MEDIEVAL HISTORY LIBRARY

BOOK II.

FREDERIC I, SURNAMED BARBAROSSA

CHAPTER IV.

FREDERIC I. [1158—1160.

Frederics Second Italian Expedition —Rebellion of Milan — The Emperor in Lombardy — Siege and Submission of Milan — Second Roncaglia Diet — Laws then promulgated —Dissensions with Adrian — Second Milanese Rebellion — Siege of Crema. 

In Lombardy most anxiously was the advent of Frederic and his army expected by all Ghibelines, then groaning under the heavy yoke of Milan. That city, exulting in the previous Imperial abstinence from active hostilities, had prodigiously increased in power and arrogance since the Roncaglia Diet, at which she had deemed it expedient to attempt buying off the Emperor’s wrath. She had materially improved her own means of defence; had rebuilt Tortona far stronger than before; had greatly en­larged the number of her dependent allies, and had fortified all these really subject towns. So complete was her triumph over her constant opponent, Pavia, that this, her chief rival, had perforce submitted to give two hundred of her best citizens as hostages for her obedience to Milanese commands, and acceptance of her chief magistrates from Milanese nomination. Thus had she robbed Pavia, the former capital of Lombardy, as she had previously robbed weaker cities, of that very right, for the enjoyment of which she herself was ready to rise in arms against the Emperor, whom she acknowledged as her sovereign—the right of electing her own municipal council.

Confident in her own strength, with which she boasted that the Emperor himself shrank from collision, Milan had cruelly tyrannized over Como and Lodi. Rebuilt and fortified as, under Imperial protection, these had been, from the citizens of the last-named town she required an oath of fealty; and they took it, reserving in that oath their allegiance to the Emperor. The rage of the Milanese at this reservation was unbounded, and terrified the loyal but not stout-hearted Lodesans. In vain the Bishop, the magistrates, the principal citizens, flew to Milan, and upon their knees implored mercy. In vain two of the most anti-Imperialist cardinals represented to the Milanese the injustice of so unlawful a requisition, warning them in the name of the Pope, in the name of the whole Church, against compelling the Lodesans to perjure themselves by breaking the oath already taken to the Emperor. The Milanese, incensed at the pertinacious fidelity of the Lodesans to their allegiance, fell upon them with overwhelming numbers, and a virulent fury to which their previous tyranny and violence had been child’s play. They destroyed the Lodesan crops, vineyards, plantations, sacked the restored city, expelled the inhabitants, razed the walls, burnt the houses, leaving the whole a mass of ruins; and thrust into dungeons all who, confined by illness, or trusting to the compassion of neighbours, really their countrymen, still lingered in their birthplace. The exiles sought refuge at Cremona and Pizzighitone; but many perished upon the road, many after reaching their asylum, from the effects of their sufferings. The cry for redress, for the intervention of Imperial authority, resounded throughout Ghibeline Lombardy.

As harbingers of this much needed authority and redress, had the loyal greeted the Imperial Commissioners, Palsgrave Otho, a stalwart warrior, the very impersonation of mediaeval knighthood, and Bishop Reginald, equally, perhaps, the impersonation of the best mediaeval ecclesiastical statesmanship. The warrior is known to the reader by his exploit against the Tyrolese rebels; the prelate is described as a small, fair man, cheerful and friendly in demeanour, high-minded, upright, sagacious, eloquent, indefatigably persevering, and devotedly attached to the Emperor. That is to say, he is so described by Ghibelines; for Guelph writers lay craft, dissimulation, and inordinate ambition to his charge.

These unlike, but happily associated deputies, as their first step, possessed themselves of the Castle of Rivoli, which, commanding the valley of the Adige, secured to the Emperor his line, both of march and of subsequent communication with Germany. They next visited Verona, now loyal, where they were received, as in other loyal cities, with the highest honours. At Cremona they held a provincial Diet, which was attended by the Archbishops of Milan (often at variance with the city) and of Ravenna, by fifteen bishops, many nobles, and the consuls of several places. This was the concourse that had alarmed the Pope into placability. Thence they proceeded, by Ravenna and Rimini, towards Ancona, where the Constantinopolitan general, Paleologus, was professedly raising troops in order, conjointly with the German Emperor, to carry on the war against the King of Sicily; but at the same time secretly intriguing with all the inhabitants of the eastern and southern coasts of Italy, to effect the re­annexation of the maritime districts, at least, to the Greek Empire.

In the vicinity of Ravenna the Imperial Commissioners encountered a party of Romagna grandees, followed by their vassals, and headed by Radevico da Traversara, the principal nobleman of Ravenna. They were of the number of those amongst whom Byzantine cabal had been successfully active, and the meeting proved hostile; when in spite of their numerous and armed escort, Otho immediately captured them. The Ravennese, after obliging them to take the oath of allegiance to the Emperor, he admonished to be for the future more steady in their fidelity, and dismissed, in compliment, possibly, to their loyal German archbishop. The other Romagnotes he compelled, besides taking the oath of allegiance, to paya heavy ransom ere he released them. Then, having  assembled some forces, he and Reginald proceeded to Ancona, rejected alike the plausible allegations or evasions, and the large pecuniary offers of Palaeologus, and finally expelled him and his Greek troops from the city, the last foothold of the Eastern Empire in Italy.

Whilst his harbingers were thus happily preparing the way for him, Frederic had entered Italy at the head of his army. The first hostilities occurred at Brescia, a city in close confederacy with Milan, but seem to have occurred accidentally, rather than from any preconcerted plan of determined revolt. The Bohemians, who formed the vanguard of the army, fancying themselves, perhaps, in an enemy’s country, plundered some Brescian villagers; and the Brescians, believing themselves both in perfect security within their strong walls and certain of immediate reinforcements from Milan, instead of appealing to the Emperor for redress, attacked with superior numbers the small body of marauders, and routed them with great slaughter. The King of Bohemia hastened to avenge his loss, and quickly drove the Brescians to seek the shelter upon which they relied behind their walls; whilst the Emperor, coming up with the main body, ravaged the territory of the offenders, and threatened the city itself. The rash citizens repented of their temerity, paid a heavy fine, gave hostages for their future good behaviour, and, equipping their contingent, gave it to reinforce the Imperial, in lieu of the Lombard army.

At Brescia, Frederic was joined, as well by his other German divisions, as by the Italian Ghibelines, nobles at the head of their vassals, consuls of their towns­men from cities that were either loyal or jealous of Milan, such as Pavia, Parma, Cremona, Padua, Vicenza, Treviso, and a few more—or frightened by the Imperial power, as Asti, Vercelli, Ravenna, and several Tuscan towns. An army, thus heterogeneously composed, required to be governed by very stringent laws; and the Emperor accordingly put forth a code of strict discipline, to which he required the assent of the prelates present with him, and an oath of obedience from every one else. By this code he established tribunals for the decision of all quarrels amongst the troops, thus to obviate private feuds; and denounced regularly graduated punishments, from arrest and fines up to mutilation and death, for every offence in due proportion, from marauding and simple pillage of the peasantry, to wanton devastation, incendiarism, and every species of outrage. The proof was always to be, if possible, by witnesses, and only in their default, by judicial combat for the free, by ordeal for the non-free, whose punishment was always heavier than that of the free for the same crime. Naturally the code was severe.

