TRADE AGAINST FEUDALISM (1152-1190)
The last chapter dealt with the struggle between the two great mediaeval
institutions, the Empire and the Papacy. This deals with the contest
between the Empire, representing the feudal system, and a new social
force, the spirit of trade, represented by the Lombard cities. Naturally
the Papacy joined in the fray and sided with the Lombard cities; and,
before the end, all Italy was divided into two great parties designated
by terms derived from Germany: Guelfs, which indicated those opposed to
the Empire, and Ghibellines, which indicated friends to the Empire. But
the particular issue here fought out was that between feudalism and
trade, and the triumph of trade indicates the close of the Middle Ages.
The Emperor Frederick I (1152-90) of the great house of Hohenstaufen is
the hero of this period. He was a noble specimen of the knight of the
Middle Ages, such as Sir Walter Scott conceived a knight to be. He had a
bright, open countenance, fair hair, that curled a little on his
forehead, and a red beard (Barbarossa) which impressed the Italian
imagination. Valiant, resolute, energetic, bountiful in almsgiving,
attentive to religious duties, he was a kind friend and a stern enemy.
To his misfortune he was born too late; he belonged to a chivalric
generation out of place in a world which had begun to deem buying and
selling matters of greater consequence than chivalry and crusades. He
thought himself entitled to all the Imperial rights that had been
exercised by the Ottos; and, measuring his own prerogatives by their
standard, resolved to make good the deficiencies of his immediate
predecessors, who for one reason or another had neglected to assert
those prerogatives in their plenitude. Barbarossa's situation may be
compared to that of Charles I of England, who believed himself lawful
heir to all the prerogatives of the Tudors.
Opposed to these old-fashioned views was the hard-headed spirit of
commercial Italy. Barbarossa's particular enemies were the Lombard
cities, but that was because they were nearest to him. The same
mercantile spirit animated all the cities of the peninsula; in fact, it
pervaded the maritime cities before it pervaded the Lombard cities, and
can best be described by means of a description of them.
The southern cities bloomed earlier than their northern sisters. Amalfi,
now a little fishing village which clings to the steep slopes of the
Gulf of Salerno, in the eleventh century was an independent republic of
50,000 inhabitants. She traded with Sicily, Egypt, Syria, and Arabia;
she decked her women with the ornaments of the East; she built
monasteries at Jerusalem, also a hospital from which the Knights
Hospitallers of St. John took their name; she gave a maritime code to
the Mediterranean and Ionian seas, and circulated coin of her own
minting throughout the Levant. Salerno, her near neighbour, had already
become famous for her knowledge of medicine, acquired from the Arabs.
The speculations of her physicians upon the medicinal properties of
herbs went all over Europe. She abounded in attractions. Vineyards,
apple orchards, nut trees, flourished round about the city; within there
were handsome palaces; "the women did not lack beauty, nor the men
honesty." The Normans must have found themselves very comfortable.
Naples, Gaeta, and the Greek cities of the heel and toe were also
important and prosperous. But these southern cities were soon outdone by
their sturdier northern rivals, Pisa, Genoa, Venice.
Pisa, which now lies at the mouth of the Arno like a forsaken mermaid on
the shore, is said to have been a free commune before the year 900. She
traded east and west; she waged wars with the Saracens, drove them from
Sardinia, captured the Balearic Islands (1114), and carried the war into
Africa. Rich with booty and commercial gains, she erected (according to
a traveller's estimate) ten thousand towers within the city walls,
completed her dome-crowned, many-columned, queenly cathedral, and built
the attendant baptistery, within whose marble walls musical notes rise
and fall, circle and swell, as if angels were singing in mid-air. She
received many privileges from the Emperors; her maritime usages were to
be respected; she was to enact her own laws, and to judge her citizens.
No Imperial Marquess was to enter Tuscany until he had received approval
from twelve men of Pisa, to be elected at a public meeting, called
together by the city's bells (1085). She spread her power in the Levant.
Jaffa, Acre, Tripoli, Antioch were in great part under her dominion, and
her factories were scattered along the coasts of Syria and Asia Minor.
Further to the north, mounting hillward from her curving bay, lay Genoa
the Proud, who for a time was Pisa's ally against the Saracens, and then
became her rival and enemy. Genoa, too, was devoted to commerce and
established settlements in Constantinople, in the Crimea, in Cyprus and
Syria, in Majorca and Tunis. She, too, had obtained from the Empire a
charter of municipal privileges and was a republic, free in all but
name.
Venice, their greater sister, first rivalled and then surpassed both
Pisa and Genoa. She traces her origin to the men who fled from the
mainland in fear of Attila and sought refuge on the marshy islands of
the coast (452). In later days others fled before the Lombards, and
joined the descendants of the earlier refugees. Here, under the nominal
government of the Eastern Empire, the Venetians gradually developed
strength and independence, and took into their own hands the election of
their Doge (697). The city of the _Rivo Alto_, the Venice of to-day, was
begun about 800. Thirty years later the body of St. Mark the Evangelist
was brought from Alexandria, and the foundations of St. Mark's basilica
were laid over his bones. Politically Venice maintained her allegiance,
shifting and time-serving though it was, true to Constantinople, not
from sentiment, but because Constantinople was the first city in the
world, the centre of art, of luxury, of commerce. Indeed, Venice was
like a daughter or younger sister to Constantinople; all her old
monuments, her mosaics, her sculpture, her marble columns, show her
Byzantine inclinations. She took an active part in the Crusades,
furnished transports and supplies, and mixed religion, war, and commerce
in one profitable whole.
