Chapter I: Italy in the Dark Age (2)

They got from Dalmatia firewood, wines, oils, hemp, linen, all kinds of grain and cattle. The eastern coast offered lead, mercury, and metals of every kind, wood for building, wools, cloth, house linen, cordage, dried fruits, and even slaves and eunuchs. Everywhere they possessed themselves of the exclusive commerce in salt and salted fish, and carried into every country the merchandise of the East. It was owing to a so extended commerce that Venice, until then without territory, armed fleets, and placed between two empires, knew how to resist one and make herself necessary to the other. These advantages were considerable, but to enjoy them peaceably it was necessary to be delivered from these Narentine pirates, who for one hundred and fifty years annoyed Venetian commerce with their continual inroads. They furnished no immediate cause for attack, only demanded the annual tribute which the republic had promised them, to which the doge answered that he would soon bring it himself. Their attacks were at that time directed against the peoples established the length of the Adriatic; the Istrians, Liburnians, and the Dalmatians.

[Sidenote: [996-997 A.D.]]

Various nations had established themselves one after another on these coasts; at first they depended on their chiefs for protection; then those in Dalmatia came under the sway of the Eastern emperor, while those farther north looked to the ruler of the West. These two empires became feeble; various commercial towns sprang up on the sea coast which came by little and little to regard themselves as independent, and these would have found an assured source of prosperity in maritime pursuits were it not for the interference of the neighbouring Narentines. It would not be unreasonable to conjecture that Venice was not without some anxiety, even jealousy, with regard to these people settled on the east coast of the Adriatic, for they were independent, industrious, and good sailors.

Venetian historians relate that all these people, as if moved unanimously, sent deputies to Venice to implore help against the pirates, offering to give themselves to the republic if she would deliver them. There are very few people who will give themselves away, and there are no magistrates who have the right of giving away people. This deputation, if it be true that it took place, did more honour to the politics of those who received it than to the wisdom of those who sent it. However that may be, the Venetians hastened to collect a considerable armament to go and help, or overthrow, their neighbours, and the doge, after having received from the bishop’s hands the standard of the republic, went to sea in the spring of the year 997.[d]

[Sidenote: [997-998 A.D.]]

It was on the 18th of May, 997, that the fleet left its moorings, and pointed its prows toward Grado, where it was met by the patriarch Vitali Sanudo, followed by a solemn procession of the clergy and the people. From Grado the whole armament sailed successively to Pirano, Omago, Emonia, Parenzo, Rovigno, Pola, Zara, Spalatro, Trau, Ossero, Arbo, Veglia, Sebenigo, Belgrado, Lenigrado, and Curzola. All those places appeared to welcome the Venetians as their deliverers, and each readily took an oath of allegiance to its suzerain. At Zara, where the merchants of Venice had formed their earliest settlements, and where the people exhibited peculiar fervour, Orseolo spent six days; and during that period arrived a deputation from Dircislaus, king of Croatia, whose alarm at the successful progress of the expedition rendered him desirous of conciliating the republic. The ambassadors of Dircislaus were dismissed without an audience. At Trau, he found the brother of the king, Cresimir by name, who implored his Serenity to aid him in establishing a joint claim to the throne of his father, from which he stated that he had been recently driven by the perfidy of Dircislaus. Orseolo entertained the matter favourably, and even consented shortly afterward (998), as a mark of his friendship and esteem, as well as on grounds of commercial policy, to the union of his own daughter, Hicela, with the son of the Croatian prince.

But the campaign was far from being at a close. A great impediment was still to be conquered. Lesina, the principal member of the Illyrican group, and the chief resort of the pirates, still remained untaken; and the doge, having sent ten galleys from Trau to ravage the coast of Narenta, hastened with the main squadron to accomplish that object. Orseolo entered the harbour without hesitation; and the usual summons to surrender having produced no effect, an order was given to commence the assault. The Lesinese shrank in dismay from the tempest of stones and darts which poured without cessation over their walls; the escarpment was scaled; a tower was invested and taken; the Venetians entered the town; and, after a brief interval of license and confusion, the arrival of the doge restored order. The judicious clemency of Orseolo conciliated the esteem of the vanquished; and such was the powerful effect which the reduction of a place, generally thought to be unassailable, produced on its neighbours that, so soon as she heard of the fall of Lesina, the little republic of Ragusa despatched an embassy to offer her allegiance to the conqueror. At the same time, the ten galleys which had undertaken to lay waste the coast of Narenta, rejoined the main squadron with forty Croatian prizes; and this collateral success, which might be partly instrumental in humiliating King Dircislaus, afforded no slight satisfaction to Orseolo. Having thus, in the course of a few months, completed the object of his expedition, the doge concluded the campaign by dictating terms to the sea-robbers of Narenta; and Orseolo, having returned to the capital, and communicated to the national Arrengo the wonderful success which had attended the arms of the republic, was proclaimed Doge of Venice and Dalmatia (998). The assumption of this lofty appellation seems to have been entirely in harmony with the notions of sovereignty generally prevalent at that epoch. The incomplete conquest and precarious tenure of a few hundred miles of the Dalmatian seaboard sufficed, in the eyes of the Venetians, to constitute Dalmatia itself into an integral portion of their dominions; and it is a circumstance strikingly characteristic of the age, that, in conferring new honours upon the crown, no attempt was made to discriminate between an immense tract of country in which the republic had little or no territorial interest and over a small portion only of which she exercised the barest of feudal rights, and the islands, to which she enjoyed the fullest prescriptive and possessory title.[4][k]

[Sidenote: [998-1198 A.D.]]

