BOOK THE FIRST.
CHAPTER IV.
FROM 801 TO A.D. 1010.
The political institutions of Germany, from whence
came the conquerors and high aristocracy of Italy, exhibited a monarch with
limited authority in peace but supreme in war; her social division was in
distinct confederations of clans called “Fares” under chiefs named “Farones”:
hence “Varones” “Barones ” and “Barons.” Several of these Fares constituted a “Gau” or
community governed by a “Graf” or Count, who with a council of assessors
under the name of “Scabini”, besides other
officers, dispensed public justice. The latter, named “Centenarii”
or “Schulze”, and “Decani” or Deacons, were the heads of a
hundred, and of ten families respectively. The community of lands made these
official dignities merely personal and migratory; but the Italian conquests
gave permanent property to the victors and permanent authority to the Grafs and counsellors: hence their judicial power.
These dignities were in time given by the king to his personal friends and
supporters, and gradually assuming the name of vassals were first revocable at
pleasure, then a life-interest became common until Charles the Bald reluctantly
acknowledged them hereditary. Vassals were exempt from the provincial Count’s
jurisdiction, and amenable only to that of the palatial Count; consequently the
authority of the former diminished and an order of rural Counts began. Vassals
of all kinds imitated the crown and
granted sub-benefices to their supporters, and these again to theirs with civil
and military obligations, so that a web of feudal subordination overspread the
country.
The “Benefice” was, about the year 1000, called
a Fief, and the great officers of government were given possessions
instead of salaries; Charlemagne is supposed by some to have created the
dignity of Count, but for life only, and dependent on the crown; by others to
have merely diminished the power of these officers by multiplying their number.
The Counts of frontier places by a gradual extension
of authority over several Counts, mounted one step higher and were called Marquises:
these became powerful and even formidable in the ninth century, until the
Bishops with increased temporal possessions opposed them, being independent of
their power, and governed only by the Roman Law.
The Exarch Longinus, who succeeded Narses, having
abolished the ancient Rectors or Dukes of Provinces, substituted Dukes of
Cities, which custom was continued by the Lombards; the chief of these was the
Exarch of Ravenna, a title assumed in 568, by command of the Emperor; even Rome
was not spared, her time-honoured Senate and Consuls were superseded by new
titles, and her once glorious territory, including the “Eternal City,” was
overshadowed by the fresher honours of a modern dukedom.
There is also reason to suppose that Tuscany, under
the Lombards and Charlemagne, was governed according to the system of Longinus,
in departments presided over by a Duke, for as late as 786 we read of a
Reginald, Duke of Chiusi, and a Guindibrand, Duke of
Florence; but between that epoch and 806, the date of Charlemagne’s will,
Counts were probably substituted and the higher title reserved for the general
Governor of Tuscany.
Rejecting therefore the minuter details of Malespini, Villani, and subsequent writers, the substance of their
narratives may still create a reasonable belief that the ancient families of
Roman and Fiesoline extraction were encouraged by
these Frankish governors to reunite in Florence, and that various privileges
with a certain portion of civil liberty were freely granted by Charlemagne.
Amongst other regulations it is not improbable that two Consuls and a Senate
were substituted at this epoch for the Lombard Schulze or “Scabini”
as Malespini asserts, though Ammirato refers them to a much later period.
Neither should Malespini’s testimony be lightly rejected, when he enumerates by
name the chiefs of many distinguished families who were created Knights by that
monarch for their military services; nor should we disbelieve that the church
of the Apostles was, not built, but restored by his direction, although perhaps
not at the assigned date; for he kept the Easter of 805 at Aix-la-chapelle and the architecture is much too pure for that barbarous period.
