MEDIEVAL HISTORY LIBRARY

BOOK II

CHAPTER VIII. FREDERIC I. [1168—1178.

New Anti-Pope Henry II and Schiem—Affaire of Italy—Siege of Ancona—Failure of Henry the Lion—Emperor’s defeat at Legnano—Closing of the Schiem. 

Having brought down the affairs of Germany to the close of Frederic’s seven years’ residence there, it now becomes necessary to turn back in point of time, and take up those of the schism of Italy.

In September of 1168, the death of Pascal offered another opportunity of closing the schism. But the Cardinals of his party either were irrefragably convinced of the invalidity of Alexander’s election, which it must be admitted could not be altered by the deaths of his rivals; or felt themselves too far committed against him to be cordially forgiven; or perhaps simply thought it would be easier to negotiate, with a sacrifice to offer, than empty-handed. By whatever motive they were actuated, they hastened to give their deceased pontiff a successor in the Abbot Giovanni di Struma, who took the name of Calixtus III. The Emperor, as before, at once acknowledged the new Anti-Pope, and, with the co-operation of the King of England, hoped to be enabled ultimately to subdue the hostile, and obtain the general recognition of a friendly, Head of the Church.

But the powerful ally upon whose assistance he reckoned was, if not already lost, yet no longer in a condition to afford him effectual support. Henry II’s energies were so absorbed by his contest with the Archbishop of Canterbury, in which he hourly found himself weaker, as to incapacitate him for taking any active part in favour of Calixtus. Neither could he, how much soever he himself might feel individually bound by the oaths of his ambassadors, hope, under such circumstances, to prevail upon his clergy to change their Pope at his bidding, in opposition to their national head, the Primate, Thomas a Becket. Nor did he, probably, at the moment very much desire it, since that oath had seemingly induced Alexander to woo the continuance of his adhesion, at the cost of some duplicity. He had, by letter, relieved Henry II from his excommunication—then an object important beyond what in modern times it is easy to imagine—and the absolved monarch was ignorant that Alexander had at the very same time written to Thomas a Becket, authorizing him upon landing in England, to launch the anathema anew, and rigorously enforce it. Frederic received no more aid from England in the Papal question: for two years later,—to anticipate a little in order to dispose of a somewhat extrinsic branch of the Schism subject—AD 1170, the assassination of the unmanageable Archbishop involved Henry II in such difficulties, that he found himself under the necessity of not only acknowledging Alexander, but, in lieu of selling his acknowledgment, of purchasing its acceptance and his own readmission into the bosom of the Church. The price, in addition to pecuniary contributions to the defence of Palestine, was both the performance of a penance little less humiliating than that for submitting to which the Emperor Henry IV has been so mercilessly condemned as mean-spirited and dastardly, and the degradation of admitting that he held England in vassalage of the Papal See.

Frederic had either already seen reason to apprehend the desertion of his ally, or learned from experience that the schism was a millstone about his neck, of which, even at the price of some sacrifice, it was necessary to get rid. He now seemingly despaired of obtaining an indisputably legal election by a joint abdication; and therefore, even whilst professing adhesion to Calixtus, commissioned the Bishop of Bamberg and the French Cistertian Abbots of Citeaux and Clairvaux to convey to Alexander an intimation that, despite the Wurzburg oath, he was not unwilling to treat for a reconciliation. They were to add a suggestion relative to the reciprocal recognition and confirmation of each other’s ecclesiastical appointments and regulations, in case of Alexander’s being acknowledged by the Emperor. Alexander, his natural arrogance inflated by the circumstances that somewhat embarrassed, if they did not depress, Frederic, rejected the idea, refused to make any contingent arrangement, and coldly said: “The whole world has acknowledged me as rightful Pope; and when the Emperor, as in duty bound, shall have concurred with the whole world, I shall, as is his due, honour him above all other princes.”

Many things occurred to confirm Alexander in his inflexibly obstinate refusal. Frederic’s seven years’ absence from Italy had afforded the Lombard League time and leisure to enlarge and strengthen itself. Milan, as a bulwark betwixt herself and those whom she despaired of seducing from their allegiance, namely, the Marquess of Montferrat, married to one of the Emperor’s Austrian aunts, and her rival Pavia, had induced the Lombards to build a strong intervening fortress. This fortress was now completed, fortified, and even abundantly peopled, inhabitants flocking thither from all parts of Lombardy. To mark their sense of the invaluable support received from Alexander, who appears to have been well-nigh the very soul of this Anti-Imperialist Confederation, the Congress of the League named the new city Alessandria, and made a gift of the sovereignty over it to the Papacy; whilst they guarded against any risk of reconciliation betwixt the Pope and the Emperor, by obstructing the Alpine passes, to prevent or intercept negotiation. Alexander, in return for the gift, created his urban namesake a bishopric, and granted the citizens by charter the right of electing their own magistrates. The exulting League seems now to have entertained, if it still did not quite publicly confess, a wish for real republican independence, and Milan took a large step that way in forbidding all mention of the Emperor’s name. The League meanwhile proceeded with its, as yet very imperfect, self-organization, evidently contemplating a prolonged state of war, such as must render personal service in the field very inconvenient to money-making citizens. Preparation was made for avoiding this troublesome consequence of war by engaging mercenary troops of infantry.

Of such mercenaries the supply was, like the demand, increasing. Brabançons are mentioned in the civil war between the Empress Maud and Stephen for the English crown, as employed by the latter; as they afterwards habitually were by Henry II of England, to the defence of whose widely outspread dominions the limited feudal service of vassals was utterly inadequate; and who, in his wars with his Liege Lord, the French King, had not perfect confidence in the fidelity of his own French vassals. In Italy, as far back as the year 1143, they appear to have been employed by Venice, always deficient in land forces, and acquainted with the use of mercenaries through her intercourse with Constantinople, where they had long been nearly the only troops. But now bands of Brabançons, consisting for the most part of idle vagabonds of all descriptions, intermixed with villeins enfranchised by performing a crusade, and the like, officered, possibly, by Robber-Knights, and by landless knights desirous of employing their “bread-winner swords” more lawfully, appear in the pay of all wealthy Lombard cities, and will henceforward continue so to appear, though not yet to the exclusion of burgher warriors. The Emperor found it necessary to oppose the rebellious towns by similar means, and encouraged vassals to commute their service for money, with which, besides remunerating poor knights and vassals willing to prolong their service at his expense, he hired Brabançons. His armies in Italy were now no longer exclusively feudal, though, as will be seen, too much so for success in his objects.

