Chapter XXXIII: Part 33

At Roncaglia, he held the diet of the kingdom, and listened to
many complaints, especially against Milan, which had undoubtedly
oppressed the weaker towns of its neighbourhood and abused its
strength. Then he moved through the country, making a personal
inspection of affairs, and giving a taste of his temper by
burning the villages which failed to supply provisions to his
troops with satisfactory promptitude. At Tortona he ordered
the inhabitants to renounce their alliance with the Milanese.
They refused, and endured in the upper portion of the city a
siege of two months. Forced by want of water to surrender, at
last, they were permitted to go free, but their town was
sacked and burned. Asti, Chieri, Rosate, and other places of
more or less importance, were destroyed. Frederick did not
venture yet to attack Milan, but proceeded to Rome, demanding
the imperial crown. The pope (Adrian IV.) and the Romans were
alike distrustful of him, and he was not permitted to bring
his army into the city. After no little wrangling over
ceremonious details, and after being compelled to lead the
horse and to hold the stirrup of the haughty pontiff,
Barbarossa was finally crowned at St. Peter's, in the Vatican
suburb. The Romans attempted to interrupt the coronation, and
a terrible tumult occurred in which a thousand of the citizens
were slain. But the Germans made no attempt to take possession
of the city. On the contrary, they withdrew with haste, and
the emperor led his army back to Germany, burning Spoleto on
the way, because it failed in submissiveness, and marking a
wide track of ruin and desolation through Italy as he went.
This was in the summer of 1155. Three years passed, during
which the Italian cities grew more determined in their
independence, the emperor and his German subjects more bitter
in hostility to them, and the pope and the emperor more
antagonistic in their ambitions. In 1158 Frederick led a
second expedition into Italy, especially determined to make an
end of the contumacy of Milan. He began operations by creating
a desert of blackened country around the offending city, being
resolved to reduce it by famine. Mediators, however, appeared,
who brought about a treaty of pacification, which interrupted
hostilities for a few weeks. Then the Milanese found occasion
to accuse the emperor of a treacherous violation of the terms
of the treaty and again took up arms. The war was now to the
death. But, before settling to the siege of Milan, Frederick
gave himself the pleasure, first, of reducing the lesser city
of Crema, which continued to be faithful among the allies of
the Milanese. He held some children of the town in his hands,
as hostages, and he bound them to the towers which he moved
against the walls, compelling the wretched citizens to kill
their own offspring in the act of their self-defense. By such
atrocities as this, Crema was taken, at the end of seven
months, and destroyed. Then Milan was assailed and
beleaguered, harassed and blockaded, until, at the beginning
of March, 1162, the starved inhabitants gave up their town.
Frederick ordered the doomed city "to be completely evacuated,
so that there should not be left in it a single living being.
On the 25th of March, he summoned the militias of the rival
and Ghibeline cities, and gave them orders to rase to the
earth the houses as well as the walls of the town, so as not
to leave one stone upon another. Those of the inhabitants of
Milan whom their poverty, labour and industry attached to the
soil, were divided into four open villages, built at a
distance of at least two miles from the walls of their former
city. Others sought hospitality in the neighbouring towns of
Italy. …
{1812}
Their sufferings, the extent of their sacrifices, the
recollection of their valour, and the example of their noble
sentiments, made proselytes to the cause of liberty in every
city into which they were received." Meantime Frederick
Barbarossa returned to Germany, with his fame as a puissant
monarch much augmented.

_J. C. L. de Sismondi,
History of the Italian Republics,
chapter 2._

ALSO IN:
_U. Balzani,
The Popes and the Hohenstaufen,
chapters 3-5._

_G. B. Testa,
History of the War of Frederick I.
against the Communes of Lombardy,
books 1-6._

_E. A. Freeman,
Frederick the First, King of Italy
(Historical Essays, 1st series)._

ITALY: A. D. 1163-1164.
Third visitation of Frederick Barbarossa.
The rival Popes.

Frederick Barbarossa entered Italy for the third time in 1163,
without an army, but imposingly escorted by his German nobles.
He imagined that the country had been terrorized sufficiently
by the savage measures of his previous visitation to need no
more military repression. But he found the Lombard cities
undismayed in the assertion of their rights, and drawing
together in unions which had never been possible among them
before. The hostility of his relations with the Papacy and
with the greater part of the Church gave encouragement to
political revolt. His quarrel with Pope Hadrian had been ended
by the death of the latter, in 1159, but only to give rise to
new and more disturbing contentions. It had grown so bitter
before Hadrian died that the Pope had allied himself by treaty
with Milan, Crema, and other cities resisting Frederick, and
had promised to excommunicate the emperor within forty days.
Sudden death frustrated the combination. At the election of
Hadrian's successor there was a struggle of factions, each
determined to put its representative in the papal chair, and
each claiming success. Two rival popes were proclaimed and
consecrated, one under the name of Alexander III., the other
as Victor IV. Frederick recognized the latter, who made
himself the emperor's creature. The greater part of
Christendom soon gave its recognition to the former, although
he had been driven to take refuge in France. Pope Alexander
excommunicated Frederick and Frederick's pope, and Pope Victor
retorted like anathemas. Whether the curses of Alexander were
more effectual, or for other reasons, the authority of Victor
dwindled, and he himself presently died (April 1164), while
Frederick was making his third inspection of affairs in Italy.
The emperor found it impossible to execute his unbending will
without an army. Verona, Vicenza, Padua, and Treviso held a
congress and openly associated themselves for common defense.
Frederick attempted to make use of the militia forces of
Pavia, Cremona, and other Ghibelline towns against them; but
he found even these citizen-soldiers so mutinous with
disaffection that he dared not pursue the undertaking. He
returned to Germany for an army more in sympathy with his
obstinate designs against Italian liberty.