An exposition of the various troubles that afflicted
Italy from Charlemagne’s death in 811 until the coronation of Otho the Great in
962 is unnecessary; Florence shared in the general misery; yet in this
universal darkness the embryo republic was gradually but unconsciously forming
and preparing itself for coming events. Excepting one bright gleam, the reign
of Louis II, the long melancholy gloom of Carolingian misgovernment remained
unbroken: all social tics were rent asunder; nobles fattened on the prodigality
and weakness of monarchs, and the vast empire of Charlemagne insensibly slipped
from the grasp of his feeble descendants. Provinces become the property of
their Dukes; capitals were mastered by belligerent Prelate ; cities yielded to
the power of aspiring Counts, and scarcely a town, castle, or village but what
acknowledged any master but the King. At length Charles le Gros the last of
Charlemagne’s dynasty was formally deposed in 887, and dying the next year left
Italy a prey to the ruthless ambition of rival princes. The miseries of a
long-continued civil war overspread the land; competitors sprang up like
noxious weeds in a ruined garden, and the country was soon bristling with
hostile lances. Guido, Marquis of Spoleto, and Berenger of Friuli towered far
above the rest in reckless struggles for the vacant throne: both of them young,
powerful, and aspiring, both of them allied to the Carolingian race; one a
Lombard, the other a Frank; each inflamed by public rivalry and hating each
other from private persecution; a dreary prospect opened on the people and was
fatally realised.
For sixty years war rolled on in blood with various
chance but endless fury: victor and vanquished by turns, each alternately
bought the support of clergy and nobles by fresh spoliations of royal power,
the defeated candidate being ever the present favourite; for he promised much
and inspired no fear, while the victor required a degree of obedience which the
nobles were resolved not to accord to either.
Berenger enjoyed an interval of repose by Guido’s
death in 804; he governed through a wild and stormy reign, of thirty years, and
died invested with the imperial dignity, which was then conferred on all the
Italian kings who marched in arms to Rome.
Although a man of talent and courage, and not devoid of
virtues, his reign was a period of the greatest disorder and complete
disorganisation of society. A constant state of civil war with the everlasting
ravages of Hungarian and Saracen freebooters tore the country to pieces, and
threw every town, village, and feudal chieftain, nay, almost every individual
upon their own resources for public and private safety, and the maintenance
even of a shadow of civil government.
The result was, that after the second Berenger’s
deposition in 961, when Otho the First in the following year became king and
emperor, he found no such luxurious effeminate race as the corruption of Rome
had left to attract without the power of repelling his northern ancestors;
adversity had well kneaded, re-moulded, and as it were, stamped with pristine
energy the great Italian race; a model somewhat rudely blocked perhaps, but
with bold features and commanding aspect.
He found a warlike, fierce, and independent nobility
that would suffer no foreign competitor in civil or military employments; a
race of gentlemen inferior in power as in rank, but equally determined; chiefs
who ruled their own domains with absolute authority, and were continually
exercised in arms. He found those that sternly demanded a voice in the national
assemblies; men resolved to interfere in the formation of those laws which they
were required to obey, and who refused all taxation but what they themselves
imposed. In the inferior citizens he found similar energy, congenial spirit,
and a strong determination to be free, with a union of heart and hand that
finally accomplished it. He found also the cities generally governed by Counts
who were often prelates, and being all Italians, not well affected to the
empire.
To their lordly independence he opposed the spirit of
civic liberty, and urged the citizens to strengthen their own position and
privileges by resisting the power of these ambitious men; the imperial
countenance made this an easier task for the Counts had no regular troops, and
either popular authority or popular favour became absolutely necessary to the
successful issue of their enterprises. Their revenue, though sometimes
increased by land, consisted of a third of all fines on criminals, which in the
then loose condition of society when punishments were in general pecuniary,
must have been considerable, and no doubt proved as fertile a source of
injustice as it was a powerful incentive to liberty.
The Italian cities worked smoothly with Otho, and by
selling every favour for some fresh concession from the Counts, gradually
moulded their several constitutions; yet while any of his descendants remained
they were true to the Saxon rule, and content to accumulate materials for the
advent of general freedom.
The House of Saxony finished with the third Otho in
1002, after a nominal rule of forty years over the Italian provinces, fifteen
only having been really passed there and those in short interrupted visits; the
general government was consequently weakened, in some departments paralysed by
the absence of its chief, and naturally fell back on the great feudal barons
and larger communities, which severally absorbed the powers of self-legislation
and all other functions of royalty. The towns chose their own consuls and
senates; each claimed the right of government and self-defence, and every
citizen necessarily became a soldier: the power of arms was not only used
against foreign intruders but claimed as a privilege in private war, a
privilege to which they thought themselves as much entitled as any great vassal
of the empire.
