MEDIEVAL HISTORY LIBRARY

BOOK II.

FREDERIC I., SURNAMED BARBAROSSA. [1152—1154.

CHAPTER II.

FREDERIC I. [1154-1155]

Coronation-Progress. — Roncaglia Diet.—Transactions in Lombardy.—Siege of Tortona.—Adrian IV. Pope.— Adrian, the Romans, and Arnold of Brescia.— Adrian and Frederic.—Frederic at Rome.—Capture of Spoleto.—Return.—Guelph Snares. 

Frederic took his way to Italy through the Tyrol, and even here his troubles began. A well-appointed Commissariat formed in those days no part of the equipment of an army; and even in later times might have seemed superfluous with respect to a coronation-progress, upon which occasion no one dreamt of disputing the imperial right to free quarters. Nevertheless during the arduous passage of the Alps, provisions, although apparently furnished as due, ran short, and the troops supplied their wants by force, not sparing even the property of the Church. To prevent these disorders seems to have been beyond the monarch’s power; but when the passage was accomplished, and the army encamped upon the magnificent Lake of Garda, he called upon the several leaders for a voluntary contribution to compensate the damage done; and, adding, it may be pre­sumed, his own share, sent the sum thus collected to the Bishops of Trent and Brixen, to be by them distributed in just proportions to the plundered cloisters and priests. A remarkable proceeding, if considered in connexion with the imperial right to gratuitous supplies, which it was by no means intended to supersede. Two conjectures upon the subject present themselves; the one, that specific exemptions might be enjoyed by some individual cloisters or churches of these bishoprics, and have been violently disregarded; but the probability seems to be that, having furnished their regular proportion, they had been plundered to make good the deficiencies caused by mismanagement and waste.

From the Garda lake, Frederic marched to the plain of Roncaglia, more correctly designated the Roncaglia meadows (prati di Roncaglia) upon the territories of Piacenza, the long-established locality of the Imperial Diet for the regulation of Italian affairs. Thither therefore Frederic had summoned all Italian vassals, and there, in the month of November 1154, he prepared to hold his first Diet in Italy. Some of the forms observed upon encamping here, and even the fashion of the encampment, are said to have been peculiar to the coronation-progress, and the especial Diet there held upon that occasion; for which reason they are worth recording, as appertaining to the character of the age.

The camp was pitched upon the banks of the Po; the tents of the Germans upon the one, those of the Italians upon the other bank, with a temporary bridge for com­munication. A magnificent tent for the Emperor occupied the centre, encircled by the tents of the princes, prelates, and nobles; whose relative rank was marked by the degree of proximity of their respective canvass dwellings to the canvass palace of their Liege Lord. The tents of their troops followed in regular order, traversed by straight streets from one extremity to the other. The whole was surrounded by a wall, without which were situated, after the manner of suburbs, the encampments of the various traders, attracted by the concourse of people in whom they hoped to find customers, and the markets to which the peasantry brought their produce; for sale—if the right to free quarters were suspended, as seems likely, during this occasionally much prolonged interruption of the march.

The camp duly arranged, the royal shield was affixed to a pole, and set up on high, visible to all, as a symbol of the protection, which it was the sovereign’s prerogative, as well as his duty and his purpose, to extend to all his subjects. A herald then proclaimed aloud the names of all the immediate vassals, ecclesiastic as well as secular, whom he thus, summoned to guard their sovereign during the ensuing night, even the spiritual princes being bound to discharge this duty in person, probably because bound to be present. The heralds of the several princes similarly summoned their respective immediate vassals, and these again theirs, for the like duty. So that it should seem that, with the exception of the monarch, who might sleep in safety so guarded, and perhaps of the seventh Heerschilde of freemen who had no lords to summon them—unless their military service included, as it not improbably might, the duty of guarding the person of their sovereign in the field, and so they were not excepted—the whole army must have been on foot throughout the night, all intermediate classes guarding their immediate superiors, and guarded by their own immediate vassals, down to the lowest vavasours and knights who, unguarded themselves, simply guarded their mesne lords. Nor was this summoning a mere form. The vassal, spiritual or temporal, German or Italian, who, being twice so summoned, failed to appear, not having obtained leave of absence, forfeited his fief ipso facto, the lay defaulter permanently, the clerical for life only, the Church recovering it at the offender’s death. Upon the present occasion, both ecclesiastical and secular vassals are mentioned as having incurred such forfeiture; amongst the former Henry the Lion’s old enemy, Hartwig, Archbishop of Bremen. Many had leave of absence, as the Margrave of Brandenburg, who was on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land; Bishop Otho, probably left at home to watch over his imperial nephew’s interests; Henry Jasomir, angry at the impending loss of Bavaria, and willingly excused by Frederic, not to irritate his uncle yet more ; with others on such or such-like pleas.

To the Roncaglia Diet thus constituted, repaired, in addition to the Italian vassals and prelates who formed part of it, Consuls of cities, and deputies from cities; the higher classes came to do homage to the new sovereign, almost all brought complaints of wrongs suffered, and appeals to his justice for redress; all, disputes and differences to be decided by him. Even the Marquess of Montferrat—descended, it is said, from Otho the Great, through a daugh­ter whom he gave in marriage to an early Marquess—husband of one of the Emperor’s numerous Austrian aunts, and one of the few Italian immediate vassals still independent of the cities, had to complain of city aggression. Two strong towns, Chieri and Asti, because he refused to become their dependent ally, were attacking, plundering, and ill-using his smaller vassals; to which the Bishop of Asti, who accompanied him, added his com­plaint, that his townsmen had expelled him from his episcopal residence, and from most of his diocese. To both Frederic promised redress, and orders consonant with this promise were issued to the offending cities.

The Consuls of Lodi—who took courage upon the appearance of the sovereign leading a powerful German army—of Como, Cremona, and Pavia, complained of Milanese aggression and tyranny. Conjointly they stated that, even as the Emperor knew Milan to have destroyed Lodi, so had she crushed Como, demolished her fortifications, restricted and taxed her commerce, driven her citizens out of their native town into open villages; and they repre­sented that, should the daily-increasing power and despotism of this ambitious and overbearing city remain unchecked, she would shortly be mistress of Lombardy; and, as many an audacious act foretokened, pay no more respect to the rights of the Lombard King, however she professed allegiance to Frederic by that title, than she did to those of his meanest vassal. The Milanese Consuls endeavoured to rebut the charge of aggression by retaliatory complaints of the constant hostility of these ruined cities to Milan, that had, they alleged, provoked the war in which they fell; and they offered Frederic four thousand marks of silver, in compensation of any transgression of his rights in the conduct of that war; the sum was in those days large, and they evidently designed it to purchase his sanction to their domination over Lodi and Como. He resented the offer as an insulting attempt to bribe him, but for the moment merely rejected it, and deferred giving judgment between Milan and the aggrieved cities until he should reach Novara. Meanwhile he enjoined the immediate cessation of hostilities between Milan and Pavia, together with the surrender of all prisoners of war, on both sides, into his hands; and he required the Milanese Consuls to undertake the guidance and victualling of his army across the Milanese territory to Novara. This requisition, it will be remembered, was simply the exercise of a prescriptive right, which not even Milan as yet had tried to dispute, at least upon the occasion of a coronation-progress. His object in deferring his decision could only be to avoid such involvement in the civil war of Lombardy as must retard his advance towards Rome, where it was, upon every account, urgent that he should arrive with the least possible loss of time. The slightest recollection of the mystic importance attached, during the middle ages, to the ceremony of the coronation of a sovereign, shows that Frederic must have been impatient for its celebration; must have felt that, to have received the imperial crown would, in Italy especially, prodigiously sanction his assertion of imperial rights; and, thus facilitating the inforcement of them, give weight to the decision he should pronounce; to say nothing of the repeated pressing solicitations for immediate assistance from the Pope.

