CHAPTER X

GERMANY AND ITALY, 1125–1152[15]

Origin of the Hohenstaufen—Election of Lothair II. and consequent rivalry of Welf and Weiblingen—The reign of the Priests’ Emperor—Norbert and Albert the Bear—Lothair and Italy—Roger unites Sicily and Naples—Honorius II.—Schism of Innocent II. and Anacletus—Lothair’s privilege to the Church—Election of Conrad III.—His contest with the Guelfs—The Eastward march of German civilisation—Final triumph of Innocent II.—Roger’s organisation of the Norman kingdom—Growth of municipal autonomy in northern and central Italy.

[Sidenote: Origin of the Hohenstaufen.]

Two thousand feet above the sea, on the very summit of one of the northern outliers of the rugged Swabian Alp that separates the valley of the upper Neckar from that of the upper Danube, stood the castle of Hohenstaufen, that gave its name to the most gifted house that ever ruled over the mediæval Empire. The hereditary land of the family lay around, and a few miles east, nearer the Neckar valley, lies the village of Weiblingen from which came the even more famous name of Ghibelline. The lords of this upland region were true Swabian magnates, who were gradually brought into greatness by their energy and zeal in supporting the Empire. In the darkest days of his struggle with the Church, Henry IV. had no more active or loyal partisan than Frederick of Büren or Hohenstaufen, whom he married to his daughter Agnes, and upon whom he conferred the duchy of Swabia. It was after the ancient fashion that the new Duke of Swabia should find his chief enemy in the Duke of Bavaria. But besides many a bitter feud with the papalist house of Welf or Guelf, Frederick had to deal with no less formidable enemies within his own duchy. The same disintegrating influences that were affecting all Germany were at work in Swabia. Berthold of Zähringen, a mighty man in the upper Rhineland, sought to attain the Swabian duchy by zealous championship of the papal cause. After long fighting with the Staufer, the lord of Zähringen was able to effect a practical division of the duchy. In 1097 he was allowed all ducal rights in those Swabian lands between Rhine and Alps, which in a later age became the centre of the Swiss confederation. He did not lose even the title of duke, so that with the Dukes of Zähringen as effective rulers of Upper Swabia, the Hohenstaufen influence was limited to the north. The first Hohenstaufen Duke of Swabia had, by the Emperor’s daughter, two sons, whose names were Frederick and Conrad. [Sidenote: Frederick and Conrad.] These nephews of Henry V. were always marked out by their uncle as his successors. They inherited as a matter of course the private possessions of the Salian house. They had already given proof that they were worthy of a high destiny. Frederick, the elder, succeeded to his father’s duchy of Lower Swabia. He was now thirty-five years old, strong, courageous, ambitious, and well conducted. He had further strengthened his position by marrying Judith, daughter of Henry the Black, the Guelfic Duke of Bavaria (died 1126), a match which seemed likely to bridge over the natural antagonism of the two great southern ‘nations’ of Germany. Conrad, the younger brother, had obtained from his uncle the duchy of Franconia. All south Germany might well seem united in support of Frederick’s succession to the Empire. But the hierarchical party feared lest the traditional attitude of the Staufer might imperil the triumph of the Church. The feudal nobles were alarmed lest too vigorous a ruler might limit their independence. The Saxons as ever were opposed to a southern Emperor, likely to renew the Salian attack upon their national liberties.

[Sidenote: The Saxon Duchy and Lothair of Supplinburg.]

Saxony was still almost as vividly contrasted to the rest of Germany as in the days when it gave Henry the Fowler and Otto the Great to save the kingdom, that the last degenerate Frankish rulers had brought to the verge of ruin. Despite many defeats and constant attacks, it was as free, restless, strong and warlike as ever. In the later years of Henry V.’s reign a new and vigorous duke had restored and reorganised its fighting power. Lothair of Supplinburg was the son of that Count Gerhard who had fallen in battle against Henry IV. on the banks of the Unstrut. By his marriage with Richenza, niece of Egbert of Meissen, and granddaughter of Otto of Nordheim, he had acquired the Saxon duchy, which under his hands had lost nothing of its ancient character. While the Dukes of Swabia had yielded the jurisdiction of the south to the Dukes of Zähringen, while Franconia was hopelessly split between rival houses, Lorraine divided between upper and lower Lorraine, and the Margraves of the East Mark, who had already the power and were soon to have the title of Dukes of Austria, had cut deep into the integrity of the Bavarian duchy, while in all the duchies alike a swarm of counts and barons had absorbed most of the effective attributes of sovereignty, Saxony alone maintained its unity and independence. Whatever the encroachments of the feudal principle, the Saxon duke still headed and represented a nation proudly conscious of its greatness and fiercely resentful of all southern influence. Lothair had grown old in long and doubtful struggles against Henry V., and the Emperor had never ventured to deprive his unruly subject of his duchy. The Duke had found his position much strengthened, since the setting-up of a Danish archbishopric at Lund in 1104 had barred the prospects of the Archbishop of Bremen obtaining that northern patriarchate that Adalbert had of old desired, and had in consequence destroyed the importance of the chief ecclesiastical makeweight to his authority. He was no servile friend of the hierarchy, but, after the Saxon fashion, he wished well to the Church, as the best check upon the power of the imperialistic south. Long experience had made him cautious, moderate, and politic. He was the strongest noble in Germany.