Still all was not ready for the commencement of opera­tions. Frederic learned that considerable uneasiness pervaded his host touching the object of the expedition; the Germans fearing to be led against either the Romans or the King of Sicily, in the remote provinces, and the—to them—deleterious climate of southern Italy. To allay these apprehensions and stimulate the zeal of the vassal­age, he assembled the leaders of all degrees, together with his best counsellors, and jurists learned in the law, in numbers as large as hall or church could contain, and addressed them in a speech that Radevicus—who extols the majesty, tempering youthful animation, which made the Emperor beloved and feared by all—has preserved. The wording may, perhaps, be the old chronicler’s own, but even so it is still characteristic of Frederic and his times. It runs thus: “To the King of kings I owe high thanks, for that, having placed me as his minister at the helm of state, he has given me such confidence in your judgment and your prowess, that I trust easily to suppress whatever disturbs the common weal of the Roman Empire, of which the business rests with me, the dignity with you as the Princes of that Empire. The evils of war are too well known to me to allow of my beginning hostilities out of ambition, arrogance, or cruelty. It is Milan that, by her insolence and audacity, has torn you from your patri­monial hearths, from the arms of your families. You will undertake this war, therefore, neither in cupidity nor in cruelty, but for the sake of peace, that the audacity of the wicked may be coerced, and the fruits of good discipline enjoyed. Should we tamely endure the insults Milan has offered us, instead of being lauded for patience and clemency, we should be blamed for negligence and indifference to our duty. Ministers of justice, I call for your suffrage; injustice we do to none, but ward off from ourselves, and herein it beseems you to assist me with your utmost energies. You will therefore, I well know, make every exertion, cheerfully bear every privation, rather than suffer this rebellious city to boast that she has found us degenerate, that she has with impunity despoiled me of rights that my great predecessors, Charlemagne and Otho, gained for the Empire.”

This speech awoke the most enthusiastic spirit of martial loyalty. The clash of arms, the old German expression of approbatio re-echoed through the hall, and every hearer shouted in his own mother tongue his eager concurrence in bis Emperor’s views. All impetuously clamoured to be led to the attack. But in those chivalrous days, notwithstanding the seemingly almost reputable existence of robber-knights, and all that is related of violence and outrage, respect for law was a prevalent feeling, at least since the before-mentioned revival of the study of the system of Roman jurisprudence. Proficiency in that study already ranked high in public esteem, and Frederic was attended upon his expedition by learned jurists, who affirmed that Milan must not be condemned unheard. Incensed as he was, the monarch, at the head of a numerous army eager to engage, admitted the justice of the allegation; and the Milanese were summoned to appear before their Emperor and the Princes of the Empire, in order to explain and, if they could, vindicate their conduct. Accordingly, a deputation of jurisconsults appeared before this kind of extemporaneous Diet, and pleaded skilfully in behalf of Milan; but the Imperialist lawyers refuted their arguments, and the assembled princes pronounced the Milanese plea invalid. The deputation then offered pecuniary compensation, which, as before, was disdainfully rejected, and Milan was formally laid under the ban of the Empire.

The army now marched to execute the sentence of the Diet, but its progress was not uninterrupted. To cross the Adda was indispensable; but the river was swollen with recent heavy rains, and the bridge at Cassano, the only one the Milanese had left standing, was strongly guarded. The Emperor halted, and ordered the banks to be explored. The Bohemians, led by their King, discovered a place where the water seemed shallower, and boldly plunged in. They found the stream both deeper and more rapid than they had supposed; two hundred of them were swept away and drowned; and though the passage was achieved, it was through such dangers, by struggling against and surmounting such difficulties, that Vladislas knighted upon the spot the first man who presented himself upon the right bank of the river. The result of the exploit amply compensated the loss. The Milanese, taking fright at the appearance of Imperialists on their side of the Adda, abandoned the bridge, and fled to Milan. The Emperor now crossed at the head of his forces; but, even undefended, the bridge proved nearly as perilous as the ford. It broke down under the weight of men, horses, and baggage, crowding to get over; numbers perished in the river, and a considerable delay ensued ere the accident could be remedied, and the troops remaining on the left bank brought over. But Frederic turned even the delay to account. He employed it to possess himself of a well-fortified Milanese castle, named Trezzo, in which he placed a German garrison.

From this acquisition, Frederic, at the prayer of the plundered and exiled Lodesans, moved to what had been Lodi, when, under his eye, the foundation of a new Lodi was laid in a stronger site; and here, amidst the ruins of a prosperous town, devastated by ruthless ambition, amidst the lamentations of the victims of that ambition, amidst all that must needs stir up every heart against the authors of so much misery, was the Emperor visited by a new deputation from Milan. This arrogantly contumacious city, startled by the passage of the Adda and the capture of Trezzo, now sought to propitiate, if possible, her acknowledged sovereign, to apologize for, rather than justify her conduct. But time and place were against her. Her envoys, without being admitted to the Imperial presence, were dismissed by the Archbishop of Ravenna, in these words: “Ye have destroyed God’s churches and the Emperor’s towns; and with the same measure that ye mete withal, it shall be measured to you again.”

Dejectedly the deputation returned to Milan, to breathe their ow n despondency into their fellow-citizens, many of whom had already begun to shrink from the conflict they had wantonly provoked. But the rash outbreak of a young Austrian noble, Egbert Graf von Buten, who, at the head of a thousand youths as foolhardy as himself, dashed off from the army, and galloped tauntingly up to the very gates of Milan, as though expecting to carry the city by what would now be called a Cossack hurrah, served to revive their spirits and brace their nerves. For the whole burgher host thronging forth to repel the affront, fell with such immeasurably superior numbers upon this handful of hot-headed boys, that they w ere at once routed, and slaughtered or captured. Whether their leader fell in the affray, or being taken was tortured to death within the walls, seems doubtful: only his death being certain. The Emperor, indignant at this idle waste of life, put forth a proclamation, denouncing the pain of death against whoever should fight without orders, even if victorious.

