The Story of Milan

by Ella Noyes

O milanesi, e vincere bisogna.”—Carducci.

After the blows and humiliation which the Milanese Church suffered in the eleventh century from the united attack of Rome and the people, it was no longer able to stem the popular movement towards freedom. Throughout the long civil war the incipient Republic had been developing and gradually limiting, more and more, the domination of the archbishop and the nobles. This process, which was being repeated everywhere in Lombardy, was greatly favoured by the weakness of the Empire during the long minority of Henry IV. The cities, freed from the intervention of a foreign suzerain, were able to shake off to some extent the rule of feudalism. The great war waged later by Gregory VII. and his kindred spirit, the Gran Contessa Matilda, against Henry IV. and the claims of imperialism, promoted, with the power of the Papacy, the freedom of the Communes, and showed in these two great elements of the national life unity of aim, Italy’s best defence against the stranger.

By the end of the eleventh century Milan was, in all its external relations, practically a free city, owning little more than nominal allegiance and a ceremonious reverence to the Emperor, and allying herself now with him, now with his resolute foe Matilda, or defying the one and the other, as it pleased her best. Within the community itself the principle of popular freedom and representation was recognised in the government, and by means of constant insurrections the lower orders had forced the nobles to recognise their rights. The Commune, whose birth historians have dated from the great revolution of 1066 when Lanzone kept Archbishop Ariberto and the nobles in exile for three years, was now in full being. The institution about this time of elective magistrates, whose title of Consuls revived the old Latin tradition of the city, marks the emancipation of the young Republic from the archiepiscopal despotism. But the share of the ordinary citizens in the privileges of this Constitution was still much restricted. The Consuls appear to have been chosen exclusively at first from the higher class, whose hereditary habit of authority fitted them to govern, and under a constitutional form these officials tended to repeat the old aristocratic oligarchy. But the nobles had no longer any legal support in their attempts to tyrannise, and the whole system of government was in a state of flux, and subjected to ceaseless modifications and change by the continual revolts of the people, who, by the simple force of numbers, made their strength felt, and vindicated their growing pretensions to a larger part in the affairs of their city.

The same vitality which had won Milan her own freedom impelled her to the oppression of the weaker communities around her. Her first fulfilment of this tragic law of progress was the destruction of her neighbour, Lodi, a strong and flourishing community, whose rivalry was a constant menace to her own trade and prosperity. There was a long-standing hatred between the two cities. The times lent abundant pretext to the Communes to make war upon one another. The quarrel between Empire and Church entangled them all in its immense web. Each, in embracing the one or the other cause, was guided by its local sympathies and antipathies, and reflected the general strife on a smaller scale in its relations with its neighbours.

In 1111, Milan, ally of the Church, scarcely waiting till Lodi’s protector, the Emperor Henry V., had turned his back for the time on Lombardy, attacked the smaller city in full force, and ruined it to the foundations. The miserable inhabitants, sternly forbidden to rebuild their old homes, made poor little hamlets in which to shelter themselves in the vicinity, and there dragged on a poverty-stricken existence under the oppressive yoke of their conquerors, who jealously deprived them of every means of recovery. Yet the wonderful vitality which animated these young Italian communities preserved Lodi from utter despair, and smouldered in her, ready to burst out in revolt on the first opportunity.

Milan’s next enterprise was the subjugation of Como, which was fast developing into a rich and powerful community, strong in the possession of a lake navy. That city, however, resisted with great vigour, retaliating with frequent success upon her aggressors, and before she was finally subdued the war dragged on for ten years. Nearly all the North Italian cities united with Milan against her, and she was finally captured and burnt down in 1127, and her inhabitants compelled to swear fealty to Milan. During the quarrel for the Empire between Lothair and Conrad, after the death of Henry V., and the preoccupation of each of those monarchs in turn with the affairs of Germany, the great Lombard city pursued her sovereign way unchecked. Pavia, the old royal city, and her chief rival, whose subjugation was to cost Milan yet three centuries of almost ceaseless warfare, now felt, as often before, the strength of her arm, and was compelled to bow to her will in the general councils of Lombardy, and, with powerful Cremona and the rest of North Italy, to follow her lead.

But the aggressive and tyrannic conduct of the great city was preparing for her an awful day of retribution. In 1152, the death of the Emperor Conrad and the election of his nephew, Frederick Barbarossa, opened a new era for Italy. The young monarch, half barbarian, half Paladin, was resolved to restore the power of the Empire in Italy. The first step towards this end was the reduction of the chief vassal, Milan, to the obedience which she had so long forgotten. Her sins against her neighbours gave him a pretext. One day, at a Diet at Constance (1153), two citizens of Lodi, bearing heavy crosses upon their shoulders, to signify the grievous afflictions which Milan had put upon their community, entered the hall, and kneeling before the Emperor, besought his protection and help. Frederick, having listened to their tale, swore to punish their arrogant and usurping foe. He straightway despatched an envoy, named Sicherius, to the Milanese, commanding them to cease from oppressing Lodi. But so little was the distant power of the Empire feared, in comparison with that of the great Lombard city near at hand, that when the two Lodigiani, who had undertaken their mission without the knowledge of their fellow-citizens, returned home, and proclaimed the benevolent intentions of the new monarch, the people were inexpressibly dismayed. With woeful countenances they execrated the ‘most stupid men’ who had brought them into this plight, and when Sicherius appeared shortly after, they entreated him to abandon his journey, lest he should bring the vengeance of Milan upon them. The envoy, however, not daring to disobey the imperial mandate, proceeded on his way, and presented his letters in Milan. The Consuls read them, flung them on the ground, and stamped them under foot, imperial seal and all, with fury and contempt. Sicherius himself escaped with difficulty from their hands. Returning to Lodi, he told his tale, and the unhappy citizens prepared themselves for immediate ruin.