The Lombard League now invited all Italian cities to join it in resisting foreign tyranny; and Alexander underhand excited them to accept the invitation. Many cities of Romagna accordingly became members of the confederacy, whilst the Tuscan, with a few rare exceptions, remained loyal. But this presumptuous League had little power beyond stirring up insurrection; so impotent was it to control its own members, that, in the intervals of hostilities with the Emperor, in direct contravention of the League laws, the confederated cities will almost as often be found at war with each other, as with neutral or Ghibeline cities or nobles. And so little did the republican liberty, for which they so passionately struggled, resemble what is now understood by the words, that the only existing restriction upon the despotic authority vested in the republican, that is to say popularly elected magistrate, whether Consul or Podestà, lay in the insurrectional temper of the people. The magistrate who gave offence, whether reasonably or not, was frequently murdered, occasionally first tortured; and the Podesta, in whom was vested the power of capital punishment, in token of which a naked sword was borne before him, knew no other way of discharging the duty incumbent upon him of administering justice, than to raise the obedient portion of the population in arms, and at its head wage war upon the suspected malefactors.

In the autumn of the year 1171, the Emperor sent Archbishop Christian again into Italy, to pacify these feuds if possible, and again to support or re-establish the Imperial Sovereignty. Upon the present occasion, however, this thoroughly statesmanlike, if little clerical, prelate visited Italy, not at the head of an army to punish the virtual disclaimer of all Imperial authority, but as Imperial Vicar, to undertake the peaceable government of that portion of the Empire; and he began in a style well becoming his proper character of a churchman. He took his way by Genoa, where he was received with great honours, and his support against Pisa solicited, in the continuous war for the suzerainty at least of Sardinia.

Each haughty republic now freely owned the Imperial suzerainty over Italy, and flattered herself she had conciliated her sovereign by recognizing Barasone as King of the contested island. The support requested the Archbishop promised, as far as might be practicable without the use either of arms or of the ban of the Empire, which, he said, were out of the question, his mission being to restore peace, not to wage or to provoke war. After his experience of Lombard appreciation of just government, the Emperor could hardly hope thus to conciliate the League. If either he or the Archbishop did entertain such a hope, they were disappointed; for scarcely had Christian passed on to Tuscany, ere the confederates made an unsuccessful attempt, to punish Genoa by famine, for the honours paid the Imperial Vicar. Milan forbade the sale of food to the offending Ghibeline city.

The Archbishop did not for this change his measures. In March, 1172, he held a Diet at Sienna, for the purpose of administering justice amongst the several belligerents His summons was now, as Reginald of Cologne before, obeyed by almost all Ghibelines, of course, and by a few Guelphs; at least by some members of the Lombard League, adherents of Alexander. But Pisa, usually so loyal, refused to plead against Genoa before the Diet, alleging that how much soever the presiding prelate might intend to be impartial, he was too much prepossessed in favour of her antagonist to judge between them fairly. In this refusal she obstinately persisted; the Diet commanded the hostile cities to make peace upon certain terms; again Pisa refused; and now the Archbishop, notwithstanding his previous protestations, laid the refractory city under the ban of the Empire, a sentence always to be enforced by arms. But to this extremity it came not. Pisa, if distrustful of the Imperial Vicar, and still more of the Diet, meant not to brave the Emperor; and now made peace with Genoa, upon the previously rejected terms prescribed by the Diet.

But again Archbishop Christian, like Archbishop Reginald, found it impossible to pacify Italy by governing with the perfect impartiality befitting an Imperial vicegerent. Again, the administration of equal justice alienated the Ghibelines, without conciliating the Guelphs. Divided as Italy was into factions, and subdivided by feuds within those factions—whilst still courted by the Constantinopolitan Emperor, who, intent upon his own views and indifferent to republican impertinence, lavished money and promises for the promotion of those views—nothing could unite the discordant members, save hatred of the Head claiming their obedience. And, on the other hand, the Italian Ghibelines still wanted a Ghibeline Emperor, under whom they might trample upon prostrate Guelphs. Christian, erelong, deemed it necessary to adapt his conduct in some degree to their expectations. He now favoured the Ghibelines; held the Guelphs, as far as might be, in check, by obtaining hostages from them; and resolved to besiege Ancona, as the focus of Greek intrigue. In this last measure Venice concurred, and renouncing the Lombard League—as the political interest of the moment dictated— offered her hearty co-operation.

The present motive impulse of this truly independent, this already puissant republic, was resentment against the Court of Constantinople. After years of intimate intercourse, during which Venice had nearly monopolized the commerce of the Empire, she had offended the Greek Emperor—who claimed her gratitude for the advantages she had enjoyed in his dominions—by trading with the Sicilian and Apulian Normans, whom, as usurpers of his provinces, he abhorred, and feared as enemies. As Venice would not restrict her mercantile transactions to please one of her customers, alternations of wrangling and amity, of war and peace, ensued, in the course of which the maritime city had wrested Ragusa on the Adriatic and Scio in the Archipelago from the Eastern Empire. The end of the whole was Manuel’s suddenly imprisoning all the Venetians at Constantinople, and confiscating their ships and other property. Remonstrance proving of no avail to obtain redress, the Doge Ziani entered into alliance against Manuel, first with the Regent of Sicily, and now with the Archbishop of Mainz.