The following day, August 6, 1158, the Imperial army amounting to 100,000 men, or perhaps 100,000 foot and 15,000 horse, besides numerous artisans for machine­building, peasants for trench-digging, &c., appeared before Milan, marched with all the “Pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war” round the city, and encamped in allotted posts for the siege. Frederic, well aware of the extraordinary strength of Milan’s defences, the result of the recent exertions of her citizens, chose rather to trust to the slower process of a blockade than to lavish the blood of his subjects in desperate assaults. He accordingly divided his army into seven corps, under separate leaders, directing each to pitch and intrench his camp before one of the seven city-gates, so as to be able to watch it, and prevent the introduction of provisions. And whilst the Emperor thus awaited the operation of famine, the virulently resentful Pavians and Cremonese, profiting by this opportunity of avenging their own wrongs, strove to perpetuate the evils inflicted upon Milan, by destroying not only the growing crops, but the vineyards, orchards, and olive plantations of the Milanese, whose farms and villages they burnt. The wild Bohemians, who had no such injuries firing their blood to vengeance, indulged their plundering propensities, and are accused of violently carrying off the peasant girls; whom the captor’s compatriot prelate, Daniel Bishop of Prague, when he found his prayers unavailing with these members of his own flock, to procure their release, purchased, and sent, thus ransomed, home to their parents.

The Milanese strove to defend themselves by becoming the assailants. They noted the especially insulated position of the camp occupied by two of the youngest and, consequently, least experienced of the German princes, the Duke of Swabia and the Rhine Palsgrave, and attacked it by night. Troops and leaders alike were surprised unprepared, and, although despite their disorder they fought gallantly, great confusion ensued. The result must have been serious had not their more vigilant neighbour, the veteran King of Bohemia, heard the tumult and hastened to their relief; when the united forces of the two camps presently drove the Milanese back into the town. In retaliation of this attack, Palsgrave Otho one night set fire to the gate committed to his observation, which, with some adjacent wooden buildings, he burnt, but gained no further advantage. And again the Milanese tried a nocturnal sally, selecting upon this occasion for assault the Duke of Austria’s camp. But the old Crusader was not to be surprised like his nephews, and they were repulsed with the loss of their favourite leader. Many individual challenges were given and accepted; and in almost all the single combats thus occurring, the Germans gained the victory. A small tower serving as an outwork was early mastered.

But it was not to such insignificant triumphs, it was to hunger that the Emperor looked for success; and hunger, thanks to the numbers who had crowded into the city for protection, was within the month working his will. Provisions had even in this short space of time reached a price beyond the means of the lower orders; and the more moderate among the higher, who thought the sufferings of so painful a struggle a price beyond what getting quite rid of the easily evaded yoke of a distant monarch was worth, availed themselves of the growing dissatisfaction. The Conte di Biandrate, about the most considerable of the nobles enrolled amongst the citizens, who had fought valiantly in every skirmish, and w as universally esteemed by the Ghibelines and the Emperor as by his townsmen, addressing the famished multitude, reminded them that Milan had always been part of the Holy Roman Empire, and as such had always owed allegiance to the Emperor, whether he were an Italian or a German: whence he inferred that there could be no disgrace in submitting to their lawful sovereign. He added that, however desirable, however glorious, were the independence, the self-government, the sovereignty for which they had striven, to struggle against overwhelming force, in fact against fate, was irrational, and could produce only utter ruin. For these reasons he exhorted them to seek a reconciliation with the Emperor, concluding with these words:—"No one can suspect me of thus advising through cowardice. No! For myself I am ready to die for my fellow-townsmen—for my city. Joyfully have I, joyfully will I, shed my blood for your safety.”

This harangue wrought the effect the speaker had hoped. A negotiation was opened, and as Frederic never sought more than what he deemed just, whether right or wrong in his standard of justice, the terms of surrender were soon adjusted. These were, a confession of their guilt on the part of the Milanese, and a petition for the Emperor’s mercy; the acknowledgment of the perfect independence of Lodi and Como, with the single exception of the spiritual dependence of their bishops and clergy upon the Archbishop of Milan, as metropolitan; the taking the oath of allegiance by every male Milanese between the ages of fourteen and seventy; the renunciation of all pretension to the right of coining, imposing taxes, and a few more royalties; amongst others which they were held to have usurped, the right of sporting; the rebuilding the Imperial palace which they had destroyed; the payment of 9000 marks of silver, whether as a fine or as due for the coronation progress; and, finally, the delivery of three hundred hostages, to be selected by the Marquess of Montferrat, the Earl of Biandrate, and the Archbishop, and to include, if the Emperor so pleased, three consuls present or past. These hostages were to be dismissed when all the conditions should be fulfilled; and the Emperor in return recognised the right of the Milanese to elect their own consuls for the future, with the reservation of his own right to approve and confirm them, when coming to receive their office of consul from him. He further promised to grant the allies of Milan the same terms, and not to risk disorders by permitting his troops to enter the town. In compliance with this promise, the Imperial camp was immediately removed to a greater distance from the city gates.

The next day, the 8th of September, the Milanese came forth to humble themselves before the throne of the Emperor, lay themselves at his mercy, and take the prescribed oaths. They walked in procession. The Archbishop led the way, attended by all the clergy, secular and regular, bearing crucifixes, censers, and other emblems and implements of worship in the Roman Catholic Church. Next came the consuls, municipal officers, nobles, and knights, barefoot, with their naked swords hanging from their necks. Last in the train appeared the whole male population, rich citizens, shopkeepers, handicraftsmen, and the like, similarly barefoot, and with ropes about their necks. They passed along the lane formed by the army, drawn up in two lines for the occasion, until the foremost ranks reached the steps of the throne, upon which sat the Emperor, encircled by his princes, prelates, and nobles. Then Milan, in the mass, sank prostrate in the dust before him.

The Archbishop first broke the awful silence, imploring mercy for his flock. The Emperor gave him the kiss of peace, with a sign to take his place amongst his ecclesiastical peers. Oberto del’ Orto, one of the consuls who upon the previous expedition had, whether purposely or not, so egregiously misled the Imperial army, and who again held that office, spoke next, saying: “We have sinned against you, Lord Emperor: we have acted wrongfully, and pray for your pardon, laying our swords at your feet, our lives in your hands.” This humiliation of the arrogant Milanese awoke general sympathy, and Frederic answered: “It joys me that the Milanese at length prefer peace to war, and spare me the painful necessity of harming them. How much evil had been averted had the citizens earlier chosen this better path! I would reign over willing, rather than over coerced subjects; would reward rather than punish. But none must forget that I am more amenable to obedience than to force; that every forward fool can begin a feud, but that the issue rests with the ablest and bravest. In trust, however, that Milan will henceforth persevere in the right path, she shall experience only my clemency and favour, in lieu of my severity and power.”