The only other transaction at this Roncaglia Diet of sufficient political importance to be worth particular mention is, that Henry the Lion appears then and there to have terminated a dispute which had long divided the elder and younger branches of the house of Este. The Welfs, as the elder, laid claim, hitherto unavailingly, to the Italian possessions of their family; these the Duke of Saxony now granted to the representative of the younger line, to hold of him, merely requiring that the Marquesses of Este should do homage to him for all these Italian dominions. With this condition they seem to have complied, probably designing to observe it as long as the power of that elder branch should be formidable.

From the breaking up of the Roncaglia Diet, the accounts of Frederic’s operations and of the conduct of the Milanese become most contradictory. It is only from comparing Ghibeline with Guelph accounts that the probable truth can be elicited, though it may be seldom necessary to trouble the reader with the process. A letter addressed by Frederic himself to his uncle and biographer, Bishop Otho,—giving a very concise summary of his coronation-progress, of his acts, from his coronation up to its date, the end of this expedition, as a guide to the Bishop in his history,—is placed as a sort of table of contents at the beginning of that history. It is so concise that all detail rests upon other authority. Nevertheless, a translation of so much of it as relates to this expedition will be found in the notes, but not referred to till the end of this chapter, and with it of the narrative of the coronation-progress, and the Emperor's first Italian campaign. The amount of the discrepancies in question, however, suggests the necessity of a brief consideration of the relative position of the hostile parties, the Emperor and Milan, as explanatory as well of the feelings of the writers who thus contradict each other, as of those influencing the Emperor and the Lombards; and will, as usual in quarrels public as well as private, show both parties to be partly in the right, and partly in the wrong. The only point remaining doubtful being the more or the less of right and of wrong on either side. To this consideration a com­parison of the Lombard cities that have commanded so much sympathy, so much admiration, with their German sisters or rivals,—those Free Imperial Cities, that have, on the contrary, been such frequent topics for ridicule—will not be without its use.

It was against the tyranny of their mesne Lords only that the German cities ever strove, the especial objects of their ambition being, immediate instead of mediate vassalage to the crown—the medieval idea of freedom in Ger­many, if not everywhere—and imperial charters, granting them self-government, with sundry rights, liberties, and privileges. Hence, when they had obtained those objects, they were, with very few exceptions, steadily loyal. But the great peculiarity of these Free Imperial Cities is, that whilst throwing off the feudal yoke, they retained the feudal principle or feeding, and, abhorring democracy, fashioned their institutions upon a gradation of rank as strict as that which severed the citizen from the Earl. Actual republicanism, independence of the Empire and Emperor, they desired not; but the free institutions, the self-government that they valued, they retained for full seven centuries, until the whole frame of the Holy Roman Empire crumbled before the insatiable ambition and military genius of Napoleon Buonaparte.

In hotter-blooded Italy, on the contrary, emancipation from the yoke of the mesne Lord speedily engendered impatience of the sovereign’s authority ; and if the Lombard cities did not instantly disown that authority, they resisted its every exercise. Very soon absolute independence became the object, democracy the active principle. The nobles were not merely deprived of their feudal superiority, they were inthralled, and compelled to become citizens; and the same turbulent energy of democracy—whilst it distracted each city, internally, with the struggle that early began between the higher and lower classes for power, and excited each city to endeavour to enslave its neighbours, despite this incessant warfare, that seemed to threaten famine and desolation—produced rapidly increasing prosperity. But in lieu of enjoying this anarchical liberty, such as it was, for some centuries, in little more than one, almost all these republics were themselves enslaved by separate despots, who reconciled, each his own, to the yoke, by gratifying the general passion, in which they fully shared, for waging war upon and conquering each other.

Now that Frederic could not, as his detractors allege, have imbibed any natural antipathy to thriving self-governed towns in Germany, where he had ever found them pre-eminently loyal, is manifest; but what could he see in the conduct of Milan, Asti, and Chieri, except democratic turbulence, a rebellious disposition, if not actual rebellion, and an utter disregard of that justice which was, in his eyes, the first of virtues? To punish such offences he deemed his duty; and performed that duty too inexorably; but to temporize was not in his nature. Whilst Milan, on the other hand, for nearly half a century unused to control from mesne Lord or Lord Paramount, might hold herself prescriptively entitled to that which she was accustomed to enjoy—might look upon every act of sove­reign authority as an invasion of her right, and perhaps really believe that, when she swore allegiance, she had discharged every duty of loyalty incumbent upon her towards a German Emperor. Most especially would her pride revolt at any interference with her republican thirst of conquest and domination.

To return to the close of the Roncaglia Diet; Chieri and Asti neither obeyed the Imperial injunctions, nor sent their Consuls, or any other deputies to vindicate their conduct. They were laid under the ban of the Empire. Milan and Pavia, on the contrary, suspended their feud, and delivered up their respective prisoners as commanded. Frederic thereupon released the Pavians, who had never offended him, but detained the Milanese; whether in token of dis­satisfaction with their general conduct, or, what seems more likely, as hostages for the peaceable behaviour of their countrymen, whilst he should be upon the territories of their powerful and little to be trusted city; which would naturally desire to avert from cities following her example, as Chieri and Asti had done, the chastisement apparently impending over them.

Frederic now broke up his camp. The Milanese Consuls, Oberto del’ Orto and Gherardo Negro, the same who had somewhat disobediently received his commands to restore Lodi, whether of malice prepense, or unavoidably, or, as has been asserted, in sheer stupidity led the German army through the district that had been most ravaged in the newly interrupted feud, and where heavy rains had recently increased both the desolation of the fields, and the impracticability of the roads. Upon this march provisions for man and horse were unattainable, either from the duty of vassalage or for money, and after two days of miserable, hungry toil, Frederic found himself under the fortress of Rosate, some twelve miles distant from Milan. Here the deplorable state of the roads detained the half-starved troops, and the Emperor, suspending in such an emergency his acknowledged right to gratuitous supplies, offered to purchase of the Milanese the provisions stored up in the fort. In the very madness of perverse disloyalty, they refused even to s ell food to their still recognised sovereign for his famished army; whereupon he, angrily dismissing the Milanese Consuls demanded the instant surrender of the place. No preparation for resistance having been made there—whence it should seem that the offence was a sudden outbreak of popular arrogance—the little garrison had no choice but to obey the mandate, and at once evacuate the fortress, too happy probably at being permitted to retreat unmolested to Milan. Thither, through rain, mud, and darkness, the terrified inhabitants, with what property they could carry, followed their retiring defenders. Frederic occupied the deserted Rosate, where his army was sheltered and fed, and which, when he proceeded on his way, they plundered. This indulgence of military licence proved no great additional evil to the fugitive inhabitants, since the offended sovereign ordered Rosate to be burnt, his usual mode of punishing refractory towns.

