FOOTNOTE:
[10] Storia d'Italia, Cappelletti, pp. 99, 100.
CHAPTER XII
TRIUMPH OF THE PAPACY (1198-1216)
Gregory VII was well named the Julius Cæsar of the Papacy. His great conception of a sovereign ecclesiastical power, supreme over Europe, was destined to be realized. For in the fulness of time came Innocent III, the Augustus Cæsar of the Papacy, who ruled the civilized world of Europe more after the fashion of the old Roman Emperors than any one, except Charlemagne, had done. But in the interval between these two famous Popes, there was a period of reaction in which it looked for a time as if the Empire would plant the Ghibelline flag on the papal citadel. The Popes of this period were men of no marked ability, whereas the young king, Henry VI, had inherited the forceful temper of Barbarossa as well as his theories of Imperial rights, and displayed great vigour, energy, and resolution. Despite the opposition of the Popes, who as feudal suzerains of Sicily were most averse to the alliance, he had married the heiress of the Norman line, and despite the fierce opposition of the Sicilians,—part Arabs, part Greeks, with Italians and Normans mingling in,—he established his authority in the island. Henry was horribly cruel, but he was efficient. He was King of Germany, King of Italy, and King of the Two Sicilies, and had compelled a reluctant Pope to crown him Emperor. He determined to be Emperor in Italy in fact, and to accomplish what his father had failed to do. He undertook to check and suppress the communes by reviving the old feudal system. He reinstated old duchies and counties, and enfeoffed his loyal Germans. Matters looked black for the Guelfs, when, to their great good luck, the fiery young Emperor died, leaving an incompetent widow and a helpless baby (1197). By one of those occurrences, in which Catholics see more than the hand of chance, in the very year after the Emperor's death, a man of political talents of the highest order was elected to the pontifical chair.
In the days of Pope Alexander III, the great antagonist of Frederick Barbarossa, a young nobleman, who took holy orders almost in boyhood, had given early promise of an extraordinary career. This handsome, eloquent, imperious boy, named Lothair, inherited through his father, Thrasmund of the Counts of Segni in Latium, the fierce impetuosity of the Lombards, and through his mother, a Roman lady of high birth (from whom he took his master traits), the tenacity, the adroitness, the political genius of the Romans. He was educated at the universities of Bologna and Paris, where he studied law, theology, and scholastic philosophy. The stormy period of the struggle between Alexander and Barbarossa brought character and talents quickly to the front. Before he was twenty he had distinguished himself, before he was thirty he had been made a cardinal, and at thirty-seven he was elected Pope. According to the practice instituted by the deposed scamp, John XII, of taking a new name, Lothair assumed the title of Innocent III.
Under the guidance of Innocent III (1198-1216), the Papacy attained the full meridian of its glory. When this great Pope, lawyer, theologian, statesman, came to the throne, it was demoralized and weak; before he died, it had set its yoke on the neck of Europe. For the second time in history, orders were issued from Rome to the whole civilized world. A review of his pontificate brings up a panorama of Europe. His task began in Rome. This little city of churches, monasteries, towers, and ruins, which took no pride in great papal affairs, had plunged into one of its fits of republican independence, and, supported by the Emperor, had ousted the Popes from all control. In the course of a few years, by intrigue, tact, and civil war, Innocent got into his own hands the appointment of the senate and of the city governor, and thereby control of the city. He next turned his attention to the Patrimony of St. Peter, that central strip from Rome to Ravenna, given or supposed to have been given by Pippin and Charlemagne to the successors of St. Peter. Here the impetuous Emperor, Henry VI, had seated his German barons, setting up fiefs for them, and reëstablishing the feudal system under the Imperial suzerainty. These German barons were hated by the people. Innocent put himself at the head of the popular discontent, organized a Guelf, almost a national, party, and either drove the Germans out, or forced them to swear allegiance to the Holy See.
In Tuscany also the Guelfs were successful in breaking up the feudal restoration. In fact, since the days of Countess Matilda feudalism had been doomed. The cities had taken advantage of the wars between Papacy and Empire to secure virtual independence; and on Henry's death, with the exception of Ghibelline Pisa, they banded together and agreed never to admit an Imperial governor within their territories. Innocent tried to bring these cities under papal dominion, but they were too independent, and he was obliged to rest content with snapping up scattered portions of Matilda's domains.