THE STRENGTH AND THE WEAKNESS OF ROME
One chief effect of the growing power of the French king over his
nobility was the gradual breaking up of the feudal system throughout
the greater part of France. Philip sent bailiffs to collect his
taxes, instead of receiving them through the hands of the lords, and
we may look on this as a striking sign of the changing tunes. He
formed, moreover, the beginnings of a standing army. In the extreme
south of France, in Aquitaine and Provence, the feudal conditions
lasted longer, but there, too, feudalism was crushed out after the
so-called Crusade against the Albigenses, the people of Albi in the
south of France, who held certain religious views at variance with
those of the Church. Moreover, they professed themselves offended by
the life and manners of the monastic orders and other clerics. It
was the very offence which caused the Reformation later; but these
would-be reformers of Albi were too few to win success, and their
so-called "heresy" was stamped out with cruel severity.
The troubadours, together with the poetic language of "oc," passed
away for ever with the feudal society which had made their manner of
life possible. We have come to some very dark pages of our story.
In the course of the perpetual fights between the feudal lords
themselves, and between combinations of the lords and the king, the
one side or the other, finding its own {162} forces failing, hired
bands of mercenary soldiers to aid them. When the little wars were
over, these hirelings got their dismissal. Perhaps they did, or
perhaps they did not, get their pay. If not, they were likely to
take its equivalent, and more, from any that had not the force to
withstand them, and even if they were paid for past service, what
were they to do on their dismissal? What they did was to wander up
and down the country, offering their service to any who cared to hire
it, and in the meantime supporting themselves by high-handed robbery
and violence.
The Scandinavian nations and the Swiss furnished most of these
mercenaries, and they were the scourge and terror of all Europe in
the Middle Ages. It is very largely the insecurity of life and
property due to their numbers and cruelties that so darkens the
record of this period of the story.
This particular trouble was one from which the island position of
England kept her fortunately free, but she had her own troubles, more
than enough. The English barons, in their disgust at their treatment
by John, had invited the son of King Philip of France to come over
and claim the English throne. He actually was in England, with a
French army, at the time of John's death; but a heavy defeat at
Lincoln sent him home again.
John's death, in fact, seems to have caused the support of the barons
to swing back yet again to the rightful heir to the Crown. Amongst
other degradations which he had brought on his country John had sworn
fealty to the Pope for his possession of England and Ireland. Our
islands had, therefore, in theory, become a possession of the Pope
held by the English king as his vassal, and few things in the whole
of our great story are more remarkable than the power which the Popes
continued to wield over all Europe, except its eastern fringe, at the
very time when the position of the Popes {163} themselves was so very
insecure at Rome that we actually find them, not only unable to
enforce their authority in the city, but now and then compelled to
fly from it for their own personal safety.
[Sidenote: The cities of Italy]
It is very interesting to see what happened in the country which we
now call Italy, because it was something that was rather different
from that which happened elsewhere. It was different just because
there was this contest between the Pope and the Emperor going on all
the while, complicating the already difficult position caused by the
feudal system.
It is necessary, for the understanding of what happened, that we
should free our minds of any idea of a single country, a unity,
called Italy, as we know Italy now. There was no such idea in men's
minds at the time reached by our story, and we can understand what
happened much better if we can get back to their point of view.
For them there was the Emperor, with his very extensive but rather
vague claim over a good deal of what Charlemagne had made his own.
Then the feudal system had created what were practically independent
provinces in the north of Italy as elsewhere. And then there came in
the Pope, the power of the Church. And the power of the Church had
its principal political influence, as regards Italy, in this: that
just as at Rome the Pope, who was originally no more than the Bishop
of Rome, had come to have almost, if not quite, sovereign power in
the city and its neighbourhood, so too in other cities the bishops
began to exercise, not so much sovereign power as the power of chief
magistrates in addition to their own spiritual power. Important
cities, like Florence, Milan, and Pisa, claimed an independence which
the Emperor found it his best policy to concede to them. They were
fortified with walls which the inhabitants were well able to defend
at need. The feudal lords {164} at the same time had their castles
in the country, outside the towns.
There had been trouble and even war about the "investitures," that is
to say the appointments to the high offices of the Church; and when
this was settled, it went far to free the Church from the civil
authority, but at the same time it largely freed the civil power from
the Church. The bishops were succeeded by civil officers, called
consuls, as rulers in the cities. Then the feudal lords began to
come into the cities and live within the walls, and as they were the
richest and probably the most able men, they began to be chosen by
the citizens as the chief officers. From that to the establishment
of themselves as tyrants and despots in the cities--enlightened and
art-loving despots, generally--the step was short. Often the chief
families were at deadly feud with each other for years and years.