In the spring of 1174, the prelate, at the head of an army composed of the survivors of those Germans who had remained sick in Italy after the last expedition, of loyal Italians, and of mercenary bands, marched for Ancona, and besieged it by land, whilst by sea a Venetian fleet took up a blockading position. The citizens defended themselves as vigorously as they were attacked: but, strange to say, the most especial feats of valour recorded are ascribed to what was naturally the most unwarlike portion of the inhabitants. For instance, during one of the besiegers’ joint attempts, by land and by water, to storm the place, a priest named Giovanni sprang into the sea, swam —a very target for his enemies—to their Admiral’s ship and cut her cables; thus both interrupting her hostile efforts, and causing her to drift into such dangerously shallow water, that the terrified crew lightened her, by flinging her cargo of military apparatus overboard.

Again, by land, a widow named Samura or Stamura, one night arming herself with a sword and a torch, sallied forth from the town alone, crept undiscovered to the battering train of the besiegers, and set the engines on fire.

This stout resistance determined Christian to convert the siege into a blockade. From the numbers who had crowded into the town for protection, symptoms of scarcity soon appeared there, and the Magistrates made overtures for a negotiation. They hoped to persuade the Archbishop, by appealing both to his clemency and to his reputed love of money, to raise the siege upon some kind of convention. It is by no means clear, by the way, that such a stain really did rest on the prelate’s character, that his reputed love of money was anything more than a strong sense of its indispensableness to the execution of the Emperor’s designs. Be this as it may, the negotiation was conducted in a style somewhat different from that of modern diplomacy. To the offers of the Ancona deputation, Archbishop Christian answered: “Once upon a time a lioness, chased by hunters, both dogs and men, into an extensive forest, turning upon her pursuers wrought them great damage, killing many. At length they blocked her up in a cave, and she, reduced by hunger to extreme weakness, offered them, as the price of her liberty, the claws of one foot. Should you have advised the hunters to accept the offer?” The principal Envoy rejoined, “We should have so advised, my Lord Archbishop, provided she would have added the tip of her ear; for he that can obtain a grasp of both extremities will easily master the whole body. But permit us further to reply to you with another apologue. A fowler could once have ensnared seven pigeons that had flown into his well-arranged toils: but many birds were singing upon the neighbouring trees, and he forbore to secure his prey till those also should be underneath them: presently some hawks flew over the spot, scaring away not only the birds upon the trees, but the pigeons upon the ground likewise; and the fowler went home empty-handed.”

This allegorical negotiation came to nothing. The Archbishop insisted upon the town’s surrendering at discretion; and this the men of Ancona, encouraged by Greek promises of succours, resolved at least to defer till the last moment, seeking aid meanwhile everywhere. That last moment seemed fast approaching in the shape of scarcity, when three of the principal citizens offered to go in quest of help. Furnished with money and full powers they were despatched in quest of allies; and embarking one tempestuously dark night, in a small boat, they slipped unnoticed through the Venetian fleet, and made for Ferrara, where they landed. Here they applied to Guglielmo degli Adelardi de’ Marcheselli, a noble and influential Ferrarese, for relief to Ancona, in one form or another; and having received his promise to raise troops for this purpose, they proceeded into Romagna to the powerful Countess Aldonda di Bertinoro, with a similar request. She, by birth a Frangipani, was quite as willing as Adelardi to check the progress of the Imperial arms; and both separately set forward at the head of their forces, to raise the siege, if possible, and at least to Introduce provisions into the place. Upon his way Adelardo, at the junction of two roads, encountered a relation of his own, named Traversario, leading a body of troops considerably more numerous than his own, to join the Imperialists. Adelardo, seeing that he had no chance of victory by arms, had recourse to stratagem. Observing to Traversario that kinsmen, even if they chanced to take opposite sides, should be loth to injure each other, he proposed to negotiate, when it was finally agreed to disband both corps, leaving Ancona and the Archbishop to themselves. Traversario honestly performed his part of the compact and was presently left alone. Adelardo likewise dismissed his men, but at the same time craftily remarked to them that they had sworn to relieve Ancona, and as he was no Pope to dispense with an oath, it was for them to consider whether they were or were not bound to proceed with the enterprise to which they had pledged themselves. His brother, loudly declaring that the duty of keeping an oath could not be matter even of question, took his place; the whole band adopted this opinion, and the path being open by the dispersion of the obstructing body of Ghibelines, he led them to the appointed rendezvous with the Countess. The united bands proceeded to effect their purpose.

At Ancona meanwhile, scarcity had become famine, and even the most disgusting substitutes for wholesome food were exhausted. Mothers, whose milk inanition had dried up, are said to have opened their veins to nourish their children with their blood: whilst one gave the nutriment provided by nature for her moaning babe, to a fainting warrior, to enable him to defend the town. A large body of women presented themselves to the magistracy, with the proposal that they themselves should be killed, and the citizens, by feeding upon their flesh, prolong their more valuable lives, and recover strength to fight for their native city; or if such anthropophagism were too repugnant to their feelings as Christians, that they, the women, should be thrown into the sea, in order, at least, to save for the fighting men the portion of loathsome aliment which, if alive, they must consume. Neither offer was accepted; but that the idea could occur, shows both the spirit in which this really civil war was fought, and the extremity to which Ancona was reduced before her friends appeared. At length the signal fires of those friends were descried, and hope revived in the starving town. But the combined vassalage of Marcheselli and Bertinaro was inadequate to attempt relief by force; and again was recourse had to stratagem, but this time to one of more lawful nature. By kindling numerous fires at night over a wide circuit, they completely deceived the Archbishop as to their numbers, and awakened apprehensions of an attack, in order to repulse which, his troops must be concentrated. He did thus concentrate them upon the side that seemed threatened, and an abundant supply of provisions w as immediately thrown into Ancona from the other side. The prospect of an early surrender from famine was thus indefinitely postponed, whilst the advancing autumn—the month of October was in progress—showed that the position taken up by the Venetian fleet could not long remain tenable. Christian, baffled and mortified, was obliged to confess that the Ancona apologue was appropriate. He found himself under the necessity of raising the siege just when circumstances rendered such a disappointment most galling. He had hoped to greet the Emperor’s fifth appearance in Italy with the keys of this important city; and instead of triumph, that appearance was met by the painful news of his retreat from before Ancona.