The ban of the Empire was then in due form revoked, and Frederic, after receiving the homage of the Milanese magistrates and nobles, gave them the kiss of peace. He withdrew his troops yet farther from the city, and all seemed harmony; though many were the heart-burnings caused within the walls of Milan by the sight of the Imperial flag floating from the cathedral tower. But of this the Emperor appears to have been unsuspicious. As though all the difficulties of his enterprise w ere conquered, and so puissant an army no longer wanted, he permitted those princes whose presence at home was urgently required, as the King of Bohemia, the Duke of Austria, the Archbishop of Mainz, and others of less dignity, to depart, taking with them a very considerable portion of his German forces. His next measure was to improve the efficiency of those he retained, by clearing his camp of the worse than useless camp followers, whose very admission, interfering with the observance of his code of discipline, was by it prohibited. That done, he proceeded with his diminished army to enforce submission throughout Lombardy; and, in token of his recovered sovereignty, was now crowned with the iron crow n at Monza, upon which occasion he liberally recompensed the loyal Lombards.

In the month of November, 1158, the Emperor again held a Diet upon the Roncaglia plain, for the avowed purpose of permanently restoring peace to Italy, by the publication of a code which should determine and proclaim the relative rights and duties of sovereign and subjects. This Diet was attended by twenty-three prelates, by princes, dukes, marquesses, and earls in considerable numbers, and by the consuls and other magistrates of most cities in Lombardy and central Italy, including Oberto del’ Orto and, his colleague now as before, Gherardo Negro. Thither, to assist in the concoction of the proposed code, Frederic, who, if his ideas of the rights of a sovereign were somewhat despotic, never sought to usurp a prerogative that he did not believe to be lawfully vested in his high office, summoned the four most celebrated professors of jurisprudence from the school of law at Bologna. They were named Bulgaro, Martino Gossia, Jacopo, and Ugone da Porta Ravegnano. And with these Professors or Doctors of Law, lest their doctrines should be thought to savour of partiality or undue influence, the Lombard cities were permitted to associate as assessors or assistants, twenty-eight lawyers selected from their municipal councillors. A striking instance of the degree to which the republican aspirations of the cities had, in their search for legal grounds upon which to rest their pretensions to self-government, promoted legal studies. This committee of jurists and the subject of their deliberations the Emperor announced to the Diet, by a speech, in which he assured the assembled Estates, more especially the Italian Estates of the Empire, of his desire to rule by law rather than arbitrarily.

That Frederic Barbarossa herein spoke his real sentiments need not be questioned; but neither had he to apprehend modern constitutional restrictions from Bolognese professors. The mere recollection that the system of civil law taught at Bologna bears the name of the Emperor Justinian, induces the certainty that it must have assigned authority to the sovereign far more absolute than any feudal monarch dreamt of exercising. One of the four doctors, indeed, Gossia, is said to have advocated the right of mankind to liberty, but his three colleagues adhered to Justinian’s principles. The decision given was, that to the Emperor alone belonged the right of granting principalities; of appointing, with the assent indeed of the people, consuls, judges, and all other city magistrates and officers; and that the other rights and royalties, of which his predecessors had suffered themselves to be lawlessly robbed, he ought to resume. These royalties included the imposition of taxes, tolls of every description, and fines; confiscation of forfeited, and occupation of lapsed fiefs, coining, mines, salt springs, mills, fisheries, chases, free quarters for his army upon the Coronation Progress, with many others of less moment, which it were tedious to enumerate. It may, however, be worth noticing that one main cause of Milan’s discontent was the restraint upon the citizens’ enjoyment of the pleasures of the chase,—the exclusive privilege, it will be remembered, of the nobility, save as their villeins may, by the assistance they rendered in its exercise, have shared in it.

This decision appears to have very unexpectedly extended the rights of sovereignty, but without exciting any idea of resistance to the opinion of the learned expounders of law. The Archbishop of Milan, instantly upon hearing it, offered the restitution of all rights and privileges usurped by his predecessors; and his example was followed by nearly all the similarly circumstanced Italians present. Frederic, overjoyed at the prospect of such an accession to the ever-exhausted Imperial exchequer, promised in return, to confirm to the actual possessors, whatever royalties had been fairly granted by any of his predecessors.

The Emperor next proceeded to legislate, with the advice of the Bolognese professors and the concurrence of the Diet, upon some matters of scarcely minor importance. He so restricted and regulated the right of private warfare, determining as well the circumstances that should authorize, as the mode of waging it, that his laws, could he have enforced the observance of them, had been a great step towards the annihilation of this highly prized right itself, towards superseding feudal by civil law. He ordered quarrels between cities or vassals to be referred to proper tribunals, which he instituted where deficient, and imposed heavy fines, both upon the transgressors of this law, who would not submit their differences to these tribunals, and upon such tribunals as should fail to do justice between the contending parties; and he prohibited, under similar penalties, all confederations and conspiracies. He further prohibited: 1st, all division of duchies, margra­viates, and counties, sanctioning such a parcelling out only in minor fiefs; 2dly, the transfer, whether by gift or bequest of any fief to the Church, without the consent of the immediate feudal superior—the first attempt at restricting gifts in mortmain; and 3dly, the disposal, in any way, of any subfief, without the consent of the mesne lord. He further commanded the reservation, in every oath of fealty, of the allegiance due to the Emperor.

It may perhaps chill the sympathy of modern cosmopolite philanthropists with the Lombards’ struggle for liberty, to learn that, of all these laws, the restrictions upon the right of private warfare was the most offensive to the cities. Their anger was not, however, betrayed at the moment. All present swore, without any apparent hesitation, to obey all these laws; nor need this excite surprise. Many circumstances tended to moderate the Guelph movement. The growing democratic tendency of the towns had, in fact, made the higher classes very generally Ghibeline, even such as were most indisposed to the sovereignty of a German emperor. Nor had the Popes as yet so decidedly placed themselves at the head of the Guelphs as to counteract this sort of caste inclination. On the other hand, not even the boldest and most republican cities seem to have hitherto dreamt of advancing any pretension to independence of the Empire and Emperor. What they really desired w as to enjoy the rights and privileges of the great feudal nobles. Frederic, moreover, now allured them to loyalty, by generally granting them, in consideration of an annual rent, impost, or tribute, those royalties which they had usurped, and of which they were in actual possession. The loyal sentiments of the higher classes he sought to confirm and recompense by divers favours, some of which may appear inconsistent with feudal pride; as, e. g., he decided in the case of the nobles of Asti, that they should not derogate from their nobility by taking part in mercantile transactions.

Whilst these legislative labours were in progress, and even prior to their commencement, Frederic, assisted by the Bolognese jurists, had sat to administer justice. But such was the incredible number of prosecutions and disputes brought before him, that he declared a whole life would be inadequate to decide the quarrels of such intolerable lawbreakers as the Italians. He accordingly, by the advice of these, his legal counsellors, devolved the ungrateful task upon especial judges, to be appointed by himself or his Imperial Vicars. As a security against any unfair partiality on the part of these judges, it was ordered that they should never be selected from the native place of either plaintiff or defendant. The title of Podestà was given them; and this is the first mention that occurs of these singular magistrates always aliens to the town over the tribunals of which they presided, to which they were not allowed to bring a single member of their family, or in which to choose a wife, or to accept or give a dinner; and who, appointed merely as judges, gradually drew the whole authority into their hands, though still subjected to the same restrictions.

