GERMANY AND ITALY, 1125–1152[15]
Origin of the Hohenstaufen—Election of Lothair II. and consequent
rivalry of Welf and Weiblingen—The reign of the Priests’
Emperor—Norbert and Albert the Bear—Lothair and Italy—Roger unites
Sicily and Naples—Honorius II.—Schism of Innocent II. and
Anacletus—Lothair’s privilege to the Church—Election of Conrad
III.—His contest with the Guelfs—The Eastward march of German
civilisation—Final triumph of Innocent II.—Roger’s organisation of
the Norman kingdom—Growth of municipal autonomy in northern and
central Italy.
[Sidenote: Origin of the Hohenstaufen.]
Two thousand feet above the sea, on the very summit of one of the
northern outliers of the rugged Swabian Alp that separates the valley of
the upper Neckar from that of the upper Danube, stood the castle of
Hohenstaufen, that gave its name to the most gifted house that ever
ruled over the mediæval Empire. The hereditary land of the family lay
around, and a few miles east, nearer the Neckar valley, lies the village
of Weiblingen from which came the even more famous name of Ghibelline.
The lords of this upland region were true Swabian magnates, who were
gradually brought into greatness by their energy and zeal in supporting
the Empire. In the darkest days of his struggle with the Church, Henry
IV. had no more active or loyal partisan than Frederick of Büren or
Hohenstaufen, whom he married to his daughter Agnes, and upon whom he
conferred the duchy of Swabia. It was after the ancient fashion that the
new Duke of Swabia should find his chief enemy in the Duke of Bavaria.
But besides many a bitter feud with the papalist house of Welf or Guelf,
Frederick had to deal with no less formidable enemies within his own
duchy. The same disintegrating influences that were affecting all
Germany were at work in Swabia. Berthold of Zähringen, a mighty man in
the upper Rhineland, sought to attain the Swabian duchy by zealous
championship of the papal cause. After long fighting with the Staufer,
the lord of Zähringen was able to effect a practical division of the
duchy. In 1097 he was allowed all ducal rights in those Swabian lands
between Rhine and Alps, which in a later age became the centre of the
Swiss confederation. He did not lose even the title of duke, so that
with the Dukes of Zähringen as effective rulers of Upper Swabia, the
Hohenstaufen influence was limited to the north. The first Hohenstaufen
Duke of Swabia had, by the Emperor’s daughter, two sons, whose names
were Frederick and Conrad. [Sidenote: Frederick and Conrad.] These
nephews of Henry V. were always marked out by their uncle as his
successors. They inherited as a matter of course the private possessions
of the Salian house. They had already given proof that they were worthy
of a high destiny. Frederick, the elder, succeeded to his father’s duchy
of Lower Swabia. He was now thirty-five years old, strong, courageous,
ambitious, and well conducted. He had further strengthened his position
by marrying Judith, daughter of Henry the Black, the Guelfic Duke of
Bavaria (died 1126), a match which seemed likely to bridge over the
natural antagonism of the two great southern ‘nations’ of Germany.
Conrad, the younger brother, had obtained from his uncle the duchy of
Franconia. All south Germany might well seem united in support of
Frederick’s succession to the Empire. But the hierarchical party feared
lest the traditional attitude of the Staufer might imperil the triumph
of the Church. The feudal nobles were alarmed lest too vigorous a ruler
might limit their independence. The Saxons as ever were opposed to a
southern Emperor, likely to renew the Salian attack upon their national
liberties.
[Sidenote: The Saxon Duchy and Lothair of Supplinburg.]
Saxony was still almost as vividly contrasted to the rest of Germany as
in the days when it gave Henry the Fowler and Otto the Great to save the
kingdom, that the last degenerate Frankish rulers had brought to the
verge of ruin. Despite many defeats and constant attacks, it was as
free, restless, strong and warlike as ever. In the later years of Henry
V.’s reign a new and vigorous duke had restored and reorganised its
fighting power. Lothair of Supplinburg was the son of that Count Gerhard
who had fallen in battle against Henry IV. on the banks of the Unstrut.
By his marriage with Richenza, niece of Egbert of Meissen, and
granddaughter of Otto of Nordheim, he had acquired the Saxon duchy,
which under his hands had lost nothing of its ancient character. While
the Dukes of Swabia had yielded the jurisdiction of the south to the
Dukes of Zähringen, while Franconia was hopelessly split between rival
houses, Lorraine divided between upper and lower Lorraine, and the
Margraves of the East Mark, who had already the power and were soon to
have the title of Dukes of Austria, had cut deep into the integrity of
the Bavarian duchy, while in all the duchies alike a swarm of counts and
barons had absorbed most of the effective attributes of sovereignty,
Saxony alone maintained its unity and independence. Whatever the
encroachments of the feudal principle, the Saxon duke still headed and
represented a nation proudly conscious of its greatness and fiercely
resentful of all southern influence. Lothair had grown old in long and
doubtful struggles against Henry V., and the Emperor had never ventured
to deprive his unruly subject of his duchy. The Duke had found his
position much strengthened, since the setting-up of a Danish
archbishopric at Lund in 1104 had barred the prospects of the Archbishop
of Bremen obtaining that northern patriarchate that Adalbert had of old
desired, and had in consequence destroyed the importance of the chief
ecclesiastical makeweight to his authority. He was no servile friend of
the hierarchy, but, after the Saxon fashion, he wished well to the
Church, as the best check upon the power of the imperialistic south.
Long experience had made him cautious, moderate, and politic. He was the
strongest noble in Germany.
