FREDERICK BARBAROSSA IN ITALY
The long war of the investitures, between the Franconian emperors and the popes, had given the first impulse to the ambition of the Lombard cities for alliance; as general interests were involved, as it was a question of distant operations and common danger, the cities felt the necessity of alliances and of an active correspondence, which soon extended from one extremity of Italy to the other. The smaller towns soon found that this general policy was beyond their means, and that the great cities, in which commerce and wealth had accumulated knowledge, and which alone received the communications of the pope or of the emperor, naturally placed themselves at the head of the league formed in their provinces, either for the empire or for the church. These two leagues were not yet known in Italy by the names of Guelf and Ghibelline, which in Germany had been the war-cry of the two parties at the battle of Winsberg, fought on the 21st of December, 1140, and which had previously distinguished, the former the dukes of Saxony and Bavaria, devoted to the pope, the latter, the emperors of the house of Franconia. But although these two names, which seem since to have become exclusively Italian, had not yet been adopted in Italy, the hereditary affection respectively for the two parties already divided the minds of the people for more than a century, and faction became to each a second country, often served by them with not less heroism and devotion than their native city.[b]
[1152-1155 A.D.]
Such was the state of Italy, when the Germanic diet, assembled at Frankfort in 1152, conferred the crown on Frederick Barbarossa, duke of Swabia, and of the house of Hohenstaufen. This prince was nephew to Conrad III, whom he succeeded; he was allied to the two houses of the Guelfs and Ghibellines, which had contended with each other for the empire, and was regarded, with good reason, by the Germans as their most distinguished chief. Frederick Barbarossa was not only brave, but understood the art of war, at least so far as it could be understood in an age so barbarous. He made himself beloved by the soldiers, at the same time that he subjected them to a discipline which others had not yet thought of establishing. He held his word sacred; he abhorred gratuitous cruelty, although the shedding of human blood had in general nothing revolting in it to a prince of the Middle Ages; but the prerogatives of his crown appeared to him sacred rights, which from pride, and even from conscience, he was disposed to preserve and extend. The Italians he considered in a state of revolt against the imperial throne and the German nation, and he believed it to be his first duty to reduce them to subjection.
A Venetian Soldier, Twelfth Century
(Based on Vicellio)
Frederick Barbarossa, accordingly, in the month of October, 1154, entered Italy with a powerful German army, by the valley of Trent. He proposed to himself not only receiving there the crowns of Italy and the empire and reducing to obedience subjects who appeared to him to forget their duty to their sovereign, but also to punish in particular the Milanese for their arrogance, to redress the complaints which the citizens of Pavia and Cremona had brought against them, and to oblige Milan to render to the towns of Lodi and Como, which it had dismantled, all the privileges which Milan itself enjoyed. On arriving at Roncaglia, where the diets of the kingdom of Italy were held, he was assailed by complaints from the bishop and nobles against the towns, as well as by complaints against the Milanese from the consuls of Pavia, of Cremona, of Como, and of Lodi; while those of Crema, of Brescia, of Piacenza, of Asti and Tortona vindicated them. Before giving judgment on the differences submitted to his decision, Frederick announced his intention of judging for himself the state of the country, by visiting in person Piedmont and Montferrat. Having to pass through the Milanese territory on his way to Novara, he commanded the consuls of Milan to supply him with provisions on the road. The towns acknowledged that they owed the emperors upon their journeys the dues designated by the feudal words “foderum, parata, mansionaticum” (forage, food, and lodging); but the Germans, retarded in their march by heavy and continued rain, took two days to reach a stage which the Milanese supposed they would reach in one; provisions of course failed; and the Germans avenged themselves on the unhappy inhabitants by pillaging and burning the villages wherever sufficient rations were not found.