[Sidenote: Election of Lothair II., 1125.]

In August 1125 the German magnates met together at Mainz to chose their new king. The antagonism of the nations was so fierce that, while Saxons and Bavarians encamped on the right bank of the Rhine, Swabians and Franks took up their quarters on the opposite side of the stream. A committee of forty princes, ten chosen from each of the four nations, was set up to conduct the preliminary negotiations, and if possible, to agree upon a candidate. Frederick of Swabia, Lothair of Saxony, and Leopold of Austria were all proposed as candidates. The craft of Adalbert of Mainz, as ever the foe of Henry V. and his house, prevented the election of the Staufer, by representing to the princes that Frederick’s choice would be interpreted as a recognition of an hereditary claim. For the first time since the election of Conrad II., the magnates had a free hand, and they could not resist the temptation to use it. Adalbert isolated Frederick by breaking up his new alliance with the Guelfs. Conrad of Franconia was away on Crusade. The alliance of Saxons and Bavarians, backed up by the skill of Adalbert, the zeal of the Papalists and the enthusiasm of the Rhineland, led to the election of Lothair.

[Sidenote: The reign of Lothair II., 1125–1138.]

Lothair II. reigned from 1125 to 1138. He was already sixty years old, at his accession, but he ruled with energy and vigour. By marrying his only daughter, Gertrude, to Henry the Proud, son of Duke Henry the Black, he united his fortunes with those of the house of Guelf, and prepared the way for that union of Saxony and Bavaria which had long been the Guelfs’ dream. [Sidenote: The Hohenstaufen subdued.] In these days the struggle of the rival families of Welf and Weiblingen, of Guelf and Ghibelline, first brought out the famous antagonism that in later times was extended over the Alps, and grew from a strife of hostile houses to a warfare of contending principles, and finally degenerated into the most meaningless faction fight that history has ever witnessed.

Lothair deprived Frederick of Swabia of part of the Salian lands inherited from Henry V. This was the signal of war between Swabian and Saxon, Weiblingen and Welf. In 1127 Conrad, the younger Hohenstaufen brother, was set up as anti-king, and in 1128 crossed the Alps in quest of the imperial crown and the heritage of the Countess Matilda. Milan welcomed him, and crowned him with the Iron Crown. But the Pope, Honorius II., excommunicated him, and he could make no way south of the Apennines. Meanwhile King Lothair and his son-in-law, Henry the Proud, took possession of the Rhenish towns that were the Hohenstaufen strongholds, and devastated Swabia with fire and sword. In 1134 Frederick gave up the contest, and next year Conrad also made his submission. Lothair showed politic magnanimity and left them their hereditary possessions.

[Sidenote: Lothair and German Civilisation.]

In a Diet at Bamberg in 1135 Lothair proclaimed a general peace for Germany. To Saxons and churchmen his reign was a golden age. ‘It is with right,’ wrote a contemporary annalist, ‘that we call Lothair the father of his country, for he upheld it strenuously and was always ready to risk his life for justice’s sake.’ ‘He left behind him,’ said another, ‘such a memory that he will be blessed until the end of time: for in his days the Church rejoiced in peace, the service of God increased, and there was plenty in all things.’ He has been accused of sacrificing the greatness of the Empire for the sake of immediate advantages. But there is little evidence that he was ever false to the Concordat of Worms, and it is hard to condemn a prince who, by accepting the ideas of the rights of the Church that found favour at the time, was able to put down domestic strife, and allow his people to advance in civilisation and power.

[Sidenote: The Slavs and the Danes.]

As the true heir of the Ottos, Lothair occupied himself with extending German political supremacy and culture into Scandinavian and Slavonic lands. His earlier efforts against the Bohemians were not successful, but even before peace was restored in Germany, he forced King Niel of Denmark and his son Magnus to do homage and pay tribute. He turned his arms against the neighbouring Slavs, and brought back to his obedience the chiefs of the Wagrians and the Abotrites. Duke Boleslav of Poland recognised him as his lord, and agreed to hold Pomerania and Rügen as fiefs of the Empire. Duke Sobeslav of Bohemia and King Bela II. of Hungary referred their disputes to his arbitration. At his court were seen the envoys of the Eastern Emperor and of the Venetians. Everywhere his influence was recognised.

[Sidenote: Norbert and Albert the Bear.]

Lothair busied himself greatly with the revival of religion in his rude Saxon duchy, and with the extension of Christianity and German political influence amidst the heathens and half-heathens beyond the limits of his Empire. Side by side with the soldiers of Albert the Bear, Margrave of the North Mark, went the Christian missionaries and revivalists. At the bidding of the Emperor, Norbert left Prémontré, and became Archbishop of Magdeburg, and founded there a new house that became the second great centre of Premonstratensian ideas. Through his influence secular canons were removed from most of the cathedrals of eastern Saxony and the Marches, and replaced by Premonstratensians. Norbert wished to make Magdeburg the centre of missions to the East and a patriarchate over Polish and Wendish Christianity. New bishoprics were founded in Poland and half-heathen Pomerania, and the Polish Archbishop of Gnesen lost for a time his metropolitical power. For a time the ideas of Adalbert of Bremen were again in the ascendant, and the Pope restored the rights of Bremen over Lund and the churches of Scandinavia. From Bremen Vicelin brought Christianity to the conquered Wagrians and Abotrites. The fortress of Siegburg, built by Lothair on the Trave, both assured his supremacy and protected the famous monastery that grew up at its walls.