Magistrates were elected by their peers, the taxes
were imposed by general consent, and public expenditure confided to a
particular council; thus every municipality as well as each feudal chieftain
gradually condensed into a separate state, which insulated and careful only of
its own welfare soon forgot that it ever formed a pail and parcel of the common
country. No universal tie any longer united them, each sought protection in
itself, and only within this limit were found any compatriots; the world without
was a stranger, often an enemy, and thence one source of those divisions that
have and ever will prevent Italy from taking her proper station in Europe, and
which still expose her to the most powerful and unscrupulous invader.
Except under the binding dominion of Rome, Italy never
yet was united; the repulsion of discord has always been active and national
gravity powerless within her; yet there was one, whose firm though despotic
pressure would have compelled her to unite and be powerful: the times were
adverse, his means unpopular, and his name is therefore too lightly treated by
those whom he would have gradually moulded into the form of a solid independent
nation.
By Otho’s coronation in 962, the western Empire passed
to the kings of Germany, or more correctly speaking returned to the Franks, for
Germany was then called oriental, as Gaul was occidental France; the
name being even now dimly recognised in that of Franconia.
Otho was son to Henry the Fowler, and a descendant of Witikind the Saxon proselyte to Charlemagne’s rough notions
of propagating Christianity; at the head of a victorious army he promptly
replied to the call of Italy where the second Berenger had become odious;
rescued the Pope, deposed the tyrant, and placed the empire permanently in the hands
of his countrymen. This important event established two points of European
policy, which, born of force and confirmed by time, remained still untouched
until the course of ages brought a second Charlemagne to begin a new chapter in
the history of nations: these were, that the monarch of Rome should be chosen
by the German Diet and Italian States; but that he could not legally assume the
titles of Augustus and Emperor until formally crowned by the Roman Pontiff.
The death of Otho the Third, in 1002, left Italy again
free; her engagements and gratitude to his family naturally ceased; the wars
consequent on a disputed succession gave the young communities an occasion of
trying their strength, and they soon proved that, while united, there was
little need of the self-interested and ever doubtful protection of strangers.
Daring these dark times we have but meagre accounts of
Florence: Otho I is said to have enlarged its territory from three miles to six
in the year 962; and his grandson to have appointed Hugo, Marquis of Tuscany,
his Vicar in Italy, about 983, who established his court at Florence and was
celebrated for his great talents but extreme licentiousness, until a vision
reformed him. This vision benefited the Church by the subsequent erection of
several abbeys as the most effective atonement, amongst others that of Buonsolazzo where it occurred, a fact mentioned in his own
letter of thanks to the Ubaldini for their grant of
that place to build the convent. His mother Willa, daughter of Boniface,
Marquis of Spoleto, and wife of Hubert, Marquis of Tuscany, with equal devotion
in 993 founded Santa Maria de' Benedettini, better known as the “Badia”
of Florence, and the early seat of republican government before either of the
public palaces existed.
Sigonius affirms that Florence as well as Pisa and Genoa began to make a figure
about the year 1003, an assertion that Muratori, who cites him, is strongly
inclined to doubt, though perhaps without sufficient reason.
Whether Florence was or was not so distinguished, is
uncertain; but that she enjoyed that progressive state of prosperity which
justifies the assertion of Sigonius may be inferred
from subsequent indications of national independence, while improving the
opportunity afforded to all the infant States for the achievement of their
liberty during the wars of Ardoino of Ivrea and Henry, Duke of Bavaria.
No sooner had the last Otho’s death become public than
the Italian nobles and prelates met at Pavia glad at their recovered liberty;
the majority being adverse to foreign rule resolved to elect a native prince,
and their choice fell on Ardoino, who was instantly crowned in the cathedral of
that city, AD 1002; being a man of sagacity and enterprise his first act was to
confirm every ecclesiastical privilege, for the clergy could not then be safely
neglected ; but a formidable rival soon appeared in the person of Henry of
Bavaria, who was crowned the same year as king of Germany.
Although the Italians considered themselves absolved
by Otho’s decease from any further allegiance to Saxony, the new king, who was
also a descendant of Henry the Fowler, differed widely from this notion,
asserting that obedience was due to the crown, not the man, and moreover
resolving to exact it. The dissensions of Lombardy favoured him, for Milan and
Pavia being rivals, whoever was elected in one city was sure to be opposed by
the other.