_U. Balzani,
The Popes and the Hohenstaufen,
chapters 4-5._

ALSO IN:
_H. H. Milman,
History of Latin Christianity,
book 8, chapters 7-8._

_G. B. Testa,
History of the War of Frederick I. against
the Communes of Lombardy,
book 7._

ITALY: A. D. 1166-1167.
The fourth expedition of Frederick Barbarossa.
The League of Lombardy.

"When Frederick, in the month of October, 1166, descended the
mountains of the Grisons to enter Italy [for the fourth time]
by the territory of Brescia, he marched his army directly to
Lodi, without permitting any act of hostility on the way. At
Lodi, he assembled, towards the end of November, a diet of the
kingdom of Italy, at which he promised the Lombards to redress
the grievances occasioned by the abuses of power by his
podestas, and to respect their just liberties; he was desirous
of separating their cause from that of the pope and the king
of Sicily; and to give greater weight to his negotiation, he
marched his army into central Italy. … The towns of the
Veronese marches, seeing the emperor and his army pass without
daring to attack them, became bolder: they assembled a new
diet, in the beginning of April, at the convent of Pontida,
between Milan and Bergamo. The consuls of Cremona, of Bergamo,
of Brescia, of Mantua and Ferrara met there and joined those
of the marches. The union of the Guelphs and Ghibellines, for
the common liberty, was hailed with universal joy. The
deputies of the Cremonese, who had lent their aid to the
destruction of Milan, seconded those of the Milanese villages
in imploring aid of the confederated towns to rebuild the city
of Milan. This confederation was called the League of
Lombardy. The consuls took the oath, and their constituents
afterwards repeated it, that every Lombard should unite for
the recovery of the common liberty; that the league for this
purpose should last twenty years; and, finally, that they
should aid each other in repairing in common any damage
experienced in this sacred cause, by anyone member of the
confederation: extending even to the past this contract for
reciprocal security, the league resolved to rebuild Milan. The
militias of Bergamo, Brescia, Cremona, Mantua, Verona, and
Treviso, arrived the 27th of April, 1167, on the ground
covered by the ruins of this great city. They apportioned
among themselves the labour of restoring the inclosing walls;
all the Milanese of the four villages, as well as those who
had taken refuge in the more distant towns, came in crowds to
take part in this pious work; and in a few weeks the new-grown
city was in a state to repel the insults of its enemies. Lodi
was soon afterwards compelled, by force of arms, to take the
oath to the league; while the towns of Venice, Placentia,
Parma, Modena, and Bologna voluntarily and gladly joined the
association."

_J. C. L. de Sismondi,
History of the Italian Republics,
chapter 2._

Meantime Frederick Barbarossa had made himself master of the
city of Rome. The Roman citizens had boldly ventured out to
meet his German army and its allies on the Tusculan hills and
had suffered a frightful defeat. Then some part of the walls
of the Leonine City were carried by assault and the
castellated church of St. Peter's was entered with ax and
sword. Two German archbishops were among the leaders of the
force which took the altars of the temple by storm and which
polluted its floors with blood. Frederick's new 'anti-pope,
Paschal III., successor to Victor IV., was now enthroned, and
the empress was formally crowned in the apostolic basilica.
Pope Alexander, who had been in possession of the city,
withdrew, and the victorious emperor appeared to have the
great objects of his burning ambition within his grasp.
"Destiny willed otherwise. It was now August; the sun was
burning the arid Campagna and oppressing the weary German
troops. A slight rain came to refresh them, but the following
day sudden destruction fell upon the camp.
{1813}
Deadly fever attacked the army with terrible violence and
reduced it daily. The men fell in heaps, and when struck down
in the morning were dead by night. The disease took stronger
hold owing to the superstitious fears of the army and the idea
of divine vengeance, for the soldiers remembered in terror the
profanation of St. Peter's, and they felt the keen edge of the
destroying angel's sword. Decimated, dismayed, demoralised,
the imperial army was hopelessly defeated, and Frederick was
compelled to strike his tents and fly before the in visible
destroyer. … The flower of his troops lay unburied in the
furrows, and with difficulty could he manage to carry back to
their native land the bodies of his noblest and trustiest
knights. Never perhaps before had Frederick given proofs of
such unshaken strength of mind. … He returned to Germany
alone and almost a fugitive, his bravest knights dead, his
army destroyed, and leaving behind him a whole nation of proud
and watchful enemies. He returned alone, but his spirit was
undaunted and dreamt of future victory and of final revenge."

_U. Balzani,
The Popes and the Hohenstaufen,
chapter 5._

ALSO IN:
_J. Miley,
History of the Papal States,
book 6, chapter 2._

_H. H. Milman,
History of Latin Christianity,
book 8, chapter 10._

_G. B. Testa,
History of the War of Frederick I.,
books 8-9._

ITALY: A. D. 1174-1183.
The last expedition of Frederick Barbarossa.
The Battle of Legnano, and the Peace of Constance.