[Sidenote: Election of Lothair II., 1125.]
In August 1125 the German magnates met together at Mainz to chose their
new king. The antagonism of the nations was so fierce that, while Saxons
and Bavarians encamped on the right bank of the Rhine, Swabians and
Franks took up their quarters on the opposite side of the stream. A
committee of forty princes, ten chosen from each of the four nations,
was set up to conduct the preliminary negotiations, and if possible, to
agree upon a candidate. Frederick of Swabia, Lothair of Saxony, and
Leopold of Austria were all proposed as candidates. The craft of
Adalbert of Mainz, as ever the foe of Henry V. and his house, prevented
the election of the Staufer, by representing to the princes that
Frederick’s choice would be interpreted as a recognition of an
hereditary claim. For the first time since the election of Conrad II.,
the magnates had a free hand, and they could not resist the temptation
to use it. Adalbert isolated Frederick by breaking up his new alliance
with the Guelfs. Conrad of Franconia was away on Crusade. The alliance
of Saxons and Bavarians, backed up by the skill of Adalbert, the zeal of
the Papalists and the enthusiasm of the Rhineland, led to the election
of Lothair.
[Sidenote: The reign of Lothair II., 1125–1138.]
Lothair II. reigned from 1125 to 1138. He was already sixty years old,
at his accession, but he ruled with energy and vigour. By marrying his
only daughter, Gertrude, to Henry the Proud, son of Duke Henry the
Black, he united his fortunes with those of the house of Guelf, and
prepared the way for that union of Saxony and Bavaria which had long
been the Guelfs’ dream. [Sidenote: The Hohenstaufen subdued.] In these
days the struggle of the rival families of Welf and Weiblingen, of Guelf
and Ghibelline, first brought out the famous antagonism that in later
times was extended over the Alps, and grew from a strife of hostile
houses to a warfare of contending principles, and finally degenerated
into the most meaningless faction fight that history has ever witnessed.
Lothair deprived Frederick of Swabia of part of the Salian lands
inherited from Henry V. This was the signal of war between Swabian and
Saxon, Weiblingen and Welf. In 1127 Conrad, the younger Hohenstaufen
brother, was set up as anti-king, and in 1128 crossed the Alps in quest
of the imperial crown and the heritage of the Countess Matilda. Milan
welcomed him, and crowned him with the Iron Crown. But the Pope,
Honorius II., excommunicated him, and he could make no way south of the
Apennines. Meanwhile King Lothair and his son-in-law, Henry the Proud,
took possession of the Rhenish towns that were the Hohenstaufen
strongholds, and devastated Swabia with fire and sword. In 1134
Frederick gave up the contest, and next year Conrad also made his
submission. Lothair showed politic magnanimity and left them their
hereditary possessions.
[Sidenote: Lothair and German Civilisation.]
In a Diet at Bamberg in 1135 Lothair proclaimed a general peace for
Germany. To Saxons and churchmen his reign was a golden age. ‘It is with
right,’ wrote a contemporary annalist, ‘that we call Lothair the father
of his country, for he upheld it strenuously and was always ready to
risk his life for justice’s sake.’ ‘He left behind him,’ said another,
‘such a memory that he will be blessed until the end of time: for in his
days the Church rejoiced in peace, the service of God increased, and
there was plenty in all things.’ He has been accused of sacrificing the
greatness of the Empire for the sake of immediate advantages. But there
is little evidence that he was ever false to the Concordat of Worms, and
it is hard to condemn a prince who, by accepting the ideas of the rights
of the Church that found favour at the time, was able to put down
domestic strife, and allow his people to advance in civilisation and
power.
[Sidenote: The Slavs and the Danes.]
As the true heir of the Ottos, Lothair occupied himself with extending
German political supremacy and culture into Scandinavian and Slavonic
lands. His earlier efforts against the Bohemians were not successful,
but even before peace was restored in Germany, he forced King Niel of
Denmark and his son Magnus to do homage and pay tribute. He turned his
arms against the neighbouring Slavs, and brought back to his obedience
the chiefs of the Wagrians and the Abotrites. Duke Boleslav of Poland
recognised him as his lord, and agreed to hold Pomerania and Rügen as
fiefs of the Empire. Duke Sobeslav of Bohemia and King Bela II. of
Hungary referred their disputes to his arbitration. At his court were
seen the envoys of the Eastern Emperor and of the Venetians. Everywhere
his influence was recognised.
[Sidenote: Norbert and Albert the Bear.]
Lothair busied himself greatly with the revival of religion in his rude
Saxon duchy, and with the extension of Christianity and German political
influence amidst the heathens and half-heathens beyond the limits of his
Empire. Side by side with the soldiers of Albert the Bear, Margrave of
the North Mark, went the Christian missionaries and revivalists. At the
bidding of the Emperor, Norbert left Prémontré, and became Archbishop of
Magdeburg, and founded there a new house that became the second great
centre of Premonstratensian ideas. Through his influence secular canons
were removed from most of the cathedrals of eastern Saxony and the
Marches, and replaced by Premonstratensians. Norbert wished to make
Magdeburg the centre of missions to the East and a patriarchate over
Polish and Wendish Christianity. New bishoprics were founded in Poland
and half-heathen Pomerania, and the Polish Archbishop of Gnesen lost for
a time his metropolitical power. For a time the ideas of Adalbert of
Bremen were again in the ascendant, and the Pope restored the rights of
Bremen over Lund and the churches of Scandinavia. From Bremen Vicelin
brought Christianity to the conquered Wagrians and Abotrites. The
fortress of Siegburg, built by Lothair on the Trave, both assured his
supremacy and protected the famous monastery that grew up at its walls.