[Sidenote: Lothair and Italy.]

The alliance between Lothair and the Papacy did not involve the abdication of any imperial rights in Italy, but the pressure of German affairs put Italy somewhat in the background. A great series of changes was now being brought about in Italy. In the north and centre the communal revolution was, as we shall soon see, in full progress. In the south the Norman power was being consolidated, while a fresh schism soon distracted the Papacy.

[Sidenote: Union of Sicily and Apulia by Roger, Roger II., 1127.]

Since the conquest of Sicily from the Mohammedans by Roger, the youngest brother of Robert Guiscard, the chief Norman lordship of southern Italy had been divided between the two branches of the house of Tancred. Roger ruled Sicily as its count until his death in 1101, when he was succeeded by his son and namesake, Roger II., a child of four. Meanwhile the stock of Robert Guiscard bore rule in Calabria and Apulia. Roger, son of Robert, was Duke of Apulia from his father’s death in 1085 to his own decease in 1111. His son and successor, William, was a weakling, and upon his death without issue in 1127, the direct line of Robert became extinct. Roger of Sicily had now long attained man’s estate, and had shown his ability and energy in the administration of his county. After his cousin’s death, he at once got himself accepted as Duke of Apulia and Calabria by the mass of the Norman barons, and then directed his resources towards conquering the states of southern Italy that were still outside the power of his house. With the subjugation of the rival Norman principality of Capua, and of the republics of Amalfi and Naples, the unity of the later kingdom of Naples and Sicily was substantially established.

Since 1124 Lambert, Bishop of Ostia, the Bolognese lawyer who had ended the Investiture Contest, had held the papal throne, with the title of Honorius II., but he failed to show the decision of character necessary to dominate the unruly local factions of Rome, or to resist the usurpations of the Count of Sicily. [Sidenote: Honorius II., 1124–1130.] The union of Apulia and Sicily threatened the Italian balance, but Honorius strove in vain to form a league of Italian princes against Roger. In 1128 he was forced to accept Roger as lord of Apulia. The Norman soon scorned the titles of count and duke, which had contented his predecessors, and soon had an opportunity of gratifying his ambition to become a king.

[Sidenote: Schism of Innocent II. and Anacletus, 1130.]

On the death of Honorius II., the cardinals with due observance of all proper forms, chose as their Pope Peter Pierleone, a former monk of Cluny, who took the name of Anacletus II. But nothing could be less Cluniac than this Cluniac Pope, the son of a Jewish banker who had turned Christian, and made a great fortune at Rome during the Investiture Contest. The house of Pierleone had taken a considerable place among the great families of Rome, and one of the worst troubles of Honorius II. had been its violent opposition to his rule. Peter had shamelessly used his father’s money to buy over the majority, and the worst and best motives led to the questioning of his election. The houses of Corsi and Frangipani, who had had the ear of the last Pope, were dismayed at the triumph of the head of the rival faction. The strong hierarchical party had no faith in the Jewish usurer’s son. Accordingly, five cardinals offered the Papacy to Gregory, Cardinal-deacon of St. Angelo, who took the name of Innocent II., and was at once hailed as the candidate of the stronger churchmen. But in Rome he found himself powerless. He fled to Pisa, and thence to Genoa, Provence, Burgundy, and France. Anacletus meanwhile reigned in Rome and Italy, where, by granting the title of king to Roger of Sicily, he secured the support of the Normans.

Anacletus and Innocent both appealed to Lothair. But the real decision of their claims rested with Bernard of Clairvaux. Bernard had no faith in the splendour and pride of Cluny, and showed little respect for the forms of a papal election. He quickly perceived that the interests of the hierarchy were involved in recognising Innocent, and with characteristic enthusiasm declared for his cause, and soon won over France and its king. Like Urban II., Innocent II. traversed France, crowned Louis VII. at Reims, and presided over a synod at Clermont. England, Castile, Aragon followed France in recognising him. Norbert accepted eagerly the guidance of St. Bernard, and prevailed upon Lothair to recognise Innocent.

[Sidenote: Lothair in Italy.]

Italy alone resisted, and Lothair crossed the Alps to win Italy for Innocent, and receive from him the imperial crown. Germany took little interest in his expedition, and the scanty band that followed him was almost exclusively Saxon. Innocent availed himself of his coming to return to Italy, and enter into the possession of the long-contested inheritance of the Countess Matilda. In April 1133, Lothair and Innocent entered Rome. But Anacletus held the Leonine city and the castle of St. Angelo, and Innocent could only get possession of the Lateran, where he crowned the Emperor on 4th June. [Sidenote: His coronation and issue of privileges to the Church, 1133.] Four days later Innocent II. issued a diploma of privilege to Lothair, in which the Pope, ‘not wishing to diminish but increase the majesty of the Empire, granted the Emperor all his due and canonical rights, and forbade the prelates of Germany laying hands on the temporalities [regalia] of their offices, except from the Emperor’s grant.’ An agreement was also arrived at with regard to the inheritance of the Countess Matilda. Lothair consented to receive Matilda’s fiefs from the Pope, and to pay tribute for them. At his death they were to go to Henry of Bavaria, his son-in-law. By thus appearing before the world as receiving from the Pope rights which he could well claim as his own, Lothair secured for his family estates that might otherwise have gone to the Hohenstaufen. But the Papalists were much exalted at the submission of the Emperor. A German chronicler tells how Innocent caused a picture to be painted, in which the Pope was represented sitting on a throne, and the Emperor humbly receiving the crown from his hands. Two insolent verses inscribed beneath it told how the king had come to the gates of Rome, and had sworn to protect the privileges of the city, and how he became the man of the Pope who gave him the crown.[16]

[Sidenote: Lothair and the Normans of Sicily, 1136–7.]