In the intervals of peace Orseolo nobly employed his fortune raising public monuments. His father had founded a hospital and rebuilt at his own expense the palace and church of St. Mark. The son had the cathedral of Grado rebuilt, others say the whole city, and many buildings in Heraclea. This magnificence may give an idea to what degree of splendour the great families had arrived. This particular one had only been raised to ducal dignity one generation.[d]

It would have been to expect from the illustrious citizens of Venice more than one could expect from the human race to ask them to forget the glory and splendour of their house, to raise themselves above domestic interests, to work only for the grandeur of the state, and make this generation consist in the equality of all the citizens. The tendency towards aristocracy was for a long time only the result of influence given by riches, office, the remembrance of service rendered, and the respect which attaches itself naturally to an illustrious name. This kind of aristocracy existed long before the legal one. In the political order there was no distinction between nobles and plebeians, and when a foreigner, or a prince even, was admitted to the quality of Venetian, they said to him, “_Civem nostrum creamus_”--“We make you our fellow-citizen.”

But the Venetian nobles had frequented the society of high French barons, and naturally took some of their opinions. On their side the people and the middle class, like the nobles, were also interested. If the very legitimate pride of the aristocrats made them desire power, the good sense of the other party advised them to claim a share. It was from the struggle between these interests that a new form of government arose. One historian has forgotten himself so far as to say that this revolution led things back to “a natural order, in which the lower orders were dominated by the upper.” The language has no more sense than dignity.[c]

PROSPERITY AND POLITICAL REFORMS

[Sidenote: [1198-1202 A.D.]]

The settlement of the Venetian constitution prepared the republic for her brilliant career of commercial and political grandeur; and a new source of wealth and power had meanwhile been unfolding itself in her cupidity and ambition. No circumstance contributed more effectually to her subsequent prosperity than the religious wars of the Europeans for the recovery of the Holy Land from the Mohammedan infidels.

From the epoch of the Peace of Constance to the end of the twelfth century, the history of Venice is occupied by no occurrence which deserves to be recorded. But the first years of the thirteenth century are the most brilliant and glorious in the long annals of the republic. They are filled with the details of a romantic and memorable enterprise--the equipment of a prodigious naval armament, the fearless pursuit of a distant and gigantic adventure, the conquest of an ancient empire, the division of the spoil, and the consummation of commercial grandeur.

In the year 1198, Pope Innocent III, by the preaching of Fulk Neuilly, a French priest, had stirred up the greatest nobles of that kingdom to undertake a crusade for the deliverance of the Holy Sepulchre. Baldwin, count of Flanders, enrolled himself in the same cause, and Boniface, marquis of Montferrat, accepted the command of the confederates. They were warned by the sad experience of former crusades not to attempt the passage to Asia by land; and the maritime states of Italy were the only powers which could furnish shipping for the transport of a numerous army. The barons therefore sent a deputation to Venice to entreat the alliance and negotiate for the assistance of the republic (1201 A.D.).

Henry Dandolo, who, at the extraordinary age of ninety-three, and in almost total blindness, still preserved the vigorous talents and heroism of youth, had been for nine years doge of Venice. He received the illustrious ambassadors with distinction; and after the object of their mission had been regularly laid before the councils of the state, announced to them in the name of the republic the conditions upon which a treaty would be concluded. As the aristocracy had not yet perfected the entire exclusion of the people from a voice in public affairs, the magnitude of the business demanded the solemn assent of the citizens, and a general assembly was convened in the square of St. Mark. There, before the multitude of more than ten thousand persons, the proud nobles of France threw themselves upon their knees to implore the assistance of the commercial republicans in redeeming the sepulchre of Christ. Their tears and eloquence prevailed. The terms of alliance had been left to the dictation of the doge and his counsellors; and for 85,000 marks of silver, less than £200,000 ($1,000,000), and not an unreasonable demand, the republic engaged to transport 4,500 knights with their horses and arms, 9,000 esquires, and 20,000 infantry, to any part of the coasts of the East which the service of God might require, to provision them for nine months, and to escort and aid them with a fleet of fifty galleys; but with the farther conditions that the money should be paid before embarkation, and that whatever conquests might be made, should be equally shared between the barons and the republic.

The Venetians demanded a year of preparation; and before that period had expired, both their fidelity to the engagement and the extent of their resources were conspicuously displayed. But all the crusaders were not equally true to their faith; many whose ardour had cooled, shamefully deserted their vows; others had taken ship for Palestine in Flanders, at Marseilles, and at other Mediterranean ports; and when the army had mustered at Venice, their numbers fell very short of expectation, and they were utterly unable to defray the stipulated cost of the enterprise. Though their noble leaders made a generous sacrifice of their valuables, above 30,000 marks were yet wanted to complete the full payment; and the republic, with true mercantile caution, refused to permit the sailing of the fleet until the amount of the deficiency should have been lodged in their treasury. The timid and the lukewarm already rejoiced that the crusade must be abandoned, when Dandolo suggested an equivalent for the remainder of the debt, by the condition that payment should be deferred if the barons would assist the republic in reducing the city of Zara, which had again revolted, before they pursued the ulterior objects of their voyage.