[Sidenote: Lothair and Italy.]
The alliance between Lothair and the Papacy did not involve the
abdication of any imperial rights in Italy, but the pressure of German
affairs put Italy somewhat in the background. A great series of changes
was now being brought about in Italy. In the north and centre the
communal revolution was, as we shall soon see, in full progress. In the
south the Norman power was being consolidated, while a fresh schism soon
distracted the Papacy.
[Sidenote: Union of Sicily and Apulia by Roger, Roger II., 1127.]
Since the conquest of Sicily from the Mohammedans by Roger, the youngest
brother of Robert Guiscard, the chief Norman lordship of southern Italy
had been divided between the two branches of the house of Tancred. Roger
ruled Sicily as its count until his death in 1101, when he was succeeded
by his son and namesake, Roger II., a child of four. Meanwhile the stock
of Robert Guiscard bore rule in Calabria and Apulia. Roger, son of
Robert, was Duke of Apulia from his father’s death in 1085 to his own
decease in 1111. His son and successor, William, was a weakling, and
upon his death without issue in 1127, the direct line of Robert became
extinct. Roger of Sicily had now long attained man’s estate, and had
shown his ability and energy in the administration of his county. After
his cousin’s death, he at once got himself accepted as Duke of Apulia
and Calabria by the mass of the Norman barons, and then directed his
resources towards conquering the states of southern Italy that were
still outside the power of his house. With the subjugation of the rival
Norman principality of Capua, and of the republics of Amalfi and Naples,
the unity of the later kingdom of Naples and Sicily was substantially
established.
Since 1124 Lambert, Bishop of Ostia, the Bolognese lawyer who had ended
the Investiture Contest, had held the papal throne, with the title of
Honorius II., but he failed to show the decision of character necessary
to dominate the unruly local factions of Rome, or to resist the
usurpations of the Count of Sicily. [Sidenote: Honorius II., 1124–1130.]
The union of Apulia and Sicily threatened the Italian balance, but
Honorius strove in vain to form a league of Italian princes against
Roger. In 1128 he was forced to accept Roger as lord of Apulia. The
Norman soon scorned the titles of count and duke, which had contented
his predecessors, and soon had an opportunity of gratifying his ambition
to become a king.
[Sidenote: Schism of Innocent II. and Anacletus, 1130.]
On the death of Honorius II., the cardinals with due observance of all
proper forms, chose as their Pope Peter Pierleone, a former monk of
Cluny, who took the name of Anacletus II. But nothing could be less
Cluniac than this Cluniac Pope, the son of a Jewish banker who had
turned Christian, and made a great fortune at Rome during the
Investiture Contest. The house of Pierleone had taken a considerable
place among the great families of Rome, and one of the worst troubles of
Honorius II. had been its violent opposition to his rule. Peter had
shamelessly used his father’s money to buy over the majority, and the
worst and best motives led to the questioning of his election. The
houses of Corsi and Frangipani, who had had the ear of the last Pope,
were dismayed at the triumph of the head of the rival faction. The
strong hierarchical party had no faith in the Jewish usurer’s son.
Accordingly, five cardinals offered the Papacy to Gregory,
Cardinal-deacon of St. Angelo, who took the name of Innocent II., and
was at once hailed as the candidate of the stronger churchmen. But in
Rome he found himself powerless. He fled to Pisa, and thence to Genoa,
Provence, Burgundy, and France. Anacletus meanwhile reigned in Rome and
Italy, where, by granting the title of king to Roger of Sicily, he
secured the support of the Normans.
Anacletus and Innocent both appealed to Lothair. But the real decision
of their claims rested with Bernard of Clairvaux. Bernard had no faith
in the splendour and pride of Cluny, and showed little respect for the
forms of a papal election. He quickly perceived that the interests of
the hierarchy were involved in recognising Innocent, and with
characteristic enthusiasm declared for his cause, and soon won over
France and its king. Like Urban II., Innocent II. traversed France,
crowned Louis VII. at Reims, and presided over a synod at Clermont.
England, Castile, Aragon followed France in recognising him. Norbert
accepted eagerly the guidance of St. Bernard, and prevailed upon Lothair
to recognise Innocent.
[Sidenote: Lothair in Italy.]
Italy alone resisted, and Lothair crossed the Alps to win Italy for
Innocent, and receive from him the imperial crown. Germany took little
interest in his expedition, and the scanty band that followed him was
almost exclusively Saxon. Innocent availed himself of his coming to
return to Italy, and enter into the possession of the long-contested
inheritance of the Countess Matilda. In April 1133, Lothair and Innocent
entered Rome. But Anacletus held the Leonine city and the castle of St.
Angelo, and Innocent could only get possession of the Lateran, where he
crowned the Emperor on 4th June. [Sidenote: His coronation and issue of
privileges to the Church, 1133.] Four days later Innocent II. issued a
diploma of privilege to Lothair, in which the Pope, ‘not wishing to
diminish but increase the majesty of the Empire, granted the Emperor all
his due and canonical rights, and forbade the prelates of Germany laying
hands on the temporalities [regalia] of their offices, except from the
Emperor’s grant.’ An agreement was also arrived at with regard to the
inheritance of the Countess Matilda. Lothair consented to receive
Matilda’s fiefs from the Pope, and to pay tribute for them. At his death
they were to go to Henry of Bavaria, his son-in-law. By thus appearing
before the world as receiving from the Pope rights which he could well
claim as his own, Lothair secured for his family estates that might
otherwise have gone to the Hohenstaufen. But the Papalists were much
exalted at the submission of the Emperor. A German chronicler tells how
Innocent caused a picture to be painted, in which the Pope was
represented sitting on a throne, and the Emperor humbly receiving the
crown from his hands. Two insolent verses inscribed beneath it told how
the king had come to the gates of Rome, and had sworn to protect the
privileges of the city, and how he became the man of the Pope who gave
him the crown.[16]
[Sidenote: Lothair and the Normans of Sicily, 1136–7.]