Innocent had still much trouble with the Antipope, and his chief supporter, Roger of Sicily. He soon withdrew from Rome to Pisa, where, in 1134, he held a synod, which Bernard left Clairvaux to attend. But not even the animating presence of the saint could make Anacletus and Roger submit. Innocent was forced to continue at Pisa until, in 1136, Lothair crossed the Alps a second time to help him. On this occasion the Emperor came with an army, and St. Bernard’s fervid denunciations of the Norman tyrant, who alone upheld to any purpose the schismatic cause, gave the expedition the character of a crusade. Lothair performed exploits, said Otto of Freising, in Calabria and Apulia such as no Frankish king had done since the days of Charles the Great. He captured some of the chief Norman towns, such as Bari and Salerno, while the fleets of Pisa made precarious the communication between Calabria and Sicily. Roger, after striving in vain to bribe the Emperor into retreat, did not scruple to arm his Saracens against the two lords of the Christian world. He retreated into the mountains of Calabria, while the Pope and Emperor united in deposing him and conferring Apulia on Reginald, a prominent Norman baron of that region. But at the moment of victory Innocent and Lothair quarrelled. Both claimed to be the suzerains of Apulia, and both claimed the sole right of investing the new duke with his office. After a hot dispute, they agreed to hand over jointly to Reginald the banner, which was the symbol of his dignity; but before long Lothair hurried home, disgusted with his Papal ally, and leaving Anacletus again in possession of Rome. The fatigues of war and travel told upon him, and he died at a Tyrolese village on 4th December 1137, saved only by death from entering upon the footsteps of the Salian enemies of the Church.

[Sidenote: Election of Conrad III., 1138.]

Henry the Proud, Duke of Bavaria, aspired to succeed his father-in-law, having, besides large hereditary possessions, the duchies of Bavaria and Saxony, while his enjoyment of the heritage of Matilda gave him an equally important position in northern Italy and Tuscany. He boasted that his authority stretched from the North Sea to the Mediterranean. But the arrogance which gave him his nickname deprived him of personal popularity, and his extraordinary resources made his accession disliked by all who feared a strong monarchy, while the Church party, that had procured the election of Lothair, was now alienated from him. The result of all this was that the same circumstances that had led to Lothair’s being made king in 1125, resulted, in 1138, in the rejection of his son-in-law. Adalbero, Archbishop of Trier, a creature of Innocent II., played, in the vacancy of both Mainz and Cologne, the part which Adalbert of Mainz had so cleverly filled on the previous occasion. He summoned the electoral diet to meet in his own town of Coblenz. Though Saxony and Bavaria sent no representatives, the magnates of Swabia and Franconia gathered together at the appointed spot. Frederick, Duke of Swabia, was no longer a candidate, but, on 7th March, his younger brother, Conrad, the old enemy of Lothair, was chosen king.

[Sidenote: Contest of Conrad with the Guelfs.]

The struggle of Welf and Weiblingen soon broke out anew. Henry delivered up the imperial insignia, and offered to acknowledge Conrad, if confirmed in his possessions; but the new king would not accept these terms, and before long deprived Henry of both his duchies. The margrave, Albert the Bear, who, like Henry the Proud, claimed descent from the Billung stock, was made Duke of Saxony, and Leopold of Austria, Conrad’s half-brother, received Bavaria. Civil war inevitably followed. All Saxony rallied round the Guelfs, and Albert was driven from his new duchy. But in October 1139, Henry the Proud was carried off by a sudden attack of fever, and a child ten years old succeeded. With the help of his brother Frederick and the faithful Rhineland, Conrad invaded Saxony in 1140, and won a victory at Weinsberg that secured him his throne, but did not ensure the reduction of the Saxons. Next year the death of the Austrian Duke of Bavaria made compromise more easy. In February 1142 a treaty was signed at Frankfurt, by which the Saxons recognised Conrad as king, and Conrad admitted the young Henry the Guelf to the duchy of Saxony. Before long Gertrude, his mother, married Henry, the Count Palatine, brother of Leopold of Austria, and another half-brother of Conrad, who next year received his brother’s duchy of Bavaria. Thus the great struggle ended in a compromise, in which, if Conrad retained the throne, Saxony and Bavaria still remained under the influence of the house of Guelf.

[Sidenote: The Second Crusade, 1147.]

Conrad was a gallant knight, liberal, attractive, and popular, but he had little statecraft, and no idea how best to establish his position. The preaching of the Second Crusade soon called him from the dull and ungrateful work of ruling the Germans to adventures more attractive to his spirit of knight-errantry. At Christmas 1146 he took the cross from Bernard of Clairvaux in the cathedral of Speyer. Next spring he proclaimed a general peace, and procured the coronation of his little son Henry as joint king. Between 1147 and 1149 he was away from Germany on Crusade. With him went his gifted nephew Frederick, who, in 1147, had succeeded on the death of his father, the elder Frederick, to the Duchy of Swabia. The Crusade was a failure, and the long absence of the monarch still further increased the troubles of Germany.