It was not until 1174—seven years after his flight from the
Roman pestilence—that Barbarossa was able to return to Italy
and resume his struggle with Pope Alexander and the Lombard
cities. He had been detained by troubles in Germany—the
growing quarrel with his most powerful vassal, Henry the Lion,
of Saxony, more particularly. Meantime, the League of the
Lombard cities had spread and gained strength, and Pope
Alexander III. was in active co-operation with it. To better
fortify the frontiers of Lombardy, the League had built a
strong new city, at the junction of the Tanaro and Bormida,
had given it an immediate population of 15,000 people and had
named it Alessandria, after the Pope. "The Emperor, whose
arrival in Italy was urgently implored, was retained in
Germany by his mistrust of Henry the Lion, who, in order to
furnish himself with a pretext for refusing his assistance in
the intended campaign without coming to an open breach,
undertook a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, A. D. 1171; whence, after
performing his devotions at the holy sepulchre, without
unsheathing his sword in its defence, he returned to his
native country. … At length, in 1174, Frederick Barbarossa
persuaded the sullen duke to perform his duty in the field,
and for the fourth time [with an army] crossed the Alps. A
terrible revenge was taken upon Susa, which was burnt to the
ground. Alexandria [Alessandria] withstood the siege. The
military science of the age, every 'ruse de guerre,' was
exhausted by both the besiegers and the besieged, and the
whole of the winter was fruitlessly expended without any
signal success on either side. The Lombard league meanwhile
assembled an immense army in order to oppose Frederick in the
open field, whilst treason threatened him on another side. …
Henry also at length acted with open disloyalty, and declared
to the emperor, who lay sick at Chiavenna, on the lake of
Como, his intention of abandoning him; and, unshaken by
Frederick's exhortation in the name of duty and honour to
renounce his perfidious plans, offered to provide him with
money on condition of receiving considerable additions to his
power in Germany, and the free imperial town of Goslar in
gift. … Frederick, reduced to the alternative of either
following his insolent vassal, or of exposing himself and his
weakened forces to total destruction by remaining in his
present position, courageously resolved to abide the hazard,
and to await the arrival of fresh reinforcements from Germany;
the Lombards, however, saw their advantage, and attacked him
at Legnano, on the 29th of May, 1176. The Swabians (the
southern Germans still remaining true to their allegiance)
fought with all the courage of despair, but Berthold von
Zähringen was taken prisoner, the emperor's horse fell in the
thickest of the fight, his banner was won by the 'Legion of
Death,' a chosen Lombard troop, and he was given up as dead.
He escaped almost by a miracle, whilst his little army was
entirely overwhelmed."

_W. Menzel,
History of Germany,
chapter 151._

After the disastrous battle of Legnano, Frederic "was at
length persuaded, through the mediation of the republic of
Venice, to consent to a truce of six years, the provisional
terms of which were all favourable to the league. … At the
expiration of the truce Frederic's anxiety to secure the crown
for his son overcame his pride, and the famous Peace of
Constance [A. D. 1183] established the Lombard republics in
real independence. By the treaty of Constance the cities were
maintained in the enjoyment of all the regalian rights,
whether within their walls or in their district, which they
could claim by usage. Those of levying war, of erecting
fortifications, and of administering civil and criminal
justice, were specially mentioned. The nomination of their
consuls, or other magistrates, was left absolutely to the
citizens; but they were to receive the investiture of their
office from an imperial legate. The customary tributes of
provision during the emperor's residence in Italy were
preserved; and he was authorized to appoint in every city a
judge of appeal in civil causes. The Lombard league was
confirmed, and the cities were permitted to renew it at their
own discretion; but they were to take every ten years an oath
of fidelity to the emperor. This just compact preserved, along
with every security for the liberties and welfare of the
cities, as much of the imperial prerogatives as could be
exercised by a foreign sovereign consistently with the
people's happiness. … The Peace of Constance presented a
noble opportunity to the Lombards of establishing a permanent
federal union of small republics. … But dark, long-cherished
hatreds, and that implacable vindictiveness which, at least in
former ages, distinguished the private manners of Italy,
deformed her national character. … For revenge she threw
away the pearl of great price, and sacrificed even the
recollection of that liberty which had stalked like a majestic
spirit among the ruins of Milan."

_H. Hallam,
The Middle Ages,
chapter 3, part 1 (volume 1)._

ALSO IN:
_U. Balzani,
The Popes and the Hohenstaufen,
chapter 6._

_G. B. Testa,
History of the War of Frederick I.,
book 10._

See, also,
VENICE: A.D. 1177.

{1814}

A. D. 1183-1250.
Frederick II. and the end of the Hohenstaufen struggles.

After the settlement of the Peace of Constance, Frederick
Barbarossa made no further attempt to destroy the now well
established liberties of the north Italian cities. On the
contrary, he devoted himself, with considerable success, to
the regaining of their confidence and good-will, as against
the papacy, with which his relations were not improved. In
southern Italy, he acquired an important footing by the
marriage of his son Henry (already crowned King of Rome, as
Henry VI.), to Constance, the sole heiress of the Norman
kingdom of the Two Sicilies. Soon after which he went
crusading to the Holy Land, and perished in Asia Minor (A. D.
1190). His son and successor, Henry VI., who survived him but
seven years, was occupied so much in securing the Kingdom of
the Two Sicilies, already fallen to his wife (1194) by the
death of the last of the Norman kings, that he had little time
to trouble the peace of Lombardy or Germany. He was one of the
meanest of kings, faithless and cold-blooded,—brutal to the
Normans of the Sicilies and contemptible in his treatment of
the English King Richard, when his vassal of Austria made a
chance captive of the lion-hearted prince. He died in 1197,
leaving as his heir a son but four years old—the Frederick
II. of later years. There was war at once. Two rival kings
were elected in Germany, by the two factions, Guelf and
Ghibelline. The next year, one of them, Philip I., the
Ghibelline, a younger son of Frederick Barbarossa, was
assassinated; the other, Otho IV., a son of Henry the Lion,
was recognized by his opponents, and went to Rome to claim the
imperial crown. He received it, but soon quarrelled, as all
his predecessors had done, with the pope (the great pope
Innocent III. being now on the throne), and, Guelf as he was,
began to put himself in alliance with the Ghibellines of
Italy. Meantime, the boy Frederick had become king of the Two
Sicilies by the death of his mother, and Pope Innocent was his
guardian. He was now brought forward by the latter as a
claimant of the Germanic crown, against Otho, and was sent
into Germany to maintain his claim. The civil war which
followed was practically ended by the battle of Bouvines (July
27, 1214—see BOUVINES) in which Otho's cause was lost. Four
years after, the latter died, and Frederick reigned in
Germany, Italy and the Two Sicilies, without a rival, holding
the three separate crowns for five years before he received
the imperial crown, in 1220. Meantime Innocent III. died, and
Frederick became involved, even more bitterly than his father
or his grandfather had been, in quarrels with the succeeding
popes. He was a man far beyond his age in intellectual
independence (see GERMANY: A. D. 1138-1268) and freedom from
superstitious servility to the priesthood. His tastes were
cultivated, his accomplishments were many. He welcomed the
refinements which Europe at that time could borrow from the
Saracens, and his court was one of gaiety and splendor. His
papal enemies execrated him as a heretic, a blasphemer and an
"apocalyptic beast." His greatest original offenses had grown
out of two promises which he made in his youth:

1. To lead a crusade for the recovery of Jerusalem,—which he
was slow in fulfilling;

2. To resign his Italian possessions to his son, retaining
only the sovereignty of Germany for himself,—which promise he
did not fulfil at all.

The war of the Church against him was implacable, and he was
under its ban when he died. The pope even pursued him with
maledictions when he went, at last, upon his crusade, in 1228,
and when he did, by negotiations, free Jerusalem for a time
from the Moslems (see CRUSADES: A. D. 1216-1229). He was
involved, moreover, in conflicts with the Lombard cities (see
FEDERAL GOVERNMENT: MEDIÆVAL LEAGUE) which the papacy
encouraged and stimulated, and, in 1236, he won a great
victory over the League, at Cortenuova, capturing the famous
"Carroccio" of the Milanese and sending it as a gift to the
Roman Senate. But, attempting to use his victory too
inflexibly, he lost the fruits of it, and all his later years
were years of trouble and disastrous war—disastrous to Italy
and to himself. He died on the 13th of December 1250. "Out of
the long array of the Germanic successors of Charles, he
[Frederick II.] is, with Otto III., the only one who comes
before us with a genius and a frame of character that are not
those of a Northern or a Teuton. There dwelt in him, it is
true, all the energy and knightly valour of his father Henry
and his grandfather Barbarossa. But along with these, and
changing their direction, were other gifts, inherited perhaps
from his Italian mother and fostered by his education among
the orange-groves of Palermo—a love of luxury and beauty, an
intellect refined, subtle, philosophical. Through the mist of
calumny and fable it is but dimly that the truth of the man
can be discerned, and the outlines that appear serve to
quicken rather than appease the curiosity with which we regard
one of the most extraordinary personages in history. A
sensualist, yet also a warrior and a politician; a profound
lawgiver and an impassioned poet; in his youth fired by
crusading fervour, in later life persecuting heretics while
himself accused of blasphemy and unbelief; of winning manners
and ardently beloved by his followers, but with the stain of
more than one cruel deed upon his name, he was the marvel of
his own generation, and succeeding ages looked back with awe,
not unmingled with pity, upon the inscrutable figure of the
last Emperor who had braved all the terrors of the Church and
died beneath her ban, the last who had ruled from the sands of
the ocean to the shores of the Sicilian sea. But while they
pitied they condemned. The undying hatred of the Papacy threw
round his memory a lurid light; him and him alone of all the
imperial line, Dante, the worshipper of the Empire, must
perforce deliver to the flames of hell."

_J. Bryce,
The Holy Roman Empire,
chapter 13._

"The Emperor Frederick was a poet who could not only celebrate
the charms of his sovereign lady, 'the flower of all flowers,
the rose of May,' but could also exhibit his appreciation for
the beauties of nature. … Frederick also delighted in
sculpture, painting, and architecture. … Under his fostering
influence every branch of learning was starting into life
after the slumber of ages. Frederick's age can only be
compared to that glorious era of the Renaissance, when the sun
of learning, no longer shorn of his beams, poured a flood of
light over the dark places of Europe. Frederick was not only
distinguished for his love of polite literature, but also for
his ardour in the pursuit of scientific knowledge. He was
himself an author on medical subjects.
{1815}
He was a great patron of natural history. He used his friendly
relations with eastern kings to form a collection of animals
not often seen in Europe—the elephant, camel, giraffe, and
camelopard. He also wrote a treatise on Hawking, which is
still cited with respect. He classifies birds, and treats
generally of their habits. … But poetry and science were
very far from occupying all the thoughts of this distinguished
monarch. His great concern was the internal regulation of the
kingdom committed to his charge. His code in Sicily and Naples
was framed with the special view of securing equal rights to
all classes of his subjects, and of delivering them from the
yoke of the feudal oppressor. He stripped the nobles and
prelates of their jurisdiction in criminal cases. He also
decreed that any count or baron, carrying on war on his own
account, should lose his head and his goods. These were
amazing strides in the right direction, but the former was
quite unprecedented in feudal kingdoms. Many justiciaries were
appointed throughout the kingdom. No one might hold this
office without the authorisation of the crown. He strove to
make his officials as righteous as he was himself. He himself
came before his courts. So great was his love of justice, that
he would rather lose his cause than win it if he were in the
wrong. No advocates were allowed to practise without an
examination by the judicial bench. They were obliged to take
an oath that they would allege nothing against their
conscience. The court furnished widows, orphans, and the poor
with champions free of expense. The law, by which it was
guided, endeavoured to secure an even-handed administration of
justice."

