Europe in the Middle Ages

by Ierne L. Plunket

Sir John Hawkwood spent most of his time in the service of Florence; and, whatever his cruelty and greed, he does not seem to have been as false as other captains of his time. Indeed, when he died, the Florentines buried him in their cathedral, and raised an effigy in grateful memory of his deeds on behalf of the city.

Returning to the history of Milan and her condottieri, Gian Galeazzo, though timid and unwarlike himself, was a shrewd judge of character, and his captains, while they struck terror into his enemies, remained faithful to himself. When he died in 1402, however, many of them tried to establish independent states; and it was some years before his son, Filippo Maria, could master them and regain control over the greater part of the Duchy.

Even more cowardly than his father, Filippo Maria lived, like Louis XI of France, shut off from the sight of men. Sismondi, the historian, describes him as ‘a strange, dingy, creature, with protruding eyeballs and furtive glance.’ He hated to hear the word ‘death’ mentioned, and for fear of assassination would change his bedroom every night. When news was brought him of defeat he would tremble in the expectation that his condottieri might desert him: when messengers arrived flushed with victory he was scarcely less aghast, believing that the successful general might become his rival.

Such was the penalty paid by despots, save by those of iron nerve, in return for their luxury and power: the dread that the most servile of condottieri might be bribed into a relentless enemy, poison lurk in the seasoned dish or wine-cup, a dagger pierce the strongest mesh of a steel tunic. So night and day was the great Visconti haunted by fear, while his hired armies forced Genoa to acknowledge his suzerainty, and plunged his Duchy into rivalry with Venice along the line of the River Adige.

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Venice

The history of Venice differs in many ways from that of other Italian states. Built on a network of islands that destined her geographically for a great sea-power, she had looked from earliest times not to territorial aggrandisement, but to commercial expansion for the satisfaction of her ambitions. In this way she had avoided the strife of feudal landowners, and even the Guelf and Ghibelline factions that had reduced her neighbours to slavery.

Elsewhere in Italy the names of cities and states are bound up with the histories of mediaeval families; Naples with the quarrels of Hohenstaufen, Angevins, and Aragonese: Rome with the Barons of the Campagna, the Orsini and Colonna: Milan with the Visconti, and later with the Sforza: Florence with the Medici: but in Venice the state was everything, demanding of her sons and daughters not the startling qualities and vices of the successful soldier of fortune, but obedience, self-effacement, and hard work.

The Doge, or Duke, the chief magistrate of Venice, has been compared to a king; but he was in reality merely a president elected for life, and that by a system rendered as complicated as possible in order to prevent wire-pulling. Once chosen and presented to the people with the old formula, ‘This is your Doge an’ it please you!’ the new ruler of the city found himself hedged about by a hundred constitutional checks, that compelled him to act only on the well-considered advice of his six Ducal Councillors, forbade him to raise any of his family to a public office or to divest himself of a rank that he might with years find more burdensome than pleasant. He was also made aware that the respect with which his commands were received was paid not to himself but to his office, and through his office to Venice, a royal mistress before whom even a haughty aristocracy willingly bent the knee.

In early days all important matters in Venice were decided by a General Assembly of the people; but as the population grew, this unwieldy body was replaced by a ‘Grand Council’ of leading citizens. In the early fourteenth century another and still more important change was made, for the ranks of the Grand Council were closed, and only members of those families who had been in the habit of attending its meetings were allowed to do so in future. Thus a privileged aristocracy was created, and the majority of Venetians excluded from any share in their government; but because this government aimed not at the advantage of any particular family but of the whole state, people forgave its despotic character. Even the famous Council of Ten that, like the Court of Star Chamber under the Tudors, had power to seize and examine citizens secretly, in the interests of the state, was admired by the Venetians over whom it exerted its sway, because of its reputation for even-handed justice, that drew no distinctions between the son of a Doge, a merchant, or a beggar. ‘The Venetian Republic’, says a modern writer on mediaeval times, ‘was the one stable element in all North Italy,’ and this condition of political calm was the wonder and admiration of contemporaries.