The citizens of Zara had committed themselves to the sovereignty of the king of Hungary, and the pope forbade the crusaders to attack the Christian subjects of a monarch who had himself assumed the cross. But the desire of honourably discharging their obligations prevailed with the French barons over the fear of papal displeasure, and, after some scruples, the army embarked for Zara (1202 A.D.). The aged doge having obtained permission from the republic to take the cross and lead the fleet, many of the citizens followed his example in ranging themselves under the sacred banner, and the veteran hero sailed with the expedition of nearly five hundred vessels, the most magnificent armament, perhaps, which had ever covered the bosom of the Adriatic. Though Zara was deemed in that age one of the strongest cities in the world, the inhabitants were terrified or compelled into a surrender after a siege of only five days: their lives were spared, but their houses were pillaged, and their defences razed to the ground.

[It is unnecessary to follow further the remarkable fortunes of the Venetians and crusaders. The story of the capture of Constantinople has already been told in the history of the Eastern Empire and of the Crusades.]

[Sidenote: [1032-1204 A.D.]]

The talents and heroism of the venerable Dandolo had won for the doges of Venice the splendid and accurate title of dukes of three-eighths of the Roman Empire; he died at Constantinople almost immediately after the Latin conquest, full of years and glory; and bequeathed to the republic the difficult office of governing a greater extent of dominion than had ever fallen to the inhabitants of a single city. All the islands of the Ionian, and most of those in the Ægean seas, great part of the shores of continental Greece, many of the ports in the Propontis, or Sea of Marmora, the city of Adrianople, and one-fourth of the eastern capital itself were all embraced in her allotment, and the large and valuable island of Candia was added to her possessions by purchase from the marquis of Montferrat to whom it had been assigned. But the prudence of her senate awakened Venice to a just sense of her own want of intrinsic strength to preserve these immense dependencies; and it was wisely resolved to retain under the public government of the state only the colony at Constantinople, with the island of Candia and those in the Ionian Sea. The subjects of the republic were not required to imitate the forbearance of the senate, and many of the great Venetian families were encouraged, or at least permitted, to found principalities among the ruins of the Eastern Empire, with a reservation of feudal allegiance to their country. In this manner most of the islands of the Ægean Archipelago were granted in fief to ten noble houses of Venice, and continued for several centuries subject to their insular princes.[o]

It was by slow and artfully disguised encroachments that the nobility of Venice succeeded in substituting itself for the civic power, and investing itself with the sovereignty of the republic. During the earlier period, the doge was an elective prince, the limit of whose power was vested in assemblies of the people. It was not till 1032 that he was obliged to consult only a council, formed from amongst the most illustrious citizens, whom he designated.[5] Thence came the name given them of _pregadi_ (invited). The grand council was not formed till 1172, 140 years later, and was from that time the real sovereign of the republic. It was composed of 480 members, named annually on the last day of September by twelve tribunes, or grand electors, of whom two were chosen by each of the six sections of the republic. No more than four members from one family could be named. The same counsellors might be re-elected each year. As it is in the spirit of a corporation to tend always towards an aristocracy, the same persons were habitually re-elected, and when they died their children took their places. The grand council, neither assuming to itself nor granting to the doge the judicial power, gave the first example of the creation of a body of judges, numerous, independent, and irremovable; such, nearly, as was afterwards the parliament of Paris. In 1179, it created the criminal _quarantia_; called, also, the _vecchia quarantia_, to distinguish it from two other bodies of forty judges created in 1229.[d]

OTHER MARITIME CITIES

[Sidenote: [589-1229 A.D.]]

The first magistrate of the republics of Naples, Gaeta, and Amalfi bore likewise the title of doge. These three cities, forgotten by the Greek emperors, and receiving no aid from them, still held by the ties of commerce to Greece. The inhabitants had devoted themselves with ardour to navigation; they trafficked in the Levant, and covered southern Italy with its rich merchandise. The country situated beyond the Tiber had been exposed to fewer invasions than upper Italy. It had not, however, entirely escaped. A Lombard chief entered it in 589, and founded the great duchy of Benevento, which comprehended nearly the whole southern part of the peninsula. This dukedom maintained itself independent of the kingdom of the Lombards at Pavia, and had not been involved in its fall. It defended itself with valour against Charlemagne and his successors, who attempted its conquest; but in 839, at the end of a civil war, it was divided into the three principalities of Benevento, Salerno, and Capua. The Saracens had established colonies, in the year 828, in Sicily, which till then had been subject to the Greek Empire; these Saracens, a few years afterwards, passed into southern Italy. The three republics of Naples, Gaeta, and Amalfi preserved their independence by exciting enmity between the Lombards and Saracens, who equally menaced them; but these barbarians soon sank into the languor produced by the charms of a southern climate. It seemed as if they had no longer courage to risk a life to which so many enjoyments were attached. When they fought, it was with effeminacy; and they hastened the termination of every war to plunge again into the voluptuous ease from which it had roused them. The citizens of the republics had the advantage over them of walls and defiles; and without being braver than the Lombards, maintained their independence against them for six centuries.

[Sidenote: [936-1195 A.D.]]