Innocent had still much trouble with the Antipope, and his chief
supporter, Roger of Sicily. He soon withdrew from Rome to Pisa, where,
in 1134, he held a synod, which Bernard left Clairvaux to attend. But
not even the animating presence of the saint could make Anacletus and
Roger submit. Innocent was forced to continue at Pisa until, in 1136,
Lothair crossed the Alps a second time to help him. On this occasion the
Emperor came with an army, and St. Bernard’s fervid denunciations of the
Norman tyrant, who alone upheld to any purpose the schismatic cause,
gave the expedition the character of a crusade. Lothair performed
exploits, said Otto of Freising, in Calabria and Apulia such as no
Frankish king had done since the days of Charles the Great. He captured
some of the chief Norman towns, such as Bari and Salerno, while the
fleets of Pisa made precarious the communication between Calabria and
Sicily. Roger, after striving in vain to bribe the Emperor into retreat,
did not scruple to arm his Saracens against the two lords of the
Christian world. He retreated into the mountains of Calabria, while the
Pope and Emperor united in deposing him and conferring Apulia on
Reginald, a prominent Norman baron of that region. But at the moment of
victory Innocent and Lothair quarrelled. Both claimed to be the
suzerains of Apulia, and both claimed the sole right of investing the
new duke with his office. After a hot dispute, they agreed to hand over
jointly to Reginald the banner, which was the symbol of his dignity; but
before long Lothair hurried home, disgusted with his Papal ally, and
leaving Anacletus again in possession of Rome. The fatigues of war and
travel told upon him, and he died at a Tyrolese village on 4th December
1137, saved only by death from entering upon the footsteps of the Salian
enemies of the Church.
[Sidenote: Election of Conrad III., 1138.]
Henry the Proud, Duke of Bavaria, aspired to succeed his father-in-law,
having, besides large hereditary possessions, the duchies of Bavaria and
Saxony, while his enjoyment of the heritage of Matilda gave him an
equally important position in northern Italy and Tuscany. He boasted
that his authority stretched from the North Sea to the Mediterranean.
But the arrogance which gave him his nickname deprived him of personal
popularity, and his extraordinary resources made his accession disliked
by all who feared a strong monarchy, while the Church party, that had
procured the election of Lothair, was now alienated from him. The result
of all this was that the same circumstances that had led to Lothair’s
being made king in 1125, resulted, in 1138, in the rejection of his
son-in-law. Adalbero, Archbishop of Trier, a creature of Innocent II.,
played, in the vacancy of both Mainz and Cologne, the part which
Adalbert of Mainz had so cleverly filled on the previous occasion. He
summoned the electoral diet to meet in his own town of Coblenz. Though
Saxony and Bavaria sent no representatives, the magnates of Swabia and
Franconia gathered together at the appointed spot. Frederick, Duke of
Swabia, was no longer a candidate, but, on 7th March, his younger
brother, Conrad, the old enemy of Lothair, was chosen king.
[Sidenote: Contest of Conrad with the Guelfs.]
The struggle of Welf and Weiblingen soon broke out anew. Henry delivered
up the imperial insignia, and offered to acknowledge Conrad, if
confirmed in his possessions; but the new king would not accept these
terms, and before long deprived Henry of both his duchies. The margrave,
Albert the Bear, who, like Henry the Proud, claimed descent from the
Billung stock, was made Duke of Saxony, and Leopold of Austria, Conrad’s
half-brother, received Bavaria. Civil war inevitably followed. All
Saxony rallied round the Guelfs, and Albert was driven from his new
duchy. But in October 1139, Henry the Proud was carried off by a sudden
attack of fever, and a child ten years old succeeded. With the help of
his brother Frederick and the faithful Rhineland, Conrad invaded Saxony
in 1140, and won a victory at Weinsberg that secured him his throne, but
did not ensure the reduction of the Saxons. Next year the death of the
Austrian Duke of Bavaria made compromise more easy. In February 1142 a
treaty was signed at Frankfurt, by which the Saxons recognised Conrad as
king, and Conrad admitted the young Henry the Guelf to the duchy of
Saxony. Before long Gertrude, his mother, married Henry, the Count
Palatine, brother of Leopold of Austria, and another half-brother of
Conrad, who next year received his brother’s duchy of Bavaria. Thus the
great struggle ended in a compromise, in which, if Conrad retained the
throne, Saxony and Bavaria still remained under the influence of the
house of Guelf.
[Sidenote: The Second Crusade, 1147.]
Conrad was a gallant knight, liberal, attractive, and popular, but he
had little statecraft, and no idea how best to establish his position.
The preaching of the Second Crusade soon called him from the dull and
ungrateful work of ruling the Germans to adventures more attractive to
his spirit of knight-errantry. At Christmas 1146 he took the cross from
Bernard of Clairvaux in the cathedral of Speyer. Next spring he
proclaimed a general peace, and procured the coronation of his little
son Henry as joint king. Between 1147 and 1149 he was away from Germany
on Crusade. With him went his gifted nephew Frederick, who, in 1147, had
succeeded on the death of his father, the elder Frederick, to the Duchy
of Swabia. The Crusade was a failure, and the long absence of the
monarch still further increased the troubles of Germany.