Remember the Montagues and Capulets, of whom we read in Shakespeare's
"Romeo and Juliet," in Verona.
[Sidenote: Frederick Barbarossa]
City also fought against city about claims on territory, rights of
way on roads and rivers, and many other points. And then came a
threat from without which forced the cities of Northern Italy to come
together and form a compact, or combination, known as the Lombard
League. The threat came from that Emperor Frederick Barbarossa
(_i.e._ Red-beard) who was Emperor at the date of that not altogether
fortunate third Crusade in which King Richard of the Lion Heart took
a leading part. The settlement, in 1122, of the trouble about the
investitures, had put the appointment of the Pope into the hands of
an Italian College of Cardinals, as we have noticed already, whereas
he had hitherto been appointed by a German Emperor. There had been
the rather ridiculous position of the Emperor appointing the Pope and
the Pope anointing and consecrating the Emperor. And now, {165}
although the Pope and Emperor had been of much help to each other in
the years before, the Pope from this time forward began to take his
stand as an Italian, appointed by Italians, and thus to be in
opposition to the German Emperor. The Italians, besides, had been
largely increasing in population all these years.
The Italians, moreover, and especially the great cities of North
Italy, like Milan and Florence, had been growing more and more
independent. Several of the emperors had not paid them much
attention, but this Frederick the Red-beard was more aggressive than
his predecessors. He attempted to assert a sovereignty like that of
the Carolingian emperors--that is, the emperors of Charles's
dynasty--over Italy, both north and south. It was the cities of the
north, the Lombard cities, that he would naturally encounter first,
and these, by forming themselves into this Lombard League, proved too
strong for him. They fought him, they forced him to give up his
attempt to bring them again into subjection under the German imperial
rule. He tried again and again, but again and again they beat him.
In its immediate purpose the League had this success; but it did not
bring the States belonging to it under one government. They still
remained independent of each other, and after Frederick had withdrawn
and the need for union was not pressing they went back to their old
feuds and fighting among themselves. Besides these smaller
differences, there arose a constant and large division throughout all
Italy between the two parties that had the names of Guelph and
Ghibelline respectively. Originally these had been names of German
families--of the Welfs of Bavaria and of the Waiblingen of
Swabia--but in course of time, in Italy, they lost all their first
meaning. Guelph came to mean the democratic party, favouring the
rule of the people, and with this party the Pope was identified. The
Ghibellines were for the rule of the {166} high-born rich under the
sovereignty of the Emperor. A little later we find the great
families of Orsini and Colonna opposed as leaders of Guelph and
Ghibelline respectively. There was this constant unrest, but Italy
was not seriously troubled again by the claims of the Emperor for
thirty years after the death of the red-bearded Frederick. After
that interval another Frederick, grandson of the Red-beard, became
Emperor, and he again tried to impress his sovereignty over these
cities. He had some successes at the start, but in the end he was
repulsed quite as decidedly as his grandfather.
As the result of this last defeat of the imperial force, a permanent
treaty--a treaty which actually did last--was drawn up defining the
rights of the Emperor, and limiting them very narrowly, over Italy.
The cities of the League were ensured in their practically complete
independence; and a like independence was given to the Tuscan city of
Florence though she was not of the League. But still it was as
separate city States that their independence was defined. There was
still no unity of government.
Now among the cities of the Lombard League, as it was originally
formed, Venice was included. It is curious, however, that the name
of Venice does not appear in the treaty made with Frederick
Barbarossa.
If you will look at the map of Italy you will see, on either side of
its long leg, two cities that were great seaports--on the western
side Genoa and on the eastern side Venice. Most of the cities of the
north of Italy are inland cities. These two, exceptionally, are on
the sea.
[Sidenote: The power of Venice]
But the importance of the two seaports differed greatly, just because
they were on opposite sides of the long leg. Venice, looking
eastward, was the port to which came, most naturally and easily, all
the merchandise and traffic from the East. Through {167} Venice it
was distributed throughout the West. This fact gave Venice a great
position. It also incited the Venetians to be great sea-goers and
great merchants. They became both enterprising and rich. They had a
considerable navy. They became more powerful than any other of the
States of Italy; and just because this eastward-facing position made
their interests rather different from those of the rest, they
therefore came to stand rather apart from the others. Their form of
government was rather different. It was perhaps better adapted for a
State in which the great men were merchants and shipowners. This
difference may possibly account for the name of Venice not appearing
in the treaty with the Emperor Frederick Red-beard.
Venice, thus powerful already, became far the greatest naval power in
the Mediterranean as a result of the fourth Crusade. Really this
so-called Crusade was not directed by the Church at all. It was more
of a commercial undertaking than a spiritual adventure. Egypt, which
was in the hands of the Moslems, was its object, therefore its forces
had to go by sea. Venice furnished money and transport.