The republic of Pisa, which vainly sought to save from ruin these first Italian republics of the Middle Ages, was a city which navigation and commerce had enriched. Genoa, which soon became its rival, had escaped the pillage of these northern conquerors, and had preserved a constant intercourse with Constantinople and with Syria, from whence the citizens brought the rich merchandise which they afterwards dispersed throughout Lombardy. The Pisans and Genoese, invigorated by a seafaring life, were accustomed to defend with the sword the merchandise which they conveyed from one extremity to the other of the Mediterranean. They were often in conflict with the Saracens, like them addicted to maritime commerce, to which these last frequently added piracy. The Saracens pillaged Genoa in the year 936. In 1004 they entered a suburb of Pisa, and again invested that city in the year 1011. Their colonies in Sardinia, Corsica, and the Balearic Isles constantly menaced Italy. The Pisans, seconded by the Genoese, in their turn attacked Sardinia, in the year 1015; but completed the conquest only in 1050. They established colonies there, and divided it into fiefs between the most illustrious families of Pisa and Genoa. They also conquered the Balearic Isles from the Saracens, between the years 1114 and 1116.[e] The Pisan fleet of three hundred sail, commanded by the archbishop Pietro Moriconi, attacked the Balearic Isles, where as many as twenty thousand Christians were said to be held captive by the Moslems, and returned loaded with spoil and with a multitude of Christian and Moslem prisoners. The former were set at liberty or ransomed, and among the latter was the last descendant of the reigning dynasty. The chief eunuch, who had governed Majorca, perished in the siege. Immediately afterwards the fourteen years’ war with Genoa broke out. The two republics contested the dominion of the sea, and both claimed supreme power over the islands of Corsica and Sardinia. A papal edict awarding the supremacy of Corsica to the Pisan church proved sufficient cause for the war, which went on from 1118 to 1132. Then Innocent II transferred the supremacy over part of Corsica to the Genoese church, and compensated Pisa by grants in Sardinia and elsewhere. Accordingly, to gratify the pope and the emperor Lothair II, the Pisans entered the Neapolitan territory to combat the Normans. They aided in the vigorous defence of the city of Naples, and twice attacked and pillaged Amalfi, in 1135 and 1137, with such effect that the town never regained its prosperity. It has been said that the copy of the _Pandects_ then taken by the Pisans from Amalfi was the first known to them, but in fact they were already acquainted with those laws. The war with Genoa never came to a real end. Even after the retaking of Jerusalem by the Moslems (1187), the Pisans and Genoese again met in conflict in the East, and performed many deeds of valour. They were always ready to come to blows, and gave still more signal proofs of their enmity during the Sicilian war in behalf of the emperor Henry VI. There could be no lasting peace between these rival powers until the one or the other should be crushed.[l]

When, towards the end of the eleventh century, the western world took up the dispute with the Saracens for the sepulchre of Jesus Christ, Venice, Pisa, and Genoa had already reached a high point of commercial power; these three cities had more vessels on the Mediterranean than the whole of Christendom besides. They seconded the crusaders with enthusiasm. They provisioned them when arrived off the coast of Syria, and kept up their communication with the West. The Venetians assert that they sent a fleet of two hundred vessels, in the year 1099, to second the First Crusade. The Pisans affirm that their archbishop Daimbert, who was afterwards patriarch of Jerusalem, passed into the East with one hundred and twenty vessels. The Genoese claim only twenty-eight galleys and six vessels; but all concurred with equal zeal in the conquest of the Holy Land; and the three maritime republics obtained important privileges, which they preserved as long as the kingdom of Jerusalem lasted.[e]

THE LOMBARD CITIES AND THEIR ALLIES

[Sidenote: [1010-1125 A.D.]]

In the early days the Italian towns were only as yet larger groups of dwelling-houses, without political significance, such as every place acquires by more abundant and brisker communications, and by being the seat of some sort of government administration; in short, when it becomes the centre of a certain district. The three principal classes of inhabitants were as a rule: (1) free Lombards; (2) tributary Romans; (3) serfs and villeins. There were as yet not sufficient noble retainers in the individual towns to form a class by themselves.

Among the Franks this state seemingly subsisted for some time, but the foundations upon which it rested were undermined. The tributary Romans became gradually either entirely free or really serfs; many of the free Lombards took knightly service with the kings of the Franks or their counts, and many more with bishops and abbots. Thus there grew up new class distinctions, and once more the population seemed to fall into three distinct classes: (1) noble retainers; (2) freemen; (3) bondsmen, villeins, and the remainder of the tributaries who tended more and more to become absorbed by the other classes. Simultaneously, however, there arose another kind of distinction. It gradually came to pass when the royal prerogative had become subjected to many changes, and could at best be regarded but as an uncertain protection, that the bishops counted far more noble retainers and serfs than the kings; and as the bishops at the same time exercised feudal authority over their retainers and villeins, a feeling of hostility sprang up between the nobles, freemen, and tributaries under the king’s official magistrates (the counts and gastalds) and the nobles, serfs, and tributaries under the bishop’s magistrates (the _vogts_). What had been established under the Franks then developed more fully under the Germans. The bishops also acquired authority over the freemen, exercising the same power as the counts, and began to assemble in one township men possessing quite different rights, but having the same claims to distinction, _i.e._, noble retainers and freemen of knightly descent. The serfs and villeins forming the third class still remained for a long time politically minors.