The Milanese were by this time thoroughly frightened at the storm they had raised. The people, forgetting the outrages of which they had themselves been guilty towards the Emperor’s messenger, reviled the Consuls for having provoked the wrath of their Liege Lord, and at once demolished the mansion of Gherardo Negro. But neither was this sacrifice such an expiation as could propitiate Frederic, nor the destruction of Rosate in his eyes sufficient punishment for the offence. The former might, however, lead him to hope that, by giving the offenders time to repent and submit, and showing them in the case of a less important town the chastisement that he judged it proper to inflict upon rebels, he might escape the necessity of destroying the most prosperous and most powerful city in his dominions. Either in this idea, or from reluctance just then to spare the time which the siege of such a place as Milan would consume, he passed on without attacking the contumacious city, and the spirits of the Milanese revived. What became of the hostages, or surrendered prisoners, does not appear: whence it may be concluded that all were dismissed when the army quitted the Milanese territory, as any act of severity, or the detention of all or any of them, would not have remained unnoticed.

But if Frederic did not attack Milan herself, he showed her that his displeasure was unallayed. Upon the Ticino he took, sacked, and burnt Milanese castles, and destroyed two bridges, built by the Milanese for the purpose of facilitating inroads upon the lands of Novara. From Novara, whose liability to annoyance he had thus materially lessened, he proceeded—by a somewhat circuitous road, chastising refractory towns, and graciously visiting the loyal, especially Vercelli and Turin—to the offending cities, Chieri and Asti. Both were deserted by their inhabitants at his approach. Frederic permitted his troops to plunder both, then set them on fire, and made over the ruins to the Mar­quess and the Bishop, against whom they had sinned.

Frederic might now hope to prosecute his march to Rome uninterrupted, but seems to have conceived some appre­hension that the plunder in which, for the punishment of the plundered, he had indulged his troops, might encourage them to commit acts of wanton violence. To guard against this danger, he published an edict, enjoining the observance of the strictest discipline, and enforcing it by the severest penalties, to which edict he required every individual in the army to swear obedience. Whilst thus engaged, he received a deputation from Pavia, complaining that Tortona, in confederacy with Milan, was cruelly devastating the defenceless Pavian territory south of the Po. He sent Tortona orders to forbear. Tortona, in reliance upon Milanese protection, slighted the imperial command; and Frederic, again reluctantly delaying his progress, after denouncing the ban of the Empire against the audacious town, marched to besiege it.

Upon the 13th of February, 1155, he sat down before Tortona. The defence was resolute, and the siege discovers some progress in the science of the engineer, or rather in reviving ancient engineering, which art would naturally be fostered by wealthy and quarrelsome cities. Here, in addition to the usual moveable towers, battering and stone­hurling machines, mention is made of mines and countermines;—at Edessa only the first are named, and Frederic might have learned their use in Palestine, while the defen­sive countermine is said to have been the offspring of Lombard genius. Tortona proved invulnerable alike to skill and to force, to individual feats of almost unimaginable audacity, as to the terror inspired by the stern severity of Frederic’s character, here for the first time displayed, in the execution of all prisoners as rebels; and recourse was had to the customary slower process of blockade. The siege thus lasted two months; provisions became scarce, and Henry the Lion made his troops turn the course of the stream that supplied the town with water. Every drop of this necessary of life was thenceforward purchased with blood, the only well within reach being situated close to the tents of the Pavians. The sufferings of the Tortonese increased from day to day; the troops sent from Milan proved quite inadequate to their relief, and they made an effort to prolong the possibility of resistance by reducing the number of mouths.

An armistice for the performance of the religious rites of Passion week and Easter had been concluded. Upon Good Friday the gates of the town were thrown open, and. the whole ecclesiastical establishment of Tortona, regular and secular, in full canonicals, chanting penitential psalms, with censers waving—in short, with all the impressive ceremonial accompanying Divine Service in the Roman Church—issued forth in solemn procession. Frederic sent the bishops, present in his army, to meet them and inquire their purpose. It was to solicit his permission to sever their fate from that of the rebellious town by quitting it.

But the Tortonese clergy, at the same time that they implored this indulgence to themselves upon the plea of their perfect guiltlessness of Tortona’s crimes, strove to palliate those crimes, by averring that only the tyranny of Pavia had driven their fellow townsmen to seek the friendship and protection of Milan. Of this recrimination, which would have been more seasonably urged in answer to his first mandate, Frederic took no notice. He replied that he grieved for the sufferings of the servants of God; but could not allow them thus, by their absence, to relieve a town that had so insolently repelled his commands, exhortations, and summonses. He added that they would best prove their own innocence and uprightness of intention by convincing the Tortonese of the flagitiousness of their conduct, and inducing them to surrender. Yet more sadly than they had come forth did the clergy return, and either their admonitions, or hunger and thirst, soon afterwards wrought the effect desired. Upon the 13th of April Tortona surrendered, the only conditions obtained for the inhabitants, by the compassion of the Princes in the camp, being, what Frederic always granted, whether with or without previous capitulation; to wit, safety of life and limb, with permission to take away as much property as each individual could carry. The city was then plundered and demolished, in compliance with the prayers of Pavia.

The fate of Tortona produced a twofold and contradictory effect. Many Lombard towns were alarmed and submitted to their victorious Emperor, sending him their keys, with large presents, apologies, and professions of loyalty. But Milan, with a few of her stauncher and bolder, or, perhaps, only more enslaved allies, found, in the length of time during which Tortona had, single-handed, resisted the whole Imperial force, encouragement to perseverance. Frederic, meanwhile, repaired to Pavia, amidst the grateful exultation of that faithful Ghibeline city, to enjoy his triumph. He there received the iron crown of Lombardy.

Whilst these transactions were in progress in Northern Italy; another change of Popes had occurred at Rome. Anastasius IV had died upon the 2nd of the preceding December; and the very next day Cardinal Nicholas, whom the reader last saw reforming the disorderly church discipline of Scandinavia, was elected in his stead, by the name of Adrian IV. Adrian, the only Briton who ever sat in St. Peter's Chair, is by no means one of the least distinguished among the able successors of GregoryVII. (Muratori calls him a personaggio di esemplarissima vita, di sublime intendimento e fermezza d'anima); and a few words concerning the little that is known of his previous life, may be here appropriately introduced.

