Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 13.djvu/493

 1125-1183.] ITALY 473 complaints of Como and Lodi against Milan, of Pavia against Tortona, and of the marquis of Montferrat against Asti and Chieri. The plaintiffs in each case were imperia lists ; and Frederick s first action was to redress their supposed grievances. He laid waste Chieri, Asti, and Tortona, then took the Lombard crown at Pavia, and, reserving Milan for a future day, passed southward to Piome. Outside the gates of Rome he was met by a deputation from the senate he had come to supersede, who addressed him in words memorable for expressing the re publican spirit of new Italy face to face with autocratic feudalism : &quot; Thou wast a stranger, I have made thee a citizen ; &quot; it is Rome who speaks : &quot; Thou earnest as an alien from beyond the Alps, I have conferred on thee the principality.&quot; Moved only to scorn and indignation by the rhetoric of these presumptuous enthusiasts, Frederick marched into the Leonine city, and took the imperial crown from the hands of Hadrian IV. In return for this com pliance, the emperor delivered over to the pope his trouble some rival Arnold of Brescia, who was burned alive by Nicholas Breakspear, the only English successor of St Pester. The gates of Rome itself were shut against Frederick ; and even on this first occasion his good understanding with Hadrian began to suffer. The points of dispute between them related mainly to Matilda s bequest, and to the kingdom of Sicily, which the pope had rendered indepen dent of the empire by renewing its investiture in the name of the Holy See. In truth, the papacy and the empire had become irreconcilable. Each claimed illimitable authority, and neither was content to abide within such limits as would have secured a mutual tolerance. Having obtained his coronation, Frederick withdrew to Germany, while Milan prepared herself against the storm which threatened, i In the ensuing struggle with the empire, that great city rose to the altitude of patriotic heroism. By their suffer ings no less than by their deeds of daring, her citizens showed themselves to be sublime, devoted, and disinterested, winning the purest laurels which give lustre to Italian story. Almost within Frederick s presence, they rebuilt Tortona, punished Pavia, Lodi, Cremona, and the marquis of Montferrat. Then they fortified the Adda and Ticino, and waited for the emperor s next descent. He came in 1158 with a large army, overran Lombardy, raised his imperial allies, and sat down before the walls of Milan. Famine forced the burghers to partial obedience, and Frederick held a victorious diet at Roncaglia. Here the jurists of Bologna appeared, armed with their new lore of Roman law, and expounded Justinian s code in the interests of the German empire. It was now seen how the absolutist doctrines of autocracy developed in Justinian s age at Byzantium would bear fruits in the development of an imperial idea, which was destined to be the fatal mirage of mediaeval Italy. Frederick placed judges of his own appointment, with the title of podesta, in all the Lombard communes ; and this stretch of his authority, while it ex acerbated his foes, forced even his friends to join their ranks against him. The war, meanwhile, dragged on. Crema yielded after an heroic siege in 11 GO, and was abandoned to the cruelty of its fierce rival Cremona. Milan was invested in 1161, starved into capitulation after nine months resistance, and given up to total destruction by the Italian imperialists of Frederick s army. So stained and tarnished with the vindictive passions of municipal rivalry was even this, the one great glorious strife of Italian annals ! Having ruined his rebellious city, but not tamed her spirit, Frederick withdrew across the Alps. But, in the interval between his second and third visit, a league was formed against him in north-eastern Lombardy. Verona, Vicenza, Padua, Treviso, Venice entered into a compact to defend their liberties ; and when he came again in 1163 with, a brilliant staff of German knights, the imperial cities refused to join his standards. This was the first and ominous sign of a coming change. Meanwhile the election of Alexander III. to the papacy in 1159 added a powerful ally to the republican party. Opposed by an anti-pope whom the emperor favoured, Alexander found it was his truest policy to rely for support upon the anti-imperialist communes. They in return gladly accepted a champion who lent them the prestige and influence of the church. When Frederick once more crossed the Alps in 1166, he advanced on Rome, and besieged Alexander in the Coliseum. But the affairs of Lombardy left him no leisure to persecute a recalcitrant pontiff. In April 1167 a new league was formed between Cremona, Bergamo, Brescia, Mantua, and Ferrara. In December of the same year this league allied itself with the elder Veronese league, and received the addition of Milan, Lodi, Piacenza, Parma, Moclena. and Bologna. The Lombard famous league of Lombard cities, styled Concordia in its league, acts of settlement, was now established. Novara, Vercelli, Como, Asti, and Tortona swelled its ranks ; only Pavia and Montferrat remained imperialist between the Alps and Apennines. Frederick fled for his life by the Mont Cenis, and in 1168 the town of Alessandria was erected to keep Pavia and the marquisate in check. In the emperor s absence, Ravenna, Rimini, Imola, and Forli joined the league, which now called itself the &quot; Society of Venice, Lombardy, the March, Romagna, and Alessandria.&quot; For the fifth time, in 1174, Frederick entered his rebellious dominions. The fortress town of Alessandria stopped his progress with those mud walls contemptuously named &quot; of straw,&quot; while the forces of the league assembled at Modena, and obliged him to raise the siege. In the spring of 1 176 Frederick threatened Milan. His army found itself a little to the north of the town near the village of Legnano, when the troops of the city, assisted only by a few allies from Piacenza, Verona, Brescia, Novara, and Vercelli, met and overwhelmed it. The victory was complete. Frederick escaped alone to Pavia, whence he opened negotiations with Alexander. In consequence of these transactions, he was suffered to betake himself unharmed to Venice. Here, as upon neutral ground, the emperor met the pope, and a truce for six years was concluded with the Lombard burghs. Looking back from the vantage-ground of history upon the issue of this long struggle, we are struck with the small results which satisfied the Lombard communes. They had humbled and utterly defeated their foreign lord. They had proved their strength in combination. Yet neither the acts by which their league was ratified nor the terms negotiated for them by their patron Alexander evince the smallest desire of what we now understand as national in dependence. The name of Italy is never mentioned. The supremacy of the emperor is not called in question. The conception of a permanent confederation, bound together in offensive and defensive alliance for common objects, has not occurred to these hard fighters and stubborn asserters of their civic privileges. All they claim is municipal autonomy; the right to manage their own affairs within the city walls.,- to fight their battles as they choose, and to follow their several ends unchecked. It is vain to lament that, when they might have now established Italian independence upon a secure basis, they chose local and municipal privileges. Their mutual jealousies, combined with the prestige of the empire, and possibly with the selfishness of the pope, who had secured his own position, and was not likely to foster a national spirit that would have threatened the ecclesia stical supremacy, deprived the Italians of the only great opportunity they ever had of forming themselves into a powerful nation. When the truce expired in 1183, a permanent peace xnr. 60