A great deal of friction between the noble retainers and the freemen of knightly descent was caused by their having to hold their lands in fief, to enter into the feudal service of the bishops, or to renounce knightly honours. Sanguinary fights took place without either party gaining any decisive victory; compacts were made between the different classes of citizens, and this was the origin of the common municipal constitution. From that time the importance of the aldermen as representatives of all the classes grew apace, whereas that of the episcopal magistrates sensibly decreased. This representative administration had no sooner been founded than it was again upset by a rupture between the spiritual and temporal powers; the strife was no longer between counts and bishops, or between the freemen and the retainers of the church, but between the king and the pope. The spiritual power became divided against itself; many bishops took up the cause of the king, and others that of the pope. The same thing happened with the temporal power, for there were as many princes and lords fighting against as for the king.

The representative administration of the cities was not attacked, but that body found it difficult to decide by which party they were to be governed, for each party, that of the king as well as that of the pope, presently had its own bishops in each city and its adherents among both nobles and freemen. The bishops were the only losers in this struggle, for in each faction they strove to outdo each other in the matter of liberality and in conceding their rights in order to win and retain more partisans. The victorious party, however, when the struggle was at an end, maintained the established representative administration, enriched by the many liberties and rights conceded by the bishops. The aldermen found their sphere of action greatly enlarged and enriched, so that henceforth they assumed a position at the head of the municipality as councillors and magistrates. This government had developed on similar lines in all the cities, although the victory had remained sometimes with the papal and sometimes with the royal party; therefore the strife had been banished from the cities only to break out finally in the country, which became divided into two factions, at the head of which were the rival cities of Pavia and Milan.

At first Pavia belonged to the papal faction and Milan to the royal; but when the former realised that she needed more temporal assistance than the pope could afford her, and the latter city found that the king’s protection brought with it interference in internal affairs, which in a city of Milan’s power and wealth was soon felt to be oppressive, both parties changed badges, and Pavia followed the royal faction, while Milan flaunted the papal colours.[j]

[Sidenote: [1125-1155 A.D.]]

This change of parties occurred during the reigns of Lothair II and Conrad III, who, from the year 1125 to 1152, placed in opposition the two houses of Guelfs and Ghibellines in Germany. Milan, having during the first half of the twelfth century experienced some resistance from the towns of Lodi and Como, razed the former, dispersing the inhabitants in open villages, and obliged the latter to destroy its fortifications. Cremona and Novara adhered to the party of Pavia; Tortona, Crema, Bergamo, Brescia, Piacenza, and Parma to that of Milan. Among the towns of Piedmont, Turin took the lead, and disputed the authority of the counts of Savoy, who called themselves imperial vicars in that country. Montferrat continued to have its marquises. They were among the few great feudatories who had survived the civil wars; but the towns and provinces were not in subjection to them, and Asti was more powerful than they were.

The family of the Veronese marquises, on the contrary, who from the time of the Lombard kings had to defend the frontier against the Germans, were extinct; and the great cities of Verona, Padua, Vicenza, Treviso, and Mantua, nearly equal in power, maintained their independence. Bologna held the first rank among the towns south of the Po, and had become equally formidable on the one side to Modena and Reggio, and on the other to Ferrara, Ravenna, Imola, Faenza, Forlì, and Rimini. Tuscany, which had also had its powerful marquises, saw their family become extinct with the countess Matilda, the contemporary and friend of Gregory VII. Florence had since risen in power, destroyed Fiesole, and, without exercising dominion over the neighbouring towns of Pistoia, Arezzo, San Miniato, and Volterra, or the more distant towns of Lucca, Cortona, Perugia, and Siena, was considered the head of the Tuscan League; and the more so that Pisa at this period thought only of her maritime expeditions. The family of the dukes of Spoleto had also become extinct, and the towns of Umbria regained their freedom; but their situation in the mountains prevented them from rising into importance. In fine, Rome herself indulged the same spirit of independence. An eloquent monk, the disciple of Abelard, who had made himself known throughout Europe, preached in 1139 a twofold reform in the religious and political orders; the name borne by him was Arnold of Brescia. He spoke to men of the ancient liberty which was their right, of the abuses which disfigured the church. Driven out of Italy by Pope Innocent II and the Council of Lateran, he took refuge in Switzerland, and taught the town of Zurich to frame a free constitution; but in the year 1143 he was recalled to Rome, and that city again heard the words, “Roman Republic,” “Roman senate,” “comitia of the people.” The pope branded his opinions with the name of “heresy of the politicians”; and Arnold of Brescia, having been given up to him by the emperor, was burned alive before the gate of the castle of St. Angelo, in the year 1155. But his precepts survived and the love of liberty in Rome did not perish with him. In southern Italy, the conquests of the Normans had finally smothered the spirit of liberty; and the town of Aquileia in the Abruzzi alone preserved any republican privileges.[b]

FLORENCE

[Sidenote: [800-1207 A.D.]]

It appears that of all the Italian republics of the Middle Ages, the one which was to play the principal part in the history of civilisation was the last to appear on the world’s stage. Florence was still a mere unknown parish when Pisa, her neighbour, already covered the Mediterranean with her vessels; and while Milan and the towns of Lombardy were engaged in deadly fight against the empire, the Tuscan city stood perfectly aloof from the struggle of the two parties, which were dividing not only Italy, but the whole of Europe, and, from the Alps to the Sicilian straits, covering the peninsula with ruins and deluging it in blood.

