CHAP. VI Rome was to live again, but it was a spirit tempered and chastened by the adversities of a thousand years. A. D. 1125-1190 The influence of Roman law on the Lombard cities Originating in the conflict between the Empire and the Papacy, the nascent liberties of the Lombard cities received their form in large measure from the revived study of the Roman law. The expression "those skilled in jurisprudence, laws and customs" (juris, legum et morum periti), applied to the persons who took the leading part in the congress called in 1117 near Milan to consider the interests of the cities, indicates the influence exercised by this revival of legal knowledge. Before the end of the twelfth century, it was the "consuls" of the Lombard cities - so named after the ancient officers of Rome - who possessed the political power of these communities. But it would be an error to suppose that these " communes" were examples of popular self-government, in which inherent personal rights, natural freedom, and equality before the law were constituent elements. The Roman system, from which their conceptions were derived, considered all political attributes as acquired franchises, and not as inalienable rights. As despotic minorities, adding to their charter privileges the absolutism of their imperial origin, the ferocity of feudal barons, and the unripe rationalism of an inexperienced age, the Italian communes were in no sense free institutions. Wanting in the pacific instincts of their former ecclesiastical rulers, released to a great extent from subordination to imperial control, these little oligarchies, fierce in their hatreds, consuming in their hostilities, implacable in their vengeance, crafty and often perfidious in their negotiations, devastated one another with cruel wars and branded Italian diplomacy in its very cradle with marks of shame. The particularism which had always been the curse of Italian politics since the decay of the Roman Empire, not only destroyed all hope of Italian unity, that long unrealized dream of Italy's greatest poets, thinkers, and statesmen, -but, by filling the imagination of every city with the vain ambition to become another Rome, crushed out the instinct CHAP. VI of nationality and doomed Italy to a career of futile hopes and unrealized aspirations. A. D. 1125-1190 The Tuscan cities- Florence, Pisa, Lucca, Arezzo, Siena, The cities of and others — had a development in some respects different Tuscany from the cities of Lombardy, owing to the fact that, until the time of the Countess Matilda, the whole of Tuscany was vigorously ruled by a line of margraves who held the country in absolute subjection. There, while the bishops were in effect the rulers of the different cities, their authority was subordinated to the margrave, from whom they received their appointments and by whom they were treated exactly as feudal barons. But a new period began for the cities of Tuscany with the advent to power of Hildebrand at Rome. During the successive pontificates that were under his influence Tuscany was closely allied to the Papacy; and under the long reign of the Countess Matilda, it was, in fact, the Papacy which governed through her. In order to secure the continuance of this control after her death, the Countess was provided with husbands whose physical deficiencies ensured to the Papacy the inheritance of her vast estates without the rivalry of a natural heir. But before Matilda, upon her death in 1115, finally transmitted her inheritance to the Papacy, the new leaven which was working in all the cities of Northern Italy had affected those of Tuscany also, and some of them were already ruled by their "consuls." 1 Isolated from the rest of Italy by its geographical position 1 The date when "consuls" first existed in the cities of Tuscany has given rise to much learned discussion. Pisa is the first mentioned, in 1094; Pistoia, in 1107. Florence, according to Perrens, had "consuls" as early as 1101; but the correct date of the document upon which he relies is 1181 Florentine style, or 1182 modern style. See Villari, The Two First Centuries of Florentine History, p. 55. "The fact is, that no fixed year can be assigned to the birth of the Florentine Commune, which took shape very slowly, and resulted from the conditions of Florence under the rule of the last dukes or marquises." Id., p. 84. A. D. 1125-1190 of Venice CHAP. VI and environment, Venice had risen to an importance which demands particular attention. Originally, a little colony of fugitives from the mainland, seeking in its more than sixty The Republic islands an asylum from the incursions of the barbarians, Venice had become one of the most powerful and, as it proved, the most durable, of mediaeval states. Founded upon barren banks of sand, where existed neither vegetation, building materials, nor even sufficient ground for building, this wonderful city, by the vigor of its inhabitants, its maritime advantages, the persistence of its industry, and its boldness and enterprise, supplemented by its political constitution, had maintained the continuity and growing ascendency of its municipal life through all the revolutions of Italian history. While their poverty for a long time assured the equality of its citizens, the remoteness and obscurity of their island refuge sheltered them from foreign