_A. B. Pennington,
The Emperor Frederick II.
(Royal Historical Society, Transactions, new series,
volume 1)._

Although arbitrary and despotic in temper, the political
intelligence of Frederick led him to practical ideas of
government which were extraordinarily liberal for his age. In
his Sicilian kingdom "the towns were shorn to a great extent
of their local privileges, but were taught to unite their
strength for the common good. Twice, at least, in the course
of his reign, in 1232 and in 1240, Frederick summoned their
deputies to a conference or Parliament, 'for the weal of the
Kingdom and the general advantage of the State.' Forty-seven
cities, all belonging to the Imperial domain, sent two
deputies each to the Assembly convoked, which must not be
confounded with the Solemn Courts held by the Sovereign and
his Barons for the purpose Of revising charters, enacting
Constitutions, and regulating the government. We should be
mistaken in supposing that the Sicilian Parliament enjoyed
much of the power implied by the name. There is no trace of
any clamour against grievances, of any complaints against
officials, or of any refusal to grant supplies. The only
function of the deputies summoned seems to have been the
assessing of the public burdens. The Emperor demanded a
certain sum of money, and the deputies, meekly complying,
regulated the ways and means of raising it. 'Send your
messengers,' thus runs the writ, 'to see the Serenity of our
face on your behalf, and to bring you back our will.' Later in
the century, the Assembly acquired greater authority. It is
just possible that Simon de Montfort, who is known to have
visited the Imperial Court, may have borrowed his famous
improvement on the old English constitution from an Apulian
source; the gathering of the Commons at Foggia certainly
preceded their first meeting at Westminster by thirty years.
Other countries besides our own were indebted to Frederick for
a better mode of legislation. Shortly after his death, many of
his innovations were borrowed by his cousin Alonzo the Wise,
and were inserted in Las Siete Partidas, the new Code of
Castile. The ideas of the Suabian Emperor were evidently the
model followed by St. Louis and his successors; in France, as
well as in Southern Italy, the lawyer was feeling his way
towards the enjoyment of the power wielded of old by the
knight and the churchman; Philip the Fair was able to carry
out the projects which Frederick had merely been able to
sketch. The world made rapid strides between 1230 and 1300.
The Northern half of Italy, distracted by endless struggles,
was not insensible to the improvements introduced into the
South by her mighty son. But in the North two fatal obstacles
existed, the Papal power and the municipal spirit of the
various States, which marred all Frederick's efforts in behalf
of Italian unity." Frederick's court was the most brilliant
and refined in Europe. Mr. Kington, his historian, introduces
us to one of the Emperor's banquets, in the following
description: "A great variety of strangers meet at the
banqueting hour. Ambassadors from the Greek Monarch arrive
with a present of falcons. Some clerical visitors from Germany
are astounded to find themselves seated close to the turbaned
men of the East, and shudder on hearing that these are envoys
from the Sultan of Cairo and the Old Man of the Mountain. The
honest Germans whisper among themselves some remarks on the
late end of the Duke of Bavaria, who was stabbed at Kelheim by
a man, suspected to be an assassin, employed by the mysterious
Old Man on Frederick's behalf. The Emperor himself eats and
drinks very little. He is the very model of a host. … The
Emperor, it must be allowed, is rather loose in his talk.
Speaking of his late Crusade, he remarks: 'If the God of the
Jews had seen my Kingdom, the Terra di Lavoro, Calabria,
Sicily, and Apulia, he would not have so often praised that
land which he promised to the Jews and bestowed upon them.'
The Bishops treasure up this unlucky speech, which will one
day be noised abroad all over Italy. When the meal is over,
the company are amused by the feats of some of the Almehs,
brought from the East. Two young Arab girls of rare beauty
place themselves each upon two balls in the middle of the flat
pavement. On these they move backwards and forwards, singing
and beating time with cymbals and castanets, while throwing
themselves into intricate postures. Games and musical
instruments, procured for the Empress, form part of the
entertainment. We hear moreover of a Saracen dancer from
Aquitaine. Such sports are relished by the guests quite as
much as the Greek wine and the viands prepared by Berard the
Court cook, who is famous for his scapece; this dish,
consisting of fish boiled in salt water and sprinkled with
saffron, popular to this day in the province of Lecce, has
been derived from Apicius. … The Emperor now shows his
guests the wild beasts, which he has brought from Africa and
the East. There is the huge elephant, soon to be sent to
Cremona, the bearer of the Imperial banner, guarded by a troop
of Saracens.
{1816}
There is the female camelopard, called Seraph by the Arabs and
Italians. Next come the camels and dromedaries which carry the
Emperor's treasures when he is on the march. Lions, leopards,
panthers, and rare birds form part of the collection, and are
tended by Saracen keepers. Frederick perhaps wishes to show
his friends some sport in the Apulian plains; he has hawks of
all breeds, each of which has its name; but what most
astonishes strangers is his method of bringing down the deer.
The cheetahs, or hunting leopards of the East, are mounted on
horseback behind their keepers; these animals, as the Emperor
says, 'know how to ride.' He is a strict preserver of game; he
gives orders that the wolves and foxes, which prey upon the
small animals in his warren at Melazzo, be destroyed by means
of a poison called wolf's powder. He has many parks and
fishponds, to which he contrives to attend, even in the midst
of Lombard wars. He directs the plantation of woods, and when
a storm blows down his trees, the timber is to be sold at
Naples. … The treasures, with which Frederick dazzles the
eyes of his visitors, rival those of Solomon. The Sultan of
Egypt has given his Christian brother a tent of wonderful
workmanship, displaying the movements of the sun and moon, and
telling the hours of the day and night. This prodigy, valued
at 20,000 marks, is kept at Venosa. There is also a throne of
gold, decked with pearls and precious stones, doomed to become
the prey of Charles of Anjou and Pope Clement. There are
purple robes embroidered with gold, silks from Tripoli, and
the choicest works of the Eastern loom. Frederick charms the
ears of his guests with melodies played on silver trumpets by
black slaves, whom he has had trained. He himself knows how to
sing. Travellers, jesters, poets, philosophers, knights,
lawyers, all find a hearty welcome at the Apulian Court; if
they are natives of the Kingdom they address its Lord in the
customary second person singular, 'Tu, Messer.' He can well
appreciate the pretensions of each guest, since he is able to
converse with all his many subjects, each in his own tongue.
The Arab from Palestine, the Greek from Calabria, the Italian
from Tuscany, the Frenchman from Lorraine, the German from
Thuringia, find that Cæsar understands them all. With Latin,
of course, he is familiar. Very different is Frederick from
his Northern grandsire, who could speak nothing but German and
very bad Latin. Troubadour, Crusader, Lawgiver; German by
blood, Italian by birth, Arab by training; the pupil, the
tyrant, the victim of Rome; accused by the world of being by
turns a Catholic persecutor, a Mohammedan convert, an Infidel
freethinker; such is Frederick the Second. His character has
been sketched for us by two men of opposite politics,
Salimbene the Guelf and Jamsilla the Ghibelline, both of whom
knew him well. Each does justice to the wonderful genius of
the Emperor, and to the rapid development of the arts and
commerce under his fostering care. But all is not fair,
whatever appearances may be. Every generation of the
Hohenstaufen Kaisers seemed to add a vice to the shame of
their house. Cruelty is the one dark stain in the character of
Barbarossa; cruelty and treachery mar the soaring genius of
Henry the Sixth; cruelty, treachery, and lewdness are the
three blots that can never be wiped away from the memory of
Frederick the Second. He has painted his likeness with his own
hand. His Registers with their varied entries throw more light
upon his nature than any panegyrics or diatribes can do. One
example will be enough. If he wishes to get an impregnable
castle into his hands, he thus writes to his
general:—'Pretend some business, and warily call the
Castellan to you; seize on him if you can, and keep him till
he cause the castle to be surrendered to you.' … Frederick's
cruelty is indisputable. His leaden copes, which weighed down
the victims of his wrath until death came to the rescue, were
long the talk of Italy and are mentioned by Dante."

