Part 888

957. Revolt against the English king Edwig; division of the kingdom with his brother Edgar. [Uncertain date.]

959. Death of Edwig and accession of Edgar; Abbot Dunstan made Archbishop of Canterbury.

961. The crown of Italy taken by Otho the Great, of Germany.

962. Imperial coronation of Otho the Great at Rome; revival of the Western Empire.

963. Expulsion and deposition of Pope John XII.; election of Leo VIII.

964. Expulsion of Pope Leo VIII.; return and death of John XII.; siege and capture of Rome by the Emperor.

965. Death of Pope Leo VIII.; election, expulsion, and forcible restoration of John XIII.

967. Conquest of Egypt by the Fatimite caliph. [Uncertain date.]

969. Murder of the Eastern Emperor Nicephorus Phocas by John Zimisces, his successor.

972. Marriage of Otho, the Western Emperor's son, to the Byzantine princess, Theophano. Death of Pope John XIII., and election of Pope Benedict VI.

973. Death of the Emperor Otho the Great; accession of Otho II.

974. Murder of Pope Benedict VI.

975. Election of Pope Benedict VII. Death of the English king Edgar; accession of his son Edward the Martyr.

979. Death of Edward the Martyr; accession of Ethelred the Unready. [Uncertain date.]

983. Death of the Emperor Otho II.; accession of Otho III. to the German throne, under the regency of his mother, Theophano. First visit of Erik the Red to Greenland.

984. Election of Pope John XIV.

985. Murder of Pope John XIV.; election of Pope John XV.

986. Death of Lothaire, king of France; accession of his son Louis V.

987. Death of Louis V., the last of the Carolingian kings; election of Hugh Capet.

988. Death of Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury. Cherson acquired by the Romans.

991. Invasion of England by Vikings from Norway; battle of Maldon.

996. Death of Hugh Capet, king of France; accession of his son, Robert II. Death of Pope John XV.; election of Gregory V. Imperial coronation of Otho III.

997. Insurrection of peasants in Normandy. Rebellion of Crescentius in Rome; expulsion of the Pope.

998. Overthrow of Crescentius at Rome. Excommunication of King Robert of France.

999. Gerbert raised by the Emperor to the Papal chair, as Sylvester II.

1000. Expectations of the end of the world. Pilgrimages of the Emperor Otho. Royal title conferred on Duke Stephen of Hungary, by the Pope. Christianity formally adopted in Iceland.

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ROME: A. D. 1077-1102. Donation of the Countess Matilda to the Holy See.

See PAPACY: A. D. 1077-1102.

ROME: A. D. 1081-1084. Surrender to Henry IV. Terrible Norman visitation.

Four years after his humiliation of himself before the pope at Canossa (see CANOSSA), Henry IV. ("King of the Romans" and claiming the imperial coronation, which the pope refused him), entered Italy with an army to enforce his demands. He had recovered his authority in Germany; the rival set up against him was slain; northern Italy was strong in his support. For three successive years Henry marched his army to the walls of Rome and made attempts to enter, by force, or intrigue, or by stress of blockade, and every year, when the heats of summer came, he found himself compelled to withdraw. At last, the Romans, who had stood firm by Gregory VII., tired of the siege, or the gold which purchased their fidelity (some say) gave out, and they opened their gates. Pope Gregory took refuge in his impregnable Castle of St. Angelo, and Henry, bringing with him the anti-pope whom his partisans had set up, was crowned by the latter in the Church of St. Peter. But the coveted imperial crown was little more than settled upon his head when news came of the rapid approach of Robert Guiscard, the Norman conqueror of southern Italy, with a large army, to defend the legitimate pope. Henry withdrew from Rome in haste and three days afterwards Robert Guiscard's army was under its walls. The Romans feared to admit these terrible champions of their pope; but the vigilance and valor of the Normans surprised a gate, and the great city was in their power. They made haste to conduct Gregory to his Lateran Palace and to receive his blessing; then they "spread through the city, treating it with an the cruelty of a captured town, pillaging, violating, murdering, wherever they met with opposition. The Romans had been surprised, not subdued. For two days and nights they brooded over their vengeance; on the third day they broke out in general insurrection. … The Romans fought at advantage, from their possession of the houses and their knowledge of the ground. They were gaining the superiority; the Normans saw their peril. The remorseless Guiscard gave the word to fire the houses. … The distracted inhabitants dashed wildly into the streets, no longer endeavouring to defend themselves, but to save their families. They were hewn down by hundreds. … Nuns were defiled, matrons forced, the rings cut from their living fingers. Gregory exerted himself, not without success, in saving the principal churches. It is probable, however, that neither Goth nor Vandal, neither Greek nor German, brought such desolation on the city as this capture by the Normans. From this period dates the desertion of the older part of the city, and its gradual extension over the site of the modern city, the Campus Martius. … Many thousand Romans were sold publicly as slaves; many carried into the remotest parts of Calabria." When Guiscard withdrew his destroying army from the ruins of Rome, Gregory went with him and never returned. He died not long after at Salerno.