Nicholas Breakspear was born at St. Albans, in Hertfordshire, in so humble a station that his father’s poverty prevented his being sent to school. The incidents of his early youth, including the means by which he obtained education, are unknown; but the Roman Church, as was observed in relation to Gregory VII, has always offered resources in this respect to the talented poor; and the name of Nicholas Breakspear stands enrolled amongst those of the students in the High Schools, not yet called Universities, of Paris and of Arles. Whether he took the monastic vows, which are not unlikely to have been the price of the tuition afforded him, before or after the completion of his studies, seems doubtful; but he is found as a monk in the cloister of St. Rufus, near Avignon, and soon afterwards as its Abbot. His beauty of person, powerful intellect, exemplary life, eloquence, firmness, polite manners, affability, and charity, gained him general respect and affection; and, when he visited Rome upon ecclesiastical business, so charmed Eugenius III that he gave him the bishopric of Albano, and made him a Cardinal. He afterwards sent him, as has been seen, upon a legatine mission to Scandinavia, whence the Legate returned with an increased reputation; and now his brother Cardinals judged this almost pauper offspring of the lower classes the fittest Head for the whole Christian Church. At the moment of his exaltation the English Pope proved himself worthy of his high station, by unconsciously showing that his thoughts were engrossed by its duties, not by its splendours. To the congratulations offered him he replied, “The papal throne is thick set with thorns; the papal mantle heavy enough to weigh the strongest man down to the ground.”

And certainly the circumstances amidst which Adrian IV was elected were not calculated to promise an easy pontificate. William of Sicily had assumed the regal title without any reference to the Pope as Lord Paramount; and if Anastasius IV, amidst the difficulties with which he was surrounded and harassed, suffered this neglect of his suzerainty to pass unnoticed, Adrian IV was not the man to endure any deterioration of the temporal, any more than of the spiritual, papal sovereignty in his hands. He at once asserted that sovereignty by the non-recognition of the title independently assumed, addressing William merely as “Lord of Sicily.” The angry King refused to receive the Papal Legate. His misgovernment—the now, seemingly, capricious tyranny of Maione—had already produced great discontent; the oppressed at home were impatient for external support in their meditated revolt, as were the exiles for such aid to reinstal them. But no outbreak had as yet indicated the gathering storm; and, spurred by Maione, William—in further resentment of the implied denial of his regal title—boldly attacked the Papal province lying within his continental dominions, i. e. the principality of Benevento. Adrian replied by a sentence of excommunication, and calmly awaited the result, supported or inforced, as he expected his anathema to be, by insurrection, as well as by the arms of the approaching Emperor, the official Warden of the Church.

His dissensions with the Romans were far more critically important to the Pope, than those with his vassal King. Under the feebler Anastasius the sort of compromise— in virtue of which Eugenius III had returned to Rome, and again taken up his abode at the Lateran—had been wholly disregarded. All concessions made to Eugenius had been silently resumed; and Consuls, Senate, and people—themselves ruled or influenced by Arnold of Brescia, whom Anastasius, like Eugenius, had vainly banished, and whose nameless as unofficial power was boundless—exercised uncontrolled authority. At Arnold’s instigation the Romans now required Adrian to renounce all sovereignty whatever over, or in, Rome; and they pressingly invited Frederic to hasten to the metropolis of Christendom, in order to be there acknowledged Emperor, and to defend that metropolis against the usurpations of the Pope. Adrian did not, it hardly need be said, yield to such demands. Positively refusing to surrender any papal right, he excommunicated the demagogue Arnold as a heretic, and withdrew, for personal safety, from the Lateran to the Vatican, in Transteverine or Leonine Rome. The republicans, exasperated at his escape from their power, murdered a Cardinal, who was passing through their part of the city on his way to the Vatican; and Adrian laid Rome under an interdict—the first time, it has been averred, that the Eternal City was ever thus defied. He then judged it prudent to remove more completely out of reach of his republican subjects, and transferred his court to Orvieto; there to await either the effect which he judged his own strong measure calculated to produce, or the arrival of Frederic, whom he knew to be advancing, at the head of an Imperial army, for his coronation.

The interdict did produce an effect which, at the present day, it is difficult to conceive. It is, indeed, to be remembered that the privation was not merely of the celebration of Divine service, but likewise of the Sacraments of Marriage and Extreme Unction, with much restriction upon that of Baptism and the burial rites—the want of the last two Sacra­ments being believed to doom those who died, at least all new­born infants that died unchristened, to eternal perdition. But terrible as such a situation was everywhere felt, in Rome there was something more that enhanced its horror. The Romans—accustomed to see all the frequent and pompous ceremonies of their Church celebrated with a splendour, as in an abundance, elsewhere unknown—were absolutely horror- stricken by the total absence of the ceremonies and services appropriate to Passion-week, when they usually are well-nigh continuous. The people, disregarding even Arnold of Brescia in their despair at this privation, now compelled the Senate to negotiate with the Pope. Adrian made the banishment from the Roman territories of Arnold and such of his followers as would not recant their heresies, the condition of his revoking the interdict. The desire for the Passion-week and Easter ceremonies superseding, for the moment, all other interests, the terms were accepted and fulfilled. Arnold was expelled; and Adrian returned to Rome to officiate on Good Friday, and perform the remaining portion of the Easter rites. But this extorted submission of the Romans did not appear to be either cordial or sincere; and the Pope thought that prudence required he should confine himself pretty much to the Vatican and the Leonine city.

Arnold, again a banished man, in his flight from Rome fell into the hands of Cardinal Gerardo. But though the dreaded heresiarch were thus in his power, the Pope deferred his trial, or rather his punishment—for the sentence of excommunication, as the result of his conviction, indicated further trial to be supererogatory—until he should be supported against the Roman Arnoldites by the presence of the Emperor and his army. The Arnoldites made use of this delay to rescue their leader. A party of four noblemen—of the Campagna, according to most authorities, though some writers call them Tuscans—snatched him from the Cardinal’s custody, and carried him off to the castle of one of his deliverers, where he was revered and treated as a prophet. Again Adrian deemed it expedient to remove from Rome; and he despatched three Cardinals to meet Frederic upon his road, and urge him to expedite his march, in order both to afford the Holy Father his protection against the heretically mutinous Romans, and by his intervention to replace the convicted and excommunicated heresiarch, Arnold of Brescia, in the hands of the Church.

In compliance with these papal entreaties, Frederic caused one of the noble rescuers of Arnold to be captured by his troops, and refused to release him save in exchange for Arnold. The feudal noble being more valued than the Church reformer, the exchange was speedily effected, when Frederic immediately delivered up the recovered prisoner to the Cardinals, and advanced rapidly to Viterbo. The assistance thus afforded towards replacing Arnold of Brescia in the Pope’s power, has, by historians of more philosophic or philanthropic times, been imputed to Frederic Barbarossa as an act of either stupid bigotry or cold-blooded atrocity—rivalling, if not quite the massacre of St. Bartholomew, yet the most sanguinary of Philip II of Spain’s acts of devotion. The accusation is evidently the fruit of the catastrophe, itself misrepresented, over which Frederic, after delivering up the prisoner, had no longer any control. Whether he even knew beforehand what that catastrophe would be, we are not told. But independently of such con­siderations, this is again measuring the twelfth century by the standard of the eighteenth and nineteenth. In the former, a monarch might occasionally resist the Pope’s will, if personally annoying to himself—though always much blamed for so doing—might contend with a Pope for Church patronage, or refuse obedience to one pontiff, as professing to believe a rival pretender to the tiara, the lawful spiritual Head of Christendom : but to dispute the authority of an acknowleged Pope as to what doctrines were or were not heretical, or to withhold from him, or make terms with him as to the treatment of a convicted heretic, were ideas that entered no head of sovereign or subject, not itself heretical. Arnold was a convicted excommunicated heretic; moreover, a prisoner rescued by violence from the lawful custody into which he had been almost surrendered by his own partisans  and the Emperor, the especial official Protector of the Roman See, could not for a moment hesitate as to complying with the requisition of the Pope, whom he expected to recognise him as such, by performing the important ceremony of his coronation.