[Sidenote: The eastward advance of the German kingdom.]
The crusading spirit rose so high under Bernard’s preaching that those
who could not follow Conrad to the Holy Land organised fresh Crusades
against the heathen who, despite the work of Norbert and Lothair, still
closely fringed the Empire on the east. The Saxons naturally took a
prominent share in this Crusade. But the rivalry of Albert the Bear and
Henry of Saxony, whom men now began to style Henry the Lion, prevented
any very immediate results flowing from these movements. Yet the
definitive conversion of Pomerania, and the acquisition by Albert of
Brandenburg, were important steps forward in the Germanisation of the
lands between Elbe and Oder. From the victories of Albert the Bear
begins the history of that Mark of Brandenburg, which in nearly every
after-age was to take so prominent a part in German history. In later
years, when the strong rule of Frederick Barbarossa kept local feuds
within bounds, Albert the Bear and Henry the Lion vied with each other
as pioneers of German civilisation in the north-east. At the moment it
was enough for Henry the Lion to consolidate his power in Saxony. When
Conrad came back from Syria he found that Count Welf, a kinsman of Henry
the Lion who had returned early from the Crusade, had raised a
rebellion. When this was suppressed, Henry the Lion again claimed
Bavaria and prepared for revolt. The young King Henry, in whose name the
country had been ruled during his father’s absence, now died
prematurely, and on 15th February 1152 Conrad followed him to the tomb.
Never did the affairs of Papacy and Empire run in more separate courses
than during the reign of Conrad III. While Europe as a whole paid
unquestioning obedience to the Papal power, the last period of the
Pontificate of Innocent II., and nearly the whole of the reigns of his
immediate successors, were occupied in sordid struggles with the Roman
nobility, with disobedient neighbours, and with rebellious vassals.
After the retreat of Lothair over the Alps, Innocent II. was again left,
in 1137, to contend against the Antipope and his partisans. His position
was, however, stronger than it had been, and he was able to maintain
himself in Rome, despite Anacletus’ continued presence in the castle of
St. Angelo. But the loss of the imperial presence was soon far more than
balanced by the arrival of a man whose support outweighed that of kings
and princes. In the spring of 1137 Bernard crossed the Alps, resolved to
make a last desperate effort to root out the remnants of the schism that
he had laboured against for seven years. He reached Rome, and instead of
falling back on his usual methods of violent and indiscriminate
denunciation, he prudently had recourse to private conferences with the
few despairing partisans of the schismatic Peter. There is perhaps no
more convincing testimony to Bernard’s powers of persuasion than his
victory over the rude Roman barons and greedy self-seeking priests, who
upheld the Antipope through family tradition or through fear of losing
their revenues. He had talked many of them over when the opportune death
of the Antipope in January 1138 precipitated his inevitable triumph. The
schismatics chose a new Antipope, who took the name of Victor IV., but
his policy was to negotiate terms of surrender, not to prolong the
division. In a few weeks Bernard persuaded him to surrender his dignity
to Innocent. Bernard at once returned to Clairvaux, the crowning work of
his life successfully accomplished.
[Sidenote: The Second General Lateran Council, 1139.]
In April 1139 Innocent II. consummated his triumph by holding a General
Council in the Lateran, which was attended by a thousand bishops. This
second Lateran Council was reckoned by the Westerns as the Tenth General
Council. It removed the last traces of the schism, and re-enacted more
formally the canons already drawn up in the Pope’s presence at the
Council of Reims of 1131. It is significant of the future that the
Council condemned the errors of Arnold of Brescia.
[Sidenote: Innocent II. and Roger II. of Sicily.]
Innocent thus restored the Papacy to its old position in things
spiritual, but not even St. Bernard could give him much help against
Roger of Sicily. After the quarrel of Pope and Emperor, the Norman king
speedily won back his position in Apulia and Calabria, and even at the
very end of the schism his influence had forced Monte Casino, the mother
of all Western monasticism, to acknowledge Anacletus. Spiritual weapons
were useless against Roger. No sooner, therefore, was the council over
than Innocent took the field in person against his rebellious vassal.
The fate of Leo IX. was speedily repeated. The papal army was no match
against Roger’s veterans, and Innocent, shut up in San Germano, was
forced to yield himself prisoner. Roger showed the head of the Church
the same respect which Robert had shown his predecessor. But the Pope
could only win back his liberty by confirming to the Norman all the
advantages which he had formerly wrested from the weakness of Anacletus.
The treaty of Mignano again restored the old alliance between the Papacy
and the Italian Normans. Roger did homage to Innocent for Sicily,
Apulia, and Capua. A great south Italian kingdom was thus definitely
legalised which, in the varied changes of subsequent history,
obstinately maintained its unity with itself and its separateness from
the rest of the peninsula.
[Sidenote: The organisation of the kingdom of Sicily under Roger II.,
1127–1154.]
Roger governed the state which he had founded with rare ability and
energy. He was a true Norman, and many features of his character suggest
a comparison between him and William the Conqueror. He now showed as
much capacity in statecraft as he had previously shown as a warrior.
Fierce, relentless, and unforgiving, he ruthlessly crushed the barons
that had profited by the period of struggle to consolidate their
independence, and built up a well-ordered centralised despotism, that
was able to give examples in the art of government to Henry of Anjou.