_H. H. Milman, History of Latin Christianity, book 7, chapter 3._

ALSO IN: _A. F. Villemain, Life of Gregory VII., book 9._

See, also, GERMANY: A. D. 973-1122, and PAPACY: A. D. 1056-1122.

ROME: A. D. 1122-1250. Conflict of the Popes with the Hohenstaufen Emperors.

See PAPACY: A. D. 1122-1250; and GERMANY: A. D. 1138-1268.

ROME: A. D. 1145-1155. The Republic of Arnold of Brescia.

Arnold of Brescia—so-called from his native city in Lombardy—was a disciple of Abelard, and not so much a religious as a political reformer. "On all the high mysterious doctrines of the Church, the orthodoxy of Arnold was unimpeachable; his personal life was that of the sternest monk; he had the most earnest sympathy with the popular religion. … He would reduce the clergy to their primitive and apostolic poverty; confiscate all their wealth, escheat all their temporal power. … His Utopia was a great Christian republic, exactly the reverse of that of Gregory VII." In 1145, Arnold was at Rome, where his doctrines had gone before him, and where the citizens had already risen in rebellion against the rule of the pope. "His eloquence brought over the larger part of the nobles to the popular side; even some of the clergy were infected by his doctrines. The re~public, under his influence, affected to resume the constitution of elder Rome. … The Capitol was rebuilt and fortified; even the church of St. Peter was sacrilegiously turned into a castle. The Patrician took possession of the Vatican, imposed taxes, and exacted tribute by violence from the pilgrims. Rome began again to speak of her sovereignty of the world." The republic maintained itself until 1155, when a bolder pope —the Englishman, Adrian or Hadrian IV.—had mounted the chair of St. Peter, and confronted Arnold with unflinching hostility. The death of one of his Cardinals, killed in a street tumult, gave the pope an opportunity to place the whole city under an interdict. "Religion triumphed over liberty. The clergy and the people compelled the senate to yield. Hadrian would admit of no lower terms than the abrogation of the republican institutions; the banishment of Arnold and his adherents. The republic was at an end, Arnold an exile; the Pope again master in Rome." A few months later, Arnold of Brescia, a prisoner in the hands of Frederick Barbarossa, then coming to Rome for the imperial crown, was given up to the Pope and was executed in some summary way, the particulars of which are in considerable dispute.

_H. H. Milman, History of Latin Christianity, book 8. chapters 6-7._

ALSO IN: _J. Miley, History of the Papal States, book 6._

ROME: A. D. 1155. Tumult at the coronation of Frederick Barbarossa.

See ITALY: A. D. 1154-1162.

ROME: A. D. 1167. The taking of the city by Frederick Barbarossa.

See ITALY: A. D. 1166-1167.

ROME: A. D. 1198-1216. The establishing of Papal Sovereignty in the States of the Church.

See PAPACY: A. D. 1198-1216.

ROME: A. D. 1215. The beginning in Italy of the strife of the Guelphs and Ghibellines.

See ITALY: A. D. 1215.

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ROME: 13-14th Centuries. The turbulence of the Roman nobles. The strife of the Colonna and the Ursini.