The absence of Arnolpho, Archbishop of Milan, on an
embassy to Constantinople, was another obstacle to Ardoino: this prelate on his
return disputed the election altogether, on the authority of a papal decree
which he said had made the archbishops of Milan arbiters of the Italian
monarchy, and rendered any election invalid where he and his suffragans had not
assisted. A Diet was therefore convoked at Roncaglia, and Arnolpho succeeded in
having Henry the Second also chosen as sovereign of Italy; he crossed the Alps
in 1004, with a large army, and baffling Ardoino, whose followers gradually
left him, was solemnly crowned by the Archbishop at Pavia, while the rival
monarch waited in his own domains for a more propitious moment. It was not long
in coming, for an event occurred on the very evening of Henry’s coronation that
bound the Pavians more strongly to their own elected
monarch, and spread a general horror of Germany throughout the Italian
Peninsula.
Insults offered to the citizens, who were perhaps
secretly incited by Ardoino’s agents, first commenced
the agitation; tumults soon followed, weapons began to flash and eyes to the
familiar strain we still occasionally hear; they described it as the “Fury
of the populace”—“An explosion of the arrogance of slaves that must be
repelled by force” and similar expressions. Force was accordingly used, but the
citizens soon got possession of the ramparts; their anger and numbers
augmented, and the monarch was finally besieged in his own palace. The
Archbishop of Cologne appeared at a window and endeavoured to calm them; he was
silenced by showers of missiles and retired in terror; the troops then in the
city joined the conflict, which lasted throughout the night and even until
broad daylight glared on the furious combatants. Every street was barricaded;
stones, arrows, and wooden beams fell thick and fast from roof and window;
fresh forces continually poured in from the camp, but ineffectually; at last
there issued an imperial order to fire the town; a thousand brands soon flamed
through the air and were tossed from house to house until the ancient Pavia,
the venerable seat of Lombard dominion, became a mass of blood and ashes! Henry
retired to a monastery beyond the walls and left the miserable inhabitants to
be butchered by his barbarian followers while he hastened away from a people so
cruelly injured: he arrived at Milan and soon departed for Germany followed by
deep curses from all the Italian nation. Whether Tuscany acknowledged Ardoino
at this period is somewhat doubtful, but the inhabitants submitted to Henry and
were apparently without a governing Marquis, a point of some historical
interest, as it bears on the reputed independence of Florence in the subsequent
war and capture of Fiesole.
Tuscany which, under the Romans, consisted of the two
provinces of “Suburbicaria” and “Annonaria”
had from the time of Longinus been ruled, as before mentioned, by Dukes and
Marquises, although at certain periods every trace of them as general governors
is either doubtful or entirely obliterated. The first Lombard duke of whom any
sure record remains, is a certain “Alovisino”,
who flourished about the year 685; and the last, though of more doubtful
existence, is “Tachiputo”, in the eighth
century, when Lucca was the principal seat of government, with the privilege of
coining, although her Counts were not always Dukes and Marquises of Tuscany.
About the year 800, the title of Duke seems to have
changed to that of Count, and although both are afterwards used the latter is
most common, Muratori says, that this dignity was in 813 enjoyed by a certain
Boniface whom Sismondi believes to be the ancestor of Countess Matilda; but her
father, the son of Tedaldo, belonged to another race:
he was the grandson to Altone, Azzo, or Adelberto
Count of Cannosa the uncle and deliverer of the
Empress Adelaide from captivity in a castle on the lake of Garda. The line of
Boniface I finished in 1001 by the death of Hugo the Great, already mentioned,
whom Dante calls the
“Gran barone il cui nome e'l cui pregio.
La festa di Tommaso rincomforta”
After him, on account of the civil wars between
Ardoino and Henry, there was no permanent Duke until 1011, when the latter
appointed Ranieri, whom Conrad the Salique deposed in 1027, making room for
Boniface the father of Countess Matilda.
This heroine died in 1115 after a reign of active
exertion for herself and the Church against the Emperors, which generated the
infant and as yet nameless factions of Guelph and Ghibeline.
Matilda endured this contest with all the enthusiasm and constancy of a woman
combined with a manly courage that must ever render her name respectable,
whether proceeding from the bigotry of the age or to oppose imperial ambition in defence of her own defective
title. According to the laws of that time she could not as a female inherit her
father’s states, for even male heirs required a royal confirmation; Matilda
therefore having no legal right, feared the Emperor and clung to the Popes, who
already claimed among other prerogatives, the supreme disposal of kingdoms.