The Emperor rewarded the services of the Bolognese doctors, and testified his value for the learning that had proved so useful, by raising the high school of Bologna to the rank of an University, which he endowed with various privileges. Among these were, to all its members exemption from military duties, to the professors judicial authority within the University, and permission to the students, even in criminal cases, to choose whether they would be tried by the ordinary courts of justice, or by their own academic, and, it might be supposed, partial tribunal. It is to be observed, however, that the professors found this prerogative of exercising judicial authority over their students so burthensome, that they speedily resigned it to the municipal magistrates; and, until the second quarter of the next century, never even sought to resume it.

The Emperor’s grand object seemed now to be attained. The turbulent Lombards—whom, as really constituting the kingdom of Italy, he deemed more peculiarly his subjects—appeared to be brought into their proper position. Venice, the most nearly independent state in northern Italy, had previously acknowledged his sovereignty, by paying her allotted contribution towards the Coronation Progress. Her rising rival, Genoa, had indeed resisted his demands, and fortified herself; but a short negotiation ended in her acknowledgment of the Imperial sovereignty, whereupon the Genoese consented to pay a sum of money in lieu of military or other service, and took the oath of allegiance.

Frederic next endeavoured to enforce those rights, now recognised by the Roncaglia Diet as the Emperor’s, over the estates of the Church and the dominions of the Normans, as far as Calabria; thereby, of course, offending both the Pope and the King of Sicily. William the Bad was just then in a position that enabled Adrian to place some reliance upon his support. Maione’s brother, Stefano, had lately gained a brilliant victory over the Greek fleet, making the commander, Michael Ducas, with other personages of consequence, his prisoners; and this disaster of his army had determined Manuel to conclude a thirty years’ truce with the King of Sicily. The pacification was as important to Adrian as to William; for, thoroughly aware that the Romans were well nigh as much gratified as the Emperor himself with the legal decision assigning, in some measure, universal sovereignty to the monarch, who derived his supremacy from theirs, he knew they were little likely to prove tractable; but felt himself strong in the deliverance of his royal vassal and ally from foreign war, and consequent ability to afford him support. Frederic, pursuing his triumphant career, further irritated the Pope and provoked the enmity of many vassals, greater and lesser, as well as of many cities, by the investigation which he at the same time set on foot respecting Countess Matilda’s heritage. Although he had granted that heritage with the title of Duke of Spoleto to his uncle Welf, he had been able to give the grantee possession of only a very small portion of that princess’s dominions. During the troubles that had prevailed since her death many towns had emancipated themselves from all mesne suzerainty, becoming free, viz., immediate vassals of the Emperor—if the word vassal may, for want of another, describe this condition of towns; and separate districts had been usurped by divers princes, prelates, and nobles; the Pope   it was now often as difficult to ascertain what had and what had not formed part of those dominions, as to distinguish her legally lapsed fie fs from her allodial possessions.

Sardinia and Corsica were the portion of this heritage respecting which the chief contest a rose between Adrian and Frederic. The Emperor claimed them doubly, both as fiefs that had lapsed to the Crown upon Matilda’s dying childless, and in his character of heir to her heir, Henry V; and he demanded her heritage for his uncle and vassal, the Duke of Spoleto, to whom he had granted, if not actual possession of these islands, at least the suzerainty over them. The Pope, whilst he denied the Imperial suzerainty over any part of the property of the Church, Sicily and Apulia included, claimed Sardinia and Corsica as such upon two grounds; the one, that they were comprised in the gift of either Charlemagne or Lewis the Pious, or in both; and the second, the Papal right of sovereignty over all lands recovered from misbelievers: hence he argued that Matilda had held these islands in vassalage of the Popedom, not of the Empire, wherefore, upon her decease, leaving no child, to the Popedom and not the Empire had these fiefs of hers lapsed.

To these great subjects of contention, others of less moment—some personal, some regarding the relations, rights, and prerogatives of the Church and the Empire respectively—were superadded. The Archbishopric of Ravenna, just then falling vacant by the death of the German Anselm, Guido di Biandrate, son of the Conte di Biandrate, was, by the clergy and laity of the province, lawfully, if through Imperial influence, elected to the see. But Guido was a subdeacon of the Roman Church, and neither the members of the Roman clergy, nor the ecclesiastical officers of the Roman see, could, without the Pope’s express permission, accept office or dignity in any inferior church or diocese. Adrian professed a value for his subdeacon, that made it impossible, even at Frederic’s earnest entreaty, to part with him; and he refused the indispensable permission. Upon grounds diametrically opposite he refused to sanction the election of Frederic’s able and active chancellor, Reginald, to the then vacant archiepiscopal see of Cologne. Then reviving some of the pretensions to which the Calixtine Concordat had put an end, he insisted that the Italian bishops, though they swore allegiance to the Emperor, should neither do him homage nor be obliged to receive his envoys into their palaces. To the first of these pretensions Frederic replied that if the Italian bishops would, according to the proposal of Pope Pascal II, renounce their temporalities, he would never claim homage from them, but that whilst they held fiefs of the Empire, they must, for those fiefs, do homage to the Emperor. To the other demand he said that he would never require his envoys to be received into episcopal palaces standing upon purely episcopal land, but that from any palace forming part of a fief of the Empire he could not suffer them to be excluded.

The irritation generated by these dissensions was further exacerbated by petty annoyances. The Pope, in writing his complaints to the Emperor, besides giving his own name precedence, adopted for himself the sovereign for­mula, the plural, we, whilst addressing his Imperial corre­spondent in the singular, thou. The Emperor vindicated his equality by employing in his answer the same sovereign formula, which Adrian angrily resented.In his wrath he again sought to excite the German prelates against the Emperor, and addressed an epistle to the three archbishops of Mainz, Treves, and Cologne (then not yet vacant), in which he asserted the supremacy of the Church over all temporal princes, and dilated upon the humble position of the German monarchs, until Pope Leo III bestowed the Empire upon Charlemagne. The answer of the archbishops showed him that from the German hierarchy, the members of which both dreaded and gloried in the power and greatness of the Emperor, nothing was at that time to be hoped. Frederic was, on the other hand, encouraged to persevere by congratulatory addresses from the anti-Papal Romans.