"In the beginning of the 11th century Italy was exposed to the feudal tyranny, alike oppressive to the sovereign and the people. The rights of human nature were vindicated by her numerous republics, who soon extended their liberty and dominion from the city to the adjacent country. The sword of the nobles was broken; their slaves were enfranchised; their castles were demolished; they assumed the habits of society and obedience. … But the feeble and disorderly government of Rome was unequal to the task of curbing her rebellious sons, who scorned the authority of the magistrate within and without the walls. It was no longer a civil contention between the nobles and plebeians for the government of the state. The barons asserted in arms their personal independence; their palaces and castles were fortified against a siege; and their private quarrels were maintained by the numbers of their vassals and retainers. In origin and affection they were aliens to their country; and a genuine Roman, could such have been produced, might have renounced these haughty strangers, who disdained the appellation of citizens, and proudly styled themselves the princes of Rome. After a dark series of revolutions, all records of pedigree were lost; the distinction of surnames was abolished; the blood of the nations was mingled in a thousand channels; and the Goths and Lombards, the Greeks and Franks, the Germans and Normans, had obtained the fairest possessions by royal bounty or the prerogative of valour. … It is not my design to enumerate the Roman families which have failed at different periods, or those which are continued in different degrees of splendour to the present time. The old consular line of the Frangipani discover their name in the generous act of breaking or dividing bread in a time of famine; and such benevolence is more truly glorious than to have enclosed, with their allies the Corsi, a spacious quarter of the city in the chains of their fortifications. The Savelli, as it should seem a Sabine race, have maintained their original dignity; the obsolete surname of the Capizucchi is inscribed on the coins of the first senators; the Conti preserve the honour, without the estate, of the counts of Signia; and the Annibaldi must have been very ignorant, or very modest, if they had not descended from the Carthaginian hero. But among, perhaps above, the peers and princes of the city, I distinguish the rival houses of Colonna and Ursini [or Orsini]. … About the end of the thirteenth century the most powerful branch [of the Colonna] was composed of an uncle and six brothers, all conspicuous in arms or in the honours of the Church. Of these Peter was elected senator of Rome, introduced to the Capitol in a triumphant car, and hailed in some vain acclamations with the title of Cæsar; while John and Stephen were declared Marquis of Ancona and Count of Romagna by Nicholas IV., a patron so partial to their family that he has been delineated in satirical portraits, imprisoned, as it were, in a hollow pillar. After his decease their haughty behaviour provoked the displeasure of the most implacable of mankind. The two cardinals, the uncle and the nephew, denied the election of Boniface VIII.; and the Colonna were oppressed for a moment by his temporal and spiritual arms. He proclaimed a crusade against his personal enemies; their estates were confiscated; their fortresses on either side of the Tiber were besieged by the troops of St. Peter and those of the rival nobles; and after the ruin of Palestrina, or Præneste, their principal seat, the ground was marked with a ploughshare, the emblem of perpetual desolation. …

See PAPACY: A. D. 1294-1348].

Some estimate may be formed of their wealth by their losses, of their losses by the damages of 100,000 gold florins which were granted them against the accomplices and heirs of the deceased pope. All the spiritual censures and disqualifications were abolished by his prudent successors; and the fortune of the house was more firmly established by this transient hurricane. … But the first of the family in fame and merit was the elder Stephen, whom Petrarch loved and esteemed as a hero superior to his own times and not unworthy of ancient Rome. … Till the ruin of his declining age, the ancestors, the character, and the children of Stephen Colonna exalted his dignity in the Roman republic and at the Court of Avignon. The Ursini migrated from Spoleto; the sons of Ursus, as they are styled in the twelfth century, from some eminent person who is only known as the father of their race. But they were soon distinguished among the nobles of Rome by the number and bravery of their kinsmen, the strength of their towers, the honours of the senate and sacred college, and the elevation of two popes, Celestin III. and Nicholas III., of their name and lineage. … The Colonna embraced the name of Ghibellines and the party of the empire; the Ursini espoused the title of Guelphs and the cause of the Church. The eagle and the keys were displayed in their adverse banners; and the two factions of Italy most furiously raged when the origin and nature of the dispute were long since forgotten. After the retreat of the popes to Avignon they disputed in arms the vacant republic; and the mischiefs of discord were perpetuated by the wretched compromise of electing each year two rival senators. By their private hostilities the city and country were desolated."

_E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 69._

"Had things been left to take their natural course, one of these families, the Colonna, for instance, or the Orsini, would probably have ended by overcoming its rivals, and have established, as was the case in the republics of Romagna and Tuscany, a 'signoria,' or local tyranny, like those which had once prevailed in the cities of Greece. But the presence of the sacerdotal power, as it had hindered the growth of feudalism, so also it stood in the way of such a development as this, and in so far aggravated the confusion of the city."

_J. Bryce, The Holy Roman Empire, chapter 16._

ROME: A. D. 1300. The Jubilee.

See PAPACY: A. D. 1294-1348.

ROME: A. D. 1305-1377. Withdrawal of the Papal court from Rome and settlement at Avignon. The "Babylonish Captivity."

See PAPACY: A. D. 1294-1348, to 1352-1378.

ROME: A. D. 1312. Resistance to the entry and coronation of Henry VII.

See ITALY: A. D. 1310-1313.

ROME: A. D. 1328. Imperial coronation of Louis IV. of Bavaria.

See ITALY: A. D. 1313-1330.

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ROME: A. D. 1347-1354. The revolution of Rienzi, the last Tribune.