Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 13.djvu/494

 474 ITALY [HISTORY. Peace of was ratified at Constance. The intervening years had Con- been spent by the Lombards, not in consolidating their lce&amp;gt; union, but in attempting to secure special privileges for their several cities. Alessandria della Paglia, glorious by her resistance to the emperor in 1174, had even changed her name to Cesarea ! The signatories of the peace of Constance were divided between leaguers and imperialists. On the one side we find Yercelli, Novara, Milan, Lodi, Bergamo, Brescia, Mantua, Verona, Vicenza, Padua, Treviso, Bologna, Faenza, Modenn, Reggio, Parma, Piacenza; on the other, Pavia, Genoa, Alba, Cremona, Como, Tortona, Asti, Cesarea. Venice, who had not yet entered the Italian community, is conspicuous by her absence. According to the terms of this treaty, the communes were confirmed in their right of self-government by consuls, and their right of warfare. The emperor retained the supreme courts of appeal within the cities, and his claim for sustenance at their expense when he came into Italy. War of The privileges confirmed to the Lombard cities by the peace of Constance were extended to Tuscany, where noWes Florence, having ruined Fiesole, had begun her career of freedom and prosperity. The next great chapter in the history of Italian evolution is the war of the burghs against the nobles. The consul ir cities were every where surrounded by castles ; and, though the feudal lords had been weakened by the events of the preceding centuries, they continued to be formidable enemies. It was, for instance, necessary to the well-being of the towns that they should possess territory round their walls, and this had to be wrested from the nobles. We cannot linger over the details of this warfare. It must suffice to say that, partly by mortgaging their property to rich burghers, partly by entering the service of the cities as condottieri, partly by espousing the cause of one town against another, and partly by forced submission after the siege of their strong places, the counts were gradually brought into connexion of dependence on the communes. These, in their turn, forced the nobles to leave their castles, and to reside for at least a portion of each year within the walls. By these measures the counts became citizens, the rural population ceased to rank as serfs, and the Itilo-Roman population of the towns absorbed into itself the remnants of Franks, Germans, and other foreign stocks. It would be impossible to exaggerate the importance of this revolution, which ended by destroying the last vestige of feudality, and prepared that common Italian people which afterwards distinguished itself by the creation of European culture. But, like all the vicissitudes of the Italian race, while it was a decided step forward in one direction, it introduced a new source of discord. The associated nobles proved ill neighbours to the peaceable citizens. They fortified their houses, retained their military habits, defied the consuls, and carried on feuds in the streets and squares. The war against the castles became a war against the palaces ; and the system of government by consuls proved inefficient to control the clashing elements within the state. This led to the establishment of podestas, who represented a compromise between two radically hostile parties in the city, and whose business it was to arbitrate and keep the peace between them. Invariably a foreigner, elected for a year with power of life and death and control of the armed force, but subject to a strict account at the expiration of his office, the podesta might be compared to a dictator invested with limited authority. His title was derived from that of Frederick Barbarossa s judges; but he had no dependence on the empire. The citizens chose him, and voluntarily submitted to his rule. The podesta marks an essentially transitional state in civic government, and his intervention paved the way for despotism. The thirty years which elapsed between Frederick Barbarossa s death in 1190 and the coronation of his Poi grandson Frederick II. in 1220 form one of the most fica momentous epochs in Italian history. Barbarossa, perceiv- j&quot;I ing the advantage that would accrue to his house if he could join the crown of Sicily to that of Germany, and thus deprive the popes of their allies in Lower Italy, pro cured the marriage of his son Henry VI. to Constance, daughter of King Roger, and heiress of the Hauteville dynasty. When William II., the last monarch of the Norman race, died, Henry VI. claimed that kingdom in his wife s right, and was recognized in 1194. Three years afterwards he died, leaving a son, Frederick, to the care of Constance, who in her turn died in 1198, bequeathing the young prince, already crowned king of Germany, to the guardianship of Innocent III. It was bold policy to con fide Frederick to his greatest enemy and rival ; but the pope honourably discharged his duty, until his ward out grew the years of tutelage, and became a fair mark for ecclesiastical hostility. Frederick s long minority was occupied by Innocent s pontificate. Among the principal events of that reign must be reckoned the foundation of the two orders, Franciscan and Dominican, who were destined to form a militia for the Holy See in conflict with the empire and the heretics of Lombardy. A second great event was the fourth crusade, undertaken in 1198, which established the naval and commercial supremacy of the Italians in the Mediterranean. The Venetians, who con tracted for the transport of the crusaders, and whose blind doge Dandolo was first to land in Constantinople, received one-half and one-fourth of the divided Greek empire for their spoils. The Venetian ascendency in the Levant dates from this epoch ; for, though the republic had no power to occupy all the domains ceded to it, Candia was taken, together with several small islands and stations on the main land. The formation of a Latin empire in the East increased the pope s prestige ; while at home it was his policy to organize Countess Matilda s heritage by the formation of Guelf leagues, over which he presided. This is the meaning of the three leagues, in the March, in the duchy of Spoleto, and in Tuscany, which now combined the chief cities of the papal territory into allies of the Holy See. From the Tuscan league Pisa, consistently Ghibelline, stood aloof. Rome itself again at this epoch established a re public, with which Innocent would not or could not interfere. The thirteen districts in their council nomi nated four caporiom, who acted in concert with a senator, appointed, like the podesta of other cities, for supreme judicial functions. Meanwhile the Guelf and Ghibelline factions were beginning to divide Italy into minute parcels. Not only did commune range itself against com mune under the two rival flags, but party rose up against party within the city walls. The introduction of the factions into Florence in 1215, owing to a private quarrel between the Buondelmonti, Amidei, and Donati, is a celebrated instance of what was happening in every burgh. Frederick II. was left without a rival for the imperial Fr&amp;lt; throne in 1218 by the death of Otto IV., and on the 22d II. of November 1220 Honorius III., Innocent s successor, P C1 crowned him in Rome. It was impossible for any section of the Italians to mistake the gravity of his access to power. In his single person he combined the prestige of empire with the crowns of Italy, Sicily, Sardinia, Ger many, and Burgundy; and in 1225, by marriage with Yolande de Brienne, he added that of Jerusalem. There was no prince greater or more formidable in the habitable globe. The communes, no less than the popes, felt that they must prepare themselves for contest to the death with a power which threatened their existence. Already in 1218 the Guelf s of Lombardy had resuscitated their old