Whilst the warlike prelate was anticipating success, the Marquess of Montferrat had, with Pavia—ever loyal at heart, even when by coercion a member of the Lombard League—been urging the Emperor to return, and reduce that rebellious League to obedience. He needed not much pressing to undertake the task which he esteemed his bounden duty; for which he had been organizing an armament nearly ever since he had sent Christian to Italy. His preparations for this task had begun in the Diet held at Worms in 1172. From this Worms Diet the mighty vassal and kinsman upon whom he was wont most to rely, was indeed missing. The Duke of Saxony and Bavaria had selected this time, when the Emperor so much needed his support, and when he himself was hoping for an heir from his young and royal Duchess, to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem at the head of 1200 knights and men-at-arms. But in his absence Frederic, by revealing to the German Princes the intrigues of Manuel with Alexander and with the Lombards, for robbing the German Emperors of the Imperial crown, had roused them to indignation. They at once decreed a new expedition to Italy, but required two years to make the requisite previous arrangements; within which delay they moreover reckoned upon the return of the Lion from Palestine. Nor in this were they disappointed, though much so in the expectations they built upon it. The Duke of Saxony and Bavaria came home, and had much intercourse with the Emperor at Augsburg, and at several Diets held, for his convenience seemingly, in Saxony. But he refused to join in the expedition to Italy, alleging that after his tedious pilgrimage his presence in his own duchies was indispensable. Nor was it singly he deserted the Emperor, as might be expected from the reason alleged for his absence: not a Saxon, not a Bavarian swelled the Imperial ranks. It can hardly be doubted that by this time Henry the Lion did meditate a kingdom of northern Germany; and was unwilling to weaken, in his Imperial kinsman’s Italian wars, the force that should enable him to accomplish the scheme; so was he to relieve Frederic by a loan of troops, from the embarrassments which must hamper him in his opposition to such a project, when it should become manifest.

At the head of an army, far less numerous, therefore, than he had hoped, the Emperor began his march in September 1174. Passing through Burgundy, he crossed Mount Cenis, in order to appear in strength there, where he had been seen a fugitive, and chastise the town in which, not only had his authority been insolently defied, but his life traitorously threatened. The inhabitants, shrinking from the resentment they had provoked, fled. Susa was evacuated, taken, and, according to Frederic’s custom, burnt, apparently without opposition on the part of the Earl of Savoy, who professed great loyalty, and was in nowise implicated in the crime of the Susans. Frederic next marched to besiege Asti, which he likewise mastered, after a short resistance. The Marquess of Montferrat hastened to join him; Pavia joyfully sent him her contingent; Turin, and some other Ghibeline cities, eagerly threw off the yoke of the League; and about the end of October the triumphant Emperor, seemingly well able to dispense with the Duke of Saxony and Bavaria’s forces, prepared to besiege the new-built Alessandria. Here his prosperous career first met with a check.

To undertake a siege at this late season was an act of imprudence into which Frederic was probably betrayed by the idea that the unfinished state of the new town’s fortifications must render its capture easy. He forgot that this recently founded city was as yet a sort of outwork, or military colony, in which none but the boldest spirits, the most enthusiastically rebellious, would domiciliate themselves. The Alessandrians made a resolute defence, as was to be expected from such a population; and the siege lingered through the winter, causing more suffering to the besiegers than to the besieged. But whatever the evils of the winter siege, the Emperor’s position was still favourable. His army was still, strong and well appointed. Archbishop Christian, though foiled before Ancona, maintained the upper hand in Central Italy, and a change favourable to the Imperial interests had taken place at Rome. Alexander was no longer there. He had, in 1172, when Christian was in Germany, purchased re­admission into his metropolis and the expulsion of Calixtus at a price disgraceful to the holy office he claimed. The Romans, joyously as they had received Pascal and hailed the election of Calixtus were by that time weary of the dominion even of an anti-pope. They now demanded, as the price of their acknowledging and receiving Alexander, the Papal sanction to such a dismantling of Tusculum, as should render its future resistance to Roman tyranny impossible. This Alexander, it is to be hoped unwillingly, gave, and was thereupon installed in the Lateran, but gained little beyond this installation by thus befouling the title of Holy Father. Two years had not elapsed ere the Romans were as impatient of his authority as they had previously been of his rival’s, and he was now again expelled by his turbulent flock. These circumstances appear to have so far depressed the hopes and spirits of the Lombard League that, when, in the spring of 1175, they were called upon by Alessandria to raise troops for her relief, although the Congress of Rectors complied with the requisition, the Milanese, through some influential noblemen, made overtures to Frederic. He met them frankly; professing willingness to accept, as far as might be without prejudice to the Imperial rights, the arbitration of honourable men.

Whether these overtures were honestly meant, or only a device to gain time, Lombard troops were assembled, during the negotiation that ensued, and in Passion week were known to be approaching Alessandria. And now occurs the first and only charge of actual breach of faith which even Guelph historians have ever ventured to bring against Frederic Barbarossa, and which Ghibelines positively deny. The facts upon which both parties agree are these: the besiegers proposed to enter the city at night through a mine, carried, by the Thursday of Passion week, far enough within the walls to offer hopes of surprising the greater part of the garrison, i.e., the inhabitants, in bed and asleep. The Imperialists passed through and opened it; but the wary Alessandrians were not all asleep; a part kept watch, and, underground work being heard, they had assembled near the mouth of the mine. They cut down the first Imperialist who appeared, drove back the rest, blocked up the mine, and in a sudden furious sally set the battering machinery on fire. The disputed addition to these facts by some of the fiercer Guelphs and the modern Anti­Imperialists, is that the Emperor had made a truce, professedly in order to allow the solemn observance of Good Friday and Easter Sunday, during which truce this attempt was perfidiously made, less partial writers, including some Guelphs, make no mention of any truce, and Ghibelines denied its existence as soon as it was asserted, whilst professedly impartial modern historians aver, that, although he had made no truce, he relied upon diminished vigilance during days that ought to be kept holy. The watchfulness of the besieged certainly does not look like the careless repose, to which a state of truce, after long exertion and want of sleep, would invite.