Nay, so thoroughly a matter of course was this compliance esteemed, that to Adrian it did not appear a pledge of amity sufficient to warrant his trusting himself in his protector’s hands. Negotiations, touching the security of the Holy Father, were still pending; and Frederic, far from showing resentment of such mistrust, agreed to remove it by causing some of his princes and prelates to take an oath upon the Cross and the Gospel in his name and by his soul—Emperors did not take an oath in person, unless to clear themselves of heresy to the Pope—"that he would neither harm the Pope or the Cardinals, in person or in property, nor suffer others so to harm them; but would, on the contrary, secure and protect them.”

Thus reassured, Adrian repaired to the Emperor’s camp; and now began a contest as to the forms of his reception, which its very absurdity, in modern eyes, renders highly illustrative of the age. Some little obscurity hangs over the minor details; but comparing and combining the several accounts, the course of the affair seems to have been as follows. Frederic sent his Princes, ecclesiastical and lay, to receive the Pope at his arrival, and, with every demonstration of respect, conduct him to a tent, similar to the royal tent, where a sort of throne was prepared for him; but he did not attend in person to hold the stirrup whilst his Holiness alighted. In the whole papal party this omission awoke terror even more than displeasure, or, at least, more generally. The Cardinals in the train forthwith provided for their own safety, by returning with all speed to Castellana, where Adrian had sojourned whilst negotiating with Frederic; and cloudy was the brow with which the firmer-nerved Pope suffered himself to be ushered into his tent, with which he there sank upon his throne.

Frederic now presented himself: knelt before the Holy Father to kiss his feet, and rose up to receive from him the kiss of peace. But the haughty pontiff—then nearly alone in the midst of the Imperial army—repulsed him with the words,  “Thou hast not paid me due honour; such honour as, in reverence for the blessed Apostles, Peter and Paul, orthodox emperors, thy predecessors, have ever paid to mine. Until thou shalt have made atonement for this fault, I give thee no kiss of peace.” The equally haughty monarch, thus braved in his own camp, immediately withdrew, indignantly declaring that menial services he was not bound to render.

The German Princes, especially the prelates, now interposed their mediation; but vain were their endeavours to effect a compromise. To all the Bishop of Bamberg’sprofessions of the King’s reverence for the Papal See, Adrian coldly answered, “These are empty words. Thy King has dishonoured St. Peter in stead of showing him reverence.” Finding the pontiff, who was helplessly in their power, thus inflexible, nothing remained but to prevail upon the monarch, at the head of his army, to comply with the pretensions of the priest, whose fate seemed to hang upon his word. But Frederic’s veneration for the Head of his Church was evidently sincere. When he was satisfied that the strange service required of him was an established custom, and had been rendered by former Emperors to former Popes—whether he were or were not persuaded that it was really a mark of superiority, emblematic of the protection given the Pope by the Emperor, the stirrup being held to prevent the rider’s falling—he yielded, and promised to comply.

But all difficulties were not removed by this consent. A second reception was the only opportunity for remedying the defects of the first, and the Pope was in the Imperial camp. Fortunately, however, the army being still upon its march, it was feasible so to arrange the movements of the parties as to bring this second reception about without any very violent derangement. Frederic advanced his camp, Adrian remaining behind until it should be again pitched in due form. Then he followed, again attended by the Cardinals whom he had summoned to rejoin him. The monarch rode forth to meet him, sprang from his horse, and held the stirrup whilst the Holy Father alighted. Adrian’s old biographer says that Frederic performed the office merrily (cum jucunditate), alluding, probably, to his jocular remark upon his inexperience in the duties of a groom. It may be conjectured, however, that he rather sought to pass off the whole transaction as a jest, than was really much amused by his groom-functions.

The Pope and Emperor were now in perfect amity, and ready for the ceremony of the Imperial coronation; but the republican Romans, in their insane passion for the recovery of their old universal domination, not­withstanding their expulsion of Arnold, did not intend to suffer any such solemnity within their walls, until the conditions of their invitation were accepted. The Imperial army was encamped half way between Sutri and Rome, when a deputation from the Roman Senate and People appeared before the sovereign. The spokesman, as the representative, or more properly the impersonation of the Eternal City, the mistress of the world, with whom new Rome very naturally chose to identify herself, addressed him, much as if he had been one of her proconsuls, in a long and bombastic harangue. After boasting of her achievements, her glory, and her power, and declaiming upon the unfitness of priests to govern states, this histrionic Rome thus concluded, “And now, O Prince! listen patiently and mildly to a few words touching thy rights and mine. Thou wast a guest; I have made thee a citizen. A stranger from Transalpine regions; I have made thee a monarch. What waslawfully mine, I have given thee. Therefor e must thou first guarantee from violation by the fury of barbarians my good usages and old laws, confirmed to me in fitting charters by emperors thy predecessors. Thou must pay to my officers, who will proclaim thee at the Capitol, 5,000 lbs. [of silver it is supposed, but Otho does not say], and thou must guard the Republic from injury, even at the cost of thine own blood. All this must thou assure to me in a proper 44 charter, ratified by oath, and by striking of hands.”

That this harangue offended the sovereign to whom it was addressed, scarcely need be said. But what is worthy of notice in the affair is, that instead of at once angrily dismissing the deputation, or referring it to his Chancellor, Frederic replied in a speech as long as Rome’s, which might be termed elaborate were not its necessary spontaneity self-evident, and the eloquence of which the best judges have admired. Addressing the orator in his assumed character, as Rome, he proved by many long quotations from history, that empire had passed away from her, and was transferred to the German Emperors. He said that he came, not a guest or a stranger, but a sovereign, to take possession of a part of his dominions; and he concluded his reply as follows, “Thou, Rome, demandest of me a threefold oath, importing first that I will observe thy laws and usages, secondly that I will defend thee at the hazard of my life. These two shall answer jointly. What thou demandest, is either just or unjust. If unjust, it is neither for thee to demand nor for me to grant. If just, I know it as my duty, which I voluntarily come to perform; an oath to do a volunteered duty were superfluous. Why should I violate justice towards thee, I, who desire to preserve to the meanest what is his? How should I not, at the risk of my life, guard the chief seat of my empire, I, who purpose at that risk, as far as in me lies, to recover for the empire its ancient frontiers? Thirdly, thou demandest that I should swear to pay money. Shame to thee, Rome! Wouldst thou deal with thy prince, as the sutler with the pedlar! It is of captives that ransom is asked; am I thy prisoner? Am I in chains, or at the head of a powerful army? Who shall transform the Roman King from a liberal giver into a reluctant payer? Ithas been my wont to give royally, magnificently, but only when and as I see fit. Why should I break this custom learned elsewhere, of my sainted forefathers, towards my citizens? Why should I not wish to make my entrance gladden the city? But to him who wrongfully demands what is unjust, every thing, even what is just, is rightfully denied.—And all this, with a strange perversion of ideas, thou wouldst have the King, to whom all oaths are sworn, assure to thee by oath! Know that my will is more immutable than thy laws, my word of more avail than thy oaths.”