Frederick treated with kindness the towns of Novara and Turin, but those of Chieri and Asti had been denounced to him as entertaining the same sentiments as Milan; the inhabitants fled at his approach, and he plundered and burned their deserted houses. Arrived next before Tortona, he ordered the inhabitants to renounce their alliance with the Milanese; but they, trusting to the strength of the upper town, into which they had retreated, while Frederick occupied the lower part, had the courage to refuse. The Germans began the siege of Tortona on the 13th of February, 1155. They could not prevent the entrance of two hundred Milanese, to assist in its defence. For sixty-two days did this brave people resist the attacks of the formidable army of Frederick, the numbers of which had been increased by the armed force of Pavia, and the other Ghibelline towns. The want of water compelled them at last to surrender; and the emperor allowed them to retire to Milan, taking only the few effects which each individual could carry away. Everything else was given up to the pillage of the soldiers, and the houses became a prey to the flames. The Milanese received with respect these martyrs of liberty, and every opulent house gave shelter and hospitality to some of the unhappy inhabitants of Tortona. Frederick meanwhile placed on his head, in the temple of Pavia, the iron crown of the kings of Lombardy, and began his march on Rome, to receive there the golden crown of the empire.
An Italian Soldier of the Twelfth Century
But the Germans who accompanied the emperor, notwithstanding the ardour with which they had undertaken this distant expedition, began to grow tired of so long an absence from their home. The license extended to their pillage and debauchery no longer appeared to them a sufficient compensation for tedious marches and the dangers of war. They pressed the emperor to advance towards Rome, and to avoid all quarrel with the great towns by which they passed, although almost all refused to admit them within their walls—providing subsistence and lodging for them in the suburbs only. The impossibility of maintaining discipline in a rapacious army, which beheld for the first time the unknown riches of commerce and the arts; the difficulty of avoiding quarrels between two nations, neither of which understood the language of the other, perhaps justified this precaution. Frederick thus passed by Piacenza, Parma, Bologna, and Florence. He was not received even into Rome; his troops occupied what was styled the Leonine city, or the suburb built round the Vatican; he was there crowned by the pope, Adrian IV, while his army was obliged to repel the Romans, who advanced by the bridge of St. Angelo and the Borgo[6] of Trastevere to disturb the ceremony. Frederick withdrew from Rome the following day; conducting his army into the mountains to avoid the great heat of summer. The citizens of Spoleto, not having supplied with sufficient haste the provisions he demanded, he attacked, took, and burned their city; sickness, however, began to thin the ranks of his soldiers; many also deserted, to embark at Ancona. Frederick, with a weakened army, directed his march on Germany by the valleys of the Tyrol. The citizens of Verona, who would not admit the Germans within their walls, constructed for him a bridge of boats on the Adige, which he hastily passed over, but had hardly gained the opposite bank, when enormous pieces of wood, carried down by the impetuosity of the current, struck and destroyed the bridge. Frederick had no doubt that the Lombards had laid this snare for him, and flattered themselves with the breaking of the bridge whilst he should be in the act of passing over; but he was no longer sufficiently strong to avenge himself.
[1155-1158 A.D.]
The emperor at length returned into Germany with his barbarian soldiers. He everywhere on his passage spread havoc and desolation; the line by which he marched through the Milanese territory was marked by fire; the villages of Rosate, Trecale, and Galiata, the towns of Chieri, Asti, Tortona, and Spoleto were burned. But whilst he thus proved his barbarism, he also proved his weakness. He did not dare to attack the stronger and more populous cities, which congratulated themselves on having shut their gates, and refused submission to him. Thus a year’s campaign sufficed to destroy one of the most formidable armies that Germany had ever poured into Italy; and the example of ancient times encouraged the belief that it would be long before the emperor could again put the Germans in motion. The Milanese felicitated themselves on having preserved their liberty by their courage and patriotism. Their treasury was indeed empty; but the zeal of their opulent citizens, who knew no other luxury than that of serving their country, soon replenished it. These men, who poured their wealth into the treasury of the republic, contented themselves with black bread, and cloaks of coarse stuff. At the command of their consuls, they left Milan to join their fellow-citizens in rebuilding, with their own hands, the walls and houses of Tortona, Rosate, Trecale, Galiata, and other towns, which had suffered in the contest for the common cause. They next attacked the cities of Pavia, Cremona, and Novara, which had embraced the party of the emperor, and subjected them to humiliating conditions; while they drew closer their bonds of alliance with the towns of Brescia and Piacenza, which had declared for liberty.