In fact, the relative position of the parties was in many respects reversed since the days of Henry IV and Gregory VII; and it was to Lombardy, not Germany, that the Pope was now to look for support. Hence the illusory phenomenon of Mediaeval Popes appearing as the friends and champions of liberty. Those Popes used the republican aspirations of the Italian cities as they did the monarchial aspirations of the German princes, to support and advance the interests of the Papacy, by weakening the Empire, in utter indifference as to the consequences to the aspirants of either class; if, indeed, the most ambitious of the pontiffs did not contemplate the subsequent sub­jugation of those same cities when they also should be weakened by severance from the Empire, by insulation, and by enmity amongst themselves. This change in relative position Adrian speedily discovered, and concluded an alliance with Milan for the maintenance of their several pretensions against the Emperor, which inspired both contracting parties with confidence. For Milan was again incensed against her liege lord, both parties again being in some measure in the right and as much in the wrong, whilst each asserted, and probably believed, that the other was wholly the aggressor. Of the origin of the quarrel a curious account is given by Vincentius Pragensis, a priest of Prague, who appears to have accompanied the army in the train of the Bishop of Prague, the benevolent redeemer of the Lombard peasant girls. He states that, prior to the breaking up of the Diet, Frederic consulted the Milanese Consuls as to the means of holding the Lombard cities in subjection; to which they, thinking only of rival towns, not of their own, answered: “By appointing their magistrates yourself, as the doctors of la have decided to be your right.” The Emperor, whilst rewarding the fidelity of Pavia, Lodi, and Cremona, with grants of liberty to elect their own magistrates, acted upon the advice of the Milanese Consuls with respect to other cities, including Milan. In the Ghibeline cities his podestàs and consuls were cheerfully received; not so at Milan. The Milanese averred that the Emperor, upon their submission, had specifically conceded to them the right of electing their own magistracy, in reliance upon which concession they had, at the usual time, elected new consuls, of whom they required the Emperor’s approval. He injudiciously, whether or not legally, affirmed that the laws subsequently enacted by the Roncaglia Diet to which the Milanese Consuls, as representatives of their city, had sworn obedience, and upon which laws they had advised him to act, superseded the terms granted Milan at her surrender; and he sent his former commissioners in Italy, Archbishop Reginald and Palsgrave Otho, with a third associate, Earl Gozwin, to that ever-refractory head of Lombardy, there to appoint and instal consuls. The existing magistracy opposed their operations; the Imperial Commissioners persevered, perhaps offensively in manner; the business soon became public, and the popu­lace took the settlement into their hands. They rose tumultuously, rushed to the abode of those whom they esteemed deputed usurpers, broke their windows, and threatened their lives, with loud yells of “Death, death”. In vain Biandrate, with other men of sense, who were usually influential, interposed. When did an excited multitude listen to reason? Nothing could appease their fury; and the Commissioners were glad, through the help of the baffled mediators, to escape with life from Milan.

The fugitive commissioners hastened to report their discomfiture to the Emperor. He was at that moment holding a Diet at Bologna; amidst the effervescent loyalty temporarily there produced by the pride and gratitude of the schools, for their exaltation to the dignity of an university; surrounded by embassadors from France, Constantinople, and Hungary, sent apparently to congratulate him upon his success, in reducing mutinous Italy to obedience. So situated, he was not likely to show himself peculiarly tolerant of insubordination and insult. He addressed a vehement speech to the Diet, calling upon all present to assist in chastising Milan. All blamed the violence of the Milanese, and expressed sympathy with his resentment. The Bishop of Piacenza, to whose lot it fell to reply in the name of the w hole assembly, fully concurred in the general indignation; at the same time reminding the Emperor of his avowed desire to rule not arbitrarily, but by law; he prayed that now, as upon the former occasion, the Milanese might be heard prior to being condemned. To this prayer Frederic at once assented, and the Milanese were summoned to appear before the Diet. Again the Milanese obeyed, sending a deputation, at the head of which they placed their Archbishop. But the prelate disliking the office of endeavouring to vindicate conduct which he himself might possibly, as rebellious, deem criminal, withdrew from it by the way; and his colleagues appeared without him before the Emperor and the Princes. In satisfaction of the conduct of their fellow-citizens, they pleaded the terms granted them at their surrender, and the harsh treatment they had since received from the Emperor, who had released Monza and some other places from subjection to Milan, and had dismantled her dependent ally, Crema, as the penalty of an assault upon Cremona. The pleas were rejected, the acts complained of being all in conformity to the laws published and sworn to at Roncaglia; by which the Diet, like the Emperor, held that the terms previously granted to Milan were superseded, since these laws the Milanese had, through their consuls, bound themselves to obey. It is alleged by Ghibeline historians, that the Milanese deputation, rendered desperate, then said: “We did indeed swear to obey those laws, but we never engaged to keep our oath”: and they add that the indignation provoked by this open avowal of perjury was unbounded. Nevertheless, no immediate step either in chastisement or in revenge was taken; time for reflexion was allowed; another day being appointed upon which the Milanese deputation might again appear, and either amend their plea, or express their repentance. Even when upon that day no deputies presented themselves—they seem to have gone home, either for fresh instructions, or in anger, and to mark their rejection of the Diet’s decision—another delay was granted, another day for their appearance appointed.

Upon this second day, the 16th of April, 1159, the Milanese again failed to appear; and the Diet temporized no longer. The refractory city was now unhesitatingly laid under the ban of the Empire, as the due punishment of contumacious non-appearance—which always seems to have been held the highest of crimes,—of riot, and of treason. This sentence at once consigned the persons of the inhabitants to slavery, their possessions to plunder, and the town they inhabited to destruction. The Milanese, who were perfectly aware of what must necessarily be the consequence of their pertinacity, had not awaited this final sentence, but proceeded to hostilities before it was pronounced.

They had fallen suddenly upon the Castle of Trezzo, and, by an attack undreamt-of in the midst of profound peace, surprising the German and Italian garrison, which the Emperor had placed there to secure the Cassano bridge over the Adda, easily mastered the place. The latter portion of the garrison might have made a more desperate resistance had they anticipated the fate to which their countrymen had doomed them. All the Lombards, all the Italians found there, were massacred, as traitors to the common cause; the Germans, as the natural subjects of the Emperor, were merely detained as prisoners of war. The castle itself, in which, as a secure stronghold, Frederic had deposited most of the money paid him by the Lombard cities, was plundered, burnt, and completely destroyed.

But if Trezzo was successfully surprised, Frederic was not. He had foreseen the impending insurrection, though where the first blow would be struck he could not foresee, and had already despatched messengers to Germany for reinforcements. He had written to his Empress, whom he had left at home, to join him with as large a body of vassals as she could collect; to his Lion-kinsman to hasten his promised expedition to Italy; to his uncle Welf and many princes and nobles, calling upon them to support their sovereign according to their respective means. But these reinforcements were as yet beyond the Alps, and for the moment he was unequal to repressing rebellion. He marched indeed for Trezzo, upon hearing that the direction taken by the Milanese forces seemed to threaten it; but the place was lost long ere he could reach it, and again he withdrew to Bologna.