Florence long had pursued her career in silence, growing rich by trade, increasing in size by the reduction of her neighbours, becoming powerful by the submission of the great, and she was neither more nor less powerful than all those small political centres which contributed so largely in bringing to light Italy’s exhaustless fertility in great men. In fact, it was owing to this large number of small states, to this multitude of diverse interests, that so many men were enabled to distinguish themselves, and found a scene for their activity, and that the curious medley which forms the Italian character was able to develop freely, and to bear its finest fruits. In this respect all the small towns of Italy are deeply interesting; to the historian as sources of valuable research, to the philosopher as subjects of observation of human nature. It is, however, natural that the state which exercised its influence for the longest period, in the most powerful manner, and over the widest extent of territory, should also attract the greatest attention from posterity. Great interest is always felt in the childhood of a famous man, even when it does not actually present so many curious details as the childhood of many men who have remained unknown; we like to see his first gropings, and in the features of some childish whim we imagine that we can perceive the plan of the great acts which illustrated his riper age.

In the same way the first symptoms of political life in Athens or in Rome have always attracted attention, while certain towns of Hellas or Latium, though probably far more developed in those obscure times, only interest us as far as they enable us to find traces of the road which these great centres of civilisation pursued when they first arose. So, in the dearth which exists of authentic documents on the origin and early centuries of Florence, in order to obtain a just and complete idea of what she was before the beginning of the thirteenth century, we are often obliged to illuminate the facts which have come down to us by the knowledge we have of Lucca, Pisa, Fiesole, Siena, Arezzo, and other towns of Tuscany.

The chroniclers, by surrounding the origin of Florence with numerous fables, have singularly concealed the real facts. However, it is probable that they were right in assigning it a Roman origin, and it is evident that in this first period and later on, Florence passed, as did the other states, through the successive phases which were experienced by the entire peninsula. Growing under the protection of the imperial eagle, and submitting to the power of the bishop, like her sister-states, like them, also, she knew how, both to free herself from episcopal dominion and to oppose the empire. Although somewhat late, she followed the example of all the great towns of Italy in subduing the small surrounding towns and the country nobles, so as to increase her territory; she profited, but to a less extent than Venice, Genoa, and Pisa, by the commercial advantages of the Crusades. After undergoing the influence of the German invasion, she supported, more than any other state, the reaction of communal tendency against the Germanic tendency which was everywhere felt during the twelfth century. When, later on, tyranny (in the Greek sense of the word) confiscated democratic liberty, in every town, in favour of a powerful family or a superior individual, Florence produced the most accomplished type of the Italian tyrant.

However, turning back to the earliest historical facts proved by unimpeachable witnesses, we see by the very importance which the chroniclers attach to the traditions of Charlemagne, the second founder of their city, how significant for the whole of Italy, and especially for Florence, was the coronation of this emperor in Rome. They attribute the new wall round the city to him also, as well as the establishment of consular government; and their instinct was correct; for if these acts were not the direct work of Charlemagne, they certainly were the consequences of his work. The re-establishment of the Roman Empire must infallibly be followed by the restoration of the ancient municipalities, and in general by the whole of the Roman legislation, wherever it has been destroyed by the invasion. The town was henceforth governed by a marquis of Tuscany, as lieutenant of the empire, which was again re-established by Otto the Great, who appears to have particularly favoured the town of Florence.

At this period the solemn power of the imperial name was so great that the city, whose rule already extended over a great part of the surrounding country, and especially over the important town of Fiesole, would never have dared to oppose the emperor, if the disputes which arose towards the end of the eleventh century between the empire and the holy see, had not offered it the long-wished-for opportunity to escape from the marquisate of Tuscany. The majority of Florentines, for there were already two parties in the city, enthusiastically espoused the cause of the pope and the countess Matilda against the emperor Henry IV. A long siege could not shatter their fidelity. It is from this period, probably, that the establishment of consular government in Florence dates, which the old chroniclers attributed to Charlemagne, and which the other towns of Italy had long since adopted from Rome. This early constitution, which united justice and government in the hands of two, later on of four, and still later of six consuls, aided by a council of one hundred senators, was maintained almost intact till 1207, when the example of the other republics was followed and a podesta was intrusted with the jurisdiction. Although all the free inhabitants co-operated in the election of the magistrates, these latter were only chosen from among the urban nobility, composed indeed of ancient middle-class families who had long been wealthy, and of the descendants of Germanic immigrants.

_Social Conditions_

The population of Florence was then formed, as was that of the greater number of Italian towns, of two very distinct classes--the patricians and the people; the former included the descendants of noble families and the burghers free since the conquest; the latter included all the other inhabitants of the town, the ancient tributaries of the bishop or the clients of the nobles whom they had freed. The descendants of these freed men, and also those of immigrants from other towns, were born free, earned much by the luxury of the upper classes, and were soon as rich as the patricians. So, later on, they desired, and were able to obtain for their special functionaries, entrance into the posts of the republic, and thus it was that popular revolutions took place in the thirteenth century. Before this time, the people were satisfied to assist in the election of magistrates without dreaming of claiming the honour for themselves. As for the nobles of the surrounding country who refused to submit to the government, they were pursued, their lands devastated and burned, even their fortresses were destroyed, so that in a short time Florence had sole rule over the neighbouring land. The entire century during which this constitution was in force, is filled with the sound of strife with the nobles. At one time the young republic subdued the rock of Fiesole, a veritable retreat of brigands; then the powerful family of the Buondelmonti, of Monte Buono. This family, so famous and so fatal to Florentine happiness, possessed a small castle about five miles distant from the town which, commanding the Siena road, enabled them to impose a toll upon all merchandise in its passage. Florence complained of this imposition, and being refused redress destroyed their castle, obliging them without further spoliation to become Florentine citizens; others followed; and so they continued adding bit after bit to their possessions by money, conquest, or persuasion, but still maintaining a close alliance with Pisa, which at this period, although the most commercial and military nation of Tuscany, was rivalled by Florence in ambition and warlike propensities if not in power and celebrity.