But Frederick had more power over Germany than any of his predecessors; he was regarded there as the restorer of the rights of the empire and of the German nation. He obtained credit for reducing Italy from what was called a state of anarchy and revolt, to order and obedience. His vassals accordingly flocked with eagerness to his standard, when he summoned them at the feast of Pentecost, 1158, to compel the submission of Italy. The battalions of Germany entered Lombardy at the same time by all the passes of the Alps. Their approach to Brescia inspired the inhabitants with so much terror, that they immediately renounced their alliance with Milan, and paid down a large sum of money for their ransom. The Milanese, on the contrary, prepared themselves for resistance. They had either destroyed or fortified all the bridges of the Adda, flattering themselves that this river would suffice to stop the progress of the emperor; but a body of German cavalry dashed boldly into the stream, and, swimming across the river, gained in safety the opposite bank. They then made themselves masters of the bridge of Cassano, and the whole army entered into the Milanese territory. Frederick, following the course of the Adda, made choice of a situation about four miles from the ruins of the former Lodi.[7] Here he ordered the people of Lodi to rebuild their town, which would in future secure to him the passage of the Adda. He summoned thither also the militias of Pavia and Cremona, with those of the other towns of Lombardy, which their jealousy of Milan had attached to the Ghibelline party; and it was not till after they had joined him that he encamped, on the 8th of August, 1158, before Milan.
His engines of war, however, were insufficient to beat down the walls of so strong and large a town; and he resolved to reduce the Milanese by famine. He seized their granaries, burned their stacks of corn, mowed down the autumnal harvests, and announced his resolution not to raise the siege till the Milanese had returned to their duty. The few nobles, however, who had preserved their independence in Lombardy, proceeded to the camp of the emperor. One of them, the count of Blandrate, who had before given proofs of his attachment to the town of Milan, offered himself as a mediator, was accepted, and obtained terms not unfavourable to the Milanese. They engaged to pay a tribute to Frederick of nine thousand marks of silver, to restore to him his regal rights, and to the towns of Lodi and Como their independence. On their side, they were dispensed from opening their gates to the emperor. They preserved the right of electing their consuls, and included in their pacification their allies of Tortona and Crema. This treaty was signed the 7th of September, 1158.
An Italian Nobleman, Thirteenth Century
Frederick, in granting an honourable capitulation to revolted subjects, whom he had brought back to their obedience, had no intention of renouncing the rights of his empire. He considered that he had preserved, untouched, the legislative authority of the diet of his kingdom of Italy. The Milanese, on the contrary, regarded their treaty as definitive; and were both astonished and indignant when Frederick, having assembled, towards the 11th of November following, the placita or diets of the kingdom at Roncaglia, promulgated by this diet a constitution which overthrew their most precious rights. It took the administration of justice from the hands of the consuls of towns, to place it in those of a single judge, and a foreigner, chosen by the emperor, bearing the name of podesta; it fixed the limits of the regal rights, giving them much more importance than had been contemplated by the Milanese when they agreed to acknowledge them; it deprived cities, as well as the other members of the empire, of the right of making private war; it changed the boundaries of territories appertaining to towns, and in particular took from Milan the little town of Monza, and the counties of Seprio and of Martesana, which the inhabitants had always regarded as their own property.
[1158-1161 A.D.]
Just motives had made the emperor and the diet consider these innovations necessary for the public peace and prosperity; but the Milanese regarded them only as perfidious violations of the treaty. When the podesta of the emperor arrived at Milan to take possession of the tribunal, he was sent contemptuously away. The Milanese flew to arms; and making every effort to repossess the different passes of the Adda, prepared to defend themselves behind this barrier. Frederick, on his side, assembled a new diet of the kingdom of Italy at Bologna, in the spring of 1159, and placed Milan under the ban of the empire.
The emperor did not yet attempt to reduce the Milanese by a regular siege. His army was neither sufficiently numerous to invest so large a town, nor his engines of war of sufficient force to make a breach in such strong walls; but he proclaimed his determination to employ all his power, as monarch of Germany and Italy, to ruin that rebellious town. The Milanese, accordingly, soon saw their corn mowed down, their autumn harvests destroyed, their vine stocks cut, the trees which covered their country either cut down or barked, their canals of irrigation broken; but the generous citizens of this new republic did not allow themselves to be discouraged by the superior force of such an enemy, or by the inevitable issue of such a contest. They saw clearly that they must perish; but it would be for the honour and the liberty of Italy; they were resolved to leave a great example to their countrymen, and to future generations.