_T. L. Kington,
History of Frederick the Second, Emperor of the Romans,
volume 1, chapter 9._

"After the death of Frederick II., an interval of twenty-three
years passed without the appointment of a king of the Romans
[the Great Interregnum—see GERMANY: A. D. 1250-1272], and an
interval of sixty years without the recognition of an emperor
in Italy." Frederick's son Conrad, whom he had caused to be
crowned, was driven out of Germany and died in 1254. Another
son, Manfred, acquired the crown of Sicily and reigned for a
time; but the unrelenting pope persuaded Charles of Anjou to
make a conquest of the kingdom, and Manfred was slain in
battle (A. D. 1266). Conrad's young son, Conradin, then
attempted to recover the Sicilian throne, but was defeated,
taken prisoner, and perished on the scaffold (1268). He was
the last of the Hohenstaufen.

_O. Browning,
Guelfs and Ghibellines,
chapters 2-3._

ALSO IN:
_J. Bryce,
The Holy Roman Empire,
chapters 11-13._

_E. A. Freeman,
The Emperor Frederick the Second
(Historical Essays, volume 1, Essay 10)._

_Mrs. W. Busk,
Mediæval Popes, Emperors, Kings, and Crusaders,
book 4 (volumes 3-4)._

ITALY: A. D. 1198-1216.
The establishing of Papal Sovereignty in the
States of the Church.

See PAPACY: A. D. 1198-1216.

ITALY: 13th Century.
Political conditions which prepared the way for the despots.

"The struggle between the Popes and the Hohenstaufen left
Italy in a political condition which differed essentially from
that of the other countries of the West. While in France,
Spain, and England the feudal system was so organised that, at
the close of its existence, it was naturally transformed into
a unified monarchy, and while in Germany it helped to
maintain, at least outwardly, the unity of the empire, Italy
had shaken it off almost entirely. The Emperors of the
fourteenth century, even in the most favourable case, were no
longer received and respected as feudal lords, but as possible
leaders and supporters of powers already in existence; while
the Papacy, with its creatures and allies, was strong enough
to hinder national unity in the future, not strong enough
itself to bring about that unity. Between the two lay a
multitude of political units—republics and despots—in part
of long standing, in part of recent origin, whose existence
was founded simply on their power to maintain it. In them for
the first time we detect the modern political spirit of
Europe, surrendered freely to its own instincts, often
displaying the worst features of an unbridled egoism,
outraging every right, and killing every germ of a healthier
culture.
{1817}
But, wherever this vicious tendency is overcome or in any way
compensated, a new fact appears in history—the state as the
outcome of reflection and calculation, the state as a work of
art. This new life displays itself in a hundred forms, both in
the republican and in the despotic states, and determines
their inward constitution, no less than their foreign policy.
… The internal condition of the despotically governed states
had a memorable counterpart in the Norman Empire of Lower
Italy and Sicily, after its transformation by the Emperor
Frederick II. Bred amid treason and peril in the neighbourhood
of the Saracens, Frederick, the first ruler of the modern type
who sat upon a throne, had early accustomed himself, both in
criticism and action, to a thoroughly objective treatment of
affairs. His acquaintance with the internal condition and
administration of the Saracenic states was close and intimate;
and the mortal struggle in which he was engaged with the
Papacy compelled him, no less than his adversaries, to bring
into the field all the resources at his command. Frederick's
measures (especially after the year 1231) are aimed at the
complete destruction of the feudal state, at the
transformation of the people into a multitude destitute of
will and of the means of resistance, but profitable in the
utmost degree to the exchequer. He centralised, in a manner
hitherto unknown in the West, the whole judicial and political
administration by establishing the right of appeal from the
feudal courts, which he did not, however, abolish, to the
imperial judges. No office was henceforth to be filled by
popular election, under penalty of the devastation of the
offending district and of the enslavement of its inhabitants.
Excise duties were introduced; the taxes, based on a
comprehensive assessment, and distributed in accordance with
Mohammedan usages, were collected by those cruel and vexatious
methods without which, it is true, it is impossible to obtain
any money from Orientals. Here, in short, we find, not a
people, but simply a disciplined multitude of subjects. …
The internal police, and the kernel of the army for foreign
service, was composed of Saracens who had been brought over
from Sicily to Nocera and Luceria—men who were deaf to the
cry of misery and careless of the ban of the Church. At a
later period the subjects, by whom the use of weapons had long
been forgotten, were passive witnesses of the fall of Manfred
and of the seizure of the government by Charles of Anjou; the
latter continued to use the system which he found already at
work. At the side of the centralising Emperor appeared an
usurper of the most peculiar kind: his vicar and son-in-law,
Ezzelino da Romano. … The conquests and usurpations which
had hitherto taken place in the Middle Ages rested on real or
pretended inheritance and other such claims, or else were
effected against unbelievers and excommunicated persons. Here
for the first time the attempt was openly made to found a
throne by wholesale murder and endless barbarities, by the
adoption, in short, of any means with a view to nothing but
the end pursued. None of his successors, not even Cæsar
Borgia, rivalled the colossal guilt of Ezzelino; but the
example once set was not forgotten. … Immediately after the
fall of Frederick and Ezzelino, a crowd of tyrants appeared
upon the scene. The struggle between Guelph and Ghibelline was
their opportunity. They came forward in general as Ghibelline
leaders, but at times and under conditions so various, that it
is impossible not to recognise in the fact a law of supreme
and universal necessity."

