THE MILITARY ORDERS.—The principal supporters of the new kingdom at Jerusalem were the orders of knights, in which were united the spirit of chivalry and the spirit of monasticism. To the monastic vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience, they added a fourth vow, which bound them to fight the infidels, and to protect the pilgrims. These military orders acquired great privileges and great wealth. Each of them had its own peculiar apparel, stamped with a cross. The two principal orders were the Knights of St. John, or the Hospitallers, and the Knights Templar. The Hospitallers grew out of a hospital established in the eleventh century near the Holy Sepulcher, for the care of sick or wounded pilgrims. The order, when fully constituted, contained three classes of members,—knights, who were all of noble birth, priests and chaplains, and serving brothers. After the loss of the Holy Land, the island of Rhodes was given up to them. This they held until 1522, when they were driven out by the Turks, and received from the emperor, Charles V., the island of Malta. The Templars gained high renown for their valor, and, by presents and legacies, acquired immense wealth. After the loss of their possessions in Palestine, most of their members took up their abode in Cyprus: from there many of them went to France. Not a few of them became addicted to violent and profligate ways. They were charged, whether truly or falsely, with unbelief, and Oriental superstitions caught up in the East from their enemies. These accusations, coupled with a desire to get their property, led to their suppression by Philip V. in the beginning of the fourteenth century. A third order was that of Teutonic Knights, founded at Jerusalem about 1128. In the next century they subjugated the heathen Wends in Prussia (1226-1283).
WELFS AND WAIBLINGS.—The emperor Lothar died on a journey back from Italy in 1137. Henry the Proud, of the house of Welf, to whom he had given the imperial insignia, hoped to be his successor, and hesitated to recognize Conrad III. (1137-1152) of the house of Hohenstaufen, who was chosen. Conrad required him to give up Saxony, for the reason that one prince could not govern two duchies. When he refused, Bavaria, also, was taken from him, and given to Leopold, margrave of Austria. This led to war, in which the king, as usual, was strongly supported by the cities. Henry the Proud left a young son, known later as Henry the Lion. Count Welf, the brother of Henry the Proud, kept up the war in Bavaria. He was besieged in Weinsberg. During the siege, it is said that his followers shouted "Welf" as a war-cry, while the besiegers shouted "Waiblings,"—Waiblingen being the birthplace of Frederick, duke of Swabia, brother of Conrad. These names, corrupted into Guelphs and Ghibellines by the Italians, were afterwards attached to the two great parties,—the supporters, respectively, of the popes and the emperors. Henry the Lion afterwards received Saxony; and the mark of Brandenburg was given in lieu of it to Albert the Bear.
Welf I. was a powerful nobleman, who received from Henry IV. the fief of Bavaria. When Henry V died, the natural heirs of the extinct Franconian line were his nephews, Frederick of Hohenstaufen, duke of Swabia, and Conrad. But the Saxons supported the wealthy Lothar, who was chosen emperor, and won over to his side Henry the Proud, grandson of Welf I., to whom Lothar gave his daughter in marriage, and gave, also, the dukedom of Saxony, in addition to his dukedom of Bavaria. In these events lay the roots of the long rivalship between the Welfs and the Hohenstaufens. Henry the Lion, as stated above, was the son of Henry the Proud.
GENEALOGY OF THE WELFS.
WELF, Duke of Bavaria, 1070-1101.
|
+—HENRY the Black, Duke of Bavaria, 1120-1126.
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+—Judith, m. to Frederic, Duke of Swabia (d. 1147),
| the son of Agnes, who was the daughter of HENRY IV. FREDERIC I
| (Barbarossa) was the son of Judith, and this Frederic of Swabia.
| The Swabian dukes were called Hohenstaufens, from a
| castle on Mount Staufen in Wurtemberg.
|
+—HENRY the Proud,
Duke of Bavaria 1126, of Saxony 1137; deprived, 1138.
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+—HENRY the Lion, m.
Matilda, daughter of Henry II of England.
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+—HENRY the Young, d. 1227.
|
+—OTTO IV, d. 1218.
SECOND CRUSADE (1147-1149).—The preacher of the second Crusade was St. Bernard, whose saintly life and moving eloquence produced a great effect. Louis VII. of France and Conrad III. were the leaders. The expedition was attended by a series of calamities. The design of recapturing Edessa from Noureddin, the sultan of Aleppo, was given up. The siege of Damascus failed (1148). Conrad returned home with broken health. Soon after, Damascus fell into the hands of Noureddin, who was a brave and upright leader. Through one of his lieutenants, he conquered Egypt. After his death, Saladin, who sprung from one of the tribes of Kurds, and was in his service, rose to power there, and set aside the Fatimite caliphate (1171). He was not less renowned for his culture and magnanimity than for his valor. Saladin united under his scepter all the lands from Cairo to Aleppo. In the battle at Ramla, not far from Ascalon (1178), the crusaders gained their last notable victory over this antagonist, which served to prolong for some years the existence of the kingdom of Jerusalem. Afterwards victory was on his side: the crusaders were overthrown in the fatal battle of Tiberias, and Jerusalem was taken by him (1187). Thus the Latin kingdom fell. The Saracen conqueror was much more humane after success than the Christian warriors had been in like circumstances.