The Siege of Crema
The people of Crema had remained faithful to the Milanese in their good and evil fortune; but the siege of that town presented fewer difficulties to the emperor than the siege of Milan. Crema was of small extent, and could be invested on every side; it was also more accessible to the engines of war, though surrounded by a double wall and a ditch filled with water. The Cremonese began the siege on the 4th of July, 1159; and on the 10th, Frederick arrived to direct it in person.[c]
The emperor regarded the inhabitants of the town as revolted subjects and he probably expected to have little difficulty in accomplishing their overthrow. Contrary to his expectations, however, the Cremascans proved not only brave but stubborn, and despite his best efforts they held out against him for about six months. The siege gave rise to many picturesque incidents and furnished typical illustrations of the methods of warfare of the time. Even before the first attack Frederick sought to frighten the Cremascans into submission by the barbarous execution of several of their citizens who had previously been sent to him as hostages. Nothing daunted, the inhabitants of the besieged city retaliated in kind; moreover, they gave proof of their intrepidity by sallying forth and attempting to defeat a portion of the besieging army in open combat. Their small numbers rendered this an act of hardihood, but it evidenced the spirit in which they were prepared to repel the assault.
Frederick, on his part, began the construction of the usual machines employed against walled cities. The chief of these consisted of great towers called cats, which were tower-like structures provided with battering-rams and with grappling-irons for tearing down walls. When these were ready, a road-bed was made for them by filling in the outer ditch with some two hundred casks and two hundred car-loads of gravel. Over this improvised causeway the largest cat was slowly rolled preparatory to the assault.
The Cremascans marshalled themselves on the walls opposite this point of attack and assailed the cat with great stones hurled by catapults, and with showers of blazing arrows which had been dipped in a composition of oil, pitch, lard, and sulphur. These burning arrows were cut from the walls of the cat with scythes, but it was with difficulty that the flames could be extinguished, while the enemy’s projectiles threatened the complete destruction of the invading engine before it could be brought within close range of the walls.
Further enraged at the heroic resistance, Frederick resorted to one of those measures of barbarity which seem almost incredible when rehearsed to modern ears. He brought forth the Cremascan prisoners whom he had previously spared, bound them in chains and suspended them by ropes beneath their arms from the front of the cat. The Cremascans beheld with horror their friends and relatives thus used to shield the foe; but at length the needs of the many were held by the consul, Giovanni de Medici, to outweigh the interests of the unfortunate few, and the missiles of defence were again brought to bear upon the cat. Nine of the unfortunate Cremascans dangling from the cat were killed, and others were frightfully injured; but the occupants of the structure also suffered to such an extent that they were glad presently to retire and for the moment to acknowledge themselves beaten.
A German Officer, Twelfth Century
Where the invaders had failed by open attack, they in the end succeeded through the treachery of a Cremascan, one Marchisio, a mechanic of great ingenuity, whose skill had largely aided the besieged garrison in repulsing the enemy’s attack. Frederick found a way to approach this man and through bribery to gain him over. The importance laid upon this incident by the chroniclers of the siege illustrates the value that attached to individual effort in the warfare of those times. The reader of Roman history will recall how Archimedes long saved Syracuse from destruction by the ingenuity with which he contrived means to repel the assaults of the Romans. Warfare had but little changed in the interval of about fourteen hundred years—had, indeed, but little changed since the early days of the Egyptians and Babylonians—and the presence of one inventive mind might seemingly suffice to turn the tide for or against the besieged city. So now Marchisio, as the story goes, was able to point out at once to Frederick the inadequacy of his method of attack. He caused the emperor to abandon his cats, and to build in their place gigantic towers, the largest being, it is said, about one hundred cubits in height, and having attached to one of its upper stories a bridge no less than forty-six cubits long, which would enable its occupants to reach the wall of a city while their machine was yet at a considerable distance. The tower itself was further guarded from missiles by brass and iron plates.
In due course of time, these new machines being in readiness, a fresh attack was begun. The largest tower approached within grappling distance of the walls; the invaders poured over the bridge, despite the shower of missiles that assailed them, and accomplished heroic deeds on the walls where they grappled with the Cremascans. Tradition usually preserves the names of one or two among the hardy warriors who figure in such a scene as this. In the present case the chroniclers have loved to record the deeds of one Berthold von Arach, represented as a giant in strength, who was said to have sprung down from the wall with a small band of followers and recklessly to have invaded the city itself. After performing the usual deeds of prowess, he at last succumbed to superior numbers, and the conqueror proudly affixed his scalp with its waving hair as a trophy to his own helmet.