_J. Burckhardt,
The Renaissance in Italy,
part 1, chapter 1, (volume 1)._

ITALY: A. D. 1215.
The beginning, at Florence, the causes and the meaning of the
strife of the Guelfs and Ghibellines.

"In the year 1215 it chanced that a quarrel occurred at a
festival between some young nobles of Florence. It was an
event of as frivolous, and apparently unimportant, a character
as thousands of other such broils; but this obscure quarrel
has been treated by the whole body of Florentine historians as
the origin and starting point of that series of civil wars
which shaped the entire future fortunes of the community, and
shook to its centre the whole fabric of society throughout
central Italy. The story of it has become memorable therefore
in Florentine annals, and has been rendered famous not only by
the writers of history, but by many generations of poets,
painters, novelists, and sculptors." Briefly sketched, the
story is this: A handsome youth of the Buondelmonti family,
mixing in a quarrel at the festival alluded to, struck one
Oddo Arringhi dei Fifanti with his poniard. Common friends of
the two brought about a reconciliation, by means of an
arrangement of marriage between Buondelmonte and a niece of
the injured man. But the lady was plain, and Buondelmonte,
falling madly in love with another, more charming, whom evil
chance and a scheming mother threw temptingly in his way, did
not scruple to break his engagement, and to do it with insult.
He wedded his new love, who was of the Donati family, on
Easter Day, and on that same day he was slain by the Amidei,
whose house he had so grossly affronted. "The assassins
retired to their fortress houses, and left the bridal party to
form itself as it might into a funeral procession. 'Great was
the uproar in the city. He was placed on a bier; and his wife
took her station on the bier also, and held his head in her
lap, violently weeping; and in that manner they carried him
through the whole of the city; and on that day began the ruin
of Florence.' The last phrase of the above citation marks the
significance which the Tuscan historians have attributed to
this incident, and the important place that has always been
assigned to it in Florentine history. We are told by all the
earliest historians, especially by Malispini, in whose
childhood these events must have happened, and whom Villani
copies almost word for word, that from this quarrel began the
great, fatal, and world-famous division of Florence into the
parties of Guelph and Ghibelline. Dante goes so far as to
consider the conduct of Buondelmonte in this affair so
entirely the cause of the evils that arose from the Guelph and
Ghibelline wars, that, had that cause not existed, no such
misfortunes would have arisen. … Yet the historians admit
that the party names of Guelph and Ghibelline were known in
Florence long before; but they say that not till then did the
city divide itself into two hostile camps under those rallying
cries. It is curiously clear, from the accounts of Malispini
and Villani, that, as usual in such matters, the Florentines
had but a very hazy notion as to the meaning and origin of the
two names [see GUELFS AND GHIBELLINES, and GERMANY: A. D.
1138-1268], for the sake of which they were prepared to cut
each other's throats.
{1818}
Any name or watchword is good enough for a party rallying cry,
when once passions have been connected with it; but the
Florentines understood that Ghibelline meant attachment to the
Empire in opposition to the Church, and Guelph attachment to
the Church in opposition to the Empire. … But the quarrel of
Guelph with Ghibelline in Florence was the expression of a
still wider spread and more perennial conflict. … The
Ghibellines were the old Imperial nobles, who, whether more
anciently or more recently incorporated into the body of
Florentine citizens, formed the aristocracy of the social
body, and were naturally Imperialist in their sympathies.
These Ghibellines were the high Tories of the Florentine
community. The body of the people were Guelphs, naming
themselves after the party professing attachment to the Church
only because the Papacy was in opposition to the Empire. The
Guelphs were the Whigs of Florence. The Radicals appeared on
the scene in due time and normal sequence." From Florence, as
its center, the strife of the two factions spread throughout
Italy. "Ghibellinism was nearly universal in the north of
Italy, divided among a number of more or less well known great
families, of whom the principal were the Visconti at Milan,
and the Della Scala at Verona. Naples and the States of the
Church were Guelph; the former, as need hardly be suggested,
from political circumstances, from opposition to the Empire,
and from connection, rather than from principle. Tuscany and
the whole of Central Italy were divided between the two,
although the real strength and stronghold of genuine Guelphism
was there. Without Florence, there would have been no Guelph
party. Had those stout sandalled and leather-jerkined
Florentine burghers of the 13th century not undertaken and
persevered in that crusade against the feudal nobles and the
Ghibelline principle, which … was the leading occupation and
idea of the Commonwealth during all that century, Ghibellinism
and Imperialism would have long since possessed and ruled
Italy from the Alps to the toe of the boot."

