Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 9.djvu/766

 730 FREDERICK [EMPERORS. which was the sign of patrician dignity. Meanwhile be hind him the cities of Lombardy had formed their famous league ; even Lodi was forced to yield its assent to the alliance ; and Milan springing into existence almost as by the wand of an enchanter, gave evidence of its defiant and unquenchable hostility by the demolition of the castle of Trezzo, which contained the emperor s treasure. Even at Rome his position was far from enviable, for Alex ander III., having taken refuge in the Colosseum, was prepared to offer a desperate resistance. Accordingly Frederick fell upon the curious expedient of proposing that both Alexander and Pascal should resign, and another pope be elected. The citizens clamorously supported the pro posal, but Alexander prevented its accomplishment by sud denly leaving Rome for Benevento. Immediately on his departure, and, to the superstitious fancies of the time, as if in token of the wrath of heaven at his expulsion, and at the sacrilegious violence done to the most sacred edifice of the holy city, suddenly, in the midst of a day of burning and sultry splendour, the whole German army with scarcely an exception was smitten by a pestilence of unexampled viru lence, to which the terrors of superstition imparted both additional horror and a more deadly fatality. Frederick led the haggard and terror-stricken crowd of survivors with great difficulty to Pavia, whence at the end of the year he set out for Germany attended by about 30 horsemen ; and at Susa he only saved himself from death at the hands of the citizens by escaping during the night on foot accompanied by two followers. For nearly seven years after this luckless flight he remained in Germany. On the death of Pascal III. in September 1168 he supported the new anti-pope Galixtus III., but by doing so he only lent additional vig our to the Lombard league, who this year had founded the city which in honour of their patron Alexander III. they named Alexandria; and in 1173 they took an oath not to leave oft waging war against the emperor till they drove him out of Italy. Resolved, however, on a final effort, Frederick, having collected an immense army, set out in October 1174 on his fifth and last Italian expedition. He burned Susa to the ground, and captured Asti; but failing in a treacherous attack on Alexandria, made after he had granted it a truce, he endeavoured to negotiate a peace with the League. Final terms could not, however, be agreed upon, and notwithstanding the crushing blow which his fortunes at this time sustained through the de fection of Henry the Lion, he resolved when recruited by a new army from Germany to risk the battle at Lignano, which resulted in his total defeat, 29th May 1176. Having in this battle been crushed beneath his horse, he was believed to have fallen, either wounded or dead, into the hands of the confederates ; but on the third clay afterwards he arrived at Pavia unhurt, but so worn out by hunger and fatigue as to be scarcely recognizable. Finding his case now desperate, he at last agreed to acknowledge the ponti ficate of Alexander, and also at Venice, 25th July 1177, concluded a truce of six years with the cities. He then turned his attention to Henry the Lion, who owned himself vanquished in 1 1 8 1, and was banished to England. On the expiry of the treaty of Venice, the famous treaty of Con stance was signed, 25th June 1183, by which, while the supremacy of the empire was formally recognized, the inde pendent jurisdiction of the cities was substantially guaran teed. Henceforth, Frederick resolved to rule Italy more by conciliation than by compulsion, and while re-establish ing his influence in Lombardy by granting such favours to the Milanese as secured their lasting alliance and friendship, he virtually placed Sicily under his immediate government by arranging a marriage between Constance, heiress of that kingdom, and Henry his eldest son, who, having been elected King of the Romans in his infancy, received the crown of Italy on the day of his marriage, 27th June 1186, from the patriarch of Aquileia. Having thus at last brought his long life-struggle to an honourable if not very triumphant close, it might have been expected that Frederick would now have been content to doff his armour, and to pass his remaining days in peace. But hearing in 1187 of the victorious progress of Saladin against the Christians in Syria, his martial ardour was again kindled, and he resolved to enter the lists against the redoubtable Saracen conqueror. This purpose he was, however, unable to carry fully out, for after two successful battles in Asia Minor, he was drowned before reaching Syria while crossing a small river in Pisidia, June 10, 1190. Frederick I. is said to have taken Charlemagne as his model ; but the contest in which he engaged was entirely different both in character and results from that in which his great predecessor achieved such a wonderful temporary success. Though Frederick failed to subdue the republics, the failure can scarcely be said to reflect either on his prudence as a statesman or his skill as a general, for his ascendency was finally overthrown rather by the ravages of pestilence than by the might of human arms. In Ger many his resolute will and sagacious administration sub dued or disarmed all discontent, and he not only succeeded in welding the various rival interests into a unity of devotion to himself against which papal intrigues were comparatively powerless, but won for the empire a prestige such as it had not possessed since the time of Otto the Great. The wide contrast between his German and Italian rule is strikingly exemplified in the fact that, while he endeavoured to overthrow the republics in Italy, he held in check the power of the nobles in Germany, by confer ring municipal franchises and independent rights on the principal cities. Even in Italy, though his general course of action was warped by wrong prepossessions, he in many instances manifested exceptional practical sagacity in deal ing with immediate difficulties and emergencies. Possessing great physical beauty, frank and open manners, untiring and unresting energy, and a prowess which found its native element in difficulty and danger, he seemed the em bodiment of the chivalrous and warlike spirit of his age, and was the model of all the qualities which then won highest admiration. Stern and ambitious he certainly was, but his aims can scarcely be said to have exceeded his prerogatives as emperor; and though he had sometimes recourse when in straits to expedients almost diabolically in genious in their cruelty, yet his general conduct was marked by a clemency which in that age was exceptional. His quarrel with the papacy was an inherited conflict, not re flecting at all on his religious faith, but the inevitable con sequence of inconsistent theories of government, which had been created and could be dissipated only by a long series of events. His interference in the quarrels of the republics was not only quite justifiable from the relation in which he stood to them, but seemed absolutely necessary. From the beginning, however, he treated the Italians, as indeed was only natural, less as rebellious subjects than as conquered aliens ; and it must be admitted that in regard to them the only effective portion of his procedure was, not his ener getic measures of repression nor his brilliant victories, but, after the battle of Lignano, his quiet and cheerful accept ance of the inevitable, and the consequent complete change in his policy, by which if he did not obtain the great object of his ambition, he at least did much to render innoxious for the empire his previous mistakes. The principal contemporary authorities for the reign of Frederick I. are the chronicle of Otto bishop of Freisingen, to which is pre fixed a letter of Frederick containing a summary of the early events of his reigii; the continuation of this chronicle from 1158 to 11GO