A. D. 1191-1300 CHAP. VII cian monk, and that he had yielded up his life in an agony of torment and despair on account of his unforgiven sins. In his mausoleum at Palermo was entombed the last of the great emperors; for in his death perished also the mediaeval Empire. "The Great III. THE ORGANIZATION OF DIPLOMACY IN ITALY For twenty-three years after the death of Frederick II, no Interregnum" King of the Romans was generally recognized in Germany; and for sixty-two years, no emperor was crowned at Rome. The period, therefore, between 1254, when Frederick's son Conrad died, and 1273, when Rudolf, Count of Hapsburg, was chosen "King of the Romans," has been called "The Great Interregnum." But the practical existence of the Empire was not only suspended; after the death of Frederick, in 1250, it virtually ceased; and no German prince exercised any control over Italy until Henry of Luxemburg, in 1312, appeared there, in answer to the call of the Ghibelline party. "Root out the name of the Babylonian and what remains of him, his succession and his seed," was the cry with which Innocent IV endeavored to hound to the death the last of the Hohenstaufen house. The brave efforts of young Conrad to restore imperial authority in Italy were doomed to cruel disappointment; but Frederick's illegitimate son Manfred not only became master of Sicily, for sixteen years, in opposition to Innocent IV and his successor, Alexander IV, he maintained his ascendency. After negotiations with the English to obtain a vassal ruler for the Kingdom of Sicily, a new pope, Urban IV, in 1264, offered the Sicilian throne to Charles of Anjou, brother of Louis IX of France. Urban IV died before Charles of Anjou could overcome the scruples of his brother; but his successor, Clement IV, a vigorous French prelate, then proclaimed a crusade against Manfred, headed by Charles of Anjou, who, in 1266, was invested at Rome with Sicily as a papal fief. Enthusiastically received by the Romans, who conferred upon him the office of "Senator," Charles invaded the Sicilian territories. In the battle of CHAP. VII Grandella, fought on February 26, 1266, Manfred's army was defeated; and, plunging into the midst of the enemy, the ruined monarch bravely met his fate. A. D. 1191-1300 Instructed by its experience with the powerful Hohen- The policy staufen princes, the Papacy intended to establish a political of the Papacy system which would insure the fruits of its victory. When, in 1266, Charles of Anjou received the investiture of the Sicilian kingdom, he swore not only never to be elected emperor, but never to accept, under penalty of dethronement, the lordship of Tuscany, of Lombardy, or of the greater part of these provinces. He was also, after entering into his kingdom, to resign the senatorship of the Romans. He was, in brief, to remain the obedient vassal and instrument of the Papacy. To ensure a similar result in Germany, when Ottocar, King of Bohemia, was proposed as "King of the Romans," his candidacy was opposed on the ground that he was too powerful. Two more distant and less dangerous rulers-Richard, Earl of Cornwall, and Alfonso X of Castile- were named in opposition to each other; and the double election thus completely neutralized the imperial power. The influence of the Papacy in the Empire was not dimin- The Electoral ished by the fact that the ancient right of the German College of the Empire nobles and people to choose their king was now set aside, and a college of seven electors, composed of three ecclesiastics, the Archbishops of Mainz, Köln, and Trier, - and four lay princes, the Count Palatine of the Rhine, the Duke of Saxony, the Margrave of Brandenburg, and the King of Bohemia,-was created. Of this "Electoral College," the Archbishop of Mainz was the Chancellor.1 1 The ancient method of electing the ruler of Germany and "King of the Romans," as described by Wipo in his account of the election of Conrad II, has been related in Chapter V. In practice as in theory, the king was for a long time chosen by all of the magnates. The words of Innocent III, "principes ad quos principaliter pertinet imperatoris electio," are the first intimation of a choice by a particular CHAP. VII A. D. 1191-1300 By such a close corporation, in 1273, Rudolf of Hapsburg-a candidate chosen on account of his relative feebleness was elected "King of the Romans." It is not surprising that, a few years afterward, Boniface VIII, seated on the papal throne at Rome, girt with a sword, and wearing body of electors, but without any definite description of this body or assertion of its distinct existence. The reference is, probably, to the officers of the imperial household who enjoyed the jus praetaxandi, or right of agreeing on the choice of a king before his name was submitted for general approval. The influence of the Papacy was, undoubtedly, used to concentrate the choice in as few hands as possible; and the words of Innocent III indicate a disposition to consider the right of election as belonging to certain persons to the exclusion of others. Under Gregory IX, in 1229, the election of bishops was confided to the canons of the cathedral churches, thus excluding the clergy and the people, who had formerly had a part in the choice. The expression of Innocent III marks a tendency toward the idea of an electoral body for the Empire also, which was later to be developed into a reality. Under Urban IV, in 1263, speaking of the litigious election of Richard of Cornwall and Alfonso of Castile, the expression is used, "principes vocem in hujusmodi electione habentes, qui