These maritime cities constantly fought one another; Pisa destroyed
Amalfi, Genoa ruined Pisa, and Venice finally crippled Genoa. The glory
they won was by individual effort; whereas the glory of the Lombard
cities is that they effected a union, tardy indeed and imperfect, but
successful at last in its purpose of enforcing their liberties against
the Imperial claims. These Lombard cities included in their respective
dominions the country round about, and were, in fact, except for a
negligent Imperial control, little independent republics. It has been a
matter of long dispute whether these communes were survivals from old
Roman times, or sprung from the love of independence brought in by the
Teutonic invaders; whatever their origin they virtually began with
trade, rested upon trade, and flourished with trade. This trade, which,
beginning between neighbouring cities, extended northward over the Alps,
was greatly aided by the maritime cities. Ships called for cargoes. The
stimulus imparted by the energy of Venetian, Genoese, and Pisan seamen
to manufactures and transalpine trade was felt in every Lombard city.
For instance, the Venetians, eager to carry a wider range of merchandise
over sea to Alexandria or Jaffa, held fairs in the inland cities,
exposed the wares they had fetched home, and stirred mercantile
industry. A burgher class of traders and artisans grew up. Men met in
the market-place, talked business, considered ways and means, discussed
the conditions of production and exchange, and became a shrewd, capable
class. The moment business expanded beyond the city walls, it bumped
into feudal rights at every corner; at every crossroad it found itself
enmeshed in feudal prerogatives and privileges. Trade could not endure a
system fitted only for a farming community. Trade took men into
politics; and in those days politics meant war. The citizens of Milan,
Pavia, and neighbouring cities were not wholly unused to civic rights,
for they had long had a voice in the election of bishops, and they had
their trade guilds. These rights they enlarged whenever they got a
chance; and chances came frequently in the quarrels between Emperor and
archbishop, or between the greater and lesser nobility. Both sides
wanted their support; and they sold it in exchange for privileges, here
a little, there a little, and obtained many concessions. Finally, after
the burghers had advanced in wealth and social consideration, the petty
nobles made common cause with them; and the two combined succeeded in
forcing the great lords to join also, and make one general civic union.
These great lords, who had been little tyrants in the country
roundabout, were compelled to live within the city walls for part of the
year and be hostages for their own good behaviour, and were thus
converted from enemies into leading citizens. The consequence of these
changes was that the former government by a bishop, which in course of
time had supplanted the old Carlovingian system of government by a
count, was superseded in its turn by a much more popular form of
government. The bishop's authority was narrowly limited, the executive
power was lodged in consuls, two or more, who were elected annually, and
the legislative power was placed in a general council of the burghers
(in Milan not more than fifteen hundred men), and in a small inner
council, which represented the aristocratic element. By Barbarossa's
time the government of the cities had ceased to be feudal, and had
become communal. There was inevitable antagonism between Lombardy and
the Holy Roman Empire. The league of Lombard cities embodied the revolt
of trade against the feudal system, of merchants against uncertain and
excessive taxes, of burghers against foreign princes, in short, general
discontent with an outgrown political system.
Barbarossa's war with the Lombard cities lasted for twenty-five years,
and for convenience may be divided into two periods,--the period before
the cities had learnt the lesson of union and the period after. So long
as they were divided by mutual distrust and jealousy, Barbarossa was
victorious; when they were united they conquered him.
Barbarossa made his first expedition across the Alps in answer to
appeals that had been made to him from various parts of Italy. Como and
Lodi complained of Milan; the Popes complained of the insubordinate
Romans, who had set up a republic and were going crazy over an heretical
republican priest, one Arnold of Brescia; the lord of the little city
of Capua complained of the Norman king. Barbarossa, with his lofty
notions of Imperial authority and Imperial duty, gathered together an
army and descended into Italy to settle all troubles. He began by
issuing orders to Milan with regard to her conduct towards Como and
Lodi. Milan shut her gates. The proud city and the proud Emperor were at
swords' points in a moment. A letter from Barbarossa from his camp near
Milan, written to his uncle, Otto of Freysing, briefly narrates the
circumstances: "The Milanese, tricky and proud, came to meet us with a
thousand disloyal excuses and reasons, and offered us great sums of
money if we would grant them sovereignty over Como and Lodi; and
because, without letting ourselves be swayed one jot by their prayers or
by their offers, we marched into their territory, they kept us away from
their rich lands and made us pass three whole days in the midst of a
desert; until at last, against their wish, we pitched our camp one mile
from Milan. Here, after they had refused provisions for which we had
offered to pay, we took possession of one of their finest castles,
defended by five hundred horsemen, and reduced it to ashes; and our
cavalry advanced to the gates of Milan and killed many Milanese and took
many prisoners. Then open war broke out between us. When we crossed the
river Ticino in order to go to Novara, we captured two bridges which
they had fortified with castles, and after the army had crossed,
destroyed them. Then we dismantled three of their fortresses ... and
after we had celebrated Christmas with great merriment, we marched by
way of Vercelli and Turin to the Po; we crossed the river and destroyed
the strong city of Chieri, and burned Asti. This done, we laid siege to
Tortona, most strongly fortified both by art and nature; and on the
third day, having captured the suburbs, we should easily have carried
the citadel, if night and stormy weather had not prevented us. At last,
after many assaults, many killed, and a piteous slaughter of citizens,
we forced the citadel to surrender, not without losing a number of our
men."[10]
Such vigour as this reduced Milan and her sister cities to obedience.
