For the topography of the duchy our chief authority is Cimarelli, who wrote about two centuries ago, and who begins it about forty years after the flood! It was an absurd whim of Italian mediæval authors, which has prevailed almost till the present day, to wander among the traditional or imaginary cycles of remote ages, extolling the antiquity of their theme at a sacrifice of truth and credibility. Into such extravagances we shall not be tempted. It is enough to say that this district formed part of ancient Umbria, and is in some degree identical with that known to Roman history as Gallia Senonia. When the Western Empire crumbled to pieces, it was broken up into many petty communities, some of which adopted for themselves republican institutions, while others fell into the hands of military adventurers, who transmitted their sway to their descendants in hereditary right, founded upon personal enterprise or the consent of their subjects. After the nominal regimen of the occidental empire had been transferred across the Alps, these new communities and counts often sought from its titular emperor a confirmation of their self-constituted rights. This demand, recognising in name a sovereignty already substantially theirs, was willingly accorded as the basis of a transaction flattering to one party, momentous to the other. But the gradually opening ambition of the Church, and the extension of her temporal rule into Romagna and La Marca by the donations of Pepin, Charlemagne, and the Countess Matilda, introduced another competitor for dominion in these provinces. Her claim was made good, in some cases by a voluntary surrender on the part of men whose piety prevailed over their love of power, in others by force of arms; but by most of the mountain chiefs, and by a few of the free towns, loyalty to the emperor's shadowy authority was used as a pretext for resisting a new element which threatened their own sway. The two rival parties which sprang out of these circumstances came to be distinguished as Guelph and Ghibelline, although their watchwords were often adopted by local or temporary factions.
Many circumstances tended to an extensive establishment of political independence among the small states thus formed in Italy during the Middle Ages. Distance and the unsettled state of the Peninsula having reduced to little more than a name the direct imperial sovereignty of
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"That imperious bird, Whose double beak a double prey devours,"[10] |
the emperors endeavoured to render it still available to their political importance, through the intervention of military vicegerents. To each of these a certain territory was conveyed, generally with the title of count, which they were understood to govern for behoof of the empire. Practically, however, they were nearly secure against any strict accounting for their stewardship, and, provided they attended the imperial banner in the field with a befitting following, paid with tolerable regularity the annual cense, or contribution exigible under their tenure, and did homage as vassals at the imperial coronations, they were allowed to enjoy or abuse unquestioned what rights of sovereignty they thought fit to assume. Nor was there any effective check upon the marauding spirit of conquest, which in that age formed the natural outlet of personal ambition; and these feudatories were left to fight with their neighbours whenever their swords were not called into requisition by their common over-lord: still more were they allowed to deal undisturbed with the people submitted to their jurisdiction, who were of course presumed to endure and obey.
At a period nearly coeval with the formation of these independent fiefs, and much antecedent to the aggregation of civic communities in other parts of Europe, we find the peninsular towns advancing into importance. Their establishment was favoured by the absence of a perfect feudal organisation,[*11] for men exempt from such fetters associated together more readily than those in transalpine lands. The fertility of the soil, and consequent density of population, admitted of cultivators congregating in homes of their own choice; and the malaria generated in that luxurious climate often rendered isolated dwellings insalubrious.[*12] The peasant-hamlets thus formed were quickly augmented by the influx of all who sought protection from external foes or tyrannical masters. The increase of population brought strength; strength gave security; security attracted wealth and numbers; and these united elements created intelligence and public spirit, the only sure basis of liberty. Their first necessity being self-defence, their dwellings were placed in sites of natural strength, and soon girt by walls. The enemies they most dreaded were the adjoining lords, to whose jurisdiction they nominally belonged, but whose claims they were not unfrequently able to meet, either by formidable resistance, or by a charter of privileges, which the emperors, ever willing to curb their barons, were seldom loath to accord. The independence thus wrung from the counts was cemented by the spirit of civic liberty, while the development of municipal strength and privileges gave to citizens a social and political pre-eminence over the rural population, beyond what they attained in countries where feudalism served to link the agricultural class with the central authority. Among men united for a common object, and thrown upon their own resources, the popular element early developed itself. Such communities finding themselves without a master, a position which, when real freedom was unknown, only exposed them to attacks from stronger neighbours, their instinct of self-preservation, ere long, induced attempts at self-government. Townships consequently multiplied, developed themselves into cities, and became republics.
Thus rose the Italian republics, not as is often superficially supposed, in the mercantile cities alone, but in almost every township of Upper Italy. Their constitutional forms not only varied from each other, but were constantly fluctuating, under a desire for novelty, the contests of rival factions, and the influence of external events. Republics they were, in so far as they owned no hereditary head. They believed themselves self-governed, because their ever-recurring revolutions were their own act, or at least were effected by their own instrumentality. But the democratic element seldom long existed in purity.[*13] After the émeute was over, a self-constituted oligarchy, a rich and designing citizen, or an ambitious prelate, often stepped in, to enjoy that power for which the people had fought, until these, roused by some too undisguised tyranny, or by some new caprice, rushed to the piazza, and threw off their masters, leaving it to chance or intrigue to give them new ones.
Lamartine, the eloquent advocate and partially successful hero of popular rights, has admitted that there can be no progress unless "many interests are injured," and that "such transformations are not operated without great resistance, without an infinity of anguish and private misfortune." This, however, is no place to raise the question, how far the benefit of so much political liberty was balanced by the inadequate guarantee of person and property, inherent in such a state of things, or whether the security of domestic peace would have been too dearly purchased by a partial sacrifice of popular power. Yet few who argue these points will deny that whatever influence the republican constitutions of Italy may have had upon the individual happiness of their own citizens, they sowed the seeds of that intelligence, that freedom of thought, that ardent aspiration for the amelioration of mankind, which have ever since so beneficially acted upon European civilisation.
The liberty of Italian republics has been frequently misapprehended, and will disappoint those who seek in it such safeguards of life and property as freedom in its modern sense is understood to afford. Under no form of civilised government were those guarantees more feeble or ineffective than where tyranny of the wayward and irresponsible many was substituted for domination by one. The philosophic Guizot has even condemned these republics as "utterly irreconcilable with security for life (that first ingredient in social existence) and with progress;" as "incapable of developing freedom or extending the scope of institutions;" as tending to "limit their range and concentrate authority in a few individuals." To these conclusions we must demur, and they appear inconsistent with the just tribute he gracefully pays to the intelligence, wealth, and brilliancy of Italian democracies; to the courage, activity, genius, and general prosperity of their denizens. But the argument and inferences of this French historian are easily reconcilable with a political creed largely prevailing among his countrymen, who find in centralisation the triumph of our age, the panacea for social anomalies. To that end has doubtless tended the progress of Europe during the last four centuries, and more especially the present rapid career of events, whether for ultimate weal or woe must be hereafter seen. Yet whilst we hesitate to paint the Ausonian republics in the utopian colours of Sismondi, we cannot adopt the narrow proportions ascribed to them by his less enthusiastic countryman. They filled the Peninsula with separate aims and paltry interests at a time when union was its sole security, yet they trained men to self-government, the first step towards that constitutional freedom without which nationality itself is a questionable boon.
The growth of communities opposed by every interest to the domination of the imperial counts was viewed by these with natural jealousy. But in many instances their alarm proved groundless, as eventually some of them came to swell the very power which they were originally established to limit. Those towns which, from the fault of their site or other incidental circumstances, did not increase in population and wealth, found themselves defenceless in a land where might made right. They therefore often passed, after a more or less feeble resistance, under the sway of some powerful feudatory, or, by voluntary surrender of their unsubstantial independence, sought from his strong arm protection against the grasp of more dreaded neighbours, or redress from the ravages of rival factions which lacerated their internal repose. The title usually assumed with the authority thus acquired was that of Signore, which in the following pages is generally rendered by Lord or Seigneur, there being no term in our idiom adapted to express exactly a jurisdiction at no time known to our constitution, but resembling the "tyranny" of the old Greek commonwealths. The same word is used to designate those citizens or military adventurers who, by force or popular consent, acquired a temporary or enduring mastery in the free towns of the Peninsula. Widely different in its exercise as in its origin from feudal jurisdiction, the power which had thus been more or less derived from the people was for the most part temperately wielded. The territorial baron dwelt among his citizen subjects, conforming to their usages and encouraging their progressive civilisation. His authority was originally personal, but in many instances it was skilfully used as a foundation for family claims, which talent or influence enabled a series of persons of the same race to make good. But, as in Celtic chieftainship, rules of hereditary succession were less attended to than individual fitness for the change. Younger branches often excluded the elder ones, and in some cases, such as the Malatesta,
"The bastard slips of old Romagna's line,"