To this reply Rome had no rejoinder prepared. The deputation merely said, that what had just been heard must be reported, fresh instructions must be received, prior to the utterance of another word; and departed, promising an early return. But Adrian, who well knew the nature of his flock, now assured Frederic, that so far from awaiting this promised return, not a moment was to be lost in accomplishing the coronation, which he was convinced the Romans would in every way endeavour to prevent. For this purpose he recommended the despatch of a light corps, that, guided by a cardinal, should, under favour of darkness, that very night enter the Leonine city, which was still held by the troops he had left there. The object of this reinforcement of their numbers was to guard the bridge over the Tiber, and thus secure the Basilica of St. Peter for the ceremony. The whole army, with the Pope and the Emperor, he further advised, should follow, so as to arrive early in the ensuing morn­ing, when the ceremony should be performed without a moment’s delay.

The respective marches were happily effected as planned ; but neither were they the only memorable operations of that night, nor was the coronation of the ensuing early morning. With what, to the children of the nineteenth century, seems an absolutely incomprehensible insensibility to the commonest feelings of humanity, Adrian chose to blend a sanguinary execution with the joyous pomp of the august solemnity, in which, as Head of the Christian Church, he was about to officiate. He actually fixed upon the night preceding the coronation for putting Arnold of Brescia to death; thus inaugurating what professed to be a day of festivity, with a scene of horror, especially exasperating to the Roman disciples of the republican heretic. The only conjectural explanation that occurs, as he could hardly hope to overawe the Romans by this demonstration of his disregard for their feelings, is, that he had deferred the execution until it could take place adjacent to, if not in, Rome; and durst not delay it longer, through fear of another rescue when so immediately within reach of the prisoner’s disciples, who would of course again attempt it.

But, whatever were the actuating motive, by command of the Pope, the Prefect of Rome—then already it will be remembered a pontifical officer, and of course in at­tendance upon the Pope—in the night of the 17th of June, 1155, brought Arnold to a spot upon the banks of the Tiber, very near the city walls on the northern side, where a pile of faggots was prepared. Upon this pile, whence as morning dawned the victim could overlook the city, where his zealous partisans were then sleeping, Arnold was strangled, and afterwards burnt. In the dim grey light that first announces a new day, arose the lurid glare of the flames, startling the Romans from slumber. They sprang from their couches, rushed out of the gates, chased away the papal guard, and mas­tered the sad scene. But too late! Even the ashes of the demagogue-heretic had vanished. Upon the burning down of the pile, the whole mass had been thrown into the river, to prevent the manufacture of relics.

Whilst the Romans were returning to their houses in the frame of mind that may be imagined, German troops, in execution of Adrian’s plan, had taken possession of the gate leading into the Leonine city, and of the bridge over the Tiber, now bearing the name of St. Angelo. It was still early in the morning of the 18th of June, when the whole army arrived before the same gate, and there encamped; whilst the Pope and the Emperor, with their respective trains, entered the portion of the town thus secured.

Adrian was, however, sufficiently in advance to be ready to present himself in full pontifical array, attended by a body of Cardinals, and the whole Papal court, upon the steps of St. Peter’s. Here, with the forms marking the importance of the office he was about to perform, he received the monarch. The Pope in person celebrated High Mass, and then, with all customary rites and ceremonies, placed the Imperial crown upon the head of Frederic, as he knelt at the Altar to receive it; whilst the princes, prelates, and nobles present, with loud shouts proclaimed their sovereign Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.

The solemnity completed, the Pope, with his ecclesiastical court, withdrew to the adjoining Vatican, there designing, temporarily at least, once more to reside under the protection of his own guards. The Emperor, in imperial array, and attended by his feudal court, mounting his charger, rode back to bis camp. The day was dedicated to the festivity usual upon such occasions, the warriors, for rest after the fatigue of a hurried night-march, laying their heavy armour aside. The troops, stationed upon the bridge for the protection of the ceremony, seem to have left their post after its conclusion to share in the banquet; whether with or without permission is not clear, but the latter may be inferred from the mention of stragglers, lounging, through idleness or curiosity, in and about St. Peter’s. A total neglect of the most ordinary provisions for security, so strange under the circumstances, that it is difficult to understand whether confidence in the lingering reverence of the Romans for the Emperor they had invited, and for the Pope, with whose gorgeous functions they could not dispense, or the recklessness of danger and consequent contempt for precautionary measures, characteristic of the chivalrous spirit of feudalism, must bear the blame.

For the moment, at least, such confidence was utterly groundless. The Romans, whilst wrathfully brooding over the execution of the victim, whom they themselves had in fact delivered up to his executioners, learned, it may be said simultaneously, the Emperor's arrival before their walls, and his coronation, not only without his having accepted their terms, and consequently without their consent and concurrence, but actually without their knowledge. Their rage was unbounded. Thronging to the Capitol, they called upon the Senate to co-operate in, to take the guidance of, their vengeance; and then, waiting neither for concert nor for any regulation of their proceedings, they armed and burst tumultuously over  the bridge into the Leonine city. There they slaughtered the German stragglers, of whom mention has been made, some even under the consecrated roof of St. Peter’s, and assaulted the Vatican, in order to get the Pope, who had dared to crown an Emperor without their permission, into their hands.  The Papal guards succeeded in repulsing the attempt, but  every Cardinal who unfortunately came in their way, suffered from the vindictive fury of the populace.

The report of this insurrection disturbed the Germans at their coronation-banquet, and reluctantly they left it to prepare for the impending affray. They were still but imperfectly armed, when a horde of disorderly assailants fell upon the Saxon division of the camp, which chanced to be pitched the nearest to the walls of Rome. The Lion flew to the rescue, and encountered them in a style worthy of his name; but the battle presently became general, and is said to have lasted throughout the day, during which the victory was at times doubtful. Nevertheless when at nightfall the Romans were ultimately defeated with the loss of, it was computed, one thousand dead and two hundred prisoners, whilst carrying off more of their wounded than could be numbered; the German loss, exclusive of the men, it might almost seem unarmed, butchered in the first instance, is positively asserted not to have exceeded one individual slain—a fact that Bishop Otho records, with the observation of mirum dictu. Of Germans wounded no account is given; but subsequently incidental mention occurs of a wound received by the Duke of Saxony, owing, of course, to his being but half-armed; and it may safely be pronounced that his could not be the only one.

Upon ascertaining this result of the battle, Frederic remarked that he had now complied with one demand of the Romans, and purchased the crown; but after the German fashion, not theirs, with iron, not gold. The prisoners were made over to the custody of the Prefect of Rome, who forthwith hanged some, and required a heavy ransom from the more affluent of the number. The remainder were, by the Pope’s desire, released.