The failure of his mine and the destruction of his engines apparently determined Frederick, upon the plea of the actual state of the negotiation, to abandon this unfortunate enterprise. Upon Easter Sunday, April 14, he raised the siege of Alessandria; and the next day signed a convention with the Lombards, by which a truce was made in order to allow of arbitration: to this end it was likewise settled, that, during the truce, each party should name three arbitrators, to whom, in case of the six proving unable to agree, the Consuls of Cremona should be joined as umpires. Further, as if taking it for granted that the truce must produce a peace, this convention ordered both armies to be disbanded.

Amongst the names of the Rectors of the League signing this convention, are those of two powerful Lombard nobles, whose descendants will often be mentioned; they are Anselmo di Doaro, and Ezzelino da Romano, called by some writers the first, by others the second, and even of his name, and more specifically distinguished as the Stammerer. The founder of the Italian family had, as a simple knight, with a single horse, attended the Emperor Conrad II into Italy, where he so signalized himself, that the Emperor rewarded his services with the fiefs of Romano and Onaro in the Trevisan March. The situation of these fiefs, upon the roots of the Alps, had enabled his descendants not only to preserve some degree of knightly independence, but even to enthral some of their weaker neighbours; not, however, to exempt themselves from enrolment amongst the citizens of Vicenza. Thus, with, it is believed, still Ghibeline propensities, Ezzelino the Stammerer, who had acquired a brilliant reputation under Conrad III, in the second Crusade, became a Rector of the Lombard League.

To return to the convention. The Arbitrators were immediately named and the armies disbanded; the Lombards betaking themselves to their near homes, whence a day or two could recall them; the German vassals returning to distant Germany. Pending the arbitration, the Emperor fixed his quarters with his family at his favourite Italian residence, Pavia. Thither, to enhance the hopefulness of the moment, came, at his invitation, Legates from Alexander to treat concerning the closing of the schism; and thither, where it was trusted that all the feuds distracting Italy were to be adjusted, came likewise ambassadors from the Regent of Sicily.

The first incident that slightly overshadowed these smiling prospects was the arrogant demeanour of the Legate, the Cardinal-Bishop of Ostia and Velletri. Received by the Emperor with due courtesy, he haughtily declared, that the Emperor’s sins forbade his greeting him as Emperor. Frederic was by this time too well accustomed to the insolence of the Papal Court, to discover any sense of the insult thus offered him, and quietly directed the new Archbishop of Cologne, Philip von Heinsberg, to confer and treat with the Cardinal. The next threatening cloud arose at Cremona; where, in a sudden burst of popular frenzy, the mansions of the Consuls who had been selected as umpires, were attacked, plundered, and burnt, the Consuls themselves expelled, and others substituted in their office. These substitutes, whether or not they might have been originally accepted as umpires—and so chosen they are likely to have been factious men—by the tenor of the convention, succeeded the deposed Consuls in that capacity, and the negotiation proceeded.

But soon was the utter hopelessness of all these diplomatic labours apparent. The Lombards insisted upon the recognition and ratification of their League with all its provisions, upon actual independence; with nominal allegiance, and some few contributions and services during both the coronation progress and any peaceful sojourn of the Emperor in Italy. Alexander demanded an unconditional admittance of the validity of his election, and submission to all his past ecclesiastical measures. The Emperor, on the other hand, required the acknowledgment of the decrees promulgated by the Roncaglia Diet, as part of the law of the Empire; and from Alexander, as the price of his sacrificing the Pope he supported, some concessions, especially the confirmation of his ecclesiastical nominations. Between such contradictory pretensions only the sword could decide. The negotiations were broken off; the Lombards quickly reassembled their army, hoping to surprise the Emperor defenceless ; and he wrote urgently to Germany for reinforcements, sending the Archbishop of Cologne thither, to promote and hasten compliance with his demands.

But the period was now arrived, at which the hitherto almost as successful as heroic Frederic Barbarossa was to learn the taste and the uses of adversity to feel, perhaps, the sharpest pang of which the human heart is susceptible,—disappointment in those most loved and trusted. The vassals of Cologne and of Mainz armed at their Prelate-Princes’ bidding. The Archbishops of Treves and Magdeburg, the Earl of Flanders, with many Prelates and Princes of the Rhine, were roused by the dishonourable conditions Alexander and the Lombards would have imposed upon the Emperor, and prepared to march with Archbishop Philip. But, in other parts of Germany, excuses were sought and found for evading obedience to the Imperial summons:—and amongst the defaulters was he, the mightiest of the German vassal potentates, made so by the incautious friendship of his now imperilled kinsman, Liege Lord, and Emperor. The Duke of Saxony and Bavaria, Lord of Mecklenburg, refused to lend his distressed Imperial relation the solicited aid, alleging that his advanced age—he was forty-six years old, Frederic fifty-four—unfitted him for the fatigues of a campaign; that he had changed his opinion as to the invalidity of Alexander’s election, and could not oppose the Pope; that his fears of the hostile designs of his neighbours rendered his leaving home impossible. Strong surely must be the Guelph bias that can here acquit Henry the Lion of ingratitude, and impute the blame of the subsequent rupture and his spoliation to Frederic. Even writers who hardly do the Emperor justice, here condemn the Duke’s heartlessness.

But Frederic, who would not suspect Henry of ingratitude, unprincipled ambition, or selfishness, imagined that difficulties, to his mind futile, must needs be the offspring of misapprehension, and yield in a personal interview between old friends and relations. Pressingly therefore he invited the Duke to a meeting either at Chiavenna, or at Partenkirch, a Bavarian town; the larger, northern, or German portion of the Tyrol then forming part of Bavaria, as did the southern of Lombardy. Henry accepted the invitation, and one of those towns—which seems doubtful—was the theatre of the extraordinary scene now to be related, as it well deserves, circumstantially; even as given by contemporary German chroniclers.