[Sidenote: The eastward advance of the German kingdom.]

The crusading spirit rose so high under Bernard’s preaching that those who could not follow Conrad to the Holy Land organised fresh Crusades against the heathen who, despite the work of Norbert and Lothair, still closely fringed the Empire on the east. The Saxons naturally took a prominent share in this Crusade. But the rivalry of Albert the Bear and Henry of Saxony, whom men now began to style Henry the Lion, prevented any very immediate results flowing from these movements. Yet the definitive conversion of Pomerania, and the acquisition by Albert of Brandenburg, were important steps forward in the Germanisation of the lands between Elbe and Oder. From the victories of Albert the Bear begins the history of that Mark of Brandenburg, which in nearly every after-age was to take so prominent a part in German history. In later years, when the strong rule of Frederick Barbarossa kept local feuds within bounds, Albert the Bear and Henry the Lion vied with each other as pioneers of German civilisation in the north-east. At the moment it was enough for Henry the Lion to consolidate his power in Saxony. When Conrad came back from Syria he found that Count Welf, a kinsman of Henry the Lion who had returned early from the Crusade, had raised a rebellion. When this was suppressed, Henry the Lion again claimed Bavaria and prepared for revolt. The young King Henry, in whose name the country had been ruled during his father’s absence, now died prematurely, and on 15th February 1152 Conrad followed him to the tomb.

Never did the affairs of Papacy and Empire run in more separate courses than during the reign of Conrad III. While Europe as a whole paid unquestioning obedience to the Papal power, the last period of the Pontificate of Innocent II., and nearly the whole of the reigns of his immediate successors, were occupied in sordid struggles with the Roman nobility, with disobedient neighbours, and with rebellious vassals. After the retreat of Lothair over the Alps, Innocent II. was again left, in 1137, to contend against the Antipope and his partisans. His position was, however, stronger than it had been, and he was able to maintain himself in Rome, despite Anacletus’ continued presence in the castle of St. Angelo. But the loss of the imperial presence was soon far more than balanced by the arrival of a man whose support outweighed that of kings and princes. In the spring of 1137 Bernard crossed the Alps, resolved to make a last desperate effort to root out the remnants of the schism that he had laboured against for seven years. He reached Rome, and instead of falling back on his usual methods of violent and indiscriminate denunciation, he prudently had recourse to private conferences with the few despairing partisans of the schismatic Peter. There is perhaps no more convincing testimony to Bernard’s powers of persuasion than his victory over the rude Roman barons and greedy self-seeking priests, who upheld the Antipope through family tradition or through fear of losing their revenues. He had talked many of them over when the opportune death of the Antipope in January 1138 precipitated his inevitable triumph. The schismatics chose a new Antipope, who took the name of Victor IV., but his policy was to negotiate terms of surrender, not to prolong the division. In a few weeks Bernard persuaded him to surrender his dignity to Innocent. Bernard at once returned to Clairvaux, the crowning work of his life successfully accomplished.

[Sidenote: The Second General Lateran Council, 1139.]

In April 1139 Innocent II. consummated his triumph by holding a General Council in the Lateran, which was attended by a thousand bishops. This second Lateran Council was reckoned by the Westerns as the Tenth General Council. It removed the last traces of the schism, and re-enacted more formally the canons already drawn up in the Pope’s presence at the Council of Reims of 1131. It is significant of the future that the Council condemned the errors of Arnold of Brescia.

[Sidenote: Innocent II. and Roger II. of Sicily.]

Innocent thus restored the Papacy to its old position in things spiritual, but not even St. Bernard could give him much help against Roger of Sicily. After the quarrel of Pope and Emperor, the Norman king speedily won back his position in Apulia and Calabria, and even at the very end of the schism his influence had forced Monte Casino, the mother of all Western monasticism, to acknowledge Anacletus. Spiritual weapons were useless against Roger. No sooner, therefore, was the council over than Innocent took the field in person against his rebellious vassal. The fate of Leo IX. was speedily repeated. The papal army was no match against Roger’s veterans, and Innocent, shut up in San Germano, was forced to yield himself prisoner. Roger showed the head of the Church the same respect which Robert had shown his predecessor. But the Pope could only win back his liberty by confirming to the Norman all the advantages which he had formerly wrested from the weakness of Anacletus. The treaty of Mignano again restored the old alliance between the Papacy and the Italian Normans. Roger did homage to Innocent for Sicily, Apulia, and Capua. A great south Italian kingdom was thus definitely legalised which, in the varied changes of subsequent history, obstinately maintained its unity with itself and its separateness from the rest of the peninsula.

[Sidenote: The organisation of the kingdom of Sicily under Roger II., 1127–1154.]