Scarcity of provisions prevented the Emperor’s remaining upon the spot to complete or to make the most of his victory over the Romans. The very next day he perforce broke up his camp, and, accompanied by the Pope, marched for Tivoli. Here his troops were abundantly supplied with all necessaries, and the town presented him its keys, with proffers of allegiance. Frederic graciously accepted both; but Adrian claimed Tivoli as a possession of the Church, denying its right thus to make a transfer of its allegiance. Frederic was convinced, however unwillingly, that the claim was just, and immediately restored the town to the Papal See, merely reserving the usual Imperial rights. Another perhaps yet more remarkable incident of the sojourn at Tivoli is, that the Pope judged it indispensable to grant the German troops absolution from the guilt of shedding blood in the recent affray. This he did upon St. Peter and St. Paul’s day, when, after celebrating mass in person, he solemnly enunci­ated what it might have been supposed was even then a truism, namely, that to shed blood in defence of the sovereign is not murder, but the lawful vindication of the rights of sovereignty. The prowess of the Duke of Saxony upon the same occasion he judged deserving of more than absolution, and rewarded it by consecrating the Bishop of Altenburg, whom, on account of his submission to ducal authority, he had hitherto refused to recognise, and in whom since that submission Henry took as lively an interest as the Archbishop had taken before.

At Tivoli Frederic received deputations from several cities, with the tributary offerings usual upon the coronation of a new Emperor. Only one in this district was found disloyal. Spoleto, already offending by the forcible detention of Conte Guidoguerra, upon his return from his mission to Apulia, sent less than the customary tribute, and what was sent proved to consist chiefly of base coin. Frederic, taking leave of the Pope, who now again ventured back to the Vatican, marched to chastise the guilty city. The Spoletans came boldly forth from their gates, to confront the troops of their offended Emperor; but were routed, and so closely pursued, that the Imperialists entered the town with the fugitives. When taken, it was given up to be plundered. The German army remained not long at Spoleto, but, shunning the noxious effluvia from the dead bodies, removed to the vicinity of Ancona.

The objects in Southern Italy which he had contemplated in undertaking this expedition, Frederic was conscious were very imperfectly accomplished. His well-escorted commissioners had indeed succeeded, partly by announcing the immediate approach of the Emperor with an Imperial army, in re-installing the exiled Apulian princes and nobles in the possessions from which they had been expelled. But he had not as Emperor constrained William the Bad to acknowledge his suzerainty, do homage for his crown, dismiss his obnoxious favourite, and reform his government. To effect all this was still his earnest desire. The Pope, in alarm for his greatly endangered principality of Benevento, strenuously urged him by letter to invade the dominions of St. Peter’s rebellious vassal, and even sanctioned his admitting the co-operation of the Greeks in this war, thus virtually releasing him from his engagement to Eugenius III to exclude them. And as strenuously did the Apulian exiles—who, upon the strength of his presence in Italy and expected advance into Apulia, full as much as through the agency of his commissioners, had recovered their domains—entreat him to complete his work, by taking the present favourable opportunity to dethrone the King. This opportunity was offered by the great increase of William’s unpopularity, consequent upon the loss of the African provinces, which was generally imputed to the purchased treachery of Maione, now Grand Admiral, of his brother, who acted as his deputy. Moreover the expected co-operation from Constantinople was already in action; a Greek fleet, under Michael Paleologus—who had in the end completely repulsed George of Antioch, the preceding Grand Admiral—having been ordered by Manuel to attack Magna Grecia. The attachment of the Calabrians to the Greek Church, the resentment of the duchy of Apulia at being rendered subordinate to Sicily, the desire of the returned and somewhat imperilled exiles for external support, and a liberal distribution of Greek money to malcontents, favoured the attempt, and many places upon the coast had readily, when summoned by the fleet, returned to their old allegiance to the Eastern Empire.

This was the state of affairs, relatively to continental Sicily at least, when Frederic reached Ancona, where he found Greek Envoys awaiting him, to arrange the proposed co-operation of the two empires in the conquest of William’s dominions, and to negotiate touching the disposal or division of the conquest when made. But—flattering to Frederic’s ambition as was the hope presented on the one hand of restoring, even of extending, the Empire of Charlemagne in Italy, and anxious as he must have been on the other, to prevent the reannexing of the provinces he coveted to the Eastern Empire—insuperable difficulties impeded his taking at that moment a single step towards his object. The German troops were by this time sinking as usual under the heat of an Italian summer. The Ger­man princes, whose term of service had ended with the coronation, he well knew to be both impatient and pretty generally resolved to return home; whilst the conduct of the Milanese—who, regardless of the imperial authority, had begun to rebuild Tortona, although in this first attempt beaten and baffled by the Pavians— demonstrated the urgent necessity for his presence in Lombardy, with an army raised in Germany for the express purpose of quelling Milanese rebellion, ere he could attempt anything against the King of Sicily. Most reluctantly, doubtless, he declared to the Greek Envoys his inability at that moment to fulfil his engagement with their master, owing to the obligation he was under of leading back his suffering army to Germany.

No sooner did Frederic make known his determination so to do, than he saw his army very considerably reduced in numbers. The Coronation-progress being thus virtually ended, every great vassal appears to have been free to choose his own course. Some of the German princes and nobles embarked with their bands at Ancona for Venice, thence to proceed home through the Trevisan March and Carinthia; whilst others took their way by western Lom­bardy, thence crossing the Alps, into Switzerland and Savoy. Frederic himself, still with the main body, chose the eastern road by Sinigaglia, Fano, Imola, Bologna, and  Mantua, to Verona, thence to return as he had come, through the Tyrol.

As far as the last named city he marched on without impediment or annoyance of any description; but Verona was an ally of Milan, and had devised a snare for him. The Veronese claimed a prescriptive exemption from the passage of troops through their town, thus debarring them from the use of the bridge within their walls; which exemption they had purchased by engaging always to provide for their Liege Lord adequate means without the walls of crossing the Adige. In fulfilment of this engagement they now constructed a bridge of boats somewhat higher up the river; but put it together in the slightest manner possible, whilst still higher up the stream felled trees, heavy rafts, beams of wood, and the like were collected. The scheme was that these should drift in masses against, and break through the bridge, during the passage of the army, thus drowning those who should be upon it at the moment, and dividing, by the deep river, the portion of the troops who should have already crossed, from the other; when each might be separately and successively attacked with superior numbers, and so defeated, by the Lombard troops, who were assembled, forewarned, and ready to seize every advantage offered them. One body of these Lombard troops appears to have been in the Imperial army, forming its rear-guard, whether as having been the contingent of Verona and other cities professing loyalty, or as having, upon the Emperor’s entering Lombardy, joined, under colour of a demonstration of respect; but really to watch for an opportunity of betraying him to destruction, or perhaps only to be the better able to fall upon the rear of their supposed comrades, at the decisive moment.

