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Rh in favour of the former; in the other, the long-standing quarrel between the patriarchs of Aquileia and Grado, the former triumphed; the see of Grado was made subject to the Patriarch of Aquileia, and the Venetians were thereby deprived of their ecclesiastical independence.

In South Italy, Conrad accepted the existing state of things without involving himself further in the complexity of Greek and Lombard politics; he contented himself merely with the homage of the princes of Capua, Benevento, and Salerno. By the summer he was once again in Germany. In a little more than a year the Emperor had succeeded in winning the obedience of the north, the recognition of the south, of Italy, a position with which he might reasonably rest satisfied. An interval of ten years divides the two expeditions of Conrad across the Alps, and the second was made at the request of the Italians themselves. But he had motives of his own for intervention in the affairs of Italy in 1036; his policy had been to strengthen German influence in two ways: first by the appointment of German clergy to vacant Italian bishoprics, and secondly by encouraging the intermarriage of the German and Italian princely houses; so Gebhard of Eichstedt received the archbishopric of Ravenna, while the majority of the suffragan sees in the province of Aquileia and not a few in Tuscany were filled with Germans. The success of the latter policy is exemplified by the marriages of Azzo of the Otbertine family with the Welfic heiress Kunigunda, of Herman of Swabia with Adelaide of the house of Turin, of Boniface of Tuscany with Beatrix, the daughter of Duke Frederick of Upper Lorraine. Such a policy ran counter to the ambition of the Archbishop of Milan, who for his part strove to exercise an overlordship in Lombardy, and, it was said, "disposed of the whole kingdom at his nod." Such a man must be suppressed if Conrad was to maintain his authority in Italy.

The immediate situation, however, which precipitated the Emperor's expedition was due to the feud which had arisen between the smaller and greater tenants, the valvassores and the capitanei; while the hereditary principle was in practice secured to the latter, it was denied by them to the former. It was customary for the Italian nobles to have houses and possessions in the neighbouring town, where they lived for some part of the year; a dispute of this kind thus affected the towns no less than the country. In Milan one of the vavassors was deprived of his fief by the domineering archbishop. It was sufficient to kindle the sparks of revolution into a blaze; negotiations failed to pacify the incensed knights, who were thereupon driven from their city by the combined force of the capitanei and the burghers. The Milanese vavassors, joined by their social equals from the surrounding districts, after a hard fight and heavy losses, defeated their opponents in the Campo Malo between Milan and Lodi. It was at this stage that both parties sought the mediation of the Emperor.

Conrad had watched with interest the turn of events in Italy, and