With rare sympathy and skill, he permitted the motley population of his
new kingdom to live their old lives under their old laws. The Saracens
of Sicily that had faithfully supported him in the days of his
adversity, continued in their former abodes, occupying separate
districts in the cities, worshipping without hindrance in their mosques,
and still governed in the petty matters of everyday life by their own
judges after the laws of Islam. The Byzantine Greeks, still numerous in
the towns of Calabria, enjoyed similar immunities for their schismatic
worship, and still followed the Roman law. Arabic and Greek were equally
recognised with Latin as official languages in the public acts, and
Roger’s coins bore Arabic devices. The court of the king took a
character of Eastern pomp and luxury that anticipated the times of
Frederick II. A Greek general led Roger’s armies, and a Greek churchman,
who wrote a book against the Roman primacy, shared with Arab physicians,
geographers, and astronomers the patronage of the Norman king. The very
monuments of art show the same strange juxtaposition of the stern
romanesque of Neustria with the mosaics of the Byzantines, and the
brilliant decorations of Arabic architects. Roger made Naples and Sicily
one of the best-governed states in Europe, and with the happy quickness
of sympathy and readiness to learn and borrow, which was the best mark
of the Norman genius, combined elements the most diverse and unpromising
into a happy and contented whole.
[Sidenote: Roger’s later wars.]
Despite his energy at home, Roger pursued an active external policy. He
remained a faithful but an unruly ally of the Papacy. Like Robert
Guiscard he turned his ambition against Constantinople, and Europe saw
the strange spectacle of Manuel Comnenus allied with Conrad III. in
withstanding the aggressions. But Roger’s most important wars were those
against the Saracens, whom he pursued into Africa. His first and most
permanent conquest was Malta, which remained until the sixteenth century
a part of the Sicilian realm. [Sidenote: Conquest of North Africa.] The
Mohammedan princes of North Africa recognised him as their lord and
opened their ports to his merchants. In 1146 his admiral conquered
Tripoli, and in 1148 Roger himself led a large expedition to Africa.
After the capture of Tunis, the whole coast line from Cape Bon to
Tripoli was subject to the Norman king, who boasted that the African
obeyed him as well as the Apulian, the Calabrian, and the Sicilian.
After a long reign, he died in 1154, with the reputation of one of the
greatest kings of his time.
[Sidenote: Growth of municipal autonomy in Lombardy.]
While southern Italy settled down into a well-ordered state, a very
different process was at work in the north, where the feudal nobility
had never been strong, and the towns had always been important. As the
contest between Papacy and Empire became chronic, the general tendency
was for the feudal nobility to uphold the Empire, and the townsmen the
cause of the Church. As in the days of the early Church, each Italian
town of any importance was the seat of a bishop, who became the natural
leader of the citizens in their struggle against the rustic nobility.
This tendency was particularly strong in Lombardy, where the logic of
facts and lavish grants of imperial privilege had conferred on the
bishops the power of the ancient counts, or had subordinated the
imperial officers under the episcopal authority. In Lombardy therefore
the municipal revolution broke out, though it soon spread to all
northern and central Italy.
The municipal government of Lombardy grew up gradually and almost
imperceptibly under the shade of the episcopal power. The townsfolk
became more numerous and more wealthy. The inland cities became great
seats of manufacturing industry, important market centres, or, like
Bologna and Padua, famous for their schools. The towns on or near the
sea found even greater prosperity through foreign trade. The necessity
of common action in business, no less than juxtaposition in common
residence behind strong walls, brought together the citizens in a common
unity of feeling. The very subordinate agents of the bishops’ power
supply the rudiments of a common organisation. The eleventh century very
commonly saw the citizens in revolt against their episcopal protectors.
Milan, when on the side of its archbishop, had been strong enough to
enable Aribert to wage war against the Emperor himself [see pages 58,
59]. In the next generation Milan and its archbishops were generally at
war. The quarrel of Pope and Emperor made it easy for the dexterous
townsmen to play the ecclesiastical and the temporal authority against
each other, and Popes and Emperors alike were prepared to bid heavily
for its support. Thus the ‘regalia,’ which the bishops had usurped from
the counts, passed in some way from them to the citizens. By the
beginning of the twelfth century the great towns of the north had become
self-governing municipalities.
At the head of the municipal organisation stood the _consuls_, the chief
magistrates of the town, varying widely in numbers, authority, and
method of appointment, but everywhere the recognised heads of the city
state. The consulate, which began in Italy towards the end of the
twelfth century, was in its origin a sworn union of the citizens of a
town bent upon obtaining for themselves the benefits of local autonomy.
Private, and often, like the North French _Commune_, rebellious in its
early history, the consulate in the end obtained the control of the
municipal authority. With its erection or recognition begins the
independent municipal organisation of the Italian cities.[17] Besides
the ruling consuls was a council, or _credentia_, of the ‘wise men’ of
the city, acting as a senate. Beyond these governing bodies was the
_communitas_, meeting on grave occasions in a common _parlamentum_ or
conference. The local life of the municipalities was intensely active,
but there were fierce jealousies and perpetual faction fights between
the different orders of the population. The even more violent local
hatred of neighbouring cities made common action almost impossible, and
led to constant bloody wars. But despite these troubles, the Lombard
cities grew in wealth, trade, numbers, and reputation.
[Sidenote: The Tuscan cities.]