The Milanese, emboldened by success, by the retreat of the Emperor, and by their alliance with the Pope, now, in conjunction with the Cremascans, attacked New Lodi. But they no longer had the advantage of surprise; the citizens not having forgotten their treatment when vanquished, defended themselves stoutly, and repulsed their assailants. The Brescians, whom subjection had not ren­dered loyal, having in like manner made an inroad into the territory of Cremona, were in like manner repulsed and driven away. When Frederic learned these new outrages upon the faithful portion of Lombardy, he again marched, again to arrive too late; but this time the disappointment was agreeable; his arrival being only too late because he found the rebels already defeated. He, nevertheless, judged expedient to strengthen the fortifications of New Lodi; and whilst this work was in progress, remained in the immediate vicinity for its superintendence and protection. During this time he ravaged the lands of the Milanese, partly in chastisement of their rebellion, and partly to impede the victualling of Milan, which he proposed to besiege when in sufficient force, and again wished to reduce rather by famine, than at the cost of the blood of his more loyal subjects, or even that of the rebels.

Whilst the Emperor lay encamped near Lodi, two incidents occurred, which are viewed under very different aspects by Ghibeline and by Guelph writers. A man of uncommon size and personal strength, really or seemingly insane, visited the Imperial camp, where he became the butt and laughing-stock of the soldiery; still but too commonly the treatment to which those unfortunates who have lost the distinctive characteristic of human nature are liable from the uneducated. Being apparently harmless, he was suffered, for their amusement, to wander about freely. But one morning, Frederick coming alone out of his tent, which was pitched upon the bank of the Adda, met this seeming maniac, who, no longer harmless, instantly sprang upon him, and endeavoured to fling him into the river. Frederick resisted vigorously, whilst shouting for help. But the man was either a maniac, having the strength of madness, or had been chosen for his bodily prowess; and those who flew to the rescue of their sovereign, found him upon the ground still struggling with his gigantic antagonist, upon whom, overpowering him by their numbers, they at once inflicted the fate to which he would have subjected the Emperor. The whole army was firmly convinced that the man was an assassin, employed by the Milanese to rid them of their sovereign and conqueror; and that he had feigned madness in order to facilitate the execution of his nefarious purpose. The ground of this persuasion, beyond the well-known inveteracy of the Milanese against Frederic, are nowhere clearly stated; and the Guelphs, affirming the man to have been really insane, would fain represent his death as an act of brutal vengeance on the part of the Emperor; though even if the assailant were mad, it was surely a venial impulse of passion in those who saw their beloved monarch’s life endangered by a powerful maniac, to fling that maniac into the river. They do not appear to have waited for orders.

Subsequently to this attempted regicide, an anonymous letter was received, announcing the visit of a Saracen or Spaniard—meaning, it may be presumed, a Spanish Moor—a Milanese hireling, whose personal appearance was minutely described, who would offer for sale wares so impregnated with poison, that to touch them with the bare hand would be death; and who would, moreover, be provided with an envenomed dagger, with which to insure the success of the mission, in case the Emperor should refuse to examine his merchandise. A man answering to the description presented himself, and was of course seized. Whether any experiments were tried upon his goods or his dagger, does not appear; but the Emperor promised him a full pardon if he would confess; threatening him, in case he denied the imputed crime, with torture to extort confession, followed by death. The reader who shudders at such arbitrary and cruel proceedings, must recollect that such was the usual course of criminal prosecutions in those days, and as late as the eighteenth century, ay, even in the nineteenth, was not altogether obsolete upon the Continent, where confession must precede execution, and the burthen of proof—the proof of a negative!—is still very commonly thrown upon the accused. The man asserted his innocence, and derided all menaces, averring that in virtue of his powers of sorcery, if he w ere executed, the Emperor’s life should end simultaneously with his. It may be that Frederic had, as his enemies affirm, dreaded the supposed death-fraught trinkets, or more likely the dagger, whether envenomed or not; but at the prisoner’s threats of sorcery he laughed; nor did such a boast tend to weaken the general belief in his murderous intentions. He was ordered to be executed, and died steadfastly denying the criminal design laid to his charge. The guilt or innocence of the Milanese in this last, perhaps in both affairs, can be judged only by the degree of credit to which the anonymous letter was entitled—such letters were not as common then as now. But after an interval of eight centuries, what means can there be of forming an opinion upon this question, further than that it is difficult to conceive any motive for anonymously writing such intelligence, if false. There could be no need of exasperating Frederic against Milan, even supposing any one to have an interest in so doing. However, whether false or true, these accusations are equally illustrative of the feelings, opinions, and habits of the age, harmonizing well with the ever­recurring suspicions of poison. And indeed the fictions of history are, at least to the psychologist, well nigh as instructive as its truths.

Germany, meanwhile, had been preparing to obey her Emperor’s call. Of the manner in which the Duke of Saxony and Bavaria had employed the delay allowed him, the accounts are not very clear. That his power was already very formidable, and daily increasing, is indisputable; not so how far his ambitious projects were as yet matured, or even developed in his own mind. It should seem, however, that the accession of Waldemar to the crown of Denmark had induced him to suspend, at least, his progress in the North; since he had professedly contracted a friendship with his royal neighbour; cemented by the betrothal of an infant daughter of the Lion’s to the infant heir of Denmark. What is certain, is that, when he was about to redeem his plighted word by leading his vassals, at his Imperial kinsman’s summons, to Italy, Waldemar paid him a visit, and requested him to check the acts of piracy committed by his tributary Slavonians upon the Danes; and, according to report, at the same time offered him a sum of 1000 marks, either as the price of such complaisance, or as an Imperial vassal’s contribution towards the Emperor’s Italian wars. Henry promptly complied; accepted the money, if offered to equip his forces, summoned his tributary or vassal, Niklot Prince of the Obodrites, to attend him, and, when he appeared, enjoined him in Waldemar’s presence, both to abstain from all piratical attacks upon the Danes, and in proof of his intention to abstain, to deliver up to him his ships of war. Niklot offered no opposition to these commands of his acknowledged feudal superior; he promised obedience, and at Lubeck, delivered over a number of piratical vessels to the Danish officers sent to receive them. The Earl of Holstein, who was about to march for Italy with his mesne Lord, the Duke of Saxony and Bavaria, required and obtained from Niklot, a similar engagement to respect his lands and vassals, during his absence.

Henry now proceeded to assemble his forces; Beatrice was occupied in like manner; but it was Whitsuntide ere either of them was ready to move. They then united their troops, and in company they crossed the Alps. The Duke of Spoleto was detained some weeks longer in Germany, after which, he too led a body of vassals over the mountains, and joined his two nephews. Divers nobles, separately or conjointly, obeyed the Imperial summons. Thus recruited, the Emperor began active operations; but, instead of at once forming the siege of Milan, as might have been expected, he contented himself with further ravaging the territories of that city, at the head of half his army, whilst he sent the other half to besiege Crema. This last step was taken at the urgent prayer of the Cremonese, who were intent upon avenging Crema’s transfer of her fealty from Cremona to Milan, and therefore offered to defray a considerable portion of the expense; which offer is represented by the Guelphs, as bribing the Emperor wantonly to destroy Crema. But it is not unlikely that Frederic may have adopted this line of conduct, if partly to gratify the loyal Cremonese, much more through a wish, by the display of his power against a less important town, to induce Milan to surrender, and thus spare him the necessity of injuring, if not actually ruining, the very gem of Lombardy.

