Page:A General Sketch of Political History from the Earlist Times.djvu/202

 i 9 o THE LATER MIDDLE AGES support of the papacy was given to the movement against the German monarch's ascendency in Italy. A number of the Lombard cities united in the Lombard League for the expulsion of the foreigner from Italian territory. The struggle was long and fiercely contested ; but the Lombard League was finally successful, and its cause was won in the great victory of Legano. The emperor was not indeed expelled from Italy, but the cities secured a virtual independence. Venice always adopting the attitude of a neutral at last acted as mediator between pope Empire an( ^ emperor, and Frederick withdrew the claim League, of the secular power to supremacy over the and Papacy, spiritual. Alexander in. in effect raised the papacy to the height of its power; for a similar struggle had been in progress at the same time in England between the Crown and the Church, represented by Henry n. and Thomas a Becket. In that struggle the Archbishop lost his life, and, dying, won the victory for the Church. At first sight our sympathies are apt to be drawn wholly to the side of the Italian cities in the struggle to shake off the yoke of a foreign dominion. A closer examination must convince The Imperial us a l so tnat the Imperial supremacy in Italy never ideal. could have been anything but a foreign dominion, a dominion of Germans over Italians. But it is no less necessary to recognise that the ideal for which Frederick was fighting was not that of a German dominion. He was not an aggressive conqueror happily defeated ; he was not even the successor of conquerors striving to maintain an authority which his predecessors had won. There were on his side Italians who supported him from purely selfish motives. But there were others who were devoted to the Imperial ideal as an ideal. Their conception and Frederick's was that of the unity of the Christian commonwealth, acknowledging the emperor as the head of the commonwealth on earth. It was a conception which precisely corresponded to that of Hildebrand, which regarded Christendom as a unity under the governance of a spiritual authority supreme over secular powers, regulating them all and claiming the obedience of them all. The Imperialists would have placed this supreme authority in the Emperor