The Tuscan cities followed at a distance the example of their northern
neighbours. It was their chief concern to wrest municipal privileges
from the feudal marquises, who had up to this point ruled town and
country alike. Even more conspicuously than the inland towns, the
maritime cities attained wealth and freedom. Pisa, Genoa, and Venice
obtained, as we have seen, a great position in the East from the time of
the First Crusade. While Venice stood apart, proud of its dependence on
the Eastern Emperor, the life of the other maritime cities was much the
same as that of the inland towns, save that it was more bustling,
tumultuous, and varied. Before the end of eleventh century, Pisa and
Genoa had driven the Saracens out of Corsica and Sardinia, and set up
their own authority in their stead.
The free, restless life of the Italian commune offered a splendid field
for the intellectual revival which we have traced in the preceding
chapter. Side by side with the development of Italian municipalities,
went the growth of the famous schools of Italy. The Italian scholars
were for the most part townsmen, laymen, and lawyers. While the students
north of the Alps became a little cosmopolitan aristocracy of talent,
living in a world of their own, and scarcely influenced by the political
life around them, the Italian students easily became politicians and
leaders of men. Abelard led no revolt save against the tyranny of
authority and teachers of obsolete doctrine. His chief Italian disciple
became the first educated popular leader known to the mediæval world.
With the influence of Arnold of Brescia the gulf between the new life of
action and the new life of speculation was bridged over.
Arnold of Brescia was born in the town from which he took his name. At
Paris he became an ardent disciple and personal friend of Abelard.
Returning to his native city, he became provost of a foundation of
Canons Regular, and a conspicuous influence both in the spiritual and
political life of the town. [Sidenote: Early life of Arnold of Brescia.]
He had the love of novelty, the restless vanity, the acute sceptical
intellect of his brilliant teacher. He preached that priests were to
live on the tithes and free offerings of the faithful, that bishops were
to renounce their ‘regalia,’ and monks their lands, and the laity only
were to rule the state. Under his leadership, Brescia, like the other
Lombard cities, cast off the bishop’s rule, but Innocent II. took up the
bishop’s cause, and, as we have seen, the Lateran Council of 1139
deprived Arnold of his benefice and banished him from Italy. He again
crossed the Alps, stood by the side of Abelard at the Council of Sens,
and returned to Paris, and taught at Abelard’s old school on Mont Ste.
Geneviève. But his doctrine of apostolic poverty was too extreme to
please the ambitious clerks who thronged the Paris schools, and he was
pursued by the inveterate malice of Bernard, who persuaded Louis VII. to
drive the heretic from France. Arnold retired to Zürich, whence he soon
wandered, preaching, through the valleys of upper Swabia, protected
against Bernard’s anger by the papal legate Cardinal Guido, his old
Paris comrade. The abbot of Clairvaux was furious with the cardinal.
‘Arnold of Brescia,’ he wrote, ‘whose speech is honey, whose doctrine
poison, the man whom Brescia has vomited forth, whom Rome abhors, whom
France drives to exile, whom Germany curses, whom Italy refuses to
receive, obtains thy support. To be his friend is to be the foe of the
Pope and God.’ In 1145 Arnold returned to Italy with Guido, and was
reconciled to the Church. With his arrival in Rome to work out his
penance, the last and greatest period of his career begins.
The end of the Pontificate of Innocent II. was marked by the beginning
of a fierce fight between the Pope and the city of Rome. The old Roman
spirit of opposition to the Pope had been revived by the long struggle
of the typically Roman Anacletus, and what had been accomplished in
Milan and Brescia seemed no impossible ideal for the Romans. [Sidenote:
The last years of Innocent II.] In 1143 the Romans, enraged at the
refusal of Innocent to destroy the rival city of Tivoli, set up a
Commune, at the head of which was a popular Senate, to exercise the
power hitherto in the hands of the noble consuls or the Pope himself.
[Sidenote: The Roman revolution.] Before long they chose as ‘Patrician’
Giordano Pierleone, a kinsman of Anacletus. Innocent II. died at the
very beginning of the struggle. [Sidenote: Celestine II., 1143–4, Lucius
II., 1144–5, and Eugenius III., 1145–1154.] His successor, Celestine
II., reigned only from September 1143 to March 1144, and was powerless
to withstand the Commune. The next Pope, Lucius II., put himself at the
head of the nobles, went to war against it, but was slain while
attempting to storm the Capitol (February 1145). This time the timid
cardinals went outside their own number, and chose Eugenius III., the
abbot of the Cistercian convent of Tre Fontane in the Campagna, a man
whose chief recommendation was the ostentatious patronage of St.
Bernard, and who was a simple and timid monk quite unversed in
statecraft. Immediately after his election Eugenius fled from Rome, and
after some temporising he crossed the Alps in 1147, leaving the Roman
republic triumphant. He remained absent till 1148, mainly engaged in
furthering the work of Bernard.
[Sidenote: Arnold of Brescia and Rome.]
Arnold of Brescia now abandoned his spiritual exercises and put himself
at the head of the Roman revolution. All Rome listened spellbound to his
eloquence while he preached against the pride and greed of the
cardinals, and denounced the Pope as no shepherd of souls, but a man of
blood and the torturer of the Church. His hope was now to free Rome
permanently from all priestly rule, to reduce the clergy to apostolic
poverty, and to limit them to their purely spiritual functions. Rome was
to be a free municipality subject only to the Emperor, who was to make
the city the centre and source of his power, like the great Emperors of
old. ‘We wish,’ wrote the Romans to Conrad III., ‘to exalt and glorify
the Roman Empire, of which God has given you the rule. We would restore
it as it was in the days of Constantine and Justinian. We have restored
the Senate. We strive with all our might that Cæsar may enjoy his own.