Roger governed the state which he had founded with rare ability and energy. He was a true Norman, and many features of his character suggest a comparison between him and William the Conqueror. He now showed as much capacity in statecraft as he had previously shown as a warrior. Fierce, relentless, and unforgiving, he ruthlessly crushed the barons that had profited by the period of struggle to consolidate their independence, and built up a well-ordered centralised despotism, that was able to give examples in the art of government to Henry of Anjou. With rare sympathy and skill, he permitted the motley population of his new kingdom to live their old lives under their old laws. The Saracens of Sicily that had faithfully supported him in the days of his adversity, continued in their former abodes, occupying separate districts in the cities, worshipping without hindrance in their mosques, and still governed in the petty matters of everyday life by their own judges after the laws of Islam. The Byzantine Greeks, still numerous in the towns of Calabria, enjoyed similar immunities for their schismatic worship, and still followed the Roman law. Arabic and Greek were equally recognised with Latin as official languages in the public acts, and Roger’s coins bore Arabic devices. The court of the king took a character of Eastern pomp and luxury that anticipated the times of Frederick II. A Greek general led Roger’s armies, and a Greek churchman, who wrote a book against the Roman primacy, shared with Arab physicians, geographers, and astronomers the patronage of the Norman king. The very monuments of art show the same strange juxtaposition of the stern romanesque of Neustria with the mosaics of the Byzantines, and the brilliant decorations of Arabic architects. Roger made Naples and Sicily one of the best-governed states in Europe, and with the happy quickness of sympathy and readiness to learn and borrow, which was the best mark of the Norman genius, combined elements the most diverse and unpromising into a happy and contented whole.

[Sidenote: Roger’s later wars.]

Despite his energy at home, Roger pursued an active external policy. He remained a faithful but an unruly ally of the Papacy. Like Robert Guiscard he turned his ambition against Constantinople, and Europe saw the strange spectacle of Manuel Comnenus allied with Conrad III. in withstanding the aggressions. But Roger’s most important wars were those against the Saracens, whom he pursued into Africa. His first and most permanent conquest was Malta, which remained until the sixteenth century a part of the Sicilian realm. [Sidenote: Conquest of North Africa.] The Mohammedan princes of North Africa recognised him as their lord and opened their ports to his merchants. In 1146 his admiral conquered Tripoli, and in 1148 Roger himself led a large expedition to Africa. After the capture of Tunis, the whole coast line from Cape Bon to Tripoli was subject to the Norman king, who boasted that the African obeyed him as well as the Apulian, the Calabrian, and the Sicilian. After a long reign, he died in 1154, with the reputation of one of the greatest kings of his time.

[Sidenote: Growth of municipal autonomy in Lombardy.]

While southern Italy settled down into a well-ordered state, a very different process was at work in the north, where the feudal nobility had never been strong, and the towns had always been important. As the contest between Papacy and Empire became chronic, the general tendency was for the feudal nobility to uphold the Empire, and the townsmen the cause of the Church. As in the days of the early Church, each Italian town of any importance was the seat of a bishop, who became the natural leader of the citizens in their struggle against the rustic nobility. This tendency was particularly strong in Lombardy, where the logic of facts and lavish grants of imperial privilege had conferred on the bishops the power of the ancient counts, or had subordinated the imperial officers under the episcopal authority. In Lombardy therefore the municipal revolution broke out, though it soon spread to all northern and central Italy.

The municipal government of Lombardy grew up gradually and almost imperceptibly under the shade of the episcopal power. The townsfolk became more numerous and more wealthy. The inland cities became great seats of manufacturing industry, important market centres, or, like Bologna and Padua, famous for their schools. The towns on or near the sea found even greater prosperity through foreign trade. The necessity of common action in business, no less than juxtaposition in common residence behind strong walls, brought together the citizens in a common unity of feeling. The very subordinate agents of the bishops’ power supply the rudiments of a common organisation. The eleventh century very commonly saw the citizens in revolt against their episcopal protectors. Milan, when on the side of its archbishop, had been strong enough to enable Aribert to wage war against the Emperor himself [see pages 58, 59]. In the next generation Milan and its archbishops were generally at war. The quarrel of Pope and Emperor made it easy for the dexterous townsmen to play the ecclesiastical and the temporal authority against each other, and Popes and Emperors alike were prepared to bid heavily for its support. Thus the ‘regalia,’ which the bishops had usurped from the counts, passed in some way from them to the citizens. By the beginning of the twelfth century the great towns of the north had become self-governing municipalities.

At the head of the municipal organisation stood the _consuls_, the chief magistrates of the town, varying widely in numbers, authority, and method of appointment, but everywhere the recognised heads of the city state. The consulate, which began in Italy towards the end of the twelfth century, was in its origin a sworn union of the citizens of a town bent upon obtaining for themselves the benefits of local autonomy. Private, and often, like the North French _Commune_, rebellious in its early history, the consulate in the end obtained the control of the municipal authority. With its erection or recognition begins the independent municipal organisation of the Italian cities.[17] Besides the ruling consuls was a council, or _credentia_, of the ‘wise men’ of the city, acting as a senate. Beyond these governing bodies was the _communitas_, meeting on grave occasions in a common _parlamentum_ or conference. The local life of the municipalities was intensely active, but there were fierce jealousies and perpetual faction fights between the different orders of the population. The even more violent local hatred of neighbouring cities made common action almost impossible, and led to constant bloody wars. But despite these troubles, the Lombard cities grew in wealth, trade, numbers, and reputation.

[Sidenote: The Tuscan cities.]