In an assembly consisting of some of the chief vassals on both sides, and at which the Empress was present, the monarch, after attentively listening to Henry’s arguments upon the point in dispute, and refuting them, proceeded thus to address his cousin: “Thee has God exalted in riches and in power above all the Princes of Germany; to all the rest, therefore, must thou be an example; therefore through thee must the tottering Empire be re-established, as chiefly through thee I joyfully acknowledge that it has been hitherto upheld. Reflect that I have never denied thee aught, have ever promoted thy greatness and honour, have never suffered foe to stand against thee. And could you now desert me? Now, when the reputation of the Emperor, the honour of Germany, the great object to the attaining of which my whole life has been devoted, are at stake? I will not urge thine oath of allegiance, I will only remind thee how sacred are the ties of blood, which should hold fast when all others fall into dissolution. Now, only now, in this one strait, assist me with thy whole force; me, thy sovereign, thy kinsman, and thy friend! Only this once, and be assured thou shalt always find me ready and willing to comply with thine every wish.”

Thus passionately entreated the Emperor: but the Duke, forgetful of the favours showered upon him through so many years, and devoted to his own ambitious schemes, or as some writers have asserted, wrought upon by Alexander’s intrigues and by Lombard gold, persisted in his refusal. Still Frederic solicited, and at length Henry offered a trifling pecuniary assistance as the price of Goslar; which strong fortress, as giving a great hold upon Saxony, had always, it will be remembered, excited his cupidity.

To this proposal Frederic, who, as Head of the Empire, was requiring from Henry the service of a vassal of the Empire, would not listen. He now saw, it may be presumed, that Henry must not be further strengthened, and would not, he said, barter and bargain with his cousin, like two traders trying to overreach one another; yet so urgent was his need, so mighty, to his mind, were the interests depending upon the result of this interview, that he judged it a duty not to omit any possible means of acting upon his selfish relation’s feelings. The Emperor rose from his seat, and bending his knee before the Duke, in that posture renewed his entreaties.

Henry, startled and shocked, endeavoured to raise the kneeling Emperor, but persisted in his refusal, save upon his own terms. One of his vassals, Jordan Truchsess, i. e., the Sewer, had the insolent audacity to exclaim, “My Lord, suffer the crown that shall speedily adorn your brow, to remain at your feet!” To which another of his train anxiously subjoined, “My Lord! my Lord! beware lest it crush you!” Still the Emperor knelt before his stubborn vassal, and breathless silence prevailed. But now the Empress arose, approached her kneeling consort, and with womanly tenderness softening and enhancing her womanly dignity, said, “Rise, dear my Lord, rise! God will surely grant thee the aid thou shalt ask of him in remembrance of this day, of this heartless arrogance!” The Emperor rose at her bidding; the Duke mounted his horse and rode off with his train.

This failure of his mainstay was as severe a blow to the power of the Emperor in Italy, as to his heart. He re­turned to Pavia, there to await the more loyal Germans; and summoned Archbishop Christian, who throughout the winter had successfully carried on a partisan war in Central Italy, to join him. In the spring of 1176, the Archbishop of Cologne set forward with those loyal Germans; and, avoiding the customary Alpine passes, which the Lombards occupied in great strength, made his way by the unguarded Grison Alps and Chiavenna, to the lake of Como. The Emperor, informed of their line of march and anxious to be at their head, collected what troops he as yet had at hand, and, without waiting for the Mainz prelate, left Pavia for Como. Carefully avoiding, with so small a force, the vicinity of Milan, he crossed the country undiscovered and happily joined his reinforcements. Como, with her wonted loyalty, furnished her contingent; but whether any other Lombard city would follow her example was doubtful; and still Frederic had but a part of his army about him. He felt the urgent need of a junction with Christian, as yet only on his march to Pavia; and broke up from Como in order to expedite so important an operation by meeting him halfway.

Meanwhile the Milanese, despite the precautions of the Germans, had learned their arrival and position; and lost no time in preparing to encounter the Emperor, before the whole of his forces should be united. They called upon the Lombard League to assemble its utmost powers. At home they formed the flower of their citizen-soldiers into two cohorts (independently of their regular contingent), respectively named the Cohort of the Carroccio—consisting of 300 men of the first families in Milan, who swore to shed the last drop of their blood in defence of this highly valued standard—and the Cohort of Death, 900 strong, bound by oath to die for their country rather than give way. Their Lombard Confederates, having recalled the guards of the Alps, quickly joined them, in numbers far superior to the division of the Imperialists as yet with Frederic; and eagerly they marched forth in search of him to whom as yet they scarcely disowned allegiance. They encamped at Legnano.

Upon the 29th of May, the Emperor, informed of the position and numbers of the rebels, deliberated in a council of war, whether to attack them, notwithstanding their numerical advantage, or to avoid a battle until joined by the Archbishop of Mainz. All opinions concurred in preferring the latter course, to which Frederic advanced no other objection than that it was contrary to his honour. But whilst they were still discussing the question, a casual affray between the scouts of the respective armies superseded all deliberation, by giving rise to an unpremeditated general action. In this battle occurred one of those perplexing revulsions of fortune, so frequent in military history, viz., a seeming victory abruptly transformed into a defeat. Frederic, when called into the field with the whole of his small army to support his scouts, who, worsted by double their number of Lombards, were flying in disorder, was immediately confronted by the whole Lombard army. He directed his efforts chiefly to seizing the Milanese Carroccio; succeeded in dispersing or slaying the Cohort devoted to its protection, and thus obtained possession of this far-famed standard, now the recognized standard of the Lombard League. At the same time one division of his forces routed the division opposed to it, pursuing the fugitives with inconsiderate ardour. He thought the day his own, notwithstanding the disparity of numbers. But the Cohort of Death had not yet engaged. Headed by their colossal leader, Alberto Giussano, they now with resistless impetuosity charged the Imperialist captors of the Carroccio. The Imperialist standard-bearer was slain, and as he sank to the earth, his standard for the moment disappeared from the field, just as the Emperor, his horse being killed under him, was involved in the fall of the animal. When the hero, general, and sovereign, thus simultaneously with his standard, vanished from the eyes of the combatants, the alarm and bewilderment were universal. A rumour of Frederic’s death spread like wildfire; despondency chilled every heart, and resistance was no more. Before the Emperor could be thoroughly disengaged from the dead charger, and remounted on a fresh steed, to show himself to the dispirited army, dispersion and flight had, despite the strenuous exertions of his leaders, become general and irremediable. The proud hopes of the Lombards were justified; the day was theirs. The first use the victors made of their victory, was to massacre, with unrelenting fury, all who remained alive and within their reach of the Comascan contingent; for the Lombards were barbarous beyond most of their contemporaries in their treatment of prisoners of war: partly it has been supposed from the anti-chivalrousness of the commercial and democratic spirit; but more it may be conjectured from their enemies being for the most part their neighbours, and the bitterness already noticed as characterizing such neighbourly hatred.