But Milan, having recovered calmness and begun to contemplate her rash act with some trepidation, spared them for the time, and awaited the development of events. This was not slow. Frederick, deeply offended, descended upon Lombardy in the following year, with an enormous host, fully resolved to humble the arrogant Milanese. He held a great Diet at Roncaglia. Hither with the rest of the princes and magnates of Italy came the Consuls of Milan, and offered all the ceremonial tokens of submission and reverence. But the impossibility of reconciling the differences between the monarch and the Republic quickly became evident. Milan utterly refused to release Lodi and Como from her rule. The Emperor soon proceeded to open hostility against the city. But he found his task no light one. Milan’s sister communities were still withheld by fear from lending aid to her foe, whose glittering show of authority they held for transitory and insubstantial. Even Lodi was only persuaded with difficulty to forswear her forced oath of fealty to her oppressor and give credence to Frederick’s promises of protection. Her diffidence was well justified. Frederick contented himself with besieging and destroying Milan’s faithful ally, Tortona, capturing a few outlying castles and laying waste her territory, and then, intent on compelling Pope Hadrian to confirm his election by crowning him in Rome, he passed on southwards (1155). The defiant Milanese immediately proceeded to rebuild Tortona and to wage fierce war with the Pavesi, who, true to their traditions, had given enthusiastic obedience to the new representative of the Empire. Meanwhile Frederick, having received the imperial diadem, made his way back through the eastern parts of Italy, translating his heroic aspirations into a reality of fire and blood and spoliation, and finally, having exhausted his treasury, returned into Germany. His unlucky protégés of Lodi were abandoned to the mercy of their enemies. Their villages were surprised and captured by the Milanese, and the people compelled to flee in the darkness of night. ‘Who, seeing the women stumbling along the way, with their little ones, some in their arms, some clinging to their garments, some falling behind wailing—who seeing them fall into the ditches in the darkness and the rain, would not have been sad and moved to compassion? Who would not have been melted into tears?’ cries the chronicler Morena. Many died from the hardships which they suffered, and the rest took refuge in hamlets and in friendly Cremona. For the second time the Milanese destroyed their homes and razed their city to the ground.

The other allies of the Emperor also suffered the vengeance of the arrogant city. Novara and Pavia and other communes had to lament defeat and devastation. Thus Milan prepared for the new coming of the Emperor, who, all well knew, was but biding his time and gathering strength for the work of punishment. In 1158 he crossed the Alps again, followed by a mighty host of vassals. He proceeded directly against Milan. The citizens, who had fortified themselves during his absence with an immense fosse and huge earthworks which enclosed a much wider circuit than the old walls, calmly awaited his attack. With his company of tributary kings and princes and archbishops, the Emperor sat down with all solemn preparation round the city. To each gate was allotted a prince in command of an army. Seeing the magnificent array and the determined purpose of the invader, Milan’s fickle allies, one and all, sent their forces to join him, anxious to propitiate the stronger party, and not unwilling to strike a blow at their domineering leader. No less than a hundred thousand fighting-men surrounded the city. Milan was confronted with the fate which she had pitilessly inflicted on others. Struck by sudden dismay, or persuaded by treacherous counsels, she had hardly endured the siege for a month before she surrendered and humbled herself to acknowledge the supremacy of the Emperor. Satisfied with her prompt submission, Frederick confined his revenge to the exaction of his full imperial rights, a penalty grievous enough to a community so long accustomed to complete freedom. She was compelled to take the oath of fealty to the Emperor, to restore to him the regalia—which consisted chiefly of the produce of certain taxes—to renounce all pretensions of sovereignty over Lodi and Como, and to accept an imperial legate as her supreme magistrate.

Frederick’s victory was, however, little more than a mockery. Milan’s vitality and spirit of independence were too strong to be so easily subdued. As soon as the Emperor had passed on to another part of Italy, she boldly broke the newly-established peace and assaulted the German garrisons left behind in Lombardy. Her example fired many of the other cities to violate the obedience which they had sworn to the Emperor, and the whole of North Italy was soon in arms again. Too rashly, however, had the Milanese disregarded the nature of him whom they were defying. Vowing to accomplish his purpose without mercy this time, Frederick hastened back. Before attacking Milan again, he encamped before her devoted ally, the small city of Crema, which, after a siege conducted with barbarous ferocity, he captured and burnt. Still delaying his vengeance on the chief offender, he spent two years in laying waste the Milanese territory and capturing her castles, and having effectually destroyed her sources of supply, he sat down once more (1161) before the city marked by his implacable will for destruction.