The Tuscan cities followed at a distance the example of their northern neighbours. It was their chief concern to wrest municipal privileges from the feudal marquises, who had up to this point ruled town and country alike. Even more conspicuously than the inland towns, the maritime cities attained wealth and freedom. Pisa, Genoa, and Venice obtained, as we have seen, a great position in the East from the time of the First Crusade. While Venice stood apart, proud of its dependence on the Eastern Emperor, the life of the other maritime cities was much the same as that of the inland towns, save that it was more bustling, tumultuous, and varied. Before the end of eleventh century, Pisa and Genoa had driven the Saracens out of Corsica and Sardinia, and set up their own authority in their stead.

The free, restless life of the Italian commune offered a splendid field for the intellectual revival which we have traced in the preceding chapter. Side by side with the development of Italian municipalities, went the growth of the famous schools of Italy. The Italian scholars were for the most part townsmen, laymen, and lawyers. While the students north of the Alps became a little cosmopolitan aristocracy of talent, living in a world of their own, and scarcely influenced by the political life around them, the Italian students easily became politicians and leaders of men. Abelard led no revolt save against the tyranny of authority and teachers of obsolete doctrine. His chief Italian disciple became the first educated popular leader known to the mediæval world. With the influence of Arnold of Brescia the gulf between the new life of action and the new life of speculation was bridged over.

Arnold of Brescia was born in the town from which he took his name. At Paris he became an ardent disciple and personal friend of Abelard. Returning to his native city, he became provost of a foundation of Canons Regular, and a conspicuous influence both in the spiritual and political life of the town. [Sidenote: Early life of Arnold of Brescia.] He had the love of novelty, the restless vanity, the acute sceptical intellect of his brilliant teacher. He preached that priests were to live on the tithes and free offerings of the faithful, that bishops were to renounce their ‘regalia,’ and monks their lands, and the laity only were to rule the state. Under his leadership, Brescia, like the other Lombard cities, cast off the bishop’s rule, but Innocent II. took up the bishop’s cause, and, as we have seen, the Lateran Council of 1139 deprived Arnold of his benefice and banished him from Italy. He again crossed the Alps, stood by the side of Abelard at the Council of Sens, and returned to Paris, and taught at Abelard’s old school on Mont Ste. Geneviève. But his doctrine of apostolic poverty was too extreme to please the ambitious clerks who thronged the Paris schools, and he was pursued by the inveterate malice of Bernard, who persuaded Louis VII. to drive the heretic from France. Arnold retired to Zürich, whence he soon wandered, preaching, through the valleys of upper Swabia, protected against Bernard’s anger by the papal legate Cardinal Guido, his old Paris comrade. The abbot of Clairvaux was furious with the cardinal. ‘Arnold of Brescia,’ he wrote, ‘whose speech is honey, whose doctrine poison, the man whom Brescia has vomited forth, whom Rome abhors, whom France drives to exile, whom Germany curses, whom Italy refuses to receive, obtains thy support. To be his friend is to be the foe of the Pope and God.’ In 1145 Arnold returned to Italy with Guido, and was reconciled to the Church. With his arrival in Rome to work out his penance, the last and greatest period of his career begins.

The end of the Pontificate of Innocent II. was marked by the beginning of a fierce fight between the Pope and the city of Rome. The old Roman spirit of opposition to the Pope had been revived by the long struggle of the typically Roman Anacletus, and what had been accomplished in Milan and Brescia seemed no impossible ideal for the Romans. [Sidenote: The last years of Innocent II.] In 1143 the Romans, enraged at the refusal of Innocent to destroy the rival city of Tivoli, set up a Commune, at the head of which was a popular Senate, to exercise the power hitherto in the hands of the noble consuls or the Pope himself. [Sidenote: The Roman revolution.] Before long they chose as ‘Patrician’ Giordano Pierleone, a kinsman of Anacletus. Innocent II. died at the very beginning of the struggle. [Sidenote: Celestine II., 1143–4, Lucius II., 1144–5, and Eugenius III., 1145–1154.] His successor, Celestine II., reigned only from September 1143 to March 1144, and was powerless to withstand the Commune. The next Pope, Lucius II., put himself at the head of the nobles, went to war against it, but was slain while attempting to storm the Capitol (February 1145). This time the timid cardinals went outside their own number, and chose Eugenius III., the abbot of the Cistercian convent of Tre Fontane in the Campagna, a man whose chief recommendation was the ostentatious patronage of St. Bernard, and who was a simple and timid monk quite unversed in statecraft. Immediately after his election Eugenius fled from Rome, and after some temporising he crossed the Alps in 1147, leaving the Roman republic triumphant. He remained absent till 1148, mainly engaged in furthering the work of Bernard.

[Sidenote: Arnold of Brescia and Rome.]

Arnold of Brescia now abandoned his spiritual exercises and put himself at the head of the Roman revolution. All Rome listened spellbound to his eloquence while he preached against the pride and greed of the cardinals, and denounced the Pope as no shepherd of souls, but a man of blood and the torturer of the Church. His hope was now to free Rome permanently from all priestly rule, to reduce the clergy to apostolic poverty, and to limit them to their purely spiritual functions. Rome was to be a free municipality subject only to the Emperor, who was to make the city the centre and source of his power, like the great Emperors of old. ‘We wish,’ wrote the Romans to Conrad III., ‘to exalt and glorify the Roman Empire, of which God has given you the rule. We would restore it as it was in the days of Constantine and Justinian. We have restored the Senate. We strive with all our might that Cæsar may enjoy his own. Come over and help us, for you will find in Rome all that you wish. Settle yourself firmly in the City that is the head of the world, and, freed from the fetters of the clergy, rule better than your predecessors over Germany and Italy.’ But Conrad, intent on his crusading projects, paid no heed to the Roman summons.