aggression. Obliged to protect their simple fisheries by means of their boats, they became masters of the sea, and their ships brought them into close relations with all the Mediterranean coasts, particularly with Constantinople and the Eastern Empire, to which, through a vague acknowledgment of dependence, they sometimes looked for protection. With the development of their industry and commerce, changes in their form of government-at first that of a pure democracy-were rendered necessary; but many of the laws and liberties pertaining to their early state of equality were preserved throughout their history. For military and administrative reasons, the executive authority was, in the seventh century, confined to a duke, or "doge," who often exceeded his rightful prerogatives and was frequently made the object of popular vengeance. Half oriental in its architecture, costumes, habits, and ideas, by virtue of its commerce the most cosmopolitan of the Italian cities, Venice became the connecting link between the East and the West, and the medium through which the arts, industries, etiquette, and diplomacy of the Orient were transplanted to Western Europe, there to enter upon a new career of fruit- CHAP. VI fulness and development. II. THE RELATIONS OF THE ITALIAN CITIES TO THE A. D. 1125-1190 ent attitude With the rise to power of the Italian communes, a new The independelement had entered upon the scene of diplomatic activity, of the Lomhitherto chiefly occupied by the Empire and the Papacy. bard cities The progress of communal freedom had been at first favored by the popes, for they found in the cities their strongest allies in the conflict with the emperors. But when the cities had acquired sufficient power, pursuing their own ends, and striving to establish their complete independence, they did not hesitate to assert their absolute authority. As early as 1112, the Milanese and the Pavians made a treaty of alliance for their mutual defence, in which they swore to guarantee reciprocally "their persons and their possessions against every mortal born or to be born." 1 This bold step was naturally regarded by the imperial and the papal authorities as an act of hostility, for the relations of the two cities with both Pope and Emperor were at that time strained. Five years later, Milan convoked a general congress of all the Lombard cities. The proceedings are not preserved, but we know them to have been directed against the pretensions of the Emperor; for the attitude of the cities is clearly set forth in the letters of Frederick, Archbishop of Köln, addressed to the Milanese, and to the entire Catholic Church.2 This movement of resistance received the cordial support of at least a part of the German ecclesiastics. 1 This treaty is mentioned by Landulf, Junior, Mediolensis Historia, XXI. 2 The original text of these letters was found in a MS. belonging to the Abbey of St. Germain des Près, at Paris, and has been published by Dom Martène and Dom Durand in their Collectio Veterum Scriptorum, etc., Paris, 1717, 1, pp. 640, 641. A French translation of the first letter may be found in Haulleville, Histoire, I, pp. 376, 377. CHAP. VI A. D. 1125-1190 The pretensions of Milan The general confusion in Italy The course of Henry V in the face of this new danger to the Empire could not fail to promote the developments which were leading to its ruin. While this formidable league was spreading across Northern Italy and preparing to block forever the march of the German emperors to Rome, Henry V, instead of dispersing it by negotiation, or overwhelming it by force, was evading the armed outposts of the Lombard rebels, to imprison an innocent and feeble old man, Paschal II, and wring from his reluctant hand a dishonored crown. Thus, in the shadow of the movement for the reform and enfranchisement of the Church, lurked a new aspirant to power ready to challenge the claims of both Pope and Emperor. The death of Henry V in 1125, without leaving a successor to the throne of Germany, afforded to the Milanese the opportunity of asserting their rebellion. Lothair of Supplinburg, Duke of Saxony, having been chosen and crowned King of Germany, in September, 1125,- but not without the stout opposition of the Hohenstaufen family of Suabia, — Conrad of Hohenstaufen, with the support of his elder brother, Frederick, and other discontented Germans, came to Lombardy to seek the kingship of Italy. Milan, which had long shown its independence in ecclesiastical matters, now claimed the right to create a king; and on June 29, 1128, at Monza, the Archbishop of Milan, in defiance of Lothair, placed the royal crown on the head of Conrad. Having received the new king at Milan, the Milanese soon realized the temerity of the step they had taken; for a powerful league was immediately formed against them by their jealous neighbors. Fearing in the part played by Milan the establishment of a new royal supervision in which that city would be predominant, all the neighboring Lombard cities, Novara, Cremona, Brescia, Piacenza, and above all Pavia, promptly rallied to the support of Lothair. Even many of the territorial lords of Milan repudiated Conrad, who, after being proclaimed king, was finally abandoned. To the antagonism between Lothair and Conrad in Italy, was added, in 1130, the confusion wrought by a double papal |