, who, springing up in Bulgaria, migrated thence into Provence. These Catharists professed the dual worship of the Manichæans, that is to say, they acknowledged the two principles of evil and of good, and they exalted poverty and purity of life. In addition (and this gained them popularity in Italy) they evinced a great hatred of Papal corruption and avidity for temporal possessions.

The Albigenses differed very little from the Catharists, but the Waldensians, who took their name from Peter Waldo, or Valdes, of Lyons, and who were also known as the “Poor” of Lyons, diverged greatly from these. They held that the Roman Church was not the Church of Christ, and that every layman could consecrate. But these doctrines did not spread in Italy, nor did those of the Manichees. The ideas which found favour there were the aversion to temporal power, love of poverty, the great importance given to Biblical authority and the condemnation of corrupt living. At first the Italian heretics did not wish to defy the Papal authority, but later on they were drawn into conflict with it.

Innocent III. found himself at once forced into a bitter struggle against this formidable heretical movement, which was substantially more or less Catharist, and had been introduced into Italy from Provence. He hoped at first to overcome it by the preaching of the Dominicans, but, when he perceived the inadequacy of such treatment, he sent forth special Legates with the mission of extirpating heresy at all costs, and this was the origin of the Inquisition. Unfortunately politics were soon playing a part in this religious struggle and causing it to become sanguinary. The aristocracy of Northern France, organised by the Papal Legates, headed by Simon of Montfort and instigated and inflamed by the eloquence of the Dominicans (who poured oil on the flames), undertook a veritable Crusade in Provence, where they shed rivers of blood. During the last years of his life, Innocent, a...

Indice dei contenuti

• BOOK I: FROM CHARLEMAGNE TO THE DEATH OF OTHO III. (800-1002)
• FROM CHARLEMAGNE TO THE DEATH OF LOUIS I. (800-840)
• THE RISE OF VENICE — THE COMING OF THE SARACENS TO SICILY — THE CHURCH IND THE EMPIRE TO THE DEATHS OF LEO IV. IND OF LOTHAIR I. (800-855)
• FROM THE DEATH OF LOTHAIR I. TO THAT OF LOUIS II. (855-875)
• FROM THE CORONATION OF CHARLES THE BALD TO THE DEATH OF CHARLES THE FAT (875-887)
• FROM THE ELECTION OF THE EMPEROR ARNULF TO HIS DEATH (887-899)
• FROM THE HUNGARIAN INVASION TO THE DEATHS OF BERENGARIUS I. AND JOHN X. (898-928)
• ALBERICS DOMINATION IN ROME (928-941)
• OTHO I. IND THE RECONSTITUTION OF THE EMPIRE (911-973)
• OTHO II. AND OTHO III. (973-1002)
• BOOK II: FROM HENRY II. TO THE DEATHS OF FREDERICK BARBAROSSA AND WILLIAM II. OF SICILY (1002-1190)
• HENRY II. AND THE NORMANS (1002-1024)
• CONRAD OF FRANCONIA AND ARCHBISHOP ARIBERT (1024-1039)
• RELIGIOUS RIOTS IN FLORENCE IND THE POLITICO-RELIGIOUS REVOLUTION IN MILAN (1063-1075)
• GREGORY VII. (1073-1085)
• NORMAN ENTERPRISES IN THE EAST—ROBERT GUISCARD RETURNS TO ITALY IND LIBERATES THE POPE, WHO DIES AT SALERNO (1081-1085)
• FURTHER NORMAN ENTERPRISES IN THE EAST-URBAN II. AND THE FIRST CRUSADE —DEATH OF ROBERT GUISCARD — DEATH OF HENRY IV.—CORONATION OF HENRY V. (1083-1111)
• FROM THE DEATH OF COUNTESS MATILDA TO THE DEATH OF ROGER II. (1115-1154)
• THE RISE OF THE COMMUNES—ARNOLD OF BRESCIA AND HIS EXECUTION—DEATH OF HADRIAN IV. (1143-1159)
• FREDERICK BARBAROSSA—THE LOMBARD LEAGUE AND THE PEACE OF CONSTANCE (1154-1183)
• THE NORMAN MONARCHY UNTIL THE DEATH OF WILLIAM II. (1128-1189)
• BOOK III: FROM HENRY VI. TO THE DEATH OF HENRY VII. (1189-1313)
• FROM HENRY VI. TO THE DEATH OF INNOCENT III. (1189-1216)
• MANFRED, CHARLES OF ANJOU, AND THE BATTLE OF BENEVENTO (1251-1266)
• CONRADIN AND THE BATTLE OF TAGLIACOZZO— HIS DEFEAT AND EXECUTION—THE TRIUMPH OF CHARLES OF ANJOU (1267-1278)
• THE INSURRECTION AND WAR OF THE SICILIAN VESPERS—CELESTINE V. AND BONIFACE VIII. —THE PEACE OF CALTABELLOTTA (1277-1302)
• THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE COMMUNES INTO LORDSHIPS
• CONFLICT BETWEEN BONIFACE VIII. AND THE COLONNA FAMILY—DEATH OF BONIFACE VIII. (1297-1303)
• FROM THE ELECTION OF BENEDICT XI. TO THE DEATH OF HENRY VII. (1303-1313)