Come over and help us, for you will find in Rome all that you wish.
Settle yourself firmly in the City that is the head of the world, and,
freed from the fetters of the clergy, rule better than your predecessors
over Germany and Italy.’ But Conrad, intent on his crusading projects,
paid no heed to the Roman summons.
[Sidenote: Arnold of Brescia and St. Bernard.]
Bernard saw as keenly as Arnold of Brescia how the political influence
and wealth of the Church were in danger of overshadowing its religious
work. ‘Who will permit me to see before I die,’ he wrote to Eugenius,
‘the Church of God so ordered as it was in the old days, when the
Apostles cast their nets to fish for souls and not for gold and silver?’
But he recognised in Arnold’s policy an attack on the influence of the
Church, not merely an assault on its worldly possessions and dignities.
He carried on the war against Arnold with more acerbity than ever.
Eugenius again passed over into Italy to measure swords with the Roman
republic. When personal intercourse ceased, Bernard sent to the Pope his
book _De Consideratione_, in which he warned the Papacy to follow the
Apostles and not Constantine, and lamented the danger lest the avarice
of lordship and apostolate should prove fatal to it. It is strange how
nearly the arch-enemies Arnold of Brescia and Bernard approached each
other, both in their ideas and in their way of life. Both lived like
ascetics. Both hated the pomp and show of priestly dignity, and wished
to keep the Church apart from the world. Yet the pupil of Abelard was
the apostle of the lay spirit; and the last of the fathers was the
greatest pillar of that sacerdotal autocracy, whose dangers to spiritual
life he so fully realised.
Eugenius now accepted the new constitution of the City, and was content
to act as the spiritual chief of his diocese. But even on these
conditions a prolonged stay in Rome was impossible. In 1150 the conflict
was renewed. But the death of King Conrad, two years later, put an end
to the state of things that had prevailed since the end of the
Investiture Contest. Conscious that under his hands the imperial power
had suffered some diminution, Conrad on his death-bed bade his friends
pay no regard to the claims of his infant son, but secure the succession
to his well-tried nephew Frederick. The year after, Bernard of
Clairvaux, the wielder of the Church’s might, followed the king to the
tomb. We now enter into a new period, when the changed relations of
Church and State correspond to a mighty development of the economical
and industrial powers of the people of western Europe. The imperial
power was to be renewed, and, as in the days of the Saxon Emperors, was
to save the Papacy from its Roman enemies, only to enter again into
fierce conflict with it for the rule of the world. The quiet period,
during which each country was free to work out its own development, and
during which, in the absence of great rulers, the dominating influences
were those of the leaders and opponents of the new religious movement,
is succeeded by another period, when the chief interest again shifts
back to politics. The age of Bernard and Abelard is succeeded by the age
of Frederick Barbarossa and Henry of Anjou.
THE GUELFS AND THE HOHENSTAUFEN.
Welf IV. HENRY IV.,
Duke of Bavaria, _d._ 1101. _d._ 1106.
| |
+------------+------------+ |
| | |
Welf V., _d._ 1120, Henry the Black, Frederick of Büren, _m._ 1. Agnes. _m._ 2. Leopold III. of Babenberg,
_m._ Countess Matilda. Duke of Bavaria, _d._ 1126. Duke of Swabia, | Margrave of Austria.
| _d._ 1105. |
| (1) | (1) (2) (2)
+-----------------+--+---------+ +----------------------------------+---------------------+-------------+
| | | | | | |
Henry the Proud, Welf VI. Judith, _m._ 1. Frederick, _m._ 2. Agnes of CONRAD III. Henry Jasomirgott Otto,
_d._ 1139, _d._ 1191. Duke of Swabia, Saarbrücken. (1138–1152). Duke of Austria, Bishop of
_m._ Gertrude, daughter of | _d._ 1147. | 1156. Freising.
Lothair of Supplinburg. Welf VII. (1) | (2) |
| _d._ 1167 +---------+--------+ +------+------+
| | | | |
| FREDERICK I. (Barbarossa), Conrad, Henry, Frederick of
Henry the Lion, (1152–1190), Count Palatine, _d._ 1150. Rothenburg,
_m._ Matilda of England. _m._ Beatrice of Burgundy. _d._ 1195. Duke of Swabia,
| | _d._ 1167.
| |
+--------------------------+ +-----------+-------------------+-----------------+
| | | | |
OTTO IV., _d._ 1218. William, HENRY VI. Frederick, PHILIP of Swabia,
_m._ 1. Beatrice, daughter of | (1190–1197), Duke of _d._ 1208.
Philip of Swabia. Otto the Child, first _m._ Constance of Sicily. Swabia, |
2. Mary, daughter of Duke of Brunswick, | _d._ 1191. +-----+-------------+
Henry IV. of and ancestor of FREDERICK II., | |
Brabant. later dukes. _m._ 1. Constance of Aragon. Beatrice, Beatrice,
2. Iolande of Brienne. _m._ Otto IV. _m._ Ferdinand III.
3. Isabella, daughter of of Castile.
John of England. |
(1) (2) (3) (3)| Alfonso X.
+--------------------+----------------+--------------+--------------+-------------------+ of Castile
| | | | | |
Henry, CONRAD IV. Henry, Margaret, Enzio, Manfred,
_d._ 1242. 1250–1254. _d._ 1253. _m._ Albert of _d._ 1272 _d._ 1266
| Thuringia. (illegitimate). (illegitimate).
Conradin, |
_d._ 1268. Constance,
_m._ Peter III. of Aragon.