Just at this moment the rightful Emperor of the East had been
dethroned by his brother, who had usurped his power. The Crusaders,
even from the time of the first Crusade, never thought that they met
with fair treatment from the Eastern Emperor, for whom they fought.
Perhaps they were glad enough now to take up the cause of the
rightful but deposed Emperor. Venice, moreover, had her own private
cause of offence with Constantinople. The result was that the
Crusade was turned aside from its first object, which was Cairo, in
Egypt, and was directed against Constantinople. Constantinople fell
to their attack in 1204. Baldwin, Count of Flanders, a Norman by
race and one of the leaders of the Crusade, was appointed Emperor
{168} of the East, and Venice, for her share, was given the nominal
sovereignty over some of the islands in the Mediterranean, thus
further increasing her power. Frederick II., the grandson of
Barbarossa, had come to the imperial throne with claims to an empire
scarcely less than that of Charlemagne himself. For besides being
Emperor, and thus King of Germany, he still had that claim on the
Kingdom of Italy which the emperors had not renounced, even if they
could not enforce it. His mother had been heiress of the Norman
Kingdom of Naples and Sicily, on which also, therefore, he had a
valid claim. Rome lay between these two territories. Moreover, this
Frederick was in the succession of the rulers of Burgundy, that great
province of which the King of France was nominally the overlord. The
less important island Kingdom of Sardinia was his also, and by his
marriage he gained the Kingdom of Jerusalem, as it was still called,
though it meant only the strip of western coast of Syria and
Palestine which the Turk had left to the Christian.
Probably Frederick II.'s power, extensive as it was, was quite
unwieldy. Probably his authority over parts of this great extent
would not have been very readily obeyed, nor very easily enforced.
However that be, he really, as I have said, effected nothing against
the Lombard League, which was revived, in spite of the feuds between
the cities. The League, as before, had the power of the Pope on its
side.
[Sidenote: Ascendancy of the Church]
One of the means by which the Pope defeated the Emperor in this
struggle, and it was perhaps his strongest weapon, was by
excommunicating him. Frederick had engaged to go on Crusade, the
fifth Crusade, but ill-health had prevented his taking an active part
in it, and the Pope gave this as the reason of his excommunication.
Excommunication meant that he was denied all part in the services and
sacraments of the Church in this life, and was told that his soul
{169} would be lost in the world to come. It released his subjects
from any necessity of obeying his commands. It put him, moreover,
much in the position of an "outlawed" man, which meant that he was
not under the protection of the laws of the land, so that any man
could be held blameless who lifted a hand to attack him. It was a
terrible power, and it was used very terribly by the Church at this
time and for many centuries afterwards.
And then this Frederick, this man excommunicated by the Church,
undertook the direction of the sixth Crusade. It was an
extraordinary position. A Crusade was a war for the Cross, for the
Church; and here was one who had been placed quite outside the fold
of the Church taking the leadership in this war. But the truth is
that these later Crusades were not really aimed against the infidel
and the Moslem for religious reasons nearly so much as for political
motives. Frederick actually did persuade, without fighting, the
Turkish Sultan of Egypt to give him the sovereignty of Jerusalem.
While he thus brought back the Holy Places into the Christian Church,
what he claimed to be his own territories in Europe were being
invaded by the Pope's forces--a kind of "Crusade" was waged against
him who was leading a most successful Crusade in the recognised sense
of the term!
He returned to Europe to struggle awhile against the spiritual power;
but it was too strong for him. He died in 1250. For another score
or so of years Pope and Emperor, Italy and Germany, fought
intermittently, with such weapons as each had, but before the
beginning of the fourteenth century the Church's spiritual ascendancy
prevailed over all the Western world, and Rome had been established
in her papal possessions.
During much of that fourteenth century, however, {170} conditions in
Rome became so disturbed that the Popes removed to Avignon in France.
They removed thither in 1305 and four years later we find the Emperor
acknowledged as King of the Romans. It was not for another seventy
years that a Pope dared or cared to live in Rome, and even when the
Papal Court did return there were for many years two Popes, one,
appointed by the Italian cardinals, in Rome, another, elected by the
French, in Avignon.
Yet even in the midst of these distractions and schisms, when the
actual life of the Head of the Church was sometimes in danger, we
still see the Church's power steadily increasing--for one reason,
because, in the tumult of the times, it was the one force which knew
its own purpose and pursued that purpose in all places and at all
times unchangeably. By the end of the fourteenth century it stands
at last supreme in its own city and country--in Rome itself. Rome as
a republic exists no longer: it has become the Papal State.
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