The historians' history of the world in twenty-five volumes, volume 09

by Unknown

THE LOMBARD CITIES AND THEIR ALLIES

[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.

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[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]