_Municipal Wars_

[Sidenote: [1144-1146 A.D.]]

In the year 1144 all Tuscany was in arms, partly on account of these republics, but more from those dissensions that spring from mutual jealousy in rising states commencing the race of ambition and of blood, who league for war as a pastime, and regard the butchery of their fellow-creatures as legitimate amusement. Lucca and Pisa were in constant collision, and the friendship of the former with Siena, of the latter with Florence, occasioned a quadruple war between those states, each jealous of the other’s ascendency; the necessities of commerce, untouched as yet by its rivalry, kept peace between Pisa and Florence; and the distance of the other two diminished their points of contact and consequently their chances of quarrel.

Ulric, marquis or vice-marquis of Tuscany and imperial vicar, commanded the Florentine army, with which he advanced to the gates of Siena and burned a suburb; the Sienese demanded assistance from Lucca, who answered by declaring war on Florence, not only to draw the enemy from her ally, but also in aid of Count Guido Guerra of Modigliana, a Ghibelline chief and confederate of Siena, who had already suffered from Florentine aggression. Pisa on the other hand took the field at the request of the Florentines and Count Guido’s possessions were devastated by these combined forces while the Sienese, covertly advancing on Florence, fell into an ambuscade and were nearly all made prisoners. More bitter was the struggle between Pisa and Lucca where no exchange of prisoners took place, no ransom was accepted, and where a strong personal feeling of hatred pervaded every class; perpetual incarceration was with them the consequence of defeat, and we are told by the bishop of Fresingen that several years afterwards he saw “the Lucchese officers, wasted, squalid, and miserable, in the dungeons of Pisa, drawing tears of compassion from every passing stranger.”

At this period, however, not Tuscany alone but all northern Italy seems to have been in similar confusion from similar causes; from jealousy, faction, and that ever boisterous passage between comparative bondage and complete independence, for Conrad with full employment in Germany was forced to leave Italy uncontrolled, a prey to angry passions, unsettled institutions, and political anarchy. The particular causes of discord between the Tuscan cities are now difficult to trace; vicinity, by multiplying the points of contact, increased the chances and was always a source of dissension; but the peculiar enmity between Siena and Florence, according to the Sienese historians, originated in the assistance given to Henry IV during the siege of 1081; an injury in itself not easily forgiven, but which, fostered as it was by national emulation, lasted until long after the ruin of both republics.

[Sidenote: [1146-1204 A.D.]]

Elated by success and jealous of the counts Guidi by whose possessions she was nearly surrounded, Florence assembled an army in February, 1146, and besieged Monte Croce, a _castello_ about nine miles distant which belonged to that family; but confidence in superiority of force created carelessness of conduct, and Count Guido aided by the people of Arezzo defeated them with great loss. For a time they were quieted by this sharp military lesson, and a crusade the following year under the emperor Conrad III carried off some of their more enterprising and devout spirits to Palestine; amongst them Dante’s ancestor Cacciaguida, who, after having been knighted by Conrad, fell in battle against the infidels.[e]

So while the towns of Lombardy were leaguing together boldly to defend the most cherished interests of independence, the little Tuscan republic was only busy extending her territory, and increasing at the expense of her neighbours, she was already the cunning Florence of the fifteenth century, for whom egoism is the fundamental principle of politics. However, it will not do to be unjust; while fighting and subduing the neighbouring nobles she was also striking a blow at expiring Germanism; it was the municipality triumphing over the members of the feudal body, as at Legnano it triumphed over their chief. The emperor Frederick Barbarossa was well aware of it; and when he came to Florence in 1184, after the Peace of Constance, he listened with interest to the complaints of the nobles, and was well pleased to take from the city the sovereignty which she had violently assumed over the surrounding country, contrary to written law. The Florentines submitted without a murmur to this severe sentence; they knew that they had only to wait and to let the storm pass over. In fact, four years later all the surrounding districts had once more submitted to the burghers.

Ten years later they gained still further advantage by the interregnum which left Germany a prey to the struggles of Otto IV and Philip of Swabia and made Italy “a widow of her king.” It was then that they formed a Guelf league on the model of the Lombard League, and succeeded in subduing that part of the rural nobility which had till then remained independent. The nobles were forced to take an oath of fidelity to the republic and to promise to live peacefully and quietly in the town.

In the midst of these political disturbances the trade and wealth of the city constantly increased. She had till then depended on Pisa, a much richer and more flourishing town, to which she acted, so to say, as bank; after destroying Fiesole, which dominated her completely by its position and hindered her commerce, in the twelfth century, she made a swift step forward and became, first the rival of Siena, later on that of Pisa itself.

[Sidenote: [1138-1239 A.D.]]

This is the period which the Florentines of the following century were in the habit of lauding as the golden age of the republic. The people were still chivalrous and industrious; their manners were simple; dresses were made of coarse material, women were honest and modest; young girls were not married before the age of twenty; and men did not seek “the largest dowry, but the best reputation.”