Frederic had not reappeared after his fall with his dead horse; having discovered, before he could do so, that all was lost, all further struggle to avert defeat impossible, and his own safety, for the moment, the primary consideration. For this he provided by carefully avoiding observation, and leaving the scene of disaster in a direction different from that taken by his flying army. Hence proceeded a report of his death, which was everywhere received as true; and now the exultation at Milan was indeed unbounded. So was the grief at Pavia, and at Como, where the Empress, who had been there left, put on widow’s weeds. The former feeling produced two effects, both favourable to Frederic; to wit, an enhancement of Milanese arrogance that offended the other members of the League, and a sense of security that at once dispersed the confederate army. The theatres of rejoicing and mourning were suddenly exchanged. Frederic, having eluded the insurgents by a circuitous course along bye-paths, in a few days made his appearance at Pavia, and all calamities were forgotten in the joy of his survival.

But the raptures of his wife, his court, and his camp, could not blind the Emperor to the real posture of his affairs, and he was convinced that this defeat was fatal to his hopes of enthroning his own Pope in Alexander’s stead. This was the seventh German army lost in Italy; and he well knew that the superstition of the survivors, who had fled homeward, would again ascribe their misfortunes to their support of an anti-pope against the true successor of the Apostle, disseminating these ideas throughout Germany. He knew too, by painful experience, that from him, who could best help, no help was to be expected; and might now perhaps feel some misgivings as to his long-trusted kinsman’s proceedings in Germany. It has been alleged that he now repented of his own opposition to Alexander. That he should deem criminal, and, therefore, repent of a line of conduct adopted under the sanction of a Council, and of more than one, of two if not three Councils, is very unlikely; but he may have been conscious that, since Victor’s death, his popes were to the full as illegally elected as Alexander; and that if Alexander was still in the wrong, he was no longer in the right. Some such apprehension seems indeed to have suggested his proposal of a joint resignation in 1167. But, however influenced, he now resolved to achieve at all costs a reconciliation with the generally acknowledged, if illegal, Pope.

To this end the Emperor despatched the Archbishops of Mainz and Magdeburg, with the Bishop of Bamberg, to Anagni, where the Papal Court then resided, bearing such overtures as might, he hoped, separate the Pontiff from the Lombards. But Alexander was too good a politician to be tempted, by the chance of any apparent individual and, perhaps, momentary advantage, thus to strengthen his adversary. He declared, that he neither could nor would treat otherwise than conjointly with his allies, the Lombards, the King of Sicily, and the Greek Emperor.

For the theatre of this general negotiation, Venice was, after much mistrustful wrangling, selected. Alexander, cautious as usual, after he had obtained from the Doge, and twelve Venetian nobles, an oath not to admit the Emperor into the city without his express permission, repaired in Sicilian vessels, and accompanied by Sicilian ambassadors, to that seat of maritime power. There Lombard and Imperial deputies met him, and, with the exception of a Constantinopolitan representative, all parties were assembled; but, upon Manuel’s concurrence the Pope seems no longer to have insisted, and negotiations began. The Emperor, annoyed by the delays resulting from his remote position, presently took up his abode at Chiozza, and the proceedings were expedited. But still no one receded from the irreconcilable pretensions that had hitherto prevented the conclusion of a treaty; the negotiation proved difficult, and for awhile little prospect of peace appeared. Gradually, however, circumstances occurred to soften the obstinacy of some of the belligerents, by alarming them. Discord broke out in the Lombard League; and the naturally Ghibeline towns sought to detach themselves from it. Cremona set the example; and the Emperor rewarded her repentance, by granting the citizens the privilege of electing their own Consuls. Even the Guelph towns, Tortona and Ravenna, upon this condition, declared for the Emperor. The Venetians were shocked at seeing the mighty potentate, whom they occasionally acknowledged their liege lord, and just then found it for their convenience so to do, banished to a sort of suburban fishing village; and Alexander, alarmed at their evident uneasiness, hourly dreaded to hear that they had installed his enemy in the ducal palace.

The enemies of the Emperor thus becoming as impatient to conclude the war, as he had long been, it was suggested that the seemingly insuperable difficulties might be evaded by a long truce between the Emperor and the League, reserving the questions in dispute for future discussion and decision. The Lombards, fearing new desertions, were glad thus to elude the obstacles to accommodation, and Frederic, after repeatedly rejecting such half measures, at length assented. And now, although the conditions upon which he was to acknowledge Alexander were not yet finally arranged, the Pope gave the desired permission for the Emperor’s presence in Venice. No sooner had the Doge obtained it, than he despatched the state barges to Chiozza; and, upon the 24th of June, they brought the Emperor and his court with all fitting ceremoniousness to Venice. The Pope sent his Nuncio to meet, and relieve him from excommunication, ere he should land; preparatory to which rehabilitation, Archbishop Christian, in the Emperor’s name, disowned the three Anti-Popes, the dead as well as the living. His readmission into the bosom of the church thus completed, the Emperor was received at the landing place of the Piazzetta di San Marco by the Doge, attended in state by all the members of the already complicated Venetian government, and escorted in procession to the great door of St. Mark’s church. There the Pope, with all the clergy then in Venice attending him, and the Sicilian embassy, awaited his imperial, penitent, pseudo-prodigal son. The Emperor paid his Holiness the usual honours paid by emperors to popes. Alexander shed tears of joy as he gave him the kiss of peace; and together the reconciled Heads of Christendom proceeded to the high altar, where solemn thanksgivings for this reconciliation were offered to Heaven.