FREDERICK BARBAROSSA.—Frederick I.—Barbarossa, or Redbeard, he was called in Italy—(1152-1190) was one of the grand figures of the Middle Ages. He was thirty-one years of age at his election as emperor, and had already been with the crusaders to the Holy Land. In him great strength of understanding and a capacity for large undertakings were combined with a taste for letters and art. His aim was to bring back to the empire the strength and dignity which had belonged to it under the Saxon and Franconian emperors. The rulers of Bohemia and Poland he obliged to swear fealty as vassals. He put down private war, and restored order in Germany. The palatinate on the Rhine, formerly a part of Franconia, he gave to his half-brother Conrad, who founded Heidelberg (1155).
STRUGGLE WITH THE LOMABARD CITIES.—The principal conflict of Frederick I. was in Italy, where he endeavored to restore the imperial supremacy over the Lombard cities, which had grown prosperous and freedom-loving, and were bent on managing their own municipal affairs. They had thrown off the rule of bishops and counts. The burghers of Milan, the principal town, had obliged the neighboring nobles and cities to form a league with them. The smaller cities, as Como and Lodi, preferred the emperor's control to being subject to Milan. Pavia clung to the empire. But most of the cities prized their independence and republican administration. The Pope and the emperor were soon at variance, and the cities naturally looked to the pontiff for sympathy and leadership. In 1158 Frederick again crossed the Alps, bent on establishing the imperial jurisdiction as it had stood in the days of Charlemagne. The study of the Roman law was now pursued with enthusiasm at Bologna and Padua. At a great assembly in the Roncalian Fields, Frederick caused the prerogatives of the empire to be defined according to the terms of the civil law. The emperor was proclaimed as "lord of the world,"—dominus mundi. In the room of the consuls, a Podesta was appointed as the chief officer in each city, to represent his authority. Milan, which had submitted, revolted, but, after a siege of two years, was forced to surrender, and was destroyed, at the emperor's command, by the inhabitants of the neighboring cities (1162). In 1159 Alexander III. was elected Pope by a majority of the cardinals. Victor IV. was chosen by the imperial party, and was recognized at a council convened by Frederick at Pavia. On the death of Victor, another anti-pope, Paschal III., was elected in his place; and, on the fourth visit of Frederick to Italy (1166-1168), he conducted Paschal to Rome. In 1167 the cities of Northern Italy, which maintained their cause with invincible spirit, united in the Lombard League. They built the strongly fortified place, Alessandria,—named after the Pope,—and took possession of the passes of the Alps. The emperor, whose army was nearly destroyed by a pestilence at Rome, escaped, with no little difficulty and danger, to Germany.
FREDERICK I. AND POPE ALEXANDER III.—For nearly seven years Frederick remained in Germany. He put an end to a violent feud which had been raging between Henry the Lion and his enemies (1168). In 1174 he was ready to resume his great Italian enterprise. But he did not succeed in taking Alessandria. All his efforts to induce Henry the Lion to come to his support failed. He was consequently defeated in the battle of Legnano (1176). The extraordinary abilities and indefatigable energy of the great emperor had been exerted in the vain effort, as he himself now perceived it to be, to break down the resistance of a free people to a system which they felt to be an obsolete despotism. A reconciliation took place at Venice in 1177 between Pope Alexander III. and Frederick, in which the latter virtually gave up the plan which he had so long struggled to realize. It was a day of triumph for the Papacy. At Constance, in 1183, a treaty was made with the Lombard cities, in which their self-government was substantially conceded, with the right to fortify themselves, and to levy armies, and to extend the bounds of their confederacy. The overlordship of the emperor was recognized. There was to be an imperial judge in each town, to whom appeals in the most important causes might be made. The "regalian rights" to forage, food, and lodging for the emperor's army, when within their territory, were reduced to a definite form. The cities grew stronger from their newly gained freedom; yet the loss of imperial restraint was, on some occasions, an evil.
FREDERICK IN GERMANY.—After his return to Germany, Frederick deprived Henry the Lion of his lands; and when Henry craved his forgiveness at the Diet of Erfurt in 1181, he was allowed to retain Brunswick and Lüneburg. He was to live for three years, with his wife and child, at the court of his father-in-law, Henry II., king of England. His son William, born there, is the ancestor of the present royal family in England. In 1184 the emperor, in honor of his sons, King Henry, and Frederick, duke of Swabia, who were of age to become knights, celebrated at Mentz a magnificent festival, where a great throng of attendants was gathered from far and near. In a last and peaceful visit to Italy, his son Henry was married to Constance, the daughter of Roger II., and the heiress of the Norman kingdom of Lower Italy and Sicily.