[Sidenote: Arnold of Brescia and St. Bernard.]

Bernard saw as keenly as Arnold of Brescia how the political influence and wealth of the Church were in danger of overshadowing its religious work. ‘Who will permit me to see before I die,’ he wrote to Eugenius, ‘the Church of God so ordered as it was in the old days, when the Apostles cast their nets to fish for souls and not for gold and silver?’ But he recognised in Arnold’s policy an attack on the influence of the Church, not merely an assault on its worldly possessions and dignities. He carried on the war against Arnold with more acerbity than ever. Eugenius again passed over into Italy to measure swords with the Roman republic. When personal intercourse ceased, Bernard sent to the Pope his book _De Consideratione_, in which he warned the Papacy to follow the Apostles and not Constantine, and lamented the danger lest the avarice of lordship and apostolate should prove fatal to it. It is strange how nearly the arch-enemies Arnold of Brescia and Bernard approached each other, both in their ideas and in their way of life. Both lived like ascetics. Both hated the pomp and show of priestly dignity, and wished to keep the Church apart from the world. Yet the pupil of Abelard was the apostle of the lay spirit; and the last of the fathers was the greatest pillar of that sacerdotal autocracy, whose dangers to spiritual life he so fully realised.

Eugenius now accepted the new constitution of the City, and was content to act as the spiritual chief of his diocese. But even on these conditions a prolonged stay in Rome was impossible. In 1150 the conflict was renewed. But the death of King Conrad, two years later, put an end to the state of things that had prevailed since the end of the Investiture Contest. Conscious that under his hands the imperial power had suffered some diminution, Conrad on his death-bed bade his friends pay no regard to the claims of his infant son, but secure the succession to his well-tried nephew Frederick. The year after, Bernard of Clairvaux, the wielder of the Church’s might, followed the king to the tomb. We now enter into a new period, when the changed relations of Church and State correspond to a mighty development of the economical and industrial powers of the people of western Europe. The imperial power was to be renewed, and, as in the days of the Saxon Emperors, was to save the Papacy from its Roman enemies, only to enter again into fierce conflict with it for the rule of the world. The quiet period, during which each country was free to work out its own development, and during which, in the absence of great rulers, the dominating influences were those of the leaders and opponents of the new religious movement, is succeeded by another period, when the chief interest again shifts back to politics. The age of Bernard and Abelard is succeeded by the age of Frederick Barbarossa and Henry of Anjou.

THE GUELFS AND THE HOHENSTAUFEN.

Welf IV. HENRY IV., Duke of Bavaria, _d._ 1101. _d._ 1106. | | +------------+------------+ | | | | Welf V., _d._ 1120, Henry the Black, Frederick of Büren, _m._ 1. Agnes. _m._ 2. Leopold III. of Babenberg, _m._ Countess Matilda. Duke of Bavaria, _d._ 1126. Duke of Swabia, | Margrave of Austria. | _d._ 1105. | | (1) | (1) (2) (2) +-----------------+--+---------+ +----------------------------------+---------------------+-------------+ | | | | | | | Henry the Proud, Welf VI. Judith, _m._ 1. Frederick, _m._ 2. Agnes of CONRAD III. Henry Jasomirgott Otto, _d._ 1139, _d._ 1191. Duke of Swabia, Saarbrücken. (1138–1152). Duke of Austria, Bishop of _m._ Gertrude, daughter of | _d._ 1147. | 1156. Freising. Lothair of Supplinburg. Welf VII. (1) | (2) | | _d._ 1167 +---------+--------+ +------+------+ | | | | | | FREDERICK I. (Barbarossa), Conrad, Henry, Frederick of Henry the Lion, (1152–1190), Count Palatine, _d._ 1150. Rothenburg, _m._ Matilda of England. _m._ Beatrice of Burgundy. _d._ 1195. Duke of Swabia, | | _d._ 1167. | | +--------------------------+ +-----------+-------------------+-----------------+ | | | | | OTTO IV., _d._ 1218. William, HENRY VI. Frederick, PHILIP of Swabia, _m._ 1. Beatrice, daughter of | (1190–1197), Duke of _d._ 1208. Philip of Swabia. Otto the Child, first _m._ Constance of Sicily. Swabia, | 2. Mary, daughter of Duke of Brunswick, | _d._ 1191. +-----+-------------+ Henry IV. of and ancestor of FREDERICK II., | | Brabant. later dukes. _m._ 1. Constance of Aragon. Beatrice, Beatrice, 2. Iolande of Brienne. _m._ Otto IV. _m._ Ferdinand III. 3. Isabella, daughter of of Castile. John of England. | (1) (2) (3) (3)| Alfonso X. +--------------------+----------------+--------------+--------------+-------------------+ of Castile | | | | | | Henry, CONRAD IV. Henry, Margaret, Enzio, Manfred, _d._ 1242. 1250–1254. _d._ 1253. _m._ Albert of _d._ 1272 _d._ 1266 | Thuringia. (illegitimate). (illegitimate). Conradin, | _d._ 1268. Constance, _m._ Peter III. of Aragon.