sunt septem numero,” which is the first mention of seven electors. The document in which this expression is contained shows, however, that the other princes were still admitted to the election. See Leibnitz, Codex Juris Gentium Diplomaticus, Hanover, 1693, p. 14. The first imperial election in which the electors chose the king as a corporate body, appears to have been that of Rudolf of Hapsburg. The anarchy of the Empire afforded the opportunity to confine the election strictly to the chief princes; and the Papacy, having three archbishops as members of the Electoral College, could easily exercise a powerful influence upon the vote. In the election of Rudolf of Hapsburg, it was Gregory X who enjoined a new choice, the Archbishop of Mainz who proposed the candidate, the Archbishops of Köln and Trier who supported the nomination, and the secular princes from various motives, with the exception of the King of Bohemia, merely confirmed the choice. The princes who thereafter appropriated the right of election were : (1) the Archbishop of Mainz, Arch-chancellor of Germany; (2) the Archbishop of Köln, Arch-chancellor of Italy; (3) the Archbishop of Trier, Arch-chancellor of the Kingdom of Arles; (4) the King of Bohemia, Cup-bearer; (5) the Count Palatine of the Rhine, Seneschal; (6) the Duke of Saxony, Marshal; and (7) the Margrave of Brandenburg, Chamberlain. A. D. 1191-1300 the crown of Constantine, could exclaim: "Am I not the CHAP. VII Sovereign Pontiff? Is not this the throne of St. Peter? Am I not able to safeguard the throne of the Empire? It is I, it is I, who am Emperor!" - While Italy was thus left entirely without imperial control, Germany was for a long period practically without a king. This circumstance left the local princes free to establish their power more firmly, and thus to fasten upon Germany a bondage to feudalism which endured down to the beginning of the nineteenth century. But it also furnished the opportunity for the great cities—already provided with many charter liberties in exchange for support afforded to the struggling emperors to establish their independence and to strengthen it by the formation of powerful confederations. Thus, in 1255, the League of the Rhine-composed originally of Mainz, Köln, Worms, Speyer, Strasburg, and Basel, and afterward enlarged by the adhesion of more than sixty cities-was able to defend its growing commercial interests and to place an armament of six hundred vessels on the Rhine. Thus, also, in 1259, began the powerful Hanseatic League, composed of cities of Northern Germany, which was to play a rôle of much importance not only in trade but in diplomacy. From the contest of the Empire and the Papacy, therefore, as in Italy, so also in Germany, began those great movements of civic enterprise and independence which transformed the cramped and stagnant life of the Middle Ages into the freedom and progress of the modern world. The state of Germany Under the liberal rule of Frederick II, the Kingdom of The ambitions Sicily had developed into a commercial state of great im- of Charles of Anjou portance. Its relations with the East, especially with the Saracen world, combined with its maritime advantages, had rendered it a formidable rival of Venice. The Latin Empire of the East had fallen into an early and rapid decline. This enterprise, begun in dishonor, in 1261 ended in calamity. In the absence of the Venetian fleet, Michael Palaeologus, already crowned emperor at Nicaea, on August 15 of that CHAP. VII year, captured Constantinople and restored the Greek Empire A. D. 1191-1300 The papal counter projects in his own person. The changes of the time opened a wide field of opportunity for the unscrupulous ambition of Charles of Anjou. Venice, weakened by the transfer of its commercial privileges to its Genoese rivals, with which Michael VIII celebrated his triumph, could not well resist the growing maritime power of Sicily. Tuscany having invoked his presence, to oppose the Ghibelline party, Charles of Anjou was soon practically master of Florence. The brutal execution of the boy Conradin, at Naples, in 1268, removed from his path the last of the legitimate Hohenstaufen princes; while the death of Clement IV, followed by a three years' vacancy in the Holy See, left him a free hand in the Papal State. As he had laid Tunis under tribute by turning aside for its capture the crusade his brother Louis IX was leading to Egypt, so now he was profiting by all these events to obtain the mastery of Italy. But Clement IV had begun to distrust the vassal who was rising to such a height of power. The next pope, Gregory X, found it necessary to rebuke his hostility to Rudolf of Hapsburg, who was used as a foil to the imperial aspirations of Charles. But it was reserved for Nicholas III, of the proud family of Orsini, to administer a telling, though temporary, check to the plans of his vassal. The most ancient donations to the Holy See were the Exarchate of Ravenna and Pentapolis, which Pippin had bestowed in the eighth century. Since the time of the Ottos, these rich territories had been held as fiefs by the Empire; but, in the meantime, important cities had grown up within them and were sharing the development of their Lombard and Tuscan neighbors. Nicholas III now obtained from Rudolf of Hapsburg, who never appeared in Italy, a donation of the entire Romagna and the March of Ancona to the Holy See. The deed of transfer was prepared at Rome, presented by a papal legate to Rudolf, signed by him without hesitation, and, on June 30, 1278, delivered to the Pope at Viterbo |