But Frederick was not content with raids into Italy and spasmodic
punishment administered to this rebellious city or to that; he wished to
have the Imperial rights and authority definitely settled on a permanent
basis; so he convoked a diet on the plain of Roncaglia, not far from
Piacenza, to which he summoned bishops, dukes, marquesses, counts, and
other nobles of the realm, four famous jurists from Bologna, and two
representatives from each of fourteen Lombard cities. Frederick was a
just man; he merely wished his legal rights, and proposed to ascertain
what those rights were. The determination was left to the lawyers.
By this time lawyers had already begun to play a part in public affairs.
Roman law had never been lost. For centuries it had remained side by
side with the customs of the conquering Barbarians, less as a code of
laws than as the tradition of the subject Latin people; and, when the
needs of quickening civilization required a more elaborate system of law
than custom could supply, there was the Roman law ready for use. It
suddenly leaped into general interest, and rivalled the Church as a
career for young men. St. Bernard complained that the law of Justinian
was ousting the law of God. In 1088 the great law school of Bologna had
been founded. Thither students crowded by thousands; and the opinions of
its jurists were received with the deepest respect.
At Roncaglia the body of lawyers appointed to determine Imperial rights,
decided, doubtless in accordance with Barbarossa's expectation, in
favour of the Imperial side. The feudal nobles were delighted. The
archbishop of Milan, the recognized head of the Lombard nobility, said
to the Emperor: "Know that every right in the people to make laws has
been granted to you; your will is law, as it is said, _Quod Principi
placuit legis habet vigorem_ [The Emperor's will has the force of law],
since the people have granted to you all authority and sovereignty." In
accordance with the spirit of this principle, the _regalia_, tolls,
taxes, forfeits, and exactions of various kinds, were defined, and the
right to appoint the executive magistrates in the communes adjudged to
the Emperor. In substance the decision of the jurists was the
restoration of the Imperial rights as they had been under the Ottos,
when the communes were in their infancy.
Frederick's legal triumph was complete, but such a decision could only
be sustained by force. The cities would not accept it; they preferred
war. In the course of one campaign Milan was razed to the ground (1162),
so literally, that Frederick dated his letters _post destructionem
Mediolani_, "after the destruction of Milan." But the cities at last
learned the necessity of union and stood shoulder to shoulder. The
Papacy, too, which had been friendly to the Emperor during the
insurrections in Rome, turned round and joined the cities against him,
and Frederick, in retaliation, set up an anti-pope. Nevertheless, the
glory of defeating the Emperor belongs to the cities, and not to the
Papacy. The decisive battle was fought near Milan on the field of
Legnano (1176).
The arbitrament of the sword reversed the decision of the lawyers at
Roncaglia. Frederick frankly accepted defeat. A ceremonious conference
was held at Venice. At the portal of St. Mark's, Pope Alexander III, no
unworthy successor to Hildebrand, raised up the kneeling Emperor and
gave him the kiss of peace. Temporary terms were agreed on, and a few
years later the Peace of Constance (1183) definitely closed the war. The
Emperor relinquished all but nominal rights of sovereignty over the
confederate cities. They were to elect their municipal officers, and,
with comparatively unimportant exceptions, to administer justice and
manage their own affairs. Trade had conquered feudalism. The Middle Ages
were near their setting.
No more of Barbarossa's doings need here be chronicled, except what he
deemed a brilliant stroke of diplomacy, by which he hoped to unite the
crown of the Two Sicilies with the Imperial crown on the head of his
son, Henry, and through him on the heads of a long line of
Hohenstaufens. The Empire had always asserted a claim to Southern Italy,
but its claim had never been made good except during the temporary
occupation of an Imperial army; and since the Normans had established
their kingdom, Southern Italy had not only been lost to the Empire, but
had become the chief prop of the Empire's enemy, the Papacy. If the
Empire could acquire Southern Italy, it would hem in the Papacy both
south and north, and crush it to obedience. Frederick's son Henry was
married to the heiress of the Norman kingdom (1186); and the good
Emperor, happy in the prospect before his Imperial line, but happier in
that he could not foresee truly, took the cross and led his army towards
the Holy Land. He died on the way (1190), leaving behind him a
reputation for honour and chivalry, inferior to none left by the German
Emperors.
FOOTNOTES:
[10] _Storia d'Italia_, Cappelletti, pp. 99, 100.