The pontiff, however, who now began to take exclusively the name of pope, had more than once successfully defended Rome with his spiritual arms when temporal ones had failed. When, in the year 717, an iconoclast, or enemy of images, filled the throne of Constantinople, the popes under the pretence of heresy rejected his authority altogether; a municipality, at the head of which were a senate and consuls, then governed Rome nearly as an independent state; the Greeks, occupied with their own dissensions, seemed to forget it; and Rome owed to this forgetfulness fifty years of a sort of liberty. The Romans found once more a faint image of their past glory; sometimes even the title of Roman Republic was revived. They approved, notwithstanding, of Pope Stephen II conferring on the princes of the Franks the dignity of patricians, in order to transfer to them the authority which the Greek magistrate exercised in their city in the name of the emperor of Constantinople; and the people gladly acquiesced when, in the year 800, Leo III crowned Charlemagne as augustus, and restorer of the Western Empire. From that period Rome became once more the capital of the empire. At Rome the chiefs of the empire were henceforth to receive the golden crown from the hands of the pope, after having received the silver one of the kingdom of Germany at Aachen, and the iron crown of Lombardy at Milan.
Great wealth and much feudal power were, by the gratitude of the emperors, attached to the see of Rome. The papacy became the highest object of ambition to the whole sacerdotal order; and, in an age of violence and anarchy, barons notorious for their robberies, and young libertines recommended only by the favour of some Roman ladies, not unfrequently filled the pontifical chair. The other bishops selected were often no better. The German emperors, on arriving at Rome, were sometimes obliged to put an end to such a scandal, and choose among the competitors, or depose a pope who put all Christendom to the blush. Henry III obliged the people to renounce the right which they had hitherto exercised, and so greatly abused, to take part in the election of popes. He, himself, named four successively, whom he chose from among the most learned and the most pious of the clergy of Italy and Germany; and thus powerfully seconded the spirit of reform which began to animate the church from the eleventh century.
THE DISUNITED MUNICIPALITIES
[1046-1122 A.D.]
The war of investitures, which lasted more than sixty years, accomplished the dissolution of every tie between the different members of the kingdom of Italy. Civil wars have at least this advantage—that they force the rulers of the people to consult the wishes of their subjects, oblige them to gain affections which constitute their strength, and to compensate, by the granting of new privileges, the services which they require. The prelates, nobles, and cities of Italy obeyed, some the emperor, others the pope; not from a blind fear, but from choice, from affection, from conscience, according as the political or religious sentiment was predominant in each. The war was general, but everywhere waged with the national forces. Every city armed its militia, which, headed by the magistrates, attacked the neighbouring nobles or towns of a contrary party. While each city imagined it was fighting either for the pope or the emperor, it was habitually impelled exclusively by its own sentiments: every town considered itself as a whole, as an independent state, which had its own allies and enemies; each citizen felt an ardent patriotism, not for the kingdom of Italy, or for the empire, but for his own city.
At the period when either kings or emperors had granted to towns the right of raising fortifications, that of assembling the citizens at the sound of a great bell, to concert together the means of their common defence, had been also conceded. This meeting of all the men of the state capable of bearing arms was called a parliament. It assembled in the great square, and elected annually two consuls, charged with the administration of justice at home, and the command of the army abroad. The militia of every city was divided into separate bodies, according to local partitions, each led by a gonfalonière, or standard-bearer. They fought on foot, and assembled round the carroccio, a heavy car drawn by oxen, and covered with the flags and armorial bearings of the city. A high pole rose in the middle of this car, bearing the colours and a Christ, which seemed to bless the army, with both arms extended. A priest said daily mass at an altar placed in the front of the car. The trumpeters of the community, seated on the back part, sounded the charge and the retreat. It was Heribert, archbishop of Milan,[3] contemporary of Conrad the Salian, who invented this car in imitation of the ark of alliance, and caused it to be adopted at Milan. All the free cities of Italy followed the example: this sacred car, entrusted to the guardianship of the militia, gave them weight and confidence. The nobles who committed themselves in the civil wars, and were obliged to have recourse to the protection of towns, where they had been admitted into the first order of citizens, formed the only cavalry.