Another warrior who was said to have distinguished himself on that day was Otto, count palatine of Bavaria. He it was whose efforts were held to have turned the tide of battle against the Cremascans on the wall and to have decided the fate of the day; though Conrad, his brother, who with him led the assault, performed equal deeds of daring and barely escaped with his life.
At last the Cremascans were driven to abandon their outer wall. On the morrow, despairing of further defence, they offered to capitulate, throwing themselves on the mercy of Frederick. “Sad is ever the lot of the vanquished,” cried the despairing consul as he approached the emperor. “Oh, sire, the hand of the Almighty is heavy upon us. We surrender and throw ourselves upon your mercy. But if our prayers can touch your heart let us not be delivered into the hands of the Cremonese, whose many false accusations have wrought our ruin.” The emperor accepted the capitulation, and extended more merciful terms than his attack in the earlier part of the siege might have led one to expect. He permitted the Cremascans with their wives and children to depart, as also the militias of Brescia and Milan; the Cremascans taking with them so much as they could carry, their allies going empty handed.[a]
“The surrender of Crema,” says Testa,[d] “took place on January 27th, 1160. When that unhappy multitude, which amounted to more than twenty thousand persons, came forth, some with a few household goods, some with little children in their arms, some carrying or supporting the women, the infirm, and the wounded, it is said that, to avoid the quarters of the Cremonese, they went close by the pavilion of the emperor; and that he, at the sight of so much sorrow and distress, became thoughtful and sad; until at last, seeing in the crowd an old and infirm Cremascan who, having come to a difficult place, could hardly get any further, moved by irresistible compassion, he went up to him, offered him his hand, and helped him to go forward with the rest. So strongly can the most opposite affections prevail in turn over the same heart!”
[1161-1163 A.D.]
The siege of Crema exhausted the patience of the German army. At this period, soldiers were unaccustomed to such protracted expeditions. When they had accomplished their feudal service, they considered they had a right to return home. The greater number, accordingly, departed; but Frederick, with immovable constancy, declared he would remain, with the Italians only of the Ghibelline towns, to make war against the Milanese; and placing himself at the head of the militias of Pavia, Cremona, and Novara, carried on the war a whole year, during which his sole object was to destroy the harvests, and prevent the entrance of any kind of provision into Milan. In the month of June, 1161, a new army arrived from Germany to his aid. His subjects began to feel ashamed of having abandoned their monarch in a foreign country, amongst a people whom they accused of perfidy and rebellion. They returned with redoubled animosity, which was soon manifested by ferocious deeds; they tortured and put to death every peasant whom they surprised carrying provisions of any kind into Milan.
The rich citizens of the republic had aided the government in making large magazines, which were already in part exhausted; an accidental fire having consumed the remainder, hunger triumphed over courage and the love of liberty. For three entire years had the Milanese, since they had been placed under the ban of the empire, supported this unequal contest; when, in the beginning of March, 1162, they were reduced to surrender at discretion. In deep despair they yielded up their arms and colours, and awaited the orders of the emperor. Frederick, harsh and haughty, was not ferocious; never had he put to death by the executioner rebels or enemies whom he had vanquished. He suffered nearly a month to elapse before he pronounced his final determination; perhaps to augment the anxiety of the subdued, perhaps, also, to pacify his own wrath, which he at last vented on walls and inanimate objects, while he pardoned man. He ordered the town 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 Ghibelline cities, and gave them orders to raze 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; even in those which had shown most attachment to the emperor. 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. The delegates of the emperor also (for he himself had returned to his German dominions), the podestas whom he had established in every town, soon made those Lombards who had fought with him feel only shame and regret at having lent their aid to rivet his yoke on their own necks. All the privileges of the nation were violated; justice was sacrificed to party interest. Taxes continually augmenting had increased sixfold; and hardly a third part of the produce of the land remained to the cultivator. The Italians were universally in a state of suffering and humiliation; tyranny at length reached even their consciences.