Whether Frederic, who was attended by some loyal Veronese, had received any intimation of this treacherous plot, or sheer accident interposed to foil it, is uncertain, but foiled it was. Either the Imperial army marched faster, or the masses of timber drifted slower, than the Veronese in arranging their measures had calculated. The consequence was, that the intended victims were all safely over the Adige before the bridge was attacked by the timber; and the only sufferers by the craftily-planned accident were a part of the Lombard rear-guard who, not venturing to disobey the Imperial orders for rapid march­ing, were in the act of crossing when it broke. That this was the work of accident no one for a moment supposed, and the Lombard troops who had reached the left bank, were instantly cut down by the incensed Germans.

But not yet was the Emperor beyond danger from the enmity of the Lombards, which seems now to have been scarcely dissembled. His line of march led up the valley of the Adige, which some few miles above Verona becomes narrow, the road being here hemmed in by the deep stream roaring betwixt its precipitous banks, on the one hand, and the mountain ridge projecting from the Alps, with rocks as precipitous towering high over the path, on the other. Along this valley the army wended its way, followed by Lombard troops, Veronese included, who with no friendly aspect occupied every pass as soon as the Germans had cleared it. The valley grew yet narrower, became a mere defile, and now a prominent rock, crowned by a castle, well nigh obstructed it altogether. Close to the foot of this almost perpendicular rock, the troops must necessarily pass, and as the head of the first column advanced so to do, large masses of stone, in addition to other missiles, bearing destruction unavoidable, were hurled down upon them.

The Emperor ordered a halt, and inquired into the meaning and circumstances of the opposition thus offered to his progress. The castle, it appeared, was occupied by one Alberico, a noble Veronese, at the head of a band of Lombard warriors, many of them noble as himself. Guelph writers have endeavoured to acquit the Lombard cities upon this occasion, by asserting that Alberico was merely a robber-knight, with associates of the same character, who habitually plundered passengers under his castle, and thought to make his harvest by an opportunity so favourable. But even if this were the fact, it was still indisputably evident that, upon the present occasion, Alberico acted in concert with the pursuing Lombard troops, and with the Veronese authorities, who had already, in the matter of the bridge, betrayed their disloyalty. Frederic sent the faithful noblemen of Verona to remon­strate with their rebellious compatriot; but he, treating them as degenerate, servile wretches, unworthy the name of Veronese, refused to hold any intercourse with them, and drove them back by the same measures that had previously checked the advance of the column. A Herald was then sent to warn the Lord of the castle not to obstruct the passage of his Emperor. Alberico answered that the Emperor should not pass without paying an imperial ransom, nor his knights without each surrendering his horse and armour. “God forbid!” cried Frederic, “that ever Emperor should pay ransom to robbers and rebels, or any knight of mine surrender his horse or armour.” And he directed the camp to be pitched, in order to deliberate at leisure upon the steps to be taken.

The Emperor was no more disposed to retreat before robbers than to pay them a ransom. But even had he been willing to retrace his steps and try another pass, that would have been nearly as difficult as to advance. The defiles he had already traversed, in which a handful of men would be more than a match for an army, being now occupied by the Lombard troops, who were manifestly ready, upon any temptation or provocation, to throw off the thin veil still cast over their sentiments. The deliberation turned therefore solely upon the possibility of eluding or mastering Alberico’s castle. The former was clearly im­possible; but a still higher pinnacle of the rock was observed to tower above, and command the castle; diligent inquiry ascertained that it was wholly neglected by the garrison, as being inaccessible save through the castle itself. Could that pinnacle therefore be attained the strength of the castle was annihilated. But Frederic still hesitated to order so dangerous, so seemingly impossible an attempt to be made, when a volunteer sprang forward.

This was Otho of Wittelsbach, a descendent of the Scyren or Schyren, to adopt the German rather than the Latin form for an old Teutonic name, one of the oldest families of Bavaria, and himself Palsgrave of the duchy. His ancestors were those Dukes of Bavaria whom, for repeated rebellion, Otho I. had superseded, when he gave the duchy to his brother Henry; but one of the family afterwards saving his life in the great battle with the Huns upon the Lech, he had invested him with the palatinate in the forfeited duchy. The late Palsgrave, Otho’s father, having sided with the Welfs (to whose party his family had always been attached) in the then recent civil wars, had, upon the submission of the party, been required by Conrad III to give his eldest son as a hostage for his future loyalty. This son was Otho, who having thus been very much brought up with Frederic, had become his devoted friend, and had been made by him Standard-bearer of the Empire. He now showed himself well worthy of Imperial favour, of Imperial friendship, by at once volunteering to scale the rock with whatever comrades would follow him. The example was enkindling, and a couple of hundred noble youths presented themselves, ready to follow whithersoever he should lead.

Otho, carefully wrapping the Imperial banner round his person, stole out of the camp with his companions, all like himself in light armour, and crept round to the back of the rock, where they were thoroughly concealed from the castle. And stout were their hearts that recoiled not at sight of the adventure they had undertaken. The rock rose bluff and sheer, well nigh perpendicular before them, offering little hold either to foot or hand. But Otho and his comrades had promised to reach the summit, and to strong resolution seeming impossibilities become possible. Here one mounted upon his fellow’s shoulders to reach a propitious ledge; then in his turn dragging up his former assistant. There, with their daggers, they hacked out a resting-place for the foot, a purchase for the hand. They used their spears as ladders, as swarming or leaping poles. At length, after incredible toil and hazard, after surmounting obstacles only not insurmountable, they all stood upon the supposed inaccessible pinnacle.

Upon this pinnacle, amidst loud shouts of exultation, Otho waved the Imperial flag; at sight of which shouts yet louder rang in answer from below. The gallant band of climbers now rushed down upon the (to them open) castle; and its garrison, utterly bewildered, surprised in the very intoxication of anticipated triumph over their Emperor, offered only a disorderly, and therefore hopeless, resistance. In this ineffectual struggle, or in equally ineffectual attempts to fly, the whole band, amounting to about five hundred men, were slain, with the exception of a dozen who were captured. Amongst these last was Alberico himself. In vain the prisoners pleaded their nobility, and offered high ransoms. Frederic sentenced them to death as robbers and rebels, and was inexorable to offers as to prayers. One individual, nevertheless, persevered. “ Hear me, noble “Emperor,” he cried. “I am no Lombard—no subject of the Empire; but a Frenchman, free-born though poor. These men proposed to me to join an adventure that should repair my broken fortunes, but never told me it was to entrap and plunder their lawful Sovereign. Why must I, poor silly dupe, suffer for their abominable treason?” To this remonstrance the Emperor listened, and offered to spare the Frenchman’s life on condition of his proving his non-complicity in the treason, by performing the hangman’s office upon his late commander and comrades. The terms were thankfully accepted.

In two days more the army reached Trent; and toil and peril were over. The Emperor took leave of his princes and nobles, disbanded his own forces, and proceeded to devote himself to the business of government.

CHAPTER III. FREDERIC I. [1155—1158.]

Affairs of Germany.—Henry the Lion and Henry Jasomir.—Frederics Marriage.—Affairs of Poland.— Of Bohemia.—Of Denmark.—Relations with France and England.—Affairs of the Sicilies.—Of Lombardy. —Dissensions and Reconciliation with the Pope.