The parliament, which named the consuls, appointed also a secret council, called a consilio di credenza, to assist the government, composed of a few members taken from each division; besides a grand council of the people, who prepared the decisions to be submitted to the parliament. The consilio di credenza was, at the same time, charged with the administration of the finances, consisting chiefly of entrance duties collected at the gates of the city, and voluntary contributions asked of the citizens in moments of danger. As industry had rapidly increased, and had preceded luxury, as domestic life was sober, and the produce of labour considerable, wealth had greatly augmented. The citizens allowed themselves no other use of their riches than that of defending or embellishing their country. It was from the year 900 to the year 1200 that the most prodigious works were undertaken and accomplished by the towns of Italy. They began by surrounding themselves with thick walls, ditches, towers, and counter guards at the gates; immense works, which a patriotism ready for every sacrifice could alone accomplish. The maritime towns at the same time constructed their ports, quays, canals, and custom-houses, which served also as vast magazines for commerce. Every city built public palaces for the signoria, or municipal magistrates, and prisons; and constructed also temples, which to this day fill us with admiration by their grandeur and magnificence. These three regenerating centuries gave an impulse to architecture, which soon awakened the other fine arts.
[568-1200 A.D.]
The republican spirit which now fermented in every city, and gave to each of them constitutions so wise, magistrates so zealous, and citizens so patriotic and so capable of great achievements, had found in Italy itself the models which had contributed to its formation. The war of investitures gave wing to this universal spirit of liberty and patriotism in all the municipalities of Lombardy, in Piedmont, Venetia, Romagna, and Tuscany. But there existed already in Italy other free cities, of which the experience had been sufficiently long to prove that a petty people finds, in its complete union and devotion to the common cause, a strength often wanting in great states. The free cities which flourished in the eleventh century rose from the ruins of the Western Empire; as those in Italy which preceded them in the career of liberty rose from the ruins of the empire of the East.
When the Greeks resigned to the Lombards Italy, which a few years before they had conquered from the Ostrogoths, they still preserved several isolated ports and fortified places along the coast. Venice, at the extremity of the Adriatic; Ravenna, at the south of the mouth of the Po; Genoa, at the foot of the Ligurian Mountains; Pisa, towards the mouths of the Arno; Rome, Gaeta, Naples, Amalfi, Bari, were either never conquered by the Lombards, or were in subjection too short a time to have lost their ancient walls and the habit of guarding them. These cities served as the refuge of Roman civilisation. All those who had preserved any fortune, independence of mind, or hatred of oppression, assembled in them to concert the means of resisting the insolence of their barbarian masters. The Grecian Empire maintained itself at Constantinople in all its ancient pride; but, with oriental apathy, it regarded these remains as still representing its province of Italy, while it did nothing for their defence. From time to time, a duke, an exarch, a patrician, a catapan, or other magistrate, was sent, with a title announcing the highest pretensions, but unaccompanied by any real force. The citizens of these towns demanded money and soldiers to repair and defend their fortifications; whilst the emperors, on the contrary, demanded that the money and soldiers of Italy should be sent to Constantinople. After some disputes, the Greek government found it prudent to abandon the question, and shut its eyes to the establishment of a liberty it despised, but which perhaps might be useful in the defence of these distant possessions; finally, the magistrates, whom these towns themselves nominated, became the acknowledged depositories of the imperial authority. The disposal of their own money and soldiers was allowed them, on condition that nothing should be demanded of the emperors, who were satisfied to see their names at the head of every act, and their image on the coin, without exacting other acts of submission. This policy was not, however, exactly followed with respect to Ravenna, or afterwards to Bari. In these cities the representative of the emperor had fixed his residence with a Greek garrison. Ravenna, as well as the cities appertaining to it, denominated the Pentapolis, was conquered by the Lombards between 720 and 730. Bari became then the capital of the thema of Lombardy, which extended over a great part of Apulia. We have already shown how Rome passed from the Greek to the Western Empire: we suspect, rather than know, that Genoa and Pisa, after having been occupied by the Lombards, preserved their relations with Constantinople. The pallium, or silk flag, presented for some time to the emperors, was considered by them as a sort of tribute; but Venice on the upper sea, Gaeta, Naples, and Amalfi, on the lower, advanced more openly to independence.