Both religion and policy and even natural feeling were probably combined with
the superstitious detestation of what was generally deemed the impious conduct
of Henry IV.and the German priesthood. From earliest
youth Matilda had seen nothing but imperial persecution in her own family; her
father, who was both feared and envied for his opulence, hardly escaped the
emperor’s machinations; her mother, made prisoner by treachery, remained a
hostage until the death of Henry III; her step-father was persecuted by that
monarch, his brother forced to shield himself under the monastic habit from
similar injustice, and the death of her infant brother and sister was supposed
to be accelerated by these misfortunes.
The Church had ever come forward as the friend of her
house and from childhood she had breathed an atmosphere of blind and devoted
submission to its authority; even when only fifteen she had appeared in arms
against its enemies and made two successful expeditions to assist Pope
Alexander II during her mother’s lifetime.
No wonder then that in a superstitious age when
monarchs trembled at an angry voice from the Lateran, the habits of early youth
should have mingled with every action of Matilda’s life, and spread an
agreeable mirage over the prospect of her eternal salvation: the power
that tamed a Henry’s pride, a Barbarossa’s fierceness, and afterwards withstood
the vast ability of a Frederic, might without shame have been reverenced by a
girl whose feelings so harmonised with the sacred strains of ancient tradition
and priestly dignity. But from whatever motive, the result was a continual
aggrandisement of ecclesiastics; in prosperity and adversity; during life and
after death; from the lowliest priest to the proudest pontiff.
The fearless assertion of her own independence by
successful struggles with the Emperor was an example not overlooked by the
young Italian communities under Matilda’s rule, who were already accused by
imperial legitimacy of political innovation and visionary notions of
government.
These seeds of liberty began first to germinate
amongst the Lombard plains, but quickly spreading over the Apennines were
welcomed throughout Tuscany : increasing numbers gave confidence to new
opinions; commerce and industry were speedily unchained; a brilliant light
broke into the human mind, and the march of independence became inconceivably
rapid. The ancient municipal government had never entirely ceased, and the
already-mentioned magistrates called “Schulze” or “Schulthiess”;
“Echevins” and “Scavini”
by the Lombards, Franks, and Italians, still formed the council of the Count:
they were a popularly elected representation of the citizens, and under
Frankish government judged all common pleas. Under the Othos these northern forms were annulled, and consuls elected by public suffrage
after the ancient Roman maimer which, in defiance of conquest, seems to have
still clung to the Italian heart.
The functions of General and Judge had previously been
united in the Count, (whose authority, however, ceased in presence of the Duke
or Marquis), and were transferred to the consuls on the suppression of that
office : his powers extended even to the granting of life to condemned
criminals, and in the royal Frankish instructions it is ordered, that he should
make himself acquainted with the laws by which the people are to be judged;
that he love justice and be quick in administering it; that he hold ‘Malli’
(or public courts) every month, and be careful to have a particular regard to
the complaints of widows, orphans, minors, and the poor; and lastly, that the
court should sit before dinner.” He also held “Placiti”
or tribunals for private actions, assisted by the Scavini and minor judges, with whose aid judgment was given.
All causes were ordered to be concluded in four days,
and in cases of appeal six, or even twelve if the cause were intricate; after
which it was carried before the king: no counsel was allowed, as every man was
considered competent to speak of what he knew, and truth more likely to be
elicited from principals than advocates: half the fines in general went to the
sufferer, with an obligation to pardon his enemy, in order to promote peace and
good will.
Their form of process was clear and concise. A calls B
into court, and shortly prefers his charge. B denies and justifies. The judge
says, “Prove this or lose thy cause”. Death was a rare punishment, for the
object was to dissolve hatred, and stop contention. The Lombards were also very
humane to their slaves, who were not capitally punished even for robbery and
desertion: torture was unknown: a culprit deserving death was delivered up to
the injured person, who was allowed to pardon, but forbidden to use any cruelty
in executing the sentence.
The dignity of Count was very distinguished, and as an
Italian prince, he voted amongst Dukes, Marquises, and Prelates in the election
of Italian monarchs. Most of his authority afterwards devolved on the Consuls
who presided in three different assemblies, namely, the “Credenza” or privy
council, the “Senate” and the general assembly of the people or “Parliament.”
The first, which in some states was chosen from the “Great Council,” managed
the finances and foreign relations, and served as a check on the consuls. The
second, generally composed of a hundred members, under the various names of
“Senate” “Great Council” “Special Council” and “Council of the People”
prepared all public acts previous to their being offered for confirmation to
the parliament, which however commonly required the sanction of the Credenza.
The third was the sovereign power of the nation; the
people assembled at the sound of the “Campana” or public bell, and
discussed all national questions in the great square of the palace, whence they
were usually addressed, and laws thence offered for their sanction. Some
communities in addition to their Consuls, elected ministers of war, justice and
public economy; they had no Senate, but only the “Great Council” composed of
heads of families, and the Credenza chosen from it.
This was the general form of free Italian government
in the eleventh century; but there are no accurate accounts of the precise
period of its introduction to Florence, although as we have seen, the testimony
of her earliest writers refers it, and possibly with truth, to the age of
Charlemagne. If this be correct, Consuls must have been there long subordinate
to Counts, and therefore, not an invariable symbol of complete liberty, as
Muratori believes, only an approximation to it, which through Charlemagne’s favour
might have been obtained somewhat earlier in Florence, but was generally
acquired in Italy under the Saxon Othos.
In their wars with each other the young republics soon
threw off every restraint, and with a professed obedience to the emperor’s
person no longer heeded either prince or minister.
It seems probable that in Tuscany, towards the
commencement of the twelfth century, the Count’s authority had passed entirely
into the principal communities, leaving that of the Marquis as yet untouched;
but there are reasons for believing that the Countess Matilda in some of her
difficulties was induced to sell or cede a portion of her power, and probably
all that of the Counts, either to create a war-fund, or to secure a more
cordial support from the rising communities. As an example, we have the authentic
account of her mother, Beatrice, having sold in 1005 all jurisdiction over the
‘Castello di Porcari’ for two hundred pounds weight of silver, when she was
pressed for money near Pisa, while an unwilling hostage to the emperor Henry
III.
Altogether, there appears little reason to doubt the
internal freedom of most Tuscan cities very early in the eleventh century; when
no efficient governor existed, when the country was convulsed by civil war, and
when each town consulting only its own interests, sided with either monarch and
extracted concessions from both. The war between Pisa and Lucca in 1002, and
the defeat of Lucca at Acqualunga in 1004, coupled
with certain expeditions of Pisa against the Saracens about the same epoch, all
show us how early these cities began to feel their strength, although not yet
bold enough to emancipate themselves from the supreme power of the provincial
dukes. Yet the latter seem to have allowed these private wars in the heart of
their dominions, either says Fiorentini, because it was lawful under the Counts
to arm in their own defence, saving the emperor’s authority; as may be gathered
from the laws of those days; or because the exhaustion of their treasury, and
the vent which such dissensions opened for the exhalation of turbulent spirits
would make them more tolerant of that yoke that they had so frequently
attempted to shake off in the preceding century, and which the distance of
imperial support rendered every day less tenable. But this anomalous state may
be accounted for by what has already been narrated about the need of arming
against the Huns and Saracens: men once accustomed to self-government and the
use of arms are not easily subdued: that which sprang from a combination of
weakness in the governors with strength and necessity in the governed, would
naturally stand its ground long after both the necessity and weakness had
disappeared : the sweets of liberty overcome its bitters; they are not
relinquished without a struggle; and this neither dukes nor emperors were then
in a condition to attempt.
A free spirit was now widely spread; nor were the
civilisation and industry of these young commonwealths less worthy of praise
than their steady pursuit of liberty, if we may trust the account of Otho,
Bishop of Frisingen, the uncle of Frederic
Barbarossa, who has left a curious and instructive passage on both these
points: he marvelled that the Italians assembled at Roncaglia in 1154 retained
none of the barbarism of their Lombard ancestors, but in manners and language
possessed much of the grace and polish of Rome. So much were they attached to
liberty, he says, that they would not be governed by a single person, but
elected Consuls chosen from the three orders of Captains, Vavassours and Plebeians, to the end that none of these orders should gain the ascendant.
They were also accustomed to change their consuls every year; and in order to
increase the civic population all the high nobility and lesser barons of their
diocese, although independent chieftains, were compelled to submit to their
authority and reside within the city walls: “they admitted,” continues the
bishop in great admiration; “they admitted artisans belonging to the vilest and
most mechanic trades into their militia as well as to the highest public
offices”, and he then acknowledges that Italian cities far outdid all o there
in power and riches.
|