It would, however, be a great mistake to think that this period of virtuous patriarchal customs, sobriety, and simple living was free from disturbance. This people of Florence was a passionate race who had not yet passed through two centuries of revolution, nor yet experienced the paternal and enervating despotism of the Medicis, nor seen the armies of Charles V. The state of the town was far from being a calm one, and whether, because judiciary affairs had increased to too great an extent, or because the consuls were lacking in requisite authority, it soon became necessary, in order to maintain order and justice in the town, to follow the example of the other republics and call in a foreign podesta.

“Vice increasing in the town,” says Malaspina,[n] “and cases of ill-will and disputes becoming more frequent among the citizens, it was decided in the interest of the republic, in order to facilitate the punishment of crime and to prevent all interception, bribery, or intimidation of justice, that a foreigner of gentle birth should be appointed to the office of podesta for one year, to decide all trials with his judges, to render justice, pronounce condemnation of wealth and body, and to carry out the laws of the republic of Florence. Nevertheless the government of the consuls did not cease, since it kept the direction of all other business, and in this manner the town was governed till the period when the first nation of Florence was formed.”[m]

As the two famous names of Guelf and Ghibelline originated in these two rival houses of Bavaria and Franconia, and by their pernicious influence destroyed Italian prosperity and happiness, a short account of them will not here be irrelevant, especially as they were the principal though remote source of that inveterate disunion which has left the peninsula a constant prey to transalpine ambition. For many ages these factions prowled over Italy like lions seeking whom they could devour; they divided city from city, house from house, family from family; they tore asunder all domestic ties, undermined the dearest affections, and scattered duty, obligations, and humanity to the winds. But these fatal appellations were originally nothing more than the distinctive names of two princely German families whose chiefs were rivals in personal ambition and feudal power. The enmity of one to the popes was reason sufficient for the other’s determined adherence to the holy see; and though mere leaders of a petty feud, their names became from circumstances the rallying cry of two great opinions which, penetrating with the wonted subtilty of religious and political rancour into the smallest branches of national life, affected Italy and Germany to the quick.

When Conrad III was crowned king of Italy, the last four emperors had been chosen from the house of Franconia, a family that received its name from the castle of Waiblingen, or Gueibelinga, situated amongst the Hertfeld Mountains in the diocese of Augsburg and which was called indiscriminately “Salic” or “Gueibelinga.” The rival house, originally of Altdorf, at this period governed Bavaria, and in consequence of several of its princes being named “Guelfo” or “Welf,” both the family and its partisans received that appellation. The two last Henrys of the Ghibelline house of Franconia had long contests with the church, as already related, while the Bavarian Guelfs on the contrary always declared themselves its protectors from the days of Guelf IV, son of Albert Azzo, lord of Este, in 1076. From this branch is descended in a direct line the royal family of England and from his brother Folco the ancient marquises of Este, dukes of Ferrara, Modena, and Reggio.

These things, springing as they did from rivalry and disappointment, sharpened hereditary feuds, while the pontiff’s support of Lothair augmented the Ghibellines’ enmity to holy church; these names were not, however, permanently attached to the two factions until 1210, when Innocent III drove the fourth Otto from the imperial throne and took young Frederick of Sicily under his charge. The pope was then supported by the Ghibellines; but when the same Frederick turned to rend the church, the Guelfic banner again waved over it, and there continued until the final dissolution of these adverse factions, long after the original cause of their quarrels had melted entirely away.[e]

[Sidenote: [476-1250 A.D.]]

Such were the changes which the space of seven centuries from the fall of the Roman Empire accomplished in Italy. Towards the end of the fifth century the social tie, which had made of the empire one body, became dissolved, and was succeeded by no other. The citizen felt nothing for his fellow-citizen; he expected no support from him, and offered him none. He could nowhere invoke protection; he everywhere saw only violence and oppression. Towards the beginning of the twelfth century the citizens of the towns of Italy had as little to expect from abroad. The emperor of the Germans, who called himself their sovereign, was, with his barbarian army, only one enemy more. But universally, where the circle of the same wall formed a common interest, the spirit of association was developed. The citizens promised each other mutual assistance. Courage grew with liberty; and the Italians, no longer oppressed, found at last in themselves their own defence.

When the inhabitants of the cities of Italy associated for their common defence, their first necessity was to guard against the brigandage of the barbarian armies, which invaded their country and treated them as enemies; the second, to protect themselves from the robberies of other barbarians who called themselves their masters. Their united efforts soon insured their safety; in a few years they found themselves rich and powerful; and these same men, whom emperors, prelates, and nobles considered only as freed serfs, perceived that they constituted almost the only public force in Italy. Their self-confidence grew with their power; and the desire of domination succeeded that of independence. Those cities which had accumulated the most wealth, whose walls enclosed the greatest population, attempted, from the first half of the twelfth century, to secure by force of arms the obedience of such of the neighbouring towns as did not appear sufficiently strong to resist them. These greater cities had no intention to strip the smaller of their liberty; their sole purpose was to force them into a perpetual alliance, so as to share their good or evil fortune, and always place their armed force under the standard of the dominant city.[b]

FOOTNOTES

[3] [“The archbishop of Milan was the most powerful prince when there was not an Italian emperor or king of Italy in the north of the peninsula. Milan owes almost all her glory to her archbishops.”--MILMAN, _History of Latin Christianity_.]

[4] [The famous and splendid ceremony of the espousal of the doge with the Adriatic was instituted to symbolise this conquest.]

[5] The following is a list of the doges of Venice from about the beginning of the eighth to the close of the thirteenth centuries: