Frederick, Duke of Swabia, and his brother Conrad, Duke of the Franks, grandsons of Henry IV, were the hereditary and dynastic successors to the throne of Germany, when with the death of Henry V in 1125 the male line of the Franconian dynasty ended. The brothers demanded the assertion of the elective right in the imperial office, and Lothair, Duke of Saxony, was elected emperor of Germany.
Lothair died in 1138. His son-in-law, the Wolf or Welf nobleman, Henry the Proud, Duke of Bavaria, whom Lothair had nominated as his successor, was opposed by the Swabian faction—also known as the Waiblingen faction—from the Franconian village in which the Swabian duke Frederick was born.
The Waiblingen faction elected as emperor of Germany Conrad the Crusader, in whom began the Hohenstaufen dynasty, so named from the Swabian family seat on the lofty Staufen hill rising from the Rems River.
From this event dates the strife of the Welfs and
Waiblingens, who in Italy became known as Guelfs and
Ghibellines. The chief opponents in the long strife that
ensued were the Guelf dukes, Henry the Proud and Henry the
Lion, and the Ghibelline emperor Frederick Barbarossa.
Frederick Barbarossa (Redbeard) succeeded his father Conrad in 1152, and began a reign which was disturbed by wars with his nobility and by expeditions into Italy to subdue the revolts of the city republics of Lombardy against imperial authority. During his first expedition to Italy, 1154-1155, Barbarossa soon crushed all opposition and was crowned Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, at Rome, by Pope Hadrian IV. During his second expedition, 1158-1162, he destroyed the city of Milan and dispersed the inhabitants, who sought refuge in cities with which they had formerly been at enmity. Barbarossa's violence antagonized the Italians, and they combined in the Lombard League to drive him out of Italy. He was excommunicated by Pope Alexander III, who succeeded Hadrian in 1159, and to inaugurate the league a town named Alessandria in honor of the Pope was founded on the Piedmont frontier. In the expedition of 1166-1168 Barbarossa, who had set up an antipope, captured Rome and enthroned Paschal III as pope. His triumph however, was shortened by a pestilence which decimated his troops, and thence began a series of reverses which ended in the ascendency of the Lombard League.
No sooner had Frederick passed through North Italy on the way to his triumph and ultimate humiliation in Rome than the formation was begun of that greater Lombard League which was to prove so terrible and invincible an enemy. Cremona was, according to the Emperor's own account, the prime mover in the matter. Mantua, Bergamo, and Brescia joined with that city, and bound themselves to mutual protection. The league, which was to last for fifty years, was not openly hostile to the Emperor; fidelity to him, indeed, was one of the articles of its constitution. But only such duties and services were to be performed as had been customary in the time of Conrad III; so the cities practically renounced the Roncaglian decrees and declared themselves in revolt.
From the beginning, too, the league took sides with Alexander. But its most daring act of insubordination was the leading back in triumph of the Milanese to the scene of their former glory. The outer walls of Milan had not been entirely levelled to the ground, and the city arose as if by magic from her ruins. Bergamo, Brescia, and Cremona lent her efficient aid in the work of restoration.
A sculpture executed in 1171 by order of the consuls, and showing the return, accompanied by their allies, of the exiles, is still to be seen in Milan, near the Porta Romana. How few of those who look on it to-day realize what that return meant to the long-suffering citizens, and what premonitions of evil to come must have gone with them.
The Lombard League spread rapidly. Lodi, after much demur and after being surrounded by an army, was forced to join it. Piacenza needed no constraint, and Parma yielded after some opposition. Including Milan there were soon eight cities in the confederation. The imperial officials were disavowed and the old consular rule reëstablished, while everywhere Alexandrine bishops replaced those that had been invested by Victor and Paschal.
Returning almost in disgrace from Rome, Frederick took up the struggle against the revolted cities, sending an appeal for reinforcements to Germany. But an attack on Milan proved fruitless, as did also one on Piacenza, and the Emperor was soon forced to intrench himself in Pavia. His position became more and more desperate, the more so as the new archbishop of Milan, Galdinus, unfolded a great activity in favor of Alexander. The Pope named him apostolic legate for the whole of Lombardy, and it was doubtless due to his influence that at this time the Verona coalition formally joined the Lombard League.