_T. A. Trollope,
History of the Commonwealth of Florence,
book 1, chapter 3,
and book 3, chapter 1 (volume 1)._

"One party called themselves the Emperor's liegemen, and their
watchword was authority and law; the other side were the
liegemen of Holy Church, and their cry was liberty; and the
distinction as a broad one is true. But a democracy would
become Ghibelline, without scruple, if its neighbour town was
Guelf; and among the Guelf liegemen of the Church and liberty,
the pride of blood and love of power were not a whit inferior
to that of their opponents. Yet … it is not impossible to
trace in the two factions differences of temper, of moral and
political inclinations, which, though visible only on a large
scale and in the mass, were quite sufficient to give meaning
and reality to their mutual opposition. … The Ghibellines as
a body reflected the worldliness, the license, the irreligion,
the reckless selfishness, the daring insolence, and at the
same time the gaiety and pomp, the princely magnificence and
generosity and largeness of mind of the House of Swabia [the
Hohenstaufen]; they were the men of the court and camp. …
The Guelfs, on the other hand, were the party of the middle
classes; they rose out of and held to the people; they were
strong by their compactness, their organisation in cities,
their commercial relations and interests, their command of
money. Further, they were professedly the party of strictness
and religion. … The genuine Guelf spirit was austere,
frugal, independent, earnest, religious; fond of its home and
Church, and of those celebrations which bound together Church
and home; … in its higher form intolerant of evil, but
intolerant always of whatever displeased it. Yet there was a
grave and noble manliness about it which long kept it alive in
Florence."

_R. W. Church,
Dante and other Essays,
pages 15-18._

See, also,
FLORENCE: A. D. 1215-1250.

ITALY: A. D. 1236-1259.
The tyranny of Eccelino di Romano in the Veronese or Trevisan
Marches, and the crusade against him.

See VERONA: A. D. 1236-1259.

ITALY: A. D. 1248-1278.
The wars of a generation of the Guelfs and Ghibellines in
Tuscany.

See FLORENCE: A. D. 1248-1278.

ITALY: (Southern): A. D. 1250-1268.
Invasion and conquest of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies by
Charles of Anjou, on the invitation of the Pope.

"The death of the Emperor Frederic II., in 1250, had been
followed in less than four years by that of his son and
successor Conrad IV., from whose son Conradin, at that time an
infant, the Crown of the Two Sicilies was usurped by his uncle
Manfred, a natural child of the deceased Frederic. The hatred
of the See of Rome, notwithstanding the frequent changes which
had occurred in the Papal Chair, still pursued the Line of
Hohenstauffen, even in this illegitimate branch, and it was
transmitted as an hereditary possession from Innocent IV.
through Alexander IV. and Urban IV., to Clement IV.
Interference in Germany itself was forbidden by the
independence of the Electoral Princes: and when it was found
impossible to obtain the nomination of an Emperor decidedly in
the Guelph interest, Alexander contented himself by
endeavouring to separate the Throne of the Two Sicilies from
that of Germany, and to establish upon the former a Feudatory,
and therefore a Champion, of the Church. Various alliances for
this purpose were projected by Alexander, and by his
successors who adopted a similar policy; and the Crown, which
was in truth to be conquered from Manfred, was offered as an
investiture which Rome had a full right to bestow." After long
negotiations with Henry III. of England, who coveted the
Sicilian prize for his second son, Edmund, and who paid large
sums to the papal treasury by way of earnest money, but who
showed little ability to oust the possessor, Pope Urban, at
length, closed a bargain with that ambitious speculator in
royal claims and titles, Charles of Anjou, brother of St.
Louis, king of France. The honesty of Louis was somewhat
troubled by the unscrupulous transaction; but his conscience
submitted itself to the instructions of the Holy Father, and
he permitted his brother to embark in the evil enterprise.
"Charles, accordingly, having first accepted the Senator-ship
of Rome, with which high magistracy he was invested by her
citizens, negotiated with the Holy See, most ably and much to
his advantage, for the loftier dignity of Kingship. In little
more than a month after he had received his Crown from the
hands of Clement IV., who had become Pope, he totally defeated
and killed his opponent Manfred, in the battle of Grandella
[near Benevento, February, 1266].
{1819}
Conradin, who had now arrived at years of discretion, was
still his rival; but the capture of the young Prince at
Tagliacozzo [1268], and his speedy committal to the
executioner, confirmed Charles of Anjou in his Kingdom, at the
everlasting ex-pense of his good name. Few incidents in
History are more calculated to awaken just indignation than
the untimely end of the brave, wronged, and gallant Conradin.
Charles of Anjou thus founded the first dynasty of his House
which reigned over the Sicilies. The pretensions which Aragon
afterwards advanced to the Crown of that Kingdom rested on a
marriage between Pedro, the eldest son of King James, and
Constance, a daughter of Manfred."

_E. Smedley,
History of France,
part 1, chapter 6._

ALSO IN:
_J. Michelet,
History of France,
book 4, chapter 8._

_H. H. Milman,
History of Latin Christianity,
book 11, chapter 3 (volume 5)._

_Mrs. W. Busk,
Mediæval Popes, Emperors, Kings, and Crusaders,
book 5 (volume 4)._

ITALY: A. D. 1250-1293.
Development of the popular Constitution of the Florentine
Commonwealth.

See FLORENCE: A. D. 1250-1293.

ITALY: A. D. 1250-1520.
The Age of the Despots.
The rise of Principalities.