Crema, though situate in a plain, was esteemed a strong place; and was amply supplied with water. To the east it is covered by the river Serio, to the south by the Travacone, and an impassable morass; the northern and western sides, being destitute of such natural protections, were abundantly defended, according to the system of fortification of the age, by a wide ditch, and by double walls, well furnished with towers, constructed under the direction of a celebrated engineer, named Marsilio or Marchese, who had acquired his skill in the East. Milan and Piacenza sent succours as soon as Crema was known to be threatened; and so confident were the Cremascans in the impregnability of their city, that the women went about the streets singing in chorus songs, the purport of which was—Frederic shall be driven away ingloriously, from before Crema as was Lothar twenty-seven years ago.

The siege was, in a manner, begun upon the 3d of July; but the Cremascans stood their ground without their walls until the Emperor himself assumed the command. They were then quickly driven into the town, and the siege proceeded in earnest, not by blockade, but after the established fashion of active besieging measures in that age. Month after month the besiegers battered the walls with their engines; built their moveable towers, with parapets and loopholes, whence unexposed, the archers aimed their shafts; with machines for launching masses of stone and rock into the town : with drawbridges, for the passage of storming parties on to the walls. The besieged, directed by Marsilio, as busily constructed machines for hurling at these towers retaliatory masses of stone, that damaged their engines, crushed their parapets, and broke down their bridges; besides which offensive measures from within, they made frequent nocturnal sallies to set the hostile machinery on fire. The Milanese attempted, whilst avenging the devastation of their own territory, to relieve Crema by a diversion of the Imperial forces; to which end, they ravaged the lands of several Ghibeline cities, and attacked the cities themselves. But Frederic was not to be thus diverted from his object. He knew that under the circumstances, these attacks had little chance of success; and the common evils of war, such as these ravages, his faithful subjects must endure as their share of his toilsome as hazardous enterprise. And he persevered.

Meanwhile the exasperation between besiegers and besieged daily increased, giving birth, now to feats of heroic valour, now to acts of ferocity at which the heart sickens, but such as too often disfigure the lofty character of early times. With which party they began is another disputed point. Radevicus says, with the Cremascans; whilst Guelph writers give the following account:—Upon Frederic’s leaving his camp to pay a short visit to his Empress, who was sojourning at Pavia, or some other Ghibeline city, the Cremascans took the opportunity of his absence, to make one of their nocturnal sallies, in which they were unusually successful. The Imperialists, infuriated by their losses, and unrestrained in the Emperors absence by his authority, decapitated all their prisoners, to play at foot­bail with their heads, in full view of the citizens upon the walls. The Cremascans, infuriated in their turn, retaliated by bringing all their prisoners on to the walls, and there hacking them to pieces; after which they hung the mangled limbs and heads outside of the external wall, there to offend the eyes of their comrades, and be further mangled by their battering engines. Whether this were an act of aggression or of retaliation, the ghastly sight greeted the Emperor, at his return, and naturally filled him with indignation ; and would still have done so, even if he were informed of any previous Ghibeline outrage, that had provoked Guelph vengeance. His indignation produced one of the very few acts of real cruelty that can belaid to his charge. He gave the Cremascans notice by a herald, that henceforward no prisoner’s life would be spared. In consonance with this notice, he ordered the Milanese prisoners, taken in repulsing their recent incursions, to be brought to his camp, and there hanged, together with, according to Guelph accounts, some hostages in his hands: and he likewise ordered several Cremascan captives to be affixed to the various engines; or rather it appears hostages were thus cruelly, if more rationally used, since it was not, as might be supposed, for the purpose of being projected amongst their fellow-townsmen, but as a measure of defence, as shields, to prevent the besieged from longer aiming at his engines, which they had materially damaged. For a moment the horror-stricken Cremascans stood motionless. But one of their leaders reminded them that all were alike bound to peril their lives in the great cause, and again they worked their engines, wounding, maiming, crushing their exposed fellow-citizens, the children of those fellow-citizens, and their own, amidst the shrieks of parents and friends; whilst one father is reported to have shouted to his thus exposed child. ‘‘Fear not to die for liberty, my boy. Thy mother and I will soon follow thee. ’’

Enough of horrors! Suffice it to say that Palsgrave Otho was here, as usual, the most daring warrior, the most distinguished leader; and that during the siege, the highly valued Marsilio deserted Crema to attach himself to the service of the Emperor, and impart new efficiency to what may be called his battering train. After a desperate assault which, repulsed and renewed, was continued throughout the day, the besiegers remained at night masters of the outer wall; and now, towards the end of January, 1160, the Cremascans, despairing of relief as of ultimate success, offered to capitulate under the mediation of the Patriarch of Aquileia and of the Duke of Saxony and Bavaria. The Emperor, as usual, required a surrender at discretion. They could struggle no longer, and submitted, merely protesting against being again subjected to Cremona, whose vindictive anger they dreaded. The Emperor put an end to further protest or prayer by pronouncing, then and there, what seems to have been the ordinary doom. “The Cremascans shall retain their liberty, but must quit the town with their wives and children, taking with them as much of their property as they can individually carry.” To this he added, “the Milanese and Brescian auxiliaries must lay down their arms.”

Twenty thousand Cremascans thus abandoned their homes, followed by their disarmed confederates; and an incident of the evacuation is related, which may serve to show that Frederic’s severity was the offspring rather of his ideas of the inflexibility essential to justice, than of a harsh temper, A sickly old man from sheer weakness falling down amidst the mournfully self-engrossed throng, the Emperor sprang forward, and raising him with his own hands, led him so far apart from the crowd, as enabled him to proceed on his way unjostled. It is reported that upon this occasion a woman, leaving all property behind, carried away her severely wounded husband.

The evacuation completed, the Emperor presented the arms and military engines left at Crema to the Cremonese and Lodesans, whom he commissioned to fill up the ditch and demolish the walls, a commission which they executed with right good will. The city itself he gave up to be sacked; and in the wild recklessness of these, actually and metaphorically, intoxicating orgies of war, it was, casually or wantonly, set on fire and burnt to the ground. The Emperor, as before, returned to Pavia, but now rather to exert himself in business of a different kind, than either to celebrate his triumph, or enjoy a short repose with his consort.

CHAPTER V. FREDERIC I. [1159—1163.

Death of Adrian II — Double Papal Election—Council of Pavia — Hostilities in Lombardy — Surrender and Doom of Milan — Affairs of Germany — Henry the Lion and the Slavonians — His Quarrel with his Bishops —Negotiations touching the Schism — Polish Affairs — Renewed Struggles of the Slavonians.