The manner of the meeting, as above portrayed, is consonant with the account given by the Pope himself, in an extant epistle of his; which may be admitted as satisfactorily refuting the extravagant arrogance of presumption imputed, by some writers, to the Head of the Church upon this occasion—as, trampling upon the Emperor’s neck; though not out of keeping with his demeanour as Papal Legate at Besançon—and the equally extravagant meanness of humiliation they impute to the Head of the Empire. Those stories have accordingly been rejected by the most anti-imperialist later Italian historians, as Romish or monkish forgeries, long subsequent to the transaction. Part of their tale might, nevertheless, as consonant to the temper of the parties, be accepted as probable. It seems far from unlikely that the haughty Emperor should, whilst kissing the Pope’s slipper, have said, “Non tibi sed Petro” (as, indeed, a monarch ought to say, when paying such homage); and that the yet haughtier Pope should retort, “Et mihi et Petro”, But the incidents immediately ensuing render even this improbable.

After this public solemn reconciliation, the Emperor and the Pope had frequent unceremonious private interviews; and appear, duly appreciating each other’s lofty character, to have become as cordial friends, as was compatible with the clashing interests of their relative position. In such intercourse, and in the discussion of the various points of the several treaties pending, passed the month of July. At length, on the 1st of August, a full assembly was convened in the palace of the Patriarch of Aquileia, the Venetian Primate. The Pope was seated upon a raised throne, with the Emperor upon his right hand; Romualdo Archbishop of Salerno, as the representative of the King of Sicily, upon his left; whilst princes, prelates, nobles, and city deputations filled the spacious hall. The Pope formally expressed his satisfaction at the closing of the schism in the Church; the Emperor explained the grounds of his previous dissent; and then the treaty just concluded was read aloud, it was to the following effect:

The Emperor acknowledged Alexander III as rightful Pope; he renounced in his favour all royalties in the Roman territories, the nomination of the Prefect of Rome included, and he pledged himself to render him all services that preceding Emperors had rendered preceding Popes; to restore to the Church all her possessions, and make due compensation to despoiled ecclesiastics. The Pope, on his part, confirmed all the imperially appointed prelates in their respective sees, especially Christian von Buch in that of Mainz; his own Archbishop, the long expelled Conrad von Wittelsbach, getting Salzburg in its stead—Prince Adalbert, who had successively offended both parties, being temporarily sacrificed, till something should offer for him. The Anti-Pope Calixtus was to receive an abbey upon renouncing his pretensions, and all his Cardinals—who were few, the anti-popes having been singularly moderate in their creation—were to be provided for. The Emperor was to retain the Matildan domains fifteen years; all disputes were to be referred to arbitration; and a general amnesty was to be granted by both Pope and Emperor. Truces were concluded for six years between the Emperor and the Lombard League, for fifteen between him and the King of Sicily; during which periods no change of any kind in the position and relations of any of the parties, was to be attempted, unless by way of negotiation, compromise, or arbitration. To this treaty swore not only the Pope, the Emperor, or Graf Heinrich von Dessau in his name and on his soul, the Sicilian Ambassador, and the Lombard Deputies, but likewise the Empress, the young King of the Romans, the Cardinals, the Roman and other Italian Nobles, the German Princes, and the Lombard Consuls.

The Italian parties to the truce were, on the side of the Emperor, the Marquesses of Montferrat, Guasto, and Boseo; the Earls of Biandrate and Lomellino, with a few inferior Nobles; and the Cities, Pavia, Cremona, Genoa, Savona, Tortona, Turin, Asti, Alba, Acqui, Ivrea, Ventimiglia, Monvelio, Albenga, Imola, Faenza, Ravenna, Forli, Forlimpopoli, Cesena, Rimini, Castrocaro, and a few places of less note. On the side of the League, its members, Milan, Treviso, Padua, Vicenza, Verona, Bergamo, Brescia, Lodi, Como (which must have ratted after the disaster at Legnano), Novara, Vercelli, Alessandria, Piacenza, Parma, Mantua, Ferrara, Bobbio, Reggio, Modena, Bologna, with other towns of less note; and, its allies, Marquess Obizzo Malaspina and some inferior Nobles. Venice appears to have signed as a common friend and mediatrix. In honour of this reconciliation, the Pope is said to have presented the Doge with a ring, which he employed to wed the Adriatic.

Another month the reconciled enemies spent together at Venice. In September they parted. The Pope had, upon this happy riddance of his rival, been invited by the Romans to return to his proper home amongst them; and, having obtained from them an oath to restore his usurped rights and prerogatives, to allow or even compel all Senators upon their election to do homage to him, and never to invade his liberty or that of the Cardinals, he now returned to his metropolitan palace, to which he was escorted by Senate and people. The Emperor, upon quitting the Queen of the Adriatic, travelled leisurely homeward with his wife and son, visiting Tuscany and Genoa. The Imperial family was everywhere received with demonstrations of joyful respect, and from Genoa passed into the Arelat. There they remained many months, that Frederic appears to have devoted to settling the affairs of that realm. And there he is still found the 30th of July, 1178, upon which day, at Arles, he and Beatrice were crowned King and Queen of the Arelat. After this ceremony they returned through the county of Burgundy into Germany, where again serious business awaited the Emperor.

CHAPTER IX. FREDERICK I. [1178 — 1186.

Fall of Henry the Lion—Affairs of Germany—Affairs of Italy —Death of Alexander III—Lucius III—Peace of Constance —Affairs of Sicily—Marriage of the King of the Romans— Urban III.